it makes it be believed, not the falsehood: it succeeded by its truth. A bastard kind of Christianity, but a living kind, with a heartlife in it; not dead, chopping, barren logic merely! Out of all that rubbish of Arab idolatries, argumentative theologies, traditions, subtleties, rumours and hypotheses of Greeks and Jews, with their idle wire-drawings, this wild man of the desert, with his wild sincere heart, earnest as death and life, with his great flashing natural eyesight, had seen into the kernel of the matter. Idolatry is nothing: "These wooden idols of yours, ye rub them with oil and wax, and the flies stick on them,these are wood I tell you! They can do CRITIC (the True and False)-Characnothing for you; they are an impotent blasphemous pretence: a horror and abomination, if ye knew them. God alone is; God alone has power; He made us, He can kill us and keep us alive; 'Allah akbar,' God is great. Understand that His will is the best for you; that howsoever sore to flesh and blood, you will find it the wisest, best; you are bound to take it so; in this world and in the next, you have no other thing that you can do!" And now, if the wild idolatrous men did believe this, and with their fiery hearts laid hold of it to do it, in what form soever it came to them, I say it is well worthy of being Carlyle. discipline, and useful labour, have been disentangled in their habits; they might have escaped all the temptations to subsequent crimes, and passed their days in reparation and penitence; and detected they might all have been, had the prosecutors been certain their lives would have been spared. I believe every thief will confess, that he has been more than once seized and dismissed; and that he has sometimes ventured upon capital crimes, because he knew, that those whom he injured, would rather connive at his escape than cloud their minds with the horrors of his death. Johnson. believed. CRIME engenders Crime. teristics of. Fastidiousness, the discernment of defects, and the propensity to seek them, in natural beauty, are not the proofs of taste, but the evidences of its absence; it is, at least, an insensibility to beauty; it is worse than that, i since it is a depravity, when pleasure is found in the discovery of such defects, real or imaginary. And he who affects this, because he considers it an evidence of his taste, is, at least, pitiably ignorant; while not seldom punished by the conversion of that affectation into a reality. And it is the same in criticism, as applied to works of literature. It is not the eye for faults, but beauties, that constitutes the real critic, in this, as in all else: he who is most discerning in the beauties of Oh, how will crime engender crime! throw poetry, is the man of taste, the true judge, guilt the only critic. The critic, as he is currently termed, who is discerning in nothing but faults, may care little to be told, that this is the mark of unamiable dispositions or of bad passions; but he might not feel equally easy, were he convinced that he thus gives the most absolute proofs of ignorance and want of taste. Macculloch. CRITICISM-a Malignant Deity. The malignant deity Criticism dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla: Momus found her extended in her den upon the spoils of numberless volumes half-devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of There was Opinion. paper herself had torn. her sister, light of foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, yet giddy and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill Manners. Swift. CRITICISM-Severity of. The fangs of a bear, and the tusks of a wild boar, do not bite worse, and make deeper gabes, than a goosequill sometimes: no, not CRITICS-Qualities of. CRITICISM-Impartial Spirit of. A perfect judge will read each work of wit Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight, Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging Johnson. well. Critics are like a kind of flies, that breed Upon the raw fruit of the nobler kind, And by their nibbling on the outward rind, CRITICS-Qualities of. Critics have done nearly the same in taste, as casuists have in morals; both having attempted to direct by rules, and limit by definitions, matters which depend entirely on feeling and sentiment; and which are therefore so various and extensive, and diversified by such nice and infinitely graduated shades of difference, that they elude all the subtleties of logic, and the intricacies of calculation. Rules can never be made so general, as to comprehend every possible case, nor definitions so multifarious and exact, as to include every possible circumstance or contingency. R. P. Knight. 'Tis necessary a writing critic should understand how to write. And though every writer is not bound to show himself in the capacity of critic, every writing critic is bound to show himself capable of being a writer; for, if he be apparently impotent in this latter kind, he is to be denied all title or character in the other. Shaftesbury. CRITICS-Cynical Spirit of. He whose first emotion, on the view of an excellent production, is to undervalue it, will never have oue of his own to show. Aikin. CROWDS. A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. Bacon. CROWDS-Gaiety and Folly of. It was that gay and splendid confusion, in which the eye of youth sees all that is brave and brilliant, and that of experience much that is doubtful, deceitful, false, and hollow; hopes that will never be gratified, promises that will never be fulfilled, pride in the disguise of humility, and insolence in that of frank and generous bounty. Sir Walter Scott. CROWN-Golden in Show. A crown, Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns; To him who wears the regal diadem, CRUELTY-True Character of. Cruelty to dumb animals is one of the distinguishing vices of the lowest and basest of the people. Wherever it is found, it is a certain mark of ignorance and meanness; an intrinsic mark, which all the external advantages of wealth, splendour, and nobility cannot obliterate. It will consist neither with true learning nor true civility; and religion disclaims and detests it as an insult upon the majesty and the goodness of God, who having made the instincts of brute beasts minister to the improvement of the mind, as well as to the convenience of the body, hath furnished us with a motive to mercy and compassion toward them very strong and powerful, but too refined to have any influence on the illiterate or irreligious. Jones of Nayland. CURIOSITY. goes boldly forward by the nearest way; he sees that where the path is straight and even, he may proceed in security, and where it is rough and crooked, he easily complies with the turns, and avoids the obstructions. But the traveller in the dusk, fears more as he sees less; he