I am well aware that good literature—to use Matthew Arnold's phrase—is a criticism of life. But the criticism of life, with its discriminations between things which look very much alike, is pretty serious business. We cannot keep on criticising life without getting tired after a while, and longing for something a little simpler. There is a much-admired passage in Ferishtah's Fancies, in which, after mixing up the beans in his hands and speculating on their color, Ferishtah is not able to tell black from white. Ferishtah, living in a soothing climate, could stand an indefinite amount of this sort of thing; and, moreover, we must remember that he was a dervish, and dervishry, although a steady occupation, is not exacting in its requirements. In our more stimulating climate, we should bring on nervous prostration if we gave ourselves unremittingly to the discrimination between all the possible variations of blackishness and whitishness. We must relieve our minds by occasionally finding something about which there can be no doubt. When my eyes rested on the woodcut that adorns the first page of "The Pirate's Own Book," I felt the rest that comes from perfect certainty in my own moraljudgment. Ferishtah himself could not have mixed me up. Here was black without a redeeming spot. On looking upon this pirate, I felt relieved from any criticism of life; here was something beneath criticism. I was no longer tossed about on a chop sea, with its conflicting waves of feeling and judgment, but was borne along triumphantly on a bounding billow of moral reprobation.
As I looked over the headings of the chapters, I was struck by their straightforward and undisguised character. When I read the chapter entitled The Savage Appearance of the Pirates, and compared this with the illustrations, I said, "How true!" Then there was a chapter on the Deceitful Character of the Malays. I had always suspected that the Malays were deceitful, and here I found my impressions justified by competent authority. Then I dipped into the preface, and found the same transparent candor. "A piratical crew," says the author, "is generally formed of the desperadoes and renegades of every clime and nation." Again I said, "Just what I should have expected. The writer is evidently one who 'nothing extenuates.'" Thenfollows a further description of the pirate: "The pirate, from the perilous nature of his occupation, when not cruising on the ocean, that great highway of nations, selects the most lonely isles of the sea for his retreat, or secretes himself near the shores of bays and lagoons of thickly wooded and uninhabited countries." Just the places where I should have expected him to settle.
"The pirate, when not engaged in robbing, passes his time in singing old songs with choruses like,—
Thus his hours of relaxation are passed in wild and extravagant frolics, amongst the lofty forests and spicy groves of the torrid zone, and amidst the aromatic and beautiful flowering vegetable products of that region."
Again: "With the name of pirate is also associated ideas of rich plunder,—caskets of buried jewels, chests of gold ingots, bags of outlandish coins, secreted in lonely out-of-the-way places, or buried about the wild shores of rivers and unexploredseacoasts, near rocks and trees bearing mysterious marks, indicating where the treasure is hid." "As it is his invariable practice to secrete and bury his booty, and from the perilous life he lives being often killed, he can never revisit the spot again, immense sums remaining buried in these places are irrevocably lost." Is it any wonder that, with such an introduction, I became interested?
After a perusal of the book, I am inclined to think that a pirate may be a better person to read about than some persons who stand higher in the moral scale. Compare, if you will, a pirate and a pessimist. As a citizen and neighbor I should prefer the pessimist. A pessimist is an excellent and highly educated gentleman, who has been so unfortunate as to be born into a world which is inadequate to his expectations. Naturally he feels that he has a grievance, and in airing his grievance he makes himself unpopular; but it is certainly not his fault that the universe is no better than it is. On the other hand, a pirate is a bad character; yet as a subject of biography he is more inspiring than the pessimist. In one case, we have the impression of onegood man in a totally depraved world; in the other case, we have a totally depraved man in what but for him would be a very good world. I know of nothing that gives one a more genial appreciation of average human nature, or a greater tolerance for the foibles of one's acquaintances, than the contrast with an unmitigated pirate.
My copy of "The Pirate's Own Book" belongs to the edition of 1837. On the fly-leaf it bore in prim handwriting the name of a lady who for many years must have treasured it. I like to think of this unknown lady in connection with the book. I know that she must have been an excellent soul, and I have no doubt that her New England conscience pointed to the moral law as the needle to the pole; but she was a wise woman, and knew that if she was to keep her conscience in good repair she must give it some reasonable relaxation. I am sure that she was a woman of versatile philanthropy, and that every moment she had the ability to make two duties grow where only one had grown before. After, however, attending the requisite number of lectures to improve her mind, and considering in committeesplans to improve other people's minds forcibly, and going to meetings to lament over the condition of those who had no minds to improve, this good lady would feel that she had earned a right to a few minutes' respite. So she would take up "The Pirate's Own Book," and feel a creepy sensation that would be an effectual counter-irritant to all her anxieties for the welfare of the race. Things might be going slowly, and there were not half as many societies as there ought to be, and the world might be in a bad way; but then it was not so bad as it was in the days of Black Beard; and the poor people who did not have any societies to belong to were, after all, not so badly off as the sailors whom the atrocious Nicola left on a desert island, with nothing but a blunderbuss and Mr. Brooks's Family Prayer Book. In fact, it is expressly stated that the pirates refused to give them a cake of soap. To be on a desert island destitute of soap made the common evils of life appear trifling. She had been worried about the wicked people who would not do their duty, however faithfully they had been prodded up to it, who would not be life members on payment of fifty dollars, and whowould not be annual members on payment of a dollar and signing the constitution, and who in their hard and impenitent hearts would not even sit on the platform at the annual meeting; but somehow their guilt seemed less extreme after she had studied again the picture of Captain Kidd burying his Bible in the sands near Plymouth. A man who would bury his Bible, using a spade several times too large for him, and who would strike such a world-defying attitude while doing it, made the sin of not joining the society appear almost venial. In this manner she gained a certain moral perspective; even after days when the public was unusually dilatory about reforms, and the wheels of progress had begun to squeak, she would get a good night's sleep. Contrasting the public with the black background of absolute piracy, she grew tolerant of its shortcomings, and learned the truth of George Herbert's saying, that "pleasantness of disposition is a great key to do good."
Not only is a pirate a more comfortable person to read about than a pessimist, but in many respects he is a more comfortable person to read about than a philanthropist. The minute thephilanthropist is introduced, the author begins to show his own cleverness by discovering flaws in his motives. You begin to see that the poor man has his limitations. Perhaps his philanthropies are of a different kind from yours, and that irritates you. Musical people, whom I have heard criticise other musical people, seem more offended when some one flats just a little than when he makes a big ear-splitting discord; and moralists are apt to have the same fastidiousness. The philanthropist is made the victim of the most cruel kind of vivisection,—a character-study.
