VEGETABLES OR MEN?
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Mr. Hamilton Fyfe asks the question, " What is life to people who shut their eyes to its inibiite variety and beauty and delight ? " He will not object therefore to being reminded of the words of one or two men of another age who were neither human potatoes nor ttirnips the shape of men, but rather men through whose eyes he has learnt to look on that - beauty. They were not apostles of change, though they saw the world whole :— " Custom has a two-fold operation ; the one, to deaden the frequency and force of repeated impressions, the other, to endear the familiar object to the affections, Commonly, where the mind is vigorous, and the power of sensation very perfect, it has rather the last operation than the first ; with meaner minds, the first takes place in the higher degree, so that they are commonly characterized by a desire of excitement, and the want of the loving, fixed theoretic (contemplative) power. . . . And so it will be found that they are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love variety and change : for the weakest-minded are those who both wonder most at things new, and digest worst things old. . . . Rusxtx, Modern Painters, Chap. ii., Sec. ii. et seq.
And these Grand Old Men are no sure guides to the " veget- able " life. the delight in existence is not dependent on movement or contact with a second-rate environment :—
" Better than such discourse (loth silence long.
Long, barren silence, square with my desire ; To sit without emotion, hope, or aim, In the loved presence of my cottage fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or Kettle, whispering its faint undersong. . . . Sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance made more sweet. ' Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes, He is a slave—the meanest we can meet 1"
And Wordsworth needs not our compassion or help.
Does Mr. Hamilton Fyfe wish to persuade us that the " explanation of much that is painful and perplexing in our country to-day " lies in the fact that people are sitting at home rusting ? If so, he had better take a walk himself.
What is the true explanation? It is that a world moving on an average of thirty-five miles an hour sees nothing and will only leave behind it litter. Help !—I am, Sir, &c..
E. RUSSELL BarrrAng.
Hersham Vicarage, Walton-on-Thames.
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