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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Friends in Council, by Arthur Helps
+
+
+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: Friends in Council
+       First Series
+
+
+Author: Arthur Helps
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 25, 2014  [eBook #7438]
+[This file was first posted on April 30, 2003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRIENDS IN COUNCIL***
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Les Bowler.
+
+                       CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+
+                            Friends in Council
+
+
+                               First Series
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    BY
+
+                            SIR ARTHUR HELPS.
+
+                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]
+
+                       CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
+
+                      _LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
+
+                                  1891.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+ARTHUR HELPS was born at Streatham on the 10th of July, 1813.  He went at
+the age of sixteen to Eton, thence to Trinity College, Cambridge.  Having
+graduated B.A. in 1835, he became private secretary to the Hon. T. Spring
+Rice, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne’s Cabinet,
+formed in April, 1835.  This was his position at the beginning of the
+present reign in June, 1837.
+
+In 1839—in which year he graduated M.A.—Arthur Helps was transferred to
+the service of Lord Morpeth, who was Irish Secretary in the same
+ministry.  Lord Melbourne’s Ministry was succeeded by that of Sir Robert
+Peel in September, 1841, and Helps then was appointed a Commissioner of
+French, Danish, and Spanish Claims.  In 1841 he published “Essays Written
+in the Intervals of Business.”  Their quiet thoughtfulness was in accord
+with the spirit that had given value to his services as private secretary
+to two ministers of State.  In 1844 that little book was followed by
+another on “The Claims of Labour,” dealing with the relations of
+employers to employed.  There was the same scholarly simplicity and grace
+of style, the same interest in things worth serious attention.  “We say,”
+he wrote, towards the close, “that Kings are God’s Vicegerents upon
+Earth; but almost every human being has, at one time or other of his
+life, a portion of the happiness of those around him in his power, which
+might make him tremble, if he did but see it in all its fulness.”  To
+this book Arthur Helps added an essay “On the Means of Improving the
+Health and Increasing the Comfort of the Labouring Classes.”
+
+His next book was this First Series of “Friends in Council,” published in
+1847, and followed by other series in later years.  There were many other
+writings of his, less popular than they would have been if the same
+abilities had been controlled by less good taste.  His “History of the
+Conquest of the New World” in 1848, and of “The Spanish Conquest of
+America,” in four volumes, from 1855 to 1861, preceded his obtaining from
+his University, in 1864, the honorary degree of D.C.L.  In June, 1860,
+Arthur Helps was made Clerk of the Privy Council, and held that office of
+high trust until his death on the 7th of March, 1875.  He had become Sir
+Arthur in 1872.
+
+                                                                     H. M.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+NONE but those who, like myself, have once lived in intellectual society,
+and then have been deprived of it for years, can appreciate the delight
+of finding it again.  Not that I have any right to complain, if I were
+fated to live as a recluse for ever.  I can add little, or nothing, to
+the pleasure of any company; I like to listen rather than to talk; and
+when anything apposite does occur to me, it is generally the day after
+the conversation has taken place.  I do not, however, love good talk the
+less for these defects of mine; and I console myself with thinking that I
+sustain the part of a judicious listener, not always an easy one.
+
+Great, then, was my delight at hearing last year that my old pupil,
+Milverton, had taken a house which had long been vacant in our
+neighbourhood.  To add to my pleasure, his college friend, Ellesmere, the
+great lawyer, also an old pupil of mine, came to us frequently in the
+course of the autumn.  Milverton was at that time writing some essays
+which he occasionally read to Ellesmere and myself.  The conversations
+which then took place I am proud to say that I have chronicled.  I think
+they must be interesting to the world in general, though of course not so
+much so as to me.
+
+Milverton and Ellesmere were my favourite pupils.  Many is the heartache
+I have had at finding that those boys, with all their abilities, would do
+nothing at the University.  But it was in vain to urge them.  I grieve to
+say that neither of them had any ambition of the right kind.  Once I
+thought I had stimulated Ellesmere to the proper care and exertion; when,
+to my astonishment and vexation, going into his rooms about a month
+before an examination, I found that, instead of getting up his subjects,
+like a reasonable man, he was absolutely endeavouring to invent some new
+method for proving something which had been proved before in a hundred
+ways.  Over this he had wasted two days, and from that moment I saw it
+was useless to waste any more of my time and patience in urging a scholar
+so indocile for the beaten path.
+
+What tricks he and Milverton used to play me, pretending not to
+understand my demonstration of some mathematical problem, inventing all
+manner of subtle difficulties, and declaring they could not go on while
+these stumbling-blocks lay in their way!  But I am getting into college
+gossip, which may in no way delight my readers.  And I am fancying, too,
+that Milverton and Ellesmere are the boys they were to me; but I am now
+the child to them.  During the years that I have been quietly living
+here, they have become versed in the ways of the busy world.  And though
+they never think of asserting their superiority, I feel it, and am glad
+to do so.
+
+My readers would, perhaps, like one to tell them something of the
+characters of Ellesmere and Milverton; but it would ill become me to give
+that insight into them, which I, their college friend and tutor, imagine
+I have obtained.  Their friendship I could never understand.  It was not
+on the surface very warm, and their congeniality seemed to result more
+from one or two large common principles of thought than from any peculiar
+similarity of taste, or from great affection on either side.  Yet I
+should wrong their friendship if I were to represent it otherwise than a
+most true-hearted one; more so, perhaps, than some of softer texture.
+What needs be seen of them individually will be by their words, which I
+hope I have in the main retained.
+
+The place where we generally met in fine weather was on the lawn before
+Milverton’s house.  It was an eminence which commanded a series of
+valleys sloping towards the sea.  And, as the sea was not more than nine
+miles off, it was a matter of frequent speculation with us whether the
+landscape was bounded by air or water.  In the first valley was a little
+town of red brick houses, with poplars coming up amongst them.  The ruins
+of a castle, and some water which, in olden times, had been the lake in
+“the pleasaunce,” were between us and the town.  The clang of an anvil,
+or the clamour of a horn, or busy wheelwright’s sounds, came faintly up
+to us when the wind was south.
+
+I must not delay my readers longer with my gossip, but bring them at once
+into the conversation that preceded our first reading.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Milverton_.  I tell you, Ellesmere, these are the only heights I care to
+look down from, the heights of natural scenery.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Pooh! my dear Milverton, it is only because the particular
+mounds which the world calls heights, you think you have found out to be
+but larger ant-heaps.  Whenever you have cared about anything, a man more
+fierce and unphilosophical in the pursuit of it I never saw.  To
+influence men’s minds by writing for them, is that no ambition?
+
+_Milverton_.  It may be, but I have it not.  Let any kind critic convince
+me that what I am now doing is useless, or has been done before, or that,
+if I leave it undone, some one else will do it to my mind; and I should
+fold up my papers, and watch the turnips grow in that field there, with a
+placidity that would, perhaps, seem very spiritless to your now restless
+and ambitious nature, Ellesmere.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  If something were to happen which will not, then—O
+Philosophy, Philosophy, you, too, are a good old nurse, and rattle your
+rattles for your little people, as well as old Dame World can do for
+hers.  But what are we to have to-day for our first reading?
+
+_Milverton_.  An Essay on Truth.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, had I known this before, it is not the novelty of the
+subject which would have dragged me up the hill to your house.  By the
+way, philosophers ought not to live upon hills.  They are much more
+accessible, and I think quite as reasonable, when, Diogenes-like, they
+live in tubs upon flat ground.  Now for the essay.
+
+
+
+TRUTH.
+
+
+Truth is a subject which men will not suffer to grow old.  Each age has
+to fight with its own falsehoods: each man with his love of saying to
+himself and those around him pleasant things and things serviceable for
+to-day, rather than the things which are.  Yet a child appreciates at
+once the divine necessity for truth; never asks, “What harm is there in
+saying the thing that is not?” and an old man finds, in his growing
+experience, wider and wider applications of the great doctrine and
+discipline of truth.
+
+Truth needs the wisdom of the serpent as well as the simplicity of the
+dove.  He has gone but a little way in this matter who supposes that it
+is an easy thing for a man to speak the truth, “the thing he troweth;”
+and that it is a casual function, which may be fulfilled at once after
+any lapse of exercise.  But, in the first place, the man who would speak
+truth must know what he troweth.  To do that, he must have an uncorrupted
+judgment.  By this is not meant a perfect judgment or even a wise one,
+but one which, however it may be biassed, is not bought—is still a
+judgment.  But some people’s judgments are so entirely gained over by
+vanity, selfishness, passion, or inflated prejudices and fancies long
+indulged in; or they have the habit of looking at everything so
+carelessly, that they see nothing truly.  They cannot interpret the world
+of reality.  And this is the saddest form of lying, “the lie that sinketh
+in,” as Bacon says, which becomes part of the character and goes on
+eating the rest away.
+
+Again, to speak truth, a man must not only have that martial courage
+which goes out, with sound of drum and trumpet, to do and suffer great
+things; but that domestic courage which compels him to utter small
+sounding truths in spite of present inconvenience and outraged
+sensitiveness or sensibility.  Then he must not be in any respect a slave
+to self-interest.  Often it seems as if but a little misrepresentation
+would gain a great good for us; or, perhaps, we have only to conceal some
+trifling thing, which, if told, might hinder unreasonably, as we think, a
+profitable bargain.  The true man takes care to tell, notwithstanding.
+When we think that truth interferes at one time or another with all a
+man’s likings, hatings, and wishes, we must admit, I think, that it is
+the most comprehensive and varied form of self-denial.
+
+Then, in addition to these great qualities, truth-telling in its highest
+sense requires a well-balanced mind.  For instance, much exaggeration,
+perhaps the most, is occasioned by an impatient and easily moved
+temperament which longs to convey its own vivid impressions to other
+minds, and seeks by amplifying to gain the full measure of their
+sympathy.  But a true man does not think what his hearers are feeling,
+but what he is saying.
+
+More stress might be laid than has been on the intellectual requisites
+for truth, which are probably the best part of intellectual cultivation;
+and as much caused by truth as causing it. {12}  But, putting the
+requisites for truth at the fewest, see of how large a portion of the
+character truth is the resultant.  If you were to make a list of those
+persons accounted the religious men of their respective ages, you would
+have a ludicrous combination of characters essentially dissimilar.  But
+true people are kindred.  Mention the eminently true men, and you will
+find that they are a brotherhood.  There is a family likeness throughout
+them.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+If we consider the occasions of exercising truthfulness and descend to
+particulars, we may divide the matter into the following heads:—truth to
+oneself—truth to mankind in general—truth in social relations—truth in
+business—truth in pleasure.
+
+1.  Truth to oneself.  All men have a deep interest that each man should
+tell himself the truth.  Not only will he become a better man, but he
+will understand them better.  If men knew themselves, they could not be
+intolerant to others.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to say much about the advantage of a man knowing
+himself for himself.  To get at the truth of any history is good; but a
+man’s own history—when he reads that truly, and, without a mean and
+over-solicitous introspection, knows what he is about and what he has
+been about, it is a Bible to him.  “And David said unto Nathan, I have
+sinned before the Lord.”  David knew the truth about himself.  But truth
+to oneself is not merely truth about oneself.  It consists in maintaining
+an openness and justness of soul which brings a man into relation with
+all truth.  For this, all the senses, if you might so call them, of the
+soul must be uninjured—that is, the affections and the perceptions must
+be just.  For a man to speak the truth to himself comprehends all
+goodness; and for us mortals can only be an aim.
+
+2.  Truth to mankind in general.  This is a matter which, as I read it,
+concerns only the higher natures.  Suffice it to say, that the
+withholding large truths from the world may be a betrayal of the greatest
+trust.
+
+3.  Truth in social relations.  Under this head come the practices of
+making speech vary according to the person spoken to; of pretending to
+agree with the world when you do not; of not acting according to what is
+your deliberate and well-advised opinion because some mischief may be
+made of it by persons whose judgment in this matter you do not respect;
+of maintaining a wrong course for the sake of consistency; of encouraging
+the show of intimacy with those whom you never can be intimate with; and
+many things of the same kind.  These practices have elements of charity
+and prudence as well as fear and meanness in them.  Let those parts which
+correspond to fear and meanness be put aside.  Charity and prudence are
+not parasitical plants which require boles of falsehood to climb up upon.
+It is often extremely difficult in the mixed things of this world to act
+truly and kindly too; but therein lies one of the great trials of man,
+that his sincerity should have kindness in it, and his kindness truth.
+
+4.  Truth in business.  The more truth you can get into any business, the
+better.  Let the other side know the defects of yours, let them know how
+you are to be satisfied, let there be as little to be found as possible
+(I should say nothing), and if your business be an honest one, it will be
+best tended in this way.  The talking, bargaining, and delaying that
+would thus be needless, the little that would then have to be done over
+again, the anxiety that would be put aside, would even in a worldly way
+be “great gain.”  It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that the third
+part of men’s lives is wasted by the effect, direct or indirect, of
+falsehoods.
+
+Still, let us not be swift to imagine that lies are never of any service.
+A recent Prime Minister said, that he did not know about truth always
+prevailing and the like; but lies had been very successful against his
+government.  And this was true enough.  Every lie has its day.  There is
+no preternatural inefficacy in it by reason of its falseness.  And this
+is especially the case with those vague injurious reports which are no
+man’s lies, but all men’s carelessness.  But even as regards special and
+unmistakable falsehood, we must admit that it has its success.  A
+complete being might deceive with wonderful effect; however, as nature is
+always against a liar, it is great odds in the case of ordinary mortals.
+Wolsey talks of
+
+                      “Negligence
+    Fit for a fool to fall by,”
+
+when he gives Henry the wrong packet; but the Cardinal was quite
+mistaken.  That kind of negligence was just the thing of which far-seeing
+and thoughtful men are capable; and which, if there were no higher
+motive, should induce them to rely on truth alone.  A very close vulpine
+nature, all eyes, all ears, may succeed better in deceit.  But it is a
+sleepless business.  Yet, strange to say, it is had recourse to in the
+most spendthrift fashion, as the first and easiest thing that comes to
+hand.
+
+In connection with truth in business, it may be observed that if you are
+a truthful man, you should be watchful over those whom you employ; for
+your subordinate agents are often fond of lying for your interests, as
+they think.  Show them at once that you do not think with them, and that
+you will disconcert any of their inventions by breaking in with the
+truth.  If you suffer the fear of seeming unkind to prevent your
+thrusting well-meant inventions aside, you may get as much pledged to
+falsehoods as if you had coined and uttered them yourself.
+
+5.  Truth in pleasure.  Men have been said to be sincere in their
+pleasures; but this is only that the taste and habits of men are more
+easily discernible in pleasure than in business.  The want of truth is as
+great a hindrance to the one as to the other.  Indeed, there is so much
+insincerity and formality in the pleasurable department of human life,
+especially in social pleasures, that instead of a bloom there is a slime
+upon it, which deadens and corrupts the thing.  One of the most comical
+sights to superior beings must be to see two human creatures with
+elaborate speech and gestures making each other exquisitely uncomfortable
+from civility: the one pressing what he is most anxious that the other
+should not accept, and the other accepting only from the fear of giving
+offence by refusal.  There is an element of charity in all this too; and
+it will be the business of a just and refined nature to be sincere and
+considerate at the same time.  This will be better done by enlarging our
+sympathy, so that more things and people are pleasant to us, than by
+increasing the civil and conventional part of our nature, so that we are
+able to do more seeming with greater skill and endurance.  Of other false
+hindrances to pleasure, such as ostentation and pretences of all kinds,
+there is neither charity nor comfort in them.  They may be got rid of
+altogether, and no moaning made over them.  Truth, which is one of the
+largest creatures, opens out the way to the heights of enjoyment, as well
+as to the depths of self-denial.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+It is difficult to think too highly of the merits and delights of truth;
+but there is often in men’s minds an exaggerated notion of some bit of
+truth, which proves a great assistance to falsehood.  For instance, the
+shame of some particular small falsehood, exaggeration, or insincerity,
+becomes a bugbear which scares a man into a career of false dealing.  He
+has begun making a furrow a little out of the line, and he ploughs on in
+it to try and give some consistency and meaning to it.  He wants almost
+to persuade himself that it was not wrong, and entirely to hide the
+wrongness from others.  This is a tribute to the majesty of truth; also
+to the world’s opinion about truth.  It proceeds, too, upon the notion
+that all falsehoods are equal, which is not the case; or on some fond
+craving for a show of perfection, which is sometimes very inimical to the
+reality.  The practical, as well as the high-minded, view in such cases,
+is for a man to think how he can be true now.  To attain that, it may,
+even for this world, be worth while for a man to admit that he is
+inconsistent, and even that he has been untrue.  His hearers, did they
+know anything of themselves, would be fully aware that he was not
+singular, except in the courage of owning his insincerity.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_.  That last part requires thinking about.  If you were to
+permit men, without great loss of reputation, to own that they had been
+insincere, you might break down some of that majesty of truth you talk
+about.  And bad men might avail themselves of any facilities of owning
+insincerity, to commit more of it.  I can imagine that the apprehension
+of this might restrain a man from making any such admission as you allude
+to, even if he could make up his mind to do it otherwise.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes; but can anything be worse than a man going on in a
+false course?  Each man must look to his own truthfulness, and keep that
+up as well as he can, even at the risk of saying, or doing, something
+which may be turned to ill account by others.  We may think too much
+about this reflection of our external selves.  Let the real self be
+right.  I am not so fanciful as to expect men to go about clamouring that
+they have been false; but at no risk of letting people see that, or of
+even being obliged to own it, should they persevere in it.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Milverton is right, I think.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Do not imagine that I am behind either of you in a wish to
+hold up truth.  My only doubt was as to the mode.  For my own part, I
+have such faith in truth that I take it mere concealment is in most cases
+a mischief.  And I should say, for instance, that a wise man would be
+sorry that his fellows should think better of him than he deserves.  By
+the way, that is a reason why I should not like to be a writer of moral
+essays, Milverton—one should be supposed to be so very good.
+
+_Milverton_.  Only by thoughtless people then.  There is a saying given
+to Rousseau, not that he ever did say it, for I believe it was a
+misprint, but it was a possible saying for him, “Chaque homme qui pense
+est méchant.”  Now, without going the length of this aphorism, we may say
+that what has been well written has been well suffered.
+
+    “He best can paint them who has felt them most.”
+
+And so, though we should not exactly declare that writers who have had
+much moral influence have been wicked men, yet we may admit that they
+have been amongst the most struggling, which implies anything but serene
+self-possession and perfect spotlessness.  If you take the great ones,
+Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe, you see this at once.
+
+_Dunsford_.  David, St. Paul.
+
+_Milverton_.  Such men are like great rocks on the seashore.  By their
+resistance, terraces of level land are formed; but the rocks themselves
+bear many scars and ugly indents, while the sea of human difficulty
+presents the same unwrinkled appearance in all ages.  Yet it has been
+driven back.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  But has it lost any of its bulk, or only gone elsewhere?
+One part of the resemblance certainly is that these same rocks, which
+were bulwarks, become, in their turn, dangers.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes, there is always loss in that way.  It is seldom given
+to man to do unmixed good.  But it was not this aspect of the simile that
+I was thinking of: it was the scarred appearance.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Scars not always of defeat or flight; scars in the front.
+
+_Milverton_.  Ah, it hardly does for us to talk of victory or defeat, in
+these cases; but we may look at the contest itself as something not bad,
+terminate how it may.  We lament over a man’s sorrows, struggles,
+disasters, and shortcomings; yet they were possessions too.  We talk of
+the origin of evil and the permission of evil.  But what is evil?  We
+mostly speak of sufferings and trials as good, perhaps, in their result;
+but we hardly admit that they may be good in themselves.  Yet they are
+knowledge—how else to be acquired, unless by making men as gods, enabling
+them to understand without experience.  All that men go through may be
+absolutely the best for them—no such thing as evil, at least in our
+customary meaning of the word.  But, you will say, they might have been
+created different and higher.  See where this leads to.  Any sentient
+being may set up the same claim: a fly that it had not been made a man;
+and so the end would be that each would complain of not being all.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Say it all over again, my dear Milverton: it is rather
+hard.  [Milverton did so, in nearly the same words.]  I think I have
+heard it all before.  But you may have it as you please.  I do not say
+this irreverently, but the truth is, I am too old and too earthly to
+enter upon these subjects.  I think, however, that the view is a
+stout-hearted one.  It is somewhat in the same vein of thought that you
+see in Carlyle’s works about the contempt of happiness.  But in all these
+cases, one is apt to think of the sage in “Rasselas,” who is very wise
+about human misery till he loses his daughter.  Your fly illustration has
+something in it.  Certainly when men talk big about what might have been
+done for man, they omit to think what might be said, on similar grounds,
+for each sentient creature in the universe.  But here have we been
+meandering off into origin of evil, and uses of great men, and wickedness
+of writers, etc., whereas I meant to have said something about the essay.
+How would you answer what Bacon maintains?  “A mixture of a lie doth ever
+add pleasure.”
+
+_Milverton_.  He is not speaking of the lies of social life, but of
+self-deception.  He goes on to class under that head “vain opinions,
+flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would.”  These
+things are the sweetness of “the lie that sinketh in.”  Many a man has a
+kind of mental kaleidoscope, where the bits of broken glass are his own
+merits and fortunes, and they fall into harmonious arrangements and
+delight him—often most mischievously and to his ultimate detriment, but
+they are a present pleasure.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, I am going to be true in my pleasures: to take a long
+walk alone.  I have got a difficult case for an opinion, which I must go
+and think over.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Shall we have another reading tomorrow?
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes, if you are both in the humour for it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+AS the next day was fine, we agreed to have our reading in the same spot
+that I have described before.  There was scarcely any conversation worth
+noting, until after Milverton had read us the following essay on
+Conformity.
+
+
+
+CONFORMITY.
+
+
+The conformity of men is often a far poorer thing than that which
+resembles it amongst the lower animals.  The monkey imitates from
+imitative skill and gamesomeness: the sheep is gregarious, having no
+sufficient will to form an independent project of its own.  But man often
+loathes what he imitates, and conforms to what he knows to be wrong.
+
+It will ever be one of the nicest problems for a man to solve how far he
+shall profit by the thoughts of other men, and not be enslaved by them.
+He comes into the world, and finds swaddling clothes ready for his mind
+as well as his body.  There is a vast scheme of social machinery set up
+about him; and he has to discern how he can make it work with him and for
+him, without becoming part of the machinery himself.  In this lie the
+anguish and the struggle of the greatest minds.  Most sad are they,
+having mostly the deepest sympathies, when they find themselves breaking
+off from communion with other minds.  They would go on, if they could,
+with the opinions around them.  But, happily, there is something to which
+a man owes a larger allegiance than to any human affection.  He would be
+content to go away from a false thing, or quietly to protest against it;
+but in spite of him the strife in his heart breaks into burning utterance
+by word or deed.
+
+Few, however, are those who venture, even for the shortest time, into
+that hazy world of independent thought, where a man is not upheld by a
+crowd of other men’s opinions, but where he must find a footing of his
+own.  Among the mass of men, there is little or no resistance to
+conformity.  Could the history of opinions be fully written, it would be
+seen how large a part in human proceedings the love of conformity, or
+rather the fear of non-conformity, has occasioned.  It has triumphed over
+all other fears; over love, hate, pity, sloth, anger, truth, pride,
+comfort, self-interest, vanity, and maternal love.  It has torn down the
+sense of beauty in the human soul, and set up in its place little ugly
+idols which it compels us to worship with more than Japanese devotion.
+It has contradicted Nature in the most obvious things, and been listened
+to with abject submission.  Its empire has been no less extensive than
+deep-seated.  The serf to custom points his finger at the slave to
+fashion—as if it signified whether it is an old or a new thing which is
+irrationally conformed to.  The man of letters despises both the slaves
+of fashion and of custom, but often runs his narrow career of thought,
+shut up, though he sees it not, within close walls which he does not
+venture even to peep over.
+
+It is hard to say in what department of human thought and endeavour
+conformity has triumphed most.  Religion comes to one’s mind first; and
+well it may when one thinks what men have conformed to in all ages in
+that matter.  If we pass to art, or science, we shall see there too the
+wondrous slavery which men have endured—from puny fetters, moreover,
+which one stirring thought would, as we think, have burst asunder.  The
+above, however, are matters not within every one’s cognisance; some of
+them are shut in by learning or the show of it; and plain “practical” men
+would say, they follow where they have no business but to follow.  But
+the way in which the human body shall be covered is not a thing for the
+scientific and the learned only: and is allowed on all hands to concern,
+in no small degree, one half at least of the creation.  It is in such a
+simple thing as dress that each of us may form some estimate of the
+extent of conformity in the world.  A wise nation, unsubdued by
+superstition, with the collected experience of peaceful ages, concludes
+that female feet are to be clothed by crushing them.  The still wiser
+nations of the west have adopted a swifter mode of destroying health, and
+creating angularity, by crushing the upper part of the female body.  In
+such matters nearly all people conform.  Our brother man is seldom so
+bitter against us, as when we refuse to adopt at once his notions of the
+infinite.  But even religious dissent were less dangerous and more
+respectable than dissent in dress.  If you want to see what men will do
+in the way of conformity, take a European hat for your subject of
+meditation.  I dare say there are twenty-two millions of people at this
+minute each wearing one of these hats in order to please the rest.  As in
+the fine arts, and in architecture, especially, so in dress, something is
+often retained that was useful when something else was beside it.  To go
+to architecture for an instance, a pinnacle is retained, not that it is
+of any use where it is, but in another kind of building it would have
+been.  That style of building, as a whole, has gone out of fashion, but
+the pinnacle has somehow or other kept its ground and must be there, no
+one insolently going back to first principles and asking what is the use
+and object of building pinnacles.  Similar instances in dress will occur
+to my readers.  Some of us are not skilled in such affairs; but looking
+at old pictures we may sometimes see how modern clothes have attained
+their present pitch of frightfulness and inconvenience.  This matter of
+dress is one in which, perhaps, you might expect the wise to conform to
+the foolish; and they have.
+
+When we have once come to a right estimate of the strength of conformity,
+we shall, I think, be more kindly disposed to eccentricity than we
+usually are.  Even a wilful or an absurd eccentricity is some support
+against the weighty common-place conformity of the world.  If it were not
+for some singular people who persist in thinking for themselves, in
+seeing for themselves, and in being comfortable, we should all collapse
+into a hideous uniformity.
+
+It is worth while to analyse that influence of the world which is the
+right arm of conformity.  Some persons bend to the world in all things,
+from an innocent belief that what so many people think must be right.
+Others have a vague fear of the world as of some wild beast which may
+spring out upon them at any time.  Tell them they are safe in their
+houses from this myriad-eyed creature: they still are sure that they
+shall meet with it some day, and would propitiate its favour at any
+sacrifice.  Many men contract their idea of the world to their own
+circle, and what they imagine to be said in that circle of friends and
+acquaintances is their idea of public opinion—“as if,” to use a saying of
+Southey’s, “a number of worldlings made a world.”  With some unfortunate
+people, the much dreaded “world” shrinks into one person of more mental
+power than their own, or perhaps merely of coarser nature; and the fancy
+as to what this person will say about anything they do, sits upon them
+like a nightmare.  Happy the man who can embark his small adventure of
+deeds and thoughts upon the shallow waters round his home, or send them
+afloat on the wide sea of humanity, with no great anxiety in either case
+as to what reception they may meet with!  He would have them steer by the
+stars, and take what wind may come to them.
+
+A reasonable watchfulness against conformity will not lead a man to spurn
+the aid of other men, still less to reject the accumulated mental capital
+of ages.  It does not compel us to dote upon the advantages of savage
+life.  We would not forego the hard-earned gains of civil society because
+there is something in most of them which tends to contract the natural
+powers, although it vastly aids them.  We would not, for instance, return
+to the monosyllabic utterance of barbarous men, because in any formed
+language there are a thousand snares for the understanding.  Yet we must
+be most watchful of them.  And in all things, a man must beware of so
+conforming himself as to crush his nature and forego the purpose of his
+being.  We must look to other standards than what men may say or think.
+We must not abjectly bow down before rules and usages; but must refer to
+principles and purposes.  In few words, we must think, not whom we are
+following, but what we are doing.  If not, why are we gifted with
+individual life at all?  Uniformity does not consist with the higher
+forms of vitality.  Even the leaves of the same tree are said to differ,
+each one from all the rest.  And can it be good for the soul of a man
+“with a biography of his own like to no one else’s,” to subject itself
+without thought to the opinions and ways of others: not to grow into
+symmetry, but to be moulded down into conformity?
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, I rather like that essay.  I was afraid, at first, it
+was going to have more of the fault into which you essay writers
+generally fall, of being a comment on the abuse of a thing, and not on
+the thing itself.  There always seems to me to want another essay on the
+other side.  But I think, at the end, you protect yourself against
+misconstruction.  In the spirit of the essay, you know, of course, that I
+quite agree with you.  Indeed, I differ from all the ordinary biographers
+of that independent gentleman, Don’t Care.  I believe Don’t Care came to
+a good end.  At any rate he came to some end.  Whereas numbers of people
+never have beginning, or ending, of their own.  An obscure dramatist,
+Milverton, whom we know of, makes one of his characters say, in reply to
+some world-fearing wretch:
+
+                   “While you, you think
+    What others think, or what you think they’ll say,
+    Shaping your course by something scarce more tangible
+    Than dreams, at best the shadows on the stream
+    Of aspen leaves by flickering breezes swayed—
+    Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night,
+    I am not the utter slave which that man is
+    Whose sole word, thought, and deed are built on what
+    The world may say of him.”
+
+_Milverton_.  Never mind the obscure dramatist.  But, Ellesmere, you
+really are unreasonable, if you suppose that, in the limits of a short
+essay, you can accurately distinguish all you write between the use and
+the abuse of a thing.  The question is, will people misunderstand
+you—not, is the language such as to be logically impregnable?  Now, in
+the present case, no man will really suppose it is a wise and just
+conformity that I am inveighing against.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I am not sure of that.  If everybody is to have independent
+thought, would there not be a fearful instability and want of
+compactness?  Another thing, too—conformity often saves so much time and
+trouble.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes; it has its uses.  I do not mean, in the world of
+opinion and morality, that it should be all elasticity and no
+gravitation; but at least enough elasticity to preserve natural form and
+independent being.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I think it would have been better if you had turned the
+essay another way, and instead of making it on conformity, had made it on
+interference.  That is the greater mischief and the greater folly, I
+think.  Why do people unreasonably conform?  Because they feel
+unreasonable interference.  War, I say, is interference on a small scale
+compared with the interference of private life.  Then the absurdity on
+which it proceeds; that men are all alike, or that it is desirable that
+they should be; and that what is good for one is good for all.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I must say, I think, Milverton, you do not give enough
+credit for sympathy, good-nature, and humility as material elements in
+the conformity of the world.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I am not afraid, my dear Dunsford, of the essay doing much
+harm.  There is a power of sleepy conformity in the world.  You may just
+startle your conformists for a minute, but they gravitate into their old
+way very soon.  You talk of their humility, Dunsford, but I have heard
+people who have conformed to opinions, without a pretence of
+investigation, as arrogant and intolerant towards anybody who differed
+from them, as if they stood upon a pinnacle of independent sagacity and
+research.
+
+_Dunsford_.  One never knows, Ellesmere, on which side you are.  I
+thought you were on mine a minute or two ago; and now you come down upon
+me with more than Milverton’s anti-conforming spirit.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  The greatest mischief, as I take it, of this slavish
+conformity, is in the reticence it creates.  People will be, what are
+called, intimate friends, and yet no real interchange of opinion takes
+place between them.  A man keeps his doubts, his difficulties, and his
+peculiar opinions to himself.  He is afraid of letting anybody know that
+he does not exactly agree with the world’s theories on all points.  There
+is no telling the hindrance that this is to truth.
+
+_Milverton_.  A great cause of this, Ellesmere, is in the little reliance
+you can have on any man’s secrecy.  A man finds that what, in the heat of
+discussion, and in the perfect carelessness of friendship, he has said to
+his friend, is quoted to people whom he would never have said it to;
+knowing that it would be sure to be misunderstood, or half-understood, by
+them.  And so he grows cautious; and is very loth to communicate to
+anybody his more cherished opinions, unless they fall in exactly with the
+stream.  Added to which, I think there is in these times less than there
+ever was of a proselytising spirit; and people are content to keep their
+opinions to themselves—more perhaps from indifference than from fear.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes, I agree with you.
+
+By the way, I think your taking dress as an illustration of extreme
+conformity is not bad.  Really it is wonderful the degree of square and
+dull hideousness to which, in the process of time and tailoring, and by
+severe conformity, the human creature’s outward appearance has arrived.
+Look at a crowd of men from a height, what an ugly set of ants they
+appear!  Myself, when I see an Eastern man, one of the people attached to
+their embassies, sweeping by us in something flowing and stately, I feel
+inclined to take off my hat to him (only that I think the hat might
+frighten him), and say, Here is a great, unhatted, uncravated, bearded
+man, not a creature clipt and twisted and tortured into tailorhood.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Ellesmere broke in upon me just now, so that I did not say
+all that I meant to say.  But, Milverton, what would you admit that we
+are to conform to?  In silencing the general voice, may we not give too
+much opportunity to our own headstrong suggestions, and to wilful
+licence?
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes: to be somewhat deaf to the din of the world may be no
+gain, even loss, if then we only listen more to the worst part of
+ourselves; but in itself it is a good thing to silence that din.  It is
+at least a beginning of good.  If anything good is then gained, it is not
+a sheepish tendency, but an independent resolve growing out of our
+nature.  And, after all, when we talk of non-conformity, it may only be
+that we non-conform to the immediate sect of thought or action about us,
+to conform to a much wider thing in human nature.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Ah me! how one wants a moral essayist always at hand to
+enable one to make use of moral essays.
+
+_Milverton_.  Your rules of law are grand things—the proverbs of justice;
+yet has not each case its specialities, requiring to be argued with much
+circumstance, and capable of different interpretations?  Words cannot be
+made into men.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I wonder you answer his sneers, Milverton.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I must go and see whether words cannot be made into
+guineas: and then guineas into men is an easy thing.  These trains will
+not wait even for critics, so, for the present, good-bye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+ELLESMERE soon wrote us word that he would be able to come down again;
+and I agreed to be at Worth-Ashton (Milverton’s house) on the day of his
+arrival.  I had scarcely seated myself at our usual place of meeting
+before the friends entered, and after greeting me, the conversation thus
+began:
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Upon my word, you people who live in the country have a
+pleasant time of it.  As Milverton was driving me from the station
+through Durley Wood, there was such a rich smell of pines, such a
+twittering of birds, so much joy, sunshine, and beauty, that I began to
+think, if there were no such place as London, it really would be very
+desirable to live in the country.
+
+_Milverton_.  What a climax!  But I am always very suspicious, when
+Ellesmere appears to be carried away by any enthusiasm, that it will
+break off suddenly, like the gallop of a post-horse.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, what are we to have for our essay!
+
+_Milverton_.  Despair.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I feel equal to anything just now, and so, if it must be
+read sometime or other, let us have it now.
+
+_Milverton_.  You need not be afraid.  I want to take away, not to add
+gloom.  Shall I read?
+
+We assented, and he began.
+
+
+
+DESPAIR.
+
+
+Despair may be serviceable when it arises from a temporary prostration of
+spirits: during which the mind is insensibly healing, and her scattered
+power silently returning.  This is better than to be the sport of a
+teasing hope without reason.  But to indulge in despair as a habit is
+slothful, cowardly, short-sighted; and manifestly tends against Nature.
+Despair is then the paralysis of the soul.
+
+These are the principal causes of despair—remorse, the sorrows of the
+affections, worldly trouble, morbid views of religion, native melancholy.
+
+
+
+REMORSE.
+
+
+Remorse does but add to the evil which bred it, when it promotes, not
+penitence, but despair.  To have erred in one branch of our duties does
+not unfit us for the performance of all the rest, unless we suffer the
+dark spot to spread over our whole nature, which may happen almost
+unobserved in the torpor of despair.  This kind of despair is chiefly
+grounded on a foolish belief that individual words or actions constitute
+the whole life of man: whereas they are often not fair representatives of
+portions even of that life.  The fragments of rock in a mountain stream
+may tell much of its history, are in fact results of its doings, but they
+are not the stream.  They were brought down when it was turbid; it may
+now be clear: they are as much the result of other circumstances as of
+the action of the stream; their history is fitful: they give us no sure
+intelligence of the future course of the stream, or of the nature of its
+waters; and may scarcely show more than that it has not been always as it
+is.  The actions of men are often but little better indications of the
+men themselves.
+
+A prolonged despair arising from remorse is unreasonable at any age, but
+if possible, still more so when felt by the young.  To think, for
+example, that the great Being who made us could have made eternal ruin
+and misery inevitable to a poor half-fledged creature of eighteen or
+nineteen!  And yet how often has the profoundest despair from remorse
+brooded over children of that age and eaten into their hearts.
+
+There is frequently much selfishness about remorse.  Put what has been
+done at the worst.  Let a man see his own evil word, or deed, in full
+light, and own it to be black as hell itself.  He is still here.  He
+cannot be isolated.  There still remain for him cares and duties; and,
+therefore, hopes.  Let him not in imagination link all creation to his
+fate.  Let him yet live in the welfare of others, and, if it may be so,
+work out his own in this way: if not, be content with theirs.  The
+saddest cause of remorseful despair is when a man does something
+expressly contrary to his character: when an honourable man, for
+instance, slides into some dishonourable action; or a tender-hearted man
+falls into cruelty from carelessness; or, as often happens, a sensitive
+nature continues to give the greatest pain to others from temper, feeling
+all the time, perhaps, more deeply than the persons aggrieved.  All these
+cases may be summed up in the words, “That which I would not that I do,”
+the saddest of all human confessions, made by one of the greatest men.
+However, the evil cannot be mended by despair.  Hope and humility are the
+only supports under this burden.  As Mr. Carlyle says,
+
+    “What are faults, what are the outward details of a life; if the
+    inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, true, often-baffled,
+    never-ended struggle of it, be forgotten.  ‘It is not in man that
+    walketh to direct his steps.’  Of all acts, is not, for a man,
+    _repentance_ the most divine?  The deadliest sin, I say, were that
+    same supercilious consciousness of no sin; that is death: the heart
+    so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility, and fact; is dead:
+    it is ‘pure’ as dead dry sand is pure.  David’s life and history, as
+    written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest
+    emblem ever given of a man’s moral progress and warfare here below.
+    All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an
+    earnest human soul towards what is good and best.  Struggle often
+    baffled, sore baffled, down as into entire wreck; yet a struggle
+    never ended; ever, with tears, repentance, true unconquerable
+    purpose, begun anew.  Poor human nature! is not a man’s walking, in
+    truth, always that: a ‘succession of falls!’  Man can do no other.
+    In this wild element of a Life, he has to struggle onwards; now
+    fallen, deep abased; and ever, with tears, repentance, with bleeding
+    heart, he has to rise again, struggle again still onwards.  That his
+    struggle be a faithful unconquerable one: this is the question of
+    questions.”
+
+
+
+THE SORROWS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
+
+
+The loss by death of those we love has the first place in these sorrows.
+Yet the feeling in this case, even when carried to the highest, is not
+exactly despair, having too much warmth in it for that.  Not much can be
+said in the way of comfort on this head.  Queen Elizabeth, in her hard,
+wise way, writing to a mother who had lost her son, tells her that she
+will be comforted in time; and why should she not do for herself what the
+mere lapse of time will do for her?  Brave words! and the stern woman,
+more earnest than the sage in “Rasselas,” would have tried their virtue
+on herself.  But I fear they fell somewhat coldly on the mother’s ear.
+Happily, in these bereavements, kind Nature with her opiates, day by day
+administered, does more than all the skill of the physician moralists.
+Sir Thomas Browne says,
+
+    “Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares
+    with memory a great part even of our living beings; we slightly
+    remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave
+    but short smart upon us.  Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows
+    destroy us or themselves.  To weep into stones are fables.
+    Afflictions induce callosities, miseries are slippery, or fall like
+    snow upon us, which, notwithstanding, is no unhappy stupidity.  To be
+    ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful
+    provision in Nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and
+    evil days, and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting
+    remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of
+    repetitions.”
+
+The good knight thus makes much comfort out of our physical weakness.
+But something may be done in a very different direction, namely, by
+spiritual strength.  By elevating and purifying the sorrow, we may take
+it more out of matter, as it were, and so feel less the loss of what is
+material about it.
+
+The other sorrows of the affections which may produce despair, are those
+in which the affections are wounded, as jealousy, love unrequited,
+friendship betrayed and the like.  As, in despair from remorse, the whole
+life seems to be involved in one action: so in the despair we are now
+considering, the whole life appears to be shut up in the one unpropitious
+affection.  Yet human nature, if fairly treated, is too large a thing to
+be suppressed into despair by one affection, however potent.  We might
+imagine that if there were anything that would rob life of its strength
+and favour, it is domestic unhappiness.  And yet how numerous is the bond
+of those whom we know to have been eminently unhappy in some domestic
+relation, but whose lives have been full of vigorous and kindly action.
+Indeed the culture of the world has been largely carried on by such men.
+As long as there is life in the plant, though it be sadly pent in, it
+will grow towards any opening of light that is left for it.
+
+
+
+WORLDLY TROUBLE.
+
+
+This appears too mean a subject for despair, or, at least, unworthy of
+having any remedy, or soothing thought out of it.  Whether a man lives in
+a large room or a small one, rides or is obliged to walk, gets a
+plenteous dinner every day, or a sparing one, do not seem matters for
+despair.  But the truth is, that worldly trouble, such for instance, as
+loss of fortune, is seldom the simple thing that poets would persuade us.
+
+    “The little or the much she gave is quietly resigned;
+    Content with poverty, my soul I arm,
+    And virtue, though in rags will keep me warm.”
+
+So sings Dryden, paraphrasing Horace, but each of them with their
+knowledge of the world, cross-questioned in prose, could have told us how
+the stings of fortune really are felt.  The truth is, that fortune is not
+exactly a distinct isolated thing which can be taken away—“and there an
+end.”  But much has to be severed, with undoubted pain in the operation.
+A man mostly feels that his reputation for sagacity, often his honour,
+the comfort, too, or supposed comfort, of others are embarked in his
+fortunes.  Mere stoicism, and resolves about fitting fortune to oneself,
+not oneself to fortune, though good things enough in their way, will not
+always meet the whole of the case.  And a man who could bear personal
+distress of any kind with Spartan indifference, may suffer himself to be
+overwhelmed by despair growing out of worldly trouble.  A frequent origin
+of such despair, as indeed of all despair (not by any means excluding
+despair from remorse), is pride.  Let a man say to himself, “I am not the
+perfect character I meant to be; this is not the conduct I had imagined
+for myself; these are not the fortunate circumstances I had always
+intended to be surrounded by.”  Let him at once admit that he is on a
+lower level than his ideal one; and then see what is to be done there.
+This seems the best way of treating all that part of worldly trouble
+which consists of self-reproval.  We scarcely know of any outward life
+continuously prosperous (and a very dull one it would be): why should we
+expect the inner life to be one course of unbroken self-improvement,
+either in prudence, or in virtue?
+
+Before a man gives way to excessive grief about the fortunes of his
+family being lost with his own, he should think whether he really knows
+wherein lies the welfare of others.  Give him some fairy power,
+inexhaustible purses or magic lamps, not, however, applying to the mind;
+and see whether he could make those whom he would favour good or happy.
+In the East, they have a proverb of this kind, Happy are the children of
+those fathers who go to the Evil One.  But for anything that our Western
+experience shows, the proverb might be reversed, and, instead of running
+thus, Happy are the sons of those who have got money anyhow, it might be,
+Happy are the sons of those who have failed in getting money.  In fact,
+there is no sound proverb to be made about it either way.  We know
+nothing about the matter.  Our surest influence for good or evil over
+others is, through themselves.  Our ignorance of what is physically good
+for any man may surely prevent anything like despair with regard to that
+part of the fortunes of others dear to us, which, as we think, is bound
+up with our own.
+
+
+
+MORBID VIEWS OF RELIGION.
+
+
+As religion is the most engrossing subject that can be presented to us,
+it will be considered in all states of mind and by all minds.  It is
+impossible but that the most hideous and perverted views of religion must
+arise.  To combat the particular views which may be supposed to cause
+religious despair, would be too theological an undertaking for this
+essay.  One thing only occurs to me to say, namely, that the lives and
+the mode of speaking about themselves adopted by the founders of
+Christianity, afford the best contradiction to religious melancholy that
+I believe can be met with.
+
+
+
+NATIVE MELANCHOLY.
+
+
+There is such a thing.  Jacques, without the “sundry contemplation” of
+his travels, or any “simples” to “compound” his melancholy form, would
+have ever been wrapped in a “most humorous sadness.”  It was innate.
+This melancholy may lay its votaries open to any other cause of despair,
+but having mostly some touch of philosophy (if it be not absolutely
+morbid), it is not unlikely to preserve them from any extremity.  It is
+not acute, but chronic.
+
+It may be said in its favour that it tends to make men indifferent to
+their own fortunes.  But then the sorrow of the world presses more deeply
+upon them.  With large open hearts, the untowardness of things present,
+the miseries of the past, the mischief, stupidity, and error which reign
+in the world, at times almost crush your melancholy men.  Still, out of
+their sadness may come their strength, or, at least, the best direction
+of it.  Nothing, perhaps, is lost; not even sin—much less sorrow.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I am glad you have ended as you have: for, previously, you
+seemed to make too much of getting rid of all distress of mind.  I always
+liked that passage in “Philip van Artevelde,” where Father John says,
+
+    “He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.
+    Eternity mourns that.”
+
+You have a better memory than I have: how does it go on?
+
+_Milverton_.
+
+                            “’Tis an ill cure
+    For life’s worst ills, to have no time to feel them.
+    Where sorrow’s held intrusive and turned out,
+    There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,
+    Nor aught that dignifies humanity.”
+
+Still this does not justify despair, which was what I was writing about.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Perhaps it was not a just criticism of mine.  One part of
+the subject you have certainly omitted.  You do not tell us how much
+there often is of physical disorder in despair.  I dare say you will
+think it a coarse and unromantic mode of looking at things; but I must
+confess I agree with what Leigh Hunt has said somewhere, that one can
+walk down distress of mind—even remorse, perhaps.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes; I am for the Peripatetics against all other
+philosophers.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  By the way, there is a passage in one of Hazlitt’s essays,
+I thought of while you were reading, about remorse and religious
+melancholy.  He speaks of mixing up religion and morality; and then goes
+on to say, that Calvinistic notions have obscured and prevented
+self-knowledge. {42}
+
+Give me the essay—there is a passage I want to look at.  This comparison
+of life to a mountain stream, the rocks brought down by it being the
+actions, is too much worked out.  When we speak of similes not going on
+four legs, it implies, I think, that a simile is at best but a
+four-legged animal.  Now this is almost a centipede of a simile.  I think
+I have had the same thought as yours here, and I have compared the life
+of an individual to a curve.  You both smile.  Now I thought that
+Dunsford at any rate would be pleased with this reminiscence of college
+days.  But to proceed with my curve.  You may have numbers of the points
+through which it passes given, and yet know nothing of the nature of the
+curve itself.  See, now, it shall pass through here and here, but how it
+will go in the interval, what is the law of its being, we know not.  But
+this simile would be too mathematical, I fear.
+
+_Milverton_.  I hold to the centipede.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Not a word has Dunsford said all this time.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I like the essay.  I was not criticising as we went along,
+but thinking that perhaps the greatest charm of books is, that we see in
+them that other men have suffered what we have.  Some souls we ever find
+who could have responded to all our agony, be it what it may.  This at
+least robs misery of its loneliness.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  On the other hand, the charm of intercourse with our
+fellows, when we are in sadness, is that they do not reflect it in any
+way.  Each keeps his own trouble to himself, and often pretending to
+think and care about other things, comes to do so for the time.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, but you might choose books which would not reflect
+your troubles.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  But the fact of having to make a choice to do this, does
+away, perhaps, with some part of the benefit: whereas, in intercourse
+with living men, you take what you find, and you find that neither your
+trouble, nor any likeness of it, is absorbing other people.  But this is
+not the whole reason: the truth is, the life and impulses of other men
+are catching; you cannot explain exactly how it is that they take you out
+of yourself.
+
+_Milverton_.  No man is so confidential as when he is addressing the
+whole world.  You find, therefore, more comfort for sorrow in books than
+in social intercourse.  I mean more direct comfort; for I agree with what
+Ellesmere says about society.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  In comparing men and books, one must always remember this
+important distinction—that one can put the books down at any time.  As
+Macaulay says, “Plato is never sullen.  Cervantes is never petulant.
+Demosthenes never comes unseasonably.  Dante never stays too long.”
+
+_Milverton_.  Besides, one can manage to agree so well, intellectually,
+with a book; and intellectual differences are the source of half the
+quarrels in the world.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Judicious shelving!
+
+_Milverton_.  Judicious skipping will nearly do.  Now when one’s friend,
+or oneself, is crotchety, dogmatic, or disputatious, one cannot turn over
+to another day.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Don’t go, Dunsford.  Here is a passage in the essay I meant
+to have said something about—“why should we expect the inner life to be
+one course of unbroken self-improvement,” etc.—You recollect?  Well, it
+puts me in mind of a conversation between a complacent poplar and a grim
+old oak, which I overheard the other day.  The poplar said that it grew
+up quite straight, heavenwards, that all its branches pointed the same
+way, and always had done so.  Turning to the oak, which it had been
+talking at before for some time, the poplar went on to remark, that it
+did not wish to say anything unfriendly to a brother of the forest, but
+those warped and twisted branches seemed to show strange struggles.  The
+tall thing concluded its oration by saying, that it grew up very fast,
+and that when it had done growing, it did not suffer itself to be made
+into huge floating engines of destruction.  But different trees had
+different tastes.  There was then a sound from the old oak, like an “ah”
+or a “whew,” or, perhaps, it was only the wind amongst its resisting
+branches; and the gaunt creature said that it had had ugly winds from
+without and cross-grained impulses from within; that it knew it had
+thrown out awkwardly a branch here and a branch there, which would never
+come quite right again it feared; that men worked it up, sometimes for
+good and sometimes for evil—but that at any rate it had not lived for
+nothing.  The poplar began again immediately, for this kind of tree can
+talk for ever, but I patted the old oak approvingly and went on.
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, your trees divide their discourse somewhat
+Ellesmerically: they do not talk with the simplicity La Fontaine’s would;
+but there is a good deal in them.  They are not altogether sappy.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I really thought of this fable of mine the other day, as I
+was passing the poplar at the end of the valley, and I determined to give
+it you on the first occasion.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I hope, Ellesmere, you do not intend to put sarcastic
+notions into the sap of our trees hereabouts.  There’s enough of sarcasm
+in you to season a whole forest.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Dunsford is afraid of what the trees may say to the country
+gentlemen, and whether they will be able to answer them.  I will be
+careful not to make the trees too clever.
+
+_Milverton_.  Let us go and try if we can hear any more forest talk.  The
+winds, shaped into voices by the leaves, say many things to us at all
+times.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+IN the course of our walk Milverton promised to read the following essay
+on Recreation the next day.  I have no note of anything that was said
+before the reading.
+
+
+
+RECREATION.
+
+
+This subject has not had the thought it merits.  It seems trivial.  It
+concerns some hours in the daily life of each of us; but it is not
+connected with any subject of human grandeur, and we are rather ashamed
+of it.  Schiller has some wise, but hard words that relate to it.  He
+perceives the pre-eminence of the Greeks, who could do many things.  He
+finds that modern men are units of great nations; but not great units
+themselves.  And there is some room for this reasoning of his.
+
+Our modern system of division of labour divides wits also.  The more
+necessity there is, therefore, for funding in recreation something to
+expand men’s intelligence.  There are intellectual pursuits almost as
+much divided as pin-making; and many a man goes through some intellectual
+process, for the greater part of his working hours, which corresponds
+with the making of a pin’s head.  Must there not be some danger of a
+general contraction of mind from this convergence of attention upon
+something very small, for so considerable a portion of a man’s life?
+
+What answer can civilisation give to this?  It can say that greater
+results are worked out by the modern system; that though each man is
+doing less himself than he might have done in former days, he sees
+greater and better things accomplished; and that his thoughts, not bound
+down by his petty occupation, travel over the work of the human family.
+There is a great deal, doubtless, in this argument; but man is not
+altogether an intellectual recipient.  He is a constructive animal also.
+It is not the knowledge that you can pour into him that will satisfy him,
+or enable him to work out his nature.  He must see things for himself; he
+must have bodily work and intellectual work different from his
+bread-getting work; or he runs the danger of becoming a contracted pedant
+with a poor mind and a sickly body.
+
+I have seen it quoted from Aristotle, that the end of labour is to gain
+leisure.  It is a great saying.  We have in modern times a totally wrong
+view of the matter.  Noble work is a noble thing, but not all work.  Most
+people seem to think that any business is in itself something grand; that
+to be intensely employed, for instance, about something which has no
+truth, beauty, or usefulness in it, which makes no man happier or wiser,
+is still the perfection of human endeavour, so that the work be intense.
+It is the intensity, not the nature, of the work that men praise.  You
+see the extent of this feeling in little things.  People are so ashamed
+of being caught for a moment idle, that if you come upon the most
+industrious servants or workmen whilst they are standing looking at
+something which interests them, or fairly resting, they move off in a
+fright, as if they were proved, by a moment’s relaxation, to be
+neglectful of their work.  Yet it is the result that they should mainly
+be judged by, and to which they should appeal.  But amongst all classes,
+the working itself, incessant working, is the thing deified.  Now what is
+the end and object of most work?  To provide for animal wants.  Not a
+contemptible thing by any means, but still it is not all in all with man.
+Moreover, in those cases where the pressure of bread-getting is fairly
+past, we do not often find men’s exertions lessened on that account.
+There enter into their minds as motives, ambition, a love of hoarding, or
+a fear of leisure—things which, in moderation, may be defended or even
+justified; but which are not so peremptory, and upon the face of them
+excellent, that they at once dignify excessive labour.
+
+The truth is, that to work insatiably requires much less mind than to
+work judiciously, and less courage than to refuse work that cannot be
+done honestly.  For a hundred men whose appetite for work can be driven
+on by vanity, avarice, ambition, or a mistaken notion of advancing their
+families, there is about one who is desirous of expanding his own nature
+and the nature of others in all directions, of cultivating many pursuits,
+of bringing himself and those around him in contact with the universe in
+many points, of being a man and not a machine.
+
+It may seem as if the preceding arguments were directed rather against
+excessive work than in favour of recreation.  But the first object in an
+essay of this kind should be to bring down the absurd estimate that is
+often formed of mere work.  What ritual is to the formalist, or
+contemplation to the devotee, business is to the man of the world.  He
+thinks he cannot be doing wrong as long as he is doing that.
+
+No doubt hard work is a great police agent.  If everybody were worked
+from morning till night and then carefully locked up, the register of
+crimes might be greatly diminished.  But what would become of human
+nature?  Where would be the room for growth in such a system of things?
+It is through sorrow and mirth, plenty and need, a variety of passions,
+circumstances, and temptations, even through sin and misery, that men’s
+natures are developed.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Again, there are people who would say, “Labour is not all; we do not
+object to the cessation of labour—a mere provision for bodily ends; but
+we fear the lightness and vanity of what you call recreation.”  Do these
+people take heed of the swiftness of thought—of the impatience of
+thought?  What will the great mass of men be thinking of, if they are
+taught to shun amusements and the thoughts of amusement?  If any
+sensuality is left open to them, they will think of that.  If not
+sensuality, then avarice, or ferocity for “the cause of God,” as they
+would call it.  People who have had nothing else to amuse them have been
+very apt to indulge themselves in the excitement of persecuting their
+fellow creatures.
+
+Our nation, the northern part of it especially, is given to believe in
+the sovereign efficacy of dulness.  To be sure, dulness and solid vice
+are apt to go hand in hand.  But then, according to our notions, dulness
+is in itself so good a thing—almost a religion.
+
+Now, if ever a people required to be amused, it is we sad-hearted
+Anglo-Saxons.  Heavy eaters, hard thinkers, often given up to a peculiar
+melancholy of our own, with a climate that for months together would
+frown away mirth if it could—many of us with very gloomy thoughts about
+our hereafter—if ever there were a people who should avoid increasing
+their dulness by all work and no play, we are that people.  “They took
+their pleasure sadly,” says Froissart, “after their fashion.”  We need
+not ask of what nation Froissart was speaking.
+
+There is a theory which has done singular mischief to the cause of
+recreation and of general cultivation.  It is that men cannot excel in
+more things than one; and that if they can, they had better be quiet
+about it.  “Avoid music, do not cultivate art, be not known to excel in
+any craft but your own,” says many a worldly parent, thereby laying the
+foundation of a narrow, greedy character, and destroying means of
+happiness and of improvement which success, or even real excellence, in
+one profession only cannot give.  This is, indeed, a sacrifice of the end
+of living for the means.
+
+Another check to recreation is the narrow way in which people have
+hitherto been brought up at schools and colleges.  The classics are
+pre-eminent works.  To acquire an accurate knowledge of them is an
+admirable discipline.  Still, it would be well to give a youth but few of
+these great works, and so leave time for various arts, accomplishments,
+and knowledge of external things exemplified by other means than books.
+If this cannot be done but by over-working, then it had better not be
+done; for of all things, that must be avoided.  But surely it can be
+done.  At present, many a man who is versed in Greek metre, and
+afterwards full of law reports, is childishly ignorant of Nature.  Let
+him walk with an intelligent child for a morning, and the child will ask
+him a hundred questions about sun, moon, stars, plants, birds, building,
+farming, and the like, to which he can give very sorry answers, if any;
+or, at the best, he has but a second-hand acquaintance with Nature.
+Men’s conceits are his main knowledge.  Whereas, if he had any pursuits
+connected with Nature, all Nature is in harmony with it, is brought into
+his presence by it, and it affords at once cultivation and recreation.
+
+But, independently of those cultivated pursuits which form a high order
+of recreation, boyhood should never pass without the boy’s learning
+several modes of recreation of the humbler kind.  A parent or teacher
+seldom does a kinder thing by the child under his care than when he
+instructs it in some manly exercise, some pursuit connected with Nature
+out of doors, or even some domestic game.  In hours of fatigue, anxiety,
+sickness, or worldly ferment, such means of amusement may delight the
+grown-up man when other things would fail.
+
+An indirect advantage, but a very considerable one, attendant upon
+various modes of recreation, is, that they provide opportunities of
+excelling in something to boys and men who are dull in things which form
+the staple of education.  A boy cannot see much difference between the
+nominative and the genitive cases—still less any occasion for aorists—but
+he is a good hand at some game or other; and he keeps up his
+self-respect, and the respect of others for him, upon his prowess in that
+game.  He is better and happier on that account.  And it is well, too,
+that the little world around him should know that excellence is not all
+of one form.
+
+There are no details about recreation in this essay, the object here
+being mainly to show the worth of recreation, and to defend it against
+objections from the over-busy and the over-strict.  The sense of the
+beautiful, the desire for comprehending Nature, the love of personal
+skill and prowess, are not things implanted in men merely to be absorbed
+in producing and distributing the objects of our most obvious animal
+wants.  If civilisation required this, civilisation would be a failure.
+Still less should we fancy that we are serving the cause of godliness
+when we are discouraging recreation.  Let us be hearty in our pleasures,
+as in our work, and not think that the gracious Being Who has made us so
+open-hearted to delight, looks with dissatisfaction at our enjoyment, as
+a hard taskmaster might, who in the glee of his slaves could see only a
+hindrance to their profitable working.  And with reference to our
+individual cultivation, we may remember that we are not here to promote
+incalculable quantities of law, physic, or manufactured goods, but to
+become men—not narrow pedants, but wide-seeing, mind-travelled men.  Who
+are the men of history to be admired most?  Those whom most things
+became—who could be weighty in debate, of much device in council,
+considerate in a sick-room, genial at a feast, joyous at a festival,
+capable of discourse with many minds, large-souled, not to be shrivelled
+up into any one form, fashion, or temperament.  Their contemporaries
+would have told us that men might have various accomplishments and hearty
+enjoyments, and not for that be the less effective in business, or less
+active in benevolence.  I distrust the wisdom of asceticism as much as I
+do that of sensuality; Simeon Stylites no less than Sardanapalus.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You alluded to Schiller at the beginning of the essay: can
+you show me his own words?  I have a lawyer’s liking for the best
+evidence.
+
+_Milverton_.  When we go in, I will show you some passages which bear me
+out in what I have made him say—at least, if the translation is faithful.
+{53}
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I have had a great respect for Schiller ever since I heard
+that saying of his about death, “Death cannot be an evil, for it is
+universal.”
+
+_Dunsford_.  Very noble and full of faith.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Touching the essay, I like it well enough; but, perhaps,
+people will expect to find more about recreation itself—not only about
+the good of it, but what it is, and how it is to be got.
+
+_Milverton_.  I do not incline to go into detail about the matter.  The
+object was to say something for the respectability of recreation, not to
+write a chapter of a book of sports.  People must find out their own ways
+of amusing themselves.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I will tell you what is the paramount thing to be attended
+to in all amusements—that they should be short.  Moralists are always
+talking about “short-lived” pleasures: would that they were!
+
+_Dunsford_.  Hesiod told the world, some two thousand years ago, how much
+greater the half is than the whole.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Dinner-givers and managers of theatres should forthwith be
+made aware of that fact.  What a sacrifice of good things, and of the
+patience and comfort of human beings, a cumbrous modern dinner is!  I
+always long to get up and walk about.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Do not talk of modern dinners.  Think what a Roman dinner
+must have been.
+
+_Milverton_.  Very true.  It has always struck me that there is something
+quite military in the sensualism of the Romans—an “arbiter bibendi”
+chosen, and the whole feast moving on with fearful precision and
+apparatus of all kinds.  Come, come! the world’s improving, Ellesmere.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Had the Romans public dinners?  Answer me that.  Imagine a
+Roman, whose theory, at least, of a dinner was that it was a thing for
+enjoyment, whereas we often look on it as a continuation of the business
+of the day—I say, imagine a Roman girding himself up, literally girding
+himself up to make an after-dinner speech.
+
+_Milverton_.  I must allow that is rather a barbarous practice.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  If charity, or politics, cannot be done without such
+things, I suppose they are useful in their way; but let nobody ever
+imagine that they are a form of pleasure.  People smearing each other
+over with stupid flattery, and most of the company being in dread of
+receiving some compliment which should oblige them to speak!
+
+_Dunsford_.  I should have thought, now, that you would always have had
+something to say, and therefore that you would not be so bitter against
+after-dinner speaking.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  No; when I have nothing to say, I can say nothing.
+
+_Milverton_.  Would it not be a pleasant thing if rich people would ask
+their friends sometimes to public amusements—order a play for them, for
+instance—or at any rate, provide some manifest amusement?  They might,
+occasionally with great advantage, abridge the expense of their dinners;
+and throw it into other channels of hospitality.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Ah, if they would have good acting at their houses, that
+would be very delightful; but I cannot say that the being taken to any
+place of public amusement would much delight me.  By the way, Milverton,
+what do you say of theatres in the way of recreation?  This decline of
+the drama, too, is a thing you must have thought about: let us hear your
+notions.
+
+_Milverton_.  I think one of the causes sometimes assigned, that reading
+is more spread, is a true and an important one; but, otherwise, I fancy
+that the present decline of the drama depends upon very small things
+which might be remedied.  As to a love of the drama going out of the
+human heart, that is all nonsense.  Put it at the lowest, what a great
+pleasure it is to hear a good play read.  And again, as to serious
+pursuits unfitting men for dramatic entertainments, it is quite the
+contrary.  A man, wearied with care and business, would find more change
+of ideas with less fatigue, in seeing a good play, than in almost any
+other way of amusing himself.
+
+_Dunsford_.  What are the causes then of the decline of the drama?
+
+_Milverton_.  In England, or rather in London,—for London is England for
+dramatic purposes; in London, then, theatrical arrangements seem to be
+framed to drive away people of sense.  The noisome atmosphere, the
+difficult approach, the over-size of the great theatres, the intolerable
+length of performances.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Hear! hear!
+
+_Milverton_.  The crowding together of theatres in one part of the town,
+the lateness of the hours—
+
+_Ellesmere_.  The folly of the audience, who always applaud in the wrong
+place—
+
+_Dunsford_.  There is no occasion to say any more; I am quite convinced.
+
+_Milverton_.  But these annoyances need not be.  Build a theatre of
+moderate dimensions; give it great facility of approach; take care that
+the performances never exceed three hours; let lions and dwarfs pass by
+without any endeavour to get them within the walls; lay aside all
+ambition of making stage waves which may almost equal real Ramsgate waves
+to our cockney apprehensions.  Of course there must be good players and
+good plays.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Now we come to the part of Hamlet.
+
+_Milverton_.  Good players and good plays are both to be had if there
+were good demand for them.  But, I was going to say, let there be all
+these things, especially let there be complete ventilation, and the
+theatre will have the most abundant success.  Why, that one thing alone,
+the villainous atmosphere at most public places, is enough to daunt any
+sensible man from going to them.
+
+_Dunsford_.  There should be such a choice of plays—not merely
+Chamberlain-clipt—as any man or woman could go to.
+
+_Milverton_.  There should be certainly, but how is such a choice to be
+made, if the people who could regulate it, for the most part, stay away?
+It is a dangerous thing, the better classes leaving any great source of
+amusement and instruction wholly, or greatly, to the less refined
+classes.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Yes, I must confess it is.
+
+Great part of your arguments apply to musical as well as to theatrical
+entertainments.  Do you find similar results with respect to them?
+
+_Milverton_.  Why, they are not attended by any means as they would be,
+or made what they might be, if the objections I mentioned were removed.
+
+_Dunsford_.  What do you say to the out-of-door entertainments for a town
+population?
+
+_Milverton_.  As I said before, my dear Dunsford, I cannot give you a
+chapter of a “Book of Sports.”  There ought, of course, to be parks for
+all quarters of the town: and I confess it would please me better to see,
+in holiday times and hours of leisure, hearty games going on in these
+parks, than a number of people sauntering about in uncomfortably new and
+unaccustomed clothes.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Do you not see, Dunsford, that, like a cautious official
+man, he does not want to enter into small details, which have always an
+air of ridicule?  He is not prepared to pledge himself to cricket, golf,
+football, or prisoner’s bars; but in his heart he is manifestly a Young
+Englander—without the white waistcoat.  Nothing would please him better
+than to see in large letters, on one of those advertising vans, “Great
+match!  Victoria Park!!  Eleven of Fleet Street against the Eleven of
+Saffron Hill!!!”
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, there is a great deal in the spirit of Young England
+that I like very much, indeed that I respect.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I should like the Young England party better myself if I
+were quite sure there was no connection between them and a clan of sour,
+pity-mongering people, who wash one away with eternal talk about the
+contrast between riches and poverty; with whom a poor man is always
+virtuous; and who would, if they could, make him as envious and as
+discontented as possible.
+
+_Milverton_.  Nothing can be more strikingly in contrast with such
+thinkers than Young England.  Young Englanders, according to the best of
+their theories, ought to be men of warm sympathy with all classes.  There
+is no doubt of this, that very seldom does any good thing arise, but
+there comes an ugly phantom of a caricature of it, which sidles up
+against the reality, mouths its favourite words as a third-rate actor
+does a great part, under-mimics its wisdom, over-acts its folly, is by
+half the world taken for it, goes some way to suppress it in its own
+time, and, perhaps, lives for it in history.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well brought out, that metaphor, but I don’t know that it
+means more than that the followers of a system do in general a good deal
+to corrupt it, or that when a great principle is worked into human
+affairs, a considerable accretion of human folly and falseness mostly
+grows round it: which things some of us had a suspicion of before.
+
+_Dunsford_.  To go back to the subject.  What would you do for country
+amusements, Milverton?  That is what concerns me, you know.
+
+_Milverton_.  Athletic amusements go on naturally here: do not require so
+much fostering as in towns.  The commons must be carefully kept: I have
+quite a Cobbettian fear of their being taken away from us under some
+plausible pretext or other.  Well, then, it strikes me that a great deal
+might be done to promote the more refined pleasures of life among our
+rural population.  I hope we shall live to see many of Hullah’s pupils
+playing an important part in this way.  Of course, the foundation for
+these things may best be laid at schools; and is being laid in some
+places, I am happy to say.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Humph, music, sing-song!
+
+_Milverton_.  Don’t you observe, Dunsford, that when Ellesmere wants to
+attack us, and does not exactly see how, he mutters to himself
+sarcastically, sneering himself up, as it were, to the attack.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You and Dunsford are both wild for music, from
+barrel-organs upwards.
+
+_Milverton_.  I confess to liking the humblest attempts at melody.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I feel as Sir Thomas Browne tells us he felt, that “even
+that vulgar and tavern music, which makes one man merry, another mad,
+strikes in me a deep fit of devotion and a profound contemplation of the
+first composer.  There is something in it of divinity more than the ear
+discovers; it is an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world
+and creatures of God: such a melody to the ear as the whole world well
+understood, would afford the understanding.”
+
+_Milverton_.  Apropos of music in country places, when I was going about
+last year in the neighbouring county, I saw such a pretty scene at one of
+the towns.  They had got up a band, which played once a week in the
+evening.  It was a beautiful summer evening, and the window of my room at
+the end overlooked the open space they had chosen for their performances.
+There was the great man of the neighbourhood in his carriage looking as
+if he came partly on duty, as well as for pleasure.  Then there were
+burly tradesmen, with an air of quiet satisfaction, sauntering about, or
+leaning against railings.  Some were no doubt critical—thought that Will
+Miller did not play as well as usual this evening.  Will’s young wife,
+who had come out to look again at him in his band dress (for the band had
+a uniform), thought differently.  Little boys broke out into imaginary
+polkas, having some distant reference to the music: not without grace
+though.  The sweep was pre-eminent: as if he would say, “Dirty and sooty
+as I am I have a great deal of fun in me.  Indeed, what would May-day be
+but for me?”  Studious little boys of the free-school, all green
+grasshopper-looking, walked about as boys knowing something of Latin.
+Here and there went a couple of them in childish loving way, with their
+arms about each other’s necks.  Matrons and shy young maidens sat upon
+the door-steps near.  Many a merry laugh filled up the interludes of
+music.  And when evening came softly down upon us, the band finished with
+“God save the Queen,” the little circle of those who would hear the last
+note moved off, there was a clattering of shutters, a shining of lights
+through casement-windows, and soon the only sound to be heard was the
+rough voice of some villager, who would have been too timid to adventure
+anything by daylight, but now sang boldly out as he went homewards.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Very pretty, but it sounds to me somewhat fabulous.
+
+_Milverton_.  I assure you—
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes, you were tired, had a good dinner, read a speech for
+or against the corn-laws, fell asleep of course, and had this ingenious
+dream, which, to this day, you believe to have been a reality.  I
+understand it all.
+
+_Milverton_.  I wish I could have many more such dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+OUR last conversation broke off abruptly on the entrance of a visitor: we
+forgot to name a time for our next meeting; and when I came again, I
+found Milverton alone in his study.  He was reading Count Rumford’s
+essays.
+
+_Dunsford_.  So you are reading Count Rumford.  What is it that interests
+you there?
+
+_Milverton_.  Everything he writes about.  He is to me a delightful
+writer.  He throws so much life into all his writings.  Whether they are
+about making the most of food or fuel, or propounding the benefits of
+bathing, or inveighing against smoke, it is that he went and saw and did
+and experimented himself upon himself.  His proceedings at Munich to feed
+the poor are more interesting than many a novel.  It is surprising, too,
+how far he was before the world in all the things he gave his mind to.
+
+Here Ellesmere entered.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I heard you were come, Dunsford: I hope we shall have an
+essay to-day.  My critical faculties have been dormant for some days, and
+want to be roused a little.  Milverton was talking to you about Count
+Rumford when I came in, was he not?  Ah, the Count is a great favourite
+with Milverton when he is down here; but there is a book upstairs which
+is Milverton’s real favourite just now, a portentous-looking book; some
+relation to a blue-book, something about sewerage, or health of towns, or
+public improvements, over which said book our friend here goes into
+enthusiasms.  I am sure if it could be reduced to the size of that
+tatterdemalion Horace that he carries about, the poor little Horace would
+be quite supplanted.
+
+_Milverton_.  Now, I must tell you, Dunsford, that Ellesmere himself took
+up this book he talks about, and it was a long time before he put it
+down.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes, there is something in real life, even though it is in
+the unheroic part of it, that interests one.  I mean to get through the
+book.
+
+_Dunsford_.  What are we to have to-day for our essay?
+
+Milverton.  Let us adjourn to the garden, and I will read you an essay on
+Greatness, if I can find it.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+We went to our favourite place, and Milverton read us the following
+essay.
+
+
+
+GREATNESS.
+
+
+You cannot substitute any epithet for great, when you are talking of
+great men.  Greatness is not general dexterity carried to any extent; nor
+proficiency in any one subject of human endeavour.  There are great
+astronomers, great scholars, great painters, even great poets who are
+very far from great men.  Greatness can do without success and with it.
+William is greater in his retreats than Marlborough in his victories.  On
+the other hand, the uniformity of Cæsar’s success does not dull his
+greatness.  Greatness is not in the circumstances, but in the man.
+
+What does this greatness then consist in?  Not in a nice balance of
+qualities, purposes, and powers.  That will make a man happy, a
+successful man, a man always in his right depth.  Nor does it consist in
+absence of errors.  We need only glance back at any list that can be made
+of great men, to be convinced of that.  Neither does greatness consist in
+energy, though often accompanied by it.  Indeed, it is rather the breadth
+of the waters than the force of the current that we look to, to fulfil
+our idea of greatness.  There is no doubt that energy acting upon a
+nature endowed with the qualities that we sum up in the word cleverness,
+and directed to a few clear purposes, produces a great effect, and may
+sometimes be mistaken for greatness.  If a man is mainly bent upon his
+own advancement, it cuts many a difficult knot of policy for him, and
+gives a force and distinctness to his mode of going on which looks grand.
+The same happens if he has one pre-eminent idea of any kind, even though
+it should be a narrow one.  Indeed, success in life is mostly gained by
+unity of purpose; whereas greatness often fails by reason of its having
+manifold purposes, but it does not cease to be greatness on that account.
+
+If greatness can be shut up in qualities, it will be found to consist in
+courage and in openness of mind and soul.  These qualities may not seem
+at first to be so potent.  But see what growth there is in them.  The
+education of a man of open mind is never ended.  Then, with openness of
+soul, a man sees some way into all other souls that come near him, feels
+with them, has their experience, is in himself a people.  Sympathy is the
+universal solvent.  Nothing is understood without it.  The capacity of a
+man, at least for understanding, may almost be said to vary according to
+his powers of sympathy.  Again, what is there that can counteract
+selfishness like sympathy?  Selfishness may be hedged in by minute
+watchfulness and self-denial, but it is counteracted by the nature being
+encouraged to grow out and fix its tendrils upon foreign objects.
+
+The immense defect that want of sympathy is, may be strikingly seen in
+the failure of the many attempts that have been made in all ages to
+construct the Christian character, omitting sympathy.  It has produced
+numbers of people walking up and down one narrow plank of self-restraint,
+pondering over their own merits and demerits, keeping out, not the world
+exactly, but their fellow-creatures from their hearts, and caring only to
+drive their neighbours before them on this plank of theirs, or to push
+them headlong.  Thus, with many virtues, and much hard work at the
+formation of character, we have had splendid bigots or censorious small
+people.
+
+But sympathy is warmth and light too.  It is, as it were, the moral
+atmosphere connecting all animated natures.  Putting aside, for a moment,
+the large differences that opinions, language, and education make between
+men, look at the innate diversity of character.  Natural philosophers
+were amazed when they thought they had found a new-created species.  But
+what is each man but a creature such as the world has not before seen?
+Then think how they pour forth in multitudinous masses, from princes
+delicately nurtured to little boys on scrubby commons, or in dark
+cellars.  How are these people to be understood, to be taught to
+understand each other, but by those who have the deepest sympathies with
+all?  There cannot be a great man without large sympathy.  There may be
+men who play loud-sounding parts in life without it, as on the stage,
+where kings and great people sometimes enter who are only characters of
+secondary import—deputy great men.  But the interest and the instruction
+lie with those who have to feel and suffer most.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Add courage to this openness we have been considering, and you have a man
+who can own himself in the wrong, can forgive, can trust, can adventure,
+can, in short, use all the means that insight and sympathy endow him
+with.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+I see no other essential characteristics in the greatness of nations than
+there are in the greatness of individuals.  Extraneous circumstances
+largely influence nations as individuals; and make a larger part of the
+show of the former than of the latter; as we are wont to consider no
+nation great that is not great in extent or resources, as well as in
+character.  But of two nations, equal in other respects, the superiority
+must belong to the one which excels in courage and openness of mind and
+soul.
+
+Again, in estimating the relative merits of different periods of the
+world, we must employ the same tests of greatness that we use to
+individuals.  To compare, for instance, the present and the past.  What
+astounds us most in the past is the wonderful intolerance and cruelty: a
+cruelty constantly turning upon the inventors: an intolerance provoking
+ruin to the thing it would foster.  The most admirable precepts are
+thrown from time to time upon this cauldron of human affairs, and
+oftentimes they only seem to make it blaze the higher.  We find men
+devoting the best part of their intellects to the invariable annoyance
+and persecution of their fellows.  You might think that the earth brought
+forth with more abundant fruitfulness in the past than now, seeing that
+men found so much time for cruelty, but that you read of famines and
+privations which these latter days cannot equal.  The recorded violent
+deaths amount to millions.  And this is but a small part of the matter.
+Consider the modes of justice; the use of torture, for instance.  What
+must have been the blinded state of the wise persons (wise for their day)
+who used torture?  Did they ever think themselves, “What should we not
+say if we were subjected to this?”  Many times they must really have
+desired to get at the truth; and such was their mode of doing it.  Now,
+at the risk of being thought “a laudator” of time present, I would say,
+here is the element of greatness we have made progress in.  We are more
+open in mind and soul.  We have arrived (some of us at least) at the
+conclusion that men may honestly differ without offence.  We have learned
+to pity each other more.  There is a greatness in modern toleration which
+our ancestors knew not.
+
+Then comes the other element of greatness, courage.  Have we made
+progress in that?  This is a much more dubious question.  The subjects of
+terror vary so much in different times that it is difficult to estimate
+the different degrees of courage shown in resisting them.  Men fear
+public opinion now as they did in former times the Star Chamber; and
+those awful goddesses, Appearances, are to us what the Fates were to the
+Greeks.  It is hardly possible to measure the courage of a modern against
+that of an ancient; but I am unwilling to believe but that enlightenment
+must strengthen courage.
+
+The application of the tests of greatness, as in the above instance, is a
+matter of detail and of nice appreciation, as to the results of which men
+must be expected to differ largely: the tests themselves remain
+invariable—openness of nature to admit the light of love and reason, and
+courage to pursue it.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I agree to your theory, as far as openness of nature is
+concerned; but I do not much like to put that half-brute thing, courage,
+so high.
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, you cannot have greatness without it: you may have
+well-intentioned people and far-seeing people; but if they have no
+stoutness of heart, they will only be shifty or remonstrant, nothing like
+great.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You mean will, not courage.  Without will, your
+open-minded, open-hearted man may be like a great, rudderless vessel
+driven about by all winds: not a small craft, but a most uncertain one.
+
+_Milverton_.  No, I mean both: both will and courage.  Courage is the
+body to will.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I believe you are right in that; but do not omit will.  It
+amused me to see how you brought in one of your old notions—that this age
+is not contemptible.  You scribbling people are generally on the other
+side.
+
+_Milverton_.  You malign us.  If I must give any account for my personal
+predilection for modern times, it consists perhaps in this, that we may
+now speak our mind.  What Tennyson says of his own land,
+
+    “The land where, girt with friend or foe,
+    A man may say the thing he will,”—
+
+may be said, in some measure, of the age in which we live.  This is an
+inexpressible comfort.  This doubles life.  These things surely may be
+said in favour of the present age, not with a view to puff it up, but so
+far to encourage ourselves, as we may by seeing that the world does not
+go on for nothing, that all the misery, blood, and toil that have been
+spent, were not poured out in vain.  Could we have our ancestors again
+before us, would they not rejoice at seeing what they had purchased for
+us: would they think it any compliment to them to extol their times at
+the expense of the present, and so to intimate that their efforts had led
+to nothing?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  “I doubt,” as Lord Eldon would have said; no, upon second
+thoughts, I do not doubt.  I feel assured that a good many of these said
+ancestors you are calling up would be much discomforted at finding that
+all their suffering had led to no sure basis of persecution of the other
+side.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I wonder, Ellesmere, what you would have done in persecuting
+times.  What escape would your sarcasm have found for itself?
+
+_Milverton_.  Some orthodox way, I daresay.  I do not think he would have
+been particularly fond of martyrdom.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  No.  I have no taste for making torches for truth, or being
+one: I prefer humane darkness to such illumination.  At the same time one
+cannot tell lies; and if one had been questioned about the
+incomprehensibilities which men in former days were so fierce upon, one
+must have shown that one disagreed with all parties.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Do not say “one:”  _I_ should not have disagreed with the
+great Protestant leaders in the Reformation, for instance.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Humph.
+
+_Milverton_.  If we get aground upon the Reformation, we shall never push
+off again—else would I say something far from complimentary to those
+Protestant proceedings which we may rather hope were Tudoresque than
+Protestant.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  No, that is not fair.  The Tudors were a coarse, fierce
+race; but it will not do to lay the faults of their times upon them only.
+Look at Elizabeth’s ministers.  They had about as much notion of
+religious tolerance as they had of Professor Wheatstone’s telegraph.  It
+was not a growth of that age.
+
+_Milverton_.  I do not know.  You have Cardinal Pole and the Earl of
+Essex, both tolerant men in the midst of bigots.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, as you said, Milverton, we shall never push off, if
+we once get aground on this subject.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I am in fault: so I will take upon myself to bring you quite
+away from the Reformation.  I have been thinking of that comparison in
+the essay of the present with the past.  Such comparisons seem to me very
+useful, as they best enable us to understand our own times.  And, then,
+when we have ascertained the state and tendency of our own age, we ought
+to strive to enrich it with those qualities which are complementary to
+its own.  Now with all this toleration, which delights you so much, dear
+Milverton, is it not an age rather deficient in caring about great
+matters?
+
+_Milverton_.  If you mean great speculative matters, I might agree with
+you; but if you mean what I should call the greatest matters, such as
+charity, humanity, and the like, I should venture to differ with you,
+Dunsford.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I do not like to see the world indifferent to great
+speculative matters.  I then fear shallowness and earthiness.
+
+_Milverton_.  It is very difficult to say what the world is thinking of
+now.  It is certainly wrong to suppose that this is a shallow age because
+it is not driven by one impulse.  As civilisation advances, it becomes
+more difficult to estimate what is going on, and we set it all down as
+confusion.  Now there is not one “great antique heart,” whose beatings we
+can count, but many impulses, many circles of thought in which men are
+moving many objects.  Men are not all in the same state of progress, so
+cannot be moved in masses as of old.  At one time chivalry urged all men,
+then the Church, and the phenomena were few, simple, and broad, or at
+least they seem so in history.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Very true; still I agree somewhat with Dunsford, that men
+are not agitated as they used to be by the great speculative questions.
+I account for it in this way, that the material world has opened out
+before us, and we cannot but look at that, and must play with it and work
+at it.  I would say, too, that philosophy had been found out, and there
+is something in that.  Still, I think if it were not for the interest now
+attaching to material things, great intellectual questions, not exactly
+of the old kind, would arise and agitate the world.
+
+_Milverton_.  There is one thing in my mind that may confirm your view.
+I cannot but think that the enlarged view we have of the universe must in
+some measure damp personal ambition.  What is it to be a King, Sheik,
+Tetrarch, or Emperor, over a bit of a little bit?  Macbeth’s speech,
+“we’d jump the life to come,” is a thing a man with modern lights,
+however madly ambitious, would hardly utter.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Religious lights, Milverton.
+
+_Milverton_.  Of course not, if he had them; but I meant scientific
+lights.  Sway over our fellow-creatures, at any rate anything but mental
+sway, has shrunk into less proportions.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I have been looking over the essay.  I think you may put in
+somewhere—that that age would probably be the greatest in which there was
+the least difference between great men and the people in general—when the
+former were only neglected, not hunted down.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You are rather lengthy here about the cruelties to be found
+in history; but we are apt to forget these matters.
+
+_Milverton_.  They always press upon my mind.
+
+_Dunsford_.  And on mine.  I do not like to read much of history for that
+very reason.  I get so sick at heart about it all.
+
+_Milverton_.  Ah, yes, history is a stupendous thing.  To read it is like
+looking at the stars; we turn away in awe and perplexity.  Yet there is
+some method running through the little affairs of man as through the
+multitude of suns, seemingly to us as confused as routed armies in full
+flight.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Some law of love.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I am afraid it is not in the past alone that we should be
+awestruck with horrors: we, who have a slave-trade still on earth.  But,
+to go back to the essay, I like what you say about the theory of
+constructing the Christian character without geniality; only you do not
+go far enough.  You are afraid.  People are for ever talking, especially
+you philanthropical people, about making others happy.  I do not know any
+way so sure of making others happy as of being so oneself, to begin with.
+I do not mean that people are to be self-absorbed; but they are to drink
+in nature and life a little.  From a genial, wisely-developed man good
+things radiate; whereas you must allow, Milverton, that benevolent people
+are very apt to be one-sided and fussy, and not of the sweetest temper if
+others will not be good and happy in their way.
+
+_Milverton_.  That is really not fair.  Of course, acid, small-minded
+people carry their narrow notions and their acidity into their
+benevolence.  Benevolence is no abstract perfection.  Men will express
+their benevolence according to their other gifts or want of gifts.  If it
+is strong, it overcomes other things in the character which would be
+hindrances to it; but it must speak in the language of the soul it is in.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Come, let us go and see the pigs.  I hear them grunting
+over their dinners in the farmyard.  I like to see creatures who can be
+happy without a theory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE next time that I came over to Worth-Ashton it was raining, and I
+found my friends in the study.
+
+“Well, Dunsford,” said Ellesmere, “is it not comfortable to have our
+sessions here for once, and to be looking out on a good solid English wet
+day?”
+
+_Dunsford_.  Rather a fluid than a solid.  But I agree with you in
+thinking it is very comfortable here.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I like to look upon the backs of books.  First I think how
+much of the owner’s inner life and character is shown in his books; then
+perhaps I wonder how he got such a book which seems so remote from all
+that I know of him—
+
+_Milverton_.  I shall turn my books the wrong side upwards when you come
+into the study.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  But what amuses me most is to see the odd way in which
+books get together, especially in the library of a man who reads his
+books and puts them up again wherever there is room.  Now here is a
+charming party: “A Treatise on the Steam-Engine” between “Locke on
+Christianity” and Madame de Stael’s “Corinne.”  I wonder what they talk
+about at night when we are all asleep.  Here is another happy
+juxtaposition: old Clarendon next to a modern metaphysician whom he would
+positively loathe.  Here is Sadler next to Malthus, and Horsley next to
+Priestley; but this sort of thing happens most in the best regulated
+libraries.  It is a charming reflection for controversial writers, that
+their works will be put together on the same shelves, often between the
+same covers; and that, in the minds of educated men, the name of one
+writer will be sure to recall the name of the other.  So they go down to
+posterity as a brotherhood.
+
+_Milverton_.  To complete Ellesmere’s theory, we may say that all those
+injuries to books which we choose to throw upon some wretched worm, are
+but the wounds from rival books.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Certainly.  But now let us proceed to polish up the weapons
+of another of these spiteful creatures.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Yes.  What is to be our essay to-day, Milverton?
+
+_Milverton_.  Fiction.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Now, that is really unfortunate.  Fiction is just the
+subject to be discussed—no, not discussed, talked over—out of doors on a
+hot day, all of us lying about in easy attitudes on the grass, Dunsford
+with his gaiters forming a most picturesque and prominent figure.  But
+there is nothing complete in this life.  “Surgit amari aliquid:” and so
+we must listen to Fiction in arm-chairs.
+
+
+
+FICTION.
+
+
+The influence of works of fiction is unbounded.  Even the minds of
+well-informed people are often more stored with characters from
+acknowledged fiction than from history or biography, or the real life
+around them.  We dispute about these characters as if they were
+realities.  Their experience is our experience; we adopt their feelings,
+and imitate their acts.  And so there comes to be something traditional
+even in the management of the passions.  Shakespeare’s historical plays
+were the only history to the Duke of Marlborough.  Thousands of Greeks
+acted under the influence of what Achilles or Ulysses did, in Homer.  The
+poet sings of the deeds that shall be.  He imagines the past; he forms
+the future.
+
+Yet how surpassingly interesting is real life when we get an insight into
+it.  Occasionally a great genius lifts up the veil of history, and we see
+men who once really were alive, who did not always live only in history;
+or, amidst the dreary page of battles, levies, sieges, and the
+sleep-inducing weavings and unweavings of political combination, we come,
+ourselves, across some spoken or written words of the great actors of the
+time, and are then fascinated by the life and reality of these things.
+Could you have the life of any man really portrayed to you, sun-drawn as
+it were, its hopes, its fears, its revolutions of opinion in each day,
+its most anxious wishes attained, and then, perhaps, crystallising into
+its blackest regrets—such a work would go far to contain all histories,
+and be the greatest lesson of love, humility, and tolerance, that men had
+ever read.
