UC-NRLF 
 
 B E 7TE 3flfl 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 ,D AND NEW 
 
BERKELEY X 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA J 
 
/"^S^iuo-ru 
 
ESSAYS, 
 
 OLD AND NEW. 
 
 r.Y 
 CHARLES TOMLINSON, F.R.S, 
 
 Tantost ie resve, tanlost i'enregistre et dicte, en me promenant, 
 mes songes que voicy. 
 
 — Montaigne, Liv. iii.^ C/i. 3. 
 
 One while I meditate, another I record, and dictate as I walk 
 to and fro, such whimsies as these I present you here. 
 
 — Cotton 's Translation, 
 
 WILLIAMS AXl) XOKC^ATL, 
 
 HENRIETTA STREET, CU\ ENT GARDEX, 
 
 L0M)OX, W.C. 
 
 18S7. 
 
London: pxiutzd by g. reveirs, graystoke place, 
 fetter lane, e.c. 
 

 THESE ESSAYS ARE 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 LADY FRY 
 
 AS A 
 SLIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE 
 
 FRIENDSHIP WITH WHICH, 
 
 DURING MANY YEARS, SHE HAS 
 
 HONOURED 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 751 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2.008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/essaysoldnewOOtomlrich 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Each of the following Essays (except the first) was 
 written for the purpose of inciting various social gatherings 
 of Friends to discussion. The plan of reading an Essay, 
 and afterwards discussing it, has proved in the Author's 
 experience, during many years, to be a most attractive 
 mode of passing an evening. In the hope of encouraging 
 so useful a practice these Essays are printed, chiefly for 
 circulation among the Author's Friends and Acquaintance ; 
 and also as a sort of leave-taking on the part of a man 
 who has entered on his seventy-ninth year. 
 
 HiCHCATE, N. 
 
 February, iSS^. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Essay I. On iMottoes 
 
 II. On Conversation: 
 
 Part I 21 
 
 Part II 30 
 
 III. On Desultory Reading 37 
 
 IV. Behind the Scenes 56 
 
 V. On Tact 65 
 
 VI. On Incongruities 80 
 
 VII. On Failure 92 
 
 VIII. On Zeal 103 
 
 Supplement iii 
 
 IX. Whether the Fine Arts, Polite 
 Literature, and Science, would 
 be likely to Flourish under a 
 
 Democratic Republic 116 
 
 X. The Disembodied Spirit 141 
 
 XL Theology versus Science. 
 
 Some Account of the Proceedings. . 161 
 XI I. A Lay Sermon on the Text "Thou 
 Shalt Love Thy Neighbour as 
 Thyself" (Mat. xxii. 39) . . . iSi 
 
I.— ON MOTTOES. 
 (1887.) 
 
 Motto^ vale ogni spezie di detto breve ^ argufo, piacevole^ o 
 pungente^ o proverbiale^ o simile. 
 
 Alberti, Dizionario, 
 
 It was a happy custom of the old Essayists to crown each 
 contribution with a Latin Motto, accompanied by a transla- 
 tion, often from the pen of a well-known writer, who some- 
 times indulged in considerable amplification. For example, 
 the Speclatur^ No. ccxxi., furnishes a good example of this 
 practice : 
 
 Ab ovo 
 Usque ad mala. — Horace, Sat. 3. 
 From eggs, which first are set upon the board. 
 To apples ripe, with which it last is stor'd. 
 
 The practice of appending a motto to a composition is 
 like the giving out of a text before the sermon. It prepares 
 the mind for what is to follow, and serves as a peg in the 
 memory to hang the subject on, unless, indeed, the hearer 
 happen to belong to that class of persons described by 
 Archbishop Whately, who fortify themselves against a regular 
 sermon " by a respectful kind of apathy." 
 
 In his charming essay in the Spectator above referred to, 
 
lO ESSAY I. 
 
 Addison justifies his use of the motto, and he prefers to 
 borrow from the Latin poets rather than from the prose 
 writers, "as the former generally give a finer turn to a 
 thought than the latter, and by couching it in few words and 
 in harmonious numbers make it more portable to the 
 memory." Then, after modestly stating that by means of 
 the motto the reader "is sure to meet with at least one good 
 line in every paper," he goes on to say that as a good face is 
 a letter of recommendation, prepossessing the beholder in 
 favour of the owner, a handsome motto has the same effect, 
 giving a supernumerary beauty to the essay. As for the 
 unlearned readers who cannot relish the motto, they may be 
 told that " if they do not understand the sign that is hung 
 outside, they know very well by it that they may meet with 
 entertainment in the house." 
 
 The looking over the mottoes in the old essayists is a 
 cheap way of rubbing up one's classics ; although it recalls 
 to mind the opinion of the man who sat down to read 
 Johnson's Dictionary through. He found it very amusing, 
 but somewhat desultory. 
 
 The great lexicographer saw a community of mind in 
 quotations, and he regarded a classical motto as the parole 
 of literary men all over the world. The elder Disraeli states, 
 on the authority of Bayle, that there is not less invention in 
 a just and happy application of a thought found in a book 
 than in being the first author of that thought ; and speakmg 
 on his own account, he remarks that "those who never 
 quote are never quoted," seeing that "the wisdom of the 
 wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by 
 quotation." Indeed, " a well-read writer with good taste is 
 one who has the command of the wit of other men." But 
 '" the art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice 
 
ON MOTTOES. II 
 
 than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quota- 
 tion than an extract." 
 
 A motto loses most of its charm unless it strictly relate 
 to the subject in hand. It should be like the motto attached 
 to a coat of arms ; that is, it should bear allusion to some- 
 thing in the well-known achievements of the family. When 
 Sir Walter Scott could not hit upon an appropriate motto 
 for one of his chapters he was in the habit of composing 
 one, and signing it "Old Play," "Ancient Ballad," &c. A 
 far more reprehensible practice once came under my notice. 
 An acquaintance wrote a three-volume novel, and submitted 
 it to her most intimate female friend ; who, after a careful 
 perusal, remarked that it only wanted mottoes to the 
 chapters, and undertook to supply them. She accordingly 
 composed a number of sentences bearing more or less upon 
 the sense of the chapters that they headed, and to make 
 them look like real quotations she appended such venerable 
 names as those of Chaucer, Gower, Barbour, Mandevil, 
 Wyckliffe, Lydgate, &c. This acted as a kind of literary 
 birdlime, seeing that another authoress who was collecting 
 short specimens of early English writers, finding all these 
 supposed quotations ready to her hand, adopted them 
 without enquiry and inserted them in her httle square 
 volume. 
 
 There are one or two poetical quotations in the " Essays 
 of Elia," which later editors have tried in vain to trace to 
 their source. Charles Lamb was fond of mystifying his 
 readers as well as his friends, and it is probable that he him- 
 self was the author. Most of the following essays have 
 their mottoes ; but they are derived from the writings of the 
 poet whom a diligent reader once declared to be his 
 favourite author, namely, Mr. Anon. Should the young 
 
 B2 
 
12 ESSAY I. 
 
 reader happen to light upon his works, he will find no 
 difficulty in verifying my quotations. 
 
 All persons who are fond of books know that there are 
 mottoes for libraries, and even for the choice of a library 
 site, which, according to Naude, in his Advis pour dresser 
 line Biblwtheque, should be guided by the Motto : — 
 
 Carmina secessum scribentis et otia qucerunt. 
 (He who writes verses requires retirement and leisure). 
 
 Here is Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's Library Motto : — 
 " The soul of ancient Wisdom lives in these." 
 
 Old books to read, 
 Old friends at need. 
 Old wine to drink, 
 Old feuds to sink. 
 
 Scaliger's Library Motto is a warning to book- 
 borrowers : — 
 
 Ite ad vendentes. 
 (Go to the booksellers). 
 
 There are also Mottoes respecting the loan of books, 
 some encouraging the practice, others reprehending it. 
 Those who adopt the Library Motto of Grolier, 
 
 Pour moi^ et vies Ainis^ 
 
 or that of Schelcher, 
 
 Pour tous^ et pour mot, 
 
 must have much of the milk of human kindness in their com- 
 
ON MOTTOES. i^ 
 
 position, which is asses' milk, according to a literary friend, 
 who adopts Charles Nodier's Motto : — 
 
 7>/ est le sort de tout livre prete\ 
 Souvent it est per du^ toujours il est gdte. 
 (This is the fate of every book that's lent : 
 Oft lost, and always spoilt if home 'tis sent). 
 Condorcet justified in elegant verse his objection to lend 
 his books : — 
 
 Cheres delices de nion dme, 
 Gardez-vous Men de 77ie quitter^ 
 Quoiqu ''on vienne vous einprunter. 
 Chacun de vous invest une fein?7ie, 
 Qui peut se laisser voir sans blame, 
 Et ne se doit jamais preter. 
 (Dear joys of my soul, 
 Be sure not to stray. 
 Should one come to borrow. 
 
 With me you must stay. 
 For I look upon each 
 
 As a wife to me sent, 
 Who can blameless be looked at, 
 But never be lent.) 
 Alas ! what Bibhophile has not to mourn over the loss of 
 some of his treasures ! Sir Walter Scott said of some of his 
 acquaintances, that although they were bad arithmeticians, 
 they were excellent book-keepers."^ 
 
 * Many years ago, when I first joined the Library Committee of the 
 Royal Society, I noticed among the scientific serials that here and there 
 a duplicate volume appeared in the Society's binding, with crest and 
 stamp. On inquiry it appeared that occasionally a Fellow having taken 
 out a book, and given the usual receipt for it, had not returned it before 
 his death. Whereupon the Society made a claim upon his representa- 
 tives, who bought a second copy of the missing book, and had it bound 
 by the Society's binder. After a time, when the deceased Fellow's 
 effects were dispersed, the missing volume was found, and returned to 
 the Society. 
 
14 ESSAY I. 
 
 Some Bibliophiles seem to have no conscience in the 
 matter of books. The old Librarian of the Lyons Library 
 was accustomed to keep a sharp eye on his treasures. One 
 afternoon, just before closing, only two readers were left, and 
 the old custodian, having secured the door, went up to them 
 and said, " Gentlemen, one of us three is a thief: I consent 
 to have my pockets searched first !" The unabashed readers 
 laughed, and pulled out each his volume, saying, " You are 
 too sharp for us!" And in this hbrary during the Revolu- 
 tion the soldiers of the Republic boiled their coffee with the 
 old man's treasures ! 
 
 Those who love books will be in sympathy with the 
 following quatrain which Jules Janin inscribed in a copy of 
 his IJ Amour des Livres: — 
 
 Pour peu qu'il soit tenu loin du chaud et dufrais^ 
 Qu'on y parte une main blanche et respectueuse; 
 Que le lecteur soit cabne, et la lectrice heureuse — 
 
 Un livre est un ami qui ne change jamais. 
 
 (However small from heat to cold its range. 
 
 Clean hands must hold it, with respectful mind ; 
 Him calm, her cheerful, we the readers find — 
 
 A book 's a friend indeed that doth not change.) 
 
 But Mottoes have a far wider range than the illustration 
 of books. The theological controversies of the Schoolmen, 
 and at a later period of the Reformers, produced rival 
 Mottoes. The Motto of Anselm was 
 
 Credo ut i7itelligajn. 
 (I believe in order that I may understand.) 
 
 Abelard, on the contrary, said — 
 
 Intelligo ut credam. 
 (I understand in order that I may believe.) 
 
ON MOTTOES. 1 5 
 
 The Reformers indulged in a similar play of words : — 
 
 Res 7ton Verba. — Luther. 
 Verba non Res. — Erasmus. 
 Res et Verba. — Melancthon. 
 Nee Res nee Verba. — Carlostadius. 
 
 Heraldic Mottoes form a wide subject, and many of them 
 are full of meaning, as in the Order of the Thistle the Motto 
 refers to the rough nature of the plant : — 
 
 Nenio 7ne itnpune lacessit. 
 (No man provokes me with impunity.) 
 
 The Motto of the Cadogan family is 
 
 Qui invidet minor est. 
 (He who envies admits his inferiority.) 
 
 Many heraldic Mottoes form neat puns, as in the case of the 
 Vernon family : Ver non seinper viret (" The spring does not 
 always flourish," or " Vernon always flourishes)." 
 
 Cavendo tutus (" Safe in being cautious "), Cavendish, Duke 
 of Devonshire. 
 
 Tenipla quam delecta (" How amiable are thy temples "), Earl 
 Temple. 
 
 Forte scutum salus ducum ("A strong shield is the safety of 
 commanders "), Earl Fortescue. 
 
 Ne vile fano (" Nothing vile to the fane or shrine "), Fane, 
 Earl of Westmoreland. 
 
 Festina lente (" Go on slow-ly "), Earl of Onslow. 
 
 Farefac (" Speak, act "), Lord Fairfax. 
 
 A mock coat of arms was invented by Horace Walpole 
 and some of his companions, for a gambling club in St 
 James's-street. The motto was Cogit amor nummt 
 (" The love of money impels "). But Cogit was given as 
 
1 6 ESSAY I. 
 
 Cog it, referring to the sharper's practice of cogging the 
 dice. 
 
 Heraldic mottoes have also their humorous side, as when 
 Foote, having put down his carriage twice, adopted the 
 following motto when he took it up again : — 
 
 Iteruni^ iterumque^ iterum. 
 
 When Sydney Smith resided in Yorkshire, a county 
 historian applied to him for the arms of the Smythes. 
 Sydney replied : — "The Smythes never had any arms, but 
 have always sealed their letters with their thumbs !" But 
 when our genial humourist set up a modest vehicle, he 
 discarded all finery, seeing that his motto was Faher mece 
 '^^ortunce. (" Maker of my own fortune"). 
 
 A rich dyer set up his carriage, but his coat of arms had 
 no motto. At a dinner party in his neighbourhood, the 
 question of an appropriate motto was discussed. One man 
 suggested, " Never say die !" Another remarked, by way of 
 approval, Se non e vera, e ben trovato ! whereupon a lady 
 exclaimed, " How much nicer it sounds in Latin than in 
 English !" 
 
 There is also the large subject of Medals, which can be 
 scarcely more than named in this place. When Spain 
 attributed the defeat of the Armada to the tempests, rather 
 than to the bravery of the English, Queen Elizabeth adopted 
 the suggestion, regarding it as a signal favour of Providence, 
 and caused a medal to be struck, representing a fleet 
 beaten by the winds, and falling foul of each other, with the 
 Motto : — 
 
 Afflavit Detis, et dissipantur. 
 (He blew with His wind and they were scattered). 
 
 So also when Louis the Fourteenth projected the subjuga- 
 
ON MOTTOES. fj 
 
 tion of Europe, medals were struck in which the sun in its 
 midday splendour represented the Grand Monarch, as if his 
 rays would be welcome in any part of Europe. The motto 
 
 was 
 
 JVec piuribus impar. 
 (No unequal match for many). 
 
 The Dutch ambassador, whose baptismal name was 
 Joshua, had a medal struck, representing Joshua command- 
 ing the sun to stand still — inferring that this miracle would 
 be brought about by his little republic. 
 
 The poet Crabbe referring to the Bells of the church in 
 which he long officiated, says : — 
 
 Each has its motto ; some contrive to tell. 
 In monkish rhymes, the uses of a bell. 
 
 Schiller places at the head of his " Lay of the Bell " the 
 old motto : — 
 
 Vivos voco. Mortuos plango. Fulgora frango. 
 
 Arid he thus refers to the naming of the bell, which is the 
 subject of his poem : — 
 
 Herein, herein, 
 Gesellen alle ! schliesst den Reihen, 
 Dass wir die Glocke taufend weihen : 
 
 Concordia soil ihr Name seyn. 
 Zur Eintracht, zu herzinnigem Vereine 
 Versammle sie die liebende Gemeine. 
 
 (Come in ! come in ! 
 Companions all ! and close the circle well, 
 That we, baptising it, may consecrate the bell : 
 
 Concordia be its name ! 
 Oh may its sound the loving people bring, 
 And hearty friendship every one inflame.) 
 
1 8 ESSAY I. 
 
 One specimen may be given of the old monkish rhymes 
 to which Crabbe refers : — 
 
 Laudo Deum Verum, 
 Plebem voco, congrego Clerum. 
 
 Defunctos pioro, 
 Pestem fugo, Festa decoro. 
 (I praise the Only True, 
 
 By me the Folk are led : 
 The Clergy I convene, 
 
 'Tis I that mourn the Dead: 
 The Pestilence I slay, 
 
 I cheer each Holiday.) 
 
 Mottoes on Sundials must not be forgotten. The best 
 one is perhaps that on a dial near Venice : 
 
 Horas non nimtero^ nisi serenas. 
 (I count only the hours that are serene.) 
 
 Mottoes on Seals are often of a sentimental kind, such as — 
 " Though lost to sight, to memory dear." 
 
 But we must not forget the Motto of the good Bishop 
 referred to by Dr. Johnson : — 
 
 Inserui Deo, et Icetare. 
 (Serve God, and be cheerful.) 
 
 There are also Mottoes on Rings, known as " posies," as 
 in the case of a wedding ring in the possession of the author's 
 family, an heirloom which descends to the eldest daughter. 
 It bears this inscription — 
 
 Fear God, and Love Me. 
 
 There are also Mottoes for Dog-collars, not forgetting the 
 famous one written by Pope at the request of Frederick, 
 Prince of Wales : — 
 
 Pm his Highness' s Dog at Kew; 
 
 Pray tell 77te, Sir! whose Dog are you f 
 
ON MOTTOES. 1 9 
 
 Travellers in Holland may have noticed that the well- 
 to-do burghers are in the habit of attaching mottoes to their 
 country villas, and they are often of a complacent sort, such 
 as Mijn Genoegen (My satisfaction). Lust en Rust (Pleasure 
 and Repose), Wei Tevreden (Well-content), Buiten Zorg 
 (Without care). 
 
 There is an old story of a retired tallow-chandler who 
 requested his Oxford Undergraduate nephew to furnish him 
 with a Latin motto for his villa; the fooHsh young man 
 suggested the following: — 
 
 Otiwn sine dignitate^ 
 
 informing him that it meant "Ease with Dignity;" but he 
 was undeceived by the Vicar of the parish, and immediately 
 struck his nephew's name out of his will. 
 
 At one time tradesmen were in the habit of putting up 
 mottoes over their shops, as in the case of the hosier, who 
 paraded his honest dealing under the motto — 
 Mens conscia recti; 
 
 while his opposite rival, determined not to be outdone, 
 put up — 
 
 Mens and Wo7nens conscia recti. 
 
 Public-house sign-boards also have their mottoes, of which 
 the following is a famous one, although it belongs rather to 
 the family of Inscriptions. Under the figure of Robin Hood 
 at a hostelry on the border of Sherwood Forest, kept by a 
 man named Littlejohn^ were the following lines : — 
 
 All you who love old ale and good, 
 Step in and drink with Robin Hood; 
 If Robin Hood from home is gone, 
 Step in and drink with Littlejohn, 
 
 When the host died, the public-house passed into the 
 
20 . ESSAY I. — ON MOTTOES. 
 
 hands of a man of the name of Bunce, who saw no reason 
 why his name should not appear on the sign-board. The 
 altered inscription read thus : — 
 
 All you who love old ale and good, 
 Step in and drink with Robin Hoodj 
 If Robin Hood from home is gone, 
 Step in and drink with Samuel Bunce. 
 
 Recurring to the old Essayists and their use of that 
 "learned decoration," the motto, the Comwisseur, of the 
 5th June, 1755, remarks: — "Such is the prevalence of 
 custom, that the most finished Essay without a motto would 
 appear to many people as maimed and imperfect as a beau- 
 tiful face without a nose." But Mr. Town differs from his 
 predecessors who appended to their classic mottoes transla- 
 tions by Dryden or Francis. "A motto as it stands in the 
 original may be very apposite to the subject of the Essay, 
 though nothing to the purpose in the common translation." 
 Hence he proposes to give imitations of his mottoes, adapted 
 to the every-day modern character of his lucubrations. The 
 following specimen is from the Essay we have been quoting: — 
 
 Et sernione opus est modo tristi soepe jocoso. — Hor. 
 (A grave, dull Essay, now and then goes down ; 
 But folks expect to laugh with Mr. Town.) 
 
 Finally, should the reader find this little book, which he 
 holds in his hands, particularly dull, the explanation is to be 
 found in the three capital letters appended to my name; 
 for according to the authority of Isaac Bickerstaff in the 
 Tatler^ oi \}[iQ 12th October, 17 10, when you meet with a 
 man more dull than the rest of the company, you may con- 
 clude him to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. 
 
II.— ON CONVERSATION. 
 (1866.) 
 
 Strange ! if invited out to sup, 
 One man should eat the supper up; 
 And yet, when converse is the feast, 
 One man will talk for all the rest. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 Two gentlemen on a fishing excursion put up at a remote 
 little inn where there was but one parlour, and returning 
 one evening to a late tea, the landlady asked them to allow 
 a third guest to partake of the meal. The new comer was a 
 talkative young man — apparently scientific, and he rattled 
 away about oxygen, hydrogen, and other gens almost without 
 pause. One of the two friends did the honours of the table, 
 the other sat quietly by the fire, finished his tea almost in 
 silence, then took his candle and went quietly to bed. Our 
 talkative intruder went on intruding his talk on the gentle- 
 man who remained, and finding from his brief replies that 
 he knew something of science, asked, " Is your friend scien- 
 tific also?" "Well, I should say decidedly so." " May I 
 ask his name ? " " Davy." " You don't mean Humphry 
 Davy ? " " Humphry Davy of the Royal Institution." 
 *' Good Heavens ! what a fool I have been making of 
 
2 2 ESSAY II. 
 
 myself!" He disappeared, and did not trouble the two 
 friends with his presence at breakfast next morning. 
 
 I take it that on this occasion Davy's conduct may furnish 
 us with a sort of a double rule, namely, " Never, if possible, 
 talk about yourself in mixed society, and never, if you can 
 help it, talk about that for which you are known to be 
 celebrated." Bacon's rule, " Think with the wise, but talk 
 with the vulgar," although not very complimentary to small 
 men, is the safest course, and is that which first-rate men 
 usually follow. If you were to meet the Astronomer-Royal 
 in a railway carriage he would not talk about astronomy. He 
 would probably discuss the general topics of the day, and 
 very likely be well up in the last best novel. James Watt 
 never talked about steam engines, except in the way of 
 business, but seemed to be up to everything that was going 
 on in the world, even to trivial details ; and I know that one 
 of our most learned mathematicians makes funny jokes and 
 conundrums. Such is the conduct of some great men in 
 general society. When astronomers or chemists meet they 
 talk about latest discoveries, unsolved problems, and 
 desiderata in their respective sciences. But not always. 
 Sir Humphry Davy when in Sweden spent some days with 
 the celebrated BerzeHus, and the versatile Davy's judgment 
 of him was "He is only a chemist." That is, Davy did not 
 want to be always talking chemistry, and people who know 
 their business well, and are engaged in it all day, don't want 
 to talk about it among their friends of an evening. A party 
 of first-rate musicians, including male and female singers, 
 and instrumental performers, met one night at supper. They 
 did not amuse themselves with Mozart or Beethoven ; but by 
 singing the drollest of comic songs, and asking the most 
 outrageous conundrums, so that the room re-echoed with 
 
ON CONVERSATION. 23 
 
 shouts of laughter. When Heine was on his way to call 
 upon Goethe for the first time, and was pondering what to say 
 to him, he bought some plums which he greatly enjoyed ; 
 and the first words that he said to Goethe were, " What fine 
 plums you have in your neighbourhood !" thus at once 
 breaking the ice of ceremony and making familiar talk easy. 
 Secondly, the talkative young man in my first story may 
 furnish us with another sort of double rule of conversation, 
 namely, " Don't be eager to talk, and don't keep on, on one 
 subject, unless everybody present shows a manifest interest 
 in it." The vanity of the young man was shown in his 
 anxiety to display his small store of mental wealth. The 
 servant girl who parades her new Sunday dress is not a 
 weaker individual than the man who has just got hold of a 
 little bit of knowledge and parades it in every company. 
 Besides, this sort of parade shows want of familiarity with the 
 things paraded. As the servant girl cannot help showing 
 that she is unaccustomed to the style of dress that sits so 
 easily and gracefully on her mistress, so the smatterer 
 carries with unconscious awkwardness a portion of that 
 knowledge, the whole of which is borne so meekly by a 
 Newton or a Faraday. Such men are unconscious too ; but 
 their unconsciousness proceeds from frequent use, and a 
 just appreciation of the subject they profess. They know 
 how imperfect all their science is, and how narrow is the 
 shore line won from the great ocean of truth which is still 
 unexplored. 
 
 But it sometimes happens that your profound man can be 
 set going on his own subject, even in general society, and 
 then there is some fear of his becoming a bore. This is 
 much more rare than formerly, because the practical tenden- 
 cies of the age have thinned the Dandy Dinmonts. Your 
 
24 ESSAY II. 
 
 profound abstract men go more into society than formerly, 
 and so wear down the pseudomorphous edges and other false 
 growths that interfere with the symmetry of their character. 
 They " think with the wise but talk with the vulgar." Occa- 
 sionally, however, your profound man will descend his own 
 peculiar well of truth at an evening party, and then he does 
 not so much dive as bore. He stops conversation — " eats the 
 supper up," as my motto has it, so that no one else gets 
 anything. " Did you ever hear me preach ?" said Coleridge 
 to Lamb, across the table. " I never heard you do anything 
 else," said Lamb to Coleridge. But it must be admitted 
 that many profound men require to have their tongues 
 looked at before they are admitted into the dining-room, 
 or else every one must be on his guard to avoid the 
 great man's favourite subject ; and that is not always easy, 
 since a question may arise, and he will naturally be 
 appealed to. Then woe be to you. You have opened 
 the flood-gates of his knowledge, and have brought on 
 a deluge. You ask for a glass of water, and he pours 
 over you the waterbutt. The fact is, a good talker, like 
 a good teacher, differs from a bad one as a fingerpost differs 
 from a Bradshaw. The one tells you concisely what you are 
 in search of, the other overwhelms you with details; and, 
 moreover, gives you a vast deal that you have no business with. 
 Jean Paul Richter says that in the company of the 
 taciturn we learn to be loquacious, and in the company 
 of the loquacious we learn taciturnity. If this be true, 
 the reason is that we give silent people credit for more 
 brains than they may possibly possess, and exert ourselves to 
 win their good opinion; and, on the other hand, we often 
 find talkative people saying so many incautious and illogical 
 things that we are more than content to be silent. 
 
ON CONVERSATION. 25 
 
 A prolix talker is not necessarily a talkative person, for 
 while this has the merit of being lively and often amusing, 
 that is nearly always insufferably dull and tedious. Fancy 
 yourself chained during a long journey to a companion 
 who is always uttering Tupperisms. Tupper you can 
 fling aside and banish from your house, but no one 
 is safe from Tupperisms. Fancy a man in a first-class 
 railway carriage with a Tupperism companion pouring 
 out dull, muddy, wishy-washy floods of " proverbial 
 philosophy," and you will have some idea of a man in 
 purgatory. 
 
 But if your talkative man is a bore, if your prolix talker is 
 a bore, if Tupper is a bore, if your learned man may pos- 
 sibly be a bore, all these are outdone in the science of bore- 
 dom by your rich man talking about his own affairs in 
 company where some are afraid, and others don't choose to 
 snub him. I have known a man talk by the hour about 
 himself, his wife, his family, his men-servants, his maid- 
 servants, his ox, his ass, and everything that was his, until 
 the very last thought of your heart was to covet any one of 
 them. You wished them all at Jericho, and the proprietor 
 with them. I dare say we have all more or less experienced 
 the rich man's prosy, complacent patronage; his prating 
 about himself, his indifference to your feelings so that you 
 listen. Should a brief pause occur, and you are reminded 
 in a faint degree of some event in your life by some passage 
 just related in his, and begin to make your shadow seen in 
 the light of his sun by teUing him something about yourself, 
 a half-smile comes over his face, a slight expression of sur- 
 prise, the faintest suspicion of amusement. He waits until 
 you have done or until you make a pause, and then quietly 
 takes up the thread of his own discourse where he laid it 
 
 c 
 
26 ESSAY II. 
 
 down — takes no notice whatever of your narrative, but 
 expects you to listen quietly and approvingly to his. 
 
 A rich man wrote to a friend, " I am very much obliged 
 to you for introducing young Jones to me. He is one of the 
 most sensible men I ever met with." Jones's account of the 
 interview was simply this, " I give you my word of honour 
 that I did not utter ten words during the whole of the 
 evening !" 
 
 The fact is there can be no conversation deserving of the 
 name unless the speakers are on terms of equality, equal in 
 social position, and more or less equal in wealth and 
 intelligence. " Birds of a feather flock together," and we 
 see this practically carried out in clubs (where conversation 
 is so pleasant because it is unrestrained), and also in refined 
 and some other society. People seek each other for their 
 likes, not for their unlikes, for equality in fact. When it is 
 otherwise the social crimes of tuft-hunting, flunkeyism, and 
 priggism are committed, and deserve the punishment that 
 often, but not often enough, falls on them. The familiarity 
 which is the life of conversation can only exist among equals, 
 since the familiarity of an inferior is apt to be regarded as an 
 impertinence, and of a superior as condescension. 
 
 In a social gathering there cannot of course be intellectual 
 equality. The best talkers may be as superior to the Hsteners, 
 as the officers in a regiment are to the privates. A good 
 talker, however, will contrive, not exactly to conceal, but at 
 any rate to keep back his superiority ; for the very equality 
 I am contending for requires that no individual shall assume 
 superiority over the rest. One of the happiest of social 
 faculties is the power of drawing others out. Many people 
 can talk, and talk well ; but very few can make others talk, 
 and send them home delighted with themselves. This I take 
 
ON CONVERSATION. 27 
 
 it is the highest achievement of conversation. " Why John 
 how you came out at Mrs. Smith's party ! " said a delighted 
 mother to her no less delighted son. The fact is the Smiths 
 have the happy knack of finding out what is in you, and 
 setting you to talk about what you know best 
 
 Happy the host who makes no vain display, 
 But pleasure finds in what his guests may say, 
 Talks but to set them talking, they become 
 Pleased with themselves, and pleasure find in him. 
 
 I love Smith. He gives pleasant parties, and although 
 Mrs. Smith treats you to plain bread and butter, and a second 
 cup whose nativity is cast under Aquarius^ I never decline 
 their invitation. I don't know, how it is, but in that 
 poky little drawing-room you seem to be at home with 
 everybody — everybody loves everybody — every one is at 
 his ease — your nose is perfectly safe — good humour, wit, fun, 
 and merriment blend with conversation which often deserves 
 to be taken down in shorthand, and placed in the hands of 
 a judicious editor. 
 
 One of the secrets of Smith's success lies in the genial 
 character of himself and his wife. " Like master like man," 
 applies to social gatherings. I never heard an ill-natured 
 thing from the Smiths ; indeed, everybody knows that if an 
 ill-natured thing were to be said of anyone, the Smiths would 
 rush to the rescue and say all sorts of kind things of the 
 attacked party. This is perhaps, after all, the golden rule of 
 conversation — never offend. Rather be dull and inoffen- 
 sive than witty at the expense of the company. And here I 
 would remark that a good deal of my own dulness arises 
 from this cause. If my friends only knew the number of 
 good things at their expense which have been strangled in 
 
 c 2 
 
28 ESSAY II. 
 
 the birth, they would, I am convinced, do no less than vote 
 me a piece of plate. 
 
 Then, again, successful conversation requires not only 
 equality and good temper, but sincerity. " Let all thy con- 
 verse be sincere," is good sense as well as good moraUty. 
 We love a man who is known always to speak the truth, as 
 we suspect a man who deals in compliments and is given to 
 flattery. What would you say to a man who offered you 
 base coin? And are not words the coins of the mind's 
 mint, stamped as we suppose with the image and super- 
 scription of truth ? What shall we say, then, to the man 
 whose coin is stamped with the hkeness of the father of 
 lies? No convention ahties of society will justify me in 
 using flattering, lying, deceitful words in conversation. Much 
 better be silent than not speak the truth ; much better get 
 a character for dulness and rudeness than for insincerity. 
 
 Masters in the art of conversation unconsciously adopt 
 the habit of talking for the purpose of amusing or in- 
 forming the company. To be able to do this requires a 
 good deal of knowledge of the world, of books and of 
 things, of men and manners, of life ; of experience, in fact. 
 And as young people cannot be expected to possess all these 
 varied acquirements, they generally and wisely abstain from 
 taking the lead. Moreover, they are exposed to two serious 
 faults. The first is that of talking for the sake of pleasing 
 themselves instead of the company ; the second, of being 
 too positive — too opinionated. The first of these faults 
 arises from vanity; the second, from want of experience — 
 but very often from a good motive, from a sincere love of 
 truth. Experience, however, will show them that while 
 truth is always the same, the aspects under which we view 
 her may be as numerous as the minute divisions on a 
 
ON CONVERSATION. 29 
 
 reflecting circle; that we may occupy any one of these 
 graduations, and then adjust the sights of the instrument witli 
 blue glasses or green glasses, or smoked glasses, and colour 
 our report according to the medium through which we look. 
 Ladies shine in light conversation, for they bring to bear 
 on it that habit of minute observation which has produced 
 such admirable novels as those of Miss Austen. But they 
 for the most part shrink from argument, and are better 
 pleased with a witticism, a happy expression, or an anecdote. 
 The fact is, most people — men or women — would rather be 
 amused than have to think, would rather laugh than follow 
 out a syllogism. And why not? A social gathering ought 
 to be a relaxation both for mind and body. Nothing ought 
 to be so difficult but that all may understand it, nothing so 
 dull as even to suggest a yawn, nothing so personal as to 
 excite the slightest approach either to pity or contempt. Go 
 into society and leave behind you all your aches and pains, 
 domestic troubles, lets and hindrances, your cares, your 
 likes and dishkes. Go into company to amuse and inform, 
 and to be amused and informed. Remember that as con- 
 versation is the cheapest of all pleasures, it may also be made 
 the most intellectual. It is always ready, is not dependent 
 upon set times and seasons and localities — any time will do, 
 and any place. By its means you may sift your knowledge 
 and opinions, winnow the wheat from the chaff, learn to 
 distinguish between the values of all kinds of intellectual 
 property; acquire a readiness in dealing out your know- 
 ledge, prevent you from talking books or shop, and above 
 all get rid of that blotting-paper habit which some people 
 have of readily absorbing whatever is presented ; but when 
 you want to get at it, you find nothing but blots, blurs, and 
 confusion. 
 
30 ESSAY II. 
 
 Besides all these advantages, every good conversation may 
 furnish a capital to every one present. A listener in one 
 party may become a talker in another ; so that knowledge, 
 like seed, may increase in geometrical ratio. 
 
 It behoves everyone, then, to cultivate his conversational 
 opportunities to the uttermost. I need hardly say two words 
 about the checks and impediments in the way of conversa- 
 tion. Of course every person of good taste will avoid per- 
 sonalities, stale jokes, too many anecdotes, mimicry, and old 
 puns or bad new ones — those dreadful warts and pimples 
 which disfigure the features of our noble language. A good 
 talker will never make use of anything but pure English; 
 and trusting his ideas to that alone, his words may be winged 
 messengers of good to everyone present. 
 
 Part II. 
 
 (1887.) 
 
 In conversation, Common Sense ' 
 And Tact may e'en o'er Genius rule ; 
 
 But Dulness and Self-confidence 
 Only produce the Bore, the Fool. 
 
 When the art of conversation was in its most flourishing 
 period, it was said to be a natural gift, not to be taught in so 
 many lessons, but capable of being improved by judicious 
 culture. It is now regarded by some as a lost art, like that 
 of letter-writing; since the introduction of the Penny Post, 
 halfpenny cards, and telegrams, Christmas, New Year's, and 
 other festival cards, which can be bought at so much a dozen, 
 have taken the place of the friendly letter ; and such is the 
 present demand for new books, by the vast number of readers 
 
ON CONVERSATION. 3T 
 
 who formerly did not exist, that a clever man when he has 
 anything to say, reserves it for his publisher, instead of 
 enlivening the company with it. 
 
 In the good old times, conversation had a high educational 
 value, especially as its pleasures were a skilful combination 
 of the dulce and the utile. Good conversation required 
 among friends some similarity of tastes and conduct, and 
 some differences of opinion in matters not subject to law. 
 In this way knowledge was strengthened by argument, and 
 opinions were corrected even while they were being formed. 
 
