Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862», sayfa 13
THE POPOLO EXHIBITION
The government, aware of its foreign reputation for patronizing the Belle Arti, has an annual display of such paintings and sculpture as artists may see fit to send, and—the censor see fit to admit: for, in this exhibition, 'nothing is shown that will shock the most fastidious taste'—and it can be found thus, in a building in the Piazza del Popolo.
Caper's painting for the display was rejected for some reason. It represented a sinister-looking brigand, stealing away with Two Keys in one hand and a spilt cap in the other, suddenly kicked over by a large-sized donkey, his mane and tail flying, head up, and an air of liberty about him generally, which probably shocked Antonelli's tool the censor's sense of the proprieties.
Rocjean consoled Caper with the reflection that his painting was refused admittance because the donkey had gradually grown to be emblematical of the state—in fact, was so popularly known to the forestieri as the Roman Locomotive, with allusions to its steam whistle, &c., highly annoying to the chief authorities—and therefore, its introduction in a painting was intolerable, and not to be endured.
The works of art included contributions from Americans, Italians, Belgians, Swiss, English, Hessians, French, Dutch, Danes, Bavarians, Spaniards, Norwegians, Prussians, Russians, Austrians, Finns, Esthonians, Lithuanians, Laplanders, and Samoyedes. There was little evidence of the handiwork of mature artists; they either withheld their productions from dislike of the managers, or through determination of giving their younger brethren a fair field and a clear show. A careful observer could see that these young artists had not profited to the fullest extent by the advantages held out to them through a residence in the Imperial City. There was a wine-yness, and a pretty-girl-yness, and tobacco-ness, about paintings and sculpture, that could have been picked up just as well in Copenhagen or Madrid or New York as in Rome. Michael Angelo evidently had not 'struck in' on their canvases, or Praxiteles struck out from their marbles. Theirs was an unrevealed religion to these neophytes.
The study of a piece of old Turkey carpet, or a camel's hair shawl, or a butterfly's wing, or a bouquet of many flowers would have taught the best artist in the exhibition more concerning color than he would learn in ten years simply copying the best of the old painters, who had themselves studied directly from these things and their like.
In sculpture, as in painting, the artists showed the same tame following other sculptors; the same fear of facing Nature, and studying her face to face. A pretty kind of statue of Modesty a man would make, who would take the legs of a satyr, the body of a Venus, the head of Bacchus, the arms of Eros, and thus construct her; yet scarcely a modern statue is made wherein some such incongruous models do not play their part. Go with a clear head, not one ringing with last night's debauch, and study the Dying Gladiator! That will be enough—something more than five tenths of you young Popolites can stand, if you catch but the faintest conception of the mind once moving the sculptor of such a statue. After you have earnestly thought over such a masterpiece, go back to your studio: break up your models for legs, arms, bodies, and heads: take the scalpel in hand, and study anatomy as if your heart was in it. Have the living model nude before you at all times. Close your studio door to all 'orders,' be they ever so tempting: if a fastidious world will have you make 'nude statues dressed in stockinet,' tell it to get behind you! After long years of earnest study and labor, carve a hand, a foot: if, when you have finished it, one living soul says, with truth, 'Blood, bones, and muscles seem under the marble!' believe that you are not far off from exceeding great reward.
In the Popolo exhibition for 1858 was a marble statuette of Daphnis and Chloe, by Luigi Guglielmi, of Rome.
Chloe had a low-necked dress on.
The Roman censor disapproved of this. In a city claiming to be the 'HOME OF ART'—they pinned a piece of foolscap paper around the neck of Chloe.
Rome is the cradle of art:—if so, the sooner the world changes its nurse, the better for the babe!
'MISSED FIRE!'
Oh not in Independence Hall
Will ye proclaim your will;
Nor read aloud your negro call,
As yet, on Bunker Hill.
He said he would, and thought he could,
And tried—and missed it clean;—
Now he's o'er the Border, and awa',
Weel thrashed and unco' mean.
THE PROCLAMATION
[September 22, 1862.]
Now who has done the greatest deed
Which History has ever known,
And who, in Freedom's direst need,
Became her bravest champion?
Who a whole continent set free?
Who killed the curse and broke the ban
Which made a lie of liberty?
You—Father Abraham—you're the man!
