mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a
little pinched here and protuberant there with native.
prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to
lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of
transient solicitations? All these things might
be alleged against Lydgate, but then, they are the
periphrases of a polite preacher, who talks of Adam,
and would not like to mention anything painful to the
pew-renters. The particular faults from which
these delicate generalities are distilled have distinguishable
physiognomies, diction, accent, and grimaces; filling
up parts in very various dramas. Our vanities
differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the
same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the
minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs
from another. Lydgate’s conceit was of
the arrogant sort, never simpering, never impertinent,
but massive in its claims and benevolently contemptuous.
He would do a great deal for noodles, being sorry for
them, and feeling quite sure that they could have
no power over him: he had thought of joining
the Saint Simonians when he was in Paris, in order
to turn them against some of their own doctrines.
All his faults were marked by kindred traits, and were
those of a man who had a fine baritone, whose clothes
hung well upon him, and who even in his ordinary gestures
had an air of inbred distinction. Where then
lay the spots of commonness? says a young lady enamoured
of that careless grace. How could there be any
commonness in a man so well-bred, so ambitious of
social distinction, so generous and unusual in his
views of social duty? As easily as there may
be stupidity in a man of genius if you take him unawares
on the wrong subject, or as many a man who has the
best will to advance the social millennium might be
ill-inspired in imagining its lighter pleasures; unable
to go beyond Offenbach’s music, or the brilliant
punning in the last burlesque. Lydgate’s
spots of commonness lay in the complexion of his prejudices,
which, in spite of noble intention and sympathy, were
half of them such as are found in ordinary men of the
world: that distinction of mind which belonged
to his intellectual ardor, did not penetrate his feeling
and judgment about furniture, or women, or the desirability
of its being known (without his telling) that he was
better born than other country surgeons. He did
not mean to think of furniture at present; but whenever
he did so it was to be feared that neither biology
nor schemes of reform would lift him above the vulgarity
of feeling that there would be an incompatibility
in his furniture not being of the best.