Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V», sayfa 23

SOUTH AMERICA

There is no intelligence of special interest from any of the South American States. From Buenos Ayres, our dates are to the 15th of May, when every thing was quiet, and political affairs were in a promising condition. The new Legislature met on the 1st, and resolutions had been introduced tendering public thanks to General Urquiza for having delivered the country from tyranny. He had been invested with complete control of the foreign relations, and the affairs of peace and war. Don Lopez was elected Governor of the province of Buenos Ayres on the 13th, receiving 33 of the 38 votes in the Legislative Chamber. The choice gives universal satisfaction to the friends of the new order of things. The Governors of all the provinces were to meet at Santa Fé on the 29th, to determine upon the form of a Central Government. General Urquiza was to meet them in Convention there, and it is stated that he was to be accompanied by Mr. Pendleton, the United States Chargé, whose aid had been asked, especially in explaining in Convention the nature and working of American institutions. – At Rio Janeiro a dissolution of the Cabinet was anticipated. Great dissatisfaction was felt at certain treaties recently concluded with Montevideo, and at the correspondence of Mr. Hudson, the late English Minister, upon the Slave Trade, which had been lately published in London. – From Ecuador there is nothing new. Flores still remained at Puna, below Guayaquil, with his forces. – In Chili there was a slight attempt at insurrection in the garrison at Trospunta, but it was soon put down. Six persons implicated in previous revolts were executed at Copiapo on the 22d of May.

GREAT BRITAIN

Public attention in England has been to a very considerable extent engrossed by the approaching elections. The Ministry maintain rigid silence as to the policy they intend to pursue though it is of course impossible to avoid incidental indications of their sentiments and purposes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli, has issued an address to his constituents, which shows even more distinctly than his financial exposé, of which we gave a summary last month, that the cause of Protection is, in his judgment, well-nigh obsolete. In that address he states that the time has gone by when the injuries which the great producing interests have sustained from the Free Trade policy of 1846, can be alleviated or removed by a recurrence to laws which existed before that time: – "The spirit of the age," he says, "tends to free intercourse, and no statesman can disregard with impunity the genius of the epoch in which he lives." It is, however, the intention of the Ministry to recommend such measures as shall tend to relieve the producer from the unequal competition he is now compelled to wage, and the possibility of doing this by a revision and reduction of taxation, seems to loom in the future. Still, the Chancellor urges, nothing useful can be done in this direction, unless the Ministry is sustained by a powerful majority in Parliament; and he accordingly presses the importance of electing members of the Ministerial party. – A declaration of at least equal importance was drawn from the Premier, the Earl of Derby, in the House of Lords, on the 24th of May, by Earl Granville, who incidentally quoted a remark ascribed to Lord Derby that a recurrence to the duty on corn would be found necessary for purposes of revenue and protection. Lord Derby rose to correct him. He had not represented it as necessary, but only as desirable, – and whether it should be done or not, depended entirely on the elections. But he added, that in his opinion, from what he had since heard and learned, there certainly would not be in favor of the imposition of a duty on foreign corn, that extensive majority in the country without which it would not be desirable to impose it. – Lord John Russell has issued an address to his constituents, for a re-election, rehearsing the policy of the government while it was under his direction, sketching the proceedings of the new Ministry, and declaring his purpose to contend that no duty should be imposed on the import of corn, either for revenue or protection; and that the commercial policy of the last ten years is not an evil to be mitigated, but a good to be extended – not an unwise or disastrous policy which ought to be reversed, altered, or modified, but a just and beneficial system which should be supported, strengthened, and upheld. – The course of the Earl of Malmesbury, the Foreign Secretary, in regard to the case of Mr. Mather, an English subject, who had been treated with gross indignities and serious personal injuries by officers of the Tuscan government, has excited a good deal of attention. He had first demanded compensation from the government as a matter of right, and, after consulting Mr. Mather's father, had named £5000 as the sum to be paid. It seems, however, from the official documents since published, that he accompanied this demand with an opinion that it was exorbitant, and named £500 as a minimum. The negotiation ended by Mr. Scarlett, the British agent at Florence, accepting £222 as a compensation and that as a donation from the Tuscan government – waiving the principle of its responsibility. The matter had been brought up in Parliament, and the Earl had felt constrained to disavow wholly Mr. Scarlett's action. – The current debates in Parliament have been devoid of special interest. On the 8th of June, in reply to a strong speech from Sir James Graham, Mr. Disraeli vindicated himself from the charge of having brought the public business into an unsatisfactory and disgraceful condition, and made a general statement of the bills which the government thought it necessary to press upon the attention of Parliament. On the 7th the Militia Bill was read a third time and passed, by 220 votes to 184. – A bill was pressed upon the House of Lords by the Earl of Malmesbury, proposing a Convention with France for the mutual surrender of criminals, which was found upon examination to give to the French government very extraordinary powers over any of its subjects in England. The list of crimes embraced was very greatly extended – and alleged offenders were to be surrendered upon the mere proof of their identity. All the leading Peers spoke very strongly of the objectionable features of the measure, and it was sent to the committee for the purpose of receiving the material alterations required. – Fergus O'Connor has been consigned to a lunatic asylum – his insane eccentricities having reached a point at which it was no longer considered safe to leave him at liberty. – Professor McDougall has been elected to fill the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, vacated by the resignation of Professor Wilson. – The Irish Exhibition of Industry was opened at Cork, with public ceremonies, in which the Lord Lieutenant participated, on the 10th of June. – The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and that of the Free Church both commenced their sittings on the 20th of May. – The electric telegraph has been carried across the Irish Channel, from Holyhead to the Hill of Howth, a distance of sixty-five miles; – the mode of accomplishing this result was by sinking a cable, as had previously been done across the Straits of Dover. – The Queen has issued a proclamation forbidding all Roman Catholic ceremonies, and all appearance in Catholic vestments, except in Catholic churches or in private houses.

