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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
The following scene , taken from an after-period , when both are men , is a good specimen of Smith ' s character . He is oa his way to finish his studies for the bar ; Doveton , whose " impulses " have surrounded him with a host of friends , is travelling in search of some information of great importance to several of them , and which it lies very near his own heart to discover : —
" Smith and I travelled up together on the outside of the coach to London . It was very cold , and I was by no means inclined to be communicative during the journey . Indeed I am the most sulky of travellers always ; for I seldom condescend to bestow a word upon any of my compagnons de voyage . " Smith , on the other hand , was intolerably loquacious—whilst I was wrapt up in a shroud of thought , speculating , scheming , foretelling , my
whole soul . with Anstruther and the Moores , and the external world being as nothing to me , Smith was talking to one of his fellow-travellers upon the most common-place subjects imaginable—asking all manner of trivial questions , and taking the utmost pains to elicit information which / would not have burthened myself with possessing . It appeared that the man with whom he was conversing was a farmer , for Smith , with as much minuteness as if he had been one of a committee of inquiry , was cross-examining the wretch upon divers matters connected with the state of agriculture , and other things equally unimportant . The soil of the country through which we were passing , the general condition of the poorer orders , the necessity of a poor-law reform , the breed of horses , the adaptation of machinery to agricultural purposes , the progress of rail-roads , and other matters ejusdem generis— unworthy , as I thought , to arrest the attention of any creature professing to be rational—were inquired into and descanted upon by Smith , just as though he had been actually interested in them . " When the farmer left us , which he did at A , Smith turned round to me , and said , ' If you wish to gain information , Doveton , mount every man you meet upon his hobby . ' " We had not proceeded far before there was a claimant for the seat which had just been vacated by the farmer , and in less than five minutes the indefatigable Smith had discovered what was the calling of the man , and there he was hammering away at the coal-trade , just as perseveringly as a quarter of an hour before he been labouring at the state of agriculture . It was really quite enough to sicken one . "
If these two may be taken as personations of imagination and common sense , Michael Moore may stand as a portrait of a different character from either , and a very beautiful one . He is a student of nature ; possessing such a mind as would constitute a descriptive rather than an imaginative poet- —a painter of exquisite forms and' colours , and combinations of light and shade , rather than of expression or ' sd&l ; or ; should he rather turn to deep inquiry , one which might search into things , and give him the right to be called a philosopher : — "
M In the clear expanse of his serene forehead , m& the mild lustre of
Untitled Article
Doveton ; or , the Man of many Impulses . 293
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 1, 1837, page 293, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1831/page/38/
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