THE "TALENTED" YOUNG MAN.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 536, 24 June 1869, Page 4

THE "TALENTED" YOUNG MAN.

(New York Round Table,) The mosquito has its favorite haunts, whence he is loath to roam; and otherwhere earth has climes whither his restless wing has not learned to turn its sanguinary flight, nor his vengeful hum begun to make night hideous. And. even in his chosen lairs, with proper precautions, one may bid him defiance ; we may bar the fell dragon's blighting path, and from under the protecting gauze smile serene contempt on his baffled fury. The organgrinder is usually venal, the religious weekly one need not read, but the talented young man is not so easily disposed of. Everywhere you meet him ; from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand earth knows no spot that is sacred from his awful presence. And the worst of it is that those who call themselves your friends seem to take a fiendish delight in even going out of their way to fasten on you the infliction. He is sprung on you suddenly at street corners, when you are sanguinely waiting for car or stage that shall not be more than twice tilled ; he is flung upon you at theatres, to strangle your enjoyment by his talented criticisms ; he is kept ambushed under invitations to dinner, and only let out at the last moment when there is no escape ; he poisons the festive bowl to which you have' been invited by a crafty friend ; he is constantly being introduced at all times and places by some heartless monster, who thereupon departs and leaves you in his clutches. And once fairly in his power there is no hope but in his mercy. You cannot very well kick him, for he is too entirely inoffensive ; and nothing short of the heroic method will avail to release you from the odious incubus of his talents. He is going just the way you are ; and as he never by any chance has anything whatever to do himself, it is next to impossible to persuade him that anybody else can be better employed than in listening to his instructive conversation. In person the talented young man is tall, and generally thin, with fair and rather lank hair, brushed back behind his ears, and no beard, unless he be an English talented young man, when one on approaching him becomes dimly conscious of a faint glory of side whisker. Talented young men from the Continent, on the other hand, are usually bearded like the pard, and quite as averse to change of raiment. But all alike wear glasses, which are so becoming, their lady acquaintances tell them in pretty raptures, and are all interestingly pallid, with deepset, dreamy eyes, and fair, high brows, gently sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. They all smoke a great deal, and drink as much as they can, being easily fuddled ; Avhereby they gain the reputation among their female admirers of being very wild fellows indeed, and are sometimes in moments of sweet confidence, gently reproved for their excesses, when they will smile sadly and shake a deprecating head as who should say — It is the fate of genius ! The talented young man is not often a dandy ; he rather affects a certain laborious disorder in his apparel which shall single him out from the common herd, and so gain him the proud distinction- which is one chief aim of his ambition, to be inquired after and pointed out as the talented Mr Snooks. Of course he writes poetry, and every album he infests knows the touch of his inspired pen. Such sweet verses, so smooth and so easily understood ; not like that nasty Mr Browning's odious gibberish. He seldom publishes, however ; he has got beyond that ; he has learned to scorn the ignoble plaudits of the rabble — malignum spernere vulgus, he says, with a fine flavour of classicality. And as for fame, that is all very well for boys, but men know it for the ignis fatuns it is. If his friends do him the honor to admire his humble efforts, he is proud and happy to please them ; but ask him not to leave his peaceful retirement to join in the senseless and futile race of glory. This is the burden of the chant that lie is always singing in your ear, with a myriad of feminine retainers to join in the chorus. And yon — you are often fairly bewildered by this persistency of assertion into believing with these fair idolators. You look for the talents, but you do not find them ; you only find, instead, v very ordinary, rather silly young man, who talks a great deal about himself, and who is of uncommonly little use in the world. Still, where there is so much smoke there ought to be a little fire ; and the most sceptical observer

is frequently seduced into believing that there may be in the talented young man — very far, to be sure, and difficult to get at, but still there — more than is apparent on the surface. But woe be to him if he permits, by so much as a single unwary word, this wavering to become apparent. From that moment the talented young man fastens upon him, like the Old Man of the Sea upon Sinbad, and leaves him not with life. Female adulation he has so plenteously that even on his incurious palate it palls at last j but masculine faith is rare enough to be surpassing sweet. There is but one alternative for the unhappy wretch who has made that fatal slip — either to fly the country, or, if possible, even by lending him money, to publish a book. , . That is often very effectual. The keen scalpel of ruthless criticism cuts surely, but swiftly, to the core of the cancerous vanity, that no social knife is keen enough to reach. To be sure, there are some cases so hardened as to be incurable ; talented young men that the scoring of a dozen, books should fail to move one jot from the lofty pinnacle of a well-balanced oonceit, and who finally become talented old men without ever suspecting what idiots they are. But these are extreme cases ; the majority need only one chill blast of impartial opinion to dissipate the rosy mists which self-love has woven around them, and restore them to be use' ful members of society. The talented young man is usually the product of exaggerated maternal or sisterly admiration, acting and reacting on a mind growing more and more enfeebled under this sirocco- wind of flattery. A mother's eyes are sharp to discern in her son the prodigy she hopes for ; and if he be an only son, with several sisters, his doom is sealed. The admiration which his own sisters feel for him is speedily communicated to other people's sisters, who soon, from ready hearers of his praises, become as industrious retailers. Beset by such formidable artillery of feminine wiles, what is the luckless object to do 1 What did Samson do in the insidious caresses of Delilah ? What Hercules in the snares of Oinphale? Of course he succumbed, as every man must and will to the end of time. So, on the whole, we ought perhaps rather to pity the talented young man than to revile him ; but it is wise in our pity to take the most enchanting view of him that welcome distance can lend. ___________^__