CIHM 
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 Series 
 (Monographs) 
 
 ICMH 
 
 Collection de 
 microfiches 
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 Canadian Inatltiita for Hlatorlcal KIcrarapraducliona / Inadtut Canadian da mierorapraduetiana Materiqiiaa 
 
Tlw Imiinit* hat antmpMd to oMain th* kait origi iwt 
 copy Maitabl* for filminf. Fmuitm of ttiis oopy wMali 
 HMV b« biMiograpfitnHy vniqm. wrtiicfc inoy alMr any 
 
 Of Ma iMa(H HI tlia lao^oniatiofit oc wiimii may 
 MffiifiaMitt-r B lm ni tha usual mathod of f timiiit, mn 
 
 ICown raftoffod and/or laminatad/ 
 Coovartiwa rastauraa ai/ou i w l l i c u H a 
 
 D 
 
 LJcwin 
 
 0Colo«nd Ml (i.*. oMw Man takn at btefc)/ 
 iatn ds wulaw li.«. mim «|im Mmm •« 
 
 D 
 
 n 
 
 ICalaand ptam and/of iNvnratiaiM/ 
 nmotiM Mtev ilUutrMiom an « oiila»r 
 
 I » o m tt with Mlw mtm'ul/ 
 
 r^ I Tiflkt toindinff may causa slMdwrn or dfirartiMi 
 
 1 * I atong kiiariormarain/ 
 
 La falwra aarraa paut ca aiar da I'omfen ou da la 
 diaanioii la long da la maria intariawa 
 
 I I Wanklaaipaaa 
 L_J wMlin Mm HI 
 
 Ilia pant qua cartainaipagatfelaMliat aimiiiaf 
 Ion d'twa tattauratiaii apparainam dam la ama, 
 maa, lanqua eala tiait paniMa. aaa pafn n'om 
 
 ananplain qu'il 
 
 L' 
 
 Ma 
 
 aaaaplaira «ri am pam-toa uniqyaa dv paim da nt 
 
 mt il ln paplil M i . Wd paaim i awdU la« um iiiiafa 
 tiptadMlia. an qui paaiaii i anlpaf — a i ad H la ai iaii 
 
 Dsr 
 
 >ini diiiiid/ 
 
 ■ raatand aadter li 
 
 >liiai i» w aiir*aa ai/a« p id l ialiii 
 
 n 
 
 as: 
 El: 
 
 □ OiialHyoipfiaiaariaa/ 
 QuaiM Mpla da l1«p«aaM<i 
 
 □ ContiAuoaa pasinatian/ 
 ratmanan aaminiM 
 
 □ Indudaa indaxM/ 
 Canprand ua (daa) indaK 
 
 Titia an haadaf lakan fran:/ 
 
 □ TtdapataofiHiM 
 r*«adatiMdala 
 
 r~*1 Caption al iiaiH/ 
 
 D 
 
 Tim da dipan da la livniaon 
 
 
 
 B t n atH a a ( p tiiodiqaai) da la linainn 
 
 Additianal commana.7 Pagaa nholly obacurad by tittuaa hava baan raftlnad ta anaura tlw batt 
 
 CaMmaniairai mppMaiantatni: poaalbla iaaga. Pagination la aa follona: p. [i]-v1, (5].1CC, [3 ]-223. 
 
 Tkia iiaai i< (ilniad ai Mm ladiictian mia thacliad balaw/ 
 Ca dacaaiani att f Unit a« laaa da rMactien indiqat ai dawnai. 
 lOX MX 1«X 
 
 22X 
 
 »x 
 
 J 
 
 I2X 
 
 20X 
 
 MX 
 
 ax 
 
 xx 
 
Tha copy tllmMl h«r« hat b««n raproduead thanki 
 to tha ganaroalty of: 
 
 National Library of Canada 
 
 L'axamplaira fllm4 fut roprodult grtca t la 
 0*n4raaM da: 
 
 Blblloth*<|ua nationala du Canada 
 
 Tha Imagaa a^paaring hara ara tha boat quality 
 poMibIa conaidaring tho condition and laglblHty 
 of tha original copy and In kaaping with tha 
 filming contract cpoolfleatlona. 
 
 Original coplaa in printad papar covara ara fllmad 
 boglnning with tha front covar and andlng on 
 tin last paga with a printad or llluatratad Impraa- 
 ilon, or tlM back covar whan approprlata. All 
 otiior original coplaa ara fllmad baginning on Dm 
 first paga with a printad or Hiuatratad Impraa- 
 slon, and andlng on ttia last paga with a printad 
 or llluatratad Impraaalon. 
 
 Tha last rsoordad frama on aach microfieho 
 shall contain tlw symbol ^»' (moaning "CON- 
 TINUEO"), or tha symbol V (moaning "END"), 
 whielnvar appllaa. 
 
 Laa Imagas sulvantas ont tut raprodultaa avae la 
 plus grand soin. eompta tanu da la condition at 
 da la nsttat* da l'axamplaira film*, at an 
 conformM avac las conditions du contrat da 
 filmags. 
 
 Laa axamplalras orlglnaux dont la eouvartura an 
 paplar ast Imprlmto sont fllmis an commandant 
 par la pramlar phrt at an tarmlnant solt par la 
 damMra paga qui comporta una amprainta 
 d'impraasion ou d'lHustration, solt par la saeond 
 plat, salon la eas. Toua laa autras axamplalras 
 ortgiiiaux sont fllm4s an oommanfam par la 
 pramMra paga qui comporta una amprainta 
 dimpraaslon ou d'lHustration at an tarmlnant par 
 la dsmiira paga qui comporta una talla 
 amprainta. 
 
 Un daa symbolas suhrants apparattra sur la 
 damMra Imaga da ctiaqua microflcha. sskin la 
 caa: la aymboia -*- signlfia "A SUIVRE", la 
 aymbola V algnifia "FIN". 
 
 Maps, platas. charts, ate., may bs fllmad at 
 diffarant raduction ratios. Thoss too larga to ba 
 sntlraly included In ona axposurs ara fllmad 
 baginning In tha uppar laft hand comar, laft to 
 right and top to bottom, as many framaa aa 
 requlrad. Tha following diagrama liiustrata tlia 
 mathod: 
 
 \j— cartas, planehas, tablaaux. ate. pauvant ttra 
 fllmte t das taux da rMuctlon difffcants. 
 Lorsqua la documant ast trop grand pour Mrs 
 raprodult an un saul elichi. 11 ast film* i partir 
 da I'angia supiriaur gauch*. da gaucha * droita. 
 at da haut an baa. an prsnant la nombra 
 d'Imagas ntesasalra. Laa diagrammes sulvants 
 Hiustiant la mMhodo. 
 
 1 2 3 
 
 1 
 
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EDfT/ON 
 
 
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 ivLIOT 
 
 M?*« 
 
 ■ '""■.'-' MO RAN-: 
 
 gfCAf/f 
 
 ( iforge Eliot's H ome, FoUiliill Rotid, Cmeiitry. 
 
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CANADIAN COPYRIGHT EDITION 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF 
 THEOPHRASTUS 
 
 SUCH, ESSAYS @f LEAVES 
 FROM A NOTE-BOOK 
 By GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 TORONTO • GEORGE N. MORANG 
 & COMPANY, LIMITED • MCMII 
 

 Batwad 
 
 NiMlMi HuMlrad 
 
 r~** «• A« W hriluMt of CM.a., 
 
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 "OUMACOHMIIT, 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 00937665 
 
 4 
 IP* 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THK0PHRA8TUS SUCH. 
 OAmm 
 
 I. LoOKixa IirwAKo j 
 
 U. • LooKiHo Baoewabd „ 
 
 ni. How Wi EMOocmAO* Bcskasob n 
 
 IV. A Man ScKraiiiD at Hu Omoutautt . . 44 
 
 V. A Too OiruuTTiAL Man gg 
 
 VI. Onlt Tuipm jj 
 
 VII. A FOUTICAL MOLICDLB fg 
 
 Vni. Th« Watoh-Doo or Khowlidox 70 
 
 DC. A Half-Bubo jj 
 
 X. Obbauno thb Mobal Cdbrxnct 84 
 
 XI. Thb Waw Cbbditbd with ih« Honbtcomb . 80 
 
 Xn. "80T0DH0" ,j, 
 
 Xm. How Wx Comb to 6itb Odbiiltbi Falbb 
 
 Tb«tuionial», and Bbubtb in Thbm . . io« 
 
 XIV. Thb Too Eeadt Wbitbr m 
 
 XV. OisBASi* of Small Acthobbbip J22 
 
 XVI. HOBAL SWINDLEBS jgj 
 
 XVII. Shadows of the Coming Kaoe 139 
 
 XVni. Thb Mcdern Hep I HbpI Hep I 145 
 
»* CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSATS. 
 
 FRErACC ^ »*•■ 
 
 WOBLDLIHKSS AMD OtHKK-WoBLMJNEM : Th« PoiT 
 
 YOUNO 
 
 7 
 
 Wutmintttr Stniw, 1867. 
 
 German Wit : Heinrioh Heine ., 
 
 ITuliiiiiuter Smiu, 18M. 
 Evangelical Teaching : Dk. Cdmmino ...... 92 
 
 Vatmintltr Xetita, 18W. 
 The Influence of Ratio- alism : Leckt'b Bistort . 12s 
 
 FortnigMy Rniete, 1865. 
 The Natural History of German Life ; Riehl . . iS9 
 Wtttmimttr Rnita, I8M. 
 
 Three Months in Weimar j,^ 
 
 , Fnutr'i Magatine, 18M. 
 Address to Working Men, by Felix Holt . ' . . igj 
 Btackwomrt Magatme, 1888. 
 
 LEAVES FROM A NOTE-BOOK. 
 
 Authorship '^ 
 
 Judgments oh Authors gjj 
 
 Story-Telling „,, 
 
 Historic Imagination 217 
 
 Value in Originality 219 
 
 To the Prosaic All Things are Prosaic .... 219 
 
 "Dear Religious Love" _ 220 
 
 We Maze Our Own Ppccedents 220 
 
 Birth op Tolerance 22o 
 
 Felix Qui Non Potuit 221 
 
 Divine Grace a Real Emanation 221 
 
 "A Fine Excess." Feeling Is Energy .... 222 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF 
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH 
 
THEOPHRASTUS SUCH. 
 
 IXWKINO INWABD. 
 
 tei'l m2 ^?i* *» P^ "» account to mygelf o( the oharac. 
 ters I meet with : can I give any true account of mv ow«?V 
 
 thoeeTtem^^ J^/'^°^/,*° ''"'r ^ ^^^ "ever breathed 
 shaped my life ^ '"^'^''"* '^^'^ J"*^" "l^efly 
 
 J:^:szr,ra,^r4^iri;r *^^^ -- 
 
 I tenets as they woula hTirT „ . .^ '"°^*P^y «"i 
 
 p«ujiyawa.^oSi^;^i3rm:£Sy":^^^^ 
 
 ,i».»ai« M OUT hearers, ^ho can be aware of what his for- 
 
8 
 
 THEOPHBASTUS SUCH. 
 
 without knowing that I am ahanrH ti- . yj^ ■* »M>Jra 
 
 fc^Hshreaaonin/toseeigritSooSh^^nr^^^ 
 with aU possible study of mvself wXlii^^^t i*""* 
 
 pipe with arduous scrupulositv and thtil Z^"'* " """'■ 
 pallid shyness was yet Cdti^ye^S^J^^™* ^8^<" 
 
 a:s^u?!f:^r"'i^'S^pKTe ::tiiatnf 
 
 sortofho^geSSrg'rwr*"'""^""''^^^'- '^ 
 
 ouJti;^rar:iitio^/rrin"^- 
 
 sistencies in your »«lou8 adhesions, J Sat vo^he^.r" 
 
I-OOKINO DTWABD. j 
 
 winoe at the fact but T >«. „„.. ■ 
 
 laughable on ^n^eoLl^J^^rT °* l^! *»* ^ t"" «"> 
 and whirlwind of iy ^ng^T^^a^' "".f " ^'^ *«"'P«* 
 indignation. If tklbnl^ ^'^'ZV'' ""d" -^ own 
 oeive that I cannot esoane W,» ^ wp^tation, I per- 
 
 whUe I carry i„ myUT W t^ TJT'^'^- ^"^ ^- 
 « only by observing othe™ Srt^.ln ^"^ " "P^i^""". " 
 ignorance as to a^iye rttte ™^!!S" ''°™°* ""y'eJi- 
 oommit myself uaaw^ L^ f ^^ *^* ^ "^ li«Me t» 
 
 who hare been nearest toTl7^Ll^t T^ '" ""^ *° *<«» 
 over onr lives; byTe feU^w^^v ^^J" '"'°8'«^ ^"^n™- 
 
 ^^tuming ourCLVt:irXiSfoo5:^«' '"*""" "« 
 act of accusation against othflrr„^v wafessions into an 
 cting themselves^ ^dl^S,j\° ^.^7^ "^-^ of vindi- 
 Ugher efforts of wr 00— „>^, ^ *??* "'««n«e for the 
 buv its lowest fa^iCTrin^/^"* ~'^'^*' >« *» 
 its most agonizing XgZXZfl"'^'"^*^'^^^ 
 sUence. But the inSetenl, '^P***'"". ia unbrokw 
 
 -oe may be com^S^s jStvT V ""■'«"°- 
 affected to tears in dwelling Z +t "^^y^- -A- man who is 
 timenta msl^^^^^^"" *^ e^^'>^ty of his own sen- 
 
 on. reticences i Je^n Zqu^^S'li^''''.'^^'^ «'"'«- 
 of his character come not f^m wW I "^ °" impressions 
 
 'ThiiSJv^^-r^-S^^-^^-^^- '^''" '"' 
 
 ,sieiir^^ro7£tj7trr°o^.''**^*^^^ "^ «"> 
 
 lucid and impressive of nr^^ ^ occasions. The least 
 lowing us ZV^'^ITZ •* ^"^""y "-^^^^f-l m 
 may be so far like Zn^^*' "' ^"^ 8™°"^- Hence I too 
 I am aware of . i S^S^:^^ to co„,„^e,t, more than 
 or pretending to gC^^^J^"^^. »" ""tobiography, 
 
 -yo«eringsom?sligTt=rs1r-S<S«f&t 
 
10 
 
 THB0PHRASTV8 8U0H. 
 
 indioato that if In my atwence you dealt as fimiT with mv on. 
 oon«»on« weakn«e. a. I hare dealt with^e ^»SJi": 
 w^e«e. of other., I ahould not feel myself w^W tr 
 
 «Z«r?'" "• ?^?^« J^"" *^'"° of observation a. 2 
 . exceptaonal case of evil-speaking; or as malignant interpwta^ 
 Uonot a character which really offers no h^e to 7^^ 
 jwtaon; or even as an unfair use for yonr amusement rfiuT 
 advantages which, since they are mkie, should be re«,^ 
 w^ more than ordinary tenTerness. L^t me at itst^S 
 ?^oSr r ^^IT^' T'"" "^yfellow-men. It rtru^hal 
 I would rather not hear either your weU-fou^ded ridiculeor 
 ^arnvtr'^"*^- Though not averse to findSgt,^J 
 tT. .„^ ^- ^^ **"^'*^ °' deserving Ushes, I like to keep 
 «H s3 H '"^°'" ^^^^e hand. IneverfritiS? 
 self sufflc ently meritorious to lii.e being hated as a nroif of 
 my superiority, or so thirsty for improvfmenVas to desCi^J 
 
 me. I really do not want to learn from my enemies -I vretZ 
 havmg none to learn from. Instead of beig Zl whe™ 
 
 TZIJ:^^'' ' '"*,*'«y '"-^"^ behaveblTSn 
 a more amable occupation for their intervals of business. In 
 
 tZ 'ri^' " "^ ""^^y ''*^ ""y""" for a longer period 
 ttan I choose to mention, I find within me aperm^tC 
 mg for approbation, sympathy, and love. * 
 
 W 1*" abachelor, and the pers n I love best has never 
 woiety, and carmg about the joys and sorrows of my neLh° 
 
 work was a humorous romance, unique in its ki^^nH T 
 told is much tastod in a Cherokee trrsllSi^n^ S tfoZ 
 
i- likely to hare read ^hl^ *""''""'' " • *»!*« nob<X 
 not remedy, itw ^™ bert-mtentioned loudness ^ 
 .g.in.tm^VltX/r„Srr "'^,-''-"1 feet IS 
 I iave of walking ^ mv h^T ^' """^ "^ inveterate way 
 ing. One can b^^^S^^lT"'"^^"'^'^^^^- 
 looting in the elass or^^fw ^!" "^^^ °^ »»<* thinw bv 
 
 in ti^e^frank^tCof .wt;r'™i'*'"*»P'°°^*^ 
 tntvelling by exoursio^ bain^t^''/' ^ °" ^'"^ ^^Ple 
 
 theluU^snppressed8mil7w4^Th° K *^'^ ""^^^ *« 
 faces when I haye first iln^™l^"\!^'"'^ °° ■»""> to 
 rect perceptive judgmlvTnot T ^ ^°™. *^''"- ^''" ^'■ 
 am tempted to remonstrate when tht „T'' ,"«"!""• ^»* ^ 
 mentioned are apparently toien to w.^^^"^ P°'°*» ^ '"»^« 
 
 encesconcerning'Lyte^J^qTic^:,^ -"llS:'^^^^^^^^^ ^'"• 
 mg uncertainty which modern TTZ .. * *" *''« inereaa- 
 
 relationsofmldaidS "s^e^rr,'"!,*^^" °-" ««« 
 cannot be seated in ^e il'ei i f^,*!?*??^ «'«" that wit 
 
 launches in walking h^^n^S/^ ? ^' •^'"'=« °' «>« 
 crimination of ideas Y^t s3L ^i" ''f '''^ ""^tle dis- 
 "•e to make a clever ob^l^^Td"''"'*'"*'^. ^° ''°* «!>««* 
 unnoticed as if they w^7s!°°'Jr '■ '^^ *^8'' «" aa 
 deed had the mSed I7sf^aoro7/J^'*- ^ ^"^^ *»- 
 were appropriated by s^me one eLl.. "« *^''* ^''«" ""C? 
 able and even brilliTnt itTto t ^'^ """' ^°""** '""'"''- 
 not rich, have neither stud nor^eSr^r '"''"' *»* ^ "° 
 uections such as give to a iJ^t „f • ^ ^^ °° "^^^ high con- 
 ofira.eritancethrU;hl"a°l!°;.^;,t'^,^-f^ 
 confers a grandeur of historical^^li" *■ *''* Austrian lip " 
 ture which might mierSt r«'''^°'" °? " ^"^"^ °' '^■ 
 have now and then done hJmTi '^^«'*>«»g footman. I 
 
 jt in pubHc. and have dirred L'SeZ: "' ^^^'"«^- 
 the occasion would more auitehwlT ! *' "^^ ***'t"de on 
 beneficence. Is it reX t^ t « L ^'t '"'° *"* "^ ""P'tive 
 I Bhould be known tohSd It^ InTL fT.f T °P^'°" «">* 
 Punents, that is a seeonH«,.t ^ *° *'^^ ^""c* of my ar- 
 
 P« w the «B;,afo ^e^^e^ principle, and 
 
u 
 
 raBOPHRABTUS BTJOH. 
 
 from awkwMd fart inte awkward falUoies. One^ whm wid 
 Mtod m. « „y leg,, Idi.«notly hearf an enliSS;.^^^' 
 iwnark, "Here'i a rum ontl "_«id doubUess he rea»<mSta 
 tte «me way ,, the elegant Glyoera when .he pS p„S 
 
 ir,.'" °f ""'•?'"« *° °"' •"' -lovateehere^re^C 
 ohUla her glance in sign of predetermined neniali^ l!^ 
 
 This sort of reception to a man of affectionate diepoeition. 
 who ha. aUo the innocent yanity of de..ring to be SIk 
 ha. naturaUy a deprewing if not embitterL tendenoT^M 
 in early life I began to .eek for «,me consolSfgS o/C 
 ««ne warrantable method of .oftening the hard ?•» I hl^^ 
 r«H J"' 'T\?T^'^^^^ fanaticism which might suppTth. 
 needed self-sat.sfa«tion. At one time I dwelt mu7^^ tte 
 Idea of compensation i trying to believe that I was S Se 
 wiser for my bruised vanity, that I had theWgher^^LeLSe 
 true sprntual scale, and even that a day mS^^ whin 
 aome visible triumph would plac me in L F^crCvrn o? 
 having the laughers on my side. But 1 prSy ZZ^ 
 that this was a very odious sort of self-oajolery/ W^t In 
 tte least true that I was wiser than wviral of myM^Z 
 who made an excellent flmire. i».<i »»~. _ i. ' mena. 
 litUe beyond their ZITTs ^e^,^^'J::T^J' 
 oonier, outside the current of conveSi^.'SyTk yt 
 
 1 w hlT^ * "?, ""^"^ «"> J'^'ioo of divine or humtn 
 
 ^fiS^ftf"™ °* consolation which seemed to be encour- 
 evu in the world, and my benefit the soul of good ia thatev" 
 
M»y there not be af; leut ■ ...^ i . 
 
 SS^S In certain brair&L?J°-"ti;^ 
 on» perwmal equation, the meaaurr nt ^tm . Moertafa, 
 
 own judgment, and ^ awa^^Llff """• ^*"^ ««' 
 •ome oorreeponding oon^M^* J ^*- "'^ *•""»• "<>* be 
 moral theoi^g? iTi^''^ °' <>" P'"""^ partialitie. i. 
 
 that my condition is abnn™Ii " ™ **<". be made airar» 
 or diligent imagination^SaTth'"*^'" ''""»'' ■P*«'«^«» 
 thing.: i. theTno «mZ oHn^r'T "PP^^'^oeof 
 
 "luintwUohoon.irt.ralLLr •'' ^"'^ *^»* ^""^ 
 mental balance? W oon"?^ ^f ''«°'»^ " "^s' want of 
 
 "nal di«,ontent wL juft 72?™. ""^ ?"' ^^^ '''« °* P«- 
 of .elf-.atisfaction WhetterwSf.'"'* °"^'°"» M the wL 
 glM. or the indigo, wV^^ l''„l\~'i*^7"8^ '^''"•"-oolo.ed 
 the healthy humin eye teh2L^^ 1" '""^ *^" ''»«• "bioh 
 below. I foKtoto d^Lti I " ^*'"''" »hove and earth 
 
 a ^atteringTn.lii^'m'urr,"!'^::^?^ "''''' ''^ "^ 
 ityof an inward growth S^-j-^'^P ""*» monrtro.- 
 Mpeoial .corn for ttat^rnt?»Lt-T^'*!°'"*«' *° «f«t an 
 <ii-appointment of pre^^^L „!± T^'* " » tran«uuted 
 «l«nn le.t what I cSK.^miJ^T' *° '""<''' '""" P«»>li» 
 lot in general sh^dlT^a tirpSLt'"'"^ •"'''^"-•" 
 own pain and consequent W Tmr^ ihe VT""^' "^ 
 worth striving after seemJk^ hT^' J, standing-ground 
 whence I oould3tht^^ • *"°* Selectable Momitain 
 
 determineTby ttat il-p^Sirr .■" ''*^' "^ P"""^* 
 effect on the mind ^ 8u.tenanoe, but has a starving 
 
 ^"uSfardSr^^rri??:^-"' '^a*ip- 
 
 because in this way I IZ^J^^ ^'* ^ ^^^ *° »» despised, 
 <»»rfnl rivals, and I hZ I^K' ^^r"" ""^ "^ """■ 
 views which are recommended ^^u^^^, """P""? °° "" 
 wounded vanity or othfii. ,J™ f^ Peculiarly consolatory to 
 
14 
 
 TBI0I>HBA8TDB SUOH. 
 
 ehnAllng MHActlon th«t the flnal biOMioe wffl Bd h. Mri— 
 
 world in order to &>d oonsoUtion it rery mudnUtok»U«. 
 oarefully over th. p^e. of a great book in ^e, to iS^ 
 own n«n^ if not m ti.e text, at leMt in a laudato^n,S! 
 
 hindered us from a true Imowledge of tlie content. B„tT! 
 attention fixed on the main 2^e or ZZ^i^t^VZ 
 book would delirer u. from the riavid, aubjeotionto^u^ o™ 
 jelf-,mportan^. And I had the mighty J^e of tl^" orM 
 before me Nay, I had the .truggling action of a m^J 
 lives around me, each single life as dear to itself as mli^ 
 me. Was there no e«,ape here from this stupT^" "mu^ 
 murmgself-ocoupation? Clearly enough, if a^ythtagtod^ 
 my thought from rising to the force of pLsionktely mf e,«I!d 
 oontomplation, or my poor pent-up pond of sens^vm^ 
 widenmg into a beneficent river of evmnathv ,> -r. 
 dulness, and though I could not rnKS'^IlZ."''" 
 
 ^ow all at once, I had at least leame^^whL I hT^t^f 
 ♦"irn my attention. " "•"•' 
 
 Something came of thi. alteration in my point of view 
 though I admit that the result is of no striW kLd ^tTl 
 unnec«isary for me to utter modest deni^iilce n^e W 
 ^^ me that I have a vast inteUectulSl,^;'„,r;hi'l! 
 m^J^f "^/'r^' <«'°»<J«i"« I hove done so it^J^t I 
 wA deot^i^-te-^r.' '"'^'^"'""8^'hed man w^X 
 wish to depreciate. I have not attained any loftv neak !rf 
 magnsnimny, nor would I trust beforehand k myl^w,i^ 
 of meeting a severe demand for moral ZoL^Saf? 
 
 cti^eT::iLrhitZcKrs -irf*i»'^ 
 
 my neighbors seems to be proved b^?h. ! '*T*'' °* 
 
 .TdThein'^t^f WitrJser""'''''"^^ "' *^^«» 
 < .nohing object LI Sy iZli Z™ ^T*""" °' 
 
|W" rt Ungth, ttd PeiMu«le "-^r^rL^P^ their pur- 
 
 . d«aay with whimTer JUtjl?w •^r'' •"'*P' ">• " 
 
 kMbwd., or recite to L^i^nu *?/' "^ "'^''*''»» *» their 
 
 ^ WlauM which their merit, w.' °° ''"quenUy the 
 
 Mna, and the attack, to wM„? J • ""^^ "^ '»'»'« Per- 
 .toulated other^ At tte t?e°:'2:"' r""' " ' "o"^" ^-' 
 .aper.tition.bo»tmyownpirf Z '" I*" ''^ ^^ 
 « the glow of sympathy Slh "■'J"""*' I oocaaionally, 
 
 ingttendoathe.u'S^^trf £,7^:" ""^ '^'^ "^^ <»nfid: 
 "gel to hint at a oorreewnd^r^^ ° " """t^wti wa. 
 but the .igD, of a^„^iv^*"?*"*°°«^ 'ny°'"» case: 
 
 »araed me that I wa. J«L ?v ^ viTaoion. interlocutor 
 "Doa.yourldorby^i^,^* ^^'"^ "UBreadinl 
 80ld«i ml., 1 could noi wK^* .f ' *"! '•'™°" °' *£ 
 •pWt. a. I wa. lowerinll, 2r .?""" "^""^d lower my 
 Obtaining the Je L"K^ S !' ^' '-^"-^ «-« 
 the cironmatance. were IZi^ ! ^^ke wperunent in which aU 
 took it a. an eetahl^^^!?. '"?* ""^ own personality. I 
 J«««nng beliTn^t^'^"'^^-' «"*« «««^ ««nsS a 
 be abnormal, and were «Z«rtr^ '"'" generaUy felt to 
 •imed toZU CWrt tV''°'*°^ *^* sani/whichi 
 ratification., a. I Ce^d ^^""^ " °°' '''*»"'"* '*» 
 ?»y»elf in private ears^^t oTi^f-!,'^? ^'^"'' *° "^P'-^ 
 ■nterested in the e^Lri^n^ of ^",v"'^\""' ^**'" °* S-^^K 
 ««tbering strength rdiT™ ^f "" '*" '*«'> continuaUy 
 
 tbatthisVorld^iiri woX^^ "* ^^^ P°^' °^ ^^d^ 
 one', own. I. it Jt JLsS ''^^ «" -^'bout any lot of 
 
 tte e«th without sayi^to^^vt ,f T^ '°^°^ *^« '««'°«'7 of 
 "> i'? But this wunrfik^ Se hi. ^T. " «'»>We-ga>^en 
 -^-^eUeandh^g :^lX7^' '^1^1:%^ 
 
16 
 
 THBOPHRABTTO SUCH. 
 
 •Wily— anothar form of tli« dialoral attomnt *» k. « j 
 Pwhap. I h.r. Bude .elf-batm,*!. anough^Sr to St 
 
 bi w.St S'c; s&r ss« r.n"^*^ 
 
 nearer to my idiom thi Uie aewke« Jn? *""'''°'* 
 
 publication. M/ur„rnSam*5^teVnd"'tdf °' 
 ;>pne a far-off, hazy, multitudinou.^^bl.«5^''f; !^ . '"' 
 
 am am„.«l or\XZ.t at .W °w •*"'« """^ "'"« ^ 
 
 the haze is unbroken WlT, Ii, K^? . o<»°I«M where 
 ing illu.ion,^C. I io n^l;» ** ^ not indulge thia remain- 
 
 a. a warran't tTj^X.^^Vl^J^^'^.^'^ 
 some thousand sheets of .,,^T "^^ ""^ »»Wng 
 
 »ymanu«=riptst%lrrtTat.?r' '""'*''"''' ^^ 
 wiU not aak to hear't oTSTuest^l f "J ""agination, but I 
 
 giv.^ him of re^g tti^ b„X " *^'' '^°""» ^ ''»^» 
 
w«.af toohop,^rd^7iti't'b.rv,t'th'*' *"• ""**•' 
 
 iition, and will only ukZy'trilT^"^^^^ "»«P°- 
 «rin« »e .gainst ^ThuZ/lntt^,"" '" ^'"'•^"«» « ^- 
 
 tlutt in noting th" weSn^L oTmv ' " " ^'"^"^ *° •''°'' 
 roperioriiy ia at the root nt k.wI, , Ratified senae of 
 
 hlf the iuth But tte^ i^'C"* '7*^^' "^"^ "^ «* l*** 
 only «oognized au^riori^ ^t^fM^^^H*"; ^, ''''''* «"• 
 within, holding the mirroTJLd^e L^* 1'*' '*^'' ""•" «<"» 
 neaa aa well .a our neighW ^ "" •"» P^' 
 
 3 
 
IL 
 
 I-OOKING. BACKWAED. 
 
 Most of us who have had deoent parents would shrink from 
 wishing that our father and mother had been somebody else 
 whom we neyer knew; yet it is held no inpiety, rather a 
 graceful mark of instrootion, for a man to wiil that he was 
 not the son of another age and another natioii, of which alio 
 he knows nothmg except through the easy process of an im- 
 perfect imagmation and a flattering fancy. 
 
 But the period thus looked back on with a purely admirine 
 regret, as perfect enough to suit a superior mind, is always a 
 long w-y off; the desirable contemporaries are hardly nearer 
 than Leonardo da Vinci, most Ukely they are the fellow-citi- 
 zens of Pencles, or, best of all, of the ^lio lyrists whose 
 sparse remams suggest a comfortable contrast with our re- 
 dundance No impassioned personage wishes he had been 
 born in the age of Pitt^ that his ardent youth might have 
 eaten the dearest bread, dressed itself with the longwt coat- 
 tails and the shortest waist, or heard the loudest grumbling 
 at the heaviest war-taxes; and it would be really something 
 original m polished verse if one of our young writers de- 
 clared he would gladly be turned eighty-five that he might 
 have known the joy and pride of being an Englishman when 
 there were fewer reforms and plenty of highwaymen, fewer 
 discoveries and more faces pitted with the smaU-pox, when 
 laws were made to keep up the price of corn, and the trouble- 
 some Irish were more miserable. Three-quarters of a century 
 ago IS not a distance that lends much enchantment to the view 
 We are familiar with the average men of that period, and are 
 staU consciously encumbered with its bad contrivances and 
 
 ril^ tt^-^^''!'""^' "•"^ 8«"«''"'«'^ P"^**^ ty young 
 Lawrence talked and wrote their nonsense in a tongue we tho^ 
 
lOODHO BACKWARD. 19 
 
 -aU their neighbW Tom- h ^~f * themaelyes, but 
 
 otwSsiri"* rbr '^"'^" -•=: 
 
 poug, and trivial prose. ^"uaest with aervile, pom- 
 
 Such impartiality is not in rogue at present Tf — 
 knowledge our oblimtinii t« *i,. . ■ P".**"*- « we ac- 
 don, wXut soXZgotL^*^ '* " '^'"'^ 'o »» 
 aU their faults must beTlLJl T '*°*™°P°'"™. who with 
 
 habitable for^rr^^ "llte^m^^^^^^ *"' ""^"^ 
 
 wonders whether the rematt.w • ^ •''™»1«S8 Past. One 
 
 notion of ^JnXnr^^ToZZXti^T^'t'' 
 
 «on more naiVe tSfs ?^° *" ^^^ "'"*»'"•'« »* " 8»«™- 
 1 hare often had the fool', hectic of wishing about the un- 
 
90 
 
 THBOPHHABTOS 8P0H. 
 
 fidenoe that I should haieTJa plZl*^' ^''"?'* '~ "°"- 
 epooh of sooietv? An IL- \P'f*»™We career in such an 
 arkw^d-aSeeufs i^l J^^?*" """^ department haa it. 
 might havT^dZd L7h a. " ^^^ *° ""'* "« ^""- I 
 ex^derTthrS^2« 2 new^rr.""'" ^'^'P ^^ ^■ 
 izing the sum ofh^Z' Wlel^* ^rr'^^f "' °^- 
 mighthaTOobieotedtn;,..* .1 T' °° *''^ "^''w '»«'d, I 
 
 -ihave pr:£^trci'^f*Ts; "s^r, n-!?*^"' 
 
 as offering more chances ofhlTj, t .v »«'*-o<>ntradiotion 
 deniable istimo^ ofhi/ SLe Tht";' *^ "^^ *^« °°- 
 wcre bores. Ul-bri per^ rilL^iTven ^'Ath'"'" 
 of species remarkably oorreL,ndine to Z WnT ^^ ^"^ 
 yet made endurable by ^in7nl«.i •*« ^«l"i. wd not 
 "■y present fastidio^ „^osS I S Z.T''' •'!?«^«' ''^^ 
 
 for possessing Atheni^SoWv aft ^ "^ ^^ ^"^ °* 
 of antiquity Asto qTnT. i^L "■ wodorous fragment 
 
 that the lJsbia^'4iS'Sdso^fr' '''^I «- <»-^oed 
 and slow <K.nver^S potr aie^^arr*'"!.^'""'''**'"^ 
 their number, though Z/TT' • *"^^*«»" of myself to 
 tion and without "^vat to^f ! '^Tf" ^°^^'' °' *" J*^' 
 among the accomSd Sues 2L t" """"' * '"'°«'«» 
 justingtheirown drapery atoutZrHr?" "^ ?"»*« i" «d- 
 by being another ZTot^^^Z^^'^'^^^- ^^'"^ 
 have giyen it some neetofS^J? ^ ^'^*'°* »«'' ^ '"'eJ't 
 poured forth poedo str^Twu!^ ''" tZ ^' ^ ""'^bt have 
 o-y and seemed a votX J ^"' ''°'''''^*^ *^- 
 
 CthewiaeworMdrelterirL... 
 
 Jfistto'srhiSrVuiit":.^^^^^ 
 
 di^eren. in i.e n^.^S:^^7U:rAt: l^^^ 
 
WOKING BACKWARD jj 
 
 ~.me affection tnd f^l lo^l^J^ " P^P*^*! b"* 
 
 work of the -M.rrXTiTtz'^rei'trr 
 
 "me freedom from iU-temiu, »wv "gMO mem with the 
 
 ^irs^eSarr^^-n^^-e-t 
 
 every previous mn«™««r. *„ v ""o giODe, unless I scorn 
 
 ^i:7hi=E'^r'"-^-~" 
 
 ^-. •>- invert re J^SurK-tl^X!^- 
 
32 
 
 THEOPHBASTtra SUCH. 
 
 mj affection ai>d re^et coX^J^ beguUement which carte. 
 
 am aware that I «ose°,JUeSe ol^Z, "°^'' P"*" ' 
 I keep alive a stronger atLctoent to 1^°^ Proportion unlee, 
 of admiring what I b«.t t^f^ ^ what la near, andapower 
 
 question of wl£gS^L^7„'^t„:?'^«"^'- «»"' *^ 
 ciates itself with myfil^^wT'" T^'^POf'i^' "«•«.- 
 
 thatlmightasjustiii^^wLtXt^), f. F ^' *^°"8''* 
 than those whos'e loving tores^Le'V^l , "1 °'^* P*""*' 
 whose last parting first ts^X^.^^ ^^^^ °*"°~y' »nd 
 
 am living wrsaved 1 oVr> *^,"'' ^'"P*^ °" 'l^i^^ 
 
 mutationf andSntXris-o^^^lSfi^^':^ °' '*'»- 
 modus. It has sometimes oc^3 to ^1f' tT "'*° » 
 taking a slice of excellent hZZl t \^^*° ^ ^"^^ "^n 
 view, I wasbreakfastingL:i'S\otSrn^H>''T''''P°'"*°' 
 •r ore than haU a centu.; ag^, wa7t^r„^f '^^ *"« ''^"^ 
 of spiritual advantageTnot oTh«^ ^'^P'^"™*"'*^' 
 
 ^dging farmer orXmlwhoT^'^Tv'^'^ ^^^ 
 ters on a fearful labvrina i7fl„° ^^ * ^^- 0"« e"^ 
 ward, and such Sct^l!"'?! "^T"""* ^'«™'-' •'"ok- 
 
 flavorof theham, TufstceT./ *^°"8''\^''^« '«<i"oed the 
 chief effefcthas ^en to m^! . *? nevertheless eaten it, the 
 
 (which was .^t pS of mfpltrnaf T'^"' "^ "'■'^'° 
 the assuaging reflWi^^Lt Hhl " ^'^ '"'* *° ^^^ 
 had been intelligent eZul J ^ -^'^ '^'^ ""« parishioner 
 of view, they wfuM have'see^ ttS**" '"^.^'^'""''^ P°^* 
 light that would hare madelfthe T r ""* *" "^' ^ « 
 ii>g such drawbacks I l,!.h! ^°'«?tary. Notwithstand- 
 I got byhavinn fatwth ""''^''f *^" '"«°*^ f"™iture 
 
 ranks of'^hisne^lhboStdi^rr;' ^ "''''"«" ''* «" 
 of those aristocratic clt^ ^^"'^"^ '^*' ''^ ^a« "of one 
 
 amealwitht;^:^ SX^'a r''""*''^^^"''*'^^^^ 
 ^orethathewLnoti^rfra-lrurrc^--- 
 
lOOKtSQ BACKWARD. 33 
 
 oomos from c^t«=t wirvSr ciL "°"" "P*™"-* ''^oh 
 »nd in my father's timrth.rrfw'*' °° '*"« O''" level, 
 
 been diatLbed as^^^ttT T^l^'ll^^T*'''''"^-"* 
 head at the crowd of one's fX "'"^y* ^""^ over- 
 
 incapacitating, even w°th JetZ''^'^ ""J"' '^ ^ ""^^ ''ay 
 »riou8 blunders it ml le^d t^ 7. «"^ intelligence. The 
 for their good oneZ^^^,ZVu\f°''.*^ "'""«« ""e"" 
 pie take o. ' .tterinl «^T - !f ^ ''^ *^^ mistaken ways peo- 
 ire unlike thnr o^* K^tTiT^ "'J'*'^ ^^°^ associates 
 most fortunate Brrom, S tlose ^ '''"'"' *^°"8''' *'«'* "■« 
 them a practical ZeZ'^Z/^ZuT^'^ ?" f^ 
 who have lived long amone the mi^£^ *, ""*"'"*' H 
 
 it with them under IXnfJ! "'t""** commonalty, roughing 
 
 to them, and gX SSd^.°r f,'°" *'"^'' '°^ *^ 
 tives not by infereno« fl!^*!.^^ ***" "o^'ons and mo- 
 
 from phiio^p^rtiTefr, tl^^t^r^.^t T'''^; - 
 
 servation. Of course «„n},^,Jl • • ^ fellowship and ob- 
 and my fath„ m°Kd hlS"'* 'Jl ''P* *° get antiquated, 
 mi«d rural poSionnff^ """"^ "* " '°'« amongst a 
 well what cS be wi,/l^' '^"'"'°.* ^^■' *"" *"• knew ve.^ 
 weavers, ttrfierdiwr^^.Tr'"/ ^""" *^« '"'"ers, tS 
 yes, and from tie t^ZLTt^l^Z''^' """ ""^ ^^ 
 close contact with themZ ^ hi ^'^ ''""«''* "P « 
 
 nobleman who wasdlS^dSlJ^^.rr''"' *^ " ^^^^ 
 used to say to me. "should ^i ,. "'^'K""*". M" he 
 
 elass", and this theo^ had ath?itn "'*'' " ''* °' "^"^ 
 inclination and practief wWlf *1"'.'*°"« agreement with his 
 
 him beloved by KiSUTonP^TT'^""'^"^^ ^ °"^i"8 
 ligations towa^d^him butwL J^ys^bled at their ob! 
 
 grumble at any dem^dforJ ?'°l ^* '^^ "»'"»! to 
 natural for a^ctoTf?^ • ^t^^'^"'' *'the included, but also 
 
 Wing. A Stir^^L'^hr^id^nVt"' r ^^^ ^'^ 
 
 money was not an ideal Cv^„!r ^ "°* """^ ^'^"t his 
 fat central EngCra^d^ll! I '^°"« *^« -""^ «i"<l« of 
 dangerous laxftTof ^.nn^f r '^'^"^ ^ '°t~duce a 
 hap^ned to^ldUorTfetw"' '''^'''" '''^™" "'«' 
 
 WbeeausehewasuTdersSSorrv^Si^l- 
 
34 
 
 THE0PHRASTD8 SUCH. 
 
 several years I was mv f.fhT." ^ Afterward for 
 
 outdoor bulessridiW ht v T'**"* «<»°Panion in hi. 
 
 vving child; and it seemed toTth^^vlTed"^'^ """ 
 propriate to a father m in^^^j • ,, *°^*""™ «ge was ap- 
 him a parent so much t^J^h "^w v^''^'^'' ^ considered 
 lationswTto hL^i IMv ^ r *^''* "'^ """""^ of ^T «" 
 to whom I wasTthl™/™ JL "" ""^ "«""* '>"<»'8 t^ose 
 hU life inoluZr soZav nf "'^'J-;"'^ ***^'"''' ''*<'™» f «»^ 
 
 sition. Itis tmia fk«„ ""."""""""Of Jusowucompo- 
 
 began i^^L^Zl^^ ^Tt^^^Z I't "" '''<'° ^ 
 snpply, so that they recused L,tlr , "T " ^^ ' 
 But though this svstemT^k» "«f^"ly ^ the CoUects. 
 
 paredto/efeuditri'^sot'd^l^'that^^^^^ Pl- 
 
 even if my researcheah^ =>. ^ *** °* * '>*"8y ; and 
 
 yearly semZ^d i'l^„YeI°n'!V^''* T' °^ "^ '««'«-''' 
 
 °i:~-?""w«SSK^e^^ fowl 
 
 notaXTJnlr'thSNr^ «'^*" *° -'^''»«- ^^ 
 eaiotly a dislCto i^ov2 J T-"" "* ^""y ^^° ^ "»' 
 opinion of hem a! T™ %'^? dissenters, but a slight 
 whence my yoXeL^^lr;* lU-founded self-confidence; 
 who mighf Ss Wf tre^'tS''^;r°""'°^« '''"^ 
 thinkers in „„ nLest ^ et^t t ^^^^^^1 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 38 
 
 that their ohamoters were qaite as miiad >» *t.»i. „# *v 
 ^r. behind the.. This^circllT'S ".^'X i^J S.' 
 
 ly no affectionate memories of a goodi^oss mingled wittTut 
 
 ^phioal notions, such as they are, continually caSy me Ck 
 to the tune when the fitful gl^s of a springday used to 
 show me my own shadow as that of a small boy Ta ,m^ 
 K«^ * ^ ?' '^ °*' » '"8~ oob-mounted shadow over 
 of hills, or along by-roads with broad grassy borders Zl 
 h^gerowe reckless of utility, on our way^^to ouS C^ 
 ets, whose groups of inhabitants were as distinctive to mv 
 
 gTrTom'th *""" '"' "^""^ *» differentSons of Z 
 W ™ri.f V ^"' «°'°«*^e'' 'Ode onward to the aHjoin- 
 «L^T ' T ,."'' '^'° "y ^""•^ "ffi^'^fd, for he was a p u- 
 alist, b„_i h^te„ to add-on the smallest scale; M one 
 
 ^d!i chlTw ^rr"'*^^ '"* ^-^^y ^% parish^ne™ 
 ^d Its church would have made a very shabby barn, the wav 
 
 half hangmg on the hinges, being exactly the color of a le^ 
 mouse which I once observed as an interLting mem^r of ^ 
 mo"L"ZO "^^ T"*"™^ *» »" the'identical chuS 
 ertv for I wL r^ ""* *? ""'^ '^""P'" "^ »*«>■"« Pov- 
 fl^hio^^f Jr a precocious boy, and often reasoned after the 
 feshKBi of my elders, argumg that " Jack and Jill " were real 
 
 Udd fi 7 °"IP" f ' '^•J «^t if I could identify « ?ack» 
 I diould find on hun the marks of a broken crown 
 
 rfo^nlTf ''^l" ^Z"" ^ " ""^•^^'^ ^°'«'°" drawing-room 
 w- ^ t '^"^"^ ''°-' '«'<l"ai°ted with smoky eaves and 
 tasting Nature in the parks) quick flights of memor^ ISe me 
 S^tsTeTho"^ f-'th-'s parishioners while I am^s«U con^ 
 
 S Ue Z^ P"«»«y Win to wonder what varieties of 
 nistory lie hidden under this monotony of aspect. Some of 
 them, perhaps, belong to families with many qCeringT but 
 tiri^ "IT^:^^" of diverse contact^w'ith t^Slow- 
 coantrrmen enter into their qualifications to be parliamentary 
 
36 
 
 THBOPBRASTrs SUCH. 
 
 competent by exDeri«nn«. o!r«, ^'*" * P«»<»> n>«de 
 
 anoCvat4Td^rnt°i'C*:Sf iT" ""* •^'« 
 a poor creature, what must hTfh. 7 ?7 .°'* P»««o*Uy 
 
 jeot even to read atout the We „f ?. *'^'' • °^ "'°"* '"'° «•>■ 
 their own? But of ml «L ■ °?^" ^"""^ «•««"» than 
 
 them have p^Lwy had Itt" """"^ i«'«"8»i«hed am^ 
 manhood ftan mL W ™ t ""*™''"'*' ^■"""'•y *"*» 
 physiognomy, aeeming at ^rprJ^'^r " ' ^"«l"-''onx 
 • mere specie, of whil cr«va?Td ".T'^l**', ^ "^'^^ " 
 once, like Faraday's h^Zlhl '^\'''^°^-^, which may 
 embryonic for^LbSi^ 'f «» r "T'^^ '>»Woi 
 duroys, and hungrUy itif^ tf * ^ ^"""^ ^ """^ "or- 
 <Ae«,isapairof^y/sTowt^ ?~''" ''"'^ »°d bacon; 
 of public ^emblSSn^ "rlir^'J^ *"" '^■^«''* 
 native England throiehtL^r^^T?'^"*^ '^ '««d their 
 the boundLes of rS.i^Xal'^'^"""'^'^""* ^^ 
 through the oount^rrfiS S off7 T"" •**"« ^^^'^ 
 land villages and markrts. Ilon-T l 5i •"'*^-*°"»g the mid- 
 rows, anywhere th" hS^bt^fs stm^'^^Tdt'"" '^«- 
 mysteriously amonir the rn.h«. i!t i^ *"® distance to float 
 vision, both r^^d M«J l'^'**^**'**«"'l8™«'- Our 
 far other LS ^g't^rS 2" '""^ '"'" ^""^ '^ 
 scorched monamenro°den!S ' ""^ """Pendous sna- 
 
 the long 0T<^^°^ '^,T^"^'' '^^'^'h«">oentof 
 
 looks out over'theTre'i^'r \f7"' "' '"'^'^'> 
 have kept their early affection«t^^'- "^ ^y*" »* ^e^t 
 
 which is one deep r^t of^rn!?-^ ^.f-i"^' "''*^^«' landscape. 
 
 And I often sm^ at ^^ „ *" ^^ '^'^ ^S"***- 
 oer-ativepreposseTsionrh^I oonsoiousness that certain con- 
 
 the influenc^^f rrmiirdT*'*'^ '^'""'''^*^ ^°' ""> ''•tt 
 elms down to the Lh ""'"^'y' ^^^ <*« tops of the 
 
 Katuralirenougt St^'^ ^"^ *^« "f ^^ "''y"'^«^«*<'l'^ 
 he oftene^st ref^^ SSn onThef'' "i^"""' *° ''''''' 
 wave of political cnthuTiasmSdLefi^T "^"^ ''"' ^'^^ 
 bon of all things had ebbed a^d H^l * ^P**'^^ regenera- 
 
 tiative of Pranw waa tZt.'. V '"PP^^ed miUennial ini- 
 *■ *"™"'« ""to a Napoleonic empire, the 
 
LOOKIKO BACKWARD 97 
 
 part were wUling to wait for thZL^^!- t ^" ""*' 
 
 they could keep their throat, tX A" f '°°^''' ^ ""'y 
 
 could maintain order- ,md I »?. ? * Government which 
 
 the word " Zve^^ent^l Jf accustomed to hear him utter 
 and made it ^Yrf mv eC ,""** "^"^'^ " '''«' »^e. 
 
 «rf that periodlad STen awl wT""' "^ ""^ ^«*^°««' 
 be considering they we« ^rish t7 « *''* *^*^ ""^ht to 
 
 often been bad, buTi wwcon^^^f, t' *'■"""'' ^ ''""'l' ^ 
 a» a name for actual even^^ ^ ^ ^"""^ "* " ^ «°'«' " 
 fathers who gLTftem thatTl"" ""'"'"8^ ^^^ «»« god- 
 comfortable I^tno^rv. ^V^P**"^ *° •>« remarkably 
 
 lovableXdabfeSWd mt^'^d f '"'^ '""""«^ *° - 
 from Mr. Pitt on to th-^ t ^'.^?, """^ «°°^ 'ale", 
 foremancipa LgtheCathoUcs^' of WeUington, until he wa^ 
 to me that I looked into ft f' '' '* ""^ "^ *"" ^""^ P^^i" 
 such as I could find iTmlr ' T' '^"*^8 ™'"'^«« «>an 
 mainly in frciS^li^„.^,r° f '^^•'"*"™«' ^Wch consisted 
 domesCswTrds rn ° ""* '°' *^' "'»^"'« wielding of 
 rioters, and iTvld^^^ifrT "^'^ ""aPparent robbers. 
 
J. 'JJ^ 
 
 28 
 
 THBOPHRABTPB 8UCR 
 
 th. tnditional nun. probably to th. hlrtorio f«no, of oor 
 IT rt*^f°°;!'^' IJ-.0 the good old king i,Tl^Zl 
 well, which made «U the more difference becauw I had no?^ 
 
 ™rtih^ "»«"«» 11 on the throne he would have hinder 
 erwythmg that wi,e pereons thought undeeirable. 
 
 Certainly that elder England with its frankly aalable hor 
 ^^mZ, "T""' "'"' "" '«"• obUiLnSer^e 
 men deeirone to encourage gratitude; its prisons with a mis- 
 cellaneous company of felon. «,d maniackand wTttou'rv 
 supp y of water, its bloated, idle charities, its n^ rTde^t 
 jovial clergy; its militia-baUoting; and, alive X^ilThltnV 
 
 S^r^^^-SiTS-i^d-E^ 
 
LOOKING BACKWABD. 39 
 
 Our rural traoU whera nn p.t^i v 
 
 W..„^.re without 4% ob^cut^^^^^^^^ J. 
 
 ^\t^T:ir'^ unconquerably aloof from our ffoS 
 
 demean.), the graase. and reed, no^ to ^h 0^"^ t.°' 
 
 ScSrlSSHr.er "r ^-'^^^^-Uu'Jh 
 8«pteml«r Th!^ ' plough-team against the sky in 
 
 j^-a. ■«* tbu k,™ j,E^,~^L ^ Sf ™ 
 
 Sitfrr '«*'*' "• """ ^p ^ ^ ^ 
 
 BiacKs, or below the souaru atonn af^nU ™4.i. • \T^r 
 
 STdS' helti^^r""-.*^" ""^ *"^°"''«' *W P-e to our 
 «naacape, helping to unite us pleasantly with the elder gen- 
 
THIOPHIUBTUS BUOH. 
 
 •»tt0M who till«d the Mil for ns befor. w. •«.!««. .^ 
 paid hMTicr and heavier tu.. -i»k v ^ **^ *^ 
 
 f»tb«Bwi(«u»wh«.-._.^^ "•II. well, th* lUuiiwa 
 
 cathedrals, for the life of Cd» h^7 ? **?"« ""»•* "'"^ 
 thought and strife, withYnSSi Sfli'ttt" "'"'.^ 
 ay ooDMiousne.. ig chiefly^hl^,, ' "" .'"^«"' ""^ '">'' 
 sort. Mv avBtam «^^ J . ""'y' »°»«"M metropoUtan 
 
 •mbedd^wWe^ ' l'"^' ""* ""y bachelor', hearth i> 
 
 "Nation of London'" Why^^erf^ '°'k1'*'°"« *° **"> 
 taiy e«Ue. in the world and nr„T!hr ?v "^ "^^ ^o'""" 
 of the patriarch^ Zan.-2 1 1^'^. ? '^^ "^ ^"* "~J»» 
 n.y example, from r^e^'w^^^ iTi.of™?'^ ">*° '"*"'' 
 -some of those who s^ild w^^ ?5 "°?'"' """^ "° *«**«» 
 oompanionshr Jh«„T. ?? "?' *°'" **« "^^ °f » 'oved 
 
 the fami^' K" ? rK"*l''n.'''P* "«^' °' 
 lifted up thei eyei oi the hill, to which they had first 
 
m. 
 
 HOW WE ENCOtTRAOE RESEARCH. 
 
 the men who have invoked (aL ^v !.?'~' ^""" th»' <>' 
 with much of the woAhip p^d toC "^^^ ^. '"" ?'«««» 
 when the .take and ZZ^tt '7" " """ >»ildep,ge, 
 ritual. 8on,oc™eU.i.rafpirCrf>^"".i»'* »' ^e; 
 no thumb-.crew in used, To iC ZtlT ""t^ ^'" '°"°' = 
 b<".pW./o£oont^oveniSbrZ„V^^ scorching of flesh; 
 long nuiiing. Cs "w Z™^' '*?""«»•. "d even life- 
 of truth-worship hrt^e^'S'// *"" !^.'°°» " «>" «»* 
 understand nothing in a co^t ^ ' P"''"° """ O"' often 
 or.land.rouBridTcul^?tri^I 7^ '""P* P"""-"^ »»««m 
 of it. victim. ^ o?Ln L iiM« fl ri'*""'- Theeuflering. 
 
 a«d miMaloul..'.n of efleota " """ ™8*"1 «» » 
 
 marvellou. activity. M^TmL^ I^^J"^"^ ^ """ 
 ceUaneoua periodical Si V ^""^"^ ^™'"'" i" mis- 
 moral and p^y ^7 L^n^ * ^t^^^- ""^'i^'riou. study of 
 
 all .ubject, were the vexed oueTtLn, I { f*''^**^ ''™ i" 
 ta«eofnotadmittingrede^.!^^fe "roTf ^''^ *!>« "dvan- 
 dera many inmnion. ». °*<"*'je proof or disproof that ren- 
 
 Mernuu./ad?~,i^XZlrr°"''''^- ^°' *"« 
 querie., and paradore7deW ' X n T'. "^^ ^'^ ''°"''*«' 
 
 p^i^iLtfS:;^--"^^^^^^^ ^; 
 
 ontheori^-ofl-^f-^-r-^^^^^^ 
 
32 
 
 THEOPHRASTTJS SUCH. 
 
 right moment such subjects as the ultimate reduction of aU 
 the so-called elementary substances, his own total scepticism 
 concernmg Manetho's chronology, or even the relation between 
 the magiietio condition of the earth and the outbreak of revo- 
 lutionary tendencies. Such ^exibility was naturally much 
 helped ^7 his amiable feeling toward woman, whose nervous 
 system, he was convinced, would not bear the continuous strain 
 of difficult topics; and also by his WiUingness to contribute a 
 song whenever the same desultory charmer proposed music. 
 Indeed his tastes were domestic enough to beguile him into 
 marriage when his resources were still very moderate and 
 partly uncertain. His friends wished that so ingenious and 
 agreeable a feUow might have more prosperity than tiiev ven- 
 tured to hope for him, tiieir chief regret on his account being 
 tiiat he did not concentrate his talent and leave off forming 
 opinions on at least half a dozen of the subjects over which he 
 scattered his attention, especially now that he had married a 
 nice httle woman" (tiie generic name for acquaintances' 
 wives when they are not markedly disagreeable). He could 
 not, they observed, want all his various knowledge and Lapu- 
 tan Ideas for his periodical writing which brought him most 
 of his bread, and he would do weU to use his talents in get- 
 tang a specialty that would fit him for a post. Perhaps the«, 
 weU-disposed persons were a little rash in presuming that fit- 
 ness for a post would be the surest ground for getting it; and 
 on the whole m now looking back on tiieir wishes for Mer- 
 ^ ^w". t* «»*'"f»etion must be tiiat those wishes did not 
 oontnbute to the actual result. 
 
 For in an evU hour Merman did concentrate himself. He 
 had for many years taken into his interest tiie comparative 
 history of the ancient civilizations, but it had not preoccupied 
 taa so as to narrow his generous attention to eveiytiiing else 
 One sleepless night^ however (his wife has more than once 
 narrated to me tiie details of an event memorable to her as 
 the beginning of sorrows), after spending some hours over 
 tiie epoch^akmg work of Grampus, a new idea seized him 
 wiUi regard to tiie possible connection of certain symbolic 
 monuments common to widely scattered races. Merman 
 Btorted up m bed. The night was cold, and the sudden witii- 
 
HOW WE BNCCHJRAGB BBSBA^ iCH. 
 
 .'.^ 
 
 - ?':owbaU, 
 
 drawal of warmth made his wife first dream 
 and then orj, — 
 
 " What is the matter, Proteus? " 
 
 "A great matter, Julia. That fellow Grampus, whose book 
 h™"^Zr t'^^'^"^^^ " »" wrong about L MaSX 
 b«M and the Zuzumotzis, and I have got hold of die right 
 
 olo'fterdr'"'""' ^°^ '* ""'**'' "" '°"'=^' ^"'' <^''« «>« 
 
 world riSf''T!5:"(/""'^ that tf lam right I shaU set the 
 world right; I shall regenerate history; I shall win the mind 
 
 Z^^^ " '""' ^'"^ °^ '^''^ °"8in8; I shall bruise the 
 head of many superstitions." 
 
 "Oh no, dear, don't go too far into things. Lie down 
 IJfr* A l°"?r ^^ ^<^^e. What are the Madioojum- 
 brasandZuzitotzums? I never heard you talk of them before 
 mat use can It be troubling yourself about such things? » 
 »K • u u" ^'^way, Julia-that is the way wives alienate 
 
 " What do you mean, Proteus? " 
 
 " Why, if a woman will not try to understand her husband's 
 Ideas, or at least to believe that they are of more vXeTan 
 Bhe can understand-if she is to join anybody who hap^ns to 
 ha agamst him and suppose he is a feol because othe™ ,^n^ 
 
 I^ve t!'^;:'^'"' " ■" ""^ "' •"" '^PP^*^^- '^'^^ « »" 
 
 "Oh no, Proteus, dear. I do beUeve what you say is right. 
 
 That IS my only guide. I am sure I never have any opinfons 
 
 in any other way; I mean about subjects. Of course there 
 
 t"'i,^t!^ f ■ '^^'^l ^"^ """^^ ^^ y°"' «">» y°» like me 
 t ^udge of tor mysetf . I know I said once that I did not 
 WMit J V. to smg Oh ruddier than the cherry,' because it was 
 vlZlT T""- B""<«^<" ^•"en'ber ever differing from 
 CtV:^'"- ^ ----y We thought any <me%le.- 
 
 ^.5!!!t f ^S""" "" "^^y » ""i-* little woman." not one nf 
 wlTTJ *? sometimes spoken of in those terms. Her 
 waok nlKmette had a very infantine aspect, but she had dis- 
 
84 
 
 THEOPHRASTTS 8TT0H. 
 
 "i! 
 
 1! 
 
 cemment and wigdom enough to act on the strong hint of that 
 memorable conversation, never again giving her husband the 
 slightest ground for suspecting that she thought treasonably 
 of his Ideas in relation to the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzi^ 
 or in the least relaxed her faith in his infallibility because 
 Europe was not also convinced of it. It was well for her that 
 she did not increase her troubles in this way; but to do her 
 justice, what she was chiefly anxious about was to avoid in- 
 creasing her husband's troubles. ■ 
 
 Not that these were great in the beginning. In the first 
 development and writing out of his scheme, Merman had a 
 more mtense kind of intellectual pleasure than he had ever 
 known before. His face became more radiant, his general 
 view of human prospect* more cheerful. Foreseeing that 
 tenth as presented by himself would win the recognition of 
 his contemporaries, he excused with much liberality their 
 rather rough treatment of other theorists whose basis was less 
 pertect. His own periodical criticisms had never before been 
 so amiable : he was sorry for that unlucky majority whom the 
 spir It of the age, or some other prompting more definite and 
 local, compelled to write without any particular ideas. The 
 I^sjsion of ai, original theory which has not yet been as- 
 
 beforehand ill-natured. And Merman was the reverse of- iU- 
 naturea. 
 
 ,n,f»"V^^ ^k"J °* P"*'"'»ti°" came, and to half a dozen per- 
 sons, described as the learned world of two hemispheresVit 
 became known that Grampus was attacked. This might hive 
 b^n a small matter; for who or what on earth that is good 
 for anything IS not assaUed by ignorance, stupidity, or mSice 
 -and sometimes even by just objection? But on eiiminatio^ 
 
 unlZT *^'' "^^ "^'^ '"'«^* P°^«'"y ^ ^0^ l^-'ift 
 
 pretended facts shown to bo chimeras of that rei^kably hide- 
 ous kind begotten by imperfect learning on the more t^Z 
 m^ir, "^^"^ ^l^'^V'^ty. Grampus himself did not to- 
 
 foT^« Vv °^\*^' l"'"""^ "^''^ "«"^ l»»<i been care- 
 ful to send him, not without a very lively and shifting con- 
 ception of the possible effects which the explosive ^^Jm 
 
HO^ WE ENCOUIUGE BE8EARCH. 85 
 
 p«Juoe on the too emiaent soholar-afPeota that must cer- 
 tainly have set in on the third day from the despatoTof «,« 
 parcel. But in point of fact Gr^p„a W S- of S 
 n«J ''"/"^"il^'d Narwhal sent him ^ Americ^ 
 newspaper oontainmg a spirited article by the well kno^ 
 ftofes«.r Sperm K. Whale which was rathe"^ equivoS i^ Tu 
 teamg the parages qnoted from Merman being oHafter a 
 teUmg sort, and tne paragraphs which seemed to Wow de 
 fiance being miaccountably feeble, coming from so dTstia. 
 
 familiar to the Te^!^\^S T tle'^l^r'^'T- """^ 
 
 mg their Master whether he meant to take ,m fkl 1 w 
 bemuse, in the contrary case, both te™ rSdy " """'"'^ 
 
 wJsSl^owsv '"l,^."""^^.^*'^ roused, though England 
 was stm drowsy, and it seemed time now for GramnuH tn fm^ 
 Merman's book under the heap and cut it o^en ^o'r h Lo^n 
 par^ he was perfectly at ease about his system: but tWs TL 
 Zi murt'be m:t*">H"'^"^^' ''*^«°»'' -<^ «Sous fie": 
 
 Sd ji^ r ^t Tz^ rer4^-i;- 
 
 weeks from that time the palpitating Merman saw his book 
 announced in the progran,me of the leading SevieJ. Z S 
 for Grampus to put his signature. Who else had his vMtTrt 
 m^roscopic knowledge, who else his power of epiUiet? Thb 
 
 "^ fo7h^"w ^r ■" ^1. P""°"«'» ^^ ■« 8~d al muti! 
 latod-for he was shown to have neither ear nor nose for fh« 
 subtleties of philological and arch^ologicaTstudyrwas li' 
 
 ^Ctt7::^T' "'' "°' ^"""'^ °^ -r^terrin""t:e 
 system of Grampus, or any precise conception of the danger at- 
 
 Sf ^ rr' "'• *'* Magicodumbras'and Zuzumo'rbut 
 b«,ause the sharp epigrams with which the victim was W 
 ated, and the soaring fountains of acrid mud whidilTre shot 
 
 ^ m recital. A favorite passage was one in which a certain 
 
36 
 
 THBOPHRASTUS SUCH. 
 
 kind of sciolist was described as a creature of the Walrus kind, 
 having a phantasmal resemblance to higher animaU when seen 
 by Ignorant minds in the twUight, dabbling op hobbling in 
 first one element and then the other, without parts or organs 
 suited to either, in fact one of Nature's impostors who could 
 not be said to have any artful pretences, since a congenital in- 
 competence to all precision of aim and movement made their 
 every action a pretence-just as a being born in doeskin gloves 
 would necessarily pass a judgment on surfaces, but we aU 
 know what his judgment would be worth. In drawing-room 
 circles, and for the imiuediate hour, t ais ingenious comparison 
 WMas damaging as the showing up of Merman's mistakes 
 and the mere smattering of Unguistic and historical knowledge 
 which he had presumed to be a sufficient basis for theorizine- 
 but the more learned cited his blunders aside to each othra 
 and laughed the laugh of the initiated. In fact. Merman's was 
 a remarkable case of sudden notoriety. In London drums and 
 clubs he was spoken of abundantly as one who had written 
 ridiculously about the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis: the 
 l^ders of conversation, whether Christians, Jews, infidels, or 
 of any other confession except the confession of ignorance 
 pronouncing him shallow and indiscreet if not presumptuous 
 and absurd He was heard of at Warsaw, and even Paris 
 took kaowledge of him. M. Cachalot had not read either 
 Grampus or Merman, but he heard of their dispute in time to 
 msert a paragraph upon it in his brilliant work, L'orient au 
 povntdevueactuel, in y,hioh he was dispassionate enough to 
 speak of Grampus as -possessing a coup d'cBUpraque/rancai* 
 m matters of historical interpretation, and of Merman as 
 neverthele3sanobjectory«tm,'rH!8d'«7reco»nu. M. Porpesse. 
 also, availing himself of M. Cachalot's knowledge, reproduced 
 It m an article with certain additions, which it is only fair to 
 ^stinguish as his own, implying that the vigorous EngUsh of 
 Grampus was not always as correct as a Frenchman could de- 
 sire whUe Merman's objections were more sophistical than 
 solid. Presently, indeed, there appeared an able e^trait of 
 Grampus's article m the valuable HappoHeur .cientijigue et 
 i.nT'' f^^""^'" ""ist^es were thus brought under 
 the notice of oertamFrenohmeu who are among the masters 
 

 i^mw":^^' 
 
 HOW WE BNCOtJBAGK RE8BABCH. 87 
 
 of those who know on oriental subieots Tn « ™« j »c 
 though not extensively ib^aIZ. ■ , " ^°'^' ^*«man, 
 
 MLwhUe, hordS he like itT^r;^^ ^t^^'- 
 his wife, for a n.on.ent xeflecS on thff i^ a™ 'j' "^P' 
 
 man himself. Peihans fh.f r>„- i ""taoie tHan Mer- 
 
 rus had truth enough^to Se Z tn r'^P"!'"" °^ «>« ^al-,. 
 
 tion, even if exultZt SnortSnot' "^ f'Tf^ "PP""*" 
 
 is weU known thJ^t)!: , . °* applauded it. But it 
 
 piLn Td'tltdtintp^rforn.a^lr"'''"^ ^^"^ 
 
 was fundamentally the righf o^ he had ! „ .«°"'^t«^-«'«ory 
 whatever ooUateriU misties he WV, A ^ """^ conviction, 
 
 awidesu^^rof Sstort „^. ^."P"*'i°" ^ """ matter was 
 Still Wb™!{ T^* ""^ * diversified observation of men 
 
 £1S o ttir ^'^'^ ?*^^«' - enrufm^eZdrS 
 
 to de4t S^^pus ir^r °\° '^*'''' °' P'^'-'Wy even 
 
 All other Z^^ , * oversight or textual tampering 
 
 ^dl^rrdLlI ""'fT^'- ^"« <=»<«•*« were sent^away 
 
 ^^He^rmp^h^-S-L*^^^^^^^^ 
 
 Pared suty condensed pages of eager argument which see^^ 
 
88 
 
 THBOPHaASTUB SUCH. 
 
 to him worthy to rank with the beat models of controversial 
 writing. He had acknowledged his mistakes, but he had re- 
 stated his theory bo as to show that it was left intact in spite 
 of them; and he had even found cases in which Ziphins, 
 Microps, Scrag Whale the explorer, and other Cetaceans of 
 unanswerable authority, were decidedly at issue with Gram- 
 pus. Especially a passage cited by this last from that greatest 
 of fossils MegalosauTUd was demonstrated by Merman to be 
 capable of three difCeront interpretations, all preferable to that 
 chosen by Grampus, rho took the words in their most literal 
 sense; for, 1°, the i" roiuparable Saurian, alike unequalled in 
 close observation and far-glancing c mprehensiveness, might 
 have meant those words ironically ; 2°, motstia was piobably a 
 false reading totpotxis, in which case its bearing was reversed; 
 and 3°, it is known that in the age of the Saurians there were 
 conceptions about the motzis which entirely remove it from 
 the category of things comprehensible in an age when Saurians 
 run ridiculously small : all which views were godfathered by 
 names quite fit to be ranked with that of Grampus. In £ne, 
 Herman wound up his rejoinder by sincerely thanking the 
 eminent adversary without whose fierce assault he might not 
 have undertaken a revision in the course of which he had met 
 with unexpected and striking confirmations of his own funda- 
 mental views. Evidently Herman's anger was at white heat. 
 
 The rejoinder heing complete, all that remained was to find 
 a suitable medium for its publication. This was not so easy. 
 Distinguished mediums would not lend themselves to contradic- 
 tions of Grampus, or if they would, Herman's article was too 
 long and too abstruse, while he wonld not consent to leave 
 anything out of an article which had no superfluities; for all 
 this happened years ago when the world was at a different 
 stage. At last, however, he got his rejoinder printed, and not 
 on hard terms, since the medium, in every sense modest, did 
 not ask him to pay for its insertion. 
 
 But if Herman expected to call out Grampus again, he was 
 mistaken. Everybody felt it too absurd that Merman should 
 undertake to correct Grampus in matters of erudition, and an 
 eminent man has something els? to do than to refute a petty 
 objector twice over. What was essential had been done : the 
 
^ 
 
 i^'.i- 
 
 =# m 
 
 ■•'■ij^ 
 
 .. S;. 
 
 HOW ynt ENCOURAGE BB8EABCH. 
 
 99 
 
 pablio had been enabled to form a true judgment of Mennan'n 
 inoapaoity, the Magicodumbi'as and Zuzumotzis were but 
 •abdidiary elements in Grampus's system, and Merman might 
 now be dealt with by younger members of the master's school. 
 But ha had at least the satisfaction of finding that he had 
 raised a discussion which would not be let die. The followers 
 of Grampus took it up with an ardor and industry of research 
 worthy of their exemplar. Butzkopf made it the subject of 
 an elaborate EirUeUmig to his important work, Die Bedeutung 
 det MgyptUchen Labyrinthei; and Dugong, in a remarkable 
 address which he delivered to a learned society in Central 
 Europe, introduced Merman's theory with so much power of 
 aaroasm that it became a theme of more or less derisive allu- 
 sion to mec of many tongues. Merman with his Magicodum- 
 bras and Zuzumotzis was on the way to become a proverb, 
 being used illustratively by many able journalists who took 
 those names of questionable things to be Merman's own in- 
 vention, "than which," said one of the graver guides, "we 
 ean recall few more melancholy examples of speculative aber- 
 ration." Naturally the subject passed into popular literature, 
 and figured very commonly in advertised programmes. The 
 fluent Loligo, the formidable Shark, and a younger member of 
 his remarkable family known as S. Catulus, made a special 
 reputation by their numerous articles, eloquent, lively, or 
 abusive, all on the same theme, under titles ingeniously varied, 
 alliterative, sonorous, or boldly fanciful; such as "Moments 
 with Mr. Merman," "Mr. Merman and the Magicodumbras," 
 "Greenland Grampus and Proteus Merman," "Grampian 
 Heights and their Climbers, or the Kew Excelsior." They 
 tossed him on short sentences j they swathed him in paragraphs 
 of winding imagery ; they fouis d him at once a mere plagiarist 
 and a theorizor of nnexamplsd perversity, ridiculously wrong 
 about jiofots and ignorant of Pali; they hinted, indeed, at cer- 
 tain things which to their knowledge he had silently brooded 
 over in his boyhood, and seemed tolerably well assured that 
 this preposterous attempt to gainsay an incomparable Cetacean 
 of world-wide &me had its origin in a peculiar mixture of bit- 
 terness and eccentricity which, rightly estimated and seen in 
 its definite proportions, would furnish the best key to his ai-. 
 
40 
 
 THB0PHRA8TU8 SUOH. 
 
 of trouble on theirT^^K^T^ wnusement at no expen* 
 
 the effect on MerSZ^e^tffl^nr'r "'''"* 
 as the buav iin-iti„™ „ j . . ""^^PP'ly not so transient 
 
 answers printed, he had rponnrL t Vt i. ^''*°'* "° get his 
 ^t, flexible Merman was on the way tl beTttn^r"" ^^T' 
 
 in acknowledgment CeateH T '"!»^PP'<»i'»«ve letters 
 tended to emb^ter kirn a^d not tCr'"^*"* "V""^ ^"P^" 
 the fashion of ment^Km difd T ^^"'' "^''^ » ^^'« 
 were less understood »„h" out allusions to his theory 
 »« unaerstood, and people could only pretend fe. re- 
 
HOW in ENOOURAOE REPEAROl 41 
 
 m«mtor it And .U th« while Merman wm perfectly «ue 
 thrt hi. very opponents who had knowledge enrugh to be 
 
 l^lr^lf ~ ""Z r"" *^' ^ ^^ whatever ern,™ of 
 statement they might detect in it, had wsrved a^ a sort of di- 
 ymmg rod, pomting out hidden Bonroes of historical interpre- 
 tationi nay, his jealous examination discerned in a new work 
 
 M.^^^"'. T"""'"°''''"*'°8°^8«'"°dwhich-sopoop 
 Merman dec ared-was the sign of aa intention graduallVto 
 appropriate the views of the man he had attempted to brand 
 as an ignorant impostor. 
 
 olo^L'^'^'v ."^1*^' housekeeping?-the rent, food, and 
 aS fT i "-"'"'""y <"^ ^^^7 "upplj unless it be of 
 Hie kind that serves as a recommendation to certain posts 
 Controversial pamphlets have been known to earn large plums' 
 but nothmg of the sort could be expected from unprS 
 heresies about the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis. PaiS 
 the contrary. Merman's reputation as a sober thinker, a safe 
 ti^^nt '°'J1 '"'yf •7'"' irretrievably injured: the distrac- 
 tions of controversy had caused him to neglect useful editorial 
 connectaons and indeed his dwindling care for mi«,eUane^ 
 subjects made his contributions too dull to be desii le Even 
 
 ilJl^vVr.^^^^'''"' * """^ *^" *^ ^'0 conoettration, 
 and applied his talents so as to be ready to show himself m 
 exceptionally qualified kwyer, he would only have been like " 
 M^iteot in competition, too late with his superior plans: he 
 tZ h1 ''Z^ "" opportunity of showi^ hb quaMoa! 
 w^L ?«7?f,^«">^°"tof the course. The smaU capital 
 ^„1h f"°<l "P.-^'fioi^oie* of income was almost ex- 
 hau8t«d, ^d Jnlia, m the effort to make supplies equal to 
 ^ta, had to use much ingenuity in diminishing the wante. 
 Ihe brave and affectionate woman whose small ouUine, so un- 
 imj^aive against an illuminated background, held within it 
 a good share of femmine heroism, did her best ' . keep up the 
 
 w!JJ!^K i.T "^^ '""""' ^^' husband's excitement; paiting 
 with the best jewel among her wedding presents in order to 
 pay rent, without ever hinting to hep husband that this sad 
 result had come of his undertaking to convince people who 
 
 »2«ited uiat some husbands cook to drinking and others to 
 
43 
 
 '"MOPHHABTUB SUCH. 
 
 to her Md the two ohildr^^L^rh^' °"*'' '"''^•^* 
 would be, hi. mind b.iagZmT„ J^th^ T" ''P*^ •»• 
 "tanUy a little angry Z trit^..? T^ ""bjecti," «,d eon- 
 eapj^ially thee w^V^ ai^**"* "'^^ --^body ^ 
 
 ~,u«.c. ^eXh'rad^lTeSn^^^^Tl^^r 
 •ntohia system and ran in hi. b3 H. ^ ■""^"^ 
 prune of life, but hi. mind waat<renv f>. ^ "" '*^ ^ t^' 
 oonrtruotion which come. o77Jf^u^ ^' **«*' monotonou. 
 topic and uee. upthTrXt'Snr ''"'•"' "^ ' -«'• 
 
 .p^'^^^l^Tin'^-ru.e"'^.^'' \- - »- - 
 interest whiThebeLvedZ.^M"'"' "^^ *"«> I»wer or 
 omitting or deolinl^gX^^Xl'^j:! m'^'"'^ ^""^ 
 fo clearly a. to them%m KS« ± '^^ '"" ««"" *» hi" 
 become impracticable, orTS S^"!* "^ ^ ^^» 
 whose Wew. were not likely tob^safei^^%^Sr'*i°' ' ""« 
 m turn offended him, though uW^n!?. ^^'^ ^^ «««1 
 of wishing to shalce him off Tw« * ^l ^^ "" '^VM^ 
 poor Merman's wxsietvhaSnn/ Jf °"' "^together so; but 
 
 •nd it was diiHcuT;\e^C"LTr "^ "^ '«^^^ 
 urged him to try for a ncitX h^ ^v- * P""™" "' want 
 
 bw domestic life has kent .,n . "tu^Mr he has no vices, and 
 around and within hiz^^N^JXtT.' ^^^ <"^<'«'« 
 ling itself with all topTci tib«^^ !"' ^^ ^'^' ««'" "uing- 
 
 diseaw which alters what we^T^tl "f-*'"'* """"gb a 
 long ceased to talk eawril of fw^ constitution. He has 
 to attempt making S^^ '""ll^;^ ^^^ Po~es. him, or 
 and he himself J.'^;y„*?'i^^^«^>'J ba. moved onward. 
 On the other hand, he hLlZ whT- ^f**^ ^ " "«^ «8bt 
 jnaia idea which was at tteZ" Tf h .^ °"'.^*<^ *^'* "-e 
 been adopted by GrampranTlliJS*:",^* "^'^P^'^^" 
 noreferwioe being heard to a«,^- i ^^ «*"*'*' »»Peot, 
 conception madelhen^*^*^^^"'"'"'"' ^^ ""is impoZJ 
 "»aerea in by the incompetent " Othera." 
 
••wpyBi--'^. 
 
 l-v .-«•:. - -^ 
 
 -*,«• «ilL..- 
 
 ..♦T'lli.. .»!. 
 
 HOW WE INOOUHAOl mSEARCH. « 
 
 • oompMiorSTr^W „. MpawiveneM, he will teU 
 
 allows for the WtternM. „f Tai.' ■ . "°"'P*»»°'» M™»Uy 
 cr.U.ai.^eaneSrtSare-'u:!.^^^-*:'^^^^^^^^^ ^ 
 
IV. 
 
 A MAN 8t7BPRI8ED AT His ORIGIKALITY. 
 
 n'.n a p., ,. „,oi„dre .p^no^ oWeff' «~"'« ^ "!.""' 
 
 u. might do well to i^e ShL ' "P"'-" ^""o' 
 quaintances and friends Lm.h^ "" °" '"''*°""" »' •«■ 
 t-de because we a^^ ve^Ld rthZ"'' ?r*'"« '^•«- 
 them, and eyen listening to wSJt S.^ Jlv *"* "^T' ^^'**"« 
 msignifio^t they must' eel ZL1Z7^''°Zt"""' 1°" 
 fallaciously confident in euppoeinrthrt „„, f ■ ^, "" °"*° 
 mind is appropriate to onrnv^»* • ' friend's state of 
 almost Jft weTCC^rhfwtff ""f,***?^ his importance: 
 iUustration) to ha^f^Le of h^. """''' <"" "*«*"' «» «" 
 low place ii the «! of ^i^l "Z" "" n "^^ '°''^'"' ""^ 
 trary, is inwardly litest 1°"" °'°"'"'''' <« tl'* con- 
 rather than to hZeltlZsLj^ 7 l'^'' »"^'' °' "^^ 
 -. unwarrantable conceit tSSt^ut rid ''T* '" "'^ 
 sions and forwardness to dUt aTlIn^ .^""^"^ P"»«"- 
 complacency and loud Z^ml,^ " P"*^ ^ °''^*°'«' '«'«- 
 
 to detect the Sstic cWof r^""' "" "" "°* °° ^^^ ^'^ 
 hidden under ripplri^re^Lr^ ""'''i'*"* kind often 
 put out of the question '^'*^°'*»'^"'«««''>«'i» being 
 
 the'iroitSust r^tT ""' ^r-^*^ -'■- ^ - 
 
 acquaintances, I taXbe h.l^'^- ?" """J""*? "^ W" 
 man justly unpretST' ! ^Z"^" "'""K'"' "^ him as a 
 
 them\ave%7ha™£f,^tw"?^'^'V"^'^' ""» ''°-« <>" 
 praising the work? of hi»^. "" '""P"* »* ^^ '"^e^e in 
 
 then feft tkSs^::^'::^^^^' '"^e "°^ --^ 
 
 01 celebrity in various departmlS^ He'^ Tj^"^ ^ 
 
^^^H^,*- ■•, 
 
 A MAK SUBPRIMD AT HIS ORIOINAUTY 48 
 
 sSri' fftr --" "-4 i- 
 
 Uy^to w"^ r*" .^^^S^^'-oP^'Btitious nature, given read- 
 
 ^r^ctTi^rn:™^^^^^^ 
 
 We done, or be ^rofoZy awl "f **Jt t^ M* T*"'"" 
 ignorant impressions ridioulUrOne'oSl''l"^,\'"''''« ""^ 
 
 attirde of Leni towLT"*.?' ^ P*"*''«'' *^"" ''"' 
 U.e sa-'as'raXTtlt7tHr;?r„r 2™^ 
 
.p^. 
 
 46 
 
 THKOPHRA8TU8 SUCH. 
 
 88 to lug own power of oonoeiving a sound basis for a laiitm. 
 superstrurture that I began to beUeve less fn the pS^ 
 stores, and to infer that the line of Lentulus lay ratheH^^ 
 rauonal criticisn, of oar beliefs and in syste^tio 1 "J^! 
 
 12,- A M ""^ ^ ^'^ °°' *»"™ *° -"ys" tte existenceof 
 formidable manuscripts ready for the press; for great Se^s 
 
 W w " ^ ""'^ ^'" *^~"'"' 8"wing ;ithin theiTmhl 
 long before committing them to paper, and the idew S 
 made a new passion for them wheTtteir locks we« St 
 auburn, remamed perilously unwritten, an inw Jdly develon^ 
 
 TwJ^. ^- J °°^y meditated improvingly on the war 
 m which a man of exceptional faculties, and even oaLw 
 
 Twfy t^e^'dr" 1^'' ^'"^ '•"^''"''' fi'« -'^'"h is ^rZ 
 
 ^^^»;rfe.^--rra-^^^^^^^ 
 ^.r^Sn-j^h^ra -^ ir is: x 
 
 tu« suggest of impenetrable dulness in the society a^^d 
 of i?"!f ^^ ■" *'"""' "'*^" "^ '•^""•^ to a cheaper estimate 
 
 fi viroTm/sr " •'^'^''*-«-» I «- get a'::or:^e:^ 
 
 CMlircuiX K kT^ generaUy; and I confess that in a 
 ^^TvTn^ f.^'^v""'*°°^*'^''*«^tulus'sacquaint- 
 
 pi^KZtr sSmJ^S- rwo'ulbe- 
 
 gtl|Seran"SSerhtmt°r--^ 
 
 t"7vlrf '^ ^"''^""''^' '"'* ^ «'""^<> °°t be left to tru^ t^ 
 !tn in »^ '"»P""°°«/°rt °f -nerit which constitutes an exce^ 
 to^^fS . 7 f '^r^^' »"d recommends itseU as ^e 
 total abolitionist of all previous claims on our confident 
 You are not g^atly surprised at the infirm logic of XeS- 
 
 ^Tolhtr^.dr'""' ^°" *° *'"«'«'' '"^ 'y insis^g St 
 any other would be sure to rob you in the matter of hay and 
 
NlLJBm- 
 
 
 A MAN SURPRISED AT HIS ORIGINALITT. 47 
 
 com, thus demanding a difficult belief in him as the idle ex- 
 ception from the frailties of his calling;, but it is rather aston- 
 ishing that the wholesale decriers of mankind and its per- 
 formances should be even more unwary in their reasoning than 
 the coachman, since each of them not merely confides in your 
 regarding himself as an exception, but overlooks the almost 
 certain fact that you are wondering whether he inwardly 
 excepts you. Now, conscious of entertaining some common 
 opmions which seemed to fall under the mildly intimated, but 
 sweeping ban of Lentulus, my self-complacency was a little 
 concerned. 
 
 Hence I deliberately attempted to draw out Lentulus in 
 private dialogue, for it is the reverse of injury to a man to 
 offer him that hearing which he seems to have found nowhere 
 else. And for whatever purposes silence may be equal to gold, 
 it cannot be safely taken as an indication of specific ideas! 
 I sought to know why Lentulus was more than indifferent to 
 the poets, and what was that new poetry which he had either 
 written or, as to its principles, distinctly conceived. But I 
 presently found that he knew very little of any particular poet, 
 and had a general notion of poetry as the use of artificial 
 language to express unreal sentiments: he instanced "The 
 Giaour," "Lalla Eookh," "The Pleasures of Hope," and 
 Bum seize thee, ruthless King " ; adding, " and plenty more. " 
 On my observing that he probably preferred a larger, simpler 
 style, he emphatically assented. "Have you not," said I 
 "writtensomethingof that order?"— "No; but I often com- 
 pose as I go along. I see how things might be written as fine 
 as Ossian, only with true ideas. The world has no notion 
 what poetry will be. " 
 
 It was impossible to disprove this, and I am always glad to 
 believe that the poverty of our imagination is no measure of 
 the world's resources. Our posterity wiU no doubt get fuel in 
 ways that we are unable to devise for them. But what this 
 conversation persuaded me of was, that the birth with which 
 the mind of Lentulus was pregnant could not be poetry, though 
 I did not question that he composed as he went along, and 
 tha,t the exercise was accompanies with a great sense of power. 
 This is a frequent experience in dreams, and much of our wak- 
 
48 
 
 THKOPHRASTT78 81T0H. 
 
 philosophio thinking of our rLrnr ^"'°?"»f°» on the 
 that everything which CCdo„e in^^°« "" """^^ "■« 
 -that Plato, Eobert Owen^ld S-' j^f '"^ '"" '^"8 
 Eegulator," were aJl equily n,^™ ' ''^° '^'^ ^ *»»« 
 tjous nature a thrill of anS iS wwT'^ "^ ""P*™"" 
 the poe^ it did not goem likTlV tw/- ^? "1^ ^^^ "^"t 
 by heart; but who couW sa7heta/w "''^'''^^''J''''*"''' 
 which may somewhere hang out wl"^ 'T*^ *^ '^''"A 
 and be the clew of nnrayetoeat ? Ti^ !T *^* '''"' °* "^^g* 
 that a prophet is nTmlt bt er^L"*^ "r"' «» *« ^ leai 
 had not the bias of a so^^l . L « A f J"^*"'"' »* '««* 
 m agreement with any oe~b»^ >/'t turned out that he was 
 the agreement would wS^nf ^J^ ""f ' °' ""^''™' 
 dence not due to forgotten readW t! ""•^^"P'ed ooinci- 
 newed curioeit, that^H^gaX hfm o^ .r,"""^°«' ''*k «>" 
 tmirersal erroneousness of thinir ^" '"«« wbject-the 
 
 Lentulus began t^^^ro^s "^/ "^ *? ^^^ ^'^ ^^^ 
 copious than"^ the tiST^i p^ ' b ' S"""** ^"» "">«> 
 did contemplate writing down Cttoi^.h^' t^^ ^^* •"> 
 was their abmidanoe. Ap^nJlfr^^.^u* ^''' '"^^'^ty 
 ter entering the thick tor^f^ " T ''''« *^«» "oodcut- 
 «in?" The same obsCte L^d^^«' ^^""^ "^ I be- 
 about his yerbal eipo^tion ^* "* » "^°' degree to cling 
 rather helter-skeCS^^te^f^^^^-r^ perhaps for hif 
 
 of anaddressed letters sent to X ^^-^ "" "^l °"°''*' 
 really is, as tending to sunnor^ Tif P"**^®"*! on what logic 
 diums and mahogany teZ^l ^! ''"uT°^ °^ l"™'^ ^e- 
 UBder all "ligionrw^r^pl^S rS'*^,°' "^ ""'"«'«• 
 unreasonablenessinsupposinSf^ ■ 1° ^""^ """i ""r 
 half a guinea an hour in^Z till ^^' ~*''™"«« »* 
 
 "coincidence, on the LX^'Xr,T^"« "»"' «"« 
 i-uazara way in which marriages are 
 
|^> '^ ^r^^.. ■I'^JG 
 
 A KAW SUHPHIBBD AT HIS OBIOmALITT 49 
 
 regenerative bearing on human sooietT^ Wi. iL ?*'" " 
 black rioveg. hia W onH • f*^'*y- His wristbands and 
 moderaCTnblS. In^t"'''? "^^^ ^'- J"" '""dable 
 ing his^or:aSem"^d ^e^utle^'^rr''" ^ ''''°«'- 
 Mm « a man ^tainted wfth WoJo^ralSfk^^^^ *" 
 
 tini. exp^din^orS'ifit yiTl"/ °"^ 
 
 irSi^ri:?-^- -^srircs 
 
 ktoasZgoodfXw ^'°' "««P' i»q«aliiying 
 
 hisconsciou JinliiS rjl? "" '"^'"' """ '"'i°y^ 
 midisturbed placid n^uKentT/'' ^7 '^'^^'^"^ "t iU 
 
 ^ .us uffn laoK ot defimteneaaj and the demand 
 
M 
 
 THBOPHBASTtra SUCH. 
 
 for defixiiteness « to all of n« a neerffni «»,^i, __ 
 
 ZT^^^ "' mfomation, that there iJr^^. 
 wL. ^ ,. ? ^"! «»*°°"'J'"'ent at the apontaneou. oroo of 
 ^ whach his nund aeoretly yielded. IfTt ocoZ^ to hi^' 
 that there were more meanings than one for the word 'W 
 tave," smoe it sometimes meant the end aimed It «r^ 
 times the feeling that prompted the ^inr.^d LTLZZ 
 
 S^Iirth'^ruirr'''- -po/c wr.^;;^? 
 
 r^.r^-TeSsirdSut"thi's£^^^ 
 v"Sfe^ritSdtw^«-r ^ ^'^-^ 
 
 The r^pectable man had got into his illosory maze of di- 
 ooveries by letting go that olew of oonformTS wTtljlw^J 
 
 disposition was more effeotiye for good than his silent n™. 
 
 elusions, in that mighty sort of language whi^^ould C 
 spect to the ancient Koran, but one would not desL thT^ 
 
^^ki WW 
 
 :wa.j 
 
 A MAW 8DBPRI8KD AT HIS OBIGINALITT. 
 
 61 
 
 ^o^* be with Lentulua, for he hM left u« in peace. Bleseed 
 - the mn who, having nothing to „y, abrtaCILm S 
 »• wordy evidence of the fact^from oaiUng ,^^^ 
 
 tt~2 '^^-P »' "^e'-"-! in order to be sL thTt tLit 
 
.?:-.V^ 
 
 Hi 
 
 V. 
 
 A TOO DEFERENTIAL MAN. 
 
 A LiTTLK unpremeditated insinoerity must be indulged under 
 the stress of social intercourse. The talk even of an honest 
 num must often represent merely his wish to be inoffensive or 
 agreeable rather than hU g*nuine opinion or feeling on the 
 matter in hand. His thought, if uttered, might be wounding : 
 or he has not the abUity to utter it with exaotness and snatches 
 at a loose paraphrase ; or he has reaUy no genuine thought on 
 the question and is driven to fill up the vacancy by borrowing 
 the remarks in vogue. These are the winds and currents we 
 have all to steer amongst, and they are often too strong for 
 our truthfulness or our wit. Let us not bear too hardly on 
 each other for this common incidental frailty, or think that 
 we rise superior to it by dropping all considerateness and 
 deference. 
 
 But there are studious, deliberate forms of insinoerity which 
 It 13 fair to be impatient with : Hinze's, for example. From 
 his name you might suppose him to be German: in fact, his 
 family is Alsatian, but has been settled in England for more 
 than one generation. He is the superktively deferential man, 
 and walks about with murmured wonder at the wisdom and 
 discernment of everybody who talks to him. He cultivates the 
 low-toned tete-a-tite, keeping his hat carefuUy in his hand and 
 often stroking it, whUe he smiles with downcast eyes, as if 
 to relieve his feelings under the pressure of the remarkable 
 conversation which it is hU honor to enjoy at the present mo- 
 ment. I confess to some rage on hearing him yesterday talk- 
 mg to Felicia, who is certainly a clever woman, and, without 
 any unusual desire to show her cleverness, occasionally says 
 something of her own or makes an allusion which is not quite 
 common. Still, it must happen to her as to every one else to 
 
WfW P 
 
 A TOO DBFERENTIAL MAN. BS 
 
 «pe«kof many sul^eotg on which the best thing, were «^A 
 long ago, and in conversation with a DersoT^o h,?w 
 newly introduced those well-worn tte:^ei"X,^J°iira 
 further development of salutations and prelimina^T^ o? 
 undwstanding, such as pipes, chooolat^ or i^tic-^twL^ 
 which serve to confirm the impression Zt o^^^^^J. 
 
 us to saie us from shookmg outbursts of individualism to 
 which we are always exposed with the tamest b^T^T 
 ^dered purely as a matter of information, U clnoS>y 
 
 idSlC^lnrL^SaktSel^^ s^'^^^^ 
 
 the presentation of character , stUUttraLJsiKran': 
 one to make this statement about himself arto^nKi?-,f / 
 and tell you that the air is brisk, iio^! Z wil^ lettft^'' 
 a matter of course, with a parenlietio Ke'^^i^d nof^ 
 nounoe his adhesion to a commonplace witi ^m" ZtC 
 
 should chiefly like to talk to each other out of good wTu^ 
 
 ^^'^'"'Z ^' ^^ "' ""^e revelatiC^oTllSg 
 .hmukted by witticisms; and 1 have usuaUy found tiiat it <! 
 
 his company has reduced them to a state of 'fl».li5 * 1 ^ 
 ance of good sound commonpkces. Part of an aJe^to 
 
 whlJwe^re an w.n '^^^'^ **'"^« * pleasant\oice t^ 
 
 wnat we are aU well assured of, makes a sort of wholesome 
 
 air for more special and dubious remark to move j^'"'"'*'*'""' 
 
 Uenro It seemed to me far from unbeoomine in Felioia fh.f 
 
 5ia^ """ ''"* *^°'' °^ '^ ""^"^y refinef Ld 
 
 b^ ™^^' - "I ''*^^"^ '"^'>J«''«' ^^ '"igl't have 
 been printed m • manual of poUt« topics and creditaUe o^! 
 