FRANCE

The month has not been marked by any event of special importance in France. The government has continued in its usual course, though indications are apparent of impending difficulties in the near future. The number of prominent men who refuse to take the oath of allegiance is daily increasing, and many who have hitherto filled places in the councils of the Departments and of the Municipalities, have resigned them to avoid the oath. General Bedeau has sent a tart letter to the Minister of War, conveying his refusal; and a public subscription has been set on foot, with success, in Paris, for the relief of General Changarnier, who has been reduced to poverty by his firm refusal to yield to the usurpation. – The President continues relentlessly his restriction of the press, and has involved himself in considerable embarrassment by the extent to which he carries it. The organs of the Legitimist party in all the great towns have received the warnings which empower the President, as the next step, to suppress them entirely. The Paris Débats has lately received a warning for its silence upon political subjects. But a very singular quarrel has arisen between the President and the Constitutionnel, which has been from the beginning the least scrupulous of all his defenders. That paper contained an article intended to influence the Belgian elections then pending, and distinctly menacing that country with a retaliatory tariff, if its hostility to Louis Napoleon were not abandoned, or at least modified. The effect of the publication of this article was such, that the Belgian Minister demanded an explanation, and was assured that the article did not meet the approbation of the Government. This quasi disavowal was published by the Belgian press, and in reply M. Granier de Cassagnac, the writer of the article, declared that he had not spoken in his own name, but at the direct instance and with the full approval of the President. The Paris Moniteur then contained an official announcement, disavowing M. de Cassagnac's articles, and stating that "no organ can engage the responsibility of the Government but the Moniteur." The Constitutionnel replied by a declaration signed by its owner, Dr. Veron, that he still believed the original article to have been sanctioned by the President. This brought down upon it an official warning. Dr. Veron rejoined by expressing his regret, but adding that the Cabinet had ordered several hundred copies of the paper containing the articles disavowed; and this he considered prima facie evidence that they met with the approbation of the Government. This brought upon the paper a second warning: the next step, of course, is suppression. – The Paris Correspondents of three of the London papers have been summoned to the department of Police, and assured by the Director that they are hereafter to be held personally responsible, not only for the contents of their own letters, but for whatever the journals with which they are connected may say, in leading articles or otherwise, concerning French affairs. A strong effort was made by them to change this determination, but without effect. – Girardin, in the Presse, states that General Changarnier, in 1848, proposed to the Provisional Government the military invasion of England. The General himself has authorized the Times to give the statement an explicit contradiction. – M. Heckeren, who was sent by the French Government to Vienna and Berlin, to ascertain more definitely the disposition of the Northern Powers toward Louis Napoleon, had returned from his mission, but its results had not been authoritatively made known. The London Times has, however, given what purports to be a synopsis of the documents relating to it. From this it appears that the allied sovereigns will connive at Louis Napoleon's usurpation of sovereignty in France for life; but so long as one Bourbon exists they can recognize no other person as hereditary sovereign of that country; and they hold themselves bound and justified by the treaties of 1815 to oppose the establishment of a Bonapartist dynasty. The three Great Northern Powers, it would seem, are combining to resuscitate the principles of the Holy Alliance, and to impose them upon the European system of States as the international law, notwithstanding the events of the last two-and-twenty years have rendered them practically obsolete.

