Chapter XXXII: A Model Talker 328 (7)

"I will be a swift witness against false-swearers, and them that fear not Me, saith the Lord of hosts." "Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man." "What shall be given unto, or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper." "A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape." "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and ALL LIARS, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." "And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh A LIE." "For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, AND WHOSOEVER LOVETH AND MAKETH A LIE."

In illustration of some of the preceding sentiments, I give the following:--

An American lawyer says: "On entering college, I promised my mother, whom I loved as I have never loved another mortal, that while there I would not taste of intoxicating liquor, nor play at cards, or other games of hazard, nor borrow money. And I never did, and never have since. I have lived well-nigh sixty years, yet have never learned to tell a king from a knave among cards, nor Hock from Burgundy among wines, nor have I ever asked for the loan of a single dollar. Thanks to my mother!--loving, careful, anxious for me, but not over-careful nor over-anxious. How could she be, when I was so weak and ignorant of my weakness, feeling myself strong because my strength was untried, and such a life as human life is, such temptations as beset the young, before me.

"She did not ask me to promise not to swear. She would not wrong me by the thought that I _could_ swear; and she was right. I could not. How can any one so insult the Holy, the All-Excellent, our Father, and best friend? Nor did she ask me not to lie. She thought I _could_ not _lie_. Had she thought otherwise, my promise would have been of little value to her. And I also thought I could not. I despised lying as a weakness, cowardice, meanness, the concentration of baseness. I felt strong enough, manly enough, to accomplish my end without it. I had no fear of facing my own acts. Why should I shrink before my fellows for anything I had done? Lie to them to conceal myself or my acts? Nay, I would not have faults to be concealed. My own character, my own life, was more to me than the esteem of others. I would do nothing fit to have hidden, or which I might wish to hide. I thought I could not lie, and I could not for myself.

"During my second college year there was a great deal of card-playing among the students. The Faculty tried to prevent it, but found it difficult. Though I never played, my chum did, and sometimes others played with him in our room when I was present. I not unfrequently saw the students at cards. One of the professors questioned me upon the subject.

"'Have you ever seen any card-playing among the students?'

"'No, sir,' I answered firmly, determined not to expose my fellows. 'A lie of honour!' I said to myself. What coupling of contradictions! As well talk of 'honest theft!' 'innocent sin!'

"'You are ignorant of any card-playing in the college building, Brown?'

"'Yes, sir,'

"'We can believe _you_, Brown.'

"I was ready to sink. Nothing else could have smitten, stung me, like that. Such confidence, and I so unworthy of it. Still I held back the truth.

"But I left the professor's room another person than I entered it--guilty, humbled, wretched. That one false word had spoiled everything for me. All my past manliness was shadowed by it. My ease of mind had left me, my self-respect was gone. I felt uncertain, unsafe. I stood upon a lie, trembling, tottering. How soon might I not fail? I was right in feeling unsafe. It is always unsafe to lie. My feet were sliding beneath me. One of the students had lost a quarter's allowance in play, and applied to his father for a fresh remittance, stating his loss. His father had made complaint to the college Faculty, and there was an investigation of the facts. The money had been staked and lost in my room. I was present.

"'Was Brown there?' asked the professor.

"'He was.'

"The professor's eyes rested on me. Where was my honour _then_--my manliness? and where the trust reposed in me? Did any say, 'We can believe _you_, Brown,' after that? Did any excuse my lie--any talk of my honour then? Not one. They said, 'We didn't think it of you, Brown!' 'I didn't suppose Brown would lie for his right hand!'

"It was enough to kill me. But there was no help. I had to bear my sin and shame as best I might, and try to outlive it. No one trusted me as before. No one could, for who knew whether my integrity might not again fail? I could not trust myself until I had obtained strength as well as pardon from God, nor even then, until I had many times been tried and tempted, and found His strength sufficient for me."

* * * * *

Bessie was a little girl, not very old. One morning, as she stood before the glass pinning a large rose upon her bosom, her mother called her to take care of the baby a few minutes. Now Bessie wanted just then to go out into the garden to play, so she went very unwillingly.

Her mother bade her sit down in her little chair, placed the baby carefully in her lap, and left the room. The red rose instantly attracted the little one's attention, and quick as thought the chubby little fingers grasped it, and before Bessie could say, "What are you about?" the rose was crushed and scattered. Bessie was so angry that she struck the baby a hard blow. The baby, like all other babies, screamed right lustily. The mother, hearing the uproar, ran to see what was the matter. Bessie, to save herself from punishment, told her mother that her little brother Ben, who was playing in the room, had struck the baby as hard as he could.

Ben, although he declared his innocence, received the punishment which Bessie so richly deserved. Bessie went to school soon after, but she did not feel happy.

That night, as she lay in her bed, she could not go to sleep for thinking of the dreadful wrong she had committed against her brother and against God; and she resolved that night to tell her mother the next morning. When morning came, however, she felt as if there was something kept her back; she could not make up her mind to confess the sin; it did not seem so great as the night before. It was not much, after all, her silly heart said. As day after day passed, Bessie felt the burden less and less, and she might have fallen into the same sin again had a temptation presented itself, but for a sad event. One morning, when she came home from school, she found Ben ill with a frightful throat distemper. He had been so all the forenoon. He continued to grow worse, and the next evening he died.

