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leading objects, is thus stated by a writer in one of our magazines:" Epicurism, in the least elevated acceptation of that misunderstood word-to place the greatest possible luxury, but more especially the pleasures of the palate, within reach of the lowest possible sum-to combine exclusiveness with voluptuousness-to foster, at the same moment, the love of self, and the alienation from others to remove men from their proper and natural mode of living-to enable five hundred a-year to command the state, style, and splendour of five thousand-to destroy the taste for simple and domestic pleasures—and to substitute a longing for all the expensive and sensual enjoyments that might have gratified an ancient Sybarite."

A professional or exclusive club is the most shy, sullen, reserved, and unamiable of all institutions." Its union of one class is a separation from all others; the junction of its members is a dismemberment from the general body of citizens; it is dissocial in its very association. It is a cabal, a caste, a clique, a coterie, a junto, a conspiracy, a knot, a pack, a gang; anything, in short, that is close, selfish, disjunctive, and inhospitable: but if there be in such narrow fellowship any single element of sociability, why then the monks who planted their convents in the desert of the Thebaid, were sociable beings, and useful members of society. Goldsmith very properly condemns the man of talent,

"who narrowed his mind,

And to party gave up what was meant for mankind."

"If the division of the male community into grades and classes be a confessed evil, what shall we say to the wide separation of the sexes which this club-mania is daily and rapidly effecting. It will be admitted, that man and woman were meant for one another, collectively as well as separately. Socially speaking, they are as naturally married to each other, in the aggregate, as are the individual husband and wife;

and whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.' The beneficial, the civilizing influences, which the sexes mutually impart and receive in society, are best to be appreciated by the deep and instant degradation which Nature, who never suffers her laws to be violated with impunity, has invariably entailed upon their disjunction. For evidence of this fact, it will be only necessary to refer to the monasteries and convents. In the society of man, the softer sex, discarding some portion of its frivolity and inherent weakness, acquires mental corroboration, and is imperceptibly imbued with the best and finest emanations of masculine character. In female society, the lord of the creation, losing the ruggedness, arrogance, and licentious coarseness of his nature, becomes softened, courteous, and refined, chastening himself with feminine graces, while he loses not a fraction of his proper manliness and dignity. Polish is the result of collision, both morally and physically; and man's iron nature is not injured, or unduly mollified, but made more useful and attractive, by coming in contact with the magnet of beauty. Acting at once as a stimulant and a restraint, the social intercourse of the two sexes draws forth and invigorates all the purifying, exalting, and delightful qualities of our common nature; while it tends to suppress, and, not seldom, to eradicate those of an opposite character. From this unrestricted communion flow the graces, the affections, the charms, the sanctities, the charities, of life; and as benignant Nature ever blesses the individual who contributes to the advancement of his species, from the same source is derived our purest, most exquisite, and most enduring happiness."

"I lay it down as a broad, incontrovertible axiom, that no married man has a right to belong to a club, and to become an habitual absentee from his home, indulging in hoggish epicurism, while his wife and family are perhaps keeping Lent, that he may afford to feast. What hath he sworn to in his marriage-oath? Merely to maintain his wife, and to make her the mother of his children? No such thing; he hath

sworn to forsake all others, and to cleave only unto her, until death shall part them. Is it consistent, either with the letter or the spirit of this vow, that he should deprive her of his society, and make a sort of concubine of his club? Is a virtuous, honourable, and accomplished wife to be treated like an impure Dalilah, into whose house her paramour sneaks in the dark, and skulks away again in the early morning? The little occasional bickerings, from which few married couples are totally exempt, not unfrequently prove, under the soothing influences of children, and the pleasures of the domestic meal, a renewal and confirmation of love; but now, the sullen husband escapes to his still more sullen club; he becomes embittered by feeding upon his own angry heart; a reconciliation is rendered every day more difficult; he begins to hate his home; and his occasional absence is soon made habitual. Meanwhile, the children lose the benefit of the father's presence and example; the father, whose loss is of still more mischievous import, is deprived of all the heart-hallowing influences of his offspring: and the neglected wife, thinking herself justified in seeking from others that society which is denied to her by her husband, is exposed to temptations and dangers, from which she cannot always escape without contamination. To overrate the conjugal and domestic misery now in actual progress, and all springing from this prolific source, would, I believe, be utterly impossible. How many married couples are there in the middling classes of society, the course of whose alienation and unhappiness might be traced out in the following order?—

"HUSBAND. The club-a taste for French cooks, expensive wines, and sensual luxuries-fastidious epicurism-a dislike of the plain meals which he finds at home, although the only ones adapted to his fortune and his station-confirmed absenteeism and clubbism-hatred of the wife, who reproaches him for his selfish desertion-late hours-estrangement-profligacy-misery!

"WIFE. Natural resentment of neglect-reproaches—al

tercations-diminution of conjugal affection-dissipation, as a resource against the dulness of home-expensive habits-embarrassment-total alienation of heart-dangerous connexions -infidelity-misery!

"Of this account-current, the items may vary, either in quality or sequence, but the alpha and omega will ever be the same. It will begin with the club, and end with misery."

COLLEGE-An institution where young men are apt to learn every thing but that which professes to be taught, although that which professes to be taught falls very short of what a modern gentleman ought to learn. As a type of the olden times, with all their unredeemed bigotry and prejudice, our colleges are sadly out of keeping with the nineteenth century. Their whole system is a specimen of the moral, as some of their structures are of the architectural gothic. Mark the opinion of no incompetent witness, since he was himself an Oxford collegian.

"Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science would be taught, for which there was not some demand, or which the circumstances of the time did not render it either necessary or convenient, or at least fashionable to learn. A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated system of a science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense. Such sciences, such systems, can subsist nowhere but in those incorporated societies for education, whose prosperity and revenue are, in a great measure, independent of their reputation, and altogether independent of their industry. Were there no public institutions for education, a gentleman, after going through, with application and abilities, the most complete course of education which the circumstances of the time were supposed to afford, could not come into the world completely ignorant of every thing which is the common subject of con

versation among gentlemen and men of the world.”—Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book 5. Chap. 1. Part 3. Art. 2.

If our colleges be still the seats of learning, it can only be for the reason assigned in the old epigram

"No wonder that Oxford and Cambridge profound,
In learning and science so greatly abound,

Since some carry thither a little each day,

And we meet with so few who bring any away."

COMFORT-"Ah!" said a John Bull to a Frenchman"you have no such word as 'comfort' in your language.”—“" I am glad of it," replied the Gaul;-" you Englishmen are slaves to your comforts, in order that you may master them." There is some truth in this reproach. Perpetually toiling for money, with the professed object of being enabled to live comfortably, we sacrifice every comfort in the acquisition of a fortune, in order that when we have obtained it, we may have an additional discomfort from our anxiety to preserve or increase it. Thus do we "lose by seeking what we seek to find." On the other hand, we may find a comfort where we never looked for it; as, for instance, in a great affliction, the very magnitude of which renders us insensible to all smaller ones. Comfort, in our national acceptation of the word, has been stated to consist in those little luxuries and conveniences, the want of which makes an Englishman miserable, while their possession does not make him happy.

COMMISERATION-Felonious.-There is a large class of idle people in this country, whose palled and jaded feelings can only be roused by some powerful excitement, whence they derive so much pleasure, that they immediately yearn towards the exciter, however undeserving of their pity. They like a murderer, because he relieves them for a moment from listlessness and ennui, and assists in committing another murder, by helping them to kill their greatest enemy-time. The

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