try it; what gifts of diligent judicious assimilation and
secretion it has, of progress and resistance, of _force_ to grow,
will then declare themselves. My much-honoured, illustrious,
extremely inarticulate Mr. Bull!--

Ask Bull his spoken opinion of any matter,--oftentimes the force
of dulness can no farther go. You stand silent, incredulous, as
over a platitude that borders on the Infinite. The man's
Churchisms, Dissenterisms, Puseyisms, Benthamisms, College
Philosophies, Fashionable Literatures, are unexampled in this
world. Fate's prophecy is fulfilled; you call the man an ox and
an ass. But set him once to work,--respectable man! His spoken
sense is next to nothing, nine-tenths of it palpable _nonsense:_
but his unspoken sense, his inner silent feeling of what is true,
what does agree with fact, what is doable and what is not
doable,--this seeks its fellow in the world. A terrible worker;
irresistible against marshes, mountains, impediments, disorder,
in civilisation; everywhere vanquishing disorder, leaving it
behind him as method and order. He 'retires to his bed three
days,' and considers!

Nay withal, stupid as he is, our dear John,--ever, after infinite
tumblings, and spoken platitudes innumerable from barrelheads and
parliament-benches, he does settle down somewhere about the just
conclusion; you are certain that his jumblings and tumblings
will end, after years or centuries, in the stable equilibrium.
Stable equilibrium, I say; centre-of-gravity lowest;--not the
unstable, with centre-of-gravity highest, as I have known it done
by quicker people! For indeed, do but jumble and tumble
sufficiently, you avoid that worst fault, of settling with your
centre-of-gravity highest; your centre-of-gravity is certain to
come lowest, and to stay there. If slowness, what we in our
impatience call 'stupidity,' be the price of stable equilibrium
over unstable, shall we grudge a little slowness? Not the least
admirable quality of Bull is, after all, that of remaining
insensible to logic; holding out for considerable periods, ten
years or more, as in this of the Corn-Laws, after all arguments
and shadow of arguments have faded away from him, till the very
urchins on the street titter at the arguments he brings. Logic,
--[Greek] the 'Art of Speech,'--does indeed speak so and so;
clear enough: nevertheless Bull still shakes his head; will see
whether nothing else _illogical,_ not yet 'spoken,' not yet a