“Yes, truly, Mr. Oakes, I do indeed think that the scepticism of the age is all you say it is.”
“I did not say it was so; you mistook my question for a statement, Mr. Long.”
With some little tremor, as though he had given offence, Mr. Long said, “Oh dear no; you did not say so: I have made a mistake; do pardon me, Mr. Oakes.”
“That notion of George Eliot, taught in the following lines, is full of atheistic teaching, and likely to be mischievous in its influence. Speaking of his wish to have an immortality, his notion of it is only that of living in the minds of others in subsequent ages:—
‘O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead, who live again
In minds made better by their presence:
So to live is heaven.’
His notion of a heaven, you see, is limited to a life of immortality among the dead, who live in others made better by them—a posthumous influence for good is his only heaven.”
“Yes, I see, Mr. Oakes,” answered Long. “Just so: I believe all you say. You have expressed what I think about the atheistic theory of George Eliot.”
It was in this way that Mr. Long assented to Mr. Oakes in everything he said. They separated, and each went on his way. As Mr. Long walked down the street, who should meet him but Mr. Stearns? and he began his conversation somewhat in the same order as Mr. Oakes, only he happened to take in almost every particular an opposite view. But this was of no consequence to Mr. Long. Both Mr. Oakes and Mr. Stearns were his intimate friends, though not friends of each other, and he did not wish to disagree with either, so he assented to everything Stearns said with as much readiness and affability as he did to what Oakes said.
The above is a brief specimen of the assenter in conversation. His fault shows itself to every observer; and if it is not a moral fault, it certainly is an intellectual one. Every man in conversation ought to have a mind of his own for free and independent thought; and while he does not dogmatically and doggedly bring it into contact with others, he should avoid making it the tool of another man’s. He should not throw it, as clay, into everybody’s mental mould which comes in his way, to receive any shape which may be given to it. This is softness which a healthful state of any mind does not justify—which the natural intellectual rights of man condemn. It is a pliability of mind which no honourable man requires in conversation, and which he does not approve. It is mental stultification. It confines the action of mind to one party, and limits the circle of conversation to the compass which that mind pleases to give it. The proper contact of mind in conversation is mutual stimulus to action. Friction produces fire, and when there are wise hands to supply suitable material on both sides, a genial glowing heat is the result, which thaws out the frigidness that otherwise might exist. Each one warms himself at the other’s fire; all who listen feel the influence, and lasting are the benefits which flow from such conversation.