PREMATURE MANHOOD.
My last two chapters, very slenderly connected with Birmingham, are
yet made to rise out of it; the one out of Birmingham's own relation
to the topic concerned, (viz., _Travelling_,) and the other (viz., _My
Brother_) out of its relation to all possible times in my earlier life,
and, therefore, why not to all possible places? _Any where_ introduced,
the chapter was partially out of its place; as well then to introduce
it in Birmingham as elsewhere. Somewhat arbitrary episodes, therefore,
are these two last chapters; yet still endurable as occurring in a
work confessedly rambling, and whose very duty lies in the pleasant
paths of vagrancy. Pretending only to amuse my reader, or pretending
chiefly to _that_, however much I may have sought, or _shall_ seek,
to interest him occasionally through his profounder affections, I enjoy
a privilege of neglecting harsher logic, and connecting the separate
sections of these sketches, not by ropes and cables, but by threads
of aerial gossamer.
This present chapter, it may seem, promises something of the same
episodical or parenthetic character. But in reality it does not. I am
now returning into the main current of my narrative, although I may
need to linger for a moment upon a past anecdote. I have mentioned
already, that, on inquiring at the Birmingham post office for a letter
addressed to myself, I found one directing me to join my sister Mary
at Laxton, a seat of Lord Carbery's in Northamptonshire, and giving
me to understand, that, during my residence at this place, some fixed
resolution would be taken and announced to me in regard to the future
disposal of my time, during the two or three years before I should be
old enough on the English system for matriculating at Oxford or
Cambridge. In the poor countries of Europe, where they cannot afford
double sets of scholastic establishments,--having, therefore, no
splendid schools, such as are, in fact, peculiar to England,--they are
compelled to throw the duties of such schools upon their universities;
and consequently you see boys of thirteen and fourteen, or even younger,
crowding such institutions, which, in fact, they ruin for all higher
functions. But England, whose regal establishments of both classes
emancipate her from this dependency, sends her young men to college
not until they have ceased to be boys--not earlier, therefore, than
eighteen.
But when, by what test, by what indication, does manhood commence?
Physically by one criterion, legally by another, morally by a third,
intellectually by a fourth--and all indefinite. Equator, absolute
equator, there is none. Between the two spheres of youth and age,
perfect and imperfect manhood, as in all analogous cases, there is no
strict line of bisection. The change is a large process, accomplished
within a large and corresponding space; having, perhaps, some central
or equatorial line, but lying, like that of our earth, between certain
tropics, or limits widely separated. This _intertropical_ region may,
and generally does, cover a number of years; and, therefore, it is
hard to say, even for an assigned case, by any tolerable approximation,
at what precise era it would be reasonable to describe the individual
as having ceased to be a boy, and as having attained his inauguration
as a man. Physically, we know that there is a very large latitude of
differences, in the periods of human maturity, not merely between
individual and individual, but also between nation and nation;
differences so great, that, in some southern regions of Asia, we hear
of matrons at the age of twelve. And though, as Mr. Sadler rightly
insists, a romance of exaggeration has been built upon the facts,
enough remains behind of real marvel to irritate the curiosity of the
physiologist as to its efficient, and, perhaps, of the philosopher as
to its final cause. Legally and politically, that is, conventionally,
the differences are even greater on a comparison of nations and eras.
In England we have seen senators of mark and authority, nay, even a
prime minister, the haughtiest, [1] the most despotic, and the most
irresponsible of his times, at an age which, in many states, both
ancient and modern, would have operated as a ground of absolute
challenge to the candidate for offices the meanest. Intellectually
speaking, again, a very large proportion of men _never_ attain maturity.
Nonage is their final destiny; and manhood, in this respect, is for
them a pure idea. Finally, as regards the moral development,--by which
I mean the whole system and economy of their love and hatred, of their
admirations and contempts, the total organization of their pleasures
and their pains,--hardly any of our species ever attain manhood. It
would be unphilosophic to say that intellects of the _highest_ order
were, or could be, developed fully without a corresponding development
of the whole nature. But of such intellects there do not appear above
two or three in a thousand years. It is a fact, forced upon one by the
whole experience of life, that almost all men are children, more or
less, in their tastes and admirations. Were it not for man's latent
tendencies,--were it not for that imperishable grandeur which exists
by way of germ and ultimate possibility in his nature, hidden though
it is, and often all but effaced,--how unlimited would be the contempt
amongst all the wise for his species! and misanthropy would, but for
the angelic ideal buried and imbruted in man's sordid race, become
amongst the noble fixed, absolute, and deliberately cherished.
