excited at once, and pounding away without the least regard to the
orator, that illustrious person is rather in the position of an
orator in an Irish House of Commons. But, several of these scenes
of savage life bear a strong generic resemblance to an Irish
election, and I think would be extremely well received and
understood at Cork.
In all these ceremonies the noble savage holds forth to the utmost
possible extent about himself; from which (to turn him to some
civilised account) we may learn, I think, that as egotism is one of
the most offensive and contemptible littlenesses a civilised man
can exhibit, so it is really incompatible with the interchange of
ideas; inasmuch as if we all talked about ourselves we should soon
have no listeners, and must be all yelling and screeching at once
on our own separate accounts: making society hideous. It is my
opinion that if we retained in us anything of the noble savage, we
could not get rid of it too soon. But the fact is clearly
otherwise. Upon the wife and dowry question, substituting coin for
cows, we have assuredly nothing of the Zulu Kaffir left. The
endurance of despotism is one great distinguishing mark of a savage
always. The improving world has quite got the better of that too.
In like manner, Paris is a civilised city, and the Theatre Francais
a highly civilised theatre; and we shall never hear, and never have
heard in these later days (of course) of the Praiser THERE. No,
no, civilised poets have better work to do. As to Nookering
Umtargarties, there are no pretended Umtargarties in Europe, and no
European powers to Nooker them; that would be mere spydom,
subordination, small malice, superstition, and false pretence. And
as to private Umtargarties, are we not in the year eighteen hundred
and fifty-three, with spirits rapping at our doors?
To conclude as I began. My position is, that if we have anything
to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to avoid. His virtues
are a fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense.
We have no greater justification for being cruel to the miserable
object, than for being cruel to a WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE or an ISAAC
NEWTON; but he passes away before an immeasurably better and higher
power than ever ran wild in any earthly woods, and the world will
be all the better when his place knows him no more.
A FLIGHT
WHEN Don Diego de – I forget his name – the inventor of the last
new Flying Machines, price so many francs for ladies, so many more
for gentlemen – when Don Diego, by permission of Deputy Chaff-wax
and his noble band, shall have taken out a Patent for the Queen’s
dominions, and shall have opened a commodious Warehouse in an airy
situation; and when all persons of any gentility will keep at least
a pair of wings, and be seen skimming about in every direction; I
shall take a flight to Paris (as I soar round the world) in a cheap
and independent manner. At present, my reliance is on the South-
Eastern Railway Company, in whose Express Train here I sit, at
eight of the clock on a very hot morning, under the very hot roof
of the Terminus at London Bridge, in danger of being ‘forced’ like
a cucumber or a melon, or a pine-apple. And talking of pineapples,
I suppose there never were so many pine-apples in a Train
as there appear to be in this Train.
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
Whew! The hot-house air is faint with pine-apples. Every French
citizen or citizeness is carrying pine-apples home. The compact
little Enchantress in the corner of my carriage (French actress, to
whom I yielded up my heart under the auspices of that brave child,
‘MEAT-CHELL,’ at the St. James’s Theatre the night before last) has
a pine-apple in her lap. Compact Enchantress’s friend, confidante,
mother, mystery, Heaven knows what, has two pine-apples in her lap,
and a bundle of them under the seat. Tobacco-smoky Frenchman in
Algerine wrapper, with peaked hood behind, who might be Abd-el-
Kader dyed rifle-green, and who seems to be dressed entirely in