Each once loved form our hearts recall.
Accurs'd be hope—accurs'd be faith—
And curs'd endurance more than all.
These are the outpourings of a humor, which only comes over one occasionally, and which must be felt to be expressed, for for such passages every moment of inspiration is not the happy one. Genius is a will o' the wisp which nothing but another will o' the wisp can follow—and that will not—many a man—every man perhaps at times is as capable of execration when his wounded spirit stirs and stings within him as Gœthe's self—he becomes, so to speak, a genius for the moment—ad học—but then he has his own griefs to pour out in his own way, and will not curse in harness. When the heart sickens and rebels in its convulsive energy, its deep and baneful indignation and fearful eloquence are uncontrollably its own—they cannot be improved for the purposes of society like steam or gunpowder and made to work particular machinery, or crammed into some particular cannon, to drive such a thunderbolt of cursing as this of Faust's through the barriers that separate language from language. Feeling may do much for an imitation; it may flow like a stream from a fish-pond through the track which a torrent has marked out; but where is the power, the depth, the glory, the devastation of the giant,
Stirpesque raptas et pecus et domos
Volventis una non sine magno
Clamore montium vicinæ que sylvæ.
Yet feeling may do much, and that too while it is still capable of being governed and directed, but not unless it be very capable also of ceasing to be so, and even in some danger of it; and the man who has that feeling in any high degree, and who makes such an effort as the one in question with any thing like success, should have a mark set on him, and an injunction should always lie signed in chancery ready to come down at an instant's warning on his person and estate. All may be well while his safety valves work easily; but who shall calculate the effect of a scolding wife, adversity, loss of reputation, or a fog.
