Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1868-02-21
Trifies.

much in terror of one another that we
doubt if there is any one who does not
conceal from his nearest and dearest
some employment or taste which is pleas
ant and comfortable to himself, but which
he fears would lower him in Others eyes.
When johnson would not tell Boswell
what he did with his orange-peal, he
doubtless feared to sink in the eyes of
his adorer. We assert this with tolera-
BILE confidence of every body, and yet,
there are some persons who, if they do
give way to anything frivolous, do SO with
closed doors and closed lips. 1t is posi-
BILE that there ma be in certain mind
such slow pace of thought that gravity
and solidity have it all their own way,
one necessary topic succeeding another in
unbroken continuity. In some people
We detect no gaps, no vacant intervals
through which trivialities may rush in.
These persons of slow imaginations and
practical views have their part to play in
society; they keep order and hold nom
sense in check.
Although, however, they have very
decided opinion about the folly of trifes,
their estimate of what is trife differs
very materially from that of the ascetic
or enthusiast. No detail, however mi
mute, incurs thisreproach with them which
relates to externals, if only it is treated
seriously. Dress, equipage, a well-or-
dered table, and the like, are things
which cannot be kept up to their mark
without sedulous'- attention to small
matters, which some slur over as trifes,
which others are ashamed of as trifes,
but which these sober people discuss with
weight as serious things, till the deferen-
tial listener begins to correct his own es-
innate by. their standard. Persons who
at once detect importance in such things
that we regard as slight or immeterial,
and who denounce as trifes what have
a sneaking kindness for, are reasonable
objects of respectful fear. They are an
especial bugbear to the young and diff
dent who are apt to like their elders in
proportion as they are tolerant of trifes.
This is one of the charms of first acquain-
lance with what they call clever people
men of social or literary distinction.
We may be very sure that popular
writers, for example, who make it their
business to amaze the world, take keen
interest in an infinite number of very
small things. And their admirers can
not be long in their company without
acquiring perhaps even surplus of cour-
age in avowing their own likings and in
terests in trifes. The talk of literary
men is sometimes really trifing and be-
low their powers. 1t is so much less
trouble to sympathize with society in its
weaknesses than to raise it to unaccus-
toned efforts of thought; and it is pleas
anter, too, after hard days work. In
tellect will always tell, and these great
wits have a way of doing things; they
gid with humor frivolities which look no
better than they are in other hands, but
which remain frivolities all the same.
And in this way the leisure of men of
real power is sometimes far from improv-
ing to inferior minds, who acquire moth
ing but confidence in their own folly by
the familiar and irreverant contact with
genius.
These trifles only are really demoraliz-
ing which make man intent upon small
mean and insignificant points that affect
himself, his vanity, his ease or his diver
sion, when he ought to be reused to great
and general interests and to wider sym
pathies. The secluded beauty of Copia-
pc, described by Basil Hall, was probably
a person Of this order; she was so intent
upon gaining larger sphere for her fas-
cinations, that she declared herself to be
thoroughly sick of earthquakes, which
were taking everybody's attention from
herself. She would never think of them
again if she were once at dear Coquimbo
her world. Yet, to seem utterly i'm
pervious to trifes need not imply any,
thing better than this, or indeed essenti-
ally different from it.
Public opinion, We know, exacts this
affected superiority in the case of whole
classes ofpersons. Nothing, for instance,
would divert Belgian priests eyes or
feet from the straight path before him.
We are not blaming those who are natu-
rally absorbed in their own concerns /:
but there is something priggish about the
way in which some people look superior
to the scene around them, implying an
inner posture of mind which might well
be exchanged for little seasonable trif.
ling.
Every age is guilty of its own unfair
ness in condemning THINGS as trifIes which