“Old Humphrey,” in speaking of a painter who over-coloured his pictures, was wont to express the defect by saying, “Too much red in the brush.” It would be well for the Hyperbolist to have some friend at his elbow, when he over-colours things, to say, “Too much red in the brush.”
XV.
THE INQUISITIVE
“The Inquisitive will blab: from such refrain;
Their leaky ears no secret can retain.”
– Horace.
The Inquisitive is a talker whose capacity is for taking rather than giving. To ask questions is his province, and not to give answers. He is more anxious to know than he is to make known. Though in some instances he may have the ability to speak good sense, yet he cannot or will not exercise himself in so doing. He must pry into other people’s stock of knowledge, and find out all that he can for his satisfaction. If he come to anything which is labelled “Private,” he is sure to be the more curious to ascertain what is within. He is restless and dissatisfied until he knows. He pauses – he resumes his interrogations – he circumlocutes – he apologizes, it may be, but make the discovery he will if possible. His inquisitiveness is mostly in regard to matters of comparatively minor importance in themselves, but which, at the same time, you do not care for him to know. Your pedigree – your relations – your antecedents – your reasons for leaving your former occupation – your prospects in life – your income – your wife’s maiden name and origin – with a hundred similar things.
His inquisitiveness often turns into impertinence and impudence, which one does well to resent with indignancy; or, if not, to answer him according to his folly.
The two or three following instances will illustrate this talker: —
A gentleman with a wooden leg, travelling in a stage-coach, was annoyed by questions relative to himself and his business proposed by his fellow-passengers. One of them inquired how he came to lose his leg. “I will tell you,” he replied, “on condition that you all ask me no other question.” To this there was no objection, and the promise was given. “As to the loss of my leg,” said he, “it was bit off!” There was a pause. No more questions were to be asked; but one of the party, unable to contain himself, exclaimed, “But I should like to know how it was bit off.” This is an old story, but here is one of a similar kind, of a more recent date. It occurred in San Francisco, where a genuine Yankee, having bored a new comer with every conceivable question relative to his object in visiting the gold country, his hopes, his means, and his prospects, at length asked him if he had a family.
“Yes, sir; I have a wife and six children in New York; and I never saw one of them.”
After this reply the couple sat a few moments in silence; then the interrogator again commenced, —
“Was you ever blind, sir?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you marry a widow, sir?”
“No, sir.”
Another lapse of silence.
“Did I understand you to say, sir, that you had a wife and six children living in New York, and had never seen one of them?”
“Yes, sir; I so stated it.”
Another and a longer pause of silence. Then the interrogator again inquired, —
“How can it be, sir, that you never saw one of them?”
“Why,” was the response, “one of them was born after I left.”
A gentleman in America, riding in an eastern railroad car, which was rather sparsely supplied with passengers, observed, in a seat before him, a lean, slab-sided Yankee; every feature of his face seemed to ask a question, and a little circumstance soon proved that he possessed a more “inquiring mind.” Before him, occupying an entire seat, sat a lady dressed in deep black, and after shifting his position several times, and manœuvring to get an opportunity to look into her face, he at length caught her eye.
“In affliction?”
“Yes, sir,” responded the lady.
“Parent? – father or mother?”
“No, sir.”
“Child, perhaps? – a boy or a girl?”
“No, sir, not a child; I have no children.”
“Husband, then, I expect?”
“Yes,” was the curt answer.
“Hum! cholery? A tradin’ man may be?”
“My husband was a seafaring man, the captain of a vessel; he didn’t die of cholera; he was drowned.”
“O, drowned, eh?” pursued the inquisitor, hesitating for a brief instant. “Save his chist?”
“Yes; the vessel was saved, and my husband’s effects,” said the widow.
“Was they?” asked the Yankee, his eyes brightening up. “Pious man?”
“He was a member of the Methodist Church.”
The next question was a little delayed, but it came.
“Don’t you think that you have great cause to be thankful that he was a pious man, and saved his chist?”
“I do,” said the widow abruptly, and turned her head to look out of the window.
The indefatigable “pump” changed his position, held the widow by his glittering eye once more, and propounded one more query, in a lower tone, with his head slightly inclined forward, over the back of the seat, —
“Was you calculating to get married again?”
“Sir,” said the widow, indignantly, “you are impertinent!” And she left her seat and took another on the other side of the car.
“’Pears to be a little huffy?” said the ineffable bore. Turning to our narrator behind him, “What did they make you pay for that umbrella you’ve got in your hand?”
