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IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES
I am of a constitution
so general, that it consorts and sympathizeth with all things,
I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncracy in any thing. Those
national repugnancies do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice
the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch -- Religio Medici.
That the author of the Religio
Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts of abstraction, conversant
about notional and conjectural essences; in whose categories of
Being the possible took the upper hand of the actual; should have
overlooked the impertinent individualities of such poor concretions
as mankind, is not much to be admired. It is rather to be wondered
at, that in the genus of animals he should have condescended to
distinguish that species at all. For myself-earth.hound and fettered
to the scene of my activities, --
Standing on earth, not rapt above
the sky,
I confess that I do feel the
differences of mankind, national or individual, to an unhealthy
excess. I can look with no indifferent eye upon things or persons.
Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste or distaste; or when once
it becomes indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in
plainer words, a bundle of prejudices -- made up of likings and
dislikings -- veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies.
In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am a lover
of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot
feel towards all equally. The more purely-English wont that expresses
sympathy will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to
a worthy man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or fellow.
I cannot like all people alike. *
[Footnote] * I would be understood as confining myself to the
subject of imperfect sympathies To nations or classes of men there
can be no direct antipathy. There may *be individuals born and
constellated so opposite to another individual nature, that the
same sphere cannot hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes,
and can believe the story of two persons meeting (who never saw
one another before in their lives) and instantly fighting.
-- We by proof find there should be
`Twixt man and man such an antipathy,
That though he can show no just reason why
For any former wrong or injury,
Can neither find a blemish in his fame,
Nor aught in face or feature justly blame,
Can challenge or accuse him of no evil,
Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil.
The lines are from old Heywood's "Hierarchie of Angels,"
and he subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard
who attempted to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being
put to the rack could give no other reason for the deed but an
inveterate antipathy which he had taken to the first sight of
the King.
-- The cause which to that act compell'd him
Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him.
I have been
trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist
from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me -- and in
truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it.
There is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding.
We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect
intellects (under which mine must be content to rank) which in
its constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of
the sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive
than comprehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or
precision in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them.
Their intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole
pieces in it. They are content with fragments and scattered pieces
of Truth. She presents no full front to them -- a feature or side-face
at the most. Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system,
is the utmost they pretend to. They beat up a little game peradventure
-- and leave it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions,
to run it down. The light that lights them is not steady and polar,
but mutable and shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their conversation
is accordingly. They will throw out a random word in or out of
season, and be content to let it pass for what it is worth. They
cannot speak always as if they were upon their oath -- but must
be understood, speaking or writing, with some abatement. The seldom
wait to mature a proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the
green ear. They delight to impart their defective discoveries
as they arise, without waiting for their full developement. They
are no systematizers, and would but err more by attempting it.
Their minds, as I said before, are suggestive merely. The brain
of a true Caledonian (if I am not mistaken) is constituted upon
quite a different plan. His Minerva is born in panoply. You are
never admitted to see his ideas in their growth -- if, indeed,
they do grow, and are not rather put together upon principles
of clock-work. You never catch his mind in an undress. He never
hints or suggests any thing, hut unlades his stock of ideas in
perfect order and completeness. He brings his total wealth into
company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him.
He never stoops to catch a glittering something in your presence,
to share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true
touch or not. You cannot cry halves to any thing that he finds.
He does not find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension
of a thing. His understanding is always at its meridian -- you
never see the first dawn, the early streaks. -- He has no falterings
of self-suspicion. Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half-intuitions,
semi-consciousnesses, partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo
conceptions, have no place in his brain, or vocabulary. The twilight
of dubiety never falls upon him. Is he orthodox -- he has no doubts.
Is he an infidel -- he has none either. Between the affirmative
and the negative there is no border-land with him. You cannot
hover with him upon the confines of truth, or wander in the maze
of a probable argument. He always keeps the path. You cannot make
excursions with him -- for he sets you right. His taste never
fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot compromise, or
understand middle actions. There can be but a right and a wrong.
