diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/10762.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10762.txt | 5879 |
1 files changed, 5879 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/10762.txt b/old/10762.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71ac3d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10762.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5879 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Impressions of Theophrastus Such, by George Eliot + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Impressions of Theophrastus Such + +Author: George Eliot + +Release Date: January 26, 2007 [EBook #10762] +[This file was first posted on January 21, 2004] +Last Updated: March 9, 2020 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH *** + + + + +Produced by Afra Ullah and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH + + +GEORGE ELIOT + + +Second Edition + +William Blackwood and Sons +Edinburgh and London +MDCCCLXXIX + + + + "Suspicione si quis errabit sua, + Et rapiet ad se, quod erit commune omnium, + Stulte nudabit animi conscientiam. + Huic excusatum me velim nihilominus: + Neque enim notare singulos mens est mihi, + Verum ipsam vitam et mores hominum ostendere." + + --_Phaedrus._ + + +CONTENTS + + + I. LOOKING INWARD + + II. LOOKING BACKWARD + + III. HOW WE ENCOURAGE RESEARCH + + IV. A MAN SURPRISED AT HIS ORIGINALITY + + V. A TOO DEFERENTIAL MAN + + VI. ONLY TEMPER + + VII. A POLITICAL MOLECULE + + VIII. THE WATCH-DOG OF KNOWLEDGE + + IX. A HALF-BREED + + X. DEBASING THE MORAL CURRENCY + + XI. THE WASP CREDITED WITH THE HONEYCOMB + + XII. "SO YOUNG!" + + XIII. HOW WE COME TO GIVE OURSELVES FALSE + TESTIMONIALS, AND BELIEVE IN THEM + + XIV. THE TOO READY WRITER + + XV. DISEASES OF SMALL AUTHORSHIP + + XVI. MORAL SWINDLERS + + XVII. SHADOWS OF THE COMING RACE + +XVIII. THE MODERN HEP! HEP! HEP! + + + +I. + + +LOOKING INWARD. + +It is my habit to give an account to myself of the characters I meet +with: can I give any true account of my own? I am a bachelor, without +domestic distractions of any sort, and have all my life been an +attentive companion to myself, flattering my nature agreeably on +plausible occasions, reviling it rather bitterly when it mortified me, +and in general remembering its doings and sufferings with a tenacity +which is too apt to raise surprise if not disgust at the careless +inaccuracy of my acquaintances, who impute to me opinions I never held, +express their desire to convert me to my favourite ideas, forget whether +I have ever been to the East, and are capable of being three several +times astonished at my never having told them before of my accident in +the Alps, causing me the nervous shock which has ever since notably +diminished my digestive powers. Surely I ought to know myself better +than these indifferent outsiders can know me; nay, better even than my +intimate friends, to whom I have never breathed those items of my inward +experience which have chiefly shaped my life. + +Yet I have often been forced into the reflection that even the +acquaintances who are as forgetful of my biography and tenets as they +would be if I were a dead philosopher, are probably aware of certain +points in me which may not be included in my most active suspicion. We +sing an exquisite passage out of tune and innocently repeat it for the +greater pleasure of our hearers. Who can be aware of what his foreign +accent is in the ears of a native? And how can a man be conscious of +that dull perception which causes him to mistake altogether what will +make him agreeable to a particular woman, and to persevere eagerly in a +behaviour which she is privately recording against him? I have had some +confidences from my female friends as to their opinion of other men whom +I have observed trying to make themselves amiable, and it has occurred +to me that though I can hardly be so blundering as Lippus and the rest +of those mistaken candidates for favour whom I have seen ruining their +chance by a too elaborate personal canvass, I must still come under the +common fatality of mankind and share the liability to be absurd without +knowing that I am absurd. It is in the nature of foolish reasoning to +seem good to the foolish reasoner. Hence with all possible study of +myself, with all possible effort to escape from the pitiable illusion +which makes men laugh, shriek, or curl the lip at Folly's likeness, in +total unconsciousness that it resembles themselves, I am obliged to +recognise that while there are secrets in me unguessed by others, these +others have certain items of knowledge about the extent of my powers and +the figure I make with them, which in turn are secrets unguessed by me. +When I was a lad I danced a hornpipe with arduous scrupulosity, and +while suffering pangs of pallid shyness was yet proud of my superiority +as a dancing pupil, imagining for myself a high place in the estimation +of beholders; but I can now picture the amusement they had in the +incongruity of my solemn face and ridiculous legs. What sort of hornpipe +am I dancing now? + +Thus if I laugh at you, O fellow-men! if I trace with curious interest +your labyrinthine self-delusions, note the inconsistencies in your +zealous adhesions, and smile at your helpless endeavours in a rashly +chosen part, it is not that I feel myself aloof from you: the more +intimately I seem to discern your weaknesses, the stronger to me is the +proof that I share them. How otherwise could I get the discernment?--for +even what we are averse to, what we vow not to entertain, must have +shaped or shadowed itself within us as a possibility before we can think +of exorcising it. No man can know his brother simply as a spectator. +Dear blunderers, I am one of you. I wince at the fact, but I am not +ignorant of it, that I too am laughable on unsuspected occasions; nay, +in the very tempest and whirlwind of my anger, I include myself under my +own indignation. If the human race has a bad reputation, I perceive that +I cannot escape being compromised. And thus while I carry in myself the +key to other men's experience, it is only by observing others that I can +so far correct my self-ignorance as to arrive at the certainty that I am +liable to commit myself unawares and to manifest some incompetency which +I know no more of than the blind man knows of his image in the glass. + +Is it then possible to describe oneself at once faithfully and fully? In +all autobiography there is, nay, ought to be, an incompleteness which +may have the effect of falsity. We are each of us bound to reticence by +the piety we owe to those who have been nearest to us and have had a +mingled influence over our lives; by the fellow-feeling which should +restrain us from turning our volunteered and picked confessions into an +act of accusation against others, who have no chance of vindicating +themselves; and most of all by that reverence for the higher efforts of +our common nature, which commands us to bury its lowest fatalities, its +invincible remnants of the brute, its most agonising struggles with +temptation, in unbroken silence. But the incompleteness which comes of +self-ignorance may be compensated by self-betrayal. A man who is +affected to tears in dwelling on the generosity of his own sentiments +makes me aware of several things not included under those terms. Who has +sinned more against those three duteous reticences than Jean Jacques? +Yet half our impressions of his character come not from what he means to +convey, but from what he unconsciously enables us to discern. + +This _naïve_ veracity of self-presentation is attainable by the +slenderest talent on the most trivial occasions. The least lucid and +impressive of orators may be perfectly successful in showing us the weak +points of his grammar. Hence I too may be so far like Jean Jacques as to +communicate more than I am aware of. I am not indeed writing an +autobiography, or pretending to give an unreserved description of +myself, but only offering some slight confessions in an apologetic +light, to indicate that if in my absence you dealt as freely with my +unconscious weaknesses as I have dealt with the unconscious weaknesses +of others, I should not feel myself warranted by common-sense in +regarding your freedom of observation as an exceptional case of +evil-speaking; or as malignant interpretation of a character which +really offers no handle to just objection; or even as an unfair use for +your amusement of disadvantages which, since they are mine, should be +regarded with more than ordinary tenderness. Let me at least try to feel +myself in the ranks with my fellow-men. It is true, that I would rather +not hear either your well-founded ridicule or your judicious strictures. +Though not averse to finding fault with myself, and conscious of +deserving lashes, I like to keep the scourge in my own discriminating +hand. I never felt myself sufficiently meritorious to like being hated +as a proof of my superiority, or so thirsty for improvement as to desire +that all my acquaintances should give me their candid opinion of me. I +really do not want to learn from my enemies: I prefer having none to +learn from. Instead of being glad when men use me despitefully, I wish +they would behave better and find a more amiable occupation for their +intervals of business. In brief, after a close intimacy with myself for +a longer period than I choose to mention, I find within me a permanent +longing for approbation, sympathy, and love. + +Yet I am a bachelor, and the person I love best has never loved me, or +known that I loved her. Though continually in society, and caring about +the joys and sorrows of my neighbours, I feel myself, so far as my +personal lot is concerned, uncared for and alone. "Your own fault, my +dear fellow!" said Minutius Felix, one day that I had incautiously +mentioned this uninteresting fact. And he was right--in senses other +than he intended. Why should I expect to be admired, and have my company +doated on? I have done no services to my country beyond those of every +peaceable orderly citizen; and as to intellectual contribution, my only +published work was a failure, so that I am spoken of to inquiring +beholders as "the author of a book you have probably not seen." (The +work was a humorous romance, unique in its kind, and I am told is much +tasted in a Cherokee translation, where the jokes are rendered with all +the serious eloquence characteristic of the Red races.) This sort of +distinction, as a writer nobody is likely to have read, can hardly +counteract an indistinctness in my articulation, which the +best-intentioned loudness will not remedy. Then, in some quarters my +awkward feet are against me, the length of my upper lip, and an +inveterate way I have of walking with my head foremost and my chin +projecting. One can become only too well aware of such things by looking +in the glass, or in that other mirror held up to nature in the frank +opinions of street-boys, or of our Free People travelling by excursion +train; and no doubt they account for the half-suppressed smile which I +have observed on some fair faces when I have first been presented before +them. This direct perceptive judgment is not to be argued against. But I +am tempted to remonstrate when the physical points I have mentioned are +apparently taken to warrant unfavourable inferences concerning my mental +quickness. With all the increasing uncertainty which modern progress has +thrown over the relations of mind and body, it seems tolerably clear +that wit cannot be seated in the upper lip, and that the balance of the +haunches in walking has nothing to do with the subtle discrimination of +ideas. Yet strangers evidently do not expect me to make a clever +observation, and my good things are as unnoticed as if they were +anonymous pictures. I have indeed had the mixed satisfaction of finding +that when they were appropriated by some one else they were found +remarkable and even brilliant. It is to be borne in mind that I am not +rich, have neither stud nor cellar, and no very high connections such as +give to a look of imbecility a certain prestige of inheritance through a +titled line; just as "the Austrian lip" confers a grandeur of historical +associations on a kind of feature which might make us reject an +advertising footman. I have now and then done harm to a good cause by +speaking for it in public, and have discovered too late that my attitude +on the occasion would more suitably have been that of negative +beneficence. Is it really to the advantage of an opinion that I should +be known to hold it? And as to the force of my arguments, that is a +secondary consideration with audiences who have given a new scope to the +_ex pede Herculem_ principle, and from awkward feet infer awkward +fallacies. Once, when zeal lifted me on my legs, I distinctly heard an +enlightened artisan remark, "Here's a rum cut!"--and doubtless he +reasoned in the same way as the elegant Glycera when she politely puts +on an air of listening to me, but elevates her eyebrows and chills her +glance in sign of predetermined neutrality: both have their reasons for +judging the quality of my speech beforehand. + +This sort of reception to a man of affectionate disposition, who has +also the innocent vanity of desiring to be agreeable, has naturally a +depressing if not embittering tendency; and in early life I began to +seek for some consoling point of view, some warrantable method of +softening the hard peas I had to walk on, some comfortable fanaticism +which might supply the needed self-satisfaction. At one time I dwelt +much on the idea of compensation; trying to believe that I was all the +wiser for my bruised vanity, that I had the higher place in the true +spiritual scale, and even that a day might come when some visible +triumph would place me in the French heaven of having the laughers on my +side. But I presently perceived that this was a very odious sort of +self-cajolery. Was it in the least true that I was wiser than several of +my friends who made an excellent figure, and were perhaps praised a +little beyond their merit? Is the ugly unready man in the corner, +outside the current of conversation, really likely to have a fairer +view of things than the agreeable talker, whose success strikes the +unsuccessful as a repulsive example of forwardness and conceit? And as +to compensation in future years, would the fact that I myself got it +reconcile me to an order of things in which I could see a multitude with +as bad a share as mine, who, instead of getting their corresponding +compensation, were getting beyond the reach of it in old age? What could +be more contemptible than the mood of mind which makes a man measure the +justice of divine or human law by the agreeableness of his own shadow +and the ample satisfaction of his own desires? + +I dropped a form of consolation which seemed to be encouraging me in the +persuasion that my discontent was the chief evil in the world, and my +benefit the soul of good in that evil. May there not be at least a +partial release from the imprisoning verdict that a man's philosophy is +the formula of his personality? In certain branches of science we can +ascertain our personal equation, the measure of difference between our +own judgments and an average standard: may there not be some +corresponding correction of our personal partialities in moral +theorising? If a squint or other ocular defect disturbs my vision, I can +get instructed in the fact, be made aware that my condition is abnormal, +and either through spectacles or diligent imagination I can learn the +average appearance of things: is there no remedy or corrective for that +inward squint which consists in a dissatisfied egoism or other want of +mental balance? In my conscience I saw that the bias of personal +discontent was just as misleading and odious as the bias of +self-satisfaction. Whether we look through the rose-coloured glass or +the indigo, we are equally far from the hues which the healthy human eye +beholds in heaven above and earth below. I began to dread ways of +consoling which were really a flattering of native illusions, a +feeding-up into monstrosity of an inward growth already +disproportionate; to get an especial scorn for that scorn of mankind +which is a transmuted disappointment of preposterous claims; to watch +with peculiar alarm lest what I called my philosophic estimate of the +human lot in general, should be a mere prose lyric expressing my own +pain and consequent bad temper. The standing-ground worth striving after +seemed to be some Delectable Mountain, whence I could see things in +proportions as little as possible determined by that self-partiality +which certainly plays a necessary part in our bodily sustenance, but has +a starving effect on the mind. + +Thus I finally gave up any attempt to make out that I preferred cutting +a bad figure, and that I liked to be despised, because in this way I was +getting more virtuous than my successful rivals; and I have long looked +with suspicion on all views which are recommended as peculiarly +consolatory to wounded vanity or other personal disappointment. The +consolations of egoism are simply a change of attitude or a resort to a +new kind of diet which soothes and fattens it. Fed in this way it is apt +to become a monstrous spiritual pride, or a chuckling satisfaction that +the final balance will not be against us but against those who now +eclipse us. Examining the world in order to find consolation is very +much like looking carefully over the pages of a great book in order to +find our own name, if not in the text, at least in a laudatory note: +whether we find what we want or not, our preoccupation has hindered us +from a true knowledge of the contents. But an attention fixed on the +main theme or various matter of the book would deliver us from that +slavish subjection to our own self-importance. And I had the mighty +volume of the world before me. Nay, I had the struggling action of a +myriad lives around me, each single life as dear to itself as mine to +me. Was there no escape here from this stupidity of a murmuring +self-occupation? Clearly enough, if anything hindered my thought from +rising to the force of passionately interested contemplation, or my poor +pent-up pond of sensitiveness from widening into a beneficent river of +sympathy, it was my own dulness; and though I could not make myself the +reverse of shallow all at once, I had at least learned where I had +better turn my attention. + +Something came of this alteration in my point of view, though I admit +that the result is of no striking kind. It is unnecessary for me to +utter modest denials, since none have assured me that I have a vast +intellectual scope, or--what is more surprising, considering I have +done so little--that I might, if I chose, surpass any distinguished man +whom they wish to depreciate. I have not attained any lofty peak of +magnanimity, nor would I trust beforehand in my capability of meeting a +severe demand for moral heroism. But that I have at least succeeded in +establishing a habit of mind which keeps watch against my +self-partiality and promotes a fair consideration of what touches the +feelings or the fortunes of my neighbours, seems to be proved by the +ready confidence with which men and women appeal to my interest in their +experience. It is gratifying to one who would above all things avoid the +insanity of fancying himself a more momentous or touching object than he +really is, to find that nobody expects from him the least sign of such +mental aberration, and that he is evidently held capable of listening to +all kinds of personal outpouring without the least disposition to become +communicative in the same way. This confirmation of the hope that my +bearing is not that of the self-flattering lunatic is given me in ample +measure. My acquaintances tell me unreservedly of their triumphs and +their piques; explain their purposes at length, and reassure me with +cheerfulness as to their chances of success; insist on their theories +and accept me as a dummy with whom they rehearse their side of future +discussions; unwind their coiled-up griefs in relation to their +husbands, or recite to me examples of feminine incomprehensibleness as +typified in their wives; mention frequently the fair applause which +their merits have wrung from some persons, and the attacks to which +certain oblique motives have stimulated others. At the time when I was +less free from superstition about my own power of charming, I +occasionally, in the glow of sympathy which embraced me and my confiding +friend on the subject of his satisfaction or resentment, was urged to +hint at a corresponding experience in my own case; but the signs of a +rapidly lowering pulse and spreading nervous depression in my previously +vivacious interlocutor, warned me that I was acting on that dangerous +misreading, "Do as you are done by." Recalling the true version of the +golden rule, I could not wish that others should lower my spirits as I +was lowering my friend's. After several times obtaining the same result +from a like experiment in which all the circumstances were varied except +my own personality, I took it as an established inference that these +fitful signs of a lingering belief in my own importance were generally +felt to be abnormal, and were something short of that sanity which I +aimed to secure. Clearness on this point is not without its +gratifications, as I have said. While my desire to explain myself in +private ears has been quelled, the habit of getting interested in the +experience of others has been continually gathering strength, and I am +really at the point of finding that this world would be worth living in +without any lot of one's own. Is it not possible for me to enjoy the +scenery of the earth without saying to myself, I have a cabbage-garden +in it? But this sounds like the lunacy of fancying oneself everybody +else and being unable to play one's own part decently--another form of +the disloyal attempt to be independent of the common lot, and to live +without a sharing of pain. + +Perhaps I have made self-betrayals enough already to show that I have +not arrived at that non-human independence. My conversational +reticences about myself turn into garrulousness on paper--as the +sea-lion plunges and swims the more energetically because his limbs are +of a sort to make him shambling on land. The act of writing, in spite of +past experience, brings with it the vague, delightful illusion of an +audience nearer to my idiom than the Cherokees, and more numerous than +the visionary One for whom many authors have declared themselves willing +to go through the pleasing punishment of publication. My illusion is of +a more liberal kind, and I imagine a far-off, hazy, multitudinous +assemblage, as in a picture of Paradise, making an approving chorus to +the sentences and paragraphs of which I myself particularly enjoy the +writing. The haze is a necessary condition. If any physiognomy becomes +distinct in the foreground, it is fatal. The countenance is sure to be +one bent on discountenancing my innocent intentions: it is pale-eyed, +incapable of being amused when I am amused or indignant at what makes me +indignant; it stares at my presumption, pities my ignorance, or is +manifestly preparing to expose the various instances in which I +unconsciously disgrace myself. I shudder at this too corporeal auditor, +and turn towards another point of the compass where the haze is +unbroken. Why should I not indulge this remaining illusion, since I do +not take my approving choral paradise as a warrant for setting the press +to work again and making some thousand sheets of superior paper +unsaleable? I leave my manuscripts to a judgment outside my imagination, +but I will not ask to hear it, or request my friend to pronounce, before +I have been buried decently, what he really thinks of my parts, and to +state candidly whether my papers would be most usefully applied in +lighting the cheerful domestic fire. It is too probable that he will be +exasperated at the trouble I have given him of reading them; but the +consequent clearness and vivacity with which he could demonstrate to me +that the fault of my manuscripts, as of my one published work, is simply +flatness, and not that surpassing subtilty which is the preferable +ground of popular neglect--this verdict, however instructively +expressed, is a portion of earthly discipline of which I will not +beseech my friend to be the instrument. Other persons, I am aware, have +not the same cowardly shrinking from a candid opinion of their +performances, and are even importunately eager for it; but I have +convinced myself in numerous cases that such exposers of their own back +to the smiter were of too hopeful a disposition to believe in the +scourge, and really trusted in a pleasant anointing, an outpouring of +balm without any previous wounds. I am of a less trusting disposition, +and will only ask my friend to use his judgment in insuring me against +posthumous mistake. + +Thus I make myself a charter to write, and keep the pleasing, inspiring +illusion of being listened to, though I may sometimes write about +myself. What I have already said on this too familiar theme has been +meant only as a preface, to show that in noting the weaknesses of my +acquaintances I am conscious of my fellowship with them. That a +gratified sense of superiority is at the root of barbarous laughter may +be at least half the truth. But there is a loving laughter in which the +only recognised superiority is that of the ideal self, the God within, +holding the mirror and the scourge for our own pettiness as well as our +neighbours'. + + + + +II. + + +LOOKING BACKWARD. + +Most of us who have had decent parents would shrink from wishing that +our father and mother had been somebody else whom we never knew; yet it +is held no impiety, rather, a graceful mark of instruction, for a man to +wail that he was not the son of another age and another nation, of which +also he knows nothing except through the easy process of an imperfect +imagination and a flattering fancy. + +But the period thus looked back on with a purely admiring regret, as +perfect enough to suit a superior mind, is always a long way off; the +desirable contemporaries are hardly nearer than Leonardo da Vinci, most +likely they are the fellow-citizens of Pericles, or, best of all, of the +Aeolic lyrists whose sparse remains suggest a comfortable contrast with +our redundance. No impassioned personage wishes he had been born in the +age of Pitt, that his ardent youth might have eaten the dearest bread, +dressed itself with the longest coat-tails and the shortest waist, or +heard the loudest grumbling at the heaviest war-taxes; and it would be +really something original in polished verse if one of our young writers +declared he would gladly be turned eighty-five that he might have known +the joy and pride of being an Englishman when there were fewer reforms +and plenty of highwaymen, fewer discoveries and more faces pitted with +the small-pox, when laws were made to keep up the price of corn, and the +troublesome Irish were more miserable. Three-quarters of a century ago +is not a distance that lends much enchantment to the view. We are +familiar with the average men of that period, and are still consciously +encumbered with its bad contrivances and mistaken acts. The lords and +gentlemen painted by young Lawrence talked and wrote their nonsense in a +tongue we thoroughly understand; hence their times are not much +flattered, not much glorified by the yearnings of that modern sect of +Flagellants who make a ritual of lashing--not themselves but--all their +neighbours. To me, however, that paternal time, the time of my father's +youth, never seemed prosaic, for it came to my imagination first through +his memories, which made a wondrous perspective to my little daily world +of discovery. And for my part I can call no age absolutely unpoetic: how +should it be so, since there are always children to whom the acorns and +the swallow's eggs are a wonder, always those human passions and +fatalities through which Garrick as Hamlet in bob-wig and knee-breeches +moved his audience more than some have since done in velvet tunic and +plume? But every age since the golden may be made more or less prosaic +by minds that attend only to its vulgar and sordid elements, of which +there was always an abundance even in Greece and Italy, the favourite +realms of the retrospective optimists. To be quite fair towards the +ages, a little ugliness as well as beauty must be allowed to each of +them, a little implicit poetry even to those which echoed loudest with +servile, pompous, and trivial prose. + +Such impartiality is not in vogue at present. If we acknowledge our +obligation to the ancients, it is hardly to be done without some +flouting of our contemporaries, who with all their faults must be +allowed the merit of keeping the world habitable for the refined +eulogists of the blameless past. One wonders whether the remarkable +originators who first had the notion of digging wells, or of churning +for butter, and who were certainly very useful to their own time as well +as ours, were left quite free from invidious comparison with +predecessors who let the water and the milk alone, or whether some +rhetorical nomad, as he stretched himself on the grass with a good +appetite for contemporary butter, became loud on the virtue of ancestors +who were uncorrupted by the produce of the cow; nay, whether in a high +flight of imaginative self-sacrifice (after swallowing the butter) he +even wished himself earlier born and already eaten for the sustenance of +a generation more _naïve_ than his own. + +I have often had the fool's hectic of wishing about the unalterable, but +with me that useless exercise has turned chiefly on the conception of a +different self, and not, as it usually does in literature, on the +advantage of having been born in a different age, and more especially in +one where life is imagined to have been altogether majestic and +graceful. With my present abilities, external proportions, and generally +small provision for ecstatic enjoyment, where is the ground for +confidence that I should have had a preferable career in such an epoch +of society? An age in which every department has its awkward-squad seems +in my mind's eye to suit me better. I might have wandered by the Strymon +under Philip and Alexander without throwing any new light on method or +organising the sum of human knowledge; on the other hand, I might have +objected to Aristotle as too much of a systematiser, and have preferred +the freedom of a little self-contradiction as offering more chances of +truth. I gather, too, from the undeniable testimony of his disciple +Theophrastus that there were bores, ill-bred persons, and detractors +even in Athens, of species remarkably corresponding to the English, and +not yet made endurable by being classic; and altogether, with my present +fastidious nostril, I feel that I am the better off for possessing +Athenian life solely as an inodorous fragment of antiquity. As to +Sappho's Mitylene, while I am convinced that the Lesbian capital held +some plain men of middle stature and slow conversational powers, the +addition of myself to their number, though clad in the majestic folds of +the himation and without cravat, would hardly have made a sensation +among the accomplished fair ones who were so precise in adjusting their +own drapery about their delicate ankles. Whereas by being another sort +of person in the present age I might have given it some needful +theoretic clue; or I might have poured forth poetic strains which would +have anticipated theory and seemed a voice from "the prophetic soul of +the wide world dreaming of things to come;" or I might have been one of +those benignant lovely souls who, without astonishing the public and +posterity, make a happy difference in the lives close around them, and +in this way lift the average of earthly joy: in some form or other I +might have been so filled from the store of universal existence that I +should have been freed from that empty wishing which is like a child's +cry to be inside a golden cloud, its imagination being too ignorant to +figure the lining of dimness and damp. + +On the whole, though there is some rash boasting about enlightenment, +and an occasional insistance on an originality which is that of the +present year's corn-crop, we seem too much disposed to indulge, and to +call by complimentary names, a greater charity for other portions of the +human race than for our contemporaries. All reverence and gratitude for +the worthy Dead on whose labours we have entered, all care for the +future generations whose lot we are preparing; but some affection and +fairness for those who are doing the actual work of the world, some +attempt to regard them with the same freedom from ill-temper, whether on +private or public grounds, as we may hope will be felt by those who will +call us ancient! Otherwise, the looking before and after, which is our +grand human privilege, is in danger of turning to a sort of +other-worldliness, breeding a more illogical indifference or bitterness +than was ever bred by the ascetic's contemplation of heaven. Except on +the ground of a primitive golden age and continuous degeneracy, I see no +rational footing for scorning the whole present population of the globe, +unless I scorn every previous generation from whom they have inherited +their diseases of mind and body, and by consequence scorn my own scorn, +which is equally an inheritance of mixed ideas and feelings concocted +for me in the boiling caldron of this universally contemptible life, and +so on--scorning to infinity. This may represent some actual states of +mind, for it is a narrow prejudice of mathematicians to suppose that +ways of thinking are to be driven out of the field by being reduced to +an absurdity. The Absurd is taken as an excellent juicy thistle by many +constitutions. + +Reflections of this sort have gradually determined me not to grumble at +the age in which I happen to have been born--a natural tendency +certainly older than Hesiod. Many ancient beautiful things are lost, +many ugly modern things have arisen; but invert the proposition and it +is equally true. I at least am a modern with some interest in advocating +tolerance, and notwithstanding an inborn beguilement which carries my +affection and regret continually into an imagined past, I am aware that +I must lose all sense of moral proportion unless I keep alive a stronger +attachment to what is near, and a power of admiring what I best know and +understand. Hence this question of wishing to be rid of one's +contemporaries associates itself with my filial feeling, and calls up +the thought that I might as justifiably wish that I had had other +parents than those whose loving tones are my earliest memory, and whose +last parting first taught me the meaning of death. I feel bound to quell +such a wish as blasphemy. + +Besides, there are other reasons why I am contented that my father was a +country parson, born much about the same time as Scott and Wordsworth; +notwithstanding certain qualms I have felt at the fact that the property +on which I am living was saved out of tithe before the period of +commutation, and without the provisional transfiguration into a modus. +It has sometimes occurred to me when I have been taking a slice of +excellent ham that, from a too tenable point of view, I was breakfasting +on a small squealing black pig which, more than half a century ago, was +the unwilling representative of spiritual advantages not otherwise +acknowledged by the grudging farmer or dairyman who parted with him. One +enters on a fearful labyrinth in tracing compound interest backward, and +such complications of thought have reduced the flavour of the ham; but +since I have nevertheless eaten it, the chief effect has been to +moderate the severity of my radicalism (which was not part of my +paternal inheritance) and to raise the assuaging reflection, that if the +pig and the parishioner had been intelligent enough to anticipate my +historical point of view, they would have seen themselves and the rector +in a light that would have made tithe voluntary. Notwithstanding such +drawbacks I am rather fond of the mental furniture I got by having a +father who was well acquainted with all ranks of his neighbours, and am +thankful that he was not one of those aristocratic clergymen who could +not have sat down to a meal with any family in the parish except my +lord's--still more that he was not an earl or a marquis. A chief +misfortune of high birth is that it usually shuts a man out from the +large sympathetic knowledge of human experience which comes from contact +with various classes on their own level, and in my father's time that +entail of social ignorance had not been disturbed as we see it now. To +look always from overhead at the crowd of one's fellow-men must be in +many ways incapacitating, even with the best will and intelligence. The +serious blunders it must lead to in the effort to manage them for their +good, one may see clearly by the mistaken ways people take of flattering +and enticing those whose associations are unlike their own. Hence I have +always thought that the most fortunate Britons are those whose +experience has given them a practical share in many aspects of the +national lot, who have lived long among the mixed commonalty, roughing +it with them under difficulties, knowing how their food tastes to them, +and getting acquainted with their notions and motives not by inference +from traditional types in literature or from philosophical theories, but +from daily fellowship and observation. Of course such experience is apt +to get antiquated, and my father might find himself much at a loss +amongst a mixed rural population of the present day; but he knew very +well what could be wisely expected from the miners, the weavers, the +field-labourers, and farmers of his own time--yes, and from the +aristocracy, for he had been brought up in close contact with them and +had been companion to a young nobleman who was deaf and dumb. "A +clergyman, lad," he used to say to me, "should feel in himself a bit of +every class;" and this theory had a felicitous agreement with his +inclination and practice, which certainly answered in making him beloved +by his parishioners. They grumbled at their obligations towards him; but +what then? It was natural to grumble at any demand for payment, tithe +included, but also natural for a rector to desire his tithe and look +well after the levying. A Christian pastor who did not mind about his +money was not an ideal prevalent among the rural minds of fat central +England, and might have seemed to introduce a dangerous laxity of +supposition about Christian laymen who happened to be creditors. My +father was none the less beloved because he was understood to be of a +saving disposition, and how could he save without getting his tithe? The +sight of him was not unwelcome at any door, and he was remarkable among +the clergy of his district for having no lasting feud with rich or poor +in his parish. I profited by his popularity, and for months after my +mother's death, when I was a little fellow of nine, I was taken care of +first at one homestead and then at another; a variety which I enjoyed +much more than my stay at the Hall, where there was a tutor. Afterwards +for several years I was my father's constant companion in his outdoor +business, riding by his side on my little pony and listening to the +lengthy dialogues he held with Darby or Joan, the one on the road or in +the fields, the other outside or inside her door. In my earliest +remembrance of him his hair was already grey, for I was his youngest as +well as his only surviving child; and it seemed to me that advanced age +was appropriate to a father, as indeed in all respects I considered him +a parent so much to my honour, that the mention of my relationship to +him was likely to secure me regard among those to whom I was otherwise a +stranger--my father's stories from his life including so many names of +distant persons that my imagination placed no limit to his +acquaintanceship. He was a pithy talker, and his sermons bore marks of +his own composition. It is true, they must have been already old when I +began to listen to them, and they were no more than a year's supply, so +that they recurred as regularly as the Collects. But though this system +has been much ridiculed, I am prepared to defend it as equally sound +with that of a liturgy; and even if my researches had shown me that some +of my father's yearly sermons had been copied out from the works of +elder divines, this would only have been another proof of his good +judgment. One may prefer fresh eggs though laid by a fowl of the meanest +understanding, but why fresh sermons? + +Nor can I be sorry, though myself given to meditative if not active +innovation, that my father was a Tory who had not exactly a dislike to +innovators and dissenters, but a slight opinion of them as persons of +ill-founded self-confidence; whence my young ears gathered many details +concerning those who might perhaps have called themselves the more +advanced thinkers in our nearest market-town, tending to convince me +that their characters were quite as mixed as those of the thinkers +behind them. This circumstance of my rearing has at least delivered me +from certain mistakes of classification which I observe in many of my +superiors, who have apparently no affectionate memories of a goodness +mingled with what they now regard as outworn prejudices. Indeed, my +philosophical notions, such as they are, continually carry me back to +the time when the fitful gleams of a spring day used to show me my own +shadow as that of a small boy on a small pony, riding by the side of a +larger cob-mounted shadow over the breezy uplands which we used to +dignify with the name of hills, or along by-roads with broad grassy +borders and hedgerows reckless of utility, on our way to outlying +hamlets, whose groups of inhabitants were as distinctive to my +imagination as if they had belonged to different regions of the globe. +From these we sometimes rode onward to the adjoining parish, where also +my father officiated, for he was a pluralist, but--I hasten to add--on +the smallest scale; for his one extra living was a poor vicarage, with +hardly fifty parishioners, and its church would have made a very shabby +barn, the grey worm-eaten wood of its pews and pulpit, with their doors +only half hanging on the hinges, being exactly the colour of a lean +mouse which I once observed as an interesting member of the scant +congregation, and conjectured to be the identical church mouse I had +heard referred to as an example of extreme poverty; for I was a +precocious boy, and often reasoned after the fashion of my elders, +arguing that "Jack and Jill" were real personages in our parish, and +that if I could identify "Jack" I should find on him the marks of a +broken crown. + +Sometimes when I am in a crowded London drawing-room (for I am a +town-bird now, acquainted with smoky eaves, and tasting Nature in the +parks) quick flights of memory take me back among my father's +parishioners while I am still conscious of elbowing men who wear the +same evening uniform as myself; and I presently begin to wonder what +varieties of history lie hidden under this monotony of aspect. Some of +them, perhaps, belong to families with many quarterings; but how many +"quarterings" of diverse contact with their fellow-countrymen enter into +their qualifications to be parliamentary leaders, professors of social +science, or journalistic guides of the popular mind? Not that I feel +myself a person made competent by experience; on the contrary, I argue +that since an observation of different ranks has still left me +practically a poor creature, what must be the condition of those who +object even to read about the life of other British classes than their +own? But of my elbowing neighbours with their crush hats, I usually +imagine that the most distinguished among them have probably had a far +more instructive journey into manhood than mine. Here, perhaps, is a +thought-worn physiognomy, seeming at the present moment to be classed as +a mere species of white cravat and swallow-tail, which may once, like +Faraday's, have shown itself in curiously dubious embryonic form leaning +against a cottage lintel in small corduroys, and hungrily eating a bit +of brown bread and bacon; _there_ is a pair of eyes, now too much +wearied by the gas-light of public assemblies, that once perhaps learned +to read their native England through the same alphabet as mine--not +within the boundaries of an ancestral park, never even being driven +through the county town five miles off, but--among the midland villages +and markets, along by the tree-studded hedgerows, and where the heavy +barges seem in the distance to float mysteriously among the rushes and +the feathered grass. Our vision, both real and ideal, has since then +been filled with far other scenes: among eternal snows and stupendous +sun-scorched monuments of departed empires; within the scent of the long +orange-groves; and where the temple of Neptune looks out over the +siren-haunted sea. But my eyes at least have kept their early +affectionate joy in our native landscape, which is one deep root of our +national life and language. + +And I often smile at my consciousness that certain conservative +prepossessions have mingled themselves for me with the influences of our +midland scenery, from the tops of the elms down to the buttercups and +the little wayside vetches. Naturally enough. That part of my father's +prime to which he oftenest referred had fallen on the days when the +great wave of political enthusiasm and belief in a speedy regeneration +of all things had ebbed, and the supposed millennial initiative of +France was turning into a Napoleonic empire, the sway of an Attila with +a mouth speaking proud things in a jargon half revolutionary, half +Roman. Men were beginning to shrink timidly from the memory of their +own words and from the recognition of the fellowships they had formed +ten years before; and even reforming Englishmen for the most part were +willing to wait for the perfection of society, if only they could keep +their throats perfect and help to drive away the chief enemy of mankind +from our coasts. To my father's mind the noisy teachers of revolutionary +doctrine were, to speak mildly, a variable mixture of the fool and the +scoundrel; the welfare of the nation lay in a strong Government which +could maintain order; and I was accustomed to hear him utter the word +"Government" in a tone that charged it with awe, and made it part of my +effective religion, in contrast with the word "rebel," which seemed to +carry the stamp of evil in its syllables, and, lit by the fact that +Satan was the first rebel, made an argument dispensing with more +detailed inquiry. I gathered that our national troubles in the first two +decades of this century were not at all due to the mistakes of our +administrators; and that England, with its fine Church and Constitution, +would have been exceedingly well off if every British subject had been +thankful for what was provided, and had minded his own business--if, +for example, numerous Catholics of that period had been aware how very +modest they ought to be considering they were Irish. The times, I heard, +had often been bad; but I was constantly hearing of "bad times" as a +name for actual evenings and mornings when the godfathers who gave them +that name appeared to me remarkably comfortable. Altogether, my father's +England seemed to me lovable, laudable, full of good men, and having +good rulers, from Mr Pitt on to the Duke of Wellington, until he was for +emancipating the Catholics; and it was so far from prosaic to me that I +looked into it for a more exciting romance than such as I could find in +my own adventures, which consisted mainly in fancied crises calling for +the resolute wielding of domestic swords and firearms against unapparent +robbers, rioters, and invaders who, it seemed, in my father's prime had +more chance of being real. The morris-dancers had not then dwindled to a +ragged and almost vanished rout (owing the traditional name probably to +the historic fancy of our superannuated groom); also, the good old king +was alive and well, which made all the more difference because I had no +notion what he was and did--only understanding in general that if he had +been still on the throne he would have hindered everything that wise +persons thought undesirable. + +Certainly that elder England with its frankly saleable boroughs, so +cheap compared with the seats obtained under the reformed method, and +its boroughs kindly presented by noblemen desirous to encourage +gratitude; its prisons with a miscellaneous company of felons and +maniacs and without any supply of water; its bloated, idle charities; +its non-resident, jovial clergy; its militia-balloting; and above all, +its blank ignorance of what we, its posterity, should be thinking of +it,--has great differences from the England of to-day. Yet we discern a +strong family likeness. Is there any country which shows at once as much +stability and as much susceptibility to change as ours? Our national +life is like that scenery which I early learned to love, not subject to +great convulsions, but easily showing more or less delicate (sometimes +melancholy) effects from minor changes. Hence our midland plains have +never lost their familiar expression and conservative spirit for me; +yet at every other mile, since I first looked on them, some sign of +world-wide change, some new direction of human labour has wrought itself +into what one may call the speech of the landscape--in contrast with +those grander and vaster regions of the earth which keep an indifferent +aspect in the presence of men's toil and devices. What does it signify +that a lilliputian train passes over a viaduct amidst the abysses of the +Apennines, or that a caravan laden with a nation's offerings creeps +across the unresting sameness of the desert, or that a petty cloud of +steam sweeps for an instant over the face of an Egyptian colossus +immovably submitting to its slow burial beneath the sand? But our +woodlands and pastures, our hedge-parted corn-fields and meadows, our +bits of high common where we used to plant the windmills, our quiet +little rivers here and there fit to turn a mill-wheel, our villages +along the old coach-roads, are all easily alterable lineaments that seem +to make the face of our Motherland sympathetic with the laborious lives +of her children. She does not take their ploughs and waggons +contemptuously, but rather makes every hovel and every sheepfold, every +railed bridge or fallen tree-trunk an agreeably noticeable incident; not +a mere speck in the midst of unmeasured vastness, but a piece of our +social history in pictorial writing. + +Our rural tracts--where no Babel-chimney scales the heavens--are without +mighty objects to fill the soul with the sense of an outer world +unconquerably aloof from our efforts. The wastes are playgrounds (and +let us try to keep them such for the children's children who will +inherit no other sort of demesne); the grasses and reeds nod to each +other over the river, but we have cut a canal close by; the very heights +laugh with corn in August or lift the plough-team against the sky in +September. Then comes a crowd of burly navvies with pickaxes and +barrows, and while hardly a wrinkle is made in the fading mother's face +or a new curve of health in the blooming girl's, the hills are cut +through or the breaches between them spanned, we choose our level and +the white steam-pennon flies along it. + +But because our land shows this readiness to be changed, all signs of +permanence upon it raise a tender attachment instead of awe: some of us, +at least, love the scanty relics of our forests, and are thankful if a +bush is left of the old hedgerow. A crumbling bit of wall where the +delicate ivy-leaved toad-flax hangs its light branches, or a bit of grey +thatch with patches of dark moss on its shoulder and a troop of +grass-stems on its ridge, is a thing to visit. And then the tiled roof +of cottage and homestead, of the long cow-shed where generations of the +milky mothers have stood patiently, of the broad-shouldered barns where +the old-fashioned flail once made resonant music, while the watch-dog +barked at the timidly venturesome fowls making pecking raids on the +outflying grain--the roofs that have looked out from among the elms and +walnut-trees, or beside the yearly group of hay and corn stacks, or +below the square stone steeple, gathering their grey or ochre-tinted +lichens and their olive-green mosses under all ministries,--let us +praise the sober harmonies they give to our landscape, helping to unite +us pleasantly with the elder generations who tilled the soil for us +before we were born, and paid heavier and heavier taxes, with much +grumbling, but without that deepest root of corruption--the +self-indulgent despair which cuts down and consumes and never plants. + +But I check myself. Perhaps this England of my affections is half +visionary--a dream in which things are connected according to my +well-fed, lazy mood, and not at all by the multitudinous links of +graver, sadder fact, such as belong everywhere to the story of human +labour. Well, well, the illusions that began for us when we were less +acquainted with evil have not lost their value when we discern them to +be illusions. They feed the ideal Better, and in loving them still, we +strengthen the precious habit of loving something not visibly, tangibly +existent, but a spiritual product of our visible tangible selves. + +I cherish my childish loves--the memory of that warm little nest where +my affections were fledged. Since then I have learned to care for +foreign countries, for literatures foreign and ancient, for the life of +Continental towns dozing round old cathedrals, for the life of London, +half sleepless with eager thought and strife, with indigestion or with +hunger; and now my consciousness is chiefly of the busy, anxious +metropolitan sort. My system responds sensitively to the London +weather-signs, political, social, literary; and my bachelor's hearth is +imbedded where by much craning of head and neck I can catch sight of a +sycamore in the Square garden: I belong to the "Nation of London." Why? +There have been many voluntary exiles in the world, and probably in the +very first exodus of the patriarchal Aryans--for I am determined not to +fetch my examples from races whose talk is of uncles and no +fathers--some of those who sallied forth went for the sake of a loved +companionship, when they would willingly have kept sight of the familiar +plains, and of the hills to which they had first lifted up their eyes. + + + + +III. + + +HOW WE ENCOURAGE RESEARCH. + +The serene and beneficent goddess Truth, like other deities whose +disposition has been too hastily inferred from that of the men who have +invoked them, can hardly be well pleased with much of the worship paid +to her even in this milder age, when the stake and the rack have ceased +to form part of her ritual. Some cruelties still pass for service done +in her honour: no thumb-screw is used, no iron boot, no scorching of +flesh; but plenty of controversial bruising, laceration, and even +lifelong maiming. Less than formerly; but so long as this sort of +truth-worship has the sanction of a public that can often understand +nothing in a controversy except personal sarcasm or slanderous ridicule, +it is likely to continue. The sufferings of its victims are often as +little regarded as those of the sacrificial pig offered in old time, +with what we now regard as a sad miscalculation of effects. + +One such victim is my old acquaintance Merman. + +Twenty years ago Merman was a young man of promise, a conveyancer with a +practice which had certainly budded, but, like Aaron's rod, seemed not +destined to proceed further in that marvellous activity. Meanwhile he +occupied himself in miscellaneous periodical writing and in a +multifarious study of moral and physical science. What chiefly attracted +him in all subjects were the vexed questions which have the advantage of +not admitting the decisive proof or disproof that renders many ingenious +arguments superannuated. Not that Merman had a wrangling disposition: he +put all his doubts, queries, and paradoxes deferentially, contended +without unpleasant heat and only with a sonorous eagerness against the +personality of Homer, expressed himself civilly though firmly on the +origin of language, and had tact enough to drop at the right moment such +subjects as the ultimate reduction of all the so-called elementary +substances, his own total scepticism concerning Manetho's chronology, or +even the relation between the magnetic condition of the earth and the +outbreak of revolutionary tendencies. Such flexibility was naturally +much helped by his amiable feeling towards woman, whose nervous system, +he was convinced, would not bear the continuous strain of difficult +topics; and also by his willingness to contribute a song whenever the +same desultory charmer proposed music. Indeed his tastes were domestic +enough to beguile him into marriage when his resources were still very +moderate and partly uncertain. His friends wished that so ingenious and +agreeable a fellow might have more prosperity than they ventured to hope +for him, their chief regret on his account being that he did not +concentrate his talent and leave off forming opinions on at least +half-a-dozen of the subjects over which he scattered his attention, +especially now that he had married a "nice little woman" (the generic +name for acquaintances' wives when they are not markedly disagreeable). +He could not, they observed, want all his various knowledge and Laputan +ideas for his periodical writing which brought him most of his bread, +and he would do well to use his talents in getting a speciality that +would fit him for a post. Perhaps these well-disposed persons were a +little rash in presuming that fitness for a post would be the surest +ground for getting it; and on the whole, in now looking back on their +wishes for Merman, their chief satisfaction must be that those wishes +did not contribute to the actual result. + +For in an evil hour Merman did concentrate himself. He had for many +years taken into his interest the comparative history of the ancient +civilisations, but it had not preoccupied him so as to narrow his +generous attention to everything else. One sleepless night, however (his +wife has more than once narrated to me the details of an event memorable +to her as the beginning of sorrows), after spending some hours over the +epoch-making work of Grampus, a new idea seized him with regard to the +possible connection of certain symbolic monuments common to widely +scattered races. Merman started up in bed. The night was cold, and the +sudden withdrawal of warmth made his wife first dream of a snowball, +and then cry-- + +"What is the matter, Proteus?" + +"A great matter, Julia. That fellow Grampus, whose book is cried up as a +revelation, is all wrong about the Magicodumbras and the Zuzumotzis, and +I have got hold of the right clue." + +"Good gracious! does it matter so much? Don't drag the clothes, dear." + +"It signifies this, Julia, that if I am right I shall set the world +right; I shall regenerate history; I shall win the mind of Europe to a +new view of social origins; I shall bruise the head of many +superstitions." + +"Oh no, dear, don't go too far into things. Lie down again. You have +been dreaming. What are the Madicojumbras and Zuzitotzums? I never heard +you talk of them before. What use can it be troubling yourself about +such things?" + +"That is the way, Julia--that is the way wives alienate their husbands, +and make any hearth pleasanter to him than his own!" + +"What _do_ you mean, Proteus?" + +"Why, if a woman will not try to understand her husband's ideas, or at +least to believe that they are of more value than she can understand--if +she is to join anybody who happens to be against him, and suppose he is +a fool because others contradict him--there is an end of our happiness. +That is all I have to say." + +"Oh no, Proteus, dear. I do believe what you say is right. That is my +only guide. I am sure I never have any opinions in any other way: I mean +about subjects. Of course there are many little things that would tease +you, that you like me to judge of for myself. I know I said once that I +did not want you to sing 'Oh ruddier than the cherry,' because it was +not in your voice. But I cannot remember ever differing from you about +_subjects_. I never in my life thought any one cleverer than you." + +Julia Merman was really a "nice little woman," not one of the stately +Dians sometimes spoken of in those terms. Her black _silhouette_ had a +very infantine aspect, but she had discernment and wisdom enough to act +on the strong hint of that memorable conversation, never again giving +her husband the slightest ground for suspecting that she thought +treasonably of his ideas in relation to the Magicodumbras and +Zuzumotzis, or in the least relaxed her faith in his infallibility +because Europe was not also convinced of it. It was well for her that +she did not increase her troubles in this way; but to do her justice, +what she was chiefly anxious about was to avoid increasing her husband's +troubles. + +Not that these were great in the beginning. In the first development and +writing out of his scheme, Merman had a more intense kind of +intellectual pleasure than he had ever known before. His face became +more radiant, his general view of human prospects more cheerful. +Foreseeing that truth as presented by himself would win the recognition +of his contemporaries, he excused with much liberality their rather +rough treatment of other theorists whose basis was less perfect. His own +periodical criticisms had never before been so amiable: he was sorry for +that unlucky majority whom the spirit of the age, or some other +prompting more definite and local, compelled to write without any +particular ideas. The possession of an original theory which has not yet +been assailed must certainly sweeten the temper of a man who is not +beforehand ill-natured. And Merman was the reverse of ill-natured. + +But the hour of publication came; and to half-a-dozen persons, described +as the learned world of two hemispheres, it became known that Grampus +was attacked. This might have been a small matter; for who or what on +earth that is good for anything is not assailed by ignorance, stupidity, +or malice--and sometimes even by just objection? But on examination it +appeared that the attack might possibly be held damaging, unless the +ignorance of the author were well exposed and his pretended facts shown +to be chimeras of that remarkably hideous kind begotten by imperfect +learning on the more feminine element of original incapacity. Grampus +himself did not immediately cut open the volume which Merman had been +careful to send him, not without a very lively and shifting conception +of the possible effects which the explosive gift might produce on the +too eminent scholar--effects that must certainly have set in on the +third day from the despatch of the parcel. But in point of fact Grampus +knew nothing of the book until his friend Lord Narwhal sent him an +American newspaper containing a spirited article by the well-known +Professor Sperm N. Whale which was rather equivocal in its bearing, the +passages quoted from Merman being of rather a telling sort, and the +paragraphs which seemed to blow defiance being unaccountably feeble, +coming from so distinguished a Cetacean. Then, by another post, arrived +letters from Butzkopf and Dugong, both men whose signatures were +familiar to the Teutonic world in the _Selten-erscheinende +Monat-schrift_ or Hayrick for the insertion of Split Hairs, asking their +Master whether he meant to take up the combat, because, in the contrary +case, both were ready. + +Thus America and Germany were roused, though England was still drowsy, +and it seemed time now for Grampus to find Merman's book under the heap +and cut it open. For his own part he was perfectly at ease about his +system; but this is a world in which the truth requires defence, and +specious falsehood must be met with exposure. Grampus having once looked +through the book, no longer wanted any urging to write the most crushing +of replies. This, and nothing less than this, was due from him to the +cause of sound inquiry; and the punishment would cost him little pains. +In three weeks from that time the palpitating Merman saw his book +announced in the programme of the leading Review. No need for Grampus to +put his signature. Who else had his vast yet microscopic knowledge, who +else his power of epithet? This article in which Merman was pilloried +and as good as mutilated--for he was shown to have neither ear nor nose +for the subtleties of philological and archaeological study--was much +read and more talked of, not because of any interest in the system of +Grampus, or any precise conception of the danger attending lax views of +the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis, but because the sharp epigrams with +which the victim was lacerated, and the soaring fountains of acrid mud +which were shot upward and poured over the fresh wounds, were found +amusing in recital. A favourite passage was one in which a certain kind +of sciolist was described as a creature of the Walrus kind, having a +phantasmal resemblance to higher animals when seen by ignorant minds in +the twilight, dabbling or hobbling in first one element and then the +other, without parts or organs suited to either, in fact one of Nature's +impostors who could not be said to have any artful pretences, since a +congenital incompetence to all precision of aim and movement made their +every action a pretence--just as a being born in doeskin gloves would +necessarily pass a judgment on surfaces, but we all know what his +judgment would be worth. In drawing-room circles, and for the immediate +hour, this ingenious comparison was as damaging as the showing up of +Merman's mistakes and the mere smattering of linguistic and historical +knowledge which he had presumed to be a sufficient basis for theorising; +but the more learned cited his blunders aside to each other and laughed +the laugh of the initiated. In fact, Merman's was a remarkable case of +sudden notoriety. In London drums and clubs he was spoken of abundantly +as one who had written ridiculously about the Magicodumbras and +Zuzumotzis: the leaders of conversation, whether Christians, Jews, +infidels, or of any other confession except the confession of ignorance, +pronouncing him shallow and indiscreet if not presumptuous and absurd. +He was heard of at Warsaw, and even Paris took knowledge of him. M. +Cachalot had not read either Grampus or Merman, but he heard of their +dispute in time to insert a paragraph upon it in his brilliant work, +_L'orient au point de vue actuel_, in which he was dispassionate enough +to speak of Grampus as possessing a _coup d'oeil presque français_ in +matters of historical interpretation, and of Merman as nevertheless an +objector _qui mérite d'être connu_. M. Porpesse, also, availing himself +of M. Cachalot's knowledge, reproduced it in an article with certain +additions, which it is only fair to distinguish as his own, implying +that the vigorous English of Grampus was not always as correct as a +Frenchman could desire, while Merman's objections were more sophistical +than solid. Presently, indeed, there appeared an able _extrait_ of +Grampus's article in the valuable _Rapporteur scientifique et +historique_, and Merman's mistakes were thus brought under the notice of +certain Frenchmen who are among the masters of those who know on +oriental subjects. In a word, Merman, though not extensively read, was +extensively read about. + +Meanwhile, how did he like it? Perhaps nobody, except his wife, for a +moment reflected on that. An amused society considered that he was +severely punished, but did not take the trouble to imagine his +sensations; indeed this would have been a difficulty for persons less +sensitive and excitable than Merman himself. Perhaps that popular +comparison of the Walrus had truth enough to bite and blister on +thorough application, even if exultant ignorance had not applauded it. +But it is well known that the walrus, though not in the least a +malignant animal, if allowed to display its remarkably plain person and +blundering performances at ease in any element it chooses, becomes +desperately savage and musters alarming auxiliaries when attacked or +hurt. In this characteristic, at least, Merman resembled the walrus. And +now he concentrated himself with a vengeance. That his counter-theory +was fundamentally the right one he had a genuine conviction, whatever +collateral mistakes he might have committed; and his bread would not +cease to be bitter to him until he had convinced his contemporaries that +Grampus had used his minute learning as a dust-cloud to hide +sophistical evasions--that, in fact, minute learning was an obstacle to +clear-sighted judgment, more especially with regard to the Magicodumbras +and Zuzumotzis, and that the best preparation in this matter was a wide +survey of history and a diversified observation of men. Still, Merman +was resolved to muster all the learning within his reach, and he +wandered day and night through many wildernesses of German print, he +tried compendious methods of learning oriental tongues, and, so to +speak, getting at the marrow of languages independently of the bones, +for the chance of finding details to corroborate his own views, or +possibly even to detect Grampus in some oversight or textual tampering. +All other work was neglected: rare clients were sent away and amazed +editors found this maniac indifferent to his chance of getting +book-parcels from them. It was many months before Merman had satisfied +himself that he was strong enough to face round upon his adversary. But +at last he had prepared sixty condensed pages of eager argument which +seemed to him worthy to rank with the best models of controversial +writing. He had acknowledged his mistakes, but had restated his theory +so as to show that it was left intact in spite of them; and he had even +found cases in which Ziphius, Microps, Scrag Whale the explorer, and +other Cetaceans of unanswerable authority, were decidedly at issue with +Grampus. Especially a passage cited by this last from that greatest of +fossils Megalosaurus was demonstrated by Merman to be capable of three +different interpretations, all preferable to that chosen by Grampus, who +took the words in their most literal sense; for, 1°, the incomparable +Saurian, alike unequalled in close observation and far-glancing +comprehensiveness, might have meant those words ironically; 2°, _motzis_ +was probably a false reading for _potzis_, in which case its bearing was +reversed; and 3°, it is known that in the age of the Saurians there +were conceptions about the _motzis_ which entirely remove it from the +category of things comprehensible in an age when Saurians run +ridiculously small: all which views were godfathered by names quite fit +to be ranked with that of Grampus. In fine, Merman wound up his +rejoinder by sincerely thanking the eminent adversary without whose +fierce assault he might not have undertaken a revision in the course of +which he had met with unexpected and striking confirmations of his own +fundamental views. Evidently Merman's anger was at white heat. + +The rejoinder being complete, all that remained was to find a suitable +medium for its publication. This was not so easy. Distinguished mediums +would not lend themselves to contradictions of Grampus, or if they +would, Merman's article was too long and too abstruse, while he would +not consent to leave anything out of an article which had no +superfluities; for all this happened years ago when the world was at a +different stage. At last, however, he got his rejoinder printed, and not +on hard terms, since the medium, in every sense modest, did not ask him +to pay for its insertion. + +But if Merman expected to call out Grampus again, he was mistaken. +Everybody felt it too absurd that Merman should undertake to correct +Grampus in matters of erudition, and an eminent man has something else +to do than to refute a petty objector twice over. What was essential had +been done: the public had been enabled to form a true judgment of +Merman's incapacity, the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis were but +subsidiary elements in Grampus's system, and Merman might now be dealt +with by younger members of the master's school. But he had at least the +satisfaction of finding that he had raised a discussion which would not +be let die. The followers of Grampus took it up with an ardour and +industry of research worthy of their exemplar. Butzkopf made it the +subject of an elaborate _Einleitung_ to his important work, _Die +Bedeutung des Aegyptischen Labyrinthes_; and Dugong, in a remarkable +address which he delivered to a learned society in Central Europe, +introduced Merman's theory with so much power of sarcasm that it became +a theme of more or less derisive allusion to men of many tongues. Merman +with his Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis was on the way to become a +proverb, being used illustratively by many able journalists who took +those names of questionable things to be Merman's own invention, "than +which," said one of the graver guides, "we can recall few more +melancholy examples of speculative aberration." Naturally the subject +passed into popular literature, and figured very commonly in advertised +programmes. The fluent Loligo, the formidable Shark, and a younger +member of his remarkable family known as S. Catulus, made a special +reputation by their numerous articles, eloquent, lively, or abusive, all +on the same theme, under titles ingeniously varied, alliterative, +sonorous, or boldly fanciful; such as, "Moments with Mr Merman," "Mr +Merman and the Magicodumbras," "Greenland Grampus and Proteus Merman," +"Grampian Heights and their Climbers, or the New Excelsior." They tossed +him on short sentences; they swathed him in paragraphs of winding +imagery; they found him at once a mere plagiarist and a theoriser of +unexampled perversity, ridiculously wrong about _potzis_ and ignorant of +Pali; they hinted, indeed, at certain things which to their knowledge he +had silently brooded over in his boyhood, and seemed tolerably well +assured that this preposterous attempt to gainsay an incomparable +Cetacean of world-wide fame had its origin in a peculiar mixture of +bitterness and eccentricity which, rightly estimated and seen in its +definite proportions, would furnish the best key to his argumentation. +All alike were sorry for Merman's lack of sound learning, but how could +their readers be sorry? Sound learning would not have been amusing; and +as it was, Merman was made to furnish these readers with amusement at no +expense of trouble on their part. Even burlesque writers looked into his +book to see where it could be made use of, and those who did not know +him were desirous of meeting him at dinner as one likely to feed their +comic vein. + +On the other hand, he made a serious figure in sermons under the name of +"Some" or "Others" who had attempted presumptuously to scale eminences +too high and arduous for human ability, and had given an example of +ignominious failure edifying to the humble Christian. + +All this might be very advantageous for able persons whose superfluous +fund of expression needed a paying investment, but the effect on Merman +himself was unhappily not so transient as the busy writing and speaking +of which he had become the occasion. His certainty that he was right +naturally got stronger in proportion as the spirit of resistance was +stimulated. The scorn and unfairness with which he felt himself to have +been treated by those really competent to appreciate his ideas had +galled him and made a chronic sore; and the exultant chorus of the +incompetent seemed a pouring of vinegar on his wound. His brain became a +registry of the foolish and ignorant objections made against him, and of +continually amplified answers to these objections. Unable to get his +answers printed, he had recourse to that more primitive mode of +publication, oral transmission or button-holding, now generally regarded +as a troublesome survival, and the once pleasant, flexible Merman was on +the way to be shunned as a bore. His interest in new acquaintances +turned chiefly on the possibility that they would care about the +Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis; that they would listen to his complaints +and exposures of unfairness, and not only accept copies of what he had +written on the subject, but send him appreciative letters in +acknowledgment. Repeated disappointment of such hopes tended to embitter +him, and not the less because after a while the fashion of mentioning +him died out, allusions to his theory were less understood, and people +could only pretend to remember it. And all the while Merman was +perfectly sure that his very opponents who had knowledge enough to be +capable judges were aware that his book, whatever errors of statement +they might detect in it, had served as a sort of divining rod, pointing +out hidden sources of historical interpretation; nay, his jealous +examination discerned in a new work by Grampus himself a certain +shifting of ground which--so poor Merman declared--was the sign of an +intention gradually to appropriate the views of the man he had attempted +to brand as an ignorant impostor. + +And Julia? And the housekeeping?--the rent, food, and clothing, which +controversy can hardly supply unless it be of the kind that serves as a +recommendation to certain posts. Controversial pamphlets have been known +to earn large plums; but nothing of the sort could be expected from +unpractical heresies about the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis. Painfully +the contrary. Merman's reputation as a sober thinker, a safe writer, a +sound lawyer, was irretrievably injured: the distractions of controversy +had caused him to neglect useful editorial connections, and indeed his +dwindling care for miscellaneous subjects made his contributions too +dull to be desirable. Even if he could now have given a new turn to his +concentration, and applied his talents so as to be ready to show himself +an exceptionally qualified lawyer, he would only have been like an +architect in competition, too late with his superior plans; he would not +have had an opportunity of showing his qualification. He was thrown out +of the course. The small capital which had filled up deficiencies of +income was almost exhausted, and Julia, in the effort to make supplies +equal to wants, had to use much ingenuity in diminishing the wants. The +brave and affectionate woman whose small outline, so unimpressive +against an illuminated background, held within it a good share of +feminine heroism, did her best to keep up the charm of home and soothe +her husband's excitement; parting with the best jewel among her wedding +presents in order to pay rent, without ever hinting to her husband that +this sad result had come of his undertaking to convince people who only +laughed at him. She was a resigned little creature, and reflected that +some husbands took to drinking and others to forgery: hers had only +taken to the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis, and was not unkind--only a +little more indifferent to her and the two children than she had ever +expected he would be, his mind being eaten up with "subjects," and +constantly a little angry, not with her, but with everybody else, +especially those who were celebrated. + +This was the sad truth. Merman felt himself ill-used by the world, and +thought very much worse of the world in consequence. The gall of his +adversaries' ink had been sucked into his system and ran in his blood. +He was still in the prime of life, but his mind was aged by that eager +monotonous construction which comes of feverish excitement on a single +topic and uses up the intellectual strength. + +Merman had never been a rich man, but he was now conspicuously poor, and +in need of the friends who had power or interest which he believed they +could exert on his behalf. Their omitting or declining to give this help +could not seem to him so clearly as to them an inevitable consequence of +his having become impracticable, or at least of his passing for a man +whose views were not likely to be safe and sober. Each friend in turn +offended him, though unwillingly, and was suspected of wishing to shake +him off. It was not altogether so; but poor Merman's society had +undeniably ceased to be attractive, and it was difficult to help him. At +last the pressure of want urged him to try for a post far beneath his +earlier prospects, and he gained it. He holds it still, for he has no +vices, and his domestic life has kept up a sweetening current of motive +around and within him. Nevertheless, the bitter flavour mingling itself +with all topics, the premature weariness and withering, are irrevocably +there. It is as if he had gone through a disease which alters what we +call the constitution. He has long ceased to talk eagerly of the ideas +which possess him, or to attempt making proselytes. The dial has moved +onward, and he himself sees many of his former guesses in a new light. +On the other hand, he has seen what he foreboded, that the main idea +which was at the root of his too rash theorising has been adopted by +Grampus and received with general respect, no reference being heard to +the ridiculous figure this important conception made when ushered in by +the incompetent "Others." + +Now and then, on rare occasions, when a sympathetic _tête-à-tête_ has +restored some of his old expansiveness, he will tell a companion in a +railway carriage, or other place of meeting favourable to +autobiographical confidences, what has been the course of things in his +particular case, as an example of the justice to be expected of the +world. The companion usually allows for the bitterness of a disappointed +man, and is secretly disinclined to believe that Grampus was to blame. + + + + +IV. + + +A MAN SURPRISED AT HIS ORIGINALITY. + +Among the many acute sayings of La Rochefoucauld, there is hardly one +more acute than this: "La plus grande ambition n'en a pas la moindre +apparence lorsqu'elle se rencontre dans une impossibilité absolue +d'arriver où elle aspire." Some of us might do well to use this hint in +our treatment of acquaintances and friends from whom we are expecting +gratitude because we are so very kind in thinking of them, inviting +them, and even listening to what they say--considering how insignificant +they must feel themselves to be. We are often fallaciously confident in +supposing that our friend's state of mind is appropriate to our moderate +estimate of his importance: almost as if we imagined the humble mollusc +(so useful as an illustration) to have a sense of his own exceeding +softness and low place in the scale of being. Your mollusc, on the +contrary, is inwardly objecting to every other grade of solid rather +than to himself. Accustomed to observe what we think an unwarrantable +conceit exhibiting itself in ridiculous pretensions and forwardness to +play the lion's part, in obvious self-complacency and loud +peremptoriness, we are not on the alert to detect the egoistic claims of +a more exorbitant kind often hidden under an apparent neutrality or an +acquiescence in being put out of the question. + +Thoughts of this kind occurred to me yesterday when I saw the name of +Lentulus in the obituary. The majority of his acquaintances, I imagine, +have always thought of him as a man justly unpretending and as nobody's +rival; but some of them have perhaps been struck with surprise at his +reserve in praising the works of his contemporaries, and have now and +then felt themselves in need of a key to his remarks on men of celebrity +in various departments. He was a man of fair position, deriving his +income from a business in which he did nothing, at leisure to frequent +clubs and at ease in giving dinners; well-looking, polite, and generally +acceptable in society as a part of what we may call its bread-crumb--the +neutral basis needful for the plums and spice. Why, then, did he speak +of the modern Maro or the modern Flaccus with a peculiarity in his tone +of assent to other people's praise which might almost have led you to +suppose that the eminent poet had borrowed money of him and showed an +indisposition to repay? He had no criticism to offer, no sign of +objection more specific than a slight cough, a scarcely perceptible +pause before assenting, and an air of self-control in his utterance--as +if certain considerations had determined him not to inform against the +so-called poet, who to his knowledge was a mere versifier. If you had +questioned him closely, he would perhaps have confessed that he did +think something better might be done in the way of Eclogues and +Georgics, or of Odes and Epodes, and that to his mind poetry was +something very different from what had hitherto been known under that +name. + +For my own part, being of a superstitious nature, given readily to +imagine alarming causes, I immediately, on first getting these mystic +hints from Lentulus, concluded that he held a number of entirely +original poems, or at the very least a revolutionary treatise on +poetics, in that melancholy manuscript state to which works excelling +all that is ever printed are necessarily condemned; and I was long timid +in speaking of the poets when he was present. For what might not +Lentulus have done, or be profoundly aware of, that would make my +ignorant impressions ridiculous? One cannot well be sure of the negative +in such a case, except through certain positives that bear