Part 49

"No. I have heard nothing."

"Then the less said the soonest mended," answered Young.

Now this Mr. Young knew nothing personally against young Bush, but had heard a rumour which prejudiced him to speak in this way of him; the result of which was that the manager evinced suspicion of the young man until he had been in the bank some time, and by his unquestionable conduct had proved that Mr. Young's insinuation was nothing but prejudice grounded upon rumour and ignorance of him.

Thus it is that the prejudiced talker may do a great deal of mischief against persons of the most innocent character.

Prejudice has nothing to justify it, but everything to condemn it. The person subject to it evinces a mind devoid of the breadth, strength, and independence characteristic of true manhood; and the sooner he disposes of rumour and ignorance as the creator of words on his tongue, the better for his reputation. Before he speaks of persons or things he will act wisely to "come and see" by personal interview and experience.

XVI. THE BOASTER.--This talker is somewhat akin to the Egotist; nevertheless there is a distinction and difference. What he is, what he has done, where he has been, his acquaintances, his intentions, his prospects, his capabilities, his possessions, are the subjects of his talk in such a braggadocio spirit and style as disgusts the intelligent, and imposes upon the simple.

Has he done you a charitable deed? has he been heroic in an act of mercy? has he given a contribution to an object of beneficence? has he performed some feat of gymnastics? has he made a good bargain in business? has he said or done something which has elicited the faintest praise from an observer?--with what a flourish he brags of each in its turn! Everybody and everything must stand aside while he and his doings are exhibited in full glory before the company.

It is well when these mountebanks meet with treatment such as they deserve. A honest word or two spoken by a fearless hearer of their loud talking will soon cause their balloon to collapse, or bring their exhibition to a sudden end. And then how pitiable they do look! Where is boasting then? Alas, it is excluded; and their glory is turned into shame.

A young man who in his travels had visited the isle of Rhodes was once boasting in company of how he had out-jumped all the men there, and all the Rhodians could bear witness of it. One of the company replied, "If you speak the truth, think this place to be Rhodes, and jump here;" when it turned out that he could do nothing, and was glad to make his exit. The English proverb, "Great boast and small roast," is applicable to such.

It is said in history that a friend of Cæsar's had preserved a certain man from the tyranny of the triumvirate proscription; but he so frequently talked about it in a boasting manner, that the poor man ultimately exclaimed, "Pray thee, restore me to Cæsar again! I had rather undergo a thousand deaths than to be thus continually upbraided by thee with what thou hast done for me."

And who does not sympathise with this feeling when any one who has in a way been a friend is ever and anon boasting of it in conversation?

"We must not," as one says, "make ourselves the trumpet of our benevolence in liberalities and good deeds, but let them, like John the Baptist, be the speaking son of a dumb parent--speak to the necessity of our brother, but dumb in the relation of it to others. It is for worthless empirics to stage themselves in the market and recount their cures, and for all good Christians to be silent in their charitable transactions."

"The highest looks have not the highest mind, Nor haughty words most full of highest thought; But are like bladders blown up with the wind, That being pricked, evanish into nought."

"Who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this; for it will come to pass That every braggart shall be found an ass."

XVII. THE QUARRELSOME.--What is said of the Irishman may be said of this talker, "He is only in peace when he is in a quarrel." His flowers are thistles, and his sweets bitters. The more you study to be quiet, the more he aims to make a noise. The least imaginable thing in word, look, or act he takes as a cause for bickering and contention. As a neighbour, as a fellow member in a family, as a fellow workman, as a fellow traveller, he is disagreeable and annoying. He quarrels with you alike for things you do to please him or things you do to displease him. When two such persons meet, peace takes to her wings and flies away, leaving war of words, if not of weapons, in her room.

Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet was one of this steel. Mercutio addressing him says, "Thou! why thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat; and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a man for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old ribbons? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!"

