Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis eBook

Charles wrote Burrill a manly letter during the week.  The Arcadian beauty of the place is lost to me, and would have been lost, had there been no change.  Seen from this city life, you cannot think how fair it seems.  So calm a congregation of devoted men and true women performing their perpetual service to the Idea of their lives, and clothed always in white garments.  Though you change your ritual, I feel your hope is unchanged; and though it seems to me less beautiful than the one you leave, it is otherwise to you.  There was a mild grace about our former life that no system attains.  The unity in variety bound us very closely together.  I doubt if we shall be again among you, as I had hoped.  I cannot, in thought, lose my hold upon the place without pain not to be spoken of.  On the whole, I cannot say, even to you, just what I would about it.  It will leak out from the pores of my hands before we have done with each other.

I hear no music here now, except Timm and Rakemann.  Charlotte Dana is here; I have heard her only once.  The opera is a wretched affair.  By-the-by, I gave W.H.  Channing an article for The Present, very short, upon music and Ole Bull.  If he publishes it, it will not be new to you, though I do not remember if I have talked with you about all at which it hints.  I await orders and manuscripts about the French stories; though you are very busy, all of you, just now, perhaps too much so for that business.  The rest stands adjourned.  Give my love to friends.  Yrs ever,

G.W.C.

Will you say to C. Dana that I would like to come for a short visit—­at least, before going elsewhere; and that as soon as possible, say in a week.  Can I come?  If not, ask him to say when.  Yours,

J. Burrill Curtis.

Feb’y 27.

X

NEW YORK, March 3, 1844.

Your letter was very grateful to me.  I had supposed the silence would be broken by some music burst of devotion, and that all friends would be dearer to you the more imperative the call upon your strength to battle for the Ideal.  It half reproved me for the meagre sheet the same day brought to your hand.  And yet could we see how all the forces of heaven and earth unite to shape the particle that floats idly by us, we should never see meagreness more.

I do not think (and what a heresy!) that your life has found more than an object, not yet a centre.  The new order will systematize your course; but I do not see that it aids your journey.  Is it not the deeper insight you constantly gain into music which explains the social economy you adopt, and not the economy the music?  One fine symphony or song leads all reforms captive, as the grand old paintings in St. Peter’s completely ignore all sects.  Association will only interpret music so far as it is a pure art, as poetry and sculpture and painting explain each other.  But necessarily Brook Farm, association and all, do not regard it artistically, but charitably.  It regenerates the world with them because it does tangible good, not because it refines.  We must view all pursuits as arts before we can accomplish.