It would be a grave mistake to confound honor with mere honesty. The latter falls within the category of the homely virtues of common men, while the former is the mainspring of the moral character of the gentleman. Indeed, common honesty scarcely deserves to be esteemed a great affirmative merit at all by rightly thinking men; except, perhaps, when it has heroically conquered a severe temptation offered to some unselfish weakness or pious affection. Only in a community where roguery is common, can mere simple honesty take high rank as a positive virtue. True, it does not deny any one his exact due, but this is little more than the result of a good animal instinct. Some beasts seem to possess it. Honor, however, is peculiarly an affirmative attribute of pure and lofty manhood. Honesty in general is simply the absence of all fraud in human dealings; honor is quite that and much more besides. Honesty will unflinchingly take to itself the benefit of a doubt in its favor; honor, however, will voluntarily give up that doubt, even to its enemy. Unquestionably the two words once had a somewhat similar meaning, but as manners and ideas refine, words are used to define and describe nicer discriminations. Honesty embraces the notion of a duty of perfect obligation rigidly imposed by moral, if not positive law. Honor obeys a self-imposed obligation. A man may be thoroughly honest, yet obtuse to many of the cardinal qualifications of a gentleman. Honesty, in its purpose, looks but little outside of self; honor generously aims to deserve the good opinion of the best; finding keener anguish in a moral stain or blemish than in grievous bodily wounds. Honesty guards its own goods, and loves self-interest; honor freely scatters its own goods and ignores self-interest, while it gallantly protects the weak, relieves the oppressed from the grasp of cruel force, redresses the injuries of others, or defends its own pure dignity.

"Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint,

And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint."

William Greenough Thayer Shedd.

BORN in Acton, Mass., 1820.

THE FOUNDATION OF LITERARY STYLE.

[Literary Essays. 1878.]

AVING a distinctly clear apprehension of truth, the mind utters

HAV

its conceptions with all that simplicity and pertinence of language

which characterizes the narrative of an honest eye-witness. Nothing intervenes between thought and expression. The clear, direct view instantaneously becomes the clear, direct statement. And when the clear conception is thus united with the profound intuition, thought assumes its most perfect form. The form in which it appears is full and round with solid truth, and yet distinct and transparent. The immaterial principle is embodied in just the right amount of matter; the former does not overflow, nor does the latter overlay. The discourse exhibits the same opposite and counterbalancing excellences which we see in the forms of nature—the simplicity and the richness, the negligence and the niceness, the solid opacity and the aërial transparence.

It is rare to find such a union of the two main elements of culture, and consequently rare to find them in style. A profoundly contemplative mind is often mystic and vague in its discourse, because it has not come to a clear, as well as profound, consciousness-because distinctness has not gone along with depth of apprehension. The discourse of such a mind is thoughtful and suggestive, it may be, but is lacking in that scientific, logical power which penetrates and illumines. It has warmth and glow, it may be, but it is the warmth of the stove (to use the comparison of another)-warmth without light.

On the other hand, it often happens that the culture of the mind is clear but shallow. In this case nothing but the merest and most obvious commonplace is uttered, in a manner intelligible and plain enough, to be sure, but without force or weight, or even genuine fire, of style. Shallow waters show a very clear bottom, and but little intensity of light is needed in order to display the pebbles and clean sand. That must be a "purest ray serene"-a pencil of strongest light-which discloses the black, rich, wreck-strewn depths. For the clearness of depth is very different from the clearness of shallowness. The former is a positive quality. It is the positive and powerful irradiation of that which is solid and dark by that which is ethereal and light. The latter is a negative quality. It is the mere absence of darkness, because there is no substance to be dark-no body in which (if we may be allowed the expression) darkness can inhere. Nothing is more luminous than solid fire; nothing is more flashy than an ignited void.

These two fundamental characteristics of mental culture lie at the foundation of style. Even if the secondary qualities of style could exist without the weightiness and clearness of manner which spring from the union of profound with distinct apprehension, they would exist in vain. The ornament is worthless, if there is nothing to sustain it. The basrelief is valueless, without the slab to support it. But these secondary qualities of style-the beauty, and the elegance, and the harmonyderive all their charm and power from springing out of the primary

qualities, and in this way, ultimately, out of the deep and clear culture of the mind itself-from being the white flower of the black root.

Style, when having this mental and natural origin, is to be put into the first class of fine forms. It is the form of thought; and, as a piece of art, is as worthy of study and admiration as those glorious material forms which embody the ideas of Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Raphael. It is the form in which the human mind manifests its freest, purest, and most mysterious activity-its thinking. There is nothing mechanical in its origin, or stale in its nature. It is plastic and fresh as the immortal energy of which it is the air and bearing.

THERE

Charles Astor Bristed.

BORN in New York, N. Y., 1820. DIED in Washington, D. C., 1874.

A CAMBRIDGE BOAT-RACE.

[Five Years in an English University. 1852.]

