The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-04-17
Gushing.

WE all agree to consider "gush" un-
worthy; "gushing people," whether in
parlors or periodicals, are accepted OBJ
jects for satire. Now, as we have known
some decidedly gushing people in society
and in the public prints to speak of "gush"
with derision, we infer that there must
be some ambiguity as to the meaning of
the term. 1t is, perhaps, worth while to
ask, " What is 'gush,' and in what does
its inferiority inhereT' Usually, though
not necessarily, persons who gush, ad-
mire rather than criticise; but whatever
they do, they do with profusion. The
voice is commonly in high key; but it
is not wrong or unworthy to admire.
"Gush'' is not Objectionable because it is
pitched in a high key. There is very
genuine and exquisite admiration. Much
in literature in which the key is high has
value and truth.
The Objectionable quality of "gush"
is, not that it possesses these
qualities, but that it processes
them, and possesses them not. Ad-
mire all you choose +; you are but one lit
tie being in this boundless universe, and
you have all outside of you to admire.
The higher your ecstacies, the deeper
your worship, the greater you are un-
questionably only be sure you don't lay
ure, to ecstacies which you do not feel.
If you love your kind, and are human "
there is in the boundless expanse of his
tory, in the experiences of the people
among whom you move, sufficient oppor-
tunity for all the sympathy" you can
command. Your sympathies, and appre-
Citations, and subtleties about your friends
may be never so supertine, they may be
quite beyond the reach of plain people,
but if you are sure of their truth, you can
never be justly accused of "gush." 1t is
only when you follow some loose fashion,
when you take some half-formed, super
modish way profess depth or an eleva-
ton which you do not possess-it is only
then that you may be said to "gush."
Fancy, spirituality, love, joy in the per.
ception of beauty, all these are true
"gush" is false. Now, it may often hap.
pen that young person, or for that mat.
ter an old one, may not have sufficient in
tellectual power, or sufficient depth of ex
perience, to test the truth of any effusior
of the mind. George Eliot somewhere re
marks how much easier it is to be eloquen
than to be true. Truth for the writer, es
pecially when he attempts the more am
bilious walks of literature and endeavor
to be original, demands power of intel
who processes spirituality, and believes
himself, able out of his own experience tt
say something which is worth the atten
ton of men, must, of course, first, himsel
believe that he is truthful. Sometime
he is mistaken, he often is; but
after all, the only consent which i
worth anything is the writer's owl
certainty that he is right. He mus
take upon himself the responsibility of be
ing mistaken but in most of the "gush,
we see there is no such even mistaken
consent of the intellect and conscience
Really, the writer half knows he (ver,
often she) is talking nonsense; if h
priced truth sufficiently, he would no
speak so. "Gush," we think, there fore
is often the result of feeble intellect, BIT
oftener the result of lack of dignity an
the want of en- instructive love of trut]
We doubt if many persons write "gush
for the love of it; but people who make
living by writing, and who have at state
times to cover so much space with inl
even when they are capable of bett'
things, do too often acquire a way
writing from the hand instead of the hes
or the heart, and of approaching the dee
er themes of life with levity and insincer
ty. This is the "gush " which is utter
: Objectionable, whether it be written fl
the public or spoken in the ear of frien
ship.-Hearth and Home.