His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the sanctity
of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops
a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's country. "A
healthy book" -- said one of his countrymen to me, who had
ventured to give that appellation to John Buncle, -- "did
I catch rightly what you said? I have heard of a man in health,
and of a healthy state of body, but I do not see how that epithet
can be properly applied to a book." Above all, you must beware
of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. Clap an extinguisher
upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest with a vein of it.
Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print of a graceful
female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing off to Mr.
****. After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to ask him
how he liked MY BEAUTY (a foolish name it goes by among my friends)
-- when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable
respect for my character and talents" (so he was pleased
to say), "but had not given himself much thought about the
degree of my personal pretensions." The misconception staggered
me, but did not seem much to disconcert him. -- Persons of this
nation are particularly bond of affirming a truth -- which nobody
doubts. They do not so properly affirm, as annunciate it. They
do indeed appear to have such a love of truth (as if, like virtue,
it were valuable for itself) that all truth becomes equally valuable,
whether the proposition that contains it be new or old, disputed,
or such as is impossible to become a subject of disputation. I
was present not long since at a party of North Britons, where
a son of Burns was expected; and happened to drop a silly expression
(in my South British way), that I wished it were the father instead
of the son -- when four of them started up at once to inform me,
that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An
impracticable wish, it seems, was more than they could conceive.
Swift has hit off this part of their character, namely their love
of truth, in his biting way, but with an illiberality that necessarily
confines the passage to the margin. The tediousness of these people
is certainly provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another!
-- In my early life I had a passionate fondness for the poetry
of Burns. I have sometimes foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself
with his countrymen by expressing it. But I have always found
that a true Scot resents your admiration of his compatriot, even
more than he would your contempt of him. The latter he imputes
to your "imperfect acquaintance with many of the words which
he uses;" and the same objection makes it a presumption in
you to suppose that you can admire him. -- Thomson they seem to
have forgotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven
for his delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their first
introduction to our metropolis. -- Speak of Smollett as a great
genius, and they will retort upon you Hume's History compared
with his Continuation of it. What if the historian had continued
Humphrey Clinker?
[Footnote] * There are some people who think they sufficiently
acquit themselves, and entertain their company, with relating
facts of no consequence, not at all out of the road of such common
incidents as happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently
among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not
to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind
of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth
terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar to that
country, would be hardly tolerable. -- Hints towards an Essay
on Conversation.
I have, in the
abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They are a piece of stubborn
antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage. They
date beyond the pyramids. But I should not care to be in habits
of familiar intercourse with any of that nation. I confess that
I have not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices
cling about me. I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of Lincoln.
Centuries of injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side, -- of
cloaked revenge, dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between
our and their fathers, must, and ought, to affect the blood of
the children. I cannot believe it can run clear and kindly yet;
or that a few fine words, such as candour, liberality, the light
of a nineteenth century, can close up the breaches of so deadly
a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial to me. He is least distasteful
on `Change -- for the mercantile spirit levels all distinctions,
as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly confess that I do not
relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, which has become
so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, to me, something
hypocritical and unnatural in them. I do not like to see the Church
and Synagogue kissing and congeeing in awkward postures of an
affected civility. If they are converted, why do they not come
over to us altogether? Why keep up a form of separation, when
the life of it is fled? If they can sit with us at table, why
do they keck at our cookery? I do not understand these half convertites.
Jews christianizing -- Christians judaizing -- puzzle me. I like
fish or flesh. A moderate Jew is a more confounding piece of anomaly
than a wet Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is essentially
separative. B----- would have been more in keeping if he had abided
by the faith of his forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his
face, which nature meant to be of ---- Christians. The Hebrew
spirit is strong in him, in spite of his proselytism. He cannot
conquer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out, when he sings, "The
Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea!" The auditors,
for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides over our
necks in triumph. There is no mistaking him. -- has a strong expression
of sense in his countenance, and it is confirmed by his singing.
The foundation of his vocal excellence is use. He sings with understanding,
as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would sing the Commandments,
and give an appropriate character to each prohibition. His nation,
in general, have not ever-sensible countenances. How should they
? -- but you seldom see a silly expression among them. Gain, and
the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I never heard of
an idiot being horn among them. -- Some admire the Jewish female-physiognomy.