A person more remarkable for inquisitiveness than good-breeding – one of those who, devoid of delicacy and reckless of rebuff, pry into everything – took the liberty to question Alexander Dumas rather closely concerning his genealogical tree.
“You are a quadroon, Mr. Dumas?” he began.
“I am, sir,” replied M. Dumas, who had seen enough not to be ashamed of a descent he could not conceal.
“And your father?”
“Was a mulatto.”
“And your grandfather?”
“A negro,” hastily answered the dramatist, whose patience was waning.
“And may I inquire what your great-grandfather was?”
“An ape, sir,” thundered Dumas, with a fierceness that made his impertinent interrogator shrink into the smallest possible compass. “An ape, sir; my pedigree commences where yours terminates.”
“Where have you been, Helen?” asked Caroline Swift of her sister, as Helen, with a package in one hand and some letters in the other, entered the parlour one severe winter’s day.
Caroline had been seated near the fire, sewing; but as her sister came in with the package, up the little girl sprang; and, allowing cotton, thimble, and work to find whatever resting-place they could, she hurried across the room; and, without so much as “By your leave, sister,” she caught hold of the letters and commenced asking questions as fast as her nimble tongue could move.
“Which question shall I answer first?” asked Helen, good-humouredly, trying, as she spoke, to slip a letter out of sight.
“Tell me whose letter you are trying to hide there,” cried Caroline, making an effort to thrust her hand into her sister’s pocket.
Helen held the pocket close, saying gravely, “Suppose I should tell you that this letter concerns no one but myself, and that I prefer not to name the writer?”
“Oh dear! some mighty mystery, no doubt. I didn’t suppose there was any harm in asking you a question.”
Caroline’s look and tone plainly indicated displeasure.
“There is harm, Caroline, in trying to pry into anything that you see that another person wishes to keep to herself; for it shows a meddling disposition, and is a breach of the command to do as you would be done by.”
“You’re breaking that command yourself,” retorted Caroline, “for you won’t let me see what I want to see.”
“God’s commands do not require us to forget our own rights. I am not bound to do to you what you have no right to require of me. We have all a perfect right to request of each other whatever is perfectly conducive to our welfare and happiness, provided it does not improperly infringe upon that of the person of whom the request is made. You trespass upon my rights when you attempt to pry into my private affairs.”
“Mercy, Helen! don’t preach any more. I guess I’m not the only meddlesome person in the world. One half the people I know need nothing more to make them take all possible pains to learn about a thing than to know the person whom it concerns wishes it kept secret. But where have you been, pray? and what have you in that bundle?” and Caroline tore off the paper cover from the package which Helen had laid upon the table.
“Caroline,” said the mother of the two young girls, “why do you not wait to see whether your sister is willing for you to open her package? From your tone, my dear, one would judge that you were appointed to cross-question Helen, and had a right to be angry if she declined explaining all her motives and intentions to you.”
“For pity’s sake! mother, haven’t I a right to ask my sister all the questions I please? I tell her everything I do, and I think she might show the same confidence in me.”
“You have a right, my daughter, to ask any proper question of any one; but it is unmannerly to ask too particularly about things that do not concern you; or to speak at all respecting a thing which you see that another desires should pass unobserved. It shows a small and vulgar mind to seek to pry into the affairs of another, unless there be some great necessity for doing so. Never press a matter where there is a disposition to be reserved upon the subject. Be refined, my child; remember that courtesy is as much a command of the Bible as is honesty. I have often heard you, my thoughtless Carrie, mention impatiently the annoying habits of one who is often here. You have said in great anger that no one of the family could have a new shoe, or a neck ribbon, or could go across the street twice, without being questioned and cross-questioned by that young lady, until she became possessed of all the particulars concerning the purchase or the walk. It is not well to be violent in condemning one’s neighbour, my children; but it is not wrong to take notice enough of their faults to determine to shun them in our own conduct, and also to try, if a proper season offers, to help them to amend. I never wish to hear you speak again so harshly of the person to whom I refer; but I very earnestly desire that you should begin in season to check habits which, if suffered to go on, will render you just as far from a favourite with your friends as she, poor orphan girl, is with hers. She had no one to point out to her her faults and her dangers; therefore the condemnation will be nothing to compare with yours, if you forget that the spirit of the golden rule, which is the true spirit of Christianity, requires attention just as close and constant to all the little hardly noticed habits of heart and life as to those of the more marked and noticeable: —
‘’Tis in these little things we all can do and say,
Love showeth best its gentle charity.’”
