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The Puritan Character.

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acter which they bear in the States of Europe. Even Romanism, entrenched as it is and guarded from innovation, has deeply felt, and been influenced by its spirit. For the most part the Puritan is an unyielding character. It is strong, active, with tendencies to virtue. In life we should expect to find it prompt and efficient, preferring rather to persevere than to change. It is a healthy and a stable character. But can it be expected to develop itself in the direction of beauty? Milton was both a Puritan and a poet. But the elements of life in him were peculiarly blended, and he is not to be taken as a fair or general illustration. To correctly answer our inquiry, we must contemplate the Puritan under other influences than those which gave him birth, and directed his earliest growth. In England he was no artist, and without the prospect of ever becoming one. This is the actual fact. He was too much engaged in conflict, too much engrossed in guarding his conscience amidst the trials of an overwhelming opposition, and from the seductions of a more fortunate Church, to bestow his attention upon the arts. Besides, they were associated in his mind with the corruptions of the Romish religion, and the pride and display of his own aristocratic rulers. No wonder that he looked upon them with distrust and rejected their claims.

Transplanted to another land, and placed under different influences, we find important changes working in the character of the Puritan. In some respects we witness a new development. Restraint and fear, which formerly held his best energies in check, are now removed. There is freedom, and, of consequence, increased activity and power. The governed has become the governor. New scenes are opened and a new enterprise demanded. To subdue the vast and ancient forests and convert them into civilized homes is no light task, and yet it is courageously and fearlessly met. The necessities of life are many and great and pressing. Invention alone no routine of accustomed toil can answer the new and growing wants. In the Old World the Puritan had to grapple with pride and luxury and power; in the New with nature. Under circumstances so widely different, how was it possible for his character to remain as it was? In some degree he must adapt himself to his new condition. How well he succeeded in this attempt, the New England character is a happy

and striking illustration. Adaptation has become almost a virtue. In the New World the Puritan had to give over his feuds with the affectations and pride of an old established order, and contend with nature. His complaints against oppression and vicious institutions became useless, without meaning, in his present sphere of life. Other emotions more kind, more in accordance with the good spirit of nature, must take possession of his heart. More or less, the Puritan was bigoted and sectarian, but nature, in her universal love, disallows all narrow and partial sympathies. The change in his character was gradual and slow, but he could not entirely resist the design of Providence, and in the midst of the new and kind influences which were all around him, he grew to be a new and kinder man. He could not go abroad without catching something of the gentle spirit that was breathing upon his soul. His enmities, his prejudices, were at war with nature, but nature was supreme and he was forced to yield. He could not feel at home in the wilds he had sought without the surrender of his old and cherished animosities. This humanizing, expanding process, though not achieved at once, was a sure one, and now we live to witness a still nearer prospect of final and perfect success. The history can be given in a word. The Puritan in the New World stood in the midst of nature and was free. Such influences awoke new and kinder elements within him. They became essential parts of his character.

But other elements than the natural ones became grafted on the Puritan stock. The English were not the only emigrants. Other nations contributed their part to the settlement of America. France, in particular, in point of time and numbers, almost balanced the scale with England. These two leading nations of Europe had never before harmoniously met, nor their characters been permitted to mingle together. Rival and jealous differences had always kept them apart. Now one object was before them, the colonization of a new world. They were brought together. Valuable and noble traits distinguished both, and, united in the same national character, promised almost the perfection of manhood. How entire this union has really become we have no means of knowing, but that the French vivacity and grace have modified the English coldness and gravity,

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Sensitiveness of Americans.

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we cannot doubt, or that American character, through this means, has greatly refined upon the English. That the Puritan would ever have become what he is, or his character have ripened as it now has done, in England and under English influences, we do not believe. The Puritan character was fitted for a new world, and required new elements and a new order of development for its continued growth and perfection. These new elements and this new order is found in the new natural and national influences by which it became surrounded, and in the midst of which it was destined to act.

What is the result? Has the character of the Puritan yielded to the new influences to which we have referred? Do we witness the effect which we have seen reason to expect? To us the answer is clear. The American character is a new one. We can detect in it great English features. Perhaps these predominate. But the French element is not wholly wanting. Nor has the splendid beauty of our forests and landscapes been lost or insignificant. The Anglo-Saxon stock transplanted to the New World has acquired under the American sky a temperament more finely strung, a delicacy of fibre, a greater susceptibility of the nervous organization, and a deeper feeling of joy or sorrow, which seem peculiarly to fit the American people to excel in what are called the fine or beautiful arts. opinion is confirmed not only by the causes which we have pointed out as adapted to produce such a character, but also by the rapid growth of these arts in so new a community, by their still more rapid recent progress, by the sudden appearance of genius by which we are so frequently startled, and by the numerous generation of artists of the noblest promise at this moment engaged in the pursuit of excellence.