^'# 
 
 M 
 
 TBXOPHRATaUS BtJOH. 
 
 long. She had no desire to aatoniih a man of whom ihe had 
 heard nothing particular. It waa aU the more exaaperatinK 
 to see «Bd hear Hinze's reception of her well-bred owifonni- 
 tws. Fehoia s aoquaintanoes know her as the suitable wife 
 of a distinguished man, a sensible, viTauious, kindly disposed 
 woman, helping her husband with graceful apologies \»rit- 
 ten and spoken, and making her receptions agreeable to all 
 comers. But you would have imagined that Hinze had been 
 prepared by general report to regard this introduction to her 
 as an opportunity comparable to an audience of the Delphic 
 Sibyl. When she had delivered herself on the ohangMin 
 Italian travel, on the difficulty of reading Ariosto in these 
 busy times, on the want of equilibrium in French political 
 aHairs, and on the pre-eminence of German music, he would 
 know what to think. Felicia was evidently embarrassed bv 
 his reverent wonder, and, in dread lest she should seem to be 
 playmg the oracle, became somewhat confused, stumbling on 
 h« answers rather than choosing them. But this made no 
 difference to Hinze's rapt attention and subdued eagemees of 
 h^T'y i,.?%S°""i°'"^ '*• P"' '"8« questions, bending his 
 
 En" tod r"'^ ^ "^' " ^"""^ °^"^°° as to the state of Art in 
 
 *!. '?V ^^ ''®"°'"' '^*^ » "8''* deprecatory laugh, "I 
 thmk It suffers from two diseases-bad taste in the patrons 
 and want of inspiration in the artists." • 
 
 "That is true indeed," said Hinze, in an undertone «rf deep 
 oonviotion. You have put your finger with strict accuracy 
 on tie causes of declme. To a cultivated taste like yours th^ 
 must be particularly painful." 
 
 "I did not say there was actual deoUne," said Felicia, with 
 a touch of brmquerie. "I don't set myself up as th? great 
 personage whom nothing can please." 
 
 "That would be too severe a misfortune for others," says 
 
 s^uKre?^ "" '' " '"""^'"8 fresh a^d naive in 
 
 " I think it enchanting." 
 
•^ -,.,♦'<■' 
 
 A TOO DBnBXNTUL MAN. W 
 
 "Heayea forbid! It would be an impertinenoe in ma to 
 vaiM a work of hu-to pronounce on iti quality: and that I 
 happen to like it can be of no consequence to him " 
 
 ..7*? f-^S"??*'? ^°' "^^« "^ ""*!« down on hU hat 
 ™.hl^ >'^Fe ic.a'8 ignorance that her prai« waa inesti- 
 mable bemg peculiarly noteworthy to an observer of mankind 
 
 m!!t^.iL '!f <»"i*«,''"« '»"'* her favorite author was 
 Sh^espeare, and wished to know what she thought of Ham- 
 ^l^^^T. ^'"'° '>l'eJ'«dquoted Wilhelm Meisteron ^s 
 point, and had afterward testified that "Lear" was beyond 
 adequate pre«,ntat,on, that " Julius Ca-sar " waa an eff^tive 
 «rtmg play, and that a poet may know a gook^eTri^ut 
 human nature whUe knowing little of geogi^, Kn^ ap 
 ^ so "-P~s«,d with thepleatitudnth'se'i-evrUo« 
 ttat he recapitulated them, weaving them together wiS 
 threads of complunent-" As you very justly obZved "; and 
 -It IS most true, as you say " ; and-" It were well if others 
 noted what you have remarked." 
 
 Hi^r! ^^^""^ i"«a"tious in their epitheto would have called 
 Hinze M "a«,.» For my part I would never insult that in- 
 toUjgeat and unpretending animal who no doubt brays with 
 P«fect simpUcity and suUtontial meaning to those acquainted 
 
 h« J^ {1°""' ""^ "* ^^ **'^'' "">" '">b"'i»ion than he feels, 
 ^weighty reasons for doing so-I would never, I say, insu 
 that h stone and Ill-appreciated animal, the ass, by gi^g his 
 name to a man whose continuous pretence is so shallow bx ito 
 motive, so unexonsed by any sharp appetite as this of Hinze's. 
 But perhaps you would say that his adulatory manner was 
 and'SJii^V ^^K*^ T^" "*""■» promptings of self-interest, 
 Thn^ '.^'""^^^ over-acted deference to persons from 
 
 whom he expects no patronage is the unreflecting persistence of 
 hab^t-just as those who live with the deaf will shout to every- 
 
 And you might indeed imagine that in talking to Tulpian. 
 who has considerable interest at hU disposal, hLs had a de^ 
 sired appointment m his mind. Tulpian is apnealed to on 
 ^umerable subjects, and if he is unwilling to express him- 
 self on any one of them, says so with instmotive copiousness: 
 
^m 
 
 06 
 
 THBOPHRABTOS SUCH. 
 
 reported ,.ith more or lea. exwtitude. But I twSk he hM no 
 other hstoner who comport, himwlf « Hiaz, do^wlT 
 figuratively Bpeakwg, owries .bout a .maU epoon ready to p^ 
 
 have let drop. Tulpian, with reverence be it «id, Z ^, 
 «^er abeurd notion,, .uch aa a mind of krge di,lr^^ 
 
 •ndmultitudinou. aoquiremente like di.«p„table oha^ctj^ 
 at a national celebration in »ome vaat cathedral. wheretoH^ 
 «dent .oul all i, glorified by rainbow lightld g^d ^^fa! 
 bona: any vulgar detective know, them for wKr^ 
 BntHinzeiaeBpeciaUy fervid in hia deaire to hear T^p^ 
 ^late on hi. crotchet., and U rather troubleaome to bya^Z 
 maakingthem whether they have read the vatiou. S^ 
 vmtings m which the«. crotchet, have been publiaW ?f L 
 Mpert la explammg «,me matter on which you deaire to know 
 the evidence, Hin.e teaaea you with TulpUn'. gu^al ^d 
 aaka the expert what he think, of them 8"e«»«^ «nd 
 
 wi^/^^!^' ^^™ 'J-^Kl'to i" the citation of opinion., and 
 would hardly remark that the aun .hone withoutii air^f ^ 
 apectfnl appeal or fervid adheaion. The "Iliad," one LIT 
 w^dimpress him little if it were not for what^. ^i^ 
 haa lately .aid about it; and if you mention u> image or^ 
 bment in Chaucer he «»m. not to heed the beS o7 y"^ 
 
 i^u^ Chaucer aa a poet of the flrat order, and he 4 de- 
 I^hted to find that two .uch Judge, a. you and Hautb^ t 
 
 hJ?^l" f " "?»°" "^aJJ ^ ""bdued ecstaay, moving about. 
 r^lZ^T' "^t '«"-'l««'"'d 1^ and attitade.^* unim". 
 peachable correctne..? Some perwna conaoiou. of aawX 
 
 they may not see it. They are misled by the common mistake 
 
 l^^^T.T'''' '"'"'^•"' """^'^ habitual oTo^! 
 aioniJ, 1, chiefly determined by a distinctly conceived moti^ 
 
 The truth IS, that, the primitive wanta of nature «ic* toier- 
 
, -f^t^- 
 
 'MA 
 
 A TOO DEFKniNTIAL MAM. «7 
 
 M^T^L*}* '"^°''*y '^ """kind, .T«n in » oivilli.d life 
 ooaoepttonofw object toward which they will direct the" 
 ^Llr^ ^^ adaptation, «.d it i, yrt r«er to find one 
 Jjw w'^ I "L^f V»fa*tic pursuit of rich an end 
 rii^» of r* .''^' "" '"^"*«" ^°"°'^. by the conC: 
 ftf<^I „f . ''™'»«l'«'n<'«' seen from a dietonoeand made 
 
 avoided danger: such control by foreeight. such viWd pS 
 
 ?„^wh 7', ''"'•«'''"y ••"Wefly made up of human be^ 
 oWilnZ.^ '^*" r •". P**™'** "«'" *" unrefl«ting 
 rf^r.M T*?" ""^ ""'^'' °' '""^ immediate prompting 
 of thought or feelmg to execute an immediate purple. They 
 W the.r poor-rate., give their vote in affaire^Utici 'r 
 P«»chial, wear a certain amount of starch, hinder boys from 
 
 wices called pleasures, without mentally adjusting these otII- 
 bee. to their own well-understood interact ir t^^the Z^ 
 ultimate welfare of the human nuje, and when they flutato 
 nngraceful compliment, excessive imUing, or othTr luS 
 
 S "'rfP'V'*"* •*•"""' ""'^ «e but the tnckslJ 
 h^ts gradually formed under the successive prompt^of a 
 'H^h to be agreeable, stimulated day by day withou? anf wid 
 W fTor^H 1" r*''^«8 *!"' ^<^- It does not L 4e 
 «?^L™..r f *^''y "" '^''•°8 by studied hypocrisy t^ 
 »rt ^ething for themselves. And so with Hinze Weren^ 
 W bearing, comphmentary parentheses, and worshipful ZZ, 
 which^ to some Uke the overacting of a part in a 00^^ 
 T^w^." ''PP°'°'^»t " other appreciable gain through 
 Tulpmn's favor; he has no doubleneas toward FdicU Zre 
 « no sneenng or backbiting obverse to his ecstatic i^m/raSn 
 
 «w f"* """^-i f««<i design and direct flattery. Myt 
 Perceive, he has had the education and other adviSL^ of a 
 
 «d tl^f "* *" 1°*^^' "^ ^♦'^ everything for occasion^ 
 and transient use. But one cannot be an I^lishman and 
 

 m 
 
 " ■'MOraRAffrtTB 8C0H. 
 
 bwe admimtioM, and vou mavknn- iTlJ ?^' "" ""' 
 
 ably ooDTenatlonal and «in«.» .-j t, v , ^"^ "8"^ 
 
 faUity, for he ha, „ot en^gh of dS^^d Jlij^'^'""'"'. "' 
 
 .-i...«vr;'r^rhroLT.:i"r,ir?.- 
 
VI. 
 ONLY TBaa»EB, 
 
 J^^^.^ '•?'^"' ?.*• P'*""^ ■»•"*"«. *^* proportion" 
 
 bd«tmot.on from wUt ar. held to be .pecifio rimTJ^ 
 ^. A. p«,ple oonfM, to bad memory without expecting to 
 «^ in mental reputation, «, we hear a m«. deolaredto hart 
 
 quality When he em or in any way oommite himielf, hia 
 temper „ Monjed, not hU ohar«rter, aid it is understood tha" 
 
 !rtL!lf ,? °'v" «^°"'y ™^» *" •■« »i^ it « remarks! 
 a^l^oaUy that the«, thing, mean nothtag-the^^^ 
 
 Certainly there u a Umit to thi. form of apoloev and the 
 ^rj of a bill, or the ordering of good. .^oTLTI^ 
 
 Zf^ZTl^"',^'^' ^ °*'^" »*«" "t down to an uX 
 tanate habit of .ulkinew or of irawibility. But on the whSe 
 
 ^" ", ^^1" *"'""'"* °* indulgence toward the manifes- 
 
 w^^in dt™ rK'""'"^ **"'*'' *° "■"»"•«« t"**"". «° that 
 
 perron, who conduct themselves detestably, just as we have 
 
 Ubormg wider many sort, of organic disease. Let it be ad- 
 w™ J^^/"""' ***' * °'*° "^y be " a good fellow » and yet 
 «ZL T"' ■'" ^ **"" ^* "^8°'" hi. merits Jth 
 
 reluctance, and are aclmed to resent hi. occasionaUy amiable 
 b^vior as an unfair demand on our admiration 
 Touchwood U that kind of good fellow. He is by turn. 
 

 
 00 
 
 THBOPHRA8TU8 SUCH. 
 
 insolent, quarrelsom,^ repulsively haugkty to innocent people 
 who approach hm with respect, neglectful of his fS 
 
 SnZ'T 1 i^^^^^r de^-irprocrastinaSg^'tt 
 hdfilment of such demands, prompted to rude words aid harsh 
 looks by a moody disgust with his fellow-men in iteneral-^d 
 
 creature. Pi^ that, after a certain experience of his moods 
 his mtimacy becomes insupportable 1 A man who uwrhU 
 
 ^is±He*''^r-^°'" ""^ "^''^ "'"•"' freqiTcy Td^ 
 unmistakable emphasu may prove „ fast friend in ^versitT 
 
 are tender. The daUy sneer or growl at your remarks is not 
 
 m^dertaking against depredators who m^ not pi^t th^ 
 Behes, and on an occasion which may never arisT^? I™ 
 l^^^to a chronic state of blue and^. b^Tl. a foT^ 
 insurance agamst an accident. 
 
 Touchwood's bad temper U of the contradicting pugnacious 
 sort. He is the honorable gentleman in opposition: i^X~ 
 proposal or proposition may be broached, 3 wheTotte™ 
 
 S'ifr^ afs'tuT^fxr^a?^^^**^-"-- 
 
 benevolent measul^f ^"IKdectJe S'g^ri^^u.^: 
 ^ * r' TP;''^^ with good aims, but he^^mplS^n^ 
 
 S^;nt;trrve^:.^Xras\^^^^^^^ 
 
 ne IS m such a hurry to get. One sees that this anta<^i»H„ 
 temper must be much relieved by finding a pl^cXTl 
 ^d ttat Its worst moments must be those wh^thej^s 
 
^■^ C I 
 
 '«..iJP?. ^ipv, 
 
 ONLY TEMPKR. 
 
 «1 
 
 «(»«««-. « • r^P***""« ">»' you can have committed anr 
 
 havjor affects you very closely you had better b^JlT^ j^' 
 quence of your accident, CKet^^unXS" te„r^^ 
 
 lJ*/"i?'''i!'*'^°*°*''*^ <^* a friend should break his 
 it iTtr^ *"^' compunction and endeatorT^e 
 amenos lor his beanshness or insolenna Tr. k^ ^^ 
 
 taneously conscious that he h^ mSavS ^r^ "P""! 
 only ^hamed of himself, but has th^ ESltrptiSg I ^ 
 andheal any wound he has inflicted. Unhappily Sabit^ 
 be.ng offensive "without meaning it" leaCSy to a Iv 
 
 i rtw?'° If, '^"^. "^^ '"^'""^ !>«"»" ""-not but re^ 
 as a bemg amiable without meaning i«- ti.. w "" "^"of™ 
 
 the light of a penance adjusted to the foregoing lap^ an^ 
 
 j« o^go^ t tt an^-icrcomjrror ILTt 
 
 cause he formerly disgwaed his good feeling towardyouZ 
 
J!LM ,«(|^. 
 
 es 
 
 THEOPHRA8TU8 8U0H. 
 
 now expresses more than he quite feels. It is in vain H« 
 K diZ" W r'^ -eonJortable last 4^ I^as ato-" 
 lately diminished his power of making you happv to^v h. 
 s^ggles against this result by exoefsive eS b^ hehts 
 tought you to observe his fitfulness rather than to to w^^ 
 by his episodic show of regard »" w oe warmed 
 
 mate her his wife, the point of view from which h^ wUl l^k 
 
 pleased will be seriously altered. And if slavery to « Z^ 
 woman, which seems among the least condtS forms o^h^ 
 jent service, wiU not bear too areat a atrJn i^ u^ f ''' 
 
 For ,t ,s among the rtpalsive effects of this bad temn^ 
 which IS supposed to be compatible with shinkT^eTC; 
 It IS apt to determine a man's sudden adhesion toT^^nS^* 
 
 :sr torr h- xT%"hradh^^*^-* ^5 
 
 a.d momentary, but it e^C^. a prte^Jr his te S 
 
 stZjwt^'hf r- " '*." P'^""""^ ^» *° have bet ?nl 
 sistent with his true mmd. This determination of DaxtiZ- 
 ship by temper has its worst effects in the car^r oTtCS 
 
 rectifying Wle^-ttrgf^^^drce^r^j:^^!- 
 
ONLT TEUPER. 6S 
 
 actual attitude which was assumed under an impulse depend- 
 ent on something else than knowledge. There has been plenty 
 of insistence on the evil of swearing by the words of a master, 
 and having the judgment uniformly oontroUed by a " He said 
 it "i but a much worse woe to befall a man U to have ereir 
 judgment controlled by an " I said it "—to make a divinity of 
 his own short-sightedness or passion-led aberraHon and ex- 
 plat ■) world in its honor. There is hardly a more pitiable 
 deg- . Mon than this for a man of high gifts. Hence I can- 
 not jom with those who wish that Touchwood, being vouuk 
 enough to enter on public life, should get elected for Parlia- 
 ment and use his excellent abilities to serve his oountiy in 
 that conspicuous manner. For hitherto, in the less moment- 
 ous incidents of private life, his capricious temper has only 
 produced the minor evU of inconsUtency, and he is even greatly 
 at ease in contradicting himself, provided he can contradict 
 you, and disappoint any smiling expectation j u may have 
 shown that the impressions you are uttering are likely to 
 meet with his sympathy, considering that the day before he 
 himself gave you the example which your mind is foUowing 
 He 18 at least free from those fetters of self-justification which 
 are the ouise of parliamentary speaking, and what I rather 
 desire for him is that he should produce the great book which 
 he IS generally pronounced capable of writing, and put his 
 bMt self unperturbably on record for the advantage of KKsiefrv j 
 because I should then have steady ground for bearing with hU. 
 diurnal mcaloulableness, and could fix my gratitude as by a 
 strong staple to that unvarying monumental service. Unhap- 
 pUy^Touchwood's great powers have been only so far mai5- 
 lested as to be believed ir, not demonstrated. Every bo<lv 
 rates them highly, and thinks that whatever he chose to do 
 would be done in a first-rate manner. Is it his love of dis- 
 appointmg complacent expectancy which has gone so far as to 
 keep up this lamentable negation, and made him resolve not 
 to wnte the comprehensive work which he would have written 
 ir nobody had expected it of him? 
 
 One can see that if Touchwood were to become a public man 
 and take to frequent speaking on platforms or from his seat 
 m the House, it would hardly be possible for him to maintain 
 
ms^s^'^i.'m 
 
 M 
 
 THBOPHKASTCS 8D0H. 
 
 r«tr. ,, *^ ^"'^"'' '*°**^''°* '""Id stamp wittZTe^t 
 
 temper There would be the fatal public neceasiW ofiwttft- 
 mg oratorical Temper which had g,J^ on itsTs in id bSr 
 
 nX!lr/ °°!"'"'*™"'y ^'*J' °P^i'»'« vented out of Tem^ 
 
 u7brrS"Sr ^^-^wouldhavetobefouow^ 
 
 Certainly if a bad-tempered man can be admirably virtuous 
 
 he must be so under extreme difficulties. I d^b? tl™ - 
 
 ake Touchwood's. For it is of the nature of such temper to 
 mtoruptthe formation of healthy mental habits! wUcK 
 
 S^SimpuLrTh* '"'""°T^*-««" Perception/con^^tii 
 and impulse. There may be good feelings, good deeds-f^ 
 a human natu«, may pack endless rar^tierand bW^ 
 T^^T^:^ its windinga-but it is essential to^2 
 w worthy to be caUed high character, that it may be 
 aafely calcuhited on, and that ita qualiti« shaU havTLS 
 the^form of prmciples or h.wa habitually, if not p^rfS^^ 
 
 ^f^.!"^"^ fr«q°ently passea unjust judgments, takes up falae 
 attihides, mtermits his acts of kindneaswith rude "ha^^ 
 
 posingthathecan make amende by labored agreeablene«L I 
 cannot oonaiderauohcooise. any the leaa ugTb^^ 
 
 ^ a^o^i"*^* " ^^«"t^y 80od diaposition ia eZl 
 an apology or a compensation for his bad behavior. If his 
 
 Ueof a to tqraad remember his better deeds already pw- 
 
r^ 
 
 ONLY TKMFEB. 
 
 66 
 
 tmrntO, and, mindful of my own offences, to bear him no mal- 
 . loe. But I cannot accent liis amends. 
 
 B the bad-tempered ^..a wants to apoloeize he had need to 
 do It on a large public scale, make some beneficent discovery 
 poduoe some stimulating work of genius, invent some power- 
 ful process— prove himself such a good to contemporary mul- 
 titudes and future generations, as to make the discomfort he 
 oanses his friends and acquaintances a vanishing quantitr a 
 trifle even in their own estimate. --' 
 
^^sm^ 
 
 :|l 
 
 VII. 
 
 A POLITICAL MOLECULE. 
 
 Tra most arrant deniep must admit that a man often furthers 
 larger ends than he is conscious of, and that while he is trans- 
 actmg his particular affairs with the narrow pertinaoityTl 
 rsspecteble ant, he subserves an economy larger than ^yjur 
 
 ^If ,;^f ^r-.-^'*^ " '"'PP^y °°* dependent for^i^e 
 growth of feUowship on the small minorily alwady endowti 
 w^tt comprehensive sympathy: any moWo of the tody 
 politic working toward his own interest in an orderly way^ta 
 
 ^ 2^"'^ "^^ r/!.°f ^«"' P«°«t™t«d with the fact ttat 
 his mterest is included in that of a large number I have 
 watched several political molecules being educated in this way 
 Y the nature of things into a faint feeling of fraternity But 
 at ttis moment I am thinking of Spike. L elector ^ho voS 
 on Uie side of Progress though he was not inwardly a^hld 
 to It under that name. For abstractions are deitis Sg 
 m^y specific names, local habitations, and forms of aoS 
 and so get a multitude of devout servants who care " m^ 
 for them under their highest titles than the celeb,!^ peZ" 
 who, puttang with forcible brevity a view of hu^rmS 
 
 C Zfi T"*?.^ ""' '^'^ "^^ P'^'ority J»d done f» 
 hun that he should care for Posterity? To many minds ev^ 
 
 s^nlvLf." ""t^"'" of wisdom was doubUess worshipped 
 simply as the patroness of spinning and weaving. Kow spiur 
 nmg and weavmg from a manufacturing, wholiale ^intrf 
 view, was the chief form under which Spike from early yea™ 
 had unconsciously been a devotee of Pr^ress 
 He was a politic^ molecule of the most gentiemanlike ap- 
 
 nioety m the oare of h,s person and equipment. His umbrella 
 
wr. * 
 
 A POUnOAL MOLECULE. «r 
 
 w^ especially remarkable for ite neatness, though perhan. he 
 
 Vea small, bright, and twinkling. He was seen to area* J- 
 nntage m a hat and greatcoat-garments f^uenUvTwt 
 
 2SiTTT-'°"*°'^^'^"»' butwhV^hewLZ.^ 
 ^^ tl'e dMwing-room, it was impossible not to observe 
 that hia head dielved o£f too rapidly fiTm the eyebrows tot^Ld 
 decrown, and that his length of limb seem^ toWel^J 
 
 Tersataonal topics He appeared, indeed, to be preo,^nZd 
 
 ^^ "T "i}'" ""'""'**' o^o^i^ clapped hTZdi 
 top,aier and rubbed them frequently, st^ightoned He i^i 
 and even opened hU mouth and closed it awin with ^ S 
 snap^pparently for no other purpose tlLTe"U^t:S 
 hnnself of his own powers in that line TheM «« T ^ 
 exe^ises, but they arrnot such as gi^'weij't to ™ W 
 "onah^. Sometimes Spike's mind, emerging froHs ™ 
 
 that a lady should always wear the best ieweh^ o, fh.t . 
 bnd. wasamost interesting object; but Sg Ce^« 
 
 uT^lfb^^' '"'^^V'?'' r"^"* relapse intoabsLur, S^ 
 up hu back, wrinkle his brows longitudinally, and simto 
 M(^ society, even including gravel walks^ i^woW «„^ 
 bndes, as essentially a poor affJr. ^IdeJhKh t^mM 
 
 SfLf^t''^ ".^rhrfotntrtre dtrr: 
 
 ferture, and had tiius attained the chief object of his amS 
 -the object which had engaged his talent for order Th n.? 
 sev^ng^pUcatio. For his easy leisuretu^^'h^'^^^:^ 
 
 edr^bnt h«^ not, mdeed, exhausted the sources of know" 
 
 p-tLi- , *^-~='"Sra£ior, ; .at .jjred the Great wan a. 
 
 Catholic, or that apart from the Ten Comm^idmenSty ^^t 
 
miitmm'iF "-.. 
 
 «8 
 
 THEOPHRASTra BVOR. 
 
 oeptiwi of moral conduct hod ooourred to mankind, he wm not 
 stimulated to further inquiries on these remote matters Yet 
 he aspired to what he regarded as intellectual society, wiU- 
 mgly entertained beneficed clergymen, and bought the books 
 he heard spoken of, arranging them carefully on the shelves of 
 what he called his library, and occasionally sitting alone in 
 the same room with them. But some minds seem well glazed 
 by nature against the admission of knowledge, and Spike's 
 was one of them. It was not, however, entirely so witii re- 
 pjrd to pohbos. He had a strong opinion about the Eeform 
 Bill, and saw clearly that the large trading towns ought to 
 send members. Portraits of the Eeform heroes hung framed 
 and glazed in his library: he prided himself on being a Lib- 
 eral. In this last particular, as well as in not giving bene- 
 factions and not making loans without interest, he showed un- 
 questionable firmness. On the Repeal of the Com Laws 
 again, he was thoroughly convinced. His mind was expansive 
 toward foreign marketo, and his imagination could see that 
 the people from whom he took com might be able to take the 
 cotton goods which they had hitherto dispensed with. On 
 his conduct in these political oonoems, hU wife, otherwise in- 
 tiuentMl as a woman who belonged to a famUy with b. title in 
 it, and who luui condescended in marrying him, could tain no 
 hold: she had to blush a Uttle at what was caUed her La.- 
 band s radicalism "_an epithet which was a very unfair im- 
 peachment of Spike, who never went to the root of anythina 
 But he understood his own trading affairs, and in this way 
 became a genuine, constant political element. If he had be«a 
 bom a little later he could have been accepted as an eligible 
 member of Parliament, and if he had be!"^ged to ahigh 
 family he might have done for a member of the Govemment. 
 Perhaps his indifference to "views" would have passed for 
 administrative judiciousness, and he would have been so uen- 
 erally silent that he must often have been silent in the right 
 place. But this is empty speculation : there is no warrant for 
 saying what Spike would have been and known so as to have 
 made a oalcnlable political element, if he had not been edu- 
 cated by having to manage his trade. A small mind trained 
 to useful occupation for the satisfying of private need be- 
 
#1 m 
 
 A POUnCAl UOLBOVLX. M 
 
 I »«^rei6nt«tive of genuine olaa. needs. Spike objected 
 too«Uu. .terns of legislation beo.„ they h«np?red hS^ 
 
 ^ .nJ7.'"'f ^" "^^ "^ hampered by the ,Z 
 o«i.«.i uid though he would have been simply Selfish in « 
 question of hght or water between himself and a fellow" ^,! 
 man, hw need for a change in legislation, being shared by «!l 
 ^neighbors in trade, ceased to be simply selfish, and rL^ 
 
 a the law could have been changed for the benefit of his Z- 
 Ucdar business, leaving the cotton trade in general in a so^ 
 
 1^^ ,'"°^ "'•*"'* '^"B contemplated as possiUe- it 
 aUowed of an enlarged market for Spike only throSe en- 
 Ujrg^nent of his neighbors' market, Li the PossiWe is ^IZ 
 
 obW^ r*"^ °' "^ '^'"*« "^-^ ^^^- Spike wL 
 obhged to contemplate a general benefit, and thus became 
 
 K.^!^ ' '«°'"° ^*° * ^'^'^^ *" aP»b- 
 
 h»^ri!!?l{ " ^^^. '"^ ^° •»"> " ""^"» he could not 
 
 iTt ih^^**"' t"r °' ^^« "^^'^ » political e°^ 
 meat. But he might have had the same appearance, have 
 been equaUy nuU in conversation, sceptical as Tthe reiitv of 
 plewuij and destitute of historical kiowledgeVperlTps even 
 inJydul^g Jesuitism as a quality in cUrS, or 
 
 ^of middle-aged genUemen's ignorance will never be 
 known, for want of puUio examinations in this branch 
 
JiW: 
 
 ^1 ♦...• 
 
 J!l 
 
 vm. 
 
 THE WATCH-DOG OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 MoBDAx ia an admirable man, ardent in intelleotnal work 
 publio-spirited, affectionate, and able to find the right wordi 
 m conveying ingenion* idea* or elevated feeling. Pity that 
 to aU these graces he cannot add what would give them the 
 utmost finish— the occasional admission that he has been in 
 the wrong, the ooasional frank welcome of a new idea as some- 
 thing not before present to his mind 1 But no : Mordai's self- 
 respect seems to be of that fiery quality which demands that 
 none but the monarohs of thought shall have an advantage 
 over him, and in the presence of contradiction or the threat of 
 havmg his notions corrected, he becomes astonUhingly un- 
 scrupulous and cruel for so kindly and conscientious a man. 
 
 " You are fond of attributing those fine qualities to Mordaz, " 
 said Acer, the other day, '• but I have not much belief in vir- 
 tues that are always requiring to be asserted in spite of ap- 
 pearances against them. True fairness and good will show 
 themselves precisely where his are conspicuously absent. I 
 mean, in recognizing claims which the rest of the world are 
 not likely to stand up for. It does not need much love of 
 truth and justice in mi to say that Aldebaran is a bright star, 
 or Isaac Newton the greatest of discoverers ; nor much kindli- 
 ness in me to want my notes to be heard above the rest in a 
 chorus of hallelujahs to one already crowned. It is my way 
 to apply tests. Does the man who has the ear of the public 
 use his advantage tenderly toward poor fellows who may be 
 hindered of their due it he treats their pretensions with scorn? 
 That is my test of his justice and benevolence." 
 
 My answer was, that his system of moral tests might be as 
 delusive as what ignorant people take to be tests of intellect 
 and learning. If the scholar or savant cannot answer their 
 
fW^Mi - ^Jm 
 
 TH« WATOH.DOO OF KNOWLEDOK n 
 
 SSTuKr B„?4f K S" r;: •*"•' '- '"• 
 
 th. Jolu«oni« theory of m^d m . 't^t^'^K,'^;'" 1? 
 
 to !>• • ««dy.m«le doL, oHwiifr^ i'"'°'°°«f" *^«" 
 
 pli«tion S one liBe n^ o; ^1^617^:^"^ *^* "P' 
 effect in other direotionii Zt IJ!^^ ''" °^'*" " !«"»"« 
 
 i.7drag in another We w^r* '? °'"' ""^'"« "' '"ort 
 
 tare in the Tu^hwe o^fle^-™! ^ P'"^" V^ '^'^ " P~' «"•- 
 the.ffection'i, «^^he m^^^'me're'^H*'*"'"^ "'»"* 
 »nd yet .how a keen inei/ht^tn V! J^^" '" phyaiology 
 
 »eem the " poor Poll ' ^# rtl ^" °"'*'^«' ' '^»' J"' ^^ 
 
 write with ^e h^io-^LX^Tie^rr :^°° ""• ^"^ 
 intellectual power i« Uke the !2«.iK " ° * *'v' **** • °«'» 
 assured byTt. wleet ^^.f^*^ "' ' ^^'^^ ^>^.U,l^ 
 
 H^st the exiet^nTor/nf i^SrortbTS Tt"^ 
 relation to hie actions generally. CnltV, .1 ^.f**'""' ^ 
 ments are abnent in . „i... . '' '*°*'"* ">"se better move- 
 
 by our taking notic^ tfat^e J^Z^r;!*''* "^ '"'"""'•^ 
 •wm to u« the moat uttLlv i!T^^u^ ™"^ °' »"*■ ''^ioh 
 
 other persona are able" dtTa mill"f ?? ""^^T- ^ 
 
 whoha,atemperbutnot^eItf™X.rar- ^f'^'' 
 down in a fierce wav hv nr^vj. • .P*"®*" bavug been run 
 
 tbe highly lauTed i;^i,1°S' " ^r^- '"'""'"''"* """ 
 perceiving that his oZ frfeld "se iTtkinl " """''' ''"^ '^ 
 reckless assailant than thev H w w ^"^ °° '°"« °* <*« 
 lately been flatter^ h^ did before; and Coryus, who has 
 
 of good-nature with aSg gSd^ 7^ °° '"S ^'"*"'* 
 
 --.tea-tr£;er"Ti:x"4sr.:ig: 
 
rs 
 
 THSOPHRASTUB BUOH. 
 
 "Th«itiiigi kn in my flnh, and the iwMtDMi is on your 
 muxile." The bear, it i« laid, waa lurpriiad at the badger's 
 want of altruism. 
 
 But this differenoe of sensibility between Lanigef and his 
 friends only mirrors in a faint way the differenoe between his 
 own point of view and that of the man who has injured him. 
 If those neutral, perhaps eren affeotionate persons, form no 
 lively oonoeption of what Laniger suffers, how should Mordax 
 have any such sympathetic imagination to check him in what 
 he persuades himself is a scourging administered by the quali- 
 fied man to the unqualified? Depend upon it, his conscience, 
 though active enough in some relations, has never given him 
 a twinge because of his polemical rudeness and even brutality. 
 He would go from the room where he has been tiring himself 
 through the watches of the >ight in lifting and turning a sick 
 friend, and straightway write a reply or rejoinder in which 
 he mercilessly pillorie4 a Laniger who had supposed that he 
 oould tell the world something else or more than had been 
 •anctioned by the eminent Mordax— and what was worse, had 
 sometimes really done so. Does this nullify the genuineness 
 of motive which made him tender to his suffering friend? 
 Kot at all. It only proves that his arrogant egoism, set on 
 fire, sends up smoke and flame where just before there had 
 been the dews of fellowship and pity. He is angry and equips 
 himself accordingly— with a penknife to give the offender a 
 ampraehieo countenance, a mirror to show him the effect, and 
 a pair of nailed boote to give him his dismissal. All this to 
 teaoh him who the Romans really were, and to purge inquiry 
 of incompetent intrusion, so rendering an important service to 
 mankind. 
 
 When a man is in a rage and wants to hurt another in con- 
 sequence, he can always regard himself as the civil arm of s 
 spiritual power, and all the more easily because there is real 
 need to assert the righteous efloacy of indignation. I for my 
 part feel with the Lanigers, and should object all the more to 
 their or my being lacerated and dressed with salt, if the ad- 
 ministrator of such torture alleged i>a :- motive his care for 
 Truth and posterity, and got himself pictured with a halo in 
 ooDsequenoe. In transactions between fellow-men it is well 
 
THl WATOBDOO OF KNOWUtDOl. 78 
 
 ^h^ n^TH r!,'*''u'"^ oonc.m«i, brfow we .pit «,d 
 Ughert "wrtowitri virtue, h.ve theit danger., like .U eUe 
 
 with .wftil brow and flaming .word, aummoning and enooun«- 
 mg M to do the right and the divinely heroic, and wr/^P 
 Unefloent tremor in their pre^moe, but to W what h . 
 ttey thu.wn.mon u. to do. we h.ve to ooneider the mort.-' 
 we »e elbowing who are of our own .tature and our own .,.- 
 
 ^1^,^ ^w ^v "■" """"^S •«'«' »>"» I have good 
 r^hf '"'ti^'* ^^^ '"*^ population, there willbe 
 none the worw off because I abstain from conjectural vilifica- 
 tion of my opponenU during the present parliamentary sewion, 
 and I «n very ,ure that 1 .haU be leu injuriou. to mv oon 
 tempo«»rie.. On the whole, and in the vLt Tjoritrof ™ 
 |J»ce^«.e«tion by which we can do the be^t fo^ We 
 •gea ui of the sort which has a certain beneficence and grace 
 
 ^^TV^"'- ^ '^l' '"""" "»y "^°™ Prisonsf^t 
 ^^ ^^" 'T""" •'" '*~» ^^- The deed of Juda. 
 hI!t^i.'M t"^ ^ far-re«ihing views, and the wish to 
 P^SL T T* .' •*~'«"°» of himwlf as the Mciah. 
 P«hap.-I will not maintain the contrary- Juda. represented 
 
 wT '.LV"i'^ ^^y- ""^ '-It J"«tifi«dmhistraito™us k°^ 
 but my behef that he deserved, metaphorically speaking, to 
 be where D«,te saw him, at the botiom of L IfalebSw! 
 wouldnotbetheless strong because he wa. not conZsTfi 
 
 SeatZr/ '"''w'''''' . ' "'"" *° -"""P^ " """> ">o hL 
 d.™n« , B"ph treachery, as a hero impatient for the re- 
 demptaon »' "'^''"'d and for the beginning of a reign wh^ 
 the kisses shall be those of peace and righteousness. 
 AU till, is by the way, to show that my apology forMordax 
 
 m^ivl r^"^ 1° ^ P"""""'"" °^ super^ri^in his ^ 
 motives, but on the compatibility of unfair, equivocal, and 
 even cruel actions with a nature which, apart from siecW 
 ^ptetions, i. kindly and generous; and' also to enfororS 
 n«d of check, from a fellow-feeling with thoM whom Z 
 
^ "':f^.'in&. 
 
 74 
 
 TBBOPHRASTVS SUCH. 
 
 H 
 
 •ots immediately (not distantly) oonoem. Will any one be M 
 Iwrdy as to maintain that an otherwise worthy man cannot be 
 Tarn and arrogant? I think most of ns have some interest in 
 arguing the contrary. And it is of the nature of vanity and 
 W)ganoe, if unchecked, to become cruel and self-justifyinK 
 Th«e are fierce beasts within : chain them, chain them, and 
 let them learn to cower before the creature with wider rison. 
 This 18 what one wishes for Mordax-that his heart and brain 
 saoiild restram the outleap of roar and talons. 
 
 As to his unwillingness to admit that an idw which he has 
 not discovered is novel to him, one is surprised that quick in- 
 tellect and shrewd observation do not early gather reasons for 
 being ashamed of a mental trick which makes one amonir the 
 comic parts of that various actor Conceited Ignorance 
 
 I have a sort of valet and factotum, an excellent, respect- 
 tlTt^^I^^ BpellingUsounvitUted by non-phonetic 
 superfluities that he writes night as nit. One day, lookine 
 over his accounts, I said to him jocosely, " You .Ire in th! 
 latest fashion with your spelling, Pummel: most people spell 
 night with a gh between the i and the t, but the greatest 
 schoh»rsnowspellitasyoudo."-«So I suppose, sir^Bays 
 
 You would never catoh Pummel in an interjection i • surprise 
 1 have sometimes laid traps for his astonishment, but he has 
 escaped ttem all, either by a respectful neutrality, as of one 
 who would not appear to notice that his master had been tak- 
 mg too much wine or else by that strong persuasion of his 
 all-knowinpiess which makes it simply impossible for him to 
 feel himself newly inforined. If I toll him that the world is 
 spmnmg round and along like a top, and that he is spinning 
 with It, he say^ "Yes, I've heard a deal of that in my tim.^ 
 sir, and lifts the horizontal lines of his brow a little hieher 
 uahncmg his head from side to side as if it were too painfully 
 foil Whether I tell him that they cook puppies inChiniL 
 that there are di.cks with fur coats in Australia, or that ^ 
 some parts of the world it is the pink of politeness to put yonr 
 tongue out on mtroduction to a respectable stranger, Pnimuel 
 replies "So I suppose, rir," with an air of r^d^atiT^ 
 
/^^ms. 
 
 THI WATCH-DOG OF KNOWLEDGE. 78 
 
 hearing my poor version of well-known things, such as elders 
 TJl^^'^^. ^ ^^'^^ ^' ^*«'y present^ with an ane^ 
 
 w V° ^1 "*°""* concession is, that what you state is 
 .wIh" 7 1«^« wplied if you had giren him carte ilanche 
 mstoad of your needless instruction, and in this sense his fa- 
 vonte answer is, « I should say. " 
 
 "Pummel," I observed, a little irritated at not getting my 
 coffee, If you were to carry your kettle and spirits of wine 
 up a mountain of a morning, your water would boil there 
 «»ner.»-« I should say. sir."-" Or, there are boiling spring 
 in Iceland. Better go to Iceland."-" That's what I've beoi 
 thinking, sir." ^^ 
 
 I have taken to asking him hard questions, and as I ex- 
 pected, he never admits his own inability to answer them 
 without representing it as common to the human race " What 
 18 the cause of the tides. Pummel? "-"Well, sir, nobody 
 nghtly knows. Many gives their opinion, but if I was to 
 give mine, it 'ud be different" *■ ' "■» «» 
 
 But whUe he is never surprised himself, he is constantly 
 unagmmg situations of surprise for others. His own con- 
 fwT!fi! "■ *^»*°^°°« ~ thoroughly soaked in knowledge 
 mat further alMorption is impossible, but his neighbors ap- 
 
 cWiJ^ L"^ ^ w? *^'4^** "' "^^"^ "PO-K"" ^^^^ it i»^ 
 chanty to besprmkle. His great interest in thinking of for- 
 
 wgners 18 that they must be surprised at what they see in 
 
 aighmd, and especially at the beef. He is often occupied 
 
 with tte surprise Adam must hav. felt at the sight of the 
 
 b y to Wombwell's riiows." He is fond of disc.;ursing to the 
 lad who acts as shoeblack and general subaltern, and I have 
 overheard him saying to that small upstart^ with some sever- 
 
 It'f-JT f " P'"**"*^ *° ^"^^ *»«»»»« ">« "ore you 
 
 pretend the more I see your ignirance "-a lucidity on his part 
 which has confirmed my impression that the thoroughly self- 
 
 XS^STZt' "''' '-^ ^^ *° ^•'p-^- ^^ '•"- 
 
 Your diffident self-suspecting mortal is not very angry that 
 rthers should feel more comfortable about themselve.^ pro- 
 vided they are not otherwise offensive: he is rather like the 
 
re 
 
 THBOPHHASTDS SUCH. 
 
 tmid, gtad to haye a oonwgeous feUow-trayeU«. ll oW 
 him to observe the store of Bnall comfort, that hie feUo,^^ 
 ^I'^l^li" *^?" self-complaoenoy. just as oneTJS 
 
 which one has neither nose nor stomach one's self 
 
 But your arH)gant man will not tolerate a presumption 
 whmh he sees to be Ul-founded. The service he r^ <^ 
 r^ « 7»t u. need of U to put down the conceit wSTis^o 
 parboularly rife aromid him that he is inclined to beUeiel? 
 the^wmg characteristic of the present age. In the schools 
 of Magna Gneoia, or in the sixth century of our era, or even 
 
 l^^^f\^ ^\^^'' » '""'P^^tive freedo^rom tCtt 
 presumption by which hU contemporaries are stirring his able 
 
 ^' • J /*^ ^P^' ""^ ""'^ ^"™t °°«°°» which are not 
 his without appearmg to mind that they are not his, strikes 
 
 that one strongly convinced of his own value should prefer to 
 exalt an age in which he did not flourish, if it were not fbr 
 the r^ection that the present age is the only one in whi^ 
 anybody has appeared to undervalue him « "» wmoft 
 
 m 
 
IX. 
 
 A HALF-BKEED. 
 
 As early deep-seated love to which we become faithless has 
 Its unfailing Nemesis, if only in that division of soul which 
 nwrowB all newer joys by the intrusion of regret and the es- 
 tabUshed presentiment of change. I refer not merely to the 
 love of a person, but to the love of ideas, practica. beliefs, and 
 social habits. And faithlessness here means not a gradual 
 conversion dependent on enlarged knowledge, but a yielding 
 to seductive circumstance ; not a conviction that the original 
 choice was a mistake, but a subjection to incidents that flatter 
 a growing desire. In this sort of love it is the forsaker who 
 has the melancholy lot; for an abandoned belief may be more 
 effectively vengeful than Dido. The child of a wandering 
 tabe caught young and trained to polite life, if he feels an 
 hereditary yearning can run away to the old wUds and get hU 
 nature into tune. But there is no such recovery possible to 
 the man who remembers what he once believed without being 
 oonvinoed that he was in error, who feels within him unsatis- 
 fied stirrings toward old beloved habits and intimacies from 
 which he has far receded without conscious justification or 
 unwavering sense of superior attractiveness in the new. This 
 involuntary renegade has his character hopelessly Jangled and 
 out of tune. He is like an organ with ite stops m the lawless 
 oonditimi of obtruding themselves without method, so that 
 hearers are amazed by the most unezpected transitions— the 
 trumpet bre»iing in on the flute, and the obo6 confoundine 
 both. " 
 
 Hence the lot of Mixtua affects me pathetically, notwith- 
 standing that he spends his growing wealth with liberality and 
 manifest enjoyment. To most observers he appears to be 
 nnply one of the fortqaate and also sharp ccmsssrcial aes 
 
mm 
 
 n 
 
 THBOPHRASTUS SUCH. 
 
 Who began with meaning to be rich and have become what 
 they meant to be : a man never taken to be well-bom, but aur- 
 prisingly better informed than the well-bom usually are, and 
 dMtinguished among ordinary commercial magnate, by a per- 
 sonal kindness which prompts him not only to help the sX- 
 mg ma material way through his wealth, but also by direct 
 ministeation of his own; yet with aU this, diffusing, as it 
 were, the odor of a man delightedly conscious of his wealth 
 
 i^t^^n 1°'/°'*^^*^" ^'"1 distinctions of rank and 
 intellect which he can thus admire without envying. Hardlv 
 one among those superficial observers can suspect that he aims 
 « has ever aimed at being a writer , still Jess can they imagine 
 ^t his mind ,s often moved by strong currents of^ret 
 ^at^fn^n""**.""^^''*"? sympathies from the memories of a 
 youthful time when his chosen awooiates were men and wom- 
 ^ 7JtT°^^, distinction was a religious, a philanthropic, or 
 an intellectual enthusiasm, when the lady on whose words his 
 attention most hung was a writer of minor religious Utorature, 
 when he was a visitor and exhorter of the poor in the alleys 
 of a great provmcial town, and when he attended the lectures 
 
 Congregational preacher, who had studied in German/ and 
 had liberal advanced views then far beyond the ordimuyteach- 
 mg of his sect At that time Mixtus thought himseLU young 
 mwi of socially reforming ideas, of religious principles and 
 
 rich, bat he looked forward to a use of hU riches chiefly for 
 
 strongly democratic stamp, except that even then, belonging 
 to the class of employers, hi was opposed to aU demands in 
 tte employed that would restrict the expansiveness of trade 
 He was the most democratic in relation to the unreasonable 
 pnvileges of the aristocracy and landed interest; and he had 
 also a religiom. sense of brotherhood with the poor. Alto- 
 
 i^^I' T " ''"""'"'y benevolent young man, interested 
 in Ideas, and renouncmg personal ease for the sake of study 
 reUgious communion, and good works. If you had kno^ 
 him then you would have expected him to marry a highly 
 senous and perhaps Uterary woman, sharing his benevoU 
 
 h' 
 
A BAL7-BRKBD. 
 
 79 
 
 «nd religious haWts, and likely to encourage his .tudies-a 
 woman who along with himself would play a distinguished 
 part » one of the most enlightened religious circles of a sreat 
 provincial capital. ' 
 
 How is it that Mixtus finds himself in a London mansion 
 and in society totally unlike that which made the ideal of hii 
 younger years? And whom did he marry? 
 
 Why, he married Scintilla, who fascinated him as she had 
 fascinated others, by her prettiness, her liveliness, and her 
 music. It IS a common enough case— that of a man being 
 suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his 
 Ideal; or if not wholly captivated, at least effectively captured 
 by ,a combmation of circumstances along with an unwarily 
 manifested inclination which might otherwise have been 
 transient. Mutus was captivated and then captured on the 
 worldly nde of his disposition, which had been always grow- 
 ing and flourishing side by side with his philanthropic and re- 
 ligious tastes. He had ability in business, and he had early 
 meant to be rich; also, he was getting rich, and the taste for 
 such success was naturally growing with the pleasure of re- 
 warded exertion. It was during a business sojourn in London 
 that he met ScuitiUa, who, though without fortune, associated 
 with families of Greek merchants living in a style of splen- 
 dor, and with artists patronized by such wealthy entertainers 
 Mixtus on this occasion became familiar with a world in which 
 wealth seemed the key to a more brilliant sort of dominance 
 toan that of a religious patron in the provincial circles of X 
 Would It not be possible to unite the two kinds of sway? A 
 man bent on the most useful ends might, with a fortune large 
 enovgh, make morality magnificent, and recommend religious 
 pnnciple by showing it in. combination with the best kind of 
 house and the most liberal of tables; also with a wife whose 
 graces, wit, and accomplishments gave a finish-sometimes 
 lacking even to establishments got up with that unhesitating 
 worldlmess to which high cost is a sufficient reason. Enough 
 Mixtus marned Scintilla. Now this lively lady knew noth- 
 ing of Nonconformists, except that they were unfashionable- 
 s^he did not distinguish one con -enticle from another, and Mr.' 
 -PO..OS with his Ciiiigaien6d iuUjrpretations seemed to her 
 
^tffa 
 
 *y 
 
 I 
 
 *' THBOPHRASTUB SUCH. 
 
 as heavy a bore, if not quite ao ridionloug, as Mr. Johns oouM 
 have been with his solemn twang at the Baptist chapel in the 
 lowest suburbs, or as a local preacher among the Methodisto 
 In general, people who appeared seriously to believe in any 
 sort of doctrine, whether religious, social, or phUosophical 
 seemed rather absurd to ScintiUa. Ten to one these theoretii 
 people pronounced oddly, had some reason or other for saying 
 that the most agreeable things were wrong, wore objectionable 
 clothes, and wanted you to subscribe to something They 
 were probably ignorant of art and music, did not understand 
 badinage, and, iu taoi, could talk of nothing amusing. In 
 Scintilla's eyes the majority of persons were ridiculous and de- 
 plorably wanting in that keen perception of what was good 
 taste, with which she herself was blessed by nature and edu- 
 cation; but the people understood to be religious or otherwise 
 theoretic, were the most ridiculous of all, without being pro- 
 portionately amusing and invitable. 
 
 Did Mixtus not discover this view of Scintilla's before their 
 manage? Or did he allow her to remain in ignorance of 
 habits and opinions which had made half the occupation of 
 his youth? 
 
 When a man is inclined to marry a particular woman, and 
 had made any committal of himself, this woman's opinions 
 however different from his own, are readily regarded as part 
 of her pretty ways, espeoiaUy if they are merely negative ; as, 
 for example, that she does not insist on the Trinity or on the 
 rightfuhiess or expediency of church rates, but simply regards 
 her lover's troubling himself in disputation on these heads as 
 stuff and nonsense. The man feels his own superior strength, 
 and IS sure that marriage will make no difference to him on 
 the subjects about which he is in earnest. And to laugh at 
 men's affairs is a woman's privUege, tending to enUven the 
 domestic hearth. If Scintilla had no liking for the best sort 
 of nonconformity, she was without any troublesome bias tow- 
 ard Episcopacy, Anglicanism, and early sacraments, and was 
 quite contented not to go to church. 
 
 As to ScintUla's acquaintance with her lover's tastes on 
 these subjects, she was equally convinced on her side that a 
 husband's queer ways whUe he was a bachelor would be easily 
 
A. RALF-BRmD. f| 
 
 hailed out of him when he had married an adioit woman 
 Mixtus, she felt, waa an exoeUen^ creature, quite likable, who 
 W8» getting nohj and Scintilla meant to have all the advan- 
 tages of a rich man's wife. She was not in the least a wicked 
 woman; she was simply a pretty animal of the ape kind, with 
 an aptitude for certain accomplishments which education had 
 made the most of. 
 
 But we hare seen what has been the result to poor Mixtus 
 He has become richer eyen than he dreamed of being has 
 a little palace in London, and entertains with splendor' the 
 half-anatooratic, professiraial, and artistic society which he is 
 proud to think select. This society regards him as a clever 
 feUow m his particular branch, seeing that he has become a 
 considerable capitalist, and as a man desirable to have on the 
 list of one's acquaintances. But from every other point of 
 view Mixtus finds himself personally submerged: what he 
 happens to think is not felt by h-' • esteemed guests to be of 
 any consequence, and what he used to think with the ardor of 
 conviction he now hardly ever expresses. He is transplanted 
 and the sap within him has long been diverted into other tha^ 
 tne old Imes of vigorous growth. How could ha speak to the 
 artist Crespi or to Sir Hong Kong Bantam about the enlarged 
 doctrine of Mr. ApoUos? How could he mention to them his 
 former efforts toward evangeliang the inhabitants of the X 
 alleys? And his references to his historical and geographical 
 studies toward a survey of possible markets for English prod- 
 ucts are received with an air of ironical suspicion by many of 
 his poUtical friends, who take his pretension to give advice 
 oonoemmg the Amazon, the Euphrates, and the Niger as 
 equivalent to the currier's wide views on the applicability of 
 leader. He can only make a figure through his genial hospi- 
 tality. It IS in vain that he buys the best pictures and statues 
 of the best artists. Nobody wiU call him a judge in art If 
 Ms picture and statues are well chosen it is generally thought 
 that Somtilla told him what to buy; and yet Scintilla in otier 
 oonneotiona is spoken of as having only a superficial and often 
 questionable taste. Jiiitus, it is decided, is a good fellow 
 not ignorant-no, really having a good deal of knowledge a^ 
 well as sense, but not easy to classify otherwise than as a rich 
 
•» 
 
 ir 
 
 " THXOPBRASTTrB BVOB. 
 
 man. He hw ooniequently become a Uttie nncerttin m to hi. 
 own pomt of view, and in hi. mort unreMrred momenUof 
 
 ^a^l^^T"^ 'T "''"' •P^'^* *^ "•*•""• whom h* 
 Uunk. likely to aympathize with the earlier part of hi. oarMi 
 he preaento himself in aU his yariou. aspeot. and feeU himieU 
 m turn what he hw been, what he i., and what other, take 
 him to be (for this last statu, i. what we mu.t all more or lew 
 accept) He will recover with wme glow of enthusiasm the 
 vision of hi. old aMooiates, the particvJar limit he wa. onoe 
 aoou.tomed to trace of freedom in reUgious speculation, and 
 his old Ideal of a worthy life, but he till pr^nUy p^. to 
 the argument that money is the only mean, by which C cm 
 get what IS best worth Uving in the world, and wiU wrive at 
 the exclamation "Give me money I " with the tone and gerture 
 of a man who both feels and knows. Then if one of hifauS- 
 ence, not having money, remark, that a man may have made 
 up hi. mind to do without mone> because he prefer, .omething 
 dtae, Mixtus 1. with him immediately, cordially concurring i^ 
 the supreme vaJue of mind and geniu., which indeed make hU 
 own chief delight, m that he is able to entertain the admirable 
 potseawrs of these attributes at his own table, though not 
 himself reckoned, among them. Yet, he wiU proceed to ob- 
 aetre, there was a time when he sacrificed hi. .leep to .tudv 
 and even now amid the pre« of bu«dneM he from time to time 
 think, of taking up the manuscripts which he hopes K>me day 
 to complete, and i. always increasing his collection of valuable 
 works bearing on his favorite topics. And it U true that he 
 has read much m certain direction., and can remember what 
 he ha. read; he knows the- history and theories of coloniza- 
 tion and the social condition of countries that do not at oresent 
 ocmsume a sufficiently large share of our products and manu- 
 T^°:- ^««'°'^°«« !»» early habit of regarding the spread 
 of Christianity as a great result of our commercial intercourse 
 with black, brown, and yellow populations; but this is an idea 
 not spoken of m the sort of fashionable society that ScintUla 
 CO lects round her husband's table, and Mixtus now phUosophi- 
 oaUy reflects that the cause must come before the effect, and 
 that the thing to be directly striven for is the commercial in- 
 tercourse, not excluding a little war if that also should prove 
 
mwz:M:j%, ■■•.Ji i% . w # 
 
 A RALr-BRXID. 
 
 88 
 
 ne^ •• a pioneer of Chriatianity. He has long been wont 
 to feel baghful about his fonner religion; as if it were an old 
 attaohment having oongequences which he did not abandon but 
 kept in decent privacy, his avowed objects and actual position 
 being incompatible with their public acknowledgment. 
 
 There is the same kind of fluctuation in his aspect toward 
 social questions and duties. He has not lost the kindness that 
 used to make him a benefactor and sucoorer of the needy and 
 he is still liberal in helping forward the clever and industrious • 
 but in his active superintendence of commercial undertakings 
 he haa oontraoted more and more of the bitterness which capi- 
 talists and employers often feel to be a reasonable mood toward 
 obstructive proletaries. Hence many who have occasionaUy 
 mat him when trade questions were being discussed, conclude 
 him to be indistinguishable from the ordinary run of moneyed 
 and money-getting men. Indeed, hardly any of his acquaint- 
 ances know what Mixtus really is, considered as a whole— not 
 does MixtuB himmif know it. 
 
I* 
 
 ■f 
 r 
 
 DEBASING THE MORAL OUBBENOT. 
 
 «Il ne faut pas mettre un ridicule oil il n'y en a point- 
 eet »e gftter le goOt, o'e«t oorrompre son jugement et oelui 
 des antrei. Mais le ridicule qui eet qnelque part, il faut I'y 
 Cta^" '^^ *'*°' *' **'""* nianiAre qui plaise et qui 
 
 »i.^ "t^^°^ ^"°*^ *•"" !*"«• '«»« ^ Bray*". b~«u« 
 tte subject IS one where I liJce to show a Prenohman on my 
 •id^ to save my sentiments frim being set down to my pecul- 
 iar dnlnees and deedent sense of the ludicrous, and lUsottat 
 they may profit by that enhancement of ideas when presented 
 m a foreign tongue, that glamour of nnf amUiarity conferring a 
 dignity on the foreign names of very common things, of which 
 even a philosopher like Dugald Stewart confesses the infla- 
 
 ?n w:»r w?""*^ ^'"^/ ' ^"^^ """^ '"'"'Pt to "oite 
 in Bng uh the narrative of a begging Frenchman who described 
 Uie violent death of his father in the July days. The narra- 
 fare had impressed her, through the mists of her flushed ani- 
 
 {^fi!!!,"° »\"*r^. '*' " something quite grandly pathetic; 
 but finding the facts turn out meagre, and her audience cold, 
 she broke off, saymg, "It sounded so much finer in Piench- 
 ja*vule mng de man pin, and so on— I wish I could re- 
 r*^- ^ fT" V' ™» '"" » P^donable Ulus-on in an old- 
 feshioned Udy who had not received the p..!yg!ot education of 
 
 ^ kT J**^; *"■* ^ "''"'''" **»* «^«" "O" '""ol' nonsense 
 and bad taste win admiring acceptance solely by virtue of the 
 French language, and one may fairly desire that Tfhat seems a 
 ust discrimination should profit by the fashionable prejudice 
 
 inl^^ /^S"* *" ''""'"°"» '°'° '°P''» '»"»«' the chief 
 interest is of a different or even opposite kind is a sign not of 
 
OIRASma TH» IfORAL OURRIKnT. U 
 
 tadowiBMit, but of defioiwioy. The ut of spoiling is within 
 KMh of the dullest faculty ; the ooaraest clown with a hun- 
 mer in his hud might chip the nose off every statue and bust 
 in the Vatican, and stand grinning ut the effect of his work. 
 Beoaose wit is an exquisite product of high powers, we are 
 not therefore forced to admit the sadly confused inference of 
 the monotonous jester that he is establishing his superiority 
 ortr every less facetious person, and over every topic on which 
 he is ignorant or insensible, by being uneasy until he has dis- 
 torted it in the smaU cracked mirror which he carries about 
 with him as a joking apparatus. Some high authority u 
 needed to give many worthy and timid persons the freedom of 
 muscular repose under the growing demand on them to laugh 
 when they have no other reason than the peril of being taken 
 for dullards ; still more to inspire them with the courage to say 
 that they object to the theatrical spoiling for themselves and 
 their chUdren of all affecting themes, all the grander deeds and 
 ums of men, by burlesque associations adapted to the taste of 
 rich fishmongers in the stalls and their assistants in the gal- 
 lery. The English people in the present generation are falsely 
 reputed to know Shakespeare (as, by some innocent persons, 
 the Florentine mule-drivers are believed to have known the 
 Divina Commedia, not, perhaps, excluding all the subtle dis- 
 courses in the Purgatoria and Paradito) ; but there seems a 
 clear prospect that in the coming generation he will be known 
 to them through burlesques, and that his plays wUl find a new 
 life as pantomimes. A bottle-nosed Lear will come on with 
 a monstrous corpulence from which he will frantically dance 
 hunself free during the midnight storm; Rosalind and Celia 
 will join in a grotesque ballet with shepherds and shepherd- 
 esses; Ophelia in fleshings and a voluminous brevity of grena- 
 dine will dance through the mad scene, finishing with the 
 famous "attitude of the scissors" in the arms of Laertes; and 
 all the speeches in " Hamlet" will be so ingeniously parodied 
 that the originals will be reduced to a mere menunia technica 
 of the improver's puns— premonitory signs of a hideous mil- 
 lennium, in which the lion wUl have to lie down with the las- 
 civious monkeys whom (if we may trust Pliny) hia soul natu- 
 rally abhors. 
 
mm^^mm!, 
 
 R, 
 
maoean HMiurioN ibt omit 
 
 (ANSI and OO TEST OtART No. 1) 
 
 A 
 
 •1PPLIED IM^^GE U 
 
 1653 Cost Holn strMt 
 
 RochaatM-. Htm york 1 4809 USA 
 
 {718) 462 - 0300 - Phofw 
 
 (718) 288-9989 -Fax 
 
86 
 
 thbophhabtus such. 
 
 I have been amazed to find that some artists whose own 
 works have the ideal stamp, are quite insensible to the damag. 
 ing tendency of the burlesquing spirit which ranges to and fro 
 and up and down on the earth, seeing no reason (except a pre- 
 carious censorship) why it should not appropriate every sacred, 
 heroic, and pathetic theme which serves to make up the treas- 
 ure of htunan admiration, hope, and love. One would have 
 thought that their own half-despairing efforts to invest in 
 worthy outward shape the vague inward impressions of sub- 
 limity, and the consciousness of an implicit ideal in the com- 
 monest scenes, might have made them susceptible of some 
 disgust or alarm at a species of burlesque which is likely to ren- 
 der their compositions no better than a dissolving view, where 
 every noble form is seen melting into its preposterous carica- 
 ture. It used to be imagined of the unhappy medieeval Jews 
 that they parodied Calvary by crucifying dogs: if they had 
 been guilty they would at least have had the excuse of the 
 hatred and rage begotten by persecution. Are we on the way 
 to a parody which shall have no other excuse than the lecUess 
 search after fodder for degraded appetites — after the pay to 
 be earned by pasturing Circe's herd where they may defile 
 every monument of that growing life which should have kept 
 them human? 
 
 The world seems to me well supplied with what is genuinely 
 ridiculous : wit and humor may play as harmlessly or benefi- 
 cently round the changing facets of egoism, absurdity, and 
 vice, as the sunshine over the rippling sea or the dewy mead- 
 ows. Why should we make our delicious sense of the ludi- 
 crous, with its invigorating shocks of laughter and its irrepres- 
 sible smiles which are the outglow of an inward radiation as 
 gentle and cheering as the warmth of morning, flourish like a 
 brigand on the robbery of our mental wealth?— or let it take 
 its exercise as a madman might, if allowed a free nightly 
 promenade, by drawing the populace with bonfires which leave 
 some venerable structure a blackened ruin or send a scorching 
 smoke across the portraits of the past, at which we once looked 
 with a loving recognition of fellowship, and disfigure them into 
 butts of mockery? — nay, worse — use it to degrade the healthy 
 appetites and affections of our nature as they are seen to be 
 
DBBA8IN0 THK MORAL CUHRKNCT. 
 
 87 
 
 degraded in insane patients whose system, all out of joint, 
 finds matter for screaming laughter in mere topsy-turvy, makes 
 •reiy passion preposterous or obscene, and turns the hard-won 
 Older of life into a second chaos hideous enough to make one 
 wail that the first was ever thrilled with light? 
 
 This is what I call debasing the moral currency: lowering 
 the Talue of every inspiring fact and tradition so that it will 
 command less and less of the spiritual products, the generous 
 motives which sustain the charm and elevation of our social 
 existence— the something besides bread by which man saves 
 his soul aKve. The bread-winner of the famUy may demand 
 more and more coppery shillings, or assignats, or greenbacks 
 for his day's work, and so get the needfnl quantum of food;" 
 but let that moral currency be emptied of its value— let a 
 greedy buffoonery debase aU historic beauty, majesty, and 
 pathos, and the more you heap up the desecrated symbols the 
 greater will be the lack of the ennobling emotions which sub- 
 due the tyranny of suffering, and make ambition one with 
 social virtue. 
 
 And yet it seems, parents will put into the hands of their 
 ohUdren ridiculous parodies (perhaps with more ridiculous 
 " illustrations " ) of the poems which stirred their own tender- 
 ness or filial piety, and carry them to make their first acquain- 
 tance with great men, great works, or solemn crises through 
 the medium of some misceUaneous burlesque which, with its 
 idiotic puns and farcical attitudes, will remain among their 
 primary associations, and reduce them throughout their time 
 of studious preparation for life to the moral imbecility of an in- 
 ward giggle at what might have stimulated their high emula- 
 tion or fed the fountains of compassion, trust, and constancy. 
 One wonders where these parents have deposited that stock of 
 morally educating stimuli which is to be independent of poetic 
 tradition, and to subsist in spite of the finest images being de- 
 graded and the finest words of genius being poisoned as with 
 some befooling drug. 
 
 Will fine wit, will exquisite humor prosper the more through 
 this turning of all things indiscriminately into food for a glut- 
 tonous laughter, an idle craving witho. t sense of flavors? On 
 the contrary. That delightful power which La Bruyftre pointe 
 
88 
 
 THEOPHRA8TU8 SUCH. 
 
 I 
 
 to — le ridicule qui est quelque part, 11 fent I'y voir, I'en tiret 
 aveo grftce et d'une maniire qui plaise et qui instruiite" de- 
 pends on a discrimiDation only compatible with the varied sen- 
 sibilities which give sympathetio insight, and with the justice 
 of perception which is another name for grave knowledge. 
 Such a result is no more to be expected from faculties on the 
 strain to find some small hook by which they may attach the 
 lowest incongruity to the most momentous subject, than it is 
 to be expected of a sharper, watching for gulls in a great po- 
 litical assemblage, that he will notice the blundering logic of 
 partisan speakers, or season his observation with the salt of 
 historical parallels. But after all our psychological teaching, 
 and in the midst of our zeal for education, we are still, most 
 of us, at the stage of believing that mental powers and habits 
 have somehow, not perhaps in the general statement, but in 
 any particular case, a kind of spiritual glaze against conditions 
 which we are continually applying to them. We soak our chil- 
 dren in habits of contempt and exultant gibing, and yet are 
 confident that — as Clarissa one day said to me—" We can al- 
 ways teach them to be reverent in the right place, you know." 
 And doubtless if she were to take her boys to see a burlesque 
 Socrates, with swollen legs, dying in the utterance of cockney 
 puns, and were to hang up a sketch of this comic scene among 
 their bedroom prints, she would think this preparation not at 
 all to the prejudice of their emotions on hearing their tutor 
 read that narrative of the Apology which has been consecrated 
 by the reverent gratitude of ages. This is the impoverish- 
 ment that threatens our posterity :— a new Famine, a meagre 
 fiend with lewd grin and clumsy hoof, is breathing a moral 
 mildew over the harvest of our human sentiments. These are 
 the most delicate elements of our too easily perishable civiliza- 
 tion. And here again I like to quote a French testimony. 
 Sainte Beuve, referring to a time of insurrectionary disturbance, 
 says : " Eien de plus prompt k baisser que la civilisation dans 
 des crises comme celle-ci; on perd en trois semaines le r&ultat 
 de plusienrs sidles. La civilisation, la vie est une chose ap- 
 prise et invents qu'on le sache bien : ' Invmtas aut qui vitam 
 excoluere per artea.' Les hommes aprAs quelques ann^s de 
 paix oublient trop cette verity : ils arrivent k croixe que la 
 
DKBA8INO THE MORAL riTRRENCT. 
 
 89 
 
 ealture est chose inn^, qn'eUe est la m8me chose que la na- 
 ture. La sauvagerie est toujours 14 i deux pas, et, Aha qu'on 
 Uche pied, elle recommence. " We have been teverely enough 
 taught (if we were willing to learn) that our civilization, 
 considered as a splendid material fabric, is helplessly in perU 
 without the spiritual police of sentiments or ideal feelings. 
 And It IS this invisible police which we had need, as a com- 
 munity, strive to maintain in efficient force. How if a dan- 
 gerous " Swing " were sometimes disguised in a versatile enter- 
 tainer devoted to the amusement of mixed audiences? And I 
 confess that sometimes when I see a certain style of young 
 lady, who checks our tender admiration with rouge and henna- 
 andaU the blazonry of an extravagant expenditure, with slang 
 and bold brusquerie intended to signify her emancipated view 
 of things, and with cynical mockery which she mistakes for 
 penetration, I am sorely tempted to hiss oat " Pitroleute / " 
 It IS a small matter to have our palaces set aflame compared 
 with the misery of having our sense of a noble womanhood, 
 which IS the inspiration of a purifying shame, the promise of 
 life-penetrating affection, stained and blotted out by images of 
 repulsiveness. These things come— not «f higher education, 
 but— of dull ignorance fostered into pertness by the greedy 
 vulgarity which reverses Peter's visionary lesson and learns to 
 call aU things common and unclean. It comes of debasing the 
 moral currency. 
 
 The Tirynthians, according to an ancient story reported 
 by Athenseus, becoming conscious that their trick of laughter 
 at everything and nothing was making them unfit for the con- 
 duct of serious affairs, appealed to the Delphic oracle for some 
 means of cure. The god prescribed a peculiar form of sacrifice 
 which would be effective if they could carry it through with- 
 out laughing. They did their best; but the flimsy joke of a 
 boy upset their unaccustomed gravity, and in this way the 
 oracle taught then that even the gods could not prescribe a 
 quick cure for a long vitiation, or give power and dignity to a 
 people who in a crisis of the public well-being were at th« 
 mercy of a poor jast. 
 
1 
 
 1 
 
 ' 
 
 1 ; 
 
 1 ^ ' 
 
 i 
 
 1 : 
 
 TI. 
 
 THE WASP CREDITED WITH THE HONEYCOMB. 
 
 No man, I imagine, would object more strongly than Eu- 
 phorion to conununistio principles in relation to material prop- 
 erty, but with regard to property in ideas he entertains such 
 prmoiples willingly, and is disposed to treat the distinction 
 between Mine and Thine in original authorship as egoistic, 
 narrowing, and low. I have known him, indeed, insist at 
 some expense of erudition on tjie prior right of an ancient, a 
 medisBval, or an eighteenth century writer to bo credited with 
 a Tiew or statement lately advanced with some show of origi- 
 nality; and this championship seems to imply a nicety of 
 conscience toward the dead. He is evidently unwriiug that 
 his neighbors should get more credit t'lan is due to them, and 
 m this way he appears to recognize a certain proprietorahip 
 even in spiritual production. But perhaps it is no real incon- 
 sistency i t, with regard to many instances of modern origi- 
 nation, it is his habit to talk with a Gallic largeness and refer 
 to the universe: he expatiates on the diffusive nature of intel- 
 lectual products, free and all-embracing as the liberal air; on 
 the infinitesimal smallness of individual origination comp^ 
 with the massive inheritance of thought en which every new 
 generation enters ; on that growing preparation for every epoch 
 through which certain idfeas or modes of view are said to be in 
 the air, and, stiU more metaphoricaUy speaking, to be inevita- 
 bly absorbed, so that every one may be excused for not know- 
 ing how he got them. Above all, he insists on the proper 
 subo dination of the irritable self, the mere vehicle of an idea 
 or combination which, being produced by the sum total of the 
 human race, must belong to that multiple entity, from the ac- 
 complished lecturer or popularizer who transmits it, to the 
 remotest generation of Fuegiansor Hottentots, however iadif- 
 
THE WASP CREDITBD WITH TUB HOOTTCOMB, 91 
 
 ftnnt these may be to the superiority of their right above that 
 of the eminently perishable dyspeptic -vuthor. 
 
 One may admit that such oonsiderationg carry a profound 
 truth to be even religiously contemplated, and yet object all 
 the more to the mode in which Euphorion seems to apply 
 them. I protest against the use of these majestic conceptions 
 to do the dirty work of unscrupulosity and justify the non- 
 payment of conscious debts which cannot be defined or enforced 
 by the law. Especially since it is observable that the large 
 views as to intellectual property which can apparently reconcile 
 an able person to the use of lately borrowed ideas as if they 
 were his own, when this spoliation is favored by the public 
 darkness, never hinder him from joining in the zealous tribute 
 of recognition and applause to those warriors of Truth whose 
 triumphal arches are seen in the public ways, those conquerors 
 whose battles and "annexations" even the carpenters and 
 bricklayers know by name. Surely the acknowledgment of 
 a mental debt which will not be immediately detected, and 
 may never be asserted, is a case to which the traditional sus- 
 ceptibility to « debts of honor " would be suitably transferred. 
 There is no massive public opinion that can be expected to tell 
 on these relations of thinkers and investigator?!— relations to 
 be thoroughly undcTstood and felt only by those who are inter- 
 ested in the life of ideas and acquainted with their history. 
 To lay false claim to an invention or discovery which has an 
 immediate market value; to vamp up a professedly new book 
 of reference by stealing from the pages of one already produced 
 at the cost of much labor and material; to copy somebody 
 else's poem and send the manuscript to a magazine, or hand it 
 about among friends as an original "effusion"; to deliver an 
 elegant extract from a known writer as a piece of improvised 
 eloquence:— these are the limits within which the dishonest 
 pretence of originality is likely to get hissed or hooted and 
 bring more or less shame on the culprit. It is not necessary 
 to understand the merit of a performance, or even to spell 
 with any comfortable confidence, in order to perceive at once 
 that such pretences are not respectable. But the difference 
 between Ihese vulgar frauds, these devices of ridiculous jays 
 whose ill-secured plumes are seen falling off them as they run 
 

 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 i 
 
 ' 
 
 93 
 
 THBOPHBA8TU8 SUCH. 
 
 11 
 
 and the quiet appropriation of other people'* phUoBophio or 
 soientiflo ideas, can hardly be held to lie in their moral quality 
 nnleeg we take impunity as our criterion. The pitiable jays 
 had no presumption in their favor and foolishly fronted an 
 alert incredulity; but Euphorion, the accomplished theorist, 
 baa an audience who expect much of him, and take it as the 
 most natural thing in the world that every unusual view which 
 he presents anonymously should be due solely to his ingenuity 
 His borrowings are no incongruous feathers awkwardly stuck 
 on; they have an appropriateness which makes them seem 
 an answer to anticipation, like the return phrases of a melody. 
 Certamly one cannot help the ignorant conclusions of polite 
 society, and there are perhaps fashionable persons who, if a 
 shaker has occasion to explain what the occiput is, wiU con- 
 sider that he has lately discovered that curiously named por- 
 tion of the animal frame : one cannot give a genealogical intro- 
 duction to every long-stored item of fact or conjecture that 
 may happen to be a revelation for the large class of persons 
 who are understood to judge soundly on a small basis of knowl- 
 edge. But Euphorion would be very sorry ti have it supposed 
 that he IS unacquainted with the history of ideas, and some- 
 times carries even into minuti» the evidence of his exact regis- 
 tration of names in connection with quotable phrases or sug- 
 gestions: I can therefore only explain the apparent infirmiW 
 of his memory in cases of larger " conveyance " by supposing 
 that he IS accustomed by the very association of largeness to 
 range them at once under those grand laws of the universe in 
 the light of which Mine and Thine disappear and are resolved 
 into Everybody's or Nobody's, and one man's particular oMi- 
 gations to another melt untraceably into the obligations of the 
 earth to the solar system in general. 
 
 Euphorion himself, if a particular omission of acknowledg- 
 ment were brought home to him, would probably take a nar- 
 rower ground of explanation. It was a lapse of memory; or 
 It did not occur to him as necessary in this case to mention a 
 name, the source being weU known-or (since this seems 
 usually to act as a strong reason for mention) he rather ab- 
 stained from adducing the name because it might injure the 
 exceUent matter advanced, just as au obscure trade-mark oasti 
 
THK WASP CREDITKD WITH THE RONETOOMB. 93 
 
 dUoredit on a good commodity, and even on the retailer who 
 haa fumiahed himself from a quarter not likely to be esteemed 
 flrat-rate. No doubt this last is a genuine and frequent rea- 
 son for the non-acknowledgment of indebtedness to what one 
 may call impersonal as well as personal sources: even an 
 American editor of school classics, whose own English could 
 not pass for more than a syntactical shoddy of the cheapest 
 sort, felt it unfavorable to his reputation for sound learning 
 that he should be obliged to the Penny Cyclopedia, and dis- 
 guised his references to it under contractions in which Vt. 
 Knmol. took the place of the low word Penny. Works of this 
 convenient stamp, easUy obtained aud weU nourished with 
 matter, are felt to be like rich but unfashionable relations 
 who are visited and received in privacy, and whose capital is 
 used or inherited without any ostentatious insistence on their 
 names and places of abode. As to memory, it is known that 
 this frail faculty naturally lets drop the facto which are less 
 flattering to our self-love— when it does not retain them care- 
 fuUy as subjecte not to be approached, marshy spota with a 
 warning flag over them. But it is always interesting to bring 
 forward eminent names, such as Patricias or Soaliger, Euler 
 or Lagrange, Bopp or Humboldt. To know exactly what has 
 been drawn from them is erudition and heightens our own in- 
 fluence, which seems advantageous to mankind; whereas to 
 cite an author whose ideas may pass as higher currency under 
 our own signature can have no object except the contradictory 
 one of throwing the illumination over his figure when it is im- 
 portant to be seen one's self. All these reasons must weigh con- 
 siderably with those speculative persons who have to ask them- 
 selves whether or not Universal Utilitarianism requires that 
 in the particular instance before them they should injure a 
 mail who has been of service to them, and rob a fellow-work- 
 man of the credit which is due to him. 
 
 After all, however, it must be admitted that hardly any 
 accusation is more difBcult to prove, and more liable to be 
 false, than that of a plagiarism which is the conscious theft of 
 ideas and deliberate reproduction of them as original. The 
 
 a^ments on the side of acquittal are obvious and strong: 
 
 the inevitable coincidences of contemporary thinking; and our 
 
 I' 
 1 i1 
 
94 
 
 THBOPHRABTVS BUCH. 
 
 
 continual experience of finding notioni turning up in our mindi 
 without any label on them to teU ui whence they oame, lo that 
 if we are in the habitof expecting much from our own capacity 
 we accept them at once as a new inspiration. Then, in rela- 
 tion to the elder authors, there is the difficulty first of learning 
 ajnd then of remembering exactly what has been wrought into 
 the backward tapestry of the world's hUtory, together with 
 the fact that ideas acquired long ago reappear as the sequence 
 of an awakened interest or a line of inquiry ^ hich is reaUy 
 new in us, whence it is conceivable that if we were ancients 
 some of us might be offering grateful hecatombs by mistake, 
 and proving our honesty in a ruinously expensive manner. 
 On the other hand, the evidonoe on which plagiarism is con- 
 cluded is often of a kind which, though much trusted in ques- 
 tions of erudition and historical criticism, is apt to lead us 
 mjuriously astray in our daUy (judgments, especially of the 
 resentful, condemnatory sort;. How Pythagoras oame by his 
 ideas, whether St. Paul was acquainted with all the Greek 
 poets, what 'Xacitos must have known by hearsay and syste- 
 matioally ignored, are points on which a false persuasion of 
 knowledge is less damaging to justice and charity than an er- 
 roneous confidence, supported by reasoning fundamentally simi- 
 lar, of my neighbor's blameworthy behavior in a case where 
 I am personally concerned. No premises require closer 
 scrutiny than those which lead to the constantly echoed con- 
 clusion, "He must have known," or "He must have read." 
 I marvel that this facUity of belief on the side of knowledge 
 can subsist under the daUy demonstration that the easiest of 
 all things to the human mind is not to know and not to read 
 To prdise, to blame, to shout, grin, or hiss, where others 
 shout, grin, or hiss- these" are native tendencies; but to know 
 and to read are art;ilicial, hard accomplishments, concerning 
 which the only safe supposition is, that as little of them has 
 been done as the case admits. An author, keenly conscious of 
 having written, can hardly help imagining his condition of 
 lively mterest to be shared by others, just as we are all apt to 
 suppose that the chiU or heat we are conscious of must be gen- 
 eral, or even to think that our sons and daughters, our pet 
 schemes, and our quarreUing ooneapoudence, are themes to 
 
THE WA8P ORBDITID WITH THl HONBTCOMB. M 
 
 whioh mtelligent penons wUl liiten long without WMrintM. 
 But if the ardent author happen to be alive to practical teach- 
 ing he wUI «)on learn to divide the larger pai r the enlight- 
 ened pnbho into those who have not read him .md think it 
 newMMiy to tell him so when they meet uim in polite society, 
 and those who have equaUy abstained from reading him, but 
 wish to conceal this negation and speak of his " incomparable 
 works' with that trust in testimony which always has ite 
 oheermg side. 
 
 Hence it is worse than foolish to entertain silent suspicions 
 of plagiarism, stUl more to give them voice, when they are 
 founded on a construction ol probabilities which a little mote 
 . attention to every-day occurrences as a guide in reaso-init 
 would show us to be reaUy worthless, considered as proof 
 The length to which one man's memory can go in letting drop 
 associations that are viul to another can hardly nnd a limit 
 It IS not to be supposed that a person desirous to make an 
 agreeable impression on you would deliberately choose to insist 
 to you, with some rhetorical sharpness, on an argument which 
 you were the first to elaborate in public j yet any one who lis- 
 teiu may overhear such instances of obliviousness. You natu- 
 rally remember your peculiar connection with your acquaint- 
 ance 8 judicious views ; but why should he ? Your fatherhood, 
 which is an intense feeling to you, is only an additional fact of 
 meagre interest for him to remember; and a sense of obliga- 
 tion to the particular living fellow-struggler who has helped 
 us in our thinking, is not yet a form of memory *he want of 
 which is felt to be disgraceful or derogatory, unless it is taken 
 to be a want of pohte instruction, or causes the missing of a 
 cockade on a day of celebration. In our suspicions of plagiar- 
 ism, we must recognize as the first weighty probability, that, 
 what we who feel injured remember best is precisely what is 
 least likely to enter lastingly into the memory of our neigh- 
 bors. But It is fair to maintain that the neighbor who bor- 
 rows your property, loses it for a while, and when it turns up 
 agam forgeta your connection with it and counts it his own. 
 shows himself so much the feebler in grasp and rectitude 7f 
 mind. Some absent persons cannot remember the state of 
 wear m their own hats and umbreUa-, and have no mental 
 
TBJtOPBIUBTCS SUCK 
 
 oLeek to tell them that they h»Te carried home a fellow-Tisi- 
 tor's more recent purohaee: they may be excellent houiehold- 
 en, far removed from the suipioioo of low device*, but one 
 wiahe* them a more correct perception, and a more wary senae 
 that a neighbor's umbrella may be newer than their own. 
 
 True, (ome personi are so constituted that the veiy excel- 
 lence of an idett seems to them a convincing reason that it 
 must be, if not solely, yet especially theirs. It fits in so 
 beautifully with their general wisdom, it lies implicitly in so 
 many of their manifested opinions, that if they have not yet 
 expressed it (because of preoccupation) it is clearly a part of 
 their indigenous produce, and is proved by their immediate 
 eloc[uint promulgation of it to belong more naturally and ap- 
 propriately to them than to the person who seemed first to 
 have alighted on it, and who sinks in their all-originating con- 
 sciousness to that low kind of entity, a second cause. This is 
 not lunacy, nor pretence, but a genuine state of mind very 
 effective in practice and often carrying the public with it, so 
 that the poor Columbus is found to be a very faulty adventurer 
 and the continent is named after Amerigo. Lighter examples 
 of this instinctive appropriation are constantly met with among 
 brilliant talkers. Aquila is too agreeable and amusing for any 
 one who is not himself bent on display to be angry at his con- 
 versational rapine — his habit of darting down on every morsel 
 of booty that other birds may hold in their beaks, with an in- 
 nocent air as if it were all intended for his use and honestly 
 counted un by him as a tribute in kind. Hardly any man, I 
 imagine, can have had less trouble in gathering a showy stock 
 of information than Aquila. On close inquiry you would 
 probably find that he had not read one epoch-making book of 
 modem times, for he has a (i£reer which obliges him to much 
 correspondence and other ofSoial work, and he is too fond of 
 being in company to snend his leisure moments in study ; but 
 to his quick eye, ear, and tongue, a few predatory excursions 
 in conversation where there are instructed persons gradually 
 furnish Burprisinijly clever modes of statement and allusion on 
 the dominant topic. When he first adopts a subject he neces- 
 sarily falls into mistakes, and it is interesting to watch his 
 progress into fuller information and better nourished irony, 
 
THl WA8P ORBDITKO WITH TH» HOKBTCOHB. 9T 
 
 witbont hU erer nMding to admit that he hai mad* a blondw 
 or to tvpru ooueious of oomotion. Suppot^ for example, 
 he had mcautiou»ly founded aome ingenione remarks on a has^ 
 reokoning that nine thirteens made a hundred and two, and 
 Uie ini^iiioant Bantam, hitherto aUent, seemed to spoil the 
 flow of ideas by stating that the product could not be taken a* 
 less than a hundred and seventeen, Aquila would glide on in 
 the most graceful manner from a repetition of his previous 
 remark to the continuation-" All this is on the supposition 
 that a hundred and two were all that oould be got out of nine 
 thJrtsens; but as all the world knows that nine thirteens wiU 
 yield, eto—prooeeding straightway into a new train of inw- 
 Dious consequences, and causing Bantam to be regarded by aU 
 present as one of those slow p-rsons who take irony for igno- 
 rance, and who would warn the weasel to keep awake How 
 should a small-eyed, feebly crowing mortal like him be quick- 
 er m arithmetic tiian the keen-faced forcible Aquila, in whom 
 universal knowledge is easUy credible? Looked into closely, 
 the conclusion from a man's profile, voice, and fluency to hU 
 certainty in multiplication beyond the twelves, seems to show 
 a confused notion of the way in which ve'y common things 
 M» connected; but it is on such false correlations that men 
 ftiund half their inferences about each other, and high places 
 of trust may sometimes be held on no better foundation 
 
 ft is a commonplace that words, writings, measuws, and 
 performances in general, have qualities assigned them not by 
 a direct judgment on the performances themselves, but by a 
 presumption of what they are likely to be, considering who is 
 tiie performer. Wa aU notice in our neighbors this reference 
 to names as guides in criticism, and all furnish illustrations of 
 It m our own practice; for, check ourselves as we will the 
 Brst impression from any sort of work must depend on a'pre- 
 vious attitude of mind, and this wiU oonstantiy be determined 
 by the influences of a name. But Uiat our prior confidence or 
 want of confidence in given names is made up of judgments 
 just as hollow as the consequent praise or blame they are ta- 
 ken to warrant, is less commonly perceived, though there is a 
 conspicuous indication of it in the surprise or disappointinent 
 often manifested in the disoloBuie of au auUiorship about 
 
98 
 
 THE0PHBABTC8 SITOB. 
 
 which everybody has been making wrong gaessea. No doubt 
 if it had been disoovered who wrote the " Vestiges, " many an 
 ingenious structure of probabilities would have been spoiled, 
 and some disgust might have been felt for a real author who 
 made oomparatiTely so shabby an appearance of likelihood. It 
 is this foolish trust in prepossessions, founded on spurious 
 evidence, which makes a medium of encouragement for those 
 who, happening to' have the ear of the public, give other 
 people's ideas the advantage of appearing under their own 
 well-received name, while any remonstrance from the real pro- 
 ducer becomes an unwelcome disti' .-bance of complacency with 
 each person who has paid complimentary tributes in the wrong 
 place. 
 
 Hardly any kind of false reasoning is more ludicrous than 
 this on tiie probabilities of originatipn. It would be amusing 
 to catechise the guessers as to, their exact reasons for thinking 
 their gueis " likely " : why Hoopoe of John's has fixed on 
 Toucan of Magdalen ; why Shrike attributes its peculiar style 
 to Buzzard, who has not hitherto been known as a writer; 
 why the fair Golumba thinks it must belong to the reverend 
 Merula; and why they are all alike disturbed in their previous 
 judgment of its value by finding that it really came from 
 Skunk, whom they had either not thought of at all, or thought 
 of as belonging to a species excluded by tiie nature of the case. 
 Clearly they were all wrong in their notion of the specific con- 
 ditions, which lay unexpectedly in the small Skunk, and in 
 him alone — in spite of his education nobody knows where, in 
 spite of somebody's knowing his uncles and cousins, and in 
 spite of nobody's knowing that he was cleverer than they 
 thought him. 
 
 Such guesses remind' one of a fabulist's imaginary council of 
 animals assembled to consider what sort of creature had con- 
 structed a honeycomb found and much tasted by Bruin and 
 other epicures. The speakerF all started from the probability 
 that the maker was a bird, because this was the quartm from 
 which a wondrous nest might be expected; for the animals at 
 that time, knowing little of their own history, wovdd have re- 
 jected as inconceivable the notion that a nest could be made by 
 a fish; and as to the insects, they were not willingly received 
 
THE WASP CREDITED WITH THE HONEYCOMB. 99 
 
 in society and their ways were little known. Several oompli- 
 mentpry presumptions were expressed that the honeycomb was 
 dne to one or the other admired and popular bird, and there 
 was much fluttering on the part of the Nightingale and Swal- 
 low, neither of whom gave a positive denial, their confusion 
 perhaps extending to their sense of identity; but the Owl 
 Mssed at this folly, arguing from his particular knowledge 
 that the animal which produced honey must be the Muak-rat, 
 the wondrous nature of whose secretions required no proof- 
 and, in the powerful logical procedure of the Owl, from musk 
 to honey was but a step. Some disturbance arose hereupon 
 for fte Musk-rat began to make himself obtrusive, believing - 
 m the Owl's opinion of his powers, and feeling that he could 
 have produced the honey if he had thought of it; untU an 
 expenmpntal Butcher-bird proposed to anatomize him as a 
 help to decision. The hubbub increased, the opponents of the 
 Musk-rat inquiring who his ancestors were; untU a diversion 
 was crrated by an able disiourse of the Macaw on structures 
 generaUj, which he classifled so as to include the honeycomb, 
 entering mto so much admirable exposition that there was a 
 prev^ent sense of the honeycomb having probably been pro- 
 duced by one who understood it so well. But Bruin, who had 
 probably eaten too much to listen with edification, grumbled 
 m his low kind of language, that "Fine words butter no pars- 
 nip^ by which he meant to say that there was no new honey 
 forthcoming. ' 
 
 Perhaps the audience generaUy was beginning to tire, when 
 tte Fox entered with his snout dreadfully swoUen, and report- 
 ed that the beneficent originator in question was the Wasp 
 which he had found much smeared with undoubted honey' 
 havmg applied his nose to it— whence indeed the able insect, 
 perhaps justifiably irritated at what might seem a sign of scep- 
 ticism, had stung him with some severity, an infliction Eey- 
 nard could hardly regret, since the sweUing of a snout nor- 
 mally so delicate would corroborate his statement and satisfy the 
 assembly that he had really found the honey-creating genius. 
 
 The Fox's admitted acuteness, combined with the visible 
 swelling, were taken as undeniable evidence, and the revela- 
 tion undoubtedly met a general desire for information on a 
 
100 
 
 THEOPHBASTUS SUCH. 
 
 point of intnMt Neyertheless, there was a mnrmni the te- 
 vene of delighted, and the feelings of some eminent animals 
 were too strong for them: the Orang-outang's jaw dropped so 
 as seiioosly to impair the vigor of his expression, the edifying 
 Pelican screamed and flapped her wings, the Owl hissed again, 
 the Macaw became loudly incoherent, and the Gibbon gave his 
 hysterical laugh; while the Hyena, after indnlging in a more 
 splenetic guffaw, agitated the question whether it would not 
 be better to hush up the whole affair, instead of giving public 
 recognition to an insect whose produce, it was now plain, had 
 been much over-estimated. But this narrow-spirited motion 
 was negatived by the sweet-toothed majority. A compliment- 
 ary deputation to the Wasp was resolved on, and there was a 
 confident hope that this diplomatic measure would tell on the 
 production of honey. 
 
 dl 
 
XII. 
 
 "SO YOUNG I" 
 
 GAimotDB! was onoe a girliehly handsome, preoooicms youth. 
 That one o^ot for any considerable number of years go on 
 being youthful, girlishly handsome, and precocious, seem, 
 on consideration to be a statement as worthy of credit as the 
 famous syllogistic conclusion, "Socrates was mortal " But 
 many circumstances have conspired to keep up in Ganymede 
 tte lUnsion that he U surprisingly young. He was the last 
 tarn of his famUy, and from his earliest memory was accus- 
 tomed to be commended as such to the care of his elder broth- 
 ers and sisters: he heard hi. mother speak of him as her 
 youngestdarling with a loving pathos in her tone, which natu- 
 raUy suffused his own views of himself, and gave him the 
 habitual consciousness of being at onoe veiy young and verv 
 mterestmg. Then, the disclosure of his tender years was a 
 oonstent matter of astonishment to strangers who had had 
 proof of his precocious talents, and the astonishment extended 
 to what IS called the world at large when he produced " A Com- 
 parafaTe Estimate of European Nations" before he was weU 
 out of hU teens. All comers, on a first interview, told him 
 that he was marvellously young, and some repeated the state- 
 meet each time they saw him; all critics who wrote about him 
 oaUed attention to the same ground for wonder : his deHcien- 
 cies and excesses were alike to be accounted for by the flatter- 
 mg fact of his youth, and his youth was the golden back- 
 ground which set off his many-hued endowments. Here was 
 already enough to establish a strong association between his 
 smse of Identity and his sensr -f being unusually young. But. 
 after this he devised and founded an ingenious organization for 
 consolidating tho literary interests of all the four continents 
 (subsequently including Australasia and Polynesia), he him- 
 
lot 
 
 THEOPHBASTUS BVCH. 
 
 ■elf presiding in the central office, which thus became a new 
 theatre for the constantly repeated situation of an astonished 
 stranger in the presence of a boldly seheming administrator 
 found to be remarkably young. If we imagine with due char- 
 ity the effect on Ganymede, we shall think it greatly to his 
 credit that he continued to feel the necessity of being some- 
 thing more than young, and did not sink by rapid degrees into 
 a parallel of that melancholy object, a superannuated youthful 
 phenomenon. Happily he bad enough of valid, active faculty 
 to save him from that tragic fate. He had not exhausted his 
 fountain of eloquent opinion in his "Comparative Estimate," 
 so as to feel himself like some other juvenile celebrities, the 
 sad survivor of his own manifest destiny, or like one who has 
 risen too early in the morning, and finds all the solid day 
 turned into a fatigued afternoon. He has continued to be 
 productive both of schemes and, writings, being perhaps helped 
 by the fact that his " Comparative Estimate " did not greatly 
 affect the currents of European thought, and left him with the 
 stimulating hope that he had not done his best, but might yet 
 produce what would make his youth more surprising than 
 ever. 
 
 I saw something of him through his AntinoUs period, the 
 time of rich chestnut locks, parted not by a visible white line, 
 but by a shadowed furrow from which they fell in massive 
 ripples to right and left. In these slim days he looked the 
 younger for being rather below the middle size, and though at 
 last one perceived him contracting an indefinable air of self- 
 consciousness, a slight exaggeration of tho facial movements, 
 the attitudes, the little tricks, and the romance in shirt-collars, 
 which must be expected from one who, in spite of his knowl- 
 edge, was so exceedingly young, it was impossible to say that 
 he was making any great mistake about himself. He was 
 only undergoing one form of a common moral disease : being 
 strongly mirrored for himself in the remark of others, he was 
 getting to see his real characteristics as a dramatic part, a type 
 to which his doings were always in correspondence. Owing to 
 my absence oi travel and to other causes I had lost sight of 
 him for several years, but such a separation between two who 
 have not missed each other seems in this busy century only a 
 
'SO YOUNG!' 
 
 IM 
 
 pleuant reason, when they happen to meet again in some old 
 aoouBtomed haunt, for the one who has stayed at home to be 
 moreoommunioative about himself than he can well be to those 
 who have all along been in his neighborhood. He had married 
 in the interval, and as if to keep up his surprising vouthful- 
 ness in all relations, he had taken a wife considerably older 
 than himself. It would probably have seemed to him a dis- 
 turbing inversion of the natural order that any one very near 
 to him should havb been younger than he, except his own chil- 
 dren who, however young, would not necessarily hinder the 
 - normal surprise at the youthfubiess of their father. And if 
 my glance had revealed my impression on ^first seeing him 
 again, he might have received a rather disagreeable shook, 
 which was far from my intention. My mind, having retained 
 a very exact image of his former appearance, took note of un- 
 mistakable changes such as a painter woul<' aertainly not have 
 made by way of flattering his subject. He had lost his slim- 
 ness, and that curved solidity which might have adorned a 
 taller man was a rather sarcastic threat to his short figure. 
 The English branch of the Teutonic race does not produce 
 many fat youths, and I have even heard an American lady say 
 that she was much " disappointed " at the moderate number 
 and size of our fat men, considering their reputation in the 
 tTnited States; hence a stranger would now have been apt to 
 remark that Ganymede was unusually plump for a distin- 
 guished writer, rather than unusually young. But how was 
 he to know this? Many long-standing prepossessions are as 
 hard to be corrected as a long-standing mispronunciation, 
 against which the direct experience of eye and ear is often 
 powerless. And I could perceive that Ganymede's inwrought 
 sense of his surprising youthfulness had been stronger than the 
 superficial reckoning of his years and the merely optical phe- 
 nomena of the looking-glass. He now held a post under Gov- 
 ernment, and not only saw, like most subordinate function- 
 aries, how ill everything was managed, but also what were the 
 changes that a high constructive ability would dictate; and in 
 mentioning to me his own speeches and othor efforts toward 
 propagating reformatory views in his department, he concluded 
 by changing his tone to a sentimental head voice and saying— 
 
104 
 
 THKOPnRASTUS SUCH. 
 
