An Authors Mind | Page 5

ill-fitted with the face of Momus--these and
their thousand intermediates have tried in all ages to define that quaint
enigma, Man: and I wot not that any pundit of literature hath better
succeeded than the nameless, fameless man--or woman, was it?--or
haply some innocent shrewd child--who whilom did enunciate that
MAN IS A WRITING ANIMAL: true as arithmetic, clear as the
sunbeam, rational as Euclid, a discerning, just, exclusive definition.
That he is "capable of laughter," is well enough even for thy deathless
fame, O Stagyrite! but equally (so Buffon testifies) are apes and
monkeys, horses and hyenas; whether perforce of tickling or sympathy,
or native notions of the humorous, we will not stop to contend. That he
actually is "an animal whose best wisdom is laughter," hath but little
reason in it, Democrite, seeing there are such obvious anomalies among
men as suicidal jesters and cachinating idiots; nevertheless, my punster
of Abdera, thy whimsical fancy, surviving the wreck of dynasties, and
too light to sink in the billows of oblivion, is now become the popular
thought, the fashionable dress of heretofore moping wisdom: crow, an
thou wilt, jolly old chanticleer, but remember thee thou crowest on a
dunghill; man is not a mere merry-andrew. Neither is he exclusively "a
weeping animal," lugubrious Heraclite, no better definer than thy
laughter-loving foe: that man weeps, or ought to weep, the world

within him and the world without him indeed bear testimony: but is he
the only mourner in this valley of grief, this travailing creation? No, no;
they walk lengthily in black procession: yet is this present writing not
the fit season for enlarging upon sorrows; we must not now mourn and
be desolate as a poor bird grieving for its pilfered young--is Macduff's
lamentable cry for his lost little ones, "All--what, all?" more
piteous?--we must now indulge in despondent fears, like yonder
hard-run stag, with terror in his eye, and true tears coursing down his
melancholy face: we must not now mourn over cruelty and ingratitude,
like that poor old worn-out horse, crying--positively crying, and
looking imploringly for merciful rest into man's iron face; we must not
scream like the wounded hare, nor beat against our cage like the wild
bird prisoned from its freedom. Moreover, Heraclite, even in thine own
day thou mightest well have heard of the classic wailings of Philomel
for Atys, or of consumptive Canens, that shadow of a voice, for her
metamorphosed Pie, and have known that very crocodiles have tears:
pass on, thy desolate definition hath not served for man.
With flippant tongue a mercantile cosmopolite, stable in statistics and
learned in the leger, here interposes an erudite suggestion: "Man is a
calculating animal." Surely, so he is, unless he be a spendthrift; but he
still shares his quality with others; for the squirrel hoards his nuts, the
aunt lays in her barley-corns, the moon knoweth her seasons, and the
sun his going down: moreover, Chinese slates, multiplying rulers, and,
as their aggregated wisdom, Babbage's machine, will stoutly contest so
mechanical a fancy. Savoury steams, and those too smelling strongly of
truth, assault the nostrils, as a Vitellite--what a name of hungry omen
for the imperial devourer!--plausibly insinuates man to be "a cooking
animal." Who can gainsay it? and wherewithal, but with domesticated
monkeys, does he share this happy attribute? It is true, the butcher-bird
spits his prey on a thorn, the slow epicurean boa glazes his mashed
antelope, the king of vultures quietly waits for a gamey taste and the
rapid roasting of the tropics: but all this care, all this caloric, cannot be
accounted culinary, and without a question, the kitchen is a sphere
where the lord of creation reigns supreme: still, thou best of practical
philosophers, caterer for daily dinners--man--MAN, I say, is not
altogether a compact of edible commons, a Falstaff pudding-bag

robbed of his seasoning wit, a mere congeries of food and pickles;
moreover, honest Gingel of "fair" fame hath (or used to have, "in my
warm youth, when George the Third was king,") automatons, [pray,
observe, Sosii, I am not pedant or wiseacre enough to indite automata;
we conquering Britons stole that word among many others from poor
dead Greece, who couldn't want it; having made it ours in the singular,
why be bashful about the plural! So also of memorandums, omnibuses,
[you remember Farren's omniBI!] necropolises, gymnasiums,
eukeirogeneions, and other unlegacied property of dear departed Rome
and Greece. All this, as you see, is clearly parenthetical;] well, then,
Gingel has automatons, that will serve you up all kinds of delicate
viands, pleasant meats, and choice cates by clock-work, to say nothing
of Jones' patent all-in-a-moment-any-thing-whatsoever cooking
apparatus: no mine Apiciite, Heliogabalite, Sardanapalite, Seftonite,
Udite, thou of extravagant ancestry and indifferent digestion; little,
indeed, as you may credit me, man