[-121-]
CHAPTER XI.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
I AM not in the best of humours. The wind and weather of the
last few months have been bad enough to vex the temper and destroy the patience
of a saint. I wish the papers would write a little more about reforms at home,
and not trouble themselves about the Emperor of the French. I wish country
gentlemen, when airing their vocabularies at agricultural dinners, would not
talk so much of our friends across the water being desirous to avenge the
disgrace of Waterloo, as if there were any disgrace to France, after having been
a match, single-handed, for all Europe for a generation, in being compelled to
succumb at last. I wish we could be content with trading with China, without
sending ambassadors to Pekin, and endeavouring by fair means or foul to make
that ancient city, as regards red-tapeism and diplomatic quarrels, as great a
nuisance as Constantinople is now. I wish Mr. George Augustus Sala, with that
wonderful talent of his for imitating Dickens and Thackeray, would quite forget
there was such [-122-] gentlemen in the world, and
write independently of them. And I wish the little essayists, who copy Mr.
George Augustus Sala, and are so very smart and facetious by his aid, would
either swim without corks, or not swim at all. Thank heaven, none of them are
permanent, and most of them speedily sink down into limbo. Where are the
gaudily-covered miscellanies, and other light productions of this class? if not
dead, why on every second-hand book-stall in London, in vain seeking a sale at
half-price, and dear at the money. But the spirit of which they are the symptom,
of which they rare the outward and visible sign, lives. Directly you take up one
of these books, you know what is coming. But after all, why quarrel with these
butterflies, who, at any rate, have a good conceit of themselves, if they have
but a poor opinion of others? Fontaine tells of a motherly crab, who exclaimed
against the obliquity of her daughter's gait, and asked whether she could not
walk straight. The young crab pleaded, very reasonably, the similarity of her
parent's manner of stepping, and asked whether she could be expected to walk
differently from the rest of the family?
This fable throws me back on general principles; our writers
- our preachers - our statesmen, are fearful, and tremble at the appearance of
originality. The age overrules us all, society is strong, and the individual is
consequently weak. We have no patrons now, but, instead, we have a mob. Attend a
public meeting, - the speaker who is the most applauded, is the man most
[-123-] given to exaggeration. Listen to a popular preacher, - is he not
invariably the most commonplace, and in his sermons least suggestive, of men?
When a new periodical is projected, what care is taken that it shall contain
nothing to offend, as if a man or writer were worth a rap that did not come into
collision with some prejudices, and trample on some corns. In describing some
ceremony where beer had been distributed, a teetotal reporter, writing for a
teetotal public, omitted all mention of the beer. This is ridiculous, but such
things are done every day in all classes. Society exercises a censorship over
the press of the most distinctive character. The song says,
"Have faith in one
another."
I say, have faith in yourself. This faith in oneself would go far to put society
in a better position than it is. A common complaint in everybody's mouth is the
want of variety in individual character - the dreary monotony we find everywhere
pervading society. Men and women, lads and maidens, boys and girls, if we may
call the little dolls dressed up in crinoline and flounces, and the young
gentlemen in patent-leather boots, such, are all alike. Civilization is a
leveller of the most destructive kind. Man is timid, imitative, and lazy. Hence,
it is to the past we must turn, whenever we would recall to our minds how
sublime and great man, in his might and majesty, may become. Hence it is we can
reckon upon but few who dare to stand alone in devotedness to truth and human
right. Most men are [-124-] enslaved by the
opinions of the little clique in which they move; they can never imagine that
beyond their little circle there can exist anything that is lovely or of good
report. We are the men, and wisdom will die with us, is the burden of their
song. We judge not according to abstract principles, but conventional ideas. Ask
a young lady, of average intelligence, respecting some busy hive of industry,
and intelligence, and life. "Oh!" she exclaims, "there is no
society in such a place." Ask an evangelical churchman as to a certain
locality, and he will reply, "Oh it is very dark, dark, indeed;" as if
there was a spot on this blessed earth where God's sun did not shine. The
dancing Bayaderes, who visited London some fifteen years back, were shocked at
what they conceived the immodest attire of our English dames, who, in their
turn, were thankful that they did not dress as the Bayaderes. All uneducated
people, or rather all unreflective people, are apt to reason in this way;
orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy, yours. But we English, especially, are liable
to this fallacy, on account of our insular position, and the reserve and phlegm
of our national character. Abroad people travel more, come more into collision
with each other, socially are more equal. We can only recognize goodness and
greatness in certain forms. People must be well-dressed, must be of respectable
family, must go to church, and then they may carry on any rascality. Sir John
Dean Paul, Redpath, and others, were types of this class. Hence it is society
stagnates - such is a description of a [-125-] general
law, illustrated in all history, especially our own. Society invariably sets
itself against all great improvements in their birth. Society gives the cold
shoulder to whatever has lifted up the human race - to whatever has illustrated
and adorned humanity-to whatever has made the world wiser and better. Our
fathers stoned the prophets, and we continue the amiable custom. Our judgment is
not our own, but that of other people. We think what will other people think?
our first question is not, Is a course of action right or wrong? but; What will
Mr. Grundy say? Here is the great blunder of blunders. John the Baptist lived in
a desert. "If I had read as much as other men," said Hobbes, "I
should have been as ignorant as they." "When I began to write against
indulgences, says Luther, "I was for three years entirely alone; not a
single soul holding out the hand of fellowship and cooperation to me." Of
Milton, Wordsworth writes, "his soul was like a star, and dwelt
apart."
The great original thinker of the last generation, John
Foster, actually fled the face of man. What a life of persecution and
misrepresentation had Arnold of Rugby to endure, and no wonder, when we quote
against the conclusions of common sense the imaginary opinions of an imaginary
scarecrow we term society. This deference to the opinion of others is an
unmitigated evil. In no case is it a legitimate rule of action. The chances are
that society is on the wrong side, as men of independent thought and action are
in the minority, [-126-] and even if society be
right; it is not from a desire to win her smile or secure her favour that a man
should act. It is not the judgment of others that a man must seek, but his own;
it is by that he must act - by that he must stand or fall - by that he must live
- and by that he must die. All real life is internal, all honest action is born
of honest thought; out of the heart are the issues of life. The want of
exercising one's own understanding has been admirably described by Locke. It is
that, he says, which weakens and extinguishes this noble faculty in us.
"Trace it, and see whether it be not so; the day labourer in a country
village has comcomly but a small pittance of knowledge, because his ideas and
notions have been confined to the narrow bounds of a poor conversation and
employment; the low mechanic of a country town does somewhat outdo him - porters
and cobblers of great cities surpass him. A country gentleman, leaving Latin and
Learning in the University, who returns thence to his mansion-house, and
associates with his neighbours of the same strain, who relish nothing but
hunting and a bottle; with these alone he spends his time, with these alone he
converses, and can away with no company whose discourses go beyond what claret
and dissoluteness inspire. Such a patriot, formed in this happy day of
improvement, cannot fail, we see, to give notable decisions upon the bench at
quarter sessions, and eminent proofs of his skill in politics, when the strength
of his purse, and party, have advanced him to a more [-127-]
auspicious, situation. * * * To carry this a little further: here is one
muffled up in the zeal and infallibility of his own sect, and will not touch a
book, or enter into debate, with a person that will question any of those things
which, to him, are sacred." People wonder now-a-days why we have so many
societies- the cause is the same. Men cannot trust themselves; to do that
requires exercise of the understanding. A man must take his opinions from
society; he can do no battle with the devil unless he have an association formed
to aid him. At Oxford the example of an individual, Dr. Livingstone, created a
generous enthusiasm. A society was formed under distinguished patronage,
subscription lists were opened, a public meeting was held, and the most renowned
men of the day - the Bishop of Oxford and Mr. Gladstone - lent to the meeting
not merely the attraction of their presence, but the charm of their oratorical
powers. The result is a very small collection, and a talk of sending out six
missionaries to christianize Africa. When societies are formed there is no end
to the absurdities they are guilty of. Just think of the men of science at
Aberdeen, all rushing over hill and dale to Balmoral, where they were permitted,
not to converse with majesty (that were too great an act of condescension), but
to have lunch in an apartment of the royal residence. Then, again, what murmurs
were there at Bradford, because, at the close of the meeting, the younger
members of the Social Reform Congress were not permitted to dance the polka. If
old [-128-] Columbus were alive now a new world
would never have been discovered. We should have had a limited liability company
established for the purpose. A board of lawyers, and merchants, and M.P.'s, as
directors, would have been formed. Some good-natured newspaper editors would
have inserted some ingenious puffs, - the shares would have gone up in the
market, - the directors would have sold out at a very fair rate of profit.
Columbus would have made, one or two unsuccessful voyages - the shares would
have gone down - the company would have been wound up - and no western
continent, with its vast resources, would ever have been heard of. I like the
old plan best; I like to see a man. If I go into the House of Commons I hear of
men, somewhat too much talk of men is there; on one side of the house Pitt is
quoted, on another Fox, or Peel, or Canning. If Pitt, and Fox, and Canning, and
Peel had done so depend upon it we should never have heard their names. It is a
poor sign when our statesmen get into this habit; it is a mutual confession of
inability to act according to the wants and necessities of the age. They quote
great men to hide their littleness. They imagine that by using the words of
great statesmen they may become such, or, at any rate, get the public to note
them for such themselves. They use the names of Pitt and Fox as corks, by means
of which they may keep afloat. Well, I must fain do the same; while I rail
against custom, I must e'en follow her.
"He seems to me," said old Montaigne, "to have
[-129-] had a right and true apprehension of the
power of custom, who first invented the story of a country-woman who, having
accustomed herself to play with and carry a young calf in her arms, and daily
continuing to do so as it grew up obtained this by custom, that when grown to a
great ox she was still able to bear it. For, in truth, custom is a violent and
treacherous schoolmistress. She by little and little, slyly and unperceived,
slips in the foot of her authority, but having by this gentle mid humble
beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks
a furious and tyrannical countenance, against which we have no more the courage
or the power so much as to lift up our eyes. We see it at every turn forcing and
violating the rules of nature. Usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister. Custom
is the greatest master of all things."
And now I finish with a fable. A knight surprised a giant of
enormous size and wickedness sleeping, his head lying under the shade of a big
oak. The knight prayed to heaven to aid his strength, and lifting his battle-axe
dashed it with all his might on the giant's forehead. The giant opened his eyes,
and drowsily passing his hand over his eyes, murmured, "The falling leaves
trouble my rest," and straight he slumbered again. The knight summoned his
energies for another stroke, again whirled his axe in the air, and furiously
dashed it to the utter destruction of the giant's scull. The latter merely
stirred, and said, "The dropping acorns disturb my sleep." The knight
flung down his [-130-] axe and fled in despair from
an enemy who held his fiercest blows and his vaunted and well-tried might but as
falling leaves and dropping acorns. Reader, so do I. My hardest blows shall seem
but as leaves and acorns to the giant with whom I am at war, and would fain
destroy.