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Indeed, all his life Swift seemed to hide, almost jealously, the genuine piety of his nature. Whatever suspicion of policy has surrounded the tract must be ascribed to the well-intentioned letter of the Earl of Berkeley above quoted; and the Earl would not have written thus had he felt Swift's motive to be any other than a purely impersonal one.
Such humor, which finds its chief point in a desire to make the world kindlier, must have appealed to the eighteenth century, or The Spectator could not have reached a circulation of ten thousand copies a day. Addison would not now have his legion of warm admirers if his humor had been personal, like Pope's, or misanthropical, like Swift's. Of his style, Dr.
Bickerstaff promptly replied that Partridge was dead by his own infallible rules of astrology, and that the man now claiming to be Partridge was a vile impostor. Swift's wit frequently left its imprint on the thought of the time.
Very good: only that was not Swift's way of looking at the matter, who had little appetite for literary fame, and all of whose immortal progeny were begotten of the moment's overmastering impulse, were thrown nameless upon the world by their father, and survived only in virtue of the vigor they had drawn from his stalwart loins.
Yes, but, says Swift, "amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think," and may we not say that acquiescence is the cowardice of those who dare not feel? There will always be some, at least, in the world whom savage indignation, like Swift's, will continually torment. It will eat their flesh and exhaust their spirits.
Scott notes that the "tone of aigreur," which is more distinctly felt in the second of these tracts, intimates a "deep dissatisfaction with late ecclesiastical preferments, which may perhaps be traced as much to personal disappointment as to any better cause;" a statement which it was hardly worth making; since, however deep may have been Swift's personal feelings, he never allowed them to be the impelling motive to his work.
The fact that he was stopped by a footpad smote Tom Swift's mind as not a particularly surprising adventure. He had heard that several of that gentry had been plying their trade about the outskirts of the town. To a degree he was prepared for this sudden event. Then there flashed into Tom's mind the thought of what Mr.
Perhaps you will begin to think Swift's sages, who only amused themselves with endeavouring to propagate sheep without wool, not so contemptible. I am almost convinced myself, that when a man once piques himself on being a philosopher, if he does no mischief you ought to be satisfied with him. We passed last Sunday with Mr. de 's tenants in the country.
Its enormous numerical increase due to high school requirements, the increasing percentage of girl pupils more ready to follow the teacher's advice, in connection with the deteriorating quality of the girls inevitable with their increasing numbers, the sense that Latin means entering upon a higher education, the special reverence for it by Catholic children, the overcrowded market for Latin teachers whom a recent writer says can be procured by the score at less rates than in almost any other subject, the modern methods of teaching it which work well with less knowledge of it by the teacher than in the case of other school topics, have been attended perhaps inevitably by steady pedagogic decline despite the vaunted new methods; until now the baby Latin in the average high school class is a kind of sanctified relic, a ghost of a ghost, suggesting Swift's Struldbrugs, doomed to physical immortality but shriveling and with increasing horror of all things new.
He brooded in sullen silence; he cursed Fate for making him a dependent, and even in his youth he scorned those who benefited him. This was a very human proceeding. Many hate, but few have a fine capacity for scorn. Their hate is so vehement that when hurled it falls short. Swift's scorn was a beautifully winged arrow, with a poisoned tip. Some who were struck did not at the time know it.
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