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I can not tell how I suffered at the sight of that factitious joy; there was, in that grief which crazed her, something more sad than tears and more bitter than reproaches. I would have preferred to have her cold and indifferent rather than thus excited; it seemed to me a parody of our happiest moments.
The wife, mother, and human creature, were all swallowed up by the factitious character, which an improper education, and the selfish vanity of beauty, had produced.
It contained an odd assortment of garments, and amongst other things several grey wigs and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. Kneeling there with this strange litter about me, I looked up amazedly. Nayland Smith, the unsuitable silk hat set right upon the back of his head, was pacing the room excitedly, his fuming pipe protruding from the tangle of factitious beard.
It was not an illusion that Heloise had for Abelard, Petrarch for Laura, Saint Preux for his Julia, Werther for his Charlotte; Agathon, Phanias, and Peregrinus in Wieland for the object of their dreams: the feeling is true, only the object is factitious and outside nature.
In consequence of this wise regulation, no purchase of crown-lands are now made in any of the Australian colonies, except of town allotments, which have a factitious value, altogether irrespective of the qualities of the soil. It is now that the holders of large grants find purchasers, as they are extremely willing to sell at a much lower rate than the crown.
The American Jew and I took a caleche, a little two-wheeled local carriage, driven by a lively Frenchman with a factitious passion for death-spots and churches. A small black and white spaniel followed the caleche, yapping. The American's face shone with interest. "That dawg's Michael," he said, "the hotel dawg. He's a queer little dawg. I kicked his face; and he tried to bite me. Hup, Michael!"
Material wealth gives a factitious superiority to the living, but the treasures of intellect give a real superiority to the dead; and the rich man, who would not deign to walk the street with the starving and penniless man of genius, deems it an honor, when death has redeemed the fame of the neglected, to have his ashes laid beside him, and to claim with him the silent companionship of the grave.
Hardy's vision of the life of men and women transgresses similarly into a denial of gladness. His gloom, we feel, goes too far. It goes so far that we are tempted at times to think of it as a factitious gloom.
Thackeray considers Swift a misanthrope; he loves Goldsmith and Steele and Harry Fielding; he has no love for Sterne, great admiration for Pope, and alleviated admiration for Addison. How could it be otherwise? How could Thackeray not think Swift a misanthrope and Sterne a factitious sentimentalist? He is a man of instincts, not of thoughts: he sees and feels.
Fondness is so new to him that he has repaid it with exaggerated idolatry, and become intoxicated by the novel gratification of his vanity. Little does he suspect that all this time his seventh heaven is but the crapulence of self-love. In these cases, it is not merely that everything is exaggerated, but everything is factitious.
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