I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathized
with all things, I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncracy in any
thing. Those national repugnancies do not touch me, nor do I behold with
prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch.--_Religio Medici_.
That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts
of abstraction, conversant about notional and conjectural essences;
in whose categories of Being the possible took the upper hand of
the actual; should have overlooked the impertinent individualities
of such poor concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired.
It is rather to be wondered at, that in the genus of animals he
should have condescended to distinguish that species at all. For
myself--earth-bound and fettered to the scene of my activities,--
Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky,
I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national or
individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent
eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste
or distaste; or when once it becomes indifferent, it begins to be
disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices--made up
of likings and dislikings--the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies,
antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am
a lover of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot
feel towards all equally. The more purely-English word that expresses
sympathy will better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a worthy
man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or _fellow_. I cannot
_like_ all people alike.[1]
I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to
desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me--and in
truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it. There
is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding.
We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect
intellects (under which mine must be content to rank) which in its
constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the
sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive than
comprehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or precision
in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. Their
intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole pieces in it.
They are content with fragments and scattered pieces of Truth. She
presents no full front to them--a feature or side-face at the most.
Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost
they pretend to. They beat up a little game peradventure--and leave
it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down.
The light that lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and
shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their conversation is accordingly.
They will throw out a random word in or out of season, and be content
to let it pass for what it is worth. They cannot speak always as
if they were upon their oath--but must be understood, speaking
or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to mature a
proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the green ear. They
delight to impart their defective discoveries as they arise, without
waiting for their full developement. They are no systematizers, and
would but err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before,
are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not
mistaken) is constituted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is
born in panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their
growth--if, indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put together upon
principles of clock-work. You never catch his mind in an undress. He
never hints or suggests any thing, but unlades his stock of ideas
in perfect order and completeness. He brings his total wealth into
company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. He
never stoops to catch a glittering something in your presence, to
share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true touch or
not. You cannot cry _halves_ to any thing that he finds. He does not
find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension of a thing.
His understanding is always at its meridian--you never see the first
dawn, the early streaks.--He has no falterings of self-suspicion.
Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half-intuitions, semi-consciousnesses,
partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no
place in his brain, or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls
upon him. Is he orthodox--he has no doubts. Is he an infidel--he has
none either. Between the affirmative and the negative there is no
border-land with him. You cannot hover with him upon the confines of
truth, or wander in the maze of a probable argument. He always keeps
the path. You cannot make excursions with him--for he sets you right.
His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot
compromise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right
and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the
sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops
a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy
book!"--said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give
that appellation to John Buncle,--"did I catch rightly what you said?
I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I
do not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above
all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian.
Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest
with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print
of a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing
off to Mr. ****. After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to
ask him how he liked MY BEAUTY (a foolish name it goes by among my
friends)--when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable
respect for my character and talents" (so he was pleased to say), "but
had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal
pretensions." The misconception staggered me, but did not seem much
to disconcert him.--Persons of this nation are particularly fond
of affirming a truth--which nobody doubts. They do not so properly
affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of
truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all truth
becomes equally valuable, whether the proposition that contains it be
new or old, disputed, or such as is impossible to become a subject of
disputation. I was present not long since at a party of North Britons,
where a son of Burns was expected; and happened to drop a silly
expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father
instead of the son--when four of them started up at once to inform
me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable
wish, it seems, was more than they could conceive. Swift has hit off
this part of their character, namely their love of truth, in his
biting way, but with an illiberality that necessarily confines the
passage to the margin.[2] The tediousness of these people is certainly
provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another!--In my early life
I had a passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. I have sometimes
foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself with his countrymen by expressing
it. But I have always found that a true Scot resents your admiration
of his compatriot, even more than he would your contempt of him. The
latter he imputes to your "imperfect acquaintance with many of the
words which he uses;" and the same objection makes it a presumption
in you to suppose that you can admire him.--Thomson they seem to have
forgotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven for his
delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their first introduction
to our metropolis.--peak of Smollett as a great genius, and they will
retort upon you Hume's History compared with _his_ Continuation of it.
What if the historian had continued Humphrey Clinker?
I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They are a piece of
stubborn antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage.
They date beyond the pyramids. But I should not care to be in habits
of familiar intercourse with any of that nation. I confess that I
have not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices cling
about me. I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries
of injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side,--of cloaked revenge,
dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between our and their fathers,
must, and ought, to affect the blood of the children. I cannot believe
it can run clear and kindly yet; or that a few fine words, such as
candour, liberality, the light of a nineteenth century, can close up
the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial
to me. He is least distasteful on 'Change--for the mercantile spirit
levels all distinctions, as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly
confess that I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian,
which has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, to
me, something hypocritical and unnatural in them. I do not like to see
the Church and Synagogue kissing and congeeing in awkward postures of
an affected civility. If _they_ are converted, why do they not come
over to us altogether? Why keep up a form of separation, when the
life of it is fled? If they can sit with us at table, why do they
keck at our cookery? I do not understand these half convertites. Jews
christianizing--Christians judaizing--puzzle me. I like fish or flesh.