 Under such a happy state of things, conversation had for 
 its object the diversion, as well as the information of the 
 company. People did not talk about themselves in mixed 
 society, for there was an instinctive feeling that no one 
 cared about one's private affairs, at the same time the 
 speakers did not parade their own faults or their own virtues ; 
 neither did they talk of domestic affairs, nor of the weather. 
 A good speaker never talked Latin, seeing that he was 
 mindful of the mediaeval saying, that a fool is never a complete 
 fool unless he knows Latin ; in other words, the pedant is a 
 man who has been educated above his capacity. People 
 never praised without giving reasons, otherwise the praise 
 would seem hke flattery. People sought for equality, not for 
 superiority in conversation, and a good talker would enter 
 the company with a general feeling of good will to all, 
 knowing that this would thaw off the hoar frost of caution 
 which encrusts some people. Every thing in this life is 
 reciprocal, and a feeling of good will towards others excites 
 a benevolent feeling in them towards us. 
 
 But even in the best times society had its conversational 
 bores, and the family has not diminished since. We have 
 already referred to some of the species. Among others are 
 
32 ESSAY II. 
 
 those who talk much and say little. The celebrated 
 anatomist Bichat was lecturing on the anatomy of the monkey, 
 and showed that its organs of speech are identical with those 
 of man. After the lecture one of the pupils enquired, 
 " Then why doesn't the monkey talk ? " "I suppose it is 
 because he has nothing to say ! " was the reply. 
 
 If people only talked when they had something to say, it 
 would be a silent world. But there are many persons who 
 place themselves on a level with the monkey and only 
 chatter. 
 
 La Bruyere says, " // 7 « des gens qui parlent un mo7?ient 
 avant (T avoir pense." Still, however, the art of saying 
 nothing well is an agreeable one, and some people have a 
 reputation in this way which is not at all despicable. The 
 same acute writer confers great dignity on this art. Accord- 
 ing to him, "to trifle gracefully and to treat the smallest 
 subjects happily, requires not only skill, but creative power ; 
 for it is making something out of nothing." 
 
 Of course there are persons to whom talk for the sake of 
 talking is intolerable, just as taking up a book for the sake of 
 reading something is unendurable to a literary man. Thus, 
 a very bookish man who seldom went into society was 
 induced one evening to go to a mixed party. On his return, 
 his housekeeper asked him how he had enjoyed himself with 
 all those people ? His reply was, "All I can say is, that if 
 those people were books, I would not read them." 
 
 Studious men are impatient of small talk, and do not always 
 cultivate the forbearance required in listening to ordinary 
 mortals. A dignitary of the Church once walked with Dr. 
 Johnson from Fleet-street to St. James's Park without a word 
 being said, until, wishing to break the ice, he remarked that 
 the trees grew very well in the park. " They've nothing else 
 
ON CONVERSATION. 33 
 
 to do," growled out the doctor. Such conduct as this is 
 abominable. Anyone with the feelings of a gentleman would 
 have shown courtesy to a man who waited on him to pay his 
 respects and do him honour. Equally reprehensible is the 
 conduct of a University Professor who occasionally invited 
 one of his class to accompany him in his daily hour's 
 walk. On one occasion the first quarter of an hour 
 was passed in silence, when the young man wanting 
 to introduce conversation, remarked that the clouds 
 looked stormy. There was no reply, and nothing further 
 was said, until, in parting, the professor remarked, " By- 
 the-bye, that meteorological remark of yours was not 
 strong." 
 
 I cannot help thinking that such conduct was snobbish. 
 Common courtesy required the professor to draw out the 
 young man by starting topics of conversation, and not leave 
 him thus mortified and humiliated. But if some young men 
 are too bashful, others are forward enough, as in the case of 
 the two collegians whom Sir T. Fowell Buxton found 
 shooting over his grounds without permission. He went out 
 and remonstrated strongly with them, winding up with the 
 question, " Now, what would you do if you found two men 
 shooting over your grounds without leave ?" " We should 
 ask them in to lunch !" was the saucy reply, and which had 
 the intended effect. 
 
 Among the bores are those who are in the habit of boast- 
 ing of their acquaintance with great people. One such 
 remarked in a club room loud enough to be heard by every- 
 body, " What a remarkable thing it was that at Lord 's 
 
 the evening before, there was no fish at dinner." " No," 
 said Douglas Jerrold, " the y ate it all up stairs !" Men who 
 have risen from the lowe ranks of life are often guilty of 
 
34 ESSAY II. 
 
 self-assertion in general society. It is not easy to meet 
 asseveration, for, as the poet says, — 
 
 " Asseveration blustering in your face, 
 Makes contradiction such a hopeless case," 
 except, perhaps, by some well-directed sarcasm, as in the 
 following instance : — A man who took the lead in an after- 
 dinner conversation frequently asserted that he was a self- 
 made man. Now it so happened that he was very bald, and 
 a quiet man, who had listened to him some time, remarked, 
 "You say you are a self-made man?" "Yes, sir, I am a 
 self-made man, and I'm proud of it." " Then if you're a 
 
 self-made man, why the d didn't you put more hair on 
 
 your head ?" 
 
 If we study the various talkers in society, it will be found 
 that man's inner nature, however modified by education, 
 habits of Hfe, companions, &c., is the mordant that fixes the 
 colour of his conversation. He may often disguise his 
 nature under the mask of politeness — which, according to 
 La Bruyere, makes a man appear outside what he ought to 
 be within — still, however, it may generally be found that 
 persons of good social position never obtrude their rank, but 
 cultivate that affability which puts other people on a level 
 with themselves, and constitutes, in fact, the tone of the best 
 society. People do not always understand this, even when 
 under its influence. It is an extreme case, that of the 
 commercial traveller who found himself in the same railway 
 compartment with the Duke of Northumberland and the 
 Duke of Argyle, and only recognised the former by his 
 servants' liveries at Alnwick, where the Duke left ; whereupon 
 the man turned to his companion and said, "Only think ! 
 if that isn't the Duke of Northumberland who has been 
 talking all this time, in the most familiar manner, to a couple 
 of snobs like us !" 
 
ON CONVERSATION. 35 
 
 There are other varieties of conversation bores; such as the 
 tedious bores, who are like slow chess players. If you hurry 
 them, they become all the more tedious. Perhaps it is a 
 virtuous act of self-denial to be tolerant to them all, seeing 
 that we must sometimes put up with them. We cannot 
 always be talking with the witty and the wise, and much of 
 our own brilliant conversation must often be thrown away 
 upon dullards. If we have nothing but gold coin to give, 
 I suppose we must give it; at the same time, it is conve- 
 nient to be provided with the small change of talk. 
 
 The choice of subjects for conversation ought to be as 
 unrestrained as possible ; but there are some subjects which 
 cannot be properly discussed in general society; such as 
 those of a technical kind, or questions in metaphysics. And 
 the reason is, the want of interest in such subjects. This 
 arises from the same cause that leads a healthy person to 
 pay no attention to the action of his lungs, heart, and other 
 organs, which exercise their functions independently of the 
 will. In like manner, a healthy intellect cares little about 
 the distinctions between the reason and the understanding, 
 freewill and necessity, the real and the ideal, the existence 
 of matter, &c., which lead only to verbal distinctions, and 
 never helped anyone to discover a new fact in nature, or to 
 improve his worldly affairs. On such questions the meta- 
 physicians themselves are at variance. Mr. Lewes relates 
 that Sir James Mackintosh once observed to Dr. Thomas 
 Brown that Reid and Hume differed more in words than in 
 opinion. Brown answered, " Yes. Reid bawled out, ' We 
 must believe in an outward world,' but added in a whisper, 
 ' We can give no reason for our belief.' Hume cries out, 
 
 * We can give no reason for such a notion,' and whispers, 
 
 * I own we cannot get rid of it.' " 
 
$6 ESSAY II. 
 
 A great many similes have been bestowed on the art of 
 conversation, and it would not be easy to find a new one. 
 Oest que, quoi qiHon fasse, tout ce qu'on dit a toujours ete dit 
 dejd. On le dit mieux quelquefois, souvent plus mal; voila 
 tout. I do not know whether conversation has ever been 
 compared to a picnic, to which everybody contributes some- 
 thing; and the sum total of the feast, as well as its success, 
 should depend upon these spontaneous contributions. As 
 no one would be so rude as to prefer his own dish to the 
 dishes of the others, but would partake more or less of all, 
 and praise all except his own, so in conversation no one 
 should monopolise the talk, but all should share alike. 
 Swift puts this very well in the following lines : — 
 
 " Conversation is but carving, 
 Give no more to every guest 
 Than he's able to digest ; 
 Give him always of the prime, 
 And but little at a time ; 
 Carve to all, but give enough ; 
 Let them neither starve nor stuff ; 
 And that you may have your due. 
 Let your neighbours carve for you." 
 
III.— ON DESULTORY READING. 
 (1871.) 
 
 Our reading, like our daily food, 
 Should be selected from the best ; 
 
 Read, eat as much as may be good, 
 Or brain or stomach can digest : 
 
 We get not strong by always feeding, 
 
 Nor get we wise by always reading. 
 
 When I was a boy, the books within reach of narrow 
 means were but few, and the quality of the few did not 
 always make up for the small quantity. But such as I had 
 were read many times. I devoured the Arabian Nights and 
 the Tales of the Genii, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, 
 and the whole of the Spectator. This last work had a powerful 
 influence on me for good ; and I look back with gratitude to 
 the gentle influence of Addison on my destinies. 
 
 Young people now-a-days vote the Spectator a bore, 
 Gulliver and the Arabian Nights childish. One day I asked 
 a boy of fourteen whether he had read Robinson Crusoe. 
 " Oh ! ah, I began it once !" was the reply. Fancy anyone 
 beginning Robinson Crusoe, and not finishing it ! An 
 abridgment of this work was my delight, and to complete 
 my happiness a school-fellow lent me the whole book, on 
 condition that I would return it the next day. My mother 
 
38 ESSAY III. 
 
 would not let me sit up to finish it ; but after she had seen 
 me to bed, and taken away the candle, I got up and finished 
 the book by the hght of a street gas lamp that shone within 
 a dozen feet of my window. I then went to bed with only 
 one sorrow, and that was that I had not another Robinson 
 Crusoe for the next day's reading. 
 
 Now what I wish to insist upon is this, that in my boyish 
 days the reading, such as it was, was thorough. We read 
 the same books over and over again, if not with the same 
 eagerness as on the first perusal, yet with relish. We felt 
 unconsciously that a good thing is good for all time, and that 
 it was no excuse for not reading a book, that we had already 
 read it once. We were like Squire Hardcastle's servants, who 
 being drilled by their master preparatory to an unusual dinner 
 party, were charged not to burst out laughing if he told a 
 good story at dinner time, just as if they made part of the 
 company. " Then," said Diggory, " your worship must not 
 tell the story of Ould Grouse in the gun room. I can't help 
 laughing at that for the life of me ! We have laughed at it 
 these twenty years !" " Well, honest Diggory," returned the 
 squire, "that is a good story. You may laugh at that !" 
 
 Now contrast all this with modern practice. Books are 
 numerous and cheap. The Railway-stall supplies its shilling 
 novels ; weekly penny papers their stories ; as well as the 
 little bits of information which cannot be remembered, and 
 would be worthless if they could, since there is no law or 
 principle with which to connect them ; but worst of all there 
 are the funny papers, that try to represent everything in a 
 ludicrous light, and to reduce grave subjects to burlesque. 
 
 Now take these literary sources in order : First, the shilling 
 volumes. These consist of tales, novels, and romances, and 
 they are galloped through for the sake of the story — not for 
 
DESULTORY READING. 39 
 
 any illustrations of character or manners, or style, or artistic 
 finish, or clever development of plot, or general treatment — 
 not for the cultivation of the ideal, the poetical, the imagina- 
 tive, but simply for the sake of the story. But as this 
 appetite is soon satisfied, or rather becomes morbid, under a 
 kind of mental dyspepsia, stimulants are required, and the 
 story is made more and more " sensational," as it is called, 
 and so we get a kind of literature which becomes more and 
 more depraved, as the taste of the reader degenerates. The 
 pure style and exquisite finish of Jane Austen is pronounced 
 dull and stupid: Walter Scott is just a little "heavy," and 
 these and similar good writers are dismissed with a flippancy 
 of judgment that excites one's horror. 
 
 As to the weekly and monthly magazines, which publish 
 a three or four-volume novel in weekly and monthly chapters, 
 I tremble to think of the condition of mind of anyone, who 
 imbibes one or two, not to say five or six, novels in weekly 
 and monthly doses. Such a mind cannot be capable of any 
 sustained intellectual effort that is of any use to himself or 
 to anyone else. It would be charity to such a person if he 
 could be bound down to one or two books, even though they 
 were Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver. If such a reader had 
 to get them up, write exercises on them, pass examinations 
 in them, learn whole passages by rote, such exercises would 
 be wholesome, compared with the present mode of reading 
 weekly and monthly magazines. 
 
 As to the penny weeklies, what on earth is the use of 
 reading short paragraphs of facts, which if true, are of no use 
 except to illustrate some law or principle of science, art, 
 literature, &c. If you want to study some branch of know- 
 ledge to which these facts belong, do so ; but don't commit 
 the folly of feathering sticks all day without ever attempting 
 
40 ESSAY III. 
 
 to bind them into bundles. In other words, do not waste 
 your powers ; but let your reading have reference to some 
 stock pursuit. Study something, and then if you meet with 
 a stray fact, you will have a pigeon-hole ready to pop it into, 
 so that you will always be able to find it when it may be 
 wanted. 
 
 Now take an example : — I read in a corner of one of the 
 weeklies that the sun is more than 90 millions of miles 
 distant from the earth, and about one and a quarter million 
 times bigger. There is not a more difficult problem in 
 astronomy than the determination of the distance here 
 referred to ; and it is so far undetermined, that the Govern- 
 ments of the civilised world prepared costly expeditions to 
 various parts of the earth's surface for the purpose of observ- 
 ing the transit of Venus, so as to obtain more correct data for 
 the solution of this great problem. The information conveyed 
 in the above paragraph would be of some use if the writer 
 had attempted to convey a notion of the difficulty of the 
 problem; but as it stands, the information leads only to 
 gaping wonder. 
 
 As to the modern practice of reducing everything to fun, 
 I hold it in such abhorrence that I would not hesitate, had 
 I the power, to commit to a lunatic asylum any author who 
 proposed to write a "Comic History of England," a "Comic 
 History of Rome," a " Comic Blackstone," a " Comic 
 Grammar," a "Comic Merchant of Venice," &c.; and yet 
 these are no imaginary titles ; they are the names of works 
 that have actually been written, expensively got up and 
 illustrated, and must have had their readers and admirers by 
 tens, if not hundreds of thousands. The fact is, the tendency 
 to see everything from the funny side destroys reverence 
 for things that are not funny, and from their very nature 
 
DESULTORY READING. 4 1 
 
 cannot have a funny side. Not to mention subjects 
 that are too sacred to be brought into such a discussion as 
 this, I would ask after the mental sanity of the man who 
 could write a comic Macbeth, or witness it without a shudder 
 at the profanity. Hence I say that the habitual reading of 
 the so-called comic literature (which to a man of taste is for 
 the most part infinitely dreary and void of fun) is debasing 
 to the mind and ought to be avoided. 
 
 Now as our powers are limited, and art is long, and hfe is 
 short, would it not be prudent that every one of us, especially 
 if blessed with youth and health, should make a diagnosis 
 of his mental condition, and put two serious questions to 
 himself : — " Am I daily improving in intellectual health and 
 vigour ? " " If not, what is the best physic ?" 
 
 Now supposing each one of us is, in the first place, 
 properly qualified for his walk in life ; that he is master of 
 his business, or profession, or the calling by which he earns 
 his daily bread (for to be so qualified is his bounden duty), 
 then let him ask, " How can I employ my leisure so as to 
 improve daily in intellectual health and vigour?" 
 
 Now if I were called in as physician in such a case, and 
 found my patient a frequenter of railway book-stalls, a sub- 
 scriber to penny papers, and addicted to funny ones, I should 
 call that a very bad case of desultory reading. I should 
 prescribe total abstinence from all such unwholesome food, 
 and should administer a mild tonic of one volume by a good 
 author (according to the patient's taste), to be read through 
 three times in as many weeks, and then for the patient to 
 write an account of what he had read, and undergo divivd voce 
 examination in addition. Should this treatment be pro- 
 nounced too severe, I would let him look at the Times every 
 day for half an hour, on condition that he did not read the 
 
 D 
 
42 ESSAY III. 
 
 short paragraphs, but only the more important articles that 
 would inform him of the general state of the world ; for I 
 think a moderate dose of politics has a humanising influence. 
 
 If my patient took kindly to this treatment, I would try 
 and find out what subject best suited his mental state, what 
 branch of science or literature or art. Has he a taste for 
 languages ? Let him study French or German, and stick to 
 it until he is sufficiently master of the language to be able to 
 read a good author. Then let him get up that author, or the 
 best work of that author, and having done so, let him read 
 other works of repute, capable of throwing more light on the 
 subject he has read from the first point of view. 
 
 But people will tell you that they have no talent for this, 
 that, or the other subject proposed. Rather than submit to 
 any course of wholesome discipline, they will accuse them- 
 selves of all sorts of mental defects. It is astonishing how 
 humble many people become, when they are called upon to 
 exercise a little self-denial. It may be worth while to examine 
 this habit of self-depreciation to see if we cannot get to the 
 bottom of it. 
 
 The confessions that people sometimes make of their 
 defects would not be heard so often if they were taken 
 seriously, and involved penance and amendment of life, as 
 the confessions in the Romish Church are said to do. For 
 example, many persons are not ashamed to admit a deficiency 
 of perception when they exclaim, " I don't care for music!'* 
 *' I can't draw a bit!" " I hate figures !" " I detest statistics !'* 
 " I don't profess to understand political economy." But you 
 never hear them say, "I've no judgment!" " I've no common 
 sense ! " " Gratitude is no part of my character ! " although 
 it is not unusual for ladies to say, as much in jest as in 
 earnest, "I hate logic!" " I hate argument and reasoning, 
 
DESULTORY READING. 43 
 
 and that sort of thing." They would doubtless be offended 
 if you were to assent, " I know you do, because you have a 
 very weak judgment." The fact is, the defect of judgment 
 common sense, gratitude, &c., is quite as common as the 
 want of a musical ear, an artistic eye, or the organ of number 
 only we do not attach the same importance to the perceptions 
 as to the moral sentiments and reasoning faculties. In 
 general, we think it no more a reproach to have small tune 
 or defective form or number (to use the convenient language 
 of phrenology), than for a blind man not to be able to 
 distinguish colours. But we do expect all persons, 
 whether sighted or visually blind, colour-blind, form-blind, 
 music-blind, or number-blind, to have judgment, common 
 sense and gratitude ; for without them a man is a monster. 
 He may be a very worthy individual, and yet not be 
 able to join in a duet, to sketch a landscape, or to take pro- 
 per care of his cash book. So true is this, that the veriest 
 ingrate will affect gratitude, the selfish will claim credit for 
 benevolence, and the weak-minded will often pride himself 
 on his judgment. 
 
 Still there is, or ought to be, something painful in the 
 admitted defect of want of taste in music, painting, logic, 
 mathematics, &:c. ; and the more painful when the admission 
 is made with a toss of the head, and a decision in the tone, 
 as if the persons confessing were proud of the defect. They 
 will even quote illustrious examples in justification of them- 
 selves. Walter Scott, they say, had no musical ear, 
 Dr. Johnson was similarly ungifted, Thomson was lazy, 
 Burns fond of whisky, and so on. Such persons must have 
 a low standard of intellectual acquirements ; and as no one 
 can rise above his standard, so they are content with their 
 defects, content to give up certain sources of intellectual 
 
 D 3 
 
44 ESSAY III. 
 
 recreation and pleasure, and even of sensuous enjoyment, 
 and not at all anxious to make up for their deficiencies in 
 one direction by cultivating excellences in some other. A 
 person with a high standard of intellectual culture would 
 treat with profound respect, any art or pursuit for which he 
 had little or no taste; but would atone for his own defect by 
 finding out and assiduously cultivating something for which 
 he had a decided taste. 
 
 That such is the proper course of action there can, I think, 
 be no doubt. Why it is not more frequently adopted is 
 because mediocrity and indolence satisfy people with them- 
 selves as they are, and make them desirous rather of being 
 amused than instructed. There can be no improvement in 
 mind or character until a person feel a want — a real necessity 
 for improvement. An indolent acquiescence in things as 
 they are is fatal to the mind. It induces that passive state 
 which we must suppose belonged to the Eastern Prince, who 
 looking on at a London ball remarked, " I wonder you take 
 all that trouble. I keep people to dance to me." To a great 
 extent we do the same. We keep people to act well for us, 
 to play well for us, to write amusing books for us, and to do 
 a great many other things for us, which we are too idle or 
 too uncultivated (mind, I don't say too stupid) to do for 
 ourselves. 
 
 The reason for all this is, as I have already said, that so far 
 as people are intellectual producers, they are satisfied with a 
 low standard; while those very persons, when they wish to be 
 amused, claim a high standard in their entertainers. They 
 go to see the best actors, to hear the best singers and 
 musicians, they crowd to the best pictures, and so on. This 
 shows that they are at least capable of appreciating ex- 
 cellence in others, and if so, that they might, if they chose, 
 
DESULTORY READING. 45 
 
 cultivate it in themselves. I admit that it is easy to do one 
 thing or many things badly — very difficult to do one thing 
 well. Most persons do many things badly, but might if they 
 chose do at least one thing well. What proof have you of 
 this? I will try to explain. It is, I daresay, in the experience 
 of everyone, that if you set a person talking on a subject in 
 which he is deeply interested, he will not only talk well, but 
 display powers of observation, memory, and reflection, for 
 which you never before gave him credit. For example, set 
 a patient talking about his own ailments, and it is astonishing 
 what a good narrator he becomes. He will give you the 
 whole history of his illness down to its minutest details, the 
 coming on of the symptoms — what the doctor said, what he 
 said to the doctor — what remedies were employed, &c. He 
 speaks with the fulness of perfect knowledge, and hence is 
 accurate and particular. Again, set a youth, whose parents 
 complain that he does nothing at school, talking about the 
 last cricket match or boat race. You will usually find him 
 eloquent, minute, and descriptive. Set a young lady talking, if 
 you can, about her last ball dress, and the dresses of the other 
 ladies at the ball, and you will be astonished at her memory 
 and powers of observation. Set mamma talking about her 
 children, or papa about his horses, grooms, garden, or fields, 
 and you will be compelled to admit that your friends and 
 acquaintance are very clever people. 
 
 Now if the owners of these powers of memory, observa- 
 tion, narration, &c., would but direct their faculties, with 
 energy and method, on some intellectual pursuit, the result 
 cannot be doubtful. Many would attain a good position, 
 some a high one, and a few the highest in the intellectual 
 ascent. 
 
 Why is not this done ? There are many reasons, in 
 
46 ESSAY III. 
 
 addition to the curse of amusing reading, fostered by cheap 
 novels, penny weekhes, and funny periodicals. There are 
 what are called "accidents" of birth or fortune. A boy 
 whom nature intended for a first-rate groom is educated 
 into a very bad clergyman, because there is a living in the 
 family. A youth who would have made a capital naturalist 
 is reared up into a very indifferent lawyer, because papa, or 
 godpapa, or some friend, wants an articled pupil, and they 
 don't know what else to do with Johnny. The boy who is 
 every inch a sailor is made to increase the number of 
 failures in the medical profession, and for a similar reason, 
 and so on. And you. Madam, whose dislike of argument 
 proves, as I said, your defective judgment, show that defect 
 when you make your darling sons, the one a parson, the 
 other a lawyer, and the third a surgeon. You doubtless 
 see in them the future Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord 
 Chancellor, and the President of the College of Surgeons. 
 The world, so very clever in its neighbours' affairs, sees in 
 them only three costly failures. Depend upon it your 
 judgment is at fault, Madam. 
 
 " Men's judgments are a parcel of their fortunes ;" and 
 not only of their own, but of their children's, and their 
 grandchildren's. It was the boast of Job, in the time of 
 his prosperity, that his judgment *' was as a robe, and as a 
 diadem." It was just, and conspicuous, and distinguished 
 him from afar. 
 
 Judgment is indeed a great light in the mind, penetrating 
 into the reason of things. It is the perception of fitness, 
 of the relation between the means and the end. Shall we 
 not say that when a boy is brought up in one profession, 
 while Nature has qualified him for another, there is a great 
 ack of judgment somewhere ? 
 
DESULTORY READING. 47 
 
 I know very well that it will be said that a parent cannot 
 often see any decided taste in his boy for any particular 
 pursuit, and so he puts him to that which is most conve- 
 nient. This, I say again, is want of judgment, as much so 
 as when mamma educates all her five daughters alike in 
 music, singing, fine needlework, and French and German 
 literature. There is clearly a want of perception in the 
 parents when they say that Bill has no particular taste for 
 anything, and that Polly does not learn one thing better 
 than another. Nature does not usually create a vacuum, 
 not even within the human skull ; and I hold it to be the 
 merciful scheme of Providence to bestow upon every man 
 and woman a special faculty, which, properly cultivated, 
 will enable him or her to be useful in the world, and to 
 fulfil what it is now the fashion to call his " mission." 
 Watch the boy or the girl in their hours of idleness. The 
 boy will spontaneously adopt some pursuit which will 
 furnish the key to his future mission. The girl will select 
 one of her lessons or studies, or at any rate do one thing in 
 preference to all other things, and that will determine the 
 character of her mind. And thus guided by Nature's 
 gentle teaching, the wise parent will so shape the education 
 of his child as to ensure his success in life. 
 
 Success in life ! That does not mean in my nomenclature 
 " becoming rich," or " making money," the end and aim of 
 work. Success in life is, as I take it, the securing the 
 largest amount of happiness to yourself and to others. You 
 secure happiness to yourself by exercising efficiently the 
 faculties with which God has eminently distinguished you, 
 such faculties having been specially trained for their suc- 
 cessful exercise. " Well-directed employment " was good 
 Dr. Johnson's definition of happiness, and your employment 
 
48 ESSAY III. 
 
 must be well directed if you are to feel pleasure and pride in 
 the exercise of the profession of your choice. Secondly, you 
 promote the happiness of others if, with a clear conscience 
 and an earnest seeking after God's blessing every day on 
 your labours, you exercise your faculties ; for in whatever 
 direction they may lie, if according to your taste, whether 
 in painting pictures, writing books, lecturing, teaching, 
 preaching, healing, buying or selling, you are acting upon 
 your fellow-men as much for their benefit as for your own. 
 
 It often strikes me as a very wonderful thing that Nature 
 should sometimes send people into the world endowed with 
 a special faculty for some purely human creation, such, for 
 example, as chess. When young Morphy appeared in this 
 country a few years ago, he beat our best players, and fought 
 eight strong ones at once, and blindfold ; doing, in fact, 
 before he was twenty, what many men have tried hard all 
 their lives to do in vain ; that is, become first-rate in their 
 profession. My friend Lowenthal told me that on one 
 occasion he asked Morphy to give him a couple of games 
 that had not been published. Morphy reflected a moment, 
 and then said, " If you will write them down, I will dictate a 
 couple of games that I played three years ago." "But," 
 objected Lowenthal, " we have no chess-board or men." 
 " Never mind," said the young Paladin, " I can remember 
 them." And he actually dictated these games, a move at 
 a time, while Lowenthal wrote them down, and when 
 written, Morphy took the paper, read through the moves, 
 and returned it with the remark, "They are quite right!" 
 and such Lowenthal found to be the case when he came to 
 play them over. In fact, Morphy declared that he never 
 forgot a game that he had played since his chess powers 
 had become ripe. 
 
DESULTORY READING. 49 
 
 Now it may be objected, " Surely if your child displayed 
 uncommon powers for chess, you would not bring him up 
 to it as a profession ! " I answer, that provided he can earn 
 his living at it, there is no reason why a man should not be 
 a Chess Master, any more than a Singing Master, a Drawing 
 Master, or a Dancing Master. I had much rather have my 
 son a first-rate chess teacher than a bad surgeon. I had 
 rather he did something well than many things badly. I 
 had rather he earned bread and cheese by something that 
 he knew, than luxuries by a profession of which he were an 
 incompetent member. Anything rather than mediocrity, 
 for this reduces talent to its own dull level ; but talent has 
 aspiration in it, and a due appreciation and respect for what- 
 ever is superior to itself. 
 
 Away then with the mock humility of self-depreciation. 
 The person who says, " I hate this !" or " I have no talent 
 for that ! " is in a hopeless state of decrepitude — weak, yet 
 ignorant of weakness — dependent, but ignoring dependence 
 — satisfied with defects — destitute of aspirations — he grows 
 in years but not in knowledge or humility — he becomes a 
 garrulous old man — she a gossiping old woman. To avoid 
 so dreadful a result, it is necessary for every one to have a 
 high standard, not only of religion, but also of art, of 
 literature, of taste, and endeavour with God's blessing every 
 day, every hour, to work up to that standard. The way and 
 the means thereto are, firsts by cultivating humility in your- 
 self; not a mock, canting habit of self-depreciation, but a 
 real humility that does not talk about itself; secondly^ by 
 encouraging a genuine admiration for everything that is good 
 and pure and beautiful and intellectual, by trying to approach 
 them as nearly as possible. Do this earnestly and sincerely, 
 end you will never slight what you can only approach at a 
 
50 ESSAY III. 
 
 great distance. Once realise how hard it is to be good and 
 pure and intellectual, and you will respect those qualities in 
 others. You may not be called on to exercise the higher 
 Mathematics — you may be even incapable of doing so — 
 but it would show gross ignorance if, on that account, you 
 depreciated Mathematicians. When the ancient Greek 
 geometricians were investigating the properties of the conic 
 sections, they were paving the way for our present perfect 
 system of navigation; so that, as Condorcet beautifully 
 remarks, " The sailor who has been preserved from ship- 
 wreck by an accurate observation of the longitude, owes his 
 life to a theory conceived, two thousand years ago, by men 
 of genius, who had in view only simple geometrical obser- 
 vations." 
 
 Should any one present have ever felt a desire for self- 
 culture and have put it off from day to day, let him take 
 courage and begin at once. It is only the first step that is 
 difficult. That first step in the right direction, when one has 
 long been going wrong, always implies an effort of self- 
 denial. If you are accustomed to read for mere amusement, 
 renounce that habit at once. Read for a purpose ; have an 
 object before you. If you must read fiction, there may be 
 method and purpose introduced even into that. Begin with 
 the careful perusal of some good history of fiction ; trace 
 the rise and progress of the novel in different countries and 
 ages, ascertain why some English novels live while the great 
 multitude of them float down the stream of time and are 
 lost in the mighty ocean of oblivion. Try to ascertain why 
 one good novel differs from another ; and how they differ 
 from works of fiction in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, &:c. 
 Try, in short, to cultivate the critical faculty — which means 
 sound judgment, good common sense. 
 
DESULTORY READING. 5 I 
 
 Take any branch of literature, art, or science, and you 
 may still introduce order and method into your reading ; 
 and, having once taken the first step, you will soon become 
 fascinated with your pursuit, and will bless the day when 
 you renounced miscellaneous reading. There is the remedy. 
 There is neither sex nor age, rank or condition, that it does 
 not apply to. Don't read many books — Hoino itnius libri^ 
 " a man of one book," is a wise old expression. Master one 
 book ; that is, on high authority, the way to become truly 
 learned. If you know one thing well you have within you a 
 source of real happiness, of which you can have no concep- 
 tion while you only know many things badly. 
 
 Thus far had I written down my own thoughts and experi- 
 ence, without thinking it necessary to refer to the great 
 authorities in literature for the support of my argument. 
 But now having done so, in the most casual manner I 
 venture to give a few from the writings of men whom the 
 world has, by common consent, agreed to recognise as 
 intellectual guides. I was struck with the opening sentence 
 of Lewes's "Story of Goethe's Life." He says, "Quintus 
 Curtius tells us that in certain seasons Bactria was darkened 
 by whirlwinds of dust, which completely covered and con- 
 cealed the roads. Left thus without their usual landmarks, 
 the wanderers awaited the rising of the stars, * to light them 
 on their dim and perilous way.' May we not say the same 
 of literature? From time to time its pathways are so 
 obscured beneath the rubbish of the age, that many a foot- 
 sore pilgrim seeks in vain the hidden route. In such times 
 it may be well to imitate the Bactrians; ceasing to look upon 
 the confusions of the day, and turning our gaze upon the 
 great immortals who have gone before, we may seek 
 guidance from their light." 
 
52 ESSAY III. 
 
 But to return to more prosaic language. Carlyle remarks 
 that a book that does not improve by repeated readings, 
 does not deserve to be read at all. Southey had already 
 said before him, that a book is worth but little if it deserves 
 to be read only once; for as the same landscape has a 
 different aspect at different times, under different conditions 
 of light, so with a book. On reading it again after a long 
 interval, we bring, as it were, another mind to bear upon it, 
 and often appreciate the good things that were before over- 
 looked. 
 
 Indeed, a masterpiece can seldom be appreciated on a 
 first perusal ; we must grow up to it, for it will not descend 
 to us, and growing up to the level of a higher mind entails 
 much intellectual exertion. In the spirit of these views, 
 Carlyle again remarks that no good book, or good anything, 
 shows its best face at first, and that the commonest quaUty 
 of a true work of art is, that its first sight occasions a certain 
 feeling of disappointment. Mill, referring to the multi- 
 plicity of books which now afflicts the world, looks back to 
 the time when books were scarce, and when few persons 
 read at all except those who were accustomed to read the 
 best authors ; accordingly, books were written with the well- 
 grounded expectation that they would be read carefully and 
 often. But now books are bolted^ rather than read ; and 
 authors write to suit such a condition of digestion. 
 
 Lord Dudley, writing to Bishop Copleston, remarks that he 
 differs from him in his taste for new publications. He says: — 
 " I read them unwillingly : you abstain from them with diffi- 
 culty, and as a matter of duty and self-denial. Their novelty 
 has very little attraction for me ; and in Hterature I am fond 
 of confining myself to the best company, which consists 
 chiefly of my old acquaintance, with whom I am desirous 
 
DESULTORY READING. 53 
 
 of becoming more intimate; and I suspect that nine times 
 out of ten it is more profitable, if not more agreeable, to read 
 an old book over again than to read a new one for the first 
 time." " Is a new poet," he goes on to ask, " superior to 
 Homer, Virgil, Shakspere, Ariosto, or Racine? and have 
 you got all these authors completely at your fingers' 
 ends? If not, it is surely loss of time to read inferior 
 men." 
 
 Goldsmith compares the pleasure of reading a good book to 
 that of gaining a new friend, and a second perusal to that of 
 meeting with an old one. The taste for a single book which 
 I have ventured to recommend as a powerful remedy against 
 •desultory reading was indulged in by many first-rate minds. 
 Walter Scott has the following entry in his journal : — Read 
 again, for the third time at least. Miss Austen's very finely 
 written novel of " Pride and Prejudice." Goethe declared, in 
 his eighty-first year, that the " Vicar of Wakefield " had been 
 his delight at twenty, and that he had recently read it again 
 from beginning to end with renewed delight, and with a 
 grateful sense of the boon it had been to him in early and 
 middle life. Gibbon read Pascal's Provincial Letters almost 
 every year with new pleasure; and Coleridge read Lessing's 
 Kleine Schriften, year by year, as masterpieces of style and 
 argument. Beranger the poet, in his autobiography, says he 
 is applying himself for the hundredth time to the re-perusal of 
 his favourite authors. Bulwer recommends it as a great 
 preservation of a high standard of taste and achievement 
 to take every year some one first-class work as a special 
 study to be conned over, brooded over, taken into the coun- 
 try, to be your faithful companion, to the exclusion of every 
 other literary love, so as to be compelled to read it again and 
 again; and he ventures to say that in this close and familiar 
 
54 ESSAY III. 
 
 intercourse with some great mind you will return to the 
 common world refreshed and improved. 
 
 One grand advantage of the homo-unius-lihri principle is 
 that by mastering one great and good book you secure ta 
 yourself a companion in solitude, or in the restless waking 
 hours of the night, in long journeys, and at times when you 
 must either be occupied with your own thoughts, or with 
 the thoughts of somebody else. And it is always better, if 
 possible, to brood on other men's thoughts than your own; 
 for they, if well chosen, exert a healthful and consoling in- 
 fluence; while your own thoughts are apt to become morbid^ 
 and to lead to gloomy views of the past, the present, and 
 the future. 
 
