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my little discoveries are sure to be either anticipated or left behind."

from the multitude of fashionable pretenders. | iards and on the moors is evidently declinI know another man who can draw; there ing, and I cannot ride or drive so well as felare not many men, even amongst artists, lows who do very little else. In fact I am bewho can draw soundly; yet in fashionable so- coming an old muff, and all I have to show ciety he does not get the serious sort of re- on the other side is a degree of scholarship spect which he deserves, because fashionable which only six men in Europe can appreciate, people believe that drawing is an accomplish- and a speciality in natural science in which ment generally attainable by young ladies and communicable by governesses. I have no wish to insinuate that Society is wrong, in The truth is, that to succeed well in fashionrequiring a certain pretence to education in able society the higher intellectual attainvarious subjects, and a certain affectation of ments are not so useful as distinguished skill interest in masterpieces, for these pretences in those amusements which are the real busiand affectations do serve to deliver it from of the fashionable world. The three things the darkness of a quite absolute ignorance. which tell best in your favor amongst young A society of fashionable people who think it gentlemen are to be an excellent shot, to ride necessary to be able to talk superficially well to hounds, and to play billiards with about the labors of men really belonging to great skill. I wish to say nothing against any the intellectual class, is always sure to be of these accomplishments, having an espemuch better informed than a Society such as cially hearty admiration and respect for all that of the French peasantry, for example, good horsemen, and considering the game of where nobody is expected to know anything. billiards the most perfectly beautiful of games ; It is well for Society itself that it should pro- still, the fact remains that to do these things fess a deep respect for classical learning, for as well as some young gentlemen do them, we the great modern poets and painters, for sci- must devote the time which they devote, and entific discoverers, even though the majority if we regularly give nine hours a day to gravof its members do not seriously care about er occupations, pray, how and where are we them. The pretension itself requires a cer- to find it? tain degree of knowledge, as gilding requires

A certain quantity of gold.

The evil effects of these affectations may be summed up in a sentence. They diminish

LETTER III.

FASHIONABLE SOCIETY.

Some exceptional men may live alternately in different worlds

-Instances-Differences between the fashionable and the intellectual spirit--Men sometimes made unfashionable by special natural gifts-Sometimes by trifling external circumstances-Anecdote of Ampère-He did not shine in society-His wife's anxieties about his material wants-Apparent contrast between Ampère and Oliver Goldsmith.

You ask me why there should be any fundamental incompatibility between the fashionable and the intellectual lives. It seems to you that the two might possibly be reconciled, and you mention instances of men who at tained intellectual distinction without deserting the fashionable world.

the apparent value of the realities which they TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN mitate, and they tend to weaken our enthusism for those great realities, and our ardor in he pursuit of them. The impression which tashionable society produces upon a student who has strength enough to resist it, is a painful sense of isolation in his earnest work. if he goes back to the work with courage undiminished, he still clearly realizes-what it would be better for him not to realize quite so clearly-the uselessness of going beyond fashionable standards, if he aims at social success. And there is still another thing to be said which concerns you just now very particularly. Whoever leads the intellectual life in earnest is sure on some points to fail in strict obedience to the exigencies of fashionable life, so that, if fashionable successes are still dear to him, he will be constantly tempt-permits the most opposite pursuits, and enaed to make some such reflections as the fol- bles its possessors to live, apparently, in two lowing:-"Here am I, giving years and years worlds between which there is not any natof labor to a pursuit which brings no external ural affinity. A famous French novelist once reward, when half as much work would keep took the trouble to elaborate the portrait of a me abreast of the society I live with, in every- lady who passed one half of her time in virtue thing it really cares about. I know quite and churches, whilst she employed the other well all that my learning is costing me. half in the wildest adventures. In real life Other men outshine me easily in social pleas- I may allude to a distinguished English enures and accomplishments. My skill at bill-graver, who spent a fortnight over his plate

