of Mrs. Hemans, the plays of Otway, Marlowe, Ford, and Dekker, may all, in limited quantity, be partaken of with relish and advantage by the healthy appetite; but let there not be too much of them; and do not think to nourish your intellectual nature on such food alone. No child, shiny with excessive pastry, or tooth-aching and sulky through superabundant sugar-plums, is in a plight more morbid and disagreeable than is the clever boy or girl of eighteen, who from the dawn of the taste for reading, has been turned into a large library to choose books speech or sermon was flimsy. All the virtue sentimental romance, eccentric wit and res of the cod-liver oil was there, though the humor, are the parallel things. Rabelais, nauseous accompaniments were gone; and Sterne, The Doctor of Southey, the poetry solid thought and sound reasoning may have been present in quantity as abundant and quality as admirable in the interesting speech as in the dull one; but it is to be confessed the à priori presumption was the other way. There must be something-you don't know what-wrong about the work which is as pleasant as play. There must be something -you cannot say what-amiss about the sermon which is as interesting as a novel. It cannot be sound instruction, which is as agreeable as amusement; any more than black can be white, or pain can be pleasure. That is the unspoken, undefined, uneradica- at will, and who has crammed an inexperi-act ble belief of the dull majority of human kind. And it appears, day by day, in the depreciatory terms in which stupid, and even commonplace, people talk of compositions which are brilliant, interesting, and attractive, as though the fact of their possessing these characteristics were proof sufficient that they lack solidity and sound sense. enced head and undisciplined heart with extravagant fancies and unreal feelings from an exclusive diet of novels and plays. But, setting aside the department of sweets, I maintain, that given wholesome food, the! more agreeably it is cooked and served up, the better; and given sound thought, the more interesting and attractive the guise in Now, the root of the prevalent error (so which it is presented, the better. And all far as it is an error) appears to me to lie in this may be, without the least sacrifice of Ma this; that sound instruction and solid thought the sound and substantial qualities. No are regarded as analogous to medicine; matter what you are writing, sermon, artiwhereas they ought to be regarded an anal-cle, book-let Sydney Smith's principle be ogous to food. It may possibly be assumed, remembered, that every style is good, except that medicine is a thing such in its essential the tiresome. And who does not know, that nature, that to be useful, it must be dis- there have been men who, without the least agreeable. But I believe that it is now uni-sacrifice of solidity, have invested all they versally admitted, that the food which is had to say with an enchaining interest; and most pleasant to take, is the most whole- led the reader through the most abstruse some and nutritious. The time is past in metaphysics, the closest reasoning, the most which philosophic and strong-minded_per- intricate mazes of history, the gravest docsons thought it a fine thing to cry up a Spar- trines of theology, in such fashion that the tan repulsiveness in the matter of diet. reader was profited while he thought he was Raw steaks, cut from a horse which died a only being delighted, and charmed while he natural death; and the sour milk of mares, was informed! are no longer considered the provender upon The thing has been done; of course it is which to raise men who shall be of necessity very difficult to do it; and to do it demands either thoughtful or heroic. Unhappily, in remarkable gifts of nature and training. the matter of the dietetics of the mind, the The extraordinary thing is that where a man old notion still prevails with very many. has, by much pains, or by extraordinary feAnd there is something to be said for it; licity, added interest to utility,-given you but only what might also be said for it in solid thought in an attractive form,-many regard to the food of the body. For though, people will, and that not entirely of envy, as a general rule, the most agreeable food is but through bona fide stupidity, at once say the most wholesome, yet there is an exten- that the interesting sermon, the picturesque sive kingdom into which this law does not history, the lively argument, is flimsy and extend; I mean the domain of sugar-plums, flashy, superficial, wanting in depth, and so of pastry, of crystallized fruits, and the like. forth. Yet if you think it unpardonable in These are pleasant; but you cannot live the cook, who has excellent food given to upon them; and you ought not to take much prepare, to send it up spoiled and barely eatat a time. And if you give a child the un-able, is it not quite as bad in the man who limited run of such materials for eating, the has given to him important facts, solemn child will assuredly be the worse for it. doctrines, weighty reasons, yet who presents Well, in mental food the analogy