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THE COURANT; A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL. 67
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Written for the Courant.
THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE.
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To find fault, Mr. Editor, and to find faults, are two
very different things; and the former, is generally a far
easier undertaking than the latter, even in criticising
the works of the most inferior writers. In scanning,
however, the pages of "The Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table," the chief difficulty to be encountered, is, that of
selecting, and bringing within some reasonable compass,
the examples of bad composition, of abortive attempts
at humour, platitudes, and pedantries, which are met
with at every turn, or at the turn of every leaf, from
the beginning to the end of the volume. They are in-
deed both so numerous, and of so odd and discrepant a
character, as to occasion the work to bear a not very re-
mote, or, as Falstaff would phrase it, "a semblance re-
semblance," to one of those peddling carts of the ocean,
(as they may be not inaptly termed,) a New England
coaster, freighted with small ventures and coarse wares,
or with notions, and nick-nackeries of all sorts and kinds.
The author, as we have already observed, is rather over-
fond of "airing his learning," and lugs it in head and
heels on all occasions, and not unfrequently patches it
on, (if we may use the expression,) with desperate hand,
where he cannot find room for introducing it, or direct-
ly connecting it with the subject of "Fashionable Society" a
subject of which it is evident that he knows about as
much of, as he does of Horse Racing, which he discusses
with equal confidence in another part of the work:
"Fashionable society," he says, "loves vitality above all
things; sometimes disgusted by affected languor, and
always kept under by the laws of good breeding; but
still it loves abundant life, opulent and showy organiza-
tions;" (what are opulent organizations?) "the spheri-
cal and plain trigonometry of female architecture! plenty
of red blood," (a rather cannibal propensity this,) "trop-
ical voices," (what are tropical voices?) "and forms
that bear the splendours of dress, without growing pale
beneath their lustre." This account of the characteris-
tics, tastes, and ever-varying phases of fashionable life,
and of the "Cynthias of the minuet," who figure in its
giddy, fantastic, and splendid circles; though not ex-
actly hit off in the light and graceful style of an Addi-
son, or a LaBruyere, serves at least to illustrate the
author's learning, or to show that he is acquainted with
the difference between spherical and plain trigonometry,
and with the application of the former to the science of
female architecture. Into this new science, however,
with a reticence rather remarkable, in one so fond of
parading his acquirements, he has not condescended to
give us the same insight that he has so liberally done
into that of the hydrostatics of controversy, and his pro-
cess for extracting sun-beams from cucumbers, or of ob-
taining knowledge from books, by mechanical means,
instead of the old and sparse method of reading and
study,* yet, in describing a circle, especially one so
nicely defined as that of Fashion everywhere and always
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* The following is his account of this notable economic
and saving process; "Society is a strong solution of books.
It draws the virtue out of that which is worth reading, as hot
water draws the strength of tea leaves. If I were a Prince, I
would hire or buy a private library tea-pot, in which I would
steep all the leaves of new books, that promised well. The in-
fusion would do for me, without the vegetable fibre. You un-
derstand me; I would have a person whose sole business
should be, to read day and night, and talk to me when I wanted
to. I know the man I would have. A quick-witted, outspoken,
incisive fellow; knows Historyr, or at any rate, has a shelf full
of books about it, which he can use handily; and the same of
all useful arts and sciences; knows all the common plots of
plays and novels, and the stock company of characters, that
are continually coming out in new costume; can give a criti-
cism of an author in an epithet and a wink; and you can de-
pend upon it &c. &c.,"
A scholar, and man of letters, of this kind, is, he says, in the
convenient and patent species of literary tea-pot, which he
"would always keep on the square next his own royal compart-
ment on life's chess board." What a wonderful respect this truly
royal author has for mere scholars and literary men. Mr. Tick-
nor, or Mr. Prescott, or the witty and humorous author of the
"Bigelow Papers," would, by his description of the kind of man
he wants, have suited him exactly, and, were he a Prince, he
would, doubtless, have at once promoted one of these conveni-
ently qualified gentlemen to the place of reader and converser
to his majesty.