Yes, there have been a few examples of men endowed with that overflow of energy which

and a fortnight in some fashionable watering- | were so profoundly ignorant that he habitplace, alternately, and who found this distribu- ually kept out of their way. He, on his part, tion of his time not unfavorable to the elasticity neglected scholarship and literature and all of his mind. Many hard-working Londoners, that "artistry of life," as Mr. Robert Lytton who fairly deserve to be considered intellect- calls it, in which fashionable society excels. ual men, pass their days in professional labor Men are frequently driven into unfashionable and their evenings in fashionable society. existence by the very force and vigor of their But in all instances of this kind the profes-own intellectual gifts, and sometimes by exsional work is serious enough, and regular ternal circumstances, apparently most trifling, enough, to give a very substantial basis to the yet of infinite influence on human destiny. life, so that the times of recreation are kept | There is a good instance of this in a letter from daily subordinate by the very necessity of cir- Ampère to his young wife, that "Julie" who cumstances. If you had a profession, and were obliged to follow it in earnest six or eight hours a day, the more Society amused you, the better. The danger in your case is that your whole existence may take a fashionable tone.

was lost to him so soon. "I went to dine yesterday at Madame Beauregard's with hands blackened by a harmless drug which stains the skin for three or four days. She declared that it looked like manure, and left the table, saying that she would dine when I was at a distance. I promised not to return there before my hands were white. course I shall never enter the house again."

Of

Here we have an instance of a man of science who has temporarily disqualified himself for polite society by an experiment in the pursuit of knowledge. What do you think of the vulgarity of Madame Beauregard? To me it appears the perfect type of that pre-occupation about appearances which blinds the genteel vulgar to the true nobility of life. Were not Ampère's stained hands nobler than many white ones? It is not necessary for every intellectual worker to blacken his fingers with chemicals, but a kind of rust very frequently comes over him which ought to be as readily forgiven, yet rarely is forgiven. "In his relations with the world," writes the biographer of Ampère, "the ar thority of superiority disappeared. To this the course of years brought no alternative. Ampère become celebrated, laden with honorable distinctions, the great Ampère! outside the speculations of the intellect, was hesitating and timid again, disquieted and troubled, and more disposed to accord his confidence to others than to himself."

The esprit or tone of fashion differs from the intellectual tone in ways which I will attempt to define. Fashion is nothing more than the temporary custom of rich and idle people who make it their principal business to study the external elegance of life. This custom incessantly changes. If your habits of mind and life change with it you are a fashionable person, but if your habits of mind and life either remain permanently fixed or follow some law of your own individual nature, then you are outside of fashion. The intellectual spirit is remarkable for its independence of custom, and therefore on many occasions it will clash with the fashionable spirit. It does so most frequently in the choice of pursuits, and in the proportionate importance which the individual student will (in his own case) assign to his pursuits. The regulations of fashionable life have fixed, at the least temporarily, the degree of time and attention which a fashionable person may devote to this thing or that. The intellectual spirit ignores these regulations, and devotes its possessor, or more accurately its possessed, to the intellectual speciality for which he has most aptitude, often leaving him ignorant of what fashion has decided to be essential. After living the intel- Intellectual pursuits did not qualify Ampère, lectual life for several years he will know too they do not qualify any one, for success in much of one thing and too little of some other fashionable society. To succeed in the world things to be in conformity with the fashion- you ought to be of the world, so as to share able idea!. For example, the fashionable ideal the things which interest it without too wide of a gentleman requires classical scholarship, a deviation from the prevalent current of but it is so difficult for artists and men of sci- your thoughts. Its passing interests, its temence to be classical scholars also that in this porary customs, its transient phases of sentirespect they are likely to fall short. I knew ment and opinion, ought to be for the moment a man who became unfashionable because he your own interests, your own feelings and had a genius for mechanics. He was always opinions. A mind absorbed as Ampère's was about steam-engines, and, though a gentleman in the contemplation and elucidation of the by birth, associated from choice with men unchangeable laws of nature, is too much who understood the science that chiefly inter- fixed upon the permanent to adapt itself ested him, of which all fashionable people naturally to these ever-varying estimates.