witness to +it; and those witnesses are not always to be got hold of. But time +wearing on, I perceived that the attitude of Lentulus towards the +philosophers was essentially the same as his attitude towards the poets; +nay, there was something so much more decided in his mode of closing his +mouth after brief speech on the former, there was such an air of rapt +consciousness in his private hints as to his conviction that all +thinking hitherto had been an elaborate mistake, and as to his own +power of conceiving a sound basis for a lasting superstructure, that I +began to believe less in the poetical stores, and to infer that the line +of Lentulus lay rather in the rational criticism of our beliefs and in +systematic construction. In this case I did not figure to myself the +existence of formidable manuscripts ready for the press; for great +thinkers are known to carry their theories growing within their minds +long before committing them to paper, and the ideas which made a new +passion for them when their locks were jet or auburn, remain perilously +unwritten, an inwardly developing condition of their successive selves, +until the locks are grey or scanty. I only meditated improvingly on the +way in which a man of exceptional faculties, and even carrying within +him some of that fierce refiner's fire which is to purge away the dross +of human error, may move about in society totally unrecognised, regarded +as a person whose opinion is superfluous, and only rising into a power +in emergencies of threatened black-balling. Imagine a Descartes or a +Locke being recognised for nothing more than a good fellow and a +perfect gentleman--what a painful view does such a picture suggest of +impenetrable dulness in the society around them! + +I would at all times rather be reduced to a cheaper estimate of a +particular person, if by that means I can get a more cheerful view of my +fellow-men generally; and I confess that in a certain curiosity which +led me to cultivate Lentulus's acquaintance, my hope leaned to the +discovery that he was a less remarkable man than he had seemed to imply. +It would have been a grief to discover that he was bitter or malicious, +but by finding him to be neither a mighty poet, nor a revolutionary +poetical critic, nor an epoch-making philosopher, my admiration for the +poets and thinkers whom he rated so low would recover all its buoyancy, +and I should not be left to trust to that very suspicious sort of merit +which constitutes an exception in the history of mankind, and recommends +itself as the total abolitionist of all previous claims on our +confidence. You are not greatly surprised at the infirm logic of the +coachman who would persuade you to engage him by insisting that any +other would be sure to rob you in the matter of hay and corn, thus +demanding a difficult belief in him as the sole exception from the +frailties of his calling; but it is rather astonishing that the +wholesale decriers of mankind and its performances should be even more +unwary in their reasoning than the coachman, since each of them not +merely confides in your regarding himself as an exception, but overlooks +the almost certain fact that you are wondering whether he inwardly +excepts _you_. Now, conscious of entertaining some common opinions which +seemed to fall under the mildly intimated but sweeping ban of Lentulus, +my self-complacency was a little concerned. + +Hence I deliberately attempted to draw out Lentulus in private dialogue, +for it is the reverse of injury to a man to offer him that hearing which +he seems to have found nowhere else. And for whatever purposes silence +may be equal to gold, it cannot be safely taken as an indication of +specific ideas. I sought to know why Lentulus was more than indifferent +to the poets, and what was that new poetry which he had either written +or, as to its principles, distinctly conceived. But I presently found +that he knew very little of any particular poet, and had a general +notion of poetry as the use of artificial language to express unreal +sentiments: he instanced "The Giaour," "Lalla Rookh," "The Pleasures of +Hope," and "Ruin seize thee, ruthless King;" adding, "and plenty more." +On my observing that he probably preferred a larger, simpler style, he +emphatically assented. "Have you not," said I, "written something of +that order?" "No; but I often compose as I go along. I see how things +might be written as fine as Ossian, only with true ideas. The world has +no notion what poetry will be." + +It was impossible to disprove this, and I am always glad to believe that +the poverty of our imagination is no measure of the world's resources. +Our posterity will no doubt get fuel in ways that we are unable to +devise for them. But what this conversation persuaded me of was, that +the birth with which the mind of Lentulus was pregnant could not be +poetry, though I did not question that he composed as he went along, and +that the exercise was accompanied with a great sense of power. This is a +frequent experience in dreams, and much of our waking experience is but +a dream in the daylight. Nay, for what I saw, the compositions might be +fairly classed as Ossianic. But I was satisfied that Lentulus could not +disturb my grateful admiration for the poets of all ages by eclipsing +them, or by putting them under a new electric light of criticism. + +Still, he had himself thrown the chief emphasis of his protest and his +consciousness of corrective illumination on the philosophic thinking of +our race; and his tone in assuring me that everything which had been +done in that way was wrong--that Plato, Robert Owen, and Dr Tuffle who +wrote in the 'Regulator,' were all equally mistaken--gave my +superstitious nature a thrill of anxiety. After what had passed about +the poets, it did not seem likely that Lentulus had all systems by +heart; but who could say he had not seized that thread which may +somewhere hang out loosely from the web of things and be the clue of +unravelment? We need not go far to learn that a prophet is not made by +erudition. Lentulus at least had not the bias of a school; and if it +turned out that he was in agreement with any celebrated thinker, +ancient or modern, the agreement would have the value of an undesigned +coincidence not due to forgotten reading. It was therefore with renewed +curiosity that I engaged him on this large subject--the universal +erroneousness of thinking up to the period when Lentulus began that +process. And here I found him more copious than on the theme of poetry. +He admitted that he did contemplate writing down his thoughts, but his +difficulty was their abundance. Apparently he was like the woodcutter +entering the thick forest and saying, "Where shall I begin?" The same +obstacle appeared in a minor degree to cling about his verbal +exposition, and accounted perhaps for his rather helter-skelter choice +of remarks bearing on the number of unaddressed letters sent to the +post-office; on what logic really is, as tending to support the buoyancy +of human mediums and mahogany tables; on the probability of all miracles +under all religions when explained by hidden laws, and my +unreasonableness in supposing that their profuse occurrence at half a +guinea an hour in recent times was anything more than a coincidence; on +the haphazard way in which marriages are determined--showing the +baselessness of social and moral schemes; and on his expectation that he +should offend the scientific world when he told them what he thought of +electricity as an agent. + +No man's appearance could be graver or more gentleman-like than that of +Lentulus as we walked along the Mall while he delivered these +observations, understood by himself to have a regenerative bearing on +human society. His wristbands and black gloves, his hat and nicely +clipped hair, his laudable moderation in beard, and his evident +discrimination in choosing his tailor, all seemed to excuse the +prevalent estimate of him as a man untainted with heterodoxy, and likely +to be so unencumbered with opinions that he would always be useful as an +assenting and admiring listener. Men of science seeing him at their +lectures doubtless flattered themselves that he came to learn from them; +the philosophic ornaments of our time, expounding some of their luminous +ideas in the social circle, took the meditative gaze of Lentulus for one +of surprise not unmixed with a just reverence at such close reasoning +towards so novel a conclusion; and those who are called men of the +world considered him a good fellow who might be asked to vote for a +friend of their own and would have no troublesome notions to make him +unaccommodating. You perceive how very much they were all mistaken, +except in qualifying him as a good fellow. + +This Lentulus certainly was, in the sense of being free from envy, +hatred, and malice; and such freedom was all the more remarkable an +indication of native benignity, because of his gaseous, illimitably +expansive conceit. Yes, conceit; for that his enormous and contentedly +ignorant confidence in his own rambling thoughts was usually clad in a +decent silence, is no reason why it should be less strictly called by +the name directly implying a complacent self-estimate unwarranted by +performance. Nay, the total privacy in which he enjoyed his +consciousness of inspiration was the very condition of its undisturbed +placid nourishment and gigantic growth. Your audibly arrogant man +exposes himself to tests: in attempting to make an impression on others +he may possibly (not always) be made to feel his own lack of +definiteness; and the demand for definiteness is to all of us a needful +check on vague depreciation of what others do, and vague ecstatic trust +in our own superior ability. But Lentulus was at once so unreceptive, +and so little gifted with the power of displaying his miscellaneous +deficiency of information, that there was really nothing to hinder his +astonishment at the spontaneous crop of ideas which his mind secretly +yielded. If it occurred to him that there were more meanings than one +for the word "motive," since it sometimes meant the end aimed at and +sometimes the feeling that prompted the aiming, and that the word +"cause" was also of changeable import, he was naturally struck with the +truth of his own perception, and was convinced that if this vein were +well followed out much might be made of it. Men were evidently in the +wrong about cause and effect, else why was society in the confused state +we behold? And as to motive, Lentulus felt that when he came to write +down his views he should look deeply into this kind of subject and show +up thereby the anomalies of our social institutions; meanwhile the +various aspects of "motive" and "cause" flitted about among the motley +crowd of ideas which he regarded as original, and pregnant with +reformative efficacy. For his unaffected goodwill made him regard all +his insight as only valuable because it tended towards reform. + +The respectable man had got into his illusory maze of discoveries by +letting go that clue of conformity in his thinking which he had kept +fast hold of in his tailoring and manners. He regarded heterodoxy as a +power in itself, and took his inacquaintance with doctrines for a +creative dissidence. But his epitaph needs not to be a melancholy one. +His benevolent disposition was more effective for good than his silent +presumption for harm. He might have been mischievous but for the lack of +words: instead of being astonished at his inspirations in private, he +might have clad his addled originalities, disjointed commonplaces, blind +denials, and balloon-like conclusions, in that mighty sort of language +which would have made a new Koran for a knot of followers. I mean no +disrespect to the ancient Koran, but one would not desire the roc to lay +more eggs and give us a whole wing-flapping brood to soar and make +twilight. + +Peace be with Lentulus, for he has left us in peace. Blessed is the man +who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of +the fact--from calling on us to look through a heap of millet-seed in +order to be sure that there is no pearl in it. + + + + +V. + + +A TOO DEFERENTIAL MAN. + +A little unpremeditated insincerity must be indulged under the stress of +social intercourse. The talk even of an honest man must often represent +merely his wish to be inoffensive or agreeable rather than his genuine +opinion or feeling on the matter in hand. His thought, if uttered, might +be wounding; or he has not the ability to utter it with exactness and +snatches at a loose paraphrase; or he has really no genuine thought on +the question and is driven to fill up the vacancy by borrowing the +remarks in vogue. These are the winds and currents we have all to steer +amongst, and they are often too strong for our truthfulness or our wit. +Let us not bear too hardly on each other for this common incidental +frailty, or think that we rise superior to it by dropping all +considerateness and deference. + +But there are studious, deliberate forms of insincerity which it is fair +to be impatient with: Hinze's, for example. From his name you might +suppose him to be German: in fact, his family is Alsatian, but has been +settled in England for more than one generation. He is the superlatively +deferential man, and walks about with murmured wonder at the wisdom and +discernment of everybody who talks to him. He cultivates the low-toned +_tête-à-tête,_ keeping his hat carefully in his hand and often stroking +it, while he smiles with downcast eyes, as if to relieve his feelings +under the pressure of the remarkable conversation which it is his honour +to enjoy at the present moment. I confess to some rage on hearing him +yesterday talking to Felicia, who is certainly a clever woman, and, +without any unusual desire to show her cleverness, occasionally says +something of her own or makes an allusion which is not quite common. +Still, it must happen to her as to every one else to speak of many +subjects on which the best things were said long ago, and in +conversation with a person who has been newly introduced those +well-worn themes naturally recur as a further development of salutations +and preliminary media of understanding, such as pipes, chocolate, or +mastic-chewing, which serve to confirm the impression that our new +acquaintance is on a civilised footing and has enough regard for +formulas to save us from shocking outbursts of individualism, to which +we are always exposed with the tamest bear or baboon. Considered purely +as a matter of information, it cannot any longer be important for us to +learn that a British subject included in the last census holds Shakspere +to be supreme in the presentation of character; still, it is as +admissible for any one to make this statement about himself as to rub +his hands and tell you that the air is brisk, if only he will let it +fall as a matter of course, with a parenthetic lightness, and not +announce his adhesion to a commonplace with an emphatic insistance, as +if it were a proof of singular insight. We mortals should chiefly like +to talk to each other out of goodwill and fellowship, not for the sake +of hearing revelations or being stimulated by witticisms; and I have +usually found that it is the rather dull person who appears to be +disgusted with his contemporaries because they are not always strikingly +original, and to satisfy whom the party at a country house should have +included the prophet Isaiah, Plato, Francis Bacon, and Voltaire. It is +always your heaviest bore who is astonished at the tameness of modern +celebrities: naturally; for a little of his company has reduced them to +a state of flaccid fatigue. It is right and meet that there should be an +abundant utterance of good sound commonplaces. Part of an agreeable +talker's charm is that he lets them fall continually with no more than +their due emphasis. Giving a pleasant voice to what we are all well +assured of, makes a sort of wholesome air for more special and dubious +remark to move in. + +Hence it seemed to me far from unbecoming in Felicia that in her first +dialogue with Hinze, previously quite a stranger to her, her +observations were those of an ordinarily refined and well-educated woman +on standard subjects, and might have been printed in a manual of polite +topics and creditable opinions. She had no desire to astonish a man of +whom she had heard nothing particular. It was all the more exasperating +to see and hear Hinze's reception of her well-bred conformities. +Felicia's acquaintances know her as the suitable wife of a distinguished +man, a sensible, vivacious, kindly-disposed woman, helping her husband +with graceful apologies written and spoken, and making her receptions +agreeable to all comers. But you would have imagined that Hinze had been +prepared by general report to regard this introduction to her as an +opportunity comparable to an audience of the Delphic Sibyl. When she had +delivered herself on the changes in Italian travel, on the difficulty of +reading Ariosto in these busy times, on the want of equilibrium in +French political affairs, and on the pre-eminence of German music, he +would know what to think. Felicia was evidently embarrassed by his +reverent wonder, and, in dread lest she should seem to be playing the +oracle, became somewhat confused, stumbling on her answers rather than +choosing them. But this made no difference to Hinze's rapt attention and +subdued eagerness of inquiry. He continued to put large questions, +bending his head slightly that his eyes might be a little lifted in +awaiting her reply. + +"What, may I ask, is your opinion as to the state of Art in England?" + +"Oh," said Felicia, with a light deprecatory laugh, "I think it suffers +from two diseases--bad taste in the patrons and want of inspiration in +the artists." + +"That is true indeed," said Hinze, in an undertone of deep conviction. +"You have put your finger with strict accuracy on the causes of decline. +To a cultivated taste like yours this must be particularly painful." + +"I did not say there was actual decline," said Felicia, with a touch of +_brusquerie_. "I don't set myself up as the great personage whom nothing +can please." + +"That would be too severe a misfortune for others," says my +complimentary ape. "You approve, perhaps, of Rosemary's 'Babes in the +Wood,' as something fresh and _naïve_ in sculpture?" + +"I think it enchanting." + +"Does he know that? Or _will_ you permit me to tell him?" + +"Heaven forbid! It would be an impertinence in me to praise a work of +his--to pronounce on its quality; and that I happen to like it can be of +no consequence to him." + +Here was an occasion for Hinze to smile down on his hat and stroke +it--Felicia's ignorance that her praise was inestimable being peculiarly +noteworthy to an observer of mankind. Presently he was quite sure that +her favourite author was Shakspere, and wished to know what she thought +of Hamlet's madness. When she had quoted Wilhelm Meister on this point, +and had afterwards testified that "Lear" was beyond adequate +presentation, that "Julius Caesar" was an effective acting play, and +that a poet may know a good deal about human nature while knowing little +of geography, Hinze appeared so impressed with the plenitude of these +revelations that he recapitulated them, weaving them together with +threads of compliment--"As you very justly observed;" and--"It is most +true, as you say;" and--"It were well if others noted what you have +remarked." + +Some listeners incautious in their epithets would have called Hinze an +"ass." For my part I would never insult that intelligent and +unpretending animal who no doubt brays with perfect simplicity and +substantial meaning to those acquainted with his idiom, and if he feigns +more submission than he feels, has weighty reasons for doing so--I would +never, I say, insult that historic and ill-appreciated animal, the ass, +by giving his name to a man whose continuous pretence is so shallow in +its motive, so unexcused by any sharp appetite as this of Hinze's. + +But perhaps you would say that his adulatory manner was originally +adopted under strong promptings of self-interest, and that his absurdly +over-acted deference to persons from whom he expects no patronage is the +unreflecting persistence of habit--just as those who live with the deaf +will shout to everybody else. + +And you might indeed imagine that in talking to Tulpian, who has +considerable interest at his disposal, Hinze had a desired appointment +in his mind. Tulpian is appealed to on innumerable subjects, and if he +is unwilling to express himself on any one of them, says so with +instructive copiousness: he is much listened to, and his utterances are +registered and reported with more or less exactitude. But I think he +has no other listener who comports himself as Hinze does--who, +figuratively speaking, carries about a small spoon ready to pick up any +dusty crumb of opinion that the eloquent man may have let drop. Tulpian, +with reverence be it said, has some rather absurd notions, such as a +mind of large discourse often finds room for: they slip about among his +higher conceptions and multitudinous acquirements like disreputable +characters at a national celebration in some vast cathedral, where to +the ardent soul all is glorified by rainbow light and grand +associations: any vulgar detective knows them for what they are. But +Hinze is especially fervid in his desire to hear Tulpian dilate on his +crotchets, and is rather troublesome to bystanders in asking them +whether they have read the various fugitive writings in which these +crotchets have been published. If an expert is explaining some matter on +which you desire to know the evidence, Hinze teases you with Tulpian's +guesses, and asks the expert what he thinks of them. + +In general, Hinze delights in the citation of opinions, and would +hardly remark that the sun shone without an air of respectful appeal or +fervid adhesion. The 'Iliad,' one sees, would impress him little if it +were not for what Mr Fugleman has lately said about it; and if you +mention an image or sentiment in Chaucer he seems not to heed the +bearing of your reference, but immediately tells you that Mr Hautboy, +too, regards Chaucer as a poet of the first order, and he is delighted +to find that two such judges as you and Hautboy are at one. + +What is the reason of all this subdued ecstasy, moving about, hat in +hand, with well-dressed hair and attitudes of unimpeachable correctness? +Some persons conscious of sagacity decide at once that Hinze knows what +he is about in flattering Tulpian, and has a carefully appraised end to +serve though they may not see it. They are misled by the common mistake +of supposing that men's behaviour, whether habitual or occasional, is +chiefly determined by a distinctly conceived motive, a definite object +to be gained or a definite evil to be avoided. The truth is, that, the +primitive wants of nature once tolerably satisfied, the majority of +mankind, even in a civilised life full of solicitations, are with +difficulty aroused to the distinct conception of an object towards which +they will direct their actions with careful adaptation, and it is yet +rarer to find one who can persist in the systematic pursuit of such an +end. Few lives are shaped, few characters formed, by the contemplation +of definite consequences seen from a distance and made the goal of +continuous effort or the beacon of a constantly avoided danger: such +control by foresight, such vivid picturing and practical logic are the +distinction of exceptionally strong natures; but society is chiefly made +up of human beings whose daily acts are all performed either in +unreflecting obedience to custom and routine or from immediate +promptings of thought or feeling to execute an immediate purpose. They +pay their poor-rates, give their vote in affairs political or parochial, +wear a certain amount of starch, hinder boys from tormenting the +helpless, and spend money on tedious observances called pleasures, +without mentally adjusting these practices to their own well-understood +interest or to the general, ultimate welfare of the human race; and when +they fall into ungraceful compliment, excessive smiling or other +luckless efforts of complaisant behaviour, these are but the tricks or +habits gradually formed under the successive promptings of a wish to be +agreeable, stimulated day by day without any widening resources for +gratifying the wish. It does not in the least follow that they are +seeking by studied hypocrisy to get something for themselves. And so +with Hinze's deferential bearing, complimentary parentheses, and +worshipful tones, which seem to some like the over-acting of a part in a +comedy. He expects no appointment or other appreciable gain through +Tulpian's favour; he has no doubleness towards Felicia; there is no +sneering or backbiting obverse to his ecstatic admiration. He is very +well off in the world, and cherishes no unsatisfied ambition that could +feed design and direct flattery. As you perceive, he has had the +education and other advantages of a gentleman without being conscious of +marked result, such as a decided preference for any particular ideas or +functions: his mind is furnished as hotels are, with everything for +occasional and transient use. But one cannot be an Englishman and +gentleman in general: it is in the nature of things that one must have +an individuality, though it may be of an often-repeated type. As Hinze +in growing to maturity had grown into a particular form and expression +of person, so he necessarily gathered a manner and frame of speech which +made him additionally recognisable. His nature is not tuned to the pitch +of a genuine direct admiration, only to an attitudinising deference +which does not fatigue itself with the formation of real judgments. All +human achievement must be wrought down to this spoon-meat--this mixture +of other persons' washy opinions and his own flux of reverence for what +is third-hand, before Hinze can find a relish for it. + +He has no more leading characteristic than the desire to stand well with +those who are justly distinguished; he has no base admirations, and you +may know by his entire presentation of himself, from the management of +his hat to the angle at which he keeps his right foot, that he aspires +to correctness. Desiring to behave becomingly and also to make a figure +in dialogue, he is only like the bad artist whose picture is a failure. +We may pity these ill-gifted strivers, but not pretend that their works +are pleasant to behold. A man is bound to know something of his own +weight and muscular dexterity, and the puny athlete is called foolish +before he is seen to be thrown. Hinze has not the stuff in him to be at +once agreeably conversational and sincere, and he has got himself up to +be at all events agreeably conversational. Notwithstanding this +deliberateness of intention in his talk he is unconscious of falsity, +for he has not enough of deep and lasting impression to find a contrast +or diversity between his words and his thoughts. He is not fairly to be +called a hypocrite, but I have already confessed to the more +exasperation at his make-believe reverence, because it has no deep +hunger to excuse it. + + + + +VI. + + +ONLY TEMPER. + +What is temper? Its primary meaning, the proportion and mode in which +qualities are mingled, is much neglected in popular speech, yet even +here the word often carries a reference to an habitual state or general +tendency of the organism in distinction from what are held to be +specific virtues and vices. As people confess to bad memory without +expecting to sink in mental reputation, so we hear a man declared to +have a bad temper and yet glorified as the possessor of every high +quality. When he errs or in any way commits himself, his temper is +accused, not his character, and it is understood that but for a brutal +bearish mood he is kindness itself. If he kicks small animals, swears +violently at a servant who mistakes orders, or is grossly rude to his +wife, it is remarked apologetically that these things mean nothing--they +are all temper. + +Certainly there is a limit to this form of apology, and the forgery of a +bill, or the ordering of goods without any prospect of paying for them, +has never been set down to an unfortunate habit of sulkiness or of +irascibility. But on the whole there is a peculiar exercise of +indulgence towards the manifestations of bad temper which tends to +encourage them, so that we are in danger of having among us a number of +virtuous persons who conduct themselves detestably, just as we have +hysterical patients who, with sound organs, are apparently labouring +under many sorts of organic disease. Let it be admitted, however, that a +man may be "a good fellow" and yet have a bad temper, so bad that we +recognise his merits with reluctance, and are inclined to resent his +occasionally amiable behaviour as an unfair demand on our admiration. + +Touchwood is that kind of good fellow. He is by turns insolent, +quarrelsome, repulsively haughty to innocent people who approach him +with respect, neglectful of his friends, angry in face of legitimate +demands, procrastinating in the fulfilment of such demands, prompted to +rude words and harsh looks by a moody disgust with his fellow-men in +general--and yet, as everybody will assure you, the soul of honour, a +steadfast friend, a defender of the oppressed, an affectionate-hearted +creature. Pity that, after a certain experience of his moods, his +intimacy becomes insupportable! A man who uses his balmorals to tread on +your toes with much frequency and an unmistakeable emphasis may prove a +fast friend in adversity, but meanwhile your adversity has not arrived +and your toes are tender. The daily sneer or growl at your remarks is +not to be made amends for by a possible eulogy or defence of your +understanding against depredators who may not present themselves, and on +an occasion which may never arise. I cannot submit to a chronic state of +blue and green bruise as a form of insurance against an accident. + +Touchwood's bad temper is of the contradicting pugnacious sort. He is +the honourable gentleman in opposition, whatever proposal or proposition +may be broached, and when others join him he secretly damns their +superfluous agreement, quickly discovering that his way of stating the +case is not exactly theirs. An invitation or any sign of expectation +throws him into an attitude of refusal. Ask his concurrence in a +benevolent measure: he will not decline to give it, because he has a +real sympathy with good aims; but he complies resentfully, though where +he is let alone he will do much more than any one would have thought of +asking for. No man would shrink with greater sensitiveness from the +imputation of not paying his debts, yet when a bill is sent in with any +promptitude he is inclined to make the tradesman wait for the money he +is in such a hurry to get. One sees that this antagonistic temper must +be much relieved by finding a particular object, and that its worst +moments must be those where the mood is that of vague resistance, there +being nothing specific to oppose. Touchwood is never so little engaging +as when he comes down to breakfast with a cloud on his brow, after +parting from you the night before with an affectionate effusiveness at +the end of a confidential conversation which has assured you of mutual +understanding. Impossible that you can have committed any offence. If +mice have disturbed him, that is not your fault; but, nevertheless, your +cheerful greeting had better not convey any reference to the weather, +else it will be met by a sneer which, taking you unawares, may give you +a crushing sense that you make a poor figure with your cheerfulness, +which was not asked for. Some daring person perhaps introduces another +topic, and uses the delicate flattery of appealing to Touchwood for his +opinion, the topic being included in his favourite studies. An +indistinct muttering, with a look at the carving-knife in reply, teaches +that daring person how ill he has chosen a market for his deference. If +Touchwood's behaviour affects you very closely you had better break your +leg in the course of the day: his bad temper will then vanish at once; +he will take a painful journey on your behalf; he will sit up with you +night after night; he will do all the work of your department so as to +save you from any loss in consequence of your accident; he will be even +uniformly tender to you till you are well on your legs again, when he +will some fine morning insult you without provocation, and make you wish +that his generous goodness to you had not closed your lips against +retort. + +It is not always necessary that a friend should break his leg for +Touchwood to feel compunction and endeavour to make amends for his +bearishness or insolence. He becomes spontaneously conscious that he has +misbehaved, and he is not only ashamed of himself, but has the better +prompting to try and heal any wound he has inflicted. Unhappily the +habit of being offensive "without meaning it" leads usually to a way of +making amends which the injured person cannot but regard as a being +amiable without meaning it. The kindnesses, the complimentary +indications or assurances, are apt to appear in the light of a penance +adjusted to the foregoing lapses, and by the very contrast they offer +call up a keener memory of the wrong they atone for. They are not a +spontaneous prompting of goodwill, but an elaborate compensation. And, +in fact, Dion's atoning friendliness has a ring of artificiality. +Because he formerly disguised his good feeling towards you he now +expresses more than he quite feels. It is in vain. Having made you +extremely uncomfortable last week he has absolutely diminished his +power of making you happy to-day: he struggles against this result by +excessive effort, but he has taught you to observe his fitfulness rather +than to be warmed by his episodic show of regard. + +I suspect that many persons who have an uncertain, incalculable temper +flatter themselves that it enhances their fascination; but perhaps they +are under the prior mistake of exaggerating the charm which they suppose +to be thus strengthened; in any case they will do well not to trust in +the attractions of caprice and moodiness for a long continuance or for +close intercourse. A pretty woman may fan the flame of distant adorers +by harassing them, but if she lets one of them make her his wife, the +point of view from which he will look at her poutings and tossings and +mysterious inability to be pleased will be seriously altered. And if +slavery to a pretty woman, which seems among the least conditional forms +of abject service, will not bear too great a strain from her bad temper +even though her beauty remain the same, it is clear that a man whose +claims lie in his high character or high performances had need impress +us very constantly with his peculiar value and indispensableness, if he +is to test our patience by an uncertainty of temper which leaves us +absolutely without grounds for guessing how he will receive our persons +or humbly advanced opinions, or what line he will take on any but the +most momentous occasions. + +For it is among the repulsive effects of this bad temper, which is +supposed to be compatible with shining virtues, that it is apt to +determine a man's sudden adhesion to an opinion, whether on a personal +or impersonal matter, without leaving him time to consider his grounds. +The adhesion is sudden and momentary, but it either forms a precedent +for his line of thought and action, or it is presently seen to have been +inconsistent with his true mind. This determination of partisanship by +temper has its worst effects in the career of the public man, who is +always in danger of getting so enthralled by his own words that he looks +into facts and questions not to get rectifying knowledge, but to get +evidence that will justify his actual attitude which was assumed under +an impulse dependent on something else than knowledge. There has been +plenty of insistance on the evil of swearing by the words of a master, +and having the judgment uniformly controlled by a "He said it;" but a +much worse woe to befall a man is to have every judgment controlled by +an "I said it"--to make a divinity of his own short-sightedness or +passion-led aberration and explain the world in its honour. There is +hardly a more pitiable degradation than this for a man of high gifts. +Hence I cannot join with those who wish that Touchwood, being young +enough to enter on public life, should get elected for Parliament and +use his excellent abilities to serve his country in that conspicuous +manner. For hitherto, in the less momentous incidents of private life, +his capricious temper has only produced the minor evil of inconsistency, +and he is even greatly at ease in contradicting himself, provided he can +contradict you, and disappoint any smiling expectation you may have +shown that the impressions you are uttering are likely to meet with his +sympathy, considering that the day before he himself gave you the +example which your mind is following. He is at least free from those +fetters of self-justification which are the curse of parliamentary +speaking, and what I rather desire for him is that he should produce the +great book which he is generally pronounced capable of writing, and put +his best self imperturbably on record for the advantage of society; +because I should then have steady ground for bearing with his diurnal +incalculableness, and could fix my gratitude as by a strong staple to +that unvarying monumental service. Unhappily, Touchwood's great powers +have been only so far manifested as to be believed in, not demonstrated. +Everybody rates them highly, and thinks that whatever he chose to do +would be done in a first-rate manner. Is it his love of disappointing +complacent expectancy which has gone so far as to keep up this +lamentable negation, and made him resolve not to write the comprehensive +work which he would have written if nobody had expected it of him? + +One can see that if Touchwood were to become a public man and take to +frequent speaking on platforms or from his seat in the House, it would +hardly be possible for him to maintain much integrity of opinion, or to +avoid courses of partisanship which a healthy public sentiment would +stamp with discredit. Say that he were endowed with the purest honesty, +it would inevitably be dragged captive by this mysterious, Protean bad +temper. There would be the fatal public necessity of justifying +oratorical Temper which had got on its legs in its bitter mood and made +insulting imputations, or of keeping up some decent show of consistency +with opinions vented out of Temper's contradictoriness. And words would +have to be followed up by acts of adhesion. + +Certainly if a bad-tempered man can be admirably virtuous, he must be so +under extreme difficulties. I doubt the possibility that a high order of +character can coexist with a temper like Touchwood's. For it is of the +nature of such temper to interrupt the formation of healthy mental +habits, which depend on a growing harmony between perception, +conviction, and impulse. There may be good feelings, good deeds--for a +human nature may pack endless varieties and blessed inconsistencies in +its windings--but it is essential to what is worthy to be called high +character, that it may be safely calculated on, and that its qualities +shall have taken the form of principles or laws habitually, if not +perfectly, obeyed. + +If a man frequently passes unjust judgments, takes up false attitudes, +intermits his acts of kindness with rude behaviour or cruel words, and +falls into the consequent vulgar error of supposing that he can make +amends by laboured agreeableness, I cannot consider such courses any the +less ugly because they are ascribed to "temper." Especially I object to +the assumption that his having a fundamentally good disposition is +either an apology or a compensation for his bad behaviour. If his temper +yesterday made him lash the horses, upset the curricle and cause a +breakage in my rib, I feel it no compensation that to-day he vows he +will drive me anywhere in the gentlest manner any day as long as he +lives. Yesterday was what it was, my rib is paining me, it is not a main +object of my life to be driven by Touchwood--and I have no confidence in +his lifelong gentleness. The utmost form of placability I am capable of +is to try and remember his better deeds already performed, and, mindful +of my own offences, to bear him no malice. But I cannot accept his +amends. + +If the bad-tempered man wants to apologise he had need to do it on a +large public scale, make some beneficent discovery, produce some +stimulating work of genius, invent some powerful process--prove himself +such a good to contemporary multitudes and future generations, as to +make the discomfort he causes his friends and acquaintances a vanishing +quality, a trifle even in their own estimate. + + + + +VII. + + +A POLITICAL MOLECULE. + +The most arrant denier must admit that a man often furthers larger ends +than he is conscious of, and that while he is transacting his particular +affairs with the narrow pertinacity of a respectable ant, he subserves +an economy larger than any purpose of his own. Society is happily not +dependent for the growth of fellowship on the small minority already +endowed with comprehensive sympathy: any molecule of the body politic +working towards his own interest in an orderly way gets his +understanding more or less penetrated with the fact that his interest is +included in that of a large number. I have watched several political +molecules being educated in this way by the nature of things into a +faint feeling of fraternity. But at this moment I am thinking of Spike, +an elector who voted on the side of Progress though he was not inwardly +attached to it under that name. For abstractions are deities having many +specific names, local habitations, and forms of activity, and so get a +multitude of devout servants who care no more for them under their +highest titles than the celebrated person who, putting with forcible +brevity a view of human motives now much insisted on, asked what +Posterity had done for him that he should care for Posterity? To many +minds even among the ancients (thought by some to have been invariably +poetical) the goddess of wisdom was doubtless worshipped simply as the +patroness of spinning and weaving. Now spinning and weaving from a +manufacturing, wholesale point of view, was the chief form under which +Spike from early years had unconsciously been a devotee of Progress. + +He was a political molecule of the most gentleman-like appearance, not +less than six feet high, and showing the utmost nicety in the care of +his person and equipment. His umbrella was especially remarkable for its +neatness, though perhaps he swung it unduly in walking. His complexion +was fresh, his eyes small, bright, and twinkling. He was seen to great +advantage in a