Year: 1866

Talk L1ttIc-The Real ana MOL the


Ideal Signs of Character-An Inter


estIng Article.


From Every Saturday, Published 6y IYcIalor &


Fields, Boston.


The tyranny of the clever is admitted
by everybody, in his own conscience,
to be among the most oppressive of the
those despotisms which make men
afraid even of whispering their dislike.
The severity with which the intellectual
oligarchs lord it overplain folks brushes
any effort at rebellion among the ranks
OF gentle dullness and well-meaning
stupidity. To question their preten-
tions, to hint that character has other
departments besides cleVerness, is to
expose yourself to the hazard of being
meanlY thought of, and numbered
among poor creatures. With a splendid
magnanimity they allow that poor
creatures are necessary, if mysteri-
GUS, element in the general order and
system of things, but still an element
to be kept in state of profound de-
preston befitting their weak capacities
and the little they can do for the gener-
al veal. Considering that the world is
mostly composed of persons who, in
the favorite phrase of their intellectual
betters, have nothing in them, the only
surprising thing is, that even the exist
4Ie5 AONO4 VI ~" dS IL 49, Cdu
in any way be preserved. That things
should be able to go on at all, when
there are so many fools and so few
wise men to guide them, is a
fact SO astonishing as only to be
accounted for by theory that must
raise the fools very highly in every SEN
sible mans esteem. 1t must be that a
person may have nothing in him, and
yet be magically able to bring forth of
his treasures things new and old. Or
else 1t may prove that the quality which
he is charged with having no particle
of, is not so entirely the root of every
good thing in life as the fortunate oil
garchs suppose.


AS the present is time when a mag
ical is invariably postponed to a ration
al explanation, where rational expla-
nation is to be had, perhaps the more
popular theory will be the latter of the
two we have named-that person may
have little cleverness and yet have
plenty of other desirable things. Put
in this way, the smarteSt of coxcombs
is forced to admit the doctrine. Only
admitting doctrine in general terms
is altogether different from allowing its
application in a special case, and in
special cases the coxcombs who rule too
powerfully over us make a point of de-
nying that without brains anybody can
have any qualities that are worth men
64O4AhEos AAO consequence 10 bldG Slll-
pie men and women are tolerated and
patronized and snubbed by those who
are beneath them in every respect, ex-
cept possibly the power of speech, and
the power of impudence. For, by a
grave abuse of the truth that tree is
known by its fruit, it is argued that ST.
lence is proof of ones having moth
ing to say. The clever coxcomb will
not be pursuaded that anybody who can
speak may be careful as to the times
and seasons of his speaking, or, in
spite Of Instability to speak, may wish
rather to listen or to think. This is just
as true as the other opinion created by
reaction from the first, that man who
never speaks, but appears to devote all
his energies to thinking, must of neces-
sity be thoughtful. Hence silent man
is pretty sure to be we'll thought of by
one-half perhaps of those who make it
their business to judge their neighbors.
One-half will stigmatize his silence as
dullness, the other will extol it as the
sign of profound thoughtfulness upon
the causes of things.


But mistakes as to the outward signs
of there being something within man
are less important than the principles
on which the nature of this most desira-
BILE of internal qualities is commonly
estimated. 1t is the usage to treat dull
ness and inability to appreciate great
ideas as an unforgiYable offence
against which it is impossible to be too
severe. Hence the wholesale contempt
with which, traditionally and in the
mass, coXcomb is wont to regard wo-
men. Women, as a rule, are so badly
educated that they do not furnish to
liant discoverers of truth, or profound
scholars. Therefore, the conclusion
runs, they have nothing in them, for
the capacity, of moral patience, the in
stinctive desire to do beneficent works,
the diffusiveness ofsympathy, all count
for as good as nothing. And it is not
only the coxcomb who falls into this
supreme blunder. It is the tendency of
even the ablest men to suppose that
there is no side of character of much
value but that on which they them
selves are strongest. They know how
blank and dismally empty their own
lives would be if robbed of the exer-
cises of thinking and reasoning and
balancing, and hence they attribute a
like blankness and barrenness to every
other life in which they do not see the
same faculties in constant and vigorous
exercise. Just in the same way, any
body who relishes the delights of books
is apt to think that the less studious
mind must inevitably be wholly with
out SAVIOR. The truth is that, as innate
shrewdness and mother wit in one case
may compensate for lack of book
learning, so, in the other, gentleness and
delicacy and depth of moral sympathy
more than make up for the absence of
intellectual acuteness. And even where
only the blindest partiality could pre-
tend to discover anything like this ex-
quisite delicacy of perception and width
of moral sympathy, there may still be
fund of kindly graces and honest
good will. Is simple affectionateness
of character no recommendation? Is
it not weightier quality and larger
social influence than any amount of
second-rate cleverness?


The broad course of public transac-
tiOns is regulated, or ought to be, almost
entirely by considerations that may not
spring from, but are at least conform
able to, the reasoning side of men. But
the life of the family and the individual
receives its choicest elements less from
the intellectual than the moral side,
and, except in rare cases, from the
moral side in its least grandiose aspect.
Let the coxcomb, or the man who
insists on measuring everything
by a narrow intellectual standard,
and everybody by his intellectual
height and grasp, reflect how much
is contributed to the stock of happiness
by poor kindly old ladies', and warm
hearted, impulsive men who never
reasoned thing out in their lives, and
have no notion how things are reasoned
out. Even feather-headed sisters and
old gray mothers may be worth more
to a family than the brilliant son who
likes to deplore that they are not clever
and learned, and have so little in them,
and are SO incapable of taking interest
in intellectual topics. The absence of
intellectual brilliance is not so much
felt in a life where good offices and en-
couraging, sympathetic words, and
graciousness and geniality, can diffuse