He could talk, and not irrationally. Somewhat of a babbler, indeed,did people begin to think him; for he was apt to discourse atwearisome length, of marvels of mechanism that he had read about inbooks, but which he had learned to consider as absolutely fabulous.
Among them he enumerated the Man of Brass, constructed by AlbertusMagnus, and the Brazen Head of Friar Bacon; and, coming down tolater times, the automata of a little coach and horses, which, itwas pretended, had been manufactured for the Dauphin of France;together with an insect that buzzed about the ear like a living fly,and yet was but a contrivance of minute steel springs. There was astory, too, of a duck that waddled, and quacked, and ate; though,had any honest citizen purchased it for dinner, he would have foundhimself cheated with the mere mechanical apparition of a duck.
"But all these accounts," said Owen Warland, "I am now satisfied,are mere impositions."Then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that he once thoughtdifferently. In his idle and dreamy days he had considered itpossible, in a certain sense, to spiritualize machinery; and tocombine with the new species of life and motion, thus produced, abeauty that should attain to the ideal, which Nature has proposed toherself, in all her creatures, but has never taken pains to realize.
He seemed, however, to retain no very distinct perception either ofthe process of achieving this object, or of the design itself.
"I have thrown it all aside now," he would say. "It was a dream,such as young men are always mystifying themselves with. Now that Ihave acquired a little common sense, it makes me laugh to think of it.
Poor, poor, and fallen Owen Warland! These were the symptoms thathe had ceased to be an inhabitant of the better sphere that liesunseen around us. He had lost his faith in the invisible, and nowprided himself, as such unfortunates invariably do, in the wisdomwhich rejected much that even his eye could see, and trustedconfidently in nothing but what his hand could touch. This is thecalamity of men whose spiritual part dies out of them, and leavesthe grosser understanding to assimilate them more and more to thethings of which alone it can take cognizance. But, in Owen Warland,the spirit was not dead, nor past away; it only slept.
How it awoke again, is not recorded. Perhaps, the torpid slumberwas broken by a convulsive pain. Perhaps, as in a former instance, thebutterfly came and hovered about his head, and reinspired him- as,indeed, this creature of the sunshine had always a mysteriousmission for the artist- reinspired him with the former purpose ofhis life. Whether it were pain or happiness that thrilled throughhis veins, his first impulse was to thank Heaven for rendering himagain the being of thought, imagination, and keenest sensibility, thathe had long ceased to be.
"Now for my task," said he. "Never did I feel such strength forit as now."Yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to toil the morediligently, by an anxiety lest death should surprise him in themidst of his labors. This anxiety, perhaps, is common to all men whoset their hearts upon anything so high, in their own view of it,that life becomes of importance only as conditional to itsaccomplishment. So long as we love life for itself, we seldom dreadthe losing it. When we desire life for the attainment of an object, werecognize the frailty of its texture. But, side by side with thissense of insecurity, there is a vital faith in our invulnerabilityto the shaft of death, while engaged in any task that seems assignedby Providence as our proper thing to do, and which the world wouldhave cause to mourn for, should we leave it unaccomplished. Can thephilosopher, big with the inspiration of an idea that is to reformmankind, believe that he is to be beckoned from this sensibleexistence, at the very instant when he is mustering his breath tospeak the word of light? Should he perish so, the weary ages maypass away- the world's whole life- sand may fall, drop by drop- beforeanother intellect is prepared to develope the truth that might havebeen uttered then. But history affords many an example, where the mostprecious spirit, at any particular epoch manifested in human shape,has gone hence untimely, without space allowed him, so far as mortaljudgment could discern, to perform his mission on the earth. Theprophet dies; and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain lives on.
The poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the scopeof mortal ears, in a celestial choir. The painter- as Allston did-leaves half his conception on the canvas, to sadden us with itsimperfect beauty, and goes to picture forth the whole, if it be noirreverence to say so, in the hues of Heaven. But, rather, suchincomplete designs of this life will be perfected nowhere. This sofrequent abortion of man's dearest projects must be taken as aproof, that the deeds of earth, however etherealized by piety orgenius, are without value, except as exercises and manifestations ofthe spirit. In Heaven, all ordinary thought is higher and moremelodious than Milton's song. Then, would he add another verse toany strain that he had left unfinished here?
