felt by educated folk of middle age,
in listening to the sermons of young pulpit orators, especially of
such as think for themselves, of such as aim at a high standard of
excellence, of such as have in them the makings of striking and eloquent
preachers. Dull and stupid fellows never deviate into the extravagance
and absurdity which I specially understand by Veal. They plod along in
a humdrum manner; there is no poetry in their soul,--none of those
ambitious stirrings which lead the man who has in him the true spark of
genius to try for grand things and incur severe and ignominious tumbles.
A heavy dray-horse, walking along the road, may possibly advance at a
very lagging pace, or may even stand still; but whatever he may do, he
is not likely to jump violently over the hedge, or to gallop off at
twenty-five miles an hour. It must be a thoroughbred who will go wrong
in that grand fashion. And there are intellectual absurdities and
extravagances which hold out hopeful promise of noble doings yet: the
eagle, which will breast the hurricane yet, may meet various awkward
tumbles before he learns the fashion in which to use those iron wings.
But the substantial goose, which probably escapes those tumbles in
trying to fly, will never do anything very magnificent in the way of
flying. The man who in his early days writes in a very inflated and
bombastic style will gradually sober down into good sense and accurate
taste, still retaining something of liveliness and eloquence. But expect
little of the man who as a boy was always sensible, and never bombastic.
He will grow awfully dry. He is sure to fall into the unpardonable sin
of tiresomeness. The rule has exceptions; but the earliest productions
of a man of real genius are almost always crude, flippant, and
affectedly smart, or else turgid and extravagant in a high degree.
Witness Mr. Disraeli; witness Sir E.B. Lytton; witness even Macaulay.
The man who as mere boy writes something very sound and sensible will
probably never become more than a dull, sensible, commonplace man.
Many people can say, as they bethink themselves of their old college
companions, that those who wrote with good sense and good taste at
twenty have mostly settled down into the dullest and baldest of prosers;
while such as dealt in bombastic flourishes and absurd ambitiousness of
style have learned, as time went on, to prune their early luxuriances,
while still retaining something of raciness, interest, and