ESSAYS
SOCIAL SUBJECTS








ESSAYS
ON
SOCIAL SUBJECTS
FRO M THE SATURDA Y RE VIEW 
"That man sat down to write a book to tell the world what the world
had all his life been telling him."
BOSTON
TICKNOR AND  FIELDS
8 65




UNIVERSITY PRESS:
WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,
CAMBRIDGE.




ADVERTISEMENT.
THE, following Essays by a Contributor to the "Saturday
Review" are reprinted without alteration. Though not inserted
in the order of their first appearance, no system of arrangement
has been attempted; nor is system practicable, where the only
connection between different subjects is to be found in all being
treated from the point of view of a single writer's personal
experience.








CONTENTS.
PAGE
BUSY PEOPLE.                                       I
SNUBBING.   e                                     13
IGNORANCE... e      24
FOOLISH THINGS....  35
FALSE SHAME...46
FLUENCY..                                         56
CONTEMPT... 68
DULNESS AS A SENSATION..                          8I
MISTAKES IN LIFE......  92
SCENES...... 104
ACQUAINTANCES AND FRIENDS......116
SAYING DISAGREEABLE THINGS.                       128
ON BEING UNDERSTOOD... I140
STUDY OF CHARACTER.151
PREJUDICES..                                      63
SHIRKING..                                       I176
CONSTANCY..                                      I88
RESERVE.20I




viii                Contents.
EXPLANATIONS..... 212
HUGGER-MUGGER.                               224
ATTENTION.                                  236
STRONG WILLS......       247
TALKING OF SELF...           259
FOLLY.....  270
TIME PAST......... 283
ALLOYS....  296
THE USES OF PATHOS...                     307
CHOICE...                                   318
ONE'S OWN WAY..                             330
WANT OF MONEY..                             341




B U SY PEOPLE.
IT is fortunate for the mass of mankind that their
time is pretty well laid out for them. They are
spared the problem which must constantly vex the
souls of men,-busy men, not impelled by sheer
necessity, -what is to come of their work, and why
they do it.  The' man who ploughs or carpenters
sees a satisfactory fruit. of his labors.  He knows
that the world could not get on without him, that
he, as one of a class, is perfectly indispensable to
the well-being, the existence even, of mankind. That
we must work, and that, because we must, something
useful will be provided for us to do, every believer
in a Providence cannot but assume.  But people
who idolize work of their own devising, -a common form of worship in our time,-are inevitably
subject to self-delusions. Very few men who work
with their brains, who invent work of any kind for
themselves, can, in fact, be as sure that they are
I                          A




2                Szusy People.
benefiting their species as the man who weaves or
digs. Many authors unquestionably are serving their
generation, many philanthropists, many preachers,
many philosophers, many-let us say — essayists
and critics; but the mere dignity of the sphere and
the conviction of utility, though self-sustaining, do
not of themselves prove it. In fact, the higher the
aim, the less confident should men be of the result.
We are commanded to work, work is an instinct,
and head-work in a certain sense is a higher form
of work than hand-work; and the individual plods
on, trusting to these general truths. But except where
there is an abiding afflatus, — an outpouring which
a man must utter or die, - except a man is habitually "overflowing as the moon at the full," it may
almost be doubted whether literary work could be
carried on by modest men without the common tie
which makes all laborers one brotherhood, -that they
earn money by it.  Money is something positive, a
reason for exertion apart from the sense of the value
of your.work. Your work may not be good, even in
your own eyes; it may not teach or prove, or edify
or amuse; but the idea of wages reduces the pen to
the instrument of an honest trade, and the wielder of
it to the condition of an honest laborer. He is not
oppressed by the humbling sense of shame or failure, by the sore misgiving that he is spinning worth



Busy People.                 3
less cobwebs out of his own vitals, only for the remorseless housewife Oblivion to sweep away; for if
he does not serve society, it serves him. Something
comes of the transaction; which cannot always be
said of the mere fancy work done for honor and glory,
or even for the gratuitous benefit of the human species. We believe the world of writers, on whom men
rely for their daily supply of teaching and amusement,
would be "utterly consumed by sharp distress" at
the emptiness and vanity of their work, but for the
sedative and consoling reflection that they are daylaborers, and write for their hire, and therefore may
flatter themselves, by analogy with their brethren of
the plough and loom, that what is fairly paid for is
worth having, and that what is worth paying for must
have some intrinsic worth. If there is a fallacy, it
is decently hid. Under it the husbandry of the brain
is still carried on, and a precarious crop harvested.
We doubt whether work should be so very delightful to the worker as it seems to be to some people.
A little enthusiasm now and then carries him pleasantly forward, and habit makes it bearable and comparatively easy. But for the brow to sweat is not
in the nature of.things agreeable, though we feel the
better for it, perhaps, when it is cool again. Whenever the mere process of work becomes a man's highest pleasure we suspect something wrong, some de



4                Busy People.
ficiency. He ought to be glad when it is over. He
ought not to undertake it but with some feeling of
necessity, - something impelling him slightly against
the grain. Liberty ought to seem greater and better than compulsion, even deliberate self-compulsion.
Whenever people set their heads to constant work -
we may be perfectly certain that they are losing more
than they gain, that they are sinking in the scale at
once of meditative and social beings, and that the
world profits not at all by the overplus of activity.
Perhaps excessive activity and laboriousness is not
a very common form of self-mismanagement, but still
the work of the world is not done with a wise economy. Some do not work at all, —are utterly lazy.
Some do their share grudgingly and unwillingly without giving it their energies; and some are always
grinding. They are possessed with the idea that work
is virtue and achievement, and renovation and life,
that every time they sit still and fold their hands, the
wheels of the universe drag heavily, that there is a
stop, that mischief and decay are intervening somewhere, and that, till they move again, all nature is out
of joint. It is a cheerful notion, no doubt, that we
are necessary to the well-being and harmony of things,
if this conviction goes along with the persuasion that
the sort of work we turn out is commensurate with
the mighty need: and work has, no doubt - a man's




Busy People.                  5
own work, if he keeps his mind pretty exclusively
upon it —the power of magnifying itself. Very few
people, indeed, can embrace the idea that they are
of no use; even their existence implies to most people the necessity for their existence; but the busy
man, mixed up in all sorts of affairs, with a finger
in every pie, and always comparing his brisk indefatigableness with the indolence of colleagues, or the
sloth which does not even undertake labor, comes
inevitably to put a high value on what he does, and
to think it essential and necessary.
Yet, really, an immense proportion of labor of this
sort must be superfluous. Only a percentage, to speak
in mercantile phrase, can reach the case. There is
boundless waste in mere unassisted intellectual industry. We must work trusting that some one of the
thousand seeds we sow will take root; and often
good comes where we least rely on it. But we suspect human nature is not strong enough to bear the
sense of failure which would be felt if the actual fruit
of our exertions, the miserable gleanings of so much
promise, were revealed to us; if all that came, for
instance, of one busy day's speeches, meetings, lectures, books, articles, hurryings to and fro, runnings
hither and thither, all that makes such mighty stir
in the doing, were set before us. We admit that
ignorance is probably bliss in this case, and we will




6                Busy People.
not pursue the subject; for after all, if the busy workers do comparatively little good, the lazy do none,
and ruin themselves into the bargain. But such considerations, while they ought not to interfere with
Nyork as a duty, may check it as a monomania. The
man who has no time for his friends, who has to
apportion his day into fragments which fit into one
another like a Chinese puzzle, whose whole scheme
is disturbed by a moment's interruption, who suffers
under every accidental hinderance, who hurries from
one engagement to another, who at every compulsory
check or failure feels himself wasting and looks out
for something to fill the gap, will perhaps do well
now and then to ask what is the good of it all?
and who would be the loser if he condescended to
a little relaxation?  If, in the unwilling holiday, he
discovers that he has lost the power of enjoyment,
that his social instincts have failed him, that free
thought has dwindled, that a thousand interests are
lost to him because he can only care where self is
bustling and moiling and feeling itself important, then
the check will have taught him a useful lesson. No
man can be always busy without being slavishly busy.
"The most active or busy man," Bacon tells us, "that
hath been or can be, hath no question many vacant
times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and
returns of business, except he be either tedious and




Busy People.                7
of no despatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious
to meddle with things that might be better done by
others."  But if, indeed, he is so involved that relaxation is unattainable, then he may rely on it that
society is treating him shabbily, employing him as
its dependent on routine work, trusting to fresher
minds, to men capable of leisure, its more responsible errands, and reserving for them its real gratitude
and rewards. While he thinks himself a martyr to
its service, it considers the favors really on its own
side. It is humoring a propensity and furnishing
employment for a blind instinct, and when he looks
for any return he will find disappointment, and hear
himself put off with the old retort, -" No thanks to
him; if he had no business he would have nothing
to do."
Our remarks of course do not apply to men of
business as such. Few men who apply themselves
strictly to their own calling are overworked in the
way we mean. There is always a propensity to take
things easily where the idea of supererogation is
wanting; and the man who prides himself on never
passing westward of Temple Bar, and who is set up
as a model tradesman, a pattern of clockwork punctuality and concentrated energies, will be found to
spend a good many hours of every day in mere
gossip and newspaper reading. For, in fact, men's




8                 Busy People.
capacity for labor is limited, if by labor we mean
an intelligent application of the powers to any work
in hand. It is an exercise of patience on this account to watch the progress of skilled labor of any
sort. The bricklayer, the gardener, the mechanic
are so deliberate in every movement, -each act is
so surrounded and saturated, as it were, in waiting
and leisure, —that the observer longs to snatch the
tool out of their hands and do the job for them;
and very likely he could do it in half the time; but
after the exertion he would rest on his laurels. The
day-laborer, who has ten or twelve hours of it, only
takes his repose in minute, inglorious instalments.
People who contend too resolutely against this natural drag on progress, who will work faster than the
speed to which their capabilities limit ~them, defeat
their own ends. They are borne along by mere
senseless impetus, and their work either remains a
defect and a hinderance, or has to be undone and
retraced.
We suspect that our age is particularly prolific of
this sort of busy men, as supplying a wide field for
them from the great increase of public business and
joint exertion.  Where men once worked solitarily
in their closets in personal effort, they now work
in committees, boards, and other associations, thus
reversing the old arrangement, which was to labor




Busy People.                 9
alone, and to enjoy leisure in company. It must
be owned people had then but a narrow acceptation
of the word "neighbor," it was every man for himself and his friend, not for himself and the wide
world. But the effect of this limitation rendered it
impossible for any given man to have so many irons
in the fire as the active temperament finds room for
now; and so the workers, as well as the wits, had
a jolly time of it. They were idle men after two
or three o'clock of the day, —the previous hours,
well applied, serving for most men's private affairs, -
and they supped nightly in company. If people
were to return to this sort of life now, we should
expect a universal collapse. That things went on
at all, nay, that there was actual progress all the
while, is a proof that the seething excitement of
apparent work in our own day is not all productive,
that a great deal of it simply supplies employment;
in fact, is working in a circle. And this brings us
to our real ground of quarrel with the over-busy
habit of mind, which is, that it not only spoils a
man for society, but stops all real progress and cultivation of his own mind. It imprisons him in himself, and shuts him out from a whole range of good
and happy influences; and this not because he
works, but because exclusive devotion to his own
efforts makes him set an undue value upon them
I *




Io               Busy People.
and upon himself. The position is a false and mistaken one.
" The man whose eye
Is ever on himself, doth look on one
The least of nature's works";
and yet this is inevitably the attitude of one who
prefers his own work to intercourse with others, and
who thinks he must impart all and can receive nothing."' His whole demeanor shows it. His bustle is
a constant reproof, his uniform plea of want of time
a standing insult.
We pity men who, while esteeming themselves the
benefactors and regenerators of their species, awake
a certain resentment above and beyond that inevitable consequence of self-estimation, being thought
bores. And this feeling of society will seem to them
all the harder and more unthankful, in that it certainly likes busy women. A certain fuss of occupation fits in with their place and nature. Their work
looks natural, and has never a touch of reproof in it,
which man's fussiness always has. A man cannot
be busy without a certain ostentation; but a woman
may be in a little commotion from morning till night,
occupied with her needle, with her household, her
studies, her accomplishments, even with her schools
and amongst her poor; and instead of exciting our
spleen, if she manage well, we feel, as it were, sleep



Busy People.                I 
ing partners in her labors, and by some mysterious
soothing process to have a share in the merit of them.
But a busy woman who is always otherwise engaged
when she is wanted, — who keeps her husband waiting for dinner, -who talks with solemn prolixity of
her schemes and doings, how she labors, how much
depends upon her, - who delights in being overdriven,
— who describes herself as in a turmoil of business,
and is forever parading her own hobbies, - is perhaps the greater bore of the two, for she is the
greater contradiction to the ideal woman, as being
uncomfortable and irritating. She is worrying where
worry is least looked for, and is therefore the greater
hardship. But there are not many such women.
They figure in books rather than in actual life; and
so much is occupation congenial to women, that
even this is better than doing nothing. Society does
not assume for them that background of hard work
which gives to men's social idleness the pretence of
relaxation; and thus listlessness, inactivity, and folding of the hands in women is a painful anomaly to
their idlest male friends, and acts upon them like
a cold hearth or lukewarm coffee. In fact, it is
unpretending or trifling employments that should be
made prominent.  We should not have quarrelled
with Will Whimble for parading his tobacco-stoppers,
dog-whips, or fishing-tackle, in all companies, any




12              BFusy People.
more than we do now with the ladies for putting
forward their netting and embroidery; but men
should be diffident, modest, reserved, retiring about
their real work, the labor of hand and brain, of soul
and spirit, because it is a venture, because they
should know something of their own weaknesses,
and because far-off results alone can show the value
of their work, or whether it has a value beyond the
occupation, stimulus, and interest it has furnished
to their own minds.




SNUBBING.
W/HAT is that thing which everybody remembers, which in the most grateful of us outlives all benefits and overtops all services?  How
may a man construct himself a niche in every mind,
connect undying associations with his name, haunt
innumerable memories, make himself a household
word, point a moral, and becom6 a standing illustration l How may he get himself thought of and
talked of most lastingly and surely. The answer
is really too obvious. Simply by cultivating the art
of snubbing, or, in favored instances, by merely
withdrawing all checks on a natural bias and yielding to the dictates of an inborn acidity. It is an
old word, and was very appropriately used in other
days to express the withering action of the east
wind; but we make no apology for using it in its
modern and more familiar sense, as a social blight,
as nipping our budding joys, and breathing its cold




14         Snuubbing.
blast on human jollity. And yet what is a snub,
after all, that it should brand itself so indelibly?
Why should we be more vulnerable to its attacks
than to more formidable thrusts. If it were anything very seriously touching character or credit, it
would not go by that name. The word affects to
be humorous, and the wound is assumed to be slight,
and men are not unused to plain speaking: they
acquiesce in the rights of authority in others; and
youth, which is especially sensitive to snubs  which
experiences all the fever fit of shame at being
merely told to mind its own business- makes comparatively small account of more serious censure,
and indulges in a playful nomenclature for the graver
forms of reproof. How does it give more pain than
many a heavy rebuke from quarters whose displeasure is serious, considering that the man who snubs
does not primarily mean to give pain at all?
There are people who are conscious and proud
of the faculty of giving pain, who have a morbid
appetite for making people uneasy about them, to
whom a comfortable person is an eyesore. They
feel the promptings of an impulse akin to that
which made the Roman Emperor, seeing a fat and
jovial senator enjoying himself in the amphitheatre,
bid his attendants put a sword in that man's hand
and make him fight a lion; and which stirs in the
domestic tyrant



Snubbing.                  I5
"Pluto they called him, and they called him well,
For't was no heaven where he was pleased to dwell "but there need be nothing cruel in the man who
snubs. It is good sort of people who are tempted
to it, honest, sincere men, who have a notion of
doing their friends good, of disabusing them summarily of their faults, and shaking them out of follies
and mistakes; as when Dr. Johnson, the great master of the art, turned upon one of his flatterers:
"Sir, you have but two topics, -yourself and me.
I am sick of both." They go right at the offence
against taste, sense, or propriety, as it may be, and
have a confidence in their way of putting things so
as to confound and convince the sinner at a stroke.
They are alive to two things, - the matter to be exposed and put down, and their aptitude for the work.
The feelings of their friend are the only part of the
question not taken  into account, which, however,
happen to be dearer to the patient than either his
friend's perspicacity or abstract truth, even though
there existed no difference of opinion on this latter
point.
When we endeavor to analyze it, the immediate
effect of a snub is to induce a feeling of deprivation
and exposure. Its physical sensation is like the sudden loss of a garment, and the consequent rush of
cold; and we do in fact lose, in the surprise, the




X 6                StSnubbinzg.
snug covering of our usual self-respect. We are dependent creatures. We are apt, on the instant of
others not respecting us, to feel ourselves not respectable, small, inferior, incompetent, unable to hold our
own; and hence the main annoyance. That which
predominates in a snub is the pressing difficulty of
how to take it. We are caught at unawares without
our weapons.  There are assaults and aggressions
of a nature to rouse our courage and to quicken our
powers, which call for and suggest an answer, which
may be resented on the spot without injury to our
dignity; but this is not one of them. All that can
be done generally under a snub -all, at least, that
we actually do —is to pull-up suddenly with an inner
blank sense of tingling, a doubt as to where we are,
a confused feeling of having the worst of it, which
our instinct teaches us to keep to ourselves as much
as possible. For it must be noted that a snub is
of necessity a sudden blow, given when we are at
a disadvantage, careless, and at ease in the security
of social intercourse. Social intercourse takes sympathy for granted. It assumes one general genial
sentiment, a disposition to follow a lead, to pursue
subjects in the spirit in which they are started. A
snub is a check, a blank, it is a curtain suddenly
drawn down, it is pulling-up against a dead-wall, it
is cold obstruction and recoil. Either the snubber




Snubbing.                  17
has authority on his side, and we have laid ourselves
open by some inadvertence, by a misplaced trust in
his condescension,- and we have seen parents painfully snub their children in this sort, first allowing
them liberties, then stopping them with a harsh check
in mid-career of spirits, and this in the presence of
strangers, - or, perhaps, we have given way to enthusiasm, and are met by ridicule; or we have made
a confidence which we think tender, and it is received
with indifference; or we tell a story, and are asked
for the point of it; or we are given to understand
that we are mistaken where we have assumed ourselves well informed; or our taste is coolly set at
naught; or we talk, and are reminded we are prosy;
or we are brought face-to-face with our ignorance in
a way to make us feel it most keenly. The strength
of a snub lies in the sudden apprehension that we
_have committed ourselves, and a consequent painful sense of insignificance, -that there is somebody
quite close to us, regardless of our feelings, looking down on us, and ostentatiously unsympathizing.
This is an elaborate description of perhaps a momentary sensation following on an encounter probably as short, after which each party may seem to
pursue his way unconscious; but in human affairs
time is not the measure of importance, and one of
the two at least treasures a memory of it in his heart
B




I 8                Snubbing.
bearing no proportion whatever to the time it took
in acting.
Perfectly collected and self-satisfied persons are
impervious to snubs. Sam Weller is represented as
receiving one from his master (we need not say well
merited) with perfect smiling serenity. So are the
happy few gifted with the power of repartee and
rejoinder, who may be called social debaters, whose
glory is an emergency, who can collect their powers
on the instant, and "give the check they take " with
usury. When M. Scribe, according to the newspaper
story, answered the millionnaire who wanted him to
lend him the use of his genius for a consideration,
that it was contrary to Scripture for a horse (so he
wrote it) and an ass to plough together, it was a perfectly fair snub.  The man deserved anything he
got, but he must have felt triumph rather than mortification when, on the spur of the moment, he could
demand what right had M. Scribe to call him a horse.
But these cases are too few to be taken into account,
and the practised snubber has generally the game
in his own hand, and secures a victory. If morals
are his forte, he will have demonstrated how much
more prompt are his moral instincts than our own,
how quick he is to discover the right which our
dulled perceptions or stolid selfishness had missed.
If his line is intellectual, he will have reminded us




Snubbing.                  19
of our illogical habits of thought and our bounded
views compared with his keen intelligence and clear
judgment. If life and manners are his care, he will
have convicted us of mistakes, awkwardnesses, solecisms.; if information and general knowledge, he will
have succeeded in impressing us with a sense of our
deficiencies; if taste, he will take care to show us that
there is nothing he values so slightly as our opinion.
That natural human sensitiveness is constantly lost
sight of by quick and clever people, is clear even
from fiction. In the dialogue of most novels, we
find snubs which could not be inflicted in real intercourse without bringing all intercourse to an end.
All historical conversations professing to have actually taken place-from Canute's reproof to his courtiers to the "Sir, you don't know the poor figure you
make," quoted by Macaulay — foster the delusion
that mankind will stand wounds to their self-love
which they will not stand; and the snubbers may
thus be tempted to try experiments which, in spite
of momentary triumphs, end in their own real defeat. There are men exemplary in all the duties of
life who never pass a day without snubbing somebody, - their wives, of course (natural victims, used
to be told that they say nothing and do nothing
right), their children, their servants, their underlings, their acquaintances, their associates.  Every




20                 Snubbing.
day something has passed their lips which has acted
like a blow at the time, and worked on the recollection like a blister, which has been repeated with
querulous soreness and been passed on to the world
as a fresh trait of character, which has added to
the growing barrier which daily rises between the
man and his species. Not that we can cut him,we do not even wish to do so. All the ceremonies
of friendly intercourse continue to pass between us;
there is no reason they should ever be left off. But
at every encounter he gets shoved farther and farther away from our secrets. One by one he loses
the key to the hearts of his friends, who stand on
the defensive, keep watch, shut themselves up in his
presence with instinctive caution, till we doubt not
he often in his inner heart wonders at his own isolation.  For our part we are sincerely sorry for
him; and we are so conscious besides that men may
have the habit without knowing it, that we would
offer one general counsel, — never under any temptation to practise a talent for setting down on people
worth caring for. Risk a good deal, take a circuitous route, leave good advice unsaid, or said in less
trenchant telling fashion, bear irritations, nuisances,
what not, rather than inflict any sudden wound on
your friend's self-love.  Do not put him, on your
behalf, on the duty of Christian forgiveness. Allow




Snubbing.                  21
him to rest in some ignorance of your opinion, even
though he may believe it more to his advantage than
it happens to be. Submit to be incomplete; sacrifice
the pleasure of being sharp and acute at his expense; for it is very certain that he will not like
you the better, and very unlikely also that he should
himself be the better, for your having made him feel
like, and perhaps look like, a fool. If he is often
put under the apprehension of it, the least that can
be expected of him is, that he will eschew your confidence, and carefully keep on the windy side of
intimacy.
Here lies the secret of so many charges of ingratitude, and benefits forgotten, of unrequited, unvalued
sacrifices. Not that a few, or even a series, of illconsidered, unpalatable words ought to counterbalance real services, but that they put human nature
to a strain which too severely tests its weak points.
And there is this to be said,- that contempt, of all
things the hardest to bear, is, if we go to the bottom
of it, the motive force of most snubs. The practice
is certainly incompatible with a respectful habit of
mind. Our friend is in a hurry to tell us that our
judgment is worth nothing, that our expression of it
must be stopped, that we, or something about us,
must be put down. As we think over the matter, the
examples that first occur come from contemptuous




22                Snubbing.
minds, - men without deference, who are accustomed
to lean upon themselves, who do not expect to find
much in other people. We do not find them appealing to others, or wishing to know their thoughts, or
willing to follow out their speculations, or listening to
their suggestions. They live and think alone, impatient of interference and interruption, and nourish
some notion of themselves which practically, though
it may not take the form of vulgar arrogance and
vanity, sets them above the possibility of benefit from
the crude, unformed, untaught intelligences around
them. Indeed, it is their impatience of other men's
ideas and conclusions which leads them to commit
themselves.
And it is to be observed that such men never do
see others at their best. A person of ordinary modesty, not gifted with self-reliance, not confident of his
position, cannot show himself to advantage under
such circumstances; and thus men are encouraged
in their self-esteem by the consequences of their own
ungraciousness. Nobody is quite himself before them,
unless he is also past the possibility of an open show
of contempt, though even this immunity depends on
the rank of the snubber. The Duke of Wellington
could tell an earl, his colleague, "You are over-educated for your intellect "; and when wit and learning
were rank, Warburton and Swift could and did snub




Snubbing.                  23
all the world. If our remarks lack the pungency of
appropriate illustration, it is not because apt examples
do not crowd upon us. We could fill columns with
them, - the collegiate, the social, the domestic, - all
of them very much to the purpose, and some very
amusing; but, as we have said, these are just the
things people never forget.  Disguise them  as we
would, they would be traced to their right source, and
the sanctities of private life must be respected, though
our disquisition lose half its value, and all its liveliness, by the sacrifice.




IGNORANCE.
T HERE are some sorts of ignorance that are evidently not at all disagreeable to, what we will
call, their possessors. Indeed, pride in knowledge
might som.etimes seem to have given place to pride
in ignorance. We are used to hear men boast of
knowing nothing on such and such a subject, of being
profoundly ignorant on matters which engage the
common attention, and of which most people have a
smattering; and we have learned to understand, by
the obtrusive confession, either that the speaker's
time has been better engaged, or that Nature, liberal
to him in great things, has inflicted on him some
slight defect or incapacity separating him from less
gifted men by an idiosyncrasy. Or, it may be, he has
such high and superior'notions of what constitutes
knowledge, that nothing less than entire mastery,
amounting to an exclusive possession of a subject,
deserves the name, and that everything short of this




Icgnoralce.                 25
is ignorance. Again, there is an honest philosophical
ignorance which must be rather pleasant, for it comes
of clearness of perception.  The very ignorance of
certain profound thinkers is impressive, and strikes
awe.  In fact, there is a form of it that only one
of this sort can feel. Owing to the lucidity of his
thoughts, the keenness of his apprehension in things
which he does understand, he is alive to a strange
and startling contrast when by chance he falls on anything that puzzles him. He finds himself pulled up;
he is sensible of having arrived at the traditional millstone; his reason is consciously at fault, and straightway he lays his finger on the dark spot, and says,
"This is ignorance!"  In such a confession there can
be no shame, in fact, it is not so much he that is
ignorant as the human race of which he feels himself
the representative. He knows that what man sees he
sees, but it is given to him to distinguish with exactness between the light and the obscure; he is agreeably conscious of being, in his own person, a test and
gauge of mortal powers, a discoverer of the limits of
human thought. And if there is satisfaction in these
voyages into unfathomable seas, there is another form
of ignorance which surely supplies heartier pleasures
still. We do not speak of that "Ignorance which is
bliss," for this the child is restlessly bent on exchanging for a painful knowledge, but of that form of igno2




26                Ignorance.
rance which, never being recognized as such, remains
a comfortable life-long companion; the ignorance,
emphatically, of the vulgar, that "blind and naked
ignorance" which
"Delivers brawling judgments unashamed
On all things all day long,"
because, not knowing one thing more or better than
another, and being sustained by indomitable self-reliance, it sincerely mistakes its uniformity of defect
for general enlightenment, and trusts its intuitions.
Again, there is feminine ignorance, recognized on all
hands for what it really is, yet held in high esteem as
an engine of coquetry and as a conscious fascination.
A pretty or a charming woman feels herself more
pretty and more charming for not knowing anything
hard, deep, or recondite. It costs her nothing to disown the slightest acquaintance with the dead languages, or science, or anything that calls for abstract
thought. In the opinion of those whose approval she
most cares for, she might as well assume Miss Blimber's spectacles as shine in any one of them.
These forms of ignorance are, however, one and
all, remote from our present theme, which is that
ignorance of which some of us -how many of us -
are conscious, and which is anything but pleasant.
We speak of the ignorance of which we make no




Ignorance.                27
parade, which is dragged from us against our will, or
unwittingly revealed while our good genius is sleeping, which has been with some of us (till time and
experience did their work of reassurance) our skeleton in the closet, which any day might bring to light.
For, though never wholly got rid of, it is on the hope
and sensitiveness of youth that this pain presses most
sorely. In those ingenuous days when the memory
still tingles with examinations, when we have not
ceased to believe in the knowledge of everybody else,
when the phrases, "What every school-boy knows,"
or "What every school-boy would be birched for not
knowing," seem to mean what they say, then it is that
we recognize what a shameful thing it is not to know
more. Then to stand convicted before our fellowmen of not knowing certain facts, of having perpetrated some gross blunder in what is assumed to be
a common heritage of knowledge, is a blot and a slur,
and brings with it a sense of disgrace amounting to
dishonor. He has missed a very poignant and memorable sensation who has never blushed in secret at
some hideous lapse, nor for its sake desired to hide.
his head from the accusing light of day, realizing in
fancy what the Finger of Scorn must mean. In truth,
many a young man, not naturally cruel, has heard
with a sense of relief of the expatriation or even
death of some witness of his shame,- some one be



28                 Ignorance.
fore whom, for instance, he has committed himself to
an error of some hundred years in a date, or has betrayed confusion about kings and sides in the Wars
of the Roses, or confounded the Vedas with the Sagas, or not known the identity of St. Austin with St.
Augustine, or has supposed "It must be so," and the
rest of it, to come in somewhere in Hamlet's soliloquy, or that Haydn composed the "Messiah," or
that Tycho Brahe lived before Sanchoniathon, or has
laid bare some extraordinary confusion of his mind
about eclipses of the moon.  Not that he cares about
the Vedas or Sanchoniathon, but it is horrible to be
thought ignorant of the things that other people
know, or are supposed to know, or that he thinks
he once did know, only memory let them slip before
it had fairly got hold of them. For the poor memory gets all the blame, as if memory were responsible for what the attention never gave it in charge.
Treacherous memory, which with so many of us
is responsible for our ignorance!- "with creeping
crooked pace," grudging, vacillating, uncertain, playing the part of that Ignaro, "foster-father of the
giant dead,""That on his staffe his feeble steps did frame,
And guide his weary steps both to and fro,
For his eyesight him failed long ago.
And on his arme a bunch of keys he bore,




Ignloraince.              29
The which, unused, rust did over growe;
Those were the keys of every inward dore;
But he could not them use, but kept them still in store."
It is certain that in most of us, without any sense of
amendment in ourselves, this strong, deep disgust at
our ignorance passes with youth. We begin to suspect great barren tracts in everybody's range of information. There are not many people who do not
betray a blank in some point where we had assumed
them to be well informed. Everybody commits himself in turn, not, perhaps, in the way of conventional
ignorance, but in ignorance of matters which it is
equally a disgrace not to know.  For why should
what men learn from books and polished society be
the only test? Why is it not as dishonorable to have
neglected the use of our eyes? A little experience
convinces us that culpable ignorance is not confined
to the form of it which most vexes the detected soul.
The subject takes a more general form, apart from
our consciousness, and one which we can contemplate very much at our ease.
It is indeed wonderful how little some people contrive to learn of things that it does not seem easy to
help knowing, and it makes general progress the more
surprising when we consider how little it has been
helped on by the mass of mankind. The great proportion of those that live in towns, and have before




30                Ig'norance.
them all their lives the processes of building, the distinctions of architecture, the suggestive hum of machinery, the varieties of merchandise, the profusion
of markets, are dead and blind not only to all that
these things teach, but to what is obtruded on their
eyes if it does not immediately concern their own
wants and vanities. Nor does the country tell them
more. They will not know from what hills the stream
that waters their fields has its source, or towards what
river it flows, or what counties and villages it passes
by. They cannot distinguish the note of the birds
that have sung to them since they were born. They
have discovered nothing for themselves of the habits
of beasts or insects that have haunted their path or
forced themselves on their regard from childhood.
They do not know the flowers at their feet, nor the
outline of the horizon their eye ever rests on. We
verily believe that there are a good many highly educated people who could not for the life of them recall
the outline of a cow or a sheep without ludicrous
blunders. Why is not all this universal knowledge?
Why are the people who notice what comes before
them to be marked by a separating name and called
naturalists? Why are we ashamed of a failure in what
comes to us through books and the costly instrumentality of masters and teachers,- why do we blush at
any flagrant slip in history, or science, or language, —




Ignorance.                31
and keep cool and easy under any extravagance of
error in what nature, through our own observation,
might teach us? There are, no doubt, plenty of
answers, still it is a question.
In contemplating the general ignorance, and the
popular injustice as to what constitutes reprehensible
ignorance, we thus grow less sensitive towards our
own. Also, be it added, there are forms of it which
inevitably grow upon us. There are a vast number
of things which we knew as boys, and have forgotten
now, and we perceive that the knowledge and the
ignorance are much on a par. It was a knowledge of
mere words, an imposture, fertilizing neither heart nor
brain; we feel that, if it had entered into either, it
would have remained with us; or, being genuine
knowledge, though no longer at our fingers' ends, it
may yet have done its work, and contributed something to what there is good in us. Unquestionably,
the mind that has learnt things and forgotten them is
on a wholly different and superior footing from that
which has never received the teaching. Thus most
things learnt may be intended to be partially forgotten in everything but the training they have given.
Cultivation is certainly consistent with a great deal
of ignorance, if the constant confession, "I do not
know," is to be the criterion.
In another respect, too, we learn to take our indi



32                Ignorance.
vidual ignorance coolly. We find we can fairly keep
it out of sight by a constant exercise of caution, and
a sort of involuntary finesse which is itself an education.  Society generally is up to the fact that the
polite assumption of universal knowledge in all its
members is an assumption. No well-bred person will
put it to the test. We do now and then come upon
a questioner, a self-elected social inspector, who does
by society what a malignant school inspector does by
a class, —lay himself out to find, not what they do
know, but.what they do not. But society is up in
arms, and makes common cause against such disturbers of its smooth equanimity.  How differently
does the polite example of that lusus nalurv,.the
thoroughly well-informed man, show himself! He
takes for granted, not in hypocrisy, but through mere
genial good-nature and desire for -sympathy, some
share of his own gifts in every one he meets. "Everybody knows a little Arabic," we once heard a
pleasant man of this sort say in a mixed company,
to account for his being able to converse in that
language. It was a bon' fide, though, as it proved,
ill-founded assumption, which he would have been
very far from putting to the proof, but which gave
every one a little flavor of Arabic while the conceit
lasted. In the next place, we find that the ignorance
of which youth is so sensitive-is not the barrier it was




Ignorance.                 33
supposed to be. The world is not governed by those
who know the most, nor is it what men know, but
what they do, that determines their place in the
world. How much ignorance, for example, is daily
displayed by our leading journalists? If, by chance,
we happen to have real information on some subject
on which their graceful sentences flow so easily, we
shall certainly detect error or misstatement, - not
intentional, but the result of ignorance. The writer
is out in some important particulars.  There is a
general air of familiarity with the subject, of knowing
what he is about; but we see that he goes on assumptions for want of knowing the facts. And yet the
world would much rather receive its impressions from
a man who writes well than from an expert dryly up
in his one theme; and perhaps wisely, for the ignorance of the practised writer is tempered by large
general experience, which preserves him from flagrant
blunders, and may, likely enough, assist him to an
approach to the truth sufficient for general purposes.
We are sure that, with some skilled confident writers
of this class, an ignorance which throws them upon
their own resources is better for their purpose than
half-knowledge, — always an uncertain, halting, hesitating guide, which simply puts them off the scent
of instinct.
Intense as is the shame of convicted ignorance
2*                          C




34                Ignorance.
under certain conditions, there is still a delightful
source of relief to the ingenious mind in a frank
confession, in making a clean breast of it, in revealing blanks, smirches, confusions of memory, and even
startling deficiencies in the matter of "what everybody knows," in showing ourselves to some sympathizing hearer (he must be sympathizing) just as we
are. But if this self-portraiture is not to our mind,
and our ignorance in certain fashionable points of
knowledge presses on us, the thing to do is to get
up some subject of which we stand a chance of being
sole student in our own circle. It matters not how
trifling the specialty, if a man only knows something
that nobody else knows, the world will respect him.
Only be an authority upon beetles, or even sea-weeds,
and you may have small Latin and less Greek, you
may know nothing of literature, and be grossly in the
dark on politics, and it may all tend to your honor.
If you know absolutely nothing else, how much you
must know about beetles! It is a case of concentration of the powers, of force of will, of single aim,
of that ardent, indomitable pursuit of knowledge
which is passion. And this is, perhaps, only a caricature of the truth, -a truth of which, in an age of
new sciences and perpetual discoveries, it is a comfort
to be reminded, - that a wise man must, after all, be
content to be ignorant of many things.




FOOLISH THINGS.
T HE  subject of folly is a wide one.  Mr.
Buckle's sixteen volumes would hardly exhaust its various manifestations; what, then, can
be expected in a single page? But it is also attractive. Nobody is disinclined to -have his belief in
the universality of folly confirmed by a new instance, every one is ready to speculate on the
motive or want of motive of ridiculous human action. But the foolish things we have here set ourselves to speak of are not attractive. They furnish
food for anything rather than amused supercilious
analysis. Are there any of our readers who never
in their own persons say or do foolish things, —
who are never conscious of having been deserted
by their good genius?  If there are, we do not
write for them. It is one's own foolish things which
at present engage our attention, for which we assume
the sympathy of fellow-feeLing, and reckon on touch



36              Foolish TThings.
ing an answering chord in other breasts not a few.
We are not speaking now of grave errors and mistakes, but of the inadvertencies, weaknesses, and
follies which haunt our subordinate, social, manfearing conscience; which we may not know to
have been perceived by any but ourselves, but
which nevertheless affect us, not because they are
wrong, but silly, and because they may be thought
more silly by others even than by ourselves, which
leave a sense of self-betrayal, making us ask in,
bitterness,
" Who shall be true to us
When we are so unsecret to ourselves? "
They are the things which allow us to go to sleep
at night with an undisturbed conscience, but wake
us with a start hours before the dawn, and set us
wondering, -How could I make such a fool of myself?  Where was the impulse to that vain show-off?
What could have induced me to talk of such a one,
— to confide my private concerns to So-and-so? 
For it may be noted that sins of omission play but
a small part in this periodical tragedy. It is not
lost opportunities, but heedless, ill-considered speech
and action, that fret us at unseasonable hours,some thoughtless license of the tongue, perhaps, or
some passing vanity leading to misplaced confidence
and weak reliance on sympathy. In the young, the




Foolish Things.               37
fear of presumption is a fruitful yet innocent source
of these stings of memory. Young people are sometimes made uneasy for days from the notion of having committed some unwarrantable familiarity, which
under excitement seemed, and very likely was, perfectly natural.
We are advised to sleep upon certain designs, but
it means really to wake upon them.  Nothing is
more curious than the revulsion a short interval
makes in our whole view of things, — no magic
more bewildering than the transmutations which a
few hours of insensibility produce,- a few hours of
being thrown absolutely upon ourselves. What an
idea it gives us of the effect of association, of the
action of man upon man! Nobody can allow himself to be real and natural in his intercourse with
others, and at the same time act as he laid himself
out beforehand to act, or as he wishes (we may too
often say), on looking back, that he had acted. If
this is true in the solemn and weighty affairs of life,
it must of necessity be true in the light or less
responsible contact of society, where the little turns
and accidents of the hour are constantly throwing
us off our rules, and tempting us to ventures and
experiments. All wit, all repartee, all spontaneous
effervescence of thought and fancy, are of the nature
of experiment. All new unplanned revelations of




38              Foolish Things.
self, — all the impulses, in fact, which come of collision with other minds in moments of social excitement, whether pleasurable or irritating, -are apt to
leave qualms and misgivings on the sensitive and
reflective temperament. Thus, especially, sins against
taste fret us in the heavy yet busy, excitable hour
which we have fixed on for the levee of these spectres, when our thoughts, like hounds, scent out disagreeable things with a miraculous instinct, drag
them to light, fly from subject to subject, however
remote and disconnected, and hem  us round with
our own peccadilloes.  Society in the cold dawn
looks on us as a hard taskmaster, exacting, unrelenting, seeing everything, taking account of everything, forgetting nothing, judging by externals, and
holding its judgments irreversible.  For, after all,
it is a cowardly time. We are not concerning ourselves now with bondt fide penitence, but only with
its shadow  and imitation,  a fear of what people
will think, a dread of having committed ourselves,
whose best alleviation lies in empty resolutions of
dedicating the coming day to a general reversal or
reparation of yesterday, to a laborious mending and
patching, which is to leave us sadder and wiser
men; along with a certain self-confidence (also the
offspring of the hour), that if we can only set the
past to rights, rectify, explain, recant effectually, our




Foolish Things.              39
present experience will preserve us from all future
recurrence of even the tendency and temptation to
do foolish things. We own this to be cowardly. It
is fortunate that' we cannot mould ourselves on the
model of these morbid regrets; for the influences
which make us seem to ourselves so different in the
rubs of domestic and social life from our solitary
selves —so that we are constantly taking ourselves
by surprise —are not all bad ones. They may be
more unselfish than those which impel to remorse,
and make us feel so sore against ourselves. There
is a certain generous throwing of one's self into the
breach in some crisis, whether grave or gay, which
often brings us to grief. There is a certain determined devotion to the matter in hand, — a resolution, come what may, to carry a thing through, —
which is better than caution, though by no means
a subject for self-congratulation at five o'clock in
the morning; or, indeed, so long as it lives in the
memory at all. On the whole, it is better as it is.
We are gainers in freedom  by living in a world
where it is possible to commit ourself, — to go beyond intentions, - to be impulsive, incautious.  If
everybody were as self-possessed, as much on his
guard as we wish we had been in these periods of
harassed meditation, society would not be a very
refreshing or invigorating sphere.




40              Foolish Thingls.
This is a surer source of consolation, as far as
our observation goes, than any argument from analogy that our fears delude us. If we look round
on those of our friends whose prudence we can
scarcely hope to equal, far less to surpass, — whom
we trust for manner, discretion, and judgment, —
there is scarcely one who does not now and then
disappoint or surprise us by some departure from
his usual right way of thinking and acting, by committing some moral or social solecism, just one of
the things to haunt the first waking hour. We are
not meaning merely clever people, for cleverness has
a prescriptive right to do foolish things, but wise and
sensible people who have a rule of action, and habitually go by it, — habitually, but not always;- and a
foolish thing done or said by a wise man certainly
stands out with a startling prominence and distinctness, pointing out the weak place there is in the
best of us. When our wise friend, under some malignant influence, says or does something exceptionally silly, the thing assumes a sort of life from contrast. It is quoted against him, and, perhaps, in
some quarters a permanently lower estimate of mind
and character is the consequence.  Do the same
things that in this case strike us strike the perpetrator? Can a wise man say a foolish thing and remain forever unconscious of it?  One thing we must




Foolish  Things.               4I
believe,-it cannot be only a latent self-conceit in
the midst of our humiliations and self-reproaches that
leads us to assume them not universal. There are
people so uniformly foolish, so constantly impertinent, rash, talkative, unsecret, or blundering, that, if
revisited by their errors, solitude would be one long
penance which could not fail to tell upon their outer
aspect.  The fool par excellence is not, we gladly believe, haunted by his folly. It is when we have
departed from our real character, when our instincts
have failed us, when we have gone against ourselves,
that we writhe under these tormenting memories.
The subject is worth dwelling upon for one reason. If, with the exception of conspicuous fools,
we could realize that this class of regrets are not
due to our particular idiosyncrasy, but are a common scourge of weak, vain, irritable, boasting humanity, it ought to conduce to charity in our judgments.
If we could believe that the people we dislike suffer
these penances, and could give them credit for waking with a twinge an hour earlier than usual, under
the remembrance of impertinence, vanity, unkindness, persuaded that certain definite offences against
our taste and feeling would haunt their solitary walk
and make the trial of their day, we could not but
learn patience and toleration.  But we are apt to
regard our annoyance as the penalty of an excep



42              Foolish Things.
tionally sensitive social conscience. We and the people we care for cannot do foolishly without feeling
sorry for it, -without going through the expiation
of a pang; but the people we dislike are insensible,
coarse, obtuse, dull, and brutish. Theirs has not
been a mistake, which implies a departure from their
nature, but an acting up to it and according to it.
They are, therefore, showing themselves as they are
when they show themselves most unpleasant and
repulsive.
Another mode of reconciling ourselves to this
prompt Nemesis of minor follies is that it may possibly preserve us from greater ones. It may both
imply caution, and keep our caution in practice and
repair. We have already made an exception in favor
of fools; but are people subject to rash impulses, -
impulses swaying their whole destiny and the fate
of others, - who find a pleasure in staking the future
on some unconsidered chance, - ever visited by regrets for having merely exposed themselves in no
more weighty matter than some foolish breach of
confidence or lapse of propriety? Are people habitually unguarded ever visited by lesser remorse?
Is not this rather a conflict where habitual caution is
every now and then betrayed by counter influences?
Does a man who is always boasting ever remember
any particular boast with a pang? Does one who




Foolish Things.               43
is always betraying secrets, and revealing his own
and other people's privacy, - always talking of himself, always maudlin, always ill-natured or sarcastic,
-ever writhe under the recollection of his follies?
It is hard to be lenient towards some people, however
much it is our duty to think the best.
But whatever tenderness may be shown towards
foolish things, acted or spoken, whatever beneficent
purpose may be assigned to them in the social economy, our leniency ends here. Little can be said e. thically, and nothing prudentially, for foolish things
written, —for outbreaks of our follies and tempers
on paper; and yet what a fruitful source of these
regrets has the pen been with some of us! And
never has the sting been sharper. than when we realize that our imprudence is in black and white, beyond our reach, irrevocable.  The pen gives us a
power of having our say out which speech seldom
does. We are free from the unaccountable, almost
solemn, control that man in bodily presence has over
man. Fresh from some injury, we have the plea, the
retort, the reproof, the flippancy, the good things in
our hands without danger of interruption. We will
write it while the subject is fresh and vivid, and the
arguments so clear that our correspondent cannot fail
of being struck, persuaded, crushed by them. In the
heat of composition we foresee those cooler, cautious




44              Foolish Things.
hours in the distance, and defy them. We have a
dim notion that we are doing a foolish thing, but we
will act while conviction is supreme, and we send off
our letter - to repent sometimes how bitterly!
It has been cleverly said that the whole folly of this
proceeding lies, not in the writing, which is an excellent valve to the feelings, but in the sending; and
certainly very few letters, written under immediate
provocation, would be sent if the writers slept a night
upon them. But the pen can do foolish thingsthings below the writer's standard of speech and action - without provocation. There are many people
whose intellect and judgment would stand much higher in the world's estimation if they had never been
taught to write. Men write letters and women write
notes in total neglect of the rules which guide their
conversation, and which win them sometimes an extraordinary reputation for good sense.  A whole
swarm of absurd impulses cluster round the pen,
which leave them alone at other times. A propensity for interference and giving advice is one of these,
a passion for explanations, a memory for old grievances, and a faith in the efficacy of formal, prolix,
minute statements of wrong, along with querulous
hints, unpalatable suggestions, and insinuations generally; all of which are foolish, because they cannot,.
in the nature of things, have a good issue, and flow




Foolish  Tzhings.             45
from the ready pen in oblivion of obvious consequences, which elsewhere hold the writer in salutary
check. Indeed, the pen often wakes a set of feelings
which are not known to exist without it. If we must
be foolish sometimes, let us then give our folly as
-short a term as possible. If it must leave traces behind, our memory is a better and safer archive than
our enemy's or even our friend's writing-table. Therefore, if any warning of the fit is granted, if a man
have any reason for misgivings, let him, before all
things, beware of pen and ink. Things are seldom
quite hopeless till they are committed to paper, —a
scrape is never at its worst till it has given birth to
a correspondence.




