X The Stultiloquist
“Compress the sum into its solid worth,
And if it weigh the importance of a fly,
The scales are false, or algebra a lie.”
Cowper.
This is a talker who seems to think that the best use of speech is to give currency to folly. He deals in thoughts and words which create laughter rather than convey instruction. The puns and witticisms of the shop, the street, the theatre, the newspaper, he reserves with sacredness for repetition in the social party, that he may excite the risible faculties, and give merriment to the circle. He appears to have no apprehension of anything that is serious and intelligent. The sum total of his conversation, weighed in the balance, is lighter than vanity. “The mouth of fools,” says Solomon, “poureth out foolishness.” If he is not true to the character, he is to the sign. He forgets altogether that there is a time “to weep,” and talks in strains which make one think that he believes there is only a time “to laugh.” To laugh and to create laughter is the main business of his tongue in all company.
He has no sympathy with Tennyson in the following lines:—
“Prythee weep, May Lilian!
Gaiety without eclipse
Wearieth me, May Lilian.”
Or with Barry Cornwall, in his lines:—
“Something thou dost want, O queen!
(As the gold doth ask alloy,)
Tears, amidst thy laughter seen,
Pity, mingling with the joy.”
“That which is meant by stultiloquy,” says Bishop Taylor, “or foolish talking, is the ‘lubricum verbi’, as St. Ambrose calls it, ’the slipping with the tongue,’ which prating people often suffer, whose discourses betray the vanity of their spirit, and discover ’the hidden man of the heart.’ For no prudence is a sufficient guard, or can always stand ‘in excubiis,’ ’still watching,’ when a man is in perpetual floods of talk; for prudence attends after the manner of an angel’s ministry; it is despatched on messages from God, and drives away enemies, and places guards, and calls upon the man to awake, and bids him send out spies and observers, and then goes about his own ministries above: but an angel does not sit by a man, as a nurse by the baby’s cradle, watching every motion, and the lighting of a fly upon the child’s lip: and so is prudence: it gives rules, and proportions out our measures, and prescribes us cautions, and by general influences orders our particulars; but he that is given to talk cannot be secured by all this; the emissions of his tongue are beyond the general figures and lines of rule; and he can no more be wise in every period of a long and running talk than a lutanist can deliberate and make every motion of his hand by the division of his notes, to be chosen and distinctly voluntary. And hence it comes that at every corner of the mouth a folly peeps out, or a mischief creeps in.”
The stultiloquist’s talk is like the jesting of mimics and players, who in ancient times were so licentious that they would even make Socrates or Aristides the subject of their jests, in order to find something to provoke the laugh. It is immaterial to him who or what presents itself; he will endeavour to extract therefrom something ludicrous or comical for the amusement of the company. He may injure the feelings of some; he may offend the modesty of others, and break all the rules of decorum; but what does he care? Merriment is of more importance to him than the most sacred feelings of other people.
Our talker may think that because his hearers listen and laugh, they appreciate his continued flow of stultiloquy. But he is mistaken; could he read the minds of the thoughtful and intelligent, he would find they become jaded long before he does: and if each could speak, he would hear the sentiment of the lines:—
“I’m weary of this laughter’s empty din,
Methinks this fellow, with his ready jests,
Is like to tedious bells, that ring alike,
Marriage or death.”
Let not the reader infer from the preceding observations that a talker must always exclude from his conversation everything that partakes of the spirit of solid mirth and innocent cheerfulness. Certainly not. “To be a man and a Christian, one need neither be a mourning dove nor a chattering magpie; neither an ascetic nor a wanton; neither soar with the wings of an angel nor flutter with the flaps of a moth: for there is as substantial a difference between light-heartedness and levity as between the crackling pyrotechnics that disturb the darkness of the night and the natural sunlight which enlivens the day. Indecency and ribaldry bring down a man to the level of the beast, divesting him of all his rational superiority and soul-dignity. What appears equally contemptible with the man who stoops to make grimaces, to utter expressions, to tell tales, in one word, to act the fool for the amusement of others, while he is suffering actual disparagement, in proportion to their entertainment.”
According to inspired wisdom, “no corrupt communication should proceed out of our mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers,” that is, favour, complaisance, cheerfulness. We must avoid sullenness on the one hand, as we would jesting on the other. Sullenness is repulsive and hateful. Jesting is unseasonable and intolerable. But cheerfulness is the light of the soul, and the sunshine of life. It is an alleviator of human sorrow, an exhauster of oppressive cares. Jesting is frequently criminal and foolish; but cheerfulness is one of the convoys of religion—the festival spirit filling the heart with harmony and happiness. “It composes music for churches and hearts; it makes and publishes glorifications to God; it produces thankfulness, and serves the end of charity: and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about: and therefore, since it is so innocent, and may be so pious and full of holy advantage, whatsoever can innocently minister to this holy joy sets forward the work of religion and charity. And, indeed, charity itself, which is the vertical top of all religion, is nothing else but a union of joys, concentred in the heart, and reflected from all the angles of our life and intercourse. It is a rejoicing in God, a gladness in our neighbour’s good, a rejoicing with him; and without love we cannot have any joy at all. It is this that makes children to be a pleasure, and friendship to be so noble and divine a thing; and upon this account it is certain, that all that which can innocently make a man cheerful, does also make him charitable; for grief, and age, and sickness, and weariness, these are peevish and troublesome; but mirth and cheerfulness are content, and civil, and compliant, and communicative, and love to do good, and swell up to felicity only upon the wings of charity. Upon this account, here is pleasure enough for a Christian at present; and if a facete discourse, and an amicable friendly mirth can refresh the spirit, and take it off from the vile temptation of peevish, despairing, uncomplying melancholy, it must needs be innocent and commendable. And we may as well be refreshed by a clean and brisk discourse as by the air of Campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendly intercourse as with the fat of the balsam tree; and such a conversation no wise man ever did or ought to reprove. But when the jest hath teeth and nails, biting or scratching our brother,—when it is loose and wanton,—when it is unseasonable, and much, or many,—when it serves ill-purposes, or spends better time,—then it is the drunkenness of the soul, and makes the spirit fly away, seeking for a temple where the mirth and the music are solemn and religious.”
In a world of this kind, where reign life and death, goodness and evil, joy and sorrow, we need a wise conjunction of seriousness and cheerfulness. While, on the one hand, our harps must not always be on the willows; neither must they always be high-strung and gaily played. Smiles and tears in their season harmonise better than all of one or the other out of season. With clouded sky for weeks we sigh for sunshine; as in Italy, under its long bright sky, they sigh for clouds. The time of the “singing of birds” and the efflorescence of trees is very welcome; but who does not equally welcome the time of fruit-bearing also? The lark soars in the air and sings merrily, but she also falls to earth and sings not at all. Jesus rejoiced; but “Jesus wept.” The night of weeping and the morning of joy unite in one. So let the grave and the cheerful conjoin in speech, according to times and seasons, places and circumstances.
It is wise to have the two thus meet together. To be lifted up in hilarity is the precursor of being cast down in dejection. A sudden rise of the thermometer is generally followed by as sudden a fall. “I am not sorry,” said Sir Walter Scott, after the breaking up of a merry group of guests at Abbotsford, “being one of those whom too much mirth always inclines to sadness.”
“There is no music in the life
That sounds with idiot laughter solely;
There’s not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy.”
“To some men God hath given laughter; but tears to some men He hath given:
He bade us sow in tears, hereafter to harvest holier smiles in heaven;
And tears and smiles they are His gift; both good, to smite or to uplift:
He tempers smiles with tears; both good, to bear in time the Christian mood.”