Poor Bessie! it seemed as if her heart would break. Kind friends tried to comfort her. They told her that he was happy; that he had gone to live with the Saviour who loved little children; and if she was good, she would go to see him, though he could not come again to her.

"O!" said the child, "I am not crying because he has gone to heaven, but because I told that lie about him; because he got the punishment which belonged to me."

For a long time she refused to be comforted.

Several years have passed. Bessie is now of woman's size; but the remembrance of that lie yet stings her soul to the quick. It took less than one minute to utter, but many years have not effaced the sorrow and shame which followed it.

* * * * *

A mother sat with her youngest daughter, a sprightly child, five years of age, enjoying an afternoon chit-chat with a few friends, when a little girl, a playmate of the daughter of Mrs. P., came running into the sitting-room, and cried,--

"Where is Jane? I've got something for her."

"She is out," said the mother.

"What have you got? Show it to me," eagerly exclaimed Hannah, the mother's favourite. "I'll give it to her."

The little girl handed Hannah a bouquet of flowers, which she had gathered for Jane, and returned home with the faith that her kindness had not been misapplied. She had scarcely left the room, when Hannah, standing by her mother's chair, talking to herself, said, loud enough to be heard across the room,--

"I like flowers--she often calls me Jane--she thinks I am Jane--I'm going to keep this bouquet."

The mother made no objection to the soliloquy, and Hannah immediately began to pick the leaves from the handsome rose, for the purpose of making rose water. She had not completed her task when Jane bounded into the room, and seeing Hannah with flowers, exclaimed,--

"I'm going to have a bouquet pretty soon. Sally Johnson said she would bring me one this afternoon."

"But she won't," said Hannah.

"I'll go and see," returned Jane, tripping as she spoke towards the front door.

"Here, Jane," said the mother, "Sally brought this bouquet for you, but you were not in, and she gave it to Hannah."

The tears started in Jane's eyes. She felt that she had been robbed, and she knew that Hannah had been preferred to her. Hannah had been encouraged in a deliberate falsehood and in deception towards her sister. Many a time since has that mother felt herself obliged to punish her daughter for prevarications, and often has she been heard to say that she wondered where so small a child learned so much deceit.

This is a small affair at best, some may say; but do not

"Large streams from little fountains flow--
Tall oaks from little acorns grow?"

And do not the "small beginnings" of instruction lay the foundation of man's or woman's character?

The following lines are a solemn admonition against this sin, spoken by one who had committed it and fallen under its terrible punishment:--

"My sin, Ismenus, has wrought all this ill;
And I beseech thee to be warned by me,
And do not lie, if any man should ask thee
But how thou dost, or what o'clock 'tis now;
Be sure thou do not lie, make no excuse
For him that is most near thee; never let
The most officious falsehood 'scape thy tongue;
For they above (that are entirely Truth)
Will make the seed which thou hast sown of lies
Yield miseries a thousandfold
Upon thine head, as they have done on mine."

XXIII.

_THE CENSORIOUS._

"Judging with rigour every small offence."--HAYWARD.

He is a judge passing sentence upon persons and things without justice or charity. Benevolent works in Church or State are failures unless he has been a prominent party in their execution. Personal motives are weighed in the balance and found wanting. Thoughts, ere they are expressed, are even seen and censured. Actions are pronounced false and defective. Appearances are judged as realities, and realities as nonentities. Things straight are seen as crooked, and things beautiful as deformed. Where wiser men perceive order, strength, utility, he perceives confusion, weakness, and uselessness. An enterprise of which the community approve and co-operate in he stands aloof from, and satisfies his unhappy disposition with carping criticisms and ungenerous censures. A neighbour who does not reach his standard of moral excellence in character and action he pronounces lax in principles and delinquent in life. One who does not agree with him in his peculiar views of some disputed doctrine of Christian faith or principle of Church discipline he judges to be little better than a heretic or a heathen.

It seems the instinct of his nature to find fault. He hears no preacher, reads no book, looks upon no work of art, without some expression of disapproval. God, Providence, the Bible, Religion, do not escape his sharp and keen criticisms. His perception is so fine and his taste so exquisite that points of failure which a generous mind would overlook he discerns and speaks of with unfailing fidelity. He would at any time rather rub his nose against a thistle than smell at a flower.

"Mr. Smith is a very excellent man," said a friend of mine one day in conversation to Mr. Pepper.

"Yes, he may be," said Pepper in an indifferent way; "but perhaps you don't know him as well as I do."

"What a noble gift of Lord Hill to the town of Shenton, that park of one thousand acres!"

"True, it was; but what were his motives in its bestowment? Did he not expect to gain more than its value in certain ways that I need not mention?"

"How sad that the family of Hobson have come into such circumstances."

"It is only a judgment upon them for the old man's sins."

"Have you heard that young Dumas has entered the ministry?"

"Yes, and what for? Only for the loaves and fishes."

"What a kind Providence it was that provided so suitably for widow Bonsor and her family."

"Providence, indeed! Was it not rather the benevolence of Mr. Lord and his friend Squance?"

