_Nescio._ “Yes.
‘Dulcé ridentem Lalagen amabo
Dulcé loquentem.’”
_Tristo._ “I am no ladies’ man. I am too grave for their society. Yet
I am willing to acknowledge that, together with their influence, they
are half that makes life valuable. They are the purifying and refining
ingredient in the seething caldron of society. Their perceptions
are more rapid and acute than ours, and if deceitful, it is from
_necessity_, which you know is the mother of _invention_.”
_Pulito._ “For my part, the absence of those pretty faces, which I have
been wont to see in my ‘walk and conversation,’ will greatly deepen my
regret at leaving this delightful place.”
_Apple._ “Pooh! couldn’t you sentimentalize a bit? ‘_Pone me pigris ubi
nulla campis, Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ_,’ &c. Turn me adrift in New
England, New Guinea, or New Zealand, and let me have good meats, good
drinks, good _kapniphorous_ cigars and a dozen comedies, and I don’t
care a rush.”
_Pulito._ “Oh! what an _animal_! Why, Dumpling, do you suppose you have
a _soul_, or are you a mere lump of flesh, a ‘congregation of skin,
bone and spissitude,’ to use one of your own ridiculous phrases?”
_Apple._ “Yes, Pully, I suspect I have such a thing as a soul
somewhere--but I cannot determine its _locale_--neither do I fash my
beard thereanent, since it is the only _immaterial_ thing about me, ha!
ha!”
_Nescio._ “That’s Apple, through and through, to circumvent truth by a
quibble.”
_Pulito._ “But have you no sympathy with this verdant city and its
lovely scenes? Why, this very evening,
‘When the sweet wind doth gently kiss the trees.
And they do make no noise,’
is a copy of Paradise.”
_Apple._ “Yes! the ‘Paradise of fools.’”
_Pulito._
“‘On such a night
Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand,
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love
To come again to Carthage.’”
_Apple._
“‘On such a night did young Pulito strive
T’ unseal the fount of feeling in his heart,
And be poetic--_but he could not do it_.’”
_Pulito._ “The air is like the breath of birds.”
_Apple._ “Such birds as caged pullets and mousing owls, probably, ha!
ha!”
_Pulito._ “And then the cemetery, and these streets high-overarched
with their verdant walls of inwoven shade.”
_Apple._ “Poetical, i’faith! _My_ only amusement in the
_burying-ground_, as an unsophisticated gentleman like myself would
call it, is to read the queer old epitaphs.”
_Nescio._ “And mark how not even the ear of Death is secure from the
poison of flattery.”
_Apple._ “Pretty fair! I approve of that remark. As for these streets,
strip them of their green guardians, and they would be dry enough to
choke the wave-washed throat of Neptune himself. How can fellows walk
over all creation for fine prospects--my best prospect, as a kindred
spirit once said, is the prospect of a good dinner.”
_Pulito._ “Surely, the view from East Rock is delightful.”
_Apple._ “Undoubtedly, if there be two or three mountain nymphs hanging
affectionately on your arm. Oh! triple horror! To toil through two long
miles of dusty barrenness, and crawl _a la quadrupede_ up a mountain
of shifting sand and triturated stones, to view a few houses included
between shoal water and furze hills.”
_Nescio._ “Methinks only a few weeks since, _you_ escorted thither some
twelve or thirteen of these same mountain nymphs.”
_Apple._ “To be sure I did, and therefore I can speak from experience.
