To _The Rambler_.
Sir,
Though one of your correspondents has presumed to mention with some
contempt that presence of attention and easiness of address, which the
polite have long agreed to celebrate and esteem, yet I cannot be
persuaded to think them unworthy of regard or cultivation; but am
inclined to believe that as we seldom value rightly what we have never
known the misery of wanting, his judgment has been vitiated by his
happiness; and that a natural exuberance of assurance has hindered him
from discovering its excellence and use.
This felicity, whether bestowed by constitution, or obtained by early
habitudes, I can scarcely contemplate without envy. I was bred under a
man of learning in the country, who inculcated nothing but the dignity
of knowledge and the happiness of virtue. By frequency of admonition
and confidence of assertion, he prevailed upon me to believe that the
splendour of literature would always attract reverence, if not
darkened by corruption. I therefore pursued my studies with incessant
industry, and avoided everything which I had been taught to consider
either as vicious or tending to vice, because I regarded guilt and
reproach as inseparably united, and thought a tainted reputation the
greatest calamity.
At the university I found no reason for changing my opinion; for
though many among my fellow-students took the opportunity of a more
remiss discipline to gratify their passions, yet virtue preserved her
natural superiority, and those who ventured to neglect, were not
suffered to insult her. The ambition of petty accomplishments found
its way into the receptacles of learning, but was observed to seize
commonly on those who either neglected the sciences or could not
attain them; and I was therefore confirmed in the doctrines of my old
master, and thought nothing worthy of my care but the means of gaining
and imparting knowledge.
This purity of manners and intenseness of application soon extended my
renown, and I was applauded by those whose opinion I then thought
unlikely to deceive me, as a young man that gave uncommon hopes of
future eminence. My performances in time reached my native province,
and my relations congratulated themselves upon the new honours that
were added to their family.
I returned home covered with academical laurels, and fraught with
criticism and philosophy. The wit and the scholar excited curiosity,
and my acquaintance was solicited by innumerable invitations. To
please will always be the wish of benevolence, to be admired must be
the constant aim of ambition; and I therefore considered myself as
about to receive the reward of my honest labours, and to find the
efficacy of learning and of virtue.
The third day after my arrival I dined at the house of a gentleman who
had summoned a multitude of his friends to the annual celebration of
his wedding day. I set forward with great exultation, and thought
myself happy that I had an opportunity of displaying my knowledge to
so numerous an assembly. I felt no sense of my own insufficiency, till
going upstairs to the dining-room, I heard the mingled roar of
obstreperous merriment. I was, however disgusted rather than
terrified, and went forward without dejection. The whole company rose
at my entrance; and when I saw so many eyes fixed at once upon me, I
was blasted with a sudden imbecility; I was quelled by some nameless
power which I found impossible to be resisted. My sight was dazzled,
my cheeks glowed, my perceptions were confounded; I was harassed by
the multitude of eager salutations, and returned the common civilities
with hesitation and impropriety; the sense of my own blunders
increased my confusion, and before the exchange of ceremonies allowed
me to sit down, I was ready to sink under the oppression of surprise;
my voice grew weak, and my knees trembled.
The assembly then resumed their places, and I sat with my eyes fixed
upon the ground. To the questions of curiosity, or the appeals of
complaisance, I could seldom answer but with negative monosyllables,
or professions of ignorance; for the subjects on which they conversed
were such as are seldom discussed in books, and were therefore out of
my range of knowledge. At length an old clergyman, who rightly
conjectured the reason of my conciseness, relieved me by some
questions about the present state of natural knowledge, and engaged
me, by an appearance of doubt and opposition, in the explication and
defence of the Newtonian philosophy.
The consciousness of my own abilities roused me from depression, and
long familiarity with my subject enabled me to discourse with ease and
volubility; but however I might please myself, I found very little
added by my demonstrations to the satisfaction of the company; and my
antagonist, who knew the laws of conversation too well to detain their
attention long upon an unpleasing topic, after he had commended my
acuteness and comprehension, dismissed the controversy, and resigned
me to my former insignificance and perplexity.
After dinner I received from the ladies, who had heard that I was a
wit, an invitation to the tea table. I congratulated myself upon an
opportunity to escape from the company, whose gaiety began to be
tumultuous, and among whom several hints had been dropped of the
uselessness of universities, the folly of book learning, and the
awkwardness of scholars. To the ladies, therefore, I flew as to a
refuge from clamour, insult and rusticity; but found my heart sink as
I approached their apartment, and was again disconcerted by the
ceremonies of entrance, and confounded by the necessity of
encountering so many eyes at once.
When I sat down I considered that something pretty was always said to
ladies, and resolved to recover my credit by some elegant observation
or graceful compliment. I applied myself to the recollection of all I
had read or heard in praise of beauty, and endeavoured to accommodate
some classical compliment to the present occasion. I sunk into
profound meditation, revolved the character of the heroines of old,
considered whatever the poets have sung in their praise, and after
having borrowed and invented, chosen and rejected a thousand
sentiments, which, if I had uttered them, would not have been
understood, I was awakened from my dream of learned gallantry by the
servant who distributed the tea.
There are not many situations more incessantly uneasy than that in
which the man is placed who is watching an opportunity to speak
without courage to take it when it is offered, and who, though he
resolves to give a specimen of his abilities, always finds some reason
or other for delaying it to the next minute. I was ashamed of silence,
yet could find nothing to say of elegance or importance equal to my
wishes. The ladies, afraid of my learning, thought themselves not
qualified to propose any subject to prattle to a man so famous for
dispute, and there was nothing on either side but impatience and
vexation.
In this conflict of shame, as I was reassembling my scattered
sentiments, and, resolving to force my imagination to some sprightly
sally, had just found a very happy compliment, by too much attention
to my own meditations, I suffered the saucer to drop from my hand, the
cup was broken, the lapdog was scalded, a brocaded petticoat was
stained, and the whole assembly was thrown into disorder. I now
considered all hopes of reputation as at an end, and while they were
consoling and assisting one another, stole away in silence.
The misadventures of this happy day are not yet at an end; I am afraid
of meeting the meanest of them that triumphed over me in this state of
stupidity and contempt, and feel the same terrors encroaching upon my
heart at the sight of those who have once impressed them. Shame, above
any other passion, propagates itself. Before those who have seen me
confused I can never appear without new confusion, and the remembrance
of the weakness which I formerly discovered hinders me from acting or
speaking with my natural force.
But is this misery, Mr. Rambler, never to cease? Have I spent my life
in study only to become the sport of the ignorant, and debarred myself
from all the common enjoyments of youth to collect ideas which must
sleep in silence, and form opinions which I must not divulge? Inform
me, dear sir, by what means I may rescue my faculties from these
shackles of cowardice, how I may rise to a level with my fellow
beings, recall myself from this languor of involuntary subjection to
the free exertion of my intellects, and add to the power of reasoning
the liberty of speech.
I am, sir, etc.,
VERECUNDULUS.
_Samuel Johnson._