This

That we of America are sensitive beings, is the judgment of a common observation. This peculiarity of our national character could hardly escape the notice of the most superficial or ignorant. Nor is it all vanity which makes us so tenacious of our good reputation. There is a deep and good meaning in the general remonstrance which is uttered when our American name is assailed. We are glad that it is so

that we are not indifferent to reproach that we rise up with a common and united feeling to 4TH S. VOL. IV. NO. III.

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cast back the word that reflects upon our character. It seems to say that our character is a sacred thing, and therefore to be sacredly guarded—that we have a character, and will not suffer detraction— that we have an integrity which we are anxious to maintain - that we cannot bear to hear light words spoken of virtue, though it be our own and therefore humble. The world, we feel, cannot afford to lose anything good, and we are unwilling to sit down in silence under scorn or any unjust reproach. Our sensitiveness may, indeed, sometimes carry us to excess. We may sometimes be open to ridicule. But the error is more a weakness than any lack of virtue. It points back to a distinguishing feature of character, which, in our estimation, is rather an excellence than a defect. That we guard this feeling from all affectation and confine it to virtue, needs to be one of the principal aims of all our discipline and culture. To be sensitive to whatever is ours, irrespectively of character, will result in our degradation. Over this feeling we need to watch with a peculiar delicacy and strictness. Under a true education it promises only good, a refinement of manners, taste and excellence in all that is beautiful and lovely. It contains the noblest promise of a correct appreciation and a rapid growth, among us, of the fine arts.

Out

The spontaneous rise of young men, without the advantages of education or refinement, who have exhibited the finest adaptations to art and have even grown up to no ordinary eminence, is another proof of our position. bursts of genius in England have been rare, and always the result of long preparation. They are found only in the intervals of ages; and even then are confined to the single department of poetry. In America, considering its youth and means, they are frequent, and their number increases with the years. Here is a point of no common importance in our inquiry. It is the spontaneous growth, which most truly indicates the real nature of a nation's character. We do not look amidst the affectations of the city, amidst the conventionalisms of fashionable intercourse, for the true index of any community. In the country, where men are free, where they have no policy and no motive for deceit, where they can live and be themselves, there we detect the true elements and impulses of life. At home, where we unbend and cast off restraint, where none but fa

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American Artists.

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miliar eyes are on us, and we have no part to act except that of sincerity and love, there we find what we are in reality. What developes itself thus spontaneously and freely, before the moulding hand of education is put upon it, what thus becomes prominent, is proved to be the leading peculiarity of character. It is that development which exhibits the deepest and truest phase of the individual and social life. It is the index from which we are to judge of the future. Taking this criterion, the promise of American art is by no means small. Nearly all our artists were self-impelled. They have risen with little foreign aid. Their resolves were formed and their consecration to the beautiful determined by a necessity from within themselves, — not by secondary influences, but by religion and love. They have been artists before they knew the meaning of the word. They had the feeling of beauty, and in childhood wrought in rude forms from snow or clay as a part and charm of their earliest sports. Such facts are no insignificant prophecy of future refinement and excellence. Few of our native artists have been destined to the profession. Those whose circumstances have admitted of a liberal education, have generally been enticed into some of the more popular avenues to eminence. Those who have been poor or destitute, have resorted to agriculture or become mechanics. Thus our prominent artists reckon among their number lawyers, machinists, and sign-painters. A few have enjoyed the advantages of our best universities. The majority have been poor and self-taught. All have been without the early culture afforded to the youth of Europe in her numerous schools and galleries. And we cannot account for these frequent evidences of genius, under the unfavorable influences of a new country, furnished with none of the germs of art, and destitute of schools and galleries, without referring back to the essential character of the people. No other cause is sufficient. But we may take even a wider range. A taste for the beautiful is not confined to the professed artists. It is general. Our character does not raise up merely artists, but lovers of art. The public feeling, upon the whole, is favorable; we do not mean that it is what it ought to be or may be, but that it is not without happy indications for the future. And success very much depends upon the taste and feeling of the community.