But it argues an unkind disposition in you, to fling a man’s errors
and misfortunes in his teeth. I did perpetrate that act, and as I
hope forgiveness, I am contrite therefor. We set off one morning,
when it was so hot that the very clouds _smoked_, though _I_ could
not--for what would Jonathan Oldbuck’s ‘_woman-kind_’ say? ‘The ladies
be upon thee, Sampson,’ thought I. I could not laugh, though there
was enough that was ridiculous, for I had corns. So I went sweating
along under a load of milk-and-water refreshments, like a man carrying
his own gibbet. I climbed up the hill like another Sisyphus, with a
train of Sirens behind me. When there what saw we. Why, through a
cracked spy-glass, I saw _Nescio Quod_ here, my own chum, coming out
the bookstore--wonderful, thrilling, soul-stirring prospect! Then,
lo! we had left the pine-apples a quarter of a mile from the foot of
the mountain, where we had stopped to browse. Nothing would do--one
lady was faint, and must have a little pine-apple juice--another
sweet nymph, in an unguarded moment, said that her principal object
in coming, was the pleasure of eating the pine-apples--and another
rosy-cheeked, and not very sylph-like figure, remarked, that if Mr.
Dumpling would be so good as to go after the basket, he should have the
pleasure of her arm down the mountain. The devil of a pleasure, thought
I; the sweet creature must have ‘gane daft, clean daft,’ or she would
never have offered such an inducement--better for me ‘that a millstone
were hanged about my neck,’ &c.--but down I must come, and down I came,
and when I got down, I stayed down. I ate the pine-apples myself, and
laid down under the shade till evening, when I slunk home, leaving
the ladies to their other beaux. I had some excuse though, for, while
‘midway between heaven and earth,’ I stumbled over a sweet-brier, and
wrenched my ankle so excruciatingly, that Pope’s line occurred to my
mind with some solemnity--
‘Die of a _rose_ in aromatic (_a rheumatic_) pain.’
You take, do you? I managed, however, to reset the _luxed_ but by no
means _luxurious_ joint, and grateful for my escape, I have forsworn
the ladies, and pray for grace to keep my vow.”
The laughter, long and loud, that succeeded the story of Apple’s
tribulations, was a sort of clearing-up shower, and left the moral
atmosphere in a temper more consonant with the seriousness of the hour.
After a short breathing-space, the conversation broke forth anew, and
in an entirely different channel. The sad peculiarity of our situation
gave to our views, and possibly to our remarks, a tinge of bitterness
and satire.
_Pulito._ “Well, fellows, ‘our course is run, our errand done’ within
these walls, and we are to leave them for ever--and why not bid
farewell with a light heart and bounding hopes. To be sure, the vexings
of the world will be rather uncomfortable. A gentlemanly air, and a
languid intimacy with the ‘tricksy pomp’ of literature, will not make a
man a President or a _millionaire_.”
_Apple._ “The prospect is somewhat discouraging. I should have felt no
misgivings at starting in the literary world a century ago, when the
noble art of punning was duly appreciated and rewarded, as witness the
celebrity of that great man, Dean Swift. Or I could have been content
to have ruffled it with the quibbling, conceit-loving cavaliers, who
basked in the smiles of Queen Bess. But now the principles of taste
are sadly perverted, and this noble art, this sole distinctive mark of
genius, has sought and found refuge only beneath the classic shades of
College. It is truly sad to me, to think of leaving this last strong
hold of wit and sentiment.”
_Nescio._ “Why, Apple, your grief bewilders your mind. You began with
talking about _punning_, and ended with wit and sentiment. Where is the
connection?”
_Apple._ “At least as close, Mr. Quod, as between your real and
expressed opinion, when you speak so despitefully of this innocent and
dignified amusement. But now we are on the subject, what is wit?”
_Nescio._ “To which question I might reply, as Democritus did to him
that asked the definition of a man--‘_tis that which we all see and
know_.’ Such is the language of Barrow, the celebrated divine; I read
it this very day. I however would admit no definition, that could
possibly include a _pun_.”
_Tristo._ “You go to an extreme there, Nescio. A mere play upon
words, a mere coincidence of sounds, makes but a poor jest, and a
ready facility in discovering and thrusting into conversation these
‘imperfect sympathies,’ gives one but slight pretensions to the
reputation of a wit. But there are some witticisms, which depend for
their force upon a _pun_, but yet including also a racy humor, deserve
the praise of true wit. I will read you an instance from Hazlitt:--“An
idle fellow, who had only fourpence left in the world, which had been
put by to pay for the baking of some meat for his dinner, went and
laid it out to buy a new string for a guitar. An old acquaintance, on
hearing this story, repeated these lines out of L’Allegro--
‘And ever against _eating_ cares
Lap me in soft Lydian airs.’”