He did not easily speak the world's lighter A splendid contrast, as to tailoring, was language, he could not move with its mobili- our own dear Oliver Goldsmith, who dis

ty. Such men forget even what they eat and played himself in those wonderful velvet what they put on; Ampère's young wife was coats and satin small-clothes from Mr. Filin constant anxiety, whilst the pair were by's, which are more famous than the finest separated by the severity of their fate, as garments ever worn by prince or peer. Who to the sufficiency of his diet and the de- does not remember that bloom-colored coat cency of his appearance. One day she writes which the ablest painters have studiously imto him to mind not to go out in his shabby old mortalized, made by John Filby, at the Harcoat, and in the same letter she entreats him row, in Water Lane (best advertised of tailto purchase a bottle of wine, so that when he ors!), and that charming blue velvet suit, took no milk or broth he would find it, and which Mr. Filby was never paid for? Surely when it was all drunk she tells him to buy a poet so splendid was fit for the career of another bottle. Afterwards she asks him fashion! No, Oliver Goldsmith's velvet and whether he makes a good fire, and if he has lace were the expression of a deep and painany chairs in his room. In another letter she ful sense of personal unfitness. They were inquires if his bed is comfortable, and in the fine frame which is intended to pass off another she tells him to mind about his acids, an awkward and imperfect picture. There for he has burnt holes in his blue stockings. was a quieter dignity in Johnson's threadbare Again, she begs him to try to have a passably sleeves. Johnson, the most influential though decent appearance, because that will give not the most elegant intellect of his time, is pleasure to his poor wife. He answers, to grander in his neglect of fashion than Goldtranquillize her, that he does not burn his smith in his ruinous subservience. And if it things now, and that he makes chemical ex-were permitted to me to speak of two or periments only in his old breeches with his three great geniuses who adorn the age in gray coat and his waistcoat of greenish velvet. which we ourselves are living, I might add But one day he is forced to confess that she that they seem to follow the example of the must send him new trousers if he is to ap-author of "Rasselas " rather than that of Mr. pear before MM. Delambre and Villars. He Filby's illustrious customer. They remind does not know what to do," his best breeches me of a good old squire who, from a fine senstill smell of turpentine, and, having wished timent of duty, permitted the village artist to put on trousers to go to the Society of Emu- to do his worst upon him, and incurred there lation, he saw the hole which Barrat fancied by this withering observation from his methe had mended become bigger than ever, so ropolitan tailor: "You are covered, sir, but that it showed the piece of different cloth | you are not dressed!"

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LETTER IV.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN
FASHIONABLE SOCIETY.

which he had sown under it. He adds that his wife will be afraid that he will spoil his “beau pantalon," but he promises to send it back to her as clean as when he received it. How different is all this from that watchful care about externals which marks the man of fashion! Ampère was quite a young man then, still almost a bridegroom, yet he is al-Test of professions-Mobility of fashionable taste--Practical ready so absorbed in the intellectual life as to forget appearances utterly, except when Julie, with feminine watchfulness, writes to recall them to his mind. I am not defending YOUR polite, almost diplomatic answer to or advocating this carelessness. It is better my letter about fashionable society may be to be neat and tidy than to go in holes and not unfairly concentrated into some such parpatches; but I desire to insist upon the radi-agraph as the following:

service of an external deference to culture--Incompatibility between fashionable and intellectual lives- What each has to offer.

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cal difference between the fashionable spirit "What grounds have I for concluding that and the intellectual spirit. And this differ- the professed tastes and opinions of Society ence, which shows itself in these external are in any degree insincere? May not society things, is not less evident in the clothing or be quite sincere in the preferences which it preparation of the mind. Ampère's intellect, professes, and are not the preferences themgreat and noble as it was, could scarcely selves almost always creditable to the good be considered more suitable for le grand taste and really advanced culture of the Somonde than the breeches that smelt of tur-ciety which I suspect of a certain degree of pentine, or the trousers made ragged by affectation?" aquafortis.

