with respect to
the Chinese marks, the misery in his brain, produced by his mental
affliction, decreases. He sets about learning Chinese, and after the
lapse of many years, during which his mind subsides into a certain state
of tranquillity, he acquires sufficient knowledge of Chinese to be able
to translate with ease the inscriptions to be found on its singular
crockery. Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence of
God, a being too of rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part
of a language so difficult that, as Lavengro said on a former occasion,
none but the cleverest people in Europe, the French, are able to acquire
it. But God did not intend that man should merely acquire Chinese. He
intended that he should be of use to his species, and by the
instrumentality of the first Chinese inscription which he translates, the
one which first arrested his curiosity, he is taught the duties of
hospitality; yes, by means of an inscription in the language of a people
who have scarcely an idea of hospitality themselves, God causes the
slothful man to play a useful and beneficent part in the world, relieving
distressed wanderers, and, amongst others, Lavengro himself. But a
striking indication of the man's surprising sloth is still apparent in
what he omits to do; he has learnt Chinese, the most difficult of
languages, and he practises acts of hospitality, because he believes
himself enjoined to do so by the Chinese inscription, but he cannot tell
the hour of the day by the clock within his house; he can get on, he
thinks, very well without being able to do so; therefore, from this one
omission, it is easy to come to a conclusion as to what a sluggard's part
the man would have played in life, but for the dispensation of
Providence; nothing but extreme agony could have induced such a man to do
anything useful. He still continues, with all he has acquired, with all
his usefulness, and with all his innocence of character, without any
proper sense of religion, though he has attained a rather advanced age.
If it be observed that this want of religion is a great defect in the
story, the author begs leave to observe that he cannot help it. Lavengro
relates the lives of people so far as they were placed before him, but no
farther. It was certainly a great defect in so good a man to be without
religion; it was likewise a great defect in so learned a man not to be
able to tell what was o'clock. It is probable