Here the point of the jest lies in the pun upon _eating_, yet who does
not acknowledge it as highly humorous. There are not many puns so
refined and pure as this, but they sink in infinite and imperceptible
gradations. You cannot draw a bold line between ‘the wit of words and
wit of things.’ ‘For,’ as is said of Wit and Madness, ‘thin partitions
do their bounds divide.’”
_Pulito._ “Very true, and I detest that squeamishness, which would
refuse the praise of wit to any thing approaching to a pun, and
sympathize most heartily with poor Apple for his many rebuffs. But
nevertheless, Apple, ‘a joke’s prosperity lies in the ear of the
hearer,’ Shakspeare says, and one should not complain if his pet
witticisms are not received with applause and answered with laughter.
If the jest is worthless, he deserves ridicule--if it does contain the
essence of wit he has only himself to blame for giving it an utterance,
where it could not be appreciated. Think you that Addison would have
displayed his delicate humor for the amusement of crabbed and adust
bookworms, or Voltaire sported his sarcasms to tickle the ear of
clowns? Let their example encourage and instruct you, my dear Apple,
and if you cannot equal their fame, you may, at least, attain the
celebrity of Joe Miller.”
_Tristo._ “You will allow, however, Pulito, there is too often
manifested a disposition to decry and disparage, when approbation would
have been more natural. Censure is too often heard from lips, from
which praise would have been more graceful, or silence more becoming.
There are too many among us, who seek to rise upon the fall of their
rivals--too many ‘frosty-spirited knaves,’ of whom it may be said, in
bitterest truth, ‘not to admire is all the art they know.’”
_Pulito._ “I have, however, been accustomed to regard such characters
with more of pity than severity. I have regarded them as defrauded by
nature of the just proportions of humanity. I have been vexed by their
perversity, but no more inclined to resent it, than to chastise the
ceaseless annoyances of a child or an idiot.”
_Nescio._ “You underrate their _intellect_, that you may relieve
their _heart_ from the imputation of baseness. True, he who is always
searching for faults, without paying any attention to beauties, affords
strong grounds for the conclusion, that he has no perception of the
latter, and in his own experience is conversant only with the former:
and he who is ever detecting plagiarisms, and starting resemblances,
gives reason for the suspicion, that his acquaintance with the
fountains of these stolen waters, is not so purely accidental, or
so honorably gotten, as he would have us imagine. But deficiency of
taste and weakness of mind are not the sole causes of such conduct.
The _prompter_ of the whole is envy,--envy, the meanest passion of the
human heart--the only one in which there is not some shade of honor,
some trace of nobility. Ambition may be laudable--hate become a virtue
from the loathsomeness of its object--covetousness acquire dignity from
the excellence of the thing coveted--but the baseness of _envy_ is
enhanced by the purity and splendor against which it is directed.”
_Tristo._ “Not only is envy so mean a passion in itself, but it
exerts a most debasing influence upon the intellect and whole
character. Indeed, if we may believe Coleridge, the cherishing of it
is incompatible with the existence of genius. His language is solemn;
would that all the fosterers, or rather the _victims_, of this worst
vice, to which we are by our situation exposed, might listen to his
warning. ‘Genius may co-exist with wildness, idleness, folly, even with
crime; but not long, believe me, with the indulgence of an envious
disposition. Envy is both the worst and justest divinity, as I once saw
it expressed somewhere in a page of Stobæus; it dwarfs and withers its
worshippers.’”
_Apple._ “To recall your attention, Tristo, to the subject from which
we passed so suddenly to a more serious one, what think you of those
who ‘wit-wanton it’ with things sacred, who at every breath break over
the bounds of modesty, and outrage our sympathies with the true and
the beautiful, for the sake of a momentary, and not unfrequently a
shame-faced laugh?”