"What an admirable picture that is in Mr. Robinson's window in Bond Street. It is a splendid piece of workmanship. Don't you think so?"

"A bad sky--very bad! Cold as winter. That trunk of a tree on the right is as stiff and formal as a sign-post. It spoils the whole picture."

"Then you don't like it?"

"There are a few good points in it; but it is full of faults."

"The Rev. Mr. Benson, of Queen's-road Church, is, in my judgment, an eloquent and powerful preacher. Don't you think so, Mr. Pepper?"

"Well, as you ask me so pointedly, I am free to say that I think him a very good preacher _on the whole_. But, you know, he is far from perfect. I have again and again perceived his false logic, his weak metaphors, and his unsound expositions. Still, he is passable, and you may go a long way before you hear a better."

Thus the censor meets you in every topic which you introduce in conversation.

"All seems infected that the infected spy,
And all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye."

If you ask reasons for his censures, he cannot give you any, excepting one similar in kind to the following:--

"I do not like you, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But I do not like you, Doctor Fell."

"Canting bigotry and carping criticism," says Magoon, "are usually the product of obtuse sensibilities and a pusillanimous will. Plutarch tells us of an idle and effeminate Etrurian, who found fault with the manner in which Themistocles had conducted a recent campaign. 'What,' said the hero, in reply, 'have you, too, something to say about war, who are like the fish that has a sword, but no heart?' He is always the severest censor on the merits of others who has the least worth of his own."

Again he says, "The Sandwich Islanders murdered Captain Cook, but adored his bones. It is after the same manner that the censorious treat deserving men. They first immolate them in the most savage mode of sacrifice, and then declare the relics of their victims to be sacred. Crabbed members of churches and other societies will quarrel a pastor or leading member away, and with snappish tone will complain of his absence, invidiously comparing him with his successor, and making the change they have caused the occasion of a still keener fight, simply to indulge the unslumbering malice of their unfeeling heart. The rancour with which they would silence one, the envy with which they hurry another into seclusion, and the inexorable bitterness under the corrosion of which a third is brought prematurely to the grave, proves how indiscriminate are their carping comments, and how identical towards all degrees of merit is their infernal hate."

Pollok speaks of the censor in the following lines:--

"The critics--some, but few,
Were worthy men; and earned renown which had
Immortal roots; but most were weak and vile;
And as a cloudy swarm of summer flies,
With angry hum and slender lance, beset
The sides of some huge animal; so did
They buzz about the illustrious man, and fain
With his immortal honour, down the stream
Of fame would have descended; but alas!
The hand of time drove them away: they were
Indeed a simple race of men, who had
One only art, which taught them still to say,
Whate'er was done might have been better done;
And with this art, not ill to learn, they made
A shift to live; but sometimes, too, beneath
The dust they raised, was worth awhile obscured:
And then did envy prophesy and laugh.
O envy! hide thy bosom! hide it deep:
A thousand snakes, with black, envenomed mouths,
Nest there, and hiss, and feed through all thy heart!"

"The manner in which cynical censors of artistic and moral worth proceed is the same in every place and age. In Pope's time 'coxcombs' attempted to 'vanquish Berkely with a grin,' and they would fain do the same to-day. 'Is not this common,' exclaimed a renowned musician, 'the least little critic, in reviewing some work of art, will say, pity this and pity that--this should have been attired, that omitted? Yea, with his wiry fiddle-string will he creak out his accursed variations. But let him sit down and compose himself. He sees no improvements in variations _then_.'"

The fault of which the censorious talker is guilty has been defined as a "compound of many of the worst passions; latent pride, which discovers the mote in a brother's eye, but hides the beam in our own; malignant envy, which, wounded at the noble talents and superior prosperity of others, transforms them into the objects and food of its malice, if possible obscuring the splendour it is too base to emulate; disguised hatred, which diffuses in its perpetual mutterings the irritable venom of the heart; servile duplicity, which fulsomely praises to the face, and blackens behind the back; shameless levity, which sacrifices the peace and reputation of the absent, merely to give barbarous stings to a jocular conversation: all together forming an aggregate the most desolating on earth, and nearest in character to the malice of hell."

The censorious talker, with all his criticisms and censures, never does any good, as none heed him but those who do not know him. His criticisms have no influence with the wise and judicious. Though he may swim against the stream of general opinion, he can never turn the stream of general opinion to run with him. Though he may talk contrary to others, he cannot persuade or constrain others to talk as he does. He may dissent in judgment from them, but he cannot bring them over to coincide with him; and it is a good thing for society that it is so. As he talks without wisdom and charity, so he talks to no purpose, excepting to prejudice weak and unwary minds, and degrade himself in the sober judgment of the intelligent and thoughtful.

"Voltaire said that the 'character of the Frenchman is made up of the tiger and the ape;' but even such a composition may be turned to some useful account, while the inveterate fault-finder neutralizes, as far as possible, every attempt made by others to do good. To perform any task perfectly to his liking, would be as impossible as to 'make a portrait of Proteus, or fix the figure of the fleeting air.' To speak favourably of anybody or anything is a trait of generosity entirely foreign to his nature; from temperament and confirmed habit, he 'must be cruel only to be kind.' The only benefit he occasions is achieved contrary to his intent; in his efforts to impede rising merit, he fortifies the energies he would destroy. Said Haydon, 'Look down upon genius, and he will rise to a giant--attempt to crush him, and he will soar to a god.'"

