Of the liberty-loving Swiss, as an insult to the
American nation. The sophisms by which slaveholding has been justified
from the Bible have left their slimy track even here. Alas! is it thus
America fulfils her high destiny? Must she send missionaries abroad to
preach despotism?
Walking the other evening with M. Fazy, who is, of course, French in
education, we talked of our English literature. He. had Hamlet in
French - just think of it. One never feels the national difference so
much as in thinking of Shakspeare in French! Madame de Stael says of
translation, that music written for one instrument cannot be played
upon another. I asked if he had read Milton.
"Yes."
"And how did you like him?"
"0," with a kind of shiver, "he is so cold!"
Now, I felt that the delicate probe of the French mind had dissected
out a shade of feeling of which I had often been conscious. There is a
coldness about all the luscious exuberance of Milton, like the wind
that blows from, the glaciers across these flowery valleys. How serene
his angels in their adamantine virtue! yet what sinning, suffering
soul could find sympathy in them? The utter want of sympathy for the
fallen angels, in the whole celestial circle, is shocking.