_Tristo._ “Such persons do themselves and others more injury than
they think. Their incessant insults to all refinement and delicacy
of feeling, if unresented and unguarded against, at length deaden
and efface these sentiments. Bulwer says well of such, ‘Their humor
debauches the whole moral system--they are like the Sardinian
herb--they make you laugh, it is true, but they _poison you in the
act_.’”
_Nescio._ “It is disgraceful that impurity should be an unequivocal
characteristic of college wit. But it will be so, until some one shall
demonstrate by his own example that there is no necessary connection,
but rather an essential hostility between real humor and obscenity. But
so long as it is easier to swim with the current than to buffet its
dashings--so long as it is pleasanter to excite a hearty laugh, than
encounter a cold sneer--so long as indolence and vacillation continue
to be _descriptive marks_ of a student’s character--we need not hope
for a change.”
_Pulito._ “Whoever would attempt to effect one, should remember the
aphorism, ‘He ought to be well mounted who is for leaping over the
hedges of custom.’”
_Tristo._ “If this license on the part of some deserves severe
reprobation, the chilling churlishness of those, who can feel no
sympathy with _pleasure_, be it ever so innocent--whose minds can
admit but the single idea of the _useful_, and reject as trifling
the elegant and refining--who, swallowed up in their admiration of
moral beauty, lose sight of or depreciate intellectual symmetry,
(forgetting that moral excellence, though it resemble in its value the
priceless diamond, is not like it advantaged by a dull and roughened
setting)--such, I say, must not pass without their share of censure,
for they are in no slight degree the occasion, I will not say the
cause, of the opposite vice in others.”
_Pulito._ “Such illiberality frustrates the praise-worthy exertions
of all who indulge in it. It places them out of the circle of
influence--their efforts can no more reach those whom they desire
to affect, than (to use a magniloquent simile) the perturbations of
the moons of Uranus can sway the Earth’s satellite in its orbit.
But beside the unfortunate reaction of such principles, is not this
cutting off, ‘at one fell swoop,’ all amusements, this tying down
to one staid rule of _formal observance_, youth of every variety of
taste, talent and temperament, and brought up under every complexion of
circumstances--this curbing of all tastes and inclinations, not within
the _lawgiver’s_ capabilities--is it not based upon error of judgment,
and directed by something of inquisitorial arrogance?”
_Apple._ “I never listen to a specimen of such frosty philosophy,
without recalling an anecdote, much to the point. It is found,
originally, I believe, in one of Pope’s letters to Swift, though I read
it somewhere else. ‘A courtier saw a sage picking out the best dishes
at table. ‘How,’ said he, ‘are sages epicures?’ ‘Do you think, Sir,’
said the wise man, reaching over the table to help himself, ‘do you
think, Sir, that God Almighty made all the good things of this world
for fools?’”
_Tristo._ “The sage must have belonged to the sect _Deipnosophoi_, or
‘Supper-wise,’ whom D’Israeli mentions. His principles, however, will
apply in their full extent, I think, to the purer pleasures of taste
and wit and literature.”
_Pulito._ “Talk not to them of the ‘purer pleasures of taste, and
wit, and literature,’ for these are their utter abomination--snares
for the youthful mind--idle perversions of talent. Speak to them of
the grand display of moral power in Shakspeare’s dramas, and for
an unanswerable answer, they will point to a gross expression--and
consistently enough too, for theirs is the morality of _words_. They
cannot perceive that the _scope_ of all his principal plays is purely
and symmetrically moral, or even religious--that they seldom violate
the modesty of nature, though they may overstep the prudishness of an
age when, ‘_La pudeur s’est enfuie des cœurs, et s’est refugiée sur
les lévres._’--Modesty has fled from the heart, and taken refuge on
the lips. They cannot admire the _overruling providence_, by which
his untutored genius, apparently so wild and uncontrollable, has been
unerringly directed to conformity with truth and virtue. In their
esteem the pious Cowper would have been more worthy, had he devoted his
talents to the _practical_ duties of ‘the clerk of the Commons,’ rather
than have _wasted_ them in the unproductive pursuits of poetry.”