FALSE SHAME.
_jyJ R. DICKENS'S story of "Great Expectations"
illustrates a certain temper of mind which is
perhaps a characteristic of our age. Pip, from the
time of his introduction to Estella, is the victim of
false shame. Her contempt for the manners of the
common boy forced on her companionship, curdled
the milk of human kindness in him. Naturally affectionate, from that moment a shadow comes between
him and his friend and protector to whom he owed
everything, but who had taught him to call the Knave
"Jack."  What Estella is likely to think interferes
with what he ought to think; and gratitude slowly
but inevitably yields before the new influence. The
picture is, on the whole, a true one. So far as we
can realize Pip's situation at all, we can understand
his temptations, and acknowledge that his was the
very character, or no-character, to fall under them.
But, indeed, false shame has not always so much to




False Shame.                47
say for itself as in this instance. Pip is taken from
the forge and made a gentleman, a member of what
is technically called society, — so at least Mr. Dickens
intends us to understand it. Now, undoubtedly, people do owe something to the class for which they
have been trained and to which they belong; and
if Pip is a gentleman, the honestest, truest-hearted
blacksmith in the world, especially if addicted to Joe
Gargery's system of expression, must be an awkward
appendage. It is more easy to be shocked at Pip's
ingratitude than to know precisely what he ought
to have done with his brother-in-law. However, we
see he is intended to represent one of the vices of
society, and we recognize his fitness for the part in a
general want of force and stamina, and a predominance of the imagination over the judgment.
Though we call it hard names, it would still be
almost a discourtesy to assume our readers to be ignorant of the sensation of false shame, by which we
mean shame the fruit of vanity and imagination; for
never to have known it is, in ourimperfect state, to
be without the kindred quality of which it is the
abuse,- sensitiveness, a want which would argue
bluntness of feeling and dulness of perception. Occasional fits of false shame —of being unreasonably
perturbed at circumstances we cannot alter, that are
not of our own making, that have nothing in them




48               False Shame.
of which we ought, in strict reason, to be ashamed -
have visited most of us. They belong to civilization
as opposed to the more primitive forms of society, —
to a state of existence where different interests clash,
where social and domestic ties may, and do, interfere
with ohe another. Young people, on their first admission to this outer world, are especially afflicted by
false shame; so that it may be regarded as one of the
moral diseases of the mind's infancy.  It is at the
bottom of a great deal of their shyness. They cannot feel at ease, because they mistrust something
about themselves or their belongings, and have that
feeling of bareness and exposure in the presence of
unfamiliar eyes which attaches to sensitiveness under
untried circumstances.  Everything then assumes a
magnified, exaggerated character, the place they occupy on the one hand, and the importance of the
occasion on the other. The present company is the
world, the universe, a convention of men and gods,
all forming a deliberate and irreversible judgment
upon them, and deciding to their disadvantage on
account of some oddness, or awkwardness, or passing
slip in themselves or in the accessories about them.
But, in most persons, time and experience bring so
much humility as teaches them their insignificance.
It is not, we soon learn, very likely that at any given
time a mixed assemblage is thinking very much




False Shame.                49
about us; and then the horror of a conspicuous position loses its main sting. This on the one hand;
on the other, we are not as dependent on the award
of society as we were.  Even a roomful comprises,
to our enlarged imagination, by no means the whole
creation. There is something worth caring for outside those walls. And also we have come to form a
sort of estimate of ourselves. There is now a third
party in the question, in the shape of self-respect.
We realize that we are to ourselves of immeasurably
more consequence than any one else can be to us.
Thus, either by reason or by the natural hardening
and strengthening process of the outer air, most people overcome any conspicuous display of the weakness. By the time youth is over, they have either
accepted their position or set about in a businesslike way to mend it.
But there are some people who never get over this
disorder of the faculties, - who are always its victims,
who live in a habitual state of subservience, - who
defer perpetually to some opinion, or supposed opinion, which they respect more than their own, and
under which they crouch, whether it be that of an
individual, a clique, or the world. The sanction of
their own judgment is no guaranty; it is powerless
unsupported by society's good word. If a man after
twenty, or at latest twenty-five, will harp in all com3                         D




50               False Shame.
panies on his red hair, or be perpetually reminding
people that he is little, or embarrass them by allusions to his plebeian birth, or be making absurd
apologies for his relations, or depreciate the dinner
he has set before his guests, we have not much hope
of him. He fails in the quality which defies and puts
to flight false shame. He may be wise, he may be
witty, he may have the clearest head, the most fluent
tongue, the readiest pen; but he wants manliness.
The fears, flusters, and perturbations of false shame
are a sign of some inherent discrepancy between his
intellect and his moral nature which will always keep
him  immature.  Undue compliance with either the
social or domestic instinct produces the same effect.
Whether a man sacrifices himself by a superstitious
worship of public opinion or of private affection, the
result is the same. He may stultify himself as effectually by an excessive devotion to his mother and
sisters as by a like devotion to Mrs. Grundy; but our
concern is with the latter devotee, who lives in fear
of hbeing singular, who suspects all closely allied to
him of some misfit or incongruity. He is pretty certain to accomplish his own forebodings; for such men
are sure to do odd things, as people must who think
constantly whether everything they do is according
to rule, not what is convenient to do. All our natural
actions are done without thought, and we can make
breathing a difficulty by thinking about it.




False Shame.                 51
A person under this thraldom, whatever his disposition, will never be of the use he might be to his
friends, while he presents an easy mark to his enemies. No one is safe from being thrown over by a
friend who makes the world his bugbear; for, whatever the justice of his own perceptions, the opinion
which he dreads, and which influences him, is an
inferior one. There is actually no limit to such a
dependence; it bows before every standard, irrespective of all capacity or right to judge. Whoever can
use the weapon of contempt is formidable. Such a
man is a prey to the insolence of footmen; he trembles before the tribunal of the servants' hall, and
dreads the criticism  of his butler, whose definition
of a gentleman -of what is expected of a gentleman,
of what a gentleman ought and ought not to dohe practically accepts in preference to his own. All
this- is essentially demoralizing. In fact, no benefits
can secure a man of this sort, no ties can bind him,
under a particular form of trial; and this not at all
from baseness of nature, but because he wants a
man's generous self-reliance,- that quality which the
weak and the dependent learn to trust, and which
gives to manliness a value for which no intellectual
excellence whatever is an equivalent. All people are,
of course, in a considerable measure, guided in their
ways of thinking by general consent, -as, being mem



52               False Shame.
bers of a community, they must be; but there is,
beyond this, a slavery in Which its victim stands as
it were unrepresented in the world's parliament. Few
errors bring less reward with them.  Nobody likes
a coward; and a careless indifference, or even defiance, of popular usage is often taken for a sign of
superiority. Human nature is not so hard and cynical as the theory of false shame assumes it to be;
and the world is much more good-natured than men
of this temper give it credit for.  It can discriminate, and sympathize, and tolerate exceptions from
its ordinary standard. As no phantoms are so monstrous as the fears of a mind which abandons itself
to the apprehensions of false shame, so no predicament or dilemma of actual existence has the pangs
and stings which a busy fancy conjures up in anticipation,- just as most disagreeable things are not, when
the time comes, as disagreeable as we expected.
There is a hardened class of self-seekers who override all considerations to attain their end, to gratify
a low ambition, and get on in the world,-people
whom Mr. Dickens again portrays in his Mr. Bounderby, -with whom the genuine victim of false shame
must not be confounded. His conscience does not
sleep, but his fancy predominates.  He owes his uneasiness to his susceptible nature, to the rapidity of
his flights, quick to conjure up scenes, and prolific




False Shame.                53
of imaginary contingencies.  We may despise the
weakness, but must pity its victim as the main sufferer. Indeed, in some cases it would be easy to
trace a whole career changed by it. Advantages of
education are lost, friendships checked, opportunities
shunned, and habits of moody self-contemplation induced at the age when action, the spirit of adventure,
and the excitement of new impressions are at their
highest in the more healthy and strong temperament;
and this not by any means wholly from the sufferer's
own fault, but because adverse circumstances, which
vigorous and less contemplative minds shake off or
bend to their will, tell with such blighting force on
more sensitive characters. Writers of modern fiction
often show such suspicious familiarity with the workings of false shame that it is easy to suppose the
ranks of authors may receive some valuable additions
through its paralyzing influence, unfitting men as it
does to take that stand in the world of action which
their intellect might claim for them. The fashionable
novel, a development of modern society, has. heretofore done much to create or to foster the feeling.
People no longer young bear witness to the singular
impression which those pictures made upon a crude,
uninformed fancy, - to the discontent they engendered in the childish mind for the dull or homely
circumstances of actual life. Nothing could be more




54               False Shame.
frivolous and merely external than the tests of superiority and refinement set up by those arbiters of manners and social standing; but for these very reasons
they were more within the compass of a young raw
apprehension.  The best corrective (not to speak
here of the moralist's grave antidotes) was the romantic class of fiction contemporary with and succeeding to the Almacks school, which took the opposite line altogether. In tales of this order, characters
over whom the domestic affections do not tyrannize
are represented as mere monsters, and are treated
without mercy. Our readers will remember that in
"Undine," which so bewitched our youth, Bertha's
pride is held up to scorn and obloquy because she,
who had been trained a princess, could not reconcile
herself at once to be a peasant's child; and all romance takes for granted that the primitive instincts
in every noble nature predominate absolutely and
without a struggle over every mere social consideration. Miss Austen, who is never led away by what
is not true, ventures, in opposition to this notion, to
make one of her purest and most conscientious characters, Fanny Price, acutely ashamed of her father
and of her home, because, under the circumstances,
it was not possible for her to be otherwise. But, in
Sir Walter Scott, romance predominates; and in the
only example of false shame that occurs to us in his




False Shame.                 55
writings, Sir Piercie Shafton, a not unnatural sensitiveness is rendered extremely ridiculous.  Modern
writers enter into the sensation analytically, as they
do into other complex workings of our social being.
As we said at the outset, false shame and mere sensitiveness are closely allied. People make their way
in the world a good deal better without either; and
the one slips into the other so easily upon trying
occasions, that it is wise not to test our friends too
hardly, nor to expose them to the minor miseries and
real dangers of this mood by anything in ourselves
that may be rightly avoided.




FLUENCY.
THE present system of bringing different classes
into friendly relations with each other through
the medium of gratuitous instruction has, among its
many excellent points, one which we regard as questionable. It cultivates fluency of speech and furnishes
a school for ready utterance. The young member,
the young squire, the young master, is encouraged
to address his inferiors on matters that will inform
and interest them, but on the understanding that
he is to be superficial,- that he must not bring his
mind to bear on the subject lest he should become
deep and recondite, and so talk over the heads of
his simple, ignorant hearers. His aim must be to say
the commonplaces of his theme with facility, which
is supposed to be the only gift such people can understand. All this our young orator is very willing
to do. Whether aware of it or not, it is quite easy
to him not to be deep, all he knows of his subject
being its commonplaces; but, thus instructed, he has




Fluency.                  57
no fear of being shallow, and, even where consciously
most weak, he believes he is only adapting himself
to his hearers. So, strong in his condescension, he
gets along to his own wonder and his friends' admiration, in a little flood of verbiage. It is, indeed,
astonishing what a volubility, what a grand stream of
words obedient to grammatical rules, a man can attain to if he only have sufficient contempt for his
audience; and what gratification he derives from the
exercise of this power of empty fluency and strictly
verbal readiness. If he had respected his hearers,
if he had been solicitous to give them the flower of
his thoughts, and to put these into words which
should recommend them to discriminating minds, if
he had aimed at rigorous accuracy, feeling that there
were listeners who could detect a fallacy and miss
a link in the argument, he would probably have gone
home humble and dissatisfied, with a sense of failure, conscious of many a pause and stumble and awkwardness of expressiomn. But now he is complacent,
and ready to begin again; for, after all, it is how
we have said our say, rather than the force and merit
of what we have said, which impresses us. It is how
he has acquitted himself, what figure he has made,
which dwells on the speaker's mind, and encourages
or depresses him. And facility, of all things, gives
this confidence.
3*




58                  Fluency.
There are, we suppose, many listeners who take
the same view of facility, who are satisfied with it
as a thing in itself, and believe it to be power and
rhetoric, and an evidence of an absolute command
of a subject. The least discriminating of any crowd
will clap him most who says most words in a breath,
if those words are said with sufficient confidence; but
the admiration is by no means universal. Indeed,
we suspect that, to a good many, fluency is irritating;
so that, whenever we hear a man's rapid flow of words
much talked of, we may be pretty sure, whether the
commender know it or not, that he has felt it to be
a bore. It is all very well to be carried away occasionally by a torrent of eloquence on some subject
on which we feel that, but for some natural hinderances, we could be eloquent too; but even where
thought and speech run together, as they do in the
true orator, it is fatiguing to have to follow at a pace
which is not our natural rate of thinking; and all
we hear of hanging on the lips of speakers of this
rushing, impetuous sort, means less than it says.
Those who literally follow the processes of another
mind have a task, whether a pleasant one or not;
most persons are content with conclusions, and with
any rapid, agreeable arrangement of words by which
conclusions are arrived at.
It is amusing to hear how thinkers by profession




Fluency.                 59
often regard this volubility, which takes simpler people as so fine a thing. When Madame de Stael visited Germany, the great minds there shuddered at the
mere approach of this impersonation of "French
volubility." Her inconceivable facility, her capacity
of talking with freedom and fluency on every subject,
simply annoyed and disgusted Goethe, who hated
being put out of his way; and the more amiable
Schiller, who pronounces her " of all living creatures
the most vivacious, the most ready for argument,
the most fertile in words," while he owns her to be
the most cultivated and intellectual of women, yet
groans over the "weary hours he has to pass" in
her company, and attributes the interruption of her
presence to the reverse of Divine influence. He was
worried by the disturbance to his own trains of
thought by her self-absorbed eloquence; while it is
instructive to observe how the opposite circumstance
on his side — his necessary shortcomings in the conversational duet — won and propitiated her.  He
spoke French badly; and when she perceived so
many fine ideas struggling through oral difficulties,
when she found him so modest and careless of personal success in his advocacy of his own views, she
"vows towards him from that moment a friendship
full of admiration." And is not this quite natural?
His self-love had been wounded by the fearless readi



60                  Fluency.
ness of her tongue; her tenderness had been roused
by hesitations and failures which might be taken as
a sort of homage to her own surpassing powers.
There are, no doubt, times when a man may be as
fluent as he likes, when the opportunity is his own,
and he has prepared for it, - as a statesman on some
great occasion, a lawyer who must seem to have impregnated his mind with his cause, and, perhaps
especially, a preacher; though even here we feel that
a momentary pause, an instant devoted to a choice
of words, is a very becoming act of deference to an
intelligent audience. But fluency, where we stand
on equal terms with the speaker, has often some
tinge of positive offence in it. He evidently thinks
we can be amused and occupied at too easy a rate;
and in the case we contemplated at starting,- the
young orator condescending to his audience, — this
state of things is soon reached. We should have
liked him better if he had betrayed some timidity
in our presence. We should have felt the thing less
cut and dried if the ideas had had to struggle into
fit words. We should not have been so utterly hopeless of his success in the field he was entering upon
if he had seemed to realize its difficulties.
There is, however, a social side of the question,
which is perhaps its more important one.  Public
fluency may have its drawbacks, and may go for




Fluency.                  6 
very little; but, at any rate, it saves those who have
to listen to such efforts the pain that comes with
the opposite, and more dreaded, and more common
defect, -an utter want of words. It is a sort of
fluency familiar in private life which is most to be
deprecated, a facility of speech which has grown
out of certain causes, such as want of taste, ignorance of the meaning and force of words, and a
habit of thinking in phrases, and talking for talking's sake. This is a habit encouraged and fostered by that want of respect for the listener which
lies at the bottom, we verily believe, of all irritating
forms of volubility,- the notion that something less
than our best will do well enough for the person
we are talking to, and, more than that, will amuse
and gratify him. People with hobbies are always
fluent, and we may say always wearisome; but they
do not come under the present head, because their
volubility is undesigned and spontaneous, and arises
out of enthusiasm  for their subject.  They sin
through egotism and defective sympathy, but not
by condescension  or disrespect.  The quality we
mean is acquired by practice, and is highly valued
by its possessors, but is always based on some fallacy or insincerity. Either the speaker assumes to
know more than he does, or to be more in earnest
than he is; and the offence lies in the assumption




62                  Fluency.
that he can amuse without being amused, and can
hold our attention while his own is preoccupied.
It takes the whole mind to do anything well, but
this fluency is effected by machinery and not by
hand, and is, in fact, the knack of rapid talking
and slow thinking.
So much talking with no heart in it has necessarily to;be done that it may seem hard to be critical.
Indeed, the cases that most readily occur of this
volubility are in persons of great apparent kindness
and good-nature, who perhaps, through a concurrence of circumstances, added to a naturally defective discernment, have fallen. into it. Yet not the
less is there a sense of condescension at bottom,
which, if they could have suppressed it, would have
saved them from a snare. The most excusable, and
yet least excused, sort of volubility is to be found
in women whose lot it has been to feel themselves
the lively and invigorating spirit of their own small
circle. Many a daughter, for instance, has learned
to be garrulous, while she prided herself on her
fluency, in her efforts to amuse her old parents. It
seems cruel to pick holes in virtue like this, but
the fact remains that she has acquired a terrible,
rolling, flowing, amplified vocabulary, and that she
is impressed with the notion that this ready tongue
amuses and interests. And whence comes this but




Fluency.                 63
from the lifelong mistake that the elders on whom
she lavished her efforts were really entertained by
talk spoken, not because it was worth speaking, or
because it expressed her mind and heart, but because
she conceived it to be adapted to failing powers
and the dull monotony of a secluded life? Yet all
the while, no doubt, the old folks had constantly
felt weary of the tongue that never ceased, and had
kept quite unimpaired their ideas of what was really
entertaining and worth saying and hearing.. Trifles
swelled into an unnatural importance, with all their
details, are only amusing if the narrative occupies
the narrator, and develops what is in him. It is
impossible really to impart pleasure through conversation without sharing it; but the people we mean
do not see this. There is the notion of conferring
kindness, of dispensing a sort of intellectual alms
out of the store of their indisputable superiority,
which keeps them above the level of their hearers,
and tends to make their conversation continuous,
easy, unembarrassed, and rapid beyond any other
system of talk under the sun. Invalids as well as
old people must be very liable to the infliction of
this patronage. We ought to be lenient to any form
of testiness in them when we are conscious of having been talking in a groove, our thoughts not keeping pace with our words; for we should remember




64                  Fluency.
that any one who sits down expecting to entertain,
without the further effort of rousing his powers to
sympathy, is engaged in an act of presumption.
But this facility grows out of less amiable forms of
self-conceit. The superiority of health over sickness,
of spirits over depression, of vigor over decay, is patent and incontestable even to the suffering side; but
there are people who are actuated in all they do and
say, and in their way of doing it, by this same notion
of conferring something, of being the obliging party,
who practically forget that human beings stand in mutual relations. Education, if it does not immediately
infuse these ideas, fosters them on the one hand, as
it moderates them  on the other.  Thus a publicschool training violently opposes any such inborn
tendency, while certain private crotchety systems as
actively develop it. All plans that put into children's
heads the notion that it is their part to instruct or to
patronize their elders, lay the foundations of a mechanical facility of speech, so that many would say
that private education makes the best talkers. Young
people who live at home, who perhaps are secluded
from the amusements of their own age, and consequently from its society, are often indemnified for the
privation by a notion carefully instilled into them of
their usefulness.  If they may not be amused after
the careless fashion of their fellows, they can, at any




Fluency.                  65
rate, lay themselves out to amuse, and study to devote their talents to the service of others. This
sounds excellent, but neither a good manner nor a
good style is formed by it, because it is not the natural order of things. Young people ought to do one
another good, and they ought to expect to get good
from their betters, of whom they are the unconscious
cheerers. But as soon as it formally enters into the
mind of boy or girl to entertain their elders by their
conversation, and to cultivate topics with this view, -
as soon as they set themselves to talk as a sort of
practice, collecting things to say, and storing them
in their memory, not because they naturally interest
them, but because they esteem them the sort of things
for Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, -they are laying the
foundation of a facile, monotonous, inexpressive diction, which will haunt them through life. It will get
them many a compliment, no doubt, and many a
pretty speech of thanks, but will act as an insuperable impediment to all natural, free, enjoyable, and
really profitable interchange of thought. A seed of
conceit and self-estimation is sown which, because it
is never recognized as a fault, or, rather, has all along
been classed among the virtues, is scarcely likely to
be eradicated. As we review all the fluent, complacent, mechanical utterances within our experience,
certainly a sense of superiority, a mission to teach, to
E




66                  Fluenzcy.
amuse, to do everybody good, or pleasure, lies at the
bottom of them all. We find no recognition of mutual profit and service.
There is a volubility which is free from this charge.
Children chatter, and some women chatter upon occasion; nay, men will now and then bubble over with
words, and we like them all the better for it. It is
an effervescence of the spirits, and if only the brain,
by ever so trivial an exercise of its functions, has
gone along with the tongue, the performance may be
not only endurable, but delightful and exhilarating.
But, if delightful, it is so because it is spontaneous,
and indulged in for the speaker's own pleasure and
need of sympathy, his hearer's benefit being the very
last thing thought of. Alas both for those that speakand us that hear, if they ever come to value themselves upon this charming vivacity, and keep it up
deliberately for our entertainment after their own is
spent! But it may be said that we often have to talk
for mere talking's sake, which is very true; and what
philosophers have advised about never opening our
mouths unless we have something to say is impracticable nonsense; but in this case we ought to take the
necessity quietly, and as a condition of which each
party is fully aware.  The people we mean throw
themselves into the situation with a spurious, unnatural relish, and use it as a sort of practice-ground for




Fluenzcy.               67
their powers.  A half-hour of quiet dulness with a
neighbor leaves us where it found us; but when one
of the two throws himself with a false enthusiasm
into the gap, and gets up a flow about nothing, -the
words being always half a sentence, if not a whole
one, ahead of the ideas, while still the sentences are
neat and complete in their structure, and not a pin's
point to be got in between them, —we come away
with a sense of loss, and with a respect for the old
science of humming and ha-ing which puts us out
of humor with eloquence, -as though we had hlen
shown the wrong side of it, —until our nerves and
our memory have forgotten the infliction.




CONTE M PT.
THERE is a good deal in the tone and manners
of our day to foster a habit of quiet, passive
contempt. In simpler states of society, the man who
values himself highly has little scruple in confessing
as much. Savages have no more reticence in parading their good points than peacocks. We know that
even the Anglo-Saxon, when removed from the restraints of refined cultivation, can expatiate on his
own merits with perfectly unqualified, unblushing
complacency.  American writers themselves are the
first to acknowledge this as a characteristic of their
remote outlying social life. There, men extol themselves in all the simplicity of an ignorance which
knows nothing higher or better, and are frankly astonished at their own successes. Nobody is thought
the worse of for praising himself; and where this is
the case, whether in England or in the backwoods, we
shall not find the practice out of favor or out of date,




Congteapt.               69
But among ourselves it is out of date. A man cannot puff himself off with impunity, — without, in fact,
being taken for a fool; and therefore, if he have ordinary capacity, he keeps within bounds.  But not
the less must the thought of the heart find some outlet. Men draw wide distinctions between pride and
vanity, but both have at least this in common, they
like to feel and to be acknowledged first; and both
agree, not only in the craving for pre-eminence, but
in the instinct to gain their end by a side-wind, — to
boast themselves by implication, if circumstances will
not permit the more agreeable incense of positive
praise and adulation. This resource evidently lies in
detraction, not spoken, not even conscious detraction,
but a process of disparagement, by which, without
any visible, active self-exaltation, the mind may keep
uppermost in its own estimation. It is not possible,
Clarendon observes, to overvalue ourselves without
undervaluing our neighbors, —which he calls contempt. Contempt, then, in some form, is the necessary accompaniment of self-conceit.  This is selfevident on reflection, though not always apparent.
A man may be vain without being in manner contemptuous, and may indulge in a habit of general
contempt towards others, when we do not think of
him in connection with either pride or vanity. Nor
is he necessarily vain for himself. A vicarious vanity




70                 Coztenfpt.
belongs to all hero-worship. All people who have an
idol are contemptuous; it is, indeed, a necessary part
of their cullus. In either case, a man may be very
far gone in contempt without being conscious of it
himself, or committing any strong overt act offensive
to the people about him; for, in its passive state, it
is a mere practice of depreciation, and is taken for
sensitiveness or a fastidious taste.
It is only now and then that a glimpse into motives
discovers to us how much contempt there is in the
world. We may live in intimate relations with people
and only casually discover it. We may be acquainted
with two sets, and some chance may first make us
aware of the contempt in which each holds the other.
Indeed, there is this poetical justice to console the
observer, — the sentiment is seldom all on one side.
We are sometimes taken by surprise at the amount
of scorn and superciliousness which lurks under the
most demure and seemingly unpretending exterior.
It would not be comfortable to the most philosophical
of us to know the tone of disparagement with which
we are treated —the estimate at which our pretensions are rated —in certain quarters; and yet, if
contempt is so common a habit of thought, all must
fall more or less under it. There are natures with
which we infallibly come in collision, so that they are
driven in a certain self-defence to look upon our weak




Con/tempt.                 71
points, and take their stand upon them. We are told
"not to take heed to all words that are spoken, lest
we hear our servant curse us."  We suspect that what
is sometimes loftily spoken of as "withering scorn"
is the " curse" here intended, especially as it is taken
for granted that we likewise oftentimes curse others,
and few persons' consciences can be quite clear on
the point before us.
There are minds, belonging to respectable good
sort of people too, so eaten into by this exclusiveness
that they do not, at the bottom of their hearts, attribute to nine tenths of the people with whom they come
in casual contact the same nature as themselves, the
same affections and passions. It needs to be admitted to the honor of their friendship and esteem to
possess either head or heart.  A  great deal that
passes for goodness and even self-denial in the world
has this passive form of contempt at its root. There
is a tacit assumption that nothing good can be got
out of people not included in a certain circle, sect,
or party, -that of course their pursuits are frivolous,
their aims mean, their conversation empty, their interests unworthy. Under a profession of humility,
there is the notion that in intercourse all the gain and
benefit must necessarily be on one, that is, on their
side, —that they must impart all, and can hope to
receive nothing good. This is the state of mind




72                 Contempt.
engendered by every form of exclusiveness, whether
religious or social.  It indefinitely restricts those
natural bounds by which all intercourse must be
ordered and limited.  It is often called fastidiousness, but in fact the poor have as much of it as their
betters, and decent people contract habits of sour
seclusion from the same persuasion that their own
company is the only safe company they can indulge
in. There are persons of every rank who, as a matter
of course, have a contempt for all people they do not
know; just as the Dodson family despised all who
were not Dodsons. They have fallen into a habit
of regarding themselves as fountains of honor. To
be out of their range is to be "these people" and
"those people," the "good folks," the "wiseacres," the
" gossips" of their neighborhood. It is amazing the
narrowness, the dulness, the utter vacuity which can
gather self-consequence and feed its importance by
this contumelious mode of grouping and classifying
the world outside itself; and yet, in a modified degree, this must be recognized as so common a habit
of mind that we are convinced there is no rarer, as
there is no more amiable and candid quality, than
habitual justice to the motives of people not in our
own set, and not subject to our influences.
Contempt may well be a common failing, for it is
the easiest and most attainable form of self-assertion.




Contemnpt.               73
If we seek for instances, we are perhaps driven to
witty or weighty examples, because such contemners
can give a poignancy and force to the expression of
their sentiments. We think of Gray pronouncing his
own University, where he chose to spend his days,
"a joy of wild asses, "- or of Johnson, in dispute
with an antagonist whom he considered beneath him,
"withdrawing his attention to think of Tom Thumb,"
-or of Pope's "dunces" and "fools," or Warburton's "wretches" and "crews of scoundrels"; but,
in fact, contempt can exist as vigorously without the
pretence of brilliant and intoxicating qualities. Mr.
Gedge, the landlord of the Royal Oak, could pronounce all the people he knew, "big and little, a poor
lot," - could " say it often, and say it again," without
being ever compelled to prove his own superiority
to the people he despised. It was enough that he
had an ideal. Indeed, as contempt is avowedly an
act of opinion and judgment, it often flourishes most
where there is no chance of being challenged to do
better, and so of shaming the ideal.  Beggars are
proverbially proud, for this very reason, - they have
an ideal for every station and every duty of civilized
life, and are never called on to act out one of them.
In the same way negroes are represented as supercilious.  They have no social status apart from their
masters. A white skin, then, is their ideal; they are
4




74                 Contempt.
contemptuous on quadroons as being "neither white
nor black," -mere pretenders, as it were. It may
be noted that nobody is so critical of dinners as the
man that never gives them. With what weight he
comes down on entrkes and wines! How pure and
fastidious his ideal on every point of order and arrangement! There is consolation, no doubt, in criticism of this character; for the time it equalizes distinctions. Our mind is above our fortunes. It is a
great thing to know what is what,- to be on a level
with the man we despise, if not even above him for
the time being. What a solace to despair would poor
discarded Brummel find, for the instant, in reducing
his lost ally the Regent to the mere impersonation
of obesity, - "Who is your fat friend?"  The death
of rich or great men often awakes the same sort of
feeling. For once the living dog is master of the
position and enjoys a triumph. When the young
blood announced at his coffee-house the demise of
the Grand Monarque, " So the old prig is dead at
last,'.' the airy familiarity was veiled contempt. He
was inflated with more than a sense of equality.
Death had placed him uppermost.
We have taken this side of our subject first, and
regarded contempt in its passive and least intelligent aspect, because certainly learning, study of
character, and mixing with mankind tend to allay




Contemnpt.                75
and moderate it; but no doubt contempt is quite at
home in its more recognized sphere, when backed
and prompted by acknowledged superiority, and with
seeming right on its side. It would not be easy to
match from any age of the world, or any station of
society, learned or ignorant, Mr. Ruskin's habitual
contempt for all persons and things that contradict
his views. It is headlong, monstrous, scarcely reconcilable with the possession of reason, and yet
Mr. Ruskin has a wide knowledge of his own peculiar subjects, and might have been in his own line
a great authority. But then he has acted on the
assumption that success in one pursuit qualifies him
to judge of all pursuits and all lines of thought.
He has thought that study of art, of Turner's pictures, of nature, constituted him a judge, as well
of all painters, as of every human need; character,
and action.  The conclusion he appears to have
come to is, that the man who does not see all
things with his eyes is wicked and stupid, a liar
and a fool.  This is contempt in its most rabid
form. Thus, though his knowledge is great, it is
ignorance which hJas misled him into the frenzies
which we regret; and we think all misplaced contempt is to be traced to the same cause, -partial
ignorance.  Few recognized pursuits amongst men
will cause contempt if we give ourselves the trouble




76                 Coztemjpt.
to consider them attentively. But this clever men
intent on their one hobby are as little ready to do
as the most circumscribed intellect. All have some
vein of Touchstone in them.  When they survey
something not in their way, in another world than
theirs, they are ready to plume themselves on their
want of sympathy as a sort of distinction, and to
find it "meat and drink to see a fool."  Thus severely practical minds enjoy their contempt for every
effort of imagination. People who cannot see a joke
have a contempt for fun. We have heard an artist
merrily enlarge on the utter folly of the study of
language. Swift condensed all that can be thought
and said about music into the difference between
tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee. Addison treats as a
sort of drivelling the minute researches of the naturalist. Fifty years ago, half the world was contemptuous on science, and vast numbers now despise
classical learning, as if it were a very clever and
original thing to despise it. In one and. all these
instances we feel that only knowledge is wanting for
the feeling to evaporate. There is one motive for
contempt, however, on which the dull have it all
their own way.  There are people who not only
despise any given form or pursuit of the intellect as
perhaps we all do, but who have a contempt for
active thought and all its results as such, -as if




Contempt.                    77
it were an inferior thing to write books, to know
things, to  think  at all.  They regard  themselves
as the Hindoos do their Supreme God,-as something above the vulgar processes of thought and
action.
"The learned is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more."
Analyzed, studied, looked in the face, it becomes
a wonder that contempt should be so potent a thing
as it is. The poet tells us that
"He who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy."
We ought, then, to despise the contemner as betraying defect and deficiency in the very act. But in
truth it is an effort of independence which few can
reach, to disregard the dictum  of what seems deliberate weighty disparagement from any quarter whatever. Certainly there is a contempt justly terrible.
The most confident and defiant would shrink from
such scorn as Dante, in the very sublime of contempt, bestowed, for all comment, on the weak and
pusillanimous band who had lived only for themselves:
" Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa."




78                 Conteinmpi.
But it is neither the contempt of goodness nor of
intellect which men most dread. It is when it is
vague, undefinable, neither to be got at nor propitiated, a mere fear and shadow, that it is the greatest
bugbear, — the contempt of society or of the world
for something, we know not what, and expressed or
entertained by people whom, in their individual separate capacity, we may really rather look down upon.
The sort of fear people are prone to have of servants illustrates, while it is an evidence of, this
dependent and abject state of mind. Now, as servants are our fellow-mortals, they may be as worthy
of the distinction of our fear as any one else; but
the proverbial dread of falling in the opinion of a
butler and incurring his contempt has nothing whatever to do with the great doctrine of inherent equality. It is the sneaking part of a man that here
suffers, that quails under the notion that something
is done to him which he can never know, from which
there is no appeal. It is the closed doors of the
servants' hall that invest the voice of opinion there
in such terrors. Still, it has its grounds, and the
very fear may work out its fulfilment. In externals,
servants are very likely to be correct judges. They
have an instinct as to who has lived in habits of
command. They respect those who show by some
nameless freemasonry that they are used to be




Contempit.                 79
attended upon, that the service of inferiors is part
of their heritage. They have a nice though unconscious discernment of self-respect, and know at
once where it resides. They like a man who asserts himself without bluster or assumption, they
are judges of the particular qualities which affect
their intercourse. To be afraid of a butler is, then,
to have a misgiving whether we are quite the thing.
The man who fears such contempt should take
home the humiliating lesson, and regard it as a
revelation of something wanting in himself.  And
so of all contempt, -either it is deserved or it is
not. There is a remedy in either case, though we
admit that our feelings cannot really be settled by
square and rule as easily as this argument seems
to imply.
No doubt, contempt has its charm where it procures a monopoly of regard. But this is but a narrow, ignoble satisfaction. A man much engaged in
important concerns, who has to act with a variety of
characters, tempers, and to clash with none, must not
be contemptuous. If he have disdain in his disposition, he must suppress it at whatever effort. But
what an advantage over others he has who, by nature
or from an enlarged interest in human affairs, from
caring for what others care for, is actually free from
it, and can put himself in the place of the people




80                 Couzte.mpt.
he acts with frankly and unaffectedly! He finds
a common ground in the midst of all differences
of training or station, and thus feels the social link
which it is the work of contempt at once to ignore
and to break.




DULNESS AS A SENSATION.
T HERE are few things which show a more candid mind than a frank confession of dulness.
It is an admission of occasional vacuity, of self-insufficiency, which very few can bring themselves to
make, and which, when made, is not always received
with the humanity and tenderness such ingenuousness
deserves. People who never feel weary of their own
company have a contempt for those who do, and
often a very ill-founded contempt; for, in the first
place, the difference may be one only of circumstances,- some people are much more exposed to
dulness than others; and, in the next, satisfaction
with our own company is wise or foolish according
to the grounds on which it is founded. To be ever
dull is, no doubt, a mark of human infirmity. For
this exquisite mechanism of mind, thought, intelligence, ever to collapse, to lose spring and vigor, to
suffer cold obstruction, should be a check to our
4.                   F




82          Dulness as a Sensation.
pride of reason. But it is only felt to be so when
our solitude is thus visited. To profess one's self
dull in society where others are amused is a piece of
pretension, a sort of boast, as implying a tacit superiority. But, in fact, this too argues deficiency and
absence of power, often as great as the other. True
vigor of mind and body is never dull, and can turn all
painless conditions of being to an element of delight.
If people are prone to feel dull, the scene of their
dulness is more an affair of temperament, or at most
of training, than of intellect.
We need not explain that the dulness we speak of
is not any inherent quality of the mind, but a matter of feeling. It indeed implies a certain quickness
of apprehension always to know when we are dull.
There are existences so void of interesting, elevating,
or inspiring circumstances, that only a dull head and
a dull heart could reconcile themselves to them; but
the leaders of such lives make them what they are,
would not change them if they could, are content
with them, and value themselves on that content.
Supposed immunity from dulness, then, may proceed
from all sorts of causes, creditable or the reverse. It
may arise from activity of mind, fulness of thought,
an uninterrupted stream of occupation, -- which is
always the assumed cause, - or from slowness, apathy, and a dead sterile imagination. Thus, a man




Dulness as a Sensation.           83
may never be dull because he contains everything
within himself, or because his heavy intelligence is
on an exact level with his monotonous existence.
Certain it is that there are many who avow themselves perfectly satisfied with their own company
whose company gives others very little satisfaction,
who, if they are not dull, for anything we can
see ought to be. It is an extremely happy thing in
such cases that there is this just balance; for the fact
is, it is only very lively or engaging people who can
own themselves dull with impunity, - who can find
sympathy, or even toleration, for their infirmity; and
this for the obvious reason that in their case alone
society is the gainer by it. Persons who are dull in
both senses of the word at once are just the heaviest
load social life can be burdened with.  But charming
people are the more charming because they are not
indepelndent of their fello.w-creatures, -cannot pretend to the pride of seclusion, - and are thus driven,
as well as led by their nature to show their best, conscious of some hidden, far-off bugbear, which haunts
the long hours of uncongenial solitude, brightening the
social scene by the contrast of its gloom. No doubt
much may be done by practice and self-discipline to
overcome this weakness, and every one, if he is wise,
will struggle against it. But there is, all the same, an
inherent difference between man and man which no




84          Dulness as a Sensation.
effort can do away, and the man who wants companionship will always stand in a different relation
to the world from the man who is independent of it.
What we argue is, that it may be incompleteness, not
inferiority: for, wherever the affections predominate,
men will be dull when they cannot exercise them;
and wherever the mind and intellect are worked by fits
and starts, as some people are obliged to work them,
- effort alternating with the indolence of reaction,these intervals will be subject to conscious dulness.
We use the word dulness because our language
has no other, but it is a vast deal easier to feel
dull than to know what dulness is so far as to define it. Our classical writers all treat dulness as a
quality.  Men are dull, and are loathed by the wits
accordingly. We do not for a moment assume any
of our readers to be dull,-it is as much as we
dare suppose, in this active-minded age, that any
of them even feel dull under the ignominious condition of not being absolutely all in all, each to himself.
Johnson recognizes the word in our sense, but he is
obliged to depart from his rule and furnish his own
example: - "Dull," "not exhilarating, not delightful;
as, to make dictionaries is dull work."  But this does
not get at the bottom of the thing. Dull work, dull
leisure, dull company, dull solitude, -what is the
common element in them all? Theologians tell us




)ulzess as a Sensationz.          85
that our nature shrinks from absolute disembodiment,
-that the spiritual part of us recoils from the idea
of bare exposure of its essence, of being turned
into space shivering, houseless, homeless.  If we
analyze dulness, there is something of this recoil
about it. It is not otherwise easy to understand
the horror with which men look forward to a threatened period of simple dulness.  The protests, lamentations, self-pity expended on a brief season of
dulness are called morbid, wrong, ridiculous, by the
people who say they are never dull. The feeling
expressed is so utterly incommensurate with the occasion, - taking into account the absence of positive
pain, and the brief duration of whatever suffering
there is, -that the whole thing is to them affected,
unreal, preposterous. - It is as if, like fretful children,
these clamorers wanted something to cry for; and
certainly, if it only meant not being diverted or exhilarated; dulness would be a weak subject of dread.
But it is more. There is a foretaste, a threatening,
of something worse, a touch of undefined spiritual
terrors in all dulness. A day of simple vacuity, of
not being amused, has no analogy with the dulness
our active imagination realizes.  Everybody is now
and then neither doing anything, nor wanting to do
anything, -unamused, and not wanting to be amused.
Everybody is vacant sometimes, and does not dis



86            Dulness as a Selnsation.
like the sensation; but what has all this to do with
dulness? A man is dull, it may be, to other people, but not dull to himself.   Wordsworth prefers
this state far before what he calls personal talk,that is, gossip, - the relaxation of half the world.' "Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle chirping its faint under-song."
This is a picture of comfort, this is being at home
with our household gods about us. Here the lazy,
unoccupied spirit misses nothing. When people feel
dull, there is a sense of deprivation and exposure.
We are without something that answers to the mind
for what clothing and shelter are to the body. We
are weak, open to aggression; we have lost something; our completeness, our organization is affected.
Time ceases to flow in this state, and prolongs itself into an uncertain sort of eternity which we are
incapable of measuring. Immersed in dulness, even
the future is too far off to excite hope; for dulness
has in its very nature a touch of perpetuity. If we
find ourselves, for example, in for four hours' perfectly dull talk, from  which there is no escape, what
good does it do to say, It is only four hours, What




Dulness as a Sensation.           87
are four hours compared to a lifetime? and so on.
We are not in a state to estimate the difference.
Life itself willi end, and we accept this truth more
readily than that these four hours will end, which
nothing seems to shorten. Solitary dulness is, no
doubt, a more awful and more mysterious infliction
than social dulness can ever be, but the majority
of mankind are not exposed to this extreme pressuie on mind and nerve,-they are not thrown for
long periods utterly upon themselves. Dulness comes
to most of us in the form of uncongenial company
and occupation. Whenever the mind suffers from
a suspense of its voluntary processes too long, we
are dull, as in protracted or mistimed instruction
or amusement. We are dull in scenes which make
demands on our interest and intelligence that we cannot meet. We are dull when our mind, or one side
of our mind, is defenceless, has lost its usual and
necessary support, whether that support be habita word in itself conveying all our meaning -or the
intervention of fresh ideas from without, for the want
of which a painful void is felt. We are dull, whether
we miss the familiar scenes, faces, voices, views of
things on which we are wont to lean, or are shut
out from that current of external life and thought
through which the mind derives its sustenance.
Habit, in a sense, is the great resource against dul



88          Dulness as a Sensation.
ness. If we live long enough, we are never dull in
doing what we are accustomed to do, and hence arises
the little sympathy that age often shows to youth in
this matter. Youth has acquired no confirmed habits.
It is not desirable that a boy should be content always to spend one day like another,- to find his
book all-sufficient, or his work or play all-sufficient.
His mind, if healthy, has a clamorous appetite for
change.  His resource is variety of occupation, acquirement, and amusement, it is never mere resting
in himself. He is not doing the best for himself if
he is not occasionally some trouble to his friends in
finding him fitting change and diversion, troublesome
like the kicking, struggling, vivacious baby in arms,
which will not allow itself to be forgotten. ]But parents who are proud of this infantine restlessness are
often little lenient to the sufferings of dulness at an
older stage proceeding from precisely the same cause.
Unquestionably it is very convenient to others, and in
a degree a sign of strength in the boy himself, to be
sufficient for his own amusement, to have contracted
habits of some sort early; but those who play the
most active and stirring part in the world —practical men, men of action — have needed variety in
their youth, and have been dull without it, conspicuously and energetically dull, not " listless, yet
restless," like the worn poet in the same case, but




Dudness as a Sensationz.          89
powerful to fill the abhorred void by some congenial
solace.
But habit —the panacea, the refuge, the protector
- is so entirely dependent on circumstances that
there is no dulness so pitiable or so incurable as
that which proceeds from the breaking-up of an accustomed course of life, the dulness which proceeds
from change, whether self-chosen or inevitable. Poor
Charles Lamb, always ingenuous, how frank is he in
the confession of his own delusions on this point!
he who fretted over his compulsory monotonous life
of thirty-five years of work, defied the chains of habit,
and proclaimed that "positively the best thing a man
can do is nothing, and next to that, perhaps, good
works," and had his wish of idleness granted to him.
If any man, he certainly had a right to trust to his
resources, with his wit, his fulness of thought, aptitude for study, and felicity of expression.  But these
only helped him to feel, and aided him in portraying,
the sufferings of his desolate unhoused spirit.  He
had worked in the heart of London amid "familiar
faces," and changed- it for the country with only strangers about him. How finely he insults the rural
green, the varying seasons, the summer sun himself,
in the dulness of his new life! " We do not live a
year in a year now, -the seasons pass with indifference,-spring cheers not, nor winter heightens our




9o         9Dulness as a Sensation.
gloom; let the sullen nothing pass."  "In dreams I
am in Fleet Street, but I wake and cry to sleep again.
What have I gained by health?  Intolerable dulness.
What by early hours and moderate meals? A total
blank. 0, never let the lying poets be believed who'tice men from the cheerful haunts of streets, or think
they mean it not of a country village."  "I dread the
prospect of summer, with his all-day-long days. No
need of his assistance to make country places dull.
With fire and candlelight I can dream myself in Holborfn." Such dulness is but home-sickness, the languishing of a sensitive nature for its native air and
the shelter of old associations.
Though we say that confessions of dulness seldom
meet with sympathy, unless relieved by wit and humor, yet all artistic pictures of dulness make a deep
impression. This was the point of Mde. D'Arblay's
Memoirs. The frightful dulness and vacuity to which
her life was suddenly reduced appalled and fascinated
every reader; and those who heard Mr. Thackeray's
lecture on George III. will not forget those evenings
spent all alike in dancing three hours to one tune, and
going supperless to bed. It would have been better
for himself and for his sons if the poor King had realized that this was dull work; and there is a great
deal of dulness in the world, not confined to courts,
that passes for virtue and turns into habit, which it is




Dulness as a Sensation.          9I
well should be now and then exposed. A sense of
dulness might thus become a spur stimulating to
higher and better satisfactions.  The world is too
often unfeeling on this point, yet it needs only to
enter into another's dulness to pity it.  We have
heard somewhere of the inhabitants of a country
town who, in their own way, were never dull. They
had found out one remedy, the more effectual because they had never conceived of any other, -one
and all played cards. At length a stranger arrived
among them who could not take a hand at whist,
who did not, in fact, know one card from another.
He had to confess his ignorance before a large company. The circle heard in silent amazement. At
length his host, realizing the joyless blank, the utter
dulness of such an existence, exclaimed in terms
which alone could convey the intensity of his sympathy, "What, sir! not play at cards! The Lord
help you!"




