comfortable
and healing to the weary,
wounded soul of man!
wounded soul of man!
Robert Forst
whatever thou art, or wherever
thou makest thyself visible! be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an
auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd-callan maun
bicker in his gloamin route frae the faulde! --Be thou a brownie, set,
at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary
barn, where the repercussions of thy iron flail half affright thyself
as thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, ere the
cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog of substantial brose--Be
thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the starless night,
mixing thy laughing yell with the howling of the storm and the roaring
of the flood, as thou viewest the perils and miseries of man on the
foundering horse, or in the tumbling boat! --or, lastly, be thou a
ghost, paying thy nocturnal visits to the hoary ruins of decayed
grandeur; or performing thy mystic rites in the shadow of the
time-worn church, while the moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent
ghastly dwellings of the dead around thee! or taking thy stand by the
bedside of the villain, or the murderer, pourtraying on his dreaming
fancy, pictures, dreadful as the horrors of unveiled hell, and
terrible as the wrath of incensed Deity! --Come, thou spirit, but not
in these horrid forms; come with the milder, gentle, easy
inspirations, which thou breathest round the wig of a prating
advocate, or the tete of a tea-sipping gossip, while their tongues run
at the light-horse gallop of clishmaclaver for ever and ever--come
and assist a poor devil who is quite jaded in the attempt to share
half an idea among half a hundred words; to fill up four quarto pages,
while he has not got one single sentence of recollection, information,
or remark worth putting pen to paper for.
I feel, I feel the presence of supernatural assistance! circled in the
embrace of my elbowchair, my breast labours, like the bloated Sybil on
her three-footed stool, and like her, too, labours with
Nonsense. --Nonsense, suspicious name! Tutor, friend, and finger-post
in the mystic mazes of law; the cadaverous paths of physic; and
particularly in the sightless soarings of SCHOOL DIVINITY,
who, leaving Common Sense confounded at his strength of pinion,
Reason, delirious with eyeing his giddy flight; and Truth creeping
back into the bottom of her well, cursing the hour that ever she
offered her scorned alliance to the wizard power of Theologic
Vision--raves abroad on all the winds. "On earth Discord! a gloomy
Heaven above, opening her jealous gates to the nineteenth thousandth
part of the tithe of mankind; and below, an inescapable and inexorable
hell, expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of
mortals! ! ! "--O doctrine!
comfortable and healing to the weary,
wounded soul of man! Ye sons and daughters of affliction, ye _pauvres
miserables_, to whom day brings no pleasure, and night yields no rest,
be comforted! "'Tis but _one_ to nineteen hundred thousand that your
situation will mend in this world;" so, alas, the experience of the
poor and the needy too often affirms; and 'tis nineteen hundred
thousand sand to _one_, by the dogmas of * * * * * * * * that you will be
damned eternally in the world to come!
But of all nonsense, religious nonsense is the most nonsensical; so
enough, and more than enough of it. Only, by the by, will you or can
you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why a sectarian turn of mind has
always a tendency to narrow and illiberalize the heart? They are
orderly; they may be just; nay, I have known them merciful: but still
your children of sanctity move among their fellow-creatures with a
nostril-snuffing putrescence, and a foot-spurning filth, in short,
with a conceited dignity that your titled * * * * * * * * or any other
of your Scottish lordlings of seven centuries standing, display when
they accidentally mix among the many-aproned sons of mechanical life. I
remember, in my plough-boy days, I could not conceive it possible that a
noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a knave--How
ignorant are plough-boys! --Nay, I have since discovered that a _godly
woman_ may be a *****! --But hold--Here's t'ye again--this rum is
generous Antigua, so a very unfit menstruum for scandal.
Apropos, how do you like, I mean _really_ like, the married life? Ah, my
friend! matrimony is quite a different thing from what your love-sick
youths and sighing girls take it to be! But marriage, we are told, is
appointed by God, and I shall never quarrel with any of his
institutions. I am a husband of older standing than you, and shall give
you _my_ ideas of the conjugal state, (_en passant_; you know I am no
Latinist, is not _conjugal_ derived from _jugum_, a yoke? ) Well, then,
the scale of good wifeship I divide into ten parts:--good-nature, four;
good sense, two; wit, one; personal charms, viz. a sweet face, eloquent
eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage (I would add a fine waist too, but
that is so soon spoilt you know), all these, one; as for the other
qualities belonging to, or attending on, a wife, such as fortune,
connexions, education (I mean education extraordinary) family, blood,
&c.