 The Abbe Feria, whom the novelist imprisoned in the 
 Chateau D'lf, said that he had a library of five or six 
 thousand volumes, of which about a hundred and fifty were 
 favourites; and he had read and re-read these so many times 
 that he could go through any one of them almost as easily 
 as if he had the book in hand. Hence, his soHtary captivity 
 was scarcely a burden to him. 
 
 If you were going on a walking tour alone, and abroad, 
 where you would not be likely to meet either with books 
 or companions, and were allowed three tiny volumes for 
 your knapsack, what would you choose ? When such an 
 occasion as this presented itself to me I selected the New 
 Testament, Bacon's Essays, and a volume containing three 
 of Shakspere's best plays. 
 
 In conclusion, the moral is. 
 
 Miiltiun lege?'e potius quam multa; 
 
 which may be thus paraphrased: — 
 
 Read much of books both good and few 
 But Railway literature eschew. 
 
desultory reading. 55 
 
 [Note. 1887.] 
 
 Since the above essay was written great advances have 
 been made in the production of cheap reprints of standard 
 works in various languages. Mr. Arber's reprints of old 
 English authors are well known. Reclam, of Leipsic, has 
 produced upwards of two thousand volumes, each containing 
 some hundred pages of print of the best literature, at little 
 more than twopence a volume. Berthier has performed a 
 similar service for the French people; his little blue volumes 
 selling at twenty-five centimes each. Even Spain has large 
 series of cheap and successful reprints. The same may be 
 said of Hungary; and an Italian publisher is now issuing 
 standard works at a cheap rate, which find their way into the 
 hands of the people. Messrs. Cassell have issued a series 
 of reprints, selected from our best literature, at threepence a 
 volume of about one hundred and ninety-two pages, small 
 octavo, under the skilful editorship of Professor Henry 
 Morley. Working men may thus procure a small library of 
 standard literature, in neat paper covers, at the cost of five 
 shillings. 
 
 Messrs. Routledge, Mr. Dicks, and some others, are also 
 known for their cheap reprints. Standard plays at one 
 penny each have had an enormous sale; but, unfortunately, 
 the paper is bad, and the type painfully small. Messrs. 
 Routledge state that they print every year about six million 
 books. Messrs. Black and Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh, 
 Messrs. Ward and Lock, and Messrs. Warne and Co., of 
 London, have also become public benefactors with great profit 
 to themselves. 
 
 These important undertakings in our own country are of 
 comparatively recent date. Germany, France, Spain, and 
 America have long preceded us in these useful efforts. 
 
IV.— BEHIND THE SCENES. 
 (1861.) 
 
 If but the Conjuror's art we know, 
 
 The illusion's gone ; 
 For him who pries behind the show, 
 
 The charm's undone. 
 Why disenchant the youthful mind 
 
 From its ideal? 
 Ere manhood comes, the youth will find 
 
 How sad the real ! 
 
 When I was first taken to the play, the effect upon me 
 was that of another and a brighter world. Everything 
 was so beautiful, so lustrous, so enchanting — the men were 
 gods, the women angels, and I fancied that they must be 
 accustomed to feed on nectar and ambrosia. Scoffers have 
 told me that off the stage the men are very common-place 
 individuals, and the women certainly not angels. I don't 
 believe it. The same scoffers also told me that on the 
 stage, behind the scenes, matters wear a hard, dirty, ugly, 
 repulsive aspect — that the men are made-up puppets, and 
 the women painted dolls. I don't believe it. I cling to 
 the beliefs of my childhood — illusions if you like — but 
 
BEHIND THE SCENES. 57 
 
 whatever they are, I find comfort, hope, and satisfaction in 
 them. 
 
 I was never behind the scenes, and don't care to go. It 
 is enough for me, that from the public side of the stage the 
 tinsel still retains its lustre, the men their manliness, the 
 women their grace and beauty. I don't want to be informed 
 that the brave hero, who utters manly sentiments in beau- 
 tiful poetry, and is adored by that lovely heroine, whom he 
 rescues from a dreadful fate, is a brandy-and-water drinking 
 poltroon, or that the heroine lodges in a second-floor, with 
 an idle husband and five ragged children. I say I don't 
 want to know these things, even supposing them to be true. 
 I am content with the illusions of the stage. I go to the 
 play for the sake of them, and owe small thanks to any one 
 who tries to tear the charming rainbow film from my eyes. 
 
 Again — a man has a beautiful voice, well cultivated, and 
 exercised with consummate art and taste. I go to hear that 
 man for the sake of his singing — I don't want to be told 
 that he is a prig, a conceited, empty-headed coxcomb, even 
 supposing such to be the fact. That's nothing to me. I 
 am in raptures with his voice, but care nothing for the 
 vocalist personally : that at least is the case since I have 
 arrived at years of discretion. Formerly I always felt dis- 
 posed to do as Jean Jacques Rousseau did, when, hearing a 
 lovely female voice behind the curtain in a Roman Catholic 
 Chapel, he fell in love with the vocalist herself — sought her 
 out, and found her about the same age as his grandmother, 
 and about as handsome. But I've got over all that, and 
 can reason calmly about it 
 
 It is quite true that we seldom have the voice without the 
 person of the singer, and the applause that we bestow on the 
 voice, the singer may appropriate as a mark of individual 
 
 E 
 
58 ESSAY IV. 
 
 merit. That is very likely to be the case, and the result is 
 unfavourable to him as a man — but that is his look-out. I 
 don't tell him by my applause that he is handsome, and 
 brave, and noble, &c. &c. I merely imply that his voice 
 gives me pleasure; and if he is such a donkey as to take my 
 applause for more than it is worth, that, I say, is his concern. 
 
 The Artist who exercises a talent in presence of the public 
 is very likely to be spoilt by the applause bestowed upon the 
 talent, and to take a wrong estimate of himself as an 
 individual. The public too is very apt to assist him in 
 arriving at this wrong appreciation of himself. The company 
 of the public performer is eagerly sought on other grounds 
 than the exercise of his talent. The society of the comedian 
 is thought to be necessarily funny — the good things that he 
 says on the stage people fancy must constitute his every-day 
 talk. In like manner the society of the vocalist, the tragedian, 
 &c., is eagerly courted, because they, being so much before 
 the public, and giving so much pleasure on the stage, are 
 thought to be equally capable of charming us in private. 
 Whereas it often happens that the contrary is the case. The 
 Actor expects to be the centre of every society, and to receive 
 the incense of applause wherever he moves. He may be 
 ignorant, empty-headed, dull and conceited, but being 
 conscious only of this, that on the stage he is applauded, and 
 off the stage courted, he is already sufficiently attractive. 
 
 There is an anecdote of Grimaldi, and another of Liston, 
 usually told from the actor's point of view, which I think the 
 false one. Grimaldi, while on a provincial tour, was invited 
 by a rich man to dinner. After dinner the host said, " Come, 
 Joe, give us a song." Joe declined. " What, not sing ! 
 What do you think I asked you for ? " Grimaldi got up, 
 and left the house. Liston dining with Alderman Curtis, the 
 
BEHIND THE SCENES. 59 
 
 children were had in to dessert. Mrs, Curtis asked the 
 comedian to do something to amuse the children. Liston 
 got up and left the house, declaring that he had never been 
 so insulted in his life. Now my opinion is that the 
 actors were in both cases wrong. They were invited 
 because of their known public talent, and were expected 
 to give a sample of it to their hosts. They must have 
 known that they were not invited as plain Mr. Grimaldi 
 or plain Mr. Liston; but as Mr. Grimaldi the well- 
 known clown, and Mr. Liston the celebrated comedian. 
 It was a tacitly understood bargain, only the actors did not 
 choose to abide by their own share in it. When Madame 
 Catalani and her husband sought refuge during a snowstorm 
 in a gentleman's house, and after having been warmed and 
 fed, Madame was asked for a song, the husband protested 
 that Madame never sang under fifty pounds. That was quite 
 fair, and no harm was done on either side. The snowstorm 
 did not choke up the road for Catalani the singer, but for 
 Mrs. Catalani and her husband travelling in their private 
 capacity, and the owners of the house were only performing 
 an act of common humanity in giving them shelter, and 
 ought not to have required Madame to step out of her 
 private character in return. Whether it would not have been 
 a graceful act of courtesy to have complied with the request 
 — as Braham is said to have done spontaneously on one 
 occasion, and Malibran on another — is quite another 
 question. 
 
 I cannot help thinking, then, that it is a misfortune for an 
 actor or a singer, so far as his moral nature is concerned, 
 that he must be so perpetually before the public as to be 
 personally known as Mr. Kemble, or Mr. Braham, &c. The 
 ancients sank the personality of the performer in the cha- 
 
 E 2 
 
6o ESSAY IV. 
 
 racter performed by requiring him to wear a mask so as 
 effectually to conceal the features. They could not bear the 
 idea of seeing a well-known citizen in some heroic part. 
 Jupiter Tonans by Mr. Smith would have been to them a 
 ridiculous mesalliance. Hercules by Mr. Jones would have 
 sounded like a profane joke ; Juno by Miss Thompson — 
 but they never allowed women to appear on the stage at all. 
 In our case this remedy cannot be applied, and it is of no 
 use attempting to suggest another. 
 
 The snares which surround the actor, the singer, &c., do 
 not belong to other departments of art, for in them, as 
 Lessing remarks, "We praise the artist most when we forget 
 him in his work;" or, as Jean Paul expresses it, "As the 
 string in sounding becomes invisible, so the poet should be 
 heard, not seen." I cannot help regarding it as a great 
 advantage, both to the artist and his admirer, that they are 
 not personally known to each other. The training of the 
 painter and the poet is, also, vastly superior to that of the 
 actor. The latter works in private with a view to a personal 
 appearance in public; hence the person, the voice, the 
 gestures, the dress, the adornment, are all made matters of 
 first-rate importance. Then there is the rehearsal, the 
 greater or less contact with men and women whom he does 
 not care about, some of whom he positively dislikes or would 
 wish to avoid. And lastly, the public itself; the hopes, the 
 fears, the flutterings, the triumphs, the failures, the compari- 
 sons with other performers' triumphs and failures, &c. All 
 this must destroy or sadly disturb the ballast which poor 
 human nature never carries too much of, or distributes too 
 wisely. Whereas the painter, and especially the poet, must 
 study much — if not altogether — in private, and among the 
 quiet scenes of nature, imbibing her freshness, purified by 
 
BEHIND THE SCENES. 6 1 
 
 her loveliness, brought nearer and nearer to that ideal type 
 which we see expressed in every flower that blows ; or, as 
 Schiller's elegiac verse has it, 
 
 "Wouldst thou the highest, the greatest attain? The plant 
 can instruct thee. 
 What it unwittingly is, wittingly strive thou to be." 
 
 And at length, when by dint of much silent working in the 
 sanctitude of the study or the studio, the work is produced 
 and published or exhibited, it is something quite distinct 
 from the producer ; it can be seen or read and admired 
 without the necessity of a personal acquaintance with the 
 artist. And then, indeed, "we praise the artist most when 
 we forget him in his work." 
 
 All this, I say, is an advantage both to the artist and his 
 public. It is true the artist may have a very large circle of 
 acquaintance, and may go on constantly widening it ; that is 
 his concern, he has the control over its diameter. As far as 
 I, a simple monad of the pubhc, am concerned, I don't care 
 for an artist's acquaintance ; I have no ambition to form one 
 of the vertebrae of the great man's tail. The same feeling 
 which kept me from going behind the scenes keeps me from 
 the painter's studio and the author's soiree. I had rather 
 know the artist in his works ; I don't care to know him 
 personally, and one reason for this is that success nearly 
 always spoils a man, and does something more than spoil a 
 woman. 
 
 The satirist's reply to the well-known remark that " a great 
 man is not great to his valet," was " so much the worse for 
 the valet." The valet could appreciate the weaknesses, the 
 fretfulnesses, the Httlenesses, or it may be the meannesses, 
 if not greater vices, of his master's character, but could 
 
62 i:SSAY IV. 
 
 not appreciate those qualities by which he became great. 
 Now it is very possible that in seeking the society of a great 
 man you may but step into the shoes of his valet. He may 
 treat you to the littlenesses of his character, and leave you 
 in a state of utter wonderment how such a man could 
 ever have achieved greatness. As far as my own small 
 experience goes, the society of celebrated persons is any- 
 thing but desirable. If you form one of the joints of the 
 great man's tail you are tolerated. If you pretend to be 
 anything on your own account, you are snubbed or scouted. 
 Hence I don't care to seek the company of great or 
 celebrated people, but I am particularly fond of reading 
 about them. I enjoy the biographies of all sorts of distin- 
 guished persons, and like to trace their remarkable careers. 
 I know very well that great men don't create the eventb by 
 which they become great. The compass does not steer 
 the ship ; it is steered by the skill of the pilot, who avails 
 himself of the properties of the magnetic needle. I like 
 to study those properties ; as in the life of a distinguished 
 man, I like to try and discover how much he owed to the 
 circumstances of birth, education, and fortune, how much 
 to personal merit and nature's gifts, how much to industry, 
 and so on. I love to read his private letters ; to see him 
 in his home, to note his behaviour to relatives, friends, 
 and domestics ; to recognise in him our common humanity, 
 with some remarkable talent superadded, and to note how 
 far that talent has modified the humanity. But heaven 
 save me from working out all these problems by dancing 
 attendance on the great man himself! 
 
 The privacy which formerly attached to celebrated authors 
 has of late years been sadly disturbed by the practice 
 adopted by some well-known men of reading in public a 
 
BEHIND THE SCENES. 63 
 
 portion of their works. It was with considerable reluctance 
 that I consented to accompany Sophonisba to a reading 
 by Thackeray, and to another by Dickens. The conclusion 
 forced itself upon me that the one writes better than he 
 reads, and the other reads better than he dresses. But 
 the predominant feeling with the vast crowds that hurried so 
 eagerly to see these two remarkable men was not, I imagine, 
 so much to hear them read as to see their persons, to 
 become acquainted, in fact, with Mr. Dickens and Mr. 
 Thackeray, just as they are acquainted with Mr. Macready 
 or Mr. Kemble. The effect on me was a disturbing and a 
 disappointing one. I cannot fancy much, if any, enjoyment 
 from a reading by Shakspere, or Milton, or Spenser. I had 
 rather have free pastime among their works, apart from any 
 personal contact with the men themselves. Their works 
 are the better portions of themselves, the inspirations of their 
 genius deliberately committed by themselves to posterity, 
 and posterity has not been unmindful of the charge. 
 Milton says that "a good book is the precious life-blood 
 of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose, 
 to a hfe beyond life." Surely it is better to be intimate 
 with such a book than with its author. 
 
 I cannot help fancying that our great thinkers owe some 
 of their lustre to our comparative ignorance of them as 
 men, and also to the comparatively small bulk of their 
 works. They wrote for posterity with matured powers, and 
 a sense of the dignity and responsibility of authorship. They 
 kept their works seven years, and with conscientious painstaking 
 touched, and retouched, and improved them. Our modern 
 authors don't do this. A book is successful, and straight- 
 way on the strength of that success, all that the writer ever 
 did — good, bad, and indifferent — is presented to the public ; 
 
64 ESSAY IV. 
 
 new works are undertaken, and business is done on the 
 principle of making hay while the sun shines ; not because 
 the writer has something to say, and cannot help saying it, 
 but because the public is anxious to read. Heaven mend 
 both the Author and the public ! 
 
 I dare say I may be singular in my indifference for the 
 company of celebrated or distinguished people. Sophon- 
 isba says that I am. She takes every opportunity of seeing 
 her gracious Majesty, and the various other members of the 
 Royal Family, and is laudably enthusiastic about their 
 persons, and their past history, and present and future 
 prospects, especially about the young people, when they are 
 likely to marry, and whom they are going to marry, and so on. 
 To these things I am profoundly indifferent, and I dare say 
 very reprehensible ; but it is part of the same feeling which 
 keeps me from going behind the scenes, or seeking the 
 company of celebrated actors, authors, artists, &c. &c. I 
 look to you, my dear Reader, to take up the subject and 
 give me the benefit of your advice. But I warn you that if 
 you find me in the wrong I can quote Charles Lamb 
 against you. He refers to Actors who have been amusing 
 him through the two or three hours of their dramatic 
 existence, yet when the curtain falls, "they emerge sour, 
 morose persons, intolerable to their families, servants, «&c." 
 
v.— ON TACT. 
 (1875-) 
 
 'Tis like an ideal spider's line 
 
 'Twixt you and her so subtly wrought, 
 That ere you can your thoughts define, 
 
 She feels in you each rising thought. 
 Her subtle sense of mental touch 
 
 No written language can express ; 
 You feel the charm, but own the power 
 
 Has less of wisdom than finesse. 
 
 I THOUGHT it was a very high compliment when a 
 celebrated medical Professor remarked, one day, in my 
 hearing, of one of his pupils, "He has a touch like a 
 woman's !" meaning that in Hospital practice he would dress 
 a limb, or examine a wound, with that tenderness and 
 delicacy of hand which belongs peculiarly to woman. There 
 are many processes in the useful arts which require for their 
 successful performance this dehcacy of touch, and the 
 skilful manufacturer is sometimes accustomed to select the 
 candidates for employment, not by looking in their faces, but 
 by examining their hands. There are a thousand ways in 
 which we derive benefit from this superior deUcacy of hand, 
 this exaltation of the sense of touch, this physical tact, so 
 
66 ESSAY V. 
 
 to speak ; and it may be worth while to inquire whether 
 woman does not also excel in mental tact, or that nice 
 regulation of conduct and speech which enables her to main- 
 tain, and even advance, her position without giving offence ; 
 which gives pleasure and makes the recipient grateful for the 
 source of it, and often excites more gratitude in denying a 
 request than a man would under similar circumstances in 
 granting it. 
 
 Let us take a few examples : — I once formed one of the 
 complications of a knot, among the many knots, of a large 
 evening party, and found myself entangled with a heavy 
 M.P. who did all the talking, and spoke of his constituents, 
 of his election, and his election speeches with dull, 
 complacent prolixity. The ladies listened and expressed 
 their interest by short remarks and questions which acted 
 like motions of the pump-handle in keeping up the washy 
 stream. At last he began, " In my second speech to the 
 House of Commons " — when a gentleman playfully remarked, 
 " Did you make two speeches to the House of Commons ?" 
 " Oh yes," he said, and went on unreproved, while I turned 
 away to get entangled in some other knot. I heard him 
 afterwards remark : " Those are very sensible young women ; 
 but women are always more sensible than men." 
 
 Well, perhaps he was right. The same qualities which 
 enable the ladies to hsten to this ponderous proser, enable 
 them to tend the sick couch, and live through the long 
 night-watches, not only with endurance, but with the pleasure 
 which we may suppose is felt by ministering angels. I do 
 not say that it is tact that enables them to exercise these 
 higher virtues, for their tact is but one of the numerous off- 
 spring of Gentle Patience and Loving Kindness ; and it is 
 such qualities that guide the nurse's hand, prompt the words 
 
TACT. 67 
 
 of sympathy, and make the foot-fall noiseless ; but it is tact 
 which enables them to listen to that prosy, self-important 
 drawler, who would not be tolerated by men of intellect for 
 five minutes. 
 
 To take another instance : — I was once travelling by rail 
 with my beloved Sophonisba, when we fell in with a sleek, 
 well-to-do, elderly lawyer. He told us that he was a retired 
 proctor — that the compensation given by the public for 
 throwing open Doctor's Commons had enabled him to 
 retire — that he had bought the estate of an old county-family, 
 and was going to enjoy himself during the rest of his life. 
 He chuckled over the long resistance which he and his 
 fellows had been able to oppose to the legal reform of his 
 department, and said that they only yielded when the com- 
 pensation was deemed sufficiently ample. Sophy entered 
 with ready sympathy into his plans, followed with interest 
 his description of the old mansion he had purchased, and 
 congratulated him on being able to get a little time for rest 
 and thought at the close of an active life. Whereupon he 
 sighed sentimentally, rubbed his chin, and said: — '* Ah ! there 
 are many men in my profession who get to the end of their 
 lives without having the slightest idea where they are going 
 to." Upon which I said, *' Can there be any doubt as to 
 where a lawyer goes to at the end of his life ? " Our lawyer 
 gave me an uneasy look and tried to laugh it off. Sophy 
 directed to me one of those tender and eloquent looks 
 of appeal, which plainly said, " How cruel ! and how 
 unnecessary ! " 
 
 Perhaps it was : but the case illustrates what I want to 
 make out. Man often reproves self-assertion by sarcasm ; 
 woman oftener by forbearance, tact, and self-abnegation ; 
 although I fear they are often wasted on that complacent 
 
68 ESSAY V. 
 
 selfishness which receives them as a matter of course, as so 
 much incense offered to superior merit. 
 
 If we would separate tact from the higher virtues with 
 which it is associated we must come to a definition. What 
 is Tact ? Tact is a modern word, not to be found in 
 Johnson or the older lexicographers; and I cannot find 
 that it is used in the Spectator^ and the older Essayists. We 
 throw no light on the modern meaning by tracing it to 
 tactum^ the past participle of tangere, " to touch," for that 
 refers to physical touch. The Italian tatttca, from the 
 Greek rurrsiv, has the sense implied by the Latin verb 
 ponere, or statuere^ " to place in order," referring to military 
 tactics. The French word tact refers rather to the physical 
 sense of touch. Our word tact is better, though not exactly 
 expressed in French by the word finesse or '■H'art de ne pas 
 exprimer directement sa pensee, mats de la laisser aisement 
 aperfevoir — dest une enigme, dont tons les gens d^esprit 
 devinent tout d'un coup le mot" The lexicographer then 
 goes on to point out how finesse differs from delicatesse, 
 which expresses gentle, agreeable sentiments ; whereas 
 finesse is more piquante^ blames with dexterity and covers 
 its sentiments with a sort of intellectual veil. This, in 
 short, is tact. According to Richardson, tact is " skill or 
 adroitness in adapting to circumstances our words or deeds." 
 I do not think this definition quite sufficient. Tact is rather 
 the skilful and successful adaptation of our speech and 
 conduct to the small occasions of life, which are perpetually 
 cropping up. We shall perhaps gather a better idea of tact 
 by considering it in some of the varied moods and tenses in 
 which we become conscious of it. 
 
 Supposing we represent to ourselves tact as delicacy of 
 mental touch; it will, I think, be at once admitted that 
 
TACT. 69 
 
 women are far more gifted in this respect than men. Women 
 are closer observers of small things, and the small points of 
 character, than men, because they have more tact. A clever 
 woman will talk to the sick man of his ailments, to an 
 Author of his book, to a Member of Parliament of his 
 last speech, and so on. A clever man will talk of his own 
 ailments, his own speech, his own book, &c. It is one 
 among many reasons why we love the society of women, 
 that they appear to take so much interest in us. When a 
 woman desires to gain her point, tact leads her to engage 
 and interest the feelings of her auditor — man appeals to the 
 judgment, and does not so often succeed. 
 
 But are not men also distinguished for tact ? Some are 
 — certainly. For in the infinite variety of nature, or under 
 the artificial stimulus of a pedantic education, some men 
 share in woman's nature, as some women share in man's : 
 some men affect woman's tact, just as some women assume 
 man's bluntness. But tact in man does not generally sit 
 naturally on him, any more than loudness or bluntness in 
 woman. A man's tact usually partakes of servility or of 
 flattery ; a woman's sits naturally upon her, for it forms part 
 of herself. Tact in man is like a Spanish hat and feather 
 worn with a modern English costume ; it is something out 
 of place. Tact in woman is like the jewelled ring on a pretty 
 hand ; it first attracts the eye, and then the eye admires the 
 hand. 
 
 Still, however, there is a sort of tact that many men possess 
 by which, with a certain adroitness, they adapt their conduct 
 to circumstances as they arise. It has not the delicate 
 subtlety of woman's tact, which deserves to take rank with the 
 fine arts, while man's tact is more like a mechanical art. It 
 is difficult to convey an idea of the distinction to others, 
 
yo ESSAY V. 
 
 except by examples ; but we must admit that for want of 
 this ruder kind of tact, men often manage to lose their 
 friends, and to be nearly always squabbling with their 
 acquaintances. With tact, they not only retain old friends, 
 but secure new ones ; and wear so pleasant a smile, and talk so 
 good humouredly, that it is impossible to quarrel with them. 
 With such results, it is surely worth while that we of the 
 inferior sex should acquire tact, if it be possible to do so ; 
 but, like other delicate functions of the mind, the organisation 
 may in some persons be wanting, and then the acquisition 
 becomes impossible, as in the following example, which is the 
 most striking instance of want of tact that ever fell under 
 my notice. I was present at a concert given by a well-known 
 performer under the patronage of a Royal Duchess. When 
 the first part was over he went up to his royal Patroness, made 
 a profound bow, and then shouted in her ear, " Was your 
 Royal Highness able to hear it?" Thus proclaiming to the 
 whole assembly that the old lady was deaf. 
 
 I have said something, in my motto, about an imaginary 
 spider's line stretched between the brain of the tactician and 
 that of the person he is operating on, whereby he becomes 
 conscious of the rising thought, and twists it and turns it, and 
 even, if necessary, suppresses it. An amusing instance of 
 this kind occurred to me, many years ago, while talking with 
 a celebrated arctic explorer at the United Service Club. I 
 wanted to get permission to use certain documents connected 
 with his voyage, and also to obtain certain explanations on 
 what seemed to me to be doubtful scientific data. I readily 
 got the first, but as to the explanations, I could not even put 
 my questions. He seemed to see, as it were by instinct, that 
 objections were coming, and parried them even before they 
 could clothe themselves in words. After about a quarter of 
 
TACT. 7 1 
 
 an hour of this kind of fencing, he rose, shook hands with me 
 and said, " I wish we had you among us, we should get on 
 much better." I have no doubt this well-worn compliment 
 would have delighted some people; but it had no effect on 
 me, for I went away feeling that I had been particularly 
 humbugged. 
 
 The fact is, I have no tact, and the only occasion on which 
 I ever remember to have exercised it caused me to mingle 
 it largely with flattery. It was while lodging au quatrieme 
 at a house in Paris, when in running up stairs one day, I 
 went a story too high, and bounded into the cinquieme. 
 There I found myself in the midst of a number of damsels 
 seated round a large table at needle-work. — Breathless and 
 holding my side, I exclaimed, '■''Ah! fat monte Jusqu'aux 
 Anges ./" You should have seen their pretty smiHng faces, 
 and heard their " Ah ! Monsieur I'' 
 
 If this, according to the definition, was skill or adroitness 
 in adapting words to the situation, and those words amounted 
 to pure flattery, then tact, in this instance, is not a commend- 
 able thing, because flattery consists in saying what is not true 
 or exaggerating what is true. But may not tact be perfectly 
 consistent with truth, and even assist its development ? May 
 it not be a refined kind of synovial fluid, that makes the 
 joints of the social mechanism move more freely, serving to 
 bring out the talents of those we converse with, and sending 
 them away satisfied with themselves and with us. One 
 reason why a large dinner party, or an evening party, is so 
 often a dull affair, is the want of skill in conversation. The 
 guests may be clever, cultured, intellectual people ; but from 
 the want of tact in the host or hostess, or in the principal 
 speakers, we get no good conversation, but only some 
 indifferent music, and little groups of people talking together 
 
72 ESSAY V. 
 
 in what is meant for an undertone. This makes a large party 
 an incongruity. If the people are to be thus divided and 
 subdivided, why have so many ? Why not have only enough 
 to make conversation easy for all to feel an interest in it, so 
 that the speaker may be heard by all, and no one feel the 
 necessity for earwigging his neighbour ? I greatly fear that 
 in these days, when books are being multiplied to such a 
 fearful extent, and fiction occupies the mind of so large a 
 portion of our reading public, the art of conversation is 
 irrecoverably lost. To converse well in society requires the 
 practice of many virtues, of which Self-denial leads the van, 
 and Tact brings up the rear. Both are lamentably absent 
 when we see some people think more of what they themselves 
 say, and how they say it, and what effect it produces, than 
 whether it is to the purpose, or whether it assists the 
 discussion, or serves to point what the last speaker said, and 
 pave the way for the next. And not only the speakers, but 
 the listeners show great want of tact in a cold, passive 
 indifference to the subject on hand. A good listener shows 
 tact in the approving smile, the intelligent eyes and the pose 
 of the head, which seems to say, " I like what you are 
 saying — pray go on." Want of tact is shown in the restless 
 manner of one who wants to speak ; his bearing indicates as 
 plainly as words, " I know all that — only just wind up and 
 listen to what / have to say ! " Tact, on the contrary, 
 would make the speaker forget himself in the desire to afford 
 pleasure to the company. The combined arts of listening 
 well and replying well are among the best incentives to 
 conversation, and require a cultivated tact. Tact shows a man 
 when not to speak, or, when speaking, when to leave off. A 
 well-educated man has the tact to say much in few words ; a 
 fool, with tact, has the sense to hold his tongue; but without 
 
TACT. 73 
 
 tact he will talk much and say little ; like a nearly empty 
 bottle, he will make a good deal of noise in pouring it. 
 
 Tact is useful both in bestowing and in receiving praise. 
 Many a man who appears modestly to decline praise only 
 desires a larger measure of it. A clever woman sees this at a 
 glance, and is able skilfully to lay bare the egotistic vanity of 
 the would-be modest man. Every one has heard the story 
 of the Vicar of a small rural parish, who always copied his 
 sermons, and, with a pompous delivery, prided himself on his 
 reading. One morning, after preaching a sermon by Isaac 
 Barrow, he met the great lady of the parish coming out of 
 church. She returned his bow by thanking him for the 
 excellent sermon. " The only merit I can claim, Madam, is 
 in the delivery of it." " Ah ! " replied she, " that is the only 
 part about it that I didn't like ! " 
 
 Tact sometimes uses the voice of praise to show off defects 
 in others that we should not venture to point out in a direct 
 manner. A man parades his bad French, and a really good 
 French scholar quietly remarks, "Our friend is such a perfect 
 master of French that I have no doubt he can tell us so 
 and so," putting some question which shows off the poor 
 fellow's ignorance. One man sings or plays out of tune, and 
 some one remarks what a correct ear he has. These are 
 cases where tact does not play about a lie, but actually romps 
 with it The poet had such a case in view, and it is a 
 common one, when he wrote, 
 
 ** Praise undeserved is censure in disguise ;" 
 or, as a terse French writer has it, " To praise princes for 
 virtues that they have not, is to abuse them to their faces 
 with impunity." 
 
 These, however, are somewhat rude and masculine 
 methods of conveying reproof, scarcely falling under so 
 
74 ESSAY V. 
 
 delicate a process as is implied in the exercise of tact. A 
 better example occurs to me in the mode in which a hostess 
 reproved one of her guests, a young prig, who addressed 
 older and better men by their surnames, such as, "I say, 
 Dickens," or, "Thackeray will tell you so and so." He left 
 early, with an apology for doing so (thinking, of course, he 
 would be greatly missed), on the plea that he had to attend a 
 soiree given by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The hostess 
 quietly remarked, "Should his Grace condescend to notice 
 you, perhaps it will not be necessary for you to address him 
 as ' Howley.' " 
 
 I remember a similar case in which a bumptious chap was 
 dining with one of the City companies, where Macready was 
 l^resent and Dickens made a speech. On going away this 
 young fellow passed through the coffee-room, and seeing 
 the two great men standing by the fire talking, slackened 
 his pace and said, " Good night, Dickens. Good night,, 
 Macready." Macready made a stiff bow and replied, "Good 
 night — Sir." Dickens also made his bow with, "Good 
 night. Mister " (and then, in an undertone, "What do ye 
 call him ?") I need not point out which of the two was the 
 more gentlemanly reproof. 
 
 Some years ago there were many anecdotes afloat illus- 
 trative of the vanity of a well-known literary barrister. A 
 brother barrister asked him whether he could that evening 
 look out some literary references which he had promised 
 him. " No, I can't this evening, because I'm going to dine 
 with the Lord Chancellor." The other replied, with ready 
 tact, "Then I shall meet you there." He remarked a slight 
 ripple of embarrassment pass over the other's face, but said 
 nothing further. An hour or so after, the other sought him 
 out and said, hesitatingly, "Oh, I find — ah — I am not to dine 
 
TACT. 75 
 
 with the Lord Chancellor to-day." "Nor I, either," was the 
 reply. 
 
 A man of tact hardly ever talks about his wife, or a 
 woman of tact about her children, or an author about the 
 children of his brain; but it requires something more than 
 tact not to talk about ourselves. The great pleasure we find 
 in doing so ought to make us suspect that the pleasure is 
 not reciprocated by the company, but strictly limited to our- 
 selves. It was one of Racine's maxims not to appear clever 
 to others, but to make others feel that you think them so. 
 Writing to his son, he says, " Do not suppose that I am 
 sought after by the great for the sake of my dramas. I never 
 allude to them when with men of the world, but I amuse 
 them about matters they like best to hear. My talent with 
 them consists not in making them feel that I have any, but 
 in showing them that they have." 
 
 Praise is a skilful, delicate, latent kind of flattery which 
 excites very different emotions in the one who bestows it 
 and in the other who receives it. To the latter it is a just 
 acknowledgment of merit, to the former a sense of dis- 
 crimination and judgment ; in short, a subtle tact by which 
 he praises himself. For, as La Rochefoucauld says, it is 
 often by the over-estimate of ourselves that we praise the 
 good qualities of others. We sometimes wish to draw down 
 praise upon ourselves when we are apparently only praising 
 another. In fact, we are so beset with illusions, and yield 
 so readily to the voice of flattery, that however much we are 
 on our guard in listening to another, we always fancy he is 
 more sincere to us than to others ; that is, we exalt our own 
 merit — we think ourselves so very clever, so extra sharp, that 
 although that man may deceive others, he is not quite equal 
 to the herculean task of deceiving us. 
 
 F 2 
 
76 ESSAY V. 
 
 Tact is not a thing for every day, but only for occasional 
 use, like our dress coats and enamel boots. The constant 
 use of tact is the mark of a small mind. To be always on 
 one's guard implies a permanent residence in the enemy's 
 country, where sentinels are always on the watch to guard 
 against a surprise .It marks a suspicion of one's friends and 
 acquaintances, instead of that ready candour which implies 
 sincerity in oneself, and takes for granted the presence of 
 it in others. 
 
 Well-regulated tact is a great sleeper and only wakes up 
 when its services are wanted, and the less often this happens 
 the greater the confidence it inspires in others. If we are 
 always making use of tact, we incur the danger of using it to 
 conceal one thing, while we lay bare something else that 
 it is of more importance to conceal. 
 
 Caesar occasionally displayed great tact, so that in the 
 moment of accident he could instantly provide a remedy, 
 and perhaps be the better for the accident. A case of this 
 kind is related of William the Conqueror, who when he 
 landed in England stumbled and fell. This was a bad 
 omen, but he converted it into a good one by exclaiming, 
 " Thus, O Earth, do I embrace thee !" 
 
 Hope, in his Anastatius, makes his hero beat all the 
 courtiers at the court of the Pasha in throwing the spear. 
 The Pasha then encountered him, when Anastatius played 
 beneath his skill, so as to let the Pasha win. But for this 
 tact he would have been ruined. 
 
 Then again the contest of tact with tact may be dangerous 
 to our peace of mind, for it may lead us to be angry with 
 those on whom we have been practising our tact, when we 
 find that they have more tact than ourselves. 
 
 Tact is useful in making us observe the laws of propor- 
 
TACT. 77 
 
 tion between what we design and what we are able to 
 execute. In designing an undertaking, the imagination is 
 apt to run away with the understanding, so that we some- 
 times announce a pompous scheme, which we can never 
 reahse. Our scheme is a mountain, our reaUsation of it a 
 ridiculous little mouse. A nice sense of proportion which 
 tact, or a due sense of the fitness and harmony of things, 
 supplies, makes the execution rather exceed the design. 
 We announce our scheme in modest terms, and gain just 
 applause when the execution surpasses expectation. It is 
 much better to be subject to the remark, " I didn't think 
 that fellow had it in him !" than to be reminded of failure 
 by the abominable, " I told you so ! I knew it would fail !" 
 In such a case as this, tact is useful in assisting great 
 talents. 
 
 I was recently amused by an example of want of tact or 
 delicate mental touch in small matters, in a place where one 
 would suppose it would be least expected. One Sunday, I 
 went to the Scotch Church in Regent-square. There was 
 a large and devout congregation, and the singing was, of 
 course, without the aid of instrumental music This I was 
 prepared for, but I was not prepared for the singing of a 
 psalm in which instrumental music is strictly enjoined. The 
 psalm referred to was the 98th, in which we are commanded 
 to sing "with harp, with harp" twice over, "with trumpets, 
 cornets, gladly sound, &c." Now, I should be very sorry to 
 stand up before a Scotch congregation, and recommend 
 the introduction of an organ. I should expect to be hooted 
 down with the old cry, " Gang awa' wi' your old box of 
 whistlepipes !" I leave our Scotch friends to explain this 
 incongruity. 
 
