required to blow the boiler of the engine to pieces, or the number of
people killed in collisions during the corresponding quarter of last
year? Should we not be better in sickness for not knowing the exact
percentage of deaths in cases of our class? In adversity should we not
be infinitely happier were we in ignorance of the chance we ran of
gaining a good position or of cutting our throats? Should we not enjoy
our prosperity all the more if we were not, morning and evening,
exercised by the fluctuations of the share-list, fluctuations in all
likelihood destined never to increase or diminish our fortunes one
penny? And oh, for ignorance in sleep! For sleep without dream, or
nightmare, or memory! For sleep such as falls upon the body when the
soul is done with it and away!
But all this is only rambling talk and likely to come to nothing. I fear
I shall never find a publisher for my great work. Upon reading over what
I have written I am impressed by the faintness of the outline it
displays of the book. In fact there is hardly any outline at all. It is
no more clear than the figures thrown by a magic-lantern upon a fog. I
have done nothing more than wave the sacred lamp of ignorance before
your eyes. I daresay my friend the jelly-fish would shake his fat sides
with laughter if he became aware of this futile effort to show how far
we are removed from his state of blissful calm. I feel infinitely
depressed and discouraged. I feel that not only will I not be hailed as
a prophet in my own country, but that the age will have nothing to do
with my scheme. It may be thought by many that there is something like
treason in thus enrolling oneself under the banner of the jelly-fish.
Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Carthage, and Rome have gone back from
knowledge, and even the jelly-fish does not flourish on their sites. But
is the condition of their sites the worse for lacking the jelly-fish?
Perhaps the “silence, and desolation, and dim night” are better in those
places than the blare of trumpets and the tramp of man. So far as we
know man is the only being capable of doing evil or offending heaven.
His absence may by nature be considered very good company. Whatever part
of earth he can handle and move he has turned topsy-turvy. One day earth
will turn on him and wipe him out altogether.
For me and my great scheme for the book there is no hope. Man has always
been accounted a poor creature when judged by a fellow man whom he does
not appreciate. How can I be expected to go on taking an interest in
man when not the most credulous or the most crafty publisher in London
will as much as look at my _Guide to Ignorance_? I feel that my life is
wasted and that my functions have been usurped by the School Board. I
cool the air with sighs for the days when a philosopher might teach his
disciples in the porch or the grove. I feel as if I could anticipate
earth and turn on man. But some of the genial good nature of the
jelly-fish still lingers in my veins. I will not finally desert man
until man has finally deserted me. I had by me a few scattered essays in
the style of the book I projected in vain. If in them the reader has not
found ample proof of my fitness to inculcate the philosophy of Ignorance
I shall abandon Man to his fate. I have relieved my mind of some of its
teeming store of vacuity. I can scarcely hope I have added to the
reader’s hoard. But it would be consoling to fancy that upon laying down
this book the reader’s mind will if possible be still more empty than
when he took it up.
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS,
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
the face of a charletan=> the face of a charlatan {pg 13}
acccording to Mitchel=> acccording to Mitchel {pg 140}
are focussed upon him.=> are focused upon him. {pg 179}