B. I don't fear the meeting, and when it is over you shall see me again. Until then my Williams adieu! One parting word of advice; don't pop another question without consulting a confidential friend. W. rises in wrath, but-exit B-in a hurry. SCENE II.-(A WEEK AFTER SCENE I.) BROWN'S ROOMS. (Brown looking dreadfully uncomfortable in an easy chair.) B rown A.B. Enter WILLIAMS.-W: Good morning Brown! How do you do? But-dear me Brown! I am concerned to see you looking so ill. Have you the tooth-ache Brown? Very painful is it not? Better have it out? step over to Gabriel's, it's an angelic operation. (Laughs at his own joke.) Partings are painful Brown, I know, but it will soon be over, and then— B.-Williams have you come here charged with premeditated insult? W. Quite the contrary Brown. I came to offer congratulations, but am smitten with commiseration at your dejected appearance. B.-Williams, I am a disappointed and ruined man. W.-Dear me! Brown, I do hope it is not so bad as that. B. It is Williams, and worse. My prospects in life are blighted, and do you know, I begin to think that there may be circumstances in which suicide W.-Brown! if you talk so I will ring for the landlady and order brandy and I mean-a-policeman. Tell me your trouble. B. My contribution to the magazine is rejected. W.-Good gracious! is that all? B.—No, not all; that idiotic Editor adds insult to injury: read thatthat (handing a perodical.) W.(reading.) "Notices to Contributors." "A.B."-"A good attempt; but "A.B." will upon reflection see that we consult his reputation as an author, by withholding his paper." And this is your first appearance? B.-Yes, in the "Corner." W.-Well Brown, "Full many a flower," &c.; and then, you know, early genius has always had to struggle against fearful difficulties. B. Yes, I console myself with that reflection, and then, I know that spite and personal ill-will are at the bottom of that Editorial note. W.-That is a charitable construction Brown, as the Pauper said of the Workhouse. Gentlemen think the best you know. B.-There is no room for charity, where malice prepense is so evident. I have a mind to publish my article in a rival magazine. W. Have you a copy then? B.-Alas! No. That adds bitterness to the pill. To think of all that valuable labour in the "Balaam box." W. But I thought you told me you were your own judges in this matter? B.-Yes, but you see, we elect a committee to act as censors. W.-Ah! then of course you are honourably bound by their selection. And their's is a thankless task. I should like to see the article though. Have you nothing by you. B. Here are some scraps. W. (Reading :) "THE EARLY BRITONS TREATED DARWINICALLY BY A BACHELOR OF ARTS." "The first glimpse with which history favours us of the early inhabitants of these islands is, it must be confessed, rather shocking to our sense of propriety. If the naked truth must be told, our respected ancestors wore clothes, which it were a compliment to call small. * * * * * The aborigines of any country are alike remarkable for the economy of their habits and, parodoxical though it may appear, their fondness for personal adornment. In this matter however, they compare favourably with civilised society. Take for instance an item of the toilet in universal favour-paint. Now, whereas the faded belle resorts to its use to supply the lack of natural charms, the untutored savage is to be commended for using, in an age when ready money was scarce, and credit uninvented, an article which had the merit of keeping his tailors bills at the minimum. * * * We propose to consider * (a) paint as a useful and convenient article of dress, and (b) on the development theory, to shew that in the blue paint of our favoured forefathers, we had the germ of the system of clothing now in vogue. (The missing links in our concatenation we shall indicate by the asterisks.) * * They wore coats, (of paint,) so do we. Their coats had no tails or buttons. * * * * Our coats have tails and buttons. They put on an extra coat (of paint) in the winter. So do we, (not of paint.) And most remarkable of all, they put coats on their legs, of which they were not ashamed. * * we never mention 'em, (though it is well understood)." B. I think so. * * W.-Well, I do not know how this may appear to your enamoured fancy, but it would look simply ridiculous in print. B. (fiercley).—So would Maria Jukes! W. (impressively).-Brown!! B. (defiantly).-Will-i-ams! (They fight.-Scene of indescribable confusion for the space of ten minutes, after which,) W. Are you better Brown? B. You wretched individual! yes. W.-Then take a word of good advice. Before you rush into print next time, consult a confidential friend.—(Brown rushes at him, but Williams, who had anticipated the onslaught, escapes in safety.) Curtain falls. HOMUNCULUS. JOHN STUART MILL. One of the most difficult tasks which can be assigned to any man must be that of writing an unbiassed history of his own life. This difficulty must be greatly increased when undertaken by one who throughout a long life has filled a position of prominence and publicity. To give with perfect candour, the conclusions which a cool and dispassionate judgment has formed of one's own bygone opinions and acts, after all the circumstances and exciting passions of the time have long since passed away, requires a union of charity and love of truth, which but few possess. Notwithstanding the difficulty of the task, however Mr. Mill has succeeded almost to perfection, partly no doubt because although a great part of his life was occupied in earnest polemical discussion, his whole nature, albeit by no means lacking in strength of feeling, was yet so subordinated to his intellect, that hardly anything of passion or prejudice seems to have been imported into his many writings or speeches. And partly, because the scope of this autobiography is strictly limited, for it is easy to see that we owe its existence to his desire to do justice to the memories of his father and his wife, and to give to each the share of honor which he felt might otherwise be credited in unfair degree to himself. It is impossible to read this volume without being struck with the singular truthfulness of its tone, there exists throughout an evident shrinking from setting forth what may seem to ask for credit, which however is as plainly kept in check by a stern sense of truth. So strongly does this sense of sincerity force itself upon one's mind