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ticulars whereof a character is composed are better assembled by force of imagination than of judgment, which, although it perceive coherencies, cannot summon up materials, nor melt them into a compound with that felicity which belongs to imagination alone. "Shakspeare. My lord, thus far I know, that the first glimpse and conception of a character in my mind is always engendered by chance and accident. We shall suppose, for instance, that I am sitting in a tap-room, or standing in a tennis-court. The behavior of some one fixes my attention. I note his dress, the sound of his voice, the turn of his countenance, the drinks he calls for, his questions and retorts, the fashion of his person, and in brief, the whole outgoings and in-comings of the man. These grounds of speculation being cherished and revolved in my fancy, it becomes straightway possessed with a swarm of conclusions and beliefs concerning the individual. In walking home, I picture out to myself what would be fitting for him to say or do upon any given occasion, and these fantasies being recalled at some after period, when I am writing a play, shape themselves into divers manikins, who are not long of being nursed into life. Thus comes forth Shallow and Slender, and Mercutio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

"Bacon. In truth, Mr. Shakspeare, you have observed the world so well, and so widely, that I can scarce believe you ever shut your eyes. I too, although much engrossed with other studies, am, in part, an observer of mankind. Their dispositions, and the causes of their good or bad fortune, cannot well be overlooked even by the most devoted questioner of physical nature. But note the difference of habitude. No sooner have I observed and got hold

of particulars, than they are taken up by my judgment to be commented upon, and resolved into general laws. Your imagination keeps them to make pictures of. My judgment, if she find them to be comprehended under something already known by her, lets them drop and forgets them; for which reason a certain book of essays, which I am writing, will be small in bulk, but I trust, not light in substance. Thus do men severally follow their inborn dispositions.

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Shakspeare. Every word of your lordship's will be an adage to after times. For my part, I know my own place, and aspire not after the abstruser studies: although I can give wisdom a welcome when she comes in my way. But the inborn dispositions, as your lordship has said, must not be warped from their natural bent, otherwise nothing but sterility will remain behind. A leg cannot be changed into an arm. Among stage-players, our first object is to exercise a new candidate until we discover where his vein lies."

In this mixture of observation and experiment, original information has its source. But the conventionalisms of society repress its manifestation. Jeffrey, in one of those passages marked by more than his ordinary good sense, has depicted its influence on young men:

"In a refined and literary community," says he, "so many critics are to be satisfied, so many rivals to be encountered, and so much derision to be hazarded, that a young man is apt to be deterred from so perilous an enterprise, and led to seek distinction in some safer line of exertion. His originality is repressed, till he sinks into a paltry copyist, or aims at distinc

tion by extravagance and affectation. In such a state of society he feels that mediocrity has no chance of distinction; and what beginner can expect to rise at once into excellence? He imagines that mere good sense will attract no attention, and that the manner is of much more importance than the matter, in a candidate for public admiration. In his attention to the manner, the matter is apt to be neglected; and in his solicitude to please those who require elegance of diction, brilliancy of wit, or harmony of periods, he is in some danger of forgetting that strength of reason and accuracy of observation by which he first proposed to recommend himself. His attention, when extended to so many collateral objects, is no longer vigorous or collected; the stream, divided into so many channels, ceases to flow either deep or strong; he becomes an unsuccessful pretender to fine writing, and is satisfied with the frivolous praise of elegance or vivacity."

The Rev. Sidney Smith left on record his opinion of the influence of conventionality's cold decorum: "The great object of modern sermons is to hazard nothing;* their characteristic is decent debility, which alike guards their authors from ludicrous errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. Every man of sense, in taking up an English sermon, expects to find it a tedious essay, full of commonplace morality, and if the fulfillment of such expectations be meritorious, the clergy have certainly the merit of not disappointing their readers."

Emerson, above all men, has written the philosophy of Originality: "Insist on yourself," says he, "never imitate. Your own gift you can present every mo*See Note E, page 172.

ment, with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion, is to speak and write sincerely. Take Sidney's maxim: Look in thy heart and write.' He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public."

CHAPTER VIII.

HEROISM.

WHAT has Heroism to do with Rhetoric? the reader will ask. Much. Courage in one thing, as we are told, does not mean courage in everything. A man who will face a bullet will not therefore face an audience. Heroism is the originality of action.

A cool, easy confidence is the source of daring. "Trust yourself; every heart vibrates to that iron string."* In one of those papers, rare in "Cham-⚫ bers's Journal," it is remarked: "There must, at all but extraordinary times, be a vast amount of latent capability in society. Gray's musings on the Cromwells and Miltons of the village are a truth, though extremely stated. Men of all conditions do grow and die in obscurity, who, in suitable circumstances, might have attained to the temple which shines afar. The hearts of Roman mothers beat an unnoted lifetime in dim parlors. Souls of fire miss their hour, and languish into ashes. Is not this conformable to what all

* Emerson.

men feel in their own case? Who is there that has not thought, over and over again, what else he could have done, what else he could have been? Vanity, indeed, may fool us here, and self-tenderness be too ready to look upon the misspending of years as any thing but our own fault. Let us look then to each other. Does almost any one that we know appear to do or be all that he might? How far from it! Regard for a moment the manner in which a vast proportion of those who, from independency of fortune, and from education, are able to do most good in the world, spend their time, and say if there be not an immense proportion of the capability of mankind undeveloped.* The fact is, the bond of union among men is also the bond of restraint. We are committed not to alarm or distress each other by extraordinary displays of intellect or emotion. Many struggle for a while against the repressive influences, but at length yield to the powerful temptations to nonentity. The social despotism presents the fetes with which it seeks to solace and beguile its victims; and he who began to put on his armor for the righting of many wrongs, is soon content to smile with those who smile. Thus daily do generations rise and fall, life unenjoyed, the great mission unperformed. What a subject for tears in the multitude of young souls who come in the first faith of nature to grapple at the good, the true, the beautiful, but are thrown back, helpless and mute, into the limbo of Commonplace. O Conventionality, quiet may be thy fireside hours, smooth thy pillowed thoughts, but at what a sacrifice of the right and the generous, of the best that breathes and pants in our nature, is thy peace purchased !"

*See Note F page 173.

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