I admire it -- but with trembling. Jael had those full dark inscrutable
eyes.
In the Negro
countenance you will often meet with strong traits of benignity.
I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these faces
-- or rather masks -- that have looked out kindly upon one in
casual encounters in the streets and highways. I love what Fuller
beautifully calls -- these "images of God cut in ebony."
But I should not like to associate with them, to share my meals
and my good-nights with them -- because they are black.
I love Quaker
ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate the Quaker principles. It
does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any of their
people in my path. When I am ruffled or disturbed by any occurrence,
the sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a ventilator,
lightening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom. But
I cannot like the Quakers (as Desdemona would say) "to live
with them." I am all over sophisticated -- with humours,
fancies, craving hourly sympathy. I must have books, pictures,
theatres, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand
whim-whams, which their simpler taste can do without. I should
starve at their primitive banquet. My appetites are too high for
the salads which (according to Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel,
my gusto too excited
To sit a guest with Daniel at
his pulse.
The indirect
answers which Quakers are often found to return to a question
put to them may be explained, I think, without the vulgar assumption,
that they are more given to evasion and equivocating than other
people. They naturally look to their words more carefully, and
are more cautious of committing themselves. They have a peculiar
character to keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon
their veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath.
The custom of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified
as it is by all religious antiquity, is apt (it must be confessed)
to introduce into the laxer sort of minds the notion of two kinds
of truth -- the one applicable to the solemn affairs of justice,
and the other to the common proceedings of daily intercourse.
As truth bound upon the conscience by an oath can be but truth,
so in the common affirmations of the shop and the market-place
a latitude is expected, and conceded upon questions wanting this
solemn covenant. Something less than truth satisfies. It is common
to hear a person say, "You do not expect me to speak as if
I were upon my oath." Hence a great deal of incorrectness
and inadvertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary conversation;
and a kind of secondary or laic-truth is tolerated, where clergy-truth
-- oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances, is not required.
A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His simple affirmation
being received, upon the most sacred occasions, without any further
test, stamps a value upon the words which he is to use upon the
most indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally,
with more severity. You can have of him no more than his word.
He knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, be
forfeits, for himself, at least, his claim to the invidious exemption.
He knows that his syllables are weighed -- and how far a consciousness
of this particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has
a tendency to produce indirect answers, and a diverting of the
question by honest means, might be illustrated, and the practice
justified, by a more sacred example than is proper to be adduced
upon this occasion. The admirable presence of mind, which is notorious
in Quakers upon all contingencies, might be traced to this imposed
self-watchfulness -- if it did not seem rather an humble and secular
scion of that old stock of religious constancy, which never bent
or faltered, in the Primitive Friends, or gave way to the winds
of persecution, to the violence of judge or accuser, under trials
and racking examinations. "You will never be the wiser, if
I sit here answering your questions till midnight," said
one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had been putting law-cases
with a puzzling subtlety. "Thereafter as the answers may
be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing composure of this
people is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances.
-- I was travelling in a stage-coach with three male Quakers,
buttoned up in the straitest non-conformity of their sect. We
stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus,
partly supper, was set before us. My friends confined themselves
to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought
in the bill, the eldest of my companions discovered that she had
charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very
clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part
of the Quakers, for which the heated mind of the good lady seemed
by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his usual
peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their money, and formally
tendered it -- so much for tea -- I, in humble imitation, tendering
mine -- for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax
in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver as
did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest
going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could
not do better than follow the example of such grave and warrantable
personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove off.
The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously
pronounced, became after a time inaudible -- and now my conscience,
which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning
to give some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification
would be offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice
of their conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped
on the subject. They sate as mute as at a meeting. At length the
eldest of them broke silence, by inquiring of his next neighbour,
"Hast thee heard how indigos go at the India House?"
and the question operated as a soporific on my moral feeling as
far as Exeter.
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