that we cannot doubt that he believed such to be the case, even when he tells us that he does not think he possessed, as a boy, any unusual capacity. His readers will not however be likely to endorse this opinion, or to consider it borne out by the facts here recorded. That his precocity must have been something extraordinary the following extract will show: "I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek, I have Autobiography by John Stuart Mill, Longmans 1873. and wild flowers, is mingled that of the account I gave him daily of what I had read the day before. To the best of my remembrance, this was a voluntary rather than a prescribed exercise. I made notes on slips of paper while reading, and from these in the morning walks, I told the story to him; for the books were chiefly histories, of which I read in this manner a great number." Nor was it only that he was endowed with remarkable natural intellectual gifts, these were accompanied by that without which they might have proved comparatively worthless. To him was vouchsafed a teacher, his own father,-who was eminently qualified to make the most of the material on which he had to work; a teacher who possessed (if such a thing were possible) an almost exaggerated idea of the value of intellectual culture. James Mill was a man of great originality, and the account here given of the manner in which, amidst the difficulties incident to his position as a man then comparatively unknown, struggling to make a livelihood with his pen, he conducted his son's education, exhibits, as it is evidently one of the main intentions of this book to exhibit, how greatly the world is indebted to the father, for the accomplishments of the illustrious son. Of his father's mode of teaching he gives the following description :— "My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything that could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself." This style of education is well worthy of being remembered and imitated. It is remarkable how few men, even amongst those who have received what is called a first-class education, ever learn to think; they acquire ideas in much the same manner as they acquire a knowledge of the alphabet, by learning them ready made. Such a mere acquisition of facts and opinions has no right to be called education, the etymology of which word so admirably sets forth its true meaning. When men have less driven into them and more drawn out of them, there will be much more real agreement, and at the same time far more willingness to differ. When it was found that Mr. Mill had left behind him a record of his mental history, the portion of it which was perhaps looked for with the greatest degree of interest, was that which related to his religious opinions. To these he had carefully avoided giving a definite enunciation during his lifetime, although intimations of his theological whereabouts could not fail to show themselves here and there in his writings. Probably most of his readers will feel some disappointment at the slightness of the reference which he here makes to the question. He merely gives us a summarized history of the course of his father's thought, which had led him to.eventually arrive at the conclusion, that the whole realm commonly included in what we term Religion, but which would be more properly designated Theology, is a vast unknowable ocean, about which it is as foolish as it is vain to speculate. These were the religious opinions he learnt from his father, but he tells us, "He at the same time took care that I should be acquainted with what had been thought by mankind on these impenetrable problems." And he further adds "It did not seem to me more strange that English people should believe what I did not, than that the men I read of in Herodotus should have done so. History had made the variety of opinions among mankind familiar to me, and this was but a prolongation of that fact." I should have liked, had space permitted it, to have transferred the whole of the two or three pages, of which this is almost the closing sentence. It consists of an account in a few words of his father's religious history, and the process of reasoning which led to his ultimate rejection of Christianity. In reading the argument however, it is right to recollect that the form of Christianity in which James Mill was educated, was Scotch Calvinism of the 18th century. We of the present day can scarcely conceive the difference which fifty years has made in the views of doctrinal Christianity held by the Evangelical school. The doctrines here described and condemned, would not now be acknowledged by any body of Christians, unless guarded by great limitations. They are however but a slight, if any exaggeration of the hard Calvinism of the time when James Mill commenced his studies for the Scotch ministry. One cannot but regret that Mill has not given us the result of his own reconsideration of these objections in the light of the broadening and softening theology of a more recent date. It is however evident, that he was not anxious to force to the front, opinions which he knew would be most unpalatable to the great body of his readers, probably being sufficiently content that the more charitable and generous spirit now existent, and to the establishment of which few have indirectly contributed more than himself, should be left to work its own quiet and blessed reformation. It is impossible in a limited article of this character, to follow the history of Mill's intellectual life fully. The book itself is about as succinct as such a narrative could well be made. There are however one or two salient points, which call for more or less special comment. The first is, what he has himself described as a crisis in his mental history." 66 The cultivation of the feelings does not appear to have entered into his father's scheme of education, and young Mill when just out of his twentieth year, awoke to that sense of dissatisfaction and unrest, which it is to be hoped few go through life without realizing, and which forms one of the most cogent proofs of the heirship of man's spirit to a higher standpoint. He says that he put to himself this question, "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant; would this be a great joy and happiness to you? And an irrepressible self-consciousness answered "No." At this my heart sank within me; the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down." |