is, we are unable, in our ignorance, to perceive what
aid the science of measuring angles could possibly have
afforded to our author; and we are strongly inclined to
suspect, that with all his pretension to the character of
a man of gaiety and "wit about town," he is rather
better acquainted with the figures of arithmetic, than
with those of the lady leaders of fashion, whose architec-
ture, he, with such an affectation of scientific accuracy,
pronounces, to be a fitter subject for the admeasurements
of spherical, than of plain trigonometry. Next, we have
a definition of Fashion itself, or a summary description of
its essential nature and true character, which is, of
course, just such as we might expect fro a college pe-
dant, or a monk writing in his conventual cell. "Fash-
ion," we are told, "is only an attempt to realize Art, in
living forms, and social intercourse." Fashion, is thus
always, it seems, a mere attempt, and never a success; an
attempt to realise social intercourse, and give a sub-
stantive existence to art, in "living forms"! This is
certainly very lucid and satisfactory, and the gay world
will have to learn at last, that fashion is a failure; while
the popularity of our author's writings, will equally
show, that failure may be a fashion, in literature, as well
as among the votaries of the fickle Goddess of Pleasure.
He yet haughtily asks, as if some Arbiter Elegantiarum,
had presumed to cross his path, "what business has a
man who knows nothing about the beautiful, and cannot
even pronounce the word view." (what does this mean?)
"to talk about fashion, to a set of people, who, if one of
the quality left a card at their doors, would keep it on
the top of the heap of names of their two-story acquaint-
ances, until it was as yellow as the Codex Vaticanus."
Who would have expected to meet with the Codex Vat-
icanus among a heap of modern visiting cards? But
the habit of this inveterate college pedant, of thus bring-
ing in his learning, as he says certain bores in conversa-
tion do their facts,* is evidently a second nature, strong
as the first, which, according to the Roman adage,
cannot be kept out, even with a pitch-fork. In the
same paper, the boy John, a genuine specimen of young
America, affords him another opportunity of displaying
his erudition, and expounding his theory of manners, by
the following very humorous and decorous remarks, on a
lady who had just withdrawn from "the Breakfast
Table," and whom the Autocrat himself describes as a
model of all the virtues, as well as of finished good breed-
ing. "So, the old fellah is off to-morrah. Old fellow
said I; whom do you mean? Why, the chap that came
with our little beauty, the old boy in petticoats. Now
that means something, said I to myself. These rough
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* "All generous minds," he says, "have a horror of what
are called 'facts.' They are the brute beasts of the intellectu-
al domain. Who does not know fellows that always have an
ill-conditioned fact or two, which they lead after them into
decent company, like so many bull-dogs," (what a comparison!)
' ready to let them slip at ever ingenious suggestion, or
convenient generalization, or personal fancy. "The nuisance
of having facts let slip, like bull-dogs, at every ingenious sug-
gestion, and pleasant fancy intended to enliven conversation,
the autocrat is unable to stand, and he accordingly gives this
formal notification to "the Boarders." "I allow no facts at
this table. What!" he indignantly exclaims, "because bread
is good and wholesome, and necessary and nourishing, shall
you thrust a crumb into my wind-pipe" (what shocking rude-
ness!) "while I am talking? Do not these muscles of mine
represent a hundred loaves of bread?" This being a fact, we
wonder to find the Professor so inconsistently letting it slip, even
at the garroters of whom he complains; but he thus indignant-
ly goes on: "Is not my thought the abstract of ten thousand
of these crumbs of truth, with which you would choke off my
speech." There is a confusion of images here, between loaves
and muscles, thoughts and crumbs of truth, much more calcu-
lated, we think, to confound the author's readers, than his en-
emies, or the interpreters of his speeches. This new species
of cramming, however, by which knowledge is stifled, and
speech abridged, certainly cannot be too much deprecated; yet
the author seems to think that he has expressed himself rather
rashly about it, and says, "he disclaims all responsibility for
his remarks, in incompetent hands." The business, of conver-
sation, he considers "as a very serious matter;" as much so
as any other serious business. "Mark this," he solemnly
says, "it is better to lose a pint of blood, than to have a nerve
tapped." This tapping of a nerve is surely a new operation in
surgery. That it is a very dangerous one, the author shows
by his account of the consequences by which it is attended.