Here is a fragment of conversation from a study of character: "'That was really heroic,' said Felix. 'That was what he wanted to do,' Gertrude went on. 'He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral pleasure; he made up his mind to do his duty; he felt sublime,—that's how he likes to feel.'"
This leaves the mind in a painful state of suspense. The first instinct of the unsophisticated reader is that if the person has done a good deed, we ought not to begrudge him a little innocent pleasure in it. If he is magnanimous, why not let him feel magnanimous? But after Gertrudehas made these subtle suggestions we begin to experience something like antipathy for a man who is capable of having a fine moral pleasure; who not only does his duty, but really likes to do it. There is something wrong about him, and it is all the more aggravating because we are not sure just what it is. There is no trouble of that kind in reading about pirates. You cannot make a character-study out of a pirate,—he has no character. You know just where to place him. You do not expect anything good of him, and when you find a sporadic virtue you are correspondingly elated.
For example, I am pleased to read of the pirate Gibbs that he was "affable and communicative, and when he smiled he exhibited a mild and gentle countenance. His conversation was concise and pertinent, and his style of illustration quite original." If Gibbs had been a philanthropist, it is doubtful whether these social and literary graces would have been so highly appreciated.
So our author feels a righteous glow when speaking of the natives of the Malabar coasts, and accounting for their truthfulness: "For asthey had been used to deal with pirates, they always found them men of honor in the way of trade,—a people enemies of deceit, and that scorned to rob but in their own way."
He is a very literal-minded person, and takes all his pirates seriously, but often we are surprised by some touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. There was the ferocious Benevedes, who flourished on the west coast of South America, and who, not content with sea power, attempted to gather an army. It is said that "a more finished picture of a pirate cannot be conceived," and the description that follows certainly bears out this assertion. Yet he had his own ideas of civilization, and a power of adaptation that reminds us of the excellent and ingenious Swiss Family Robinson. When he captures the American whaling-ship Herculia, we are prepared for a wild scene of carnage; but instead we are told that Benevedes immediately dismantled the ship, and "out of the sails made trousers for half his army." After the trousers had been distributed, Benevedes remarked that his army was complete except in one essential particular,—he had no trumpets for the cavalry: whereupon,at the suggestion of the New Bedford skipper, he ripped off the copper sheets of the vessel, out of which a great variety of copper trumpets were quickly manufactured, and soon "the whole camp resounded with the warlike blasts." While the delighted pirates were enjoying their instrumental music, the skipper and nine of the crew took occasion to escape in a boat which had been imprudently concealed on the river bank.
In the "Proverbial Philosophy" we are told that
Had Mr. Tupper been acquainted with the career of Captain Davis of the Spanish Main, he would have found many apt illustrations of his thesis. Captain Davis had the vices incidental to a piratical career, but they were amicably buoyed up by some virtues which would have adorned a different station in life. He was a great stickler for parliamentary law, and everything under his direction was done decently and in order. Whenever it was possible, he made his demands in writing, a method which was business-like and left no room for misunderstanding.After a sloop had been seized and duly pillaged, we are informed that:—
"In full possession of the vessel and stores and goods, a large bowl of punch was made. Under its exhilarating influence it was proposed to choose a commander, and to form a future mode of policy. The election was soon over and a large majority of legal voters were in favor of Davis, and, no scrutiny being demanded, Davis was declared duly elected. He then addressed them in a short and appropriate speech."
The chief virtue of Davis seemed to be neatness, which on one occasion he used to admirable advantage. "Encountering a French ship of twenty-four guns, Davis proposed to the crew to attack her, assuring them that she would prove a rich prize. This appeared to the crew such a hazardous enterprise that they were adverse to the measure; but he acquainted them that he had conceived a stratagem that he was confident would succeed."
This stratagem was worthy of the Beau Brummel of pirates. At the critical moment, the crew "according to the direction of Davis appeared on deck in white shirts, which making an appearanceof numbers the Frenchman was intimidated and struck." Why the white shirts should have given the appearance of numbers it is difficult to understand, but we can well understand the surprise of the Frenchman over the pirates' immaculate attire.
Most of the pirates seem to have conducted their lives on a highly romantic, not to say sensational plan. This reprehensible practice, of course, must shut them off from the sympathy of all realists of the stricter school, who hold that there should be no dramatic situations, and that even when a story is well begun it should not be brought to a finish, but should "peter out" in the last chapters, no one knows how or why. Sometimes, however, a pirate manages to come to an end sufficiently commonplace to make a plot for a most irreproachable novel. There was Captain Avery. He commenced the practice of his profession very auspiciously by running away with a ship of thirty guns from Bristol. In the Indian Ocean he captured a treasure-ship of the Great Mogul. In this ship, it is said, "there were several of the greatest persons of the court." There was also on board the daughter of theGreat Mogul, who was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The painstaking historian comments on this very justly: "It is well known that the people of the East travel with great magnificence, so that they had along with them all their slaves, with a large quantity of vessels of gold and silver and immense sums of money. The spoil, therefore, that Avery received from that ship was almost incalculable." To capture the treasure-ship of the Great Mogul under such circumstances would have turned the head of any ordinary pirate who had weakened his mind by reading works tinged with romanticism. His companions, when the treasure was on board, wished to sail to Madagascar, and there build a small fort; but "Avery disconcerted the plan and rendered it altogether unnecessary." We know perfectly well what these wretches would have done if they had been allowed to have their own way: they would have gathered in one of the spicy groves, and would have taken up vociferously their song,—
Avery would have none of this, so when most of the men were away from the ship he sailed offwith the treasure, leaving them to their evil ways, and to a salutary poverty. Here begins the realism of the story. With the treasures of the Great Mogul in his hold, he did not follow the illusive course of Captain Kidd, "as he sailed, as he sailed." He did not even lay his course for the "coasts of Coromandel." Instead of that he made a bee-line for America, with the laudable intention of living there "in affluence and honor." When he got to America, however, he did not know what to do with himself, and still less what to do with the inestimable pearls and diamonds of the Great Mogul. An ordinary pirate of romance would have escaped to the Spanish Main, but Avery did just what any realistic gentleman would do: after he had spent a short time in other cities—he concluded to go to Boston. The chronicler adds, "Arriving at Boston, he almost resolved to settle there." It was in the time of the Mathers. But in spite of its educational and religious advantages, Boston furnished no market for the gems of the Orient, so Captain Avery went to England. If he had in his youth read a few detective stories, he might have known how to get his jewels exchanged for the current coinof the realm; but his early education had been neglected, and he was of a singularly confiding and unsophisticated nature—when on land. After suffering from poverty he made the acquaintance of some wealthy merchants of Bristol, who took his gems on commission, on condition that they need not inquire how he came by them. That was the last Avery saw of the gems of the Great Mogul. A plain pirate was no match for financiers. Remittances were scanty, though promises were frequent. What came of it all? Nothing came of it; things simply dragged along. Avery was not hanged, neither did he get his money. At last, on a journey to Bristol to urge the merchants to a settlement, he fell sick and died. What became of the gems? Nobody knows. What became of those merchants of Bristol? Nobody cares. A novelist might, out of such material, make an ending quite clever and dreary.
