Note 9 — ESSAY IX MATTER AND MANNER
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Sheer impudence answers almost the same purpose. ‘Those impenetrable whiskers have confronted flames.’ Many persons, by looking big and talking loud, make their way through the world without any one good quality. I have here said nothing of mere personal qualifications, which are another set-off against sterling merit. Fielding was of opinion that ‘the more solid pretensions of virtue and understanding vanish before perfect beauty.’ ‘A certain lady of a manor’ (says Don Quixote in defence of his attachment to Dulcinea, which, however, was quite of the Platonic kind), ‘had cast the eyes of affection on a certain squat, brawny lay brother of a neighbouring monastery, to whom she was lavish of her favours. The head of the order remonstrated with her on this preference shown to one whom he represented as a very low, ignorant fellow, and set forth the superior pretensions of himself, and his more learned brethren. The lady having heard him to an end, made answer: All that you have said may be very true; but know that in those points which I admire, Brother Chrysostom is as great a philosopher, nay greater, than Aristotle himself!’ So the Wife of Bath:
‘To chirche was myn housbond brought on morwe With neighebors that for him made sorwe, And Jankyn oure clerk was oon of tho. As help me God, whan that I saugh him go After the beere, methought he had a paire Of legges and of feet so clene and faire, That al myn hert I yaf unto his hold.’
‘All which, though we most potently believe, yet we hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.’