The deed is done. Millions have yearned
To see the spear of Freedom cast:—
The dragon writhed and roared and burned:
You've smote him full and square at last.
O Great and True! You do not know,
You cannot tell, you cannot feel
How far through time your name must go,
Honored by all men, high or low,
Wherever Freedom's votaries kneel.
This wide world talks in many a tongue—
This world boasts many a noble state—
In all, your praises will be sung,
In all the great will call you great.
Freedom! Where'er that word is known,
On silent shore, by sounding sea,
'Mid millions or in deserts lone,
Your noble name shall ever be.
The word is out—the deed is done;
Let no one carp or dread delay:
When such a steed is fairly on,
Fate never fails to find a way.
Hurrah! hurrah! The track is clear,
We know your policy and plan;
We'll stand by you through every year:
Now, Father Abraham, you're our man!
THE PRESS IN THE UNITED STATES
The unexampled extent of newspaper issues in the United States has often excited the astonishment of intelligent observers; but it is doubtful whether the whole of the enormous truth could have been fully appreciated without the actual figures which reveal it. According to the "preliminary report" of the 8th census, 1860, recently published by the Hon. J.C.G. Kennedy, the superintendent, it appears that the annual circulation of newspapers and periodicals is no less than 927,951,548, or at the rate of 34.36 for every white man, woman, and child of our population. The annual value of all the printing done in the United States, for that year, is stated at a fraction less than thirty nine and three quarters millions of dollars.
These numbers are sufficiently astounding; but the rate of increase since 1850, is, if possible, even more so. In that year, says Mr. Kennedy, the whole circulation amounted to 426,409,978 copies; and the rate of increase for the decade is 117.61 per cent., while the increase of the white population during the same period was only 38.12 per cent. If the circulation should continue to grow in the same proportion for the next ten years, the number of newspapers and periodicals issued in 1870 will be a little over two billions.
In addition to these domestic publications, no inconsiderable number of foreign journals is introduced into the United States. "The British Almanac and Companion" for 1862 states the number in 1860 to have been as follows: from Great Britain, 1,557,689; from France, 270,655; from Bremen, 41,171; from Prussia, 83,349. These figures comprehend only the foreign newspapers, and not the periodicals, some of which are republished in the United States.
Persons competent to form a correct judgment, do not hesitate to say that the number of newspapers taken in this country, exceeds that in all the world beside. So vast an amount of reading matter, voluntarily sought for and consumed by the people, at a cost of so many millions of dollars, is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the present age of wonders, and proves the avidity with which information is received, as well as the incalculable influence which the press must have on the public mind. The popular newspaper, issued in immense numbers, is in truth emphatically an American institution. Nowhere else could an audience, capable of reading, be found sufficiently numerous to absorb the issues of our teeming press. It is the offspring and indispensable accompaniment of universal education and popular representative government. These could scarcely be maintained without it. Everywhere in Europe, except perhaps in England, Italy, and Switzerland, the press is little more than an engine of the government, used chiefly, or only, for its own political purposes. Here it enjoys absolute freedom, being responsible only to the laws for any abuse of its high privilege.
This entire freedom promotes unbounded growth in journalism, and gives a circulation to the remotest cabin in the land. And if the unrestricted energies of the system produce fruits somewhat wild, not imbued with the refined flavor of better-cultivated productions, their universal distribution and bounteous fulness of supply make up somewhat for the deficiency in quality, and give promise of a future improvement, which will leave nothing to be desired. If every leaf of the forest were a sibylline record, and every month of the year should bring round the deciduous influences of autumn, the leaves that would then "strew the vales" of our country would give some adequate idea of the immense shower of these printed missiles which falls every day, every week, and every month, into the hands of the American people. Do they come as "a kindly largess to the soil they grew on," or do they scatter mischief where they fall? Of the power, for good or for evil, of this vast intellectual agency, there can be no question. But what is the nature of this influence? How does it affect the character and welfare of the community in which its unregulated and unlimited authority prevails?
The daily papers of New York, and of some other cities, contain, in each sheet, an amount of printed matter equal to sixty-four pages of an ordinary octavo volume. The scope and variety of the information embodied in them, and the uniformity with which they are maintained from year to year, give evidence of wonderful enterprise, mechanical skill, and intellectual ability. Concentrating news from all parts of the world, by means of a vast and expensive organization, and discussing, with more or less profound learning and logic, all the important questions of the day, they have established an immense spiritual power in the bosom of modern society, such as was not known to the nations in past ages.