While the censorious man is most severe in judging others, he is invariably the most ready to repel any animadversions made upon himself; upon the principle well understood in medical circles, that the feeblest bodies are always the most sensitive. No man will so speedily and violently resent a supposed wrong as he who is most accustomed to inflict injuries upon his associates. Not unfrequently is a fool as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and for ever is he more incorrigible.

What an unhappy state of mind is that of the censorious talker! He is always looking with the eyes of jealousy, envy, or malice, to discern something for censure; and something he _will_ discern; true or false, it is of no consequence to him. He proceeds in direct opposition to the Divine injunction, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." He is like the Pharisees of old, with two bags, one before and the other behind him. In the one before he deposits the faults of other people, and in the one behind he now and then, it may be, deposits the faults of himself. He is devoid of the charity which covereth a multitude of sins, which is the bond of perfectness, which "suffereth long, and is kind, which envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, which doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." This charity has not so much as cast her passing shadow upon the soul of the censor; and did the shadow or body of charity come within the range of his vision, he would not discern either the one or the other, because of the blindness of his heart.

One of the finest expressions in the world is in the seventeenth chapter of Proverbs, "He that covereth a transgression _seeketh love_; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends." In what a delightful communion with God does that man live who habitually seeketh love! With the same mantle thrown over him from the cross, with the same act of amnesty, by which he hopes to be saved, injuries the most unprovoked, and transgressions the most aggravated are covered in eternal forgetfulness.

On the contrary, the censorious man often separates intimate friends by repeating a matter and digging up forgotten quarrels. The charity which is most divine is that which hides a multitude of faults. It is pure in itself, and labours to promote the peace and happiness of all. If one would be noble, he must be habitual in the cultivation of lofty principle and generous love.

What advantage comes of the uncharitable criticisms and judgments which are passed one upon the other? Is any one the better? Do they not rather result in mutual ill-humour and enmity? Who likes to have his motives called in question? Who can endure with meekness to have himself and his works put through the crucible of a mere mortal, as though that mortal were the Judge of eternal destinies? Let us remember that we are all frail, and as such should exercise towards each other that charity which we hope the Supreme One will exercise towards us.

"Oh what are we,
Frail creatures as we are, that we should sit
In judgment man on man? and what were we,
If the All Merciful should mete to us
With the same rigorous measure wherewithal
Sinner to sinner metes."

XXIV.

_THE DOGMATIST._

"I am Sir Oracle:
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark."
SHAKESPEARE.

This talker is one who sits in company as a king whose words are law; or as a god whose communications are divine; or as a judge whose decisions are unalterable. There is, however, this drawback to his supremacy--it is only in his _own_ imagination. He is to himself an infallible oracle--infallible in all points of theory and practice on which he converses. He has surrounded himself with such fortifications of strength, that to attack him with a view to gain a surrender on any questions of dispute is like trying to break a rock with a bird's feather, or taking Gibraltar with a merchant ship's gun. He is invulnerable in everything. His words, like Jupiter's bolts, come down upon you in such fury that your escape is as likely as that of a gnat thrown into a caldron of flaming oil. Hercules crushing an infant in his grasp is a difficult task compared to the ease with which this giant talker grasps and crushes his opponent. In every mode of hostility he meets you as Goliath met David--with lips of scorn and words of contempt--to presume to stand before him in contradiction. Your logic is weak; or you beg the question; or you see only one side; or you want order of thought, breadth of view, clearness of perception; or you have not studied philosophy, or psychology, or history, sufficiently to judge of the question; or you are wrong altogether: you _must_ be so.

Thus his denunciations come down without mercy upon your poor soul; and alas for you if you have not enough of mental stamina, independence, and fortitude to stand up against them. If you are a lamb, you are torn to pieces as in the jaws of a lion; if you are trembling and diffident, you are overwhelmed as a dove in the claws of an eagle. He scathes with his lightning and awes with his thunder. He sweeps everything before him, and stands in the field as sole possessor. He is "Sir Ruler" of all opinion. He is "Lord Guide" of all thought; and to have a thought or an opinion of your own, contrary to his, is a presumption frowned upon with sternest ire.

Another trait in this talker is, he has nothing good to say of any one, or of anything that is of any one. He deals with others in the third person as he deals with you in the second person. "What do you think of so and so?" you ask: it may be of the highest personage in State or Church, in literature or politics.

"O, he is narrow, or he is selfish; or he is mean; or he is vain; or he is jealous; or he is little; or he is limited in his reading; or he is something else, which unfits him to be where he is or what he is."

No one pleases him; nothing pleases him. Everybody is wrong; everything is wrong. If there is a dark spot in the bright sky, he is sure to see it; if a thorn on the rose, he is bound to run his hand in it; if a hole in the garment, his finger will instinctively find its way there, and make it larger.

