No More Learning

It would
be a clever thing, too, in the way of poetical justice, to keep him
there until his "Amatory Poems" get out of print, or are laid definitely
upon the shelf through lack of readers. Every fiction should have a
moral; and, what is more to the purpose, the critics have discovered
that every fiction has. Philip Melanchthon, some time ago, wrote a
commentary upon the "Batrachomyomachia," and proved that the poet's
object was to excite a distaste for sedition. Pierre la Seine, going
a step farther, shows that the intention was to recommend to young
men temperance in eating and drinking. Just so, too, Jacobus Hugo has
satisfied himself that, by Euenis, Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin;
by Antinous, Martin Luther; by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general;
and, by the Harpies, the Dutch. Our more modern Scholiasts are
equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a hidden meaning in "The
Antediluvians," a parable in Powhatan, "new views in Cock Robin," and
transcendentalism in "Hop O' My Thumb. " In short, it has been shown that
no man can sit down to write without a very profound design. Thus to
authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for example,
need have no care of his moral. It is there--that is to say, it is
somewhere--and the moral and the critics can take care of themselves.
When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended, and all
that he did not intend, will be brought to light, in the "Dial," or the
"Down-Easter," together with all that he ought to have intended, and
the rest that he clearly meant to intend:--so that it will all come very
straight in the end.

There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by
certain ignoramuses--that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more
precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined
to bring me out, and develop my morals:--that is the secret. By and by
the "North American Quarterly Humdrum" will make them ashamed of their
stupidity.
In the meantime, by way of staying execution--by way
of mitigating the accusations against me--I offer the sad history
appended,--a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question
whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals which form
the title of the tale. I should have credit for this arrangement--a
far wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who reserve the
impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in at
the fag end of their fables.

Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables, and De
mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction--even if the dead in
question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore,
to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is
true, and a dog's death it was that he died; but he himself was not to
blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his mother.
She did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant--for duties
to her well--regulated mind were always pleasures, and babies, like
tough steaks, or the modern Greek olive trees, are invariably the better
for beating--but, poor woman! she had the misfortune to be left-handed,
and a child flogged left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The
world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from
left to right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an evil
propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks
its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby's chastisements,
and, even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was
getting worse and worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in
my eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when
he had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one might
have mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been produced
beyond that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand
it no longer, but went down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my
voice, made prophecy of his ruin.

The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age
he used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At
six months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards.