You may be among powerful brains too.
You will not find poets--or but a stray one, over-worshipped. You will
find learned men undoubtedly, professors, reputed philosophers, and
illustrious dilettanti. They have in them, perhaps, every element
composing light, except the Comic. They read verse, they discourse of
art; but their eminent faculties are not under that vigilant sense of a
collective supervision, spiritual and present, which we have taken note
of. They build a temple of arrogance; they speak much in the voice of
oracles; their hilarity, if it does not dip in grossness, is usually a
form of pugnacity.
Insufficiency of sight in the eye looking outward has deprived them of
the eye that should look inward. They have never weighed themselves in
the delicate balance of the Comic idea so as to obtain a suspicion of the
rights and dues of the world; and they have, in consequence, an irritable
personality. A very learned English professor crushed an argument in a
political discussion, by asking his adversary angrily: 'Are you aware,
sir, that I am a philologer?'
The practice of polite society will help in training them, and the
professor on a sofa with beautiful ladies on each side of him, may become
their pupil and a scholar in manners without knowing it: he is at least a
fair and pleasing spectacle to the Comic Muse.
Pages:
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854