I have met this talker in company more than once or twice; and I must say that my conversation with him has been anything but pleasant or satisfactory. I have thought every time that he has increased in his idiosyncracy, that he has become more and more dogged, self-willed, and obstinate. I have wished that he might see himself as others see him. But to this he has been as blind as an owl in mid-day. Where is the salve that would give him this power of vision? He see himself as others see him! Can the blind be made to see, or the deaf to hear? Then may this miracle be wrought. He sees no one in his mirror but himself, and himself in full perfection. Should he, perchance, at any time see another, it is in a manner that only enlarges the perception of his own personal excellences, and strengthens his consciousness of self-importance and self-satisfaction.

* * * * *

"Do you think, Mr. Jones, that Dr. Sharpe's views of the natural immortality of the soul and the future condition of the wicked are tenable by reason and Scripture?" asked Mr. Manly.

"There is neither reason nor Scripture in them," replied Mr. Jones, with dogmatic emphasis. "He is hemmed in by your 'orthodoxy.' He is narrow in his conceptions. He lacks breadth of thought. His logic is feeble. He is deficient in true exegesis of Scripture. He has not looked into nature to catch its unfettered inspirations. His arguments are as weak as an infant's."

"But are you not forgetting the scholarship of the Doctor, underrating his powers, and losing sight of the general favour with which his work is received?" asked Mr. Manly.

"Forgetting his scholarship!" replied Jones, with a dogmatic sneer; "how can I forget what he never had, and underrate powers which he never possessed? And as for the favour with which his book has been received, that is nothing to me. I think for myself: I speak for myself. I care nothing for the opinion of others. I say, and when I say I mean what I say, that there is no force in the Doctor's arguments."

"Yes, but, Mr. Jones, all that is mere dogmatism on your part, and no argument," said Mr. Manly, calmly and firmly.

"You accuse me of dogmatism, do you?" roared Mr. Jones, "dogmatism indeed! Who are you, to be so bold? No argument, either! If I do not argue, who does? It is impudence on your part to say such a thing in my presence."

Mr. Manly thought it wise to say no more about Dr. Sharpe's book. After a brief pause Mr. Jones told a most marvellous account of two men in South Africa, to which Mr. Manly observed,--

"That is a strange story, and hard to believe, Mr. Jones."

"_It is so_, whether you believe it or no: _I_ know it is true, and _it is so_," replied Mr. Jones, positively.

"But your _ipse dixit_ does not make it true."

"My _ipse dixit_, indeed! Have not I read it? Do not I know it? Be it true or false, I believe it; and I wonder at your impudence to call in question anything that I say," said Jones, somewhat furiously.

"Do not excite yourself, Mr. Jones."

"Excite myself! isn't there enough to excite me? _I said so_, and that ought to have been enough without your contradiction."

Mr. Manly said no more on that point, but after a while observed,--

"The principle you advanced, Mr. Jones, a short time since, on geology seems to be altogether gratuitous, and can only be received for what it is worth."

"Gratuitous, indeed! Gratuitous! You affirm it to be gratuitous, do you? I should like to know what right you have to say it is gratuitous? Haven't I said it is so? and do you mean to insult me by saying it is only gratuitous?" roared out Jones.

"I do not mean to insult at all; but I was not prepared to receive it, as it is antagonistic to the views of the most eminent geologists of the present day," replied Mr. Manly, rather coolly.

"What is that to me? My views are my own. I have found them myself. I hold them sacred. I care not who they contradict. I believe they are right. I affirm them so to you, and you should not dispute them."

* * * * *

It is thus the dogmatist stands upon his self-confidence and presumption, his fancied superiority of knowledge and learning. He virtually ignores everybody else's right to think and to know. He flings denunciation at the man who dares contradict him. He is his own standard of wisdom, and erects himself as the standard for other people. "To the law and the testimony," as they are embodied in him; and if there is not conformity to these, it is because there is no light in you.

Sometimes the dogmatist seems to rule supreme in the company of which he forms a part. But his rule is not acquired by the force of logic or the convincing power of truth. It is assumed or usurped. It may be that some are too modest to contradict him, or others may not have sufficient intelligence, or others may not think it worth their while, or others may have wisdom to perceive his folly, and answer him accordingly. Hence he may imagine himself triumphant when no one disputes the field with him. He may think he reigns supreme in the circle, when, in fact, he reigns only over his own opinions, or rather is a slave to their despotic power.

The dogmatist is far from having influence with the wise and intelligent. Among the timid and ignorant he may rule in undisputed power; but to men of reason and thought he is repulsive. He is kept at arm's length as a piece of humanity whose "room is better than his person." In these days of free thought and free speech, who will submit to be hectored out of his right to think, and to speak as he thinks, by one who has nothing but his own dictatorial self-conceit to show as his authority, perhaps backed with a pretentious influence coming from a subordinate official position that he holds in Church or State?

Even when the dogmatist possesses that amount of intelligence and position which legitimately place him above most of the company into which he may go, he is seldom or ever welcomed as an acceptable conversationalist. But when he is a man below mediocre--a pedant--he is insupportable.

Were it required to state what are the causes of the fault of this talker, they might be summed up in two words--_ignorance and pride_. The man who assumes to himself authority over other people's thought and speech must indeed possess a large measure of these qualities. He must estimate his powers at the highest value, and set down those of others at the lowest. He is wise in his own conceit, and in others foolish. He occupies a position which has been usurped by the stretch of his self-importance, and from which he should be summarily deposed by the unanimous vote of pure wisdom and sound intelligence.

