[-110-]
CHAPTER XI.
TOWN MORALS.
HAVE you seen Charles Matthews in "Used Up ?" Sir Charles
Coldstream represents us all. We are everlastingly seeking a sensation, and
never finding it. Sir Charles's valet's description of him describes us all
"He's always sighing for what he calls excitement - you see, everytbing is
old to him - he's used up - nothing amuses him - he can't feel." And so he
looks in the crater of Vesuvius and finds nothing in it, and the Bay of Naples
he considers inferior to that of Dublin - the Campagna to him is a swamp -
Greece a morass - Athens a bad Edinburgh - Egypt a desert - the pyramids
humbugs. The same confession is on every one's lips. The boy of sixteen, with a
beardless chin, has a melancholy blasé air; the girl gets wise, mourns
over the vanity of life, and laughs at love as a romance; a heart - unless it be
a bullock's, and well cooked,- is tacitly understood to be a mistake; and
conscience a thing that no one can afford to keep. Our young men are bald at
twenty-five, and woman is exhausted still sooner. I am told Quakers [-111-]
are sometimes moved by the spirit. I am told mad Ranters sing, and
preach, and roar as if they were in earnest. I hear that there is even
enthusiasm amongst the Mormons; but that matters little. We are very few of us
connected with such outre sects, and the exceptions but prove the rule.
But a truce to generalities. Let us give modern instances.
Look at Jenkins, the genteel stockbroker. In autumn he may be seen getting into
his brougham, which already contains his better-half and the olive branches that
have blessed their mutual loves. This brougham will deposit the Jenkinses, and
boxes of luggage innumerable, at the Brighton Railway Terminus, whence it is
their intention to start for that crowded and once fashionable watering-place.
Jenkins has been dying all the summer of the heat. Why, like the blessed ass as
he is, did he stop in town, when for a few shillings he might have been braced
and cooled by sea breezes, but because of that monotony which forbids a man
consulting nature and common sense. Jenkins only goes out of town when the
fashionable world goes; he would not for the life of him leave till the season
was over.
Again, does ever the country look lovelier than when the
snows of winter reluctantly make way for the first flowers of spring? Is ever
the air more balmy or purer than when the young breath of summer, like a tender
maiden, kisses timidly the cheek, and winds its way, like a blessing from above,
to the weary heart? Does ever the sky look bluer, or the sun more glorious, or
the [-112-] earth more green, or is ever the melody
of birds more musical, than then? and yet at that time the beau monde must
resort to town, and London drawing-rooms must emit a polluted air, and late
hours must enfeeble, and bright eyes must become dull, and cheeks that might
have vied in loveliness with the rose, sallow and pale.
It is a fine thing for a man to get hold of a good cause; one
of the finest sights that earth can boast is that of a man or set of men
standing up to put into action what they know to be some blessed God-sent truth.
A Cromwell mourning the flat Popery of St. Paul's - a Luther, before
principalities and powers, exclaiming. "Here stand I and will not move, so
help me God!"-a Howard making a tour of the jails of Europe, and dying
alone and neglected on the shores of the Black Sea - a Henry Martyn leaving the
cloistered halls of Cambridge, abandoning the golden prospects opening around
him, and abandoning what is dearer still, the evils of youth, to preach Christ,
and Him crucified, beneath the burning and fatal sun of the East - or a Hebrew
maiden, like Jepthah's daughter, dying for her country or her country's good, -
are sights rare and blessed, and beautiful and divine. All true teachers are the
same, and are glorious to behold. For a time no one regards their testimony. The
man stands by himself - a reed, but not shaken by the wind - a voice crying in
the wilderness - a John the Baptist nursed in the wilds, and away from the
deadening spell of the world. [-113-] Then comes
the influence of the solitary thinker on old fallacies; the young and the
enthusiastic rush to his side, the sceptic and the scoffer one by one disappear,
and the world is conquered; or if it be not so, if he languishes in jail like
Galileo, or wanders on the face of the earth seeking rest and finding none, like
our Puritan forefathers; or die, as many an hero has died, as the Christ did,
when the power of the Prince of Darkness prevailed, and the veil of the Temple
was rent in twain; still there is for him a resurrection, when a coming age will
honour his memory, collect his scattered ashes, and build them a fitting tomb.
Yet even this kind of heroism has come to be but a monotonous affair.