This is the sense of your letter, and in reply

to it I give you a simple but sure test. Is the [ of finding ready to hand certain customs professed opinion carried out in practice, which are favorable to its well-being. So it when there are fair opportunities for practice? is, though in quite a different direction, with Let us go so far as to examine a particular the esteem which Society professes for intelinstance. Your friends profess to appreciate lectual pursuits. It is an esteem in great part classical literature. Do they read it? Or, on merely nominal, as fashionable Christianity is the other hand, do they confine themselves nominal, and still it helps and favors the early to believing that it is a good thing for other development of the genuine faculty where it people to read it? exists. It is certainly a great help to us that When I was a schoolboy, people told me fashionable society, which has such a trementhat the classical authors of antiquity were dous, such an almost irresistible power for eminently useful, and indeed absolutely nec-good or evil, does not openly discourage our essary to the culture of the human mind, pursuits, but on the contrary regards them but I perceived that they did not read them. So I have heard many people express great respect for art and science, only they did not go so far as to master any department of art or science.

with great external deference and respect. The recognition which Society has given to artists has been wanting in frankness and in promptitude, though even in this case much may be said to excuse a sort of hesitation If you will apply this test to the professions rather than refusal which was attributable to of what is especially called fashionable society the strangeness and novelty of the artistic it is probable that you will arrive at the con- caste in England; but Society has far more clusions of the minority, which I have endeav- than a generation professed a respect for literored to express. You will find that the fash-ature and erudition which has helped those ionable world remains very contentedly out- two branches of culture more effectually than side the true working intellectual life, and does not really share either its labors or its aspirations.

Another kind of evidence, which tells in the same direction, is the mobility of fashionable taste. At one time some studies are fashionable, at another time these are neglected and others have taken their place. You will not find this fickleness in the true intellectual world, which steadily pursues all its various studies, and keeps them well abreast, century after century.

If I insist upon this distinction with reference to you, do not accuse me of hostility even to fashion itself. Fashion is one of the great Divine institutions of human society, and the best philosophy rebels against none of the authorities that be, but studies and endeavors to explain them. The external deference which Society yields to culture is practically of great service, although (I repeat the epithet) it is external. The sort of good effect is in the intellectual sphere what the good effect of a gen"ral religious profession is in the moral sphere. All fashionable society goes to church. Fashionable religion differs from the religion of Peter and Paul as fashionable science differs from that of Humboldt and Arago, yet, notwithstanding this difference, the profession of religion is useful to Society as some restraint, at least during one day out of seven, upon its inveterate tendency to live exclusively for its amusement. And if any soul happens to come into existence in the fashionable world which has the genuine religious nature, that nature has a chance of developing itself, and

great subsidies of money. The exact truth seems to be that Society is sincere in approving our devotion to these pursuits, but is not yet sufficiently interested in them to appreciate them otherwise than from the outside, just as a father and mother applaud their boys for reading Thucydides, yet do not read him themselves, either in the original or in a translation.

All that I care to insist upon is that there is a degree of incompatibility between the fashionable and the intellectual lives which makes it necessary, at a certain time, to choose one or the other as our own. There is no hostility, there need not be any uncharitable feeling on one side or the other, but there must be a resolute choice between the two. If you decide for the intellectual life, you will incur a definite loss to set against your gain. Your existence may have calmer and profounder satisfactions, but it will be less amusing, and even in an appreciable degree less human; less in harmony, I mean, with the common instincts and feelings of humanity. For the fashionable world, although decorated by habits of expense, has enjoyment for its object, and arrives at enjoyment by those methods which the experience of generations has proved to be most efficacious. Variety of amusement, frequent change of scenery and society, healthy exercise, pleasant occupation of the mind without fatigue-these things do indeed make existence agreeable to human nature, and the science of living agreeably is better understood in the fashionable society of England than by laborious students

