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PEOPLE WITH ONE IDEA.--There are people who have but one idea: at least
if they have more, they keep it a secret, for they never talk but of
one subject. There is Major C----; he has but one idea, or subject of
discourse, Parliamentary Reform. Now, Parliamentary Reform is (as far
as I know) a very good thing, a very good idea, and a very good subject
to talk about; but why should it be the only one? To hear the worthy
and gallant Major resume his favourite topic is like law-business, or a
person who has a suit in Chancery going on. Nothing can be attended to,
nothing can be talked of but that. Now it is getting on, now again it is
standing still; at one time the Master has promised to pass judgment by
a certain day, at another he has put it off again, and called for more
papers; and both are equally reasons for speaking of it. Like the piece
of pack-thread in the barrister’s hands, he turns and twists it all ways,
and cannot proceed a step without it. Some schoolboys cannot read but in
their own book; and the man of one idea cannot converse out of his own
subject. Conversation it is not, but a sort of recital of the preamble of
a bill, or a collection of grave arguments for a man’s being of opinion
with himself. It would be well if there was any thing of character, any
thing of eccentricity in all this; but that is not the case. It is a
political homily personified, a walking common-place we have to encounter
and listen to. It is just as if a man was to insist on your hearing him
go through the fifth chapter of the Book of Judges every time you meet,
or like the story of the Cosmogony in the Vicar of Wakefield. It is a
tune played on a barrel-organ. It is a common vehicle of discourse into
which people get and are set down when they please, without any pains or
trouble to themselves. Neither is it professional pedantry or trading
quackery: it has no excuse. The man has no more to do with the question
which he saddles on all his hearers than you have. This is what makes the
matter hopeless. If a farmer talks to you about his pigs or his poultry,
or a physician about his patients, or a lawyer about his briefs, or a
merchant about stock, or an author about himself, you know how to account
for this; it is a common infirmity; you have a laugh at his expense, and
there is no more to be said. But here is a man who goes out of his way
to be absurd, and is troublesome by a romantic effort of generosity. You
cannot say to him, “All this may be interesting to you, but I have no
concern in it;” you cannot put him off in that way. He has got possession
of a subject which is of universal and paramount interest, and on that
plea may hold you by the button as long as he chooses. His delight is
to harangue on what nowise regards himself; how then can you refuse to
listen to what as little amuses you? The business admits of no delay.
The question stands first on the order of the day--takes precedence in
its own right of every other question. Any other topic, grave or gay, is
looked upon in the light of impertinence, and sent to Coventry. Business
is an interruption to it, pleasure a digression from it. As Cicero says
of study, it follows the man into the country, it stays with him at home;
it sits with him at breakfast, and goes out with him to dinner. It is
like a part of his dress, of the costume of his person, without which he
would be at a loss what to do. If he meets you in the street, he accosts
you with it as a form of salutation; if you see him at his own house, it
is supposed you come upon that. If you happen to remark, “it is a fine
day,” or “the town is full,” it is considered as a temporary compromise
of the question; you are suspected of not going the whole length of the
principle. Is not this a species of sober madness more provoking than the
real? Has not the theoretical enthusiast his mind as much warped, as much
enslaved by one idea, as the acknowledged lunatic, only that the former
has no lucid intervals? If you see a visionary of this class going along
the street, you can tell as well what he is thinking of and will say next
as the man that fancies himself a tea-pot or the Czar of Muscovy. The one
is as inaccessible to reason as the other: if the one raves, the other
dotes!--_Hazlitt’s Table-Talk._
* * * * *
COMFORTABLE CIRCUMSTANCES FAVOUR FORESIGHT.--It is a most remarkable
fact, totally at variance with what might _a priori_ be expected, but
confirmed by the universal experience of mankind, that the dominion
of reason over the passions, the habit of foresight, and the power of
forming a systematic plan for the conduct of life, are just in proportion
_to the degree in which the danger of immediate or the pressure of actual
suffering has been removed from mankind_. The savage who has no stock
whatever for his support--who is in danger of immediate starvation, if
his wonted supplies from the chase or his herds were to fail--is totally
regardless of the future in every part of the world; while the rich man,
whose subsistence and affluence are almost beyond the reach of chance, is
incessantly in disquietude about the manner in which his subsequent life
is to be spent. The certain prospect of instant death to himself and all
that are dear to him, from the occurrence of a probable event, is unable
to draw the attention of the one from the enjoyments of the moment;
while the slight and improbable chance of a diminution in the smallest
articles of _future_ comfort, renders the other indifferent to the means
of _present_ enjoyment which are within his reach.--_Alison’s Principles
of Population._
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APPRECIATION.--After all, it is appreciation rather than praise that is
delightful. An artist, for instance, how tired he must be of hearing
his pictures called “beautiful, exquisite!”--of being told for the one
hundredth time that he has surpassed himself; but let any one point out
to him one of his own thoughts on the canvass, which he supposed likely
to escape the general eye, and how grateful it is!
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