66

AFFECTATION.

AFFECTATION is the wisdom of fools, and the folly of many a comparatively wise man. "It is," says Johnson, an artificial show: an elaborate appearance: a false pretence." Surely it must be a most infirm judgment which prefers counterfeit to real; and which employs art, labour, and pretence, to produce that which is spurious and vile, whilst the genuine commodity requires no such effort!

Simplicity of conduct and of manners, the unquestionable indications of sound sense and of a correct taste, exonerate their happy possessors from the whole of that toilsome load which the enslaved and feeble minds of artificial characters constantly sustain. O what a weariness it must be, to be always acting a part; to torture and tutor every thought, word, and action in common life and daily intercourse, so as to produce a factitious result; to adopt conduct, select words, and profess sentiments on the most trivial as well as the most important occasions, which shall be sure to differ, more or less, from what is plain, obvious, and direct. An affected person meets a friend in the street; he is his friend, and there is, at times, something like real companionship between the parties. The honest straightforward man extends his hand, with an ingenuous smile on his countenance; the other extends his finger, and although glad enough to meet his friend, thinks fit (he knows not why) to appear as if he did not wish to be too intimate. A broad stare, very much like that of an ape at a porcelain apple, is stamped on his visage. His gestures and words are stiff and starched; his figure is inclined just two degrees from the perpendicular. He stands as if wishing to go, and replies in the tone and style of a green parrot to all that is said. And why is all this? Why, he thinks that in this way he has the upper hand of his artless acquaintance; he thinks that these assumed manners enable him to manage people wonderfully well whenever he pleases. Besides, he has taken up an idea that stiff, cold, and formal manners are gentlemanly and show good breeding; and he makes this conduct the more conspicuous that others may be sure to notice it, and if to notice, to admire and to envy him, as a matter of course. He dreams not that this labour is ever lost; that success is ever wanting. It enters not into the thick head of that tall or short whiskered fool, that he is an object of contempt to the wise-aye, and to the unwise; for even blockheads, if they do not happen to be affected block

heads, are better judges than he of human nature.

He is not aware that one must be a man to be a gentleman, and that he who thus descends to artifice and dissimulation, is a child in judgment and a monkey in conduct.

Affectation may be compared to a coat of many pieces and divers colours, ill fitted and neither stitched nor tied, which some unblest mortal might endeavour, with incessant pains and solicitude, to hold together and to wear. Let us forbear the epithet of fool, to one so acting, until he is rightly named who assumes from choice (necessity there can be none) the incommodious, unprosperous, and despicable guise of affected sentiments, words, and manners; and, who appearing to the utmost disadvantage whilst making these obvious, though guileful efforts, congratulates himself on his imagined skill and success, and feels all that satisfaction and chuckling complacency common to paltry feelings and a little mind.

That affectation, in proportion as it exists, is the consequence of a weak and diseased judgment, which, like a broken helm, deceives and misdirects, appears evident from this, that persons afflicted with it ever make an utterly false estimate of their own power of concealment, and of the powers which persons in general possess of discernment. The string of unprisoned shopmen, who on Sundays arm in arm occupy the whole width of pavement of a London street, have not sense and judgment strong enough to apprise them that the long, measured, and simultaneous step, the periodical patting of the cork heel upon the flag stones; the swallow-tailed coat; the cravat nine inches broad; the unshaved throat, and collars above the ears; the silver-mounted glasses; the supercilious stare, and so forth;-all go to prove them what they are unprisoned shopmen, and—what they need not be silly and vulgar fellows to boot. There is not a road-sweeper to whom they do, or do not, toss a halfpenny at a crossing, but knows them instantly to be lowconditioned men by these plebian characteristics. Notwithstanding the constant propensity "to magnify the idea of self," they are by their own act placing themselves at the wrong end of the telescope. They are pigmies in the eyes of all but themselves. What then is a man's judgment worth which thus influences his conduct?

But without descending so low as to the characters just mentioned, abundant specimens of absurd and odious affectation may be discovered. Indeed its varieties and its degrees, if not infinite, far exceed our present ability to recognize individually. To distinguish the forms and shades