Now-a-days the thing can be done, and in one way - a meeting
at Exeter Hall, a dinner at Freemasons' tavern, Harker for toast-master, a few
vocalists to sing between the pieces, and for chairman a lord by all means; if
possible, a royal duke. The truest thing about us is our appetite. Our
appreciation of a hero is as our appreciation of a coat; a saviour of a nation
and a Soyer we class together, and do justice to both at the same time. We
moderns eat where our fathers bled. Our powers we show by the number of bottles
of wine we can consume; our devotion is to our dinners; the sword has made way
for the carving-knife; our battle is against the ills to which gluttonness and
wine-bibbing flesh is heir; the devil that comes to us is the gout; the hell in
which we believe and against which we fight is indigestion; our means of grace
are blue pill and [-114-] black draught. All art
and science and lettered lore, all the memories of the past and the hopes of the
future-
"All thoughts, all passions, all
delights-
Whatever stirs this mortal
frame,"
now.a-days, tend to dinner. Our sympathy with the unfortunate females, or the
indigent blind, with the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, or with the
diffusion of useful knowledge at home - with the Earl of Derby or Mr. Cobden -
with Lord John Russell or Mr. Disraeli - with the soldier who has blustered and
bullied till the world has taken him for a hero - with the merchant who has
bound together in the peaceful pursuits of trade hereditary foes - with
the engineer who has won dominion over time and space - with the poet who has
sat
"In the light of thought
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy, with hopes and joys it
heeded not,"
finds a common mode of utterance, and that utterance to all has a common
emphasis. Even the Church apes the world in this respect; and even that section
which calls itself non-conforming, conforms here. When dinner is concerned, it
forgets to protest, and becomes dumb. Dr. Watts might sing,
"Lord, what a wretched land is
this
That yields us no supplies;"
[115-] but his successors do not. I read of grand
ordination dinners, of grand dinners when a new chapel is erected or an old
pastor retires. But lately I saw one reverend gentleman at law with another.
Most of my readers will recollect the case. It was that of Tidman against
Ainslie. Dr. Tidman triumphs, and the Missionary Society is vindicated. What was
the consequence ? - a dinner to Dr. Tidman at the Guildhall Coffee-house, at
which all the leading ministers of the denomination to which he belonged were
present.
The Queen is the fountain of honour. What has been the
manlier of men selected for royal honour? The last instance is Lord Dudley, who
has been made an earl. Why? Is it that he lent Mr. Lumley nearly £100,000 to
keep the Haymarket Opera House open? because really this is all the general
public knows about Lord Dudley. The other day Lord Derby was the means of
getting a peerage for a wealthy and undistinguished commoner. Is it come to
this, then, that we give to rich men, as such, honours which ought to be
precious, and awarded by public opinion to the most gifted and the most
illustrious of our fellows. If in private life I toady a rich swell, that I may
put my feet under his mahogany, and drink his wine, besides making an ass of
myself, I do little harm; but if we prostitute the honours of the nation, the
nation itself suffers; and, as regards noble sentiments and enlightened public
spirit, withers and declines.
Guizot says - and if he had not said it somebody [-116-]
else would - that our civilization is yet young. I believe it. At present
it is little better than an experiment. If it be a good,. it is not without its
disadvantages. It has its drawbacks. Man gives up something for it. One of its
greatest evils perhaps is its monotony, which makes us curse and mourn our fate
- which forces from our lips the exclamation of Mariana, in the "Moated
Grange "-
"I'm a aweary, aweary-
Oh, would
that I were dead;"
or which impels us, with the "Blighted Being" of Locksley Hall, to
long to "burst all bonds of habit and to wander far away." Do these
lines chance to attract the attention of one of the lords of creation- of one
who,
"Thoughtless of mamma's alarms,
Sports high-heeled boots and
whiskers,"
- what is it, we would ask, most magnanimous Sir in the most delicate manner
imaginable, that keeps you standing. by the hour together, looking out of the
window of your club in Pall Mall, in the utter weariness of your heart, swearing
now at the weather, now at the waiter, and, anon, muttering something about jour
dreaming that you dwelt in marble halls, but that very monotony of civilization
which we so much deprecate? Were it not for that, you might be working in this
working world-touching the very kernel and core of life, instead of thus feeding
on its shell. [-117-] And if it be that the soft
eye of woman looks down on what we now write, what is it, we would ask, O
peerless paragon, O celestial goddess, but the same feeling that makes you put
aside the last new novel, and, in shameless defiance of the rules taught in that
valuable publication and snob's vade mecum - "Hints on the Etiquette
and the Usages of Society," actually yawn - aye, yawn, when that gold
watch, hanging by your most fairy-like and loveliest of forms, does not tell one
hour that does not bear with it from earth to heaven some tragedy acted - some