hat and greatcoat--garments frequently fatal to the +impressiveness of shorter figures; but when he was uncovered in the +drawing-room, it was impossible not to observe that his head shelved off +too rapidly from the eyebrows towards the crown, and that his length of +limb seemed to have used up his mind so as to cause an air of +abstraction from conversational topics. He appeared, indeed, to be +preoccupied with a sense of his exquisite cleanliness, clapped his hands +together and rubbed them frequently, straightened his back, and even +opened his mouth and closed it again with a slight snap, apparently for +no other purpose than the confirmation to himself of his own powers in +that line. These are innocent exercises, but they are not such as give +weight to a man's personality. Sometimes Spike's mind, emerging from its +preoccupation, burst forth in a remark delivered with smiling zest; as, +that he did like to see gravel walks well rolled, or that a lady should +always wear the best jewellery, or that a bride was a most interesting +object; but finding these ideas received rather coldly, he would relapse +into abstraction, draw up his back, wrinkle his brows longitudinally, +and seem to regard society, even including gravel walks, jewellery, and +brides, as essentially a poor affair. Indeed his habit of mind was +desponding, and he took melancholy views as to the possible extent of +human pleasure and the value of existence. Especially after he had made +his fortune in the cotton manufacture, and had thus attained the chief +object of his ambition--the object which had engaged his talent for +order and persevering application. For his easy leisure caused him much +_ennui_. He was abstemious, and had none of those temptations to sensual +excess which fill up a man's time first with indulgence and then with +the process of getting well from its effects. He had not, indeed, +exhausted the sources of knowledge, but here again his notions of human +pleasure were narrowed by his want of appetite; for though he seemed +rather surprised at the consideration that Alfred the Great was a +Catholic, or that apart from the Ten Commandments any conception of +moral conduct had occurred to mankind, he was not stimulated to further +inquiries on these remote matters. Yet he aspired to what he regarded as +intellectual society, willingly entertained beneficed clergymen, and +bought the books he heard spoken of, arranging them carefully on the +shelves of what he called his library, and occasionally sitting alone in +the same room with them. But some minds seem well glazed by nature +against the admission of knowledge, and Spike's was one of them. It was +not, however, entirely so with regard to politics. He had had a strong +opinion about the Reform Bill, and saw clearly that the large trading +towns ought to send members. Portraits of the Reform heroes hung framed +and glazed in his library: he prided himself on being a Liberal. In this +last particular, as well as in not giving benefactions and not making +loans without interest, he showed unquestionable firmness. On the Repeal +of the Corn Laws, again, he was thoroughly convinced. His mind was +expansive towards foreign markets, and his imagination could see that +the people from whom we took corn might be able to take the cotton goods +which they had hitherto dispensed with. On his conduct in these +political concerns, his wife, otherwise influential as a woman who +belonged to a family with a title in it, and who had condescended in +marrying him, could gain no hold: she had to blush a little at what was +called her husband's "radicalism"--an epithet which was a very unfair +impeachment of Spike, who never went to the root of anything. But he +understood his own trading affairs, and in this way became a genuine, +constant political element. If he had been born a little later he could +have been accepted as an eligible member of Parliament, and if he had +belonged to a high family he might have done for a member of the +Government. Perhaps his indifference to "views" would have passed for +administrative judiciousness, and he would have been so generally silent +that he must often have been silent in the right place. But this is +empty speculation: there is no warrant for saying what Spike would have +been and known so as to have made a calculable political element, if he +had not been educated by having to manage his trade. A small mind +trained to useful occupation for the satisfying of private need becomes +a representative of genuine class-needs. Spike objected to certain items +of legislation because they hampered his own trade, but his neighbours' +trade was hampered by the same causes; and though he would have been +simply selfish in a question of light or water between himself and a +fellow-townsman, his need for a change in legislation, being shared by +all his neighbours in trade, ceased to be simply selfish, and raised him +to a sense of common injury and common benefit. True, if the law could +have been changed for the benefit of his particular business, leaving +the cotton trade in general in a sorry condition while he prospered, +Spike might not have thought that result intolerably unjust; but the +nature of things did not allow of such a result being contemplated as +possible; it allowed of an enlarged market for Spike only through the +enlargement of his neighbours' market, and the Possible is always the +ultimate master of our efforts and desires. Spike was obliged to +contemplate a general benefit, and thus became public-spirited in spite +of himself. Or rather, the nature of things transmuted his active egoism +into a demand for a public benefit. Certainly if Spike had been born a +marquis he could not have had the same chance of being useful as a +political element. But he might have had the same appearance, have been +equally null in conversation, sceptical as to the reality of pleasure, +and destitute of historical knowledge; perhaps even dimly disliking +Jesuitism as a quality in Catholic minds, or regarding Bacon as the +inventor of physical science. The depths of middle-aged gentlemen's +ignorance will never be known, for want of public examinations in this +branch. + + + + +VIII. + + +THE WATCH-DOG OF KNOWLEDGE + +Mordax is an admirable man, ardent in intellectual work, +public-spirited, affectionate, and able to find the right words in +conveying ingenious ideas or elevated feeling. Pity that to all these +graces he cannot add what would give them the utmost finish--the +occasional admission that he has been in the wrong, the occasional frank +welcome of a new idea as something not before present to his mind! But +no: Mordax's self-respect seems to be of that fiery quality which +demands that none but the monarchs of thought shall have an advantage +over him, and in the presence of contradiction or the threat of having +his notions corrected, he becomes astonishingly unscrupulous and cruel +for so kindly and conscientious a man. + +"You are fond of attributing those fine qualities to Mordax," said +Acer, the other day, "but I have not much belief in virtues that are +always requiring to be asserted in spite of appearances against them. +True fairness and goodwill show themselves precisely where his are +conspicuously absent. I mean, in recognising claims which the rest of +the world are not likely to stand up for. It does not need much love of +truth and justice in me to say that Aldebaran is a bright star, or Isaac +Newton the greatest of discoverers; nor much kindliness in me to want my +notes to be heard above the rest in a chorus of hallelujahs to one +already crowned. It is my way to apply tests. Does the man who has the +ear of the public use his advantage tenderly towards poor fellows who +may be hindered of their due if he treats their pretensions with scorn? +That is my test of his justice and benevolence." + +My answer was, that his system of moral tests might be as delusive as +what ignorant people take to be tests of intellect and learning. If the +scholar or _savant_ cannot answer their haphazard questions on the +shortest notice, their belief in his capacity is shaken. But the +better-informed have given up the Johnsonian theory of mind as a pair of +legs able to walk east or west according to choice. Intellect is no +longer taken to be a ready-made dose of ability to attain eminence (or +mediocrity) in all departments; it is even admitted that application in +one line of study or practice has often a laming effect in other +directions, and that an intellectual quality or special facility which +is a furtherance in one medium of effort is a drag in another. We have +convinced ourselves by this time that a man may be a sage in celestial +physics and a poor creature in the purchase of seed-corn, or even in +theorising about the affections; that he may be a mere fumbler in +physiology and yet show a keen insight into human motives; that he may +seem the "poor Poll" of the company in conversation and yet write with +some humorous vigour. It is not true that a man's intellectual power is +like the strength of a timber beam, to be measured by its weakest point. + +Why should we any more apply that fallacious standard of what is called +consistency to a man's moral nature, and argue against the existence of +fine impulses or habits of feeling in relation to his actions +generally, because those better movements are absent in a class of cases +which act peculiarly on an irritable form of his egoism? The mistake +might be corrected by our taking notice that the ungenerous words or +acts which seem to us the most utterly incompatible with good +dispositions in the offender, are those which offend ourselves. All +other persons are able to draw a milder conclusion. Laniger, who has a +temper but no talent for repartee, having been run down in a fierce way +by Mordax, is inwardly persuaded that the highly-lauded man is a wolf at +heart: he is much tried by perceiving that his own friends seem to think +no worse of the reckless assailant than they did before; and Corvus, who +has lately been flattered by some kindness from Mordax, is unmindful +enough of Laniger's feeling to dwell on this instance of good-nature +with admiring gratitude. There is a fable that when the badger had been +stung all over by bees, a bear consoled him by a rhapsodic account of +how he himself had just breakfasted on their honey. The badger replied, +peevishly, "The stings are in my flesh, and the sweetness is on your +muzzle." The bear, it is said, was surprised at the badger's want of +altruism. + +But this difference of sensibility between Laniger and his friends only +mirrors in a faint way the difference between his own point of view and +that of the man who has injured him. If those neutral, perhaps even +affectionate persons, form no lively conception of what Laniger suffers, +how should Mordax have any such sympathetic imagination to check him in +what he persuades himself is a scourging administered by the qualified +man to the unqualified? Depend upon it, his conscience, though active +enough in some relations, has never given him a twinge because of his +polemical rudeness and even brutality. He would go from the room where +he has been tiring himself through the watches of the night in lifting +and turning a sick friend, and straightway write a reply or rejoinder in +which he mercilessly pilloried a Laniger who had supposed that he could +tell the world something else or more than had been sanctioned by the +eminent Mordax--and what was worse, had sometimes really done so. Does +this nullify the genuineness of motive which made him tender to his +suffering friend? Not at all. It only proves that his arrogant egoism, +set on fire, sends up smoke and flame where just before there had been +the dews of fellowship and pity. He is angry and equips himself +accordingly--with a penknife to give the offender a _comprachico_ +countenance, a mirror to show him the effect, and a pair of nailed boots +to give him his dismissal. All this to teach him who the Romans really +were, and to purge Inquiry of incompetent intrusion, so rendering an +important service to mankind. + +When a man is in a rage and wants to hurt another in consequence, he can +always regard himself as the civil arm of a spiritual power, and all the +more easily because there is real need to assert the righteous efficacy +of indignation. I for my part feel with the Lanigers, and should object +all the more to their or my being lacerated and dressed with salt, if +the administrator of such torture alleged as a motive his care for Truth +and posterity, and got himself pictured with a halo in consequence. In +transactions between fellow-men it is well to consider a little, in the +first place, what is fair and kind towards the person immediately +concerned, before we spit and roast him on behalf of the next century +but one. Wide-reaching motives, blessed and glorious as they are, and of +the highest sacramental virtue, have their dangers, like all else that +touches the mixed life of the earth. They are archangels with awful brow +and flaming sword, summoning and encouraging us to do the right and the +divinely heroic, and we feel a beneficent tremor in their presence; but +to learn what it is they thus summon us to do, we have to consider the +mortals we are elbowing, who are of our own stature and our own +appetites. I cannot feel sure how my voting will affect the condition of +Central Asia in the coming ages, but I have good reason to believe that +the future populations there will be none the worse off because I +abstain from conjectural vilification of my opponents during the present +parliamentary session, and I am very sure that I shall be less injurious +to my contemporaries. On the whole, and in the vast majority of +instances, the action by which we can do the best for future ages is of +the sort which has a certain beneficence and grace for contemporaries. A +sour father may reform prisons, but considered in his sourness he does +harm. The deed of Judas has been attributed to far-reaching views, and +the wish to hasten his Master's declaration of himself as the Messiah. +Perhaps--I will not maintain the contrary--Judas represented his motive +in this way, and felt justified in his traitorous kiss; but my belief +that he deserved, metaphorically speaking, to be where Dante saw him, at +the bottom of the Malebolge, would not be the less strong because he was +not convinced that his action was detestable. I refuse to accept a man +who has the stomach for such treachery, as a hero impatient for the +redemption of mankind and for the beginning of a reign when the kisses +shall be those of peace and righteousness. + +All this is by the way, to show that my apology for Mordax was not +founded on his persuasion of superiority in his own motives, but on the +compatibility of unfair, equivocal, and even cruel actions with a nature +which, apart from special temptations, is kindly and generous; and also +to enforce the need of checks from a fellow-feeling with those whom our +acts immediately (not distantly) concern. Will any one be so hardy as to +maintain that an otherwise worthy man cannot be vain and arrogant? I +think most of us have some interest in arguing the contrary. And it is +of the nature of vanity and arrogance, if unchecked, to become cruel and +self-justifying. There are fierce beasts within: chain them, chain them, +and let them learn to cower before the creature with wider reason. This +is what one wishes for Mordax--that his heart and brain should restrain +the outleap of roar and talons. + +As to his unwillingness to admit that an idea which he has not +discovered is novel to him, one is surprised that quick intellect and +shrewd observation do not early gather reasons for being ashamed of a +mental trick which makes one among the comic parts of that various actor +Conceited Ignorance. + +I have a sort of valet and factotum, an excellent, respectable servant, +whose spelling is so unvitiated by non-phonetic superfluities that he +writes _night_ as _nit_. One day, looking over his accounts, I said to +him jocosely, "You are in the latest fashion with your spelling, Pummel: +most people spell "night" with a _gh_ between the _i_ and the _t_, but +the greatest scholars now spell it as you do." "So I suppose, sir," +says Pummel; "I've see it with a _gh_, but I've noways give into that +myself." You would never catch Pummel in an interjection of surprise. I +have sometimes laid traps for his astonishment, but he has escaped them +all, either by a respectful neutrality, as of one who would not appear +to notice that his master had been taking too much wine, or else by that +strong persuasion of his all-knowingness which makes it simply +impossible for him to feel himself newly informed. If I tell him that +the world is spinning round and along like a top, and that he is +spinning with it, he says, "Yes, I've heard a deal of that in my time, +sir," and lifts the horizontal lines of his brow a little higher, +balancing his head from side to side as if it were too painfully full. +Whether I tell him that they cook puppies in China, that there are ducks +with fur coats in Australia, or that in some parts of the world it is +the pink of politeness to put your tongue out on introduction to a +respectable stranger, Pummel replies, "So I suppose, sir," with an air +of resignation to hearing my poor version of well-known things, such as +elders use in listening to lively boys lately presented with an +anecdote book. His utmost concession is, that what you state is what he +would have supplied if you had given him _carte blanche_ instead of your +needless instruction, and in this sense his favourite answer is, "I +should say." + +"Pummel," I observed, a little irritated at not getting my coffee, "if +you were to carry your kettle and spirits of wine up a mountain of a +morning, your water would boil there sooner." "I should say, sir." "Or, +there are boiling springs in Iceland. Better go to Iceland." "That's +what I've been thinking, sir." + +I have taken to asking him hard questions, and as I expected, he never +admits his own inability to answer them without representing it as +common to the human race. "What is the cause of the tides, Pummel?" + +"Well, sir, nobody rightly knows. Many gives their opinion, but if I +was to give mine, it 'ud be different." + +But while he is never surprised himself, he is constantly imagining +situations of surprise for others. His own consciousness is that of one +so thoroughly soaked in knowledge that further absorption is +impossible, but his neighbours appear to him to be in the state of +thirsty sponges which it is a charity to besprinkle. His great +interest in thinking of foreigners is that they must be surprised at +what they see in England, and especially at the beef. He is often +occupied with the surprise Adam must have felt at the sight of the +assembled animals--"for he was not like us, sir, used from a b'y to +Wombwell's shows." He is fond of discoursing to the lad who acts as +shoe-black and general subaltern, and I have overheard him saying to +that small upstart, with some severity, "Now don't you pretend to know, +because the more you pretend the more I see your ignirance"--a lucidity +on his part which has confirmed my impression that the thoroughly +self-satisfied person is the only one fully to appreciate the charm of +humility in others. + +Your diffident self-suspecting mortal is not very angry that others +should feel more comfortable about themselves, provided they are not +otherwise offensive: he is rather like the chilly person, glad to sit +next a warmer neighbour; or the timid, glad to have a courageous +fellow-traveller. It cheers him to observe the store of small comforts +that his fellow-creatures may find in their self-complacency, just as +one is pleased to see poor old souls soothed by the tobacco and snuff +for which one has neither nose nor stomach oneself. + +But your arrogant man will not tolerate a presumption which he sees to +be ill-founded. The service he regards society as most in need of is to +put down the conceit which is so particularly rife around him that he is +inclined to believe it the growing characteristic of the present age. In +the schools of Magna Graecia, or in the sixth century of our era, or +even under Kublai Khan, he finds a comparative freedom from that +presumption by which his contemporaries are stirring his able gall. The +way people will now flaunt notions which are not his without appearing +to mind that they are not his, strikes him as especially disgusting. It +might seem surprising to us that one strongly convinced of his own value +should prefer to exalt an age in which _he_ did not flourish, if it were +not for the reflection that the present age is the only one in which +anybody has appeared to undervalue him. + + + + +IX. + + +A HALF-BREED + +An early deep-seated love to which we become faithless has its unfailing +Nemesis, if only in that division of soul which narrows all newer joys +by the intrusion of regret and the established presentiment of change. I +refer not merely to the love of a person, but to the love of ideas, +practical beliefs, and social habits. And faithlessness here means not a +gradual conversion dependent on enlarged knowledge, but a yielding to +seductive circumstance; not a conviction that the original choice was a +mistake, but a subjection to incidents that flatter a growing desire. In +this sort of love it is the forsaker who has the melancholy lot; for an +abandoned belief may be more effectively vengeful than Dido. The child +of a wandering tribe caught young and trained to polite life, if he +feels an hereditary yearning can run away to the old wilds and get his +nature into tune. But there is no such recovery possible to the man who +remembers what he once believed without being convinced that he was in +error, who feels within him unsatisfied stirrings towards old beloved +habits and intimacies from which he has far receded without conscious +justification or unwavering sense of superior attractiveness in the new. +This involuntary renegade has his character hopelessly jangled and out +of tune. He is like an organ with its stops in the lawless condition of +obtruding themselves without method, so that hearers are amazed by the +most unexpected transitions--the trumpet breaking in on the flute, and +the oböe confounding both. + +Hence the lot of Mixtus affects me pathetically, notwithstanding that he +spends his growing wealth with liberality and manifest enjoyment. To +most observers he appears to be simply one of the fortunate and also +sharp commercial men who began with meaning to be rich and have become +what they meant to be: a man never taken to be well-born, but +surprisingly better informed than the well-born usually are, and +distinguished among ordinary commercial magnates by a personal kindness +which prompts him not only to help the suffering in a material way +through his wealth, but also by direct ministration of his own; yet with +all this, diffusing, as it were, the odour of a man delightedly +conscious of his wealth as an equivalent for the other social +distinctions of rank and intellect which he can thus admire without +envying. Hardly one among those superficial observers can suspect that +he aims or has ever aimed at being a writer; still less can they imagine +that his mind is often moved by strong currents of regret and of the +most unworldly sympathies from the memories of a youthful time when his +chosen associates were men and women whose only distinction was a +religious, a philanthropic, or an intellectual enthusiasm, when the lady +on whose words his attention most hung was a writer of minor religious +literature, when he was a visitor and exhorter of the poor in the alleys +of a great provincial town, and when he attended the lectures given +specially to young men by Mr Apollos, the eloquent congregational +preacher, who had studied in Germany and had liberal advanced views then +far beyond the ordinary teaching of his sect. At that time Mixtus +thought himself a young man of socially reforming ideas, of religious +principles and religious yearnings. It was within his prospects also to +be rich, but he looked forward to a use of his riches chiefly for +reforming and religious purposes. His opinions were of a strongly +democratic stamp, except that even then, belonging to the class of +employers, he was opposed to all demands in the employed that would +restrict the expansiveness of trade. He was the most democratic in +relation to the unreasonable privileges of the aristocracy and landed +interest; and he had also a religious sense of brotherhood with the +poor. Altogether, he was a sincerely benevolent young man, interested in +ideas, and renouncing personal ease for the sake of study, religious +communion, and good works. If you had known him then you would have +expected him to marry a highly serious and perhaps literary woman, +sharing his benevolent and religious habits, and likely to encourage +his studies--a woman who along with himself would play a distinguished +part in one of the most enlightened religious circles of a great +provincial capital. + +How is it that Mixtus finds himself in a London mansion, and in society +totally unlike that which made the ideal of his younger years? And whom +_did_ he marry? + +Why, he married Scintilla, who fascinated him as she had fascinated +others, by her prettiness, her liveliness, and her music. It is a common +enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly +the opposite of his ideal; or if not wholly captivated, at least +effectively captured by a combination of circumstances along with an +unwarily manifested inclination which might otherwise have been +transient. Mixtus was captivated and then captured on the worldly side +of his disposition, which had been always growing and flourishing side +by side with his philanthropic and religious tastes. He had ability in +business, and he had early meant to be rich; also, he was getting rich, +and the taste for such success was naturally growing with the pleasure +of rewarded exertion. It was during a business sojourn in London that he +met Scintilla, who, though without fortune, associated with families of +Greek merchants living in a style of splendour, and with artists +patronised by such wealthy entertainers. Mixtus on this occasion became +familiar with a world in which wealth seemed the key to a more brilliant +sort of dominance than that of a religious patron in the provincial +circles of X. Would it not be possible to unite the two kinds of sway? A +man bent on the most useful ends might, _with a fortune large enough_, +make morality magnificent, and recommend religious principle by showing +it in combination with the best kind of house and the most liberal of +tables; also with a wife whose graces, wit, and accomplishments gave a +finish sometimes lacking even to establishments got up with that +unhesitating worldliness to which high cost is a sufficient reason. +Enough. + +Mixtus married Scintilla. Now this lively lady knew nothing of +Nonconformists, except that they were unfashionable: she did not +distinguish one conventicle from another, and Mr Apollos with his +enlightened interpretations seemed to her as heavy a bore, if not quite +so ridiculous, as Mr Johns could have been with his solemn twang at the +Baptist chapel in the lowest suburbs, or as a local preacher among the +Methodists. In general, people who appeared seriously to believe in any +sort of doctrine, whether religious, social, or philosophical, seemed +rather absurd to Scintilla. Ten to one these theoretic people pronounced +oddly, had some reason or other for saying that the most agreeable +things were wrong, wore objectionable clothes, and wanted you to +subscribe to something. They were probably ignorant of art and music, +did not understand _badinage_, and, in fact, could talk of nothing +amusing. In Scintilla's eyes the majority of persons were ridiculous and +deplorably wanting in that keen perception of what was good taste, with +which she herself was blest by nature and education; but the people +understood to be religious or otherwise theoretic, were the most +ridiculous of all, without being proportionately amusing and invitable. + +Did Mixtus not discover this view of Scintilla's before their marriage? +Or did he allow her to remain in ignorance of habits and opinions which +had made half the occupation of his youth? + +When a man is inclined to marry a particular woman, and has made any +committal of himself, this woman's opinions, however different from his +own, are readily regarded as part of her pretty ways, especially if they +are merely negative; as, for example, that she does not insist on the +Trinity or on the rightfulness or expediency of church rates, but simply +regards her lover's troubling himself in disputation on these heads as +stuff and nonsense. The man feels his own superior strength, and is sure +that marriage will make no difference to him on the subjects about which +he is in earnest. And to laugh at men's affairs is a woman's privilege, +tending to enliven the domestic hearth. If Scintilla had no liking for +the best sort of nonconformity, she was without any troublesome bias +towards Episcopacy, Anglicanism, and early sacraments, and was quite +contented not to go to church. + +As to Scintilla's acquaintance with her lover's tastes on these +subjects, she was equally convinced on her side that a husband's queer +ways while he was a bachelor would be easily laughed out of him when he +had married an adroit woman. Mixtus, she felt, was an excellent +creature, quite likable, who was getting rich; and Scintilla meant to +have all the advantages of a rich man's wife. She was not in the least a +wicked woman; she was simply a pretty animal of the ape kind, with an +aptitude for certain accomplishments which education had made the most +of. + +But we have seen what has been the result to poor Mixtus. He has become +richer even than he dreamed of being, has a little palace in London, and +entertains with splendour the half-aristocratic, professional, and +artistic society which he is proud to think select. This society regards +him as a clever fellow in his particular branch, seeing that he has +become a considerable capitalist, and as a man desirable to have on the +list of one's acquaintance. But from every other point of view Mixtus +finds himself personally submerged: what he happens to think is not felt +by his esteemed guests to be of any consequence, and what he used to +think with the ardour of conviction he now hardly ever expresses. He is +transplanted, and the sap within him has long been diverted into other +than the old lines of vigorous growth. How could he speak to the artist +Crespi or to Sir Hong Kong Bantam about the enlarged doctrine of Mr +Apollos? How could he mention to them his former efforts towards +evangelising the inhabitants of the X. alleys? And his references to his +historical and geographical studies towards a survey of possible markets +for English products are received with an air of ironical suspicion by +many of his political friends, who take his pretension to give advice +concerning the Amazon, the Euphrates, and the Niger as equivalent to the +currier's wide views on the applicability of leather. He can only make a +figure through his genial hospitality. It is in vain that he buys the +best pictures and statues of the best artists. Nobody will call him a +judge in art. If his pictures and statues are well chosen it is +generally thought that Scintilla told him what to buy; and yet Scintilla +in other connections is spoken of as having only a superficial and +often questionable taste. Mixtus, it is decided, is a good fellow, not +ignorant--no, really having a good deal of knowledge as well as sense, +but not easy to classify otherwise than as a rich man. He has +consequently become a little uncertain as to his own point of view, and +in his most unreserved moments of friendly intercourse, even when +speaking to listeners whom he thinks likely to sympathise with the +earlier part of his career, he presents himself in all his various +aspects and feels himself in turn what he has been, what he is, and what +others take him to be (for this last status is what we must all more or +less accept). He will recover with some glow of enthusiasm the vision of +his old associates, the particular limit he was once accustomed to trace +of freedom in religious speculation, and his old ideal of a worthy life; +but he will presently pass to the argument that money is the only means +by which you can get what is best worth having in the world, and will +arrive at the exclamation "Give me money!" with the tone and gesture of +a man who both feels and knows. Then if one of his audience, not having +money, remarks that a man may have made up his mind to do without money +because he prefers something else, Mixtus is with him immediately, +cordially concurring in the supreme value of mind and genius, which +indeed make his own chief delight, in that he is able to entertain the +admirable possessors of these attributes at his own table, though not +himself reckoned among them. Yet, he will proceed to observe, there was +a time when he sacrificed his sleep to study, and even now amid the +press of business he from time to time thinks of taking up the +manuscripts which he hopes some day to complete, and is always +increasing his collection of valuable works bearing on his favourite +topics. And it is true that he has read much in certain directions, and +can remember what he has read; he knows the history and theories of +colonisation and the social condition of countries that do not at +present consume a sufficiently large share of our products and +manufactures. He continues his early habit of regarding the spread of +Christianity as a great result of our commercial intercourse with black, +brown, and yellow populations; but this is an idea not spoken of in the +sort of fashionable society that Scintilla collects round her husband's +table, and Mixtus now philosophically reflects that the cause must come +before the effect, and that the thing to be directly striven for is the +commercial intercourse, not excluding a little war if that also should +prove needful as a pioneer of Christianity. He has long been wont to +feel bashful about his former religion; as if it were an old attachment +having consequences which he did not abandon but kept in decent privacy, +his avowed objects and actual position being incompatible with their +public acknowledgment. + +There is the same kind of fluctuation in his aspect towards social +questions and duties. He has not lost the kindness that used to make him +a benefactor and succourer of the needy, and he is still liberal in +helping forward the clever and industrious; but in his active +superintendence of commercial undertakings he has contracted more and +more of the bitterness which capitalists and employers often feel to be +a reasonable mood towards obstructive proletaries. Hence many who have +occasionally met him when trade questions were being discussed, conclude +him to be indistinguishable from the ordinary run of moneyed and +money-getting men. Indeed, hardly any of his acquaintances know what +Mixtus really is, considered as a whole--nor does Mixtus himself know +it. + + + + +X. + + +DEBASING THE MORAL CURRENCY. + +"Il ne faut pas mettre un ridicule où il n'y en a point: c'est se gâter +le goût, c'est corrompre son jugement et celui des autres. Mais le +ridicule qui est quelque part, il faut l'y voir, l'en tirer avec grâce +et d'une manière qui plaise et qui instruise." + +I am fond of quoting this passage from La Bruyère, because the subject +is one where I like to show a Frenchman on my side, to save my +sentiments from being set down to my peculiar dulness and deficient +sense of the ludicrous, and also that they may profit by that +enhancement of ideas when presented in a foreign tongue, that glamour of +unfamiliarity conferring a dignity on the foreign names of very common +things, of which even a philosopher like Dugald Stewart confesses the +influence. I remember hearing a fervid woman attempt to recite in +English the narrative of a begging Frenchman who described the violent +death of his father in the July days. The narrative had impressed her, +through the mists of her flushed anxiety to understand it, as something +quite grandly pathetic; but finding the facts turn out meagre, and her +audience cold, she broke off, saying, "It sounded so much finer in +French--_j'ai vu le sang de mon père_, and so on--I wish I could repeat +it in French." This was a pardonable illusion in an old-fashioned lady +who had not received the polyglot education of the present day; but I +observe that even now much nonsense and bad taste win admiring +acceptance solely by virtue of the French language, and one may fairly +desire that what seems a just discrimination should profit by the +fashionable prejudice in favour of La Bruyère's idiom. But I wish he had +added that the habit of dragging the ludicrous into topics where the +chief interest is of a different or even opposite kind is a sign not of +endowment, but of deficiency. The art of spoiling is within reach of the +dullest faculty: the coarsest clown with a hammer in his hand might +chip the nose off every statue and bust in the Vatican, and stand +grinning at the effect of his work. Because wit is an exquisite product +of high powers, we are not therefore forced to admit the sadly confused +inference of the monotonous jester that he is establishing his +superiority over every less facetious person, and over every topic on +which he is ignorant or insensible, by being uneasy until he has +distorted it in the small cracked mirror which he carries about with him +as a joking apparatus. Some high authority is needed to give many worthy +and timid persons the freedom of muscular repose under the growing +demand on them to laugh when they have no other reason than the peril of +being taken for dullards; still more to inspire them with the courage to +say that they object to the theatrical spoiling for themselves and their +children of all affecting themes, all the grander deeds and aims of men, +by burlesque associations adapted to the taste of rich fishmongers in +the stalls and their assistants in the gallery. The English people in +the present generation are falsely reputed to know Shakspere (as, by +some innocent persons, the Florentine mule-drivers are believed to have +known the _Divina Commedia_, not, perhaps, excluding all the subtle +discourses in the _Purgatorio_ and _Paradiso_); but there seems a clear +prospect that in the coming generation he will be known to them through +burlesques, and that his plays will find a new life as pantomimes. A +bottle-nosed Lear will come on with a monstrous corpulence from which he +will frantically dance himself free during the midnight storm; Rosalind +and Celia will join in a grotesque ballet with shepherds and +shepherdesses; Ophelia in fleshings and a voluminous brevity of +grenadine will dance through the mad scene, finishing with the famous +"attitude of the scissors" in the arms of Laertes; and all the speeches +in "Hamlet" will be so ingeniously parodied that the originals will be +reduced to a mere _memoria technica_ of the improver's puns--premonitory +signs of a hideous millennium, in which the lion will have to lie down +with the lascivious monkeys whom (if we may trust Pliny) his soul +naturally abhors. + +I have been amazed to find that some artists whose own works have the +ideal stamp, are quite insensible to the damaging tendency of the +burlesquing spirit which ranges to and fro and up and down on the earth, +seeing no reason (except a precarious censorship) why it should not +appropriate every sacred, heroic, and pathetic theme which serves to +make up the treasure of human admiration, hope, and love. One would have +thought that their own half-despairing efforts to invest in worthy +outward shape the vague inward impressions of sublimity, and the +consciousness of an implicit ideal in the commonest scenes, might have +made them susceptible of some disgust or alarm at a species of burlesque +which is likely to render their compositions no better than a dissolving +view, where every noble form is seen melting into its preposterous +caricature. It used to be imagined of the unhappy medieval Jews that +they parodied Calvary by crucifying dogs; if they had been guilty they +would at least have had the excuse of the hatred and rage begotten by +persecution. Are we on the way to a parody which shall have no other +excuse than the reckless search after fodder for degraded +appetites--after the pay to be earned by pasturing Circe's herd where +they may defile every monument of that growing life which should have +kept them human? + +The world seems to me well supplied with what is genuinely ridiculous: +wit and humour may play as harmlessly or beneficently round the changing +facets of egoism, absurdity, and vice, as the sunshine over the rippling +sea or the dewy meadows. Why should we make our delicious sense of the +ludicrous, with its invigorating shocks of laughter and its +irrepressible smiles which are the outglow of an inward radiation as +gentle and cheering as the warmth of morning, flourish like a brigand on +the robbery of our mental wealth?--or let it take its exercise as a +madman might, if allowed a free nightly promenade, by drawing the +populace with bonfires which leave some venerable structure a blackened +ruin or send a scorching smoke across the portraits of the past, at +which we once looked with a loving recognition of fellowship, and +disfigure them into butts of mockery?