The Profession of Letters.

AUTHORSHIP has never been regarded as the exclusive right of any one class of men. While other professions have had their specific limits, more or less rigorously defined, this has been spread over all departments, or rather has been considered as the adjunct of every other. After so long a trial, the world would seem to be still undecided whether literature should be made the object of a special department or left to the general supervision of all. Coleridge, than whom no one within the last century was better qualified to give advice on this point, as well from the universality of his genius, as from the bitterness of his own experience, earnestly dissuaded the pursuit of literature as a profession.

In the outset, we would remark that in the present discussion we shall use the term literature in the narrower and more usual sense, as embracing all that can properly be called an art, but excluding what is strictly scientific. An appeal to history on the point in question is by no means decisive. The history of literature is not wanting in variety: there are periods of growth and decline; revolutions in style and sentiment, quite as marked as any in political history, but these changes would seem to be owing chiefly to other causes than the relative share of attention paid to literature; so that the authority which we derive from this source is insufficient. But the fact that so much of what is really valuable in literature has been the work of men, not exclusively or even chiefly devoted to this department, is sufficient at least to excite a reasonable doubt as to the necessity of a distinct profession of letters. Doubtless the main reason why so few comparatively choose this profession, is that the majority are deterred by the slender prospect of a competent support. However democratic it may be in its spirit and influence, it is nevertheless decidedly aristocratic in its internal constitution. The only two classes recognized in the distribution of its substantial rewards, are the low and the high; those who are ready to minister to any taste however depraved, and those raised by the kindness of Nature above any such temptation or necessity. That respectable body, the middle classes, which we are wont to regard as the most important order in the State, meets here but an indifferent reception. Although the inadequate compensation of literary labor has often injuriously affected both the author himself and the interests of literature at large, yet the small inducement which it holds out has

oftener operated as a wholesome restraint upon the mercenary spirits, who would pursue literature as a trade and not as a profession. It is thus the most effective censorship of the press that could possibly be devised. This objection to authorship as a profession is merely incidental, and may, perhaps, in the progress of things, be removed; but we conceive that there are others far more weighty and inherent in the very nature of the pursuit.

The first, is its entirely voluntary character. In one sense, all study is voluntary and equally so, but the peculiarity of literature and that which distinguishes it from scientific and metaphysical pursuits, is this, that while it admits of an indefinite amount of study, it makes no positive demands upon the intellect, beyond the simplest perception of truth. Looking at the subject from the lowest point of view, that, namely, of the material upon which the mind is to work, we find an infinite diversity in the productions of literature, suited to every variety of taste and every order of intellect. The mind, therefore, in the choice of its subject, which determines in a great measure the degree of its activity, is subjected to no compulsion. But again, when we consider any work in its relation to the general principles of literature, grave questions of philosophical criticism arise, which are capable of tasking the mind to its utmost capacity, and yet it requires no effort at any moment to forget them entirely in the pure enjoyment of the beauty of the thought or the luxury of the sentiment. Shakespeare has a charm for the humblest reader, who cannot distinguish in the least in what his superiority to other dramatists consists. He finds an obvious meaning in the text, and does not even dream of that undercurrent of thought and feeling in which the real significance of the play consists. In more than one respect does Shakespeare's genius remind us of the unfathomable oceanEach must have some limit, because in the nature of things both are finite. But the deepest soundings serve only to enlarge our conception of the depth, not to exhaust it. Every critic, who attempts to fathom his meaning, imagines he has succeeded, when his mind can reach no further; not stopping to consider whether the cause be within or without himself; but a clearer and more penetrating vision will discover

in the lowest deep, a lower deep."

The substance, then, of this objection to the profession of letters is, that it cannot secure anything like an adequate or uniform activity of the mind. The high problems which it presents are not forced upon the attention, and hence the temptation to purchase a lower enjoyment

at a cheaper rate will often notice the mind from the higher walks of literature.

On the contrary, in the pursuit of scientific or metaphysical truth which affords little exercise to the imagination and no stimulus to the emotions, the whole interest centers in the truth itself. But in abstract truth, when there is little beauty around which the fancy can linger and which awakens no deep emotions, the interest diminishes with the novelty; so that the mind is urged onward, irresistibly, to the discovery of new truth. Moreover the problems which offer themselves, from their very importunity, compel the attention. However persevering our efforts to dismiss them finally from the mind they inevitably return, confronting us at every turn we make to escape them, and forbidding all further advance except on condition of their solution. These studies, therefore, have a power to compel the activity of the mind far greater than any which belongs to merely literary pursuits; and it is by this activity, rather than by its actual results, that the value of any intellectual exercise is to be estimated.

