Poems of James Russell Lowell Part 64

It may seem to some that too much s.p.a.ce has been usurped by my own private lucubrations, and some may be fain to bring against me that old jest of him who preached all his hearers out of the meetinghouse save only the s.e.xton, who, remaining for yet a little s.p.a.ce, from a sense of official duty, at last gave out also, and, presenting the keys, humbly requested our preacher to lock the doors, when he should have wholly relieved himself of his testimony. I confess to a satisfaction in the self act of preaching, nor do I esteem a discourse to be wholly thrown away even upon a sleeping or unintelligent auditory. I cannot easily believe that the Gospel of Saint John, which Jacques Cartier ordered to be read in the Latin tongue to the Canadian savages, upon his first meeting with them, fell altogether upon stony ground.

For the earnestness of the preacher is a sermon appreciable by dullest intellects and most alien ears. In this wise did Episcopius convert many to his opinions, who yet understood not the language in which he discoursed. The chief thing is that the messenger believe that he has an authentic message to deliver. For counterfeit messengers that mode of treatment which Father John de Plano Carpini relates to have prevailed among the Tartars would seem effectual, and, perhaps, deserved enough. For my own part, I may lay claim to so much of the spirit of martyrdom as would have led me to go into banishment with those clergymen whom Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal drave out of his kingdom for refusing to shorten their public eloquence. It is possible, that, having been invited into my brother Biglow's desk, I may have been too little scrupulous in using it for the venting of my own peculiar doctrines to a congregation drawn together in the expectation and with the desire of hearing him.

I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity of mental organization which impels me, like the railroad-engine with its train of cars, to run backward for a short distance in order to obtain a fairer start. I may compare myself to one fis.h.i.+ng from the rocks when the sea runs high, who, misinterpreting the suction of the undertow for the biting of some larger fish, jerks suddenly, and finds that he has _caught bottom_, hauling in upon the end of his line a trail of various _algae_, among which, nevertheless, the naturalist may haply find something to repay the disappointment of the angler. Yet have I conscientiously endeavored to adapt myself to the impatient temper of the age, daily degenerating more and more from the high standard of our pristine New England. To the catalogue of lost arts I would mournfully add also that of listening to two-hour sermons.

Surely we have been abridged into a race of pigmies. For, truly, in those of the old discourses yet subsisting to us in print, the endless spinal column of divisions and subdivisions can be likened to nothing so exactly as to the vertebrae of the saurians, whence the theorist may conjecture a race of Anakim proportionate to the withstanding of these other monsters. I say Anakim rather than Nephelim, because there seem reasons for supposing that the race of those whose heads (though no giants) are constantly enveloped in clouds (which that name imports) will never become extinct.

The attempt to vanquish the innumerable _heads_ of one of those aforementioned discourses may supply us with a plausible interpretation of the second labor of Hercules, and his successful experiment with fire affords us a useful precedent.

But while I lament the degeneracy of the age in this regard, I cannot refuse to succ.u.mb to its influence. Looking out through my study-window, I see Mr. Biglow at a distance busy in gathering his Baldwins, of which, to judge by the number of barrels lying about under the trees, his crop is more abundant than my own,--by which sight I am admonished to turn to those orchards of the mind wherein my labors may be more prospered, and apply myself diligently to the preparation of my next Sabbath's discourse.--H. W.]

GLOSSARY.

A.

Act'lly, _actually_.

Air, _are_.

Airth, _earth_.

Airy, _area_.

Aree, _area_.

Arter, _after_.

Ax, _ask_.

B.

Beller, _bellow_.

Bellowses, _lungs_.

Ben, _been_.

Bile, _boil_.

Bimeby, _by and by_.

Blurt out, _to speak bluntly_.

Bust, _burst_.

Buster, _a roistering blade_; used also as a general superlative.

C.

Caird, _carried_.

Cairn, _carrying_.

Caleb, _a turncoat_.

Cal'late, _calculate_.

Ca.s.s, _a person with two lives_.

Close, _clothes_.

c.o.c.kerel, _a young c.o.c.k_.

c.o.c.ktail, _a kind of drink_; also, _an ornament peculiar to soldiers_.

Convention, _a place where people are imposed on_; _a juggler's show_.

c.o.o.ns, _a cant term for a now defunct party_; derived, perhaps, from the fact of their being commonly _up a tree_.

Cornwallis, _a sort of muster in masquerade_; supposed to have had its origin soon after the Revolution, and to commemorate the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. It took the place of the old Guy Fawkes procession.

Crooked stick, _a perverse, froward person_.

Cunnle, _a colonel_.

Cus, _a curse_; also, _a pitiful fellow_.

D.

Darsn't, used indiscriminately, either in singular or plural number, for _dare not_, _dares not_, and _dared not_.

Deacon off, _to give the cue to_; derived from a custom, once universal, but now extinct, in our New England Congregational churches. An important part of the office of deacon was to read aloud the hymns _given out_ by the minister, one line at a time, the congregation singing each line as soon as read.

Demmercrat, leadin', _one in favor of extending slavery_; _a free-trade lecturer maintained in the custom-house_.

Desput, _desperate_.

Doos, _does_.

Doughface, _a contented lickspittle_; a common variety of Northern politician.

Dror, _draw_.

Du, _do_.