TO THE MANCHESTER ATHENAEUM

The uses of literature

(From my bed)

17 Elm Tree Road, St. John’s Wood, 18 July, 1843.

GENTLEMEN,

If my humble name can be of the least use for your purpose, it is heartily at your service, with my best wishes for the prosperity of the Manchester Athenaeum, and my warmest approval of the objects of that Institution.

I have elsewhere recorded my own deep obligations to Literature—­that a natural turn for reading, and intellectual pursuits, probably preserved me from the moral shipwreck so apt to befall those who are deprived in early life of the paternal pilotage.  At the very least my books kept me aloof from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloons, with their degrading orgies.  For the closet associate of Pope and Addison, the mind accustomed to the noble, though silent discourse of Shakespeare and Milton, will hardly seek, or put up with low company and slang.  The reading animal will not be content with the brutish wallowings that satisfy the unlearned pigs of the world.  Later experience enables me to depose to the comfort and blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow; how powerfully intellectual pursuits can help in keeping the head from crazing, and the heart from breaking; nay, not to be too grave, how generous mental food can even atone for a meagre diet; rich fare on the paper, for short commons on the cloth.

Poisoned by the malaria of the Dutch marshes, my stomach for many months resolutely set itself against fish, flesh, or fowl; my appetite had no more edge than the German knife placed before me.  But luckily the mental palate and digestion were still sensible and vigorous; and whilst I passed untasted every dish at the Rhenish table-d’-hote, I could still enjoy my Peregrine Pickle, and the feast after the manner of the Ancients.  There was no yearning towards calf’s head a la tortue, or sheep’s heart; but I could still relish Head a la Brunnen, and the Heart of Mid-Lothian. Still more recently it was my misfortune, with a tolerable appetite, to be condemned to Lenten fare, like Sancho Panza, by my physician, to a diet, in fact, lower than any prescribed by the Poor-Law Commissioners, all animal food, from a bullock to a rabbit, being strictly interdicted, as well as all fluids stronger than that which lays dust, washes pinafores, and waters polyanthus.  But the feast of reason and the flow of soul were still mine!