--nay, worse--use it to degrade the +healthy appetites and affections of our nature as they are seen to be +degraded in insane patients whose system, all out of joint, finds +matter for screaming laughter in mere topsy-turvy, makes every passion +preposterous or obscene, and turns the hard-won order of life into a +second chaos hideous enough to make one wail that the first was ever +thrilled with light? + +This is what I call debasing the moral currency: lowering the value of +every inspiring fact and tradition so that it will command less and less +of the spiritual products, the generous motives which sustain the charm +and elevation of our social existence--the something besides bread by +which man saves his soul alive. The bread-winner of the family may +demand more and more coppery shillings, or assignats, or greenbacks for +his day's work, and so get the needful quantum of food; but let that +moral currency be emptied of its value--let a greedy buffoonery debase +all historic beauty, majesty, and pathos, and the more you heap up the +desecrated symbols the greater will be the lack of the ennobling +emotions which subdue the tyranny of suffering, and make ambition one +with social virtue. + +And yet, it seems, parents will put into the hands of their children +ridiculous parodies (perhaps with more ridiculous "illustrations") of +the poems which stirred their own tenderness or filial piety, and carry +them to make their first acquaintance with great men, great works, or +solemn crises through the medium of some miscellaneous burlesque which, +with its idiotic puns and farcical attitudes, will remain among their +primary associations, and reduce them throughout their time of studious +preparation for life to the moral imbecility of an inward giggle at what +might have stimulated their high emulation or fed the fountains of +compassion, trust, and constancy. One wonders where these parents have +deposited that stock of morally educating stimuli which is to be +independent of poetic tradition, and to subsist in spite of the finest +images being degraded and the finest words of genius being poisoned as +with some befooling drug. + +Will fine wit, will exquisite humour prosper the more through this +turning of all things indiscriminately into food for a gluttonous +laughter, an idle craving without sense of flavours? On the contrary. +That delightful power which La Bruyère points to--"le ridicule qui est +quelque part, il faut l'y voir, l'en tirer avec grâce et d'une manière +qui plaise et qui instruise"--depends on a discrimination only +compatible with the varied sensibilities which give sympathetic insight, +and with the justice of perception which is another name for grave +knowledge. Such a result is no more to be expected from faculties on the +strain to find some small hook by which they may attach the lowest +incongruity to the most momentous subject, than it is to be expected of +a sharper, watching for gulls in a great political assemblage, that he +will notice the blundering logic of partisan speakers, or season his +observation with the salt of historical parallels. But after all our +psychological teaching, and in the midst of our zeal for education, we +are still, most of us, at the stage of believing that mental powers and +habits have somehow, not perhaps in the general statement, but in any +particular case, a kind of spiritual glaze against conditions which we +are continually applying to them. We soak our children in habits of +contempt and exultant gibing, and yet are confident that--as Clarissa +one day said to me--"We can always teach them to be reverent in the +right place, you know." And doubtless if she were to take her boys to +see a burlesque Socrates, with swollen legs, dying in the utterance of +cockney puns, and were to hang up a sketch of this comic scene among +their bedroom prints, she would think this preparation not at all to the +prejudice of their emotions on hearing their tutor read that narrative +of the _Apology_ which has been consecrated by the reverent gratitude of +ages. This is the impoverishment that threatens our posterity:--a new +Famine, a meagre fiend with lewd grin and clumsy hoof, is breathing a +moral mildew over the harvest of our human sentiments. These are the +most delicate elements of our too easily perishable civilisation. And +here again I like to quote a French testimony. Sainte Beuve, referring +to a time of insurrectionary disturbance, says: "Rien de plus prompt à +baisser que la civilisation dans des crises comme celle-ci; on perd en +trois semaines le résultat de plusieurs siècles. La civilisation, la +_vie_ est une chose apprise et inventée, qu'on le sache bien: '_Inventas +aut qui vitam excoluere per artes_.' Les hommes après quelques années de +paix oublient trop cette verité: ils arrivent à croire que la _culture_ +est chose innée, qu'elle est la même chose que la _nature_. La +sauvagerie est toujours là à deux pas, et, dès qu'on lâche pied, elle +recommence." We have been severely enough taught (if we were willing to +learn) that our civilisation, considered as a splendid material fabric, +is helplessly in peril without the spiritual police of sentiments or +ideal feelings. And it is this invisible police which we had need, as a +community, strive to maintain in efficient force. How if a dangerous +"Swing" were sometimes disguised in a versatile entertainer devoted to +the amusement of mixed audiences? And I confess that sometimes when I +see a certain style of young lady, who checks our tender admiration with +rouge and henna and all the blazonry of an extravagant expenditure, with +slang and bold _brusquerie_ intended to signify her emancipated view of +things, and with cynical mockery which she mistakes for penetration, I +am sorely tempted to hiss out "_Pétroleuse!_" It is a small matter to +have our palaces set aflame compared with the misery of having our sense +of a noble womanhood, which is the inspiration of a purifying shame, the +promise of life--penetrating affection, stained and blotted out by +images of repulsiveness. These things come--not of higher education, +but--of dull ignorance fostered into pertness by the greedy vulgarity +which reverses Peter's visionary lesson and learns to call all things +common and unclean. It comes of debasing the moral currency. + +The Tirynthians, according to an ancient story reported by Athenaeus, +becoming conscious that their trick of laughter at everything and +nothing was making them unfit for the conduct of serious affairs, +appealed to the Delphic oracle for some means of cure. The god +prescribed a peculiar form of sacrifice, which would be effective if +they could carry it through without laughing. They did their best; but +the flimsy joke of a boy upset their unaccustomed gravity, and in this +way the oracle taught them that even the gods could not prescribe a +quick cure for a long vitiation, or give power and dignity to a people +who in a crisis of the public wellbeing were at the mercy of a poor +jest. + + + + +XI. + + +THE WASP CREDITED WITH THE HONEYCOMB + +No man, I imagine, would object more strongly than Euphorion to +communistic principles in relation to material property, but with regard +to property in ideas he entertains such principles willingly, and is +disposed to treat the distinction between Mine and Thine in original +authorship as egoistic, narrowing, and low. I have known him, indeed, +insist at some expense of erudition on the prior right of an ancient, a +medieval, or an eighteenth century writer to be credited with a view or +statement lately advanced with some show of originality; and this +championship seems to imply a nicety of conscience towards the dead. He +is evidently unwilling that his neighbours should get more credit than +is due to them, and in this way he appears to recognise a certain +proprietorship even in spiritual production. But perhaps it is no real +inconsistency that, with regard to many instances of modern origination, +it is his habit to talk with a Gallic largeness and refer to the +universe: he expatiates on the diffusive nature of intellectual +products, free and all-embracing as the liberal air; on the +infinitesimal smallness of individual origination compared with the +massive inheritance of thought on which every new generation enters; on +that growing preparation for every epoch through which certain ideas or +modes of view are said to be in the air, and, still more metaphorically +speaking, to be inevitably absorbed, so that every one may be excused +for not knowing how he got them. Above all, he insists on the proper +subordination of the irritable self, the mere vehicle of an idea or +combination which, being produced by the sum total of the human race, +must belong to that multiple entity, from the accomplished lecturer or +populariser who transmits it, to the remotest generation of Fuegians or +Hottentots, however indifferent these may be to the superiority of their +right above that of the eminently perishable dyspeptic author. + +One may admit that such considerations carry a profound truth to be +even religiously contemplated, and yet object all the more to the mode +in which Euphorion seems to apply them. I protest against the use of +these majestic conceptions to do the dirty work of unscrupulosity and +justify the non-payment of conscious debts which cannot be defined or +enforced by the law. Especially since it is observable that the large +views as to intellectual property which can apparently reconcile an +able person to the use of lately borrowed ideas as if they were his +own, when this spoliation is favoured by the public darkness, never +hinder him from joining in the zealous tribute of recognition and +applause to those warriors of Truth whose triumphal arches are seen in +the public ways, those conquerors whose battles and "annexations" even +the carpenters and bricklayers know by name. Surely the acknowledgment +of a mental debt which will not be immediately detected, and may never +be asserted, is a case to which the traditional susceptibility to +"debts of honour" would be suitably transferred. There is no massive +public opinion that can be expected to tell on these relations of +thinkers and investigators--relations to be thoroughly understood +and felt only by those who are interested in the life of ideas and +acquainted with their history. To lay false claim to an invention or +discovery which has an immediate market value; to vamp up a +professedly new book of reference by stealing from the pages of one +already produced at the cost of much labour and material; to copy +somebody else's poem and send the manuscript to a magazine, or hand it +about among friends as an original "effusion;" to deliver an elegant +extract from a known writer as a piece of improvised +eloquence:--these are the limits within which the dishonest +pretence of originality is likely to get hissed or hooted and bring +more or less shame on the culprit. It is not necessary to understand +the merit of a performance, or even to spell with any comfortable +confidence, in order to perceive at once that such pretences are not +respectable. But the difference between these vulgar frauds, these +devices of ridiculous jays whose ill-secured plumes are seen falling +off them as they run, and the quiet appropriation of other people's +philosophic or scientific ideas, can hardly be held to lie in their +moral quality unless we take impunity as our criterion. The pitiable +jays had no presumption in their favour and foolishly fronted an alert +incredulity; but Euphorion, the accomplished theorist, has an audience +who expect much of him, and take it as the most natural thing in the +world that every unusual view which he presents anonymously should be +due solely to his ingenuity. His borrowings are no incongruous +feathers awkwardly stuck on; they have an appropriateness which makes +them seem an answer to anticipation, like the return phrases of a +melody. Certainly one cannot help the ignorant conclusions of polite +society, and there are perhaps fashionable persons who, if a speaker +has occasion to explain what the occipat is, will consider that he has +lately discovered that curiously named portion of the animal frame: +one cannot give a genealogical introduction to every long-stored item +of fact or conjecture that may happen to be a revelation for the large +class of persons who are understood to judge soundly on a small basis +of knowledge. But Euphorion would be very sorry to have it supposed +that he is unacquainted with the history of ideas, and sometimes +carries even into minutiae the evidence of his exact registration of +names in connection with quotable phrases or suggestions: I can +therefore only explain the apparent infirmity of his memory in cases +of larger "conveyance" by supposing that he is accustomed by the very +association of largeness to range them at once under those grand laws +of the universe in the light of which Mine and Thine disappear and are +resolved into Everybody's or Nobody's, and one man's particular +obligations to another melt untraceably into the obligations of the +earth to the solar system in general. + +Euphorion himself, if a particular omission of acknowledgment were +brought home to him, would probably take a narrower ground of +explanation. It was a lapse of memory; or it did not occur to him as +necessary in this case to mention a name, the source being well +known--or (since this seems usually to act as a strong reason for +mention) he rather abstained from adducing the name because it might +injure the excellent matter advanced, just as an obscure trade-mark +casts discredit on a good commodity, and even on the retailer who has +furnished himself from a quarter not likely to be esteemed first-rate. +No doubt this last is a genuine and frequent reason for the +non-acknowledgment of indebtedness to what one may call impersonal as +well as personal sources: even an American editor of school classics +whose own English could not pass for more than a syntactical shoddy of +the cheapest sort, felt it unfavourable to his reputation for sound +learning that he should be obliged to the Penny Cyclopaedia, and +disguised his references to it under contractions in which _Us. Knowl._ +took the place of the low word _Penny_. Works of this convenient stamp, +easily obtained and well nourished with matter, are felt to be like rich +but unfashionable relations who are visited and received in privacy, and +whose capital is used or inherited without any ostentatious insistance +on their names and places of abode. As to memory, it is known that this +frail faculty naturally lets drop the facts which are less flattering to +our self-love--when it does not retain them carefully as subjects not to +be approached, marshy spots with a warning flag over them. But it is +always interesting to bring forward eminent names, such as Patricius or +Scaliger, Euler or Lagrange, Bopp or Humboldt. To know exactly what has +been drawn from them is erudition and heightens our own influence, which +seems advantageous to mankind; whereas to cite an author whose ideas may +pass as higher currency under our own signature can have no object +except the contradictory one of throwing the illumination over his +figure when it is important to be seen oneself. All these reasons must +weigh considerably with those speculative persons who have to ask +themselves whether or not Universal Utilitarianism requires that in the +particular instance before them they should injure a man who has been of +service to them, and rob a fellow-workman of the credit which is due to +him. + +After all, however, it must be admitted that hardly any accusation is +more difficult to prove, and more liable to be false, than that of a +plagiarism which is the conscious theft of ideas and deliberate +reproduction of them as original. The arguments on the side of acquittal +are obvious and strong:--the inevitable coincidences of contemporary +thinking; and our continual experience of finding notions turning up in +our minds without any label on them to tell us whence they came; so that +if we are in the habit of expecting much from our own capacity we accept +them at once as a new inspiration. Then, in relation to the elder +authors, there is the difficulty first of learning and then of +remembering exactly what has been wrought into the backward tapestry of +the world's history, together with the fact that ideas acquired long ago +reappear as the sequence of an awakened interest or a line of inquiry +which is really new in us, whence it is conceivable that if we were +ancients some of us might be offering grateful hecatombs by mistake, and +proving our honesty in a ruinously expensive manner. On the other hand, +the evidence on which plagiarism is concluded is often of a kind which, +though much trusted in questions of erudition and historical criticism, +is apt to lead us injuriously astray in our daily judgments, especially +of the resentful, condemnatory sort. How Pythagoras came by his ideas, +whether St Paul was acquainted with all the Greek poets, what Tacitus +must have known by hearsay and systematically ignored, are points on +which a false persuasion of knowledge is less damaging to justice and +charity than an erroneous confidence, supported by reasoning +fundamentally similar, of my neighbour's blameworthy behaviour in a case +where I am personally concerned. No premisses require closer scrutiny +than those which lead to the constantly echoed conclusion, "He must have +known," or "He must have read." I marvel that this facility of belief on +the side of knowledge can subsist under the daily demonstration that the +easiest of all things to the human mind is _not_ to know and _not_ to +read. To praise, to blame, to shout, grin, or hiss, where others shout, +grin, or hiss--these are native tendencies; but to know and to read are +artificial, hard accomplishments, concerning which the only safe +supposition is, that as little of them has been done as the case admits. +An author, keenly conscious of having written, can hardly help imagining +his condition of lively interest to be shared by others, just as we are +all apt to suppose that the chill or heat we are conscious of must be +general, or even to think that our sons and daughters, our pet schemes, +and our quarrelling correspondence, are themes to which intelligent +persons will listen long without weariness. But if the ardent author +happen to be alive to practical teaching he will soon learn to divide +the larger part of the enlightened public into those who have not read +him and think it necessary to tell him so when they meet him in polite +society, and those who have equally abstained from reading him, but wish +to conceal this negation and speak of his "incomparable works" with that +trust in testimony which always has its cheering side. + +Hence it is worse than foolish to entertain silent suspicions of +plagiarism, still more to give them voice, when they are founded on a +construction of probabilities which a little more attention to everyday +occurrences as a guide in reasoning would show us to be really +worthless, considered as proof. The length to which one man's memory can +go in letting drop associations that are vital to another can hardly +find a limit. It is not to be supposed that a person desirous to make an +agreeable impression on you would deliberately choose to insist to you, +with some rhetorical sharpness, on an argument which you were the first +to elaborate in public; yet any one who listens may overhear such +instances of obliviousness. You naturally remember your peculiar +connection with your acquaintance's judicious views; but why should +_he_? Your fatherhood, which is an intense feeling to you, is only an +additional fact of meagre interest for him to remember; and a sense of +obligation to the particular living fellow-struggler who has helped us +in our thinking, is not yet a form of memory the want of which is felt +to be disgraceful or derogatory, unless it is taken to be a want of +polite instruction, or causes the missing of a cockade on a day of +celebration. In our suspicions of plagiarism we must recognise as the +first weighty probability, that what we who feel injured remember best +is precisely what is least likely to enter lastingly into the memory of +our neighbours. But it is fair to maintain that the neighbour who +borrows your property, loses it for a while, and when it turns up again +forgets your connection with it and counts it his own, shows himself so +much the feebler in grasp and rectitude of mind. Some absent persons +cannot remember the state of wear in their own hats and umbrellas, and +have no mental check to tell them that they have carried home a +fellow-visitor's more recent purchase: they may be excellent +householders, far removed from the suspicion of low devices, but one +wishes them a more correct perception, and a more wary sense that a +neighbour's umbrella may be newer than their own. + +True, some persons are so constituted that the very excellence of an +idea seems to them a convincing reason that it must be, if not solely, +yet especially theirs. It fits in so beautifully with their general +wisdom, it lies implicitly in so many of their manifested opinions, that +if they have not yet expressed it (because of preoccupation) it is +clearly a part of their indigenous produce, and is proved by their +immediate eloquent promulgation of it to belong more naturally and +appropriately to them than to the person who seemed first to have +alighted on it, and who sinks in their all-originating consciousness to +that low kind of entity, a second cause. This is not lunacy, nor +pretence, but a genuine state of mind very effective in practice, and +often carrying the public with it, so that the poor Columbus is found to +be a very faulty adventurer, and the continent is named after Amerigo. +Lighter examples of this instinctive appropriation are constantly met +with among brilliant talkers. Aquila is too agreeable and amusing for +any one who is not himself bent on display to be angry at his +conversational rapine--his habit of darting down on every morsel of +booty that other birds may hold in their beaks, with an innocent air, as +if it were all intended for his use, and honestly counted on by him as a +tribute in kind. Hardly any man, I imagine, can have had less trouble in +gathering a showy stock of information than Aquila. On close inquiry you +would probably find that he had not read one epoch-making book of modern +times, for he has a career which obliges him to much correspondence and +other official work, and he is too fond of being in company to spend his +leisure moments in study; but to his quick eye, ear, and tongue, a few +predatory excursions in conversation where there are instructed persons, +gradually furnish surprisingly clever modes of statement and allusion on +the dominant topic. When he first adopts a subject he necessarily falls +into mistakes, and it is interesting to watch his gradual progress into +fuller information and better nourished irony, without his ever needing +to admit that he has made a blunder or to appear conscious of +correction. Suppose, for example, he had incautiously founded some +ingenious remarks on a hasty reckoning that nine thirteens made a +hundred and two, and the insignificant Bantam, hitherto silent, seemed +to spoil the flow of ideas by stating that the product could not be +taken as less than a hundred and seventeen, Aquila would glide on in the +most graceful manner from a repetition of his previous remark to the +continuation--"All this is on the supposition that a hundred and two +were all that could be got out of nine thirteens; but as all the world +knows that nine thirteens will yield," &c.--proceeding straightway into +a new train of ingenious consequences, and causing Bantam to be regarded +by all present as one of those slow persons who take irony for +ignorance, and who would warn the weasel to keep awake. How should a +small-eyed, feebly crowing mortal like him be quicker in arithmetic than +the keen-faced forcible Aquila, in whom universal knowledge is easily +credible? Looked into closely, the conclusion from a man's profile, +voice, and fluency to his certainty in multiplication beyond the +twelves, seems to show a confused notion of the way in which very common +things are connected; but it is on such false correlations that men +found half their inferences about each other, and high places of trust +may sometimes be held on no better foundation. + +It is a commonplace that words, writings, measures, and performances in +general, have qualities assigned them not by a direct judgment on the +performances themselves, but by a presumption of what they are likely to +be, considering who is the performer. We all notice in our neighbours +this reference to names as guides in criticism, and all furnish +illustrations of it in our own practice; for, check ourselves as we +will, the first impression from any sort of work must depend on a +previous attitude of mind, and this will constantly be determined by the +influences of a name. But that our prior confidence or want of +confidence in given names is made up of judgments just as hollow as the +consequent praise or blame they are taken to warrant, is less commonly +perceived, though there is a conspicuous indication of it in the +surprise or disappointment often manifested in the disclosure of an +authorship about which everybody has been making wrong guesses. No doubt +if it had been discovered who wrote the 'Vestiges,' many an ingenious +structure of probabilities would have been spoiled, and some disgust +might have been felt for a real author who made comparatively so shabby +an appearance of likelihood. It is this foolish trust in prepossessions, +founded on spurious evidence, which makes a medium of encouragement for +those who, happening to have the ear of the public, give other people's +ideas the advantage of appearing under their own well-received name, +while any remonstrance from the real producer becomes an unwelcome +disturbance of complacency with each person who has paid complimentary +tributes in the wrong place. + +Hardly any kind of false reasoning is more ludicrous than this on the +probabilities of origination. It would be amusing to catechise the +guessers as to their exact reasons for thinking their guess "likely:" +why Hoopoe of John's has fixed on Toucan of Magdalen; why Shrike +attributes its peculiar style to Buzzard, who has not hitherto been +known as a writer; why the fair Columba thinks it must belong to the +reverend Merula; and why they are all alike disturbed in their previous +judgment of its value by finding that it really came from Skunk, whom +they had either not thought of at all, or thought of as belonging to a +species excluded by the nature of the case. Clearly they were all wrong +in their notion of the specific conditions, which lay unexpectedly in +the small Skunk, and in him alone--in spite of his education nobody +knows where, in spite of somebody's knowing his uncles and cousins, and +in spite of nobody's knowing that he was cleverer than they thought him. + +Such guesses remind one of a fabulist's imaginary council of animals +assembled to consider what sort of creature had constructed a honeycomb +found and much tasted by Bruin and other epicures. The speakers all +started from the probability that the maker was a bird, because this was +the quarter from which a wondrous nest might be expected; for the +animals at that time, knowing little of their own history, would have +rejected as inconceivable the notion that a nest could be made by a +fish; and as to the insects, they were not willingly received in society +and their ways were little known. Several complimentary presumptions +were expressed that the honeycomb was due to one or the other admired +and popular bird, and there was much fluttering on the part of the +Nightingale and Swallow, neither of whom gave a positive denial, their +confusion perhaps extending to their sense of identity; but the Owl +hissed at this folly, arguing from his particular knowledge that the +animal which produced honey must be the Musk-rat, the wondrous nature of +whose secretions required no proof; and, in the powerful logical +procedure of the Owl, from musk to honey was but a step. Some +disturbance arose hereupon, for the Musk-rat began to make himself +obtrusive, believing in the Owl's opinion of his powers, and feeling +that he could have produced the honey if he had thought of it; until an +experimental Butcher-bird proposed to anatomise him as a help to +decision. The hubbub increased, the opponents of the Musk-rat inquiring +who his ancestors were; until a diversion was created by an able +discourse of the Macaw on structures generally, which he classified so +as to include the honeycomb, entering into so much admirable exposition +that there was a prevalent sense of the honeycomb having probably been +produced by one who understood it so well. But Bruin, who had probably +eaten too much to listen with edification, grumbled in his low kind of +language, that "Fine words butter no parsnips," by which he meant to say +that there was no new honey forthcoming. + +Perhaps the audience generally was beginning to tire, when the Fox +entered with his snout dreadfully swollen, and reported that the +beneficent originator in question was the Wasp, which he had found much +smeared with undoubted honey, having applied his nose to it--whence +indeed the able insect, perhaps justifiably irritated at what might seem +a sign of scepticism, had stung him with some severity, an infliction +Reynard could hardly regret, since the swelling of a snout normally so +delicate would corroborate his statement and satisfy the assembly that +he had really found the honey-creating genius. + +The Fox's admitted acuteness, combined with the visible swelling, were +taken as undeniable evidence, and the revelation undoubtedly met a +general desire for information on a point of interest. Nevertheless, +there was a murmur the reverse of delighted, and the feelings of some +eminent animals were too strong for them: the Orang-outang's jaw dropped +so as seriously to impair the vigour of his expression, the edifying +Pelican screamed and flapped her wings, the Owl hissed again, the Macaw +became loudly incoherent, and the Gibbon gave his hysterical laugh; +while the Hyaena, after indulging in a more splenetic guffaw, agitated +the question whether it would not be better to hush up the whole affair, +instead of giving public recognition to an insect whose produce, it was +now plain, had been much overestimated. But this narrow-spirited motion +was negatived by the sweet-toothed majority. A complimentary deputation +to the Wasp was resolved on, and there was a confident hope that this +diplomatic measure would tell on the production of honey. + + + + +XII. + + +"SO YOUNG!" + +Ganymede was once a girlishly handsome precocious youth. That one cannot +for any considerable number of years go on being youthful, girlishly +handsome, and precocious, seems on consideration to be a statement as +worthy of credit as the famous syllogistic conclusion, "Socrates was +mortal." But many circumstances have conspired to keep up in Ganymede +the illusion that he is surprisingly young. He was the last born of his +family, and from his earliest memory was accustomed to be commended as +such to the care of his elder brothers and sisters: he heard his mother +speak of him as her youngest darling with a loving pathos in her tone, +which naturally suffused his own view of himself, and gave him the +habitual consciousness of being at once very young and very interesting. +Then, the disclosure of his tender years was a constant matter of +astonishment to strangers who had had proof of his precocious talents, +and the astonishment extended to what is called the world at large when +he produced 'A Comparative Estimate of European Nations' before he was +well out of his teens. All comers, on a first interview, told him that +he was marvellously young, and some repeated the statement each time +they saw him; all critics who wrote about him called attention to the +same ground for wonder: his deficiencies and excesses were alike to be +accounted for by the flattering fact of his youth, and his youth was the +golden background which set off his many-hued endowments. Here was +already enough to establish a strong association between his sense of +identity and his sense of being unusually young. But after this he +devised and founded an ingenious organisation for consolidating the +literary interests of all the four continents (subsequently including +Australasia and Polynesia), he himself presiding in the central office, +which thus became a new theatre for the constantly repeated situation of +an astonished stranger in the presence of a boldly scheming +administrator found to be remarkably young. If we imagine with due +charity the effect on Ganymede, we shall think it greatly to his credit +that he continued to feel the necessity of being something more than +young, and did not sink by rapid degrees into a parallel of that +melancholy object, a superannuated youthful phenomenon. Happily he had +enough of valid, active faculty to save him from that tragic fate. He +had not exhausted his fountain of eloquent opinion in his 'Comparative +Estimate,' so as to feel himself, like some other juvenile celebrities, +the sad survivor of his own manifest destiny, or like one who has risen +too early in the morning, and finds all the solid day turned into a +fatigued afternoon. He has continued to be productive both of schemes +and writings, being perhaps helped by the fact that his 'Comparative +Estimate' did not greatly affect the currents of European thought, and +left him with the stimulating hope that he had not done his best, but +might yet produce what would make his youth more surprising than ever. + +I saw something of him through his Antinoüs period, the time of rich +chesnut locks, parted not by a visible white line, but by a shadowed +furrow from which they fell in massive ripples to right and left. In +these slim days he looked the younger for being rather below the middle +size, and though at last one perceived him contracting an indefinable +air of self-consciousness, a slight exaggeration of the facial +movements, the attitudes, the little tricks, and the romance in +shirt-collars, which must be expected from one who, in spite of his +knowledge, was so exceedingly young, it was impossible to say that he +was making any great mistake about himself. He was only undergoing one +form of a common moral disease: being strongly mirrored for himself in +the remark of others, he was getting to see his real characteristics as +a dramatic part, a type to which his doings were always in +correspondence. Owing to my absence on travel and to other causes I had +lost sight of him for several years, but such a separation between two +who have not missed each other seems in this busy century only a +pleasant reason, when they happen to meet again in some old accustomed +haunt, for the one who has stayed at home to be more communicative about +himself than he can well be to those who have all along been in his +neighbourhood. He had married in the interval, and as if to keep up his +surprising youthfulness in all relations, he had taken a wife +considerably older than himself. It would probably have seemed to him a +disturbing inversion of the natural order that any one very near to him +should have been younger than he, except his own children who, however +young, would not necessarily hinder the normal surprise at the +youthfulness of their father. And if my glance had revealed my +impression on first seeing him again, he might have received a rather +disagreeable shock, which was far from my intention. My mind, having +retained a very exact image of his former appearance, took note of +unmistakeable changes such as a painter would certainly not have made by +way of flattering his subject. He had lost his slimness, and that curved +solidity which might have adorned a taller man was a rather sarcastic +threat to his short figure. The English branch of the Teutonic race does +not produce many fat youths, and I have even heard an American lady say +that she was much "disappointed" at the moderate number and size of our +fat men, considering their reputation in the United States; hence a +stranger would now have been apt to remark that Ganymede was unusually +plump for a distinguished writer, rather than unusually young. But how +was he to know this? Many long-standing prepossessions are as hard to be +corrected as a long-standing mispronunciation, against which the direct +experience of eye and ear is often powerless. And I could perceive that +Ganymede's inwrought sense of his surprising youthfulness had been +stronger than the superficial reckoning of his years and the merely +optical phenomena of the looking-glass. He now held a post under +Government, and not only saw, like most subordinate functionaries, how +ill everything was managed, but also what were the changes that a high +constructive ability would dictate; and in mentioning to me his own +speeches and other efforts towards propagating reformatory views in his +department, he concluded by changing his tone to a sentimental head +voice and saying-- + +"But I am so young; people object to any prominence on my part; I can +only get myself heard anonymously, and when some attention has been +drawn the name is sure to creep out. The writer is known to be young, +and things are none the forwarder." + +"Well," said I, "youth seems the only drawback that is sure to diminish. +You and I have seven years less of it than when we last met." + +"Ah?" returned Ganymede, as lightly as possible, at the same time +casting an observant glance over me, as if he were marking the effect of +seven years on a person who had probably begun life with an old look, +and even as an infant had given his countenance to that significant +doctrine, the transmigration of ancient souls into modern bodies. + +I left him on that occasion without any melancholy forecast that his +illusion would be suddenly or painfully broken up. I saw that he was +well victualled and defended against a ten years' siege from ruthless +facts; and in the course of time observation convinced me that his +resistance received considerable aid from without. Each of his written +productions, as it came out, was still commented on as the work of a +very young man. One critic, finding that he wanted solidity, charitably +referred to his youth as an excuse. Another, dazzled by his brilliancy, +seemed to regard his youth as so wondrous that all other authors +appeared decrepit by comparison, and their style such as might be looked +for from gentlemen of the old school. Able pens (according to a familiar +metaphor) appeared to shake their heads good-humouredly, implying that +Ganymede's crudities were pardonable in one so exceedingly young. Such +unanimity amid diversity, which a distant posterity might take for +evidence that on the point of age at least there could have been no +mistake, was not really more difficult to account for than the +prevalence of cotton in our fabrics. Ganymede had been first introduced +into the writing world as remarkably young, and it was no exceptional +consequence that the first deposit of information about him held its +ground against facts which, however open to observation, were not +necessarily thought of. It is not so easy, with our rates and taxes and +need for economy in all directions, to cast away an epithet or remark +that turns up cheaply, and to go in expensive search after more genuine +substitutes. There is high Homeric precedent for keeping fast hold of an +epithet under all changes of circumstance, and so the precocious author +of the 'Comparative Estimate' heard the echoes repeating "Young +Ganymede" when an illiterate beholder at a railway station would have +given him forty years at least. Besides, important elders, sachems of +the clubs and public meetings, had a genuine opinion of him as young +enough to be checked for speech on subjects which they had spoken +mistakenly about when he was in his cradle; and then, the midway parting +of his crisp hair, not common among English committee-men, formed a +presumption against the ripeness of his judgment which nothing but a +speedy baldness could have removed. + +It is but fair to mention all these outward confirmations of Ganymede's +illusion, which shows no signs of leaving him. It is true that he no +longer hears expressions of surprise at his youthfulness, on a first +introduction to an admiring reader; but this sort of external evidence +has become an unnecessary crutch to his habitual inward persuasion. His +manners, his costume, his suppositions of the impression he makes on +others, have all their former correspondence with the dramatic part of +the young genius. As to the incongruity of his contour and other little +accidents of physique, he is probably no more aware that they will +affect others as incongruities than Armida is conscious how much her +rouge provokes our notice of her wrinkles, and causes us to mention +sarcastically that motherly age which we should otherwise regard with +affectionate reverence. + +But let us be just enough to admit that there may be old-young coxcombs +as well as old-young coquettes. + + + + +XIII. + + +HOW WE COME TO GIVE OURSELVES FALSE TESTIMONIALS, AND BELIEVE IN THEM. + +It is my way when I observe any instance of folly, any queer habit, any +absurd illusion, straightway to look for something of the same type in +myself, feeling sure that amid all differences there will be a certain +correspondence; just as there is more or less correspondence in the +natural history even of continents widely apart, and of islands in +opposite zones. No doubt men's minds differ in what we may call their +climate or share of solar energy, and a feeling or tendency which is +comparable to a panther in one may have no more imposing aspect than +that of a weasel in another: some are like a tropical habitat in which +the very ferns cast a mighty shadow, and the grasses are a dry ocean in +which a hunter may be submerged; others like the chilly latitudes in +which your forest-tree, fit elsewhere to prop a mine, is a pretty +miniature suitable for fancy potting. The eccentric man might be +typified by the Australian fauna, refuting half our judicious +assumptions of what nature allows. Still, whether fate commanded us to +thatch our persons among the Eskimos or to choose the latest thing in +tattooing among the Polynesian isles, our precious guide Comparison +would teach us in the first place by likeness, and our clue to further +knowledge would be resemblance to what we already know. Hence, having a +keen interest in the natural history of my inward self, I pursue this +plan I have mentioned of using my observation as a clue or lantern by +which I detect small herbage or lurking life; or I take my neighbour in +his least becoming tricks or efforts as an opportunity for luminous +deduction concerning the figure the human genus makes in the specimen +which I myself furnish. + +Introspection which starts with the purpose of finding out one's own +absurdities is not likely to be very mischievous, yet of course it is +not free from dangers any more than breathing is, or the other functions +that keep us alive and active. To judge of others by oneself is in its +most innocent meaning the briefest expression for our only method of +knowing mankind; yet, we perceive, it has come to mean in many cases +either the vulgar mistake which reduces every man's value to the very +low figure at which the valuer himself happens to stand; or else, the +amiable illusion of the higher nature misled by a too generous +construction of the lower. One cannot give a recipe for wise judgment: +it resembles appropriate muscular action, which is attained by the +myriad lessons in nicety of balance and of aim that only practice can +give. The danger of the inverse procedure, judging of self by what one +observes in others, if it is carried on with much impartiality and +keenness of discernment, is that it has a laming effect, enfeebling the +energies of indignation and scorn, which are the proper scourges of +wrong-doing and meanness, and which should continually feed the +wholesome restraining power of public opinion. I respect the horsewhip +when applied to the back of Cruelty, and think that he who applies it is +a more perfect human being because his outleap of indignation is not +checked by a too curious reflection on the nature of guilt--a more +perfect human being because he more completely incorporates the best +social life of the race, which can never be constituted by ideas that +nullify action. This is the essence of Dante's sentiment (it is painful +to think that he applies it very cruelly)-- + + "E cortesia fù, lui esser villano"[1]-- + +and it is undeniable that a too intense consciousness of one's kinship +with all frailties and vices undermines the active heroism which battles +against wrong. + +But certainly nature has taken care that this danger should not at +present be very threatening. One could not fairly describe the +generality of one's neighbours as too lucidly aware of manifesting in +their own persons the weaknesses which they observe in the rest of her +Majesty's subjects; on the contrary, a hasty conclusion as to schemes of +Providence might lead to the supposition that one man was intended to +correct another by being most intolerant of the ugly quality or trick +which he himself possesses. Doubtless philosophers will be able to +explain how it must necessarily be so, but pending the full extension of +the _à priori_ method, which will show that only blockheads could expect +anything to be otherwise, it does seem surprising that Heloisa should be +disgusted at Laura's attempts to disguise her age, attempts which she +recognises so thoroughly because they enter into her own practice; that +Semper, who often responds at public dinners and proposes resolutions on +platforms, though he has a trying gestation of every speech and a bad +time for himself and others at every delivery, should yet remark +pitilessly on the folly of precisely the same course of action in +Ubique; that Aliquis, who lets no attack on himself pass unnoticed, and +for every handful of gravel against his windows sends a stone in reply, +should deplore the ill-advised retorts of Quispiam, who does not +perceive that to show oneself angry with an adversary is to gratify him. +To be unaware of our own little tricks of manner or our own mental +blemishes and excesses is a comprehensible unconsciousness; the puzzling +fact is that people should apparently take no account of their +deliberate actions, and should expect them to be equally ignored by +others. It is an inversion of the accepted order: _there_ it is the +phrases that are official and the conduct or privately manifested +sentiment that is taken to be real; _here_ it seems that the practice is +taken to be official and entirely nullified by the verbal representation +which contradicts it. The thief making a vow to heaven of full +restitution and whispering some reservations, expecting to cheat +Omniscience by an "aside," is hardly more ludicrous than the many ladies +and gentlemen who have more belief, and expect others to have it, in +their own statement about their habitual doings than in the +contradictory fact which is patent in the daylight. One reason of the +absurdity is that we are led by a tradition about ourselves, so that +long after a man has practically departed from a rule or principle, he +continues innocently to state it as a true description of his +practice--just as he has a long tradition that he is not an old +gentleman, and is startled when he is seventy at overhearing himself +called by an epithet which he has only applied to others. + +[Footnote 1: Inferno, xxxii. 