Thus his denunciations come down without mercy upon your poor soul; and alas for you if you have not enough of mental stamina, independence, and fortitude to stand up against them. If you are a lamb, you are torn to pieces as in the jaws of a lion; if you are trembling and diffident, you are overwhelmed as a dove in the claws of an eagle. He scathes with his lightning and awes with his thunder. He sweeps everything before him, and stands in the field as sole possessor. He is “Sir Ruler” of all opinion. He is “Lord Guide” of all thought; and to have a thought or an opinion of your own, contrary to his, is a presumption frowned upon with sternest ire.
Another trait in this talker is, he has nothing good to say of any one, or of anything that is of any one. He deals with others in the third person as he deals with you in the second person. “What do you think of so and so?” you ask: it may be of the highest personage in State or Church, in literature or politics.
“O, he is narrow, or he is selfish; or he is mean; or he is vain; or he is jealous; or he is little; or he is limited in his reading; or he is something else, which unfits him to be where he is or what he is.”
No one pleases him; nothing pleases him. Everybody is wrong; everything is wrong. If there is a dark spot in the bright sky, he is sure to see it; if a thorn on the rose, he is bound to run his hand in it; if a hole in the garment, his finger will instinctively find its way there, and make it larger.
I have met this talker in company more than once or twice; and I must say that my conversation with him has been anything but pleasant or satisfactory. I have thought every time that he has increased in his idiosyncracy, that he has become more and more dogged, self-willed, and obstinate. I have wished that he might see himself as others see him. But to this he has been as blind as an owl in mid-day. Where is the salve that would give him this power of vision? He see himself as others see him! Can the blind be made to see, or the deaf to hear? Then may this miracle be wrought. He sees no one in his mirror but himself, and himself in full perfection. Should he, perchance, at any time see another, it is in a manner that only enlarges the perception of his own personal excellences, and strengthens his consciousness of self-importance and self-satisfaction.
“Do you think, Mr. Jones, that Dr. Sharpe’s views of the natural immortality of the soul and the future condition of the wicked are tenable by reason and Scripture?” asked Mr. Manly.
“There is neither reason nor Scripture in them,” replied Mr. Jones, with dogmatic emphasis. “He is hemmed in by your ‘orthodoxy.’ He is narrow in his conceptions. He lacks breadth of thought. His logic is feeble. He is deficient in true exegesis of Scripture. He has not looked into nature to catch its unfettered inspirations. His arguments are as weak as an infant’s.”
“But are you not forgetting the scholarship of the Doctor, underrating his powers, and losing sight of the general favour with which his work is received?” asked Mr. Manly.
“Forgetting his scholarship!” replied Jones, with a dogmatic sneer; “how can I forget what he never had, and underrate powers which he never possessed? And as for the favour with which his book has been received, that is nothing to me. I think for myself: I speak for myself. I care nothing for the opinion of others. I say, and when I say I mean what I say, that there is no force in the Doctor’s arguments.”