But, to resume my question, how, under so variable a standard, both
natural and conventional, of every thing almost that can be received
for a test or a presumption of manhood, shall we seize upon any
characteristic feature, sufficiently universal to serve a _practical_
use, as a criterion of the transition from the childish mind to the
dignity (relative dignity at least) of that mind which belongs to
conscious maturity? One such criterion, and one only, as I believe,
there is--all others are variable and uncertain. It lies in the
reverential feeling, sometimes suddenly developed, towards woman, and
the idea of woman. From that moment when women cease to be regarded
with carelessness, and when the ideal of womanhood, in its total pomp
of loveliness and purity, dawns like some vast aurora upon the mind,
boyhood has ended; childish thoughts and inclinations have passed away
forever; and the gravity of manhood, with the self-respecting views
of manhood, have commenced.
"Mentemque priorem
Expulit, atque hominem toto sibi cedere jussit
Pectore."--_Lucan_.
These feelings, no doubt, depend for their development in part upon
physical causes; but they are also determined by the many retarding or
accelerating forces enveloped in circumstances of position, and sometimes
in pure accident. For myself, I remember most distinctly the very day--
the scene and its accidents--when that mysterious awe fell upon me which
belongs to woman in her ideal portrait; and from that hour a profounder
gravity colored all my thoughts, and a "beauty still more beauteous" was
lit up for me in this agitating world. Lord Westport and myself had been
on a visit to a noble family about fifty miles from Dublin; and we were
returning from Tullamore by a public passage boat, on the splendid canal
which connects that place with the metropolis. To avoid attracting an
unpleasant attention to ourselves in public situations, I observed a rule
of never addressing Lord Westport by his title: but it so happened that
the canal carried us along the margin of an estate belonging to the Earl
(now Marquis) of Westmeath; and, on turning an angle, we came suddenly in
view of this nobleman taking his morning lounge in the sun. Somewhat
loftily he reconnoitred the miscellaneous party of clean and unclean
beasts, crowded on the deck of our ark, ourselves amongst the number,
whom he challenged gayly as young acquaintances from Dublin; and my
friend he saluted more than once as "My lord." This accident made known
to the assembled mob of our fellow-travellers Lord Westport's rank, and
led to a scene rather too broadly exposing the spirit of this world.
Herded together on the deck (or roof of that den denominated the "_state_
cabin") stood a party of young ladies, headed by their governess. In the
cabin below was mamma, who as yet had not condescended to illuminate our
circle, for she was an awful personage--a wit, a bluestocking, (I call
her by the name then current,) and a leader of _ton_ in Dublin and
Belfast. The fact, however, that a young lord, and one of great
expectations, was on board, brought her up. A short cross examination of
Lord Westport's French valet had confirmed the flying report, and at the
same time (I suppose) put her in possession of my defect in all those
advantages of title, fortune, and expectation which so brilliantly
distinguished my friend. Her admiration of him, and her contempt for
myself, were equally undisguised. And in the ring which she soon cleared
out for public exhibition, she made us both fully sensible of the very
equitable stations which she assigned to us in her regard. She was
neither very brilliant, nor altogether a pretender, but might be
described as a showy woman, of slight but popular accomplishments. Any
woman, however has the advantage of possessing the ear of any company;
and a woman of forty, with such tact and experience as she will naturally
have gathered in a talking practice of such duration, can find little
difficulty in mortifying a boy, or sometimes, perhaps, in tempting him to
unfortunate sallies of irritation. Me it was clear that she viewed in the
light of a humble friend, or what is known in fashionable life by the
humiliating name of a "toad-eater." Lord Westport, full of generosity in
what regarded his own pretensions, and who never had violated the perfect
equality which reigned in our deportment to each other, colored with as
much confusion as myself at her coarse insinuations. And, in reality, our
ages scarcely allowed of that relation which she supposed to exist
between us. Possibly she did _not_ suppose it; but it is essential to the
wit and the display of some people that it should have a foundation in
malice. A victim and a sacrifice are indispensable conditions in every
exhibition. In such a case, my natural sense of justice would generally
have armed me a hundred fold for retaliation; but at present, chiefly,
perhaps, because I had no effectual ally, and could count upon no
sympathy in my audience, I was mortified beyond the power of retort, and
became a passive butt to the lady's stinging contumely and the arrowy
sleet of her gay rhetoric. The narrow bounds of our deck made it not easy
to get beyond talking range; and thus it happened, that for two hours I
stood the worst of this bright lady's feud. At length the tables turned.