_Nescio._ “Well, let them enjoy their opinions, provided they do not
meddle with others in the gratification of their taste, or profess
to judge in matters which they so virulently decry. The nightingale
may not quarrel with the discordant braying of the ass, till the
‘long-eared’ either attempt to ‘discourse sweet sounds’ himself, or
criticise the melody of others.”
_Pulito._ “‘Aye, there’s the rub!’ None are more prompt in criticising,
none more forward to condemn, than these same individuals.”
_Apple._ “Nothing ruffles the placidity of my temper so much, and so
frequently, as the confidence with which some fellows, whose ignorance
is absolute, pass judgment upon works of literature and taste. There
are those, who cannot tell for their lives whether Walter Scott wrote
Waverly or the Commentaries, or whether the author of Hudibras, the
Reminiscences, and the Analogy, be not one and the same, who yet issue
their unblushing firman upon any stray volume of poetry or romance,
they may have chanced to pick up and gape through. I heard one, who
could not count beyond ten, declare solemnly that he had no opinion
of James, or Bulwer, and that J. K. Paulding could write better than
either. Another, who had never seen a book, save the Family Bible,
before he came to College, averred that Sterne, Smollett, Fielding, and
Richardson united, never wrote any thing fit to be read by a man of
good morals, or sound sense; and thought, moreover, that _Campbell’s_
Thanatopsis was far inferior to _Bryant’s_ Pleasures of Hope! And still
another affirmed that the plays of Shakspeare even, were ruinous to the
interests of morality, and that all the other dramatists of England
ought to be buried under the ruins of the stage they support. Upon
sifting the fellow, however, I found he had never read a play, saving
the Tempest, Comedy of Errors, and a couple of diluted operas in the
London stage!”
_Pulito._ “And yet these are they, who sit in daily judgment upon
what they have neither the sense to comprehend, nor the delicacy to
appreciate. These are they, who stigmatize every thing beautiful as a
_rush_, and all that is novel to their narrow knowledge, as extravagant
and wild. ’Tis a Bœotian criticising the dialect of Athens; a Scythian
carping at the figures of Praxiteles. Shall the home-bred rustic, who
thinks the middle of the sky directly above his head, and supposes that
a walk of a day would bring his feet to the ‘blue concave,’ attempt to
teach the life-long traveller the principles of society, and decide
upon the manners and customs and wonders of the world? And yet it would
be as reasonable to the full as the conduct of him, who, when his
knowledge is confined to _particulars_, attempts to play the critic--a
part, which, in its very nature, implies _generalization_ of the widest
kind.”
_Tristo._ “How can the poor catechumen, who has not yet donned the
robes of his novitiate, nor raised his eyes to the vestibule, much
less stood in his sacrificial garments by the High Altar in the
Temple of the Muses, presume to decide upon the value and lustre of
the treasures its _adyta_ conceal? It is as if the puny whipster, who
fumes and gesticulates upon the academic stage, and whose thoughts and
language are ‘a combination of disjointed things,’ should attempt to
span or analyze the harmonious vastness and sweeping magnificence of an
Edmund Burke.”
_Pulito._ “There is likewise a species of grave wiseacres--sober fools,
who are quite as senseless and less amusing than fools of the more
fantastic turn. They think that wisdom dwells only upon sealed lips,
and that strength of mind and sobriety of purpose, is _evidenced_ by
nothing but a rueful face. These fellows (to use the old Greek phrase)
‘lift the eyebrows’ with a dull forthshowing of meditative wisdom, and
a countenance
----‘of such a vinegar aspect
That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.’
Oh rather give me a whole-hearted fool, with his eternal grin, than one
of these sombre _unimpressible_ concretions of torpedo-stricken clay.”
