115. EBB to Thomas Campbell [1]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 104–108.
[?Hope End]
[ca. 1821]
Mr Editor, There has appeared in a former series of your magazine an article under the very comprehensive title of “Talking and Talkers” [2] the author of which seems a strong advocate for that vulgar mode of communication the tongue!!– Now though for the last forty years I have been universally remarked as a silent man whose thoughts were reflected back into his own bosom, and decidedly hostile to chatterers blabbers and the whole multitude of Talkers, yet when I beheld that (oh the depravity of humanity) that six pages of a public magazine were employed in striving to immortalize that contemptible race and to vitiate the public taste like Esop with divers dishes composed entirely of tongues, I consider it high time to immerge from solitude, wake like a giant from his slumbers!——
My friends are astonished at my resolution to appear in your pages so inconsistent with my usual habits of silence & peaceful obscurity but some sacrifice is necessary for the wellfare of society and even I will not shrink from the painful duty!! Better oh better that one man should not hold his peace than that the whole race of men women & children should stun sense & scare reflection by their rantings. For what else can be the language of the tongue! which springs spontanously [sic] from the lips like mushrooms from the dunghill niether nurtured by the glorious sun of intellect or by the soft showers of reflection! After the usual course of sylogisms and logical reasoning this is my determination .. namely not only to appear in the horizon of literature but also to enter into society proclaiming the doctrines of Pythagoras and fully prepared to cope with the talkative and aver him into silence!——
The mind Mr Editor is a mystery which foils the eye of genius & the ingenuity of the philosopher! Such depth, such reason and yet such perspicacity! A thousand links A thousand emotions which seem like the colours of the Iris [3] all combined yet all separate–––all melting into one another yet all distinct! Imagination like the phantasmagoria flings hues, so exquisite so flowing upon this mystery of God while reflection an unflattering mirror arranges and receives the lovely picture! For without reflection fancy is but a day star which shoots in vain its ineffectual fire—she is but a beautiful woman loaded with jewels but devoid of that grace & that simplicity which embellish perfection!——
There are ideas inexpressible unutterable indescribable which rush across the memory—bright emanations from the soul like the mysterious comet!! There are thoughts which silence more eloquently expresses than All the pomp of words!! Thoughts which the mind alone can comprehend—too lofty—too exalted for the powers of hyperbole—too sublime for rhetoric to reach!——!
Oh for the glorious understanding of Plato & Longinus Oh for the pure & magnificent mind of Homer! If their works excite even in these ages admiration, enthusiasm rapture what must have been their secret thoughts their aerial visions—their splendid glimpses into immortality?? Ossian ex[c]laims “There is in my bosom a power which ye cannot hear.” [4]
And yet Mr Editor probably you may agree with me when I remark that perhaps Homer had done better if he had transferred the following beautiful description of Menelaus to Ulysses instead of making the disciple of Minerva a votary to guarrulity!
Παῦρα μεν, ἀλλὰ μαλα λιγεως, επει ου πολυμυθος
Ουδ αφαμαρτοεπης, η και γενει υστερος ηεν. book 3d. 137. [5]
“Words pay no debts” [6] says Shakespeare with great truth!
There is certainly no greater tormentor than a great talker!!—Oh the horrors of being awakened from a philosophic reverie by a pun! or in the midst of mental composition being startled by the laugh of folly or the quotation of the Pedant! Unfortunately for me Mr Editor my whole family are curst with this detestable propensity to the use of the tongue!! You may imagine the agonies I endure!! But no! you cannot! They are above the conception of most lofty imagination! To be always in the same situation with poor Horace when he exclaims in the bitterness of his heart “Fugit improbus ac me Sub cultro linquit!”. [7]
These are indeed some few of those miseries which language fails to describe and which can only be adequately felt by the mind of the unhappy sufferer!——
Silence it must be allowed is the strongest proof of true wisdom for what says Sallust!
[“]Satis eloquentiæ sapientiæ parum” [8] is the remark of the great & learned historian! That a reflective mind is seldom a communicative one is an observation which few can confute for what is reflection but depth of thought and how can depth of thoughts exist—when the tongue is ever in motion and when the ears are open to the eternal & monstrous rattle of the great talker—! In fact reflection and chattering are sworn foes. Mankind cannot unite them for Reason the Parent of the former has a decided antipathy to the latter! I Mr Editor have passed most of my days in silence refraining both from the gloomy & forbidding conversation of the pedant and the frivolous chit chat of the Drawing room!! The offspring of my meditations and mental commune is this: that untill Mankind adopt the doctrines of Pythagoras .. until they abjure all the different sects of talkers they will never reach the glorious goal of heavenly perfection!! It is to reveal this sublime truth that I tear aside the veil which till now has separated me from society! it is for this gentle readers that I intrude myself in your attention!!!—sequestring from me all
That time acquaintance custom & condition
Made tame & most familiar to my nature
& here to do you service am become
As new into the world!– [9]
I know not if amidst the everlasting din of tattlers my admonitions will be heard or whether they will die away like the prophetic words of Cassandra unmarked & unremembered. If this former glorious event should take place then shall my name be extolled by my cotemporarys And immortalized in “ages yet unborn” [10] if on the contrary my voice be disregarded I shall again retire into the privacy of my own closet .. forsake the pen forever .. lay my spectacles on the dusty shelf and seat myself for life in my old arm chair, philosophically to ruminate and silently contemplate the bright visions of that future world, where niether talking or talkers will assail our ears but where all will be reflection, silence & wisdom—!
I am Sir
Your constant reader
Silentius ..
_________
“Hunc neque dira venena nec hosticus auferret ensis
Nec laterum dolor aut tussis nec tarda podagra
Garrulus hunc quando consumet cumque. Loquaces
Si sapiat, vitet” [11]
Hor—
Publication: None traced.
Source: EBB’s draft, Berg Collection.
1. The reference to “Talking and Talkers” identifies the recipient as the editor of The New Monthly Magazine. Reference to “a former series” dates this letter after the commencement of the 2nd series, under the editorship of Thomas Campbell (1777–1844), in 1821. Although Campbell continued as editor for some years, the style of handwriting in this letter points to the earliest year of his tenure.
2. An article “On Talking and Talkers” was printed in the first series of The New Monthly Magazine in October 1820 (no. 81, vol. 14, pp. 395–400).
3. Rainbow.
4. A paraphrase of lines 147–148 of Ossian’s poem “Oinammorhul”:
“Within this breast is a silent voice
(It reaches not the ear of strangers)”
5. “[One of] few [words], but clear, since he was not a man of lengthy or rambling speech” (Iliad, III, 214–215).
6. Troilus and Cressida, III, 2, 55.
7. Horace, Satires, I, ix, 73–74: “The rascal runs away and leaves me under the knife.”
8. The War With Catiline, V, 5: “he possessed a certain eloquence, but little discretion.”
9. Troilus and Cressida, III, 3, 9.
10. Pope, The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated (1737), line 228.
11. Horace, Satires, I, ix, 31–34. The verse (including the final phrase “simul atque adolverit ætas,” omitted by EBB) is translated as:
“No wicked drug shall prove his end,
No foeman’s sword shall death him send,
No cough or pleurisy or gout—
A chatterbox shall talk him out:
And if he’s wise, as he grows old,
He’ll steer quite clear of talkers bold.”
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