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"No," I replied, assuming as far as possible the traditional attitude of John Bull in the pictures in Punch "No, it is not exquisite. Perhaps it is unmeaning; if it is unmeaning I do not mind. But if it has a meaning I know what the meaning is; it is that under all their pageant of chivalry men are not only beasts, but even hunted beasts.
They were all built on the sandy foundations of the innate beauty of virtue, or enthusiastic patriotism; and their great point in view was the contemptible reward of human glory; foundations, which were, by no means, able to support the magnificent structures which they erected upon them; for the beauty of virtue, independent of its effects, is unmeaning nonsense; patriotism, which injures mankind in general, for the sake of a particular country, is but a more extended selfishness, and really criminal; and all human glory, but a mean and ridiculous delusion.
But it is a mode so prevalent that Trendelenberg speaks of it, justly enough, as 'the ancient Hysteron-Proteron of Abstraction. The doctrine of these philosophers appears to us unfounded, but we cannot call it unmeaning. To this doctrine we cannot subscribe.
"Every cradle asks us, 'Whence? and every coffin, 'Whither? The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions as intelligently as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. The tearful ignorance of the one is just as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other.
Habitual indifference to the gospel, masked by an utterly unmeaning and unreal acceptance of it, and by equally habitual decorous attendance on its preaching, is the condition of a dreadfully large proportion of church-goers. Their very familiarity with the truth robs it of all penetrating power.
Look at the west window of our choir, and you will see what I mean. The upright mullions break off into bough curves graceful enough: but these are cut short as I hold, spoiled by circular and triangular forms of rose and trefoil resting on them as such forms never rest in nature; and the whole, though beautiful, is only half beautiful. It is fragmentary, unmeaning barbaric, because unnatural.
What say you: Guilty, or, Not guilty?" Even the rattling and unmeaning voice in which the clerk was accustomed to go through with his perfunctory performances took on some solemnity. There was dead silence for a moment. Isa Marlay's heart stopped beating, and the Poet from Posey County opened his mouth with eager anxiety.
The abstraction of the scene, the hour, and the surrounding circumstances brought, however, no refreshment to the exhausted spirit of George Cadurcis. He could not think, indeed he did not dare to think; but the villa of the Apennines and the open boat in the squall flitted continually before him. His mind was feeble though excited, and he fell into a restless and yet unmeaning reverie.
One of the other men struck up one of those unmeaning songs, common among the slaves. "Mas'r see'd me cotch a coon, High boys, high! He laughed to split, d'ye see the moon, Ho! ho! ho! boys, ho! Ho! yo! hi e! oh!" The singer appeared to make up the song to his own pleasure, generally hitting on rhyme, without much attempt at reason; and the party took up the chorus, at intervals,
What but that effects must follow their causes, and causes precede their effects, as plainly they must, unless cause and effect be utterly unmeaning expletives. Of course we must on all occasions be affected by surrounding circumstances, in modes exactly accordant with our idiosyncracies, moral and physical. Of course, too, our volitions must exactly correspond with our contemporaneous affections.
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