holds. Here, too, is a realm of sweets, of devilled bones, of curaçoa. Feverish poetry, ultra them to his readers or hearers in a tough, dry, stupid shape? Does the turbot, the saddle of mutton, cease to be nutritious be cause it is well cooked? And wherefore, then, should the doctrine or argument become flimsy because it is put skilfully and interestingly? I do believe there are people who think that in the world of mind, if a good beef-steak be well cooked, it turns in the process into a stick of barley-sugar. M. still?" Of course, it was vain to talk. The stolid preacher kept by his one idea. The sermon could not be solid, because it was brilliant. Because there was gleam and glitter, there could not be any thing besides. What more could be said? I knew that my stupid friend had on his side the majority of the race. essays. Ask people what they mean by such vague phrases of disparagement; and if you can get them to analyze their feeling, you will find that in five cases out of six, they mean simply that they can read the compositions with interest? Is that any thing against them? That does not touch the question whether they are weighty and sound. They may be sound and weighty for all that. Of course, that which is called severe thought cannot, however skilfully put and illustrated, be so easily followed by undisciplined minds. But in most cases the people who talk of a man's writings being light, know nothing at all about severe thinking. They mean that they are sure that an essay is solid, if they find it uninteresting. It must be good if it be a weary task to get through it. The lack of interest is the great test that the composition is of a high order. It must be dignified, because it is so dull. You read it with pleasure; therefore it must be flimsy. You read it with weariness; therefore it must be solid. Or, to put the principle in its simplest form To this class belongs the great majority of stupid people, and also of quiet, steady- It is irritating, when you have written an going people, of fair average ability. Among essay with care, after a great deal of thought, the latter there is not only a dislike of clever to find people talk slightingly of it as very men, arising from envy: but a real honest light. "The essays of Mr. Q- are sensifear of what they may do, arising from a be-ble and well written, but the order of thought lief that a very clever man cannot be a safe is of the lightest." I found these words in or judicious man, and that a striking view a review of certain essays, written by a man cannot be a sound view. Once upon a who had evidently read the time, in a certain church, I heard a sermon preached by a certain great preacher. The congregation listened with breathless attention. The sermon was indeed a very remarkable one; and I remember well how I thought that never before had I understood the magic spell which is exerted by fervid eloquence. And walking away from church, I was looking back upon the track of thought over which the preacher had borne the congregation, and thinking how skilfully and admirably he had carried his hearers, easily and interestedly, through very difficult ground, and over a very long journey. Thus musing, I encountered a very stupid clergyman who had been in church too. "Did you hear Mr. -?" said he. "It was mere flash; very flimsy; all flowers. Nothing solid." With wonder I regarded my stupid friend. I said to him: Strip off from the sermon all the fancy and all the feeling; look at the bare skeleton of thought: and then I stated it to the man. Is not that, said I, a marvel of metaphysical acuteness, of rigorous logic, of exact symmetry? Cut off the flash as you call it; here is the solid residuum; is that slight or flashy? Is there not three times the thought of ordinary humdrum sermons even in quantity, not to name the incalculable difference in the matter of quality? On And, by hosts of people, the principle is this latter point, indeed, I did not insist; for unsparingly applied. An interesting book with some folk quantity is the only measure is flimsy, because it is interesting. An inof thought; and in the world of ideas a tur-teresting sermon is flimsy, because it is innip is with such equal to a pineapple, pro- teresting. They are referred to the class of vided they be of the same size. "Don't you light literature. And it is undignified to be see," said I, with growing wrath, to my stupid friend, who regarded me meanwhile with a stolid stare, "that it only shows what an admirable preacher Mr. M- is, if he was able to carry a whole congregation in rapt attention along a line of thought, in traversing which you and I would have put all our hearers asleep? You and I might possibly have given the thought like the diamond as it comes from the mine, a dull pebble; and because that eminent man gave it polished and glancing, is it therefore not a diamond the essay must be bad because it is so good. The essay must be good, because it is so bad. Here we have the foundation principle of the grand doctrine of the dignity of dulness. light. It is grand, it is clerical, it is worthy of a cabinet minister, it is even archiepiscopal, to