 Another thing surprised me in this same Church. The 
 
78 ESSAY V. 
 
 preacher boldly denounced clanship as unchristian, and not 
 only clanship, but all narrow, sectarian, party feeling. He 
 showed us by means of close argument and fervid eloquence 
 that it is our interest and our duty to strive to attain unto 
 the Divine perfection of the Great Architect of the Universe, 
 who " maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
 and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." It was a 
 noble discourse on cosmopolitanism, tempered by Chris- 
 tianity. But on such a subject, so broadly treated, there 
 was no room for so poor and mean a creature as tact. On 
 the contrary, the preacher flung it aside with contempt, 
 and dared to pull down clanship in the presence of Scotch- 
 men, sectarianism in the presence of sectarians, partisanship 
 in the presence of Churchmen, and to erect on their ruins 
 the broad Church of the New Testament, with our Lord 
 as its Head. 
 
 I trust I shall be excused for bringing these details into an 
 Essay on a light social subject. It is opposed to my habit 
 to do so, for as I do not pretend to be a wiser man than 
 Solomon, I think there is a time for all things. But the 
 evident scorn of tact in that grand sermon struck me as 
 something from which we might all draw a lesson. Who has 
 not listened to preachers whose tact has led them to tickle 
 the ears of their hearers and make them satisfied that they 
 are not as other men are, instead of making them, or some 
 of them, " feel very uncomfortable in their seats ?" 
 
 And this brings me to the end of my essay. I leave you 
 to discuss how far it is desirable to cultivate tact. You will 
 no doubt agree that if tact can be exercised without any 
 sacrifice of truth or self-respect, it may be occasionally 
 admitted as a useful auxiliary in the regulation of our conduct 
 towards others. But if by the exercise of tact we are in 
 
TACT. 79 
 
 danger of becoming insincere, then a blunt sincerity is much 
 to be preferred, even at the risk of sometimes giving offence. 
 All this is obvious, but it is not easy to receive so well- 
 defined a statement of the case, since all these delicate 
 functions of a refined and educated mind, of which tact is one, 
 are so mixed up and entangled with each other, and with 
 other and higher functions, that it is not always easy to 
 separate pure tact from correct taste, to say nothing of 
 judgment and common sense. 
 
VL— INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 The faults that we in others find, 
 The vain conceits, the love of pelf, 
 
 The incongruities of mind. 
 
 May but reflect one's own dear self. 
 
 Incongruity — Incongruus. — Unsuitableness of one thing to- 
 another, Inconsistency, Inconsequence, Absurdity, Impro- 
 priety, Disagreement of parts, want of '^yvcim.t.\xy.— Johnson'' s 
 Dictionary. 
 
 Any one who passed along the south side of Holborn on 
 a working-day, from the commencement of the century to 
 the year 1858, might have noticed the double-fronted 
 window of a once celebrated firm who called themselves 
 " philosophical instrument makers," thereby illustrating the 
 sarcasm of Hegel, that England is a country where the 
 thermometer and the barometer are called "philosophical 
 instruments." During the long period above referred to, 
 the passer-by might also have noticed behind one of the 
 counters a short, withered-looking man with large eyes peer- 
 ing over round spectacles, wearing a white apron which 
 covered his body, and a black velvet cap which concealed a 
 large part of his head. I never saw him without the apron, 
 so that I cannot tell how he otherwise clothed his person; 
 
INCONGRUITIES. 8 1 
 
 nor can I tell whether he was bald or hairy, for I never saw 
 his head out of the velvet. I knew him during forty years, 
 and he never seemed to have changed, except that the stoop 
 — which he probably acquired in attending, with old- 
 fashioned politeness, to the customers, and leaning forward 
 to clean and adjust apparatus — was a little more pronounced. 
 He used to talk freely with me, an old customer, and would 
 often affect the jocular. 
 
 Finding him one day towards the end of summer rather 
 out of sorts, I tried to comfort him, winding up with, " Well, 
 never mind; you will soon be having your holiday, and the 
 seaside will set you to-rights." " Holiday !" he mournfully 
 exclaimed, " I've not had a holiday for twenty years ! If I 
 tell him^^ pointing mysteriously over his shoulder to the den 
 of the surviving partner, " If I tell him I want to go to the 
 Isle of Wight, he says, 'What do you want to go there for? 
 Just fancy you're there, or that you've been there, and it will 
 do you quite as much good, and you'll save all the money. 
 Ah," sighed the poor Httle man, " I've been his slave for 
 nearly fifty years, and am no better off than when I began." 
 Poor Httle fellow ! his had been truly 
 
 " a tedious art. 
 Working in the quarry of a stony heart." 
 
 At length the surviving partner died, and still the old man 
 remained behind the counter, stooping as before and polish- 
 ing his instruments. He was keeping the business together 
 for the benefit of the heirs. I dropped in upon him one 
 day for old acquaintance sake, when he looked up in my 
 face and shouted out, " I've got something the matter with 
 my ears. What's a good thing for deafness ?" " Get young 
 again," I replied. " Eh ?" said he, holding the hollow of his 
 
82 ESSAY VI. 
 
 hand up to his ear. "Get young again," I bawled out. 
 *' Oh, ah ! That's the time o' day," he replied. 
 
 " That's the time o' day," I repeated to myself, on resum- 
 ing my walk. What does he mean by that ? I was puzzling 
 over this incongruous answer, when I remembered that as a 
 boy among other London boys, when ice was to be got at, 
 either on a pond or on the pavement, we used to cut out 
 two slides, and went up one and down the other as rapidly 
 as we could, shouting out every now and then, " Keep the 
 pot a-boiling, that's the time o' day !" I suppose that my 
 little instrument-maker made use of this familiar expression 
 which had been in vogue in his young days as well as in 
 mine ; but how it got into ase, and after flourishing for a 
 time was displaced by some other cry, I could not account 
 for. At one time it was the correct thing to enquire, " Does 
 your mother know you're out ?" This was superseded by 
 the equally intelligible question, "How are you off for 
 soap ?" Another question was, " Who's your hatter ?" And 
 yet another, all within my recollection, "Has your mother 
 sold her mangle .?" 
 
 I suppose there was some sense of humour, real or 
 affected, at the bottom of all these incongruities, for they 
 were uttered with a twinkling eye and a laughing face. 
 Probably everybody who asked any one of these questions 
 was as ignorant of its meaning as I was of its origin, or of 
 the cause of its success and final decay. Each cry might 
 have originated in some leading expression in a popular farce 
 or play, which caught the ear of the gallery and so 
 descended into the streets, and was in vogue so long as the 
 piece continued to run, and was superseded by another cry 
 derived from some other favourite piece. We know that the 
 poet Thomson was twitted by his friends with a witticism 
 
INCONGRUITIES. 83 
 
 that originated in the gallery, in parody of the remarkable 
 heroic line in his tragedy, 
 
 " Oh ! Sophonisba, Sophonisba, Oh !" 
 
 " Oh ! Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, Oh !" 
 
 So also our poets have put into the mouths of the people 
 proverbs or pithy sayings, while most of those who utter them 
 every day would be unable to trace them to their respective 
 sources. Even if we ask people of culture for a reference to 
 so common a saying as 
 
 " Where ignorance is bliss 
 'Tis folly to be wise," 
 
 probably not one in ten would be able to give it. Even the 
 compilers of books of Quotations are sometimes at fault. It 
 was long unknown who was the author of the well known 
 lines, 
 
 " When late I attempted your pity to move, 
 Why seem'd you so deaf to my prayers ? 
 Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, 
 But — Why did you kick me down stairs?" 
 
 until at length they were found in a Farce by Isaac 
 Bickerstaff, entitled, "'Tis well 'tis no worse." So also the 
 very familiar saying, 
 
 " One cannot eat one's cake and have it too," 
 
 was discovered in a Burletta, entitled, "Thomas and Sally," 
 by the same author. It forms part of a couplet, thus — 
 
 " But what one wishes, wishes will not do : 
 One cannot eat one's cake and have it too." 
 
 The sentimental motto, 
 
 " Though lost to sight, to memory dear," 
 
 is still an orphan, its parentage having been lost. 
 
84 ESSAY VI. 
 
 It was before remarked that the sense of humour must 
 have been in some way gratified when a London boy put the 
 question, for example, to a grave-looking pedestrian, " How 
 are you off for soap ?" and noticed his embarrassed surprise. 
 It appears from the very nature of humour distinguished from 
 wit, that an incongruity must be involved in it; although the 
 actor may be innocent both of the humour and of the 
 incongruity. Such was the case with the schoolboy who was 
 asked why they cut off the head of John the Baptist? 
 " Because he wanted to dance with the daughter of 
 Herodotus." The humour here is exquisite, and not the 
 less so because it is founded on the dense ignorance of the 
 speaker. 
 
 But if humour always connotes incongruity, the converse 
 of this is not necessarily true. Many things are incongruous 
 which are not humorous. Some good people would have been 
 shocked on entering the boudoir of Mademoiselle Quinault 
 to see the apparent incongruity of the portraits of Bourdaloue, 
 the famous preacher, and of Moli^re, side by side in the 
 same frame, with the inscription : — 
 
 Les deux plus grands Predicaieurs du dernier Steele. 
 
 There is no humour in this anecdote, and the only 
 incongruity, one would think, lies in the fact that good people 
 are to be found objecting to so harmless an example of hero- 
 worship. 
 
 When the pedagogue in Fielding's novel remarked, "That's 
 a non sequitur" and Partridge replied, " You're another !" 
 we have an example of incongruity amounting to humour. 
 Partridge did not choose to appear ignorant, but preferred to 
 treat his antagonist with contempt. He knew that he could 
 hold his own in a fair stand-up argument; but when the 
 
INCONGRUITIES. 85 
 
 pedagogue flung bits of Latin at him, he felt that he was 
 using an unfair weapon, for by the laws of chivalry the 
 combatants should be armed alike. 
 
 Then there is the case of the man who slept at an inn, and 
 enquired of the waiter next morning, " What is the name of 
 this place ? " " Stony Stratford, sir ! " " Ah ! " sighed the 
 man, musing ; " no wonder you call it Stony Stratford; I was 
 never so troubled with fleas in all my life." Then there is 
 the reply to the question, " Do you speak German?" " No, 
 but my brother plays the German flute." 
 
 It is difficult to account for these incongruities, except 
 by referring to the habit of small minds to trace resem- 
 blances where common sense would suggest only differences. 
 Hence the innumerable conundrums, puns, and other word- 
 quibbles consisting of resemblances between words and 
 things, however absurd; not those subtle resemblances 
 between ideas essentially different, which constitute wit. 
 When the black woman went to see her neighbour's twins, 
 she remarked to the proud father, "Ah ! massa, them be 
 berry much alike, pertikler Pompey !" A still more out- 
 rageous case of resemblance is that of the German village 
 schoolmaster who was too poor to appear at the half-yearly 
 gathering of the Director in a black waistcoat, as etiquette 
 required; and on being reproved said, '•''Gott sieht das Herz 
 an, und Er sieht das mein Herz istja schwarz." (" God looks 
 at the heart, and He sees that mine is indeed black.") That 
 is, he had it in his heart or inclination to wear a black 
 waistcoat, but by his reply he made it appear that his heart 
 was of the same tint as the vest he was too poor to provide. 
 
 Acute minds, on the contrary, shrink from verbal resem- 
 blances, even when the occasion seems to require them ; as 
 in the case of the Cardinal de Polignac when present at an 
 
86 ESSAY VI. 
 
 evening party where a game, then in vogue, named resem- 
 blances^ was being played. A beautiful and witty Duchess 
 asked the Cardinal, " What resemblance do you find between 
 me and my watch ?" " Your Grace's watch," returned the 
 Cardinal, "teaches us to count the hours; your Grace teaches 
 us to forget them !" 
 
 The subtle resemblances between ideas apparently un- 
 related which constitutes wit, justifies its title by the feeling 
 of intellectual surprise that it occasions; whereas humour 
 rather excites laughter from the sense of unexpected incon- 
 gruity. We do not laugh at the reply of an officer who 
 annoyed Louis the Fourteenth at his levees by persistent 
 solicitation, when the King one day exclaimed, "That man 
 is the most troublesome officer in my whole army." "Your 
 Majesty's enemies have said the same thing more than once 1" 
 was the unexpected reply. 
 
 There are some word quibbles which almost rise to the 
 dignity of wit, their unexpected smartness exciting not 
 laughter but surprise. Many of Tom Hood's puns are of 
 this nature, as in the fate of the drunkard, 
 
 " The rock he split upon was quartz." 
 
 So, also, is the anecdote related by Sydney Smith. A lady 
 complained to a gentleman that her boy always would read 
 partridges^ instead of patriarchs. "Ah, that's a serious 
 matter," was the reply ; " It's making game of the patri- 
 archs !" There is also a witticism of this kind attributed to 
 Milton. Prynne was in the habit of quoting his authorities 
 by hundreds in the margins of his books, in order to cor- 
 roborate what he said in the text. Milton remarked that 
 Prynne always had his wits beside him in the margin, to be 
 beside his wits in the text. 
 
INCONGRUITIES. 87 
 
 As there are incongruities without humour, so there are 
 subtle resemblances without wit. There are many examples 
 of the latter in science, which could only have been traced 
 by the prolonged experimental researches and sagacious 
 induction of men of genius. Such, for example, are the 
 elementary bodies that are grouped into one family under 
 the name of halogens, or "salt producers." Physically they 
 are as unhke as possible: one is solid, one liquid, one 
 gaseous, one doubtful; but their chemical relations or 
 resemblances are all but identical. 
 
 The retention of old costumes in particular cases may 
 appear incongruous to some, as in the case of our judges, 
 and the habilaments required at court. A friend of mine 
 who received the honour of knighthood for scientific services 
 hired a court dress for the occasion, and whispered to his 
 introducer, who was also dressed in the ruffles, shoe- 
 buckles, &c., of Queen Anne's reign, " If I had kriown I 
 was going to make such a Tomfool of myself, I think I should 
 have declined the honour." ' His friend replied, " If you look 
 about you, you will see you are not the only Tomfool here." 
 
 There are incongruities in men's daily habits. A Httle 
 man chooses a large wife, the fair affects the dark, and the 
 dark the fair ; and I suppose it was always so, for among the 
 Grafiti, or wall inscriptions at Herculaneum was found the 
 following : — 
 
 Candida jne docuit odisse nigras puellas, 
 from which we may suppose that Candida the Fair taught 
 the writer, a Roman youth with a dark complexion, to avoid 
 Nigra the Brunette. Even men's names involve incongruities, 
 as in the old song : — 
 
 " Mr. Lamb is as bold as a lion, 
 Mr. Lion is tame as a lamb." 
 
88 ESSAY VI. 
 
 People, especially young people, fall into' incongruities when 
 they imitate the defects of their betters. In my youth it was 
 thought correct to wear turn-down shirt collars, to assume a 
 gloomy, corsair air, and to drink gin-and-water, as being the 
 nearest approach to the genius of Lord Byron that we were 
 capable of. I suppose that fashionable novels are so eagerly 
 read because they admit the crowd into the sacred recesses 
 of Belgravia, and cause them to adopt manners which sit so 
 awkwardly on imitators, and so gracefully on those who are 
 to the manner born. 
 
 Montaigne has an Essay on the Inconstancy or Incon- 
 gruity of our actions, and he gives, as usual, a large number 
 of instances, among which he says : — " Qui croiroit que ce 
 feust Neron, cette vraye image de cruaute, comme on luy 
 presenta k signer, suivant le style, la sentence d'un criminel 
 condamn^, qui eust respondu, 'Pleust a Dieu que ie n'eusse 
 iamais sceu escrire !'* tant le coeur luy serrait de condamner 
 un homme k mort !" And he goes on to say that History is 
 full of such inconsistencies, and that every man is able to 
 produce so many to himself or out of his own practice or 
 observation, and we are so naturally unstable in manners and 
 opinions, that he has often thought the best authors to be a 
 little out in so obstinately endeavouring to make of us any 
 solid and constant contexture. 
 
 In the following passage, in which he endeavours in some 
 way to account for our incongruities. Cotton's translation is 
 followed, for this succeeds to some extent in catching the 
 quaint spirit of the original : — 
 
 " These subtle variations and contradictions, so manifest 
 in us, have given some occasion to believe that man has two 
 
 * Vellem nescire litteras — Setiec. de Clementia, 1. 2, c. i. 
 
INCONGRUITIES. 89 
 
 'souls; others, two distinct powers, that always accompany 
 and encline us, the one towards good, and the other towards 
 ill, according to their own natures and propensions ; so 
 sudden a variety of inclination not being to be imagined 
 to flow from one and the same fountain. For my part 
 I must ingenuously declare that the puff of every accident not 
 only carries me along with it, according to its own proclivity, 
 but that moreover I discompose and trouble myself, by 
 the instability of my own posture ; and whoever will look 
 •narrowly into his own bosom will hardly find himself twice 
 in the same condition. I give my soul sometimes one faith 
 and sometimes another, according to the side I turn her to. 
 If I speak variously of myself, it is because I consider 
 myself variously. All contrarieties are there to be found, in 
 'One corner or another, or after one manner or another; 
 bashful, insolent, frugal, luxurious, prating, silent, laborious, 
 •delicate, ingenious, heavy, melancholick, pleasant, lying, true, 
 knowing, ignorant, liberal, covetous, and prodigal. I find all 
 this in myself more or less, according as I turn myself about; 
 and whoever will sift himself to the bottom will find in him- 
 self, even by his own judgment, this volubility and discord- 
 ance. In a word, I have nothing to say of myself entirely, 
 simply and solidly, without mixture and confusion. Dis- 
 tinguo, is the most universal member of my logick. Tho' 
 I always intend to speak well of good things, and rather 
 to interpret such things as may fall out, in the best sence 
 than otherwise, yet such is the strangeness of our condition, 
 that we are sometimes pusht on to do well even by vice 
 itself, if well-doing were not judged by the intention only. 
 •One gallant action therefore ought not to conclude a man 
 valiant; if a man was brave indeed, he would be always so, 
 and upon all occasions. If it were a habit of vertue and not 
 
 G 
 
90 ESSAY VI 
 
 a sally, it would render a man equally resolute. In all 
 accidents, the same alone as in company ; the same in Hsts 
 as in a battel ; for, let them say what they will, there is not 
 one valour for the pavement and another for the field. He 
 would bear a sickness in his bed as bravely as a wound in 
 the field, and no more fear death in his own house than at 
 an assault. We should not then see the same man charge 
 into a breach with a brave assurance and afterwards torment 
 himself, and pule like a woman for the loss of a tryal at law 
 or the death of a child. When being a detected coward to 
 infamy, he is constant in the necessities of poverty and want; 
 when he starts at the sight of a barber's razor and rushes 
 fearless into the swords of the enemy, the action is com- 
 mendable, not the man." 
 
 There is a good deal to the same effect, for which we 
 refer to chapter Iviii. in Cotton, Livre Second^ chapter i., in the 
 French edition. But let us now conclude these grave utter- 
 ances by one more incongruity. Many years ago the mem- 
 bers of a club of anglers proposed to themselves to spend a 
 day in fishing along a certain stream, and to wind up with 
 a dinner at an inn in a small town. Accordingly the secre- 
 tary wrote to the landlord, requesting him to prepare a 
 dinner consisting of the following items. Viz. — then came 
 the Hst. The landlord understood everything except the 
 Viz. ; and in going about to give his orders for the dinner 
 he sought information of the fishmonger, who thought it was 
 some kind of fish, but hadn't got any; the poulterer was sure 
 it was some kind of bird, and so on. The man then held 
 consultation with his wife, and she remarking that among 
 other delicacies a goose was ordered and not a giblet pie, 
 thought it likely that this was what was meant by the Viz., 
 and made one accordingly. On the appointed day the 
 
INCONGRUITIES. 9 1 
 
 guests arrived and enjoyed their dinner, including the pie, 
 which they were somewhat surprised to see, as it had not 
 been ordered. After dinner the landlord entered, and hoped 
 the dinner had given satisfaction ; was very sorry he had not 
 been able to get any Viz., but hoped the giblet pie would do 
 instead. The guests laughed heartily, and assured the host 
 that they found the Viz. very good, as indeed was the whole 
 entertainment. The gratified landlord went to his wife and 
 said, " Well, you were right, after all. Viz. is only another 
 word for giblet pie 1" 
 
 G 2 
 
VII.— ON FAILURE. 
 
 Why do men fail ? they're not the sport of fate, 
 But to their own capacities are blind, 
 Or lack the training, or they lag behind, 
 
 Seize not on opportunity, but wait. 
 
 There is nothing more depressing than the sense of 
 failure. It puts one's whole being into a state of unstable 
 equilibrium. It disturbs sleep and digestion. It produces 
 a general sensitive uneasiness. It makes a man a coward, 
 for he reads his failure in the look of everyone he meets, and 
 he turns everything that is said into a personal taunt. He 
 shuns his friends and scarcely dares to look his own cat fairly 
 in the face. Her purring is a triumph over his misfortune. 
 All cheerfulness, to say nothing of mirth, is distasteful to 
 him. He goes about brooding over dark thoughts with a 
 film of gloom over his eyes which makes even sunshine and 
 blue skies appear as in a fog. He traces and retraces all the 
 steps of that career which led to the dread abyss of failure. 
 He thinks that if he had varied this, or changed that, how 
 different might have been the result. The reasoning which 
 proved him to have failed he knows as well as his ABC. 
 He catches, as if by inspiration, every point in the argument 
 against himself, and feels how hopeless it is (supposing him 
 
ON FAILURE. 93 
 
 to be an honest man) to attempt to reply. " No," he will say 
 to himself, if not to others, " I was wrong. I could give a 
 number of arguments to prove myself right, but it is better 
 to suifer than be dishonest." The world would have been 
 spared a great deal of trouble if everyone who had failed 
 had reasoned in this way. But pride, or rather her illegitimate 
 sister, vanity, who lives only in the smiles of others, will not 
 allow him to have failed. He still maintains the wrong ; 
 fights, argues, forms a party and carries on an unequal war 
 in the cause of error. He tries to prove that his opponent 
 is wrong, picks holes here and there, and is most ingenious 
 in turning small tables on his antagonist. But, my friend, it 
 will not do, you know you are wrong, and in time everybody 
 else will know it too. It were shorter and wiser to knock 
 under at once and say you are in the wrong. It would be 
 much better for your own mental culture, if instead of 
 contesting the matter and trying to deceive yourself and 
 others, you were to inquire diligently into the causes of your 
 failure, and the sources of consolation still left open to you. 
 These last would be much more accessible if you would only 
 picture to yourself that failure does not necessarily imply 
 disgrace, and that frankly to acknowledge failure is as 
 honourable to you as to your opponent. It disarms enemies 
 and secures friends, who would become enemies, if they, at 
 length, found, as they assuredly would, that you had been 
 humbugging them. ^ 
 
 Now as to the causes of failure — you know them as well 
 as anyone. But without reference to your particular case, 
 let us seek for a general solution of our subject. 
 
 Why do men fail? Some fail in intellectual efforts — others 
 in commercial — business — or professional efforts — others 
 again in physical or social efforts. 
 
94' ESSAY VII. 
 
 Now it generally happens that men fail from want of 
 capacity, or from an equally disastrous defect, want of training. 
 I put these two together, because a man with considerable 
 mental power may fail for want of that skill which can only 
 be acquired by diligent study or training ; while, on the other 
 hand, an industrious man with very limited capacity may, 
 under a proper system of education or training, not only 
 become successful in the practice of his profession, but even 
 carry off some off its honours. 
 
 I believe that most people come into the world with 
 faculties better adapted to one pursuit or calling than any 
 other. But being all ground up in the same sort of edu- 
 cational mill, the unbolted meal is made up into intellectual 
 dough which it is thought can be baked into law loaves, or 
 physic loaves, or science loaves, just according to the fancy 
 or desires of the baker. If it were possible so to direct 
 education as to introduce a kind of bolting process, by which 
 minds of the one order could be separated from minds of a 
 different order, and each be then further subjected to a 
 process best adapted to further growth and development, 
 failures would be less frequent. The rank and file of every 
 profession is made up of men in no way specially qualified 
 by nature to be lawyers, or doctors, or chemists. The 
 leaders in each profession are so qualified, and they have 
 improved their natural gifts by special and laborious 
 training. 
 
 Every one must be aware of rare occasions in the course 
 of his life when he did the thing in hand so admirably as to 
 surprise himself much more than his companions. When I 
 was a boy, an opportunity occurred to me a few times of 
 joining in a game of cricket. I suppose I never played more 
 than a dozen times in my life, but on one occasion when I 
 
ON FAILURE. 95 
 
 was in (it was modest single wicket) I handled the bat so 
 skilfully that my companions could not get me out, and at 
 length both sides resigned the game in despair. The next 
 evening on presenting myself to the party they unanimously 
 agreed not to admit me because I played too well. I had 
 never played so well before, and I know how ridiculously ill 
 my play has been since. I have played chess with a man 
 who could have given me a knight, and won half a dozen 
 games in succession. But I could never do it again. I have 
 played backgammon with such success that the very best 
 throws came to me, and apparently the very worst to my 
 opponent. Now in all these isolated cases of skill or luck, 
 the object of training is to make you do always well, or even 
 excellently, that which you did so admirably on one occasion 
 only. The immense amount of drilling required to make a 
 good dancer, a good fiddler, or even a good acrobat ought 
 to be a lesson to us humbler mortals who, fortunately for our- 
 selves, are not called upon to show off in pubHc. Even in a 
 game like backgammon or whist, in which the element of 
 chance is so largely mingled, training will accomplish more 
 than luck. My old French master was an adept in tric-trac. 
 I have played with him and watched his play. He seemed 
 to win of everybody — but his success was based not upon his 
 throws (for, as he said, in these he was only equal to his 
 antagonist), but upon caution, foresight, and a refined system 
 of calculation based upon training. 
 
 Of course there are cases in which no amount of training 
 will make up for natural incapacity. One of the third 
 Napoleon's Ministers wrote a Five Act Comedy in verse, 
 which was damned. Next day, when one of his colleagues 
 condoled with him, he remarked apologetically, " It is not 
 so easy to write a Five Act Comedy in verse." " But," 
 
g6 ESSAY VII. 
 
 responded the other, "it is perfectly easy not to write a Five 
 Act Comedy in verse." 
 
 A self-educated man of undoubted talent, or even genius, 
 may fail for want of that very training which is in most, 
 cases so necessary to success. Sir Humphry Davy failed 
 socially because he aspired to take equal rank with the 
 aristocracy — a position to which he had not been trained- 
 Had he taken his stand upon his science he would have been 
 welcomed into the highest circles as the first chemist of his 
 age. He was not content with this. Dr. Thomas Thomson,, 
 the Editor of the " Annals of Philosophy," told me he had 
 seen a card ordered to be engraved with the magic letters C. B.. 
 after Sir Humphry's name, before he had attained to that 
 dignity, being sure of getting it; and that one of these cards- 
 being shown to George the Fourth, that Master of Etiquette 
 
 exclaimed, "D the fellow, he shall not have it!" 
 
 Faraday, on the contrary, never aspired to social but only to- 
 scientific distinction, and everybody recognised his claim. 
 
 A self-educated man, whatever success he may attain in 
 his profession, often carries about with him marks of defective 
 training. It may not be apparent to ordinary observation, 
 but a keen observer will detect an occasional shrinking, a 
 sensitiveness, a reserve, a seclusion, in the self-raised man 
 from which the pubHc school or university man, or the man 
 of so-called good family, is free. Such men are "to the 
 manner born," they have passed their years of training in. 
 good society, in the healthy atmosphere of a public school, 
 or a college where the nonsense is knocked out of a man, 
 the sharp points smoothed down by attrition with better 
 and worse minds, where a man unconsciously learns to forget 
 himself, or at least not to obtrude himself, and to pay due 
 respect to others, not so much in doing or saying, but in^ 
 
ON FAILURE. 97 
 
 that unconscious kind of bearing that results from being 
 natural, from being secure in one's position, having one's own 
 self-respect and the respect of others without being conscious 
 of the possession. 
 
 A self-made man is wanting in all this. Born, it may be, 
 in the midst of poverty and squalor, and growing up among 
 minds of an inferior cast, he becomes conscious by slow 
 degrees of something within him that promps him to rise. 
 Getting knowledge by slow and laborious steps, even while 
 earning his own bread by many hours of daily toil, he has 
 but an imperfect idea of that jolly, free, independent school 
 or college life from which men pass to enter professions, and 
 meet in after life and renew the friendships of their youth. 
 He is awakening to the necessities of a thorough training 
 just at the time when they have completed theirs, and 
 conscious of his deficiencies in this respect, and want of 
 equality in so many others, he may never succeed in throwing 
 off a certain shyness, timidity, and reserve; although without 
 patronage, but by sheer force of character and genius, he may 
 succeed in attaining a high, if not the highest, rank in his 
 profession. 
 
 Clever or industrious men sometimes produce results 
 which they represent to themselves as failures, while to the 
 rest of the world they appear very much like successes. A man 
 who had attained a good position, both in science and in 
 law, was accustomed to complain that he had failed in both. 
 He reasoned in this way — " Had it not been for my science, 
 I should have been much greater in law; and had it not 
 been for my law, I should have been much greater in 
 science." This may have been true, but he would not have 
 been so complete a man. Davy had a horror of the 
 specialist, although he was comparatively rare at that period. 
 
98 ESSAY VII. 
 
 Davy was many-sided, and Southey remarked of him that 
 had he not been the first chemist of his age, he would have 
 been the first poet. Dr. Thomas Young, Dr. Wollaston, and 
 some other distinguished Fellows of the Royal Society, in 
 Davy's time, had other claims to distinction than scientific 
 eminence, and a sort of rivalry of intellectual production 
 existed among them. 
 
 In our own day, such is the expansion of science, and the 
 absolute impossibility of one mind grasping the whole of any 
 one science, that specialism has become a necessity. But the 
 men who devote themselves to one pursuit, to the exclusion 
 of all others, may be very successful, but they are usually 
 dull companions, and are apt to be narrow. "Who in the 
 world is that strange-looking man that has just come in ?" 
 was asked at a Scientific Soiree. " Oh ! don't you know 
 him? He is the most distinguished Coleopterist in Europe !" 
 There are fortunately not many so narrowly restricted as 
 this. Most men feel the necessity of varying their 
 intellectual as well as their physical food ; and the man 
 who complained that he had failed both in science and in 
 law, could probably no more have devoted himself entirely 
 to one than have thriven on the same dish served up at 
 every meal. 
 
 In all pursuits men complain of failure when they have 
 not attained the measure of success they proposed to them- 
 selves. A broker who took a picture to a gentleman, and 
 thought he would ask five pounds for it, on seeing what a 
 magnificent house his customer lived in, doubled the 
 price. Being kept waiting, he again doubled the price, and 
 received a cheque for twenty pounds. The broker was 
 greatly put out for the rest of the day. The sense of failure 
 was strong upon him. He felt that he might have got fifty 
 
ON FAILURE. ggf 
 
 pounds for that picture, so that he was a clear loser of 
 thirty pounds. 
 
 I fear that many men often reason after the manner of 
 this dishonest broker. They think they have failed because, 
 doing their best at the time, they fancy afterwards that they 
 might and ought to have done better. 
 
 To many men, moderate success is only another aspect 
 of failure. In science, for example, the results produced by 
 working men meet with different kinds and degrees of recog- 
 nition. What is called " original work " in science may be 
 classed under three heads, namely, the good, the bad, and 
 the correct. The authors of the first two are sure to be 
 recognised. The good work is quoted and praised, the 
 bad is criticised and condemned, if only to prove to the 
 world how clever the critic is or thinks himself The correct 
 may be neither good nor bad. It may consist in the deter- 
 mination of data, which anyone can do who is specially 
 educated and has the time and instrumental means at his 
 disposal. A very large amount of useful work is of this 
 kind. But the authors are not content to be simply useful. 
 They claim for themselves a place on the same level with 
 the men of genius who do good, that is, really original and 
 at the same time true work, and think they have failed 
 because they do not earn this distinction. I once wrote a 
 letter of congratulation to the author of some correct work. 
 He replied in grateful terms. " It is so refreshing," he said, 
 " to be encouraged by men who are capable of judging of 
 one's work — to hear from them that one has done well. It 
 is so easy for them to say this, and yet nobody says it." 
 Here is the sense of failure uttering its plaint. And yet to. 
 a modest man, the performance of correct work ought to 
 yield satisfaction. But it does not. It is the same in all 
 
lOO ESSAY VII. 
 
 professions. The merely useful men think themselves 
 neglected if they do not rise into the highest ranks ; and 
 the authors of bad work feel aggrieved when they are sharply 
 reproved by their betters, and attribute to envy or personal 
 dislike the knock-down blow that prevents them from doing 
 further mischief. 
 
 Even men who have attained high rank in one profession 
 are oppressed with the sense of failure if they do not excel 
 in all. Whewell was mortified at being told that he wrote 
 bad Enghsh hexameters ! Brougham equally so when told 
 he was a bad rider. When returned for one of the Ridings 
 of Yorkshire, the triumphant members rode in procession 
 through York, and Brougham's horse nearly threw him. 
 The sheriff, who was by his side, remarked, "You may be a 
 very good Member for the Riding, but you are a very bad 
 riding Member." Lord Campbell prided himself on his 
 French. When Mademoiselle Wagner the singer's case for 
 breach of contract came before the Court, Campbell asked 
 for the original agreement, which was in French, and read 
 out some passages. One of the barristers in court whispered 
 to a friend, " My ! how he murders the French." " No," 
 was the reply, " he only Scotches it." 
 
 Now in all these cases the sense of failure is as keenly 
 felt by these eminent men as if they were not eminent. 
 Where men go in for anything, and do not succeed as well 
 as the best professors, or, what amounts to the same thing, as 
 well as they think they ought to do, and are reminded to the 
 contrary, they are oppressed with the sense of failure. Were 
 they wise they would recognise their own defects, and not 
 attempt to show off. In the thing for which they are eminent 
 they are natural and unrestrained. Their eminence in this 
 respect is part of their nature, and there is no showing off> 
 
ON FAILURE. lOI 
 
 tut the exercise of real power, which always commands 
 respect. 
 
 Some great men are so sensitive that they feel as it were 
 by instinct when to do or leave undone something out of 
 their line. The elder Kean at one of his benefits was 
 advertised to play in an after-piece in which he had to 
 dance. When the dance music had just begun, a slight 
 titter was heard from some one who evidently thought it 
 funny that the great tragedian should so condescend. 
 Kean's leg seemed suddenly to give way. He put his hand 
 to it, and limped off the stage, and EUiston came forward 
 with a grave face, and made one of his elaborate apologies. 
 Kean said he could detect a sneer in any part of the theatre. 
 
 But the time comes, or ought to come, in the course 
 of a man's life in which he regards his past failures with 
 complacency. I have now arrived at that time of life when 
 I can look back with indiiference alike on failures as on 
 successes. All that could die of the dear partner of three-and- 
 thirty years of my life, who knew how to mitigate failures and 
 stimulate successes, reposes beneath the brow of Highgate 
 Hill. The friends who cheered my fireside, accompanied 
 me in my walks, or wrote pleasant letters and discussed with 
 me the various objects of our common pursuits and avoca- 
 tions, are nearly all gone. In losing them I have lost much 
 of the stimulus to exertion that formerly gave elasticity to 
 my work, and I am content to withdraw from the intellec- 
 tual contest. I can, however, still enjoy a quiet kind of 
 happiness in my books and apparatus, waiting for the time 
 when I, too, shall disappear. And this waiting is not tedious 
 while there still remain many sources of personal comfort 
 and mental pleasure. I feel like one who has gone a long 
 way on a long journey, but has not quite finished it ; he has 
 
102 ESSAY VII. 
 
 to wait some time at a railway station before the train shall 
 arrive which is to take him to the end of his journey. If 
 he is wise, he will not fret and vex himself at having to wait;, 
 but, seated by the fire in the waiting-room, he munches his 
 sandwiches, takes a book from his pocket, and makes the 
 time pass pleasantly enough. I try to do this, in my solitary 
 home, without anxiety or impatience. When the train 
 arrives I know it will not go off without me, and I live in 
 the confident expectation that she will be waiting for me at 
 my journey's end with her well-known sweet and loving 
 welcome. 
 