MISTAKES IN LIFE.
THERE is something wonderfully pathetic in the
idea of mistakes in life, even before we have
any distinct impression with whom the mistake lies.
The very term is a tender reproach upon Fate, as
though that power set men to choose blindfold in
matters importing their lasting interests, and punished
them  for choosing wrong.  Regrets and repinings
upon what might have been if things had not happened just as they did happen, - if we had not done
just what we did do, - are a very familiar resource
of melancholy or ill-humor. And a very natural one;
for who can tell the weighty consequences of even
a trivial action, all that is bound up in the decisions
we are every day called upon to make upon what
appear insufficient grounds for a right judgment?
Most people, looking back on their career, must be
tempted to think their life would have been more successful and complete but for certain blunders which




AIistakes in Life.             93
were slipt into most unconsciously, and without any
view to their bearing. They imagine that differences
then seemingly unimportant would have altered their
whole course, and altered it, as they are disposed to
think, materially for the better.
The subject is a very wide and vague one. If we
choose, we may call history a series of mistakes; but
dispassionately to note the mistakes of others, either
in a past age or in our own, is merely one form of observation, and as such does not affect the mind as
a personal question, or influence the character in a
selfish direction. There are people who are always
dwelling on their own mistakes, and the mistakes of
others towards them; and as this form of regret commonly takes the line of having cheated ourselves, or
having been cheated, out of some of the good things
of this world -place and name, more money and
more friends, everything involved in success in lifeit is a question whether the theme is ever a very
profitable one, even where a man rigidly confines
himself to his own share of the blunder. But, in fact,
no one can indulge in this turn of thought long
without implicating friends, connections, and allies
in the disgrace.  It is disagreeable to dwell foi long
exclusively on our own follies.  The mind irresistibly
seeks for partners in a scrape, and men are so bound
unD in one another that it can always find them. It is




94             Mistakes in Life.
certain that people apt with the phrases, "It was
a great mistake," "I made a great mistake," cannot
carry on the strain beyond the first confession without
falling foul of their friends' dealing with them. To
start with, they are perhaps conscious of failing in
certain preliminary elements of success; yet it is but
a sour sort of humility to point out defects in their
education, though there may be truth in it. The
human race is a race of mistake-makers. Education
has never been free from mistakes, and probably very
grave ones.  If a man has been brought up with
scrupulous care, he is the victim of theory.  If he has
had the chances of other boys, study of individual
character has been wanting.  In some degree or
other his spirit has either been cowed by severity
or spoilt by over-indulgence.  If left to himself, he
acquires desultory habits.  If held to hard mental
labor, imagination is sacrificed. If parents have a
large promiscuous acquaintance, they entail on their
son the task of exclusion.  If they belong to a party,
he starts one of a clique; if they avoid society for his
sake, he enters life solitary, unsupported, and without
the power to make friends; if they interfered in his
choice of a calling, his inclination might not be sufficiently consulted; if they left him to choose, he was
thrown prematurely upon a judgment unfit for the
responsibility. No circumstances have ever been per



Mistakes in Life.             95
fectly happy, no management has ever been entirely
judicious; no man's friends have in all respects acted
wisely by him; and in every training a hundred
things have been ill done or fraught with danger. It
is the facility of shifting off some of the burden and
the blame of our worst mistakes that makes this habit
the most spurious of all forms of repentance, and
often a mere ungrateful sham of contrition. To see
a man, poker in hand, on a wet day, dashing at the
coals, and moodily counting up the world's mistakes
against him, is neither a dignified nor an engaging
spectacle; and our sympathy flags, with the growing
conviction that no man is an utter victim to the mistakes of others who has not an ineradicable propensity to make mistakes himself, and that people are
constantly apt to attribute a state of things to one
particular condition or mischance which, sooner or
later, must have happened from some inherent weakness and openness to attack. There is, besides, the
experience, which must in its degree be universal,
that wishes and expectations by no means necessarily
suggest the means to their attainment, and that in
youth especially we have often very earnestly wanted
a thing, and yet taken no steps, or just the wrong
ones, to get it, vaguely expecting our desires to accomplish themselves, though our outer life and actions may even wilfully run counter to them.




96             Mistakes inz Life.
That subtle discrepancy between thought and action which is to be observed in speculative, self-conscious characters, brings about some of the more
recondite mistakes of life. They are caused by refusing to believe in the natural consequences of actions,
-by not counting the cost.  Thus an act of large
and exceptional liberality often looks like a mistake,
-not at the time, when we are dazzled by the air
of self-sacrifice, but when we compare it with the rest
of a man's course, and note its effect upon his character, which is the only test of the consistency of the
motive originally at work. Something on the same
principle, Machiavel called a single unsupported act
of generosity in an unscrupulous scheme of policy
a mere blunder, - noting the great mistake it is to
"mingle isolated acts of mercy with extreme measures."  It sounds horribly cold-blooded, and sinks
him lower than ever in the disesteem of modern
readers; but he may have taken a juster measure
than we do at this distance of the motive which
prompted the discordant generosity.  However, we
must not dwell on this part of our subject, though
a writer in the " Spectator" did propose it "as no
unacceptable piece of entertainment to the town to
inquire into the hidden features of the blunders and
mistakes of wise men."
Of course, all people reviewing their own lives




Mistakes in Lz fe.            97
must see in them great mistakes, — wonderful mistakes, — perhaps a mere series of mistakes as compared to that ideal of life with which they started,
and in contrast with which the reality is a thing of
shreds and patches, beginnings without endings,
ceaseless fluctuations of design, so that we have
something to do to trace the one mind at work
through the successions of change. Yet we may be
sure that this is just what others can see in us. It
may be noted that where men themselves attribute
ill-success or mischance to separate distinct mistakes,
as, for instance, to the choice of such an adviser,
the engaging in such a speculation, - those who have
to observe them trace all to character. They see that
if failure had not come at such a juncture, it must at
some other, from certain flaws in the man's nature
which he must heal and repair before he can go
straight, - that mistakes simply mark occasions when
he was tested. We see in a career a hundred chances
thrown away and wasted, not at all from accident;
though the actor, looking back, does not know why
he chose the wrong, and is still only aware of having
vacillated between two courses in a certain toss-up
state of mind, in which, as far as he sees, he might
just as well have chosen right, he being the last to
remember that a crisis is the occasion for hidden
faults and predominating influences to declare them5                           G




98             Mistakes in Life.
selves, so that his mistakes were, in a manner, inevitable. For example, one man rushes headlong into
an uncongenial, imprudent marriage, which may be
considered the mistake, par excellence, of life.  Can
there be, properly, anything merely accidental in
such a step? Does it not belong to a certain course
of action, — to a vein of folly or conceit of which
something of the sort is a natural sequence, which
he only escapes by a happy accident or want of opportunity? Another man is intending to marry all
his life, and dies a peevish old bachelor, owning his
mistake; but others can trace a whole course of
weak compliance, or selfish, ungenerous caution, as
the cause of his present isolation.
It may be that the errors of a consistent, deliberate course of action only go by another name; but
certainly the habit, in all its flagrancy, not only of
making mistakes, but of moaning over them, belongs
to those who act on impulse, and disdain a producible reason for their actions. This might seem selfevident; but not only are the people prone to impulse, incorrigibly proud of it as being akin in their
mind to genius, which can afford to despise the
slower processes of reason; but the world does
much-to foster the idea, by attaching high-sounding
adjectives to the word, -so that good impulses, noble
impulses, generous impulses, run off our tongue of




Mistakes in Life.             99
themselves. Yet, in fact, the majority of impulses
are not good or noble, and experience shows us that
impulse is amongst the most inconvenient and questionable guides in human affairs. A good impulse
either means an inspiration, or it is a good habit of
mind, showing itself on some sudden call with a
readiness of response which is mistaken for spontaneous resolve. But the impulse we see most of is
the reverse of this, and proceeds from some looseness of mind which defies and forbids the formation
of habits, which forms nothing, but drifts along, —
when it acts on ordinary principles of conduct, —
without acquiring any lasting impressions from custom, or any adhesiveness; so that, when a new or
bizarre suggestion presents itself, it comes with the
force of a command. Why not? why should n't they?
- and there is no counteracting stay of habit to provide an answer, or stand against the delirious joy of
novelty, -the gambler's excitement of putting the
happiness of his future on a chance for the mere
thrill of seeing it imperilled.
After all, we shall not often get the actor and the
looker-on to be of the same mind as to what are mistakes. As the epicure lays the account of his indigestion to the few drops of cream in his after-dinner
cup of tea, so the repiner over his own destiny sets
his misfortunes down to trifling indiscretions, or even




I00             Mistakes in Lz fe.
to what others might consider exceptional exhibitions
of good sense; while the decisive failures, the incontrovertible mistakes, are defended to the death.
Some of this school have only one mistake to reproach themselves with, but this recurring, as we are
given to understand, at various turning-points of life,
— that of not having taken their own way, but having allowed themselves, at some critical juncture, to
follow the advice, the example, the opinion of others.
Persons of a speculative cast can scarcely escape
this habit of mind. Their own experience is much
like Mr. Clough's:"How often sat I poring o'er
My strange distorted youth,
Seeking in vain in all my store
One feeling based on truth";
for a certain intellectual activity prompts to a perpetual review and suspicion of the past. Authors,
the picked men of this class, who are driven by their
calling to utilize the actions and proceedings generally of so much of mankind as come in their way,
may be said to constitute themselves the authority on
all questions of cause and effect, and to pronounce ex
cathedrd on what are the mistakes of others; though
their attitude of critics of the human race diverts
them from personal vigilance, and makes them crying examples of mistakes in their own persons.




Mistakes in Lzife.           IOI
Thus we may see them  very much alive to the
world's mistakes towards them, and very blind to
the real cause, often to the real facts, of their own.
It is next to impossible but that writers, as a class,
should be discontented men; for human nature
craves for action, and, in the long-run, the observer,
whatever his success in his own field, will feel it a
mistake that he has not been an active worker instead of a chronicler and speculator on others' work.
They are almost as certain, too, to overvalue their
own judgment, and thus to lay the cause of their
mischances at the wrong door. Thus the autobiographies and personal revelations of literary men represent them all as victims of mistakes.
But all people who are not men of action are not
therefore men of thought. Mistakes are a very prolific subject with all who judge of things, as so many
do, solely by the event. There are persons who live
in the belief that they are wise till something happens
wholly irrespective of their own conduct or motives,
when they spring as suddenly to the conclusion that
they have been fools. It is wonderful what steps will
be regretted,- what natural, proper, nay, inevitable
steps,_- where the event does not vindicate a course
of action. It is imperative on many tempers to blame
somebody, - anybody, - when things do not go as
they would have them. Thus a man meeting with a




102            Mistakes in Life.
railway accident is bent on proving it a great mistake
that he went by that train at all. The irrevocable,
with all unreasoning natures, is forever prompting
this illusory, deceitful form of self-blame, which issues
in nothing, for it has not taught them any new principle of conduct.
Many people attribute to themselves a series of
mistakes from a mere over-estimate of their powers.
It is their only method of accounting to themselves
why they were not where their deserts should place
them. It is soothing to their vanity to lay their failure to the charge of some defect in policy or judgment. They are at the foot of the ladder instead of
the top, and find a feeble, vapid consolation in counting up a series of isolated blunders. It all comes
from not embracing that opening, from stopping short
on the way to success a day too soon, from an ill
choice of advisers at some important crisis, and so
on. But the truth is, everybody is making such mistakes always. No man can get on without the power,
not of avoiding mistakes, but of nullifying and mastering them when made. Yes! no doubt every life is
full of mistakes, and it is a further argument against
morbid dwelling upon them that we can rarely find in
our own case which of them has told lastingly against
us. Going by analogy,- observing what sort of mistakes press and gnaw on the minds of others, - our




Mistakes it Lzfre.          103
own sensitiveness is far from being an infallible judge.
We may then be attaching mighty consequences to
some indiscretion which has really served us well,
while the mistake which has damaged us may lurk
altogether out of our cognizance. Especially we may
take for granted, of every man who sits and murmurs
over the mistakes of others towards him, that, in fact,
he is suffering infinitely more from the consequences
of his own.




SCENES.
C ONSIDERING how popular fiction is, and that
it mainly depends for its charm on scenes, -
that is, on humanity being exhibited in its more striking combinations, where the whole nature is stirred
by emotion of some kind, - it is strange what a universal horror there is of a scene in real, actual life.
The very idea of being exposed to one puts us under
the apprehension of being made painfully ridiculous,
of being taken possession of, and losing the guardianship of ourselves. Every one shares the dread.
Amongst people who represent society, the recoil
is unanimous.  Of course, the alarm is greatest where
something harrowing and distressing is apprehended,
and this needs little. accounting for; but mere pleasurable excitement, if it threatens their serenity, is
a thing *that well-to-do,'comfortable people always
eschew if they can. Now we suspect that men generally assume this reluctance to having their feelings




Scenes.                 I05
meddled with to arise from the fact that something
very startling,- some effect of roused emotion which
should shake them to their centres, -would be the
consequence of breaking through their crust of reserve. They take for granted they must be cold and
self-restrained outwardly, because they have such a
great deal of feeling at bottom, though kept religiously
out of sight. There are people, for instance, who
never will say good-by, or encounter a parting, because they 6annot stand it. Now we do not want
scenes to come into fashion, and should be sorry
to see the world turn maudlin and sentimental; but
still there is a view of this horror of scenes, and this
extreme solicitude to avoid them, which seems to
us more in accordance with probability than the one
thus readily acquiesced in. Men imagine they are
afraid of any expression of feeling because they might
risk exposing themselves by some unmanly excess
of vehement emotion; but have they not also other
grounds for evading the trial? We greatly suspect
that, under this superficial belief that we should be
too deeply moved in certain situations, -perhaps
torn and convulsed by tragic or pathetic passion, -
there is a lurking, unacknowledged misgiving that
possibly we should not be moved enough for our
credit, or even for our self-esteem: for to discover
that the crust is impenetrable,- in fact no crust at
5*




o6                 Scenes.
all, but just nether millstone inside and out, - would
be by no means gratifying to our self-love. Yet people whose feelings are never reached, who carefully
keep themselves out of the way of having them tried,
are much more likely to have too little feeling than
too much. And how many injustices and cruelties
are committed, how many abuses go on, because
of this dread of breaking the tranquil surface of
things! And why this dread? Because there is a
vague notion that people cannot bear  that they
would sink under, or be permanently injured bythings which they could bear perfectly well, and
which would not injure them at all. We are convinced that too much feeling, as a disinterested benevolent affection, is one of the very rarest excesses
to be found in human nature. The purest feeling
submits to the inevitable; and, whlen tinged with
selfishness and obstinacy, it yields and calms itself,
with whatever ill-grace, so soon as nothing is to be
gained by holding out.
The majority of men, from the habit of indulging
a selfish fear of pain and annoyance, have not feeling enough, - they would be ashamed of themselves
if they knew how little. We are justified in saying
this of any one who, when nature and the occasion
demand some expression, makes no sign, — who is
cold and forbidding when he ought to be warm and




Scenes.                  I o7
sympathizing. We cannot believe in any feeling that
never shows itself; or, only on extreme occasions
which disorganize the mind and will; though there
is a romantic notion the reverse of this, connecting
a stern impassive manner, under all ordinary trials,
with hidden fires and a world of unexpressed passion if it could but' be reached. It may be that
peculiar circumstances will rouse the smouldering
flame into a brief conflagration; we may see a struggle of half temper, half feeling, in these harder natures; but what good does it do, and why do we
prize it because it is hard to reach? It is not fair
to value pity or tenderness in proportion as they are
unwillingly given; and yet how often it is so! "You
have no heart there, my dear Fontenelle," said a
witty. Frenchwoman, laying her -hand on the waistcoat
of her friend, "it is another brain"; but if Fontenelle could have been betrayed under extreme pressure to exhibit some symptoms of humanity, there are
many who would deem the emotion, when it came,
all the choicer and more precious for its rarity; and
so, probably, would the man himself, taking good
care at the same time that the thing should never
happen again.
But even where there is the average of heart and
kindliness, how little cause is there for alarm on this
head! How soon people get over things! Which




I o8                 Scenes.
of our acquaintance have we any reason to suppose
has permanently suffered by hip feelings? How rarely.
have we seen our friends deeply moved! And if
we have on some trying occasion, what harm has it
done them to sound for a while the hidden depths
of their nature, and how long did the pressure last?
We do not wish it otherwise. We are not complaining that passionate feeling is not lasting, - there
would be no peace, no living, if it were; but we argue from it that the alarm about scenes is not really
chargeable to any excess of sentiment in most of us.
We are all made of pretty tough material, and can
bear a good deal. In some the objection may no
doubt be traced to a reasonable and dignified reluctance to having our more secret, subtle life intruded
upon without urgent necessity. In the majority, it
arises from that preference of the superficial over the
deep, as involving little trouble and taking least out
of us, which is amongst the most universal of human
characteristics, and which leads us constantly to prefer
the pleasure that costs us least effort, even while we
know intenser enjoyment from the exercise of our
nobler faculties to be within reach. In a great many,
it is attributable to the opinion that affected, shallow
natures revel in scenes, and therefore that manliness
must keep clear of every expression of feeling. There
are people, no doubt, the opposite of those we have




Scenes.                 I09
hitherto discussed, who have a relish for excitement
of the weeping, demonstrative, tragic sort, —people
who, from natural fussiness and the want of good
social training, love to display themselves in melodramatic action, and whose fancy is easily caught and
tickled by sudden, and, as it seems to them, touching
situations. While they are expressing as much real
emotion as is in them, they are not insensible to an
agreeable consciousness of doing the thing well and
putting colder natures to shame.  These per-sons,
from thinking a good deal of themselves, and very
likely of their family peculiarities, have less tact than
their neighbors, and are apt to enlist unwilling recruits into the service of their gushing effusions; and
they may well make scenes a term of horror and reproach to us all by getting them up with unsympathizing seconds, caught at unawares, who have to
walk through their part in unspeakable quandary and
confusion.
It is much the same spirit which enjoys these little
emotional dramas that dictates the grand, pompous
system of breaking evil tidings, which, ingeniously
managed, is greater torture than the ill news itself,
the operator all the while engrossed with his own
share of the performance, and so profoundly impressed with his own neat exordium as to have no
attention for its effect upon the sufferer. A person




I IO                 Scenes.
well up in the art of protracting an announcement
may, in the course of his gradual disclosure, convey
to a lively, excited imagination a taste of every conceivable calamity. Nothing comes up to what the
fancy can conjure out of vague threatenings of evil;
and the curious thing is, that people of this turn —
and it is another mark of their total want of observation - will always fancy others so much more tender
and susceptible than they can pretend to be themselves. Men who ought to be perfectly aware that,
out of their own immediate domestic circle, - wife
and children, and their pecuniary affairs,- there is
nothing they could not face calmly, and, after an
hour's thought and speculation upon it, feel perfectly
used to as an old idea, will " break" the most natural
intelligence to men whom they have no reason to think
different from themselves. They will attribute to remote consanguinity a power over the affections which
belongs only to our own hearth, and will keep a man
on tenter-hooks in announcing, with circumlocution
and a parade of precaution, the demise of a cousin
or an uncle with whom he was never a very particular
ally during life. The victim would exclaim, in peevish
relief, " Is that all? " but that there is an instinct in
the most random of us always alive to protect the
credit of our feelings. Nobody likes to take things
more coolly than is expected of him, -the delusion




Scees.                  I I I
is winked at, - and his friend goes on his way with
all that glow and effusion of sentiment men feel when
engaged in their peculiar vocation.
The fact is, feeling is a mysterious thing about
which all have a curiosity in their neighbor's case so
long as it can be indulged without committing self.
How a man will take an event which closely concerns
him, is amongst the first speculations of the circle to
which he belongs.  The quickest observation, the
keenest study of character, can never foretell how
those we know best will be affected by any new or
startling occurrence.  A great many people never
reason on their own sensations at all; experience
does nothing to disturb a certain conventional standard of propriety. But this is not all. Feeling is, in
fact, a capricious quality, subject to a hundred unaccountable influences, so that no degree of penetration
can arrive at any certainty, or can settle what people
will do or say under given contingencies, where the
romance of real life is in action. People's dislike
of scenes solely arises from the notion that they may
be implicated. They are curious to hear of, and are
even not unwilling to witness, human perturbations,
where this apprehension does not come in; only the
more educated and thoughtful persons are, the less
they can contemplate the possibility of being unconcerned spectators on such occasions.




I 12                 Scenes.
The poor are exceedingly subject to this hunger for
witnessing the passions at work, as opposed to the
reluctance we have dwelt upon in persons subject to
the world's training; and they have this to be said
for their curiosity, -that whereas education and society bend all minds to a certain  external conformity,
warning the cold against an unconcerned manner, and
instilling the necessity of self-restraint on warmer
temperaments, -in the humbler classes the real working of the mind is laid bare with little effort at disguise or assumption. Where the affections are strong
and the temper ardent, all the stormy tumults of
tragedy and the vehemence of passion are brought
within the compass of our belief; but where the
nature is dull, and further deadened by stolid ignorance and daily sordid cares and indulgences —till
the present is all in all, and nothing can touch the
mind that does not touch the senses-there is no
decorous pretence, no propriety to stand instead of
feeling. They do not know that anything is expected
from them, either for their own credit or the common
credit of humanity. They allow us to see all the
nakedness of the land. An old couple lost their son
in the late war, and it became the painful duty of their
pastor to communicate the intelligence to them, which
he did with all the cautious tenderness he could command. There was a pause, which the old man first




Scenes.                 I 13
broke as he turned to the bereaved mother, in safe
reliance on her sympathy, with the words, "Now, we
ought to get something by that."  Every class has
its selfish, unnatural fathers; but such simplicity of
egotism can only be betrayed where the restraint of
public opinion is unknown.
Considering the irksomeness of flighty, ill-timed
exhibitions of feeling, which are annoying on one
side and deteriorating on the other, we might well
leave the subject to individual tastes and inclinations but for one consideration. The real grievance
and mischief of dread of scenes lies, of course, in
its interfering with expression of sympathy where
sympathy is a positive need. When men are under
the first pressure of real trouble, they are not afraid
of scenes, - that is, as an ordinary rule, they are not.
It is often the only comfort the occasion allows them.
Some one to talk to, some eye that will pity, is then
the first want; and even beyond this is the curious
longing, which belongs to people in an unhinged
state of feeling, to see in others some effect of the
disorganization they are conscious of in themselves.
They require some reflection of their own disorder,
- they want to see their friend visibly altered and
changed by participation with their trouble. They
even run through the circle of their acquaintance
with a vague curiosity how they will take what affects
H




114                 Scenes.
themselves so deeply. And in this hour of weakness, in this unconscious yearning for something
new, some relief from the burden of importunate
thought, the friend who dreads a scene stays at
home, and argues with himself and others that he
can do no good, —that is, he cannot restore the
dead, or repair a broken fortune, or end suspense,
or make an inconstant lover faithful, or reform a
bad son. He knows he would be welcome, — this
we take for granted; but because he can only sit
and listen, and share the sorrow, and show a pitying
countenance, - bring some change, some, new suggestion, some fresh aspect of things, -he stays at
home, avoids a scene, and adds a sense of disappointment and chill desertion to troubles which he
might have helped his friend to bear, if not to escape
from. After all, people generally lose more than
they gain by avoiding anything painful that comes
naturally in their way.  No decent man can feel
comfortable while in his heart he knows himself a
coward. And, in other respects, those who exercise
their feelings are happier than those who suppress
them. They have more the sense of living; they
are more at one with the great human family; they
are occupied with the interests which have the
strongest hold on others; and, above all, they have
not cut themselves off from the study —of all oth



Scenes.                 I 15
ers the most absorbing   of human nature. A real
knowledge of character can only be acquired by
seeing men under every variety of circumstance;
and we have an imperfect, and very often false, idea
of every man whom we only know at ease and entrenched behind all the restraints of society.




ACQUAINTANCES AND FRIENDS.
THERE is a very common confusion of ideas between acquaintances and friends, which not only
gives false notions of society but results in a good
deal of conceit and harsh judging. Some people are
always wondering and regretting that acquaintances
do not turn into friends by a sort of natural growth
or transformation; while others affect to despise acquaintances, because they are not friends, and therefore not worth having. In talk and in theory, "mere"
acquaintances, as they are called, are disparaged.
Acquaintanceship is thought a worldly thing, and indeed there is no surer test of worldliness with a good
many minds than that persons should accept society
for what it is, - the intercourse of acquaintances,and find pleasure in it. To know many people, and
to know them mainly through their open and palpable
qualities and gifts, - to like their company, without
curiously inquiring whether the existing superficial




Acquaintances and Friends.         I17
sympathy may be forced into deeper and more intimate currents of feeling, -is supposed to imply a
frivolous, a cold, or a worldly temper. This sentiment is embodied in so many representations of life,
from that of the austere professor who denounces dinner-parties because the guests are apt to take an airy
and cursory view of things, and to abstain from probing into each other's profounder convictions, - who
would confine every social demonstration to tea-meetings of a very few friends of identical habits and feelings, - down to that of the toper who sings over his
cups, " Only give him his friend and his glass, all the
rest of the world may go hang," that it may be called
universal. That is, it is universal as a sentiment, for
it is incapable of being really put in practice. Everybody has acquaintances, could ill spare them, and is
really greatly indebted to them, even though there
may be no chance of the relation ever changing into
that of intimate friendship. Persons are not worse
than we are, because entire sympathy is incompatible
between our natures and theirs. Yet, when people
talk and write of acquaintances in contrast with
friends, there is generally a growl at the hollow world,
as though the grumbler stood outside of it. No such
thing. The world may be hollow, but this is not a
necessary proof of it. It is no sign of its hollowness
that men who meet one another on certain understood




I 18       Acquaintances and Friends.
~terms of guarded approach do not get nearer.  Our
friends may be hollower, less sincere, than our acquaintances, and yet may suit us better, - may reach
a different, deeper, more intimate part of us, adapt
themselves with a nicer fit and adjustment to what
is peculiar and characteristic in us, and be bound to
us, and we to them, by a stronger, more exacting,
and more sacred tie than acquaintances, however
estimable.
It is clearly necessary to establish the generic difference between friendship and ordinary social intercourse before we can settle the claims and duties
of each. Once grant that mere acquaintanceship is
a good and profitable relation in itself, though developing into nothing closer and warmer, and we
shall see that a great deal that has at all times been
said on this subject is unjust as well as impracticable,
through the neglect of proper distinctions.  It is
through our circle of acquaintance, so far as it is at
once well chosen and extensive, that we realize our
duties as citizens, so to say, - that we derive our
knowledge of mankind, and learn the claims of our
own class and what we owe to it, - that we acquire
propriety of manner and independence of thought.
Acquaintanceship is, in fact, the medium through
which we see the world, by which we touch it and
become cognizant of public opinion. If it were possi



Acquaintances and Friends.        jI 9
ble for men to have none but intimate friends between them and the vast system at work around
them, they would degenerate into every form of crotchety eccentricity, overbearing tyranny, or enervating
dependence. But it is quite clear that this external
social connection, to be of mutual service, must be
under quite different laws from those which regulate
friendship; and this is just the distinction which
prosy moralists, or moralists when they are prosy,
have refused to acknowledge. From our childhood
we have read denunciations of society as heartless
and ungrateful for letting its members slip through,
and pass out of sight, under the touch of misfortune.
The popular, picturesque illustration of this in storybooks used to be the easy, careless, amiable spendthrift, who, after lavishing his fortune upon so-called
friends, was, in the evil hour, deserted by them.
Now, friends are not the sort of people men do lavish
fortunes upon. The spendthrift wished to make a
figure or to enjoy himself, and collected about him
whoever would further this end. But it was really
the fault of the spender, not of the world, that he
should drop through after his money was gone. The
assumption was preposterous, that, after his own
means were wasted, his acquaintance should make all
straight by giving him theirs, - which was the moral
apparently pressed on our raw and perplexed judg



120        Acquaintances and Friends.
ment. Acquaintances are not called upon to advise
one another on their private affairs. They have not
data upon which to judge of prudence or imprudence.
On this point each man must take care of himself,
and do his duty to society by setting a wise example.
It is not really heartless to refuse to share our possessions with every man with whom we have interchanged dinners; and altered fortunes may act as
a separating influence without any just charge of coldness on the more fortunate party, because there has
always been a tacit understanding that the intercourse
is subject to certain conditions. Towards acquaintance men act in their corporate capacity as members
of society; while friendship is strictly a tie between
two contracting parties, with which; society has no
right to interfere. Of course, people act upon this
view of the difference between the two relations;
but if they act under a confused idea that there is
something insincere and heartless in it all the while,
they are likely to be heartless and insincere. They
shuffle, and shirk, and fail in the kindness and tenderness which belong alike to every form of intercourse. In fact, people are often unfeeling, and even
cruel, to old acquaintances, because they fear that
sacrifices which are only gdue to friendship will be
expected from them.
If it were true that it is hard-hearted and hollow'




A4cquaintances and Friends.        12I
not to hold by acquaintances through every turn of
fortune, every change of circumstances, and every
difficulty that time throws in the way, then the fewer
of them we form the better; and some people, in
argument at least, are quite ready to act upon this
principle, and to confine their society to those whom,
in an exact sense, they call friends. But- in fact, in
the true meaning of the word, people cannot have
many friends; nor will they have any more for rejecting acquaintances, nor be any better morally;
while intellectually they will miss a great freshening
and polishing influence on human nature, which requires for its development popular and general intercourse, as well as particular intimacies. In defending
society from the charge of being necessarily hollow,
by showing that its ordinary intercourse is not founded
on false pretences, we are not denying that it may be
unsatisfactory. It is unsatisfactory that appearances
do not go for all they seem to the uninitiated, that
reality eludes men's grasp, that all people who reflect
on their position find something illusory and infirm
in their hold of things. Certain it is that there is no
complaint more universal than the want of a staff of
real friends. People cannot understand how, friendship being so human a thing, there should be so little
of it. They perpetually attribute the defect in their
own life to circumstances, and generally with a show
6




122        Acquaintances and Friends.
of reason; and all that can be said is, that circumstances which seem so trivial, or so peculiar, or so
accidental, appear to be in this matter a universal
agent. The cry, after all, does not come from the
affections. It springs from the desire to be a living,
acting, necessary part of the world in which we find
ourselves. Nobody really feels himself to be substantially what he seems. People who are called "in the
world," and are looked upon by their distant friends
as in the turmoil and heart of things, feel themselves
excluded from the mystery and the secret of it all.
The people they live and act with, and with whom
they are identified as one - perhaps exclusive — community, show them only their outside. They stand
loose from them; they never really touch; they are
conscious of illusion and slipperiness, - of a sort of
imposture. Those who have never felt the excitement of being part of what they see, of owning a
place in the active social fabric, wonder how, in their
sleepy circles, acquaintance does not grow into something warmer through the mere lapse of years,- how
the solemn, dull, stated meetings should not, through
mere friction and contact, kindle into something genial. Hopeless aspiration! for there is no greater
impossibility than that a twenty years' guarded acquaintanceship should, under any conceivable circumstances, change into friendship, or even into active,
unrestrained sociability.




Acquaintances and Friends.         123
This impatience and repining is natural in the
young, whose hopes are alive. and their anticipations
all astir on every new acquaintance out of whom
imagination can construct a castle or a vision. Until
experience has done its work, there is something intolerable to ardent temperaments in facing the slight
tenure which they really have on all they see, - the
little hold they have, or are ever likely to have, on
what they take society to be. To be attracted by
people, to meet them at stated times, but always with
some impediment-to any effusion of thought and sentiment,- to make no way, - to find the same friendly
cordiality always succeeded, when the occasion is
past, by the same indifference, - disgusts them, and
makes them rail, not, of course, at this particular instance, but at the society which permits such things,
and holds congenial souls back from the thrilling
pleasures of a real encounter. They are apt to think
their elders cold, and spoilt by the world, who resign
themselves to things as they find them, are less exacting from fate, and expect nothing from society but
what it gives. They cannot understand persons who
enjoy an agreeable acquaintance, though the periodical
meetings lead to nothing further, and who learn to be
satisfied with the refreshment and variety as far as
they go, without expecting deeper satisfaction from
such intercourse, or any fundamental changes in their




124       Acquaintances and Friends.
daily life,- who can estimate pleasant people at their
full value, yet reconcile themselves to the conviction
that these people's choicer gifts and warmer intimacies are not for them. Time shows us all that a man
may have much in him which suits us and fits in with
us in matters of general interest, yet be wanting on
all points necessary for private satisfaction.  These
public qualities are good and worthy ones, and it is
fair that they should have their arena and be esteemed at their true value, though the same mind may
have inferior or, to us, utterly uncongenial elements.
Moreover, we learn by experience that there are real
substantial good qualities which yet fit people rather
for acquaintances than friends, because these qualities,are constantly clogged with some alloy which tells
upon close intimacy. Thus, brilliant conversational
powers are inestimable in an acquaintance, but
have certainly their drawback in a friend; and a
good grasp of general subjects, or wit, or polish,
or grace of manner, are compatible with particular
intellectual wants and defective sympathies which
might, and constantly do, detract from their charm
and disqualify for friendship. Again, there is a diffusive benevolence and general good-nature, incapable
of distinct preferences, but quickened into activity by
cheerful scenes, which makes "nice" people and
desirable acquaintances, though, for our part, we




AcqzuaintCances and Friends.       125
should not look to them in the emergencies of life.
Indeed, a host of natural deficiencies may be kept out
of sight in guarded intercourse, and we may be only
gainers by what general society fosters and brings to
light. So far, there is no " hollowness " nor worldliness in those who accept society for what it is, - a
scene where all are on their good behavior, and in
a position to show their more agreeable qualities and
to keep the rest in the background. When people,
through habit and deadness to higher things, grow
satisfied and content with acquaintances only, and
have lost even the yearning for anything deeper or
more intimate, then, of course, they become open to
the charge of hollowness.  But this is not the occasion to talk of club windows, of Bond Street loungers,
dowagers, old stagers, men about town, and professional diners-out, who in one sense know, hundreds,
and in another have not a' friend in the world;
though many of these folks, whom the young, affluent
in hope and inherited friends, contemn as heartless,
used-up worldlings, are friendless, not from incapacity
for friendship, but because none except acquaintances
are left to them at a time when friends are not to be
had for the wish. It is wonderful what one of these
old fogies now and then turns into, - what heartiness
he will develop when circumstances give him a
chance; though we own the transformation is a rare
one.




126       Acquaintances and FriendZs.
What we would say is, that acquaintances, and acquaintances only, can awaken certain feelings and do
certain things for us. It is precisely because we do
not know them intimately, nor they us, that this service is rendered. Society, as it is conducted in highly-civilized and artificial communities, requires great
powers of reticence, selection, and self-control in
those who mix in it. Inexperienced persons, on finding themselves suddenly part of it, are almost certain,
if they throw themselves into the scene at all, to commit themselves by over-energy of expression, by too
earnest a tone, by showing parts of themselves for
which this is not the fitting sphere; and on becoming conscious of this difference between themselves
and those around them, a sense of resentment is
awakened against a state of things which has made
their sincerity and warmth appear outre, and perhaps
ridiculous.  But the necessary repression of what it
is delightful to impulsive natures to express is really
a check upon vanity and display. Every person accustomed to society feels that he must not obtrude
even his most heartfelt convictions too forcibly, where
it cannot be done without also obtruding himself.
The light, passing, superficial treatment of subjects
even of interest in mixed circles does not imply, as
some suppose, that people have not profound convictions which, elsewhere, and on what seem to them




Acquaintaces and Friends.        I27
fitting occasions, they can express with both the force
and warmth their importance demands. But experience has taught them that the republic of society will
not and cannot stand dictators, and that the unrestrained liberty of speech of one would be the subjection and suppression of the rest.  People may
fancy themselves superior who will go nowhere where
they may not speak their minds, and who shun all
that are not of their own way of thinking. But they
miss a discipline which might make them of service
in their generation; and they also miss the taste of
that exhilarating yet unselfish pleasure which minds
open to the influence of society can alone experience
through the genial contact of numbers,- "that pleasure the mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels
in itself at the sight of a multitude of people who
seem pleased with one another, and are partakers
of the same common entertainment."




SAYING DISAGREEABLE THINGS.
SOME people, not otherwise ill-natured, are apt
to season their conversation with disagreeable
sayings, unpleasant comments, uncomfortable insinuations. Such a person, we sometimes hear, is a
good sort of fellow, but he has a way of saying
disagreeable things. Such a woman can be very
charming when she pleases, but — In fact, these
people are never spoken of for three consecutive
sentences without a qualification. A disagreeable
thing is distinguished from an impertinence, which
it often closely resembles, by certain marks. In the
first place, an impertinence we need not stand, but
the other we often must, aware that it is the result
of certain conditions of our friend's mind, which,
as we cannot hope to alter, we must resign ourselves to. An impertinence may or may not be true,
— its main design, independent of truth, is, more
or less, to insult. It is of the essence of a disagree



Saying Disagreeable Things.        I29
able thing that it should be true, —true in itself, or
true as representing the speaker's state of feeling.
And yet an unpalatable truth is not technically a
disagreeable thing any more than an impertinence,
though, of course, the being told it is an unpleasant
operation. It is necessary for us now and then to
hear unpalatable and unwelcome truths; but a disagreeable thing is never a moral necessity,- it is
spoken to relieve the speaker's mind, not to profit
the hearer. The same utterance may be an impertinence, an unpalatable truth, or a disagreeable thing,
according to time and circumstance. For example,
in a fit of absence, we perpetrate some solecism in
dress or behavior.  It is an unwelcome truth to be
told it, while there is yet opportunity for remedy,
or partial remedy: it is an impertinence to be informed of it by a stranger who has no right to concern himself with our affairs: it is a disagreeable
thing when - the occasion past - our friend enlightens us about it, simply as a piece of information.
We all of us, no doubt, have friends, relations, and
acquaintances who think it quite a sufficient reason
for saying a thing, that it is true. Probably we have
ourselves known the state of mind in which we find
a certain fact or opinion a burden, a load to be got
rid of; and, under the gross mistake that all truth
must be spoken, that it is uncandid and dangerous
6*                           I




130       Saying Disagreeable Things.
not to deliver a testimony, — convinced that truth,
like murder, will out, and that our friend, sooner
or later, must learn the unacceptable fact,- we come
to the conclusion that it is best for all parties to
get the thing over by being ourself the executioner.
We have most of us acted the eyzfant terrible at some
time or other. But this crude simplicity of candor,
where it is the result of the mere blind, intrusive
assertion of truth, is a real weight; and the primary law of politeness, never to give unnecessary
pain, as soon as it is apprehended, is welcomed as
a deliverer. Children and the very young have not
experience enough for any but the most limited sympathy, and can only partially compare the feelings
of others with their own. Indeed, the idea of the
comparison does not occur to them. But there are
people who, in this respect, remain children all their
days, and very awkward children too, - who burst
with a fact as the fool with his secret, and, like the
hair-dresser in Leech's caricature, are impelled to
tell us that our hair is thin at the top, though nothing
whatever is to come of the communication. These,
as Sydney Smith says, turn friendship into a system
of lawful and unpunishable impertinence, from, so
far as we can see, no worse cause than incontinence
of fact and opinion,    feeling it to be a sufficient
and triumphant defence of every perpetration of the




Saying Disagreeable Things.        I3'
sort, that it is true. "Why did you tell Mr. Soand-so that his sermon was fifty minutes long?" "Because I had looked at my watch."  "Why did you
remind such a one that he is growing fat and old?"
"Because he is."  "Why repeat that unfavorable
criticism? " " I had just read it." "s Why disparage
this man's particular friends?"  " I don't like them."
"Why say to that young lady that her dress was
unbecoming?"  "I really thought so."  It is, however, noticeable in persons of this obtrusive candor,
that they have eyes for blemishes only. They are
never impelled to tell pleasant truths, - from which,
no doubt, we may infer a certain acerbity of temper,
though these strictures may be spoken in seeming
blunt, honest good-humor. Still, they talk in this
way from natural obtuseness and inherent defect of
sympathy.  These are the people who always hit
upon the wrong thing to say, and instinctively ferret
out sore subjects. They are not the class we have
in our thoughts.  Indeed, they incapacitate themselves for serious mischief, as their acquaintance give
them  a wide berth, and take care not to expose
their more cherished interests to their tender mercies. It requires some refinement of perception to
say the more pungent and penetrating disagreeable
things. We must care for the opinion or the regard
of a person whose sayings of this sort can keenly




132      Saying Disagreeable Thizgs.
annoy us. A man must have made friends before
he can wound them. A real expert in this art is
never rude, and can convey a disregard approaching to contempt for another's opinion, hit him in
his most vulnerable points, and send him off generally depressed and uncomfortable, without saying a
word that can be fairly taken hold of.
Of course the people most distinguished in this
way are disappointed people.  In the examples that
occur to us, we perceive that life has not satisfied
them, -they do not occupy the place in -men's
minds which they feel they deserve. But this is no
explanation, for the tendency is just as likely to have
caused the disappointment as the disappointment the
tendency. People who start in life with high, though
not wholly ungrounded notions of their own deserts,
definite claims, and elaborate self-appreciation, are
certain to be in constant collision with their friends,
and with society. Their sense of their own rights
and merits is perpetually infringed. Their friendship or service entails an obligation which is never
duly recognized. The memory becomes loaded with
supposed slights. Every part of the man is instinct
with grievances, which inevitably exhale in disagreeable things. We hear them in covert insinuations.
We read them in rigid smiles. They look out of
cold, forbidding, eyes. They declare themselves in




Saying Disagreeable Things.       133
stiff, repelling courtesies.  And the mischief does
not end here.  There is no habit more catching.
Tempers amiable enough when let alone develop
under a stimulus. It is not a wholly unpleasant excitement to find ourselves observing all the forms of
friendly and kindly intercourse, yet giving as good
as we get, or at any rate parrying with spirit. There
is only one class of persons in the world, - the perfectly humble-minded,  who never say disagreeable
things.
Nobody acknowledges himself to be an habitual
offender in this line. No man will own himself
careless of giving pain. When we do become conscious of having thoughtlessly wounded our neighbor's feelings or self-love, it may commonly be traced
to the blinding sway of some conviction held in a
one-sided, selfish spirit. All strong prepossessions
destroy sympathy, and, like absence of mind, induce
an exclusive attention to our own objects or wishes.
To judge from their biographies, religious professors are exceedingly apt to err in this direction,unless, perhaps, it be that they say disagreeable
things more deliberately, and more on principle,
than the laity. The young lady who answered her
friend's announcement of her approaching marriage
by the inquiry, if she had ever remembered that her
future husband might die, thought she was preaching




134      Saying Disagreeable Things.
a sermon, but was simply saying a disagreeable thing.
The occasion called for sympathy, and preaching was
an obtrusion of self and its specialty, -an unconscious expedient for bringing down her friend from a
high position of interest to a level something below
her own.  The habit of saying disagreeable things
belongs impartially to both sexes, but the manner and
the motive differ. Our example illustrates the feminine form. There is commonly a touch of jealousy
to be traced in a woman's trying or irritating sayings,
however remote and far-fetched. However abstract
and general the remark may be, an insight into circumstances will probably furnish the clew, - will bring
some personal and particular cause to light which has
held sympathy in abeyance. Men can say disagreeable things without the suggestions of this prompter.
They enjoy the pleasure of self-assertion, the gratification of putting a friend in possession of their exact
impressions. There is a relish for taking down for
its own sake a vein of hardness and cold-bloodedness,
which belongs to some very respectable sort of people, impelling them to give a stone instead of bread,
to utter flinty "I told you so's," cold moralities,
inopportune counsels, and harsh reminders, when the
confiding spirit has laid bare its needs, or its penitence, and asked for sympathy.  Often the mere
knowledge of doing the thing well is motive enough.




