Autobiographical fiction; Domestic fiction; Male authors -- Fiction; Men -- Fiction; Psychological fiction
They are mostly artists of various sorts; painters, or sculptors, or
indigent students, or teachers of languages, or poets, or fugitive
French politicians, or German philosophers. Their mental tendencies,
however heterodox at times, are still very fine and spiritual upon the
whole; since the vacuity of their exchequers leads them to reject the
coarse materialism of Hobbs, and incline to the airy exaltations of the
Berkelyan philosophy. Often groping in vain in their pockets, they can
not but give in to the Descartian vortices; while the abundance of
leisure in their attics (physical and figurative), unite with the
leisure in their stomachs, to fit them in an eminent degree for that
undivided attention indispensable to the proper digesting of the
sublimated Categories of Kant; especially as Kant (can't) is the one
great palpable fact in their pervadingly impalpable lives. These are the
glorious paupers, from whom I learn the profoundest mysteries of things;
since their very existence in the midst of such a terrible
precariousness of the commonest means of support, affords a problem on
which many speculative nutcrackers have been vainly employed. Yet let me
here offer up three locks of my hair, to the memory of all such glorious
paupers who have lived and died in this world. Surely, and truly I honor
them--noble men often at bottom--and for that very reason I make bold to
be gamesome about them; for where fundamental nobleness is, and
fundamental honor is due, merriment is never accounted irreverent. The
fools and pretenders of humanity, and the impostors and baboons among
the gods, these only are offended with raillery; since both those gods
and men whose titles to eminence are secure, seldom worry themselves
about the seditious gossip of old apple-women, and the skylarkings of
funny little boys in the street.
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