Cowper, in speaking of this talker, thus describes him:--

"Where men of judgment creep and feel their way,
The positive pronounce without dismay;
Their want of light and intellect supplied
By sparks absurdity strikes out of pride.
Without the means of knowing right from wrong,
They always are decisive, clear, and strong;
Where others toil with philosophic force,
Their nimble nonsense takes a shorter course;
Flings at your head conviction in the lump,
And gains remote conclusions at a jump;
Their own defect invisible to them,
Seen in another, they at once condemn;
And, though self-idolised in every case,
Hate their own likeness in a brother's face.
The cause is plain, and not to be denied,
The proud are always most provoked by pride;
Few competitions but engender spite,
And those the most where neither has a right."

XXV.

_THE ALTILOQUENT._

"With words of learned length and thundering sound."
GOLDSMITH.

This is a talker not content to speak in words plain and simple, such as common sense teaches and requires. He talks as though learning and greatness in conversation consisted in fine words run together as beads on a string. You would infer on hearing him that he had ransacked Johnson to find out the finest and loftiest words in which to express his ideas, so far as he has any. The regions in which ordinary mortals move are too mundane for him; so he rises aloft in flights of winged verbiage, causing those who listen below to wonder whither he is going, until he has passed away into the clouds, beyond their peering ken. At other times he speaks in such grandiloquence of terms as make his hearers open their eyes and mouths in vacant and manifold interjections! "How sublime! How grand! How surpassingly eloquent! Was it not magnificent?"

I will give the reader a few illustrations of this talker, as gathered from a variety of sources.

"That was a masterly performance," said Mr. Balloon to his friend Mr. Gimblett, as they came out of church one Sunday morning, when the Rev. Mr. German had been preaching on the _Relation of the Infinite to the Impossible_.

"Yes," replied Mr. Gimblett, "I suppose it was very fine; but much beyond my depth. I confess to being one of the sheep who looked up and were not fed."

"That's because you haven't a metaphysical mind," said Mr. Balloon, regarding his friend with pity; "you have got a certain faculty of mind, but I suspect you have not got the _logical grasp_ requisite for the comprehension of such a sermon as that."

"I am afraid I have not," said Mr. Gimblett.

"I tell you what it is," continued Mr. Balloon, "Mr. German has a _head_. He's an intellectual giant, I hardly know whether he is greater as a subjective preacher, or in the luminous objectivity of his _argumentum ad hominem_. As an instructive reasoner, too, he is perfectly great. With what synthetical power he refuted the Homoiousian theory. I tell you Homoiousianism will be nowhere after that."

"To tell the truth," said Mr. Gimblett, "I went to sleep at that long word, and did not awake until he was on Theodicy."

"Ah, yes," said Mr. Balloon, "that was a splendid manifestation of ratiocinative word-painting. I was completely carried away when, in his magnificent, sublime, and marrowy style he took an analogical view of the anthropological." But at this point Mr. Balloon soared away into the air, and left Mr. Gimblett standing with wondering vision as to whither he had gone.

At the time the Atlantic telegraph was first laid a certain preacher thought proper to use it as an illustration of the connection between heaven and earth, thus: "When the sulphuric acid of genuine attrition corrodes the contaminating zinc of innate degeneracy and actual sinfulness, and the fervent electrical force of prayerful eternity ascends up to the residence of the Eternal Supreme One, you may calculate on unfailing and immediate despatch with all magnetical rapidity."

A certain American altiloquent was once talking of liberty, when he said, "White-robed liberty sits upon her rosy clouds above us; the Genius of our country, standing on her throne of mountains, bids her eagle standard-bearer wind his spiral course full in the sun's proud eye; while the Genius of Christianity, surrounded by ten thousand cherubim and seraphim, moves the panorama of the milky clouds above us, and floats in immortal fragrance--the very aroma of Eden through all the atmosphere."

An altiloquent was one day about taking a journey into the country. He was rather of a nervous tendency, having met with two or three accidents in travelling. Before getting into the hired conveyance he asked the driver, "Can you, my friend, conduct this quadruped along the highway without destroying the equilibrium of the vehicle?" The journey having been made without the "equilibrium of the vehicle" being destroyed, when he reached the inn where the horse was to lodge for the night, he said to the ostler, "Boy, extricate this quadruped from the vehicle, stabulate him, devote him an adequate supply of nutritious aliment, and when the aurora of morn shall again illumine the oriental horizon I will reward you with pecuniary compensation for your amiable hospitality."

On a certain occasion one of this class of talkers was dining in a country farm-house, when, among other vegetables on the table, cabbage was one. After despatching the first supply, he was asked by the hostess if he would take a little more, when he said, "By no means, madam. Gastronomical satiety admonishes me that I have arrived at the ultimate of culinary deglutition consistent with the code of Esculapius."

A photographer once, describing his mode of taking pictures, said, "Then we replace the slide in the shield, draw this out of the camera, and carry it back into the shadowy realm where Cocytus flows in black nitrate of silver, and Acheron stagnates in the pool of hyposulphite, and invisible ghosts, trooping down from the world of day, cross a Styx of dissolved sulphate of iron, and appear before Rhadamanthus of that lurid Hades."