From the other European countries there is little intelligence worthy of record. – In Belgium the elections have resulted in the increase of the liberal members of the Chamber. An editor, prosecuted for having libeled Louis Napoleon, has been acquitted by a jury. – In Austria a new law has been enacted imposing rigorous restrictions upon the press.

Editor's Table

The Moral Influences of the Stage is a subject which, although earnestly discussed for centuries, still maintains all its theoretical and practical importance. The weight of argument, we think, has ever been with the assailants, and yet candor requires the concession, that there have been, at times, thinking men, serious men, may we not also say, Christian men, to be found among the defenders of theatrical representations? On a fair statement of the case, however, it will plainly appear, that these have ever been the defenders of an imaginary, or hypothetical, instead of a really existing stage.

Never – we think we may safely say it – never has any true friend of religion and morality been found upholding the theatre as it actually is, or was, at any particular period. Indeed, this may also be said of its most partial advocates. Their warmest defense is ever coupled with the admission, that, as at present managed, it needs some thorough and decided reform to make it, in all respects, what it ought to be. We do not think that we ever read any thing in advocacy of the stage without some proviso of this kind. It never is– it never was– what it ought to be, and might be. But then the idea is ever held forth of some future reform. We are told, for example, what the theatre might become, if, instead of being condemned by the more moral and religious part of the community, it received the support of their presence, and could have the benefit of their regulation.

So plausible have these arguments appeared, that the experiment has again and again been tried. Reforms have been attempted in the characters of the plays, of the actors, and of the audiences. Good men and good women have written expressly for the stage. Johnson and Hannah Moore, and Young – to say nothing of Buchanan and Addison – have contributed their services in these efforts at expurgation, but all alike in vain. Some of these have afterward confessed the hopelessness of the undertaking, and lamented that by taking part in it they had given a seeming encouragement to what they really meant to condemn. The expected reform has never appeared. If, through great exertion, some improvement may have manifested itself for a time, yet, sooner or later, the relapse comes on. Nature – our human nature – will have its way. The evil elements predominate; and the stage sinks again, until its visible degradation once more arouses attention, and calls for some other spasmodic effort, only to meet the same failure, and to furnish another proof of some radical inherent vitiosity.

Good plays may, indeed, be acted; but they will not long continue to call forth what are styled good audiences– the term having reference to numbers and pecuniary avails, rather than to moral worth. In fact, the theatre presents its most mischievous aspect when it claims to be a school of morals. Its advocates may talk as they will about "holding the mirror up to Nature, showing Virtue its own feature, Vice its own image;" but it can only remind us that there is a cant of the play-house as well as of the conventicle, and that Shaftsbury and his sentimental followers can "whine" as well as Whitfield and Beecher. The common sense of mankind pronounces it at once the worst of all hypocrisies – the hypocrisy of false sentiment ashamed of its real name and real character. As a proof of this, we may say that the stage has never been known in any language by any epithet denoting instruction, either moral or otherwise. It is the play-house, or house of amusement – the theatrum, the place for shows, for spectacles, for pleasurable emotions through the senses and the excitements of the sensitive nature. There may have been periods when moral or religious instruction of some kind could, perhaps, have been claimed as one end of dramatic representations, but that was before there was a higher stage, a higher pulpitum divinely instituted for the moral tuition of mankind. Since that time, the very profanity of the claim to be a "school of morals" has only set in a stronger light the fact that, instead of elevating an immoral community, the stage is itself ever drawn down by it into a lower, and still lower degradation.

