Were an oyster, sunk
deep in oozy water and mud and fastened to some rotten piece of timber by the
thick shell which defends him from all access to external information, suddenly
to set up for a speculative philosopher, he would make just such a hand of it
as do the one-ideaed people who now abound upon all the shores of the
intellect, the civilized deep over, and in this country, particularly, form
great oyster-beds of shell-fish opinion.
He that adapts a system
for his thought has to shut himself in a shell and live without his senses, lest
these should bring him in something against the watery one-idea in which he
lives. Not to be interrupted in its exclusive contemplation, he walls himself
about with it, and as its more solid components harden and thicken about him, he
lies and fattens upon the more thin and fluid, until lo! some political
fishmonger comes, with along pair of tongs, tears him away from his beloved
bottom, cracks, with oyster-knife, this crustacean defences, and swallows him
down, with many another, easy victims of party voracity and just fit to be its
nourishment.
So much for these
political or social or even religious monomaniacs, as a class – people who will
clap everything upon the Procrustean bed of their system: who see, hear, feel,
smell, taste, think, know, fancy, only by it, and will believe nothing else:
who, turning democrats, will have it that every body and every thing shall be radical
and revolutionary; or taking to monarchy, want every kind to be a despot; or
being Protestant or being Catholic, wish to break down all law, in order that
they may be able to destroy their opponents; or, being State Rights men, are
eager to pull down the Union; or, finally, being fond of Liberty, not only want
to obtain for men that blessing at the sacrifice of every other, but are really
so obfuscated by their one idea that they can and will have nothing else: to
them, that which agrees with their kink, is; and all that will not, is not:
there is nothing but their kink: no gospel, no government, no law, no
literature.
So much for these
worthies as a class. As an individual example of them, there can be nothing more
speaking than the following ravings of that king of kinks, Horace Greeley, about
the sable literature of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
The literature of
Liberty is one with wings. No Pegasus is it which flounders in the world
without flipping a wing; but a volant thing, self-sustained and motived[.] We
are particularly reminded of this fact by the success which has attended the
dissemination of Mrs. Stowe’s work, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We learn from the
publishers, Messrs. Jewett & Co., of Boston, that they have presented and
sold three hundred thousand copies of
that work. Three hundred thousand books! Think of it! Books which lie on
tables, which are put on shelves, which do not die with the day they are read;
contain these Sermons of Liberty – sermons worked into the portraitures of persons, places and thrilling events, and
all that is most attractive to the great army of thirsters after knowledge, and
above all to the young. Three hundred thousand books represent some two million
of readers sooner or later, and these two million converse with, affect,
influence, win over others the views they may have adopted from such reading.
“The literature of
liberty,” quoth Greeley, “hath wings.” No doubt: it is quite flighty enough to
have them.
“It is no Pegasus,” adds
Horace. Decidedly not: ‘tis a donkey.
“It does not flounder,”
continues he. Yet ‘tis as flat as ever was flounder.
“It is a voilant thing.”
So is every black beetle that bobs against the wall.
“It is self-sustained
and motived,” avers the classical
herbivorist. So is a soap-bubble.
But he was “particularly
reminded” of liberty’s literature. Ah, Greely, ‘twas but a small effort of memory
for you to remember all the literature you ever knew.
“Three hundred thousand
books.” Well, why not? ‘Twas written for fools, and ought to have plenty of
readers.
“Books which lie on
table.” What a marvelous literature, that can like on a table!
But that’s not all: it “can
be put on the shelf.” Yes, and there is will soon be laid.
Mighty muncher of
vegetables! Go to grass, with thy ebony litter of literature, thou modern Nebuchadnezzar!
[New Orleans Daily Crescent. ([New Orleans, La.]), 14 Jan. 1854. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. Link here.]
[Edward William Johnston (1799-1867).
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896).
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly (1851-1852).
Horace Greeley (1811-1872), who helped form the Republican Party and was a vegetarian (hence the food quips). Editor of the New-York Daily Tribune.]
[Many thanks to Sue Davis, William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration.]
[Edward William Johnston (1799-1867).
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896).
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly (1851-1852).
Horace Greeley (1811-1872), who helped form the Republican Party and was a vegetarian (hence the food quips). Editor of the New-York Daily Tribune.]
[Many thanks to Sue Davis, William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration.]
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