VIII.— ON ZEAL. 
 (1871.) 
 
 [This Essay was written by my dear wife in the year before her 
 death, at the request of a Friendly Discussion Society in 
 Highgate. It was suggested that in order to widen the 
 debate, Zeal should be tracked into more channels than had 
 been done in the Essay. The writer consented to this course, 
 and allowed me to append a supplement.] 
 
 The French Minister Talleyrand, it is said, when giving 
 instructions to a gentleman who had newly entered 
 his office as a Government employe^ first laid out before 
 him with great minuteness the particular duties which 
 would fall to his lot, and then wound up with one general 
 direction or warning: " Now, young man, no zeal." ''''Point 
 dezeUr 
 
 Familiar as this anecdote is, it strikes me with ever new 
 surprise that a minister should be found bold enough and 
 honest enough to present to a novice the hard, naked truth 
 that no zeal^ that is (according to the Dictionary meaning of 
 the word), no warmth ox fervour ofmind^ is required in the 
 service of the State. One would have expected him to say, 
 
104 ESSAY VIII. 
 
 if only for the sound of the thing : " Throw your best ener- 
 gies into the work: give your whole heart and mind to it, 
 and a grateful country will appreciate and reward your zeal." 
 Now, whatever may have been the motives which led the 
 French minister thus to warn one of his own excitable com- 
 munity against the slightest display of zeal, we are surely safe 
 (in this matter-of-fact, common-sense England of ours) from 
 any dangerous manifestation of that quality. We do not 
 ordinarily find our Government employes^ or any other kind 
 oi employes, possessed with such a burning enthusiasm for 
 their appointed tasks that they need to be called to account 
 on that score by the heads of their respective departments, 
 and to have the warning gravely sounded in their ears, 
 '•''Point de zlle'' There is a sohdity, if not a stoHdity, about 
 a large proportion of our people, which makes it exceedingly 
 difficult to rouse them to vigorous mental action, so that the 
 duty, in their case, seems to be to use every lawful means to 
 stimulate their zeal, and to avoid everything which would be 
 likely to damp or repress it. 
 
 Yet if we look about us a little, we shall find, in the 
 political and social life of England, just the same dread of 
 zeal as that which is conveyed by the speech of Talleyrand. 
 If a public man begins to display it, in the energetic dis- 
 patch of business or in the unflinching exposure of 
 abuses, he is sure to be snubbed, and, if possible, put down. 
 If a person in society look or speak or act with the impulse 
 and energy which betray zeal, he is either regarded leniently 
 as a novice who will know better some day, or severely as 
 an ill-bred person, unfit for good society. In fact, there 
 seems to exist in certain circles a general conspiracy to put 
 down zeal — to quench and extinguish it as you would a 
 chimney on fire ; and, by the same means, namely, the wet 
 
ON ZEAL. 105 
 
 blanket. This damping process, steadily persevered in, and 
 watchfully re-applied on the slightest appearance of renewed 
 heat, will bring down the temperature wonderfully : its 
 victims will at length be distinguished by an undemonstra- 
 tive manner, a countenance bearing the mask of uniform 
 serenity, and a smile as cold as a wintry sunbeam, which 
 illuminates without warming the landscape. It was proudly 
 said, by the mother of a female victim of this system, " My 
 Bella is nez-'er taken by surprise— never forgets herself" And 
 indeed, I think you might safely relate to this young lady 
 your most affecting anecdote, or you might pour into her 
 ear your choicest witticisms without the slightest danger, 
 in the one case of dimming the lustre of those calm, clear 
 eyes by a sudden tear, or in the other of spoiling the 
 expression of that polite, well-formed mouth by an unseemly 
 burst of laughter. 
 
 Will any one deny that such are, or have been, the results 
 of the training of the fashionable world ? Is not each one 
 of us familiar with at least a few specimens of persons who, 
 under the same repressive system, have grown into 
 the same outward and very uninteresting uniformity of 
 character, until they are scarcely more easy to be indi- 
 vidualised than the members of a rifle corps standing before 
 you in their universal suit of drab or grey ? A little taller, 
 or a little shorter, a little stouter, or a little thinner, one 
 may be than the other ; but they are all clad in the same 
 uniform, and have the same headgear; they are all sub- 
 jected to the same drill, go through the same exercises, and 
 follow the same leader : with this important difference — the 
 rifle corps is trained to action, the fashionable world to 
 inaction ; the rifle corps is, or ought to be, actuated by 
 generous zeal for the good of the country ; the fashionable 
 
I06 ESSAY VIII. 
 
 world is governed by a feeble sort of esprit de corps^ which 
 is not for the good of anybody that I can see. 
 
 I think it will then be admitted that in the world of 
 fashion, and in some other of the worlds into which society 
 is divided, there exists a steady determination to quench 
 zeal ; or, at any rate, to cool down its temperature by means 
 of certain moral refrigerators which are kept at hand for that 
 purpose. 
 
 I think it must also be allowed that, as a general rule, 
 zealous persons are looked upon with some doubt and 
 distrust in all societies. Their characters and motives may 
 be above suspicion ; yet their very earnestness and fervour 
 of speech and action cause people to doubt their discretion. 
 The conversation of a zealous man, made eloquent by his 
 own warmth and singleness of purpose, may carry away the 
 convictions of the young, and of a few fervid souls like his 
 own; but the majority of his hearers will withhold their 
 assent from his propositions, and throw obstacles in the 
 way of his plans ; they will show, in fact, that they do not 
 consider a zealous man to be entitled to their confidence 
 and trust. 
 
 If this be indeed the case, we must next inquire how it came 
 to pass, in the first instance, that the kindly quality of zeal — • 
 whose very name comes from a word signifying to warm, to 
 glotu, and, therefore, deserves a welcome in this climate — how 
 it came to pass, I say, that this kindly, fervid, emulative 
 quality first began to fall into disrepute, and to excite the 
 suspicion, and, finally, the settled dislike and contempt, of 
 the educated classes. 
 
 It could not have been on account of its goodness; 
 for there is justice enough in the world generally (including 
 the fashionable world) not to visit with condemnation 
 
ON ZEAL. 107 
 
 what really appears to be good, however opposed it may be 
 to some of the habits and instincts of that world. No : — it 
 must have been on account of some supposed evil^ that poor 
 dear Zeal was thus severely punished. 
 
 It could not have been for the paltry reason that "zealous" 
 and "jealous" have the same derivation, and may therefore 
 be considered akin; the latter word merely having an added 
 dash of suspicion, and painful apprehension to intensify and 
 embitter its warmth and fervour. 
 
 The real cause seems to be, that zeal, like many other 
 good things, has its counterfeits, and that False Zeal presents 
 so many points of likeness to True Zeal as often to be 
 mistaken for it. 
 
 On looking over the advertisements in the Times news- 
 paper, one cannot help being struck with the fact, that almost 
 every useful invention, remedy, or form of amusement has its 
 counterfeit, so that the claim to originality has to be urged, 
 or numerous trade marks, or devices, have to be adopted, 
 without which the article in question cannot be accounted 
 genuine. The tenor of these advertisements leads one to 
 suppose that the sale of the counterfeit articles is consider- 
 able, and that the public is easily duped. 
 
 If such be the case, how can we wonder that in the more 
 subtle distinctions of character, false zeal, with its many 
 points of resemblance to the true, becomes so frequently 
 confounded with it as to deceive superficial observers in 
 society? There seem to me to be two distinctly marked 
 species of counterfeit zeal, besides numerous less striking 
 varieties. The first of these two species is a really respect- 
 able quality, so far as it goes ; and I scarcely like to call it 
 false zeal, because of much that is good and honest about it. 
 At first sight, indeed, it seems to outrun and outdo real zeal 
 
 H 2 
 
lo8 ESSAY VlII. 
 
 in all its most important characteristics. Its aim and object 
 are equally high, while its fervour is far greater. Instead of 
 warming, it burns ; instead of glowing, it flashes ; instead of 
 keeping the road at a steady jog-trot, it breaks bounds, 
 leaps barriers, and pursues its game at a mad gallop. This 
 brilliant and heroic conduct makes ordinary zeal look dull 
 and tame beside it; and there is little doubt but that Young 
 Enthusiasm would entirely eclipse and extinguish OldZeal^ if 
 it did but last. But unfortunately the fire goes out for want 
 of fuel, the flame leaps up and expires; and the mad gallop 
 ends in a break-neck overthrow, upon which everybody cries 
 out, " It's just what I expected ! It's always the case with 
 your over-zealous people !" 
 
 Without pausing to mourn over the untimely fate of a 
 good and generous quality, or to note the mischief which its 
 indiscretions have done to the cause it wished to serve; 
 without asking whether the metaphysician Kant has rightly 
 defined enthusiasm when he says that, " Even when excited 
 by representations of goodness, it is a brilliant but feverish 
 glow, which leaves only exhaustion behind ;" I pass on 
 to the second, and more common and equally mischievous, 
 kind of false zeal, which appears to have given rise to the 
 following proverbs : — 
 
 " Zeal is fit only for wise men, but is found mostly with fools.' 
 "Zeal without knowledge is fire without light." 
 " Zeal without knowledge is the sister of folly." 
 
 And yet I would not have you understand that the possessor 
 of this kind of zeal need necessarily be a fool, or a person 
 without knowledge. On the contrary, he is often gifted with 
 considerable natural ability, and has acquired a large amount 
 of desultory information. He is a devourer of popular 
 
ON ZEAL. 109 
 
 literature, and is always doing a kind of surface work at 
 several distinct branches of study. Any new process, by 
 which a subject can be mastered in six lessons, is delightful 
 to him, and represents the general habit of his life — that of 
 aiming at new and striking results without the employment 
 of means adequate to produce them. An unfortunate habit 
 this for one engaged in philanthropic efforts, as our friend 
 frequently is, to the detriment of his own private affairs. 
 Lavish of his personal efforts and fluent of speech, he is an 
 immense favourite on the platform, and may be said to live 
 on the plaudits of others ; and these plaudits help to keep 
 up the delusion, which leads him to suppose that he is too 
 good for his present position in life, that he requires a wider 
 and more influential sphere of operations whereon to 
 exercise his talents. 
 
 This kind of False Zeal is more diflicult to deal with 
 than the other. If you put an obstacle in the way of No. i 
 he will gather up his forces and endeavour to clear it at a 
 bound ; in which attempt he will probably get capsized, and 
 you will hear no more of him; but if you put a similar impedi- 
 ment before No. 2, he will hold grave consultations with his 
 friends about it ; he will stand musing before it for hours, 
 anxiously considering the means of escape ; and, at last, he 
 will be almost sure to discover some cranny or loophole 
 in it through which he will make his way and go compla- 
 cently onward in the road from which you have attempted 
 to turn him. And most likely this is a road which he has 
 no business to walk in, and in which he is doing more harm 
 than good. For it is a common error with this description 
 of False Zeal to neglect the work which lies close at hand, 
 and to sigh after that which, by distance, is rendered more 
 inviting. 
 
110 ESSAY VIII. 
 
 In these ways, and in others too numerous to mention, 
 False Zeal is every day bringing True Zeal into disrepute; is 
 making people shy of it, as of a questionable, if not a dan- 
 gerous, quality. And yet a little discrimination would soon 
 set the matter right. 
 
 True Zeal, according to my belief, is lineally descended 
 from the highest Christian virtues, and bears the stamp and 
 mark of its origin. It has steadfastness of purpose, eager- 
 ness of aspiration, and warmth of feeling. It cheers under 
 disappointment, and keeps alive the kindly heat which the 
 world would quench. The proverb says, that zeal is 
 fit only for wise men : I would say that in its highest and 
 best sense it can only be exhibited by wise men. For the 
 rashness of weak and ill-trained minds is not to be accounted 
 as zeal. 
 
 Comparing the false with the true, it is easy to see that 
 the one is fitful, the other constant ; the one flashes and 
 makes a brilliant display, the other maintains a steady, un- 
 changing glow; the one listens to every suggestion, and 
 obeys every impulse, or is at one time obstinate, at another 
 easily led, the other weighs and considers well the path to be 
 pursued, and follows it unflinchingly to the end ; the one is 
 rash in the selection of its objects, frequently shifting to 
 other and more pleasing ones, the other is cautious in the 
 first selection of its object, and faithful in its adherence to 
 the last. False Zeal is not entitled to the smallest reliance. 
 True Zeal may be confided in, as the most faithful and 
 reliable of friends. 
 
 I am aware that this view of Zeal is open to discussion. 
 So much the better for the purpose of our meeting to-night. 
 It will be said, perhaps, that the division of the quality into 
 True and False Zeal is only imaginary ; and that Zeal is 
 
ON ZEAL. Ill 
 
 Zeal, whether exercised on good objects or on bad ones, and 
 whether accompanied or unaccompanied by Discretion. 
 
 Hoping to have my own views enlarged and confirmed by 
 what shall fall from your lips, I conclude by presenting you 
 with a sentence which you will all agree to be incon- 
 trovertible : — 
 
 It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing. — 
 Gal. iv. 1 8. 
 
 Supplement. 
 
 Another objection to Zeal is that it nearly always attaches 
 itself to party or to sect, and can only see through party or 
 sectarian spectacles. Now the glasses of these are neither 
 achromatic nor aplanatic, and hence they invest objects with 
 a pleasing halo of colour, while they distort their forms. 
 Party is necessarily limited in its vision to one aspect of 
 things, and that not always the true one, since truth is 
 many-sided, and requires to be studied from various points of 
 view. Truth rests on broad general principles. Party on a 
 more or less narrow dogmatic basis. Truth is often contin- 
 gent, and is true only so long as certain concomitant data 
 are true. Vary these, and the leading truth varies with 
 them. Whereas Party knows nothing of contingencies, and 
 insists on maintaining its peculiar dogmas. Black must 
 always be black, and white white, whatever the colour of 
 the medium through which they are viewed. Party Zeal 
 cannot get at the whole truth on any one subject, because it 
 is ready to sacrifice everything that interferes with its own 
 
112 ESSAY VIII. 
 
 views or supposed interests. It makes up its mind that no 
 good thing can come out of the Nazareth of the opposite 
 party. It leads men to sacrifice principles to narrow details. 
 The Ritualistic clergy who are just now groaning under the 
 law that forbids their assumption of a certain attitude at the 
 Communion Table are doubtless worthy men, though one 
 is puzzled to see how they can be ensamples to the flock 
 so long as they disobey the law of the land ; they are 
 nevertheless good examples of Party Zeal, for they sacrifice 
 weightier matters to albs and stoles, and incense and 
 candles. 
 
 Good old Dr. Johnson reproved a friend whom he 
 found gathering snails in his own garden, and pitching 
 them over into his neighbour's; but on being told that they 
 were Dissenters, he exclaimed, " Pitch away ! I'll help you !" 
 
 There is a grim, latent satire in the Doctor's reply, which 
 Zeal would do well to remember when it denounces as 
 Radical and Democrat, Heretic and Infidel, those who differ 
 in opinion from itself It forgets that the same law of toleration 
 which allows some men to denounce others, tolerates their 
 intolerance. The hard words that Zeal deals in would not 
 be of much consequence were it not that charity suffers 
 thereby, and truth is often lost sight of in the conflict. 
 
 But there are graver charges against Zeal : one is that 
 she is sometimes set in motion by another and baser motive 
 power, such, for example, as Self-esteem or Pride. Zeal is 
 always sure she is in the right ; there is no doubt about it, 
 any more than that those who venture to think differently 
 must be in the wrong. Anyone who differs from me tacitly 
 suggests that I am not quite in the right. He impugns my 
 judgment, and I feel uneasy ; the thought disturbs my rest, 
 and I seek a remedy in trying to depreciate my foe, but do 
 
ON ZEAL. 113 
 
 not succeed. In a happier period of the world's history I 
 could have denounced him as a heretic, and so got rid of 
 him ; but the wretched system of toleration under which we 
 live interferes with that wholesome process, so I denounce 
 him to my party, injure him in his business, take away his 
 good name, and all in the cause of Party Zeal, stimulated 
 by offended Pride. 
 
 But Pride is not the only dynamic force that stimulates 
 Zeal. Self-interest is quite as strong. And what an old, 
 old story does that call to mind ! There can be no doubt 
 that the image of Minerva fell down from Jupiter, which 
 image we worship, and gain our living by multiplying it, 
 and this man says we are idolaters, and so our craft is in 
 danger ! Can any punishment be too severe for that man ? 
 Ah ! my friends, when Zeal moves us, do we ever inquire of 
 ourselves whether danger to our craft be not the motive 
 power ? Is our Zeal so disinterested that no trace of Self 
 can be found lurking under its efforts? It were well if 
 such questions were frequently put by ourselves to our- 
 selves when our Zeal begins to simmer, and sometimes even 
 boils over, scalding ourselves and our neighbour ; so danger- 
 ous is it to leave the temperate zone of common sense 
 and sound judgment for the torrid regions of Zeal ! 
 
 And may not Zeal hide, under its bustling appearance of 
 earnestness, some trace of party or sectarian prejudice? 
 The Rev. Rowland Hill preached a charity sermon in a 
 chapel out of his own denomination. After the sermon he 
 took his seat at the table where the Sacrament was about to 
 be administered. One of the deacons whispered in his ear, 
 " We do not allow any but members of our body to sit at 
 our table." The Rowland for this Oliver was, "I don't want 
 to sit at your table — I thought it was the Lord's table !" 
 
TI4 ESSAY VI 1 1. 
 
 The definitions that Party Zeal makes in its own favour, 
 and in depreciation of its opponents, are curious. A man 
 is a Tory, and Dr. Johnson — the dear old prejudiced lexi- 
 cographer — describes him as " one who adheres to the 
 ancient Constitution of the State and the Apostolical Hier- 
 archy of the Church of England." A man is a Whig, and 
 Whig '' is the name of a faction." A man receives a 
 pension, and a pension is ''an allowance made to anyone 
 without an equivalent." And "in England it is generally 
 understood to mean pay given to a State hireling for treason 
 to his country," while a pensioner is " a slave of State hired 
 by a stipend to obey his master !" And yet Dr. Johnson 
 became a pensioner ; and surely no pension was ever more 
 worthily bestowed, or more worthily used. 
 
 I was struck with the mischievous tendency of Zeal at the 
 time of the Franco-German war, when I happened to visit 
 some ladies, who immediately began to talk on that all-engross- 
 ing subject; and were so indignant against the German bar- 
 barians and so full of zeal for the noble, high-minded, brave, 
 chivalrous, truthful, much-injured French, that I found myself 
 in considerable danger when I ventured to say a few words in 
 favour of the barbarians. " Oh yes, we know ! You read 
 your Times every morning, and you are completely betimed. 
 You are deceived by that wretched paper, you don't know 
 the truth. And that dirty little Echo re-echoes the Times. 
 What a shame that England does not interfere!" I learnt 
 during this visit that these ladies had banished every German 
 book from the house, including the Ly7'a Ger??iamca, whose 
 strings were no longer to vibrate in that zealous drawing- 
 room. 
 
 About the same time I called on some ladies who were as 
 furiously Germanic in their sympathetic zeal. Bismarck was 
 
ON ZEAL. 115 
 
 a grand patriot, the German soldiers heroes. The only fear 
 was lest the Germans should let the French off too easily in 
 their terms of peace. Their fears were scarcely necessary. 
 These ladies had also purified their house by sundry excom- 
 munications. Every French book had been laid under an 
 interdict, and the ladies were thankful that the honest 
 English — and honester German — did not require them to 
 speak through the nose, that being their idea of the French 
 language. 
 
 The question we have now to discuss is whether a 
 zealous man is to be esteemed trustworthy ? 
 
IX. —WHETHER THE FINE ARTS, POLITE 
 LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE WOULD BE 
 LIKELY TO FLOURISH UNDER A DEMO- 
 CRATIC REPUBLIC. 
 
 (1879.) 
 
 In thinking out the subject matter of this Essay, three points 
 seemed to become clear : — i. That the principle of demo- 
 cratic equality is not favourable to the highest forms of intellec- 
 tual culture. 2. That the progress of events in this countiy 
 during the last hundred years has tended, and is tending* 
 towards the development of that principle. 3. That the 
 adoption of that principle will be most prejudicial to culture, 
 unless the great masses of the people be carefully prepared for 
 its reception. 
 
 This Essay was written before I had seen De Tocqueville's 
 work, De la Deniocratie en Ameriqiie. On consulting it I was 
 pleased to find that my views were in harmony with his. It 
 must be added that in revising this Essay I was able materially 
 to improve it by adopting some suggestions from that great 
 writer. 
 
 In a former session one of our Members read an Essay in 
 which the question as to the best form of government was 
 discussed. On that occasion a visitor spoke warmly in favour 
 of a democracy. I ventured to put the question to him 
 whether in his opinion the fine arts, polite literature, and 
 
ART, ETC, IN A REPUBLIC. I17 
 
 science — intellectual culture, in short — would be likely to 
 flourish under a democratic republic ? In answer to that 
 question he gave a decided affirmative, without, however, 
 stating any reasons for his opinion. Now as I should like to 
 hear what can be said in favour of that gentleman's opinion, 
 I would ask you to discuss the question to-night. I do not 
 pretend in this paper to settle it for myself, still less for you. 
 All that I propose to do is what scientific hacks in 
 observatories and laboratories are accustomed to do, namely, 
 to collect data for superior minds to digest and work up into 
 general laws and conclusions. 
 
 A few definitions at starting may assist the discussion and 
 tend to prevent it from wandering into generalities. The 
 word republic is derived, through the French, from the Latin 
 res publica^ the public state or condition — the public weal or 
 commonwealth — a state in which power is lodged in more 
 than one person. According to this definition our own 
 country since 1688 has been a republic, seeing that it has 
 been governed by King, Lords, and Commons. Indeed 
 German jurists frequently refer to it as the British Republic. 
 
 A republican is often supposed to be identical with a 
 democrat; but this is a mistake, seeing that history furnishes 
 examples of aristocratic republics, such as those of Sparta, 
 Rome, Venice, &c., as well as democratic republics, 
 such as some of the Swiss Cantons, the United States of 
 America, &c. 
 
 We derive the word democracy from the Greek 5»j/:aos, 
 the people, 0/ moWoi^ the many, or not-rich, as distinguished 
 from the few rich, oA/yo/, from which we get the word oli- 
 garchy^ a government in which power is in the hands of the 
 few. In the ancient Greek communities the freemen — that 
 is, those who were not slaves, or women, or children, or 
 
Il8 ESSAY IX. 
 
 idiots — consisted of these two divisions, the few rich and the 
 many not rich ; and these two opposite forces were accus- 
 tomed to contend fiercely for political supremacy. The con- 
 test often ended in the expulsion of the few and the division 
 of their lands and property among the many. In other 
 cases the leaders of the many were expelled and the rest held 
 in political subjection, thus destroying the very idea of a 
 democracy.* 
 
 In a pure democracy every male citizen forms an equal 
 and integral part of the sovereign body ; nor is the demo- 
 cratic principle disturbed when all the citizens elect repre- 
 sentatives to form a house of assembly or parliament, provided 
 the representative few are responsible to the sovereign many 
 who invest such a parliament with power. Nor again is the 
 democratic principle necessarily disturbed if property be 
 made a qualification for holding certain offices ; although 
 the tendency of the rich few is ultimately to destroy the 
 power that made it. The United States of America have 
 avoided this source of danger, seeing that the only qualifica- 
 tion required for filling any office, from the highest to the 
 lowest, is citizenship. 
 
 To come now to the question before us, whether art, 
 literature, and science would be likely to flourish under a 
 
 * The Italian republics, one of which banished Dante and set a price 
 upon his head, were conducted somewhat after this fashion. They 
 were constantly at strife with each other, now in favour of the Pope, 
 now of the Emperor ; at one time the nobles had the upper hand, at 
 another the citizens ; rival factions everywhere busy, so that Dante 
 might well exclaim — 
 
 •* A hi serva Italia^ di dolore ostello^ 
 
 Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempest a I 
 Ah, servile Italy, griefs hostelry, 
 
 Ship without pilot in a tempest great !" 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. II9 
 
 democracy, it need scarcely be remarked that the highest 
 results of the human intellect are of very slow growth; they 
 require century after century for their development ; leisure 
 and means on the part of their professors ; support and en- 
 couragement from the great and wealthy ; or failing this, a 
 sympathising public that is disposed to identify the best 
 interests of the nation with her intellectual thinkers, and 
 workers. 
 
 In an ancient monarchy, where there is a court, an aris- 
 tocracy, a landed gentry, a well-to-do professional and 
 middle class, mechanics and labourers, these various grada- 
 tions of rank exert a powerful influence on the mind of the 
 country — on culture, in short. The old famihes being secure 
 in their position, looking back with pride upon a long line 
 of ancestors and forward to successors, having to maintain 
 the honour of the one and the interest of the other, have 
 become deeply attached to their estates and their environ- 
 ments, deeply attached to the institutions of the country of 
 which they form an influential part. Having leisure, they 
 cultivate art and literature, and by their taste and influence 
 become critics and patrons. In proportion as they become 
 hard to please the producers strive more and more to excel, 
 to the manifest advantage of art and literature. 
 
 In a democracy, where there is no distinction of rank, 
 where all the units are of equal value, where all are educated 
 to the same dead level of mediocrity either by elevation or 
 depression, where the poor man thinks himself equal to the 
 rich and the rich man reduces everything to the practical, 
 such a people prefer the useful to the beautiful, and care only 
 for the beautiful insomuch as it is useful. Hence works of 
 art are produced at a low price for the use of the many, and 
 the artist aims at rapidity of production, and, by means of 
 
126 ESSAY IX. 
 
 machinery, reduces art to a manufacture. The mind of the 
 artist is not impressed upon his work, his individuality has 
 been destroyed. He who by culture might have become 
 a good artist is now content with mediocrity. 
 
 De Tocqueville says, " If I arrive in a country where the 
 products of the arts are generally imperfect, in large number 
 and at low price, I am certain that here the various classes 
 of society are tending towards a dead level." 
 
 The men who produce such works strive to impart to 
 them the outward appearance of better works, and hence 
 the tawdry imitations, and over ornamentations, so destruc- 
 tive of good taste, that mark such works. The same writer 
 says, "The hypocrisy of virtue belongs to human nature 
 — the hypocrisy of art to democracies." 
 
 Under a monarchy a few grand works are produced; under 
 a democracy a multitude of little ones. The bronze statues 
 of the monarchy are moulded in plaster under the democracy, 
 where the real takes the place of the ideal. 
 
 De Tocqueville says that when he first arrived at New 
 York, he was surprised to notice along the shore, at 
 some distance from the city, a number of small palaces 
 in white marble of antique design. Having landed 
 next day he proceeded to examine them, and found them 
 to be built of white bricks and wooden columns painted 
 white. 
 
 Again, with respect to letters; in the old country the upper 
 classes, which, from their culture, necessarily promote polite 
 literature, have also erected a sort of standard of taste and 
 habits of thought which form a kind of shibboleth to the 
 literary class, the members of which have certain principles 
 in common, a certain chivalry of treatment, a manifest pride 
 in their vocation, aided by the memory of old glories, by 
 
121 
 
 their descent from Chaucer, and Spenser, and Shakspere, 
 by the continued influence of our old Universities, by the 
 fact that no age since Chaucer has been without its great 
 writers, all bearing on and influencing the present, and 
 stretching forward to the future. 
 
 In a democracy such as that of the United States of 
 America the citizens retain the traditions of the first 
 settlers, who, having to subdue the wilderness to their 
 most pressing daily wants, found their highest reward in 
 industry. This imparted to them and their successors a 
 practical money's-worth view of everything. How to en- 
 sure material prosperity was the problem to be worked out 
 every day. Trade, commerce, and agriculture were the 
 three idols to be worshipped, and the most devoted atten- 
 tion to them brought the blessing they so much desired. 
 They prospered, and became celebrated throughout the 
 world for sharpness and shrewdness. " Get money — 
 honestly if you can ; but get money." They followed 
 and do follow this maxim, not always regardful of the 
 hesitating condition. Such a people have neither leisure 
 nor inclination for the production of works of art, 
 literature, and science. Speaking the same language 
 as the country from which they derived their origin, they 
 refuse to consent to a law of international copyright, 
 preferring to rob the English author of the fruits of 
 his toil rather than pay for permission to reprint his 
 works. Hence, paying nothing for copyright, these 
 reprints are sold at a very cheap rate, and are also 
 smuggled into English-speaking Canada, thus inflicting on 
 the English author a double injury. But at the same time 
 they injure themselves, seeing that a national literature of 
 their own, which ought to be esteemed as their brightest 
 
 I 
 
122 ESSAY IX. 
 
 jewel, is impossible under such a system."^ It is true that they 
 have produced some excellent writers; but they, for the most 
 part, reflect the European — not the American mind ; except 
 in the case of that eccentric kind of humour which is 
 admired by some. The beautiful and majestic scenery of 
 the New World has not as yet greatly inspired the Muse ; 
 there are a few illustrious exceptions, but these are built 
 upon European models. The claims of the recent writers 
 of fiction to have surpassed our best novelists can only be 
 received with a smile. 
 
 Matters may have greatly changed since the time when 
 De Tocqueville wrote, but he says that on entering a book- 
 seller's shop in the United States he could not help being 
 struck with the feebleness of the literature displayed for sale. 
 With the exception of English reprints, the rest was con- 
 temptible. Indeed, he says the United States cannot be said 
 to have any literature at all, and so convinced are its citizens 
 that it is not for them that people publish books, that before 
 deciding on the merits of a native author they must first 
 learn what England has to say respecting his book. When 
 Dean Stanley visited the United States in 1878, he said that 
 he paid particular attention to the newspaper press, and was 
 sorry to find it marked by a general tone of frivolity. How 
 
 * Some years ago Mr. Babbage, who was interested in the subject of 
 international copyright, requested me to supply him with examples of 
 reprints of my own books in the United States, and he informed me 
 that, having received a copy of an American Dictionary of Commerce^ 
 he proceeded to test it by turning to an article on a subject that he had 
 specially studied, namely, that on " Exchanges." He found the article 
 so good that he was disposed to praise the author highly ; but as he 
 read on the ideas seemed to become more and more familiar to him, 
 until at length he discovered that he was reading a reprint of one of his 
 own articles, 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. 1^3 
 
 different from the character of our own newspaper press, 
 which, by its high intellectual, moral and poHtical tone, has 
 earned for it the title of the fourth estate of the realm ! 
 
 It is to be lamented that the cultured men of the United 
 States hold themselves aloof from the Senate and the muni- 
 cipalities, and do not contribute to raise the tone of the 
 newspapers. They find in Europe and the old country their 
 intellectual atmosphere. 
 
 When a man has arrived at the conviction that he is as 
 good as anybody else, and perhaps better, he is in a con- 
 dition of hopeless stagnation. He refers everything to his 
 own standard, and what he does not understand he despises. 
 In a democracy the assertion of equality is apt to become 
 morbid. It is the leading idea in everyone's mind, and every- 
 one is impatient of birth, of rank, of intelligence superior to 
 his own. This levelling principle is the enemy of all 
 righteous ambitions. A man of superior talents is regarded 
 with suspicion ; his right to superiority is everywhere ques 
 tioned, and few men are able to rise above their environ 
 ments. Thrice happy then is the nation that fosters its 
 great men, that can look back upon the past conquests of 
 mind with love and admiration, and see them with the same 
 love and admiration occupy the present, and prepare for 
 similar conquests in the future. This is real national 
 progress, and this is the fulfilment of man's true destiny. 
 This love of culture for its own sake imparts a refined tone 
 to society in general, not only in literature, but in everything 
 that appeals to our higher nature. It influences manners, 
 conversation, modes of living, play as well as work. 
 
 With a highly-educated upper and middle-class, culture is 
 pushed to its extreme limits. Style in literature becomes as 
 important as the ideas conveyed; the form of the material 
 
 I 2 
 
124 ESSAY IX. 
 
 is as important as the material itself; the tone is polished, 
 moderated, sustained; mind is displayed in all its nobility, 
 and generation after generation works a slow but decided 
 influence on the national taste. 
 
 In a democracy, on the other hand, there are no leaders 
 of intellectual fashion. All classes are mixed and confused, 
 knowledge as well as power is infinitely subdivided and 
 scattered on all sides. Where are the men of mind to come 
 from ? They have no traditions to help them, no learned 
 intellectual ancestors, no universities with their hosts of 
 intellectual heroes, past arfd present. On the contrary, they 
 see around them everything restless, transitory changing, 
 from day to day — fortunes rapidly made and lost — riches the 
 only good — fast living, gaudy luxury — minds not linked 
 together by intellectual ties, since all are units, each one 
 bent on pursuing his own ends. They have no inspiring 
 mind-traditions to fall back upon, no intellectual habits in 
 common — they have never had the power, nor the will, nor 
 the time, in which to form them. 
 
 Washington Irving coined the term "Almighty Dolla-,"' 
 " that great object of universal devotion throughout our 
 land." These words were written fifty years ago; and a 
 living writer* bears witness in the same direction. "The 
 truth of the proverbial saying, ' There is no God west of the 
 Missouri,' is everywhere manifest. The Almighty Dollar is 
 the true divinity, and its worship is universal. Smartness is 
 the quality thought most of. The boy who gets on by cheat- 
 ing at his lessons is praised for being a smart boy, and his 
 satisfied parents foretell that he will make a smart man. A 
 man who overreaches his neighbour, but who does it so 
 cleverly that the law cannot take hold of him, wins an envied 
 
 * " Life in the Rocky Mountains," by Miss Bird, pp. 213-214. 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. I25 
 
 reputation as a smart man, and stories of this species of 
 smartness are told admiringly round every stove. Smartness 
 is but the initial stage of swindling, and the clever swindler 
 who evades or defies the weak and often corruptly administered 
 laws of the States, excites unmeasured approbation among 
 the masses." 
 
 In San Francisco the author says : — " I regretfully add a 
 strong emphasis to what I have written above. The best 
 and most thoughtful among the Americans would endorse 
 these remarks with shame and pain." 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, writing in 1882, says: — "The 
 diffusion of education is not a remedy. It is essentially a 
 question of character, not lack of information, but lack 
 of certain moral sentiments." 
 
 In a democracy, if authors there be, they regard hterature 
 not as a vocation, but an avocation, hke going to a concert 
 or to the theatre. They have never had the time, if the 
 inclination, to fathom the depths of art, literature, or science 
 required to make a Sir Joshua Reynolds, a Milton, or a 
 Newton. Producers and readers prefer those books that 
 can be read rapidly, which amuse without requiring much 
 expenditure of thought; books for the hour, books that 
 deal in surprises, excitements, and novelties. Accustomed 
 to a practical, monotonous existence, mitigated only by sharp 
 competition in business affairs, they require lively emotions, 
 sudden surprises, brilliant truths, and no less brilliant errors, 
 to draw them for the instant out of themselves and place 
 them in a new facile world of thought and action. 
 
 As the literature of a State is always subordinated to its 
 social condition and political institutions, such I take 
 it is a fair representation of the literature of a modern 
 democracy. 
 
126 ESSAY IX. 
 
 Such a nation being always in the presence of the real, 
 and deeming success in life to be the only object of life, 
 can know nothing of the ideal, can have no native poetry. 
 They see no grandeur in their magnificent forests or their 
 vast prairies, they hear no music in the swell of their mighty 
 rivers, but coldly regard them with the eye of a speculative 
 builder. Here is a place for a city, there for a railroad, 
 and the river is of no use until it is covered with steamers. 
 But the aborigines are in the way : get rid of them by means 
 of whisky, and if that should prove too slow, use gunpowder. 
 
 Alas ! for such a people that has no traditions based on 
 poetical fancy — no fairies, no sprites and goblins — no 
 Midsummer Nighfs Dream appealing to the sympathies 
 both of high and low by its intelligible poetry, and to the 
 vulgar by humanising its fables. 
 
 In an old country such as ours, where the divisions of 
 society are well marked, each class has its own idiom, so to 
 speak, and the usual language of one class is all but unin- 
 telligible to the other. The upper class can adjust its 
 speech to the lower, but the low^r cannot rise to the upper. 
 The different classes, not mingling much together, maintain 
 each its own idiom from generation to generation without 
 much change, so that there is one language for the rich, and 
 another for the poor ; one language for the Court and the 
 aristocracy, another for tradesmen ; also a professional lan- 
 guage, a scientific language, &c. : the more marked the 
 divisions of society, the greater the difference in idiom. 
 