A certain doctor once, conversing about the romantic scenery of Westmoreland, said, "In that magnificent county you see an apotheosis of nature, and an apodeikneusis of the theopratic Omnipotence."

Mr. Paxton Hood tells of a minister who described a tear "as that small particle of aqueous fluid, trickling from the visual organ over the lineaments of the countenance, betokening grief." Of another, who spoke of "the deep intuitive glance of the soul, penetrating beyond the surface of the superficial phenomenal to the remote recesses of absolute entity or being; thus adumbrating its immortality on its precognitive perceptions." Of another, an eminent man, head of a college for ministers, when repeating a well-known passage of Scripture, "'He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his'"--here he paused, and at last said, "Well, out of his ventriculum shall flow 'living water!'"

One altiloquent rendered "Give us this day our daily bread" as follows: "Confer upon us during this mundane sphere's axillary revolution our diurnal subsistence." And another, instead of saying, "Jesus wept," said, "And Jesus the Saviour of the world burst into a flood of tears;" upon hearing which Dr. Johnson is said to have exclaimed in disgust, "Puppy, puppy!"

A minister once, speaking in the presence of a few friends met for the purpose of promoting the interests of a certain Young Men's Christian Association, relieved himself in the following: "When I think of this organization, with its complex powers, it reminds me of some stupendous mechanism which shall spin electric bands of stupendous thought and feeling, illuminating the vista of eternity with corruscations of brilliancy, and blending the mystic brow of eternal ages with a tiara of never-dying beauty, whilst for those who have trampled on the truth of Christ, it shall spin from its terrible form toils of eternal funeral bands, darker and darker, till sunk to the lowest abyss of destiny."

A physician, while in his patient's room, in speaking to the surgeon about him, said, "You must phlebotomize the old gentleman to-morrow."

The old gentleman, who overheard, immediately exclaimed in a fright, "I will never suffer that."

"Sir, don't be alarmed," replied the surgeon; "he is only giving orders for me to bleed you."

"O, as for the bleeding," answered the patient, "it matters little; but as for the other, I will sooner die than endure it."

I have read of an Irishman who, speaking of a house which he had to let, said, "It is free from opacity, tenebrosity, fumidity, and injucundity, or translucency. In short, its diaphaneity, even in the crepuscle, makes it a pharos, and without laud, for its agglutination and amenity, it is a most delectable commorance; and whoever lives in it will find that the neighbours have none of the truculence and immanity, the torvity, the spinosity, the putidness, the pugnacity, nor the fugacity observable in other parts of the town. Their propinquity and consanguinity occasions jucundity and pudicity, from which and the redolence of the place they are remarkable for longevity."

Altiloquents are not unfrequently found among a class of young persons who think they must talk in a manner corresponding with their dress and appearance--fine and prim. A barber is a "tonsorial artist," and the place in which he works a "hair-dressing studio;" a teacher of swimming is a "professor of natation," and he who swims "natates in a natatorium;" a common clam-seller is a "vender of magnificent bivalves;" a schoolmaster is a "preceptor," or "principal of an educational institute;" a cobbler is a "son of Crispin;" printers are "practitioners of the typographical art;" a chapel is a "sanctuary," a church a "temple," a house a "palace" or an "establishment," stables and pig-styes are "quadrupedal edifices and swinish tenements."

One of this class, a young lady at school, considering that the word "eat" was too vulgar for refined ears, is said to have substituted the following: "To insert nutritious pabulum into the denticulated orifice below the nasal protuberance, which, being masticated, peregrinates through the cartilaginous cavities of the larynx, and is finally domiciliated in the receptacle for digestible particles."

* * * * *

"It is impossible," says a recent writer, "not to deplore so pernicious a tendency to high-flown language, because all classes of society indulge in it more or less; and because, as we have already said, it proceeds in every instance from mental deficiencies and moral defects, from insincerity and dissimulation, and from an effeminate proneness to use up in speaking the energy we should turn to doing and apply to life and conduct. Without a substratum of sincerity, no man can speak right on, but runs astray into a kind of phraseology which bears the same relation to elegant language that the hollyhock does to the rose."

The altiloquent talker may be called a _word-fancier_, searching for all the fine words discoverable, and then putting them together in a sort of mosaic-pavement style or artificial-flower order, making something to be considered _pretty_, or _fascinating_, or _profound_.

"Was it not beautiful?" asked Miss Bunting of Mr. Crump, after hearing one of these talkers. "Did you ever hear anything like it?"

"No, I did not," answered Mr. Crump, "and I do not wish to hear anything like it again. Too much like a flourishing penman, Miss Bunting, who makes more of his flourishes than of his sense, and which attract the reader more than his communication."

"But was he not very deep, Mr. Crump?"

"No, Miss Bunting, he was not deep. You remind me of an occasion some time past when reading a book of an altiloquent style. A friend of mine asked, 'Is it not deep?' I answered, 'Not deep, but drumlie.' The drumlie often looks deep, and is liable to deceive; but it is shallow, as shallow as a babbling brook, as shallow as the beauty of the rose or the human countenance. Sometimes you may think you have a pearl; but it is only a dewdrop into which a ray of light has happened to fall. Such kind of talk, wherever it may be, is only like the aurora-borealis, or like dissolving views which for the moment please. But you know, Miss Bunting, it is the light of the sun that makes the day, and it is substantial food that feeds and strengthens.

