Ignorant Essays

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Dowling Richard. Ignorant Essays

THE ONLY REAL GHOST IN FICTION

THE BEST TWO BOOKS

LIES OF FABLE AND ALLEGORY

MY COPY OF KEATS

DECAY OF THE SUBLIME

A BORROWED POET

THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER

A GUIDE TO IGNORANCE

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In no list I met of the best hundred books, when that craze took the place of spelling-bees and the fifteen puzzle, do I recollect seeing mention made of my two favourite works. These two books stand completely apart in my esteem, and if I were asked to name the volume that comes third, I should have to make a speech of explanation. The first of them is not in prose or verse, it is not a work of theology or philosophy or science or art or history or fiction or general literature. It is at once the most comprehensive and impartial book I know. This paragraph is assuming the aspect of a riddle. Being in a mild and passionless way a lover of my species, I am a loather of riddles. So I will go no further on the downward way, but declare the name, title, and style of my book to be Nuttall’s Standard Dictionary.

I am well aware there is a great deal to be said against Nuttall’s Dictionary as a dictionary, but I am not speaking of it in that sense. I am treating it as a dear companion, a true friend, a vade mecum. Let those who have a liking for discovering spots in the sun glare at the orb until they have a taste for nothing else but spots in the sun. I find Nuttall so close to my affections that I can perceive no defects in him. I cannot bear to hold him at arm’s length, for critical examination. I hug him close to me, and feel that while I have him I am almost independent of all other books printed in the English language.

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This is another of the books that Charles Lamb classes among the no-books. As in the case of Nuttall, there was no Whitaker in his day, and certainly no almanac at all as good. At first glance this book may seem dry and sapless as the elm ready sawn for conversion into parish coffins. But how can anything be considered dry or dead when two hundred thousand of its own brothers are at this moment dwelling in useful amity among our fellowmen? It in one way contrasts unfavourably with almanacs which can claim a longer life, there are no vaticinations in it. But if the gift of prophecy were possessed by other almanacs, why did they not foretell that they would be in the end known as humbugs, and cut their conceited throats? I freely own I am a bigot in this matter; I have never given any other almanac a fair chance, and, what is worse, I have firmly made up my mind not to give any other one any chance at all. What is the good of being loyal to one’s friends if one’s loyalty is at the beck of every upstart acquaintance, no matter how great his merits or how long his purse? I place my faith in Whitaker, and am ready to go to the stake (provided it is understood that nothing unpleasant takes place there) chaunting my belief and glorying in my doom.

If you took away Whitaker’s Almanack from me I do not know how I should get on. It is a book for diurnal use and permanent reference. One edition of it ought to be printed on bank note paper for the pocket, and another on bronze for friezes for the temple of history. It is worth all the Livys and Tacituses that ever breathed and lied. It is more truthful than the sun, for that luminary is always eight minutes in advance of where it seems to be. It is as impartial and veracious as fossilising mud. It contains infinitely more figures than Madame Tussaud’s, and teaches of everything above and under the sun, from stellar influences to sewage.

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