 "But I am BO young; people object to any prominenoe on 
 my part; I can only get myaelf heard anonymously, and when 
 some attention has been drawn the name is sure to creep out. 
 The writer is known to be young, and things are none the for- 
 warder." 
 
 "Well," said I, "youth seems the only drawback that is 
 sure to dimirish. You and I have seven years less of it than 
 when we last met." 
 
 "Ah?" returned Ganymede, as lightly as possible, at the 
 same time casting an observant glance over me, as if he were 
 marking the effect of seven years on a person who had prob- 
 ably begun life with an old look, and even as an infant had 
 given his countenance to that significant doctrine, the trans- 
 migration of ancient souls mto modern bodies. 
 
 I left him on that occasion without any melancholy forecast 
 that his illusion would be suddenly or painfully broken up. 
 I saw that he was well victualled and defended against a ten 
 years' siege from ruthless facts; and in the course of time ob- 
 servation convinced me that his resistance received consider- 
 able aid from without. Each of his written productions, as it 
 came out, was still commented on as the work of a very young 
 man. One critic, finding that ho wanted solidity, charitably 
 referred to his youth as an excuse. Another, dazzled by his 
 brilliancy, seemed to regard his youth as so wondrous that all 
 authors appeared decrepit by comparison, and their style such 
 as might be looked for from gentlemt i of the old school. Able 
 pens (according to a familiar metaphor) appeared to shake 
 their heads good-humoredly, implying that Ganymede's cru- 
 dities were pardonablt; in one so exceedingly young. Such 
 unanimity amid diversity, which a distant posterity, might take 
 for evidence that on the point of age at least there could have 
 been no mistake, was not really more difficult to account for 
 than the prevalence of cotton in our fabrics. Ganymede had 
 been first introduced into the writing world as remarkably 
 young, and it was no exceptional consequence that the first 
 deposit of information about him held its ground against 
 facts which, however open to observation, were not necessarily 
 thought of. It is not so easy, with our rates and taxes and 
 need for economy in all directions, to cast away an epithet or 
 
•so TOCNOI- 
 
 105 
 
 Mmuk that tumg up cheaply, and to go in ezpensiTe searoii 
 after more genuine substitutes. There is high Homeric prec- 
 edent for keeping fast hold of an epithet under all changes 
 of oircomstance, and so the precocious author of the " Com- 
 parative Estimate " heard the echoes repeating " Young Gany- 
 mede" when n illiterate beholder at a railway sUtion would 
 have given him forty years at least. Besides, important elders, 
 sachems of the clubs and public meetings, had a genuine 
 opinion of him as young enough to be checked for speech on 
 subjects which they had spoken mistakenly about when he was 
 in his cradle; and then, the midway parting of his crisp hair, 
 not common among English committee-men, formed a presumpr 
 tion against the ripeness of his judgment which nothing but a 
 speedy baldness could have removed. 
 
 It is but fair to mention all these outward confirmations of 
 Ganymede's Ulusion, which shows no signs of leaving him. It 
 is true that he no longer hears expressions of surprise at his 
 youthfulness, on a first introduction to an admiring reader- 
 but this sort of external evidence has become an unnecessary 
 crutch to his habitual inward persuasion. His manners, his 
 costume, his suppositions of the impression he makes on others, 
 have all their former correspondence with the dramatic part 
 of the young genius. As to the incongruity of his contour 
 and other little accidents of phytique, he is probably no more 
 aware that they will affect others as incongruities than Ar- 
 mida is conscious how much her rouge provokes our notice 
 of her wrinkles, and causes us to mention sarcastically that 
 motherly age which we should otherwise regard with affection- 
 ate reverence. 
 
 But let us be just enough to admit that there may be old- 
 young coxcombs as well as old-young coquettes. 
 
xm. 
 
 HOW WE COME TO GIVE OURSELVES FALSE TES- 
 TIM0NIAL8, AND BELIEVE IN THEM. 
 
 It is my way when I observe any in^^ance of folly, anv 
 queer habi^ any absurd illusion, straightway to look for ime- 
 thag of the same type in inyself, feeling sure that amid 
 all differences there will be a certain correspondence! just as 
 there is more or less correspondence in the natural history 
 even of continents widely aparfe and of islands in opposite 
 zones. No doubt men's minds differ in what we mayoall 
 their climate or share of solar energy, and a feeling or tendency 
 which IS comparable to a panther in one may have no more 
 imposing aspect than that of a weasel in another: some are 
 like a tropical habitat in which Ha very ferns cast a mighty 
 shadow, ^d the grasses are a dry ocean in which a hvmter 
 may be submerged: others like the chilly latitudes in which 
 your forest-bree fit elsewhere to prop a mine, is a pretty min- 
 iature suitable for fancy potting. The eccentric man might 
 be typified by the Australian fauna, refuting half our iudi- 
 cious assumptions of what nature allows. Still, whether fate 
 commanded us to thatch our persons among the Eskimos or to 
 choose the latest thing in tattooing among the Polynesian isles, 
 our precious guide Comparison would teach us in the firet 
 place by likeness, and our clew to further knowledge would be 
 resemblance o what we already know. Hence, having a keen 
 interest in the natural history of my inward self, I pursue this 
 plan I have mentioned of using my observation as a clew or 
 lantern by which I detect small herbage or lurking life- or I 
 ta. 1 my neighbor in hU least becoming tricks or efforts as an 
 opportunity for luminous deduction concerning the figure the 
 human genus makes in the specimen which I myself furnish 
 Introspection which starts with the purpose of finding out 
 
HOW W» OlVli FALSE TMTMONULS. 107 
 
 Wi own abaurditiM is Dot likely to be rery miMhievous vet 
 b T:^ " ;» »»' fr»«.f«>m danger, any Ze than b«aU.fng 
 W« *?" °*^'": '^t <""• that keep us alive and «!tive. To 
 
 the briefest expression for our only method of knowing man- 
 kind; yet, we perceive, it has come to mean in many oas4 eith- 
 
 M^ds^ the amiable ilhwion of the higher nature misledW a 
 too generous construction of the lower. One cannot givf a 
 recipe for wise judgment: it resembles appropriate muscular 
 jcbon which « attained by the myriad lessons in Sy^ 
 h^oe ^i of aim that only practice can give. The dang^ 
 
 n-,^? ?• " '"'"^ °° '"^ ■""=*' impartiality and keen- 
 
 S,?*! TT*" " *'"" " ^"^ " ''^^8 effect,%nfeebrg 
 the energies of indignation and scorn, which are the prow? 
 
 T^l!^ tt'e 'Wholesome restraining power ot public opi^- 
 r™if! "«P^^*.t^« ^'""ewhip when applied to tiie back of 
 
 human being because his outleapof indignation is not check^ 
 by a too curious reflection on the nature of gmlt-a more De^ 
 foot human being because he more completelVhic^il^^^^^ 
 
 ^Tf '""^rf ^'"^' '""^ -^ »«-' be conTtut^ by 
 Ideas that nullify action. This is the essence of DanteWn^ 
 timent (it is painful to think that he appUes it veryTrTeUy)- 
 
 "E corteaU ft, lul ener villano" i_ 
 
 and it is undeniable that a too intense com.ciousneas of one's 
 kinship with all frailties and vices undermines the^^tive 
 heroism which battles against wrong. 
 But certainly nature has taken care that this danger should 
 
 Trite tC""' ^V;'^,*^"^'*°^«- ^^ «>"" not fei^ly de 
 Bonbe the generality of one's neighbors as too lucidly aware 
 ofmanrfesting in their own persons the weaknesses whi^hZy 
 ob»,rve in the rest of her Majesty's subjects, on thlcinto^^ 
 'Ibfemozzxlii. ISO. 
 
108 
 
 THKOPHRASTtTB BITCH. 
 
 a haaty oonolusion u to Mhrnnei of ProTidenoe might lead to 
 the aupposition that one man was intended to oornot another 
 by being moat intolerant of the ugly quality or trick which he 
 himself possesses. Doubtless philosophers will be able to 
 explain how it must necessarily be so, but pending the full 
 extension of the a priori method, which will show that only 
 blockheads could expect anything to be otherwise, it doea seem 
 surprising that Heloiaa should be diag aated at Laura'a attempts 
 to disguise her age, attempts which she recognizes so thorough- 
 ly because they enter into her own practice; that Semper, who 
 often responds at public dinners and proposes resolutions on 
 platforms, though he has a trying gestation of every speech 
 and a bad time for himself and others at every delivery, should 
 yet remark pitilessly on the fojly of precisely the same course 
 of action in TJbique; that Aliquis, who lets no attack on him- 
 self pass unnoticed, and for every handful of gravel against his 
 windows sends a atone in reply, should deplore the ill-advised 
 retorts of Quiapiam, who does not perceive that to show one- 
 self angry with an adversary is to gratify him. To be un- 
 aware of our own little t.lcks of manner or our own mental 
 blemishes and excesses is a comprehenaible imconaoiousness; 
 the puzzling fact is that people should apparently take no ac- 
 count of their deliberate actions, and should expect them to be 
 equally ignored by others. It is an inversion of the accepted 
 order : then it is the phrases that are official and the conduct 
 or privately manifeated aentiment that ia taken to be real; 
 her» it seems that the practice is taken to be official and en- 
 tirely nullified by the verbal representation which contradicts 
 it. The thief making a tow to heaven of full restitution and 
 whispering some reservations, expecting to cheat Omniscience 
 by an " aside," is hardly more ludicrous than the many ladies 
 and gentlemen who have more belief, and expect others to 
 have it, in their own statement about their habitual doings 
 than in the contradictory fact which is patent in the daylight. 
 One reason of the absurdity is that we are led by a tradition 
 about ourselves, so that long after a man has practically de- 
 parted from a rule or principle, he continues innocently to state 
 it as a true description of his practice — just as he has a long 
 tradition that he is not an old gentleman, and is startled when 
 
HOW Wr OITK PALM TB8TIM0IflAL8 tO» 
 
 he if MvMity at orarhMring himulf oalled by an epithet 
 which he has only applied to others. 
 
 "A person with your tendency of constitution should tak<> 
 IS little sugar as possible," said Pilulus to Bovis somewhe 
 in the darker decades of this century. " It has made a great 
 difference to Avis since he took my advice in that matter: he 
 used to consume half a pound a day." 
 
 "God bless me I" cries Bovis. "I take very little sunr 
 myself." ■ 
 
 " Twenty-six large luD<ps every day of your life, Mr. Bovis," 
 says his wife. 
 
 "No such thing I " exclaims Bovis. 
 
 "You drop them into your tea, coffee, anf jiskey your- 
 self my dear, and I count them." 
 
 "Nonsense!" laughs Bovis, turning to Pilulus, that they 
 may exchange a glance of mutual amusement at a woman's in- 
 accuracy. 
 
 But she happened to be right. Bovis had never said in- 
 wardly that he would take a large allowance of sugar, and he 
 had the tradition about himself that he was a man of the most 
 moderate habits j hence, with this conviction, he was naturally 
 disgusted at the saccharine excesses of Avis. 
 
 I have sometimes thoujht that this facility of men in belicT- 
 ing that they are still what they once meant to be— this undis- 
 turbed appropriation of a traditional character which is often 
 but a melancholy reUc of early resolutions, like the worn and 
 soiled testimonial to soberness and honesty carried in the 
 pocket of a tippler whom the need of a dram has driven into 
 peculation— may sometimes diminish the turpitude of what 
 seems a flat, barefaced falsehood. It is notorious that a man 
 may go on uttering false assertions about his own acts till he 
 at last believes in them: is it not possible that sometimes in 
 tte very first utterance there may be a shade of creed-reciting 
 belief, a reproduction of a traditional self which is clung to 
 against all evidence? There is no knowing all the disguises 
 of the lying serpent. 
 
 When we come to examine in detail what is the sane mind 
 m the sane body, the final test of completeness seems to be 
 a secunty of distinotion between what we have professed and 
 
TBI0PHRA8TU8 BUOR. 
 
 wh«t w* Iwr* don«i what we hart timed at and what we 
 hare aohiaTed; what we hare inrented an>. what we hare wit- 
 neiud or had ertdenoed to ui; what we think and feel in the 
 preeent and what we thought and felt in the patk 
 
 I know that there ii a oomn-on prejudice which regard* the 
 habitual oonfuiion of now and <At», of it mu and Ui$,ot it 
 turned $0 and Ithould like it to bt to, aa a mark of high imag- 
 inative endowment, while the power of prooise lUtement and 
 deeoription is rated lower, aa the attitude of an everyday pro- 
 saic mind. High imagination is often assigned or claimed u 
 if it were a ready activity in fabricating extravagances such as 
 are presented by fevered dreams, or as if ita possessors were 
 in that state of inability to give credible testimony which 
 would warrant their exclusion, from the class of acceptable 
 witnesses in a court of justice ; so that a creative genius might 
 fairly be subjected to the disability which some laws have 
 stamped on dicers, slaves, and other classes whose position was 
 held perverting to their sense of social responsibility. 
 
 This endowment of mental confusion is often botjted of by 
 persons whose imaginativeness would not otherwise be known, 
 unless it were by the slow process of detecting that their de- 
 scriptions and narratives were not to be trusted. Callista ii 
 always ready to testify of herself that she is an imaginative 
 person, and sometimes adds in illustration, that if she had 
 taken a walk and seen an oli heap of stones on her way, the 
 account she would give on returning would include many pleas- 
 ing particulars of her own invention, transforming the Simple 
 heap into an interesting castellated ruin. This orea'.ive free- 
 dom is all very well in the right place, but before I can grant 
 It to be a sign of unusual mental power, I must inquire wheth- 
 er, on being requested to give a precise description of what 
 she saw, she would be able to cast aside her arbitrary combi- 
 nations and recover the objects she really perceived so as to 
 make thera recognizable by another person •„ ho passed t.ae 
 same way. Otherwise her glorifying imagination is not an 
 addition to the fundamental power of strong, discerning per- 
 ception, but a cheaper substitute. And, in fact, I find on lis- 
 tening to Callista's conversation, that she ha.? a very !ai con- 
 ception even of common objects, and an equally lax memory 
 
HOV WI OITS FALSI mmiONIALS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 of trtaU. It Mcms of no eoniaqamuw to her whether the 
 ■hall uy that a itona ii orergrown with mosi or wi^h liohan, 
 that a bnilding it of landitone or of granite, that HeUboBU 
 once forgot to put on hit cravat or that ha alwayi appear* 
 vithout iti that everybody says lo, or that one atook-broker'i 
 wife aaidao yesterday; that Philemon praised Euphemia up 
 to the tkiee, or that he denied knowing any particular evil of 
 her. She ia one of those respectable witnesses who would 
 testify to the exact moment of an apparition, because any de- 
 sirable moment will be as exact as another to her remembrance; 
 or who would be the most worthy to witness the action of 
 spirits on slates and tables because the action of limbs would 
 not probably arrest her attention. She would describe the 
 surprising pb lomena exhibited by the powerful Medium with 
 the same freedom that she vaunted in relation to the old heap 
 of stones. Her supposed imaginativeness is simply a very 
 usual lack of discriminating perception, accompanied with a 
 less usual activity of misrepresentation, which, if it had been 
 a little more intense, or had been utimulated by circumstance, 
 might have made her a profuse writer unchecked by the troub- 
 lesome need of veracity. 
 
 These oharacteriatios are the very opposite of such aa yield 
 a fine imagination, which is always based on a keen vision, a 
 keen consciousness of what u, and carries the store of definite 
 knowledge as material for the construction of its inward visions 
 Witness Dante, who is at once the most precise and homely it 
 his reproduction of actual objects, and the most soaringly 
 at large in his imaginative combinations. On a much lower 
 level we distinguish the hyperbole and rapid development in 
 descriptions of persons and events which are lit up by hu- 
 morous intention in the speaker— we distinguish this charm- 
 ing play of intelligence which resembles musical improvisation 
 on a given motive, where the farthest sweep of curve is 
 looped into relevancy by an instinctive method, from the florid 
 inaccuracy or helpless exaggeration which is really something 
 commoner than the correct simplicity often depreciated at 
 prosaic. 
 
 Stbu if high iiuagination were to be identified with illusion, 
 there would be the same sort of difference between the im- 
 
112 
 
 TBE0PHRASTC8 SUCH. 
 
 perial wealth of illusion which is informed by indnstrioas Bub- 
 missile observatios and the trumpeiy stage-propeity illusion 
 which depends on the ill-defined impressions gathered by 
 capricious inclination, as there is between a good and a bad 
 picture of the Last Judgment. In both these the subject is a 
 combination never actually witnessed, and in the good picture 
 the general combination may be of surpassing boldness; but 
 on examination it is seen that the separate elements have been 
 closely studied from real objects. And even where we find 
 the charm of ideal elevation with wrong drawing and fantastic 
 color, the charm is dependent on the selective sensibility of 
 the painter to certain real delicacies of form whjch confer the 
 expression he longed to render ; for apart from tl is basis of an 
 effect perceived in common, there could be no conveyance of 
 ssthetio meaning by the painter to the beholder. In this 
 sense it is as true to say of Fra Angelico's Coronation of the 
 Virgin, that it has a strain of reality, as to say so of a portrait 
 by Bembrandt, which also has its strain of ideal elevation due 
 to Bembrandt's virile selective sensibility. 
 
 To correct such self-flatterers as Callista, it is worth repeat- 
 ing that powerful imagination is not false outward vision, 
 but intense inward representation, and a creative energy con- 
 stantly fed by susceptibility to the veriest minutim of experi- 
 ence, which it reproduces and constructs in fresh and fresh 
 wholes; not the habitual confusion of provable fact with the 
 fictions of fancy and transient inclination, but a breadth of 
 ideal association which informs every material object, every 
 incidental fact with far-reaching memories and stored residues 
 of passion, bringing intQnew light the less obvious relations 
 of human existence. The illusion to which it is liable is not 
 that of habitually taking duckponds for lilied pools, but of 
 being more or leas transiently and in varying degrees so ab- 
 sorbed in ideal vision as to lose the consciousness of sur- 
 ro Jiding objects or occurrences ; and when that rapt condition 
 is past, the sane genius discriminates clearly between what 
 has been given in this parenthetic state of excitement, and 
 what he has known, and may count on, in the ordinary world 
 of experience. Dante seems to have expressed these condi- 
 tions perfectly in that passage of the Pwrgatimo where, after 
 
HOW WB GIVE VALBR TBSTIMOinALS. 113 
 
 • triple vision which has made him forget his snrroimdiiiBaL 
 he says — 
 
 "Quando I'anlnu mia tomb dl fnorl 
 AUe COM Che aon fuor di lei yen, 
 loricoQobbi 1 miel non falii errori."— (o. r».) 
 
 He distinguishes the ideal truth of his entranced vision from 
 tie series of external facts to which his consciousness had re- 
 turned. Isaiah gives us the date of his vision in the Temple— 
 "the year that King Uzziah died"— and if afterward the 
 mighty-wmged seraphim were present with him as he trod the 
 street, he ('.oubtless knew them for images of memory, and did 
 not cry "Lookl " to the passers-by. 
 
 Certainly the seer, whether prophet, phUosopher, scientific 
 discoverer, or poet, may happen to be rather mad: his powers 
 may have been used up, like Don Quixote's, in their visionary 
 or theoretic constructions, so that the reports of common 
 sense fail to affect him, or the continuous strain of excitement 
 may have robbed his mind of its elasticity. It is hard for 
 our fraU mortality to carry the burden of greaij.d8s with 
 steady gait and full alacrity of perception. But he is the 
 strongest seer who can support the stress of creative energy 
 and yet keep that sanity of expectation which consists in dis- 
 tingnUhing, as Dante does, between the ease che son vere out- 
 side the individual mind, and the non falsi errori which are 
 the revelations of true imaginative power. 
 8 
 
i 
 
 xrv. 
 
 THE TOO KEADY WRITER. 
 
 Onb who talks too much, hindering the rest of the company 
 from taking their turn, and apparently seeing no reason why 
 they should not rather desire to know his opinion or experi- 
 ence in relation to all subjects, or at least to renounce the dis- 
 cussion of any topic where he can make no figure, has nevei 
 been praised for this industrious monopoly of work which 
 others would willingly have shared in. However various and 
 brilliant his talk may be, we suspect him of impoverishing us 
 by excluding the contributions of other minds, which attract 
 our curiosity the more because he has shut them up in silence. 
 Besides, we get tired of a "manner" in conversation as in 
 painting, when one theme after another is treated with the 
 same lines and touches. I begin with a liking for an estima- 
 ble master, but by the time he has stretched his interpretation 
 of the world unbrokenly along a palatial gallery, I have had 
 what the cautious Scotch mind would call " enough " of him. 
 There is monotony and narrowness already to spare in my 
 own identity; what comes to me from without should be 
 larger and more impartial than the judgment of any single in- 
 terpreter. On this ground even a modest person, without 
 power or will to shine in the conversation, may easily find the 
 predominating talker a nuisance, while those who are full of 
 matter on special topics are continually detecting miserably 
 thin places in the web of that information which he will not 
 desist from imparting. Nobody that I know of ever proposed 
 a testimonial to a man for thus volunteering the whole expense 
 of the conversation. 
 
 Why is there a different standard of judgment with regard 
 to a writer who plays much the same part in literature as the 
 excessive talker plays in what is traditionally called couversa- 
 
THE TOO BEADT WRTTEH. 
 
 110 
 
 Hmt The busy Adrastua, whose professional engagements 
 might seem more than enough for the nervous energy of one 
 man, and who yet finds time to print essays on the chief cur- 
 rent subjects, from the tri-lingual inscriptions, or the Idea of 
 the Infinite among the prehistoric Lappa, to the Colorado 
 beetle and the grape disease in the south of France, is gen- 
 eraUy praised if not admired for the breadth of his mental 
 range and his gigantic powers of work. Poor Theron, who 
 has some original ideas o" a subject to which he has given 
 years of research and mediuition, has been waiting anxiously 
 from month to month to see whether his condensed exposition 
 will find a place in the next advertised programme, but sees 
 it, on the contrary, regularly excluded, and twice the space 
 he asked for filled with the copious brew of Adrastus, whose 
 name carries custom like a celebrated trademark. Why should 
 the eager haste to teU what he thinks on the shortest no- 
 tice, as if his opinion were a needed preliminary to discns- 
 sion, get a man the reputation of being a conceited bore in 
 conversation, when nobody blames the same tendency if it 
 shows itself in print? The excessive talker can only be in 
 one gathering at a time, and there is the comfort of thinking 
 that everywhere else other fellow-citizens who have something 
 to say may get a chance of delivering themselves; but the ex- 
 orbitant writer can occupy space and spread over it the more 
 or less agreeable flavor of his mind in four "mediums" at 
 once, and on subjects taken from the four winds. Such rest- 
 less and versatile occupants of literary space and time should 
 have lived earlier when the world wanted summaries of all 
 extant knowledge, and this knowledge being small, there was 
 the more room for commentary and conjecture. They might 
 have played the part of an Isidor of Seville or p Vincent of 
 Beauvais brilliantly, and the willingness to write everything 
 themselves would nave been strictly in place. In the present 
 day, the busy retailer of other people's knowledge which he 
 has spoiled in the handling, the restless guesser and commen- 
 tator, the importunate hawker of undesirable superfluities, the 
 everlasting word-compeller who rises early in the morning to 
 praise what the world has already glorified, or makes himself 
 haggard at night in writing out his dissent from what nobody 
 
lis 
 
 THEOPHBASTTTS SUCH. 
 
 15 
 I f 
 
 ever beliered, is not simply " gratis anhelans, malta agendo 
 nihil agens" — he is an obetruotion. Like an incompetent 
 architect with too much interest at his back, he obtrudes his 
 ill-considered work where place ought to have been left to 
 better men. 
 
 Is it out of the question that we should entertain some 
 scruple about mixing our own flavor, as of the too cheap and 
 insistent nutmeg, with that of every great writer and every 
 great subject? — especially when our flavor is all we have to 
 give, the matter or knowledge having been already given by 
 somebody else. What if we were only like the Spanish wine- 
 skins which impress the innocent stranger with the notion 
 that the Spanish grape has naturally a taste of leather? One 
 could wish that even the greatest minds should leave some 
 themes unhandled, or at least leave us no more than a para- 
 graph or two on them to show how well they did in not being 
 more lengthy. 
 
 Such entertainment of scruple can hardly be expected from 
 the young; but happily their readiness to mirror tiie universe 
 anew for the rest of mankind is not encouraged by easy pub- 
 licity. In the vivacious Pepin I have often seen the image 
 of my early youth, when it seemed to me astonishing that the 
 philosophers had left so many difBculties unsolved, and that 
 so many great themes had raised no great poet to treat them. 
 I had an elated sense that I should find my brain full of theo- 
 retic clews whan I looked for them, and that wherever a poet 
 had not done what I expected, it was for want of my insight. 
 Kot knowing what had been said about the play of Borneo 
 and Juliet, I felt myself- capable of writing something orig- 
 inal on its blemishes and beauties. In relation to aU subjecte 
 I had a joyous consciousness of that ability which is prior to 
 knowledge, and of only needing to apply myself in order to 
 master any task — to conciliate philosophers whose systems 
 were at present but dimly known to me, to estimate foreign 
 poets whom I had not yet read, to show up mistakes in an 
 historical monograph that roused my interest in an epoch 
 which I had been hitherto ignorant of, when 1 shmld once 
 have had time to verify my views of probability by looking 
 into an enc^ cloptedia. So Pepin ; save only that he is indus- 
 
THE TOO READY WBITBR 
 
 117 
 
 triooi whUe I was idle. Like the astronomer in Easselas, I 
 swayed the universe in my consciousness without making any 
 difference outside me; whereas Pepin, while feeling himself 
 powerful with the stars in their courses, really raises some 
 dust here below. He is no longer in his spring-tide, but hav- 
 ing been always busy ho has been obliged to use his first 
 impressions as if they were deliberate opinions, and to range 
 hmiself on the corresponding side in ignorance of much that he 
 commits himself to; so that he retains some characteristics of 
 a comparaf-rflly tender age, and among them a certain sur- 
 prise that th.-i J have r c ';een more persons equal to himself. 
 Perhaps it is unfortunate for him that he early gained a hear- 
 ing, or at least a place in print, and was thus encouraged in 
 acquiring a fixed habit of writing, to the exclusion of any 
 other bread-winning pursuit. He is already to be classed as 
 a "general writer," corresponding to the comprehensive wants 
 of the "general reader," and with this industry on his hands 
 It is not enough for him to keep up the ingenuous self-reliance 
 of youth : he finds himself under an obligation to be skilled in 
 various methods of seeming to know; and having habitually 
 expressed himself before he was convinced, his interest in all 
 subjects is chiefly to ascertain that he has not made a mistake, 
 mi to feel his infallibility confirmed. That impulse to de- 
 cide, that vague sense of being able to achieve the unattemptod, 
 that dream of aerial unlimited movement at will without feet 
 or wings, which were once but the joyous mounting of young 
 sap, are already taking shape as unalterable woody fibre: the 
 impulse has hardened into " style," and into a pattern of per- 
 emptory sentences; the sense of ability in the presence of 
 other men's failures is turning into the official arrogance of one 
 who habitually issues directions which he has never himself 
 been called on to execute; the dreamy buoyancy of the strip- 
 ling has taken on a fatal sort of reality in written pretensions 
 which carry consequences. He is on the way to become like 
 the loud-buzzing, bouncing Bombus who combines conceited 
 illusions enough to supply several patients in . lunatic asylum 
 with the freedom to show himself at large in various forms of 
 print. If one who takes himself for the telegraphic centre of 
 all American wires is to be confined as unfit to transact a£talr% 
 
118 
 
 THBOPHRAflTUS SUCH. 
 
 what shall ve say to the man who believes himself in posses* 
 sion of the onezpreased motives and designs dwelling in the 
 breasts of all sovereigns and all politicians? And I grieve to 
 think that poor Pepin, though less political, may by and by 
 manifest a persuasion hardly more sane, for he is beginning 
 to explain people's writing by what he does not know about 
 them. Yet he was onoe at tiie comparatively innocent stage 
 which I have confessed to be that of my own early astonish- 
 ment at my powerful originality ; and copying the just humil- 
 ity of the old Puritan, I may say, " But for the grace of dis- 
 couragement, this coxcombry might have been mine." 
 
 Pepin made for himself a necessity of writing (and getting 
 printe-l) before he had considered whether he had the knowl- 
 edge or belief that would f un^ish eligible matter. At first 
 perhaps the necessity galled him a little, but it is now as easily 
 borne, nay, is as irrepressible a habit as the outpouring of in- 
 considerate talk. Be is gradually being condemned to have 
 no genuine impressions, no direct coTisciousness of enjoyment 
 or the reverse from the quality of what is before him ; his per- 
 ceptions are continually arranging themselves in forms suitable 
 to a printed judgment, and hence they will often turn out to 
 be as much to the purpose if they are written without any 
 direct contemplation of the object, and are guided by a few 
 external conditions which serve to classify it for him. In this 
 way he is irrevocably losing the faculty of accurate mental 
 vision : having bound himself to express judgmente which will 
 satisfy some other demands than that of veracity, he has 
 blunted his perceptions by continual preoccupation. We can- 
 not command veracity at'will : the power of seeing and report- 
 ing truly is a form of health that has to be delicately guarded, 
 and as an ancient Babbi has solemnly s»id, " The penalty of 
 untruth is untruth." But Pepin is only a mild example of 
 the fact that incessant writing with a view to prir g carries 
 internal consequences which have often the nature of disease. 
 And however unpractical it may be held to consider whether 
 we have anything to print which it is good for the world to 
 read, or which has not been better said before, it will perhaps 
 be allowed to be worth considering what effect the printing 
 may have on ourselves. Clearly there is a sort of writing 
 
THE TOO RBADT WRITER. 
 
 119 
 
 which helps to keep the writer in a ridiculously contented 
 ignorance; raising in him continually the sense of having de- 
 livered himself effectively, so that the acquirement of more 
 thorough knowledge seems as superfluous as the purchase of 
 costume for a past occasion. He has invested his vanity 
 (perhaps his hope of income) in his o-n shallownesses and mis- 
 toke^ and must desire their prosperity. Like the professional 
 pn^het, he learns to be glad of the harm that keeps up his 
 credit, and to be sorry for th. good that contradicts him. It 
 IS hard enough for any of us, amid the changing winds of for- 
 tune and the hurly-burly of events, to keep quite clear of a 
 gladness which is another's calamity ; but one may choose not 
 to enter on a course which will turn such gladness into a fixed 
 habit of mmd, committing ourselves to be continually pleased 
 Uiat others should appear to be wrong in order that we may 
 have the air of being right. 
 
 In some cases, perhaps, it might be urged that Pepin has 
 remamed the more self-contented because he has not written 
 everything he believed himself capable of. He once asked 
 ma to read a sort of programme of the species of romance 
 which he shoiUd think it worth while to write— a species 
 which he contrasted in strong terms with the productions of 
 Illustrious but overrated authors in this branch. Pepin's 
 romance was to present the splendors of the Roman Empire at 
 the culmmation of its grandeur, when decadence was spiritu- 
 aUy but not visibly imminent : it was to show the workings of 
 human passion in the most pregnant and exalted of human 
 circumstances, the designs of statesmen, the interfusion of 
 philosophies, the rural relaxation and converse of immortal 
 poets, the majestic triumphs of warriors, the mingling of the 
 qnamt and sublime in religious ceremony, the gorgeous de- 
 lirium of gladiatorial chows, and under all the secretly work- 
 ing leaven of Christianity. Such a romance would not call 
 «ie attention of society to the dialect of stable-boys, the low 
 habits of rustics, the vulgarity of small schoolmasters, the 
 manners of men in livery, or to any other form of uneducated 
 talk and sentiments: its characters would have virtues and 
 vices alike on the grand scale, and would express themselves 
 m an English representing the discourse of the most powerful 
 
120 
 
 THEOPHRASTC8 SUCH. 
 
 11 
 
 minds in the best Latin, or possibly Greek, when there oo- 
 oorred a scene with a Greek philosopher on a visit to Borne 
 or resident there as a teacher. In this way Pepin wonld do 
 in fiction what had never been done before : something not at 
 all like"Bienzi" or "Notre Dame de Paris," or any other at- 
 tempt of that kind ; but something at once more penetrating 
 and more magnificent, more passionate and more philosophical, 
 more panoramic yet more select: something that woula pre- 
 sent a conception of a gigantic period ; in short, something 
 truly Soman and world-historical. 
 
 When Pepin gave me this programme to read he was much 
 younger than at present. Some slight success in another vein 
 diverted him from the produrMon of panoramic and select 
 romance, and the experience of not having tried to carry out 
 his programme has naturally made him more biting and sar- 
 castic on the failures of those who have actually written 
 romances without apparently having had a glimpse of a con- 
 ception equal to his. Indeed, I am often comparing his rather 
 touohingly inflated naivetd, as of a small young person walk- 
 ing on tiptoe while he is talking of elevated things, at the 
 time when he felt himself the author of that unwritten ro- 
 mance, with his present epigrammatic curtness and affecta- 
 tion of power kept strictly in reserve. His paragraphs now 
 seem to have a bitter smile in them, from the consciousness 
 of a mind too penetrating to accept any other man's ideas, 
 and too equally competent in all directions to seclude his 
 power in any one form of creation, but rather fitted to hang 
 over them all as a lamp of guidance to the stnmblers below. 
 You perceive how proud he is of not being indebted to any 
 writer: even with the dead he is on the c.-^ditor's side, for he 
 is doing them the service of letting the world know what they 
 c^ant better than those poor pre-Pepinians themselves had 
 any means of doing, and he treats tixe mighty shades very 
 cavalierly. 
 
 Is this fellow-oitizen of ours, considered simply in the light 
 of a baptized Christian and tax-paying Englishman, really as 
 madly conceited, as empty of reverential feeling, as unveracious 
 and careless of justice, as fnll of catch-penny devices and 
 stagey attitudinizing as on examination his writing shows 
 
TH« TOO READY WRITER. 
 
 121 
 
 itnlf to b«7 By no means. He has arrived at his present 
 pass m " the literary oaUing " through the self-imposed obliga- 
 tion to give himself a manner which would convey the impres- 
 sion of superior knowledge and ability. He is much worthier 
 and more admirable than his written productions, because the 
 moral aspects exhibited in his writing are felt to be ridiculous 
 or disgraceful in the personal relations of life. In blaming 
 Pepin's writing we are accusing the public conscience, which 
 is so Ux and ill informed on the momentous bearings of author- 
 ship that it sanctions the total absence of scruple in undertak- 
 ing and prosecuting what should be the best warranted of 
 vocations. 
 
 Hence I still accept friendly relations with Pepin, for he 
 has much private amiabUity, and though he probably thinks 
 of me as a man of slender talento, without rapidity of coup 
 d'<BU and with no compensatory penetration, he meets me 
 yeiy oordiaUy, and would not, I am sure, willingly pain me 
 in conversation by crudely declaring his low estimate of my 
 capacity. Yet I have often known him to insult my betters 
 and contribute (perhaps unreflectingly) to encourage injurious 
 conceptions of them— but that was done in the course of hig 
 professional Tvriting, and the public conscience still leaves such 
 wnting nearly on the level of the Merty-Andrew's dress, 
 which permits an impudent deportment and extraordinary 
 gambols to one who in his ordinary clothing shows himself the 
 decent father of a family. 
 
XV. 
 
 DISEASES OF SMALL AUTH0E8HIP. 
 
 Partioulab callinga, it is known, encourage partioalu dis- 
 eases. There is a painter's oolio: the Sheffield grinder falls 
 a victim to the inhalation of steel dust : clergymen so often 
 have a certain kind of sore throat that this otherwise secular 
 ailment gets named after them. And perhaps, if we were to 
 inquire, we should find a similar relation between certain moral 
 ailments and these various occupations, though here in the 
 case of clergymen there would te specific differences : the poor 
 curate, equally with the rector, is liable to clergyman's sore 
 throat, but he would probably be found free from the chronic 
 moral ailments encon'-aged by the possession of glebe and 
 those higher chances of preferment which follow on having a 
 good position already. On the other hand, the poor curate 
 might have severe attacks of calculating expectancy concern- 
 ing parishioners' turkeys, cheeses, and fat geese, or of uneasy 
 rivalry for the donations of clerical charities. 
 
 Authors are so miscellaneous a class that their personified 
 diseases, physical and moral, might include the whole pro- 
 cession of human disorders, led by dyspepsia and ending in 
 madness — the awful Dumb Show of a world-historic tragedy. 
 Take a large enough area of human life and all comedy melts 
 into tragedy, like the Fool's part by the side of Lear. The 
 chief scenes get filled with erring heroes, gwi'eful usurpers, 
 persecuted discoverers, dying deliverers: everywhere the pro- 
 tagonist has a part pregnant with doom. The comedy sinks 
 to an accessory, and if there are loud laughs they seem a con- 
 vulsive transition from sobs ; or if the comedy is touched with 
 a gentle lovingness, the panoramic scene is one where 
 
 " Sadness is a kind of mirtli 
 So mingled as if mirtli did malce us sad 
 And sadness merry." ' 
 
 ■ Two Noble Kinsmen. 
 
DIBIASra OF BMAIX ADTHORBHIP. 
 
 US 
 
 But I did not let out on the wide surrey that would euir 
 me into tragedy, and in fact had nothing more aerioui in my 
 mind than certain email ohronio ailments that come of small 
 authorship. I was thinking priicipally of Vortioella, who 
 flourished in my youth not only as a portly lady walking in 
 Hilk attire, but also as the authoress -f a book entitled "The 
 Channel Islands, with Notes and an Appendix." I would by 
 no means make it a reproach to her that she wrote no more 
 than one book; on the contrary, her stopping there seems to 
 me a laudable example. What one would have wished, after 
 expenence, was that she had refrained from producing even 
 that single volume, and thus from giving her self-importance 
 a troublesome kind of double incorporation which became 
 oppressive to her acquaintances, and set up in herself one of 
 those slight chronio forms of disease to which I have just re- 
 ferred. She lived in the considerable provincial town of 
 Pumpiter, which had its own newspaper press, with the usual 
 divisions of political partisanship and the usual varieties of 
 literary criticism— the florid and allusive, the ttaceato and 
 peremptory, the clairvoyant and prophetic, the safe and pat- 
 tern-phrased, or what one might call "the many-a-long-day 
 style." 
 
 Vortioella being the wife of an important townsman had 
 naturally the satisfaction of seeing "The Channel Islands" 
 reviewed by all the organs of Pumpiter opinion, and their 
 articles or paragraphs held as naturally the opening pages in 
 the elegantly bound album prepared by her for the reception 
 of " critical opinions. " This ornamental volume lay on a spe- 
 cial table in her drawing-room close to the still more gor- 
 geously bound work of which it was the significant effect, and 
 every guest was allowed the privilege of reading what had 
 been said of the authoress and her work in the "Pumpiter 
 Gazette and Literary Watchman," the " Pumpshire Post, " the 
 "Church Clock," the "Independent Monitor," and the lively 
 but judicious publication known as the " Medley Pie " • to be 
 followed up, if he chose, by the 'nstructive perusal of the 
 strikingly confirmatory judgmenv, sometimes concurrent in 
 the very phrases, of journals fi-um the most distant counties: 
 M the "Latchgate Argus," the "Penllwy Universe," the 
 
134 
 
 TBlOPBRABTUa SUCH. 
 
 "Cockaleekie AdrartiMr," the "Goodwin Bwidi Opinion," 
 and the " Land'i End Times." 
 
 I had frienda in Pumpiter and oooasi<maIl/ paid a long visit 
 there. When I called on Vortieella, who had a ooasinship 
 with my hosts, she had to excuse herself because a message 
 claimed her attention for eight or ten minutes, and handing 
 me the album of critical opinions said, with a certain em- 
 phasis which, considering my youth, was highly compliment- 
 ary, that she would really like me to read what I should find 
 there. This seemed a permissive politeness which I could not 
 feel to be an oppression, and I ran my eyes over the dozen 
 pages, each with a strip or islet of newspaper in the centre, 
 with that freedom of mind (in my case meaning freedom to 
 forget) which would be a perilous way of preparing for exami- 
 nation. This ad libitum perusal had its interest for me. The 
 prirate truth being that I had not read " The Channel Islands," 
 I was amazed at the variety of matter which the volume must 
 contain to have impressed these different judges with the 
 writer's surpassing capacity to handle almost all branches of 
 inquiry and all forms of presentation. In Jersey she had 
 shown herself an historian, in Guernsey a poetess, in Alder- 
 ney a political economist, and in Sark a humorist: there were 
 sketches of character scattered through the pages whicn might 
 put our " flctionists " to the blush ; the style was eloquent and 
 racy, studded with gems of felicitous remark; and the moral 
 spirit throughout was so superior that, said one, " the record- 
 ing angel " (who is not supposed to take account of literature 
 as such) "would assuredly set down the work as a deed of 
 religion." The force of this eulogy on the part of several 
 reviewers was much heightened by the incidental evidence of 
 their fastidious and severe taste, which seemed to suffer con- 
 siderably from the imperfections of our chief writers, even the 
 dead and canonized : one afflicted them with the smell of oil, 
 another lacked erudition and attempted (though vainly) to 
 dazzle them with trivial conceits, one wanted to be more 
 philosophical than nature had made him, another in attempt- 
 ing to be comic produced the melancholy effect of a half- 
 starved Merry- Andrew; while ont and all, from the author of 
 the " Areopagitica" downward, had faults of style which must 
 
DI8KA8B8 OF BMAU AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 130 
 
 h«v« mada »a M« hind in the " Latohgate Argui " shake the 
 many-glanced head belonging thereto with a imUe of oompaa- 
 (ionata diiapproval. Not so the authoreu of "The Channel 
 Island*": VortioeUa and Shakespeare were allowed to be 
 faultless. 1 gathered that no blemishes were observable in 
 the work of this aoeomplUhed writer, and the repeated infor- 
 mation that she was " second to none " seemed after this super- 
 fluous. Her thick octavo— notes, appendix, and all— was un- 
 flagging from beginning to end ; and the " Land's End Times, " 
 using a rather dangerous rhetorical figure, recommended you 
 not to take up the volume unless you had leisure to finish it at 
 a sitting. It had given one writer more pleasure than he had 
 had for many a long day— a sentence which had a melancholy 
 resonance, suggesting a 'L'a of studious languor such as all 
 previous aohievementa of the human mind failed to stimulate 
 into enjoyment. I think the collection of critical opinions 
 wound up with this sentence, and I had turned back to look at 
 the (ithographed sketch of the authoress which fronted the first 
 page of the album, when the fair original re-entered and I laid 
 down thp volame on its appropriate table. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of them? " said Vorticella, with 
 an emphasis which had some significance unperceived by me. 
 "I know you are a great student. Give ma your opinion of 
 these opinions." 
 
 "They must be very gratifying to you," I answered with a 
 litto 'onfusion, for I perceived that I might easily mistake 
 my footing, and I began to have a presentiment of an exami- 
 nation for which I was by no means crammed. 
 
 "On the whole— yes," said Vorticella, in a tone of conces- 
 sion. " A few of the notices are written with some pains, but 
 not one of them has really grappled with the chief idea in the 
 appendix. I don't know whether you have studied political 
 economy, but you saw what I said on page 398 about the 
 Jersey fisheries?" 
 
 I bowed— I confess it— with the mean hope that this move- 
 ment in the nape of my neck would be taken as sufBcient proof 
 that I had read, marked, and learned. I do not forgive my- 
 self for this pantomimic falsehood, but I was young and 
 morally timorous, aL . VorticeUa's personalily had an efEeot 
 
126 
 
 THBOPHRASTUS SUCH. 
 
 ;: I-: 
 
 11. ; : 1 
 
 on me something like that of a powerful mesmerizer when he 
 directs all his ten fingers toward your eyes, as unpleasantly 
 visible ducts for the invisible stream. I felt a great power of 
 contempt in her, if I did not come up to her expectations. 
 
 "Well," she resumed, "you observe that not one of them 
 has taken up that argument. But I hope I convinced you 
 about the drag-nets?" 
 
 H{ :e was a judgment on me. Orientally speaking, I had 
 lifted up my foot on the steep descent of falsity and was com- 
 pelled to set it down on a lower level. " I should think you 
 must be right," said I, inwardly resolving that on the next 
 topic I would tell the truth. 
 
 "I know that I am right," said Vorticella. "The fact is 
 that no crit'O in this town is fit to meddle with such subjects, 
 unless it be Volvox, and he, 'with all his command of lan- 
 guage, is very superficial. It is Volvox who writes in the 
 ' Monitor. ' I hope you noticed how he contradicts himself 7 " 
 
 My resolution, helped by the equivalence of dangers, stoutly 
 prevailed, and I said, "No." 
 
 "Ko! I am surprised. He is the only one who finds fault 
 with me. He is a Dissenter, you know. The ' Monitor ' is 
 the Dissenters' organ, but my husband has been so useful to 
 them in municipal affairs that they would not venture to run 
 my book down; they feel obliged to tell the truth about me. 
 Still Volvox betrays himself. After praising me for my pene- 
 tration and accuracy, he presently says I have allowed my- 
 self to be imposed upon and have let my active imagination 
 run away with me. That is like his dissenting impertinence. 
 Active my imagination may be, but I have it under control. 
 Little Vibrio, who writes the playful notice in the ' Medley 
 Pie,' has a clever hit at Volvox in that passage about the 
 steeplechase of imagination, where the loser wants to make it 
 appear that the winner was only run away with. But if you 
 did not notice Volvox's self-contradiction you would not see 
 the point," added Vorticella, with rather a chilling intonation. 
 " Or perhaps you did not read the ' Medley Pie ' notice? 
 That is a pity. Do take up the book again. Vibrio is a poor 
 little tippling creature, but, as Mr. Oarlyle would say, he has 
 an eyey and he is always lively." 
 
^^ 
 
 DiaEAfiBH OF BHALL AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 127 
 
 I did take up the book again, and read ,s deuianded. 
 
 "It is very ingenious," said I, really a preciatine tli; diffi- 
 culty of being lively in this connection : i , st-med eve' more 
 wonderful than that a Vibrio should have ua i.js. 
 
 "You are probably surprised to see no notices from the 
 London press," said Vorticella. "I have one— a very re- 
 markable one. But I reserve it until the others have spoken, 
 and then I shall introduce it to wind up. I shall have them 
 reprinted, of course, and inserted in future copies. This 
 from the ' Candelabrum ' is only eight lines in length, but full 
 of venom. It calls my style dull and pompous. I think that 
 will tell its own tale, placed after the other critiques." 
 
 "People's impressions are so different," said I. "Some 
 persons find 'Don Quixote' dull." 
 
 "Yes," said Vorticella, in emphatic chest tones, "duhiess 
 is a matter of opinion ; but pompous 1 That I never was and 
 never could be. Perhaps he means that my matter is too im- 
 portant for his taste; and I have no objection to that. I did 
 not intend to be trivial. I should just like to read you that 
 passage about the drag-nets, because I could make it clearer 
 to you." 
 
 A second (less ornamental) copy was at her elbow and was 
 ah-eady opened, when to my great relief another guest was 
 announced, and I was able to take my leave without seeming 
 to run away from "The Channel Islands, " though not without 
 being compelled to carry with me the loan of "the marked 
 copy," which I was to find advantageous in a reperusal of the 
 appendix, and was only requested to return before my depar- 
 ture from Pumpiter. Looking into the volume now with some 
 curiosity, I found it a very ordinary combination of the com- 
 monplace and ambitious, one of those books which one might 
 imagine to have been written under the old Grub Street coer- 
 cion of hunger and thirst, if they were not known beforehand 
 to be the gratuitous productions of ladies and gentlemen whose 
 circumstances might be called altogether easy, but for an 
 I'.easy vanity that happened to have been directed toward 
 authorship. Its importance was that of a polypus, tumor, 
 fungus, CT other erratic outgrowth, noxious and disfiguring in 
 its effect on the individual organism which nourishes it. Poor 
 
r ,J: 
 
 128 
 
 THEOPHRASTTS SUCH. 
 
 Vorticella might not have been more weariaome on a visit than 
 the majority of her neighbors, but for this disease of magni- 
 fied self-importance belonging to small authorship. I under- 
 stand that the chronic complaint of " The Channel Islands " 
 never left her. As the years went on aud the publication 
 tended to vanish in the distance for her neighbors' memory, 
 she was still bent on dragging it to the foreground, and her 
 chief interest in new acquaintances was the possibility of lend- 
 ing them her book, entering into all details concerning it, and 
 requesting them to read her album of "critical opinions." 
 This really made her more tiresome than Gregarina, whose 
 distinction was that she had had cholera, and who did not 
 feel herself in her true position with strangers until they 
 knew it. 
 
 My experience with Vorticel>a led me for a time into the 
 false supposition that this sort of fungous disfiguration, which 
 makes Self disagreeably larger, was most common to the fe- 
 male sex; but I presently found that here too tl, j male could 
 assert his superiority and show a more vigorous boredom. I 
 have known a man with a single pamphlet containing an as- 
 surance that somebody else was wrong, together with a few 
 approved quotations, produce a mt-e powerful effect of shud- 
 dering at his approach than ever Vorticella did with he^ 
 varied octavo volume, including notes aud appendix. Males 
 of more than one nation recur to my memory who produced 
 from their pocket on the slightest encouragement a small pink 
 or buff duodecimo pamphlet, wrapped in sUver paper, as a 
 present held ready for an intelligent reader. "A mode of - 
 propagandism, " you remwk in excuse ; " they wished to spread 
 some useful corrective doctrine. " Not necessarily : the indoc- 
 trination aimed at was perhaps to convince you of their own 
 talents by the sample of an " Ode on Shakespeare's Birthday," 
 or a translation from Horace. 
 
 Vorticella may pair off with Monas, who had also written 
 his one book— "Here and There; or, a Trip from Truro to 
 Transylvania"— and not only carried it in his portmanteau 
 when he went on visits, but took the earliest opportunity of 
 depositing it in the drawing-room, and afterward would enter 
 to look for it, as if under pressure of a need for reference, 
 
DISEASES OP SMALL AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 129 
 
 begging the lady of the house to tell him whether she had 
 Been "a smstll volume bound in red." One hostess at last 
 ordered it to be carried into his bedroom to save his time; 
 but it presently reappeared in his hands, and was again left 
 with inserted slips of paper on the drawing-room table. 
 
 Depend upon it, vanity is human, native alike to men and 
 women; only in the male it is of denser texture, less volatile, 
 so that it less immediately informs you of its presence, but is 
 more massive and capable of knocking you down if you come 
 into collision with it; while in women vanity lays by its small 
 revenges as in a needle-case always at hand. The difference ^ 
 is in muscle and finger-tips, in traditional habits and mental 
 perspective, rather than in the original appetite of vanity. 
 It is an approved method now to explain ourselves by a refer- 
 ence to the races as little like us as possible, which leads me 
 to observe that in Fiji the men use the most elaborate hair- 
 dressing, and that wherever tattooing is in vogue the male 
 expects to carry off the prize of admiration for pattern and 
 workmanship. Arguing analogically, and looking for this 
 tendency of the Fijian or Hawaiian male in the eminent Euro- 
 pean, we must suppose that it exhibits itself under the forms 
 of civilized apparel; and it would be a great mistake to esti- 
 mate passionate effort by the effect it produces on our percep- 
 tion or understanding. It is conceivable that a man may have 
 concentrated no less will and expectation on his wrist-bands, 
 gaiters, and the shape of his hat-brim, or an appearance which 
 impresses you as that of the modem " swell," than the Ojibbe- 
 way on an ornamentation which seems to us much more elab- 
 orate. In what concerns the search for admiration at least, it 
 is not true that the effect is equal to the cause and resembles 
 it. The cause of a flat curl on the masculine forehead, such 
 as might be seen when George the Fourth was king, must have 
 been widely different in quality and intensity from the im- 
 pression made by that small scroll of hair on the organ of the 
 beholder. Merely to maintain an attitude and gait which I 
 notice in certain club-men, and especially an inflation of the 
 chest accompanying very small remarks, there goes, I am con- 
 vinced, an expenditure of physical energy little appreciated by 
 the multitude— a mental vision of Self and deeply impressed 
 
130 
 
 I'i' 
 
 m 
 
 THEOPHRASTUB 8CCH. 
 
 beholders which is quite without antitype in what we call the 
 eflect produoed by that hidden process. 
 
 No! there is no need to admit that women would carry 
 away the prize of vanity in a competition where differences of 
 custom were fairly considered. A man cannot show his van- 
 ity in a tight skirt which forces him to walk sideways down 
 the staircase; but let the match be between the respective 
 vanities of largest beard and tightest skirt, and here too the 
 battle would be to the strong. 
 
 il'i 
 
XVL 
 MORAL SWINDLEBS. 
 
 w™l'f>,'/^^f "^'^P?" "* ™°y ^ t''* degradation of 
 words that "what a man is worth" has come to mean how 
 much money he possesses; but there seems a deeper and more 
 melancholy m,ny in the shrunken meaning thaVpopulw^ 
 poUte speech assigns to " morality » and '• morals." The uoor 
 part these words are made to play recalls the fate of those 
 pagan divmities who, after being understood to rule the pow- 
 era of the a.p ^d the destinies of men, came down to the 
 level of insignifioant demons, or were even made a farcical 
 show for the amusement of the multitude. 
 
 Talking to Melissa in a time of commercial trouble, I found 
 her disposed to speak pathetically of the disgrace which had 
 Men on Su; Gavial Mantrap, because of his conduct in rela- 
 hon to the Eocene Mines, and to other companies ingeniously 
 dmsed by him for the punishment of ignorance in ^ple 6f 
 smaU means: a disgrace by which the poor tiUed gSman 
 w;» actually reduced to live in comparative obscurily on h^ 
 wrfe's settlement of one or two hundred thousand in the con- 
 
 fc"f?^'^.^°" ^^ " misapplied," said J, rather dubiously, 
 for I like the comfort of trusting that a correct moral judK- 
 ment is the strong point in woman (seeing that she has a 
 tW°wH- •"»"*" "'iUi"" i» our islands), and I imagined 
 that Melissa might have some unexpressed grounds foTher 
 
 ?'T°- J ' '"""^^ ^^^^ ^^""K'" y°" would ratherbesoS 
 for Mantrap's victims-the widows, spinsters, and hard-wor^ 
 
 Ti t .".."^^ ^^ unscrupulous haste to make himself rich 
 has cheated of all their savings, while he is eating weU, W 
 S -"^ f *" "npudently justifying himself before the 
 pabho, IS perhaps joinmg in the General Confession with a 
 
133 
 
 THKOPHRABTUS SUCH. 
 
 'I" 
 
 sense that he is an acceptable object in the sight of God, 
 though decent men refuse to meet him." 
 
 " Oh, all that about the Companies, I know, was most un- 
 fortunate. In commerce people are led to do so many things, 
 and he might not know exactly how everything would turi 
 out. But Sir Oavial made a good use of his money, and he is 
 a thoroughly moral man." 
 
 " What do you mean by a thoroughly moral man? " said I. 
 
 "Oh, I suppose every one means the same by that," said 
 Melissa, with a slight air of rebuke. " Sir Gavial is an excel- 
 lent family man — quite blauieless there; and so charitable 
 round his ])lace at Tiptop. Very different from Mr. Barabbas, 
 whose life, my husband i.ells me, is most objectionable, with 
 actresses and that sort ol thing. I think a man's morals 
 should make a difference to usi I'm not sorry for Mr. Barab- 
 bas, but Jam sorry for Sir Oavial Mantrap." 
 
 I will not repeat my answer to Melissa, for I fear it was 
 offensively brusque, my opinion being that Sir Gavial was the 
 more pernicious scoundrel of the two, since his name for virtue 
 served as an effective part of a swindling apparatus ; and per- 
 haps I hinted that to call such a man moral showed rather a 
 silly notion of human affairs. In fact, I had an angry wish 
 to be instructive, and Melissa, as will sometimes happen, 
 noticed my anger without appropriating my instruction, for I 
 have since heard that she speaks of me as rather violent-tem- 
 pered, and not over strict in my views of morality. 
 
 I wish that this narrow use of words which are wanted in 
 their fuU meaning were confined to women like Melissa. See- 
 ing that Morality and Morals under their alias of Ethics are 
 the subject of voluminous discussion, and their true basis a 
 pressing matter of dispute — seeing that the most famous book 
 ever written on Ethics, and forming a chief study in our col- 
 leges, allies ethical with political science or that which treats 
 of the constitution and prosperity of States, one might expect 
 that educated men would find reason to avoid a perversion of 
 language which lends itself to no wider view of life than that 
 of village gossips. Yet I find even respectable his*'orians of 
 our own and of foreign countries, after showing that a king 
 was treacherous, rapacious, and ready to sanction gross breaches 
 
'-gpp^ ~-JP ^^^ 
 
 HORAL SWINDLERS. 133 
 
 in the adminietration of jusHoe, end by praUing him for hia 
 p^moral character by which one LI sup^pose them to 
 
 ^o^?.:"",T.''^'*'""'^«'"'"«'''"l' »°t *^« Europe^ 
 tWM of the^pK al Indian potentate whom Macaulay descrU*. 
 » passmg h.s life in chewing bang and f ondlCd^cingS 
 
 ttev wZ'Ir"' '"""'*^""' *"''' °^ ^""^ maleficent Wny£ 
 they were religious, we arrive at the curious result that tte 
 most serious wide-r.aching duties of man lie ^te outsSe 
 .^ k.« ^^•'i!'^ Beligion-the one of these conaisW k 
 ^n1^r?K*' "'■'*'*'""' e^"^ P«''"'P« ''°' drinking too Tu^hr 
 S whil r "L""^''^f "«! «■"! «PWtual tranfactionrw^; ^ 
 God which can be carried on equally well side by side witt 
 
 £ t U rw"*,*°""' T" • ^'"^ -"^ " classificaLr^ 
 this It is no wonder, considering the strong reaction of lan- 
 gnage on thought, that many minds, dizzy with indiSn 
 of recent science and phUosophy, are far to seek for Jh« 
 gij-unds of social duty, and wiSiout enterSintg ly privSe 
 mtontion of committing a perjury which would min'Lf i^nt 
 
 St™ r,^^ ^"^ ^^ '"PP^y'°8 ^ P^^e^ed meate 
 wht .1, ^i ^} ^^T^^^"" speculatively obliged to inquire 
 why they should not do so, and are inclined to measure theb 
 
 ourh.bi57hrasXltrpV4irgt7=^^^^^^^^^^ 
 aff^tions of our nature. The informal definitions of popular 
 SSr *^%°° yr-^i-^ though which theor/?e5^ 
 
 f r^hln ' r"l' '^*" ^""8 '^« nominaUy educaW 
 and when a man whose business hours, the soUd pit of ever^ 
 day, are spent m an unscrupulous course of publCr private 
 action which has every calculable chance of causL^CId^! 
 
 home to dme with his wife and children and cherishes the 
 happmessof his own hearth, the augury is not Xd for the 
 use of high ethical and theological dispTtatir ^ 
 
 Not for one moment would one wUUnglv lose sicrhf r.t fi,. 
 ta,^ that the relation of the sexes and'tLe p im^*« L o 
 kmship are the deepest roots of human wellbeing, bX.lake 
 them by themselves the equivalent of moraHty is to cut o^tte 
 
■^^«3mmiJL 
 
 134 
 
 THEOPHR&BTUS BTTOB. 
 
 channels of feeling through which they are the feeders of that 
 wellbeing. They are the original fountains of a sensibility to 
 the claims of others, which is the bond of societies ; but being 
 necessarily in the first instance a private good, there is always 
 the danger that individual selfishness will see in them only the 
 best part of its own gain ; just as knowledge, navigation, com- 
 merce, and all the conditions which are of a nature to awaken 
 men's consciousness of their mutual dependence and to make 
 the world one great society, are the occasions of selfish, un- 
 fair action, of war and oppression, so long as the public con- 
 science or chief force of feeling and opinion is not uniform 
 and strong enough in its insistence on what is demanded by 
 the general welfare. And among the influences that must re- 
 tard a right public judgment, t^e degradation of words which 
 involve praise and blame will be reckoned worth protesting 
 against by every mature observer. To rob words of half their 
 meaning, while they retain their dignity as qualifications, is 
 like allowing to men who have lost half their faculties the 
 same high and perilous command which they won in their 
 time of vigor; or like selling food and seeds after fraudulently 
 abstracting their best virtues : in each case what ought to be 
 beneficently strong is fatally enfeebled, if not empoisoned. 
 Until we have altered our dictionaries and have found some 
 other word than morality to stand in popular use for the 
 duties of man to man, let us refuse to accept as moral the 
 contractor who enriches himself by using large machinery to 
 make pasteboard soles pass as leather for the feet of vmhappy 
 conscripts fighting at miserable odds against invaders : let us 
 rather call him a miscreant, though he were the tenderest, 
 most fidthful of husbands, and contend that his own experi- 
 ence of home happiness makes his reckless infliction of suiSer- 
 ing on others all the more atrocious. Let us refuse to accept 
 as moral any political leader who should allow his conduct in 
 relation to great issues to be determined by egoistic passion, 
 and boldly say that he would be less immoral even though he 
 were as lax in his personal habits as Sir Robert Walpole, if at 
 the same time his sense of the public welfare were supreme in 
 his mind, quelling all pettier impulses beneath a magnanimous 
 impartiality. And though we were to find among that class 
 
J^r^SJCiMT 
 
 UORAL BWINDUtRS. 
 
 13S 
 
 of journalwti who live by raoklessly reporting injurious ru- 
 mors, msmuating the blackest motives in opponents, desoant- 
 mg at large and with an air of infallibUit) on dreams which 
 thv both find and interpret, and stimnUtmg bad feeling 
 between nations by abusive writing which is as empty of reiU 
 conviction as the rage of a pantomime King, and would be 
 ludicrous If its effects did not make it appear diabolical- 
 though we were to find among these a man who was benig- 
 nanoy itself m his own circle, a healer of private differences, a 
 soother in private calamities, let us pronounce him neverthe- 
 less flagrantly immoral, a root of hideous cancer in the com- 
 monwealth, turning the channels of instruction into feeders of 
 social and political disease. 
 
 In opposite ways one sees bai effects likely to be enoonr- 
 aged by this narrow use of the word moraU, shutting out 
 from Its meaning half those actions of a man's life which teU 
 momentoualy on the well-being of his fellow-citizens, and on 
 ^e pre^ation of a future for the children growing up around 
 him. Thoroughness of workmanship, care in the execution of 
 every task undertaken, as if it were the acceptance of a trust 
 which It would be a breach of faith not to discharge well, is a 
 form of duty so momentous that if it wert ,,o die out from the 
 feeling and practice of a people, all reforms of institutions 
 would be helpless to create national prosperity and national 
 happmess. Do we desire to see pubUo spirit penetrating all 
 classes of the community and affecting every man's conduct, 
 so that he shall make neither the saving of his soul nor any 
 other private saving an excuse for indifference to the genend 
 welfare? WeU and good. But the sort of pubUo spirit that 
 scamps Its bread-winning work, whether with the trowel, the 
 pen, or the overseeing brain, that it may hurry to scenes of 
 political or social agitation, would be as baleful a gift to our 
 people as any malignant demon could devise. One best part 
 of educational training is that which comes through sp^ial 
 knowledge and manipulative or other skill, with its usual ac- 
 companiment of delight, in relation to work which is the daily 
 bread-winning occupation-whioh is a man's contribution to 
 the effective wealth of society in return for what he takes as 
 hia own shAre. But this duly of doing one's proper work 
 
I 
 
 IM 
 
 THBOPHRASTUS B0OB. 
 
 well, and taking care that every product of one'i labor ihall 
 be genuinely what it pretends to be, ia not only left out of 
 morala in popular speech, it is very little insisted on by public 
 teachers, at least in the only effective way— by tracing the 
 continuous effects of ill-done work. Some of them seem to be 
 still hopeful that it will follow as a necessary consequence 
 from week-day services, ecolesiaiiical decoration, and im- 
 proved hymn-books; others apparently trust to descanting 
 on self-culture in general, or to raising a general sense of 
 faulty circumstances; and meanwhile lax, makeshift work 
 from the high conspicuous kind to the average and obscure, is 
 allowed to pass unstamped with the disgrace of immorality, 
 though there is not a member of society who is not daily suf- 
 fering from it materially andispiriiiiUy, and though it is the 
 fatal cause that must degrade our u .•!.,onal rank and our com- 
 merce in spite of all open markets and discovery of available 
 coal-seams. 
 
 I suppose one may take the popular misuse of the words 
 Morality and Morals as some excuse for certain absurdities 
 
 which are occudional fashions in speech and writing certain 
 
 old lay figures, as ugly as the queerest Asiatic idol, which at 
 different periods get propped into loftiness, and attired in 
 magnificent Venetian drapery, so that whether they have a 
 human face or not is of little consequence. One is, the notion 
 that there is a radical, irreconcilable opposition between in- 
 tellect and morality. I do not mean the simple statc-nent of 
 fact, which everybody knows, that remarkably able men have 
 had very faulty morals, and have outraged public feeling even 
 at its ordinary standard; but the supposition that the ablest 
 intellect, the highest genius, will see through morality as a 
 sort of twaddle for bibs and tuckers, a doctrine of dulness, a 
 mere incident in human stupidity. We begin to understand 
 the acceptance of this foolishness by considering that we live 
 in a society where we may hear a treacherous monarch, or a 
 malignant and lying politician, or a man who uses either offi- 
 cial or literary power as an instrument of his private partiality 
 or hatred, or a manufacturer who devises the falsification of 
 wares, or a trader who deals in virtueless seed-grains, praised 
 or compassionated because of his excellent morals. Clearly 
 
■^■iraBBi'ifi:j"'4i;jia it 
 
 MORAL BWINDLER8. 
 
 U7 
 
 If moMlity meut no mora thu such deoenoiei u an practiBed 
 by theie poisonoiu members of aooiety, it would be possible to 
 s»y, without suspicion of light-headedness, that morality Uy 
 aloof from the grand stream of human affairs, as a small chan- 
 nel fed by the stream and not missed from it While this 
 form of nonsense U conveyed in the popular use of words, 
 there must be plenty of well-dressed ignorance at leisu-e to 
 run through a box of books, which will feel itoelf initiated in 
 the freemasonry of intellect by a view of life which might take 
 for a Shakespearian motto— 
 
 "Fair is foul and foul is fair, 
 HoTer Uiroagli tlie fog and filthy air"— 
 
 and wiU find itself easily provided with striking conversation 
 by the rule of reversing all the judgments on good and evil 
 which have come to be the calendar and clockwork of so- 
 ciety. But let our habitual talk give morals their full mean- 
 ing as the conduct which, in every human relation, would 
 foUow from the fullest knowledge and the fullest sympathy— 
 a meaning perpetually corrected and enriched by a more thor- 
 ough appreciation of dependence in things, and a finer sensi- 
 bility to both physical and spiritual fact— and this ridiculous 
 ascnption of superlative power to minds which have no effect- 
 ive awe-inspiring vision of the human lot, no response of un- 
 derstanding to the connection between duty and the material 
 processes by which the world is kept habitable for cultivated 
 man, will be tacitly discredited without any need to cite the 
 immortal names that all are obliged to take as the measure of ' 
 mtellectual rank and highly charged genius. 
 
 Suppose a Frenchman— I mean no disrespect to the great 
 French nation, for all nations are afflicted with their peculiar 
 parasitic growths, which are lazy, hungry forms, usually char- 
 acterized by a disproportionate swallowing apparatus: sup- 
 pose a Parisian who should shuffle down the Boulevard with 
 a soul ignorant of the gravest cares and the deepest tender- 
 ness of manhood, and a frame more or less fevered by debauch- 
 ery, mentally polishmg into utmost refinement of phrase and 
 rhythm verses which were an enlargement on that Shakes- 
 pearian motto, and worthy of the most expensive title to be 
 
flf. .^i 
 
 ^'^mmmmiM^. 
 
 *" THIOPHIUBTUB 8U0H. 
 
 (arnUhed by the rendon of tuoli antithetia wue u Lt$ mar- 
 r-ritet dt I'ST^fer, or Zm d4Uef d» BieMbuth. Thi» tup- 
 poMd personace might probably enough regard hi* negation of 
 thoee moral lenubilitiei which make half the warp and woof 
 of human history, hi* indifference to the hard thinking and 
 hard handiwork of life, to which he owed even hi* own gauiy 
 mental garmente with their ipangle* of poor paradox, a* the 
 royalty of geniu*, for we are u*ed to witneea »uch aelf-orown- 
 ing in many form* of mental alienation; but he would not, I 
 think, be taken, even by hi* own generation, a* a living proof 
 that there can exi*t lueh a combination a* that of moral *tu- 
 pidity and trivial emphaeis of personal indulgence with the 
 large yet finely digoriminating vision which marks the intel- 
 lectual master* of our kind, poubtle** there ace many aorts 
 of transfiguration, and a man who has come to be worthy of 
 all gratitude and reverence may have had his swini*h period, 
 wallowing in ugly places; but suppose it had been handed 
 down to u* that Sophoole* or Virgil had at one time made 
 hunself scandalous in this way: the works which have conse- 
 crated their memory for our admiration and gratitude are not 
 a glorifying of swinishness, but an artistic incorporation of 
 the highest sentiment known to their age. 
 
 All these may seem to be wide reasons for objecting to Me- 
 lissa'* pity for Sir Qavial Mantrap on the ground of his good 
 moral*; but their connection will not be obscure to any one 
 who ha* taken pain* to obaerve the link* uniting the scattered 
 sign* of our *ocial development. 
 
 Ilil 
 
.vt:':^.^ 
 
 XVII. 
 
 SHADOWS OF THE COMING RACE. 
 
 Mr friend Troit, who U no optimiit u to the state of the 
 uniTene hitherto, but is confident that at some future period 
 within the duration of the solar system, ours will be the best 
 of aU possible worlds— a hope which I always honor as a sign 
 of beneficent qualities— my friend Trost always tries to keep 
 up my spiriu under the sight of the extremely unpleasant and 
 disfiguring work by which many of our fellow-creatures hare 
 to get their bread, with the assurance that " all this wQl coon 
 be done by machinery." But he sometimes neutralizes the 
 consolation by extending it over so large an area of human 
 labor, and insisting so impressively on the quantity of energy 
 which will thus be set free for loftier purposes, that I am 
 tempted to desire an occasional famine of invention in the 
 comir ^s, '.est the humbler kinds of work should be entirely 
 nullified while there are still left some men and women who 
 are not fit for the highest. 
 
 Especially, when one considers the perfunctory way in 
 which some of the most exalted tasks are already executed by 
 those who are understood to be educated for them, there rises 
 a fearful vision of the human race evolving machinery which 
 will by and by throw itself fatally out of work. When, in 
 the Bank of England, I see a wondrously delicate machine for 
 testing sovereigns, a shrewd implacable little steel Ehadaman- 
 thus that, once the coins are delivered up to it, lifts and bal- 
 ances each in turn for the fraction of an instant, finds it want- 
 ing or suflicient, and dismisses it to right or left with rigorous 
 justice; when I am told of micrometers and thermopiles and 
 tasimeters which deal physically with the invisible, the im- 
 palpaHe, and the unimaginable; of cunning v-ios and wheels 
 and pointing needles which will register jro" ' my quick- 
 
140 
 
 THBOPHRA8TC8 ST70H. 
 
 
 ness ao as to exclude flattering opinion i of a machine for 
 drawing the nght conclusion, which will doubtless by and by 
 be improved into an automaton for finding true premises- of 
 a microphone which detects the cadence of the fly's foot on 
 the ceiling, and may be expected presently to discriminate the 
 noises of our various foUies as they solUoquize or converse in 
 onr brains— my mind seeming too smaU for these thiuRs, I 
 get a little out of it, like an unfortunate savage too suddenly 
 brought face to face with civilization, and I exclaim— 
 
 " Am I already in the shadow of the Coming Race? and will 
 the creatures who are to transcend and finally supersede us be 
 steely organisms giving out the effluvU of the laboratory, and 
 performing with infallible exactness more than everything 
 that we have performed witlf a slovenly approximativeness 
 and self-defeating inaccuracy?" 
 
 "But," says Treat, treating me with cautious mildness on 
 hearing me vent this raving notion, "you forget that these 
 wonder-workers are the slaves of our race, need our tendance 
 and regulation, obey the mandates of our consciousness, and 
 are only deaf and dumb bringers of reports which we decipher 
 and make use of. They are simply extensions of the human 
 organism, so to speak, limbs immeasurably more powerful 
 ever more subtle finger-tips, ever more mastery over the in- 
 visibly great and the invisibly smaU. Each new machine 
 needs a new appliance of human skill to construct it. new 
 devices to feed it with material, and often keener-edged facul- 
 ties to note Its registrations or performances. How then can 
 machmes supersede us?— they depend upon us. When we 
 cease, they cease." 
 
 "I am not so sure of that," said I, getting back into my 
 mind, and becoming rather wilful in consequence " If as I 
 have heard you contend, machines as they are more and'more 
 perfected will require less and less of tendance, how do I 
 know that they may not be ultimately made to carry, or may 
 not in themselves evolve, conditions of seU-supply, self-re- 
 pair and reproduction, and not only do all the mighty and 
 subtle work possible on this planet better than we could do it, 
 but with the immense advantage of banishing from the earth's 
 atmosphere soieaming consciousnesses which, in our compara- 
 
^m./_-__^^ 
 
 Ij^- 
 
 SHADOWS OF THE COMINO RACE. 
 
 141 
 
 tively clumsy race, make an intolerable noise and fuss to each 
 other about every petty ant-like performance, looking on at 
 all work only as it were to spring a rattle here or blow a 
 trumpet there, with a ridiculous sense of being effective? I 
 for my part cannot see any reason why a sufflcieiitly penetrat- 
 ing thinker, who can see his way through a thousand years 
 or so^ should not conceive a parliament of machines, in which 
 the manners were excellent and the motions infallible in logic : 
 one honorable instrument, a remote descendant of the Voltaic 
 family, might discharge a powerful current (entirely without 
 animosity) on an honorable instrument opposite, of more up- 
 start origin, but belonging to the ancient edge-tool race which 
 we already at Sheffield see paring thick iron as if it were mel- 
 low cheese— by this unerringly directed discharge operating 
 on movements corresponding to what we call Estimates, and 
 by necessary mechanical consequence on movements corre- 
 sponding to what we call the Funds, which with a vain analogy 
 we sometimes speak of as ' sensitive. ' For every machine 
 would be perfectly educated, that is to say, would have the 
 suitable molecular adjustments, which would act not the less 
 infallibly for being free from the fussy accompaniment of that 
 consciousness to which our prejudice gives a supreme govern- 
 ing rank, when in truth it is an idle parasite on the grand 
 sequence of things." 
 
 "Nothing of the sort! " returned Trost, getting angry, and 
 judging it kind to treat me with some severity j "what you 
 have heard me say is, that our race will and must act as a 
 nervous centre to the utmost development of mechanical pro- 
 cesses: the subtly refined powers of machines will react in 
 producing more subtly refined thinking processes which will 
 occupy the minds set free from grosser labor. Say, for ex- 
 ample, that aU the scavengers' work of London were done, so 
 far as human attention is concerned, by the occasional pres- 
 sure of a brass button (as in the ringing of an electric bell), 
 yon will then have a multitude of brains set free for the 
 exquisite enjoyment of dealing with the exact sequences and 
 high speculations supplied and prompted by the delicate ma- 
 chines which yifiM a r83po^se to the fixed stars, and give 
 readings of the spiral vortices fundamentally concerned in the 
 
Ii2 
 
 THBOPHRASTUB SUCH. 
 
 production of flpio poems op great judioml haranguee. So fu 
 from mankind being thrown out 'of work !ZZgto yot 
 notion," concluded Troet, with a peculiar nasal note of sim. 
 in »ll J^" r ^r' i^onraUe dilettanteism in science as 
 in,^ ^^'f thmgs-if you had once understood the action of 
 iWri^'lS "achme-you would perceive that the sequences 
 rt oaxnee throughout the reahn of phenomena would Vire 
 
 ir^ £!'*'"?'' P***!"' »°"»' °* understandings ooSder- 
 ably stronger than yours, to exhaust the store of ,^rk it lays 
 
 "Precisely," said I, with a meekness which I felt was 
 praiseworthy, "it is the feebleness of my capacity, brinZ 
 
 ZhC"' ^ ^°- *° "^ ^"^"^ averagrthai perhj! 
 gables me to imapne certain results better than y^ caS. 
 Doubtiess the very fishes of olu: rivers, gullible as they 1^ 
 and slow as they are to be righUy convinced in anothJordS 
 of fa«ts, form fewer false expectations about each other than 
 
 what fuller intercourse with their species; for even as it is we 
 have continuaUy to be surprised that they do not rise to our 
 carefully selected bait Take me then as a sort of reflective 
 and experienced carp; but do not estimate the iustioe of my 
 ideas by my facial expression." ■ j ui«t> ui my 
 
 Naturally," I persisted, "it is less easy to you than to me 
 to imagmeour race transcended and superseded, since the more 
 energy a bemg is possessed of, the harder it must be for him 
 to conceive his own death. But I, from the p.,int of view of 
 a reflective oit,, can easJy imagine myself and my congeners 
 dispensed with in the frame of things and giving way not o^ 
 to a supenor but a vasUy different kind of Entity. What I 
 would ask you i^ to show me why, since each new invention 
 oasts a new light along the pathway of discovery, and each 
 new combmation or structure brings into play moie conditions 
 than Its inventor foresaw, there should not at length be a ma- 
 t^nM °fi T i"^*" ."n^phanical and ohem.„al powers that it 
 wouJd find and assimiUte the material to supply its own 
 
 movammt. wprodw* itself by some pr=«s of fission or bud- 
 
^4,^^^t 
 
 'W-'^ 
 
 SHADOWS OF THI COMIKO RACK. 
 
 143 
 
 ding. This last stage having been reached, either by man's 
 oontrivanoe or as an unforeseen result, one sees that the pro- 
 cess of natural selection must drive men altogether out of the 
 field; for they will long before hare begun to sink into the 
 miserable condition of those unhappy characters in fable who 
 having demons or djinns at their beck, and being obliged to 
 supply them with work, found too much of everything done 
 in too short a time. What demons so potent as molecular 
 movements,' none the less tremendously potent for not carry- 
 ing the futile cargo of a consciousness screeching irrelevantly,^ 
 like a fowl tied head downmost to the saddle of a swift horse-^ 
 man? Under such uncomfortable circumstances our race will 
 have diminished with the diminishing call on their energies, 
 and by the time that the self-repairing and reproducing ma- 
 chines arise, all but a few of the rare inventors, calculators, 
 and speculators will have become pale, pulpy, and cretinous 
 from fatty or other degeneration, and behold around them a 
 scanty hydrocephalous offspring. As to the breed of the in- 
 genious and intellectual, their nervous systems will at last 
 have been overwrought in following the molecular revelations 
 of the immensely more powerful unconscious race, and they 
 will naturally, as the less energetic combinations of move- 
 ment, subside like the flame of a candle in the sunlight. 
 Thus the feebler race, whose corporeal adjustments happened 
 to be accompanied with a maniacal consciousness which im- 
 agined itself moving its mover, will have vanished, as all less 
 adapted existences do before the fittest— i.e., the existence 
 composed of the most persistent groups of movements and the 
 most capable of incorporating new groups in harmonious rela- 
 tion. Who— if our consciousness b, as I have been given to 
 understand, a mere stumbling of our organisms on their way 
 to unconscious perfection— who shall say that those fittest ex- 
 istences will not be found along the track of what we call in- 
 organic combinations, which will carry on the most elaborate 
 processes as mutely and painlessly as we are now told that the 
 minerals are metamorphosing themselves continually in the 
 dark laboratory of the earth's crust? Thus this planet may 
 be filled with beings who will be blind and deaf as the inmost 
 rock, yet will execute changes as delicate and complicated as 
 
IM 
 
 THXOPaiUSTUS 8C0H. 
 
 those of humwi langnago and aU the intricate web of what we 
 oaU >to effeote. without 8«i,itiye imprewion, without CitiTe 
 
 :S;\T.UentT"""^ ""' "° ~"-^°"»- ^- 0- L 
 "Absuidl" grumbled Trost. 
 
 fri'iVpSS:^ " '°^'^" "'•' '• "" " -" '^'^ 
 
 "Whose premises?" cried Trost, turning on me with some 
 fierceness. ' You don't mean to oaU them mme, I C-" 
 wiZ^J" "'"'*' P'-y '^"' t° l^- %ing a^ut in tte air 
 r«U„l ? f ™''' *"'* ^*''* ^""""l » "ort of nidus among C 
 melancholy fancies. Nobody really holds them. They b^ 
 the same relation to real belief as walking on the head f^T^ 
 
.!■.*-£ 
 
 m^M 
 
 
 xvni. 
 
 THE MODERN HEPl HEP! HEP! 
 
 To diaoem likeness amidst u.versity, it is weU kaown, does 
 not require so fine a mental edge as the discerning of diversity 
 amidst general sameness. The primary rough classification 
 depends on the prominent resemblances of things: the prog- 
 ress is toward finer and finer discrimination according to minute 
 diJCerenoes. 
 
 Yet even at this stage of European culture one's attention is 
 o<mtinuaUy drawn to the prevalence of that grosser mental sloth 
 which makes people dull to the most ordinary prompting of 
 comparison— the bringing thii ^s together because of their like- 
 ness. The same motives '-e same ideas, the same practices, 
 are alternately admired a abhorred, lauded and denounced, 
 according to their associat u with superficial differences, his- 
 tonoal or actually social: even learned writers treating of 
 great subjects often show an attitude of mind not greatly supe- 
 rior in its logic to that of the frivolous fine lady who is in- 
 dignant at the frivolity of her maid. 
 
 To take only the subject of the Jews: it would be difficult 
 to find a form of bad reasoning about them which has not been 
 heard in conversation or been admitted to the dignity of print- 
 but the neglect of resemblances is a common property of dul- 
 ness which unites all the various points of view—the preju- 
 diced, the puerUe, the spiteful, and the abysmally ignorant. 
 
 That the preservation of national memories is an element 
 and a means of national greatness, that their revival is a sign 
 of reviving nationality, that every heroic defender, every pa- 
 tnotio restorer, has been inspired by such memories and has 
 made them his watchword, that even such a corporate ex- 
 istence as that of a Roman legion or an English regiment 
 has been made valorous by memorial standards,— these are 
 
146 
 
 THEOPHRASTUS SUCH. 
 
 « W^ ^' oommonplMe. of hiatorio teaching at our public 
 
 Latm ciMsios. They have al«o been imprewed on the world 
 by conspicuous modem instances. That there is a free mod- 
 h^T'.i' '^'"^«^»8l' aU infiltration of other than Greek 
 Wood-to the presence of ancient Greece in the consciousness 
 tf European men ; and every speaker would feel his point safe 
 rf he were to praise Byron's devotion to a cause madVriorious 
 
 inswt that the Greeks were not to be helped further because 
 tt^ history shows that they were ancieuTy unsur^iSS"" 
 treachery and lymg, and that many modem Greeks wehighlv 
 disreputable characters, while others are disposed to grasp t<» 
 large a share of our commerce. The same with Italy "t^ 
 pathos of his country's lot pieped the youthful soul of Maz- 
 
 ,Wi^^ °f ^ ^''^'""'' ^" '""Wi^tion filled with a ma- 
 jestic past that wrought itself into a majestic future. Half a 
 century ago, what wag Italy? An idling-place of dilettante- 
 f^ Z "V f "" n-otiveless wealth, a territory parcelled out 
 for papal sustenance, dynastic convenience, and the profit of 
 an alien Government. What were the Italiaos? No neonle 
 no voice w European counsels, no massive power in EaroiLl 
 affairs: a race thought of in English and French sooieras 
 chiefly adapted to the operatic stage, or to serve as models for 
 painters; disposed to smile gratefully at the reception of half- 
 
 l^!^\^W^, "?""' ''^*°"<»1 remembered to be rathar 
 pohte than truthfij, in all probability a combination of Mach- 
 lavell^ Rubmi, and Masaniello. Thanks chiefly to the divine 
 gift of a memory which inspires the momente with a past, a 
 presenlj and a future, and gives the sense of corporate existence 
 that mses man above the otherwise more respectable and inno- 
 cent brate, all that, or most of it, is chaDgedT^ 
 
 Again, one of our living historians finds just sympathy in 
 hw vigorous insistence on our tme ancestry, on ouj being the 
 sta^ngly marked heritors in language and genius of thosf old 
 ^ghsh seamen who, beholding a rich country with a most 
 
 w»Zr T Jf^.' "r"' ^°''^*^^' ^'* " ««"«« °f divine 
 warrant, and settled themselves on this or the other side of 
 
THE HODERN HBP I HEP I HEP! 147 
 
 STri^nffT^f' "^.""'^ .«">"qt.ermg more and more of 
 the pleiuant land from the natires who knew nothing of Odin, 
 and finaUy making unusually clean work in ridding tiemselve^ 
 of thoee prior occupants. "Let us. "he virtually says, "let Z 
 taow who were our forefathers, who it was that won the soil 
 whinh « K~?f * the good seed of those institutions through 
 £nTf.ht *.v""«'°*"y*'"* 8™'«f""yfeel ourselves 
 
 dwtagmshed among the nations as possessors of long-inherited 
 freedom; let us not keep up an ignorant kind of naiiTwS 
 djsguises our true affinities of Wood and language, but let us 
 
 fttters had, and what sort of song inspired them. Let the 
 
 b^a ^r" Z^f-^T^" ^°'^ *^"' «««"> bravery in 
 ^n^ ^e« trust in fierce gods who helped themTbe 
 ^n7i,T* affectionate reverence. These seafaring, in! 
 vadmg, self-assertmg men were the English of old time and 
 
 ^;i Ji? T'"*?. "^"^ incorporated themselves in 
 
 wholesome usages to which we trace our own political bles^ 
 
 to aien^ Iri^^r ""u^ r^o'l^^S^ our common relationship 
 to them, and be thankful that over and above the affections 
 ^d duties which spring from our manhood, we have theTZ 
 
 SuhmenT'"''^ ^'''« '"*'" ''"•"' •«'-« ^ -^ 
 To tills view of our nationality most persons who have feel- 
 
 whlh 1^ the patriotic affection and every other affecti™. 
 wluch lifts us above emigrating rats and free-loving baboon^ 
 will be disposed to say Amen. True, we are not ^d3 
 to aose ancestors for our religion: we are rather ^roud^ 
 
 nS"" *^l'"""'°''*'°" from elsewhere. The meTwho 
 planted our nation were not Christians, though Uiey beea^ 
 
 S.rto Chri^'-^f*'."^^^*' and they had a decider 
 jection to Christianity when it was first proposed to tiiem- 
 
 kL^'^fT • , ^^^ '"""^ "^ ^^''^ been fortunate enough to 
 tri a '^^^■^'"^' *bey won for us, and have been on the 
 whole a prosperous people, ratiier continuing tiie plan of in- 
 vading and spoiling other lands than being forc^Tb^ C 
 
148 
 
 THEOPHBABTUS SUCH. 
 
 shelter in them, nobody has raprooohed us beoause our fathers 
 thirteen hundred years ago worshipped Odin, massacred Brit- 
 ons, and were with difficulty persuaded to accept Christianity 
 knowmg nothing of Hebrew history and the reasons why Christ 
 should be received as the Saviour of mankind. The Bed In- 
 dians, not liking us when we settled among them, might hare 
 been willing to fling such facts in our faces, but they were too 
 ignorant, and besides, their opinioi did not signify, because 
 we were able, if we liked, to exterminate them. The Hindoos 
 also have doubUess had their rancors against us and still en- 
 tertain enough iU will to make unfavorable remarks on our 
 character, especiaUy as to our historic rapacity and arrogant 
 notions of our own superiority; they perhaps do not admire 
 the usual English profile, and they are not converted to our 
 way of feeding: but though we are a small number of an alien 
 race profiting by the territory and produce of these prejudiced 
 people, they are unable to turn ns out; at least, when they 
 tried we showed them their mistake. We do not call our- 
 selves a dispersed and a punished people : we are a colonizing 
 people, and it is we who have punished others. 
 
 Still the historian guides us rightly in urging us to dwell on 
 the virtues of our ancestors with emulation, and to cherish our 
 sense of a common descent as a bond of obligation. The emi- 
 nence, the nobleness of a people, depends on its capabUity of 
 being stirred by memories, and of striving for what we call 
 spiritual ends— ends which consist not in immedUte material 
 possession, but in the satisfaction of a great feeling that 
 animates the collective body as with one soul. A people hav- 
 ing the seed of worthiness in it must feel an answering thrill 
 when it is adjured by the deaths of its heroes who died to pre- 
 serve its national existence; when it is reminded of its small 
 beginnmgs and gradual growth through past labors and strug- 
 gles, such as are stUl demanded of it in order that the freedom 
 and weU-being thus inherited may be transmitted unimpaired 
 to children and children's children; when an appeal against 
 tte permission of injustice is made to great precedents in its 
 history and to the better genius breathing in its institutions. 
 It IS this living force of sentiment in common which makes a 
 national consciousnesss. Nations so moved will resist con- 
 
^ 1 J 
 
 TOT KODBBM HEPI HBPl hbpi J49 
 
 quMt with the very breast, of their women, will nav tl,«4. 
 ^on. .nd their blood to .boli.h slavery. w^ilTl^^pSS 
 
 »me great story of a man," and thinkers who^s'ZSriw wiU 
 bear the test of action. An individual man, to be hl^r„T 
 ouriy great, must belong to a nation of thi^ orde^.Sri^ 
 actua^ existonoe yet existing in the past, in memorj^, „ a d^ 
 P«ted mvmb e, beloved ideal, once a reality, i^d^Zp, to 
 
 tte noh blood of various activity which makes a compete m^ 
 The tune is not come for cosmopolitanism to be hiehlv vTJI^" 
 ous, any more than for communism to suiTce for sSene^' 
 I am not bound to feel for a Chinaman as I filfoTmv f«l W 
 
 rort^co°""=,i'^ '"""> °°* todemoraitzSii";^' S' 
 
 ^ita „7v^ t"" *° ""^ "^ ^y destroying or plundering^ 
 
 the London pavement. It is admirable iTa Briton wift^ 
 good purpose to learn Chinese, but it would not bTa pr^f oj 
 hue intellect m him to taste Chinese poetry in the o^n^ 
 more than he tastes the poetry of his owC^g^e. A^S 
 «^^^Tw' ^"""y'"^^ f""" a centre, and natu^Z d?. 
 oided that for us English folk that centre can be neXr Chtaa 
 
 bon of nadervalumg everything native, and being too SnTZ' 
 one'B own oountey^ belongs only to a few minds !tTo^J^ 
 ous leverage What is wanting is, that we should recS 
 acorrespondirg attachment to nationality as legitimatoT^e^ 
 
 For, to repeat, not only the nobleness of a nation depends 
 bwrsTT"'/?^ ""'•""'^ consciousness, but X, Zn^ 
 S P^liZJ?"""^ "*^*"- 0" dignity and rectitude 
 Tr^at TJf^?^ °" *"" l^ relationship with something 
 ^^fi„r^ .?' P'T"^*^'* J>iKh possibilities, worthy of 
 sacrifice, a continual inspiration to self-repression anddisci- 
 plme by the presentation of aims larger and more attractive to 
 our generous part than the securing of per«,nal «^ p^ 
 
f; 
 
 u» 
 
 THBOPHRAflTtTB 8UCH. 
 
 p«4ty. And • people poneuiiig thia good ihonld nirely feel 
 not only a ready iympathy with the effort of thoae who, hay- 
 ing loBt the good, strive to regain it, but a profound pity for 
 any degradation resulting from its loss; nay, something more 
 than pity when happier nationalities hare made victims of 
 the unfortunate whose memories nevertheless are the very 
 fountain to which the persecutors trace their moat vaunted 
 blessings. 
 
 These notions an familiar: few will deny them in the ab- 
 stract, and many are found loudly asserting them in relation 
 to this or the other particular case. But here as elsewhere, in 
 the ardent application of ideas, there is a notable lack of sim- 
 ple comparison or sensibility to resemblance. The European 
 world has long been used to consider the Jews as altogether 
 exceptional, and it has folio W naturally enough that they 
 have been excepted from the rules of justice and mercy, which 
 are based on human likeness. But to consider a people whose 
 ideas have determined the religion of half the world, and that 
 the more cultivated half, and who made the most eminent 
 struggle against the power of Eome, as a purely exceptional 
 race, is a demoralizing offence against rational knowledge, a 
 stultifying inconsistency in historical interpretation. Every 
 nation of forcible character— «.«., of strongly marked charac- 
 teristics, is so far exceptional. The distinctive note of each 
 bird-species is in this sense exceptional, but the necessary 
 ground of such distinction is a deeper likeness. The super- 
 lative peculiarity in the Jews admitted, our aiHnity with them 
 is only the more apparent when the elements of their pecu- 
 liarity are discerned. . 
 
 From whatever point of view the writings of the Old Testa- 
 ment may be regarded, the picture they present of a national 
 development is of high interest and speciality, nor can their 
 historic momentousneas be much affected by any varieties of 
 theory as to the relation they bear to the New Testament or 
 to the rise and constitution of Christianity. Whether we ac- 
 cept the canonical Hebrew books as a revelation or simply as 
 part of an ancient literature, makea no difference to the fact 
 that we find there the strongly characterized portraiture of a 
 people educated from an earlier or Uter period to a aenae of 
 
▼ .r^«P^ 
 
 m^' 
 
 THK MODKRN HBPI HBP, mci., uj 
 
 Mptntanws unique in iu inteniitv a DMnU *.„»>,* i„ 
 ataitioM with the highest looial and relimoui bleLf^ 
 
 Tdll, v P'r*.""'8 tJ'o "Pocifio nationiU oharaoterlai^t 
 fo«T™ JT^^^T'I* "' P"*' '^ themselves by ^..^T^l 
 
 way between three continents ; and when the dread and hat^ 
 of f»e.gn sway had condensed itself into dreaded l«to^^ 
 
 S-Tr^e^t ^dT ""'»"'^«°» "S'^ot a° estabUshed nativ 
 neas. But .II that n^n^Sris'^ ^1^^^^ 
 
mmi^tfmt 
 
 m 
 
 TMOPHIUSTUB BUOH. 
 
 whioh omted in the J«ws n fe.lii,g of mo* a luiJIT^^' 
 «t. Mirt«o^ unique in it. intwrity ""^ * •«'" «>' oorpo- 
 
 Th^™ i.°^^°7,w*^* dUpereion, unique in ..,«,ti.l quUiti^ 
 Qigliri, got ourUIuid «d the w.y the Lraelitea got cZl 
 
 S.Hn ^^°'' T"^'""8n"». or for admitting tl>«t our 
 Mtitution. are equalled by thoee of anv oth,. people ZiZ 
 
 ,iT. ^ Kw '"•°'!." "' °" forefathers, secure against in^- 
 «on aud able to invade other land, when we need th~ouA 
 ^y may lie on the other side of the ocean. Agaii. it h« 
 
 pie, not only «b e to bruise the head of an idolatrouTciS^ 
 
 ^etn^. ""; °'™'* '"'"^ '" carry our purer reli^onovt 
 tte world and convert mankind to our way of thinking. The 
 
 Hebrew history closely symbolical of their feelings and „"! 
 
 less laudable doing, on the writings they invoked, since S«V 
 opponent made use of the ^unetitinyiSe eT^l^ 
 finding there a strong warrant for the divine right of kingTuS 
 tte denunciation of those who, like Korah, I^thi^, ^f a^^ 
 ram, took on themselves the office of the priaZiT .hin}, 
 belonged of right solely to Aaron and Ws ?o"T^rt oJ^S 
 wo«i,, to men ordained .by the English bishojs. 'weS^ 
 Z^^lll tbe pas«onate use of the Hebrew writings to X 
 
 v„^.w , ^",~«""* of a Jew was so immeasuraSy be- 
 yond that of a Calvinist? And the just sympathy and^- 
 ration which we give to the ancestors who Srthfl- 
 passive acts of o„ „,ti,, j^^^^ ^^ ^e^op 
 
 won for us the best part of our civil and reUgious libe^es-is 
 .t jusUy to be withheld from those brave anT ste^St ten 
 ti^Z . ™»o who fought and died, or strove by wise adTi^" 
 nitration U> reewti the oppression and corrupting influences of 
 
'IKWWF. 
 