Saying Disagreeable Things.         135
It is an irresistible temptation to express one's self
with point; and in fact, half of all the current good
stories are of neatly turned disagreeable things, - not
sneer or satire, but some cold, shivering half-truth, for
which nobody.is the better. Not that dull men are
debarred from the indulgence, but they are clumsy,
and slip at every turn into mere insolence or blunder.
This is their secret of heavy banter,- which is nothing else than harping with stupid persistence on
something unpleasant, with no other view than to
make their object conscious of exposure, and for the
moment smaller than themselves, - in contrast with
the well-mannered jest which, under whatever disguise of depreciation, puts its subject in better humor
with himself than he was before.
In a woman, this practice is not so much an exercise of the intellect as of the heart, speaking under
some souring, embittering influence. Some are habitually ungracious from the working of vulgar rivalries,
or mere grim acidity of nature. These are simply
odious; but it is astonishing what things a woman
sweet as summer will say, under certain conditions
of the affections, to those most important to her, and
for whom she cares most; and how seemingly unconscious she is of the tendency of her words, led on by
jealous self-assertion and fancied ill-usage.  There
is a process of comparison peculiar to this mood, and




I36  - Saying Disagreeable Things.
which can express itself only by disagreeable things,
-by a series of parallels and contrasts, in all of which
she comes out the ascendant and superior. Perhaps
new friends, in all their garish attractions, are contrasted with herself, the old, faithful, original friend,
great in solid worth and refined feeling, or in unshaken fidelity. What chilling doubts, what cruel
disparagement, what ingenuity of misapprehension
attend this temper!  What reflections on the constancy of her friends, what pity and contempt for
their taste, what pathetic regrets, what resignation to
the inevitable fate of a virtue, a spirit, a perception,
which there is not steadiness, or wit, or heart to
value at their true price! The worst of this strain,
the reason why this tone is so disagreeable, - is that
it hits a blot.  It is of the essence of disagreeable
things that in some sense or degree they are true.
This is why they irritate.  For instance, our constancy is never so weak to our own consciousness
as when our friends suspect it. We never see their
social drawbacks clearer than when we are charged
with being influenced by them. New friends are
never in higher favor than when old friends upbraid
us with them.
The main nursery for the science of disagreeable
things is the domestic hearth. Here we do not note
those distinctions of sex which strike us in society.




Saying Disagreeable Things.        I37
Men and women, husbands and wives, brothers and
sisters, are apt to say very much the same class of
disagreeable things to one another, unless good
breeding or good temper interpose to prevent familiarity becoming contempt.  It is wonderful what
moral and refined writers assume to be family habits
in this particular, from which we may suppose the
practice to be more common than our state of civilization would lead us to hope. Certainly we all know,
or have known, families where the strong tyrannize
over the weak, and, in cold blood and in apparent
good-nature, inflict perpetual minute wounds on the
self-love of those about them.  By this means, -
like the Antiquary with his womankind,- a caustic
temper keeps itself civil towards the outer world.
A man can sustain his politeness to ladies in general
by always calling his sister an old woman, or by constantly reminding her of events she would willingly
forget.  A woman can be gracious to her acquaintance and over-indulgent to her children by making
her husband the vent of her ill-humors, - like Mrs.
Glegg, installing herself the constituted check on his
pleasures; — while some people are agreeable to the
whole world, except just those with whom they are
connected by ties of blood, to whom they show
a wholly different phase of character.
Sensitiveness to disagreeable things implies self



138       Saying Disagreeable Things.
mistrust. Only absolutely self-reliant people are impervious to them. We are dependent on others more
than we think for even our own good opinion. We
think best of ourselves when others share our favorable impressions, and no strength of constancy can
prevent our estimate of our friends suffering some
faint fluctuations according to the view which others
take of them. All people have an idea of their
own position towards the world,- though "idea"
is, perhaps, too definite a term,- at any rate, a dim
assumption of a certain standing of which they are
scarcely aware till it is infringed, and which it is the
part of the sayer of disagreeable things to infringe.
We are each the centre of our own world, and thus
have a place in our own eyes which no one can give
us. Something of this half-delusion is indispensable
to carry us through our parts creditably, and the laws
of politeness, on principle, support this degree of pretension. There is a tacit agreement in society that
every individual in it fills his proper place, and that
he and his belongings are what they go for, —that
all our externals fulfil their professions. There is no
Hypocrisy in assuming this of every one we meet.
It is simply not obtruding our private judgment
where its expression would be an impertinence. The
disagreeable thing jars on this nice adjustment. The
speaker has the unjustifiable aim of lowering this




Saying' Disagreeable Things.       139
fancied elevation, whether moral or social; and he
dispels illusions, not, as he supposes, in the interest
of truth on any social or moral view, but really for
selfish ends. He obeys an unamiable impulse to
prove that he is knowing where we are ignorant, wise
where we are foolish, strong where we are weak,that he sees into us and through us, and that it is,
before all things, important that this should be declared and made evident.




ON BEING UNDERSTOOD.
J F modesty would allow men to confess it, we
do not doubt that it is a very common matter
of surprise,  ingenuous surprise, and not a feeling
really to be ashamed of,-why more people do not
like us, care for us, show interest in us. It is very
clear that most people have only a very limited
number of admirers, and-not to speak of admirers
-very few sympathizers, very few who find much
pleasure in their society, or to whom they can feel
of real consequence apart from the substantial services they can render, and beyond the domestic
hearth, with which such speculations as these had
best have nothing to do. Perhaps we are conscious
of some play of thought, some kindness and largeness of heart, some capacities for sympathy, some
tenderness and delicacy of feeling, some readiness
of perception, some spark of fancy or humor only
waiting to be kindled, some good-nature. How is




On being Understood.          I41
it that others do not pay homage to such an array
of good qualities? Some men think they are liked,
- but they are not liked in the degree they suppose
themselves to be. They are the objects of an amount
of cold, patronizing good-will, but they have not the
sort of thing we are meaning, and which so many of
us honestly wonder we don't get. It does not signify
much, - we do without it. We are not sure that violent appreciation would not be a bore, and entail a
great deal of trouble. We would treat it as a scientific question rather than a want of the heart.  It
simply strikes us, one and all, when we come to think
of it, as curious, how extremely few each man cares
for, or gets to care for him, -how very few hit it
together.
We have enumerated the good gifts of which every
one is of course conscious; but we must in candor
acknowledge that in mixed society we do not find
them brought into play and exercised as we should
beforehand expect them to be. Our wonder is, not so
much that men do not greatly care for what they see
in us, but how it happens that, as all these fine qualities are there, they do not contrive to find them out.
As a fact, we are not appreciated. How comes that
about? Why, we may ask with a pardonable warmth
and indignation, do people let us be so dull and uninteresting in their presence, when we have it in us to




142          On being Understood.
be so different? There must certainly be a fault
somewhere.  If society were so ordered.as to meet
our idiosyncrasy, we should make a different appearance. It is becoming a pretty general discovery —
and, therefore, we give it expression- that justice is
not done. We are not brought out. We are suffered
to smoulder. Our lamp is dim for want of air, -
when, if we know ourselves, we have it in us to assist
an illumination.  Most concourses of men are dull.
We have each reason to think it need not be so. We
have called this a "discovery," because this cry of the'
soul is a feature of modern civilization.  It seems
clear that, in the days of our grandfathers, people
used to meet and be entertained without the necessities we here hint at. A certain rude jollity and robustness of powers kept under the finer sensibilities.
We do not deny that even now there are people who
find society a field, who are courted, who shine, who,
as the phrase is, make themselves agreeable.  But
this scarcely affects our argument; for is not the best
talker that ever possessed the ear of a dinner-table
careful to let us know that we see but the outside,
that his inner self is never reached, that he all the
while languishes for real sympathy, -that he has
depths which a careless, laughing world takles no
pains to search into?
We believe that, if Dr. Johnson lived in our time




On beinzg Understood.         143
he would consider himself not understood, -an idea,
as far as we can see, that never once entered his head,
after the world took him up; and we have no doubt
that this conviction would have hampered his flow,
and, so to say, shut him up in many a company
where he made the grandest figure. And this probably explains why there are no Dr. Johnsons now,
and no anybodies of that sort. People were not in
those days so dependent on somebody to draw them
out. In another point, there is a difference. If our
vanity is not less exacting than theirs, it is more fastidious. A man in these.days is jealous of being listened to and cared for merely as a lion, merely as an
author. The idea is that there is something beyond
what shows itself in work achieved, - something
more intensely the man's self than what comes out
of him. When Cumberland intimated that he wanted
to be treated, not as a writer of plays, but as a gentleman, the world of his day did not know what he was
at, and thought he gave himself airs; but every successful author would say so now, and every one would
take the feeling for granted. Not that our fathers
were wholly without the notion of getting at a man,
or unconscious that some had this gift more than
others, but they still did not touch our modern strain.
Thus it was said of Sir Walter Scott, that he could
not travel with a man in a coach without learn



144a          On being Understood.
ing something from him. No doubt he could have
learnt something from us, but would he have understood us? There is the question. It is not what we
know, but what we are, that is at the root of this sensitive aspiration. A desire to reveal our very inside
of all- with, at the same time, a bashful recoil
from the operation- characterizes the modern mind,
which, in despair of individual sympathy, often
throws itself upon the public as the only true confidant; so that the more reserve prevails in society,
each member of which we know just a little, the
more we seem ready to reveal our secrets to our
readers and hearers, — if they are only in crowds
enough, -of whom individually we know nothing.
Some good souls, approaching this question, have
said that there is something in everybody that will
repay the trouble of investigation if it could only be
got at. Our experience, we own, does not reach so
far.  The Germans —who, as Charles Lamb says,
are profounder than we —have theorized prettily on
the mystery of dulness, which they cannot believe in
as a process of nature.  Thus, Tieck describes or
conceives of a conversational alchemist whose "richly intellectual discourse made everybody who talked
with him clear-headed and clever"; and he goes on
to assert, that there is some fruitful soil in every mind
which should bring forth peculiar products, and from




On bezing Understood.          145
which the originality of the individual should proceed.
In most cases, he grants, this has been checked by
neglect or conventional culture. He complains, beside, that most conversations have simply for their
object that each should hear himself speak, without
any desire that the other should express either his
outer or his inner mind.  "But where a master in the
science of men chances to touch these wasted instruments, he knows how to draw wondrous tones even
firom the most spoiled." This word "wondrous " explains the want of the age. It is the mystic "inner
self" that must somehow be drawn forth. Not that
we profess to go all lengths with the German in the
universality of these precious qualities. It is a theory which certainly does not commend itself to general acceptance; for we see that the desire to reveal
the inner self tends rather to a monopoly, - that is,
the craving to be understood leads inevitably in practice to the formation of cliques. The word is not
in good favor; but the thing, however, demoralizing,
we believe to be exceedingly agreeable. When a few
people get together with this view, there springs out
of the intercourse a satisfaction, not to say elation,
not to be attained in any other way. It is impossible to get the appreciation of the whole world; but
it is easy to think a very few people all the world
to us. Where a coterie is established under a tacit
7                         J




I46          On being Understood.
agreement that each member shall be understood,
there springs a sense of importance and consequent indulgence of every man's humor, a worship
of characteristics, a reckless self-reliance, a fearlessness and abandon of expression, a disregard and even
forgetfulness of every way of viewing things out of
the charmed circle, which is more like liberty, community, and fraternity, than we can expect to find
elsewhere. We are sure of sanction; we are radiant
with genial eshSrit de corps; there is a community of
thought and achievement. We may be foolish, but
what of that? we feel clever; and, moreover, we are
cleverer, -our thoughts more vivacious, our intelligence more ready, in the particular groove that we
have assigned to it. The historical French coteries
may be ridiculous to look back upon, - may' have
strayed into  unbounded  extravagances; but how
clever they were, and how they did enjoy themselves, and look down upon the rest of the world!
And our own literary annals show similar combinations; on the same principle of making it everybody's interest to extol, draw out, set off the other.
Nothing can be more cold and chill than the outer
world to one of these cockered, indulged, drawnout spirits, beyond the prestige of its own circle;
but the tendency of the world is to defer to people
who set store by themselves, and a coterie of suf



On being Understood.          I47
ficient spirit and pretension secures for itself real
serviceable reputation, though the excluded may affect satire, and indulge in word-disparagement.
But the real triumphs of a coterie, and what comes
of it when people do understand one another to the
backbone, must be looked for in another hemisphere.
In this our American cousins go ahead, as in everything else, unimpeded by the phlegm of the old
world, and armed in a panoply of self-confidence,.really glorious in its unconscious daring. The circle
we have now more especially in view has Mr. Emerson for its historian, and had Margaret Fuller for its
priestess. In the depth and niceness of penetration
which intimate knowledge of each other induced,
we must not wonder that this school uses language
as yet obscure to the uninitiated. Thus the lady
had one fault, — that she was "too intellectual, and
too conscious of intellectual relation, so that she was
not sufficiently self-centred in her own personality,
and hence something of duality"; but whether we
can understand her or not, it is clear she had the
gift we desire in our friends. "No one ever came
so near"; "her mood applied itself to the mood of
her companion, point by point, in the most limber,
sinuous, vital way"; "she applied herself to the
mood of her companion as the sponge applies itself
to water," and the results are just what each one




148          On being Understood.
craves for himself: —" You fancy you know D.,"
she writes.  " It is too absurd; you have never seen
him. When I found him here sitting like a statue
I was alarmed; thought him ill. You sit with courteous, unconfiding smile, and suppose him to be a
mere man of talent. He is so with you. But the
moment I was alone with him he was another creature. His manner, so glassy and elaborate before,
was full of soul, and the tones of his voice entirely
different."
" And I have no doubt," said Mr. Emerson, "that
she saw expressions, heard tones, and received
thoughts from her companions, which no one ever
heard from the same parlies." (So he writes it.) But
if she was this to the uninitiated, to lovers and artists,
gray statesmen, old aunts, coach travellers, - if they
one and all found themselves turning over their most
secret treasures for her inspection, - how was it with
the congenial circle of kindred spirits? We can only
assure our readers that the subjects of discussion in
that circle, and the way of treating them, as reported
to us, are so great, so stupendous, so deep, so vast, so
comprehensive of all that nature has to show, so exhaustive of all that philosophers have thought and
poets have dreamt, that one page of the inspired
" Margaret " and her coterie seems to embrace the
universe.  And, what is much to our point, -as




On being Understood.           149
proving the stimulating effects of forming one of a
charmed and perfectly understood circle, - whatever
the subject, whether the question is, What is life?
or, What particular view had people in worshipping
Bacchus or Apollo? whether the discourse turns on
the soul of beauty, or searches into the very secrets
of the fine arts, or dives into the abyss of motives, all
the members of the little society were equal to the
occasion, and could say something positively clever.
Such are the magical effects of an exact pervading
sympathy.  "All satisfied her," and all with whom
she conversed surprised her by their power; though,
as her historian candidly confesses, "we were all
obliged to recall Margaret's testimony when we found
we were sad blockheads to other people."
But in showing that American transcendentalists
are clever, we seem to have wandered worlds away
from our starting-point, which asked why we are dull.
We have not, after all, the least wish to be demigods
like Mr. Errierson; but why have we nothing to say
to our acquaintance of twenty years' standing? We
talk of subjects that interest us, and on which we
could say something. Why do we not say it? Why
would not our friend care to hear it if we did? And
we, in our turn, why are we so dead to merits in him
that other people vouch for? Each is sensible of a
glow, a fervor, a sparkle, which keeps himself warm,




I50          On being Understood.
- why is it so feeble a glimmer to the other? The
intercourse of mind is a mystery; what are the barriers so invisible, yet so invincible, which make association so often a mere trial and delusion I We meet
only at points, -we touch only with our claws,we are justified in denouncing each the other as a
heavy fellow, for so in truth we are.
We suppose it is a continuance of that great necessary evil, that unsocial decree promulged at the
Tower of Babel. Possibly, the pressure of this primeval ordinance takes from us any strong constraining
desire to please, except under circumstances tempting to our vanity, and makes us realize the trouble
of being agreeable, - which is, indeed, to not a few
the hardest thing they are ever put to. The world
must be peopled, and if every man had liked his
neighbor, enjoyed his company, and found something
to say to him, people would have stuck together like
bees in a swarm, and three parts of the earth to this
day would have been desert.




STUDY OF CHARACTER.
W        E hear a great deal about knowledge of character, and it is, no doubt, a fine thing to
suppose ourselves possessed of an insight into the
motives and interior mechanism of all our acquaintance; but. we have not that entire faith in it as a
genuine attainment, - as a practical, substantial benefit, as a protection from mistake, as a guide through
life, with which its pretensions ought to inspire us.
The characters men draw in books hang together in
a wonderful harmony of parts. If we had to deal
with them we should know what we were about.
They are amazingly consistent, and we exclaim, How
natural! what a wonderful knowledge of human nature has Scott, or Richardson, or Dickens, or Charlotte Bronte! But the difficulty in real life is that
people are not natural, —that they are inconsistent,
- that their deviations from their proper selves would
disgrace a novel and spoil any author's reputation.




152            Study of Character.
Take some men and compare them one year with another, one day with another, and there is absolutely
scarce a trace of the former man. Hamlet puzzles
the commentators because he is not always reconcilable with himself; but, surely, all of us can point
out some one or more compared with whom Hamlet
is plain sailing.  We suspect that great artists, attempting to draw from life, feel this, — are embarrassed with the incongruities and perversities of humanity, and have to convey an idea as they can, by
antithesis and by uniting opposites.  Even Shakespeare has to describe Wolsey by this method. We
may always detect a real character amongst shadows
in a novel by his want of harmony. The more true
he is to the writer's observation, the less natural he
is, - that is, if it be nature for your actions to follow
in a sort of necessary sequence from your qualities.
So Pope felt embarrassed with his mighty subject,
and hopeless of reducing the study to a science:
"See the same man in vigor, or the gout,
Alone, in company, in place or out;
Early at business, and at hazard late,
Mad at a fox-hunt, wise at a debate;
Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball,
Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall."
It is impossible to draw such characters. They are
either a satire, like Pope's Wharton and Dryden's




Study of Character.            I53
Villiers, or they are slurred over, all blemishes and
puzzles lost under a glaze of encomium. Charles
Lamb has a pretty attempt at a portrait of an uncle
in " My Relations," wherein "he limps," after Sterne,
"in my poor antithetical manner, as the fates have
given me grace and talents"; but the result is, that
we feel the man would be intolerable to us, though
the writer "would not have him one jot or tittle other
than he is." Thus he has failed to convey his idea,
as every one must who attempts to draw a character
by the process of pairing contradictory qualities.
From Bacon's Essays we might infer that men
studied character in his day with a very deliberate
intention of getting some substantial good by it. He
has a dozen excellent recipes for turning a man round
your thumb.  "If you would work any man, you must
either know his nature or his fashions, and so lead
him; or his ends, and so persuade him; or his weakness and disadvantages, and so awe him," and so
on; but it has been found that arts reduced to rule
do not go much way in informing men what is within
the smooth exterior of their friends and neighbors.
No doubt experience teaches men, under favorable
circumstances, to get the knack of all this, though
diplomatists have left off imparting their discoveries;
but the study of character does not progress as a
written science. Not inquiries into the nature of
7*




I54           Study of Character.
man, physiognomy, phrenology, theories of temperaments, nor the rest of it, advance us one step beyond
the old instinct which belongs to some people, and
not to others, which fails the oftenest in all difficult
crises, and which no one can impart to his fellow.
However, every one assumes himself to have a share
of this instinct. Few of us would like to be supposed
wholly in the dark as to the inner workings of the
minds with which we have to do, though the knowledge we assume implies some sense of partial superiority, the presumption of some vantage-ground lifting us above the object of our survey. We read, we
interpret, we combine, we reconcile, we penetrate,
and, consciously or unconsciously, we are perpetually
occupied with the distinct features and peculiarities
of that portion of the human family that comes under
our observation. Perhaps when most earnestly at
work we are least aware of what we are doing. The
more intimate and habitual our scrutiny, and the
more interest or affection stimulate and quicken our
perception, the less we realize our occupation. Domestic affection, indeed, has lost some of its delicacy
when members of a family get up one another's character from the point of view of a deliberate survey.
Still, we do come to such an acquaintance with our
subject that we may be said to know him in that
phase of life under which we contemplate him; but




Study of Character.           155
here we stop. Knowledge of character, to be real,
- to show true, thorough insight, - ought to be able
to prophesy; it ought to embrace such a view of
principles of action, inborn and acquired qualities,
natural bias and subjection to influence, as to be
able to foresee how circumstances will tell on any
mind or temper with which we profess to be acquainted. But who can do this? Who can separate
native character from the bands of habit and the ties
of society? Which of us knows himself so well as
to guess what he would be, and do, and think, when
put out of his present way of life? - much less what
others would do; whatever may be said of self-deception, it is certain that every man knows secrets about
himself which no one else has surmised, and which
are indispensable to the foresight of which we speak.
Recognized knowledge of character is an attainment, and, if real, is founded on instinct quickened
by observation, experience, or interest. The very
word character is not understood without education.
Amongst people who have no discernment, or who
do not use it in the selection of their choicer phrases,
character is, like " individual," or " party," a synonyme
for man or woman. Thus we have heard a fat old
man defined as a "stout character."  With a vast
many people the word has a simply technical, marketable value, and, standing alone, implies the assem



I56           Study of Character.
blage of moral and physical qualities which make a
good cook or butler. With the police it has a wholly
opposite signification, and calling a man a character
is giving him a bad name, and next to hanging. All
who come under their cognizance as dangerous members of the community are charac/ers. The persons
who, if they know no harm of them, are yparties,
are characters if they do. Thus they talk of fighting
characters, disorderly characters, characters on a
race-course, lodging-houses full of characters, and
so on. Nor is this use of the term, in its spirit,
wholly without precedent in the classes above them.
There are many people who regard anything erratic,
any quality in a man which marks him different from
his fellows, anything characteristic, as something
questionable and to be shunned.  Their idea of
praise is to say that a man has no peculiarities.
When they like a person, their mode of expressing
their liking is to divest him of every distinctive feature. If a man, he is as good a fellow as ever
walked; if a woman, as nice a little woman as ever
lived; if a girl, she falls under the universal encomiums of "good-natured," "unaffected," "with no nonsense about her"; while their ideal in every case is
absolute uniformity to the common standard, and
"always the same" comprises all they have to bestow of commendation. In fact, to a good many




Study of Character.          I57
people, any new or unexpected exhibition of character is painful from their utter inability to make it
out. The language of tempers, minds, and qualities,
is one for which they have neither grammar nor dictionary. They don't know what may be going to
happen to them when they see them at work, to
what amount of humiliation and discomfort such
strange novelties may not subject them. In their
case this dread may be a safeguard; there is a great
risk in having to do with people who can't be classed,
- with strong qualities which they choose to direct
in their own independent fashion.  And this no
doubt accounts for what we have often observed,that a practised insight into the minds and tempers
of others does not preserve men from great mistakes, from taking up people whom they have to lay
down again, from sudden friendships, and as sudden
coolings.  Indeed, the more conspicuous mistakes
of this sort we have in our eye are of people who
justly pique themselves on their penetration. Complex characters, so alarming to the incurious, are
the delight of the professed student of his species.
We all, as we have said, know people who will not
come under any definition, either for good or evil, -
who can't be described in few words, who are made
up of opposites, to whom we can find no clew, who
are forever perplexing us, always running counter




158           Study of Character.
to our previous opinion, baffling our foresight and
sagacity. These never get fair treatment from people who like to form a judgment at a glance, who
believe in transparent characters, and talk of windows in men's breasts. But the student does not
object to sinuosities and obscurities, is not offended
by a touch of the Jesuit, hails every difficulty as a
stimulus to his ingenuity, and naturally likes to set
his individual discernment against the judgment of
a blundering and illiberal world.
Of course, there are no absolutely transparent characters. They are as pure an invention as that other
fiction of infallible readers of character.  There is
something in every man of which we have no consciousness, hid from himself and hid from us, and
which nothing but the event will lay bare. Nobody,
whatever his penetration, can be sure what his best
friend, or the man he knows best, will do under untried  or startling circumstances.  Some influence
counter to all he has had the opportunity to observe
asserts itself in the crisis and contradicts every foregone conclusion. Experience, of course, is better
able to cope with new situations, but only in showing that, when we are beyond our actual knowledge,
it is safer to rely on the impulses common to all men
than on the consistent working of individual character. Thus it is found neither wise nor safe to assume




Study of Character.             I59
anybody, whatever the extent of our observation, to
be quite above the motives of action incident to his
new sphere; and while the most agreeable manner
goes on the assumption of our being what we ought
to be, the most judicious calculations are made on
the principle that our friend will be influenced by
what influences the mass of mankind. Again, no
training, nor instinct even, can enable a man to comprehend any character in those points which are beyond his reach. There are a dozen sorts of knowledge, all accurate in their way, each taking up a
character from  a different point of view.  Men's
weakness and faults, says Bacon again, "are best
known to their enemies; their virtues and abilities
to their friends; their customs and times from their
servants; their conceits and opinions from their familiar friends with whom they discourse most."
"c How many pictures of one'mind' we view,
All how unlike each other, all how true!"
A narrow yet penetrating intellect sees a certain way
into a higher intelligence, but beyond that is in the
dark, and that which is beyond may involve the
deepest and most distinctive parts of the man. Satire constantly works in this way,- not only the keen,
pointed satire we find in books, but the frivolous, shallow satire of private life, - true as far as it goes, but
not attaining to the real inner man at all.




i6o           Study of Character.
If, then, study of character can go so little way,if it so poorly fulfils its pretensions, -what is its use
and purpose? No doubt things may be very useful
in their degree without doing all they profess to do.
We should jostle one another frightfully without some
perceptions of character. Imperfect as it is, it is of
enormous social value, but, then, rather as tact than
insight. Women are, we suspect, the most indefatigable students of character, though not the most systematic.  They are this without knowing it. Thus
we see them looking up to the men about them —
husband, lover, or brother —as heroes, and all the
while acting on a minute acquaintance with a tribe of
repulsive or unamiable faults. They will act on the
knowledge that a man is mean, envious, jealous, malignant, ill-tempered, and never seem to know a word
of it, - will screen him, humor him, use all their tact
to keep his failings out of sight, and actually at the
same time think him  magnanimous.  But also they
are conscious students.  It is wonderful with what
patient investigation a keen-sighted woman will set
herself to reach the motives and depths of some character that interests her. The subject may not, perhaps, to the masculine apprehension, be especially
worthy of so much pains, but in some incomprehensible way he may hit her turn for hero-worship. We
submit that the distinction does not always go by




Study of Character.            16I
merit, nor yet by success.  Let it only be a "fine
natural character" in which the war of temperaments
has fair play, - let only strength and weakness, gentleness and obstinacy, energy and indolence, power
and helplessness, show themselves by turns unchecked
by too stringent a self-discipline, - and she sits as at
a tournament. Of course a certain belief in some intrinsic greatness or other sustains her curiosity.  She
assumes that the puzzle is worth finding out, - which
the secret of all this reserve, or sadness, or impetuosity, or harshness does not always prove to be. But
it is a labor that brings its own reward in her case as
in all others. The study of character may not have
such substantial benefits as some suppose, - it may
not place its votary beyond the risk of being deceived.
The student may, and often is, taken -in by a knave,
and mistaken in a friend, and out in his reckonings,
but he is always amused. To him, and him alone, all
the world's a stage and life a drama. He is forever
at the play. He is sustained, too, by a constant sense
of superiority, -he is always in the lofty attitude of a
judge. What irritates others is to him only food for
speculation. Indeed, we do not see what right a man
has ever to be taken by surprise or to get angry with
those actions in others which are in accordance with
his preconceived notions of character, even though
they may be performed upon himself; while, if they
K




I62.          Study of Character.
are contrary to his justly grounded expectations, here
is a mystery to solve, a new phase to study, an intricacy to unravel, which should keep his intellect clear
and temper cool, though the unenlightened are in a
passion. And, last, in the intercourse of every day he
is at an enormous advantage. He need make no blunders and tread on no one's toes. While we plod on
in the dark, he has an inner light always showing him
the way. Nor need he ever find society dull. Everybody'has a character of some sort, and a thousand to
one but there are points in it which will well repay the
pains of investigation.  It is the unobservant alone
that never find anything interesting, curious, or wonderful in their path.




PREJUDICES.
IT is part of human nature to hedge about everything it loves with restrictions. We cannot like
a thing without isolating it from what we do not like.
We are driven at once to comparisons, which, by enhancing what we care for, lower something else, so
that what was before simply indifferent becomes objectionable. If we have likes, we must have dislikes; if we have strong light, we must have shadow.
These dislikes, these shadows, these exclusions, are
our prejudices. We do not feel the full worth of
what we value till there is something which by contrast we despise. Warm sympathies are not found
without a capacity for strong antipathies. There are
people, no doubt, who begin from the other end, —
who, through satiety or disgust at what they know,
prefer the unknown, whose prejudices are not the
opposites of their likings, but hatreds and antipathies at first hand. Cynicism and misanthropy, how



64                 Pr~ejudices.
ever, are not acknowledged sources of prejudice.
Their workings go by another name; they are malignant and aggressive, and tend to actual mischief.
Even at best, prejudices cannot be so defined in
words as to look well. They are cramping, narrowing things; incompatible with perfect justice and charity. The man who loves his country till he despises
all other countries is very apt to love his county till
he despises all other counties, and his parish, or his
clan, or his family, to the exclusion of every other
parish, clan, and family, till the amount of love in
his heart will bear no proportion to the contempt
generated and kept in action by this perpetual process of comparison. Even in moderation, and'as the
most respectable people hold their prejudices, we
all trust in a higher transcendent state to be without them; and nobody of decent feeling but looks
forward to more than tolerating in another world the
sight, and possibly the companionship, of persons
against whom he entertains the strongest present
prejudice.  But, nevertheless, we do not see how
prejudices are altogether to be dispensed with in
this sublunary sphere. They are an inseparable element of human weakness, which would be still weaker and more helpless without them.  Who is so open
to every temptation as the man who boasts himself
to have outgrown every prejudice incident to his birth




Prejudices.               I65
and training? The very notion of being thus divested, even if it were possible, which it is not, is
that of living in a glass house, -a bare, shivering,
comfortless cosmopolitanism. It is well to be modest about our prejudices, as vaguely conscious that
they will not stand reason's cold pervading daylight;
but a studious and comprehensive renunciation is
like giving up ownership and personal appropriation
in our surroundings. It is quarrelling with the very
ground we stand on, because it does not put us at
an elevation commanding an unbroken horizon. We
would rather be the victim of every insular prejudice
than have no British preferences.  It would argue
higher powers of appreciation, and a clearer perception; for the merits of the best things do not lie
on the surface, - experience alone acquaints us with
them. Therefore, as far as we know, the country we
are happy in is immeasurably superior to others which
we know less, or are iwholly ignorant of. It is this
full appreciation of what is known which makes critics of all ages so subject to prejudice, —which is the
zeal of partial knowledge, -and the best of them
only infallible in the manner with which they are familiar. Intense pleasure in, and comprehension of,
certain forms of grace, beauty, and perfection have
a tendency to restrict the mind to those particular
forms and methods which first opened the mind to




I66                Prefjidices.
such influences. It is easy for a man to be fair and
candid between rival poets or painters or styles, if
he has not eye or ear or thought fully to appreciate
any. We may wonder at Addison now for his almost
insolent expression of preference of Grecia'n over
Gothic architecture; but we do not doubt his imagination "was filled with something great -and amazing" in entering the Pantheon, —a thrill which the
building is worthy to inspire, but which it needs a
finer and more cultivated taste to experience than is
possessed by many a reader who despises the prejudices of cold classicism.  Mr. Ruskin's prejudices
would make even tolerance intolerant; but unquestionably his admiration of Turner, though in a good
degree merited by its object, is beyond the capacity
of an ordinary observer, who thinks himself more
reasonable while he is certainly less discerning. Jeffrey's persecution of Wordsworth was partly due to
his ear and heart being preoccupied by the sweetness of other melodies that had but a slight hold
on duller senses, which for this reason. were more
open to new, but probably still feeble, impressions.
To us the point of regret is, not when these prejudices are strong, and so vigorously maintained that
they carry persuasion'with them, but when, as we
sometimes see, the critic develops unexpected caprice, turns upon himself, is spiteful on his old idol,




Preyjudices.              I67
and confounds his followers by an utter retractation.
This is a spectacle to weaken our faith in man.
What has been forcibly expressed has not, it seems,
been strongly felt. In fact, a man never makes a
poorer figure than in thus unscrupulously discarding
as prejudices what he had impressed upon others
as convictions. While he parades his emancipation
with the airy elation which belongs to this attitude
of mind, we think him shallow and trivial. He has,
after all, seen no deeper into things than we have;
his confidence has been but a knack, a trick of the
tongue. It does not happen to the stronger class of
minds - minds privileged to influence others - thus
to turn round upon their own congenial prejudices.
There is too much truth in them as they see them.
It is a great misfortune, and perhaps one of the
greatest trials that can befall a keen original mind,
to be born in an atmosphere of mean or narrow prejudices, - for the one reason amongst others, that there
is peril in the act of casting them off. Our notions,
and even our beliefs, are bound up in one bundle.
Untie the string, and there is a general scattering.
A prejudice hastily got rid of imparts to all who are
not gifted with an exceptional discretion, a wild sense
of freedom extremely apt to degenerate into license.
It is this that has made the, more prudent minds
of every age submissive to its prejudices.  Rebellion




i68               Prejudices.
is such an extreme measure, puts the mind in such
a questionable frame, that it must be reserved for
essentials. There are not many people who would be
the better for the sudden loss of every unreasonable
habit of thought. We see, some examples in our day
of this form of enlightenment, and they are not encouraging. When a man, and more especially when
a woman, awakes to the conviction that he or she has
been the dupe, through youth and dawning thought,
of a string of absurd restrictions, superstitious observances, and useless sacrifices, — has been held the
slave of local or family traditions, which owe all their
credit to custom and all their weight to the fact that
they have never yet been disputed, - the reaction
of independence is a dangerous transition. It has
happened to able and witty exponents of prejudice
to show in their own persons that it might have been
well for them to have retained every stupid check and
heavy fetter of their youth.  Illumination on the
tyranny of custom  leaves some minds defenceless
against invasion from every opposing quarter, till
each tie seems a prejudice and a trammel to be discarded.  The people, they are ready to argue, who
held mistaken ideas as to what constitutes prudence
in affairs, and on the right modes of spending time,
and on rules of social conduct, and who clung to their
delusions as the soberest and most respectable of




Prejudices.               I69
truths, may also have been mistaken in their rigid
morality and implicit religious faith. The floodgates
of doubt are opened,- a spirit of scepticism opposes
itself to the old dogmatism. The mind which feels
that it has been taken in allows itself to extend the
bounds of supposed deception, and sets up a standard
of virtue, which, in more points than we care to
specify, is a departure from the old ideal.
The habit thus formed of subjecting every timehonored belief and principle of action to the eversitting tribunal of a man's own reason, under the
pressure of present influences and temptations, is a
worse habit, for all minds but the highest,. than unreasoning submission to custom. There are very few
indeed who can carry things in absolute suspense till
the judgment has given its award. For, after all,
most prejudices have some discipline and restraint
in them; they cannot be indulged but at some expense and sacrifice. We hear of men being the slaves
of their prejudices, which implies that they forego for
their sake what would otherwise be agreeable. Thus,
many old people, under this stern domination, refuse
themselves all the comfort which relaxation of posture
would afford them. They will persist in-sitting bolt
upright, not because it is not pleasant to lean back
in an easy-chair, or repose on a sofa, but because
they have a prejudice which they like better than
8




170                Preijudices.
bodily ease. Who can over-estimate the sacrifice to
an idea, however mistily apprehended, of that female
politician who, we are told, parted with the best cook
in England because the woman had said something
to her fellow-servants that seemed to favor the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act! When the Irish
were starving in hopeless famine, they clung to their
prejudice against sucking-pig.  They and the pigs
might die of hunger, but they would not lower themselves so far in their own eyes as to prolong life by
such means, however tempting to grosser instincts.
In this way prejudices are a constant source of content, rendering men contemptuous to all forms of
novelty, and more than reconciling them to things as
they are, even where change holds out the premium
of undoubted physical advantages. But for this, how
would certain portions of the earth's surface remain
inhabited? how would many a life of restraint be
cheerfully endured?  For this reason, the inconvenient prejudices of subordinates are often favored
as signs of honesty and sincerity, and proofs of their
being guided by higher principles than those of cold
self-interest.
It is not easy to distinguish refinement - a fastidious rejection of a hundred things for which severe
reason can give no account - from prejudice. Especially feminine delicacy, and much of the niceness and




Prejudices                171
particularity which makes women graceful and charming, seems to have a touch of prejudice in it. Thus
travelling, seeing the world, roughing it, as it is
called, are commended by the bolder and more independent spirits of the sex, for the special reason that
they rub off prejudice, and correct the mere blind
caution of ignorance.  Results, however, tend to
prove that what they call prejudices, and what in
discussion look like them, are but veiled truths,
subtly adapted to the nature that holds them, but
too fine, complicated, and delicate for argument and
definition. It is a suspicion of this that makes men
consider the least accountable prejudices as the
dearest part of themselves, as conveying a sense of
intuitive knowledge. And things are so constituted
in this world, everything is so permeated with imperfections, that, when driven hard, a reason and defence, - an excuse, at least, - for the most flagrant,
can generally be found. An ingenious person never
wants food and sanction for the maintenance of his
prejudices.  " Does not this," asks Dr. Johnson,
"confirm old Meynell's observation, -'For anything
I see, foreigners are fools'?"  And an old lady,
lamenting the disappearance of wigs, found very
presentable arguments in proof of her assertion, that,
"Now all men wear their own hair, you never know
one man from another."  As a very needful clog




I72                Prejudices.
upon change, indeed, we always welcome the prejudices of the old. What would become of us if there
were not some to maintain that old things are better
than new? But there are some who, in this respect,
are always old, —who are born antiquarians. It is
wonderful, where the mind is of this order, how soon
a compact phalanx of prejudices, an invincible jealousy of innovation, will be formed; and how what
has once, in earliest years, recommended itself as
fitting, will establish itself as the ideal, never to be
departed from. Where this habit belongs to a sensifive temperament, quick to apprehend and strong to
retain, it forms an interesting and influential character; but it is essential that the prejudices should
be the opposites of strong, just, and spontaneous
likings. The most mischievous prejudices, carried
on from generation to generation, are not of this
order. They are those of interest rather than feeling, and are indulged for the holder's own ease and
profit. Such are the prejudices of class against class,
of the landed interest against trade, of the privileged
against those who threaten to destroy their monopoly.
These are, many of them, selfish at the core, though
what is selfish, as one man holds it, may be but a
distorted manifestation of a true principle as maintained by another.  It may be loyalty and devotion
rendered ugly and grotesque by faults of training




Preaidices.              173
and narrow  intellect. When Lady Margaret Bellenden would have plunged her Whig prisoner into
her "pit or principal dungeon, which, as being only
two storeys under ground, could not be unwholesome," it argued no unnatural cruelty. Her mind
was warped from its nature by strong party prejudice, which would not suffer her to realize that Covenanters were men.  And popular prejudices have
sanctioned the grossest tyrannies and the most revolting cruelty from the same blinding cause, though
unquestionably the habit of such prejudice might,
if left to itself without any counteracting influences,
result in another Kingdom of Dahomey, which has
lately been indulged with a sacrifice of two thousand
human beings simply in deference to a national prejudice, and to keep up the good old customs of the
country.
Perhaps men's most virulent prejudices have a
close affinity with what they most care for, from
which they are separated by an invisible line. Thus,
religious parties that hold amnost every belief in common, hate one another most fervently; and even
where a man neither knows his own opinions nor
those of his theological opponent, it is very possible for a strong prejudice to exist, founded on a
mere supposition of minute difference. Indeed, a
good many people's religion is mainly seen in the




I74                Prejudices.
number and violence of ignorant antipathies. Except that persons cannot be detached from things,
one might say that people may have what prejudices
they please but personal ones, so long as they do
not interfere with the rights of others, and that private people may extend the privilege to persons out
of their sphere. How, for example, can we grudge
the rustic politician some unfounded ideas about Mr.
Gladstone or Lord Russell? But prejudices that doggedly maintain themselves under real intercourse are
dangerous, evil things. To be consciously the object of a prejudice is of all things the most discouraging, and the most certain to bring about its own
justification: for who can act according to his best
nature under hostile observation? We have assumed
that all people, as being mortal, have some prejudices, nor do we wish our friends to occupy themselves in a perpetual eradication of every feeling,
liking, or opinion for which they cannot give a reason that shall convince all the world; but it is mean
to be the slaves and victims of prejudice.  A generous nature always shows that it is master over its
prejudices, - that it can, upon occasion, act in direct
opposition to the most cherished of them, and sweep
them aside at will. Thus, opposing heads of parties
often astonish their followers by an almost ostentatious magnanimity, when brought face to face and




Prejzudices.               175
within sight of each other's great qualities; and, in
fact, there is an effusion and sudden sense of enlargement, evidently very agreeable while it lasts,
in these transient amnesties, — sometimes even betraying the principals, drawn towards each other by
a sense of kindred gifts, into an expression of contempt for the restricted sympathies which own their
sway.  And the snub, though ungracious, has its
uses, as impressing a needful lesson of liberality,
free from that danger to the partisan's humility
which we have seen to be a frequent attendant on
the flash of enlightenment and the too hasty divesture of prejudice.




SHIRKING.
T HERE is a form of evasion which can only be
succinctly expressed by the word we have ventured to place at the head of this paper. Human
weakness naturally has recourse to slang, as being
tender and indulgent in its satire, with no derivations
telling awkward tales and bringing ugly charges; but
if there is a word to be found in any dictionary that
means the same thing as that we conceive to be
forced upon us, our apology must be that we do not
know it. Procrastination, that thief of time, is no
doubt head and chief of shirkers in act and performance, and makes more shirkers than any other influence. But at its worst it only shows the passive form,
and says To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.
It does not even whisper to itself " Never," — its one
change from the old cry is the hypocritical " Too
late." The procrastinator, then, does shirk, but the
shirker proper intends to shirk, and takes a resolve.