villainy achieved - some heroic thing done: aye, yawn, when before you is spread
out the great rôle of life, with its laughter and tears - with its
blasts from hell - with its odours coining down from heaven itself. A brave,
bold, noble-hearted Miss Nightingale breaks through this monotony, and sails to
nurse the wounded or the dying of our army in the East, and "Common
Sense" writes in newspapers against such a noble act; and a religious paper
saw in it Popery at the very least. What a howl has there been in some quarters
because a few clergymen have taken to preaching in theatres! Even woman's heart,
with its gushing sympathies, has become dead and shrivelled up, where that
relentless scourge - that demon of our time, the monotony of civilization
- has been suffered to intrude. It is owing to that, that when we look for deeds
angels might love to do, our daughters, and sisters, and those whom we most
passionately love, scream out Italian songs which neither they
[-118-] nor we understand, and bring to us, as the result of their
noblest energies, a fancy bag or a chain of German wool. such is the result of
what Sir W. Curtis termed the three R's and the usual accomplishments. Humanity
has been stereotyped. We follow one another like a flock of sheep. We have
levelled with a vengeance; we have reduced the doctrine of human equality to an
absurdity - we live alike, think alike, die alike. A party in a parlour in
Belgrave Square, "all silent and all d-d," is as like a party in a
parlour in Hackney as two peas. The beard movement was a failure; so was the
great question of hat reform, and for similar reasons. We still scowl upon a man
with a wide-a-wake, as we should upon a pick-pocket or a cut-throat. A leaden
monotony hangs heavy on us all. Not more does one man or woman differ from
another than does policeman A1 differ from policeman A999. Individuality seems
gone: independent life no longer exists. Our very thought and inner life is that
of Buggins, who lives next door. The skill of the tailor has made us all one,
and man, as God made him, cuts but a sorry figure by the sick of man as his
tailor made him. This is an undeniable fact: it is not only true but the truth.
One motive serves for every variety of deed - for dancing the polka or marrying
a wife - for wearing white gloves or worshipping the Most High. "At any
rate, my dears," said a fashionable dame to her daughters when they turned
round to go home, on finding that the crowded state of the church to which they
repaired would not admit of their worshipping [-119-] according
to Act of Parliament,- "At any rate, my dears, we have done the genteel
thing." By that mockery to God she had made herself right in the sight of
man. Actually we are all so much alike that not very long since in Madrid a
journeyman tailor was mistaken for a Prince. It is not always that such extreme
cases happen ; but the tendency of civilization, as we have it now, is to work
us all up into one common, unmeaning whole - to confound all the old
distinctions by which classes were marked - to mix up the peasant and the
prince, more by bringing down the latter than elevating the former; and thus we
all become unmeamng, and monotonous, and common-place. The splendid livery in
which "Jeames" rejoices may show that he is footman to a family that
dates from the Conquest: it may be that he is footman to the keeper of the ham
and beef shop near London Bridge. The uninitiated cannot tell the difference. A
man says he is a lord; otherwise we should not take him for one of the nobles of
the earth. A man puts on a black gown, and says he is a religious teacher:
otherwise we should not take him for one who could understand and enlighten the
anxious yearnings of the human heart. The old sublime faith in God and heaven is
gone. We have had none of it since the days of old Noll: it went out when
Charles and his mistresses came in. But instead, we have a world of propriety
and conventionalism. We have a universal worshipping of Mrs. Grundy. A craven
fear sits in the hearts of all. Men dare not be generous, high-minded, and true.
A [-120-] man dares not act otherwise than the
class by which he is surrounded: he must conform to their regulations or die;
outside the pale there is no hope. If he would not be as others are, it were
better that a millstone were hung round his neck and that he were cast into the
sea. If, as a tradesman, he will not devote his energies to money-making - if he
will not rise up early and sit up late - if he will not starve the mind - if he
will not violate the conditions by which the physical and mental powers are
sustained - he will find that in Christian England, in the nineteenth century,
there is no room for such as he. The externals which men in their ignorance have
come to believe essential to happiness, he will see another's. Great city
"feeds" - white-bait dinners at Blackwall, and "genteel
residences," within a few miles of the Bank or the bridges - fat coachmen
and fiery steeds - corporation honours and emoluments, - a man may seek in vain
if he will not take first, the ledger for his Gospel, and mammon for his God. It
is just the same with the professions. Would the "most distinguished
counsel" ever have a brief were he to scorn to employ the powers God has
given him to obtain impunity for the man whose heart's life has become polluted
with crime beyond the power of reform. Many a statesman has to thank a similar
laxity of conscience for his place and power.