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- 7641
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- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.725Z
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- 7568
- text
- bland protest, "that, in my presence at least, you will throw out
nothing to the prejudice of the sons of the Puritans."
"Hey-day and high times indeed," exclaimed the other, nettled, "sons of
the Puritans forsooth! And who be Puritans, that I, an Alabamaian, must
do them reverence? A set of sourly conceited old Malvolios, whom
Shakespeare laughs his fill at in his comedies."
"Pray, what were you about to suggest with regard to Polonius," observed
the cosmopolitan with quiet forbearance, expressive of the patience of a
superior mind at the petulance of an inferior one; "how do you
characterize his advice to Laertes?"
"As false, fatal, and calumnious," exclaimed the other, with a degree of
ardor befitting one resenting a stigma upon the family escutcheon, "and
for a father to give his son--monstrous. The case you see is this: The
son is going abroad, and for the first. What does the father? Invoke
God's blessing upon him? Put the blessed Bible in his trunk? No. Crams
him with maxims smacking of my Lord Chesterfield, with maxims of France,
with maxims of Italy."
"No, no, be charitable, not that. Why, does he not among other things
say:--
'The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel'?
Is that compatible with maxims of Italy?"
"Yes it is, Frank. Don't you see? Laertes is to take the best of care of
his friends--his proved friends, on the same principle that a
wine-corker takes the best of care of his proved bottles. When a bottle
gets a sharp knock and don't break, he says, 'Ah, I'll keep that
bottle.' Why? Because he loves it? No, he has particular use for it."
"Dear, dear!" appealingly turning in distress, "that--that kind of
criticism is--is--in fact--it won't do."
"Won't truth do, Frank? You are so charitable with everybody, do but
consider the tone of the speech. Now I put it to you, Frank; is there
anything in it hortatory to high, heroic, disinterested effort? Anything
like 'sell all thou hast and give to the poor?' And, in other points,
what desire seems most in the father's mind, that his son should cherish
nobleness for himself, or be on his guard against the contrary thing in
others? An irreligious warner, Frank--no devout counselor, is Polonius.
I hate him. Nor can I bear to hear your veterans of the world affirm,
that he who steers through life by the advice of old Polonius will not
steer among the breakers."
"No, no--I hope nobody affirms that," rejoined the cosmopolitan, with
tranquil abandonment; sideways reposing his arm at full length upon the
table. "I hope nobody affirms that; because, if Polonius' advice be
taken in your sense, then the recommendation of it by men of experience
would appear to involve more or less of an unhandsome sort of reflection
upon human nature. And yet," with a perplexed air, "your suggestions
have put things in such a strange light to me as in fact a little to
disturb my previous notions of Polonius and what he says. To be frank,
by your ingenuity you have unsettled me there, to that degree that were
it not for our coincidence of opinion in general, I should almost think
I was now at length beginning to feel the ill effect of an immature
mind, too much consorting with a mature one, except on the ground of
first principles in common."
"Really and truly," cried the other with a kind of tickled modesty and
pleased concern, "mine is an understanding too weak to throw out
grapnels and hug another to it. I have indeed heard of some great
scholars in these days, whose boast is less that they have made
disciples than victims. But for me, had I the power to do such things, I
have not the heart to desire."
"I believe you, my dear Charlie. And yet, I repeat, by your commentaries
on Polonius you have, I know not how, unsettled me; so that now I don't
exactly see how Shakespeare meant the words he puts in Polonius' mouth."
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