Shirkintg.                I77
Both states of mind recognize a duty, and own an
obligation, which neither performs; but the one always feebly means to do it, while the other as feebly
concludes to do it not. Both faintly outrage conscience, both infuse a sneaking sense of qualm and
failure; and if, morally, procrastination has the best
of it from the presence of some ineffectual good intention, shirking, on the other hand, by owning the
dignity of a resolution, however indefensible, in some
sort strikes a balance.  We give this as a point of.
difference; it may not, however, be the difference it
seems. Neither we nor the man himself can ever be
sure he meant to do a thing till he does it. It may
only be that the procrastinator is always expecting
fate to interpose some obstacle to the disagreeable
duty, while the shirker learns to regard himself as
his own fate.
We have taken procrastination as one word that
might be substituted for that of our choice, because
so many who shirk attribute their failure to this cause,
and because many historical examples were procrastinators.  Hamlet, in our eyes, was not mad, but he
shirked a'task imposed upon him; and his mind,
being of heroic proportions, suffered the pangs of indecision in a heroic degree. Coleridge and DeQuincey were procrastinators, and also shirkers of every
duty and responsibility that either nature or their own
8*                          L




I78                Shirkinig.
act involved them in. But, in fact, there are a hundred other motives to shirk what is unpleasant. We
are by no means all of us procrastinators, but we are
all of us shirkers, as being men. No temperament
can save us. Only the best men, and those most
under discipline, do not shirk in great things. There
are people, indeed, who, seen at their best, and not
too near, might seem to escape this pusillanimity of
our nature,- who wish to do all things like men,
not only their show and conspicuous actions, - who
might appear to live by the precept,
"When thou dost purpose aught within thy power,
Be sure to do it, though it be but small";
but we cannot live with them without finding, or
even without having forced on us, a weak place somewhere, just to show that they are of the same flesh
and blood.
It does not do to say of a merely selfish person,
that he shirks his duties: a man must have feeling
and conscience to realize them first. Nor is it, perhaps, correct to speak of any one shirking great acknowledged duties; for, if they are shirked, it is as
not owning their true importance. Harsh, rough,
and brutal natures ignore and disown their obligations, - they do not shirk them; this is the part of
metaphysicians, who can explain everything away, and




Shirking.                179
of amiable persons, men of sensibility and refinement,
whose resolution is not equal to their perception of
right. Imagination, indeed, is a great assistant to
this posture of mind. A ready power of conjuring
up possible contingencies makes some people shirk
very obvious, and what, to most men, seem easy
duties.  The possibility of something disagreeable
happening is a much greater terror to many, perhaps
to most, than the actual calamity would be; and if,
instead of doing a thing that has to be done, a man
once sets himself to consider all the possible difficulties and embarrassments that may attend the performance, he will never do it at all. All the people we
know as shirkers are persons who have a very keen
appreciation of the disagreeable, and find many things
intolerable which active working minds disregard.
They are even disinterestedly alive to the dangers
and horrors of certain lines of action.  They cannot understand going ahead against a nameless fear,
and would shirkfor others as they do for themselves.
The most successful men, we are disposed to think,
are those of an exactly opposite temperament, who
have force and clear-sightedness to see the advantage of shirking nothing, -the clear sight, we mean,
of common sense. Thus, men called par excellence
"worldly," often shame those who call them so by
their unflinching conduct under natural temptations




i 80               Shirkinzg.
to shirk, — under annoyances, wounds to pride and
consequence, or irksome exactions on their time and
patience, -under a hundred provocations that false
shame would yield to. By this means they learn the
real bearing of things, and shake off the disabling
suggestions of an exaggerating morbid fancy. It is
much better policy, for instance, to own everything
about yourself, even in a worldly point of view, than
to have any shuffling disguises; but people who shirk
never see this, and no doubt it needs singular and
unusual strength and decision to act on this rule, to
see the eventual economy of wear and tear in never
shirking. These are the men, however, who take the
tide at the full, - the tide that leads to fortune. The
charge of nepotism so constantly brought against the
self-made men of history is a proof of this. A Pope,
instead of ignoring his humbler relations, owns them.
Napoleon, instead of hushing down his brothers and
sisters, made them kings and queens. The strength
that leads to rule and empire has this characteristic,
- it is a nobleness of nature, compatible with the
utmost degree of unscrupulousness. In fact, it often
is simply courage and an enlarged self-interest, —no
moral virtue at all. We cannot say that the honesty
with which the actual state of things is accepted, as
a basis to be built upon, marks the difference between
high and low, good and bad. The man who shirks




Shirking.                I8 I
in some flagrant way often gets more severely dealt
with than he deserves; he is thought a monster, or
a hypocrite, when he is only a coward. Men whose
general lives are creditable, -men who are leaders
of opinion, who have weight in moral questions, who
even take a lofty religious stand, who are avowedly
not influenced by the point of honor, because they
believe themselves exponents of a more spiritual rule,
who are even ascetic both in notions and practice,sometimes betray this craven impulse, to the confounding of their followers and admirers. Those are
fortunate persons - but we will also add, of a limited
experience — who can believe it simply impossible
that a man whose head, heart, and hands seem to
be habitually engaged in the highest concerns and
interests, is disqualified from conspicuous acts of
shirking. All people have their temptations. Men
who are scrupulous to perform everything that comes
to them as a religious duty will amaze their friends
by some failure in matters of sentiment. Thus, we
shall see a painstakling clergyman, who really works
hard in his vocation, who preaches with unction, and
of whom no one can say that he is not sincere and
self-denying in his work, jilt the woman he has promised to marry; and he will do this, if he is matterof-fact, with a perfectly obtuse complacency, simply
because it is out of his professional line of duty,




182                 Shirking.
wherein all his scruples lie. Or, if he is of another
temper, he will even think that the argument that
marriage is too happy a state for such a sinner, or
that some quality in the lady disables her from the
companionship of an " earnest man," turns what the
world regards as shirking in its worst sense into a
spiritual sacrifice. All his tenderness of conscience
goes with his office, and he shirks with the secular
part of himself, and in what he is pleased to regard
as secular, and therefore immaterial, concerns. Thus,
getting out of an awkward engagement to marry is
not very different from getting out of an inconvenient
engagement. to dinner, to a man who conceives himself lifted above the obligations of honor and custom.
Again, there are people who shirk nothing that
comes to them in the way of work, however difficult, wearisome, or repulsive, who will yet shirk signally when interest, credit, popularity, or respect for
a life's work, comes in the way. For such shirking
we should, no doubt, have an especial indulgence,
for the temptation is great. As a rule, for instance,
Bishop Blomfield shirked nothing, —neither trouble,
responsibility, nor irksome duty.  His view of the
duties of his position was indeed the widest ever
known. It extended not only to the spiritual concerns of his diocese, but to the superintendence of
its highways. He answered thirty letters a day by




Shirking.                 I83
return of post, and how severely he was wont to express himself against all tendency to shirk and evasion we may gather oby that letter to his publisher
when ill, wherein he commands him to ascertain his
real state "by a distinct and categorical appeal to his
medical friends." Yet his memoir, as well as our
own recollection, presents him to us, on the occasion
of his famous charge, as one of the most signal cases
of shirking that our age can furnish. But who shall
be hard upon a man who fails under trial, when we
all fail in our lesser spheres almost untempted! In
fact, it is wandering from our first design to talk of
bishops and popes and emperors.  Our concern is
with the social tendency, in all its infinite forms of
manifestation.  Every temperament has its natural
and appropriate scene of slipperiness, —the idle, the
busy, the sullen, the amiable, the selfish, and even
the self-denying. Some shirk trouble, some responsibility, some bodily labor, some  mental, -some the
care of their health, some their accounts, some attention to dress and manners, some distinct obligations, some the demands of honor or gallantry, some
recognized duties, some supposed pleasures. There
is often something whimsical in the display of this
evasive power. Thus, some are alive to the demands of personal intercourse who shirk writing an
ordinary letter with an insane persistence; some are




184               Shirking.
good at letters who cannot be brought to the sticking-point of writing a necessary note of ceremony;
some who are austerely conscientious in what they
own for obligations will slip out of an engagement
to an irksome form of pleasure with an ease incomprehensible to the worldly man we have spoken of,
who feels himself bound by his promise. Some who
are liberal in great things will shirk small expenses
with a ridiculous meanness; and some who are truth,
strength, and honesty itself in all that concerns others, shirk for themselves, and are cowardly, weak,
and treacherous in their own interest. There are
men who cannot be brought up to the point where
their own advancement or benefit is involved, and
who, just at the last, are stranded and left behind by
their inveterate habit of failing themselves and those
who care for them, when the moment of action and
decision comes. And there are lines of unconscious
shirk where neither the man himself nor those who
observe him use the word or see the thing. Where
a man is not in the position in which his standing
and powers ought to place him, and nobody knows
why, failure is almost certainly due to a habit of
small shirking, so constant and natural that it is
never recognized for what it is.
There are, indeed, some people who surprise us by
a sort of morbid dread of shirking, -stolid, help



Shirking.                 18 5
less-seeming people, who accept duties that can hardly be called duties at all, and carry them on, not because they like them or value themselves upon doing
them, or from any conscious sense of duty, but because they do not seem to know how to shirk them.
They go on with a task that does not belong to them,
because, though they cannot argue or reason upon it,
they have a constitutional dislike, contempt, or perhaps simple incapacity for shirking in this particular
direction. A great amount of the good works done
are carried on by this unpretending, unconscious sort
of virtue, - virtue that plods and drudges, and does
not know itself for what it is. Yet we should always
fear to infuse into these good souls the perilous and
insidious delight of waking to a way of escape from
what before seemed inevitable; for who can tell to
what limits the new sensation would confine itself?
It is so pleasant, such a relief, it induces often such
a calm, to discover that, after all, we need not do a
thing which we had thought before must be done,
because in strict fantastical right it ought. The possibility of shirking, in prospect at least, never occurs
to some people at all, while it occurs to others at the
very first blush. They accept a duty, a promise, a
responsibility, tempered by the possibility of shirking
it. Thus the sin of shirking dates from before the
act.  The man who undertakes an engagement, and




i86                 Shzirking.
subsequently shirks it, has never been firm; he has
always had a vague notion that there are two ways
out of it.
Small shirks may be apples of Sodom, but they
clearly constitute with some people one of the main
pleasures of life. Ease in the abstract is a thing
scarcely understood. To sit loose from minor obligations, to feel unfettered by the ties of implied promises
or the expectation of others, gives ease a body, and
makes it intelligible and practical. But it is better
that this should be an unconscious gloss of the word;
it is better, even if we shirk, that we should be in a
measure blind to it. It becomes serious when the
confession of shirking costs us nothing, for it imperils
one safeguard of our honor. No one who shirks, and
knows it, and jauntily owns it, can be sure of confining himself to the range of lesser and immaterial
shirkings. However, this is a temptation only of the
careless, indolent temper.  Busy men, when they
shirk, call it expediency, and defend it as such.
We have admitted that shirking is pleasant, and
people who shirk in a small way are often very
lovable people, and we are comfortable, careless, and
at ease in their company. Yet many of the difficulties
and estrangements of life proceed from  it,- from
evading some insignificant, trifling, social duty that
would cost a very slight effort, but is shirked as a




Shirking.                I87
momentary nuisance; and once call a gentle obligation by a bad name, -- a nuisance or a. bore, - and
your real shirker considers himself absolved. If lie is
fortunate in having some one,- a wife, a friend, a
slave, - to do his hard work, and sweep up the litter
of broken promises after him, it is well, - so much
is excused to pleasant people; but he is not the less
an element of dissolution. Loose himself, nothing
will knit firmly about him; and every one who evades
an obvious social duty because it is disagreeable and
he would rather not, is, however professedly conservative, promoting disunion and weakening the social
fabric.




CONSTANCY.
CONSTANCY is not the undisputed virtue that
it used to be. To be faithful to an idea, to
hold by a choice once made, to cling with unflinching tenacity to the object of past vows and promises
under every conceivable form of trial, was, to say the
least, meritorious. Under the poets' and romancers'
hands, it was sublime. Some change has certainly
come over this view.  Constancy, in common parlance, still holds its place among the virtues, yet we
observe a decided tendency to shackle it with restrictions and conditions, and somewhat to flout it, in what
may be called its raw state, as an unreasoning, blind
instinct. The necessities of our times enforce some
modification. All ages have their easy and their difficult virtues; and in an active, thinking, changeful,
busy scene, constancy is often so difficult, and involves such conflicts between qualities good in themselves, that we do not wonder that those who find




Constancy.               189
the traditional grace press hardest are sometimes disposed to call it in question. Perhaps, if we think of it,
constancy has always been of two sexes, - the masculine and reasonable, where a man chooses his cause
as embodying his ideas of highest good and stands to
it as such; the feminine and instinctive, which holds
with a fixed, unswerving faith to a choice once made,
as being best because it was her choice, not her
choice because it is best. And it is this form, imposing as it were upon the weaker vessel, that poets
have sung and woman once gladly owned to; but
these days of enlightenment seem to have awakened
her to another view of the subject, or rather those
bolder spirits who put themselves forward as exponents of their sex's true position. Two popular novelists of the day may be said to represent the two sides
of this question of romantic constancy. Mr. Trollope
is all for constancy, thoroughgoing, immovable, blind.
In the " Three Clerks," his heroine, between her two
lovers, makes the wrong choice. Her husband goes
to the bad, is convicted of felony, and expiates his
crime, no humiliation being spared, in Millbank Prison; but throughout she is constant, not only in act,
but in idea; her husband is still of a type quite superior to, and more heroic than, that which belongs to
her virtuous and discarded lover. Again, in a later
tale, the too confiding and demonstrative Lily is




go90               Constancy.
jilted by Crosbie under the most inexcusable and
scandalous circumstances; but she will not hear a
word against him, shrinks from blaming him to herself, and has the praise of constancy. The authoress of " Adam Bede," in " Romola," - that studied,
thoughtful, well-written, hard-to-read story, - asserts
another principle altogether. The moral of the tale
is, that wives must not go on loving bad husbands,
that they must not shrink from seeing things exactly
as they are, or from regulating heart and conduct
by their conclusions. It goes so far as to deny that
the affections are under any obligation irrespective
of merit, or that there is any moral force even in
the marriage tie where one side shows itself unworthy, - in this only following at a distance the teaching of certain strong-minded Transatlantic ladies,
who have dauntlessly struck at the very root of all
constancy by their theory that no decisions, no
choice, no professions, vows, or ties whatever, can
ever alienate the right of being attracted by the
highest representative of the ideal that crosses our
path. At present, they say, "a mistaken education,
a narrow, uncultivated mind, and many prejudices,
tend to make women more constant than men";
but when once woman realizes that she has a " range,"
this spiritless dependence must come to an end, as
entirely opposed to individual progress and loftiness




Constancy.                  I9 I
of aim. Constancy then is put upon its trial, and
has to defend itself against some very plausible
objections. Why may we not go on forever choosing
the best in every sphere of life and thought, and
discarding what has failed to satisfy this intellectual
desire?  Why did the poet think he had hit upon
a blot in poor nature, rather than an excellence,
when he proves it unstable? —
"Opinions, they still take a wider range;
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with fortune, humors turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times."
We have taken the popular field for the exhibition
of constancy, -constancy in love, not because this
is the main or necessarily the most distinctive sphere
for its exercise, but because it presents the circumstances necessary for a picture of constancy at all.
A plighted troth implies, in our understanding of it,
a deliberate act in both parties, a mutual surrender
of heart and affections, an engagement and a covenant; and constancy in every sphere requires for
its exercise the deliberate, willing act of a mind,
competent to perform such an act, as its commencement. People are often called inconstant to whom
the accusation is totally inapplicable. There is no
such thing as inconstancy where there has been no




192                Constancy.
starting-point of selection and decision.  A man is
not inconstant for deserting the family politics to
which he was committed before he had fit opportunities for bringing his own mind to bear upon them.
He is not inconstant in forsaking his father's friends,
to whom experience proves him not congenial. The
fault, where there is a fault, should go by some other
name. He is ungrateful, perhaps, for kindness; or
he has been rash in committing himself, or he is
misled by ambition and vanity.
Thus constancy is, first of all, truth to self, and
implies standing by our own judgment, as well as
by our friend; and the worth of this posture of
mind must, in a good degree, depend on the nature
of the original act, whether founded on reason and
desert in the object, or on mere caprice, or for selfish ends. In the question of opinion, a boy may
elect to be Whig or Tory from the love of freedom
on the one hand, or from chivalrous loyalty on the
other; and, noble associations adding strength day
by day to the original bias, he may be constant to the
party which in his mind embodies one or other of
these ideas. Or he may choose his politics by a
lower scale of preferences altogether, and in this case
no length or tenacity of tenure can make low principles of action more respectable. If there was no
sense or judgment in the first choice, mere obstinacy




Cbnstancy.                I93
in abiding by it cannot be meritorious, though it is
often flattered and over-valued as being something
to be relied upon.  What passes for constancy is
generally mere habit, and individuals and classes are
constant or not, as this habit has undisturbed means
of growth. In youth, constancy seems the simplest
and easiest thing in the world, and where - as providentially in the marriage relation —men are secure
from change and opposing interest, it is so.  It is
natural.  Constancy is, in fact, the rule, and inconstancy the exception.  But the constancy worth commending maintains itself under difficulties, and especially against that great rival force in every vigorous
mind, - susceptibility to new  impressions.  Some
people's constancy, or what they claim as such, is
mere stupidity and deadness to what ought to interest
and attract them. They stand among facts that ought
to open their eyes, and persons that ought to engage
their affections, and are proud of the apathy and prejudice that makes them  "like old ways and old
friends best." Now the truth is, every healthy mind
is occupied mainly with the present and what the
present gives it to do. While the house is in repair,
it entertains a perpetual succession of guests, and
echoes to new voices; it is only ruins that are constant, in this sense, to memories and unchanging
ideas. Active, living constancy recognizes the inevit9                           M




I94                Constancy.
able workings of change. It is absurd to suppose
of a soul that is to last forever, that its thoughts and
affections should be limited to the interests of a particular period, or a few individuals. As we live, we
change,- change ourselves, and change in our relation to others; and the more stationary friend often
calls this inconstancy.  Inexperience cannot believe
in the inevitable results of new combinations and
altered circumstances.  Indeed, nature could not endure to stand among the keenly felt interests that
surround our youth,- the friends, the pursuits, the
tastes, the controversies, the whole world's course,and be forced to realize how, in thirty, twenty, nay,
ten years, all these things will have lost their likeness
to us and we to them; and yet this is inevitable
where people do a work in the world and make their
existence felt. Now the thing is, to be constant
under what in prospect looks like inconstancy, to
acknowledge change, and adapt ourselves to it, but
to hold by one original starting-point, and be faithful
to the one idea and the one friend through it all. To
bring about this there must have been a different
view of the object of regard from the first. The
constant mind need not have exceptional strengthof character, but it must have what is often a much
finer thing, - an independent judgment and generous
self-reliance. It must have been guided in its first




Conslaicy.                195
choice by its own unprompted act and deed, and be
able to maintain it against opposing influences, not by
ignoring those influences, but by asserting the old
preference against them. Constancy, grand, heroic,
and exemplary, then, must always be a rare quality,
-as rare, that is, as independence of mind, which
is about the most unusual quality we any of us meet
with.
However, the praise of constancy may be bestowed
on individuals short of this heroic stature, though
never where self-reliance is wanting; and these sometimes furnish us with curious opportunities for inspecting the mechanism of this virtue. We are disposed to think that with this quality, with fidelity
in views, in friendship, and affection, there goes a
strong sense of possession, a raised appreciation of
any property whatever where the notion of proprietorship can be applied to it. Thus the words, or at
least the idea, of My and Mine have a particular
value and importance with this temper; they warp
the judgment, and add a certain percentage to everything that can be so appropriated. Who is not familiar with some artless example of faithfulness to
old impressions, — some good, enduring soul- who
has never lost a friend through fault or negligence,
whose memory ranges through a life of well-hoarded
friendships as deep as the character is capable of




I96                 Constanzcy.
forming, whose conversation is a kindly chronicle
of reciprocal services? We will venture something
that this personage- we will assume her to be of
the gentler sex -will be hampered by a vast number of small possessions, trifling in themselves, but
invested in her eyes with a factitious importance,
partly from sentiment and association, but also because they are her own. We have observed persons
of this sort with a trick of, as it were, taking stock
and making sure of their appendages by little searchings and fumblings, under sudden accesses of alarm
lest chain, or brooch, or reticule should have unloosed their moorings, and made off unto that terror
of the constant heart, the unseen and forgotten; and
-it has occurred to us, whether this little scene may
not set out to us some similar practice of the mind
towards friends and allies, and represent thought ever
busied, with canine instinct, in looking up stragglers
in the band of intimates, devising letters, messages,
and other kindly remembrances, and enduring, forbearing, tolerating, excusing all those waverers who,
if left to themselves, and under most people's handling, would be permanent defaulters from the flock.
Persons of this sort —dependable friends — do not
lose their sticks and umbrellas like other people,
because they have a distinct notion where they put
them. Their sense of personality extends to watch,




Constancy.                I97
and pencil, and books. They will lend liberally, but
they always know who has the missing volume.
Very different notions, we are aware, are current.
It may even be supposed that the cares of friendship
make a man forgetful of the merely personal; and
people may make grand spasmodic sacrifices who are
of the careless, lavish, prodigal turn, apt to be seized
with a sudden indifference to their belongings; but
both parties in a friendship must be endowed with
an unusual constancy of nature to maintain it without flaw or damage under the rude trial of large obligations; and a weighty favor conferred without counting the cost is usually fatal to it. We would gladly
think that our friend values us as one of his possessions, and is careful of us on the same grounds; and
if, for our sake, he should ever endanger money or
credit or popularity, that he will do it, not rashly or
thoughtlessly, but knowing it to be a sacrifice. People not exactly miserly, but mean and narrow in their
notions about money, often surprise us by a certain
exceptional fidelity towards old friends. In this case,
their constancy is probably not of a very noble order.
The general restriction of their ideas preserves them
from the temptations which ambition or imagination
opens to larger minds; but if it modifies the value
of their regard on the one hand, it redeems their
love of money for its own sake from some of its




I98                 Constancy.
baseness. It is not rapacity, but a perverted sense
of ownership, - that ownership which makes the
steady mind value its possessions, and exaggerate
the worth of all that is its own. Perhaps, indeed, it
is only the larger and higher constancy that can afford
to be critical. A just perception of faults and blemishes hidden from their possessors is the cause of a
good deal of the inconstancy that gets called the hardest names. True constancy can see and yet be faithful, but often at an unknown expense. The good people who more commonly represent the quality are full
of favorable prejudices, and see the merits of their
cause or their friend with quite different eyes from,
their defects. We should augur ill for Touchstone's
constancy, even if he himself had betrayed no suspicions, because he saw Audrey exactly as she was,
-"A  poor thing, but mine own."  He had the sense
of possession, but he regarded her with too critical
an eye, or rather, which is more fatal still, with the
eye of the critic to whom he introduced her. It is a
great step towards security when our friend is proud
of us.
If constancy is what we believe it to be, a moral
virtue, it may be acquired in spite of every natural
tendency to fickleness and change. A due training
of the temper and disposition may bring a mind,
which at first only resembles the mirror in reflecting




Constancy.                I99
every image that flits across it, into a surface capable
of receiving lasting impressions. Yet there must be
no conscious effort in constancy; it must not be confounded with duty, which often, with much labor and
pains, has to do its work. A man may, indeed, be
worthily constant in an unworthy cause; but if the
sentiment deserves the name, he has lived, and still
lives, under a delusion.  If he once sees the worthlessness of an object, constancy is not the proper
epithet for his loyalty to it; it is then either duty or
infatuation. The tie between the first choice and the
present estimate is severed, and it is regarded from
a wholly different point of view. If he has promised
love and service to the end, and thinks constancy a
virtue, he will act it out in deed if not in thought;
and habit even here will assert itself a second nature,
and help and cheer him through the hardest task.
If, on the contrary, he takes the transcendental view
that he has passed out of the sphere of the old love,
he may, whether the object of past regard be deserving or not, content himself with curiously noting the
transitions of feeling; apostrophizing it in the words
of a distinguished and popular authoress, who has
lately been so obliging as to tell us how inconstancy
feels in its first workings:  "0  dead root of love!
who shall tell the mystery of your nipping?  How,
with startled eyes, suddenly we miss the colored blos



200                Constancy.
soins and fresh green leaves that should be there!"
Inconstancy, no doubt, comes of false and unreasonable expectations, an intolerance of the levels and
barren spaces, the checks and inequalities of the
pleasantest intercourse, a demand for change and variety which one mind or one state of things will not
furnish.  "Even tempers and uniform  dispositions"
are prepared for this, and those who have the doubtful praise of "being always the same" recognize no
difficulty; but wherever there is the charm of quick,
eager sensibilities, a lively imagination, and a fastidiously delicate perception, there we must be indulgent
to a tendency to caprice and disgust, there we must
be prepared, on our part, for what seems to us an
undue share of endurance, - there we must put our
own constancy on the stretch, if we would not indulge
the world with the scandal of a broken friendship or
a deserted cause. Our duties to others ought to be
continually looked at from their point of view. Appearances are sometimes the heart of things, and, in
critical tests of constancy, must often be so. There is
a rule which we think would make all men constant,
whatever their natural bias; and this is, in trifling
services, as in great things, never willingly to disappoint a just and reasonable expectation.




RESERVE.
R    ESERVE, as denoting a characteristic, is, comparatively speaking, a new word. Old writers
now and then call a man reserved, coupling the idea
with policy or constitutional melancholy; but the
word reserve, as meaning an innate quality of a
healthy mind, we do not meet with. In fact there
was not, in other days, the occasion for it which we
find among ourselves.  Reserve was not a national
quality, as it is supposed to be now; and if people
wanted to attribute something of the kind to their
acquaintance, they commonly expressed their meaning by some harsher term, -sour perhaps, morose,
sullen, proud, lofty, taciturn, or dissembling. Or the
objectionable trait was summarily set down to "humors," and a thickness of the blood. That a man
should lead a shut-up life, - should deliberately conceal the best part of himself, his more intimate and
individual sentiments, from the society of which he
9




202                  Reserve.
forms a part,- and that this habit of his should affect
others with admiration, and with a raised and excited
expectation, does not accord with the way of thinking
of those less fastidious times when wits talked their
very best in coffee-houses or other public resorts, and
were very willing to let who would hear them. There
was little of what we understand by reserve in days
when probably every one's arena for bringing out
what was in him was found in mixed companies or
casual intercourse, not in the close feminine domestic
circle of modern refinement, nor in the habitual exclusive intercourse of one or two chosen intimates
who can be relied upon for understanding every turn
of thought and shade of feeling.
Whatever our fathers did, it is a word that we, at
least, could ill spare,- "reserve" accounts for and
explains so many things. And yet what that reserve
is which is not pride, nor sullenness, nor shyness, nor
dulness, nor melancholy, nor affectation, but a thing
altogether apart from all these, is not so easy to define. The first social example of the quality that
occurs to us is the poet Gray, and it is amusing to see
how the old rough frankness bristled and clashed
against the new exclusive element. It is very little
to Johnson's credit that he did not admire Gray's
poetry, but Johnson was a conservative, and Gray was
in all things a precursor and innovator.  Thus, he




Reserve.                203
started the popular love of the picturesque, and is
the first solitary tourist on record. He wrote poetry
that men vowed they could not understand, just as
old-fashioned folks do now by " In Memoriam." He
set up, and acted on, a new theory of social and literary independence; and he was reserved, — reserved
in the new heroic way: that is, he had a vast number
of contempts and antipathies, and some warm friendships; he mistrusted mankind, but where he gave his
confidence it was unlimited; he loved but one woman,
and she was his mother, but this love was pathetic
and exemplary; and, finally, he shut himself up and
eschewed general society. This was not the character to suit Johnson's old-world practice or principles,and he summarily disposed of it after his manner.
"Sir, he was a dull fellow, - dull in company, dull
in his closet, dull everywhere; he was dull in a
new way, and that made many people think him
great." Now the poet, in his own line, was great, and
to his intimates was, and deserved to be, pre-eminently interesting; but we believe this is a fair enough
picture of his actual deportment to the world at large.
And reserve is dulness to the majority of those who
come in contact with it, - a fact which it may not be
amiss to press at a time when everybody is pleased to
be thought reserved, and disowns the charge with the
gentlest disclaimer, either for his country or himself.




204                  Reserve.
There is a reserve merely of manner, of which we will
only say that it is much to be preferred to the opposite extreme; but reserve of mind —the attitude of
holding back what is most distinctive of the speaker,
and what affects him nearest - disqualifies a man for
general cheerful companionship. Not that we would
confound reserve with dulness. A practised observer
distinguishes the two before a word is spoken. As
Bacon says, " If a man be thought secret, it inviteth
discovery," which dulness never does. In reserve
there is, for those who care for such things, the interest of detecting the real man through the veil it
pleases him to wear. The character most liable to
it has high and attractive points, - it has self-respect,
self-restraint, sensitiveness, and possibly a high imoral
standard and a correct taste; but the reserve itself, if
not an innate fault, is yet a misfortune.  It is the
effect of some early check, neglect, wounded feeling,
or uncongenial circumstances when the character
began to form itself. And it results in harm; for
that must be a narrowing, if not a hardening quality
which keeps a man always on the defensive, and suspicious of aggression, and shuts him  up from real,
equal, open intercourse with the greater number of
those who fall in his way.  It is no credit to a man
that very few people know him, and yet it is constantly stated by his friends as a sort of distinction




Reserve.                 205
separating him from the common herd, who lay themselves bare — thoughts, feelings, emotions - at the
mere prompting of the occasion, without jealous
choice of witnesses or care for a fit audience.
It is sometimes thought a sign of freedom from
egotism that a man never speaks of himself; but it
more commonly denotes reserve, and is, in truth, one
of its more repelling characteristics. Reserve is compatible with great freedom and fluency of speech on
those subjects which are public property.  Indeed,
men who are conscious that they hold an impregnable
position are often very ready on common topics, and
may even conceal from the unobservant that there
is a part of themselves which no eye is ever permitted
to pry into. But this sort of talk, in the long run,
is unsatisfactory,- it wants the savor of candor and
true sincerity. The reserved and the open are not
even here on a level, for there is no subject so removed from personal interests and regards as not
to suffer in the handling from this watchful jealousy
lest the general should touch on the private and
individual. Whatever a man is, however attractive
his powers or qualities, if he persistently shuns personal confidences where it would be natural to make
them, it is wise to accept the reticence as a sign
of mistrust. Acquaintance here will not ripen into
friendship. All people, we may be sure, talk of them



206                   Reserve.
selves to somebody, and it is, in fact, an especial
luxury to the reserved class, from their self-inverted,
self-conscious habit of mind. This sometimes impels
them  to strange confidences.  A man of rigid reserve
will tell a stranger things about' himself which he
has hid from friend, and wife, and child; and this
either from a grudging mistrust of those near him,
— lest the barrier, once broken down, should never
be raised again, - or because he can talk of things
the most intimate and close to him if secure from the
free, bold touch of sympathy and affection. Thus
it is that confiding, cordial natures are often invaded
with something like a pang, as at kindness repelled
and interest slighted, when they find that their reserved friend has been revealing his inner nature
to a chance talkative stranger, which he has withheld from them through long seeming intimacy, interchange of kind offices, and tried fidelity.  In fact,
when frank and friendly people call a man reserved,
it commonly means some personal experience of this
sort.
It is, perhaps, impossible not to be flattered by anything like exclusive regard. We are all so far selfish
as to prize a thing the more for its being, in some
particular sense, our own:"And what alone did all the rest surpass,
The sweet possession of the fairy place;




Reserve.                 207
Single, and conscious to myself alone
Of pleasures to the excluded world unknown."
And here, no doubt, lies much of the charm of reserve,-it points to something which may become
an exclusive possession. Nor do some persons care
how narrow is the outlet for sensibility and enthusiasm, so that it flows freely for them.  If a man
does not open his heart to many people, he is too
readily assumed to be capable of a particular effusion
and intensity of trust in a chosen few. The truth
is, however, that nothing really needs such constant
practice as the affections. A man does not feel a
bit the stronger for feeling rarely; and we would
go further, and say that the man who resolutely controls all expression of feeling controls something more
than expression,- he keeps down the thing itself.
An exclusive manner cannot be maintained without
a certain cast of sentiment toward the persons against
whom this guard is kept.  The outside does not belie
the heart, as is fondly supposed; it more commonly
understates the real condition of affairs. And yet,
because all silence and reticence have an air of mystery, we often see the frank genial nature —which,
like the green fields, bears its wealth visible to all
eyes — disregarded for one of these supposed mines
of treasure and centres of hidden fire. It is woman's
weakness especially to be caught by the romance




208                   Reserve.
of a stern, inaccessible nature, accessible to her and
to her alone, -more particularly if she be of the jealous temper which grudges sharers in its privileges.
Reserve gives great occasion for her particular talent
of practical physiognomy. If the countenance is impenetrable, then
"Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains";
if rigid, she can detect lightning flashes of feeling; if
mobile, and subject to transitions and rapid fluctuations of expression, it is like a map of a country ofwhich she alone has the key. What depths of tenderness, humanity, and intellect will she not attribute
to eyes that kindle while the tongue is mute, to a
brow that contracts under unexpressed thought, and
to lips that pass from stern to sweet under restrained
impulses!  Yet mere  sensitiveness - sensitiveness
that never gets wholly away from self, never quite
loses itself in others - may be at the bottom of the
simulating exterior.  The shyness of pride, the horror of self-betrayal, the fear of ridicule, or the intense enjoyment and appreciation of being understood, are all very tell-tale emotions, and can dispense with speech. Where reserve is a strong characteristic, even thoughts of universal kindliness are
no habitual occupation of heart or intellect; though
the want may be more than atoned for to the favored




Reserve.                209
few by a warm partiality of preference, confiding dependence, and depth of personal regard.  Where
there is this harmony, let the union be as close and
as exclusive as it will.  Reserve is an element of
strength, and has its work to do in the world as a
check on babbling sentiment and on the weak effusions of shallow or boisterous natures. We do not
care to have everybody diffusively and expansively
benevolent. What we resent is the waste that is
sometimes observable of an honest regard,-a confidence on one side, with efforts to please that are
not, and never will be, returned. We find something
lowering in some people's humble attendance on tempers of this nature, - in their waiting and watching
for chance crumbs of sympathy. There is always a
time when these unrequited endeavors should cease.
Sympathy and confidence should be mutual, or they
should tone down to a lower level. A lover was once
refused, at the end of fifteen years, on the ground of
insufficient acquaintance. It is wise in friend as well
as suitor to give up the hope of occupying any large
place in the mind which has had ample opportunities
of knowing all the good that is in him, and yet has
not availed itself of them.
A certain set of strong qualities can hardly be
found in man without the counterbalance of contempt and disdain. Being free from a particular class
N




21O                 Reserve.
of temptations, people despise those who are subject
to them. Above all, the power of silence is one to
be proud of, both for the snares and dangers from
which it saves, and the prestige which it wins. All
reserved people have mistrust of others. Most of
them undervalue the discretion or refinement of those
among whom they live. It is almost necessarily a
supercilious habit of mind, and this is apparent whenever a man of reserved temper will talk frankly of his
reserve. He owns that the mass of mankind are beyond - which means beneath - his sympathy. He
will confess to being hopeless — which, again, means
careless - of their regard.  There may, indeed, be
the appearance of reserve from opposite causes, -
from the mere want of a sense of individuality. Some
people have no privacy because their own nature
never occupies them. They cannot be brought to
talk about themselves, or to make confidences, from
mere ignorance of the subject. Their fault is an intellectual one, and the less need be said about them
because they are essentially dry and uninteresting.
Nobody cares much what they may have to say on
any topic, and their reserve is what only the more
philanthropic would seek to break through.
Shyness and reserve are so often alike in their
effects that it is no wonder they are constantly confounded. Shyness, under a composed exterior, looks




Reserve.                  21 1
like reserve; and reserve, where people judge only
by manner, often passes for shyness.  But the likeness is only superficial.  It is easy to distinguish,
where there is opportunity for observation, the painful shrinking and recoil which puts Shyness at a distance, from the arm's-length attitude of resistance
by which Reserve holds the world at bay. Genuine
shyness must be some compound of fear, self-consciousness, and inexperience.  It implies an acute
sense of bareness and exposure, which intercourse
with the world will certainly modify. What reserve
is, we have not arrived at; but it is a quality, when
once implanted, which custom and society will rather
increase than wear out.  It is felt to be a power and
a protection, and is cherished as an armor of defence;
and so it is, but it is also an admission of weakness
and an evidence of defect.  With all respect and
liking too for our reserved friends, and for the impressive appearance which a well-guarded reserve
makes in the world, we yet submit that the strongest
minds, - the most vigorous, comprehensive, prudent,
and far-seeing, the natures most to be relied upon,
most'influential, and  most thoroughly amiable,are essentially unreserved.




EX P LANAT IO N S.
THERE are few words that carry a heavier weight
of dulness, or are beset with more annoying
associations than "Explanation," and the verb "To
Explain," in all its tenses.  We do not remember
that the poets give them a place in the armory of
Discord; but, in their dull, hypocritical way, none
deserve it better, for every so-called explanation induces some element of discordance and separation,
and puts the speaker in a sort of opposition of sentiment or inclination to the hearer. The words have,
no doubt, an innocent use as applied to things; but
when men come to explain a meaning.that had
previously seemed too clear, or to give an explanation
of a questionable course of conduct, or to sdek an
explanation of a line of action which has displeased
them, - above all, when, under the privilege of intimacy, there is a mutual unfolding of motives and
intentions with the professed design of explaining




Explanations.               213
away some chance coldness or difference,- it is rare
that mischief does not come of it. And as for truth,
which is the professed aim, who was ever thoroughly
satisfied with himself, whose conscience ever came
out quite white and clean, after some tooth-and-nail
explanation on some intricate knotty point- in which
his feelings or passions have been engaged?  The
sense of failure after these encounters is, indeed, so
general that we believe the practice would be about
given up by rational people but for a perversion of
language which universally prevails. Wherever neighbors and acquaintances do not quite hit it, wherever
there is some slight breach or halt in intimacy, the
state of things is called a misunderstanding. The
affair is politely attributed to the respective parties
not knowing enough of each other's inner motives
and opinions, - it being assumed that the more people know exactly what goes on inside each other, the
greater friends they will be. Now, of course, if ignorance lies at the bottom of the difficulty, an explanation has some chance of removing it; and thus, the
word "misunderstanding " suggests naturally the idea
of explaining it away. But if misunderstanding, as
we believe, always means collision, the recourse to
explanation is manifestly absurd; and that the word
does convey this meaning, those at least will not
doubt who have, on the other hypothesis, tried what




214               Explanations.
an elaborate explanation of themselves can do.
Pure untinctured mistake has not much to do with
human affairs out of novels.  In fact, all minds
brought into near contact are aware, except where
the ties of a lifelong family affection and unity of
interests blind them, of certain incongruous elements and points of antagonism which untoward
circumstances occasionally bring into prominence.
There is some quality in each unit of the most
attached pair of friends, or even lovers, which is
not acceptable or agreeable to the other, — which,
when uppermost, causes a rub, and results even in
a sense of mutual blame,- but which need not
cause any lasting. disturbance if recognized for what
it is, an inborn difference or defect, a spot come into
sight. For collisions are passing things, - even serious collisions; if we weather the first shock, we may
go on as before, merely learning a scarcely conscious
lesson of caution. But in impulsive minds a desire
arises to do something. Self has to be cleared, or
another has to be called to account; we must needs
get at the bottom of things, and see where the fault
lies, and once for all make things straight.  Now,
whenever this craving arises, the friendship or familiarity has arrived at one of its inevitable hitches;
and it is certainly wisest to go round it, if possible,
-not to make too violent efforts to remove what is




Erplp zatiozs.            215
deeper rooted and harder to shift than haste and
inexperience will believe.  Clashes of feeling or
opinion must come, sooner or later, when there are
hidden differences.  The warmest friendship must
be content with something short of absolute unanimity, - must now and then endure tacit disapproval,
must rely on a general estimate of conduct, must
submit to be what it calls mistaken, while in reality
there is as good an understanding as innate differences and opposing views and interests will allow.
Few persons are aware how seldom they act in
the affairs of life on a formal array of reasons. All
people who are fond of explanations have more than
half their reasons to seek on the spur of the moment
and in the heat of talk. In fact, men act on the
principles that have formed their characters, but very
seldom think of reasons till after an affair is over.
Hence all sorts of temptations to be disingenuous.
The mind must be very candid and transparent which
comes out of one of these explanatory duels unconscious of suppressions and special pleadings, and of
glosses which a man may be sure his opponent has
seen more clearly than himself, and which may unduly lower his opinion of his sincerity. When the
Frenchwoman explained that she wished for a divorce
because she could practise no virtue with the Dutchman, nobody would give her credit for the particle




2I6              Explanatiozs.
of truth which was possibly there. To persons who
cannot follow the causes of your conduct intuitively,
your reasons evoked at a moment's notice are not
likely to make matters better, or better understood;
for a reason which barely represents half your motives to yourself is sure to enter the other mind in
such travestied guise as to convey nothing as you
intend it. A man's principles may be good, and
the application of them nothing to be ashamed of,
but he has found them hardly presentable without a
little varnish. In fact, motives of conduct are such
complex things that they often refuse to be put into
words. In private and individual cases, moreover,
they may have no possible disgrace in them, and
yet there may be a pardonable reluctance to proclaim them. Self-respect and want of appropriate
language drive people in these predicaments to the
hypocrisy of a higher ground than they have a right
to. Sydney Smith, arguing with "a good honest
Tory" on Catholic Emancipation, asks of what importance it is to him whether a Protestant or Catholic
is made a judge?  "None," is the disinterested answer; "but I am afraid for the Church of Ireland."
"Why do you care so much for the Church of Ireland?"  "' I do not care so much for the Church of
Ireland, if I were sure the Church of England would
not be destroyed." "And is it for the Church of




Explaznations.             217
England alone that you fear?" is the insinuating
rejoinder.  "Not quite that," comes out at last,
"but I am afraid we should all be lost, - that everything would be overturned, and that I should lose
my rank and my estate."  In politics, a party may
be made to explain itself in this fashion, -may be
driven to a confession of selfish as well as public
ends, without leaving a soreness behind; but there
are a hundred private motives and considerations in
social life which will not bear such treatment, and
which cannot be forced into words and made distinctly visible without a sense of humiliation, and yet
which are quite as lawful as the Tory's regard for his
own estate.
Conversation and all social intercourse are carried
on under the notion of a certain masonic comprehension more subtle than language, and nothing is so
embarrassing to our candor and sense of truth as to
find this freemasonry at fault. Families, cliques, societies, understand one another with this electric rapidity; but wherever temper or opposing interests
break the mystic link, friends and intimates are in the
position of opposing classes, who have to lay down
everything in the way of formal explanation. Words
are powerless to restore the old flash of recognition,
and it is very seldom wise to have recourse to them,
where there are such hinderances on each side as
I0




218              Explainationzs.
impeded sympathies, and perception blinded by eager
self-vindication.
People, indeed, who have faith in explanations and
periodical repairs of their friendships, had need of an
exceptional amount of charity, or of some Lethe of
their own wherein to bathe their memory after them;
for we are comparatively indifferent to being misunderstood, or even misjudged, where it comes of our
friend's blunder, or his dulness to our merits, but
nobody can stand having his array of statements, his
proofs, arguments, justifications, set at naught. It is
intolerable, after condescending to a laborious vindication, to remain where we were, -after an unanswerable display of grievances, to see our friend unconvinced and impenitent; and yet some touch of this
evil clings to every explanation, with whatever temper
conducted.  But what temper can come wholly unscathed out of the ordeal? In many hands, explanations, of course, slip at once into mere recrimination,
proceeding to the scandal of a quarrel and mutual
loss of respect, even where reconciliation ensues.
But short of this, and where principle, self-control,
and politeness are' never lost sight of, this form of
encounter brings out many awkward revelations. Few
natures ring true through their whole depths. There
is a savage, untamed spot in most hearts. Education
and the discipline of society do not subdue the whole




Expoalaatiozs.              219
man. We do not slander' humanity in saying that few
men are gentlemen under every conceivable trial.
Something rough and rude lurks, unknown, unseen,
in many an elegant, refined bosom, civilized by all that
culture can do, and proof against all attacks recognized as such, but which reveals itself under the insidious temptation of one of these friendly passages
at arms. Of all possible forms of this evil, the worst
and the most dangerous is where members of the
same household or family, ceasing to trust to instinct
and experience, in their perilous intimacy throw themselves upon verbal explanations.
It may be observed, that the people who keep their
friends, and live in a state of harmony with the world,
systematically deny themselves the luxury of explanations. Things go a little wrong, but they wait patiently until they right themselves. They trust to
time, to patience, to the weight of a composed and
forbearing attitude, to the powerful influences of
reticence and self-respect. While people are much
and variously involved in the world's business and
pleasures, they hardly recognize the temptation to
this undignified form of exculpatory vindication and
self-assertion. Indeed, a fondness for explanations
can scarcely possess persons in the brisk intercourse
of life. It demands time to brood. It belongs to
pauses in the hurry of existence, - to' the byways of




220              Expla:zationzs.
life. Women are more given to it than men; dwellers in small towns than in great.  Even the same
people take to explanations in the country which
they would never think of making in London. Apart
from any sense of neglect or grievance, there is a constant tendency in some minds to explain themselves
and right themselves in the eyes of the world. All
people who do not come up to their own idea of
themselves, and are afflicted with morbid misgivings
that they do not do themselves justice, have this
habit. A person of this sort will plunge into any
depth of new blunder in explaining away his last
solecism. It is, in fact, the way conceit works where
it has rare occasions for display and wants a field.
Most people's consciousness will tell them that, if
ever a fit of explaining themselves has been upon
them, it has been in some flutter of self-love, self-consciousness, or self-interest. This at once differs from,
and is more pardonable than, that solemn sense of
importance which impels some men to explain every
step in their course of action, - to give a reason for
everything they do, under the notion that they are
examples. There are dull prosers whose lips are
engaged all their lives in a running comment on their
actions, - who, like Mr. Collins, cannot take a hand
at whist without detaining their hostess to explain
why they think such a step justifiable and becoming




Exzplanations.              221
to their position. Poor people are very prone to obtrude tedious apologetic explanations on their betters,
sometimes to the suspension of all rational talk,not from conceit, but fi-om an inevitable ignorance of
the small hold which their chance ceremonial intercourse has on persons remote from their ways of
thought, and full of other things.  Nor does all their
desire to be civil preserve them from the common
fate of explanations where self is necessarily pro:ninent; as where the rustic, eager to atone for some
fancied want of respect to a stranger at the Hall,
opens his apology, on next meeting the distinguished
visitor, with —"I'm sure, sir, if I'd hdd the least notion as you was a gentleman-"  But, indeed, in less
clumsy hands, it needs the greatest tact to enter on
an affair of this kind without making worse of it;
and, generally, to explain the why and because of a
failure in respect or appreciation is only to commit a
fresh and more offensive blunder, and is not seldom
taken for deliberate impertinence. It may be noted
that persons who have the art of managing others
never explain themselves.  To give reasons for a
course of conduct is at once to expose it to criticism,
and to deprive it of the weight which belongs to action as the result of character.  The "Times," for
instance, is as careful never to explain itself as it
is never to apologize. Indeed, it may be doubted




222              Explanations.
whether the most powerful and influential wills ever
explain reasons or probe into motives, even to themselves. They have an instinct of working their way
and effecting their purposes, which is the exact contrary of the bore's state of mind, —the man who
influences nobody, —whom we have represented as
always employed in explaining to himself and other
people why he does things.
We started with the admission that some explanations are both innocent and necessary.  Children are
entrapped, as. it were, by their trick of questioning,
into the trial of listening to formal explanations in
answer. Some things must be learnt by this method,
however little "sympathy it has with the will of man."
Not seldom we have seen a careless talker betray
himself into the same snare, and writhe under the
penance which, through nobody's fault but his own,
he has brought upon himself. But we maintain that
orators, teachers, conversers, should, one and all, be
chary of the explanatory form, as being apt in its
nature not only to induce tedium in the listener, but
a sort of dogged resistance.  Thus, between two
preachers of equal power, the question of popularity
will be decided by the mode in which their teaching is administered. The man who explains tires
his hearers. The man who makes statements interests them. The demand on the attention in his case




Explanationzs.              223
is less arbitrary, and it is given with less effort. In
the one case, a man seems full of his subject,- in
the other, of his own way of putting it; and while
there may not seem much in common between the
"explanations" of social life and the didactic explanation of the teacher, there is this likeness, —
that the person engaged upon either of them is putting his case in his own point of view, and requiring
us to see with his eyes.




