THE PURITAN. No. 53. The stricken dere by kinde Of death that stands in awe, For his recure an herb can fynde, The arrowe to withdrawe. Old Ballad. HUMAN LIFE. HUMAN LIFE! Human Life! What a fine title for a writer, who publishes his lucubrations in periodical papers. I remember, in college, there were certain subjects which were considered as excellent themes for forensic discussion, because they opened a maze of diversity, and one might dispute on them forever, without coming to any conclusion. Something like this is a discourse on human life. It is a circle hazy and wide, embracing all subjects, from the pig-sty to the palace; and I defy the reader, even if he should be good-natured enough to honor this piece with his attention, and a very Yankee at guess ing, to surmise what is to be the tenor of my remarks. I place my covered dish on the table; and no man can tell, by the sight or the smell, whether it is to be the pot-luck of Metaphysics or the poultry (not poetry) of Romance and Love. Human Life! Let me see,-what did I understand by this term, when I was joyous and young? Human life, to me, was then the gay vision of a bridegroom's dream, on the morning before marriage. I saw before me a long succession of enterprises, efforts, successes, honors, and enjoyments, which reason told me were possible, and a sanguine temperament assured me would not fail. I was not such a fool as to suppose that the rainbow could exist without the cloud, or that the sky above me was never to be darkened by a tempest. In picturing future life, therefore, I always used to throw in some sombre shades; but they were just such shades as suited the imagination; just such shades as a painter puts into his picture, to show off, by contrast, the lighter and gayer parts. They were sorrows formed by fancy, for fancy to bear. I made myself sick enough to be visited by some imaginary goddess; poor enough to bear my poverty with the spirit of a hero; in disgrace enough always to come off with final honor; and in danger enough at last to escape. I can truly say, I have been more disappointed in my pre-conceived misfortunes, than I ever have in the brightest pictures of fore-imagined bliss. I knew better how to draw the roses of life than its thorns; I could picture the robin, with his red bosom and delightful song, better than the lizard or the toad. My sorrows, seen in perspective of the sun-light of the brightest morning that ever glittered over a human head; my pre-conceived sorrows, I say, have had about as much resemblance to real sorrow, as the bowls and daggers of a play-house have to real bowls and daggers. O ye visions of youthful bliss, ye dewdrops of the morning! I complain not that ye have fled; it is the common lot, and I ought to have suspected it. But how have I been disappointed in my griefs! How unlike the tales which passion and imagination told! The armor, which I had prepared, was the foil of the fencing-school, and not the spear for the battle. Human life is a science, which no theory can teach; it must be infused gradually by experience. All young men think alike; and they must think alike, because there is nothing within, to meet with the response of consciousness, the testimonies they have from books or men. I remember a poor may old man, who dwelt near my father's, who used to go round with two shingles and a wheelbarrow, picking up the manure in the road for his land; the whole patrimony of which consisted of three acres and an half. If he was asked by a kind neighbor after his health, his reply was, a long string of complaints; a pain in his shoulder; a pain across his kidneys; a pain in his joints; a pain wherever there was a sensation to suffer. That man's body is now beneath the clods of the valley; and his spirit, I hope, in a world where all pains cease, and all tears are wiped away. But if I could be indulged with one half hour's converse with his disembodied spirit, I would not fail to ask his pardon that I formerly heard his tale of suffering with so little sympathy or belief. I have since been taught by experience. Yes, reader; and grim experience is the only thing that will ever teach you. We begin life in the spring; and the orchard of one of the Brookline farmers looks not more diversely in a morning of May and January, than human life looks, seen in prospect and retrospect. We commence our voyage near the head of the river, near its healthful banks and grassy fountains its trees shade us; its birds soothe us; its breezes fan our bounding pulses and burning cheeks; and, as we glide softly and smoothly down its silent waters, we see no danger, and we suspect none. We are told that it will not always be thus; we are forewarned of the sterility and chillness, through which the current winds. But the silent waters, which are slipping beneath us, and bearing us along, are teaching the only effectual lesson. Why should the rareness of religious faith be taken as an argument of the non-existence of spiritual things? We are as incredulous to the evils of old age, in the hey-day of youth, as we are to the pains of eternity, amid the intoxications of life. There are hours, however, when every thinking man feels that external things cannot satisfy him. The pursuit of business, the accumulation of wealth, leaves a void in his heart. The round of pleasure becomes tasteless and tiresome; and the life of life dies before death. Almost every one has been compelled to complain, in some sad hour, "How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, The sun loses its lustre-the flowers their fragrance; Such a man is in a state at once favorable and un |