knows there may be danger, and therefore suspects that he is never safe; tries every step before he fixes his foot, and shrinks at every noise, lest violence should approach him. Wisdom comprehends at once the end and the means, estimates easiness or difficulty, and is cautious, or confident, in due proportion. Cunning discovers little at a time, and has no other means of certainty, than multiplication of stratagems and superfluity of suspicion. The man of cunning always considers that he can never be too safe, and, therefore, always keeps himself enveloped in a mist, impenetrable, as he hopes, to the eye of rivalry or curiosity. Johnson. CURIOSITY-Characteristics of. Inquisitive people are the funnels of conversation; they do not take in anything for their own use, but merely to pass it to another. Steele. Cunning leads to knavery; it is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery: lying only makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery. La Bruyère. The over curious are not over wise. Massinger. CUNNING AND DISCRETION. Cunning has only private, selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon. Cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance. Discretion, the more it is discovered, gives a greater authority to the person who possesses it: cunning, when it is once detected, loses its force, and makes a man incapable of bringing about even those events which he might have done had he passed only for a plain man. Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life: cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them. In short, cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often taken for wit, and gravity for wisdom. Ibid. I loathe that low vice curiosity. CURIOSITY-Dangers of. Byron. True, lady, by the roses on those lips, she runs, The merriest masker underneath the moon! To beauties, languid from the last night's rout, CUSTOM-without Truth. She comes with tresses loose, and shoulders Custom, though never so ancient, without truth, is but an old error. Cyprian. CUSTOM-Tyranny of. Of all tyrants, custom is that which to sustain itself stands most in need of the opinion which is entertained of its power; its only strength lies in that which is attributed to it. A single attempt to break the yoke soon shows us its fragility. But the chief property of custom is to contract our ideas, like our movements, within the circle it has traced for us; it governs us by the terror it inspires for any new and untried condition. It shows us the walls of the prison within which we are inclosed, as the boundary of the world; beyond that, all is undefined, confusion, chaos; it almost seems as though we should not have air to breathe. Women especially, liable to that fear which springs from ignorance, rather than from knowledge of what one has to fear, easily allow themselves to be governed by custom; but when once broken, they also as easily forget it. A man has less trouble in making up his mind to a change of condition; a woman has less in supporting it; she accustoms herself to it for the same reason that she has hitherto done so, and will still continue to do so. In the total overthrow which has produced so many changes of fortune among us, we have seen men extricate themselves by their courage and industry; and some, by unremitting exertion, have been able to return to nearly their former position; but nearly all the women, almost without exception, accommodated themselves to their new situation, and they have been quite astonished to learn so quickly and so easily, that what one woman has done, another is able to do also. Guizot. CUSTOM-Usurpation of. Custom, though but usher of the school O'er man, the heir of reason, than brute beast, Upon the body than the soul's allow'd, Butler. CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS. CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS DANCING. - Dif- CUSTOMS-Reasons for. ferent Manners of. The custom-house officers of every nation I have yet travelled through have a different manner of examining your luggage. Your crusty phlegmatic Englishman turns over each article separately, but carefully; your stupid Belgian rummages your trunk as if he were trying to catch a lizard; your courteous Frenchman either lightly and gracefully turns up your fine linen, as though he were making a lobster salad, or, much more frequently, if you tell him you have nothing to declare, and are polite to him, just peeps into one corner of your portmanteau, and says, "C'est assez." Your sententious German ponders deeply over your trunk, pokes his fat fore-finger into the bosom of your dress-shirts, and motions you to shut it again. But none of these peculiarities had the Russians. They had a way of their own. They twisted, they tousled, they turned over, they held writing-cases open, bottom upwards, and shook out the manuscript contents like snow-flakes; they held up coats and shirts, and examined them like pawnbrokers; they fingered ladies' dresses like Jew clothesmen; they punched hats, and looked into their linings passed Cashmere shawls from one to the other for inspection; opened letters, and tried to read their contents (upside down); drew silk stockings over their arms; held boots by the toes, and shook them; opened bottles, and closed them again with wrong corks; left the impress of their dirty hands upon clean linen and virgin writingpapers; crammed ladies' under-garments into gentlemen's carpet-bags; forced a bootjack into the little French actress's reticule; dropped things under-foot, trod on them, tore them, and laughed; spilt eau-de-Cologne, greased silk with pomatum, forced hinges, sprained locks, ruined springs, broke cigars, rumpled muslin, and raised a cloud of puff-powder and dentrifice. Dickens. CUSTOMS-New. New customs, Though they be never so ridiculous, The good yeoman wears russet clothes, but makes golden payment, having time in his buttons, but silver in his pocket. If he chance to appear in clothes above his rank, it is to grace some great man with his service, and then he blusheth at his own bravery. Otherwise, he is the sweet landmark, whence foreigners may take aim of the ancient English customs; the gentry more floating after foreign fashions. Fuller. I love these rural dances,-from my heart I love them. This world, at best, is full of care and sorrow; the life of a poor man is so stained with the sweat of his brow, there is so much toil and struggling, and anguish and disappointment, here below, that I gaze with delight on a scene where all those are laid! aside and forgotten; and the heart of the toil-worn peasant seems to throw off its load, and to leap to the sound of music, when merrily, "Beneath soft eve's consenting star, Fandango twirls his jocund castanet." DANCING-Effects of. Longfellow. |