+
+Now fiction does attempt something like the above.  In history we are
+cramped by impertinent facts that must, however, be set down; by theories
+that must be answered; evidence that must be weighed; views that must be
+taken.  Our facts constantly break off just where we should wish to
+examine them most closely.  The writer of fiction follows his characters
+into the recesses of their hearts.  There are no closed doors for him.
+His puppets have no secrets from their master.  He plagues you with no
+doubts, no half-views, no criticism.  Thus they thought, he tells you;
+thus they looked, thus they acted.  Then, with every opportunity for
+scenic arrangement (for though his characters are confidential with him,
+he is only as confidential with his reader as the interest of the story
+will allow), it is not to be wondered at that the majority of readers
+should look upon history as a task, but tales of fiction as a delight.
+
+The greatest merit of fiction is the one so ably put forward by Sir James
+Mackintosh, namely, that it creates and nourishes sympathy.  It extends
+this sympathy, too, in directions where, otherwise, we hardly see when it
+would have come.  But it may be objected that this sympathy is
+indiscriminate, and that we are in danger of mixing up virtue and vice,
+and blurring both, if we are led to sympathise with all manner of
+wrong-doers.  But, in the first place, virtue and vice are so mixed in
+real life, that it is well to be somewhat prepared for that fact; and,
+moreover, the sympathy is not wrongly directed.  Who has not felt intense
+sympathy for Macbeth?  Yet could he be alive again, with evil thoughts
+against “the gracious Duncan,” and could he see into all that has been
+felt for him, would that be an encouragement to murder?  The intense pity
+of wise people for the crimes of others, when rightly represented, is one
+of the strongest antidotes against crime.  We have taken the extreme case
+of sympathy being directed towards bad men.  How often has fiction made
+us sympathise with obscure suffering and retiring greatness, with the
+world-despised, and especially with those mixed characters in whom we
+might otherwise see but one colour—with Shylock and with Hamlet, with
+Jeanie Deans and with Claverhouse, with Sancho Panza as well as with Don
+Quixote.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+On the other hand, there is a danger of too much converse with fiction
+leading us into dream-land, or rather into lubber-land.  Of course this
+“too much converse” implies large converse with inferior writers.  Such
+writers are too apt to make life as they would have it for themselves.
+Sometimes, also, they must make it to suit booksellers’ rules.  Having
+such power over their puppets they abuse it.  They can kill these
+puppets, change their natures suddenly, reward or punish them so easily,
+that it is no wonder they are led to play fantastic tricks with them.
+Now, if a sedulous reader of the works of such writers should form his
+notions of real life from them, he would occasionally meet with rude
+shocks when he encountered the realities of that life.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+For my own part, notwithstanding all the charms of life in
+swiftly-written novels, I prefer real life.  It is true that, in the
+former, everything breaks off round, every little event tends to some
+great thing, everybody one meets is to exercise some great influence for
+good or ill upon one’s fate.  I take it for granted one fancies oneself
+the hero.  Then all one’s fancy is paid in ready money, or at least one
+can draw upon it at the end of the third volume.  One leaps to remote
+wealth and honour by hairbreadth chances; and one’s uncle in India always
+dies opportunely.  To be sure the thought occurs, that if this novel life
+could be turned into real life, one might be the uncle in India and not
+the hero of the tale.  But that is a trifling matter, for at any rate one
+should carry on with spirit somebody else’s story.  On the whole,
+however, as I said before, I prefer real life, where nothing is tied up
+neatly, but all in odds and ends; where the doctrine of compensation
+enters largely, where we are often most blamed when we least deserve it,
+where there is no third volume to make things straight, and where many an
+Augustus marries many a Belinda, and, instead of being happy ever
+afterwards, finds that there is a growth of trials and troubles for each
+successive period of man’s life.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+In considering the subject of fiction, the responsibility of the writers
+thereof is a matter worth pointing out.  We see clearly enough that
+historians are to be limited by facts and probabilities; but we are apt
+to make a large allowance for the fancies of writers of fiction.  We must
+remember, however, that fiction is not falsehood.  If a writer puts
+abstract virtues into book-clothing, and sends them upon stilts into the
+world, he is a bad writer: if he classifies men, and attributes all
+virtue to one class and all vice to another, he is a false writer.  Then,
+again, if his ideal is so poor, that he fancies man’s welfare to consist
+in immediate happiness; if he means to paint a great man and paints only
+a greedy one, he is a mischievous writer and not the less so, although by
+lamplight and amongst a juvenile audience, his coarse scene-painting
+should be thought very grand.  He may be true to his own fancy, but he is
+false to Nature.  A writer, of course, cannot get beyond his own ideal:
+but at least he should see that he works up to it: and if it is a poor
+one, he had better write histories of the utmost concentration of
+dulness, than amuse us with unjust and untrue imaginings.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I am glad you have kept to the obvious things about
+fiction.  It would have been a great nuisance to have had to follow you
+through intricate theories about what fiction consists in, and what are
+its limits, and so on.  Then we should have got into questions touching
+the laws of representation generally, and then into art, of which,
+between ourselves, you know very little.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Talking of representation, what do you two, who have now
+seen something of the world, think about representative government?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Dunsford plumps down upon us sometimes with awful
+questions: what do you think of all philosophy? or what is your opinion
+of life in general?  Could not you throw in a few small questions of that
+kind, together with your representative one, and we might try to answer
+them all at once.  Dunsford is only laughing at us, Milverton.
+
+_Milverton_.  No, I know what was in Dunsford’s mind when he asked that
+question.  He has had his doubts and misgivings, when he has been reading
+a six nights’ debate (for the people in the country I daresay do read
+those things), whether representative government is the most complete
+device the human mind could suggest for getting at wise rulers.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  It is a doubt which has crossed my mind.
+
+_Milverton_.  And mine; but the doubt, if it has ever been more than mere
+petulance, has not had much practical weight with me.  Look how the
+business of the world is managed.  There are a few people who think out
+things, and a few who execute.  The former are not to be secured by any
+device.  They are gifts.  The latter may be well chosen, have often been
+well chosen, under other forms of government than the representative one.
+I believe that the favourites of kings have been a superior race of men.
+Even a fool does not choose a fool for a favourite.  He knows better than
+that: he must have something to lean against.  But between the thinkers
+and the doers (if, indeed, we ought to make such a distinction), _what a
+number of useful links there are in a representative government_ on
+account of the much larger number of people admitted into some share of
+government.  What general cultivation must come from that, and what
+security!  Of course, everything has its wrong side; and from this number
+of people let in there comes declamation and claptrap and mob-service,
+which is much the same thing as courtiership was in other times.  But
+then, to make the comparison a fair one, you must take the wrong side of
+any other form of government that has been devised.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, but so much power centring in the lower house of
+Parliament, and the getting into Parliament being a thing which is not
+very inviting to the kind of people one would most like to see there, do
+you not think that the ablest men are kept away?
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes; but if you make your governing body a unit or a ten,
+or any small number, how is this power, unless it is Argus-eyed, and
+myriad-minded, and right-minded too, to choose the right men any better
+than they are found now?  The great danger, as it appears to me, of
+representative government is lest it should slide down from
+representative government to delegate government.  In my opinion, the
+welfare of England, in great measure, depends upon what takes place at
+the hustings.  If, in the majority of instances, there were abject
+conduct there, electors and elected would be alike debased; upright
+public men could not be expected to arise from such beginnings; and
+thoughtful persons would begin to consider whether some other form of
+government could not forthwith be made out.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I have a supreme disgust for the man who at the hustings
+has no opinion beyond or above the clamour round him.  How such a fellow
+would have kissed the ground before a Pompadour, or waited for hours in a
+Buckingham’s antechamber, only to catch the faintest beam of reflected
+light from royalty.
+
+But I declare we have been just like schoolboys talking about forms of
+government and so on.
+
+    “For forms of government let fools contest,
+    That which is _worst_ administered is best,”—
+
+that is, representative government.
+
+_Milverton_.  I should not like either of you to fancy, from what I have
+been saying about representative government, that I do not see the
+dangers and the evils of it.  In fact, it is a frequent thought with me
+of what importance the House of Lords is at present, and of how much
+greater importance it might be made.  If there were Peers for life, and
+official members of the House of Commons, it would, I think, meet most of
+your objections, Dunsford.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I suppose I am becoming a little rusty and disposed to
+grumble, as I grow old; but there is a good deal in modern government
+which seems to me very rude and absurd.  There comes a clamour, partly
+reasonable; power is deaf to it, overlooks it, says there is no such
+thing; then great clamour; after a time, power welcomes that, takes it to
+its arms, says that now it is loud it is very wise, wishes it had always
+been clamour itself.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  How many acres do you farm, Dunsford?  How spiteful you
+are!
+
+_Dunsford_.  I am not thinking of Corn Laws alone, as you fancy, Master
+Ellesmere.  But to go to other things.  I quite agree, Milverton, with
+what you were saying just now about the business of the world being
+carried on by few, and the thinking few being in the nature of gifts to
+the world, not elicited by King or Kaiser.
+
+_Milverton_.  The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise
+in solitary places.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Not a bad metaphor, but untrue.  Aristotle, Bacon—
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, I believe it would be much wiser to say, that we
+cannot lay down rules about the highest work; either when it is done,
+where it will be done, or how it can be made to be done.  It is too
+immaterial for our measurement; for the highest part even of the mere
+business of the world is in dealing with ideas.  It is very amusing to
+observe the misconceptions of men on these points.  They call for what is
+outward—can understand that, can praise it.  Fussiness and the forms of
+activity in all ages get great praise.  Imagine an active, bustling
+little prætor under Augustus, how he probably pointed out Horace to his
+sons as a moony kind of man, whose ways were much to be avoided, and told
+them it was a weakness in Augustus to like such idle men about him
+instead of men of business.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Or fancy a bustling Glasgow merchant of Adam Smith’s day
+watching him.  How little would the merchant have dreamt what a number of
+vessels were to be floated away by the ink in the Professor’s inkstand;
+and what crashing of axes, and clearing of forests in distant lands, the
+noise of his pen upon the paper portended.
+
+_Milverton_.  It is not only the effect of the still-working man that the
+busy man cannot anticipate, but neither can he comprehend the present
+labour.  If Horace had told my prætor that
+
+    “Abstinuit Venere et vino, sudavit et alsit,”
+
+“What, to write a few lines!” would his prætorship have cried out.  “Why,
+I can live well and enjoy life; and I flatter myself no one in Rome does
+more business.”
+
+_Dunsford_.  All of it only goes to show how little we know of each
+other, and how tolerant we ought to be of others’ efforts.
+
+_Milverton_.  The trials that there must be every day without any
+incident that even the most minute household chronicler could set down:
+the labours without show or noise!
+
+_Ellesmere_.  The deep things that there are which, with unthinking
+people, pass for shallow things, merely because they are clear as well as
+deep.  My fable of the other day, for instance—which instead of producing
+any moral effect upon you two, only seemed to make you both inclined to
+giggle.
+
+_Milverton_.  I am so glad you reminded me of that.  I, too, fired with a
+noble emulation, have invented a fable since we last met which I want you
+to hear.  I assure you I did not mean to laugh at yours: it was only that
+it came rather unexpectedly upon me.  You are not exactly the person from
+whom one should expect fables.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Now for the fable.
+
+_Milverton_.  There was a gathering together of creatures hurtful and
+terrible to man, to name their king.  Blight, mildew, darkness, mighty
+waves, fierce winds, Will-o’-the-wisps, and shadows of grim objects, told
+fearfully their doings and preferred their claims, none prevailing.  But
+when evening came on, a thin mist curled up, derisively, amidst the
+assemblage, and said, “I gather round a man going to his own home over
+paths made by his daily footsteps; and he becomes at once helpless and
+tame as a child.  The lights meant to assist him, then betray.  You find
+him wandering, or need the aid of other Terrors to subdue him.  I am,
+alone, confusion to him.”  And all the assemblage bowed before the mist,
+and made it king, and set it on the brow of many a mountain, where, when
+it is not doing evil, it may be often seen to this day.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, I like that fable: only I am not quite clear about the
+meaning.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You had no doubt about mine.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Is the mist calumny, Milverton?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  No, prejudice, I am sure.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Familiarity with the things around us, obscuring knowledge?
+
+_Milverton_.  I would rather not explain.  Each of you make your own
+fable of it.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, if ever I make a fable, it shall be one of the
+old-fashioned sort, with animals for the speakers, and a good easy moral.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Not a thing requiring the notes of seven German
+metaphysicians.  I must go and talk a little to my friends the trees, and
+see if I can get any explanation from them.  It is turning out a
+beautiful day after all, notwithstanding my praise of its solidity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+WE met as usual at our old spot on the lawn for our next reading.  I
+forget what took place before reading, except that Ellesmere was very
+jocose about our reading “Fiction” in-doors, and the following “November
+Essay,” as he called it, “under a jovial sun, and with the power of
+getting up and walking away from each other to any extent.”
+
+
+
+ON THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS.
+
+
+The “Iliad” for war; the “Odyssey” for wandering; but where is the great
+domestic epic?  Yet it is but commonplace to say, that passions may rage
+round a tea-table, which would not have misbecome men dashing at one
+another in war-chariots; and evolutions of patience and temper are
+performed at the fireside, worthy to be compared with the Retreat of the
+Ten Thousand.  Men have worshipped some fantastic being for living alone
+in a wilderness; but social martyrdoms place no saints upon the calendar.
+
+We may blind ourselves to it if we like, but the hatreds and disgusts
+that there are behind friendship, relationship, service, and, indeed,
+proximity of all kinds, is one of the darkest spots upon earth.  The
+various relations of life, which bring people together, cannot, as we
+know, be perfectly fulfilled except in a state where there will, perhaps,
+be no occasion for any of them.  It is no harm, however, to endeavour to
+see whether there are any methods which may make these relations in the
+least degree more harmonious now.
+
+In the first place, if people are to live happily together, they must not
+fancy, because they are thrown together now, that all their lives have
+been exactly similar up to the present time, that they started exactly
+alike, and that they are to be for the future of the same mind.  A
+thorough conviction of the difference of men is the great thing to be
+assured of in social knowledge: it is to life what Newton’s law is to
+astronomy.  Sometimes men have a knowledge of it with regard to the world
+in general: they do not expect the outer world to agree with them in all
+points, but are vexed at not being able to drive their own tastes and
+opinions into those they live with.  Diversities distress them.  They
+will not see that there are many forms of virtue and wisdom.  Yet we
+might as well say, “Why all these stars; why this difference; why not all
+one star?”
+
+Many of the rules for people living together in peace follow from the
+above.  For instance, not to interfere unreasonably with others, not to
+ridicule their tastes, not to question and re-question their resolves,
+not to indulge in perpetual comment on their proceedings, and to delight
+in their having other pursuits than ours, are all based upon a thorough
+perception of the simple fact that they are not we.
+
+Another rule for living happily with others is to avoid having stock
+subjects of disputation.  It mostly happens, when people live much
+together, that they come to have certain set topics, around which, from
+frequent dispute, there is such a growth of angry words, mortified
+vanity, and the like, that the original subject of difference becomes a
+standing subject for quarrel; and there is a tendency in all minor
+disputes to drift down to it.
+
+Again, if people wish to live well together, they must not hold too much
+to logic, and suppose that everything is to be settled by sufficient
+reason.  Dr. Johnson saw this clearly with regard to married people, when
+he said, “Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretchedness, who
+should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute detail
+of a domestic day.”  But the application should be much more general than
+he made it.  There is no time for such reasonings, and nothing that is
+worth them.  And when we recollect how two lawyers, or two politicians,
+can go on contending, and that there is no end of one-sided reasoning on
+any subject, we shall not be sure that such contention is the best mode
+for arriving at truth.  But certainly it is not the way to arrive at good
+temper.
+
+If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism upon
+those with whom you live.  The number of people who have taken out
+judges’ patents for themselves is very large in any society.  Now it
+would be hard for a man to live with another who was always criticising
+his actions, even if it were kindly and just criticism.  It would be like
+living between the glasses of a microscope.  But these self-elected
+judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to have the persons they
+judge brought before them in the guise of culprits.
+
+One of the most provoking forms of the criticism above alluded to is that
+which may be called criticism over the shoulder.  “Had I been consulted,”
+“Had you listened to me,” “But you always will,” and such short scraps of
+sentences may remind many of us of dissertations which we have suffered
+and inflicted, and of which we cannot call to mind any soothing effect.
+
+Another rule is, not to let familiarity swallow up all courtesy.  Many of
+us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as we
+say about strangers behind their backs.  There is no place, however,
+where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly think it
+would be superfluous.  You may say more truth, or rather speak out more
+plainly, to your associates, but not less courteously than you do to
+strangers.
+
+Again, we must not expect more from the society of our friends and
+companions than it can give, and especially must not expect contrary
+things.  It is something arrogant to talk of travelling over other minds
+(mind being, for what we know, infinite); but still we become familiar
+with the upper views, tastes, and tempers of our associates.  And it is
+hardly in man to estimate justly what is familiar to him.  In travelling
+along at night, as Hazlitt says, we catch a glimpse into cheerful-looking
+rooms with light blazing in them, and we conclude involuntarily how happy
+the inmates must be.  Yet there is heaven and hell in those rooms—the
+same heaven and hell that we have known in others.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+There are two great classes of promoters of social happiness—cheerful
+people, and people who have some reticence.  The latter are more secure
+benefits to society even than the former.  They are non-conductors of all
+the heats and animosities around them.  To have peace in a house, or a
+family, or any social circle, the members of it must beware of passing on
+hasty and uncharitable speeches, which, the whole of the context seldom
+being told, is often not conveying but creating mischief.  They must be
+very good people to avoid doing this; for let Human Nature say what it
+will, it likes sometimes to look on at a quarrel, and that not altogether
+from ill-nature, but from a love of excitement, for the same reason that
+Charles II. liked to attend the debates in the Lords, because they were
+“as good as a play.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+We come now to the consideration of temper, which might have been
+expected to be treated first.  But to cut off the means and causes of bad
+temper is, perhaps, of as much importance as any direct dealing with the
+temper itself.  Besides, it is probable that in small social circles
+there is more suffering from unkindness than ill-temper.  Anger is a
+thing that those who live under us suffer more from than those who live
+with us.  But all the forms of ill-humour and sour-sensitiveness, which
+especially belong to equal intimacy (though indeed, they are common to
+all), are best to be met by impassiveness.  When two sensitive persons
+are shut up together, they go on vexing each other with a reproductive
+irritability. {93}  But sensitive and hard people get on well together.
+The supply of temper is not altogether out of the usual laws of supply
+and demand.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Intimate friends and relations should be careful when they go out into
+the world together, or admit others to their own circle, that they do not
+make a bad use of the knowledge which they have gained of each other by
+their intimacy.  Nothing is more common than this, and did it not mostly
+proceed from mere carelessness, it would be superlatively ungenerous.
+You seldom need wait for the written life of a man to hear about his
+weaknesses, or what are supposed to be such, if you know his intimate
+friends, or meet him in company with them.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Lastly, in conciliating those we live with, it is most surely done, not
+by consulting their interests, nor by giving way to their opinions, so
+much as by not offending their tastes.  The most refined part of us lies
+in this region of taste, which is perhaps a result of our whole being
+rather than a part of our nature, and, at any rate, is the region of our
+most subtle sympathies and antipathies.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+It may be said that if the great principles of Christianity were attended
+to, all such rules, suggestions, and observations as the above would be
+needless.  True enough!  Great principles are at the bottom of all
+things; but to apply them to daily life, many little rules, precautions,
+and insights are needed.  Such things hold a middle place between real
+life and principles, as form does between matter and spirit, moulding the
+one and expressing the other.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Quite right that last part.  Everybody must have known
+really good people, with all Christian temper, but having so little
+Christian prudence as to do a great deal of mischief in society.
+
+_Dunsford_.  There is one case, my dear Milverton, which I do not think
+you have considered: the case where people live unhappily together, not
+from any bad relations between them, but because they do not agree about
+the treatment of others.  A just person, for instance, who would bear
+anything for himself or herself, must remonstrate, at the hazard of any
+disagreement, at injustice to others.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes.  That, however, is a case to be decided upon higher
+considerations than those I have been treating of.  A man must do his
+duty in the way of preventing injustice, and take what comes of it.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  For people to live happily together, the real secret is
+that they should not live too much together.  Of course, you cannot say
+that; it would sound harsh, and cut short the essay altogether.
+
+Again, you talk about tastes and “region of subtle sympathies,” and all
+that.  I have observed that if people’s vanity is pleased, they live well
+enough together.  Offended vanity is the great separator.  You hear a man
+(call him B) saying that he is really not himself before So-and-so; tell
+him that So-and-so admires him very much and is himself rather abashed
+before B, and B is straightway comfortable, and they get on harmoniously
+together, and you hear no more about subtle sympathies or antipathies.
+
+_Dunsford_.  What a low view you do take of things sometimes, Ellesmere!
+
+_Milverton_.  I should not care how low it was, but it is not fair—at
+least, it does not contain the whole matter.  In the very case he has
+put, there was a subtle embarrassment between B and So-and-so.  Well,
+now, let these people not merely meet occasionally, but be obliged to
+live together, without any such explanation as Ellesmere has imagined,
+and they will be very uncomfortable from causes that you cannot impute to
+vanity.  It takes away much of the savour of life to live amongst those
+with whom one has not anything like one’s fair value.  It may not be
+mortified vanity, but unsatisfied sympathy, which causes this discomfort.
+B thinks that the other does not know him; he feels that he has no place
+with the other.  When there is intense admiration on one side, there is
+hardly a care in the mind of the admiring one as to what estimation he is
+held in.  But, in ordinary cases, some clearly defined respect and
+acknowledgment of worth is needed on both sides.  See how happy a man is
+in any office or service who is acknowledged to do something well.  How
+comfortable he is with his superiors!  He has his place.  It is not
+exactly a satisfaction of his vanity, but an acknowledgment of his useful
+existence that contents him.  I do not mean to say that there are not
+innumerable claims for acknowledgment of merit and service made by
+rampant vanity and egotism, which claims cannot be satisfied, ought not
+to be satisfied, and which, being unsatisfied, embitter people.  But I
+think your word Vanity will not explain all the feelings we have been
+talking about.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Perhaps not.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Certainly not.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, at any rate, you will admit that there is a class of
+dreadfully humble people who make immense claims at the very time that
+they are explaining that they have no claims.  They say they know they
+cannot be esteemed; they are well aware that they are not wanted, and so
+on, all the while making it a sort of grievance and a claim that they are
+not what they know themselves not to be; whereas, if they did but fall
+back upon their humility, and keep themselves quiet about their demerits,
+they would be strong then, and in their place and happy, doing what they
+could.
+
+_Milverton_.  It must be confessed that these people do make their
+humility somewhat obnoxious.  Yet, after all, you allow that they know
+their deficiencies, and they only say, “I know I have not much to
+recommend me, but I wish to be loved, nevertheless.”
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Ah, if they only said it a few times!  Besides, there is a
+little envy mixed up with the humility that I mean.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Travelling is a great trial of people’s ability to live
+together.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes.  Lavater says that you do not know a man until you
+have divided an inheritance with him; but I think a long journey with him
+will do.
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, and what is it in travelling that makes people
+disagree?  Not direct selfishness, but injudicious management; stupid
+regrets, for instance, at things not being different from what they are,
+or from what they might have been, if “the other route” had been chosen;
+fellow-travellers punishing each other with each other’s tastes; getting
+stock subjects of disputation; laughing unseasonably at each other’s
+vexations and discomforts; and endeavouring to settle everything by the
+force of sufficient reason, instead of by some authorised will, or by
+tossing up.  Thus, in the short time of a journey, almost all modes and
+causes of human disagreement are brought into action.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  My favourite one not being the least—over-much of each
+other’s company.
+
+For my part, I think one of the greatest bores of companionship is, not
+merely that people wish to fit tastes and notions on you just as they
+might the first pair of ready-made shoes they meet with, a process
+amusing enough to the bystander, but exquisitely uncomfortable to the
+person being ready-shod: but that they bore you with never-ending talk
+about their pursuits, even when they know that you do not work in the
+same groove with them, and that they cannot hope to make you do so.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Nobody can accuse you of that fault, Ellesmere: I never
+heard you dilate much upon anything that interested you, though I have
+known you have some pet subject, and to be working at it for months.  But
+this comes of your coldness of nature.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, it might bear a more favourable construction.  But to
+go back to the essay.  It only contemplates the fact of people living
+together as equals, if we may so say; but in general, of course, you must
+add some other relationship or connection than that of merely being
+together.
+
+_Milverton_.  I had not overlooked that; but there are certain general
+rules in the matter that may be applied to nearly all relationship, just
+as I have taken that one from Johnson, applied by him to married life,
+about not endeavouring to settle all things by reasoning, and have given
+it a general application which, I believe, it will bear.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  There is one thing that I should think must often make
+women very unreasonable and unpleasant companions.  Oh, you may both hold
+up your hands and eyes, but I am not married, and can say what I please.
+Of course you put on the proper official look of astonishment; and I will
+duly report it.  But I was going to say that Chivalry, which has
+doubtless done a great deal of good, has also done a great deal of harm.
+Women may talk the greatest unreason out of doors, and nobody kindly
+informs them that it is unreason.  They do not talk much before clever
+men, and when they do, their words are humoured and dandled as children’s
+sayings are.  Now, I should fancy—mind, I do not want either of you to
+say that my fancy is otherwise than quite unreasonable—I should fancy
+that when women have to hear reason at home it must sound odd to them.
+The truth is, you know, we cannot pet anything much without doing it
+mischief.  You cannot pet the intellect, any more than the will, without
+injuring it.  Well then, again, if you put people upon a pedestal and do
+a great deal of worship around them, I cannot think but the will in such
+cases must become rather corrupted, and that lessons of obedience must
+fall rather harshly—
+
+_Dunsford_.  Why, you Mahometan, you Turk of a lawyer—would you do away
+with all the high things of courtesy, tenderness for the weaker, and—
+
+_Milverton_.  No, I see what he means; and there is something in it.
+Many a woman is brought up in unreason and self-will from these causes
+that he has given, as many a man from other causes; but there is one
+great corrective that he has omitted, and which is, that all forms,
+fashions, and outward things have a tendency to go down before realities
+when they come hand to hand together.  Knowledge and judgment prevail.
+Governing is apt to fall to the right person in private as in public
+affairs.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Those who give way in public affairs, and let the men who
+can do a thing do it, are so far wise that they know what is to be done,
+mostly.  But the very things I am arguing against are the unreason and
+self-will, which being constantly pampered, do not appreciate reason or
+just sway.  Besides, is there not a force in ill-humour and unreason to
+which you constantly see the wisest bend?  You will come round to my
+opinion some day.  I do not want, though, to convince you.  It is no
+business of mine.
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, I may be wrong, but I think, when we come to consider
+education, I can show you how the dangers you fear may be greatly
+obviated, without Chivalry being obliged to put on a wig and gown, and be
+wise.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Meanwhile, let us enjoy the delightful atmosphere of
+courtesy, unreasonable sometimes, if you like, which saves many people
+being put down with the best arguments in the most convincing manner, or
+being weighed, estimated, and given way to, so as not to spoil them.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Do not tell, either of you, what I have been saying.  I
+shall always be poked up into some garret when I come to see you, if you
+do.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I think the most curious thing, as regards people living
+together, is the intense ignorance they sometimes are in of each other.
+Many years ago, one or other of you said something of this kind to me,
+and I have often thought of it since.
+
+_Milverton_.  People fulfil a relation towards each other, and they only
+know each other in that relation, especially if it is badly managed by
+the superior one; but any way the relationship involves some ignorance.
+They perform orbits round each other, each gyrating, too, upon his own
+axis, and there are parts of the character of each which are never
+brought into view of the other.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I should carry this notion of yours, Milverton, farther
+than you do.  There is a peculiar mental relation soon constituted
+between associates of any kind, which confines and prevents complete
+knowledge on both sides.  Each man, in some measure therefore, knows
+others only through himself.  Tennyson makes Ulysses say,
+
+    “I am a part of all that I have seen;”
+
+it might have run,
+
+    “I am a part of all that I have heard.”
+
+_Dunsford_.  Ellesmere becoming metaphysical and transcendental!
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, well, we will leave these heights, and descend in
+little drops of criticism.  There are two or three things you might have
+pointed out, Milverton.  Perhaps you would say that they are included in
+what you have said, but I think not.  You talk of the mischief of much
+comment on each other amongst those who live together.  You might have
+shown, I think, that in the case of near friends and relations this
+comment also deepens into interference—at least it partakes of that
+nature.  Friends and relations should, therefore, be especially careful
+to avoid needless comments on each other.  They do just the contrary.
+That is one of the reasons why they often hate one another so much.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Ellesmere!
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Protest, if you like, my dear Dunsford.
+
+    Dissentient,
+
+    1.  Because I wish it were not so.
+
+    2.  Because I am sorry that it is.
+
+                                                        (Signed) DUNSFORD.
+
+_Milverton_.  “Hate” is too strong a word, Ellesmere; what you say would
+be true enough, if you would put “are not in sympathy with.”
+
+_Ellesmere_.  “Have a quiet distaste for.”  That is the proper medium.
+Now, to go to another matter.  You have not put the case of over-managing
+people, who are tremendous to live with.
+
+_Milverton_.  I have spoken about “interfering unreasonably with others.”
+
+_Ellesmere_.  That does not quite convey what I mean.  It is when the
+manager and the managee are both of the same mind as to the thing to be
+done; but the former insists, and instructs, and suggests, and foresees,
+till the other feels that all free agency for him is gone.
+
+_Milverton_.  It is a sad thing to consider how much of their abilities
+people turn to tiresomeness.  You see a man who would be very agreeable
+if he were not so observant: another who would be charming, if he were
+deaf and dumb: a third delightful, if he did not vex all around him with
+superfluous criticism.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  A hit at me that last, I suspect.  But I shall go on.  You
+have not, I think, made enough merit of independence in companionship.
+If I were to put into an aphorism what I mean, I should say, Those who
+depend wholly on companionship are the worst companions; or thus: Those
+deserve companionship who can do without it.  There, Mr. Aphoriser
+General, what do you say to that?
+
+_Milverton_.  Very good, but—
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Of course a “but” to other people’s aphorisms, as if every
+aphorism had not buts innumerable.  We critics, you know, cannot abide
+criticism.  We do all the criticism that is needed ourselves.  I wonder
+at the presumption sometimes of you wretched authors.  But to proceed.
+You have not said anything about the mischief of superfluous condolence
+amongst people who live together.  I flatter myself that I could condole
+anybody out of all peace of mind.
+
+_Milverton_.  All depends upon whether condolence goes with the grain, or
+against the grain, of vanity.  I know what you mean, however: For
+instance, it is a very absurd thing to fret much over other people’s
+courses, not considering the knowledge and discipline that there is in
+any course that a man may take.  And it is still more absurd to be
+constantly showing the people fretted over that you are fretting over
+them.  I think a good deal of what you call superfluous condolence would
+come under the head of superfluous criticism.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Not altogether.  In companionship, when an evil happens to
+one of the circle, the others should simply attempt to share and lighten
+it, not to expound it, or dilate on it, or make it the least darker.  The
+person afflicted generally apprehends all the blackness sufficiently.
+Now, unjust abuse by the world is to me like the howling of the wind at
+night when one is warm within.  Bring any draught of it into one’s house
+though, and it is not so pleasant.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Talking of companionship, do not you think there is often a
+peculiar feeling of home where age or infirmity is?  The arm-chair of the
+sick or the old is the centre of the house.  They think, perhaps, that
+they are unimportant; but all the household hopes and cares flow to them
+and from them.
+
+_Milverton_.  I quite agree with you.  What you have just depicted is a
+beautiful sight, especially when, as you often see, the age or infirmity
+is not in the least selfish or exacting.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  We have said a great deal about the companionship of human
+beings; but, upon my word, we ought to have kept a few words for our dog
+friends.  Rollo has been lolling out his great tongue, and looking
+wistfully from face to face, as we each began our talk.  A few minutes
+ago he was quite concerned, thinking I was angry with you, when I would
+not let you “but” my aphorism.  I am not sure which of the three I should
+rather go out walking with now: Dunsford, Rollo, Milverton.  The middle
+one is the safest companion.  I am sure not to get out of humour with
+him.  But I have no objection to try the whole three: only I vote for
+much continuity of silence, as we have had floods of discussion to-day.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Agreed!
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Come, Rollo, you may bark now, as you have been silent,
+like a wise dog, all the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+IT was arranged, during our walk, that Ellesmere should come and stay a
+day or two with me, and see the neighbouring cathedral, which is nearer
+my house than Milverton’s.  The visit over, I brought him back to
+Worth-Ashton.  Milverton saw us coming, walked down the hill to meet us,
+and after the usual greetings, began to talk to Ellesmere.
+
+_Milverton_.  So you have been to see our cathedral.  I say “our,” for
+when a cathedral is within ten miles of us, we feel a property in it, and
+are ready to battle for its architectural merits.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You know I am not a man to rave about cathedrals.
+
+_Milverton_.  I certainly do not expect you to do so.  To me a cathedral
+is mostly somewhat of a sad sight.  You have Grecian monuments, if
+anything so misplaced can be called Grecian, imbedded against and cutting
+into Gothic pillars; the doors shut for the greater part of the day; only
+a little bit of the building used: beadledom predominant; the clink of
+money here and there; white-wash in vigour; the singing indifferent; the
+sermons not indifferent but bad; and some visitors from London forming,
+perhaps, the most important part of the audience; in fact, the thing
+having become a show.  We look about, thinking when piety filled every
+corner, and feel that the cathedral is too big for the Religion which is
+a dried-up thing that rattles in this empty space.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  This is the boldest simile I have heard for a long time.
+My theory about cathedrals is very different, I must confess.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Theory!
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, “theory” is not the word I ought to have used—feeling
+then.  My feeling is, how strong this creature was, this worship, how
+beautiful, how alluring, how complete; but there was something
+stronger—truth.
+
+_Milverton_.  And more beautiful?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes, and far more beautiful.
+
+_Milverton_.  Doubtless, to the free spirits who brought truth forward.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You are only saying this, Milverton, to try what I will
+say; but, despite of all sentimentalities, you sympathise with any
+emancipation of the human mind, as I do, however much the meagreness of
+Protestantism may be at times distasteful to you.
+
+_Milverton_.  I did not say I was anxious to go back.  Certainly not.
+But what says Dunsford?  Let us sit down on his stile and hear what he
+has to say.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I cannot talk to you about this subject.  If I tell you of
+all the merits (as they seem to me) of the Church of England, you will
+both pick what I say to pieces, whereas if I leave you to fight on, one
+or the other will avail himself of those arguments on which our Church is
+based.
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, Dunsford, you are very candid, and would make a
+complete diplomatist: truth-telling being now pronounced (rather late in
+the day) the very acme of diplomacy.  But do you not own that our
+cathedrals are sadly misused?
+
+_Dunsford_.  Now, very likely, if more were made of them, you, and men
+who think like you, would begin to cry out “superstition”; and would
+instantly turn round and inveigh against the uses which you now, perhaps,
+imagine for cathedrals.
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, one never can answer for oneself; but at any rate, I
+do not see what is the meaning of building new churches in neighbourhoods
+where there are already the noblest buildings suitable for the same
+purposes.  Is there a church religion, and is there a cathedral religion?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You cannot make the present fill the garb of the past,
+Milverton, any more than you could make the past fill that of the
+present.  Now, as regards the very thing you are about to discuss to-day,
+if it be the same you told us in our last walk—Education: if you are only
+going to give us some institution for it, I daresay it may be very good
+for to-day, or for this generation, but it will have its sere and yellow
+leaf, and there will be a time when future Milvertons, in sentimental
+mood, will moan over it, and wish they had it and all that has grown up
+to take its place at the same time.  But all this is what I have often
+heard you say yourself in other words.
+
+_Dunsford_.  This is very hard doctrine, and not quite sound, I think.
+In getting the new gain, we always sacrifice something, and we should
+look with some pious regard to what was good in the things which are
+past.  That good is generally one which, though it may not be equal to
+the present, would make a most valuable supplement to it.
+
+_Milverton_.  I would try and work in the old good thing with the new,
+not as patchwork though, but making the new thing grow out in such a way
+as to embrace the old advantage.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, we must have the essay before we branch out into our
+philosophy.  Pleasure afterwards—I will not say what comes first.
+
+
+
+EDUCATION.
+
+
+The word education is so large, that one may almost as well put “world,”
+or “the end and object of being,” at the head of an essay.  It should,
+therefore, soon be declared what such a heading does mean.  The word
+education suggests chiefly to some minds what the State can do for those
+whom they consider its young people—the children of the poorer classes:
+to others it presents the idea of all the training that can be got for
+money at schools and colleges, and which can be fairly accomplished and
+shut in at the age of one-and-twenty.  This essay, however, will not be a
+treatise on government education, or other school and college education,
+but will only contain a few points in reference to the general subject,
+which may escape more methodical and enlarged discussions.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+In the first place, as regards government education, it must be kept in
+mind that there is a danger of its being too interfering and formal, of
+its overlying private enterprise, insisting upon too much uniformity, and
+injuring local connections and regards.  Education, even in the poorest
+acceptance of the word, is a great thing: but the harmonious intercourse
+of different ranks, if not a greater, is a more difficult one; and we
+must not gain the former at any considerable sacrifice of the latter.
+
+There is another point connected with this branch of the subject which
+requires, perhaps, to be noted.  If government provision is made in any
+case, might it not be combined with private payment in other cases, or
+enter in the way of rewards, so as to do good throughout each step of the
+social ladder?  The lowest kind of school education is a power, and it is
+desirable that the gradations of this power should correspond to other
+influences which we know to be good.  For instance, a hard-working man
+saves something to educate his children; if he can get a little better
+education for them than other parents of his own rank for theirs, it is
+an incentive and a reward to him, and the child’s bringing up at home is
+a thing which will correspond to this better education at school.  In
+this there are the elements at once of stability and progress.
+
+These views may possibly seem too refined, but at any rate they require
+consideration.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The next branch of the subject is the ordinary education of young persons
+not of the poorest classes, with which the State has hitherto had little
+or nothing to do.  This may be considered under four heads: religious,
+moral, intellectual, and physical education.  With regard to the first,
+there is not much that can be put into rules about it.  Parents and
+tutors will naturally be anxious to impress those under their charge with
+the religious opinions which they themselves hold.  In doing this,
+however, they should not omit to lay a foundation for charity towards
+people of other religious opinions.  For this purpose, it may be
+requisite to give a child a notion that there are other creeds besides
+that in which it is brought up itself.  And especially, let it not
+suppose that all good and wise people are of its church or chapel.
+However desirable it may appear to the person teaching that there should
+be such a thing as unity of religion, yet as the facts of the world are
+against his wishes, and as this is the world which the child is to enter,
+it is well that the child should in reasonable time be informed of these
+facts.  It may be said in reply that history sufficiently informs
+children on these points.  But the world of the young is the domestic
+circle; all beyond is fabulous, unless brought home to them by comment.
+The fact, therefore, of different opinions in religious matters being
+held by good people should sometimes be dwelt upon, instead of being
+shunned, if we would secure a ground-work of tolerance in a child’s mind.
+
+
+
+INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
+
+
+In the intellectual part of education there is the absolute knowledge to
+be acquired, and the ways of acquiring knowledge to be gained.  The
+latter of course form the most important branch.  They can, in some
+measure, be taught.  Give children little to do, make much of its being
+accurately done.  This will give accuracy.  Insist upon speed in
+learning, with careful reference to the original powers of the pupil.
+This speed gives the habit of concentrating attention, one of the most
+valuable of mental habits.  Then cultivate logic.  Logic is not the hard
+matter that is fancied.  A young person, especially after a little
+geometrical training, may soon be taught to perceive where a fallacy
+exists, and whether an argument is well sustained.  It is not, however,
+sufficient for him to be able to examine sharply and to pull to pieces.
+He must learn how to build.  This is done by method.  The higher branches
+of method cannot be taught at first.  But you may begin by teaching
+orderliness of mind.  Collecting, classifying, contrasting and weighing
+facts, are some of the processes by which method is taught.  When these
+four things, accuracy, attention, logic, and method are attained, the
+intellect is fairly furnished with its instruments.
+
+As regards the things to be taught, they will vary to some extent in each
+age.  The general course of education pursued at any particular time may
+not be the wisest by any means, and greatness will overleap it and
+neglect it, but the mass of men may go more safely and comfortably, if
+not with the stream, at least by the side of it.
+
+In the choice of studies too much deference should not be paid to the
+bent of a young person’s mind.  Excellence in one or two things which may
+have taken the fancy of a youth (or which really may suit his genius)
+will ill compensate for a complete ignorance of those branches of study
+which are very repugnant to him; and which are, therefore, not likely to
+be learnt when he has freedom in the choice of his studies.
+
+Amongst the first things to be aimed at in the intellectual part of
+education is variety of pursuit.  A human being, like a tree, if it is to
+attain to perfect symmetry, must have light and air given to it from all
+quarters.  This may be done without making men superficial.  Scientific
+method may be acquired without many sciences being learnt.  But one or
+two great branches of science must be accurately known.  So, too, the
+choice works of antiquity may be thoroughly appreciated without extensive
+reacting.  And passing on from mere learning of any kind, a variety of
+pursuits, even in what may be called accomplishments, is eminently
+serviceable.  Much may be said of the advantage of keeping a man to a few
+pursuits, and of the great things done thereby in the making of pins and
+needles.  But in this matter we are not thinking of the things that are
+to be done, but of the persons who are to do them.  Not wealth but men.
+A number of one-sided men may make a great nation, though I much incline
+to doubt that; but such a nation will not contain a number of great men.
+
+The very advantage that flows from division of labour, and the probable
+consequences that men’s future bread-getting pursuits will be more and
+more sub-divided, and therefore limited, make it the more necessary that
+a man should begin life with a broad basis of interest in many things
+which may cultivate his faculties and develop his nature.  This
+multifariousness of pursuit is needed also in the education of the poor.
+Civilisation has made it easy for a man to brutalise himself: how is this
+to be counteracted but by endowing him with many pursuits which may
+distract him from vice?  It is not that kind of education which leads to
+no employment in after-life that will do battle with vice.  But when
+education enlarges the field of life-long good pursuits, it becomes
+formidable to the soul’s worst enemies.
+
+
+
+MORAL EDUCATION.
+
+
+In considering moral education we must recollect that there are three
+agents in this matter—the child himself, the influence of his grown-up
+friends, and that of his contemporaries.  All that his grown-up friends
+tell him in the way of experience goes for very little, except in
+palpable matters.  They talk of abstractions which he cannot comprehend:
+and the “Arabian Nights” is a truer world to him than that they talk of.
+Still, though they cannot furnish experience, they can give motives.
+Indeed, in their daily intercourse with the child, they are always doing
+so.  For instance, truth, courage, and kindness are the great moral
+qualities to be instilled.  Take courage, in its highest form—moral
+courage.  If a child perpetually hears such phrases (and especially if
+they are applied to his own conduct), as, “What people will say,” “How
+they will look at you,” “What they will think,” and the like, it tends to
+destroy all just self-reliance in that child’s mind, and to set up
+instead an exaggerated notion of public opinion, the greatest tyrant of
+these times.  People can see this in such an obvious thing as animal
+courage.  They will avoid over-cautioning children against physical
+dangers, knowing that the danger they talk much about will become a
+bug-bear to the child which it may never get rid of.  But a similar peril
+lurks in the application of moral motives.  Truth, courage, and kindness
+are likely to be learnt, or not, by children, according as they hear and
+receive encouragement in the direction of these pre-eminent qualities.
+When attempt is made to frighten a child with these worldly maxims, “What
+will be said of you?” “Are you like such a one?” and such things, it is
+meant to draw him under the rule of grown-up respectability.  The last
+thing thought of by the parent or teacher is, that such maxims will bring
+the child under the especial guidance of the most unscrupulous of his
+contemporaries.  They will use ridicule and appeal to their little world,
+which will be his world, and ask, “What will be said” of him.  There
+should be some stuff in him of his own to meet these awful generalities.
+
+
+
+PHYSICAL EDUCATION.
+
+
+The physical education of children is a very simple matter, too simple to
+be much attended to without great perseverance and resolution on the part
+of those who care for the children.  It consists, as we all know, in good
+air, simple diet, sufficient exercise, and judicious clothing.  The first
+requisite is the most important, and by far the most frequently
+neglected.  This neglect is not so unreasonable as it seems.  It arises
+from pure ignorance.  If the mass of mankind knew what scientific men
+know about the functions of the air, they would be as careful in getting
+a good supply of it as of their other food.  All the people that ever
+were supposed to die of poison in the middle ages, and that means nearly
+everybody whose death was worth speculating about, are not so many as
+those who die poisoned by bad air in the course of any given year.  Even
+a slightly noxious thing, which is constant, affecting us every moment of
+the day, must have considerable influence; but the air we breathe is not
+a thing that slightly affects us, but one of the most important elements
+of life.  Moreover, children are the most affected by impurity of air.
+We need not weary ourselves with much statistics to ascertain this.  One
+or two broad facts will assure us of it.  In Nottingham there is a
+district called Byron Ward, “the densest and worst-conditioned quarter of
+the town.”  A table has been made by Mr. William Hawksley of the
+mortality of equal populations in different parts of the town:
+
+    “On comparing the diagram No. 1, relating to Park Ward, with the
+    diagram No. 7, relating to Byron Ward, it will be seen that the
+    heavier pressure of the causes of mortality occasions in the latter
+    district such an undue destruction of early life, that towards 100
+    deaths, however occurring, Byron Ward contributes fifty per cent.
+    more of children under five years of age than the Park Ward, for the
+    former sends sixty children to an early grave, while the latter sends
+    only forty.” {116a}
+
+Mr. Hawksley, the former witness alluded to, goes on to say—
+
+    “It has been long known that, with increase of years, up to that
+    period of life which has been denominated the second childhood, the
+    human constitution becomes gradually more resistful, and as it were
+    slowly hardened against the repeated attacks of those more acute
+    disorders, incident to an inferior degree of sanitary civilisation,
+    by which large portions of an infant population are continually
+    overcome and rapidly swept away.  From the operation of these and
+    more extraneous influences of a disturbing character, an infant
+    population is almost entirely exempted; and on this account it is
+    considered that an infant population constitutes, as it were, a
+    delicate barometer, from which we may derive more early and more
+    certain indications of the presence and comparative force of local
+    causes of mortality and disease than can be obtained from the more
+    general methods of investigation usually pursued.”
+
+The above evidence is confirmed by Mr. Toynbee:—
+
+    “The disease of hydrocephalus, of water in the brain, so fatal to
+    children, I find associated with symptoms of scrofula, and arising in
+    abundance in these close rooms.  I believe water in the brain, in the
+    class of patients whom I visit, to be almost wholly a scrofulous
+    affection.”  {116b}
+
+But supposing people aware of the necessity for good air, and therefore
+for ventilation, what is to be done?  In houses in great towns certainly,
+and I should say in all houses, some of the care and expense that are
+devoted to ornamental work, which when done is often a care, a trouble,
+an eyesore, and a mischief, should be given to modes of ventilation,
+{117a} sound building, abundant access of light, largeness of
+sleeping-rooms, and such useful things.  Less ormolu and tinsel of all
+kinds in the drawing-rooms, and sweeter air in the regions above.
+Similar things may be done for and by the poor. {117b}  And it need
+hardly be said that those people who care for their children, if of any
+enlightenment at all, will care greatly for the sanitary condition of
+their neighbourhood generally.  At present you will find at many a rich
+man’s door {117c} a nuisance which is poisoning the atmosphere that his
+children are to breathe, but which he could entirely cure for less than
+one day’s ordinary expenses.
+
+I am afraid that ventilation is very little attended to in school-rooms,
+either for rich or poor.  Now it may be deliberately said that there is
+very little learned in any school-room that can compensate for the
+mischief of its being learned in the midst of impure air.  This is a
+thing which parents must look to, for the grown-up people in the
+school-rooms, though suffering grievously themselves from insufficient
+ventilation, will be unobservant of it. {118}  In every system of
+government inspection, ventilation must occupy a prominent part.
+
+The advantage of simple food for children is a thing that people have
+found out.  And as regards exercise, children happily make great efforts
+to provide a sufficiency of this for themselves.  In clothing, the folly
+and conformity of grown-up people enter again.  Loving mothers, in
+various parts of the world, carry about at present, I believe, and
+certainly in times past, carried their little children strapped to a
+board, with nearly as little power of motion as the board itself.  Could
+we get the returns of stunted miserable beings, or of deaths, from this
+cause, they would be something portentous.  Less in degree, but not less
+fatally absurd in principle, are many of the strappings, bandages, and
+incipient stays for children amongst us.  They are all mischievous.
+Allow children, at any rate, some freedom of limbs, some opportunity of
+being graceful and healthy.  Give Nature—dear motherly, much-abused
+Nature—some chance of forming these little ones according to the
+beneficent intentions of Providence, and not according to the angular
+designs of ill-educated men and women.
+
+I do not say that attention to the above matters of good air, judicious
+clothing, and freedom from bandages, will absolutely secure health,
+because these very things may have been so ill attended to in the parents
+or in the parental stock as to have introduced special maladies; but at
+least they are the most important objects to be minded now; and, perhaps,
+the more to be minded in the children of those who have suffered most
+from neglect in these particulars.
+
+When we are considering the health of children, it is imperative not to
+omit the importance of keeping their brains fallow, as it were, for
+several of the first years of their existence.  The mischief perpetrated
+by a contrary course in the shape of bad health, peevish temper, and
+developed vanity, is incalculable.  It would not be just to attribute
+this altogether to the vanity of parents; they are influenced by a
+natural fear lest their children should not have all the advantages of
+other children.  Some infant prodigy which is a standard of mischief
+throughout its neighbourhood misleads them.  But parents may be assured
+that this early work is not by any means all gain, even in the way of
+work.  I suspect it is a loss; and that children who begin their
+education late, as it would be called, will rapidly overtake those who
+have been in harness long before them.  And what advantage can it be that
+the child knows more at six years old than its compeers, especially if
+this is to be gained by a sacrifice of health which may never be
+regained?  There may be some excuse for this early book-work in the case
+of those children who are to live by manual labour.  It is worth while,
+perhaps, to run the risk of some physical injury to them, having only
+their early years in which we can teach them book-knowledge.  The chance
+of mischief, too, will be less, being more likely to be counteracted by
+their after-life.  But for a child who has to be at book-work for the
+first twenty-one years of its life, what folly it is to exhaust in the
+least the mental energy, which, after all, is its surest implement.
+
+A similar course of argument applies to taking children early to church,
+and to over-developing their minds in any way.  There is no knowing,
+moreover, the disgust and weariness that may grow up in the minds of
+young persons from their attention being prematurely claimed.  We are
+now, however, looking at early study as a matter of health; and we may
+certainly put it down in the same class with impure air, stimulating
+diet, unnecessary bandages, and other manifest physical disadvantages.
+Civilised life, as it advances, does not seem to have so much repose in
+it, that we need begin early in exciting the mind, for fear of the man
+being too lethargical hereafter.
+
+
+
+EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
+
+
+It seems needful that something should be said specially about the
+education of women.  As regards their intellects they have been unkindly
+treated—too much flattered, too little respected.  They are shut up in a
+world of conventionalities, and naturally believe that to be the only
+world.  The theory of their education seems to be, that they should not
+be made companions to men, and some would say, they certainly are not.
+These critics, however, in the high imaginations they justly form of what
+women’s society might be to men, forget, perhaps, how excellent a thing
+it is already.  Still the criticism is not by any means wholly unjust.
+It appears rather as if there had been a falling off since the olden
+times in the education of women.  A writer of modern days, arguing on the
+other side, has said, that though we may talk of the Latin and Greek of
+Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth, yet we are to consider that that was
+the only learning of the time, and that many a modern lady may be far
+better instructed, although she knew nothing of Latin and Greek.  Certain
+it is, she may know more facts, have read more books: but this does not
+assure us that she may not be less conversable, less companionable.
+Wherein does the cultivated and thoughtful man differ from the common
+man?  In the method of his discourse.  His questions upon a subject in
+which he is ignorant are full of interest.  His talk has a groundwork of
+reason.  This rationality must not be supposed to be dulness.  Folly is
+dull.  Now, would women be less charming if they had more power, or at
+least more appreciation, of reasoning?  Their flatterers tell them that
+their intuition is such that they need not man’s slow processes of
+thought.  One would be very sorry to have a grave question of law that
+concerned oneself decided upon by intuitive judges, or a question of fact
+by intuitive jurymen.  And so of all human things that have to be
+canvassed, it is better, and more amusing too, that they should be
+discussed according to reason.  Moreover, the exercise of the reasoning
+faculties gives much of the pleasure which there is in solid
+acquirements; so that the obvious facts in life and history will hardly
+be acquired by those who are not in the habit of reasoning upon them.
+Hence it comes, that women have less interest in great topics, and less
+knowledge of them, than they might have.
+
+Again, if either sex requires logical education, it is theirs.  The sharp
+practice of the world drives some logic into the most vague of men; women
+are not so schooled.
+
+But, supposing the deficiency we have been considering to be admitted,
+how is it to be remedied?  Women’s education must be made such as to
+ensure some accuracy and reasoning.  This may be done with any subject of
+education, and is done with men, whatever they learn, because they are
+expected to produce and use their requirements.  But the greatest object
+of intellectual education, the improvement of the mental powers, is as
+needful for one sex as the other, and requires the same means in both
+sexes.  The same accuracy, attention, logic, and method that are
+attempted in the education of men should be aimed at in that of women.
+This will never be sufficiently attended to, as there are no immediate
+and obvious fruits from it.  And, therefore, as it is probable, from the
+different career of women to that of men, that whatever women study will
+not be studied with the same method and earnestness as it would be by
+men, what a peculiar advantage there is in any study for them, in which
+no proficiency whatever can be made without some use of most of the
+qualities we desire for them.  Geometry, for instance, is such a study.
+It may appear pedantic, but I must confess that Euclid seems to me a book
+for the young of both sexes.  The severe rules upon which the acquisition
+of the dead languages is built would of course be a great means for
+attaining the logical habits in question.  But Latin and Greek is a
+deeper pedantry for women than geometry, and much less desirable on many
+accounts: and geometry would, perhaps, suffice to teach them what
+reasoning is.  I daresay, too, there are accomplishments which might be
+taught scientifically; and so even the prejudice against the manifest
+study of science by women be conciliated.  But the appreciation of
+reasoning must be got somehow.
+
+It is a narrow view of things to suppose that a just cultivation of
+women’s mental powers will take them out of their sphere: it will only
+enlarge that sphere.  The most cultivated women perform their common
+duties best.  They see more in those duties.  They can do more.  Lady
+Jane Grey would, I daresay, have bound up a wound, or managed a
+household, with any unlearned woman of her day.  Queen Elizabeth did
+manage a kingdom: and we find no pedantry in her way of doing it.
+
+People who advocate a better training for women must not, necessarily, be
+supposed to imagine that men and women are by education to be made alike,
+and are intended to fulfil most of the same offices.  There seems reason
+for thinking that a boundary line exists between the intellects of men
+and women which, perhaps, cannot be passed over from either side.  But,
+at any rate, taking the whole nature of both sexes, and the inevitable
+circumstances which cause them to differ, there must be such a difference
+between men and women that the same intellectual training applied to both
+would produce most dissimilar results.  It has not, however, been
+proposed in these pages to adopt the same training: and would have been
+still less likely to be proposed if it could be shown that such training
+would tend to make men and women unpleasantly similar to each other.  The
+utmost that has been thought of here is to make more of women’s
+faculties, not by any means to translate them into men’s—if such a thing
+were possible, which, we may venture to say, is not.  There are some
+things that are good for all trees—light, air, room—but no one expects by
+affording some similar advantages of this kind to an oak and a beech, to
+find them assimilate, though by such means the best of each may be
+produced.
+
+Moreover, it should be recollected that the purpose of education is not
+always to foster natural gifts, but sometimes to bring out faculties that
+might otherwise remain dormant; and especially so far as to make the
+persons educated cognisant of excellence in those faculties in others.  A
+certain tact and refinement belong to women, in which they have little to
+learn from the first: men, too, who attain some portion of these
+qualities, are greatly the better for them, and I should imagine not less
+acceptable on that account to women.  So, on the other side, there may be
+an intellectual cultivation for women which may seem a little against the
+grain, which would not, however, injure any of their peculiar
+gifts—would, in fact, carry those gifts to the highest, and would
+increase withal, both to men and women, the pleasure of each other’s
+society.
+
+There is a branch of general education which is not thought at all
+necessary for women; as regards which, indeed, it is well if they are not
+brought up to cultivate the opposite.  Women are not taught to be
+courageous.  Indeed, to some persons courage may seem as unnecessary for
+women as Latin and Greek.  Yet there are few things that would tend to
+make women happier in themselves, and more acceptable to those with whom
+they live, than courage.  There are many women of the present day,
+sensible women in other things, whose panic-terrors are a frequent source
+of discomfort to themselves and those around them.  Now, it is a great
+mistake to imagine that harshness must go with courage; and that the
+bloom of gentleness and sympathy must all be rubbed off by that vigour of
+mind which gives presence of mind, enables a person to be useful in
+peril, and makes the desire to assist overcome that sickliness of
+sensibility which can only contemplate distress and difficulty.  So far
+from courage being unfeminine, there is a peculiar grace and dignity in
+those beings who have little active power of attack or defence, passing
+through danger with a moral courage which is equal to that of the
+strongest.  We see this in great things.  We perfectly appreciate the
+sweet and noble dignity of an Anne Bullen, a Mary Queen of Scots, or a
+Marie Antoinette.  We see that it is grand for these delicately-bred,
+high-nurtured, helpless personages to meet Death with a silence and a
+confidence like his own.  But there would be a similar dignity in women’s
+bearing small terrors with fortitude.  There is no beauty in fear.  It is
+a mean, ugly, dishevelled creature.  No statue can be made of it that a
+woman would like to see herself like.
+
+Women are pre-eminent in steady endurance of tiresome suffering: they
+need not be far behind men in a becoming courage to meet that which is
+sudden and sharp.  The dangers and the troubles, too, which we may
+venture to say they now start at unreasonably, are many of them mere
+creatures of the imagination—such as, in their way, disturb high-mettled
+animals brought up to see too little, and therefore frightened at any
+leaf blown across the road.
+
+We may be quite sure that, without losing any of the most delicate and
+refined of feminine graces, women may be taught not to give way to
+unreasonable fears, which should belong no more to the fragile than to
+the robust.
+
+There is no doubt that courage may in some measure be taught.  We agree
+that the lower kinds of courage are matter of habit, therefore of
+teaching: and the same thing holds good to some extent of all courage.
+Courage is as contagious as fear.  The saying is, that the brave are the
+sons and daughters of the brave; but we might as truly say that they must
+be brought up by the brave.  The great novelist, when he wants a coward
+descended from a valorous race, does well to take him from his clan and
+bring him up in an unwarlike home. {126}  Indeed, the heroic example of
+other days is in great part the source of courage of each generation; and
+men walk up composedly to the most perilous enterprises, beckoned onwards
+by the shades of the brave that were.  In civil courage, moral courage,
+or courage shown in the minute circumstances of everyday life, the same
+law is true.  Courage may be taught by precept, enforced by example, and
+is good to be taught to men, women, and children.
+
+
+
+EDUCATION TO HAPPINESS.
+
+
+It is a curious phenomenon in human affairs, that some of those matters
+in which education is most potent should have been amongst the least
+thought of as branches of it.  What you teach a boy of Latin and Greek
+may be good; but these things are with him but a little time of each day
+in his after-life.  What you teach him of direct moral precepts may be
+very good seed: it may grow up, especially if it have sufficient moisture
+from experience; but then, again, a man is, happily, not doing obvious
+right or wrong all day long.  What you teach him of any bread-getting art
+may be of some import to him, as to the quantity and quality of bread he
+will get; but he is not always with his art.  With himself he is always.
+How important, then, it is, whether you have given him a happy or a
+morbid turn of mind; whether the current of his life is a clear wholesome
+stream, or bitter as Marah.  The education to happiness is a possible
+thing—not to a happiness supposed to rest upon enjoyments of any kind,
+but to one built upon content and resignation.  This is the best part of
+philosophy.  This enters into the “wisdom” spoken of in the Scriptures.
+Now it can be taught.  The converse is taught every day and all day long.
+
+To take an example.  A sensitive disposition may descend to a child; but
+it is also very commonly increased, and often created.  Captiousness,
+sensitiveness, and a Martha-like care for the things of this world, are
+often the direct fruits of education.  All these faults of the character,
+and they are amongst the greatest, may be summed up in a disproportionate
+care for little things.  This is rather a growing evil.  The painful
+neatness and exactness of modern life foster it.  Long peace favours it.
+Trifles become more important, great evils being kept away.  And so, the
+tide of small wishes and requirements gains upon us fully as fast as we
+can get out of its way by our improved means of satisfying them.  Now the
+unwholesome concern that many parents and governors manifest as to small
+things must have a great influence on the governed.  You hear a child
+reprimanded about a point of dress, or some trivial thing, as if it had
+committed a treachery.  The criticisms, too, which it hears upon others
+are often of the same kind.  Small omissions, small commissions, false
+shame, little stumbling-blocks of offence, trifling grievances of the
+kind that Dr. Johnson, who had known hunger, stormed at Mrs. Thrale for
+talking about, are made much of; general dissatisfaction is expressed
+that things are not complete, and that everything in life is not turned
+out as neat as a Long-Acre carriage; commands are expected to be
+fulfilled by agents, upon very rapid and incomplete orders, exactly to
+the mind of the person ordering;—these ways, to which children are very
+attentive, teach them in their turn to be querulous, sensitive, and full
+of small cares and wishes.  And when you have made a child like this, can
+you make a world for him that will satisfy him?  Tax your civilisation to
+the uttermost: a punctilious, tiresome disposition expects more.  Indeed,
+Nature, with her vague and flowing ways, cannot at all fit in with a
+right-angled person.  Besides, there are other precise, angular
+creatures, and these sharp-edged persons wound each other terribly.  Of
+all the things which you can teach people, after teaching them to trust
+in God, the most important is, to put out of their hearts any expectation
+of perfection, according to their notions, in this world.  This
+expectation is at the bottom of a great deal of the worldliness we hear
+so much reprehended, and necessarily gives to little things a most
+irrational importance.
+
+Observe the effect of this disproportionate care for little things in the
+disputes of men.  A man who does so care, has a garment embroidered with
+hooks which catch at everything that passes by.  He finds many more
+causes of offence than other men; and each offence is a more bitter thing
+to him than to others.  He does not expect to be offended.  Poor man!  He
+goes through life wondering that he is the subject of general attack, and
+that the world is so quarrelsome.
+
+The result of a bad education in developing undue care for trifles may be
+seen in its effect on domestic government and government in general.  If
+those in power have this fault, they will make the persons under them
+miserable by petty, constant blame; or they will make them indifferent to
+all blame.  If this fault is in the governed, they will captiously object
+to all the ways and plans of their superiors, not knowing the difficulty
+of doing anything; they will expect miracles of attention, justice, and
+temper, which the rough-hewed ways of men do not admit of; and they will
+repine and tease the life out of those in authority.  Sometimes both
+superiors and inferiors, governors and governed, have this fault.  This
+must often happen in a family, and is a fearful punishment to the elders
+of it.  Scarcely any goodness of disposition, and what are called great
+qualities, can make such difficult materials work well together.
+
+But I end with somewhat of the same argument as I began with, namely,
+that as a man lives more with himself than with art, science, or even
+with his fellows, a wise teacher, having before him the intent to make a
+happy-minded man of his pupil, will try to lay a groundwork of divine
+contentment in him.  If he cannot make him easily pleased, he will at
+least try and prevent him from being easily disconcerted.  Why, even the
+self-conceit that makes people indifferent to small things, wrapping them
+in an atmosphere of self-satisfaction, is welcome in a man compared to
+that querulousness which makes him an enemy to all around.  But most
+commendable is that easiness of mind which is easy because it is
+tolerant, because it does not look to have everything its own way,
+because it expects anything but smooth usage in its course here, because
+it has resolved to manufacture as few miseries out of small evils as can
+be.
+
+Most of us know what it is to vex our minds because we cannot recall some
+name or trivial thing which has escaped our memory for the moment.  But
+then we think how foolish this is, what little concern it is to us.  We
+are right in that; yet any defect of memory is a great concern compared
+to many of the trifling niceties, comforts, offences, and
+rectangularities which, perhaps, we do not think it an ignoble use of
+heart and time to waste ourselves upon.  It would be well enough to
+entertain the rabble of small troubles and offences, if we could lay them
+aside with the delightful facility of children, who, after an agony of
+tears, are soon found laughing or asleep.  But the chagrin and vexation
+of grown-up people are grown-up too; and, however childish in their
+origin, are not to be laughed or danced or slept away in childlike
+simple-heartedness.
+
+We must not imagine that too much stress can well be laid upon the
+importance of an education to contentment, for it comes under the head of
+those things which are not adjuncts or acquisitions for a man, but which
+form the texture of his being.  What a man has learnt is of importance;
+but what he is, what he can do, what he will become, are more significant
+things.  Finally, it may be remarked, that, to make education a great
+work, we must have the educators great; that book-learning is mainly good
+as it gives us a chance of coming into the company of greater and better
+minds than the average of men around us; and that individual greatness
+and goodness are the things to be aimed at rather than the successful
+cultivation of those talents which go to form some eminent membership of
+society.  Each man is a drama in himself—has to play all the parts in it;
+is to be king and rebel, successful and vanquished, free and slave; and
+needs a bringing-up fit for the universal creature that he is.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You have been unexpectedly merciful to us.  The moment I
+heard the head of the essay given out, there flitted before my frightened
+mind volumes of reports, Battersea schools, Bell, Wilderspin, normal
+farms, National Society, British Schools, interminable questions about
+how religion might be separated altogether from secular education, or so
+much religion taught as all religious sects could agree in.  These are
+all very good things and people to discuss, I daresay; but, to tell the
+truth, the whole subject sits heavy on my soul.  I meet a man of
+inexhaustible dulness, and he talks to me for three hours about some
+great subject—this very one of education, for instance—till I sit
+entranced by stupidity, thinking the while, “And this is what we are to
+become by education—to be like you.”  Then I see a man like D—, a
+judicious, reasonable, conversable being, knowing how to be silent too—a
+man to go through a campaign with—and I find he cannot read or write.
+
+_Milverton_.  This sort of contrast is just the thing to strike you,
+Ellesmere: and yet you know as well as any of us that to bring forward
+such contrasts by way of depreciating education would be most
+unreasonable.  There are three things that go to make a man—the education
+that most people mean by education; then the education that goes deeper,
+the education of the soul; and, thirdly, a man’s gifts of Nature.  I
+agree with all you say about D—; he never says a foolish thing, and does
+a great many judicious ones.  But look what a clever face he has.  There
+are gifts of Nature for you.  Then, again, although he cannot read or
+write, he may have been most judiciously brought up in other respects.
+He may have had two, therefore, out of the three elements of education.
+What such instances would show, I believe, if narrowly looked into, is
+the immense importance of the education of heart and temper.
+
+I feel with you in some measure about the dulness of the subject of
+education.  But then it extends to all things of the institution kind.
+Men must have a great deal of pedantry, routine, and folly of all sorts,
+in any large matter they undertake.  I had had this feeling for a long
+time (you know the way in which you have a thing in your mind, although
+you have never said it out exactly even to yourself)—well, I came upon a
+passage of Emerson’s which I will try to quote, and then I knew what it
+was that I had felt.
+
+“We are full of mechanical actions.  We must needs intermeddle, and have
+things in our own way, until the sacrifices and virtues of society are
+odious.  Love should make joy; but our benevolence is unhappy.  Our
+Sunday-schools, and churches, and pauper societies, are yokes to the
+neck.  We pain ourselves to please nobody.  There are natural ways of
+arriving at the same ends at which these aim, but do not arrive.  Why
+should all virtue work in one and the same way?” . . . “And why drag this
+dead weight of a Sunday-school over the whole of Christendom?  It is
+natural and beautiful that childhood should inquire, and maturity should
+teach; but it is time enough to answer questions when they are asked.  Do
+not shut up the young people against their will in a pew, and force the
+children to ask them questions for an hour against their will.”
+
+Now, without agreeing with him in all points, we may sympathise with him.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I agree with him.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I knew you would.  You love an extreme.
+
+_Milverton_.  But look now.  It is well to say, “It is natural and
+beautiful that the young should ask and the old should teach”; but then
+the old should be capable of teaching, which is not the case we have to
+deal with.  Institutions are often only to meet individual failings.  Let
+there be more instructed elders, and the “dead weight” of Sunday-schools
+would be less needed.
+
+I think the result of our thoughts would be, that there should be as much
+life, joy, and Nature put into teaching as can be; but I, for one, am not
+prepared to say that the most mechanical process is not better than none.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, you have now shut up the subject, according to your
+fashion, in a rounded sentence; and you think after that there is nothing
+more to be said.  But I say it goes to my heart—
+
+_Dunsford_.  What is that?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  To my heart to see the unmerciful quantity of instruction
+that little children go through on a Sunday.  I suppose I am a very
+wicked man; but I know how wearied I should have been, at any time of my
+life, if so much virtuous precept and good doctrine had been poured into
+me.
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, I will not fight certainly for anything that is to
+make Sunday a wearisome day for children.  Indeed, what I meant by
+putting more joy and life into teaching was, that in such a thing as this
+Sunday-schooling, for instance, a judicious man, far from being anxious
+to get a certain quantity of routine done about it, would do with the
+least—would endeavour to connect it with something interesting—would, in
+a word, love children, and not Sunday-schools.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Ah, we will have no more about Sunday-schools.  I know we
+all agree in reality, although Dunsford has been looking very grave and
+has not said a word.  I wanted to tell you that I think you are quite
+right, Milverton, in saying a good deal about multifariousness of
+pursuit.  You see a wretch of a pedant who knows all about tetrameters or
+statutes of uses, but who, as you hinted an essay or two ago, can hardly
+answer his child a question as they walk about the garden together.  The
+man has never given a good thought or look to Nature.  Well then, again,
+what a stupid thing it is that we are not all taught music.  Why learn
+the language of many portions of mankind, and leave the universal
+language of the feelings, as you would call it, unlearnt?
+
+_Milverton_.  I quite agree with you; but I thought you always set your
+face, or rather your ears, against music.
+
+_Dunsford_.  So did I.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I should like to know all about it.  It is not to my mind
+that a cultivated man should be quite thrown out by any topic of
+conversation, or that there should be any form of human endeavour or
+accomplishment which he has no conception of.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I liked what you said, Milverton, about the philosophy of
+making light of many things, and the way of looking at life that may thus
+be given to those we educate.  I rather doubted at first, though, whether
+you were not going to assign too much power to education in the
+modification of temper.  But, certainly, the mode of looking at the daily
+events of life, little or great, and the consequent habits of
+captiousness or magnanimity, are just the matters which the young
+especially imitate their elders in.
+
+_Milverton_.  You see, the very worst kind of tempers are established
+upon the fretting care for trifles that I want to make war upon in the
+essay.  A man is choleric.  Well, it is a very bad thing; it tends to
+frighten those about him into falseness.  He has outrageous bursts of
+temper.  He is humble for days afterwards.  His dependants rather like
+him after all.  They know that “his bark is worse than his bite.”  Then
+there is your gloomy man, often a man who punishes himself most—perhaps a
+large-hearted, humorous, but sad man, at the same time liveable with.  He
+does not care for trifles.  But it is your acid-sensitive (I must join
+words like Mirabeau’s Grandison-Cromwell, to get what I mean), and your
+cold, querulous people that need to have angels to live with them.  Now
+education has often had a great deal to do with the making of these
+choice tempers.  They are somewhat artificial productions.  And they are
+the worst.
+
+_Dunsford_.  You know a saying attributed to the Bishop of — about
+temper.  No?  Somebody, I suppose, was excusing something on the score of
+temper, to which the Bishop replied, “Temper is nine-tenths of
+Christianity.”
+
+_Milverton_.  There is an appearance we see in Nature, not far from here,
+by the way, that has often put me in mind of the effect of temper upon
+men.  It is in the lowlands near the sea, where, when the tide is not up
+(the man out of temper), there is a slimy, patchy, diseased-looking
+surface of mud and sick seaweed.  You pass by in a few hours, there is a
+beautiful lake, water up to the green grass (the man in temper again),
+and the whole landscape brilliant with reflected light.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  And to complete the likeness, the good temper and the full
+tide last about the same time—with some men at least.  It is so like you,
+Milverton, to have that simile in your mind.  There is nothing you see in
+Nature, but you must instantly find a parallel for it in man.  Sermons in
+stones you will not see, else I am sure you might.  Here is a good hard
+flint for you to see your next essay in.
+
+_Milverton_.  It will do very well, as my next will be on the subject of
+population.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  What day are we to have it?  I think I have a particular
+engagement for that day.
+
+_Milverton_.  I must come upon you unawares.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  After the essay you certainly might.  Let us decamp now and
+do something great in the way of education—teach Rollo, though he is but
+a short-haired dog, to go into the water.  That will be a feat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+ELLESMERE succeeded in persuading Rollo to go into the water, which
+proved more, he said, than the whole of Milverton’s essay, how much might
+be done by judicious education.  Before leaving my friends, I promised to
+come over again to Worth-Ashton in a day or two, to hear another essay.
+I came early and found them reading their letters.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+“You remember Annesleigh at college,” said Milverton, “do you not,
+Dunsford?”
+
+_Dunsford_.  Yes.
+
+_Milverton_.  Here is a long letter from him.  He is evidently vexed at
+the newspaper articles about his conduct in a matter of —, and he writes
+to tell me that he is totally misrepresented.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Why does he not explain this publicly?
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes, you naturally think so at first, but such a mode of
+proceeding would never do for a man in office, and rarely, perhaps, for
+any man.  At least, so the most judicious people seem to think.  I have
+known a man in office bear patiently, without attempting any answer, a
+serious charge which a few lines would have entirely answered, indeed,
+turned the other way.  But then he thought, I imagine, that if you once
+begin answering, there is no end to it, and also, which is more
+important, that the public journals were not a tribunal which he was
+called to appear before.  He had his official superiors.
+
+_Dunsford_.  It should be widely known and acknowledged then, that
+silence does not give consent in these cases.
+
+_Milverton_.  It is known, though not, perhaps, sufficiently.
+
+_Dunsford_.  What a fearful power this anonymous journalism is!
+
+_Milverton_.  There is a great deal certainly that is mischievous in it;
+but take it altogether, it is a wonderful product of civilisation—morally
+too.  Even as regards those qualities which would in general, to use a
+phrase of Bacon’s, “be noted as deficients” in the press, in courtesy and
+forbearance, for example, it makes a much better figure than might have
+been expected; as any one would testify, I suspect, who had observed, or
+himself experienced, the temptations incident to writing on short notice,
+without much opportunity of after-thought or correction, upon subjects
+about which he had already expressed an opinion.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Is the anonymousness absolutely necessary?
+
+_Milverton_.  I have often thought whether it is.  If the anonymousness
+were taken away, the press would lose much of its power; but then, why
+should it not lose a portion of its power, if that portion is only built
+upon some delusion?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  It is a question of expediency.  As government of all kinds
+becomes better managed, there is less necessity for protection for the
+press.  It must be recollected, however, that this anonymousness (to coin
+a word) may not only be useful to protect us from any abuse of power, but
+that at least it takes away that temptation to discuss things in an
+insufficient manner which arises from personal fear of giving offence.
+Then, again, there is an advantage in considering arguments without
+reference to persons.  If well-known authors wrote for the press and gave
+their signatures, we should often pass by the arguments unfairly, saying,
+“Oh, it is only so-and-so: that is the way he always looks at things,”
+without seeing whether it is the right way for the occasion in question.
+
+_Milverton_.  But take the other side, Ellesmere.  What national dislikes
+are fostered by newspaper articles, and—
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Articles in reviews and by books.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes, but somehow or other, people imagine that newspapers
+speak the opinion of a much greater number of people—
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Do not let us talk any more about it.  We may become wise
+enough and well-managed enough to do without this anonymousness: we may
+not.  How it would astound an ardent Whig or Radical of the last
+generation if we could hear such a sentiment as this—as a toast we will
+say—“The Press: and may we become so civilised as to be able to take away
+some of its liberty.”
+
+_Milverton_.  It may be put another way: “May it become so civilised that
+we shall not want to take away any of its liberty.”  But I see you are
+tired of this subject.  Shall we go on the lawn and have our essay?
+
+We assented, and Milverton read the following:—
+
+
+
+UNREASONABLE CLAIMS IN SOCIAL AFFECTIONS AND RELATIONS.
+
+
+We are all apt to magnify the importance of whatever we are thinking
+about, which is not to be wondered at; for everything human has an outlet
+into infinity, which we come to perceive on considering it.  But with a
+knowledge of this tendency, I still venture to say that, of all that
+concerns mankind, this subject has, perhaps, been the least treated of in
+regard to its significance.  For once that unreasonable expectations of
+gratitude have been reproved, ingratitude has been denounced a thousand
+times; and the same may be said of inconstancy, unkindness in friendship,
+neglected merit and the like.
+
+To begin with ingratitude.  Human beings seldom have the demands upon
+each other which they imagine; and for what they have done they
+frequently ask an impossible return.  Moreover, when people really have
+done others a service, the persons benefited often do not understand it.
+Could they have understood it, the benefactor, perhaps, would not have
+had to perform it.  You cannot expect gratitude from them in proportion
+to your enlightenment.  Then, again, where the service is a palpable one,
+thoroughly understood, we often require that the gratitude for it should
+bear down all the rest of the man’s character.  The dog is the very
+emblem of faithfulness; yet I believe it is found that he will sometimes
+like the person who takes him out and amuses him more than the person who
+feeds him.  So, amongst bipeds, the most solid service must sometimes
+give way to the claims of congeniality.  Human creatures are, happily,
+not to be swayed by self-interest alone: they are many-sided creatures;
+there are numberless modes of attaching their affections.  Not only like
+likes like, but unlike likes unlike.
+
+To give an instance which must often occur.  Two persons, both of feeble
+will, act together: one as superior, the other as inferior.  The superior
+is very kind; the inferior is grateful.  Circumstances occur to break
+this relation.  The inferior comes under a superior of strong will, who
+is not, however, as tolerant and patient as his predecessor.  But this
+second superior soon acquires unbounded influence over the inferior: if
+the first one looks on, he may wonder at the alacrity and affection of
+his former subordinate towards the new man, and talk much about
+ingratitude.  But the inferior has now found somebody to lean upon and to
+reverence.  And he cannot deny his nature and be otherwise than he is.
+In this case it does not look like ingratitude, except perhaps to the
+complaining person.  But there are doubtless numerous instances in which,
+if we saw all the facts clearly, we should no more confirm the charge of
+ingratitude than we do here.
+
+Then, again, we seldom make sufficient allowance for the burden which
+there is in obligation, at least to all but great and good minds.  There
+are some people who can receive as heartily as they would give; but the
+obligation of an ordinary person to an ordinary person is more apt to be
+brought to mind as a present sore than as a past delight.
+
+Amongst the unreasonable views of the affections, the most absurd one has
+been the fancy that love entirely depends upon the will; still more that
+the love of others for us is to be guided by the inducements which seem
+probable to us.  We have served them; we think only of them; we are their
+lovers, or fathers, or brothers: we deserve and require to be loved and
+to have the love proved to us.  But love is not like property: it has
+neither duties nor rights.  You argue for it in vain; and there is no one
+who can give it you.  It is not his or hers to give.  Millions of bribes
+and infinite arguments cannot prevail.  For it is not a substance, but a
+relation.  There is no royal road.  We are loved as we are lovable to the
+person loving.  It is no answer to say that in some cases the love is
+based on no reality, but is solely in the imagination—that is, that we
+are loved not for what we are, but for what we are fancied to be.  That
+will not bring it any more into the dominions of logic; and love still
+remains the same untamable creature, deaf to advocacy, blind to other
+people’s idea of merit, and not a substance to be weighed or numbered at
+all.
+
+Then, as to the complaints about broken friendship.  Friendship is often
+outgrown; and his former child’s clothes will no more fit a man than some
+of his former friendships.  Often a breach of friendship is supposed to
+occur when there is nothing of the kind.  People see one another seldom;
+their courses in life are different; they meet, and their intercourse is
+constrained.  They fancy that their friendship is mightily cooled.  But
+imagine the dearest friends, one coming home after a long sojourn, the
+other going out to new lands: the ships that carry these meet: the
+friends talk together in a confused way not relevant at all to their
+friendship, and, if not well assured of their mutual regard, might
+naturally fancy that it was much abated.  Something like this occurs
+daily in the stream of the world.  Then, too, unless people are very
+unreasonable, they cannot expect that their friends will pass into new
+systems of thought and action without new ties of all kinds being
+created, and some modification of the old ones taking place.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+When we are talking of exorbitant claims made for the regard of others,
+we must not omit those of what is called neglected merit.  A man feels
+that he has abilities or talents of a particular kind, that he has shown
+them, and still he is a neglected man.  I am far from saying that merit
+is sufficiently looked out for: but a man may take the sting out of any
+neglect of his merits by thinking that at least it does not arise from
+malice prepense, as he almost imagines in his anger.  Neither the public,
+nor individuals, have the time, or will, resolutely to neglect anybody.
+What pleases us, we admire and further: if a man in any profession,
+calling, or art, does things which are beyond us, we are as guiltless of
+neglecting him as the Caffres are of neglecting the differential
+calculus.  Milton sells his “Paradise Lost” for ten pounds; there is no
+record of Shakespeare dining much with Queen Elizabeth.  And it is
+Utopian to imagine that statues will be set up to right men in their day.
+
+The same arguments which applied to the complaints of ingratitude, apply
+to the complaints of neglected merit.  The merit is oftentimes not
+understood.  Be it ever so manifest, it cannot absorb men’s attention.
+When it is really great, it has not been brought out by the hope of
+reward, any more than the kindest services by the hope of gratitude.  In
+neither case is it becoming or rational to be clamorous about payment.
+
+There is one thing that people hardly ever remember, or, indeed, have
+imagination enough to conceive; namely, the effect of each man being shut
+up in his individuality.  Take a long course of sayings and doings in
+which many persons have been engaged.  Each one of them is in his own
+mind the centre of the web, though, perhaps, he is at the edge of it.  We
+know that in our observations of the things of sense, any difference in
+the points from which the observation is taken gives a different view of
+the same thing.  Moreover, in the world of sense, the objects and the
+points of view are each indifferent to the rest; but in life the points
+of views are centres of action that have had something to do with the
+making of the things looked at.  If we could calculate the moral parallax
+arising from these causes, we should see, by the mere aid of the
+intellect, how unjust we often are in our complaints of ingratitude,
+inconstancy, and neglect.  But without these nice calculations, such
+errors of view may be corrected at once by humility, a more sure method
+than the most enlightened appreciation of the cause of error.  Humility
+is the true cure for many a needless heartache.
+
+It must not be supposed that in thus opposing unreasonable views of
+social affections, anything is done to dissever such affections.  The
+Duke of Wellington, writing to a man in a dubious position of authority,
+says “The less you claim, the more you will have.”  This is remarkably
+true of the affections; and there is scarcely anything that would make
+men happier than teaching them to watch against unreasonableness in their
+claims of regard and affection; and which at the same time would be more
+likely to ensure their getting what may be their due.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_ (clapping his hands).  An essay after my heart: worth tons of
+soft trash.  In general you are amplifying duties, telling everybody that
+they are to be so good to every other body.  Now it is as well to let
+every other body know that he is not to expect all he may fancy from
+everybody.  A man complains that his prosperous friends neglect him:
+infinitely overrating, in all probability, his claims, and his friends’
+power of doing anything for him.  Well, then, you may think me very hard,
+but I say that the most absurd claims are often put forth on the ground
+of relationship.  I do not deny that there is something in blood, but it
+must not be made too much of.  Near relations have great opportunities of
+attaching each other; if they fail to use these, I do not think it is
+well to let them imagine that mere relationship is to be the talisman of
+affection.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I do not see exactly how to answer all that you or Milverton
+have said; but I am not prepared, as official people say, to agree with
+you.  I especially disagree with what Milverton has said about love.  He
+leaves much too little power to the will.
+
+_Milverton_.  I daresay I may have done so.  These are very deep matters,
+and any one view about them does not exhaust them.  I remember C— once
+saying to me that a man never utters anything without error.  He may even
+think of it rightly; but he cannot bring it out rightly.  It turns a
+little false, as it were, when it quits the brain and comes into life.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I thought you would soon go over to the soft side.  Here,
+Rollo; there’s a good dog.  You do not form unreasonable expectations, do
+you?  A very little petting puts you into an ecstasy, and you are much
+wiser than many a biped who is full of his claims for gratitude, and
+friendship, and love, and who is always longing for well-merited rewards
+to fall into his mouth.  Down, dog!
+
+_Milverton_.  Poor animal! it little knows that all this sudden notice is
+only by way of ridiculing us.  Why I did not maintain my ground stoutly
+against Dunsford is, that I am always afraid of pushing moral conclusions
+too far.  Since we have been talking, I think I see more clearly than I
+did before what I mean to convey by the essay—namely, that men fall into
+unreasonable views respecting the affections _from imagining that the
+general laws of the mind are suspended for the sake of the affections_.
+
+_Dunsford_.  That seems safer ground.
+
+_Milverton_.  Now to illustrate what I mean by a very similar instance.
+The mind is avid of new impressions.  It “travels over,” or thinks it
+travels over, another mind; and, though it may conceal its wish for
+“fresh fields and pastures new,” it does so wish.  However harsh,
+therefore, and unromantic it may seem, the best plan is to humour Nature,
+and not to exhaust by overfrequent presence the affection of those whom
+we would love, or whom we would have to love us.  I would not say, after
+the manner of Rochefoucauld, that the less we see of people the more we
+like them; but there are certain limits of sociality; and prudent reserve
+and absence may find a place in the management of the tenderest
+relations.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Yes, all this is true enough: I do not see anything hard in
+this.  But then there is the other side.  Custom is a great aid to
+affection.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes.  All I say is, do not fancy that the general laws are
+suspended for the sake of any one affection.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Still this does not go to the question whether there is not
+something more of will in affection than you make out.  You would speak
+of inducements and counter-inducements, aids and hindrances; but I cannot
+but think you are limiting the power of will, and therefore limiting
+duty.  Such views tend to make people easily discontented with each
+other, and prevent their making efforts to get over offences, and to find
+out what is lovable in those about them.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Here we are in the deep places again.  I see you are
+pondering, Milverton.  It is a question, as a minister would say when
+Parliament perplexes him, that we must go to the country upon; each man’s
+heart will, perhaps, tell him best about it.  For my own part, I think
+that the continuance of affection, as the rise of it, depends more on the
+taste being satisfied, or at least not disgusted, than upon any other
+single thing.  Our hearts may be touched at our being loved by people
+essentially distasteful to us, whose modes of talking and acting are a
+continual offence to us; but whether we can love them in return is a
+question.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes, we can, I think.  I begin to see that it is a question
+of degree.  The word love includes many shades of meaning.  When it
+includes admiration, of course we cannot be said to love those in whom we
+see nothing to admire.  But this seldom happens in the mixed characters
+of real life.  The upshot of it all seems to me to be, that, as Guizot
+says of civilisation, every impulse has room; so in the affections, every
+inducement and counter-inducement has its influence; and the result is
+not a simple one, which can be spoken of as if it were alike on all
+occasions and with all men.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I am still unanswered, I think, Milverton.  What you say is
+still wholly built upon inducements, and does not touch the power of
+will.
+
+_Milverton_.  No; it does not.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  We must leave that alone.  Infinite piles of books have not
+as yet lifted us up to a clear view of that matter.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, then, we must leave it as a vexed question; but let it
+be seen that there is such a question.  Now, as to another thing; you
+speak, Milverton, of men’s not making allowance enough for the unpleasant
+weight of obligation.  I think that weight seems to have increased in
+modern times.  Essex could give Bacon a small estate, and Bacon could
+take it comfortably, I have no doubt.  That is a much more wholesome
+state of things among friends than the present.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes, undoubtedly.  An extreme notion about independence has
+made men much less generous in receiving.
+
+_Dunsford_.  It is a falling off, then.  There was another comment I had
+to make.  I think, when you speak about the exorbitant demands of
+neglected merit, you should say more upon the neglect of the just demands
+of merit.
+
+_Milverton_.  I would have the Government and the public in general try
+by all means to understand and reward merit, especially in those matters
+wherein excellence cannot, otherwise, meet with large present reward.
+But, to say the truth, I would have this done, not with the view of
+fostering genius so much as of fulfilling duty: I would say to a
+minister—it is becoming in you—it is well for the nation, to reward, as
+far as you can, and dignify, men of genius.  Whether you will do them any
+good or bring forth more of them, I do not know.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Men of great genius are often such a sensitive race, so apt
+to be miserable in many other than pecuniary ways and want of public
+estimation, that I am not sure that distress and neglect do not take
+their minds off worse discomforts.  It is a kind of grievance, too, that
+they like to have.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Really, Ellesmere, that is a most unfeeling speech.
