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No doubt there is something of idealization in all these reminiscences, and of that exaggeration which belongs to the laudator temporis acti. But Charles Emerson was idolized in his own time by many in college and out of college. George Stillman Hillard was his rival.
A certain amount of self-deception is quite possible at threescore years and ten, but at three score years and twenty Nature has shown most of those who live to that age that she is earnest, and means to dismantle and have done with them in a very little while. As for boasting of our past, the laudator temporis acti makes but a poor figure in our time.
Allowance must of course be made for the writer's position as a partisan, and some of his later notions are those of the "laudator temporis acti," speaking without responsibility; but it is sufficiently interesting to raise a desire for the whole, published as a diary, and not mixed up with other matters to which it has small relation.
I would add that the Pompilus has very short sight: often she passes within a couple of inches of her Spider without seeing her. The laudator temperis acti is out of favour just now: the world is on the move. Yes, but sometimes it moves backwards.
But, in the midst of this, I remember we all grew silent on hearing the old cynical amateur, L. S , that laudator temporis acti, stumping along with his wooden leg; he entered the room with his usual scowl, and, as he advanced, he continued to growl and stutter the whole way "Not an original idea in the whole piece mere plagiarism, base plagiarism from hints that I threw out!
Let an old gentleman of conservative tastes, who can remember the century's youth, talk to you at a club temporis acti tell you wherein it is that from his own point of view London, as a residence for a gentleman, has done nothing but fall off for the last forty years.
Septimus, during the brief interval of an over, allows his eyes to stray round the huge circle. Upon the ground are the youth, the beauty, the rank and fashion of the kingdom, and, best of all, his old friends. The Rev. Septimus has a weakness, being, of course, human to the finger-tips. He calls himself a laudator temporis acti. In his day, the match was less of a function.
These things are utterly different from the fanaticism of a laudator temporis acti." When Talma heard her declaim, at the time of her earliest celebrity in Paris, he said: "Here is a woman of whom I can still learn. One turn of her beautiful head, one glance of her eye, one light motion of her hand, is, with her, sufficient to express a passion.
And this frank admission ought to show that I am not your mere twaddling laudator temporis acti your old fogy who can see no good except in his own time. They say that claret is better now-a-days, and cookery much improved since the days of MY monarch of George IV. Pastry Cookery is certainly not so good. I passed by the pastry-cook's shop lately, having occasion to visit my old school.
No doubt there is something of idealization in all these reminiscences, and of that exaggeration which belongs to the laudator temporis acti. But Charles Emerson was idolized in his own time by many in college and out of college. George Stillman Hillard was his rival.
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