To this realistic school of pirates belongs Thomas Veal, known in our history as the "Pirate of Lynn." To turn from the chapter on the Life, Atrocities, and Bloody Death of Black Beard to the chapter on the Lynn Pirate, is a relief to theoverstrained sensibilities. Lynn is in the temperate zone, and we should naturally reason that its piracies would be more calm and equable than those of the tropics, and so they were. "On one pleasant evening, a little after sunset, a small vessel was seen to anchor near the mouth of the Saugus River. A boat was presently lowered from her side, into which four men descended and moved up the river." It is needless to say that these men were pirates. In the morning the vessel had disappeared, but a man found a paper whereon was a statement that if a quantity of shackles, handcuffs, and hatchets were placed in a certain nook, silver would be deposited near by to pay for them. The people of Lynn in those days were thrifty folk, and the hardware was duly placed in the spot designated, and the silver was found as promised. After some months four pirates came and settled in the woods. The historian declares it to be his opinion (and he speaks as an expert) that it would be impossible to select a place more convenient for a gang of pirates. He draws particular attention to the fact that the "ground was well selected for the cultivation of potatoes and common vegetables." This showsthat the New England environment gave an industrial and agricultural cast to piracy which it has not had elsewhere. In fact, after reading the whole chapter, I am struck by the pacific and highly moral character of these pirates. The last of them—Thomas Veal—took up his abode in what is described as a "spacious cavern," about two miles from Lynn. "There the fugitive fixed his residence, and practiced the trade of a shoemaker, occasionally coming down to the village to obtain articles of sustenance." By uniting the occupations of market-gardening, shoe-making, and piracy, Thomas Veal managed to satisfy the demands of a frugal nature, and to live respected by his neighbors in Lynn. It must have been a great alleviation in the lot of the small boys, when now and then they escaped from the eyes of the tithing-men, and in the cave listened to Mr. Veal singing his pirate's songs. Of course a solo could give only a faint conception of what the full chorus would have been in the tropical forests, but still it must have curdled the blood to a very considerable extent.
There is, I must confess, a certain air of vagueness about this interesting narration. No overtact of piracy is mentioned. Indeed, the evidence in regard to the piratical character of Mr. Veal, so far as it is given in this book, is largely circumstantial.
There is, first, the geographical argument. The Saugus River, being a winding stream, was admirably adapted for the resort of pirates who wished to prey upon the commerce of Boston and Salem. This establishes the opportunity and motive, and renders it antecedently probable that piracy was practiced. The river, it is said, was a good place in which to secrete boats. This we know from our reading was the invariable practice of pirates.
Another argument is drawn from the umbrageous character of the Lynn woods. We are told with nice particularity that in this tract of country "there were many thick pines, hemlocks, and cedars, and places where the rays of the sun at noon could not penetrate." Such a place would be just the spot in which astute pirates would be likely to bury their treasure, confident that it would never be discovered. The fact that nothing ever has been discovered here seems to confirm this supposition.
The third argument is that while a small cave still remains, the "spacious cavern" in which Thomas Veal, the piratical shoemaker, is said to have dwelt no longer exists. This clinches the evidence. For there was an earthquake in 1658. What more likely than that, in the earthquake, "the top of the rock was loosened and crushed down into the mouth of the cavern, inclosing the unfortunate inmate in its unyielding prison?" At any rate, there is no record of Mr. Veal or of his spacious cavern after that earthquake.
No one deserves to be called an antiquarian who cannot put two and two together, and reconstruct from these data a more or less elaborate history of the piracies of Mr. Thomas Veal. The only other explanation of the facts presented, that I can think of as having any degree of plausibility, is that possibly Mr. Veal may have been an Anabaptist, escaped from Boston, who imposed upon the people of Lynn by making them believe that he was only a pirate.
I must in candor admit that the Plutarch of piracy is sometimes more edifying than entertaining. He can never resist the temptation to draw a moral, and his dogmatic bias in favor of thedoctrine of total depravity is only too evident. But his book has the great advantage that it is not devoid of incident. Take it all in all, there are worse books to read—after one is tired of reading books that are better.
I am inclined to think that our novelists must make home happy, or they may drive many of their readers to "The Pirate's Own Book." The policy of the absolute prohibition of romance, while excellent in theory, has practical difficulties in the way of enforcement. Perhaps, under certain restrictions, license might be issued to proper persons to furnish stimulants to the imagination. Of course the romancer should not be allowed to sell to minors, nor within a certain distance of a schoolhouse, nor to habitual readers. My position is the conservative one that commended itself to the judicious Rollo.
"'Well, Rollo,' said Dorothy, 'shall I tell you a true story, or one that is not true?'
"'I think, on the whole, Dorothy, I would rather have it true.'"
But there must have been times—though none are recorded—when Rollo tired even of the admirable clear thinking and precise information ofJonas. At such times he might have tolerated a story that was not so very true, if only it were interesting. There are main thoroughfares paved with hard facts where the intellectual traffic must go on continually. There are tracks on which, if a heedless child of romance should stray, he is in danger of being run down by the realists, those grim motor-men of the literary world. But outside the congested districts there should be some roadways leading out into the open country where all things are still possible. At the entrance to each of these roads there ought to be displayed the notice, "For pleasure only. No heavy teaming allowed." I should not permit any modern improvements in this district, but I should preserve all its natural features. There should be not only a feudal castle with moat and drawbridge, but also a pirate's cave.
The Honorable Points of Ignorance
IHAPPEN to live in a community where there is a deeply rooted prejudice in favor of intelligence, with many facilities for its advancement. I may, therefore, be looked upon as unmindful of my privileges when I confess that my chief pleasures have been found in the more secluded paths of ignorance.