It is true that much of the space in the great dailies, so voluminous as has been stated, is occupied in mere business notices and individual advertisements; and such is the case, generally, with the daily and weekly papers throughout the country. But even this, the humblest department of the newspaper, may justly be considered an invaluable instrument of civilization. It multiplies to an unlimited extent the means of communication among men, and is, therefore, a labor-saving invention of precisely the same character as the railroad and the steam engine. In a few brief phrases, made expressive by conventional understanding, every man can converse with thousands of his neighbors, and even of distant strangers. Without change of place, without labor of limbs or of lungs, the man of business can, in a single day, and every day, if he will, inform a whole community of his own wants, and of his readiness to meet the wants of others. The newspaper performs the work of thousands of messengers, and saves countless hours of labor to the whole community in which it circulates. In some sense, every man is brought nearer to every other. Each hears the innumerable voices which address him, and is able to distinguish the individual message which each one has sent.
It is difficult to estimate the value of this simple agency in its social aspect. Its material saving is plain to the most cursory thought; but its higher influence in binding society together and making it homogeneous, if not equally apparent, is at least quite as indisputable. Civilization is the direct result of bringing mankind into cooperation and combined effort, so that the whole power of mind and body of whole communities is brought to bear in unison for the accomplishment of social ends. Therefore, as a mere instrument of intercommunication, rendering more direct and intimate the relations of individuals, and promoting ease, celerity, and harmony in their combined movements, the power of the press is prodigious and invaluable. But when this power is extended beyond the bounds of mere material interests and the relations of ordinary business—when it appeals to the intellect and enters the domain of art, literature, science, and philosophy, embracing politics, morality, and all the highest interests of mankind, its capacity for good would seem to be illimitable.
In future ages, these innumerable sheets, which float so lightly on the surface of our civilization, will form imperishable records of the manners, habits, occupations, and the whole intellectual existence of our people. They are so numerous that no accident can destroy them all; and they will present to the eye of the future student of history the most lively, natural, and perfect picture—the very moving panorama—of the busy and teeming life of the present generation. No exhumed relics of buried cities, no hieroglyphic inscriptions upon ancient monuments, with whatever skill and genius deciphered, nor even any labored descriptions of past ages, which may have survived the ravages of time, will be equal to these memorials, in their power to recall the daily work, the amusements, the business, and, in short, the whole material, intellectual, and social being of our people.
The types and footprints of creation, imprinted on the rocks and imbedded in the strata of the earth, giving knowledge of the existence and habits of extinct species of animals, and teaching how geological periods have succeeded each other, with their causes and concomitants, are not so plain and distinct to us, as will be these daily effusions, advertisements, and business notices of all kinds in the ordinary newspapers of the country, to future generations of men, who shall there seek to learn the successive and gradual steps by which the social fabric shall be built up on the foundations of human thought and action. Like the worm that crawls over the mud ere it hardens into rock; or the leaf that fixes its form and impress in the bed of coal; or like the bowlder that forms the pencil point of a mighty iceberg, scratching the rocks in its movement across a submerged plain, destined to be upheaved as a continent in some future convulsion; or like the coral insect, which, in forming his separate cell, unconsciously assists in laying the foundation of islands and vast regions of solid earth; we, the creatures of the hour, all unconscious of the record we are making, leave imperishable memorials of our existence and works, in the apparently petty and fugitive contents of the journals which we read daily, and in which we make known our business and our wants. Narratives and formal descriptions may be one-sided, and may easily deceive and mislead; but these indications, which will be preserved in the social strata as they slowly subside in the ocean of humanity, carry in themselves perfect fulness and absolute verity.