We will venture the position, that no open vice is so pernicious to the soul as what may be called a false virtue; and this furnishes the kind of morality to which the stage is driven when it would make the fairest show of its moral pretensions. The virtues of the stage are not Christian virtues. If they are not Christian, they are anti-Christian; for on this ground there can be no via media, no neutrality. Who would ever think of making the moral excellences commended in the Sermon on the Mount, or in Paul's Epistles, the subjects of theatrical instruction? How would humility, forgiveness, poverty of spirit, meekness, temperance, long-suffering, charity, appear in a stage hero? In what way may they be made to minister to the exciting, the sentimental, the melodramatic? These virtues have, indeed, an elevation to which no stage-heroism or theatrical affectation ever attained; but such a rising ever implies a previous descent into the vale of personal humility, a previous lowliness of spirit altogether out of keeping with any dramatic or merely æsthetic representation. The Christian moralities can come upon the stage only in the shape of caricatures, or as the hypocritical disguise through which some Joseph Surface is placed in most disparaging contrast with the false virtues or splendid vices the theatre-going public most admires.

It is equally true that the most tender emotions find no fitting-place upon the stage. The deepest pathetic – the purest, the most soul-healing – in other words, the pathetic of common life, can not be acted without revolting us. Hence, to fit it for the stage, pity must be mingled with other ingredients of a more exciting or spicy kind. It must be associated with the extravagance of love, or stinging jealousy, or complaining madness, or some other less usual semi-malevolent passion, which, while it adds to the theatrical effect, actually deadens the more genial and deeper sympathies that are demanded for the undramatic or ordinary sufferings of humanity. We can not illustrate this thought better than by referring the reader to that most touching story which is given in the July number of our Magazine, and entitled, "The Mourner and the Comforter." How rich the effect of such a tale when simply read, without any external accompaniments! – how much richer, we might say, for the very want of them! How its "rain of tears" mellows and fertilizes the hard soil of the human heart! And yet how few and simple the incidents! How undramatic the outward fictitious dress, through which are represented emotions the most vitally real in human nature! Like a strain of the richest, yet simplest music, in which the accompaniment is just sufficient to call out the harmonious relations of the melody, without marring by its artistic or dramatic prominence the deep spiritual reality that dwells in the tones. We appeal to every one who has read that touching narrative – how utterly would it be spoiled by being acted! There might be some theatrical effect given to the agitated scene upon the balcony, but a vail would have to be drawn around the chamber of the mourner, and the more than heroic friend who sits by her in the long watches of the night. Such scenes, it may be said, are too common for the stage – ay, and too holy for it, too. They are too pure for the Kembles and Sinclairs ever to meddle with, and they know it, and their audiences feel it. We decide instinctively that all acting here would be more than out of place. The very thought of theatrical representation would seem like a profanation of the purest and holiest affections of our nature.

And so too of others, which, although not virtues have more of a prudential or worldly aspect. The stage may sometimes tolerate a temperance or an anti-gambling hero, but it is only to feed a temporary public excitement, and the moment that excitement manifests the first symptom of a relapse, this school of morals must immediately follow, instead of directing the new public sentiment. The wonder is, that any thinking man could ever expect it to be otherwise. Every one knows that the tastes of the audience make the law to the writer, the actor, and the manager. In this view of the matter, we need only the application of a very few plain principles and facts, to show how utterly hopeless must be the idea of the moral improvement of any representation which can only be sustained on the tenure of pleasing the largest audiences, without any regard to the materials of which they are composed. The first of these is, that the mass of mankind are not virtuous, they are not intelligent – the second, that even the more virtuous portions are worse in the midst of an applauding and condemning crowd than they would be in other circumstances; and the third, that the evil aspects of our humanity furnish the most exciting themes, or those best adapted to theatrical representations.