I am no undiscriminating lover of Ignorance. I do not like the pitch-black kind which is the negation of all thought. What I prefer is a pleasant intellectual twilight, where one sees realities through an entrancing atmosphere of dubiety.
In visiting a fine old Elizabethan mansion inthe south of England our host took us to a room where he had discovered the evidences of a secret panel. "What is behind it?" we asked. "I do not know," he answered; "while I live it shall never be opened, for then I should have no secret chamber."
There was a philosopher after my own heart. He was wise enough to resist the temptation to sell his birthright of mystery for a mess of knowledge. The rural New Englander expresses his interest by saying, "I want to know!" But may one not have a real interest in persons and things which is free from inquisitiveness? For myself, I frequently prefer not to know. Were Bluebeard to do me the honor of intrusting me with his keys, I should spend a pleasant half-hour speculating on his family affairs. I might even put the key in the lock, but I do not think I should turn it. Why should I destroy twenty exciting possibilities for the sake of a single discovery?
I like to watch certain impressive figures as they cross the College Yard. They seem like the sages whom Dante saw:—
Do I therefore inquire their names, and intrusively seek to know what books they have written, before I admire their scholarship? No, to my old-fashioned way of thinking, scholarship is not a thing to be measured; it is a mysterious effluence. Were I to see—
I should not care to ask, "Which is which?" still less should I venture to interview Galen on the subject of medicine, or put leading questions to Diogenes. The combined impression of ineffable wisdom would be more to me than any particular information I might get out of them.
But, as I said, I am not an enthusiast for Ignorance. Mine is not the zeal of a new convert, but the sober preference of one to the manner born. I do not look upon it as a panacea, nor, after the habit of reformers, would I insist that it should be taught in the public schools. There are important spheres wherein exact information is much to be preferred.
Because Ignorance has its own humble measure of bliss I would not jump at the conclusion that it is folly to be wise. That is an extravagant statement. If real wisdom were offered me I should accept it gratefully. Wisdom is an honorable estate, and, doubtless, it has pleasures of its own. I only have in mind the alternative that is usually presented to us, conscious ignorance or a kind of knowingness.
It is necessary, at this point, to make a distinction. A writer on the use of words has a chapter on Ignorantism, which is a term he uses to indicate Ignorance that mistakes itself, or seeks to make others mistake it, for Knowledge. For Ignorantism I make no plea. If Ignorance puts on a false uniform and is caught within the enemy's lines, it must suffer the penalties laid down in the laws of war.
Nor would I defend what Milton calls "the barbarous ignorance of the schools." This scholastic variety consists of the scientific definition and classification of "things that aren't so." It has no value except as a sort of gelatine culture for the propagation of verbal bacteria.
But the affectations of the pedants or the sciolists should not be allowed to cast discredit on the fair name of Ignorance. It is only natural Ignorance which I praise; not that which is acquired. It was a saying of Landor that if a man had a large mind he could afford to let the greater part of it lie fallow. Of course we small proprietors cannot do things on such a generous scale; but it seems to me that if one has only a little mind it is a mistake to keep it all under cultivation.
I hope that this praise of Ignorance may not give offense to any intelligent reader who may feel that he is placed by reason of his acquirements beyond the pale of our sympathies. He need fear no such exclusion. My Lady Ignorance is gracious and often bestows her choicest gifts on those who scorn her. The most erudite person is intelligent only in spots. Browning's Bishop Blougram questioned whether he should be called a skeptic or believer, seeing that he could only exchange
Whether a person thinks of his own intellectual state as one of knowledge diversified by ignorance or one of ignorance diversified by knowledge is a matter of temperament. We like him better when he frankly calls his intellectual chess-board black. That, at any rate, was the original color, the white is an afterthought.
Let me, then, without suspicion of treasonable intent, be allowed to point out what we may call in Shakespearean phrase "the honorable points of ignorance."
The social law against "talking shop" is an indication of the very widespread opinion that the exhibition of unmitigated knowledge is unseemly, outside of business hours. When we meet for pleasure we prefer that it should be on the humanizing ground of not knowing. Nothing is so fatal to conversation as an authoritative utterance. When a man who is capable of giving it enters,
Conversation about the weather would lose all its easy charm in the presence of the Chief of the Weather Bureau.
It is possible that the fear of exhibiting unusual information in a mixed company may be a survival of primitive conditions. Just as the domesticated dog will turn around on the rug before lying down, for hereditary reasons which I do not remember, so it is with civilized man. Once ignorance was universal and enforced by penalties. In the progress of the race the environment has been modified, but so strong is the influence of heredity that The Man Who Knows no sooner enters the drawing-room than he is seized by guilty fears. His ancestors for having exhibited a moiety of his intelligence were executed as wizards. But perhaps the ordinary working of natural selection may account for the facts. The law of the survival of the fittest admits of no exceptions, and the fittest to give us pleasure in conversation is the sympathetic person who appears to know very little more than we do.
In the commerce of ideas there must be reciprocity. We will not deal with one who insists that the balance of trade shall always be in his favor. Moreover there must be a spice of incertitude about the transaction. The real joy ofthe intellectual traffic comes when we sail away like the old merchant adventurers in search of a market. There must be no prosaic bills of exchange: it must be primitive barter. We have a choice cargo of beads which we are willing to exchange for frankincense and ivory. If on some strange coast we should meet simple-minded people who have only wampum, perhaps even then we might make a trade.
Have you never when engaged in such commerce felt something of the spirit of the grave Tyrian trader who had sailed away from the frequented marts, and held on
It is not every day that one meets with such shy traffickers, for the world is becoming very sophisticated. One does not ask that those with whom we converse should be ignorant of everything; it is enough that they should not know what is in our bales before we undo them.
One very serious drawback to our pleasure in conversation with a too well-informed person is the nervous strain that is involved. We are always wondering what will happen when he comes to the end of his resources. After listening to one who discourses with surprising accuracy upon any particular topic, we feel a delicacy in changing the subject. It seems a mean trick, like suddenly removing the chair on which a guest is about to sit down for the evening. With one who is interested in a great many things he knows little about there is no such difficulty. If he has passed the first flush of youth, it no longer embarrasses him to be caught now and then in a mistake; indeed your correction is welcomed as an agreeable interruption, and serves as a starting point for a new series of observations.
The pleasure of conversation is enhanced if one feels assured not only of wide margins of ignorance, but also of the absence of uncanny quickness of mind.
