On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
What a bugbear is the word vulgarity ! Who would not suffer anything short of fire and famine , rather than have that crime of convention imputed to him ? How purely conventional it is : we never find the rank weed in the walks of savage life . And why ?
Because , there , affectation and pretension have no existence . The reproach of vulgarity is applied in a very limited sense ; but is deserved most extensively . The vulgar do not know themselves : perhaps a few questions , by touching the secret chords of consciousness , may serve to enlighten them . Who are the vulgar , if it be not they who value themselves on their extrinsic possession ,
instead of their intrinsic power?—Who are the vulgar , if it be not the poor pretenders who affect that which is foreign to their feelings and their tastes , and refuse those things which are congenial to both ?—Who are the vulgar , but such as would shame to own descent from a shoemaker or a tailor , but have no manner of shame in contributing to the insolvency of either ?—Who are the vulgar , but they who in society play the petty parts of mimics
and echoes , instead of speaking and acting from natural character and current feeling ?—Who are the vulgar , but the Paul Pryists who worm their way , like a mildew , where they have neither right nor purpose of inquiry ; and then , like that , poison the flower they have invaded ?—Who are the vulgar , but the etiquettarians who fear to appear at a place , or speak to a person , without a warrant from precedent ?
The uncultivated being , who is restricted to a dull , coarse occupation , may be rude or clums y : the effort to cover , not to cure , these defects , alone could constitute his vulgarity . Never / was vulgarity better rebuked , than by a reply attributed to a learned lawyer of the present day . He formed one of a patrician party ,
in which a patent man of gentility felt peculiarly irritated at the presence of a plebeian man of genius ; and , after various vulgar attempts to show his displeasure , his lordship at length observed , — I believe , sir , your father was a barber . '—* Yes / was the prompt reply ; ' and , had your father been a barber , you would have been a barber too ! There ia also little doubt , if the order
of mind had remained the same in one rank as in the other , he would have anxiously concealed the fact that he had any pretension to hereditary or personal usefulness . How is it , that man , the most helpless , at birth , of all animals ;
who requires the longest time of any for the developement of his powers ; who is subject to the severest infirmities ; who is thus wholly dependent for preservation at first , and enjoyment afterwards , upon the social state , takes so little pains to perfect it ,- — nay , evinces such a pleasure in tearing to pieces such little
Untitled Article
714
Untitled Article
HUMAN ANIMALCULE .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 714, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/38/
-