HUGGE R- U GGER.
OST minds have an untidy corner. Most men
have a taste, in some quarter or other, for hugger-mugger, - for unworthy shifts and expedients, or
for mere slovenliness and its musty comforts. Where
circumstances run absolutely counter to this tendency,
and will allow it no natural indulgence, it sometimes
becomes a craving of the soul for shabbiness and
squalor.  Thus we read of kings casting off their
robes of state to don greasy dressing-gowns, to shuffle
about in old slippers, to recreate themselves in occupations whose charm lies in grimy shirt-sleeves and
blackened hands. We are told of quondam beauties who have indemnified themselves for the pains
of vanity, the restraints of slim waists and tortured
locks, buckram, brocade, and diamonds, by a soily,
snuffy old age; and of little princes kicking and
screaming to be allowed to play in the mud of the
streets. We do not, however, pretend that this pas



Hugger-Mugger.               225
sion for hugger-mugger is common. It is, rather, a
lurking kindness in most of us, showing itself sometimes in mere trivial eccentricities, sometimes as a
sort of necessary set-off to a great deal of pretension,
-an economy in small things to atone for a great
extravagance.  Thus the taste for show is more commonly than not qualified by a secret fancy for huggermugger; not really because it is cheap, though perhaps this imposture is maintained, but because there
is in most people a divided allegiance towards themselves. They like the world to take a certain exalted
view of them and their pretensions, while they have
an inner consciousness that they have no real claim to
this position. When you reach their innermost notion
of what is due to them, it comes to this, that anything
will do; and there is a positive satisfaction in making,
anything do, provided nobody else knows or sees. No
doubt show, appearances, order, dignity, cause a great
deal of trouble. Very few would encounter them for
the mere pleasure they give; nobody who is not thoroughly trained can maintain a consistent liking for
them for their own sake; and men constantly sink
into hugger-mugger from the mere weakness of their
nature, and the infirmity of their resolution. They
recognize in its dinginess something home-like and
congenial with the humanity which arose from clay
and will return to dust. Yet, of course, men are
10*                         0




226             Hugger-Mugger.
ashamed of this inclination in themselves.  On no
account must the world know it. Indeed, the world
must have a wholly different notion of us, and be
kept in the dark as to our little weakness; it must
be ignorant of a hundred shifts which we positively
relish putting ourselves to. Every position has its
proper restraints, and no man has a right to profit by
the privileges of a class and not conform himself to
its obligations. All form, state, and order implies the
interposition of some impediment to the immediate
gratification of our natural wants, - the intervention,
that is, of a medium, something that puts itself between the fingers and the dish; and the higher the
station the more of these restraints intervene. We
do not doubt that the poor find, without knowing it, a
very material compensation for many of their privations in the prompt access they are permitted to such
satisfactions as they have. Not but that the humblest
cottage, decently ordered, abounds with checks. The
cupboard and the stated meals constitute the discipline and order of myriads of households, and raise
them above the hugger-mugger of others, where the
loaf is always on the table, and not a moment is
allowed to elapse between the sensation of hunger
and its satisfaction.
Hugger-mugger, then, is the result of dislike, impatience, contempt, or mere slovenly neglect of the re



Hugger-Muggger.               227
ceived class interpositions between our natural needs
and their fulfilment. The mediums, no doubt, sometimes become excessive and irrational, and it is right
to resist them; but the advocates for their disregard
or suppression never treat them as restraints, and
therefore as discipline, but only as ministering to the
pride of man. Mediaeval religion was in the habit
of estimating a man's sanctity by the degree in which
he dispensed with the restraints of the life to which
hee was born, and confined himself to the simplest
wants, satisfied in the most direct and informal
method. It was a point to keep the condition of
the poor at its minimum of requirements; and what
must many a hermit's cell have looked like and been,
rushes, maple-dish, and all, - if we once enter into
the temptations to hugger-mugger of that sullen, solitary, negligent existence! It was in the same spirit
that sour Presbyterians opposed every new refinement; an-d protested against the intervention of forks,
with the argument that God gave men good meat,
and they were become too proud to touch it with
their fingers: whereas, in reality, to persons habituated to the simpler method, the new fashion must
have been a considerable trial of patience:" For much refinement, when it late arrives,
May be the grace, not comfort of our lives."




228             Huigger-Mugger.
And in this matter a school of philosophy has sided
with asceticism. The new lights of the last century
who advocated savage life were really exalting hugger-mugger. This was the teaching of " Sandford
and Merton," impersonated in Harry, who contemned
the order and state of Tommy's home, and for his
part saw no use in any of those fine- things, but only
ate when he was hungry and drank when he was
"dry." This was the meaning of that theory, so
plausible to boyhood, that every man should be educated with a view to his being some day left to his
own resources on a desert island.
If absolute equality were ever attainable, it must
be through the means of hugger-mugger, which is
the only true leveller; and it should be understood
by every man who practises it, that he is doing his
part to bring down his class to the one below it.
It is sometimes quoted as an instance of noble sim-.
plicity that great people defy conventional regulations; but we maintain that when a duke carries
his own carpet-bag, and a man of fortune travels
second-class, or when anybody not pressed by absolute poverty allows himself to appear in sordid, illkept, slatternly attire, he is inflicting a blow on social
order. What right has a man to enjoy all the distinctions and privileges of exalted station without
its penalties? And to be waited upon, instead of




Hugger-Mugger.               229
doing things for himself, in spite of the honor of it,
may be one of the most prominent of these penalties.
In fact, to a man of an active, fussy temperament,
being waited upon is often one of the greatest exercises of patience he can be put to. Indolence and
practice combined, learn, indeed, to take it easily:
the lady who summoned Quasha to tell Quaco to
tell Fibba to pick up the pin that lay at her foot
had to wait for her pin, and was resigned to the
delay. But there are a hundred things that ought
to be waited for rather than done irregularly by the
principal's own hands, —an irregularity which it is
a little penance to certain people to abstain from.
Every nature has its own form of the temptation.
There is the indolent and passive temper, that lets
everything take its course, and sits in a muddle from
mere weakness and poverty of spirit; and there is
the restless and over-busy temper, that cannot endure
to wait for the proprieties, and that reduces things
to disorder and confusion from simple impatience of
form and arrangement. To teach these busy people
that things will be done though they do not do them
is a rare triumph of training. Restless bodily activity which has once known the careless luxury of
helping itself on every occasion, of dispensing with
complications, is apt to become hopelessly unmanageable. There is a conceit in the doing things for




230             Hugger-Mzugger.
themselves, a mistrust engendered by impatience,
which makes these people the worst masters and
mistresses in the world, and their houses the worst
conducted; though the same temper would be invaluable in that condition where a man must do a
thing himself or it will be undone, and where Nature's
fine gentleman —serene in dignified confidence that
the service will be rendered, and that, come what
may, he shall never be subject to hurry, scuffle, and
confusion -might be rather at a loss. This humble
vice of doing what it is not our business to do is
a subtle disqualifier for high place, if a man has
ambition. This sham humility will keep him back,
and tincture his manner with indecision and self-distrust, infused by the consciousness of being often in
situations and positions which he would not choose
the world to know.
Those men are powers in their own circle, and
are secure of consideration and regard, who steadfastly resist hugger-mugger, and in their nature hate
and abhor it, -who fight against it, never sink in
their inner spirit beneath their own implied and
avowed pretensions, are never caught at unawares,
and are presentable down to every minute propriety.
This state of things implies a habitual self-respect, a
kind of sense of desert (not necessarily moral desert), and commands the deference which it tacitly




Hut ggoer-Mugger.           23 
claims.  If a man shows, by his actions and his
treatment of himself, his estimate of his own pretensions, others will acquiesce in it,- and with justice, for this is being true to one's self. Such a one
is guided, not by what others see or think, but by
an innate idea of fitness, a love of order and refinement for their own sake, whether other eyes are witnesses or not.  But all this necessitates constant
trouble and no end of sacrifices, and implies a very
exceptional antagonism to all forms of muddle and
incongruity; for habits of forethought, punctuality,
precision, restraint, unremittingly practised in what
seem small matters, involve greater self-control, and
also greater strength of will, than far more conspicuous sacrifices made once in a way. Mr. Kinglake
furnishes a pleasant example of this sort of hero in
General Airey, who, when roughing it with his wife in
a log-hut in West Canada, where his appointment lay,
manfully resisted the all but irresistible blandishments of hugger-mugger:"Clad coarsely during the day, he was only to be
distinguished from the other workmen by his greater
activity and greater powers of endurance.  Many
English gentlemen have done the like of this, but
commonly they have ended by becoming altogether
just that which they seemed in their working hours,
-by becoming, in short, mere husbandmen.  It




232             Hugger-Mugger.
was not so with Airey. When his people came to
speak to him in the evening, they always found him
transformed. Partly by the subtle change which they
were able to see in his manner, — partly, too, by so
outward a thing as the rigorous change in his dress;
but most of all, perhaps, by his natural ascendency,
they were prevented from forgetting that their fellowlaborer of the morning was their master, -a master
to whom they were growing every day more attached,
but still their master."
The subtle change in manner was due, no doubt,
to the associations of polished life connected with
the ceremonious change of dress.  Some people
would have feared to seem  finical, but "natural
ascendency," in indulging its innate painstaking refinement, without which even ease is discomfort, had
no such misgivings. On the other hand, there are
persons whose plan and idea of life is absolutely
opposed to this principle, — who would be huggermugger in a palace, from a positive taste for a shuffling sort of comfort, caring for nothing that does not
tend to the lazy ease of the moment, and indifferent
who knows and sees their ideal worked out.
From the time that Polonius was in " hugger-mugger" interred, -' No trophy sword nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation,"



Hzugger-Mzgger.              233
the word has never been used but with an implied
apology, as if it were a rude term for a discreditable
thing; and yet who shall say that there is not something endearing in it still? Perfect order is apt to
be oppressive to poor human nature. We like one
of these point-device people better, and feel vastly
more at home with him, when we have found some
flaw in his exactitude, some slovenly place about him.
Let a large party be kept indoors through a long
rainy morning, and by the end of it they will, if they
are allowed to follow their instincts, be caught all
collected together in the house's untidiest corner, —
school-room, work-room, or lumber-room. The sight
of disorder is a refreshing change, and unlocks heart
and tongue. For health and spirits undoubtedly enjoy a momentary collision with confusion, perhaps
because it imparts a sense of power to overcome it;
while, on the contrary, invalids and melancholy persons have a natural horror of it even in its chance
contact, as we see in their fastidious disgust for dust,
disorder, and every form of bustling or shabby negligence.
In an occasional encounter with hugger-mugger
undoubtedly lies one of the attractions of the annual
seaside excursion. That liberty of dispensing with a
hundred conventional necessities which belongs to
lodgings in a crowded watering-place and to a saun



234              Hugger-Mulfgger.
tering out-of-door life -the feeling of roughing it, in
careless defiance of home restraints - often imparts
quite as keen an exhilaration, for a day or two at least,
as the tumbling waves themselves. It is, for most
people, the nearest practicable approach to that infantine dream of perfect felicity, - life in a travelling
caravan, with feather-bed and blankets inside and a
chimney at top. Many a reader has warmed to that
scene of genial hugger-mugger in "David Copperfield," where the hero gives a dinner, and an almost
raw leg of mutton offers an occasion for Mr. Micawber's talents in this line. He calls for a gridiron, and
the formal company arrangements of the table are
instantly broken up in a joyful confusion of hissing,
spluttering chops, shirt-sleeves, and laughter.  But
Damocles's sword hangs over all these surreptitious
joys, and it falls here most appropriately in the form
of somebody's servant. It is, if we remember right,
the villain of the story who keeps a butler, and this
man enters when the fun is at its highest, and paralyzes the guilty assembly by the mere terror of his
presence. And, in fact, servants are the great bugbears of all lovers of hugger-mugger for the mere
comfort of it.  If people anticipate their servants'
duties, they are generally careful that the actual perpetrator of the forbidden toil should be anonymous.
If a man carries his own portmanteau to his room, he




Hztgger-Mu gger.             235
would rather that the servant whose business it was
to take it should not know how it came there. Servants, in fact, are quite right to despise any form of
hugger-mugger, and to have pretty stringent ideas,
too, as to what constitutes it, for this is necessary
to their own sense of importance. If masters once
helped themselves, their vocation would be gone, and
the honors and credit of their profession extinguished.
To be sure, a lazy fellow is willing that anybody
should do his work for him, but he does not the less
despise the doer as one who feels himself unworthy
of his services; while he bestows all his willing attendance upon those who recognize his office and
place, and accept the restraints, while they exact the
privileges, of their own.




ATTENTION.
AFTER the first wants of nature are supplied,
and amongst these we class not. only material
wants, but something to love and to care for, the one
universal need is a certain amount of notice from our
fellow-creatures, a home in the minds of others that
we can take possession of at will, a ready, available
interest in our ideas and opinions,- what we will
here call Attention. Regard, respect, even affection,
though they all infer a place in the minds of our
friends, do not express the peculiar homage we would
designate by this somewhat cold and formal word.
We may be loved, honored, respected, and yet our
admirers may take their own time to express their
appreciation, and not attend to us when we are in the
particular humor for their sympathy. All does not
satisfy unless we have a hold, whenever we choose
to assert it, over the mind and interest of others,unless we can feel that then and there we have pos



Attention.                237
session of them, -unless, in fact, we can command
their attention, especially the attention of the choicest
or most congenial minds within our reach. Truth
is a fine thing where people can bear it, but there are
truths which, in their naked austerity, human nature
is not fit for; and the absolute amount of attention
men gain when they are most anxious for it, and especially lay themselves out for it, is one of these.
The work of a great many lives would stop if the
workers realized how little their efforts are marked
and regarded. The majority of men could not live
happily.if they did not live under a delusion in this
respect. Of course, vain people are the greatest victims of the deception; but, in its degree, the craving
for attention is as legitimate a longing as any other
natural desire. Man, at his best, is so constituted
as not to be able to separate himself from his work.
He may, on the purest principles, desire the success
of a great cause, but it costs an additional pang if
not only the cause is slighted, but he himself is not
attended to; while part of the charm of success is
due, no doubt, to the sense of winning thought and
sympathy in his own person.  The vigorous, healthily constituted mind needs this essence of companionship, which is indeed the very sunshine of moral
life. And yet we must all feel, if we reflect on our
own habits of thought, that attention is a difficult




238                Attentioz.
effort, that it is a vastly more ambitious object of
desire than to stand respectably with our neighbors,
or to secure the substantial regard of our friends;
that, in fact, we make a large demand upon others
when we interrupt the current of their thoughts, and
expect to divert them  to our channel.  Any favor
that people can grant us is more under their own
will than that prompt, earnest, exact attention which
is the universal assumption on which all social intercourse is built; for we must act on the idea that
attention is a much more attainable good than it can
be proved to be. No doubt there are people who
take for granted, in their own persons, that attention is. no effort, as it never occurs to them to doubt
that the amount of attention they receive from their
friends is all right.  But theirs is not of the quality most eagerly sought for.  People instinctively
look for an attention which costs something to the
giver, which implies real labor, and a process of
thought; only they don't always know that this is
the real meaning of attention. However, this is the
attention that men want, and it strikes us that very
few people are philosophical enough and strongminded enough to bear the knowledge of how little
any effort can secure it as a habitual or permanent
possession.  For attention, with most of us, is such
an unchainable thing -it is so essentially a man's




A/ttentioz.               239
own -that to pin it and fix it beyond the tampering of the owner is very much such an achievement as conjuring genii into a bottle. We mean
such command over it as is implied by a man's
voluntarily, for any unbroken length of time, suspending his own interests, speculations, or, more
probably, vague reveries, and attaching himself to
yours.
In the ordinary routine business of life it is scarcely
a practical question.  We must constantly act as
though we were being attended to, whether we are or
not. Indeed, we can scarcely be certain how matters
stand, and must talk, express opinions, make speeches
on the chance; but it will add greatly to our independence and serenity of mind if we realize something of the actual difficulty of bestowing the attention
we profess to ask for, and the wondrous volatility of
that faculty which we desire to hold suspended on
our words. Our language has many golden forms
of speech to tempt on ambitious or eloquent lips to
feats of fine talking.  We read of rapt, enslaved,
charmed, fascinated, spell-bound attention, — of hearers hanging on men's lips, catching each accent as it
falls, and the like; but every phrase really betrays that
unassisted nature is not equal to the strain, and that
magic art alone can master the universal rebellion.
Again, we have plenty of terms expressive of the




240                 Attesntion.
effort needed to secure this coy and fleeting good.
The phrases, to awake, arouse, stimulate, attract, arrest
attention, all testify to the toil and difficulty of the
work; while the listener is not without an expressive
vocabulary to convey the sufferings of forced, unwilling, jaded, weary, distracted, exhausted attention.
He avenges himself on unworthy arts by a language
of contempt for "claptrap," —for the dull spirits
that reckon on a man's attention. so long as they can
forcibly "hold him by the button," - for those who
use violence, and accomplish their end by'"making
folks stare."
The power of commanding the greatest possible
share of attention, even by the most legitimate means,
is perhaps not the sign of the highest intellect.
Great intelligences can scarcely fail to shoot over
the heads of commoner wits. A man must gain attention by assimilating himself to others, and adapting himself to their groove of thought. Thus FeneIon, who had this art to perfection, and charmed
everybody that came near him, had a way of seeming
to possess only just so much mind as the person
he might happen to converse with,-he could talk
exactly like an equal. And Sydney Smith, whose
pen had the power of attracting universal attention
to every cause he had at heart, did it by seizing just
those points of a subject with which the majority




Atteztion.                24I
felt most at home. This is not commanding attention,
but engaging it by adapting yourself to the average
tastes, perceptions, and opinions of mankind.  A
man is thus attended to by slipping into other people's ways of thought, — only investing their own ideas
in a dress flattering to their self-love.  In the same
spirit, Mark Antony can afford to be modest; and
humbly ask his countrymen to " lend him their ears,"
because he knows how to place his subject precisely
on the level of their capacity. The matter that gains
most ready attention in ordinary intercourse is easy,
tolerably succinct, well-arranged narrative. We make
no mention of wit or humor, because they are so
short and flashing that they make no demand at all.
The manner that secures it longest is a self-possessed,
collected, determined one, unvisited by misgivings.
When a man begins at the right end, and has a resolute clear grasp of his subject, he seems to have a
claim on our attention; but all habits, tricks, and
hesitations, as they betray failure of purpose, and
weakness in his own hold, so they must detach and
finally destroy ours. And yet how people will hum
and ha, — their minds all astray, while they utter
conventional or inarticulate sounds, - yet with unprincipled obstinacy refuse to release an attention
which they have not vigor to keep in exercise! For,
after all, attention is so far subject to the senses that,
II                        P




242.Att ention.
however profitless, imperfect, and irksome, it cannot
be wholly suspended at will.
There can be no doubt that real attention is a great
talent and a great power. Indeed, an extreme impatience of attention incapacitates a man for a place in
the world. There is a morbid, demoralized state of
mind in which men cannot listen. They cannot follow another man's train of thought, for they cannot
give their mind into another's custody even for a moment. The very thought of it is an irritation and a
bondage.  This is a subject for compassion where
men recognize their infirmity, and agree neither to
give nor take; but we see it often in those who make
large demands on the attention of others, and expect
to be listened to at any length they choose. Again,
there are people whose attention is simply criticism,
— who are not capable of an instant's suspension of
the judgment, -who accompany your words with a
running commentary of protest or contradiction, showing that they have heard all, and attended to every
word, but with none of the deference of a listener.
But the mind needs unresisting, merely listening attention for its proper development; and this is one
reason why the young ought to have the companionship of the young. Their elders are in such a relation
to them that the mere act of silent attention might
imply the sanction of a mature understanding, which




Attention.               243
of course the attention of equals does not; though
impatient minds are too apt to suppose it does, and
thus to lose substantial weight by mistimed interference. No man can be really influential who cannot
listen as well as talk; and no one can know anything
of the mind of others without attending in the simple,
patient attitude of attention. He who can do this is,
by the very gift, a comfort and stay to anxious, tried,
and perplexed spirits, to whom the mere unfolding of
their difficulties is often the best remedy. Experience
seems to teach men endowed with conscientious attention that all people have something in them worth
attending to. Their patience often helps them through
a dull stratum into a vein missed by all others, but
well worth working.  Sir Walter Scott was one of
these, and maintained that he learnt something from
every one he travelled with. His biographer especially remarks on his serene attention to bores, and
how graciously, through interminable prolixities, " the
same bland eye watched the lips of the tormentor."
To the bystander it was a mere exercise of courtesy
and forbearance; but as no person can be charming
without the appearance of attention, - and as in this
case the appearance can scarcely exist without something of the reality, — the occasion was probably by
no means so great an annoyance to the victim as to a
circle assembled to hear Sir Walter Scott talk, not




244                Attention.
to listen to a discussion on the Truck System, or
the Greek Epigram, as the case might be.
The mention of the bland eye brings us to the true
test and sign of attention.  Courtesy can control
every other mark of roving thought, but no deception can be practised on the eye. If a man is not
really attending, he cannot make his eye look as if
he were. Either the iris is restless, or it is perceptible that its repose arises from thought turned inward; or, more hopeless still, the pupil is fixed in a
determined, unmeaning stare. In any case, we have
constantly to talk on. Things have to be said, and
we must say them, and infuse into the so-called listener a general sense of our subject. But do not talk
for the pleasure of talking, —for the mere relief of
unburdening the mind to the wandering, the rigid, or
the introspective glance. The owner of those eyes
is wondering when you will have done, or he is absently occupied with his own affairs. Take the hint
in good part,'be as concise as you can, and relieve an
unwilling, engaged attention. Now the bore is one
who is not an observer of signs.  He plods on, set
on delivering himself of what he has to say, and so
bewitched with the sound of his own voice that he
does not mark, or, what is worse, is indifferent to, all
evidences of fatigue or restlessness. No one need
be a bore who notes the eyes and postures of those




4.ttention.             245
with whom he converses. No one need force himself habitually on the unwilling notice of others.
On the other hand, there are eyes that invite confidence, — "bland," serene, clear-shining, out-looking
eyes, at once patient and intelligent. This is the eye
of the good listener. He keeps your pace; he goes
with the fluctuations of fact or feeling or argument
without effort. You may know you are not wearying
him. Not that we would impose either upon a congenial glance or easy repose of attitude any unreasonable burden; but such people are not so common but that we should recognize them, and value
them, when we see them. As it is, men constantly
think they like and prize people for their talking,
when it is in fact for their listening; and eve`y kindly intelligent man who possesses this accomplishment
is certain to win himself a great social reputation, and
to be a pillar of any cause he takes up.
We have confined ourselves here to social attention, not the attention men give to books, or pay to
young ladies, or bestow on their own business, or on
works of benevolence. It is well that people should
realize the difficulty of attention in its simplest form.
If they do, they will not lay all the blame on their
instructors if they find their attention restive and unmanageable under greater trials. That was a candid
entry in Dr. Johnson's diary where he resolves "to




246                  Attention.
attend the sermon unless attention be more troublesome than useful"; for at any rate it implied that
attention was an effort. Most people assume that.
nothing is easier than to fix the thoughts on transcendent and often too unfamiliar ideas, and that, if
their attention flags and wearies, of the two parties
implicated in the transaction, it certainly is not
themselves that are to blame.




STRONG WILLS.
IT is the fashion of our day to idolize the will.
People good and bad, religious and profane,
wise and frivolous, unite to honor persistent resolve.
Strength of will is the staple of saints and sinners
of any credit, magnitude, or popularity. It really
matters very little with a great many people what
the object may be, if it only be pursued perseveringly and remorselessly.  Sin followed with a force
to resist the blandishments of collateral sins becomes
a virtue. Whenever a man has a great, prevailing,
paramount desire which sets him above lesser, transient desires, be the main desire ever so truculent,
mean, or base, he is the mark for some men's admiration and reverence, - not, indeed, in respect of the
thing desired, but for the strength and persistence of
his wish for it. The heroine of Mr. Wilkie Collins's
"No Name" relies for our sympathy on this ground
alone. If she were ever to swerve from her horrible




248               Strong  Wills.
and degrading purpose, if her resolve were to relax
for a moment under the breath of any good or genial
influence, the author would have no hope for her.
He expects the public to like her because she stops
at nothing to work her will. There is something in
it, of course. There is a sort of virtue in being able
to care for the same thing for a long time together.
It is also a wonderful element of power. Lady Macbeth and Jezebel are more striking personages by
far than their respective lords, —we might almost
say that there is more to admire in them, -and this
can be due to nothing else than their stronger wills.
Nevertheless, all this talk about strong wills has
something slavish and craven in it. It is a transfer
of the allegiance from reason and right to brute
force. It is the choice of control, of mastery by a
strong hand, as owning our nature, not capable of
free, intelligent action. Strength of will, in whatever
cause, is pretty certain to surround itself with more
or less of suffering, - not only its own voluntary suffering, but incidentally that of others.  Like every
other victory, it has its victims. A man unflinchingly working towards his aim may make a fine historical picture if he is engaged in a great cause, but
z vast many wills go towards the grand display.
Multitudes have to abandon their inherent rights in
)rder to work out his purposes for him: and, there



Strong  Wills.              249
fore, to stand in open-mouthed admiration of mere
strength of purpose, as such, is an act of subservience and a confession of weakness.
Not that the sentiment is always real. We admire
strong wills most at a distance, when time or space
separates us from their social consequences. As an
active interference with our liberty, we are apt to see
in it more of the unreasoning, and as we have said,
brute element, than the divine. The strong wills we
come in contact with have, unfortunately, more objects than one. A man in a book has a great revenge
to arrive at through every obstacle, a great work to
do in spite of all the world; and his will concentrates
itself on the one object, and lets minor matters take
their own course.- But where it is a living propensity, it is prone to interference of the most annoying
and ubiquitous kind, and is in no respect like the
arrow flying at its mark, and touching nothing between. In fact, it is not at all a sublime thing to
have a will stronger than our own wielded by an intelligence which, we flatter ourselves, is not in any respect above our own, controlling us, tampering with
our liberty of action, and fumbling amongst all our
prepossessions, -to feel ourselves thwarted at every
turn by some influence which finds its happiness in
arranging our affairs for us, and which somehow
always gets its way. There are unquestionably minds
II *




250             Strong  Wi/ls.
of very small calibre, who do not thoroughly enjoy
life unless they are habitually making the people
about them do something they would rather not do,
whose main pleasure in every scheme is to carry their
point against the majority. We call this love of management; but what is it really but a busy, unsympathizing, narrow, often well-meaning mind under the
spur of a strong will, working in some small, domestic
sphere as many rulers and potentates have done in
their great sphere who have gained immortal honor
by permeating every nook and cranny of their dominions with their own individual sovereign will?
Seeing the -inconveniences of this masterful impulse in the contracted range of each man's experience, we do not think that the will would have been
lifted so high amongst the virtues by the unprompted
homage of ordinary minds.  People who make a
business of thinking are at the bottom of it. It is
they who have given form to what in others is but
a vague yearning for the fixed, the definite, the irreversible. No doubt it is common to mankind to
respect strength of any kind. It is not only women
who want something stronger than themselves to lean
upon. We are most of us tried by indecision. We
are conscious of conflicting wishes, views, interests.
We are harassed by doubt. We see two sides to
most things, and are apt to be swayed by them alter



Strong Wills.             25 
nately. Something perpetually steps in between us
and our aim. We with difficulty hold on to our
plans and schemes.  Obstacles tell upon us; we
accept omens, submit to hinderances. We give in
and give up, we are hampered by self-mistrust, we
balance the fors and againsts, we are subject to suspense of purpose and feeble volition. Freedom from
doubt, consistency of intention, — these are something comfortable to rely upon. A man has weight
with us who knows what he wants, and goes the
straight way to get it, unvisited by our scruples and
vacillations; though often this singleness of aim is
due to certain intellectual deficiencies, and we should
perhaps be amazed could we see the meagre, insufficient grounds for irrevocable decisions which a man
would sooner yield his life than reverse. But it is
with authors and thinkers by profession that this
instinct of reliance grows into deliberate, willing subservience. Men forever engaged upon their own consciousness, -who turn every subject that comes before
them inside out, - who balance, and weigh, and consider, and question, till certainty and choice seem to
evade them, - are lost in admiration of a strong will
displayed in triumphant, unscrupulous, overbearing
action.  They either do not know that the thing is
done by not thinking, or they reverence it the more
as intuition. They invest the phenomenon with a




252              Strotng  Wills.
halo of comment as Germans do the text of Shakespeare; they enhance the rigidity of purpose, they
give meaning to every accident. Obstinacy in error
is sublime, stolidity is godlike. If these people only
write like geniuses and live like other men, their respect for strength of will is rather abstract than practical; but there are keen, restless spirits who carry
their speculative turn into private life and regulate
their conduct by it. There are people who do everything by a conscious effort of thought, and theorize
on every action as they perform it, —a practice wholly
incompatible with a single. aim, great or small. In
its grand, sustained sense, versatile intellects cannot
possess a strong will. Wilful enough they are, determined enough in their own way, but the way changes
with every mood of thought. They see the merits
by turn of every line of action,-are this day with
the Epicureans, and the next with the Stoics; or
for a change, one of these experimentalists decides
to discard philosophy altogether, to do exactly like
other people, to be minutely commonplace, not to
take a step which has not the sanction of universal suffrage. A person thus proclaiming that he has
no will of his own, and doing like other people with
all his might, is a curious enough spectacle. He
studies every motion, not crediting that anything can
be done without design, —taking, as it were, every




Strong  Wills.              253
breath on reflection, and swallowing at well-considered intervals. W ith this state of things reason has
little chance, for our friend can reason to a hair, and
sees the weak side of every argument but his own.
A cool, steady will, having just what they want, and
wanting all that they have, is the influence to manage
these over-intellectual spirits. Anybody quite confident of his own line, and keeping to it, contemptuous of opposition, serenely and stolidly certain, is
accepted as a guide by men worn out by too wide
an embrace of every question. Only he must not
be too clever, and he must never give reasons. Those
they can dispute, but"certainty and will are the things
that they bow to as powers mysterious and divine.
It is like the fable of the speculative young bear
applying itself to the science of walking.  "Shall I,"
says he, "move my right front paw first or my left, or
the two front paws first or the two hind ones, or all
four at once, and how?" fluctuating in all the endless
alternatives which four legs offer, till will and action,
in the person of the old she-bear, stept in to cut the
knot, - "Leave off thinking and walk."
Will, then, as a power which attains its ends by
a short cut,  which does while others think, and
makes the world go its way, while intellect argues,
refines, and beats about the bush, -is an object
of genuine awe and reverence to metaphysical and




254              Strong  Wills.
speculative minds; but also it is made use of by
a certain class of theorists (amongst the infinite number of subjects so applied) to talk nonsense about,
and very deliberate nonsense we might suspect, but
that fluent tongues can talk themselves into a partial
belief of anything. Lecturers, either amateur or professional, are very fond of exalting the will. It is
flattering to the vanity of an audience to be told
that it only depends on themselves to be as powerful
and successful as the great leaders of thought and
action; and many speakers say it under the vague
notion that, though it is not strictly true, it is a good,
proper, stimulating thing to say. They know that
the members of a Mechanics' Institute do not care
to be taught out of the Catechism, yet the occasion
enjoins a moral, and utility is the order of the day.
Especially if they themselves are at the top of the
tree, it looks and feels like humility to assure every
raw youth of the company that he has only to try,
with a will, and he may attain to the speaker's level.
Only set your hearts, he cries, -in spite of a conviction deep inside, giving the lie to his words,only resolve, with an intense, continuous act of volition to do and to be such-and-such things, and you
will infallibly succeed.  "How many men have begun
as you have, and ended by being partners where
they were errand-boys! How many have begun with




Strong Wills.             25 5
twopence, -possibly the sum in your pockets at this
moment, — and ended life the owner of half a million i  How many have begun mere journeymen,
as some of you are, and risen to be inventors, discoverers, the everlasting benefactors of mankind!
And any of you may do the same if only you have
a will strong enough. All these men had a will;
they never gave in; they suffered no pleasure to
allure them from the one object of their lives; they
conquered all difficulties; they were proof against
disappointment; hence your Fairbairns, your Stevensons, and all the merchant princes of the land."
Facetious allusions are possibly thrown in to Whittington and his master's daughter, or that beggarboy of Florence, who, receiving an alms from a fair
maid of high degree, incontinently resolved to make
her his wife, left the city on the instant a soldier,
and came back generalissimo, to claim and win his
reward. Fortunately for the audience, these ideas
never enter the mind beyond infusing a temporary
unmeaning inflation. The errand-boy cannot get up
the sublime preliminary will which is to set the rest
in motion. A will, unprompted by power to work
it out, is nothing. Nor will conceit of power do
much. A few rebuffs and failures abate pretension,
except where vanity impairs the sanity of the brain.
If people did not know all the while that men cannot




256              Strong  Wills.
make fortunes in business without a good head for
it, and that it is no use being persevering over
mechanics unless you have more than average of
the gifts for the work, -if they did not know hundreds of plodding, indefatigable clerks, who yet remain clerks all their lives,-this theory of the will
would make lunatics of a docile audience.
Yet, though all the harm which might follow, if
such advice were capable of being acted upon, does
not come, yet some harm always results from the
wide diffusion of untruth, and the continual utterance of swelling words, even if everybody knows that
they mean nothing. Not but that there is a will that
makes a man; but it cannot be put into him, and,
indeed, needs no prompting. A man starts on his
career with a tacit understanding with himself that
he is to rise. It is a step-by-step progress. He probably has no distinct aim. It is only in books that he
resolves from the first dawning of ambition to become
owner of such an estate or bishop of such a see. But
he means to get on, and devotes all his powers to that
end. He fixes his thoughts beyond immediate selfindulgence, chooses his friends as they will help the
main design, falls in love on the same principle, and,
habitually deferring to a vague but glowing future,
learns to work towards it, and for its sake to be selfdenying and long-sighted. His instincts quicken; he




Strong Wills.              257
puts forth feelers, which men who take their pleasure from hand to mouth have no use for; he lives in
habitual caution, with an eye always awake to the main
chance. Thus he refines and enhances that natural
discretion which doubles the weight and value of
every other gift, and yet keeps them on an unobtrusive level —leaving itself the most notable quality -
till he is universally pronounced the man made to get
on, by people who do not know that it is a steady will
that has made him and kept him what he is.
This is the will strong for itself. It, in fact, pushes others aside, takes their places, holds on its fatal
course; but, as being unobtrusive and never openly
asserted, it is the direct opposite of the meddlesome
will of our social experience, expressed in the phrase
that such a person must always have his way. Both
are varieties from the historical or romantic will,
which makes great heroes, criminals, tyrants, or martyrs, according to the cause in which it is applied.
We believe, even on this grand heroic scale, many a
will gets worshipped in manhood which acts precisely
on the same motive for which an obstinate child gets
whipped, - that is, the'man goes on because he has
begun. Nevertheless, we all feel a vigorous will to
be a fine thing. It is a stroke of nature in the man
in the play to hate a bird that does not know its own
mind. It is wearisome to be with people without any




258               Stronzg  Wills.
will of their own.  Volition is life; no one can be
really great, whatever his other powers,. without it;
nor can a man cultivate it in himself too carefully, so
long as he respects the free will of others, and only
applies it to secure constancy in purposes and decision in action.