150.] + +"A person with your tendency of constitution should take as little sugar +as possible," said Pilulus to Bovis somewhere in the darker decades of +this century. "It has made a great difference to Avis since he took my +advice in that matter: he used to consume half a pound a-day." + +"God bless me!" cries Bovis. "I take very little sugar myself." + +"Twenty-six large lumps every day of your life, Mr Bovis," says his +wife. + +"No such thing!" exclaims Bovis. + +"You drop them into your tea, coffee, and whisky yourself, my dear, and +I count them." + +"Nonsense!" laughs Bovis, turning to Pilulus, that they may exchange a +glance of mutual amusement at a woman's inaccuracy. + +But she happened to be right. Bovis had never said inwardly that he +would take a large allowance of sugar, and he had the tradition about +himself that he was a man of the most moderate habits; hence, with this +conviction, he was naturally disgusted at the saccharine excesses of +Avis. + +I have sometimes thought that this facility of men in believing that +they are still what they once meant to be--this undisturbed +appropriation of a traditional character which is often but a melancholy +relic of early resolutions, like the worn and soiled testimonial to +soberness and honesty carried in the pocket of a tippler whom the need +of a dram has driven into peculation--may sometimes diminish the +turpitude of what seems a flat, barefaced falsehood. It is notorious +that a man may go on uttering false assertions about his own acts till +he at last believes in them: is it not possible that sometimes in the +very first utterance there may be a shade of creed-reciting belief, a +reproduction of a traditional self which is clung to against all +evidence? There is no knowing all the disguises of the lying serpent. + +When we come to examine in detail what is the sane mind in the sane +body, the final test of completeness seems to be a security of +distinction between what we have professed and what we have done; what +we have aimed at and what we have achieved; what we have invented and +what we have witnessed or had evidenced to us; what we think and feel in +the present and what we thought and felt in the past. + +I know that there is a common prejudice which regards the habitual +confusion of _now_ and _then_, of _it was_ and _it is_, of _it seemed +so_ and _I should like it to be so_, as a mark of high imaginative +endowment, while the power of precise statement and description is rated +lower, as the attitude of an everyday prosaic mind. High imagination is +often assigned or claimed as if it were a ready activity in fabricating +extravagances such as are presented by fevered dreams, or as if its +possessors were in that state of inability to give credible testimony +which would warrant their exclusion from the class of acceptable +witnesses in a court of justice; so that a creative genius might fairly +be subjected to the disability which some laws have stamped on dicers, +slaves, and other classes whose position was held perverting to their +sense of social responsibility. + +This endowment of mental confusion is often boasted of by persons whose +imaginativeness would not otherwise be known, unless it were by the slow +process of detecting that their descriptions and narratives were not to +be trusted. Callista is always ready to testify of herself that she is +an imaginative person, and sometimes adds in illustration, that if she +had taken a walk and seen an old heap of stones on her way, the account +she would give on returning would include many pleasing particulars of +her own invention, transforming the simple heap into an interesting +castellated ruin. This creative freedom is all very well in the right +place, but before I can grant it to be a sign of unusual mental power, I +must inquire whether, on being requested to give a precise description +of what she saw, she would be able to cast aside her arbitrary +combinations and recover the objects she really perceived so as to make +them recognisable by another person who passed the same way. Otherwise +her glorifying imagination is not an addition to the fundamental power +of strong, discerning perception, but a cheaper substitute. And, in +fact, I find on listening to Callista's conversation, that she has a +very lax conception even of common objects, and an equally lax memory of +events. It seems of no consequence to her whether she shall say that a +stone is overgrown with moss or with lichen, that a building is of +sandstone or of granite, that Meliboeus once forgot to put on his cravat +or that he always appears without it; that everybody says so, or that +one stock-broker's wife said so yesterday; that Philemon praised +Euphemia up to the skies, or that he denied knowing any particular evil +of her. She is one of those respectable witnesses who would testify to +the exact moment of an apparition, because any desirable moment will be +as exact as another to her remembrance; or who would be the most worthy +to witness the action of spirits on slates and tables because the action +of limbs would not probably arrest her attention. She would describe the +surprising phenomena exhibited by the powerful Medium with the same +freedom that she vaunted in relation to the old heap of stones. Her +supposed imaginativeness is simply a very usual lack of discriminating +perception, accompanied with a less usual activity of misrepresentation, +which, if it had been a little more intense, or had been stimulated by +circumstance, might have made her a profuse writer unchecked by the +troublesome need of veracity. + +These characteristics are the very opposite of such as yield a fine +imagination, which is always based on a keen vision, a keen +consciousness of what _is_, and carries the store of definite knowledge +as material for the construction of its inward visions. Witness Dante, +who is at once the most precise and homely in his reproduction of actual +objects, and the most soaringly at large in his imaginative +combinations. On a much lower level we distinguish the hyperbole and +rapid development in descriptions of persons and events which are lit up +by humorous intention in the speaker--we distinguish this charming play +of intelligence which resembles musical improvisation on a given motive, +where the farthest sweep of curve is looped into relevancy by an +instinctive method, from the florid inaccuracy or helpless exaggeration +which is really something commoner than the correct simplicity often +depreciated as prosaic. + +Even if high imagination were to be identified with illusion, there +would be the same sort of difference between the imperial wealth of +illusion which is informed by industrious submissive observation and the +trumpery stage-property illusion which depends on the ill-defined +impressions gathered by capricious inclination, as there is between a +good and a bad picture of the Last Judgment. In both these the subject +is a combination never actually witnessed, and in the good picture the +general combination may be of surpassing boldness; but on examination it +is seen that the separate elements have been closely studied from real +objects. And even where we find the charm of ideal elevation with wrong +drawing and fantastic colour, the charm is dependent on the selective +sensibility of the painter to certain real delicacies of form which +confer the expression he longed to render; for apart from this basis of +an effect perceived in common, there could be no conveyance of aesthetic +meaning by the painter to the beholder. In this sense it is as true to +say of Fra Angelico's Coronation of the Virgin, that it has a strain of +reality, as to say so of a portrait by Rembrandt, which also has its +strain of ideal elevation due to Rembrandt's virile selective +sensibility. To correct such self-flatterers as Callista, it is worth +repeating that powerful imagination is not false outward vision, but +intense inward representation, and a creative energy constantly fed by +susceptibility to the veriest minutiae of experience, which it +reproduces and constructs in fresh and fresh wholes; not the habitual +confusion of provable fact with the fictions of fancy and transient +inclination, but a breadth of ideal association which informs every +material object, every incidental fact with far-reaching memories and +stored residues of passion, bringing into new light the less obvious +relations of human existence. The illusion to which it is liable is not +that of habitually taking duck-ponds for lilied pools, but of being more +or less transiently and in varying degrees so absorbed in ideal vision +as to lose the consciousness of surrounding objects or occurrences; and +when that rapt condition is past, the sane genius discriminates clearly +between what has been given in this parenthetic state of excitement, and +what he has known, and may count on, in the ordinary world of +experience. Dante seems to have expressed these conditions perfectly in +that passage of the _Purgatorio_ where, after a triple vision which has +made him forget his surroundings, he says-- + + "Quando l'anima mia tornò di fuori + Alle cose che son fuor di lei vere, + Io riconobbi i miei non falsi errori."--(c xv.) + +He distinguishes the ideal truth of his entranced vision from the series +of external facts to which his consciousness had returned. Isaiah gives +us the date of his vision in the Temple--"the year that King Uzziah +died"--and if afterwards the mighty-winged seraphim were present with +him as he trod the street, he doubtless knew them for images of memory, +and did not cry "Look!" to the passers-by. + +Certainly the seer, whether prophet, philosopher, scientific discoverer, +or poet, may happen to be rather mad: his powers may have been used up, +like Don Quixote's, in their visionary or theoretic constructions, so +that the reports of common-sense fail to affect him, or the continuous +strain of excitement may have robbed his mind of its elasticity. It is +hard for our frail mortality to carry the burthen of greatness with +steady gait and full alacrity of perception. But he is the strongest +seer who can support the stress of creative energy and yet keep that +sanity of expectation which consists in distinguishing, as Dante does, +between the _cose che son vere_ outside the individual mind, and the +_non falsi errori_ which are the revelations of true imaginative power. + + + + +XIV. + + +THE TOO READY WRITER + +One who talks too much, hindering the rest of the company from taking +their turn, and apparently seeing no reason why they should not rather +desire to know his opinion or experience in relation to all subjects, or +at least to renounce the discussion of any topic where he can make no +figure, has never been praised for this industrious monopoly of work +which others would willingly have shared in. However various and +brilliant his talk may be, we suspect him of impoverishing us by +excluding the contributions of other minds, which attract our curiosity +the more because he has shut them up in silence. Besides, we get tired +of a "manner" in conversation as in painting, when one theme after +another is treated with the same lines and touches. I begin with a +liking for an estimable master, but by the time he has stretched his +interpretation of the world unbrokenly along a palatial gallery, I have +had what the cautious Scotch mind would call "enough" of him. There is +monotony and narrowness already to spare in my own identity; what comes +to me from without should be larger and more impartial than the judgment +of any single interpreter. On this ground even a modest person, without +power or will to shine in the conversation, may easily find the +predominating talker a nuisance, while those who are full of matter on +special topics are continually detecting miserably thin places in the +web of that information which he will not desist from imparting. Nobody +that I know of ever proposed a testimonial to a man for thus +volunteering the whole expense of the conversation. + +Why is there a different standard of judgment with regard to a writer +who plays much the same part in literature as the excessive talker plays +in what is traditionally called conversation? The busy Adrastus, whose +professional engagements might seem more than enough for the nervous +energy of one man, and who yet finds time to print essays on the chief +current subjects, from the tri-lingual inscriptions, or the Idea of the +Infinite among the prehistoric Lapps, to the Colorado beetle and the +grape disease in the south of France, is generally praised if not +admired for the breadth of his mental range and his gigantic powers of +work. Poor Theron, who has some original ideas on a subject to which he +has given years of research and meditation, has been waiting anxiously +from month to month to see whether his condensed exposition will find a +place in the next advertised programme, but sees it, on the contrary, +regularly excluded, and twice the space he asked for filled with the +copious brew of Adrastus, whose name carries custom like a celebrated +trade-mark. Why should the eager haste to tell what he thinks on the +shortest notice, as if his opinion were a needed preliminary to +discussion, get a man the reputation of being a conceited bore in +conversation, when nobody blames the same tendency if it shows itself in +print? The excessive talker can only be in one gathering at a time, and +there is the comfort of thinking that everywhere else other +fellow-citizens who have something to say may get a chance of delivering +themselves; but the exorbitant writer can occupy space and spread over +it the more or less agreeable flavour of his mind in four "mediums" at +once, and on subjects taken from the four winds. Such restless and +versatile occupants of literary space and time should have lived earlier +when the world wanted summaries of all extant knowledge, and this +knowledge being small, there was the more room for commentary and +conjecture. They might have played the part of an Isidor of Seville or a +Vincent of Beauvais brilliantly, and the willingness to write everything +themselves would have been strictly in place. In the present day, the +busy retailer of other people's knowledge which he has spoiled in the +handling, the restless guesser and commentator, the importunate hawker +of undesirable superfluities, the everlasting word-compeller who rises +early in the morning to praise what the world has already glorified, or +makes himself haggard at night in writing out his dissent from what +nobody ever believed, is not simply "gratis anhelans, multa agendo nihil +agens"--he is an obstruction. Like an incompetent architect with too +much interest at his back, he obtrudes his ill-considered work where +place ought to have been left to better men. + +Is it out of the question that we should entertain some scruple about +mixing our own flavour, as of the too cheap and insistent nutmeg, with +that of every great writer and every great subject?--especially when our +flavour is all we have to give, the matter or knowledge having been +already given by somebody else. What if we were only like the Spanish +wine-skins which impress the innocent stranger with the notion that the +Spanish grape has naturally a taste of leather? One could wish that even +the greatest minds should leave some themes unhandled, or at least leave +us no more than a paragraph or two on them to show how well they did in +not being more lengthy. + +Such entertainment of scruple can hardly be expected from the young; but +happily their readiness to mirror the universe anew for the rest of +mankind is not encouraged by easy publicity. In the vivacious Pepin I +have often seen the image of my early youth, when it seemed to me +astonishing that the philosophers had left so many difficulties +unsolved, and that so many great themes had raised no great poet to +treat them. I had an elated sense that I should find my brain full of +theoretic clues when I looked for them, and that wherever a poet had not +done what I expected, it was for want of my insight. Not knowing what +had been said about the play of Romeo and Juliet, I felt myself capable +of writing something original on its blemishes and beauties. In relation +to all subjects I had a joyous consciousness of that ability which is +prior to knowledge, and of only needing to apply myself in order to +master any task--to conciliate philosophers whose systems were at +present but dimly known to me, to estimate foreign poets whom I had not +yet read, to show up mistakes in an historical monograph that roused my +interest in an epoch which I had been hitherto ignorant of, when I +should once have had time to verify my views of probability by looking +into an encyclopaedia. So Pepin; save only that he is industrious while +I was idle. Like the astronomer in Rasselas, I swayed the universe in my +consciousness without making any difference outside me; whereas Pepin, +while feeling himself powerful with the stars in their courses, really +raises some dust here below. He is no longer in his spring-tide, but +having been always busy he has been obliged to use his first impressions +as if they were deliberate opinions, and to range himself on the +corresponding side in ignorance of much that he commits himself to; so +that he retains some characteristics of a comparatively tender age, and +among them a certain surprise that there have not been more persons +equal to himself. Perhaps it is unfortunate for him that he early gained +a hearing, or at least a place in print, and was thus encouraged in +acquiring a fixed habit of writing, to the exclusion of any other +bread-winning pursuit. He is already to be classed as a "general +writer," corresponding to the comprehensive wants of the "general +reader," and with this industry on his hands it is not enough for him to +keep up the ingenuous self-reliance of youth: he finds himself under an +obligation to be skilled in various methods of seeming to know; and +having habitually expressed himself before he was convinced, his +interest in all subjects is chiefly to ascertain that he has not made a +mistake, and to feel his infallibility confirmed. That impulse to +decide, that vague sense of being able to achieve the unattempted, that +dream of aerial unlimited movement at will without feet or wings, which +were once but the joyous mounting of young sap, are already taking shape +as unalterable woody fibre: the impulse has hardened into "style," and +into a pattern of peremptory sentences; the sense of ability in the +presence of other men's failures is turning into the official arrogance +of one who habitually issues directions which he has never himself been +called on to execute; the dreamy buoyancy of the stripling has taken on +a fatal sort of reality in written pretensions which carry consequences. +He is on the way to become like the loud-buzzing, bouncing Bombus who +combines conceited illusions enough to supply several patients in a +lunatic asylum with the freedom to show himself at large in various +forms of print. If one who takes himself for the telegraphic centre of +all American wires is to be confined as unfit to transact affairs, what +shall we say to the man who believes himself in possession of the +unexpressed motives and designs dwelling in the breasts of all +sovereigns and all politicians? And I grieve to think that poor Pepin, +though less political, may by-and-by manifest a persuasion hardly more +sane, for he is beginning to explain people's writing by what he does +not know about them. Yet he was once at the comparatively innocent stage +which I have confessed to be that of my own early astonishment at my +powerful originality; and copying the just humility of the old Puritan, +I may say, "But for the grace of discouragement, this coxcombry might +have been mine." + +Pepin made for himself a necessity of writing (and getting printed) +before he had considered whether he had the knowledge or belief that +would furnish eligible matter. At first perhaps the necessity galled him +a little, but it is now as easily borne, nay, is as irrepressible a +habit as the outpouring of inconsiderate talk. He is gradually being +condemned to have no genuine impressions, no direct consciousness of +enjoyment or the reverse from the quality of what is before him: his +perceptions are continually arranging themselves in forms suitable to a +printed judgment, and hence they will often turn out to be as much to +the purpose if they are written without any direct contemplation of the +object, and are guided by a few external conditions which serve to +classify it for him. In this way he is irrevocably losing the faculty of +accurate mental vision: having bound himself to express judgments which +will satisfy some other demands than that of veracity, he has blunted +his perceptions by continual preoccupation. We cannot command veracity +at will: the power of seeing and reporting truly is a form of health +that has to be delicately guarded, and as an ancient Rabbi has solemnly +said, "The penalty of untruth is untruth." But Pepin is only a mild +example of the fact that incessant writing with a view to printing +carries internal consequences which have often the nature of disease. +And however unpractical it may be held to consider whether we have +anything to print which it is good for the world to read, or which has +not been better said before, it will perhaps be allowed to be worth +considering what effect the printing may have on ourselves. Clearly +there is a sort of writing which helps to keep the writer in a +ridiculously contented ignorance; raising in him continually the sense +of having delivered himself effectively, so that the acquirement of more +thorough knowledge seems as superfluous as the purchase of costume for a +past occasion. He has invested his vanity (perhaps his hope of income) +in his own shallownesses and mistakes, and must desire their prosperity. +Like the professional prophet, he learns to be glad of the harm that +keeps up his credit, and to be sorry for the good that contradicts him. +It is hard enough for any of us, amid the changing winds of fortune and +the hurly-burly of events, to keep quite clear of a gladness which is +another's calamity; but one may choose not to enter on a course which +will turn such gladness into a fixed habit of mind, committing ourselves +to be continually pleased that others should appear to be wrong in order +that we may have the air of being right. + +In some cases, perhaps, it might be urged that Pepin has remained the +more self-contented because he has _not_ written everything he believed +himself capable of. He once asked me to read a sort of programme of the +species of romance which he should think it worth while to write--a +species which he contrasted in strong terms with the productions of +illustrious but overrated authors in this branch. Pepin's romance was to +present the splendours of the Roman Empire at the culmination of its +grandeur, when decadence was spiritually but not visibly imminent: it +was to show the workings of human passion in the most pregnant and +exalted of human circumstances, the designs of statesmen, the +interfusion of philosophies, the rural relaxation and converse of +immortal poets, the majestic triumphs of warriors, the mingling of the +quaint and sublime in religious ceremony, the gorgeous delirium of +gladiatorial shows, and under all the secretly working leaven of +Christianity. Such a romance would not call the attention of society to +the dialect of stable-boys, the low habits of rustics, the vulgarity of +small schoolmasters, the manners of men in livery, or to any other form +of uneducated talk and sentiments: its characters would have virtues and +vices alike on the grand scale, and would express themselves in an +English representing the discourse of the most powerful minds in the +best Latin, or possibly Greek, when there occurred a scene with a Greek +philosopher on a visit to Rome or resident there as a teacher. In this +way Pepin would do in fiction what had never been done before: something +not at all like 'Rienzi' or 'Notre Dame de Paris,' or any other attempt +of that kind; but something at once more penetrating and more +magnificent, more passionate and more philosophical, more panoramic yet +more select: something that would present a conception of a gigantic +period; in short something truly Roman and world-historical. + +When Pepin gave me this programme to read he was much younger than at +present. Some slight success in another vein diverted him from the +production of panoramic and select romance, and the experience of not +having tried to carry out his programme has naturally made him more +biting and sarcastic on the failures of those who have actually written +romances without apparently having had a glimpse of a conception equal +to his. Indeed, I am often comparing his rather touchingly inflated +_naïveté_ as of a small young person walking on tiptoe while he is +talking of elevated things, at the time when he felt himself the author +of that unwritten romance, with his present epigrammatic curtness and +affectation of power kept strictly in reserve. His paragraphs now seem +to have a bitter smile in them, from the consciousness of a mind too +penetrating to accept any other man's ideas, and too equally competent +in all directions to seclude his power in any one form of creation, but +rather fitted to hang over them all as a lamp of guidance to the +stumblers below. You perceive how proud he is of not being indebted to +any writer: even with the dead he is on the creditor's side, for he is +doing them the service of letting the world know what they meant better +than those poor pre-Pepinians themselves had any means of doing, and he +treats the mighty shades very cavalierly. + +Is this fellow-citizen of ours, considered simply in the light of a +baptised Christian and tax-paying Englishman, really as madly +conceited, as empty of reverential feeling, as unveracious and careless +of justice, as full of catch-penny devices and stagey attitudinising as +on examination his writing shows itself to be? By no means. He has +arrived at his present pass in "the literary calling" through the +self-imposed obligation to give himself a manner which would convey the +impression of superior knowledge and ability. He is much worthier and +more admirable than his written productions, because the moral aspects +exhibited in his writing are felt to be ridiculous or disgraceful in the +personal relations of life. In blaming Pepin's writing we are accusing +the public conscience, which is so lax and ill informed on the momentous +bearings of authorship that it sanctions the total absence of scruple in +undertaking and prosecuting what should be the best warranted of +vocations. + +Hence I still accept friendly relations with Pepin, for he has much +private amiability, and though he probably thinks of me as a man of +slender talents, without rapidity of _coup d'oeil_ and with no +compensatory penetration, he meets me very cordially, and would not, I +am sure, willingly pain me in conversation by crudely declaring his low +estimate of my capacity. Yet I have often known him to insult my betters +and contribute (perhaps unreflectingly) to encourage injurious +conceptions of them--but that was done in the course of his professional +writing, and the public conscience still leaves such writing nearly on +the level of the Merry-Andrew's dress, which permits an impudent +deportment and extraordinary gambols to one who in his ordinary clothing +shows himself the decent father of a family. + + + + +XV. + + +DISEASES OF SMALL AUTHORSHIP + +Particular callings, it is known, encourage particular diseases. There +is a painter's colic: the Sheffield grinder falls a victim to the +inhalation of steel dust: clergymen so often have a certain kind of sore +throat that this otherwise secular ailment gets named after them. And +perhaps, if we were to inquire, we should find a similar relation +between certain moral ailments and these various occupations, though +here in the case of clergymen there would be specific differences: the +poor curate, equally with the rector, is liable to clergyman's sore +throat, but he would probably be found free from the chronic moral +ailments encouraged by the possession of glebe and those higher chances +of preferment which follow on having a good position already. On the +other hand, the poor curate might have severe attacks of calculating +expectancy concerning parishioners' turkeys, cheeses, and fat geese, or +of uneasy rivalry for the donations of clerical charities. + +Authors are so miscellaneous a class that +their personified diseases, physical and moral, +might include the whole procession of human +disorders, led by dyspepsia and ending in +madness--the awful Dumb Show of a world-historic +tragedy. Take a large enough area +of human life and all comedy melts into +tragedy, like the Fool's part by the side of +Lear. The chief scenes get filled with erring +heroes, guileful usurpers, persecuted discoverers, +dying deliverers: everywhere the +protagonist has a part pregnant with doom. +The comedy sinks to an accessory, and if there +are loud laughs they seem a convulsive transition +from sobs; or if the comedy is touched +with a gentle lovingness, the panoramic scene +is one where + + "Sadness is a kind of mirth + So mingled as if mirth did make us sad + And sadness merry."[1] + +[Footnote 1: Two Noble Kinsmen.] + +But I did not set out on the wide survey that would carry me into +tragedy, and in fact had nothing more serious in my mind than certain +small chronic ailments that come of small authorship. I was thinking +principally of Vorticella, who flourished in my youth not only as a +portly lady walking in silk attire, but also as the authoress of a book +entitled 'The Channel Islands, with Notes and an Appendix.' I would by +no means make it a reproach to her that she wrote no more than one book; +on the contrary, her stopping there seems to me a laudable example. What +one would have wished, after experience, was that she had refrained from +producing even that single volume, and thus from giving her +self-importance a troublesome kind of double incorporation which became +oppressive to her acquaintances, and set up in herself one of those +slight chronic forms of disease to which I have just referred. She lived +in the considerable provincial town of Pumpiter, which had its own +newspaper press, with the usual divisions of political partisanship and +the usual varieties of literary criticism--the florid and allusive, the +_staccato_ and peremptory, the clairvoyant and prophetic, the safe and +pattern-phrased, or what one might call "the many-a-long-day style." + +Vorticella being the wife of an important townsman had naturally the +satisfaction of seeing 'The Channel Islands' reviewed by all the organs +of Pumpiter opinion, and their articles or paragraphs held as naturally +the opening pages in the elegantly bound album prepared by her for the +reception of "critical opinions." This ornamental volume lay on a +special table in her drawing-room close to the still more gorgeously +bound work of which it was the significant effect, and every guest was +allowed the privilege of reading what had been said of the authoress and +her work in the 'Pumpiter Gazette and Literary Watchman,' the 'Pumpshire +Post,' the 'Church Clock,' the 'Independent Monitor,' and the lively but +judicious publication known as the 'Medley Pie;' to be followed up, if +he chose, by the instructive perusal of the strikingly confirmatory +judgments, sometimes concurrent in the very phrases, of journals from +the most distant counties; as the 'Latchgate Argus,' the Penllwy +Universe,' the 'Cockaleekie Advertiser,' the 'Goodwin Sands Opinion,' +and the 'Land's End Times.' + +I had friends in Pumpiter and occasionally paid a long visit there. When +I called on Vorticella, who had a cousinship with my hosts, she had to +excuse herself because a message claimed her attention for eight or ten +minutes, and handing me the album of critical opinions said, with a +certain emphasis which, considering my youth, was highly complimentary, +that she would really like me to read what I should find there. This +seemed a permissive politeness which I could not feel to be an +oppression, and I ran my eyes over the dozen pages, each with a strip or +islet of newspaper in the centre, with that freedom of mind (in my case +meaning freedom to forget) which would be a perilous way of preparing +for examination. This _ad libitum_ perusal had its interest for me. The +private truth being that I had not read 'The Channel Islands,' I was +amazed at the variety of matter which the volume must contain to have +impressed these different judges with the writer's surpassing capacity +to handle almost all branches of inquiry and all forms of presentation. +In Jersey she had shown herself an historian, in Guernsey a poetess, in +Alderney a political economist, and in Sark a humorist: there were +sketches of character scattered through the pages which might put our +"fictionists" to the blush; the style was eloquent and racy, studded +with gems of felicitous remark; and the moral spirit throughout was so +superior that, said one, "the recording angel" (who is not supposed to +take account of literature as such) "would assuredly set down the work +as a deed of religion." The force of this eulogy on the part of several +reviewers was much heightened by the incidental evidence of their +fastidious and severe taste, which seemed to suffer considerably from +the imperfections of our chief writers, even the dead and canonised: one +afflicted them with the smell of oil, another lacked erudition and +attempted (though vainly) to dazzle them with trivial conceits, one +wanted to be more philosophical than nature had made him, another in +attempting to be comic produced the melancholy effect of a half-starved +Merry-Andrew; while one and all, from the author of the 'Areopagitica' +downwards, had faults of style which must have made an able hand in the +'Latchgate Argus' shake the many-glanced head belonging thereto with a +smile of compassionate disapproval. Not so the authoress of 'The Channel +Islands:' Vorticella and Shakspere were allowed to be faultless. I +gathered that no blemishes were observable in the work of this +accomplished writer, and the repeated information that she was "second +to none" seemed after this superfluous. Her thick octavo--notes, +appendix and all--was unflagging from beginning to end; and the 'Land's +End Times,' using a rather dangerous rhetorical figure, recommended you +not to take up the volume unless you had leisure to finish it at a +sitting. It had given one writer more pleasure than he had had for many +a long day--a sentence which had a melancholy resonance, suggesting a +life of studious languor such as all previous achievements of the human +mind failed to stimulate into enjoyment. I think the collection of +critical opinions wound up with this sentence, and I had turned back to +look at the lithographed sketch of the authoress which fronted the first +page of the album, when the fair original re-entered and I laid down the +volume on its appropriate table. + +"Well, what do you think of them?" said Vorticella, with an emphasis +which had some significance unperceived by me. "I know you are a great +student. Give me _your_ opinion of these opinions." + +"They must be very gratifying to you," I answered with a little +confusion, for I perceived that I might easily mistake my footing, and I +began to have a presentiment of an examination for which I was by no +means crammed. + +"On the whole--yes," said Vorticella, in a tone of concession. "A few of +the notices are written with some pains, but not one of them has really +grappled with the chief idea in the appendix. I don't know whether you +have studied political economy, but you saw what I said on page 398 +about the Jersey fisheries?" + +I bowed--I confess it--with the mean hope that this movement in the nape +of my neck would be taken as sufficient proof that I had read, marked, +and learned. I do not forgive myself for this pantomimic falsehood, but +I was young and morally timorous, and Vorticella's personality had an +effect on me something like that of a powerful mesmeriser when he +directs all his ten fingers towards your eyes, as unpleasantly visible +ducts for the invisible stream. I felt a great power of contempt in her, +if I did not come up to her expectations. + +"Well," she resumed, "you observe that not one of them has taken up that +argument. But I hope I convinced you about the drag-nets?" + +Here was a judgment on me. Orientally speaking, I had lifted up my foot +on the steep descent of falsity and was compelled to set it down on a +lower level. "I should think you must be right," said I, inwardly +resolving that on the next topic I would tell the truth. + +"I _know_ that I am right," said Vorticella. "The fact is that no critic +in this town is fit to meddle with such subjects, unless it be Volvox, +and he, with all his command of language, is very superficial. It is +Volvox who writes in the 'Monitor,' I hope you noticed how he +contradicts himself?" + +My resolution, helped by the equivalence of dangers, stoutly prevailed, +and I said, "No." + +"No! I am surprised. He is the only one who finds fault with me. He is +a Dissenter, you know. The 'Monitor' is the Dissenters' organ, but my +husband has been so useful to them in municipal affairs that they would +not venture to run my book down; they feel obliged to tell the truth +about me. Still Volvox betrays himself. After praising me for my +penetration and accuracy, he presently says I have allowed myself to be +imposed upon and have let my active imagination run away with me. That +is like his dissenting impertinence. Active my imagination may be, but I +have it under control. Little Vibrio, who writes the playful notice in +the 'Medley Pie,' has a clever hit at Volvox in that passage about the +steeplechase of imagination, where the loser wants to make it appear +that the winner was only run away with. But if you did not notice +Volvox's self-contradiction you would not see the point," added +Vorticella, with rather a chilling intonation. "Or perhaps you did not +read the 'Medley Pie' notice? That is a pity. Do take up the book again. +Vibrio is a poor little tippling creature, but, as Mr Carlyle would say, +he has an eye, and he is always lively." + +I did take up the book again, and read as demanded. + +"It is very ingenious," said I, really appreciating the difficulty of +being lively in this connection: it seemed even more wonderful than that +a Vibrio should have an eye. + +"You are probably surprised to see no notices from the London press," +said Vorticella. "I have one--a very remarkable one. But I reserve it +until the others have spoken, and then I shall introduce it to wind up. +I shall have them reprinted, of course, and inserted in future copies. +This from the 'Candelabrum' is only eight lines in length, but full of +venom. It calls my style dull and pompous. I think that will tell its +own tale, placed after the other critiques." + +"People's impressions are so different," said I. "Some persons find 'Don +Quixote' dull." + +"Yes," said Vorticella, in emphatic chest tones, "dulness is a matter of +opinion; but pompous! That I never was and never could be. Perhaps he +means that my matter is too important for his taste; and I have no +objection to _that_. I did not intend to be trivial. I should just like +to read you that passage about the drag-nets, because I could make it +clearer to