"Something thou dost want, O queen!
(As the gold doth ask alloy,)
Tears, amidst thy laughter seen,
Pity, mingling with the joy."
"That which is meant by stultiloquy," says Bishop Taylor, "or foolish
talking, is the '_lubricum verbi_', as St. Ambrose calls it, 'the
slipping with the tongue,' which prating people often suffer, whose
discourses betray the vanity of their spirit, and discover 'the hidden
man of the heart.' For no prudence is a sufficient guard, or can always
stand '_in excubiis_,' 'still watching,' when a man is in perpetual
floods of talk; for prudence attends after the manner of an angel's
ministry; it is despatched on messages from God, and drives away
enemies, and places guards, and calls upon the man to awake, and bids
him send out spies and observers, and then goes about his own ministries
above: but an angel does not sit by a man, as a nurse by the baby's
cradle, watching every motion, and the lighting of a fly upon the
child's lip: and so is prudence: it gives rules, and proportions out our
measures, and prescribes us cautions, and by general influences orders
our particulars; but he that is given to talk cannot be secured by all
this; the emissions of his tongue are beyond the general figures and
lines of rule; and he can no more be wise in every period of a long and
running talk than a lutanist can deliberate and make every motion of his
hand by the division of his notes, to be chosen and distinctly
voluntary. And hence it comes that at every corner of the mouth a folly
peeps out, or a mischief creeps in."
The stultiloquist's talk is like the jesting of mimics and players, who
in ancient times were so licentious that they would even make Socrates
or Aristides the subject of their jests, in order to find something to
provoke the laugh. It is immaterial to him who or what presents itself;
he will endeavour to extract therefrom something ludicrous or comical
for the amusement of the company. He may injure the feelings of some; he
may offend the modesty of others, and break all the rules of decorum;
but what does he care? Merriment is of more importance to him than the
most sacred feelings of other people.
Our talker may think that because his hearers listen and laugh, they
appreciate his continued flow of stultiloquy. But he is mistaken; could
he read the minds of the thoughtful and intelligent, he would find they
become jaded long before he does: and if each could speak, he would hear
the sentiment of the lines:--
"I'm weary of this laughter's empty din,
Methinks this fellow, with his ready jests,
Is like to tedious bells, that ring alike,
Marriage or death."
Let not the reader infer from the preceding observations that a talker
must always exclude from his conversation everything that partakes of
the spirit of solid mirth and innocent cheerfulness. Certainly not. "To
be a man and a Christian, one need neither be a mourning dove nor a
chattering magpie; neither an ascetic nor a wanton; neither soar with
the wings of an angel nor flutter with the flaps of a moth: for there is
as substantial a difference between light-heartedness and levity as
between the crackling pyrotechnics that disturb the darkness of the
night and the natural sunlight which enlivens the day. Indecency and
ribaldry bring down a man to the level of the beast, divesting him of
all his rational superiority and soul-dignity. What appears equally
contemptible with the man who stoops to make grimaces, to utter
expressions, to tell tales, in one word, to act the fool for the
amusement of others, while he is suffering actual disparagement, in
proportion to their entertainment."
According to inspired wisdom, "no corrupt communication should proceed
out of our mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it
may minister grace unto the hearers," that is, favour, complaisance,
cheerfulness. We must avoid sullenness on the one hand, as we would
jesting on the other. Sullenness is repulsive and hateful. Jesting is
unseasonable and intolerable. But cheerfulness is the light of the soul,
and the sunshine of life. It is an alleviator of human sorrow, an
exhauster of oppressive cares. Jesting is frequently criminal and
foolish; but cheerfulness is one of the convoys of religion--the
festival spirit filling the heart with harmony and happiness. "It
composes music for churches and hearts; it makes and publishes
glorifications to God; it produces thankfulness, and serves the end of
charity: and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and
tall emissions of light and holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and
making joy round about: and therefore, since it is so innocent, and may
be so pious and full of holy advantage, whatsoever can innocently
minister to this holy joy sets forward the work of religion and charity.
And, indeed, charity itself, which is the vertical top of all religion,
is nothing else but a union of joys, concentred in the heart, and
reflected from all the angles of our life and intercourse. It is a
rejoicing in God, a gladness in our neighbour's good, a rejoicing with
him; and without love we cannot have any joy at all. It is this that
makes children to be a pleasure, and friendship to be so noble and
divine a thing; and upon this account it is certain, that all that which
can innocently make a man cheerful, does also make him charitable; for
grief, and age, and sickness, and weariness, these are peevish and
troublesome; but mirth and cheerfulness are content, and civil, and
compliant, and communicative, and love to do good, and swell up to
felicity only upon the wings of charity. Upon this account, here is
pleasure enough for a Christian at present; and if a facete discourse,
and an amicable friendly mirth can refresh the spirit, and take it off
from the vile temptation of peevish, despairing, uncomplying
melancholy, it must needs be innocent and commendable. And we may as
well be refreshed by a clean and brisk discourse as by the air of
Campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and
look pleasant with wit and friendly intercourse as with the fat of the
balsam tree; and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to
reprove. But when the jest hath teeth and nails, biting or scratching
our brother,--when it is loose and wanton,--when it is unseasonable, and
much, or many,--when it serves ill-purposes, or spends better
time,--then it is the drunkenness of the soul, and makes the spirit fly
away, seeking for a temple where the mirth and the music are solemn and
religious."
In a world of this kind, where reign life and death, goodness and evil,
joy and sorrow, we need a wise conjunction of seriousness and
cheerfulness. While, on the one hand, our harps must not always be on
the willows; neither must they always be high-strung and gaily played.
Smiles and tears in their season harmonise better than all of one or the
other out of season. With clouded sky for weeks we sigh for sunshine; as
in Italy, under its long bright sky, they sigh for clouds. The time of
the "singing of birds" and the efflorescence of trees is very welcome;
but who does not equally welcome the time of fruit-bearing also? The
lark soars in the air and sings merrily, but she also falls to earth and
sings not at all. Jesus rejoiced; but "Jesus wept." The night of
weeping and the morning of joy unite in one. So let the grave and the
cheerful conjoin in speech, according to times and seasons, places and
circumstances.
It is wise to have the two thus meet together. To be lifted up in
hilarity is the precursor of being cast down in dejection. A sudden rise
of the thermometer is generally followed by as sudden a fall. "I am not
sorry," said Sir Walter Scott, after the breaking up of a merry group of
guests at Abbotsford, "being one of those whom too much mirth always
inclines to sadness."
"There is no music in the life
That sounds with idiot laughter solely;
There's not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy."
"To some men God hath given laughter; but tears to some men He hath
given:
He bade us sow in tears, hereafter to harvest holier smiles in heaven;
And tears and smiles they are His gift; both good, to smite or to uplift:
He tempers smiles with tears; both good, to bear in time the Christian
mood."