THE WAR AND GENERAL CULTURE.

CONVERSATIONS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "FRIENDS IN COUNCIL."

IN

II.

our last conversation we left off suddenly, music being the topic that was about to be discussed. But Mr. Milverton was called away to attend some justice business; an opportunity which was seized upon by Sir John Ellesmere, who, I think, hates long discussion of any kind, to propose a country walk. "It's no good waiting for Milverton," he said. "These men of mighty culture are always very weak about the legs. For my part, I like a man to be developed in all directions. What's the use of working your brains to that extent of dizzy confusion that you are afraid to look down from a height? And show me any learned man who can play well at hockey. Look at that sweet dog. She knows, as well as possible, that I am proposing to go out for a walk, and that Milverton won't go; and every movement in her body expresses the misery of divided allegiance. But pleasure will prevail over duty, as it has, before now, once or twice, at least, in the course of the world's history. Our pretty Fairy will come with us, wagging her tail in a slow remorseful way, as she passes the room where Milverton is indifferently administering-very indifferently-country justice." So we went for our walk, leaving Mr. Milverton at home.

When we met next day for the purpose of renewing our conversa

tion, Mr. Milverton and I could not for some time commence where we had left off. On this occasion it was Mr. Mauleverer's fault, who had been put into a great rage by a speech he had just been reading of an important politician. For Mr. Mauleverer to be in a passion, is a rare thing. He has, in general, an air of serene and unctuous contemptuousness. The conversation thus began:-]

Mauleverer. I declare solemnly

Ellesmere. Please don't, Mauleverer. I never hear those words but I am sure that something very rash and very abusive is to follow.

Mauleverer. Nonsense, Ellesmere. I declare solemnly I would emigrate if I were a little younger. This country will not be worth living in, if such people are to become powerful. Nowadays any fellow may say anything, however injurious to a large class of his fellow-countrymen, with the chance of its being well received, if he can express himself well, and make a tolerable speech "to split the ears of the groundlings," as Shakespeare has it.

Milverton. It all proceeds from want of culture.

Cranmer. I really don't see that. Surely it requires some culture to make a good speech.

Milverton. Want of general culture is what I mean, Cranmer. If more people were more highly cultivated in this respect, so that the power of making good speeches was more generally diffused, the exorbitant influence now possessed by the few who can speak well would be diminished. Besides, if there were more general culture, there would be fewer "groundlings" having ears to be split, or, as I should say, tickled, by mere ability in speech-making. I say this, much against my own interest, for if there is anything in the world I can do, it is to make a speech. In fact, as you know, I never write anything, but always speak what I have to indite.

Ellesmere. Yes; I often think what a blessing it has been for the world that you never were in parliament. There would have been one more fellow there who could talk for any given time on any given subject. And we have quite enough of them already. If I were the Sovereign I would never call any statesman to my councils who had not shown that for some one session he could be totally silent.

Sir Arthur. It is a beautiful thing-silence-Sir John. Let us show that we estimate the fulness of its beauty by indulging in İong "flashes of silence" while Milverton resumes his discourse upon culture.

Ellesmere. I cannot promise to do anything of the kind. I cannot hear all manner of fallacies and exaggerations put forward, and neglect my duty by not contradicting, or controverting them at the

time. I don't make speeches. I only make judicious interruptions and crushing rejoinders. Crushed herbs are sweet, we know; and, if Milverton has anything to say worth hearing, his lucubrations must be capable of developing sweetness when subjected to the slightly crushing process caused by my poor and feeble objections. Lady Ellesmere. Please don't be so modest, John; anything but that.

Ellesmere. Instead of sneering at me, you ought to be thankful to me; for you would all be overpowered by those two authors, Sir Arthur and Milverton, if there were not some person representing the outer world, some extern, as the Catholics would say, to keep them a little in order. But go on, Milverton. Where were we ?

Milverton. I was endeavouring to incite you all to learn music, having told you that it was the only universal language-that even the brutes understood something of it, and rejoiced in it; that the deepest subtleties of composition and expression might be displayed by it; that it was a universal solvent; that it could move men sooner than anything else to pity, sorrow, joy, or indignation; that it formed one of the finest and most delicate means of sympathy; above all, that it was a most valuable kind of education, and that it evolved humility.

Ellesmere. Good gracious! I never heard a word of this. I should have protested vigorously if I had. I suppose Milverton fired off all these fine things at the poor woman who came to complain that her husband had beaten her black and blue (no doubt she deserved it). And how astonished she must have been when Milverton, in his musical frenzy, told her that if she had known how to play one of Sebastian Bach's fugues in E sharp, this evil thing would never have befallen her. But to maintain that music evolves humility is coming it a little too strong. What on earth are you young women laughing at? I declare, the longer I live, the more convinced I am that my little friend, Master Henry Spoffell, aged nine years, is one of the wisest of human beings.