+
+_Milverton_.  At any rate, it is right for us to honour and serve a great
+man.  It is our nature to do so, if we are worth anything.  We may put
+aside the question whether our honour will do him more good than our
+neglect.  That is a question for him to look to.  The world has not yet
+so largely honoured deserving men in their own time, that we can exactly
+pronounce what effect it would have upon them.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Come, Rollo, let us leave these men of sentiment.  Oh, you
+will not go, as your master does not move.  Look how he wags his tail,
+and almost says, “I should clearly like to have a hunt after the
+water-rat we saw in the pond the other day, but master is talking
+philosophy, and requires an intelligent audience.”  These dogs are dear
+creatures, it must be owned.  Come, Milverton, let us have a walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+AFTER the reading in the last chapter, my friends walked homewards with
+me as far as Durley Wood, which is about half-way between Worth-Ashton
+and my house.  As we rested here, we bethought ourselves that it would be
+a pleasant spot for us to come to sometimes and read our essays.  So we
+agreed to name a day for meeting there.  The day was favourable, we met
+as we had appointed, and finding some beech logs lying very opportunely,
+took possession of them for our council.  We seated Ellesmere on one that
+we called the woolsack, but which he said he felt himself unworthy to
+occupy in the presence of King Log, pointing to mine.  These nice points
+of etiquette being at last settled, Milverton drew out his papers and was
+about to begin reading, when Ellesmere thus interrupted him:—
+
+_Ellesmere_.  You were not in earnest, Milverton, about giving us an
+essay on population?  Because if so, I think I shall leave this place to
+you and Dunsford and the ants.
+
+_Milverton_.  I certainly have been meditating something of the sort; but
+have not been able to make much of it.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  If I had been living in those days when it first beamed
+upon mankind that the earth was round, I am sure I should have said, “We
+know now the bounds of the earth: there are no interminable plains joined
+to the regions of the sun, allowing of indefinite sketchy outlines at the
+edges of maps.  That little creature man will immediately begin to think
+that his world is too small for him.”
+
+_Milverton_.  There has probably been as much folly uttered by political
+economy as against it, which is saying something.  The danger as regards
+theories of political economy is the obvious one of their abstract
+conclusions being applied to concrete things.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  As if we were to expect mathematical lines to bear weights.
+
+_Milverton_.  Something like that.  With a good system of logic pervading
+the public mind, this danger would of course be avoided; but such a state
+of mind is not likely to occur in any public that we or our grandchildren
+are likely to have to deal with.  As it is, an ordinary man hears some
+conclusion of political economy, showing some particular tendency of
+things, which in real life meets with many counteractions of all kinds:
+but he, perhaps, adopts the conclusion without the least abatement, and
+would work it into life, as if all went on there like a rule-of-three
+sum.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  After all, this error arises from the man’s not having
+enough political economy.  It is not that a theory is good on paper, but
+unsound in real life.  It is only that in real life you cannot get at the
+simple state of things to which the theory would rightly apply.  You want
+many other theories and the just composition of them all to be able to
+work the whole problem.  That being done (which, however, scarcely can be
+done), the result on paper might be read off as applicable at once to
+life.  But now, touching the essay; since we are not to have population,
+what is it to be?
+
+_Milverton_.  Public improvements.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Nearly as bad; but as this is a favourite subject of yours,
+I suppose it will not be polite to go away.
+
+_Milverton_.  No; you must listen.
+
+
+
+PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.
+
+
+What are possessions?  To an individual, the stores of his own heart and
+mind pre-eminently.  His truth and valour are amongst the first.  His
+contentedness, or his resignation may be put next.  Then his sense of
+beauty, surely a possession of great moment to him.  Then all those mixed
+possessions which result from the social affections—great possessions,
+unspeakable delights, much greater than the gift last mentioned in the
+former class, but held on more uncertain tenure.  Lastly, what are
+generally called possessions?  However often we have heard of the vanity,
+uncertainty, and vexation that beset these last, we must not let this
+repetition deaden our minds to the fact.
+
+Now, national possessions must be estimated by the same gradation that we
+have applied to individual possessions.  If we consider national luxury,
+we shall see how small a part it may add to national happiness.  Men of
+deserved renown, and peerless women, lived upon what we should now call
+the coarsest fare, and paced the rushes in their rooms with as high, or
+as contented thoughts, as their better-fed and better-clothed descendants
+can boast of.  Man is limited in this direction; I mean, in the things
+that concern his personal gratification; but when you come to the higher
+enjoyments, the expansive power both in him and them is greater.  As
+Keats says,
+
+    “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
+    Its loveliness increases; it will never
+    Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
+    A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
+    Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”
+
+What then are a nation’s possessions?  The great words that have been
+said in it; the great deeds that have been done in it; the great
+buildings, and the great works of art, that have been made in it.  A man
+says a noble saying: it is a possession, first to his own race, then to
+mankind.  A people get a noble building built for them: it is an honour
+to them, also a daily delight and instruction.  It perishes.  The
+remembrance of it is still a possession.  If it was indeed pre-eminent,
+there will be more pleasure in thinking of it than in being with others
+of inferior order and design.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+On the other hand, a thing of ugliness is potent for evil.  It deforms
+the taste of the thoughtless: it frets the man who knows how bad it is:
+it is a disgrace to the nation who raised it; an example and an occasion
+for more monstrosities.  If it is a great building in a great city,
+thousands of people pass it daily, and are the worse for it, or at least
+not the better.  It must be done away with.  Next to the folly of doing a
+bad thing is that of fearing to undo it.  We must not look at what it has
+cost, but at what it is.  Millions may be spent upon some foolish device
+which will not the more make it into a possession, but only a more
+noticeable detriment.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+It must not be supposed that works of art are the only, or the chief,
+public improvements needed in any country.  Wherever men congregate, the
+elements become scarce.  The supply of air, light, and water is then a
+matter of the highest public importance: and the magnificent
+utilitarianism of the Romans should precede the nice sense of beauty of
+the Greeks.  Or rather, the former should be worked out in the latter.
+Sanitary improvements, like most good works, may be made to fulfil many
+of the best human objects.  Charity, social order, conveniency of living,
+and the love of the beautiful, may all be furthered by such improvements.
+A people is seldom so well employed as when, not suffering their
+attention to be absorbed by foreign quarrels and domestic broils, they
+bethink themselves of winning back those blessings of Nature which
+assemblages of men mostly vitiate, exclude, or destroy.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Public improvements are sometimes most difficult in free countries.  The
+origination of them is difficult there, many diverse minds having to be
+persuaded.  The individual, or class, resistance to the public good is
+harder to conquer than in despotic states.  And, what is most
+embarrassing, perhaps, individual progress in the same direction, or
+individual doings in some other way, form a great hindrance, sometimes,
+to public enterprise.  On the other hand, the energy of a free people is
+a mine of public welfare; and individual effort brings many good things
+to bear in much shorter time than any government could be expected to
+move in.  A judicious statesman considers these things; and sets himself
+especially to overcome those peculiar obstacles to public improvement
+which belong to the institutions of his country.  Adventure in a despotic
+state, combined action in a free state, are the objects which peculiarly
+demand his attention.
+
+To return to works of art.  In this also the genius of the people is to
+be heeded.  There may have been, there may be, nations requiring to be
+diverted from the love of art to stern labour and industrial conquests.
+But certainly it is not so with the Anglo-Saxon race, or with the
+Northern races generally.  Money may enslave them; logic may enslave
+them; art never will.  The chief men, therefore, in these races will do
+well sometimes to contend against the popular current, and to convince
+their people that there are other sources of delight, and other objects
+worthy of human endeavour, than severe money-getting or more material
+successes of any kind.
+
+In fine, the substantial improvement, and even the embellishment of
+towns, is a work which both the central and local governing bodies in a
+country should keep a steady hand upon.  It especially concerns them.
+What are they there for but to do that which individuals cannot do?  It
+concerns them, too, as it tells upon the health, morals, education, and
+refined pleasures of the people they govern.  In doing it, they should
+avoid pedantry, parsimony, and favouritism; and their mode of action
+should be large, considerate, and foreseeing.  Large; inasmuch as they
+must not easily be contented with the second best in any of their
+projects.  Considerate; inasmuch as they have to think what their people
+need most, not what will make most show.  And therefore, they should be
+contented, for instance, at their work going on underground for a time,
+or in byways, if needful; the best charity in public works, as in
+private, being often that which courts least notice.  Lastly, their work
+should be with foresight, recollecting that cities grow up about us like
+young people, before we are aware of it.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Another very merciful essay!  When we had once got upon the
+subject of sanitary improvements, I thought we should soon be five fathom
+deep in blue-books, reports, interminable questions of sewerage, and
+horrors of all kinds.
+
+_Milverton_.  I am glad you own that I have been very tender of your
+impatience in this essay.  People, I trust, are now so fully aware of the
+immense importance of sanitary improvements, that we do not want the
+elementary talking about such things that was formerly necessary.  It is
+difficult, though, to say too much about sanitary matters, that is, if by
+saying much one could gain attention.  I am convinced that the most
+fruitful source of physical evil to mankind has been impure air, arising
+from circumstances which might have been obviated.  Plagues and
+pestilences of all kinds, cretinism too, and all scrofulous disorders,
+are probably mere questions of ventilation.  A district may require
+ventilation as well as a house.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Seriously speaking, I quite agree with you.  And what
+delights me in sanitary improvements is, that they can hardly do harm.
+Give a poor man good air, and you do not diminish his self-reliance.  You
+only add to his health and vigour—make more of a man of him.  But now
+that the public mind, as it is facetiously called, has got hold of the
+idea of these improvements, everybody will be chattering about them.
+
+_Milverton_.  The very time when those who really do care for these
+matters should be watchful to make the most of the tide in their favour,
+and should not suffer themselves to relax their efforts because there is
+no originality now about such things.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Custom soon melts off the wings which Novelty alone has lent
+to Benevolence.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  And down comes the charitable Icarus.  A very good simile,
+my dear Dunsford, but rather of the Latin-verse order.  I almost see it
+worked into an hexameter and pentameter, and delighting the heart of an
+Eton boy.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Ellesmere is more than usually vicious to-day, Milverton.  A
+great “public improvement” would be to clip the tongues of some of these
+lawyers.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Possibly.  I have just been looking again at that part of
+the essay, Milverton, where you talk of the little gained by national
+luxury.  I think with you.  There is an immensity of nonsense uttered
+about making people happy, which is to be done, according to
+happiness-mongers, by quantities of sugar and tea, and such-like things.
+One knows the importance of food, but there is no Elysium to be got out
+of it.
+
+_Milverton_.  I know what you mean.  There is a kind of pity for the
+people now in vogue which is most effeminate.  It is a sugared sort of
+Robespierre talk about “The poor but virtuous People.”  To address such
+stuff to the people is not to give them anything, but to take away what
+they have.  Suppose you could give them oceans of tea and mountains of
+sugar, and abundance of any luxury that you choose to imagine, but at the
+same time you inserted a hungry, envious spirit in them, what have you
+done?  Then, again, this envious spirit, when it is turned to difference
+of station, what good can it do?  Can you give station according to
+merit?  Is life long enough for it?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Of course we cannot always be weighing men with nicety, and
+saying, “Here is your place, here yours.”
+
+_Milverton_.  Then, again, what happiness do you confer on men by
+teaching them to disrespect their superiors in rank, by turning all the
+embellishments which adorn various stations wrong side out, putting
+everything in its lowest form, and then saying, “What do you see to
+admire here?”  You do not know what injury you may do a man when you
+destroy all reverence in him.  It will be found out some day that men
+derive more pleasure and profit from having superiors than from having
+inferiors.
+
+_Dunsford_.  It is seldom that I bring you back to your subject, but we
+are really a long way off at present; and I want to know, Milverton, what
+you would do specifically in the way of public improvements.  Of course
+you cannot say in an essay what you would do in such matters, but amongst
+ourselves.  In London, for instance.
+
+_Milverton_.  The first thing for Government to do, Dunsford, in London,
+or any other great town, is to secure open spaces in it and about it.
+Trafalgar Square may be dotted with hideous absurdities, but it is an
+open space.  They may collect together there specimens of every variety
+of meanness and bad taste; but they cannot prevent its being a better
+thing than if it were covered with houses.  Public money is scarcely ever
+so well employed as in securing bits of waste ground and keeping them as
+open spaces.  Then, as under the most favourable circumstances, we are
+likely to have too much carbon in the air of any town, we should plant
+trees to restore the just proportions of the air as far as we can. {161}
+Trees are also what the heart and the eye desire most in towns.  The
+Boulevards in Paris show the excellent effect of trees against buildings.
+There are many parts of London where rows of trees might be planted along
+the streets.  The weighty dulness of Portland Place, for instance, might
+be thus relieved.  Of course, in any scheme of public improvements, the
+getting rid of smoke is one of the first objects.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes, smoke is a great abuse; but then there is something
+ludicrous about it, just as there is about sewerage.  I believe, myself,
+that for one person that the Corn Laws have injured, a dozen have had
+their lives shortened and their happiness abridged in every way by these
+less palpable nuisances.  But there is no grandeur in opposing them—no
+“good cry” to be raised.  And so, as abuses cannot be met in our days but
+by agitation—a committee, secretaries, clerks, newspapers, and a
+review—and as agitation in this case holds out fewer inducements than
+usual, we have gone on year after year being poisoned by these various
+nuisances, at an incalculable expense of life and money.
+
+_Milverton_.  There is something in what you say, I think, but you press
+it too far; for of late these sanitary subjects have worked themselves
+into notice, as you yourself admit.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Late indeed.
+
+_Milverton_.  Well, but to go on with schemes for improving London.  Open
+spaces, trees—then comes the supply of water.  This is one of the first
+things to be done.  Philadelphia has given an example which all towns
+ought to imitate.  It is a matter requiring great thought, and the
+various plans should be thoroughly canvassed before the choice is made.
+Great beauty and the highest utility may be combined in supplying a town
+like London with water.  By the way, how much water do you think London
+requires daily?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  As much as the Serpentine and the water in St. James’s
+Park.
+
+_Milverton_.  You are not so far out.
+
+Well, then, having gone through the largest things that must be attended
+to, we come to minor matters.  It is a great pity that the system of
+building upon leases should be so commonly adopted.  Nobody expects to
+live out the leasehold term which he takes to build upon.  But things
+would be better done if people were more averse to having anything to do
+with leasehold property.  C. always says that the modern lath-and-plaster
+system is a wickedness, and upon my word I think he is right.  It is
+inconceivable to me how a man can make up his mind to build, or to do
+anything else, in a temporary, slight, insincere fashion.  What has a man
+to say for himself who must sum up the doings of his life in this way, “I
+chiefly employed myself in making or selling things which seemed to be
+good and were not, and nobody has occasion to bless me for anything I
+have done.”
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Humph! you put it mildly.  But the man has made perhaps
+seven per cent. off his money; or, if he has made no per cent., has
+ruined several men of his own trade, which is not to go for nothing when
+a man is taking stock of his good deeds.
+
+_Milverton_.  There is one thing I forgot to say, that we want more
+individual will in building, I think.  As it is at present, a great
+builder takes a plot of ground and turns out innumerable houses, all
+alike, the same faults and merits running through each, thus adding to
+the general dulness of things.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when she came from abroad,
+remarked that all her friends seemed to have got into drawing-rooms which
+were like a grand piano, first a large square or oblong room, and then a
+small one.  Quite Georgian, this style of architecture.  But now I think
+we are improving immensely—at any rate in the outside of houses.  By the
+way, Milverton, I want to ask you one thing: How is it that Governments
+and Committees, and the bodies that manage matters of taste, seem to be
+more tasteless than the average run of people?  I will wager anything
+that the cabmen round Trafalgar Square would have made a better thing of
+it than it is.  If you had put before them several prints of fountains,
+they would not have chosen those.
+
+_Milverton_.  I think with you, but I have no theory to account for it.
+I suppose that these committees are frequently hampered by other
+considerations than those which come before the public when they are
+looking at the work done; and this may be some excuse.  There was a
+custom which I have heard prevailed in former days in some of the Italian
+cities, of making large models of the works of art that were to adorn the
+city, and putting them up in the places intended for the works when
+finished, and then inviting criticism.  It would really be a very good
+plan in some cases.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Now, Milverton, would you not forthwith pull down such
+things as Buckingham Palace and the National Gallery?  Dunsford looks at
+me as if I were going to pull down the Constitution.
+
+_Milverton_.  I would pull them down to a certainty, or some parts of
+them at any rate; but whether “forthwith” is another question.  There are
+greater things, perhaps, to be done first.  We must consider, too,
+
+    “That eternal want of pence
+    Which vexes public men.”
+
+Still, I think we ought always to look upon such buildings as temporary
+arrangements, and they vex one less then.  The Palace ought to be in the
+higher part of the Park, perhaps on that slope opposite Piccadilly.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, it does amuse me the way in which you youngsters go
+on, pulling down, in your industrious imaginations, palaces and national
+galleries, building aqueducts and cloacæ maximæ, forming parks,
+destroying smoke (so large a part of every Londoner’s diet), and
+abridging plaster, without fear of Chancellors of the Exchequer, and the
+resistance of mankind in general.
+
+_Milverton_.  We must begin by thinking boldly about things.  That is a
+larger part of any undertaking than it seems, perhaps.
+
+_Dunsford_.  We must, I am afraid, break off our pleasant employment of
+projecting public improvements, unless we mean to be dinnerless.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  A frequent fate of great projectors, I fear.
+
+_Milverton_.  Now then, homewards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+MY readers will, perhaps, agree with me in being sorry to find that we
+are coming to the end of our present series.  I say, “my readers,” though
+I have so little part in purveying for them, that I mostly consider
+myself one of them.  It is no light task, however, to give a good account
+of a conversation; and I say this, and would wish people to try whether I
+am not right in saying so, not to call attention to my labour in the
+matter, but because it may be well to notice how difficult it is to
+report anything truly.  Were this better known, it might be an aid to
+charity, and prevent some of those feuds which grow out of the poverty of
+man’s power to express, to apprehend, to represent, rather than out of
+any malignant part of his nature.  But I must not go on moralising.  I
+almost feel that Ellesmere is looking over my shoulder, and breaking into
+my discourse with sharp words; which I have lately been so much
+accustomed to.
+
+I had expected that we should have many more readings this summer, as I
+knew that Milverton had prepared more essays for us.  But finding, as he
+said, that the other subjects he had in hand were larger than he had
+anticipated, or was prepared for, he would not read even to us what he
+had written.  Though I was very sorry for this—for I may not be the
+chronicler in another year—I could not but say he was right.  Indeed, my
+ideas of literature, nourished as they have been in much solitude, and by
+the reading, if I may say so, mainly of our classical authors, are very
+high placed, though I hope not fantastical.  And, therefore, I would not
+discourage anyone in expending whatever thought and labour might be in
+him upon any literary work.
+
+In fine, then, I did not attempt to dissuade Milverton from his purpose
+of postponing our readings: and we agreed that there should only be one
+more for the present.  I wished it to be at our favourite place on the
+lawn, which had become endeared to me as the spot of many of our friendly
+councils.
+
+It was later than usual when I came over to Worth-Ashton for this
+reading; and as I gained the brow of the hill, some few clouds tinged
+with red were just grouping together to form the accustomed pomp upon the
+exit of the setting sun.  I believe I mentioned in the introduction to
+our first conversation that the ruins of an old castle could be seen from
+our place of meeting.  Milverton and Ellesmere were talking about it as I
+joined them.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes, Ellesmere, many a man has looked out of those windows
+upon a sunset like this, with some of the thoughts that must come into
+the minds of all men on seeing this great emblem, the setting sun—has
+felt, in looking at it, his coming end, or the closing of his greatness.
+Those old walls must have been witness to every kind of human emotion.
+Henry the Second was there; John, I think; Margaret of Anjou and Cardinal
+Beaufort; William of Wykeham; Henry the Eighth’s Cromwell; and many
+others who have made some stir in the world.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  And, perhaps, the greatest there were those who made no
+stir.
+
+    “The world knows nothing of its greatest men.”
+
+_Milverton_.  I am slow to believe that.  I cannot well reconcile myself
+to the idea that great capacities are given for nothing.  They bud out in
+some way or other.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes, but it may not be in a noisy way.
+
+_Milverton_.  There is one thing that always strikes me very much in
+looking at the lives of men: how soon, as it were, their course seems to
+be determined.  They say, or do, or think, something which gives a bias
+at once to the whole of their career.
+
+_Dunsford_.  You may go farther back than that, and speak of the impulses
+they got from their ancestors.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Or the nets around them of other people’s ways and wishes.
+There are many things, you see, that go to make men puppets.
+
+_Milverton_.  I was only noticing the circumstance that there was such a
+thing, as it appeared to me, as this early direction.  But, if it has
+been ever so unfortunate, a man’s folding his hands over it in a
+melancholy mood, and suffering himself to be made a puppet by it, is a
+sadly weak proceeding.  Most thoughtful men have probably some dark
+fountains in their souls, by the side of which, if there were time, and
+it were decorous, they could let their thoughts sit down and wail
+indefinitely.  That long Byron wail fascinated men for a time; because
+there is that in Human Nature.  Luckily, a great deal besides.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I delight in the helpful and hopeful men.
+
+_Milverton_.  A man that I admire very much, and have met with
+occasionally, is one who is always of use in any matter he is mixed up
+with, simply because he wishes that the best should be got out of the
+thing that is possible.  There does not seem much in the description of
+such a character; but only see it in contrast with that of a brilliant
+man, for instance, who does not ever fully care about the matter in hand.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I can thoroughly imagine the difference.
+
+_Milverton_.  The human race may be bound up together in some mysterious
+way, each of us having a profound interest in the fortunes of the whole,
+and so, to some extent, of every portion of it.  Such a man as I have
+described acts as though he had an intuitive perception of that relation,
+and therefore a sort of family feeling for mankind, which gives him
+satisfaction in making the best out of any human affair he has to do
+with.
+
+But we really must have the essay, and not talk any more.  It is on
+History.
+
+
+
+HISTORY.
+
+
+Among the fathomless things that are about us and within us, is the
+continuity of time.  This gives to life one of its most solemn aspects.
+We may think to ourselves: Would there could be some halting-place in
+life, where we could stay, collecting our minds, and see the world drift
+by us.  But no: even while you read this, you are not pausing to read it.
+As one of the great French preachers, I think, says, We are embarked upon
+a stream, each in his own little boat, which must move uniformly onwards,
+till it ceases to move at all.  It is a stream that knows “no haste, no
+rest”; a boat that knows no haven but one.
+
+This unbated continuity suggests the past as well as the future.  We
+would know what mighty empires this stream of time has flowed through, by
+what battle-fields it has been tinged, how it has been employed towards
+fertility, and what beautiful shadows on its surface have been seized by
+art, or science, or great words, and held in time-lasting, if not in
+everlasting, beauty.  This is what history tells us.  Often in a
+faltering, confused, be-darkened way, like the deed it chronicles.  But
+it is what we have, and we must make the best of it.
+
+The subject of this essay may be thus divided: Why history should be
+read—how it should be read—by whom it should be written—how it should be
+written—and how good writers of history should be called forth, aided,
+and rewarded.
+
+
+
+I.  WHY HISTORY SHOULD BE READ.
+
+
+It takes us out of too much care for the present; it extends our
+sympathies; it shows us that other men have had their sufferings and
+their grievances; it enriches discourse, it enlightens travel.  So does
+fiction.  But the effect of history is more lasting and suggestive.  If
+we see a place which fiction has treated of, we feel that it has some
+interest for us; but show us a spot where remarkable deeds have been
+done, or remarkable people have lived, and our thoughts cling to it.  We
+employ our own imagination about it: we invent the fiction for ourselves.
+Again, history is at least the conventional account of things: that which
+men agree to receive as the right account, and which they discuss as
+true.  To understand their talk, we must know what they are talking
+about.  Again, there is something in history which can seldom be got from
+the study of the lives of individual men; namely, the movements of men
+collectively, and for long periods—of man, in fact, not of men.  In
+history, the composition of the forces that move the world has to be
+analysed.  We must have before us the law of the progress of opinion, the
+interruptions to it of individual character, the principles on which men
+act in the main, the trade winds, as we may say, in human affairs, and
+the recurrent storms which one man’s life does not tell us of.  Again, by
+the study of history, we have a chance of becoming tolerant travelling
+over the ways of many nations and many periods; and we may also acquire
+that historic tact by which we collect upon one point of human affairs
+the light of many ages.
+
+We may judge of the benefit of historical studies by observing what great
+defects are incident to the moral and political writers who know nothing
+of history.  A present grievance, or what seems such, swallows up in
+their minds all other considerations; their little bottle of oil is to
+still the raging waves of the whole human ocean; their system, a thing
+that the historian has seen before, perhaps, in many ages, is to
+reconcile all diversities.  Then they would persuade you that this class
+of men is wholly good, that wholly bad; or that there is no difference
+between good and bad.  They may be shrewd men, considering what they have
+seen, but would be much shrewder if they could know how small a part that
+is of life.  We may all refer to our boyhood, and recollect the time when
+we thought the things about us were the type of all things everywhere.
+That was, perhaps, after all no silly princess who was for feeding the
+famishing people on cakes.  History takes us out of this confined circle
+of child-like thought; and shows us what are the perennial aims,
+struggles, and distractions of mankind.
+
+History has always been set down as the especial study for statesmen, and
+for men who take an interest in public affairs.  For history is to
+nations what biography is to individual men.  History is the chart and
+compass for national endeavour.  Our early voyagers are dead: not a plank
+remains of the old ships that first essayed unknown waters; the sea
+retains no track; and were it not for the history of these voyages
+contained in charts, in chronicles, in hoarded lore of all kinds, each
+voyager, though he were to start with all the aids of advanced
+civilisation (if you could imagine such a thing without history), would
+need the boldness of the first voyager.
+
+And so it would be with the statesman, were the civil history of mankind
+unknown.  We live to some extent in peace and comfort upon the results
+obtained for us by the chronicles of our forefathers.  We do not see this
+without some reflection.  But imagine what a full-grown nation would be
+if it knew no history—like a full-grown man with only a child’s
+experience.
+
+The present is an age of remarkable experiences.  Vast improvements have
+been made in several of the outward things that concern life nearly, from
+intercourse rapid as lightning to surgical operation without pain.  We
+accept them all; still, the difficulties of government, the management of
+ourselves, our relations with others, and many of the prime difficulties
+of life remain but little subdued.  History still claims our interest, is
+still wanted to make us think and act with any breadth of wisdom.
+
+At the same time, however, that we claim for history great powers of
+instruction, we must not imagine that the examples which it furnishes
+will enable its readers to anticipate the experience of life.  An
+experienced man reads that Cæsar did this or that, but he says to
+himself, “I am not Cæsar.”  Or, indeed, as is most probable, the reader
+has not to reject the application of the example to himself: for from
+first to last he sees nothing but experience for Cæsar in what Cæsar was
+doing.  I think it may be observed, too, that general maxims about life
+gain the ear of the inexperienced, in preference to historical examples.
+But neither wise sayings nor historical examples can be understood
+without experience.  Words are only symbols.  Who can know anything
+soundly with respect to the complicated affections and struggles of life,
+unless he has experienced some of them?  All knowledge of humanity
+spreads from within.  So in studying history, the lessons it teaches must
+have something to grow round in the heart they teach.  Our own trials,
+misfortunes, and enterprises are the best lights by which we can read
+history.  Hence it is that many an historian may see far less into the
+depths of the very history he has himself written than a man who, having
+acted and suffered, reads the history in question with all the wisdom
+that comes from action and suffering.  Sir Robert Walpole might naturally
+exclaim, “Do not read history to me, for that, I know, must be false.”
+But if he had read it, I do not doubt that he would have seen through the
+film of false and insufficient narrative into the depth of the matter
+narrated, in a way that men of great experience can alone attain to.
+
+
+
+II.  HOW HISTORY SHOULD BE READ.
+
+
+I suppose that many who now connect the very word history with the idea
+of dulness, would have been fond and diligent students of history if it
+had had fair access to their minds.  But they were set down to read
+histories which were not fitted to be read continuously, or by any but
+practised students.  Some such works are mere framework, a name which the
+author of the _Statesman_ applies to them; very good things, perhaps, for
+their purpose, but that is not to invite readers to history.  You might
+almost as well read dictionaries with a hope of getting a succinct and
+clear view of language.  When, in any narration, there is a constant
+heaping up of facts, made about equally significant by the way of telling
+them, a hasty delineation of characters, and all the incidents moving on
+as in the fifth act of a confused tragedy, the mind and memory refuse to
+be so treated; and the reading ends in nothing but a very slight and
+inaccurate acquaintance with the mere husk of the history.  You cannot
+epitomise the knowledge that it would take years to acquire into a few
+volumes that may be read in as many weeks.
+
+The most likely way of attracting men’s attention to historical subjects
+will be by presenting them with small portions of history, of great
+interest, thoroughly examined.  This may give them the habit of applying
+thought and criticism to historical matters.
+
+For, as it is, how are people interested in history? and how do they
+master its multitudinous assemblage of facts?  Mostly, perhaps, in this
+way.  A man cares about some one thing, or person, or event, and plunges
+into its history, really wishing to master it.  This pursuit extends:
+other points of research are taken up by him at other times.  His
+researches begin to intersect.  He finds a connection in things.  The
+texture of his historic acquisitions gradually attains some substance and
+colour; and so at last he begins to have some dim notions of the myriads
+of men who came, and saw, and did not conquer—only struggled on as they
+best might, some of them—and are not.
+
+When we are considering how history should be read, the main thing
+perhaps is, that the person reading should desire to know what he is
+reading about, not merely to have read the books that tell of it.  The
+most elaborate and careful historian must omit, or pass lightly over,
+many points of his subject.  He writes for all readers, and cannot
+indulge private fancies.  But history has its particular aspect for each
+man: there must be portions which he may be expected to dwell upon.  And
+everywhere, even where the history is most laboured, the reader should
+have something of the spirit of research which was needful for the
+writer: if only so much as to ponder well the words of the writer.  That
+man reads history, or anything else, at great peril of being thoroughly
+misled, who has no perception of any truthfulness except that which can
+be fully ascertained by reference to facts; who does not in the least
+perceive the truth, or the reverse, of a writer’s style, of his epithets,
+of his reasoning, of his mode of narration.  In life, our faith in any
+narration is much influenced by the personal appearance, voice, and
+gesture of the person narrating.  There is some part of all these things
+in his writing; and you must look into that well before you can know what
+faith to give him.  One man may make mistakes in names, and dates, and
+references, and yet have a real substance of truthfulness in him, a wish
+to enlighten himself and then you.  Another may not be wrong in his
+facts, but have a declamatory or sophistical vein in him, much to be
+guarded against.  A third may be both inaccurate and untruthful, caring
+not so much for anything as to write his book.  And if the reader cares
+only to read it, sad work they make between them of the memories of
+former days.
+
+In studying history, it must be borne in mind that a knowledge is
+necessary of the state of manners, customs, wealth, arts, and science at
+the different periods treated of.  The text of civil history requires a
+context of this knowledge in the mind of the reader.  For the same
+reason, some of the main facts of the geography of the countries in
+question should be present to him.  If we are ignorant of these aids to
+history, all history is apt to seem alike to us.  It becomes merely a
+narrative of men of our own time, in our own country; and then we are
+prone to expect the same views and conduct from them that we do from our
+contemporaries.  It is true that the heroes of antiquity have been
+represented on the stage in bag-wigs, and the rest of the costume of our
+grandfathers: but it was the great events of their lives that were thus
+told—the crisis of their passions—and when we are contemplating the
+representation of great passions and their consequences, all minor
+imagery is of little moment.  In a long-drawn narrative, however, the
+more we have in our minds of what concerned the daily life of the people
+we read about, the better.  And in general it may be said that history,
+like travelling, gives a return in proportion to the knowledge that a man
+brings to it.
+
+
+
+III.  BY WHOM HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN.
+
+
+Before entering directly on this part of the subject, it is desirable to
+consider a little the difficulties in the way of writing history.  We all
+know the difficulty of getting at the truth of a matter which happened
+yesterday, and about which we can examine the living actors upon oath.
+But in history the most significant things may lack the most important
+part of their evidence.  The people who were making history were not
+thinking of the convenience of future writers of history.  Often the
+historian must contrive to get his insight into matters from evidence of
+men and things which is like bad pictures of them.  The contemporary, if
+he knew the man, said of the picture, “I should have known it, but it has
+very little of him in it.”  The poor historian, with no original before
+him, has to see through the bad picture into the man.  Then, supposing
+our historian rich in well-selected evidence—I say well-selected,
+because, as students tell us, for many an historian one authority is of
+the same weight as another, provided they are both of the same age;
+still, how difficult is narration even to the man who is rich in
+well-selected evidence.  What a tendency there is to round off a
+narrative into falsehood; or else by parenthesis to destroy its pith and
+continuity.  Again, the historian knows the end of many of the
+transactions he narrates.  If he did not, how differently often he would
+narrate them.  It would be a most instructive thing to give a man the
+materials for the account of a great transaction, stopping short of the
+end, and then see how different would be his account from the ordinary
+ones.  Fools have been hardly dealt with in the saying that the event is
+their master (“eventus stultorum magister”), seeing how it rules us all.
+And in nothing more than in history.  The event is always present to our
+minds; along the pathways to it, the historian and the moralist have
+walked till they are beaten pathways, and we imagine that they were so to
+the men who first went along them.  Indeed, we almost fancy that these
+ancestors of ours, looking along the beaten path, foresaw the event as we
+do; whereas, they mostly stumbled upon it suddenly in the forest.  This
+knowledge of the end we must, therefore, put down as one of the most
+dangerous pitfalls which beset the writers of history.  Then consider the
+difficulty in the “composition,” to use an artist’s word, of our
+historian’s picture.  Before both the artist and the historian lies
+Nature as far as the horizon; how shall they choose that portion of it
+which has some unity and which shall represent the rest?  What method is
+needful in the grouping of facts; what learning, what patience, what
+accuracy!
+
+By whom, then, should history be written?  In the first place, by men of
+some experience in real life; who have acted and suffered; who have been
+in crowds, and seen, perhaps felt, how madly men can care about nothings;
+who have observed how much is done in the world in an uncertain manner,
+upon sudden impulses and very little reason; and who, therefore, do not
+think themselves bound to have a deep-laid theory for all things.  They
+should be men who have studied the laws of the affections, who know how
+much men’s opinions depend on the time in which they live, how they vary
+with their age and their position.  To make themselves historians, they
+should also have considered the combinations amongst men and the laws
+that govern such things; for there are laws.  Moreover our historians,
+like most men who do great things, must combine in themselves qualities
+which are held to belong to opposite natures; must at the same time be
+patient in research and vigorous in imagination, energetic and calm,
+cautious and enterprising.  Such historians, wise, as we may suppose they
+will be, about the affair of other men, may, let us hope, be sufficiently
+wise about their own affairs to understand that no great work can be done
+without great labour, that no great labour ought to look for its reward.
+But my readers will exclaim as Rasselas to Imlac on hearing the
+requisites for a poet, “Enough! thou hast convinced me that no human
+being can ever be an historian.  Proceed with thy narration.”
+
+
+
+IV.  HOW HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN.
+
+
+One of the first things in writing history is for the historian to
+recollect that it is history he is writing.  The narrative must not be
+oppressed by reflections, even by wise ones.  Least of all should the
+historian suffer himself to become entangled by a theory or a system.  If
+he does, each fact is taken up by him in a particular way: those facts
+that cannot be so handled cease to be his facts, and those that offer
+themselves conveniently are received too fondly by him.
+
+Then, although our historian must not be mastered by system, he must have
+some way of taking up his facts and of classifying them.  They must not
+be mere isolated units in his eyes, else he is mobbed by them.  And a man
+in the midst of a crowd, though he may know the names and nature of all
+the crowd, cannot give an account of their doings.  Those who look down
+from the housetop must do that.
+
+But, above all things, the historian must get out of his own age into the
+time in which he is writing.  Imagination is as much needed for the
+historian as the poet.  You may combine bits of books with other bits of
+books, and so make some new combinations, and this may be done
+accurately, and, in general, much of the subordinate preparation for
+history may be accomplished without any great effort of imagination.  But
+to write history in any large sense of the words, you must be able to
+comprehend other times.  You must know that there is a right and wrong
+which is not your right and wrong, but yet stands upon the right and
+wrong of all ages and all hearts.  You must also appreciate the outward
+life and colours of the period you write about.  Try to think how the men
+you are telling of would have spent a day, what were their leading ideas,
+what they cared about.  Grasp the body of the time, and give it to us.
+If not, and these men could look at your history, they would say, “This
+is all very well; we daresay some of these things did happen; but we were
+not thinking of these things all day long.  It does not represent us.”
+
+After enlarging upon this great requisite, imagination, it seems somewhat
+prosaic to come down to saying that history requires accuracy.  But I
+think I hear the sighs, and sounds more harsh than sighing, of those who
+have ever investigated anything, and found by dire experience the
+deplorable inaccuracy which prevails in the world.  And, therefore, I
+would say to the historian almost as the first suggestion, “Be accurate;
+do not make false references, do not mis-state: and men, if they get no
+light from you, will not execrate you.  You will not stand in the way,
+and have to be explained and got rid of.”
+
+Another most important matter in writing history, and that indeed in
+which the art lies, is the method of narrating.  This is a thing almost
+beyond rules, like the actual execution in music or painting.  A man
+might have fairness, accuracy, an insight into other times, great
+knowledge of facts, some power even of arranging them, and yet make a
+narrative out of it all, so protracted here, so huddled together there,
+the purpose so buried or confused, that men would agree to acknowledge
+the merit of the book and leave it unread.  There must be a natural line
+of associations for the narrative to run along.  The separate threads of
+the narrative must be treated separately, and yet the subject not be
+dealt with sectionally, for that is not the way in which the things
+occurred.  The historian must, therefore, beware that those divisions of
+the subject which he makes for our ease and convenience, do not induce
+him to treat his subject in a flimsy manner.  He must not make his story
+easy where it is not so.
+
+After all, it is not by rule that a great history is to be written.  Most
+thinkers agree that the main object for the historian is to get an
+insight into the things which he tells of, and then to tell them with the
+modesty of a man who is in the presence of great events; and must speak
+about them carefully, simply, and with but little of himself or of his
+affections thrown into the narration.
+
+
+
+V.  HOW GOOD WRITERS OF HISTORY SHOULD BE CALLED FORTH, AIDED, AND
+REWARDED.
+
+
+Mainly by history being properly read.  The direct ways of commanding
+excellence of any kind are very few, if any.  When a State has found out
+its notable men, it should reward them, and will show its worthiness by
+its measure and mode of reward.  But it cannot purchase them.  It may do
+something in the way of aiding them.  In history, for instance, the
+records of a nation may be discreetly managed, and some of the minor
+work, therefore, done to the hand of the historian.  But the most likely
+method to ensure good historians is to have a fit audience for them.  And
+this is a very difficult matter.  In works of general literature, the
+circle of persons capable of judging is large; even in works of science
+or philosophy it is considerable: but in history, it is a very confined
+circle.  To the general body of readers, whether the history they read is
+true or not is in no way perceptible.  It is quite as amusing to them
+when it is told in one way as in another.  There is always mischief in
+error: but in this case the mischief is remote, or seems so.  For men of
+ordinary culture, even if of much intelligence, the difficulty of
+discerning what is true or false in the histories they read makes it a
+matter of the highest duty for those few persons who can give us
+criticism on historical works, at least to save us from insolent and
+mendacious carelessness in historical writers, if not by just
+encouragement to secure for nations some results not altogether unworthy
+of the great enterprise which the writing of history holds out itself to
+be.  “Hujus enim fidei exempla majorum, vicissitudines rerum, fundamenta
+prudentiæ civilis, hominum denique nomen et fama commissa sunt.” {183}
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Just wait a minute for me, and do not talk about the essay
+till I come back.  I am going for Anster’s _Faust_.
+
+_Dunsford_.  What has Ellesmere got in his head?
+
+_Milverton_.  I see.  There is a passage where Faust, in his most
+discontented mood, falls foul of history—in his talk to Wagner, if I am
+not mistaken.
+
+_Dunsford_.  How beautiful it is this evening!  Look at that yellow-green
+near the sunset.
+
+_Milverton_.  The very words that Coleridge uses.  I always think of them
+when I see that tint.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I daresay his words were in my mind, but I have forgotten
+what you allude to.
+
+_Milverton_.
+
+    “O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
+    To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo’d,
+       All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
+    Have I been gazing on the western sky,
+    And its peculiar tint of yellow-green:
+    And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!
+    And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
+    That give away their motion to the stars;
+    Those stars that glide behind them or between,
+    Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
+    Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew
+    In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
+    I see them all so excellently fair,
+    I see, not feel how beautiful they are.”
+
+_Dunsford_.  Admirable!  In the _Ode to Dejection_, is it not? where,
+too, there are those lines,
+
+    “O Lady! we receive but what we give,
+    And in our life alone does Nature live.”
+
+_Milverton_.  But here comes Ellesmere with triumphant look.  You look as
+jovial, my dear Ellesmere, as if you were a Bentley that had found a
+false quantity in a Boyle.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Listen and perpend, my historical friends.
+
+    “To us, my friend, the times that are gone by
+    Are a mysterious book, sealed with seven seals:
+    That which you call the spirit of ages past
+    Is but, in truth, the spirit of some few authors
+    In which those ages are beheld reflected,
+    With what distortion strange heaven only knows.
+    Oh! often, what a toilsome thing it is
+    This study of thine—at the first glance we fly it.
+    A mass of things confusedly heaped together;
+    A lumber-room of dusty documents,
+    Furnished with all approved court-precedents
+    And old traditional maxims!  History!
+    Facts dramatised say rather—action—plot—
+    Sentiment, everything the writer’s own,
+    As it bests fits the web-work of his story,
+    With here and there a solitary fact
+    Of consequence, by those grave chroniclers,
+    Pointed with many a moral apophthegm,
+    And wise old saws, learned at the puppet-shows.”
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes; admirable lines; they describe to the life the very
+faults we have been considering as the faults of badly-written histories.
+I do not see that they do much more.
+
+_Ellesmere_.
+
+    “To us, my friend, the times that are gone by
+    Are a mysterious book.”—
+
+_Milverton_.  Those two first lines are the full expression of Faust’s
+discontent—unmeasured as in the presence of a weak man who could not
+check him.  But, if you come to look at the matter closely, you will see
+that the time present is also in some sense a sealed book to us.  Men
+that we live with daily we often think as little of as we do of Julius
+Cæsar, I was going to say—but we know much less of them than of him.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I did not mean to say that Faust spoke my sentiments about
+history in general.  Still, there are periods of history which we have
+very few authors to tell us about, and I daresay in some of those cases
+the colouring of their particular minds gives us a false idea of the
+whole age they lived in.
+
+_Dunsford_.  This may have happened, certainly.
+
+_Milverton_.  We must be careful not to expect too much from the history
+of past ages, as a means of understanding the present age.  There is
+something wanted besides the preceding history to understand each age.
+Each individual life may have a problem of its own, which all other
+biography accurately set down for us might not enable us to work out.  So
+of each age.  It has something in it not known before, and tends to a
+result which is not down in any books.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Yet history must be of greatest use in discerning this
+tendency.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes; but the Wagner sort of pedant would get entangled in
+his round of history—in his historical resemblances.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Now, Milverton, if you were called upon to say what are the
+peculiar characteristics of this age, what should you say?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  One of Dunsford’s questions this, requiring a stout quarto
+volume with notes in answer.
+
+_Milverton_.  I would rather wait till I was called upon.  I am apt to
+feel, after I have left off describing the character of any individual
+man, as if I had only just begun.  And I do not see the extent of
+discourse that would be needful in attempting to give the characteristics
+of an age.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I think you are prudent to avoid answering Dunsford’s
+question.  For my own part, I should prefer giving an account of the age
+we live in after we have come to the end of it—in the true historical
+fashion.  And so, Dunsford, you must wait for my notions.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I am afraid, Milverton, if you were to write history, you
+would never make up your mind to condemn anybody.
+
+_Milverton_.  I hope I should not be so inconclusive.  I certainly do
+dislike to see any character, whether of a living or a dead person,
+disposed of in a summary way.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  For once I will come to the rescue of Milverton.  I really
+do not see that a man’s belief in the extent and variety of human
+character, and in the difficulty of appreciating the circumstances of
+life, should prevent him from writing history—from coming to some
+conclusions.  Of course such a man is not likely to write a long course
+of history; but that I hold has been a frequent error in historians—that
+they have taken up subjects too large for them.
+
+_Milverton_.  If there is as much to be said about men’s character and
+conduct as I think there mostly is, why should we be content with shallow
+views of them?  Take the outward form of these hills and valleys before
+us.  When we have seen them a few times, we think we know them, but are
+quite mistaken.  Approaching from another quarter, it is almost new
+ground to us.  It is a long time before you master the outward form and
+semblance of any small piece of country that has much life and diversity
+in it.  I often think of this, applying it to our little knowledge of
+men.  Now, look there a moment: you see that house; close behind it is
+apparently a barren tract.  In reality there is nothing of the kind
+there.  A fertile valley with a great river in it, as you know, is
+between that house and the moors.  But the plane of those moors and of
+the house is coincident from our present point of view.  Had we not, as
+educated men, some distrust of the conclusions of our senses, we should
+be ready to swear that there was a lonely house on the border of the
+moors.  It is the same in judging of men.  We see a man connected with a
+train of action which is really not near him, absolutely foreign to him,
+perhaps, but in our eyes that is what he is always connected with.  If
+there were not a Being who understands us immeasurably better than other
+men can, immeasurably better than we do ourselves, we should be badly
+off.
+
+Such precautionary thoughts as these must be useful, I contend.  They
+need not make us indifferent to character, or prevent us from forming
+judgments where we must form them, but they show us what a wide thing we
+are talking about when we are judging the life and nature of a man.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I am sure, Dunsford, you are already convinced: you seldom
+want more than a slight pretext for going over to the charitable side of
+things.  You are only afraid of not dealing stoutly enough with bad
+things and people.  Do not be afraid though.  As long as you have me to
+abuse, you will say many unjust things against me, you know, so that you
+may waste yourself in good thoughts about the rest of the world, past and
+present.  Do you know the lawyer’s story I had in my mind then?  “Many
+times when I have had a good case,” he said, “I have failed; but then I
+have often succeeded with bad cases.  And so justice is done.”
+
+_Milverton_.  To return to the subject.  It is not a sort of equalising
+want of thought about men that I desire; only not to be rash in a matter
+that requires all our care and prudence.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, I believe I am won over.  But now to another point.  I
+think, Milverton, that you have said hardly anything about the use of
+history as an incentive to good deeds and a discouragement to evil ones.
+
+_Milverton_.  I ought to have done so.  Bolingbroke gives in his “Letters
+on History,” talking of this point, a passage from Tacitus, “Præcipuum
+munus annalium,”—can you go on with it, Dunsford?
+
+_Dunsford_.  Yes, I think I can.  It is a passage I have often seen
+quoted.  “Præcipuum munus annalium, reor, ne virtutes sileantur; utque
+pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamiâ metus sit.”
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well done; Dunsford may have invented it, though, for aught
+that we know, Milverton, and be passing himself off upon us for Tacitus.
+
+_Milverton_.  Then Bolingbroke goes on to say (I wish I could give you
+his own flowing words), that the great duty of history is to form a
+tribunal like that amongst the Egyptians which Diodorus tells of, where
+both common men and princes were tried after their deaths, and received
+appropriate honour or disgrace.  The sentence was pronounced, he says,
+too late to correct or to recompense; but it was pronounced in time to
+render examples of general instruction to mankind.  Now, what I was going
+to remark upon this is, that Bolingbroke understates his case.  History
+well written is a present correction, and a foretaste of recompense, to
+the man who is now struggling with difficulties and temptations, now
+overcast by calumny and cloudy misrepresentation.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Yes; many a man makes an appeal to posterity which will
+never come before the court; but if there were no such court of appeal—
+
+_Milverton_.  A man’s conviction that justice will be done to him in
+history is a secondary motive, and not one which, of itself, will compel
+him to do just and great things; but, at any rate, it forms one of the
+benefits that flow from history, and it becomes stronger as histories are
+better written.  Much may be said against care for fame; much also
+against care for present repute.  There is a diviner impulse than either
+at the doing of any actions that are much worth doing.  As a correction,
+however, this anticipation of the judgment of history may really be very
+powerful.  It is a great enlightenment of conscience to read the opinions
+of men on deeds similar to those we are engaged in or meditating.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I think Bolingbroke’s idea, which I imagine was more general
+than yours, is more important: namely, that this judicial proceeding,
+mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, gave significant lessons to all people,
+not merely to those who had any chance of having their names in history.
+
+_Milverton_.  Certainly: for this is one of Bolingbroke’s chief points,
+if I recollect rightly.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Our conversations are much better things than your essays,
+Milverton.
+
+_Milverton_.  Of course, I am bound to say so: but what made you think of
+that now?
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Why, I was thinking how in talk we can know exactly where
+we agree or differ.  But I never like to interrupt the essay.  I never
+know when it would come to an end if I did.  And so it swims on like a
+sermon, having all its own way: one cannot put in an awkward question in
+a weak part, and get things looked at in various ways.
+
+_Dunsford_.  I suppose, then, Ellesmere, you would like to interrupt
+sermons.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Why, yes, sometimes—do not throw sticks at me, Dunsford.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Well, it is absurd to be angry with you; because if you long
+to interrupt Milverton with his captious perhapses and probablys, of
+course you will be impatient with discourses which do, to a certain
+extent, assume that the preacher and the hearers are in unison upon great
+matters.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  I am afraid to say anything about sermons, for fear of the
+argumentum baculinum from Dunsford; for many essay writers, like
+Milverton, delight to wind up their paragraphs with complete little
+aphorisms—shutting up something certainly, but shutting out something
+too.  I could generally pause upon them a little.
+
+_Milverton_.  Of course one may err, Ellesmere, in too much aphorising as
+in too much of anything.  But your argument goes against all expression
+of opinion, which must be incomplete, especially when dealing with
+matters that cannot be circumscribed by exact definitions.  Otherwise, a
+code of wisdom might be made which the fool might apply as well as the
+wisest man.  Even the best proverb, though often the expression of the
+widest experience in the choicest language, can be thoroughly misapplied.
+It cannot embrace the whole of the subject, and apply in all cases like a
+mathematical formula.  Its wisdom lies in the ear of the hearer.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, I not know that there is anything more to say about
+the essay.  I suppose you are aware, Dunsford, that Milverton does not
+intend to give us any more essays for some time.  He is distressing his
+mind about some facts which he wants to ascertain before he will read any
+more to us.  I imagine we are to have something historical next.
+
+_Milverton_.  Something in which historical records are useful.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Really it is wonderful to see how beautifully human nature
+accommodates itself to anything, even to the listening to essays.  I
+shall miss them.
+
+_Milverton_.  You may miss the talk before and after.
+
+_Ellesmere_.  Well, there is no knowing how much of that is provoked
+(provoked is a good word, is it not?) by the essays.
+
+_Dunsford_.  Then, for the present, we have come to an end of our
+readings.
+
+_Milverton_.  Yes, but I trust at no distant time to have something more
+to try your critical powers and patience upon.  I hope that that old
+tower will yet see us meet together here on many a sunny day, discussing
+various things in friendly council.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+ Printed by Cassell and Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.
+                                  12—391
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES.
+
+
+{12}  See _Statesman_, p. 30.
+
+{42}  The passage which must have been alluded to is this: “The stricter
+tenets of Calvinism, which allow no medium between grace and reprobation,
+and doom man to eternal punishment for every breach of the moral law, as
+an equal offence against Infinite truth and justice, proceed (like the
+paradoxical doctrine of the Stoics), from taking a half-view of this
+subject, and considering man as amenable only to the dictates of his
+understanding and his conscience, and not excusable from the temptations
+and frailty of human ignorance and passion.  The mixing up of religion
+and morality together, or the making us accountable for every word,
+thought, or action, under no less a responsibility than our everlasting
+future welfare or misery, has also added incalculably to the difficulties
+of self-knowledge, has superinduced a violent and spurious state of
+feeling, and made it almost impossible to distinguish the boundaries
+between the true and false, in judging of human conduct and motives.  A
+religious man is afraid of looking into the state of his soul, lest at
+the same time he should reveal it to heaven; and tries to persuade
+himself that by shutting his eyes to his true character and feelings,
+they will remain a profound secret, both here and hereafter.”
+
+{53}  This was one of the passages which Milverton afterwards read to
+us:—
+
+    “Thus, however much may be gained for the world as a whole by this
+    fragmentary cultivation, it is not to be denied that the individuals
+    whom it befalls are cursed for the benefit of the world.  An athletic
+    frame, it is true, is fashioned by gymnastic exercises; but a form of
+    beauty only by free and uniform action.  Just so the exertions of
+    single talents can create extraordinary men indeed; but happy and
+    perfect men only by their uniform temperature.  And in what relation
+    should we stand, then, to the past and coming ages, if the
+    cultivation of human nature made necessary such a sacrifice?  We
+    should have been the slaves of humanity, and drudged for her century
+    after century, and stamped upon our mutilated natures the humiliating
+    traces of our bondage—that the coming race might nurse its moral
+    healthfulness in blissful leisure, and unfold the free growth of its
+    humanity!
+
+    “But can it be intended that man should neglect himself for any
+    particular design?  Ought Nature to deprive us, by its design, of a
+    perfection which Reason, by its own, prescribes to us?  Then it must
+    be false that the development of single faculties makes the sacrifice
+    of totality necessary; or, if indeed the law of Nature presses thus
+    heavily, it becomes us to restore, by a higher art, this totality in
+    our nature which art has destroyed.”—_The Philosophical and
+    Æsthetical Letters and Essays of_ SCHILLER, _Translated by_ J. WEISS,
+    pp. 74, 75.
+
+{93}  Madame Necker de Saussure’s maxim about firmness with children has
+suggested the above.  “Ce que plie ne peut servir d’appui, et l’enfant
+veut être appuyé.  Non-seulement il en a besoin, mais il le désire, mais
+sa tendresse la plus constante n’est qu’à ce prix.  Si vous lui faites
+l’effet d’un autre enfant, si vous partagez ses passions, ses
+vacillations continuelles, si vous lui rendez tous ses mouvements en les
+augmentant, soit par la contrariété, soit par un excès de complaisance,
+il pourra se servir de vous comme d’un jouet, mais non être heureux en
+votre présence; il pleurera, se mutinera, et bientôt le souvenir d’un
+temps de désordre et d’humeur se liera avec votre idée.  Vous n’avez pas
+été le soutien de votre enfant, vous ne l’avez pas préservé de cette
+fluctuation perpétuelle de la volonté, maladie des êtres faibles et
+livrés à une imagination vive; vous n’avez assuré ni sa paix, ni sa
+sagesse, ni son bonheur, pourquoi vous croirait-il sa mère.”—_L’Education
+Progressive_, vol. i., p. 228.
+
+{116a}  See _Health of Towns Report_, vol. i., p. 336.  A similar result
+may be deduced from a similar table made by the Rev. J. Clay, of Preston.
+See the same Report and vol., p. 175.
+
+{116b}  See _Health of Towns Report_, vol. i., p. 75.
+
+{117a}  See Dr. Arnott’s letter, _Claims of Labour_, p. 282.
+
+{117b}  By zinc ventilators, for instance, in the windows and openings
+into the flues at the top of the rooms.  See _Health of Towns Report_,
+1844, vol. i., pp. 76, 77.  Mr. Coulhart’s evidence.—_Ibid._, pp. 307,
+308.
+
+{117c}  There are several thousand gratings to sewers and drains which
+are utterly useless on account of their position, and positively
+injurious from their emanations.—Mr. Guthrie’s evidence.—_Ibid._, vol.
+ii., p. 255.
+
+{118}  Mr. Wood states that the masters and mistresses were generally
+ignorant of the depressing and unhealthy effects of the atmosphere which
+surrounded them, and he mentions the case of the mistress of a
+dame-school who replied, when he pointed out this to her, “that the
+children thrived best in dirt!”—_Health of Towns Report_, vol. i., pp.
+146, 147.
+
+{126}  See “The Fair Maid of Perth.”
+
+{161}  See “Health of Towns Report,” 1844, vol. i., p. 44.
+
+{183}  Bacon, _de Augmentis Scientiarum_.
+
+
+
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Friends in Council, by Arthur Helps
+
+
+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: Friends in Council
+       First Series
+
+
+Author: Arthur Helps
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 25, 2014  [eBook #7438]
+[This file was first posted on April 30, 2003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRIENDS IN COUNCIL***
+</pre>
+<p>This eBook was produced by Les Bowler.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">CASSELL&rsquo;S NATIONAL LIBRARY.</span></p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<h1>Friends in Council</h1>
+<p style="text-align: center">First Series</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">BY</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">SIR ARTHUR HELPS.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+<a href="images/tpb.jpg">
+<img alt=
+"Decorative graphic"
+title=
+"Decorative graphic"
+src="images/tps.jpg" />
+</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL &amp; COMPANY, Limited:</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall"><i>LONDON</i></span><span class="GutSmall">,
+</span><span class="GutSmall"><i>PARIS &amp;
+MELBOURNE</i></span><span class="GutSmall">.</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">1891.</span></p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Arthur Helps</span> was born at Streatham
+on the 10th of July, 1813.&nbsp; He went at the age of sixteen to
+Eton, thence to Trinity College, Cambridge.&nbsp; Having
+graduated B.A. in 1835, he became private secretary to the Hon.
+T. Spring Rice, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord
+Melbourne&rsquo;s Cabinet, formed in April, 1835.&nbsp; This was
+his position at the beginning of the present reign in June,
+1837.</p>
+<p>In 1839&mdash;in which year he graduated M.A.&mdash;Arthur
+Helps was transferred to the service of Lord Morpeth, who was
+Irish Secretary in the same ministry.&nbsp; Lord
+Melbourne&rsquo;s Ministry was succeeded by that of Sir Robert
+Peel in September, 1841, and Helps then was appointed a
+Commissioner of French, Danish, and Spanish Claims.&nbsp; In 1841
+he published &ldquo;Essays Written in the Intervals of
+Business.&rdquo;&nbsp; Their quiet thoughtfulness was in accord
+with the spirit that had given value to his services as private
+secretary to two ministers of State.&nbsp; In 1844 that little
+book was followed by another on &ldquo;The Claims of
+Labour,&rdquo; dealing with the relations of employers to
+employed.&nbsp; There was the same scholarly simplicity and grace
+of style, the same interest in things worth serious
+attention.&nbsp; &ldquo;We say,&rdquo; he wrote, towards the
+close, &ldquo;that Kings are God&rsquo;s Vicegerents upon Earth;
+but almost every human being has, at one time or other of his
+life, a portion of the happiness of those around him in his
+power, which might make him tremble, if he did but see it in all
+its fulness.&rdquo;&nbsp; To this book Arthur Helps added an
+essay &ldquo;On the Means of Improving the Health and Increasing
+the Comfort of the Labouring Classes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His next book was this First Series of &ldquo;Friends in
+Council,&rdquo; published in 1847, and followed by other series
+in later years.&nbsp; There were many other writings of his, less
+popular than they would have been if the same abilities had been
+controlled by less good taste.&nbsp; His &ldquo;History of the
+Conquest of the New World&rdquo; in 1848, and of &ldquo;The
+Spanish Conquest of America,&rdquo; in four volumes, from 1855 to
+1861, preceded his obtaining from his University, in 1864, the
+honorary degree of D.C.L.&nbsp; In June, 1860, Arthur Helps was
+made Clerk of the Privy Council, and held that office of high
+trust until his death on the 7th of March, 1875.&nbsp; He had
+become Sir Arthur in 1872.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">H. M.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">None</span> but those who, like myself,
+have once lived in intellectual society, and then have been
+deprived of it for years, can appreciate the delight of finding
+it again.&nbsp; Not that I have any right to complain, if I were
+fated to live as a recluse for ever.&nbsp; I can add little, or
+nothing, to the pleasure of any company; I like to listen rather
+than to talk; and when anything apposite does occur to me, it is
+generally the day after the conversation has taken place.&nbsp; I
+do not, however, love good talk the less for these defects of
+mine; and I console myself with thinking that I sustain the part
+of a judicious listener, not always an easy one.</p>
+<p>Great, then, was my delight at hearing last year that my old
+pupil, Milverton, had taken a house which had long been vacant in
+our neighbourhood.&nbsp; To add to my pleasure, his college
+friend, Ellesmere, the great lawyer, also an old pupil of mine,
+came to us frequently in the course of the autumn.&nbsp;
+Milverton was at that time writing some essays which he
+occasionally read to Ellesmere and myself.&nbsp; The
+conversations which then took place I am proud to say that I have
+chronicled.&nbsp; I think they must be interesting to the world
+in general, though of course not so much so as to me.</p>
+<p>Milverton and Ellesmere were my favourite pupils.&nbsp; Many
+is the heartache I have had at finding that those boys, with all
+their abilities, would do nothing at the University.&nbsp; But it
+was in vain to urge them.&nbsp; I grieve to say that neither of
+them had any ambition of the right kind.&nbsp; Once I thought I
+had stimulated Ellesmere to the proper care and exertion; when,
+to my astonishment and vexation, going into his rooms about a
+month before an examination, I found that, instead of getting up
+his subjects, like a reasonable man, he was absolutely
+endeavouring to invent some new method for proving something
+which had been proved before in a hundred ways.&nbsp; Over this
+he had wasted two days, and from that moment I saw it was useless
+to waste any more of my time and patience in urging a scholar so
+indocile for the beaten path.</p>
+<p>What tricks he and Milverton used to play me, pretending not
+to understand my demonstration of some mathematical problem,
+inventing all manner of subtle difficulties, and declaring they
+could not go on while these stumbling-blocks lay in their
+way!&nbsp; But I am getting into college gossip, which may in no
+way delight my readers.&nbsp; And I am fancying, too, that
+Milverton and Ellesmere are the boys they were to me; but I am
+now the child to them.&nbsp; During the years that I have been
+quietly living here, they have become versed in the ways of the
+busy world.&nbsp; And though they never think of asserting their
+superiority, I feel it, and am glad to do so.</p>
+<p>My readers would, perhaps, like one to tell them something of
+the characters of Ellesmere and Milverton; but it would ill
+become me to give that insight into them, which I, their college
+friend and tutor, imagine I have obtained.&nbsp; Their friendship
+I could never understand.&nbsp; It was not on the surface very
+warm, and their congeniality seemed to result more from one or
+two large common principles of thought than from any peculiar
+similarity of taste, or from great affection on either
+side.&nbsp; Yet I should wrong their friendship if I were to
+represent it otherwise than a most true-hearted one; more so,
+perhaps, than some of softer texture.&nbsp; What needs be seen of
+them individually will be by their words, which I hope I have in
+the main retained.</p>
+<p>The place where we generally met in fine weather was on the
+lawn before Milverton&rsquo;s house.&nbsp; It was an eminence
+which commanded a series of valleys sloping towards the
+sea.&nbsp; And, as the sea was not more than nine miles off, it
+was a matter of frequent speculation with us whether the
+landscape was bounded by air or water.&nbsp; In the first valley
+was a little town of red brick houses, with poplars coming up
+amongst them.&nbsp; The ruins of a castle, and some water which,
+in olden times, had been the lake in &ldquo;the
+pleasaunce,&rdquo; were between us and the town.&nbsp; The clang
+of an anvil, or the clamour of a horn, or busy
+wheelwright&rsquo;s sounds, came faintly up to us when the wind
+was south.</p>
+<p>I must not delay my readers longer with my gossip, but bring
+them at once into the conversation that preceded our first
+reading.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I tell you, Ellesmere, these are the
+only heights I care to look down from, the heights of natural
+scenery.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Pooh! my dear Milverton, it is only
+because the particular mounds which the world calls heights, you
+think you have found out to be but larger ant-heaps.&nbsp;
+Whenever you have cared about anything, a man more fierce and
+unphilosophical in the pursuit of it I never saw.&nbsp; To
+influence men&rsquo;s minds by writing for them, is that no
+ambition?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It may be, but I have it not.&nbsp;
+Let any kind critic convince me that what I am now doing is
+useless, or has been done before, or that, if I leave it undone,
+some one else will do it to my mind; and I should fold up my
+papers, and watch the turnips grow in that field there, with a
+placidity that would, perhaps, seem very spiritless to your now
+restless and ambitious nature, Ellesmere.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; If something were to happen which will
+not, then&mdash;O Philosophy, Philosophy, you, too, are a good
+old nurse, and rattle your rattles for your little people, as
+well as old Dame World can do for hers.&nbsp; But what are we to
+have to-day for our first reading?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; An Essay on Truth.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, had I known this before, it is
+not the novelty of the subject which would have dragged me up the
+hill to your house.&nbsp; By the way, philosophers ought not to
+live upon hills.&nbsp; They are much more accessible, and I think
+quite as reasonable, when, Diogenes-like, they live in tubs upon
+flat ground.&nbsp; Now for the essay.</p>
+<h3>TRUTH.</h3>
+<p>Truth is a subject which men will not suffer to grow
+old.&nbsp; Each age has to fight with its own falsehoods: each
+man with his love of saying to himself and those around him
+pleasant things and things serviceable for to-day, rather than
+the things which are.&nbsp; Yet a child appreciates at once the
+divine necessity for truth; never asks, &ldquo;What harm is there
+in saying the thing that is not?&rdquo; and an old man finds, in
+his growing experience, wider and wider applications of the great
+doctrine and discipline of truth.</p>
+<p>Truth needs the wisdom of the serpent as well as the
+simplicity of the dove.&nbsp; He has gone but a little way in
+this matter who supposes that it is an easy thing for a man to
+speak the truth, &ldquo;the thing he troweth;&rdquo; and that it
+is a casual function, which may be fulfilled at once after any
+lapse of exercise.&nbsp; But, in the first place, the man who
+would speak truth must know what he troweth.&nbsp; To do that, he
+must have an uncorrupted judgment.&nbsp; By this is not meant a
+perfect judgment or even a wise one, but one which, however it
+may be biassed, is not bought&mdash;is still a judgment.&nbsp;
+But some people&rsquo;s judgments are so entirely gained over by
+vanity, selfishness, passion, or inflated prejudices and fancies
+long indulged in; or they have the habit of looking at everything
+so carelessly, that they see nothing truly.&nbsp; They cannot
+interpret the world of reality.&nbsp; And this is the saddest
+form of lying, &ldquo;the lie that sinketh in,&rdquo; as Bacon
+says, which becomes part of the character and goes on eating the
+rest away.</p>
+<p>Again, to speak truth, a man must not only have that martial
+courage which goes out, with sound of drum and trumpet, to do and
+suffer great things; but that domestic courage which compels him
+to utter small sounding truths in spite of present inconvenience
+and outraged sensitiveness or sensibility.&nbsp; Then he must not
+be in any respect a slave to self-interest.&nbsp; Often it seems
+as if but a little misrepresentation would gain a great good for
+us; or, perhaps, we have only to conceal some trifling thing,
+which, if told, might hinder unreasonably, as we think, a
+profitable bargain.&nbsp; The true man takes care to tell,
+notwithstanding.&nbsp; When we think that truth interferes at one
+time or another with all a man&rsquo;s likings, hatings, and
+wishes, we must admit, I think, that it is the most comprehensive
+and varied form of self-denial.</p>
+<p>Then, in addition to these great qualities, truth-telling in
+its highest sense requires a well-balanced mind.&nbsp; For
+instance, much exaggeration, perhaps the most, is occasioned by
+an impatient and easily moved temperament which longs to convey
+its own vivid impressions to other minds, and seeks by amplifying
+to gain the full measure of their sympathy.&nbsp; But a true man
+does not think what his hearers are feeling, but what he is
+saying.</p>
+<p>More stress might be laid than has been on the intellectual
+requisites for truth, which are probably the best part of
+intellectual cultivation; and as much caused by truth as causing
+it. <a name="citation12"></a><a href="#footnote12"
+class="citation">[12]</a>&nbsp; But, putting the requisites for
+truth at the fewest, see of how large a portion of the character
+truth is the resultant.&nbsp; If you were to make a list of those
+persons accounted the religious men of their respective ages, you
+would have a ludicrous combination of characters essentially
+dissimilar.&nbsp; But true people are kindred.&nbsp; Mention the
+eminently true men, and you will find that they are a
+brotherhood.&nbsp; There is a family likeness throughout
+them.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>If we consider the occasions of exercising truthfulness and
+descend to particulars, we may divide the matter into the
+following heads:&mdash;truth to oneself&mdash;truth to mankind in
+general&mdash;truth in social relations&mdash;truth in
+business&mdash;truth in pleasure.</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; Truth to oneself.&nbsp; All men have a deep interest
+that each man should tell himself the truth.&nbsp; Not only will
+he become a better man, but he will understand them better.&nbsp;
+If men knew themselves, they could not be intolerant to
+others.</p>
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to say much about the advantage of a
+man knowing himself for himself.&nbsp; To get at the truth of any
+history is good; but a man&rsquo;s own history&mdash;when he
+reads that truly, and, without a mean and over-solicitous
+introspection, knows what he is about and what he has been about,
+it is a Bible to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;And David said unto Nathan, I
+have sinned before the Lord.&rdquo;&nbsp; David knew the truth
+about himself.&nbsp; But truth to oneself is not merely truth
+about oneself.&nbsp; It consists in maintaining an openness and
+justness of soul which brings a man into relation with all
+truth.&nbsp; For this, all the senses, if you might so call them,
+of the soul must be uninjured&mdash;that is, the affections and
+the perceptions must be just.&nbsp; For a man to speak the truth
+to himself comprehends all goodness; and for us mortals can only
+be an aim.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; Truth to mankind in general.&nbsp; This is a matter
+which, as I read it, concerns only the higher natures.&nbsp;
+Suffice it to say, that the withholding large truths from the
+world may be a betrayal of the greatest trust.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; Truth in social relations.&nbsp; Under this head come
+the practices of making speech vary according to the person
+spoken to; of pretending to agree with the world when you do not;
+of not acting according to what is your deliberate and
+well-advised opinion because some mischief may be made of it by
+persons whose judgment in this matter you do not respect; of
+maintaining a wrong course for the sake of consistency; of
+encouraging the show of intimacy with those whom you never can be
+intimate with; and many things of the same kind.&nbsp; These
+practices have elements of charity and prudence as well as fear
+and meanness in them.&nbsp; Let those parts which correspond to
+fear and meanness be put aside.&nbsp; Charity and prudence are
+not parasitical plants which require boles of falsehood to climb
+up upon.&nbsp; It is often extremely difficult in the mixed
+things of this world to act truly and kindly too; but therein
+lies one of the great trials of man, that his sincerity should
+have kindness in it, and his kindness truth.</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; Truth in business.&nbsp; The more truth you can get
+into any business, the better.&nbsp; Let the other side know the
+defects of yours, let them know how you are to be satisfied, let
+there be as little to be found as possible (I should say
+nothing), and if your business be an honest one, it will be best
+tended in this way.&nbsp; The talking, bargaining, and delaying
+that would thus be needless, the little that would then have to
+be done over again, the anxiety that would be put aside, would
+even in a worldly way be &ldquo;great gain.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is
+not, perhaps, too much to say, that the third part of men&rsquo;s
+lives is wasted by the effect, direct or indirect, of
+falsehoods.</p>
+<p>Still, let us not be swift to imagine that lies are never of
+any service.&nbsp; A recent Prime Minister said, that he did not
+know about truth always prevailing and the like; but lies had
+been very successful against his government.&nbsp; And this was
+true enough.&nbsp; Every lie has its day.&nbsp; There is no
+preternatural inefficacy in it by reason of its falseness.&nbsp;
+And this is especially the case with those vague injurious
+reports which are no man&rsquo;s lies, but all men&rsquo;s
+carelessness.&nbsp; But even as regards special and unmistakable
+falsehood, we must admit that it has its success.&nbsp; A
+complete being might deceive with wonderful effect; however, as
+nature is always against a liar, it is great odds in the case of
+ordinary mortals.&nbsp; Wolsey talks of</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Negligence<br
+/>
+Fit for a fool to fall by,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>when he gives Henry the wrong packet; but the Cardinal was
+quite mistaken.&nbsp; That kind of negligence was just the thing
+of which far-seeing and thoughtful men are capable; and which, if
+there were no higher motive, should induce them to rely on truth
+alone.&nbsp; A very close vulpine nature, all eyes, all ears, may
+succeed better in deceit.&nbsp; But it is a sleepless
+business.&nbsp; Yet, strange to say, it is had recourse to in the
+most spendthrift fashion, as the first and easiest thing that
+comes to hand.</p>
+<p>In connection with truth in business, it may be observed that
+if you are a truthful man, you should be watchful over those whom
+you employ; for your subordinate agents are often fond of lying
+for your interests, as they think.&nbsp; Show them at once that
+you do not think with them, and that you will disconcert any of
+their inventions by breaking in with the truth.&nbsp; If you
+suffer the fear of seeming unkind to prevent your thrusting
+well-meant inventions aside, you may get as much pledged to
+falsehoods as if you had coined and uttered them yourself.</p>
+<p>5.&nbsp; Truth in pleasure.&nbsp; Men have been said to be
+sincere in their pleasures; but this is only that the taste and
+habits of men are more easily discernible in pleasure than in
+business.&nbsp; The want of truth is as great a hindrance to the
+one as to the other.&nbsp; Indeed, there is so much insincerity
+and formality in the pleasurable department of human life,
+especially in social pleasures, that instead of a bloom there is
+a slime upon it, which deadens and corrupts the thing.&nbsp; One
+of the most comical sights to superior beings must be to see two
+human creatures with elaborate speech and gestures making each
+other exquisitely uncomfortable from civility: the one pressing
+what he is most anxious that the other should not accept, and the
+other accepting only from the fear of giving offence by
+refusal.&nbsp; There is an element of charity in all this too;
+and it will be the business of a just and refined nature to be
+sincere and considerate at the same time.&nbsp; This will be
+better done by enlarging our sympathy, so that more things and
+people are pleasant to us, than by increasing the civil and
+conventional part of our nature, so that we are able to do more
+seeming with greater skill and endurance.&nbsp; Of other false
+hindrances to pleasure, such as ostentation and pretences of all
+kinds, there is neither charity nor comfort in them.&nbsp; They
+may be got rid of altogether, and no moaning made over
+them.&nbsp; Truth, which is one of the largest creatures, opens
+out the way to the heights of enjoyment, as well as to the depths
+of self-denial.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>It is difficult to think too highly of the merits and delights
+of truth; but there is often in men&rsquo;s minds an exaggerated
+notion of some bit of truth, which proves a great assistance to
+falsehood.&nbsp; For instance, the shame of some particular small
+falsehood, exaggeration, or insincerity, becomes a bugbear which
+scares a man into a career of false dealing.&nbsp; He has begun
+making a furrow a little out of the line, and he ploughs on in it
+to try and give some consistency and meaning to it.&nbsp; He
+wants almost to persuade himself that it was not wrong, and
+entirely to hide the wrongness from others.&nbsp; This is a
+tribute to the majesty of truth; also to the world&rsquo;s
+opinion about truth.&nbsp; It proceeds, too, upon the notion that
+all falsehoods are equal, which is not the case; or on some fond
+craving for a show of perfection, which is sometimes very
+inimical to the reality.&nbsp; The practical, as well as the
+high-minded, view in such cases, is for a man to think how he can
+be true now.&nbsp; To attain that, it may, even for this world,
+be worth while for a man to admit that he is inconsistent, and
+even that he has been untrue.&nbsp; His hearers, did they know
+anything of themselves, would be fully aware that he was not
+singular, except in the courage of owning his insincerity.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; That last part requires thinking
+about.&nbsp; If you were to permit men, without great loss of
+reputation, to own that they had been insincere, you might break
+down some of that majesty of truth you talk about.&nbsp; And bad
+men might avail themselves of any facilities of owning
+insincerity, to commit more of it.&nbsp; I can imagine that the
+apprehension of this might restrain a man from making any such
+admission as you allude to, even if he could make up his mind to
+do it otherwise.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; but can anything be worse than a
+man going on in a false course?&nbsp; Each man must look to his
+own truthfulness, and keep that up as well as he can, even at the
+risk of saying, or doing, something which may be turned to ill
+account by others.&nbsp; We may think too much about this
+reflection of our external selves.&nbsp; Let the real self be
+right.&nbsp; I am not so fanciful as to expect men to go about
+clamouring that they have been false; but at no risk of letting
+people see that, or of even being obliged to own it, should they
+persevere in it.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Milverton is right, I think.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Do not imagine that I am behind either
+of you in a wish to hold up truth.&nbsp; My only doubt was as to
+the mode.&nbsp; For my own part, I have such faith in truth that
+I take it mere concealment is in most cases a mischief.&nbsp; And
+I should say, for instance, that a wise man would be sorry that
+his fellows should think better of him than he deserves.&nbsp; By
+the way, that is a reason why I should not like to be a writer of
+moral essays, Milverton&mdash;one should be supposed to be so
+very good.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Only by thoughtless people then.&nbsp;
+There is a saying given to Rousseau, not that he ever did say it,
+for I believe it was a misprint, but it was a possible saying for
+him, &ldquo;Chaque homme qui pense est
+m&eacute;chant.&rdquo;&nbsp; Now, without going the length of
+this aphorism, we may say that what has been well written has
+been well suffered.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;He best can paint them who has felt them
+most.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And so, though we should not exactly declare that writers who
+have had much moral influence have been wicked men, yet we may
+admit that they have been amongst the most struggling, which
+implies anything but serene self-possession and perfect
+spotlessness.&nbsp; If you take the great ones, Luther,
+Shakespeare, Goethe, you see this at once.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; David, St. Paul.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Such men are like great rocks on the
+seashore.&nbsp; By their resistance, terraces of level land are
+formed; but the rocks themselves bear many scars and ugly
+indents, while the sea of human difficulty presents the same
+unwrinkled appearance in all ages.&nbsp; Yet it has been driven
+back.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; But has it lost any of its bulk, or
+only gone elsewhere?&nbsp; One part of the resemblance certainly
+is that these same rocks, which were bulwarks, become, in their
+turn, dangers.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, there is always loss in that
+way.&nbsp; It is seldom given to man to do unmixed good.&nbsp;
+But it was not this aspect of the simile that I was thinking of:
+it was the scarred appearance.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Scars not always of defeat or flight;
+scars in the front.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Ah, it hardly does for us to talk of
+victory or defeat, in these cases; but we may look at the contest
+itself as something not bad, terminate how it may.&nbsp; We
+lament over a man&rsquo;s sorrows, struggles, disasters, and
+shortcomings; yet they were possessions too.&nbsp; We talk of the
+origin of evil and the permission of evil.&nbsp; But what is
+evil?&nbsp; We mostly speak of sufferings and trials as good,
+perhaps, in their result; but we hardly admit that they may be
+good in themselves.&nbsp; Yet they are knowledge&mdash;how else
+to be acquired, unless by making men as gods, enabling them to
+understand without experience.&nbsp; All that men go through may
+be absolutely the best for them&mdash;no such thing as evil, at
+least in our customary meaning of the word.&nbsp; But, you will
+say, they might have been created different and higher.&nbsp; See
+where this leads to.&nbsp; Any sentient being may set up the same
+claim: a fly that it had not been made a man; and so the end
+would be that each would complain of not being all.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Say it all over again, my dear
+Milverton: it is rather hard.&nbsp; [Milverton did so, in nearly
+the same words.]&nbsp; I think I have heard it all before.&nbsp;
+But you may have it as you please.&nbsp; I do not say this
+irreverently, but the truth is, I am too old and too earthly to
+enter upon these subjects.&nbsp; I think, however, that the view
+is a stout-hearted one.&nbsp; It is somewhat in the same vein of
+thought that you see in Carlyle&rsquo;s works about the contempt
+of happiness.&nbsp; But in all these cases, one is apt to think
+of the sage in &ldquo;Rasselas,&rdquo; who is very wise about
+human misery till he loses his daughter.&nbsp; Your fly
+illustration has something in it.&nbsp; Certainly when men talk
+big about what might have been done for man, they omit to think
+what might be said, on similar grounds, for each sentient
+creature in the universe.&nbsp; But here have we been meandering
+off into origin of evil, and uses of great men, and wickedness of
+writers, etc., whereas I meant to have said something about the
+essay.&nbsp; How would you answer what Bacon maintains?&nbsp;
+&ldquo;A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; He is not speaking of the lies of
+social life, but of self-deception.&nbsp; He goes on to class
+under that head &ldquo;vain opinions, flattering hopes, false
+valuations, imaginations as one would.&rdquo;&nbsp; These things
+are the sweetness of &ldquo;the lie that sinketh in.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Many a man has a kind of mental kaleidoscope, where the bits of
+broken glass are his own merits and fortunes, and they fall into
+harmonious arrangements and delight him&mdash;often most
+mischievously and to his ultimate detriment, but they are a
+present pleasure.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, I am going to be true in my
+pleasures: to take a long walk alone.&nbsp; I have got a
+difficult case for an opinion, which I must go and think
+over.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Shall we have another reading
+tomorrow?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, if you are both in the humour for
+it.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">As</span> the next day was fine, we agreed
+to have our reading in the same spot that I have described
+before.&nbsp; There was scarcely any conversation worth noting,
+until after Milverton had read us the following essay on
+Conformity.</p>
+<h3>CONFORMITY.</h3>
+<p>The conformity of men is often a far poorer thing than that
+which resembles it amongst the lower animals.&nbsp; The monkey
+imitates from imitative skill and gamesomeness: the sheep is
+gregarious, having no sufficient will to form an independent
+project of its own.&nbsp; But man often loathes what he imitates,
+and conforms to what he knows to be wrong.</p>
+<p>It will ever be one of the nicest problems for a man to solve
+how far he shall profit by the thoughts of other men, and not be
+enslaved by them.&nbsp; He comes into the world, and finds
+swaddling clothes ready for his mind as well as his body.&nbsp;
+There is a vast scheme of social machinery set up about him; and
+he has to discern how he can make it work with him and for him,
+without becoming part of the machinery himself.&nbsp; In this lie
+the anguish and the struggle of the greatest minds.&nbsp; Most
+sad are they, having mostly the deepest sympathies, when they
+find themselves breaking off from communion with other
+minds.&nbsp; They would go on, if they could, with the opinions
+around them.&nbsp; But, happily, there is something to which a
+man owes a larger allegiance than to any human affection.&nbsp;
+He would be content to go away from a false thing, or quietly to
+protest against it; but in spite of him the strife in his heart
+breaks into burning utterance by word or deed.</p>
+<p>Few, however, are those who venture, even for the shortest
+time, into that hazy world of independent thought, where a man is
+not upheld by a crowd of other men&rsquo;s opinions, but where he
+must find a footing of his own.&nbsp; Among the mass of men,
+there is little or no resistance to conformity.&nbsp; Could the
+history of opinions be fully written, it would be seen how large
+a part in human proceedings the love of conformity, or rather the
+fear of non-conformity, has occasioned.&nbsp; It has triumphed
+over all other fears; over love, hate, pity, sloth, anger, truth,
+pride, comfort, self-interest, vanity, and maternal love.&nbsp;
+It has torn down the sense of beauty in the human soul, and set
+up in its place little ugly idols which it compels us to worship
+with more than Japanese devotion.&nbsp; It has contradicted
+Nature in the most obvious things, and been listened to with
+abject submission.&nbsp; Its empire has been no less extensive
+than deep-seated.&nbsp; The serf to custom points his finger at
+the slave to fashion&mdash;as if it signified whether it is an
+old or a new thing which is irrationally conformed to.&nbsp; The
+man of letters despises both the slaves of fashion and of custom,
+but often runs his narrow career of thought, shut up, though he
+sees it not, within close walls which he does not venture even to
+peep over.</p>
+<p>It is hard to say in what department of human thought and
+endeavour conformity has triumphed most.&nbsp; Religion comes to
+one&rsquo;s mind first; and well it may when one thinks what men
+have conformed to in all ages in that matter.&nbsp; If we pass to
+art, or science, we shall see there too the wondrous slavery
+which men have endured&mdash;from puny fetters, moreover, which
+one stirring thought would, as we think, have burst
+asunder.&nbsp; The above, however, are matters not within every
+one&rsquo;s cognisance; some of them are shut in by learning or
+the show of it; and plain &ldquo;practical&rdquo; men would say,
+they follow where they have no business but to follow.&nbsp; But
+the way in which the human body shall be covered is not a thing
+for the scientific and the learned only: and is allowed on all
+hands to concern, in no small degree, one half at least of the
+creation.&nbsp; It is in such a simple thing as dress that each
+of us may form some estimate of the extent of conformity in the
+world.&nbsp; A wise nation, unsubdued by superstition, with the
+collected experience of peaceful ages, concludes that female feet
+are to be clothed by crushing them.&nbsp; The still wiser nations
+of the west have adopted a swifter mode of destroying health, and
+creating angularity, by crushing the upper part of the female
+body.&nbsp; In such matters nearly all people conform.&nbsp; Our
+brother man is seldom so bitter against us, as when we refuse to
+adopt at once his notions of the infinite.&nbsp; But even
+religious dissent were less dangerous and more respectable than
+dissent in dress.&nbsp; If you want to see what men will do in
+the way of conformity, take a European hat for your subject of
+meditation.&nbsp; I dare say there are twenty-two millions of
+people at this minute each wearing one of these hats in order to
+please the rest.&nbsp; As in the fine arts, and in architecture,
+especially, so in dress, something is often retained that was
+useful when something else was beside it.&nbsp; To go to
+architecture for an instance, a pinnacle is retained, not that it
+is of any use where it is, but in another kind of building it
+would have been.&nbsp; That style of building, as a whole, has
+gone out of fashion, but the pinnacle has somehow or other kept
+its ground and must be there, no one insolently going back to
+first principles and asking what is the use and object of
+building pinnacles.&nbsp; Similar instances in dress will occur
+to my readers.&nbsp; Some of us are not skilled in such affairs;
+but looking at old pictures we may sometimes see how modern
+clothes have attained their present pitch of frightfulness and
+inconvenience.&nbsp; This matter of dress is one in which,
+perhaps, you might expect the wise to conform to the foolish; and
+they have.</p>
+<p>When we have once come to a right estimate of the strength of
+conformity, we shall, I think, be more kindly disposed to
+eccentricity than we usually are.&nbsp; Even a wilful or an
+absurd eccentricity is some support against the weighty
+common-place conformity of the world.&nbsp; If it were not for
+some singular people who persist in thinking for themselves, in
+seeing for themselves, and in being comfortable, we should all
+collapse into a hideous uniformity.</p>
+<p>It is worth while to analyse that influence of the world which
+is the right arm of conformity.&nbsp; Some persons bend to the
+world in all things, from an innocent belief that what so many
+people think must be right.&nbsp; Others have a vague fear of the
+world as of some wild beast which may spring out upon them at any
+time.&nbsp; Tell them they are safe in their houses from this
+myriad-eyed creature: they still are sure that they shall meet
+with it some day, and would propitiate its favour at any
+sacrifice.&nbsp; Many men contract their idea of the world to
+their own circle, and what they imagine to be said in that circle
+of friends and acquaintances is their idea of public
+opinion&mdash;&ldquo;as if,&rdquo; to use a saying of
+Southey&rsquo;s, &ldquo;a number of worldlings made a
+world.&rdquo;&nbsp; With some unfortunate people, the much
+dreaded &ldquo;world&rdquo; shrinks into one person of more
+mental power than their own, or perhaps merely of coarser nature;
+and the fancy as to what this person will say about anything they
+do, sits upon them like a nightmare.&nbsp; Happy the man who can
+embark his small adventure of deeds and thoughts upon the shallow
+waters round his home, or send them afloat on the wide sea of
+humanity, with no great anxiety in either case as to what
+reception they may meet with!&nbsp; He would have them steer by
+the stars, and take what wind may come to them.</p>
+<p>A reasonable watchfulness against conformity will not lead a
+man to spurn the aid of other men, still less to reject the
+accumulated mental capital of ages.&nbsp; It does not compel us
+to dote upon the advantages of savage life.&nbsp; We would not
+forego the hard-earned gains of civil society because there is
+something in most of them which tends to contract the natural
+powers, although it vastly aids them.&nbsp; We would not, for
+instance, return to the monosyllabic utterance of barbarous men,
+because in any formed language there are a thousand snares for
+the understanding.&nbsp; Yet we must be most watchful of
+them.&nbsp; And in all things, a man must beware of so conforming
+himself as to crush his nature and forego the purpose of his
+being.&nbsp; We must look to other standards than what men may
+say or think.&nbsp; We must not abjectly bow down before rules
+and usages; but must refer to principles and purposes.&nbsp; In
+few words, we must think, not whom we are following, but what we
+are doing.&nbsp; If not, why are we gifted with individual life
+at all?&nbsp; Uniformity does not consist with the higher forms
+of vitality.&nbsp; Even the leaves of the same tree are said to
+differ, each one from all the rest.&nbsp; And can it be good for
+the soul of a man &ldquo;with a biography of his own like to no
+one else&rsquo;s,&rdquo; to subject itself without thought to the
+opinions and ways of others: not to grow into symmetry, but to be
+moulded down into conformity?</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, I rather like that essay.&nbsp;
+I was afraid, at first, it was going to have more of the fault
+into which you essay writers generally fall, of being a comment
+on the abuse of a thing, and not on the thing itself.&nbsp; There
+always seems to me to want another essay on the other side.&nbsp;
+But I think, at the end, you protect yourself against
+misconstruction.&nbsp; In the spirit of the essay, you know, of
+course, that I quite agree with you.&nbsp; Indeed, I differ from
+all the ordinary biographers of that independent gentleman,
+Don&rsquo;t Care.&nbsp; I believe Don&rsquo;t Care came to a good
+end.&nbsp; At any rate he came to some end.&nbsp; Whereas numbers
+of people never have beginning, or ending, of their own.&nbsp; An
+obscure dramatist, Milverton, whom we know of, makes one of his
+characters say, in reply to some world-fearing wretch:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;While
+you, you think<br />
+What others think, or what you think they&rsquo;ll say,<br />
+Shaping your course by something scarce more tangible<br />
+Than dreams, at best the shadows on the stream<br />
+Of aspen leaves by flickering breezes swayed&mdash;<br />
+Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night,<br />
+I am not the utter slave which that man is<br />
+Whose sole word, thought, and deed are built on what<br />
+The world may say of him.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Never mind the obscure
+dramatist.&nbsp; But, Ellesmere, you really are unreasonable, if
+you suppose that, in the limits of a short essay, you can
+accurately distinguish all you write between the use and the
+abuse of a thing.&nbsp; The question is, will people
+misunderstand you&mdash;not, is the language such as to be
+logically impregnable?&nbsp; Now, in the present case, no man
+will really suppose it is a wise and just conformity that I am
+inveighing against.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am not sure of that.&nbsp; If
+everybody is to have independent thought, would there not be a
+fearful instability and want of compactness?&nbsp; Another thing,
+too&mdash;conformity often saves so much time and trouble.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; it has its uses.&nbsp; I do not
+mean, in the world of opinion and morality, that it should be all
+elasticity and no gravitation; but at least enough elasticity to
+preserve natural form and independent being.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I think it would have been better if
+you had turned the essay another way, and instead of making it on
+conformity, had made it on interference.&nbsp; That is the
+greater mischief and the greater folly, I think.&nbsp; Why do
+people unreasonably conform?&nbsp; Because they feel unreasonable
+interference.&nbsp; War, I say, is interference on a small scale
+compared with the interference of private life.&nbsp; Then the
+absurdity on which it proceeds; that men are all alike, or that
+it is desirable that they should be; and that what is good for
+one is good for all.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I must say, I think, Milverton, you do
+not give enough credit for sympathy, good-nature, and humility as
+material elements in the conformity of the world.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am not afraid, my dear Dunsford, of
+the essay doing much harm.&nbsp; There is a power of sleepy
+conformity in the world.&nbsp; You may just startle your
+conformists for a minute, but they gravitate into their old way
+very soon.&nbsp; You talk of their humility, Dunsford, but I have
+heard people who have conformed to opinions, without a pretence
+of investigation, as arrogant and intolerant towards anybody who
+differed from them, as if they stood upon a pinnacle of
+independent sagacity and research.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; One never knows, Ellesmere, on which
+side you are.&nbsp; I thought you were on mine a minute or two
+ago; and now you come down upon me with more than
+Milverton&rsquo;s anti-conforming spirit.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; The greatest mischief, as I take it,
+of this slavish conformity, is in the reticence it creates.&nbsp;
+People will be, what are called, intimate friends, and yet no
+real interchange of opinion takes place between them.&nbsp; A man
+keeps his doubts, his difficulties, and his peculiar opinions to
+himself.&nbsp; He is afraid of letting anybody know that he does
+not exactly agree with the world&rsquo;s theories on all
+points.&nbsp; There is no telling the hindrance that this is to
+truth.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; A great cause of this, Ellesmere, is
+in the little reliance you can have on any man&rsquo;s
+secrecy.&nbsp; A man finds that what, in the heat of discussion,
+and in the perfect carelessness of friendship, he has said to his
+friend, is quoted to people whom he would never have said it to;
+knowing that it would be sure to be misunderstood, or
+half-understood, by them.&nbsp; And so he grows cautious; and is
+very loth to communicate to anybody his more cherished opinions,
+unless they fall in exactly with the stream.&nbsp; Added to
+which, I think there is in these times less than there ever was
+of a proselytising spirit; and people are content to keep their
+opinions to themselves&mdash;more perhaps from indifference than
+from fear.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, I agree with you.</p>
+<p>By the way, I think your taking dress as an illustration of
+extreme conformity is not bad.&nbsp; Really it is wonderful the
+degree of square and dull hideousness to which, in the process of
+time and tailoring, and by severe conformity, the human
+creature&rsquo;s outward appearance has arrived.&nbsp; Look at a
+crowd of men from a height, what an ugly set of ants they
+appear!&nbsp; Myself, when I see an Eastern man, one of the
+people attached to their embassies, sweeping by us in something
+flowing and stately, I feel inclined to take off my hat to him
+(only that I think the hat might frighten him), and say, Here is
+a great, unhatted, uncravated, bearded man, not a creature clipt
+and twisted and tortured into tailorhood.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Ellesmere broke in upon me just now, so
+that I did not say all that I meant to say.&nbsp; But, Milverton,
+what would you admit that we are to conform to?&nbsp; In
+silencing the general voice, may we not give too much opportunity
+to our own headstrong suggestions, and to wilful licence?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes: to be somewhat deaf to the din of
+the world may be no gain, even loss, if then we only listen more
+to the worst part of ourselves; but in itself it is a good thing
+to silence that din.&nbsp; It is at least a beginning of
+good.&nbsp; If anything good is then gained, it is not a sheepish
+tendency, but an independent resolve growing out of our
+nature.&nbsp; And, after all, when we talk of non-conformity, it
+may only be that we non-conform to the immediate sect of thought
+or action about us, to conform to a much wider thing in human
+nature.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Ah me! how one wants a moral essayist
+always at hand to enable one to make use of moral essays.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Your rules of law are grand
+things&mdash;the proverbs of justice; yet has not each case its
+specialities, requiring to be argued with much circumstance, and
+capable of different interpretations?&nbsp; Words cannot be made
+into men.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I wonder you answer his sneers,
+Milverton.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I must go and see whether words cannot
+be made into guineas: and then guineas into men is an easy
+thing.&nbsp; These trains will not wait even for critics, so, for
+the present, good-bye.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Ellesmere</span> soon wrote us word that
+he would be able to come down again; and I agreed to be at
+Worth-Ashton (Milverton&rsquo;s house) on the day of his
+arrival.&nbsp; I had scarcely seated myself at our usual place of
+meeting before the friends entered, and after greeting me, the
+conversation thus began:</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Upon my word, you people who live in
+the country have a pleasant time of it.&nbsp; As Milverton was
+driving me from the station through Durley Wood, there was such a
+rich smell of pines, such a twittering of birds, so much joy,
+sunshine, and beauty, that I began to think, if there were no
+such place as London, it really would be very desirable to live
+in the country.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; What a climax!&nbsp; But I am always
+very suspicious, when Ellesmere appears to be carried away by any
+enthusiasm, that it will break off suddenly, like the gallop of a
+post-horse.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, what are we to have for our
+essay!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Despair.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I feel equal to anything just now, and
+so, if it must be read sometime or other, let us have it now.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You need not be afraid.&nbsp; I want
+to take away, not to add gloom.&nbsp; Shall I read?</p>
+<p>We assented, and he began.</p>
+<h3>DESPAIR.</h3>
+<p>Despair may be serviceable when it arises from a temporary
+prostration of spirits: during which the mind is insensibly
+healing, and her scattered power silently returning.&nbsp; This
+is better than to be the sport of a teasing hope without
+reason.&nbsp; But to indulge in despair as a habit is slothful,
+cowardly, short-sighted; and manifestly tends against
+Nature.&nbsp; Despair is then the paralysis of the soul.</p>
+<p>These are the principal causes of despair&mdash;remorse, the
+sorrows of the affections, worldly trouble, morbid views of
+religion, native melancholy.</p>
+<h3>REMORSE.</h3>
+<p>Remorse does but add to the evil which bred it, when it
+promotes, not penitence, but despair.&nbsp; To have erred in one
+branch of our duties does not unfit us for the performance of all
+the rest, unless we suffer the dark spot to spread over our whole
+nature, which may happen almost unobserved in the torpor of
+despair.&nbsp; This kind of despair is chiefly grounded on a
+foolish belief that individual words or actions constitute the
+whole life of man: whereas they are often not fair
+representatives of portions even of that life.&nbsp; The
+fragments of rock in a mountain stream may tell much of its
+history, are in fact results of its doings, but they are not the
+stream.&nbsp; They were brought down when it was turbid; it may
+now be clear: they are as much the result of other circumstances
+as of the action of the stream; their history is fitful: they
+give us no sure intelligence of the future course of the stream,
+or of the nature of its waters; and may scarcely show more than
+that it has not been always as it is.&nbsp; The actions of men
+are often but little better indications of the men
+themselves.</p>
+<p>A prolonged despair arising from remorse is unreasonable at
+any age, but if possible, still more so when felt by the
+young.&nbsp; To think, for example, that the great Being who made
+us could have made eternal ruin and misery inevitable to a poor
+half-fledged creature of eighteen or nineteen!&nbsp; And yet how
+often has the profoundest despair from remorse brooded over
+children of that age and eaten into their hearts.</p>
+<p>There is frequently much selfishness about remorse.&nbsp; Put
+what has been done at the worst.&nbsp; Let a man see his own evil
+word, or deed, in full light, and own it to be black as hell
+itself.&nbsp; He is still here.&nbsp; He cannot be
+isolated.&nbsp; There still remain for him cares and duties; and,
+therefore, hopes.&nbsp; Let him not in imagination link all
+creation to his fate.&nbsp; Let him yet live in the welfare of
+others, and, if it may be so, work out his own in this way: if
+not, be content with theirs.&nbsp; The saddest cause of
+remorseful despair is when a man does something expressly
+contrary to his character: when an honourable man, for instance,
+slides into some dishonourable action; or a tender-hearted man
+falls into cruelty from carelessness; or, as often happens, a
+sensitive nature continues to give the greatest pain to others
+from temper, feeling all the time, perhaps, more deeply than the
+persons aggrieved.&nbsp; All these cases may be summed up in the
+words, &ldquo;That which I would not that I do,&rdquo; the
+saddest of all human confessions, made by one of the greatest
+men.&nbsp; However, the evil cannot be mended by despair.&nbsp;
+Hope and humility are the only supports under this burden.&nbsp;
+As Mr. Carlyle says,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;What are faults, what are the outward
+details of a life; if the inner secret of it, the remorse,
+temptations, true, often-baffled, never-ended struggle of it, be
+forgotten.&nbsp; &lsquo;It is not in man that walketh to direct
+his steps.&rsquo;&nbsp; Of all acts, is not, for a man,
+<i>repentance</i> the most divine?&nbsp; The deadliest sin, I
+say, were that same supercilious consciousness of no sin; that is
+death: the heart so conscious is divorced from sincerity,
+humility, and fact; is dead: it is &lsquo;pure&rsquo; as dead dry
+sand is pure.&nbsp; David&rsquo;s life and history, as written
+for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem
+ever given of a man&rsquo;s moral progress and warfare here
+below.&nbsp; All earnest souls will ever discern in it the
+faithful struggle of an earnest human soul towards what is good
+and best.&nbsp; Struggle often baffled, sore baffled, down as
+into entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended; ever, with tears,
+repentance, true unconquerable purpose, begun anew.&nbsp; Poor
+human nature! is not a man&rsquo;s walking, in truth, always
+that: a &lsquo;succession of falls!&rsquo;&nbsp; Man can do no
+other.&nbsp; In this wild element of a Life, he has to struggle
+onwards; now fallen, deep abased; and ever, with tears,
+repentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again, struggle
+again still onwards.&nbsp; That his struggle be a faithful
+unconquerable one: this is the question of questions.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<h3>THE SORROWS OF THE AFFECTIONS.</h3>
+<p>The loss by death of those we love has the first place in
+these sorrows.&nbsp; Yet the feeling in this case, even when
+carried to the highest, is not exactly despair, having too much
+warmth in it for that.&nbsp; Not much can be said in the way of
+comfort on this head.&nbsp; Queen Elizabeth, in her hard, wise
+way, writing to a mother who had lost her son, tells her that she
+will be comforted in time; and why should she not do for herself
+what the mere lapse of time will do for her?&nbsp; Brave words!
