If I am invited by
any man of greater genius than yourself, or one by whose works I have
been more completely interested, I will repudiate you, and dine with
the more splendid phenomenon of the two."
His crowning glory in the matter of literary criticism is that, as Ruskin
told us, he was the first man in the literary circles of London to assert
the value of _Modern Painters_. "He said it was a work of transcendent
talent, presented the most original views in the most elegant and powerful
language, and would work a complete revolution in the world of taste."[169]
With the physical sciences Sydney Smith seems to have had no real
acquaintance, unless we include among them the art of the apothecary, which
all through life he studied diligently and practised courageously. But he
recommended Botany, with some confidence, as "certain to delight little
girls"; and his friendship with the amiable and instructive Mrs.
Marcet[170] gave him a smattering of scientific terms. In a discussion on
the _Inferno_ he invented a new torment especially for that excellent
lady's benefit.--
"You should be doomed to listen, for a thousand years, to
conversations between Caroline and Emily, where Caroline should always
give wrong explanations in chemistry, and Emily in the end be unable
to distinguish an acid from an alkali."
When we turn, from these smaller matters of taste and accomplishment, to
the general view of life, Sydney Smith would seem, at first sight, to have
been a Utilitarian: and yet he declared himself in vigorous terms an
opponent of the Utilitarian School.
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