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I am of a stitution so general, that it sorts and sympathizeth with all things, I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncra any thing. Those national repugnancies do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch -- Religio Medici.That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts of abstra, versant about notional and jectural essences; in whose categories of Being the possible took the upper hand of the actual; should have overlooked the imperti individualities of such poor cretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. It is rather to be wo, that in the genus of animals he should have desded to distinguish that species at all. For myself-earth.hound aered to the se of my activities, --
Standing oh, not rapt above the sky,
I fess that I do feel the differenankind, national or individual, to an uhy excess. I look with no indifferent eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to me a matter of taste or distaste; or when o bees indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices -- made up of likings and dislikings -- veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of me that I am a lover of my species. I feel for all indifferently, but I ot feel towards all equally. The more purely-English wont that expresses sympathy will better explain my meaning. I be a friend to a worthy man, who upon another at ot be my mate or fellow. I ot like all people alike. *
[Footnote] * I would be uood as fining myself to the subjeperfect sympathies To nations or classes of men there be no diretipathy. There may *be individuals born and stellated so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere ot hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and believe the story of two persoing (who never saw one another before in their lives) and instantly fighting.
-- We by proof find there should be
`Twixt man and man su antipathy,
That though he show no just reason why
For any former wrong or injury,
either find a blemish in his fame,
Nht in face or feature justly blame,
challenge or accuse him of no evil,
Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil.
The lines are from old Heywoods "Hierarchie of Angels," and he subjoins a curious story in firmation, of a Spaniard who attempted to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack could give no other reason for the deed but an ie antipathy which he had taken to the first sight of the King.
-- The cause which to that apelld him
Was, he neer loved him since he first beheld him.
I have been trying all my life to like Sen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. They ot like me -- and in truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it. There is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. We know one a first sight. There is an order of imperfetellects (under which mine must be tent to rank) whi its stitution is essentially anti-Caledonian. The owners of the sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive than prehehey have no preteo much clearness or precision in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. Their intellectual wardrobe (to fess fairly) has few whole pieces in it. They are tent with fragments and scattered pieces of Truth. She presents no full front to them -- a feature or side-face at the most. Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost they pretend to. They beat up a little game peradventure -- and leave it to knottier heads, more robust stitutions, to run it down. The light that lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and shifting: waxing, and again waning. Their versation is accly. They will throw out a random word in or out of season, and be tent to let it pass for what it is worth. They ot speak always as if they were upon their oath -- but must be uood, speaking or writing, with some abatement. The seldom wait to mature a proposition, but een bring it to market in the green ear. They delight to impart their defective discoveries as they arise, without waiting for their full developement. They are no systematizers, and would but err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before, are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not mistaken) is stituted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is born in panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their growth -- if, ihey do grow, and are not rather put together upon principles of cloark></mark>. You never catch his mind in an undress. He never hints gests any thing, hut unlades his stock of ideas in perfect order and pleteness. He brings his total wealth into pany, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. He oops to catch a glittering something in your preseo share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true touch or not. You ot cry halves to any thing that he finds. He does not find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension of a thing. His uanding is always at its meridian -- you never see the first dawn, the early streaks. -- He has no falterings of self-suspi. Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half-intuitions, semi-sciousnesses, partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo ceptions, have no pla his brain, or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls upon him. Is he orthodox -- he has no doubts. Is he an infidel -- he has her. Between the affirmative and the ive there is no border-land with him. You ot hover with him upon the fines of truth, or wander in the maze of a probable argument. He always keeps the path. You ake excursions with him -- for he sets yht. His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He ot promise, or uand middle as. There be but a right and a wrong. His versation is as a book. His affirmations have the sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemys try. "A healthy book" -- said one of his trymen to me, who had veo give that appellation to John Buncle, -- "did I catch rightly what you said? I have heard of a man ih, and of a healthy state of body, but I do not see hoithet be properly applied to a book." Above all, you must beware of i expressions before a Caledonian. Clap ainguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print of a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing off to Mr. ****. After he had exami minutely, I veo ask him how he liked MY BEAUTY (a foolish goes by among my friends) -- when he very gravely assured me, that "he had siderable respey character and talents" (so he leased to say), "but had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal pretensions." The misception staggered me, but did not seem much to discert him. -- Persons of this nation are particularly bond of affirming a truth -- whiobody doubts. They do not so properly affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all truth bees equally valuable, whether the proposition that tains it be new or old, disputed, or such as is impossible to bee a subject of disputation. I resent not long si a party of North Britons, where a son of Burns was expected; and happeo drop a silly expression (in my South British way).hat I wished it were the father instead of the son -- when four of them started up at oo inform me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable wish, it seems, was more than they could ceive. Swift has hit off this part of their character, heir love of truth, in his biting way, but with an illiberality that necessarily fihe passage to the margin. The tediousness of these people is certainly provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another! -- In my early life I had a passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. I have sometimes foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself with his trymen by expressing it. But I have always found that a true Scot resents your admiration of his patriot, even more than he would your pt of him. The latter he imputes to your "imperfect acquaintah many of the words which he uses;" and the same objeakes it a presumption in you to suppose that you admire him. -- Thomson they seem to have fotten. Smollett they have her fotten nor fiven for his deliion of Rory and his panion, upon their first introdu to our metropolis. -- Speak of Smollett as a great genius, and they will retort upon you Humes History pared with his tinuation of it. What if the historian had tinued Humphrey ker?