+and the stern woman, more earnest than the sage in
+&ldquo;Rasselas,&rdquo; would have tried their virtue on
+herself.&nbsp; But I fear they fell somewhat coldly on the
+mother&rsquo;s ear.&nbsp; Happily, in these bereavements, kind
+Nature with her opiates, day by day administered, does more than
+all the skill of the physician moralists.&nbsp; Sir Thomas Browne
+says,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Darkness and light divide the course of
+time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part even of our
+living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the
+smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon
+us.&nbsp; Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us
+or themselves.&nbsp; To weep into stones are fables.&nbsp;
+Afflictions induce callosities, miseries are slippery, or fall
+like snow upon us, which, notwithstanding, is no unhappy
+stupidity.&nbsp; To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful
+of evils past, is a merciful provision in Nature, whereby we
+digest the mixture of our few and evil days, and our delivered
+senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are
+not kept raw by the edge of repetitions.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The good knight thus makes much comfort out of our physical
+weakness.&nbsp; But something may be done in a very different
+direction, namely, by spiritual strength.&nbsp; By elevating and
+purifying the sorrow, we may take it more out of matter, as it
+were, and so feel less the loss of what is material about it.</p>
+<p>The other sorrows of the affections which may produce despair,
+are those in which the affections are wounded, as jealousy, love
+unrequited, friendship betrayed and the like.&nbsp; As, in
+despair from remorse, the whole life seems to be involved in one
+action: so in the despair we are now considering, the whole life
+appears to be shut up in the one unpropitious affection.&nbsp;
+Yet human nature, if fairly treated, is too large a thing to be
+suppressed into despair by one affection, however potent.&nbsp;
+We might imagine that if there were anything that would rob life
+of its strength and favour, it is domestic unhappiness.&nbsp; And
+yet how numerous is the bond of those whom we know to have been
+eminently unhappy in some domestic relation, but whose lives have
+been full of vigorous and kindly action.&nbsp; Indeed the culture
+of the world has been largely carried on by such men.&nbsp; As
+long as there is life in the plant, though it be sadly pent in,
+it will grow towards any opening of light that is left for
+it.</p>
+<h3>WORLDLY TROUBLE.</h3>
+<p>This appears too mean a subject for despair, or, at least,
+unworthy of having any remedy, or soothing thought out of
+it.&nbsp; Whether a man lives in a large room or a small one,
+rides or is obliged to walk, gets a plenteous dinner every day,
+or a sparing one, do not seem matters for despair.&nbsp; But the
+truth is, that worldly trouble, such for instance, as loss of
+fortune, is seldom the simple thing that poets would persuade
+us.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The little or the much she gave is quietly
+resigned;<br />
+Content with poverty, my soul I arm,<br />
+And virtue, though in rags will keep me warm.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>So sings Dryden, paraphrasing Horace, but each of them with
+their knowledge of the world, cross-questioned in prose, could
+have told us how the stings of fortune really are felt.&nbsp; The
+truth is, that fortune is not exactly a distinct isolated thing
+which can be taken away&mdash;&ldquo;and there an
+end.&rdquo;&nbsp; But much has to be severed, with undoubted pain
+in the operation.&nbsp; A man mostly feels that his reputation
+for sagacity, often his honour, the comfort, too, or supposed
+comfort, of others are embarked in his fortunes.&nbsp; Mere
+stoicism, and resolves about fitting fortune to oneself, not
+oneself to fortune, though good things enough in their way, will
+not always meet the whole of the case.&nbsp; And a man who could
+bear personal distress of any kind with Spartan indifference, may
+suffer himself to be overwhelmed by despair growing out of
+worldly trouble.&nbsp; A frequent origin of such despair, as
+indeed of all despair (not by any means excluding despair from
+remorse), is pride.&nbsp; Let a man say to himself, &ldquo;I am
+not the perfect character I meant to be; this is not the conduct
+I had imagined for myself; these are not the fortunate
+circumstances I had always intended to be surrounded
+by.&rdquo;&nbsp; Let him at once admit that he is on a lower
+level than his ideal one; and then see what is to be done
+there.&nbsp; This seems the best way of treating all that part of
+worldly trouble which consists of self-reproval.&nbsp; We
+scarcely know of any outward life continuously prosperous (and a
+very dull one it would be): why should we expect the inner life
+to be one course of unbroken self-improvement, either in
+prudence, or in virtue?</p>
+<p>Before a man gives way to excessive grief about the fortunes
+of his family being lost with his own, he should think whether he
+really knows wherein lies the welfare of others.&nbsp; Give him
+some fairy power, inexhaustible purses or magic lamps, not,
+however, applying to the mind; and see whether he could make
+those whom he would favour good or happy.&nbsp; In the East, they
+have a proverb of this kind, Happy are the children of those
+fathers who go to the Evil One.&nbsp; But for anything that our
+Western experience shows, the proverb might be reversed, and,
+instead of running thus, Happy are the sons of those who have got
+money anyhow, it might be, Happy are the sons of those who have
+failed in getting money.&nbsp; In fact, there is no sound proverb
+to be made about it either way.&nbsp; We know nothing about the
+matter.&nbsp; Our surest influence for good or evil over others
+is, through themselves.&nbsp; Our ignorance of what is physically
+good for any man may surely prevent anything like despair with
+regard to that part of the fortunes of others dear to us, which,
+as we think, is bound up with our own.</p>
+<h3>MORBID VIEWS OF RELIGION.</h3>
+<p>As religion is the most engrossing subject that can be
+presented to us, it will be considered in all states of mind and
+by all minds.&nbsp; It is impossible but that the most hideous
+and perverted views of religion must arise.&nbsp; To combat the
+particular views which may be supposed to cause religious
+despair, would be too theological an undertaking for this
+essay.&nbsp; One thing only occurs to me to say, namely, that the
+lives and the mode of speaking about themselves adopted by the
+founders of Christianity, afford the best contradiction to
+religious melancholy that I believe can be met with.</p>
+<h3>NATIVE MELANCHOLY.</h3>
+<p>There is such a thing.&nbsp; Jacques, without the
+&ldquo;sundry contemplation&rdquo; of his travels, or any
+&ldquo;simples&rdquo; to &ldquo;compound&rdquo; his melancholy
+form, would have ever been wrapped in a &ldquo;most humorous
+sadness.&rdquo;&nbsp; It was innate.&nbsp; This melancholy may
+lay its votaries open to any other cause of despair, but having
+mostly some touch of philosophy (if it be not absolutely morbid),
+it is not unlikely to preserve them from any extremity.&nbsp; It
+is not acute, but chronic.</p>
+<p>It may be said in its favour that it tends to make men
+indifferent to their own fortunes.&nbsp; But then the sorrow of
+the world presses more deeply upon them.&nbsp; With large open
+hearts, the untowardness of things present, the miseries of the
+past, the mischief, stupidity, and error which reign in the
+world, at times almost crush your melancholy men.&nbsp; Still,
+out of their sadness may come their strength, or, at least, the
+best direction of it.&nbsp; Nothing, perhaps, is lost; not even
+sin&mdash;much less sorrow.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am glad you have ended as you have:
+for, previously, you seemed to make too much of getting rid of
+all distress of mind.&nbsp; I always liked that passage in
+&ldquo;Philip van Artevelde,&rdquo; where Father John says,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to
+mend.<br />
+Eternity mourns that.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>You have a better memory than I have: how does it go on?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis
+an ill cure<br />
+For life&rsquo;s worst ills, to have no time to feel them.<br />
+Where sorrow&rsquo;s held intrusive and turned out,<br />
+There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,<br />
+Nor aught that dignifies humanity.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Still this does not justify despair, which was what I was
+writing about.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Perhaps it was not a just criticism of
+mine.&nbsp; One part of the subject you have certainly
+omitted.&nbsp; You do not tell us how much there often is of
+physical disorder in despair.&nbsp; I dare say you will think it
+a coarse and unromantic mode of looking at things; but I must
+confess I agree with what Leigh Hunt has said somewhere, that one
+can walk down distress of mind&mdash;even remorse, perhaps.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; I am for the Peripatetics against
+all other philosophers.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; By the way, there is a passage in one
+of Hazlitt&rsquo;s essays, I thought of while you were reading,
+about remorse and religious melancholy.&nbsp; He speaks of mixing
+up religion and morality; and then goes on to say, that
+Calvinistic notions have obscured and prevented self-knowledge.
+<a name="citation42"></a><a href="#footnote42"
+class="citation">[42]</a></p>
+<p>Give me the essay&mdash;there is a passage I want to look
+at.&nbsp; This comparison of life to a mountain stream, the rocks
+brought down by it being the actions, is too much worked
+out.&nbsp; When we speak of similes not going on four legs, it
+implies, I think, that a simile is at best but a four-legged
+animal.&nbsp; Now this is almost a centipede of a simile.&nbsp; I
+think I have had the same thought as yours here, and I have
+compared the life of an individual to a curve.&nbsp; You both
+smile.&nbsp; Now I thought that Dunsford at any rate would be
+pleased with this reminiscence of college days.&nbsp; But to
+proceed with my curve.&nbsp; You may have numbers of the points
+through which it passes given, and yet know nothing of the nature
+of the curve itself.&nbsp; See, now, it shall pass through here
+and here, but how it will go in the interval, what is the law of
+its being, we know not.&nbsp; But this simile would be too
+mathematical, I fear.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I hold to the centipede.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Not a word has Dunsford said all this
+time.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I like the essay.&nbsp; I was not
+criticising as we went along, but thinking that perhaps the
+greatest charm of books is, that we see in them that other men
+have suffered what we have.&nbsp; Some souls we ever find who
+could have responded to all our agony, be it what it may.&nbsp;
+This at least robs misery of its loneliness.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; On the other hand, the charm of
+intercourse with our fellows, when we are in sadness, is that
+they do not reflect it in any way.&nbsp; Each keeps his own
+trouble to himself, and often pretending to think and care about
+other things, comes to do so for the time.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, but you might choose books which
+would not reflect your troubles.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; But the fact of having to make a
+choice to do this, does away, perhaps, with some part of the
+benefit: whereas, in intercourse with living men, you take what
+you find, and you find that neither your trouble, nor any
+likeness of it, is absorbing other people.&nbsp; But this is not
+the whole reason: the truth is, the life and impulses of other
+men are catching; you cannot explain exactly how it is that they
+take you out of yourself.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No man is so confidential as when he
+is addressing the whole world.&nbsp; You find, therefore, more
+comfort for sorrow in books than in social intercourse.&nbsp; I
+mean more direct comfort; for I agree with what Ellesmere says
+about society.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; In comparing men and books, one must
+always remember this important distinction&mdash;that one can put
+the books down at any time.&nbsp; As Macaulay says, &ldquo;Plato
+is never sullen.&nbsp; Cervantes is never petulant.&nbsp;
+Demosthenes never comes unseasonably.&nbsp; Dante never stays too
+long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Besides, one can manage to agree so
+well, intellectually, with a book; and intellectual differences
+are the source of half the quarrels in the world.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Judicious shelving!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Judicious skipping will nearly
+do.&nbsp; Now when one&rsquo;s friend, or oneself, is crotchety,
+dogmatic, or disputatious, one cannot turn over to another
+day.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t go, Dunsford.&nbsp; Here
+is a passage in the essay I meant to have said something
+about&mdash;&ldquo;why should we expect the inner life to be one
+course of unbroken self-improvement,&rdquo; etc.&mdash;You
+recollect?&nbsp; Well, it puts me in mind of a conversation
+between a complacent poplar and a grim old oak, which I overheard
+the other day.&nbsp; The poplar said that it grew up quite
+straight, heavenwards, that all its branches pointed the same
+way, and always had done so.&nbsp; Turning to the oak, which it
+had been talking at before for some time, the poplar went on to
+remark, that it did not wish to say anything unfriendly to a
+brother of the forest, but those warped and twisted branches
+seemed to show strange struggles.&nbsp; The tall thing concluded
+its oration by saying, that it grew up very fast, and that when
+it had done growing, it did not suffer itself to be made into
+huge floating engines of destruction.&nbsp; But different trees
+had different tastes.&nbsp; There was then a sound from the old
+oak, like an &ldquo;ah&rdquo; or a &ldquo;whew,&rdquo; or,
+perhaps, it was only the wind amongst its resisting branches; and
+the gaunt creature said that it had had ugly winds from without
+and cross-grained impulses from within; that it knew it had
+thrown out awkwardly a branch here and a branch there, which
+would never come quite right again it feared; that men worked it
+up, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil&mdash;but that at
+any rate it had not lived for nothing.&nbsp; The poplar began
+again immediately, for this kind of tree can talk for ever, but I
+patted the old oak approvingly and went on.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, your trees divide their
+discourse somewhat Ellesmerically: they do not talk with the
+simplicity La Fontaine&rsquo;s would; but there is a good deal in
+them.&nbsp; They are not altogether sappy.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I really thought of this fable of mine
+the other day, as I was passing the poplar at the end of the
+valley, and I determined to give it you on the first
+occasion.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I hope, Ellesmere, you do not intend to
+put sarcastic notions into the sap of our trees hereabouts.&nbsp;
+There&rsquo;s enough of sarcasm in you to season a whole
+forest.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Dunsford is afraid of what the trees
+may say to the country gentlemen, and whether they will be able
+to answer them.&nbsp; I will be careful not to make the trees too
+clever.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Let us go and try if we can hear any
+more forest talk.&nbsp; The winds, shaped into voices by the
+leaves, say many things to us at all times.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the course of our walk Milverton
+promised to read the following essay on Recreation the next
+day.&nbsp; I have no note of anything that was said before the
+reading.</p>
+<h3>RECREATION.</h3>
+<p>This subject has not had the thought it merits.&nbsp; It seems
+trivial.&nbsp; It concerns some hours in the daily life of each
+of us; but it is not connected with any subject of human
+grandeur, and we are rather ashamed of it.&nbsp; Schiller has
+some wise, but hard words that relate to it.&nbsp; He perceives
+the pre-eminence of the Greeks, who could do many things.&nbsp;
+He finds that modern men are units of great nations; but not
+great units themselves.&nbsp; And there is some room for this
+reasoning of his.</p>
+<p>Our modern system of division of labour divides wits
+also.&nbsp; The more necessity there is, therefore, for funding
+in recreation something to expand men&rsquo;s intelligence.&nbsp;
+There are intellectual pursuits almost as much divided as
+pin-making; and many a man goes through some intellectual
+process, for the greater part of his working hours, which
+corresponds with the making of a pin&rsquo;s head.&nbsp; Must
+there not be some danger of a general contraction of mind from
+this convergence of attention upon something very small, for so
+considerable a portion of a man&rsquo;s life?</p>
+<p>What answer can civilisation give to this?&nbsp; It can say
+that greater results are worked out by the modern system; that
+though each man is doing less himself than he might have done in
+former days, he sees greater and better things accomplished; and
+that his thoughts, not bound down by his petty occupation, travel
+over the work of the human family.&nbsp; There is a great deal,
+doubtless, in this argument; but man is not altogether an
+intellectual recipient.&nbsp; He is a constructive animal
+also.&nbsp; It is not the knowledge that you can pour into him
+that will satisfy him, or enable him to work out his
+nature.&nbsp; He must see things for himself; he must have bodily
+work and intellectual work different from his bread-getting work;
+or he runs the danger of becoming a contracted pedant with a poor
+mind and a sickly body.</p>
+<p>I have seen it quoted from Aristotle, that the end of labour
+is to gain leisure.&nbsp; It is a great saying.&nbsp; We have in
+modern times a totally wrong view of the matter.&nbsp; Noble work
+is a noble thing, but not all work.&nbsp; Most people seem to
+think that any business is in itself something grand; that to be
+intensely employed, for instance, about something which has no
+truth, beauty, or usefulness in it, which makes no man happier or
+wiser, is still the perfection of human endeavour, so that the
+work be intense.&nbsp; It is the intensity, not the nature, of
+the work that men praise.&nbsp; You see the extent of this
+feeling in little things.&nbsp; People are so ashamed of being
+caught for a moment idle, that if you come upon the most
+industrious servants or workmen whilst they are standing looking
+at something which interests them, or fairly resting, they move
+off in a fright, as if they were proved, by a moment&rsquo;s
+relaxation, to be neglectful of their work.&nbsp; Yet it is the
+result that they should mainly be judged by, and to which they
+should appeal.&nbsp; But amongst all classes, the working itself,
+incessant working, is the thing deified.&nbsp; Now what is the
+end and object of most work?&nbsp; To provide for animal
+wants.&nbsp; Not a contemptible thing by any means, but still it
+is not all in all with man.&nbsp; Moreover, in those cases where
+the pressure of bread-getting is fairly past, we do not often
+find men&rsquo;s exertions lessened on that account.&nbsp; There
+enter into their minds as motives, ambition, a love of hoarding,
+or a fear of leisure&mdash;things which, in moderation, may be
+defended or even justified; but which are not so peremptory, and
+upon the face of them excellent, that they at once dignify
+excessive labour.</p>
+<p>The truth is, that to work insatiably requires much less mind
+than to work judiciously, and less courage than to refuse work
+that cannot be done honestly.&nbsp; For a hundred men whose
+appetite for work can be driven on by vanity, avarice, ambition,
+or a mistaken notion of advancing their families, there is about
+one who is desirous of expanding his own nature and the nature of
+others in all directions, of cultivating many pursuits, of
+bringing himself and those around him in contact with the
+universe in many points, of being a man and not a machine.</p>
+<p>It may seem as if the preceding arguments were directed rather
+against excessive work than in favour of recreation.&nbsp; But
+the first object in an essay of this kind should be to bring down
+the absurd estimate that is often formed of mere work.&nbsp; What
+ritual is to the formalist, or contemplation to the devotee,
+business is to the man of the world.&nbsp; He thinks he cannot be
+doing wrong as long as he is doing that.</p>
+<p>No doubt hard work is a great police agent.&nbsp; If everybody
+were worked from morning till night and then carefully locked up,
+the register of crimes might be greatly diminished.&nbsp; But
+what would become of human nature?&nbsp; Where would be the room
+for growth in such a system of things?&nbsp; It is through sorrow
+and mirth, plenty and need, a variety of passions, circumstances,
+and temptations, even through sin and misery, that men&rsquo;s
+natures are developed.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Again, there are people who would say, &ldquo;Labour is not
+all; we do not object to the cessation of labour&mdash;a mere
+provision for bodily ends; but we fear the lightness and vanity
+of what you call recreation.&rdquo;&nbsp; Do these people take
+heed of the swiftness of thought&mdash;of the impatience of
+thought?&nbsp; What will the great mass of men be thinking of, if
+they are taught to shun amusements and the thoughts of
+amusement?&nbsp; If any sensuality is left open to them, they
+will think of that.&nbsp; If not sensuality, then avarice, or
+ferocity for &ldquo;the cause of God,&rdquo; as they would call
+it.&nbsp; People who have had nothing else to amuse them have
+been very apt to indulge themselves in the excitement of
+persecuting their fellow creatures.</p>
+<p>Our nation, the northern part of it especially, is given to
+believe in the sovereign efficacy of dulness.&nbsp; To be sure,
+dulness and solid vice are apt to go hand in hand.&nbsp; But
+then, according to our notions, dulness is in itself so good a
+thing&mdash;almost a religion.</p>
+<p>Now, if ever a people required to be amused, it is we
+sad-hearted Anglo-Saxons.&nbsp; Heavy eaters, hard thinkers,
+often given up to a peculiar melancholy of our own, with a
+climate that for months together would frown away mirth if it
+could&mdash;many of us with very gloomy thoughts about our
+hereafter&mdash;if ever there were a people who should avoid
+increasing their dulness by all work and no play, we are that
+people.&nbsp; &ldquo;They took their pleasure sadly,&rdquo; says
+Froissart, &ldquo;after their fashion.&rdquo;&nbsp; We need not
+ask of what nation Froissart was speaking.</p>
+<p>There is a theory which has done singular mischief to the
+cause of recreation and of general cultivation.&nbsp; It is that
+men cannot excel in more things than one; and that if they can,
+they had better be quiet about it.&nbsp; &ldquo;Avoid music, do
+not cultivate art, be not known to excel in any craft but your
+own,&rdquo; says many a worldly parent, thereby laying the
+foundation of a narrow, greedy character, and destroying means of
+happiness and of improvement which success, or even real
+excellence, in one profession only cannot give.&nbsp; This is,
+indeed, a sacrifice of the end of living for the means.</p>
+<p>Another check to recreation is the narrow way in which people
+have hitherto been brought up at schools and colleges.&nbsp; The
+classics are pre-eminent works.&nbsp; To acquire an accurate
+knowledge of them is an admirable discipline.&nbsp; Still, it
+would be well to give a youth but few of these great works, and
+so leave time for various arts, accomplishments, and knowledge of
+external things exemplified by other means than books.&nbsp; If
+this cannot be done but by over-working, then it had better not
+be done; for of all things, that must be avoided.&nbsp; But
+surely it can be done.&nbsp; At present, many a man who is versed
+in Greek metre, and afterwards full of law reports, is childishly
+ignorant of Nature.&nbsp; Let him walk with an intelligent child
+for a morning, and the child will ask him a hundred questions
+about sun, moon, stars, plants, birds, building, farming, and the
+like, to which he can give very sorry answers, if any; or, at the
+best, he has but a second-hand acquaintance with Nature.&nbsp;
+Men&rsquo;s conceits are his main knowledge.&nbsp; Whereas, if he
+had any pursuits connected with Nature, all Nature is in harmony
+with it, is brought into his presence by it, and it affords at
+once cultivation and recreation.</p>
+<p>But, independently of those cultivated pursuits which form a
+high order of recreation, boyhood should never pass without the
+boy&rsquo;s learning several modes of recreation of the humbler
+kind.&nbsp; A parent or teacher seldom does a kinder thing by the
+child under his care than when he instructs it in some manly
+exercise, some pursuit connected with Nature out of doors, or
+even some domestic game.&nbsp; In hours of fatigue, anxiety,
+sickness, or worldly ferment, such means of amusement may delight
+the grown-up man when other things would fail.</p>
+<p>An indirect advantage, but a very considerable one, attendant
+upon various modes of recreation, is, that they provide
+opportunities of excelling in something to boys and men who are
+dull in things which form the staple of education.&nbsp; A boy
+cannot see much difference between the nominative and the
+genitive cases&mdash;still less any occasion for
+aorists&mdash;but he is a good hand at some game or other; and he
+keeps up his self-respect, and the respect of others for him,
+upon his prowess in that game.&nbsp; He is better and happier on
+that account.&nbsp; And it is well, too, that the little world
+around him should know that excellence is not all of one
+form.</p>
+<p>There are no details about recreation in this essay, the
+object here being mainly to show the worth of recreation, and to
+defend it against objections from the over-busy and the
+over-strict.&nbsp; The sense of the beautiful, the desire for
+comprehending Nature, the love of personal skill and prowess, are
+not things implanted in men merely to be absorbed in producing
+and distributing the objects of our most obvious animal
+wants.&nbsp; If civilisation required this, civilisation would be
+a failure.&nbsp; Still less should we fancy that we are serving
+the cause of godliness when we are discouraging recreation.&nbsp;
+Let us be hearty in our pleasures, as in our work, and not think
+that the gracious Being Who has made us so open-hearted to
+delight, looks with dissatisfaction at our enjoyment, as a hard
+taskmaster might, who in the glee of his slaves could see only a
+hindrance to their profitable working.&nbsp; And with reference
+to our individual cultivation, we may remember that we are not
+here to promote incalculable quantities of law, physic, or
+manufactured goods, but to become men&mdash;not narrow pedants,
+but wide-seeing, mind-travelled men.&nbsp; Who are the men of
+history to be admired most?&nbsp; Those whom most things
+became&mdash;who could be weighty in debate, of much device in
+council, considerate in a sick-room, genial at a feast, joyous at
+a festival, capable of discourse with many minds, large-souled,
+not to be shrivelled up into any one form, fashion, or
+temperament.&nbsp; Their contemporaries would have told us that
+men might have various accomplishments and hearty enjoyments, and
+not for that be the less effective in business, or less active in
+benevolence.&nbsp; I distrust the wisdom of asceticism as much as
+I do that of sensuality; Simeon Stylites no less than
+Sardanapalus.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You alluded to Schiller at the
+beginning of the essay: can you show me his own words?&nbsp; I
+have a lawyer&rsquo;s liking for the best evidence.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; When we go in, I will show you some
+passages which bear me out in what I have made him say&mdash;at
+least, if the translation is faithful. <a
+name="citation53"></a><a href="#footnote53"
+class="citation">[53]</a></p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I have had a great respect for
+Schiller ever since I heard that saying of his about death,
+&ldquo;Death cannot be an evil, for it is universal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Very noble and full of faith.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Touching the essay, I like it well
+enough; but, perhaps, people will expect to find more about
+recreation itself&mdash;not only about the good of it, but what
+it is, and how it is to be got.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I do not incline to go into detail
+about the matter.&nbsp; The object was to say something for the
+respectability of recreation, not to write a chapter of a book of
+sports.&nbsp; People must find out their own ways of amusing
+themselves.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I will tell you what is the paramount
+thing to be attended to in all amusements&mdash;that they should
+be short.&nbsp; Moralists are always talking about
+&ldquo;short-lived&rdquo; pleasures: would that they were!</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Hesiod told the world, some two
+thousand years ago, how much greater the half is than the
+whole.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Dinner-givers and managers of theatres
+should forthwith be made aware of that fact.&nbsp; What a
+sacrifice of good things, and of the patience and comfort of
+human beings, a cumbrous modern dinner is!&nbsp; I always long to
+get up and walk about.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Do not talk of modern dinners.&nbsp;
+Think what a Roman dinner must have been.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Very true.&nbsp; It has always struck
+me that there is something quite military in the sensualism of
+the Romans&mdash;an &ldquo;arbiter bibendi&rdquo; chosen, and the
+whole feast moving on with fearful precision and apparatus of all
+kinds.&nbsp; Come, come! the world&rsquo;s improving,
+Ellesmere.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Had the Romans public dinners?&nbsp;
+Answer me that.&nbsp; Imagine a Roman, whose theory, at least, of
+a dinner was that it was a thing for enjoyment, whereas we often
+look on it as a continuation of the business of the day&mdash;I
+say, imagine a Roman girding himself up, literally girding
+himself up to make an after-dinner speech.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I must allow that is rather a
+barbarous practice.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; If charity, or politics, cannot be
+done without such things, I suppose they are useful in their way;
+but let nobody ever imagine that they are a form of
+pleasure.&nbsp; People smearing each other over with stupid
+flattery, and most of the company being in dread of receiving
+some compliment which should oblige them to speak!</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I should have thought, now, that you
+would always have had something to say, and therefore that you
+would not be so bitter against after-dinner speaking.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; No; when I have nothing to say, I can
+say nothing.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Would it not be a pleasant thing if
+rich people would ask their friends sometimes to public
+amusements&mdash;order a play for them, for instance&mdash;or at
+any rate, provide some manifest amusement?&nbsp; They might,
+occasionally with great advantage, abridge the expense of their
+dinners; and throw it into other channels of hospitality.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Ah, if they would have good acting at
+their houses, that would be very delightful; but I cannot say
+that the being taken to any place of public amusement would much
+delight me.&nbsp; By the way, Milverton, what do you say of
+theatres in the way of recreation?&nbsp; This decline of the
+drama, too, is a thing you must have thought about: let us hear
+your notions.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I think one of the causes sometimes
+assigned, that reading is more spread, is a true and an important
+one; but, otherwise, I fancy that the present decline of the
+drama depends upon very small things which might be
+remedied.&nbsp; As to a love of the drama going out of the human
+heart, that is all nonsense.&nbsp; Put it at the lowest, what a
+great pleasure it is to hear a good play read.&nbsp; And again,
+as to serious pursuits unfitting men for dramatic entertainments,
+it is quite the contrary.&nbsp; A man, wearied with care and
+business, would find more change of ideas with less fatigue, in
+seeing a good play, than in almost any other way of amusing
+himself.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What are the causes then of the decline
+of the drama?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; In England, or rather in
+London,&mdash;for London is England for dramatic purposes; in
+London, then, theatrical arrangements seem to be framed to drive
+away people of sense.&nbsp; The noisome atmosphere, the difficult
+approach, the over-size of the great theatres, the intolerable
+length of performances.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Hear! hear!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The crowding together of theatres in
+one part of the town, the lateness of the hours&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; The folly of the audience, who always
+applaud in the wrong place&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; There is no occasion to say any more; I
+am quite convinced.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; But these annoyances need not
+be.&nbsp; Build a theatre of moderate dimensions; give it great
+facility of approach; take care that the performances never
+exceed three hours; let lions and dwarfs pass by without any
+endeavour to get them within the walls; lay aside all ambition of
+making stage waves which may almost equal real Ramsgate waves to
+our cockney apprehensions.&nbsp; Of course there must be good
+players and good plays.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Now we come to the part of Hamlet.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Good players and good plays are both
+to be had if there were good demand for them.&nbsp; But, I was
+going to say, let there be all these things, especially let there
+be complete ventilation, and the theatre will have the most
+abundant success.&nbsp; Why, that one thing alone, the villainous
+atmosphere at most public places, is enough to daunt any sensible
+man from going to them.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; There should be such a choice of
+plays&mdash;not merely Chamberlain-clipt&mdash;as any man or
+woman could go to.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There should be certainly, but how is
+such a choice to be made, if the people who could regulate it,
+for the most part, stay away?&nbsp; It is a dangerous thing, the
+better classes leaving any great source of amusement and
+instruction wholly, or greatly, to the less refined classes.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes, I must confess it is.</p>
+<p>Great part of your arguments apply to musical as well as to
+theatrical entertainments.&nbsp; Do you find similar results with
+respect to them?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Why, they are not attended by any
+means as they would be, or made what they might be, if the
+objections I mentioned were removed.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What do you say to the out-of-door
+entertainments for a town population?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; As I said before, my dear Dunsford, I
+cannot give you a chapter of a &ldquo;Book of
+Sports.&rdquo;&nbsp; There ought, of course, to be parks for all
+quarters of the town: and I confess it would please me better to
+see, in holiday times and hours of leisure, hearty games going on
+in these parks, than a number of people sauntering about in
+uncomfortably new and unaccustomed clothes.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Do you not see, Dunsford, that, like a
+cautious official man, he does not want to enter into small
+details, which have always an air of ridicule?&nbsp; He is not
+prepared to pledge himself to cricket, golf, football, or
+prisoner&rsquo;s bars; but in his heart he is manifestly a Young
+Englander&mdash;without the white waistcoat.&nbsp; Nothing would
+please him better than to see in large letters, on one of those
+advertising vans, &ldquo;Great match!&nbsp; Victoria Park!!&nbsp;
+Eleven of Fleet Street against the Eleven of Saffron
+Hill!!!&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, there is a great deal in the
+spirit of Young England that I like very much, indeed that I
+respect.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I should like the Young England party
+better myself if I were quite sure there was no connection
+between them and a clan of sour, pity-mongering people, who wash
+one away with eternal talk about the contrast between riches and
+poverty; with whom a poor man is always virtuous; and who would,
+if they could, make him as envious and as discontented as
+possible.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Nothing can be more strikingly in
+contrast with such thinkers than Young England.&nbsp; Young
+Englanders, according to the best of their theories, ought to be
+men of warm sympathy with all classes.&nbsp; There is no doubt of
+this, that very seldom does any good thing arise, but there comes
+an ugly phantom of a caricature of it, which sidles up against
+the reality, mouths its favourite words as a third-rate actor
+does a great part, under-mimics its wisdom, over-acts its folly,
+is by half the world taken for it, goes some way to suppress it
+in its own time, and, perhaps, lives for it in history.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well brought out, that metaphor, but I
+don&rsquo;t know that it means more than that the followers of a
+system do in general a good deal to corrupt it, or that when a
+great principle is worked into human affairs, a considerable
+accretion of human folly and falseness mostly grows round it:
+which things some of us had a suspicion of before.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; To go back to the subject.&nbsp; What
+would you do for country amusements, Milverton?&nbsp; That is
+what concerns me, you know.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Athletic amusements go on naturally
+here: do not require so much fostering as in towns.&nbsp; The
+commons must be carefully kept: I have quite a Cobbettian fear of
+their being taken away from us under some plausible pretext or
+other.&nbsp; Well, then, it strikes me that a great deal might be
+done to promote the more refined pleasures of life among our
+rural population.&nbsp; I hope we shall live to see many of
+Hullah&rsquo;s pupils playing an important part in this
+way.&nbsp; Of course, the foundation for these things may best be
+laid at schools; and is being laid in some places, I am happy to
+say.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Humph, music, sing-song!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you observe, Dunsford,
+that when Ellesmere wants to attack us, and does not exactly see
+how, he mutters to himself sarcastically, sneering himself up, as
+it were, to the attack.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You and Dunsford are both wild for
+music, from barrel-organs upwards.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I confess to liking the humblest
+attempts at melody.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I feel as Sir Thomas Browne tells us he
+felt, that &ldquo;even that vulgar and tavern music, which makes
+one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion
+and a profound contemplation of the first composer.&nbsp; There
+is something in it of divinity more than the ear discovers; it is
+an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world and
+creatures of God: such a melody to the ear as the whole world
+well understood, would afford the understanding.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Apropos of music in country places,
+when I was going about last year in the neighbouring county, I
+saw such a pretty scene at one of the towns.&nbsp; They had got
+up a band, which played once a week in the evening.&nbsp; It was
+a beautiful summer evening, and the window of my room at the end
+overlooked the open space they had chosen for their
+performances.&nbsp; There was the great man of the neighbourhood
+in his carriage looking as if he came partly on duty, as well as
+for pleasure.&nbsp; Then there were burly tradesmen, with an air
+of quiet satisfaction, sauntering about, or leaning against
+railings.&nbsp; Some were no doubt critical&mdash;thought that
+Will Miller did not play as well as usual this evening.&nbsp;
+Will&rsquo;s young wife, who had come out to look again at him in
+his band dress (for the band had a uniform), thought
+differently.&nbsp; Little boys broke out into imaginary polkas,
+having some distant reference to the music: not without grace
+though.&nbsp; The sweep was pre-eminent: as if he would say,
+&ldquo;Dirty and sooty as I am I have a great deal of fun in
+me.&nbsp; Indeed, what would May-day be but for me?&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Studious little boys of the free-school, all green
+grasshopper-looking, walked about as boys knowing something of
+Latin.&nbsp; Here and there went a couple of them in childish
+loving way, with their arms about each other&rsquo;s necks.&nbsp;
+Matrons and shy young maidens sat upon the door-steps near.&nbsp;
+Many a merry laugh filled up the interludes of music.&nbsp; And
+when evening came softly down upon us, the band finished with
+&ldquo;God save the Queen,&rdquo; the little circle of those who
+would hear the last note moved off, there was a clattering of
+shutters, a shining of lights through casement-windows, and soon
+the only sound to be heard was the rough voice of some villager,
+who would have been too timid to adventure anything by daylight,
+but now sang boldly out as he went homewards.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Very pretty, but it sounds to me
+somewhat fabulous.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I assure you&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, you were tired, had a good
+dinner, read a speech for or against the corn-laws, fell asleep
+of course, and had this ingenious dream, which, to this day, you
+believe to have been a reality.&nbsp; I understand it all.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I wish I could have many more such
+dreams.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Our</span> last conversation broke off
+abruptly on the entrance of a visitor: we forgot to name a time
+for our next meeting; and when I came again, I found Milverton
+alone in his study.&nbsp; He was reading Count Rumford&rsquo;s
+essays.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; So you are reading Count Rumford.&nbsp;
+What is it that interests you there?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Everything he writes about.&nbsp; He
+is to me a delightful writer.&nbsp; He throws so much life into
+all his writings.&nbsp; Whether they are about making the most of
+food or fuel, or propounding the benefits of bathing, or
+inveighing against smoke, it is that he went and saw and did and
+experimented himself upon himself.&nbsp; His proceedings at
+Munich to feed the poor are more interesting than many a
+novel.&nbsp; It is surprising, too, how far he was before the
+world in all the things he gave his mind to.</p>
+<p>Here Ellesmere entered.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I heard you were come, Dunsford: I
+hope we shall have an essay to-day.&nbsp; My critical faculties
+have been dormant for some days, and want to be roused a
+little.&nbsp; Milverton was talking to you about Count Rumford
+when I came in, was he not?&nbsp; Ah, the Count is a great
+favourite with Milverton when he is down here; but there is a
+book upstairs which is Milverton&rsquo;s real favourite just now,
+a portentous-looking book; some relation to a blue-book,
+something about sewerage, or health of towns, or public
+improvements, over which said book our friend here goes into
+enthusiasms.&nbsp; I am sure if it could be reduced to the size
+of that tatterdemalion Horace that he carries about, the poor
+little Horace would be quite supplanted.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Now, I must tell you, Dunsford, that
+Ellesmere himself took up this book he talks about, and it was a
+long time before he put it down.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, there is something in real life,
+even though it is in the unheroic part of it, that interests
+one.&nbsp; I mean to get through the book.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What are we to have to-day for our
+essay?</p>
+<p>Milverton.&nbsp; Let us adjourn to the garden, and I will read
+you an essay on Greatness, if I can find it.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>We went to our favourite place, and Milverton read us the
+following essay.</p>
+<h3>GREATNESS.</h3>
+<p>You cannot substitute any epithet for great, when you are
+talking of great men.&nbsp; Greatness is not general dexterity
+carried to any extent; nor proficiency in any one subject of
+human endeavour.&nbsp; There are great astronomers, great
+scholars, great painters, even great poets who are very far from
+great men.&nbsp; Greatness can do without success and with
+it.&nbsp; William is greater in his retreats than Marlborough in
+his victories.&nbsp; On the other hand, the uniformity of
+C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s success does not dull his greatness.&nbsp;
+Greatness is not in the circumstances, but in the man.</p>
+<p>What does this greatness then consist in?&nbsp; Not in a nice
+balance of qualities, purposes, and powers.&nbsp; That will make
+a man happy, a successful man, a man always in his right
+depth.&nbsp; Nor does it consist in absence of errors.&nbsp; We
+need only glance back at any list that can be made of great men,
+to be convinced of that.&nbsp; Neither does greatness consist in
+energy, though often accompanied by it.&nbsp; Indeed, it is
+rather the breadth of the waters than the force of the current
+that we look to, to fulfil our idea of greatness.&nbsp; There is
+no doubt that energy acting upon a nature endowed with the
+qualities that we sum up in the word cleverness, and directed to
+a few clear purposes, produces a great effect, and may sometimes
+be mistaken for greatness.&nbsp; If a man is mainly bent upon his
+own advancement, it cuts many a difficult knot of policy for him,
+and gives a force and distinctness to his mode of going on which
+looks grand.&nbsp; The same happens if he has one pre-eminent
+idea of any kind, even though it should be a narrow one.&nbsp;
+Indeed, success in life is mostly gained by unity of purpose;
+whereas greatness often fails by reason of its having manifold
+purposes, but it does not cease to be greatness on that
+account.</p>
+<p>If greatness can be shut up in qualities, it will be found to
+consist in courage and in openness of mind and soul.&nbsp; These
+qualities may not seem at first to be so potent.&nbsp; But see
+what growth there is in them.&nbsp; The education of a man of
+open mind is never ended.&nbsp; Then, with openness of soul, a
+man sees some way into all other souls that come near him, feels
+with them, has their experience, is in himself a people.&nbsp;
+Sympathy is the universal solvent.&nbsp; Nothing is understood
+without it.&nbsp; The capacity of a man, at least for
+understanding, may almost be said to vary according to his powers
+of sympathy.&nbsp; Again, what is there that can counteract
+selfishness like sympathy?&nbsp; Selfishness may be hedged in by
+minute watchfulness and self-denial, but it is counteracted by
+the nature being encouraged to grow out and fix its tendrils upon
+foreign objects.</p>
+<p>The immense defect that want of sympathy is, may be strikingly
+seen in the failure of the many attempts that have been made in
+all ages to construct the Christian character, omitting
+sympathy.&nbsp; It has produced numbers of people walking up and
+down one narrow plank of self-restraint, pondering over their own
+merits and demerits, keeping out, not the world exactly, but
+their fellow-creatures from their hearts, and caring only to
+drive their neighbours before them on this plank of theirs, or to
+push them headlong.&nbsp; Thus, with many virtues, and much hard
+work at the formation of character, we have had splendid bigots
+or censorious small people.</p>
+<p>But sympathy is warmth and light too.&nbsp; It is, as it were,
+the moral atmosphere connecting all animated natures.&nbsp;
+Putting aside, for a moment, the large differences that opinions,
+language, and education make between men, look at the innate
+diversity of character.&nbsp; Natural philosophers were amazed
+when they thought they had found a new-created species.&nbsp; But
+what is each man but a creature such as the world has not before
+seen?&nbsp; Then think how they pour forth in multitudinous
+masses, from princes delicately nurtured to little boys on
+scrubby commons, or in dark cellars.&nbsp; How are these people
+to be understood, to be taught to understand each other, but by
+those who have the deepest sympathies with all?&nbsp; There
+cannot be a great man without large sympathy.&nbsp; There may be
+men who play loud-sounding parts in life without it, as on the
+stage, where kings and great people sometimes enter who are only
+characters of secondary import&mdash;deputy great men.&nbsp; But
+the interest and the instruction lie with those who have to feel
+and suffer most.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Add courage to this openness we have been considering, and you
+have a man who can own himself in the wrong, can forgive, can
+trust, can adventure, can, in short, use all the means that
+insight and sympathy endow him with.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>I see no other essential characteristics in the greatness of
+nations than there are in the greatness of individuals.&nbsp;
+Extraneous circumstances largely influence nations as
+individuals; and make a larger part of the show of the former
+than of the latter; as we are wont to consider no nation great
+that is not great in extent or resources, as well as in
+character.&nbsp; But of two nations, equal in other respects, the
+superiority must belong to the one which excels in courage and
+openness of mind and soul.</p>
+<p>Again, in estimating the relative merits of different periods
+of the world, we must employ the same tests of greatness that we
+use to individuals.&nbsp; To compare, for instance, the present
+and the past.&nbsp; What astounds us most in the past is the
+wonderful intolerance and cruelty: a cruelty constantly turning
+upon the inventors: an intolerance provoking ruin to the thing it
+would foster.&nbsp; The most admirable precepts are thrown from
+time to time upon this cauldron of human affairs, and oftentimes
+they only seem to make it blaze the higher.&nbsp; We find men
+devoting the best part of their intellects to the invariable
+annoyance and persecution of their fellows.&nbsp; You might think
+that the earth brought forth with more abundant fruitfulness in
+the past than now, seeing that men found so much time for
+cruelty, but that you read of famines and privations which these
+latter days cannot equal.&nbsp; The recorded violent deaths
+amount to millions.&nbsp; And this is but a small part of the
+matter.&nbsp; Consider the modes of justice; the use of torture,
+for instance.&nbsp; What must have been the blinded state of the
+wise persons (wise for their day) who used torture?&nbsp; Did
+they ever think themselves, &ldquo;What should we not say if we
+were subjected to this?&rdquo;&nbsp; Many times they must really
+have desired to get at the truth; and such was their mode of
+doing it.&nbsp; Now, at the risk of being thought &ldquo;a
+laudator&rdquo; of time present, I would say, here is the element
+of greatness we have made progress in.&nbsp; We are more open in
+mind and soul.&nbsp; We have arrived (some of us at least) at the
+conclusion that men may honestly differ without offence.&nbsp; We
+have learned to pity each other more.&nbsp; There is a greatness
+in modern toleration which our ancestors knew not.</p>
+<p>Then comes the other element of greatness, courage.&nbsp; Have
+we made progress in that?&nbsp; This is a much more dubious
+question.&nbsp; The subjects of terror vary so much in different
+times that it is difficult to estimate the different degrees of
+courage shown in resisting them.&nbsp; Men fear public opinion
+now as they did in former times the Star Chamber; and those awful
+goddesses, Appearances, are to us what the Fates were to the
+Greeks.&nbsp; It is hardly possible to measure the courage of a
+modern against that of an ancient; but I am unwilling to believe
+but that enlightenment must strengthen courage.</p>
+<p>The application of the tests of greatness, as in the above
+instance, is a matter of detail and of nice appreciation, as to
+the results of which men must be expected to differ largely: the
+tests themselves remain invariable&mdash;openness of nature to
+admit the light of love and reason, and courage to pursue it.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I agree to your theory, as far as
+openness of nature is concerned; but I do not much like to put
+that half-brute thing, courage, so high.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, you cannot have greatness
+without it: you may have well-intentioned people and far-seeing
+people; but if they have no stoutness of heart, they will only be
+shifty or remonstrant, nothing like great.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You mean will, not courage.&nbsp;
+Without will, your open-minded, open-hearted man may be like a
+great, rudderless vessel driven about by all winds: not a small
+craft, but a most uncertain one.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No, I mean both: both will and
+courage.&nbsp; Courage is the body to will.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I believe you are right in that; but
+do not omit will.&nbsp; It amused me to see how you brought in
+one of your old notions&mdash;that this age is not
+contemptible.&nbsp; You scribbling people are generally on the
+other side.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You malign us.&nbsp; If I must give
+any account for my personal predilection for modern times, it
+consists perhaps in this, that we may now speak our mind.&nbsp;
+What Tennyson says of his own land,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The land where, girt with friend or foe,<br
+/>
+A man may say the thing he will,&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>may be said, in some measure, of the age in which we
+live.&nbsp; This is an inexpressible comfort.&nbsp; This doubles
+life.&nbsp; These things surely may be said in favour of the
+present age, not with a view to puff it up, but so far to
+encourage ourselves, as we may by seeing that the world does not
+go on for nothing, that all the misery, blood, and toil that have
+been spent, were not poured out in vain.&nbsp; Could we have our
+ancestors again before us, would they not rejoice at seeing what
+they had purchased for us: would they think it any compliment to
+them to extol their times at the expense of the present, and so
+to intimate that their efforts had led to nothing?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; &ldquo;I doubt,&rdquo; as Lord Eldon
+would have said; no, upon second thoughts, I do not doubt.&nbsp;
+I feel assured that a good many of these said ancestors you are
+calling up would be much discomforted at finding that all their
+suffering had led to no sure basis of persecution of the other
+side.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I wonder, Ellesmere, what you would
+have done in persecuting times.&nbsp; What escape would your
+sarcasm have found for itself?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Some orthodox way, I daresay.&nbsp; I
+do not think he would have been particularly fond of
+martyrdom.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; I have no taste for making
+torches for truth, or being one: I prefer humane darkness to such
+illumination.&nbsp; At the same time one cannot tell lies; and if
+one had been questioned about the incomprehensibilities which men
+in former days were so fierce upon, one must have shown that one
+disagreed with all parties.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Do not say &ldquo;one:&rdquo;&nbsp;
+<i>I</i> should not have disagreed with the great Protestant
+leaders in the Reformation, for instance.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Humph.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; If we get aground upon the
+Reformation, we shall never push off again&mdash;else would I say
+something far from complimentary to those Protestant proceedings
+which we may rather hope were Tudoresque than Protestant.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; No, that is not fair.&nbsp; The Tudors
+were a coarse, fierce race; but it will not do to lay the faults
+of their times upon them only.&nbsp; Look at Elizabeth&rsquo;s
+ministers.&nbsp; They had about as much notion of religious
+tolerance as they had of Professor Wheatstone&rsquo;s
+telegraph.&nbsp; It was not a growth of that age.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I do not know.&nbsp; You have Cardinal
+Pole and the Earl of Essex, both tolerant men in the midst of
+bigots.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, as you said, Milverton, we shall
+never push off, if we once get aground on this subject.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I am in fault: so I will take upon
+myself to bring you quite away from the Reformation.&nbsp; I have
+been thinking of that comparison in the essay of the present with
+the past.&nbsp; Such comparisons seem to me very useful, as they
+best enable us to understand our own times.&nbsp; And, then, when
+we have ascertained the state and tendency of our own age, we
+ought to strive to enrich it with those qualities which are
+complementary to its own.&nbsp; Now with all this toleration,
+which delights you so much, dear Milverton, is it not an age
+rather deficient in caring about great matters?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; If you mean great speculative matters,
+I might agree with you; but if you mean what I should call the
+greatest matters, such as charity, humanity, and the like, I
+should venture to differ with you, Dunsford.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I do not like to see the world
+indifferent to great speculative matters.&nbsp; I then fear
+shallowness and earthiness.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It is very difficult to say what the
+world is thinking of now.&nbsp; It is certainly wrong to suppose
+that this is a shallow age because it is not driven by one
+impulse.&nbsp; As civilisation advances, it becomes more
+difficult to estimate what is going on, and we set it all down as
+confusion.&nbsp; Now there is not one &ldquo;great antique
+heart,&rdquo; whose beatings we can count, but many impulses,
+many circles of thought in which men are moving many
+objects.&nbsp; Men are not all in the same state of progress, so
+cannot be moved in masses as of old.&nbsp; At one time chivalry
+urged all men, then the Church, and the phenomena were few,
+simple, and broad, or at least they seem so in history.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Very true; still I agree somewhat with
+Dunsford, that men are not agitated as they used to be by the
+great speculative questions.&nbsp; I account for it in this way,
+that the material world has opened out before us, and we cannot
+but look at that, and must play with it and work at it.&nbsp; I
+would say, too, that philosophy had been found out, and there is
+something in that.&nbsp; Still, I think if it were not for the
+interest now attaching to material things, great intellectual
+questions, not exactly of the old kind, would arise and agitate
+the world.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is one thing in my mind that may
+confirm your view.&nbsp; I cannot but think that the enlarged
+view we have of the universe must in some measure damp personal
+ambition.&nbsp; What is it to be a King, Sheik, Tetrarch, or
+Emperor, over a bit of a little bit?&nbsp; Macbeth&rsquo;s
+speech, &ldquo;we&rsquo;d jump the life to come,&rdquo; is a
+thing a man with modern lights, however madly ambitious, would
+hardly utter.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Religious lights, Milverton.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Of course not, if he had them; but I
+meant scientific lights.&nbsp; Sway over our fellow-creatures, at
+any rate anything but mental sway, has shrunk into less
+proportions.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I have been looking over the
+essay.&nbsp; I think you may put in somewhere&mdash;that that age
+would probably be the greatest in which there was the least
+difference between great men and the people in general&mdash;when
+the former were only neglected, not hunted down.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You are rather lengthy here about the
+cruelties to be found in history; but we are apt to forget these
+matters.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; They always press upon my mind.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; And on mine.&nbsp; I do not like to
+read much of history for that very reason.&nbsp; I get so sick at
+heart about it all.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Ah, yes, history is a stupendous
+thing.&nbsp; To read it is like looking at the stars; we turn
+away in awe and perplexity.&nbsp; Yet there is some method
+running through the little affairs of man as through the
+multitude of suns, seemingly to us as confused as routed armies
+in full flight.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Some law of love.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am afraid it is not in the past
+alone that we should be awestruck with horrors: we, who have a
+slave-trade still on earth.&nbsp; But, to go back to the essay, I
+like what you say about the theory of constructing the Christian
+character without geniality; only you do not go far enough.&nbsp;
+You are afraid.&nbsp; People are for ever talking, especially you
+philanthropical people, about making others happy.&nbsp; I do not
+know any way so sure of making others happy as of being so
+oneself, to begin with.&nbsp; I do not mean that people are to be
+self-absorbed; but they are to drink in nature and life a
+little.&nbsp; From a genial, wisely-developed man good things
+radiate; whereas you must allow, Milverton, that benevolent
+people are very apt to be one-sided and fussy, and not of the
+sweetest temper if others will not be good and happy in their
+way.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; That is really not fair.&nbsp; Of
+course, acid, small-minded people carry their narrow notions and
+their acidity into their benevolence.&nbsp; Benevolence is no
+abstract perfection.&nbsp; Men will express their benevolence
+according to their other gifts or want of gifts.&nbsp; If it is
+strong, it overcomes other things in the character which would be
+hindrances to it; but it must speak in the language of the soul
+it is in.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Come, let us go and see the
+pigs.&nbsp; I hear them grunting over their dinners in the
+farmyard.&nbsp; I like to see creatures who can be happy without
+a theory.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next time that I came over to
+Worth-Ashton it was raining, and I found my friends in the
+study.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Dunsford,&rdquo; said Ellesmere, &ldquo;is it not
+comfortable to have our sessions here for once, and to be looking
+out on a good solid English wet day?&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Rather a fluid than a solid.&nbsp; But
+I agree with you in thinking it is very comfortable here.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I like to look upon the backs of
+books.&nbsp; First I think how much of the owner&rsquo;s inner
+life and character is shown in his books; then perhaps I wonder
+how he got such a book which seems so remote from all that I know
+of him&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I shall turn my books the wrong side
+upwards when you come into the study.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; But what amuses me most is to see the
+odd way in which books get together, especially in the library of
+a man who reads his books and puts them up again wherever there
+is room.&nbsp; Now here is a charming party: &ldquo;A Treatise on
+the Steam-Engine&rdquo; between &ldquo;Locke on
+Christianity&rdquo; and Madame de Stael&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Corinne.&rdquo;&nbsp; I wonder what they talk about at
+night when we are all asleep.&nbsp; Here is another happy
+juxtaposition: old Clarendon next to a modern metaphysician whom
+he would positively loathe.&nbsp; Here is Sadler next to Malthus,
+and Horsley next to Priestley; but this sort of thing happens
+most in the best regulated libraries.&nbsp; It is a charming
+reflection for controversial writers, that their works will be
+put together on the same shelves, often between the same covers;
+and that, in the minds of educated men, the name of one writer
+will be sure to recall the name of the other.&nbsp; So they go
+down to posterity as a brotherhood.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; To complete Ellesmere&rsquo;s theory,
+we may say that all those injuries to books which we choose to
+throw upon some wretched worm, are but the wounds from rival
+books.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Certainly.&nbsp; But now let us
+proceed to polish up the weapons of another of these spiteful
+creatures.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; What is to be our essay
+to-day, Milverton?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Fiction.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Now, that is really unfortunate.&nbsp;
+Fiction is just the subject to be discussed&mdash;no, not
+discussed, talked over&mdash;out of doors on a hot day, all of us
+lying about in easy attitudes on the grass, Dunsford with his
+gaiters forming a most picturesque and prominent figure.&nbsp;
+But there is nothing complete in this life.&nbsp; &ldquo;Surgit
+amari aliquid:&rdquo; and so we must listen to Fiction in
+arm-chairs.</p>
+<h3>FICTION.</h3>
+<p>The influence of works of fiction is unbounded.&nbsp; Even the
+minds of well-informed people are often more stored with
+characters from acknowledged fiction than from history or
+biography, or the real life around them.&nbsp; We dispute about
+these characters as if they were realities.&nbsp; Their
+experience is our experience; we adopt their feelings, and
+imitate their acts.&nbsp; And so there comes to be something
+traditional even in the management of the passions.&nbsp;
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s historical plays were the only history to the
+Duke of Marlborough.&nbsp; Thousands of Greeks acted under the
+influence of what Achilles or Ulysses did, in Homer.&nbsp; The
+poet sings of the deeds that shall be.&nbsp; He imagines the
+past; he forms the future.</p>
+<p>Yet how surpassingly interesting is real life when we get an
+insight into it.&nbsp; Occasionally a great genius lifts up the
+veil of history, and we see men who once really were alive, who
+did not always live only in history; or, amidst the dreary page
+of battles, levies, sieges, and the sleep-inducing weavings and
+unweavings of political combination, we come, ourselves, across
+some spoken or written words of the great actors of the time, and
+are then fascinated by the life and reality of these
+things.&nbsp; Could you have the life of any man really portrayed
+to you, sun-drawn as it were, its hopes, its fears, its
+revolutions of opinion in each day, its most anxious wishes
+attained, and then, perhaps, crystallising into its blackest
+regrets&mdash;such a work would go far to contain all histories,
+and be the greatest lesson of love, humility, and tolerance, that
+men had ever read.</p>
+<p>Now fiction does attempt something like the above.&nbsp; In
+history we are cramped by impertinent facts that must, however,
+be set down; by theories that must be answered; evidence that
+must be weighed; views that must be taken.&nbsp; Our facts
+constantly break off just where we should wish to examine them
+most closely.&nbsp; The writer of fiction follows his characters
+into the recesses of their hearts.&nbsp; There are no closed
+doors for him.&nbsp; His puppets have no secrets from their
+master.&nbsp; He plagues you with no doubts, no half-views, no
+criticism.&nbsp; Thus they thought, he tells you; thus they
+looked, thus they acted.&nbsp; Then, with every opportunity for
+scenic arrangement (for though his characters are confidential
+with him, he is only as confidential with his reader as the
+interest of the story will allow), it is not to be wondered at
+that the majority of readers should look upon history as a task,
+but tales of fiction as a delight.</p>
+<p>The greatest merit of fiction is the one so ably put forward
+by Sir James Mackintosh, namely, that it creates and nourishes
+sympathy.&nbsp; It extends this sympathy, too, in directions
+where, otherwise, we hardly see when it would have come.&nbsp;
+But it may be objected that this sympathy is indiscriminate, and
+that we are in danger of mixing up virtue and vice, and blurring
+both, if we are led to sympathise with all manner of
+wrong-doers.&nbsp; But, in the first place, virtue and vice are
+so mixed in real life, that it is well to be somewhat prepared
+for that fact; and, moreover, the sympathy is not wrongly
+directed.&nbsp; Who has not felt intense sympathy for
+Macbeth?&nbsp; Yet could he be alive again, with evil thoughts
+against &ldquo;the gracious Duncan,&rdquo; and could he see into
+all that has been felt for him, would that be an encouragement to
+murder?&nbsp; The intense pity of wise people for the crimes of
+others, when rightly represented, is one of the strongest
+antidotes against crime.&nbsp; We have taken the extreme case of
+sympathy being directed towards bad men.&nbsp; How often has
+fiction made us sympathise with obscure suffering and retiring
+greatness, with the world-despised, and especially with those
+mixed characters in whom we might otherwise see but one
+colour&mdash;with Shylock and with Hamlet, with Jeanie Deans and
+with Claverhouse, with Sancho Panza as well as with Don
+Quixote.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>On the other hand, there is a danger of too much converse with
+fiction leading us into dream-land, or rather into
+lubber-land.&nbsp; Of course this &ldquo;too much converse&rdquo;
+implies large converse with inferior writers.&nbsp; Such writers
+are too apt to make life as they would have it for
+themselves.&nbsp; Sometimes, also, they must make it to suit
+booksellers&rsquo; rules.&nbsp; Having such power over their
+puppets they abuse it.&nbsp; They can kill these puppets, change
+their natures suddenly, reward or punish them so easily, that it
+is no wonder they are led to play fantastic tricks with
+them.&nbsp; Now, if a sedulous reader of the works of such
+writers should form his notions of real life from them, he would
+occasionally meet with rude shocks when he encountered the
+realities of that life.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>For my own part, notwithstanding all the charms of life in
+swiftly-written novels, I prefer real life.&nbsp; It is true
+that, in the former, everything breaks off round, every little
+event tends to some great thing, everybody one meets is to
+exercise some great influence for good or ill upon one&rsquo;s
+fate.&nbsp; I take it for granted one fancies oneself the
+hero.&nbsp; Then all one&rsquo;s fancy is paid in ready money, or
+at least one can draw upon it at the end of the third
+volume.&nbsp; One leaps to remote wealth and honour by
+hairbreadth chances; and one&rsquo;s uncle in India always dies
+opportunely.&nbsp; To be sure the thought occurs, that if this
+novel life could be turned into real life, one might be the uncle
+in India and not the hero of the tale.&nbsp; But that is a
+trifling matter, for at any rate one should carry on with spirit
+somebody else&rsquo;s story.&nbsp; On the whole, however, as I
+said before, I prefer real life, where nothing is tied up neatly,
+but all in odds and ends; where the doctrine of compensation
+enters largely, where we are often most blamed when we least
+deserve it, where there is no third volume to make things
+straight, and where many an Augustus marries many a Belinda, and,
+instead of being happy ever afterwards, finds that there is a
+growth of trials and troubles for each successive period of
+man&rsquo;s life.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>In considering the subject of fiction, the responsibility of
+the writers thereof is a matter worth pointing out.&nbsp; We see
+clearly enough that historians are to be limited by facts and
+probabilities; but we are apt to make a large allowance for the
+fancies of writers of fiction.&nbsp; We must remember, however,
+that fiction is not falsehood.&nbsp; If a writer puts abstract
+virtues into book-clothing, and sends them upon stilts into the
+world, he is a bad writer: if he classifies men, and attributes
+all virtue to one class and all vice to another, he is a false
+writer.&nbsp; Then, again, if his ideal is so poor, that he
+fancies man&rsquo;s welfare to consist in immediate happiness; if
+he means to paint a great man and paints only a greedy one, he is
+a mischievous writer and not the less so, although by lamplight
+and amongst a juvenile audience, his coarse scene-painting should
+be thought very grand.&nbsp; He may be true to his own fancy, but
+he is false to Nature.&nbsp; A writer, of course, cannot get
+beyond his own ideal: but at least he should see that he works up
+to it: and if it is a poor one, he had better write histories of
+the utmost concentration of dulness, than amuse us with unjust
+and untrue imaginings.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am glad you have kept to the obvious
+things about fiction.&nbsp; It would have been a great nuisance
+to have had to follow you through intricate theories about what
+fiction consists in, and what are its limits, and so on.&nbsp;
+Then we should have got into questions touching the laws of
+representation generally, and then into art, of which, between
+ourselves, you know very little.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Talking of representation, what do you
+two, who have now seen something of the world, think about
+representative government?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Dunsford plumps down upon us sometimes
+with awful questions: what do you think of all philosophy? or
+what is your opinion of life in general?&nbsp; Could not you
+throw in a few small questions of that kind, together with your
+representative one, and we might try to answer them all at
+once.&nbsp; Dunsford is only laughing at us, Milverton.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No, I know what was in
+Dunsford&rsquo;s mind when he asked that question.&nbsp; He has
+had his doubts and misgivings, when he has been reading a six
+nights&rsquo; debate (for the people in the country I daresay do
+read those things), whether representative government is the most
+complete device the human mind could suggest for getting at wise
+rulers.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; It is a doubt which has crossed my
+mind.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; And mine; but the doubt, if it has
+ever been more than mere petulance, has not had much practical
+weight with me.&nbsp; Look how the business of the world is
+managed.&nbsp; There are a few people who think out things, and a
+few who execute.&nbsp; The former are not to be secured by any
+device.&nbsp; They are gifts.&nbsp; The latter may be well
+chosen, have often been well chosen, under other forms of
+government than the representative one.&nbsp; I believe that the
+favourites of kings have been a superior race of men.&nbsp; Even
+a fool does not choose a fool for a favourite.&nbsp; He knows
+better than that: he must have something to lean against.&nbsp;
+But between the thinkers and the doers (if, indeed, we ought to
+make such a distinction), <i>what a number of useful links there
+are in a representative government</i> on account of the much
+larger number of people admitted into some share of
+government.&nbsp; What general cultivation must come from that,
+and what security!&nbsp; Of course, everything has its wrong
+side; and from this number of people let in there comes
+declamation and claptrap and mob-service, which is much the same
+thing as courtiership was in other times.&nbsp; But then, to make
+the comparison a fair one, you must take the wrong side of any
+other form of government that has been devised.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, but so much power centring in the
+lower house of Parliament, and the getting into Parliament being
+a thing which is not very inviting to the kind of people one
+would most like to see there, do you not think that the ablest
+men are kept away?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; but if you make your governing
+body a unit or a ten, or any small number, how is this power,
+unless it is Argus-eyed, and myriad-minded, and right-minded too,
+to choose the right men any better than they are found now?&nbsp;
+The great danger, as it appears to me, of representative
+government is lest it should slide down from representative
+government to delegate government.&nbsp; In my opinion, the
+welfare of England, in great measure, depends upon what takes
+place at the hustings.&nbsp; If, in the majority of instances,
+there were abject conduct there, electors and elected would be
+alike debased; upright public men could not be expected to arise
+from such beginnings; and thoughtful persons would begin to
+consider whether some other form of government could not
+forthwith be made out.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I have a supreme disgust for the man
+who at the hustings has no opinion beyond or above the clamour
+round him.&nbsp; How such a fellow would have kissed the ground
+before a Pompadour, or waited for hours in a Buckingham&rsquo;s
+antechamber, only to catch the faintest beam of reflected light
+from royalty.</p>
+<p>But I declare we have been just like schoolboys talking about
+forms of government and so on.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;For forms of government let fools
+contest,<br />
+That which is <i>worst</i> administered is
+best,&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>that is, representative government.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I should not like either of you to
+fancy, from what I have been saying about representative
+government, that I do not see the dangers and the evils of
+it.&nbsp; In fact, it is a frequent thought with me of what
+importance the House of Lords is at present, and of how much
+greater importance it might be made.&nbsp; If there were Peers
+for life, and official members of the House of Commons, it would,
+I think, meet most of your objections, Dunsford.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I suppose I am becoming a little rusty
+and disposed to grumble, as I grow old; but there is a good deal
+in modern government which seems to me very rude and
+absurd.&nbsp; There comes a clamour, partly reasonable; power is
+deaf to it, overlooks it, says there is no such thing; then great
+clamour; after a time, power welcomes that, takes it to its arms,
+says that now it is loud it is very wise, wishes it had always
+been clamour itself.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; How many acres do you farm,
+Dunsford?&nbsp; How spiteful you are!</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I am not thinking of Corn Laws alone,
+as you fancy, Master Ellesmere.&nbsp; But to go to other
+things.&nbsp; I quite agree, Milverton, with what you were saying
+just now about the business of the world being carried on by few,
+and the thinking few being in the nature of gifts to the world,
+not elicited by King or Kaiser.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The mill-streams that turn the
+clappers of the world arise in solitary places.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Not a bad metaphor, but untrue.&nbsp;
+Aristotle, Bacon&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, I believe it would be much wiser
+to say, that we cannot lay down rules about the highest work;
+either when it is done, where it will be done, or how it can be
+made to be done.&nbsp; It is too immaterial for our measurement;
+for the highest part even of the mere business of the world is in
+dealing with ideas.&nbsp; It is very amusing to observe the
+misconceptions of men on these points.&nbsp; They call for what
+is outward&mdash;can understand that, can praise it.&nbsp;
+Fussiness and the forms of activity in all ages get great
+praise.&nbsp; Imagine an active, bustling little pr&aelig;tor
+under Augustus, how he probably pointed out Horace to his sons as
+a moony kind of man, whose ways were much to be avoided, and told
+them it was a weakness in Augustus to like such idle men about
+him instead of men of business.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Or fancy a bustling Glasgow merchant
+of Adam Smith&rsquo;s day watching him.&nbsp; How little would
+the merchant have dreamt what a number of vessels were to be
+floated away by the ink in the Professor&rsquo;s inkstand; and
+what crashing of axes, and clearing of forests in distant lands,
+the noise of his pen upon the paper portended.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It is not only the effect of the
+still-working man that the busy man cannot anticipate, but
+neither can he comprehend the present labour.&nbsp; If Horace had
+told my pr&aelig;tor that</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Abstinuit Venere et vino, sudavit et
+alsit,&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;What, to write a few lines!&rdquo; would his
+pr&aelig;torship have cried out.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why, I can live
+well and enjoy life; and I flatter myself no one in Rome does
+more business.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; All of it only goes to show how little
+we know of each other, and how tolerant we ought to be of
+others&rsquo; efforts.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The trials that there must be every
+day without any incident that even the most minute household
+chronicler could set down: the labours without show or noise!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; The deep things that there are which,
+with unthinking people, pass for shallow things, merely because
+they are clear as well as deep.&nbsp; My fable of the other day,
+for instance&mdash;which instead of producing any moral effect
+upon you two, only seemed to make you both inclined to
+giggle.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I am so glad you reminded me of
+that.&nbsp; I, too, fired with a noble emulation, have invented a
+fable since we last met which I want you to hear.&nbsp; I assure
+you I did not mean to laugh at yours: it was only that it came
+rather unexpectedly upon me.&nbsp; You are not exactly the person
+from whom one should expect fables.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Now for the fable.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There was a gathering together of
+creatures hurtful and terrible to man, to name their king.&nbsp;
+Blight, mildew, darkness, mighty waves, fierce winds,
+Will-o&rsquo;-the-wisps, and shadows of grim objects, told
+fearfully their doings and preferred their claims, none
+prevailing.&nbsp; But when evening came on, a thin mist curled
+up, derisively, amidst the assemblage, and said, &ldquo;I gather
+round a man going to his own home over paths made by his daily
+footsteps; and he becomes at once helpless and tame as a
+child.&nbsp; The lights meant to assist him, then betray.&nbsp;
+You find him wandering, or need the aid of other Terrors to
+subdue him.&nbsp; I am, alone, confusion to him.&rdquo;&nbsp; And
+all the assemblage bowed before the mist, and made it king, and
+set it on the brow of many a mountain, where, when it is not
+doing evil, it may be often seen to this day.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, I like that fable: only I am not
+quite clear about the meaning.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You had no doubt about mine.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Is the mist calumny, Milverton?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; No, prejudice, I am sure.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Familiarity with the things around us,
+obscuring knowledge?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would rather not explain.&nbsp; Each
+of you make your own fable of it.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, if ever I make a fable, it shall
+be one of the old-fashioned sort, with animals for the speakers,
+and a good easy moral.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Not a thing requiring the notes of
+seven German metaphysicians.&nbsp; I must go and talk a little to
+my friends the trees, and see if I can get any explanation from
+them.&nbsp; It is turning out a beautiful day after all,
+notwithstanding my praise of its solidity.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> met as usual at our old spot on
+the lawn for our next reading.&nbsp; I forget what took place
+before reading, except that Ellesmere was very jocose about our
+reading &ldquo;Fiction&rdquo; in-doors, and the following
+&ldquo;November Essay,&rdquo; as he called it, &ldquo;under a
+jovial sun, and with the power of getting up and walking away
+from each other to any extent.&rdquo;</p>
+<h3>ON THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS.</h3>
+<p>The &ldquo;Iliad&rdquo; for war; the &ldquo;Odyssey&rdquo; for
+wandering; but where is the great domestic epic?&nbsp; Yet it is
+but commonplace to say, that passions may rage round a tea-table,
+which would not have misbecome men dashing at one another in
+war-chariots; and evolutions of patience and temper are performed
+at the fireside, worthy to be compared with the Retreat of the
+Ten Thousand.&nbsp; Men have worshipped some fantastic being for
+living alone in a wilderness; but social martyrdoms place no
+saints upon the calendar.</p>
+<p>We may blind ourselves to it if we like, but the hatreds and
+disgusts that there are behind friendship, relationship, service,
+and, indeed, proximity of all kinds, is one of the darkest spots
+upon earth.&nbsp; The various relations of life, which bring
+people together, cannot, as we know, be perfectly fulfilled
+except in a state where there will, perhaps, be no occasion for
+any of them.&nbsp; It is no harm, however, to endeavour to see
+whether there are any methods which may make these relations in
+the least degree more harmonious now.</p>
+<p>In the first place, if people are to live happily together,
+they must not fancy, because they are thrown together now, that
+all their lives have been exactly similar up to the present time,
+that they started exactly alike, and that they are to be for the
+future of the same mind.&nbsp; A thorough conviction of the
+difference of men is the great thing to be assured of in social
+knowledge: it is to life what Newton&rsquo;s law is to
+astronomy.&nbsp; Sometimes men have a knowledge of it with regard
+to the world in general: they do not expect the outer world to
+agree with them in all points, but are vexed at not being able to
+drive their own tastes and opinions into those they live
+with.&nbsp; Diversities distress them.&nbsp; They will not see
+that there are many forms of virtue and wisdom.&nbsp; Yet we
+might as well say, &ldquo;Why all these stars; why this
+difference; why not all one star?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Many of the rules for people living together in peace follow
+from the above.&nbsp; For instance, not to interfere unreasonably
+with others, not to ridicule their tastes, not to question and
+re-question their resolves, not to indulge in perpetual comment
+on their proceedings, and to delight in their having other
+pursuits than ours, are all based upon a thorough perception of
+the simple fact that they are not we.</p>
+<p>Another rule for living happily with others is to avoid having
+stock subjects of disputation.&nbsp; It mostly happens, when
+people live much together, that they come to have certain set
+topics, around which, from frequent dispute, there is such a
+growth of angry words, mortified vanity, and the like, that the
+original subject of difference becomes a standing subject for
+quarrel; and there is a tendency in all minor disputes to drift
+down to it.</p>
+<p>Again, if people wish to live well together, they must not
+hold too much to logic, and suppose that everything is to be
+settled by sufficient reason.&nbsp; Dr. Johnson saw this clearly
+with regard to married people, when he said, &ldquo;Wretched
+would be the pair above all names of wretchedness, who should be
+doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute detail of
+a domestic day.&rdquo;&nbsp; But the application should be much
+more general than he made it.&nbsp; There is no time for such
+reasonings, and nothing that is worth them.&nbsp; And when we
+recollect how two lawyers, or two politicians, can go on
+contending, and that there is no end of one-sided reasoning on
+any subject, we shall not be sure that such contention is the
+best mode for arriving at truth.&nbsp; But certainly it is not
+the way to arrive at good temper.</p>
+<p>If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary
+criticism upon those with whom you live.&nbsp; The number of
+people who have taken out judges&rsquo; patents for themselves is
+very large in any society.&nbsp; Now it would be hard for a man
+to live with another who was always criticising his actions, even
+if it were kindly and just criticism.&nbsp; It would be like
+living between the glasses of a microscope.&nbsp; But these
+self-elected judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to have
+the persons they judge brought before them in the guise of
+culprits.</p>
+<p>One of the most provoking forms of the criticism above alluded
+to is that which may be called criticism over the shoulder.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Had I been consulted,&rdquo; &ldquo;Had you listened to
+me,&rdquo; &ldquo;But you always will,&rdquo; and such short
+scraps of sentences may remind many of us of dissertations which
+we have suffered and inflicted, and of which we cannot call to
+mind any soothing effect.</p>
+<p>Another rule is, not to let familiarity swallow up all
+courtesy.&nbsp; Many of us have a habit of saying to those with
+whom we live such things as we say about strangers behind their
+backs.&nbsp; There is no place, however, where real politeness is
+of more value than where we mostly think it would be
+superfluous.&nbsp; You may say more truth, or rather speak out
+more plainly, to your associates, but not less courteously than
+you do to strangers.</p>
+<p>Again, we must not expect more from the society of our friends
+and companions than it can give, and especially must not expect
+contrary things.&nbsp; It is something arrogant to talk of
+travelling over other minds (mind being, for what we know,
+infinite); but still we become familiar with the upper views,
+tastes, and tempers of our associates.&nbsp; And it is hardly in
+man to estimate justly what is familiar to him.&nbsp; In
+travelling along at night, as Hazlitt says, we catch a glimpse
+into cheerful-looking rooms with light blazing in them, and we
+conclude involuntarily how happy the inmates must be.&nbsp; Yet
+there is heaven and hell in those rooms&mdash;the same heaven and
+hell that we have known in others.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>There are two great classes of promoters of social
+happiness&mdash;cheerful people, and people who have some
+reticence.&nbsp; The latter are more secure benefits to society
+even than the former.&nbsp; They are non-conductors of all the
+heats and animosities around them.&nbsp; To have peace in a
+house, or a family, or any social circle, the members of it must
+beware of passing on hasty and uncharitable speeches, which, the
+whole of the context seldom being told, is often not conveying
+but creating mischief.&nbsp; They must be very good people to
+avoid doing this; for let Human Nature say what it will, it likes
+sometimes to look on at a quarrel, and that not altogether from
+ill-nature, but from a love of excitement, for the same reason
+that Charles II. liked to attend the debates in the Lords,
+because they were &ldquo;as good as a play.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>We come now to the consideration of temper, which might have
+been expected to be treated first.&nbsp; But to cut off the means
+and causes of bad temper is, perhaps, of as much importance as
+any direct dealing with the temper itself.&nbsp; Besides, it is
+probable that in small social circles there is more suffering
+from unkindness than ill-temper.&nbsp; Anger is a thing that
+those who live under us suffer more from than those who live with
+us.&nbsp; But all the forms of ill-humour and sour-sensitiveness,
+which especially belong to equal intimacy (though indeed, they
+are common to all), are best to be met by impassiveness.&nbsp;
+When two sensitive persons are shut up together, they go on
+vexing each other with a reproductive irritability. <a
+name="citation93"></a><a href="#footnote93"
+class="citation">[93]</a>&nbsp; But sensitive and hard people get
+on well together.&nbsp; The supply of temper is not altogether
+out of the usual laws of supply and demand.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Intimate friends and relations should be careful when they go
+out into the world together, or admit others to their own circle,
+that they do not make a bad use of the knowledge which they have
+gained of each other by their intimacy.&nbsp; Nothing is more
+common than this, and did it not mostly proceed from mere
+carelessness, it would be superlatively ungenerous.&nbsp; You
+seldom need wait for the written life of a man to hear about his
+weaknesses, or what are supposed to be such, if you know his
+intimate friends, or meet him in company with them.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Lastly, in conciliating those we live with, it is most surely
+done, not by consulting their interests, nor by giving way to
+their opinions, so much as by not offending their tastes.&nbsp;
+The most refined part of us lies in this region of taste, which
+is perhaps a result of our whole being rather than a part of our
+nature, and, at any rate, is the region of our most subtle
+sympathies and antipathies.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>It may be said that if the great principles of Christianity
+were attended to, all such rules, suggestions, and observations
+as the above would be needless.&nbsp; True enough!&nbsp; Great
+principles are at the bottom of all things; but to apply them to
+daily life, many little rules, precautions, and insights are
+needed.&nbsp; Such things hold a middle place between real life
+and principles, as form does between matter and spirit, moulding
+the one and expressing the other.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Quite right that last part.&nbsp;
+Everybody must have known really good people, with all Christian
+temper, but having so little Christian prudence as to do a great
+deal of mischief in society.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; There is one case, my dear Milverton,
+which I do not think you have considered: the case where people
+live unhappily together, not from any bad relations between them,
+but because they do not agree about the treatment of
+others.&nbsp; A just person, for instance, who would bear
+anything for himself or herself, must remonstrate, at the hazard
+of any disagreement, at injustice to others.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; That, however, is a case to
+be decided upon higher considerations than those I have been
+treating of.&nbsp; A man must do his duty in the way of
+preventing injustice, and take what comes of it.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; For people to live happily together,
+the real secret is that they should not live too much
+together.&nbsp; Of course, you cannot say that; it would sound
+harsh, and cut short the essay altogether.</p>
+<p>Again, you talk about tastes and &ldquo;region of subtle
+sympathies,&rdquo; and all that.&nbsp; I have observed that if
+people&rsquo;s vanity is pleased, they live well enough
+together.&nbsp; Offended vanity is the great separator.&nbsp; You
+hear a man (call him B) saying that he is really not himself
+before So-and-so; tell him that So-and-so admires him very much
+and is himself rather abashed before B, and B is straightway
+comfortable, and they get on harmoniously together, and you hear
+no more about subtle sympathies or antipathies.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What a low view you do take of things
+sometimes, Ellesmere!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I should not care how low it was, but
+it is not fair&mdash;at least, it does not contain the whole
+matter.&nbsp; In the very case he has put, there was a subtle
+embarrassment between B and So-and-so.&nbsp; Well, now, let these
+people not merely meet occasionally, but be obliged to live
+together, without any such explanation as Ellesmere has imagined,
+and they will be very uncomfortable from causes that you cannot
+impute to vanity.&nbsp; It takes away much of the savour of life
+to live amongst those with whom one has not anything like
+one&rsquo;s fair value.&nbsp; It may not be mortified vanity, but
+unsatisfied sympathy, which causes this discomfort.&nbsp; B
+thinks that the other does not know him; he feels that he has no
+place with the other.&nbsp; When there is intense admiration on
+one side, there is hardly a care in the mind of the admiring one
+as to what estimation he is held in.&nbsp; But, in ordinary
+cases, some clearly defined respect and acknowledgment of worth
+is needed on both sides.&nbsp; See how happy a man is in any
+office or service who is acknowledged to do something well.&nbsp;
+How comfortable he is with his superiors!&nbsp; He has his
+place.&nbsp; It is not exactly a satisfaction of his vanity, but
+an acknowledgment of his useful existence that contents
+him.&nbsp; I do not mean to say that there are not innumerable
+claims for acknowledgment of merit and service made by rampant
+vanity and egotism, which claims cannot be satisfied, ought not
+to be satisfied, and which, being unsatisfied, embitter
+people.&nbsp; But I think your word Vanity will not explain all
+the feelings we have been talking about.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Perhaps not.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Certainly not.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, at any rate, you will admit that
+there is a class of dreadfully humble people who make immense
+claims at the very time that they are explaining that they have
+no claims.&nbsp; They say they know they cannot be esteemed; they
+are well aware that they are not wanted, and so on, all the while
+making it a sort of grievance and a claim that they are not what
+they know themselves not to be; whereas, if they did but fall
+back upon their humility, and keep themselves quiet about their
+demerits, they would be strong then, and in their place and
+happy, doing what they could.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It must be confessed that these people
+do make their humility somewhat obnoxious.&nbsp; Yet, after all,
+you allow that they know their deficiencies, and they only say,
+&ldquo;I know I have not much to recommend me, but I wish to be
+loved, nevertheless.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Ah, if they only said it a few
+times!&nbsp; Besides, there is a little envy mixed up with the
+humility that I mean.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Travelling is a great trial of
+people&rsquo;s ability to live together.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; Lavater says that you do
+not know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him;
+but I think a long journey with him will do.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, and what is it in travelling
+that makes people disagree?&nbsp; Not direct selfishness, but
+injudicious management; stupid regrets, for instance, at things
+not being different from what they are, or from what they might
+have been, if &ldquo;the other route&rdquo; had been chosen;
+fellow-travellers punishing each other with each other&rsquo;s
+tastes; getting stock subjects of disputation; laughing
+unseasonably at each other&rsquo;s vexations and discomforts; and
+endeavouring to settle everything by the force of sufficient
+reason, instead of by some authorised will, or by tossing
+up.&nbsp; Thus, in the short time of a journey, almost all modes
+and causes of human disagreement are brought into action.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; My favourite one not being the
+least&mdash;over-much of each other&rsquo;s company.</p>
+<p>For my part, I think one of the greatest bores of
+companionship is, not merely that people wish to fit tastes and
+notions on you just as they might the first pair of ready-made
+shoes they meet with, a process amusing enough to the bystander,
+but exquisitely uncomfortable to the person being ready-shod: but
+that they bore you with never-ending talk about their pursuits,
+even when they know that you do not work in the same groove with
+them, and that they cannot hope to make you do so.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Nobody can accuse you of that fault,
+Ellesmere: I never heard you dilate much upon anything that
+interested you, though I have known you have some pet subject,
+and to be working at it for months.&nbsp; But this comes of your
+coldness of nature.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, it might bear a more favourable
+construction.&nbsp; But to go back to the essay.&nbsp; It only
+contemplates the fact of people living together as equals, if we
+may so say; but in general, of course, you must add some other
+relationship or connection than that of merely being
+together.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I had not overlooked that; but there
+are certain general rules in the matter that may be applied to
+nearly all relationship, just as I have taken that one from
+Johnson, applied by him to married life, about not endeavouring
+to settle all things by reasoning, and have given it a general
+application which, I believe, it will bear.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; There is one thing that I should think
+must often make women very unreasonable and unpleasant
+companions.&nbsp; Oh, you may both hold up your hands and eyes,
+but I am not married, and can say what I please.&nbsp; Of course
+you put on the proper official look of astonishment; and I will
+duly report it.&nbsp; But I was going to say that Chivalry, which
+has doubtless done a great deal of good, has also done a great
+deal of harm.&nbsp; Women may talk the greatest unreason out of
+doors, and nobody kindly informs them that it is unreason.&nbsp;
+They do not talk much before clever men, and when they do, their
+words are humoured and dandled as children&rsquo;s sayings
+are.&nbsp; Now, I should fancy&mdash;mind, I do not want either
+of you to say that my fancy is otherwise than quite
+unreasonable&mdash;I should fancy that when women have to hear
+reason at home it must sound odd to them.&nbsp; The truth is, you
+know, we cannot pet anything much without doing it
+mischief.&nbsp; You cannot pet the intellect, any more than the
+will, without injuring it.&nbsp; Well then, again, if you put
+people upon a pedestal and do a great deal of worship around
+them, I cannot think but the will in such cases must become
+rather corrupted, and that lessons of obedience must fall rather
+harshly&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Why, you Mahometan, you Turk of a
+lawyer&mdash;would you do away with all the high things of