XVIII. THE PROFOUND.--He leaves you at the edge, but himself plunges like an expert diver into the vasty deeps; and there in twilight visible, if not in darkness felt, he converses with you about the mysterious, the metaphysical, the mystical, the profound. As you gaze with wondering vision, you hear a voice, but see no man. He invites you down into his caves of ocean thought; but, as you see not where he is, and know not the way to follow, nor think it worth while to go at a venture, you prefer remaining on the shore.

Nor is it always the depth into which this talker delights to go. Were it this, with transparency, there would not be so much objection. He too frequently plunges into muddled waters, or makes them so by his movements therein. He persuades himself that he has acquired profound knowledge of philosophy from the dark and mystical writings of the Germans translated into English. With this persuasion he courts your attention, while he discourses to you in terms and phrases of marvellous vagueness about the Ego within us--the Infinite and the Immense, the Absolute, the Entity and Nonentity, and such-like subjects, of which you can make neither "top nor tail," and of which he knows nothing save the terms and phrases that he strings together with such adept expertness and palpable absurdity.

"What do you think," asked Mr. Stanley of Professor Rigg, "of Hegel's paradox, that nothing is equal to being, and that if being and nothing be conjoined you have existence?"

The Professor answered with his usual gravity and profundity: "Nothing could be more profound, and as lucid as profound, if Hegel's theory of the 'evolution of the concrete' was remembered. According to that theory the concrete is the idea which, as a unity, is variously determined, having the principle of its activity within itself, while the origin of the activity, the act itself, and the result, are one, and constitute the concrete. The innate contradiction of the concrete is the basis of its development, and though differences arise, they at last vanish into unity. To use the words of Hegel, there is 'both the movement and repose in the movement. The difference hardly appears before it disappears, whereupon there issues from it a full and complete unity.'"

"That is very clear and satisfactory," observed Mr. Stanley, ironically; not seeing anything but confusion confounded in the whole of it. "What is your view," he asked again, "of the Hegelian 'Absolute'?"

"This," said the Professor, "is nothing but a continual process of thinking, without beginning and without end. Now that the evolution of ideas in the human mind is the process of all existence--the essence of the Absolute--of a Deity, so that Deity is nothing more than the Absolute ever striving to realize itself in human consciousness."

Without questioning the truthfulness of such a doctrine, so plainly expressed, Mr. Stanley proceeded to ask, in a way rather beyond himself, "Whether there was not a little to be said for Schelling's notion that the rhythmical law of all existence is cognisable at the same time by the internal consciousness of the subjective self, in the objective operation of Nature?"

To this question, somewhat mystical it must be confessed, the Professor replied in his usual style of profundity:--

"I see clearly enough Schelling's great ingenuity; but think his three movements or potencies--that of 'Reflexion,' whereby the Infinite strives to realize itself in the Finite--that of 'Subsumption,' which is the striving of the Absolute to return from the Finite to the Infinite--and that of the 'Indifference-point,' or point of junction of the two first--were not to be admitted; for is it not clear as the day that the poles ever persist in remaining apart, the indifference-point having never been fixed by Schelling?"

In these ways Mr. Stanley and the Professor kept up the conversation until I and the rest of the company were perfectly involved in dense mists and fogs, wishing that the sun of simple truth would shine, to bring us into clear seeing and firm foot-standing. We longed for the day without a cloud. At last they ceased, and after a brief interval we found ourselves where we were before they began, with no more knowledge of the mystical, and no less love to the simplicity of truth spoken in words of plain meaning and thoughts of undisguised transparency.

XIX. THE WONDERER.--This is a talker with whom one very often meets in the walks of life. His peculiarity in conversation is the use of the word wonder in almost every statement he makes and question he asks. It is a strange peculiarity, and I wonder that he should so frequently indulge in its use; I wonder that he does not discover some other mode of expression.

I once met with him at a railway station, and after wishing him the compliments of the day, almost his first word was, "I wonder how long my train will be before it starts?" Scarcely had he time to get his breath, when he said, "I wonder what o'clock it is." I looked at my watch and told him. Instantly he said, "I wonder whether it rains; I hope not." I assured him that it did not when I came on the platform; then he quickly said, "I wonder whether it will rain to-morrow; I hope not, for I have a long journey to take by coach."