 But in a democracy, where all men are equal and con- 
 stantly mingled together, they all speak the same language, 
 and those words and phrases which do not belong to the 
 people as a whole drop out of it and perish ; just as in 
 Europe, as the people at large become educated and classes 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. I27 
 
 mingle more together, local idioms and patois die out. But 
 in the Old World, language is maintained in its purity not 
 only by means of its standard literature, but by the daily sup- 
 pHes of intellectual food furnished by its authors, and orators, 
 and newspapers. The democracy labours under this disad- 
 vantage — that style by which a great writer or orator is 
 distinguished is unknown. All speak aHke and write alike, 
 and often in a debased manner. Men who go into Congress 
 carry with them the debased style of the multitude, so that 
 the origin and proper use of words become lost, and lan- 
 guage as well as men are equally without ancestors. I am 
 not aware of any speech reported from the United States 
 Congress, or Senate, or law courts that deserves for a 
 moment to take rank by the side of the speeches of our 
 great masters in oratory. In a democratic speech things 
 are treated in a dry, matter-of-fact manner, with no aid from 
 rhetoric, but with a simplicity that approaches the vulgar, if 
 it does not exceed it. If the speaker would rise into elo- 
 quence he becomes inflated, and the reason for all this 
 inferiority is that in a democracy every man is accustomed 
 to contemplate a very small object, namely, himself. Or if 
 he rises out of himself it is to contemplate a vast number 
 of units made up of beings like himself, and in no wise 
 superior. It would occupy too much time to point out how 
 the Americans have debased our language by their peculiar 
 drawling nasal accent, by the introduction of new and often 
 hideous words — words first used by a party, and then 
 admitted into general circulation — but worst of all, old words 
 re-coined, as it were, used in a new sense, with this disastrous 
 result, that language, as an instrument of thought, instead of 
 being clear and precise, may now be used, as Talleyrand said 
 after Goldsmith, pour cacher la pensee^ to conceal the thought 
 
128 ESSAY IX. 
 
 instead of expressing it — and the perpetual agitation of 
 democratic society tends constantly to renew the face of the 
 language as well as of society itself. 
 
 The American writer Marsh, in his " Lectures on the 
 English Language," points out how " the integrity and future 
 harmonious development of our common English speech in 
 England and America is threatened by a multitude of dis- 
 turbing influences ;" and he warns his fellow-citizens " not 
 to go about with malice prepense to republicanise our ortho- 
 graphy and our syntax, our grammars and our dictionaries, 
 our nursery hymns and our Bibles, until, by the force of 
 irresistible influences, our language shall have revolutionised 
 itself;" and he concludes with the hope that " national 
 jealousies, material rivalries, narrow interests will not disjoin 
 and shatter that great instrument of social advancement 
 which God made one, as he made one the spirit of the 
 nations that use it." 
 
 Let us now turn from literature to science. In the 
 incessant turmoil of money-making interests, in the absence 
 of the divine gifts of leisure and learned contemplation, the 
 cultivation of the higher faculties of the mind becomes 
 impossible. Art, literature, and science, to be cultivated 
 with success, must be cultivated for their own sakes. Art 
 and poetry must have the ideal — the highest sense of beauty 
 — for their aim and object, while the pursuit of science 
 must be for the sake of truth, absolutely with no other aim. 
 Men who devote themselves to the discovery of the highest 
 and most recondite principles must have leisure, quiet, and 
 a modest competence. They must have the sympathy of 
 their Government and of the wealthy intelligence of their 
 country. Work of this kind, sustained from age to age, 
 bears the richest fruit to the nation that encourages it. The 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. 1 29 
 
 inventor follows the discoverer at longer or shorter intervals. 
 Who could have supposed that the properties of the conic 
 sections discovered by the ancient Greek geometers would 
 have been of infinite service in modern times in renovating 
 the science of astronomy and perfecting the art of naviga- 
 tion ? So that, as Condorcet well remarks, " the sailor who 
 has been preserved from shipwreck by an accurate observa- 
 tion of the longitude owes his Hfe to a theory conceived two 
 thousand years ago by men of genius who had in view only 
 simple geometric speculations." 
 
 In a democracy the sciences are cultivated, not for their 
 own sake, but for the sake of what they are worth in the 
 market, the grand principles of nature being unknown except 
 in their application to material wealth and comfort. The 
 nation that thus neglects the highest scientific culture, and 
 fails to hand down the torch of theory from generation to 
 generation, must in the course of time crystallise into a kind 
 of Chinese stagnation — a condition which is not incon- 
 sistent with comfort, order, and material prosperity, but quite 
 inconsistent with the intellectual dignity of a great people. 
 
 The democracies of the Swiss Cantons have long been in 
 this condition; and if they have ever produced a work of 
 high art, literature, or science, I shall be glad to be informed 
 of it.* 
 
 Without multiplying examples, or dealing further in these 
 contrasts, enough, I think, has been stated to justify the 
 
 * In the debate one of the speakers mentioned the name of Rousseau, 
 forgetting perhaps that Geneva and Berne banished him, and that 
 Geneva had one of his books burnt by the hands of the common execu- 
 tioner. In like manner Voltaire was ordered to quit Geneva within 
 four-and-twenty hours ; when the witty Frenchman, in sarcastic allusion 
 to the smallness and insignificance of the canton, replied, " Oh yes ! I'll 
 quit it within a quarter of an hour." 
 
130 ESSAY IX. 
 
 conclusion that a democratic republic, as hitherto consti- 
 tuted, is not favourable to art, literature, and science. It 
 must not, however, be supposed that I regard a democracy 
 with suspicion and dislike. On the contrary; for, if I read 
 history rightly, the various nations of Christendom are 
 gravitating with various degrees of velocity towards demo- 
 cracy. There is no desire more strongly engraven on the 
 heart of man than the desire for equality. What made the 
 French Revolution was not liberty, was not fraternity, but it 
 was the intense desire for equality. One of the greatest 
 blessings to mankind in the introduction of Christianity 
 itself is the proclamation of the grand truth that all men 
 are equal in the sight of God and Christ. '' There is 
 neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there 
 is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ 
 Jesus." — Gal. iii. 28.* Without going back so far as the 
 Crusades, or Magna Charta, or the Reformation, I would 
 only remind you of the course of events in our own country 
 during the last hundred years, all tending to favour the 
 democratic principle, such as the introduction of the 
 steam-engine and automatic machinery, one effect of which 
 was to get rid of distinctions in dress, bringing the silk 
 gown of the mistress within the means of the maid; the 
 establishment of National and British Schools, which gave 
 education to classes that were formerly illiterate, and more 
 recently the establishment of Board Schools and the wise 
 
 * *' It is a great mistake to suppose that the democratic state of society 
 is necessarily hostile to religion ; nothing in Christianity is absolutely 
 opposed to the spirit of this form of society, and many things in demo- 
 cracy are extremely favourable to it. Moreover, the experience of all 
 ages has shown that the most living root of religious belief has ever been 
 planted in the heart of the people." — De Tocqueville. 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. I3I 
 
 principle of compulsory education ; Catholic emancipation, 
 Nonconformist emancipation, a reformed House of Com- 
 mons, the repeal of the Corn Laws, the removal of taxes 
 on knowledge ; the enormous development of cheap 
 literature, the penny post — all favouring the democratic 
 principle. But this onward movement towards democracy 
 is fraught with danger, even at its present rate of 
 progress in this country; with tenfold danger should that 
 movement become accelerated — before, in short, the most 
 populous classes, the vast masses of discontented mechanics 
 and labourers shall either have died off and their places 
 be taken by their better-educated children and successors, 
 or some of the great disturbing questions of the day be 
 settled to the satisfaction of all parties, such as the relation 
 of capital to labour, of Church to State, of the land question, 
 and some others. 
 
 Shakspere, who held everything within his mighty grasp, 
 does not forget to give us various specimens of mob law. 
 For example, in the Second Part of Henry VI. he introduces 
 Jack Cade, and the mob bring before him the Clerk of 
 Chatham. The crimes alleged against him are that he can 
 write, and read, and cast accompt. 
 
 The Smith says, " We took him setting of boys' copies." 
 
 "Here's a villain !" exclaims Cade. 
 
 Smith. 'Has a book in his pocket, with red letters in't. 
 
 Cade. Nay, then, he is a conjuror. 
 
 [This is not worse than one of the Popes, who thought 
 Petrarch must be a magician because he read Virgil.] 
 
 Dick. Nay, he can make obligations, and write court-hand. 
 Cade. I am sorry for't. . . . Come hither, sirrah, I must 
 examine thee : What is thy name 1 
 Clerk. Emmanuel. 
 
132 ESSAY IX. 
 
 Cade. Dost thou use to write thy name ? or hast thou a mark 
 to thyself, Hke an honest plain-deaHng man ? 
 
 Clerk. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that 
 I can write my name. 
 
 All. He hath confessed : away with him ! he's a villain, and 
 a traitor. 
 
 Cade. Away with him, I say ! hang him with his pen and 
 ink-horn about his neck. 
 
 Are the roughs of our towns or the rustics of our villages 
 superior in sympathies and aspirations to Jack Cade and his 
 followers ? And will it ever be possible so to educate the 
 masses of the people as to awaken some sense of beauty, 
 such as will lead them to respect Nature when brought 
 within sight of her, instead of abusing her by breaking 
 down hedges, tearing up young trees, and leaving waste and 
 deformity behind ? Shall we ever succeed in teaching the 
 masses not to deface statues, not to carve their names on 
 public monuments, not to abuse the lower animals, including 
 their wives, whom they treat as such ; but to see beauty in 
 nature and in art, and to love and adore it ? 
 
 I fear greatly that if men were socially and politically 
 equal, the pervading spirit of the community would flow in 
 two channels, over one of which Plutus, the god of riches, 
 presides, and over the other Ceres and Bacchus — much money 
 and plenty to eat and drink. Jack Cade, in the play 
 already quoted, promises his followers reformation. " There 
 shall be in England," he says, " seven halfpenny loaves sold 
 for a penny — the three-hooped-pot shall have ten hoops, 
 and I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the 
 realm shall be in common," and so on. Material wealth and 
 vulgar pleasures would, I fear, be the chief characteristics of 
 a democracy. Wealth without taste would deal in over- 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. 133 
 
 ornamentation, and the love of a good dinner would exclude 
 art, literature, and science. 
 
 " Only the wise," said Socrates, who was condemned to 
 death by a democratic republic, "only the wise are fit to 
 govern, and they are few. Government is a science, and a 
 difficult one. It is infinitely more difficult to govern a State 
 than to govern the helm of a ship. Yet the same people 
 who would not trust themselves in a ship without an ex- 
 perienced pilot not only trust themselves in a State with an 
 inexperienced ruler, but also endeavour to become rulers 
 themselves." 
 
 In the first French Revolution we have an example of a 
 people exercising power before they were fit for it. So 
 exasperated had they become by the long tyrannical rule of 
 the titled and privileged classes that they abolished all 
 titles and privileges, and addressed each other as Citoyen 
 and Citoyenne. The King was addressed as Citoyen Capet 
 and the Queen as Citoyenne Antoinette ; and as the name 
 of servant, or domestique, implied servility, that term was 
 abolished, and official introduced. The tendency was to 
 level everything down to the vulgar insolence of Marat's 
 brutal newspaper. A cultured intellect implied an aristocrat, 
 who must be sent to the guillotine, in order to maintain the 
 dead level of mediocrity. When the celebrated chemist 
 Lavoisier, whom the French claim as the founder of modern 
 chemistry (and he is entitled to share that honour with our 
 own Priestley) — when this great man asked for some delay 
 in the execution of his sentence, in order that he might 
 complete a chemical^inquiry, the result of which was likely 
 to be of benefit to mankind, he was met by the brutal reply 
 that the republic did not want chemists, and he was at 
 once sent off to the guillotine. Not only the scientific man 
 
134 ESSAY IX. 
 
 but the artist and the author, if not beheaded as aristocrats, 
 found no employment, and they and the thousands of 
 subordinates who had humbler functions in connection with 
 art and literature were left to starve. They who saluted each 
 other as Citoyen and Citoyenne, and abolished the name of 
 God from their language, not only destroyed life, but every- 
 thing that makes life desirable to an intelligent mind. 
 They burnt or mutilated works of art, and the soldiers used 
 as fuel for cooking their meals, valuable books from a public 
 library, in which they were quartered. The Commune of 
 1870 was in like manner destructive of life and property, 
 and differed but little in intention from the several tribes of 
 barbarians that extinguished the civilisation of ancient Rome. 
 
 There is a striking illustration in our own history of the 
 tendency of a democratic middle class to despise the 
 culture that it cannot understand. I allude to the beha- 
 viour of our Commonwealth after the execution of Charles I. 
 That king was a munificent patron of the fine arts. War- 
 burton remarks that had the reign of Charles I. proved pros- 
 perous, that sovereign, about 1640, would have anticipated 
 those tastes and even that enthusiasm which were almost 
 foreign to the nation. Charles I. and his favourite, the 
 Duke of Buckingham, frequently exhibited splendid masques, 
 in which music, dancing, the noble verse of Ben Jonson, and 
 the science and machinery of Inigo Jones were happily 
 combined with the devices of Gerbier, the duke's architect, 
 and friend of Rubens. 
 
 Charles I. had twenty-four palaces well stocked with 
 works of art. The value of pictures had doubled in Europe 
 in consequence of the emulation between Charles and 
 Phihp IV. of Spain for the possession of the best works. 
 But when the Puritan party held the reins of government 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. 135 
 
 in England the whole of the King's collections were dis- 
 persed and sold at very low prices, thereby enriching all the 
 collections in Europe. The Cartoons of Raphael in their 
 complete state were appraised at only ;£3oo. Hume says 
 that the library and collection of medals at St. James's were 
 intended by the generals to be brought to auction in order 
 to pay the arrears of some regiments of cavalry; but the 
 learned Selden, apprehensive of the loss, engaged White- 
 locke, then Lord Keeper of the Commonwealth, to apply 
 for the office of librarian. This contrivance saved that 
 valuable collection ; but the pictures and medals were left to 
 be appraised. Such indeed was the ignorance and inca- 
 pacity of those in power to understand the artistic and 
 educational value of these collections, that the Parliament 
 in March, 1648, ordered the goods of the late King, Queen, 
 and Prince to be appraised. The inventory forms a folio 
 volume of nearly a thousand pages, in which every article 
 is appraised, for nothing was sold at its just value, and much 
 of the gold and silver plate, of high artistic value, was sent 
 to the Mint to be melted down. The coins and medals 
 were thrown promiscuously into drawers. One drawer, con- 
 taining twenty-four medals, was valued at ;^2 los.; another, 
 containing twenty, at ^^i; and one containing forty-six silver 
 coins, together with the box, was priced and sold for ;£^. On 
 an average the medals were not valued at more than is. 
 each. The pictures from Whitehall, Windsor, Wimbledon, 
 Greenwich, Hampton Court, &:c., forming an unparalleled 
 collection, were valued at from ;^5o to ;£"ioo each, and 
 collectors from all parts of Europe carried them off. Queen 
 Elizabeth in her robes was sold for ;£i ; the Queen Mother 
 for ;£^ ; the King for ^2 ; the Queen for 5s.; but Vandyke's 
 Charles on Horseback sold for ;^3oo, its value even at that 
 
136 ESSAY IX. 
 
 time being probably as many thousands. Nor may we stop 
 here. Commissioners, hammer in hand, were sent to various 
 counties to destroy whatever they deemed to be supersti- 
 tious in the churches. In this way exquisite stained 
 glass windows, and lovely carvings in wood and stone, and 
 artistic works in metal were destroyed. 
 
 The lesson to be drawn from all this is, that while the 
 lower classes remain uneducated, and while the middle class 
 is bent on the pursuit of gain, it is an advantage to all that 
 there should be a rich upper class with leisure and inclina- 
 tion for the cultivation, or at least the patronage of art, 
 literature, and science. The manufacture of porcelain in 
 Europe is entirely due to royal patronage, and we are 
 indebted for Milton's Arcades and delightful Comus to a 
 masque at Ludlow Castle, and to Whitelocke for a splendid 
 masque got up under the patronage of the four Inns of 
 Court united. The best periods for art, whether in ancient 
 Greece or mediaeval Europe, were when she ministered to 
 the cause of religion, and her professors were supported by 
 a powerful and wealthy hierarchy. I am not recommending 
 this form of government. I merely state what must be an 
 admitted fact. So also the best periods for literature were 
 those when the State or some rich Maecenas encouraged 
 men of letters by affording them means for the leisurely 
 development of their works, so that they might adopt the 
 Horatian maxim of keeping their productions seven years 
 before giving them to the public. But in the present day, 
 among the many indications of the growth of democracy, men 
 care more about making money than attempting to raise 
 the standard of literature. Men read hastily what is written 
 hastily ; and so long as an author is smart, and just a little 
 heterodox, he is patronised. If he has a ready pen, the 
 
AfLT, ETC., In a Republic. 137 
 
 publisher and Mr. Mudie keep it incessantly employed, and 
 authors sink to the level of hacks. Again, I do not say that 
 the system of patronage is a good one ; all I say is, that 
 some of the best books were written by men who were 
 wealthy themselves — Gibbon, for example — or had the 
 support of wealthy men — Fielding, for example — not to 
 go so far back as Horace and Virgil. 
 
 Do we not then find in a Court and a wealthy aristocracy 
 and gentry a more favourable atmosphere for the growth 
 and development of the humanising influences of art, litera- 
 ture, and science than would be possible under a democratic 
 republic ? Our Government supports the National and other 
 galleries, the South Kensington Institutions, the British 
 Museum, Kew Gardens, various parks, and gives the Royal 
 Society ^4000 a year for the encouragement of original re- 
 search. It sends out ships on voyages of discovery; supports 
 education, appoints school inspectors to see that the large 
 annual grant of the public money is properly applied ; and 
 it executes or encourages a multitude of other useful works. 
 Would a democratic repubUc do this, or any of this ? If it be 
 true that history repeats itself, would not the future Repub- 
 licans and Communists do what the Puritans did after they 
 had cut off the head of the first Charles ? or shed the royal 
 and aristocratic blood after the manner of the citizens of the 
 first French Revolution ? It was only a few weeks ago that 
 I read in the Times the report of a public meeting in France 
 got up for the purpose of welcoming home some amnestied 
 Communists, in which a proposition was carried by acclama- 
 tion to the effect that the Communists who set fire to the 
 Louvre in 1870 deserved well of their country. Again, in 
 the Times of the 28th October, at the Marseilles Workmen's 
 Congress, Citizen Bernard of Grenoble advised his fellow 
 
 K 
 
138 ESSAY IX. 
 
 workmen to coalesce and attain their end by revolution. 
 He said that an understanding was impossible between the 
 rich parasites and the workers. Peace had been spoken of, 
 but it was not for them to speak of it: it was to be war to the 
 bourgeoisie^ to clericalism and the nobility ; and so on. This, 
 you will observe, is in excess of the first French Revolution, 
 which was in favour of the bourgeoisie. Bearing these things 
 in mind, I would ask whether the majority of all those in 
 these Islands who have political votes are in advance of the 
 Commonwealth that dispersed literary and artistic collections, 
 or of the first and last French Revolutions, that destroyed 
 them. 
 
 In the discussion of this subject I have taken part 
 against democracy, such as I learn its nature from history 
 and modern examples ; but my sympathies are not the less 
 bound up with that form of government which secures the 
 greatest happiness to the greatest number. My sympathies 
 are bound up with suffering humanity, whatever the colour 
 of its skin, whatever its faith. My sympathies are bound 
 up with the poor, the ignorant, [the sorrowful, the sinful ; 
 with that vast seething mass of poverty, vice, and crime, that 
 fearful legacy bequeathed to us as the accumulated penalties 
 of grand moral and natural self-acting laws, which have con- 
 stantly been violated, which inflict their own penalties in 
 consequence of their divine self-acting functions, "visiting 
 the sins of the fathers upon the children," — penalties, I say, 
 which are the direct consequences of the rulers of the earth 
 in all times attempting the solution of this insoluble social 
 problem, " Given the welfare and advantage of the few, how 
 best to reconcile with these the welfare of the many." I 
 hope and beheve that for some time past, in these Islands 
 at least, we have been trying the reverse of that problem, 
 
ART, ETC., IN A REPUBLIC. I39 
 
 which is perfectly soluble : " Given the welfare of the many, 
 how best to secure the advantages of the few." It has been 
 well said that as the new astronomy of Copernicus transferred 
 the centre of our system from the small earth to the mighty 
 sun, so the new Sociology transfers the centre of social life 
 from the small group of idlers to the mighty mass of workers. 
 But I confess that in the present condition of the world 
 I see so many evils in democracy built up with existing 
 materials, that I am constrained to prefer a limited monarchy, 
 in which culture and refinement exercise a beneficent in- 
 fluence by slowly descending and infiltrating society; and 
 let us hope that that influence may in the course of time 
 reach even the lowest strata of humanity. We have also to look 
 to such wholesome influences as those already enumerated, 
 and to others ; first and foremost to rehgion, whose radiating 
 forces ought to be able to carry moral light and generative 
 moral heat into the dark places that as yet know it not. A 
 few years ago Dean Stanley invited several hundred me- 
 chanics to meet him in order to give a reply to his plain 
 question, why the operatives of London and of our great 
 towns do not go to Church ? The answer was that they had 
 no sympathy with the Church, nor the Church with them ; 
 that the Gospel was to be preached to the poor, but that it is 
 for the most part preached to the well-to-do middle class, and 
 often in such a manner as not to offend its habits, tastes, and 
 prejudices ; that " the root of many kinds of evil " is not 
 preached down, because in the opinion of many that root 
 finds as fertile a soil in the heart of the pastor as in the hearts 
 of his flock ; and much more to the same purpose. Such 
 charges, I take it, belong more to past than to present 
 times ; but still it must be admitted that the Gospel scarcely 
 reaches that vast living stratum that occupies a lower social 
 
 K 2 
 
140 ESSAY IX. 
 
 rank than that of operatives. Even our theatres have a 
 powerful teaching influence, which might be indefinitely im- 
 proved, especially if the large numbers of good people who 
 now discourage theatres were to strengthen by their influence 
 the action of public opinion upon them. Increased facilities 
 for entering parks, gardens, and picture-galleries, both private 
 and public, as well as museums ; the further extension of 
 coffee-palaces; working men's clubs, penny readings, free 
 libraries, cheap reprints of some of our old standard authors, 
 and an improved tone in our modern popular literature; the 
 cultivation of music, the strengthening of the crusade against 
 drunkenness by the more extensive spread of improved 
 dwellings for working men, and the instruction of their wives 
 in domestic economy, in a knowledge of cookery and the 
 art of cutting out and making their own and their children's 
 clothes ; a more general knowledge of the ordinary laws of 
 health : — all these influences for good, and above all the 
 teaching of our Board Schools, may eventually bear such 
 fruit that in the distant future culture may have nothing to 
 fear from democracy. 
 
 My last words shall be addressed to culture in the 
 language of one who has done so much to promote it, the 
 poet Schiller : — 
 
 " Was ich ohne dich ware, ich weiss es nicht ; aber mir graiiet, 
 Seh' ich, was ohne dich Hundert' und Tausende sind." 
 
 What I should be without thee I know not ; but horror assails 
 me. 
 When without thee I behold what hundreds and thousands 
 become. 
 
X.— THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. 
 (1868.) 
 
 It cannot be that Death dissolves for ever 
 The bond that forms the friendship of a life, 
 Or the sweet tie 'twixt husband and his wife, 
 
 Parent and child, when soul and body sever. 
 
 Surely the parted spirit must endeavour 
 To give some secret aid amidst the strife 
 Bereavement brings, when saddest thoughts are rife, 
 
 And Faith, grown weak, answers our prayers with "Never! 
 
 All things below seem to renew their youth : 
 Spring rescues nature from her wintry doom, 
 Minds fed by former minds advance in truth : 
 
 Shall man alone, withered in Death's simoom, 
 Not know new life, gift of his Maker's ruth, 
 Not welcome dear ones in a happier home ? 
 
 When the heathen poet wrote those prophetic words : — 
 
 Non omnis vioriar ; multaqiie pars jnei 
 Vitabit Libitinain^ 
 
 he referred to the intellectual part of his own nature which 
 still lives in his poems as fresh as when Augustus patronised 
 and Maecenas rewarded it. If a Christian were to express the 
 same thought, he would say, " I shall not wholly die ; the 
 greater part of me will escape corruption." "Non omnis 
 
142 ESSAY X. 
 
 moriar " is a fitting epitaph for the tomb of everyone. My 
 soul shall live, but whither will it go ? are the two most 
 natural feelings of humanity, and stand to each other in the 
 relation of complement and supplement. "Whither do I 
 go ?" EnUsted as a soldier in the battle of life ; fighting in a 
 cause that I do not fully understand, in an enemy's country 
 that I do not fully comprehend, the Great Commander calls 
 me away, gives me another commission, entirely new weapons, 
 and changes the scene — whether for one of conflict or of 
 peace, I know not — but my vague thought now is, what shall 
 I be ? Whither shall I go ? Shall I be degraded in the 
 ranks, or promoted ? Shall I be in the Elysian Fields of the 
 good, or in the Tartarus of the bad, or in that middle sphere, 
 that Hades, the most populous of all, where the occupants 
 are neither happy nor miserable ; where for a time they 
 retain their interest in what they loved below, and occasionally 
 hold some kind of intercourse with their friends left behind- 
 Such is the old Pagan notion. The good in the Elysian 
 Fields had no desire to revisit earth; the bad were not 
 allowed to do so ; but the more populous Hades, inhabited 
 by the passively or negatively good, and the only moderately 
 bad, had not so far dissolved their connection with earthly 
 things, as to prevent them from occasionally visiting the 
 scenes to which their affections still attached them. 
 
 The Greek word Hades signifies " invisible," as does also 
 the corresponding word in Hebrew (Scheol), and it implies 
 not a place, but a state of desiring, longing, asking, praying — 
 words translated from the Septuagint into our English — 
 grave — death — hell. But revelation tells us little on the 
 subject. The possibility of a ghostly visitant is taken for 
 granted in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus ; while 
 in St. Paul's writings the spiritual body is distinctly affirmed, 
 
THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. 1 43 
 
 and also various degrees of exaltation in the spiritual state ; 
 just as one star differs from another star in glory. And this 
 is exactly what we should expect. The same harmonies and 
 relations which, amid many disturbances, prevail in the 
 physical world, we may also expect to meet with, possibly 
 amid fewer disturbances, in the world of spirits, the Divine 
 Will being the ruling power in both. 
 
 But as it is not the purpose of Holy Scripture to gratify 
 our curiosity respecting the laws of the spiritual, any more 
 than of the physical world, we are left to the cultivation of 
 our own intellectual powers to obtain light in both cases. 
 The cultivation of natural science has enriched mankind with 
 innumerable blessings, and as there can be no doubt but that 
 the same Divine Lawgiver presides over the worlds of spirit 
 as over the worlds of matter, and as we are permitted to 
 study the latter, and much fruit has been gathered in from 
 doing so, why should we not, so far as our very limited 
 means allow, study the former, under the hope that at some 
 future time, a Francis Bacon or an Isaac Newton may arise 
 with a spiritual Novum Organum and a widely operating 
 spiritual law of gravitation ? 
 
 ir. It is too much the practice in the present age to treat this 
 subject in a jocular, or altogether sceptical vein. Ghosts are, 
 by many, denounced as mere effects of superstition, of 
 ignorance, childishness or nervous disease ; while by some, 
 a considerable class of phenomena, in the production of 
 which fraud largely enters, has been dignified by the name 
 of spiritualism^ so that we may well be ashamed of the word 
 so degraded from its original meaning. 
 
 To the simple question, "Are spectral appearances or 
 ghosts real or imaginary events ?" it is difficult to give a 
 direct answer. Certainly, if we take the general feeling of 
 
144 ESSAY X. 
 
 mankind in all ages, based upon a belief in the immortality 
 of the soul, it is admitted that the appearance of a soul or 
 spirit after death is possible. However much the science 
 and so-called intelligence of the age is above superstition, yet 
 there is in most, if not in everyone, a lurking beHef in the 
 spiritual world and the possibiHty of receiving a visit from 
 one of its inhabitants. There is, I suppose, scarcely a family 
 in these islands that has not its ghost story. Everyone has 
 something to relate, not often, indeed very seldom, at first 
 hand; but still there is the fact that his father or mother, 
 or uncle or aunt, saw a ghost in which was traced 
 the likeness of a dear child or relative, then in some 
 distant part of the world ; and taking note of the time 
 of the vision, the post in due course brought the news 
 of the death of that person, which coincided with the 
 time of the vision. A highly educated friend of mine, one of 
 a large family, told me that his mother had seen the spirits 
 of several of his brothers and sisters, who had died in distant 
 parts of the world, weeks and months before the news of the 
 deaths reached home in the usual way.* 
 
 Now I will put it to every reader whether I am overstating 
 the matter in thus appealing to general experience in favour 
 of spectral appearances. Reason how you will, there is the 
 belief, and although as Dr. Johnson remarked, all reason is 
 against us, all tradition is for us, and universal tradition 
 
 * Note Added in 1887. — A few years ago, Dean Plumptre stated 
 in the Spectator newspaper that a relative of his on her death-bed 
 recognised the spirits of three of her deceased children standing about 
 the bed, and addressed them by name — " Mary ! Jane ! Anne ! all 
 here — What ! and Rebecca too ?" Now it had happened, during this 
 lady's illness, that her fourth daughter, Rebecca, had been taken ill and 
 died, and she had not been informed of the event. Hence her surprise 
 on recognising her spirit among the spirits of her sisters. 
 
THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. 1 45 
 
 generally has a foundation in truth. Addison also could not 
 refuse the universal testimony in favour of the re-appearance 
 of the dead, strengthened by that of many credible persons 
 he was acquainted with. Isaac Taylor also in his " Physical 
 Theory of another Life," has these remarkable words — " The 
 dead do sometimes break through the boundaries that hem 
 in the ethereal crowds; and if so, so as if by trespass, may in 
 single instances infringe upon the ground of common 
 corporeal life." 
 
 Such then being the general belief, the advocate is entitled, 
 under the doctrine of probabilities, to a hearing; and the 
 more so, as he is not dealing with one single case of spectral 
 appearance, nor with a dozen, but with hundreds, if not 
 thousands. He is dealing with a recurrent case ; and 
 according to La Place, "Every case, however apparently 
 incredible, if it be a recurrent one, is as much entitled, under 
 the laws of induction, to a fair valuation, as if it had been 
 more probable beforehand." 
 
 If I were to attempt to bring the subject of spiritual 
 manifestations under a scientific formula, it would be the one 
 that has been of such inestimable value in physical 
 inquiries — " Given the phenomena, to find the law." But 
 the difficulty is to accept the phenomena, and you cannot 
 reproduce them at will. The more narrowly one tries to re- 
 duce the phenomena to distinctness, the more vague they 
 become. Observers are careless; they disagree not only 
 about the hour, but the day of a given event. They do not 
 always agree as to what was really seen. They cannot always 
 distinguish between objective and subjective phenomena, or 
 they are shy to relate what they have witnessed for fear of 
 ridicule, or if they do relate it you must on no account pub- 
 lish their names as authorities for the occurrence. Hence the 
 
146 ESSAY X. 
 
 facts have, in general, no scientific value, and the ordinary 
 methods of inductive research are inapplicable. We are 
 thrown back upon the study of our own inner nature, aided 
 by a few rays of light escaped from, rather than belonging to, 
 physiological and psychological science. 
 
 There are few things more wonderful than the power of 
 mind or spirit in ranging at will over the universe. Solid 
 matter cannot confine it, storm and tempest cannot hinder 
 its flight. We are at this moment in Highgate, in another 
 we are, in imagination, in China or Japan, where we can 
 realise all we have heard or read respecting those countries. 
 We do this by means of a sort of a supplementary universal 
 sense, which performs the functions of the other senses in a 
 marvellous manner. We can sit by our fire-side, and 
 apparently see, hear, feel, touch, and taste the climate 
 and productions of China and Japan without ever going or 
 intending to go there. Persons acquainted with the 
 old town of Liege say that Sir Walter Scott must have 
 CAplored every cranny, nook and corner of the place to have 
 been able to reproduce such admirable photographs of it in 
 his "Quentin Durward," and yet our great novelist had 
 never seen the place. So Miss Martineau, when asked 
 how long she had lived in Norway, astonished the inquirer 
 by remarking, "I never was in Norway" — for the inquirer 
 was a Norwegian and recognised with delight his native 
 land, in the word-pictures given in that charming story 
 " Feats on the Fiord." 
 
 Then again in dreams, how vivid often are the persons 
 and scenes and events brought up before and appreciated 
 by the mind. We see the various persons talk, and act, play 
 music, sing songs, appeal in fact to all our senses, and yet on 
 awaking we feel no surprise, but say it was only a dream. 
 
THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. I47 
 
 Coleridge composed his fragmentary poem of Kubla Khan 
 during a dream. Tartini dreamt that the devil appeared to 
 him, and that he handed to the fiend his vioHn, and told 
 him to play something. On awaking, he wrote down the 
 air, and produced what is known to musicians as "The 
 Devil's Sonata." 
 
 Professor Graham, late Master of the Mint, told 
 me that when he was a student at Edinburgh, having 
 had good introductions, he was invited into some of the 
 best society. He dreamt one night that he was in a 
 celebrated drawing-room, together with a fellow-student, 
 who was asked to sing. To Graham's surprise and disgust 
 he began a student's song which contained two objectionable 
 lines. Graham sat in horror, feeling that disgrace was at 
 hand ; when to his intense relief the singer altered the two 
 vulgar lines, so as to make them harmless. " What a clever 
 fellow he is !" thought Graham, " but as / know 1 am 
 dreaming all this, I shall forget in the morning how the lines 
 were altered. I will get up and write them down." He 
 dreamt that he jumped out of bed, went to his desk, and 
 wrote down the lines. On awaking in the morning, he 
 remembered both dreams, or rather, the dream within a 
 dream, ran to his desk, and found that he had written 
 nothing. 
 
 Many other remarkable dreams might be cited. The 
 fact is, that during sleep there is no loss of function in the 
 optic, auditory, olfactory, gustatory nerves, or the cranial or 
 spinal nerves concerned in the sense of touch ; but there is 
 an inability of the whole brain to take cognisance of the 
 impressions conveyed to it ; nevertheless, parts of the brain 
 do take such cognisance, and it may be even above the 
 waking standard, in consequence of the other faculties not 
 
148 ESSAY X. 
 
 exercising a controlling or modifying influence. Indeed, 
 some psychologists are of opinion that under such circum- 
 stances, the imagination is the more active from not being 
 controlled by the judgment. 
 
 That wonderful faculty by which one mind acts upon 
 distant objects, and most probably also upon distant minds, 
 is not limited to sentient beings. The action of a magnet 
 upon a distant needle indicates a kind of force which we are 
 totally unable to explain, any more than the attraction of 
 masses of matter according to Newton's general law. We 
 see everywhere in nature abundant examples of action at a 
 distance, and it would disturb the law of continuity to 
 suppose that our minds are exceptions. The beautiful 
 curves formed by iron filings around a magnet indicate the 
 direction of certain lines of force originating in the magnet, 
 and which can be traced to a considerable distance. Had 
 we the experimental means, we should also be able thus to 
 make visible similar lines of force emanating from masses of 
 matter, or even from the action of the will upon distant 
 objects. 
 
 This power of conveying the mind so as to act at a 
 distance, and this further power of exercising the perceptions 
 while asleep in a dark room, is precisely that power pos- 
 sessed, we must suppose, in a more exalted degree, by a 
 disembodied spirit. If our spirit, while clogged with the 
 various impedimenta of a material husk or shell, with its 
 many aches and pains and imperfections, if the spirit, I say, 
 thus shackled, can do so much, what is it not capable of, 
 when it has " shuffled off this mortal coil," and all the ills 
 that flesh is heir to ? 
 
 Before we can advance a step in our inquiry, it is necessary 
 to realise this separate and spiritual existence, in which the 
 
THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. 149 
 
 functions of the senses are present in an exalted degree 
 without the aid of the physical organs. The metaphysician 
 Reid, and his Editor, Sir William Hamilton, admit this con- 
 dition. — Reid says — " We have reason to believe that when 
 we put off these bodies and all the organs belonging to them, 
 our perceptive powers shall rather be improved than des- 
 troyed or impaired. We have reason to believe that the 
 Supreme Being perceives everything in a much more perfect 
 manner than we do, without bodily organs. We have reason 
 to believe that there are other created beings, endowed with 
 powers of perception, more perfect and more extensive 
 than ours, without any such organs as we find necessary.'"' 
 