Two ladies appeared slowly ascending from the cabin, both in deepest
mourning, but else as different in aspect as summer and winter. The elder
was the Countess of Errol, then mourning an affliction which had laid her
life desolate, and admitted of no human consolation. Heavier grief--grief
more self-occupied and deaf to all voice of sympathy--I have not happened
to witness. She seemed scarcely aware of our presence, except it were by
placing herself as far as was possible from the annoyance of our odious
conversation. The circumstances of her loss are now forgotten; at that
time they were known to a large circle in Bath and London, and I violate
no confidence in reviewing them. Lord Errol had been privately intrusted
by Mr. Pitt with an official secret, viz., the outline and principal
details of a foreign expedition; in which, according to Mr. Pitt's
original purpose, his lordship was to have held a high command. In a
moment of intoxication, the earl confided this secret to some false
friend, who published the communication and its author. Upon this, the
unhappy nobleman, under too keen a sense of wounded honor, and perhaps
with an exaggerated notion of the evils attached to his indiscretion,
destroyed himself. Months had passed since that calamity when we met his
widow; but time appeared to have done nothing in mitigating her sorrow.
The younger lady, on the other hand, who was Lady Errol's sister,--
Heavens! what a spirit of joy and festal pleasure radiated from her eyes,
her step, her voice, her manner! She was Irish, and the very
impersonation of innocent gayety, such as we find oftener, perhaps,
amongst Irish women than those of any other country. Mourning, I have
said, she wore; from sisterly consideration, the deepest mourning; that
sole expression there was about her of gloom or solemn feeling,--
"But all things else about her drawn
From May time and the cheerful dawn."
Odious bluestocking [2] of Belfast and Dublin! as some would call you,
how I hated you up to that moment! half an hour after, how grateful I
felt for the hostility which had procured me such an alliance! One minute
sufficed to put the quick-witted young Irish woman in possession of our
little drama and the several parts we were playing. To look was to
understand, to wish was to execute, with this ardent child of nature.
Like Spenser's Bradamant, with martial scorn she couched her lance on the
side of the party suffering wrong. Her rank, as sister-in-law to the
constable of Scotland, gave her some advantage for winning a favorable
audience; and throwing her aegis over me, she extended that benefit to
myself. Road was now made perforce for me also; my replies were no longer
stifled in noise and laughter. Personalities were banished; literature
was extensively discussed; and that is a subject which, offering little
room to argument, offers the widest to eloquent display. I had immense
reading; vast command of words, which somewhat diminished as ideas and
doubts multiplied; and, speaking no longer to a deaf audience, but to a
generous and indulgent protectress, I threw out, as from a cornucopia, my
illustrative details and recollections; trivial enough, perhaps, as I
might now think, but the more intelligible to my present circle. It might
seem too much the case of a storm in a slop basin, if I were to spend any
words upon the revolution which ensued. Suffice it, that I remained the
lion of that company which had previously been most insultingly facetious
at my expense; and the intellectual lady finally declared the air of the
deck unpleasant.