I should not like to be neighbor to a wit. It would be like being in proximity to a live wire. A certain insulating film of kindly stupidity is needed to give a margin of safety to human intercourse.There are certain minds whose processes convey the impression of alternating currents of high voltage on a wire that is not quite large enough for them. From such I would withdraw myself.
One is freed from all such apprehensions in the companionship of people who make no pretensions to any kind of cleverness. "The laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot." What cheerful sounds! The crackling of the dry thorns! and the merry bubbling of the pot!
There is an important part played by what I may call defensive Ignorance. It was said of Robert Elsmere that he had a mind that was defenseless against the truth. It is a fine thing to be thus open to conviction, but the mental hospitality of one who is without prejudices is likely to be abused. All sorts of notions importunately demand attention, and he who thinks to examine all their credentials will find no time left for his own proper affairs.
For myself, I like to have a general reception-room in my mind for all sorts of notions with which I desire to keep up only a calling acquaintance.Here let them all be welcomed, good, bad, and indifferent, in the spacious antechamber of my Ignorance. But I am not able to invite them into my private apartments, for I am living in a small way in cramped quarters, where there is only room for my own convictions. There are many things that are interesting to hear about which I do not care to investigate. If one is willing to give me the result of his speculations on various esoteric doctrines I am ready to receive them in the spirit in which they are offered, but I should not think of examining them closely; it would be too much like looking a gift horse in the mouth.
I should like to talk with a Mahatma about the constitution of the astral body. I do not know enough about the subject to contradict his assertions, and therefore he would have it all his own way. But were he to become insistent and ask me to look into the matter for myself, I should beg to be excused. I would not take a single step alone. In such a case I agree with Sir Thomas Browne that "it is better to sit down in modest ignorance and rest contented with the natural blessings of our own reasons."
There are zealous persons of a proselyting turn of mind who insist upon our accepting their ideas or giving reasons for our rejection of them. When we see the flames of controversy sweeping upon us, the only safety lies in setting a back fire which shall clear the ground of any fuel for argument. If we can only surround ourselves with a bare space of nescience we may rest in peace. I have seen a simple Chinese laundry-man, by adopting this plan, resist a storm of argument and invective without losing his temper or yielding his point. Serene, imperturbable, inscrutable, he stood undisturbed by the strife of tongues. He had one supreme advantage,—he did not know the language.
It was thus in the sixteenth century, when religious strife waxed mad around him, that Montaigne preserved a little spot of tolerant thought. "O what a soft, easy, and wholesome pillow is ignorance and incuriosity whereon to compose a well-contrived head!"
This sounds like mere Epicureanism, but Montaigne had much to say for himself: "Great abuse in the world is begot, or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begot byour being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute.... They make me hate things that are likely when they impose upon me for infallible. I love those words which mollify and moderate the temerity of our propositions, 'Peradventure, in some sort, 'tis said, I think,' and the like.... There is a sort of ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honor and courage to knowledge; an ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge than knowledge itself."
Not only is protection needed from the dogmatic assaults of our neighbors, but also from our own premature ideas. There are opinions which we are willing to receive on probation, but these probationers must be taught by judicious snubbing to know their place. The plausibilities and probabilities that are pleasantly received must not airily assume the place of certainties. Because you say to a stranger, "I'm glad to see you," it is not certain that you are ready to sign his note at the bank.
When one happens to harbor any ideas of a radical character, he is fortunate if he is so constitutedthat it is not necessary for his self-respect that he should be cock-sure. The consciousness of the imperfection of his knowledge serves as a buffer when the train of progress starts with a jerk.
Sir Thomas More was, it is evident, favorably impressed with many of the sentiments of the gentleman from Utopia, but it was a great relief to him to be able to give them currency without committing himself to them. He makes no dogmatic assertion that the constitution of Utopia was better than that of the England of Henry VIII. In fact, he professes to know nothing about Utopia except from mere hearsay. He gracefully dismisses the subject, allowing the seeds of revolutionary ideas to float away on the thistle-down of polite Ignorance.
"When Raphael had made an end of speaking, though many things occurred to me both concerning the manners and laws of that country that seemed very absurd ... yet since I perceived that Raphael was weary and I was not sure whether he could bear contradiction ... I only commended their constitution and the account he had given of it in general; and so, taking him bythe hand, carried him to supper, and told him I would find some other time for examining this subject more particularly and discoursing more copiously upon it."
One whose quiet tastes lead him away from the main traveled roads into the byways of Ignorance is likely to retain a feeling in regard to books which belongs to an earlier stage of culture. Time was when a book was a symbol of intellectual mysteries rather than a tool to be used. When Omar Khayyám sang of the delights of a jug of wine and a book, I do not think he was intemperate in the use of either. The same book and the same jug of wine would last him a long time. The chief thing was that it gave him a comfortable feeling to have them within reach.
The primitive feeling in regard to a book as a kind of talisman survives chiefly among bibliophiles, but with them it is overlaid by matters of taste which are quite beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. As for myself, I know nothing of such niceties.
I know nothing of rare bindings or fine editions. My heart is never disturbed by covetingthe contents of my neighbor's bookshelves. Indeed, I have always listened to the tenth commandment with a tranquil heart since I learned, in the Shorter Catechism, that "the tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his." If that be all, it is not aimed at me, particularly in this matter of books.
I feel no discontentment at the disorderly array of bound volumes that I possess. I know that they are no credit either to my taste or to my scholarship, but if that offends my neighbor, the misery is his, not mine. If he should bring a railing accusation against me, let him remember that there is a ninth commandment which "forbiddeth anything that is injurious to our own or our neighbor's good name." As for any inordinate motions or affections toward his literary treasures, I have no more than toward his choice collection of stamps.
Yet I have one weakness in common with the bibliophile; I have a liking for certain books which I have neither time nor inclination to read.Just as according to the mediæval theory there was a sanctity about a duly ordained clergyman altogether apart from his personal character, so there is to my mind an impressiveness about some volumes which has little to do with their contents, or at least with my knowledge of them. Why should we be too curious in regard to such matters? There are books which I love to see on the shelf. I feel that virtue goes out of them, but I should think it undue familiarity to read them.
The persons who have written on "Books that have helped me" have usually confined their list to books which they have actually read. One book has clarified their thoughts, another has stimulated their wills, another has given them useful knowledge. But are there no Christian virtues to be cultivated? What about humility, that pearl of great price?