 TIUI MODER}- RKPl HEP) hipi 1M 
 
 totrijrn tyranto, ami by r«,i,ting, rwoued the n«tion»Uty which 
 
 that the Jew. were more epeoifloally than any otheT nation 
 «Iuo.t«l into • «,nw of thei, .upreme moral valur^e S 
 
 them in this form of aelf-oonfidenoe 
 
 ha. been their di.per,ion and their aubaistenoe a. a aWLte 
 p«.ple through age. in which for the mo,t prrt^hey we^ 
 jjrded and treats! very much a. b««t. hunS,d for'he iS^«^f 
 
 The Jew. .howed a talent for accumulating what wa. ^Tobl 
 jeot of more unmediate desire to Chriatiaii than anTmUoiU 
 or well-furred .kms, and their cupidity and avarice were found 
 
 wh^rj'^ "'^ ''r'"' -d pa«icularruXrhlLf"1 
 when Men a. a reason for punishing them by mulcting or rob 
 
 l^X. f^ 1 , ^""8' '"** ""P*""™ "t^lly were mow 
 mollv ^« "««*»!»«•» of subject, who could gather and Zd 
 
 wuh the King's game from being harassed Ld hunted by tte 
 
 ^»T ^ ^ '^u""'^" '^"^ '^'^*°'' «""«. »»<1 had Uttle force 
 State, counted the curse on Ham a justification of negro .la^ 
 «7, so the cur«, on the Jew. was counted a iustiflSte 
 
 tor marking them out as execrable figure, bv a oeculiar Hr«« 
 &. terming them to make them parw^th'thTgS^ S 
 more gratuitously spitting at them and pelting themTfor t^iu ' 
 itM certain that they killed and ate baWes, jiisoned tte we Is* 
 
 St^thC:*°,7>:^ ^^^p'-'K-^' f-p««-8 it to t^i 
 
 Whether they would be baptized or burned, and not failine to 
 burn and massacre them when they were ibstSiate t^al^ 
 S TCif 'r "' ''"i"'^* *^« baptism wh^L'tieyS:^ 
 
IM 
 
 THB0PHRABTU8 BDCH. 
 
 diapersion. AU this to ayesge the Saviour of mankind, or 
 else to compel these stifl-neoked people to acknowledge a 
 Master whose servants showed such beneficent effects of His 
 teaching. 
 
 With a people so treated one of two issues was possible- 
 either from being of feebler nature than their persecutors, and 
 carmg more for ease than for the sentiments and ideas which 
 oonstatuted their distinctive character, they would everywhere 
 give way to pressure and get rapidly merged in the populations 
 around them; or, being endowed with uncommon tenacity 
 physical and mental, feeling peculiarly the ties of inheritance 
 poth in blood and faith, rer^ombering national glories, trusting 
 m their recovery, abhorring apostasy, able to bear aU things and 
 iiope aU things with the consciousness of being steadfast to 
 spiritual obligations, the kernel of their number would harden 
 mto an inflexibiUty more andmore insured by motive and habit 
 They would cherish all differences that marked them off from 
 their hated oppressors, aU memories that consoled them with a 
 sense of virtual though unrecognized superiority; and the sep- 
 arateness which was made their badge of ignominy would be 
 their inward pride, their source of fortifying defiance. Doubt- 
 less such a people would get confirmed in vices. An oppressive 
 government and a persecuting religion, while breeding vices in 
 those who hold power, are well known to breed answering 
 vices in those who are powerless and suffering. Wliat more 
 direct plan than the course presented by European history 
 could have been pursued in order to give the Jews a spirit of 
 bitter isolation, of scorn for the wolfish hypocrisy that made 
 victuns of them, of triumph in prospering at the expense of 
 the blunderers who stoned them away from the open paths of 
 mdustry?— or, on the other hand, to encourage in the less de- 
 fiant a lymg conformity, a pretence of conversion for the sake 
 of the social advantages attached to baptUm, an outward re- 
 nunciation of their hereditary ties with the lack of real love 
 toward the society and creed which exacted this galling trib- 
 ute?— or agam, in the most unhappy specimens of the race, to 
 rear transcendent examples of odious vice, reckless instruments 
 of rich men with bad propensities, unscrupulous griadars of 
 the alKj people who wanted to grind tAem? 
 
THE XODXRK HEPI HEPI HBPI 105 
 
 Ko wonder the Jewg ha.ye their vices : no wonder if it were 
 proved (which it has not hitherto appeared to be) that some 
 of them have a bad pre-eminence in evil, an unrivalled super- 
 fluity of naughtiness. It would be more plausible to make a 
 wwider of the virtues which have prospered among them under 
 the shadow of oppression. But instead of dwelling on these 
 or treating as admitted what any hardy or ignorant person 
 may deny, let us found simply on the loud assertions of the 
 hostile. The Jews, it is saii^ resisted the expansion of their 
 own reUgion into Christianity; they were in the habit of spit- 
 ting on the cross; they have held the name of Christ to be 
 Jtuahema. Who taught them that? The men who made 
 Christianity a curse to them : the men who made the niune of 
 Christ a symbol for the spirit of ve taaee, and, what was 
 worse, made the ezeoution of the vengaanoe a pretext for sat- 
 isfying their own savageness, greed, and envy : -he men who 
 sanctioned with the name of Christ a barbaric and blundering 
 copy of pagan fataUsm in taking the words " His blood be 
 upon us and on our ohUdren " as a divinely appointed verbal 
 warrant for wreaking cruelty from generation to generation on 
 the people from whose sacred writings Christ drew His teach- 
 ing. Strange retrogression in the professors of an expanded 
 religion, boasting an illumination beyond the spiritu-d doc- 
 trine of Hebrew prophets I For Hebrew prophets proclaimed 
 a God who demanded mercy rather than sacrifices. The 
 Christians also believed that God delighted not in the blood of 
 rams and of bulls, but they apparently conceived Him as re- 
 quiring for His satisfaction the sighs and groans, the blood 
 and roasted flesh of men whose forefathers had misunderstood 
 the metaphorical character of prophecies which spoke of spir- 
 itual pre-eminence under the figure of a material kingdom. 
 Was this the method by which Christ desired His title to the 
 Messiahship to be commended to the hearts and understandings 
 of the nation in which He was bom? Many of His sayings 
 bear the stamp of that patriotism which places feUow-countiy- 
 men in the inner circle of affection and duty. And did the 
 words "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," 
 refer mly to the centiirion and his band, a tacit exception 
 being made ot every Hebrew there present from the mercy of 
 
-^■fcl4J 
 
 156 
 
 THBOPHBA8T08 SUCH. 
 
 i 
 
 the Father and the compassion of the Son?— nay, more, of 
 every Hebrew yet to come who remained unconverted after 
 hearing of His claim to the Messiahship, not from His own 
 Ups or those of His native apostles, but from the lips of alien 
 men whom cross, creed, and baptism had left cruel, rapacious 
 Mid debauched? It is more reverent to Christ to beUeve that 
 He must have approved the Jewish martyrs who deliberately 
 chose to be burned or massacred rather than be guilty of a 
 blaspheming lie, more than He approved the rabble of cru- 
 saders who robbed and murdered them in His name. 
 
 But these remonstrances seem to have no direct application 
 to personages who take uj. Jie attitude of philosophic thinkers 
 and discriminating critics, professedly accepting Christianity 
 from a rational point of view as a vehicle of the highest relig- 
 ious and moral truth, and condemning the Jews on the ground 
 that they are obstinate adherents of an outworn creed, main- 
 tain themselves in moral alienation from the peoples with 
 whom they share citizenship, and are destitute of real interest 
 m the welfare of the community and state with which they 
 are thus identified. These anti- Judaic advocates usually be- 
 long to a party which has felt itself glorified in winning for 
 Jews, as well as Dissenters and Catholics, the fuU privileges 
 of citizenship, laying open to them every path to distinction. 
 At one time the voice of this party urged that differences of 
 creed were made dangerous only by the denial of citizenship— 
 that you must make a man a citizen before he could feel like 
 one. At present, apparentiy, this confidence has been suc- 
 ceeded by a sense of mistake: there is a regret that no limit- 
 ing clauses were insisted on, such as would have hindered the 
 Jews from coming too far and in too large proportion along 
 those opened pathways; and the Koumanians are thought to 
 have shown an enviable wisdom in giving them as little chance 
 as possible. But then, the reflection occurring that some of 
 the most objectionable Jews are baptized Christians, it is obvi- 
 ous that such clauses would have been insufficient, and the 
 dootrme that you can turn a Jew into a good Christian is em- 
 phatically retracted. But clearly, these liberal gentlemen, 
 too late enlightened by disagreeable events, must yield the 
 palm w wu« foresight to those who argued against them long 
 
t I 
 
 THE MODBRN HBP I HEP! HEP I 167 
 
 ago; and it is a striking spectacle to witness minds so panting 
 for advancement in some directions that they are ready to 
 force It on an unwilling society, in this instance despairingly 
 reourrmg to mediasval types of thinking-insisting that tte 
 Jews £re made viciously cosmopolitan by holding the world's 
 money-bag, that for them aU national interests are resolved 
 mto the algebra of loans, that they have suffered an inward 
 degradation stamping them as moraUy inferior, and— "serve 
 them right," since they rejected Christianity. AU which is 
 mirrored in an analogy, namely, that of the Irish, also a ser- 
 
 1 race, who have rejected Protestantism though it has been - 
 fi eatedly urged on them by fire and sword and penal laws " 
 and whose place in the moral scale may be judged by our ad- 
 vertisements, where the clause, "No Irish need apply," par- 
 allels the sentence which for many polite persons sums up the 
 question of Judaism—" I never did like the Jews." 
 ■ It is certainly worth considering whether an expatriated 
 denationaUzed race, used for ages to live among antipathetic 
 populations, must not inevitably lack some conditions of noble- 
 ness. If they drop that separateness whicu is made their re- 
 proach, they may be in danger of lapsing into a cosmopolitan 
 indifference equivalent to cynicism, and of missing that inward 
 Identification with the nationality immediately around them 
 which might make some amends for their inherited privation 
 No dispassionate observer can deny this danger Why our 
 own countrymen who take to living abroad without pur'pose 
 or function to keep up their sense of fellowship in the affairs 
 of their own land are rarely good speoimans of moral healthi- 
 ness; still, the consciousness of having a native country the 
 birthplace of common memories and habits of mind, existing 
 like a parental heartii quitted but beloved; the dignity of 
 being included in a people which has a part in the comity of 
 nations and the growir.g federation of the worid; that sense of 
 special belonging which is the root of human virtues, both 
 public and private,— all these spiritual links may preserve 
 migratory EngUshmen from the worst consequences of their 
 voluntary dispersion. Unquestionably the Jews, having been 
 more than any other race exposed to the adverse moral iuflu- 
 enoee of alienism, must, both in individuals and in groups, 
 
i.lCI 
 
 in 
 
 THBOPHRA8TU8 SUCH. 
 
 w 
 
 Jfr.J u"'^ "°'°° oonreBponding moral degradation; but in 
 &ot they have escaped with lass of abjeotness and le.8 of hard 
 hostility toward the nations whose hand has been against 
 ttem, than could have happened in the case of a people who 
 had neither their adhesion to a separate religion founded on 
 historic memories, nor their characteristic famUy affeotionate- 
 ness. Tortured, flogged, spit upon, the corpus vile on which 
 rage or wantonness vented themselves with impunity, their 
 nime flung at them as an opprobrium by superstition, hatred, 
 and contempt, they have remained proud of thir oririn. DoS 
 any one call this an evil pride? Perhaps he belongs to that 
 order of man who, while he has a democratic dislike to dukes 
 and earls, wants to make believe that his father was an idle 
 gentleman, when in fact he was an honorable artisan, or who 
 would feel flattered to be taken for other than an Biriishman 
 It is possible to be too arrogartt about our blood or our calline" 
 but that arrogance is virtue compared with such mean pretend' 
 The pride which identifies us with a great historic body is a 
 Wanizing, elevating habit of mind, inspiring s-uirifioes of 
 individual comfort, gain, or other selfish ambition, for the 
 sake of that ideal whole: and no man swayed by such a senti- 
 ment can become completely abject. That a Jew of Smyrna, 
 where a whip is carried by passengers ready to flog off the too 
 oflicious specimens of his race, can still be proud to say "I 
 am a Jew," is surely a fact to awaken admiration in a mind 
 capable of understanding what we may call the ideal forces in 
 human history And again, a varied, impartial observation 
 of the Jews in different countries tends to tie impression that 
 they have a predominant kindliness which must have been 
 deeply mgramed in the constitution of their race to have out- 
 lasted the ages of persecution and oppression. The concen- 
 tration of their joys in domestic life has kept up in them the 
 capacity of tenderness: the pity for the fatherless and the 
 widow, the care for the women and the litUe ones, blent inti- 
 mately with their religion, is a well of mercy that cannot long 
 or widely be pent uy by exclusiveness. And the kindliness of 
 toe Jew overflows the line of division between him and the 
 Gentale. On the whole, one of the most remarkable phenom- 
 ena m the history of this scattered people, made for ages "a 
 
THB HODBRN HBPI HEPI HBPI 169 
 
 •oom and a hiMing," w, that after being subjected to this 
 t^oeem, which might have been expected to be in eveiy sense 
 detenoratmg and yitiatmg, they have come out of it (in any 
 ertimate which allows for numerical proportion) rivaUing the 
 nations of aU European countries in healthiness and beauty of 
 phyHgue, in praouoal ability, in scientific and artistic apti- 
 tude, and in some forms of ethical value. A significant indi- 
 cation of their natural rank is seen in the fact that at this 
 moment, the leader of the Liberal party in Germany is a Jew 
 tte leader of the BepubUcan party in France ia a Jew, and 
 the head of the Conservative ministry in England is a Jew. 
 
 And here it is that we find the ground for the obvious jeal- 
 ousj which is now stimulating the revived expression of old 
 antipathies. " The Jews," it is felt, "have a dangerous ten- 
 dency to get the uppermost places not only in commerce but 
 in political life. Their monetary hold on governments is tend- 
 ing to perpetuate in leading Jews a spirit of universal alienism 
 (euphemisticaUy called cosmopolitanism), even where the West 
 has given them a full share in civil and political rights. A 
 people with oriental sunlight in their blood, yet capable of 
 bemg everywhere acclimatized, they have a force and tough- 
 ness which enables them to carry cS the best prizes ; and their 
 wealth is likely to put half the seats in Parliament at their 
 disposal." 
 
 There is tmth in these views of Jewish social and political 
 relations. But it is rather too late for liberal pleaders to urge 
 them in a merely vituperative sense. Do they propose as a 
 remedy for the impending danger of our healthier national 
 influences getting overridden by Jewish predominance, that we 
 should repeal our emancipatory laws? Not all the Germanic 
 immigrants who have been settling among us for genera- 
 tions, and are still pouring in to settle, are Jews, but thor- 
 oughlv Teutonic and more or less Christian craftsman, mech- 
 anicians, or skilled and erudite functionaries; and the Semitic 
 Christians who swarm among us are dangerously like their 
 unconverted brethren in complexion, persistence, and wealth 
 Tbm there are the Greeks who, by the help of Phoenician 
 Wood or otherwise, are objectionably strong in the ;)ity. Some 
 judges think that the Scotch are more numerous and prosper- 
 
I 
 
 160 
 
 THEOPHBASTUB SUCH. 
 
 ws here m the South than i. quite for the good of us South- 
 eraergj and the early moonvenienoe felt under the Stuarts of 
 bewg quartered upon by a hungry hard-working people with 
 a distinctive accent and fonr of religion, and higher cheek- 
 bones than English taste requires, has not yet b^n qite „t- 
 taJized. As for the Irish, it is felt in high quarters that we 
 have always been too lenient toward them;-at least, if ttl 
 had been harried a little more there might not have LnZ 
 ™ i-^^ Z '^''^l^^ ?«"«•, of which they divide the 
 r:7if CSr"""^ "^^^ """^ ^"«"^''-- ^ '>- 
 So far shall we be carried if we go in search of devices to 
 hmderpeope of other blood than o^ own from getng th^ 
 advantage of dweUing among us. 
 
 .n^'nrti'* ""^1**^ •^'" '* " acalamily to the English, as to 
 ^y other great historic people, to undergo a premaLe fusion 
 with immigrant, of ahen blood, that its distinctive nation^ 
 characteristics should be in danger of obliteration by thVl 
 dominating quality of foreign settlers. I not only admitX 
 
 To one who loves his native language, who would delighfto 
 keep our rich and harmonious English undefiled by foreign 
 accent, foreign intonation, and those foreign tinctur^ of veV- 
 
 t IS an affliction as harassmg as the cUmate, that on our staged 
 m our studios, at our public and private gatherings, inT 
 
 ^i-^-T^^- J'^"^ °* acquiescence and politeness, of 
 cordiality, dissidence or argument, delivered always in the 
 wrong tones, like iU-rendered melodies, marred beyond ^g! 
 mtion; that there should be a general Lbition to speak ^^ 
 language except our mother English, which persons "of style" 
 Zr *". °^ corrupting with slang, false foreign equiv- 
 
 alents, and a pronunciation that crushes out aU color fo,m the 
 IZta ,. jams them between jostling consonants. An an- 
 W ■ ^ w °"«^'/°* ^^^ *° ^ "^citated for the sake of 
 iTali ""r '! '" °"' "diversities, still he would at least 
 find more instructive marveU in other developments to be wit- 
 
^. J» 
 
 m m 
 
 THB MODKBN HBP I HEP I HEP I 161 
 
 nMMd at those institutions; but a modern Englishman is in- 
 vited from hi. after-dinner repose to hear Shakespea^del "- 
 
 »me novel^ of false intonation, «,me new distribution^ 
 stoong emphasis on prepositions, some new misconception of 
 a familiar Idiom. Well! it is our inertness that is in fault, o^ 
 carelessness of excellence, our willing ignorance of the W 
 ures that lie in our national heritage, while we are agape after 
 what IS foreign, though it may be only a vile imitation Tt wZ 
 18 native. 
 
 ™^H " r"!f ! °' """P'*'^' J'°''<>^«, is a minor evil com- 
 pared with what must follow from the predominance of wealth- 
 acqmring immigrants whose apprecUtion of our poUtioal and 
 social hfe must often be as approximative or fatally erroneous 
 as their delivery of onr language. But take the worst issues 
 -what can we do to hinder them? Are we to adopt the ex- 
 clusiveness for which we have punished the Chinee? Are 
 we to tear the glorious flag of hospiteUty which has made our 
 !^Z ^^ rif^'^" "«»*"8 °f the oppressed? It is not 
 agreeable to find foreign accente and stumbling locutions pass- 
 mg from the piquant exception to the general rule of discourse 
 But to urge on that account that we should spike away the 
 p^eful foreigner, would be a view of international relations 
 not in tiie long run favorable to the intereete of our fellow- 
 countrymen ; for we are at least equal to the races we call ob- 
 tmsiveintiie disposition to settie wherever money is to be 
 made and cheaply idle Uving to be found. In meeting the 
 national evJs which are brought upon us by the onward course 
 
 tin f ,rr ; ^■" " °^° °° ""^ i°^«diate hope or resource 
 than tiiat of strivmg after fuUer national excellence, which 
 must consist in the moulding of more exoeUent individual na- 
 tives. The tendency of things is toward the quicker or slower 
 fusion of races. It is impossible to arrest thU tendency ■ aU 
 we can do is to moderate its course so as to hinder it from de- 
 grading the moral status of societies by a too rapid effacement 
 of those national traditions and customs which are the laneuaee 
 of the national genius-the deep suckers of healthy sentiment. 
 
 auch moderating and gnidannR of ino^f-hig _, ^„t j 
 
 worUiy of dl effort. And it is in this sense that them^odem'in- 
 
la 
 
 THEOPHRASTUB SUCH. 
 
 iistenoe on the idea of Natdonalitiee hag Talne. That any people 
 at once distinct and coherent enough to fonn a state should be 
 held in subjection by an alien antipathetio government has been 
 becoming more and more a ground of sympathetic indignation; 
 and in virtue of this, at least one great State has been added 
 to European councils. Kobody now complains of the result in 
 this case, though far-sighted persons see the need to limit 
 analogy by discrimination. We have to consider who are the 
 stifled people and who the sUflem before we can be sure of our 
 ground. The only point in this connection on which English- 
 men are agreed is, that England itself shall not be subject to 
 foreign rule. The fiery resolve to resist invasion, though with 
 an improvised array of pitchforks, is felt to be virtuous, and 
 to be worthy of a historic people Why? Because there is a 
 national life in our veins. Because there is something specifi- 
 cally English which we feel, to be supremely worth striving 
 for, worth dying for, rather than living to renounce it. Be- 
 cause we too have our share— perhaps a principal share— in 
 that spirit of separateness which has not yet done its work in 
 the education of mankind, which has created the varying gen- 
 ius of nations, and, like the Muses, is the offspring of memory. 
 Here, as everywhere else, the human task seems to be the 
 discerning and adjustment of opposite claims. But the end 
 can hardly be achieved by urging contradictory reproaches, 
 and instead of laboring after discernment as a preliminary to in- 
 tervention, letting our zeal burst forth according to a capricious 
 selection, first determined accidentally and afterward justified 
 by personal predilection. Kot only John GUpin and hi« ivife, 
 or Edwin and Angelina, seem to be of opinion that their pref- 
 erence or dislike of Eussians, Servians, or Greeks, consequent, 
 perhaps, on hotel adventures, has something to do with the 
 merits of the Eastern Question; even in a higher range of in- 
 tellect and enthusiasm we find a di. uibution of sympathy or 
 pity for sufferers of different blood or votaries of differing 
 religions, strangely unaccountable on any other ground than a 
 fortuitous direction of study or trivial circumstances of travel. 
 With some even admirable persons, one is never quite sure of 
 any particular bemg included under a general term. A pro- 
 vmeial phyaioian, it ia said, once ordering a lady patient not 
 
THI MODERN HBPt HIPI HEP! 168 
 
 !^i.!^"''^ was asked pleadingly by the atfeotionate hu.lxmd 
 whether she might eat lettuce, or cresses, or radishes. The 
 ^ysicwi had too rashly belieyed in the comprehensiveness of 
 mitX '"^'"^" J-"* '« ^'- « »<" enlightened by experience, 
 might behere in the all-eml .ing breadth of « s^patty with 
 the injured and oppressed. What mind can eihanit the 
 grounds of exception which lie in each particular case? There 
 IS understood to be a peculiar odor from the negro body, and 
 we know that Mme persons, too rationalistic to feel bound by 
 toe curse on Ham, used to hint very strongly that thU odor 
 determined the question on the side of negro slavery 
 
 ^^t*^^' T *• "'^'^ ^*^*'' °^ *^^^^ '° P°"t« society con-- 
 cerning U,e Jews. Apart from theological purposes, it seems 
 to be held suxpnsmgthat anybody should take an interest in 
 7 *!"°7,°' » Pe°PJ<» whose literature has furnished all our 
 devotional language ; and if any reference is made to their past 
 w V u ""' '""^ '•**'" " «»'« *° «tete as a relevant 
 fr„„r/^^'°?^.^''"'*.°"' J'"l8"«°'. that "he, for her part^ 
 IS not fond of them, having known a Mr. Jaoljbson who wm 
 very ""Pleasan^ or that he, for his part, thinks meanly of 
 them as a race though on inquiry you find that he is so little 
 acquainted with their characteristics that he is astonished to 
 IcMn how many persons whom he has blindly admired and 
 applauded are Jews to the backbone. Again, men who con- 
 s^er themselves m the very van of modern advancement^ 
 knowing history and the latest philosophies of history, indi- 
 ^te their contemptuous surprise that any one should entertain 
 
 iTln nfT K "^ ""^ '^««°"'°t with the theory that the re- 
 Ugion of Jehovah was merely a transformed Moloch-worship, 
 while m the same breath they are glorifying "civilization" S 
 a transformed tribal existence of which some lineaments are 
 teaceable m grim marriage customs of the native Australians 
 Are these erudite persons prepared to insist that the name 
 Father should no longer have any sanctity for us, because 
 m their view of likelihood our Aryan ancestors were r^Z- 
 
 S" °° " '**** °^ *^^ ^ "^"^ ""'^y ^«" ^^ o™ 
 For less theotetio men, ambitious to be regarded as praoti- 
 
IM 
 
 THBOPBRASTCB SITOB. 
 
 oal poUtkduu, the value of the Hebrew net hai been meM- 
 ured by their unfayorable opinion of » prime minister who ia a 
 Jew by lineage. But it U poiMble to form a very ugly opin- 
 ion at to the •orupulouinesa of Walpole, or of Chatham; and 
 in any oaw I think Englishmen would refuge to accept the 
 character and doings of those eighteenth century statesmen as 
 the standard of value for the English people and the part they 
 have to play in the fortunes of mankind. 
 
 If we are to consider the future of the Jews at all, it seems 
 reasonable to take as a preliminary question: Are they des- 
 tined to complete fusion with the peoples among whom they 
 are dispersed, losing every remnant of a distinctive conscious- 
 ness as Jews; or, are there in the breadth and intensity with 
 which the feeling of separateness, or what we may call the 
 organized memory of a national consciousness, actually exists 
 in the world-wide Jewish communities— the seven millions 
 scattered from east to west— and again, are there in the polit- 
 ical relations of the world, the conditions present or approach- 
 ing for the restoration of a Jewish state planted on the old 
 ground as a centre of national feeling, a source of dignifying 
 protection, a special channel for special energies which may 
 contribute some added form of national genius, and an added 
 voice in the councils of the world? 
 
 They are among us everywhere : it is useless to say we are 
 not fond of them. Perhaps we are not fond of proletaries 
 and their tendency to form Unions, but the world is not there- 
 fore to be rid of them. If we wish to free ourselves from the 
 inconveniences that we have to complain of, whether in prole- 
 taries or in Jews, our best course is to encourage all means of 
 improving these neighbors who elbow us in a thickening crowd, 
 and of sending their incommodious energies into beneficent 
 channels. Why are we so eager for the dignity of certain 
 populations of whom perhaps we have never seen a single 
 specimen, and of whose history, legend, or literature we have 
 been contentedly ignorant for ages, whUe we sneer at the no- 
 tion of a renovated national dignity for the Jews, whose ways 
 of thinking and whose very verbal forms are on our lips in 
 every prayer which we end with an Amen? Some of us con- 
 sider this question dismissed when they have said that the 
 
^i^-Vh^T' jlMki 
 
 THB MOOBRN HIPI HBPI HIP/ les 
 
 ^l!i!r* "^r*,,''".' ""* ^-^ *" '°»^« their Europwn pd- 
 Jo^.ndgotoliv,inJer„«Jea. But in a «turn f ^Texui 
 tath. rwtoration of , p«,ple, the question is not whether J- 
 Mn rich men wiU ohoo«, to remain behind, but whether th^™ 
 
 2lnL^r?"'°?'/'""' ""»""•" '° Babylon when Ezra 
 marahalled hif band of forty thousand and began a new rio^ 
 
 for aiat epoch in the hUtory of the ^orld which hMteTheM 
 glorious enough to be dated from forevermo. T^e We of 
 X^7:: "7'' *"! ""'"•'"» "' -^ adequate oomm^'i;' 
 tte^^^^r " ''">'"'P"»<1 "e-d « the Jewish race, and 
 men nft^ T""^ '.*' ^°'" "Pwimea. there may aruMi'some 
 
 ^TJ^J^ Maccabees, who wiU know how to use all fa^- 
 Zr^^^ir^'"''"^ ^'"' *° tri'^Ph by heroic examZr 
 fo«, and wOl steadfastly «,t their faces toward making thl 
 people once more one among the nations. "^g^eir 
 
 folfi wl'^; «v»"gelical orthodoxy was prone to dwell on the 
 ftJMment of prophecy in the " restoration of the Jews » Such 
 
 mu«p™tot.<« of the prophet, is less in vogue now The domt 
 Demode u to insist on a Christianity that disowns ita 
 ongrn, that m not a substantial growth having a genealogy 
 
 ha^a,/h^!iT °/ ^"*"^- ^'>'' ^P°«"« of tke GentUee 
 had the heart of a Jew: "For I could wish that myself were 
 
 tiol a^^^ ,° "' ^''™'^'*™' *° '^°"' pertaineth the adop^ 
 
 W ^d tJ^' *^°'^' ?^ ^« "''^•"'^'«> '^•i ^0 giving of the 
 
 fatten 2 of wh" °' *^ '^•^ **"' P'°'"'"«'' ^''"^^ •"« *e 
 ModZ'^.f '"„'?' '^nw^'^ing the flesh Christ came." 
 Modern apostles, extolling Christianity, are found using adlf- 
 
 emnW = tlT"" the medieval cry translated into mo^- 
 Zient 1 " °'!^''*^'^ "'y too was in substance very 
 
 ancient-more ancient than the days of Augustus. Pagans Z 
 
 to be made like us: let us punish them." The Jews were 
 
 lU 
 
IM 
 
 THBOPHRA8TV8 8t70H. 
 
 •tjw^t in their Mpmtaocu, and thioDgh that sapuatenNt 
 ChrutiMity wm born. A modem book on Liberty turn m»in- 
 tained that from the freedom of individual men to persiM in 
 idloaynorariei the world may be enriched. Why ihould we 
 not apply thu argument to the idioiynoraey of a nation, and 
 pauae in our haste to hoot it down? There U itiU a great 
 function for the steadfaatneu of the Jew: not that he should 
 shut out the utmost illumination which Imowledge can throw 
 on his national history, but that he should cherish the store 
 of inheritance which that history has left him. Every Jew 
 should be conscious that he is one of a multitude possessing 
 common objecM of piety in the immortal achievements and 
 immortal sorrows of ancestors who have transmitted to them a 
 physical and mental type strong enough, eminent enough in 
 faculties, pregnant enough with peculiar promise, to constitute 
 a new beneficent individuality aknong the nations, and, by con- 
 futing the traditions of scorn, nobly avenge the wrongs done 
 to their Fathers. 
 
 There is a sense in which the worthy ohUd of a nation that 
 has brought forth iUustrious prophets, high and unique among 
 the poeto of the wbrld, is bound by their visions. 
 Is bound? 
 
 Yes, for the efTeotive bound of human action is feeling, and 
 the wOTthy ohUd of a people owning the triple name of He- 
 brew, Israelite, and Jew, feels his kinship with the glories and 
 the sorrows, the degradation and the possible renovation of his 
 national family. 
 
 Will any one teach the nullification of this feeUng and call 
 his doctrme a philosophy? He will teach a blinding aupersti- 
 taon— the superstition that a theory of human well-being can 
 be constructed in disregard of the influences which have made 
 US himuui. 
 
 THM UTD. 
 
^mmmmjaEm^.Lt.iWik:'''^i:!^ ^m 
 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 AND LEAVES 
 NOTE-BOOK 
 
 FROM A 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 tt~ mw. b. ..si's: Ltr .h.1L" ■"*" ^ 
 
 date of their writing cannot be fiied wirt, TT ^^ """' 
 
more fnlly at some later time. It may be of interest to know 
 that, besides the "notes" here given, the note-book contains 
 four which appeared in " Theophrastns Such," three of them 
 practically as they there stand; and it is not impossible that 
 some of those in the present volume might also have been so 
 ntiliied had they not happened to fall outside the general 
 scope of the work. The marginal titles are George Eliof s 
 own, but for the general title, "Leaves from a Note-Book," I 
 am responsible. 
 
 I need only add that, in publishing these notes, I have the 
 complete oononrrence of my friend Mr. Cross. 
 
 CHABLES LEE LEWES. 
 HmHSAia, S tetm b T 188& 
 
^>AJBMM 
 
 ESSAYS. 
 
 W0RId)LmBS8 AND OTHER-WOBLDLINESS- 
 POET YOUNG. 
 
 THE 
 
 recently undenrana I<{. ™.*. v . T *^ ""y> """l J"** 
 
 geou. n..trunonml connection. And he peAoniCthe St 
 
8 WO!;. iiJNESS AND OTHER WORLDLUraSS : 
 
 balance of temporalities and spiritualities. He is equally im- 
 pressed with the momentousness of death and of burial fees- 
 he languishes at once for immortal life and for " livings " • he 
 has a fervid attachment to patrons in general, but on the whole 
 prefers the Almighty. He will teach, with something more 
 than official conviction, the nothingness of earthly things; and 
 he will feel something more than private disgust if his merito- 
 rious efforts in directing men's attention to another worid are 
 not rewarded by substantial preferment 'n this. His secular 
 man believes in cambric bands and sUk stockings as character- 
 istic attire for "an ornament of religion and virtue"; hopes 
 courtiers will never forget to copy Sir Bobert Walpole; and 
 wntes begging-letters to the King's mistress. HU spiritual 
 man recognizes no motives more familiar than Golgotha and 
 "the skies"; it walks in graveyards, or it soars among the 
 stars. His religion exhausts itSelf in ejaculations and rebukes, 
 and knows no medium between the ecstatic and the sententious. 
 If it were not for the prospect of immortality, he considers. 
 It would be wise and agreeable to be indecent, or to murder 
 one's father; and, heaven apart, it would be extremely irra- 
 tional in any man not to be a knave. Man, he thinks, is a com- 
 pound of the angel and the brute: the brute is to be humbled 
 Ixy being reminded of its " relation to the stalls, " and frightened 
 into moderation by the contemplation of death-beds and skulls; 
 the angel is to be developed by vituperating this worid and ex- 
 alting the next; and by this double process you get the Chris- 
 tian— "the highest style of man." With all this, our new- 
 made divine is an unmistakable poet. To a day compounded 
 chiefly of the worldling and the rhetorician, there is added a 
 real spark of Promethean fire. He will one day clothe his 
 apostrophes and objurgations, his astronomical religion and his 
 charnel-house morality, in lasting verse, which will stand, like 
 a Juggernaut made of gold and jewels, at once magnificent and 
 rtpulsive: for this divine is Edward Young, the future author 
 of the "Night Thoughts." 
 
 Judgiug from Young's works, one might imagine that the 
 preacher had been organized in him by hereditary transmis- 
 sion through a long line of clerical forefathers,— that the dia- 
 monds of the " Night Thoughts » had been slowly condensed 
 
THE POET YOUNG. 9 
 
 ftom the charcoal of aucegtral sermons Yet it w«. „^ 
 
 mMmm 
 
 father's rectory of Uoham in 1R«1 7°8 "'as born at his 
 
 ^ wh!n ?>^^ "! "°*'"8 *° "*" "' but the vague report 
 ij^t A1 T"?*.*"""*^ ''•■^^'^ independent aTLTn 
 
 SHs?f?-^^^£^^s3 
 
 the sport of pe^^tif i'^i: P**^-! \fooliBk youth, 
 we possess ofTis oZe^^m l^e "J l^lv «ff "'''**'°"^ 
 c^ed to think that Pope's statement on^; Ls £ Z:^ Z 
 
 f he impre"::fir, 1^:^^ rhi^oi tr*- 
 ^hirruStir " -™«'^^~ o^^^h^: 
 
 uouuMougnt quite common max ms " in litenitii™- ,t,a 
 
10 
 
 W0BLDUKE8S AND OTHKRWORLDUOTSB: 
 
 •Uy puMitio aim, and ire ahaU probably not be far witnw in 
 Buppoaing that Young at Oxford, a. elsewhere, spent amod 
 deal of his fame in hanging about possible and actual patroni. 
 and aooommodating himself to their habits with oomiideraWe 
 fleubihty of oonaoienoe and of tonguej being none the lets 
 ready, upon occasion, to present himself as the champion of 
 tueology, and to rhapsodize at convenient moments in thecom- 
 
 ^^ "i*^"^^ ~ °* "''""«■ "^^^ '•""^"'t profligate, the 
 D^ of Wharton, to whom Young afterward clung as his chief 
 patron, was at this time a mere boy; and, though it is proba- 
 ble that tiieir intimacy had already begun, since the Duke's 
 father and mother were friends of the old Dean, that intimacy 
 ought not to aggravate any unfavorable inference as to Young's 
 Oxford life It IS less likely that he f eU into any exceptional 
 vice, than that he differed from the men around him ohieflv 
 m his episodes of theological advocacy and rhapsodic solemn- 
 ly. He probably sowed his wild oats after the coarse fashion 
 of his times, for he has left us sufficient evidence that his 
 moral sense was not delicate; but his companions, who were 
 occupied m sowing their own oats, perhaps took it as a mat- 
 ter of course that he should be a rake, and were only struck 
 with the exceptional circumstance that he was a pious and 
 moralizing rake. 
 
 There is some irony in the fact that the two first poetical 
 pTOductions of Young, published in the same year, wZ his 
 Epistle to Lord Unsdowne," celebrating the recent creation 
 01 peera-I^rd Lansdowne's creation in particular; and the 
 Last I^y. Other poets, besides Young, found the device 
 for obtaining a Tory majority by turning twelve insignificant 
 commoners into insignificant lords, an irresistible stimulus to 
 verse; but no other poet showed so versatile an enthusiasm— 
 so nearly equal an ardor for the honor of the new baron and 
 the honor of the Deity. But the twofold nature of the srco- 
 phmt and the psalmist is not more strikingly shown in the 
 contrasted themes of the two poems, than in the transitions 
 from bombast about monarohs, to bombast about the resurrec- 
 tion, in the " Last Day " itself. The dedication of this poem 
 to Queen Anne, Young afterward suppressed, for he was 
 always ashamed of having flattered a dead patron. In this 
 
TH« fOVr TOONO. ^ 
 
 •WlortiM., Croft tells u, " he give, her Msjertr vniie inH<uwi 
 te her notorie., but says that the author tf^rrX^eSl^ 
 
 *« behind her; nor will he lo«, her there, he sZ ^t iZ 
 
 -nveying her etill onw^ fLT^^rs JT ^ '^'I^'^ 
 turn which ti™, in her pursuit, and f aliTol^k a^n to'^ST^: 
 
 ^:.TT^ htL^-rit --^-v^^ 
 
 rhyme or ihe rea,:^ of Z Si^S 1^^^- ""'" *^ 
 
 "When other Bourbong reign in other landa. 
 And. It men's sine forbid not, other Annee." 
 
 t«,te fo! tif^'f'*°^1 I-sdowne,» Young indicate, hi. 
 taste for the drama; and there is evidence that his^dv 
 
 1713 Thr^ r ^ *^* '^'^'"'" «» »"'y « this v^^^ 
 
 im, though It was not brought on the siage till n^lv .": 
 auToS' for^LI°r r "'"' ^--^ ''«idedi;t?t on 
 
 .^ tfiK ix^ i^.^-'.n^hrpo:t^^ 
 th?eie^Znt^.L:\irrd\^ r^Ai' r ^'^o- 
 
 a dobHmI i.™«,rr "',^'^*> ^o'^g lost no time in making 
 a poetical lament for a departed patron a vflhi,.l« t^. T^* 
 ag«it Uudation of the nTw mons^ Voi^^Ir ,,'*'- 
 production of his appeared until im when ^^^ ^T 
 wh^hhedeliveredon^hefoundatiorof'theC^S'L^^^^ 
 
 £rrti\i:csa^^^^^ 
 
12 
 
 WORLDUNB88 AND OTHER- WORLDUHMS : 
 
 mg to indicate that for the next eight or nine yean Tonno 
 was a sort of attachi ot Wharton's. In 1719, according tf 
 
 ^ 7^"^ ^'' ^}'' "^""^ •"'■" "• »°""*ty. ^ oonaidera. 
 tion of hia having relinquished the office of tntor to Lord Bur- 
 leigh, with a life annuity of £100 a year, on his Grace's as- 
 surance, that he would provide for him in a much more ample 
 
 "■^ToT ^ "^ "^^^ '"'" ^' ""^ evidence, it appears that 
 in 1721 Young received from Wharton a bond for £600 in 
 oompensation of expenses incurred in standing for Parliament 
 
 which his Grace had promised him on his refraining from the 
 spiritual and temporal advantages of taking orders with a cer- 
 tainty of two hvmgs in the gift of his college. It is clear 
 therefoHs that lay advancement, as long as there was any 
 chance of it, had more attractions for Young than dericiJ 
 prefennenti and that at this time he accepted the Duke of 
 Wharton as the pilot of his career. 
 
 wi^ tXii'^.k"! "^'""' "' ^''"°»''' ""^ ^" friendship 
 with Tickell, with whom he was in the habit of interchanging 
 cnticwms, and to whom in 1719-the same year, let us noti 
 m which he took his doctor's degree-he addressed his " Lin^ 
 on the Death of Addison." Close upon these followed his 
 Paraphrase of Part of the Book of Job," with a dedication 
 to Parker, recently made Lord Chancellor, showing that the 
 possession of Wharton's patronage did not prevent Yonnefrom 
 fishmg m other waters. He knew nothing of Parker, but that 
 did not prevent him from magnifying the new ChanceUor-s 
 merits; on the other hand, he did know Wharton, but this 
 ^in did not prevent him from prefixing to his tragedy « The 
 RevengV' which appeared in 1721, a dedication attributing 
 to the Duke all virtues, as well as all accomplishments. In 
 the concluding sentence of this dedication. Young naively 
 indicates that a considerable ingredient in his gratitude wm 
 a lively sense of anticipated favors. "My present fortune 
 is his bounty, and my future his care; which I will venture 
 to say will always be remembered to his honor; .ince he, I 
 know, intended his generosity as an encouragement to merit, 
 though, through his very pardonable partiality to one who 
 bears him so sincere a duty and respect, I happen to receive 
 
1 fl 
 
 THE POST YOUNG. jj 
 
 0-^inth. "I^.ta.^^.V'.^ZTdirwSSL^*' 
 "BjMhl. thy putlal mil., Irom cnrore fn. 
 TWM i««,t for merit, though It^aT;." 
 
 •canes of this tragedv in « „„!. ■ T. *<»«'»0'y " to the 
 
 Ann "^''«"*<''N»'ure»ndofArt, 
 And wuted nothing but an honen haw." 
 
 the aoquaintanorof vS.^„?^S;~"'u''"°'' ^°"°8 made 
 of hiT?' Sea K^e" to «^'v u *^t''"'*'^"«°* dedication 
 
 Pitt, a gen«^^.'p^L'* v'^ ."^ *^" J«" ««' Christophef 
 - Wthe m<rfiltoSi^^„^:?^" ''^"^ ^ 
 
 "^MV^i^Lrrrr/^. 
 
 in the rariety and nTe^fT^f J I ^"°^ *° *■■« ^'•«°«1> PO«t 
 
 fortunately Thronl/rpSmen of t""''.'"''."^*^^ ^»- 
 
 iinweryea to us is the epigram represented as an 
 
14 
 
 WORLDUMESS AMD OTH1R.WORLDUMI88 : 
 
 ^^^ "tort (ipokw Mid^ .uwly) to Voltolw', «i»w„ 
 of MUton's epiioda of Sin ud DmUi :— '■"""wm 
 
 "Thoa ut «o witty, profll|>t«, ud thin, 
 At once we think thee Milton, DeMh, tul 81n " ; 
 
 •n .pipMa which, in th« absenoe of "flowing BxagoDdj " 
 
 the b«aefit of the doubt thrown on the genuinenesa of thi, epi! 
 g^by h.8 own poeUoal dedication, in which he tepreaent. 
 himself aa having " soothed » Voltaire's " rage " against Milton 
 "with genUe rhyme.", though in other Z«t.Xt dS 
 bon u anythu.g but favorable to a high estimate of Yonn^, 
 wit Other evidence apart, we should not be eager for Um 
 after-dinner conversation of the man who wrote,— 
 
 "Thine li the Dnuna, how renown 'd I 
 Thine Epio'e loftier truip to eound ;— 
 Bu< irt Arim't $e(Htrunf harp be mine; 
 But when'. Mm dolphin r Knou,,tlh<mu>hertr 
 May that bt found <n thtt, VoUain I " 
 
 The "Satire." appeared in 1726 and 1726, each, of coarM. 
 with It. laudatory dedication and it. compliment. in,in™^ 
 
 Sir Bobert Walpole, is very short, and contain, nothing in 
 particular except lunatic flattery of George I. and hi. prime 
 minuter, attnbntang that monarch', late eacape from a storm 
 at sea to ae miraculous influence of his grand and virtnoua 
 Mul— for George, he says, rivals the angel.:— 
 
 "GeoigB, who In foea can wft aSeotione raise. 
 And charm enTenomed satire Into pr»iie. 
 Nor hnnian rage alone hU powV pire ivae 
 But the mad wlnde and the tumnl.ujue wavea 
 Ev'n storme (Death's fleicest b,<nlaten I) ferbiar. 
 And in their own wild empire Inam to (pare 
 Thus, Nature's self, supporting Man's decree. 
 Styles Britain's sovereign, sovereign of the sea." 
 
 A. for Walpole, what h« felt at tiiis tremendous criw.— 
 
 "No powers of language, but his own, can tell,— 
 His own, which Nature and the Otaces form 
 At wiU, to raise, or hash, the oivlJ storm." 
 
TM POIT TODKS. If 
 
 n is • edMideaoe worth notiomg, th»t thli wreatli Satira 
 WMpubU^ed in 1726 iu.d th.t the warrant T^rJ??! 
 gfMting Young a p«ulon of £200 a y«tr from Lady-da^ 
 
 BaHr. may have been ehiefly prcpeotiTe, but the " Inatalment » 
 
 -na poem mspired by the thriUing .rent of Walpole-. in.talla- 
 
 ^iU ^"'«''' °' *^« Oarter-wa. clearly written with the 
 
 «»^ hi^ "' ' T "'"' ^ 8°* ' P*"'""- •«<i hope, for 
 something more. Hii emotion about Walpole i. preoiselv at 
 
 fl.e«imepitoh a. hi, ,ub.equent emotion'^bout ttTSLTd 
 Advent In the " Inatalment » he eays :_ ^, 
 
 "With iDTooaUoiu Kme their havu loibune ■ 
 '»— inomHi$,a WalpoltU my tium».» 
 
 Sigtt.^~°^ *° ^"'^'^'^ *"• *'•' ^ «>• "»«g''» 
 
 "I ftid my liuplmtlon In my theme ; 
 The grandeur tifmy tubjed it my mute." 
 
 thf^!f^K*^ ^ '•!,""'' *^ *^" "Instahnent," except in 
 thertrength of .mpudenoe with which the writer profeasw to 
 worn tte prctitution of fair fwne, the " profanation of oele.- 
 
 Herbert Croft tells ns that Young made more than three 
 ttonsand pounds by hi. "Satires, "_a surprising stateme^ 
 token m connection w,th the reasonable doubt he throws on 
 tte stoiy reW m Spenoe's "Anecdotes," that the Duke of 
 Wharton gave Young £2,000 for this work. Young, however, 
 seems to have been tolerably fortunate in the pecuniary resulti 
 rf his publications; and with his literary profits, hi/annuitv 
 ftom Wharion, his fellowship, and his ^nsion,'not T^Z 
 tion other bounties which may be inferred from the high 
 merits he discovers in many men of wealth and position, we 
 may fairly suppose that he now laid the foundation of the con- 
 siderable fortune he left at his death. 
 
 It is probable that the Duke of Wharton's final departure 
 for the Continent and disgrace at Court in 1726, and the con- 
 sequent cessation of Young's reliance on his patronage, tended 
 not only to heighten the temp-rature of hia poetical enthu- 
 
al^'^T 
 
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16 
 
 WORLDLLraSS AND OTHEB-WORLDLUntSS : 
 
 siasm for Sir Bobeit Walpole, bat also to torn his thonghta 
 toward the Church again, aa the second-best means of rising 
 in the world. On the accession of George II., Young found 
 the same transcendent merits in him as in his predecessor, 
 and celebrated them in a style of poetry previously onat- 
 tempted by him — the Pindaric ode, a poetic form which helped 
 him to surpass himself in furious bombast. " Ocean, an Ode : 
 concluding with a Wish," was the title of this piece. He 
 afterward pruned it, and cut off, amongst other things, the 
 concluding Wish, expressing the yearning for humble retire- 
 ment, which, of course, had prompted him to the effusion ; but 
 we may judge of the rejected stanzas by the quaUty of those 
 he has allowed to remain. For example, calling on Britain's 
 dead mariners to rise and meet their " country's full-blown 
 glory " in the person of the new King, he says : 
 
 " What powerful charm 
 
 Can Death disarm? 
 Your long, yonr iron slumbets breakf 
 
 By Jove, by Fame, 
 
 By George') name 
 Awake ! awake I awake I awake I" 
 
 Soon after this notable production, which was written with 
 the ripe folly of forty-seven. Young took oi^^ers, and was pres- 
 ently appointed chaplain to the King. "The Brothers," his 
 third and last tragedy, which was already in rehearsal, he now 
 withdrew from the stage, and sought reputation in a way 
 more accordant with the decorum of his new prof ession, by 
 turning prose-writer. But after publishing "A True Esti- 
 mate of Human Life," with a dedication to the Queen, as one 
 of the " most shining representatives " of God on earth, and 
 a sermon, entitled "An. Apology for Princes; or, the Rever- 
 ence due to Gtovemmeut," preached before the House of Com- 
 mons, his Pindaric ambition again seized him, and he matched 
 his former ode by another, called "Imperium Pelagi; a Naval 
 Lyric, written in Imitation of Pindar's spirit, occasioned by 
 his Majesty's Eetum from Hanover, 1729, and the succeeding 
 Peace." Since he afterward suppressed this second ode, we 
 must suppose that it was rather worse than the first. Next 
 came his two " Epistles to Pope, concerning the Authors of the 
 
THE POET YOUNG. 
 
 17 
 
 Age," remarkable for nothing but the audacity of affectation 
 with which the most servile of poets professes to despise 
 servility. '^ 
 
 In 1730, Young was ^presented by his college wiJh the rec- 
 tory of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire; and in the foUowing year, 
 when he was just fifty, he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, a 
 widow with two ohUdren, who seems to have bean in favor 
 with Queen Caroline, and who probably had an income— two 
 attractions which doubtless enhanced the power of her other 
 charms. Pastoral duties and domesticity probably cured Young 
 of some bad habits ; but, unhappily, they did not cure him either 
 of flattery or of fustian. Three more odes follov. ed, quite as 
 bad as those of his bachelorhood, except that in the third he 
 announced the wise resolution of never writing another. It 
 must have been about this time, since Young was now " turned 
 of fifty," that he wrote the letter to Mrs. Howard (afterward 
 Lady Suffolk), George IL 's mistress, which proves that he used 
 other engines, besides the Pindaric, in " besieging Court favor." 
 The letter is too characteristic to be omitted: 
 
 "Honda]/ Morning. 
 "MADiM,— I know his majesty's goodness to his servants, and his 
 love of justice in general, so well, that I am confident, if hU msiesty 
 knew my case, I should not have any cause to deipair of his gracioui 
 lavor to me. 
 
 "Abilities. 
 Good 
 Service. 
 Age. 
 
 Want 
 
 Zeal Jniajesty. 
 
 TTSms, madam, are the proper paints of consideration in the person 
 that humbly hopes his majesty's favor. 
 
 "As to AbUUiea, all I can presume to say is, I have done the best I 
 could to improve them. 
 
 "Asto Oood JIfonner., I desire no favor, if any just objection lies 
 against them. 
 
 "As for Senice, I have been near seven years in his majesty's, and 
 never omitted any duty in it, which few can say. 
 
 "As for Age, I am turned of fifty. 
 
 "As for Want, Have no manner of preferment. 
 
 "As for Sufferings, I have lost ;£S0O per snn. by being In his majesty's 
 service ; as I have shown i,. a Sepresentation which his majesty has been 
 so good as to read and consider. 
 
18 
 
 WORLDLIOTiSS AND OTHER- WORLDUmSS: 
 
 A« for Zml, I have written nothing without (bowing my dotr to 
 f< .i^"?*^ ' ""* •°°" P'"** "* dedicated to them. 
 
 This, madam, ia the short and true state of my caw. Thev that 
 make their court to the ministem, and not their majesties a^xied 
 tatter. If my CMC deeerjea some conaideratlon, and you can aerre me 
 in it, I humbly hope and beiieve you will: I riiall, therefore, trouble 
 I^H "" .^?" ' "' ^ '"™ ^ TOb«»ibe myaelf , with truest respect 
 and gratitude, yours, 4o. EnwAan YoraoT 
 
 "^■^—^^'■^o'ome hope that my Lord Townshend is my friend- if 
 therefore soon and before he leaves the court, you had an opportunity of 
 mentioning me, with that favor you have been so good to show, I think 
 it would not fail of success ; ana, if not, I shall owe you more than any." 
 —S^ffblle Letter$, vol. i. p. 286. ' 
 
 iJ^tl ^"^^ ^^ "^ ^^^^' ^«*^8 l*™ ""o son, bom in 
 17AJ. That he had attached himself strongly to her two 
 daughters by her former marriage, there is better evidence in 
 the report, mentioned by Mrs. Montagu, of his practical kind- 
 ness and hberaUty to the younger, than in his lamentations 
 over the elder as the "KarcJssa" of the "Night Thoughts " 
 "Naroissa" had died in 1736, shortly after marriage to M>. 
 Temple, the son of Lord Palmerston; and Mr. Temple him- 
 self, after a second marrUge, died in 1740, a year before Lady 
 Ehzabetii Young. These, then, are the three deaths supposed 
 to have inspired " The Complaint," which forms the threefirgt 
 boots of the " Night Thoughts » :_ 
 
 "Insatiate archer, could not one sufficer 
 Thy shaft flew thrice ; and thrice my peace waa sUln • 
 And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fllled her horn."' 
 
 Since we find Young departing from the truth of dates, in 
 order to heighten the effect of his calamity, or at least rf his 
 climai, we need not be surprised that he allowed his imagina- 
 tion great freedom in other matters besides chronologT, and 
 I V^ "^""^ °* "l-liilander'' can, by no process, ^made 
 to fit Mr. Temple. The supposition that the much-lectured 
 Lorenzo" of the "Night Thoughts" was Young's own son, 
 is hardly rendered more absurd by the fact that the poem was 
 written when that son was a boy, than by the obvious artifi- 
 ciality of the characters Young introduces as targets for his 
 arguments and rebukes. Among all the trivial efforts of con- 
 jectural criticism, there can hardly be one more fntUe than the 
 
THB POET TOTTWG. 
 
 M 
 
 •ttempt to diMover the original of those pitiable lav-fimre.. 
 the "I-orenxoe" «,d "Altamonta" of You^. dlffl^ 
 and poetry Hi, „,u« never .tood face to face wTa ^^ 
 ue, living human being; she would have been as much st^ed 
 ly such an encomiter as a stage necromancer whose incantations 
 and blue fire had actually conjured np a demon 
 Ai^' ^^sJ'tT'ioughts'' appeared between 1741 and 1745 
 Although he declares in them that he has chosen God for his 
 t^T '\"'f°f^J^^ " "ot ''t aU to the prejudice <i «,me 
 haOf. dozen lor<^ duches.es, and right houorables. who havl 
 the privUege of sharing finely turned compliments with tC 
 
 "Witt spare not Heaven, O Wilmington l-nor thee"- 
 
 t whtf^^ '^'°'?- °' *^** P*"^""' i»^P<«ition of idea, 
 ^which Young m his mcessant «arch after point and nov- 
 e%, unconsoionsly converts his complimente into sarcasms • 
 and his apostrophe to the moon as more likely to be' favo^le 
 to his song if he calls her "fair Porthmd of thrsW" U 
 worthy even of his Pindaric ravings. His oste^t^tlo^s re 
 nunciation of worldly schemes, and espeoiaUy of CZLZ 
 years' siege of Court favor, are in theCe of one who' «^ 
 some hope, m the midst of his querulousness. 
 
 N^l ^l^tf,*^'".^/.'"'^""^""^ rhapsodies of his Ninth 
 «^fllf- '^.^"'i^f ' *° """^ terrestrial strains in his 
 
 Beflectiona on the Public Situation of the KinRdom » ded^ 
 cated to the Duke of Newcastle; butin this cS ^eaJte 
 get a ghmpse of him through a more prosaic and less refract^ 
 
 I T T/ He spent a part of the year at Tunbridge WeUs ■ 
 and Mrs Montagu, who was there too, gives a very hVernioI 
 tore of the " divine Doctor " in her fetL to Kclesso 
 
 bast to which we have just referred. We shall borrow the 
 quotehons from Dr. Doran, in spito of their length ^„^e 
 
 !:srjf Y:i;f-5 '""'^' *•"' '"™' ■^"'^ p^^^* - p- 
 
 '"I have great joy in Dr. Young, whom I dirtnrbed In a reverie At 
 fl»t he.,8rted,then bowed, then fell back into».ur^i« "iTu 
 
20 
 
 WORLDLnraSS AUD OTHZR-WORLDLimsS: 
 
 » ipeMh, nlaiMed Into hU MMntahment two or thne tlmM, fonot what 
 be had been uylng j began a new aubject, and «o went on. 1 told him 
 your paee deeired he wouM wrlta longer letter.; to which ha cried 
 "Ha I " moat emphatically, and I leave you to Lite^ret what it meant 
 He tua made a frlendahip with one penon here, whom I believe too 
 would not Imagine to have been made tor hie bow>m friend. You would 
 perhapa, auppoae It waa a bishop or dean, a prebend, a pioua pieaoher a 
 clergyman of exemplary life, or, if a layman, of moat virtuoua convert 
 tlf>. , one that had paraphrased St. Matthew, or wrote oommenU on 6t 
 . J a;,.; ^"^ "*"'''* '"'* *""* """ ">'» "«>ciate of the dootor'a w>^ 
 -old Clbber I Certainly, in their religious, moral, and civil chantcter 
 ttere is no relation; but in their dramatic capacity there laaome '-1 
 Mra. Montagu waa not aware that Cibber, whom Young had named not 
 dlapataglngly in hia Satires, waa the brother of his old schoolfellow- 
 but to return to our hero. 'The waters, ' says Mrs. Montagu, ' have raised 
 nia aplrits to a fine pitch, as your grace will imagine, when I tell yoa 
 howsublime an answer he made to a very vulgar question. I aaked him 
 how long he stayed at the Weils : he aald, Aa long as my rival stayed •- 
 as long aa the sun did.' Among the visitors at the Wells were Lady 
 Sunderland (wife of Sir Robert Sutton) and her slater, Ura. Tlehbome 
 'He did an admirable thing to Lagy Sunderland: on her mentioning 
 Sir Bobert Sutton, he aslied her where Sir Robert's lady waa ; on which 
 we all laughed very heartily, and I brought him ofl, half aahamed. to 
 my lodgings, where, during breakfast, he assured me he had aaked after 
 Lady Sunderland, because he had a great honor for her ; and that hav- 
 ing a respect for her sister, he designed to ha e inquired after her. If 
 we had not put it out of his head by tanghing at him. You must know 
 Mrs. Tlehbome sat next to Lady Sunderland. It would have been ad- 
 mirable to have had him finish uis compliment ia that manner.' . 
 His ezpreaaiona all bear theatamp of novelty, and tin thoughta of aterl 
 ling aense. He practises a kind of philosophical aostlnence He 
 
 carried Mrs. Rolt and myrelf to Tunbridge, five miles from hence, where 
 we were to see some fine old ruins. . . . First rode the doctor on a tall 
 steed, decently caparisoned in dark gray ; next, ambled Mrs. Rolt on a 
 haotoiey horse ; . . . then followed your humble servant on a milk-white 
 palfrey. I rode on in safety, and at leisure to obaerve the company, 
 especially the two figures that brought up the rear. The first was my 
 servant, valiantly armed with two uncharged pistols ; the last waa the 
 doctor's man, whose uncomBed hair so resembled the mane of the horse 
 he rode, one could not help Imagining they were of kin, and wishing 
 for the honor of the family, that they had had one comb betwixt them 
 On his head was a velvet cap, much resembling a black saucepan, and 
 on his side hung a little basket—At last we arrived at the King's Head 
 where the loyalty of the doctor induced him to alight; and then' 
 knight-errant-like, he took his damsels from oft their palfreys, and 
 raurteously handed us Into the inn.' ... The party returned to the 
 Wells ; and 'the silver Cynthia held up her lamp in the heavens • th» 
 
\^9rz^m^mi^'^m 
 
 THS POET TOUirO. sj 
 
 hmhed »nd hearkening I fHinwIi^ZTi. , "' °""™ •««™» to b* 
 
 blind w„le«ilng the blind. ^ I piLed my «,^^"f .^',^^1"^ ?* 
 • 4 myself, which he notpercelTing went onTr.™ .T.f^**"""' 
 ^in, to the great admiration ofXpTebwi „?r«^^['°T''''»' 
 
 «r.e.ingl w...„.C^,'}::;^^--S w^"^«I w«^^^^ 
 
 Young's oddity and absence of mind are gathered from 
 oaier source, besides these stories of MTlfoSs.^ 
 gave rise to the report that he was the original of Teldin^'s 
 «P«son Adams", but this Croft denies,^ "entiSl 
 ofter Young who reaUy sat for the portraifi and who. we W- 
 
 S:'^'°LT ^r^ -.d-- genuine sim^T;"^ 
 the poet His love of chatting with Colley Gibber wasT 
 mchcafaon that the old predilection for the stage su^TyJi 
 in .p.te of his emphatic contempt for «aU joys bTt jovTZ; 
 
 TZyy"'^"^"'' ""* *^« P^-^""*'"" °^^ "Tie Brow* 
 at Druiy lane in 17S3, after a suppression of fifteen y^ 
 
 rr^ "°t entirely due to the expressed des^ to^^e 
 tte proceeds to the Society for the Propagation of the GosS 
 The author's profits were not moi-e thai HoO-in thosalfi 
 
 E^chMdson, did not make this the limit of his danatioXt 
 gave a thousand guineas to the Society. "I had som^tatt 
 with him," says Eichardson, in one of hU lettera-^ut J^ 
 great action. ' I always,' said he, ' intend^^o do »metw 
 handsome for the Society. Had I deferred it to myTS 
 should have given away my son's money. All t^e w»K 
 ^Jlt *° P'r'"'' '^^ I ^-- «i-n myself a ZSrW 
 
 hL n«/ *^V™*^riiff«™°t"8e, I should have dW.'? 
 
 as next wori was « The Centaur not Fabulous ; in Six let- 
 
 r^SS " """"^f J'"8»«»'7 Partsof the « Night Though^^ 
 
 ^S^.f .^T-. '* '^ P""**^^ ^ "^ P'«f'«=« ^^o^> though 
 ^^f ^ ',''^^' " ^ '*« denunciations of vice as grossly 
 
 frrnds, which he allowed to be reprintedafter his twgedii 
 
I i 
 I! 
 
 ■ni 
 
 « W0BLDLINB8B AND OTHER- WOBLDLINB88 : 
 
 In the latest edition of his works. We like much better thu 
 " The Centaur, " " Conjectures on Original Composition, " writ- 
 ten m 1769, for the sake, he says, of communicating to the 
 world the well-known anecdote about Addison's death-bed, 
 and, with the exception of hU poem on Besignation, the last 
 thing he ever published. 
 
 The estrangement from his son, which must have imbittered 
 the later years of his life, appears to have begun not many years 
 after the mother's death. On the marriage of her second 
 daughter, who had previously presided over Young's house- 
 hold, a Mrs. Hallows, understood to be a woman of discreet 
 age, and the daughter (or widow) of a clergyman who was 
 an old fnend of Young's, became housekeeper at Welwyn 
 Opinions about ladies are apt to differ. " Mrs. Hallows was 
 a woman of piety, improved by reading," says one witness. 
 She was a very coarse woman," says Dr. Johnson; and we 
 shaU presently find some indirect evidence that her temper 
 was perhaps not quite so much improved as her piety. Ser- 
 vants, it seems, were not fond of remaining long in the house 
 with her; a satirical curate, named KidgeU, hints at "drops 
 of juniper" taken as a cordial (but perhaps he was spiteful, 
 and a teetotaler); and Young's son is said to have told his 
 father that " an old man should not resign himself to the man- 
 agement of anybody." The result was, that the son was ban- 
 whed from home for the rest of his father's lifetime, though 
 Young seems never to have thought of disinheriting him 
 
 Our Utest glimpses of the aged poet are derived from cer- 
 tain letters of Mr. Jones, his curate-'-tters preserved in tie 
 BntishMuseum, and, happily, made accessible to common mor- 
 tals in Nichols's 'Anecdotes. ' Mr. Jones was a man of some 
 literary activity and ambition,-a collector of interesting docu- 
 ments, and one of those concerned in the "Free and Candid 
 Disquisitions," the design of which was "to point out such 
 thmgs in our ecclesiastical establishment as want to be re- 
 viewed^d amended." On these and kindred subjects he cor- 
 respraded with Dr. Birch, occasionally troubling him with 
 queries and manuscripto. We have a respect for Mr. Jones. 
 Unlike most persons who trouble others with queries or manu- 
 scripts, he mitigates the infliction by such gifts as "a fat 
 
THB POET TOtmo. 33 
 
 • "pound canister of teT" .n^f^ ., -^°"'" <Jay oomei 
 quite .U year."^rYX.Ta. ""^IVriTef h'' ""* 
 
 thM I pUinly perceived the d„tv .^'i « ^ """' ""* '» •«>« him 
 forme; toriuTrZonl^ZlnLT^T"^ """"^ •« too mud. 
 
 »7, when I wa. rerylu „d n^ V^£ ? "" ?"" ""'<=<* '" *'«»™- 
 other day, that he i^^ln t,^ ''dXulty'^fo '"hi'^: """ "" *°"' ™ "» 
 (he »ay.) reeolved to adveniM ai^ Z, I t "*"° ''" '■ " ^ 
 
 waa i20 per annum . and now*T;«i»Sr*m t*™* "^ P™dece«or. 
 "ked him to ral«, il for me, thouTnTif??' "J"" ««"• '°«) I -"er 
 Saty 1 nor did I mv . »«~i Ik r*^ . " *"*' " "»» not equal to the 
 
 hi. i.i.e^uo^i^^^s.i''::^^;^,"^"''""'""'' ■" •»«"? -"aSt-itss: 
 
 In a poBtsoript to this letter he says:- 
 
 (IT 
 
 in ini:?s'^:^eZj^d"«'^t!^""'r"»' '»'"««».«»*. 
 
 matter, unle- by'to, Ki^f;^*^"'" f* • '^Z' » ""^ «^ 
 man that he can like for his wit^,™ "^wnAm^V, to procure a 
 
 thoughta, and if he \m% f™wi litCT ""' """ '» P^P'*'' 
 will be mirenot to be for^L „„ 1^' i*". '" ^"'P" ~ """"Joct, they 
 •nd thoeewho do not 3 p«tabtbe^"lf^ "■"»'''''' '»'''' him' 
 the like oonalderatlone It is b^ n„ ™ ***''' «™^- 0° the« and 
 
 out for a cur.rfS,\Lhth°^°Z.";;"«'"f ''««''°'««»king 
 would, if he knew that I am no^n^' J*"*" ""*"* ™ '» -Jo ! »nd 
 »!«>. Butmybeetfrlendehere »C™7/f ^Z' ""^ y"" assistance 
 and wid, me well, earnMtlyd^I^d^l{T'*''^'*°*«*fe »"««''«««, 
 decline the office ;rrrmuch1«encvL^°"" """P'^'-K; and I will 
 I«.ppo«,, fotchin«>meWy oroZ,.orn."°"'= '"'"8^ -W"*". 
 In the following July, he writes:- 
 
84 
 
 WORLDUNESS AND OTHIR.WORLDUNEBS i 
 
 iv 
 
 u If nuTonndad with •oma perplexing clnnnuunoet. Though I vIMt 
 him pwlty frequently for ihort Inter™!,, 1 uy very little to hU kflalrL 
 not chooelng to be a party concerned, eqpecially In came of eo crltlokl 
 Md tender a nature. There 1. much mystery In almoet all hie temporal 
 aflalri, ae well ae In many of hli .peculatlve theorle.. Whoever Ilvea 
 lathli neighborhood to lee hi. exit, will probably eee and hear aome 
 very itrwjge thlngi. Time will diow ;-I am afraid, not greatly to hli 
 crea t. There le thought to beon immonable obttrwtimto hU happtn— 
 v>«*in hi* waUt, <u weU tu another wUhout Oicn; but the former la the 
 more powerful, and like to continue so. lie baa thla day been trvln* 
 anew to engage me to atay with him. No lucrative vlewa can temw 
 me to aaorlfloe my liberty or my healt to auch meaaurea ae are pro- 
 poaed here. JV^ordo / lUct tohmttodowithperKmviKan word and honor 
 tannot be depended on. So much for thla very odd and unhappy topic." 
 
 In August, Mr. Jones's tone is slightly modified. Earnest 
 entreaties, not lucrative considerations, have induced him to 
 oheer the Doctor's dejected heart by remaining at Welwyn 
 some timA longer. The Doctor, is, " in various respeoto, a very 
 unhappy man," and few know so much of these " respects " as 
 Mr. Jones. In September, he recurs to the subject:— 
 
 " My ancient gentleman here is still full of trouble ,• which move* my 
 concern, though It moves only the secret laughter of many, and aome 
 untoward surmiaea In diefavor of him and hie houaehold. The toaa of a 
 nty Urge aum of money (about ^£200) la talked of; whereof thla Till 
 and neighborhood lafull. Somedlabelleve; othenaay, • it <a no teonder 
 wAwe almit eighteen or more aeniante are sometimes taken and ditmimti 
 in the course of a year. ' The gentleman himself la allowed by all to be 
 far more harmleaa and eaay In bis family than aome one else who hath 
 too much the lead in It. ThU, among others, waa one reason for my 
 late motion to quit." ' 
 
 Ko other mention of Young's afPairs occurs until April 2, 
 1765, when he says that Dr. Young is very ill, attended by two 
 physicians. 
 
 "Having mentioned thla young gentleman (Dr. Young'a son), I would 
 acquaint yon next, that he came hither thia morning, having been sent 
 for, aa I am told, by the direction of Mrs. Hallows. Indeed, ahe In- 
 timated to me as much herself. And If this be eo, I must aay that it )a 
 one of the most prudent acts she ever did, or could have done In auch a 
 case as this; aa it may prove a means of preventing much oonfuaion 
 after the death of the Doctor. I have had some little discourse with the 
 Hon : he seems much affected, and I believe really is so. He earnestly 
 wishes hia father might be pleased to ask aXtcr him , for you uiu«t know 
 
THE POBT TOCKO. M 
 
 Eleven d«ys later, he writee:— 
 h« now at l«t left him all ", ZLiloT »L,?i^°' '"" ""»• y" 
 
 With «gart eo the ie" JlS/uCheatd TC^j'JVT'r*"^- 
 »nd apoo mention of thla lut hs o.n.i^ m.Ji T"'"" ■'^»'" A™',- 
 It gentry fall, pronoun^ '"ie^oXffK?'*^',^''' "1? '«""« 
 
 «M.„'rJ^!;' ^"^t ^ ^^ """Mential oorrsspondenoe with a 
 friend who may be trusted." In a letter communicated an' 
 parently by him to the "Gentleman's Macazine "««!*!? 
 
 with the free comments we have just q^U But tLf^v 
 John Jones was probably of opinionrwi* " Mrs J^nt^ 
 
 mtt fte cha^^ter of a man so distinguished for piety asT^ 
 
 wS -^,^ '''."*'' * »«b8«q°«nt quasi officii statement 
 
 Xnfia'tS'"~'^*---"'P<'«^. -P-^-" 
 
 To Mrs. Hallows, Young left a legacy of jei.OOO, with the 
 
M 
 
 
 W WORLDLIKMB AND OTHIRWORUJUMMB! 
 
 wqtwit that she would dertroy all hi. nuuiMoripto. Thia final 
 reqnert, from tome unknown oaua«, waa not complied with, 
 and among the paiy,« he left behind him was the foUowing 
 letter from Atchbiriiop Seeker, which probably marka the 
 date of hi. latMt effort after preferment:- 
 
 „__ "D»*»«»T or St. Piut'i, July 8, 17M. 
 
 Good D«. Todito.-I h«T. long wondered thM more .uiuble not'ce 
 fo remedy the omlwlon I ne not. No enoouruement hath ever been 
 
 forinLuirHh "r'.i"*' f ""' "•■'^ to'^M.ie.trAnTtb'r 
 ™^*. .K . ^ - ' "" ""'' oonwq'""" «>» doing It woald be weak. 
 
 account, which, on that of the public, ie elncerely felt by "" '^"~* 
 
 "Tour lOTlng Brother, 
 
 "Tbo. Caht." 
 The loTing brother', irony is severe I 
 
 Perhap. the least questionable testimony to the better ude 
 of Young', character is that of Bishop Hildesley, who, as the 
 Ticar of a i»nsh near Welwyn, had been Young's neighbor 
 for upward of twenty years. The affeoUon of the olergv for 
 wch other we have obserred, is, Uke that of the fair .e% not 
 th^.tl " ^r "t '"'»'"»*«<1 kind; and we may therefore 
 the rather believe them when they give each other any extra- 
 oJloial praise. Bishop HUdedey, then, writing of Young to 
 Aichardson, My.: — " 
 
 "The Impertlnenoeof my frequent vlalu to him wu amply rawaided • 
 fo«.much «, I cm truly «,y. he never received me but wUh^^We 
 openoomphweney ; wd I never left him but with profitable ple^^iSS 
 improvement. He wu one or other, the moet m.rfertrZS«"ZC 
 vi^^,r^t',"1 "; °""* '°'°™"'« ""lentemiXTel^tt 
 U^l^^ty'lnd";^!;^"' "' "" '^^^o^'o J-t P"«e-«.». to per- 
 
 Mr. Langton. however, who was also a frequent visitor of 
 Young's, informed Bos well— 
 
 "That there wa. an air of benevolence in hla manner: but that he 
 f^mn™ 'V° ^Z.'i!°? '™ •°'°™»"<'° thanheh^l hojieSto^.ve 
 S^whT*^" w "^J° """"' '" '"tercouTK. with the toTghtet men 
 01 whrt h«i been called the Anguetan age of EngUnd; .ST^to 
 
TBI POST TOtJire. jf 
 
 maranuge in oonsidermg a man aa he wm ««# v„ . T. 
 
 morally sublime; and they haye toned down his fail^fLf^ 
 harmony with their conception of the dWtae andthfn^ 
 
 ™ i,ast way, givug an eitnnsio charm to paasag« of 
 stu„d rnetorio and false sentiment; but the «,KS re- 
 
88 WORLDLINE88 AMD OTHBR-WORLDUMBSB : 
 
 peated reading of maturer years has oouvinoed us that it would 
 hardfy be possiWetofindamore typical instance than Young's 
 poetry, of the mistake which substitutes interested obedience 
 for sympathetic emotion, and baptizes egoism as religion. 
 
 Pope said of Young, that he had " much of a sublime genius 
 without common sense." The deficiency Pope meant to indi- 
 cate was, we imagine, moral rather than intellectual: it was 
 the want of that fine sense of what is fitting in speech and 
 action, which is often eminently possessed by men and women 
 whose intellect is of a very common order, but who have the 
 smcerity and dignity which can never coexist with the selfish 
 preoccupations of Taniiy or interest. This was the " common 
 sense" in which Young was conspicuously deficient; and it 
 was partiy owing to thU deficiency that his genius, waiting to 
 be determined by the highest prizes, fluttered uncertainly from 
 effort to effort, until, when he was more than sixty, it sud- 
 denly spread its broad wing, And soared so as to arrest the 
 gaze of other generations besides his own. For he had no 
 versatility of faculty to mislead him. The " Night Thoughts " 
 only differ from his previous works in the degree and not in 
 the kmd of power they manifest. Whether he writes prose 
 or poetry, rhyme or blank verse, dramas, satires, odes, or 
 meditations, we see everywhere the same Young— the same 
 narrow circle of thoughts, the same love of abstractions, the 
 same telescopic view of human things, the same appetency 
 toward antithetic apothegm and rhapsodic climax. The pas- 
 sages that arrest us in his b^gedies are those in which he an- 
 ticipates some fine passage in the " Night Thoughts, » and where 
 his characters are only transparent shadows through which we 
 see the bewigged evlmnpoint of the didactic poet, excogitating 
 epigrams or ecstatic solilpquies by the light of a candle fixed in 
 a skull. Thus, in "The Eevenge," Alonzo, in the conflict of 
 jealousy and love that at once urges and forbids him to murder 
 his wife, says: — 
 
 "This vast and solid earUi, tliat blazing «nn, 
 Those skies, through which it rolls, must all have end. 
 What then is man? The smallest part of nothing. 
 Day buries day ; month, month ; and year the year I 
 Our life Is but a ohaSa of many deatbs. 
 
THB POBT TOITNQ. 29 
 
 S2liJ«^!f^'T'"« ''«««'' Onrllfemaohathw, 
 
 ^**t)ude»trt,l(fatheiolltud»; uoarKneri 
 
 , Death jolna us to the great majority ■ 
 
 , 'Tl«tobebomtoPUtoandtoCB«r- 
 
 •Tl.tobegreatfoi»Ter; ' 
 
 'Tl« pleaaure, 'tis amblUon, then, to die." 
 
 His prose writinga all read like the " Nieht Th™.!,*. » ii. 
 diluted mto prose, or not yet oryll^Tilto^tV fZ 
 exunple, in his "Thoughts for Age," he »y?!l^ ^^ ^°' 
 
 jrtZ rL°rr:^ri^-.rar:":ti\?t-."" '^^ 
 
 leathand." HlsoonsomptioD isdeep; hiaannihlUtion 
 
 This is a dilution of the magnificent image :_ 
 
 "Time in advance Uhlnd him hides his wlna 
 And seems to creep decrepit with his age. 
 
 B^h^K r''*'''^*''y' What thesis seen 
 But his broad pinions, swifter than the winds?" 
 
 Again: — 
 
 butra^ra^d^Su JtTan^'Srt'gLrjXtl'T' 'f '"^' 
 
 would have been as <7r«.t m.^I. ™PP7*"' J*™™ "^7 were revealed, 
 ■in. as it is nTw^n^CanTsZirbel. e-v^f. ""^ "" " <^' 
 
 1 J'lffn!? ^'".^'•"'"•o °^^' « Which he made the most yio- 
 tte Young of the "Last Day," emptied and swept of his 
 rhyme. Even here, his "Erdes' vein" alternates with U, 
 
I 
 
 80 W0RLDUNB8S AND 0THI»t-W0RLDLISI8S : 
 
 moral pUtitades, and we have the perpetual text of the " Night 
 Thoughts'':— 
 
 " Oold pleunre buyi ; 
 But pleuure diea, 
 For aoon the grou fruition clOTt ; 
 Tbough raptores coort, 
 The aenae la ahort ; 
 But virtue kindles living joys ;— 
 
 "Joy a felt alone I 
 
 Joya aaked of none I 
 Which Time's and Fortune's arrows miss > 
 
 Joya that subsist. 
 
 Though fates resist, 
 An unprocsrious, endless bliss I 
 
 "Unlisppy theyl 
 
 And fidsely gay I 
 Who bask forever in success ; 
 
 A constant /east 
 
 Quite palls the taste, 
 And long enjaymtnt it <ii$tnt$." 
 
 In the "Last Day," again, which is the earliest thing he 
 wrote, we have an anticipation of aU his greatest faults and 
 merits. Conspicuous among the faults is that attempt to exalt 
 our conceptions of Deity by vulgar images and comparisons, 
 which is so offensive in the later "Night Thoughts." In a 
 burst of prayer and homage to God, called forth by the con- 
 templation of Christ coming to judgment, he asks, Who brings 
 the change of the seasons? and answers 
 
 "Not the great Ottoman, or greater Czar; 
 Not Europe's arbltress of peace and war I " 
 
 Conceive the soul, in its most solemn moments, assuring God 
 that it does not place His power below that of Louis Napoleon 
 or Queen Victoria I 
 
 But in the midst of uneasy rhymes, inappropriate imagery, 
 vaulting sublimity that o'erleaps itself, and vulgar emotions, 
 we have in this poem an occasional flash of genius, a touch 
 of simple grandeur, which promises as much as Young ever 
 achieved. Describing the oncoming of the dissolution of all 
 things, he says: — 
 
THE POKT TOTTNO. 
 
 "S° ?^^ •» '•^••"t glory ibinea on high, 
 Xn ItgU Imtjron the terror* (tf tie tki« 
 
 n 
 
 And again, speaking of great armies:— 
 
 « Whoee IMP lay wrapt in night, while brwklnB dawn 
 Rooa'd the broad front, and callM the 3e on •' 
 
 And this waU of tlie lost souls is fine :— 
 
 r. ijT - "And thia for sinf 
 
 Could I offend if I had never been? 
 
 But atiil increaa'd the aenaeleaa, happy n,«- 
 
 FaOer of mercies I why from silent earth 
 Didat Thou awake and cm« me Into birthf 
 Tew me from quiet, tavish me fi^m night. 
 Arid make a thanklesa preaent of Thy lightf 
 ^h into being a reverae of Thee, 
 And antmafe a cloi vrith miterv t " 
 
 . ^S"* I* " !!''^'"? ^ ^"""K's rhymed poems that the effect of 
 a fdioitous aought or image is not oo^teraoted by o^ ^ 
 
 that Gothic derjon, ■' as he afterward called it, « which mod- 
 em poetry tasting, became mortal." In relation toX ™„ 
 power no one wUl question the truth of hUdilr^ Z 
 Wank Terse ,s verse unfaUen, nncurst; verse recSk^ 
 
 oered nor suffered their Homer to thunder in rhyme." HU 
 
 effect of his Satires; for epigrams and witticisms are pecul- 
 utrly susceptible to the intrusion of a superfluous w"^^ 
 ^mversion which implies constraint. Here, even m^ t^^ 
 
 and to have a witticism presented to us in limping or cumbrous 
 thf^'^.'f'"' •'°""*«««'ti^« to any electrifying effect as to see 
 tte tentative grimaces by which a comedian prep^ a 't 
 
 sS^b^^e^^^at. ^' '"^^ *^«^"»-' inUrf r; 
 
 miis is one re an why the Satires, read eeriaHm. have a 
 
 flatae» to us, which, when we afterward read p^t'ed^* 
 
 age^ we «, fflolinea to disbelieve in, and to attribute to ^e 
 
W W0RLDUNBB8 AITO OTHER- WORLDUMXSS: 
 
 defioienoy in oor own mood. Bat there are deeper reawmi for 
 that diaaatiifaotion. Young is not a satiriat of a high order. 
 His satire has neither the terrible vigor, the lacerating energy 
 of genuine indignation, nor the humor whioh owns loving fel- 
 lowship with the poor human nature it laughs at; nor yet the 
 personal bitterness whioh, as in Pope's oharaoters of Sporus 
 and Atticus, insures those living touches by virtue of whioh 
 the individual and particular in Art becomes the universal and 
 immortal. Young could never describe a real complex human 
 being; but what he eould do with eminent success, was to de- 
 scribe with neat and finished point obvious typea of manners 
 rather than of character,— to write cold and clever epigrams 
 on personified vices and absurdities. There is no more emo- 
 tion in his satire than if he were turning witty verses on a 
 waxen image of Cupid, or a lady's glove. He has none of 
 those felicitous epithets, none of those pregnant lines, by 
 whioh Pope's Satires have enfiohed the ordinaiy speech of ed- 
 ucated men. Young's wit will be found in almost every in- 
 stance to consist in that antithetic combination of ideas which, 
 of all the forms of wit, is most within reach of clever effort. 
 In his gravest arguments, as well as in his lightest satire, one 
 might imagine that he had set himself to work out the problem, 
 how m uoh antithesis might be got out of a given subject. And 
 there he completely succeeds. His neatest portraits are all 
 wrought on this plan. Narcissus, for example, who— 
 
 "Omits no duty ; nor can Envy say 
 He misB'd, these many years, the Church or Play 
 He makes no nolBe la Parliament, 'tis true ; 
 But paya his debts, and risit when 'tis dns; 
 Bis character and gloves are ever clean. 
 And then he can out-bow the bowing Dean ; 
 A smile eternal on his lip he wears. 
 Which equally the wise and worthless shares. 
 In gay fatigues, this most undaunted ohiel. 
 Patient of idleness beyond belief. 
 Host charitably lends the town his face 
 For ornament in every public place ; 
 As sure as cards be to th' assembly comes, 
 And is the furniture of drawing-rooms : 
 When Ombre calls, his hand and heart are free, 
 And, joined to two, he falls not— to make three : 
 
THS POET TOTOO. S9 
 
 ■Jwl"™ 1« the glory of hli no* ■ 
 Ite who do«. nothing with » hotter gnoef 
 To deck my U.t tv nMun. were de.1^ 
 SMh dilnlng expletive, of human kSd, 
 
 oenee to be right and puilon to be wrong. " ^^ 
 
 i?),)!''"* '"''^'"° )^'* '"' *"^ » *»«<* of that easy 8lvne«i 
 ^J>v«. an additional zeet to Burpri^,, b^t'llf 1^ 
 
 "See Tltynu, with merriment poenat. 
 Hia Mm will be no whiter than before " 
 
 He «».etes%r n^r^":;.^^!.!^!^'^; 
 
 an entire sketch. Of the too emphatic Syrena, he sr.jrs :_ 
 
 "^ judgment juat, her sentence l8 too mronir 
 Beoauae ahe'a right, ahe'a ever in tuc wro^ "' 
 
 Of the diplomatic Julia:— 
 
 "For h« own breakfast ahe'll project a sohema. 
 Nor take her tea without a atiatagott"^^ 
 
 Of Lyoe, the old painted coquette :— 
 
 "S! ™'°,v''* ""^ ""^ ^mmoned uprltes away • 
 She walks at noon and blasts the bloom of day." 
 
 Of the nymph who, "gratis, clears reUgious mysterie»»:_ 
 
 "Z^l^i^' *! '^^° '"*''"' "^ '^ "«' ''tat 
 Of her religion, should be barr'd in that" 
 
IS 
 
 84 WORLDLIKBSS AND OTHER- WORLDUMXSS : 
 
 The deaoription of the literuy belle, Daphne, well preteoes 
 that of StelU^ admired by Johnaon : — 
 
 "With lega tOM'd high, on h«r »pbee die ilti, 
 Vouohwfing audience to contending wlta : 
 Of each performance she's the final test ; 
 One act raad o'er, she prophesies the i«st ; 
 And then, pronoonclng with decisive air, 
 Fully convinces all the town— <A«'a /air. 
 Had lovely Daphne Hecatessa'a face. 
 How would her elegance of taste decrease I 
 Some ladles' Judgment in their features lies. 
 And all their genius sparkles In their eyes. 
 But hold, she cries, lampooner I have a care : 
 Must I want common sense because I'm fair? 
 O no J see Stella : her eyes shine as bright 
 As if her tongne was never In the right ; 
 And yet what real learning, judgment, fire I 
 She seems insplr'd, and can herself innpire. 
 How then (if malice ruled not all the fair) 
 Could Daphne publith,' and could sAe forbear t " 
 
 After all, when we have gone through Young's seven Sa- 
 tires, we seem to have made but an indifferent meal. They 
 are a sort of fricassee, with little solid meat in them, and yet 
 the flavor is not always piquant. It is curious to find him, 
 when he pauses a moment from his satiric eketohing, recurring 
 to his old platitudes :— 
 
 "Can gold calm passion, or make reason shine t 
 Can we dig peace or wisdom from the mine? 
 Wisdom to I ]ld prefer " ; 
 
 platitudes which he seems inevitably to fall into, for the same 
 reason that some men are constantly asserting their contempt 
 for criticism — because he felt the opposite so keenly. 
 
 The outburst of genius in the earlier books of the " Night 
 Thoughts " is the more remarkable, that in the interval be- 
 tween them and the Satires, he had produced nothing but his 
 Pindaric odes, in which he fell far below the level of his pre- 
 vious works. Two sources of this sudden strength were the 
 freedom of blank verse and the pre»3nce of a genuine emotion. 
 Most persons, in speaking of the "Night Thoughts," have in 
 their minds only the two or three first Nights, the majority of 
 
THB PO«T TOtmo. Sy 
 
 of them M a whole Yo«n» h.^^ favorable a judgment 
 «: I is immo^l fh.* ^^' "^*^^^ '» umniaent, that 
 death and immortalitv .!/ • v^ ' contemplation of 
 
 of life, as Ae J^S! 1^' ^ "^ P'**"? "^ "»« '""'d and 
 God hktt Cow " WhK " "f '"""» "*••« ^<1 <" 
 «.d that "Sand '^httheTtC:!*'"'^ 'J" '>«'-'*'-«d. 
 J,^thed«.Uteonetha:^rSrhifhr^;r-^^ 
 
 "Thi. Is the dewrt, thi. the lolltnde • 
 How populom, how vital la the grave t " 
 Jojr died with the loved one:— 
 
 i«,.iii. "'"»"l'"«>"»»nted earth 
 LoWaUherlmtre. Where her glltfrlng tow«n>f 
 
 ^M great moffiaan't dead I " 
 
 Se^^r:ssreS;^ci™-»^^^^^ 
 
 " exaggerations i we are prepared to see hi,^ 
 
M 
 
 WORLDLINESS AKD OTHER-WORLDLINBSe : 
 
 turn away a weary ey« from lunlight and flowers and sweet 
 human faoei, as if this rioh and glorious life had no signifi- 
 oanoe but as a preliminary of death; we do not criticise his 
 views, we compassionate his feelings. And so it is with 
 Young in these earlier NighU. There is already some arti- 
 ficiality even in his grief, and feeling often slides into rhetoric, 
 but through it all we are thrilled with the unmistakable cry of 
 pain, which makes us tolerant of egoism and hyperbole: 
 
 "In every varied pottoie, plsoe, and. boar, 
 How widow'd ev'ry thought ol ev'ry Joy I 
 Thought, buy tbooght I too busy for my peaoe I 
 Through the dark pc ^m of time long elapsed 
 Led softly, by the •.illness of the night,— 
 Led like a murderer (and such it proves I) 
 Btrays (wretched rover !) o'er the pleasing past,— 
 In quest of wretchedneu, perversely strays ; 
 And finds all desert now ; and meets the ghosts 
 Of my departed joys." 
 
 But when he becomes didactic, rather than complaining, 
 
 when he ceases to sing his sorrows, and begins to insist on his 
 opinions, — when that distaste for life which we pity as a 
 transient feeling, is thrust upon us as a theory, we become 
 perfectly cool and <-ltlcal, and are not in the least inclined to 
 be indulgent to false views and selfish sentiments. 
 
 Seeing that we are about to be severe on Young's failings and 
 failures, we ought, if a reviewer's space were elastic, to dwell 
 also on his merits, — on the startling vigor of his imagery— on 
 the occasional grandeur of his thought — on the piquant force 
 of that grave satire into which his medications continuaUy 
 run. But, since our " limits " are rigorous, we must content 
 ourselves with the less agreeable half of the critic's duty j and 
 we may the rather do so, because it would be difficult to say 
 anything new of Young in the way of admiration, while we 
 think there are many salutary lessons remaining to be drawn 
 ftoiu his faults. 
 
 One of the moat striking characteristics of Young is his rad- 
 ieal insincerity as a poetic artist. This, added to the thin and 
 artificial texture of his wit, is the true explanation of the par- 
 adox — that a poet who is often inopportunely witty has the 
 opposite vice of bombastic absurdity. The source of all gran- 
 
TOT POBT TOCKO. 37 
 
 jnmdUoquent man is never bent on saying wKTfi^.. 
 
 «y Criterion V::^:z'"iCn^v^r^r zz^' 
 
 gnmdUoquenoe and genuine WvnrT^M^"" '**^«^ 
 
 " aI'^'SI^'' the good mm txe, on the akle., 
 And bid. e«th roll, nor feel, her Idle irtlrl," 
 may perhaps pass for sublime with some readers ' B„t „. 
 rrmt's'^r^f^^r' ""^ ^^^ --^us^a^^d^ 
 pende^r ar hri^pi^fTdf S^S T 
 
 rrrc^:fp^r""--^'-»'/w.u^.rso'S 
 
 ityfrri^lri' ""T" '""^'y' '«"^ti°« from insincor- 
 
 uadisguised by^XeoftT£ S^aT: "rS 
 ^Tc^Krraid-f:?''^^ bythe^slig/^f:;,^-^ 
 
 "All eye of awe and wonder let me rolL 
 And roll for ever." 
 
M WORLOUNKSa AlTD OTBIII-WORI J>UIIIBB i 
 
 AbatTMtiiig th« mor* poatioal MMoiatioiM with tha vjt, tUa 
 ia hardly laaa aUord than if he had wiahad to atand fnam 
 with hia month opan. 
 Agafai — 
 
 "larbenaMh 
 A «ml Immortal U a mortal Joy." 
 
 Happily for human nature, we are aure no man really beliaTea 
 that. Which of ua haa the impiety not to feel that our aoula 
 are only too narrow for the joy of looking into the tmating 
 eyes of our children, of repoaing on the love of a huaband or 
 wife, — nay, of liatening to the dirine voice of muaio, or watch- 
 ing the calm brightneaa of autumn aftemoona? But Young 
 eould utter thia falaity without detecting it, becauae, when he 
 apolce of " mortal joya," he rarely had in hia mind any object 
 to which he could attach aacradneaa. He waa thinking of 
 biahoprica and beneficea, of amiling monarcha, patronizing 
 prime miniatera, and a " much indebted muae." Of anything 
 between these and eternal hliaa, he waa but rarely and moder- 
 ately oonsoioua. Often, indeed, he sinks very much below 
 even the bishopric, and aeema to have no notion of earthly 
 pleaaure, but such aa breathes gaslight and tlie fumes of wine. 
 His picture of life is precisely such as you would expect from 
 a man who hz-i risen from his bed at two o'clock in the after- 
 noon with a headache, and a dim remembrance that he haa 
 added to his " debta of honor " :— 
 
 "What wretched repetition eloyi ni hen I 
 What periodic potion* tor the aick, 
 Distemper'd bodies, and diatemper'd minds t " 
 
 And then hi flies off to his usual antithesis: 
 
 "In an eternity what acenea ahall strike I 
 Adrentorea tbicken, noTelties surpriae I " 
 
 " Earth " means lords and lerees, duchesses and Dalilahs, 
 South-Sea dreams and illegal percentage; and the only things 
 distinctly preferable to these are, eternity and the stara. 
 Deprive Young of this antithesis, and more than half his elo- 
 quence would be shrivelled up. Place him on a breezy com- 
 mon, where the furze is in its golden bloom, where children 
 are playing, and horses are standing in the Bunshine with 
 
THl POIT yoCNO. 31 
 
 oompllaant to the cIJbIS)':- ' *° W l»i« »«*1 
 
 "Whw-tt I tan,. ,h^ ,^^,^ ^ ^1 .ppUiM.1" 
 
 doath and winning heaven -^Ti . ^J"' "" •*^» *«»» 
 convey thi, .entim«, the WtTo^Ju'r ^^^^^^ 
 «i«.Lor«,«.thi.e,eeU«>t«.rp:roan,Se^Cii 
 
 Correct thy friend; befriend tf «.tam »^ 
 C^wlth wenn heert, end eonflden'^: Lr 
 Spring up, „d ley «,„„g hold on Him wh„'n»d. .hee - 
 
 •n...^^ n "■"•••""kooeeeeoneelng 
 The lune dull note to euoh w nothing dtIm 
 
 S^wi, ':? '™" ™'lP«'''i by the mn, ' 
 On the dove', neck, which w«iton In hl.»~ 
 
 Nothing hang, tedloM, nothing old rcTolveV^ 
 ^th.t for which they long, fof whirh ttly live 
 ^elr gtorlou. eflorte, wlngM with heavenfy Z- 
 i ? rl»lng morning eeea .till higher riae ■ ^^ 
 E«h bonnteou, d*wn Ite novelty'^pre^n" ' 
 
 Wh le Netare'8 circle, like a chariot wh^l 
 Rolling ben«.th their elevated "^ ^'• 
 Make, tieir fair pronpect fairer eve^y honr • 
 Advancing virtue in a line to blin " 
 
40 
 
 WORLDUNISS AMD OTHXR WORLOLIlfliS : 
 
 ■imple hnmu joyi— " Natan'i oiiel* roUi baoMth. " Indaad, 
 we rwnembM no mind in poatio litwatur* that Mama to hava 
 abaorbad laoa of tba baautjr and tha haalthy breath of the 
 oommon landaoape than Young* •. Hia images, often grand 
 and finely praaanted— witneaa that anblimely sudden leap of 
 thought, 
 
 "tmbtjiM we miut be till w* bunt tha ihell, 
 7m ambitnt anrt iluU, ud iprlnc to life"— 
 
 lie almoat entirely within that oiiole of obaerration which 
 would be familiar to a man who lived in town, hung about the 
 theatres, read the newspaper, and went home often by moon 
 and star light. There is no natural object nearer than the 
 moon that aeema to hare any strong attraction for him, and 
 eTen to tha moon he chiefly appeals for patronage, and " pays 
 his court " to her. It is reckoned among the many deficiencies 
 of Lorenzc^ that he " never a^ked the moon one question " — an 
 omission which Yrung thinks eminently unbecoming a rational 
 being. He describes nothing so well as a comet, and la tempted 
 to linger with fond detail over nothing more familiar than the 
 day of Judgment and an imaginary journey among the stars. 
 Once en Saturn's ring, he feels at home, and his language 
 becomes quite easy : — 
 
 "What behold I now? 
 A wlldtinun ol wonden bnniliig roand, 
 Where larger aon* Inhabit higher ■pberes 
 Periiaia Me iiiUaa (i^deK(iuUn«r 0oda/" 
 
 It is like a sudden relief from a strained posture when, in 
 the " ITight Thoughts," we come on any allusion that carries 
 us to the lanes, woods, or fields. Such allusions are amaz- 
 ingly rare, and we could almost count them on a single hand. 
 That we may do him no injustice, we will quote the three 
 best:— 
 
 "Like bloMom'd (reea o'erturned fty nemol atomi, 
 Lovel; in death the beaateoue rain lay " 
 
 "In the aame brook none ever bathed him twioe : 
 To the same life none ever twice awoke. 
 We call the brook the same — the same we think 
 Our Ute, though still more rapid in lu flow : 
 
TBI POIT YOUNG. 41 
 
 Ror nuk tin muoh Imnmiblj lumA, 
 And nlngltd with Umiml" 
 
 "TU orown of nanliood !• ■ winter Joy • 
 An •w,r»Mi that nuda tha nurthan. blaat. 
 And bloaMma In tha rigor of our lata." 
 