[Footnote] * There are some people who think they suffitly acquit themselves, aertain their pany, with relating facts of no sequenot at all out of the road of suon is<q></q> as happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the mi circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as at aure peculiar to that try, would be hardly tolerable. -- Hints towards an Essay on versation.
I have, in the abstrao disrespect for Jews. They are a piece of stubborn antiquity, pared with which Stonehenge is in its nohey date beyond the pyramids. But I should not care to be in habits of familiar intercourse with any of that nation. I fess that I have not the o eheir synagogues. Old prejudices g about me. I ot shake off the story of Hugh of Lin. turies of injury, pt, and hate, on the one side, -- of cloaked revenge, dissimulation, and hate, oher, between our and their fathers, must, and ought, to affect the blood of the children. I ot believe it run clear and kindly yet; or that a few fine words, such as dour, liberality, the light of a eenth tury, close up the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere genial to me. He is least distasteful on `ge -- for the mertile spirit levels all distins, as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly fess that I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, which has bee so fashiohe reciprocal endearments have, to me, something hypocritical and unnatural in them. I do not like to see the Churd Synagogue kissing and geeing in aostures of an affected civility. If they are verted, why do they not e over to us altogether? Why keep up a form of separation, when the life of it is fled? If they sit with us at table, why do they keck at our cookery? I do not uand these half vertites. Jews christianizing -- Christians judaizing -- puzzle me. I like fish or flesh. A moderate Jew is a more founding piece of anomaly than a wet Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is essentially separative. B----- would have been more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his forefathers. There is a fine s in his face, whiature meant to be of ---- Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong in him, in spite of his proselytism. He ot quer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out, when he sings, "The Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea!" The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides over our necks in triumph. There is no mistaking him. -- has a strong expression of sense in his tenance, and it is firmed by his singing. The foundation of his vocal excellence is use. He sings with uanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would sing the as, and give an appropriate character to each prohibition. His nation, in general, have not ever-sensible tenances. How should they ? -- but you seldom see a silly expression among them. Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a mans visage. I never heard of an idiot being horn among them. -- Some admire the Jewish female-physiognomy. I admire it -- but with trembling. Jael had those full dark inscrutable eyes.
In the Negro tenance you will ofte with strong traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of tenderowards some of these faces -- or rather masks -- that have looked out kindly upon one in casual enters ireets and highways. I love what Fuller beautifully calls -- these "images of God cut in ebony." But I should not like to associate with them, to share my meals and my good-nights with them -- because they are black.
I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I vee the Quaker principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or disturbed by any occurrehe sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a ventilator, lightening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom. But I ot like the Quakers (as Desdemona would say) "to live with them." I am all over sophisticated -- with humours, fancies, craving hourly sympathy. I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, sdal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their simpler taste do without. I should starve at their primitive ba. My appetites are too high for the salads which (acc to Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto too excited
To sit a guest with Da his pulse.
The i answers which Quakers are often found to return to a question put to them may be explained, I think, without the vulgar assumption, that they are miven to evasion and equivog than other people. They naturally look to their words more carefully, and are more cautious of itting themselves. They have a peculiar character to keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon their veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath. The of res to an oath ireme cases, sanctified as it is by all religious antiquity, is apt (it must be fessed) to introduto the laxer sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth -- the one applicable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the on proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon the sce by an oath be but truth, so in the on affirmations of the shop and the market-place a latitude is expected, and ceded upoions wanting this solemn ant. Somethihan truth satisfies. It is on to hear a person say, "You do not expect me to speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a great deal of incorreess and iency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary versation; and a kind of sedary or laic-truth is tolerated, where clergy-truth -- oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances, is not required. A Quaker knows none of this distin. His simple affirmation being received, upon the most sacred occasions, without any further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is to use upon the most indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally, with more severity. You have of him no more than his word. He knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, be forfeits, for himself, at least, his claim to the invidious exemption. He knows that his sylla<tt></tt>bles are weighed -- and how far a sciousness of this particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has a tendency to produdireswers, and a diverting of the question by ho means, might be illustrated, and the practice justified, by a more sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon this occasion. The admirable presenind, which is notorious in Quakers upon all tingencies, might be traced to this imposed self-watchfulness -- if it did not seem rather an humble and secular s of that old stock ious stancy, whiever bent or faltered, in the Primitive Friends, ave way to the winds of persecution, to the violence of judge or accuser, urials and rag examinations. "You will never be the wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till midnight," said one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had been putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. "Thereafter as the answers may be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing posure of this people is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter instances. -- I was travelling in a stage-coach with three male Quakers, buttoned up iraitest non-ity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before us. My friends fihemselves to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my panions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their money, and formally te -- so much for tea -- I, in humble imitation, tendering mine -- for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and warrantable personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously pronounced, became after a time inaudible -- and now my sce, which the whimsical se had for a while suspended, beginning to give some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their duct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the subject. They sate as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of them broke silence, by inquiring of his neighbour, "Hast thee heard how indigos go at the India House?" and the questioed as a soporifiy moral feeling as far as Exeter.
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