To be constantly reminded that you have not read Kant's "Critique of the Pure Reason," and that therefore you have no right to express a final opinion on philosophy, does not that save you from no end of unnecessary dogmatism? The silent monitor with its accusing, uncut pages is a blessed help to the meekness of wisdom. Abook that has helped me is "The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars of England," by Edward, Earl of Clarendon. I am by nature and education a Cromwellian, of a rather narrow type. I am more likely than not to think of Charles I. as a man of sin. When, therefore, I brought home Clarendon's History I felt a glow of conscious virtue; the volume was an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace,—the grace of tolerance; and so it has ever been to me.
Years have passed, and the days of leisure have not yet come when I could devote myself to the reading of it. Perhaps the fact that I discovered that the noble earl's second sentence contains almost three hundred words may have had a discouraging influence,—but we will let that pass. Because I have not crossed the Rubicon of the second chapter, will you say that the book has not influenced me? "When in my sessions of sweet, silent thought," with the Earl of Clarendon, "I summon up remembrance of time past," is it necessary that I should laboriously turn the pages? It is enough that I feel my prejudices oozing away, and that I am convinced, when I look at the much prized volume, that there are two sidesto this matter of the English Commonwealth. Could the most laborious reading do more for me?
Indeed, it is dangerous, sometimes, not to let well-enough alone. Wordsworth's fickle Muse gave him several pretty fancies about the unseen banks of Yarrow. "Yarrow Unvisited" was so delightful that he was almost tempted to be content with absent treatment.
Ah, why, indeed? the reader asks, after reading Yarrow Visited and Yarrow Re-visited. The visits were a mistake.
Perhaps Clarendon Unread is as good for my soul as Clarendon Read or Clarendon Re-read. Who can tell?
There is another sphere in which the honorable points of ignorance are not always sufficientlyappreciated, that of Travel. The pleasure of staying at home consists in being surrounded by things which are familiar and which we know all about. The primary pleasure of going abroad consists in the encounter with the unfamiliar and the unknown.
That was the impulse which stirred old Ulysses to set forth once more upon his travels.
"It may be"—there lay the charm. There was no knowing what might happen on the dark, broad seas. Perhaps they might get lost, and then again they might come upon the Happy Isles. And if as they sailed under their looming shores they should see the great Achilles—why all the better!
What joys the explorers of the New World experienced! The heart leaps up at the very title of Sebastian Cabot's joint stock company. "Merchants Adventurers of England for the discoveryof lands, territories, isles and signories, unknown." There was no knowing beforehand which was an island and which the mainland. All they had to do was to keep on, sure only of finding something which they had not expected. When they got to the mainland they were as likely as not to stumble on the great Khan himself. Of course they might not make a discovery of the first magnitude like that of the Spaniards on the Peak in Darien,—but if it was not one thing it was another!
Two or three miles back of Plymouth, Mass., is a modest little pond called Billington's Sea. Billington, an adventurous Pilgrim, had climbed a tree, and looking westwards had caught sight of the shimmering water. He looked at it with a wild surmise, and then the conviction flashed upon him that he had discovered the goal of hardy mariners,—the great South Sea. That was a great moment for Billington!
Of course the Spaniards were more fortunate in their geographical position. It turned out that it was the Pacific that they saw from their Peak in Darien; while Billington's Sea does not grow on acquaintance.
But my heart goes out to Billington. He alsowas a discoverer, according to his lights. He belonged to a hardy breed, and could stare on new scenes with the best of them. It was not his fault that the Pacific was not there. If it had been, Billington would have discovered it. We know perfectly well that the Pacific Ocean does not lave the shores of Plymouth County, and so we should not go out into the woods on a fine morning to look for it. There is where Billington had the advantage of us.
Is it not curious that while we profess to envy the old adventurers the joys of discovery, yet before we set out on our travels we make it a point of convenience to rob ourselves of these possibilities? Before we set out for Ultima Thule we must know precisely where it is, and how we are going to get there, and what we are to see and what others have said about it. After a laborious course of reading the way is as familiar to our minds as the road to the post office. After that there is nothing more for us to do but to sally forth to verify the guide-books. We have done all that we could to brush the bloom off our native Ignorance.
Of course even then all the possibilities ofdiscovery are not shut out. The best-informed person cannot be completely guarded against surprise. Accidents will happen, and there is always the chance that one may have been misinformed.
I remember a depressed looking lady whom I encountered as she trudged through the galleries of the Vatican with grim conscientiousness. She had evidently a stern duty to perform for the cause of Art. But in the Sistine Chapel the stillness was broken by her voice, which had a note of triumph as she spoke to her daughter. She had discovered an error in Baedeker. It infused new life into her tired soul.
Speaking of the Vatican, that suggests the weak point in my argument. It suggests that there are occasions when knowledge is very convenient. On the Peak in Darien the first comer, with the wild surmise of ignorance, has the advantage in the quality of his sensation; but it is different in Jerusalem or Rome. There the pleasure consists in the fact that a great many interesting people have been there before anddone many interesting things, which it might be well to know about.
At this point I am quite willing to grant an inch; with the understanding that it shall not be lengthened into an ell. The Camel of Knowledge may push his head into the tent, and we shall have to resist his further encroachments as we may.
What we call the historic sense is not consistent with a state of nescience. The picture which the eye takes in is incomplete without the thousand associations which come from previous thought. Still, it remains true that the finest pleasure does not come when the mental images are the most precise. Before entering Paradise the mediæval pilgrims tasted of the streams of Eunoë and Lethe,—the happy memory and the happy forgetfulness. The most potent charm comes from the judicious mingling of these waters.
There is a feeling of antiquity that only comes now and then, but which it is worth traveling far to experience. It is the thrill that comes when we consciously stand in the presence of the remote past. Some scene brings with it an impressionof immemorial time. In almost every case we find that it comes from being reminded of something which we have once known and more than half forgotten. What are the "mists of time" but imperfect memories?
Modern psychologists have given tardy recognition to the "Subliminal Self,"—the self that lodges under the threshold of consciousness. He is a shy gnome, and loves the darkness rather than the light; not, as I believe, because his deeds are evil, but for reasons best known to himself. To all appearances he is the most ignorant fellow in the world, and yet he is no fool. As for the odds and ends that he stores up under the threshold, they are of more value than the treasures that the priggish Understanding displays in his show windows upstairs.
In traveling through historic lands the Subliminal Self overcomes his shyness. There are scenes and even words that reach back into hoar antiquity, and bring us into the days of eld.
