Eyes and Ears

By HENRY WARD BEECHER Boston : Ticknor & Fields. pp. 419.

THERE is perhaps no man in America more widely known, more deeply loved, and more heartily hated than the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. This little book, fragmentary and desultory as it is, gives us a key wherewith to unlock the mystery both of the extent of his influence and the depth of the feelings which he excites. It is but a shower of petals flung down by a frolicsome May breeze; but the beauty and brilliancy of their careless profusion furnish a hint of the real strength and substance and fruitfulness of the tree from which they sprang.

Within the compass of some four hundred pages we have about one hundred articles, most of which had previously appeared in weekly newspapers. They embrace, of course, every variety of subject,— grave and gay, practical and poetical. They are not such themes as come to a man in silence and solitude, to be wrought out with deep and deliberate conscientiousness ; they are rather such as lie around one in his outgoing and his incoming, in the field and by the way-side, overlooked by the preoccupied multitude, hut abundantly patent to the few who will not permit the memories or the hopes of life to thrust away its actualities, and, once pointed out, full of interest and amusement even to the absorbed and hitherto unconscious throngs. We have here no pale-browed, far-sighted philosopher, but a ruddy-faced, high-spirited man, elieerfultempered, yet not equilibrious, susceptible to annoyance, capable of wrathful outbursts, with eyes to see all sweet sights, ears to hear all sweet sounds, and lips to sing their loveliness to others, and also with eyes and ears and lips just as keen to distinguish and j ust as hold to denounce the sights and sounds that are unlovely; — and this man, with his ringing laugh and his springing step, walks cheerily to and fro in his daily work, striking the rocks here and there by the way-side with his bright steel hammer, eliciting a shower of sparks from each, and then on to the next. It is not the serious business of his life, but its casual and almost careless experiments. He does not wait to watch effects. You may gather up the brushwood and build yourself a fire, if you like. His part of the affair is but a touch and go, — partly for love and partly for fun.

There are places where a severer taste, or perhaps only a more careful revision, would have changed somewhat. At times an exuberance of spirits carries him to the very verge of coarseness, hut this is rare and exceptional. The fabric may be slightly ravelled at the ends and slightly rough at the selvedge, hut in the main it is fine and smooth and lustrous as well as strong. A coarse nature carefully clipped and sheared and fashioned down to the commonplace of conventionality will often exhibit a negative refinement, while a mind of real and subtile delicacy, hut of rugged and irrepressible individuality, will occasionally shoot out irregular and uncouth branches. Yet between the symmetry of the one and the spontaneity of the other the choice cannot be doubtful. We are not defending coarseness in any guise. It is always to be assailed, and never to be defended. It is always a detriment, and never an ornament. No excellence can justify it. No occasion can palliate it. But coarseness is of two kinds, — one of the surface, and one in the grain. The latter is pervading and irremediable. It touches nothing which it docs not deface. It makes all things common and unclean. It grows more repulsive as the roundness of youth falls away and leaves its harsh features more sharply outlined. But the other coarseness is only the overgrowth of excellence,— the rankness of lusty life. It is vigor run wild. It is a fault, but it is local and temporal. Culture corrects it. As the mind matures, as experience accumulates, as the vision enlarges, the coarseness disappears, and the rich and healthful juices nourish instead a playful and cheerful serenity that illumines strength with a softened light, that disarms opposition and delights sympathy, that shines without dazzling and attracts without offending.

Here arises a fear lest the apologetic nature of our remarks may seem to indicate a much greater need of apology than actually exists. We have been led into this line of remark, not so much by a perusal of the book under consideration, in which, indeed, there is very little, if anything, to offend, as by the nature of the objections which we have most frequently heard against this author’s productions, both written and spoken. We do not even confine ourselves to defence, but go farther, and question whether the allegations of coarseness may not oftener be the fault of the plaintiff' than of the defendant. Is there not a conventional standard of refinement which measures things hy its own arbitrary self, and finds material for displeasure in what is really but a sincere and almost unconscious rendering of things as they exist ? There are facts which modern fastidiousness justly enough commands to be wrapped around with graceful drapery before they shall have audience. But do we not commit a trespass against virtue, when we demand the same soft disguises to drape facts whose disguise is the worst immorality, whose naked hideousncss is the only decency, which must he seen disgusting to warrant their being seen at all ? So Mr. Bcechcr has boon censured for Irreverence, when what was called his irreverence has seemed to us but the tenderness engendered of close connection. Cannot one live so near to God as that His greatness shall he merged in His goodness? What would be irreverence, if it came from the head, may be but love springing up warm from the heart.