But the world will become better – the world is becoming better, it may be said – and why should not the stage share in the improvement? If the world is becoming better, it is altogether through different and higher means. If it is becoming better, it is by the influence of truth and grace – through the Church – upon individual souls brought to a right view, first of all, of the individual depravity, and thus by individual accretion, contributing to the growth of a better public sentiment. The spirit of theatrical representations is directly the reverse of this. It operates upon men in crowds, not as assembled in the same space merely, but through those feelings and influences which belong to them solely or chiefly in masses. Deriving its aliment from the most outward public sentiment, its tendency is ever, instead of "holding the mirror up to Nature," in any self-revealing light, to hide men from themselves. By absorbing the soul in exciting representations, in which the most depraved can take a sort of abstract or sentimental interest, it causes men to mistake this feeling for true virtue and true philanthropy, when they may be in the lowest hell of selfishness. It may become, in this way, more demoralizing than a display of the most revolting vices, because it buries the individual character beneath a mass of sentiments and emotions in which a man or a woman may luxuriate without one feeling of penitence for their own transgressions, or one thought of dissatisfaction with their own wretchedly diseased moral state.

The theatre might with far more truth and honesty be defended on the ground of mere amusement. This is, doubtless, its most real object; but there is an instinctive feeling in the human soul that it would not do to trust its defense solely to such a plea. In the first place, it may be charged with inordinate excess. Who dare justify the spending night after night in such ceaseless pleasure-seeking? And if there were not vast numbers who did this, our theatres could never be supported. To say nothing here of religion, or a life to come, the mere consideration of this world, and the poor suffering humanity by which it is tenanted, would urgently forbid that much of this life, or even a small portion of it, should be devoted to mere amusement. Within a very few rods of every theatre in our city, almost every species of misery to which man is subject is daily and nightly experienced. How, in view of this, can any truly feeling soul (and we mean by this a very different species of feeling from that which is commonly generated in theatres) talk of amusing himself? In the year 1832, during the severest prevalence of the cholera, the theatres in New York were closed. We well remember the impatience manifested at the event by those who claimed to represent the theatre-going public, and with what exulting spirits they called upon their patrons to improve the jubilee of their opening. We well remember how freely the terms "bigot" and "sour religionist" were applied to all who thought a further suppression of heartless amusements was due, if only as a sorrowing tribute of respect to suffering humanity. It was all the sheerest Pharisaism, they said, thus to stand in the way of the innocent and rational amusements of mankind; as though, forsooth, amusement was the great end of human existence, and they who so impatiently claimed it actually needed some relaxation from the arduous and unremitted exertions they had been making for the relief of the sorrowing and toiling millions of their race.

But if not for amusement, it might be said, then for recreation, which is a very different thing. The former term is used when the end aimed at is pleasure merely, without any reference to the good, as a something higher and better than pleasurable sensations, sought simply because they are pleasurable, and without regard to the spiritual health. In its contemptible French etymology we see the very soul of the word, so far as such a word may be said to have any soul. It is muser, s'amuser, having truly nothing to do with music or the Muses, but signifying to loiter, to idle, to kill time. We may well doubt whether this ever can be innocent, even in the smallest degree. Certainly, to devote to it any considerable portion of our existence, especially in view of what has been and is now the condition of our race, must be not only the most heartless, but in its consequences the most damning of sins. It is in this sense that every true philanthropist, to say nothing of the Christian, must utter his loud amen to the denunciation of the heathen Seneca —Nihil est tam damnosum bonis moribus quam in spectaculis desidere, tunc enim per voluptatem facilius vitia surrepunt.– "Nothing is so destructive to good morals as mere amusement, or the indolent waste of time in public spectacles; it is through such pleasure that all vices most readily come creeping into the soul."