you." + +A second (less ornamental) copy was at her elbow and was already opened, +when to my great relief another guest was announced, and I was able to +take my leave without seeming to run away from 'The Channel Islands,' +though not without being compelled to carry with me the loan of "the +marked copy," which I was to find advantageous in a re-perusal of the +appendix, and was only requested to return before my departure from +Pumpiter. Looking into the volume now with some curiosity, I found it a +very ordinary combination of the commonplace and ambitious, one of those +books which one might imagine to have been written under the old Grub +Street coercion of hunger and thirst, if they were not known beforehand +to be the gratuitous productions of ladies and gentlemen whose +circumstances might be called altogether easy, but for an uneasy vanity +that happened to have been directed towards authorship. Its importance +was that of a polypus, tumour, fungus, or other erratic outgrowth, +noxious and disfiguring in its effect on the individual organism which +nourishes it. Poor Vorticella might not have been more wearisome on a +visit than the majority of her neighbours, but for this disease of +magnified self-importance belonging to small authorship. I understand +that the chronic complaint of 'The Channel Islands' never left her. As +the years went on and the publication tended to vanish in the distance +for her neighbours' memory, she was still bent on dragging it to the +foreground, and her chief interest in new acquaintances was the +possibility of lending them her book, entering into all details +concerning it, and requesting them to read her album of "critical +opinions." This really made her more tiresome than Gregarina, whose +distinction was that she had had cholera, and who did not feel herself +in her true position with strangers until they knew it. + +My experience with Vorticella led me for a time into the false +supposition that this sort of fungous disfiguration, which makes Self +disagreeably larger, was most common to the female sex; but I presently +found that here too the male could assert his superiority and show a +more vigorous boredom. I have known a man with a single pamphlet +containing an assurance that somebody else was wrong, together with a +few approved quotations, produce a more powerful effect of shuddering at +his approach than ever Vorticella did with her varied octavo volume, +including notes and appendix. Males of more than one nation recur to my +memory who produced from their pocket on the slightest encouragement a +small pink or buff duodecimo pamphlet, wrapped in silver paper, as a +present held ready for an intelligent reader. "A mode of propagandism," +you remark in excuse; "they wished to spread some useful corrective +doctrine." Not necessarily: the indoctrination aimed at was perhaps to +convince you of their own talents by the sample of an "Ode on +Shakspere's Birthday," or a translation from Horace. + +Vorticella may pair off with Monas, who had also written his one +book--'Here and There; or, a Trip from Truro to Transylvania'--and not +only carried it in his portmanteau when he went on visits, but took the +earliest opportunity of depositing it in the drawing-room, and +afterwards would enter to look for it, as if under pressure of a need +for reference, begging the lady of the house to tell him whether she, +had seen "a small volume bound in red." One hostess at last ordered it +to be carried into his bedroom to save his time; but it presently +reappeared in his hands, and was again left with inserted slips of paper +on the drawing-room table. + +Depend upon it, vanity is human, native alike to men and women; only in +the male it is of denser texture, less volatile, so that it less +immediately informs you of its presence, but is more massive and capable +of knocking you down if you come into collision with it; while in women +vanity lays by its small revenges as in a needle-case always at hand. +The difference is in muscle and finger-tips, in traditional habits and +mental perspective, rather than in the original appetite of vanity. It +is an approved method now to explain ourselves by a reference to the +races as little like us as possible, which leads me to observe that in +Fiji the men use the most elaborate hair-dressing, and that wherever +tattooing is in vogue the male expects to carry off the prize of +admiration for pattern and workmanship. Arguing analogically, and +looking for this tendency of the Fijian or Hawaian male in the eminent +European, we must suppose that it exhibits itself under the forms of +civilised apparel; and it would be a great mistake to estimate +passionate effort by the effect it produces on our perception or +understanding. It is conceivable that a man may have concentrated no +less will and expectation on his wristbands, gaiters, and the shape of +his hat-brim, or an appearance which impresses you as that of the modern +"swell," than the Ojibbeway on an ornamentation which seems to us much +more elaborate. In what concerns the search for admiration at least, it +is not true that the effect is equal to the cause and resembles it. The +cause of a flat curl on the masculine forehead, such as might be seen +when George the Fourth was king, must have been widely different in +quality and intensity from the impression made by that small scroll of +hair on the organ of the beholder. Merely to maintain an attitude and +gait which I notice in certain club men, and especially an inflation of +the chest accompanying very small remarks, there goes, I am convinced, +an expenditure of psychical energy little appreciated by the +multitude--a mental vision of Self and deeply impressed beholders which +is quite without antitype in what we call the effect produced by that +hidden process. + +No! there is no need to admit that women would carry away the prize of +vanity in a competition where differences of custom were fairly +considered. A man cannot show his vanity in a tight skirt which forces +him to walk sideways down the staircase; but let the match be between +the respective vanities of largest beard and tightest skirt, and here +too the battle would be to the strong. + + + + +XVI. + + +MORAL SWINDLERS. + +It is a familiar example of irony in the degradation of words that "what +a man is worth" has come to mean how much money he possesses; but there +seems a deeper and more melancholy irony in the shrunken meaning that +popular or polite speech assigns to "morality" and "morals." The poor +part these words are made to play recalls the fate of those pagan +divinities who, after being understood to rule the powers of the air and +the destinies of men, came down to the level of insignificant demons, or +were even made a farcical show for the amusement of the multitude. + +Talking to Melissa in a time of commercial trouble, I found her disposed +to speak pathetically of the disgrace which had fallen on Sir Gavial +Mantrap, because of his conduct in relation to the Eocene Mines, and to +other companies ingeniously devised by him for the punishment of +ignorance in people of small means: a disgrace by which the poor titled +gentleman was actually reduced to live in comparative obscurity on his +wife's settlement of one or two hundred thousand in the consols. + +"Surely your pity is misapplied," said I, rather dubiously, for I like +the comfort of trusting that a correct moral judgment is the strong +point in woman (seeing that she has a majority of about a million in our +islands), and I imagined that Melissa might have some unexpressed +grounds for her opinion. "I should have thought you would rather be +sorry for Mantrap's victims--the widows, spinsters, and hard-working +fathers whom his unscrupulous haste to make himself rich has cheated of +all their savings, while he is eating well, lying softly, and after +impudently justifying himself before the public, is perhaps joining in +the General Confession with a sense that he is an acceptable object in +the sight of God, though decent men refuse to meet him." + +"Oh, all that about the Companies, I know, was most unfortunate. In +commerce people are led to do so many things, and he might not know +exactly how everything would turn out. But Sir Gavial made a good use of +his money, and he is a thoroughly _moral_ man." + +"What do you mean by a thoroughly moral man?" said I. + +"Oh, I suppose every one means the same by that," said Melissa, with a +slight air of rebuke. "Sir Gavial is an excellent family man--quite +blameless there; and so charitable round his place at Tiptop. Very +different from Mr Barabbas, whose life, my husband tells me, is most +objectionable, with actresses and that sort of thing. I think a man's +morals should make a difference to us. I'm not sorry for Mr Barabbas, +but _I am_ sorry for Sir Gavial Mantrap." + +I will not repeat my answer to Melissa, for I fear it was offensively +brusque, my opinion being that Sir Gavial was the more pernicious +scoundrel of the two, since his name for virtue served as an effective +part of a swindling apparatus; and perhaps I hinted that to call such a +man moral showed rather a silly notion of human affairs. In fact, I had +an angry wish to be instructive, and Melissa, as will sometimes happen, +noticed my anger without appropriating my instruction, for I have since +heard that she speaks of me as rather violent-tempered, and not over +strict in my views of morality. + +I wish that this narrow use of words which are wanted in their full +meaning were confined to women like Melissa. Seeing that Morality and +Morals under their _alias_ of Ethics are the subject of voluminous +discussion, and their true basis a pressing matter of dispute--seeing +that the most famous book ever written on Ethics, and forming a chief +study in our colleges, allies ethical with political science or that +which treats of the constitution and prosperity of States, one might +expect that educated men would find reason to avoid a perversion of +language which lends itself to no wider view of life than that of +village gossips. Yet I find even respectable historians of our own and +of foreign countries, after showing that a king was treacherous, +rapacious, and ready to sanction gross breaches in the administration of +justice, end by praising him for his pure moral character, by which one +must suppose them to mean that he was not lewd nor debauched, not the +European twin of the typical Indian potentate whom Macaulay describes as +passing his life in chewing bang and fondling dancing-girls. And since +we are sometimes told of such maleficent kings that they were religious, +we arrive at the curious result that the most serious wide-reaching +duties of man lie quite outside both Morality and Religion--the one of +these consisting in not keeping mistresses (and perhaps not drinking too +much), and the other in certain ritual and spiritual transactions with +God which can be carried on equally well side by side with the basest +conduct towards men. With such a classification as this it is no wonder, +considering the strong reaction of language on thought, that many minds, +dizzy with indigestion of recent science and philosophy, are far to seek +for the grounds of social duty, and without entertaining any private +intention of committing a perjury which would ruin an innocent man, or +seeking gain by supplying bad preserved meats to our navy, feel +themselves speculatively obliged to inquire why they should not do so, +and are inclined to measure their intellectual subtlety by their +dissatisfaction with all answers to this "Why?" It is of little use to +theorise in ethics while our habitual phraseology stamps the larger part +of our social duties as something that lies aloof from the deepest needs +and affections of our nature. The informal definitions of popular +language are the only medium through which theory really affects the +mass of minds even among the nominally educated; and when a man whose +business hours, the solid part of every day, are spent in an +unscrupulous course of public or private action which has every +calculable chance of causing widespread injury and misery, can be called +moral because he comes home to dine with his wife and children and +cherishes the happiness of his own hearth, the augury is not good for +the use of high ethical and theological disputation. + +Not for one moment would one willingly lose sight of the truth that the +relation of the sexes and the primary ties of kinship are the deepest +roots of human wellbeing, but to make them by themselves the equivalent +of morality is verbally to cut off the channels of feeling through +which they are the feeders of that wellbeing. They are the original +fountains of a sensibility to the claims of others, which is the bond of +societies; but being necessarily in the first instance a private good, +there is always the danger that individual selfishness will see in them +only the best part of its own gain; just as knowledge, navigation, +commerce, and all the conditions which are of a nature to awaken men's +consciousness of their mutual dependence and to make the world one great +society, are the occasions of selfish, unfair action, of war and +oppression, so long as the public conscience or chief force of feeling +and opinion is not uniform and strong enough in its insistance on what +is demanded by the general welfare. And among the influences that must +retard a right public judgment, the degradation of words which involve +praise and blame will be reckoned worth protesting against by every +mature observer. To rob words of half their meaning, while they retain +their dignity as qualifications, is like allowing to men who have lost +half their faculties the same high and perilous command which they won +in their time of vigour; or like selling food and seeds after +fraudulently abstracting their best virtues: in each case what ought to +be beneficently strong is fatally enfeebled, if not empoisoned. Until we +have altered our dictionaries and have found some other word than +_morality_ to stand in popular use for the duties of man to man, let us +refuse to accept as moral the contractor who enriches himself by using +large machinery to make pasteboard soles pass as leather for the feet of +unhappy conscripts fighting at miserable odds against invaders: let us +rather call him a miscreant, though he were the tenderest, most faithful +of husbands, and contend that his own experience of home happiness makes +his reckless infliction of suffering on others all the more atrocious. +Let us refuse to accept as moral any political leader who should allow +his conduct in relation to great issues to be determined by egoistic +passion, and boldly say that he would be less immoral even though he +were as lax in his personal habits as Sir Robert Walpole, if at the same +time his sense of the public welfare were supreme in his mind, quelling +all pettier impulses beneath a magnanimous impartiality. And though we +were to find among that class of journalists who live by recklessly +reporting injurious rumours, insinuating the blackest motives in +opponents, descanting at large and with an air of infallibility on +dreams which they both find and interpret, and stimulating bad feeling +between nations by abusive writing which is as empty of real conviction +as the rage of a pantomime king, and would be ludicrous if its effects +did not make it appear diabolical--though we were to find among these a +man who was benignancy itself in his own circle, a healer of private +differences, a soother in private calamities, let us pronounce him +nevertheless flagrantly immoral, a root of hideous cancer in the +commonwealth, turning the channels of instruction into feeders of social +and political disease. + +In opposite ways one sees bad effects likely to be encouraged by this +narrow use of the word _morals_, shutting out from its meaning half +those actions of a man's life which tell momentously on the wellbeing of +his fellow-citizens, and on the preparation of a future for the children +growing up around him. Thoroughness of workmanship, care in the +execution of every task undertaken, as if it were the acceptance of a +trust which it would be a breach of faith not to discharge well, is a +form of duty so momentous that if it were to die out from the feeling +and practice of a people, all reforms of institutions would be helpless +to create national prosperity and national happiness. Do we desire to +see public spirit penetrating all classes of the community and affecting +every man's conduct, so that he shall make neither the saving of his +soul nor any other private saving an excuse for indifference to the +general welfare? Well and good. But the sort of public spirit that +scamps its bread-winning work, whether with the trowel, the pen, or the +overseeing brain, that it may hurry to scenes of political or social +agitation, would be as baleful a gift to our people as any malignant +demon could devise. One best part of educational training is that which +comes through special knowledge and manipulative or other skill, with +its usual accompaniment of delight, in relation to work which is the +daily bread-winning occupation--which is a man's contribution to the +effective wealth of society in return for what he takes as his own +share. But this duty of doing one's proper work well, and taking care +that every product of one's labour shall be genuinely what it pretends +to be, is not only left out of morals in popular speech, it is very +little insisted on by public teachers, at least in the only effective +way--by tracing the continuous effects of ill-done work. Some of them +seem to be still hopeful that it will follow as a necessary consequence +from week-day services, ecclesiastical decoration, and improved +hymn-books; others apparently trust to descanting on self-culture in +general, or to raising a general sense of faulty circumstances; and +meanwhile lax, make-shift work, from the high conspicuous kind to the +average and obscure, is allowed to pass unstamped with the disgrace of +immorality, though there is not a member of society who is not daily +suffering from it materially and spiritually, and though it is the fatal +cause that must degrade our national rank and our commerce in spite of +all open markets and discovery of available coal-seams. + +I suppose one may take the popular misuse of the words Morality and +Morals as some excuse for certain absurdities which are occasional +fashions in speech and writing--certain old lay-figures, as ugly as the +queerest Asiatic idol, which at different periods get propped into +loftiness, and attired in magnificent Venetian drapery, so that whether +they have a human face or not is of little consequence. One is, the +notion that there is a radical, irreconcilable opposition between +intellect and morality. I do not mean the simple statement of fact, +which everybody knows, that remarkably able men have had very faulty +morals, and have outraged public feeling even at its ordinary standard; +but the supposition that the ablest intellect, the highest genius, will +see through morality as a sort of twaddle for bibs and tuckers, a +doctrine of dulness, a mere incident in human stupidity. We begin to +understand the acceptance of this foolishness by considering that we +live in a society where we may hear a treacherous monarch, or a +malignant and lying politician, or a man who uses either official or +literary power as an instrument of his private partiality or hatred, or +a manufacturer who devises the falsification of wares, or a trader who +deals in virtueless seed-grains, praised or compassionated because of +his excellent morals. + +Clearly if morality meant no more than such decencies as are practised +by these poisonous members of society, it would be possible to say, +without suspicion of light-headedness, that morality lay aloof from the +grand stream of human affairs, as a small channel fed by the stream and +not missed from it. While this form of nonsense is conveyed in the +popular use of words, there must be plenty of well-dressed ignorance at +leisure to run through a box of books, which will feel itself initiated +in the freemasonry of intellect by a view of life which might take for a +Shaksperian motto-- + + "Fair is foul and foul is fair, + Hover through the fog and filthy air"-- + +and will find itself easily provided with striking conversation by the +rule of reversing all the judgments on good and evil which have come to +be the calendar and clock-work of society. But let our habitual talk +give morals their full meaning as the conduct which, in every human +relation, would follow from the fullest knowledge and the fullest +sympathy--a meaning perpetually corrected and enriched by a more +thorough appreciation of dependence in things, and a finer sensibility +to both physical and spiritual fact--and this ridiculous ascription of +superlative power to minds which have no effective awe-inspiring vision +of the human lot, no response of understanding to the connection between +duty and the material processes by which the world is kept habitable for +cultivated man, will be tacitly discredited without any need to cite the +immortal names that all are obliged to take as the measure of +intellectual rank and highly-charged genius. + +Suppose a Frenchman--I mean no disrespect to the great French nation, +for all nations are afflicted with their peculiar parasitic growths, +which are lazy, hungry forms, usually characterised by a +disproportionate swallowing apparatus: suppose a Parisian who should +shuffle down the Boulevard with a soul ignorant of the gravest cares and +the deepest tenderness of manhood, and a frame more or less fevered by +debauchery, mentally polishing into utmost refinement of phrase and +rhythm verses which were an enlargement on that Shaksperian motto, and +worthy of the most expensive title to be furnished by the vendors of +such antithetic ware as _Les_ _marguerites de l'Enfer_, or _Les délices +de Béelzébuth_. This supposed personage might probably enough regard his +negation of those moral sensibilities which make half the warp and woof +of human history, his indifference to the hard thinking and hard +handiwork of life, to which he owed even his own gauzy mental garments +with their spangles of poor paradox, as the royalty of genius, for we +are used to witness such self-crowning in many forms of mental +alienation; but he would not, I think, be taken, even by his own +generation, as a living proof that there can exist such a combination as +that of moral stupidity and trivial emphasis of personal indulgence with +the large yet finely discriminating vision which marks the intellectual +masters of our kind. Doubtless there are many sorts of transfiguration, +and a man who has come to be worthy of all gratitude and reverence may +have had his swinish period, wallowing in ugly places; but suppose it +had been handed down to us that Sophocles or Virgil had at one time made +himself scandalous in this way: the works which have consecrated their +memory for our admiration and gratitude are not a glorifying of +swinishness, but an artistic incorporation of the highest sentiment +known to their age. + +All these may seem to be wide reasons for objecting to Melissa's pity +for Sir Gavial Mantrap on the ground of his good morals; but their +connection will not be obscure to any one who has taken pains to observe +the links uniting the scattered signs of our social development. + + + + +XVII. + + +SHADOWS OF THE COMING RACE. + +My friend Trost, who is no optimist as to the state of the universe +hitherto, but is confident that at some future period within the +duration of the solar system, ours will be the best of all possible +worlds--a hope which I always honour as a sign of beneficent +qualities--my friend Trost always tries to keep up my spirits under the +sight of the extremely unpleasant and disfiguring work by which many of +our fellow-creatures have to get their bread, with the assurance that +"all this will soon be done by machinery." But he sometimes neutralises +the consolation by extending it over so large an area of human labour, +and insisting so impressively on the quantity of energy which will thus +be set free for loftier purposes, that I am tempted to desire an +occasional famine of invention in the coming ages, lest the humbler +kinds of work should be entirely nullified while there are still left +some men and women who are not fit for the highest. + +Especially, when one considers the perfunctory way in which some of the +most exalted tasks are already executed by those who are understood to +be educated for them, there rises a fearful vision of the human race +evolving machinery which will by-and-by throw itself fatally out of +work. When, in the Bank of England, I see a wondrously delicate machine +for testing sovereigns, a shrewd implacable little steel Rhadamanthus +that, once the coins are delivered up to it, lifts and balances each in +turn for the fraction of an instant, finds it wanting or sufficient, and +dismisses it to right or left with rigorous justice; when I am told of +micrometers and thermopiles and tasimeters which deal physically with +the invisible, the impalpable, and the unimaginable; of cunning wires +and wheels and pointing needles which will register your and my +quickness so as to exclude flattering opinion; of a machine for drawing +the right conclusion, which will doubtless by-and-by be improved into +an automaton for finding true premises; of a microphone which detects +the cadence of the fly's foot on the ceiling, and may be expected +presently to discriminate the noises of our various follies as they +soliloquise or converse in our brains--my mind seeming too small for +these things, I get a little out of it, like an unfortunate savage too +suddenly brought face to face with civilisation, and I exclaim-- + +"Am I already in the shadow of the Coming Race? and will the creatures +who are to transcend and finally supersede us be steely organisms, +giving out the effluvia of the laboratory, and performing with +infallible exactness more than everything that we have performed with a +slovenly approximativeness and self-defeating inaccuracy?" + +"But," says Trost, treating me with cautious mildness on hearing me vent +this raving notion, "you forget that these wonder-workers are the slaves +of our race, need our tendance and regulation, obey the mandates of our +consciousness, and are only deaf and dumb bringers of reports which we +decipher and make use of. They are simply extensions of the human +organism, so to speak, limbs immeasurably more powerful, ever more +subtle finger-tips, ever more mastery over the invisibly great and the +invisibly small. Each new machine needs a new appliance of human skill +to construct it, new devices to feed it with material, and often +keener-edged faculties to note its registrations or performances. How +then can machines supersede us?--they depend upon us. When we cease, +they cease." + +"I am not so sure of that," said I, getting back into my mind, and +becoming rather wilful in consequence. "If, as I have heard you contend, +machines as they are more and more perfected will require less and less +of tendance, how do I know that they may not be ultimately made to +carry, or may not in themselves evolve, conditions of self-supply, +self-repair, and reproduction, and not only do all the mighty and subtle +work possible on this planet better than we could do it, but with the +immense advantage of banishing from the earth's atmosphere screaming +consciousnesses which, in our comparatively clumsy race, make an +intolerable noise and fuss to each other about every petty ant-like +performance, looking on at all work only as it were to spring a rattle +here or blow a trumpet there, with a ridiculous sense of being +effective? I for my part cannot see any reason why a sufficiently +penetrating thinker, who can see his way through a thousand years or so, +should not conceive a parliament of machines, in which the manners were +excellent and the motions infallible in logic: one honourable +instrument, a remote descendant of the Voltaic family, might discharge a +powerful current (entirely without animosity) on an honourable +instrument opposite, of more upstart origin, but belonging to the +ancient edge-tool race which we already at Sheffield see paring thick +iron as if it were mellow cheese--by this unerringly directed discharge +operating on movements corresponding to what we call Estimates, and by +necessary mechanical consequence on movements corresponding to what we +call the Funds, which with a vain analogy we sometimes speak of as +"sensitive." For every machine would be perfectly educated, that is to +say, would have the suitable molecular adjustments, which would act not +the less infallibly for being free from the fussy accompaniment of that +consciousness to which our prejudice gives a supreme governing rank, +when in truth it is an idle parasite on the grand sequence of things." + +"Nothing of the sort!" returned Trost, getting angry, and judging it +kind to treat me with some severity; "what you have heard me say is, +that our race will and must act as a nervous centre to the utmost +development of mechanical processes: the subtly refined powers of +machines will react in producing more subtly refined thinking processes +which will occupy the minds set free from grosser labour. Say, for +example, that all the scavengers' work of London were done, so far as +human attention is concerned, by the occasional pressure of a brass +button (as in the ringing of an electric bell), you will then have a +multitude of brains set free for the exquisite enjoyment of dealing with +the exact sequences and high speculations supplied and prompted by the +delicate machines which yield a response to the fixed stars, and give +readings of the spiral vortices fundamentally concerned in the +production of epic poems or great judicial harangues. So far from +mankind being thrown out of work according to your notion," concluded +Trost, with a peculiar nasal note of scorn, "if it were not for your +incurable dilettanteism in science as in all other things--if you had +once understood the action of any delicate machine--you would perceive +that the sequences it carries throughout the realm of phenomena would +require many generations, perhaps aeons, of understandings considerably +stronger than yours, to exhaust the store of work it lays open." + +"Precisely," said I, with a meekness which I felt was praiseworthy; "it +is the feebleness of my capacity, bringing me nearer than you to the +human average, that perhaps enables me to imagine certain results better +than you can. Doubtless the very fishes of our rivers, gullible as they +look, and slow as they are to be rightly convinced in another order of +facts, form fewer false expectations about each other than we should +form about them if we were in a position of somewhat fuller intercourse +with their species; for even as it is we have continually to be +surprised that they do not rise to our carefully selected bait. Take me +then as a sort of reflective and experienced carp; but do not estimate +the justice of my ideas by my facial expression." + +"Pooh!" says Trost. (We are on very intimate terms.) + +"Naturally," I persisted, "it is less easy to you than to me to imagine +our race transcended and superseded, since the more energy a being is +possessed of, the harder it must be for him to conceive his own death. +But I, from the point of view of a reflective carp, can easily imagine +myself and my congeners dispensed with in the frame of things and giving +way not only to a superior but a vastly different kind of Entity. What I +would ask you is, to show me why, since each new invention casts a new +light along the pathway of discovery, and each new combination or +structure brings into play more conditions than its inventor foresaw, +there should not at length be a machine of such high mechanical and +chemical powers that it would find and assimilate the material to supply +its own waste, and then by a further evolution of internal molecular +movements reproduce itself by some process of fission or budding. This +last stage having been reached, either by man's contrivance or as an +unforeseen result, one sees that the process of natural selection must +drive men altogether out of the field; for they will long before have +begun to sink into the miserable condition of those unhappy characters +in fable who, having demons or djinns at their beck, and being obliged +to supply them with work, found too much of everything done in too short +a time. What demons so potent as molecular movements, none the less +tremendously potent for not carrying the futile cargo of a consciousness +screeching irrelevantly, like a fowl tied head downmost to the saddle of +a swift horseman? Under such uncomfortable circumstances our race will +have diminished with the diminishing call on their energies, and by the +time that the self-repairing and reproducing machines arise, all but a +few of the rare inventors, calculators, and speculators will have become +pale, pulpy, and cretinous from fatty or other degeneration, and behold +around them a scanty hydrocephalous offspring. As to the breed of the +ingenious and intellectual, their nervous systems will at last have been +overwrought in following the molecular revelations of the immensely +more powerful unconscious race, and they will naturally, as the less +energetic combinations of movement, subside like the flame of a candle +in the sunlight. Thus the feebler race, whose corporeal adjustments +happened to be accompanied with a maniacal consciousness which imagined +itself moving its mover, will have vanished, as all less adapted +existences do before the fittest--_i.e._, the existence composed of the +most persistent groups of movements and the most capable of +incorporating new groups in harmonious relation. Who--if our +consciousness is, as I have been given to understand, a mere stumbling +of our organisms on their way to unconscious perfection--who shall say +that those fittest existences will not be found along the track of what +we call inorganic combinations, which will carry on the most elaborate +processes as mutely and painlessly as we are now told that the minerals +are metamorphosing themselves continually in the dark laboratory of the +earth's crust? Thus this planet may be filled with beings who will be +blind and deaf as the inmost rock, yet will execute changes as delicate +and complicated as those of human language and all the intricate web of +what we call its effects, without sensitive impression, without +sensitive impulse: there may be, let us say, mute orations, mute +rhapsodies, mute discussions, and no consciousness there even to enjoy +the silence." + +"Absurd!" grumbled Trost. + +"The supposition is logical," said I. "It is well argued from the +premises." + +"Whose premises?" cried Trost, turning on me with some fierceness. "You +don't mean to call them mine, I hope." + +"Heaven forbid! They seem to be flying about in the air with other +germs, and have found a sort of nidus among my melancholy fancies. +Nobody really holds them. They bear the same relation to real belief as +walking on the head for a show does to running away from an explosion or +walking fast to catch the train." + + + + +XVIII. + + +THE MODERN HEP! HEP! HEP! + +To discern likeness amidst diversity, it is well known, does not require +so fine a mental edge as the discerning of diversity amidst general +sameness. The primary rough classification depends on the prominent +resemblances of things: the progress is towards finer and finer +discrimination according to minute differences. Yet even at this stage +of European culture one's attention is continually drawn to the +prevalence of that grosser mental sloth which makes people dull to the +most ordinary prompting of comparison--the bringing things together +because of their likeness. The same motives, the same ideas, the same +practices, are alternately admired and abhorred, lauded and denounced, +according to their association with superficial differences, historical +or actually social: even learned writers treating of great subjects +often show an attitude of mind not greatly superior in its logic to that +of the frivolous fine lady who is indignant at the frivolity of her +maid. + +To take only the subject of the Jews: it would be difficult to find a +form of bad reasoning about them which has not been heard in +conversation or been admitted to the dignity of print; but the neglect +of resemblances is a common property of dulness which unites all the +various points of view--the prejudiced, the puerile, the spiteful, and +the abysmally ignorant. + +That the preservation of national memories is an element and a means of +national greatness, that their revival is a sign of reviving +nationality, that every heroic defender, every patriotic restorer, has +been inspired by such memories and has made them his watchword, that +even such a corporate existence as that of a Roman legion or an English +regiment has been made valorous by memorial standards,--these are the +glorious commonplaces of historic teaching at our public schools and +universities, being happily ingrained in Greek and Latin classics. They +have also been impressed on the world by conspicuous modern instances. +That there is a free modern Greece is due--through all infiltration of +other than Greek blood--to the presence of ancient Greece in the +consciousness of European men; and every speaker would feel his point +safe if he were to praise Byron's devotion to a cause made glorious by +ideal identification with the past; hardly so, if he were to insist that +the Greeks were not to be helped further because their history shows +that they were anciently unsurpassed in treachery and lying, and that +many modern Greeks are highly disreputable characters, while others are +disposed to grasp too large a share of our commerce. The same with +Italy: the pathos of his country's lot pierced the youthful soul of +Mazzini, because, like Dante's, his blood was fraught with the kinship +of Italian greatness, his imagination filled with a majestic past that +wrought itself into a majestic future. Half a century ago, what was +Italy? An idling-place of dilettanteism or of itinerant motiveless +wealth, a territory parcelled out for papal sustenance, dynastic +convenience, and the profit of an alien Government. What were the +Italians? No people, no voice in European counsels, no massive power in +European affairs: a race thought of in English and French society as +chiefly adapted to the operatic stage, or to serve as models for +painters; disposed to smile gratefully at the reception of halfpence; +and by the more historical remembered to be rather polite than truthful, +in all probability a combination of Machiavelli, Rubini, and Masaniello. +Thanks chiefly to the divine gift of a memory which inspires the moments +with a past, a present, and a future, and gives the sense of corporate +existence that raises man above the otherwise more respectable and +innocent brute, all that, or most of it, is changed. + +Again, one of our living historians finds just sympathy in his vigorous +insistance on our true ancestry, on our being the strongly marked +heritors in language and genius of those old English seamen who, +beholding a rich country with a most convenient seaboard, came, +doubtless with a sense of divine warrant, and settled themselves on this +or the other side of fertilising streams, gradually conquering more and +more of the pleasant land from the natives who knew nothing of Odin, +and finally making unusually clean work in ridding themselves of those +prior occupants. "Let us," he virtually says, "let us know who were our +forefathers, who it was that won the soil for us, and brought the good +seed of those institutions through which we should not arrogantly but +gratefully feel ourselves distinguished among the nations as possessors +of long-inherited freedom; let us not keep up an ignorant kind of naming +which disguises our true affinities of blood and language, but let us +see thoroughly what sort of notions and traditions our forefathers had, +and what sort of song inspired them. Let the poetic fragments which +breathe forth their fierce bravery in battle and their trust in fierce +gods who helped them, be treasured with affectionate reverence. These +seafaring, invading, self-asserting men were the English of old time, +and were our fathers who did rough work by which we are profiting. They +had virtues which incorporated themselves in wholesome usages to which +we trace our own political blessings. Let us know and acknowledge our +common relationship to them, and be thankful that over and above the +affections and duties which spring from our manhood, we have the closer +and more constantly guiding duties which belong to us as Englishmen." + +To this view of our nationality most persons who have feeling and +understanding enough to be conscious of the connection between the +patriotic affection and every other affection which lifts us above +emigrating rats and free-loving baboons, will be disposed to say Amen. +True, we are not indebted to those ancestors for our religion: we are +rather proud of having got that illumination from elsewhere. The men who +planted our nation were not Christians, though they began their work +centuries after Christ; and they had a decided objection to Christianity +when it was first proposed to them: they were not monotheists, and their +religion was the reverse of spiritual. But since we have been fortunate +enough to keep the island-home they won for us, and have been on the +whole a prosperous people, rather continuing the plan of invading and +spoiling other lands than being forced to beg for shelter in them, +nobody has reproached us because our fathers thirteen hundred years ago +worshipped Odin, massacred Britons, and were with difficulty persuaded +to accept Christianity, knowing nothing of Hebrew history and the +reasons why Christ should be received as the Saviour of mankind. The Red +Indians, not liking us when we settled among them, might have been +willing to fling such facts in our faces, but they were too ignorant, +and besides, their opinions did not signify, because we were able, if we +liked, to exterminate them. The Hindoos also have doubtless had their +rancours against us and still entertain enough ill-will to make +unfavourable remarks on our character, especially as to our historic +rapacity and arrogant notions of our own superiority; they perhaps do +not admire the usual English profile, and they are not converted to our +way of feeding: but though we are a small number of an alien race +profiting by the territory and produce of these prejudiced people, they +are unable to turn us out; at least, when they tried we showed them +their mistake. We do not call ourselves a dispersed and a punished +people: we are a colonising people, and it is we who have punished +others. + +Still the historian guides us rightly in urging us to dwell