[119]. The Doctor.
TRUE TONE OF POLITE WRITING.
Sir James Mackintosh, who has sometimes been unfairly characterised as a writer of drawing-room essays, has left the following able view of what may be termed “the True Tone of Polite Writing,”—a rare accomplishment even in these days of assumed facility and literary pretension:
When a woman of feeling, fancy, and accomplishment has learned to converse with ease and grace, from long intercourse with the most polished society, and when she writes as she speaks, she must write letters as they ought to be written, if she has acquired just as much habitual correctness as is reconcilable with the air of negligence. A moment of enthusiasm, a burst of feeling, a flash of eloquence, may be allowed; but the intercourse of society, either in conversation or in letters, allows no more. Though interdicted from the long-continued use of elevated language, they are not without a resource. There is a part of language which is disdained by the pedant or the declaimer, and which both, if they knew its difficulty, would approach with dread; it is formed of the most familiar phrases and turns in daily use by the generality of men, and is full of energy and vivacity, bearing upon it the marks of those keen feelings and strong passions from which it springs. It is the employment of such phrases which produces what may be called colloquial eloquence. Conversation and letters may be thus raised to any degree of animation, without departing from their character. Any thing may be said, if it be spoken in the tone of society. The highest guests are welcome if they come in the easy undress of the club: the strongest metaphor appears without violence, if it is familiarly expressed; and we the more easily catch the warmest feeling, if we perceive that it is intentionally lowered in expression, out of condescension to our calmer temper. It is thus that harangues and declamations, the last proof of bad taste and bad manners in conversation, are avoided, while the fancy and the heart find the means of pouring forth all their stores. To meet this despised part of language in a polished dress, and producing all the effects of wit and eloquence, is a constant source of agreeable surprise. This is increased, when a few bolder and higher words are happily wrought into the texture of this familiar eloquence. To find what seems so unlike author-craft in a book raises the pleasing astonishment to its highest degree. I once thought of illustrating my notions by numerous examples from “La Sevigné.” And I must, some day or other, do so; though I think it the resource of a bungler who is not enough master of language to convey his conceptions into the minds of others. The style of Madame de Sevigné is evidently copied, not only by her worshiper, Walpole, but even by Gray; who, notwithstanding the extraordinary merits of his matter, has the double stiffness of an imitator and of a college recluse.
PRIDE AND MEANNESS.
Rousseau has well described this association of Pride and Stinginess, which is very common: “We take from nature, from real pleasures, nay, from the stock of necessaries, what we lavish upon opinion. One man adorns his palace at the expense of his kitchen; another prefers a fine service of plate to a good dinner; a third makes a sumptuous entertainment, and starves himself the rest of the year. When I see a sideboard richly decorated, I expect the wine to be very indifferent. How often in the country, when we breathe the fresh morning air, are we not tempted by the prospect of a fine garden! We rise early, and by walking gain a keen appetite, which makes us wish for breakfast. Perhaps the domestic is out of the way, or provisions are wanting, or the lady has not given her orders, and you are tired to death with waiting. Sometimes people prevent your desires, or make you a very pompous offer of every thing, upon condition that you accept of nothing. You must fast till three o’clock, or breakfast with the tulips. I remember to have walked in a very beautiful park, which belonged to a lady who, though extremely fond of coffee, never drank any but when at a very low price; yet she liberally allowed her gardener a salary of a thousand crowns. For my part, I should choose to have tulips less finely variegated, and to drink coffee whenever my appetite called for it.”