 S.l^'""'' ^ •tatn.otion., or to the p«r«)niac«ti<», of 
 tt« miiU and .tonn, of earth : he see. Religion coming down 
 
 »»ul2«7f ?""r"""" ^""^ him dwelling on virtu, 
 or religwn a. it reaUy exi.t.-in the emotion, of a man dreued 
 
 t^^^^"I **"? ""* '^*^ ''y •"" «"""• 0' •» "-e^S 
 Zl^^ "V""* "■' ""• •'«»'' °' •"« «ttle daughter: in 
 co^geou. effort for un..lfi,h end., in the 'nternal triumph of 
 u.tice and pity over perwnal rewntment, in all the .ublime 
 .elf-renuno.«tion and .weet oharitie. which are found in the 
 
 toUan^ and only in a faint and woondary manner with\b- 
 .toaotion.. An o«tor may dUcoume very eloquently on inju.- 
 tice in general and leave hi, audierco cold; but let him .la , 
 a ipeoial case of oppreegion, and every heart :vill throb Tiie 
 mo.t untheoretic person, are aware of thi. relation between 
 
 ^ r^.°^r P»^'.'="l"^«<'*». *" oPPowd to general torm., 
 and implicitly recognize it in the repulsion they feel toward 
 any one ^I'ePfofe.Ms strong feeling about abstraction.,- 
 theJlip'i' "^ "«' " "^^^ i""»«xliately riw. to 
 
 th^"' *^°!?,' *^* ^"""^ "■ Philander, Naroi.sa, and Luoia, 
 there i. hardly a trace of human sympathy, of self-forgetful- 
 
 Z Zl' ^1^1 "'T °* " ^«"°'-'««K- throughout this 
 tong poem which prof ewes to treat the various phase, of 
 
 TaTttf ,°^- ^? '"'"' '" «'«N"''"«« Night, Yoiig repels 
 us by the low moral tone of his exaggerated lament This 
 married step-daughter died at Lyons, and, being a Protestant, 
 wa. denied bunal, «, that her friends had to bury her in secret 
 -cne of the many miserable result., of superetition, but not a 
 iaot to throw an educated, still less a Christian man, i"»- a 
 
43 
 
 W0HLDUNBS8 AND OTHBR- WORLMJOTDSS : 
 
 fniy ot hatred and Tengeanoe, in contemplating it after the 
 lapse of five years. Young, however, takes great puna to 
 simulate a bad feeling:— *^ 
 
 «0t grief 
 And Indignation rival bursts I poor'd, 
 Half exeonttion mingled witli my pray 'r ; 
 Kindled at man, wbile I liia Ood ador'd ; 
 Sore grudg'd the savage land her sacred dust j 
 Stamp'd the cursed soil ; and with humanitji 
 ('Denied Narcitta) loUh'd them all a gram." 
 
 The odiously bad taste of this last clause makes up hope that 
 It IS simply a platitude, and not intended as a witticism, until 
 he removes the possibUity of this favorable doubt by immedi- 
 ately asking, " Flows my resentment into guilt? " 
 
 When, by an afterthought, he atbmpts something like sym- 
 lathy, he only betrays more clearly his want of it. Thus, in 
 the first Night, when he turns from his private griefs to depict 
 earth as a hideous abode of misery for all mankind, and asks— 
 
 "What then am I, who sorrow for myself P "— 
 
 he falls at once into calculating the benefit of sorrowing for 
 others:— * 
 
 " More generous sorrow, while it sinks, exalts : 
 And conscious virtue mitigates tlu pang. 
 Nor virtue, more than prudence, bids me give 
 Swollen thought a second cliannei." 
 
 This remarkable negation of sympathy is in perfect consistency 
 with Young's theory of ethics: 
 
 "Virtue is a crime, 
 A crime to reason, if it costs us pain 
 Unpaid." • 
 
 If there is no immortality for man, 
 
 "Sense I take the rein ; blind Passion, drive us on ; 
 And Ignorance I befriend us on our way. 
 Yes ; give the pulse full empire ; live the brute, 
 Since as the brute we die. The sum of man, 
 Of godlike man, to revel and to rot" 
 
I''' THK POET TOUNO. 48 
 
 «Hthl» life'i gain Invlteg him to tlie deed 
 Why not hie country »old, hie father »lain»" 
 
 "Ambition, «Tarioe, by the wise diedain'd 
 7 P«^' »l«<lom, while mankind are foola, 
 And think a turf or tombstone covsre all." 
 
 "Die for thy country, thou romantic fooll 
 Brtw, aelxe the plank thyaelf, and let her sink." 
 
 «A« in the dying patent dies the child, 
 
 virttie with Immortality expiree 
 
 mo tells me he denies his soul immortal 
 
 VhaU'er hit bo<ut, haatoidme he'i a knaiie. 
 
 Bi* ivty 'tutokme himae(f atone, 
 
 Sor care though mankind periah, if he milet" 
 
 ^nlT. ^^^ *^ ""^ ^^^ "^"'^'^ ^ """J immortal » 
 replying, "It is quite possible that },ou would be a knave, ai^d 
 ove yourself alon.^ if it were not for your belief in te^orSl 
 %; but you are not to force upon me what would result from 
 your own utter want of moral emotion. I am just and honest 
 not because I expect to Ure in another word, but because 
 haymg felt the pain of injustice and .'^honesty toward mTe^' 
 
 should I give my neighbor short weight in this world. beoauM 
 wrh" 71 T"^:' r'^^ ^ "^'^ ^ '^'"'Id have notS to 
 evil on others in this life, not because I'm afraid of evil to 
 wLtv-"', '^°*!'"- "^^^ "^' '"• ^ <^° -' l°-« myself if 
 
 y^^Z^'^ti'"^''.^"' ""^y ^ *~ ««'* conclusion S 
 your mmd I have a tender love for my wife, and chUdren 
 
 Sltion""^ "!k *^"«'' *^' ^"^^ I ^y'-^^^o w^ like 
 s^^Sr 7 °^?f "t"-. " i« "^ pang to me to witness the 
 ^t2ll " *«"r-'«*°8' ""d I f«el his suffering the mo,e 
 n^fd^'"' > ^'. " 'r*«^'^«»»» his life is so short, and 
 Iwould have iti J possible, filled with happiness and not mis- 
 
 tL«n T T"^ "^ r;°? '"'* fellowship with the men and 
 women I W seen, I feel a like, though a fainter, sympathy 
 ^J^ 'i ^^^ ""' **^°' *°d I am able so to liU m im,? 
 iMtian with the generations to come, that their good is nS 
 
44 WORLDLINESS AND OTHERWORLDUNESS : 
 
 alien to me, and ia a stiinaliia to me to labor for ends which 
 may not benefit myeelf, but will benefit them. It is poaaible 
 that you might prefer to ' live the brute, ' to sell your country, 
 or to shiy your father, if you were not afraid of some disagree- 
 able consequences from tte criminal laws of another world- 
 but eyen if I could conceive no motive but by mv own worldly 
 interest or the gratification of my animal des ;, I have not 
 observed that beastliness, treachery, and pai..jide, are the 
 direct way to happiness and comfort on earth." 
 
 Thus far the man who " denies himself immortal " might give 
 a warrantable reply to Young's assumption of peculiar lofti- 
 ness in main;;aining that "virtue with immortality expires." 
 Wt, may admit, indeed, that if the better part of virtue con- 
 sists, as Young appears to think, in contempt for mortal joys, 
 in "meditation of our own decease," and in "applause "of 
 God in the style of a congratulatory address to her Majesty 
 —all which has small relation to the well-being of mankind on 
 this earth— the motive to it must be gathered from something 
 that lies quite outside the sphere of human sympathy. But, 
 for certain other elements of virtue, which are of more obvious 
 importance to plain people,— a delicate sense of our neighbor's 
 rights, an active participation in the joys and sorrows of our 
 fellow-men, a magnanimous acceptance of privation or suffer- 
 ing for ourselves when it is the condition of rescue for others 
 — in a word, the widening and strengthening of our sympa- 
 thetic nature,— it is surely of some moment to contend, that 
 they have no more direct dependence on the belief in a future 
 state than the interchange of gases in the lungs on the plural- 
 ity of worlds. Nay, it is conceivable that in some minds the 
 deep pathos lying in the thought of human mortality— that we 
 are here for a little while and then vanish away, that this 
 earthly life is all that is given to our loved ones and to our 
 many suffering fellow-men— lies nearer the fountains of moral 
 emotion than the conception of extended existence. And 
 surely it ought to be a welcome fact, if the thought of mortal- 
 iti/, as well as of immortality, be favorable to virtue. We can 
 imagine that the proprietors of a patent water-supply may 
 have a dread of common springs ; but for those who only share 
 the general need there cannot be too great a security against a 
 
THK POIT TOUNQ. 
 
 tf 
 
 Jy^^n 1 """^^ °' P™ »">»lity • It should be matter 
 of unmized rejoicing if this latter necessary of healthful life 
 hasite evolutu,n insured in the interacZ^of human^ls « 
 
 de^ It IS but a twin ray, melting into them with midefinkble 
 
 ^I^- "^,*° p™8- ^^ can often detect a man's defi- 
 Menoies in what he admires more clearly than in what he c^- 
 teinn8,-in the sentiments he presents as laudable rather than 
 h.t°T ''\^T*'L ^^ ^ ^°"°8'i notion of what is lofty 
 ttertrouble. For example, in arguing for human immortaUty, 
 
 " Firet, what Is tne anibition t The pnrault 
 0( glory wAhing leu than man can ahan. 
 
 The Visible and Freaent are for brutea 
 A slender porUon, and a narrow bound! 
 These Reason, with an energy divine 
 O-erieaps, and olatma the Futore and Unseen ; 
 The Tast Unseen, the Future fathomless ' 
 
 When the great soul buoys up to this high point, 
 leaving gross Nature's sediments below 
 
 ^en, and then only, Adam's o&pring quits 
 The sage and hero of the fields and woods, 
 ■Asserts his rank, and rises into man." 
 
 1..™ J!?'?l"'r''*" '*'**^'* *^**> "» ""^^ benevolent minds 
 have tried to mfer, our dumb fellow-creatures would share a 
 future existence, m which it is to be hoped we should neither 
 Deal^ starve, nor maim them, our ambition for a future life 
 would cease to be " lofty " I This is a notion of loftiness which 
 may pair off with Dr. WheweU's celebrated observation, that 
 Bentham s moral theory is low, because it includes justice and 
 mercy to brutes. 
 
 But, for a reflection of Young's moral personaUty on a colos- 
 sal ..le, we must tun. to those passages where his rhetoric is 
 at Its utmost stretch ot inflation-where he addresses the 
 IJeity, discourses of the Divine operations, or describes the last 
 judgment As a compound of vulgar pomp, crawling adula- 
 tion, and hard selfishness, presented under the guise of piely 
 
<« WORLDUNESS AND OTHER- WORLDUNBSS : 
 
 there are few things in literature to aorpass the ninth Night, 
 entitled "Consolation," espeoiaUy in the pages where he de- 
 scribes the last judgment— a subject to which, with naive sell- 
 betrayal, he applies phraseology favored by the exuberant 
 penny-a-liner. Thus, when God descends, and the groans of 
 hell are opposed by " shouts of joy, " much as cheers and groans 
 contend at a public meeting where the resolutions are not 
 passed unanimously, the poet completes his climax in this 
 way: — 
 
 "Hence, in one peal ot loud, eternal prain. 
 The dtarmai iptctaton thunder their applause." 
 
 In the same taste, he sings : 
 
 "Btemlty, the variooa Mntenoe past, 
 AMigng the eever'd throng distinct abodes, 
 Sulphureoua or ambroaial." 
 
 Exquisite delicacy of indication 1 He is too nice to be specific 
 as to the interior of the " sulphureous " abode; but when once 
 half the human race are shut up there, hear how he enjoys 
 turning the key on themt 
 
 "What ensnes? 
 The deed predominant, the deed of deeds I 
 Which makes a hell of hell, a heaven of heaven I 
 The goddess, with determln'd aspect, turns 
 Her adamantine key's enormous 8i7.e 
 Through Destiny's inextricable wards, 
 Veep driving every bolt on both their fates. 
 Then, from the crystal battlements of heaven, 
 Down, down she hurls it through the dark profound. 
 Ten thousand, thousand fathom ; there to rust 
 And ne'er unlock her resolution more. 
 The deep resounds j and Hell, through all her glooms, 
 Betums, in groans, the melancholy roar." 
 
 This is one of the blessings for which Dr. Young thanks 
 God " most " : — 
 
 "For all I bless Thee, most, for the severe j 
 Her death— my own at haad—theflery guff, 
 That flaming bound of lorath omnipotent I 
 It thundera ;—hd it Oiundera to preserve; 
 
 its wholesome dread 
 
 Averto the dreaded pain ; it» hidecun groom 
 
i THE POET TOUWO. 4r 
 
 JWH Btmm't mmt Baael^falu in Thv prait. 
 
 Great Sooroa of good alone I How kind In all I 
 
 In Tengeanoe kind I Pain, Death, Gehenna, mm" . . . 
 
 ifc, »ve me, Br. Young, who, in return for that favor, prom- 
 iw to give my divine patron the monopoly of that exuberance 
 in laudatory epithet, of which gpeoimens may be seen at anv 
 moment in a large number of dedications and odes to kinm 
 queens, prime ministers, and other persons of distinoti^: 
 lAat, in Young's conception, is what God delights in His 
 crownmg aim in the " drama" of the ages is to vindicate his 
 own renown The God of the "Night Thoughts" is simply 
 Young himseU « writ large »-a didactic poet, who " lecturers » 
 m«nkind in the antithetic hyperbole of mortal and immortal 
 joys, e., a and the stars, hell and heaven; and expects the 
 tabute of inexhaustible "applause." Young has no concep- 
 tion of reUgion as anything else than egoism turned heaven- 
 ward; and he does not merely imply this, he insists on it. 
 BeUgion, he teUs us, in argumentative passages too long to 
 quote, IS "ambition, pleasure, and the love of gain," directed 
 toward the joys of the future life instead of the present And 
 his ethics correspond to his religion. He vacillates, indeed, 
 m his ethical theory, and shifts his position in order ta wdt 
 his immediate purpose in argument; but he never changes 
 his level so as to see beyond the horizon of m«e selfishness 
 Sometunes he insists, as we have seen, that the belief in a fu- 
 ture life IS the only basis of morality; but elsewhere he tells 
 
 UH 
 
 "In eelf-applanse is virtue's golden prize." 
 
 Virtue, with Young, must always squint— must never look 
 sfaaight toward the immediate object of its emotion and effort 
 Ihus, If a man risks perishing in the snow himself rather than 
 forsake a weaker comrade, he must either do this because his 
 hopes and fears are directed to another world, or because he 
 desires to applaud himself afterward ! Young, if we may be- 
 lieve hun, would despise the action as folly unless it had these 
 motiTes. Let us hope he was not so bad as he pretended to 
 be I The tides of the divine life in man move under the thick- 
 est ice of theory. 
 
48 
 
 WORLDLINIiSa Aim OTHIB-WORLDLnrEaBi 
 
 f 
 
 Another mdioation of Young's deficiency in moral, i.e in 
 •jrmpattetio emotion, is his nnintennitting habit of pedagoeio 
 mor^g. On its theoretic and perceptive side, Mo»Hty 
 touches Science; on ito emotional side, poetic Art. No», the 
 produots of poetic Art are great in proportion as they result 
 from the immediate prompting of innate power, and not from 
 labored obedien.e to a theory or rule; and the presence of 
 genius or mnate prompting is direoUy opposed to the perpetual 
 consciousness of a rule. The action of faculty is imperious, 
 and supersedes the reflection why it should act. In the same 
 way, m proportion as morality u emotional, it wiU exhibit 
 Itself in direct sympathetic feeling and action, and not as the 
 recognition of a rule. Love does not say, " I ought to love "— 
 It loves. Pity does rot say, "It is right to be pitiful "—it 
 pities. Justice does not say, "I am bound to be just"— it 
 feels justly. It is only where moral emotion is comparatively 
 weak that the contemplation of a rule or theory habitually 
 mingles with its action; and in accordance with this, we think 
 experience, both in Uterahire and life, has shown that the 
 minds which are predominantiy didactic, are deficient in 
 sympathetic emotion. A man who is perpetually thinking in 
 monitory apothegms, who has an unintermittont flux of rebuke, 
 can have little energy left for simple feeling. And this u the 
 case with Young. In his highest flights of contemplation, 
 and his most waUing soliloquies, he interrupts himself to fling 
 an admonitory parenthesis at Lorenzo, or to hint that " foUy's 
 creed" is the reverse of his own. Before his thoughts can 
 flow, he must fix his eye on an imaginary miscreant, who gives 
 unlimited scope for lecturing, and recriminates just enough to 
 keep the spring of admonition and argument going to the ex- 
 tent of nine books. It is curious to see how this pedagogic 
 habit of mind runs through Young's contemplation of Nahire. 
 As the tendency to see our own sadness reflected in the exter- 
 nal world has been caUed by Mr. Buskin the "pathetic fal- 
 lacy," so we may call Young's dispos ion to see a rebuke or a 
 warning in every natural object, the ■ pedagogic faUaoy." To 
 his mind, the heavens are "forever scolding as they shine"; 
 and the great function of the stars is to be a "lecture to man- 
 kind." The conception of the Deity as a didactic author ia 
 
THB POKT TOUNO. 
 
 49 
 
 not merely an unplimt point of yiew with him; he work, it 
 out m elaborate imagery, and at length makes it the occasion 
 ot ha most extraordinary achievement in the « art of sinkinir " 
 ^MdMming-di»»p<w, we need hardly ^ay, of the nooturokl 
 
 "Divine Inttruotor! Thy flr«t volume thla 
 Tor man's penaal I all In cafitals I " 
 
 vJLl!? *'"'•" !^^^-' tendency, this sermonizing attitude of 
 Ifoung's mmd, which produces the wearisome monotony of his 
 pauses. After the first two or three Nights, he is rarely sing- 
 ing, rarely pouring forth any continuous melody inspired by 
 the spontaneous flow of thought or feeling. He is rather occu- 
 pied with argumentative insistence, with hammering in the 
 proofs of his propositions by disconnected verses, which he 
 puts down at intervals. The perpetual recurrence of the 
 pause at Ae end of the line throughout long passages, makes 
 them as fatigumg to the ear as a monotonous chant, which 
 consists of the endless repetition of one short musical phrase 
 for example: — 
 
 -, . "Past houM, 
 
 II not by guilt, yet wound as by their flight", 
 H folly bound our prospect by the grave, 
 All feeling of futurity be numb'd, 
 All godlike passion for eternals quench 'd, 
 All relish of realities expired j 
 Renounced all correspondence with the skies ■ 
 Our freedom chaln'd ; quite wingless our desire ■ 
 to sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar ; 
 Prone to the centre ; crawling in the dust ; 
 Dismounted every great and glorious aim ; 
 Enthralled every faculty divine. 
 Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world." 
 
 How different from the easy, graceful melody of Cowper-s 
 blank verse! Indeed it is hardly possible to criticise Yomg. 
 without being reminded at every step of the contrast presented 
 to him by Cowper. And thU contrast urges itself upon us 
 the more from the fact that there is, to a certain extent, a 
 parallelism between the "Kight Thoughts" and the "Task " 
 In both poems, the author achieves his greatest in virtue of 
 the new freedom conferred by blank verse; both poems are 
 
60 
 
 WORLDUNESS AND OTHIR-WOItLDLINX88 ■ 
 
 profMMdly didaotie, and mingl* much ntin with their gncnt 
 meditktioDS; both poems are the productions of men whose 
 estimate of this life was fbrmed by the light of a belief in 
 immortality, and who were intensely attached to Christianity. 
 On some grounds, we might have anticipated a more morbid 
 view of things from Cowper than from Young. Cowper's re- 
 ligion was dogmatically the more gloomy, for he was i Cal- 
 vinist; while Young was a " low " Arminian, beliering that 
 Christ died for all, and that the only obstacle to any man's 
 salvation lay in his will, which he could change if he chose. 
 There was deep and unusual sadness involved in Cowper's 
 personal lot; while Young, apart from his ambitious and 
 greedy discontent, seems to have had no exceptional sorrow. 
 
 Yet see how a lovely, sympathetic nature manifests itself in 
 spite of creed and circumstance I Where is the poem that sur- 
 passes the "Task" in the genuine love it breathes, at once 
 toward inanimate and animate existence— in truthfulness of 
 perception and sincerity of presentation— in the calm gladness 
 that springs from a delight in objects for their own sake, with- 
 out self -reference— in divine sympathy with the lowliest pleas- 
 ures, with the most short-lived capacity for pain? Here is 
 no railing at the earth's "melancholy map," but the happiest 
 lingering over her simplest scenes with all the fond mi^iute- 
 ness of attention that belongs to lovej no pompous rhetoric 
 about the inferiority of the "brutes," but a warm plea on 
 their behalf against man's inconsiderateness and cruelty, and 
 a sense of enlarged happiness from their companionship in 
 enjoyment; no vague rant about human misery and human 
 virtue, but that close and vivid presentation of particular sor- 
 rows and privations, of particular deeds and misdeeds, which 
 is the direct road to the emotions. How Cowper's exquisite 
 mind falls with the mild warmth of morning sunlight on the 
 commonest objects, at once disclosing every detail and invest- 
 ing every detail with beauty! No object is too small to 
 prompt his song— not the sooty film on the bars, or the spout- 
 less teapot holding a bit of mignonette that serves to cheer 
 the dingy town-lodging with a " hint that Nature lives " ; and 
 yet his song is never trivial, for he is alive to small objects, 
 not because his mind is narrow, but because his glance is dear 
 
THl POST TODNO. Q 
 
 wd hi. W i« large. iMtend of trying to edify n. by snper- 
 eihou. allusiona to the " brutes " and the " staU^ » he interiste 
 M in that tragedy of the hen-roost when the thief has wrenched 
 the door — 
 
 "Where Chanticleer amidst hla harem sleeps 
 In uiuuspectiiv pomp " 
 
 in the patient cattle, that on the winter's morning 
 
 "Moom in comers where the fence 
 Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep 
 in unrecumbeni aadneu " 
 
 in the litUe squirrel, that, surprised by him in his woodland 
 walk, 
 
 "At onoe, swift ae a biid, 
 
 Aswnds the neighboring beech ; there whisks hla brush. 
 
 And perks bis ears, and etampe, and cries aloud. 
 
 With all the pretUness of feigned alarm 
 
 And anger insignificantly fletce." 
 
 And then he passes into reflection, not with curt apothegm 
 and snappish reproof, but with that melodious flow of utter- 
 ance which belongs to thought when it is carried in a stream 
 of feeling:— 
 
 "The heart Is haid in nature, and unfit 
 For human fellowship, as being roid 
 Of sympathy, and therefor dead alike 
 To love and friendship both, that is not pleased 
 With sight of animals enjoying life, 
 Nor feels their happiness augment his own." 
 
 His large and tender heart embraces the most every-day forms 
 of human life : the carter driving his team through the wintry 
 stonn; the cottager's wife who, painfully nursing the embers 
 on her hearth, whUe her infants " sit cowering o'er the sparks," 
 
 "Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed"; 
 or the villager, with her little ones, going out to pick 
 
 " A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook " : 
 and he compels our colder naturss to follow his in its manifold 
 sympathies, not by exhortations, not by telling us to meditate 
 
•:»■ '^ 
 
 (, 
 
 n WOBLDUHias AND OTHIR-WORLOUIflBS i 
 
 Bt midnight^ to " indolg* » tht thought of d««th, or touk ooc 
 mItm how w« ihall "wMther kd etwnml nighty" tut bfpn- 
 Milting ioiuth* olgtet of hi* eompauion tnUkfuUy and lovinflg. 
 And when he handlea greater themes, when he takei • wider 
 ■urrej, and oontidera the men or the deeds which hare a di- 
 rect influence on the welfare of commonitiee and nations, there 
 is the same unselfish warmth of feeling, the same sompnlous 
 truthfulness. Ho is never vagne in his remonstrance or his 
 satire; but puts his finger on some particular vice or folly, 
 which excites his indignation or "dissolves his heart in pity," 
 because of some specific injury it does to his fellow-man or to 
 a sacred cause. And when he is asked why he interests him- 
 self about the sorrows and wrongs of others, hear what is the 
 reason he gives. Not, like Young, that the movements of the 
 planets show a mutual dependence^ and that 
 
 "Has man his sovereign duty learns In this 
 Material pioton of beneTolenoe " ; 
 
 or that,— 
 
 "Mora generous soirow while It sinks, exalts, 
 And oonacious virtoe mitigates the pang." 
 
 What is Cowper's answer, when he imagines some "sage eru- 
 dite, profound," asking him " What" s the world to youf "— 
 
 " Much. I mu bom nf miman, and drew mitt 
 At mtet at charitsftom human bnatU. 
 I think, articaUte, I laugh and weep, 
 And ezeiciie all funotlons of a man. 
 How then should I and any man that llns 
 Be stiangers to each other? " 
 
 Young is astonished that men can make war on each other— 
 that any one can " seize his brother's throat," while 
 
 "The Planets ciy, 'Forbear. ' » 
 
 Cowper weeps because — 
 
 "There Is no flesh in man^s obdurate heart ; 
 It does not ttA for tnan. " 
 
 Young applauds God as a monarch with an empire and a oooit 
 
THl POIT TOCWO. M 
 
 q^npMlorto the Baglidi. or m «, .uthwwbo prodooM 
 
 •wn o£ th« wintry UndwHipe, and thinJt»_ ^^ 
 
 "Hjppy who vclki with Him I whom whM h« floda 
 Of flavor or c f icent In frnit or flower, 
 Or what b« tIpwi of bmutlful or grand 
 In nature, froii the broad majeatlo oak 
 To the green blade that twinklea in the nm 
 Prompt! viMnmmibnmctitf a prumtOoi." 
 To oonolude-for w« mu.t wrest ouraelve. in • oontmt th.t 
 w»uld l«Ml u. bey«,d our bound.: Young flie. for hi. utmct 
 owMoUbon to the day of judgment, when 
 
 "Hnal Buin fleroely drive* 
 Bar ploughshare o 'er Creation " • 
 when earth, itar., and .una are .wept aaide 
 
 " t,n °°Ti *" *!SI" «"»"'«*. Heaven', own pure day 
 Full on the confine, of our ether, flames 
 While (dreadful contraat I) far (how far I) >»n«rth. 
 Hell, burrting, belches forth her bbulngaea. 
 And storms sulphureous ; her voracious jaw.' 
 Expanding wide, and roaring for her prey,"— 
 
 Dr. Young, and similar "ornament, of religion and Tir'ae." 
 PMSing, of oonrse, with grateful "applauw" into the uoMr 
 Mgion. Cowper find, his highest inspiration in the MiU^- 
 mnm-m the restoration of this our beloved home of ea-th to 
 perfect holiness and bliss, when the Supreme 
 
 "Wall visit earth In metoy ; shall descend 
 Propitious in His chariot paved with love • 
 And what His storms have blasted and defaced 
 For man's revolt, shall with a omlle repair." 
 
 rf ?b!!t*°j'^l'*^"'''r'u°"''°^y ^" '°"8 flows at the thought 
 of^at^bles^^ess to be enjoyed by future generations on 
 
 "The dwellers In the vales and on the rooks 
 ^ont to each other, and the mountain-tops 
 From diet»nt mountains catch the flying joy • 
 Til! M ,n aftCT nation taught ii,u «iraiu, ' 
 Garth rolls the rapturous Hounna roual I" 
 
M WORLDUNUS AND OTRXRWORLDLUmB. 
 
 ThatomofoaroompwiMikiathii: In Tonng we 1wt« th« 
 4grpe of th«t d«Bai*nt human lymiMiUiy, that impiety toward 
 the pnaent and the vUible, whioh flies for its motiTei, itt 
 Msetities, and its religion, V> the remote, the ragne, and the 
 •nknown; in Oowper we hare the type of that gennine tore 
 whieh cherishes things in proportion to their nearness, and 
 feels iU reverence grow in proportion to the intin-aor of iu 
 knowledge. 
 
OBBAUir WIT: HBINBIOH HEIOTB. 
 
 Mtor th«n wh«t they find l.ugluble." The truth of thii ob- 
 
 ■~T.tion would perhaps have been more apparent if he had 
 
 aaid culture instead of character. The laet thing in which the 
 
 entovated man can have community with the vulgar i. their 
 
 joenlanty i and we can hardly exhibit more strikingly the wide 
 
 guUwhich senate, him from them than by comparing the 
 
 o^^ot which shakes the diaphragm of a ooal-heay.Vwiti the 
 
 highly complex pleasure derived from a real witticism. That 
 
 uy high order of wit is exceedingly complex, and demands a 
 
 r»^ rf f^ °"!?*^ development, has one evidence in the 
 
 fc«t that we do not find it in boys at all in propcrfHn to their 
 
 mwrfestationof otherpowers. Clever boysVaJerally aspire to 
 
 a. heroic and poetic rather than the comic, and the <iudest 
 
 -™ ^'"^. '*'"'• .•" *^"' i°^^- Many a witty man wiU 
 
 taSS.^''' "" ^^, '<^^-^y». a practical joke, more or 
 
 toMRabelaisian, was for him the n^plus ultra of the ludicrous. 
 
 TltT" ^ ^T* ^"^ *** ""^ "''^ •*• ^y^<^ of mankind. 
 W ^^ Ti^,""".' '"*' ""^ ^'^- °* *^« after-dinner kind 
 -loud-throated laughter over the wine-cup, taken too little 
 account of m sober moments to enter as an element into their 
 A^ and differing as much from the laughter of a Chamfort or 
 a Sheridan ac ae gastronomic enjoyment of an ancient Briton 
 whose dinner had no other " removes " than from acorns to 
 bMohmast Mid back again to acorns, differed from the subtle 
 t^n t/^' P"!"** ^P*™'""'^ by his turtle-eating de- 
 scendant. It was their lot to live seriously through stages 
 I^ahl„, t" 8«"«™tion8were to become comedy, as tl^se 
 amiable-looking pre-Adamite amphibia which Professor Owen 
 has restored for «s in effigy at Sydenham doubtiesa took seri- 
 onajy the grotesque physiognomies of their kindred. Heavy 
 
w 
 
 OERHAN WIT: 
 
 experience in their case, as in eveiy other, was the base from 
 which the salt of future wit was to be made. 
 
 Humor is of earlier growth than Wit, and it is in accordanoe 
 with this earlier growth that it has more affinity with the 
 poetio tendencies, while Wit is more nearly allied to the 
 ratiocinative intellect. Humor draws its materials from situ- 
 ations and characteristics; Wit seizes on unexpected and com- 
 plex relations. Humor is chiefly representative and descrip- 
 tive ; It 18 diffuse, and flows along without any other law than 
 Its own fantastic wiU; or it flits about like a will-o'-the-wisp 
 amazmg us by its whimsical transitions. Wit is brief and 
 sudden, and sharply defined as a crystal: it does not make 
 pictures, it is not fantastic; but it detects an unsuspected 
 analogy, or suggests a startling or confounding inference 
 Every one who has had the opportunity of making the com- 
 parison will remember that the effect produced on him by 
 some witticisms is closely akin to the effect produced on him 
 by subtle reasoning which lays open a fallacy or absurdity; 
 and there are persons whose delight in such reasoning always 
 manifests itself in laughter. This affinity of Wit with ratio- 
 cmation is the more obvious in proportion as the species of wit 
 18 higher and deals less with words and with superficialities 
 than with the essential qualities of things. Some of John- 
 son's most admirable witticisms consist in the suggestion of 
 an analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an 
 action or proposition; and it is only their ingenuity, conden- 
 sation, and instantaneousness which lift them from reasoning 
 into Wit— they are reasoning raised to a higher power. On 
 the other hand, Humor, in its higher forms, and in proportion 
 as It associates itself with the sympathetic emotions, continu- 
 ally passes into poetry: nearly all great modem humorists 
 may be called prose poets. 
 
 Some confusion as to the nature of humor has been created 
 by the fact, that those who have written most eloquently on it 
 have dwelt almost exclusively on its higher forms, and have 
 defined humor in general as the sympathetic presentat jn of 
 incongruous elements in human nature and life— a definitio- 
 which only applies to its later development. A great deal of 
 humor may coexist with a great deal of barbarism, as we see 
 
HEINRIOH HEINE. 57 
 
 t!^T^^^,T''' ''""^^ ^"K^"* fl»^»' of the humor in 
 8uoh oases wUl oome, nc^ r..or„ .y„,p,tby, but more pXb y 
 
 lt^r„f rfr* "'^"^ "' iutole.,a^,..„;at best it Jl ^Z 
 ^e of the ludicrous exi;;,K,iog itsoU jx iUustrations of s^ 
 ^ful cunning and of th. 4 . ,.U.ni>, as in « Beiaeke Fach? 
 or ^akmg oif m a hoUday mood the yoke of a too exaotL 
 
 »Zh T '"™°' *° ""^y P"«'''=*l JokeV^ but no sym^ 
 pathetic nature can enjoy them. Strange as the gene^o^ 
 
 ^Z 'J^'^Vf"^ parentage of that wonderful a^S 
 cious mixture of fun, fancy, philosophy, and feeling which 
 constitutes modem humor, was probably the cruel mXy of 
 a savage at the writhing, of a suffering enemy-sucTis thf 
 
 Probably the reason why high culture demands more complete 
 hannony with its moral sympathies in humor than in wf^ s 
 ^^trr""":*!,""!"" """^ prollz-that it ha, not the 
 wh^h 71 "™"f *>'« f°'«« °f "it- Wit is an electric shock, 
 which takes us by violence quite independently of our p:^- 
 
 Jeirrrteir"*^,'"^"*""' '•"'^'™" Wro^^'- - -0" 
 thli wh^ ^ ^"""i "" °"""*" °* °""«'^«''- Hence it is 
 
 f^^ r . *"* r** ""^^ ^"™" ^'^ "^"'t disappeared 
 
 rZ™^ ""° cannot help laughing at a coarse bon-mot or 
 a laceratmg personaUty, if the " shock " of the witticism is a 
 
 ^Itl^r °°*' T^^« ""r ^"" "'" ''''^•' "° P°^«' oy.r them 
 rf It jar on their moral taste. Hence, too, it is that, whUe 
 wit IS peremiial, humor is liable to become siperannuatel 
 
 thJ /,'!•"''« r* '1«^*'°°'» a°d classifications, however, 
 this distmction between wit and humor does not exactly Z 
 resent the «,taal fact. Like all other species. Wit and Humor 
 
 T/ i, ^""' ^r.^ '' ^''''''' ""> <" ''°'* °f f'^^eti""" hybrids' 
 ZZ^^ ^°!7''f ••"' *° """ '^""^ ^'*y °' humorousf ther^ 
 w 'f T5, «°8*by descriptions or narratives which, like Vol- 
 taire's " Microm^gas, » would be humorous if they ;ere not sL 
 sT« "".$ r ^^'^^f"' «° P"8nant with suggestion and 
 sabre, that we are obliged to call them witty. We rarely 
 find wit nntempered by humor, or humor witlwat a spice i 
 
68 
 
 OEBHAN WIT: 
 
 wit; and sometimes we find them both united in the highest 
 degree in the same mind, as in Shakespeare and Moli^re. A 
 happy conjunction this, for wit is apt to be cold, and thin- 
 lipped, and Mephistophelean in men who have no relish for 
 hmnor, whose lungs do never crow like Chanticleer at fun and 
 drollery; and broad-faced rollicking humor needs the refining 
 influence of wit. Indeed it may be said that there is no really 
 fine writing in which wit has not an implicit, if not an ex- 
 plicit action. The wit may never rise to the surface, it may 
 never flame out into a witticism; but it helps to give bright- 
 ness and transparency, it warns off from flights and exaggera- 
 tions which verge on the ridiculous— in every genre of writing 
 it preserves a man from sinking into the genre ennuyeux. 
 And it is eminently needed for this office in humorous writing; 
 for, as humor has no limits imposed on it by its material, no 
 law but its own exuberance, it is apt to become preposterous 
 and wearisome unless checked by wit, which is the enemy of 
 all monotony, of all lengthiness, of all exaggeration. 
 
 Perhaps the nearest approach Ne ure has given us to a com- 
 plete analysis, in which wit is as thoroughly exhausted of 
 humor as possible, and humor as bare aa possible of wit, is in 
 the typical Frenchman and the typical German. Voltaire, 
 the intensest example of pure wit, faUs in most of his fictions 
 from his lack of humor. " Miorom^as " is a perfect tale, be- 
 cause, as it deals chiefly with phUosophio ideas and does not 
 touch the marrow of human feeling and life, the writer's wit 
 and wisdom were aU-suffioient for his purpose. Not so with 
 " Candide. " Here Voltaire had to give pictures of life as weU 
 as to convey philosophic truth and satire, and here we feel the 
 want of humor. The sense of the ludicrous is continually 
 defeated by disgust, and "the scenes, instead of presenting us 
 with an amusing or agreeable picture, are only the frame for 
 a witticism. On the other hand, German humor generally 
 shows no sense of measure, no instinctive tact; it is either 
 floundering and clumsy as the antics of a levUthan, or labori- 
 ous and interminable as a Lapland day, in which one loses aU 
 hope that the stars and quiet will ever come. For this reason 
 Jean Paul, the greatest of German humorists, U unendurable 
 to many readers, and frequently tiresome to all. Here, as 
 

 HBINRICB HEINE. W 
 
 el»ewhep^the German shows the absence of that deUoate per- 
 ception, that sensibUity to gradation, which is the essence of 
 tact and taste and the necessarjr concomitant of wit. All his 
 BubUety IS reserved fop the region of metaphysics. For 
 Ja^tt&, m the abstract, no one can have an aouter vision: 
 bat in the concrete he is satisfied with a very loose approxima- 
 tion. He has the finest nose for Empirismm in phUosophical 
 dootrme, but the presence of more or less tobacco-smoke in the 
 air he breathes is imperceptible to him. To the typicai Ger- 
 °'^~rf'*' ■*'^*»^-it is indifferent whether his door-lock 
 will catch; whether his teacup be more or less. than an inch 
 thick J whether or not his book have every other leaf unstitched : 
 whether his neighbor's conversation be more or less of a shout: 
 whether he pronounces 4 or ^, toid; whether or not his adored 
 one s tee h be few and far between. He has the same sort of 
 inMnsibUity to gradations in time. A German comedy is like 
 a German sentence: you see no reason in its structure why it 
 should ever come to an end, and you accept the conclusion as 
 an arrangement of Providence rather than of the author. We 
 have heard Germans use the word LangeweUe, the equivalent 
 foimnm, and we have secretly wondered what it can be that 
 produces ennui in a German. Not the longest of long trage- 
 dies, for we have known him to pronounce that hiicha fesselnd: 
 not the heaviest of heavy books, for he delights in that a^ 
 grUndlu>h; not the slowest of journeys in a Po»t-wagm, for 
 the slower the horses the more cigars he can smoke before he 
 reaches his journey's end. German mnui must be something 
 as superlative as Barclay's treble X, which, we suppose, im- 
 plies an extremely unknown quantity of stupefaction. 
 
 It 13 easy to see that this national deficiency in nicety of 
 perception must have its effect on the national appreciation 
 
 ml ,=;" w °* "'""°'- '^°" *»<^ ^ ^^^y "'io'it ad- 
 mirers of Shakespeare, who tell you that what they think most 
 admirable in him is his W<»t,piel, his verbal quibbles; and it 
 IS a remarkable fact that, among the five great races cmoerned 
 m modem civilization, the German race U the only one which, 
 up to the present century, had contributed nothing classic to 
 tte common stock of European wit and humor ; unless " Beineke 
 yuoha can be feirly claimed as a peealiarly Teutonio product 
 
60 
 
 OKRHAN WIT: 
 
 Italy was the birthplace of Pantomime and the immortal Pnl- 
 cmeUo; Sp^ had produced Cervanteg; France had prcdnced 
 Eabelais and MohAre, and olassio wits innumerable: England 
 had yielded Shakespeare and a host of humorists. But Ger- 
 mwiy had borne no great comic dramatist, no great satirist 
 and she has not yet repaired the omUsion; she had not even 
 produced any humorist of a high order. Among her great 
 writers, Lessing is the one who is the most specifically witty 
 We feel the implicit influence of wit— the "flavor of mind" 
 —throughout his writings; and it is often concentrated into 
 pungent satire, as every reader of the " Hamburgische Drama- 
 targie" remembers. Still, Lessing's name has not become 
 European through his wit, and his charming comedy, "Minna 
 von Eiinhelm,»has won no place on a foreign stage Of 
 course, we do not pretend to an exhaustive acquaintance with 
 German literature; we not onlyi admit-we are sure-that it 
 mcludes much comic writing of which we know nothing We 
 simply state the fact, that no German production of that kind 
 before the present century, ranked as European— a fact which 
 does not, indeed, determine the amount of the national faoe- 
 tiousness, but which is quite decisive as to its quality. What- 
 ever may be the stock of fun which Germany yields for home 
 consumption, she has provided little for the palate of other 
 lands. All honor to her for the still greater things she has 
 done for us ! She has fought the hardest fight for freedom of 
 thought, has produced the grandest inventions, has made mag- 
 nificent contributions to science, has given us some of tte 
 divinest poetry, and quite the divinest music, in the world 
 We revere and treasure the products of the German mind 
 To say that that mind is not fertile in wit, is only like saying 
 that excellent wheat-laud-is not rich pasture; to say that we 
 do not enjoy German facetiousness, is no more than to say 
 that though the horse is the finest of quadrupeds, we do not 
 like him to lay hU hoof playfully on our shoulder. Still as 
 we have noticed that the pointless puns and stupid jocularity 
 of the boy may ultimately be developed into the epigrammatic 
 brilliancy and polished playfulness of the man; as we beUeve 
 that racy wit and chastened delicate humor are inevitably the 
 results of invigorated and refined mental activity.—we can also 
 

 HlHinilCH HEINE. 61 
 
 JiLS'* ^'^' ""^ ^"^ ^"^ ^'"''^ " "°p "^ ^^ -""i 
 
 rtf f'^r **«*« »,*l««dy <^ earnest of that future crop in 
 fte exu.tence of Hemrioh Heine, a German born with the 
 preaent oentuiy, who, to Teutonic imagination, sensibility, 
 and humor, adds an amount of esprit that would make hii^ 
 brJliant among the most brUliant of Frenchmen. True thU 
 
 Zr.K '^I'*"^'"''^""'"'^' ''""•"^'i tisane^storl 
 spent theu- youth in German air, and were reared on Wvrst 
 
 ^t^TvT^^ 7 """* ^^ " "^ """"^ " ^^'""^ ■» » pheasant 
 18 an English bird, or a potato an Irish vegetable. But what- 
 erer else he may be, Heine is one of the most rem- ble men 
 ^this age; no echo, but a real voice, and therefore, like aU 
 pmuine things m this world, worth studying, a surpassing 
 Ijno poet, who has uttered our feelings for us in deliciou! 
 song J a humorist, who touches leaden folly with the magio 
 wand of his fancy, and transmutes it into the fine gold oflrt 
 r.!r. his sunny smile on human tears, and makes them 
 
 a beauteous rainbow on the cloudy background of life: a wit. 
 who holds in his mighty hand the most scorching lightning 
 of satire; an artist in prose literature, who has Lwn eve^ 
 
 more completely than Goethe the possibilities of German prose i 
 and-m spite of all charges against him, true as well as fals^ 
 
 Zv^r^f .^,^^Z' '"'''' ^ "P"^"" ''»« '^d brave words 
 m«n f °' ^''feUow-men. He is, moreover, a suffering 
 man, who, with aU the highly wrought sensibility of genius 
 ^ to endure terrible physical ills; and as such he calls forth 
 more than an intellectual interest. It is true, alas! that there 
 IS a heavy weight in the other scal^that Heine's magnificent 
 powers have often served only to give electric force to the ex- 
 pression of debased feeling, so that his works are no Phidian 
 statue of gold, and ivory, and gems, buthave not a Uttle brass 
 and iror^ and miry clay mingled with the precious metal. The 
 audacity of his occasional coarseness and personality is unpar- 
 alleled in contemporary literature, and has hardly been ex- 
 ceeded by the license of former days. Hence, before his vol- 
 umes „e put ^am the reach of immature minds, there is 
 n^ of a fnendly penknife to exercise a strict c^sorship. 
 X^ whan aU coarseness, all scurrility, aU Mephiatopheleu, 
 
^ 
 
 tJQk 
 
 
 
 
 'iii 
 
 m 
 
 62 
 
 GERMAN WIT: 
 
 rt^« '^^i L T'""* '~'^8» of other m.n, is remored, 
 there w,ll be a plenteous remainder of exquisite poetry, of 
 wit. humor, and just thought. It is apparently toToften a 
 cnngeni^t'^k to write severe words aboJIt the toansgi^s^^s 
 committed by m«n of genius, specially when the censor has 
 the advantage of bemg himself a man of no genius, so that 
 those transgressions seem to him quite gratuitonsj he, for- 
 sooth, never lacerated any one by his wit, or gave irresistible 
 piquancy to a coarse allusion, and his indignation is not miti- 
 gated by any knowledge of the temptation that lies in tran- 
 scendent ^wer. Wo are also apt to measure what a gifted 
 man has done by our arbitrary conception of what he might 
 have done, rather than by a comparison of hU actual doings 
 with ou7 owTi or those of other ordinary men. We make om- 
 ^T "^-f/'""" "Sents of heaven, and demand that our 
 brother should oring usurious interest for his five Talents, for- 
 getting that It is less easy to manage five Talents than two 
 Whatever beneht there may be in denouncing the evil, it is 
 
 ciate the good. Hence, in endeavoring to give oir readers 
 
 lengthily on his failings; we shall not hold the candle up to 
 dusty, yermin-haunted comers, but let the light fall as much 
 as possible on the nobler and more attractive details. Our 
 sketch of Heme's life, which has been drawn from various 
 r/^',r \^^,^°'^ everything like intrusive gossip 
 and will derive its coloring chiefly from the autobiographi,4^ 
 hints and descriptions scattered through his own writings. 
 Those of our readers who happen to know nothing of Hei^, 
 wm in this way be makmg their acquaintance with the writei 
 while they are learning the' outline of his career 
 
 We have said that Heine was born with the present cen- 
 tury; but this statement is not precise, for we learn that, ac- 
 
 T^^rL ^ '*'*^'""l °^ '^P*"'"' ^'^ '"'« *»« December 
 ■ 'llX ^T''^'"' *' ^^ ^'""^^ »*y«' **« important point 
 ^.,^ .!.''*! ^"^ ""^ ^"^ °" *^« ^^^^ °f the Rhine, at 
 Dttsseldorf, where his father was a merchant. In his " Eeise- 
 
 „* fr J *^?' "' """"^ recoUections, in his wild poetic way, 
 of the dear old town where he spent his childhood, and of 1^ 
 
.# ***-^. m<:idm9m^\ 
 
 HBINRICH BBmB. 
 
 63 
 
 *lK)olboy troables there. We shaU quote from these in but- 
 
 o«to, and MM into f ore gn land^ Belle'e me TI«^' ?"^ ''"° 
 one utter folly which, in tunc iTu lav in a^l^h^ .^'^ ""f^ ""^ 
 growing on the Johai^nUberg. . Hon Dleu m, , h-T'? ' "■!" ""' 
 
 ::rrn.ortaiTi=nrwTi^H^rr^^^^^^^ 
 r«?:wTihi*r"-rar.2f3 '^^^^^^ 
 
 seven cities— Schllda. KrShwinknl v^n^, i ^' ^' ""^ ^«»*> 
 Jer«, and many hu^3r:dT„^fmentVld™ f btiT.h ""*" "™ 
 
 brated doctor,, who «ved soma^^rJom d^^^^.^S""'.""''' '^"^ 
 themselves. And the Dioim it™,^ if "»f _,<*«*'''. wd yet must die 
 WM a child, alsoZs b^Z'^^e 'Jf."^^ T '" "*' »™" ""^^ ' 
 d>e loved th'e scent of r^fs^ w™l S lifeTd w hCJ' °'' "" «^»™ ' 
 incense and goodness The knowing .Ju V **" "" P"™ '^»«- 
 
 XTng z^zr^^^^^Sz^izi^^T-^-^ 
 re^i.r^z;rw;.rrHrSr^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 snatched thakittenorof the wa^rlTfelUnhi,l''il<r'T "■" *™"'' 
 
 in that day were not the tormented race thev a™ nnt??;; ' ' "'** 
 firmly on their heads, and at nirtf «^ T ? ' ""* ''™™ 8rew 
 
mm^jKM/rr-^€^.m^-i 
 
 M 
 
 OXBXAN WIT; 
 
 JoTirim M* T""*' ,''°''«'*".'tte Bun rises as usual, and 
 uThX, f.i' prodaimed Grand Duke, whereupon uZ 
 IS a hohday at the public school, and Heinrieh (or Harry, to 
 ttatwas h,s baptismal name, which he afterward had tte 
 ^ taste to change), perched on the bronze ho«« of L 
 Electoral statue, sees quite a different scene fxom yesterday's!- 
 
 chronology, the ^ouns iTi^'ClZ'^^^^^^'ZZ^"- 
 geography, mental arithmetic l-heavens I my he«J li ,tUl dW^rh 
 lt,-allmuBt be learned by heart I And a greatdail of tM.^ . 
 
 less dates. And with arithmetic it wae atill woi™ wJ .V J^ "^" 
 in such a case to borrow a few BrtrT^^T ? *^^''* """^ °°» 
 
 pn^wr.:^n^-rer:h:rryLrt£^^ ■ 
 
HWNRICH HEINE. 05 
 
 d.Wl. God know. th/,X,^T.nd:^dTver T " '"Zl"",,"'. ""• 
 It went aomewhat better for ' h J^ .i_? ,' ' • ^'"' Hebrew 
 
 though to thi. very hour t'ev ^rL^f, "^Alf *" """S '»"• ^^e Jew., 
 t^'>'^'o:^ir,S,bZLXy'Z^7>,^^'^'^' I''"I«ou'd neve; 
 oourwwlthpawnbrotoni M^Hn .hi ' ''"' """='' '"n"'"' Inter- 
 
 -for exan,pn^!Z'.r;'o:'^iS;.™'™°'«"^' Jewi.hb.bit. 
 
 Heine's parenta were apparently not wealthy but hi. «^„ 
 o^nwa. cared for by hi, uncfe, Solot,7ie, ^^rt 
 bMker in Hamburg, so that he had no early pecuniwv di^ 
 vantages to struggle with. He seems to ha/e bTe™ ^' 
 
 "Bn!^.'"'^^r^r'* "'"'«"=« andaffection, Z k> too 
 
 toe o^'aT ^7), P'""'* 'P'"' "" «'^ay8 subdued by 
 
 S, h^J^ r"*"™' ""'* ''°'' ^^' ^"^o '"« tte horn* S 
 ma Heart after restless weary wandering:— 
 
 "Wie mschtig auoh mein Wolzer Moth ,lch blliha. 
 todeiner«elig.a»iien,trautenN»he 
 Eigrelft mich oft ein demnthTolie Zagen. 
 
 Und Innner Irrte ioh nach Liebe, imnier 
 
 end kehrte um n«,h Ha^e, kranlt and trube. 
 Dooh da bist du entgegen mir gekommen, 
 
 n^». !,™„'^" '" '*'''«'■" -*"«• geKhwommen, 
 Da« war die sUwe, langgesuchte Liebe." 
 
 He was at first destined for a mercantile life, but Nat,ir« 
 declared too strongly against this plan. " God^lTowf''^ 
 
 ^lii T^'^'^j" """^"^^^^ with his brotherf^TwouS 
 ^mgty have become a banker, but I could neve bLTm^. 
 setf to that pas.. I very early discerned that bankers S 
 one day be the rulers of the world." So commerce wis at 
 length given up for Uw, the study of which he beg^ iTTsiQ 
 
 SetST'"""' f"^" ^«'""' alreadypuS'Z! 
 poema in the oorner of a newspaper, and among th«n was on^ 
 
li^ 
 
 "• OBRMAK WIT: 
 
 on Napoleon, the object of his jouthfal enthuium. TWi 
 poem, he layi In a letter to St. Ben^ Taillandier, wa« written 
 when he wm only liiteen. It is itUl to be found in the 
 "Buoh der Lieder" under the title "Die Orenadiere," and it 
 proTOi that even in Its earliest efforts his genius showed a 
 strongly specific oharaoter. 
 
 It will be easily imagined that the germs of poetry sprouted 
 too vigorously in Heine's brain for jurisprudence to find much 
 room there. Lectures on history and Uterature, we are told, 
 were more diligently attended than lectures on law. He had 
 taken care, too, to furnish his trunk with abundant editions 
 of the poets, and the poet he especially studied at tbit time 
 was Byron. At a later period we find his taste taking another 
 direction, for he writes: "Of all authors, Byron is precisely 
 the one who excites in me the most intolerable emotion; 
 whereas Scott, in every one dt his works, gladdens my heart, 
 soothes and invigor i; ^s me." Another indication of his bent 
 in these Bonn days was a newspaper essay, in which he at- 
 tacked the Romantic school; and here also he went through 
 that chicken-pox of authorship—the production of a tragedy 
 Heine's tragedy— A Imansor"— is, as might be expected, 
 better than the majority of these youthful mistakes. The 
 tragic collision lies in the confiict between natural affection 
 and the deadly hatred of religion and of race— in the sacrifice 
 of youthful loTers to the strife between Moor and Spaniard, 
 Moslem and Christian. Some of the situations are striking, 
 and there are passages of considerable poetic merit; but the 
 characters are little more than shado./y vehicles for the poe- 
 try, and there is a want of clearness and probability in the 
 structure. It was published two years later, in company with 
 another tragedy, in one act, called "William Bateliffe," in 
 which there is rather a feeble use of the Scotch second-sight 
 after the manner of the Fate in the Greek tragedy. We smile 
 to find Heine saying of his tragedies, in a letter to a friend 
 soon after their publication: "I know they wiU be terribly 
 cut up, but I will confess to you in confidence that they are 
 very good,— better than my collection of poems, which are not 
 worth a shot. " Elsewhere he tells us, that when, after one of 
 Paganuu's concerts, he was passionately complimenting the 
 
W^ 4^ _ ^•'^117^ ,,• • ^"G. 
 
 HBINHICH HBINlt ^f 
 
 S^ "fiuTh^'"'* violm-pUytog, P.g«,i„i tatorrupt*! hi« 
 
 In 1820, Heine left Bonn for Obttingen. He there Dur.n«l 
 
 flnt ordeal of lovers and poeta-a refusal. It waa notTnti^ 
 year after, that he foui.d a Berlin publher f^is flm vol 
 
 Zk "'%y°""«*'" """»''«" °f a "We which almbledT 
 he valued her influence. According to hie fZnd F von H„ 
 
 w^th much head-ehaking and opposition. We can imamne 
 how precious was such a recognition as hers to the y^ung ^t 
 tten only two or three and twenty, and with by no Tehran 
 unpressive personaUty for superficial eyes Perh»^.^!^ *v 
 deep-sighted were far f rom detecting"^ n that JS Mond' 
 ^e yovmg man, with quiet, gentle mLnerMhelt'nt pTwl 
 Tvl^ ^J! f^ sarcasm-the te.rible talons that were Ce 
 day to bo thrust out from the velvet paw of the youngle^p^S 
 It waa apparently during this residence in Berlin that E 
 umted himself with the Lutheran Church. H^^oM 
 m^y, like many of his friends, he tells us, have remaned 
 free fe,m all ecclesiastical ties if the authorities there h!^!^ 
 foroidden residence in Prussia, and especiaSy l^'^S.^ 
 
[I ,' 
 
 '*' OERHAN WIT! 
 
 every one who did not belong to one of the podtire teligions 
 recognized by the Bute:— " 
 
 «Aj H.nry IV. ones Uughlngly Mid. 'Pari, taut bin mm m«M(.' lo 1 
 might with re«„D «j,, -B^u^ ,„„( w„ u«p,fcA« •; »n«i I could Ut.ii 
 .T .: .^ J ««'"»»'««'•'• "-y"" 10 th« vary enllghUned Chrl». 
 tUnlty, flltr»t«d from «11 .up.i,iltlon, which could then b« h«l In the 
 ohurohM of Berlin, and which wu eren free from the dlrlnlty of Chrlet. 
 like turtle-eoup without turtle." ^"""i. 
 
 At the same period, too, Heine became acquainted with 
 Hegel. In hii lately publi»hed " Oestandnisee " (Confee- 
 eions), he throws on Hegel'e inHuence over him the blue light 
 of demoniacal wit, and conlounda us by the most bewUdering, 
 double-edged saroauns; but that influence seems to have been 
 at least more wholesome than the one which produced the 
 mocking retractations of the",C!..8tanduisee." Through all his 
 self-satire, we discern that in those days he had something 
 like real earnestness and enthusiasm, which are certainly not 
 apparent in his present theistio confession of faith:— 
 
 "On the whole, I never felt a etrong enthuilaem for thla phlloaoohv 
 and oonvlctlon on the subject wa. out of the queatlon. I never wa. u 
 ZT'l T l\ ""' ' ""P*"* 'he oyntheela of the Hegelian dootrine 
 without demanding any proof, since lUconwquencee flattered my vanltv 
 I was young and proud, «,d It plea«d my vainglory when I leamid 
 ftom Hegel that the true God was not, aa my grandmother believed, the 
 nlw w .T '° '"f*™"- •>« "y*" 1>«™ upon earth. Thi. fooliah 
 pride had not in the leaat a pemlclou. Influence on my feeling, • on the 
 oonl«ry it heightened theee to the pitch of herolam. I wa. HftllaUime 
 •o laviah in generoeity and .elf^aoriflce, that I most aawiredly have 
 ec lp«d the mon brilll«,t deed, of thoee good bmn^i, of virtue who 
 
 mo™ii^'» ' """ "' ■'"'''• ""* ""■p'y "^^'^ "« '•*• •' 
 
 His sketch of Hegel is irresistibly amusing; but we must 
 warn the reader that Heine's anecdotes are often mere devices 
 of style by which he conveys his satire or opinions. The 
 reader will see that he does not neglect an opportunity of 
 giving a sarcastic lash or two, in passing, to Meyerbeer, for 
 whose music he has a great contempt. The sarcasm conveyed 
 m the substitution of reputation for mtuio and Joumaluf for 
 mtuieiam might perhaps escape any one unfamiliar with the 
 sly and unexpected turns of Heine's ridicule: 
 
to »• underwood ; wd hViwri.T.^.i;^„ ; ' ?*L'"' '"' *'"''«' "ot 
 with modifying pMnthM^h.i^'^i'" "' "P^nkllnghi. dl«,ourt, 
 
 Tbu. .very „„, ln*B.^!rw^J^'d "^tV. l' U 'r'"" "r '"•""• 
 Ih. profound Hegel with the Ut^HelUrh n ^v""''»'''°"'*'P <>' 
 Meyerbeer, who 1, uul».r«llykD„w» hi h,"'' * '"'■'''''"''' «'«''"'o 
 l».n celebrated by the oreKur^.n'u ' xrilll'"' -"* T"" "» 
 rich, wu a thoroughly itunld felln. .„h , J T * "*"■' "•"•'y Heln- 
 d«>l«,d 'n.t»clle by hi. family ^^'^r..^*!? *" .'«.rw«d «t„.lly 
 •n...«i of n.aklng a' naJ^To 'b.^f/Vn J",^;;K"r''-'|:'P. ^-^ 
 hie great fortune, he «iuander«l HTi^ J *"'*"™ ""y "»»"• of 
 
 .xamplo, one d.^ b^ughT^x^^dZT "",«''"'*!'* '"«™ ^ ">1, for 
 Thl. poor man. who hfd no wUhT^l^Z 7°"" °' "'*"'«•«"='» 
 tilt, or for a great «ar.iffl«r nr fo/. , ^" '""' " «"*' ""g'" drama- 
 
 •tleke-thl. degenerate Be.;"tyM !j^f!!^«^'' "°°V 'orwalklng- 
 hewa. the phllo«.pher'. Naiom frT^ndTi " °?"' ""^dentlal «x!lety ' 
 him everywhere like hi, eh^l S f?''"^"' ""^ •«<'mp«>lrf 
 Mendel«ohn once «.u^ht to ., plain ,1,:'^"'' ""'' "'' 8'"«1 Fell, 
 that Hegel did not uncS>t«d Helnrl.^n P'"T'"''° ^^ "•""t.lnln, 
 that the real ground of ttiTlntT^rJ ^'\. } "°" "*""•- howeverT 
 Tlnced that nf word of what Se Td'w^°? '^'^ '" *?"-«<'«•' "" con! 
 •nd he could therefore in hi. .! " "ndemtood by Helnrlch Beer- 
 
 i~.uai out^X"of ri-ir^^f ^e-riie-^ir"^^ 
 
 wa* a aort of monologue alihed fnrth hL .P- f ' ''"K"' ■ convenatlcn 
 oddro^thn... of hireip'^fX;^^^:^^'" »»'«'«« voice. '-< 
 have remained in my memory One b«^,Hft,i .' "'*,"*'y <" them 
 •tood together at the wlnd^ .^h i . '*»'"""' 'twUght evening we 
 h.vlngj'L had >r^aZ»^^i'nJ,Z' ""'.°' ""o-'^d.twfnty, 
 thu.l»,m of the itaTand ca°*^Th™^h 1? m^ ?""' '^"'"= ""i »* 
 But themaater mutte;e^^"'itlV ^^'e .J^' ^ ""IV' '^'' -'""^• 
 
 :s:e!"^r'iJ^"i'.'.rrr°- 't- '^o '^^ '- nt^^ir^vr 
 
 war^W\t:'dei'th'?'"But'h;".''ti.r/ 't'"' •^:'' "'■'" ^'^- '« - 
 cuttingly, ' So you want a iSn,^ "! h T "'? "'" •»'« "y™. «'d, 
 mother, 'and refrained from v^Z^inl ^^^ '^JH^'L '^ "' y""' "'»k 
 woria he looked anxio^r rWd l^,! f °" l!??^ ''«'*"' ' At tk«. 
 When he obeerved thatTt wLTnt H.lS^Kn^ Immediately «,t at reet 
 to invite him to a g«ne of whitt » "" ^'' ""o "'«' «PP~«cl'ed 
 
%M. 
 
 70 
 
 OBRHAN WIT: 
 
 proseoutlng his professional studies diligently enoogfa to leava 
 Gattingen in 1825 as £>oetor Juris. Hereupon he settied at 
 Hamburg as an advocate, but his profession seems to have 
 been the least pressing of his occupations. In those days a 
 small blond young man, with the brim of his hat drawn over 
 hu nose, his coat flying open, and his hands stuck in hU trou- 
 •er-pockets, might be seen stumbling along the streets of Ham- 
 burg, staring from side to side, and appearing to have small 
 regard to the figure he made in the eyes of the good citizens. 
 Occasionally an inhabitant, more literary than usual, would 
 point out this young man to his companion as Heinrieh Heine ; 
 but in general, the young poet had not to endure the incon- 
 veniences of being a lion. His poems were devoured, but he 
 was not asked to devour flattery in return. Whether because 
 the fair Hamburgers acted in, the spirit of Johnson's advice 
 to Hannah More— to "consider what her flattery was worth 
 before she choked him with it"— or for some other reason. 
 Heme, according to the testimony of August Lewald, to whom 
 we owe these particulars of his Hamburg life, was left free 
 from the persecution of tea-parties. Not, however, from an- 
 other persecution of genius— nervous headaches, which some 
 persons, we are told, regarded as an improbable fiction, in- 
 tended as a pretext for raising a delicate white hand to his 
 forehead. It is probable that the sceptical persons alluded to 
 were themselves unbroubled witii nervous headache, and that 
 their hands were not delicate. Slight details these, but worth 
 teUmg about a man of genius, because they help us to keep in 
 mind that he is, after all, our brother, having to CAdure the 
 petty every-day ills of life as we have; witii this difEerence, 
 that his heightened sensibility converts what are mere insect- 
 stings for us into scorpion-stings for him. 
 
 It was perhaps in these Hamburg days that Heine paid the 
 visit to Goethe, of which he gives us this charming littie pic- 
 ture: — 
 
 When I visited him in Weimar, and stood Iwfore him, I involuntarily 
 glanced at his side to see whether the eagle was not there with the light- 
 ning in his beak. I was nearly speaking Greek to him ; but, a» I ob- 
 swTOd that he understood German, I stated to him, in German, that the 
 plums on the road between Jena and Weimar were very good. I had tor 
 
WM-^MF' lkW_^AZ tHL ^ #^- 
 
 HMNRICH HEINB. 71 
 
 k/Sfhu" °T "':/'»«' H^^e produced the most popu- 
 &mg8)-a volume of lyrics, of which it is hard to say whether 
 
 poetay to politics, from criticism to dreamy rererv and W^^ 
 
 ite^ever-varymg shimmer, like the hues of the opal. ^ 
 Heme s journey to England did not at aU heighten his re- 
 
 awkwardness IS as merciless as—Tfnoii.i, .-j- , "'"^j^g"«n 
 awkwardneo- w« ^" A **— ™8"sl' ndicnle of German 
 rfrl^ ii, ">*•?»' l-y toward us seems to have gtoZ 
 
 aZl""^""^^^"^' -embitters are undei^'tood^'S^ 
 
 menury di^t might be^f'^e in"^ TiMn'rl'"^'; ^T '?• "»■ 
 the mass, I easilv forimt .ho ^I k '"J"*"™ ; and on looking at 
 
 f^^j^e^'LXrn^L^i iTor^^ Zt T '"""■ 
 
 daily the British noptj. »...<, .;- 1, . "^eooni- But these, espe- 
 
 with U.e rest o ICi'orC ^tolstLT"" ,"'""'«•' '» '™''^ 
 relations ; and beslZ.T.», 5^ f "*^ ""'y™ '° *«'■■ national 
 
 their sufferings. The m^S^^ ^nllUh M ;,^ "f"' "" ^'«°"» <" 
 
73 
 
 OXRICAK WIT: 
 
 •wkwMtl p ety i, met of all odloM to me. I am firmly conylnMil ftat 
 
 : v"r^r^n^T " ' ■"°" ^'"•"« "«'" '- ^^^ d"1^.si' 
 
 in Siti^/th^,^"" ^°*^^'^ ^'"°" '^'^ '«»Pl°y<l "* Munich 
 m editing the^%m«,»«, PolUuchm Annalen: but in 1830 
 
 he was again m the north, and the news of the July Bevolu- 
 
 tion surprised him on the island of Heligoland. He has given 
 
 us a graphio picture of his democratic enthusiasm inftose 
 
 ^^^1.^ r""- '"""';'''. "PP^^Iy written from Heligohmd, 
 which he has inserted in his book on BOme. We quote ^jmi 
 
 SCr/'r'""'^*" f'" '"'"S^'P"" "terestas'showi^n 
 m^ n? h '^'^^ ^^*°T' ''"* ^^^ f^oy are a spl,i. 
 
 men of his power in that kind^of dithyrambio writing which, 
 in less masterly hands, easUy becomes ridiculous :- ^ 
 
 "The thick packet of nempapere arrived from the Continent vcith 
 tt»8 warm, glowing-hot tiding,. They were sunbeams ™S^' . "J 
 
 ^pr\rs^n-r^-^ori-:i-;L'x^rirmX^^ 
 
 Paris, to be convinced of it with my bodily eve. I. rn„^ T. *? 
 
 ^•,;^-f; '""» t^-K" the s^^tei»„o'f\?o'^orii'"^°; 
 
 ^-llke old m^, with his silver locks streaming do™ Us mI^S 
 
 t^™.l^- • ■ • ^' '^"' "'"» "" d»" »"» »y«. the grrd<ii!d^ 
 ttoee who once fought with him for freedom and eq,Sty. It?, 
 
 now sixty years since he returned from America witt, th7b;clam on 
 ^^w'!'^^'*-;?" ''~'"°8"« »' vhe world's new c^^.^^I^w^ 
 revealed to him amid the thunders and lightning, of oan3. IZ 
 
 ^tricolored flag wave, again on the t^wer. of PartT wTd ti litreea 
 jrrJLr ""t^ Marseillaise. ... It i. all over wiUi my ye^^ 
 \JT^' ' ""r "'"' »«"" """t I "'" <»». what I ought to do^w 
 l^Z^°- • • • I »"> «" »» of the Revolution, and^ze a«in Sb 
 t^lowed weapons on which my mother pronounced her magic^Md^ 
 1 ^' : ■ ,■ ■^''"'*" ' *'°'"'™ ' I "'" "o™ my head for thedeath flrtf 
 
 words like flaming stars, that Khoot down from the heaven. »nrt hnVn 
 np the palaces, and illuminate the huts. . . Wor<U lik^H^'.^ n 
 Jhat whirr up to the «venth heaven and sttike'^tSfpl^ hy^tL who 
 have skulked into the Holy of Holi«. ... I «n all Toy 1^X7^2 
 
i-'Ti 
 
 HEDfBICH HBINB. 73 
 
 thought, aglow: InvX l^^™^ ^^ *" "^ *"»'"• *"<» »' my 
 gulife. tS. Greek fl« ^E™n f.*^ '"'" """ "»• N" "»««' ""■>- 
 
 joy. .m.oughthTh.T"oni; a »rtoJ^'r:-^''"f '»"''''" *™' '« 
 
 which i. ,he bathi„g.pS^« ^d f^m ' n. ""f ""'« '»■"» "'»°d, 
 hare won I • Yes : ImUncfCl'v^h^ ^' ""'""8'?. ' The poor people 
 perhap. better th,i, we wii in^n,^"'' comprehend each evStL 
 Ton Vamhagen on" told me that Zn T.".' °' ^"'"""'g*- Thua Frau 
 waa not yeTknown tte Zi^rTir L'"?" "' "" •»'"» »' l^'P'lg 
 wJ^^theL:.owf„lc^!Z':^rhlv;tt r "^•l!-"" «>«--! 
 
 SSriC^a5rXTeuTtl'uo\Te ^t^^™"""- "-^^""S 
 
 Oh, ,f I could brafr's.eX jS XT' ""%he"d*'"'rr'"»" "•""- 
 
 master his gun and oartrldJLw \, ' i * ^°^ ^'^°'' •'rooght his 
 hurled with his felloXr^^^irr "^Vl' """« '«■"- ""d "» 
 the poor dog, like a monuSt 0° S th^^fre^' sUd^Ttl "T" '"'^ 
 gra™, day and night, eating but lUtta of t^V i!i .^ motionless on the 
 -burying the greater wt of It In .h! l^ ""^ ""** "" °"'«d him 
 his buried masW^ » "^ ' '" "■* '*^' P^'^P" " nourishment for 
 
 -for it cannot be called a oh^eLZ^onl^lTZ'^" 
 
 on them, ^beniT^r^Z^^'^'^Z'^fo ""oh h«i been shS 
 •iWer locks which U^a^l,l ^ ''^'" °' "^ enthusiasm. The 
 I-fayette, the he™ o"7wo S were°"it'°"V° *"" '"ouldersof 
 1-rruque, Which made a pitirWeMTeTr.fr^''"^''™^'"'" » b""™ 
 the dog Medor, which I visited in th«n - '."f"" "k""- And even 
 encamped und^r tricolotS Zl Ind i^nh^ °' "" ^"'"' "<• "•"«". 
 self to be fed-he was nM aTSl ti^^S .' ^"^ ''"'^''^ »"»''«1 hlml 
 brut». Who assumeS^" hL^elf mtiti f„'t M*' '"" """« "" """""y 
 with the French; and, 1 to mTv otwV"' T"' " o*^" '"'PP«'» 
 glory of the Hevoiution . X^^ '"^J^^'^S ' """"' »"* °' '^^ 
 promoted to the highest posts while ttrt^*^/"" P»»«""«<". Perhaps 
 tattle, modestly ,lU oSTof sT^u iSe ^ ^'^'"' "^^ *«'" ""^ «>» 
 BeToluUon." ''^^ " ""^ '"s P«ople who created the 
 
.:iyA-JlP.^iM 
 
 74 
 
 OERHAX WIT: 
 
 That it was not merely interest in Frenoh politics which 
 sent Heine to Paris in 1831, but also a perception that German 
 air was not friendly to sympathizers in July revolutions, is 
 humorously intimated in the " Gestllndnisse " :_ 
 
 "I had done much and anBerad much, and when the mm of the Jul» 
 Bevolution arow in France, I had become very weaty, and needed aonu 
 recreation. Also, my native air waa every day more unhealthy for me 
 and It was time I should «eriou.ly think of a change of climate. I had 
 vUlona : the cloudii terrified me, and made all sorts of ugly faces at me 
 It often seemed to me as if the sun were a Prussian cockade ; at night i 
 dreamed of a hideous black eagle, which gnawed my liver; and I was 
 very melancholy. Add to this, I had become acquainted with an old 
 Berlin Justizrath, who had spent many years in the fortress of Spandau 
 and he related to me how unpleasant it is when one is obliged to wea^ 
 rons in winter. For myself I thought it very unchristian that the 
 Irons were not warmed a trifle. If the irons were warmed a little for us 
 they would not make so unpleasant in Impression, and even chilly natuiea 
 mlglit then bear them very well ; it would be only proper consideration 
 too, if the fetters were perfumed with essence of roaes and laurels as la 
 the case in this country (France). I asked my Justizrath whether he 
 often got oysters to eat at Spandau? He said. No ; Spandau was too far 
 from the sea. Moreover, he said meat was very scarce there, and there 
 was no kind of xmlaiUx except flies, which fell into one's soup. 
 Now, as I really needed some recreation, and as Spandau is too far frjm 
 the sea for oysters to be got there.and the Spandau fly-soup did not seem 
 vraj appetizing to me ; m, besides all this, the Prussian chains are very 
 cold in winter, and could not be conducive to my health, I resolved to 
 
 Since this time Paris has been Heine's home, and his best 
 prose works have been written either to inform the Germans 
 on French affairs or to inform the French on German philoso- 
 phy and literature. He became a correspondent of the "All- 
 gemeine Zeitung," and his correspondence, which extends, 
 with an interruption of several years, from 1831 to 1844, 
 forms the volume entiUed " FranzSsische Zustande » (French 
 Affairs), and the second and third volumes of his " Vermischte 
 Sohriften. " It is a witty and often wise commentary on pub- 
 lic men and public events: Louis Philippe, Casimir P^rier 
 Thiers, Guizot, Rothschild, the Catholic party, the SociaUst 
 party, have their turn of satire and appreciation, for Heine 
 deals out both with an impartiality which made his less favor- 
 able critics— BOme, for example— charge him with the rather 
 
:6k4nE 
 
 MFJurm:^ 
 
 HBINBIOH HBIOT!. 75 
 
 inoompatible sing of reckless caprice and venalitv T it«r.h,- 
 «id art alternate with politics: we haT now a S^^ 
 George Sand, or a description of one of Horr^Ver^tt'^^io' 
 ture«^-now a criticism of Victor Hugo, or o7LisZ!now^^ 
 
 Sv i' "T*^ °' '^°*^'' - Kikbrenner,l~d ^ 
 sionaUy the predominant satire is relieved by a fiie «Ti^, 
 
 IJghtnesa, yet precision of touch, which distineuishes H^ 
 Wond any linng writer. The charge of v3y t^ louX 
 
 S^ a^^r,,". ' *^'^' *^'" ^* '■" P"1 *° ""^t^ from 
 wntmg and the accusations were supposed to have an irre" 
 ragable basis in the fact that he accepted a stipend f^iTtte 
 S^nch Government. He has never attempted to oonceS ae 
 reception of that stipend, and we think his statlenUta ll 
 " Venmschte Schriften ") of the circumstances SlhTch^t 
 was offered and received is a sufficient vindica^n of hilei 
 and M. Guizot from any dishonor in the matter 
 It may b» readily imagined that Heine, with so lar« « 
 
 st^'af '^l^^^'^ ■" ."« ^« « '■- coC^tiot waa* 
 soon at ease in Parisian society, and the vewT here were 
 bright , ■! intellectual activity and social en^ ent 'h^ 
 
 ^\hrrs offT' ^'T'^/'."^ " ^"^"^^^ ^hingfount^^ 
 fL!.r. . u*"^ °""' delicious descriptions wiU, amazing 
 
 Mtaon. Such a man could not be neglected in Paris and 
 Heme was sought on all sides-as a guest in disSsS 
 
 mans. Hm literary productiveness seems to have been W 
 thered by this congenial life, which, however, w^I^n to «Z 
 extent unbittored by the sense of exile; for stTlSslrh 
 
 Jy 11^ ^'T'^'' ''""' ^"^ '^' °''i««* °f denunciation 
 ^ ^ *^T*" Governments. Between 1833 and 1845 an 
 
 K" L^^rin""" °l*^;"SaJ-." "BieRomantische 
 ocnule (both written, m the first instance, in FrenchV the 
 b<x,k on BOme, "Atta Troll," a romantic 'poem -"Beuts^! 
 
 tolrmr'''"^'^''"'"'"""' '^'^ ^"^"^S ^" lo^tvSt 
 to Germany, and containing some grand passaees of H«rinn. 
 
 wrmng;andthe«NeueGedicht*,»a^ectiro'K;:^r 
 
76 
 
 OSRIUN WIT: 
 
 Among the moat interesting of his prose work. .»i ^ 
 volume of the " Sainn » -kjm. P • " *" *^ second 
 
 wnter, excited great indignation in (Clny, a2Tw^* 
 of vengeance on the dead, an insult to thTm^Cry oTTS^f 
 
 tisanship, and blSX Wil'^",^?:"'r "",""■ 
 duotion of this book, we see UnT. fv^'"* ?*"'*'' P™" 
 temper the oonde^tiln ^sed "Tt k "" '^"'' '*°"^'* 
 oppositl™. of nature beW^ ^Zd Borne^toTsA'*^'^ 
 
 .Pijtn^istic. despi^^r iu^a:.^^^^^^^ 
 
 rdam"S^T.i?:r^°ira^-^^ 
 
 .^'orirrTtiJy^i-^f^^^ 
 
 ing a denunciatory tone agXt trc^e^n^hT' " ^^ ""^"P'- 
 Borne could not forgive wEeret^l^ 4 °T"** "°''^- 
 
 these attacks Heine remained absolutely ZtT^^ ^ 
 
 m this volume published after ^fs d^ttw^wl '^''' '^'°*" 
 «i force Of long-gathering thunt.^'i^r^^^- 
 
set. 
 
 felt from his perpetual talk S^^ltii ' Z,y^^ ""^ "'-'<'y"«=« 1 
 ment, and .g»ln?;uticSr^''eTe"» at SbU V.™ r"""" "^ 
 hunt me out. At dinner, when I i,!^? toble, where he managed to 
 the world, he epolledXw^Lhrf? '.■"■??' '" "'«''«atlon. of 
 
 a'htttl, then my Innocent Vw t^ i. '/^ * y^" ' 'eet, A (a maarff 
 
 nniellable newiq«per.^d UienhU ,!^^^ ***f ""' "' *»" ""^ 
 one', appetite I ^ThifWaTort o/^^.rT'"' '""'' »«»"«» 
 exhiUmu me, and I ™n«?myi« bv^^H """" *"" °°* «™"y 
 Impawioned lndiffe.«nceX KjeSte^ M^.?" exee«ive, almoet 
 example, Berne waa indimmt Ui.t Im!^-*?.^ * * enthusiaem. For 
 I had nothingbetterto do^' tot^S^!?^' "^ "^ «"'y»l l" P"!.. 
 of the Exhibition o£ Pict^ I™u i?[SZ^^^"."''°««'»°»'^ 
 intereet in Art which i„d^ me to 4di?iS^ rw^J" '*"'"'" '^" 
 •neconcilablo with the revoIutlomuT^nlSel of Z H ^^~ °»^^ ^ 
 «iw in it a proof of my indlflerence^™,!?^ . "^"^ ' ''"* ^O™* 
 
 ity, and I could in my tZ .Tn tte Zf. *^\T'^ "»»« »' ""«>'«- 
 for him by talking all diZrSme ^f n^^„ ? ' ?""°"'' «»'«'*«■■'« 
 Reaper., Horace VemetTjnd^h . T^ J^i""* P'""™". of Robert'. 
 
 ne^oughtitwor:LV,"oX™t/!^riS„^^^ ■ •.'^' ^ 
 It i. needlen to my ; and once whon,r^^i IlS^ i "v'^'" ''"" '»"» 
 contrmdlction in my "uiZ T^LflL "?? """ ''*' ''*' '<"^^ «■ 
 •wer, 'Tou are miltok^ S,*-!^ t? "^'*" "'"" ">« '«""<al »n- 
 my work.. f» .T^^Dori"^ „rtrT^^'r T' """ '° 
 of my political principle. .„ myXJ:^^^^'^ -« X^olZ! 
 
 i1 
 
 )| 
 
n 
 
 OERMAN WIT. 
 
 wafwriS::!!'^ ■"" •«»-'<" '^o -PWt in which th. boc* 
 
 p.^rwh7^hf^l^ur;,r rJeZ'''' -•»'• -^ -'•^ 
 
 «d he atoned for It ".fflolently bv ttl .„^h T """ "'^ '"Potant, 
 
 •WlMt him, I never though .tout W™f. ^'t ^ "n>tenot a line 
 that en«gri him iejZu^''%\'f^^''?'«'^Pi't^ly;,ni 
 neither out of enthuaUum nor^'f u„ ' .n "^ °' ''''°- ^ "o «» 
 oooleet impartiality. I JZ h^ nelZ "* ' '.'"" '""'"'°'» »' ">« 
 •hd «i in painting the man I gTon m^^,^ »Pology nor , critique, 
 pre«nt of him ought feZLZ to ™Lm^ obeervation, the im^ei 
 •och a monument irdueThnJ.!!to th7!^» " » "^^ Portrait A^d 
 of our political game., w«.U^T„l™*^ 7™"'"' '"'°' '° "» "e" 
 laurel, oeruinly'^^A.Zrof^'^;;;^^""''^. """, «"»«>. "not the 
 
 feature,, without lde.il„tion_U.e m«e life him .i?Sf "'?""""• 
 for hia memory. He -», nulthm. . . " "■" """* honorable 
 
 Olympian god.^Hew..Tmi^ a deniroTthT 'w^°J "' "" °« 
 writer «,d a great patriot. . . BemilTn^ In , °"^ ' ''«''"» good 
 at thi, moment intte depth. of^w »ui , th„ J**"'' "'"'='' ^ '«' 
 
 for everything I have doW^d for"ve^?" ",T*^*' "■« -ufflciently 
 
 •hail defend myself neither f^l '"*'""?"""« I have deaplmd i 
 
 the ^piclon o^f venXr/rve for v^V','"'''''''"-'™ "« *^^ 
 ainaator, held .uoh '^H-U^Znunlo^'iTJ!^ "■" "'« "' *e 1„. 
 demand, .ilence. That would to a frTl^'^i ™ ' "'"'e™'" decency 
 tween Death «,d Exile I Zn tTou .ta^h . "*"'"'" '-P<"«ml^ 
 from the grave? WIthoutVaJcfr ? S "1 ,""' t.'T"*'"* ""<» 
 how noble It i. and nui-e I Tt Zj. , ™ '"""^ "««. ... See 
 
 the mob, any mo« tSX L^pZg^d rf t? """',"« ""> ""'^^ 
 
 r^iraSerw-^^^sr"-^^^^^^ 
 
 of the Catholic Church On VsT^t hT"^« *" '^^ "*«" 
 founded the story of h » ^^, ■ . ^ *^ """*"" afterward 
 of course n^Vi i^Td Zst?''"'''.''?' -^"^ '»"''» 
 Protestantism. In his '^O^L^n "P^*"" "l*"'!' he abjured 
 niaJ of this rumor , less het?« r^K ^T T"'"'""' » ''«- 
 Catholics of the so'laie tht; Z'dtrivtfrot'.f "''K* *"'' 
 new convert, than in order tT^tnff? **"' **''*' ^ » 
 
 -or. spiteful satisiac;;roftranJ/r inrx^::!^ *^' 
 
HEiNHicH mum. 79 
 
 lo» «t. But thirst™ „f^iJ ' •?? ' '^•° *•■" «l™»gh » wlli 
 
 to the clTll 1.W, there "oe'VS tto^T*^,?^,^ Performed Moording 
 my wife, whce famlir«elunch S^^^ *' ~'^'»"'">. •«<»»« 
 l«r mrri«ge Mored enough wSt e'S i »' Z " '"'1 ""^ "«'"«'" 
 BO aooonnt cum thi. Woved b.l,,-T„ oemmony. And I would on 
 Iw wIlgloM Tlewi." * "' uaeMlnea or dlMnrbanoe In 
 
 be many. In 1847 he t«u fL ""*"*"' «nd they were to 
 di««e which h« for elvL ve^T^'j'."''' **"'"" "P'"-^ 
 «ute Buffering The hl^tilT^ ^ ^"" to his bed in 
 
 of b6«ty, our beloved T^yo^MltoitT^ ""t "^w-bleMed godde« 
 J-t I Uy long, «,d weptT blttwli C^*^, ™ "" P"*""'- A« •>« 
 The godde« looked oompi^loilt'v „^n,» h? ""l' '"™ P'"«» »«• 
 «on»Utely, » if .he woSw «^ DLrthon '^nf " ?' '•™ "™ *'- 
 •nn., «.d thu. cMaot help ttS? » °' "**• '^°"' "»' ' I*™ no 
 
 from the's:^nTstoS'St'p!SiLTor:"t?" """ 'T^''"^ 
 inteUect has been shut out f^^l d^ ^ ""^°* '»«e^ 
 •U contact with society, except such a^ dtilTr "' -^"^ 
 owto his sick-room. TheterriW-7„ ^ *^ *""" ^^i*" 
 
 las eyes, the si,U o^^^L'tt^^^'Z^^t'T'^^r 
 nuse the lid of the other by lif tinTK^ i ""f ''* "^ ""^^ 
 alone is the beneficent geni^thrtstalirv •^«''- ^'"^ 
 know whether to call if^^^on or l^' "^^ ^"^^ 
 the torture that Heine retail h?.^ ^ intensification of 
 
 agination, ^htZi^JZt Cti^'''°"' ^" ^*^° '^■ 
 ity fills up a blank. rtJd«r;i, ^ ^ •nteUectual aotiy- 
 
w 
 
 OBRUAN WIT-. 
 
 MiMto the itnngMt thing* in the gnTMt muuMr. But wh«n 
 ha oame to an end, ha would roguidily lift up the lid of hi* 
 right eye with his finger to mm the impreeaion he had pro- 
 
 face, he would break mto Homeric laughter. We hare other 
 proof than peraonal testimony that Heine's disease allows his 
 genius to retain much of ita energy, in the " Romansero." a 
 Tolum. of poems pubUshed in 1861, and written chiefly during 
 the first three year, of his illness; and in the first volume <rf 
 tte VermiMhte Sohriften," also the product of recent years 
 y^ plamtive is the poet's own description of his condition, 
 in the epilogue to the "Bomanzero":— 
 
 thr„^h \ "•"1 ""*'. My J»djr 1, „ rtirunken thst 1 tm hardly «,,. 
 
 brother Merlin, for no green leaf rustle, about my niMtni»W!S 
 Paris, where e«ly and Ute I hear nothing but the romn^TS^iif 
 hammering, quarrelling, and piano-strumming. A^™ wftSou^,^ 
 d«.U. without the privilege, of the dead, who have ^d.^U tS wfTd 
 need write neither letter, nor booto-that i. a piteou. conditional^ 
 Jgo the meaiure ha. been taken for my oolHn and for my n«,ro°Sgy ^5f 
 I die i» .lowly, that the prooe. i. tedious for m. a. well « myWmdta 
 BMpatlenoe ; everything ha. an end. You will on. day Uu>i CSi 
 oloMd where the puppetHdiow of my humor ha. «, often deil^tS y^ 
 
 As early as 1860, it was rumored that since Heine's illness 
 a change had taken place in his reUgious views, and as rumor 
 seldom stops short of extremes, it was soon said that he had 
 become a thorough pibtUt, Catholics and Protestants by turns 
 claiming him as a convert Such a change in so uuMmpro- 
 mising an iconoclast, in a man who had been so zealous in his 
 neprtions as Heine, naturaUy excited considerable sensation 
 in «ie camp he was supposed to have quitted, as weU as in 
 '"^11 «rf '"'^^. *° *■"« Joined. In the second volume 
 JL^'Jh^^T r*^. "" ^^ "^"'"'ti'el'e Sohule," written in 
 1834 and 36, the doctrme of Panthebm is dwelt on with a 
 fervor and unmixed seriousness which show that Pantheism 
 was then an animating faith to Heine, and he attacks what he 
 oonsidere the false spiritualism and asceticism of Christianifiy 
 
.-•^.'ly 
 
 HiiinuoB Bxm. ^ 
 
 M the enemy of true \matj in Art, ud of mcU well-beln. 
 
 h««e.i but from the fwt that Tuitor. to hi. .iok-room 
 tawght .w.y ye^r T«iou. impreMion. „ to hi. •otul X 
 
 h.d found . temptmg opportunity for exeroi.. on thi. .u^ 
 
 ^r^t °°!/ ■'" ^"""^ •^"'' J'' "•• "ot inclined to 
 p«ur out unmixed win. to tho.e who uked for • «unple ou? 
 
 ir"d.tori8ti ^*;~«''''^*:'-p"o«««tothrc:^! 
 
 wl, . -. ? J ^T »PP«"»<J. "nidst much mystifying 
 S^rfinMl^'T *•"' ^' ^^'^^'^ TheUm%mdS! 
 
 n^e^d reliabUity to thi. alBrmation. wu the fact thatT. 
 took care to accompany it with certain negations — 
 
 IJt»«^d.Ul«i with no dogm», and have not utt«ly rraounoed Tj 
 Thi. Mund. like a Mrioug statement. But what shaU we 
 
 toS^^r" ""■ '"" '° "" ""^ ""* P^-' H« »y 
 
 "Coniolo thyself j we shall meet again in a better wnrM _h.„ x i 
 »«n to writ, thee better book. Ttie to,1^t ^Sit ^T^'S 
 ^11 thm, be Improved, and that Swedenborg lu» not dlS'e?^ 
 He relate., namely, with great confldence, that weXu pe^Ii^nv o^ 
 
 inat we shall there preserve oar ind viduallty nnalttrad .nH th.t ^k 
 What he te,.V.^L^ rrS!^;„':hrwllr,^^^^^^^^^ 
 
yww\W' r'^^^'j'm 
 
 " OIRHAM WIT: 
 
 tb» pMiOM who imd pUjid » gnat put on our .Mth. MoatofUwrn. 
 
 JL M^°.^T''.K"'"l'™'r^ • ludlcrou.,»«,. ror««npT. Z^ 
 W Jlr.l "t.^"^ "T' '■* '•' •■'■ "•""'"• «' 0««, .bout which to 
 
 t«n y ,«r. pr nted In th, •AUg.m.ln. Zellung- one «d the„mS 
 Jrt 01^ P-'P^-llJ ob.»l„g o».r.g..n Ih. oldcud of J«ultl»l d« "„T 
 
 found bTs^.".^' " '•"t" ""' ""^ "«"'«' "•" '»'<"' «•" no 
 found by Swedenborg In luch h .utt of foail Immuttbillty • m«.v 
 
 taT.oon.ld„,blyde«lop«l their oh««u,r, boU. forgo^^I,,^^^ 
 
 tta oth« world i wd thlig,Te rlK to «n>o .Inpilar re..,lt.. ft,™ who 
 
 jood-for-noth ng.; ,„d ther. wei« «x.mpl«, too, of a oontnuVuW 
 formwlon. For In.Unc. the funx. of «lf^onoelt mountJd^rA^ 
 ?^"j2:''°^.'""'i"" '•"»«» '"*»t lmmen«Ten.r.tlor.Td^o«tYon 
 !^. , . ^r""'* »"°P'»"o'". wa. nowqulte.n Impertinent ruol 
 a. mud. The chMte Suwnnm from h«ylng bin excewWelv ™in of 
 
 •he who once «o glorlouely reel.ted the two old men, w«, a Wotlm to 
 a. «ductlorjiof the young Ataalom, the «n of Daild On ^"l„^ 
 ^.lif, .""?'"":' ""^ '" """ '»P" »' tl™ "x^ome very ,™u^ 
 
 :cifrr«;^.ts.'^:.rL^';r ■"o^"" »« p^p^^^: ".e'oid^z:; 
 
 .^^^^l^^^^f^" ^ "tn^t-tion °' former opinion. 
 «^d prof«,on of Theism are renewed, but in a strain of irony 
 
 w i! T •y^P't'iy ""i baffles our psychology. Yet 
 whatstrange, deeppatho. is mingled with the audaoi^ of the 
 
 "What avalli It me, that entbnsiaatic youths and maldemi own™ ™, 
 mj^b e b»t wlO. Uurel. when the wltheL S>rof „ Z^°^ ^ 
 
 ro».of 8h rax glow and waft Incenw for me? Alaal Shlras 1. two 
 thou«nd mile, from the Bue d'Ameterdam, where, in Te Wi Jme 
 lonellne* of my elck-room, I get no K«,nt exoem 1 bT peZ^ Z 
 
 oSe^ZrAX^rtfr""-. ^'" '.««'''' -»"" -'«^^«^i>5^^'me° 
 «e great Author of the universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven wu h»nt 
 ondemonstratlng, with crushing force, to n«, the llttire;^^, 
 mim Aristophanes, how my wittiest sarcasms are only pltifulattomol. 
 
HMHRICH HHNK. gg 
 
 urged into -on-ZTiS g th.1r::|'u™°of "^^ "5''""'' 
 
 Ksr, j;:,i rat r t sH^" ° --« 
 
 P-Sn^X.^Se^'rlt^L' b.fo™ quitting H.in... 
 w Bome quartei of w^il '^•''"l* "oousation against him 
 
 d«u.tion2lize hto^lT'^d"' I^l"; ^"'""^^'' °''"'^^» *» 
 natira country. What^er L^nH '""* " ""y'" '8^°'" J"" 
 
 MHonMhatTrounTi: tT~T i r.er.^ 'l^V'"; ^ 
 
 «.ythi„g wtch^to a^h L'p"io"S,r' "^'^' °' '"'*«" 
 tme pateiotian,. He C^^rt^WH '^ moompatible with 
 
 iriah^to become natS^.ST^pt'e"' ^dT* *""•'" 
 toward his native land and the a^nrof CnJ™ T""^ 
 
 the political caricatures of a"rolf^S7hr","T 
 fences of Heine are his occasional oL~ and J 
 pulous personalities, which are r^r^ ft ^ ^" '"'■°"'- 
 are directed againsUSlwTnt^m \\1 S""" J^^^^ 
 are personalitie,. That these offenceT W tWi -"»« they 
 m men whose memory the world delLhfl? I l"«™dents 
 remove their turpitude, but Tisa fif^\^/°v"' '^°«'' "x" 
 ourco„aemnation^naiul :Jr^^^^^^ «Wd modify 
 to deliver our judementa nn . „,■ ■ , , *^'> "ndeed, we are 
 i»g up for our^a^teT o^rSKr^^T'"^ °"^- 
 -other. On this groundof coarseness'^^d ^^er^Ia^;:^^ 
 
M 
 
 OBRUAK WIT: 
 
 a«y be found against Heine -not, we think, on the 
 gromid that he hae laughed at what i. laughable iThis com- 
 patnot. Here u a specimen of the satire under which we 
 suppose German patriots wince :— 
 
 F^„^i ^ 1°'" the Bethlehem in which the Infant ftovlW- 
 ^n,1^^ ° ?■' "»^','' ""* 8»^» whimpering proml„ of ^UZn. 
 ^e world. Snt hi. onulle bellowed many u> ox. who afterwioS Xf 
 W. horn, were reckoned on, ahowed hlm«lf a v.^ h.™i^Su'te K 
 Zll^k""''^""'^ "■" "■• «*™'" revoluUonToTdCi. in 
 
 H^Ih .. J.*' tender-heartedne«of wmepenwn. fnutrntedOat 
 ZT™ ?^'"*:. ^" "»"»'«• •°«'°« 'he Blpontlne oon^SrtM. 
 -hrj^" '"■""don. braggart, who w»i alway. loudeW Zu^ 
 
 ■ttlke the fl»tblow, by cutting down a wntlnel who kept an important 
 
 what l_me I Canyon expect «> horrible, k bloodthiraty mact of mef 
 iM • i *"'■"'«*« sentlnelf I, who am father of a ftollVl And 
 tt . «ntlnel 1, perhap. ^ father of a family. One fMh«^f a family 
 kill another father of a familyf Ye.1 Klll_mnrd«"" ^ 
 
 In polhioal matters, Heine, like aU men whose intellect and 
 teste predominate too far over their imptases to allow <rf their 
 becoming partisans, is oilonsiTe alike to the aristocrat and the 
 aemoorat By the one he is denounced as • man who holds 
 ttomdiary principles, by the other as a half-hearted "trimmer " 
 He has no sympathy, as he says, with " that vague, barren pa- 
 thos, that useless effervescence of enthusiasm, which plunges, 
 with the spirit of a martyr, into an ocean of generalities, uS 
 which always reminds me of the American sailor, who Zd so 
 fervent an enthusiasm for General Jackson that he at last 
 ^rang from the top of a mast into the sea, crying, 'Idiefar 
 
 "But Oiou llert, Bnitn., thou UeM, C«»lu., and thon, too UeM. 
 A.ln^ In maintaining that my rldionle atta^ the« Idei^ oh « 
 tte preolon, acquisition of Humility, and for which I m™« h^™ 
 
 .tirr '^r^: '"" *" ^ ^«y "">" that thciTdeir^" 
 
 .tantly hover before the poet In glorion. .plendor and majeety to Utt^ 
 wZi™H'"?''' "1^°^ "'' •»"*«« '^" he «e.Crrude^ \X 
 3'^Sd^T"^*°" '-»•"•" ""ed and mirrored In tt. cM^ 
 traoted mind, of contemporarie.. . . . There are mirrora which t™ 
 «. rough a mf.ce that even an Apollo reflect«l In them^nJlSalaSr 
 
.msMW. jkm 
 
 HBnnUOH BBIMX. 
 