write a book which no one would voluntarily read. But some stupid people think it unclerical to write a book which sensible folk will read with pleasure. It would amuse Mr. Kingsley, and I am sure it would do no more than amuse him, to hear what I have heard steady-going individuals say about his writings. The question whether the doctrines he enforces be true or not, they cared not for at all. Neither did they in quire whether or not he enforces, with sin- was not dull, even in the pulpit? The gular fervor and earnestness, certain doc- younger fellows were unanimous in the great trines of far-reaching practical moment. preacher's favor; but the old gentlemen That matters not. He enforces them in formed the majority, and they were unanibooks which it is interesting and even en-mous against him. Some people suggested chaining to read; and this suffices (in their that they were envious of his greater emijudgment) to condemn these books. I have nence: that they wished to put down the heard stupid people say that it was not man who, at a comparatively early age, had worthy of Archbishop Whately to write those so vastly surpassed themselves.The theory admirable Annotations on Bacon's Essays. was uncharitable; it was more-it was false. No doubt that marvellously acute intellect Jealousy had little part in the minds of these does in those Annotations apply itself to a frail but safe old men. They honestly begreat variety of themes and purposes, greater lieved that the great preacher could not be and lesser, like a steam-hammer which can solid or dignified, because he was brilliant weld a huge mass of red-hot iron, and with and attractive. They never heard his serequal facility drive a nail into a plank by mons; but they were sure that something successive gentle taps. No doubt the vol- must be wrong about the sermons, because ume sometimes discusses grave matters in a multitudes wished to hear them. Is not the grave manner, and sometimes matters less normal feeling after listening to a sermon grave (but still with a serious bearing on to its close, one of gentle, unexpressed relife and its affairs) in a playful manner. lief? The great preacher was rejected, and But on the whole, if you wished to convey to an excellent man was elected in his stead, a stranger to the archbishop's writings (sup- who could not fail to be dignified, for never posing that among educated people you mortal was more dull. Cardinal Wiseman could find one) some notion of the extent tells us very frankly that the great principle and versatility of his powers, it is probable of the dignity of dulness is always recognized that, of all his books, this is the one you and acted on by the gentlemen who elect would advise the stranger to read. "Not the pope. Gravity, approaching to stolidso," said my friend Dr. Log. "The arch-ity; slowness of motion, approaching to bishop should not have published such a entire standing-still; are (as a general rule) work. requisite in the human beings who succeed Who ever heard of an archbishop who to the chair of St. Peter. It has been insinwrote a book which young men and women uated that in the Church of England similar would read because they enjoyed it? The characteristics are (or at least were) held book could not be dignified, because it was essential in those who are made bishops, not dull. Why did the steady old gentle- and, above all, archbishops. You can never men among the fellows of a certain college be sure that a man will not do wrong who in the university of Cambridge, a good many is likely to do any thing at all. But if it years ago, turn out and vote against a cer- be perfectly ascertained that a man will do tain clergyman's becoming their head, who nothing, you may be satisfied that he will was infinitely the most distinguished of their do nothing wrong. This is one consideranumber, and upon whose becoming their tion; but the further one is the pure and head every one had counted with certainty? simple dignity of dulness. A clergyman He was a very distinguished scholar, a very may look forward to a bishopric if he write successful tutor: a man of dignified manners books which are unreadable, but not if he and irreproachable character. Had he been write books which are readable. The chance no more, he had been the head of his college, of Dr. Log is infinitely better than that of and he had been a bishop now. But there Mr. Kingsley. And nothing can be more was an objection which, in the minds of these certain than that the principle of the digfrail but steady old gentlemen, could not nity of dulness kept the mitre from the head be got over. His sermons were interesting! of Sydney Smith. I do not mean to say His warmest friends could not say that they that he was a suitable man to be a bishop. were dull. When he came to do his duty I think he was not. But it was not because as select preacher before the university, the of any thing really unclerical about the church wherein he preached was crowded to genial man that he was excluded. The peoexcess. Not merely was the unbecoming ple who excluded him did not hesitate to spectacle witnessed of all the pews being