"Balloons are very good things for rising in the air and floating over people's heads; but they are worthless for practical use in the stirring and necessary activities of life. Gew-gaws are pretty things to call forth the wonder of children and ignorant gazers; but the judicious pass them with an askant look and careless demeanour. A table well spread with fine-looking artificial flowers and viands may be nice for the eye, but who can satisfy his hunger and thirst with them? Thus it is with your altiloquent talkers, Miss Bunting. They give you, as a rule, only the tinsel, the varnish, the superficial, which vanishes into thin nothing under your analysis of thought or your reflection of intelligent light."

XXVI.

_THE DOUBLE-TONGUED._

"Think'st thou there are no serpents in the world
But those who slide along the glassy sod,
And sting the luckless foot that presses them?
There are who in the path of social life
Do bask their spotted skins in fortune's sun,
And sting the soul."
JOANNA BAILLIE.

He is so called because he carries two tongues in one--one for your presence and one for your absence; one sweet as honey, the other bitter as gall; one with which he oils you, the other with which he stings you. In talking _with_ you he is bland and affable; but in talking _about_ you he detracts or slanders. The other night, when at your hospitable board, he was complimentary and friendly; the night after, at the hospitable board of your neighbour, in your absence, he had no good word to say of you.

Such is the versatility of his nature, that he is called by a variety of names. Sometimes he is named "_Double-faced_," because he has two faces answering to his two tongues. Sometimes he is named "_Backbiter_," because if he ever bite any one it is behind his back, where he thinks he is not seen; and so soon is he out of sight, that you can only learn who has bitten you from some honest friend that saw him do it and instantly hide himself under a covering which he always carries about with him for such occasions. He is sometimes named a "_Sneak_," because he has not courage to say candidly to your face what he means, but creeps about slyly among other people to say it, that he may evade your notice, and at the same time retain your confidence in him as a personal friend. He is sometimes named a "_Snake-in-the-grass_," because he secretes himself in shady places, waiting his opportunity to sting without your knowing how or by whom it was done. In fine, he has been named a "_Hypocrite_," who comes to you in "sheep's clothing," but is in truth a "ravening wolf."

"His love is lust, his friendship all a cheat,
His smiles hypocrisy, his words deceit."

He welcomes you with a shake of the hand at his door, and says in soft flattering words, "How glad I am to see you, Mr. Johnson! Pray do walk in;" and while you are laying your hat, gloves, and umbrella on the hall table, he whispers to some one in the parlour, "_That Johnson has just come in, and I am sure I don't care to see him_."

Mrs. Stubbs informs her husband on arriving home in the evening that she met Mrs. Nobbs in the street, and invited her to take a friendly cup of tea with them to-morrow, and then adds with emphasis, "_but I do hope she will not come!_"

A young gentleman complimented Miss Stokoe the other night in company upon her "exquisite touch on the piano" and the "nightingale tones of her voice in singing;" but as he was walking home from the party with Miss Nance, he said to her (of course in the absence of Miss Stokoe) that "_Miss Stokoe, after all that is said in her praise, is no more than an ordinary pianist and singer_."

"That was a most excellent sermon you gave us this morning," said Mr. Clarke to the Rev. T. Ross, as he was dining with him at his house. "I hope it will not be long before you visit us again."

"I am obliged for your compliment," replied Mr. Ross.

A day or two after Mr. Clarke was heard to say that he had never listened to such "_a dull sermon, and he hoped it would be a long time ere the reverend gentleman appeared in their pulpit again_."

"What darling little cherubs your twins are," said Mrs. Horton to Mrs. Shenstone in an afternoon gathering of ladies at her house. "I really should be proud of them if they were mine: such lovely eyes, such rosy cheeks, such beautiful hair, and withal such sweet expressions of the countenance! And then, how tastily they are dressed! Dear darlings! come and kiss me."

Mrs. Shenstone smiled complacently in return; and shortly after retired from the room, when the two "little cherubs" approached their prodigious admirer, with a view to make friends and impress upon her the solicited kiss. She instantly put them at arm's length from her, saying to Mrs. Teague, who sat next her, "_What pests these little things are, treading on my dress, and obtruding their presence on me like this. I do wish Mrs. Shenstone had taken them out of the room with her_."

"I am deeply grieved to learn," said Farmer Shirley one day to his neighbour, Farmer Stout, "that your circumstances are such as they are. Now, if you think I can help you in any way, do not be backward in sending to me. You shall always find a friend in me."

That very afternoon this same farmer Shirley was heard to say in a company of farmers at the "Queen's Head" that Stout had brought all his difficulties upon himself, and _he was not sorry for him a bit_. The next day Stout availed himself of the "great kindness" offered him by Shirley, and sent to ask the loan of a pound to pay the baker's bill, in order to keep the "staff of life" in the house for his family; when Shirley sent word back to him that he had "no pounds to lend anybody, much less one _who had by his own extravagance brought himself into such difficult circumstances_."