"Nobody," he says, "attends to the unfortunate patient in
such cases. Nobody measures your nervous force, as it runs
away, nor bandages your brain and marrow after the opera-
tion." The difficulty of bandaging the marrow, and tying up
the bleeding vessels of the brain, may, however, be one cause
of this apparent inhuman treatment, and abandonment of their
patients by the tappers of the Drum-heads, who allow them-
selves to be so rashly experimented upon by them.

young rascals, sometimes hit the nail on the head, if
they do strike with their eyes shut. These pattern ma-
chines" (learned and virtuous women) "mix up their
intellect with everything, just like the men. They
can't help it, no doubt, but we can't help getting sick of
them. Intellect is to a woman, what her watch-spring
skirt is to her dress; it ought to underlie her silks and
embroideries, but not to show itself too strong on the
outside. You don't know, perhaps," (what is here
meant,) "but I will tell you; the brain is the palest of
the internal organs, and the heart is the reddest; what-
ever comes from the brain, carries the hue of the place
it came from, and whatever comes from the heart car-
ries the heat and color of its birth-place." These curi-
ous anatomical and psychological facts, namely; that the
brain is the palest, and the heart the reddest of all the
organs of the body, and that the thoughts partake of
these characteristics of the sources from which they
spring, affords, perhaps, a true, but rather recondite ex-
planation of the difference, in point of attraction, between
learned and virtuous women, and those of the opposite
characters. Otherwise, the advice to the former, not to
obtrude their knowledge in company, but to let it under-
lie their silks and embroideries, as the watch spring
skirts do their uper dresses, is as original, as it is val-
uable, and cannot be too highly appreciated by the in-
tellectual and blue-stocking portion of the sex. It is, he
says, their habit and error, to allow "the instincts of the
red heart, to ascend to the pale brain, where they are
chilled, blanched, and become pure reason; instead of
letting them run the other way, or travel to the lips, via
the heart, that renders them so unattractive, and is the
reason why the little gentleman said of the model, 'I
hate her, I hate her.' This is the reason why the boy
John, called her 'the old fellah,' and banished her to the
company of the unrepresentable. This is the reason
why I, the Professor, am picking her to pieces with scal-
pel and forceps." A very gallant employment this,
truly. He is thus, everything by turns, and nothing
long; now the lecturing anatomist; now the moral teacher,
now the Beaux Wash of the fashionable world, and even
a dabbler in economic science, and the arts of the
kitchen and cuisine. Of his acquaintance with these
latter arts and processes, we have a specimen in the fol-
lowing passage:
"Justice," he says, "is a rare virtue in our commu-
nity. Everything that public sentiment cares about, is
put into a Pepin's Digester, and boiled under high pres-
sure, till all is turned into one homogeneous pulp, and
the very bones give up their jelly." However high or
refined public sentiment may be, there is certainly nothing
very sentimental in this treatment of the subjects
that interest it, or that it most cares for; but the injus-
tice which the boiling down of these subjects, to the
consistency of a "homogeneous pulp or jelly," is said to
involve, is not very apparent, or not very clearly made
out. That he is rather a zealot, however, in the cause
of justice, his proposal to extend its equitable jurisdiction
even over the realms of brute matter, sufficiently shows;
though the paragraph in which this proposal is formal-
ly brought forward is not written with the care and
clearness which should always mark and characterize
the language of the Law Reformer. "Justice! a good
man respects the rights even of brute matter, and arbi-
trary symbols! If he writes the same word twice in
succession, by accident, he always erases the one that
stands second, has not the first comer the prior right?
This is a nice and knotty question; but we have not
time to discuss it now. This act of abstract justice,
which I trust many of my readers, like myself, have
often performed, is, by the way, a curious anti-illustra-
tion," (what is an anti-illustration?) "of the absolute
wickedness of human dispositions! Why don't a man
always strike out the first of the two words, to gratify
his diabolical love of injustice."
He connects this excursus upon the injustice so often
shown to brute matter, with his previous dissertation on
"model women," in the following manner: "So I say,
we owe a genuine tribute of respect to those filtered in-
tellects which have left their womanhood upon the
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