Evening star., 1932-04-16
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

his intellectual toes upon which the
other has trod.
~
The dullness of a cultivated mind
is different from the dullness OF the
average or ordinary mind. Especially
II this ponderous quality is combined
With a certain true greatness. NOW, II
is not at all necessary that this great
ness be of the sort to make an instant
appeal
Especially do many readers of this
DAY and age fail to take into consider
alton that their own minds are the
products Of certain circumstances. GER
TAIN ways Of living, certain habits OF
thought, which need not necessarily
make such persons correct or even fair
in the past.
Put a volume Of John Donne. for
instance, into the hands of your average
reader and he will put it down after a
leW pages, labelling it pretty dull stuff.
he might be astonished to know that
WITHIN the year a volume in tribute
TO this old worthy has been issued.
IL would do him good to look up this
wreath OF essays in the great divine S
praise and attempt to satisfy his own
mind, not whether or not Donne is dull,
put why he Immediately leaped to the
conclusion that he was dull
Can 1t be-" he may ask himself,
tnat there are two sorts Of dullness
and that hitherto have not suspected
this?"
Those long. involved sentences in
tonnes sci elmonS-one would not say
they are bright, but they do possess a
certain sort of vividness. It would be
inaccurate for any one to brand them
as dull, or slow, or heavy Certainly
they DO not cause drowsiness in the
mind OF their proper reader, nor to him
Will they be in the least obtuse
IL can be realized, then, that there
are two sorts Of dullnesses, in a sense,
and that the opacity Of mind Of the
reader. rather than Of the writer, Is at
fault in most instances.
There are certain types of books
which no ordinary reader should tackle,
that Is the honest truth. and he who
has ordinary reading gumption will
realize this, and refrain from adding
his mind with books for which he is not
fitted. II he Is an honest man he will
realize that such fault as exists, if any
exists, Is strictly his own.
The reader for whom such books are
proper will have the type of mental
equipment which will enable him to
recognize that brilliancy is the whipped
cream on the top Of certain aggrega-
| tions OF words, and that because 1t may
not be there in some cases does not
mean that there may not be deliciously
solid literary pie beneath.
The dullneSS Of great and cultivated
mind will carry the reader with it until
he comes to the top of the mountain
and there sees spread out before him
the delightful prospect which the au-
thor strove to achieve.
Does he succeed?
If that is answered in the affirmative,
then a bit of dullneSs as one goes up
the side Of the mountain comes not
amiss.
Such worthy dullness is to be ex-
pected. No hill climbing is all roses and
violets. Even bit of pedantry may be
got over easily enough if one is in the
mood for it and is able TO know, as if
by intuition, that there are beauties
beyond.
This fear of dullneSs is one Of the
saddest to be met in the reading life.
We would warn readers against it, as no
other is so likely to reduce the compass
of his likes and to confine him to a
limited and narrow book fare.
So long as reader can be sure that
the dullness of which he may hear some
one speak Is the dullness Of a culti-
waited mind, let him rest easy for such
dullness is not dullnesS at all in most
cases, but merely the expression of a
different approach, only to be called
dull in contrast with levity.