Impressions of Theophrastus Such | Page 5

I have a vast
intellectual scope, or--what is more surprising, considering I have done
so little--that I might, if I chose, surpass any distinguished man whom
they wish to depreciate. I have not attained any lofty peak of
magnanimity, nor would I trust beforehand in my capability of meeting
a severe demand for moral heroism. But that I have at least succeeded
in establishing a habit of mind which keeps watch against my
self-partiality and promotes a fair consideration of what touches the
feelings or the fortunes of my neighbours, seems to be proved by the
ready confidence with which men and women appeal to my interest in
their experience. It is gratifying to one who would above all things
avoid the insanity of fancying himself a more momentous or touching
object than he really is, to find that nobody expects from him the least
sign of such mental aberration, and that he is evidently held capable of
listening to all kinds of personal outpouring without the least
disposition to become communicative in the same way. This
confirmation of the hope that my bearing is not that of the
self-flattering lunatic is given me in ample measure. My acquaintances
tell me unreservedly of their triumphs and their piques; explain their
purposes at length, and reassure me with cheerfulness as to their
chances of success; insist on their theories and accept me as a dummy
with whom they rehearse their side of future discussions; unwind their
coiled-up griefs in relation to their husbands, or recite to me examples
of feminine incomprehensibleness as typified in their wives; mention

frequently the fair applause which their merits have wrung from some
persons, and the attacks to which certain oblique motives have
stimulated others. At the time when I was less free from superstition
about my own power of charming, I occasionally, in the glow of
sympathy which embraced me and my confiding friend on the subject
of his satisfaction or resentment, was urged to hint at a corresponding
experience in my own case; but the signs of a rapidly lowering pulse
and spreading nervous depression in my previously vivacious
interlocutor, warned me that I was acting on that dangerous misreading,
"Do as you are done by." Recalling the true version of the golden rule, I
could not wish that others should lower my spirits as I was lowering
my friend's. After several times obtaining the same result from a like
experiment in which all the circumstances were varied except my own
personality, I took it as an established inference that these fitful signs of
a lingering belief in my own importance were generally felt to be
abnormal, and were something short of that sanity which I aimed to
secure. Clearness on this point is not without its gratifications, as I have
said. While my desire to explain myself in private ears has been quelled,
the habit of getting interested in the experience of others has been
continually gathering strength, and I am really at the point of finding
that this world would be worth living in without any lot of one's own. Is
it not possible for me to enjoy the scenery of the earth without saying to
myself, I have a cabbage-garden in it? But this sounds like the lunacy
of fancying oneself everybody else and being unable to play one's own
part decently--another form of the disloyal attempt to be independent of
the common lot, and to live without a sharing of pain.
Perhaps I have made self-betrayals enough already to show that I have
not arrived at that non-human independence. My conversational
reticences about myself turn into garrulousness on paper--as the
sea-lion plunges and swims the more energetically because his limbs
are of a sort to make him shambling on land. The act of writing, in spite
of past experience, brings with it the vague, delightful illusion of an
audience nearer to my idiom than the Cherokees, and more numerous
than the visionary One for whom many authors have declared
themselves willing to go through the pleasing punishment of
publication. My illusion is of a more liberal kind, and I imagine a

far-off, hazy, multitudinous assemblage, as in a picture of Paradise,
making an approving chorus to the sentences and paragraphs of which I
myself particularly enjoy the writing. The haze is a necessary condition.
If any physiognomy becomes distinct in the foreground, it is fatal. The
countenance is sure to be one bent on discountenancing my innocent
intentions: it is pale-eyed, incapable of being amused when I am
amused or indignant at what makes me indignant; it stares at my
presumption, pities my ignorance, or is manifestly preparing to expose
the various instances in which I unconsciously disgrace myself. I
shudder at this too corporeal auditor, and turn towards another point of