One of the most significant and influential results of the wide and rapid circulation of newspapers is to be found in the simultaneous impression made on the popular mind throughout the vast extent of our country. Flashed on the telegraph, daguerreotyped and made visible in the newspaper, every event of any importance, occurring in any part of the world, is communicated, almost at the same moment, to many millions of people. All are impressed at the same time with the same thoughts, or with such kindred ideas as will naturally arise from reflection upon the same facts. Humor, with its thousand tongues, is hushed; and the telegraph, under control of agents employed to sift the truth, and responsible for it, takes its place. Falsehood still may, and, indeed, often does tamper with this mighty instrument; but its speed is so great that it can overtake even falsehood, and soon counteract and correct the mischief. What is the import of this momentous fact,—the instantaneous communication of information over a continent, and the participation of all minds, in the same thoughts, virtually at the same time? Undoubtedly the result must be a closeness of intercourse and a completeness of cooperation, which will give to the social organization a power and efficiency in accomplishing great ends, such as no human thought has ever heretofore conceived. Society becomes a unity in the highest and truest sense of that term; like the bodily frame of the individual man, it is connected throughout all its parts by a network of nerves, every member sympathizing with every other, feeling the same impulses, having the same knowledge, and forming judgments upon the same facts. When sentiments are perfectly harmonious among men, the increase of power is not merely in proportion to numbers. It grows in a much higher ratio. The effect is something like that of multiplying the surfaces in a galvanic battery, or increasing the coils in an electro-magnetic apparatus. Passion in a multitude becomes a tornado. Eloquence moves a large audience with a power vastly greater than when the listeners are few. Similar is that strange influence which fashion exerts in all societies. Nor is this sympathetic multiplication of power limited to passion or artistic sentiment: it extends to opinions and all intellectual phenomena. A person feeling strong emotions or having profound convictions, and knowing them to be shared by millions of others, inevitably experiences a strengthening and intensifying influence from the sympathy of his fellows. If he knew himself to be solitary and alone in his opinions, unsupported by that human sympathy which every one craves, his ideas would languish, and be greatly diminished in their power. It is only great minds, of exceptional character, which can do battle, single-handed, against the world. Most men require to be propped and supported on all sides, by the great power of public opinion. The approach to unanimity of thought promoted by the general circulation of newspapers, has something of the marvellous effects seen in other cases, in enhancing the moral and intellectual power of the community.
The telegraph is the legitimate offspring of the newspaper. In the absence of the latter, there would have been comparatively little use for the former. Without the almost universal distribution of the newspaper, instantaneous communication of news would not have been so much required, and the invention for that purpose would hardly have been made. It is probably in the United States alone, with its unlimited circulation of newspapers, that this extraordinary application of natural forces could have been conceived. It is here those wonderful lightning presses have been constructed, under the stimulus of that vast demand for daily papers which arises from the general education of the people and their avidity for information. In no other state of things could such combinations have been imagined, because there would have been no occasion for the inventive effort, and even the very idea would not have occurred. Although the wide extent of our country, the vast distances separating important centres of commerce and industry, and the general activity and energy of men in this free government, all concurred in enforcing the necessity of this latest wonder of human ingenuity—the telegraph,—yet the newspaper, with its boundless circulation and power of distribution, was indispensable to make it available and to give it all its inestimable value.
But, after all, the prodigious influence of the press, aided by its great instrument, the telegraph, derives its moral and political value chiefly from the lessons it teaches, and the good purposes it aims to accomplish. Unhappily, if the newspaper may be the means of doing incalculable good, it may also be instrumental in doing infinite mischief. If it may multiply the power of the community, by promoting harmony of thought and feeling, it may direct this concentrated energy to the wrong end, as well as to the right. Being a great vehicle for the communication of ideas on all subjects, it becomes a mighty instrument of education; entering almost every house in the land, and reaching the eye of every man, woman, and child who can read, it exercises almost supreme control over the sentiments of the masses. It is a tremendous intellectual engine, radiating the light of knowledge to the extremities of the land, and, in its turn, wielding, to some extent, the incalculable power which that knowledge imparts to its recipients.
Like every other human agency, the press is liable to be controlled by sinister influences. Perhaps, from the entire absence of all direct responsibility, from its usual entire devotion to public affairs, and the acknowledged influence of its representations on the popular mind, it is peculiarly exposed to the seductions of patronage, and to the temptations of personal and mercenary interests. A mere party journal, involved in a perpetual conflict for power, and for the accompanying spoils, is, of all the depositaries of moral power, at once the most dangerous and the most contemptible. To it, truth is of secondary importance; having satisfied itself that no prosperity, or even liberty, can exist without the success of its men and measures, it makes everything bend to this purpose. The end justifies the means. Impartial statement or rational investigation is seldom to be found in its columns. Nevertheless, in the general competition which arises where the press is free, the tendency will always be toward the true and the good. Rival journals will advocate different theories and maintain opposite systems; but free discussion will gradually eliminate error, and out of the multitudinous rays of different colors, diffused throughout society, will eventually come that perfect combination which constitutes the clear, pure, homogeneous light of truth. And even pending the early struggle and confusion which attend the inauguration of a free press, divergencies of opinion, ever tending to harmony, cannot become so great as to produce fatal effects. The rebellion of the Southern States of this Union could never have happened, in the presence of universal education and of a free press, whose emanations could have penetrated as widely as those which reach the people of the opposite section.