Never, until this hour, had I thought of women as objects of a possible
interest or of a reverential love. I had known them either in their
infirmities and their unamiable aspects, or else in those sterner
relations which made them objects of ungenial and uncompanionable
feelings. Now first it struck me that life might owe half its
attractions and all its graces to female companionship. Gazing, perhaps,
with too earnest an admiration at this generous and spirited young
daughter of Ireland, and in that way making her those acknowledgments
for her goodness which I could not properly clothe in words, I was
aroused to a sense of my indecorum by seeing her suddenly blush. I
believe that Miss Bl---- interpreted my admiration rightly; for she
was not offended, but, on the contrary, for the rest of the day, when
not attending to her sister, conversed almost exclusively, and in a
confidential way, with Lord Westport and myself. The whole, in fact,
of this conversation must have convinced her that I, mere boy as I
was, (viz., about fifteen,) could not have presumed to direct my
admiration to _her_, a fine young woman of twenty, in any other
character than that of a generous champion, and a very adroit mistress
in the dazzling fence of colloquial skirmish. My admiration had, in
reality, been addressed to her moral qualities, her enthusiasm, her
spirit, and her generosity. Yet that blush, evanescent as it was,--the
mere possibility that I, so very a child, should have called up the
most transitory sense of bashfulness or confusion upon any female
cheek, first,--and suddenly, as with a flash of lightning, penetrating
some utter darkness, illuminated to my own startled consciousness,
never again to be obscured, the pure and powerful ideal of womanhood
and womanly excellence. This was, in a proper sense, a _revelation_;
it fixed a great era of change in my life; and this new-born idea,
being agreeable to the uniform tendencies of my own nature,--that is,
lofty and aspiring,--it governed my life with great power, and with
most salutary effects. Ever after, throughout the period of youth, I
was jealous of my own demeanor, reserved and awe-struck, in the presence
of women; reverencing, often, not so much _them_ as my own ideal of
woman latent in them. For I carried about with me the idea, to which
often I seemed to see an approximation, of
"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, to command."
And from this day I was an altered creature, never again relapsing
into the careless, irreflective mind of childhood.
At the same time I do not wish, in paying my homage to the other sex,
and in glorifying its possible power over ours, to be confounded with
those thoughtless and trivial rhetoricians who flatter woman with a
false lip worship; and, like Lord Byron's buccaneers, hold out to them
a picture of their own empire, built only upon sensual or upon shadowy
excellences. We find continually a false enthusiasm, a mere bacchanalian
inebriation, on behalf of woman, put forth by modern verse writers,
expressly at the expense of the other sex, as though woman could be
of porcelain, whilst man was of common earthern ware. Even the
testimonies of Ledyard and Park are partly false (though amiable)
tributes to female excellence; at least they are merely one-sided
truths--aspects of one phasis, and under a peculiar angle. For, though
the sexes differ characteristically, yet they never fail to reflect
each other; nor can they differ as to the general amount of development;
never yet was woman in one stage of elevation, and man (of the same
community) in another. Thou, therefore, daughter of God and man,
all-potent woman! reverence thy own ideal; and in the wildest of the
homage which is paid to thee, as also in the most real aspects of thy
wide dominion, read no trophy of idle vanity, but a silent indication
of the possible grandeur enshrined in thy nature; which realize to the
extent of thy power,--
"And show us how divine a thing
A woman may become."
For what purpose have I repeated this story? The reader may, perhaps,
suppose it introductory to some tale of boyish romantic passion for
some female idol clothed with imaginary perfections. But in that case
he will be mistaken. Nothing of the kind was possible to me. I was
preoccupied by other passions. Under the disease--for disease it
was--which at that time mastered me, one solitary desire, one frenzy,
one demoniac fascination, stronger than the fascinations of calenture,
brooded over me as the moon over the tides--forcing me day and night
into speculations upon great intellectual problems, many times beyond
my strength, as indeed often beyond all human strength, but not the
less provoking me to pursue them. As a prophet in days of old had no
power to resist the voice which, from hidden worlds, called him to a
mission, sometimes, perhaps, revolting to his human sensibilities, as
he must deliver, was under a coercion to deliver the burning word that
spoke within his heart,--or as a ship on the Indian Ocean cannot seek
rest by anchoring, but _must_ run before the wrath of the monsoon,--such
in its fury, such in its unrelentingness, was the persecution that
overmastered me. School tasks under these circumstances, it may well
be supposed, had become a torment to me. For a long time they had lost
even that slight power of stimulation which belongs to the irritation
of difficulty. Easy and simple they had now become as the elementary
lessons of childhood. Not that it is possible for Greek studies, if
pursued with unflinching sincerity, ever to fall so far into the rear
as a _palaestra_ for exercising both strength and skill; but, in a
school where the exercises are pursued, in common by large classes,
the burden must be adapted to the powers of the weakest, and not of
the strongest. And, apart from that objection, at this period, the
hasty unfolding of far different intellectual interests than such as
belong to mere literature had, for a time, dimmed in my eyes the lustre
of classical studies, pursued at whatsoever depth and on whatsoever
scale. For more than a year, every thing connected with schools and
the business of schools had been growing more and more hateful to me.