and savans. The life led by that society is willing to render you the most efficient intelthe true heaven of the natural man, who lectual help, and you miss this help by likes to have frequent feasts and a hearty restricting yourself exclusively to books. appetite, who enjoys the varying spectacle Nothing can replace the conversation of livof wealth, and splendor, and pleasure, who ing men and women; not even the richest loves to watch, from the Olympus of his per- literature can replace it. sonal ease, the curious results of labor in which he takes no part, the interesting ingenuity of the toiling world below. In exchange for these varied pleasures of the spectator the intellectual life can offer you but one satisfaction, for all its promises are reducible simply to this, that you shall come at last, after infinite labor, into contact with some great reality-that you shall know, and do, in such sort that you will feel yourself on firm ground and be recognized-probably not much applauded, but yet recognized-as a fellow-laborer by other knowers and doers. Before you come to this, most of your present accomplishments will be abandoned by yourself as unsatisfactory and insufficient, but one or two of them will be turned to better account, and will give you after many years a tranquil self-respect, and, what is still rarer and better, a very deep and earnest reverence for the greatness which is above you. Severed from the vanities of the Illusory, you will live with the realities of knowledge, as one who has quitted the painted scenery of the theatre to listen by the eternal ocean or gaze at the granite hills.

LETTER V.

Many years ago I was thrown by accident amongst a certain society of Englishmen who, when they were all together, never talked about anything worth talking about. Their general conversations were absolutely empty and null, and I concluded, as young men so easily conclude, that those twenty or thirty gentlemen had not half a dozen ideas amongst them. A little reflection might have reminded me that my own talk was no better than theirs, and consequently that there might be others in the company who also knew more and thought more than they expressed. I found out, by accident, after awhile, that some of these men had more than common culture in various directions; one or two had travelled far, and brought home the results of much observation; one or two had read largely, and with profit; more than one had studied a science; five or six had seen a great deal of the world. It was a youthful mistake to conclude that, because their general conversation was very dull, the men were dull individually. The general conversations of English society are dull; it is a national characteristic. But the men themselves are individually often very well informed, and quite capable of imparting their information to a single interested listener. The art is to be that listener. Englishmen have the greatest dread of producing themselves in the semi

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO KEPT ENTIRELY publicity of a general conversation, because

OUT OF COMPANY.

That Society which is frivolous in the mass contains individuals who are not frivolous-A piece of the author's early experience-Those who keep out of Society miss oppor

tunities-People talk about what they have in commonThat we ought to be tolerant of dulness-The loss to Society if superior men all held aloof-Utility of the gifted in general society-They ought not to submit to expulsion.

I WILLINGLY Concede all that you say against fashionable society as a whole. It is, as you say, frivolous, bent on amusement, incapable of attention sufficiently prolonged to grasp any serious subject, and liable both to confusion and inaccuracy in the ideas which it hastily forms or easily receives. You do right, assuredly, not to let it waste your most valuable hours, but I believe also that you do wrong in keeping out of it altogether.

The society which seems so frivolous in masses contains individual members who, if you knew them better, would be able and

they fear that their special topics may not be cared for by some of the persons present; but if you can get one of them into a quiet corner by himself, and humor his shyness with sufficient delicacy and tact, he will disburden his mind at last, and experience a relief in so doing.

By keeping out of society altogether you miss these precious opportunities. The wise course is to mix as much with the world as may be possible without withdrawing too much time from your serious studies, but not to expect anything valuable from the general talk, which is nothing but a neutral medium in which intelligences float and move as yachts do in sea-water, and for which they ought not to be held individually responsible. The talk of Society answers its purpose if it simply permits many different people to come together without clashing, and the purpose of its conventions is the avoidance of collision. In England the small talk

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