_Nescio._ “There are here, likewise, even as every where, many who
can stop at no medium, but carry reasonable freedom to unwarrantable
license. Because it is both pleasant and right to spend some time
in general, and above all, in female society, some therefore, in
their society fling away all their time, and, with their time, fling
away character, and knowledge, and happiness, and worth. Because it
is not well to be always bending over the learning of the present,
and listening to the eloquence of the past, some therefore, double,
wheel, march, and countermarch through these dusty streets during the
long hours of a summer’s day, and when they catch a glimpse at the
shadow of a female form, they experience a momentary heaven. Others,
remembering that it is irrational to crucify the senses, and mortify
the flesh, smoke, eat, and sleep, continually. Others, hearing that as
well profit as delight may be reaped from the inspection of fancy’s
fairy finger-work, are on the tiptoe of panting expectation for each
miserable novel that falls lifeless from the press. And thus it was,
thus it is, thus it will be.”
_Pulito._ “But idleness--idleness is the student’s bane. It is
astounding how we throw away our time, and our best time--our
spring-hour of life. Time is the medium of acquisition, and, losing
_that_, we lose all. I am no Utopian in theory, nor visionary in
practice: neither am I free from the follies I deplore. But the strides
which _might_ be made in our collegiate course, would be mighty and
amazing.”
_Nescio._ “I agree with you. Every ordinary mind, by more judicious
application, might accomplish double what it does. I do not mean that
just twice as much would be read, or acquired; but that the _mind_
would be twice as far advanced. It would not only have received twice
the strength, and twice the beauty, from the studies it had actually
traversed, but would be doubly fitted to grasp, conquer, and improve
whatever might afterwards occur. The progress of the mind is in
geometrical ratio. Every new and liberal idea, that is gained by a boy
of twelve, is a capital which will return with yearly and enormous
interest. It is analogous to the gaining of worldly wealth, where you
must _hew_ your slow and narrow path from nothing to competence; but
from competence to opulence, the road is broad and easy.”
_Pulito._ “I cannot divine the _modality_ (as the schoolmen might
say) of some minds--the manner, in which they operate. For I know of
those, who for four years have toiled with desperate firmness, and
are what they were. They seem to have pursued a mill-horse track,
without the remotest conception that there was aught else of value in
the universe beside. Now I complain not of the rigor or of the nature
of our course. Stern application is our only hope, and the course of
authors we peruse, is perhaps as good as could be devised; but it is
the _spirit_ with which they study. They consider what they here gain,
not as a _mean_, but as an _end_. Every man, who would be ‘aut Cæsar,
aut nullus,’ and whose eye goes forward to the ‘immensum infinitumque’
of Tully, _must generalize_--_must_ view things _relatively_--_must_
consider every thing, not as a whole, but as a part. If one possess
this generalizing spirit, I care not how undivided be his attention
to the college course; for I believe that there is in the books of
the first three years, beauty and grandeur and weight, sufficient to
justify, nay _demand_, almost _entire_ attention. For instance, to
gain a perfect intimacy with Horace--not an intimacy with his words
merely, and sentiments--but an intimacy with his beauties--with his
_soul_--would require one month of the severest study; and yet such an
intimacy is requisite to justify studying him at all: for if he is not
to be appreciated--if that evaporating something, wherein he differs
so widely from a dull Latin proser, is not to be seen and felt--you
might as well have been reading Cato upon gardening, or Vitruvius upon
architecture. But these fellows in studying a foreign tongue, give the
general sense in hap-hazard English, without gaining any insight into
the philosophy of mind, or the theory of language.”
_Apple._ “I think, moreover, that we ought to be more conversant with
the sciences. Some of the details may, perhaps, be superfluous; but
surely no one can claim to be a liberally-educated _gentleman_, without
a general acquaintance with all, and a perfect knowledge of some of
those departments. Whatever may have been my former obliquities, or
short-comings in these studies, I am determined to retrieve them all.
I have begun with attempting to square the circle, upon which great
problem I have employed two weeks.”