TALKING OF SELF.
T is a nice and a curious inquiry how far it is
desirable, or even tolerable, for people to talk of
themselves. There is no broader distinction between
man and man than the manner and the degree in
which this is done. There are people who never talk
of themselves. There are others who never talk of
anything but themselves, —that is, who can pursue
no subject unless the vista can be made to terminate
in self. Wherever it comes to this, the question admits but of one answer, -indeed, society has put the
too frequent use of the word "I" under an interdict.
No person who mixes much with mankind dares to
turn the conversation habitually upon himself, except
under some feint or disguise. Nevertheless, we all
of us know persons who talk only of themselves, and
families who never get farther from themselves than
one another. fThese are probably the dullest people
and dullest families of our acquaintance; for, when




260             Talking  of Sefs
we come to think of it, all prominent dulness has a
touch of egotism at bottom, and this is the point that
tells. It is the part we have to play in their company
that oppresses us both at the time and in recollection.
(Not only is their intelligence chained to themselves,
but ours also. All interchange and variety of thought
are impossible, not only because they are a heavy, unimaginative sort of people, whose flights are circumscribed to their own prospects, but because their one
subject is precisely that on which we can neither speak
our own mind nor satisfy expectation. We could discuss the man merrily enough behind his back; but to
be forced to follow his lead, too polite to be candid,
yet full of inward revolt, is a false position, and the
inevitable subservience leaves a flavor of annoyance
and failure which intercourse with mere dryness and
insipidity cannot be charged with.
We all know men and women tethered, by a string
whose length we instinctively measure, to themselves.
Every subject under the sun reminds such people of
themselves. Nothing is too remote for this alliance,
- they cannot hear of the stars without wanting their
own horoscopes. Their sole notion of conversation
is to display themselves. They are ready to unveil
their whole idiosyncrasy to whoever will look and
listen. Their loves and hates and prospects are at
anybody's service. Their experiences, successes, ev



Talking of Self:              261
ery fine thing ever said to them or of them, are common property. The whole world is their confessor in
the matter of their faults, temptations, whims, grievances, doubts, and weaknesses.' They expect to interest strangers by an avowal of their taste in meats
and diunks and clothes. I They confide their diseases
and their remedies, their personal habits, their affairs
to any chance comer, never for a moment visited by
the misgiving pressed upon them by the preacher, -
"Is it possible that it should never come into people's thoughts to suspect whether or not it be to their
advantage to show  so very much of themselves?"/
Society, or rather their own little world, is simply a
tablet on which to subscribe self.  When forced by
some strong counter-will out of this indulgence, they
are visibly at sea, vacant, disturbed; they have nothing to say: we feel for them as painfully out of their
element, and are prone, in weak good-nature, to help
them into port again. Now, a good deal of this is
mere ill-manners. People who talk in this way are
either underbred or incapable of nurture, or they
suffer the want of certain wholesome restraints that
keep the rest of the world in order. Miss Austen,
whom few forms of social folly escaped, has more
than one character representing this habit of mind,and revealing its source. Every reader can recall
that elaborate and inimitable impersonation of self



262              Talking of Se/f.
display, Mrs. Elton, who, once received into the
memory, has too many counterparts in real life ever
to be forgotten.
Vanity is of course the leading motive to this obtrusive display. i Yet the habit of perpetually reverting to self is not always to be confounded with'vanity.
Mere paucity of ideas and deadness of fancy drive
some people into it who have a willingness to talk,
and yet so little perception of things out of themselves that nothing apart from their own routine of
sensations presents itself to say. No doubt it gives
them a general sense of importance to clothe themselves in words, bhit they have hardly a choice as to
the means. There are men who will tell anybody
how often they have been jilted, under the vague
sense that honor will somehow redound to themselves
from the confessionS; or they will found a claim for
distinction upon weak digestion, or the difficulties
they encounter in shaving.  But these aspirations are
something apart from vanity. There is a mild satisfaction in being not a mere insignificant unit, but possessed of differences and peculiarities, which is worth
all the world besides to some people, and indeed to
which none of us are quite insensible. t'Others talk
of themselves from a nervous desire to cover their
defects, - a restless impulse to set off their presentable points. They are alive to some weak side,




Talkinig of Self.            263
which preys on their sensitiveness: as the people
most apt to talk of their fine friends and grand relations are those who are deeply conscious of a preponderance of the other sort. Thus very few persons
who talk much about themselves talk the truth. The
impression they want to give is one-sided. There
are probably a hundred things about themselves
which, in the midst of ostentatious candor, they
suppress.
"Some faults we own; but can you guess?
Why, virtues carried to excess."
And the side represented swells to inordinate dimensions, and takes an aspect bearing it out of the region of fact. Or perhaps, like Goethe and Rousseau.
they have a notion that everything becomes them,that even meanness or baseness is glorified when
made a matter of frank confession.
As excessive talk of this kind is presumption, the
habit is most odious in young people. Children in
their natural state never talk of themselves. They
show egotism by a peculiar appreciation of the pronouns " my" and "mine"; but they are not yet selfconscious.  They could not, if they would, unveil
themselves, - their vanity takes another direction.
All attempts, unless very systematic and insidious,
fail to rouse self into expression. Precocious chil



264             Talking of Self.
dren now and then talk of themselves, especially if
forced and excited by a certain sort of religious teaching. Then they can be heard to enlarge with a horrible glibness on their feelings, their convictions of sin,
their schemes for setting the world to rights; but
this is mostly a sign of an overtasked brain, accompanied sometimes by an exceptional, grotesque form
of naughtiness, and sure to pass off as the health improves and the cleverness vanishes. When childhood,
and even boyhood, is fairly over, is the time for self
to assert itself in talk. Then it awakes full armed in
a sort of bloom and overflow of conceit, an invasion
of arrogance never to be matched in after life. There
are not many more unpleasant things in the social
world than a pert, forward young man, whose theme
is universally himself, — who entertains every company with himself, and breaks up every conversation
that does not concern himself.  These insufferable
persons are of all sorts, from the flippant and most
bearable who clamors of his own exploits, boasts himself the envy of one sex and the idol of the other, to
the deep, oracular, and enlightened youth who will
not allow us to remain in the dark as to his views
on any of the topics that occupy mankind. Or there
is the sententious, didactic young man, more than
endured probably by some small admiring circle, —
a teetotaler, perhaps, or a stringent Sabbatarian, or




Talkinzg of Self.             265
engaged in a course of lectures to "the lower orders,"
or in some way or other a conscious example, reprover, and guide to his fellow-men.  Whatever their line,
they are intrinsically the same, - all alike patronizing
or indifferent to their betters, - all blind to the impression they make,- all lavishing the fulness of
their admiration, reverence, and talk on one central
figure, -all flaunting the same self in our eyes,keeping up the one chorus, "I, I, I," "I say," "I
know," "I do."
i/And yet all people must sometimes talk of themselves, - all ought to be able to do it on fitting occasions freely and naturally.  No man is interesting
who never talks of strictly personal matters; indeed,
we cannot be said really to know anybody till he has
talked of himself to us./ Until there has been a
mutual interchange of such confidences, people are
acquaintances, not friends'; and the man who has no
such confidences to make has no friends.!` It is not,
then, the practice itself, but how and when to indulge
it, that is the point.  We use the word " indulge" designedly, for unquestionably the subject most interesting to every one must be himself. It is in recognition of this fact that all popular forms of religion
agree in spiritualizing egotism. Methodism enjoins
all its members to enlarge periodically each on himself, - the only check being that all have to listen in
I2




266             Talking of Seif;
their turn. Romanism makes asceticism endurable
by enjoining an immense amount of self-scrutiny and
proportionate self-portraiture; and attempts at conventual life in our own Church all bring out the
fact that unlimited dwelling on self and lengthy confession -that is, the talking of self — is the one indemnity for a life of unnatural constraint and bondage. To persons open to the active interests of life
and the relaxations of society, however, a great many
circumstances ought to combine to make the subject
of self a natural or even a pleasurable one.  Talking
of self is one of the strongest proofs of confidence
that can be given by a mind of due delicacy and
reserve,'-a confidence that ought to be bestowed
with such discretion as to make it always welcome.
With ordinary people, under ordinary circumstances,
the subject, at any length or particularity, must be
either a favor or an impertinence. There are, however, a great many people who have a right to talk
of themselves with freer latitude than it is wise to
give ourselves, -old people, for instance, who have
the instinctive longing to leave some record of themselves behind them. Even where old age "is given
to lying" of past achievements, it is not so bad as the
boasting of younger men. There is generally some
quaint savor about it, -some illusion of a failing memory claiming our indulgence in the worst cases, and




Talking of Self:              267
softening contempt.  Invalids and persons of weak
nerves and spirits must be allowed to talk of themselves. Pain, weariness, and seclusion throw them
upon their inner consciousness.  When every nerve
and function of the body makes itself felt, and every
feeling is morbidly excited, they must be excused if
nothing out of themselves can command their attention. It is needless to say that persons under some
immediate shock, unhinging to the whole being, must
be not only allowed, but encouraged to talk of themselves; for a personal grief put into words is infinitely lighter and more bearable than trouble pressing on the heart. There is something in every effort
at expression which brings relief; and when sorrow
can be brought to describe itself, the worst is over.
Again, persons of notoriety may be pardoned if they
fall into this habit.  We hear of great poets, authors,
preachers, philanthropists, soldiers, who talk too much
of themselves; and it is true that vanity is often a
conspicuous element in conspicuous greatness, acting
as a sort of spur, and indemnifying itself with words.
But society itself takes the part of flatterer in their
case, -first leads them on, and puts them off their
guard by the importunity of its interest, and then of
course betrays them.
And lastly, wits make great capital of themselves.
Many of the best things of our most delightful hu



268              Talking of Self.
morists are about themselves. We not only excuse it
in their case, but this perpetual consciousness of and
reference to themselves is of the essence of their wit,
and gives it its careless, genial character. So far from
any sense of restraint when Falstaff or Sydney Smith
talk of themselves, it has the effect of making us all
partners in the joke. But in every case where it is
so, it is not the man's real self, but one or more of
his personal or mental characteristics, that he plays
with. We are conscious all the while of an inner
self, which he keeps as jealously guarded as the most
reserved of his hearers. That talk of self, or any
part of self, which connects the speaker with grotesque, remote, abstract, or strongly-contrasted ideas,
is more than tolerable. That which keeps down both
speaker and listener, in whatever seeming variety of
subject, to one tedious, obtrusive idea, is the propensity under which society rebels. After all, it is a matter of sympathy.  The sinners in this line have no
fellow-feeling. They do not do as they would be
done by, for they see no parallel between themselves
and others, their own affairs and other people's. They
believe in a distinct superiority in all that concerns
themselves.  Trifles in the abstract are not trifles
with them, but subjects of legitimate interest to the
world; and that obtuseness which constitutes want,
of sympathy is at the bottom of their error. Any per,




Talkinzg of Self.           269
son who can make his inner self or his family affairs
amusing has perception enough to secure his hearer's
interest before he tries it. Indeed, a man may say
and do anything, — he may enumerate his charities,
he may detail his last quarrel with his wife, he may
repeat a string of his own bon mots, or press upon
strangers the perusal of his manuscript poem, —he
may offend against every principle and every canon
of taste; but so long as he excites a genuine interest,
and relies on real sympathy, he is not the man we
mean, and does not offend in the particular direction
which has given rise to our strictures.




FO L L Y.
XW   ISE  men and keen-witted men have so long
occupied themselves with the nature of folly
and the analysis of fools, that the subject might seem
to be exhausted; but it is a feature of folly, that
nothing can be understood about it without personal
experience. We know a fool when we see him, but
not before. Nothing that other people tell us exactly
tallies with this knowledge. Sprightly, energizing folly
takes us by surprise as long as we live; we never
get so used to it as to know what is coming. Thus
the folly of mankind supplies it with its surprises;
it is a stimulant to curiosity never allowed to slumber.
The dullest neighborhood, -the freest from rational
excitements, -is enlivened at intervals by the scintillations of some fantastic folly or another. It is
not too much to say, that half the lively con amore
talk of social life owes its briskness to this source;
nor does this necessarily imply preference for the




Folly.                  27I
subject, for it is of the essence of a fool to be always
thrusting himself on people's notice, to be doing
something to be talked about.
"Ma'am," said one of the sisterhood of Mrs. Gamp
to a client, "you can never be too thankful that your
children be n't born fools." Let us at once explain
that, if they had been, they would not have supplied
us with an illustration. It is said by one of our
essayists, in contrasting folly with affectation, that
nature may sometimes make a fool, but never a coxcomb. But we are not willing to believe that the
folly that plays so great a part in the world is a taint
in the blood. The fools we mean are not simply
dull, - on the contrary, they are clever fellows. "An
eminent fool must be a fool of parts." To figure
in this department needs great self-reliance, and even
powers of invention.  Simple weakness of intellect,
mere incapacity, can never make itself conspicuous.
Some sharpness is necessary for every sort of prominence.  Folly is not folly till it proclaims itself.
When Cymon
" Durst not begin
To speak, but wisely kept the fool within,"
he was ceasing to be a fool. What, indeed, we might
ask, do the wisest do more? It is vigorous, acting,
self-confident folly that gets talked about. Minds
of this mould are of the sanguine temperament, and




272                   Foldly.
find a sprightly joy in self-display of any kind.  If
they are but making themselves seen, they believe
they are doing well for themselves; and even where
they blunder and flounder, they do so under the
complacent conviction of a triumph. They are never
ashamed. They prefer their folly to anything else
about themselves, and boast of any action especially
silly all their lives.  It is this particular feature which
separates essential folly from what may be called
accidental, contagious, or sympathetic folly, -the
effect of blinding or absorbing passion which takes
a man out of himself, as anger, ambition, jealousy,
revenge; or of some popular hallucination possessing multitudes at the same time, as table-turning,
collecting of old postage-stamps, frenzy for sights
not worth seeing, and the like. Folly has been pronounced, on the highest authority, a necessary condition of one passion to which commonplace mortals
are far more prone than fools:"For to be wise and love
Exceeds man's thoughts, - that dwells with gods above."
It is too universal an experience, that lovers in the
climax of their felicity are foolish, to prove anything
against the individual; it is rather a "sweet, wise
madness," towards which the most churlish are indulgent, as testifying to the genuineness of the fortunate




Folly.                  273
distemper. But the perpetrator of occasional follies
is not so indulgent towards himself. - He cannot
always forgive himself excesses that, his friends look
over; and, from whatever source, the greater follies
of his life plant a sting in the memory.
Folly, to be folly proper, is an abiding flaw or leakage, of which we are made continually aware. Yet
the tendency to folly constantly looks like cleverness
in children, and may be fostered as such. The wise
child has the same thoughts as the foolish child, but
recognizes them as foolish or impertinent, and suppresses them; while the other, impelled by the craving for self-exhibition, which is an essential ingredient
of folly, thinks alone of notice and attention. A
sensitive mind very early occupies itself with what
passes, or is likely to pass, in the mind of others,a great check to display; but, perhaps, if we must
name one unfailing characteristic of a fool, it is the
want of power to see himself and his doings reflected
in the mind of other men. To know with absolute
correctness how we stand in the thoughts of others
is given to none; but in the case of the foolish person there is an utter gulf between his idea of himself and the consent of mankind concerning him.
Again, it is a sort of crowning victory of reason and
good sense to realize how small a space for good or
ill we occupy in men's thoughts at any given time.
12'*                       R




274                   Folly.
This knowledge would be intolerable to the man void
of understanding. Thus he will always be talking,
and always in a bustle. He is restless if not doing,
-and doing, not for the thing's sake, but for other
people to see, satisfied if he can only make them stare.
The fool proper is always more foolish inside than
out. He can never be said to reflect, or to perform
any processes of mental digestion. He is always
standing in his own light. Thus he reads without
getting at the drift, hears without attending, laughs.
without point, acts without realizing consequences, is
confident without grounds, is blind to impossibilities,
does not see the connection of cause and effect, lives
without gaining experience, never recognizes a heart,
reality, or meaning in anything, and knows nothing of
all this, and is perfectly satisfied with himself through
it all. And this from no want of natural perception,
but from contempt of the safeguards without which
the wisest fall into the same errors, -from the habit
of viewing things, not for themselves, but solely as
they suggest opportunity of display, and can be twisted
into an occasion for thrusting Self forward. A great
deal of the folly of the world consists in people thinking themselves wiser than all the rest of mankind, because they are too curiously possessed and preoccupied by themselves to entertain the claims of others,
or to conceive of merit outside their personal con



Folly.                  275
sciousness. There are people who do not see why
they should ever be mere learners, — who affect to
make discoveries in a science of which they know
nothing, and will strike out new views on subjects
to which they have not devoted an hour's reflection,
and which the smallest reach of thought beyond the
walls of their brain would show them to be the lifelong
occupation of superior, trained, experienced minds.
Foolish people of this class think their own haphazard worth more than the tact of an expert or the
conclusions of patient labor, because they know nothing of the workings of other minds, and therefore
have no respect or reverence. The fool is conceited
more from blindness to the merit of others, from
recognizing no superiority, than from any deep-seated
pride in his own acquirements.
All these are irritating enough characteristics. To
have to act with a fool is to involve one's self in confusion and contempt. Nothing is more wearing than
intimate intercourse with folly, - nothing more intolerable, we should suppose, than to be under the dominion of fools. It shrivels up heart and brain. To
live with a person who sees nothing by the clear light
of reason, who never reaches the cause and motive
of things, who is always mistaking sham for reality,
who perverts everything into a fantastic occasion of
display, and involves all about him in the ridicule of




276                   Folly.
his proceedings, sours the temper and embitters life.
It has, then, to be accounted for why the subject of
folly and the delineation of fools should be such a
perennial source of amusement to mankind, -why
what crushes the spirit forced into too close connection with it should be so diverting to hear of; why a
course of action which afflicts, its victims with a
dreary sense of monotony and hopeless repetition
should present such a startling succession of new
effects at second hand. That the subject has a very
remarkable fascination we just now cannot doubt.
One of our theatres has lately devoted itself for a
year and a half to the impersonation of a fool, and
the world showed no weariness or satiety.  Lord
Dundreary would be dreadful in actual companionship; but under Mr. Sothern's management people
found him excellent sport, and enjoyed his inanities
over and over again. This may be thought a sign
of a frivolous taste in a vitiated public; yet how is
it that our wittiest satirists, our deepest and truest
observers, our profoundest moralists, have been alike
attracted, and have expended their best efforts on
this subject, not only in portraying the folly of mankind, but in singling out individual instances from
real life, or creating them with a sort of inspired
truth of imagination? Indeed, as "true no-meaning
puzzles more than wit," it calls for the exercise. of




Foaly.                  277
the highest powers to portray a fool to the life.
Good common-sense can often give a fair picture of
a wise man; but to follow the mazes of a perfectly
frivolous and unreasonable mind,- to distinguish
the nice varieties of folly, —to keep distinct each
separate vein, - to show how self reigns in all, under
such infinite diversities of vanity, pomposity, affectation, and whim, demands real genius and the courage
of intuitive perception.  Moreover, many characters
depicted by the highest genius are painful to the
reader; we give a sort of unwilling tribute to the
skill and power of the delineation, but a well-drawn
fool wins cheerful appreciation, -he is a joy forever.
Writer and reader are sure to be of one accord.
This general delight in the safe and distant contemplation of folly will perhaps be attributed to pride, -
to a sense of gratified superiority., There are people
with whom pride is a universal solution, and in this
case with some appearance of reason. If the picture
is well-drawn, we are sure to know or to have known
some man or woman very like it; and there is all the
satisfaction of a hit. It is undoubtedly pleasant to be
let into these little confidences by the more penetrating minds; our own capacity brightens under the
stimulus. A man never in his own person feels so
little like a fool as when some masterpiece of this
school is put before him.  But we must think that the




278                  Fol.ly.
attraction of folly lies mainly in its being so intensely
human, and at the same time divested of the awe and
mystery attaching to all that is unfathomable and beyond us in the higher characteristics of our nature.
There is so much in the grander forms of humanity
that takes us beyond our knowledge; we get so soon
into the dark, and have to grope our way. All other
creatures have some depths that are not fathomable, -
something that reaches beyond the visible into dimness and the terrors of the unseen, something which
inspires the timidity of conscious ignorance; but the
fool is essentially superficial.  People who are not
fools are superficial too; but they recognize something in others to which they defer, though they cannot sympathize with it, and on which they act and
plan.  But folly is so all outside, —it has so little
perception of what is not expressed by signs and acting, that there is not even reflected depth or mystery.
There is no shade about it; it stands in the bare light
of common day, removed at the farthest point from
our superstitions, hedged about by the comfortable
security of every-day human nature. However eccentric its manifestations, it acts on some principle or
design easy to understand.  We can only mistake in
the interpretation of it by probing for a meaning; for
folly pure and abstract is all surface, and incapable of
seeing or apprehending anything beyond the senses.




Folly.                  279
It is this singleness of view which imparts to the
entirely superficial their readiness on every social demand for feeling. They are up in the appropriate
signs, which they quite believe are all that the thing
itself signifies.  When Silence moralizes on death,
Shallow is prompt with the right thing to say: —
" Certain,'t is certain, very sure, very sure; death, as
the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die.
How  a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair."
What more can friendship or the thought of death
demand of us? Folly is always more than ready for
all the solemn occasions of life, only it welcomes each
harrowing or trying event of existence as a sort of
game of skill. There is something to be done to
show that the position is understood, and the only
way that occurs of proving this is by overdoing. the
signs.  Hence the broadest of black borders and
emulation in funeral trappings, under the notion that
grief must be there if there be only crape enough to
swathe it in. Hence, solemn seclusions and a perfect get-up of despair, till the whole is cast off at a
moment's warning, and some new effect struck out,
without any consciousness that there has been a performance, or that real sorrow is a wound, an aching
want of something lost and never to be restored. It
is the same with all the sentiments and affections.
Folly delights in, dotes on them all, and expatiates




280                  Fobl,.
in romance, benevolence, friendship, enthusiasm, even
remorse; only it does not know what any of them
mean, beyond certain shows and exhilarating opportunities for doing something, outvying others, and
making an appearance. It has no idea of any out-ofsight emotion. It is the busy, pretentious assumption
of these qualities, and the break-down, the bathos,
from the absence of the essence of them,- from the
want of an inner prompter, -it is the eagerness to
be well with the world, and the fantastic expedients
for effecting its desires, it is the grotesque and yet
the servile imitation of feeling, thought, and sense,
which produces the succession of bizarre effects so
delightful to gossip. A foolish person is always doing
something silly and to be talked about; he has no
other world than other men's eyes and tongues; if
only plenty of these are occupied with him, his ideal
is fulfilled, and the world is quite ready to make it
a bargain.
We cannot imagine mere inconsequence, conceit,
and folly having any part in another existence. As
we have said, it is essentially human. It is not an
impulse or instinct, or any secret inner influence; it
is the flutter of superficial humanity, bounded by the
senses: it belongs to our present ignorance, weakness,
and blindness. So soon as we are actuated by a deep
motive, we are no longer foolish. By whatever means




FoaZy.                  281
the veil is lifted up, we are among realities. We want
no other argument than this to prove that the spiritualistic communications from another world are an imposition.  Their utterances are foolish, the clumsy
expedients of thumps and raps and riotous furniture
are foolish, and, if foolish, nothing can persuade us
but that flesh and blood have a hand in them.
Many a reader will perhaps feel that we have not
even touched the sort of folly he is best acquainted
with.  Every one old enough to observe knows some
signal, as it would seem some exceptional, example
of folly. Every class of men, every walk of life, however high and solemn its intellectual pretensions and
requirements, has, in presence or memory, some particular and eminent fool connected with it. As Johnson says of Shakespeare, making free with Roman
greatness, "He wanted a buffoon, and went to the
Senate-House for what the Senate-House was sure to
supply."  There have always been, and always will
be, foolish justices, foolish judges, foolish members of
Parliament, foolish speech-makers, foolish preachers,
foolish authors, foolish celebrities of all kinds; and
these not the least considered of their class, for there
is this in lively and energetic folly, with its serene selfconsequence and insensibility to snubs, its courage
and obtrusive vigor, - qualities which have the gift of
making their way and keeping uppermost, - it does




282                  Folly.
somehow fit into the existing state of things. Those
who fail in life's struggles are not the fools, or, at
least, not what are called such. There are people
besides King Charles who never say a foolish thing,
but who, if things went by their right names, and
were tested by the end, are no doubt the greatest
fools of all. But we have kept to that recognized
acceptation of the term which has to do with thecomedy of life, as the other has with its tragedy.
To conclude, it is not everybody that knows the
difference between folly as a quality and doing foolish
things, which the wisest do in their time. A clearsighted observer is slow to impute that intrinsic, pervading folly which, in its excesses, marks and separates a man. Mere satirists like to class all mankind
under this head, because men can be convicted of
absurdities in concert, and because they are, one and
all, occasionally foolish. The test is, Do they ever
wake to a consciousness of having played the fool?
No man who is ever thoroughly, deeply, heart and
soul, ashamed of himself, -who comes to a sense
of the true nature of his own folly, and sees it with
other men's eyes, - should be classed among the irreclaimable. The real fool never regrets the right
thing or for the right reason, and under no circumstances sees himself as others see him.




TIME PAST.
EVERY mode of viewing time is so trite, every
turn of expression about it has become such a
commonplace, that it is really one of the hardest
things we know to think about time at all, - to bring
the mind to face the idea. The preacher moralizes
about time, and the historian marks out its course;
we observe times and seasons, and keep birthdays,
and have watches and clocks, and prose about the
flight of time, and lay plans to get rid of it, and note
its ravages on our friends, and have qualms at our
first gray hair, and assume* that we were born into
time, and profess that we expect to die and have
done with time altogether. But with all this array
of testimony, the thought rarely comes home; the
thing is apprehended but by glimpses and snatches,
reaching us, when it does come, by a side-wind and
at unawares. How can we realize time but through
ourselves, - through our own part in it? To be




284                Time Past.
sure, we are the heirs of all the ages; but everything works against a true sense of our inheritance,
- against our connecting ourself with what went before our spark of life was set alight. The materialists will not believe in eternity, but, practically, this is
easier to believe in than in a beginning and an end
altogether distinct from our personality. Education,
of course, strives to infuse this belief; but in spite of
the labors of childhood to impress it, written history
leaves but a faint stamp on many minds, -often none
at all on the uneducated. It never quite passes for
reality. Its facts do not feel like the facts with which
we have to do. It is the difference between direct evidence and circumstantial. How many are aware of a
sort of spring or clutch -of the mind, as at a sudden
revelation,- a change from shadow to substance, -
when events and persons that are passing into the
cold Valhalla of history reach us in some more vital
way. Thus the old President of Magdalen had seen
Dr. Johnson, and described the "brown tradesman's
wig " with a memory that could still recall the uncouth
figure. Here, then, was a man who had actually seen
Johnson, who in his turn had seen Queen Anne. From
a Stuart we seemed helped on somehow to a Tudor,
from a Tudor to a Plantagenet; everything gained
body and truth, from the share our senses had in the
first start,-our hold on the first link.  An editio




Tine Past.                285
princets, an old letter with the post-mark, a portrait,
a trustworthy relic, anything that brings us in fancy
face to face with the original, gives an impression of
genuineness otherwise unattainable, to a multitude of
minds who know the facts to which it bears witness
only by the common hackneyed way; and strengthens
it in all. We pass from conventional belief to something more actual; we realize a space of time; we
take a leap through intervening years and ages. Nor
need the space be long, - it need only be well out of
our own experience. The grasp of the past, no doubt,
is overpowering, on bringing to light an Assyrian bull,
or an Etruscan king lying in state, or a family group
at Pompeii; but if we were so very sure about Ben
Jonson, Dryden, and the rest, how came that thrill
connecting us with those names when our youth first
saw them in the Po.et's Corner?  For an instant, we
knew that there was a world before we lived in it.
Not that at any age we consciously question, much
less dispute this fact, but we have a momentary sense
of companionship with certain past existences, - of
itself telling a tale as to our ordinary attitude of
thought towards them,- which extends our tenure
of time, while it constitutes, for the objects of this
faith, the immortality they sighed for; such sighs
proving that the imagination of poets gets a stronger
hold of the idea of time than ordinary faculties can




286               Titze Past.
attain to. Nothing, however, can be more transient
than these convictions.  The experiment does not
answer twice. Our belief soon starves on such food.
But time has less genial ways of proving its independence, by forcing on us an intolerable sense of
isolation. Time is short, and life is short; but shorter
than either is our share in the time and thought of
others. When we are with the very young, it is often
borne on us that large tracts of our life are, and must
ever remain, utterly unconnected with them; that what
is present to us - for all memory is a sort of present
time -is history to them; that our boyhood, our
youth, the events that absorbed us and determined
our course, are to them matters of faith, like Alexander the Great or William  III., —things with which
they can have no personal concern, no connection but
through an unimpassioned, indulgent sympathy. We
feel that to them, all these are simply some of the
myriads of things that happened before they were
born; that they do not, cannot know us, but only
just that slip and slice of ourselves that runs parallel
with their existence; and again, that when we are
gone, they must still have as warm an interest in the
world, as busy a life, -that babes yet unborn will
interest them, fill their thoughts, be their friends,
marry them perhaps, while we shall be but a memory,
a thing past by, inevitably dimming away towards




Time Past.                287
indistinctness and forgetfulness.  Of course, will be
the reply; what can be more palpably, more grossly
obvious? No doubt it is so; but still, there is a clash
between feeling and dry knowledge; and there are
a good many people with whom the feeling makes
the more influential impression. How is it, one asks,
while we are all to ourselves, our own universe, the
centre of things, round which everything turns, and
for which everything was created, through which alone
we can realize existence, thought, life, matter, -how
is it that all these servants and attendants upon us go
on without us? The cynic who wrote, in scorn, of
this yearning selfishness,-' The sun has rose and gone to bed,
Just as if Partridge were not dead,"yet shows a passing apprehension of the pang and
the qualm which each man feels for himself at some
moment or other, in rebellion against that dull forgetfulness which is some day to swallow him up.
It is the same sensation which led Dante to ask, in
solemn wonder, of the chance stranger arriving at
his city, how he could have private cares that day
that Beatrice had died? We believe there are persons
to whom the notion of the world they know, apart
from themselves in it, is so impossible,- who understand their own existence so much more keenly than




288                Timne Past.
anything else, - that practically they think the world
will end with them. Ap5res mrai e dufgge, represents
not at all an uncommon posture of mind. It is a
mere chance whether this temper leads such persons
to talk of heaven under the notion that earth will
not exist after they have left it, or to keep a hold
-on time, and "fix their memory with a thousand
nails," by clogging posterity with plans and restrictions and the incubus of a dead will, as though their
volition was to survive, a power and an influence
controlling future generations.  Anything is more
natural and more possible than that things should
go on without them.
But, apart from this madness of a strong will, all
thoughtful minds would willingly take note of time,
and keep what hold they can on past and future,"And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each with natural piety."
What effects this,- what holds the individuality together under the shocks of perpetual change, -is
association. There are certain landmarks of memory,
connecting especial occasions and impressions with
persons and localities, and so giving a point to periods
of time, and constituting them  stepping-stones over
the inevitable lapse and flow of unregarded moments.
He is only half a man who has not this unwritten




Time Past.                289
record to which thought and feeling continually recur;
and yet there is a constant tendency both in man
and society to erase it,-to be occupied, that is,
solely with the present, -to live in the present, act
for it, and, whatever be the case with the future,
never to "look after."  A man determined while he
lives to assimilate himself to the people with whom
he finds himself, to take his cue from them, to fly
his kite without the steadying weight of a tail of
antecedents, preserves, no doubt, a sense of youth
by thus living outside his memory and experience,
but it is at the cost of his identity to others, if not
to himself. We never know where to have him.
Everything is subservient to a restless taste, anxious
to conform  itself to the current mode. Time has
accumulated no treasure for him. The whole paraphernalia of life, former pleasures and pains, with
the persons and things that have contributed to them,
are judged by taste and the ever-shifting standard
of fashion, - that divinity of the present, coldly contemptuous of the past, which, ruling more than dress,
equipments, and visiting-lists, tells men what they
are to think and feel; so that the things they have
once cared for may at any moment be discarded as
impertinences, as offenders against the present rule
of taste, as so many poor relations intruding on
an advanced refinement. For if men do not see
13                           S




290                 Time Past.
old times through a halo of fond memory, the whole
thing is a bugbear, — its separate features looming
out of a black region of smoke and fog, till the
unstable spirit fairly turns its back on the forbidding
country that has made it what it is. An elder of
this turn, standing amongst his juniors, does not
perplex himself with their transient relation to him.
He only thinks how he can pass muster and take
his stand with them now, unencumbered by prejudice
and habit.  It is like that dream  of a perpetual
ascending dizzy progress from stair to stair, where
the last stair disappears as we tread upon the next.
And society is apt to show itself as jauntily youthful, as loose from obligations, as oblivious of the past,
as careless of association, as individuals. In this temper it is influenced solely by a fastidious principle of
selection, a choice of the present, preferable, and popular, over all other considerations, making it a sort of
conscience not to be guided by habit or memory, or
old opinions, or shadowy presence,- respecting nothing because it stands as it has long stood, but resolved
to conform all to the abstract best of which itself is
sole judge. We are not advocating a deference for
the past which shall interfere with modern convenience, for convenience is often but another word for
the means of class advancement. It is merely a question of which influence contributes most to true culti



Time Past.                  29I
vation, refinement, and elevation, -whether a chain of
associations linking present thought with past, assisting men, by whatever means, in the difficult task of
realizing things external to themselves, or mere beauty.
No doubt beauty, here, as everywhere, has much to say
for itself. The poor past is often hard put to it what
reason to plead why its memorials should be regarded,
why what is unsightly to modern eyes in itself, and a
record, perhaps, of evil days, should last; why a phonetic elimination of every awkward and superfluous
letter should not be imposed, -why, in fact, time and
tradition and a name should sanctify what is ugly,
useless, and inharmonious. In the first place, every
age has a right to leave some trace of itself-just to
assert itself; and if it happens to be an age with
whose notions of beauty, dignity, or worth we cannot
sympathize, that fact does not affect an inherent privilege. The most grotesque likeness of itself it can
leave behind is still a picture in Time's portrait-gallery; and it is a breach of natural piety to efface it
for any but weighty reasons. This religious aspect of
the question is felt strongly enough where taste and
fashion do not blind the judgment. Thus, all periods of destruction are regarded with particular hatred
when the season of reaction comes, as it surely does;
for, in the long-run, men are more agreed in their
reverence for a past than in any present question or
interest.




292                Time Past.
The advocates for change often plead religion on
their side, as an enthusiast for Gothic architecture will
defend his preference on the simple ground that anything else is pagan. Without disputing the point, we
would reply, that natural religion was implanted in us
prior to revealed, and that it was never intended that
the one should outrage the other. However, people
who prefer the gratification of a correct eye, or of a
theory, to an association, who value a thing more for
its conformity to certain laws than for its hidden influences, - for the tale it tells, the scenes it recalls, the
names that haunt it, - are not likely to change their
liking, and are the last to defer to principles in others
which they ignore in themselves. For our part, we
would as lief the great memorials of our country were
in the hands of the Vandals as in the unrestrained
power of what calls itself good taste, and may be, for
what we care. We have no sympathy with that pragmatical correctness which, in the assertion of abstract
beauty and fitness, would wipe away our records,
merely to rid our senses of an anomaly, -which would
leave us no past which did not conform to their
requirements, and so surely prepare the way for a
recriminating future whose reprisals would not leave
one stone upon another of our handiwork; so that the
disconsolate observer of these desecrations is doubly
bereaved, losing his hold of past and future at a




Time Past.                293
stroke. How many resthetic fingers are tingling now
to get into Westminster Abbey and to work their will
on those "hideous monuments!"  How many think
they would be doing God and man service by upsetting the solemn, uncouth, fantastic work of centuries,
and turning the outraged pile out of their hands trim
and empty of all human association, in the enamelled,
spurious youth of restoration! - persuading themselves that the solemn arches and brooding shade
would affect the ignorant observer, and tell their story
more effectively if no memorial of man were by to
distract his attention. But, in fact, eternity needs the
contrast of time to most minds for its faintest apprehension; and what fitter portraiture of time than a
thousand years of monuments? There are people of
taste now using all their efforts to get rid of Laud's
north doorway into St. Mary's, because those twisted
columns, indeed, the tout ensemble, are — we do not
dispute it -out of harmony with the building. But
surely all expression is attained at some expense of
regularity of outline. It is better for Oxford to show
traces of having been a centre of thought and action
in one of England's most stirring periods than that it
should outrage no rule of taste.  St. Mary's is more
instructive and suggestive as it stands, with this incongruous record of a man, and he a benefactor, who
made himself a name, and worked with a purpose,




294               Time Past.
than it could be were the anomaly replaced by a
marvel of correct conformity to the main building.
A worthy nobleman of our day has pulled down the
monument of a family ancestress, the model in her
time of beauty, grace, and all conjugal virtues,- a
monument set up by an adoring husband, and itself
the work of a noted sculptor, — because the cherubs
on her tomb had a faux air of Cupids and Hymens
which interfered with the medieval repose of restored
aisles.
The great work of education, religious and secular,
is to enable men to master the idea of time and time's
work. If people cannot realize a past, it is a matter
of experience that they cannot realize a future. Multitudes live in the present because, out of their own
lives, but dimly remembered, they know nothing.
"Before my time" embraces. all they can conceive
of what has been before them. A hundred or a thousand years are all one. It has been asked how many
people in England would express a doubt if told that
Bonaparte's father was Julius Caesar; and we fear
the true answer would be alike startling and mortifying. We have read lately of a class of school children, well up in their dates, who betrayed in the end
an inextricable confusion of ideas between the inspired prophet Samuel.and the Bishop of Oxford.
It requires more teaching than their circumstances




Time Past.                295
supply to erect anything like an idea, permanent and
unfluctuating, of a long course of eventful ages.
Every sense, it is true, does something to keep us
all en rapport with the past. Certain odors awake a
vague memory disconnected with anything to remember; and for a moment we feel a weight of intervening years with a sense of some infant joy at the end
of them. A quaint, sweet tune of unfamiliar cadences
will, if touched off by cunning fingers, convince us of
generations of forefathers. But nothing is so all-persuasive as sight; nothing in moral effect is like visible
memorials, old people, old cities, old churches, old
stones, which are with us to this day. Let the same
filial piety extend to and protect them all.




ALLOYS.
W     E are in the habit of hearing from the pulpit
- and that not now and then, but as a perpetual theme and as a basis of teaching -that men cannot give up the notion of merit, of some inherent positive goodness in themselves; that to be told plainly
of the corruption of their nature raises all the venom
of the natural man. Without inquiring here how far it
is universal with men to care either to be good or to be
thought so, we do not deny that truth lies somewhere
in the charge, though it is often hard to find it in the
technical, conventional language exacted by the subject. We have ourselves heard people talk in a very
unaccountable way of their deserts and so forth; but
we still think it a more difficult matter to believe in
human goodness than in the absence of it. People
may rebel against a dogma, especially put as some
persons put it, but there is something in the idea of
any man being positively meritorious which some




A lloys           2    297
minds cannot take in. We may and must believe
in worthy actions and in relative goodness, but in positive merit we own to seeing a difficulty. It is much
more easy for a looker-on to explain away -the apparent goodness of those who do the good of the world
than frankly to acknowledge it, and honestly, and
with heart and understanding, to realize pure bon/fide
virtue; and if anything should be a pure and simple
essence, virtue should. The work may be valuable,
the man may do it well, and we may on this account
feel him to be immeasurably better than ourselves;
but something always inserts itself between the man
and the merit, if we survey the matter at all critically and in the spirit of analysis. No observer, if
allowed a full and clear view, can help seeing some
alloy in every great and good action whatever, —
something to abate the first grand idea. If he is
amiable and enthusiastic, he may shut his eyes against
what he fears to see; but the cool, unimpassioned
temper has seldom far to seek for a qualification,something to reduce the action from the heroic to
the human. Possibly, the preacher may look on this
case as a case in point, proving how innate envy and
uncharitableness are in man; but we are simply acting
on his teaching, working out his theory (which goes
far beyond the unreality and imperfection of all
human virtue), bringing to the touchstone of indiI3'




298                 Alloys.
vidual experience the dogma that merit is an illusion as applied to weak, fallible, complex beings.
All cynicism, however differing in tone, adopts the
preacher's language. We cannot, therefore, think it
so hard for humanity to disbelieve in human goodness, to see failure and incompleteness in all of it,something that will not stand a thorough daylight
investigation. And does it tell better or worse for
the cynic, that it is not scrutiny of others, after all, so
much as of self, which is at the bottom of his conclusions?  In spite of the apparent denial given to
our suspicions by the pretensions of vanity and selfconceit,-those commonest of all human infirmities,
-we are disposed to maintain that it is more possible
and easy for a mind of any discernment to believe
in goodness through other people than through itself.
We are very capable of delusion, no doubt; but can
any sane man seriously, and in full faith, say to and
of himself, — I am good and virtuous, I am good at
this moment; not only what I do is good, but I am
good in doing it? We do not believe it possible.
The same hitch slips in here as in the former case.
He repudiates the statement, not only because he is
told it is wrong and unchristian, shocking, unprotestant, and heretical to say it, but because he does not
in his heart think it, and could not get up the coniiction; though we grant that he very possibly con



4lloys.                299
siders he makes so excellent an appearance that other
people ought to think him good, and, if he is of a
hopeful and confiding turn, he supposes that they do,
and values himself accordingly. Men do not really
get beyond thinking themselves better than they actually are. The assurance of virtue, innate or achieved,
is not, we thinik, compatible with rational humanity.
The vainest mortal, the most confident self-deceiver,
knows better. When a foolish fellow tells us a long
story of his good deeds, - of how he resists this delusion, how he is superior to that temptation, how he
devotes himself to a task of pain and difficulty, how
his heart is engrossed by noble objects, how he allows
himself no rest, how he is fearless, magnanimous, forgiving, - if we had the courage to stop him in mid
career, and bid him tell us what he really thought of
himself, not as compared with others, but positively,
he would stammer out a confession. It would become
apparent that, while he was aiming at our reverence,
esteem, or admiration, there was more than a doubt
at the bottom of his large speaking. Vanity finds
food and growth from things wholly different from
solid conviction, and that have, indeed, no affinity
with it. We lately read of a fantastical German woman who dictated her own /aoge to an admirer, got him
to print it as from himself, then read it as an impartial
testimony, and showed extravagant elation and an aug



300                 Alloys.
mented vanity.'By some conjuration, not uncommon
in a less degree, she persuaded herself into the notion
that she had got at the world's opinion of her.
It is not that in the self-scrutiny, the sifting of evidence, we propose, we shall be driven to condemn our
motives wholesale, for people's motives are, as often as
not, superior to what the world gives them credit for;
but that the mind is conscious of alloy. No actions,if they occupy more than a moment of time, proceed
from a single unmixed intention, as all ideal excellence must do; but a whole host of petty, small, snobbish supernumeraries mix themselves up with the professed motive power. Self-approbation, — that support
and solace so often promised by a genial philosophy,
- is really a delusion. It never gets beyond putting
a good face on our actions, bringing the presentable
motive into so good a light that we may shuffle the
discreditable rivals out of sight; but not - where a
man is capable of thought at all - out of mind, nor
beyond produceable limits. In fact, a man need not
think himself good to be insufferable, - he need only
think himself better than his neighbors, and (as we
have said) better than he is. Even the Pharisee goes
no further than to be thankful he is not as other men
are. Pride nourishes itself on comparisons. When
the Methodists brought the doctrine of human depravity prominently forward, the then Duchess of




A4ltoys.               301
Buckingham, writing to Lady Huntingdon, objected
that " It is monstrous to be told you have a heart as
sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth.
This is highly offensive and insulting; and I cannot
but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiment so much at variance with high rank and good
breeding." But we are sure, not only that if we could
have heard her Grace talk of her noble friends, she
would have found a preponderance of alloy in their
best actions, but that she would have owned to some
in her own case, and that she was a presumptuous
heathen through pride of rank rather than from conceit of goodness.
It must be admit.ted, however, that an irreproachable
orthodoxy is found reconcilable with some sort of belief in human goodness, real enough in itself, though
perhaps not capable of formal definition; and that
belief, not only in good actions, but in a good man, is
an elevating belief. The term "good man" is familiar
from lips constantly engaged on the fallaciousness of
human merit; and those who are willing to show what
man can do under high and divine influences, and are
jealous of any tone that restricts the capabilities of a
renewed will, ransack history and saintly chronicles
for examples of pure, unexceptional goodness; and,
because they find them, they are very apt to think the
former times were better than these. But the truth is,




302                 Alloys.
if we are to have perfect examples, we must not hear
too much of them, and must get a character fairly
away from its contemporaries. It is noticeable that
nobody was ever canonized till he was safe from the
report of near neighbors, and remembered only for
his acts, not with the accompaniment of the daily life
in which they were worked out under the observation
of eyewitnesses. People who are critical enough of
the virtue of their own time are charitable to Roman
patriots or Christian ascetics. We have known lovers
of the past settle the question by a Scriptural quotation, "There were giants in those days"; and without
too curiously testing the logic of the argument, we
can believe that other days have encouraged the
growth of particular noble qualities more than our
own; and in looking back on great men, conspicuous
and eminent for one virtue, and constituting our examples, the. world is ready to assume that they were
everything else besides. But, in fact, who knows what
Curtius was in the bosom of his family?
To look on and criticise the active workers of good
is, we know, an invidious position. Bacon finely says,
"Men must know that in this theatre of man's life it
remaineth only to God and angels to be lookers-on."
Nevertheless, the critical element is a necessary element, even to secure common fairness. It cannot be
amiss that some minds should -be observers of facts




A /loys.                 3 3
as such, and not think it a duty to be blind, in certain
privileged cases, to deficiencies which so often strike
a balance with greatness in a particular line. A man
with a sound intellect, a strong will, and one congenial virtue, makes an excellent show and turns into
a fine example; but for all this there may be no harm
in seeing the reverse side, what lurks in the shade,the alloy that is so seldom separate from any prominent excellence. The harm lies in its being there,
not in an observer seeing it,- in seeing, for instance,
in the patient man, apathy; in the energetic man,
lack of sympathy; in the public-spirited, cold, natural
affections; in the single-minded, crotchetiness and
eccentricity; in the conscientious, unreasonableness;
in the kind-hearted, indolence; in examples of fidelity, partisanship; in content, sluggishness; in serenity, neglect of duty; in order, self-will and tyranny;
in prudence, meanness; in justice, severity; in zeal,
intolerance; in warm affections, jealousy and selfishness; in innocence, folly; in sweetness, insincerity;
in unworldliness, narrow views; in activity, restlessness; in patriotism, prejudice; in benevolence, want
of judgment; in self-sacrifice, obstinacy; in a strict
profession, formality; in liberality, display.  He is
born of the temper of the candid poet, who invoked,
not fancy or enthusiasm, but the gift to see things as
they are:



304                   A lloys.
"Come then, fair Truth, and let me clearly see
The minds I paint as they are seen in thee;
To me their merits and their faults impart,
Give me to say, Frail being! such thou art,
And closely let me view the naked human heart."
The eyes of men's minds, as well as of their bodies,
see in every variety of focus, - some taking in the
fair general effect, some the mechanism  of things;
and all have their use. There will always be a large
proportion of men who judge by effects and results,
-who, so long as something good is achieved, and
their own ideal advanced, are ready to credit the
doer with such a participation of the goodness as
lifts him wholly out of the sphere of ordinary natural
observation.  When once this impression is produced
in some minds, submission of the judgment becomes
a point of honor, which often grows into an abject
subservience not far removed from idolatry. The
instinctive student of character is never content with
a mere external survey, and thus may often check
a generous enthusiasm; but he has his use; he
knows that a hundred merely physical and intellectual
qualities go to the making of a good man on a great,
popular, dazzling scale, but that, after all, motives
are the real criterion, and that the best man must
be, not he who does the most good, which may depend on other than moral causes, but he who uni



Al/oys.                 305
formly acts on the highest and purest principles.
We have to look into history, chronicles, and newspapers for the one; we must have a close view, and
therefore we must look near home, for the other.
Mere goodness is that which stands the most minute
and severe scrutiny. Greatness, elevation, self-sacrifice, zeal, magnanimity, must have a pedestal, and
the lights artistically arranged, to do them justice.
They deserve this at our hands, and to be lifted out
of the prying of too curious eyes.  Only all this
respectful caution would not be needed if there were
not flaws and alloys, and the risk of very considerable
ones.
No doubt the times make a great difference in the
exhibition of goodness. Ours are against its more
conspicuous displays.  A  man could once isolate
himself, nourish and exercise his particular virtue,
leaving the rest to take their chance in a way society
does not now allow scope for, and which does not
accord with the sway of public opinion. We now
exact a harmony of good qualities which unquestionably takes away the glitter and eminence of a character as something to look at.
" A chiel's amang us takin' notes."
Virtue is put upon its p's and q's. And it is this harmony of qualities, allowing no excess even in a virtue,
T




306                 Alloys.
that alone does for close contact and domestic use.
As an example to posterity or his fellow-countrymen,
or to those who look up to him or down to him
from the distance of another class, many a man
makes an excellent figure who betrays too much alloy
to be- relished as a pattern by those who see most
of him. But men of all ages must be alike impressed
in the presence of consistently pure motives. Here,
time and change make no difference. We cannot
live in such contact without being aware of it and
without reverencing it. Pure motives are things that
assert themselves in the long-run and carry the day,
though circumstances, or even some want in the man
himself, will not allow them to result in remarkable,
signally successful action. In the degree that they
are pure, they will give —they always have given,
and always must give - the highest impression of
human goodness that an exact, observant, critical
mind can receive, and will constitute, in his case at
least, the most influential of all examples.