Boldness and impudence are the twin features in the inquisitive talker. Were these counterbalanced by education in the ordinary civilities of life, he would be more worthy a place in the company of those whom now he annoys with his rude and impertinent interrogatories. Few men care to have the secrets of their minds discovered by the probing questions of an intruder. The prudent man has many things, it may be, in his mind, in his family, in his business, which are sacred to him, and to attempt an acquaintance with them by stealth is what no one will do but he who is devoid of good manners, or, if he ever had any, has shamefully forgotten them. There are proper times and places in conversation for questions; but even then they should be put with discretion and frankness. A man should have common sense and civility enough to teach him when and what questions to ask, and how far to go in his questions, so that he may not seem to meddle with matters which do not concern him.
XVI.
THE PEDANT
“Pedantry, in the common acceptation of the word, means an absurd ostentation of learning, and stiffness of phraseology, proceeding from a misguided knowledge of books, and a total ignorance of men.”
– Mackenzie.
The Pedant is a talker who makes an ostentatious display of his knowledge. His endeavour is to show those within his hearing that he is a man of study and wisdom. He generally aims higher than he can reach, and makes louder pretensions than his acquirements will justify. He may have gone as far as the articles in English Grammar, and attempts to observe in his speech every rule of syntax, of which he is utterly ignorant; or he may have learned as far as “hoc – hac – hoc” in Latin, and affect an acquaintance with Horace, by shameful quotations. He may have reached as far as the multiplication table in arithmetic, and try to solve the problems of Euclid as though he had them at his finger-ends. If he has read the “Child’s Astronomy,” he will walk with you through the starry heavens and the university of worlds, with as much confidence as though he was a Ross or a Herschel. He labours at the sublime and brings forth the ridiculous. He is a giant according to his own rule of measurement, but a pigmy according to that of other people. He thinks that he makes a deep impression upon the company as to his literary attainments; but the fact is, the impression is made that he knows nothing as he ought to know. He may, perchance, with the lowest of the illiterate, be heard as an oracle, and looked up to as a Solon; but the moment he rises into higher circles he loses caste, and falls down into a rank below that with which he would have stood associated had he not elevated himself on the pedestal of his own folly. He is viewed with disgust in his fall; and becomes the object of ridicule for the display of his contemptible weakness. His silence would have saved him, or an attempt commensurate with his abilities; but his preposterous allusions to subjects of which he proved himself utterly ignorant effected his ruin.
The Spectator, in No. 105, gives an illustration of a pedant in Will Honeycomb. “Will ingenuously confesses that for half his life his head ached every morning with reading of men over-night; and at present comforts himself under certain pains which he endures from time to time, that without them he could not have been acquainted with the gallantries of the age. This Will looks upon as the learning of a gentleman, and regards all other kinds of science as the accomplishments of one whom he calls a scholar, a bookish man, or a philosopher.
“He was last week producing two or three letters which he wrote in his youth to a lady. The raillery of them was natural and well enough for a mere man of the town; but, very unluckily, several of the words were wrongly spelt. Will laughed this off at first as well as he could; but finding himself pushed on all sides, and especially by the Templar, he told us, with a little passion, that he never liked pedantry in spelling, and that he spelt like a gentleman, and not like a scholar. Upon this Will had recourse to his old topic of showing the narrow-spiritedness, the pride, and arrogance of pedants; which he carried so far, that upon my retiring to my lodgings, I could not forbear throwing together such reflections as occurred to me upon the subject.
“A man who has been brought up among books, and is able to talk of nothing else, is a very indifferent companion, and what we call a pedant. But methinks we should enlarge the title, and give it to every one that does not know how to think out of his profession and particular way of life.
“What is a greater pedant than a mere man of the town? How many a pretty gentleman’s knowledge lies all within the verge of the court? He will tell you the names of the principal favourites; repeat the shrewd sayings of a man of quality; whisper an intrigue that is not yet blown upon by common fame; or, if the sphere of his observations is a little larger than ordinary, will perhaps enter into all the incidents, turns, and resolutions, in a game of ombre. When he has gone thus far, he has shown you the whole circle of his accomplishments; his parts are drained, and he is disabled from any further conversation. What are these but rank pedants? and yet these are the men who value themselves most on their exemption from the pedantry of the colleges.