HERE is one great point where the English have the advantage over us: they understand how to take care of their health. Not that the Cantabs are either "tee-totallers" or "Grahamites." There is indeed a tradition that a "total-abstinence" society was once established in Cambridge, and that in three years it increased to two members; whether it be still in existence, however, I have not been able to learn. But every Cantab takes his two hours' exercise per diem, by walking, riding, rowing, fencing, gymnastics, etc. How many colleges are there here where the students average one hour a day real exercise? Our Columbia boys roll ten-pins and play billiards, which is better than nothing, but very inferior to out-door amusements. In New England (at least it was so ten years ago at Yale), the last thing thought of is exercise-even the mild walks which are dignified with the name of exercise there, how unlike the Cantab's constitutional of eight miles in less than two hours! If there is a fifteen days' prayer-meeting, or a thousand-and-first new debating-society, or a lecture on some specialité which may be of use to half a dozen out of the hundred or two who attend it, over goes the exercise at once. And the consequence is-what? There is not a finer-looking set of young men in the world than the Cantabs, and as to their healthwhy, one hundred and thirty Freshmen enter at Trinity every year, and it is no unfrequent occurrence that, whatever loss they sustain from other causes (accidents will happen in the best regulated colleges), death

takes away none of them during the three years and a half which comprise their under-graduate course. Whose memory can match this at Yale? If our youngsters exercised their legs and arms just four times as much as they do, and their tongues ten times as little, it would be the better for them every way. But I am not now reading a lecture on dietetics, so let us come back to the shores of the Cam.

Classic Camus being a very narrow stream, scarcely wider than a canal, it is impossible for the boats to race side by side. The following expedient has therefore been adopted: They are drawn up in a line, two lengths between each, and the contest consists in each boat endeavoring to touch with its bow the stern of the one before it, which operation is called bumping; and at the next race the bumper takes the place of the bumped. The distance rowed is about one mile and three quarters. To be "head of the river" is a distinction much coveted and hard fought for. Each college has at least one boat-club; in Trinity there are three, with three or four crews in each. About nine races take place in the season; they are of great use in preparing the men for the annual match. with Oxford, in which the Cantabs are generally victorious. Indeed, they are the best smooth-water oars in England, if not in the world.

The Caius boat at this time was head of the river, the First Trinity second, the Third Trinity the third. Some hard pulling was expected among the leading boats. The Third Trinity were confident of bumping the first.

While you have been reading the above, you may suppose H— and myself viewing the scene of action, distant about two miles from the town. The time of starting is at hand, and gownsmen (not in their gowns) are hurrying by us on all sides, some mounted, but the greater part on foot; some following the beaten track, others taking a shorter cut over fields and fences. Here comes a sporting character, riding his own "hanimal." See with what a knowing look man and horse approach the fence. Hip! he is over, and six inches to spare. Ah! here is another, who, though not very well mounted, must needs show his dexterity at the same place. Not quite, stranger! The horse has his fore feet clean over, but it by no means follows that he will do the same with the hind ones. Crack! he has hit the top bar and carried it off several yards. Not so bad after all. He might not do it again so neatly.

Bang! there goes the first gun! In three minutes there will be another, in two more a third, and then for it! What are those men laughing at? Ah! I see; no wonder. An ambitious character on a sorry hack has driven his Rozinante at a ditch. No you don't, mister! The horse, wiser than his rider, refuses the leap, with a sagacious shake of the head. He is hauled back for a fresh start, and the whip applied abundantly. Same result as before. The tittering of the passers-by

reaches our hero's ears; he waxes wrathful, and discharges on the reluctant steed a perfect hurricane of blows!

Spla-ash! with the utmost composure imaginable the old horse has stepped into the ditch, say three feet deep, casting his rider headlong by the abrupt descent. Serves you right, my friend. We can't stop to see what becomes of you, for there goes the second gun, and we must make haste to secure a good place. Well, here we are, at the upper end of "the Long Reach." We can just spy the head of the first boat below yonder corner. As the hardest pulling always begins here, we shall have a good view of it. Ha! do you see that pull? The eight stalwart Caius men bent to their oars the moment the last gun flashed, and its report reaches our ears as they are stooping to the second stroke. Here they come at a rapid rate, and with them the whole cortège of horse and foot, running along the bank and cheering the boats. Take care of yourselves! A young colt, frightened by the uproar, is exhibiting some very decided capers, to the manifest discomposure of those around him, and finishes by jumping into the river, fortunately not near enough to the boats to disturb them. His rider maintains his seat throughout, and they emerge somewhat wet, but otherwise apparently uninjured. And whether they were or not, no one cared, for the leading boats were now rounding the upper corner of the Reach. On they come at a good rate, the Caius men taking it quite easy, and pulling leisurely, as much as to say, "What's the use of hurrying ourselves for them?" Indeed the First Trinity bad lost half a length, and were therefore in some danger themselves.

Caius passed me, for I was far from a good runner, so did the two Trinity boats and "Maudlin" (Magdalen), when suddenly there uprose a mighty shout, "Trinity! Trinity! Go it, Trinity!" and there was First Trinity shooting forward with a magical impulse, away, away from the threatening Third Trinity, and up, up, up to the head boat. The poor Caius crew looked like men in a nightmare: they pulled without making any headway, while the others kept fast overhauling them at every stroke. The partisans of the respective boats filled the air with their shouts. "Now Keys!" "Now Trinity!" "Why don't you pull, Keys?" "Now you have 'em, Trinity!" "Keys!" "Trinity! Trinity!" "Now's your chance, Keys!" "Save yourself, Keys!" And it did really appear as if the Caius men would save themselves, for, with a sudden, mighty effort, they made a great addition to their boat's velocity in a very short time. I began to fear they had been "playing 'possum all the while, and could walk away from us after all.

The uproar and confusion of the scene were now at their height. Men and horses ran promiscuously along the bank, occasionally interfering with each other. A dozen persons might have been trampled

VOL. VII.-35