At first, however, my disgust had been merely the disgust of weariness
and pride. But now, at this crisis, (for crisis it was virtually to
me,) when a premature development of my whole mind was rushing in like
a cataract, forcing channels for itself and for the new tastes which
it introduced, my disgust was no longer simply intellectual, but had
deepened into a _moral_ sense as of some inner dignity continually
violated. Once the petty round of school tasks had been felt as a
molestation; but now, at last, as a degradation. Constant conversation
with grown-up men for the last half year, and upon topics oftentimes
of the gravest order,--the responsibility that had always in some
slight degree settled upon myself since I had become the eldest
surviving son of my family, but of late much more so when circumstances
had thrown me as an English stranger upon the society of distinguished
Irishmen,--more, however, than all beside, the inevitable rebound and
counter-growth of internal dignity from the everlasting commerce with
lofty speculations, these agencies in constant operation had imbittered
my school disgust, until it was travelling fast into a mania. Precisely
at this culminating point of my self-conflict did that scene occur
which I have described with Miss Bl----. In that hour another element,
which assuredly was not wanted, fell into the seething caldron of
new-born impulses, that, like the magic caldron of Medea, was now
transforming me into a new creature. Then first and suddenly I brought
powerfully before myself the change which was worked in the aspects
of society by the presence of woman--woman, pure, thoughtful, noble,
coming before me as a Pandora crowned with perfections. Right over
against this ennobling spectacle, with equal suddenness, I placed the
odious spectacle of schoolboy society--no matter in what region of the
earth; schoolboy society, so frivolous in the matter of its disputes,
often so brutal in the manner; so foolishly careless, and yet so
revoltingly selfish; dedicated ostensibly to learning, and yet beyond
any section of human beings so conspicuously ignorant. Was it indeed
_that_ heavenly which I was soon to exchange for _this_ earthly? It
seemed to me, when contemplating the possibility that I could yet have
nearly three years to pass in such society as this, that I heard some
irresistible voice saying, Lay aside thy fleshly robes of humanity,
and enter for a season into some brutal incarnation. But what
connection had this painful prospect with Laxton? Why should it press
upon my anxieties in approaching that mansion, more than it had done
at Westport? Naturally enough, in part, because every day brought me
nearer to the horror from which I recoiled: my return to England would
recall the attention of my guardians to the question, which as yet had
slumbered; and the knowledge that I had reached Northamptonshire would
precipitate their decision. Obscurely, besides, through a hint which
had reached me, I guessed what this decision was likely to be, and it
took the very worst shape it could have taken. All this increased my
agitation from hour to hour. But all this was quickened and barbed by
the certainty of so immediately meeting Lady Carbery. To her it was,
and to her only, that I could look for any useful advice or any
effectual aid. She over my mother, as in turn my mother over _her_,
exercised considerable influence; whilst my mother's power was very
seldom disturbed by the other guardians. The mistress of Laxton it
was, therefore, whose opinion upon the case would virtually be decisive;
since, if _she_ saw no reasonable encouragement to any contest with
my guardians, I felt too surely that my own uncountenanced and unaided
energies drooped too much for such an effort. Who Lady Carbery was,
I will explain in my next chapter, entitled _Laxton_. Meantime, to me,
individually, she was the one sole friend that ever I could regard as
entirely fulfilling the offices of an honorable friendship. She had
known me from infancy: when I was in my first year of life, she, an
orphan and a great heiress, was in her tenth or eleventh; and on her
occasional visits to "the Farm," (a rustic old house then occupied by
my father,) I, a household pet, suffering under an ague, which lasted
from my first year to my third, naturally fell into her hands as a
sort of superior toy, a toy that could breathe and talk. Every year
our intimacy had been renewed, until her marriage interrupted it. But,
after no very long interval, when my mother had transferred her
household to Bath, in that city we frequently met again; Lord Carbery
liking Bath for itself, as well as for its easy connection with London,
whilst Lady Carbery's health was supposed to benefit by the waters.