“I might here mention the military pedant, who always talks in a camp, and is storming towns, making lodgments, and fighting battles from one end of the year to the other. Everything he speaks smells of gunpowder; if you take away his artillery from him, he has not a word to say for himself. I might likewise mention the law pedant, that is perpetually putting cases, repeating the transactions of Westminster Hall, wrangling with you upon the most indifferent circumstances of life, and not to be convinced of the distance of a place, or of the most trivial point in conversation, but by dint of argument. The state pedant is wrapped up in news, and lost in politics. If you mention either of the kings of Spain or Poland, he talks very notably; but if you go out of the Gazette, you drop him. In short, a mere courtier, a mere soldier, a mere scholar, a mere anything, is an insipid pedantic character, and equally ridiculous.
“Of all the species of pedants which I have mentioned, the book pedant is much the most supportable; he has at least an exercised understanding, a head which is full, though confused – so that a man who converses with him may often receive from him hints of things that are worth knowing, and what he may possibly turn to his own advantage, though they are of little use to the owner. The worst kind of pedants among learned men are such as are naturally endued with a very small share of common sense, and have read a great number of books without taste or distinction.
“The truth of it is, learning, like travelling, and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable, by supplying variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities.
“Shallow pedants cry up one another much more than men of solid and useful learning. To read the titles they give an editor or a collator of a manuscript, you would take him for the glory of the commonwealth of letters, and the wonder of his age; when perhaps upon examination you find that he has only rectified a Greek particle, or laid out a whole sentence in proper commas.
“They are obliged to be thus lavish of their praises that they may keep one another in countenance; and it is no wonder if a great deal of knowledge, which is not capable of making a man wise, has a natural tendency to make him vain and arrogant.”
Arthur Bell was a young man of excellent qualities; and generally respected by all who knew him. He had received his education, which was of a superior order, at one of the Oxford colleges. Nevertheless, he was modest and unassuming; shunning any display of his learning, excepting under circumstances which justified him from vanity and self-importance. Sidney Rose was a young man of the same village as Arthur, but of different origin and training. In early boyhood they were often playmates together; and the acquaintance thus formed continued more or less up to manhood. Sidney was of another spirit to Arthur, naturally high-minded, blustering, and self-conceited. His education was only such as he had received in a country classical academy, and in this he had not succeeded to the extent his pretensions led one to suppose.
Arthur and Sidney once met in an evening party at the house of Mr. Grindell. The company consisted mostly of young ladies and young gentlemen. During the conversation of the evening, in which Sidney took a prominent part, he made an attempt to quote the following line from Ovid, with no other intention than to exhibit his learning: —
“Dulcia non ferimus; succo renovamur amaro,”
in which he made the most glaring blunders.
“Dulcam non farimas, succor amarum reno,”
he said, with the most ostentatious air and bombastic confidence. Two or three of the company could not refrain from laughing at his airs, not to say his blunders.
“What are you laughing at?” inquired Sidney, in his independent tone, and as though he was highly insulted.
“I beg your pardon, Sidney, but I think they were smiling at a mistake or two which you have made in that Latin quotation,” said Arthur, quietly.
“Mistake, indeed! I have made no mistake,” said Sidney, in an angry tone.
“I think you have,” observed Arthur, modestly.
“Show me, then, if you can. I guess that is out of your power,” said Sidney, more excited.
“Don’t be excited, my friend,” said Arthur; “I think I can give the line correctly.”
Arthur quoted the line as it occurs in the book. The difference appeared to Sidney; but he would make no acknowledgment. Nor would he give up the exhibition of his academic learning. He thought he would be a match for Arthur and the young gentlemen who seemed to ridicule what he knew they could not mend, so he made another attempt.
“Which of you,” he inquired, “can tell me in what part of Horace the following line occurs: —
‘Amor improbe non quid pectora mortalia cogis’?”
A faint smile passed over the countenance of Arthur, while Bonner, an educated young collegian, could not restrain his risible powers, and broke out in a loud laugh, at the expense of his good manners.
“What’s that Bonner laughing at?” asked Sidney, in a manner which betrayed his indignation and chagrin.
“It strikes me,” said Skinner, “that that line is very much corrupted in its quotation. It does not seem to be such Latin as is found in the classics, even from what I know of them.”
“And with all my study of Horace,” observed Judson, “I never met with the line in him, even if it was given correctly. And then I think, with Skinner, that it is not correctly quoted. What do you think, Arthur?”
“Of course it is not in Horace,” replied Arthur; “nor is it correctly quoted. If Sidney has no objection, I will give the correct words from the right author.”