One of the strongest characteristics of Mr. Beecher’s mind, the one that has, perhaps, the strongest influence in producing his power over men, is his quick insight into common things, his quick sympathy with common minds. lie knows common dangers. lie understands common interests. He is sensitive to common sorrows. He appreciates common joys. Without necessarily being practical himself, he is full of practical suggestions. He is a leveller; but he levels up, not down. He continually seeks to lift men from the plane of mere toil and thrift to the loftier levels of aspiration. He would disenthrall them from what is low, and introduce them to the freedom of the heights. He would bring them out of the dungeons of the senses into the domains of taste and principles. He believes in man, and he battles for men. With him, humanity is chief: science, art, wealth are its handmaidens. Yet, writing for ordinary people, lie never falls into the sin of declaiming against extraordinary ones. No part of his power over the poor is obtained hy inveighing against the rich, as no part of His power over the rich is obtained by pandering to their prejudices or their passions. He builds up no influence for himself on tire ruins of another man’s influence. The elevation which he aims to produce is real, not factitious, — absolute, not relative. It is the elevation to be obtained by ascending the mountain, not by digging it away so that the valley seems no longer low by contrast.

For the manner of his teaching, he is not always gentle, but he is always sincere. He speaks soft words to persuade ; but if that is not enough, he does not scruple to knock the muck-rake out of sordid hands with a fine, sudden stroke, if so lie may make men look up from the rubbish under their feet to the flowers that bloom around them and the stars that glow above and the God that reigns over all.

Thinking of the multitudes of hardworking, weary-hearted people whom he weekly met with these words of cheer : sometimes homely advice on homely things ; sometimes wise counsels in art; sometimes tender lessons from Nature; sometimes noble words from his own earnest soul; sometimes sympathy in sorrow ; sometimes strength in weakness; sometimes only the indirect, but real help that comes from the mere distraction wrought by his sportiveness, and wild, winsome mirth; but all kindly, hearty, honest, sympathetic, — indignation softening, even while it surges, into pity and love, and itself finding or framing excuses for the very outrage which it lashes : thinking of this, we do not marvel that he has furrowed for himself so deep a groove in so many hearts. Nor, on the other hand, is it difficult to see, even from so genial a book as this, whence polemics are not so much banished as where there is no niche for them, should they apply, why it is that he is so fiercely opposed. When a man like Mr. Beecher encounters that which excites his moral disapprobation, there is no possibility of mistaking him. He flings himself against it with all the strength and might of his manly, uncompromising uature. There is no coquetting with the proprieties, no toning down of objurgation to meet the requirements of personal dignity, but an audacious and aggressive repugnance of the whole man to the meanness or malignity. And the very clearness of his vision gives terrible power to his vituperation. With his keen, bright eye he sees just where the vulnerable spot is, and with his firm, strong hand he sends the arrow in. The victim writhes and reels and — does not love the marksman. And as the victim has a large circle of relatives hy birth and marriage, he inoculates them with his own animosity; and so, at a safe distance, Mr. Beecher is sometimes considerably torn in pieces. Yet we have no doubt that by far the greater number of these opponents would, if once fairly brought within the circle of his influence, acknowledge the truth as well as the force of his principles ; and certainly it is a matter of surprise that a man with such a magnificent mastery of all the weapons of attack and defence should be so sparing and discreet in their use as is Mr. Beecher. In this book, compiled of articles thrown off upon the spur of the moment, with so much to amuse, to awaken, to suggest, and to inspire, there is hardly a sentence which can arouse antagonism or inflict pain. You may not agree with his conclusions, but you cannot resist his good-nature.

Long may he live to do yeoman’s service in the cause of the beautiful and the true!