The previous objection was merely negative; the failure of literature to supply the necessary stimulus to intellectual activity. It likewise offers positive hindrances. These arise from the union in literature of what is intellectual with what is emotional. Thought and feeling in varying proportion make up its substance. Its object is to excite emotion as well as to awaken thought. But as the degree of emotion produced is by no means always proportional to the amount of thought expressed, so very deep emotion is destructive of very powerful thought. Even the abstract philosophical questions, connected with literature, have more or less of this character about them-for many of them consist not in the analysis of thought but of feeling. But since the emotions are not at all, or only very remotely, under the control of the will, such speculations resemble some meteorological investigations which can be conducted only in peculiar states of the atmosphere. A permanent occupation should be one that affords a constant stimulus to the mind, either from the nature of the pursuit, as in scientific or metaphysical studies, or from outward pressure, as in the discharge of professional duty; one in which, if need be, the mind may find a refuge from the peculiar temptations that beset purely literary pursuits.

In the foregoing remarks, we have had in view rather the study than the production of literature. But that the same reasoning will apply in either case is evident from this, that in writing we subject our own

thoughts to very much the same process to which, in the critical study of literature, we subject the thoughts of another.

We would regard literature, therefore, not so much as a means by which mental power is to be acquired, as an object upon which it is to be expended. The advantages of so regarding it are manifold, but we have time to notice only one. The activity of the mind will be more spontaneous, and therefore more genial. The principle that "change of labor is mental rest," is preeminently true when the change is from a less to a more congenial employment. The severest literary labor therefore will have all the genial properties of absolute relaxation. Nor will the interests of literature suffer. For the activity of the mind will gain in intensity, what it loses in protraction.

A. V. N.

Matrimonial Cogitations.

A JEREMIADE.

"I am a man that hath seen affliction !"

Lamentations of Jeremiah.

LORD BACON tells us that one of the wise men of the ancients made answer to the question when a man should marry: "A young man not yet; an elder man not at all." In accordance with the first of these two ideas, the dominant faction in Yale College has wisely ordained that no Senior, Junior, Sophomore, Freshman, or Tutor, shall at any time commit Matrimony or other felonious act, on pain of expulsion, immediate and unconditional. The necessity of all this is sufficiently obvious; for the existence of any such binary institution among us would beyond all question tend to an alarming increase of the Colloquy list, while its effects upon the morals of College must be still more lamentable, since it would inevitably render our season of matutinal prayers and profanity even more than ever characterized by the predominance of the last mentioned exercise. It is to convince my young fellow-worms of the wisdom of the regulation, and at the same time, if possible, to prevent their falling into the snare hereafter, that I offer the words herein set forth; and to those especially who are already feeling in their pockets for the wherewithal to pay for their first Degree,

I trust they will come as a well-timed and not altogether unheeded Baccalaureate.

I am an old bachelor, confirmed, hardened and hopeless; equally removed from all desire to change my condition, and all belief in the possibility of doing so, if I would. My celibacy is as certain as that of the most devout monk in Christendom, and as joyous as it is sure. I think of my present lot and future prospects, and I am perfectly happy, except that I sometimes drop a tear over the misfortunes of my brother man, as I see the carriages go by to the Church, though whether it be a funeral or a wedding I never take the trouble to inquire. "It's all one," say I to myself, "poor fellow, he's gone!" So the carriages pass on, and the people enter the Church, and the bachelor has lost a friend! But it's all one—a bachelor can afford to live without friends.

In the course of my experience I have been a good observer of Bachelors always are, and that is the reason why they remain such. The tongue of man wags about a thousand times too much for the good of the world; but in this respect that noisy appendage of the "fair sect" excels beyond all comparison; for the female tongue differs from the male in being longer, sharper, and more durable. Whatever may be their relative capacity for the sterner pursuits of science and art, no one can doubt that, so far as an accomplished linguist is concerned, the feminine branch of the race possesses qualifications which render all competition utterly out of the question. We read that "Nestor, the sweet-speaking orator of the Pylians, lived through three generations of talking men;" but it is nowhere recorded that any mortal has survived half that number of talking women; and I once knew a poor man who perished from the eternal volubility of one. Though he left a family like that of John Rogers, and suffered a martyrdom not less cruel, Mr. Fox has somehow omitted his name, and the forgetful world has never done justice to his memory. His loving spouse was unceasingly vocal, and, as in duty bound, strove to bring up her children in the same praiseworthy habit. She treated them like so many kettledrums, and brought the music out by continual beating. Her own voice furnished the everlasting key-note to the family discord, and when its tones, harsh and spasmodic, were mingled with the sharp demi-semiquavers of the tiny urchin she happened to be shaking, there resulted a combination of sounds, melodious and otherwise, which was quite edify ing to hear; though, for some unaccountable reason, the younger performer always persisted in thinking it rather disagreeable to practice.