on the +virtues of our ancestors with emulation, and to cherish our sense of a +common descent as a bond of obligation. The eminence, the nobleness of a +people depends on its capability of being stirred by memories, and of +striving for what we call spiritual ends--ends which consist not in +immediate material possession, but in the satisfaction of a great +feeling that animates the collective body as with one soul. A people +having the seed of worthiness in it must feel an answering thrill when +it is adjured by the deaths of its heroes who died to preserve its +national existence; when it is reminded of its small beginnings and +gradual growth through past labours and struggles, such as are still +demanded of it in order that the freedom and wellbeing thus inherited +may be transmitted unimpaired to children and children's children; when +an appeal against the permission of injustice is made to great +precedents in its history and to the better genius breathing in its +institutions. It is this living force of sentiment in common which makes +a national consciousness. Nations so moved will resist conquest with +the very breasts of their women, will pay their millions and their blood +to abolish slavery, will share privation in famine and all calamity, +will produce poets to sing "some great story of a man," and thinkers +whose theories will bear the test of action. An individual man, to be +harmoniously great, must belong to a nation of this order, if not in +actual existence yet existing in the past, in memory, as a departed, +invisible, beloved ideal, once a reality, and perhaps to be restored. A +common humanity is not yet enough to feed the rich blood of various +activity which makes a complete man. The time is not come for +cosmopolitanism to be highly virtuous, any more than for communism to +suffice for social energy. I am not bound to feel for a Chinaman as I +feel for my fellow-countryman: I am bound not to demoralise him with +opium, not to compel him to my will by destroying or plundering the +fruits of his labour on the alleged ground that he is not cosmopolitan +enough, and not to insult him for his want of my tailoring and religion +when he appears as a peaceable visitor on the London pavement. It is +admirable in a Briton with a good purpose to learn Chinese, but it +would not be a proof of fine intellect in him to taste Chinese poetry in +the original more than he tastes the poetry of his own tongue. +Affection, intelligence, duty, radiate from a centre, and nature has +decided that for us English folk that centre can be neither China nor +Peru. Most of us feel this unreflectingly; for the affectation of +undervaluing everything native, and being too fine for one's own +country, belongs only to a few minds of no dangerous leverage. What is +wanting is, that we should recognise a corresponding attachment to +nationality as legitimate in every other people, and understand that its +absence is a privation of the greatest good. + +For, to repeat, not only the nobleness of a nation depends on the +presence of this national consciousness, but also the nobleness of each +individual citizen. Our dignity and rectitude are proportioned to our +sense of relationship with something great, admirable, pregnant with +high possibilities, worthy of sacrifice, a continual inspiration to +self-repression and discipline by the presentation of aims larger and +more attractive to our generous part than the securing of personal ease +or prosperity. And a people possessing this good should surely feel not +only a ready sympathy with the effort of those who, having lost the +good, strive to regain it, but a profound pity for any degradation +resulting from its loss; nay, something more than pity when happier +nationalities have made victims of the unfortunate whose memories +nevertheless are the very fountain to which the persecutors trace their +most vaunted blessings. + +These notions are familiar: few will deny them in the abstract, and many +are found loudly asserting them in relation to this or the other +particular case. But here as elsewhere, in the ardent application of +ideas, there is a notable lack of simple comparison or sensibility to +resemblance. The European world has long been used to consider the Jews +as altogether exceptional, and it has followed naturally enough that +they have been excepted from the rules of justice and mercy, which are +based on human likeness. But to consider a people whose ideas have +determined the religion of half the world, and that the more cultivated +half, and who made the most eminent struggle against the power of Rome, +as a purely exceptional race, is a demoralising offence against rational +knowledge, a stultifying inconsistency in historical interpretation. +Every nation of forcible character--_i.e._, of strongly marked +characteristics, is so far exceptional. The distinctive note of each +bird-species is in this sense exceptional, but the necessary ground of +such distinction is a deeper likeness. The superlative peculiarity in +the Jews admitted, our affinity with them is only the more apparent when +the elements of their peculiarity are discerned. + +From whatever point of view the writings of the Old Testament may be +regarded, the picture they present of a national development is of high +interest and speciality, nor can their historic momentousness be much +affected by any varieties of theory as to the relation they bear to the +New Testament or to the rise and constitution of Christianity. Whether +we accept the canonical Hebrew books as a revelation or simply as part +of an ancient literature, makes no difference to the fact that we find +there the strongly characterised portraiture of a people educated from +an earlier or later period to a sense of separateness unique in its +intensity, a people taught by many concurrent influences to identify +faithfulness to its national traditions with the highest social and +religious blessings. Our too scanty sources of Jewish history, from the +return under Ezra to the beginning of the desperate resistance against +Rome, show us the heroic and triumphant struggle of the Maccabees, which +rescued the religion and independence of the nation from the corrupting +sway of the Syrian Greeks, adding to the glorious sum of its memorials, +and stimulating continuous efforts of a more peaceful sort to maintain +and develop that national life which the heroes had fought and died for, +by internal measures of legal administration and public teaching. +Thenceforth the virtuous elements of the Jewish life were engaged, as +they had been with varying aspects during the long and changeful +prophetic period and the restoration under Ezra, on the side of +preserving the specific national character against a demoralising fusion +with that of foreigners whose religion and ritual were idolatrous and +often obscene. There was always a Foreign party reviling the National +party as narrow, and sometimes manifesting their own breadth in +extensive views of advancement or profit to themselves by flattery of a +foreign power. Such internal conflict naturally tightened the bands of +conservatism, which needed to be strong if it were to rescue the sacred +ark, the vital spirit of a small nation--"the smallest of the +nations"--whose territory lay on the highway between three continents; +and when the dread and hatred of foreign sway had condensed itself into +dread and hatred of the Romans, many Conservatives became Zealots, whose +chief mark was that they advocated resistance to the death against the +submergence of their nationality. Much might be said on this point +towards distinguishing the desperate struggle against a conquest which +is regarded as degradation and corruption, from rash, hopeless +insurrection against an established native government; and for my part +(if that were of any consequence) I share the spirit of the Zealots. I +take the spectacle of the Jewish people defying the Roman edict, and +preferring death by starvation or the sword to the introduction of +Caligula's deified statue into the temple, as a sublime type of +steadfastness. But all that need be noticed here is the continuity of +that national education (by outward and inward circumstance) which +created in the Jews a feeling of race, a sense of corporate existence, +unique in its intensity. + +But not, before the dispersion, unique in essential qualities. There is +more likeness than contrast between the way we English got our island +and the way the Israelites got Canaan. We have not been noted for +forming a low estimate of ourselves in comparison with foreigners, or +for admitting that our institutions are equalled by those of any other +people under the sun. Many of us have thought that our sea-wall is a +specially divine arrangement to make and keep us a nation of sea-kings +after the manner of our forefathers, secure against invasion and able to +invade other lands when we need them, though they may lie on the other +side of the ocean. Again, it has been held that we have a peculiar +destiny as a Protestant people, not only able to bruise the head of an +idolatrous Christianity in the midst of us, but fitted as possessors of +the most truth and the most tonnage to carry our purer religion over the +world and convert mankind to our way of thinking. The Puritans, +asserting their liberty to restrain tyrants, found the Hebrew history +closely symbolical of their feelings and purpose; and it can hardly be +correct to cast the blame of their less laudable doings on the writings +they invoked, since their opponents made use of the same writings for +different ends, finding there a strong warrant for the divine right of +kings and the denunciation of those who, like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, +took on themselves the office of the priesthood which belonged of right +solely to Aaron and his sons, or, in other words, to men ordained by the +English bishops. We must rather refer the passionate use of the Hebrew +writings to affinities of disposition between our own race and the +Jewish. Is it true that the arrogance of a Jew was so immeasurably +beyond that of a Calvinist? And the just sympathy and admiration which +we give to the ancestors who resisted the oppressive acts of our native +kings, and by resisting rescued or won for us the best part of our civil +and religious liberties--is it justly to be withheld from those brave +and steadfast men of Jewish race who fought and died, or strove by wise +administration to resist, the oppression and corrupting influences of +foreign tyrants, and by resisting rescued the nationality which was the +very hearth of our own religion? At any rate, seeing that the Jews were +more specifically than any other nation educated into a sense of their +supreme moral value, the chief matter of surprise is that any other +nation is found to rival them in this form of self-confidence. + +More exceptional--less like the course of our own history--has been +their dispersion and their subsistence as a separate people through ages +in which for the most part they were regarded and treated very much as +beasts hunted for the sake of their skins, or of a valuable secretion +peculiar to their species. The Jews showed a talent for accumulating +what was an object of more immediate desire to Christians than animal +oils or well-furred skins, and their cupidity and avarice were found at +once particularly hateful and particularly useful: hateful when seen as +a reason for punishing them by mulcting or robbery, useful when this +retributive process could be successfully carried forward. Kings and +emperors naturally were more alive to the usefulness of subjects who +could gather and yield money; but edicts issued to protect "the King's +Jews" equally with the King's game from being harassed and hunted by the +commonalty were only slight mitigations to the deplorable lot of a race +held to be under the divine curse, and had little force after the +Crusades began. As the slave-holders in the United States counted the +curse on Ham a justification of negro slavery, so the curse on the Jews +was counted a justification for hindering them from pursuing agriculture +and handicrafts; for marking them out as execrable figures by a peculiar +dress; for torturing them to make them part with their gains, or for +more gratuitously spitting at them and pelting them; for taking it as +certain that they killed and ate babies, poisoned the wells, and took +pains to spread the plague; for putting it to them whether they would be +baptised or burned, and not failing to burn and massacre them when they +were obstinate; but also for suspecting them of disliking the baptism +when they had got it, and then burning them in punishment of their +insincerity; finally, for hounding them by tens on tens of thousands +from the homes where they had found shelter for centuries, and +inflicting on them the horrors of a new exile and a new dispersion. All +this to avenge the Saviour of mankind, or else to compel these +stiff-necked people to acknowledge a Master whose servants showed such +beneficent effects of His teaching. + +With a people so treated one of two issues was possible: either from +being of feebler nature than their persecutors, and caring more for ease +than for the sentiments and ideas which constituted their distinctive +character, they would everywhere give way to pressure and get rapidly +merged in the populations around them; or, being endowed with uncommon +tenacity, physical and mental, feeling peculiarly the ties of +inheritance both in blood and faith, remembering national glories, +trusting in their recovery, abhorring apostasy, able to bear all things +and hope all things with the consciousness of being steadfast to +spiritual obligations, the kernel of their number would harden into an +inflexibility more and more insured by motive and habit. They would +cherish all differences that marked them off from their hated +oppressors, all memories that consoled them with a sense of virtual +though unrecognised superiority; and the separateness which was made +their badge of ignominy would be their inward pride, their source of +fortifying defiance. Doubtless such a people would get confirmed in +vices. An oppressive government and a persecuting religion, while +breeding vices in those who hold power, are well known to breed +answering vices in those who are powerless and suffering. What more +direct plan than the course presented by European history could have +been pursued in order to give the Jews a spirit of bitter isolation, of +scorn for the wolfish hypocrisy that made victims of them, of triumph in +prospering at the expense of the blunderers who stoned them away from +the open paths of industry?--or, on the other hand, to encourage in the +less defiant a lying conformity, a pretence of conversion for the sake +of the social advantages attached to baptism, an outward renunciation of +their hereditary ties with the lack of real love towards the society +and creed which exacted this galling tribute?--or again, in the most +unhappy specimens of the race, to rear transcendent examples of odious +vice, reckless instruments of rich men with bad propensities, +unscrupulous grinders of the alien people who wanted to grind _them_? + +No wonder the Jews have their vices: no wonder if it were proved (which +it has not hitherto appeared to be) that some of them have a bad +pre-eminence in evil, an unrivalled superfluity of naughtiness. It would +be more plausible to make a wonder of the virtues which have prospered +among them under the shadow of oppression. But instead of dwelling on +these, or treating as admitted what any hardy or ignorant person may +deny, let us found simply on the loud assertions of the hostile. The +Jews, it is said, resisted the expansion of their own religion into +Christianity; they were in the habit of spitting on the cross; they have +held the name of Christ to be _Anathema_. Who taught them that? The men +who made Christianity a curse to them: the men who made the name of +Christ a symbol for the spirit of vengeance, and, what was worse, made +the execution of the vengeance a pretext for satisfying their own +savageness, greed, and envy: the men who sanctioned with the name of +Christ a barbaric and blundering copy of pagan fatalism in taking the +words "His blood be upon us and on our children" as a divinely appointed +verbal warrant for wreaking cruelty from generation to generation on the +people from whose sacred writings Christ drew His teaching. Strange +retrogression in the professors of an expanded religion, boasting an +illumination beyond the spiritual doctrine of Hebrew prophets! For +Hebrew prophets proclaimed a God who demanded mercy rather than +sacrifices. The Christians also believed that God delighted not in the +blood of rams and of bulls, but they apparently conceived Him as +requiring for His satisfaction the sighs and groans, the blood and +roasted flesh of men whose forefathers had misunderstood the +metaphorical character of prophecies which spoke of spiritual +pre-eminence under the figure of a material kingdom. Was this the method +by which Christ desired His title to the Messiahship to be commended to +the hearts and understandings of the nation in which He was born? Many +of His sayings bear the stamp of that patriotism which places +fellow-countrymen in the inner circle of affection and duty. And did the +words "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," refer only to +the centurion and his band, a tacit exception being made of every Hebrew +there present from the mercy of the Father and the compassion of the +Son?--nay, more, of every Hebrew yet to come who remained unconverted +after hearing of His claim to the Messiahship, not from His own lips or +those of His native apostles, but from the lips of alien men whom cross, +creed, and baptism had left cruel, rapacious, and debauched? It is more +reverent to Christ to believe that He must have approved the Jewish +martyrs who deliberately chose to be burned or massacred rather than be +guilty of a blaspheming lie, more than He approved the rabble of +crusaders who robbed and murdered them in His name. But these +remonstrances seem to have no direct application to personages who take +up the attitude of philosophic thinkers and discriminating critics, +professedly accepting Christianity from a rational point of view as a +vehicle of the highest religious and moral truth, and condemning the +Jews on the ground that they are obstinate adherents of an outworn +creed, maintain themselves in moral alienation from the peoples with +whom they share citizenship, and are destitute of real interest in the +welfare of the community and state with which they are thus identified. +These anti-Judaic advocates usually belong to a party which has felt +itself glorified in winning for Jews, as well as Dissenters and +Catholics, the full privileges of citizenship, laying open to them every +path to distinction. At one time the voice of this party urged that +differences of creed were made dangerous only by the denial of +citizenship--that you must make a man a citizen before he could feel +like one. At present, apparently, this confidence has been succeeded by +a sense of mistake: there is a regret that no limiting clauses were +insisted on, such as would have hindered the Jews from coming too far +and in too large proportion along those opened pathways; and the +Roumanians are thought to have shown an enviable wisdom in giving them +as little chance as possible. But then, the reflection occurring that +some of the most objectionable Jews are baptised Christians, it is +obvious that such clauses would have been insufficient, and the doctrine +that you can turn a Jew into a good Christian is emphatically retracted. +But clearly, these liberal gentlemen, too late enlightened by +disagreeable events, must yield the palm of wise foresight to those who +argued against them long ago; and it is a striking spectacle to witness +minds so panting for advancement in some directions that they are ready +to force it on an unwilling society, in this instance despairingly +recurring to mediaeval types of thinking--insisting that the Jews are +made viciously cosmopolitan by holding the world's money-bag, that for +them all national interests are resolved into the algebra of loans, that +they have suffered an inward degradation stamping them as morally +inferior, and--"serve them right," since they rejected Christianity. All +which is mirrored in an analogy, namely, that of the Irish, also a +servile race, who have rejected Protestantism though it has been +repeatedly urged on them by fire and sword and penal laws, and whose +place in the moral scale may be judged by our advertisements, where the +clause, "No Irish need apply," parallels the sentence which for many +polite persons sums up the question of Judaism--"I never _did_ like the +Jews." + +It is certainly worth considering whether an expatriated, denationalised +race, used for ages to live among antipathetic populations, must not +inevitably lack some conditions of nobleness. If they drop that +separateness which is made their reproach, they may be in danger of +lapsing into a cosmopolitan indifference equivalent to cynicism, and of +missing that inward identification with the nationality immediately +around them which might make some amends for their inherited privation. +No dispassionate observer can deny this danger. Why, our own countrymen +who take to living abroad without purpose or function to keep up their +sense of fellowship in the affairs of their own land are rarely good +specimens of moral healthiness; still, the consciousness of having a +native country, the birthplace of common memories and habits of mind, +existing like a parental hearth quitted but beloved; the dignity of +being included in a people which has a part in the comity of nations +and the growing federation of the world; that sense of special belonging +which is the root of human virtues, both public and private,--all these +spiritual links may preserve migratory Englishmen from the worst +consequences of their voluntary dispersion. Unquestionably the Jews, +having been more than any other race exposed to the adverse moral +influences of alienism, must, both in individuals and in groups, have +suffered some corresponding moral degradation; but in fact they have +escaped with less of abjectness and less of hard hostility towards the +nations whose hand has been against them, than could have happened in +the case of a people who had neither their adhesion to a separate +religion founded on historic memories, nor their characteristic family +affectionateness. Tortured, flogged, spit upon, the _corpus vile_ on +which rage or wantonness vented themselves with impunity, their name +flung at them as an opprobrium by superstition, hatred, and contempt, +they have remained proud of their origin. Does any one call this an evil +pride? Perhaps he belongs to that order of man who, while he has a +democratic dislike to dukes and earls, wants to make believe that his +father was an idle gentleman, when in fact he was an honourable artisan, +or who would feel flattered to be taken for other than an Englishman. It +is possible to be too arrogant about our blood or our calling, but that +arrogance is virtue compared with such mean pretence. The pride which +identifies us with a great historic body is a humanising, elevating +habit of mind, inspiring sacrifices of individual comfort, gain, or +other selfish ambition, for the sake of that ideal whole; and no man +swayed by such a sentiment can become completely abject. That a Jew of +Smyrna, where a whip is carried by passengers ready to flog off the too +officious specimens of his race, can still be proud to say, "I am a +Jew," is surely a fact to awaken admiration in a mind capable of +understanding what we may call the ideal forces in human history. And +again, a varied, impartial observation of the Jews in different +countries tends to the impression that they have a predominant +kindliness which must have been deeply ingrained in the constitution of +their race to have outlasted the ages of persecution and oppression. +The concentration of their joys in domestic life has kept up in them the +capacity of tenderness: the pity for the fatherless and the widow, the +care for the women and the little ones, blent intimately with their +religion, is a well of mercy that cannot long or widely be pent up by +exclusiveness. And the kindliness of the Jew overflows the line of +division between him and the Gentile. On the whole, one of the most +remarkable phenomena in the history of this scattered people, made for +ages "a scorn and a hissing" is, that after being subjected to this +process, which might have been expected to be in every sense +deteriorating and vitiating, they have come out of it (in any estimate +which allows for numerical proportion) rivalling the nations of all +European countries in healthiness and beauty of _physique_, in practical +ability, in scientific and artistic aptitude, and in some forms of +ethical value. A significant indication of their natural rank is seen in +the fact that at this moment, the leader of the Liberal party in Germany +is a Jew, the leader of the Republican party in France is a Jew, and the +head of the Conservative ministry in England is a Jew. And here it is +that we find the ground for the obvious jealousy which is now +stimulating the revived expression of old antipathies. "The Jews," it is +felt, "have a dangerous tendency to get the uppermost places not only in +commerce but in political life. Their monetary hold on governments is +tending to perpetuate in leading Jews a spirit of universal alienism +(euphemistically called cosmopolitanism), even where the West has given +them a full share in civil and political rights. A people with oriental +sunlight in their blood, yet capable of being everywhere acclimatised, +they have a force and toughness which enables them to carry off the best +prizes; and their wealth is likely to put half the seats in Parliament +at their disposal." + +There is truth in these views of Jewish social and political relations. +But it is rather too late for liberal pleaders to urge them in a merely +vituperative sense. Do they propose as a remedy for the impending danger +of our healthier national influences getting overridden by Jewish +predominance, that we should repeal our emancipatory laws? Not all the +Germanic immigrants who have been settling among us for generations, +and are still pouring in to settle, are Jews, but thoroughly Teutonic +and more or less Christian craftsmen, mechanicians, or skilled and +erudite functionaries; and the Semitic Christians who swarm among us are +dangerously like their unconverted brethren in complexion, persistence, +and wealth. Then there are the Greeks who, by the help of Phoenician +blood or otherwise, are objectionably strong in the city. Some judges +think that the Scotch are more numerous and prosperous here in the South +than is quite for the good of us Southerners; and the early +inconvenience felt under the Stuarts of being quartered upon by a +hungry, hard-working people with a distinctive accent and form of +religion, and higher cheek-bones than English taste requires, has not +yet been quite neutralised. As for the Irish, it is felt in high +quarters that we have always been too lenient towards them;--at least, +if they had been harried a little more there might not have been so many +of them on the English press, of which they divide the power with the +Scotch, thus driving many Englishmen to honest and ineloquent labour. + +So far shall we be carried if we go in search of devices to hinder +people of other blood than our own from getting the advantage of +dwelling among us. + +Let it be admitted that it is a calamity to the English, as to any other +great historic people, to undergo a premature fusion with immigrants of +alien blood; that its distinctive national characteristics should be in +danger of obliteration by the predominating quality of foreign settlers. +I not only admit this, I am ready to unite in groaning over the +threatened danger. To one who loves his native language, who would +delight to keep our rich and harmonious English undefiled by foreign +accent, foreign intonation, and those foreign tinctures of verbal +meaning which tend to confuse all writing and discourse, it is an +affliction as harassing as the climate, that on our stage, in our +studios, at our public and private gatherings, in our offices, +warehouses, and workshops, we must expect to hear our beloved English +with its words clipped, its vowels stretched and twisted, its phrases of +acquiescence and politeness, of cordiality, dissidence or argument, +delivered always in the wrong tones, like ill-rendered melodies, marred +beyond recognition; that there should be a general ambition to speak +every language except our mother English, which persons "of style" are +not ashamed of corrupting with slang, false foreign equivalents, and a +pronunciation that crushes out all colour from the vowels and jams them +between jostling consonants. An ancient Greek might not like to be +resuscitated for the sake of hearing Homer read in our universities, +still he would at least find more instructive marvels in other +developments to be witnessed at those institutions; but a modern +Englishman is invited from his after-dinner repose to hear Shakspere +delivered under circumstances which offer no other novelty than some +novelty of false intonation, some new distribution of strong emphasis on +prepositions, some new misconception of a familiar idiom. Well! it is +our inertness that is in fault, our carelessness of excellence, our +willing ignorance of the treasures that lie in our national heritage, +while we are agape after what is foreign, though it may be only a vile +imitation of what is native. + +This marring of our speech, however, is a minor evil compared with what +must follow from the predominance of wealth-acquiring immigrants, whose +appreciation of our political and social life must often be as +approximative or fatally erroneous as their delivery of our language. +But take the worst issues--what can we do to hinder them? Are we to +adopt the exclusiveness for which we have punished the Chinese? Are we +to tear the glorious flag of hospitality which has made our freedom the +world-wide blessing of the oppressed? It is not agreeable to find +foreign accents and stumbling locutions passing from the piquant +exception to the general rule of discourse. But to urge on that account +that we should spike away the peaceful foreigner, would be a view of +international relations not in the long-run favourable to the interests +of our fellow-countrymen; for we are at least equal to the races we call +obtrusive in the disposition to settle wherever money is to be made and +cheaply idle living to be found. In meeting the national evils which are +brought upon us by the onward course of the world, there is often no +more immediate hope or resource than that of striving after fuller +national excellence, which must consist in the moulding of more +excellent individual natives. The tendency of things is towards the +quicker or slower fusion of races. It is impossible to arrest this +tendency: all we can do is to moderate its course so as to hinder it +from degrading the moral status of societies by a too rapid effacement +of those national traditions and customs which are the language of the +national genius--the deep suckers of healthy sentiment. Such moderating +and guidance of inevitable movement is worthy of all effort. And it is +in this sense that the modern insistance on the idea of Nationalities +has value. That any people at once distinct and coherent enough to form +a state should be held in subjection by an alien antipathetic government +has been becoming more and more a ground of sympathetic indignation; and +in virtue of this, at least one great State has been added to European +councils. Nobody now complains of the result in this case, though +far-sighted persons see the need to limit analogy by discrimination. We +have to consider who are the stifled people and who the stiflers before +we can be sure of our ground. + +The only point in this connection on which Englishmen are agreed is, +that England itself shall not be subject to foreign rule. The fiery +resolve to resist invasion, though with an improvised array of +pitchforks, is felt to be virtuous, and to be worthy of a historic +people. Why? Because there is a national life in our veins. Because +there is something specifically English which we feel to be supremely +worth striving for, worth dying for, rather than living to renounce it. +Because we too have our share--perhaps a principal share--in that spirit +of separateness which has not yet done its work in the education of +mankind, which has created the varying genius of nations, and, like the +Muses, is the offspring of memory. + +Here, as everywhere else, the human task seems to be the discerning and +adjustment of opposite claims. But the end can hardly be achieved by +urging contradictory reproaches, and instead of labouring after +discernment as a preliminary to intervention, letting our zeal burst +forth according to a capricious selection, first determined accidentally +and afterwards justified by personal predilection. Not only John Gilpin +and his wife, or Edwin and Angelina, seem to be of opinion that their +preference or dislike of Russians, Servians, or Greeks, consequent, +perhaps, on hotel adventures, has something to do with the merits of the +Eastern Question; even in a higher range of intellect and enthusiasm we +find a distribution of sympathy or pity for sufferers of different blood +or votaries of differing religions, strangely unaccountable on any other +ground than a fortuitous direction of study or trivial circumstances of +travel. With some even admirable persons, one is never quite sure of any +particular being included under a general term. A provincial physician, +it is said, once ordering a lady patient not to eat salad, was asked +pleadingly by the affectionate husband whether she might eat lettuce, or +cresses, or radishes. The physician had too rashly believed in the +comprehensiveness of the word "salad," just as we, if not enlightened by +experience, might believe in the all-embracing breadth of "sympathy with +the injured and oppressed." What mind can exhaust the grounds of +exception which lie in each particular case? There is understood to be a +peculiar odour from the negro body, and we know that some persons, too +rationalistic to feel bound by the curse on Ham, used to hint very +strongly that this odour determined the question on the side of negro +slavery. + +And this is the usual level of thinking in polite society concerning the +Jews. Apart from theological purposes, it seems to be held surprising +that anybody should take an interest in the history of a people whose +literature has furnished all our devotional language; and if any +reference is made to their past or future destinies some hearer is sure +to state as a relevant fact which may assist our judgment, that she, for +her part, is not fond of them, having known a Mr Jacobson who was very +unpleasant, or that he, for his part, thinks meanly of them as a race, +though on inquiry you find that he is so little acquainted with their +characteristics that he is astonished to learn how many persons whom he +has blindly admired and applauded are Jews to the backbone. Again, men +who consider themselves in the very van of modern advancement, knowing +history and the latest philosophies of history, indicate their +contemptuous surprise that any one should entertain the destiny of the +Jews as a worthy subject, by referring to Moloch and their own +agreement with the theory that the religion of Jehovah was merely a +transformed Moloch-worship, while in the same breath they are glorifying +"civilisation" as a transformed tribal existence of which some +lineaments are traceable in grim marriage customs of the native +Australians. Are these erudite persons prepared to insist that the name +"Father" should no longer have any sanctity for us, because in their +view of likelihood our Aryan ancestors were mere improvers on a state of +things in which nobody knew his own father? + +For less theoretic men, ambitious to be regarded as practical +politicians, the value of the Hebrew race has been measured by their +unfavourable opinion of a prime minister who is a Jew by lineage. But it +is possible to form a very ugly opinion as to the scrupulousness of +Walpole or of Chatham; and in any case I think Englishmen would refuse +to accept the character and doings of those eighteenth century statesmen +as the standard of value for the English people and the part they have +to play in the fortunes of mankind. + +If we are to consider the future of the Jews at all, it seems +reasonable to take as a preliminary question: Are they destined to +complete fusion with the peoples among whom they are dispersed, losing +every remnant of a distinctive consciousness as Jews; or, are there in +the breadth and intensity with which the feeling of separateness, or +what we may call the organised memory of a national consciousness, +actually exists in the world-wide Jewish communities--the seven millions +scattered from east to west--and again, are there in the political +relations of the world, the conditions present or approaching for the +restoration of a Jewish state planted on the old ground as a centre of +national feeling, a source of dignifying protection, a special channel +for special energies which may contribute some added form of national +genius, and an added voice in the councils of the world? + +They are among us everywhere: it is useless to say we are not fond of +them. Perhaps we are not fond of proletaries and their tendency to form +Unions, but the world is not therefore to be rid of them. If we wish to +free ourselves from the inconveniences that we have to complain of, +whether in proletaries or in Jews, our best course is to encourage all +means of improving these neighbours who elbow us in a thickening crowd, +and of sending their incommodious energies into beneficent channels. Why +are we so eager for the dignity of certain populations of whom perhaps +we have never seen a single specimen, and of whose history, legend, or +literature we have been contentedly ignorant for ages, while we sneer at +the notion of a renovated national dignity for the Jews, whose ways of +thinking and whose very verbal forms are on our lips in every prayer +which we end with an Amen? Some of us consider this question dismissed +when they have said that the wealthiest Jews have no desire to forsake +their European palaces, and go to live in Jerusalem. But in a return +from exile, in the restoration of a people, the question is not whether +certain rich men will choose to remain behind, but whether there will be +found worthy men who will choose to lead the return. Plenty of +prosperous Jews remained in Babylon when Ezra marshalled his band of +forty thousand and began a new glorious epoch in the history of his +race, making the preparation for that epoch in the history of the world +which has been held glorious enough to be dated from for evermore. The +hinge of possibility is simply the existence of an adequate community of +feeling as well as widespread need in the Jewish race, and the hope that +among its finer specimens there may arise some men of instruction and +ardent public spirit, some new Ezras, some modern Maccabees, who will +know how to use all favouring outward conditions, how to triumph by +heroic example, over the indifference of their fellows and the scorn of +their foes, and will steadfastly set their faces towards making their +people once more one among the nations. + +Formerly, evangelical orthodoxy was prone to dwell on the fulfilment of +prophecy in the "restoration of the Jews." Such interpretation of the +prophets is less in vogue now. The dominant mode is to insist on a +Christianity that disowns its origin, that is not a substantial growth +having a genealogy, but is a vaporous reflex of modern notions. The +Christ of Matthew had the heart of a Jew--"Go ye first to the lost +sheep of the house of Israel." The Apostle of the Gentiles had the heart +of a Jew: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my +brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom +pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the +giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are +the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came." Modern +apostles, extolling Christianity, are found using a different tone: they +prefer the mediaeval cry translated into modern phrase. But the +mediaeval cry too was in substance very ancient--more ancient than the +days of Augustus. Pagans in successive ages said, "These people are +unlike us, and refuse to be made like us: let us punish them." The Jews +were steadfast in their separateness, and through that separateness +Christianity was born. A modern book on Liberty has maintained that from +the freedom of individual men to persist in idiosyncrasies the world may +be enriched. Why should we not apply this argument to the idiosyncrasy +of a nation, and pause in our haste to hoot it down? There is still a +great function for the steadfastness of the Jew: not that he should +shut out the utmost illumination which knowledge can throw on his +national history, but that he should cherish the store of inheritance +which that history has left him. Every Jew should be conscious that he +is one of a multitude possessing common objects of piety in the immortal +achievements and immortal sorrows of ancestors who have transmitted to +them a physical and mental type strong enough, eminent enough in +faculties, pregnant enough with peculiar promise, to constitute a new +beneficent individuality among the nations, and, by confuting the +traditions of scorn, nobly avenge the wrongs done to their Fathers. + +There is a sense in which the worthy child of a nation that has brought +forth illustrious prophets, high and unique among the poets of the +world, is bound by their visions. + +Is bound? + +Yes, for the effective bond of human action is feeling, and the worthy +child of a people owning the triple name of Hebrew, Israelite, and Jew, +feels his kinship with the glories and the sorrows, the degradation and +the possible renovation of his national family. + +Will any one teach the nullification of this feeling and call his +doctrine a philosophy? He will teach a blinding superstition--the +superstition that a theory of human wellbeing can be constructed in +disregard of the influences which have made us human. + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Impressions of Theophrastus Such, by George Eliot + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH *** + +***** This file should be named 10762-8.txt or 10762-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/6/10762/ + +Produced by Afra Ullah and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |