ld come in and sit with this company
at one of their Saturday dinners, he would be listened to, as he always
was, with respect and attention. But there are subjects upon which the
great talker could speak magisterially in his time and at his club, upon
which so wise a man would express himself guardedly at the meeting where
I have supposed him a guest. We have a scientific man or two among us,
for instance, who would be entitled to smile at the good Doctor's
estimate of their labors, as I give it here:
"Of those that spin out life in trifles and die without a memorial, many
flatter themselves with high opinion of their own importance and imagine
that they are every day adding some improvement to human life."--"Some
turn the wheel of electricity, some suspend rings to a loadstone, and
find that what they did yesterday they can do again to-day. Some
register the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that the wind
is changeable.
"There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colorless
liquors may produce a color by union, and that two cold bodies will grow
hot if they are mingled; they mingle them, and produce the effect
expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again."
I cannot transcribe this extract without an intense inward delight in its
wit and a full recognition of its thorough half-truthfulness. Yet if
while the great moralist is indulging in these vivacities, he can be
imagined as receiving a message from Mr. Boswell or Mrs. Thrale flashed
through the depths of the ocean, we can suppose he might be tempted to
indulge in another oracular utterance, something like this:----A wise
man recognizes the convenience of a general statement, but he bows to the
authority of a particular fact. He who would bound the possibilities of
human knowledge by the limitations of present acquirements would take the
dimensions of the infant in ordering the habiliments of the adult. It is
the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to
listen. Will the Professor have the kindness to inform me by what steps
of gradual development the ring and the loadstone, which were but
yesterday the toys of children and idlers, have become the means of
approximating the intelligences of remote continents, and wafting
emotions unchilled through the abysses of the no longer unfathomable
deep?
--This, you understand, Beloved, is only a conventional imitation of the
Doctor's style of talking. He w
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