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‘ [238] seen in the vinegar drop held to the sun. How they look, how they feel, how base it makes them all!’ ‘Every human being is entitled to the means of life, as the trout is to his brook or the lark to the blue sky. Is it well to put a human “young one” here to die of hunger, thirst, and nakedness, or else be preserved as a pauper? Is this fair earth but a poor-house by creation and intent? Was it made for that?—and these other round things we see dancing in the firmament to the music of the spheres, are they all great shining poor-houses?’ ‘The divines always admit things after the age has adopted them. They are as careful of the age as the weathercock is of the wind. You might as well catch an old experienced weathercock, on some ancient Orthodox steeple, standing all day with its tail east in a strong out wind, as the divines at odds with the age.’ But we must cease quoting. The admirers of Jean Paul Richter might find much of the charm and variety of the ‘Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces’ in this newspaper collection. They may see, perhaps, as we do, some things which they cannot approve of, the tendency of which, however intended, is very questionable. But, with us, they will pardon something to the spirit of liberty, much to that of love and humanity which breathes through all. Disgusted and heart-sick at the general indifference of Church and clergy to the temporal condition of the people,—at their apologies for and defences of slavery, war, and capital punishment,—Rogers
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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