Each person has his own chronology. If I were to seek to bring to mind the very ancientest time, I should not think of the cave-dwellers: I should repeat, "The Kenites, the Kenizzites,the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites."
There is antiquity! It is not only a long time since these tribes dwelt in the land; it has been a long time since I first heard of them.
My memory goes back to the time when a disconsolate little boy sat on a bench in a Sunday-school and asked himself, "What is a Girgashite?"
The habit of the Sunday-school of mingling the historical and ethical elements in one inextricable moral had made it uncertain whether the Girgashite was a person or a sin. In either case it happened a long time ago. There upon the very verge of Time stood the Girgashite, like the ghost in Ossian, "His spear was a column of mist, and the stars looked dim through his form."
Happily my studies have not led in that direction, and there is nothing to disturb the first impression. If some day wandering over Oriental hills I should come upon some broken monuments of the Girgashites, I am sure that I should feel more of a thrill than could possibly come to my more instructed companion. To him it would be only the discovery of another fact, tofit into his scheme of knowledge: to me it would be like stumbling unawares into the primeval world.
What is more delightful than in a railway train in Italy to hear voices in the night calling out names that recall the lost arts of our childhood! There is a sense
There is a bittersweet to it, for there is a momentary fear that you may be called upon to construe; but when that is past it is pure joy.
"Monte Soracte," said the Italian gentleman on the train between Foligno and Rome, as he pointed out a picturesque eminence. My answering smile was intended to convey the impression that one touch of the classics makes the whole world kin. Had I indeed kept up my Horace, a host of clean-cut ideas would have instantly rushed into my mind. "Is that Soracte! It is not what I had reason to expect. As a mountain I prefer Monadnock."
Fortunately I had no such prepossessions. I had expected nothing. There only came impressionsof lessons years ago in a dingy school-room presided over by a loved instructor whom we knew as "Prof. Ike." Looking back through the mists of time, I felt that I had been the better for having learned the lessons, and none the worse for having long since forgotten them. In those days Soracte had been a noun standing in mysterious relations to a verb unknown; but now it was evident that it was a mountain. There it stood under the clear Italian sky just as it had been in the days of Virgil and Horace. Thoughts of Horace and of the old professor mingled pleasantly so long as the mountain was in sight.
It may seem to some timid souls that this praise of Ignorance may have a sinister motive, and may be intended to deter from the pursuit of knowledge. On the contrary, it is intended to encourage those who are "faint yet pursuing."
It must have occurred to every serious person that the pursuit of knowledge is not what it once was. Time was when to know seemed the easiest thing in the world. All that a man had to do was to assert dogmatically that a thing was so,and then argue it out with some one who had even less acquaintance with the subject than he had. He was not hampered by a rigid, scientific method, nor did he need to make experiments, which after all might not strengthen his position. The chief thing was a certain tenacity of opinion which would enable him, in Pope's phrase, to "hold the eel of science by the tail." There were no troublesome experts to cast discredit on this slippery sport. If a man had a knack at metaphysics and a fine flow of technical language he could satisfy all reasonable curiosity about the Universe. Or with the minimum of effort he might attain a jovial scholarship adequate for all convivial purposes, like Chaucer's pilgrim
It was the golden age of the amateur, when certainty could be had for the asking, and one could stake out any part of the wide domain of human interest and hold it by the right of squatter sovereignty. But in these days the man who aspires to know must do something more than assert his conviction. He must submit to all sorts of mortifying tests, and at best he can obtaina title to only the tiniest bit of the field he covets.
With the severer definitions of knowledge and the delimitation of the territory which any one may call his own there has come a curious result. While the aggregate of intellectual wealth has increased, the individual workers are being reduced to penury. It is a pathetic illustration of Progress and Poverty. The old and highly respected class of gentlemen and scholars is being depleted. Scholarship has become so difficult that those who aspire after it have little time for the amenities. It is not as it was in the "spacious times of great Elizabeth." Enter any company of modern scholars and ask what they know about any large subject, and you will find that each one hastens to take the poor debtor's oath. How can they be expected to know so much?
On this minute division of intellectual labor the exact sciences thrive, but conversation, poetry, art, and all that belongs to the humanities languish.
Your man of highly specialized intelligence has often a morbid fear of half-knowledge, and he does not dare to express an opinion that hasnot been the result of original research. He shuns the innocent questioners who would draw him out, as if they were so many dunning creditors. He becomes a veritable Dick Swiveller as one conversational thoroughfare after another is closed against him, until he no longer ventures abroad. The worst of it is that he has a haunting apprehension that even the bit of knowledge which he calls his own may be taken away from him by some new discovery, and he may be cast adrift upon the Unknowable.
It is then that he should remember the wisdom of the unjust steward, so that when he is cast out of the House of Knowledge he may find congenial friends in the habitations of Ignorance.
There are a great many mental activities that stop short of strict knowledge. Where we do not know, we may imagine, and hope, and dare; we may laugh at our neighbor's mistakes, and occasionally at our own. We may enjoy the delicious moments of suspense when we are on the verge of finding out; and if it should happen that the discovery is postponed, then we have a chance to go over the delightful process again.
To say "I do not know" is not nearly aspainful as it seems to those who have not tried it. The active mind, when the conceit of absolute knowledge has been destroyed, quickly recovers itself and cries out, after the manner of Brer Rabbit when Brer Fox threw him into the brier patch, "Bred en bawn in a brier patch, Brer Fox—bred en bawn in a brier patch!"
That History should be Readable
THAT was a clever device which a writer of "mere literature" hit upon when he boldly dedicated his book to a man of prodigious learning. "Who so guarded," he says, "can suspect his safety even when he travels through the Enemy's Country, for such is the vast field of Learning, where the Learned (though not numerous enough to be an Army) lie in small Parties, maliciously in Ambush, to destroy all New Men who look into their Quarters."
It is doubtful, however, whether in these days a lover of Ignorance—or, if you prefer, an ignorant lover of good things—could be safe in the enemy's country, even under the protection ofsuch a Mr. Great Heart. It is no longer true that the Learned are not numerous enough to be an army and are content with guerrilla warfare; on the contrary, they have increased to multitudes, and their well-disciplined forces hold all the strategic points. As for those who love to read and consider, rather than to enter into minute researches, it is as in the days of Shamgar, the son of Anoth, when "the highways were unoccupied and the people walked through byways."
