Ellesmere. Why, yes, sometimes—do not throw sticks at me, Dunsford.
Dunsford. Well, it is absurd to be angry with you; because if you long to interrupt Milverton with his captious perhapses and probablys, of course you will be impatient with discourses which do, to a certain extent, assume that the preacher and the hearers are in unison upon great matters.
Ellesmere. I am afraid to say anything about sermons, for fear of the argumentum baculinum from Dunsford; for many essay writers, like Milverton, delight to wind up their paragraphs with complete little aphorisms—shutting up something certainly, but shutting out something too. I could generally pause upon them a little.
Milverton. Of course one may err, Ellesmere, in too much aphorising as in too much of anything. But your argument goes against all expression of opinion, which must be incomplete, especially when dealing with matters that cannot be circumscribed by exact definitions. Otherwise, a code of wisdom might be made which the fool might apply as well as the wisest man. Even the best proverb, though often the expression of the widest experience in the choicest language, can be thoroughly misapplied. It cannot embrace the whole of the subject, and apply in all cases like a mathematical formula. Its wisdom lies in the ear of the hearer.
Ellesmere. Well, I not know that there is anything more to say about the essay. I suppose you are aware, Dunsford, that Milverton does not intend to give us any more essays for some time. He is distressing his mind about some facts which he wants to ascertain before he will read any more to us. I imagine we are to have something historical next.
Milverton. Something in which historical records are useful.
Ellesmere. Really it is wonderful to see how beautifully human nature accommodates itself to anything, even to the listening to essays. I shall miss them.
Milverton. You may miss the talk before and after.
Ellesmere. Well, there is no knowing how much of that is provoked (provoked is a good word, is it not?) by the essays.
Dunsford. Then, for the present, we have come to an end of our readings.
Milverton. Yes, but I trust at no distant time to have something more to try your critical powers and patience upon. I hope that that old tower will yet see us meet together here on many a sunny day, discussing various things in friendly council.
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FOOTNOTES.
[12] See Statesman, p. 30.
[42] The passage which must have been alluded to is this: “The stricter tenets of Calvinism, which allow no medium between grace and reprobation, and doom man to eternal punishment for every breach of the moral law, as an equal offence against Infinite truth and justice, proceed (like the paradoxical doctrine of the Stoics), from taking a half-view of this subject, and considering man as amenable only to the dictates of his understanding and his conscience, and not excusable from the temptations and frailty of human ignorance and passion. The mixing up of religion and morality together, or the making us accountable for every word, thought, or action, under no less a responsibility than our everlasting future welfare or misery, has also added incalculably to the difficulties of self-knowledge, has superinduced a violent and spurious state of feeling, and made it almost impossible to distinguish the boundaries between the true and false, in judging of human conduct and motives. A religious man is afraid of looking into the state of his soul, lest at the same time he should reveal it to heaven; and tries to persuade himself that by shutting his eyes to his true character and feelings, they will remain a profound secret, both here and hereafter.”
[53] This was one of the passages which Milverton afterwards read to us:—
“Thus, however much may be gained for the world as a whole by this fragmentary cultivation, it is not to be denied that the individuals whom it befalls are cursed for the benefit of the world. An athletic frame, it is true, is fashioned by gymnastic exercises; but a form of beauty only by free and uniform action. Just so the exertions of single talents can create extraordinary men indeed; but happy and perfect men only by their uniform temperature. And in what relation should we stand, then, to the past and coming ages, if the cultivation of human nature made necessary such a sacrifice? We should have been the slaves of humanity, and drudged for her century after century, and stamped upon our mutilated natures the humiliating traces of our bondage—that the coming race might nurse its moral healthfulness in blissful leisure, and unfold the free growth of its humanity!
“But can it be intended that man should neglect himself for any particular design? Ought Nature to deprive us, by its design, of a perfection which Reason, by its own, prescribes to us? Then it must be false that the development of single faculties makes the sacrifice of totality necessary; or, if indeed the law of Nature presses thus heavily, it becomes us to restore, by a higher art, this totality in our nature which art has destroyed.”—The Philosophical and Æsthetical Letters and Essays of Schiller, Translated by J. Weiss, pp. 74, 75.
[93] Madame Necker de Saussure’s maxim about firmness with children has suggested the above. “Ce que plie ne peut servir d’appui, et l’enfant veut être appuyé. Non-seulement il en a besoin, mais il le désire, mais sa tendresse la plus constante n’est qu’à ce prix. Si vous lui faites l’effet d’un autre enfant, si vous partagez ses passions, ses vacillations continuelles, si vous lui rendez tous ses mouvements en les augmentant, soit par la contrariété, soit par un excès de complaisance, il pourra se servir de vous comme d’un jouet, mais non être heureux en votre présence; il pleurera, se mutinera, et bientôt le souvenir d’un temps de désordre et d’humeur se liera avec votre idée. Vous n’avez pas été le soutien de votre enfant, vous ne l’avez pas préservé de cette fluctuation perpétuelle de la volonté, maladie des êtres faibles et livrés à une imagination vive; vous n’avez assuré ni sa paix, ni sa sagesse, ni son bonheur, pourquoi vous croirait-il sa mère.”—L’Education Progressive, vol. i., p. 228.
[116a] See Health of Towns Report, vol. i., p. 336. A similar result may be deduced from a similar table made by the Rev. J. Clay, of Preston. See the same Report and vol., p. 175.
[116b] See Health of Towns Report, vol. i., p. 75.
[117a] See Dr. Arnott’s letter, Claims of Labour, p. 282.
[117b] By zinc ventilators, for instance, in the windows and openings into the flues at the top of the rooms. See Health of Towns Report, 1844, vol. i., pp. 76, 77. Mr. Coulhart’s evidence.—Ibid., pp. 307, 308.
[117c] There are several thousand gratings to sewers and drains which are utterly useless on account of their position, and positively injurious from their emanations.—Mr. Guthrie’s evidence.—Ibid., vol. ii., p. 255.
[118] Mr. Wood states that the masters and mistresses were generally ignorant of the depressing and unhealthy effects of the atmosphere which surrounded them, and he mentions the case of the mistress of a dame-school who replied, when he pointed out this to her, “that the children thrived best in dirt!”—Health of Towns Report, vol. i., pp. 146, 147.
[126] See “The Fair Maid of Perth.”
[161] See “Health of Towns Report,” 1844, vol. i., p. 44.
[183] Bacon, de Augmentis Scientiarum.