The Recreations of a Country Parson

by Andrew Kennedy Hutchison Boyd

Shall we go to her? No! Let her weep on. Leave her, &c. Oh, woman! God beloved in old Jerusalem! We need deal lightly with thy faults, if only for the agony thy nature will endure, in bearing heavy evidence against us on the day of judgment!

Now, my friend, have you read Mr. Dickens' story of Martin Chuzzlewit? Turn up the twenty-eighth chapter of that work, and in the closing sentence you may read as follows:—

Oh woman, God-beloved in old Jerusalem! The best among us need deal lightly with thy faults, if only for the punishment thy nature will endure, in bearing heavy evidence against us on the Day of Judgment!

I wonder whether the writer of the discourse imagined that by varying one or two words, and adopting small letters instead of capitals in alluding to the Last Day, he made this sentence so entirely his own as to justify him in bagging it without one hint that it was a quotation. As for the value of the property bagged, that is another question.

After thinking for a few minutes of the curious constitution of mind which enables a man to feel his vanity flattered when he gets credit to which he knows he is not entitled, as the plagiarist does, I pass away into the. vast field of thought which is afforded by the contemplation of human vanity in general. The Ettrick Shepherd was wont to say that when he tried a new pen, instead of writing his name, as most people do, he always wrote Solomon's famous sentence, All is vanity. But he did not understand the words in Solomon's sense: what he thought of was the limitless amount of self-conceit which exists in human beings, and which hardly any degree of mortification can (in many cases) cut down to a reasonable quantity. I find it difficult to arrive at any fixed law in regard to human self-conceit. It would be very pleasant if one could conclude that monstrous vanity is confined to tremendous fools; but although the greatest intellectual self-conceit I have ever seen has been in blockheads of the greatest density and ignorance; and although the greatest self-conceit of personal attractions has been in men and women of unutterable silliness; still, it must be admitted that very great and illustrious members of the human race have been remarkable for their vanity. I have met very clever men, as well as very great fools, who would willingly talk of no other matters than themselves, and their own wonderful doings and attainments. I have known men of real ability, who were always anxious to impress you with the fact that they were the best riders, the best shots, the best jumpers, in the world; who were always telling stories of the sharp things they said on trying occasions, and the extraordinary events which were constantly befalling them. When a clever man evinces this weakness, we must remember that human nature is a weak and imperfect thing, and try to excuse the silliness for the sake of the real merit. But there are few things more irritating to witness than a stupid, ignorant dunce, wrapped up in impenetrable conceit of his own abilities and acquirements. It requires all the beauty, and all the listlessness too, of this sweet summer day, to think, without the pulse quickening to an indignant speed, of the half-dozen such persons whom each of us has known. It would soothe and comfort us if we could be assured that the blockhead knew that he was a blockhead: if we could be assured that now and then there penetrated into the dense skull and reached the stolid brain, even the suspicion of what his intellectual calibre really is. I greatly fear that such a suspicion never is known. If you witness the perfect confidence with which the man is ready to express his opinion upon any subject, you will be quite sure that the man has not the faintest notion of what his opinion is worth. I remember a blockhead saying that certain lines of poetry were nonsense. He said that they were unintelligible: that they were rubbish. I suggested that it did not follow that they were unintelligible because he could not understand them. I told him that various competent judges thought them very noble lines indeed. The blockhead stuck to his opinion with the utmost firmness. What was the use of talking to him? If a blind man tells you he does not see the sun, and does not believe there is any sun, you ought to be sorry for him rather than angry with him. And when the blockhead declared that he saw only rubbish in verses which I trust every reader knows, and which begin with the line—

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

his declaration merely showed that he lacked the power to appreciate Mr. Tennyson. But I think, my thoughtful friend, you would have found it hard to pity him when you saw plainly that the poor blockhead despised and pitied you.

The conceit of the stolid dunce is bad, but the conceit of the brisk and lively dunce is worse. The stolid dunce is comparatively quiet; his crass mind works slowly; his vacant face wears an aspect of repose; his talk is merely dull and twaddling. But the talk of the brisk dunce is ambitiously absurd: he lays down broad principles: he announces important discoveries which lie has made: he has heard able and thoughtful men talk, and he tries to do that kind of thing. There is an indescribable jauntiness about him apparent in every word and gesture. As for the stolid dunce, you would be content if the usages of society permitted your telling him that he is a dunce. As for the brisk dunce, you would like to take him by the ears and shake him.