 On this Sir William Hamilton remarks — "However 
 astonishing, it is now proved beyond all rational doubt, that 
 in certain abnormal states of the nervous organism, percep- 
 tions are possible through other than the ordinary channels 
 of the senses." 
 
 Now without entering into any discussion as to the 
 phenomena of mesmerism or electro-biology, I will just take 
 the most common case of spiritual manifestation, namely, 
 that of a person in the act of dying, or just dead, appearing 
 to his friends at a distance in his ordinary dress. One of the 
 Professors of King's College told me that his father and 
 mother saw, at the time of the accident, some kind of mani- 
 festation of their nephew who was drowned at sea more than 
 a thousand miles off. A lady in Highgate informed me that 
 a cadet in her husband's regiment was drowned, and that his 
 form was seen in the mess-room at the time when he was 
 known to be away on an aquatic excursion. Several of the 
 officers saw it, one calling others, including my informant's 
 husband, to witness it. Some hours later the dead body of 
 the cadet was brought into barracks. The widow of an old 
 
150 ESSAY X. 
 
 friend of mine told me that her Httle girl, the© about seven or 
 eight years old, frequently said quite spontaneously, " Papa 
 is in the room." 
 
 Now it is quite easy to dispose of these cases by laughing 
 at them and talking wisely about superstition, nervous and 
 sanguineous disturbances, and so on. I, for one, cannot join 
 with the scoffers. I am disposed to treat such cases as being 
 highly probable. I accept the testimony and proceed to 
 consider the facts. 
 
 The first thoughts in the individual in the act of dying 
 may recur to his dearest relatives or friends, and the first use 
 the parting or parted spirit makes of his newly acquired 
 power of acting upon those at a distance, may be to present 
 himself before them. But how is this accomplished ? We may 
 suppose by one of three methods : (i) Either by transporting 
 itself within the range of vision of the seer; or (2) by commu- 
 nicating certain undulations or vibrations to some ethereal 
 medium existing between itself and the seer; or (3) by the 
 exertion of some kind of force similar to that exerted between 
 two distant magnets or between two distant masses of matter. 
 
 First then by transporting itself How, it may be asked, 
 is it possible for the spirit to transport itself through 
 thousands of miles in an instant of time ? This difficulty 
 will be mitigated, if we recur to what has been already said 
 as to the power of our own spirit, encumbered as it is with 
 fleshly trappings, to transport itself to the antipodes and back 
 again in an instant of time. There are occasions when the 
 brain is thrown into some peculiar state (for which we have 
 no other expression than " being in a brown study ") when 
 the thoughts are far away, and the spirit may be said to be 
 as much absent from the body as if it were disembodied. 
 Under such a condition, the spirit wanders where it will, 
 
THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. 151 
 
 mingles with those dear to it in whatever part of the world 
 they may happen to be, converses with them, shares their 
 affections, and, in short, ministers to them and is ministered 
 to by them in apparently as real a manner as if they were 
 bodily present. When the spirit is thus intently engaged 
 with distant friends, what, we may ask, is their condition at 
 the same moment? It is probable they too are thinking of us, 
 as is indeed often proved by the crossing of letters; or by some 
 one whom you had not seen or scarcely thought of for 
 months, calling upon you on the very day that you had a strong 
 impression that you would see him. Such is the mysterious 
 action of mind on mind, that if we think intently on any one 
 w^e feel a warm interest in, however separated by distance, 
 that person will probably think of us at the same moment. 
 In such cases distance is no impediment. Distance has 
 reference to material objects, and we are speaking of spiritual 
 intercourse. We become conscious of impediments when 
 we attempt to convey these our solid frames from one place 
 to another; but a disembodied spirit must be as independent 
 of distance as our thoughts are, and thus be able, like them, 
 to transport itself to a distance so as to impress on the 
 sensorium of the seer the form it wills to convey. 
 
 In the second place, we have supposed the spirit to com- 
 municate by means of the vibrations of an ethereal medium. 
 Spirit may hold intercourse with spirit, or with that universal 
 supplementary sense already referred to, by means of the 
 undulations of an ethereal medium analogous in kind to the 
 vibrations of the physical ether which the astronomer so deals 
 with as to bring an optical image of a distant heavenly body 
 into the tube of his telescope, within a few inches of him, so 
 that with the aid of the microscope contained in the eye- 
 piece of his instrument, he can enlarge and examine this 
 
f5i ESSAY X. 
 
 image, which is to all intents and purposes the vivid, living 
 counterpart of the object itself. By some such process we 
 may conceive it to be within the scope of the enlarged powers 
 of the disembodied spirit to be able to impress upon the 
 ethereal medium those peculiar vibrations which shall convey 
 its will to the distant seer, and so act upon the constructive 
 faculty of his universal sense as to convey an impression of 
 the form in which the spirit conceived itself to be at the 
 moment. The spirit can conceive itself clothed in its former 
 body, with its usual attire, and so represent them by the 
 power of the will to the eye, or present them to the construc- 
 tive imagination of the seer, with a distinctness proportional 
 to his receptivity or the intensity of the relations between 
 them. It is a message, in fact, conveyed by undulations, less 
 rapid perhaps than those which produce light and the optical 
 images of objects ; more rapid than those coarser vibrations 
 of the aerial medium which produce the multitudinous 
 variety of sounds. The form may be made out to the seer 
 much in the same way as the writing telegraph is made to 
 work. I step into an office in London, grasp a pen and 
 write : at the same instant a pen also guided by me 
 here in London is repeating and writing in York or 
 Edinburgh the message I am writing in London. The 
 friend to whom I write can witness the motion of the distant 
 pen and recognise my handwriting as distinctly as if he were 
 looking over my shoulder. This effect is produced not by a 
 transference of matter ; but by a series of vibrations or 
 molecular motions in the wire that is stretched between 
 London and Edinburgh. All this ceases to be wonderful, 
 because wonder ceases when we become intimate with the 
 means employed to produce the effect. We do not know 
 how a disembodied spirit, thousands of miles away, impresses 
 
THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. I53 
 
 his bodily likeness on us. We wonder; and as wonder is the 
 child of ignorance, we get ashamed of our wonder and deny 
 the fact. 
 
 The third method of communicating, namely, by the 
 transmission of lines of force as between a magnet and a 
 magnetic needle free to move, or between two distant masses 
 of matter, is as unintelligible to us as are those phenomena, 
 and until we can define to ourselves the mode of action in 
 the latter, it is useless to speculate on the former. Jeremy 
 Bentham thought he had laid ghosts for ever by the 
 proposition that if a man could appear as the ghost of him- 
 self, he could not produce the ghosts of his clothes. But by 
 one or other of the first two methods of communicating just 
 described, the spirit may will itself to appear in any form 
 or costume that will best assist the understanding of the seer. 
 Whether the resulting impression be strong or weak will de- 
 pend on the constructive faculty of the seer. If that be 
 strong, he will have before him or within him, objective or 
 subjective, the form of the disembodied spirit, with all its 
 accessories of dress, &c. ; if weak, the form will be vague 
 and uncertain. 
 
 This plastic power resident in the spirit, which enables it 
 to present sights or sounds, or whatever it wills, to the con- 
 structive imagination of the seer, is probably a subjective 
 phenomenon on the part of the seer. The ghost is seen by 
 one among many, or in some cases by several among many, 
 in very few cases by all. But it is reasonable to suppose 
 that the spirit can act upon several at the same time as easily 
 as upon one, provided the constructive faculty be powerful 
 among several. If not equally so, the impressions will vary 
 in distinctness. In like manner, when speech is made use of 
 by the spirit, it is not audible speech, but the transference 
 
154 ESSAY X. 
 
 of thought which appears to be speech from the manner in 
 which the vibrations are borne in and enter the mind of the 
 recipient; not through the ear, but on that part of the 
 sensorium where the auditory nerve terminates. Shak- 
 spere (to whom we are accustomed to refer as to a record of 
 actual phenomena) manages this with his usual skill when, in 
 Hamlet's interview with his mother, the Ghost appears and 
 Hamlet alone sees and hears him. The Queen says : — 
 
 Alas ! how is't with you, 
 That you do bend your eye on vacancy, 
 And with the incorporal air do hold discourse ? 
 Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep. 
 And as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, 
 Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, 
 
 Starts up and stands on end 
 
 Whereon do you look ? 
 
 Hamlet. On him ! on him ! Look you, how pale he glares 1 
 .... Do not look upon me, 
 Lest with this piteous action you convert 
 My stern effects : then what I have to do 
 Will want true colour — tears perchance for blood. 
 
 Queen. To Avhom do you speak this ? 
 
 Ham. Do you see nothing there ? 
 
 Queen. Nothing at all : yet all that is I see. 
 
 Ham. Nor did you nothing hear ? 
 
 Queen. No, nothing but ourselves. 
 
 Hajn. Why, look you there ! look how it steals away 1 
 My father in his habit as he lived — 
 Look where he goes, even now, out at the portal. 
 
 [Exit Ghost.] 
 
 Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain — 
 This bodiless creation, ecstacy 
 Is very cunning in. 
 
 Now compare this with the commencement of this mag- 
 nificent drama, where the Ghost makes himself visible, and 
 
THE Disembodied spihit. 155 
 
 even audible, to Hamlet and his friends, although the secret 
 is revealed to Hamlet alone apart from his friends. I would 
 remark that whenever Shakspere introduces what is called 
 the supernatural, he does so in a manner that is in such 
 perfect harmony with our feelings, that we seem to be in the 
 presence of the perfectly natural. In fact, the great poet 
 arouses the sympathies of our common nature, and we 
 recognise these spiritual manifestations as events which may 
 happen to any one of us. 
 
 It seems as if Shakspere were anticipating some modern 
 discoveries in this " discerning of spirits," which he has 
 illustrated so perfectly ; for within the last twenty years the 
 Austrian chemist Reichenbach, the discoverer of kreosote, 
 published a number of remarkable cases in which persons 
 of both sexes in certain conditions of nervous excitement, 
 consequent on disease, saw in a darkened room lambent 
 flames playing from the poles of a magnet, from the extrefni- 
 ties of crystals, and from the fingers of human beings. The 
 first cases occurred in a hospital at Vienna; and taking note 
 of these, he visited many parts of Germany, and was able 
 to collect a number of such cases, the value of which is 
 that such phenomena are not only recurrent but concurrent^ 
 which is precisely the property which I trace in a large 
 number of the ghost stories of various ages and countries. 
 During Reichenbach's investigation there was one often- 
 denounced superstition that was brought within the range o 
 natural phenomena, namely, "Corpse Candles," or those 
 occasional luminous appearances that are seen in graveyards. 
 A person with sensitive sight might see such a light over a 
 grave on a dark night, and relating the circumstance to per- 
 sons of obtuser vision, be laughed at and denounced as super- 
 stitious. At any rate, the number of such seers was sufficient 
 
 L 2 
 
156 ESSAY X. 
 
 to erect the phenomenon into what is called a popular super- 
 stition. But every one of Reichenbach's patients spoke to 
 the truth of the phenomenon. On the darkest night the 
 graveyard was full of phosphorescent light, which Reichen- 
 bach explained in terms perfectly intelligible and satisfactory 
 to every chemist. There is a gas known as phosphuretted 
 hydrogen, which takes fire the moment it is exposed to the 
 oxygen of the air. Now phosphorus is an ingredient in the 
 animal frame, and hydrogen is one of the products of its 
 decomposition. The hydrogen in its nascent state, as it is 
 called, when just on the point of being evolved, possesses 
 remarkable powers of combination, and so, uniting with the 
 phosphorus, would form with it this compound gas, which 
 streaming upwards and escaping in small quantities into the 
 air, would glow with a faint light, visible only to very sensitive 
 organs. 
 
 While our organs are healthy we are apt to regard any 
 disease affecting them as tending to depress their sensitive- 
 ness, as when a person under the influence of a cold 
 becomes hard of hearing ; but there are abnormal states of 
 the organs in which a contrary effect is produced, when any 
 one of the senses may be unduly exalted ; and then, as in 
 the case of Reichenbach's patients, events are witnessed 
 which are declared to be impossible, and yet may be among 
 the ordinary phenomena of nature. During an inflamma- 
 tory attack my eyes became so sensitive to light that, in 
 what would be called by an ordinary observer a dark room 
 on a dark night, I could distinguish objects with painful 
 clearness, and even read large printed characters placed on 
 the coverhd of my bed. Some animals that pursue their 
 prey by night have the eye adapted so as to catch and utilise 
 every ray of light, so that they can see in what we should 
 
THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. 157 
 
 call the dark. The luminous part of the solar spectrum is 
 produced by the undulations of an ether, the length of a wave 
 of which, for the extreme violet is the sixty thousandth of 
 an inch, and for the extreme red the forty thousandth 
 of an inch. Beyond these limits the ethereal undulations are 
 not visible to the human eye. We know that there are other 
 undulations producing the chemical rays at the one extremity 
 and the calorific rays at the other. It is quite conceivable, 
 or even more than probable, that beings exist whose organs 
 of vision or of touch perform their functions by means of 
 one or other of these sets of rays which to us are invisible. 
 In like manner there are limits at the two extremities of the 
 scale of audible sounds, that is, between sixteen and 38,000 
 vibrations in a second of time; but practically, the range of 
 musical sounds is between forty and 4000 vibrations per 
 second, including a range of seven octaves, in the highest 
 of which the vibrations are 100 times more numerous than 
 in the lowest. The vibrations may be too rapid to be audible 
 to a human ear, or too slow to form a continuous note, and 
 yet it is quite conceivable that there are beings that hold 
 converse or communicate by means of sounds quite inaudible 
 to us. Hence, how necessai*y is the exercise of caution and 
 inquiry before we denounce certain statements of recurrent 
 facts as the offspring of superstition and ignorance. Science 
 admits many things that prejudice denounces ; but science 
 admits wisely and after proof; prejudice denounces blindly, 
 without proof or even inquiry. There are mysteries within 
 us and about us on every side, and our highest and most 
 refined science is most successful when it teaches us to 
 understand, wisely and well, the little that our very limited 
 faculties permit us to know; while, at the same time, it 
 makes clear to us that there lies beyond us an infinity of 
 
158 ESSAY X. 
 
 creation which is not explored, because our faculties are 
 unequal to the task. 
 
 It may be that the addition of another distinct sense would 
 make any one of us as superior to all the rest as he already 
 is to a man born blind. The possession of that sixth sense 
 we might conceive to be as amazing an intellectual advan- 
 tage as the conferring of sight upon a bUnd man. But we 
 are reminded of the limits imposed upon us by the fact that 
 we have no conception of what is meant by a sixth sense. 
 Our faculties are so adjusted to the standard of five senses 
 that, were some superior being to appear and offer to confer 
 upon us a sixth sense, provided we would name it, we should 
 be unable to do so. 
 
 The disembodied spirit may be in possession of this sixth 
 sense, or may have the five senses exalted to a degree that 
 we have no conception of. In either case it would be 
 immeasurably superior to any one in the flesh, and as able 
 to take advantage of the new conditions of its being as a 
 blind man restored to sight would be over those who still 
 remained blind. 
 
 But there is another possibility that must just be glanced 
 at. The disembodied spirit may have faculties even moie 
 limited than it had in the body. It may from very feebleness 
 of expression be unable to communicate with those it left 
 behind; or its faculties though equal in force may be 
 different in direction, and so it may be equally cut off from 
 the possibihty of communicating. This would seem to be 
 the only mode of accounting for that absence of communica- 
 tion in cases when communication would, of all things, 
 apparently be most desirable; or for that imperfect com- 
 munication of which there are so many recorded instances. 
 
 That disembodied spirits have a common nature seems 
 
THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT. I59 
 
 very probable; but that that nature has at least as many 
 shades and varieties as in the human subject is more than 
 probable. — But enough of such speculations. 
 
 I have thus far, in as calm and philosophic a frame of 
 mind as I think I am capable of, groped my way through the 
 darkness of my subject to a sort of meaning as to the con- 
 dition of the disembodied spirit. I would now offer a few 
 remarks on its locality. The poet says : — 
 
 " Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen." 
 
 But in this statement he was probably guided rather by the 
 beliefs of mediaeval theology than by analogy. Believing as 
 I do that the laws of true science (which is a true, though 
 incomplete expression of the Divine Will) are operative 
 in the spiritual world, though not altogether in the same sense 
 as in the physical, because applied to different objects ; 
 believing this, I say, there are certain attractions and 
 repulsions and affinities and non-affinities among different 
 kinds of matter, which assist or retard combination, decom- 
 position, and other processes. There are such affinities and 
 such repulsions on the part of some individuals towards some 
 others, and for these as it respects certain forms of matter. 
 These things follow the law of their being, and there is reason 
 to suppose that the disembodied spirit may by some law of 
 affinity remain on this earth and swell the number of spiritual 
 creatures that walk unseen ; or by some other law of 
 attraction may be drawn as by an irresistible impulse to a 
 distant planet where congenial spirits dwell, whether good or 
 bad, depending on the kind of life led here below. There 
 must be this kind of elective affinity, if the harmonies of 
 another world are not more interrupted by discords than they 
 are here below ; for even here the good seek the company 
 
/ 
 
 l6o ESSAY X. 
 
 of the good, the intellectual that of the intellectual, the 
 depraved that of the depraved, and so on, and there is every 
 reason to suppose that this sort of companionship will be 
 carried out more perfectly in the spiritual world. 
 
 In answer then to the question which we have to discuss 
 to-night, "Are spectral appearances to be classed among 
 real phenomena?" lam disposed to say that probabilities 
 are in favour of the affirmative. Arguing from the admitted 
 doctrine of the immortaUty of the soul, and its existence 
 separate from the body after death ; relying too upon the 
 same harmonious divine government both in the spiritual and 
 in the physical world, there must be an intimate connection 
 between the two — more intimate perhaps than we are aware 
 of ; and I see no reason, a priori^ why there may not be an 
 occasional visible communication between the two. Probably 
 if we were more spiritually minded, the occasions of such 
 intercourse would be more frequent. When left to the calm 
 solitude of a sick bed, and we endeavour to bring our whole 
 nature into harmony with our Maker's will, we may be more 
 than half conscious of bright forms flitting about our bed, 
 and feel ourselves in the presence of ministering angels. 
 
XL— THEOLOGY VERSUS SCIENCE. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 (1879.) 
 
 In the preparation of this Essay I am under obligations to the 
 following- works : — Professor Draper's '* History of the Intel- 
 lectual Development of Europe," two vols., 1875 5 " History of 
 the Conflict between Religion and Science," by the same ; 
 Lecky's " History of Rationalism," 1877 ; Milman's " Latin 
 Christianity," nine vols, 1872-79. 
 
 Many modern writers make theology synonymous with 
 religion. This is not correct. Theology is the science 
 that treats of God, whether it be natural theology which 
 studies God in His works, or Christian theology (a term first 
 introduced by Abelard in the 1 2th century), which considers 
 God in His relation to the scheme of man's redemption. The 
 Professors of this science of Christian theology have hitherto 
 been the priests and the clergy, who formed what was called 
 the Church ; and it was not until the Church came to be 
 regarded as the People plus the Clergy, that the sheep con- 
 sidered they had any right to a mouthful of ecclesiastical 
 grass without the consent of their Shepherds, many of whom 
 
l62 ESSAY XI. 
 
 were wont to claim a very large handful of wool for a very 
 small mouthful of grass. 
 
 Science differs from natural theology in this. Instead of 
 studying the attributes of God as manifested in His works, it 
 seeks to discover the laws by which Cosmos is governed. 
 Every Theist admits that God is the Author of Nature — the 
 only First Cause. Many good people unacquainted with 
 scientific method sometimes charge scientific men with try- 
 ing to do without God. But they are not aware that since 
 the time of Bacon it has not been the business of science to 
 seek for First Causes. The scientific man studies phenomena 
 in order to ascertain the law; knowing which, he has secured 
 a powerful means of getting at higher and more subtle 
 phenomena, governed by higher and more subtle laws. 
 
 When science, therefore, is seeking by natural means to 
 account for natural phenomena, she is not forgetting God, 
 but is working with her own most appropriate tools. 
 
 The moral law, or man's relation to God, as revealed in 
 Holy Scripture, is supposed by the Church to be the sole 
 object of her teaching ; and she has been and is practically 
 bhnd to the fact, that some of the most beautiful passages in 
 Holy Writ dwell on the beauties of nature, and invite us to 
 study God in His works — thus clearly admitting that nature, 
 or God's relation to man, ought to be studied by the 
 theologian. The laws by which we are governed, whether 
 moral, physical, chemical, or physiological, own the same 
 Divine Lawgiver, and are marked by the same attributes, 
 which are chiefly these — they are self-acting — they inflict their 
 own penalties on transgressors, which penalties are trans- 
 missible even to the third and fourth generation. But how 
 rich in reward are these laws to obedience — showing mercy 
 unto thousands of those that love Me — of those that obey my 
 
THEOLOGY VCrSllS SCIENCE. 1 63 
 
 laws — for sin is the transgression of the law ; and it is pun- 
 ished. Pull down the houses of the poor to build your 
 mansions and warehouses, and crowd the poor upon the 
 already crowded poor, and fever is bred and pestilence, and 
 they assail you and your household, and you send for the 
 doctor, who says there is something in the air, and for the 
 priest, who says it is what pleases God, and no one suspects 
 that outraged laws, of divine origin are inflicting their self- 
 acting penalties. 
 
 What ignorance is this 1 The teachers of the Church, that 
 ought always to have cherished Science as the twin sister of 
 Faith, begotten by the same Almighty Father, have ever been 
 her deadliest enemy. 
 
 Glancing through the long vista of ages, from the murder 
 of Hypatia by Bishop Cyril in the year of Grace 414, to the 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, I shudder at the 
 ignorance, superstition, cruelty, selfishness, sinfulness of man. 
 The Church became a political power, and grew every day 
 more rich and more corrupt, so that it might truly be said the 
 clergy were the Church, the shepherds owned the sheep, and 
 woe be to those that refused to come in and be sheared. 
 
 In order to retain their supremacy the Romish Church 
 extinguished the literature of Greece and Rome, and 
 quenched all science and philosophy; and the horrible 
 death of Hypatia, and the murders, tortures, and imprison- 
 ments, the fines and forfeitures inflicted on thousands of. 
 others, served as a warning to all those who dared to 
 cultivate profane knowledge. 
 
 The Church held that all the science that the world re- 
 quired is to be found in Holy Scripture : and when any 
 question arose, the appeal was, not to nature, to experiment, 
 to observation, but to the Bible, or what was held to 
 
164 ESSAY XI. 
 
 be almost equivalent, to the Fathers. Among these no one 
 did more than St. Augustine to bring science and religion into 
 antagonism. The true purpose of the Bible — that of show- 
 ing man how to save his own soul — he turned aside, and 
 placed that sacred Book in the perilous position of being the 
 arbiter of human knowledge, the result of which was, 
 as already remarked, to overshadow man's intellect during 
 many centuries with a cloud of ignorance, mysticism, and 
 unintelligible jargon, " out of which flashed too often the 
 lightnings of ecclesiastical vengeance." 
 
 Consider for a moment what a divine revelation of science 
 would be. It must be as perfect and complete as the 
 scheme of man's redemption, and the last sentence of the 
 book containing it would be, "Cursed is he that shall add to 
 or take away from the things written in this book !" Further 
 advance in human knowledge would thenceforth be im- 
 possible, and we should be reduced to the hopeless condition 
 of the followers of Mahomet, who, acting on the precept that 
 all things necessary for man to know are contained in the 
 Koran, logically ask, "What need then for any other 
 book?" And they logically act when, as under Othman, 
 they destroyed the great library of Alexandria, just as Cyril 
 dispersed and destroyed the daughter Hbrary, the Serapion, 
 and tore the living flesh off the body of Hypatia, because she 
 lectured to admiring crowds on geometry and philosophy. 
 If the Bible contain the sum and substance of human 
 knowledge, what is the use of any other book ? Nay, any 
 other book would be a useless and dangerous heresy, and 
 every expounder, unless he were an orthodox priest, a 
 dangerous and noisome heretic. 
 
 I fear that in our own day many good people, under a 
 mistaken notion of the objects and purpose of revelation, 
 
THEOLOGY VCrSUS SCIENCE. 1 65 
 
 regard the Bible as the only book that has any real value, 
 and would be disposed to admit that if all other books were 
 destroyed mankind would be none the worse. I know that 
 it was once my fortune — or misfortune — to sit under a good 
 orthodox man who gravely maintained that all science and 
 all human knowledge are contained in the Bible, and that 
 had we only the eyes to read it properly, we should recognise 
 in it every great discovery that had benefited mankind. As 
 the Fathers had declared, so the Church adopted this view ; 
 and affirmed on patriotic and Scriptural authority, that tha 
 earth is a flat surface over which the sky is spread or 
 stretched like a skin, as St. Augustine has it. The sun, 
 moon, and stars move in this sky so as to give light to man 
 by day and by night. Above the sky is heaven, in the dark 
 and fiery space beneath is hell. The earth is the central and 
 most important body of the universe, all other things being 
 intended for and subservient to it. 
 
 This view is natural to man in the early phases of his 
 intellectual life. The earth is for him the centre of the 
 universe, geocentric ; and man is the central object of the 
 earth, anthropocentric. Early in the history of the Christian 
 Church the heretical doctrine of the globular form of the 
 earth had crept in. The Church by its mouthpiece, Lactan- 
 tius, said, " Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to 
 believe that the crops and the trees on the other side of the 
 earth hang downwards, and that men have their feet higher 
 than their heads ? If you ask them how they defend these 
 monstrosities, how things do not fall away from the earth on 
 that side, they reply that the nature of things is such, that 
 heavy bodies tend toward the centre like the spokes of a 
 wheel, while light bodies — as clouds, smoke, fire — tend from 
 the centre to the heavens on all sides. Now, I am really at 
 
1 66 fessAV XI. 
 
 a loss what to say of those who, when they have once gone 
 wrong, steadily persevere in their folly, and defend one absurd 
 opinion by another." As to the question of antipodes, 
 St. Augustine asserts that " It is impossible there should be 
 inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth, since no such 
 race is recorded in Scripture among the descendants of 
 Adam." And the most unanswerable argument against the 
 sphericity of the earth was, " that on the day of judgment 
 men on the other side of a globe could not see the Lord 
 descending through the air." 
 
 In the sixth century Cosmas Indicopleustes, in confuting 
 the heretical opinion as to the globular form of the earth and 
 the assertion that there is a temperate zone on the southern 
 side of the torrid, states that, according to the true orthodox 
 system of geography, the earth is a quadrangular plane 
 extending four hundred days' journey east and west, and 
 exactly half as much north and south ; that it is inclosed by 
 mountains, on which the sky rests ; that a mountain on the 
 north side, larger than the others, intercepts the rays of the 
 sun and so produces night, and that the plane of the earth 
 is not set exactly horizontally, but with a little inclination 
 from the north ^ — hence the Euphrates, Tigris, and other 
 rivers running southward are rapid; but the Nile, having to 
 run up-hill, has necessarily a very slow motion. 
 
 The Venerable Bede, in the seventh century, tells us that 
 the earth is the centre of creation, and its primary object. 
 " The heaven is of a fiery and subtle nature, round and 
 equidistant in every part; as a canopy from the centre of the 
 earth. It turns round every day with ineffable rapidity, only 
 modified by the resistance of the seven planets, three above 
 the Sun, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, then the Sun ; three below, 
 Venus, Mercury, the Moon. The stars go round in their 
 
THEOLOGY versus sciencf. 167 
 
 fixed courses, the northern performing the shortest circle. 
 The highest heaven has its proper limit ; it contains the 
 angelic virtues who descend upon earth, assume ethereal 
 bodies, perform human functions, and return. The heaven 
 is tempered with glacial waters, lest it should be set on fire. 
 The inferior heaven is called the firmament, because it sepa- 
 rates the superincumbent waters from the waters below. The 
 firmamental waters are lower than the spiritual heaven, 
 higher than all corporeal beings ; reserved, some say, for a 
 second deluge; others, more truly, to temper the fire of 
 the fixed stars." 
 
 Such are a few specimens of the science taught by the 
 Fathers and adopted by the Church. The proof of such 
 science was as logical as the science itself. Because the Church 
 is of divine origin and can work miracles, therefore all its 
 teaching must be true. An Arabian satirist well remarked, 
 " If a conjuror were to say to me, ' Three are more than 
 ten, and in proof of it I will change this stick into a 
 serpent,' I might admire his legerdemain, but I certainly 
 should not admit his assertion." And yet during more than 
 a thousand years propositions equally absurd were accepted 
 on equally ridiculous proof. Too much time would be 
 occupied were I to attempt to retrace the slow and painful 
 steps by which the earth was at length proved and admitted 
 to be a globular body. But the proof was not due to science, 
 for science was extinct ; for those in whom we should expect 
 to find it were devoted to image worship, transubstantiation, 
 the merits of the saints, miracles, shrine-cures, the wealth 
 and influence of the Church. The discovery was made in 
 the interests of commerce chiefly by three sailors, Columbus, 
 De Gama and Magellan. 
 
 Columbus sought to revive the drooping trade of Genoa 
 
1 68 ESSAY Xl. 
 
 by proposing to sail towards the West in search of new 
 markets, satisfied as he was that our earth is a sphere. This 
 proposition was coldly received. Its irreligious tendency was 
 pointed out by the Spanish ecclesiastics, and condemned by 
 the Council of Salamanca : its orthodoxy was confuted 
 from the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Prophecies, the Gospels, 
 the Epistles, and the writings of the Fathers, St. Chrysostom, 
 St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St. Basil, St. Ambrose. 
 But we know, nevertheless, that Columbus, on the nth 
 October, 1492, landed in the New World. 
 
 Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape in 1497, and reached 
 India in the following year. Before he doubled the Cape he 
 sailed southward, and saw the Pole-star sink below the 
 horizon and disappear, while unknown constellations of the 
 Southern hemisphere came into view, all which was in agree- 
 ment with the globular form of the earth. 
 
 Magellan's ship accomplished more than the other two, it 
 achieved the greatest task that had ever been performed by 
 man — the circumnavigation of the globe, and thus for ever 
 set at rest the question as to the globular form of the earth. 
 The Church was greatly embarrassed. Her traditions and 
 policy forbade her to admit any other than the flat figure of 
 the earth, but how was it possible to conceal or explain away 
 the fact ! Alas 1 Truth is great, and will prevail even against 
 the Papal power. 
 
 Another question of even earlier date than that of the 
 .'igure of the earth, formed the subject of an Imperial Edict, 
 namely, to affirm that death was in the world before the fall 
 of Adam, was a State crime. The Church taught that 
 death was the penalty inflicted on the world for Adam's sin, 
 and the proof was found not in nature, but in the theology 
 of St. Augustine. 
 
THEOLOGY VerSUS SCIENXE. 1 69 
 
 I venture to think that in many a modern pulpit the 
 doctrine is still taught, that not only moral death, but 
 physical death, first entered the world with Adam. Much 
 as I admire the great poet who sang — 
 
 Of man's first disobedience and the fi^uit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world and all our woes, 
 
 I still think he is answerable for the perpetuation of much 
 theological error ; and on the point in question he has been 
 succeeded, if not preceded, by many divines of the reformed 
 Church. When I was a boy I received as a present a copy 
 of Gessner's " Life of Abel," in which was an engravinr, 
 illustrative of one part of the text, representing Adam and 
 Eve, after their expulsion from Paradise, in a startled 
 attitude over a dead bird, and exclaiming, " Can this be 
 death !" Why, there is no better ascertained or more firmly 
 established truth in all science than this — that long before 
 man appeared on the earth, millions of individuals, thousands 
 of species, and even genera, had died ; while those that 
 remain are but a small fraction of the vast hosts that have 
 passed away. 
 
 The third great question, namely, that which makes the 
 earth the centre of the universe, is so well known that I need 
 scarcely do more than refer to it. The geocentric system of 
 Ptolemy was the one that had been adopted from the second 
 to the sixteenth century by Christian and Mahommedan 
 authority. In the year 1507, Copernicus who was a teacher 
 of mathematics in Rome, completed a book, " On the 
 Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies," in which he reverted to 
 the system of Pythagoras, which placed the sun in the 
 centre, and made the planets revolve round him in circular 
 orbits. Aware of the danger he was incurring, he kept his 
 
lyo ESSAY XI. 
 
 book for six-and-thirty years, and it was not printed until the 
 author was on his death-bed, when he received the first copy. 
 His misgivings were not without foundation. The book was 
 condemned by the Inquisition, which denounced the system 
 as " that false Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the 
 Holy Scriptures." 
 
 We next have the telescope and Galileo and his numerous 
 astronomical discoveries, including his adoption of the 
 Copernican theory. He was accused of imposture, heresy, 
 blasphemy, atheism. He ventured to suggest, by way of 
 defence, that the Scriptures were never intended to be a 
 scientific authority, but only a moral guide. His defence 
 was made a part of his crime ; and the Holy Inquisition de- 
 nounced his doctrine of the earth's motion as being " utterly 
 contrary to the Scriptures," and he had to pledge himself not 
 to publish or defend it in future. Sixteen years later he pub- 
 lished his " System of the World," in the form of dialogues 
 between three speakers, thus hoping to escape the censure of 
 the Church. But the dogmas of Catholic faith were not the 
 less brought into direct collision with the deductions of 
 science. Galileo had broken his solemn promise to the 
 Inquisition, and proceedings were immediately taken against 
 him. Notwithstanding the intercession of the Grand Duke 
 of Tuscany and other powerful friends, he was tried and con- 
 victed, and was made a prisoner of the Inquisition during the 
 ten remaining years of his life, was not allowed as a heretic 
 to make a will, and his body was cast into unconsecrated 
 ground, but at length was allowed to occupy an obscure 
 corner in the Church of St. Croce in Florence. And yet the 
 system that he taught is what every child now knows, and 
 what all the world admits. 
 
 Although Galileo's telescope, in its improved form, magni- 
 
THEOLOGY versus science. 171 
 
 fied only thirty times, yet the discoveries made by its means 
 might well alarm the Church. Galileo found that the moon 
 has valleys like those of the earth, and mountains casting 
 shadows : that the seven stars of the Pleiades developed into 
 forty, and wherever he looked he discovered stars invisible 
 to the naked eye; he found that Venus and Mars have 
 phases like the moon, and do not shine by their own, but 
 by reflected light ; that there are spots on the face of the 
 sun, and that he revolves on his axis, instead of being 
 majestically fixed, as had hitherto been supposed. He dis- 
 covered Jupiter's moons revolving in orbits round the body 
 of the planet, a miniature representation of the Copernican 
 system. 
 
 Some of the more bigoted ecclesiastics denounced all 
 these things as juggleries ; the more superstitious shuddered 
 at the presumption of pretending to discover new bodies in 
 the heavens. Galileo invited them to look through his 
 telescope and judge for themselves, but this they refused to 
 do. In one of his letters to Kepler, Galileo says : — " Oh I 
 my dear Kepler, why are you not here ! What shouts of 
 laughter should we not have at this glorious folly ! Here is 
 a learned professor labouring before the Grand Duke with 
 logical arguments, as if with magical incantations to charm 
 the new planets out of the skies." Another professor, Sizzi 
 of Florence, maintained that as there are seven apertures in 
 the head (two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and one mouth), 
 seven metals, seven days of the week, so there can be only 
 seven planets. The four secondary planets, or moons of 
 Jupiter, being invisible to the naked eye, could exert no 
 influence on the earth, and therefore did not exist. 
 
 The illustrious Kepler, living partly under a Protestant 
 Government, did not undergo the penal sufferings inflicted 
 
 M 2 
 
172 ESSAY Xf. 
 
 on his friend. But he was not the less excommunicated 
 under the elastic charge of heresy, because, as he says, " in 
 every question I take that side which seems to me to be 
 consonant to the word of God." His book on the Copernican 
 system, which passed through seven editions within four years, 
 was placed on the Index, and during the temporary power of 
 the Jesuits, his library was sealed up, and he only escaped 
 personal violence on account of his office of Imperial 
 mathematician. And this treatment was bestowed on a man 
 whom a just Christian would regard as more noble, in that he 
 " received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched 
 the Scriptures daily whether these things were so," who 
 regarded himself but as the instrument which the Almighty 
 employed to make known His wonders, and who never entered 
 upon his inquiries without earnestly praying for divine light 
 and assistance. 
 