Her understanding was justly reputed a fine one; but, in general, it
was calculated to win respect rather than love, for it was masculine
and austere, with very little toleration for sentiment or romance. But
to myself she had always been indulgently kind; I was protected in her
regard, beyond any body's power to dislodge me, by her childish
remembrances; and of late years she had begun to entertain the highest
opinion of my intellectual promises. Whatever could be done to assist
my views, I most certainly might count upon her doing; that is to say,
within the limits of her conscientious judgment upon the propriety of
my own plans. Having, besides, so much more knowledge of the world
than myself, she might see cause to dissent widely from my own view
of what was expedient as well as what was right; in which case I was
well assured that, in the midst of kindness and unaffected sympathy,
she would firmly adhere to the views of my guardians. In any
circumstances she would have done so. But at present a new element had
begun to mix with the ordinary influences which governed her estimates
of things: she had, as I knew from my sister's report, become religious;
and her new opinions were of a gloomy cast, Calvinistic, in fact, and
tending to what is _now_ technically known in England as "Low Church,"
or "Evangelical Christianity." These views, being adopted in a great
measure from my mother, were naturally the same as my mother's; so
that I could form some guess as to the general spirit, if not the exact
direction, in which her counsels would flow. It is singular that,
until this time, I had never regarded Lady Carbery under any relation
whatever to female intellectual society. My early childish knowledge
of her had shut out that mode of viewing her. But now, suddenly, under
the new-born sympathies awakened by the scene with Miss Bl----, I
became aware of the distinguished place she was qualified to fill in
such society. In that Eden--for such it had now consciously become to
me--I had no necessity to cultivate an interest or solicit an admission;
already, through Lady Carbery's too flattering estimate of my own
pretensions, and through old, childish memories, I held the most
distinguished place. This Eden, she it was that lighted up suddenly
to my new-born powers of appreciation in all its dreadful points of
contrast with the killing society of schoolboys. She it was, fitted
to be the glory of such an Eden, who probably would assist in banishing
me for the present to the wilderness outside. My distress of mind was
inexpressible. And, in the midst of glittering saloons, at times also
in the midst of society the most fascinating, I--contemplating the
idea of that gloomy academic dungeon to which for three long years I
anticipated too certainly a sentence of exile--felt very much as in
the middle ages must have felt some victim of evil destiny, inheritor
of a false, fleeting prosperity, that suddenly, in a moment of time,
by signs blazing out past all concealment on his forehead, was detected
as a leper; and in that character, as a public nuisance and universal
horror, was summoned instantly to withdraw from society; prince or
peasant, was indulged with no time for preparation or evasion; and,
from the midst of any society, the sweetest or the most dazzling, was
driven violently to take up his abode amid the sorrow-haunted chambers
of a lazar house.
FOOTNOTES
[1] "_The haughtiest_."--Which, however, is very doubtful. Such,
certainly, was the popular impression. But people who knew Mr. Pitt
intimately have always ascribed to him a nature the most amiable and
social, under an unfortunate reserve of manner. Whilst, on the contrary,
Mr. Fox, ultra democratic in his principles and frank in his address, was
repulsively aristocratic in his temper and sympathies.