There is one field, however, that the Gentle Reader will not give up without a struggle—it is that of history. He claims that it belongs to Literature as much as to Science. History and Story are variations of the same word, and the historian who is master of his art must be a story-teller. Clio was not a school-mistress, but a Muse, and the papyrus roll in her hand does not contain mere dates and statistics, it is filled with the record of heroic adventures. The primitive form of history was verbal tradition, as one generation told the story of the past to the generation that followed.
"There was a great advantage in that method,"says the Gentle Reader, "the irrelevant details dropped out. It is only the memorable things that can be remembered. What a pleasant invitation that was in the eighty-first psalm to the study of Hebrew History, in order to learn what had happened when Israel went out through the land of Egypt:—
"The Jews had a way of setting their history to music, and bringing in the great events as a glorious refrain, which they never feared repeating too often; perhaps that is one reason why their history has lasted so long."
The Gentle Reader's liking for histories that might be read to the accompaniment of the "pleasant harp and psaltery," and which now and then stir him as with the sound of a trumpet, brings upon him many a severe rebuke. He is told that his favorite writers are frequently inaccurate and one-sided. The true historian, he is informed, is a prodigy of impartiality, who has divested himself of all human passions, in orderthat he may set down in exact sequence the course of events. The Gentle Reader turns to these highly praised volumes and finds himself adrift, without human companionship, on a bottomless sea of erudition,—writings, writings everywhere and not a page to read! Returning from this perilous excursion, he ever after adheres to his original predilection for histories that are readable.
He is of the opinion that a history must be essentially a work of the imagination. This does not mean that it must not be true, but it means that the important truth about any former generation can only be reproduced through the imagination. The important thing is that these people were once alive. No critical study of their meagre memorials can make us enter into their joys, their griefs, and their fears. The memorials only suggest to the historic imagination what the reality must have been.
Peter Bell could recognize a fact when he saw it:—
As long as the primrose was there, he could be trusted to describe it accurately enough. But set Peter Bell the task of describing last year's primrose. "There aren't any last year's primroses on the river's brim," says Peter, "so you must be content with a description of the one in my herbarium. Last year's primroses, you will observe, are very much flattened out." To Mr. Peter Bell, after he has spent many years in the universities, a document is a document, and it is nothing more. When he has compared a great many documents, and put them together in a mechanical way, he calls his work a history. That's where he differs from the Gentle Reader who calls it only the crude material out of which a man of genius may possibly make a history.
To the Gentle Reader it is a profoundly interesting reflection that since this planet has been inhabited people have been fighting, and working, and loving, and hating, with an intensity born of the conviction that, if they went at it hard enough, they could finish the whole business in one generation. He likes to get back into any one of these generations just "to get the feel of it." He does not care so much forthe final summing up of the process, as to see it in the making. Any one who can give him that experience is his friend.
He is interested in the stirring times of the English Revolution, and goes to the historical expert to find what it was all about. The historical expert starts with the Magna Charta and makes a preliminary survey. Then he begins his march down the centuries, intrenching every position lest he be caught unawares by the critics. His intellectual forces lack mobility, as they must wait for their baggage trains. At last he comes to the time of the Stuarts, and there is much talk of the royal prerogative, and ship money, and attainders, and acts of Parliament. There are exhaustive arguments, now on the one side and now on the other, which exactly balance one another. There are references to bulky volumes, where at the foot of every page the notes run along, like little angry dogs barking at the text.
The Gentle Reader calls out: "I have had enough of this. What I want to know is what it's all about, and which side, on the whole, has the right of it. Which side are you on? Are youa Roundhead or a Cavalier? Are your sympathies with the Whigs or the Tories?"
"Sympathies!" says the expert. "Who ever heard of a historian allowing himself to sympathize? I have no opinions of my own to present. My great aim is not to prejudice the mind of the student."
"Nonsense," says the Gentle Reader; "I am not a student, nor is this a school-room. It's all in confidence; speak out as one gentleman to another under a friendly roof! What do you think about it? No matter if you make a mistake or two, I'll forget most that you say, anyway. All that I care for is to get the gist of the matter. As for your fear of warping my mind, there's not the least danger in the world. My mind is like a tough bit of hickory; it will fly back into its original shape the moment you let go. I have a hundred prejudices of my own,—one more won't hurt me. I want to know what it was that set the people by the ears. Why did they cut off the head of Charles I., and why did they drive out James II.? I can't help thinking that there must have been something more exciting than those discussions of yours about constitutionaltheories. Do you know, I sometimes doubt whether most of the people who went to the wars knew that there was such a thing as the English Constitution; the subject hadn't been written up then. I suspect that something happened that was not set down in your book; something that made those people fighting mad."
Then the Gentle Reader turns to his old and much criticised friend Macaulay, and asks,—
"What do you think about it?"
"Think about it!" says Macaulay. "I'll tell you what I think about it. To begin with, that Charles I., though good enough as a family man, was a consummate liar."
"That's the first light I've had on the subject," says the Gentle Reader. "Charles lied, and that made the people mad?"
"Precisely! I perceive that you have the historic sense. We English can't abide a liar; so at last when we could not trust the king's word we chopped off his head. Mind you, I'm not defending the regicides, but between ourselves I don't mind saying that I think it served him right. At any rate our blood was up, and there was no stopping us. I wish I had time to tellyou all about Hampden, and Pym, and Cromwell, but I must go on to the glorious year 1688, and tell you how it all came about, and how we sent that despicable dotard, James, flying across the Channel, and how we brought in the good and wise King William, and how the great line of Whig statesmen began. I take for granted—as you appear to be a sensible man—that you are a Whig?"
"I'm open to conviction," says the Gentle Reader.
In a little while he is in the very thick of it. He is an Englishman of the seventeenth century. He has taken sides and means to fight it out. He knows how to vote on every important question that comes before Parliament. No Jacobite sophistry can beguile him. When William lands he throws up his hat, and after that he stands by him, thick or thin. When you tell him that he ought to be more dispassionate in his historical judgments, he answers: "That would be all very well if we were not dealing with living issues,—but with Ireland in an uproar and the Papists ready to swarm over from France, there is a call for decision. A man must know his own mind.You may stand off and criticise William's policy; but the question is, What policy do you propose? You say that I have not exhausted the subject, and that there are other points of view. Very likely. Show me another point of view, only make it as clear to me as Macaulay makes his. Let it be a real view, and not a smudge. Some other day I may look at it, but I must take one thing at a time. What I object to is the historian who takes both sides in the same paragraph. That is what I call offensive bi-partisanship."