_Nescio._ “Ha! Ha! do you approach the goal!”
_Apple._ “I cannot say that I do very rapidly; but I feel increased
acuteness of perception. I think I might discover this grand secret,
could I hit upon some method of reducing the circle to linear
measurement. My nearest approximation is to make a circle of a string,
and then quadrate its sides by the introvention of a square surface
of board. Of course, I have the perimeter and square contents of the
board, and if I could fit the latter accurately to the string, the work
is done, and I am Apple the Great. But ‘hic labor, hoc opus est.’”
_Pulito._ “Ha! Ha! Be not wearied in well doing, Dumpling; you have
opened on the right scent, (_erige aures, atque dirige gressus_.)”
_Tristo._ “But there is a more serious view to be taken of this matter,
and one to which we must all open our eyes sooner or later, and well
will it be for us if we take counsel while the storm is yet lowering,
rather than look back with despairing, remorseful eye when ruin is
in the retrospect. The day will come when he, who has squandered his
abilities, and perverted his passions, will ‘begin to be in want,’ when
mortified pride and conscious inferiority will ‘bite like a serpent,
and sting like an adder’--a day, when the busy idleness, the trifling
engagements, and the languid excuses, which now lull all suspicion
of an _actual waste_ of time, will be forgotten, and nothing but the
results will be visible. Then, one hasty, reverted glance, without any
minute calculation, will inform us, that by our thriftless expenditure,
when we might have economized to some purpose, we are _compelled_ to be
idle and insignificant; when we _feel_ idleness to be a _disgrace_, and
insignificance a _torment_. And why are not we alive to all this? Why
do we not feel it, and _show_ that we feel it, by our actions, when we
can thus in theorizing, ‘put on the spectacles of age?’ The melancholy
maxim of the ancients explains it--
‘Quem Deus perdere vult, prius _dementat_.’
Who would have the punning epigram upon the Cardinal De Fleuri, true of
him?
‘Floruit sine fructu,
Defloruit sine luctu.’
There is a merry jingling in the sound, but under it is conveyed a
mournful meaning. Yet it shall be written of all, who, either trusting
to their native genius, or destitute of honorable ambition, flutter
away their existence in mimicry of the tiny circlets of the silly
fly, instead of pluming their wings and nerving their energies, for
a bold, a steady, and a deathless flight. Youth gives its stamp to
life, and life to immortality--time is a type of eternity. I have
somewhere seen the vastness of the latter illustrated by the image of
a huge chronometer, of which the starry heavens were the dial-plate,
its pendulum swinging in cycles of ten thousand years, and ringing to
myriads of ages.”
In such and similar discourse, did they consume the lagging hours of
night: now changing ‘from grave to gay, from lively to severe,’ and
glancing over all the subjects and circumstances in which a student
might feel a personal or an associated interest. They talked of silly
affection, and of scheming selfishness, and condemned alike that
vanity, which could exult in a new pair of gloves, or be elated by that
‘_shadow of a thing_,’ yclept a reputation; and having in view this
one position, that what one _is_, and not what he _seems_, forms his
character and moulds his destiny,
‘Still they were wise whatever way they went.’
And now, Reader, we have done. If from this rude, incongruous heap,
which, in the throwing together, has afforded us both pleasure and
profit, you have been able to extricate any thing of either, we are
satisfied. If by our unworthy portraiture of cheerful mirth without the
taint of vicious excitement, a single heart, sick of the _hollowness_
of dissipation, shall be seduced from its enticements--if one mind,
till now swallowed in the vortex of current opinion, and dead to the
merits of any save _fashionable_ authors, should be led to the study
of chaster models, and the formation of a purer taste--if one soul,
whose fountains have been sealed to the thousand springs of written
or unwritten _poetry_, gushing up all around him, has been opened to
their influences--or if any individuals of the various classes which
we have ventured to describe, shall, by the image of their deformity,
be frighted, ‘if not into greater goodness, at least into less
badness’--_it is enough_.
Ego.