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Bold had not seen it nor heard of it; but he was well
acquainted with the author of it--a gentleman whose pamphlets,
condemnatory of all things in these modern days, had been a
good deal talked about of late.
Dr Pessimist Anticant was a Scotchman, who had passed a
great portion of his early days in Germany; he had studied
there with much effect, and had learnt to look with German
subtilty into the root of things, and to examine for himself
their intrinsic worth and worthlessness. No man ever resolved
more bravely than he to accept as good nothing that was
evil; to banish from him as evil nothing that was good.
'Tis a pity that he should not have recognised the fact, that in
this world no good is unalloyed, and that there is but little evil
that has not in it some seed of what is goodly.
Returning from Germany, he had astonished the reading
public by the vigour of his thoughts, put forth in the quaintest
language. He cannot write English, said the critics. No
matter, said the public; we can read what he does write, and
that without yawning. And so Dr Pessimist Anticant became
Popular. Popularity spoilt him for all further real use, as it
has done many another. While, with some diffidence, he
confined his objurgations to the occasional follies or
shortcomings of mankind; while he ridiculed the energy of the
squire devoted to the slaughter of partridges, or the mistake
of some noble patron who turned a poet into a gauger of beer-barrels,
it was all well; we were glad to be told our faults and
to look forward to the coming millennium, when all men,
having sufficiently studied the works of Dr Anticant, would
become truthful and energetic. But the doctor mistook the
signs of the times and the minds of men, instituted himself
censor of things in general, and began the great task of
reprobating everything and everybody, without further promise of
any millennium at all. This was not so well; and, to tell the
truth, our author did not succeed in his undertaking. His
theories were all beautiful, and the code of morals that he
taught us certainly an improvement on the practices of the
age. We all of us could, and many of us did, learn much from
the doctor while he chose to remain vague, mysterious, and
cloudy: but when he became practical, the charm was gone.
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