Sidney was sullenly silent.
“In Virgil’s ‘Æneid,’ Book iv., line 412,” said Arthur, “the words of which Sidney intends his to be a quotation may be found. They are as follows: —
‘Improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis.’”
“You are quite right, Arthur,” said Bonner.
Here the subject ended. A short time after, during the evening, Sidney was observed holding conversation with Miss Boast, a young lady of some pretensions, but of no more than ordinary education. Sidney seemed to be much at home with her in conversation. She gave a willing ear to all his pedantic talk; and he used the opportunity much to his own gratification. He was repeating to Miss Boast a list of his studies in the classics, mathematics, history, geology, astronomy, etc., when Arthur walked into that part of the room where they were sitting. He saw that Sidney was recovered from his temper shown in the former conversation, and had subsided into his own natural element, and was pouring into the credulous ear of the young lady his pedantic effusions.
“Are you at all acquainted with Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’?” inquired Sidney of Miss Boast.
“I have read a little of it, but it is not my favourite book,” she replied.
“But it is an admirable book,” said Sidney; “I have read it again and again. Why, I know it almost line by line. It is a grand poem, of course of the tragic style, full of strong sentiment and bold figure. Milton, you know, wrote that poem in German. The translation into English is a good one – incomparably good. I forget who the translator was. Do you not remember those exquisitely fine lines which run thus, —
‘Ah, mighty Love – ’
Why, now, it is strange I should forget them. Let me see (with his hand to his forehead). Now I have them,
‘Ah, mighty Love, that it were inward heat
Which made this precious limbeck sweet!
But what, alas! ah, what does it avail!’
I need not repeat any more. This will give you an idea of the style and sentiment of that wonderful poem.”
“It is certainly very fine,” said the young lady, innocently. “Did you not hear those beautiful lines, Arthur, which Sidney has just quoted from Milton?” asked Miss Boast.
“Yes, I heard them.”
“Are they not fine?” said Sidney to Arthur.
He evaded an answer.
“Are you sure that the quotation is from Milton?” inquired Mr. Smith, who was listening to the conversation.
“Certainly,” said Sidney.
“Are they, Arthur?” asked Smith, who had his suspicions, and apprehended another display of Sidney’s pedantry, and was determined if possible to put a check on his folly.
“If you require me to be candid in my answer,” said Arthur, quietly, “I do not think that they do belong to Milton at all.”
“Whose are they, then?” asked Sidney, rather petulantly.
“They are Cowley’s, to be found in vol. i., p. 132, of his works.”
“I never knew that Milton’s poem was tragedy, and that he wrote it in German until now,” observed Mr. Smith, ironically.
“Who said he did?” asked Arthur.
“Sidney.”
“That is new historical fact, if fact it be,” said Arthur. “I always thought he wrote it in English, and that the poem was of the epic order.”
“I always thought so too,” said Smith.
Sidney sat confounded, but not conquered in his fault. He would not admit his error, nor would he cease his pedantic exhibitions. He gave two or three more displays before the party separated, and with similar results. Enough, however, has been given here to show the excessive folly of this habit, and the just ridicule to which it is exposed.
“What a pity that Sidney makes such preposterous pretensions to learning in his conversation,” said Smith the next day to Arthur.
“It certainly is,” answered Arthur; “but he is generally so when in the company of any he thinks educated. He aims at equality with them, and even to rise above them, with his comparatively limited acquirements. He rarely, or ever, attains his end. His folly almost invariably meets with an exposure in one way or another. I have met with him on several occasions previous to last night, and he was the same on every one.”
“It is to be hoped he will grow wiser as he grows older,” said Smith.
“I hope so,” said Arthur. “If he do not, he will always be contemptible in the eyes of the wise and learned; and they will do their utmost to shun his society and keep him out of their reach. Were his professions of learning to accord with his real abilities there would be no objection – nothing unseemly; but he aims at that which he has little competency to reach, and so makes himself ludicrous in his attempts. And then he does it withal in such self-confidence and ostentation as is perfectly revolting to good taste. As his friend, I feel very much for him, and wish he may get a knowledge of his real acquirements, and make no display of his learning beyond what he can honourably sustain, and in which he will be justified by wisdom and propriety. In this way he might obtain a position in which he would receive the respect of society according to the real merits of which he gave obvious proof.”
“Those are exactly my views,” said Smith, “and I wish they were the views of Sidney too.”