too lazy or too diffident to open his lips to
get credit so cheaply for superior wisdom! When he does not talk, of
course it can only be because he keeps up such an incessant thinking!
"Too deep for utterance" is the character of all his meditations! Do you
remember Coleridge's amusing experience with one of these reputed sages?
But for the appearance of the "dumplings,"--almost as historic now as
King George's famous ones,--it might never have been suspected that this
empty-headed fellow was not the profoundest of philosophers. Can you or
anybody explain the reasons for this singular praise of silence and
disparagement of speech? You do not expect to be commended for shutting
your eyes instead of keeping them open. The feeble and unused hand is
not preferred to the strong cunning one. Nor is there any sense or
faculty of our nature of which the simple non-use is better than the
use. Why, then, account it a merit to refrain from using this wondrous
faculty of speech? I may grant all that you will tell me of the
deplorable amount of vapid, idle, bitter, malicious, foul, and profane
talk. Silence is better than the _abuse_ of words,--none of us will
question that. I am only defending the normal and legitimate exercise
of this faculty. And perhaps you will see the matter in still clearer
light, if you should undertake to apply the principle of the Carlyle
proverb to some other endowments and opportunities, to which in fact
many do apply it. If one may say, "I am weary of all this talking,
henceforth let there be silence," why may not another, improving upon
this hint, say, "I am sick of these miserable daubs, there shall be no
more painting," and another, "I am disgusted with politics, I will have
nothing more to do with the science or the art of government"? Because
there are infelicities of married life, is it so certain that "single
blessedness" is the best estate? Because there are some timeservers and
worldlings among the clergy, shall we join in denunciation of priests
and churches everywhere? I see that you are prepared to answer, that
speech is peculiarly liable to abuse. Exactly, and that is true of all
the most excellent and valuable gifts of Providence. It is impossible to
escape the condition of peril attached to everything under the sun that
is most worthy of desire. Have we not learned by this time the folly of
every form of asceticism, of every attempt to trample upon God's gifts
as evil instead of using them