Coelebs In Search of a Wife

by Hannah More

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The company were not soon weary of admiring the rustic building, which seemed raised as if by the stroke of a magician's wand, so rapidly had it sprung up. They were delighted to find that their pleasure was to be prolonged by drinking tea in the temple.

While we were at tea Mr. Stanley, addressing himself to me, said, "I have always forgotten to ask you, Charles, if your high expectations of pleasure from the society in London had quite answered?"

"I was entertained, and I was disappointed," replied I. "I always found the pleasure of the moment not heightened, but effaced by the succeeding moment. The ever restless, rolling tide of new intelligence at once gratified and excited the passion for novelty, which I found to be le grand poisson qui mange les petits. This successive abundance of fresh supply gives an ephemeral importance to every thing, and a lasting importance to nothing. We skimmed every topic, but dived into none. Much desultory talk, but little discussion. The combatants skirmished like men whose arms are kept bright by constant use; who were accustomed to a flying fight, but who avoided the fatigue of coming to close quarters. What was old, however momentous, was rejected as dull, what was new, however insignificant, was thought interesting. Events of the past week were placed with those beyond the flood; and the very existence of occurrences which continued to be matter of deep interest with us in the country, seemed there totally forgotten.

"I found, too, that the inhabitants of the metropolis had a standard of merit of their own. That knowledge of the town was concluded to be knowledge of the world; that local habits, reigning phrases, temporary fashions, and an acquaintance with the surface of manners, was supposed to be knowledge of mankind. Of course, he who was ignorant of the topics of the hour, and the anecdotes of a few modish leaders, was ignorant of human nature."

Sir John observed, that I was rather too young to be a praiser of past times, yet he allowed that the standard of conversation was not so high as it had been in the time of my father, by whose reports my youthful ardor had been inflamed. He did not indeed suppose that men were less intellectual now, but they certainly were less colloquially intellectual. "For this," added he, "various reasons may be assigned. In London man is every day becoming less of a social, and more of a gregarious animal. Crowds are as little favorable to conversation as to reflection. He finds, therefore, that he may figure in the mass with less expense of mind; and as to women, they are put to no expense at all. They find that by mixing with myriads, they may carry on the daily intercourse of life, without being obliged to bring a single idea to enrich the common stock."

"I do not wonder," said I, "that the dull and the uninformed love to shelter their insignificance in a crowd. In mingling with the multitude, their deficiencies elude detection. The vapid and the ignorant are like a bad play; they owe the little figure they make to the dress, the scenery, the music, and the company. The noise and the glare take off all attention from the defects of the work. The spectator is amused, and he does not inquire whether it is with the piece or with the accompaniments. The end is attained, and he is little solicitous about the means. But an intellectual woman, like a well written drama, will please at home without all these aids and adjuncts; nay, the beauties of the superior piece, and of the superior woman, will rise on a more intimate survey. But you were going, Sir John, to assign other causes for the decline and fall of conversation."

"One very affecting reason," replied he; "is that the alarming state of public affairs fills all men's minds with one momentous object. As every Englishman is a patriot, every patriot is a politician. It is natural that that subject should fill every mouth which occupies every heart, and that little room should be left for extraneous matter."

"I should accept this," said I, "as a satisfactory vindication, had I heard that the same absorbing cause had thinned the public places, or diminished the attraction of the private resorts of dissipation."

"There is a third reason," said Sir John. "Polite literature has in a good degree given way to experimental philosophy. The admirers of science assert, that the last was the age of words, and that this is the age of things. A more substantial kind of knowledge has partly superseded these elegant studies, which have caught such hold on your affections."