[2] I have sometimes had occasion to remark, as a noticeable phenomenon
of our present times, that the order of ladies called _bluestockings,_ by
way of reproach, has become totally extinct amongst us, except only here
and there with superannuated clingers to obsolete remembrances. The
reason of this change is interesting; and I do not scruple to call it
honorable to our intellectual progress. In the last (but still more in
the penultimate) generation, any tincture of literature, of liberal
curiosity about science, or of ennobling interest in books, carried with
it an air of something unsexual, mannish, and (as it was treated by the
sycophantish satirists that for ever humor the prevailing folly) of
something ludicrous. This mode of treatment was possible so long as the
literary class of ladies formed a feeble minority. But now, when two vast
peoples, English and American, counting between them forty-nine millions,
when the leaders of transcendent civilization (to say nothing of Germany
and France) behold their entire educated class, male and female alike,
calling out, not for _Panem et circenses_, (Give us this day our daily
bread and our games of the circus,) but for _Panem et literas_, (Give us
this day our daily bread and literature,) the universality of the call
has swept away the very name of _bluestocking_; the very possibility of
the ridicule has been undermined by stern realities; and the verbal
expression of the reproach is fast becoming, not simply obsolete, but
even unintelligible to our juniors. By the way, the origin of this term
_bluestocking_ has never been satisfactorily accounted for, unless the
reader should incline to think _my_ account satisfactory. I incline to
that opinion myself. Dr. Bisset (in his Life of Burke) traces it idly to
a _sobriquet_ imposed by Mrs. Montagu, and the literary ladies of her
circle, upon a certain obscure Dr. Stillingfleet, who was the sole
masculine assistant at their literary sittings in Portman Square, and
chose, upon some inexplicable craze, to wear blue stockings. The
translation, however, of this name from the doctor's legs to the ladies'
legs is still unsolved. That great _hiatus _needs filling up. I,
therefore, whether erroneously or not, in reviewing a German historical
work of some pretensions, where this problem emerges, rejected the
Portman Square doctor altogether, and traced the term to an old Oxford
statute--one of the many which meddle with dress, and which charges it as
a point of conscience upon loyal scholastic students that they shall wear
cerulean socks. Such socks, therefore, indicated scholasticism: worn by
females, they would indicate a self-dedication to what for them would be
regarded as pedantic studies. But, says an objector, no rational _female_
would wear cerulean socks. Perhaps not, female taste being too good. But
as such socks would symbolize such a profession of pedantry, so,
inversely, any profession of pedantry, by whatever signs expressed, would
be symbolized reproachfully by the imputation of wearing cerulean socks.
It classed a woman, in effect, as a scholastic pedant. Now, however, when
the vast diffusion of literature as a sort of daily bread has made all
ridicule of female literary culture not less ridiculous than would be the
attempt to ridicule that same daily bread, the whole phenomenon, thing
and word, substance and shadow, is melting away from amongst us.
Something of the same kind has happened in the history of silver forks.
Forks of any kind, as is well known, were first introduced into Italy;
thence by a fantastic (but, in this instance, judicious) English
traveller _immediately _(and not _mediately through France_) were
introduced into England. This elegant revolution occurred about 240 years
ago; and never since that day have there been wanting English protesters
against the infamy of eating without forks; and for the last 160 years,
at least, against the paganism of using _steel _forks; or, 2dly, two-
pronged forks; or, 3dly, of putting the knife into the mouth. At least
120 years ago, the Duchess of Queensberry, (Gay's duchess,) that leonine
woman, used to shriek out, on seeing a hyperborean squire conveying peas
to his abominable mouth on the point of a knife. "O, stop him, stop him!
that man's going to commit suicide." This anecdote argues silver forks as
existing much more than a century back, else the squire had a good
defence. Since then, in fact, about the time of the French revolution,
silver forks have been recognized as not less indispensable appendages to
any elegant dinner table than silver spoons; and, along with silver
forks, came in the explosion of that anti-Queensberry brutalism which
forks first superseded--viz., the fiendish practice of introducing the
knife between the lips. But, in defiance of all these facts, certain
select hacks of the daily press, who never had an opportunity of seeing a
civilized dinner, and fancying that their own obscene modes of feeding
prevailed every where, got up the name of the _Silver-fork_ School,
(which should have indicated the school of decency,) as representing some
ideal school of fantastic or ultra refinement. At length, however, when
cheap counterfeits of silver have made the decent four-pronged fork
cheaper than the two-pronged steel barbarism, what has followed? Why,
this--that the universality of the diffusion has made it hopeless any
longer to banter it. There is, therefore, this strict analogy between
"the silver fork" reproach and "the bluestocking" reproach--that in both
cases alike a recognition, gradually becoming universal, of the thing
itself, as a social necessity, has put down forever all idle attempts to
throw ridicule upon it--upon literature, in the one case, as a most
appropriate female ornament; and upon silver forks, on the other, as an
element of social decorum.
* * * * *
The author has exerted himself every where to keep the text accurate;
and he is disposed to believe that his own care, combined with the
general accuracy of the press, must have enabled him to succeed in
that object. But if it should appear that any errors have after all
escaped him, he must request his readers to excuse them, after
explaining that he suffers under the oppression of a nervous
distraction, which renders all labors exacting any energy of attention
inexpressibly painful.
End of Project Gutenberg's Autobiographic Sketches, by Thomas de Quincey