+courtesy, tenderness for the weaker, and&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No, I see what he means; and there is
+something in it.&nbsp; Many a woman is brought up in unreason and
+self-will from these causes that he has given, as many a man from
+other causes; but there is one great corrective that he has
+omitted, and which is, that all forms, fashions, and outward
+things have a tendency to go down before realities when they come
+hand to hand together.&nbsp; Knowledge and judgment
+prevail.&nbsp; Governing is apt to fall to the right person in
+private as in public affairs.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Those who give way in public affairs,
+and let the men who can do a thing do it, are so far wise that
+they know what is to be done, mostly.&nbsp; But the very things I
+am arguing against are the unreason and self-will, which being
+constantly pampered, do not appreciate reason or just sway.&nbsp;
+Besides, is there not a force in ill-humour and unreason to which
+you constantly see the wisest bend?&nbsp; You will come round to
+my opinion some day.&nbsp; I do not want, though, to convince
+you.&nbsp; It is no business of mine.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, I may be wrong, but I think,
+when we come to consider education, I can show you how the
+dangers you fear may be greatly obviated, without Chivalry being
+obliged to put on a wig and gown, and be wise.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Meanwhile, let us enjoy the delightful
+atmosphere of courtesy, unreasonable sometimes, if you like,
+which saves many people being put down with the best arguments in
+the most convincing manner, or being weighed, estimated, and
+given way to, so as not to spoil them.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Do not tell, either of you, what I
+have been saying.&nbsp; I shall always be poked up into some
+garret when I come to see you, if you do.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I think the most curious thing, as
+regards people living together, is the intense ignorance they
+sometimes are in of each other.&nbsp; Many years ago, one or
+other of you said something of this kind to me, and I have often
+thought of it since.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; People fulfil a relation towards each
+other, and they only know each other in that relation, especially
+if it is badly managed by the superior one; but any way the
+relationship involves some ignorance.&nbsp; They perform orbits
+round each other, each gyrating, too, upon his own axis, and
+there are parts of the character of each which are never brought
+into view of the other.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I should carry this notion of yours,
+Milverton, farther than you do.&nbsp; There is a peculiar mental
+relation soon constituted between associates of any kind, which
+confines and prevents complete knowledge on both sides.&nbsp;
+Each man, in some measure therefore, knows others only through
+himself.&nbsp; Tennyson makes Ulysses say,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;I am a part of all that I have
+seen;&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>it might have run,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;I am a part of all that I have
+heard.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Ellesmere becoming metaphysical and
+transcendental!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, well, we will leave these
+heights, and descend in little drops of criticism.&nbsp; There
+are two or three things you might have pointed out,
+Milverton.&nbsp; Perhaps you would say that they are included in
+what you have said, but I think not.&nbsp; You talk of the
+mischief of much comment on each other amongst those who live
+together.&nbsp; You might have shown, I think, that in the case
+of near friends and relations this comment also deepens into
+interference&mdash;at least it partakes of that nature.&nbsp;
+Friends and relations should, therefore, be especially careful to
+avoid needless comments on each other.&nbsp; They do just the
+contrary.&nbsp; That is one of the reasons why they often hate
+one another so much.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Ellesmere!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Protest, if you like, my dear
+Dunsford.</p>
+<blockquote><p>Dissentient,</p>
+<p>1.&nbsp; Because I wish it were not so.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; Because I am sorry that it is.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">(Signed) <span
+class="smcap">Dunsford</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hate&rdquo; is too strong a
+word, Ellesmere; what you say would be true enough, if you would
+put &ldquo;are not in sympathy with.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; &ldquo;Have a quiet distaste
+for.&rdquo;&nbsp; That is the proper medium.&nbsp; Now, to go to
+another matter.&nbsp; You have not put the case of over-managing
+people, who are tremendous to live with.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I have spoken about &ldquo;interfering
+unreasonably with others.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; That does not quite convey what I
+mean.&nbsp; It is when the manager and the managee are both of
+the same mind as to the thing to be done; but the former insists,
+and instructs, and suggests, and foresees, till the other feels
+that all free agency for him is gone.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It is a sad thing to consider how much
+of their abilities people turn to tiresomeness.&nbsp; You see a
+man who would be very agreeable if he were not so observant:
+another who would be charming, if he were deaf and dumb: a third
+delightful, if he did not vex all around him with superfluous
+criticism.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; A hit at me that last, I
+suspect.&nbsp; But I shall go on.&nbsp; You have not, I think,
+made enough merit of independence in companionship.&nbsp; If I
+were to put into an aphorism what I mean, I should say, Those who
+depend wholly on companionship are the worst companions; or thus:
+Those deserve companionship who can do without it.&nbsp; There,
+Mr. Aphoriser General, what do you say to that?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Very good, but&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Of course a &ldquo;but&rdquo; to other
+people&rsquo;s aphorisms, as if every aphorism had not buts
+innumerable.&nbsp; We critics, you know, cannot abide
+criticism.&nbsp; We do all the criticism that is needed
+ourselves.&nbsp; I wonder at the presumption sometimes of you
+wretched authors.&nbsp; But to proceed.&nbsp; You have not said
+anything about the mischief of superfluous condolence amongst
+people who live together.&nbsp; I flatter myself that I could
+condole anybody out of all peace of mind.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; All depends upon whether condolence
+goes with the grain, or against the grain, of vanity.&nbsp; I
+know what you mean, however: For instance, it is a very absurd
+thing to fret much over other people&rsquo;s courses, not
+considering the knowledge and discipline that there is in any
+course that a man may take.&nbsp; And it is still more absurd to
+be constantly showing the people fretted over that you are
+fretting over them.&nbsp; I think a good deal of what you call
+superfluous condolence would come under the head of superfluous
+criticism.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Not altogether.&nbsp; In
+companionship, when an evil happens to one of the circle, the
+others should simply attempt to share and lighten it, not to
+expound it, or dilate on it, or make it the least darker.&nbsp;
+The person afflicted generally apprehends all the blackness
+sufficiently.&nbsp; Now, unjust abuse by the world is to me like
+the howling of the wind at night when one is warm within.&nbsp;
+Bring any draught of it into one&rsquo;s house though, and it is
+not so pleasant.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Talking of companionship, do not you
+think there is often a peculiar feeling of home where age or
+infirmity is?&nbsp; The arm-chair of the sick or the old is the
+centre of the house.&nbsp; They think, perhaps, that they are
+unimportant; but all the household hopes and cares flow to them
+and from them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I quite agree with you.&nbsp; What you
+have just depicted is a beautiful sight, especially when, as you
+often see, the age or infirmity is not in the least selfish or
+exacting.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; We have said a great deal about the
+companionship of human beings; but, upon my word, we ought to
+have kept a few words for our dog friends.&nbsp; Rollo has been
+lolling out his great tongue, and looking wistfully from face to
+face, as we each began our talk.&nbsp; A few minutes ago he was
+quite concerned, thinking I was angry with you, when I would not
+let you &ldquo;but&rdquo; my aphorism.&nbsp; I am not sure which
+of the three I should rather go out walking with now: Dunsford,
+Rollo, Milverton.&nbsp; The middle one is the safest
+companion.&nbsp; I am sure not to get out of humour with
+him.&nbsp; But I have no objection to try the whole three: only I
+vote for much continuity of silence, as we have had floods of
+discussion to-day.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Agreed!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Come, Rollo, you may bark now, as you
+have been silent, like a wise dog, all the morning.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was arranged, during our walk,
+that Ellesmere should come and stay a day or two with me, and see
+the neighbouring cathedral, which is nearer my house than
+Milverton&rsquo;s.&nbsp; The visit over, I brought him back to
+Worth-Ashton.&nbsp; Milverton saw us coming, walked down the hill
+to meet us, and after the usual greetings, began to talk to
+Ellesmere.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; So you have been to see our
+cathedral.&nbsp; I say &ldquo;our,&rdquo; for when a cathedral is
+within ten miles of us, we feel a property in it, and are ready
+to battle for its architectural merits.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You know I am not a man to rave about
+cathedrals.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I certainly do not expect you to do
+so.&nbsp; To me a cathedral is mostly somewhat of a sad
+sight.&nbsp; You have Grecian monuments, if anything so misplaced
+can be called Grecian, imbedded against and cutting into Gothic
+pillars; the doors shut for the greater part of the day; only a
+little bit of the building used: beadledom predominant; the clink
+of money here and there; white-wash in vigour; the singing
+indifferent; the sermons not indifferent but bad; and some
+visitors from London forming, perhaps, the most important part of
+the audience; in fact, the thing having become a show.&nbsp; We
+look about, thinking when piety filled every corner, and feel
+that the cathedral is too big for the Religion which is a
+dried-up thing that rattles in this empty space.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; This is the boldest simile I have
+heard for a long time.&nbsp; My theory about cathedrals is very
+different, I must confess.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Theory!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, &ldquo;theory&rdquo; is not the
+word I ought to have used&mdash;feeling then.&nbsp; My feeling
+is, how strong this creature was, this worship, how beautiful,
+how alluring, how complete; but there was something
+stronger&mdash;truth.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; And more beautiful?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, and far more beautiful.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Doubtless, to the free spirits who
+brought truth forward.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You are only saying this, Milverton,
+to try what I will say; but, despite of all sentimentalities, you
+sympathise with any emancipation of the human mind, as I do,
+however much the meagreness of Protestantism may be at times
+distasteful to you.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I did not say I was anxious to go
+back.&nbsp; Certainly not.&nbsp; But what says Dunsford?&nbsp;
+Let us sit down on his stile and hear what he has to say.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I cannot talk to you about this
+subject.&nbsp; If I tell you of all the merits (as they seem to
+me) of the Church of England, you will both pick what I say to
+pieces, whereas if I leave you to fight on, one or the other will
+avail himself of those arguments on which our Church is
+based.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, Dunsford, you are very candid,
+and would make a complete diplomatist: truth-telling being now
+pronounced (rather late in the day) the very acme of
+diplomacy.&nbsp; But do you not own that our cathedrals are sadly
+misused?</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Now, very likely, if more were made of
+them, you, and men who think like you, would begin to cry out
+&ldquo;superstition&rdquo;; and would instantly turn round and
+inveigh against the uses which you now, perhaps, imagine for
+cathedrals.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, one never can answer for
+oneself; but at any rate, I do not see what is the meaning of
+building new churches in neighbourhoods where there are already
+the noblest buildings suitable for the same purposes.&nbsp; Is
+there a church religion, and is there a cathedral religion?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You cannot make the present fill the
+garb of the past, Milverton, any more than you could make the
+past fill that of the present.&nbsp; Now, as regards the very
+thing you are about to discuss to-day, if it be the same you told
+us in our last walk&mdash;Education: if you are only going to
+give us some institution for it, I daresay it may be very good
+for to-day, or for this generation, but it will have its sere and
+yellow leaf, and there will be a time when future Milvertons, in
+sentimental mood, will moan over it, and wish they had it and all
+that has grown up to take its place at the same time.&nbsp; But
+all this is what I have often heard you say yourself in other
+words.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; This is very hard doctrine, and not
+quite sound, I think.&nbsp; In getting the new gain, we always
+sacrifice something, and we should look with some pious regard to
+what was good in the things which are past.&nbsp; That good is
+generally one which, though it may not be equal to the present,
+would make a most valuable supplement to it.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would try and work in the old good
+thing with the new, not as patchwork though, but making the new
+thing grow out in such a way as to embrace the old advantage.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, we must have the essay before we
+branch out into our philosophy.&nbsp; Pleasure afterwards&mdash;I
+will not say what comes first.</p>
+<h3>EDUCATION.</h3>
+<p>The word education is so large, that one may almost as well
+put &ldquo;world,&rdquo; or &ldquo;the end and object of
+being,&rdquo; at the head of an essay.&nbsp; It should,
+therefore, soon be declared what such a heading does mean.&nbsp;
+The word education suggests chiefly to some minds what the State
+can do for those whom they consider its young people&mdash;the
+children of the poorer classes: to others it presents the idea of
+all the training that can be got for money at schools and
+colleges, and which can be fairly accomplished and shut in at the
+age of one-and-twenty.&nbsp; This essay, however, will not be a
+treatise on government education, or other school and college
+education, but will only contain a few points in reference to the
+general subject, which may escape more methodical and enlarged
+discussions.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>In the first place, as regards government education, it must
+be kept in mind that there is a danger of its being too
+interfering and formal, of its overlying private enterprise,
+insisting upon too much uniformity, and injuring local
+connections and regards.&nbsp; Education, even in the poorest
+acceptance of the word, is a great thing: but the harmonious
+intercourse of different ranks, if not a greater, is a more
+difficult one; and we must not gain the former at any
+considerable sacrifice of the latter.</p>
+<p>There is another point connected with this branch of the
+subject which requires, perhaps, to be noted.&nbsp; If government
+provision is made in any case, might it not be combined with
+private payment in other cases, or enter in the way of rewards,
+so as to do good throughout each step of the social ladder?&nbsp;
+The lowest kind of school education is a power, and it is
+desirable that the gradations of this power should correspond to
+other influences which we know to be good.&nbsp; For instance, a
+hard-working man saves something to educate his children; if he
+can get a little better education for them than other parents of
+his own rank for theirs, it is an incentive and a reward to him,
+and the child&rsquo;s bringing up at home is a thing which will
+correspond to this better education at school.&nbsp; In this
+there are the elements at once of stability and progress.</p>
+<p>These views may possibly seem too refined, but at any rate
+they require consideration.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>The next branch of the subject is the ordinary education of
+young persons not of the poorest classes, with which the State
+has hitherto had little or nothing to do.&nbsp; This may be
+considered under four heads: religious, moral, intellectual, and
+physical education.&nbsp; With regard to the first, there is not
+much that can be put into rules about it.&nbsp; Parents and
+tutors will naturally be anxious to impress those under their
+charge with the religious opinions which they themselves
+hold.&nbsp; In doing this, however, they should not omit to lay a
+foundation for charity towards people of other religious
+opinions.&nbsp; For this purpose, it may be requisite to give a
+child a notion that there are other creeds besides that in which
+it is brought up itself.&nbsp; And especially, let it not suppose
+that all good and wise people are of its church or chapel.&nbsp;
+However desirable it may appear to the person teaching that there
+should be such a thing as unity of religion, yet as the facts of
+the world are against his wishes, and as this is the world which
+the child is to enter, it is well that the child should in
+reasonable time be informed of these facts.&nbsp; It may be said
+in reply that history sufficiently informs children on these
+points.&nbsp; But the world of the young is the domestic circle;
+all beyond is fabulous, unless brought home to them by
+comment.&nbsp; The fact, therefore, of different opinions in
+religious matters being held by good people should sometimes be
+dwelt upon, instead of being shunned, if we would secure a
+ground-work of tolerance in a child&rsquo;s mind.</p>
+<h3>INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.</h3>
+<p>In the intellectual part of education there is the absolute
+knowledge to be acquired, and the ways of acquiring knowledge to
+be gained.&nbsp; The latter of course form the most important
+branch.&nbsp; They can, in some measure, be taught.&nbsp; Give
+children little to do, make much of its being accurately
+done.&nbsp; This will give accuracy.&nbsp; Insist upon speed in
+learning, with careful reference to the original powers of the
+pupil.&nbsp; This speed gives the habit of concentrating
+attention, one of the most valuable of mental habits.&nbsp; Then
+cultivate logic.&nbsp; Logic is not the hard matter that is
+fancied.&nbsp; A young person, especially after a little
+geometrical training, may soon be taught to perceive where a
+fallacy exists, and whether an argument is well sustained.&nbsp;
+It is not, however, sufficient for him to be able to examine
+sharply and to pull to pieces.&nbsp; He must learn how to
+build.&nbsp; This is done by method.&nbsp; The higher branches of
+method cannot be taught at first.&nbsp; But you may begin by
+teaching orderliness of mind.&nbsp; Collecting, classifying,
+contrasting and weighing facts, are some of the processes by
+which method is taught.&nbsp; When these four things, accuracy,
+attention, logic, and method are attained, the intellect is
+fairly furnished with its instruments.</p>
+<p>As regards the things to be taught, they will vary to some
+extent in each age.&nbsp; The general course of education pursued
+at any particular time may not be the wisest by any means, and
+greatness will overleap it and neglect it, but the mass of men
+may go more safely and comfortably, if not with the stream, at
+least by the side of it.</p>
+<p>In the choice of studies too much deference should not be paid
+to the bent of a young person&rsquo;s mind.&nbsp; Excellence in
+one or two things which may have taken the fancy of a youth (or
+which really may suit his genius) will ill compensate for a
+complete ignorance of those branches of study which are very
+repugnant to him; and which are, therefore, not likely to be
+learnt when he has freedom in the choice of his studies.</p>
+<p>Amongst the first things to be aimed at in the intellectual
+part of education is variety of pursuit.&nbsp; A human being,
+like a tree, if it is to attain to perfect symmetry, must have
+light and air given to it from all quarters.&nbsp; This may be
+done without making men superficial.&nbsp; Scientific method may
+be acquired without many sciences being learnt.&nbsp; But one or
+two great branches of science must be accurately known.&nbsp; So,
+too, the choice works of antiquity may be thoroughly appreciated
+without extensive reacting.&nbsp; And passing on from mere
+learning of any kind, a variety of pursuits, even in what may be
+called accomplishments, is eminently serviceable.&nbsp; Much may
+be said of the advantage of keeping a man to a few pursuits, and
+of the great things done thereby in the making of pins and
+needles.&nbsp; But in this matter we are not thinking of the
+things that are to be done, but of the persons who are to do
+them.&nbsp; Not wealth but men.&nbsp; A number of one-sided men
+may make a great nation, though I much incline to doubt that; but
+such a nation will not contain a number of great men.</p>
+<p>The very advantage that flows from division of labour, and the
+probable consequences that men&rsquo;s future bread-getting
+pursuits will be more and more sub-divided, and therefore
+limited, make it the more necessary that a man should begin life
+with a broad basis of interest in many things which may cultivate
+his faculties and develop his nature.&nbsp; This multifariousness
+of pursuit is needed also in the education of the poor.&nbsp;
+Civilisation has made it easy for a man to brutalise himself: how
+is this to be counteracted but by endowing him with many pursuits
+which may distract him from vice?&nbsp; It is not that kind of
+education which leads to no employment in after-life that will do
+battle with vice.&nbsp; But when education enlarges the field of
+life-long good pursuits, it becomes formidable to the
+soul&rsquo;s worst enemies.</p>
+<h3>MORAL EDUCATION.</h3>
+<p>In considering moral education we must recollect that there
+are three agents in this matter&mdash;the child himself, the
+influence of his grown-up friends, and that of his
+contemporaries.&nbsp; All that his grown-up friends tell him in
+the way of experience goes for very little, except in palpable
+matters.&nbsp; They talk of abstractions which he cannot
+comprehend: and the &ldquo;Arabian Nights&rdquo; is a truer world
+to him than that they talk of.&nbsp; Still, though they cannot
+furnish experience, they can give motives.&nbsp; Indeed, in their
+daily intercourse with the child, they are always doing so.&nbsp;
+For instance, truth, courage, and kindness are the great moral
+qualities to be instilled.&nbsp; Take courage, in its highest
+form&mdash;moral courage.&nbsp; If a child perpetually hears such
+phrases (and especially if they are applied to his own conduct),
+as, &ldquo;What people will say,&rdquo; &ldquo;How they will look
+at you,&rdquo; &ldquo;What they will think,&rdquo; and the like,
+it tends to destroy all just self-reliance in that child&rsquo;s
+mind, and to set up instead an exaggerated notion of public
+opinion, the greatest tyrant of these times.&nbsp; People can see
+this in such an obvious thing as animal courage.&nbsp; They will
+avoid over-cautioning children against physical dangers, knowing
+that the danger they talk much about will become a bug-bear to
+the child which it may never get rid of.&nbsp; But a similar
+peril lurks in the application of moral motives.&nbsp; Truth,
+courage, and kindness are likely to be learnt, or not, by
+children, according as they hear and receive encouragement in the
+direction of these pre-eminent qualities.&nbsp; When attempt is
+made to frighten a child with these worldly maxims, &ldquo;What
+will be said of you?&rdquo; &ldquo;Are you like such a
+one?&rdquo; and such things, it is meant to draw him under the
+rule of grown-up respectability.&nbsp; The last thing thought of
+by the parent or teacher is, that such maxims will bring the
+child under the especial guidance of the most unscrupulous of his
+contemporaries.&nbsp; They will use ridicule and appeal to their
+little world, which will be his world, and ask, &ldquo;What will
+be said&rdquo; of him.&nbsp; There should be some stuff in him of
+his own to meet these awful generalities.</p>
+<h3>PHYSICAL EDUCATION.</h3>
+<p>The physical education of children is a very simple matter,
+too simple to be much attended to without great perseverance and
+resolution on the part of those who care for the children.&nbsp;
+It consists, as we all know, in good air, simple diet, sufficient
+exercise, and judicious clothing.&nbsp; The first requisite is
+the most important, and by far the most frequently
+neglected.&nbsp; This neglect is not so unreasonable as it
+seems.&nbsp; It arises from pure ignorance.&nbsp; If the mass of
+mankind knew what scientific men know about the functions of the
+air, they would be as careful in getting a good supply of it as
+of their other food.&nbsp; All the people that ever were supposed
+to die of poison in the middle ages, and that means nearly
+everybody whose death was worth speculating about, are not so
+many as those who die poisoned by bad air in the course of any
+given year.&nbsp; Even a slightly noxious thing, which is
+constant, affecting us every moment of the day, must have
+considerable influence; but the air we breathe is not a thing
+that slightly affects us, but one of the most important elements
+of life.&nbsp; Moreover, children are the most affected by
+impurity of air.&nbsp; We need not weary ourselves with much
+statistics to ascertain this.&nbsp; One or two broad facts will
+assure us of it.&nbsp; In Nottingham there is a district called
+Byron Ward, &ldquo;the densest and worst-conditioned quarter of
+the town.&rdquo;&nbsp; A table has been made by Mr. William
+Hawksley of the mortality of equal populations in different parts
+of the town:</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;On comparing the diagram No. 1, relating to
+Park Ward, with the diagram No. 7, relating to Byron Ward, it
+will be seen that the heavier pressure of the causes of mortality
+occasions in the latter district such an undue destruction of
+early life, that towards 100 deaths, however occurring, Byron
+Ward contributes fifty per cent. more of children under five
+years of age than the Park Ward, for the former sends sixty
+children to an early grave, while the latter sends only
+forty.&rdquo; <a name="citation116a"></a><a href="#footnote116a"
+class="citation">[116a]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Mr. Hawksley, the former witness alluded to, goes on to
+say&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;It has been long known that, with increase
+of years, up to that period of life which has been denominated
+the second childhood, the human constitution becomes gradually
+more resistful, and as it were slowly hardened against the
+repeated attacks of those more acute disorders, incident to an
+inferior degree of sanitary civilisation, by which large portions
+of an infant population are continually overcome and rapidly
+swept away.&nbsp; From the operation of these and more extraneous
+influences of a disturbing character, an infant population is
+almost entirely exempted; and on this account it is considered
+that an infant population constitutes, as it were, a delicate
+barometer, from which we may derive more early and more certain
+indications of the presence and comparative force of local causes
+of mortality and disease than can be obtained from the more
+general methods of investigation usually pursued.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The above evidence is confirmed by Mr. Toynbee:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The disease of hydrocephalus, of water in
+the brain, so fatal to children, I find associated with symptoms
+of scrofula, and arising in abundance in these close rooms.&nbsp;
+I believe water in the brain, in the class of patients whom I
+visit, to be almost wholly a scrofulous affection.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+<a name="citation116b"></a><a href="#footnote116b"
+class="citation">[116b]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But supposing people aware of the necessity for good air, and
+therefore for ventilation, what is to be done?&nbsp; In houses in
+great towns certainly, and I should say in all houses, some of
+the care and expense that are devoted to ornamental work, which
+when done is often a care, a trouble, an eyesore, and a mischief,
+should be given to modes of ventilation, <a
+name="citation117a"></a><a href="#footnote117a"
+class="citation">[117a]</a> sound building, abundant access of
+light, largeness of sleeping-rooms, and such useful things.&nbsp;
+Less ormolu and tinsel of all kinds in the drawing-rooms, and
+sweeter air in the regions above.&nbsp; Similar things may be
+done for and by the poor. <a name="citation117b"></a><a
+href="#footnote117b" class="citation">[117b]</a>&nbsp; And it
+need hardly be said that those people who care for their
+children, if of any enlightenment at all, will care greatly for
+the sanitary condition of their neighbourhood generally.&nbsp; At
+present you will find at many a rich man&rsquo;s door <a
+name="citation117c"></a><a href="#footnote117c"
+class="citation">[117c]</a> a nuisance which is poisoning the
+atmosphere that his children are to breathe, but which he could
+entirely cure for less than one day&rsquo;s ordinary
+expenses.</p>
+<p>I am afraid that ventilation is very little attended to in
+school-rooms, either for rich or poor.&nbsp; Now it may be
+deliberately said that there is very little learned in any
+school-room that can compensate for the mischief of its being
+learned in the midst of impure air.&nbsp; This is a thing which
+parents must look to, for the grown-up people in the
+school-rooms, though suffering grievously themselves from
+insufficient ventilation, will be unobservant of it. <a
+name="citation118"></a><a href="#footnote118"
+class="citation">[118]</a>&nbsp; In every system of government
+inspection, ventilation must occupy a prominent part.</p>
+<p>The advantage of simple food for children is a thing that
+people have found out.&nbsp; And as regards exercise, children
+happily make great efforts to provide a sufficiency of this for
+themselves.&nbsp; In clothing, the folly and conformity of
+grown-up people enter again.&nbsp; Loving mothers, in various
+parts of the world, carry about at present, I believe, and
+certainly in times past, carried their little children strapped
+to a board, with nearly as little power of motion as the board
+itself.&nbsp; Could we get the returns of stunted miserable
+beings, or of deaths, from this cause, they would be something
+portentous.&nbsp; Less in degree, but not less fatally absurd in
+principle, are many of the strappings, bandages, and incipient
+stays for children amongst us.&nbsp; They are all
+mischievous.&nbsp; Allow children, at any rate, some freedom of
+limbs, some opportunity of being graceful and healthy.&nbsp; Give
+Nature&mdash;dear motherly, much-abused Nature&mdash;some chance
+of forming these little ones according to the beneficent
+intentions of Providence, and not according to the angular
+designs of ill-educated men and women.</p>
+<p>I do not say that attention to the above matters of good air,
+judicious clothing, and freedom from bandages, will absolutely
+secure health, because these very things may have been so ill
+attended to in the parents or in the parental stock as to have
+introduced special maladies; but at least they are the most
+important objects to be minded now; and, perhaps, the more to be
+minded in the children of those who have suffered most from
+neglect in these particulars.</p>
+<p>When we are considering the health of children, it is
+imperative not to omit the importance of keeping their brains
+fallow, as it were, for several of the first years of their
+existence.&nbsp; The mischief perpetrated by a contrary course in
+the shape of bad health, peevish temper, and developed vanity, is
+incalculable.&nbsp; It would not be just to attribute this
+altogether to the vanity of parents; they are influenced by a
+natural fear lest their children should not have all the
+advantages of other children.&nbsp; Some infant prodigy which is
+a standard of mischief throughout its neighbourhood misleads
+them.&nbsp; But parents may be assured that this early work is
+not by any means all gain, even in the way of work.&nbsp; I
+suspect it is a loss; and that children who begin their education
+late, as it would be called, will rapidly overtake those who have
+been in harness long before them.&nbsp; And what advantage can it
+be that the child knows more at six years old than its compeers,
+especially if this is to be gained by a sacrifice of health which
+may never be regained?&nbsp; There may be some excuse for this
+early book-work in the case of those children who are to live by
+manual labour.&nbsp; It is worth while, perhaps, to run the risk
+of some physical injury to them, having only their early years in
+which we can teach them book-knowledge.&nbsp; The chance of
+mischief, too, will be less, being more likely to be counteracted
+by their after-life.&nbsp; But for a child who has to be at
+book-work for the first twenty-one years of its life, what folly
+it is to exhaust in the least the mental energy, which, after
+all, is its surest implement.</p>
+<p>A similar course of argument applies to taking children early
+to church, and to over-developing their minds in any way.&nbsp;
+There is no knowing, moreover, the disgust and weariness that may
+grow up in the minds of young persons from their attention being
+prematurely claimed.&nbsp; We are now, however, looking at early
+study as a matter of health; and we may certainly put it down in
+the same class with impure air, stimulating diet, unnecessary
+bandages, and other manifest physical disadvantages.&nbsp;
+Civilised life, as it advances, does not seem to have so much
+repose in it, that we need begin early in exciting the mind, for
+fear of the man being too lethargical hereafter.</p>
+<h3>EDUCATION OF WOMEN.</h3>
+<p>It seems needful that something should be said specially about
+the education of women.&nbsp; As regards their intellects they
+have been unkindly treated&mdash;too much flattered, too little
+respected.&nbsp; They are shut up in a world of
+conventionalities, and naturally believe that to be the only
+world.&nbsp; The theory of their education seems to be, that they
+should not be made companions to men, and some would say, they
+certainly are not.&nbsp; These critics, however, in the high
+imaginations they justly form of what women&rsquo;s society might
+be to men, forget, perhaps, how excellent a thing it is
+already.&nbsp; Still the criticism is not by any means wholly
+unjust.&nbsp; It appears rather as if there had been a falling
+off since the olden times in the education of women.&nbsp; A
+writer of modern days, arguing on the other side, has said, that
+though we may talk of the Latin and Greek of Lady Jane Grey and
+Queen Elizabeth, yet we are to consider that that was the only
+learning of the time, and that many a modern lady may be far
+better instructed, although she knew nothing of Latin and
+Greek.&nbsp; Certain it is, she may know more facts, have read
+more books: but this does not assure us that she may not be less
+conversable, less companionable.&nbsp; Wherein does the
+cultivated and thoughtful man differ from the common man?&nbsp;
+In the method of his discourse.&nbsp; His questions upon a
+subject in which he is ignorant are full of interest.&nbsp; His
+talk has a groundwork of reason.&nbsp; This rationality must not
+be supposed to be dulness.&nbsp; Folly is dull.&nbsp; Now, would
+women be less charming if they had more power, or at least more
+appreciation, of reasoning?&nbsp; Their flatterers tell them that
+their intuition is such that they need not man&rsquo;s slow
+processes of thought.&nbsp; One would be very sorry to have a
+grave question of law that concerned oneself decided upon by
+intuitive judges, or a question of fact by intuitive
+jurymen.&nbsp; And so of all human things that have to be
+canvassed, it is better, and more amusing too, that they should
+be discussed according to reason.&nbsp; Moreover, the exercise of
+the reasoning faculties gives much of the pleasure which there is
+in solid acquirements; so that the obvious facts in life and
+history will hardly be acquired by those who are not in the habit
+of reasoning upon them.&nbsp; Hence it comes, that women have
+less interest in great topics, and less knowledge of them, than
+they might have.</p>
+<p>Again, if either sex requires logical education, it is
+theirs.&nbsp; The sharp practice of the world drives some logic
+into the most vague of men; women are not so schooled.</p>
+<p>But, supposing the deficiency we have been considering to be
+admitted, how is it to be remedied?&nbsp; Women&rsquo;s education
+must be made such as to ensure some accuracy and reasoning.&nbsp;
+This may be done with any subject of education, and is done with
+men, whatever they learn, because they are expected to produce
+and use their requirements.&nbsp; But the greatest object of
+intellectual education, the improvement of the mental powers, is
+as needful for one sex as the other, and requires the same means
+in both sexes.&nbsp; The same accuracy, attention, logic, and
+method that are attempted in the education of men should be aimed
+at in that of women.&nbsp; This will never be sufficiently
+attended to, as there are no immediate and obvious fruits from
+it.&nbsp; And, therefore, as it is probable, from the different
+career of women to that of men, that whatever women study will
+not be studied with the same method and earnestness as it would
+be by men, what a peculiar advantage there is in any study for
+them, in which no proficiency whatever can be made without some
+use of most of the qualities we desire for them.&nbsp; Geometry,
+for instance, is such a study.&nbsp; It may appear pedantic, but
+I must confess that Euclid seems to me a book for the young of
+both sexes.&nbsp; The severe rules upon which the acquisition of
+the dead languages is built would of course be a great means for
+attaining the logical habits in question.&nbsp; But Latin and
+Greek is a deeper pedantry for women than geometry, and much less
+desirable on many accounts: and geometry would, perhaps, suffice
+to teach them what reasoning is.&nbsp; I daresay, too, there are
+accomplishments which might be taught scientifically; and so even
+the prejudice against the manifest study of science by women be
+conciliated.&nbsp; But the appreciation of reasoning must be got
+somehow.</p>
+<p>It is a narrow view of things to suppose that a just
+cultivation of women&rsquo;s mental powers will take them out of
+their sphere: it will only enlarge that sphere.&nbsp; The most
+cultivated women perform their common duties best.&nbsp; They see
+more in those duties.&nbsp; They can do more.&nbsp; Lady Jane
+Grey would, I daresay, have bound up a wound, or managed a
+household, with any unlearned woman of her day.&nbsp; Queen
+Elizabeth did manage a kingdom: and we find no pedantry in her
+way of doing it.</p>
+<p>People who advocate a better training for women must not,
+necessarily, be supposed to imagine that men and women are by
+education to be made alike, and are intended to fulfil most of
+the same offices.&nbsp; There seems reason for thinking that a
+boundary line exists between the intellects of men and women
+which, perhaps, cannot be passed over from either side.&nbsp;
+But, at any rate, taking the whole nature of both sexes, and the
+inevitable circumstances which cause them to differ, there must
+be such a difference between men and women that the same
+intellectual training applied to both would produce most
+dissimilar results.&nbsp; It has not, however, been proposed in
+these pages to adopt the same training: and would have been still
+less likely to be proposed if it could be shown that such
+training would tend to make men and women unpleasantly similar to
+each other.&nbsp; The utmost that has been thought of here is to
+make more of women&rsquo;s faculties, not by any means to
+translate them into men&rsquo;s&mdash;if such a thing were
+possible, which, we may venture to say, is not.&nbsp; There are
+some things that are good for all trees&mdash;light, air,
+room&mdash;but no one expects by affording some similar
+advantages of this kind to an oak and a beech, to find them
+assimilate, though by such means the best of each may be
+produced.</p>
+<p>Moreover, it should be recollected that the purpose of
+education is not always to foster natural gifts, but sometimes to
+bring out faculties that might otherwise remain dormant; and
+especially so far as to make the persons educated cognisant of
+excellence in those faculties in others.&nbsp; A certain tact and
+refinement belong to women, in which they have little to learn
+from the first: men, too, who attain some portion of these
+qualities, are greatly the better for them, and I should imagine
+not less acceptable on that account to women.&nbsp; So, on the
+other side, there may be an intellectual cultivation for women
+which may seem a little against the grain, which would not,
+however, injure any of their peculiar gifts&mdash;would, in fact,
+carry those gifts to the highest, and would increase withal, both
+to men and women, the pleasure of each other&rsquo;s society.</p>
+<p>There is a branch of general education which is not thought at
+all necessary for women; as regards which, indeed, it is well if
+they are not brought up to cultivate the opposite.&nbsp; Women
+are not taught to be courageous.&nbsp; Indeed, to some persons
+courage may seem as unnecessary for women as Latin and
+Greek.&nbsp; Yet there are few things that would tend to make
+women happier in themselves, and more acceptable to those with
+whom they live, than courage.&nbsp; There are many women of the
+present day, sensible women in other things, whose panic-terrors
+are a frequent source of discomfort to themselves and those
+around them.&nbsp; Now, it is a great mistake to imagine that
+harshness must go with courage; and that the bloom of gentleness
+and sympathy must all be rubbed off by that vigour of mind which
+gives presence of mind, enables a person to be useful in peril,
+and makes the desire to assist overcome that sickliness of
+sensibility which can only contemplate distress and
+difficulty.&nbsp; So far from courage being unfeminine, there is
+a peculiar grace and dignity in those beings who have little
+active power of attack or defence, passing through danger with a
+moral courage which is equal to that of the strongest.&nbsp; We
+see this in great things.&nbsp; We perfectly appreciate the sweet
+and noble dignity of an Anne Bullen, a Mary Queen of Scots, or a
+Marie Antoinette.&nbsp; We see that it is grand for these
+delicately-bred, high-nurtured, helpless personages to meet Death
+with a silence and a confidence like his own.&nbsp; But there
+would be a similar dignity in women&rsquo;s bearing small terrors
+with fortitude.&nbsp; There is no beauty in fear.&nbsp; It is a
+mean, ugly, dishevelled creature.&nbsp; No statue can be made of
+it that a woman would like to see herself like.</p>
+<p>Women are pre-eminent in steady endurance of tiresome
+suffering: they need not be far behind men in a becoming courage
+to meet that which is sudden and sharp.&nbsp; The dangers and the
+troubles, too, which we may venture to say they now start at
+unreasonably, are many of them mere creatures of the
+imagination&mdash;such as, in their way, disturb high-mettled
+animals brought up to see too little, and therefore frightened at
+any leaf blown across the road.</p>
+<p>We may be quite sure that, without losing any of the most
+delicate and refined of feminine graces, women may be taught not
+to give way to unreasonable fears, which should belong no more to
+the fragile than to the robust.</p>
+<p>There is no doubt that courage may in some measure be
+taught.&nbsp; We agree that the lower kinds of courage are matter
+of habit, therefore of teaching: and the same thing holds good to
+some extent of all courage.&nbsp; Courage is as contagious as
+fear.&nbsp; The saying is, that the brave are the sons and
+daughters of the brave; but we might as truly say that they must
+be brought up by the brave.&nbsp; The great novelist, when he
+wants a coward descended from a valorous race, does well to take
+him from his clan and bring him up in an unwarlike home. <a
+name="citation126"></a><a href="#footnote126"
+class="citation">[126]</a>&nbsp; Indeed, the heroic example of
+other days is in great part the source of courage of each
+generation; and men walk up composedly to the most perilous
+enterprises, beckoned onwards by the shades of the brave that
+were.&nbsp; In civil courage, moral courage, or courage shown in
+the minute circumstances of everyday life, the same law is
+true.&nbsp; Courage may be taught by precept, enforced by
+example, and is good to be taught to men, women, and
+children.</p>
+<h3>EDUCATION TO HAPPINESS.</h3>
+<p>It is a curious phenomenon in human affairs, that some of
+those matters in which education is most potent should have been
+amongst the least thought of as branches of it.&nbsp; What you
+teach a boy of Latin and Greek may be good; but these things are
+with him but a little time of each day in his after-life.&nbsp;
+What you teach him of direct moral precepts may be very good
+seed: it may grow up, especially if it have sufficient moisture
+from experience; but then, again, a man is, happily, not doing
+obvious right or wrong all day long.&nbsp; What you teach him of
+any bread-getting art may be of some import to him, as to the
+quantity and quality of bread he will get; but he is not always
+with his art.&nbsp; With himself he is always.&nbsp; How
+important, then, it is, whether you have given him a happy or a
+morbid turn of mind; whether the current of his life is a clear
+wholesome stream, or bitter as Marah.&nbsp; The education to
+happiness is a possible thing&mdash;not to a happiness supposed
+to rest upon enjoyments of any kind, but to one built upon
+content and resignation.&nbsp; This is the best part of
+philosophy.&nbsp; This enters into the &ldquo;wisdom&rdquo;
+spoken of in the Scriptures.&nbsp; Now it can be taught.&nbsp;
+The converse is taught every day and all day long.</p>
+<p>To take an example.&nbsp; A sensitive disposition may descend
+to a child; but it is also very commonly increased, and often
+created.&nbsp; Captiousness, sensitiveness, and a Martha-like
+care for the things of this world, are often the direct fruits of
+education.&nbsp; All these faults of the character, and they are
+amongst the greatest, may be summed up in a disproportionate care
+for little things.&nbsp; This is rather a growing evil.&nbsp; The
+painful neatness and exactness of modern life foster it.&nbsp;
+Long peace favours it.&nbsp; Trifles become more important, great
+evils being kept away.&nbsp; And so, the tide of small wishes and
+requirements gains upon us fully as fast as we can get out of its
+way by our improved means of satisfying them.&nbsp; Now the
+unwholesome concern that many parents and governors manifest as
+to small things must have a great influence on the
+governed.&nbsp; You hear a child reprimanded about a point of
+dress, or some trivial thing, as if it had committed a
+treachery.&nbsp; The criticisms, too, which it hears upon others
+are often of the same kind.&nbsp; Small omissions, small
+commissions, false shame, little stumbling-blocks of offence,
+trifling grievances of the kind that Dr. Johnson, who had known
+hunger, stormed at Mrs. Thrale for talking about, are made much
+of; general dissatisfaction is expressed that things are not
+complete, and that everything in life is not turned out as neat
+as a Long-Acre carriage; commands are expected to be fulfilled by
+agents, upon very rapid and incomplete orders, exactly to the
+mind of the person ordering;&mdash;these ways, to which children
+are very attentive, teach them in their turn to be querulous,
+sensitive, and full of small cares and wishes.&nbsp; And when you
+have made a child like this, can you make a world for him that
+will satisfy him?&nbsp; Tax your civilisation to the uttermost: a
+punctilious, tiresome disposition expects more.&nbsp; Indeed,
+Nature, with her vague and flowing ways, cannot at all fit in
+with a right-angled person.&nbsp; Besides, there are other
+precise, angular creatures, and these sharp-edged persons wound
+each other terribly.&nbsp; Of all the things which you can teach
+people, after teaching them to trust in God, the most important
+is, to put out of their hearts any expectation of perfection,
+according to their notions, in this world.&nbsp; This expectation
+is at the bottom of a great deal of the worldliness we hear so
+much reprehended, and necessarily gives to little things a most
+irrational importance.</p>
+<p>Observe the effect of this disproportionate care for little
+things in the disputes of men.&nbsp; A man who does so care, has
+a garment embroidered with hooks which catch at everything that
+passes by.&nbsp; He finds many more causes of offence than other
+men; and each offence is a more bitter thing to him than to
+others.&nbsp; He does not expect to be offended.&nbsp; Poor
+man!&nbsp; He goes through life wondering that he is the subject
+of general attack, and that the world is so quarrelsome.</p>
+<p>The result of a bad education in developing undue care for
+trifles may be seen in its effect on domestic government and
+government in general.&nbsp; If those in power have this fault,
+they will make the persons under them miserable by petty,
+constant blame; or they will make them indifferent to all
+blame.&nbsp; If this fault is in the governed, they will
+captiously object to all the ways and plans of their superiors,
+not knowing the difficulty of doing anything; they will expect
+miracles of attention, justice, and temper, which the rough-hewed
+ways of men do not admit of; and they will repine and tease the
+life out of those in authority.&nbsp; Sometimes both superiors
+and inferiors, governors and governed, have this fault.&nbsp;
+This must often happen in a family, and is a fearful punishment
+to the elders of it.&nbsp; Scarcely any goodness of disposition,
+and what are called great qualities, can make such difficult
+materials work well together.</p>
+<p>But I end with somewhat of the same argument as I began with,
+namely, that as a man lives more with himself than with art,
+science, or even with his fellows, a wise teacher, having before
+him the intent to make a happy-minded man of his pupil, will try
+to lay a groundwork of divine contentment in him.&nbsp; If he
+cannot make him easily pleased, he will at least try and prevent
+him from being easily disconcerted.&nbsp; Why, even the
+self-conceit that makes people indifferent to small things,
+wrapping them in an atmosphere of self-satisfaction, is welcome
+in a man compared to that querulousness which makes him an enemy
+to all around.&nbsp; But most commendable is that easiness of
+mind which is easy because it is tolerant, because it does not
+look to have everything its own way, because it expects anything
+but smooth usage in its course here, because it has resolved to
+manufacture as few miseries out of small evils as can be.</p>
+<p>Most of us know what it is to vex our minds because we cannot
+recall some name or trivial thing which has escaped our memory
+for the moment.&nbsp; But then we think how foolish this is, what
+little concern it is to us.&nbsp; We are right in that; yet any
+defect of memory is a great concern compared to many of the
+trifling niceties, comforts, offences, and rectangularities
+which, perhaps, we do not think it an ignoble use of heart and
+time to waste ourselves upon.&nbsp; It would be well enough to
+entertain the rabble of small troubles and offences, if we could
+lay them aside with the delightful facility of children, who,
+after an agony of tears, are soon found laughing or asleep.&nbsp;
+But the chagrin and vexation of grown-up people are grown-up too;
+and, however childish in their origin, are not to be laughed or
+danced or slept away in childlike simple-heartedness.</p>
+<p>We must not imagine that too much stress can well be laid upon
+the importance of an education to contentment, for it comes under
+the head of those things which are not adjuncts or acquisitions
+for a man, but which form the texture of his being.&nbsp; What a
+man has learnt is of importance; but what he is, what he can do,
+what he will become, are more significant things.&nbsp; Finally,
+it may be remarked, that, to make education a great work, we must
+have the educators great; that book-learning is mainly good as it
+gives us a chance of coming into the company of greater and
+better minds than the average of men around us; and that
+individual greatness and goodness are the things to be aimed at
+rather than the successful cultivation of those talents which go
+to form some eminent membership of society.&nbsp; Each man is a
+drama in himself&mdash;has to play all the parts in it; is to be
+king and rebel, successful and vanquished, free and slave; and
+needs a bringing-up fit for the universal creature that he
+is.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You have been unexpectedly merciful to
+us.&nbsp; The moment I heard the head of the essay given out,
+there flitted before my frightened mind volumes of reports,
+Battersea schools, Bell, Wilderspin, normal farms, National
+Society, British Schools, interminable questions about how
+religion might be separated altogether from secular education, or
+so much religion taught as all religious sects could agree
+in.&nbsp; These are all very good things and people to discuss, I
+daresay; but, to tell the truth, the whole subject sits heavy on
+my soul.&nbsp; I meet a man of inexhaustible dulness, and he
+talks to me for three hours about some great subject&mdash;this
+very one of education, for instance&mdash;till I sit entranced by
+stupidity, thinking the while, &ldquo;And this is what we are to
+become by education&mdash;to be like you.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then I see
+a man like D&mdash;, a judicious, reasonable, conversable being,
+knowing how to be silent too&mdash;a man to go through a campaign
+with&mdash;and I find he cannot read or write.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; This sort of contrast is just the
+thing to strike you, Ellesmere: and yet you know as well as any
+of us that to bring forward such contrasts by way of depreciating
+education would be most unreasonable.&nbsp; There are three
+things that go to make a man&mdash;the education that most people
+mean by education; then the education that goes deeper, the
+education of the soul; and, thirdly, a man&rsquo;s gifts of
+Nature.&nbsp; I agree with all you say about D&mdash;; he never
+says a foolish thing, and does a great many judicious ones.&nbsp;
+But look what a clever face he has.&nbsp; There are gifts of
+Nature for you.&nbsp; Then, again, although he cannot read or
+write, he may have been most judiciously brought up in other
+respects.&nbsp; He may have had two, therefore, out of the three
+elements of education.&nbsp; What such instances would show, I
+believe, if narrowly looked into, is the immense importance of
+the education of heart and temper.</p>
+<p>I feel with you in some measure about the dulness of the
+subject of education.&nbsp; But then it extends to all things of
+the institution kind.&nbsp; Men must have a great deal of
+pedantry, routine, and folly of all sorts, in any large matter
+they undertake.&nbsp; I had had this feeling for a long time (you
+know the way in which you have a thing in your mind, although you
+have never said it out exactly even to yourself)&mdash;well, I
+came upon a passage of Emerson&rsquo;s which I will try to quote,
+and then I knew what it was that I had felt.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We are full of mechanical actions.&nbsp; We must needs
+intermeddle, and have things in our own way, until the sacrifices
+and virtues of society are odious.&nbsp; Love should make joy;
+but our benevolence is unhappy.&nbsp; Our Sunday-schools, and
+churches, and pauper societies, are yokes to the neck.&nbsp; We
+pain ourselves to please nobody.&nbsp; There are natural ways of
+arriving at the same ends at which these aim, but do not
+arrive.&nbsp; Why should all virtue work in one and the same
+way?&rdquo; . . . &ldquo;And why drag this dead weight of a
+Sunday-school over the whole of Christendom?&nbsp; It is natural
+and beautiful that childhood should inquire, and maturity should
+teach; but it is time enough to answer questions when they are
+asked.&nbsp; Do not shut up the young people against their will
+in a pew, and force the children to ask them questions for an
+hour against their will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now, without agreeing with him in all points, we may
+sympathise with him.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I agree with him.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I knew you would.&nbsp; You love an
+extreme.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; But look now.&nbsp; It is well to say,
+&ldquo;It is natural and beautiful that the young should ask and
+the old should teach&rdquo;; but then the old should be capable
+of teaching, which is not the case we have to deal with.&nbsp;
+Institutions are often only to meet individual failings.&nbsp;
+Let there be more instructed elders, and the &ldquo;dead
+weight&rdquo; of Sunday-schools would be less needed.</p>
+<p>I think the result of our thoughts would be, that there should
+be as much life, joy, and Nature put into teaching as can be; but
+I, for one, am not prepared to say that the most mechanical
+process is not better than none.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, you have now shut up the
+subject, according to your fashion, in a rounded sentence; and
+you think after that there is nothing more to be said.&nbsp; But
+I say it goes to my heart&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What is that?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; To my heart to see the unmerciful
+quantity of instruction that little children go through on a
+Sunday.&nbsp; I suppose I am a very wicked man; but I know how
+wearied I should have been, at any time of my life, if so much
+virtuous precept and good doctrine had been poured into me.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, I will not fight certainly for
+anything that is to make Sunday a wearisome day for
+children.&nbsp; Indeed, what I meant by putting more joy and life
+into teaching was, that in such a thing as this Sunday-schooling,
+for instance, a judicious man, far from being anxious to get a
+certain quantity of routine done about it, would do with the
+least&mdash;would endeavour to connect it with something
+interesting&mdash;would, in a word, love children, and not
+Sunday-schools.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Ah, we will have no more about
+Sunday-schools.&nbsp; I know we all agree in reality, although
+Dunsford has been looking very grave and has not said a
+word.&nbsp; I wanted to tell you that I think you are quite
+right, Milverton, in saying a good deal about multifariousness of
+pursuit.&nbsp; You see a wretch of a pedant who knows all about
+tetrameters or statutes of uses, but who, as you hinted an essay
+or two ago, can hardly answer his child a question as they walk
+about the garden together.&nbsp; The man has never given a good
+thought or look to Nature.&nbsp; Well then, again, what a stupid
+thing it is that we are not all taught music.&nbsp; Why learn the
+language of many portions of mankind, and leave the universal
+language of the feelings, as you would call it, unlearnt?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I quite agree with you; but I thought
+you always set your face, or rather your ears, against music.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; So did I.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I should like to know all about
+it.&nbsp; It is not to my mind that a cultivated man should be
+quite thrown out by any topic of conversation, or that there
+should be any form of human endeavour or accomplishment which he
+has no conception of.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I liked what you said, Milverton, about
+the philosophy of making light of many things, and the way of
+looking at life that may thus be given to those we educate.&nbsp;
+I rather doubted at first, though, whether you were not going to
+assign too much power to education in the modification of
+temper.&nbsp; But, certainly, the mode of looking at the daily
+events of life, little or great, and the consequent habits of
+captiousness or magnanimity, are just the matters which the young
+especially imitate their elders in.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You see, the very worst kind of
+tempers are established upon the fretting care for trifles that I
+want to make war upon in the essay.&nbsp; A man is
+choleric.&nbsp; Well, it is a very bad thing; it tends to
+frighten those about him into falseness.&nbsp; He has outrageous
+bursts of temper.&nbsp; He is humble for days afterwards.&nbsp;
+His dependants rather like him after all.&nbsp; They know that
+&ldquo;his bark is worse than his bite.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then there
+is your gloomy man, often a man who punishes himself
+most&mdash;perhaps a large-hearted, humorous, but sad man, at the
+same time liveable with.&nbsp; He does not care for
+trifles.&nbsp; But it is your acid-sensitive (I must join words
+like Mirabeau&rsquo;s Grandison-Cromwell, to get what I mean),
+and your cold, querulous people that need to have angels to live
+with them.&nbsp; Now education has often had a great deal to do
+with the making of these choice tempers.&nbsp; They are somewhat
+artificial productions.&nbsp; And they are the worst.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; You know a saying attributed to the
+Bishop of &mdash; about temper.&nbsp; No?&nbsp; Somebody, I
+suppose, was excusing something on the score of temper, to which
+the Bishop replied, &ldquo;Temper is nine-tenths of
+Christianity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is an appearance we see in
+Nature, not far from here, by the way, that has often put me in
+mind of the effect of temper upon men.&nbsp; It is in the
+lowlands near the sea, where, when the tide is not up (the man
+out of temper), there is a slimy, patchy, diseased-looking
+surface of mud and sick seaweed.&nbsp; You pass by in a few
+hours, there is a beautiful lake, water up to the green grass
+(the man in temper again), and the whole landscape brilliant with
+reflected light.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; And to complete the likeness, the good
+temper and the full tide last about the same time&mdash;with some
+men at least.&nbsp; It is so like you, Milverton, to have that
+simile in your mind.&nbsp; There is nothing you see in Nature,
+but you must instantly find a parallel for it in man.&nbsp;
+Sermons in stones you will not see, else I am sure you
+might.&nbsp; Here is a good hard flint for you to see your next
+essay in.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It will do very well, as my next will
+be on the subject of population.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; What day are we to have it?&nbsp; I
+think I have a particular engagement for that day.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I must come upon you unawares.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; After the essay you certainly
+might.&nbsp; Let us decamp now and do something great in the way
+of education&mdash;teach Rollo, though he is but a short-haired
+dog, to go into the water.&nbsp; That will be a feat.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">Ellesmere</span> succeeded in persuading
+Rollo to go into the water, which proved more, he said, than the
+whole of Milverton&rsquo;s essay, how much might be done by
+judicious education.&nbsp; Before leaving my friends, I promised
+to come over again to Worth-Ashton in a day or two, to hear
+another essay.&nbsp; I came early and found them reading their
+letters.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>&ldquo;You remember Annesleigh at college,&rdquo; said
+Milverton, &ldquo;do you not, Dunsford?&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Here is a long letter from him.&nbsp;
+He is evidently vexed at the newspaper articles about his conduct
+in a matter of &mdash;, and he writes to tell me that he is
+totally misrepresented.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Why does he not explain this
+publicly?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, you naturally think so at first,
+but such a mode of proceeding would never do for a man in office,
+and rarely, perhaps, for any man.&nbsp; At least, so the most
+judicious people seem to think.&nbsp; I have known a man in
+office bear patiently, without attempting any answer, a serious
+charge which a few lines would have entirely answered, indeed,
+turned the other way.&nbsp; But then he thought, I imagine, that
+if you once begin answering, there is no end to it, and also,
+which is more important, that the public journals were not a
+tribunal which he was called to appear before.&nbsp; He had his
+official superiors.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; It should be widely known and
+acknowledged then, that silence does not give consent in these
+cases.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It is known, though not, perhaps,
+sufficiently.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What a fearful power this anonymous
+journalism is!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is a great deal certainly that
+is mischievous in it; but take it altogether, it is a wonderful
+product of civilisation&mdash;morally too.&nbsp; Even as regards
+those qualities which would in general, to use a phrase of
+Bacon&rsquo;s, &ldquo;be noted as deficients&rdquo; in the press,
+in courtesy and forbearance, for example, it makes a much better
+figure than might have been expected; as any one would testify, I
+suspect, who had observed, or himself experienced, the
+temptations incident to writing on short notice, without much
+opportunity of after-thought or correction, upon subjects about
+which he had already expressed an opinion.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Is the anonymousness absolutely
+necessary?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I have often thought whether it
+is.&nbsp; If the anonymousness were taken away, the press would
+lose much of its power; but then, why should it not lose a
+portion of its power, if that portion is only built upon some
+delusion?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; It is a question of expediency.&nbsp;
+As government of all kinds becomes better managed, there is less
+necessity for protection for the press.&nbsp; It must be
+recollected, however, that this anonymousness (to coin a word)
+may not only be useful to protect us from any abuse of power, but
+that at least it takes away that temptation to discuss things in
+an insufficient manner which arises from personal fear of giving
+offence.&nbsp; Then, again, there is an advantage in considering
+arguments without reference to persons.&nbsp; If well-known
+authors wrote for the press and gave their signatures, we should
+often pass by the arguments unfairly, saying, &ldquo;Oh, it is
+only so-and-so: that is the way he always looks at things,&rdquo;
+without seeing whether it is the right way for the occasion in
+question.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; But take the other side,
+Ellesmere.&nbsp; What national dislikes are fostered by newspaper
+articles, and&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Articles in reviews and by books.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, but somehow or other, people
+imagine that newspapers speak the opinion of a much greater
+number of people&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Do not let us talk any more about
+it.&nbsp; We may become wise enough and well-managed enough to do
+without this anonymousness: we may not.&nbsp; How it would
+astound an ardent Whig or Radical of the last generation if we
+could hear such a sentiment as this&mdash;as a toast we will
+say&mdash;&ldquo;The Press: and may we become so civilised as to
+be able to take away some of its liberty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It may be put another way: &ldquo;May
+it become so civilised that we shall not want to take away any of
+its liberty.&rdquo;&nbsp; But I see you are tired of this
+subject.&nbsp; Shall we go on the lawn and have our essay?</p>
+<p>We assented, and Milverton read the following:&mdash;</p>
+<h3>UNREASONABLE CLAIMS IN SOCIAL AFFECTIONS AND RELATIONS.</h3>
+<p>We are all apt to magnify the importance of whatever we are
+thinking about, which is not to be wondered at; for everything
+human has an outlet into infinity, which we come to perceive on
+considering it.&nbsp; But with a knowledge of this tendency, I
+still venture to say that, of all that concerns mankind, this
+subject has, perhaps, been the least treated of in regard to its
+significance.&nbsp; For once that unreasonable expectations of
+gratitude have been reproved, ingratitude has been denounced a
+thousand times; and the same may be said of inconstancy,
+unkindness in friendship, neglected merit and the like.</p>
+<p>To begin with ingratitude.&nbsp; Human beings seldom have the
+demands upon each other which they imagine; and for what they
+have done they frequently ask an impossible return.&nbsp;
+Moreover, when people really have done others a service, the
+persons benefited often do not understand it.&nbsp; Could they
+have understood it, the benefactor, perhaps, would not have had
+to perform it.&nbsp; You cannot expect gratitude from them in
+proportion to your enlightenment.&nbsp; Then, again, where the
+service is a palpable one, thoroughly understood, we often
+require that the gratitude for it should bear down all the rest
+of the man&rsquo;s character.&nbsp; The dog is the very emblem of
+faithfulness; yet I believe it is found that he will sometimes
+like the person who takes him out and amuses him more than the
+person who feeds him.&nbsp; So, amongst bipeds, the most solid
+service must sometimes give way to the claims of
+congeniality.&nbsp; Human creatures are, happily, not to be
+swayed by self-interest alone: they are many-sided creatures;
+there are numberless modes of attaching their affections.&nbsp;
+Not only like likes like, but unlike likes unlike.</p>
+<p>To give an instance which must often occur.&nbsp; Two persons,
+both of feeble will, act together: one as superior, the other as
+inferior.&nbsp; The superior is very kind; the inferior is
+grateful.&nbsp; Circumstances occur to break this relation.&nbsp;
+The inferior comes under a superior of strong will, who is not,
+however, as tolerant and patient as his predecessor.&nbsp; But
+this second superior soon acquires unbounded influence over the
+inferior: if the first one looks on, he may wonder at the
+alacrity and affection of his former subordinate towards the new
+man, and talk much about ingratitude.&nbsp; But the inferior has
+now found somebody to lean upon and to reverence.&nbsp; And he
+cannot deny his nature and be otherwise than he is.&nbsp; In this
+case it does not look like ingratitude, except perhaps to the
+complaining person.&nbsp; But there are doubtless numerous
+instances in which, if we saw all the facts clearly, we should no
+more confirm the charge of ingratitude than we do here.</p>
+<p>Then, again, we seldom make sufficient allowance for the
+burden which there is in obligation, at least to all but great
+and good minds.&nbsp; There are some people who can receive as
+heartily as they would give; but the obligation of an ordinary
+person to an ordinary person is more apt to be brought to mind as
+a present sore than as a past delight.</p>
+<p>Amongst the unreasonable views of the affections, the most
+absurd one has been the fancy that love entirely depends upon the
+will; still more that the love of others for us is to be guided
+by the inducements which seem probable to us.&nbsp; We have
+served them; we think only of them; we are their lovers, or
+fathers, or brothers: we deserve and require to be loved and to
+have the love proved to us.&nbsp; But love is not like property:
+it has neither duties nor rights.&nbsp; You argue for it in vain;
+and there is no one who can give it you.&nbsp; It is not his or
+hers to give.&nbsp; Millions of bribes and infinite arguments
+cannot prevail.&nbsp; For it is not a substance, but a
+relation.&nbsp; There is no royal road.&nbsp; We are loved as we
+are lovable to the person loving.&nbsp; It is no answer to say
+that in some cases the love is based on no reality, but is solely
+in the imagination&mdash;that is, that we are loved not for what
+we are, but for what we are fancied to be.&nbsp; That will not
+bring it any more into the dominions of logic; and love still
+remains the same untamable creature, deaf to advocacy, blind to
+other people&rsquo;s idea of merit, and not a substance to be
+weighed or numbered at all.</p>
+<p>Then, as to the complaints about broken friendship.&nbsp;
+Friendship is often outgrown; and his former child&rsquo;s
+clothes will no more fit a man than some of his former
+friendships.&nbsp; Often a breach of friendship is supposed to
+occur when there is nothing of the kind.&nbsp; People see one
+another seldom; their courses in life are different; they meet,
+and their intercourse is constrained.&nbsp; They fancy that their
+friendship is mightily cooled.&nbsp; But imagine the dearest
+friends, one coming home after a long sojourn, the other going
+out to new lands: the ships that carry these meet: the friends
+talk together in a confused way not relevant at all to their
+friendship, and, if not well assured of their mutual regard,
+might naturally fancy that it was much abated.&nbsp; Something
+like this occurs daily in the stream of the world.&nbsp; Then,
+too, unless people are very unreasonable, they cannot expect that
+their friends will pass into new systems of thought and action
+without new ties of all kinds being created, and some
+modification of the old ones taking place.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>When we are talking of exorbitant claims made for the regard
+of others, we must not omit those of what is called neglected
+merit.&nbsp; A man feels that he has abilities or talents of a
+particular kind, that he has shown them, and still he is a
+neglected man.&nbsp; I am far from saying that merit is
+sufficiently looked out for: but a man may take the sting out of
+any neglect of his merits by thinking that at least it does not
+arise from malice prepense, as he almost imagines in his
+anger.&nbsp; Neither the public, nor individuals, have the time,
+or will, resolutely to neglect anybody.&nbsp; What pleases us, we
+admire and further: if a man in any profession, calling, or art,
+does things which are beyond us, we are as guiltless of
+neglecting him as the Caffres are of neglecting the differential
+calculus.&nbsp; Milton sells his &ldquo;Paradise Lost&rdquo; for
+ten pounds; there is no record of Shakespeare dining much with
+Queen Elizabeth.&nbsp; And it is Utopian to imagine that statues
+will be set up to right men in their day.</p>
+<p>The same arguments which applied to the complaints of
+ingratitude, apply to the complaints of neglected merit.&nbsp;
+The merit is oftentimes not understood.&nbsp; Be it ever so
+manifest, it cannot absorb men&rsquo;s attention.&nbsp; When it
+is really great, it has not been brought out by the hope of
+reward, any more than the kindest services by the hope of
+gratitude.&nbsp; In neither case is it becoming or rational to be
+clamorous about payment.</p>
+<p>There is one thing that people hardly ever remember, or,
+indeed, have imagination enough to conceive; namely, the effect
+of each man being shut up in his individuality.&nbsp; Take a long
+course of sayings and doings in which many persons have been
+engaged.&nbsp; Each one of them is in his own mind the centre of
+the web, though, perhaps, he is at the edge of it.&nbsp; We know
+that in our observations of the things of sense, any difference
+in the points from which the observation is taken gives a
+different view of the same thing.&nbsp; Moreover, in the world of
+sense, the objects and the points of view are each indifferent to
+the rest; but in life the points of views are centres of action
+that have had something to do with the making of the things
+looked at.&nbsp; If we could calculate the moral parallax arising
+from these causes, we should see, by the mere aid of the
+intellect, how unjust we often are in our complaints of
+ingratitude, inconstancy, and neglect.&nbsp; But without these
+nice calculations, such errors of view may be corrected at once
+by humility, a more sure method than the most enlightened
+appreciation of the cause of error.&nbsp; Humility is the true
+cure for many a needless heartache.</p>
+<p>It must not be supposed that in thus opposing unreasonable
+views of social affections, anything is done to dissever such
+affections.&nbsp; The Duke of Wellington, writing to a man in a
+dubious position of authority, says &ldquo;The less you claim,
+the more you will have.&rdquo;&nbsp; This is remarkably true of
+the affections; and there is scarcely anything that would make
+men happier than teaching them to watch against unreasonableness
+in their claims of regard and affection; and which at the same
+time would be more likely to ensure their getting what may be
+their due.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i> (clapping his hands).&nbsp; An essay after my
+heart: worth tons of soft trash.&nbsp; In general you are
+amplifying duties, telling everybody that they are to be so good
+to every other body.&nbsp; Now it is as well to let every other
+body know that he is not to expect all he may fancy from
+everybody.&nbsp; A man complains that his prosperous friends
+neglect him: infinitely overrating, in all probability, his
+claims, and his friends&rsquo; power of doing anything for
+him.&nbsp; Well, then, you may think me very hard, but I say that
+the most absurd claims are often put forth on the ground of
+relationship.&nbsp; I do not deny that there is something in
+blood, but it must not be made too much of.&nbsp; Near relations
+have great opportunities of attaching each other; if they fail to
+use these, I do not think it is well to let them imagine that
+mere relationship is to be the talisman of affection.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I do not see exactly how to answer all
+that you or Milverton have said; but I am not prepared, as
+official people say, to agree with you.&nbsp; I especially
+disagree with what Milverton has said about love.&nbsp; He leaves
+much too little power to the will.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I daresay I may have done so.&nbsp;
+These are very deep matters, and any one view about them does not
+exhaust them.&nbsp; I remember C&mdash; once saying to me that a
+man never utters anything without error.&nbsp; He may even think
+of it rightly; but he cannot bring it out rightly.&nbsp; It turns
+a little false, as it were, when it quits the brain and comes
+into life.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I thought you would soon go over to
+the soft side.&nbsp; Here, Rollo; there&rsquo;s a good dog.&nbsp;
+You do not form unreasonable expectations, do you?&nbsp; A very
+little petting puts you into an ecstasy, and you are much wiser
+than many a biped who is full of his claims for gratitude, and
+friendship, and love, and who is always longing for well-merited
+rewards to fall into his mouth.&nbsp; Down, dog!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Poor animal! it little knows that all
+this sudden notice is only by way of ridiculing us.&nbsp; Why I
+did not maintain my ground stoutly against Dunsford is, that I am
+always afraid of pushing moral conclusions too far.&nbsp; Since
+we have been talking, I think I see more clearly than I did
+before what I mean to convey by the essay&mdash;namely, that men
+fall into unreasonable views respecting the affections <i>from
+imagining that the general laws of the mind are suspended for the
+sake of the affections</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; That seems safer ground.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Now to illustrate what I mean by a
+very similar instance.&nbsp; The mind is avid of new
+impressions.&nbsp; It &ldquo;travels over,&rdquo; or thinks it
+travels over, another mind; and, though it may conceal its wish
+for &ldquo;fresh fields and pastures new,&rdquo; it does so
+wish.&nbsp; However harsh, therefore, and unromantic it may seem,
+the best plan is to humour Nature, and not to exhaust by
+overfrequent presence the affection of those whom we would love,
+or whom we would have to love us.&nbsp; I would not say, after
+the manner of Rochefoucauld, that the less we see of people the
+more we like them; but there are certain limits of sociality; and
+prudent reserve and absence may find a place in the management of
+the tenderest relations.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes, all this is true enough: I do not
+see anything hard in this.&nbsp; But then there is the other
+side.&nbsp; Custom is a great aid to affection.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; All I say is, do not fancy
+that the general laws are suspended for the sake of any one
+affection.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Still this does not go to the question
+whether there is not something more of will in affection than you
+make out.&nbsp; You would speak of inducements and
+counter-inducements, aids and hindrances; but I cannot but think
+you are limiting the power of will, and therefore limiting
+duty.&nbsp; Such views tend to make people easily discontented
+with each other, and prevent their making efforts to get over
+offences, and to find out what is lovable in those about
+them.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Here we are in the deep places
+again.&nbsp; I see you are pondering, Milverton.&nbsp; It is a
+question, as a minister would say when Parliament perplexes him,
+that we must go to the country upon; each man&rsquo;s heart will,
+perhaps, tell him best about it.&nbsp; For my own part, I think
+that the continuance of affection, as the rise of it, depends
+more on the taste being satisfied, or at least not disgusted,
+than upon any other single thing.&nbsp; Our hearts may be touched
+at our being loved by people essentially distasteful to us, whose
+modes of talking and acting are a continual offence to us; but
+whether we can love them in return is a question.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, we can, I think.&nbsp; I begin to
+see that it is a question of degree.&nbsp; The word love includes
+many shades of meaning.&nbsp; When it includes admiration, of
+course we cannot be said to love those in whom we see nothing to
+admire.&nbsp; But this seldom happens in the mixed characters of
+real life.&nbsp; The upshot of it all seems to me to be, that, as
+Guizot says of civilisation, every impulse has room; so in the
+affections, every inducement and counter-inducement has its
+influence; and the result is not a simple one, which can be
+spoken of as if it were alike on all occasions and with all
+men.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I am still unanswered, I think,
+Milverton.&nbsp; What you say is still wholly built upon
+inducements, and does not touch the power of will.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No; it does not.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; We must leave that alone.&nbsp;
+Infinite piles of books have not as yet lifted us up to a clear
+view of that matter.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, then, we must leave it as a vexed
+question; but let it be seen that there is such a question.&nbsp;
+Now, as to another thing; you speak, Milverton, of men&rsquo;s
+not making allowance enough for the unpleasant weight of
+obligation.&nbsp; I think that weight seems to have increased in
+modern times.&nbsp; Essex could give Bacon a small estate, and
+Bacon could take it comfortably, I have no doubt.&nbsp; That is a
+much more wholesome state of things among friends than the
+present.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, undoubtedly.&nbsp; An extreme
+notion about independence has made men much less generous in
+receiving.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; It is a falling off, then.&nbsp; There
+was another comment I had to make.&nbsp; I think, when you speak
+about the exorbitant demands of neglected merit, you should say
+more upon the neglect of the just demands of merit.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would have the Government and the
+public in general try by all means to understand and reward
+merit, especially in those matters wherein excellence cannot,
+otherwise, meet with large present reward.&nbsp; But, to say the
+truth, I would have this done, not with the view of fostering
+genius so much as of fulfilling duty: I would say to a
+minister&mdash;it is becoming in you&mdash;it is well for the
+nation, to reward, as far as you can, and dignify, men of
+genius.&nbsp; Whether you will do them any good or bring forth
+more of them, I do not know.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Men of great genius are often such a
+sensitive race, so apt to be miserable in many other than
+pecuniary ways and want of public estimation, that I am not sure
+that distress and neglect do not take their minds off worse
+discomforts.&nbsp; It is a kind of grievance, too, that they like
+to have.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Really, Ellesmere, that is a most
+unfeeling speech.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; At any rate, it is right for us to
+honour and serve a great man.&nbsp; It is our nature to do so, if
+we are worth anything.&nbsp; We may put aside the question
+whether our honour will do him more good than our neglect.&nbsp;
+That is a question for him to look to.&nbsp; The world has not
+yet so largely honoured deserving men in their own time, that we
+can exactly pronounce what effect it would have upon them.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Come, Rollo, let us leave these men of
+sentiment.&nbsp; Oh, you will not go, as your master does not
+move.&nbsp; Look how he wags his tail, and almost says, &ldquo;I
+should clearly like to have a hunt after the water-rat we saw in
+the pond the other day, but master is talking philosophy, and
+requires an intelligent audience.&rdquo;&nbsp; These dogs are
+dear creatures, it must be owned.&nbsp; Come, Milverton, let us
+have a walk.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">After</span> the reading in the last
+chapter, my friends walked homewards with me as far as Durley
+Wood, which is about half-way between Worth-Ashton and my
+house.&nbsp; As we rested here, we bethought ourselves that it
+would be a pleasant spot for us to come to sometimes and read our
+essays.&nbsp; So we agreed to name a day for meeting there.&nbsp;
+The day was favourable, we met as we had appointed, and finding
+some beech logs lying very opportunely, took possession of them
+for our council.&nbsp; We seated Ellesmere on one that we called
+the woolsack, but which he said he felt himself unworthy to
+occupy in the presence of King Log, pointing to mine.&nbsp; These
+nice points of etiquette being at last settled, Milverton drew
+out his papers and was about to begin reading, when Ellesmere
+thus interrupted him:&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You were not in earnest, Milverton,
+about giving us an essay on population?&nbsp; Because if so, I
+think I shall leave this place to you and Dunsford and the
+ants.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I certainly have been meditating
+something of the sort; but have not been able to make much of
+it.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; If I had been living in those days
+when it first beamed upon mankind that the earth was round, I am
+sure I should have said, &ldquo;We know now the bounds of the
+earth: there are no interminable plains joined to the regions of
+the sun, allowing of indefinite sketchy outlines at the edges of
+maps.&nbsp; That little creature man will immediately begin to
+think that his world is too small for him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There has probably been as much folly
+uttered by political economy as against it, which is saying
+something.&nbsp; The danger as regards theories of political
+economy is the obvious one of their abstract conclusions being
+applied to concrete things.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; As if we were to expect mathematical
+lines to bear weights.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Something like that.&nbsp; With a good
+system of logic pervading the public mind, this danger would of
+course be avoided; but such a state of mind is not likely to
+occur in any public that we or our grandchildren are likely to
+have to deal with.&nbsp; As it is, an ordinary man hears some
+conclusion of political economy, showing some particular tendency
+of things, which in real life meets with many counteractions of
+all kinds: but he, perhaps, adopts the conclusion without the
+least abatement, and would work it into life, as if all went on
+there like a rule-of-three sum.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; After all, this error arises from the
+man&rsquo;s not having enough political economy.&nbsp; It is not
+that a theory is good on paper, but unsound in real life.&nbsp;
+It is only that in real life you cannot get at the simple state
+of things to which the theory would rightly apply.&nbsp; You want
+many other theories and the just composition of them all to be
+able to work the whole problem.&nbsp; That being done (which,
+however, scarcely can be done), the result on paper might be read
+off as applicable at once to life.&nbsp; But now, touching the
+essay; since we are not to have population, what is it to be?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Public improvements.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Nearly as bad; but as this is a
+favourite subject of yours, I suppose it will not be polite to go
+away.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No; you must listen.</p>
+<h3>PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.</h3>
+<p>What are possessions?&nbsp; To an individual, the stores of
+his own heart and mind pre-eminently.&nbsp; His truth and valour
+are amongst the first.&nbsp; His contentedness, or his
+resignation may be put next.&nbsp; Then his sense of beauty,
+surely a possession of great moment to him.&nbsp; Then all those
+mixed possessions which result from the social
+affections&mdash;great possessions, unspeakable delights, much
+greater than the gift last mentioned in the former class, but
+held on more uncertain tenure.&nbsp; Lastly, what are generally
+called possessions?&nbsp; However often we have heard of the
+vanity, uncertainty, and vexation that beset these last, we must
+not let this repetition deaden our minds to the fact.</p>
+<p>Now, national possessions must be estimated by the same
+gradation that we have applied to individual possessions.&nbsp;
+If we consider national luxury, we shall see how small a part it
+may add to national happiness.&nbsp; Men of deserved renown, and
+peerless women, lived upon what we should now call the coarsest
+fare, and paced the rushes in their rooms with as high, or as
+contented thoughts, as their better-fed and better-clothed
+descendants can boast of.&nbsp; Man is limited in this direction;
+I mean, in the things that concern his personal gratification;
+but when you come to the higher enjoyments, the expansive power
+both in him and them is greater.&nbsp; As Keats says,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;<br />
+Its loveliness increases; it will never<br />
+Pass into nothingness; but still will keep<br />
+A bower quiet for us, and a sleep<br />
+Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>What then are a nation&rsquo;s possessions?&nbsp; The great
+words that have been said in it; the great deeds that have been
+done in it; the great buildings, and the great works of art, that
+have been made in it.&nbsp; A man says a noble saying: it is a
+possession, first to his own race, then to mankind.&nbsp; A
+people get a noble building built for them: it is an honour to
+them, also a daily delight and instruction.&nbsp; It
+perishes.&nbsp; The remembrance of it is still a
+possession.&nbsp; If it was indeed pre-eminent, there will be
+more pleasure in thinking of it than in being with others of
+inferior order and design.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>On the other hand, a thing of ugliness is potent for
+evil.&nbsp; It deforms the taste of the thoughtless: it frets the
+man who knows how bad it is: it is a disgrace to the nation who
+raised it; an example and an occasion for more
+monstrosities.&nbsp; If it is a great building in a great city,
+thousands of people pass it daily, and are the worse for it, or
+at least not the better.&nbsp; It must be done away with.&nbsp;
+Next to the folly of doing a bad thing is that of fearing to undo
+it.&nbsp; We must not look at what it has cost, but at what it
+is.&nbsp; Millions may be spent upon some foolish device which
+will not the more make it into a possession, but only a more
+noticeable detriment.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>It must not be supposed that works of art are the only, or the
+chief, public improvements needed in any country.&nbsp; Wherever
+men congregate, the elements become scarce.&nbsp; The supply of
+air, light, and water is then a matter of the highest public
+importance: and the magnificent utilitarianism of the Romans
+should precede the nice sense of beauty of the Greeks.&nbsp; Or
+rather, the former should be worked out in the latter.&nbsp;
+Sanitary improvements, like most good works, may be made to
+fulfil many of the best human objects.&nbsp; Charity, social
+order, conveniency of living, and the love of the beautiful, may
+all be furthered by such improvements.&nbsp; A people is seldom
+so well employed as when, not suffering their attention to be
+absorbed by foreign quarrels and domestic broils, they bethink
+themselves of winning back those blessings of Nature which
+assemblages of men mostly vitiate, exclude, or destroy.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>Public improvements are sometimes most difficult in free
+countries.&nbsp; The origination of them is difficult there, many
+diverse minds having to be persuaded.&nbsp; The individual, or
+class, resistance to the public good is harder to conquer than in
+despotic states.&nbsp; And, what is most embarrassing, perhaps,
+individual progress in the same direction, or individual doings
+in some other way, form a great hindrance, sometimes, to public
+enterprise.&nbsp; On the other hand, the energy of a free people
+is a mine of public welfare; and individual effort brings many
+good things to bear in much shorter time than any government
+could be expected to move in.&nbsp; A judicious statesman
+considers these things; and sets himself especially to overcome
+those peculiar obstacles to public improvement which belong to
+the institutions of his country.&nbsp; Adventure in a despotic
+state, combined action in a free state, are the objects which
+peculiarly demand his attention.</p>
+<p>To return to works of art.&nbsp; In this also the genius of
+the people is to be heeded.&nbsp; There may have been, there may
+be, nations requiring to be diverted from the love of art to
+stern labour and industrial conquests.&nbsp; But certainly it is
+not so with the Anglo-Saxon race, or with the Northern races
+generally.&nbsp; Money may enslave them; logic may enslave them;
+art never will.&nbsp; The chief men, therefore, in these races
+will do well sometimes to contend against the popular current,
+and to convince their people that there are other sources of
+delight, and other objects worthy of human endeavour, than severe
+money-getting or more material successes of any kind.</p>
+<p>In fine, the substantial improvement, and even the
+embellishment of towns, is a work which both the central and
+local governing bodies in a country should keep a steady hand
+upon.&nbsp; It especially concerns them.&nbsp; What are they
+there for but to do that which individuals cannot do?&nbsp; It
+concerns them, too, as it tells upon the health, morals,
+education, and refined pleasures of the people they govern.&nbsp;
+In doing it, they should avoid pedantry, parsimony, and
+favouritism; and their mode of action should be large,
+considerate, and foreseeing.&nbsp; Large; inasmuch as they must
+not easily be contented with the second best in any of their
+projects.&nbsp; Considerate; inasmuch as they have to think what
+their people need most, not what will make most show.&nbsp; And
+therefore, they should be contented, for instance, at their work
+going on underground for a time, or in byways, if needful; the
+best charity in public works, as in private, being often that
+which courts least notice.&nbsp; Lastly, their work should be
+with foresight, recollecting that cities grow up about us like
+young people, before we are aware of it.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Another very merciful essay!&nbsp;
+When we had once got upon the subject of sanitary improvements, I
+thought we should soon be five fathom deep in blue-books,
+reports, interminable questions of sewerage, and horrors of all
+kinds.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I am glad you own that I have been
+very tender of your impatience in this essay.&nbsp; People, I
+trust, are now so fully aware of the immense importance of
+sanitary improvements, that we do not want the elementary talking
+about such things that was formerly necessary.&nbsp; It is
+difficult, though, to say too much about sanitary matters, that
+is, if by saying much one could gain attention.&nbsp; I am
+convinced that the most fruitful source of physical evil to
+mankind has been impure air, arising from circumstances which
+might have been obviated.&nbsp; Plagues and pestilences of all
+kinds, cretinism too, and all scrofulous disorders, are probably
+mere questions of ventilation.&nbsp; A district may require
+ventilation as well as a house.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Seriously speaking, I quite agree with
+you.&nbsp; And what delights me in sanitary improvements is, that
+they can hardly do harm.&nbsp; Give a poor man good air, and you
+do not diminish his self-reliance.&nbsp; You only add to his
+health and vigour&mdash;make more of a man of him.&nbsp; But now
+that the public mind, as it is facetiously called, has got hold
+of the idea of these improvements, everybody will be chattering
+about them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The very time when those who really do
+care for these matters should be watchful to make the most of the
+tide in their favour, and should not suffer themselves to relax
+their efforts because there is no originality now about such
+things.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Custom soon melts off the wings which
+Novelty alone has lent to Benevolence.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; And down comes the charitable
+Icarus.&nbsp; A very good simile, my dear Dunsford, but rather of
+the Latin-verse order.&nbsp; I almost see it worked into an
+hexameter and pentameter, and delighting the heart of an Eton
+boy.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Ellesmere is more than usually vicious
+to-day, Milverton.&nbsp; A great &ldquo;public improvement&rdquo;
+would be to clip the tongues of some of these lawyers.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Possibly.&nbsp; I have just been
+looking again at that part of the essay, Milverton, where you
+talk of the little gained by national luxury.&nbsp; I think with
+you.&nbsp; There is an immensity of nonsense uttered about making
+people happy, which is to be done, according to
+happiness-mongers, by quantities of sugar and tea, and such-like
+things.&nbsp; One knows the importance of food, but there is no
+Elysium to be got out of it.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I know what you mean.&nbsp; There is a
+kind of pity for the people now in vogue which is most
+effeminate.&nbsp; It is a sugared sort of Robespierre talk about
+&ldquo;The poor but virtuous People.&rdquo;&nbsp; To address such
+stuff to the people is not to give them anything, but to take
+away what they have.&nbsp; Suppose you could give them oceans of
+tea and mountains of sugar, and abundance of any luxury that you
+choose to imagine, but at the same time you inserted a hungry,
+envious spirit in them, what have you done?&nbsp; Then, again,
+this envious spirit, when it is turned to difference of station,
+what good can it do?&nbsp; Can you give station according to
+merit?&nbsp; Is life long enough for it?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Of course we cannot always be weighing
+men with nicety, and saying, &ldquo;Here is your place, here
+yours.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Then, again, what happiness do you
+confer on men by teaching them to disrespect their superiors in
+rank, by turning all the embellishments which adorn various
+stations wrong side out, putting everything in its lowest form,
+and then saying, &ldquo;What do you see to admire
+here?&rdquo;&nbsp; You do not know what injury you may do a man
+when you destroy all reverence in him.&nbsp; It will be found out
+some day that men derive more pleasure and profit from having
+superiors than from having inferiors.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; It is seldom that I bring you back to
+your subject, but we are really a long way off at present; and I
+want to know, Milverton, what you would do specifically in the
+way of public improvements.&nbsp; Of course you cannot say in an
+essay what you would do in such matters, but amongst
+ourselves.&nbsp; In London, for instance.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The first thing for Government to do,
+Dunsford, in London, or any other great town, is to secure open
+spaces in it and about it.&nbsp; Trafalgar Square may be dotted
+with hideous absurdities, but it is an open space.&nbsp; They may
+collect together there specimens of every variety of meanness and
+bad taste; but they cannot prevent its being a better thing than
+if it were covered with houses.&nbsp; Public money is scarcely
+ever so well employed as in securing bits of waste ground and
+keeping them as open spaces.&nbsp; Then, as under the most
+favourable circumstances, we are likely to have too much carbon
+in the air of any town, we should plant trees to restore the just
+proportions of the air as far as we can. <a
+name="citation161"></a><a href="#footnote161"
+class="citation">[161]</a>&nbsp; Trees are also what the heart
+and the eye desire most in towns.&nbsp; The Boulevards in Paris
+show the excellent effect of trees against buildings.&nbsp; There
+are many parts of London where rows of trees might be planted
+along the streets.&nbsp; The weighty dulness of Portland Place,
+for instance, might be thus relieved.&nbsp; Of course, in any
+scheme of public improvements, the getting rid of smoke is one of
+the first objects.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, smoke is a great abuse; but then
+there is something ludicrous about it, just as there is about
+sewerage.&nbsp; I believe, myself, that for one person that the
+Corn Laws have injured, a dozen have had their lives shortened
+and their happiness abridged in every way by these less palpable
+nuisances.&nbsp; But there is no grandeur in opposing
+them&mdash;no &ldquo;good cry&rdquo; to be raised.&nbsp; And so,
