The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/The Unadmiring
THE UNADMIRING.
_-_initial_A.png)
mong social nuisances, defend us from those pitiable beings who, through some deficiency in their mental conformation, some lack of vital heat, of acute sensibility, of quick perception, are totally deprived of the faculty to appreciate and the power to admire! Show them a fine statue, and it is stone and marble, chiselled curiously, but conveying no idea, awakening no emotion. Exhibit an exquisite painting, the chef-d'œuvre of some grand old master; it is to them merely color upon canvas, and a great surplus of darkish paint. Cull them a fragrant exotic; it is "a nice enough smelling thing;" but the poor flower, withered by contact with that uncongenial touch, is quickly flung aside. Point out a living landscape, replete with the highest forms of pastoral beauty, verdant wood and flashing stream, gently swelling hill and dimpling valley, with the background of a gorgeous sunset, painting the horizon with purple, and crimson, and gold; the landscape is to them but trees, and water, and the sun going down red enough to augur a "hot day" to-morrow. These specimens of soul-curtailed humanity seem to carry in their hands a disenchanting wand, and, at its waving, leaf, blossom and fruit fall from the tree of life, and the bare, unsightly stalk is left behind; the beauty and poetry of all creation vanish, and hard, positive, unspiritual prose alone remains.
You who are sensitive to sympathetic impressions, to what Swedenborgians call "spheres," avoid these apathetic beings as you would shun infection! Strange and sad to say, there is contagion in the lethargic atmosphere by which they are surrounded. Associate with them, and they insensibly steal away from you the power of appreciation and admiration which they themselves lack.
Mr. Quenchum goes with you to hear a world-renowned orator. As you listen with rapt attention, his words conjure a panorama, pulsating with life and glowing with vivid hues, before your eyes. You soon become excited by his bursts of eloquence, melted by his pathos, fired by his enthusiasm, elevated by his lofty sentiments. You turn with an ejaculation of delight towards Quenchum, and discover that a hideous aperture has taken the place of his mouth, and unmistakable weariness looks out from its yawning depths. Abashed at your own state of delectation, you timidly ask what he thinks of the eminent speaker. He shrugs his shoulders, tells you the man is fair enough as times go, but there are no Ciceros now-a-days; declares it is a bore that people talk so long and make so much noise; wishes that fellow would have done with his bombast; and adds that he has a deal of mannerism and affectation, while his gestures are entirely too violent; it quite fatigues one to see them! Your ardor suddenly cools; you begin to ask whether that which appeared to you, a moment before, as finished grace, may not be mannerism and affectation; whether those gestures are not too vehement; whether that voice is not too loud; and whether there is not a touch of bombast in the discourse. You have begun to criticise, to question the grounds for your enjoyment; the oration no longer carries you away; you are half ashamed or afraid to recognize its beauties, while sitting beside Quenchum.
Next, Quenchum accompanies you to the opera. It is to hear a prima donna who has gathered laurels in both hemispheres, and received the approving nod of crowned heads, the applause of sceptred hands. The opera represented is one of Bellini's noblest inspirations. You believe it physically impossible that any one can be insensible to its soul-stirring strains. Ah! you know little of the impervious texture of Quenchum's soul. Bellini is as incomprehensible to him as the riddle of the Sphinx. Just as your heart gives an inward echo to the "bravo" that resounds on every side, Quenchum coolly exclaims, "How absurd! The idea of men and women shouting away in that mad style about what they are going to do or what they have done, and talking to each other by bawling in that heathenish fashion! There certainly is nothing more monstrous than an opera! Men poisoning themselves and singing, stabbing themselves and singing, going to battle or to execution singing, eating, drinking, getting married or getting killed, singing! It's highly amusing, but precious nonsense!"
"But," you answer, hesitatingly, and beginning to perceive some element of the ludicrous in the performance which just now awakened your rapture, "but what a glorious voice Madame ——— has! Is it not perfect melody? Such power and such sweetness combined! Don't you like her voice?"
"Oh! I dare say her voice is good enough; it's not particularly disagreeable; it's very so-so; but there are no great singers now-a-days."
Startled by such a denouncing assertion, you venture to remark, "Perhaps you do not care for music; perhaps you have no—no—no ear."
"No ear? Why, I suppose I can hear all that din (meaning a magnificent chorus) as plainly as anybody else."
Of course Quenchum has no ear; none of the family of Nil Admirantem have musical ears or artistic eyes; if they had, they could not be scions of that pulseless race.
Quenchum annihilates your prima donna, as he extinguished your orator.
Anon you find yourself travelling with Quenchum. He is one of a party crossing the Blue Ridge of Virginia. The grandeur of that august chain of mountains strikes you with admiring awe. The picturesque and sublime are so wonderfully mingled that you almost hold your breath as you contemplate Nature in this imposing robe of majesty. Quenchum sits back in the stage-coach, which is ascending the winding road up the mountain's side, glances out of the window to see what you "are making such a fuss about," and remarks that "it may all be very fine, but a level road would be far preferable, the coach would travel so much faster, and get out of these tiresome mountains more quickly!"
You visit the Natural Bridge and Weyer's marvellous cave, and other noteworthy places. Quenchum pronounces the bridge a tolerable specimen of nature's handiwork, but he don't think it remarkably high, nor by any means perfect in its form, nor, indeed, extraordinary in any way. The cave he pronounces a "downright swindle!" He can discover none of the beautiful sculpturing with which you are all enchanted; he cannot make out Solomon's throne, with its oriental canopy, nor the falls of Niagara, nor the statue of Washington, nor the garden of Paradise; and frigidly asserts that these subterranean wonders are the most "unmitigated humbugs."
Go where you will, it is all the same. Quenchum yawns when everybody else admires; Quenchum is weary when they are enraptured; and just as their enthusiasm is roused to the highest pitch, Quenchum is found to be asleep. But his unidealizing presence is felt by the whole party. His companions are half afraid or ashamed to praise the works of God himself, since Quenchum finds so little to reverence and so much to censure in what God has achieved.
Can such a man worship? Are not all his devotional feelings stifled by the heavy atmosphere of apathy that envelops his spirit? Paley tells us that the unconscious enjoyment of the mere sense of being, is to his mind one of the most convincing proofs of God's goodness. Can God seem good to one who perceives nothing good, nothing enjoyable in his own existence, or in the works of the Supreme Being?
If men carry with them to the other world, as they surely must, the traits that compose their characters in this, Quenchum's emotionless nature must be an eternal blasphemy, an everlasting curse. What would heaven be to such a man? Would he not find the supernal regions a very tiresome locality, the songs of seraphs "so-so," and the company of angels a complete nuisance?