S. That is what I have yet to learn. They are a kind of Ishmaelites, whose hand is against others—what or who they are for (except themselves) I do not know. They do not willingly come forward into the front nor even show themselves in the rear of the battle, but are very ready to denounce and disable those who are indiscreet enough to do so. They are not for precipitating a crisis, but for laying down certain general principles, which will do posterity a world of good and themselves no harm. They are a sort of occult reformers, and patriots incognito. They get snug places under Government, and mar popular Elections—but it is to advance the good of the cause. Their theories are as whole and as sleek as their skins, but that there is a certain jejuneness and poverty in both which prevents their ever putting on a wholesome or comfortable appearance.
R. But at least you will not pretend to deny the distinction (you just now hinted at) between things of real Utility and merely fanciful interest?
S. No, I admit that distinction to the full. I only wish you and others not to mistake it.
R. I have not the slightest guess at what you mean.
S. Is there any possible view of the subject that has not been canvassed over and over again in the School? Or do you pass over all possible objections as the dreams of idle enthusiasts? Let me ask, have you not a current dislike to any thing in the shape of sentiment or sentimentality? for with you they are the same. Yet a thing and the cant about it are not the same. The cant about Utility does not destroy its essence. What do you mean by sentimentality?
R. I do not know.
S. Well: you complain, however, that things of the greatest use in reality are not always of the greatest importance in an imaginary and romantic point of view?
R. Certainly; this is the very pivot of all our well-grounded censure and dissatisfaction with poetry, novel-writing, and other things of that flimsy, unmeaning stamp.
S. It appears, then, that there are two standards of value and modes of appreciation in human life, the one practical, the other ideal,—that that which is of the greatest moment to the Understanding is often of little or none at all to the Fancy, and vice versâ. Why then force these two standards into one? Or make the Understanding judge of what belongs to the Fancy, any more than the Fancy judge of what belongs to the Understanding? Poetry would make bad mathematics, mathematics bad poetry: why jumble them together? Leave things, that are so, separate. Cuique tribuito suum.
R. I do not yet comprehend your precise drift.