" [Footnote: St. Martin]
Another attempt we will give, by an obscure observer of our own day
and country, to draw some lines of the desired image. It was suggested
by seeing the design of Crawford's Orpheus, and connecting with the
circumstance of the American, in his garret at Rome, making choice of
this subject, that of Americans here at home showing such ambition to
represent the character, by calling their prose and verse "Orphic
sayings"--"Orphics." We wish we could add that they have shown that
musical apprehension of the progress of Nature through her ascending
gradations which entitled them so to do, but their attempts are
frigid, though sometimes grand; in their strain we are not warmed by
the fire which fertilized the soil of Greece.
Orpheus was a lawgiver by theocratic commission. He understood nature,
and made her forms move to his music. He told her secrets in the form
of hymns, Nature as seen in the mind of God. His soul went forth
toward all beings, yet could remain sternly faithful to a chosen type
of excellence. Seeking what he loved, he feared not death nor hell;
neither could any shape of dread daunt his faith in the power of the
celestial harmony that filled his soul.
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