It is wonderful how ordinary, sensjble persons, with nothing brilliant about them, may live daily in a comfortable feeling that they are great geniuses: if they live constantly amid a little circle of even the most incompetent judges, who are always telling them that they are great geniuses. For it is natural to conclude that the opinion of the people whom you commonly see is a fair reflex of the opinion of all the world; and it is wonderful how highly even a very able man will estimate the value of the opinion of even a very stupid man, provided the stupid man entertains and frequently expresses an immensely high opinion of the very able man. I have known a man, holding a somewhat important position for which he was grossly unfit, and for which every one knew he was grossly unfit; yet perfectly self-satisfied and comfortable under circumstances which would have crushed many men, because he was kept up by two or three individuals who frequently assured him that he was a very eminent and useful person. These two or three individuals acted as a buffer between him and the estimate of mankind at large. He received their opinion as a fair sample of the general opinion. He was indeed a man of very moderate ability; but I have known another of very great talent, who by the laudations of one or two old women was led to suppose that he possessed abilities of a totally different nature from those which he actually possessed. I do not mean higher abilities, but abilities extending into a field into which his peculiar talents did not reach. Yet no one would have been sharper at discerning the worthlessness of the judgment of the old women had it been other than very flattering to himself. Who is there that does not know that sometimes clever young men are bolstered up into a self-conceit which does them much harm with the outer world, by the violent admiration and flattery of their mothers, sisters, and aunts at home?

But not merely does the favourable estimate of the. little circle in which he lives serve to keep a man on good terms with himself; it goes some way towards influencing the estimation in which he is held by mankind at large—so far, that is, as mankind at large know anything about him. I have known such a thing as a family whose several members were always informing everybody they met what noble fellows the other members of the family were. And I am persuaded that all this really had some result. They were fine fellows, no doubt; but this tended to make sure that they should not be hid under a bushel. I am persuaded that if half-a-dozen clever young men were to form themselves into a little association, each member of which should be pledged to lose no opportunity of crying up the other five members in conversation, through the press, and in—every other possible way, this would materially further their success in life and the estimation in which they would be held wherever known. The world would take them at the value so constantly dinned into its ear. When you read on a silver coin the legend one shilling, you readily take it for a shilling; and if a man walks about with great genius painted upon him in large red letters, many people will aecept the truth of the inscription. Every one has seen how a knot of able young men hanging together at college and in after life can help one another even in a material sense, and not less valuably by keeping up one another's heart. All this is quite fair, and so is even the mutual praise when it is hearty and sincere. For several months past I have been possessed of an idea which has been gradually growing into shape. I have thought of getting up an association, whose members should always hold by one another, be true to one another, and cry one another up. A friend to whom I mentioned my plan highly approved it, and suggested the happy name of the MUTUAL EXALTATION SOCIETY. The association would be limited in number: not more than fifty members could be admitted. It would include educated men in all walks of life; more particularly men whose success in life depends in any measure upon the estimation in which they are commonly held, as barristers, preachers, authors, and the like. Its purposes and operations have already been indicated with as much fulness as would be judicious at the present juncture. Mr. Barnum and Messrs. Moses and Son would be consulted on the details. Sir John Ellesmere, ex-solicitor-general and author of the Essay on the Arts of Self-Advancement, would be the first president, and the general guide, philosopher, and friend of the Mutual Exaltation Society. The present writer will be secretary. The only remuneration he would expect would be that all the members should undertake, at least six times every day, to make favourable mention of a recently published work. Six times a day would they be expected to say promiscuously to any intelligent friend or stranger, 'Have you read the Recreations of a Country Parson? Most wonderful book! Not read it? Go to Mudie's and get it directly '—and the like. For obvious reasons it would not do to make public the names of the members of the association; the moral weight of their mutual laudation would be much diminished. But clever young men in various parts of the country who may desire to join the society, may make application to the Editor of Eraser's Magazine, enclosing testimonials of moral and intellectual character. Applications will be received until the First of April, 1861.