+as abuses cannot be met in our days but by agitation&mdash;a
+committee, secretaries, clerks, newspapers, and a
+review&mdash;and as agitation in this case holds out fewer
+inducements than usual, we have gone on year after year being
+poisoned by these various nuisances, at an incalculable expense
+of life and money.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is something in what you say, I
+think, but you press it too far; for of late these sanitary
+subjects have worked themselves into notice, as you yourself
+admit.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Late indeed.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, but to go on with schemes for
+improving London.&nbsp; Open spaces, trees&mdash;then comes the
+supply of water.&nbsp; This is one of the first things to be
+done.&nbsp; Philadelphia has given an example which all towns
+ought to imitate.&nbsp; It is a matter requiring great thought,
+and the various plans should be thoroughly canvassed before the
+choice is made.&nbsp; Great beauty and the highest utility may be
+combined in supplying a town like London with water.&nbsp; By the
+way, how much water do you think London requires daily?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; As much as the Serpentine and the
+water in St. James&rsquo;s Park.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You are not so far out.</p>
+<p>Well, then, having gone through the largest things that must
+be attended to, we come to minor matters.&nbsp; It is a great
+pity that the system of building upon leases should be so
+commonly adopted.&nbsp; Nobody expects to live out the leasehold
+term which he takes to build upon.&nbsp; But things would be
+better done if people were more averse to having anything to do
+with leasehold property.&nbsp; C. always says that the modern
+lath-and-plaster system is a wickedness, and upon my word I think
+he is right.&nbsp; It is inconceivable to me how a man can make
+up his mind to build, or to do anything else, in a temporary,
+slight, insincere fashion.&nbsp; What has a man to say for
+himself who must sum up the doings of his life in this way,
+&ldquo;I chiefly employed myself in making or selling things
+which seemed to be good and were not, and nobody has occasion to
+bless me for anything I have done.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Humph! you put it mildly.&nbsp; But
+the man has made perhaps seven per cent. off his money; or, if he
+has made no per cent., has ruined several men of his own trade,
+which is not to go for nothing when a man is taking stock of his
+good deeds.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is one thing I forgot to say,
+that we want more individual will in building, I think.&nbsp; As
+it is at present, a great builder takes a plot of ground and
+turns out innumerable houses, all alike, the same faults and
+merits running through each, thus adding to the general dulness
+of things.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when she
+came from abroad, remarked that all her friends seemed to have
+got into drawing-rooms which were like a grand piano, first a
+large square or oblong room, and then a small one.&nbsp; Quite
+Georgian, this style of architecture.&nbsp; But now I think we
+are improving immensely&mdash;at any rate in the outside of
+houses.&nbsp; By the way, Milverton, I want to ask you one thing:
+How is it that Governments and Committees, and the bodies that
+manage matters of taste, seem to be more tasteless than the
+average run of people?&nbsp; I will wager anything that the
+cabmen round Trafalgar Square would have made a better thing of
+it than it is.&nbsp; If you had put before them several prints of
+fountains, they would not have chosen those.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I think with you, but I have no theory
+to account for it.&nbsp; I suppose that these committees are
+frequently hampered by other considerations than those which come
+before the public when they are looking at the work done; and
+this may be some excuse.&nbsp; There was a custom which I have
+heard prevailed in former days in some of the Italian cities, of
+making large models of the works of art that were to adorn the
+city, and putting them up in the places intended for the works
+when finished, and then inviting criticism.&nbsp; It would really
+be a very good plan in some cases.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Now, Milverton, would you not
+forthwith pull down such things as Buckingham Palace and the
+National Gallery?&nbsp; Dunsford looks at me as if I were going
+to pull down the Constitution.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would pull them down to a certainty,
+or some parts of them at any rate; but whether
+&ldquo;forthwith&rdquo; is another question.&nbsp; There are
+greater things, perhaps, to be done first.&nbsp; We must
+consider, too,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;That eternal want of pence<br />
+Which vexes public men.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Still, I think we ought always to look upon such buildings as
+temporary arrangements, and they vex one less then.&nbsp; The
+Palace ought to be in the higher part of the Park, perhaps on
+that slope opposite Piccadilly.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, it does amuse me the way in which
+you youngsters go on, pulling down, in your industrious
+imaginations, palaces and national galleries, building aqueducts
+and cloac&aelig; maxim&aelig;, forming parks, destroying smoke
+(so large a part of every Londoner&rsquo;s diet), and abridging
+plaster, without fear of Chancellors of the Exchequer, and the
+resistance of mankind in general.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; We must begin by thinking boldly about
+things.&nbsp; That is a larger part of any undertaking than it
+seems, perhaps.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; We must, I am afraid, break off our
+pleasant employment of projecting public improvements, unless we
+mean to be dinnerless.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; A frequent fate of great projectors, I
+fear.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Now then, homewards.</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+<p><span class="smcap">My</span> readers will, perhaps, agree
+with me in being sorry to find that we are coming to the end of
+our present series.&nbsp; I say, &ldquo;my readers,&rdquo; though
+I have so little part in purveying for them, that I mostly
+consider myself one of them.&nbsp; It is no light task, however,
+to give a good account of a conversation; and I say this, and
+would wish people to try whether I am not right in saying so, not
+to call attention to my labour in the matter, but because it may
+be well to notice how difficult it is to report anything
+truly.&nbsp; Were this better known, it might be an aid to
+charity, and prevent some of those feuds which grow out of the
+poverty of man&rsquo;s power to express, to apprehend, to
+represent, rather than out of any malignant part of his
+nature.&nbsp; But I must not go on moralising.&nbsp; I almost
+feel that Ellesmere is looking over my shoulder, and breaking
+into my discourse with sharp words; which I have lately been so
+much accustomed to.</p>
+<p>I had expected that we should have many more readings this
+summer, as I knew that Milverton had prepared more essays for
+us.&nbsp; But finding, as he said, that the other subjects he had
+in hand were larger than he had anticipated, or was prepared for,
+he would not read even to us what he had written.&nbsp; Though I
+was very sorry for this&mdash;for I may not be the chronicler in
+another year&mdash;I could not but say he was right.&nbsp;
+Indeed, my ideas of literature, nourished as they have been in
+much solitude, and by the reading, if I may say so, mainly of our
+classical authors, are very high placed, though I hope not
+fantastical.&nbsp; And, therefore, I would not discourage anyone
+in expending whatever thought and labour might be in him upon any
+literary work.</p>
+<p>In fine, then, I did not attempt to dissuade Milverton from
+his purpose of postponing our readings: and we agreed that there
+should only be one more for the present.&nbsp; I wished it to be
+at our favourite place on the lawn, which had become endeared to
+me as the spot of many of our friendly councils.</p>
+<p>It was later than usual when I came over to Worth-Ashton for
+this reading; and as I gained the brow of the hill, some few
+clouds tinged with red were just grouping together to form the
+accustomed pomp upon the exit of the setting sun.&nbsp; I believe
+I mentioned in the introduction to our first conversation that
+the ruins of an old castle could be seen from our place of
+meeting.&nbsp; Milverton and Ellesmere were talking about it as I
+joined them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, Ellesmere, many a man has looked
+out of those windows upon a sunset like this, with some of the
+thoughts that must come into the minds of all men on seeing this
+great emblem, the setting sun&mdash;has felt, in looking at it,
+his coming end, or the closing of his greatness.&nbsp; Those old
+walls must have been witness to every kind of human
+emotion.&nbsp; Henry the Second was there; John, I think;
+Margaret of Anjou and Cardinal Beaufort; William of Wykeham;
+Henry the Eighth&rsquo;s Cromwell; and many others who have made
+some stir in the world.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; And, perhaps, the greatest there were
+those who made no stir.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The world knows nothing of its greatest
+men.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I am slow to believe that.&nbsp; I
+cannot well reconcile myself to the idea that great capacities
+are given for nothing.&nbsp; They bud out in some way or
+other.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, but it may not be in a noisy
+way.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is one thing that always strikes
+me very much in looking at the lives of men: how soon, as it
+were, their course seems to be determined.&nbsp; They say, or do,
+or think, something which gives a bias at once to the whole of
+their career.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; You may go farther back than that, and
+speak of the impulses they got from their ancestors.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Or the nets around them of other
+people&rsquo;s ways and wishes.&nbsp; There are many things, you
+see, that go to make men puppets.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I was only noticing the circumstance
+that there was such a thing, as it appeared to me, as this early
+direction.&nbsp; But, if it has been ever so unfortunate, a
+man&rsquo;s folding his hands over it in a melancholy mood, and
+suffering himself to be made a puppet by it, is a sadly weak
+proceeding.&nbsp; Most thoughtful men have probably some dark
+fountains in their souls, by the side of which, if there were
+time, and it were decorous, they could let their thoughts sit
+down and wail indefinitely.&nbsp; That long Byron wail fascinated
+men for a time; because there is that in Human Nature.&nbsp;
+Luckily, a great deal besides.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I delight in the helpful and hopeful
+men.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; A man that I admire very much, and
+have met with occasionally, is one who is always of use in any
+matter he is mixed up with, simply because he wishes that the
+best should be got out of the thing that is possible.&nbsp; There
+does not seem much in the description of such a character; but
+only see it in contrast with that of a brilliant man, for
+instance, who does not ever fully care about the matter in
+hand.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I can thoroughly imagine the
+difference.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The human race may be bound up
+together in some mysterious way, each of us having a profound
+interest in the fortunes of the whole, and so, to some extent, of
+every portion of it.&nbsp; Such a man as I have described acts as
+though he had an intuitive perception of that relation, and
+therefore a sort of family feeling for mankind, which gives him
+satisfaction in making the best out of any human affair he has to
+do with.</p>
+<p>But we really must have the essay, and not talk any
+more.&nbsp; It is on History.</p>
+<h3>HISTORY.</h3>
+<p>Among the fathomless things that are about us and within us,
+is the continuity of time.&nbsp; This gives to life one of its
+most solemn aspects.&nbsp; We may think to ourselves: Would there
+could be some halting-place in life, where we could stay,
+collecting our minds, and see the world drift by us.&nbsp; But
+no: even while you read this, you are not pausing to read
+it.&nbsp; As one of the great French preachers, I think, says, We
+are embarked upon a stream, each in his own little boat, which
+must move uniformly onwards, till it ceases to move at all.&nbsp;
+It is a stream that knows &ldquo;no haste, no rest&rdquo;; a boat
+that knows no haven but one.</p>
+<p>This unbated continuity suggests the past as well as the
+future.&nbsp; We would know what mighty empires this stream of
+time has flowed through, by what battle-fields it has been
+tinged, how it has been employed towards fertility, and what
+beautiful shadows on its surface have been seized by art, or
+science, or great words, and held in time-lasting, if not in
+everlasting, beauty.&nbsp; This is what history tells us.&nbsp;
+Often in a faltering, confused, be-darkened way, like the deed it
+chronicles.&nbsp; But it is what we have, and we must make the
+best of it.</p>
+<p>The subject of this essay may be thus divided: Why history
+should be read&mdash;how it should be read&mdash;by whom it
+should be written&mdash;how it should be written&mdash;and how
+good writers of history should be called forth, aided, and
+rewarded.</p>
+<h3>I.&nbsp; WHY HISTORY SHOULD BE READ.</h3>
+<p>It takes us out of too much care for the present; it extends
+our sympathies; it shows us that other men have had their
+sufferings and their grievances; it enriches discourse, it
+enlightens travel.&nbsp; So does fiction.&nbsp; But the effect of
+history is more lasting and suggestive.&nbsp; If we see a place
+which fiction has treated of, we feel that it has some interest
+for us; but show us a spot where remarkable deeds have been done,
+or remarkable people have lived, and our thoughts cling to
+it.&nbsp; We employ our own imagination about it: we invent the
+fiction for ourselves.&nbsp; Again, history is at least the
+conventional account of things: that which men agree to receive
+as the right account, and which they discuss as true.&nbsp; To
+understand their talk, we must know what they are talking
+about.&nbsp; Again, there is something in history which can
+seldom be got from the study of the lives of individual men;
+namely, the movements of men collectively, and for long
+periods&mdash;of man, in fact, not of men.&nbsp; In history, the
+composition of the forces that move the world has to be
+analysed.&nbsp; We must have before us the law of the progress of
+opinion, the interruptions to it of individual character, the
+principles on which men act in the main, the trade winds, as we
+may say, in human affairs, and the recurrent storms which one
+man&rsquo;s life does not tell us of.&nbsp; Again, by the study
+of history, we have a chance of becoming tolerant travelling over
+the ways of many nations and many periods; and we may also
+acquire that historic tact by which we collect upon one point of
+human affairs the light of many ages.</p>
+<p>We may judge of the benefit of historical studies by observing
+what great defects are incident to the moral and political
+writers who know nothing of history.&nbsp; A present grievance,
+or what seems such, swallows up in their minds all other
+considerations; their little bottle of oil is to still the raging
+waves of the whole human ocean; their system, a thing that the
+historian has seen before, perhaps, in many ages, is to reconcile
+all diversities.&nbsp; Then they would persuade you that this
+class of men is wholly good, that wholly bad; or that there is no
+difference between good and bad.&nbsp; They may be shrewd men,
+considering what they have seen, but would be much shrewder if
+they could know how small a part that is of life.&nbsp; We may
+all refer to our boyhood, and recollect the time when we thought
+the things about us were the type of all things everywhere.&nbsp;
+That was, perhaps, after all no silly princess who was for
+feeding the famishing people on cakes.&nbsp; History takes us out
+of this confined circle of child-like thought; and shows us what
+are the perennial aims, struggles, and distractions of
+mankind.</p>
+<p>History has always been set down as the especial study for
+statesmen, and for men who take an interest in public
+affairs.&nbsp; For history is to nations what biography is to
+individual men.&nbsp; History is the chart and compass for
+national endeavour.&nbsp; Our early voyagers are dead: not a
+plank remains of the old ships that first essayed unknown waters;
+the sea retains no track; and were it not for the history of
+these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in hoarded lore
+of all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start with all the
+aids of advanced civilisation (if you could imagine such a thing
+without history), would need the boldness of the first
+voyager.</p>
+<p>And so it would be with the statesman, were the civil history
+of mankind unknown.&nbsp; We live to some extent in peace and
+comfort upon the results obtained for us by the chronicles of our
+forefathers.&nbsp; We do not see this without some
+reflection.&nbsp; But imagine what a full-grown nation would be
+if it knew no history&mdash;like a full-grown man with only a
+child&rsquo;s experience.</p>
+<p>The present is an age of remarkable experiences.&nbsp; Vast
+improvements have been made in several of the outward things that
+concern life nearly, from intercourse rapid as lightning to
+surgical operation without pain.&nbsp; We accept them all; still,
+the difficulties of government, the management of ourselves, our
+relations with others, and many of the prime difficulties of life
+remain but little subdued.&nbsp; History still claims our
+interest, is still wanted to make us think and act with any
+breadth of wisdom.</p>
+<p>At the same time, however, that we claim for history great
+powers of instruction, we must not imagine that the examples
+which it furnishes will enable its readers to anticipate the
+experience of life.&nbsp; An experienced man reads that
+C&aelig;sar did this or that, but he says to himself, &ldquo;I am
+not C&aelig;sar.&rdquo;&nbsp; Or, indeed, as is most probable,
+the reader has not to reject the application of the example to
+himself: for from first to last he sees nothing but experience
+for C&aelig;sar in what C&aelig;sar was doing.&nbsp; I think it
+may be observed, too, that general maxims about life gain the ear
+of the inexperienced, in preference to historical examples.&nbsp;
+But neither wise sayings nor historical examples can be
+understood without experience.&nbsp; Words are only
+symbols.&nbsp; Who can know anything soundly with respect to the
+complicated affections and struggles of life, unless he has
+experienced some of them?&nbsp; All knowledge of humanity spreads
+from within.&nbsp; So in studying history, the lessons it teaches
+must have something to grow round in the heart they teach.&nbsp;
+Our own trials, misfortunes, and enterprises are the best lights
+by which we can read history.&nbsp; Hence it is that many an
+historian may see far less into the depths of the very history he
+has himself written than a man who, having acted and suffered,
+reads the history in question with all the wisdom that comes from
+action and suffering.&nbsp; Sir Robert Walpole might naturally
+exclaim, &ldquo;Do not read history to me, for that, I know, must
+be false.&rdquo;&nbsp; But if he had read it, I do not doubt that
+he would have seen through the film of false and insufficient
+narrative into the depth of the matter narrated, in a way that
+men of great experience can alone attain to.</p>
+<h3>II.&nbsp; HOW HISTORY SHOULD BE READ.</h3>
+<p>I suppose that many who now connect the very word history with
+the idea of dulness, would have been fond and diligent students
+of history if it had had fair access to their minds.&nbsp; But
+they were set down to read histories which were not fitted to be
+read continuously, or by any but practised students.&nbsp; Some
+such works are mere framework, a name which the author of the
+<i>Statesman</i> applies to them; very good things, perhaps, for
+their purpose, but that is not to invite readers to
+history.&nbsp; You might almost as well read dictionaries with a
+hope of getting a succinct and clear view of language.&nbsp;
+When, in any narration, there is a constant heaping up of facts,
+made about equally significant by the way of telling them, a
+hasty delineation of characters, and all the incidents moving on
+as in the fifth act of a confused tragedy, the mind and memory
+refuse to be so treated; and the reading ends in nothing but a
+very slight and inaccurate acquaintance with the mere husk of the
+history.&nbsp; You cannot epitomise the knowledge that it would
+take years to acquire into a few volumes that may be read in as
+many weeks.</p>
+<p>The most likely way of attracting men&rsquo;s attention to
+historical subjects will be by presenting them with small
+portions of history, of great interest, thoroughly
+examined.&nbsp; This may give them the habit of applying thought
+and criticism to historical matters.</p>
+<p>For, as it is, how are people interested in history? and how
+do they master its multitudinous assemblage of facts?&nbsp;
+Mostly, perhaps, in this way.&nbsp; A man cares about some one
+thing, or person, or event, and plunges into its history, really
+wishing to master it.&nbsp; This pursuit extends: other points of
+research are taken up by him at other times.&nbsp; His researches
+begin to intersect.&nbsp; He finds a connection in things.&nbsp;
+The texture of his historic acquisitions gradually attains some
+substance and colour; and so at last he begins to have some dim
+notions of the myriads of men who came, and saw, and did not
+conquer&mdash;only struggled on as they best might, some of
+them&mdash;and are not.</p>
+<p>When we are considering how history should be read, the main
+thing perhaps is, that the person reading should desire to know
+what he is reading about, not merely to have read the books that
+tell of it.&nbsp; The most elaborate and careful historian must
+omit, or pass lightly over, many points of his subject.&nbsp; He
+writes for all readers, and cannot indulge private fancies.&nbsp;
+But history has its particular aspect for each man: there must be
+portions which he may be expected to dwell upon.&nbsp; And
+everywhere, even where the history is most laboured, the reader
+should have something of the spirit of research which was needful
+for the writer: if only so much as to ponder well the words of
+the writer.&nbsp; That man reads history, or anything else, at
+great peril of being thoroughly misled, who has no perception of
+any truthfulness except that which can be fully ascertained by
+reference to facts; who does not in the least perceive the truth,
+or the reverse, of a writer&rsquo;s style, of his epithets, of
+his reasoning, of his mode of narration.&nbsp; In life, our faith
+in any narration is much influenced by the personal appearance,
+voice, and gesture of the person narrating.&nbsp; There is some
+part of all these things in his writing; and you must look into
+that well before you can know what faith to give him.&nbsp; One
+man may make mistakes in names, and dates, and references, and
+yet have a real substance of truthfulness in him, a wish to
+enlighten himself and then you.&nbsp; Another may not be wrong in
+his facts, but have a declamatory or sophistical vein in him,
+much to be guarded against.&nbsp; A third may be both inaccurate
+and untruthful, caring not so much for anything as to write his
+book.&nbsp; And if the reader cares only to read it, sad work
+they make between them of the memories of former days.</p>
+<p>In studying history, it must be borne in mind that a knowledge
+is necessary of the state of manners, customs, wealth, arts, and
+science at the different periods treated of.&nbsp; The text of
+civil history requires a context of this knowledge in the mind of
+the reader.&nbsp; For the same reason, some of the main facts of
+the geography of the countries in question should be present to
+him.&nbsp; If we are ignorant of these aids to history, all
+history is apt to seem alike to us.&nbsp; It becomes merely a
+narrative of men of our own time, in our own country; and then we
+are prone to expect the same views and conduct from them that we
+do from our contemporaries.&nbsp; It is true that the heroes of
+antiquity have been represented on the stage in bag-wigs, and the
+rest of the costume of our grandfathers: but it was the great
+events of their lives that were thus told&mdash;the crisis of
+their passions&mdash;and when we are contemplating the
+representation of great passions and their consequences, all
+minor imagery is of little moment.&nbsp; In a long-drawn
+narrative, however, the more we have in our minds of what
+concerned the daily life of the people we read about, the
+better.&nbsp; And in general it may be said that history, like
+travelling, gives a return in proportion to the knowledge that a
+man brings to it.</p>
+<h3>III.&nbsp; BY WHOM HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN.</h3>
+<p>Before entering directly on this part of the subject, it is
+desirable to consider a little the difficulties in the way of
+writing history.&nbsp; We all know the difficulty of getting at
+the truth of a matter which happened yesterday, and about which
+we can examine the living actors upon oath.&nbsp; But in history
+the most significant things may lack the most important part of
+their evidence.&nbsp; The people who were making history were not
+thinking of the convenience of future writers of history.&nbsp;
+Often the historian must contrive to get his insight into matters
+from evidence of men and things which is like bad pictures of
+them.&nbsp; The contemporary, if he knew the man, said of the
+picture, &ldquo;I should have known it, but it has very little of
+him in it.&rdquo;&nbsp; The poor historian, with no original
+before him, has to see through the bad picture into the
+man.&nbsp; Then, supposing our historian rich in well-selected
+evidence&mdash;I say well-selected, because, as students tell us,
+for many an historian one authority is of the same weight as
+another, provided they are both of the same age; still, how
+difficult is narration even to the man who is rich in
+well-selected evidence.&nbsp; What a tendency there is to round
+off a narrative into falsehood; or else by parenthesis to destroy
+its pith and continuity.&nbsp; Again, the historian knows the end
+of many of the transactions he narrates.&nbsp; If he did not, how
+differently often he would narrate them.&nbsp; It would be a most
+instructive thing to give a man the materials for the account of
+a great transaction, stopping short of the end, and then see how
+different would be his account from the ordinary ones.&nbsp;
+Fools have been hardly dealt with in the saying that the event is
+their master (&ldquo;eventus stultorum magister&rdquo;), seeing
+how it rules us all.&nbsp; And in nothing more than in
+history.&nbsp; The event is always present to our minds; along
+the pathways to it, the historian and the moralist have walked
+till they are beaten pathways, and we imagine that they were so
+to the men who first went along them.&nbsp; Indeed, we almost
+fancy that these ancestors of ours, looking along the beaten
+path, foresaw the event as we do; whereas, they mostly stumbled
+upon it suddenly in the forest.&nbsp; This knowledge of the end
+we must, therefore, put down as one of the most dangerous
+pitfalls which beset the writers of history.&nbsp; Then consider
+the difficulty in the &ldquo;composition,&rdquo; to use an
+artist&rsquo;s word, of our historian&rsquo;s picture.&nbsp;
+Before both the artist and the historian lies Nature as far as
+the horizon; how shall they choose that portion of it which has
+some unity and which shall represent the rest?&nbsp; What method
+is needful in the grouping of facts; what learning, what
+patience, what accuracy!</p>
+<p>By whom, then, should history be written?&nbsp; In the first
+place, by men of some experience in real life; who have acted and
+suffered; who have been in crowds, and seen, perhaps felt, how
+madly men can care about nothings; who have observed how much is
+done in the world in an uncertain manner, upon sudden impulses
+and very little reason; and who, therefore, do not think
+themselves bound to have a deep-laid theory for all things.&nbsp;
+They should be men who have studied the laws of the affections,
+who know how much men&rsquo;s opinions depend on the time in
+which they live, how they vary with their age and their
+position.&nbsp; To make themselves historians, they should also
+have considered the combinations amongst men and the laws that
+govern such things; for there are laws.&nbsp; Moreover our
+historians, like most men who do great things, must combine in
+themselves qualities which are held to belong to opposite
+natures; must at the same time be patient in research and
+vigorous in imagination, energetic and calm, cautious and
+enterprising.&nbsp; Such historians, wise, as we may suppose they
+will be, about the affair of other men, may, let us hope, be
+sufficiently wise about their own affairs to understand that no
+great work can be done without great labour, that no great labour
+ought to look for its reward.&nbsp; But my readers will exclaim
+as Rasselas to Imlac on hearing the requisites for a poet,
+&ldquo;Enough! thou hast convinced me that no human being can
+ever be an historian.&nbsp; Proceed with thy
+narration.&rdquo;</p>
+<h3>IV.&nbsp; HOW HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN.</h3>
+<p>One of the first things in writing history is for the
+historian to recollect that it is history he is writing.&nbsp;
+The narrative must not be oppressed by reflections, even by wise
+ones.&nbsp; Least of all should the historian suffer himself to
+become entangled by a theory or a system.&nbsp; If he does, each
+fact is taken up by him in a particular way: those facts that
+cannot be so handled cease to be his facts, and those that offer
+themselves conveniently are received too fondly by him.</p>
+<p>Then, although our historian must not be mastered by system,
+he must have some way of taking up his facts and of classifying
+them.&nbsp; They must not be mere isolated units in his eyes,
+else he is mobbed by them.&nbsp; And a man in the midst of a
+crowd, though he may know the names and nature of all the crowd,
+cannot give an account of their doings.&nbsp; Those who look down
+from the housetop must do that.</p>
+<p>But, above all things, the historian must get out of his own
+age into the time in which he is writing.&nbsp; Imagination is as
+much needed for the historian as the poet.&nbsp; You may combine
+bits of books with other bits of books, and so make some new
+combinations, and this may be done accurately, and, in general,
+much of the subordinate preparation for history may be
+accomplished without any great effort of imagination.&nbsp; But
+to write history in any large sense of the words, you must be
+able to comprehend other times.&nbsp; You must know that there is
+a right and wrong which is not your right and wrong, but yet
+stands upon the right and wrong of all ages and all hearts.&nbsp;
+You must also appreciate the outward life and colours of the
+period you write about.&nbsp; Try to think how the men you are
+telling of would have spent a day, what were their leading ideas,
+what they cared about.&nbsp; Grasp the body of the time, and give
+it to us.&nbsp; If not, and these men could look at your history,
+they would say, &ldquo;This is all very well; we daresay some of
+these things did happen; but we were not thinking of these things
+all day long.&nbsp; It does not represent us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After enlarging upon this great requisite, imagination, it
+seems somewhat prosaic to come down to saying that history
+requires accuracy.&nbsp; But I think I hear the sighs, and sounds
+more harsh than sighing, of those who have ever investigated
+anything, and found by dire experience the deplorable inaccuracy
+which prevails in the world.&nbsp; And, therefore, I would say to
+the historian almost as the first suggestion, &ldquo;Be accurate;
+do not make false references, do not mis-state: and men, if they
+get no light from you, will not execrate you.&nbsp; You will not
+stand in the way, and have to be explained and got rid
+of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Another most important matter in writing history, and that
+indeed in which the art lies, is the method of narrating.&nbsp;
+This is a thing almost beyond rules, like the actual execution in
+music or painting.&nbsp; A man might have fairness, accuracy, an
+insight into other times, great knowledge of facts, some power
+even of arranging them, and yet make a narrative out of it all,
+so protracted here, so huddled together there, the purpose so
+buried or confused, that men would agree to acknowledge the merit
+of the book and leave it unread.&nbsp; There must be a natural
+line of associations for the narrative to run along.&nbsp; The
+separate threads of the narrative must be treated separately, and
+yet the subject not be dealt with sectionally, for that is not
+the way in which the things occurred.&nbsp; The historian must,
+therefore, beware that those divisions of the subject which he
+makes for our ease and convenience, do not induce him to treat
+his subject in a flimsy manner.&nbsp; He must not make his story
+easy where it is not so.</p>
+<p>After all, it is not by rule that a great history is to be
+written.&nbsp; Most thinkers agree that the main object for the
+historian is to get an insight into the things which he tells of,
+and then to tell them with the modesty of a man who is in the
+presence of great events; and must speak about them carefully,
+simply, and with but little of himself or of his affections
+thrown into the narration.</p>
+<h3>V.&nbsp; HOW GOOD WRITERS OF HISTORY SHOULD BE CALLED FORTH,
+AIDED, AND REWARDED.</h3>
+<p>Mainly by history being properly read.&nbsp; The direct ways
+of commanding excellence of any kind are very few, if any.&nbsp;
+When a State has found out its notable men, it should reward
+them, and will show its worthiness by its measure and mode of
+reward.&nbsp; But it cannot purchase them.&nbsp; It may do
+something in the way of aiding them.&nbsp; In history, for
+instance, the records of a nation may be discreetly managed, and
+some of the minor work, therefore, done to the hand of the
+historian.&nbsp; But the most likely method to ensure good
+historians is to have a fit audience for them.&nbsp; And this is
+a very difficult matter.&nbsp; In works of general literature,
+the circle of persons capable of judging is large; even in works
+of science or philosophy it is considerable: but in history, it
+is a very confined circle.&nbsp; To the general body of readers,
+whether the history they read is true or not is in no way
+perceptible.&nbsp; It is quite as amusing to them when it is told
+in one way as in another.&nbsp; There is always mischief in
+error: but in this case the mischief is remote, or seems
+so.&nbsp; For men of ordinary culture, even if of much
+intelligence, the difficulty of discerning what is true or false
+in the histories they read makes it a matter of the highest duty
+for those few persons who can give us criticism on historical
+works, at least to save us from insolent and mendacious
+carelessness in historical writers, if not by just encouragement
+to secure for nations some results not altogether unworthy of the
+great enterprise which the writing of history holds out itself to
+be.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hujus enim fidei exempla majorum, vicissitudines
+rerum, fundamenta prudenti&aelig; civilis, hominum denique nomen
+et fama commissa sunt.&rdquo; <a name="citation183"></a><a
+href="#footnote183" class="citation">[183]</a></p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Just wait a minute for me, and do not
+talk about the essay till I come back.&nbsp; I am going for
+Anster&rsquo;s <i>Faust</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What has Ellesmere got in his head?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I see.&nbsp; There is a passage where
+Faust, in his most discontented mood, falls foul of
+history&mdash;in his talk to Wagner, if I am not mistaken.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; How beautiful it is this evening!&nbsp;
+Look at that yellow-green near the sunset.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The very words that Coleridge
+uses.&nbsp; I always think of them when I see that tint.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I daresay his words were in my mind,
+but I have forgotten what you allude to.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,<br
+/>
+To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo&rsquo;d,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp; All this long eve, so balmy and serene,<br />
+Have I been gazing on the western sky,<br />
+And its peculiar tint of yellow-green:<br />
+And still I gaze&mdash;and with how blank an eye!<br />
+And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,<br />
+That give away their motion to the stars;<br />
+Those stars that glide behind them or between,<br />
+Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:<br />
+Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew<br />
+In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;<br />
+I see them all so excellently fair,<br />
+I see, not feel how beautiful they are.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Admirable!&nbsp; In the <i>Ode to
+Dejection</i>, is it not? where, too, there are those lines,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;O Lady! we receive but what we give,<br />
+And in our life alone does Nature live.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; But here comes Ellesmere with
+triumphant look.&nbsp; You look as jovial, my dear Ellesmere, as
+if you were a Bentley that had found a false quantity in a
+Boyle.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Listen and perpend, my historical
+friends.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;To us, my friend, the times that are gone
+by<br />
+Are a mysterious book, sealed with seven seals:<br />
+That which you call the spirit of ages past<br />
+Is but, in truth, the spirit of some few authors<br />
+In which those ages are beheld reflected,<br />
+With what distortion strange heaven only knows.<br />
+Oh! often, what a toilsome thing it is<br />
+This study of thine&mdash;at the first glance we fly it.<br />
+A mass of things confusedly heaped together;<br />
+A lumber-room of dusty documents,<br />
+Furnished with all approved court-precedents<br />
+And old traditional maxims!&nbsp; History!<br />
+Facts dramatised say rather&mdash;action&mdash;plot&mdash;<br />
+Sentiment, everything the writer&rsquo;s own,<br />
+As it bests fits the web-work of his story,<br />
+With here and there a solitary fact<br />
+Of consequence, by those grave chroniclers,<br />
+Pointed with many a moral apophthegm,<br />
+And wise old saws, learned at the puppet-shows.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; admirable lines; they describe to
+the life the very faults we have been considering as the faults
+of badly-written histories.&nbsp; I do not see that they do much
+more.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;To us, my friend, the times that are gone
+by<br />
+Are a mysterious book.&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Those two first lines are the full
+expression of Faust&rsquo;s discontent&mdash;unmeasured as in the
+presence of a weak man who could not check him.&nbsp; But, if you
+come to look at the matter closely, you will see that the time
+present is also in some sense a sealed book to us.&nbsp; Men that
+we live with daily we often think as little of as we do of Julius
+C&aelig;sar, I was going to say&mdash;but we know much less of
+them than of him.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I did not mean to say that Faust spoke
+my sentiments about history in general.&nbsp; Still, there are
+periods of history which we have very few authors to tell us
+about, and I daresay in some of those cases the colouring of
+their particular minds gives us a false idea of the whole age
+they lived in.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; This may have happened, certainly.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; We must be careful not to expect too
+much from the history of past ages, as a means of understanding
+the present age.&nbsp; There is something wanted besides the
+preceding history to understand each age.&nbsp; Each individual
+life may have a problem of its own, which all other biography
+accurately set down for us might not enable us to work out.&nbsp;
+So of each age.&nbsp; It has something in it not known before,
+and tends to a result which is not down in any books.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yet history must be of greatest use in
+discerning this tendency.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes; but the Wagner sort of pedant
+would get entangled in his round of history&mdash;in his
+historical resemblances.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Now, Milverton, if you were called upon
+to say what are the peculiar characteristics of this age, what
+should you say?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; One of Dunsford&rsquo;s questions
+this, requiring a stout quarto volume with notes in answer.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would rather wait till I was called
+upon.&nbsp; I am apt to feel, after I have left off describing
+the character of any individual man, as if I had only just
+begun.&nbsp; And I do not see the extent of discourse that would
+be needful in attempting to give the characteristics of an
+age.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I think you are prudent to avoid
+answering Dunsford&rsquo;s question.&nbsp; For my own part, I
+should prefer giving an account of the age we live in after we
+have come to the end of it&mdash;in the true historical
+fashion.&nbsp; And so, Dunsford, you must wait for my
+notions.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I am afraid, Milverton, if you were to
+write history, you would never make up your mind to condemn
+anybody.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I hope I should not be so
+inconclusive.&nbsp; I certainly do dislike to see any character,
+whether of a living or a dead person, disposed of in a summary
+way.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; For once I will come to the rescue of
+Milverton.&nbsp; I really do not see that a man&rsquo;s belief in
+the extent and variety of human character, and in the difficulty
+of appreciating the circumstances of life, should prevent him
+from writing history&mdash;from coming to some conclusions.&nbsp;
+Of course such a man is not likely to write a long course of
+history; but that I hold has been a frequent error in
+historians&mdash;that they have taken up subjects too large for
+them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; If there is as much to be said about
+men&rsquo;s character and conduct as I think there mostly is, why
+should we be content with shallow views of them?&nbsp; Take the
+outward form of these hills and valleys before us.&nbsp; When we
+have seen them a few times, we think we know them, but are quite
+mistaken.&nbsp; Approaching from another quarter, it is almost
+new ground to us.&nbsp; It is a long time before you master the
+outward form and semblance of any small piece of country that has
+much life and diversity in it.&nbsp; I often think of this,
+applying it to our little knowledge of men.&nbsp; Now, look there
+a moment: you see that house; close behind it is apparently a
+barren tract.&nbsp; In reality there is nothing of the kind
+there.&nbsp; A fertile valley with a great river in it, as you
+know, is between that house and the moors.&nbsp; But the plane of
+those moors and of the house is coincident from our present point
+of view.&nbsp; Had we not, as educated men, some distrust of the
+conclusions of our senses, we should be ready to swear that there
+was a lonely house on the border of the moors.&nbsp; It is the
+same in judging of men.&nbsp; We see a man connected with a train
+of action which is really not near him, absolutely foreign to
+him, perhaps, but in our eyes that is what he is always connected
+with.&nbsp; If there were not a Being who understands us
+immeasurably better than other men can, immeasurably better than
+we do ourselves, we should be badly off.</p>
+<p>Such precautionary thoughts as these must be useful, I
+contend.&nbsp; They need not make us indifferent to character, or
+prevent us from forming judgments where we must form them, but
+they show us what a wide thing we are talking about when we are
+judging the life and nature of a man.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am sure, Dunsford, you are already
+convinced: you seldom want more than a slight pretext for going
+over to the charitable side of things.&nbsp; You are only afraid
+of not dealing stoutly enough with bad things and people.&nbsp;
+Do not be afraid though.&nbsp; As long as you have me to abuse,
+you will say many unjust things against me, you know, so that you
+may waste yourself in good thoughts about the rest of the world,
+past and present.&nbsp; Do you know the lawyer&rsquo;s story I
+had in my mind then?&nbsp; &ldquo;Many times when I have had a
+good case,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I have failed; but then I have
+often succeeded with bad cases.&nbsp; And so justice is
+done.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; To return to the subject.&nbsp; It is
+not a sort of equalising want of thought about men that I desire;
+only not to be rash in a matter that requires all our care and
+prudence.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, I believe I am won over.&nbsp;
+But now to another point.&nbsp; I think, Milverton, that you have
+said hardly anything about the use of history as an incentive to
+good deeds and a discouragement to evil ones.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I ought to have done so.&nbsp;
+Bolingbroke gives in his &ldquo;Letters on History,&rdquo;
+talking of this point, a passage from Tacitus,
+&ldquo;Pr&aelig;cipuum munus annalium,&rdquo;&mdash;can you go on
+with it, Dunsford?</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes, I think I can.&nbsp; It is a
+passage I have often seen quoted.&nbsp; &ldquo;Pr&aelig;cipuum
+munus annalium, reor, ne virtutes sileantur; utque pravis dictis
+factisque ex posteritate et infami&acirc; metus sit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well done; Dunsford may have invented
+it, though, for aught that we know, Milverton, and be passing
+himself off upon us for Tacitus.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Then Bolingbroke goes on to say (I
+wish I could give you his own flowing words), that the great duty
+of history is to form a tribunal like that amongst the Egyptians
+which Diodorus tells of, where both common men and princes were
+tried after their deaths, and received appropriate honour or
+disgrace.&nbsp; The sentence was pronounced, he says, too late to
+correct or to recompense; but it was pronounced in time to render
+examples of general instruction to mankind.&nbsp; Now, what I was
+going to remark upon this is, that Bolingbroke understates his
+case.&nbsp; History well written is a present correction, and a
+foretaste of recompense, to the man who is now struggling with
+difficulties and temptations, now overcast by calumny and cloudy
+misrepresentation.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes; many a man makes an appeal to
+posterity which will never come before the court; but if there
+were no such court of appeal&mdash;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; A man&rsquo;s conviction that justice
+will be done to him in history is a secondary motive, and not one
+which, of itself, will compel him to do just and great things;
+but, at any rate, it forms one of the benefits that flow from
+history, and it becomes stronger as histories are better
+written.&nbsp; Much may be said against care for fame; much also
+against care for present repute.&nbsp; There is a diviner impulse
+than either at the doing of any actions that are much worth
+doing.&nbsp; As a correction, however, this anticipation of the
+judgment of history may really be very powerful.&nbsp; It is a
+great enlightenment of conscience to read the opinions of men on
+deeds similar to those we are engaged in or meditating.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I think Bolingbroke&rsquo;s idea, which
+I imagine was more general than yours, is more important: namely,
+that this judicial proceeding, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus,
+gave significant lessons to all people, not merely to those who
+had any chance of having their names in history.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Certainly: for this is one of
+Bolingbroke&rsquo;s chief points, if I recollect rightly.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Our conversations are much better
+things than your essays, Milverton.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Of course, I am bound to say so: but
+what made you think of that now?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Why, I was thinking how in talk we can
+know exactly where we agree or differ.&nbsp; But I never like to
+interrupt the essay.&nbsp; I never know when it would come to an
+end if I did.&nbsp; And so it swims on like a sermon, having all
+its own way: one cannot put in an awkward question in a weak
+part, and get things looked at in various ways.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I suppose, then, Ellesmere, you would
+like to interrupt sermons.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Why, yes, sometimes&mdash;do not throw
+sticks at me, Dunsford.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, it is absurd to be angry with
+you; because if you long to interrupt Milverton with his captious
+perhapses and probablys, of course you will be impatient with
+discourses which do, to a certain extent, assume that the
+preacher and the hearers are in unison upon great matters.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am afraid to say anything about
+sermons, for fear of the argumentum baculinum from Dunsford; for
+many essay writers, like Milverton, delight to wind up their
+paragraphs with complete little aphorisms&mdash;shutting up
+something certainly, but shutting out something too.&nbsp; I
+could generally pause upon them a little.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Of course one may err, Ellesmere, in
+too much aphorising as in too much of anything.&nbsp; But your
+argument goes against all expression of opinion, which must be
+incomplete, especially when dealing with matters that cannot be
+circumscribed by exact definitions.&nbsp; Otherwise, a code of
+wisdom might be made which the fool might apply as well as the
+wisest man.&nbsp; Even the best proverb, though often the
+expression of the widest experience in the choicest language, can
+be thoroughly misapplied.&nbsp; It cannot embrace the whole of
+the subject, and apply in all cases like a mathematical
+formula.&nbsp; Its wisdom lies in the ear of the hearer.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, I not know that there is
+anything more to say about the essay.&nbsp; I suppose you are
+aware, Dunsford, that Milverton does not intend to give us any
+more essays for some time.&nbsp; He is distressing his mind about
+some facts which he wants to ascertain before he will read any
+more to us.&nbsp; I imagine we are to have something historical
+next.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Something in which historical records
+are useful.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Really it is wonderful to see how
+beautifully human nature accommodates itself to anything, even to
+the listening to essays.&nbsp; I shall miss them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You may miss the talk before and
+after.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, there is no knowing how much of
+that is provoked (provoked is a good word, is it not?) by the
+essays.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Then, for the present, we have come to
+an end of our readings.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, but I trust at no distant time to
+have something more to try your critical powers and patience
+upon.&nbsp; I hope that that old tower will yet see us meet
+together here on many a sunny day, discussing various things in
+friendly council.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<div class="gapmediumline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">Printed by
+Cassell and Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London,
+E.C.</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">12&mdash;391</span></p>
+<h2>FOOTNOTES.</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12"
+class="footnote">[12]</a>&nbsp; See <i>Statesman</i>, p. 30.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote42"></a><a href="#citation42"
+class="footnote">[42]</a>&nbsp; The passage which must have been
+alluded to is this: &ldquo;The stricter tenets of Calvinism,
+which allow no medium between grace and reprobation, and doom man
+to eternal punishment for every breach of the moral law, as an
+equal offence against Infinite truth and justice, proceed (like
+the paradoxical doctrine of the Stoics), from taking a half-view
+of this subject, and considering man as amenable only to the
+dictates of his understanding and his conscience, and not
+excusable from the temptations and frailty of human ignorance and
+passion.&nbsp; The mixing up of religion and morality together,
+or the making us accountable for every word, thought, or action,
+under no less a responsibility than our everlasting future
+welfare or misery, has also added incalculably to the
+difficulties of self-knowledge, has superinduced a violent and
+spurious state of feeling, and made it almost impossible to
+distinguish the boundaries between the true and false, in judging
+of human conduct and motives.&nbsp; A religious man is afraid of
+looking into the state of his soul, lest at the same time he
+should reveal it to heaven; and tries to persuade himself that by
+shutting his eyes to his true character and feelings, they will
+remain a profound secret, both here and hereafter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote53"></a><a href="#citation53"
+class="footnote">[53]</a>&nbsp; This was one of the passages
+which Milverton afterwards read to us:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Thus, however much may be gained for the
+world as a whole by this fragmentary cultivation, it is not to be
+denied that the individuals whom it befalls are cursed for the
+benefit of the world.&nbsp; An athletic frame, it is true, is
+fashioned by gymnastic exercises; but a form of beauty only by
+free and uniform action.&nbsp; Just so the exertions of single
+talents can create extraordinary men indeed; but happy and
+perfect men only by their uniform temperature.&nbsp; And in what
+relation should we stand, then, to the past and coming ages, if
+the cultivation of human nature made necessary such a
+sacrifice?&nbsp; We should have been the slaves of humanity, and
+drudged for her century after century, and stamped upon our
+mutilated natures the humiliating traces of our
+bondage&mdash;that the coming race might nurse its moral
+healthfulness in blissful leisure, and unfold the free growth of
+its humanity!</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But can it be intended that man should neglect himself
+for any particular design?&nbsp; Ought Nature to deprive us, by
+its design, of a perfection which Reason, by its own, prescribes
+to us?&nbsp; Then it must be false that the development of single
+faculties makes the sacrifice of totality necessary; or, if
+indeed the law of Nature presses thus heavily, it becomes us to
+restore, by a higher art, this totality in our nature which art
+has destroyed.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>The Philosophical and
+&AElig;sthetical Letters and Essays of</i> <span
+class="smcap">Schiller</span>, <i>Translated by</i> J. <span
+class="smcap">Weiss</span>, pp. 74, 75.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="footnote93"></a><a href="#citation93"
+class="footnote">[93]</a>&nbsp; Madame Necker de Saussure&rsquo;s
+maxim about firmness with children has suggested the above.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Ce que plie ne peut servir d&rsquo;appui, et
+l&rsquo;enfant veut &ecirc;tre appuy&eacute;.&nbsp; Non-seulement
+il en a besoin, mais il le d&eacute;sire, mais sa tendresse la
+plus constante n&rsquo;est qu&rsquo;&agrave; ce prix.&nbsp; Si
+vous lui faites l&rsquo;effet d&rsquo;un autre enfant, si vous
+partagez ses passions, ses vacillations continuelles, si vous lui
+rendez tous ses mouvements en les augmentant, soit par la
+contrari&eacute;t&eacute;, soit par un exc&egrave;s de
+complaisance, il pourra se servir de vous comme d&rsquo;un jouet,
+mais non &ecirc;tre heureux en votre pr&eacute;sence; il
+pleurera, se mutinera, et bient&ocirc;t le souvenir d&rsquo;un
+temps de d&eacute;sordre et d&rsquo;humeur se liera avec votre
+id&eacute;e.&nbsp; Vous n&rsquo;avez pas &eacute;t&eacute; le
+soutien de votre enfant, vous ne l&rsquo;avez pas
+pr&eacute;serv&eacute; de cette fluctuation perp&eacute;tuelle de
+la volont&eacute;, maladie des &ecirc;tres faibles et
+livr&eacute;s &agrave; une imagination vive; vous n&rsquo;avez
+assur&eacute; ni sa paix, ni sa sagesse, ni son bonheur, pourquoi
+vous croirait-il sa
+m&egrave;re.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>L&rsquo;Education Progressive</i>,
+vol. i., p. 228.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote116a"></a><a href="#citation116a"
+class="footnote">[116a]</a>&nbsp; See <i>Health of Towns
+Report</i>, vol. i., p. 336.&nbsp; A similar result may be
+deduced from a similar table made by the Rev. J. Clay, of
+Preston.&nbsp; See the same Report and vol., p. 175.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote116b"></a><a href="#citation116b"
+class="footnote">[116b]</a>&nbsp; See <i>Health of Towns
+Report</i>, vol. i., p. 75.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote117a"></a><a href="#citation117a"
+class="footnote">[117a]</a>&nbsp; See Dr. Arnott&rsquo;s letter,
+<i>Claims of Labour</i>, p. 282.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote117b"></a><a href="#citation117b"
+class="footnote">[117b]</a>&nbsp; By zinc ventilators, for
+instance, in the windows and openings into the flues at the top
+of the rooms.&nbsp; See <i>Health of Towns Report</i>, 1844, vol.
+i., pp. 76, 77.&nbsp; Mr. Coulhart&rsquo;s
+evidence.&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 307, 308.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote117c"></a><a href="#citation117c"
+class="footnote">[117c]</a>&nbsp; There are several thousand
+gratings to sewers and drains which are utterly useless on
+account of their position, and positively injurious from their
+emanations.&mdash;Mr. Guthrie&rsquo;s
+evidence.&mdash;<i>Ibid.</i>, vol. ii., p. 255.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote118"></a><a href="#citation118"
+class="footnote">[118]</a>&nbsp; Mr. Wood states that the masters
+and mistresses were generally ignorant of the depressing and
+unhealthy effects of the atmosphere which surrounded them, and he
+mentions the case of the mistress of a dame-school who replied,
+when he pointed out this to her, &ldquo;that the children thrived
+best in dirt!&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Health of Towns Report</i>, vol.
+i., pp. 146, 147.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote126"></a><a href="#citation126"
+class="footnote">[126]</a>&nbsp; See &ldquo;The Fair Maid of
+Perth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote161"></a><a href="#citation161"
+class="footnote">[161]</a>&nbsp; See &ldquo;Health of Towns
+Report,&rdquo; 1844, vol. i., p. 44.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote183"></a><a href="#citation183"
+class="footnote">[183]</a>&nbsp; Bacon, <i>de Augmentis
+Scientiarum</i>.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRIENDS IN COUNCIL***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Friends in Council (First Series)
+by Sir Arthur Helps
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+Title: Friends in Council (First Series)
+
+Author: Sir Arthur Helps
+
+Release Date: February, 2005  [EBook #7438]
+[This file was first posted on April 30, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FRIENDS IN COUNCIL (FIRST SERIES) ***
+
+
+
+
+This etext was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.
+
+
+
+
+FRIENDS IN COUNCIL (First Series)
+BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY.
+
+
+
+Arthur Helps was born at Streatham on the 10th of July, 1813.  He
+went at the age of sixteen to Eton, thence to Trinity College,
+Cambridge.  Having graduated B.A. in 1835, he became private
+secretary to the Hon. T. Spring Rice, who was Chancellor of the
+Exchequer in Lord Melbourne's Cabinet, formed in April, 1835.  This
+was his position at the beginning of the present reign in June,
+1837.
+
+In 1839--in which year he graduated M.A.--Arthur Helps was
+transferred to the service of Lord Morpeth, who was Irish Secretary
+in the same ministry.  Lord Melbourne's Ministry was succeeded by
+that of Sir Robert Peel in September, 1841, and Helps then was
+appointed a Commissioner of French, Danish, and Spanish Claims.  In
+1841 he published "Essays Written in the Intervals of Business."
+Their quiet thoughtfulness was in accord with the spirit that had
+given value to his services as private secretary to two ministers of
+State.  In 1844 that little book was followed by another on "The
+Claims of Labour," dealing with the relations of employers to
+employed.  There was the same scholarly simplicity and grace of
+style, the same interest in things worth serious attention.  "We
+say," he wrote, towards the close, "that Kings are God's Vicegerents
+upon Earth; but almost every human being has, at one time or other
+of his life, a portion of the happiness of those around him in his
+power, which might make him tremble, if he did but see it in all its
+fulness."  To this book Arthur Helps added an essay "On the Means of
+Improving the Health and Increasing the Comfort of the Labouring
+Classes."
+
+His next book was this First Series of "Friends in Council,"
+published in 1847, and followed by other series in later years.
+There were many other writings of his, less popular than they would
+have been if the same abilities had been controlled by less good
+taste.  His "History of the Conquest of the New World" in 1848, and
+of "The Spanish Conquest of America," in four volumes, from 1855 to
+1861, preceded his obtaining from his University, in 1864, the
+honorary degree of D.C.L.  In June, 1860, Arthur Helps was made
+Clerk of the Privy Council, and held that office of high trust until
+his death on the 7th of March, 1875.  He had become Sir Arthur in
+1872.
+                                     H. M.
+
+
+
+FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+
+None but those who, like myself, have once lived in intellectual
+society, and then have been deprived of it for years, can appreciate
+the delight of finding it again.  Not that I have any right to
+complain, if I were fated to live as a recluse for ever.  I can add
+little, or nothing, to the pleasure of any company; I like to listen
+rather than to talk; and when anything apposite does occur to me, it
+is generally the day after the conversation has taken place.  I do
+not, however, love good talk the less for these defects of mine; and
+I console myself with thinking that I sustain the part of a
+judicious listener, not always an easy one.
+
+Great, then, was my delight at hearing last year that my old pupil,
+Milverton, had taken a house which had long been vacant in our
+neighbourhood.  To add to my pleasure, his college friend,
+Ellesmere, the great lawyer, also an old pupil of mine, came to us
+frequently in the course of the autumn.  Milverton was at that time
+writing some essays which he occasionally read to Ellesmere and
+myself.  The conversations which then took place I am proud to say
+that I have chronicled.  I think they must be interesting to the
+world in general, though of course not so much so as to me.
+
+Milverton and Ellesmere were my favourite pupils.  Many is the
+heartache I have had at finding that those boys, with all their
+abilities, would do nothing at the University.  But it was in vain
+to urge them.  I grieve to say that neither of them had any ambition
+of the right kind.  Once I thought I had stimulated Ellesmere to the
+proper care and exertion; when, to my astonishment and vexation,
+going into his rooms about a month before an examination, I found
+that, instead of getting up his subjects, like a reasonable man, he
+was absolutely endeavouring to invent some new method for proving
+something which had been proved before in a hundred ways.  Over this
+he had wasted two days, and from that moment I saw it was useless to
+waste any more of my time and patience in urging a scholar so
+indocile for the beaten path.
+
+What tricks he and Milverton used to play me, pretending not to
+understand my demonstration of some mathematical problem, inventing
+all manner of subtle difficulties, and declaring they could not go
+on while these stumbling-blocks lay in their way!  But I am getting
+into college gossip, which may in no way delight my readers.  And I
+am fancying, too, that Milverton and Ellesmere are the boys they
+were to me; but I am now the child to them.  During the years that I
+have been quietly living here, they have become versed in the ways
+of the busy world.  And though they never think of asserting their
+superiority, I feel it, and am glad to do so.
+
+My readers would, perhaps, like one to tell them something of the
+characters of Ellesmere and Milverton; but it would ill become me to
+give that insight into them, which I, their college friend and
+tutor, imagine I have obtained.  Their friendship I could never
+understand.  It was not on the surface very warm, and their
+congeniality seemed to result more from one or two large common
+principles of thought than from any peculiar similarity of taste, or
+from great affection on either side.  Yet I should wrong their
+friendship if I were to represent it otherwise than a most true-
+hearted one; more so, perhaps, than some of softer texture.  What
+needs be seen of them individually will be by their words, which I
+hope I have in the main retained.
+
+The place where we generally met in fine weather was on the lawn
+before Milverton's house.  It was an eminence which commanded a
+series of valleys sloping towards the sea.  And, as the sea was not
+more than nine miles off, it was a matter of frequent speculation
+with us whether the landscape was bounded by air or water.  In the
+first valley was a little town of red brick houses, with poplars
+coming up amongst them.  The ruins of a castle, and some water
+which, in olden times, had been the lake in "the pleasaunce," were
+between us and the town.  The clang of an anvil, or the clamour of a
+horn, or busy wheelwright's sounds, came faintly up to us when the
+wind was south.
+
+I must not delay my readers longer with my gossip, but bring them at
+once into the conversation that preceded our first reading.
+
+                              -----
+
+Milverton.  I tell you, Ellesmere, these are the only heights I care
+to look down from, the heights of natural scenery.
+
+Ellesmere.  Pooh! my dear Milverton, it is only because the
+particular mounds which the world calls heights, you think you have
+found out to be but larger ant-heaps.  Whenever you have cared about
+anything, a man more fierce and unphilosophical in the pursuit of it
+I never saw.  To influence men's minds by writing for them, is that
+no ambition?
+
+Milverton.  It may be, but I have it not.  Let any kind critic
+convince me that what I am now doing is useless, or has been done
+before, or that, if I leave it undone, some one else will do it to
+my mind; and I should fold up my papers, and watch the turnips grow
+in that field there, with a placidity that would, perhaps, seem very
+spiritless to your now restless and ambitious nature, Ellesmere.
+
+Ellesmere.  If something were to happen which will not, then--O
+Philosophy, Philosophy, you, too, are a good old nurse, and rattle
+your rattles for your little people, as well as old Dame World can
+do for hers.  But what are we to have to-day for our first reading?
+
+Milverton.  An Essay on Truth.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, had I known this before, it is not the novelty of
+the subject which would have dragged me up the hill to your house.
+By the way, philosophers ought not to live upon hills.  They are
+much more accessible, and I think quite as reasonable, when,
+Diogenes-like, they live in tubs upon flat ground.  Now for the
+essay.
+
+TRUTH.
+
+Truth is a subject which men will not suffer to grow old.  Each age
+has to fight with its own falsehoods:  each man with his love of
+saying to himself and those around him pleasant things and things
+serviceable for to-day, rather than the things which are.  Yet a
+child appreciates at once the divine necessity for truth; never
+asks, "What harm is there in saying the thing that is not?" and an
+old man finds, in his growing experience, wider and wider
+applications of the great doctrine and discipline of truth.
+
+Truth needs the wisdom of the serpent as well as the simplicity of
+the dove.  He has gone but a little way in this matter who supposes
+that it is an easy thing for a man to speak the truth, "the thing he
+troweth;" and that it is a casual function, which may be fulfilled
+at once after any lapse of exercise.  But, in the first place, the
+man who would speak truth must know what he troweth.  To do that, he
+must have an uncorrupted judgment.  By this is not meant a perfect
+judgment or even a wise one, but one which, however it may be
+biassed, is not bought--is still a judgment.  But some people's
+judgments are so entirely gained over by vanity, selfishness,
+passion, or inflated prejudices and fancies long indulged in; or
+they have the habit of looking at everything so carelessly, that
+they see nothing truly.  They cannot interpret the world of reality.
+And this is the saddest form of lying, "the lie that sinketh in," as
+Bacon says, which becomes part of the character and goes on eating
+the rest away.
+
+Again, to speak truth, a man must not only have that martial courage
+which goes out, with sound of drum and trumpet, to do and suffer
+great things; but that domestic courage which compels him to utter
+small sounding truths in spite of present inconvenience and outraged
+sensitiveness or sensibility.  Then he must not be in any respect a
+slave to self-interest.  Often it seems as if but a little
+misrepresentation would gain a great good for us; or, perhaps, we
+have only to conceal some trifling thing, which, if told, might
+hinder unreasonably, as we think, a profitable bargain.  The true
+man takes care to tell, notwithstanding.  When we think that truth
+interferes at one time or another with all a man's likings, hatings,
+and wishes, we must admit, I think, that it is the most
+comprehensive and varied form of self-denial.
+
+Then, in addition to these great qualities, truth-telling in its
+highest sense requires a well-balanced mind.  For instance, much
+exaggeration, perhaps the most, is occasioned by an impatient and
+easily moved temperament which longs to convey its own vivid
+impressions to other minds, and seeks by amplifying to gain the full
+measure of their sympathy.  But a true man does not think what his
+hearers are feeling, but what he is saying.
+
+More stress might be laid than has been on the intellectual
+requisites for truth, which are probably the best part of
+intellectual cultivation; and as much caused by truth as causing it.
+{12}  But, putting the requisites for truth at the fewest, see of
+how large a portion of the character truth is the resultant.  If you
+were to make a list of those persons accounted the religious men of
+their respective ages, you would have a ludicrous combination of
+characters essentially dissimilar.  But true people are kindred.
+Mention the eminently true men, and you will find that they are a
+brotherhood.  There is a family likeness throughout them.
+
+
+If we consider the occasions of exercising truthfulness and descend
+to particulars, we may divide the matter into the following heads: -
+-truth to oneself--truth to mankind in general--truth in social
+relations--truth in business--truth in pleasure.
+
+
+1.  Truth to oneself.  All men have a deep interest that each man
+should tell himself the truth.  Not only will he become a better
+man, but he will understand them better.  If men knew themselves,
+they could not be intolerant to others.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to say much about the advantage of a man
+knowing himself for himself.  To get at the truth of any history is
+good; but a man's own history--when he reads that truly, and,
+without a mean and over-solicitous introspection, knows what he is
+about and what he has been about, it is a Bible to him.  "And David
+said unto Nathan, I have sinned before the Lord."  David knew the
+truth about himself.  But truth to oneself is not merely truth about
+oneself.  It consists in maintaining an openness and justness of
+soul which brings a man into relation with all truth.  For this, all
+the senses, if you might so call them, of the soul must be
+uninjured--that is, the affections and the perceptions must be just.
+For a man to speak the truth to himself comprehends all goodness;
+and for us mortals can only be an aim.
+
+2.  Truth to mankind in general.  This is a matter which, as I read
+it, concerns only the higher natures.  Suffice it to say, that the
+withholding large truths from the world may be a betrayal of the
+greatest trust.
+
+3.  Truth in social relations.  Under this head come the practices
+of making speech vary according to the person spoken to; of
+pretending to agree with the world when you do not; of not acting
+according to what is your deliberate and well-advised opinion
+because some mischief may be made of it by persons whose judgment in
+this matter you do not respect; of maintaining a wrong course for
+the sake of consistency; of encouraging the show of intimacy with
+those whom you never can be intimate with; and many things of the
+same kind.  These practices have elements of charity and prudence as
+well as fear and meanness in them.  Let those parts which correspond
+to fear and meanness be put aside.  Charity and prudence are not
+parasitical plants which require boles of falsehood to climb up
+upon.  It is often extremely difficult in the mixed things of this
+world to act truly and kindly too; but therein lies one of the great
+trials of man, that his sincerity should have kindness in it, and
+his kindness truth.
+
+4.  Truth in business.  The more truth you can get into any
+business, the better.  Let the other side know the defects of yours,
+let them know how you are to be satisfied, let there be as little to
+be found as possible (I should say nothing), and if your business be
+an honest one, it will be best tended in this way.  The talking,
+bargaining, and delaying that would thus be needless, the little
+that would then have to be done over again, the anxiety that would
+be put aside, would even in a worldly way be "great gain."  It is
+not, perhaps, too much to say, that the third part of men's lives is
+wasted by the effect, direct or indirect, of falsehoods.
+
+Still, let us not be swift to imagine that lies are never of any
+service.  A recent Prime Minister said, that he did not know about
+truth always prevailing and the like; but lies had been very
+successful against his government.  And this was true enough.  Every
+lie has its day.  There is no preternatural inefficacy in it by
+reason of its falseness.  And this is especially the case with those
+vague injurious reports which are no man's lies, but all men's
+carelessness.  But even as regards special and unmistakable
+falsehood, we must admit that it has its success.  A complete being
+might deceive with wonderful effect; however, as nature is always
+against a liar, it is great odds in the case of ordinary mortals.
+Wolsey talks of
+
+                    "Negligence
+      Fit for a fool to fall by,"
+
+when he gives Henry the wrong packet; but the Cardinal was quite
+mistaken.  That kind of negligence was just the thing of which far-
+seeing and thoughtful men are capable; and which, if there were no
+higher motive, should induce them to rely on truth alone.  A very
+close vulpine nature, all eyes, all ears, may succeed better in
+deceit.  But it is a sleepless business.  Yet, strange to say, it is
+had recourse to in the most spendthrift fashion, as the first and
+easiest thing that comes to hand.
+
+In connection with truth in business, it may be observed that if you
+are a truthful man, you should be watchful over those whom you
+employ; for your subordinate agents are often fond of lying for your
+interests, as they think.  Show them at once that you do not think
+with them, and that you will disconcert any of their inventions by
+breaking in with the truth.  If you suffer the fear of seeming
+unkind to prevent your thrusting well-meant inventions aside, you
+may get as much pledged to falsehoods as if you had coined and
+uttered them yourself.
+
+5.  Truth in pleasure.  Men have been said to be sincere in their
+pleasures; but this is only that the taste and habits of men are
+more easily discernible in pleasure than in business.  The want of
+truth is as great a hindrance to the one as to the other.  Indeed,
+there is so much insincerity and formality in the pleasurable
+department of human life, especially in social pleasures, that
+instead of a bloom there is a slime upon it, which deadens and
+corrupts the thing.  One of the most comical sights to superior
+beings must be to see two human creatures with elaborate speech and
+gestures making each other exquisitely uncomfortable from civility:
+the one pressing what he is most anxious that the other should not
+accept, and the other accepting only from the fear of giving offence
+by refusal.  There is an element of charity in all this too; and it
+will be the business of a just and refined nature to be sincere and
+considerate at the same time.  This will be better done by enlarging
+our sympathy, so that more things and people are pleasant to us,
+than by increasing the civil and conventional part of our nature, so
+that we are able to do more seeming with greater skill and
+endurance.  Of other false hindrances to pleasure, such as
+ostentation and pretences of all kinds, there is neither charity nor
+comfort in them.  They may be got rid of altogether, and no moaning
+made over them.  Truth, which is one of the largest creatures, opens
+out the way to the heights of enjoyment, as well as to the depths of
+self-denial.
+
+
+It is difficult to think too highly of the merits and delights of
+truth; but there is often in men's minds an exaggerated notion of
+some bit of truth, which proves a great assistance to falsehood.
+For instance, the shame of some particular small falsehood,
+exaggeration, or insincerity, becomes a bugbear which scares a man
+into a career of false dealing.  He has begun making a furrow a
+little out of the line, and he ploughs on in it to try and give some
+consistency and meaning to it.  He wants almost to persuade himself
+that it was not wrong, and entirely to hide the wrongness from
+others.  This is a tribute to the majesty of truth; also to the
+world's opinion about truth.  It proceeds, too, upon the notion that
+all falsehoods are equal, which is not the case; or on some fond
+craving for a show of perfection, which is sometimes very inimical
+to the reality.  The practical, as well as the high-minded, view in
+such cases, is for a man to think how he can be true now.  To attain
+that, it may, even for this world, be worth while for a man to admit
+that he is inconsistent, and even that he has been untrue.  His
+hearers, did they know anything of themselves, would be fully aware
+that he was not singular, except in the courage of owning his
+insincerity.
+
+                              -----
+
+Ellesmere.  That last part requires thinking about.  If you were to
+permit men, without great loss of reputation, to own that they had
+been insincere, you might break down some of that majesty of truth
+you talk about.  And bad men might avail themselves of any
+facilities of owning insincerity, to commit more of it.  I can
+imagine that the apprehension of this might restrain a man from
+making any such admission as you allude to, even if he could make up
+his mind to do it otherwise.
+
+Milverton.  Yes; but can anything be worse than a man going on in a
+false course?  Each man must look to his own truthfulness, and keep
+that up as well as he can, even at the risk of saying, or doing,
+something which may be turned to ill account by others.  We may
+think too much about this reflection of our external selves.  Let
+the real self be right.  I am not so fanciful as to expect men to go
+about clamouring that they have been false; but at no risk of
+letting people see that, or of even being obliged to own it, should
+they persevere in it.
+
+Dunsford.  Milverton is right, I think.
+
+Ellesmere.  Do not imagine that I am behind either of you in a wish
+to hold up truth.  My only doubt was as to the mode.  For my own
+part, I have such faith in truth that I take it mere concealment is
+in most cases a mischief.  And I should say, for instance, that a
+wise man would be sorry that his fellows should think better of him
+than he deserves.  By the way, that is a reason why I should not
+like to be a writer of moral essays, Milverton--one should be
+supposed to be so very good.
+
+Milverton.  Only by thoughtless people then.  There is a saying
+given to Rousseau, not that he ever did say it, for I believe it was
+a misprint, but it was a possible saying for him, "Chaque homme qui
+pense est mechant."  Now, without going the length of this aphorism,
+we may say that what has been well written has been well suffered.
+
+     "He best can paint them who has felt them most."
+
+And so, though we should not exactly declare that writers who have
+had much moral influence have been wicked men, yet we may admit that
+they have been amongst the most struggling, which implies anything
+but serene self-possession and perfect spotlessness.  If you take
+the great ones, Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe, you see this at once.
+
+Dunsford.  David, St. Paul.
+
+Milverton.  Such men are like great rocks on the seashore.  By their
+resistance, terraces of level land are formed; but the rocks
+themselves bear many scars and ugly indents, while the sea of human
+difficulty presents the same unwrinkled appearance in all ages.  Yet
+it has been driven back.
+
+Ellesmere.  But has it lost any of its bulk, or only gone elsewhere?
+One part of the resemblance certainly is that these same rocks,
+which were bulwarks, become, in their turn, dangers.
+
+Milverton.  Yes, there is always loss in that way.  It is seldom
+given to man to do unmixed good.  But it was not this aspect of the
+simile that I was thinking of:  it was the scarred appearance.
+
+Dunsford.  Scars not always of defeat or flight; scars in the front.
+
+Milverton.  Ah, it hardly does for us to talk of victory or defeat,
+in these cases; but we may look at the contest itself as something
+not bad, terminate how it may.  We lament over a man's sorrows,
+struggles, disasters, and shortcomings; yet they were possessions
+too.  We talk of the origin of evil and the permission of evil.  But
+what is evil?  We mostly speak of sufferings and trials as good,
+perhaps, in their result; but we hardly admit that they may be good
+in themselves.  Yet they are knowledge--how else to be acquired,
+unless by making men as gods, enabling them to understand without
+experience.  All that men go through may be absolutely the best for
+them--no such thing as evil, at least in our customary meaning of
+the word.  But, you will say, they might have been created different
+and higher.  See where this leads to.  Any sentient being may set up
+the same claim:  a fly that it had not been made a man; and so the
+end would be that each would complain of not being all.
+
+Ellesmere.  Say it all over again, my dear Milverton:  it is rather
+hard.  [Milverton did so, in nearly the same words.]  I think I have
+heard it all before.  But you may have it as you please.  I do not
+say this irreverently, but the truth is, I am too old and too
+earthly to enter upon these subjects.  I think, however, that the
+view is a stout-hearted one.  It is somewhat in the same vein of
+thought that you see in Carlyle's works about the contempt of
+happiness.  But in all these cases, one is apt to think of the sage
+in "Rasselas," who is very wise about human misery till he loses his
+daughter.  Your fly illustration has something in it.  Certainly
+when men talk big about what might have been done for man, they omit
+to think what might be said, on similar grounds, for each sentient
+creature in the universe.  But here have we been meandering off into
+origin of evil, and uses of great men, and wickedness of writers,
+etc., whereas I meant to have said something about the essay.  How
+would you answer what Bacon maintains?  "A mixture of a lie doth
+ever add pleasure."
+
+Milverton.  He is not speaking of the lies of social life, but of
+self-deception.  He goes on to class under that head "vain opinions,
+flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would."
+These things are the sweetness of "the lie that sinketh in."  Many a
+man has a kind of mental kaleidoscope, where the bits of broken
+glass are his own merits and fortunes, and they fall into harmonious
+arrangements and delight him--often most mischievously and to his
+ultimate detriment, but they are a present pleasure.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, I am going to be true in my pleasures:  to take a
+long walk alone.  I have got a difficult case for an opinion, which
+I must go and think over.
+
+Dunsford.  Shall we have another reading tomorrow?
+
+Milverton.  Yes, if you are both in the humour for it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+As the next day was fine, we agreed to have our reading in the same
+spot that I have described before.  There was scarcely any
+conversation worth noting, until after Milverton had read us the
+following essay on Conformity.
+
+CONFORMITY.
+
+The conformity of men is often a far poorer thing than that which
+resembles it amongst the lower animals.  The monkey imitates from
+imitative skill and gamesomeness:  the sheep is gregarious, having
+no sufficient will to form an independent project of its own.  But
+man often loathes what he imitates, and conforms to what he knows to
+be wrong.
+
+It will ever be one of the nicest problems for a man to solve how
+far he shall profit by the thoughts of other men, and not be
+enslaved by them.  He comes into the world, and finds swaddling
+clothes ready for his mind as well as his body.  There is a vast
+scheme of social machinery set up about him; and he has to discern
+how he can make it work with him and for him, without becoming part
+of the machinery himself.  In this lie the anguish and the struggle
+of the greatest minds.  Most sad are they, having mostly the deepest
+sympathies, when they find themselves breaking off from communion
+with other minds.  They would go on, if they could, with the
+opinions around them.  But, happily, there is something to which a
+man owes a larger allegiance than to any human affection.  He would
+be content to go away from a false thing, or quietly to protest
+against it; but in spite of him the strife in his heart breaks into
+burning utterance by word or deed.
+
+Few, however, are those who venture, even for the shortest time,
+into that hazy world of independent thought, where a man is not
+upheld by a crowd of other men's opinions, but where he must find a
+footing of his own.  Among the mass of men, there is little or no
+resistance to conformity.  Could the history of opinions be fully
+written, it would be seen how large a part in human proceedings the
+love of conformity, or rather the fear of non-conformity, has
+occasioned.  It has triumphed over all other fears; over love, hate,
+pity, sloth, anger, truth, pride, comfort, self-interest, vanity,
+and maternal love.  It has torn down the sense of beauty in the
+human soul, and set up in its place little ugly idols which it
+compels us to worship with more than Japanese devotion.  It has
+contradicted Nature in the most obvious things, and been listened to
+with abject submission.  Its empire has been no less extensive than
+deep-seated.  The serf to custom points his finger at the slave to
+fashion--as if it signified whether it is an old or a new thing
+which is irrationally conformed to.  The man of letters despises
+both the slaves of fashion and of custom, but often runs his narrow
+career of thought, shut up, though he sees it not, within close
+walls which he does not venture even to peep over.
+
+It is hard to say in what department of human thought and endeavour
+conformity has triumphed most.  Religion comes to one's mind first;
+and well it may when one thinks what men have conformed to in all
+ages in that matter.  If we pass to art, or science, we shall see
+there too the wondrous slavery which men have endured--from puny
+fetters, moreover, which one stirring thought would, as we think,
+have burst asunder.  The above, however, are matters not within
+every one's cognisance; some of them are shut in by learning or the
+show of it; and plain "practical" men would say, they follow where
+they have no business but to follow.  But the way in which the human
+body shall be covered is not a thing for the scientific and the
+learned only:  and is allowed on all hands to concern, in no small
+degree, one half at least of the creation.  It is in such a simple
+thing as dress that each of us may form some estimate of the extent
+of conformity in the world.  A wise nation, unsubdued by
+superstition, with the collected experience of peaceful ages,
+concludes that female feet are to be clothed by crushing them.  The
+still wiser nations of the west have adopted a swifter mode of
+destroying health, and creating angularity, by crushing the upper
+part of the female body.  In such matters nearly all people conform.
+Our brother man is seldom so bitter against us, as when we refuse to
+adopt at once his notions of the infinite.  But even religious
+dissent were less dangerous and more respectable than dissent in
+dress.  If you want to see what men will do in the way of
+conformity, take a European hat for your subject of meditation.  I
+dare say there are twenty-two millions of people at this minute each
+wearing one of these hats in order to please the rest.  As in the
+fine arts, and in architecture, especially, so in dress, something
+is often retained that was useful when something else was beside it.
+To go to architecture for an instance, a pinnacle is retained, not
+that it is of any use where it is, but in another kind of building
+it would have been.  That style of building, as a whole, has gone
+out of fashion, but the pinnacle has somehow or other kept its
+ground and must be there, no one insolently going back to first
+principles and asking what is the use and object of building
+pinnacles.  Similar instances in dress will occur to my readers.
+Some of us are not skilled in such affairs; but looking at old
+pictures we may sometimes see how modern clothes have attained their
+present pitch of frightfulness and inconvenience.  This matter of
+dress is one in which, perhaps, you might expect the wise to conform
+to the foolish; and they have.
+
+When we have once come to a right estimate of the strength of
+conformity, we shall, I think, be more kindly disposed to
+eccentricity than we usually are.  Even a wilful or an absurd
+eccentricity is some support against the weighty common-place
+conformity of the world.  If it were not for some singular people
+who persist in thinking for themselves, in seeing for themselves,
+and in being comfortable, we should all collapse into a hideous
+uniformity.
+
+It is worth while to analyse that influence of the world which is
+the right arm of conformity.  Some persons bend to the world in all
+things, from an innocent belief that what so many people think must
+be right.  Others have a vague fear of the world as of some wild
+beast which may spring out upon them at any time.  Tell them they
+are safe in their houses from this myriad-eyed creature:  they still
+are sure that they shall meet with it some day, and would propitiate
+its favour at any sacrifice.  Many men contract their idea of the
+world to their own circle, and what they imagine to be said in that
+circle of friends and acquaintances is their idea of public opinion-
+-"as if," to use a saying of Southey's, "a number of worldlings made
+a world."  With some unfortunate people, the much dreaded "world"
+shrinks into one person of more mental power than their own, or
+perhaps merely of coarser nature; and the fancy as to what this
+person will say about anything they do, sits upon them like a
+nightmare.  Happy the man who can embark his small adventure of
+deeds and thoughts upon the shallow waters round his home, or send
+them afloat on the wide sea of humanity, with no great anxiety in
+either case as to what reception they may meet with!  He would have
+them steer by the stars, and take what wind may come to them.
+
+A reasonable watchfulness against conformity will not lead a man to
+spurn the aid of other men, still less to reject the accumulated
+mental capital of ages.  It does not compel us to dote upon the
+advantages of savage life.  We would not forego the hard-earned
+gains of civil society because there is something in most of them
+which tends to contract the natural powers, although it vastly aids
+them.  We would not, for instance, return to the monosyllabic
+utterance of barbarous men, because in any formed language there are
+a thousand snares for the understanding.  Yet we must be most
+watchful of them.  And in all things, a man must beware of so
+conforming himself as to crush his nature and forego the purpose of
+his being.  We must look to other standards than what men may say or
+think.  We must not abjectly bow down before rules and usages; but
+must refer to principles and purposes.  In few words, we must think,
+not whom we are following, but what we are doing.  If not, why are
+we gifted with individual life at all?  Uniformity does not consist
+with the higher forms of vitality.  Even the leaves of the same tree
+are said to differ, each one from all the rest.  And can it be good
+for the soul of a man "with a biography of his own like to no one
+else's," to subject itself without thought to the opinions and ways
+of others:  not to grow into symmetry, but to be moulded down into
+conformity?
+
+                               ----
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, I rather like that essay.  I was afraid, at first,
+it was going to have more of the fault into which you essay writers
+generally fall, of being a comment on the abuse of a thing, and not
+on the thing itself.  There always seems to me to want another essay
+on the other side.  But I think, at the end, you protect yourself
+against misconstruction.  In the spirit of the essay, you know, of
+course, that I quite agree with you.  Indeed, I differ from all the
+ordinary biographers of that independent gentleman, Don't Care.  I
+believe Don't Care came to a good end.  At any rate he came to some
+end.  Whereas numbers of people never have beginning, or ending, of
+their own.  An obscure dramatist, Milverton, whom we know of, makes
+one of his characters say, in reply to some world-fearing wretch:
+
+                    "While you, you think
+     What others think, or what you think they'll say,
+     Shaping your course by something scarce more tangible
+     Than dreams, at best the shadows on the stream
+     Of aspen leaves by flickering breezes swayed--
+     Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night,
+     I am not the utter slave which that man is
+     Whose sole word, thought, and deed are built on what
+     The world may say of him."
+
+Milverton.  Never mind the obscure dramatist.  But, Ellesmere, you
+really are unreasonable, if you suppose that, in the limits of a
+short essay, you can accurately distinguish all you write between
+the use and the abuse of a thing.  The question is, will people
+misunderstand you--not, is the language such as to be logically
+impregnable?  Now, in the present case, no man will really suppose
+it is a wise and just conformity that I am inveighing against.
+
+Ellesmere.  I am not sure of that.  If everybody is to have
+independent thought, would there not be a fearful instability and
+want of compactness?  Another thing, too--conformity often saves so
+much time and trouble.
+
+Milverton.  Yes; it has its uses.  I do not mean, in the world of
+opinion and morality, that it should be all elasticity and no
+gravitation; but at least enough elasticity to preserve natural form
+and independent being.
+
+Ellesmere.  I think it would have been better if you had turned the
+essay another way, and instead of making it on conformity, had made
+it on interference.  That is the greater mischief and the greater
+folly, I think.  Why do people unreasonably conform?  Because they
+feel unreasonable interference.  War, I say, is interference on a
+small scale compared with the interference of private life.  Then
+the absurdity on which it proceeds; that men are all alike, or that
+it is desirable that they should be; and that what is good for one
+is good for all.
+
+Dunsford.  I must say, I think, Milverton, you do not give enough
+credit for sympathy, good-nature, and humility as material elements
+in the conformity of the world.
+
+Ellesmere.  I am not afraid, my dear Dunsford, of the essay doing
+much harm.  There is a power of sleepy conformity in the world.  You
+may just startle your conformists for a minute, but they gravitate
+into their old way very soon.  You talk of their humility, Dunsford,
+but I have heard people who have conformed to opinions, without a
+pretence of investigation, as arrogant and intolerant towards
+anybody who differed from them, as if they stood upon a pinnacle of
+independent sagacity and research.
+
+Dunsford.  One never knows, Ellesmere, on which side you are.  I
+thought you were on mine a minute or two ago; and now you come down
+upon me with more than Milverton's anti-conforming spirit.
+
+Ellesmere.  The greatest mischief, as I take it, of this slavish
+conformity, is in the reticence it creates.  People will be, what
+are called, intimate friends, and yet no real interchange of opinion
+takes place between them.  A man keeps his doubts, his difficulties,
+and his peculiar opinions to himself.  He is afraid of letting
+anybody know that he does not exactly agree with the world's
+theories on all points.  There is no telling the hindrance that this
+is to truth.
+
+Milverton.  A great cause of this, Ellesmere, is in the little
+reliance you can have on any man's secrecy.  A man finds that what,
+in the heat of discussion, and in the perfect carelessness of
+friendship, he has said to his friend, is quoted to people whom he
+would never have said it to; knowing that it would be sure to be
+misunderstood, or half-understood, by them.  And so he grows
+cautious; and is very loth to communicate to anybody his more
+cherished opinions, unless they fall in exactly with the stream.
+Added to which, I think there is in these times less than there ever
+was of a proselytising spirit; and people are content to keep their
+opinions to themselves--more perhaps from indifference than from
+fear.
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes, I agree with you.
+
+By the way, I think your taking dress as an illustration of extreme
+conformity is not bad.  Really it is wonderful the degree of square
+and dull hideousness to which, in the process of time and tailoring,
+and by severe conformity, the human creature's outward appearance
+has arrived.  Look at a crowd of men from a height, what an ugly set
+of ants they appear!  Myself, when I see an Eastern man, one of the
+people attached to their embassies, sweeping by us in something
+flowing and stately, I feel inclined to take off my hat to him (only
+that I think the hat might frighten him), and say, Here is a great,
+unhatted, uncravated, bearded man, not a creature clipt and twisted
+and tortured into tailorhood.
+
+Dunsford.  Ellesmere broke in upon me just now, so that I did not
+say all that I meant to say.  But, Milverton, what would you admit
+that we are to conform to?  In silencing the general voice, may we
+not give too much opportunity to our own headstrong suggestions, and
+to wilful licence?
+
+Milverton.  Yes:  to be somewhat deaf to the din of the world may be
+no gain, even loss, if then we only listen more to the worst part of
+ourselves; but in itself it is a good thing to silence that din.  It
+is at least a beginning of good.  If anything good is then gained,
+it is not a sheepish tendency, but an independent resolve growing
+out of our nature.  And, after all, when we talk of non-conformity,
+it may only be that we non-conform to the immediate sect of thought
+or action about us, to conform to a much wider thing in human
+nature.
+
+Ellesmere.  Ah me! how one wants a moral essayist always at hand to
+enable one to make use of moral essays.
+
+Milverton.  Your rules of law are grand things--the proverbs of
+justice; yet has not each case its specialities, requiring to be
+argued with much circumstance, and capable of different
+interpretations?  Words cannot be made into men.
+
+Dunsford.  I wonder you answer his sneers, Milverton.
+
+Ellesmere.  I must go and see whether words cannot be made into
+guineas:  and then guineas into men is an easy thing.  These trains
+will not wait even for critics, so, for the present, good-bye.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+
+Ellesmere soon wrote us word that he would be able to come down
+again; and I agreed to be at Worth-Ashton (Milverton's house) on the
+day of his arrival.  I had scarcely seated myself at our usual place
+of meeting before the friends entered, and after greeting me, the
+conversation thus began:
+
+Ellesmere.  Upon my word, you people who live in the country have a
+pleasant time of it.  As Milverton was driving me from the station
+through Durley Wood, there was such a rich smell of pines, such a
+twittering of birds, so much joy, sunshine, and beauty, that I began
+to think, if there were no such place as London, it really would be
+very desirable to live in the country.
+
+Milverton.  What a climax!  But I am always very suspicious, when
+Ellesmere appears to be carried away by any enthusiasm, that it will
+break off suddenly, like the gallop of a post-horse.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, what are we to have for our essay!
+
+Milverton.  Despair.
+
+Ellesmere.  I feel equal to anything just now, and so, if it must be
+read sometime or other, let us have it now.
+
+Milverton.  You need not be afraid.  I want to take away, not to add
+gloom.  Shall I read?
+
+We assented, and he began.
+
+
+DESPAIR.
+
+Despair may be serviceable when it arises from a temporary
+prostration of spirits:  during which the mind is insensibly
+healing, and her scattered power silently returning.  This is better
+than to be the sport of a teasing hope without reason.  But to
+indulge in despair as a habit is slothful, cowardly, short-sighted;
+and manifestly tends against Nature.  Despair is then the paralysis
+of the soul.
+
+These are the principal causes of despair--remorse, the sorrows of
+the affections, worldly trouble, morbid views of religion, native
+melancholy.
+
+
+REMORSE.
+
+Remorse does but add to the evil which bred it, when it promotes,
+not penitence, but despair.  To have erred in one branch of our
+duties does not unfit us for the performance of all the rest, unless
+we suffer the dark spot to spread over our whole nature, which may
+happen almost unobserved in the torpor of despair.  This kind of
+despair is chiefly grounded on a foolish belief that individual
+words or actions constitute the whole life of man:  whereas they are
+often not fair representatives of portions even of that life.  The
+fragments of rock in a mountain stream may tell much of its history,
+are in fact results of its doings, but they are not the stream.
