periodicals never wrote a line for his journal; and when he died, the
review which he had built up by his individual ability made not the
slightest mention of the event. That the three books which have been so
widely read, and which have exercised incalculable influence upon morals
and politics,--The Imitation of Christ, The Whole Duty of Man, and the
Letters of Junius,--are of unknown or disputed authorship. That the
Bible,--incomparably the wisest and best book, the Book of books, the
guide of life, the solace in death, the way to heaven,--is so little
read by the many and so little understood by the few. That the one
subject (religion) which is "by general consent proscribed in general
society is that which by general consent is allowed to be the most
important, and which one might therefore suppose to be the most
interesting." That the brain, in subordination to the mind, the physical
centre of all sensation, is insensible to the wounds which are torture
to the skin, and which wounds the brain alone enables us to feel. ("It
is as insensible," says Sir Charles Bell, "as the leather of our shoe,
and a piece may be cut off without interrupting the patient in the
sentence that he is uttering.") That the heart, to which we refer our
joys, our sorrows, and our affections, when grasped with the fingers,
gives no information of the fact to the possessor, unmistakably
responding at the same time to the varied emotions of his mind. (The
famous Dr. Harvey examined, at the request of Charles I., a nobleman of
the Montgomery family, who, in consequence of an abscess, had a
fistulous opening into the chest, through which the heart could be seen
and handled. The great physiologist was astonished to find it
insensible. "I then brought him," he says, "to the king that he might
behold and touch so extraordinary a thing, and that he might perceive,
as I did, that when he touched the outer skin, or when he saw our
fingers in the cavity, this young nobleman knew not that we touched the
heart.") That one of our modern English poets, who has written lyrics so
passionate as to be hounded down for their immorality, has so lived,
according to a fellow-poet, as never to have kissed any one but his
mother. That the one man who can read the Eliot Bible is getting tired
of his distinction, just as a veteran poet, it is declared, hated to
hear praised one of the productions of his youth, at eighty not having
surpassed, in popular estimation, a school-boy poem, written at
eighteen. That the man whom Walter consulted in the management of the
Times newspaper, and who in Walter's absence, according to Robinson,
decided in the dernier resort, was at the time, and until the end of his
life, an inhabitant of the King's Bench Prison, and when he frequented
Printing House Square it was only by virtue of a day rule. (Combe was
his name: Old Combe, as he was familiarly called. He was the author of
the famous Letters of a Nobleman to his Son, generally ascribed to Lord
Lyttelton.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account