appoint men obnoxious to more serious filled; but it could not be concealed that the charges than Sydney Smith. But then, passages were crowded with human beings whatever these men were or were not, they who were content to stand throughout the were all dull. They wrote much, some of service. The old gentlemen could not bear this. The head of a college must be dignified; and how could a man be dignified who them; but nobody ever read what they wrote. But Sydney Smith was interesting. You could read his writings with pleasure. He was unquestionably the reverse of dull, and which in themselves are more interesting therefore certainly the reverse of dignified. than grave ones (as play always must be Through much of his latter life the same more pleasing than work), let the treatise suspicion has, with millions of safe-going be classed as light. But if in the treatise folk, thrown a shadow on Lord Brougham. you find grave and serious thoughts set out He was too lively. What he wrote was too in such a fashion as to be interesting, then interesting. Solid old gentlemen feared for all honor to the author of that treatise! He his good sense. They thought they never is not a slight, superficial writer, though could be sure what he would do next. Even stupid people may be ready to call him so. Lord St. Leonards lost standing with many He is, in truth, a grave and serious writer, when he published his Handy Book on Prop- though he has succeeded in charming while erty Law A lord-chancellor writing a book he instructs. He is truly dignified, though sold at railway stations, and read (with in- he be not dull. He is doing a noble work, terest, too) in railway carriages! What was enforcing a noble principle: the noble printhe world coming to? But it was quite be- ciple, to wit (which most people silently ascoming in the great man to produce that sume is false), that what is right need not elaborate and authoritative work on Vendors of necessity be so very much less attractive and Purchasers, of which I have often be- than what is wrong. The general belief is, held the outside, but never the inside. And that right is prosy, humdrum, commonplace, wherefore did the book beseem a chancellor? dull; and that the poetry of existence, the Wherefore but because to the ordinary reader gleam, the music, the thrill, the romance, it was heavy as lead. Have not you, my are with delightful wrong. And taking work reader, often heard like criticism of Lord as the first meridian, marking what is right, Campbell's interesting volumes of the biog- many people really hold that any approxraphy of his predecessors ? Very interest-imation to play (and all that interests and ing; very well written; much curious information; but not quite the thing for the first man on the judicial bench of Britain to write. Now, upon what is this criticism founded, but upon the grand principle that liveliness and interest do not become the compositions of a man in important office: in brief, that that is not dignified, which is not dull. 66 But let us not be extreme. Let it be admitted that the principle has some measure of truth. There are facts which appear to give it countenance, which really do give it countenance. Punch is more interesting than a sermon, that is admitted as a fact. The tacit inference is that an interesting sermon must have become interesting by unduly approximating to Punch. There is literature which may properly be termed light. There is thought which is superficial, flimsy, slight, and so on. There are compositions which are brilliant without being solid, in which there are many flowers and little fruit. And no doubt, by the nature of things, this light and flashy thought is more interesting, and more easily followed, than more solid material. You can read Vanity Fair when you could not read Butler's Analogy. You can read Punch when you could not read Vanity Fair. And the à priori presumption may be, when you find a composition of a grave class which is as interesting as one of a lighter class, that this interest has been attained by some sacrifice of the qualities which beseem a composition of a grave class. Let our rule be as follows: If the treatise under consideration be interesting because it treats of light subjects, pleases is in so far an approximation to I am well aware that it is hopeless to argue with a prejudice so rooted as that in fayor of the dignity of dulness; and especially hopeless when I am obliged to admit that I cannot entirely oppose that principle, that I feel a certain justice in it. Slowness of motion, I have said, is essentially more dignified than rapidity of motion. There is something dignified about an elephant walking along, with massive tramp; there is nothing dignified about a frisking greyhound, light, airy, graceful. And it is to be admitted that some men frisk through a subject like a greyhound; others tramp through it like an elephant. And though the playful greyhound fashion of writing, that dallies and toys with man who walks very fast is less dignified a subject, may be the more graceful and than a man who walks very slow; and that pleasing, the dignity doubtless abides