Cranmer. Who is this infant prodigy, and what wisdom has he taught Sir John? I don't perceive that the wisdom of people of riper age produces much effect upon Ellesmere's obdurate nature.

Ellesmere. Young Henry is a son of a friend of mine at our Bar. I went down to Brighton some time ago, and took the boy out for a treat on a Sunday afternoon. But I must describe him to you. He is a very little fellow with a very big head, on which he wears a very big hat. He has a tail-coat and carries a stick. In short, he is as like his papa as a gherkin is to a full-grown cucumber. We walked up and down the pier discoursing about many things, including the great question as to whether modern toffy is equal to ancient toffy—that is, to the toffy of my time. Suddenly he changed the

subject, and said to me, "Do you like the girls?" Now this would have been an embarrassing question to some people; but I dashed off an answer at once, "Yes, I rather like them, Harry; they are very well in their way." "I don't," he said; "they giggle so." Doubtless some of the girls, as they passed us on the pier, had been moved to giggling by the droll appearance of the little man. But, upon reflection, I perceive the full force and depth of his remark, taken generally. What was there in anything I said just now to provoke my wife and Mrs. Milverton to this intemperate fit of giggling? The men were all as grave as mustard-pots.

Lady Ellesmere. It only shows their ignorance. Who could help giggling, as you call it, Sir, at hearing such nonsense talked about music?

One of the pleasant remarks which John often makes to me, with a magisterial air, is, "Never talk about things, my dear, which you do not thoroughly understand. Nod your head one way or the other, but do not say anything." It would have been well if John had nodded his head, instead of talking about a musical composition in E sharp. There is no such thing.

Ellesmere. I have no doubt there is such a thing; but such elevated composition has not yet reached your half-tutored ears. For my part, I am resolved never to compose in any key but E sharp.

Lady Ellesmere. By the way, are you quite sure, John, that when the girls giggled as they met you and little Henry on the pier, it was only at his droll appearance that they giggled?

Ellesmere. I know that it is only the wife of one's bosom who would think of making such an ill-natured suggestion. But never mind her nonsense, Milverton. How, I ask, does music evolve humility?

Milverton. One of the first things to encourage in mankind is reverence. One of the most likely things to promote reverence, is an appreciation of the immense differences that exist in the capacities of different individuals. Now there are but few people who have the requisite knowledge to appreciate the enormous difference between Newton's capacity and their own. But there are many who have some means of appreciating the difference between a Beethoven, or a Mozart, and themselves. They must be aware that there are heights of the capacity for musical creativeness, which they can only look up to, but can never hope to climb. Hence the study of music promotes reverence—and thus promotes humility, in a larger extent, perhaps, than any other form of culture, inasmuch as the knowledge of music -at least of what has been accomplished in music-is more widely diffused amongst all classes than a similar knowledge in any other department of science. I have no doubt that the culture of music

amongst the Germans has been of immense service as regards the general cultivation of the Teutonic mind.

Ellesmere. We practical English can do without so much of this musical cultivation.

Milverton. Well, I will return to what you call practical things. Nobody has a greater contempt than I have for some of the conclusions that so-called political economists have come to; but it is only because they have not known how to wed political economy to real life-a marriage which, like many other marriages, might be very felicitous, but is not so. I can hardly look upon an English gentleman as a cultivated man who has not read his Adam Smith. Then metaphysics-then theology. What great works there are in these two branches of knowledge.

you

Ellesmere. Knowledge! Should we not rather say guess-work? Milverton. Have it as you like: bring me always down to the practical. Don't think it would be well if some of us men, who pretend to be cultivated, knew a little more about physiology? Don't you think we should govern ourselves and other people a little better? I think I have noticed that those men who know something of this subject, have an extreme objection to leaden pellets being propelled into the human body, of the delicacies and beauties of which they understand something.

Mauleverer. I should like to say a word for astronomy.

Sir Arthur. And I for mechanics.

""

Ellesmere. Dr. Johnson makes Rasselas exclaim, "I see that it is impossible to be a poet!' So I say it is impossible to be one of Milverton's cultivated men.

There is an injunction in one of Lord Chesterfield's letters, which I have learnt by heart. Indeed, I may say I have learnt it by carrying into practice most of its requisitions. Lord Chesterfield orders his son to be "well-bred without ceremony, easy without negligence, steady and intrepid with modesty, genteel without affectation, insinuating without meanness, cheerful without being noisy, frank without indiscretion, and secret without mysteriousness; to know the proper time and place for whatever you say or do, and to do it with an air of condition." I flatter myself that I have entirely acquired the art of doing everything with an air of condition; but even I have not yet attained the perfection of behaviour inculcated by the politest of peers. Much less can I hope, in this short and transitory life, vexed by many bores, by obscure telegrams, by London dinner-parties, and London evening parties, to become the man of perfect culture, according to the lines laid down for constructing that admirable creature by our exacting friend and host. I give it up entirely.