The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/Original People

ut forth an original book, an original play, an original achievement in art, an original invention of science, and what a clamorous welcome echoes throughout Vanity Fair! What grandiloquent praises are trumpeted from the lips of its graceful booth-keepers! Taking their cue from some outside oracle, what enthusiasm, what powers of appreciation, what critical acumen they display! But, usher into the presence of "Good Society," (the presiding genius of that polite mart), "an original person"—oh! that is quite different; an intolerable innovation, a social nuisance! "Good Society" is shocked that the intruder bears so little resemblance to the charming creatures whom she has stamped and moulded, and curtailed of too luxuriant physical and mental proportion. She scans the singular individual with questioning and disapproving eyes; and of what a number of crimes, according to her code, she finds him guilty! His fervid nature has melted the smooth, waxed mask of polished simulation, and revealed strongly marked lineaments, deep lines. ​and uncompromising coloring. He has sought out the stature of his own soul, and found it was not just the measure of any other man's. He has burst the straight jacket of cramping conventionality, that his vigorous faculties might have free play; he has walked out of the verdureless, even-trodden path (leading to nothing) which myriads of feet are trampling with unprogressive, treadmill motion; he has rent asunder what Aurora Leigh calls "the violent bands of social figments;" he has dared to think for himself, to judge for himself, to act for himself, and not by the arbitrary law some feebler spirit has established.

Convicted of these delinquencies, "Good Society" brands him with the terrible stigma of "eccentric," "odd," "mad." And how quickly her hand-maiden, Ridicule, points at him her scornful finger, greets him with her dread laugh, and pursues him with her caustic jests. Eccentricity is such a fair subject for merriment! such an offence to good taste! such a parlor monster! Let us have none of it in these mincing, kid-glove, dancing-shoe days.

They are not at all dull, then, those stereotyped transcripts of commonplace humanity whom we encounter at every turn of this same popular Vanity Fair? They are not at all wearisome, then, those men and women led by the tinkling of custom's bell-wether; those fashion-plate patterns of one another in dress; those etiquette-book copies ​of each other in manners; those living illustrations of propriety, who have been taught to move with the same motion, speak in the same tone, think the same thoughts, crowd down their souls into the same narrow actual, and shut the door against the contemplation of any high possible? Then, too, we must account them very wise in their conclusion that, although an act may be good, may be of importance to mankind, may be a deed which justice or honor dictates, yet, if it would "look singular," if it has not been done by some of their set before, oh, shocking! it is to be shunned and denounced! What pleasant, profitable companions they make, these repetition people! What great actions, and great benefits, and great examples, the world may hope for from them! They have escaped the dreadful imputation of eccentricity; is not that the summum bonum of a man's or woman's existence?

Shall we venture to remind them that as not a tree, not a leaf, not a flower, not a blade of grass, is fashioned by the Divine hand precisely similar to any other, so not a single human being is created without distinctive features and characteristics; and that by the attempt of those servile copyists to conceal or obliterate the wonderful spiritual and physical individuality given to each, they tacitly rebuke the infinite diversity of the Creator's works?

Shall we also dare to hint to them that as the ​"eccentricities of genius" is a common expression, it may possibly suggest the inference that where there is most genius there is usually most originality of thought, consequently, originality (or eccentricity) of expression, manner, and action? Thus may we not arrive at the potential deduction that original (or eccentric) people are usually persons endowed with uncommon capacities, if not gifted with positive genius?

For ourselves, we have the bad taste to avow that contact with thoroughly original spirits is to us refreshing and enlivening in the highest degree. How their presence wakens, stirs up a sluggish, dead-alive coterie! How they infuse new ideas, new pulses, new vitality into lower, duller, more torpid organizations! How they reinvigorate the great social artery, by a process which resembles the physical practice, patent in other days, of injecting buoyant, healthy blood into the flaccid veins of the feeble and dying! These original minds force us to think, startle us into feeling, make us ashamed of our own insignificance, inspire us to search out the purposes of our being, cry "Excelsior!" in our ears, impel us onward in the path of progress; and so, we bid them all hail! We would not exchange one hour in the society of these strong and strengthening natures for a lifetime wasted, basking in the meaningless smiles, and listening to the pretty nothings ​of the most charming duplicate, of the most perfect model "Good Society" ever stamped with her superlative praise of "uneccentric, unexceptionable!"