with which conduces to the slow, ponderous, measthe stern, slow, straightforward, elephantine ured step, is a valuable accessory to personal tramp. The Essays of Elia delight you, but dignity. But the connection is not so essenyou stand in no awe of their author; the tial as the unthinking might conclude becontrary is the case with a charge of Lord tween personal dignity and personal bulk. Chief-Justice Ellenborough. And so thor- Now, the composition, whether written or oughly elephantine are the mental move- spoken, of some men, is (so to speak) a disments of some men, that even their rare frisk-play of mental agility. It is the result of iness is elephantine. Every one must know rapid mental movements, you can see. Not this who is at all acquainted with the ponder- with massive heaves and sinkings, like the ous and cowlike curvetings of the Rambler. Physical agility is inconsistent with physical dignity; mental agility with mental dignity. You could not for your life very greatly esteem the solemn advices given you from the pulpit on Sunday, by a clergyman whom you had seen whirling about in a polka on Friday evening. The momentum of that rotary movement would cling to him (in your feeling) still. I remember when I was a little boy what a shock it was to my impressions of judicial dignity to see a departed chief justice cantering down Constitution-hill on a tall, thoroughbred chestnut. The swift movement befitted not my recollections of the judgment-seat, the ermine, the great fullbottomed wig. I felt aggrieved and mortified even by the tallness and slenderness of the chestnut horse. Had the judge been mounted on a dray horse of enormous girth and vast breadth (even if not very high) I should have been comparatively content. Breadth was the thing desiderated by the youthful heart; breadth, and the solidity which goes with breadth, and the slowness of motion which goes with solid extension, and the dignity which goes with slowness of motion. I speak of impression made on the undisciplined human soul, doubtless; but then the normal impression made by any thing is the impression it makes on the undisciplined human soul. In the world of mind, you may educate human nature into a condition in which all tendencies shall be reversed; in which fire shall wet you, and water dry you. Who does not know that the estimation in which the humbler folk of a rural parish regard their clergyman, depends in a great degree upon his physical size? A man six feet high will command greater reverence than one of five feet six; but if the man of five feet six in height be six feet in circumference, then he will command greater reverence than the man of six feet in height, provided the latter be thin. And after great reflection, I am led to the conclusion, that the true cause of this bucolic dignity does not abide in mere size. Dignity, even in the country, is not in direct proportion to extension, as such. No; it is in direct proportion to that slowness of movement which comes of solid extension. A engines of an ocean steamship, did the mental machinery play that turned off such a book, such a speech, such an essay; but rather with rapid jerkings of little cranks, and invisible whirlings of little wheels. And the thing manufactured is pretty, not grand. It is very nice. You conclude that as the big steam-engine cannot play very fast, so the big mind too. The mind that can go at a tremendous pace, you conclude to be a little mind. The mind that can skip about, you conclude cannot be a massive mind. There are truth and falsehood in your conclusion. Very great minds, guided by very comprehensive views, have with lightning-like promptitude rushed to grand decisions and generalizations. But it cannot be denied that ponderous machinery, physical and mental, generally moves slowly. And in the mental world, many folk readily suppose that the machinery which moves slowly is certainly ponderous. A man who gets up to speak in a deliberative assembly, and with a deep voice from an extensive chest, and inscrutable meaning depicted on massive features, slowly states his views, with long pauses between the members of his sentences, and very long pauses between his sentences, will by many people be regarded as making a speech which is very heavy metal indeed. Possibly it may be; possibly it may not. I ought to say, that the most telling deliberative speaker I ever heard, speaks in that slow fashion. But when he speaks on an important subject which interests him, every deliberate word goes home like a cannon-ball. He speaks in eighty-four pounders. But I have heard men as slow, who spoke in large soap-bubbles. And of all lightness of thought, deliver us from ponderous lightness! Nothings are often excusable, and sometimes pleasing; but pompous nothings are always execrable. I have known men who, morally speaking, gave away tickets for very inferior parish soup with the air of one freely dispensing invitations to the most sumptuous banquet that ever was provided by mortal. Oh! to stick in a skewer, and see the great wind-bag collapse ! You do not respect the jackpudding who amuses you, though he may amuse you re |