I have never forgotten what happened when Sydney Smith - who, as everybody knows, was an exceedingly sensible man, and a gentleman, every inch of him - ventured to preach a sermon on the Duties of Royalty.The "Quarterly," "so savage and tartarly," came down upon him in the most contemptuous style, as "a joker of jokes," a "diner-out of the first water," in one of his own phrases; sneering at him, insulting him, as nothing but a toady of a court, sneaking behind the anonymous, would ever have been mean enough to do to a man of his position and genius, or to any decent person even.- If I were giving advice to a young fellow of talent, with two or three facets to his mind, I would tell him by all means to keep his wit in the background until after he had made a reputation by his more solid qualities.And so to an actor: HAMLET first, and BOB LOGICafterwards, if you like; but don't think, as they say poor Liston used to, that people will be ready to allow that you can do anything great with MACBETH'S dagger after flourishing about with PAUL PRY'S umbrella.Do you know, too, that the majority of men look upon all who challenge their attention, - for a while, at least, - as beggars, and nuisances? They always try to get off as cheaply as they can; and the cheapest of all things they can give a literary man - pardon the forlorn pleasantry! - is the FUNNY-bone.
That is all very well so far as it goes, but satisfies no man, and makes a good many angry, as I told you on a former occasion.
- Oh, indeed, no! - I am not ashamed to make you laugh, occasionally.I think I could read you something I have in my desk which would probably make you smile.Perhaps I will read it one of these days, if you are patient with me when I am sentimental and reflective; not just now.The ludicrous has its place in the universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the Divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long before Aristophanes or Shakspeare.How curious it is that we always consider solemnity and the absence of all gay surprises and encounter of wits as essential to the idea of the future life of those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties and then call BLESSED! There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which they look forward, by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all joyousness from their countenances.I meet one such in the street not unfrequently, a person of intelligence and education, but who gives me (and all that he passes) such a rayless and chilling look of recognition, - something as if he were one of Heaven's assessors, come down to "doom" every acquaintance he met, - that Ihave sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent cold, dating from that instant.I don't doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off, if he caught her playing with it.Please tell me, who taught her to play with it?
No, no! - give me a chance to talk to you, my fellow-boarders, and you need not be afraid that I shall have any scruples about entertaining you, if I can do it, as well as giving you some of my serious thoughts, and perhaps my sadder fancies.I know nothing in English or any other literature more admirable than that sentiment of Sir Thomas Browne "EVERY MAN TRULY LIVES, SO LONG AS HE ACTS HISNATURE, OR SOME WAY MAKES GOOD THE FACULTIES OF HIMSELF."I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, -but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.There is one very sad thing in old friendships, to every mind that is really moving onward.It is this: that one cannot help using his early friends as the seaman uses the log, to mark his progress.Every now and then we throw an old schoolmate over the stern with a string of thought tied to him, and look - I am afraid with a kind of luxurious and sanctimonious compassion - to see the rate at which the string reels off, while he lies there bobbing up and down, poor fellow! and we are dashing along with the white foam and bright sparkle at our bows; - the ruffled bosom of prosperity and progress, with a sprig of diamonds stuck in it! But this is only the sentimental side of the matter; for grow we must, if we outgrow all that we love.
Don't misunderstand that metaphor of heaving the log, I beg you.
It is merely a smart way of saying that we cannot avoid measuring our rate of movement by those with whom we have long been in the habit of comparing ourselves; and when they once become stationary, we can get our reckoning from them with painful accuracy.We see just what we were when they were our peers, and can strike the balance between that and whatever we may feel ourselves to be now.