thou makest thyself visible! be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an
auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd-callan maun
bicker in his gloamin route frae the faulde! --Be thou a brownie, set,
at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary
barn, where the repercussions of thy iron flail half affright thyself
as thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, ere the
cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog of substantial brose--Be
thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the starless night,
mixing thy laughing yell with the howling of the storm and the roaring
of the flood, as thou viewest the perils and miseries of man on the
foundering horse, or in the tumbling boat! --or, lastly, be thou a
ghost, paying thy nocturnal visits to the hoary ruins of decayed
grandeur; or performing thy mystic rites in the shadow of the
time-worn church, while the moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent
ghastly dwellings of the dead around thee! or taking thy stand by the
bedside of the villain, or the murderer, pourtraying on his dreaming
fancy, pictures, dreadful as the horrors of unveiled hell, and
terrible as the wrath of incensed Deity! --Come, thou spirit, but not
in these horrid forms; come with the milder, gentle, easy
inspirations, which thou breathest round the wig of a prating
advocate, or the tete of a tea-sipping gossip, while their tongues run
at the light-horse gallop of clishmaclaver for ever and ever--come
and assist a poor devil who is quite jaded in the attempt to share
half an idea among half a hundred words; to fill up four quarto pages,
while he has not got one single sentence of recollection, information,
or remark worth putting pen to paper for.
I feel, I feel the presence of supernatural assistance! circled in the
embrace of my elbowchair, my breast labours, like the bloated Sybil on
her three-footed stool, and like her, too, labours with
Nonsense. --Nonsense, suspicious name! Tutor, friend, and finger-post
in the mystic mazes of law; the cadaverous paths of physic; and
particularly in the sightless soarings of SCHOOL DIVINITY,
who, leaving Common Sense confounded at his strength of pinion,
Reason, delirious with eyeing his giddy flight; and Truth creeping
back into the bottom of her well, cursing the hour that ever she
offered her scorned alliance to the wizard power of Theologic
Vision--raves abroad on all the winds. "On earth Discord! a gloomy
Heaven above, opening her jealous gates to the nineteenth thousandth
part of the tithe of mankind; and below, an inescapable and inexorable
hell, expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of
mortals! ! ! "--O doctrine!
comfortable and healing to the weary,
wounded soul of man! Ye sons and daughters of affliction, ye _pauvres
miserables_, to whom day brings no pleasure, and night yields no rest,
be comforted! "'Tis but _one_ to nineteen hundred thousand that your
situation will mend in this world;" so, alas, the experience of the
poor and the needy too often affirms; and 'tis nineteen hundred
thousand sand to _one_, by the dogmas of * * * * * * * * that you will be
damned eternally in the world to come!
But of all nonsense, religious nonsense is the most nonsensical; so
enough, and more than enough of it. Only, by the by, will you or can
you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why a sectarian turn of mind has
always a tendency to narrow and illiberalize the heart? They are
orderly; they may be just; nay, I have known them merciful: but still
your children of sanctity move among their fellow-creatures with a
nostril-snuffing putrescence, and a foot-spurning filth, in short,
with a conceited dignity that your titled * * * * * * * * or any other
of your Scottish lordlings of seven centuries standing, display when
they accidentally mix among the many-aproned sons of mechanical life. I
remember, in my plough-boy days, I could not conceive it possible that a
noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a knave--How
ignorant are plough-boys! --Nay, I have since discovered that a _godly
woman_ may be a *****! --But hold--Here's t'ye again--this rum is
generous Antigua, so a very unfit menstruum for scandal.
Apropos, how do you like, I mean _really_ like, the married life? Ah, my
friend! matrimony is quite a different thing from what your love-sick
youths and sighing girls take it to be! But marriage, we are told, is
appointed by God, and I shall never quarrel with any of his
institutions. I am a husband of older standing than you, and shall give
you _my_ ideas of the conjugal state, (_en passant_; you know I am no
Latinist, is not _conjugal_ derived from _jugum_, a yoke? ) Well, then,
the scale of good wifeship I divide into ten parts:--good-nature, four;
good sense, two; wit, one; personal charms, viz. a sweet face, eloquent
eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage (I would add a fine waist too, but
that is so soon spoilt you know), all these, one; as for the other
qualities belonging to, or attending on, a wife, such as fortune,
connexions, education (I mean education extraordinary) family, blood,
&c.