 85 
 
 ne..f Nature ha, nVrndflui „^ k ** '^' '*^ « '«'- 
 «^ iron «,d «iamanl, bu7of iZ o^/ •'^'" "»«-»' 
 *^ gnipe, and Puck's niLhieTOu. b™ V"' **"' J"""" "^ 
 iOw the dews of kindly^e^m ^^' ^^"""^"^J n>«u>g 
 ttonghts. It is, after aufr^^lM'-'"*' °* ""w! 
 ^ when they utter their brtt^t ti-^^"* ^" """»'«• P«y 
 
 view for the present, and. l^L ,, "" *^P* *^ Point of 
 • »«.. look at him :Sl i^r^« f ooa-ideration of him „ 
 
 Heine is essentially Hyrfo i«,t The^'^'^*" 
 W* genius are ' J' " poet. The finest products of 
 
 Sl-^'^"^r^?S^-S'„^,^^i--dingthen, w. 
 jnoment «.d by the same i^spiSn r^ ^"^ ^ *^« «««' 
 We and mercurial for any sS^" ,^''"'? " *«> ™pressi- 
 Bhort lyrics his tears ^mT^ Production: even in his 
 J««l>ter into tean^anTht? **" """ ^"K''**. and Ws 
 '•I>eutschland,^;fSfi^X^r' "^"»^»''aid 
 ka» a Wide compass of note.. ^!-^*°"'*°'^- His song 
 tl'e Northern sT^S'u/btr ^^t"" *° "•« ''^°'«' °? 
 picture, and dreamy fS h/ ?""''" eublimity of hU 
 the voice he give, to^ n ' " **" ^"^ '"^h our iears by 
 "Poor Peter'?; he l^",'^ ^?°r«. »' to the so.^^ 
 tjrious legend, a ghost-s3^ ort^jj ^ T "* '^"""J"'- 
 <rf h«d reality; he can chC u,^. " ^^^^ "»>'^«™« 
 with laughter at hi. overflow^ Z i ?""" '^^^' "^^ »» 
 «bon of surprise by the i^ZSi^^f k'':1"'"'P'^'«»^ «<«- 
 l«fly to the ludicroi. ThKtt, " *^"«<'»'» from the 
 *«Uy poetical; but only a wet L?° " °<^ ^^"^ essen- 
 «« « Heine, for only a p^cTL"' '* ""'' ^^^ "*«• -no- 
 P«>tation at such . heiLCtoTve'Xr*: 7°**°° »°'^ «' 
 give effect to the sudden fall. 
 
ti.4t-^Z. 
 
 "" OBRHAK WIT; 
 
 Heme's gieataet power m a poet lies in hi. simple prthos. in 
 tte ever vaned but always natural expression he h^^ ^ 
 tte tender emotions. We may perhaps indicate this SI^ o^ 
 «KZ^ "'""^^ **» ^"'d-orth's beautiful liWe ^* 
 Sh, dwelt among the untrodden ways "; the condusioi.r' 
 
 "She dwelt alone, and few could know 
 When Lucy oeaaed to be ; 
 But ahe is In her grave, and oh I 
 The diSetence to me " 
 
 is entirely in Heine's manner, and so is Tennyson's poem of 
 a dozen lines. oaUed « Circumstance." Both thWe p^S^° 
 Heme's pregnant simplicity. But lest this compXn^hoSw 
 
 S^Si JirWo7 t^ *^^ " »" generJr^m'bW 
 M^een either Wordsworth, or Tennyson, and Heine. Their 
 
 «y, the easy, ripplmg music, of Heine's style. The dis- 
 bnctive ch«ni of his lyrics may best be s,^n by comparW 
 them with Goethe's. Both hare the same mast^ly finS 
 
 ^Hed with Goethe's feeling-his lyrical genius is a 3 
 ^t taiws mo™ water than Heine's, and though it seei^t 
 glide along with equal ease, we have a sense of greater we^hS 
 «d force aocomp^ying the grace of its movemfnt. bIX 
 ttis very reason, Heine touches our hearts more strongly! to 
 songs are aU music and feeling-they are like birTSa n^ 
 
 us with their soft breasts, and make us feel the agitated beat- 
 ing of their hearts, fte indicates a whole sad h^to^^a 
 smgle quatrain: there is not an image in it, not a St 
 but It IS beautiful, simple, and perfe^; as a "big roLd ^ " 
 —It IS pure f eelmg breathed in pure music : 
 
 "Anfangs wollt' Ich faat verangen 
 Und loh gUubf Ich trug ea nle, 
 Und ich hab' es doch getragen,— 
 Aber fragt mich nnr nicht, wie. " ' 
 
 He excels equally in the more imaginative expression of 
 
HBINHICH HEOOB. 87 
 
 it in a little Vtory, hX^K.r/,"*"'' "'"i^n-tiz.. 
 forms hi, art i. .7^rfoft.Xf.^" "*^.'' """^ ^ «" *^»«* 
 
 vine-leaves and Va^dtt^nin "r*" *^«»t bruig* forth 
 Heine's humoro^CC'*..*?^"'^' curls of childhood. Of 
 
 ing «Pecin.e„-oh.rm7«pS^ hl^ ".^"' .°'°" •'^"°'- 
 
 ^ out of a rich w"I^S^l,t'^Tt;'''r';oir t '""'°' 
 onginal, more yarions, more &ntL«„. Z*™^^'"" " ""ore 
 •train on the imaainaJi™ I^ ^**'*'°i ''"* >t is too great a 
 ««d that feeCTtSelmen^ * <^^J^:'°^^- We have 
 habitually float, hnf \T "^'"^ ^*'''«'» P**"" 80nin» 
 
 nation F«w ,™^j * f °"^ '*""» "f l»ope or indiir- 
 
 ^at'S.^S'f'^rts.Sd""" \-?! ""«-. ti^ 
 King of PrusBirn^ * i^utsohUnd," m which he warns the 
 
 the Li^;^? rein; Si'^~"'"""' "'" '""^ 
 
 Date's terJwmaT l>™-the «»^f„j, yfo^ «, ^ 
 
 "KeiiMt du die HBllo d« Dante nlcht. 
 Die ■chnwklichen Tarwtten? 
 Wen d» der Diohter hlneingemem 
 Den kana koin Gott mehr^St^ 
 
 AiMdieaenslngendenflammenl 
 
 Nimm dlch In Aoht, dM wir dich nicht 
 Zu .oloher HOUe verdtmmeD." ■ 
 
 stores Smith h« published^ miie^iT»r.^^ """^ "*"'"'"' "»' M'- 
 from the Poetry of Helnrkh He^e^- and t^^ "nf'ning "Selections 
 «».lation of Heine-. ou^piZlZ b^^^'^!'"f ^""""""^^ 
 imring in shilling numbem. ' ^ ^"'" ^'"'*' '« "O" «P- 
 
^0%wnmB 
 
 88 
 
 OBRIUM WIT: 
 
 the Mid^e Ages, it la gracious and compliant to the ^^. 
 dears. But ^ these s«ne ladies were ofLTcrustyl J^S 
 «ve to their unmusical mates, so the German iS^Zt 
 ^^fr7 "JZi"^ "^^ unmanageable in the h^/^ 
 wnter. Indeed the number of reaUy fine German^p^S 
 
 pZT .t " ^f"'^'' ^^o <»n ooi^t three and nomor" 
 
 ft^gue W our walTwhe.rt^^i^reraTlorgL'J ".T 
 But m Heme's hands German p«»e, usually so hwv^ » 
 clumsy, so dull, becomes, like clay ^e hanZ rf »^2' 
 
 mJZJl"^' 7^ f ""'' ^^'"^ PreoiBiorASe 
 
 Sr:V„n^^emtrylLlv£S?stSr 
 .ubtle, so piquant does it Lome .^iZ m^^^ment \" 
 
 K ^.r'! "» "rtiBt in prose than Goethe. nThTnot ^l 
 
 KeaiSsXI-ort ""^-f-.-^-'oP-tStlong' 
 w uoetne s slyle, for they are foreign to his mental character- 
 
 S 5f Zt ^ " -"ceptibility to the manif^Tu^ ! 
 ftes of prose, and in mastery over its effects. Heine is f n ' 
 of variety, of light and shadow: he alternates be^^n «^ 
 grammatio pith, imaginative grace, sly Xsten TTl ^ 
 P^uancy; -d a^^art aU the^T^eA'^ruS a Tl StS 
 tenderness, and grandeur which reveals the p^t He co? 
 tjnually throws out those finely chiseUed sayinrwhicfstT^ 
 
 utter, it. thought^'there is^lgoth.'^'^^tu^^lrS 
 

 Bsanacu Bsam. gg 
 
 '•mb. W their CicSSL^tJ""'^ » ^^^ • »«»f hU 
 
 were BO strong that he ^''^^S'^T "* '^"*' «""''« 
 tte hundred-weight of cTh^hStL ,' """' ^. "P''* "^ 
 Speaking of Berne's dislike to tw!. "?« °" ^" '"S*-" 
 
 ftuti he says, "He wm Uke^ chil^.T.'""' °^ ">« t™' 
 glowing significance of a a.Ll .t ''^"*' """Mible to the 
 ble and^orplat^of ild » '*"*"*' ""'y '°"«^'» ">« al^ 
 
 ^ poetic sensibility? Td TrliTn' '" -^ ^"^ »'"^'' •'^ 
 Heine's humor is never p^sis^t i^ ^"-^ °* *^°"8bt. 
 •«y gayety and droUery;The™ U is nor' n"?."" '""^ ^ 
 of poetic feeling, it is .^it^uaUy da hi^' 'Tf'^J^ «"« *'<>« 
 of a witticism. It is not ^^I "Mhing down the precipice 
 
 -Prite-like, amoment^\i^£-'^,lrL*r'' '*»««ri'»land 
 Wb wit. In the " B^ebTue^ » t ! "^T ^' ^"^ "^^ 
 giimut of his powers, Z^vw J^L 1 *^°"«^ ^"^^^^^ 
 the wildly droU BiyitMhLVJ^ k "" °^ """"fH from 
 Hereis a pa.«^ alm^t'T t^^.^inTj'reStir.^"^''^^ 
 
 writ ng „„i„d, „^ i^olunt^if^'ir^; ""» many , polemloiU 
 ho.pit.1 at Cracow, of which n*.^LVfr'"°«.'»"»"'''. « » "tUe 
 WM horrible to hear how the nlnT^T ^ *' * witneea, and where it 
 with their InitoiMe, : C onTwho wS*""'^^"P"'«*«d "^^^ 
 at«.otherwhowae bloaS^ by 7™ JTh^.T" T''™"™^"''" J^'^ 
 C"oer in the nose, and tWe one aX 'J J °°'. '*"«''«* « »»<>U>«'» 
 "qalnt, until at l.it the delidoJ^fil ." ''«'8'"»'"» locked-jawor 
 
90 
 
 OBRHAN WIT; 
 
 ternL J!^ f ^ '' *^^ ^"' intenaified his satirical bit- 
 terness, have also pren his wit a finer edge and polish hL 
 
 2uL but for r^' «««ie".'bose sense of wit is no v.^ 
 acute, but for those who delight in the subtle aud delicate 
 
 SXl'e^ "' W " ""^ "^""'^ "^ -^y ^' more i^s SS 
 tlum Heme's. We may measure its force by the deeree in 
 wh.chitha. subdued the G«man language to ite pufZT 
 and made that language brilliant in spi^f abng he^K 
 t«nsrj«s.on of dulne«.. A. one of the most harLrei^ 
 
 ht'shL'oVaarJ '^' °" " ""- -'" ^ '-^^^ 
 
 move me to speak of his fault, u fnuikl, « „* w ■ ^'" *™'' 
 
 hlm«lf di.pro,e of thief Cu^lT^/' T^^' "'JT""' "■'" "• 
 higher honor to mwitminrtrrt,^ I 1 know that we cannot do 
 
 their demerTt.l.'^ttd °^er?r WhUn" *^""'f' "">"« » "«"' ^ 
 cnlee, we mu« ^^=1 ,„n S.theTn» Wd «Tdf t'hi'r "^ "L* =•" 
 
 f !Lr.^:7„nr . °<ftr,n ^r^f; '- r-.'-P^"^ 
 
 stand German i V... t fT>l™ly, M. Coiain does not under- 
 
 oJ^^STnT^the bitU^^^rofTamf "y:"" '""" '"^ '™' ™«- 
 ^fraln from h.tterly hl^rnrM^.t^i^n^^^^.n^^r^LTor 
 
tffH 
 
 Uk^ 
 
 K.'^ 
 
 BSDxmcH HBnra jj 
 
 tenth Itr mora than he lom Pi.»n .-j ^ 
 
 phllo«,pby of Schemed h4S? ^„« ^'^,."'°""^"'« '«>«' »"« 
 
 thl.honorrtleman h« not.^m « L <2, "S^"""* ""' »nMlen„l 
 H h. brought home any,^!^ o/tte,» if^" *"""'> ""O «•«•'• «<» 
 ThUdoee honor to hi. h«^u Bnl^i "" °""'^' """'' fr'»<l«l.ip. 
 
 •tolen .liver .pooM « t2X,r'i ^h^ "? '"'° """^ ""' "« "-i 
 poor devil h«l'never been p:^"^,^'"' * P"^J'' »• »» ^^ th.t the 
 
 P«l«e. No I In GermJ^hlhSZhvMn'.'^ '**"»«>•«•' •««»'« 
 •Ixth commMdment hm> he h!^'„ '^r"" ■"" •■»»y" kept the 
 
 »™l. « . «lt*poo„ of^ ?de^^ AU^iS!^ ' ■"'8" '"»• »»' ~ 
 in thi. reepect M. Coa,In U hlor^Tf '^^xT"k"' ""«">•« t«-t 
 the renown of M. Coueln, like the J^Lh i," ^J^P*""? «o you thM 
 fte world ! I he» «,me oLe wioWl^f n !,°"'."??' "'" «» "™d 
 
 JJoS«^^f'--''«^wo^r«*„^^;r^-"c:;^' 
 
 conducted me told me thMthe klnTnn ^'"'iPP«- The friend who 
 
 «««i houn,, but Uuu foJiJ?^ be ""wTto'^Er^ °° "" '«™" °°'y " 
 *»i>e.. ' For five franc. I • I crteT^I^ ^ "*" " "' "™ '"A" 
 J.0W him«lf for money f • • 1^ b^rl^ ltT""*°,'' ' '"«' i"* "■«» 
 ^Wen. In thi, way: tlire l» ,^7^1 „, ', '*°™ '" """"V. «n<i It 
 
 ^ king for five !,,„,, , [^ !^°T!? «'"7 'o"lgner to .how him 
 
 «ng r.i» hi. eye. to heaven .rSh?,L^!?n^.'''^ "• ""f^"* «>• 
 I' he would give twenty fraicrth/in^fr"f"°8'y™>'««'»rt; 
 I the foreigner gave flveS ttev [af J^""'? ']"«"'« Ma™eili.l„ 
 W">«'. window,, «d hi. l^Mty anLlrr^ l?^ "''""''K ""^er the 
 "tired. If ten franc, the" Xld^^ff^ ™ ""« ««"•««. bowed, and 
 they had been powewid wh™ S,^ v? '™'i»^. and geetioulated a. If 
 of .ilent emoti™~S bLJt,u^ appeared, who then, a, a"™ 
 ;««• Eng,i.h vC:^b^we?ef would r-*^" ""•• ^'»^^onT> 
 twonty franc, and then theTntt^jr™ '"°«'"™ "Pe-d a, much » 
 no «oner did the king appl ™ tteTrr^"""'"' 'J "» highen pitch = 
 •track up and roared out friSt?ulIv „^,7?? ' ""^S "■" M"«"laiee wu 
 for the «ke of putting an ^dto^A "»."' ^o"" Philippe, perhape only 
 W. he«t, and loS fn L Maln^ ""«*'* """"l, laid hi. li,S on 
 
 ^ time ^ith i.<Xt, i"."::;"fr '^'^- » •» »«^, Z 
 
BVAIfGELICAL TEACHING: DB. CtJMMINO. 
 
 QtVMS, a man with moderate inteUect, a moral standaHl not 
 higher th«i the average «,«. Aetori^ JZTul^ 
 
 ud of birth or money, he may moat ea*Uy attaSi power imd 
 wputatwn in Engliri. Booiety? Where i, Z^ oZhJ^ 
 mediocrity m which a .mattering of «>ienoe and eamSTwS 
 pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will bT^JJi 
 « wi^om, bigoted narrowness a, h?ly ze.1, jJ.^.'Z^ 
 as God-given piety? Let such a man become aT^InS 
 
 f^}^' ''•/'"J^!" ^^ •' P°"*"« to reconcUe sSS 
 i^with g«at ambition, superficial knowledge with thTpn*- 
 
 S.tt""trhi::^"^* Ti'"""^ » •^^^^ repuS z 
 
 T^?,\ hm shun practical extreme, and be ultra only 
 
 m what ,s purely theoretic: let him be stringent on ored^ti^ 
 ofr ^*'»«*"/^'^'»-<'n f-tingi unflincCg^KS 
 au the eternity of punirimient, but diffident of cS^^Sf 
 substantial comfort, of time; ardent and imagin^^Stte 
 prwaiUennial advent of Chriirt, but cold S^X^ Z^ 
 every other infringement of the ttah« ,„„ Let him fiVh for 
 wul. not w th the bait of inconvenient .inguUritTbut wS 
 ^t!.^"^^"'^"^*"^."' conformity. LefL bi Zd^ 
 at^«^ -f interpretation only when he want, to hurltoTte 
 
 l^ttS of ^ t ^i"""''"' "^^ •<i-«'~rie». but when tte 
 letter of tte Scriptu, 3 prewes too olowly on the genteel 
 Christianity of the nineteenth century, let 4n UMhis^rit 
 uahzmg alembic and disperse it in^'impaS-le^tter '^^ 
 him preach less of Christ than of AntichrS^; let hte. ie S 
 definit« in showing what sin is than in showing who U tt^ 
 Man of Sm less expansive on the blessedness of fiitt th^l' 
 the acoursedness of infidelity. Above all, let him mT^ Z 
 anmterpreter of prophecy, and rival Moore's Almanack K 
 prediction of poUtical event,, tickling the interested h^ 
 
i:VAKOEUCAL TEACHWO: DR. OClDIWo. 98 
 
 SpWt'^J'l^Sr'.S^j^Pf-! '^ lowing Wth. Holy 
 
 hi. ohuroh will be M orewded^L the Sw^ ^ th * *" 
 ho has but to nrint hi. ,..»,.,i. ^ P«»wgM to the open: 
 
 lihuiaadgoS^^tw^^ptrrr' *"•' '"•* *^"^ 
 
 •II evangdioa^ ladies Jhr,iil J^ drawing-room table of 
 "•ding " the droSt^t^'i^*!^, " ' r "'r "' " ««'»» 
 
 the'So^Su^d^w'lirehrr T'* "---tance. U 
 the week, in the pZencJ^^f l^t" H ^'<^^IS'> during 
 •plendM^ on sLCSr,,!! ^"'^'^ ^^'"^ ""1 1«7 
 athouWd eyaTamf r^L^^ " '*™"°'' *^« oy"""* of 
 
 hi. church or yeatiT He h^L^t ""* "'P**""'' "'"'""»' <" 
 other public .pS.. mnwor""!"*"'"*^ °^« «" 
 critioisn, of hiWand e»^. r -w*"' " ""•'J*'* *» f'' 
 
 pect.theretoT'o^rnSr-thSdS; ^'W'if '"^ ^r 
 gentleman on one side of the House's"* ^ ^°!«>™ble 
 
 and figure, shown up by Us W»hl. 1-^^ ^'!" *"" *"*• 
 
 fide. Even the soieStSctJSS^tw^H*'""?^'*' 
 incompetent, may see the h«f .3% l^ f' •* he u duU or 
 out onVbv one ftff^- If* ?' »»» audience slip quietly 
 .ituatiLV no Vlf hSn^ ^ ""-P^r y --^r'of th^ 
 writer of imiZy^nio°T '^^ ^'^^ ^^^ *e 
 
•• IVAMOIUOAL TKACHnrO: 
 
 hi^'TT'^'"'" •■• "•y f*^' •» •^griiod edition o< 
 A> with impunity, certain that thoM of hi^ hearer. whoT» 
 not.jr„,p.thixing^„o»,i.t,„i„ For the P^^'^": 
 b^d of critic, who go the round of the churche. and ch^ 
 «.d «e on the watch for a riip or def«rt In the ZiXrt 
 «n«ke a "feature" in their article: the olergy a« b^«Ii!^ 
 tte meet ir«.pon.ibl.of aU talker,. ForT.rHiorat fil 
 H « weU that they do not alway. allow thelTX'o^rto 
 
 m.^Jr r f u" ''^"''' ""y «" op«. to the critici,m of any 
 
 So^ w^.*^' °°'"'«" "•* P*«««« to *^' them wS 
 thorough freedom of .peech and pen 
 
 .lill!! J^tr 'u,*^'"'' »»»«/"'*"*"" o* "'•ri'*! teaching de- 
 Arable for the public good, tiat wo devote «,me p^^ 
 
 SSft J^'^Vr •"'^ °'"' ^°"' * P'«c»'er7tLneS; 
 popukrify and of the numeron. publication, in which he per- 
 petuate, hu pulpit labor., all circulate widely, and wme.^ 
 coTdmg to their title-page, have reached the^'.ixtlTC- 
 •and. Now our opinion of them pubUoation. i. the^ 
 oppoeiteof that given by. newpajer .^5^:,? do^. 
 2»We that the rcp«ited i.,ue. ^Z. Cubing.. ttSg^ 
 Sr„« r.^ ^»»°«'ficial effect on .ociety," but the r.verSe7«d 
 hence, little inclined a. we are to dwell on hi. naitei we think 
 
 li:i:ttr'*"f°^' '°'«-»k''of pofntinT^t i^SS 
 what weWiev. to be profoundly mirtaken a^d pernio oT 
 Of Dr Cummmg perwnally we know abwlutely noihing «; 
 aoquaa,tance with him U confined to a peru.al of W. worS 
 ui.'::^ -^Wm ...founded «,lely ontte m^^er Li^^Si 
 h^^.7^ ^f " '^°'° "^ ^» PW«- We know neithM 
 
 •topMcation a. hi. .tyle. For aught we know, he mav no2 
 only have tiie gift of prophecy, but may beetow he p~K 
 
 W ! Tl* *" ^'^ ^^ P~'' «"•* •« "ady to give W, o,m 
 body to be burned with a, much alacrity a. he inf« the e^ 
 iMting burning of Roman Catholic, and Purevite. rZTZ 
 the pulpit he may be a model of ju,tic, tru^^., ^^^^ 
 
Oa OVMlflNO. 05 
 
 "oi» «yu.<«r from hia twMshing. ' ""PW". M unUbla 
 
 Otart«ti*n%_no indioatiop of religion, rapture,, of deliaht ^ 
 Ood, of .pirita.1 communion with the Father He u «^f * 
 W m the forenaio view of Juetificatiot^d fweU.rLS 
 rabon u a wheme rather than a. an exp;,Wo. He in.^ 
 on good work. «, the .ign of ju.tifyin« f^duT^' Wi^V^H 
 
 tte .ponhmeou,, neoeewry outflow of a «,ul filled with DWn" 
 
 tori«l ^ '■'*''°°"' '^ ^^^ •"•"»•• »»"» Polemioal/the W.! 
 Sjaf """-"tantial, and U only epi jTcally de'vout ^i 
 
 23^' I '^'*' °"J°"*y °' l"" Publi.hed wrmon. ai» 
 
 SverT wi^^'^S' "l P'^J/PP'" •«^'"'» BomanU "lid 
 unoeueveri, with vindioahona " of the Bible, with t).« ~>ii»i 
 
 «d"t^.'5'^t°°' '•"p"'^' ~t''-ritifiiiV;ubKu: 
 
 ^or t™ ir^^l, "'r " » "t "f fringe in a hurried wn- 
 ttTpo™ r*?! 1^" "°1 o."" r*^' '" "" <ieinon.tr.tion that 
 
 tu™?„^r? ^If^'L ^'' "PP"" "^ 8^«"' ''i'h satirfaotion in 
 
 of ae'.l favorite exeroiae with him to form oonjeotJ^, 
 pL^?r^h^ "^''^ «ie earth i. to be burned up'lT^ 
 r^.?K • * "^Tu" .'""* ^'- 'W^iiberforce being olught up 
 to meet Chrut in the air, whUe Eomaniste, Puseyites ^d ^■ 
 fidd. are given over to gnashing of teeth. But?f reallTlt 
 itual joy. and «,rrow8, of the life and death of Ch Ut T a 
 ^mifestation of love that constrain, the .oul, of .ymLThv 
 
 weep over Jerusalem, and prompted the sublime prayer " Fa- 
 ther, forgive them," of the gentler fruit, of the SpLt Td 
 toe peace of God which passeth imderstandinglof Si tC 
 we find little trace in Dr. Cumming's discourses ^ 
 
 ills style 1. m perfect correspondence with Lhis habit of 
 
*• ■VAKOIUOAL TIAOHIHO: 
 
 «u writings har^ indtcd, no high merit: thav h>v. nk^' 
 
 ^IZ '^^ °' •"*^"- Tkroughont nine TolumJC^ 
 •lighted on no pMng, which in.p„«.d as u worS Ixtn^ 
 ing «.d pUoing among tho " b^rxti^Tlt lyllZ^ J^ 
 «oh M Bobort H.11, Fo.t« the EmyV«^«S xS 
 
 we feel ounelve. in oompuiy with • roluble retail talte 
 who^ Unguag, „ exuberant but not exact, and tTwhonT^ 
 
 S SS^intowti:::^ "^T^- "" "B^m^t'con^! 
 and in lit^i JI ^" "Merbon and vague declamation. 
 «nd in hi. love of ornament he frequently becom«MtawSJ? 
 !•» example, he tell. n. (Apoc:8ketoh,n"26S JS 
 
 «nd Newton come, from hi. .tany hom^-Linnasn. frnnTw. 
 flowery re.ting-pla«^-«,d We^e/and Ht^n^rt^^iT™^ 
 
 STrK*^^ '* "^^ ^"■«« «>' Chained to ^otiSl; 
 
 that aU they learned and elicited in their reapeotitn^T^^ 
 ha. only ..rved to .how more clearly ZtH^li T^ 
 U enthroned on the riohe. of the unirene »^d^T^ 
 « mjunotion to hi. hearer, a. ZtZ^ .htfd oh'oT': 
 residence within an eaar diatanno «♦ «v-„l •""•"u oooom a 
 
 in the aunshme of the oountonanceof God." Like mI^ 
 *r. of hia claas, he is more fertUe in imagin^t l^^Le 
 
 Sonpture. hUing up the outline of the record with an eUtorato 
 *aIonng qiijte undream^l of by more literal mindT Cj^ 
 
 rmiXxrcCiad 'rsiifr a '-i ^ 
 
 t^. .0 Wely, so beautiful, tl^l.^^: ^^^.Tf 
 
DR CUIIMWO. ff 
 
 ***** <WMf pKytieat leimet tM you that mw imUr«^^tj i 
 *•*««/ yon ,h«U not dl«. leiiwVV^rir^'^^*^* 
 
 rjn.'?c.i"C'i£", ' ' " ° - -■■ - 
 
 who write. JZn. fi^'i' l^H^ ""''l""'^ '^ ^"■"•^ 
 Wt power of inT««™ • 7 „ 'J**"!? • •• -"sterg, uireota 
 
 plainer «,rt of cti^St " flowt^^?"^''""' '">' *^« 
 inolined to think thTthe n,!~ ^ P^""' ' Md we w 
 
 God wiSin ttem ti Jft ^^IT^f^ '"' ^^^ '''-8^0"' of 
 wiU be likely to ^^0^1^ "^7'?' °' ^''""* *» ^«H 
 l^co-prop^hetiS ex,„.Sor;^',iSZ;^V'^^^^ *"' 
 
 which we SaS7on,id«mor„I°T ^"^^^ oharacterbtio. 
 be understood M^rth^^ ''^' *"" ^ ^"'^ «> '''> "•»Bt 
 
 •elve. with no one of the bodies whZ^^- !? "•"'^ °"- 
 special mission to attack n^ • ■ .^* "«»^ it as his 
 numlsm, to Ce^ie^^i- ^°!.^;"'« "^^i"" either to Eo- 
 
 opinions' whicV^in^^eel T^.^^T'T '"""'*"'*''"' »' 
 
 it.. ^tusi.piy..,s::«^trHtiitr?)isi; 
 
" BVANOELICAL TEACHING: 
 
 that truth, lesa with the dS.« t'^Z^"^ ^^'^ °« 
 
 moral apirit and tendenoie. of hi» t^iT^ *^ "*^ *^* 
 
 One of the most striking oharaoteristios"of Dr Onmmin-. 
 
 c^evidlce-in o1S^wofdmrCr"pi:^;'^^ 
 
 by the fact that it is only found iT^i^h^Tr "indicated 
 in the highest class of Jn^ Zm^J^^ completeness 
 
 Zn that^it ^oM7;r rheirwSs 311*" " ^'^r™'* 
 
 oeption of God's dealings: nay thev™i/ ^""""^ ~°- 
 Of .inful scepticism an Uu^^^^UiSen't 'fo^ .^ 
 
^4m 
 
 DB. ODiaaiia. ^ 
 
 •obtain oircl^-^Z^Se J,Te"r"*r PJ''^'^^ ''*'" 
 I- inteUect i. perpetua% .tw.^l.*'^?*!';^, orthodoxy- 
 
 sophMtication which our friendsT- m Jl J?"** P^^oipl* of 
 the predominance of Lrp"S2" f^f *^"''' '^""^^ ^"^ 
 1>™ in the doctrine of verba? ^.t? feelmgs, is involved for 
 •tate of emotion .ubmSgXttal'i T^** " 'or then, a 
 fonnula imprisoning the SteuJZ T"*^ •" '''^ 1"™ • 
 funotion-the free ^a^ f« f^^ ri""* * «* '*« ?«*« 
 •emnt-of-aU-work to a toZ^.^- °"^8 't the mere 
 V this doctrine no lon^T"^™" '""°°-. ^^ *««o«^ 
 whether it is attested trsuSc^w •^"•^'""g » proposition 
 •ooords with Soript^e: VefdHlf "^'Jt •"" '^«"'«' ** 
 but for f«,ts that wUl bear ZttlTefr Tf • *"' **"*"' " «"«*, 
 aoeustomed to reject the^o™ dS etTn '•- ^^^^ •««'^« 
 1«8 direct, and where ^vJlf^*. "^*°** "" fevorof the 
 
 tion thermnst r^rbTSZe'l'd""" T^^ '^^°"'*«- 
 explain away contradiction i?«^ expedients in order to 
 tal habit bliits not^ly tte nl^J^ ? "^ '^'* ^ ""»»- 
 of truthfulness, and £ St ^^^^1*^*^ .»'"''?« «-« 
 
 gating the infSe2tSiar'ir/" *"? "*" "^ '^«- 
 «t«ristio of Dr. Chnnmia?, wSs to w^„T ^T *^' "^ 
 He is much in the same intelllh .. i^'"'' ''^ ^''« Po'^ted. 
 of P~ina, whcTL^erS^^^'' ^'"diton as that professor 
 Jupiter's satemtesuJe^.wP;^'' °*'"'*''' '^^^e'T of 
 there could not t 'mo^th^ «" ?'"" ""^^ ~^"'° ""^t^ 
 tion scarcely compaS Sft Zdl ^^'^'' """"^^ """-^i- 
 pose that if the professor w ^^^ u^**/" ""y ^«" ""P- 
 and no more, to^ T„i. ^ ""* ^"^ » ^^^ Planelk 
 ■nental vision^^ul^haveCn'^ T^'^T °' '■'^''"^°°' ^^ 
 eonsented to look through qSC» ff^ *^' "^''^ ^ ''« J"*-! 
 have reported in accoX-. ■!? \^*"°P*' ^« 'J^ "ould 
 than wTZ e^te,^"S* '^K^ «"^, aJ«™B rathe, 
 
 ti«» i. regarded „ indi'S^abt fa If ." **""* '" P^P"^' 
 'r«=^we to »»lvation, the pursuit of 
 
8 
 
 ;J i 
 
 IM 
 
 ITANOEUOAL TBAOHINa: 
 
 truth at lueh is not pMaible, any more than it b poMible ism 
 a man who is swimming for his life to make meteorological 
 observations on the storm which threatens to overwhelm him. 
 The sense of alarm and haste, the anxie^ for personal safety, 
 which Dr. Gumming insists upon as the proper religious atti- 
 tude, unmans the nature, and allows no thorough, calm think- 
 ing, no truly noble, disinterested feeling. Hence, we by no 
 means suspect that the unscrupulosity of statement with which 
 we charge Dr. Gumming, extends beyond the sphere of his 
 theological prejudices: religion apart, he probably appreciates 
 and practises veracity. 
 
 A grave general accusation must be supported by details, 
 and in adducing these, we purposely select the most obvious 
 oases of misrepresentation— such as require no argument to 
 .expose them, but can be perceived at a glance. Among Dr. 
 Gumming* 8 numerous books, one of toe most notable for un- 
 scrupulosity of statement is the " Manual of Christian Evi- 
 dences," written, as he tells us in his Preface, not to give the 
 deepest solutions of the difficulties in question, but to furnish 
 Scripture-readers, city missionaries, and Sunday-school teach- 
 ers with a "ready reply "to sceptical arguments. This an- 
 nouncement that nadineis was the chief quality sought for 
 in the solutions here given, modifies our inference from the 
 other qualities which those solutions present; and it is but 
 fair to presume, that when the Ghristian disputant is not in 
 a hurry. Dr. Gumming would recommend replies less ready 
 and more veracious. Here is an example of what in another 
 place' he tells his readers is "change in their pocket, . . 
 a little ready argument which they can employ, and therewith 
 answer a fool according to his folly." From the nature of 
 this argumentative small-coin, we are inclined to think Dr. 
 Gumming understands answering a fool according to his folly 
 to mean, giving him a foolish answer. We quote from the 
 "Manual of Christian Evidences," p. 62:— 
 
 "Some of the god* which the heathen wonhipped wen among 'he 
 
 ^teM mon»ter« that ever walked the earth. Mercwry wm a thief ^ and 
 
 becauie he wan an eipert th let ho wa« enrolled among the gods Bacchus 
 
 wu a mere aeuaualist and drunkard; and tbanfore he was eoiolled 
 
 ■Laot. on Daniel, p. 8. 
 
DR. OnHHINO. M 
 
 inong the godi Vmim mi a dlalpated ud alwiidonad oonrbwu • 
 and therefore she wu enrolled among the BoddeMeTMM. ™T!f ' 
 .g. thatglori«l in b..Ue .nd in b^ rdZXe^:^iiS 
 and enrolled among the goda." oeinea 
 
 Does Dr. Gumming believe the purport of these sentenoes? 
 U 80, this passage is worth handing down as his theory of the 
 Oreek myth-as a specimen of the astounding ignorance which 
 was possible m a metropolitan preacher a.d. 1864 And if 
 he does not believe them ... The inference must then be, 
 that he thinks delicate veracity about the ancient Greeks is 
 not a Chrutian virtue, but only a " splendid sin " of the unre- 
 generato. This inference is rendered the more probable by 
 our findmg. a little further on, that he is not more scrupulous 
 about the moderns, if they come under his definition of "Infi- 
 dels. But the passage we are about to quote in proof of this 
 biLB a worse quality than its discrepancy with fact. Who 
 that has a spark of generous feeling, that rejoices in the pres- 
 ence of good m a fellow-being, has not dwelt with pleasure on 
 the thought that W Byron's unhappy career was ennobled 
 and purified toward its clo» by a high and sympathetic pur- 
 pose, by honest and energetic efforts for his feUow-men? Who 
 hM not read with deep emotion those last pathetic lines, beau- 
 tiful as the after-glow of sunset, in which love and resignation 
 are mingled with something of a melancholy heroism? Who 
 has not lingered with compassion over the dying scene at 
 Mis8olonghi--the sufferer's inability to make his fareweU 
 meswges of love intelligible, and the last long hours of silent 
 ^l , ^f^' '^* °* famUhii* his disciples with a 
 1 fr/ ^^^L ^l- <^""""i"K «»" P"^Ml on himself to inocu- 
 late them with a bad-spirited falsity like the following:— 
 
 •ome linea mrlUm ;n Am dying moments by a man, lifted vrUh ^t 
 ^nl.u. capable of prodigiou» intellectual prowes. but of worS 
 Byron k" ay."-""" "°"^'~" P»otioe.-I mean ^heoelebrJlXllS 
 
 '"Though gay companion* o'dr the bowl 
 Dispel awhile the sense of ill. 
 Though pleasure ails the maddening soul. 
 
 The heart- 
 
 ■W5C lictiri is 
 
 iousiy aiiii. 
 
f! 
 
 **• BVABTOBLICAL TKAOHIirO: 
 
 "'Ay, bnt to die, and go, *Im i 
 
 Wbere all have gone uid all miut «> • 
 To be the nothing that I wu. 
 Ere born to life and living woe I 
 
 "'Connt o'er the Joys thine honia have eeea, 
 Coant o'er thy days from angulah fre^ 
 And know, whatever thou haat been 
 "liM tomething better not to be. 
 
 " ' Nay, for mynelf , ao dark my fate 
 
 Through every turn of life hath been, 
 Jfon and the world ao much / hate, 
 1 care not when I quit the scene! ' •> 
 
 It is difficult to suppose that Dr. Cumming can have h«n 
 ~ grossly imposed upon-that he can be 30 mtSed^ 
 
 s ? ^'Z"'^"' *^'^ ""'» ^'^ " written »riL;s 
 
 St ^.S'l 'ly"'.i,'°<>"'»tei but, allowing him the M 
 tion of 1 "^ Po.'^bUi^, how shall we expla^ his inZdue: 
 St'ghts*^" '""^ """' ^''«<^^' " "-^ ^del'" briS 
 
 dir^!^?^*- """ '"'^""'''' °^ Christianity, Dr. Cumming 
 directs most of his arguments against opinions that are eitW 
 totally unagmary, or that belong to the past rXr tt^t 
 
 ~!tuaUy felt and urged by those who are unable to a^ 
 Eevelation. There can hardly be a stronger proof of mi^ 
 oepbon as to the character of Wthinkinfin^Z pres^nnTv 
 than the recommendation of Leland's " Short and Ewy Method 
 
 ^Tj^%'^"'^"r'' '-'^"^-^"^ " unquestionllJ^S 
 and easy for preachers disinclined to oonside? their ster^t3 
 modes of thmkmg and arguing, but which has qui4 cSt 
 realize those epithets in the conversion of Deists. Y^t dT 
 CWmg not only recommends this book, but takes the t^^l 
 ble himself to write a feebler version of its argumento ^r 
 
 Which appea/in it r^^t^lKr^r^^t.^Tn':!'! '^^I^l^ 
 
I 
 
 «~tment of HI, .po.Ue., werT^rfloUoL"'!"' "^ "»'' »"«««» "11 
 
 a lie anTa^~ l^^:"' P^^ '^° "'«^'' ^^e Bible 
 to ignore thl Sthat ^^a w'^""^°'^'''*~'- 
 .tructed and eameat men X re^i^^a^^ u ""'""""y ^- 
 tian Scriptures as a seri^If M.!!^ ,^ ^^^""^ *""* Chris- 
 with according to the r^Tes of ht^r '^~^«'"». ^ be dealt 
 
 an equally larg^ltr5V4^wto':::'n:Sr^ r'*^* 
 find the dogmatic scheme built on tte^ett^! n t^™J^ ?"**•*' 
 
 that he is opZinK the t™th ^ i '''"^V^'Wtly conscious 
 . . "f i~oiug me trutn, ana cannot bain " i^mj- ^ •• 
 admusions "that the Bible s the™ of P J .^4*^* 
 favored with the foUowing "Creed of^eiel^l ^"'^ 
 
 "ui^T'i:" ^ uT, ll "^•'^T'r'^' " ««•- and God 1. 
 belle™ .1« that the worM wM^ot ^"l ?T " ""^ ^ "' "o" I 
 
 ■nan U . be»t ; tha! the soil i, th. h^ i v '''"'™''- ^ '»"e™ that 
 and th« after death tTereT neither^^' '^^ *" ^' " «"« «<>•>' 
 U no religion, that JutJrJ^'^lZ^l ' *«""« "■»' "">" 
 
 I belie™ not in the evan™liste I h«ll«™ I '° "■« A"' Pbilosophers. 
 Tindal, and Hobbe,. I beCe in I^rf r„, V" ^l""' C"'""". Toland, 
 in St Paul. I believe n~ nreveU^on ■ "/""^'"•"''e, and I belle™ no 
 J» the Talmud: I believe intheK^ni'vl,'^' "* '™''««n,- I believe 
 Ue»e in Sooratea; i telieve in r™f ' '"''t™'"" 'n the Bible. I be- 
 »e™ not in Chri«.' InXl.v'^TS in'a';?'rMl"e,r"""" ' ' '^- 
 The intellectual and moral monster whose o««wl ;. *».■ 
 
 Plexwebo^contradictiom^is. n.oreover:L^^,Jf S'c'S: 
 'M»n.ofEy.,i>.81. 
 
IM 
 
 XVANOBUCAL TXACHnrO: 
 
 ming, a being who tmitea much simplicity ud imbMilitr with 
 hi» Satamo hardihood, -much trademtw of oonteienM witk 
 toB obdurate vice. Hear the " proof " :— 
 
 «ili„°^'^.'°*V"'l' " f "*• "^ enlightened Infldel. with whom I 
 
 i^h^ htf™"' '^'* '^v' ?»P«"»«"'»1 evidence*, bat ouide no 1™ 
 Sri. "o™ «d ""tellet At length I entertained a .nepicion 
 
 Si ft! ^r." •°™"' "8 r™""' "*" """' ""elleotuaUy wrong. «d 
 to~tAM^h?'™'T'"'^' Intellect, but in the he«t; onedaylhexe- 
 fore I «ld to him-' I nrnet now Mate my conviction, and you may mH 
 rd^!^?"*'^;"*"*'' '"»°I«"™e-- you are living in «meTo«, 
 Md groj. sin • m man', countenance btoame paleThe bouM and taS 
 me."— Man. of Evidencea, p. 2M. j- > «<~ <uw ugri 
 
 Here we have the remarkable psyohologioal phenomenon of 
 an Mute and enlightened " man who, deliberately purposing 
 to indulge in a favorite sin, and regarding the Gospelwith 
 soom and unbelief, is nevertheless so much more scrupulous 
 than the majority of Christians, that he cannot " embrace sin 
 Mid the Gospel simultaneously"; who is so alarmed at the 
 Gospel in which he does not believe, that he cannot be easy 
 without trymg toorush it; whose aoutenese and enlightenment 
 suggest to him, as a means of crushing the Gospel, to argue 
 from day to day with Dr. Gumming; and who is withal so 
 naive that he is taken by surprise when Dr. Gumming, failing 
 rn Mgument, resorts to accusation, and so tender in conscience 
 that, at the mention of his sin, he turns paia and leaves the 
 spot. If there be any human mind in existence capable <rf 
 holding Dr. Cumming's "Creed of the Infidel," of at lie same 
 time believing in tradition and "believing in all unbelief," it 
 must be the mind of the infidel just described, for whcae ex- 
 istencewe have Dr. Gumming's er oj^Wword as a theologian ■ 
 and to theologians we may apply what Sanoho Panza says of 
 the bachelors of Salamanca, that they never toU lies-except 
 when It suits their purpose. 
 
 The total absence from Dr. Gumming's theological mind of 
 any demarcation between fact and rhetoric is exhibited in an- 
 other passage, where he adopts the dramatic form :— 
 
 rfft^,* ^^' f the hUle-ond I have a,ka amid the m«„Uaim 
 tfBrtttmar and Stand*-' How do you know that this book !■ dlvln.. 
 
DR. CCJUflNO. 
 
 lOff 
 
 book.. • ■ Then, how do you taow th » 3k U tJl^ • ^J "^. "° """'' 
 IM that the Dm, the Cluuie snd th« P^ 1.^ 'Know It 1 Tell 
 
 my heart do«» not beat »nH i ~in k.i-^^ "Jcn-na-uar,— tell me 
 Bible 1. no^iWne iCe found i^m.'S; ^n" ' ?"' ^ "■" ""' ™ ""> 
 iti con«,latlon. .uManir ray ^ "Tav '"",''"'''« "^ "»'«^! 
 oK^th-. roo, and n.y HgSfh'TL'Ct .J^Tun"^ ng%TevUT„yn,SS 
 
 Dr. Cummmg is so slippety and lax in his mode of prewn- 
 
 TZT'Zt i"' •* ""r '"* **> ^''^^ whetherVZa. 
 bJZ/'-.v ' 't"^^" P«^' "» 'J^« mountains of 
 
 Br«mar d-l say or that it is what such a peasant «,»««Ly 
 m fte one case, the passage may be taken Ta measureo/w. 
 truafulness ; m the other, of his judgment 
 
 likf IhTof^iTr*'^' •"" °"' "^n altogether intuitire, 
 ute that of his rhetorical pedant, for he tells ns fApoo 
 Sketehes, p 406) that he has himself experienced what iUs 
 
 TerSV^"" '?'?• "' ^"^ tai«t«^whiirat ^e Un 
 SnI^U^"'lf so«ptioi8m. I thought ChristiamV 
 ^t k^tT","- r ^•"' ^"y P<»sibUity of its being true w^ 
 ae thought I felt I must meet and settie. ConscifnoTLZ 
 giTe me no peace till I had settled it I read ..St^ 
 r*d from that day, for fourteen or fift^^u y«^tiiuti. t" 
 now I am ae convinced, upon the clearest evident ^at tU^ 
 ^ IS the Book of God, as that i now addrT^^^ij^S 
 
 thrt doubt maybe the stamp of a truth-loving mind-that 
 
 8«ms to have produced precisely the contrary effect. Itlas 
 
 perplext in faith but pure in deed," craving light, veaminc 
 
 for a faith that will harmonize and cherish it! hi^hesf ™ 
 
 J^d aspirations, but unable to find that faith in do^Itk 
 
 ^TL 5' °- '^-''*» «PP--Uy were of aS™^: 
 
 11 --..^c^ lii ^s pages have we found a humble, can- 
 
IM 
 
 •VAWOKUOAL TBAOHWOi 
 
 M /WtJ^ao •ttompt to meet th. diffloulti* Uut may b. 
 Mt 1^ an mgenuou. mind. Eve^rwhere he .uppoB» tK 
 
 fail, of vituperative imputations. As to the leading wh^h. 
 Wiorant of the relation which his own religions creed b^^ 
 t22TZ tl^TP^'y '^ ^^o ninetoTnTce^^J 
 
 S whfthrv^^ l!!!."?""^^ endeavoring to m^ «,d 
 ^r^Tn^^J"" to be the real difflcnlties, contents him- 
 ^nfi™wT ? "P Popmjays to shoot at, for the sake of 
 Th^Z "'^.'P'°™'«'' "^d winning the oh«»p admirati^ 
 
 STLut^^<.'^J^°r« '°'° ^ «»? ""^ apostropSg 
 It as Luther, turned to his audience and said, '^on .«, rtu 
 hereti«a fellow has not a word to say f„ ZUllJ'^C^. 
 
 short and easy method" of confounding this "croauigf,^ ' 
 mil? ''•^t^'^tof infidels, we imagine he ta gnidK a 
 mental process which may be expre«K!d in the foHwL7sX 
 psm: Whatever tends to the glory of God is taie^ttf *™ 
 the glory of God that infidels 5,ou[d be « 4d a^'plTj: 
 therefore whatever tends to show that infidera^ TK 
 
 ^'ZT- /" l^^"'''- '"' *«"' "-^ have ^n m^:^ 
 gross and licentious, lives." Is there not some well-known 
 
 Tummw" ","' ""T' '"' ««-Pl«-of whom evet^ D " 
 Gumming s readers may have heard as an exception? No mat 
 tor Some one suspected that he was not an exception :Td 
 aa that suspicion tends to the glory of God. it is one fo^a 
 Christian to entertain. -(See Man of Ev7 p. 73.) If we 
 
 s'uidT'ir irr" *^'" ■^"•^ °* oeif-^pMsticitio? :: 
 
 should be obliged to suppose that, relying on the ienorinoe 
 
 llZlT't^'f "''"P'"^' '"' "^ ^^"^^'^ direct Sw 
 SC.OUS falsehoods. "Voltaire," he informs them, "d.»l^ 
 there « no God"; hewas"a„ antithei»t_th». I T^lT. 
 
- ^*4i'-^J 
 
 DB. OUmOKO. 
 
 107 
 
 truth, in Dr. Cumm W^^nl ' "^"^^ '* '»^'* *'«> 
 
 pn*olier ia not obliged to be well re«^ w ^ •''"'8«1«»1 
 
 tair. the uTl "' ''"'^•°~' 1"°to f«M» Vol- 
 
 "81 Dlen n'exl«,l, p«H u f,„d^t I'lnwnter-i 
 
 ^^W Xtf^n^'t^'^'' buttermilk of Ute,*. 
 not a thdBt-mLt k!n- f^^T^^^ ^°^*^ """ -"tJ^g if 
 
 be a falBe God-n^rt Sow thS J'!' v w ^' '*"*'"*' *° 
 i«t on this ground b„.I.n. 5 .^ ^°'*^ "" ■« "tb'" 
 
 MTWe test ' '^ borrowed narratives to any 
 
 -S::gii"^;«eX"^r-rwtr^^^^^^^ 
 
 those we have quoS we finj h'lT''" "' ""^"^ " ""''^ ^ 
 the doctrine of Ve Tri^ty ^t,^ "L7*. ""v.""" P*^ *^''* 
 
 .\7 . ""sraisone: " There is a <Ao.«..« J <; . ' 
 
 i.™. ^, u.e oospei of John was written " by'l^" than tt« 
 
.j#inH 
 
 108 
 
 ■VANOIUOAL TBAOHmO: 
 
 Po^^'Vho^T"" n^*^ by X«.opho„. or th, 'A- 
 Ti>«i^i "'""""*• it Dr. Cumming had ehoaan PUta>. 
 Epirtl.. or An.c»on'. Poem., i„.t«,d of tha "^SSwi^^J 
 
 Miehood, «,d would have fumUhed a ready 3t ,hirf^ 
 
 tawher. and the.r disputant.. Heno. w. oonolud. tSaZ^ 
 
 effervescence of zeal i„ ^„em gloriam Dei. EUewherJ h^ 
 tella n. that "the IdMt of th. author of tbe^Vertig"'i! thtt 
 m« ,, the development of . monkey, that tl^t^key^ tte 
 
 rf~ei^ ^ri/.„/<, „ ^„.» How well Dr. Cummin/hi, al^ 
 
 i bS:"i hJ:'*^ "' *'!■'•'•" ^ "*^» very iu':^. 
 Sit-in, r ^"P^'-r"*^'*' ""V be inferred frJm ttefwt 
 S^ntShypSr""'""" " Ve-tlge." tohave.^.^ 
 
 th„^ *^^%!2lr,* ^"^ ^^^^ *•"• '»»* wt'wt i» taken, even 
 
 BW. "^%^"""'*- ^* " ~"«^ "The Church befo" tte 
 
 «rbet:i"t^:Tit?c^iS;r^T'"-' «^r^^^^^ 
 
 prS SerrSutl?r"^iK«"oi^S ^£ 
 the q„«,tion. He first tells us that " the Bibl.T. not Sf 
 scientific error in it"- that"i/..7.-„»* ""'."■» ^»» not a single 
 
 ^^^^<.r«a«„ra/^A««m«.a Aa„, i„ e„»ry instant, ZnT 
 ^'^o'ttraUd to ieexar^/j, and strictly true"; and he asks^ 
 
 morew«nlcenJ!« it l^I.^'^k''"' "'■''='' ''«™'«ken pl«e i„ 
 
 •olenUfloally or hi.tor'lcalljT" ^'^^"^ pl>llo«>pher, to be Inooireot, 
 
 betTof ^«'°J''"' ""'.«'^«°" <" th. Bible tosciwce should 
 be one of the strong points of apologist, for revdatiM : the 
 
»N 
 
 DR. cvmasa. lo^ 
 
 •rf«««o Mouraqr of Mo«» .hould itud at the hnd of u..i 
 
 thmuui.1 .w.j„. u '"7»"'"> tftough touching loienoe at a 
 »«w«nd pointe, has written nothina th«t h.. „„» iZ. .rJ 
 
 ■wta« tfau strong powtion? How is it th.t .. <iJj iT * 
 
 it. exact and strict truth hZhT^l ^^ ""*"' °' ''''''''' 
 d.onld Dr. CuWing^iJ^^.^T,'!'*"'*^- ^^ ^^^ 
 •upposinit thatm.^ nV^'^ "v''" '^'" ?*««>% find hia 
 
 ^'Tft i^'i^rvi^x^^jrdLr^,^^"- 
 
 Bibl, precise!, :^,*::^\i' tS^^ S^Jer^^S^^h *"' 
 
 meaning; or, the assertion! he mZl onC^«°° ° ^'^ ""^ 
 convicted b, the arguments "eXs 0^0^ ' "^^ 
 
 ne says ( Church before the Flood," p. 93) .._ 
 "Men of mien n. whQ sr- f-'i ^» • •« 
 
 •ooray, will hesitate before they accept a book 
 
'wara jyyyg^ ■''^s^i^:3^t ^^-yov?^. d .im:-w':»:-w^* 
 
 
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ttKtocan iHoumoN mr oun 
 
 (ANSI and ISO TEST CHAUT Kb. J) 
 
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110 
 
 EVANQBUOAL TBACHINO: 
 
 »M«h, they think, oontndloti the pUlneit and the moit nneoiiliBnl 
 dlKloeuie. toy ha™ made In the bowela of the Mrror^TS. 
 
 m«7 Ita™ h! '''"'f""«'r» between God', writteTSok a^d*to 
 tt^ZlT. /r™""" »' ««"<«'<»' «<»<=«■ One thing, howe^r! 
 tore may be = <*«, m<w 6e a c<mfradfc«io» 6<««,e«, <4e di^tenW 
 
 bSS^toBTbC'™^'^*:?''^*^*^'^"'^*^- ButthUUnot 
 m^Zl^!.^^ n '"°°«' *"" ^"^ o" intetpretotlon i. wroug." 
 (ine Italics In all cases are our own.) "•«»»• 
 
 Elsewhere he says : 
 
 "It seems to me plainly evident tot to record of Genesis, when 
 read fairly and not in to light of our prejudlces,-««dTTj<J^ 
 e«ence^Popervis toreadthe Bible in au> ligM c/ our ^iS,"^^ 
 q^.,W jmr mnUms in the light of the Bible, in UepZn^ S. 
 «n»<!,-falla in perfectly with to assertion of ^logirts." ^^ 
 
 On comparing these two passages, we gather that when Dr. 
 Cmnmmg, under stress of geological discovery, assigns to the 
 Biblical text a meaning entirely different from that which, on 
 lus own showing, was universally ascribed to it for mOTethan 
 three thousand years, he regards himself as "viewing his 
 opmions m the light of the Bible in its plain andob^ous 
 sense I Now he is reduced to one of two alternatives: either, 
 he must hold that the "plain and obvious meaning » lies in the 
 sum of knowledge possessed by each successive age-the Bible 
 being an elastic garment for the growing thought of mankind; 
 or, he must hold that some portions ate amenable to this crite^ 
 non, and others not so. In the former case, he accepts the 
 principle of interpretation adopted by the early German ra- 
 tionaLsto; in the latter case, he has to show a further criterion 
 by which we can judge what parts oi the Bible are elastic and 
 what rigid. If he says that the interpretation of the text is 
 rigid wherever it tieats of doctrines necessary to salvation 
 we answer, that for doctrines to be necessary to salvation thev 
 must first be true; and in order to be true, according to his 
 
 TJ'T^'^ ^^'^ """"^ ^ ^""^^^ on acorreot interpretation 
 of the Bib loal text. Thus he makes the necessity of doc- 
 trmes to ralvation the criterion of infallible interpretation, and 
 mfalhble interpretation the criterion of doctrines being neces- 
 saiy to salvation. He is whirled round in a circle, having, 
 
nt cTrmano. 
 
 Ul 
 
 by •dmitHng the i»ii>oiple of novelty in interpretation, com- 
 pletely depmed himself of a baeU. That heSd^ tte 
 very moment in which he is most palpably betraying that he 
 hae no test of Biblical truth beyond his own opinion, u^ 
 appropriate occasion for flinging the rather novel reproach 
 agunst Popery that its essence is lo "read the Bible in the 
 light of our opinions," would bi an almost pathetic self- 
 exposure, if It were not disgusting. ImbecUity that is not 
 
 Tal^^h'^TTv*" ^ P'*»''l«' "^"i ^'^^ simply odious. 
 Parenthetac lashes of this kind against Popery are very 
 frequentwith Dr. Gumming, and occur even in hismoredevoS 
 pufsages, where their introduction must surely disturb the 
 spiritual exercises of his hearers. Indeed, Roman Catholics 
 fare worse with him even than infidels. Infidels are the small 
 vermm-the mice to be bagged m passant. The main object 
 of his chase-the rats which are to be naUed up as trophies 
 -«e the ^man CathoUcs. Romanism is the masterpiece 
 of Saten. But reassure yourselves: Dr. Gumming has been 
 seated. Antichrist is enthroned in the Vatican; but he is 
 stoutly withstood by the Boanerges of Crown Court The 
 personalityof Satan, as might be expected, is a very promi- 
 nent tenet m Dr. Cumming-s discourses; those who doubt it 
 are, he thinks, "generally specimens of the victims of Satan 
 as a tnumphaat seducer"; and it is through the medium of 
 tois doctrine that he habituaUy contemplates Roman Catholics 
 They are the puppets of which the devil holds the strings It 
 IS only exceptionally that he speaks of them as fellow-men 
 acted on by the same desires, fears, and hopes as himself- hi^ 
 rule la to hold them up to his hearers as foredoomed instru- 
 ments of Satan, and vessels of wrath. If he is obliged to 
 admit that they are "no shams," that they are "thoroughly in 
 eamest"-that is because they are inspired by hell, because 
 they are under an "infra-natural" influence. If their mis- 
 sionaries are found wherever Protestant missionaries go, thU 
 zeal m propagating their faith is not in them a consistent vir- 
 tue, as It IS m Protestants, but a "melancholy fact," affording 
 additional evidence that they are instigated and assisted by 
 the devil. And Dr. Gumming is inclined to think that thev 
 work miracles, l)eoaase that is no more than might be ex 
 
113 
 
 BVANaEUOAI, TEACHING .- 
 
 ^oted from the known abiUty of Satan who inapina them.' 
 He admits, indeed, that "there ia a fragment of the Church 
 of Chnat m the very boaom of that awful apostasy," • and that 
 there are members of the Church of Eome in glory; but this 
 admission is rare and episodical-is a declaration, proformd. 
 about as influential on the general dUposition and habite as w 
 aristocrat's profession of democracy. 
 
 mis leads us to mention another conspicuous characteristic 
 Of Dr Cumming's teaching-the absence of genuine charity. 
 It 18 true that he makes large profeaeion of tolerance and lib- 
 erality within a certain circle; he exhorts Christiaiia to unity: 
 he would have Churchmen fraternize with Dissenters, and 
 exhorts thase two branches of God's famUy to defer the settle- 
 ment of their differences tiU the miUennium. But the love 
 thus taught is the love of the dan, which is the correlative of 
 antagonism to the rest of mankind. It U not sympathy and 
 helpfulness toward men as'men, but toward men as Christians, 
 and as Christians in the senseof a smaU minority. Dr Oum- 
 mmg s religion may demand a tribute of Jove, but it gives a 
 charter to hatred; it may enjoin charity, but it fosters all 
 unchantabieness. If I believe that God tells me to love mv 
 enemies, but at the same time hates His own enemies ard 
 requires me to have one wiU with Him, which has the lareer 
 scope, love or hatred? And we refer to those pages of Dr 
 Oummmg s in which he opposes Roman Catholics, Puseyites, 
 and mfidels-p^ which form the larger proportion of what 
 he has published-for proof that the idea of God which both 
 the logic and spiritof his discourses keep present to his hearers 
 IS that of a God who hates His enemies, a God who teaches 
 love by fierce denunciations of wrath-a God who encourages 
 obedience to His precepts by elaborately revealing to us that 
 His own government is in precise opposition to those precepts. 
 We know the usual evasions on this subject. We know Dr 
 Cumming would say that even Soman Catholics are to b^ 
 loved and succored as men; that he would help even that 
 unclean spirit," Cardinal Wiseman, out of a ditch But 
 who that IS m the slightest degree acquainted with the aouon 
 Of the human mind, will believe that any genuine and large 
 '81gn.oftheTime^p.38. 'Apoc. Sketches, p. 243. 
 
.f&^'^ 
 
 DR. oniufiNa. 
 
 113 
 
 dumty can grow out of an exercise of love which is always to 
 ^yc an arnere^emSe of hatred? Of what quality would be 
 
 w TVy^ "'"' °^ * '""^'^ ^^° '"'"^ ^^ "PO"" « a wife, 
 but hated her as a woman? It is reserved for the regenerate 
 mind, according to Dr. Cumming's conception of it to be 
 wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral, in a 
 moment Precepts of charity uttered with faint breath at 
 the end of a sermon are perfectly futile, when all the force of 
 fte lungs has been spent in keeping the hearer's mind fixed on 
 tte conception of his fellow-men, not as fellow-sinners and 
 fellow-suffere™, but as agents of hell, as automata through 
 ImTJk^ ?^'"' '" «'^*' "P"" «arth,-not on objects which 
 ^h«^l t "7'T *'"'^ ^°^^ their hope of good even 
 m the most strayed and perverted, but on a minute identifioa- 
 
 the beast out of the abyss, scorpions whose sting is in theii 
 toJs, men who have the mark of the beasl^ and unclean ■ pirite 
 ^tfTi:. You might as well attempt to educate a child's 
 sense of beauty by hanging its nursery with the horrible and 
 grotesque pictures in which the early painters represented the 
 Last Judgment, as expect Christian graces to flourish on that 
 prophetic interpretation which Dr. Gumming offers as the 
 prmcipal nutamentof his flock. Quite apart from the critical 
 basu of that mterpretution, quite apart from the degree of 
 ta,th there may be in Dr. Cummiag's progncsticationslques- 
 tions into which we do not choose to enter-his use of ^oph- 
 ecy must be a prion condemned in the judgment of riijht- 
 minded persons, by its results as testified in the net moral 
 effect of his sermons. The best minds that accept Christian- 
 ity as a divinely inspired system, believe that the great end of 
 the Gospel is not merely the saving but tie educating of men's 
 souls, the creating within them of holy dispositions, the sub- 
 dumg of egoistical pretensions, and the perpetual enhancing 
 ofthe d«s.re that the will of God_a will synonymous wSh 
 f^l' '^^ ^^^-'^'^y^ doneon earth. But what relation 
 to aJl tiis has a system of interpretation which keeps the mind 
 
 shot S^^ ^. ^'^"^ °^ * "I^***"' »* " g'a<ii«torial 
 !™T' f^ ^ ^***° " ^^ ''"•' •»*«* '° the shape of the 
 great red dragon, and two-thirds of mankind the victims- 
 
^ r%i-:wm 
 
 114 
 
 BViJTOBUOAI- TEACHINO: 
 
 the whole provided and got np by Ood for the edifiMtion of 
 the aaints? The demonstration that the Second Advent is at 
 
 SL. .*'r' r°. ^/T* T ""Jly J»°ly. "PWtual efleoti the 
 highest state of mind inculcated by the Gospel is resigiiation 
 to the disposal of God's providence-" Whether we ^ we 
 hve under the Lord, whether we die, we die nnto the Lord ' 
 -not an eagerness tosee atemporal manifestation which shall 
 confound the enemies of God and give exaltation to the saints- 
 it is to dwell in Christ by spiritual communion with His na- 
 ture, not to fix the date when He shall appear in the sky 
 Dr. Cmnming's delight in shadowing forth the dowafaU of the 
 Jttui of Sin, in prognosticating the batUe of Gog and Maooe 
 a^d in advertising the premillennial Advent, is simply^; 
 transportataon of political passions on to a so-called rdiiou. 
 platform; it is the anticipation of the triumph of "our party » 
 accomplished by our principal men being « sent for" into tte 
 clouds. Let ns be understood to speak in all seriousness. If 
 we were in search of amusement, we should not seek for it bv 
 exammmg Dr. Cumming's works in order to ridicule them. 
 We are simply discharging a disagreeable duty in deliverina 
 our opmion that, judged by the highest standard even of orUu^ 
 doi Christianity, they ar< little calculated to produce 
 
 " A cloaer walk wlt>. God, 
 A calm aac. heavenly bame*'; 
 
 but are more likely to nourish egoistic comphujenoy and pre- 
 tension, a hwd and condemnatory spirit toward one's fellow- 
 men, and a busy occupation with the minuti» of events, in- 
 step of a reverent contemplation of great facts and a wise 
 Wlication of great principles. It would be idle to consider 
 Dr. Cummmg's theory of prophecy in any other light-as a 
 philosophy of history or a specimen of BibUcal into^retation 
 It bears about the same relation to the extension of genuine 
 knowledge as the astrological "house" in the heavens bearsto 
 the true structure and relations of the universe 
 
 The slight degree in which Dr. Cumming's faith is imbued 
 with trn^r human sympathies is exhibited in the way he treats 
 the doctrine of Eternal Punishment. Bere a Kttle of that 
 readmess to strain the letter of the Scriptures which he m 
 
^?i»*^ 
 
 ..*!P..|^|y|£^;^ t^^.- ^J^ 
 
 .ppUed on'the aide oflntrS L llfSl^ '*'**'*«' 
 
 Ep„ae to the Thessaloaians. refeLtoth^ P ' ^ *^' ^'^'' 
 from the innocent word S^JtlT ■ °^ ^' <*° ««t°rt 
 why we are to tr.nlifn^^'oT^l'^''^^'' '^""S'' 
 of God, " any more tha^ we LT ^?? wf" '° "" '«'"P'« 
 while I go and pray yTnd^ "t t f""!^**" " o^tkedriae here, 
 more clearly thfn heZ yet L Bn^^v ""'"'''« *° '"^^^ 
 aUty will favor the conoluaion rttV .^ ^*° "K"™"' "te-^ 
 
 the h^an race wmriStS^.r^L^r'''"' "' 
 ouBly literal. He says— ™>»«raDle, tAen he is ngor- 
 
 tb^ U, everlasting, ceMele«^L W,^. »gM ' ; <«« i., ' .iway, being, . 
 "n«whenhe«y,,'.^i^/*'f?f«% P'ato me, the word in tol. 
 ».«, that thl, word is ZT^tiUm^r"^-, f "' ' """* "^ '«'- 
 in««ice, • The everlaetlog hin" Of I™ ^M^i*** extent,_a. for 
 there never will be . time when th.i.-n^',,"''' ''»" •"" mean that 
 
 I»«ion here l.evldentTrig^tW?bu',''t :'",?*"" *° "«■«'' "••«- 
 ■?•" «'»*ln « long a. the^ LL, and ' TJi" «'«™''y- The hllhi 
 them but that Eternal One wWch fl™'t In^ ^ 'T P""™ t" """o" 
 *rt.<!r(*«.oW remain. theTame.SS^.S.'^J^,™ '°'° •*""«; " «« 
 "Id no one ha. power to alt-rit. 4»^ lojg a. the «oul eilet,, 
 
 denote the exigence of G^_. ^e ^t^rJT^TIS"? 'A '"'«''«??"«<•. t<^ 
 word when applied to Him? B^^me^fot , ^", T" """ ""> 
 •eoM, we muat not infer it 1. alw^l! occasionally UMd in a limited 
 in SorIptu« . without end 'it XT;, ' Everlwtiag - plainly mean, 
 it i. evident it cannot be ini^^'t^S'irj^^'^'J^^'^^f-nuatively when 
 
 accrd3':irthtre:i2T^eVw"^Si'« ^^-^^on 
 simply point to the fact that thl f * V'"**™*"* writers: we 
 
 when he wants f^er Sy f» hi! . ^''°'"' '"'"«° *"' ^ 
 
 to be a qaestiou of feelin., w^ ^^^lat misery does not seem 
 other, ^e does n" Sy' re^ h'^^IJ^T .?" '''^ " «'<' 
 te^ Of et^rnal puni^hmentf CiTL^r r^^J-" 
 
l.t« 
 
 BVANOIUCAL TBAOHINO; 
 
 he aski, to WMlMting happinew? then why objeet to arw 
 Wg n,uK,ry?-reiUK,ning which i. perh.p. fait to b. oog«U 
 by theologian, who uitioipat. the eT.rl«iS,g h.ppm.!?for 
 th.m«,l,e., and the everlaating mi«,ry for thdr neKl 
 The compa«,on of wme Christian, ha. been gltd to take 
 
 ^xl'^V^'^' ""* *" »'"" *"»'• t'"' -uppoaittonof 
 ^iWataon for the unpemtent, but the rigid .equeWe of D^! 
 Cumming's rewonrng wUl not admit of this idea. He iom 
 U»t flax ,. made into linen, and linen into paper^Uut^^ 
 when b„m^ partly aacend. a. .moke, and theTa^nSi 
 
 mal flax u loat^ although there may be nSTone particle ttft 
 
 oh1n«„?*^"^°""'.'"*'^ •*"««: annihilationTnol to 
 change of form i.. It vM bethus ^hour bodie, at th, ru^l 
 
 T/^^ 'f '*• f"" '^ ^ annihiUted." Having eetet 
 l«hed the perpetuity of thp body by thi. olo«, ^dX^ 
 
 offllxT^^' *""* " *^"\" " *°*^ ""^^ ^ the J^ 
 of flax in consequence of which they no longer appearVflaT 
 
 L^^LIthr '?,'''"*^ "^"^ ^ ^' partl^lea'cfTehniS 
 body, but they will reappear as the human body-he doe. n^ 
 eeem to consider that the perpetuity of the body in^fC ^e 
 perpetuity of the soul, but requires separate evideZfirtht 
 
 ~Z^J^-^/^'^ *^* *^' *"** »' the Scripture. imZ. 
 the perpetuity of the punishment of the loet, and theoo^ 
 «,iou«ieM of the punishment which they endu;e^ Yetru 
 drivellmg like this which is listened to andXded m elo 
 
 pu^;," "" '"'■■"'"^ a. a «int" for preaching „d 
 
 One more oharaoteristic of Dr. Cumming's writings, and .. 
 have done. Thw is the^^«i moral Agn^ tStl^ry 
 wh«e reign, in them. Not that this perversion is p^X 
 to Dr. Camming; it belongs to the dogmVtio system wS^ 
 
 "^'Jf "} "^'^'""^ '"""'^''«- But the abstTw t.i 
 
 denc^. of .ystems are represented in very different de«rZ 
 
 aooordmg to the different characters of tiioseT^ X^ 
 
 'lUli.olChri.LBv., p. 181. 
 
DB- cuioairo. 
 
 m 
 
 Witt t^<«>hJ^Zl,J^:"''^^ ^ «hibititodi 
 
 pneimte m»n-to mark ttolr huL .r,!^^ ?'"'' ""* ■■<»" of an nnre. 
 toundthat they are inde^-eTa, w. "'^ """'"""e-lt would^ 
 borderer, and the «iaii„,, /nd m.chUke'^ ""' °' "» """' "«» tS 
 ««nlMice of earthly tribmiT .Td -i^ whow crime, draw down the 
 Utoth. lead mtheiith. oTS". Zt ^Z.Tr:^"''^'' """*<='" " '• to 
 out by their praotlcTof manv nl ii" . ^. ^ ""* ™'' "•"» •" """ked 
 •xoroiw of the klndlleet^i^HL "!i°"'™' "-orMltle. of llfe-Xtte 
 r«lprocltle_and of ttei "e^T; "l'"* '""'-'»ngo of the ,Z^ 
 nonnoe that their thoughr^L " T™ !? !'"''.""'='""««'■ "• ^ 
 *e Object .«,and which o^tUoL^^^oThf*"' V"'' "« "»■' "^Vto 
 Tl» Scripture. ,«rt that Z Ob wu,^''?°''''i'r'y '" <""»"»'•• 
 we ou^t to think, to act, «.d to ™ J ^n ?^ ."^ f"^' ""« '« ^i* 
 lu«, and nwaklng, there 1. involvTt!^ '„ .". '° """ ">inking, act- 
 Now It will be foMd ^e oJtte mo« 7,^ ""* •"""' ^dearlng bli„. 
 good .oclety and Wnd™^ of htaTanTifi" t T""' f " "'"■ »» '"<"' 
 Integrity, they never or nrely Sof L i. 'Z^'" "^ "Binding 
 mw occu« to thera-Will thi. ,^„ ^ "'"^ °' °«'- The queetlon 
 «»*H1. name mo« too™' h'^"'^';^,'°"'''«W of Godf iJirtL'S 
 
 "»«f _And Jurt Inaemuoh .; tteir ev/rv^r T"^' ^" P«i» more 
 lofty aim, in m much doeTlt co™ .1, -^ i^""^' ""^ »''o" of thi. 
 thecharacterofevllinheJr *«!!.".' '^••"'' <""'"« "«elfto 
 '"ft»ntial aim of their t^oX^'n'^Jer'"''?,'"^"""* ""> ^ 
 never enter. Into their minda^^ev^^S^^^ evil, but God', glory 
 be one of the con«itTifi„„ri . "'^ "e «nl»ble, becauM it chance, to 
 
 >eftuneft«»d ^T^ZuSZ^l^'V'''''''''''' ^^^' 
 hoMperhap, no occasion to btotk^i^ ^/j"^ "^^'"' *«««« "W 
 ^^ to maintain »c* - wj?!°!^r ^t? ^'t *" "*'^ 
 
 Again we read (Ibid., p. 236) :— 
 
 |nrrnorunr:ail%^'rr!.rde^d'r.'''''''''J?»'--'">y 
 he cannot under.tand the inner ™rin^^\"" ""'"''^ °"'«»«y' "ut 
 Iberallty to the poor but he '!-"? J-* <««> undentand Dorca.'. 
 
 C*ril«a,^w. to OtiZ^Z f'T^y <""^' their neglect ; but a* 
 y« did U uaio ine."^** •• ^""'' '"° ""« i'wst ol theto my iaeUttBQ, 
 
118 
 
 BVAifQMJOAL TBACHIKO: 
 
 majority of hi. brethren iSThe,^?''^'""' ^'^ '^ «>• 
 i. unable to conceive that the ni m« f"""""*' "**°"> 
 motive for being ju,t and nnt^h^Hr ^ *^ ^"' ""y «*»>" 
 otherwiee, or tLfa cwTr'^fL^ '^ ' " "••'«- *<• »* 
 cording to hi. experiercr^;i Sfe^'' "'J^'"'""" «'■ 
 and Mlflsh alarm and tS fLiTr J^ '*'"'«' °' o»tentation 
 no .naibiliUe. IZt 1* ^l'^ t X?,t\ ^^^ «« 
 Ing, .» we .hould prefer to think, "rt h k 1^ r^ ®f",*' 
 
 preciwly here^^dl^'at hi' ^ .1* ^^^ ^•"'"'""'y "«> 
 
 haete of'^oral de^L bnt^n Z °'" ""^ '* "°* ""'^ *" t^" 
 
 in which he sympathize, with t^rJ^^r the faint degree 
 human feelingf and d>Z w wh" h"""""^ *""""'*• "^ 
 upon, that thSe^MlSg^ Lf^it fj'.'^''r' *° •^'«" 
 theory. JTow Dr r„m»" • ^ *•"'"' *™°' h" "ligious 
 
 minaig ^:^nsfi^zizt^'cr^ r*"/^' 
 
 a moral elevation to which ♦ h-f . "'. *"" " standing on 
 
 lookup, thathUt^rJof^S^r.T^"'^ reluctantly to 
 ne.. and purity alSLr,! t / T'^""* " '" '*» '»«- 
 de.ire. and ScTT^ tit k .it ^""^ ""^ ^'"'""^ 
 reveree i. tlSXtTthL ttel^Le mt h •".*"''* "^**^* 
 oart a .uperficial irian<» at hf. T ,S '''"' •^"' "°* "•"Ij 
 beauty or ju^ticT but wZ aft^ '^'""^ ""^ ^"^ *» ««« i^ 
 dootrtoe, pronounce It to 4^'"'^ r"^*"^""" "* «>'" 
 ment, and tterefo™ JlsTtiXo'C "'n^T """'' '^^''^P" 
 of showing up the b^chine of Rn™ • Cummmg i. fond 
 
 undermining,true m^S it ."T""?' "^^ '^"«"« " "^ 
 there i.a hJge^rfti A*-il*""" ^' ^""^ ^ t°W that 
 hold preoi«,ly the same °l^'°^?'l?°'^ practical men, who 
 thi. d^erence, Tat Z dHl ™ ^' •? ° teaching-with 
 of Satan, but as the n^tn«. ^^ V* "" ""• in^'i^tion 
 the sou is chieVZtotnof rj. " ""^'^ ""md where 
 beUefa. ' "P °^ '8o»stic passions aad dogmatic 
 
DR. OUMMmO. 
 
 11* 
 
 ^. Cumming'a theory, m we have leen, i. th«t «>tioi>e .» 
 
 man who endure, torturee rather tb-a betfay^ Jn..Vthe mi 
 
 np too strongly, she is to repress them: it will not do tn Z? 
 from natural affection- -she must think oitteg"!!^*^ 
 A man is to guide his affairs with energy and St^n^ 
 LrTsc^r L'd""'f r. '""t' '"^ -Sitit^rrmem"^ 
 
 >rdje-ifr-th^— i^^^^^^^^^ 
 
130 
 
 •VANOBLICAI. TEACBINOr 
 
 «br». we to be torn %mmj and repUc«i by a i«t<>nt ttMl ipriaK 
 —•nxiety for the "glory of God." «— • ■pnag 
 
 H»ppUy, the oooititution of human nature forbid, the com- 
 plete preralenoe ct tuoh » theory. IP.tally powerful a. relir 
 tou. aystema hare been, human nature is stronger and widS 
 
 ^„? rrT"""- ""* """'«'' '^<«"" »•? •"^P«'. tJ«y 
 cannot abeolutelyr^pree. it. growth: build wall, rinnd tbi 
 Urmg tree a. you wiU, the brick, and mortar have by and by 
 to giTe way before the .low and .ure operation of the md 
 But next to that hatred of theenemie. ^ro<S^which i. tt'e 
 prmoiple of peraeontion, there perhaps haa been no peryer.ion 
 more obetruotive of true moral development than th^ .ubati- 
 tution of a reference to the glory of God for the direct prompt- 
 !»!! ,' "y °'P»t»'««° '*«'in«»- Benevolence and juatice L 
 rtrong only in proportion a. they are direcUy «.d inevitably 
 oalkd mto aohvity by their proper object. : pity i. .trong onlj 
 becauM we are rtrongly imprewed by suffering; and only ta 
 proportaon a. it i. compawion that speak, through the ^e. 
 when we wothe, and moves the arm when we .uooor, i, a deed 
 jWctly benevolent. If the «>othing or the .uooor be giv^ 
 because another bemg widxe. or approve, it, the deed ceaie. to 
 be one of benevolence, and become, one of deference, of obe- 
 dience, of Mlf. interest, or vanity. Accessory motiveTmay aid 
 m producing an action, but they presuppo«, the weakuMs of 
 ttedireot motave; and conversely, when the direct motiye is 
 strong, the action of accessory motives will be excluded If 
 then, as Dr. Cumming inculcates, the glory of God i. to be 
 tte absorbing and the influential aim" in our thoughts and 
 actions, this must tend to neutralize the human sympathies- 
 the stream of feeling will be diverted from its natural current 
 in order to feed an wtifioial canal. The idea of God is reallv 
 moral in its influence-it really cherishes all that ia best and 
 lovehest in man-only when God is contemplated as sympa- 
 thuing with the pure elements of human feeling, as po.ses.L 
 infaiitely all those attributes which we recognize tote mona 
 m humanity. In thU light, the idea of God and the scum of 
 Hm presence mtensify all noble feeling, and encourage all 
 noble effort;, on the same principle that human sympathy ia 
 found a somoe of atrength: the brave man feels braver when 
 
DR ovxmso. 
 
 m 
 
 fort to •U.TUte .offering or «^ vi« w S^ ^ J*'""* 
 ^MthiM. With all lifli ^ ? "' • '^ "'''» °°t on'y 
 
 the influence of orth^ox rh,^r ^^t*"!^" •""• ^^ ""<»" 
 
 uk«- i>ifi. *i, '"» ™ say tfiatwe are to love man for GoH'« 
 ■Mte. with the conception of Godwhini, j,,-. t— <.■ ' 
 
 the love of man for God™ wke^rnwl ^^^""^ P™"*"*"' 
 dwiUv 8howT.Zn„ ;: * , ^^°}^^ •• his writings abun- 
 
 delight if .loiatiS^'the iZ Jttl° t^^L" "^ ^'''*»-' 
 ^« sake, the rest he must m oonsiatenoy Aat» for God'. 
 
1» BVANOKLIOAL TBAOHmO: DB. OUMMmo. 
 
 exposea, II tteir natural good genie and healthy feeline van. 
 not early .tafled by dogmatic beliefs, and their revS w 
 led by pious phraws. But aa it is, many a r^ti"L Tu^Z" 
 in«iy a generou. instinct, is repdled as ftrZltiroH 
 supernatural enemy, or as the ebullition orhuZTorMe L 
 ZT"^- K^'^jf "**^ °' ^'""^ contradiction c^ Kt^ 
 tion of the intellect, instead of beini? a .in i. . ,.. Ji IT • 
 
 fundamental faith for man is faitii in the^ulHf a bravl 
 honeali and steady use of all his faculties:- ^ 
 
 "Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
 Bnt more of reverence in ua dwell ; 
 That mind and soul, aocoiding well. 
 May make onrf music aa before 
 But Taster." 
 
 th.^°1 ^^ ^'*^"' °* ^- Cw^-^tag. let us express a hope 
 
 Slrtfr "^ 7 T^J^'^"'^*^ the'unfarorablcTh^S 
 of the inferences to be drawn from his pages. His oreedoTn 
 
 obliges him to hope the worst of men. ^d to wert^^,? 
 
 hmi as a tiieologian, the stronger will be the evidence to^ 
 Z7lZ^.^' tendency toward good in huLa" nltT 
 ^1^ Z ?<i T" ■'^^ '^ »*^'ly counteract, and which 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF BATIONALISM 
 lECKY'S HISTORY ^= 
 
 lecturing. They are nnf ^^ , ^""'''>°m »' good popular 
 
 oal te A not^S eX rtlr'^:' '"'* °' °'°^'°^- 
 virtne of these negatiresttevL.i.r*'* °'" '^'^i ^ut by 
 average intelligenoV TW 1™ k '?°" ^*'° ■"* "»«'« 
 in them to make their facte inustr^^ °' "^T"'"* P-'P^-" 
 result in the mind. evenVh^ moft „f '.r^, *° '**^'' " <"»«"<=' 
 "^d they have eS,u Jh of ^^eness i^.' *'"^, "'' *'''8°"«» 5 
 theory to win them ready al^Z™ ^ ^'^^^^^o" in their 
 The vagueness and ^Ula^r^« ^? *■ "'"'"* ""'"»"<'«'• 
 they are the honest S of ?h<. f"*, '''"'^' "^ '^^^ity; 
 ter, which adaptel^LTtotth^inr'^r''"'^ "'"'■>*"' "J""^' 
 " the general reader™ Fo^ th« T?^' «»d the favorite of 
 of the present Cdoes nof Lr« T '' """ S*"""^ -««der 
 goes, he only kn7ws that h^d!^^.^"^''^''* ^^^<^ ie 
 remarkable tiinker wSl iri^T ^ *°° ^"•" ^^ '^7 
 he likes to have it wiTthat^^ " ^'"^ controversy, 
 leaving it not too erS whit J.™!?'" "" *° "^ '^''P'°'«'J'^' 
 what ma, be called dSTmb^tn • • "°" "* " ^« « '""d of 
 phrases above alfsysS^ th ^T" '' ""'*«<«'« vapory 
 undefined ChristiLT4richoBooZ>°',r'*°°' ^^ ^^'^'^ 
 ticular, an undefiued^IucSion "oiT^h *''" *? °°*^8 ^ P"' 
 ameUoration of all th^ rfai^« ^^ ' "" """^^^"^ 
 nothing extreme, but soSetZgtttL^Z ''°"'" "'"'■'- 
 past and the excesses of the present Thil T""" "^ *''« 
 the general reader may be knoVn^n " '°°^*™ *yP« "^ 
 
 diality with which he Lento to^dT.fTS''''"" ^^ *^o <^'- 
 oaythat black i, b^T^^'T\}^T''^'*^'^<"^^-- 
 ttink it, say that bla:k fs n^so^r: ^'^ '",1 ^"""^ 
 '^tly.. HehasnohesitationTi^^l-SjeTiS^; 
 
N 
 
 134 
 
 THB INFL0ENOB OF RAT10NALI81I •. 
 
 up »t a public meeting and expreas his oonTietion that at timei, 
 and within certain limits, the radii of a circle have a tendency 
 to be equal; but, on the other hand, he would urge that the 
 spirit of geometry may be carried a little too far. His only 
 bigotry is a bigotry against any clearly defined opinion; not 
 in the least based on a scientific scepticism, but belonging to 
 a lack of coherent thought,— a spongy texture of mind, that 
 gravitates strongly to nothing. The one thing he is stanch for 
 is the utmost liberty of private haziness. 
 
 But precisely these characteristics of the general reader, 
 rendering him incapable of assimilating ideas unless they are 
 administered in a highly diluted form, make it a matter of re- 
 joicing that there are clever, fair-minded men, who will write 
 books for him, — men very much above him in knowledge and 
 ability, but not too remote from him in their habits of think- 
 ing, and who can thus prepare for him infusions of his- 
 tory and science that will leave some solidifying deposit, and 
 save him from a fatal softening of the intellectual skeleton. 
 Among such serviceable writers, Mr. Lecky's " History of the 
 Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Eationalism in Europe" 
 entitles him to a high- place. He has prepared himself for its 
 production by an unusual amount of well-directed reading; he 
 has chosen his facts and quotations with much judgment; and 
 he gives proof of those important moral qualifications— impar- 
 tiality, seriousness, and modesty. This praise is chiefly appli- 
 cable to the long chapter on the history of magic and witchcraft 
 which opens the work, and to the two chapters on the antece- 
 dents and history of persecution, which occur, the one at the 
 end of the first volume, the other at the beginning of the sec- 
 ond. In these chapters Mr. Lecky has a narrower and better- 
 traced path before him than in other portions of his work; he 
 is more occupied w'ith presenting a particular class of facts in 
 their historical sequence, and in their relation to certain grand 
 tide-marks of opinion, than with disquisition; and his writ- 
 ing is freer than elsewhere from an apparent confusedness of 
 thought and an exuberance of approximative phrases, which 
 can be serviceable in no other way than as diluents needful 
 for the sort of reader we have just described. 
 The history of magic and witchcraft has been judiciously 
 
MOKY'S HIBTORT. 
 
 135 
 
 mS™^ t*^" ^'««=»1°"«. because it is strikiKgl, 
 
 ^^L .•^"°""°"-°'™"''y' t'"'* »»t^ beliefs become 
 
 2rS;r TZr """ "' '^~' "«^'°'» against^:;* 
 aTrniaKT^T • V """""RTuity with prevalent habits of 
 
 2^" bv wWh"l^' """'"T* °* *"« *'" "'''««'«» of i"flu- 
 enoes, oy which the mass of men in whaf i. „.ii.j • -i- , 
 
 "ciety, get thei, beliefs grad^^'moda^:!! "^"^ "'^"^ 
 
 Who h«l lien «en rid/^ o^o h b^^J^^k" °fj^''™ »' «° °'<i wom«, 
 traiMformed heraelf into a wolf »^^ l ' I ° *" P"^"* ^o l"*" 
 neighbor., i, deemed t tnt^ly^,^^' ^^^T "■" ""^^ "' "«' 
 ably be unable to irlve a vm H.fl„i? ' "' P*"°°* """W P'<><>- 
 
 one tine no audh Improbabiiitv was folt rt,h h!lj j SWTlty. Tet at 
 faTorof one opir^^^d ^J^Tft^'^"'"'^ argument or fact In 
 
 p^iodso, hi,toprovrL'*':^z;:;:s;er^:,; r^^ 
 
 rigid «,d conclueive demonsS^ it'^if^o^tb t a^'trT"' "" 
 
 ^r, txLY~iL^-xr,E2?-f - 
 
 foundly modify the character ^tS p^Wio mind l^ev fTm"""^ 
 
12« 
 
 THB INFLDBKCB OF RATIONALISM: 
 
 ^t «L'„ri"A'"i,''f ''*^'" "" "P"""" " """W •» produced by th. 
 moft cogent and definite aigumenta." »■ >~u«« i^jr me 
 
 Mr. Leoky proceeds to some questdonable views oonoerniiw 
 the evidences of witchcraft, which seem to be irreconcilaWe 
 even with his own remarks later on; but they lead him to 
 the statement, thoroughly made out by his historical survey. 
 ^L^^ "recent was mainly silent, unargumentative, ^d 
 msensiWei that n>en came gradually to disbeUeve in witoh- 
 
 those who were least sub eot to theological influences, and 
 soon spread through the educated laity, Ld, kst of all t^k 
 possession of the clergy." u, i»i- ui au, took 
 
 flnllL'^r ^^"^ P"°*"' P"°* tJ^t «>U "second class of in- 
 iTT! "^t %■""' """**' 8° '"^y deeper than fashion 
 and that withcraf t to many of us is absurd only on the 'sai^; 
 ground that our grandfathers' gigs are absurd. It is feltTe 
 Z^TL^ """^ •" "P"*"'^ •^'^"'^ ^ «»^«»tion w^ 
 LTl^fw"" T'"'^ T ''"»"'«*'<''". i" an age when it 
 « known that mediums of communication with the invisible 
 
 ClLrh ""V ^ '^'^r P«"°°''8«. dressed in excellent 
 broadcloth, who soar above the curtain-poles without any 
 
 l^7v°t "^^ ^''° "' °°' «'^«° *° unprofitable intrigues 
 her profile m dark relief against the moon and her broomstick 
 cuttmg a constellation. No undiscovered natural laws no 
 names of "respectable-witnesses, are invokedtomaklusf^l 
 ZIT'TI "" questioning the diabolic intimacies of that 
 
 aws, and the witnesses qualified by the payment of income- 
 tax, are aU m favor of a different conceptioi-the image of a 
 
 ^Z.^'^ "^^ ^*^ '"'* ^^^ '"^'^■''^ foresh^tenel 
 gainst the cornice Yet no less a person than Sir Thomas 
 Browne once wrote that those who denied there were witches 
 in^muoh as they thereby denied spirits also, were " ES 
 and upon consequence a sort^ not of infidels, but of athe^ts." 
 At present, doubtless, in certain circles, unbelievers in heavy 
 gentlemen who float m the air by means of undiscovered la^ 
 are also taxed with atheism; illiberal as it is not to admit thit 
 
i «f 
 
 I*0KT'8 BSTOBT. ur 
 
 toil MZiS^ZXt^C"* """*"■ '•" 
 
 craft, that instead of tortnri^ a ^ ^ ^^^ °' ''''<'^- 
 
 Sent, we «i- h^V^r^d't^'^/LlT.^ ^^ 
 distinguished medium. At least we^^^w ^*^f ^^^ 
 horrors; but if the multitude!Xt "Tn^n^ ""^ °* '^'^ 
 of all conditions, tempers, Z^f^l^ t^ZZ":^: 
 even to a snpersti^on that carri« ol^ inlt, t,^ u iif^ 
 
 P^er-n-nX'l-rjV^^^^ 
 S^S^^m"^er^™^^ 
 
 aflfeotions, and the S^^f tte fXtt ' "?'""''*^ *^« 
 J^rwove. Noundiscot:^t,."'^SnrL"^'':S^ 
 
 =rs;^rrr-\fiir=^s 
 
 do notTait ^hf". "^'^''*"""'«''^d sequences that 
 
 of bet; Sed b^t^Jl^p^' " '?:^ '^^ *^^"'*'' 
 
138 
 
 THE mPLUKJOB OP BATIONALUH: 
 
 ^L^ I'^'l"*'* "* •" '""°" *°'«*'^ "d making .df- 
 «^,% * '°f '^^*^y- Thew thinj. .re part of tte 
 external Eea«,n to which internal ailline.. has in^teUv to 
 accommodate itself. ""oraaniy to 
 
 Three points in the history of magio and witchcraft am «.n 
 
 with It did not begu. until men's minds had ceased to rewl! 
 unphcitly in a sacramental system which made them feeTS^ 
 ^«i against evil spirite-that is, until the eleM c»tZ 
 when there came a sort of morning dream of doubt and hS 
 
 on the other the terronsm of authority or zeal bent oiToheck- 
 
 tion would have been much moretorribr n ™ ?™f ,!n '"5"!"- 
 
 ..^^ ^^^''^ 7" ^f°^ to confound heretical opinion with 
 wrcery; false doctrine was especially the devU's w^T^d it 
 was a r««iy conclusion that a denier or innovatTud htld 
 consultet on with the-f ather of lies. It is a saykg ofl S 
 
 excellent work, 'De la Magie'-« Cre^nt cum iaaiaA^ 
 cumh^Bres* magia." Even those who doubted w^ teS 
 
 ati^e.doubte,for1justismoreeasilyunderSeS'thante,Sf 
 Pear is earlier bom than hope, lays a stronger grasp on Ws 
 system than any other passion, and remains^ii^^of " C>r 
 group of involuntary actions. A chief aspe^rm^'s SL 
 development is the slow subduing of fear by%he grad^ g^^ 
 of intelligence, and ite suppression as a motire gTepCZ 
 
 Se^owT It "? w'^ '^'*'*' ■» *«'* ^ relationTTT 
 w^Vl. V r* S ,*' '*"* ""^ *° *'"''*i «^ in thatinterfmZ 
 with higher faculties which we caU awe. "'wnusion 
 
J^KIKTB BISTORT. ,«. 
 
 a 139 
 
 m of pi4, would h^efou it S^" T°°/ *» ^ •" <«««- 
 
 •entiment wa. that h7XTLfl^» " '^1'^*^ ^»t«"^» 
 notmoh more n.er«^7to Jew •"/^'*°^>"^«(''»»^ 
 n« for ohUdren. believing a LjL?hi'ir. T*** °' ''^ ^'»'<J- 
 t«i by the devil, he recon^en^lS^ ''** *" *"'''«' ^'^ begot- 
 tbe river. ThTtoron^^l^^^''^? '^ «>"' itTto 
 
 hen,!, minda-notia i^vew^tt^«r^*t'"'"* ""»« <" 
 of meaanrinit our v».f Z^P ^ ">8Wtitude, but for the sake 
 
 which ka^cru^t ;rit*° "^^ ">« -«-«s 
 
 "oognizeasdetestaMe^eno™ fi,^^ °* 'KM, to make us 
 who, in mere inS J™" t ^°r* '^^r'^"'""' "^ -^ 
 much above us. A^^t.^t moral force, were very 
 
 comparatively short Sof.?"^ ^''^''' '^"™8 *•>• 
 Christians b^ore ^'eri^'the It^f •'"''^'. '"'""^ »" 
 tare* they applied for tvT-i- "*°°™*« ingenuity of the tor- 
 
 the tone religion, the chief "note" ot T^t,^'^^'^ ''" 
 owslty. It is hardly an endm«w. 7 vT ^* "^^'Pon was 
 their doings, thoroughirto ilSe tW^ """ ^^^ '^'^ »' 
 •"ready a sort of torture ^^J^T "^ » P>«t reality u 
 
 oomparativelymUd o^"itw^ t^:!^? "^""f ' «°<J ''^ » 
 caUed "prickers" to tLstiZp^ri^^rt?"" '^"■» 
 Pected witch in order to detecTfh-^f u?"^ ^^ °^ « sna- 
 the infallible sign "f her ^k 0^^"'!^"' "^^"^ ''« 
 would be in danmrof savLffW »^ * .superficial view one 
 the teachers whTlca It" J?*^" '»'*"»•«'« between 
 despised ancestor. X offe™.^ ^'^^'' "^^ ^o mnoh- 
 wicker idol, was Vt l?:^,i7tTmr'7.r''''' " "^^^ 
 %bya longer series of deSnt ^^ f-'"'""^ '""'^ 
 share Mr. Buckle's opinTon d Z^^'*-""'- ^ "^ ""t 
 were a part of his deUWe „,"!, f ^^^. """iter's groans 
 state of torrified subS tt ^°^ ^'^P'^e t^e people in a 
 beUef they ta^hrrd mikt wT'*"" «'«'"'»l^«'held the 
 
1» THB INFLUnroS OF RATIONALISM: 
 
 tiniM drawn tender oonelwion not wuruted by Major and 
 Minor; It there had not been people with an amiableinibeoU- 
 ity of reaaonmg which enabled them at once to cling to hide- 
 OM beliefs, and to be eoneoientiously inconsistent with them 
 in their conduct. There is nothing like acute deductive rea- 
 rming for keeping a man in the dark: it might be called the 
 techntqu, of the mteUect, and the concentration of the mind 
 npon It corresponds to that predominance of technical skill in 
 art which ends in degradation of the artist's function, unless 
 new inspiration and invention come to guide it. 
 