+They were brought down when it was turbid; it may now be clear:
+they are as much the result of other circumstances as of the action
+of the stream; their history is fitful:  they give us no sure
+intelligence of the future course of the stream, or of the nature of
+its waters; and may scarcely show more than that it has not been
+always as it is.  The actions of men are often but little better
+indications of the men themselves.
+
+A prolonged despair arising from remorse is unreasonable at any age,
+but if possible, still more so when felt by the young.  To think,
+for example, that the great Being who made us could have made
+eternal ruin and misery inevitable to a poor half-fledged creature
+of eighteen or nineteen!  And yet how often has the profoundest
+despair from remorse brooded over children of that age and eaten
+into their hearts.
+
+There is frequently much selfishness about remorse.  Put what has
+been done at the worst.  Let a man see his own evil word, or deed,
+in full light, and own it to be black as hell itself.  He is still
+here.  He cannot be isolated.  There still remain for him cares and
+duties; and, therefore, hopes.  Let him not in imagination link all
+creation to his fate.  Let him yet live in the welfare of others,
+and, if it may be so, work out his own in this way:  if not, be
+content with theirs.  The saddest cause of remorseful despair is
+when a man does something expressly contrary to his character:  when
+an honourable man, for instance, slides into some dishonourable
+action; or a tender-hearted man falls into cruelty from
+carelessness; or, as often happens, a sensitive nature continues to
+give the greatest pain to others from temper, feeling all the time,
+perhaps, more deeply than the persons aggrieved.  All these cases
+may be summed up in the words, "That which I would not that I do,"
+the saddest of all human confessions, made by one of the greatest
+men.  However, the evil cannot be mended by despair.  Hope and
+humility are the only supports under this burden.  As Mr. Carlyle
+says,
+
+"What are faults, what are the outward details of a life; if the
+inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, true, often-baffled,
+never-ended struggle of it, be forgotten.  'It is not in man that
+walketh to direct his steps.'  Of all acts, is not, for a man,
+repentance the most divine?  The deadliest sin, I say, were that
+same supercilious consciousness of no sin; that is death:  the heart
+so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility, and fact; is
+dead:  it is 'pure' as dead dry sand is pure.  David's life and
+history, as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be
+the truest emblem ever given of a man's moral progress and warfare
+here below.  All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful
+struggle of an earnest human soul towards what is good and best.
+Struggle often baffled, sore baffled, down as into entire wreck; yet
+a struggle never ended; ever, with tears, repentance, true
+unconquerable purpose, begun anew.  Poor human nature! is not a
+man's walking, in truth, always that:  a 'succession of falls!'  Man
+can do no other.  In this wild element of a Life, he has to struggle
+onwards; now fallen, deep abased; and ever, with tears, repentance,
+with bleeding heart, he has to rise again, struggle again still
+onwards.  That his struggle be a faithful unconquerable one:  this
+is the question of questions."
+
+
+THE SORROWS OF THE AFFECTIONS.
+
+The loss by death of those we love has the first place in these
+sorrows.  Yet the feeling in this case, even when carried to the
+highest, is not exactly despair, having too much warmth in it for
+that.  Not much can be said in the way of comfort on this head.
+Queen Elizabeth, in her hard, wise way, writing to a mother who had
+lost her son, tells her that she will be comforted in time; and why
+should she not do for herself what the mere lapse of time will do
+for her?  Brave words! and the stern woman, more earnest than the
+sage in "Rasselas," would have tried their virtue on herself.  But I
+fear they fell somewhat coldly on the mother's ear.  Happily, in
+these bereavements, kind Nature with her opiates, day by day
+administered, does more than all the skill of the physician
+moralists.  Sir Thomas Browne says,
+
+"Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares
+with memory a great part even of our living beings; we slightly
+remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction
+leave but short smart upon us.  Sense endureth no extremities, and
+sorrows destroy us or themselves.  To weep into stones are fables.
+Afflictions induce callosities, miseries are slippery, or fall like
+snow upon us, which, notwithstanding, is no unhappy stupidity.  To
+be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a
+merciful provision in Nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our
+few and evil days, and our delivered senses not relapsing into
+cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of
+repetitions."
+
+The good knight thus makes much comfort out of our physical
+weakness.  But something may be done in a very different direction,
+namely, by spiritual strength.  By elevating and purifying the
+sorrow, we may take it more out of matter, as it were, and so feel
+less the loss of what is material about it.
+
+The other sorrows of the affections which may produce despair, are
+those in which the affections are wounded, as jealousy, love
+unrequited, friendship betrayed and the like.  As, in despair from
+remorse, the whole life seems to be involved in one action:  so in
+the despair we are now considering, the whole life appears to be
+shut up in the one unpropitious affection.  Yet human nature, if
+fairly treated, is too large a thing to be suppressed into despair
+by one affection, however potent.  We might imagine that if there
+were anything that would rob life of its strength and favour, it is
+domestic unhappiness.  And yet how numerous is the bond of those
+whom we know to have been eminently unhappy in some domestic
+relation, but whose lives have been full of vigorous and kindly
+action.  Indeed the culture of the world has been largely carried on
+by such men.  As long as there is life in the plant, though it be
+sadly pent in, it will grow towards any opening of light that is
+left for it.
+
+
+WORLDLY TROUBLE.
+
+This appears too mean a subject for despair, or, at least, unworthy
+of having any remedy, or soothing thought out of it.  Whether a man
+lives in a large room or a small one, rides or is obliged to walk,
+gets a plenteous dinner every day, or a sparing one, do not seem
+matters for despair.  But the truth is, that worldly trouble, such
+for instance, as loss of fortune, is seldom the simple thing that
+poets would persuade us.
+
+     "The little or the much she gave is quietly resigned;
+      Content with poverty, my soul I arm,
+      And virtue, though in rags will keep me warm."
+
+So sings Dryden, paraphrasing Horace, but each of them with their
+knowledge of the world, cross-questioned in prose, could have told
+us how the stings of fortune really are felt.  The truth is, that
+fortune is not exactly a distinct isolated thing which can be taken
+away--"and there an end."  But much has to be severed, with
+undoubted pain in the operation.  A man mostly feels that his
+reputation for sagacity, often his honour, the comfort, too, or
+supposed comfort, of others are embarked in his fortunes.  Mere
+stoicism, and resolves about fitting fortune to oneself, not oneself
+to fortune, though good things enough in their way, will not always
+meet the whole of the case.  And a man who could bear personal
+distress of any kind with Spartan indifference, may suffer himself
+to be overwhelmed by despair growing out of worldly trouble.  A
+frequent origin of such despair, as indeed of all despair (not by
+any means excluding despair from remorse), is pride.  Let a man say
+to himself, "I am not the perfect character I meant to be; this is
+not the conduct I had imagined for myself; these are not the
+fortunate circumstances I had always intended to be surrounded by."
+Let him at once admit that he is on a lower level than his ideal
+one; and then see what is to be done there.  This seems the best way
+of treating all that part of worldly trouble which consists of self-
+reproval.  We scarcely know of any outward life continuously
+prosperous (and a very dull one it would be):  why should we expect
+the inner life to be one course of unbroken self-improvement, either
+in prudence, or in virtue?
+
+Before a man gives way to excessive grief about the fortunes of his
+family being lost with his own, he should think whether he really
+knows wherein lies the welfare of others.  Give him some fairy
+power, inexhaustible purses or magic lamps, not, however, applying
+to the mind; and see whether he could make those whom he would
+favour good or happy.  In the East, they have a proverb of this
+kind, Happy are the children of those fathers who go to the Evil
+One.  But for anything that our Western experience shows, the
+proverb might be reversed, and, instead of running thus, Happy are
+the sons of those who have got money anyhow, it might be, Happy are
+the sons of those who have failed in getting money.  In fact, there
+is no sound proverb to be made about it either way.  We know nothing
+about the matter.  Our surest influence for good or evil over others
+is, through themselves.  Our ignorance of what is physically good
+for any man may surely prevent anything like despair with regard to
+that part of the fortunes of others dear to us, which, as we think,
+is bound up with our own.
+
+
+MORBID VIEWS OF RELIGION.
+
+As religion is the most engrossing subject that can be presented to
+us, it will be considered in all states of mind and by all minds.
+It is impossible but that the most hideous and perverted views of
+religion must arise.  To combat the particular views which may be
+supposed to cause religious despair, would be too theological an
+undertaking for this essay.  One thing only occurs to me to say,
+namely, that the lives and the mode of speaking about themselves
+adopted by the founders of Christianity, afford the best
+contradiction to religious melancholy that I believe can be met
+with.
+
+
+NATIVE MELANCHOLY.
+
+There is such a thing.  Jacques, without the "sundry contemplation"
+of his travels, or any "simples" to "compound" his melancholy form,
+would have ever been wrapped in a "most humorous sadness."  It was
+innate.  This melancholy may lay its votaries open to any other
+cause of despair, but having mostly some touch of philosophy (if it
+be not absolutely morbid), it is not unlikely to preserve them from
+any extremity.  It is not acute, but chronic.
+
+It may be said in its favour that it tends to make men indifferent
+to their own fortunes.  But then the sorrow of the world presses
+more deeply upon them.  With large open hearts, the untowardness of
+things present, the miseries of the past, the mischief, stupidity,
+and error which reign in the world, at times almost crush your
+melancholy men.  Still, out of their sadness may come their
+strength, or, at least, the best direction of it.  Nothing, perhaps,
+is lost; not even sin--much less sorrow.
+
+Ellesmere.  I am glad you have ended as you have:  for, previously,
+you seemed to make too much of getting rid of all distress of mind.
+I always liked that passage in "Philip van Artevelde," where Father
+John says,
+
+     "He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.
+      Eternity mourns that."
+
+You have a better memory than I have:  how does it go on?
+
+Milverton.
+                              "'Tis an ill cure
+      For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them.
+      Where sorrow's held intrusive and turned out,
+      There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,
+      Nor aught that dignifies humanity."
+
+Still this does not justify despair, which was what I was writing
+about.
+
+Ellesmere.  Perhaps it was not a just criticism of mine.  One part
+of the subject you have certainly omitted.  You do not tell us how
+much there often is of physical disorder in despair.  I dare say you
+will think it a coarse and unromantic mode of looking at things; but
+I must confess I agree with what Leigh Hunt has said somewhere, that
+one can walk down distress of mind--even remorse, perhaps.
+
+Milverton.  Yes; I am for the Peripatetics against all other
+philosophers.
+
+Ellesmere.  By the way, there is a passage in one of Hazlitt's
+essays, I thought of while you were reading, about remorse and
+religious melancholy.  He speaks of mixing up religion and morality;
+and then goes on to say, that Calvinistic notions have obscured and
+prevented self-knowledge. {42}
+
+Give me the essay--there is a passage I want to look at.  This
+comparison of life to a mountain stream, the rocks brought down by
+it being the actions, is too much worked out.  When we speak of
+similes not going on four legs, it implies, I think, that a simile
+is at best but a four-legged animal.  Now this is almost a centipede
+of a simile.  I think I have had the same thought as yours here, and
+I have compared the life of an individual to a curve.  You both
+smile.  Now I thought that Dunsford at any rate would be pleased
+with this reminiscence of college days.  But to proceed with my
+curve.  You may have numbers of the points through which it passes
+given, and yet know nothing of the nature of the curve itself.  See,
+now, it shall pass through here and here, but how it will go in the
+interval, what is the law of its being, we know not.  But this
+simile would be too mathematical, I fear.
+
+Milverton.  I hold to the centipede.
+
+Ellesmere.  Not a word has Dunsford said all this time.
+
+Dunsford.  I like the essay.  I was not criticising as we went
+along, but thinking that perhaps the greatest charm of books is,
+that we see in them that other men have suffered what we have.  Some
+souls we ever find who could have responded to all our agony, be it
+what it may.  This at least robs misery of its loneliness.
+
+Ellesmere.  On the other hand, the charm of intercourse with our
+fellows, when we are in sadness, is that they do not reflect it in
+any way.  Each keeps his own trouble to himself, and often
+pretending to think and care about other things, comes to do so for
+the time.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, but you might choose books which would not reflect
+your troubles.
+
+Ellesmere.  But the fact of having to make a choice to do this, does
+away, perhaps, with some part of the benefit:  whereas, in
+intercourse with living men, you take what you find, and you find
+that neither your trouble, nor any likeness of it, is absorbing
+other people.  But this is not the whole reason:  the truth is, the
+life and impulses of other men are catching; you cannot explain
+exactly how it is that they take you out of yourself.
+
+Milverton.  No man is so confidential as when he is addressing the
+whole world.  You find, therefore, more comfort for sorrow in books
+than in social intercourse.  I mean more direct comfort; for I agree
+with what Ellesmere says about society.
+
+Ellesmere.  In comparing men and books, one must always remember
+this important distinction--that one can put the books down at any
+time.  As Macaulay says, "Plato is never sullen.  Cervantes is never
+petulant.  Demosthenes never comes unseasonably.  Dante never stays
+too long."
+
+Milverton.  Besides, one can manage to agree so well,
+intellectually, with a book; and intellectual differences are the
+source of half the quarrels in the world.
+
+Ellesmere.  Judicious shelving!
+
+Milverton.  Judicious skipping will nearly do.  Now when one's
+friend, or oneself, is crotchety, dogmatic, or disputatious, one
+cannot turn over to another day.
+
+Ellesmere.  Don't go, Dunsford.  Here is a passage in the essay I
+meant to have said something about--"why should we expect the inner
+life to be one course of unbroken self-improvement," etc.--You
+recollect?  Well, it puts me in mind of a conversation between a
+complacent poplar and a grim old oak, which I overheard the other
+day.  The poplar said that it grew up quite straight, heavenwards,
+that all its branches pointed the same way, and always had done so.
+Turning to the oak, which it had been talking at before for some
+time, the poplar went on to remark, that it did not wish to say
+anything unfriendly to a brother of the forest, but those warped and
+twisted branches seemed to show strange struggles.  The tall thing
+concluded its oration by saying, that it grew up very fast, and that
+when it had done growing, it did not suffer itself to be made into
+huge floating engines of destruction.  But different trees had
+different tastes.  There was then a sound from the old oak, like an
+"ah" or a "whew," or, perhaps, it was only the wind amongst its
+resisting branches; and the gaunt creature said that it had had ugly
+winds from without and cross-grained impulses from within; that it
+knew it had thrown out awkwardly a branch here and a branch there,
+which would never come quite right again it feared; that men worked
+it up, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil--but that at any
+rate it had not lived for nothing.  The poplar began again
+immediately, for this kind of tree can talk for ever, but I patted
+the old oak approvingly and went on.
+
+Milverton.  Well, your trees divide their discourse somewhat
+Ellesmerically:  they do not talk with the simplicity La Fontaine's
+would; but there is a good deal in them.  They are not altogether
+sappy.
+
+Ellesmere.  I really thought of this fable of mine the other day, as
+I was passing the poplar at the end of the valley, and I determined
+to give it you on the first occasion.
+
+Dunsford.  I hope, Ellesmere, you do not intend to put sarcastic
+notions into the sap of our trees hereabouts.  There's enough of
+sarcasm in you to season a whole forest.
+
+Ellesmere.  Dunsford is afraid of what the trees may say to the
+country gentlemen, and whether they will be able to answer them.  I
+will be careful not to make the trees too clever.
+
+Milverton.  Let us go and try if we can hear any more forest talk.
+The winds, shaped into voices by the leaves, say many things to us
+at all times.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+
+In the course of our walk Milverton promised to read the following
+essay on Recreation the next day.  I have no note of anything that
+was said before the reading.
+
+
+RECREATION.
+
+This subject has not had the thought it merits.  It seems trivial.
+It concerns some hours in the daily life of each of us; but it is
+not connected with any subject of human grandeur, and we are rather
+ashamed of it.  Schiller has some wise, but hard words that relate
+to it.  He perceives the pre-eminence of the Greeks, who could do
+many things.  He finds that modern men are units of great nations;
+but not great units themselves.  And there is some room for this
+reasoning of his.
+
+Our modern system of division of labour divides wits also.  The more
+necessity there is, therefore, for funding in recreation something
+to expand men's intelligence.  There are intellectual pursuits
+almost as much divided as pin-making; and many a man goes through
+some intellectual process, for the greater part of his working
+hours, which corresponds with the making of a pin's head.  Must
+there not be some danger of a general contraction of mind from this
+convergence of attention upon something very small, for so
+considerable a portion of a man's life?
+
+What answer can civilisation give to this?  It can say that greater
+results are worked out by the modern system; that though each man is
+doing less himself than he might have done in former days, he sees
+greater and better things accomplished; and that his thoughts, not
+bound down by his petty occupation, travel over the work of the
+human family.  There is a great deal, doubtless, in this argument;
+but man is not altogether an intellectual recipient.  He is a
+constructive animal also.  It is not the knowledge that you can pour
+into him that will satisfy him, or enable him to work out his
+nature.  He must see things for himself; he must have bodily work
+and intellectual work different from his bread-getting work; or he
+runs the danger of becoming a contracted pedant with a poor mind and
+a sickly body.
+
+I have seen it quoted from Aristotle, that the end of labour is to
+gain leisure.  It is a great saying.  We have in modern times a
+totally wrong view of the matter.  Noble work is a noble thing, but
+not all work.  Most people seem to think that any business is in
+itself something grand; that to be intensely employed, for instance,
+about something which has no truth, beauty, or usefulness in it,
+which makes no man happier or wiser, is still the perfection of
+human endeavour, so that the work be intense.  It is the intensity,
+not the nature, of the work that men praise.  You see the extent of
+this feeling in little things.  People are so ashamed of being
+caught for a moment idle, that if you come upon the most industrious
+servants or workmen whilst they are standing looking at something
+which interests them, or fairly resting, they move off in a fright,
+as if they were proved, by a moment's relaxation, to be neglectful
+of their work.  Yet it is the result that they should mainly be
+judged by, and to which they should appeal.  But amongst all
+classes, the working itself, incessant working, is the thing
+deified.  Now what is the end and object of most work?  To provide
+for animal wants.  Not a contemptible thing by any means, but still
+it is not all in all with man.  Moreover, in those cases where the
+pressure of bread-getting is fairly past, we do not often find men's
+exertions lessened on that account.  There enter into their minds as
+motives, ambition, a love of hoarding, or a fear of leisure--things
+which, in moderation, may be defended or even justified; but which
+are not so peremptory, and upon the face of them excellent, that
+they at once dignify excessive labour.
+
+The truth is, that to work insatiably requires much less mind than
+to work judiciously, and less courage than to refuse work that
+cannot be done honestly.  For a hundred men whose appetite for work
+can be driven on by vanity, avarice, ambition, or a mistaken notion
+of advancing their families, there is about one who is desirous of
+expanding his own nature and the nature of others in all directions,
+of cultivating many pursuits, of bringing himself and those around
+him in contact with the universe in many points, of being a man and
+not a machine.
+
+It may seem as if the preceding arguments were directed rather
+against excessive work than in favour of recreation.  But the first
+object in an essay of this kind should be to bring down the absurd
+estimate that is often formed of mere work.  What ritual is to the
+formalist, or contemplation to the devotee, business is to the man
+of the world.  He thinks he cannot be doing wrong as long as he is
+doing that.
+
+No doubt hard work is a great police agent.  If everybody were
+worked from morning till night and then carefully locked up, the
+register of crimes might be greatly diminished.  But what would
+become of human nature?  Where would be the room for growth in such
+a system of things?  It is through sorrow and mirth, plenty and
+need, a variety of passions, circumstances, and temptations, even
+through sin and misery, that men's natures are developed.
+
+
+Again, there are people who would say, "Labour is not all; we do not
+object to the cessation of labour--a mere provision for bodily ends;
+but we fear the lightness and vanity of what you call recreation."
+Do these people take heed of the swiftness of thought--of the
+impatience of thought?  What will the great mass of men be thinking
+of, if they are taught to shun amusements and the thoughts of
+amusement?  If any sensuality is left open to them, they will think
+of that.  If not sensuality, then avarice, or ferocity for "the
+cause of God," as they would call it.  People who have had nothing
+else to amuse them have been very apt to indulge themselves in the
+excitement of persecuting their fellow creatures.
+
+Our nation, the northern part of it especially, is given to believe
+in the sovereign efficacy of dulness.  To be sure, dulness and solid
+vice are apt to go hand in hand.  But then, according to our
+notions, dulness is in itself so good a thing--almost a religion.
+
+Now, if ever a people required to be amused, it is we sad-hearted
+Anglo-Saxons.  Heavy eaters, hard thinkers, often given up to a
+peculiar melancholy of our own, with a climate that for months
+together would frown away mirth if it could--many of us with very
+gloomy thoughts about our hereafter--if ever there were a people who
+should avoid increasing their dulness by all work and no play, we
+are that people.  "They took their pleasure sadly," says Froissart,
+"after their fashion."  We need not ask of what nation Froissart was
+speaking.
+
+There is a theory which has done singular mischief to the cause of
+recreation and of general cultivation.  It is that men cannot excel
+in more things than one; and that if they can, they had better be
+quiet about it.  "Avoid music, do not cultivate art, be not known to
+excel in any craft but your own," says many a worldly parent,
+thereby laying the foundation of a narrow, greedy character, and
+destroying means of happiness and of improvement which success, or
+even real excellence, in one profession only cannot give.  This is,
+indeed, a sacrifice of the end of living for the means.
+
+Another check to recreation is the narrow way in which people have
+hitherto been brought up at schools and colleges.  The classics are
+pre-eminent works.  To acquire an accurate knowledge of them is an
+admirable discipline.  Still, it would be well to give a youth but
+few of these great works, and so leave time for various arts,
+accomplishments, and knowledge of external things exemplified by
+other means than books.  If this cannot be done but by over-working,
+then it had better not be done; for of all things, that must be
+avoided.  But surely it can be done.  At present, many a man who is
+versed in Greek metre, and afterwards full of law reports, is
+childishly ignorant of Nature.  Let him walk with an intelligent
+child for a morning, and the child will ask him a hundred questions
+about sun, moon, stars, plants, birds, building, farming, and the
+like, to which he can give very sorry answers, if any; or, at the
+best, he has but a second-hand acquaintance with Nature.  Men's
+conceits are his main knowledge.  Whereas, if he had any pursuits
+connected with Nature, all Nature is in harmony with it, is brought
+into his presence by it, and it affords at once cultivation and
+recreation.
+
+But, independently of those cultivated pursuits which form a high
+order of recreation, boyhood should never pass without the boy's
+learning several modes of recreation of the humbler kind.  A parent
+or teacher seldom does a kinder thing by the child under his care
+than when he instructs it in some manly exercise, some pursuit
+connected with Nature out of doors, or even some domestic game.  In
+hours of fatigue, anxiety, sickness, or worldly ferment, such means
+of amusement may delight the grown-up man when other things would
+fail.
+
+An indirect advantage, but a very considerable one, attendant upon
+various modes of recreation, is, that they provide opportunities of
+excelling in something to boys and men who are dull in things which
+form the staple of education.  A boy cannot see much difference
+between the nominative and the genitive cases--still less any
+occasion for aorists--but he is a good hand at some game or other;
+and he keeps up his self-respect, and the respect of others for him,
+upon his prowess in that game.  He is better and happier on that
+account.  And it is well, too, that the little world around him
+should know that excellence is not all of one form.
+
+There are no details about recreation in this essay, the object here
+being mainly to show the worth of recreation, and to defend it
+against objections from the over-busy and the over-strict.  The
+sense of the beautiful, the desire for comprehending Nature, the
+love of personal skill and prowess, are not things implanted in men
+merely to be absorbed in producing and distributing the objects of
+our most obvious animal wants.  If civilisation required this,
+civilisation would be a failure.  Still less should we fancy that we
+are serving the cause of godliness when we are discouraging
+recreation.  Let us be hearty in our pleasures, as in our work, and
+not think that the gracious Being Who has made us so open-hearted to
+delight, looks with dissatisfaction at our enjoyment, as a hard
+taskmaster might, who in the glee of his slaves could see only a
+hindrance to their profitable working.  And with reference to our
+individual cultivation, we may remember that we are not here to
+promote incalculable quantities of law, physic, or manufactured
+goods, but to become men--not narrow pedants, but wide-seeing, mind-
+travelled men.  Who are the men of history to be admired most?
+Those whom most things became--who could be weighty in debate, of
+much device in council, considerate in a sick-room, genial at a
+feast, joyous at a festival, capable of discourse with many minds,
+large-souled, not to be shrivelled up into any one form, fashion, or
+temperament.  Their contemporaries would have told us that men might
+have various accomplishments and hearty enjoyments, and not for that
+be the less effective in business, or less active in benevolence.  I
+distrust the wisdom of asceticism as much as I do that of
+sensuality; Simeon Stylites no less than Sardanapalus.
+
+                              -----
+
+Ellesmere.  You alluded to Schiller at the beginning of the essay:
+can you show me his own words?  I have a lawyer's liking for the
+best evidence.
+
+Milverton.  When we go in, I will show you some passages which bear
+me out in what I have made him say--at least, if the translation is
+faithful. {53}
+
+Ellesmere.  I have had a great respect for Schiller ever since I
+heard that saying of his about death, "Death cannot be an evil, for
+it is universal."
+
+Dunsford.  Very noble and full of faith.
+
+Ellesmere.  Touching the essay, I like it well enough; but, perhaps,
+people will expect to find more about recreation itself--not only
+about the good of it, but what it is, and how it is to be got.
+
+Milverton.  I do not incline to go into detail about the matter.
+The object was to say something for the respectability of
+recreation, not to write a chapter of a book of sports.  People must
+find out their own ways of amusing themselves.
+
+Ellesmere.  I will tell you what is the paramount thing to be
+attended to in all amusements--that they should be short.  Moralists
+are always talking about "short-lived" pleasures:  would that they
+were!
+
+Dunsford.  Hesiod told the world, some two thousand years ago, how
+much greater the half is than the whole.
+
+Ellesmere.  Dinner-givers and managers of theatres should forthwith
+be made aware of that fact.  What a sacrifice of good things, and of
+the patience and comfort of human beings, a cumbrous modern dinner
+is!  I always long to get up and walk about.
+
+Dunsford.  Do not talk of modern dinners.  Think what a Roman dinner
+must have been.
+
+Milverton.  Very true.  It has always struck me that there is
+something quite military in the sensualism of the Romans--an
+"arbiter bibendi" chosen, and the whole feast moving on with fearful
+precision and apparatus of all kinds.  Come, come! the world's
+improving, Ellesmere.
+
+Ellesmere.  Had the Romans public dinners?  Answer me that.  Imagine
+a Roman, whose theory, at least, of a dinner was that it was a thing
+for enjoyment, whereas we often look on it as a continuation of the
+business of the day--I say, imagine a Roman girding himself up,
+literally girding himself up to make an after-dinner speech.
+
+Milverton.  I must allow that is rather a barbarous practice.
+
+Ellesmere.  If charity, or politics, cannot be done without such
+things, I suppose they are useful in their way; but let nobody ever
+imagine that they are a form of pleasure.  People smearing each
+other over with stupid flattery, and most of the company being in
+dread of receiving some compliment which should oblige them to
+speak!
+
+Dunsford.  I should have thought, now, that you would always have
+had something to say, and therefore that you would not be so bitter
+against after-dinner speaking.
+
+Ellesmere.  No; when I have nothing to say, I can say nothing.
+
+Milverton.  Would it not be a pleasant thing if rich people would
+ask their friends sometimes to public amusements--order a play for
+them, for instance--or at any rate, provide some manifest amusement?
+They might, occasionally with great advantage, abridge the expense
+of their dinners; and throw it into other channels of hospitality.
+
+Ellesmere.  Ah, if they would have good acting at their houses, that
+would be very delightful; but I cannot say that the being taken to
+any place of public amusement would much delight me.  By the way,
+Milverton, what do you say of theatres in the way of recreation?
+This decline of the drama, too, is a thing you must have thought
+about:  let us hear your notions.
+
+Milverton.  I think one of the causes sometimes assigned, that
+reading is more spread, is a true and an important one; but,
+otherwise, I fancy that the present decline of the drama depends
+upon very small things which might be remedied.  As to a love of the
+drama going out of the human heart, that is all nonsense.  Put it at
+the lowest, what a great pleasure it is to hear a good play read.
+And again, as to serious pursuits unfitting men for dramatic
+entertainments, it is quite the contrary.  A man, wearied with care
+and business, would find more change of ideas with less fatigue, in
+seeing a good play, than in almost any other way of amusing himself.
+
+Dunsford.  What are the causes then of the decline of the drama?
+
+Milverton.  In England, or rather in London,--for London is England
+for dramatic purposes; in London, then, theatrical arrangements seem
+to be framed to drive away people of sense.  The noisome atmosphere,
+the difficult approach, the over-size of the great theatres, the
+intolerable length of performances.
+
+Ellesmere.  Hear! hear!
+
+Milverton.  The crowding together of theatres in one part of the
+town, the lateness of the hours--
+
+Ellesmere.  The folly of the audience, who always applaud in the
+wrong place--
+
+Dunsford.  There is no occasion to say any more; I am quite
+convinced.
+
+Milverton.  But these annoyances need not be.  Build a theatre of
+moderate dimensions; give it great facility of approach; take care
+that the performances never exceed three hours; let lions and dwarfs
+pass by without any endeavour to get them within the walls; lay
+aside all ambition of making stage waves which may almost equal real
+Ramsgate waves to our cockney apprehensions.  Of course there must
+be good players and good plays.
+
+Ellesmere.  Now we come to the part of Hamlet.
+
+Milverton.  Good players and good plays are both to be had if there
+were good demand for them.  But, I was going to say, let there be
+all these things, especially let there be complete ventilation, and
+the theatre will have the most abundant success.  Why, that one
+thing alone, the villainous atmosphere at most public places, is
+enough to daunt any sensible man from going to them.
+
+Dunsford.  There should be such a choice of plays--not merely
+Chamberlain-clipt--as any man or woman could go to.
+
+Milverton.  There should be certainly, but how is such a choice to
+be made, if the people who could regulate it, for the most part,
+stay away?  It is a dangerous thing, the better classes leaving any
+great source of amusement and instruction wholly, or greatly, to the
+less refined classes.
+
+Dunsford.  Yes, I must confess it is.
+
+Great part of your arguments apply to musical as well as to
+theatrical entertainments.  Do you find similar results with respect
+to them?
+
+Milverton.  Why, they are not attended by any means as they would
+be, or made what they might be, if the objections I mentioned were
+removed.
+
+Dunsford.  What do you say to the out-of-door entertainments for a
+town population?
+
+Milverton.  As I said before, my dear Dunsford, I cannot give you a
+chapter of a "Book of Sports."  There ought, of course, to be parks
+for all quarters of the town:  and I confess it would please me
+better to see, in holiday times and hours of leisure, hearty games
+going on in these parks, than a number of people sauntering about in
+uncomfortably new and unaccustomed clothes.
+
+Ellesmere.  Do you not see, Dunsford, that, like a cautious official
+man, he does not want to enter into small details, which have always
+an air of ridicule?  He is not prepared to pledge himself to
+cricket, golf, football, or prisoner's bars; but in his heart he is
+manifestly a Young Englander--without the white waistcoat.  Nothing
+would please him better than to see in large letters, on one of
+those advertising vans, "Great match!  Victoria Park!!  Eleven of
+Fleet Street against the Eleven of Saffron Hill!!!"
+
+Milverton.  Well, there is a great deal in the spirit of Young
+England that I like very much, indeed that I respect.
+
+Ellesmere.  I should like the Young England party better myself if I
+were quite sure there was no connection between them and a clan of
+sour, pity-mongering people, who wash one away with eternal talk
+about the contrast between riches and poverty; with whom a poor man
+is always virtuous; and who would, if they could, make him as
+envious and as discontented as possible.
+
+Milverton.  Nothing can be more strikingly in contrast with such
+thinkers than Young England.  Young Englanders, according to the
+best of their theories, ought to be men of warm sympathy with all
+classes.  There is no doubt of this, that very seldom does any good
+thing arise, but there comes an ugly phantom of a caricature of it,
+which sidles up against the reality, mouths its favourite words as a
+third-rate actor does a great part, under-mimics its wisdom, over-
+acts its folly, is by half the world taken for it, goes some way to
+suppress it in its own time, and, perhaps, lives for it in history.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well brought out, that metaphor, but I don't know that
+it means more than that the followers of a system do in general a
+good deal to corrupt it, or that when a great principle is worked
+into human affairs, a considerable accretion of human folly and
+falseness mostly grows round it:  which things some of us had a
+suspicion of before.
+
+Dunsford.  To go back to the subject.  What would you do for country
+amusements, Milverton?  That is what concerns me, you know.
+
+Milverton.  Athletic amusements go on naturally here:  do not
+require so much fostering as in towns.  The commons must be
+carefully kept:  I have quite a Cobbettian fear of their being taken
+away from us under some plausible pretext or other.  Well, then, it
+strikes me that a great deal might be done to promote the more
+refined pleasures of life among our rural population.  I hope we
+shall live to see many of Hullah's pupils playing an important part
+in this way.  Of course, the foundation for these things may best be
+laid at schools; and is being laid in some places, I am happy to
+say.
+
+Ellesmere.  Humph, music, sing-song!
+
+Milverton.  Don't you observe, Dunsford, that when Ellesmere wants
+to attack us, and does not exactly see how, he mutters to himself
+sarcastically, sneering himself up, as it were, to the attack.
+
+Ellesmere.  You and Dunsford are both wild for music, from barrel-
+organs upwards.
+
+Milverton.  I confess to liking the humblest attempts at melody.
+
+Dunsford.  I feel as Sir Thomas Browne tells us he felt, that "even
+that vulgar and tavern music, which makes one man merry, another
+mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion and a profound
+contemplation of the first composer.  There is something in it of
+divinity more than the ear discovers; it is an hieroglyphical and
+shadowed lesson of the whole world and creatures of God:  such a
+melody to the ear as the whole world well understood, would afford
+the understanding."
+
+Milverton.  Apropos of music in country places, when I was going
+about last year in the neighbouring county, I saw such a pretty
+scene at one of the towns.  They had got up a band, which played
+once a week in the evening.  It was a beautiful summer evening, and
+the window of my room at the end overlooked the open space they had
+chosen for their performances.  There was the great man of the
+neighbourhood in his carriage looking as if he came partly on duty,
+as well as for pleasure.  Then there were burly tradesmen, with an
+air of quiet satisfaction, sauntering about, or leaning against
+railings.  Some were no doubt critical--thought that Will Miller did
+not play as well as usual this evening.  Will's young wife, who had
+come out to look again at him in his band dress (for the band had a
+uniform), thought differently.  Little boys broke out into imaginary
+polkas, having some distant reference to the music:  not without
+grace though.  The sweep was pre-eminent:  as if he would say,
+"Dirty and sooty as I am I have a great deal of fun in me.  Indeed,
+what would May-day be but for me?"  Studious little boys of the
+free-school, all green grasshopper-looking, walked about as boys
+knowing something of Latin.  Here and there went a couple of them in
+childish loving way, with their arms about each other's necks.
+Matrons and shy young maidens sat upon the door-steps near.  Many a
+merry laugh filled up the interludes of music.  And when evening
+came softly down upon us, the band finished with "God save the
+Queen," the little circle of those who would hear the last note
+moved off, there was a clattering of shutters, a shining of lights
+through casement-windows, and soon the only sound to be heard was
+the rough voice of some villager, who would have been too timid to
+adventure anything by daylight, but now sang boldly out as he went
+homewards.
+
+Ellesmere.  Very pretty, but it sounds to me somewhat fabulous.
+
+Milverton.  I assure you--
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes, you were tired, had a good dinner, read a speech
+for or against the corn-laws, fell asleep of course, and had this
+ingenious dream, which, to this day, you believe to have been a
+reality.  I understand it all.
+
+Milverton.  I wish I could have many more such dreams.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+
+Our last conversation broke off abruptly on the entrance of a
+visitor:  we forgot to name a time for our next meeting; and when I
+came again, I found Milverton alone in his study.  He was reading
+Count Rumford's essays.
+
+Dunsford.  So you are reading Count Rumford.  What is it that
+interests you there?
+
+Milverton.  Everything he writes about.  He is to me a delightful
+writer.  He throws so much life into all his writings.  Whether they
+are about making the most of food or fuel, or propounding the
+benefits of bathing, or inveighing against smoke, it is that he went
+and saw and did and experimented himself upon himself.  His
+proceedings at Munich to feed the poor are more interesting than
+many a novel.  It is surprising, too, how far he was before the
+world in all the things he gave his mind to.
+
+Here Ellesmere entered.
+
+Ellesmere.  I heard you were come, Dunsford:  I hope we shall have
+an essay to-day.  My critical faculties have been dormant for some
+days, and want to be roused a little.  Milverton was talking to you
+about Count Rumford when I came in, was he not?  Ah, the Count is a
+great favourite with Milverton when he is down here; but there is a
+book upstairs which is Milverton's real favourite just now, a
+portentous-looking book; some relation to a blue-book, something
+about sewerage, or health of towns, or public improvements, over
+which said book our friend here goes into enthusiasms.  I am sure if
+it could be reduced to the size of that tatterdemalion Horace that
+he carries about, the poor little Horace would be quite supplanted.
+
+Milverton.  Now, I must tell you, Dunsford, that Ellesmere himself
+took up this book he talks about, and it was a long time before he
+put it down.
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes, there is something in real life, even though it is
+in the unheroic part of it, that interests one.  I mean to get
+through the book.
+
+Dunsford.  What are we to have to-day for our essay?
+
+Milverton.  Let us adjourn to the garden, and I will read you an
+essay on Greatness, if I can find it.
+
+We went to our favourite place, and Milverton read us the following
+essay.
+
+
+GREATNESS.
+
+You cannot substitute any epithet for great, when you are talking of
+great men.  Greatness is not general dexterity carried to any
+extent; nor proficiency in any one subject of human endeavour.
+There are great astronomers, great scholars, great painters, even
+great poets who are very far from great men.  Greatness can do
+without success and with it.  William is greater in his retreats
+than Marlborough in his victories.  On the other hand, the
+uniformity of Caesar's success does not dull his greatness.
+Greatness is not in the circumstances, but in the man.
+
+What does this greatness then consist in?  Not in a nice balance of
+qualities, purposes, and powers.  That will make a man happy, a
+successful man, a man always in his right depth.  Nor does it
+consist in absence of errors.  We need only glance back at any list
+that can be made of great men, to be convinced of that.  Neither
+does greatness consist in energy, though often accompanied by it.
+Indeed, it is rather the breadth of the waters than the force of the
+current that we look to, to fulfil our idea of greatness.  There is
+no doubt that energy acting upon a nature endowed with the qualities
+that we sum up in the word cleverness, and directed to a few clear
+purposes, produces a great effect, and may sometimes be mistaken for
+greatness.  If a man is mainly bent upon his own advancement, it
+cuts many a difficult knot of policy for him, and gives a force and
+distinctness to his mode of going on which looks grand.  The same
+happens if he has one pre-eminent idea of any kind, even though it
+should be a narrow one.  Indeed, success in life is mostly gained by
+unity of purpose; whereas greatness often fails by reason of its
+having manifold purposes, but it does not cease to be greatness on
+that account.
+
+If greatness can be shut up in qualities, it will be found to
+consist in courage and in openness of mind and soul.  These
+qualities may not seem at first to be so potent.  But see what
+growth there is in them.  The education of a man of open mind is
+never ended.  Then, with openness of soul, a man sees some way into
+all other souls that come near him, feels with them, has their
+experience, is in himself a people.  Sympathy is the universal
+solvent.  Nothing is understood without it.  The capacity of a man,
+at least for understanding, may almost be said to vary according to
+his powers of sympathy.  Again, what is there that can counteract
+selfishness like sympathy?  Selfishness may be hedged in by minute
+watchfulness and self-denial, but it is counteracted by the nature
+being encouraged to grow out and fix its tendrils upon foreign
+objects.
+
+The immense defect that want of sympathy is, may be strikingly seen
+in the failure of the many attempts that have been made in all ages
+to construct the Christian character, omitting sympathy.  It has
+produced numbers of people walking up and down one narrow plank of
+self-restraint, pondering over their own merits and demerits,
+keeping out, not the world exactly, but their fellow-creatures from
+their hearts, and caring only to drive their neighbours before them
+on this plank of theirs, or to push them headlong.  Thus, with many
+virtues, and much hard work at the formation of character, we have
+had splendid bigots or censorious small people.
+
+But sympathy is warmth and light too.  It is, as it were, the moral
+atmosphere connecting all animated natures.  Putting aside, for a
+moment, the large differences that opinions, language, and education
+make between men, look at the innate diversity of character.
+Natural philosophers were amazed when they thought they had found a
+new-created species.  But what is each man but a creature such as
+the world has not before seen?  Then think how they pour forth in
+multitudinous masses, from princes delicately nurtured to little
+boys on scrubby commons, or in dark cellars.  How are these people
+to be understood, to be taught to understand each other, but by
+those who have the deepest sympathies with all?  There cannot be a
+great man without large sympathy.  There may be men who play loud-
+sounding parts in life without it, as on the stage, where kings and
+great people sometimes enter who are only characters of secondary
+import--deputy great men.  But the interest and the instruction lie
+with those who have to feel and suffer most.
+
+Add courage to this openness we have been considering, and you have
+a man who can own himself in the wrong, can forgive, can trust, can
+adventure, can, in short, use all the means that insight and
+sympathy endow him with.
+
+I see no other essential characteristics in the greatness of nations
+than there are in the greatness of individuals.  Extraneous
+circumstances largely influence nations as individuals; and make a
+larger part of the show of the former than of the latter; as we are
+wont to consider no nation great that is not great in extent or
+resources, as well as in character.  But of two nations, equal in
+other respects, the superiority must belong to the one which excels
+in courage and openness of mind and soul.
+
+Again, in estimating the relative merits of different periods of the
+world, we must employ the same tests of greatness that we use to
+individuals.  To compare, for instance, the present and the past.
+What astounds us most in the past is the wonderful intolerance and
+cruelty:  a cruelty constantly turning upon the inventors:  an
+intolerance provoking ruin to the thing it would foster.  The most
+admirable precepts are thrown from time to time upon this cauldron
+of human affairs, and oftentimes they only seem to make it blaze the
+higher.  We find men devoting the best part of their intellects to
+the invariable annoyance and persecution of their fellows.  You
+might think that the earth brought forth with more abundant
+fruitfulness in the past than now, seeing that men found so much
+time for cruelty, but that you read of famines and privations which
+these latter days cannot equal.  The recorded violent deaths amount
+to millions.  And this is but a small part of the matter.  Consider
+the modes of justice; the use of torture, for instance.  What must
+have been the blinded state of the wise persons (wise for their day)
+who used torture?  Did they ever think themselves, "What should we
+not say if we were subjected to this?"  Many times they must really
+have desired to get at the truth; and such was their mode of doing
+it.  Now, at the risk of being thought "a laudator" of time present,
+I would say, here is the element of greatness we have made progress
+in.  We are more open in mind and soul.  We have arrived (some of us
+at least) at the conclusion that men may honestly differ without
+offence.  We have learned to pity each other more.  There is a
+greatness in modern toleration which our ancestors knew not.
+
+Then comes the other element of greatness, courage.  Have we made
+progress in that?  This is a much more dubious question.  The
+subjects of terror vary so much in different times that it is
+difficult to estimate the different degrees of courage shown in
+resisting them.  Men fear public opinion now as they did in former
+times the Star Chamber; and those awful goddesses, Appearances, are
+to us what the Fates were to the Greeks.  It is hardly possible to
+measure the courage of a modern against that of an ancient; but I am
+unwilling to believe but that enlightenment must strengthen courage.
+
+The application of the tests of greatness, as in the above instance,
+is a matter of detail and of nice appreciation, as to the results of
+which men must be expected to differ largely:  the tests themselves
+remain invariable--openness of nature to admit the light of love and
+reason, and courage to pursue it.
+
+                              -----
+
+Ellesmere.  I agree to your theory, as far as openness of nature is
+concerned; but I do not much like to put that half-brute thing,
+courage, so high.
+
+Milverton.  Well, you cannot have greatness without it:  you may
+have well-intentioned people and far-seeing people; but if they have
+no stoutness of heart, they will only be shifty or remonstrant,
+nothing like great.
+
+Ellesmere.  You mean will, not courage.  Without will, your open-
+minded, open-hearted man may be like a great, rudderless vessel
+driven about by all winds:  not a small craft, but a most uncertain
+one.
+
+Milverton.  No, I mean both:  both will and courage.  Courage is the
+body to will.
+
+Ellesmere.  I believe you are right in that; but do not omit will.
+It amused me to see how you brought in one of your old notions--that
+this age is not contemptible.  You scribbling people are generally
+on the other side.
+
+Milverton.  You malign us.  If I must give any account for my
+personal predilection for modern times, it consists perhaps in this,
+that we may now speak our mind.  What Tennyson says of his own land,
+
+     "The land where, girt with friend or foe,
+      A man may say the thing he will,"--
+
+may be said, in some measure, of the age in which we live.  This is
+an inexpressible comfort.  This doubles life.  These things surely
+may be said in favour of the present age, not with a view to puff it
+up, but so far to encourage ourselves, as we may by seeing that the
+world does not go on for nothing, that all the misery, blood, and
+toil that have been spent, were not poured out in vain.  Could we
+have our ancestors again before us, would they not rejoice at seeing
+what they had purchased for us:  would they think it any compliment
+to them to extol their times at the expense of the present, and so
+to intimate that their efforts had led to nothing?
+
+Ellesmere.  "I doubt," as Lord Eldon would have said; no, upon
+second thoughts, I do not doubt.  I feel assured that a good many of
+these said ancestors you are calling up would be much discomforted
+at finding that all their suffering had led to no sure basis of
+persecution of the other side.
+
+Dunsford.  I wonder, Ellesmere, what you would have done in
+persecuting times.  What escape would your sarcasm have found for
+itself?
+
+Milverton.  Some orthodox way, I daresay.  I do not think he would
+have been particularly fond of martyrdom.
+
+Ellesmere.  No.  I have no taste for making torches for truth, or
+being one:  I prefer humane darkness to such illumination.  At the
+same time one cannot tell lies; and if one had been questioned about
+the incomprehensibilities which men in former days were so fierce
+upon, one must have shown that one disagreed with all parties.
+
+Dunsford.  Do not say "one:"  _I_ should not have disagreed with the
+great Protestant leaders in the Reformation, for instance.
+
+Ellesmere.  Humph.
+
+Milverton.  If we get aground upon the Reformation, we shall never
+push off again--else would I say something far from complimentary to
+those Protestant proceedings which we may rather hope were
+Tudoresque than Protestant.
+
+Ellesmere.  No, that is not fair.  The Tudors were a coarse, fierce
+race; but it will not do to lay the faults of their times upon them
+only.  Look at Elizabeth's ministers.  They had about as much notion
+of religious tolerance as they had of Professor Wheatstone's
+telegraph.  It was not a growth of that age.
+
+Milverton.  I do not know.  You have Cardinal Pole and the Earl of
+Essex, both tolerant men in the midst of bigots.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, as you said, Milverton, we shall never push off,
+if we once get aground on this subject.
+
+Dunsford.  I am in fault:  so I will take upon myself to bring you
+quite away from the Reformation.  I have been thinking of that
+comparison in the essay of the present with the past.  Such
+comparisons seem to me very useful, as they best enable us to
+understand our own times.  And, then, when we have ascertained the
+state and tendency of our own age, we ought to strive to enrich it
+with those qualities which are complementary to its own.  Now with
+all this toleration, which delights you so much, dear Milverton, is
+it not an age rather deficient in caring about great matters?
+
+Milverton.  If you mean great speculative matters, I might agree
+with you; but if you mean what I should call the greatest matters,
+such as charity, humanity, and the like, I should venture to differ
+with you, Dunsford.
+
+Dunsford.  I do not like to see the world indifferent to great
+speculative matters.  I then fear shallowness and earthiness.
+
+Milverton.  It is very difficult to say what the world is thinking
+of now.  It is certainly wrong to suppose that this is a shallow age
+because it is not driven by one impulse.  As civilisation advances,
+it becomes more difficult to estimate what is going on, and we set
+it all down as confusion.  Now there is not one "great antique
+heart," whose beatings we can count, but many impulses, many circles
+of thought in which men are moving many objects.  Men are not all in
+the same state of progress, so cannot be moved in masses as of old.
+At one time chivalry urged all men, then the Church, and the
+phenomena were few, simple, and broad, or at least they seem so in
+history.
+
+Ellesmere.  Very true; still I agree somewhat with Dunsford, that
+men are not agitated as they used to be by the great speculative
+questions.  I account for it in this way, that the material world
+has opened out before us, and we cannot but look at that, and must
+play with it and work at it.  I would say, too, that philosophy had
+been found out, and there is something in that.  Still, I think if
+it were not for the interest now attaching to material things, great
+intellectual questions, not exactly of the old kind, would arise and
+agitate the world.
+
+Milverton.  There is one thing in my mind that may confirm your
+view.  I cannot but think that the enlarged view we have of the
+universe must in some measure damp personal ambition.  What is it to
+be a King, Sheik, Tetrarch, or Emperor, over a bit of a little bit?
+Macbeth's speech, "we'd jump the life to come," is a thing a man
+with modern lights, however madly ambitious, would hardly utter.
+
+Dunsford.  Religious lights, Milverton.
+
+Milverton.  Of course not, if he had them; but I meant scientific
+lights.  Sway over our fellow-creatures, at any rate anything but
+mental sway, has shrunk into less proportions.
+
+Ellesmere.  I have been looking over the essay.  I think you may put
+in somewhere--that that age would probably be the greatest in which
+there was the least difference between great men and the people in
+general--when the former were only neglected, not hunted down.
+
+Milverton.  Yes.
+
+Ellesmere.  You are rather lengthy here about the cruelties to be
+found in history; but we are apt to forget these matters.
+
+Milverton.  They always press upon my mind.
+
+Dunsford.  And on mine.  I do not like to read much of history for
+that very reason.  I get so sick at heart about it all.
+
+Milverton.  Ah, yes, history is a stupendous thing.  To read it is
+like looking at the stars; we turn away in awe and perplexity.  Yet
+there is some method running through the little affairs of man as
+through the multitude of suns, seemingly to us as confused as routed
+armies in full flight.
+
+Dunsford.  Some law of love.
+
+Ellesmere.  I am afraid it is not in the past alone that we should
+be awestruck with horrors:  we, who have a slave-trade still on
+earth.  But, to go back to the essay, I like what you say about the
+theory of constructing the Christian character without geniality;
+only you do not go far enough.  You are afraid.  People are for ever
+talking, especially you philanthropical people, about making others
+happy.  I do not know any way so sure of making others happy as of
+being so oneself, to begin with.  I do not mean that people are to
+be self-absorbed; but they are to drink in nature and life a little.
+From a genial, wisely-developed man good things radiate; whereas you
+must allow, Milverton, that benevolent people are very apt to be
+one-sided and fussy, and not of the sweetest temper if others will
+not be good and happy in their way.
+
+Milverton.  That is really not fair.  Of course, acid, small-minded
+people carry their narrow notions and their acidity into their
+benevolence.  Benevolence is no abstract perfection.  Men will
+express their benevolence according to their other gifts or want of
+gifts.  If it is strong, it overcomes other things in the character
+which would be hindrances to it; but it must speak in the language
+of the soul it is in.
+
+Ellesmere.  Come, let us go and see the pigs.  I hear them grunting
+over their dinners in the farmyard.  I like to see creatures who can
+be happy without a theory.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+
+The next time that I came over to Worth-Ashton it was raining, and I
+found my friends in the study.
+
+"Well, Dunsford," said Ellesmere, "is it not comfortable to have our
+sessions here for once, and to be looking out on a good solid
+English wet day?"
+
+Dunsford.  Rather a fluid than a solid.  But I agree with you in
+thinking it is very comfortable here.
+
+Ellesmere.  I like to look upon the backs of books.  First I think
+how much of the owner's inner life and character is shown in his
+books; then perhaps I wonder how he got such a book which seems so
+remote from all that I know of him--
+
+Milverton.  I shall turn my books the wrong side upwards when you
+come into the study.
+
+Ellesmere.  But what amuses me most is to see the odd way in which
+books get together, especially in the library of a man who reads his
+books and puts them up again wherever there is room.  Now here is a
+charming party:  "A Treatise on the Steam-Engine" between "Locke on
+Christianity" and Madame de Stael's "Corinne."  I wonder what they
+talk about at night when we are all asleep.  Here is another happy
+juxtaposition:  old Clarendon next to a modern metaphysician whom he
+would positively loathe.  Here is Sadler next to Malthus, and
+Horsley next to Priestley; but this sort of thing happens most in
+the best regulated libraries.  It is a charming reflection for
+controversial writers, that their works will be put together on the
+same shelves, often between the same covers; and that, in the minds
+of educated men, the name of one writer will be sure to recall the
+name of the other.  So they go down to posterity as a brotherhood.
+
+Milverton.  To complete Ellesmere's theory, we may say that all
+those injuries to books which we choose to throw upon some wretched
+worm, are but the wounds from rival books.
+
+Ellesmere.  Certainly.  But now let us proceed to polish up the
+weapons of another of these spiteful creatures.
+
+Dunsford.  Yes.  What is to be our essay to-day, Milverton?
+
+Milverton.  Fiction.
+
+Ellesmere.  Now, that is really unfortunate.  Fiction is just the
+subject to be discussed--no, not discussed, talked over--out of
+doors on a hot day, all of us lying about in easy attitudes on the
+grass, Dunsford with his gaiters forming a most picturesque and
+prominent figure.  But there is nothing complete in this life.
+"Surgit amari aliquid:" and so we must listen to Fiction in arm-
+chairs.
+
+FICTION.
+
+The influence of works of fiction is unbounded.  Even the minds of
+well-informed people are often more stored with characters from
+acknowledged fiction than from history or biography, or the real
+life around them.  We dispute about these characters as if they were
+realities.  Their experience is our experience; we adopt their
+feelings, and imitate their acts.  And so there comes to be
+something traditional even in the management of the passions.
+Shakespeare's historical plays were the only history to the Duke of
+Marlborough.  Thousands of Greeks acted under the influence of what
+Achilles or Ulysses did, in Homer.  The poet sings of the deeds that
+shall be.  He imagines the past; he forms the future.
+
+Yet how surpassingly interesting is real life when we get an insight
+into it.  Occasionally a great genius lifts up the veil of history,
+and we see men who once really were alive, who did not always live
+only in history; or, amidst the dreary page of battles, levies,
+sieges, and the sleep-inducing weavings and unweavings of political
+combination, we come, ourselves, across some spoken or written words
+of the great actors of the time, and are then fascinated by the life
+and reality of these things.  Could you have the life of any man
+really portrayed to you, sun-drawn as it were, its hopes, its fears,
+its revolutions of opinion in each day, its most anxious wishes
+attained, and then, perhaps, crystallising into its blackest
+regrets--such a work would go far to contain all histories, and be
+the greatest lesson of love, humility, and tolerance, that men had
+ever read.
+
+Now fiction does attempt something like the above.  In history we
+are cramped by impertinent facts that must, however, be set down; by
+theories that must be answered; evidence that must be weighed; views
+that must be taken.  Our facts constantly break off just where we
+should wish to examine them most closely.  The writer of fiction
+follows his characters into the recesses of their hearts.  There are
+no closed doors for him.  His puppets have no secrets from their
+master.  He plagues you with no doubts, no half-views, no criticism.
+Thus they thought, he tells you; thus they looked, thus they acted.
+Then, with every opportunity for scenic arrangement (for though his
+characters are confidential with him, he is only as confidential
+with his reader as the interest of the story will allow), it is not
+to be wondered at that the majority of readers should look upon
+history as a task, but tales of fiction as a delight.
+
+The greatest merit of fiction is the one so ably put forward by Sir
+James Mackintosh, namely, that it creates and nourishes sympathy.
+It extends this sympathy, too, in directions where, otherwise, we
+hardly see when it would have come.  But it may be objected that
+this sympathy is indiscriminate, and that we are in danger of mixing
+up virtue and vice, and blurring both, if we are led to sympathise
+with all manner of wrong-doers.  But, in the first place, virtue and
+vice are so mixed in real life, that it is well to be somewhat
+prepared for that fact; and, moreover, the sympathy is not wrongly
+directed.  Who has not felt intense sympathy for Macbeth?  Yet could
+he be alive again, with evil thoughts against "the gracious Duncan,"
+and could he see into all that has been felt for him, would that be
+an encouragement to murder?  The intense pity of wise people for the
+crimes of others, when rightly represented, is one of the strongest
+antidotes against crime.  We have taken the extreme case of sympathy
+being directed towards bad men.  How often has fiction made us
+sympathise with obscure suffering and retiring greatness, with the
+world-despised, and especially with those mixed characters in whom
+we might otherwise see but one colour--with Shylock and with Hamlet,
+with Jeanie Deans and with Claverhouse, with Sancho Panza as well as
+with Don Quixote.
+
+
+On the other hand, there is a danger of too much converse with
+fiction leading us into dream-land, or rather into lubber-land.  Of
+course this "too much converse" implies large converse with inferior
+writers.  Such writers are too apt to make life as they would have
+it for themselves.  Sometimes, also, they must make it to suit
+booksellers' rules.  Having such power over their puppets they abuse
+it.  They can kill these puppets, change their natures suddenly,
+reward or punish them so easily, that it is no wonder they are led
+to play fantastic tricks with them.  Now, if a sedulous reader of
+the works of such writers should form his notions of real life from
+them, he would occasionally meet with rude shocks when he
+encountered the realities of that life.
+
+
+For my own part, notwithstanding all the charms of life in swiftly-
+written novels, I prefer real life.  It is true that, in the former,
+everything breaks off round, every little event tends to some great
+thing, everybody one meets is to exercise some great influence for
+good or ill upon one's fate.  I take it for granted one fancies
+oneself the hero.  Then all one's fancy is paid in ready money, or
+at least one can draw upon it at the end of the third volume.  One
+leaps to remote wealth and honour by hairbreadth chances; and one's
+uncle in India always dies opportunely.  To be sure the thought
+occurs, that if this novel life could be turned into real life, one
+might be the uncle in India and not the hero of the tale.  But that
+is a trifling matter, for at any rate one should carry on with
+spirit somebody else's story.  On the whole, however, as I said
+before, I prefer real life, where nothing is tied up neatly, but all
+in odds and ends; where the doctrine of compensation enters largely,
+where we are often most blamed when we least deserve it, where there
+is no third volume to make things straight, and where many an
+Augustus marries many a Belinda, and, instead of being happy ever
+afterwards, finds that there is a growth of trials and troubles for
+each successive period of man's life.
+
+
+In considering the subject of fiction, the responsibility of the
+writers thereof is a matter worth pointing out.  We see clearly
+enough that historians are to be limited by facts and probabilities;
+but we are apt to make a large allowance for the fancies of writers
+of fiction.  We must remember, however, that fiction is not
+falsehood.  If a writer puts abstract virtues into book-clothing,
+and sends them upon stilts into the world, he is a bad writer:  if
+he classifies men, and attributes all virtue to one class and all
+vice to another, he is a false writer.  Then, again, if his ideal is
+so poor, that he fancies man's welfare to consist in immediate
+happiness; if he means to paint a great man and paints only a greedy
+one, he is a mischievous writer and not the less so, although by
+lamplight and amongst a juvenile audience, his coarse scene-painting
+should be thought very grand.  He may be true to his own fancy, but
+he is false to Nature.  A writer, of course, cannot get beyond his
+own ideal:  but at least he should see that he works up to it:  and
+if it is a poor one, he had better write histories of the utmost
+concentration of dulness, than amuse us with unjust and untrue
+imaginings.
+
+                              -----
+
+Ellesmere.  I am glad you have kept to the obvious things about
+fiction.  It would have been a great nuisance to have had to follow
+you through intricate theories about what fiction consists in, and
+what are its limits, and so on.  Then we should have got into
+questions touching the laws of representation generally, and then
+into art, of which, between ourselves, you know very little.
+
+Dunsford.  Talking of representation, what do you two, who have now
+seen something of the world, think about representative government?
+
+Ellesmere.  Dunsford plumps down upon us sometimes with awful
+questions:  what do you think of all philosophy? or what is your
+opinion of life in general?  Could not you throw in a few small
+questions of that kind, together with your representative one, and
+we might try to answer them all at once.  Dunsford is only laughing
+at us, Milverton.
+
+Milverton.  No, I know what was in Dunsford's mind when he asked
+that question.  He has had his doubts and misgivings, when he has
+been reading a six nights' debate (for the people in the country I
+daresay do read those things), whether representative government is
+the most complete device the human mind could suggest for getting at
+wise rulers.
+
+Ellesmere.  It is a doubt which has crossed my mind.
+
+Milverton.  And mine; but the doubt, if it has ever been more than
+mere petulance, has not had much practical weight with me.  Look how
+the business of the world is managed.  There are a few people who
+think out things, and a few who execute.  The former are not to be
+secured by any device.  They are gifts.  The latter may be well
+chosen, have often been well chosen, under other forms of government
+than the representative one.  I believe that the favourites of kings
+have been a superior race of men.  Even a fool does not choose a
+fool for a favourite.  He knows better than that:  he must have
+something to lean against.  But between the thinkers and the doers
+(if, indeed, we ought to make such a distinction), WHAT A NUMBER OF
+USEFUL LINKS THERE ARE IN A REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT on account of
+the much larger number of people admitted into some share of
+government.  What general cultivation must come from that, and what
+security!  Of course, everything has its wrong side; and from this
+number of people let in there comes declamation and claptrap and
+mob-service, which is much the same thing as courtiership was in
+other times.  But then, to make the comparison a fair one, you must
+take the wrong side of any other form of government that has been
+devised.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, but so much power centring in the lower house of
+Parliament, and the getting into Parliament being a thing which is
+not very inviting to the kind of people one would most like to see
+there, do you not think that the ablest men are kept away?
+
+Milverton.  Yes; but if you make your governing body a unit or a
+ten, or any small number, how is this power, unless it is Argus-
+eyed, and myriad-minded, and right-minded too, to choose the right
+men any better than they are found now?  The great danger, as it
+appears to me, of representative government is lest it should slide
+down from representative government to delegate government.  In my
+opinion, the welfare of England, in great measure, depends upon what
+takes place at the hustings.  If, in the majority of instances,
+there were abject conduct there, electors and elected would be alike
+debased; upright public men could not be expected to arise from such
+beginnings; and thoughtful persons would begin to consider whether
+some other form of government could not forthwith be made out.
+
+Ellesmere.  I have a supreme disgust for the man who at the hustings
+has no opinion beyond or above the clamour round him.  How such a
+fellow would have kissed the ground before a Pompadour, or waited
+for hours in a Buckingham's antechamber, only to catch the faintest
+beam of reflected light from royalty.
+
+But I declare we have been just like schoolboys talking about forms
+of government and so on.
+
+     "For forms of government let fools contest,
+      That which is WORST administered is best,"--
+
+that is, representative government.
+
+Milverton.  I should not like either of you to fancy, from what I
+have been saying about representative government, that I do not see
+the dangers and the evils of it.  In fact, it is a frequent thought
+with me of what importance the House of Lords is at present, and of
+how much greater importance it might be made.  If there were Peers
+for life, and official members of the House of Commons, it would, I
+think, meet most of your objections, Dunsford.
+
+Dunsford.  I suppose I am becoming a little rusty and disposed to
+grumble, as I grow old; but there is a good deal in modern
+government which seems to me very rude and absurd.  There comes a
+clamour, partly reasonable; power is deaf to it, overlooks it, says
+there is no such thing; then great clamour; after a time, power
+welcomes that, takes it to its arms, says that now it is loud it is
+very wise, wishes it had always been clamour itself.
+
+Ellesmere.  How many acres do you farm, Dunsford?  How spiteful you
+are!
+
+Dunsford.  I am not thinking of Corn Laws alone, as you fancy,
+Master Ellesmere.  But to go to other things.  I quite agree,
+Milverton, with what you were saying just now about the business of
+the world being carried on by few, and the thinking few being in the
+nature of gifts to the world, not elicited by King or Kaiser.
+
+Milverton.  The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world
+arise in solitary places.
+
+Ellesmere.  Not a bad metaphor, but untrue.  Aristotle, Bacon--
+
+Milverton.  Well, I believe it would be much wiser to say, that we
+cannot lay down rules about the highest work; either when it is
+done, where it will be done, or how it can be made to be done.  It
+is too immaterial for our measurement; for the highest part even of
+the mere business of the world is in dealing with ideas.  It is very
+amusing to observe the misconceptions of men on these points.  They
+call for what is outward--can understand that, can praise it.
+Fussiness and the forms of activity in all ages get great praise.
+Imagine an active, bustling little praetor under Augustus, how he
+probably pointed out Horace to his sons as a moony kind of man,
+whose ways were much to be avoided, and told them it was a weakness
+in Augustus to like such idle men about him instead of men of
+business.
+
+Ellesmere.  Or fancy a bustling Glasgow merchant of Adam Smith's day
+watching him.  How little would the merchant have dreamt what a
+number of vessels were to be floated away by the ink in the
+Professor's inkstand; and what crashing of axes, and clearing of
+forests in distant lands, the noise of his pen upon the paper
+portended.
+
+Milverton.  It is not only the effect of the still-working man that
+the busy man cannot anticipate, but neither can he comprehend the
+present labour.  If Horace had told my praetor that
+
+     "Abstinuit Venere et vino, sudavit et alsit,"
+
+"What, to write a few lines!" would his praetorship have cried out.
+"Why, I can live well and enjoy life; and I flatter myself no one in
+Rome does more business."
+
+Dunsford.  All of it only goes to show how little we know of each
+other, and how tolerant we ought to be of others' efforts.
+
+Milverton.  The trials that there must be every day without any
+incident that even the most minute household chronicler could set
+down:  the labours without show or noise!
+
+Ellesmere.  The deep things that there are which, with unthinking
+people, pass for shallow things, merely because they are clear as
+well as deep.  My fable of the other day, for instance--which
+instead of producing any moral effect upon you two, only seemed to
+make you both inclined to giggle.
+
+Milverton.  I am so glad you reminded me of that.  I, too, fired
+with a noble emulation, have invented a fable since we last met
+which I want you to hear.  I assure you I did not mean to laugh at
+yours:  it was only that it came rather unexpectedly upon me.  You
+are not exactly the person from whom one should expect fables.
+
+Dunsford.  Now for the fable.
+
+Milverton.  There was a gathering together of creatures hurtful and
+terrible to man, to name their king.  Blight, mildew, darkness,
+mighty waves, fierce winds, Will-o'-the-wisps, and shadows of grim
+objects, told fearfully their doings and preferred their claims,
+none prevailing.  But when evening came on, a thin mist curled up,
+derisively, amidst the assemblage, and said, "I gather round a man
+going to his own home over paths made by his daily footsteps; and he
+becomes at once helpless and tame as a child.  The lights meant to
+assist him, then betray.  You find him wandering, or need the aid of
+other Terrors to subdue him.  I am, alone, confusion to him."  And
+all the assemblage bowed before the mist, and made it king, and set
+it on the brow of many a mountain, where, when it is not doing evil,
+it may be often seen to this day.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, I like that fable:  only I am not quite clear about
+the meaning.
+
+Ellesmere.  You had no doubt about mine.
+
+Dunsford.  Is the mist calumny, Milverton?
+
+Ellesmere.  No, prejudice, I am sure.
+
+Dunsford.  Familiarity with the things around us, obscuring
+knowledge?
+
+Milverton.  I would rather not explain.  Each of you make your own
+fable of it.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, if ever I make a fable, it shall be one of the old-
+fashioned sort, with animals for the speakers, and a good easy
+moral.
+
+Ellesmere.  Not a thing requiring the notes of seven German
+metaphysicians.  I must go and talk a little to my friends the
+trees, and see if I can get any explanation from them.  It is
+turning out a beautiful day after all, notwithstanding my praise of
+its solidity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+
+We met as usual at our old spot on the lawn for our next reading.  I
+forget what took place before reading, except that Ellesmere was
+very jocose about our reading "Fiction" in-doors, and the following
+"November Essay," as he called it, "under a jovial sun, and with the
+power of getting up and walking away from each other to any extent."
+
+
+ON THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS.
+
+The "Iliad" for war; the "Odyssey" for wandering; but where is the
+great domestic epic?  Yet it is but commonplace to say, that
+passions may rage round a tea-table, which would not have misbecome
+men dashing at one another in war-chariots; and evolutions of
+patience and temper are performed at the fireside, worthy to be
+compared with the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.  Men have worshipped
+some fantastic being for living alone in a wilderness; but social
+martyrdoms place no saints upon the calendar.
+
+We may blind ourselves to it if we like, but the hatreds and
+disgusts that there are behind friendship, relationship, service,
+and, indeed, proximity of all kinds, is one of the darkest spots
+upon earth.  The various relations of life, which bring people
+together, cannot, as we know, be perfectly fulfilled except in a
+state where there will, perhaps, be no occasion for any of them.  It
+is no harm, however, to endeavour to see whether there are any
+methods which may make these relations in the least degree more
+harmonious now.
+
+In the first place, if people are to live happily together, they
+must not fancy, because they are thrown together now, that all their
+lives have been exactly similar up to the present time, that they
+started exactly alike, and that they are to be for the future of the
+same mind.  A thorough conviction of the difference of men is the
+great thing to be assured of in social knowledge:  it is to life
+what Newton's law is to astronomy.  Sometimes men have a knowledge
+of it with regard to the world in general:  they do not expect the
+outer world to agree with them in all points, but are vexed at not
+being able to drive their own tastes and opinions into those they
+live with.  Diversities distress them.  They will not see that there
+are many forms of virtue and wisdom.  Yet we might as well say, "Why
+all these stars; why this difference; why not all one star?"
+
+Many of the rules for people living together in peace follow from
+the above.  For instance, not to interfere unreasonably with others,
+not to ridicule their tastes, not to question and re-question their
+resolves, not to indulge in perpetual comment on their proceedings,
+and to delight in their having other pursuits than ours, are all
+based upon a thorough perception of the simple fact that they are
+not we.
+
+Another rule for living happily with others is to avoid having stock
+subjects of disputation.  It mostly happens, when people live much
+together, that they come to have certain set topics, around which,
+from frequent dispute, there is such a growth of angry words,
+mortified vanity, and the like, that the original subject of
+difference becomes a standing subject for quarrel; and there is a
+tendency in all minor disputes to drift down to it.
+
+Again, if people wish to live well together, they must not hold too
+much to logic, and suppose that everything is to be settled by
+sufficient reason.  Dr. Johnson saw this clearly with regard to
+married people, when he said, "Wretched would be the pair above all
+names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason
+every morning all the minute detail of a domestic day."  But the
+application should be much more general than he made it.  There is
+no time for such reasonings, and nothing that is worth them.  And
+when we recollect how two lawyers, or two politicians, can go on
+contending, and that there is no end of one-sided reasoning on any
+subject, we shall not be sure that such contention is the best mode
+for arriving at truth.  But certainly it is not the way to arrive at
+good temper.
+
+If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism
+upon those with whom you live.  The number of people who have taken
+out judges' patents for themselves is very large in any society.
+Now it would be hard for a man to live with another who was always
+criticising his actions, even if it were kindly and just criticism.
+It would be like living between the glasses of a microscope.  But
+these self-elected judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to
+have the persons they judge brought before them in the guise of
+culprits.
+
+One of the most provoking forms of the criticism above alluded to is
+that which may be called criticism over the shoulder.  "Had I been
+consulted," "Had you listened to me," "But you always will," and
+such short scraps of sentences may remind many of us of
+dissertations which we have suffered and inflicted, and of which we
+cannot call to mind any soothing effect.
+
+Another rule is, not to let familiarity swallow up all courtesy.
+Many of us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such
+things as we say about strangers behind their backs.  There is no
+place, however, where real politeness is of more value than where we
+mostly think it would be superfluous.  You may say more truth, or
+rather speak out more plainly, to your associates, but not less
+courteously than you do to strangers.
+
+Again, we must not expect more from the society of our friends and
+companions than it can give, and especially must not expect contrary
+things.  It is something arrogant to talk of travelling over other
+minds (mind being, for what we know, infinite); but still we become
+familiar with the upper views, tastes, and tempers of our
+associates.  And it is hardly in man to estimate justly what is
+familiar to him.  In travelling along at night, as Hazlitt says, we
+catch a glimpse into cheerful-looking rooms with light blazing in
+them, and we conclude involuntarily how happy the inmates must be.
+Yet there is heaven and hell in those rooms--the same heaven and
+hell that we have known in others.
+
+
+There are two great classes of promoters of social happiness--
+cheerful people, and people who have some reticence.  The latter are
+more secure benefits to society even than the former.  They are non-
+conductors of all the heats and animosities around them.  To have
+peace in a house, or a family, or any social circle, the members of
+it must beware of passing on hasty and uncharitable speeches, which,
+the whole of the context seldom being told, is often not conveying
+but creating mischief.  They must be very good people to avoid doing
+this; for let Human Nature say what it will, it likes sometimes to
+look on at a quarrel, and that not altogether from ill-nature, but
+from a love of excitement, for the same reason that Charles II.
+liked to attend the debates in the Lords, because they were "as good
+as a play."
+
+
+We come now to the consideration of temper, which might have been
+expected to be treated first.  But to cut off the means and causes
+of bad temper is, perhaps, of as much importance as any direct
+dealing with the temper itself.  Besides, it is probable that in
+small social circles there is more suffering from unkindness than
+ill-temper.  Anger is a thing that those who live under us suffer
+more from than those who live with us.  But all the forms of ill-
+humour and sour-sensitiveness, which especially belong to equal
+intimacy (though indeed, they are common to all), are best to be met
+by impassiveness.  When two sensitive persons are shut up together,
+they go on vexing each other with a reproductive irritability. {93}
+But sensitive and hard people get on well together.  The supply of
+temper is not altogether out of the usual laws of supply and demand.
+
+
+Intimate friends and relations should be careful when they go out
+into the world together, or admit others to their own circle, that
+they do not make a bad use of the knowledge which they have gained
+of each other by their intimacy.  Nothing is more common than this,
+and did it not mostly proceed from mere carelessness, it would be
+superlatively ungenerous.  You seldom need wait for the written life
+of a man to hear about his weaknesses, or what are supposed to be
+such, if you know his intimate friends, or meet him in company with
+them.
+
+
+Lastly, in conciliating those we live with, it is most surely done,
+not by consulting their interests, nor by giving way to their
+opinions, so much as by not offending their tastes.  The most
+refined part of us lies in this region of taste, which is perhaps a
+result of our whole being rather than a part of our nature, and, at
+any rate, is the region of our most subtle sympathies and
+antipathies.
+
+
+It may be said that if the great principles of Christianity were
+attended to, all such rules, suggestions, and observations as the
+above would be needless.  True enough!  Great principles are at the
+bottom of all things; but to apply them to daily life, many little
+rules, precautions, and insights are needed.  Such things hold a
+middle place between real life and principles, as form does between
+matter and spirit, moulding the one and expressing the other.
+
+                              -----
+
+Ellesmere.  Quite right that last part.  Everybody must have known
+really good people, with all Christian temper, but having so little
+Christian prudence as to do a great deal of mischief in society.
+
+Dunsford.  There is one case, my dear Milverton, which I do not
+think you have considered:  the case where people live unhappily
+together, not from any bad relations between them, but because they
+do not agree about the treatment of others.  A just person, for
+instance, who would bear anything for himself or herself, must
+remonstrate, at the hazard of any disagreement, at injustice to
+others.
+
+Milverton.  Yes.  That, however, is a case to be decided upon higher
+considerations than those I have been treating of.  A man must do
+his duty in the way of preventing injustice, and take what comes of
+it.
+
+Ellesmere.  For people to live happily together, the real secret is
+that they should not live too much together.  Of course, you cannot
+say that; it would sound harsh, and cut short the essay altogether.
+
+Again, you talk about tastes and "region of subtle sympathies," and
+all that.  I have observed that if people's vanity is pleased, they
+live well enough together.  Offended vanity is the great separator.
+You hear a man (call him B) saying that he is really not himself
+before So-and-so; tell him that So-and-so admires him very much and
+is himself rather abashed before B, and B is straightway
+comfortable, and they get on harmoniously together, and you hear no
+more about subtle sympathies or antipathies.
+
+Dunsford.  What a low view you do take of things sometimes,
+Ellesmere!
+
+Milverton.  I should not care how low it was, but it is not fair--at
+least, it does not contain the whole matter.  In the very case he
+has put, there was a subtle embarrassment between B and So-and-so.
+Well, now, let these people not merely meet occasionally, but be
+obliged to live together, without any such explanation as Ellesmere
+has imagined, and they will be very uncomfortable from causes that
+you cannot impute to vanity.  It takes away much of the savour of
+life to live amongst those with whom one has not anything like one's
+fair value.  It may not be mortified vanity, but unsatisfied
+sympathy, which causes this discomfort.  B thinks that the other
+does not know him; he feels that he has no place with the other.
+When there is intense admiration on one side, there is hardly a care
+in the mind of the admiring one as to what estimation he is held in.
+But, in ordinary cases, some clearly defined respect and
+acknowledgment of worth is needed on both sides.  See how happy a
+man is in any office or service who is acknowledged to do something
+well.  How comfortable he is with his superiors!  He has his place.
+It is not exactly a satisfaction of his vanity, but an
+acknowledgment of his useful existence that contents him.  I do not
+mean to say that there are not innumerable claims for acknowledgment
+of merit and service made by rampant vanity and egotism, which
+claims cannot be satisfied, ought not to be satisfied, and which,
+being unsatisfied, embitter people.  But I think your word Vanity
+will not explain all the feelings we have been talking about.
+
+Ellesmere.  Perhaps not.
+
+Dunsford.  Certainly not.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, at any rate, you will admit that there is a class
+of dreadfully humble people who make immense claims at the very time
+that they are explaining that they have no claims.  They say they
+know they cannot be esteemed; they are well aware that they are not
+wanted, and so on, all the while making it a sort of grievance and a
+claim that they are not what they know themselves not to be;
+whereas, if they did but fall back upon their humility, and keep
+themselves quiet about their demerits, they would be strong then,
+and in their place and happy, doing what they could.
+
+Milverton.  It must be confessed that these people do make their
+humility somewhat obnoxious.  Yet, after all, you allow that they
+know their deficiencies, and they only say, "I know I have not much
+to recommend me, but I wish to be loved, nevertheless."
+
+Ellesmere.  Ah, if they only said it a few times!  Besides, there is
+a little envy mixed up with the humility that I mean.
+
+Dunsford.  Travelling is a great trial of people's ability to live
+together.
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes.  Lavater says that you do not know a man until you
+have divided an inheritance with him; but I think a long journey
+with him will do.
+
+Milverton.  Well, and what is it in travelling that makes people
+disagree?  Not direct selfishness, but injudicious management;
+stupid regrets, for instance, at things not being different from
+what they are, or from what they might have been, if "the other
+route" had been chosen; fellow-travellers punishing each other with
+each other's tastes; getting stock subjects of disputation; laughing
+unseasonably at each other's vexations and discomforts; and
+endeavouring to settle everything by the force of sufficient reason,
+instead of by some authorised will, or by tossing up.  Thus, in the
+short time of a journey, almost all modes and causes of human
+disagreement are brought into action.
+
+Ellesmere.  My favourite one not being the least--over-much of each
+other's company.
+
+For my part, I think one of the greatest bores of companionship is,
+not merely that people wish to fit tastes and notions on you just as
+they might the first pair of ready-made shoes they meet with, a
+process amusing enough to the bystander, but exquisitely
+uncomfortable to the person being ready-shod:  but that they bore
+you with never-ending talk about their pursuits, even when they know
+that you do not work in the same groove with them, and that they
+cannot hope to make you do so.
+
+Dunsford.  Nobody can accuse you of that fault, Ellesmere:  I never
+heard you dilate much upon anything that interested you, though I
+have known you have some pet subject, and to be working at it for
+months.  But this comes of your coldness of nature.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, it might bear a more favourable construction.  But
+to go back to the essay.  It only contemplates the fact of people
+living together as equals, if we may so say; but in general, of
+course, you must add some other relationship or connection than that
+of merely being together.
+
+Milverton.  I had not overlooked that; but there are certain general
+rules in the matter that may be applied to nearly all relationship,
+just as I have taken that one from Johnson, applied by him to
+married life, about not endeavouring to settle all things by
+reasoning, and have given it a general application which, I believe,
+it will bear.
+
+Ellesmere.  There is one thing that I should think must often make
+women very unreasonable and unpleasant companions.  Oh, you may both
+hold up your hands and eyes, but I am not married, and can say what
+I please.  Of course you put on the proper official look of
+astonishment; and I will duly report it.  But I was going to say
+that Chivalry, which has doubtless done a great deal of good, has
+also done a great deal of harm.  Women may talk the greatest
+unreason out of doors, and nobody kindly informs them that it is
+unreason.  They do not talk much before clever men, and when they
+do, their words are humoured and dandled as children's sayings are.
+Now, I should fancy--mind, I do not want either of you to say that
+my fancy is otherwise than quite unreasonable--I should fancy that
+when women have to hear reason at home it must sound odd to them.
+The truth is, you know, we cannot pet anything much without doing it
+mischief.  You cannot pet the intellect, any more than the will,
+without injuring it.  Well then, again, if you put people upon a
+pedestal and do a great deal of worship around them, I cannot think
+but the will in such cases must become rather corrupted, and that
+lessons of obedience must fall rather harshly--
+
+Dunsford.  Why, you Mahometan, you Turk of a lawyer--would you do
+away with all the high things of courtesy, tenderness for the
+weaker, and--
+
+Milverton.  No, I see what he means; and there is something in it.
+Many a woman is brought up in unreason and self-will from these
+causes that he has given, as many a man from other causes; but there
+is one great corrective that he has omitted, and which is, that all
+forms, fashions, and outward things have a tendency to go down
+before realities when they come hand to hand together.  Knowledge
+and judgment prevail.  Governing is apt to fall to the right person
+in private as in public affairs.
+
+Ellesmere.  Those who give way in public affairs, and let the men
+who can do a thing do it, are so far wise that they know what is to
+be done, mostly.  But the very things I am arguing against are the
+unreason and self-will, which being constantly pampered, do not
+appreciate reason or just sway.  Besides, is there not a force in
+ill-humour and unreason to which you constantly see the wisest bend?
+You will come round to my opinion some day.  I do not want, though,
+to convince you.  It is no business of mine.
+
+Milverton.  Well, I may be wrong, but I think, when we come to
+consider education, I can show you how the dangers you fear may be
+greatly obviated, without Chivalry being obliged to put on a wig and
+gown, and be wise.
+
+Dunsford.  Meanwhile, let us enjoy the delightful atmosphere of
+courtesy, unreasonable sometimes, if you like, which saves many
+people being put down with the best arguments in the most convincing
+manner, or being weighed, estimated, and given way to, so as not to
+spoil them.
+
+Ellesmere.  Do not tell, either of you, what I have been saying.  I
+shall always be poked up into some garret when I come to see you, if
+you do.
+
+Dunsford.  I think the most curious thing, as regards people living
+together, is the intense ignorance they sometimes are in of each
+other.  Many years ago, one or other of you said something of this
+kind to me, and I have often thought of it since.
+
+Milverton.  People fulfil a relation towards each other, and they
+only know each other in that relation, especially if it is badly
+managed by the superior one; but any way the relationship involves
+some ignorance.  They perform orbits round each other, each
+gyrating, too, upon his own axis, and there are parts of the
+character of each which are never brought into view of the other.
+
+Ellesmere.  I should carry this notion of yours, Milverton, farther
+than you do.  There is a peculiar mental relation soon constituted
+between associates of any kind, which confines and prevents complete
+knowledge on both sides.  Each man, in some measure therefore, knows
+others only through himself.  Tennyson makes Ulysses say,
+
+     "I am a part of all that I have seen;"
+
+it might have run,
+
+     "I am a part of all that I have heard."
+
+Dunsford.  Ellesmere becoming metaphysical and transcendental!
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, well, we will leave these heights, and descend in
+little drops of criticism.  There are two or three things you might
+have pointed out, Milverton.  Perhaps you would say that they are
+included in what you have said, but I think not.  You talk of the
+mischief of much comment on each other amongst those who live
+together.  You might have shown, I think, that in the case of near
+friends and relations this comment also deepens into interference--
+at least it partakes of that nature.  Friends and relations should,
+therefore, be especially careful to avoid needless comments on each
+other.  They do just the contrary.  That is one of the reasons why
+they often hate one another so much.
+
+Dunsford.  Ellesmere!
+
+Ellesmere.  Protest, if you like, my dear Dunsford.
+     Dissentient,
+          1.  Because I wish it were not so.
+          2.  Because I am sorry that it is.
+                                 (Signed) DUNSFORD.
+
+Milverton.  "Hate" is too strong a word, Ellesmere; what you say
+would be true enough, if you would put "are not in sympathy with."
+
+Ellesmere.  "Have a quiet distaste for."  That is the proper medium.
+Now, to go to another matter.  You have not put the case of over-
+managing people, who are tremendous to live with.
+
+Milverton.  I have spoken about "interfering unreasonably with
+others."
+
+Ellesmere.  That does not quite convey what I mean.  It is when the
+manager and the managee are both of the same mind as to the thing to
+be done; but the former insists, and instructs, and suggests, and
+foresees, till the other feels that all free agency for him is gone.
+
+Milverton.  It is a sad thing to consider how much of their
+abilities people turn to tiresomeness.  You see a man who would be
+very agreeable if he were not so observant:  another who would be
+charming, if he were deaf and dumb:  a third delightful, if he did
+not vex all around him with superfluous criticism.
+
+Ellesmere.  A hit at me that last, I suspect.  But I shall go on.
+You have not, I think, made enough merit of independence in
+companionship.  If I were to put into an aphorism what I mean, I
+should say, Those who depend wholly on companionship are the worst
+companions; or thus:  Those deserve companionship who can do without
+it.  There, Mr. Aphoriser General, what do you say to that?
+
+Milverton.  Very good, but--
+
+Ellesmere.  Of course a "but" to other people's aphorisms, as if
+every aphorism had not buts innumerable.  We critics, you know,
+cannot abide criticism.  We do all the criticism that is needed
+ourselves.  I wonder at the presumption sometimes of you wretched
+authors.  But to proceed.  You have not said anything about the
+mischief of superfluous condolence amongst people who live together.
+I flatter myself that I could condole anybody out of all peace of
+mind.
+
+Milverton.  All depends upon whether condolence goes with the grain,
+or against the grain, of vanity.  I know what you mean, however:
+For instance, it is a very absurd thing to fret much over other
+people's courses, not considering the knowledge and discipline that
+there is in any course that a man may take.  And it is still more
+absurd to be constantly showing the people fretted over that you are
+fretting over them.  I think a good deal of what you call
+superfluous condolence would come under the head of superfluous
+criticism.
+
+Ellesmere.  Not altogether.  In companionship, when an evil happens
+to one of the circle, the others should simply attempt to share and
+lighten it, not to expound it, or dilate on it, or make it the least
+darker.  The person afflicted generally apprehends all the blackness
+sufficiently.  Now, unjust abuse by the world is to me like the
+howling of the wind at night when one is warm within.  Bring any
+draught of it into one's house though, and it is not so pleasant.
+
+Dunsford.  Talking of companionship, do not you think there is often
+a peculiar feeling of home where age or infirmity is?  The arm-chair
+of the sick or the old is the centre of the house.  They think,
+perhaps, that they are unimportant; but all the household hopes and
+cares flow to them and from them.
+
+Milverton.  I quite agree with you.  What you have just depicted is
+a beautiful sight, especially when, as you often see, the age or
+infirmity is not in the least selfish or exacting.
+
+Ellesmere.  We have said a great deal about the companionship of
+human beings; but, upon my word, we ought to have kept a few words
+for our dog friends.  Rollo has been lolling out his great tongue,
+and looking wistfully from face to face, as we each began our talk.
+A few minutes ago he was quite concerned, thinking I was angry with
+you, when I would not let you "but" my aphorism.  I am not sure
+which of the three I should rather go out walking with now:
+Dunsford, Rollo, Milverton.  The middle one is the safest companion.
+I am sure not to get out of humour with him.  But I have no
+objection to try the whole three:  only I vote for much continuity
+of silence, as we have had floods of discussion to-day.
+
+Dunsford.  Agreed!
+
+Ellesmere.  Come, Rollo, you may bark now, as you have been silent,
+like a wise dog, all the morning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+
+It was arranged, during our walk, that Ellesmere should come and
+stay a day or two with me, and see the neighbouring cathedral, which
+is nearer my house than Milverton's.  The visit over, I brought him
+back to Worth-Ashton.  Milverton saw us coming, walked down the hill
+to meet us, and after the usual greetings, began to talk to
+Ellesmere.
+
+Milverton.  So you have been to see our cathedral.  I say "our," for
+when a cathedral is within ten miles of us, we feel a property in
+it, and are ready to battle for its architectural merits.
+
+Ellesmere.  You know I am not a man to rave about cathedrals.
+
+Milverton.  I certainly do not expect you to do so.  To me a
+cathedral is mostly somewhat of a sad sight.  You have Grecian
+monuments, if anything so misplaced can be called Grecian, imbedded
+against and cutting into Gothic pillars; the doors shut for the
+greater part of the day; only a little bit of the building used:
+beadledom predominant; the clink of money here and there; white-wash
+in vigour; the singing indifferent; the sermons not indifferent but
+bad; and some visitors from London forming, perhaps, the most
+important part of the audience; in fact, the thing having become a
+show.  We look about, thinking when piety filled every corner, and
+feel that the cathedral is too big for the Religion which is a
+dried-up thing that rattles in this empty space.