We would have our Editor's Table ever serious, ever earnest, and yet in true harmony with all that innocent and cheerful and even mirthful recreation, which is as necessary sometimes for the spiritual as for the bodily health. We would avoid every appearance of sermonizing, and yet we can not help quoting here an authority higher than Seneca —Vanis mundi pompis renuntio. – "The vain pomp of the world I renounce," is the language of the primitive form of Christian baptism, still literally in use in one of our largest Christian denominations, and expressed in substance by them all. Now it can be clearly shown that this word, pompæ, was not used, as it now often is, in a vague and general manner, but was employed with special reference to public theatrical shows and representations. To every baptized Christian, it seems to us, the argument must be conclusive. If theatrical shows (pompæ) are not "the world," in the New Testament sense, what possible earthly thing can be included under this once most significant name? If they are not embraced in "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," then not only has language no fixed meaning, but even ideas themselves have wholly changed.

Recreation, as we have said, is something very different from amusement. It is the re-creating or renewing the overtasked mental or bodily powers, by some relaxing and restoring exercise. It is pleasurable, as all right things ever are; but here is the all-important distinction – pleasure is not its end. The accompanying enjoyment is only a laxative and recreative means to something higher and more ultimate, and more real in human existence; and it is only on this ground that it becomes either rational or innocent. Amusement never can be either.

But those who need recreation in this sense will never seek it in the theatre. The reason presents itself at once. Experience concurs with the a priori view, derived from the very nature of the thing, in declaring that it can never be found there. The emotions called out in the play-house are exciting – they are exhausting – they are dissipating. In each of these aspects they are at war with the legitimate idea of the recreative. They stimulate but do not invigorate. All mere pleasure-seeking has in it an element of death. It has its ground in a morbid feeling of want which is ever rendered still more morbid by gratification. It is the same with that which lies at the foundation of the appetite for stimulating drinks, except that here it affects the whole spiritual system. In a word, the truly recreative exercises of the soul, in which pleasure is a means and not an end, are ever attended by a sense of freedom, and this is the best characteristic by which they are to be distinguished from others that assume the appearance and the name. Whatever is healthful, either to body or soul, is never enslaving. The counterfeit passion for enjoyment, on the other hand, is ever binding the spirit to a deeper and still deeper bondage. From the one, the mind returns with a healthier and heartier relish to the more arduous and serious duties of life; the other at every repetition renders such duties more and more the objects of an ever growing distaste and aversion. The slightest observation of the habitual frequenters of the theatre will determine to which class of mental exercises the influence of its representations are to be assigned.

But there is another thought connected with this. We find in such an idea of the nature and end of theatrical representations the true reason why actors and actresses never have been, and never can be regarded as a reputable class in society. They may contribute ever so much to our amusement, but no principle of gratitude, even if there were any ground for so sacred a feeling, will ever bring the very persons who use them as a means of enjoyment to recognize their social equality. A favorite actor may now and then be toasted at a public dinner. Grave men may sometimes manifest a public interest in some actress who has furnished an exciting theme of newspaper discussion, or judicial investigation. But let the higher tests be demanded, and the instinctive feeling of our humanity manifests itself at once. They never have been, they never will be admitted freely to the more intimate social relations. The fashionable frequenter of the theatre would not cordially give his daughter in marriage to the most popular of actors; he would turn with aversion from the thought that his son should choose for his bride the most accomplished actress that ever called forth the rapturous plaudits of a pleasure-maddened audience. We need not go far for the reason. It may be partly found in the fact, or suspicion, of their generally vicious lives. But of that, and the cause of it, in another place. It is a different though related thought to which we would here give prominence. With all that is pretended about the theatre being a place of instruction, or recreation, there is an under-consciousness that its great end is pleasurable emotion merely – in a word, amusement. Along with this there is another suppressed consciousness that such an end is not honorable to our humanity, and that those, therefore, whose chief employment is to minister to it, can not be regarded as having a high or even a reputable calling. This decision may be called unjust, but we can not alter it, even though we fail to discover the true ground in which it has its origin. The distinctions exist in the very nature of things and ideas. No theoretical fraternization can ever essentially change them.