THE USES OF PATHOS.
FROM whatever cause, we think it certain that
the literature of the present day is deficient in
pathos. It makes very little demand on our tears.
Perhaps this will hardly be regarded as a subject of
regret, now that fashion has set so decidedly in another direction. The race of sentimental young ladies has been laughed out of countenance, or rather
they have long ceased to be young ladies at all;
while fast girls, who disown romance, have taken
their place, and attract or repel, adorn a tale, or point
a satire in their stead. Walter Scott, who once possessed the key to youthful hearts, is no longer owned
for a magician; he is voted old-fashioned and rather
heavy reading. Wordsworth's soundings of the heart
of hearts awake no popular response. Society is the
present idea of life. The complex workings of a high
and often corrupt civilization supersede the more
primitive emotions, and they can be portrayed with




308           The Uses of Pathos.
all degrees of nicety and finish without any invasion
of our tender sensibilities. Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Dickens, and Mr. Trollope are in their several ways very
clever, amusing, and interesting, and they raise an infinite variety of exciting scenes and images. But we
read them in comfortable security. Nobody need be
afraid of the red eyes of which our boyhood used to
be so ashamed; yet, for this reason, we confess that
all of them tell of something that is gone. We miss
the old gratified sensation of having been thoroughly
stirred up and set to rights, which is, we think, one
of the offices of fiction. It was the old Puritanical
charge against works of imagination, that they led
people to waste their pity and sympathy on fictitious
distresses, and left them no tears for actual suffering;
but we believe this argument to have been founded on
an entire ignorance of the nature of our emotions.
We may shed tears over fictitious distresses, and stand
dry-eyed in the midst of actual destitution, and in no
degree shame our manhood or cast discredit on the
author who has charmed us. It is not that we feel
less for the one than the' other, but that we feel differently; for it is not pain and suffering in themselves
that can touch the source of passionate emotion, but
something not necessarily of them, though often connected with them. Some touch of the past is essential to make all misery pathetic, - some comparison




The Uses of Pathos.             309
between former happiness and present pain. People
may witness disease, hunger, destitution, and may be
keenly alive to them, and earnest to relieve them;
but some minor stroke, bringing in strong contrast
former ease and joy with present suffering, first excites emotion, -some touch just to make us realize
what has been, and to feel the full force of change.
The use of pathos is an indirect one.  It must
soften and harmonize ourselves before it can benefit
others. Its office is to overpower the degrading sense
of petty personal worries which haunt and vex, and,
what is worse, influence us all so much. Every one is
subjected to small annoyances. There is a fret and
jar somewhere which makes life's wheels move heavily.
If we try to analyze the sense of discomfort, it often
admits of no distinct definition; and we are not willing to own ourselves disturbed by so insignificant a
cause. The temper suffers; our magnanimity fails us
from the very poverty of the grievance. The pathetic,
whether seen in actual life or in fiction, is an excellent
remedy for this dry, barren dejection. A more generous sentiment suppresses or washes away the rubbish
of petty, selfish annoyance. The very thought of the
passage of time acts as a corrective of this feeble
restiveness under the lesser cares of every-day life.
" It will be the same fifty years hence," is a common
form of consolation under trivial trials: and Shake



310           The Uses of Pathos.
speare gives a pathetic vastness to the idea as he foretells when all time shall be past:" When Time is old and hath forgot himself,
When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallowed cities up."
Of course, we are not concerned now with emotion as
an evidence of real sorrow, but as the symbol of a
mixed sensation, bringing warm to the heart the sense
of our humanity, - the touch of nature that makes the
whole world kin. It is only the reticence of an extreme civilization which hinders a sense of pleasure
in this abandonment to feeling. Savages regard tears
as a luxury,- as the sign of ecstasy, whether of joy
or grief,- and enjoy the sensation, from whatever
cause it springs. A Zulu Kafir, for instance, under
the rapture of some pungent snuff, exclaimed, " Ah! 
that was a pinch of snuff; it has brought out the
ancient tears that have lived behind my eyes all my
life! " Such a stimulant should poetry supply to the
civilized man, - tempering, elevating, refining him.
We, too, have our ancient tears, whose source lies in
the very infancy of memory, which only some subtle
touch can draw out, -something sudden, surprising,
of the nature of a pang and a wrench, but inducing a
sense of calm and relief.
We do not know any two words which express so




The Uses of Pat/os.                311
well our idea of the pathetic as Tennyson's "divine
despair ":" Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair,
Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more."
Something of the irrevocable - of loss which cannot
be restored-enters surrely into all pathos, and by contrast sets the mere vexations of the hour at their right
level. For this end the loss of some slight good
answers often as well as the loss of real essentials to
happiness. We accept the trivial severance, so it be
only forever, as the type and emblem of a greater.
The mind flutters over it, only half conscious of graver
partings within reach of our memory if we would look
for them. For instance, the poet wanders by a rivulet,
and sings a farewell to the burden,
"No more by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever."
It is a small matter never to hear again the murmurs
of a pleasant stream, but the dim suggestion of similar
partings and severances which the words " ever " and
"never" like a knell bring along with them, carries
the farewell home. It is when memory is the sole link
with something past and gone that it puts on the dig



31I2          The Uses of Pathos.
nity of history and is felt as an influence on our destiny. This is why every event of childhood is so full
of meaning to us, -
"C When I was young, - ah! wofuil when."
The smallest action performed for the last time touches
us; the most homely scenes from which we are forever
separated have a magic power; feelings transient, momentary, of which we took no note at the time, assume
ineffable significance when experience and maturity
render their return impossible, and we feel, —
" Turn whereso'er I may, by night or day,
The things that I have seen, I now can see no more."
For the moment, the poet here shows us a glimpse of
passionate " despair," short-lived though it be.  In
the unavailing longings of his immortal ode we realize something of the meaning of time and death.
There is a well-known passage in testimony to the
English Bible, from the pen of a distinguished convert to Rome, which owes its inspiration and passion
to the same cause, —that is, to intense and bitter
remembrance of a stage of life all astir and beautiful
with thought, feeling, and action, but past beyond
recall.  "It lives on the ear like a music that can
never be forgotten, —like the sound of the churchbell which the convert hardly knows how he can




The Uses of Pat/hos.           313
forego"; and yet it is because he had foregone it in
his own deliberate intention forever that he wrote so
movingly and well. In the same way gratitude has
its pangs and becomes pathetic, as in Burns's Lament for Glencairn. The sense of loss and irrevocable change may exist in feeling, though not in fact,
is in the home-sickness of Cowper's school-boy,"with what intense desire he wants his home."  It
gives the power to those words of Jane Eyre, " Now
I thought." It is the motive of all the pathos in
"Adam Bede," whether the author speaks in his own
person or by his characters. We see it in poor Flora
Macdonald's "Ay, there it is, Mr. Waverley."  It is
the irrevocable resolve in Othello which shakes us
as he addresses himself to his purpose, "Put out the
light, and then put out the light."  It gives a sense
of eternity to pain in his "insupportable and heavy
hour." It may, we think, be traced in all the simpler
motives and impulses to emotion, as when masters
of the pathetic describe anguish, sickness, suspense,
death, and bereavement; but it is not well to push a
view too far.
Contrast of some sort, -something coming upon
us as a surprise,- is, however, essential. To persons new to physical suffering, the contrast between
disease and health, between the condition of humanity as it is and as it ought to be, may suffice to excite
14




3I4           The Uses of Pathos.
a passionate emotion without further insight. Again,
a desolate hopelessness, by some unexpected turn of
fortune suddenly changed to joy, affects us as keenly
as the reverse might do. There are wonderful examples of this from a source too sacred to be included
in our examples. It is as an elevating and important,
not as the sole element of passionate emotion, that
we give so large a place to the irrevocable, - to the
fact that nothing can be recalled, nothing can be
reversed as though it had never been, making us in
some slight degree realize the burden of the past.
Such thoughts must bring a certain pang and heartache, just pain enough to make us sensible of an
effort and a summoning of our powers, - an effort as
essential to all the highest forms of pleasure as to all
thought deserving the name, and which, when made,
has an immediate cheering and salutary effect on the
spirits and temper. Pathos, then, is the "timely
utterance" which gives relief to more thoughts than
it knows of, for no doubt the cares which contract
most brows and drive the smile from most faces are
cares which find no expression in tears, and for which
such tears are often the best remedy.
For whatever reason, we believe there are few things
the world sets more value on than its tears, — not individual tears, which, we admit, are apt to meet with
scanty sympathy, but the visible, tangible evidence of




The Uses of Pathos.            315
a universal heartache, however transient. They have
a remedial and atoning power that the scorners of sentiment never allow for. When ladies, and especially
gentlemen, cry, we grant they should be careful of
their company. Society is a soberer, and puts a veto
on such indulgence which all sensible, strong-minded
folks, whatever their natural temperament, acquiesce
in. But a nation (as distinct from society) allows itself a freer scope, and adopts another standard. Its
tears are an equivalent for more sorrows and losses
than can be well imagined; indeed, we hardly know
any calamity which is not more than compensated for
in our imagination by being thoroughly regretted and
grieved over. Take all history, and measure its tales
of colossal loss, its catastrophes, and broken hopes by
the tears shed for them, and if only they flowed readily
enough, and were commensurate with the occasion, we
find our minds satisfied and at ease. It is only those
unwept, unhonored, and unsung whose fate we pity
and yearn over. One pang of which tears are the expression, one twinge passing through the nation with
an electric shock, satisfies us of so many things. It
implies that the lost good has been valued and enjoyed,
which is much, - that it has been missed, which is
far more. What else can an earthly good do for us?
What more can our heroes and saints expect from us?
And with regard to fictitious sorrows, it is untold how




316           The Uses of Pathos.
much more comfortable and virtuous, how much more
conscientiously free from blame, the English public
feels with regard to slavery, since it wept collectively
over the sorrows of Uncle Tom; and, in a more restricted sense, a good many of our injustices towards
a past generation are atoned for by the same method
in our reception of Adam Bede. There may be some
sham in it all, as in all general movements there must
be; but we hold that the world is always better and
more hzuman for these deviations from its ordinary
callous indifference of aspect, and that it is the part
of literature to supply this healthful influence.
But the face of society is not friendly to outbreaks
of feeling. It is the general complaint that even the
young are hard and calculating, with an eye to careless
jollity on the one hand, and the main chance on the
other; and our popular writers do not do much to
counteract the prevailing tendency. Mr. Dickens, we
admit, has his own idea of pathos, but too far removed
from our own, too remote from experience or from
our conception of the possible, -to find response,
much less to influence popular feeling. We are not
sure that the present system of serials and monthly
chapters, all of which must contain present amusement whether they tell a story or not, have not a
great deal to answer for on this head. The system
is essentially degrading to the imaginative faculty.




The Uses of Pathos.           317
The writer writes and the reader reads under wholly
different conditions from those in which author and
reader stood in the days of Richardson and Walter
Scott. Aim and influence must be shaken by this disjointed, desultory, broken utterance. The old idea of
subjugation under an author is lost; the words " spell"
and "thraldom," which used to express it, have no
meaning as applied to our present literature. Fancy
"Old Mortality" issued in twenty-four green-backed
numbers, or the "Bride of Lammermoor" coming out
in the " Cornhill." People must be in very exceptional
circumstances to be tempted to write a romance or a
moving picture of life now-a-days. There is so little
sympathy for the state of feeling which prompts such
efforts that it would seem an author must have nothing
to do with society, - must even be removed by some
impassable barrier from its blandishments, - before
he can make his way to our deeper selves. It would
seem, but we know it is not so, and the genius has
only to appear and shine out amongst us to show the
fallacy of our fears, and restore the pathetic to its
right and natural place amongst us.




C HOICE.
THERE is surely a benignant fallacy in the notion
that possesses men of their unlimited powers of
choice.  The language of courtesy assumes, of all
persons with whom one has polite relations, that they
have a constant choice of eligible alternatives. Men
are supposed to choose their wives, - even young
women their husbands, - to choose, that is, from
among many. A gentleman of pure African descent,
educated, but coal-black, was one of a company where
the position of the Prince of Wales became the topic
of conversation. Others descanted on the more brilliant features of his lot. Pity, evidently genuine, was
the sole feeling inspired in the negro listener. The
Prince had only six ladies to choose from; he spoke
as if, in his own more fortunate case, the world lay all
before him where to choose. And Charles Lamb, in
his splenetic paper on the insolence of young married
women, claims for the bachelor such width and con



Choice.                 3I9
tinual exercise of conscious choice, that he holds him
as rejecting every single woman to whom he does not
make an offer of his hand. It contributes to people's
happiness and self-respect to have a sense of wide,
active choice.  The slightest conscious restriction
hampers and irritates; but except in moral choice,the election between good and evil perpetually carried
on within us, -with which we are not here engaged,
- it is an effort of mind which ordinary life, sensibly conducted, offers fewer opportunities for than are
assumed. Men are not often brought face to face
with an important choice, and in fact live very contentedly under obligations that leave no room for one.
The more people exercise reason and judgment, the
less choice they perceive themselves to have in matters of every-day experience. Thus, if a man has to
furnish his house, it indefinitely limits his choice to
know what he wants; and good taste still further
restricts his field; for choice implies some degree of
acceptance, or, at least, toleration, of two or more
objects. The reason why some people hang suspended in helpless uncertainty before a hundred possibilities, thinking that they are choosing, is constantly
that they cannot collect their thoughts or master the
position sufficiently for the preliminaries of a reasonable judgment. The moment this is formed, it is not
that they choose, but that they awake to the fact that




320                  Choice.
there is only one rational decision open to them, and
that all the rest are mere gross and palpable temptations.
In the ordinary conduct of life, it is constantly
found what meaningless phrases are choice of Society,
choice of a profession, choice of time, place, and
habits; though it softens the bitterness of necessity
to have a lip familiarity with the words, whether unconsciously, as adopting the prevailing idiom, or consciously, like Beau Tibbs, who chose to live in a
garret for the sake of the view. In choosing a wife
or a husband, the affections, in a right state of things,
constitute this compulsion, rendering the idea of
choice irrelevant. The heart does not ring with a
full, clear sound whenever there can be dispassionate
choice in this matter. "Chance," and not choice, Dr.
Johnson says, "gives a man a partner whom he prefers to all other women, without any proof of superior
desert." So- it was meant to be. The Ccelebs engaged in choosing a wife is a prig, or the victim of
a hard necessity; and the woman who, in our state
of society, has two lovers to choose from at the same
moment, in spite of the glory attributed to the position by novelists and young ladies, is probably a flirt,
or has behaved like one, and has more cause for
shame than triumph. The eminence is won at some
expense of simple honesty and honor. And even




Choice.                 321
where there is ample excuse, as in the case of beauties and heiresses, the power of choice among many is
so contrary to what is right and natural that choosing
here proverbially means choosing the worst.
In cases which seem to depend solely on our own
will, it is often curious to see how choice flies us, -
how some unexpected hinderance or defect in ourselves balks expectation. A man, for example, of a
literary turn, with leisure, independence, and all the
necessary qualifications, wishes to put his thoughts
and experience in some durable shape. His information is general; his observation has been wide, - he
has only to choose a subject for his book. But to his
own surprise he finds that he has no choice. One
subject, and that he is aware not a popular subject,
one he cannot hope to persuade many to care for, is
already master of the field and will keep foremost.
His thoughts have a bent apart from the inclination
of the whole man. He feels as if he could not help
himself, and the idea of choice is postponed to the
next attempt. Criticism always goes on the assumption of free choice on the part of the criticised. Thus,
the plot of a tale or drama is exposed for its errors,
short-comings, absurdities. The work has merit, but
the author ought to have chosen his incidents, his
characters, his situations, with more judgment; more
pains, more thought, more weighing and-deliberation,
14*                         U




322                  Ch oice.
would have mended everything, and set all right.
The author possibly agrees with every word, but he
feels as if he had had no choice. The story and the
personages arranged themselves somehow. He does
not see how he could have managed differently. No
writer is quite, and in every sense, master of his pen.
And even in conversation it is often curious to observe how hard a matter choice is. There are generally one or two topics that circumstances bring
uppermost, which a man, or a circle, naturally hits
upon first.  If anything renders these natural selfsuggesting topics unsuitable or unsafe, how hard is
the choice of a subject, how distractedly and blindly
the mind feels about for some substitute, and how
importunately will the obvious but discarded theme
obtrude itself again and again, till there seems nothing in the world to say but just what ought not to be
said; while it is observable that, once in this predicament, it is chance and not choice that gets us out of
it! Even in such matters as the scene of an excursion'or the naming of a child, where our field of
selection seems literally without bounds, we presently
find a thousand limitations to our assumed liberty, till
we feel hemmed in, and are amazed at the smallness
of our choice after all.
Those are not the most comfortable people to live
with who will not recognize these restrictions, - who




Choice.                 323
regard private life as a theatre for the constant exercise of choice in domestic fundamentals, and will not
consent to consider any decision permanent or lifted
from the balance of reconsideration, - who admit no
precedents, who reflect each morning at what hours
they shall eat and drink, who bring upon the tapis as
an ever new subject for consideration and choice how
the day is to be spent, what church they shall go to,
what newspaper they shall take in.
" He lives by rule who lives himself to please," —
and to be able to regard some things as certain and
removed from the thought of change and choice is as
necessary for the comfort of social communities as for
the individual. For the exercise of choice ought to
be, and is to most people, a fatigue, an effort of the
mind; and to be always frittering it away in settling
matters which best settle themselves, is to become tedious, eccentric, frivolous, thus vitiating the discernment for those real occasions of ch6ice which some
time or other present themselves to every man. The
state of indecision in which some people live may be
called a morbid exercise of choice. There are persons who never seem to have quite made up their
minds which leg to stand upon, - who deliberate in
an agony of choice when not a grain's weight depends
on the decision, on the question what road to walk on,




324                  Choice.
what chair to sit down upon, what bundle of hay to
munch first. The way to cure this disease is by external applications, - that is, by feigning a choice
though there be none, - by pronouncing authoritatively for port or claret, the leg or the wing, while
the soul and intellect are still all in tumult and confusion about the matter.
To all appearance, men are allowed a wider field
of choice than formerly, and it opens to them earlier.
At one time, parents chose everything for their children, from a profession to a wife, perhaps laying
their life out for them before they were born. Now,
choice is recognized as an educator; and, in fact,
it is a great part of training to teach how to choose
and what are fit subjects for choice. One does not
know which is most mischievous, - never to allow
a choice at all, or to force responsibility prematurely
before the mind can command the data for a true
decision, when the crude judgment must come to a
conclusion.eithert on no reason at all, or a wrong
one. It often happens to a young man, because he
is promising, to have to choose his line too early;
and, for ultimate success, he can scarcely be visited
by a greater misfortune. Precocious talent, combining with circumstances, sometimes produces a youth
of brilliant maturity remarkable for seeming vigor
of choice, and the end is almost certainly a manhood




Choice.                 325
of indecision and failure. Ability to choose is power
and genius. There is, indeed, something godlike in
the constant, wise exercise of free will and selection,
- so much so that the supremest instances in sacred
or profane story of wise choice cannot keep up the
strain. That mythical personage, the true hero, is
ever choosing his course. Great captains and statesmen, however really victims of accident, are popularly
supposed, -as holding our destinies in their hands, —
to be doing the same.; and it may be granted that
the degree in which men exercise choice, and the
objects on which they exercise it, make the difference
between great and little lives. But the hinderances
to this exercise, in most minds, are innumerable.
Habit, prejudice, foregone conclusions, are, of course,
among the first of these. People are so slow to
perceive their responsibilities, to catch the critical
moment when choice was open to them, that the
course they are in carries them past it unobserved
through its own impetus. It is a curious and not
always pleasant speculation to look back and note
when those occasions presented themselves where
we might have exercised a choice to which we were
blind at the time. No doubt this very preparedness
is a sign of genius, and distinguishes one soul from
another. In fact, whatever afterthought may tell us,
no man can be said to have had a choice if he did




326                 Choice.
not know that he had one; and persons in bondage
to prejudice and circumstances never do. There is
even a fine, dogged, half-stupid sense of duty which
sometimes holds people in this unconsciousness.
They go on in a course not really obligatory, because
it never occurs to them that they have a choice.
It has been argued that, whatever the issue of the
contest, the Americans had no choice but to go to
war; that there are losing games which must be
played at whatever cost; and that all the blood and
suffering were consequently inevitable, because a nation cannot stop in its course and face a critical
decision. The poor rustic, with his nine shillings
a week, never recognizes that he has any other choice
than the proverbial Hobson's, -his present wages
or nothing, - or, at any rate, his ill-paid labors or
enlisting; therefore, he has no choice. He never
sees the moment, which does present itself to such
as can discern it, of escape from drudgery to a new
life of change and adventure. He knows nothing
of the choice that education and intercourse would
bring before him, revealing to his quickened capacity
an alternative which, until he is fit for it, he had,
perhaps, best not attempt to realize.
We have spoken of indecision, -of persons helpless when called upon in the most insignificant matters to make an instantaneous choice; but we cannot,




Ckoice.                 327
therefore, sympathize with some who value themselves on their readiness in this particular,-who
boast of always being able to make up their minds
on the spot. It is very pleasant to be able to settle
everything on the instant, if we settle right, but judgment and deliberation have their parts to play in our
affairs. When we have to choose at all, it is seldom
that all our grounds for choice lie on the surface or
immediately within reach. We do not observe that
it is the fullest minds that find their way to a choice
quickest; nor does it always prove that it was the
best choice because the chooser remains satisfied
with it. Indeed, it is one property of learning and
knowledge to hold men's judgment in suspense until
every contingency has been passed in review. Such
habitual promptness as reason sanctions is, however,
indispensable to those crowning efforts of rapid decision, -that is, choice of alternatives, -which we
call presence of mind, and without which courage is
often useless. In a great fire, a lady, conscious of
having much valuable property in her room, rushed
back to save what she could. There was money,
there were jewels, and other fine things. By desperate exertions she reached the spot; and at length
emerged from  the smoke and flame panting and
breathless, convulsively clasping in her hands,-a
small-tooth comb. The power to choose in the last




328                  Caozice.
moment had deserted her, leaving us to speculate on
what habits of mind might have helped her to turn
an impulse of courage and daring to better account.
To know how to choose, then, is a triumph of natural powers, of thought, reason, and self-discipline.
To know when to choose marks discretion and good
sense. The very effort of choice gives strength and
nerve to the mind; yet a prudent man will scarcely
desire unlimited opportunities for it,-will readily
admit that to see where there is no choice and frankly
to accept the inevitable is often a mark of the highest wisdom, —and will gladly recognize the interference of chance and accident, even in those actions
which are considered as particularly subjects of
choice.  For, after all, choice is a thing to fear.
There is something irrevocable in it; it is not only
in marriage or the wedding-gown that choice is once
for all. An important decision, once come to and
acted upon, cannot be wholly reversed. The lookeron does not know why, but nothing can be absolutely
-undone in this life. Persons jealous to shape their
own course, who turn their backs upon obvious or
natural influences, and choose for themselves, assume
a responsibility which, while it does not remove them
from the operations of chance, seems to change it
into an austere, unfriendly power, visiting upon them
every mistake of conduct, every failure of judgment.




Choice.                329
To them chance never appears the indulgent harmonizer and reconciler, the gentle Providence which
it not seldom shows itself to such as own their inability to direct their own course, and willingly submit to the guidance of events or to the sway of
circumstances.




ONE'S OWN WAY.
A     GOOD  many qualities and propensities are
visited with universal censure, which people
would not abuse so much if there were any danger
of their warning being taken literally, or, indeed, having much effect at all. The moralist habitually indulges in a strain of animadversion, secure that the
instinct which he denounces is too deeply fixed and
ingrained for any chance of his words producing much
effect, and would be frightened to be taken too much
at his word. This is a fact which needs to be constantly kept in mind. A great deal'of the best teaching is only valuable under the tacit understanding of
this resistance in our nature to its indiscriminate reception; so that whatever the words of the teacher may
seem to imply, extermination is not really contemplated, only a pruning of excess, bringing the quality
in question under due subordination. Thus selfishness is unreservedly denounced, because the instinct




One's Ownlz  aiy.             331
of self-love is really invulnerable.  In like manner,
the young are warned against the love of dress in
terms which seem to counsel an utter disregard of the
graceful and becoming, because it may be safely assumed that no words will ever persuade them not to
set themselves off to advantage, and that we might as
well preach to the roses as to the virgin that loveth to
go gay, to abandon all care for shape and texture and
color at our bidding. Amongst these qualities, only
evil in excess,- and beneficial, and even indispensable, short of this excess, -which have yet been
the object of constant reprobation and a theme for
reproof and warning without end, is the love of one's
own way. Divines, moralists, and poets, all conspire,
as far as words go, to quench this lesser development
of the spirit of liberty, as though love of one's own
way implied wilfulness, hardness of heart, insubordination, all that is ungentle and unlovable. But it is,
after all, only seeming, -experience teaches them
quite another lesgon. The poet, for all his sweet testimony to the yielding, submissive spirit which moves
through life," Com' animal gentil che non fa scusa
Ma fa sua voglia della voglia altrui,"
must himself be free as air before he can indite a line.
The moralist does not find his thoughts at his com



332             One's Own Way.
mand or his judgment in working order while under
the control of others, - he must be his own master
before he can impose his salutary restraints on mankind, -and the divine is probably the most self-willed
of the three, only after a method peculiarly his own.
He must have his time, his thoughts, his movements
entirely at his own disposal, subject to none but voluntary distractions and self-imposed rules, before he can
dictate, with sufficient force to be effective, his arguments for an implicit subjugation of the will to the
Church and to the world. One and all know quite
well —or might know, from  themselves and their
own requirements —that something of one's own
way is as necessary to the intellectual and even moral
faculties as light and air to vegetation. It is the abuse,
the excess, they are warring against, so far as their
teaching is wise and good,- not the desire itself,
which is simply the consciousness of a separate existence, and the impulse to preserve and assert this
individuality. It is the repugnance of a free agent to
lapse into an instrument, a tool, a machine. Of course
always to assert the will is insubordination and anarchy,
but never to give it play is bondage. The question is,
where to find the golden mean.
Surely no one will have too much of his own way
who is careful never to infringe on the rights of others,
and who is ready to admit that every individual in the




One's Own WVay.             333
world has such rights, and ought to be allowed a sphere
for their exercise. Always, and as a rule, to yield, is to
encourage others in a tyranny which is bad for them.
This is known to be the case in religious, or quasi-religious, communities, where abnegation of the will is
strongly and technically enforced, and where a domineering spirit sometimes gains a frightful ascendency.
What is so bad for one cannot be good for the rest who
seek to throw on their neighbor an inalienable responsibility.  But we are growing too serious, and, in so
doing, departing from our limits, which strictly confine
us to the minute domestic phase of the great subject
of freedom, - that phase, however, in which it affects
the bulk of mankind.  Political freedom — that is,
our own way on the grandest collective scale - comes
home to us only on stated occasions, and, to most
people, never as a practical question at all. Even
independence seems limited to householders, fundholders, and the elder and privileged classes; but the
freedom we mean has an interest for us all and touches
every one's daily life. It develops powers, -it forms
the character.  The possession or the want of it
strikes the balance between existences which, to the
casual observer, stand on the two extremes of prosperous and adverse. Many an anxious and laborious
life is tolerable, and is carried through with a cheerfulness and elasticity exciting constant admiration,




334           OQze's Owz WVay.
because the weight is laid where it can be easiest
borne, —an adjustment which people can generally
best do for themselves.  A sense of power comes
with difficulties met'and overcome by our own resources, directed in our own way; while, on the other
hand, there are lives which seem peculiarly exempt
from the ordinary trials of life, vexed with no great
cares, secure of the main blessings, surrounded, perhaps, by the luxuries others want, but which cannot
be enjoyed because of the consciousness of some external power which interferes with every natural spring
of action, makes every step compulsory, and renders
all seeming choice a dead letter. And this, again,
accounts for many a dogged, passive, indifferent manner, provoking, perhaps, in the undiscerning lookeron, -who assumes that pleasant circumstances should
necessarily bring pleasure, - all sorts of disparaging
and unjust surmises.  It is here that two instincts
come in contact which are often confused, but really
distinct, — the love of one's own way, which, in reason,
we defend; and the love of influence and love of rule,
that is, the passion for marking out other people's way
for them. This last is, indeed, so often engendered
by an uninterrupted career of one's own way - a state
of things leaving no growth for the sympathy which
arises out of fellow-feeling -as to give some color to
the confusion. There are men who devote their lives




One's Own  Way.               335
to the cause of political liberty, and yet see no inconsistency in imposing their own private peculiarities as
a law on others; who prescribe their own strictly personal, and perhaps eccentric, habits on their children
and dependants, and think they do all that is required
in saying, "I ask no more from them than I do myself."
They are quite unconscious that an act, perhaps indifferent in itself, is pleasure to them because it is the
offspring of their own fancy, because it is a whim,
because it fits in with their idiosyncrasy; and, therefore, by the same rule, may be disagreeable to others
whose insides, mental and corporeal, are differently
constituted. Such men, without knowing it, are perpetually stirring up an atmosphere of irritation around
them. Every time their back is turned there is some
little explosion, a petty indemnification for a petty
tyranny; for it is certain, - we will not say of all
races, for, as Mrs. Gamp very justly remarks, " There
may be Rooshians and there may be Prooshians," and
we do not pronounce upon them, - but it is certain
that all members of the Anglo-Saxon race will take
it out in some way or other, if they are thwarted
of what they feel their legitimate share of their own
way.
Among the surest recipes to be well loved, well
obeyed, well served, is to be careful not to interfere
with this inalienable privilege. Even with our ser



336             One's Own Way.
vants, if they know their business, it is best to confine
our orders to things being well done without interfering minutely with times and modes. Any one who
knows by observation or experience what it is to be
managed or dictated to, to have his movements followed, his time in indifferent matters regulated for
him, -who has felt actually, or by sympathy with
some sufferers, these moral gyves and fetters precluding all escape from a predominant will, - should
allow his butler or his housemaid scope, not only
for the exercise of their independent reason, but for
some little caprice of will, on the ground that every
human being ought to have an arena of action in
which he can work after his fancy, and do things in
a certain fashion and order, because it is his way.
Service- and most relations, whether of friendship,
affection, or duty, have something of the nature of
service in them-means subjecting our wills in important matters. It is not only hirelings who have to
submit their inclinations to an external control: husbands, wives, children, friends, subjects, must all do
it in the natural course of things. But all service is
light or galling not so much from the amount of labor
and the great tasks and concessions required, as from
the circumstances under which they are accomplished.
Everything depends on whether we have a sense of
liberty with them or of bondage; and needless inter



One's Own Way.               337
ference with our mode of action, with our own system
of adapting our work to our temperament and character, is this bondage. We say "we," but it is not a
personal question. We are pleading for the weak, -
for such as cannot help themselves. A man who has
found his place in the world has not often much to
complain of on this head, though there are exceptional cases. He may now and then be taken possession of by some meddling spirit, who, either from
fussy affection, want of tact, jealousy, or love of management, lifts him off his feet as it were, and gives
him a momentary taste of subjection; but his keen
irritation at the situation shows how little he is used
to interference. It is his own fault if he lives a victim
to such trammels. In the main, he has enough of his
own way.  But there are many over whom circumstances predominate, and who live and die under the
dominion of a strong will, -whose best gifts are
dwarfed, who never have a chance, who never fairly
taste of life, and who are incapacitated for their place
in it from being the victims of a life-long, minute subjection of the will. In these cases - and all must
know some instances to the point - women are generally the sufferers, and women the tyrants; the first
from the weakness of their sex, which, while it keeps
them ever fretting under the yoke, does not give them
strength to cast it off; and the other, from the greater
15                        v




338              One's Own Way.
aptitude for frivolous, unceasing interference which
the feminine nature, allied to a strong will, possesses.
Men are greater bullies than women; but they have
not the same eye for surveillance. If they do attempt
it, the mischief and the misery are indeed at their
highest.
A certain yoke of general superintendence is of
course necessary for youth. The words "training,"
and "education," imply it; and children may have
their way marked out for them, even in trifles, without
any irritating sense of dictation. Indeed, they are
conscious of a general need of guidance, and are
happier with it. But even children should, within
a limited sphere, be intrusted with some choice of
their own way, in which their own reason and experience should be their only teachers. This is why
school, with all its dangers, is often better for a boy
than an ultra-careful home, where perhaps he is
answerable to a watchful mother for the outlay of
each penny of his pocket-money, and stands reproved for every damage to his playthings. We are
very far from wishing for the young of either sex
to be allowed too much of their own way; but it
is one of the secrets of wise management to manage
as little as possible, and never to interfere unnecessarily, or in trifles and things of little moment. If
we rule, it is best not to show that we rule them.




Orzes Own Way.              339
In one sense, this secret is a wonderful economist;
for one of the cheapest and at the same time most
effectual ways of making people happy, especially
where pleasure is the avowed pursuit, is simply to
leave them to do as they like and choose their own
way of enjoying themselves. To go where you like
and do what you like, instead ofwhat other people
like, or what is expected from you, often brings a
sense of relief, of holiday, of lightness and jollity,
which no amount of show, no lavish expense can
in the least counterbalance. Young people, and old
people too, often only need this to enjoy the most
complete relaxation of which they are' capable; and
yet this is precisely what the managing temper, prolific of plans and programmes, cannot and will not
understand. It, is the presence or absence of this
spirit of dictation which makes some homes pleasant,
others irksome. The same people in the same combinations may meet in both, and yet not know themselves or each other in the opposing atmospheres.
Perhaps it explains our meaning of "one's own
way," while it obviates the charge of selfishness to
which some expressions may have subjected it, that
while it alone gives a sense of ownership in the
things about us, it extends that sense to the greatest
number with every gratifying circumstance of possession, and yet without interfering with others' rights.




340            One's Own Way.
Mere legal ownership, under the check of an overmastering will, goes very little way towards real proprietorship. The strong will which takes the headship assigns, disposes, apportions, according to its
own notions, till the saying come true, - and not only
a man's land, his house, his child, his coat, but even
his soul is not his own. But where every member
of a family has his free development, the same thing
belongs to a dozen different people. The master,
the mistress, the children, the servants, all say my
and our indiscriminately, - and with reason, for what
is ownership but the sense of doing what you like,
exercising your will upon the thing in question?
And this can be done, and is done, where people
live happily together, without a moment's infringement of the more absolute class of rights. Nor,
indeed, can we feel at ease, even as an acquaintance,
much less as a friend, without sharing this privilege
of possession, and all that sense of ownership which
lies hid in " being at home," - without having established some rights, imprinted our will on some corner, some nook, some seat, where we may have
the pleasant security of being allowed "our own
way."




WANT OF MONEY.
I F one slight change were made in the circumstances of the mass of society, what an astounding effect would be produced!  And yet our -supposed case could not be put in any startling form.
It is only that, instead of people, as a rule, having
less money than they want, - less than seems necessary for the working out and fit fulfilment of the
duties and pleasures of their position, - all had just
a little more than enough. It appears a simple idea,
and pleasant as it is simple. It is no unreasonable
stretch of the imagination,-just a little surplus for
everybody, sufficient to make all ends meet, and a
little over; yet, in fact, it would turn the world upside down, and that in a week's time. Want of
money is the principle of moral gravitation,- the
only power, as we are constituted, strong enough to
keep things in their places. It is this shortness and
dearth which our supposed change would remove,



342              Want of Money.
this perpetual deficiency, this constant hitch, this all
but ineffectual struggle to keep above water, -which
maintains the world's stability, and saves us from
perpetual change and dissolution. It is the difference between a close fit and even a small surplus
and excess which alone keeps men to the work of
their lives. It is the one stern cure for restlessness,
- the potent guide to consistency which nobody can
evade. All labor, whether of mind or hand, would
be spasmodic and intermittent without it. It is the
only must in a free country that men have to obey
all their lives. If people had once money enough
to stop in their career, to turn round, to look about
them, to debate matters, to try experiments, to indulge fancies, to yield to disgusts, society would
come to a dead-lock; there would be first universal
change, and then nobody can guess what. But, to
speak generally, nobody has enough; for in a question of this sort the really rich are so minute a minority as not to count, and it is most happy that
it is so.
Indeed, without going into the case speculatively,
nobody does wish for universal wealth. This moderate rise from a little short of enough to a little
above it, from straitness to ease, is a wish that
people instinctively reserve for themselves and their
friends.  It is only for self and a chosen few that




Want of YM/oney.           343
such aspirations are formed as we find condensed in
the Scotchman's prayer for a modest competency:
- "And, that there may be no mistake, let it be seven
hundred a year paid quarterly in advance." We know
well enough, without consulting the political economists, that it would be highly inconvenient if all the
sons of toil, by whom we live, had, even according to
their own limited ideas, a remunerative, generous return for their labors, and were thus enabled to stop
and deliberate, and change their calling when weary
of it. Want of money is an external force necessary
to the world's stability, but which our reason is slow
honestly to recognize in cases nearly concerning ourselves. It is a spur no one is willing to believe indispensable to himself. To each man it is a superhuman
effort of humility to believe that pecuniary necessities
are essential to his going through life with decent
credit, -that he is incapable of getting good and
happiness out of a full purse. But we cannot help
seeing that, in the case of many another man, it is
well for "want to be his master," -that there are
people who were patient, humble, striving, laborious,
contented, under a narrow fortune, but whom money
has completely upset, on whom it has wrought like
the insane root.
These admissions are necessary, and we have to
repeat such arguments often, to reconcile ourselves to




344             Want of Money.
the weight and sadness which this all but universal
condition of humanity induces in the social atmosphere. Even passing through the streets, how many
wrinkled brows and careworn physiognomies we meet
which we learn to trace to this one source! The poor
have no skill at disguising their anxieties. These are
written, in large characters on their whole bearing,
and the very title we give them reveals the source of
their anxieties; but others who have learnt the graceful art of concealment, — who wear a social smile as
part of a liberal education, -how often we catch their
faces betraying, as it were, some process of mental
arithmetic, as though some sum were being cast up
within which will not give the wished-for answer. It
is said that you cannot overhear Americans talk for
two minutes without the word "dollars" coming in.
In the old country it is rather the want of the dollar,
or its equivalent, which impresses itself on the aspect
of things, -not, we must own, by any evidences of
squalor, but.by the general carefulness and anxious
deliberation that is the prevailing characteristic of a
crowd. Imagine for an instant the change from this
gravity, deepening often into gloom, which would be
apparent in the air and look of our streets, if every
one we met had found himself that morning with ten
pounds' in hand! For the extended wealth we are
imagining is not large possessions. We do not say,




Want of Money.              345
with the Roman, "that man is rich who can maintain
an army," but he who is absolutely easy in his circumstances, whatever they are, and knows no care about
money.
When we speak of want of money being a universal
disease, we imply that it is a respectable one, and belonging to the responsible portion of the community.
It is not only jovial Falstaffs who can find no remedy
for this consumption of the purse. Nor do we confine ourselves by any means to poverty in its strictest
sense; though, of course, where there is debt and
embarrassment it is felt at its worst. Careful fathers
of families, prudent tradesmen, are, we know, thinking of ways and means,- the dull' eye, the heavy
tread betray them.  Pious rectors, painstaking curates,- it is not parish, or sermon, or speculative
thought alone which chastens and subdues their outer
man to such seeming conformity with their calling.
Plodding students, hard-working lawyers, devoted
young doctors, are seldom  quite absorbed in their
respective cases. On all and each there is a superadded care,- a worry that does not belong to their
work. The traces of a struggle are upon them all.
The people who have not to think about money as
an anxious subject, who have no care about it, who
are never seriously checked by it, who are not periodically kept awake by it, whose reveries are not tinged
I5 *




346             Want of Mone.y.
by it, for themselves, or those they care for like themselves, are so few, compared with the whole community, that they need not be taken into the account.
If any man at ease in his own circumstances does not
know the feeling, it is that his exceptional position,
the isolation of his prosperity, stints his sympathy.
All people who can feel for others and are therefore
admitted into confidences, or who more likely understand without any spoken confidence at all, find this
a weight, - an abiding thbugh probably salutary sadness. How many young spirits they see prematurely
depressed by this want, - it may be the consequence
of their own folly! How many manners, tempers,
peculiarities may be interpreted by it! How many
people are dull, or proud, or unsociable from the
secret irritation of want of money!  How many
bright intelligences are diverted from their highest
development from  the same cause!  We are not
quarrelling with things as they are, —we have asserted, on the contrary, that it is all-essential to the
world's well-being; but nevertheless this painful side
of the question does appear to exist. We know so
many people who seem as if they would be the better
for easy circumstances and a relaxation from care.
However, human shoulders are made to bear heavy
burdens. If we could see into the inner anxieties of
many a cheerful exterior, we should wonder how the




-   Want of Money.           347
cheerfulness could be maintained. But, in fact, the
universality of the evil makes it bearable. There is
a sustaining, inspiriting reliance on fellow-feeling, pervading every circle, though scarcely realized till it is
missed; as it is missed in the presence of obtrusive
wealth, — wealth that makes itself felt like a barrier,
either by vulgar pride of purse, contempt of small
expense, or by the cool assumption that want of
money in all its consequences is no evil, and is not
hard to bear, and involves no real privation. There
is a certain insolence of satiety, peculiarly irritating
to the spirit which feels its wings, but may not use
them. And yet such people have something to say
for themselves, in whatever way they make themselves
offensive. Perhaps nothing should console us more
for our friends' or our own want of money than the
extraordinary uses to which people who have it put
their superfluity. It often seems difficult to get pleasure out of money, though, in the abstract, nothing
seems so easy. Speculation may be a foolish luxury,
and extravagance is undoubtedly wrong, but they are
both more intelligible than the creditable methods
some rich men hit upon for the disposal of vast sums,
which are often curiously like throwing money into
the river or burying it. The tricks some men play
with the surface of their estates are of this sort to the
unsympathizing looker-on.  The passion for earth



348             Want of Money.
works, for displacing stones or soil, for levelling or
hollowing, raising mounds, diverting streams, and so
forth, -all on a scale commensurate with their fortune, —are very like contrivances to get rid of money.
There are sermons in all stones; and though our eye
is not insensible to the gratification of an unbroken
length of granite, we must regard a monolith —for
thousands of years the supreme achievement of wealth
-as an emphatic preacher of content to the poor
man. And even when the rich enter into more intelligible expense, they seem to have to spend, not
in proportion to the thing aimed at, but to their
means. If a rich man adds a wing to his house, by
a certain law he has to spend five times as much
upon it as we can understand by the results. He
gets no more pleasure, scarcely more effect out of
it, than where the same thing is done by others
who have to think of money at every turn. Perfect
finish and completeness enormously affect the whole
outlay, but not, to the same degree, the imagination. Not many people, it is clear, get much
enjoyment out of a large fortune.  Who does not
feel that he could manage one better than the
actual possessor? Now, in the mere question of
buying, how few can indulge in the delicious pleasure of buying, -not of spending, that comes of itself
without active steps on our part, but of buying, —




Want of Money.              349
visibly exchanging our money for what we can
hold in our hand! How few can safely buy a thing
because they fancy it, not because it cannot be
done without! But the amusement of buying evidently palls where there is no difficulty. What men
may have any time for the asking they often don't care
to have at all. An acquisition to a poor man is a sort
of conquest, like that black-letter folio immortalized
by Charles Lamb, to procure which the "old brown
suit was made to hang on six weeks longer." Then,
when rich people do seem to enjoy their money, we
often don't like their way of doing it. Persons who
know nothing of poverty are sometimes cold, hard,
and uninteresting.  They betray a barren complacency, and care for their possessions chiefly as giving
them what others want, -for making them enviably
singular.  They are consequently extremely jealous
of all general benefits to mankind, -just as a good
many people quarrelled with railroads because they
deprived them of the power of travelling faster than
other folks. However, we will not pursue this part
of our theme further. Moralizing is so easy and so
obvious, and yet nobody feels quite honest while he
indulges in it. As we write, Johnson's confessions on
this point will obtrude themselves:-" When I was
running about this town a very poor fellow, I was a
great arguer for the advantages of poverty; but I was




350             Wa nt of Mon ey.
at the same time very sorry to be poor. Sir, all the
arguments which are brought to represent poverty as
no evil show it to be evidently a great evil. You
never find people laboring to convince you that you
may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune." And
Sydney Smith spoke in the same vein, declaring it as
his experience that he was happier for every additional guinea of income that he got. We may misuse
wealth, but deliverance from anxiety is felt, when it
comes, to be a blessing which cannot be gainsaid.
There is one consideration, however, for restless
imaginations, busy in amending the arrangements of
Providence.  No one living has a right to believe
himself or those about him independent of circumstances. Men's wants and deficiencies have a large
part in the formation of the purest and most disinterested friendships, and even in maintaining them.
If our friends' worldly condition were materially improved, we cannot be at all sure that they would be
the same to us. It is highly improbable that they
would. We fit one another as we are. Very likely
some element of unfitness would spring up if our relative positions were altered. Our society may now be
invested with some subtle charm of sympathy for
which then there would be no play. Or our friend
would have other claims more importunate than ours,
in which we must acquiesce if we are wise, but which




Wa nt of Money.            351
would not the less make a change where change is not
welcome. Perhaps the charm and sentiment of our
lives — what is, after all, better to us, and more indispensable than material wealth —hangs on our being
no richer,. no more prosperous, no more independent
than we are. If, then, there is anything in our relations with others that we cling to, and could not bear
to see altered, we had best, even in this matter of
wanting money, cheerfully reconcile ourselves to the
universal need, and, because there is something we
care for more, make ourselves content and satisfied
with things as they are.