of it, even amongst men of intellect, would be a mighty task which we must decline. It is a mawkish malady, however, which in them, as in others, indicates weakness of mind and judgment, in proportion as it is allowed. It is said that when a wise man plays the fool he does it with a vengeance; and so it is that the most glaring examples of affectation (though of an entirely different kind from that above referred to) have been furnished by persons of unquestioned ability, and of considerable mental vigour. One may see, for instance, a tall, square-shouldered, awkward man, with a lean, bony visage, by no means inexpressive, however, and exhibiting indications of the power and habit of thinking; of such an one, it may be said emphatically that he is no fool as regards his capacity, and a very great one as regards his conduct. He will walk into a room in which sundry persons are sitting, as good, however, as he is, in the former particular, and vastly his betters in all others. He will take off his great coat by a most methodical, precise, and deliberate act of decortication, and will hand it to a lady to put away with all the indifference of a parson resigning his surplice to the sexton. Then he will subside into a chair, and turning his back upon the unnoticed individual who sits next him, until the two mightily resemble the sign Pisces of the Zodiac, he will address himself to some child; or if otherwise minded, will sit absolutely silent; yea, although that silence, from peculiar circumstances, may be a peculiar outrage upon common good manners. Yet that man could converse in a rational and interesting way; but it is his pleasure at present to assume the mingled character of the bear and the ass. His affectation and folly therein are more conspicuous than his wisdom, even when he is not thus unwise. He much overrates his reputation as a man of intellect, when he thinks that in the opinion of others it will admit of such large deductions, and yet show a balance in his favour.

Then there is a distinct sort of affectation, common enough, but peculiar to elderly persons, especially men. How many a short, stout, sturdy, crabbed, testy and churlish old curmudgeon derives his sole title to these unlovely characteristics from the source of all affectation-a morbid desire to seem to be what the individual in fact is not. The greatest compliment that can be paid him is to tell him that he has more affectation than his grandson of twenty or his granddaughter of fifteen-a pre-eminence quite needless certainly; that he has a sort of pride in being thought austere, inflexible, and crusty; that he is as fond of exhibiting his

odd old-fashioned ways as his fair descendant may be of showing off her fantastical new-fangled airs—such he is pleased to call them; that if his judgment had been more sound, and his mental vigour greater, he would have been neither crabbed, testy, crusty, nor churlish, seeing he is, when he is himself, a good sort of kindhearted man. Some may not readily recognize the affectation of characters of this sort. Others, however, can see it under many a brown wig and three-cocked hat. Whilst girls affect smiles, these affect frowns; the former to please others, the latter to please themselves.

It must be borne at mind, that at whatever period of life, and in whatever characters this affectation is discovered, a want of good breeding is clearly manifested. Low-conditioned persons generally contrive, by follies of this sort, to point a finger to their origin, which is a most faithful index. As a young gentleman never assumes the manners or guise of a dandy, so an old gentleman adopts not those of the churl. Doubtless there is much in the bearing of a high-bred man, and in the intercourse of the best society, which is assumed in a certain way and for certain purposes; but he knows little indeed of human nature who confounds this for an instant with the affectation we have been speaking of. A gentleman, adopting the usages of society, may meet another, and say, How do you do, Sir? I am very glad to see you," though in fact he would rather just then have passed on without interruption. Although this sort of thing is much better avoided, it arises not at all from that infirm habit and temper of the mind which usually gives birth to affectation. In one case, the endeavour is merely to please by appearing pleased; in the other, it is as nearly the reverse of this as possible.

This we know, that a certain destitution of judgment and sound sense; an infirmity of principle and of purpose; unconsciousness in the party of these or any other mental disadvantages; together with the consequent measure of conceit and self-approval, make up something like the character of a fool (pardon the epithet). When with these there is combined a peculiar appetite for praise, and an unhealthy solicitude respecting the opinion of others, he becomes an affected fool; that is, of course, to a measured or unmeasured extent, according to circumstances. If this unenvied personage should have in addition-as is very frequently the case-a spice of ambition, and of the love of distinction, then his affectation takes the turn of eccentricity, respecting which we may perhaps have a word or two to say upon a future occasion. MOмUS.

REMEMBRANCE.

The remembrance of Youth is a sigh.-ALI.

MAN hath a weary pilgrimage

As through the world he wends;

On every stage from youth to age

Still discontent attends;

With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,

And still remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.

To school the little exile goes,
Torn from his mother's arms,-

What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms?
Condemn'd to suffer through the day

Restraints which no rewards repay,
And cares where love has no concern,

Hope lengthens as she counts the hours,

Before his wish'd return.

From hard control and tyrant rules,

The unfeeling discipline of schools,

In thought he loves to roam;

And tears will struggle in his eye

While he remembers with a sigh

The comforts of his home.

Youth comes; the toils and cares of life

Torment the restless mind;

Where shall the tired and harass'd heart

1ts consolation find?

Then is not youth, as fancy tells,

Life's summer prime of joy?

Ah no! for hopes too long delay'd,

And feelings blasted or betray'd,

The fabled bliss destroy;

And youth remembers with a sigh

The careless days of infancy.

Maturer manhood now arrives,
And other thoughts come on;

But with the baseless hopes of Youth

Its generous warmth is gone;

Cold calculating cares succeed,

The timid thought, the wary deed,

The dull realities of truth;

Back on the past he turns his eye,
Remembering with an envious sigh
The happy dreams of youth.

So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,