 And of this there is some good illustration fuinished by that 
 thud node in jie history of witchcraft, the beginning of ite 
 end, which 18 treated in an interesting manner by Mr. Leokv 
 It IS worth noticing, that the most important defences of the 
 belief m witchcraft, against the growing scepticism in the lat- 
 ter part of the suteenth century and in the seventeenth, were 
 the productions of men who in some departments were imong 
 tte foremost thinkers of their time. One of them was Jeaf 
 Bodm, the famous writer on government and jurispnidenoe. 
 
 ;^ ZZ^^^'h";" ^.'fr„^^^^ had an impo^t'influenc^e 
 m England, and fumuihed « a store of arguments and e:iamp3es 
 that w « not lost on the thoughtful minds of our oountoy- 
 men. In some of his views he was original and bold: for 
 Mimiple, he anticipated MontCHquieu in attempting to appre- 
 owte Uie relations of government and climate. Hallam in- 
 f^T !* "•• °?""v° ""' '"' '"" * J""' '^^ "ttxihed Divine 
 S'.:t "°'^-^ "t^ T T'"*'^'"'*- But thU was enoug^o 
 funi^ hun with his chief data for the existence of wiWies 
 S^™v.^T "^^'^ punishment; and in the account of hi, 
 Eepubhc" given by HaUam, there is enough evidence that 
 the sagacity which often enabled him to make fine use of his 
 
 at finding a writer on poUtioal science of whom it could be 
 said that, along with Montesquieu, he was "the most phUo- 
 
 those who had thought so much," in the van of the forlorn 
 hope to maintain the reality of witehcraft. It should be said 
 that he was equally confident of the unreality of the Copemi- 
 oan hypothesis, on the ground that it was contrary to the tenets 
 
"OKT-8 HfflTORT. uj 
 
 ^ "OA on witohewft, Mr. Lecky «y, 1 ^ "^"^ ^'^ 
 
 w^^hcraft; „dhe coll "ted h^'^^^T.^T'^'f ">a e,l«e'c,7, 
 g»t«i Wore tli. trlbun.1, of LlToro or of ^ ""■ ""^ '^° '"""- 
 with the most minnto ...j ■ "' •'">«•' oountries R« ~,i . 
 
 toraghthe.lr, their tnuuf„™.tjo„P"'y™'« »^I»«in« theimelvei 
 »«T1I, their T^iou. mean, of InjStte,/.?^*' "'^«'<«™ with the 
 to their detection, their oonfM.Un. T^ "'"°'*' ">e«lgn« th»t leJ 
 "•"or .t the .tab,... ~'"*""'»» when condemned, .TtteTr i^ 
 
 Something mnrt be al1nw«/i t , 
 • beUef which had fnWaSL J°l* .T^**'" '^«'*i'»> ^ward 
 W been immediatenro.!;^T7u "*•'*•'' Rodin's work 
 D»monun.." written bnoKS;*": "^^ "De Prestigii, 
 tre.ti« which i. worth notio^Wel^,™? ^^^'^^-^ 
 fonn of opinion for which m.^, e^^vlo of a transitional 
 the histor^ both of rXL "I "'.'^°««» """y •» found in 
 ^on;^ Zi in poLJ^t^^torbut f" •^"^^ ^ 
 physician had convinced hi^thaT the.^ his practice as a 
 Pabents and victims, thatTe IWii ^l'*"'^'''* "^^o" ^^^ 
 diseased condition to delnde^em 1^^^ fl""*^ "' "»«» 
 •ent of an evU will on the ptrt of ^ht^ "' *'"™ ""^ »° "O"- 
 the word in Leviticus tatSted.'wZ"'.^"- "^""S""^ '^a' 
 and besought the prince3Eurm, T^K °""^' "Poisoner," 
 hig of innocent WoT SeTr„ '"^/L'^*^'^«'''Pi«- 
 >nto «.ch a state of amazed ^^0^^^'^ *^^ ^^ 
 ancient Jew instead of a mod^™^!, '• *^f ' »* '« ^"«i h«en an 
 rent his garment. . " CS^*::^'^ f^ """ -"^^ l»ve 
 ««»rded to sorcerer, ",Td n«baM .t**"*^ °^ P"^"" ^^g 
 K. died young was b^c^seKj .'^°° ''^^^ ^harle^ 
 Trois EohellesI We m^^ , pardoned the sorcerer 
 
 when the gZ 60^^''"*°"^' *^' *^« -^ »T^/' 
 g«at aoientiho movement of the Bemussance^ 
 
1» 
 
 THK IMrLDXNOZ OF RATIONAUSIC! 
 
 .1.^1* "^"^ »ft«w»rd, on the other .id., «une Montaign* 
 who«. «).pt««l M„ten« oould «rive at negative, wE 
 •ny .pparatu. of wethod. A oertitin keen n«?owi,« of m- 
 
 targer wul, nbrating to more manifold influence^ would hare 
 ^ng .truggle to part with. And «, we find the oh„mtal 
 ^% Montugne-m one of the brighteet of hi. e.My^ " SS 
 Boitoux," where he declare, that, from hi. own obae^ationrf 
 
 ^'S:^tr""? "V^"* '"'^•' recomme^drtherS 
 be treated with curative hellebore-.tating in hi. own wav a 
 
 Urn much IcM of a prodigy that men .hould lie, or tbTtoei^ 
 imagination, ghould deceive them, than that a human bodv 
 rtould be carried through the air on a brooLticHrS^i 
 chimney, by wme unknown .pint. He thinks it a «d l^.i 
 
 m'-ti^de^/';::?" •""'" r" ^^' ««* te.t o" t^th'u" ta""^'; 
 multitude of believer.-" en une pre«w oi. le. fol. .urpa»ent 
 de tant le. «^[e. en nombre." Ordinarily, he ha. ota.^ 
 when men have .omething .tated to them a. a fwt thTu^ 
 more ready to explain it than to inquire wheth«it t^^ 
 
 honorable uid courageou. a. «,ience-" ignorance pour laq„e^ 
 
 ZZ» J^lV ^"^ "r '• """""» qu'i^nce^b U 
 !^htT' • ;^^ ^ r"^ °' **« immenw traditional evidence 
 whidi weighed with .uch men a. Bodin, he My.: "A. for^ 
 proof, and argument, founded on exp^riencV^d t^lVt 
 not pretend to unravel theee. What ^d of a threaHftJe^e 
 to lay hold of? I often cut them a. Alexander dWh" fa" 
 
 a enfatre euire un homme tout vif." ^ 
 
 th«^"*l* '*" ^"' ''''*° '* finds'eager reader., ig a.ign that 
 the weather is changing; yet much later, namely, after^666 
 when the Boyal Society had been founded, ouToW^iS 
 the author of the "Scepsis Scientifica," a work thaTwasTi^ 
 B««kable advance toward a true definition of The Zite d 
 
i* r. 
 
 ''KXT-B BUTORT. « j^ 
 
 toqnliy, ud th»t won him Mm al^Mn. . * « 
 
 .dl.b.U.f ,n »'U.hc'X;L°;^;„'^f,^,»'" England. E«r,3 
 taut wu , dl.bell,f that uraw ,nn™w » *"'* '" ""• "PP«cUwe.. 
 
 •taurt, M Involving tie mMT^JLL. ^ J*"""** « ". •• P«lp.blr 
 
 «lUlntorc.,Md.lthoughli,Ueor„TdT^tl!i''',''"»J the l,w, were 
 to beu npon the lubjeot In oiZ- ta .^L^"'°« '"«' '»•" bwaght 
 .amine the general queetlo " °f The IS?^^' "i '"""'" P«»«ded " 
 «" that the nuon why w Lh »..,"' °' "" miraoulou. He 
 Pl«.of th.mlr«,ulo™ ,1a th™?*,'^"';^"' "■■ '«»'« ' »- ; 
 «- chleflydue to tho«w^o dT.he'leJeS ' L^'!' ' ""•' "» «*P"«^m 
 *»» the Inetanoe. of »ltoho»ft „r ^ , ■"'"«'" ""d the Devil ■ and 
 .bly pl„«lon a l.verwUh'J.'^'rrr'r.'.'ii'' *'*"'•"•" W 
 ajgUnd. That the evidence „r^e^Iir/"^"^ '" ''» '»» «»<«. of 
 Wieved-and thU, Indeed wu i«.^ i. ** '""''''elmlng, he flrmlv 
 otdprioH Improbabliurwal^m^ ^ ""P"'"''* "»"• ""'l the^ 
 
 ttOTOilalijt. ho niged that the« wm JiT. ,tf "''"'■ »' °">d«n> oon- 
 Wl.fi Md that thoee who belleve"r.^n» .""^« " » "'"•'•"'y of nn- 
 « waa neoei«ry on the .nppolltlon" i^T oononrrenoeof dolualoM. 
 ht more credulou, than th<^h„ ° ' ^ <^«»nty of witchcraft. w«S 
 ««Ptlcl.m hi. prlnci;Lrr.;;''n''.'ri'':Si'''^''''-. Hemadehl;::^ 
 tho 4 prtort objeotlon.rhe rtiowed' th«' .'^•'y"''* «'"> maoh aontenei 
 jWeoonfldence <o ourU^^'^oftJ.'^rL"',"? °'»» »" -"""^ 
 Ouv Implied the existence of iwrne .,ri!» ■ °' ** •»""' "orld ; that 
 of men and of aplrit,; «.d O-H .™h Zl "^ '"""*° "" *"»'"" 
 «1«, no reasonlnit band nnlkl analogy mow probablv did n^ 
 
 e«m.nlngtheevl5e'r' Hecl'Kwl^.T"' "'r"" "» '^» 
 ".e evidence of which waa. a, he Slo'„:2t:'lnc:J;S:b?e".r"'"' '"'»«•. 
 
 »«rionaly occupied witt Te nTfTti ^"''' *° '•"V P«°Ple 
 "T of art, seem ^ IMe wortt of . °' '^'^' °' ""^"^ 
 
IM 
 
 THi nmcEiroi or ratiovalum, 
 
 bjtfaf u iiuMdaUty thrt doM net happ«, to b. hii ««.. 
 
 £S^w. ^1^^^ ""»• ""''«>• '»'• **«> p*«K 
 
 1»W« to thii Uuotnrtion oonoarnins the lolun o# CTZT ' 
 
 illlS^ ^ ''■•»»«!• of our b«.t life. Oar •entim.nt. m.Th. 
 called organized tmditioMi Md • lmnr.i»rtT«n.^ 
 g.th,r 11 their ju.tiiictio;, 11 ^^Z^^Z^ 
 
 ^^^•ff«--rtoi--ri£Lt 
 a^xrr.?d"rdT^srcf:ftnrj^'-^ 
 
 mind .t all rich in .en.ibUiti.rmu.t al °avX^ 1^"{ ' 
 
 Uughed at the evidence, for witchcraft, rL'Tfi; w^ 
 hare already taken np too much .p«ce with ttU ,uM«t „5 
 
 arowie, who far snrpassed Glanvil in mamifioent inoonZ™)^ 
 of opinion, and whose work, are the mT^^)^TS 
 «taon exiting of witty «.rca.m .gin.t lT«t n^SiTaJd" 
 
 !Z^ „/tr ^ f'^ ** ■'"^"K whataeemg to us the hard- 
 
 o^ion * U.,ng a. persecution on theg«,und of religio^ 
 
 On this subject of persecution, Mr. Lecky writes his h«t- 
 with clearness of conception, wi , oaliTin.Hir^ . 
 preoiatiug the nece«, ^ tendl!; 'f ^^^d wii^* °° '^ 
 priatene«. of illustration that could bf^pS^X!^'"" 
 nne and intelligent reading. PenZZ! he S^U ^t" 
 m any «,ns. peculiar to the CathoUc Ctu^J., ItTa I^ 
 
•nd in proportion toitZoy^^TlTV' ^ '*^C«hoSo., 
 •"nan. •TaZZim » ' ^'^'^''•n !«• b«« « p..' 
 
 tJuit th. Church, h^n tSSi # T"f » ' ■• ""^ »»'J«^ 
 eiril aw. Who will LvXf L ^ '*""'« ^ '•" *id of thi 
 
 •«». not pow„ U^'^v^^t.:!'* »r r":'"""*' 
 mm, Md o»er mott of thow, „to«^!L^ ■ """"■•««»» «< 
 "bjeou «re bora, .nd whXi^l^h oond,t,o„, into which 
 
 the doctrine of exclu^« „i « ^ *^ * •*°'*" !«""« in 
 
 tj..ir power <» -^'t" fS'S;^^^;--" *!! '"' " « 
 elMgy were «t theelhow„7fv P?~>tion; and whererer the 
 
 "Conpel them to eome^T^^a ^S'" "^ "" "•"''• 
 bj mercy, and the Horrible S^eSLu.r"*^ '^'^''""^ 
 •««ned unaU to minds a«m.JrT?*^ ** '"•'' ° ^io* 
 
 hll that wa. the in^ub k dSio""";*'*"*^ "'^"•« "^ • 
 mankind. """OJe deatmation of a majority amongst 
 
 Zningliu. and Socin^^tb 05*^^ 1^*^ '°'"^'* ""« 
 salvation. And in o^r^h^^H T •^^•*l«>^e" in exclusive 
 
 cwef tnumph.'of"h:xsr'w:rdurr°*' ^^'^ «■• 
 
 commends to the suooia' «ff-nf,v. i>^? "• *" "oercion, he 
 quotation from aToA ^^Z ^"ir^'"' ""* '""-"^"fl 
 fmous Protestant Jwio^ j^. ""^ru '"-*'°° *° «■• 
 hindered, as a Protes^H^n ' ""^"^ ''™«'" b**" 
 
 It should be remembered Zt T,^ . i^*"' »* Botterdam. 
 
 ^ part of the .even^t^'ttS" Jt'^e't^ *^' "^s 
 the eighteenth, and that h« ,as tLT.* ** beginning of 
 
 w^U^whomhewasinbitter J'air^! B^e^' 
 
ise 
 
 THB INPLUBNCK OF RATIONALISM: 
 
 then, at a time when there r,:^ warm debate on the queation 
 of Toleistion ; and it was his great object to vindicate him- 
 self and hia I^ench feUow-Protestants from all laxity on thia 
 point: — 
 
 "Peatron nierqne le pagantuneMttomM dana le mondepar I'antoriM 
 dea empereurs Bomaiu? On pent auuier ma Mm^rlM que le pagan- 
 lame aerolt encore deboat, et que lea trola quarta de 1 'Europe aeroient 
 encore payena al Conatautin et aea suoceaaeura n'avaient employ^ leur 
 autorlM.pour raboUr. Hala, je Toua prle, de quellea volea Dieu a'eat-il 
 servl dana cea demiera aitelea pour rStablir la veritable religion dana 
 rOocldent? Let roia de SuMe, ceux de Danemank, eeux d'Angleterre, 
 tea magMrati aouveraitu de Suime, dee Pdie Baa, dee vUlee libret d'Al- 
 lemagne, lee princes ilecteun, et autree princee eouvemiju de Vempire, 
 n'ont-ite pae emploU leur mitonU pour abbattre le Papieme t" 
 
 Indeed, wherever tie tremendous alternative of eveilasting 
 torments is believed in — believed in so that it becomes a 
 motive determining the life — not only persecution, but every 
 other form of severity and gloom, are the legitimate conse- 
 quences. There is much ready aeclamation in these days 
 against the spirit of asceticism and against zeal for doctrinal 
 conversion; but surely the macerated form of a Saint Francis, 
 the fierce denunciations of a Saint Dominic, the groans and 
 prayerful wrestlings of the Puritan who seasoned his bread 
 with tears and made all pleasurable sensation sin, are more in 
 keeping with the contemplation of unending anguish as the 
 destiny of a vast multitude whose nature we share, than the 
 rubicund cheerfulness of some modem divines, who profess to 
 unite a smiling liberalism with a well-bred and tacit but un- 
 shaken confidence in the reality of the bottomless pit. But 
 in fact, as Mr. Lecky maintains, that awful image, with its 
 group of associated dogmas concerning the inherited curse, 
 and the damnation of unbaptized infants, of heathens, and of 
 heretics, has passed away from what he is fond of calling 
 "the realizations" of Christendom. These things are no 
 longer the objects of practical belief. They may be mourned 
 for in encyclical letters; bishops may regret them; doctors 
 of divinity may sign testimonials to the excellent character 
 of these decayed beliefs; but for the mass of Christians they 
 are no more influential than unrepealed but forgotten statutes. 
 And with these dogmas has melted away the strong basis for 
 
UKJKT'S HISTORY. 
 
 137 
 
 cataons of hjmseU and bis colleagues from the suspZn of ad- 
 chIZ . "'^ PT'P/","^ toleration. And this momentous 
 change, it is Mr Leoky's object to show, is due to that con- 
 currence of conditions which he has chosen to oaU "the ad- 
 yanoe of the Spirit of Eationalism " 
 
 actL°!!'/f),^"*' °* '''"7°*' "^"^ ^^ ""'""P*" *° *»«• th« 
 Mtion of the same conditions on the acceptance of miracles 
 and on other ohi3f phases of our historical development Mr 
 i^ky has laid himself open to considerable criticism. The 
 tm?1r. "" the Miracles of the Church, the esthetic, scien! 
 t^n oTpT- ^*^?'°r'"*°* Eationalism, the Sec^larlza- 
 !mh^ T' ""* ^^^ Industrial history of Eationalism, 
 
 embrace a w.de range of diUgently gathered facts; but the^ 
 
 fn .^r V f"^ T^""" "* ''°*' »' tl'^ ""^« of tteir action 
 mthe gradual modification of opinion and of Ufe. The writer 
 frequentiy impresses us as being in a state of hesitation con- 
 cerning his own standing-point, which may form a desirable 
 C^i^^'";!"*- Tu^^^^^but not in published exposition. 
 S r^^u!",*^'^™*'' "°°=«Pti°». certain consid^atiomi, 
 oi iS*^,^ fundamental to his surrey, are introduced 
 quite incidentally in a sentence or two, or in a note which 
 seems to be an afterthought. Great writers and their ideas 
 are touched upon too slightly and with too little discrimina- 
 bon, and important theories are sometimes characterized with 
 a rashness which conscientious revision wiU correct. There 
 IS a f ataguing use of vague or shifting phrases, such as " mod- 
 
 teUectual type of the age, » " bias of the imaginationf" « habits 
 ^dlT"' .'^""KH" unbalanced by any precise definition; 
 and the spirit of rationalism is sometimes treate.' of as if it 
 lay outeide the specifio mental activities of which it is a gen- 
 eralized expression. Mr. Curdle's famous definition of the 
 dramatic unities as " a sort of a general oneness," is not totally 
 false i but such luminousness as it has could only be perceived 
 by ttose who already knew what the unities were. Mr. Leckv 
 
 rZ , "^"^T °* ^^^ """"Kly impressed with the great 
 part played by the emotions in the formation of opinion, and 
 
138 
 
 THE nXFhmsCX OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 With the high wmplexity of the oanses st work in «)cial ero- 
 lutaon; but he frequently writes as if he had never yet diatin- 
 guiahed between the complexity of the conditions that produce 
 prevalent states of mind, and the inabiUty of partiouUr minds 
 ^,fl"l .^°* ""^"^ *°' ^^^ preferences or persuasions pro- 
 duced by those States. In brief, he does not discriminat/w 
 nZ ,'"'*i'"P/>» !<««l» to di ^inate, between obj^ve 
 complexity and subjective oonfu„^n. But the most muddle- 
 headed gentleman who represents the spirit of the age by 
 obserymg, as he settles his collar, that the development-Teo^ 
 IS quite "the thmg,"i8 a result of definite pr^sesses, If ^ 
 could only trace thei.. "Mental attitudes" and "predisposi- 
 tions, however vague in consciousness, have not vague causes 
 21 ^°i^^ ^^ "^^^ """"""^ of ^^ Bpriag" in j,lLu 
 
 The word "Rationalism" has the misfortune, shared by 
 most words in thu gray world, of being somewhat equivocal. 
 This evil may be nearly overcome by careful preliminary 
 definition ; but Mr. Lecky does not supply this, and the ori^ 
 nal specific appUcation of the word tea particular phase of 
 Biblical interpretation seems to have clung about his use of it 
 with a misleading efEect. Through some parts of his book he 
 appears to regard the grand characteristic of modern thoueht 
 and civilization, compared with ancient, as a radiation in L 
 first instance from a change iu religions conceptions. The 
 supremely important fact, that the gradual reduction of aU 
 phenomena within the sphere of established law, which carries 
 as a consequence the rejection of the miraculous, has its de- 
 termining current in the development of physical science, 
 seems to have engaged comparatively little of his attention- 
 at least, he gives it no prominence. The great conception of 
 universal regular sequence, without partiality and without 
 caprice-the conceptioa which is the most potent force at 
 work in the modification of our faith, and of the practical 
 form given to our sentiments-could only grow out of that 
 patient watchmg of external fact, and that silencing of pre- 
 conceived notions, which are urged upon the mind by the 
 problems of physical science. 
 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OP GERMAN LIFE- 
 RIEHL. 
 
 »ot J fh *? ^freeting branch of psychological observation to 
 Jf^^T? ^^^ "^ iabituaUy associated with abstract 
 LT?S! ™T"^T^'* ""^ ** '^^ *^« piotnre-writ- 
 mL .^!, nimd, which It carries on concurrently with the 
 
 fi^tEtoflT ""T'f ^-K^^^o-Jd furnish a tole^bly 
 fi^ tost of the amount of concrete knowledge and experien<i 
 lh^r.1 fT'^^r"^ represents, in the minds of two persons 
 who use .t with equal familiarity. The word railw!y., fo 
 eiample, wUl probably call up, in the mind of a man who is 
 not highly locomotive, the image either of a " Bradshaw," or 
 
 SSl^ of tram-road; he will alternate 'between thl 
 three images which represent his stock of concrete acqnaint- 
 uce with railways. But suppose a man to have had succes- 
 
 Sv H- T "*""." "l " " "*^'" -^ »«*"«". » traveUe ; a 
 ^'JT' " T^ o^o^oUer, and a landed proprietor i^ 
 toea^ with a railway company, and it is probable that the 
 J^of images which would by turns present themselves t^ 
 hM mmd at the mention of the word " railways," would include ' 
 ^ the essential facts in the existence and relatious of theS 
 Now It is possible for the first-mentioned personage to Inter! 
 tarn very expanded views as to the multiplication ff railways 
 
 He may talk of a vast network of raUways stretching over the 
 globe, of future "lines" in Madagascar, "and eleganf rlfre^! 
 ment-rooms in the Sandwich Islands, with none L less gl t 
 ^n^r'M-'^"*^''* conceptions on the subject do not 
 ^ L^^""^^.^.""' ''***^°° *°<1 ^ indefinite length of 
 tram-road. But it is evident that if we want a raUway to b» 
 
140 
 
 THE KATTOAL HIBTOBT OF GERMAN LIM:: 
 
 made, or iu affairs to be managed, thia man of wide viewa 
 and narrow observation wUl not aerre our purpow. 
 
 Probably, if we could ascertain the images caUed np by the 
 terms "the people," "the masses," "the proletariat," "the 
 peasantry," by many who theorize on those bodies with elo- 
 quent, or who legislate for them without eloquence, we 
 should find that they indicate almost as small an amount 
 of concrete knowledge-that they are as far from completely 
 representiug the complex facts summed up in theooUeotive 
 term, as the raUway images of our non-locomotive gentleman. 
 How little the real characteristics of the working classes are 
 known to those who are outside them, how little their ratural 
 history has been studied, is sufficiently disclosed by our rt 
 as weU as by our political and social theories. Where, in our 
 picture exhibitions, shaU we find a group of true peasantry? 
 What English artist even attempts to rival in truthfulness 
 such studies of popular life as the pictures of Teniers or the 
 ragged boys of Murillo? Even one of the greatest painters of 
 
 !rr^^^"*T*"*'y "*^^'° ^^°°^ ^l""*. «> his picture of 
 The Hirelmg Shepherd," he gave us a landscape of marvel- 
 lous truthfulness, placed a pair of peasants in the foreground 
 who were not much more real than the idylUo swains and 
 damsels of our chimney ornaments. Only a total absence of 
 acquaintance and sympathy with our peasantry could give a 
 moment s popularity to such a picture as "Cross Purposes " 
 where we have a peasant girl who looks as if she knew L E 
 L. s poems by heart, and English rustics, whose costume 
 . seems to indicate that they are meant for ploughmen, with 
 exotic features that remind us of a handsome pHmo temyre. 
 Kather than such Cockney sentimentality as this, as an edu- 
 cation for the taste-and sympathies, we prefer the most crap- 
 ulous group of boors that Teniers ever painted. But even 
 those among our painters who aim at giving the rustic type of 
 features, who are far above the effeminate feebleness of the 
 Keepsake" style, treat their subjects under the influence of 
 traditions and prepossessions rather than of direct observa- 
 tion. The notion that peasants are joyous, that ihe typical 
 moment to represent a man in a smock-frock U when he is 
 cracking a joke and sho'siua a row ol sound teeth, that cot- 
 
rubl. 
 
 141 
 
 the LJ, tilT^^l^Z^"^, •"*,?"'' *° '^•'■''^8« *^ 
 inrtead of life. The paZ^ f° !^, ""^^"'^ ^*° «'«~t"e 
 idyUio literature, whi' h ZlSw ' '*'" "»''«' ^^^ ^fl"«°«« »' 
 of the cultivatel'a^d t^^tLr^-'^t^tP'^^'^ t^^ ^'^^''*^°" 
 tie life. IdyUio dIou^H^ "^ "'"' '''^ *^^ of "w- 
 team afield WvU&rT'' ^'^^ ''"'" "^"^ <l^ive their 
 thorn-bushe; tdXvEs d"'" "^?^ ^°^« »'"»" l"*- 
 and refresh ttem eW Ti^r-^ "t*^" ''''«''''*"^ '^^^ 
 brown ale. But no „n« Jl .. '^^"'^'y- ''"'' "Pi^y nut- 
 men thinl. ^1 ZZi n° ^ '^r" ""*^ °* «'*««!' Pl°°8h- 
 -he English ^^^rTpln * ''^° " '*" ""^uaint^ with 
 
 gaze,in'4ionrseT,eTfC„ril"""'T'^- '^^«'^<"' 
 -the slow ntteranrid fh» ?^ ^^ "" '"^"^ twinkles, 
 one rather ofXt melihSvir'^,''r^'°« ""^ ^««>^ 
 sturdy countrym^.'^SSJX;^!*^' "T'' *^'"' "^ «•» 
 hat aside, who rewesente Jhf f ^■^^'. ^ ''""tcoat, and 
 
 Observe a%on>pa^/rh,lS™'^r''' '^"^"^^ I"^*- 
 distance, tossing up the Sr;f ^ •" ^^ "^ ^"'^ »' » 
 while the wagon orTepsalowrviifS-.''^ "" ^^ 8°>'*«° ^i^ht, 
 the meadow, and ttehr^^f^ ^'^^ '*" '""""'sing burden ovei 
 done gets Wr and w^^* ^'*" "P'""' ^^•'«'' fU" of work 
 ing," and you Zk Z/' ^°" ?'.""<'""«« the scene «,n.a- 
 
 brfght andreeS'asXXrrw'hShS; "?""* '^ " 
 
 won-e/a^ongl: iSert fte cl^t^tl^- "^ 
 out erery now and then, and ezDr7al«X J?^ ?"* ''°"*« 
 ^ as far as possible from y^MXeotTon o* ^''^^^' .*»""*. 
 That deUcious effervescence of rt« 1^ T I u^"'" merriment, 
 no equivalent for the n^X ^^ "^'"^ "^ =»" ^ has 
 
 theonlyreXof ftcvtS ^'''^'' ""'P* tipsy revelry, 
 
 -ists L thSoSo^zTrti^^r-p^r "^^ ""«"^''»'-° 
 sSrgei'^^-sit^^^^-^s^T^^^^^ 
 
 ..^.or^ing-resra^^X— rj--^^^^^^ 
 
I 
 
 142 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF GERMAN LIFE: 
 
 »n upright diBposition. It is qtute true that » thtether is 
 likely to be innooent of any adroit arithmetioal cheating; but 
 he is not the less likely to carry home his mastei's com iu his 
 shoes and pocket; a reaper is not given to writing begging- 
 letters, but he is quite capable of cajoling the dairymaid into 
 filling his small-beer bottle with ale. The selfish instincts 
 are not subdued by the sight of buttercups, nor is integrity in 
 the least established by that classic rural occupation, sheep- 
 washing. To make men moral, something more is requisite 
 than to turn tliem out to grass. 
 
 Opera peasants, whose unreality excites Mr. Buskin's in- 
 dignation, are surely too frank an idealization to be mislead- 
 ing; and since popular chorus is one of the most effective 
 elements of the opera, we can hardly object to lyrio rustics in 
 elegant laced bodices and picturesque motiey, unless we are 
 prepared to advocate a chorus of colliers in their pit costume, 
 or a ballet of charwomen ^d stocking-weavers. But our so- 
 cial novels profess to represent the people as they are, and the 
 unreality of their representations is a grave evil. The greatest 
 benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novel- 
 ist, is the extension of our sympathies. Appeals founded on 
 generalizations and statistics require a sympathy ready-made, 
 a moral sentiment already in activity; but a picture of human 
 life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial 
 and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from them- 
 selves, which may be called the raw material of moral senti- 
 ment. When Scott takes us into Luckie Mucklebackit's 
 cottage, or tells the story of "The Two Drovers,"— when 
 Wordsworth sings to us the reverie of "Poor Susan,"— when 
 Kingsley shows ns Alton Locke gazing yearningly over the 
 gate which leads from the highway into the first wood he ever 
 saw, —when Homung paints a group of chimney-sweepers,— 
 more is done toward linking the higher classes with the lower, 
 toward obliterating the vulgarity of exclusiveness, than by 
 hundreds of sermons and philosophical dissertations. Art is 
 the nearest thing to ] ; it is a mode of amplifying experi- 
 ence and extending our contact with our fellow-men beyond 
 the bounds of our personal lot. All the more sacred is the 
 task of the artist when he undertakes to paint the life of the 
 
rurl 
 
 14S 
 
 People. F»l«ifioaf>n here is far more pemioion. than in the 
 
 we^ould have falw Ideas about evanescent fashion^abo^t 
 
 i JT,. ^k"? '»°'"~*>°» ^* b«a« and duchesses; buH 
 « serious that our sympathy with the perennial joy. and 
 ^ggles, the toil the tragedy, and the hLor in the Me o1 
 our more heavily Men feUowmen, should be pervertedrL^d 
 turned toward a false object instead of the true we. 
 ■J !'^T"u°°."°°* *^' l^<»t<^til because the misrepre- 
 ™r wl'^ck gives rise to it has what the artist con"Z 
 
 «e the "iotives and influences which the moralist thinks ou2 
 to act on the laborer or the artisan, but what are the motives 
 
 f«1 ^iT'.ru'''^'''' '^^ °° ^^- ^« '"^' t° b« taught to 
 feel, not for the heroic artisan or the sentimental peasant bu? 
 f» tte peasant m a^l his coarse apathy, and the a^^san ^ ^ 
 his suspicious selfishness. 
 
 noZ' ^r* T •'^i °°^*'"''* '''"' " 8^ft«d with the utmost 
 p«wer of rendermg the external traits of our town population- 
 
 1«. « """^l-r""' '^"•^ psychological charact^r-S 
 conceptions of life, and their emotions-with the same tn.th 
 
 «n^^« "'"A^l't °"""'"'' ^" ^^^ ''""I'i ^ ">e greatest 
 oontntation Art has ever made to the awakening ofsocW 
 
 ^ft^W. ^."I'l'il^l'ecanoopy Mrs. Plomish'fcoldal 
 kaieTfl .^ir ""-^ aocunujy of a sun-picture, while7here 
 w the same startlmg inspiration in his description of the ges- 
 tures and pleases of "Boots," as in the spe^hes of ShZ- 
 ^'s mobs or numskulls, he scarcely ever passes from the 
 humorous and external to the emotional and tragic, without 
 burning as transcendent in his unreality as he w^a mom:n 
 before in his artist.o truthfulness. But for the precious sa" 
 rf his humor, which compels him to reproduce external traits 
 Zt \ ? ""^t ^^^""'' "' * <=0"ective to his frequently 
 and JfLt V^' ^'^P'«*«"at"^^ly virtuous poor chUdren 
 and artisans, his melodramatic boatmen and courtesans, would 
 be as noxious as Eugtee Sue's idealized proletaires in ^ncour- 
 
 ^ILlt '""*""''' ^""""y '^"^ ^'^^ '"°^'^'ty "^d refined 
 sentiment can grow out of harsh social relations, ignorance, 
 and want} or that the working classes are in a condition to 
 
144 
 
 
 THI NATURAL HISTORY OF OIRKAN LOT; 
 
 enter at once into » miUennua itete of <Ut.^um, wherein ererv 
 one IS curing for erery one else, and no one for hm«elf. 
 
 « we need » true conception of tiie popular character to 
 guide our .ympathies righUy, we need it equaUy to cheek our 
 theonee, and direct u« in their application. The tendenev 
 created by the splendid conqueato of modem generalization 
 to believe that ail social questions are merged in economical 
 science, and that the relations of men to their neighbors may 
 be settled by algebraic equation8,-the drearr. that the nnoul- 
 tured olassM are prepared for a condition which appeals prin- 
 cipally to their moral sen8ibi'ities,-the aristocratic dilettante- 
 ism which attempts to restore the "good old times" by a sort 
 <rf Idyllic masquerading, and to grow feudal fidelity and vener- 
 ation as we grow prize turnips, by an artificial system of cul- 
 ture, --none of these diverging mistakes can coexist with areal 
 knowledge of the People, with a thorough study of their hab- 
 1^ aieir ideas, their motives. The land-holder, the olerirv- 
 man, the miU-owaer, the' mining-agent, have each an oppor- 
 tuniy for making precious observations on different sections 
 of the working classes; but unfori;unately their experience is 
 too often not registered at all, or its results are too scattered 
 to be available as a source of information and stimulus to tiie 
 pub 10 mrnd generally. If any man of sufBcient moral and 
 mteUectual breadth, whose observations would not be vitiated 
 by a foregone conclusion, or by a professional point of view 
 would devote himself to studying the natural history of oui 
 social classes, especially of the smaU shopkeepers, artisans 
 and pea8antry,-aie degree in which tiiey are influenced b^ 
 tocal conditions, their maxims and habits, the points of view 
 from which they regard their religious teachers, and the de- 
 gree in which they are influenced by religious doctrines, the 
 interaction of tiie various classes on each other, and what 
 are the tendencies in their position toward disintegration or 
 toward development,-and if, after all this study, he would 
 give us the result of his observations in a book well nourished 
 wia specific facts, his work would be a valuable aid to the 
 social and political reformer. 
 
 What we are desiring for ourselves has been in some degree 
 done for the Germans by Biehl, the author of the veiy re- 
 
KOHL. 
 
 14S 
 
 «idJ^„'„* , 7 ''?'' *° ""^« •*•»« book" known to our 
 f^ not only fo, the sake of the interesting maSefth^ 
 eontwn Md the important reflections they suBmet. b«r.l2r!{ 
 .model for «,me future or «,tual etud^t ofTr^oin\^lf 
 
 ^o^ZT"'' 'p"*" «*"* ""P'** sketch froHTpS 
 
 In England, at present, when we speak of the neasantrr 
 we mean scarcely more than the class^f farm serCTSd 
 
 tte term ik tlT^ *^'" ^*™*'" »"' '"''^"'J'd <^der 
 mw ^t^ ^ ^ appreciate what Biehl says of the Ger- 
 ^ I^^' ! """' "member what the tenant-farmera 
 
 sr^s; issues .^^srs'sT'^tr 
 
 Krot ft < r* ""P"''"^ farmhouse without findinH 
 
' Tm KATURAL HTBTORT OF OIHMAW LOT, 
 
 though Ui« d.ngh»e« may rtiU top thrir A'^ thete Towtla m 
 •tadiouily nwTowi wd it is only in Twy primittr. region. 
 tt«t they wiU consent to rit in » oorwod rehiole without 
 TltoS*" *" ""* thought >n adTMiM in Iniuiy on the 
 
 The condition of the teMmt-famew and smaU proprieton 
 ^Germany is, we imagine, about on a par, not, certainly, in 
 
 T^ ^.J"^^P*^' •""* '° '"*''«*1 '"Jt"" ""d habit., with 
 tut of the English farmers who were beginning to be ti^oSt 
 old-fashioned nearly fifty years ago; and if we add to thL 
 the fam-servants and laborers, we shall hay. a claM approxi- 
 mating in Its characteristics to the Bauemthum, or peasLtrr 
 described by Biehl. i—.^iuy, 
 
 In Germany, perhaps more than in any other country, it is 
 among the peasantry that we must look for the historical type 
 t ^^TTJ^ Pf^yi^ue. In the towns this type has beco,^ 
 so modified to express the persouaUty of the indiyidual, that 
 even family likeness " ts often but faintly marked. But the 
 peasants may stm be distinguished into groups by their physi- 
 cal pecuharities. In one part of the country we find a lonwr- 
 legged, m another a broader-shouldered race, which ha. inher- 
 ited these peculiarities for centuries. For example, in certain 
 districts of Hesse are seen long faces, with high foreheads, 
 long straight noses, and small eyes with arched eyebrow. «.d 
 large eyelid.. On comparing these physiognomies with the 
 
 r^^T."!.**! "^"J"^ "' ^'- ^^^^^' •* Marburg, exe- 
 cuted in the thirteenth century, it will be found that the same 
 old Hessian type has subsisted unchanged, with this distinc- 
 tion only that fte sculptures represent princes and nobles 
 whose features then bore the stamp of their race, while tha 
 stamp IS now to be found only among the peasants. A painter 
 who wants to draw medieval character, with historic truth, 
 must seek his m,Kl»ls among the peasantry. This explains 
 why the old German painters gave the heads of their subjects' 
 a greater uniformity of type than the painters of our day- 
 he race had not attained to a high degree of indiyiduali^! 
 tion m features and expression. It indicates, too, that the 
 cultured man acts more as an individual; the peamnt, more 
 a. one of a group. Hans driyes the plough, liyes, and thinks 
 
KXBL. 
 
 U7 
 
 hUtory to which he olin^ w th iS.« nf ^^r?"'' ^ "^"^ »' 
 
 tlu. country a. ^^.^tllT^^ir^^T *'''' «° *'»■" 
 ■^ers, whU, the more StSoerL:"" '°°«' •"•* 
 very ihort time fonret th.ir nJ i "*"°»° emigrants in « 
 g«rian. Another ZLSb 6 r: Tf^ ""* '^^ «>^- 
 
 be« amount to 200 oon i ■ • • . ^""t"*. ^hose num- 
 
 German SulatioTort'JS'^r'lhr'^CrV' 
 
 r^nf i^.tat^st^rth"^'^-^^^^ atiis 
 
 the Pope, tt.StotrncS'l.''°'r/J«^'' '^"'»*- "' 
 
 «»tomwhic^ a"'undr3^J^ «^'7^ ^ '«"|-« ''i— ^ 
 tant Germany. The WenH^i!- "*°'/*' T'^*'''*' i° Protes- 
 of his ChnS and LE &'""*"'''"{' *" """ "»««« 
 to the purity in which hi m!?! ^^ «'"''"''»'« ""t « li«le 
 tics of his rL GermJl e^r. ''«*^'' "P^^" ohar-^teris- 
 ment, servirin the' rdit^r'^r*" '"I""'* «°^«"'- 
 «. in antagonism to htSon^ScS^rfs tu" r""'^ 
 and mother, here, as elsewharo """'^eness, but the wtua 
 
 ■«<™rf ij lb. «».id.' n. w*.zS'™ ";" "• 
 
I 
 
 ! I 
 
 :l 
 
 148 THX NATURAL BISTORT Or OBRHAM LITI: 
 
 IwT* bMD, from tb« flnt, an •gtieultonl paopl*. tot i 
 
 pie, they have tnditioMl modes of treating their domeetio 
 ■nimalt. Saoh oow hai it< own name, generally ehoaen eare- 
 folly, to a« to expreee the epeoial qualities of the animal; and 
 all important familj events are narrated to the A««— a onatom 
 whioh is found also in Weetpbalia. Whether bj the help of 
 the bees or not, the Wend farming is especially prosparonsi 
 and when a poor Bohemian peasant has a son bom to him, he 
 binds him to the end of a long pole rjid tarns his faoa tow- 
 ard Lusatia, that he may be aa luoky as the Wends who live 
 there. 
 
 The peculiarity of the peasant's language consists chiefly 
 in his retention of historical pecu)<aritiee, whioh gradually 
 disappear under the friction of cultivated circles. He prefers 
 any proper name that may be given to a day in the calendar, 
 rather than the abstract date, by which he very rarely reckons. 
 In the baptismal names of his children he is guided by the old 
 custom of the country, not at all by whim and fancy. Many 
 old baptismal names, formerly common in Germany, would 
 have become extinct but for their preservation among the 
 peasantry, eepecially in North Germany: nnd no firmly have 
 they adhered to local tradition iu this matwr, that it would be 
 possible to give a sort of topographical statistics of proper 
 names, and distinguish a district by its rustic names as wa do 
 by its Flora and Faun.v The continuous inheritance of eer- 
 tain favorite proper names in a family, in some districts, forces 
 the peasant to adopt the princely custom of attaching a nu- 
 meral to the name, and saying, when three generations are 
 living at once, Hans I., II., and III.; or, in .,.'<) more an- 
 tique fashion, Hans the elder, the middle, and the younger. 
 In some of our English counties there is a similar adherence 
 to a narrow range of proper names; and as a mode of distin- 
 guishing collateral branches in the same family, you will hear 
 
 of Jonathan's Bess, Thomas's Bess, and Samuel's Bess ^the 
 
 three Bessies being cousins. 
 
 The peasant's adherence to the traditional has much greater 
 inconvenience than that entailed by a paucity of proper names. 
 In the Black Forest and iu Huttenberg you will see him in the 
 dog-days wearing a thick fur cap, because it is a historical fat 
 
RnBL. 
 
 149 
 
 "llMev.w«,l«!». "'^""■8"' "ould now think herielf in . 
 the tight le.th«Wwl^I"'wh^„jT *«'"'''«' to renounce 
 
 brmoei In th- .?!!? ^ ° '''* unhwtorio.1 invention of 
 
 S.'^rh;;7gf j^ttd"^ '^liTT ""r*" '""'^^ 
 
 to put them on hU own table '^h"" ''\"°"''* ^ P*'"™'^'^ 
 iJ:« pedant to^T^^t i!""^*'' ""' '">''i"in«ne88 of 
 .UtioV^e fSha^rr"" '"" ' ""' """a«onable foun- 
 
 "One U never too old to^eL Jd T^.f"""'' P'"^*'^-' 
 lewned to be a witoh." ' "'"^ ''"""'i ■<> »•'« 
 
 ooitTof S arhJT tS 'r-"""" ^'"'P' «» 
 
 hereditary f^ttS Xt'tritr^if'i.^^^ 
 Borneo amoni? the "mat^nr.^a» ™« » * lorest. if any 
 
 the «wate.sU,CertXrnrLT l/^X^Z 
 
 i„ 
 
'I 
 
 180 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF GERMAN LIPE; 
 
 Mercutios to carry the conflict from words to blows, though 
 neither side knows a reason for the enmity. 
 
 A droll instance of peasant conservatism is told of a village 
 on the Taunus, whose inhabitants from time immemorial had 
 been famous for impromptu cudgelling. For this historical 
 offence the magistrates of the district had always inflicted the 
 equally historical punishment of shutting up the most incor- 
 rigible offenders, not in prison, but in their own pig-sty. In 
 recent times, however, the Government, wishing to correct 
 the rudeness of these peasants, appointed an " enlightened " 
 man as a magistrate, who at once abolished the original pen- 
 alty above-mentioned. But this relaxation of punishment was 
 so far from being welcome to the villagers, that they pre- 
 sented a petition praying that a more energetic man might be 
 given them as a magistrate, who would have the courage to 
 punish according to law and justice, "as had been before- 
 time." And the magistrate who abolished incarceration in 
 the pig-sty could never obtain the respect of the neighbor- 
 hood. This happened no longer ago than the beginning of 
 the present century. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that the historical piety of 
 the German peasant extends to anything not immediately 
 connected with himself. He has the warmest piety toward 
 the old tumble-down house which his grandfather built, and 
 which nothing will induce him to improve ; but toward the 
 venerable ruins of the old castle that overlooks his village he 
 has no piety at all, and carries off its stones to make a fence 
 for his garden, or tears down the Gothic carving of the old 
 monastic church, which is "nothing to him," to mark off a 
 footpath through his field. It is the same with historical tra- 
 ditions. The peasant has them fresh in his memory, so far 
 as they relate to himself. In districts where the peasantry 
 are unadulterated, you discern the remnants of the feudal 
 relations in innumerable customs and phrases, but you will 
 ask in vain for historical traditions concerning the empire, or 
 even concerning the particular princely house to which the 
 peasant is subject. He can tell yon what ■' half people and 
 whole people" mean; in Hesse you will ^till hear of "four 
 horses making a whole peasant," or of "four-d / and three- 
 
RIBHL. 
 
 ISl 
 
 tl^^rB.Sj^'"' ""^ -^ about CWe.a,.e 
 a country the gre, ,er p.rt of J., hl'd ^UlTr'",*^""^.* ^ 
 
 8la^ thJt^J ^ ' """^ *''*"' ^ *^« e^liest times, a 
 
 ine peasant never beeins his lawsuit i„ . 
 
 3ame reason that he does Ltrn^e We iL^rin'' "" *^' 
 -because he has no time for that s<^roSir^^A T^""' 
 easier to him than to move out of M,\ ^^ f ' ^^^''"'S » 
 is attached even to his privatbnf't^'^"^^^^^ '^^ ^' 
 
I 
 
 162 THE NATTBAL HISTORY OF OERHAK LIFE: 
 
 lad having never in his life slept in a bed, when he had to get 
 into one for the first time began to cry like a ohild; and he 
 deserted twice because he could not reconcile himself to sleep- 
 ing in a bed, and to the "fine" life of the barracks: hi was 
 homesick at the thought of his accustomed poverty and his 
 thatched hut. A strong contrast this with the feeling of the 
 poor in towns, who would be far enough from deserting be- 
 cause their condition was too much improved I The genuine 
 peasant is never ashamed of his rank and calling; he is rather 
 inclined to look down on every one who does not wear a 
 smock-frock, and thinks a man who has the manners of the 
 gentry is likely to be rather windy and nnsubstantial. In 
 some places, even in French districts, this feeling is strongly 
 symbolized by the practice of the peasantry, on certain festi- 
 val days, to dress the images of the saints in peasant's cloth- 
 ing. History tells us of all kinds of peasant insurrections, 
 the object of which was to obtain relief for the peasants from 
 some of their many oppressions; but of an effort on their part 
 to step out of their hereditary rank and calling, to become 
 gentry, to leave the plough and carry on the easier business of 
 capitalists or Government functionaries, there is no example. 
 The German novelists who undertake to give pictures of 
 peasant life, fall into the same mistake as our English novel- 
 ists; they transfer their own feelings to ploughmen and wood- 
 cutters, and give them both joys and sorrows of which they 
 know nothing. The peasant never questions the obligation 
 of family ties— he questions no etwiom,— but tender affection, 
 as it exists amongst the refined part of mankind, is almost as 
 foreign to him as white hands and filbert-shaped nails. That 
 the aged father who has given up his property to his children 
 on condition of their maintaining him for the remainder of his 
 life, is very far from meeting with delicate attentions, is indi- 
 cated by the proverb current among the peasantry " Don't 
 
 take your clothes off before you go to bed." ' Among rustic 
 moral tales and parables, not one is more universal than the 
 story of the ungrateful children, who made their gray-headed 
 father, dependent on them for a maintenance, eat at a wooden 
 trough because he shook the food out of his trembling hands. 
 ' This jiroverb Is conunon among tbe English farmers also. 
 
RtBBL. 
 
 183 
 
 mien the.e same ungrateful chUdren obeeryed one day that 
 
 7aS^ and »n:.^ """"kI"* '* "" *"' ^« answered-fhat " , 
 
 l&niage is a very prudential affair, especiaUy among the 
 p»«uitewho have the largest share of property. Mitio m^! 
 nages are as common among them as among princes- and 
 
 thLTThl^" . ^^^ ^y' '^^ y°""8' "^"i tl"* rapidity with 
 wbioh they get old and ugly is one among the many proofs 
 that the eaxly years of marriage are fuUer of hidZs 
 than of conjugal tenderness. " When cur writers of vill^e 
 
 TtHlLT^^'^'^i:''''^'"''"^ *^«^ ownemotionL Weto 
 tte peasan^ they obUterated what is precisely his most pre^ 
 
 torn holds the place of individual feeling. " 
 
 We pay for greater emotional susceptibility too often bv 
 nervous dmeases of which the peasant know^ nothing To 
 
 W wTI";! '' *^- '""* °* P^'^""'^ «^"''' *^^«> he thinks 
 head-work the easiest and least indispensable of aU labor 
 Happily, many of the younger sons in peasant families, bv 
 gomg to seek their living in the towns, ci«y their hardy ner' 
 vous system to amalgamate with the overwrought nerves of 
 our town population, and refresh them with a UtUe rudeXr 
 Md a return to the habits of peasant life is the best reXy 
 vlT-^r"!? "' "^^ "' P^y""*! '!"«»««'' induced by per^ 
 nieTirf Tv ^''" Poi^t» to colonization as presfntog 
 rf t^L *^ regenerative process. On the other aid! 
 
 of the ocean a man will have the courage to begin life again 
 as a peasan^ while at home, perhaps, opportunity as wdl m 
 courage will f aU him. Apropos of this subject of emigS 
 
 Zt r °. ^.' ^'"^ P«^* "««"' to forsake him en- 
 tuely when he has to apply them under new circumstances, 
 and^ relations foreign to his experience. Hence it is thai 
 tim ^T""- ^^T^* T^° emigrates, so constantiy falls a vio- 
 tun to unprmoipled advsiturers in the preliniiniies to emi- 
 
1«4 THB NATURAL HISTORY OF GERMAN UFS: 
 
 S^' ^wi* ?"* ^^ «"• ^^ ^^t "^ *^o American ■oiL he 
 
 But many diaintegrating forces have been at work on the 
 peasant oharaoter, and degeneration is unhappil/^L on at 
 oiSt* t^ ''"' Vv^ development. In the wi^e ^sWcta «pe 
 oiaUy, the mabil% of the small proprietors to bear up under 
 tl^e vicissitudes of the market^ or to ensure a high qual?rf 
 
 tZ^^^w°'°*.*^•!."'""'°* "'"*« ^"^ andthe^comS- 
 tion of beer and cider with the inferior wines, have teS 
 
 T.Z^rf'^ "-certainty of gain which, with the peaZ^ 
 IS the inevitable cause of demoralization. The small ^asant 
 
 eWlsTf thir "t-" """^ '"^ ^ ^"""^y- »">* -"-^y °f the 
 ^dv 2n r'*"? "^ "*"• ^"y "« """O dependent on 
 
 Th^ n ^ ^"''^^ ""^ ^'^S f'""^ tl-e '=°n''"<"' forest, 
 he has now to pay for ,t with hard cash; he used to thatch his 
 own house, with the help perhaps of a neighbor, but now he 
 pays a man to do it for him; he used to pay taxes in kindT he 
 now pays them in money. The chances of the market have 
 1™^ f>««'»''t«d, and the peasant falls into the handfof 
 money-lenders. Here is one of the oases in which Z^ 
 pohcy clashes witL a purely economical policy 
 
 Political vicissitudes have added their influence to that of 
 economical changes in disturbing that dim instLct ttaWev 
 erence for traditional custom, which is the peas^t-s pricl 
 pie of acbon. He is in the midst of noveltiesTr wWrhe 
 knows no reason-changes in political geography, ohLges o 
 the Govermuent to which he owes fealtyTcha^gS in bureau- 
 cratic management and police regulation^. He finS Sf 
 
 devl°*^ T"*-^'i°'' an apparatus for breathing Tl^is 
 developed in him. His only knowledge of modem history L 
 m «,me of its results-for instance, that he has to^ay hea^e" 
 taxes from year to year. His chief idea of a GoverLe^Hs 
 
 ^d rmirh"'""<.K " *■"'"' "PP"™" ^» tarmlessTstoL 
 at !^ r f , ""^ "r fo'-^alities. The source of al 
 ^1^ J^bUHk ''r'«°«8'^t«'^«" the peasant which 
 Has been adopted by the bureaucratic Qovenments. A sys- 
 
RISBL. 
 
 155 
 
 Instead of endeavoring to promote L tL I ^^^J'^'^^o^- 
 life of the Commun«^». .r • *?* "tniostthe healthy 
 are bou^d up^ l*l*° ^^T *^« '""-litions of which 
 
 -t. the bure'al^rtif ; wTot^ent*'' tr ""^ ^■ 
 ment by its patent machinery c^ Sterol nt^".* on ^.prove- 
 
 to the ^Ss^r^al^rbllriT"^-"^^'-^'*-- 
 tense traditional feeling in the w^t ■;.,"?«"-'» "^ "'■ 
 us and our children " i« IL !! P*^*" ^"^ gallows is for 
 
 such C.C lusSris h gS; KnTL"' *"" "'"''■ ^"* 
 em liberalism- the™fn~ o k . ^ "P^^nant to mod- 
 
 the peasants to manage their own affair and i? thi . "^ 
 to beUeve that five and four make «W.!' T ' , *^^ '"^PP*" 
 
 maintaining him in his shmiHif; \ .^ ""^^* ''^^ of 
 
 prejudice. •* "° "" *'^ stupidity, however it may shake his 
 
 Another questionable plan for elevatinc fi,« 
 supposed elevation of the clericS chl^Z k ^"^^ " ^^ 
 clergyman from cultivaLTmo™ ftf^ J ^/- P'^'^*"'^* *^« 
 land attached to his Celoe^.f T "^'f « P"' °* *^« 
 possible of a scientific ZSi^^^td t S "' " """" "^ 
 a peasant. In this, EieU oC'veT lie^ on„' as possible of 
 weakness to the Protestant rhnlT' °°« 8'«at source of 
 
 oUc, Which finds thTiTat ^^^0^^''!*' *"" ''^''■ 
 owner orders; and we have T^ ?>,. .!! P"'"** "°°°8 **« 
 
 
Ifi6 THB NATURAL HISTORY OP GERMAN LIFB: 
 
 ministers; whUe the influence of the parish olergjman among 
 the poor did not extend much beyond a few old women in soar- 
 let cloaks, and a few exceptional ohuroh-going laborers. 
 
 Bearing in mind the general oharaoteristics of the German 
 peasant, it is easy to understand his relation to the revolu- 
 tionary ideas and revolutionary movements of modem timet. 
 The peasant in Germany, as elsewhere, is a born grumbler. 
 He has always plenty of grievanues in his pook<it, but he does 
 not generalize those grievances j he does not complain of " gov- 
 ernment " OP " society, " probably because he has good reason to 
 complain of the burgomaster. When a few sparks from the 
 first French Revolution fell among the German peasantry, and 
 in certain villages of Saxony the country people assembled 
 togother to write down their demands, there was no glimpse 
 in their petition of the "universal rights of man," but simply 
 of their own particular affairs as Saxon peasants. Again, 
 after the July revolution of 1830, there were many insignifi- 
 cant peasant insurrections; but the object of almost aU was 
 the removal of local grievances. Toll-houses were pulled 
 down; stamped paper was destroyed; in some places there 
 was a persecution of wild boars, in others of that plentiful 
 tame animal, the German Bath, or councillor who is never 
 called into council. But in 1848 it seemed as if the move- 
 ments of the peasants had taken a new character; in the 
 small western states of Germany it seemed as if the whole 
 class of peasantry was in insurrection. But, in fact, the 
 peasant did not know the meaning of the part he was playing. 
 He had heard that everything was being set right in the 
 towns, and that wonderful things were happening there, so 
 he tied up his bundle and snt off. Without any distinct ob- 
 ject or resolution, the country people presented themselves on 
 the scene of commotion, and were warmly received by the 
 party leaders. But, seen from the windows of ducal palaces 
 and ministerial hotels, these swarms of peasants had quite 
 another aspect, and it was imagined that they had a common 
 plan of co-operation. This, however, the peasants have never 
 had. Systematic co-operation implies general conceptions, 
 and a provisional subordination of egoism, to which even the 
 artiaana of towns have rarely shown themselves equal, and 
 
RIBHL. 
 
 m 
 
 wUoh are u foreign to the mind of the peaaant aa logarithms 
 or the doctrine of chemical proportions. And the revolution- 
 «^ fervor of the peasant wag soon oooled. The old mis- 
 trust of the towns was reawakened on the spot. The Tjro- 
 lese peasants saw no great good in the freedom of the press 
 aad the oonti^tution, because these changes "seemed to please 
 the gentry so much." Peasants who had given theii- voices 
 J SZ^ , . " ^™*" parliament asked afterward, with a 
 doubtfullook, whether it were to consist of infantry or cav- 
 alry. When royal domains were declared the property of the 
 Btato the peasants in some small principalities rejoiced over 
 this, because they interpreted it to mean that every one would 
 have his share in them, after the manner of the old common 
 and forests rights. 
 
 The very practical views of the peasants, with regard to 
 thedemands of the people, were in amusing contrast with the 
 abstract theorizing of the educated townsmen. The peasant 
 oontmually withheld all State payments until he saVhow 
 matters would turn out, and was disposed to reckon up the 
 solid benefit, in the form of land or money, that might come 
 to bun from the changes obtained. WhUe the townsman was 
 heating his brains about representation on the broadest basis, 
 the iwasant asked if the relation between tenant and landlord 
 would oontmue as before, and whether the removal of the 
 feudal obligations" meant that the farmer should become 
 owner of the land? 
 
 It is in the same naive way that Communism is interpreted 
 by the German peasantry. The wide spread among them of 
 communistic doctrines, the eagerness with which they listened 
 to a plan for the partition of property, seemed to countenance 
 tbe notion that it was a delusion to suppose the peasant would 
 be secured from this intoxication by his love of secure posses- 
 sion and peaceful earnings. But, in fact, the peasant contem- 
 plated "partition » by the light of a historical reminiscence 
 «ther than of novel tieory. The goMen age, in the imagina- 
 tion of the peasant, was tiie time when every member of the 
 commune had a right to as much wood from the forest as 
 would enable him to sell some, after using what he wanted in 
 Urmg,— in which the communal possessions were so profit- 
 
■■■■r "^ ^Bik. ' 
 
 IM Tint NATURAL HISTORY OF GERMAN LIFE, 
 able that, instead of his havinit to nav nit«. .f »i,. a . . 
 
 A^Zifl^^v? * >8°°'"'<'« intoxicated by theory. 
 
 they withheld JifK u™? *'"*' """^ ^°' tJ"* game: 
 
 renting tW^ema^d,^- L^ v? ""^^'f ""^ J'^'^'' ''y P"" 
 cal or princely "^uls'-thirwf •''7 '^*°™ *'''' ^^■ 
 bureaucraticZaa^tof ^LT "^"^ ^'^ "^^^^ «>« 
 ernment functio„X;\?L? wZr^^trThll'^ ^- 
 
 animated not in thf least bvJ^«1^'." «!"" t^^a* t^ej were 
 Ihe Idea of ooosbtutional government Ues quitT^^ 2 
 
pmsa^mwm^^tm ■ 
 
 RIBIIL. 
 
 m 
 
 political oaloulutior ney S o/^/.P!'"*?' ^"'^ «">« 
 got that the peasants were inoSe^la tS^te™'^ V"'.'"" 
 less misconception of the peasant'. oLT. * ,9^^ " '""«• 
 
 supposition that he woiUd^eT^L character could induce the 
 the principles invoK^^ in th- .^f''**'" enthusiasm about 
 
 eve/abou? tKcotstTtu\l'rer He° hL""^ '=""r' »' 
 written law, as such, but only so far as h ^T?' ''" ! 
 a hvmg law-a tradition. It was thn « Jl^T .v *°™ °* 
 the revolutionary party had wl^in rT .1^ "."''"""'^ ''''••''' 
 
 G^ri ^tan^ '^.r."'^ general'fharacteristics of the 
 
 Wide vL^roT^-tZr I^ MtSnbt'p'"^^^' ^ 
 and Brandenburs th« n»<.=.„t ,. " ^^^^'e^burg, Pomerania, 
 
 Westphalia hehfUtrSiThotT^^^^^ ^^'^^^^^ *^ 
 erwald and in Sauerland In Im!^ homesteads; m the West- 
 lets; on the iZeX^Alf^Z°''^f^^^'^""^^^^- 
 
 differences in manner and c wt^ C the T""" 'r^" 
 ter of the German neasant !o^ T ® Kenerio charac- 
 
 cleanmountarh^lrt Tdin\r'7J:''r *^" ^'^«= « t^^e 
 coast; in the plaCol N^h O ''^ ^hing-vUlage on the 
 of America. "E^rythlfte w/ ""^ ^^' '"'*'°°^ 
 
 aot^r e.e^,erertot?hisX™lT: ''S ^ " 
 ion and patriotism are still a naive WW T,. ^ "''»" 
 ^<^- there Legins the class fui^Zt.rj^.ty'r' 
 
 gomg portrait of the German peasant, that Riehl is not a 
 
160 
 
 THE NATURAL BISTORT OF OIRIIAN LIU: 
 
 mw Who looks .t object, through th. sp^tMle, either of the 
 
 what he tell. u. m h.s Pref««_nam.ly, that yir. .go he 
 began his wandering. oTerthe hUls and plains of Qe^y 
 for the sake of obuining, in immediate intercourse with the 
 people that completion of his historical, political, and eco- 
 nomic^ studies which he was unable to find in bioks He 
 began his investigations with no party prepossessiom,, and his 
 present views were evolved entirely from his own gradually 
 amassed observations. He was, first of all, a pedestrian, and 
 only u the second place a political author. The views at 
 which he has arrived by thU inductive process, he sums up in 
 tne U>Tm-»oeial-polttu!al-contervatum; but his conservatism 
 IS, we conceive, of a thoroughly philosophical kind. He sees 
 in European society incarnate hUUrry, and any attempt to 
 disengage it from its historical elements must, he believer 
 be simply destructive of social vitaUty." What ha. srown i,n 
 histor .!.y can only die out historicity, by the g^'n'^Tp,? 
 ation c. ..ecessary Uws. The external conditions which ^i- 
 
 LL^^.h"^7 ^*'°"!,*^'' P"* "« ''"* '^^ """"ife'tation of 
 ™!r^ f k""^?*^ conditions in the human being, who com- 
 pose It, the internal conditions and tiie external are related 
 
 m«ri . r",*^" "r^™ ^^ '*^ "«d'""'' ""d develop- 
 mrf wv^ "^-S ?'^ ^^ '^^ ^^"^ consentaneous deveh 
 S^h .., -v T"^" *'"' ^"""'" "ample of attempts to 
 abolish tities, which have been about as effective as the proc- 
 ess of cutting off poppy-heads in a corn-field. 'V«rf«» L»- 
 «Ae»," says Biehl, "«< ,«.-„ Zopfang^^, ,„arun, ,oU denn 
 dertoouiU Sprachgehrauch nieht auch seinen Zopf habm?"— 
 hW T 7y,".°'i«-"As long as snobbism runs in the 
 blood, why should It not run in our speech? » As a necessary 
 preliminary to a purely rational society, you must obiZ 
 purely rational men, free from tiie sweet and bitter prejud^s 
 of hereditary affection and antipathy; which is as easy as t^ 
 get running streams witiiout springs, or the leafy shade of the 
 forest without the secular growUi of trunk and branch. 
 
 JTr"'*,™'/"!' ""°'°' '" "^ statement of Hlehl's opinion, we 
 
ROBL. 
 
 in 
 
 Th. Urtorieal oondltioni of «»irty m.y be compared with 
 thojje of Un^^5e. it „.„» be .dmitUd that the lLTa«Tof 
 ^t^^f'^f ".^ in wything butar.tional.Uf XTe^ 
 ffueto Irol"*" T"* "1"°'^ approximatiVely i!:^' 
 l^ible to e«jh other, and even that, only at the cost of lone 
 •tudy; one word stand, for many thing., and many word. f» 
 
 "hoe^f a.^if '^^ 'r^". °' ""•'*''^"»' - "'"".utw 
 !^:™w "»o<»at.on, make language an instrument which 
 
 and oertamty. Suppow, then, that the effort which ha.Ten 
 ^maad again made to con.truct a universal language on~ 
 rational bas„ haa at length succeeded, and that y^uiavea 
 langjage which ha. no uncertainty, no whim, of idiom no 
 oumbrou. form., no fitful riiimmer of many-hned .UiSc- 
 nohoary archaic,. « familiar with forgotten years "-a pZt 
 deodorued and non-re«,nant languagef which effects thCr- 
 pow of eommnmoatm a. perfectly and rapidly as algebraic 
 .Mjn. Your language may be a perfect medium orexpfLsTon 
 
 irtr ^"* '^ T' "P"'' ''>' -'"•<"' » a «'eat deal 
 more than «,ience. With the anomalie. and inconven enc^ 
 rf hutoncri language, you will have parted with it. mZ 
 
 d?^duaf^'°°'.'""' .t " *"' '"^'**"» « -^ "P'"""'"" of^- 
 dividua^ character, with it. .ubtle oapabilitie. of wit. with 
 
 e^^thmg that give, it power over the imagination j-^d the 
 watoh^ which wi 1 achieve the utmo.t facUity and despatchin 
 
 ^k.Tr°""*"'° °V'^*'" •'y " 8""'"''*«'l adjustment of 
 tick., to be reprerented in writing by a correspondbg arranire- 
 ment of dota. A melancholy « langiiage of thff utur! "T^e 
 
 inY Z T*" T"^ *'"'*^"° « t'"' saae sheath, are 
 scarcely bound together by a more necessary and del ca" 
 union «ian that which binds men's affectio^ imagUia ion 
 wit, and humor, with the subtle ramification^ of hUt^rS 
 
 pleteness, and unity, as mmds grow in clearness, comprehen- 
 
 between the moral tendencies of men and the sociil condition. 
 Aey have inherited. The nature of European men hasTu 
 «H>U intertwined with the past, and can only be devetope^ 
 
16S THl NATURAL RUTORT OF OBRMAN LIFl: 
 
 by kllowing thoM rooto to remtin undiiturlMd while the proo- 
 eu of darelopment is going on, until th«t perfaot ripmiMa of 
 the Med which oarrie* with it a life independent of the root. 
 Thie vital connection with the pait ia much more rividly felt 
 on the Continent than in England, where we have to recall it 
 by an effort of memory and reflection ; for though our Engliah 
 life it in ita core intensely traditional, Protestantism and com- 
 merce have modernized the face of the land and the aspects 
 of society in a far greater degree than in any Continental 
 oountry : — 
 
 "Abrowl," says Rnikln, "« building of tbe eighth or tenth century 
 ■tandii ruinous In the open etreet ; the children pl»y around It, the pesa- 
 «iit» heap their corn In It, the buljdinge of yesterday nestle about It, and 
 fit their new stones In Us rents, and tremble In sympathy as It trembles. 
 No one wonders at It, or thinks of It as separate, and of another time ■ 
 we feel the ancient world to be a real thing, and one with the new ; an- 
 tiquity Is no dream ; It Is rather the children playing about the old 
 stones that are the dream. But all la continuous, and the words, 'from 
 generation to generation,' understandable here." 
 
 This uonception of European society as incarnate history, is 
 the fundamental idea of Riehl's books. 
 
 After the notable failure of revolutionary attempts con- 
 ducted from the point of view of abstract democratic and so- 
 cialistio theories, after the practical demonstration of the evils 
 resulting from a bureaucratic system which governs by an un- 
 discriminating, dead mechanism, Biehl wishes to D<-«e or. the 
 consideration of his countrymen a social policy fom. on the 
 special study of the people as they are — on the natural his- 
 to^ of the various social ranks. He thinks it wise to pause 
 a little from theorizing, and see what is the material actually 
 present for theory to work upon. It is the glory of the So- 
 cialists — in contrast with the democratic doctrinaires who 
 have been too much occupied with the general idea of " the 
 people" to inquire particularly into the actual life of the peo- 
 ple — that they have thrown themselves with enthusiastic zeal 
 into the study at least of one social group — namely, the fac- 
 tory operatives ; and here lies the secret of their partial suc- 
 cess. But, unfortunately, they have made this special study 
 of a single fragment of society the basis of a theory whieh 
 
RIEBI,. 
 
 les 
 
 Tt i. fi,. 1 "^'P"" to ki» farm in the SheOaiid Isle. 
 It has not been suffloiently insisted on that in fT.- 
 
 sr;rhi; rnd^^^tetr;,::/"- -^7^- 
 
 Mathematics to Biology To ufe W. „/ r"""""' *""" 
 laws M qnality; to these again are added, in Bioloav law« o* 
 
 S^' iU .S 1X''"°"' 2f "'" '" «— °^i ou 
 ""•« iM special conditions, or Natural Historv on ft,. „ 
 
 nnf « 1 *P?*''*'- Chemistry embraces pher j-iena which ar« 
 
 tirof ^esl It ^"""^ f-^" ■» " "I'ole, and, as a ramifica- 
 &r aI T!^ '*"* °' economical science-has also in 
 the depa.Hm^te of government and jurisprudent, ",^oh 
 
ti*il 
 
 E^:^^mii 
 
 164 THB NATURAL HI8TORT OF QXRltAN LIFE: 
 
 embrace the conditions of social life in all their complexity 
 what may be called its Biology, carrying ns on to innamet- 
 able special phenomena which outlie the sphere of science, 
 and belong to Natural History. And just as the most thor- 
 ough acquaintance with physios, or chemistry, or general physi- 
 ology will not enable you at once to establish the balance of 
 life in your privBte vivarium, so that your particular society 
 of zoSphytes, molluscs, and eohinoderms may feel themselves, 
 as the Germans say, at ease in their skin; so the most com- 
 plete equipment of theory will not enable a statesman or a 
 political and social reformer to adjust his measures wisely, in 
 the absence of a special acquaintance with the section of soci- 
 ety for which he legislates, with the peculiar characteristics 
 of the nation, the province, the class whose well-being he has 
 to consult. In other words, a wise social policy must be 
 based not simply on abstract social science, but on the Natoral 
 History of social bodies. 
 
 Riehl's books are not'dedicated merely to the argumentative 
 maintenance of this or of any other position; they are in- 
 tended chiefly as a contribution to that knowledge of the Ger- 
 man people on the importance of which he insists. He is less 
 occupied with urging his own conclusions than with impress- 
 ing on his readers the facts which have led him to those con- 
 clusions. In the volume entitled "Land und Leute," which, 
 though published last, is properly an introduction to the vol- 
 ume entitled "Die BUrgerliohe Gesellschaft," he considers the 
 German people in their physical-geographical relations; he 
 compares the natural divisions of the race, as determined by 
 land and climate, and social traditions, with the artificial di- 
 visions which are based on diplomacy; and he traces the gen- 
 esis and influences of what we may call the ecclesiastical 
 geography of Germany— its partition between Catholicism and 
 Protestantism, fee shows that the ordinary antithesis of 
 North and South Germany represents no real ethnographical 
 distinction, and that the natural divisions of Germany, found- 
 ed on its physical geography, are threefold— namely, the low 
 plains, the middle mountain region, and the high mountain 
 region, or Lower, Middle, and Upper Germany; and on this 
 primaiy natural division all the other broad ethnographical 
 
s; Ji&wib'" n ' "^^ibM 
 
 RIEHL. 
 
 16S 
 
 d-tiDofaon. of Q^aay wiU be found to rest. The plains of 
 North or Lower Germany include all the seaboard the nati^ 
 P««esje8j and thiB, together with the fact that they^e b^ 
 «Md to the depth of 600 miles by navigable rivers, m^es 
 ttem the natural seat of a trading race. Quite different is the 
 g^phioal character of Middle Germany. While the north- 
 ern pkms are marked off into great divisiom^ by such rivers 
 
 ^ ^7v ^"Tv* *^' ^'^'' «°^ "'^ Ode^ruLing a^L" 
 m i»rallel hnes, this central region is cut up like a mosaic by 
 the oapncious hnes of valleys and rivers. Here is the regi^ 
 in which you find those famous roofs from which tter!^ 
 
 Sfah, f ^°" r^ ^°°^ *°*° "S'" " ^ G*™'^ States 
 The abundance of water-power and the presence of extensive 
 ^-mmes allow of a very diversified industrial development ^ 
 
 region we find the same symmetry in the lines of the rivers 
 
 allel with the Danube. But the majority of these rivers^^, 
 nerther navigable nor available for industrial objects, and ^. 
 Stead of servmg for communication, they shut off one great 
 W from another. The slow development, the simple ^ 
 Mt-life of many districts, is here determined by the mouSbdn 
 ™11 .r"' K i".""* '°''^'^^ ^°'«^«*' ^^'^^'^ activity 
 
 Sl^ ^:l^^'"'^^ *°"^ ^""^'^ '^^ *"■"» a sort 3 
 Wance to the industrial districts of the Lower Rhine. Of 
 
 .tnoUy defined; but an approximation to the limits of MidcUe 
 Germany may be obtained by regarding it as a triangC? 
 
 I^ . r^ "Tf u"!^ ^ ^"""^ '"°*" '" Aix-la-Chfp^li? 
 and a third at Lake Constance. 
 
 of Twt'^^^Ii?'°° ^^'Po^ds with the broad distinctions 
 of dunato. In the northern pkins the atmosphere is damp 
 and heavy, ... the southern mountain region it is dry and rare, 
 and there are abrupt changes of temperature, shar^ contrast^ 
 between the seasons, and devastating storms , but in both these 
 2»nes men are hardened by conflict with the roughnesses of 
 
 little of this struggle; the seas6ns are more equable, and the 
 
166 THB NATtJHAL HI8T0BT OP OBRUAIT LIFE: 
 
 mild, soft air of the valleys tends to make the inhabitant! 
 luxurious and sensitiTe to hardships. It is only in exceptional 
 mountain districts that one is here reminded of the rongh, 
 bracing air on the heights of Southern Germany. It is a curi- 
 ous fact that, as the air becomes gradually lighter and rarer 
 from the North Oerman coast toward Upper G«rmany, the 
 average of suicides regularly decreases. Mecklenburg haa the 
 highest number, then Prussia, while the fewest suicides occur 
 in Bavaria and Austria. 
 
 Both the northern and southern regions have still a large 
 extent of waste lands, downs, morasses, and heaths; and to 
 these are added, in the south, abundance of snow-fields and 
 naked rock; while in Middle Germany culture has almost 
 overspread the face of the land, and there are no large tracts 
 of waste. There is the same proportion in the distribution 
 of forests. Again, in the north we see a monotonous contin- 
 uity of wheat-fields, potato-grounds, meadow-lands, and vast 
 heaths; and there is the same uniformity of culture over large 
 surfaces in the southern table-lands and the Alpine pastures. 
 In Middle Germany, on the contrary, there is a perpetual va- 
 riety of crops within a short space: the diversity of land sur- 
 face, and the corresponding variety in the species of plants, are 
 an invitation to the splitting up of estates, and this again en- 
 courages to the utmost the motley character of the cultivation. 
 According to this threefold division, it appears that there 
 are certain features common to North and South Germany in 
 which they differ from Central Germany, and the nature of 
 this difference Eiehl indicates by distinguishing the former 
 as Centralhed Land and the latter as Individualized Land—t 
 distinction which is well symbolized by the fact that North 
 and South Germany possess the great lines of railway which 
 are the medium for tie traffic of the world, while Middle Ger- 
 many is far richer in lines for local communication, and poe- 
 SMses the greatest length of railway within the smallest space. 
 Disregarding superficialities, the East Prieslanders, the Schles- 
 wig-Holsteiners, the Mecklenburgers, and the Pomeranians 
 are much more nearly allied to the old Bavarians, the Tyro- 
 lese, and the Styrians, than any of these are allied to the Sax- 
 ons, the Thuringians, or the Ehinelanders. Both in North 
 
4..:- 
 
 BIBHIi. 
 
 187 
 
 •nd South Germany original race. »«, ^ii « . . 
 muuB, and popular dial^Tar^v ^ '°°°^ ^ 1*^« 
 thoronghly wwuTdi^^^u^^'"' y°" •'*" &>d there 
 great ^te^^ttLugKe,*^^'^-,;'^^. ""» »"°' «" 
 of rank. lnmm7ZZj'Sl:^'^^'^r'"^'^ 
 woe. a., fuaed together oTZinlkH t'^T^' """ °"«^»' 
 peculiarities of the popukr Zl. . ^*" """^ *^'«'"i «»« 
 fused; there is no Te^sSt tke^^n"" '""^ "^"^ <» «»n- 
 oountty and the town^Xi„^ v°* f ''""~'"°° ^*^^ the 
 large i^es beSrh^S^iJ^!^' """"^reds of small towns and 
 
 of society, is almost eitin<n^.i,./» •*. "«^«' «'ru<*^re 
 and aouth therentUl r^£^„^ ''• , '^^'.°' ^^ ^ ^^ north 
 pie. and the V^Z^^'^TT^^f'^^^^^i^^i^o peo- 
 a« the Tyrolese seTlZT ^^ " ' *^« ^"I* «"• hearty 
 
 Oerman/the^X«ionT l^„'°^i°*!l"' ''^^ ^ ^^^^ 
 «de by side in veT^r ""/''^rj^y «"' PeaceaWy 
 enco has spread itedf S^ '?!°''^ ^f^^ *°'*'*°'"' " indifle^ 
 
 the.nalo^.orS^eturre'SS'^T.'- .^"'^ 
 oal ge<^phy of the three reKTus a^d th-^f " *•"• P^'^"- 
 population goes stiU furtter!?!. development of the 
 
 PoimS'out totlJL tte'^;Jl'^i!!'-"l^ connection which h» been 
 revolutionary ii^MolV^'Z^ r^"""!.'" ^^^VL^ 
 •Ignlflcance. Where thenrim^iK? . , ""'" *'^ » metaphorloul 
 teen thewlldeli lnZr1^^Tt^""'"^'''"^'>t^eioy>>bZ 
 
 gible consequence that on a lanrt .,, Jl •■. ^ "' " '• » ^ly Intelll. 
 should .oo^er develop Zif w„ I'^T """ ''™*™ °P- *<>« Popnl^lw 
 intent life gene«^ T^t^J. «<"°»"°l"e«. «nd tharlSore 
 
 a^ceptlblUty for lt« revSuSvU„ IT, """""• "■" ""^ ""• 
 "glon where It. group. mn^^J^T, ' ^"' ' P~P'« "«'«' 'n a 
 more obwinately ^ik^^^ZtlZorlTfT' "" P*""" ""«=•' 
 of Middle Oerm«iy have none of th?. *■ ^^ "*««««'■ The people 
 determine, the pecnll" «„° ' °', *^L'"'?'™, °°«ldedne« ^fch 
 
 a cr^tieis. of the actual poUti^^^alLrof'S^^anrTt: 
 
IW- 
 
 »#.^ 
 
 168 THE NATTJHAL HISTORY OF GERUAK LIFE: 
 
 Tolume is full of vivid pictures, as well as penetrating glanoes 
 into the maladies and tendencies of modem society. It would 
 be fascinating as Uterature, if it were not important for its 
 facte and philosophy. But we can only commend it to our 
 readers, and pass on to the volume entitled "Die BOrgerliohe 
 Gesellschaft," from which we have drawn our sketch of the 
 German peasantry. Here Eiehl gives us a series of studies 
 m that natural hUtory of the people, which he regards as the 
 proper basis of social poUoy. He holds that, in European so- 
 ciety, there are three natural ranks or etatei: the hereditary 
 landed aristocracy, the citizens or commercial class, and the 
 peasantry or agricultural class. By natural ranlu he means 
 ranks which have their rooto deep in the historical structure 
 of society, and are still, in the present, showing vitality above 
 ground ; he means those great social groups which are not only 
 distinguished externally by their vocation, but essentially by 
 their mental character, their habits, their mode of life,— by 
 the principle they represent in the historical development of 
 society. In his conception of the " Fourth Estate " he differs 
 from the usual interpretation, according to which it is simply 
 equivalent to the Proletariat, or those who are dependent 
 on daUy wages, whose only capital is their skill or bodUy 
 strength— factory operatives, artisans, agricultural laborers, 
 to whom might be added, especially in Germany, the day- 
 laborers with the quUl, the literary proletariat. This, Eiehl 
 observes, is a vaUd basis of economical classification, bnt not 
 of social classification. In his view, the Fourth Estate is a 
 stratum produced by the perpetual abrasion of the other great 
 social groups; it is the sign and result of the decomposition 
 which is commencing in the organic constitution of society. 
 Its elemente are derived alike from the aristocracy, the bour- 
 geoisie, and the peasantry. It assembles under its banner the 
 deserters of historical society, and forms them into a terrible 
 army, which is only just awaking to the consciousness of its 
 oorporatB power. The tendency of this Fourth Estate, by the 
 very process of its formation, is to do away with the distinc- 
 tive historical character of the other estates, and to resolve 
 their peculiar rank and vocation into a uniform social relation 
 founded on an abstract conception of society. According to 
 
Jiff. 
 
 BUHL. 
 
 169 
 
 Biahl'g classification, the day-laborers. »l,«™ «.. i-^ , 
 J«o„^t desig„.te.'a3 the ioS'^uS^^l^^ ^t 
 
 i^X'^oZ,'"^, first place, the peasantry «>d aris- 
 ™T;i; L. . ? ' °* '"*"*' persistence," and. in the sec- 
 
 ^ti*'i^xr"''*'*'''^""'*^«^^"-«'«'^^o--' 
 
 fnT'tr^'t^i ^^ °*"'"^*'^ " '^^ <»»'y one among these 
 four groups which is denied by others besides Sista ta 
 hare any natural basis as a separate rank. It is aSl^!t 
 
 „ "!• " ''"* "?''' '* " "Jleged, this is an historical fossU 
 an an iquanan reUo, venerable because gray with^ we t^ 
 
 S^c^ l*^ >' r "T' *'« P^"""^ vocLrtfTe aris" 
 toora^ since It has no longer the monopoly of the land of 
 
 st J^" °"""^ '™°"°'"' '^^ °f Gov^ent offices L5 
 since the service of the Court has no longer ^vr^^w!!'! ■ 
 
 peasant or citizen class in the socialistic sensl but no man m 
 his senses would think of straightway "alx.li^hin„» „ f 
 andpea^mts. The aristocracyf tZf w^^Sfdas 13 
 
 oy aicree, but also, the aristocracy of the eighteenth ™«, 
 h.S" *! !■ '"'" ''^ ^°*"«'y "i**""* object; entireirde^ 
 
1 1 
 
 1 
 
 170 THI NATIJHAI HISTORT OP OBBMAX LllXi 
 whm th«y have turned the world into • gie«t Foundling Ho.- 
 
 birth.' Wo mnat not foUow him in hia oriticiB^i, howeyer- 
 nor can we afford to do more than mention hastily his inter- 
 eetmg .ketch of tte medieval aristocracy, and his Admonition 
 to the German aristocracy of the present day, that the yitality 
 of their claM m not to be sustained by romantic attempts to 
 revive medi»val forms and sentiments, but only by the exer- 
 
 '^JT"^" r^ "■"* '^"*^ '" ""t*"! society as 
 ttose of the mediaeval aristocracy were for the feudal age ' 
 
 ii modem society the divUions of rank indicate divin,mof 
 faW, aooordmg to that distribution of functions in the sooi^ 
 OTganism which the historical constitution of society has de- 
 termmed. In this way the principle of differentiation and 
 the principle of unity are identical." 
 
 The elaborate study of the German bourgeoisie which forms 
 the next division of the volume must be passed over: but we 
 
 w^/r"'^AT'°''°v *° ""^ ^''^^'' ^^i^<^ of the social 
 FhUuter (Philistine), an epithet for which we have no equiv- 
 
 !.!^°«J: "'^',^°'«'«' *or want of the object it repre- 
 
 T^'^ ^^- P~P^' ''^° "*^ * ""1« <^™a". know that the 
 j^ithet PAW«tor originated in the Burschm-Lehm, or student- 
 ife in Germany, and that the antithesis of Bu»eh and Phi- 
 W was equivalent to the antithesis of " gown " and " town " • 
 but since the w'ord has passed into ordinary language, it ha^ 
 -.sumed several shades of significance which have noiyet b«n 
 "^^ " S. ''??':' '•"°'°*' ""'"^S ■> ""d one of the questions 
 which an Enghsh visitor in Germany will probably take an 
 opportunity of asking is, « What is the strict meanLg of the 
 word PAiiirt«;?" Eiehl's aaswer is, that the PA^iZu 
 one who 18 indifferent to aU social interests, all puUio life, as 
 distinguished fx^m selfish and private interests, he has no 
 8ymi»thy with political and social events except as thev af- 
 fect his own comfort and prosperity, as they offer him ma- 
 terial for amusement or opportunity for gratifying his van- 
 ity. He has no social or poUtical creed, but is always of the 
 opinion which is most convenient for the moment. He is al- 
 ^ys in the majority, and is the main element of unreason and 
 stupidity in the judgment of a " discerning public. " It seems 
 
- ,^aw '^ 
 
 RIBHL. 
 
 171 
 
 " Sf '"''** "'' Immer ungeaoheut 
 Oleioh BlUcbern Denkmal wtzen I 
 Von Pranzoeen hat er each belrelt, 
 loh von Ffaillater-Netzen >' 
 
 «P^'°t.±*fri^! "^^^ ^ *^«' description of the 
 fh-Tr- f*****- J'l"<'k concludes the volume, are those on 
 
 S.^1"C^ft\*r*"""* the-Inteireotual ftoLi" 
 mt. The Fourth Estate in Gennanv, says KiehL has ib, 
 
 laborers and factory operatives, and still less in the degensr- 
 ate peasjmtry. In Germany, the educated proletarlatTtte 
 l«ven that sets the mass in fermentation; the ^n^rl 
 
 £rw^"'tr*'°"'' °°*.^ "°""™' ••"* ^ frock-coatsftW 
 zl^r *^t"°'"^"'™^'^ P™"" "^^ ond in the hungri^ 
 •^ . !v- . ^^* •'°'*°"" ""** »" the sons of a noblem^^^Sl 
 mher,t the„ father's title, necessarily goes on mXpW 
 
 r„^r„*l^ "^J? provision, and who shrink from entering the 
 rank, of the citizens by adopting some honest calling. Th2 
 
 11 
 
i' i^i-* 
 
 172 THE WATOHAl HISTORY OP OEHMAK LIFK: 
 hi» dayg he remains tidOettante. ^^ th^ „!? J? *"*"' 
 
 .le and retail tmdelZffl *" i*;"'''''''* by the whole- 
 
 industry, . perrerw .^Uoi o?rd™wr^'^ "* *« »"'•'■«' 
 pungent utln on the niuon.1 oomiitr„^^ ^7"*' ""^ '» » *«• mom 
 "VM and VMof. 6a»r ™°'"""" «5»° •» «» poverty of open- 
 
 ~.c Of t^r^Zt^ 'l^^ZTr^:^ ». tb7p„.ponT 
 For nun mora eailly b.iom«di«^ ^^ "**/' """"^ '«>»'• 
 labor of theluuid.;',ndltU d«^, ^ V^f^^^y "»» fr"" ^e 
 thatthera a« the io.t d«.»,C^ rf i?l^''"*'?»' P™"*"'" 
 m which the oppoeltlon beTwLJ^- . i^"" ™' '" »h« 8""P 
 
 -i.I|K.i..on^ther^!rtheT«ltTo^,t:Srl'r;JS:^^ 
 
 foUows up ttU eener^f ir^^''/^^*?^ ''«» which Biehl 
 admirable vdllTLfnfH^T*^ '^^ "i*'"" '"^"^S these 
 should haye eft^„ f ^?^!.''"^ °" inevitable omissions 
 
 oonserva^mLtrTtt: wt''"".*'^°''"'°"' ««* Kiehl's 
 . class, with a S^ w*"1Wk''''^ "^^ Partisanship of 
 
 n.ceo.am.d^:i-rrr;s;^e^^i--£ 
 
w%%^m' 
 
 RIKBL. 
 
 173 
 
 «f thing! to wUeh tU gooUl fonng are but temporarily lubser- 
 Timt It is the ooluervatiun of a olear-eyed, practical, but 
 withal large-minded man— a litUe oaustio, perhaps, now and 
 then in his epigrams on demooratio doctrinaires who hare their 
 nostrum for all poUtical and social diseases, and on communis- 
 tie theories which he regards as "the despair of the individnal 
 in his own manhood, reduced to a system," but nevertheless 
 able and willing to do justice to the elemento of fact and rea- 
 son in every shade of opinion and every form of effort He 
 is as far as possible from the folly of supposing that the sun 
 will go backward on the dial, because we put the hands of our 
 dock backward; he only coutends against the opposite folly 
 of decreeing that it shall be mid-day, while in fact the sun is 
 only just touching the mountain-tops, and all along the valley 
 men are stumbling in the twilight 
 
THEKE MONTHS IN WEIMAB. 
 
 It wm between three and four tfolook, on a fine morning in 
 August, that, after a ten hours' journey from Frankfort, I 
 awoke at the Weimar station. No tipsiness can be mora dead 
 to all appeals than that which comes from fitful draughts of 
 sleep on a raUway journey by night. To the disgust of your 
 wakeful companions, you are totaUy insensible to the eziatenM 
 of your umbrella, and to the fact that your carpet-bag ii 
 stowed under your seat, or that you have borrowed books and 
 tucked them behind the cishion. " What's the odds, so long 
 as one can sleep?" is your phUosophio formula, and it u not 
 until you have begun, to shiver on the pUtform in the early 
 morning air that you become aUve to property and its duties 
 —».«., to the necessity of keeping a fast grip upon it Such 
 was my condition when I reached the station at Weimar. Th« 
 nde to the town thoroughly roused me, all the more beoaust 
 the glimpses I caught from the carriage-window were in start- 
 Img contrast with my preconceptions. The lines of honsss 
 looked rough and straggUng, and were often interrupted br 
 trees peepbg out from the gardens behind. At Ust we stopped 
 before the Erbprinz, an inn of long standing in the heart of 
 the town, and were ushered along heavy-looking in-and-out 
 corridors, such as are found only in German inns, into rooms 
 which overlooked a garden just like one yon may see at the 
 back of a farmhouse in many an English village. 
 
 A walk in the morning in search of lodgings confirmed the 
 impression that Weimar was more Uke a market-town than 
 tte precinct of a Court. "And this is the Athens of the 
 North 1 " we said. MateriaUy speaking, it is more like Sparta. 
 The blending of rustic and civic life, the indications of a cen- 
 tral government in the midst of very primitive-looking objects, 
 has some distant analogy with the condition of old Laoedffl- 
 mon. The shops are moat of them such as you would see in 
 
tUHMM MOMTBB IK WKDfAa 175 
 
 tli« btok ttneti of tn Kagluh proTincUJ town, and the com- 
 moditiai on sale u» often ohalked on the doorpoete. A load 
 rambling of vehioles may indeed be heard now and then; but 
 Oe rumbling ii loud, not beoauie the rehiolet are many, but 
 beoauee the springs are few. The inhabitanU seemed to us to 
 hare more than the usual heaviness of OermanUy ; even their 
 itare was slow, like that of herbivorous quadrupeds. We set 
 oat with the intention of exploring the town, and at every 
 other turn we came into a street which took us out of the 
 towi^ or else into one that led us back to the market from 
 which we set out. One's first feeling was, How could Goethe 
 Uve here m this dull, lifeless village? The reproaches cast 
 on him for his worldliness and attachment to Court splendor 
 seemed ludicrous enough, and it was inconceivable that the 
 rtately Jupiter, in a frook-coat, so famUiar to us all through 
 Baaoh s statuette, could have habitually walked along these 
 rude streets and among these slouching mortals. Not a pic- 
 turesque bit of bnildingwastobeseen; therewasno quaint. 
 MM, nothing to remind one of historical associations, nothina 
 tat the most arid prosaism. 
 This was the impression produced by a first morning's walk 
 v^'Jl?""*" impression which very imperfecUy represents 
 what Weimar is, but which is worth recording, because it is 
 1-^^ ?"* °* '*"'' '■*''• Our ideas were considerably 
 m^ed when, in the evening, we found our way to the Bel- 
 vedere ehauufe, a splendid avenue of chestnut-trees, two miles 
 m length, reaching from the town to the summer residence 
 of Belvedere, when we saw the Schloas, and discovered the 
 bjbynnthine beauties of the park, indeed every day opened 
 to us fresh charms in thU quiet little valley and its environs 
 To any one who loves Nature in her gentle aspects, who de- 
 iignts in the checkered shade on a summer morning, and in 
 a walk on the com-olad upland at sunset, within sight of a 
 Wtle town nestled among the trees below, I say-come to 
 Weimar. And if you are weary of English unrest, of that 
 •ooiety of eels in a jar," where each is trying to get his head 
 above the other, the somewhat stupid weU-being of the Wei- 
 manans wUl not be an unwelcome contrast, for a short time 
 » ioMU If you oare nothing about Goethe and Schiller and 
 
 ' A 
 
176 
 
 THRn MOMTBB IK WBIlUa 
 
 Herder and Wieland, why, lo mnoh the worM forTci— yoa 
 will min man/ interMting thoagbti and aMoeUtionij ttUl, 
 Weimar luM a charm independent of theie great namea. 
 
