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Page 79
When it had become definitely known that such was the enormous wealth
inherited, there were, of course, many speculations as to the mode of
its disposal. The gigantic magnitude and the immediately available
nature of the sum, dazzled and bewildered all who thought upon the
topic. The possessor of any appreciable amount of money might have
been imagined to perform any one of a thousand things. With riches
merely surpassing those of any citizen, it would have been easy to
suppose him engaging to supreme excess in the fashionable
extravagances of his time; or busying himself with political
intrigues; or aiming at ministerial power, or purchasing increase of
nobility, or devising gorgeous architectural piles; or collecting
large specimens of Virtu; or playing the munificent patron of Letters
and Art; or endowing and bestowing his name upon extensive
institutions of charity. But, for the inconceivable wealth in the
actual possession of the young heir, these objects and all ordinary
objects were felt to be inadequate. Recourse was had to figures; and
figures but sufficed to confound. It was seen, that even at three per
cent, the annual income of the inheritance amounted to no less than
thirteen millions and five hundred thousand dollars; which was one
million and one hundred and twenty-five thousand per month; or
thirty-six thousand, nine hundred and eighty-six per day, or one
thousand five hundred and forty-one per hour, or six and twenty
dollars for every minute that flew. Thus the usual track of
supposition was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to imagine.
There were some who even conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest
himself forthwith of at least two-thirds of his fortune as of utterly
superfluous opulence; enriching whole troops of his relatives by
division of his superabundance.
I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made up
his mind upon a topic which had occasioned so much of discussion to
his friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his
decision. In the widest and noblest sense, he was a poet. He
comprehended, moreover, the true character, the august aims, the
supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment. The proper
gratification of the sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the
creation of novel forms of Beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his
early education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged with
what is termed materialism the whole cast of his ethical
speculations; and it was this bias, perhaps, which imperceptibly led
him to perceive that the most advantageous, if not the sole
legitimate field for the exercise of the poetic sentiment, was to be
found in the creation of novel moods of purely physical loveliness.
Thus it happened that he became neither musician nor poet; if we use
this latter term in its every -- day acceptation. Or it might have
been that he became neither the one nor the other, in pursuance of an
idea of his which I have already mentioned -- the idea, that in the
contempt of ambition lay one of the essential principles of happiness
on earth. Is it not, indeed, possible that while a high order of
genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is invariably above that
which is termed ambition? And may it not thus happen that many far
greater than Milton, have contentedly remained "mute and inglorious?"
I believe the world has never yet seen, and that, unless through some
series of accidents goading the noblest order of mind into
distasteful exertion, the world will never behold, that full extent
of triumphant execution, in the richer productions of Art, of which
the human nature is absolutely capable.
Mr. Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived
more profoundly enamored both of Music and the Muse. Under other
circumstances than those which invested him, it is not impossible
that he would have become a painter. The field of sculpture, although
in its nature rigidly poetical, was too limited in its extent and in
its consequences, to have occupied, at any time, much of his
attention. And I have now mentioned all the provinces in which even
the most liberal understanding of the poetic sentiment has declared
this sentiment capable of expatiating. I mean the most liberal public
or recognized conception of the idea involved in the phrase "poetic
sentiment." But Mr. Ellison imagined that the richest, and altogether
the most natural and most suitable province, had been blindly
neglected. No definition had spoken of the Landscape-Gardener, as of
the poet; yet my friend could not fail to perceive that the creation
of the Landscape-Garden offered to the true muse the most magnificent
of opportunities. Here was, indeed, the fairest field for the display
of invention, or imagination, in the endless combining of forms of
novel Beauty; the elements which should enter into combination being,
at all times, and by a vast superiority, the most glorious which the
earth could afford. In the multiform of the tree, and in the
multicolor of the flower, he recognized the most direct and the most
energetic efforts of Nature at physical loveliness. And in the
direction or concentration of this effort, or, still more properly,
in its adaption to the eyes which were to behold it upon earth, he
perceived that he should be employing the best means -- laboring to
the greatest advantage -- in the fulfilment of his destiny as Poet.
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