A moderate Jew is a more confounding piece of anomaly than a wet
Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is essentially _separative_. B----
would have been more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his
forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his face, which nature meant to
be of ---- Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong in him, in spite of
his proselytism. He cannot conquer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out,
when he sings, "The Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea!"
The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides
over our necks in triumph. There is no mistaking him.--B---- has a
strong expression of sense in his countenance, and it is confirmed by
his singing. The foundation of his vocal excellence is sense. He sings
with understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would sing the
Commandments, and give an appropriate character to each prohibition.
His nation, in general, have not ever-sensible countenances. How
should they?--but you seldom see a silly expression among them.
Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I never heard
of an idiot being born among them.--Some admire the Jewish female
physiognomy. I admire it--but with trembling. Jael had those full dark
inscrutable eyes.
In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong traits of
benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderness towards some of these
faces--or rather masks--that have looked out kindly upon one in casual
encounters in the streets and highways. I love what Fuller beautifully
calls--these "images of God cut in ebony." But I should not like
to associate with them, to share my meals and my good-nights with
them--because they are black.
I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate the Quaker
principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any
of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or disturbed by any
occurrence, the sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a
ventilator, lightening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom.
But I cannot like the Quakers (as Desdemona would say) "to live with
them." I am all over sophisticated--with humours, fancies, craving
hourly sympathy. I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat,
scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their
simpler taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive
banquet. My appetites are too high for the salads which (according to
Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto too excited
To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse.
The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to return to a
question put to them may be explained, I think, without the vulgar
assumption, that they are more given to evasion and equivocating than
other people. They naturally look to their words more carefully, and
are more cautious of committing themselves. They have a peculiar
character to keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon their
veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath. The custom
of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified as it is by all
religious antiquity, is apt (it must be confessed) to introduce into
the laxer sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth--the one
applicable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the
common proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon the
conscience by an oath can be but truth, so in the common affirmations
of the shop and the market-place a latitude is expected, and conceded
upon questions wanting this solemn covenant. Something less than truth
satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, "You do not expect me to
speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a great deal of incorrectness
and inadvertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary
conversation; and a kind of secondary or laic-truth is tolerated,
where clergy-truth--oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances,
is not required. A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His simple
affirmation being received, upon the most sacred occasions, without
any further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is to use
upon the most indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally,
with more severity. You can have of him no more than his word. He
knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, he forfeits,
for himself, at least, his claim to the invidious exemption. He knows
that his syllables are weighed--and how far a consciousness of this
particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has a tendency to
produce indirect answers, and a diverting of the question by honest
means, might be illustrated, and the practice justified, by a more
sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon this occasion. The
admirable presence of mind, which is notorious in Quakers upon all
contingencies, might be traced to this imposed self-watchfulness--if
it did not seem rather an humble and secular scion of that old stock
of religious constancy, which never bent or faltered, in the Primitive
Friends, or gave way to the winds of persecution, to the violence of
judge or accuser, under trials and racking examinations. "You will
never be the wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till
midnight," said one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had been
putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. "Thereafter as the answers
may be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing composure of this people
is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances.--I was
travelling in a stagecoach with three male Quakers, buttoned up in the
straitest non-conformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover,
where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before
us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way
took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my
companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was
resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild
arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated
mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard
came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out
their money, and formally tendered it.--so much for tea--I, in humble
imitation, tendering mine--for the supper which I had taken. She
would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their
silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and
gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought
I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and
warrantable personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove
off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously
pronounced, became after a time inaudible--and now my conscience,
which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give
some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be
offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their
conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the
subject. They sate as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of
them broke silence, by inquiring of his next neighbour, "Hast thee
heard how indigos go at the India House?" and the question operated as
a soporific on my moral feeling as far as Exeter.
[Footnote 1: I would be understood as confining myself to the subject
of _imperfect sympathies_. To nations or classes of men there can be
no direct _antipathy_. There may be individuals born and constellated
so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere cannot
hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the
story of two persons meeting (who never saw one another before in
their lives) and instantly fighting.
--We by proof find there should be
Twixt man and man such an antipathy,
That though he can show no just reason why
For any former wrong or injury,
Can neither find a blemish in his fame,
Nor aught in face or feature justly blame,
Can challenge or accuse him of no evil,
Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil.
The lines are from old Heywood's "Hierarchie of Angels," and he
subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted
to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack
could give no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy
which he had taken to the first sight of the King.
--The cause which to that act compell'd him
Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him.]
[Footnote 2: There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit
themselves, and entertain their company, with relating facts of no
consequence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents as
happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the
Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the
minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if
it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as
well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly
tolerable.--_Hints towards an Essay on Conversation_.]