SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE. 51 



everybody professed to adore them, and especially the great guns of 

 literature. Walter Scott thought more highly of the genius of the 

 author of " Mansfield Park " even than of that of his favorite, Miss 

 Edgeworth. Macaulay speaks of her as though she were the Eclipse 

 of novelists " first and the rest nowhere " though his opinion, it is 

 true, lost something of its force from the contempt he expressed for 

 " the rest," among whom were some much better ones. Dr. Whewell, 

 a very different type of mind, had " Mansfield Park," I believe, read 

 to him on his death-bed. And, indeed, up to the present date, some 

 highly cultured persons of my acquaintance take the same view. 

 They may be very possibly right, but that is no reason why the people 

 who have never read Miss Austen's novels and very few have 

 should ape the fashion. Now, the authoress of " Jane Eyre " did not 

 derive much pleasure from the perusal of the works of the other Jane. 

 " I know it's very wrong," she modestly said, " but the fact is I can't 

 read them. They have not got story enough in them to engage my 

 attention. I don't want my blood curdled, but I like it stirred. She 

 strikes me as milk-and-watery, and, to say truth, as dull." 



This opinion she has, in effect, repeated in her published writings, 

 but I had only heard her verbal expression of it, and I admired her 

 courage. If she had been a man, struggling, as she then was, for a 

 position in literature, she would not have dared to say half as much. 

 For, what is very curious, the advocates of the classic authors those 

 I mean whom antiquity has more or less hallowed instead of pitying 

 those unhappy wights who confess their want of appreciation of them, 

 fly at them with bludgeons, and dance upon their prostrate bodies 



with clogs. 



" For who would rush on a henighted man, 

 And give him two black eyes for being blind ? " 



inquires the poet. I answer, " Lots of people," and especially those 

 who worship the pagan divinities of literature. The same thing hap- 

 pens but their fury is more excusable, because they have less natural 

 intelligence with the lovers of music. Instead of being sorry for 

 the poor folks who have " no ear," and whom " a little music in the 

 evening " bores to extremity, they overwhelm them with reproaches 

 for what is in fact a natural infirmity. " You Goth ! you Vandal ! " 

 they exclaim, " how contemptible is the creature who has no music in 

 his soul ! " Which is really very rude. Even persons who are not 

 musical have their feelings. " Hath not a Jew ears ? " that is to say, 

 though they have " no ear," they understand what is abusive language 

 and resent it. 



I am not saying one word against established reputations in litera- 

 ture. The very fact of their being established (even the " Rambler," 

 for example, has its merits) is in their favor ; and, indeed, some of 

 the works I shall refer to are masterpieces. My objection is to the 

 sham admiration of them, which does their authors no good (for their 