 Firet among all it* attraotiont U the Park, which wooM be 
 remarkably beaatifnl even among Engliih parks, and it h« 
 one advantage over all theee— namely, that it U without a 
 fence. It runs up to the houses, and far out into the corn- 
 fields and meadows, as if it had a " sweet will " of its own, 
 like a river or a Uke, and had not been planned and plant- 
 ed by human will. Through it flows the Ilm,— not a cleai 
 stream, it mist be confessed, but, like all water, as Novalii 
 says, " an eye to the landscape. " Before we came to Weimar 
 we had had dreams of boating on the Ilm, and we were not t 
 little amused at the difference between this vision of our own 
 tad the reality. A few water-fowl are the only navigators o( 
 the river, and even they seem to confine themselves to one 
 spot, as if they were there purely in the interest of the pic- 
 turesque. The real ezteut of the park u small, but the walki 
 are so ingeniously arranged, and the trees are so luxuriant and 
 various, that it takes weeks to leam the turnings and wind- 
 ings by heart, so as no longer to have the sense of novelfy. 
 In the warm weather our great deUght was the walk which 
 fdlows the course of the Ilm, and is overarched by tall trees 
 with patches of dark moss on their trunks, in rich contrast 
 with the transparent green of the deUcate leaves, through 
 which the golden sunlight played, and checkered the walk be- 
 fore us. On one side of this walk the rocky ground rises to 
 the height of twenty feet or more, and is clothed with mossn 
 and rook-planto. On the other side there are, every now and 
 then, openings,— breaks in the continuity of shade, which 
 ahow you a piece of meadow-land, with fine groups of treetj 
 and at eve^ such opening a seat is placed under the rook, 
 where you may sit and chat away the sunny hours, or listen 
 to those delicate sounds which one might fancy came from tinj 
 bells worn on the garment of Silence to make us aware of her 
 invisible presence. It is along this walk that you come upon 
 a truncated column, with a serpent twined round it, devouring 
 cakes, placed on the column as offerings,— a bit of rude sculp- 
 ture in stone. The imciiptiaa—Genio &«— enUghtens the 
 
THRM MONTHS IK WVtMAV 17T 
 
 ^•d M to the tignifloaoM of thii ivmboL bn >,, n«,nl. n# 
 
 p«rk^ and .»«ied all .tfmpta to extemin.'t. him. antil at 
 ta.t. cunning Uk„ a,d, «,„.,appetumg cake, which .x,u 
 tamjd«. effectual poi«,n. .i.d placS them 10^7.1^^. 
 reach thtu meriting a place with Herculeg, Theseu., andXl 
 
 M • memorial of the baker's feat and ito owa deliverance A 
 UtUe farther on i. the Borkenhaue, where Carl AugtTu^ed to 
 
 telegraph to Goethe in hit Gartenhaua. Sometimea we to<A 
 ov^ ri.ady walk in the Stem, the oldeet part of the ^?pK 
 tatjone, on the oppoaite side of the river, Ungering oVonr ww 
 to watch the crystal brook which hurrie. on. iL . Uish 
 young m^den. to w^ itself with the muddy Il'm. The Stor^ 
 (Btar), a large circular opening amohgst the trees, with walks 
 «d.atmg from it, has been thought of as thei,lMrfor tte 
 
 frttl/^""'.';!''"""""'^^"""- I^B^uc^VmoS 
 for these statues the poeU are draped in togas, Goethe, who 
 
 Schiller s shoulder; but it has been wisely detemined to rep- 
 ««,t them in their "habit as they lived"; so Kat^h'sZ 
 sign isrejeoted. Against classical idealizing in portrait sculn- 
 tu«^ Weimar has already a sufficient wam^g iTttTcoWl 
 
 MMen of the "Correspondence with a Child" may see en- 
 paved as a frontispiece to the second volume. This statue U 
 ocked up in an odd structure, standing in the park, andTc^k 
 m lie a compromue between a church and a summer-house 
 wl!^ Tnl^^""' ^ '^ bmldingsl) How Uttle real 
 knowledge of Goethe must the mind have that could wish to 
 
 rJTT^'^"""*^ ".* '"^'^ ^P"""- '*«> » P-yhe at hi. 
 .if A ^ V*^°*"® " " *'*•''•' »» *'"> "entiment is false; 
 the ApoUo-Goethe is a caricature, and je Psyche is simply 
 vulgar. The statue was executed under Bettina's encouraW- 
 
 V^h^"" w T ^f " "'"''* ^ '^"eb* by the KiuToi 
 l-russia; but a breach having taken place between her and her 
 
 '» I 
 
 !l 
 
■^•,\ 
 
 178 
 
 THBBB MONTHS DH WBIUAIt. 
 
 Boyal friend, a parohaaer wu sought in the Oiand Duke of 
 Weimar, who, after transporting it at enormous expense from 
 Italy, wisely shut it up where it is seen only by the curious. 
 
 As autumn advanced and the sunshine became precious, we 
 preferred the broad walk on the higher grounds of the park, 
 where the masses of trees are finely disposed, leaving wide 
 spaces of meadow which extend on one side to the Belvedere 
 alUe with its avenue of chestnut-trees, and on the other to the 
 Uttle cliffs which I have already described as forming a waU 
 by the walk along the Ilm. Exquisitely beautiful were the 
 graceful forms of the plane-trees, thrown in golden relief on 
 a background of dark pines. Here we used to torn and turn 
 again in the autumn afternoons,— at first bright and warm, 
 then sombre with low-lying purple clouds, and chill with 
 winds that sent the leave* raining from the branches. The 
 eye here welcomes, as a contrast, the white facade of a build- 
 ing looking like a small Greek temple, placed on the edge of 
 the ohff, and yon at dnce conclude it to be a bit of pure orna- 
 ment,— a device to set off the landscape; but you presently 
 see a porter seated near the door of the basement story, be- 
 guiling the ennui of his sinecure by a book and a pipe, and 
 you learn with surprise that this is another retreat for ducal 
 dignity to unbend and philosophize in. Singularly ill-adapted 
 to such a purpose it seems to beings not ducal. On the other 
 side of the Ilm the park is bordered by the road leading to the 
 Uttie village of Ober Weimar, -another sunny walk which 
 has the special attraction of taking one by Goethe's Garten- 
 haus, his first residence at Weimar. Inside, this Gartenhaus 
 is a homely sort of cottage, such as many an English noble- 
 man's gardener lives in; no furniture is left in it, and the 
 family wish to sell it. Outside, ito aspect became to us like 
 that of a dear friend, whose irregular features and rusty 
 clothes have a peculiar charm. It stands, with its bit of 
 ^den and orchard, on a pleasant slope, fronting the west; 
 before it the park stretches one of its meadowy openings to 
 the trees which fringe the Ilm, and between this meadow and 
 the garden hedge lies the said road to Ober Weimar. A grove 
 of weeping birches sometimes tempted us to turn out of this 
 road up to the fields at the top of the slope, on which not only 
 
.:^A- 
 
 fm« 
 
 THRBE MONTHS IN WBIMAB. 
 
 179 
 
 Ae GartenhaM but several other modest villas are placed. 
 Prom this httle height one sees to advantage the plantations 
 , ! Pfkm their autumnal coloring; the town with its steep- 
 loofed church, and castle clook-tower, painted a gay green^ 
 the bushy line of the Belvedere thau»,ie, and Belvedere itself 
 peeping on an eminence from its nest of trees. Here, too 
 was the place for seeing a lovely 8un8et,-snch a smiset a^ 
 September sometimes gives us,-when the western horizon is 
 like a nppled sea of gold, sending over the whole hemisphere 
 golden vapors, which, as they near the east, are subdued to a 
 deep rose-color. 
 
 The Schloss is rather a stately, ducal-looking building, form- 
 ing three sides of a quadrangle. Strangers are admitted to 
 see a suit of rooms called the Dichter-Zimmer (Poets' Rooms), 
 dedicated to Goethe, SchUItr, and Wieland. The idea of 
 these rooff- is really a pretty one: in each of them there is 
 !f !L a vn poet who is its presiding genius, and the walls 
 of the Schiller and Goethe rooms are covered with frescos 
 reprwenting scenes from their works. The Wieland room is 
 mnch smaUer than the other two, and serves as an ante-oham- 
 Mr to them; it is also decorated more sparingly, but the ara- 
 ^!!^^.°°)?' ^^ "!.^''y tastefuUy designed, and satisfy 
 one better than the ambitions compositions from Goethe and 
 Schiller. 
 
 A more interesting place to visitors is the library, which 
 occupies a large building not far from the Schloss. The prin- 
 cipal Saal, surrounded by a broad gallery, is ornamented with 
 some very excellent busts and some very bad portraits. Of 
 the bnsH the most remarkable is that of Gluck, by Houdon 
 -8 striking specimen of the real in art. The sculptor has 
 given eve^r scar made by the small-pox; he has left tiie nose 
 as pug and insignificant, and the mouth as common, as Nature 
 made tt«m; bat then he has done what, doubUess, Nature 
 also^did-he has spread over those coarsely cut features the 
 irradiation of genius. A specimen of the opposite style in art 
 is Tnppel's bast of Goethe as the young Apollo, also fine in 
 
 !.tZ.'^' . l* ™* **''"° ''"° <^'*'® »»» '" It«lyi «nd in the 
 
 Italianiaehe Beise," mentioning the progress of the bast, he 
 
 says that he sees Uttle likeness to himself, but is not disoon- 
 
 ! 
 
 I: 
 
180 
 
 THREE MONTHS IN WKQIAB. 
 
 tented that he should go forth to tha world as snoli a good- 
 looking fellow— A<»»eA«r Sur»eh. This bust, howeyer, is » 
 frank idealization : when an artist tells us that the ideal of a 
 Greek god divides his attention with his immediate subject, 
 we aie warned. But one gets rather irritated with idealiza- 
 tion in portrait when, as in Danneoker's bust of Schiller, one 
 has been misled into supposing that Schiller's brow was square 
 and massive, while, in fact, it was receding. We say this 
 partly on the evidence of his skull, a cast of which U kept in 
 the library, so that we could place it in juxtaposition with the 
 bust. The story of this skull is curious. When it was deter- 
 mined to disinter Schiller's remains, that they might repose 
 in company with those of Carl August ar ' '^roethe, the ques- 
 tion of identification was found to be i. jult one, for his 
 bones were mingled with those of ten insignificant fellow- 
 mortals. When, however, the eleven skulls were placed in 
 juxtaposition, a large number of persons who had known 
 Schiller, separately add successively fixed upon the same skull 
 as his, and their evidence was clinched by the discovery that 
 the teeth of this skull corresponded to the statement of Schil- 
 ler's servant, that his master had lost no teeth, except one, 
 which he specified. Accordingly it was decided that this was 
 Schiller's skull, and the comparative anatomist, Loder, was 
 sent for from Jena to select the bones which completed the 
 skeleton.' The evidence certainly leaves room for a doubt; but 
 the receding forehead of the skull agrees with the testimony 
 of persons who knew Schiller, that he had, as Ranch said to 
 us, a "miserable forehead"; it agrees, also, with a beautiful 
 miniature of Schiller, taken when he was about twenty. This 
 miniature is deeply interesting; it shows us a youth whose 
 clearly out features, with the mingled fire and melancholy of 
 their expression, could hardly have been passed with indiffer- 
 ence; it has the langer OihuehaU (long goose-neck) which he 
 gives to his Karl Moor; but instead of the black, sparkling 
 eyes, and the gloomy, overhanging, bushy eyebrows he chose 
 
 ' I tell this story from my recollection of Stahr's aocomit In hl« 
 "Weimar und Jena," an sccount which wag confirmed to me by raiidentt 
 in Weimar ; but as I have not the book by me, I cannot test the aoouraoy 
 of my memory. 
 
iZ^..^. 
 
 
 THHKB MOUTHS m WEIMAR. 
 
 181 
 
 fah.t resemblance to ?heir o^ ^h^e is.Td»f° " 
 likeness, taken in his old ..o \,Ja ^''*"^'*' »°aeed, one 
 
 heroic warrior, and the wise singerl ^*"'°°**" "'*°™"' *^ 
 
 !] 
 
182 
 
 TBREB MONTHS JS YTBIHAB. 
 
 erected in 1860, itand* in what ia called the Herder Platz, 
 with its back to the church in which he preached; in the 
 right hand is a roll bearing his favorite motto — Lieht, IMe, 
 Leben (Light, Love, Life), and on the pedestal is the inscrip- 
 tion — Von Deuttehen oiler Lander (from Germans of all lands). 
 This statue, which is by Schaller of Mimich, is yery much 
 admired; but, remembering the immortal description in *^a 
 "Dichtung und Wahrheit," of Herder's appearance wheu 
 Goethe saw him for the first time at Strasburg, I was disap- 
 pointed with the parsonic appearance of the statue, as well as 
 of the bust in the library. The part of the town which im- 
 prints itself on the memory, next to the Herder Flatz, is the 
 Markt, a cheerful squtie, made smart by a new Bath-hane. 
 Twice a week it is crowded with stalls and country people; 
 and it is the very pretty custom for the banu to play in the 
 balcony of the Bath-haus about twenty minutes every market- 
 day to delight the eprs of the peasantry. A head-dress worn 
 by many of the old women, and here and there by a young 
 one, is, I think, peculiar to Thuringia. Let the fair reader 
 imagine half a doren of her broadest French sashes dyed 
 black, and attached as streamers to the back of a stiff black 
 skull-cap, ornamented in front with a large bow, which stands 
 out like a pair of donkey's ears; let her further imagine, min- 
 gled with the streamers of ribbon, equally broad pendants of 
 a thick woollen texture, something like the fringe of an urn- 
 rug, — and she will have an idea of the head-dress in which 
 I have seen a Thuringian damsel figure on a hot summer's 
 day. Two houses in the Markt are pointed out as those from 
 which Tetzrl published his indulgences and Luther thundered 
 against them ; but it is difficult to one's imagination to conjure 
 up scenes of theological controversy in Weimar, where, from 
 princes down to pastry-cooks, rationalism is taken as a matter 
 of course. 
 
 Passing along the Schiller-strasse, a broad pleasant street, 
 one is thrilled by the inscription. Bier xoohnte rjhiller, over the 
 door of a small house with casts in its bow-window. Mount 
 np to the second story and you will see Schiller's study very 
 nearly as it was when he worked in it. It is a cheerful room 
 with three windows, two toward the street and one looking 
 
THRBB MONTHS IN WEIMAR. 
 
 183 
 
 «i a littie garden which divides hia house from the neighbor- 
 ing one. The writing-table, which he notes as an important 
 purohase in one of his letters to KOmer, and in one of the 
 drawers of which he used to keep rotten apples for the sake 
 of their scent, stands near the last-named window, so that ita 
 light would fall on his left hand. On another side of the 
 room is his piano, with his guitar lying upon it; and above 
 these hangs an ugly print of an Italian scene, which has a 
 companion equally ugly on another wall. Strange feelings it 
 awakened in me to run my fingers over the keys of the little 
 piano and call forth its tones, now so queer and feeble, like 
 those of an invalided old woman whose voice could once make 
 a heart beat with fond passion or soothe its angry pulses into 
 calm. The bedstead on which Schiller died has been removed 
 into the study, from the small bedroom behind, which is now 
 empty. A little table is placed close to the head of the bed, 
 with his drinking-glass upon it, and on the wall above the 
 bedstead there is a beautiful sketch of him lying dead. He 
 used to occupy the whole of the second floor. It contains, be- 
 sides the study and bedroom, an ante-chamber, now furnished 
 with casts and prints on sale, in order to remunerate the cus- 
 todiers of the house, and a salon tricked out, since his death, 
 with a symbolical cornice, statues, and a carpet worked by the 
 ladies ol Weimar. 
 
 Goethe's house is much more important-looking, but, to 
 English eyes, far from being the palatial residence which 
 might be expected, from the descriptions of German writers. 
 The entrance-hall is indeed rather imposing, with its statues 
 in niches, and its broad staircase, but the rest of the house is 
 not proportionately spacious and elegant. The only part of 
 the house open to the public— and this only on a Friday— is 
 the principal suite of rooms which coLlain his collection of 
 casts, pictures, cameos, etc. This ccJlection is utterly insig- 
 nificant, except as having belonged to him; and one turns 
 away from bad pictures and familiar casts, to linger over the 
 manuscript of the wonderful "Kdmische Elegien," written by 
 himself in the Italian character. It is to be regretted that 
 a large sum offered for this house by the German Diet, was 
 refused by the Goethe family, in the hope, it is said, of ob- 
 

 184 
 
 THRBB MONTHS IN WEIUAR. 
 
 teining a still larger gum from that mythical Engliah CroesM 
 always ready to turn fabulous sums into dead capital, who 
 haunts the imagination of Continental people. One of the 
 most fitting tributes a nation can pay to its great dead, is to 
 make their habitation, like their works, a public possession, 
 a shrine where affectionate reverence may be more Tiyidly 
 reminded that the being who has bequeathed to us immortal 
 thougLta or immortal deeds, had to endure the daily struggle 
 with the petty details, perhaps with the sordid cares of this 
 working-day world; and it is a sad pity that Goethe's study, 
 bedroom, and library, so fitted to call up that kind of sym- 
 pathy, because they are preserved just as he left them, should 
 be shut out from all but the specially privileged. We were 
 happy enough to be amongst these,— to look through the mist 
 of rising tears at the dull study with its two small windows, 
 and without a single object chosen for the sake of luxury or 
 beauty; at the dark little bedroom with the bed on which he 
 died, and the arm-chair where he took his morning coffee as 
 he read; at the library with its common deal shelves, and 
 books containing his own paper marks. In the presence of 
 this hardy simplicity, the contrast suggests itself of the study 
 at Abbotsford with its elegant Gothic fittings, its delicious 
 easy-chair, and its oratory of painted glass. 
 
 We were very much amused at the privacy with which peo- 
 ple keep their shops at Weimar. Some of them have not so 
 much as their names written up; and there is so much indif- 
 ference of manner toward customers, that one might suppose 
 every shopkeeper was a salaried functionary employed by Gov- 
 ernment. The distribution of commodities, too, is carried on 
 according to a peculiar Weimarian logic : we bought our lemons 
 at a ropemaker's, and should not have felt ourselves very un- 
 reasonable if we had asked for shoes at a stationer's. As to 
 competition, I should think a clever tradesman or artificer is 
 almost as free from it at Weimar as ^Esoulapius or Vulcan in 
 the days of old Olympus. Here U an illustration. Our 
 landlady's husband was called the "siisser Babenhorst," by 
 way of distinguishing him from a brother of his who was the 
 reverse of sT^eet. This Eabenhorst, who was not sweet, but 
 who nevertheless dealt in sweets, for he was a confectioner, 
 
THRKB MOin'HS IN WXDfAR. 
 
 186 
 
 WM 80 ntter a rogue that any transaotion with him was avoided 
 almost as much as if he had been the EvU One himself, yet 
 so clever a rogue that he always managed to keep on the windy 
 side of the law. Nevertheless, he had so many dainties in 
 the confectionery line— « viel Suttiglunten und Leckerbium 
 —that people bent on giving a fine entertainment were at last 
 constrained to say, "After all, I must go to Rabenhorst" : 
 and so he got abundant custom, in spite of general detestation. 
 A very fair dinner is to be had at several tablet d'hite in 
 Weunar for ten or twelve grosohen (a shUling or fifteen- 
 pence). The Germans certainly excel us in their MehUpeUo, 
 or farinaceous puddings, and in their mode of cooking vege- 
 tables; they are bolder and more imaginative in their combi- 
 nation of sauces, fruita, and vegetables with animal food, and 
 they are faithful to at least one principle of dietetics— variety. 
 The only thing at table we have any pretext for being super- 
 cilious about is the quality and dressing of animal food. The 
 meat at a tabU d'hote in Thuringia, and even Beriin, except 
 in the very first hotels, bears about the same relation to ours 
 as horse-flesh probably bears to German beef and mutton; 
 and an Englishman with a bandage over his eyes would often 
 be sorely puizled to guess the kind of flesh he was eating. 
 For example, the only flavor we could ever discern in hare, 
 which is a very frequent dish, was that of the more or less 
 disagreeable fat which predominated in the dressing; and 
 roast meat seems to be considered an extravagance rarely ad- 
 missible. A melancholy sight is a flock of Weimarian sheep 
 followed or led by their shepherd. They are as dingy as Lon- 
 don sheep, and far more skinny; indeed an Englishman who 
 dined with us said the sight of the sheep had set him against 
 mutton. Still, the variety of dishes you get for ten groschen 
 IS something marvellous to those who have been accustomed to 
 English charges, and among the six courses it is not a great 
 evil to find a dish or two the reverse of appetizing. I sup- 
 pose, however, that the living at toilet d'hote gives one no cor- 
 rect idea of tiie mode in which the people live at home. The 
 basis of the national food seems to be raw ham and sausage, 
 with a copioua superatratum of Blaukraut, tSauerkraut, and 
 black bread. Sausage seems to be to the German what pota- 
 
186 
 
 THRXE MONTHS IN WEDCAB. 
 
 tOM wet« to the Irish — the titu qud turn of bodily tuitenanoa. 
 Gotthe asks the Fnn von Stein to send him «o tint Wunt 
 when he wants to have a makeshift dinner away from home; 
 and in his letters to Kestner he is in enthusiastic about the 
 delights of dining on Slaukraut and Ldieneunt (blue cab- 
 bage and liver sausage). If Kraut and Wunt may be called 
 the solid prose of Thuringiau diet, fish and Kuehen (generally 
 a heavy kind of fruit tart) are the poetry : the German appe- 
 tite disports itself with these as the English appetite does with 
 ices and whipped creams. 
 
 At the beginning of August, when we arrived in Weimar, 
 almost every one was away — "at the Baths," of course — ex- 
 cept the tradespeople. As birds nidify in the spring, so Oer- 
 mans wash themselves in the summer; their Wasohungttrieb 
 acts strongly only at a particular time of the year; during all 
 the rest, apparently, a decanter and a sugar-basin or pie-dish 
 are an ample toilet-service for them. We were quite con- 
 tented, however, that it was not yet the Weimar "season," 
 fashionably speaking, since it was the very best time for en- 
 joying something far better than Weimar gayeties — the lovely 
 park and environs. It was pleasant, too, to see the good bo- 
 vine citizens enjoying life in their quiet fashion. Unlike our 
 English people, they take pleasure into their calculations, and 
 seem regularly to set aside part of their time for recreation. 
 It is understood that something is to be done in life besides 
 business and housewifery : the women take their children and 
 their knitting to the Erholung, or walk with their husbands 
 to Belvedere, or in some other direction where a cup of coSee 
 is to be had. The Erholun-^, by the way, is a pretty garden, 
 with shady walks, abundant seats, an orchestra, a ball-room, 
 and a place for refreshments. The higher classes are sub- 
 scribers and visitors here as well as the bourgeoisie; but there 
 are several resorts of a similar kind frequented by the latter 
 exclnsi , .ly. The reader of Goethe will remember his little 
 poem, "Die Lustigen von Weimar," which still indicates the 
 round of amusements in this simple capital : the walk to Bel- 
 vedere or Tief urt ; the excursion to Jena, or some other trip, 
 not made expensive by distance ; the round game at cards ; 
 the dance ; the theatre ; and so many other enjoyments to be 
 
ai.<%^ 
 
 THRBK MONTHS Of WSUAR. 
 
 187 
 
 bad by a people not bound to give dinner-partiea and " keen uo 
 apoeition." "^ "^ 
 
 It U ohaming to see how real an amusement the theatre U 
 to the Weimar people. The greater number of places are oc- 
 onpied by subeoribers, and there is no fuss about toilet or es- 
 cort. The ladies come alone, and ulip quietly into their places 
 ithout need of " protection »-a proof of civilization perhaps 
 more than equivalent to our pre-eminence in patent looks and 
 oam^ springs— and after the performance is over, you may 
 ■ee the same ladies following their servants, with lanterns, 
 J J ^'*'* "^'^'^'o' 8M, in which an oil-lamp, sus- 
 pended from a rope slung across from house to house, oooa- 
 sionaUy reveals to you the shafts of a cart or omnibus oonven- 
 lenUy placed for you to run upon them. 
 
 A yearly autumn festival at Weimar is the VogeUchieum, 
 or Bird-shooting i but the reader must not let his imagination 
 wander at this word into fields and brakes. The bird here 
 concerned is of wood, and the shooters, instead of wandering 
 over breezy down and common, are shut up, day after day, in 
 a room clouded with tobacco-smoke, that they may take their 
 turn at shooting with the rifle from the window of a closet 
 about the size of a sentinel's box. However, this is a mighty 
 enjoyment to tiie Thuringian yeomanry, and an occasion of 
 profit to our friend Punch, and other itinerant performers- 
 for while the VogeUehiaum lasts, a sort of fair is held in the 
 field where the marksmen assemble. 
 
 Among the quieter every-day pleasures of the Weimarians, 
 perhaps the most delightful is the stroll on a bright afternoon 
 or evening to the Duke's summer residence of Belvedere, about 
 two miles from Weimar. As I have said, a glorious avenue 
 of chestnut-trees leads all the way from the town to tiie en- 
 faranoe of the grounds, which are open to all the world as much 
 as to tiie Duke himself. Close to tiie palace and its subsidiary 
 bnUdmgs there is an inn, for tiie accommodation of the good 
 people who come to take dinner or any otiier meal here, by 
 way of holiday-making. A sort of pavilion stands on a spot 
 commanding a lovely view of Weimar and its valley, and here 
 the Weimarians constantiy come on summer and autumn even- 
 ings to smoke a cigar, or drink a cup of coffee. In one wing 
 
188 
 
 THRSK MONTHS IN WEDIAR. 
 
 of the little palaoe, which is made imart by wooden oupolM, 
 with gilt pinnacles, there is a saloon, which I recommend to 
 the imitation of tastefvd people in their country houses. It 
 has no decoration but that of natural foliage : ivy is trained at 
 regular intervals up the pure white walls, and all round the 
 edge of the ceiling, so as to form pilasters and a oomioei ivy 
 again, trained on trellis-work, forms a blind to the window, 
 which looks toward the entrance court; and beautiful ferns' 
 arranged in tall baakeU, are placed here and there against the 
 walls. The furniture is of light cane-work. Another pretty 
 tiling here is the Natur-Theater— a theatre constructed with 
 living trees, trimmed into walls and side scenes. We pleased 
 ourselves for a little while with thinking that this was one of 
 the places where Goethe acted in his own dramas, but we 
 afterward learned that it was not made until his acting days 
 were over. The inexhaustible charm of Belvedere, however, is 
 the grounds, which ar^ laid out with a taste worthy of a first- 
 rate landscape-gardener. The tall and graceful limes, plane- 
 trees, and weeping birches, the little basins of water here and 
 there, with fountains playing in the middle of them, and with 
 a fringe of broad-leaved plants, or other tasteful bordering 
 round them, the gradual descent toward the river, and the hill 
 clothed with firs and pines on the opposite side, forming a fine 
 dark background for the various and light foliage of the trees 
 that ornament the gardens — all this we went again and again 
 to enjoy, from the time when everything was of a vivid green 
 until the Virginian creepers which festooned the silver stems 
 of the birches were bright scarlet, and the touch of autumn had 
 turned all the green to gold. One of the spots to linger in is 
 at a semicircular seat against an artificial rock, on which are 
 placed large glass globes of different colors. It is wonderful to 
 see with what minute perfection the scenery around is painted 
 in these globes. Each is like a pre-Baphaelite picture, with 
 every little detail of gravelly walk, mossy bank, and delicately 
 leaved, interlacing boughs, presented in accurate miniature. 
 
 In the opposite direction to Belvedere lies Tiefurt, with its 
 small park and tiny chateau, formerly the residence of the 
 Duchess Amalia, the mother of Carl Angnst, and the friend 
 and patroness of Wieland, but now apparently serving as little 
 
THRM MOUTHS IN WBIMAK 18» 
 
 *Jl.^;^, r**?,^' '** *^' '"• ^^« C«rl Friederioh'i 
 wther childish ooUeotioD.. In the M»ond itory there U a luite 
 of room., «, ,m.ll that the largest of them does not take up 
 w much apace aa a good dining-table, and each of these doll- 
 house rooms IS crowded with prints, old chin^ and aU sorto 
 
 dl« "^"l^T ""^ T~ '"~- ■">« P«k " • little para- 
 ^ J'''^"»^°l»«'«totheb«itadvant«ge: it is cl^rer 
 than at Weimar, and wmd. about gracefully between the 
 banks, oo one side steep, and curtained with turf and shrubs, 
 or fine trees. It was here, at a point where the bank formsi 
 promontory into the river, that Goethe and his Court friends 
 fZ^v iJ* ??'■*"/"'""» "' »° operetta, "Die Fischerin," by 
 !r, !^ .?° ^t ""y *° "^'^ "".">* Webichti a beau- 
 tUul wood, through which runs excellent carriage-roads and 
 g™«y footpaths. It was a rich enjoyment to skirt this wood 
 along the Jena road, and see the sky arching grandly down 
 over the open fields on the other side of us, the evening red 
 flushing the west over the town, and the stars coming out as 
 
 ^^"kT T ^ '*• "**'*'' °' *° *^'' ">« '^ding road 
 through the wood, under ite tall overarching trees, now bend- 
 
 '^IZZ T!'^™"!!' ^°"""^' '""" '^^« "'«" the stately 
 ereotnes. of lofty pillars; or to sa.mter along the grassy foot- 
 paths where the sunlight streamed through the fairy-like foliam 
 of the silvery barked birches. """lage 
 
 Stout pedestrians who go to Weimar will do well to make 
 a walking excursion, as we did, to Ettersburg, a more distant 
 sunmier residence of the Grand Duke, interesting to us before- 
 hand as the scene of private theatricals and ^ees in the 
 Goethe days. We set out on one of the brightest and hottest 
 momii«g ttat August ever bestowed, and it required some 
 resolution to trudge along the shadeless cKau.,ie, vhich 
 fomed Uie first two or three mUes of our way. One c>,mpen- 
 •atmg pleajure was the sight of the beautiful mountain-Mh 
 toees in full berry, which, alternately with cherry-trees, bor- 
 d« the road for a considerable distance. At last we rest, 1 
 from our broiling walk on the borders of a glorious pine-wood, 
 so ext^ive that the trees in the distance form a complete 
 wau with their uunks, and so give one a twUight very wel- 
 come on a summer's noon. Under these pines you tread on a 
 
 ' I. 
 
100 
 
 TBmi MONTHB IN WEIKAR 
 
 owpatof tlM loftett mon, lo that you haw no lonnd of t foot- 
 ■tep, and all U M aolamn and ttill as in the etjpt of a oathe- 
 dnl. Praaently we paaaed out of the pine-wood into one of 
 limea, beeohea, and other traeaof trantparentand light foliage, 
 and from thia again we emerged into the open ipaM of the 
 Ettenburg Park in front of the SohloM, which is Jinely placed 
 on an eminence commanding a magnificent view of the far- 
 reaching woods. Prince Pucliler Muskau has been of serrioe 
 here by recommending openings to be made in the woods, in 
 the taste of the English parks. The Schloss, which ia a fa- 
 rorite residence of the Grand Duke, is a house of very moder- 
 ate size, and no pretension of any kind. Its stuccoed walls, 
 and doors long unacquainted with fresh paint, would look dis- 
 tressingly shabby to the owner of a villa at Richmond or 
 Twickenham; but much beauty is procured here at slight 
 expense, by the tasteful disposition of creepers on the ba- 
 lustrades, and pretty vases fuU of plants ranged along the 
 f teps, or suspended in the little piazza beneath them. A walk 
 through a beech-wood took us to the Mooehutte, in front of 
 which stands the famous beech from whence Goethe denounced 
 Jacobi's " Woldemar." The bark u covered with initials cut 
 by him and his friends. 
 
 People who only allow themselves to be idle under the pre- 
 text of hydropathizing, may find all the apparatus necessary to 
 satisfy their conscience at Bercka, a village seated in a lovely 
 valley about six miles from Weurar. Now and then a Wei- 
 mar family takes lodgings hero for the summer, retiring from 
 the quiet of the capital to the deeper quiet of Bercka; but 
 generally the place seems not much frequented. It would be 
 difficult to imagine a more peace-inspiring scene than this lit- 
 tle valley. The hanging woods— the soft coloring and grace- 
 ful outline of theoiplands— the village, with its roofs and spire 
 of a reddish-violet hue, muffled in luxuriant trees— the white 
 Kurhans glittering on a grassy slope— the avenue of poplars 
 contrasting its pretty primness with the wild bushy outline of 
 the wood-covered hill, which rises abruptly from the smooth, 
 green meadows— the clear winding stream, now sparkling in 
 the sun, now hiding itself under soft gray willows,— all this 
 makes an enchanting picture. The walk to Bercka and back 
 
TBBIX UOMTBS IN VKIMAR. 
 
 f 
 
 191 
 
 wtM • faroriU Mpadition with n« and » few Weimar f riendi, 
 for the tomI thither is a pleaiant one, leading at flnt through 
 opwi cultivated fields, dotted here and there with Tillages, 
 and then through wooded hUls— the outekirts of the Thurin- 
 gian Foreet. We used not to despise the fine plums which 
 hung in tempting abundance by the road-side; but we after- 
 ward found that we had been deceived in supposing ourselves 
 free to pluck them, as if it wer. , .c ^iden age, and that we 
 were liable to a penalty of tf ,i I'ciiWi fr- -mr depredations. 
 But I must not allow my». !f > bo .,s' lupi ,fe on pleasures 
 which seem monotonous w'i. i.ii . t'...u,-:i m njoying them 
 one 18 as far from wishir^ tn^,,, t,. !h mor« fous as from 
 wishmg for any change ii tin ew.-ef. ;amonf. jf successive 
 summer days. I will <r. ]y aJ ,. J e j...,:„.- ,,ao has yet to 
 make eicursions in Th -.j«ia t, %■-.., Jeua, lous for ibi tradi- 
 tions than for its fine iornp:. , v 1 uh niakc, it, as Ooethe 
 says, a delicious place, in spite of its i' . ', i.^ly streets; and 
 exhort him, above all, to brave ' '■. . Minfr ' i of a Pottwagm 
 tot the sake of getting to Ilmeuau. Here he will find the 
 grandest pine-clad hills, with endless walks under their sol- 
 emn shades; beech- woods where every tree is a picture; an 
 air that he will breathe with as conscious a pleasure as if he 
 were taking iced water on a hot day; baths ad libitum, with 
 a doue/u lofty and tremendous enough to invigorate the giant 
 Cormoran; and, more than aU, one of the most interesting 
 relics of Goethe, who had a great love for Ilmenau. This is 
 the small wooden house, on the height called the Kickelhahn, 
 where he often lived in his long retirements here, and where 
 you may see written by his own hand, near the window-frame, 
 those wonderful lines— perhaps the finest expression yet given 
 to the sense of resignation inspired by the sublime calm of 
 Kature : — 
 
 "TJeber alien GlpfeUi 
 1st Ruh, 
 
 In alien Wlpfeln 
 Sparest da 
 Kaom elnen Haach ; 
 Die Vagelein whwelgan ln> Walde. 
 Wart* nor, bsldf. 
 Ruhnt du auch." 
 
 ii 
 
 

 ADDRESS TO WOEKING Mm, BY FELIX HOLT. 
 
 PKLOw-WoBKinir,—! am not going to take up your time 
 hy oomplimentmg you. It has been the faahion to oompU- 
 ment kmgs and other anthoritiea when they have coma into 
 power, and to tell them that, under their wiie and beneficent 
 rule, happmesa would certainly overflow the land. Bnt the 
 end haa not always corresponded to that beginning. If it 
 were true that we who work for wages had more of the wis- 
 drai and Tirtue necessary to the right use of power than has 
 been shown by the aristocratic and meroantUe classes, we 
 should not glory much in that fact, or consider that it carried 
 with it any near :ipproaoh to infallibility. 
 
 In my opinion, there has been too much complimenting of 
 that sort; and whenever a speaker, whether he is one of our- 
 selves or not, wastes our time in boasting or flattery, I say 
 let us hiss him. If we have the beginning of wisdom, whidi 
 js, to know a Uttle truth about ourselves, we know that as a 
 body we are neither very wise nor very virtuous. And to 
 prove this, I wiU not point speciaUy to our own habits and 
 doings, but to the general state of the country. Any nation 
 that had within it a majority of men— and we are the major- 
 ity—possessed of much wisdom and virtue, would not toler- 
 ate the bad practices, the commercial lying and swindling, the 
 poisonous adulteration of goods, the retaU cheating, and the 
 political bribery, which are carried on boldly in the midst of 
 us. A majority has the power of creating a public opinion. 
 We could groan and hiss before we had the franchisef if we 
 had groaned and hissed in the right place, if we bad discerned 
 better between good and evU, if the multitude of us artisans, 
 and factory hands, and miners, and laborers of all sorts, had 
 been skilful, faithful, weU-judging, industrious, sober-and I 
 don t see how there can be wisdom and virtue anywhere with- 
 out those quaUties— we should have made an audience that 
 
It \^m 
 
 ADDRESS TO WORKINO KBN. 
 
 193 
 
 ZnJZ tr'w; f » ol-se. out of their .hare in 
 
 fewer foolL rj.^^'^eM^tl; ''^~*«.%*^'^«''-». 
 brutal men; wd weKd not w/^ !* "" "^'""°»» ""^ 
 Mtion of ien e^« tt.ml,^^•'''"°"«•"*^•'•'~'°i■ 
 gate «abetLV^'Z7di:f o^!ffsT:S*^**''*''- 
 i. a better nu. than aToneS'rfir^r/.Xt •^'" 
 
 for auoh an alteraKnn tj, °"" "»* necessary agency 
 
 and dange^ous'^E °- on'^t Zds'td th"' ' '"'"""^ 
 feeling, and knowledw fh.ll /^u ' ^ *''* "°™ «'°'e. 
 
 not altogether unlike thel™^ Fw ™L, " "'"■!!.""' ^ 
 well-being^is a vast crop, that Z KmTK S 
 
 iM'i 
 
 rf-. 
 
 
■vmm^iMMmm 
 
 IM 
 
 ADDRXaS TO WORKraO MBN, 
 
 be come »t, not at all by hurried snatching, but only by a 
 weU-jndged patient prooem; and whether our political power 
 wiU be any good to us now we have got it, must depend 
 entirely on the means and materials— the knowledge, abU- 
 ity, and honesty— we have at oonunand. These three things 
 are the only conditions on which we aan get any lasting bene- 
 fit, as every clever workman among us knows: he knows 
 that for an article to be worth much there must be a good 
 invention or phm to go upon, there must be -veU-prewred 
 material, and there must be skilful and honest work in carry- 
 mg out the plan. And by this test we may try those who 
 want to be our leaders. Have they anything to offer us be- 
 sides indignant talk? When they teU us we ought to have 
 this, that, or the other thing, can they explain to us any rea- 
 sonable, fair, safe way of getting it? Can they argue in favor 
 of a pwtioular change by showing us pretty closely how the 
 change is likely to woA? I don't want to decry a just indig- 
 nataon; on the contrary, I should like it to be more thorough 
 and general. A wise man, more than two thousand years ago 
 whMi he was asked what would most tend to lessen injustice 
 m the world, said, " That every bystander should feel as indig- 
 nant at a wrong as if he himself were the sufferer." Let us 
 ohensh such indignation. But the long-growing evils of a 
 great nation are a tangled business, asking for a good deal 
 more than indignation in ordor to be got rid of. Indignation 
 18 a fine war-horse, but the war-horse must be ridden by a 
 °'.^- '* "!"f* ^ "d-len by rationaUty, skiU, courage, armed 
 with the right weapons, and taking definite aim. 
 
 We have reason to be discontented with many things, and 
 looking back either through the history of England to much 
 earlier generations or to the legislation and administration of 
 later times, we are justified in saying that many of the evils 
 under which our country no,v suffers are the consequences 
 of foUy, Ignorance, neglect, or self-seeking in those who, at 
 different times, have wielded the powers of rank, office, and 
 money. But the more bitterly we feel this, the more loudly 
 we utter it, the stronger is the obligation we lay on ourselves 
 to beware lest we also, by a too hasty wrestling of measures 
 which seem to promise an immediate partial relief, make a 
 

 W^i^*:: 
 
 BT FBLIX HOLT. 
 
 195 
 
 fc'lY;'"" -»*T^ to spread beyond ourcllo^ti" 
 mnlr^ ^ *" °"'" Pa^Pe'is™. to the brutal ignoranceof 
 
 ^e for the pnhho money, to the expense and trouble rf 
 ^tog juBbce, and call these the effecto of bad r"e Th^ 
 
 n»King, and which no man can undo. Everybody now gees 
 an example of it in th« case of Ireland. w7X a^eTi^ 
 
 Sr^hu !* ''"*'^" ""y ^^'^ "^"''o wrong-doing- ^ 
 
 the children who come after us are and will be sy^rsCm 
 
 sdf? wfrt w*.^ hxm-what he wants is to better him- 
 ?rjl ^" V^"* f^ t^™ will he complain of any in,W? 
 
 ^tSl^iS^ ^°' "^^v "' '"'"'y *° ^ *!'«' consequences 
 to otters besides himself, he is defending the very worst Z 
 
 wen ^?rf/™"«''* "•»"* ^^ disconLt hT S^ 
 ^h^^K .^^'^'^ rive for what will please him, without cw- 
 
 oTs^iTtf L T'A"^ T °" *^« ^« --•'^-'P^ °et'^ 
 rf society m wh ch he is fast meshed. If any man taught 
 
 that as a doctrine, we should know him for a fool But 
 
 wheThrhTT ''° r r" ''■■ "'-"y -''-'l™^. for eLpC 
 whether he n, a rich reUgious scoundrel who lies and chwta 
 
 Znilv^r^' .'"'* '"' P™'''»P» '»'"'' "^-i aot you to send 
 ^ IT, ?■*• °' " P~" pocket-picking scoundrel, who 
 
 wUl Bteal your loose pence whUe you are listening round tb^ 
 
 "f 
 
 li ) 
 
196 
 
 ADDRB8S TO W0RKIN6 MXN. 
 
 pUtform. None of u« are so ignorant as not to know that a 
 sooiety, a nation, is held together by just the opposite doc- 
 trine and aotioD — by the dependence of men on each other and 
 the sense they hare of a common interest in preventing injury. 
 And we working men are, I think, of all classes the last that 
 can afford to forget this ; for if we did we should be much like 
 sailors cutting away the timbers of our own ship to warm 
 our grog with. For what else is the meaning of our Trades- 
 unions? What else is the meaning of every flag we carry, 
 every procession we make, every crowd we collect for the sake 
 of making some protest on behalf of our body as receivers of 
 wages, if not this : that it is our interest to stand by each 
 other, and that this being the common interest, no one of us 
 will try to make a good bargain for himself without consider- 
 ing what will be good for his fellows? And every member of 
 a union believes that, the wider he can spread his union, the 
 stranger and surer will be the effect of it. So I think I shall 
 be borne out in saying that a working man who can put two 
 and two together, or take three from four and see what will be 
 the remainder, can understand that a society, to be well off, 
 must be made up chiefly of men who consider the ganeral good 
 as well as their own. 
 
 Well, but taking the world as it is — and this is one way we 
 mnst take it when we want to find out how it can be improved 
 — no society is made up of a single class : society stands before 
 us like that wonderful piece of life, the human body, with all 
 its various parts depending on one another, and with a terrible 
 liability to get wrong because of that delicate dependenoe. 
 We all know how many diseases the human body is ^t to 
 suffer from, and how difficult it is even for the doctors to find 
 out exactly where the seat or beginning of the disorder is. 
 That is because the body is made up of so many various parts, 
 all related to each other, or likely all to feel the effect if any 
 one of them goes wrong. It is somewhat the same with onr 
 old nations or societies. No society ever stood long in the 
 world without getting to be composed of different classes. 
 Now, it is all pretence to say that there is no such thing as 
 Class Interest. It is clear that if any particular number of 
 men get a particular benefit from any ^listing institution, 
 
thej are likely to band togeth, 
 
 BY FKUX HOLT. 
 
 eflt and 
 
 ur 
 
 the Bimple ™^l'fo7thrb^;^'«^V-<'« 'r*°'y^«»"- ^* 
 U likely to have more of «tnn^*;L ^^ ""8* ^7 "^ "»» 
 of farighte^:rrd geneP a1^' i^T T'*":.'" ' "^ *^- 
 who resist unfairness a^d taSi L i^^^*' Renumber 
 injurious in their turn And t f M ^^ °* becoming 
 
 anoe has become aTm»X« , '"^ * J-wt^able resist- 
 
 worse inste^n^bettT^faC;^""'' ""^^« '''^'^<^ 
 ought to profit a littt^y Kx "ri^" "^ "," "^^ ^* -• 
 selfishness in men • so Inn7.. ?!^ ^° '°"K "* ^^e™ " 
 themselves insSon" wZh exn™« "^ ""' "^^^ °"* *" 
 the truth, that the inO^^tj^T t-T^ ^*° ?"">«<» 
 a oommoi and not aSL^f 5 °""^"* ""'"* «* '""t l« 
 operation of siZj\^^t\^'TT'' f ^f » " *^'' ^"^^ 
 every man's krTfedr^H^ ? ""^'' "■"* ""* " P"* "t 
 know that it n^for T K u"?*/ T ' " ^« ""^ "°' °°ly 
 cleanliness I o^aLX Sd^'for': "'f^'' '^' '*'" ""'' 
 under-side or lining of an JfJ "°?*'"^ ''^''''' » tl'e 
 
 wink at their own Wi^De 0^;.^ .^'V' T'' "^ ""^ 
 cause they have «,t aiTS^T' ^ .*'"" ''^"^^ ^'8h, be- 
 Class West wirbTin^Z^f"'''''.**'"^''""^''' «° '""K 
 ously. No set ^f men wm ^anvt^f ^" ''" ^^■""- 
 being in danger of waltin^^. *r^.!^^ °* !"'*■■ "^'•'""t 
 on the other hand, Tt^sTuat « o„ f*" "t^" "^''^ ^''"»- ^^^ 
 get angry at haviU l^^l^ certain that no set of men wiU 
 
 claim on that ^oZ wfthouT f^f'' "?^* """^ «°'* ««" "P » 
 ger of exacting tTmuch^HV^* "'*" ^""^ '^^ «™« <i»°- 
 human -ture^^har 'gor^rrk w^it^r^^r^^^^ ''' 
 >«g else. That seems like saymg IleSn^"™ ' '^' ""^^'^ 
 place— nay. obvious- » if „ ■"'/"« fomething very common- 
 hands ther^'are mouths rrt^'L'" ** ""ya-at where there are 
 ifying and to see a gtd dS of thel'J'^. w °' '"'"'P'^^- 
 one might suppose !t was fo^g^LJ ^*"'° "** «°*' ^"""^ 
 But I come hack to this- tKof ; 
 
 i 
 
 i t 
 
 il 
 
IM 
 
 ADDSIB8 TO WORKIMO MXK, 
 
 inharited advantagM of nlMim, which have diaped tiiwawWea 
 along with all the wonderful ilow-growing system of things 
 made up of our lawi^ our oommerce, and our stores of all sorts, 
 whether in material objects, such as buildings and maohinery, or 
 in knowledge, such as scientific thought and profwinnal skill. 
 Just as in that case I spoke of before, the irrigation of a ooon- 
 try, which most absolutely have its water distributed or it will 
 bear no crop; there are tiie old channels, the old banks, and 
 the old pumps, which most be used as they are until new aul 
 bet*'<<r have been prepared, or the structure of the old has bean 
 gradually altered. But it would be fool' a work to batter down 
 a pump only because a better might be made, when you had 
 no machinery ready for a new one : it would be wicked work, 
 if Tillages lost their crops by it. Now the only safe way by 
 which society can be steadily improved and our worst evils 
 reduced, is not by aay attempt to do away directly with the 
 actually existing class distinctions and advantages, as if every- 
 body could have the same sort of work, or lead the same sort 
 of life (which none of my hearers are stupid enough to mp- 
 pose), but by the turning of Class Interests into Cltfu Func- 
 tions or duties. What I mean is, that each class should be 
 urged by the surrounding oonditians to perform its particular 
 work under the strong pressure of responsibility to the nation 
 at large ; that our public affairs should be got into a state in 
 which there should be no impunity for foolish or faithless con- 
 duct. In this way, the public judgment would sift out inca- 
 pability and dishonesty from posU of high charge, and even 
 personal ambition would necessarily become of a worthier sort, 
 since the desires of the most selfish men must be a good deal 
 shaped by the opinions of those around them; and for one 
 person to put on a cap and bells, or to go about dishonest or 
 paltry ways of getting rich that he may spend a vast sum of 
 money in having more fiaery than his neighbors, he must be 
 pretty sure of a crowd who will applaud him. Now changes 
 can only be good in proportion as they help to bring about 
 this sort of result : in proportion as they put knowledge in the 
 place of ignorance, and fellow-feeling in the place of selfish- 
 ness. In the course of that substitution class distinctions must 
 inevitably change their character, and represent the varying 
 
BT mux HOLT. 
 
 IM 
 
 !>■«« o* men, not their v»rjrin«trntoni.tM »n* »i.i ^ „ 
 not oome by impatience. "D^yVm^^br^l^^ •"'* T^' 
 
 -.11 • J • loresigfit, th« ooMoienoe, that will mak. i.j», 
 
 well-judgmg ai.d gorupulous in tha use of it -nJZt , 
 things in this wnrW L. k. •^' uao oi u. rhe nature of 
 
 and ta s^oTa «y ttatl^° '^"'"r"'^ f" "• beforehand, 
 
 -^c^: theT^rof^wSsr rwa';S"of"«::t''''' 
 
 way, and need not be made better. What iTm ^J^- . 
 
 bound up'*' M^X^^lSllmtltr ""» r 
 
 Uu.t the riot was brouSTb<^t'chtfl/ by ^VrJctTr 
 hcmest men who professed to be on 2 pL^S' Xo^" 
 the danger hanging over change is ineat W in '"**• .^°^' 
 .t tends to produce such disordei h^^^ Proportion as 
 
 of ignorant men, whose Ss of^K ^'"'"' "^^ 
 and brutal sort, the belief tWf >. T •» good are of a low 
 
ik, Jr" 
 
 '^mmw-j 
 
 ^.jpm 
 
 9M 
 
 ADDRBSS TO WORKIKO KKS, 
 
 wbo have no gardens, and often walk abroad, it ii plain that 
 we can nerer get into a bit of a crowd but we must rub elothea 
 with a set of Boughs, who have the worst rices of the worst 
 rioh — who are gamblers, sots, libertines, knaves, or else men 
 sensual simpletons and viotims. They are the nglj orop that 
 has sprung up while the stewards hare been sleeping; thegr 
 are the multiplying brood begotten by parents who hare been 
 left without all teaching sare that of a too orarlng body, with- 
 out all well-being save the fading delusions of drugged beer 
 and gin. They are the hideous margin of society, at one edge 
 drawing toward it the undesigning ignorant poor, at the other 
 darkening imperceptibly into the lowest criminal class. Here 
 is one of the evils which cannot be got rid of quickly, and 
 against which any of us who hare got sense, decency, and in- 
 struction hare need to watch. That these degraded fellow- 
 men could really get the mastery in a persistent disobedience 
 to the laws and in a struggle to subrert order, I do not be- 
 lieve; but wretched calamities would come from the reiy be- 
 ginning of such a struggle, and the continuance of it would 
 be a civil war, in which the inspiration on both sides might 
 soon cease to be even a false notion of good, and might become 
 the direct savage impulse of ferocity. We have all to see to 
 it that we do not help to rouse what I may call the savage 
 beast in the breasts of our generation — that we do not help to 
 poison the nation's blood, and make richer provision for besti- 
 ality to come. We know well enough that oppressors have 
 sinned in this way — that oppression has notoriously made men 
 mad; and we are detoimined to resist oppression. But let us, 
 if possible, show that we can keep sane in our resistance, and 
 shape our means more and more reasonably toward the least 
 harmful, and tlierefore the speediest, attainment of our end. 
 Let us, I say, show that our spirits are too strong to be driven 
 mad, but can keep that sober determination which alone givee 
 mastery over the adaptation of means. And a first guaranty 
 of this sanity will be to act as if we understood that the fun- 
 damental duty of a Government is to preserve order, to enforce 
 obedience of the laws. It has been held hitherto that a man 
 can be depended on as a guardian of order only when he has 
 much money and comfort to lose. But a better state of things 
 
'ILmJL f. i. 
 
 .U» .!• 
 
 BT FILIX BOLT. 
 
 an 
 
 would b«, th.t men who h»d little money and not muoh oom- 
 fort .hould stm be gnardUns of order, beaau- they h^^ 
 to ..• that disorder would do no good, and had a h^rt of jT 
 tioe, pit^and fortitude, to keep them from making more mU- 
 wy only because they felt tome misery themselve.. There are 
 thouand. of ar^. who ha., already shown thU fin. .pirit, 
 •nd hav. endured much with patient heroism. If such a «,irit 
 •pr^id, and penetrated u. all, we should «>on b«,ome the i«. 
 T™ ♦! *• '»»°'J '■> the best sense and to the best end.. 
 For, the pubho order bemg preserved, there can be no goTem- 
 ment m future that wiU not be determined by onr insUt.no. 
 on our f^ and practicable demands. It is only by disorder 
 ttat our demands will be choked, that we shdl find ounwlvi 
 lost amongst a brutal rabble, with all the int.Uigenoe of the 
 country oppo«^ to us, and see government in ih. riupeoJ 
 W^ that will sweep us down in the ignoble martyrdom of 
 
 It has been a too common notion that to insist mueh on the 
 LTT* °' "'f ", is the part of a selfish aristocracy and a 
 selfish eommercialolass, because among these, in the nature 
 of things, have been found the opponents of change. I am a 
 Badioal, and, what is more, I am not a Badical with a titl. 
 or a French cook or even an ratrano. into fine society I 
 expect great changes, and 1 desire them. But I don't expect 
 ttem to com. in a hurry, by mere inconsiderate sweeping. A 
 Hwoules with a big besom is a fine thing for a filthy ^ble, 
 but not for weedmg a seed-bed, where hU besom wcild «»n 
 make a barren floor. 
 
 all's!. " '''^■'•^°°*^ *»^ »™°« °"» °»y say. We know 
 
 tJj^\^^ *'^5u ""J""' ^ '" *^'«^« "V- ">»•* people 
 think they know them ; but, after all, they are comparal^oly 
 few who see the smaU degrees by which those exteemes are 
 a^ived at, or have the resolution and self-control to resUt the 
 httie impalses by which they creep on surely toward a fatal 
 end. Does anylxidy set out meaning to ruin himself, or to 
 drmk himself to death, or to waste his life so that he becomes 
 a despicable old man, a superannuated nuisance, like a fly in 
 winter? Yet thera are plenty, of whose lot this U the piti- 
 
 I, 
 
MS 
 
 ADDRX88 TO WORKING MKN, 
 
 able rtoty. Well now, rappoeing ui all to IwTe the beet ia- 
 twjttoni, we working men, m a body, ran iome riik of bring- 
 ing eril on the nation In that unooneoioot manner— half-fau- 
 lying, half-pnahed in a jortling march toward an end we am 
 not thinking of. Por juet aa there are many things which we 
 know better and feel much mors itrongly than the richer, 
 softer-handed olauea can know or feel them; so there are 
 many thinga— many preoioui benefite—whioh we, by the reiy 
 act of our priTatione, our lack of leisure and instruction, are 
 not so likely to be aware of and take into our account. Those 
 precious benefits form a chief part of what I may call the com- 
 mon estate of society : a wealth over and above buildings, ma- 
 chinery, produce, shipping, and so on, though closely con- 
 nected with these; a wealth of a more delicate kind, that we 
 may more unconsoiousljr bring into danger, doing harm and 
 not knowing that we do it I mean that treasure of knowledge, 
 science, poetay, refinement of thought, feeling, and manners, 
 great memories, and the interpretation of great records, which 
 is carried on from the minds of one generation to the minds 
 of another. This is something distinct from the indulgences 
 of luxury and the pursuit of vain finery; and one of the hard- 
 ships in the lot of working men is that they have been for the 
 most part shut out from sharing in this treasure. It can make 
 a man's life very great, very full of deUght, though he has no 
 smart furniture and no horses: it also yields a great deal of 
 disoovery that corrects error, and of invention that lessens 
 bodily pain, and must at last make life easier for all. 
 
 Now the security of this treasure demands, not only the 
 preseryation of order, but a certain patience on our part with 
 many irsticaiions and facts of various kinds, especially touch- 
 ing the <icni,jnulation of wealth, which, from the light we stand 
 in, we are more likely to discern the evil than the good of. It 
 is constantly the task of practical wisdom not to say, " This 
 is good, and I will have it," but to say, "This U the less of 
 two unavoidable evils, and I wUl bear it." And this treasure 
 of knowledge, which consists in the fine activity, the exalted 
 vision of many minds, is bound up at present with conditions 
 which have much evil in them. Just as in the case of mate- 
 rial wealth and its distribution we are obliged to take the self- 
 
Jtes. 
 
 \my 
 
 BT nux HOLT. fM 
 
 ▼okiiH fhl., J geajousy and wrath, not altogether nnoro- 
 
 men, while we exert ourgelvee Sr^lt ^i ^? ." '"""*'' "' 
 met, that we and our^Sr^^/L'ir^T t^^t 
 Yegj exert ourselvee to the utmoet, to break th« III , • 
 raooe. If we demand more leUm^ ™n~. '^ '"' °* '8°°- 
 
 brut., indulgence, buTfor th^r^So^ J^eSrCli 
 
*jif. /•■";■■ A,' : >v,v *i...Ctt- r^-'fj'.v.- '* (■■•i^ 
 
 ^- -X-:-* •<f7.. ::-yv^,-l:.-f^-^ ^T &^WS^ 
 
 .^-'^^- 
 
•"CKJeOW fMMUITION TBt OUIT 
 
 (ANSI and ISO TEST CHAUT No. J) 
 
 ^I^U^ 
 
 ^ai^ 165J Eo»t Uoin StfMt 
 
 ^^•as ™fi«tw. i4m Toil, ueos us* 
 
 Kb (7IB) *e2 - 0300 - Phon« 
 
 ■jflB <7<fl) 2&B - 3989 - Fw 
 
204 
 
 ADDMB88 TO WORKING MEN. 
 
 which make n. men. Without this no politic! measures can 
 benefit us. No politioal institution wiU alter the nature of 
 Ignorance, or hinder it from producing vice and miseir let 
 Ignorance start how it will, it must run the same roimd of 
 low appetites, poverty, slavery, and superstition. Some of na 
 know this weU-nay, I wUl say, feel itj for knowledge of this 
 kind cuts deep; and to us it is one of the most painful facts 
 belonging to our condition that there are numbers of our fel- 
 low-workmen who ar- so far from feeling in the same way. 
 ttat they never use the imperfect opporimnities already offered 
 ftem for givmg their children some schooling, but turn their 
 Uttte ones of tender age into bread-winners, often at cruel 
 tasks, exposed to the horrible infection of childish vice Of 
 Murse, the causes of these hideous things go a long way back 
 Jr-arents misery has made parente' wickedness. But we, who 
 are stUl blessed with tht hearts of fathers and the consciences 
 Of men— we who have some knowledge of the curse entaUed 
 on broods of creatures in human shape, whose enfeebled bodies 
 and duU perverted minds are mere centres of uneasiness, in 
 whom even appetite is feeble, and joy impossible,-! say we 
 are bound to use aU the means at our command to help put- 
 ting a stop to this horror. Here, it seems to me, is a way in 
 which we may use extended co-operation among us to the most 
 momentous of aU purposes, and make conditions of enrolment 
 that would strengthen all educational measures. It is true 
 enough that there is a low sense of parental duties in the na- 
 tion at large, and that numbers who have no excuse in bodUv 
 hardship seem to think it a light thing to beget ohUdr8n,-to 
 
 fnwv^« 'f,'"8"' r*'' »" «»«" tremendous possibUities, 
 into this difficult .world,-and then take Uttle heed how they 
 are disciplined and furnished for the perilous journey thev 
 are sent on without any asking of their own. This is a sin 
 shared in more or less by all classes; but there are sins which, 
 like taxation, fall the heaviest on the poorest, and none have 
 such galling reasons as we working men to try and rouse to 
 the utmost the feeling of responsibility in fathers and mothers. 
 We luive been urged into co-operation by the pressure of com- 
 mon demands. In war men need each other more: and where 
 » given pomt has to be defended, fighters inevitably find them- 
 
BY MUX HOLT. 205 
 
 selres shoulder to shoulder So fAiin»-.v 
 tte rules of fellowship. wSoh cl^ 7 ^^ *'^' "= 8""^ 
 thoroughueas as Z idea rf /^ ""^ '^"^ themselves to 
 
 complete. We fed aright tosarr^fi, ^''"''''' "»" 
 yon must make snnh ^^ i^^' ^"^ '^ •* O"* »' us, 
 
 nounee such td °uch /rplr^^^'f °^ y°° """■* '«- 
 y<n» face againsLuch and suKi^lr*^' y°" "■"«» »* 
 any false ideas about on™ "'f'"^*- "'"have 
 
 wrong, and ^sh^ L " .^ «°°^ °"' '°1«' will be 
 
 But tr. he^isa'^ai^f':;^^^*" damage each other, 
 else we strive for wSlbe ™1?^' 7^°°* ''^•''' everything 
 oiildren. let ns denu^r^ JT "T "" "*»"*' °* °" 
 tljat they fulfil ttebTty a^'ple^^, "' "^^".1 °" ^"''»"' 
 which rules can reach Le?„«!^ f f" ^''^°'*« ""^tte^ 
 children to sTooHoas nlT^ ** *^t* ^^^^ '«''«» theii 
 ".oral pestiCrlrng^s. L J^"",r"'*"'y ^-^'^^ " 
 they pay their oontriE.^^ "''y *" "^ ^""^^ that 
 
 be for a co^rSt ^''•,'^"'"""' '^'^ »°^''"*<»d to 
 let US watch one anS „ trS2.%7t;''*°V T ^?''"° ""'"' 
 and more momentous Z^t^.T^^^' '""^ "" '^° P»Wic, 
 tions. While we^il!",^ obedience to sanitary regula- 
 in Wgh^a^L, ittTseSu^ir '<^^'^.'^o^<'^J^eL 
 ness in low places ^t oua^ k 'v '*^''* *« "'ck-i- 
 i. the worse oHi'e^o^!^^'''"* """« ^"^ ~ ''^ch 
 precedence of pCe»^;Sn* t^? ^f^" **" "'"•>«We 
 rwnedie. onceLSnedTd'. ""?''*'°« "nflinohingly on 
 treasure of knowl^ iT-™ ""°""°'>"'« those who hold the 
 and that wiKemli^ tTt^^of '"* *^^^ '"'"^ '' ^ *'-'^ 
 dies, ^,^^ «., S meS::;:??,^^ ^^er """" 
 
 ^: sixrSgrhei^''Lrl^' H»e ^^ «>« 
 
 n.ake a fresh era ^S^l^^yVtVt °' ""' "^ """y 
 that has existed shall fxL^TCretf.r.^' ""^'''^8 
 years, down to the middle of aT'« . 1 " thousands of 
 Christ, that human Itabs had lS,t T^^* '^"'^ ■""«> 
 nobody knew W to stp tEe bSo^"^ ^"".^ ""I""'"**^ 
 "^ds of the res«,ls with^reJhoS^ "'X^ """^ *^« 
 named Ambrose Par^. and said ''T^',.„ .^ ^^."^^ a man 
 wa. a «ue word to utter. ^J cJlL^^^-T^^;, ^t 
 
306 
 
 ADDRB8S TO WORKING MEW, 
 
 method— a plan by which a partionlar evU was foreyer as- 
 suaged. Let ns by to discern the men whose words carry that 
 sort of kernel, and choose such men to be our guides and r^p- 
 resentatives— not choose platform swaggerers, who bring us 
 nothing but the ocean to make our broth with. 
 
 To get the chief power into the hands of the wisest, which 
 means to get our life regulated according to the truest princi- 
 ples mankind is in possession of, is a problem as old as the 
 very notion of wisdom. The solution comes slowly, because 
 men collectively can only be made to embrace principles, and 
 to act on them, by the slow stupendous teaching of the world's 
 events. Men will go on planting potatoes, and nothing else 
 but potatoes, till a potato disease comes and forces them to 
 find out the advantage of a varied crop. Selfishness, stupid- 
 ly, sloth, persist in trying to adapt the world to their desires, 
 tall a time comes when the world manifests itself as too decid- 
 edly inconvenient to thfem. Wisdom stands outside of man 
 and urges itself upon him, like the marks of the changing Ma- 
 sons, before it finds a home within him, directa his actions, 
 and from the precious effects of obedience begets a correspond- 
 ing love. 
 
 But while still outside of us, wisdom often looks terrible, 
 and wears strange forms, wrapped in the changing conditions 
 of a struggling world. It wears now the form of wants and 
 just demands in a great multitude of British men: wants and 
 demands urged into existence by the forces of a matairing 
 worid. And it is in virhie of this— in virtue of this presence 
 of wisdom on our side as a mighty fact, physical and moral 
 which must enter into and shape the thoughts and actions of 
 mankind— that we working men have obtained the suffrage. 
 Not because we are an excellent multitude, but because we are 
 a needy multitude. 
 
 But now, for our own part, we have seriously to consider 
 this outside wisdom which lies in the supreme unalterable na- 
 ture of things, and watch to give it a home within us and obey 
 it. If the claims of the unendowed multitude of working men 
 hold within them principles which must shape the future, it 
 IS not less true that the endowed classes, in their inheritance 
 from the past, hold the precious material without which no 
 
ui\ 
 
 BY PELIX HOLT. 
 
 S07 
 
 worthy, noble future oau be mouldnd v.^. ^ *v v v 
 
 bew abused, it has also been the nurse of *exoelW. He^ 
 SZ If J« ^ ""bmit ourselves to the great law of inher" 
 I^« of tt '""rl.'"*\ *^« ^"y ^ which the labors Ld 
 ewungs of the past have been preserved and handed down 
 
 ^n^^*. i^ T '"^ '^'""'' *^™« °* I'ei^K who quarrel with 
 e^? Th!"H '^^"«?'r'^ '''^"^ "« disolosedlnTeVZ 
 teoubk, and the ways by which men are made better and hat 
 
 P^tit of ™r ''\"" •^r""^'* totheunprofitablesSt^^d 
 
 K^ In °' "^T i°* "'■"''' " ^""^ ^ » wholesale fashion 
 Not all the evils of our condition are such as we can iCX 
 blame otters for, and. I repeat^ many of them are s^h^ no 
 
 tt^l^'ttatttT"^""''^"'"^^- TodisceSt^eL 
 !!! *T^ «>at eneijy can remove and the evils that patience 
 
 T ^.'^'^ *^" ^''"^'^ '»*''««■' inanliness and S 
 
 ^Urts^hT^'"""'"'^'""^- And mo™ "1 St 
 without such disiemment, seeing that we have grave duti™ 
 toward our own body and the country at large, wf^ hi^iv 
 escape acts of fatal rashness and injustice ^ 
 
 I am addressing a mixed assembly of workmen, and some 
 of you may be as well or better fitted than I am tTtekeT^ 
 
 ScS s^^« *^"°* ■*^'^'' '""^ <«»"id''™tions most likely to 
 n^^„ ^ t "' ""t ?"P"i"8 <>"»«lves for the use of our 
 new opportunities. I have avoided touching on special oues- 
 nZ'h ,^^«'>««*^''1P. toward judging well i thriTt^";;. 
 pioach them in the right temper, without vain exnectetio^ 
 and with a resolution which is Ti^ed with te^er^C "* 
 
 5 
 
LEAVES PROM A NOTE-BOOK. 
 
 To lay down in the shape of praoUoal moial rales oomses 
 of conduct only to be made real by the rarest states of motive 
 AnthonUp. ""^ disposition, tends not to elevate but to de- 
 grade the general stai>d<trd, by taming that rare 
 attainment from an object of admiration into an impossible 
 prescription, against which the average nature first rebels and 
 then flings out ridicule. , It is for art to present images of a 
 lovelier order than the actual, gentiy winning the affections, 
 and so determining the taste. But in any rational criticism 
 of the time which is meant to guide a practical reform, it is 
 idle to insUt that action ought to be this or that, without con- 
 sidering how far the outward conditions of such ohang- are 
 present, even supposing the inward disposition toward it. 
 Practically, we must be satisfied to aim at something short of 
 perfection— a- at something very much farther off it in on» 
 case than in another. While the fundamental conceptions of 
 morality seem as stationary through ages as the laws of life, 
 so that a moral manual written eighteen centuries ago stiU 
 admonishes us that we are low in our attainments, it is quite 
 otherwise with the degree to which moral conceptions have 
 penetrated the various forms of social activity, and made what 
 may be called the special conscience of each calling, art, or 
 industry. While on some points of social duty public opinion 
 has reached a tolerably high standard, on others a public opin- 
 ion is not yet born j and there are even some functions and 
 practices with regard to which men far above the line in hon- 
 orablenes= of nature feel hardly any scrupulosity, though their 
 consequent behavior is easily shown to be as injurious as bri- 
 bery, or any other slowly poisonous procedure which degrades 
 the social vitality. 
 
1KAVE8 FROM A NOTEBOOK. 209 
 
 n«« "full-grown oonsoienoe in tho pnWio mind U Auth«! 
 «*ip. Yet the changes brought about by the spread of inrtn?„ 
 taon and the oon«^uent struggle, of JZ^VZuiTZ: 
 or at least might weU be, foxing on many^tadTtt^ne^f 
 
 ^toUe^tnal products, which would override the rTof the 
 market: a pnnoiple, that is, which should be derived f^m! 
 
 ZTaa S" '^u'*'*''' " P**"'"*^ 'i'J»°»t wy cant, whidi 
 
 would carry the subject into Utopia away from existing needs 
 
 m» ^'f^lr *^ '• " """^ "°'*°" "^ '^"t BhouTd* juts 
 men and women in assuming pubUo authorship and of thl 
 way m which they should be determined ^whit U^u^" 
 «aied success. But the forms of authorsh? must ^S 
 guishedi journalism, for example, carrying a nec^itfo, 
 that continuous production which in oaZ kLds of^ L I 
 precisely the evil to be fought against, and judilw ^ 
 
 iWH "^''Kence a guaranty against those deduction of v^! 
 ity and idleness which draw many a young gentl^ ZL 
 reviewmg, instead of the sorting and copying S^^.n 
 
 ^nrf r ^ *" ^'"^ ■"' vigor^dT^s ties, 
 
 last as he can find a market for them- and in n»w,„;„™ «.• 
 indication of demand he give, hi, ?^to"t u£t 1^! 
 
 oaer manufacturer buy, a new invention of ^e light ktod 
 hkdy to attaict tte public fancy, is succe«,ful in fndin^J 
 mult.tude who wiU give their testers for the transienSy d^sir 
 
 The fim manu&cturw w» will suppo«, blameless. Is an 
 
no 
 
 LEAVM FROM A NOTK-BOOK. 
 
 Mttor .imply „n , pa, with him, « to the rolw of prodno- 
 
 The author*, capital is hi. brain-power-power of invtt- 
 
 Mte oaw^ 1. being continually reproduced imdinor«3 
 Here w tte first grand difference totween the capi^^ 
 
 Htet^" T^""';""' '"• '""^ capital which isCelS 
 literature. The calico wsarcely varies in appropriateness rf 
 quality, no consumer is in danger of getting Umcb^ it 
 and neglecting his boots, h.«s and ^IZ^T^Jt 
 
 sort in the calico manufacture is an advantage: the sameneM 
 
 folds of calico as to become a mere bale of ^tton goodsTwd 
 
 The i *^'^"'i«'*«' •J>irti"8» ""tes him still cry "MoJT" 
 The wise manufacturer geta richer and richer, and L comram- 
 
 L^t r.S.'??""'' ''"''' "-^ ^'"*» «'i"fi«^ «"d "O ^^ 
 
 i«t It be taken as admitted that all legitimate social activ. 
 
 ity must be beneficial to others besides tiie a^nt To^L 
 
 prose or verse as a private exercise and saTfaotion is^ot 
 
 social activity; nobody is culpable for this any m^«?h^ fo* 
 
 h« proper busmess m consequence. If the exercise made him 
 sUher or secretly more self-satisfied, that, to be sure. wcnOd 
 be a roundabout way of injuring society; for though a^cS 
 :r^Mr""'^"«^*«»-^«*«-»^ wehavf atp^Tt 
 But man or woman who pubUshes writings inevitably as- 
 J^es the office o: teacher or influencer of Z pu^fL" 
 I*t him protest as he will that he only seeks t^ amuse, and 
 has no pretension to do more than while away an hL of 
 leisure or weanness-" the idle singer of an empty day°"lhe 
 can no more escape influencing the moral taste^ and with it 
 ^^« .°°. 1 *^' intemgence, than a setter of fShions^li- 
 mtureand dress can fill the shops with his designs and leave 
 ^garniture of persons and houses unaffected by his Indus- 
 
 For a man who has a certain gift of writing to say, «1 
 
UATXS FBOM A NOTB-BOOK. 211 
 
 wlU make the most of it whUe the public like* my ware.-*. 
 long as the market i. open and I am able to 4plyitli^ 
 money profit-suoh profit being the sign of liking »_he sho" d 
 W a behef that hi. ware, have nothing akin to the ane^o 
 peen in them, and also that his continuous supply i. secure 
 bom a degradation in quality which the habit of consumption 
 M.couraged m the buyers may hinder them from marking L°r 
 
 ^whiu'*,,"^'^°°,' ^ *''** ^'^ "°"'Pl"°' but pay, and 
 rf W^ <^«y ~'°Pl'"n Unless he ha. that belief, he ia 
 on a level with the manufacturer who gets rich by fancy-wares 
 
 ^And bad Uteratura of the Mrt called amusing i. gpiritoal 
 
 «i.f ^**''.«.''P»W«i'' being popular can only escape this so- 
 rt^ culpability by first of aU getting a profound Vense th^ 
 Hterature is good-for-nothing, if it is not admirably «^d he 
 must detest bad Uteratnre too heartUy to be in-S^atout 
 producing it if only other people don't detest TTd if he 
 » hu'LK'.*t' '""^'' '^'""'' '''^ bim, he mus?mie 
 ^t^ ^^ "i ^ ""^ ?°' I"""""' authorship as a vocation 
 Witt a trading determination to get rich by it It is in tte 
 
 L ^T f K^"* T'^ ^" " «*P»ble of; but not for 1^ 
 to force or hnny his production, or even do over again what 
 
 render his work no real contribution, for the sake of brinrine 
 np hn. moome to the fancy pitch. An author who woSd W 
 J^ure^d noMe conscience, and with that a devlSng T 
 
 aims the aun to be rich. And therefore he must keep his ex- 
 penditure low-he must make for himself no dire n^^to 
 earn sum. in order to pay bill.. necessity to 
 
 In opposition to this, it is common to cite Walter Scott's 
 o^e, and cry, "Would the world have got as much wl 
 (and therefore salutary) pleasure out of Scott, if he hT^t 
 
 it would-and moiej but smce it is impo«ible to prove what 
 
i# 
 
 213 
 
 LBATXB FROM A KOTBBOOK. 
 
 would l»ve Iwen, I oonflne myaalf to replying that S«ott wm 
 not jnatilled in bringing himMlf into a poaitioii where wTar* 
 oooieqnenoes to others depended on his retaining or not retain- 
 ing his mental oompetonoe. Still less is Soott to be taken as 
 an example to be followed in this matter, even if it were ad- 
 mitted that money-need served to press at onoe the best and 
 the moat work out of himj any more than a great navigator 
 who has brought his ship to port in spite of having taken a 
 wrong and perilous route, is to be followed as to his route by 
 navigators who are not yet ascertained to be gi at. 
 
 But after the restraints and rules which must guide the ac- 
 knowledged author, whose power of making a real contribu- 
 tion is ascertained, comes the consideration, how or on what 
 principle are we to find a check for that troublesome disposi- 
 tion to authorship arising from the spread of what is called 
 Education, which trirts a growing rush of vanity and ambi- 
 tion into this current? The well-taught, an increasing num- 
 ber, are almost all able to write essays on given themes, which 
 demand new periodicals to save them from lying in cold ob- 
 struction. The ill-taught — also an increasing number read 
 
 many books, seem to themselves able to write others surpris- 
 ingly like what they read, and probably superi<», since the 
 variations are such as please their own fancy, and such as 
 they would have recommended to their favorite authors: theae 
 ill-taught persons are perhaps idle and want to give them- 
 selves "an object"; or they are short of money, and feel die- 
 inclined to get it by a commoner kind of work; or they find 
 a facility in putting sentences together which gives them more 
 than a suspicion that they have genius, which, if not very cor- 
 dially believed in by private confidants, will be recognized by 
 an impartial public; or finally, they observe that writing is 
 sometimes well paid, and sometimes a ground of fame or dis- 
 tinction, and without any use of punctilious logic, they con- 
 clude to become writers themselves. 
 
 As to these ill-taught persona, whatever medicines of a 
 spiritual sort can be found good against mental emptiness and 
 inflation— such medicines are needful for them. The con- 
 tempt of the world for their productions only comes after their 
 disease has wrought ite worst effects. But what is to be said 
 
MAVE8 FROM A HOTI-BOOK. 218 
 
 to the w.U-t«igh^ who h«T. woh an •Urming tqwtUtj in 
 Ow pow« of writing "like a «U.ol„ 7nd7UnLJ^"T 
 lil^^A^'-' *°°'. ?■? °'^' ^ ""^ ''^ ""• "^dioin' of 
 
 at mo™*^?!!!^' *° ••*^'i* • »°"kable writer who aimed 
 thr™ ?^ *rP°™fy »»«»«"». we have firrt to oou.ider 
 what waa hig indindiul contribution to the 
 •piritual wealth of mankind? Had he a new J«*tm«ti 
 conception? Did he animate .mg-known bu>i •■^■***^ 
 neglected trntts with new vigor, and cait fresh light on their 
 rdation to oti>er admitted trutha? Did he impregnated 
 Ideas with a f redi rtore of emotion, and in tiiis way enlar™ 
 the area of moral «mtiment? Did he by a wi«, Lph^ 
 here, and a wue duregard there, give a more u.eful or beau- 
 tiftl proportion to aims or motives? And even where his 
 aunkmg was most mixed with the sort of mistake which is 
 obnous to th, majority, as well as Uiat which can only be dis- 
 owned by the instmoted, or made manifest by the progress of 
 adn»s has it ti>at «atof a noble enthusiasm whih%houU 
 rebuke oar ontical discrimination if its correctness is inspired 
 with a less admirable habit of feeling? 
 
 Tlus is not the common or easy coarse to take in esUmatini, 
 a nwdera wntM. It requires considerable knowledge of w^ 
 he has himself done, as weU as of what others had c^one be- 
 fore him, or what they were doing oontoniporaceously; it re- 
 quires deliberate reflection as to the degree in which oJir own 
 prejudicM may hinder us from appreciating tiie intellectual 
 or mora bearmg of what on a first view offends us. An easier 
 course is to notice some saUent mistakes, and take them as 
 decisive of the writer's incompetence, or to find ont that 
 something apparently much the same as what he has said in 
 some connection not clearly ascertained, had been said by 
 somelx.dy else, though without great effect, until this new ef- 
 fect of discrediting the otiier's -iginality had shown itseU as 
 aa adequate final cause ; or to pronounce from the point of view 
 
914 
 
 LBAVn FROM A KOTI-BOOC. 
 
 of ladiTidiud tMta Uwt thia writw for whom ngatd UeUioMd 
 i» lapolaive, weariioma, not to bo bome esoept by thoM doU 
 pononi who ar« of • different opinion. 
 
 Elder writerg who have paiied Into oluiioi were donbtltM 
 treated in thia eaay way when they were still ander the mis- 
 fortune of being reoent— nay, arestiU dismissed with the Mune 
 rapidity of judgment by daring ignorance. But people who 
 think that they hare a reputation to lose in tho matter of 
 knowledge, have looked into oyolopeedias and histories of phi- 
 losophy or literature, and possessed themselves of the duly bal- 
 anced epithets oonoeming the immortals. They are not left 
 to their own unguided rashness, or their own nngulded pusil- 
 lanimity. And it is this sheeplike flock who have no direct 
 impressions, no spontaneous delight, no genuine objection or 
 self-confessed neutrality in relation to the writers become clas- 
 sie — It Is these who tare incapable of passing a genuine judg- 
 ment on the living. Necessarily. The susceptibility they 
 have kept active Is a susoeptlbilily to their own reputation for 
 passing the right judgment, not the susceptibility to qualities 
 In the object of judgment. Who learns to discriminate shades 
 of color by considering what is expected of him? The habit 
 of expressing borrowed judgments stupefies the sensibilities, 
 which sre the only foundation of genuine judgments, just as 
 the constant reading and retailing of results from other men's 
 observations through the microscope, without ever locking 
 through the lens one's self, la an Instruction in some truths 
 and some prejudices, but is no Instruction in observant suscep- 
 tibility; on the contrary, it breeds a habit of Inward seeing 
 aooording to verbal statement, which dulls the power of oat- 
 ward seeing according to visual evidence. 
 
 On this subject, as on so many others, it Is difBcult toitrlk* 
 the balance between the educational needs of passivity or re- 
 ceptivity, aud Independent selection. We should learn noth- 
 ing without the tendencr- to Implicit acceptance; but there 
 must clearly be a limit to such mental submission, else we 
 should come to a stand-still. The human mind would be no 
 better than a dried specimen, representing an unchangeable 
 type. When the assimilation of new matter ceases, deoay 
 must begin. In a reasoned self -restraining deference ther* U 
 
1<1AVU FROM A MOTIBOOK. 
 
 315 
 
 u mueh entrgy u in rebellion; but MionK th. I«h Mpable. 
 
 retort. And oertoinly » man who dare, to nj that he find. 
 « eminent ola«.lo feeble here, extravagant there, «,d in gen- 
 enJ oveirated, may chance to give an opinion which ha. «ome 
 BWimne diKsrimination in it concerning a new work or a living 
 tWnker-an opinion .uch a. can hardly ever be got from the 
 wpnted judge who i. a correct echo of the mo.t approved 
 phraww oonowming thoM who have been already canonixed 
 
 •rd muit be the intereit of the audience, there must be .ev 
 eral or many good way. rather than one beat. 
 For we get intereeted in the storie. life preeent. ■*^ '•"'^• 
 to u« through diver, order, and modes of prewntation Verv 
 commonly our first awakening to a dealre of knowing a man'. 
 pMt or future come, from our Meing him a. a .banger in 
 wme unu.ual or pathetic or humorou. .Ituatlon, or manifest- 
 ing Mme remarkable oharaoteristic. We make inquirie. in 
 oonj^uence, or we become obeervant and attentive Whenever 
 
 «lye. Without our search. You have seen a refined face 
 7^°Ir^' priBoner. picking tow in Jail, you afterward ««, 
 tte «une nnforgetable face in a pulpit: he mu.t be of duU 
 
 1 J r" ** ""^ ™" *** ^°'' "">" »•»»' a I'fe which 
 Aowed .uch oontrart., though he might gather hi. knowledge 
 m a fragmentary and unchronological way. 
 
 Again, we have heard much, or at leaat wmething not quite 
 TZ^^^' a ma„^tom we have never .een, and hence 
 we look round with curicity when we are told that he is pres- 
 ent; whatever he says or does before us is charged with a 
 
 ^^ X *°,°"' P.""""" '"^""'y "^""ledge about him, 
 gathered either from dialogue of which he was expressly and 
 emphatically the subject, or from incidental remark, or from 
 general report either in or out of print. 
 
 These indirect ways of arriving at knowledge are always the 
 most .ttmng even m relation to impersonal subject. To m« 
 
218 
 
 LKAVES PROM A NOTEBOOK. 
 
 a ohemioal experiment gives an attractiveness to a deflnition 
 of chemistry, and fills it with a significance which it would 
 never have had without the pleasant shook of an nnusnal se- 
 quence such as the transformation of a solid into gas, and vice 
 vend. Tc see a word for the first time either as substantive 
 or adjective in a connection where we care about knowing its 
 complete meaning, is the way to vivifj its meaning in our reo- 
 oUection. Curiosity becomes the more eager from the inoom- 
 pleteness of the first information. Moreover, it is in this way 
 that memory works in its incident?', revival of events: some 
 salient experience appears in inward vision, and in conse- 
 quence the antecedent facts are retraced from what is regarded 
 as the beginning of the epbode in which that experience made 
 a more or less strikingly memorable part. " Ah ! I remember 
 
 addressing the mob i from the hustings at Westminster yon 
 
 wouldn't hf ve thought that I could ever have been in such a 
 
 position. Well, how I came there was in this way " ; and 
 
 then follows a retrospective narration. 
 
 The modes of telling a story founded on these processes of 
 outward and inward life derive their effectiveness from the 
 superior mastery of images and pictures in grasping the atten- 
 tion — or, one might say with more fundamental accuracy, from 
 the fact that our earliest, strongest impressions, our most in- 
 timate convictions, are simply Images added to more or less of 
 sensation. These are the primitive instruments of thought. 
 
 Hence it is not surprising that early poetry took this way 
 
 telling a daring deed, n glorious achievement, without caring 
 for what went before. The desire for orderly narration is a 
 later, more reflective birth. The presence of the Jack in the 
 box affects every child : it is the more reflective lad, the minia- 
 ture philosopher, who wants to know how he got there. 
 
 The only stories life presents to us in an orderly way are 
 those of our antobiography, or the career of our companions 
 from our childhood upward, or perhaps of our own children. 
 But it is a great art to make a connected strictly relevant nar- 
 ative of such careers as we can recount from the beginning. In 
 these cases the sequence of associations is almost sure to over- 
 master the sense of proportion. Such narratives oi ova are 
 sununer's-day stories for happy loongers; not the cup of atit- 
 
LEAVES FROM A NOTE-BOOK. 217 
 
 forgrtting exoiteuumt to the busy who can snatch an hour of 
 entertainment. 
 
 But the simple opening of a story with a date and neoessary 
 account of places and people, posing on quietly toward the 
 more rousing elements of narrative and dramatic presentation 
 without ne^ of retrospect, has its advantages which have to 
 be measured by the nature of the story. Spirited narrative, 
 without more than a touch of dialogue here and there, may b^ 
 made emmenOy interesting, and is suited to the novelette 
 Examples of its charm are seen in the short tales in which the 
 JTrench have a mastery never reached by the English, who 
 usually demand coarser flavors than are given by that delicht- 
 ful gayety which is weU described by La Fwitaine ' as not «iv- 
 thmg that provokes fits of laughter, but a certain charm, an 
 agreeable mode of handling which lends attractiveness U, aU 
 subjects even the most serious. And it U this sort of gayety 
 which plays around the best Jfrench novelettes. But theopen- 
 ing chapters of the "Vicar of Wakefield " are as fine as any- 
 thing that can be done in this way. 
 
 my should a story not be told in the most irregular fash- 
 ion that an author's idiosyncrasy may prompt, provided that 
 he gives us what we can enjoy? The objections to Sterne's 
 wild way of tdlmg" Tristram Shandy" Ue more solidly in 
 the quality of the mterrupting matter than in the fact of in- 
 terruption. The dear public would do weU to reflect that they 
 
 are often bared from the want of flexibiUty in their own mindfc 
 They are like the topers of « one liquor. " 
 
 The exercise of a veracious imagination in historical pictur- 
 ing seems to be capable of a development that might help 
 the judgment greatly with regard to present 
 and future events. By veracious imagination Htatorlc 
 I mean the working out in detaU of the various '"'«*"*"»• 
 Steps by which poUtical or a social change was reached, using 
 all extant evidence and supplying deficiencies by careftd ana- 
 '"Je n'appelle paa gayeW ce qui excite le rire, mai. on certain 
 channe,un air agrtable qu'on peut donrer jk U>nJ^^dJ^^ 
 meuae lea plus •fcU«u."-Pief«ce to JFable*. '^ ' 
 
218 
 
 MAVB8 FROK A NOTE-BOOK. 
 
 lopcal creation. How triumphant opinions originaUy ipread 
 -how institutions arose-what were the conditions of great 
 inventions, discoverite, ortheoretio conceptions-what ciieum- 
 stances affecting individual lots are attendant on the decay 
 of long-estabUshed systems, -aU these grand elements of his- 
 tory wquue the lUumination of special imaginative treatment 
 But efleotave truth in this application of art requires freedom 
 Irom the vulgar coercion of conventional plot, which is become 
 hardly of higher influence on imaginative representation than 
 a detailed '; order" for a picture sent by a rich grocer to an 
 eminent painter-aUotting a certain portion of the canvas to 
 a rural scene, another to a fashionable group, with a request 
 for a murder in the middle distance, and a little comedy to 
 relieve it. A slight approximation to the veracious glimpses 
 of history artistically presented, which I am indicating, but\p. 
 plied only to an incident of contemporary life, is «Un paquet 
 de lettres " by Gustave Droz. For want of sioh real, minute 
 vision of how changes come about in the past, we faU into 
 ridiculously inconsistent estimates of actual movements, con- 
 demning in the present what we belaud in the past, and pro- 
 nonncmg impossible processes that have been repeated a«ain 
 and agam in the historical preparation of the very system under 
 which we hve. A false kind of idealization dulls our percep- 
 tion of the meaning in words when they relate to past evente 
 which have had a glorious issue: for lack of comparison no 
 wammg image rises to check scorn of the very phrases which 
 m other associations are consecrated. 
 
 Utopian pictures help the reception of ideas as to oonstrno- 
 tave results, but hardly so much as a vivid presentation of 
 how resulte have been actually brought about, especially in 
 rehpous and social change. And there is the withos. the 
 heroism often accompanying the decay and final strumtle of 
 old system^ which has not had Its share of tragic commemo- 
 rahon. What really took place in and around Constantino 
 before, upon, aud immediately after his declared conversion? 
 Could a momentary flash be thrown on Eusebius in his say- 
 ings and doings as an ordinary man in bishop's garments? Or 
 on Julian and Libanius? There has been abundant writing on 
 such great turning-points, but not such as serves to instruct 
 
 1 
 
%^^ibX^\\^^ 
 
 MAVE8 FROM A NOTE BOOK. 
 
 219 
 
 the Imagination in true comparison. I want something differ- 
 ent from the abstract treatment which belongs to grave history ' 
 from a doctrinal point of view, and something different from 
 the schemed picturesqueness of ordinary historical fiction. I 
 want brief, severely conscientious reproductions, in their con- 
 crete incidents, of pregnant movements in the past 
 
 The supremacy givea in European cultures to the literatures 
 of Greece and Rome has had an effect almost equal to that of 
 a common religion in binding the Western na- 
 tions together. It is foolish to be foiever com- J^iSi 
 plaining of the consequent uniformity, as if ""•""'*'• 
 there were an endless power of originality in the human mind. 
 Great and precious origination must always be comparatively 
 rare, and can only exist on condition of a wide massive uni- 
 formity. When a multitude of men have learned to use the 
 same language in speech and w.iting, then and then only can 
 the greatest masters of language arise. For in what does their 
 mastery consist? They use words which are already a famU- 
 iar medium of understanding and sympathy in such a way as 
 greatly to enlarge the understanding and sympathy. Origi- 
 naUty of this order changes the wild grasses into world-feed- 
 ing grain. Idiosyncrasies are pepper and spices of question- 
 able aroma. 
 
 Is the time we Uve in prosaic? "— " That depends i it must 
 certainly be prosaic to one whose mind takes a prosaic stand 
 m contemplating it."— "But it is precisely the 
 most poetic minds that most groan over the vul- SL^' ^ 
 garity of the present, its degenerate sensibility TUiim an 
 to beauty, eagerness for materialistic explana- '™""- 
 tion, noisy biviaUfy."— "Perhaps they would have had the 
 same complaint to make about me age of Elizabeth, if, li-ring 
 then, they had fixed their attention on its more sordid ele- 
 ments, or had been subject to the grating influence of its 
 every-day meannesses, and had sought refuge from them In 
 
1 
 
 'I'' 1 
 
 *• LIAVIB FROM A HOTB BOOK. 
 
 the oontempktioo of whatever suited their tart, in » fotmar 
 
 We get our faiowledge of perfect Love by glimpees kod in 
 fragmenta ohiefly-the rareet only among u. knSJringwhlS 
 "»« B*Ii>. »" to worship and caress, reverence and oher- 
 tnu loTt." '"». divide our bread and mingle our thoughts 
 
 tv„ . . *' "'°* """^ *>»« «"« time, under inspiration of 
 
 tte same o^ect. Finest aromas wiU so often leave the fruits 
 LT^^5 we native and cling elsewhere, leaving the 
 fruit empty of all bat its coarser struoture I 
 
 In the tunes of national mUture when modem Europe was. 
 as one may say a-brew^g, it was open to a man who M n!^ 
 
 W. K.k. V • t° ]* ^''^^ ^ •** ^"^ '*''. to «l«)oee 
 
 our ™ Tf""" °' certain other codes he would be tried 
 
 rnamu. by. So, in our own times, they who openly 
 
 «.-«K u ?* * ^8''" '"'* **»» ""eir neighbors, do 
 
 whioh they shall be approved or condemned, and thus it m^ 
 b^pen that we see a man morally piUoried for a very custom- 
 a^deed, and yet having no right to complain, inimuch a. 
 «lf to t^^,! •*« >^™«"'«°«'» of life he had referred hii^ 
 ^ih - H^ ^ "* *^'^ ^'l^"' oonoeptlons, before whioh 
 such a deed is without question condemnable. 
 
 Tolerance first comes through equality of strugrie. as in the 
 o.«. of Arianism «id CathoUcism in thT earlytoet^VScT 
 Birth Of 5"JJ*" ^A^nui, Valentinian, Western and 
 
 TalomBo*. t^atholic, alike publishing edicts of tolerance- 
 
 .n r^ ■ " '] '^°'®' ^"^ * <»°""on need of reUef from' 
 Act TT^ P«xlominanoe, as when James II. published his 
 U^tv^m>T2"* """-A-gHoans, being forced into 
 K^^ n '"■ ^^"""tors by the ne«l to get it for the 
 
 m^t^t t^-nfum^of interest is the rootof iostice; com! 
 muni^^^suflermg, the »ot of pity, oommunii of jjy. th. 
 
IiEATBS VROM A MOTI-BOOE. 
 
 231 
 
 BuTeloped in a oommon mist, we seem to welk in oleuneu , 
 onnelyM, and beliold only the mist that enshnradi othcn. 
 
 Sympathetio people are often incommunicative abont them- 
 selves: they give back lefleoted images which hide their own 
 depths. 
 
 The pond said to the ocean, " Why do you nge so? The 
 wind is not so very violent— nay, it is already fallen. Look 
 at me. I rose into no foaming waves, and am already smooth 
 again." 
 
 Many feel themselves very oonlidently on safe ground when 
 they say: It must be good for man to know the Truth. But 
 it is clearly not good for a particular man to 
 know some particular truth, as irremediable ''"^l^, 
 treachery in one whom he cherishes —better that """ '™"'- 
 he should die without knowing it. 
 
 Of scientific truth, is it not conceivable that some facts as 
 to the tendency of things affecting the final destination of the 
 race might be more hurtful when they had entered into the 
 human consciousness than they would have been if they had 
 remained purely external in their activity? 
 
 There is no such thing as an impotent or neutral deity, if 
 the deity be really believed in, and contemplated either in 
 prayer or meditation. Every object of thought 
 reacts on the mind that conceives it, still more Wvlne Orut 
 on that which habitually contemplates it. In !,?S.*^ 
 this we may be said to solicit help from a gen- 
 eralization or abstraction. Wordsworth had this truth in his 
 consciousness when he wrote (in the Prelude) : 
 
 " Nor general tmtba, which an thenuelvu a sort 
 Of elements and agentSf Under-powen 
 Snbonlinate helpers of the living mind "— 
 
 not indeed precisely in the same relation, but with a meaning 
 which involves that wider moral inflnenoe. 
 
2» 
 
 LEAVES PROM A NOTE-BOOK. 
 
 One mn h»rdly insirt too much, to the piwent irtu. ^ 
 thmlung, on the effleaoy of feeling' in .timn?S to^l 
 
 *^- "»!! JJV"* "> '*«''• Jurt as hatred wiU 
 
 to have «.y X.'^'l'S ^"'"^ "^ °° longer ^eTS 
 am.2 thrwoKd fiX.^ ^' "^ ''"^'" '^«^« *" <»* 
 
 him home by the force ot^eiroy^ZLT^^tt^ 
 each ifi simply to draw m- ™,.K ^iZiT """'«;,'*« struggle m 
 his place wo^d S^^ i"Su iS^*r«''~ti«'^'"the' 
 
 under the «une inapiratioa that abmjdant help rushw' tow.i? 
 the scene of a fire, rescuing imperilledXeslmd khLrin^^ 
 
 rhrr^;"^. "" "'^» ''-^'"» ^XoM t/w 
 John of Bohemia at the batUe of Cremr Iv.»™j i!- , * 
 
 ^d him into the fight that h'e ^Sg^lX a^jSw 
 
 Srt'u^-bSr*"^ ^-'^ *" siif.'ruid"":^ 
 
 Xhe^ftn! ^r r S^,rt: ^oJt^ara «. 
 «d confessedly good?" come, from thaTs-^Cki^^J" 
 
 s^Sii-rfSirtTii^-rdSM 
 
 ^k Vf fZal.l'i^' ""*» obiectsntS-n^lyTr^tl^ ^^ 
 J^f^^j^pathetoc emotion. I„ the "Spanish 4«y » F^ 
 
 Greater than sways the force, of the world,"I_ 
 
 rrferring to the image of the disciples throwing therselres. 
 consciously m vain, on the Bcman spears. I reaTtoS 
 and mean th«,_not as a rule of genei^tion, but Vf^. 
 
 reslMuice would to ia^a^ " »*«'°»'"8 ^^ ^^ ' aolo 
 
.-<« jflf .1 
 
 tlAVBS PROM A NOTE-BOOK. 
 
 333 
 
 ■Ibto grand iiuUnoe of detonnining energy in hnnuui «ym- 
 pMiy, which eyen in partioular caaee, where it haa only • 
 magnifioent futility, ia more adorable, or as we aay divine, 
 ttan nnpitying force, or than a prudent calculation of resultT 
 Perhaps it ia un impUoit joy in the resouroea of our human 
 nature which has stimulated admiration for acts of seU-saori- 
 floe which are vain as to their immediate end. Manms Cur- 
 bus was probably not imagined as oonolnding to himself that 
 he and his horse would so fill up tiie gap as to makea smooth 
 tenaftrma. The impulse and act made the heroism, not the 
 correotaess of adaptation. No doubt the passicmate inspira- 
 tion which prompts and sustains a course of self-saorifloinir 
 labOT m the light of soberly estimated results gatiiers the 
 highest tatie to our Teneration, and makes the supreme hero- 
 um. But the generous leap of impulse is needed too to sweU 
 the flood of sympathy in us beholders, that we may not &U 
 completely under tite mastery of calculation, which in ite turn 
 may fiul of ends for want of energy got from ardor. We have 
 need to keep the sluices open for possible influxes of the raret 
 sort. 
 
 TBM WK1K