 The Church saw plainly enough that these discoveries 
 endangered the doctrine that the universe was made for the 
 sole use of man. The myriads of stars, hitherto invisible, 
 must have been created for some other purpose than that of 
 illuminating our night. But if the earth were dethroned from 
 her central position ; if she had many equals and not a few 
 superiors ; and, moreover, if each of the countless hosts of 
 fixed stars were a sun, surrounded by its own system of 
 revolving w^orlds, how insignificant among all these myriads 
 of worlds would this small speck of earth appear ! and how 
 profoundly humiliating to the pride of the Church, which 
 regarded earth and heaven as the sole creations of God, and 
 herself the divinely appointed medium between the two, 
 the possessor of the keys, and holding in her hands the des- 
 tinies of man ! But if there were innumerable other solar 
 systems, and myriads of other worlds, had each of these its 
 
THEOLOGY VerSUS SCIENCE. 1 73 
 
 own Church system, its own scheme of salvation? The 
 thought was as bewildering as it was humiliating, and the 
 more so, when men began to put forth the doctrine of 
 the plurality of worlds. This was more than the Church 
 could tolerate, and she hunted one of its advocates — 
 Giordano Bruno — through various countries of Europe back 
 to Italy, where he was arrested at Venice, and confined 
 during six years without books, papers or friends. From this 
 place he was transferred to Rome, to the prison of the 
 Inquisition, where, after a further detention of two years, he 
 was brought before his accusers, and on his nobly refusing 
 to recant his doctrines — namely, that the universe is infinite, 
 and that it is filled with self-luminous and opaque worlds, 
 many of them inhabited, and that God is the one Sole Cause 
 of Things — he was handed over to the secular arm to be 
 punished "as mercifully as possible, and without the shedding 
 of his blood " — the horrible formula for burning at the stake. 
 Knowing that his doctrines were spreading among men, he 
 said to his judges, " Perhaps it is w^ith greater fear that you 
 pass the sentence upon me than I receive it." He was burnt 
 at Rome on the i6th February in the year of Our Lord's 
 Redemption 1600. 
 
 But horrible murders such as these were not sufficient to 
 keep down heresy. De Dominis taught that the rainbow 
 must not be regarded as the weapon of warfare: of God, but 
 only an accident of the rays of light playing on drops of 
 water, to be seen also in the spray of a waterfall and in the 
 jet of a fountain. De Dominis was craftily decoyed to Rome 
 by the promise of an Archbishopric and the hope of a 
 Cardinal's hat. He was accused, among other things, of 
 having suggested concord between Rome and heretical 
 England, and was imprisoned in the Castle of St, Angelo, 
 
174 ESSAY XI. 
 
 where he died. His body was conveyed in its coffin before 
 an ecclesiastical tribunal and condemned, and it was burnt 
 together with a heap of heretical books. 
 
 Another point on which science and the Church were at 
 variance was this : — The Church taught that the Almighty, 
 somewhere about six thousand years ago, created the world 
 exactly as it now is out of nothing : that an ever-present 
 superintending Providence governs the world and all things 
 therein with an ever-watchful care that knows no intermission. 
 Science taught and teaches that the earth was once in a 
 nebulous condition, the molecules of which coming within 
 the range of each other's attraction, formed a plastic mass, 
 which by its rotation produced a bulging out of the equator, 
 and flattening of the poles, and accurate measurements 
 have determined that the earth's equatorial diameter exceeds 
 the polar by twenty-six and a-half miles. Here then we see the 
 operation of secondary causes, which the Church strenuously 
 denies. But science teaches that the solar system is 
 governed by secondary causes, by laws which, as already 
 pointed out, are as divine in their origin as the laws which 
 govern man's moral nature. 
 
 The six thousand years, the age of the world, was computed 
 from the statement that one day is with the Lord as a 
 thousand years, and thus the six days of creation give six 
 thousand years, and the day of rest another thousand, which 
 is to be a millennium of rest. It has been stated that the 
 antediluvian year consisted of 360 days, and that this was 
 the reason why the circle was divided into 360 degrees. 
 Volumes might be written on the speculations and dreams 
 of the Fathers and the early Churchmen on this subject. 
 But no one thought of consulting the Book of Nature ; or if, 
 as it sometimes happened, the huge bones of the mastodon 
 
THEOLOGY versus SCIENCE. 1 75 
 
 and megatherium were turned up, the explanation was the 
 Scriptural one, that there were giants in those days. And 
 when glimpses were obtained of fossil worlds, it was said 
 that the devil sowed those bones in the earth in order to 
 perplex good men. Books have been written even in our 
 own day to prove that the fossil remains of plants and 
 animals were created in siUi 6000 years ago, in order to 
 make the floral and faunal series complete. But there is no 
 limit to the follies of men when they wander from the truth 
 and substitute their own eccentric fancies for the teachings 
 of nature. 
 
 Astronomers have determined that the space scale of 
 creation is infinity. Geologists have determined that the time 
 scale of the world is equally incalculable. Aqueous rocks, 
 derived from the wearing down of the igneous, are of enor- 
 mous thickness ; they are inclined in various positions, which 
 show an unsettled position of the earth's crust. Some of 
 these are of fresh-water origin, and are intercalated with 
 others that are of marine origin. Vast masses of material 
 have been removed by the slow-acting process of denudation, 
 and extensive geographical surfaces have been remodelled, 
 whole continents have undergone movements of elevation 
 and depression, their shores sunk under the ocean, or sea- 
 beaches and sea-cliffs carried far into the interior. Geology 
 studies the flora and fauna of successive ages, and how the 
 chain of organic forms has been extended from its first dim 
 origin to the complex structures of our own day. The facts 
 presented by the coal fields prove that there has been a 
 general change of climate over the earth's surface. Some of 
 the coal-bearing strata are 15,000 or 16,000 feet in thickness, 
 and the coal was formed by the submergence of vast forests, 
 and so slow and steady was the action that great trees, some 
 
IT 6 ESSAY XI. 
 
 of them 4ft. in diameter, stand one above the other at suc- 
 cessive levels. In the Sydney coal field fifty-nine and in 
 North America sixty-eight such levels havs been counted. 
 
 From these, and a vast accumulation of other facts, the 
 age of the world must be reckoned by myriads of centuries : 
 it is simply incalculable. 
 
 But the Church says it will be granted at least that man is 
 but a recent tenant of this very old tenement. So the 
 Church teaches, and most Christians believe. If the date 
 of the building cannot be determined, the more recent date 
 of man's lease upon it is certainly unknown. The fossil 
 remains of man, his rude implements of rough or chipped 
 flint, of polished stone, of bone, of bronze, are found in 
 caves, in drifts, in peat beds, indicative of a savage life 
 spent in hunting and fishing. He can be traced back into 
 the Tertiary times (remote as they are), at the close of which 
 the Northern hemisphere suffered a great depression of tem- 
 perature, and from a torrid passed into a glacial condition. 
 After an enormous lapse of time the temperature rose 
 again, and the glaciers receded ; there was another decline, 
 and they again advanced, but not so far as before. The 
 Quaternary period now set in, during which the temperature 
 came to its present degree. During all these enormous 
 lapses of time, which cannot be expressed in figures, man's 
 existence on the earth has been most clearly proved. Now 
 it is of no use to denounce this statement from the pulpit 
 unless you consent to study the proofs. Upset these, and 
 I will listen to any number of sermons on the Mosaic 
 account of creation as interpreted by the Fathers and the 
 Church. 
 
 But in a discussion of this kind there is one other point 
 which requires to be noticed. The Church teaches and most 
 
THEOLOGY VerSUS SCIENCE. 1 77 
 
 Christians believe in the resurrection of the body. They 
 suppose that at the last day the soul will re-enter the very 
 same body that it formerly possessed, and reanimate the same 
 flesh and bones. It was only the other day that one of our 
 bishops objected to cremation on the ground that it would 
 disturb the belief in the resurrection of the body. It is this 
 belief that leads the rich to enclose the perishing remains of 
 mortality in leaden coffins, and to deposit them in hideous 
 structures which deform our cemeteries and graveyards, and 
 permanently occupy large areas of ground ; the idea being 
 that when the soul wants its body it will know where to find 
 it. The poor are consigned to the grave, and more naturally 
 fulfil the sentence, " dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt 
 return." The feeble designs of men cannot arrest the work 
 of nature. Animal life once at an end, the body becomes 
 subjected to those forces which everywhere govern matter. 
 The wonderful structures melt away, the substances of which 
 they were built up are resolved into their elements, and these, 
 set at liberty, enter into new combinations and become the 
 constituent parts of new beings, vegetable or animal; and 
 these in their turn perish, and from their death springs new 
 life, and thus the changes go on in a perpetual circuit. 
 
 Shakspere, who perceived most things, had also a clear 
 perception of this transmutation of matter, which is the more 
 wonderful, considering how difficult it must have been to 
 realise the idea in his time. He supposes the body of 
 Alexander the Great, after having passed through some 
 transformations, to be used at last to stop a bung hole. 
 Well may he exclaim — 
 
 " To what base uses we may return !" 
 
 The Church derives the resurrection of the actual body 
 from the resurrection of Our Lord's body, but the cases are 
 
178 ESSAY XI. 
 
 not parallel, seeing that Our Lord's body knew no corruption. 
 There is, however, really no ambiguity in the case if we only 
 conform to the teaching of St. Paul, in the fifteenth chapter 
 to the first Epistle to the Corinthians, the greater part of 
 which is read in our Burial Service : — " It is sown a natural 
 body — it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body 
 and there is a spiritual body." 
 
 But I must hasten to the conclusion of a subject of which 
 only a faint outline has been given. The Church of Rome 
 always insisted, and still insists, that blind faith is superior 
 to reason, that mysteries are of more importance than facts ; 
 that she is the sole interpreter of nature and of revelation, 
 the supreme arbiter of knowledge. She rejected Kepler's 
 modest request to be allowed "to dispute concerning natural 
 things, and to elucidate the works of God," and denounced 
 his invaluable book ; she rejects all modern criticism of the 
 Scriptures, and orders the Bible to be accepted in accordance 
 with the views of the theologians of Trent ; she publishes to 
 the world her hatred of free institutions and constitutional 
 government, and declares that those are in damnable error 
 who regard the reconciliation of the Pope with modern 
 civilisation as possible or desirable. 
 
 The Church of Rome has, of late years, regained some 
 of her lost power in these realms, seeing that a not incon- 
 siderable portion of the Church of England is favourable to 
 her policy, and adopts much of her teaching, which it was 
 supposed the Reformation had abolished. And while raising 
 a warning voice against her withering and persistent 
 intolerance, I would ask whether the theological systems of 
 our own Churches are not more or less intolerant of science. 
 The Jews even adopted the most detestable spirit of Rome 
 when they excommunicated Spinoza in a darkened synagogue, 
 
THEOLOGY VerSUS SCIENCE. 1 79 
 
 where each man carried a black taper and quenched its 
 flame in a vessel of blood, cursing the man who had written 
 a critical examination of the Old Testament which they 
 could not suppress, even though they offered its author a 
 splendid annuity for the purpose. The tone of some of the 
 addresses of the Evangelical Alliance might be improved, 
 especially when science is the subject either of her fears or 
 her rebukes. I might refer to other Protestant bodies which 
 frown upon science — often without understanding her — and 
 to that spirit of narrowness which creates social drawbacks 
 and distinctions. Most people think themselves capable 
 of judging of the science which has engaged the highest 
 intellects through successive generations, on which no one 
 ought to form an opinion without going through a long 
 course of study. The true man of science stands appalled 
 before the magnificent display of creative power exhibited in 
 nature, of which the non-scientific man has no idea at all, or 
 at best but a very crude one. The labours of scientific 
 men result in gifts to the world which have transformed its 
 face and altogether changed the habits of society ; you 
 accept these gifts, and refuse to the givers the scant privilege 
 of being left alone. Everyone — and most emphatically 
 the ministers of religion — think themselves capable of pass- 
 ing judgment on the deepest scientific problems ; or, if they 
 do not at once condemn them, they get into a scare with 
 which they infect their flocks. The scare which the astro- 
 nomers had inflicted had died away when it was renewed by 
 the geologists, and this was passing off when it was revived 
 in an intensified degree by the evolutionists. Now, taking a 
 warning from the examples brought forward to-night, would 
 it not be better, if the Church cannot adopt the teachings of 
 science, to leave off opposing her, seeing that her false con^ 
 
l8o ESSAY XI. 
 
 elusions (for science sometimes goes wrong as well as 
 theology) must share the fate of all falsity by coming to 
 naught ; but if the conclusions of science be true, however 
 startling and repulsive to received ideas, they must prevail, 
 because they are part of God's eternal truth. 
 
 I must apologise for the length of this paper, and borrow 
 an excuse from the postscript to one of Pascal's "Provincial 
 Letters," " I would have made it shorter if I had had more 
 time."^ 
 
 * Seizieme Lettre de 4 Decembre, 1656, *' Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus 
 ongue, que parceque je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte." 
 
XII.— A LAY SERMON ON THE TEXT : " THOU 
 SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR AS THY- 
 SELF." — Matt. xxii. 39. 
 
 (1881.) 
 
 In honour of the memory of our great countryman 
 Faraday (whose simple monument is to be seen in 
 Highgate Cemetery), a lecture is delivered every third 
 year, at the Royal Institution, the scene of his labours 
 and triumphs, from the time when he entered in the humble 
 capacity of laboratory boy, until his death, when he left 
 behind him the reputation of the greatest experimental 
 philosopher that ever lived, and also the character of a true, 
 active, simple-minded Christian. 
 
 In the second of these triennial lectures I heard Prof 
 Hofmann relate an anecdote of the celebrated chemist 
 Liebig. Hofmann and Liebig and two other scientific 
 men were out on a walking tour in the Tyrol. The 
 morning was hot, and the pedestrians agreed to stop at 
 the first place they came to where they could dine and 
 rest during the sultry afternoon. Just before they reached 
 the inn, Liebig noticed in the doorway of a cottage a poor 
 labourer stricken down with fever, and went in and 
 examined him. He joined his companions and dined with 
 them. After dinner, while they were lighting their pipes, 
 
152 ESSAY XII. 
 
 Liebig went out quietly and enquired the way to the 
 nearest druggist's, and was told that it was a long way off, 
 in a village on the other side of the hill. Regardless of 
 the heat, he toiled over the hill, and when he reached the 
 village, found the druggist's shop closed, the owner being 
 away for the day. On pushing his inquiry, he learned that 
 the key of the shop was left with a neighbour. He 
 procured the key, and rummaging among the bottles, made 
 up a quantity of medicine for the present and future use of 
 the poor patient. He then left a sum of money on the 
 counter, locked up the shop, returned the key, and pro- 
 ceeded to the cottage of the poor man, where he gave 
 plain directions for the use of the physic. He then returned 
 to his companions to enjoy his pipe and well-earned siesta. 
 
 Will you not agree with me that this conduct is Christ- 
 like ? "Sick and ye visited me." "Verily I say unto you, 
 inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
 my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 
 
 How poor, in comparison with this, are the strifes of rival 
 theologies; the nice interpretation of doctrinal texts, the 
 definition of a true Church, the apostolical succession, the 
 eastward position, lighted candles on the altar, a mixed 
 chalice, vestments, incense, the ringing of a little bell, and 
 similar non-fireproof structures of wood, hay, stubble 
 which men build on the foundation other than which can no 
 man lay than is laid, namely, Christ ; and yet for the sake of 
 these perishable structures men are content to go to law and 
 spend thousands of pounds, and even to remain in prison, 
 when — as it would seem to a poor layman like myself — 
 a single text is sufficient to define what is meant by true and 
 undefiled religion before our God and Father, namely, " to 
 visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
 
A LAY SERMON. 1 83 
 
 himself unspotted from the world." When the young man 
 inquired of our Lord how he could inherit eternal hfe, the 
 answer was, love God with heart, soul, and strength, and thy 
 neighbour as thyself. There is none other Commandment 
 greater than this. In the same spirit is the legacy of the 
 new commandment that ye love one another ; and the 
 climax, the culminating point of this love, is to be willing to 
 lay down one's Hfe for the good of mankind. After the 
 most splendid example of this sacrifice, other bright 
 examples will readily occur to my hearers. 
 
 But what does Scripture teach us in detail as to this love 
 of our neighbour ? And, first of all, who is my neighbour? 
 "A certain man went down to Jericho and fell among 
 thieves." You know the story; the priest and the Levite 
 ignored him, he is not one of my flock, not one of my caste, 
 doesn't go to my church or chapel or synagogue. The good 
 Samaritan cared for none of these things, the man was 
 wounded and helpless, and that was enough for him. He 
 was his neighbour who showed mercy on him — go thou and 
 do likewise. But poor erring human nature is startled at 
 the breadth and completeness of the divine commands. 
 " How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive 
 him, until seven times ?" No ! — until seventy times seven ! 
 But in common justice I may retaliate, an eye for an eye and 
 a tooth for a tooth ? No ! Resist not evil. But at least blow 
 for blow ? No : whosoever shall smite thee on the right 
 cheek, turn to him the other also. But if a man go to law 
 with me to take away my coat, what am I to do ? Let him 
 have thy cloak also. But there is Jack Noakes round the 
 corner who is continually seeking my hurt ; he is my enemy, 
 may I not hate him ? No ! " Love your enemies, bless 
 them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and 
 
184 ESSAY Xli. 
 
 pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." 
 But why, what shall I gain by it, what is the reward ? The 
 grandest, greatest that man can conceive — our heavenly 
 Father will adopt you as one of His children. 
 
 Such, then, is the perfection of Christian teaching for 
 which we are to strive. The apostle, in taking leave of the 
 Corinthians, says, " Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of 
 one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace 
 shall be with you." As to the mode in which poor im- 
 perfect human nature is to obey these divine commands, the 
 orthodox rule is, I believe, that we are to act up to their 
 spirit since we cannot obey the letter, " for the letter killeth 
 but the spirit giveth life." Adopting these words apart from 
 their context, seems to me to lead to a perversion of their 
 meaning. St. Paul does not say that we are to act up to the 
 spirit of the law, but that the divine commands are to be 
 written "not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God ; 
 not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh," 
 which is a very different thing ; for if the divine commands 
 are written upon our hearts with the finger of the living God 
 they must transform our whole being, so that we cannot fail 
 to obey them in all their fulness and comprehensive 
 breadth. 
 
 If, on the contrary, men were allowed to obey these com- 
 mands according to the spirit in which they conceived them 
 to be enacted, they would very soon be explained away and 
 accommodated to men's conduct and professional practices, 
 to the customs of the trade, to the requirements of fashion 
 and the allurements of vice. And I would ask whether, in 
 the daily and hourly behaviour of most men, we have any 
 assurance that these laws are operative at all? Do any two 
 men act alike under like conditions of the same law; or, 
 
A Lay sermon*. 185 
 
 rather is not each man his own interpreter of the law until 
 it receives so many interpretations as eventually to mean 
 nothing at all ? 
 
 " Love your enemies." Look at the vast standing armies 
 of Europe, the bitter feuds of rival Churches ; nay, of dis- 
 integrations among the members of the same Church, and 
 even the same congregation. Look at our law courts, the 
 readiness of man to resent real or imaginary wrongs. In 
 such cases and in multitudes of others it cannot even be 
 said that the letter killeth, seeing that the divine commands 
 are ignored altogether. But suppose the law to be written 
 on men's hearts with the spirit of the living God, it would 
 bear good fruit to the refreshment of all the world. If 
 "love your enemies " were cultivated with half the zeal that 
 men love themselves, pursue gain, rank, distinction, pleasure, 
 tScc, it would be a happier because a better world. I believe, 
 then, that the maxim of acting up to the spirit of the law, 
 and not to the letter, is a misapplication of St. Paul's 
 words, and I come now to a view of the subject for which I 
 may venture to claim some originality, and to expect some 
 censure. 
 
 It is so ordered in the Providence of God, that every one 
 who cultivates the higher faculties of his nature forms to 
 himself an ideal of perfection, which he strives after yet 
 cannot'attain. 
 
 The executed music is sublime ; 
 
 Sublimer thoughts stirred the composer's mind : 
 The poem loftily inspired you find ; 
 
 The poet's lyre was tuned to loftier rhyme. 
 
 That painting shows us Nature's loveliest clime ; 
 
 The artist fancied something more refined : 
 
 These all their own ideal lag behind, 
 And to o'ertakc it all too short is time. 
 
 N 
 
1 86 essaV xii. 
 
 If we must fail before the perfect thought, 
 The goal achancing while we still pursue, 
 And death o'crtake us ere we reach our aim, 
 
 Why by some yearning instinct are we taught 
 To hold perfection ever in our view. 
 Unless some future state makes good our claim? 
 
 But perhaps this ideal perfection, as it exists in nature, is 
 best known to the scientific mind. A very large portion of 
 rational science rests upon ideal conditions, which can never 
 be realised ; but once understand these conditions, and 
 any others become simply unthinkable. No one ever 
 saw a perfect circle, or a perfect ellipse; yet the properties 
 of the circle could never have been discovered except on the 
 assumption of its perfection, any more than the laws of 
 planetary motion except on the assumption that each planet 
 moves in a perfect ellipse without undergoing perturbations 
 from the sun and the other planets. No one ever saw a 
 mathematical line, consisting of length only, without breadth 
 or thickness ; but geometry and crystallography would be im. 
 possible without such an assumption. No one ever saw a lever 
 perfectly rigid, without weight, resting on a mathematical 
 point for its fulcrum, and remaining perfectly horizontal, 
 unsupported except on its fulcrum, so that a weight of one 
 pound suspended one hundred inches from the fulcrum shall 
 exactly balance a weight of one hundred pounds suspended 
 one inch from the fulcrum. All this is absolutely true, but 
 cannot possibly be realised in practice. An ideal steam 
 engine is one that expends the whole of its fuel in useful 
 work ; but such an engine, though never seen, is perfectly 
 conceivable, and engineers are constantly striving to 
 approach nearer and nearer to that ideal standard. 
 
 Now, what docs all this mean ? Why simply this, that our 
 
A LAY SERMON. 1 87 
 
 Lord has given us an ideal standard of perfection which we 
 are to strive after, so as to get as near to it as possible. 
 And here this question arises : Have we during the eighteen 
 or nineteen centuries that have elapsed since the Sermon 
 was delivered on the Mount, become more and more con- 
 scious of the necessity of yielding obedience to these divine 
 commands ? A rapid survey of the past must, I think, lead 
 to the conclusion that the world, bad as it is, is better than 
 it ever w^as, and is actually improving. My hearers must 
 not be shocked if I express my assent to the opinion of 
 St. Augustine and some of the old divines, that the biblical 
 account of the garden of Eden is an allegory. I see nothing 
 in it against the conclusion that man has not fallen but has 
 risen from a lower type. The only authority, so far as I 
 know, for the statement that Adam and Eve were placed in 
 the Garden of Eden in a state of perfect innocence is Milton's 
 " Paradise Lost," and that the eating of the forbidden fruit 
 brought death into the world and all our woes, rests on the 
 same authority. But the testimony of the rocks proves to 
 us that myriads of years before the time of Adam or any 
 other man, vast numbers of the various species of animals 
 were born, lived, were often victims of known diseases, and 
 died. The first chapter of Genesis winds up with the decla- 
 ration that " God saw every thing that He had made, and 
 behold it was very good."' We cannot suppose that moral 
 goodness was here meant. The animal creation had gone on 
 through myriads of ages fiercely contesting the right to live, 
 while only the strongest survived. It was the same with 
 man. The exploration of innumerable caves, lake-dwell- 
 ings, and other sources of information, reveals to us his whole 
 history ; how he gradually emerged from a lower to a higher 
 state of existence, until he became conscious that he was 
 
 N 2 
 
l88 ESSAY XII. 
 
 under law. This I take it is what is meant by, " behold it was 
 very good ;" namely, that in the course of Divine Providence, 
 working slowly but surely, man by small increments at a time 
 passed from his merely brutish condition to that higher 
 dawning of intelligence, that eocene of mind when he became 
 aware of the existence of law and that he was subject thereto, 
 and that to break that law is sin, for " sin is the transgres- 
 sion of the law." According to this view it may be admitted 
 that Genesis does assert man's innocence, so far as that 
 innocence consists in not having as yet disobeyed a known 
 command. Such a condition of innocence connotes no 
 elevation of character, and a fall from it by disobeying a first 
 command was hardly a fall, seeing that it was the commence- 
 ment of a sense of moral responsibility. And again : 
 granted the innocence, there is still none of the elevation of 
 character pourtrayed in Genesis which comes of knowledge, 
 experience, reason, and the practice of the thousand-and- 
 one acts of civilisation. The first baby law for the human 
 baby was, "Abstain from one physical pleasure" (at least, so 
 runs the allegory) while numberless other physical pleasures 
 remained. 
 
 As man slowly advanced in culture, other laws became 
 gradually unfolded to him. The nations that were only a 
 law to themselves died out or were exterminated ; Egypt, 
 Babylon, Assyria, though attaining some height in civilisa- 
 tion, perished. Greece and Rome disappeared ; and where- 
 ever we look, in whatever quarter of the globe, ancient 
 ruins bear witness to the fact that religions have been 
 founded, have flourished awhile, and have decayed and 
 become obliterated and forgotten ; so true is it that no 
 religion can endure that has not for its object an entire 
 devotion to God and an unselfish love of neighbour. But 
 
A LAY SERMON. 1 89 
 
 all these old religions were idolatrous, priest-ridden, perse- 
 cuting. Even the Jews, who had an exceptionally high 
 knowledge of the true God, could not maintain their 
 position, but fell into idolatry and became captive. Their 
 captors and persecutors perished and our Lord founded the 
 Church, and by his example and precept taught men how to 
 live and how to die. The Church ! Oh, what might not the 
 Church have done for the welfare of mankind had it only con- 
 tinued in the footsteps of its Divine Founder ! Had it only 
 continued in the path of its first ministers, " continuing daily 
 with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house 
 to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 
 praising God and having favour with the people," so that the 
 effect on the people was such that " the multitude of them 
 that believed were of one heart and of one soul ; neither 
 said any of them that aught of the things that he possessed 
 was his own, but they had all things common." But as the 
 centuries rolled on what did the Church show by its example? 
 Not that the most sensitive part of man is his conscience, 
 but his breeches' pocket ! ^Ve\\ may Dante exclaim, in the 
 bitterness of his soul — 
 
 Ah ! Constantine, of how much ill was cause 
 Not thy conversion, but those rich domains 
 Which the first wealthy pope received of thee. 
 
 And Petrarch, intimately acquainted with the Papal Court of 
 Avignon, denounces its master — 
 
 Heaven's flame, thou sinner, on thy tresses rain ! 
 and winds up with that terrible line — 
 
 Thy life is such — its stench ascends to God. 
 
 During the long, dreary ages, when Pope, Cardinal, and 
 Priest were struggling for political power, influence, and 
 
190 ESSAV ^:II. 
 
 wealth, and not unsuccessfully, the Church's beau ideal for 
 every nation was a despotism, and the despot submissive to 
 the papal power. The people were kept fast bound in 
 ignorance and superstition ; heresy was burnt out with the 
 faggot ; learning and science were denounced as heretical. 
 One of the popes regarded Petrarch as a sorcerer because he 
 read Virgil. But at length the Reformation came, and what 
 long, long years of war and tumult followed in its train! 
 What struggles and sufferings and martyrdoms had men to 
 undergo before they were allowed to worship God according 
 to the dictates of their own consciences, guided by the 
 teaching of our divine Master I 
 
 But enough of this. The warfare, though still going on, 
 has had its victories. The Pope's triumphal sovereignty is 
 gone for ever. Civil and religious liberty prevails more or 
 less over the world, and many men are now in this nine- 
 teenth century awaking to the teachings of the first century. 
 And hence I say the world is better than it ever was. What 
 but the preaching of Christ could have made our country 
 pay twenty millions of money for the extinction of slavery 
 within her dominions, or recognise the Alabama claims, or 
 put an end, as I hope, to some unjust wars. What but the 
 spirit of Christ could have founded Hospitals, Reforma- 
 tories, Sunday Schools, Ragged Schools, National and Board 
 Schools ? 
 
 The Ancient Nations maintained none of these things ; 
 on the contrary, they reposed on the theory that the world 
 was expressly created for the maintenance of dynasties and aris- 
 tocracies. There was no middle class : kings, nobles, and 
 people, the last expressly created to be the slaves of the 
 other two. Nor is "the right divine of kings to govern wrong" 
 yet altogether exploded. The royal warriors of modern times 
 
A LAV SERMON. liji 
 
 have followed the examples of their ancient prototypes, whoSe 
 glory was in war and conquest. The wall sculptures and 
 wall paintings preserved in our museums represent deeds of 
 conquest ; and it is significant of the progress in Christian 
 ethics for which I am contending, that the works which 
 glorify war are less numerous, while works of art calculated 
 to awaken the kindlier sympathies of our nature are more 
 numerous than they ever were. The joys and sorrows of our 
 common nature are now regarded as the noblest subjects 
 that can engage the artistic mind. So in poetry, which in 
 its early stages was mainly occupied with descriptions of 
 bloody victories, or shouts of conquest, now deals with the 
 gentler affections, and is most effective when it appeals to us 
 on behalf of the weak and suffering. In short, the 
 Christian doctrine of brotherly love, which of late years has 
 more than ever been written on men's hearts, has opened up 
 numerous sources of enjoyment which were unknown to 
 the callous egoism of former times. Even in fiction there 
 has been a wonderful advance. The novels that were read 
 two hundred years ago were almost exclusively limited to the 
 doings of the aristocratic and ruling classes, their loves and 
 hates, and conflicts and antagonisms. Nor could it be 
 otherwise: the middle-class novel, which depicts the peaceful 
 life of our middle and lower classes, and discloses a new 
 world of interest m the every-day pleasures and pains of 
 ordinary people, could not be produced until a middle class 
 had gradually grown up, and obtained political liberty, a 
 state of things which this country was the first to create, and 
 hence made the creation of the middle-class novel possible 
 through the genius of Richardson. In France there was no 
 middle class down to the time of the Revolution. 
 
 Putting all these things together, I conclude that the 
 
ig^ 1:ssaV xit. 
 
 world is a better world now than it ever was ; and that it is 
 improving. That there are vast moral wastes that have not 
 yet been broken up must of course be admitted, and their 
 very existence goes far to contravene the teaching of our 
 Lord. We cannot give- to him that asketh or we breed 
 hosts of professional mendicants. We cannot let Bill Sykes 
 have the run of our house, or what we have gained in civili- 
 sation would be lost in anarchy. The world abounds with 
 thieves and reprobates and idlers, because we and our 
 ancestors have neglected our duty ; because Christianity, as 
 taught by its Founder, has never had fair play. We have left 
 the vast masses of poor in our great towns to fester in squalid 
 courts and alleys, and to grow up in poverty, hunger, and 
 vice, while the poor in our rural districts are scarcely better 
 off than they were under the feudal system. All this is truer 
 of the past than of the present. We are waking to the 
 magnitude of the evil. Wc have hitherto built prisons ; we 
 are now erecting reformatories ; and the annual gathering 
 together in the grounds of a Highgate philanthropist 
 of a large number of children who were gutter children, 
 but are now restored to moral and intellectual culture, is 
 one of the many proofs that active, practical, Christianity is 
 making way. We are kinder to each other — more tender in 
 our judgments — more merciful to vice and suffering. Many 
 a man would rather suffer in his own person or pocket than 
 allow his neighbour to suffer. Many a woman thinks it a 
 privilege to sit up all night to nurse a sick friend. Good 
 is triumphing over evil, and will finally prevail. 
 
 A perfect system of ethics can only proceed from a 
 perfect man. Our Lord presents us with the perfect type 
 of humanity, and when he says, "Resist not evil," "From him 
 that Avould borrow of thee turn not thou away," and similar 
 
A LAY SP:RM0N. I93 
 
 commands, He never intended that His divine precepts 
 should be explained away, but be absorbed into the heart 
 of every Christian to reappear in his every-day conduct. 
 And as I believe from the experience of the past that man 
 has developed from a lower to a higher type, so I believe that 
 in the future he will go on developing, until by the influence 
 of Christ working in him, he will gradually bring all the 
 vicious classes under the perfect law, and then the wisest 
 and most natural course of action will be siraply that which 
 is prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 There is a striking example of the efficacy of non-resist- 
 ance in the Society of Friends, the members of which have 
 endeavoured conscientiously and consistently to adopt in 
 practice our Lord's teaching, and they have been abundantly 
 blessed and prospered. When Penn founded his Pennsyl- 
 vania, he treated the natives with Christian kindness and 
 consideration, so that so long as he and his followers 
 occupied the province, not a drop of Christian blood was 
 ever shed in anger. And further, to show how much is in 
 the power of one earnest man, the benevolent Howard may 
 be referred to as having effected in a single life a stupendous 
 reform in our prisons, and in those of many parts of the 
 Continent. In his time prisoners were left in horrible 
 pestilential jails to rot unregarded and uncared for — not 
 brought to trial for months and even years, and when tried 
 and found not guilty, still detained in prison from inability 
 to pay what were called the " prison-fees." All that was put 
 an end to through the unwearied exertions of a single man. 
 And we have gone on improving ; imprisonment for debt on 
 mesne process has been abolished, and debtors' prisons have 
 been pulled down as useless incumbrances. In due time 
 workhouses and unions will share the same fate, the poor- 
 
 o 
 
194 ESSAY XII. 
 
 rate will be abolished, and each district will take care that 
 there are within its limits no starving poor, no idlers, no 
 ignorant or depraved. But before all this can be accom- 
 plished men must become far more interpenetrated with the 
 love of neighbour than now, less intent on love of gain, less 
 devoted to trade, commerce, and professional work. Men 
 must get rid of the idea that it is in the natural order of 
 things that five hundred men, women, and children should 
 be compelled to pass their lives in a mill spinning cotton in 
 order that the millowner may live in luxury. Great reforms 
 are also called for in high places. The idea must be uprooted 
 that it is of divine appointment that the thousands must be 
 born to rank, riches and idleness, and the millions to poverty, 
 toil, and wretchedness. But even here there are changes in 
 progress which tell hopefully on the future. The rich idle 
 classes are not so desperately idle and mischievous as 
 formerly, class distinctions are not so marked as they have 
 been in past ages. It has dawned upon the intelligence of 
 the aristocracy that its flesh and blood is in some way akin to 
 the flesh and blood of the democracy, and that an inter- 
 change of kindly offices is in some way connected with the 
 stability of their own order. 
 
 But my time is up, and in conclusion I beg to assure my 
 hearers that in these our meetings it is a matter of indiffer- 
 ence to me as to which is the best paper, the best speech, or 
 the best reply ; but that I entertain the highest respect for 
 that paper, speech, or reply that aims at the truth, that dis- 
 entangles the subject from its complications, and brings it 
 under some ruling principle or law. Hence, in the discussion 
 to-night I trust that every speaker will address himself to the 
 main argument, that he will not be led aside to the discussion 
 of details and illustrations which may have no vital influence 
 
A LAY SERMON. 1 95 
 
 on that argument ; and lastly, that he will handle the subject 
 with that reverence that is due to it. 
 
 In the foregoing remarks I have taken it for granted 
 that a perfect system of ethics can only proceed from 
 a perfect man ; that our Lord in his humanity being 
 a perfect man, his ethical system must be perfect. What 
 you have to discuss is how far we are bound by the 
 teaching of the Sermon on the Mount which contains 
 that perfect ethical system. Are we to obey those divine 
 laws according to some modified system — according to what 
 is called the spirit of the age, reconciling malpractices with 
 high precepts ; or are we to obey them according to the 
 spirit in which each man conceives them to have been 
 enacted; or, on the other hand, are we to strive to obey 
 them in all their fulness and completeness ? 
 
 My position is that these divine laws are perfectly adapted 
 to the eventual outcome and development of human nature. 
 The complete obedience to these laws is the ultimate ideal 
 that every religious mind ought to set up in order to attain 
 perfection ; and, marvellous to relate, the standard of per- 
 fection that our Lord places before us for imitation is not 
 even his own perfect self, but that of our heavenly Father, 
 " Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
 
 These words either mean nothing or they mean what they 
 say. My position is that the human race is capable of 
 advancing onwards to perfection until, in the distant future, 
 it w^ill be brought into perfect obedience to these divine 
 laws, and when that good time comes, " the knowledge of 
 God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." It is 
 in the power of everyone of us to help on this consummation 
 by steadfastly working each one within his sphere, not out- 
 side of it, however contracted that sphere may be, by 
 
196 ESSAY XII. 
 
 exerting his talents and taking advantage of his oppor- 
 tunities. And there is this further encouragement for 
 maintaining the altruistic principle of love of neighbour, 
 namely, that " he who converteth a sinner from the error 
 of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a 
 multitude of sins." 
 
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