In view of the high functions of the press and its immense influence in the nation,—its perpetual daily lessons, falling on the public mind like drops that wear away the hardest rock and work their channel where they will,—it is of the first importance to comprehend the power behind this imperial throne, which directs and controls it. Does it assume to originate and establish principles in government and morals? Or does it aspire only to the humbler office of propagating such ideas as have been sanctioned by the best judgment of the age, of illustrating their operation, and making them acceptable to the people? The fugitive essays and hurried comments on passing events, which fill the columns of newspapers, do not ordinarily constitute solid foundations on which the principles of social or political action can be safely established. The men usually employed in this work of distributing ideas, are not they who are capable of building up substantial systems by the slow process of induction, or who can, by the opposite system, apply great general truths to the purposes of national prosperity and happiness. They are far too much engaged in the active business of life,—too deeply involved in the strifes and turmoils of mankind,—too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the passing hour, with all its passions and prejudices—to be the philosophic guides of humanity, and to lay down, with the serene logic of truth, the bases of moral and political progress. The inevitable sympathy between the editor and his daily readers—the action and reaction which constantly take place and insensibly lead the journalist into the paths of popular opinion and passion—these are too apt to render him altogether unfit to be an oracle in the great work of social organization and government. The common sense of the multitude is often an invaluable corrective of speculative error; but the impulses and strong prejudices of communities, though calculated to sweep along with them the judgments of all, are mostly pernicious, and sometimes dangerous in the extreme. The true remedy for these evils and dangers is, to employ in the management of the daily press, the noblest intellect, combined with the most incorruptible purity of motive. Commanding the entire confidence of the nation, and worthy of it, the lessons of this great teacher—the central light-giving orb of civilization—will be received with reverence and gratitude, and with a benign and fructifying influence, something like that which the sun sheds on the world of nature.
A French philosopher, writing in 1840, says of us:
'This universal colony, notwithstanding the eminent temporal advantages of its present position, must be regarded as, in fact, in all important respects, more remote from a true social reorganization than the nations from whom it is derived, and to whom it will owe, in course of time, its final regeneration. The philosophical induction into that ulterior state is not to be looked for in America—whatever may be the existing illusions about the political superiority of a society in which the elements of modern civilization are, with the exception of industrial activity, most imperfectly developed.'
It may be admitted that we are yet somewhat behind the foremost nations of Europe in the higher walks of philosophy, and certainly in the practical application of true social principles, which, as yet, we do not fully comprehend, even if they do. But the conclusion of this author cannot be sound. However moderate may be our standard of knowledge in the United States, this knowledge, such as it is, is more widely diffused among the people who are to profit by it, than in any other country. If our attainments be comparatively small in philosophic statesmanship, the whole population partakes more or less in such progress as we have made; for education is universal, and whatever ideas are generated in the highest order of minds, soon become the familiar possession of all to the extremities of the land. Government yields with little opposition or delay to the interests and intelligence, and it may be, to the ignorance of the people: there is no other nation on the globe in which social forms and institutions are so plastic in the hands of wise and energetic men. By means of universal education and the perfect distribution of knowledge, we are laying the broadest possible basis on which the noblest structure may be raised, if we can only command the wisdom to build aright. The question, therefore, is, whether a whole people thoroughly educated and with the most perfect machinery for the diffusion of knowledge, though starting from a moderate condition of enlightenment, will outrun or fall behind other nations in which the few may be wiser, while the multitude is greatly more ignorant, and in which the forms of government and of social, organization are more rigid, and inaccessible to change or improvement. To answer this question will not cause much hesitation, at least in the mind of an American; and if we are not altogether what we think ourselves, the wisest and best of mankind, we may at least claim to be on the way to the highest improvement, with no serious obstacles in our path.