+
+Ellesmere.  This is the boldest simile I have heard for a long time.
+My theory about cathedrals is very different, I must confess.
+
+Dunsford.  Theory!
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, "theory" is not the word I ought to have used--
+feeling then.  My feeling is, how strong this creature was, this
+worship, how beautiful, how alluring, how complete; but there was
+something stronger--truth.
+
+Milverton.  And more beautiful?
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes, and far more beautiful.
+
+Milverton.  Doubtless, to the free spirits who brought truth
+forward.
+
+Ellesmere.  You are only saying this, Milverton, to try what I will
+say; but, despite of all sentimentalities, you sympathise with any
+emancipation of the human mind, as I do, however much the meagreness
+of Protestantism may be at times distasteful to you.
+
+Milverton.  I did not say I was anxious to go back.  Certainly not.
+But what says Dunsford?  Let us sit down on his stile and hear what
+he has to say.
+
+Dunsford.  I cannot talk to you about this subject.  If I tell you
+of all the merits (as they seem to me) of the Church of England, you
+will both pick what I say to pieces, whereas if I leave you to fight
+on, one or the other will avail himself of those arguments on which
+our Church is based.
+
+Milverton.  Well, Dunsford, you are very candid, and would make a
+complete diplomatist:  truth-telling being now pronounced (rather
+late in the day) the very acme of diplomacy.  But do you not own
+that our cathedrals are sadly misused?
+
+Dunsford.  Now, very likely, if more were made of them, you, and men
+who think like you, would begin to cry out "superstition"; and would
+instantly turn round and inveigh against the uses which you now,
+perhaps, imagine for cathedrals.
+
+Milverton.  Well, one never can answer for oneself; but at any rate,
+I do not see what is the meaning of building new churches in
+neighbourhoods where there are already the noblest buildings
+suitable for the same purposes.  Is there a church religion, and is
+there a cathedral religion?
+
+Ellesmere.  You cannot make the present fill the garb of the past,
+Milverton, any more than you could make the past fill that of the
+present.  Now, as regards the very thing you are about to discuss
+to-day, if it be the same you told us in our last walk--Education:
+if you are only going to give us some institution for it, I daresay
+it may be very good for to-day, or for this generation, but it will
+have its sere and yellow leaf, and there will be a time when future
+Milvertons, in sentimental mood, will moan over it, and wish they
+had it and all that has grown up to take its place at the same time.
+But all this is what I have often heard you say yourself in other
+words.
+
+Dunsford.  This is very hard doctrine, and not quite sound, I think.
+In getting the new gain, we always sacrifice something, and we
+should look with some pious regard to what was good in the things
+which are past.  That good is generally one which, though it may not
+be equal to the present, would make a most valuable supplement to
+it.
+
+Milverton.  I would try and work in the old good thing with the new,
+not as patchwork though, but making the new thing grow out in such a
+way as to embrace the old advantage.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, we must have the essay before we branch out into
+our philosophy.  Pleasure afterwards--I will not say what comes
+first.
+
+
+EDUCATION.
+
+The word education is so large, that one may almost as well put
+"world," or "the end and object of being," at the head of an essay.
+It should, therefore, soon be declared what such a heading does
+mean.  The word education suggests chiefly to some minds what the
+State can do for those whom they consider its young people--the
+children of the poorer classes:  to others it presents the idea of
+all the training that can be got for money at schools and colleges,
+and which can be fairly accomplished and shut in at the age of one-
+and-twenty.  This essay, however, will not be a treatise on
+government education, or other school and college education, but
+will only contain a few points in reference to the general subject,
+which may escape more methodical and enlarged discussions.
+
+
+In the first place, as regards government education, it must be kept
+in mind that there is a danger of its being too interfering and
+formal, of its overlying private enterprise, insisting upon too much
+uniformity, and injuring local connections and regards.  Education,
+even in the poorest acceptance of the word, is a great thing:  but
+the harmonious intercourse of different ranks, if not a greater, is
+a more difficult one; and we must not gain the former at any
+considerable sacrifice of the latter.
+
+There is another point connected with this branch of the subject
+which requires, perhaps, to be noted.  If government provision is
+made in any case, might it not be combined with private payment in
+other cases, or enter in the way of rewards, so as to do good
+throughout each step of the social ladder?  The lowest kind of
+school education is a power, and it is desirable that the gradations
+of this power should correspond to other influences which we know to
+be good.  For instance, a hard-working man saves something to
+educate his children; if he can get a little better education for
+them than other parents of his own rank for theirs, it is an
+incentive and a reward to him, and the child's bringing up at home
+is a thing which will correspond to this better education at school.
+In this there are the elements at once of stability and progress.
+
+These views may possibly seem too refined, but at any rate they
+require consideration.
+
+
+The next branch of the subject is the ordinary education of young
+persons not of the poorest classes, with which the State has
+hitherto had little or nothing to do.  This may be considered under
+four heads:  religious, moral, intellectual, and physical education.
+With regard to the first, there is not much that can be put into
+rules about it.  Parents and tutors will naturally be anxious to
+impress those under their charge with the religious opinions which
+they themselves hold.  In doing this, however, they should not omit
+to lay a foundation for charity towards people of other religious
+opinions.  For this purpose, it may be requisite to give a child a
+notion that there are other creeds besides that in which it is
+brought up itself.  And especially, let it not suppose that all good
+and wise people are of its church or chapel.  However desirable it
+may appear to the person teaching that there should be such a thing
+as unity of religion, yet as the facts of the world are against his
+wishes, and as this is the world which the child is to enter, it is
+well that the child should in reasonable time be informed of these
+facts.  It may be said in reply that history sufficiently informs
+children on these points.  But the world of the young is the
+domestic circle; all beyond is fabulous, unless brought home to them
+by comment.  The fact, therefore, of different opinions in religious
+matters being held by good people should sometimes be dwelt upon,
+instead of being shunned, if we would secure a ground-work of
+tolerance in a child's mind.
+
+
+INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.
+
+In the intellectual part of education there is the absolute
+knowledge to be acquired, and the ways of acquiring knowledge to be
+gained.  The latter of course form the most important branch.  They
+can, in some measure, be taught.  Give children little to do, make
+much of its being accurately done.  This will give accuracy.  Insist
+upon speed in learning, with careful reference to the original
+powers of the pupil.  This speed gives the habit of concentrating
+attention, one of the most valuable of mental habits.  Then
+cultivate logic.  Logic is not the hard matter that is fancied.  A
+young person, especially after a little geometrical training, may
+soon be taught to perceive where a fallacy exists, and whether an
+argument is well sustained.  It is not, however, sufficient for him
+to be able to examine sharply and to pull to pieces.  He must learn
+how to build.  This is done by method.  The higher branches of
+method cannot be taught at first.  But you may begin by teaching
+orderliness of mind.  Collecting, classifying, contrasting and
+weighing facts, are some of the processes by which method is taught.
+When these four things, accuracy, attention, logic, and method are
+attained, the intellect is fairly furnished with its instruments.
+
+As regards the things to be taught, they will vary to some extent in
+each age.  The general course of education pursued at any particular
+time may not be the wisest by any means, and greatness will overleap
+it and neglect it, but the mass of men may go more safely and
+comfortably, if not with the stream, at least by the side of it.
+
+In the choice of studies too much deference should not be paid to
+the bent of a young person's mind.  Excellence in one or two things
+which may have taken the fancy of a youth (or which really may suit
+his genius) will ill compensate for a complete ignorance of those
+branches of study which are very repugnant to him; and which are,
+therefore, not likely to be learnt when he has freedom in the choice
+of his studies.
+
+Amongst the first things to be aimed at in the intellectual part of
+education is variety of pursuit.  A human being, like a tree, if it
+is to attain to perfect symmetry, must have light and air given to
+it from all quarters.  This may be done without making men
+superficial.  Scientific method may be acquired without many
+sciences being learnt.  But one or two great branches of science
+must be accurately known.  So, too, the choice works of antiquity
+may be thoroughly appreciated without extensive reacting.  And
+passing on from mere learning of any kind, a variety of pursuits,
+even in what may be called accomplishments, is eminently
+serviceable.  Much may be said of the advantage of keeping a man to
+a few pursuits, and of the great things done thereby in the making
+of pins and needles.  But in this matter we are not thinking of the
+things that are to be done, but of the persons who are to do them.
+Not wealth but men.  A number of one-sided men may make a great
+nation, though I much incline to doubt that; but such a nation will
+not contain a number of great men.
+
+The very advantage that flows from division of labour, and the
+probable consequences that men's future bread-getting pursuits will
+be more and more sub-divided, and therefore limited, make it the
+more necessary that a man should begin life with a broad basis of
+interest in many things which may cultivate his faculties and
+develop his nature.  This multifariousness of pursuit is needed also
+in the education of the poor.  Civilisation has made it easy for a
+man to brutalise himself:  how is this to be counteracted but by
+endowing him with many pursuits which may distract him from vice?
+It is not that kind of education which leads to no employment in
+after-life that will do battle with vice.  But when education
+enlarges the field of life-long good pursuits, it becomes formidable
+to the soul's worst enemies.
+
+
+MORAL EDUCATION.
+
+In considering moral education we must recollect that there are
+three agents in this matter--the child himself, the influence of his
+grown-up friends, and that of his contemporaries.  All that his
+grown-up friends tell him in the way of experience goes for very
+little, except in palpable matters.  They talk of abstractions which
+he cannot comprehend:  and the "Arabian Nights" is a truer world to
+him than that they talk of.  Still, though they cannot furnish
+experience, they can give motives.  Indeed, in their daily
+intercourse with the child, they are always doing so.  For instance,
+truth, courage, and kindness are the great moral qualities to be
+instilled.  Take courage, in its highest form--moral courage.  If a
+child perpetually hears such phrases (and especially if they are
+applied to his own conduct), as, "What people will say," "How they
+will look at you," "What they will think," and the like, it tends to
+destroy all just self-reliance in that child's mind, and to set up
+instead an exaggerated notion of public opinion, the greatest tyrant
+of these times.  People can see this in such an obvious thing as
+animal courage.  They will avoid over-cautioning children against
+physical dangers, knowing that the danger they talk much about will
+become a bug-bear to the child which it may never get rid of.  But a
+similar peril lurks in the application of moral motives.  Truth,
+courage, and kindness are likely to be learnt, or not, by children,
+according as they hear and receive encouragement in the direction of
+these pre-eminent qualities.  When attempt is made to frighten a
+child with these worldly maxims, "What will be said of you?" "Are
+you like such a one?" and such things, it is meant to draw him under
+the rule of grown-up respectability.  The last thing thought of by
+the parent or teacher is, that such maxims will bring the child
+under the especial guidance of the most unscrupulous of his
+contemporaries.  They will use ridicule and appeal to their little
+world, which will be his world, and ask, "What will be said" of him.
+There should be some stuff in him of his own to meet these awful
+generalities.
+
+
+PHYSICAL EDUCATION.
+
+The physical education of children is a very simple matter, too
+simple to be much attended to without great perseverance and
+resolution on the part of those who care for the children.  It
+consists, as we all know, in good air, simple diet, sufficient
+exercise, and judicious clothing.  The first requisite is the most
+important, and by far the most frequently neglected.  This neglect
+is not so unreasonable as it seems.  It arises from pure ignorance.
+If the mass of mankind knew what scientific men know about the
+functions of the air, they would be as careful in getting a good
+supply of it as of their other food.  All the people that ever were
+supposed to die of poison in the middle ages, and that means nearly
+everybody whose death was worth speculating about, are not so many
+as those who die poisoned by bad air in the course of any given
+year.  Even a slightly noxious thing, which is constant, affecting
+us every moment of the day, must have considerable influence; but
+the air we breathe is not a thing that slightly affects us, but one
+of the most important elements of life.  Moreover, children are the
+most affected by impurity of air.  We need not weary ourselves with
+much statistics to ascertain this.  One or two broad facts will
+assure us of it.  In Nottingham there is a district called Byron
+Ward, "the densest and worst-conditioned quarter of the town."  A
+table has been made by Mr. William Hawksley of the mortality of
+equal populations in different parts of the town:
+
+"On comparing the diagram No. 1, relating to Park Ward, with the
+diagram No. 7, relating to Byron Ward, it will be seen that the
+heavier pressure of the causes of mortality occasions in the latter
+district such an undue destruction of early life, that towards 100
+deaths, however occurring, Byron Ward contributes fifty per cent.
+more of children under five years of age than the Park Ward, for the
+former sends sixty children to an early grave, while the latter
+sends only forty." {116a}
+
+Mr. Hawksley, the former witness alluded to, goes on to say--
+
+"It has been long known that, with increase of years, up to that
+period of life which has been denominated the second childhood, the
+human constitution becomes gradually more resistful, and as it were
+slowly hardened against the repeated attacks of those more acute
+disorders, incident to an inferior degree of sanitary civilisation,
+by which large portions of an infant population are continually
+overcome and rapidly swept away.  From the operation of these and
+more extraneous influences of a disturbing character, an infant
+population is almost entirely exempted; and on this account it is
+considered that an infant population constitutes, as it were, a
+delicate barometer, from which we may derive more early and more
+certain indications of the presence and comparative force of local
+causes of mortality and disease than can be obtained from the more
+general methods of investigation usually pursued."
+
+The above evidence is confirmed by Mr. Toynbee: --
+
+"The disease of hydrocephalus, of water in the brain, so fatal to
+children, I find associated with symptoms of scrofula, and arising
+in abundance in these close rooms.  I believe water in the brain, in
+the class of patients whom I visit, to be almost wholly a scrofulous
+affection."  {116b}
+
+But supposing people aware of the necessity for good air, and
+therefore for ventilation, what is to be done?  In houses in great
+towns certainly, and I should say in all houses, some of the care
+and expense that are devoted to ornamental work, which when done is
+often a care, a trouble, an eyesore, and a mischief, should be given
+to modes of ventilation, {117a} sound building, abundant access of
+light, largeness of sleeping-rooms, and such useful things.  Less
+ormolu and tinsel of all kinds in the drawing-rooms, and sweeter air
+in the regions above.  Similar things may be done for and by the
+poor. {117b}  And it need hardly be said that those people who care
+for their children, if of any enlightenment at all, will care
+greatly for the sanitary condition of their neighbourhood generally.
+At present you will find at many a rich man's door {117c} a nuisance
+which is poisoning the atmosphere that his children are to breathe,
+but which he could entirely cure for less than one day's ordinary
+expenses.
+
+I am afraid that ventilation is very little attended to in school-
+rooms, either for rich or poor.  Now it may be deliberately said
+that there is very little learned in any school-room that can
+compensate for the mischief of its being learned in the midst of
+impure air.  This is a thing which parents must look to, for the
+grown-up people in the school-rooms, though suffering grievously
+themselves from insufficient ventilation, will be unobservant of it.
+{118}  In every system of government inspection, ventilation must
+occupy a prominent part.
+
+The advantage of simple food for children is a thing that people
+have found out.  And as regards exercise, children happily make
+great efforts to provide a sufficiency of this for themselves.  In
+clothing, the folly and conformity of grown-up people enter again.
+Loving mothers, in various parts of the world, carry about at
+present, I believe, and certainly in times past, carried their
+little children strapped to a board, with nearly as little power of
+motion as the board itself.  Could we get the returns of stunted
+miserable beings, or of deaths, from this cause, they would be
+something portentous.  Less in degree, but not less fatally absurd
+in principle, are many of the strappings, bandages, and incipient
+stays for children amongst us.  They are all mischievous.  Allow
+children, at any rate, some freedom of limbs, some opportunity of
+being graceful and healthy.  Give Nature--dear motherly, much-abused
+Nature--some chance of forming these little ones according to the
+beneficent intentions of Providence, and not according to the
+angular designs of ill-educated men and women.
+
+I do not say that attention to the above matters of good air,
+judicious clothing, and freedom from bandages, will absolutely
+secure health, because these very things may have been so ill
+attended to in the parents or in the parental stock as to have
+introduced special maladies; but at least they are the most
+important objects to be minded now; and, perhaps, the more to be
+minded in the children of those who have suffered most from neglect
+in these particulars.
+
+When we are considering the health of children, it is imperative not
+to omit the importance of keeping their brains fallow, as it were,
+for several of the first years of their existence.  The mischief
+perpetrated by a contrary course in the shape of bad health, peevish
+temper, and developed vanity, is incalculable.  It would not be just
+to attribute this altogether to the vanity of parents; they are
+influenced by a natural fear lest their children should not have all
+the advantages of other children.  Some infant prodigy which is a
+standard of mischief throughout its neighbourhood misleads them.
+But parents may be assured that this early work is not by any means
+all gain, even in the way of work.  I suspect it is a loss; and that
+children who begin their education late, as it would be called, will
+rapidly overtake those who have been in harness long before them.
+And what advantage can it be that the child knows more at six years
+old than its compeers, especially if this is to be gained by a
+sacrifice of health which may never be regained?  There may be some
+excuse for this early book-work in the case of those children who
+are to live by manual labour.  It is worth while, perhaps, to run
+the risk of some physical injury to them, having only their early
+years in which we can teach them book-knowledge.  The chance of
+mischief, too, will be less, being more likely to be counteracted by
+their after-life.  But for a child who has to be at book-work for
+the first twenty-one years of its life, what folly it is to exhaust
+in the least the mental energy, which, after all, is its surest
+implement.
+
+A similar course of argument applies to taking children early to
+church, and to over-developing their minds in any way.  There is no
+knowing, moreover, the disgust and weariness that may grow up in the
+minds of young persons from their attention being prematurely
+claimed.  We are now, however, looking at early study as a matter of
+health; and we may certainly put it down in the same class with
+impure air, stimulating diet, unnecessary bandages, and other
+manifest physical disadvantages.  Civilised life, as it advances,
+does not seem to have so much repose in it, that we need begin early
+in exciting the mind, for fear of the man being too lethargical
+hereafter.
+
+
+EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
+
+It seems needful that something should be said specially about the
+education of women.  As regards their intellects they have been
+unkindly treated--too much flattered, too little respected.  They
+are shut up in a world of conventionalities, and naturally believe
+that to be the only world.  The theory of their education seems to
+be, that they should not be made companions to men, and some would
+say, they certainly are not.  These critics, however, in the high
+imaginations they justly form of what women's society might be to
+men, forget, perhaps, how excellent a thing it is already.  Still
+the criticism is not by any means wholly unjust.  It appears rather
+as if there had been a falling off since the olden times in the
+education of women.  A writer of modern days, arguing on the other
+side, has said, that though we may talk of the Latin and Greek of
+Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth, yet we are to consider that that
+was the only learning of the time, and that many a modern lady may
+be far better instructed, although she knew nothing of Latin and
+Greek.  Certain it is, she may know more facts, have read more
+books:  but this does not assure us that she may not be less
+conversable, less companionable.  Wherein does the cultivated and
+thoughtful man differ from the common man?  In the method of his
+discourse.  His questions upon a subject in which he is ignorant are
+full of interest.  His talk has a groundwork of reason.  This
+rationality must not be supposed to be dulness.  Folly is dull.
+Now, would women be less charming if they had more power, or at
+least more appreciation, of reasoning?  Their flatterers tell them
+that their intuition is such that they need not man's slow processes
+of thought.  One would be very sorry to have a grave question of law
+that concerned oneself decided upon by intuitive judges, or a
+question of fact by intuitive jurymen.  And so of all human things
+that have to be canvassed, it is better, and more amusing too, that
+they should be discussed according to reason.  Moreover, the
+exercise of the reasoning faculties gives much of the pleasure which
+there is in solid acquirements; so that the obvious facts in life
+and history will hardly be acquired by those who are not in the
+habit of reasoning upon them.  Hence it comes, that women have less
+interest in great topics, and less knowledge of them, than they
+might have.
+
+Again, if either sex requires logical education, it is theirs.  The
+sharp practice of the world drives some logic into the most vague of
+men; women are not so schooled.
+
+But, supposing the deficiency we have been considering to be
+admitted, how is it to be remedied?  Women's education must be made
+such as to ensure some accuracy and reasoning.  This may be done
+with any subject of education, and is done with men, whatever they
+learn, because they are expected to produce and use their
+requirements.  But the greatest object of intellectual education,
+the improvement of the mental powers, is as needful for one sex as
+the other, and requires the same means in both sexes.  The same
+accuracy, attention, logic, and method that are attempted in the
+education of men should be aimed at in that of women.  This will
+never be sufficiently attended to, as there are no immediate and
+obvious fruits from it.  And, therefore, as it is probable, from the
+different career of women to that of men, that whatever women study
+will not be studied with the same method and earnestness as it would
+be by men, what a peculiar advantage there is in any study for them,
+in which no proficiency whatever can be made without some use of
+most of the qualities we desire for them.  Geometry, for instance,
+is such a study.  It may appear pedantic, but I must confess that
+Euclid seems to me a book for the young of both sexes.  The severe
+rules upon which the acquisition of the dead languages is built
+would of course be a great means for attaining the logical habits in
+question.  But Latin and Greek is a deeper pedantry for women than
+geometry, and much less desirable on many accounts:  and geometry
+would, perhaps, suffice to teach them what reasoning is.  I daresay,
+too, there are accomplishments which might be taught scientifically;
+and so even the prejudice against the manifest study of science by
+women be conciliated.  But the appreciation of reasoning must be got
+somehow.
+
+It is a narrow view of things to suppose that a just cultivation of
+women's mental powers will take them out of their sphere:  it will
+only enlarge that sphere.  The most cultivated women perform their
+common duties best.  They see more in those duties.  They can do
+more.  Lady Jane Grey would, I daresay, have bound up a wound, or
+managed a household, with any unlearned woman of her day.  Queen
+Elizabeth did manage a kingdom:  and we find no pedantry in her way
+of doing it.
+
+People who advocate a better training for women must not,
+necessarily, be supposed to imagine that men and women are by
+education to be made alike, and are intended to fulfil most of the
+same offices.  There seems reason for thinking that a boundary line
+exists between the intellects of men and women which, perhaps,
+cannot be passed over from either side.  But, at any rate, taking
+the whole nature of both sexes, and the inevitable circumstances
+which cause them to differ, there must be such a difference between
+men and women that the same intellectual training applied to both
+would produce most dissimilar results.  It has not, however, been
+proposed in these pages to adopt the same training:  and would have
+been still less likely to be proposed if it could be shown that such
+training would tend to make men and women unpleasantly similar to
+each other.  The utmost that has been thought of here is to make
+more of women's faculties, not by any means to translate them into
+men's--if such a thing were possible, which, we may venture to say,
+is not.  There are some things that are good for all trees--light,
+air, room--but no one expects by affording some similar advantages
+of this kind to an oak and a beech, to find them assimilate, though
+by such means the best of each may be produced.
+
+Moreover, it should be recollected that the purpose of education is
+not always to foster natural gifts, but sometimes to bring out
+faculties that might otherwise remain dormant; and especially so far
+as to make the persons educated cognisant of excellence in those
+faculties in others.  A certain tact and refinement belong to women,
+in which they have little to learn from the first:  men, too, who
+attain some portion of these qualities, are greatly the better for
+them, and I should imagine not less acceptable on that account to
+women.  So, on the other side, there may be an intellectual
+cultivation for women which may seem a little against the grain,
+which would not, however, injure any of their peculiar gifts--would,
+in fact, carry those gifts to the highest, and would increase
+withal, both to men and women, the pleasure of each other's society.
+
+There is a branch of general education which is not thought at all
+necessary for women; as regards which, indeed, it is well if they
+are not brought up to cultivate the opposite.  Women are not taught
+to be courageous.  Indeed, to some persons courage may seem as
+unnecessary for women as Latin and Greek.  Yet there are few things
+that would tend to make women happier in themselves, and more
+acceptable to those with whom they live, than courage.  There are
+many women of the present day, sensible women in other things, whose
+panic-terrors are a frequent source of discomfort to themselves and
+those around them.  Now, it is a great mistake to imagine that
+harshness must go with courage; and that the bloom of gentleness and
+sympathy must all be rubbed off by that vigour of mind which gives
+presence of mind, enables a person to be useful in peril, and makes
+the desire to assist overcome that sickliness of sensibility which
+can only contemplate distress and difficulty.  So far from courage
+being unfeminine, there is a peculiar grace and dignity in those
+beings who have little active power of attack or defence, passing
+through danger with a moral courage which is equal to that of the
+strongest.  We see this in great things.  We perfectly appreciate
+the sweet and noble dignity of an Anne Bullen, a Mary Queen of
+Scots, or a Marie Antoinette.  We see that it is grand for these
+delicately-bred, high-nurtured, helpless personages to meet Death
+with a silence and a confidence like his own.  But there would be a
+similar dignity in women's bearing small terrors with fortitude.
+There is no beauty in fear.  It is a mean, ugly, dishevelled
+creature.  No statue can be made of it that a woman would like to
+see herself like.
+
+Women are pre-eminent in steady endurance of tiresome suffering:
+they need not be far behind men in a becoming courage to meet that
+which is sudden and sharp.  The dangers and the troubles, too, which
+we may venture to say they now start at unreasonably, are many of
+them mere creatures of the imagination--such as, in their way,
+disturb high-mettled animals brought up to see too little, and
+therefore frightened at any leaf blown across the road.
+
+We may be quite sure that, without losing any of the most delicate
+and refined of feminine graces, women may be taught not to give way
+to unreasonable fears, which should belong no more to the fragile
+than to the robust.
+
+There is no doubt that courage may in some measure be taught.  We
+agree that the lower kinds of courage are matter of habit, therefore
+of teaching:  and the same thing holds good to some extent of all
+courage.  Courage is as contagious as fear.  The saying is, that the
+brave are the sons and daughters of the brave; but we might as truly
+say that they must be brought up by the brave.  The great novelist,
+when he wants a coward descended from a valorous race, does well to
+take him from his clan and bring him up in an unwarlike home. {126}
+Indeed, the heroic example of other days is in great part the source
+of courage of each generation; and men walk up composedly to the
+most perilous enterprises, beckoned onwards by the shades of the
+brave that were.  In civil courage, moral courage, or courage shown
+in the minute circumstances of everyday life, the same law is true.
+Courage may be taught by precept, enforced by example, and is good
+to be taught to men, women, and children.
+
+
+EDUCATION TO HAPPINESS.
+
+It is a curious phenomenon in human affairs, that some of those
+matters in which education is most potent should have been amongst
+the least thought of as branches of it.  What you teach a boy of
+Latin and Greek may be good; but these things are with him but a
+little time of each day in his after-life.  What you teach him of
+direct moral precepts may be very good seed:  it may grow up,
+especially if it have sufficient moisture from experience; but then,
+again, a man is, happily, not doing obvious right or wrong all day
+long.  What you teach him of any bread-getting art may be of some
+import to him, as to the quantity and quality of bread he will get;
+but he is not always with his art.  With himself he is always.  How
+important, then, it is, whether you have given him a happy or a
+morbid turn of mind; whether the current of his life is a clear
+wholesome stream, or bitter as Marah.  The education to happiness is
+a possible thing--not to a happiness supposed to rest upon
+enjoyments of any kind, but to one built upon content and
+resignation.  This is the best part of philosophy.  This enters into
+the "wisdom" spoken of in the Scriptures.  Now it can be taught.
+The converse is taught every day and all day long.
+
+To take an example.  A sensitive disposition may descend to a child;
+but it is also very commonly increased, and often created.
+Captiousness, sensitiveness, and a Martha-like care for the things
+of this world, are often the direct fruits of education.  All these
+faults of the character, and they are amongst the greatest, may be
+summed up in a disproportionate care for little things.  This is
+rather a growing evil.  The painful neatness and exactness of modern
+life foster it.  Long peace favours it.  Trifles become more
+important, great evils being kept away.  And so, the tide of small
+wishes and requirements gains upon us fully as fast as we can get
+out of its way by our improved means of satisfying them.  Now the
+unwholesome concern that many parents and governors manifest as to
+small things must have a great influence on the governed.  You hear
+a child reprimanded about a point of dress, or some trivial thing,
+as if it had committed a treachery.  The criticisms, too, which it
+hears upon others are often of the same kind.  Small omissions,
+small commissions, false shame, little stumbling-blocks of offence,
+trifling grievances of the kind that Dr. Johnson, who had known
+hunger, stormed at Mrs. Thrale for talking about, are made much of;
+general dissatisfaction is expressed that things are not complete,
+and that everything in life is not turned out as neat as a Long-Acre
+carriage; commands are expected to be fulfilled by agents, upon very
+rapid and incomplete orders, exactly to the mind of the person
+ordering;--these ways, to which children are very attentive, teach
+them in their turn to be querulous, sensitive, and full of small
+cares and wishes.  And when you have made a child like this, can you
+make a world for him that will satisfy him?  Tax your civilisation
+to the uttermost:  a punctilious, tiresome disposition expects more.
+Indeed, Nature, with her vague and flowing ways, cannot at all fit
+in with a right-angled person.  Besides, there are other precise,
+angular creatures, and these sharp-edged persons wound each other
+terribly.  Of all the things which you can teach people, after
+teaching them to trust in God, the most important is, to put out of
+their hearts any expectation of perfection, according to their
+notions, in this world.  This expectation is at the bottom of a
+great deal of the worldliness we hear so much reprehended, and
+necessarily gives to little things a most irrational importance.
+
+Observe the effect of this disproportionate care for little things
+in the disputes of men.  A man who does so care, has a garment
+embroidered with hooks which catch at everything that passes by.  He
+finds many more causes of offence than other men; and each offence
+is a more bitter thing to him than to others.  He does not expect to
+be offended.  Poor man!  He goes through life wondering that he is
+the subject of general attack, and that the world is so quarrelsome.
+
+The result of a bad education in developing undue care for trifles
+may be seen in its effect on domestic government and government in
+general.  If those in power have this fault, they will make the
+persons under them miserable by petty, constant blame; or they will
+make them indifferent to all blame.  If this fault is in the
+governed, they will captiously object to all the ways and plans of
+their superiors, not knowing the difficulty of doing anything; they
+will expect miracles of attention, justice, and temper, which the
+rough-hewed ways of men do not admit of; and they will repine and
+tease the life out of those in authority.  Sometimes both superiors
+and inferiors, governors and governed, have this fault.  This must
+often happen in a family, and is a fearful punishment to the elders
+of it.  Scarcely any goodness of disposition, and what are called
+great qualities, can make such difficult materials work well
+together.
+
+But I end with somewhat of the same argument as I began with,
+namely, that as a man lives more with himself than with art,
+science, or even with his fellows, a wise teacher, having before him
+the intent to make a happy-minded man of his pupil, will try to lay
+a groundwork of divine contentment in him.  If he cannot make him
+easily pleased, he will at least try and prevent him from being
+easily disconcerted.  Why, even the self-conceit that makes people
+indifferent to small things, wrapping them in an atmosphere of self-
+satisfaction, is welcome in a man compared to that querulousness
+which makes him an enemy to all around.  But most commendable is
+that easiness of mind which is easy because it is tolerant, because
+it does not look to have everything its own way, because it expects
+anything but smooth usage in its course here, because it has
+resolved to manufacture as few miseries out of small evils as can
+be.
+
+Most of us know what it is to vex our minds because we cannot recall
+some name or trivial thing which has escaped our memory for the
+moment.  But then we think how foolish this is, what little concern
+it is to us.  We are right in that; yet any defect of memory is a
+great concern compared to many of the trifling niceties, comforts,
+offences, and rectangularities which, perhaps, we do not think it an
+ignoble use of heart and time to waste ourselves upon.  It would be
+well enough to entertain the rabble of small troubles and offences,
+if we could lay them aside with the delightful facility of children,
+who, after an agony of tears, are soon found laughing or asleep.
+But the chagrin and vexation of grown-up people are grown-up too;
+and, however childish in their origin, are not to be laughed or
+danced or slept away in childlike simple-heartedness.
+
+We must not imagine that too much stress can well be laid upon the
+importance of an education to contentment, for it comes under the
+head of those things which are not adjuncts or acquisitions for a
+man, but which form the texture of his being.  What a man has learnt
+is of importance; but what he is, what he can do, what he will
+become, are more significant things.  Finally, it may be remarked,
+that, to make education a great work, we must have the educators
+great; that book-learning is mainly good as it gives us a chance of
+coming into the company of greater and better minds than the average
+of men around us; and that individual greatness and goodness are the
+things to be aimed at rather than the successful cultivation of
+those talents which go to form some eminent membership of society.
+Each man is a drama in himself--has to play all the parts in it; is
+to be king and rebel, successful and vanquished, free and slave; and
+needs a bringing-up fit for the universal creature that he is.
+
+                              -----
+
+Ellesmere.  You have been unexpectedly merciful to us.  The moment I
+heard the head of the essay given out, there flitted before my
+frightened mind volumes of reports, Battersea schools, Bell,
+Wilderspin, normal farms, National Society, British Schools,
+interminable questions about how religion might be separated
+altogether from secular education, or so much religion taught as all
+religious sects could agree in.  These are all very good things and
+people to discuss, I daresay; but, to tell the truth, the whole
+subject sits heavy on my soul.  I meet a man of inexhaustible
+dulness, and he talks to me for three hours about some great
+subject--this very one of education, for instance--till I sit
+entranced by stupidity, thinking the while, "And this is what we are
+to become by education--to be like you."  Then I see a man like D---
+, a judicious, reasonable, conversable being, knowing how to be
+silent too--a man to go through a campaign with--and I find he
+cannot read or write.
+
+Milverton.  This sort of contrast is just the thing to strike you,
+Ellesmere:  and yet you know as well as any of us that to bring
+forward such contrasts by way of depreciating education would be
+most unreasonable.  There are three things that go to make a man--
+the education that most people mean by education; then the education
+that goes deeper, the education of the soul; and, thirdly, a man's
+gifts of Nature.  I agree with all you say about D---; he never says
+a foolish thing, and does a great many judicious ones.  But look
+what a clever face he has.  There are gifts of Nature for you.
+Then, again, although he cannot read or write, he may have been most
+judiciously brought up in other respects.  He may have had two,
+therefore, out of the three elements of education.  What such
+instances would show, I believe, if narrowly looked into, is the
+immense importance of the education of heart and temper.
+
+I feel with you in some measure about the dulness of the subject of
+education.  But then it extends to all things of the institution
+kind.  Men must have a great deal of pedantry, routine, and folly of
+all sorts, in any large matter they undertake.  I had had this
+feeling for a long time (you know the way in which you have a thing
+in your mind, although you have never said it out exactly even to
+yourself)--well, I came upon a passage of Emerson's which I will try
+to quote, and then I knew what it was that I had felt.
+
+"We are full of mechanical actions.  We must needs intermeddle, and
+have things in our own way, until the sacrifices and virtues of
+society are odious.  Love should make joy; but our benevolence is
+unhappy.  Our Sunday-schools, and churches, and pauper societies,
+are yokes to the neck.  We pain ourselves to please nobody.  There
+are natural ways of arriving at the same ends at which these aim,
+but do not arrive.  Why should all virtue work in one and the same
+way?" . . . "And why drag this dead weight of a Sunday-school over
+the whole of Christendom?  It is natural and beautiful that
+childhood should inquire, and maturity should teach; but it is time
+enough to answer questions when they are asked.  Do not shut up the
+young people against their will in a pew, and force the children to
+ask them questions for an hour against their will."
+
+Now, without agreeing with him in all points, we may sympathise with
+him.
+
+Ellesmere.  I agree with him.
+
+Dunsford.  I knew you would.  You love an extreme.
+
+Milverton.  But look now.  It is well to say, "It is natural and
+beautiful that the young should ask and the old should teach"; but
+then the old should be capable of teaching, which is not the case we
+have to deal with.  Institutions are often only to meet individual
+failings.  Let there be more instructed elders, and the "dead
+weight" of Sunday-schools would be less needed.
+
+I think the result of our thoughts would be, that there should be as
+much life, joy, and Nature put into teaching as can be; but I, for
+one, am not prepared to say that the most mechanical process is not
+better than none.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, you have now shut up the subject, according to
+your fashion, in a rounded sentence; and you think after that there
+is nothing more to be said.  But I say it goes to my heart--
+
+Dunsford.  What is that?
+
+Ellesmere.  To my heart to see the unmerciful quantity of
+instruction that little children go through on a Sunday.  I suppose
+I am a very wicked man; but I know how wearied I should have been,
+at any time of my life, if so much virtuous precept and good
+doctrine had been poured into me.
+
+Milverton.  Well, I will not fight certainly for anything that is to
+make Sunday a wearisome day for children.  Indeed, what I meant by
+putting more joy and life into teaching was, that in such a thing as
+this Sunday-schooling, for instance, a judicious man, far from being
+anxious to get a certain quantity of routine done about it, would do
+with the least--would endeavour to connect it with something
+interesting--would, in a word, love children, and not Sunday-
+schools.
+
+Ellesmere.  Ah, we will have no more about Sunday-schools.  I know
+we all agree in reality, although Dunsford has been looking very
+grave and has not said a word.  I wanted to tell you that I think
+you are quite right, Milverton, in saying a good deal about
+multifariousness of pursuit.  You see a wretch of a pedant who knows
+all about tetrameters or statutes of uses, but who, as you hinted an
+essay or two ago, can hardly answer his child a question as they
+walk about the garden together.  The man has never given a good
+thought or look to Nature.  Well then, again, what a stupid thing it
+is that we are not all taught music.  Why learn the language of many
+portions of mankind, and leave the universal language of the
+feelings, as you would call it, unlearnt?
+
+Milverton.  I quite agree with you; but I thought you always set
+your face, or rather your ears, against music.
+
+Dunsford.  So did I.
+
+Ellesmere.  I should like to know all about it.  It is not to my
+mind that a cultivated man should be quite thrown out by any topic
+of conversation, or that there should be any form of human endeavour
+or accomplishment which he has no conception of.
+
+Dunsford.  I liked what you said, Milverton, about the philosophy of
+making light of many things, and the way of looking at life that may
+thus be given to those we educate.  I rather doubted at first,
+though, whether you were not going to assign too much power to
+education in the modification of temper.  But, certainly, the mode
+of looking at the daily events of life, little or great, and the
+consequent habits of captiousness or magnanimity, are just the
+matters which the young especially imitate their elders in.
+
+Milverton.  You see, the very worst kind of tempers are established
+upon the fretting care for trifles that I want to make war upon in
+the essay.  A man is choleric.  Well, it is a very bad thing; it
+tends to frighten those about him into falseness.  He has outrageous
+bursts of temper.  He is humble for days afterwards.  His dependants
+rather like him after all.  They know that "his bark is worse than
+his bite."  Then there is your gloomy man, often a man who punishes
+himself most--perhaps a large-hearted, humorous, but sad man, at the
+same time liveable with.  He does not care for trifles.  But it is
+your acid-sensitive (I must join words like Mirabeau's Grandison-
+Cromwell, to get what I mean), and your cold, querulous people that
+need to have angels to live with them.  Now education has often had
+a great deal to do with the making of these choice tempers.  They
+are somewhat artificial productions.  And they are the worst.
+
+Dunsford.  You know a saying attributed to the Bishop of  --- about
+temper.  No?  Somebody, I suppose, was excusing something on the
+score of temper, to which the Bishop replied, "Temper is nine-tenths
+of Christianity."
+
+Milverton.  There is an appearance we see in Nature, not far from
+here, by the way, that has often put me in mind of the effect of
+temper upon men.  It is in the lowlands near the sea, where, when
+the tide is not up (the man out of temper), there is a slimy,
+patchy, diseased-looking surface of mud and sick seaweed.  You pass
+by in a few hours, there is a beautiful lake, water up to the green
+grass (the man in temper again), and the whole landscape brilliant
+with reflected light.
+
+Ellesmere.  And to complete the likeness, the good temper and the
+full tide last about the same time--with some men at least.  It is
+so like you, Milverton, to have that simile in your mind.  There is
+nothing you see in Nature, but you must instantly find a parallel
+for it in man.  Sermons in stones you will not see, else I am sure
+you might.  Here is a good hard flint for you to see your next essay
+in.
+
+Milverton.  It will do very well, as my next will be on the subject
+of population.
+
+Ellesmere.  What day are we to have it?  I think I have a particular
+engagement for that day.
+
+Milverton.  I must come upon you unawares.
+
+Ellesmere.  After the essay you certainly might.  Let us decamp now
+and do something great in the way of education--teach Rollo, though
+he is but a short-haired dog, to go into the water.  That will be a
+feat.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+
+Ellesmere succeeded in persuading Rollo to go into the water, which
+proved more, he said, than the whole of Milverton's essay, how much
+might be done by judicious education.  Before leaving my friends, I
+promised to come over again to Worth-Ashton in a day or two, to hear
+another essay.  I came early and found them reading their letters.
+
+
+"You remember Annesleigh at college," said Milverton, "do you not,
+Dunsford?"
+
+Dunsford.  Yes.
+
+Milverton.  Here is a long letter from him.  He is evidently vexed
+at the newspaper articles about his conduct in a matter of ----, and
+he writes to tell me that he is totally misrepresented.
+
+Dunsford.  Why does he not explain this publicly?
+
+Milverton.  Yes, you naturally think so at first, but such a mode of
+proceeding would never do for a man in office, and rarely, perhaps,
+for any man.  At least, so the most judicious people seem to think.
+I have known a man in office bear patiently, without attempting any
+answer, a serious charge which a few lines would have entirely
+answered, indeed, turned the other way.  But then he thought, I
+imagine, that if you once begin answering, there is no end to it,
+and also, which is more important, that the public journals were not
+a tribunal which he was called to appear before.  He had his
+official superiors.
+
+Dunsford.  It should be widely known and acknowledged then, that
+silence does not give consent in these cases.
+
+Milverton.  It is known, though not, perhaps, sufficiently.
+
+Dunsford.  What a fearful power this anonymous journalism is!
+
+Milverton.  There is a great deal certainly that is mischievous in
+it; but take it altogether, it is a wonderful product of
+civilisation--morally too.  Even as regards those qualities which
+would in general, to use a phrase of Bacon's, "be noted as
+deficients" in the press, in courtesy and forbearance, for example,
+it makes a much better figure than might have been expected; as any
+one would testify, I suspect, who had observed, or himself
+experienced, the temptations incident to writing on short notice,
+without much opportunity of after-thought or correction, upon
+subjects about which he had already expressed an opinion.
+
+Dunsford.  Is the anonymousness absolutely necessary?
+
+Milverton.  I have often thought whether it is.  If the
+anonymousness were taken away, the press would lose much of its
+power; but then, why should it not lose a portion of its power, if
+that portion is only built upon some delusion?
+
+Ellesmere.  It is a question of expediency.  As government of all
+kinds becomes better managed, there is less necessity for protection
+for the press.  It must be recollected, however, that this
+anonymousness (to coin a word) may not only be useful to protect us
+from any abuse of power, but that at least it takes away that
+temptation to discuss things in an insufficient manner which arises
+from personal fear of giving offence.  Then, again, there is an
+advantage in considering arguments without reference to persons.  If
+well-known authors wrote for the press and gave their signatures, we
+should often pass by the arguments unfairly, saying, "Oh, it is only
+so-and-so:  that is the way he always looks at things," without
+seeing whether it is the right way for the occasion in question.
+
+Milverton.  But take the other side, Ellesmere.  What national
+dislikes are fostered by newspaper articles, and--
+
+Ellesmere.  Articles in reviews and by books.
+
+Milverton.  Yes, but somehow or other, people imagine that
+newspapers speak the opinion of a much greater number of people--
+
+Ellesmere.  Do not let us talk any more about it.  We may become
+wise enough and well-managed enough to do without this
+anonymousness:  we may not.  How it would astound an ardent Whig or
+Radical of the last generation if we could hear such a sentiment as
+this--as a toast we will say--"The Press:  and may we become so
+civilised as to be able to take away some of its liberty."
+
+Milverton.  It may be put another way:  "May it become so civilised
+that we shall not want to take away any of its liberty."  But I see
+you are tired of this subject.  Shall we go on the lawn and have our
+essay?
+
+We assented, and Milverton read the following: --
+
+
+UNREASONABLE CLAIMS IN SOCIAL AFFECTIONS AND RELATIONS.
+
+We are all apt to magnify the importance of whatever we are thinking
+about, which is not to be wondered at; for everything human has an
+outlet into infinity, which we come to perceive on considering it.
+But with a knowledge of this tendency, I still venture to say that,
+of all that concerns mankind, this subject has, perhaps, been the
+least treated of in regard to its significance.  For once that
+unreasonable expectations of gratitude have been reproved,
+ingratitude has been denounced a thousand times; and the same may be
+said of inconstancy, unkindness in friendship, neglected merit and
+the like.
+
+To begin with ingratitude.  Human beings seldom have the demands
+upon each other which they imagine; and for what they have done they
+frequently ask an impossible return.  Moreover, when people really
+have done others a service, the persons benefited often do not
+understand it.  Could they have understood it, the benefactor,
+perhaps, would not have had to perform it.  You cannot expect
+gratitude from them in proportion to your enlightenment.  Then,
+again, where the service is a palpable one, thoroughly understood,
+we often require that the gratitude for it should bear down all the
+rest of the man's character.  The dog is the very emblem of
+faithfulness; yet I believe it is found that he will sometimes like
+the person who takes him out and amuses him more than the person who
+feeds him.  So, amongst bipeds, the most solid service must
+sometimes give way to the claims of congeniality.  Human creatures
+are, happily, not to be swayed by self-interest alone:  they are
+many-sided creatures; there are numberless modes of attaching their
+affections.  Not only like likes like, but unlike likes unlike.
+
+To give an instance which must often occur.  Two persons, both of
+feeble will, act together:  one as superior, the other as inferior.
+The superior is very kind; the inferior is grateful.  Circumstances
+occur to break this relation.  The inferior comes under a superior
+of strong will, who is not, however, as tolerant and patient as his
+predecessor.  But this second superior soon acquires unbounded
+influence over the inferior:  if the first one looks on, he may
+wonder at the alacrity and affection of his former subordinate
+towards the new man, and talk much about ingratitude.  But the
+inferior has now found somebody to lean upon and to reverence.  And
+he cannot deny his nature and be otherwise than he is.  In this case
+it does not look like ingratitude, except perhaps to the complaining
+person.  But there are doubtless numerous instances in which, if we
+saw all the facts clearly, we should no more confirm the charge of
+ingratitude than we do here.
+
+Then, again, we seldom make sufficient allowance for the burden
+which there is in obligation, at least to all but great and good
+minds.  There are some people who can receive as heartily as they
+would give; but the obligation of an ordinary person to an ordinary
+person is more apt to be brought to mind as a present sore than as a
+past delight.
+
+Amongst the unreasonable views of the affections, the most absurd
+one has been the fancy that love entirely depends upon the will;
+still more that the love of others for us is to be guided by the
+inducements which seem probable to us.  We have served them; we
+think only of them; we are their lovers, or fathers, or brothers:
+we deserve and require to be loved and to have the love proved to
+us.  But love is not like property:  it has neither duties nor
+rights.  You argue for it in vain; and there is no one who can give
+it you.  It is not his or hers to give.  Millions of bribes and
+infinite arguments cannot prevail.  For it is not a substance, but a
+relation.  There is no royal road.  We are loved as we are lovable
+to the person loving.  It is no answer to say that in some cases the
+love is based on no reality, but is solely in the imagination--that
+is, that we are loved not for what we are, but for what we are
+fancied to be.  That will not bring it any more into the dominions
+of logic; and love still remains the same untamable creature, deaf
+to advocacy, blind to other people's idea of merit, and not a
+substance to be weighed or numbered at all.
+
+Then, as to the complaints about broken friendship.  Friendship is
+often outgrown; and his former child's clothes will no more fit a
+man than some of his former friendships.  Often a breach of
+friendship is supposed to occur when there is nothing of the kind.
+People see one another seldom; their courses in life are different;
+they meet, and their intercourse is constrained.  They fancy that
+their friendship is mightily cooled.  But imagine the dearest
+friends, one coming home after a long sojourn, the other going out
+to new lands:  the ships that carry these meet:  the friends talk
+together in a confused way not relevant at all to their friendship,
+and, if not well assured of their mutual regard, might naturally
+fancy that it was much abated.  Something like this occurs daily in
+the stream of the world.  Then, too, unless people are very
+unreasonable, they cannot expect that their friends will pass into
+new systems of thought and action without new ties of all kinds
+being created, and some modification of the old ones taking place.
+
+
+When we are talking of exorbitant claims made for the regard of
+others, we must not omit those of what is called neglected merit.  A
+man feels that he has abilities or talents of a particular kind,
+that he has shown them, and still he is a neglected man.  I am far
+from saying that merit is sufficiently looked out for:  but a man
+may take the sting out of any neglect of his merits by thinking that
+at least it does not arise from malice prepense, as he almost
+imagines in his anger.  Neither the public, nor individuals, have
+the time, or will, resolutely to neglect anybody.  What pleases us,
+we admire and further:  if a man in any profession, calling, or art,
+does things which are beyond us, we are as guiltless of neglecting
+him as the Caffres are of neglecting the differential calculus.
+Milton sells his "Paradise Lost" for ten pounds; there is no record
+of Shakespeare dining much with Queen Elizabeth.  And it is Utopian
+to imagine that statues will be set up to right men in their day.
+
+The same arguments which applied to the complaints of ingratitude,
+apply to the complaints of neglected merit.  The merit is oftentimes
+not understood.  Be it ever so manifest, it cannot absorb men's
+attention.  When it is really great, it has not been brought out by
+the hope of reward, any more than the kindest services by the hope
+of gratitude.  In neither case is it becoming or rational to be
+clamorous about payment.
+
+There is one thing that people hardly ever remember, or, indeed,
+have imagination enough to conceive; namely, the effect of each man
+being shut up in his individuality.  Take a long course of sayings
+and doings in which many persons have been engaged.  Each one of
+them is in his own mind the centre of the web, though, perhaps, he
+is at the edge of it.  We know that in our observations of the
+things of sense, any difference in the points from which the
+observation is taken gives a different view of the same thing.
+Moreover, in the world of sense, the objects and the points of view
+are each indifferent to the rest; but in life the points of views
+are centres of action that have had something to do with the making
+of the things looked at.  If we could calculate the moral parallax
+arising from these causes, we should see, by the mere aid of the
+intellect, how unjust we often are in our complaints of ingratitude,
+inconstancy, and neglect.  But without these nice calculations, such
+errors of view may be corrected at once by humility, a more sure
+method than the most enlightened appreciation of the cause of error.
+Humility is the true cure for many a needless heartache.
+
+It must not be supposed that in thus opposing unreasonable views of
+social affections, anything is done to dissever such affections.
+The Duke of Wellington, writing to a man in a dubious position of
+authority, says "The less you claim, the more you will have."  This
+is remarkably true of the affections; and there is scarcely anything
+that would make men happier than teaching them to watch against
+unreasonableness in their claims of regard and affection; and which
+at the same time would be more likely to ensure their getting what
+may be their due.
+
+                              -----
+
+Ellesmere (clapping his hands).  An essay after my heart:  worth
+tons of soft trash.  In general you are amplifying duties, telling
+everybody that they are to be so good to every other body.  Now it
+is as well to let every other body know that he is not to expect all
+he may fancy from everybody.  A man complains that his prosperous
+friends neglect him:  infinitely overrating, in all probability, his
+claims, and his friends' power of doing anything for him.  Well,
+then, you may think me very hard, but I say that the most absurd
+claims are often put forth on the ground of relationship.  I do not
+deny that there is something in blood, but it must not be made too
+much of.  Near relations have great opportunities of attaching each
+other; if they fail to use these, I do not think it is well to let
+them imagine that mere relationship is to be the talisman of
+affection.
+
+Dunsford.  I do not see exactly how to answer all that you or
+Milverton have said; but I am not prepared, as official people say,
+to agree with you.  I especially disagree with what Milverton has
+said about love.  He leaves much too little power to the will.
+
+Milverton.  I daresay I may have done so.  These are very deep
+matters, and any one view about them does not exhaust them.  I
+remember C---- once saying to me that a man never utters anything
+without error.  He may even think of it rightly; but he cannot bring
+it out rightly.  It turns a little false, as it were, when it quits
+the brain and comes into life.
+
+Ellesmere.  I thought you would soon go over to the soft side.
+Here, Rollo; there's a good dog.  You do not form unreasonable
+expectations, do you?  A very little petting puts you into an
+ecstasy, and you are much wiser than many a biped who is full of his
+claims for gratitude, and friendship, and love, and who is always
+longing for well-merited rewards to fall into his mouth.  Down, dog!
+
+Milverton.  Poor animal! it little knows that all this sudden notice
+is only by way of ridiculing us.  Why I did not maintain my ground
+stoutly against Dunsford is, that I am always afraid of pushing
+moral conclusions too far.  Since we have been talking, I think I
+see more clearly than I did before what I mean to convey by the
+essay--namely, that men fall into unreasonable views respecting the
+affections FROM IMAGINING THAT THE GENERAL LAWS OF THE MIND ARE
+SUSPENDED FOR THE SAKE OF THE AFFECTIONS.
+
+Dunsford.  That seems safer ground.
+
+Milverton.  Now to illustrate what I mean by a very similar
+instance.  The mind is avid of new impressions.  It "travels over,"
+or thinks it travels over, another mind; and, though it may conceal
+its wish for "fresh fields and pastures new," it does so wish.
+However harsh, therefore, and unromantic it may seem, the best plan
+is to humour Nature, and not to exhaust by overfrequent presence the
+affection of those whom we would love, or whom we would have to love
+us.  I would not say, after the manner of Rochefoucauld, that the
+less we see of people the more we like them; but there are certain
+limits of sociality; and prudent reserve and absence may find a
+place in the management of the tenderest relations.
+
+Dunsford.  Yes, all this is true enough:  I do not see anything hard
+in this.  But then there is the other side.  Custom is a great aid
+to affection.
+
+Milverton.  Yes.  All I say is, do not fancy that the general laws
+are suspended for the sake of any one affection.
+
+Dunsford.  Still this does not go to the question whether there is
+not something more of will in affection than you make out.  You
+would speak of inducements and counter-inducements, aids and
+hindrances; but I cannot but think you are limiting the power of
+will, and therefore limiting duty.  Such views tend to make people
+easily discontented with each other, and prevent their making
+efforts to get over offences, and to find out what is lovable in
+those about them.
+
+Ellesmere.  Here we are in the deep places again.  I see you are
+pondering, Milverton.  It is a question, as a minister would say
+when Parliament perplexes him, that we must go to the country upon;
+each man's heart will, perhaps, tell him best about it.  For my own
+part, I think that the continuance of affection, as the rise of it,
+depends more on the taste being satisfied, or at least not
+disgusted, than upon any other single thing.  Our hearts may be
+touched at our being loved by people essentially distasteful to us,
+whose modes of talking and acting are a continual offence to us; but
+whether we can love them in return is a question.
+
+Milverton.  Yes, we can, I think.  I begin to see that it is a
+question of degree.  The word love includes many shades of meaning.
+When it includes admiration, of course we cannot be said to love
+those in whom we see nothing to admire.  But this seldom happens in
+the mixed characters of real life.  The upshot of it all seems to me
+to be, that, as Guizot says of civilisation, every impulse has room;
+so in the affections, every inducement and counter-inducement has
+its influence; and the result is not a simple one, which can be
+spoken of as if it were alike on all occasions and with all men.
+
+Dunsford.  I am still unanswered, I think, Milverton.  What you say
+is still wholly built upon inducements, and does not touch the power
+of will.
+
+Milverton.  No; it does not.
+
+Ellesmere.  We must leave that alone.  Infinite piles of books have
+not as yet lifted us up to a clear view of that matter.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, then, we must leave it as a vexed question; but let
+it be seen that there is such a question.  Now, as to another thing;
+you speak, Milverton, of men's not making allowance enough for the
+unpleasant weight of obligation.  I think that weight seems to have
+increased in modern times.  Essex could give Bacon a small estate,
+and Bacon could take it comfortably, I have no doubt.  That is a
+much more wholesome state of things among friends than the present.
+
+Milverton.  Yes, undoubtedly.  An extreme notion about independence
+has made men much less generous in receiving.
+
+Dunsford.  It is a falling off, then.  There was another comment I
+had to make.  I think, when you speak about the exorbitant demands
+of neglected merit, you should say more upon the neglect of the just
+demands of merit.
+
+Milverton.  I would have the Government and the public in general
+try by all means to understand and reward merit, especially in those
+matters wherein excellence cannot, otherwise, meet with large
+present reward.  But, to say the truth, I would have this done, not
+with the view of fostering genius so much as of fulfilling duty:  I
+would say to a minister--it is becoming in you--it is well for the
+nation, to reward, as far as you can, and dignify, men of genius.
+Whether you will do them any good or bring forth more of them, I do
+not know.
+
+Ellesmere.  Men of great genius are often such a sensitive race, so
+apt to be miserable in many other than pecuniary ways and want of
+public estimation, that I am not sure that distress and neglect do
+not take their minds off worse discomforts.  It is a kind of
+grievance, too, that they like to have.
+
+Dunsford.  Really, Ellesmere, that is a most unfeeling speech.
+
+Milverton.  At any rate, it is right for us to honour and serve a
+great man.  It is our nature to do so, if we are worth anything.  We
+may put aside the question whether our honour will do him more good
+than our neglect.  That is a question for him to look to.  The world
+has not yet so largely honoured deserving men in their own time,
+that we can exactly pronounce what effect it would have upon them.
+
+Ellesmere.  Come, Rollo, let us leave these men of sentiment.  Oh,
+you will not go, as your master does not move.  Look how he wags his
+tail, and almost says, "I should clearly like to have a hunt after
+the water-rat we saw in the pond the other day, but master is
+talking philosophy, and requires an intelligent audience."  These
+dogs are dear creatures, it must be owned.  Come, Milverton, let us
+have a walk.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+
+After the reading in the last chapter, my friends walked homewards
+with me as far as Durley Wood, which is about half-way between
+Worth-Ashton and my house.  As we rested here, we bethought
+ourselves that it would be a pleasant spot for us to come to
+sometimes and read our essays.  So we agreed to name a day for
+meeting there.  The day was favourable, we met as we had appointed,
+and finding some beech logs lying very opportunely, took possession
+of them for our council.  We seated Ellesmere on one that we called
+the woolsack, but which he said he felt himself unworthy to occupy
+in the presence of King Log, pointing to mine.  These nice points of
+etiquette being at last settled, Milverton drew out his papers and
+was about to begin reading, when Ellesmere thus interrupted him: --
+
+Ellesmere.  You were not in earnest, Milverton, about giving us an
+essay on population?  Because if so, I think I shall leave this
+place to you and Dunsford and the ants.
+
+Milverton.  I certainly have been meditating something of the sort;
+but have not been able to make much of it.
+
+Ellesmere.  If I had been living in those days when it first beamed
+upon mankind that the earth was round, I am sure I should have said,
+"We know now the bounds of the earth:  there are no interminable
+plains joined to the regions of the sun, allowing of indefinite
+sketchy outlines at the edges of maps.  That little creature man
+will immediately begin to think that his world is too small for
+him."
+
+Milverton.  There has probably been as much folly uttered by
+political economy as against it, which is saying something.  The
+danger as regards theories of political economy is the obvious one
+of their abstract conclusions being applied to concrete things.
+
+Ellesmere.  As if we were to expect mathematical lines to bear
+weights.
+
+Milverton.  Something like that.  With a good system of logic
+pervading the public mind, this danger would of course be avoided;
+but such a state of mind is not likely to occur in any public that
+we or our grandchildren are likely to have to deal with.  As it is,
+an ordinary man hears some conclusion of political economy, showing
+some particular tendency of things, which in real life meets with
+many counteractions of all kinds:  but he, perhaps, adopts the
+conclusion without the least abatement, and would work it into life,
+as if all went on there like a rule-of-three sum.
+
+Ellesmere.  After all, this error arises from the man's not having
+enough political economy.  It is not that a theory is good on paper,
+but unsound in real life.  It is only that in real life you cannot
+get at the simple state of things to which the theory would rightly
+apply.  You want many other theories and the just composition of
+them all to be able to work the whole problem.  That being done
+(which, however, scarcely can be done), the result on paper might be
+read off as applicable at once to life.  But now, touching the
+essay; since we are not to have population, what is it to be?
+
+Milverton.  Public improvements.
+
+Ellesmere.  Nearly as bad; but as this is a favourite subject of
+yours, I suppose it will not be polite to go away.
+
+Milverton.  No; you must listen.
+
+
+PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.
+
+What are possessions?  To an individual, the stores of his own heart
+and mind pre-eminently.  His truth and valour are amongst the first.
+His contentedness, or his resignation may be put next.  Then his
+sense of beauty, surely a possession of great moment to him.  Then
+all those mixed possessions which result from the social affections-
+-great possessions, unspeakable delights, much greater than the gift
+last mentioned in the former class, but held on more uncertain
+tenure.  Lastly, what are generally called possessions?  However
+often we have heard of the vanity, uncertainty, and vexation that
+beset these last, we must not let this repetition deaden our minds
+to the fact.
+
+Now, national possessions must be estimated by the same gradation
+that we have applied to individual possessions.  If we consider
+national luxury, we shall see how small a part it may add to
+national happiness.  Men of deserved renown, and peerless women,
+lived upon what we should now call the coarsest fare, and paced the
+rushes in their rooms with as high, or as contented thoughts, as
+their better-fed and better-clothed descendants can boast of.  Man
+is limited in this direction; I mean, in the things that concern his
+personal gratification; but when you come to the higher enjoyments,
+the expansive power both in him and them is greater.  As Keats says,
+
+     "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
+      Its loveliness increases; it will never
+      Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
+      A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
+      Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."
+
+What then are a nation's possessions?  The great words that have
+been said in it; the great deeds that have been done in it; the
+great buildings, and the great works of art, that have been made in
+it.  A man says a noble saying:  it is a possession, first to his
+own race, then to mankind.  A people get a noble building built for
+them:  it is an honour to them, also a daily delight and
+instruction.  It perishes.  The remembrance of it is still a
+possession.  If it was indeed pre-eminent, there will be more
+pleasure in thinking of it than in being with others of inferior
+order and design.
+
+
+On the other hand, a thing of ugliness is potent for evil.  It
+deforms the taste of the thoughtless:  it frets the man who knows
+how bad it is:  it is a disgrace to the nation who raised it; an
+example and an occasion for more monstrosities.  If it is a great
+building in a great city, thousands of people pass it daily, and are
+the worse for it, or at least not the better.  It must be done away
+with.  Next to the folly of doing a bad thing is that of fearing to
+undo it.  We must not look at what it has cost, but at what it is.
+Millions may be spent upon some foolish device which will not the
+more make it into a possession, but only a more noticeable
+detriment.
+
+
+It must not be supposed that works of art are the only, or the
+chief, public improvements needed in any country.  Wherever men
+congregate, the elements become scarce.  The supply of air, light,
+and water is then a matter of the highest public importance:  and
+the magnificent utilitarianism of the Romans should precede the nice
+sense of beauty of the Greeks.  Or rather, the former should be
+worked out in the latter.  Sanitary improvements, like most good
+works, may be made to fulfil many of the best human objects.
+Charity, social order, conveniency of living, and the love of the
+beautiful, may all be furthered by such improvements.  A people is
+seldom so well employed as when, not suffering their attention to be
+absorbed by foreign quarrels and domestic broils, they bethink
+themselves of winning back those blessings of Nature which
+assemblages of men mostly vitiate, exclude, or destroy.
+
+
+Public improvements are sometimes most difficult in free countries.
+The origination of them is difficult there, many diverse minds
+having to be persuaded.  The individual, or class, resistance to the
+public good is harder to conquer than in despotic states.  And, what
+is most embarrassing, perhaps, individual progress in the same
+direction, or individual doings in some other way, form a great
+hindrance, sometimes, to public enterprise.  On the other hand, the
+energy of a free people is a mine of public welfare; and individual
+effort brings many good things to bear in much shorter time than any
+government could be expected to move in.  A judicious statesman
+considers these things; and sets himself especially to overcome
+those peculiar obstacles to public improvement which belong to the
+institutions of his country.  Adventure in a despotic state,
+combined action in a free state, are the objects which peculiarly
+demand his attention.
+
+To return to works of art.  In this also the genius of the people is
+to be heeded.  There may have been, there may be, nations requiring
+to be diverted from the love of art to stern labour and industrial
+conquests.  But certainly it is not so with the Anglo-Saxon race, or
+with the Northern races generally.  Money may enslave them; logic
+may enslave them; art never will.  The chief men, therefore, in
+these races will do well sometimes to contend against the popular
+current, and to convince their people that there are other sources
+of delight, and other objects worthy of human endeavour, than severe
+money-getting or more material successes of any kind.
+
+In fine, the substantial improvement, and even the embellishment of
+towns, is a work which both the central and local governing bodies
+in a country should keep a steady hand upon.  It especially concerns
+them.  What are they there for but to do that which individuals
+cannot do?  It concerns them, too, as it tells upon the health,
+morals, education, and refined pleasures of the people they govern.
+In doing it, they should avoid pedantry, parsimony, and favouritism;
+and their mode of action should be large, considerate, and
+foreseeing.  Large; inasmuch as they must not easily be contented
+with the second best in any of their projects.  Considerate;
+inasmuch as they have to think what their people need most, not what
+will make most show.  And therefore, they should be contented, for
+instance, at their work going on underground for a time, or in
+byways, if needful; the best charity in public works, as in private,
+being often that which courts least notice.  Lastly, their work
+should be with foresight, recollecting that cities grow up about us
+like young people, before we are aware of it.
+
+                              -----
+
+Ellesmere.  Another very merciful essay!  When we had once got upon
+the subject of sanitary improvements, I thought we should soon be
+five fathom deep in blue-books, reports, interminable questions of
+sewerage, and horrors of all kinds.
+
+Milverton.  I am glad you own that I have been very tender of your
+impatience in this essay.  People, I trust, are now so fully aware
+of the immense importance of sanitary improvements, that we do not
+want the elementary talking about such things that was formerly
+necessary.  It is difficult, though, to say too much about sanitary
+matters, that is, if by saying much one could gain attention.  I am
+convinced that the most fruitful source of physical evil to mankind
+has been impure air, arising from circumstances which might have
+been obviated.  Plagues and pestilences of all kinds, cretinism too,
+and all scrofulous disorders, are probably mere questions of
+ventilation.  A district may require ventilation as well as a house.
+
+Ellesmere.  Seriously speaking, I quite agree with you.  And what
+delights me in sanitary improvements is, that they can hardly do
+harm.  Give a poor man good air, and you do not diminish his self-
+reliance.  You only add to his health and vigour--make more of a man
+of him.  But now that the public mind, as it is facetiously called,
+has got hold of the idea of these improvements, everybody will be
+chattering about them.
+
+Milverton.  The very time when those who really do care for these
+matters should be watchful to make the most of the tide in their
+favour, and should not suffer themselves to relax their efforts
+because there is no originality now about such things.
+
+Dunsford.  Custom soon melts off the wings which Novelty alone has
+lent to Benevolence.
+
+Ellesmere.  And down comes the charitable Icarus.  A very good
+simile, my dear Dunsford, but rather of the Latin-verse order.  I
+almost see it worked into an hexameter and pentameter, and
+delighting the heart of an Eton boy.
+
+Dunsford.  Ellesmere is more than usually vicious to-day, Milverton.
+A great "public improvement" would be to clip the tongues of some of
+these lawyers.
+
+Ellesmere.  Possibly.  I have just been looking again at that part
+of the essay, Milverton, where you talk of the little gained by
+national luxury.  I think with you.  There is an immensity of
+nonsense uttered about making people happy, which is to be done,
+according to happiness-mongers, by quantities of sugar and tea, and
+such-like things.  One knows the importance of food, but there is no
+Elysium to be got out of it.
+
+Milverton.  I know what you mean.  There is a kind of pity for the
+people now in vogue which is most effeminate.  It is a sugared sort
+of Robespierre talk about "The poor but virtuous People."  To
+address such stuff to the people is not to give them anything, but
+to take away what they have.  Suppose you could give them oceans of
+tea and mountains of sugar, and abundance of any luxury that you
+choose to imagine, but at the same time you inserted a hungry,
+envious spirit in them, what have you done?  Then, again, this
+envious spirit, when it is turned to difference of station, what
+good can it do?  Can you give station according to merit?  Is life
+long enough for it?
+
+Ellesmere.  Of course we cannot always be weighing men with nicety,
+and saying, "Here is your place, here yours."
+
+Milverton.  Then, again, what happiness do you confer on men by
+teaching them to disrespect their superiors in rank, by turning all
+the embellishments which adorn various stations wrong side out,
+putting everything in its lowest form, and then saying, "What do you
+see to admire here?"  You do not know what injury you may do a man
+when you destroy all reverence in him.  It will be found out some
+day that men derive more pleasure and profit from having superiors
+than from having inferiors.
+
+Dunsford.  It is seldom that I bring you back to your subject, but
+we are really a long way off at present; and I want to know,
+Milverton, what you would do specifically in the way of public
+improvements.  Of course you cannot say in an essay what you would
+do in such matters, but amongst ourselves.  In London, for instance.
+
+Milverton.  The first thing for Government to do, Dunsford, in
+London, or any other great town, is to secure open spaces in it and
+about it.  Trafalgar Square may be dotted with hideous absurdities,
+but it is an open space.  They may collect together there specimens
+of every variety of meanness and bad taste; but they cannot prevent
+its being a better thing than if it were covered with houses.
+Public money is scarcely ever so well employed as in securing bits
+of waste ground and keeping them as open spaces.  Then, as under the
+most favourable circumstances, we are likely to have too much carbon
+in the air of any town, we should plant trees to restore the just
+proportions of the air as far as we can. {161}  Trees are also what
+the heart and the eye desire most in towns.  The Boulevards in Paris
+show the excellent effect of trees against buildings.  There are
+many parts of London where rows of trees might be planted along the
+streets.  The weighty dulness of Portland Place, for instance, might
+be thus relieved.  Of course, in any scheme of public improvements,
+the getting rid of smoke is one of the first objects.
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes, smoke is a great abuse; but then there is something
+ludicrous about it, just as there is about sewerage.  I believe,
+myself, that for one person that the Corn Laws have injured, a dozen
+have had their lives shortened and their happiness abridged in every
+way by these less palpable nuisances.  But there is no grandeur in
+opposing them--no "good cry" to be raised.  And so, as abuses cannot
+be met in our days but by agitation--a committee, secretaries,
+clerks, newspapers, and a review--and as agitation in this case
+holds out fewer inducements than usual, we have gone on year after
+year being poisoned by these various nuisances, at an incalculable
+expense of life and money.
+
+Milverton.  There is something in what you say, I think, but you
+press it too far; for of late these sanitary subjects have worked
+themselves into notice, as you yourself admit.
+
+Ellesmere.  Late indeed.
+
+Milverton.  Well, but to go on with schemes for improving London.
+Open spaces, trees--then comes the supply of water.  This is one of
+the first things to be done.  Philadelphia has given an example
+which all towns ought to imitate.  It is a matter requiring great
+thought, and the various plans should be thoroughly canvassed before
+the choice is made.  Great beauty and the highest utility may be
+combined in supplying a town like London with water.  By the way,
+how much water do you think London requires daily?
+
+Ellesmere.  As much as the Serpentine and the water in St. James's
+Park.
+
+Milverton.  You are not so far out.
+
+Well, then, having gone through the largest things that must be
+attended to, we come to minor matters.  It is a great pity that the
+system of building upon leases should be so commonly adopted.
+Nobody expects to live out the leasehold term which he takes to
+build upon.  But things would be better done if people were more
+averse to having anything to do with leasehold property.  C. always
+says that the modern lath-and-plaster system is a wickedness, and
+upon my word I think he is right.  It is inconceivable to me how a
+man can make up his mind to build, or to do anything else, in a
+temporary, slight, insincere fashion.  What has a man to say for
+himself who must sum up the doings of his life in this way, "I
+chiefly employed myself in making or selling things which seemed to
+be good and were not, and nobody has occasion to bless me for
+anything I have done."
+
+Ellesmere.  Humph! you put it mildly.  But the man has made perhaps
+seven per cent. off his money; or, if he has made no per cent., has
+ruined several men of his own trade, which is not to go for nothing
+when a man is taking stock of his good deeds.
+
+Milverton.  There is one thing I forgot to say, that we want more
+individual will in building, I think.  As it is at present, a great
+builder takes a plot of ground and turns out innumerable houses, all
+alike, the same faults and merits running through each, thus adding
+to the general dulness of things.
+
+Ellesmere.  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when she came from abroad,
+remarked that all her friends seemed to have got into drawing-rooms
+which were like a grand piano, first a large square or oblong room,
+and then a small one.  Quite Georgian, this style of architecture.
+But now I think we are improving immensely--at any rate in the
+outside of houses.  By the way, Milverton, I want to ask you one
+thing:  How is it that Governments and Committees, and the bodies
+that manage matters of taste, seem to be more tasteless than the
+average run of people?  I will wager anything that the cabmen round
+Trafalgar Square would have made a better thing of it than it is.
+If you had put before them several prints of fountains, they would
+not have chosen those.
+
+Milverton.  I think with you, but I have no theory to account for
+it.  I suppose that these committees are frequently hampered by
+other considerations than those which come before the public when
+they are looking at the work done; and this may be some excuse.
+There was a custom which I have heard prevailed in former days in
+some of the Italian cities, of making large models of the works of
+art that were to adorn the city, and putting them up in the places
+intended for the works when finished, and then inviting criticism.
+It would really be a very good plan in some cases.
+
+Ellesmere.  Now, Milverton, would you not forthwith pull down such
+things as Buckingham Palace and the National Gallery?  Dunsford
+looks at me as if I were going to pull down the Constitution.
+
+Milverton.  I would pull them down to a certainty, or some parts of
+them at any rate; but whether "forthwith" is another question.
+There are greater things, perhaps, to be done first.  We must
+consider, too,
+
+     "That eternal want of pence
+      Which vexes public men."
+
+Still, I think we ought always to look upon such buildings as
+temporary arrangements, and they vex one less then.  The Palace
+ought to be in the higher part of the Park, perhaps on that slope
+opposite Piccadilly.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, it does amuse me the way in which you youngsters go
+on, pulling down, in your industrious imaginations, palaces and
+national galleries, building aqueducts and cloacae maximae, forming
+parks, destroying smoke (so large a part of every Londoner's diet),
+and abridging plaster, without fear of Chancellors of the Exchequer,
+and the resistance of mankind in general.
+
+Milverton.  We must begin by thinking boldly about things.  That is
+a larger part of any undertaking than it seems, perhaps.
+
+Dunsford.  We must, I am afraid, break off our pleasant employment
+of projecting public improvements, unless we mean to be dinnerless.
+
+Ellesmere.  A frequent fate of great projectors, I fear.
+
+Milverton.  Now then, homewards.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+
+My readers will, perhaps, agree with me in being sorry to find that
+we are coming to the end of our present series.  I say, "my
+readers," though I have so little part in purveying for them, that I
+mostly consider myself one of them.  It is no light task, however,
+to give a good account of a conversation; and I say this, and would
+wish people to try whether I am not right in saying so, not to call
+attention to my labour in the matter, but because it may be well to
+notice how difficult it is to report anything truly.  Were this
+better known, it might be an aid to charity, and prevent some of
+those feuds which grow out of the poverty of man's power to express,
+to apprehend, to represent, rather than out of any malignant part of
+his nature.  But I must not go on moralising.  I almost feel that
+Ellesmere is looking over my shoulder, and breaking into my
+discourse with sharp words; which I have lately been so much
+accustomed to.
+
+I had expected that we should have many more readings this summer,
+as I knew that Milverton had prepared more essays for us.  But
+finding, as he said, that the other subjects he had in hand were
+larger than he had anticipated, or was prepared for, he would not
+read even to us what he had written.  Though I was very sorry for
+this--for I may not be the chronicler in another year--I could not
+but say he was right.  Indeed, my ideas of literature, nourished as
+they have been in much solitude, and by the reading, if I may say
+so, mainly of our classical authors, are very high placed, though I
+hope not fantastical.  And, therefore, I would not discourage anyone
+in expending whatever thought and labour might be in him upon any
+literary work.
+
+In fine, then, I did not attempt to dissuade Milverton from his
+purpose of postponing our readings:  and we agreed that there should
+only be one more for the present.  I wished it to be at our
+favourite place on the lawn, which had become endeared to me as the
+spot of many of our friendly councils.
+
+It was later than usual when I came over to Worth-Ashton for this
+reading; and as I gained the brow of the hill, some few clouds
+tinged with red were just grouping together to form the accustomed
+pomp upon the exit of the setting sun.  I believe I mentioned in the
+introduction to our first conversation that the ruins of an old
+castle could be seen from our place of meeting.  Milverton and
+Ellesmere were talking about it as I joined them.
+
+Milverton.  Yes, Ellesmere, many a man has looked out of those
+windows upon a sunset like this, with some of the thoughts that must
+come into the minds of all men on seeing this great emblem, the
+setting sun--has felt, in looking at it, his coming end, or the
+closing of his greatness.  Those old walls must have been witness to
+every kind of human emotion.  Henry the Second was there; John, I
+think; Margaret of Anjou and Cardinal Beaufort; William of Wykeham;
+Henry the Eighth's Cromwell; and many others who have made some stir
+in the world.
+
+Ellesmere.  And, perhaps, the greatest there were those who made no
+stir.
+
+     "The world knows nothing of its greatest men."
+
+Milverton.  I am slow to believe that.  I cannot well reconcile
+myself to the idea that great capacities are given for nothing.
+They bud out in some way or other.
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes, but it may not be in a noisy way.
+
+Milverton.  There is one thing that always strikes me very much in
+looking at the lives of men:  how soon, as it were, their course
+seems to be determined.  They say, or do, or think, something which
+gives a bias at once to the whole of their career.
+
+Dunsford.  You may go farther back than that, and speak of the
+impulses they got from their ancestors.
+
+Ellesmere.  Or the nets around them of other people's ways and
+wishes.  There are many things, you see, that go to make men
+puppets.
+
+Milverton.  I was only noticing the circumstance that there was such
+a thing, as it appeared to me, as this early direction.  But, if it
+has been ever so unfortunate, a man's folding his hands over it in a
+melancholy mood, and suffering himself to be made a puppet by it, is
+a sadly weak proceeding.  Most thoughtful men have probably some
+dark fountains in their souls, by the side of which, if there were
+time, and it were decorous, they could let their thoughts sit down
+and wail indefinitely.  That long Byron wail fascinated men for a
+time; because there is that in Human Nature.  Luckily, a great deal
+besides.
+
+Ellesmere.  I delight in the helpful and hopeful men.
+
+Milverton.  A man that I admire very much, and have met with
+occasionally, is one who is always of use in any matter he is mixed
+up with, simply because he wishes that the best should be got out of
+the thing that is possible.  There does not seem much in the
+description of such a character; but only see it in contrast with
+that of a brilliant man, for instance, who does not ever fully care
+about the matter in hand.
+
+Dunsford.  I can thoroughly imagine the difference.
+
+Milverton.  The human race may be bound up together in some
+mysterious way, each of us having a profound interest in the
+fortunes of the whole, and so, to some extent, of every portion of
+it.  Such a man as I have described acts as though he had an
+intuitive perception of that relation, and therefore a sort of
+family feeling for mankind, which gives him satisfaction in making
+the best out of any human affair he has to do with.
+
+But we really must have the essay, and not talk any more.  It is on
+History.
+
+
+HISTORY.
+
+Among the fathomless things that are about us and within us, is the
+continuity of time.  This gives to life one of its most solemn
+aspects.  We may think to ourselves:  Would there could be some
+halting-place in life, where we could stay, collecting our minds,
+and see the world drift by us.  But no:  even while you read this,
+you are not pausing to read it.  As one of the great French
+preachers, I think, says, We are embarked upon a stream, each in his
+own little boat, which must move uniformly onwards, till it ceases
+to move at all.  It is a stream that knows "no haste, no rest"; a
+boat that knows no haven but one.
+
+This unbated continuity suggests the past as well as the future.  We
+would know what mighty empires this stream of time has flowed
+through, by what battle-fields it has been tinged, how it has been
+employed towards fertility, and what beautiful shadows on its
+surface have been seized by art, or science, or great words, and
+held in time-lasting, if not in everlasting, beauty.  This is what
+history tells us.  Often in a faltering, confused, be-darkened way,
+like the deed it chronicles.  But it is what we have, and we must
+make the best of it.
+
+The subject of this essay may be thus divided:  Why history should
+be read--how it should be read--by whom it should be written--how it
+should be written--and how good writers of history should be called
+forth, aided, and rewarded.
+
+
+I.  WHY HISTORY SHOULD BE READ.
+
+It takes us out of too much care for the present; it extends our
+sympathies; it shows us that other men have had their sufferings and
+their grievances; it enriches discourse, it enlightens travel.  So
+does fiction.  But the effect of history is more lasting and
+suggestive.  If we see a place which fiction has treated of, we feel
+that it has some interest for us; but show us a spot where
+remarkable deeds have been done, or remarkable people have lived,
+and our thoughts cling to it.  We employ our own imagination about
+it:  we invent the fiction for ourselves.  Again, history is at
+least the conventional account of things:  that which men agree to
+receive as the right account, and which they discuss as true.  To
+understand their talk, we must know what they are talking about.
+Again, there is something in history which can seldom be got from
+the study of the lives of individual men; namely, the movements of
+men collectively, and for long periods--of man, in fact, not of men.
+In history, the composition of the forces that move the world has to
+be analysed.  We must have before us the law of the progress of
+opinion, the interruptions to it of individual character, the
+principles on which men act in the main, the trade winds, as we may
+say, in human affairs, and the recurrent storms which one man's life
+does not tell us of.  Again, by the study of history, we have a
+chance of becoming tolerant travelling over the ways of many nations
+and many periods; and we may also acquire that historic tact by
+which we collect upon one point of human affairs the light of many
+ages.
+
+We may judge of the benefit of historical studies by observing what
+great defects are incident to the moral and political writers who
+know nothing of history.  A present grievance, or what seems such,
+swallows up in their minds all other considerations; their little
+bottle of oil is to still the raging waves of the whole human ocean;
+their system, a thing that the historian has seen before, perhaps,
+in many ages, is to reconcile all diversities.  Then they would
+persuade you that this class of men is wholly good, that wholly bad;
+or that there is no difference between good and bad.  They may be
+shrewd men, considering what they have seen, but would be much
+shrewder if they could know how small a part that is of life.  We
+may all refer to our boyhood, and recollect the time when we thought
+the things about us were the type of all things everywhere.  That
+was, perhaps, after all no silly princess who was for feeding the
+famishing people on cakes.  History takes us out of this confined
+circle of child-like thought; and shows us what are the perennial
+aims, struggles, and distractions of mankind.
+
+History has always been set down as the especial study for
+statesmen, and for men who take an interest in public affairs.  For
+history is to nations what biography is to individual men.  History
+is the chart and compass for national endeavour.  Our early voyagers
+are dead:  not a plank remains of the old ships that first essayed
+unknown waters; the sea retains no track; and were it not for the
+history of these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in
+hoarded lore of all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start
+with all the aids of advanced civilisation (if you could imagine
+such a thing without history), would need the boldness of the first
+voyager.
+
+And so it would be with the statesman, were the civil history of
+mankind unknown.  We live to some extent in peace and comfort upon
+the results obtained for us by the chronicles of our forefathers.
+We do not see this without some reflection.  But imagine what a
+full-grown nation would be if it knew no history--like a full-grown
+man with only a child's experience.
+
+The present is an age of remarkable experiences.  Vast improvements
+have been made in several of the outward things that concern life
+nearly, from intercourse rapid as lightning to surgical operation
+without pain.  We accept them all; still, the difficulties of
+government, the management of ourselves, our relations with others,
+and many of the prime difficulties of life remain but little
+subdued.  History still claims our interest, is still wanted to make
+us think and act with any breadth of wisdom.
+
+At the same time, however, that we claim for history great powers of
+instruction, we must not imagine that the examples which it
+furnishes will enable its readers to anticipate the experience of
+life.  An experienced man reads that Caesar did this or that, but he
+says to himself, "I am not Caesar."  Or, indeed, as is most
+probable, the reader has not to reject the application of the
+example to himself:  for from first to last he sees nothing but
+experience for Caesar in what Caesar was doing.  I think it may be
+observed, too, that general maxims about life gain the ear of the
+inexperienced, in preference to historical examples.  But neither
+wise sayings nor historical examples can be understood without
+experience.  Words are only symbols.  Who can know anything soundly
+with respect to the complicated affections and struggles of life,
+unless he has experienced some of them?  All knowledge of humanity
+spreads from within.  So in studying history, the lessons it teaches
+must have something to grow round in the heart they teach.  Our own
+trials, misfortunes, and enterprises are the best lights by which we
+can read history.  Hence it is that many an historian may see far
+less into the depths of the very history he has himself written than
+a man who, having acted and suffered, reads the history in question
+with all the wisdom that comes from action and suffering.  Sir
+Robert Walpole might naturally exclaim, "Do not read history to me,
+for that, I know, must be false."  But if he had read it, I do not
+doubt that he would have seen through the film of false and
+insufficient narrative into the depth of the matter narrated, in a
+way that men of great experience can alone attain to.
+
+
+II.  HOW HISTORY SHOULD BE READ.
+
+I suppose that many who now connect the very word history with the
+idea of dulness, would have been fond and diligent students of
+history if it had had fair access to their minds.  But they were set
+down to read histories which were not fitted to be read
+continuously, or by any but practised students.  Some such works are
+mere framework, a name which the author of the Statesman applies to
+them; very good things, perhaps, for their purpose, but that is not
+to invite readers to history.  You might almost as well read
+dictionaries with a hope of getting a succinct and clear view of
+language.  When, in any narration, there is a constant heaping up of
+facts, made about equally significant by the way of telling them, a
+hasty delineation of characters, and all the incidents moving on as
+in the fifth act of a confused tragedy, the mind and memory refuse
+to be so treated; and the reading ends in nothing but a very slight
+and inaccurate acquaintance with the mere husk of the history.  You
+cannot epitomise the knowledge that it would take years to acquire
+into a few volumes that may be read in as many weeks.
+
+The most likely way of attracting men's attention to historical
+subjects will be by presenting them with small portions of history,
+of great interest, thoroughly examined.  This may give them the
+habit of applying thought and criticism to historical matters.
+
+For, as it is, how are people interested in history? and how do they
+master its multitudinous assemblage of facts?  Mostly, perhaps, in
+this way.  A man cares about some one thing, or person, or event,
+and plunges into its history, really wishing to master it.  This
+pursuit extends:  other points of research are taken up by him at
+other times.  His researches begin to intersect.  He finds a
+connection in things.  The texture of his historic acquisitions
+gradually attains some substance and colour; and so at last he
+begins to have some dim notions of the myriads of men who came, and
+saw, and did not conquer--only struggled on as they best might, some
+of them--and are not.
+
+When we are considering how history should be read, the main thing
+perhaps is, that the person reading should desire to know what he is
+reading about, not merely to have read the books that tell of it.
+The most elaborate and careful historian must omit, or pass lightly
+over, many points of his subject.  He writes for all readers, and
+cannot indulge private fancies.  But history has its particular
+aspect for each man:  there must be portions which he may be
+expected to dwell upon.  And everywhere, even where the history is
+most laboured, the reader should have something of the spirit of
+research which was needful for the writer:  if only so much as to
+ponder well the words of the writer.  That man reads history, or
+anything else, at great peril of being thoroughly misled, who has no
+perception of any truthfulness except that which can be fully
+ascertained by reference to facts; who does not in the least
+perceive the truth, or the reverse, of a writer's style, of his
+epithets, of his reasoning, of his mode of narration.  In life, our
+faith in any narration is much influenced by the personal
+appearance, voice, and gesture of the person narrating.  There is
+some part of all these things in his writing; and you must look into
+that well before you can know what faith to give him.  One man may
+make mistakes in names, and dates, and references, and yet have a
+real substance of truthfulness in him, a wish to enlighten himself
+and then you.  Another may not be wrong in his facts, but have a
+declamatory or sophistical vein in him, much to be guarded against.
+A third may be both inaccurate and untruthful, caring not so much
+for anything as to write his book.  And if the reader cares only to
+read it, sad work they make between them of the memories of former
+days.
+
+In studying history, it must be borne in mind that a knowledge is
+necessary of the state of manners, customs, wealth, arts, and
+science at the different periods treated of.  The text of civil
+history requires a context of this knowledge in the mind of the
+reader.  For the same reason, some of the main facts of the
+geography of the countries in question should be present to him.  If
+we are ignorant of these aids to history, all history is apt to seem
+alike to us.  It becomes merely a narrative of men of our own time,
+in our own country; and then we are prone to expect the same views
+and conduct from them that we do from our contemporaries.  It is
+true that the heroes of antiquity have been represented on the stage
+in bag-wigs, and the rest of the costume of our grandfathers:  but
+it was the great events of their lives that were thus told--the
+crisis of their passions--and when we are contemplating the
+representation of great passions and their consequences, all minor
+imagery is of little moment.  In a long-drawn narrative, however,
+the more we have in our minds of what concerned the daily life of
+the people we read about, the better.  And in general it may be said
+that history, like travelling, gives a return in proportion to the
+knowledge that a man brings to it.
+
+
+III.  BY WHOM HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN.
+
+Before entering directly on this part of the subject, it is
+desirable to consider a little the difficulties in the way of
+writing history.  We all know the difficulty of getting at the truth
+of a matter which happened yesterday, and about which we can examine
+the living actors upon oath.  But in history the most significant
+things may lack the most important part of their evidence.  The
+people who were making history were not thinking of the convenience
+of future writers of history.  Often the historian must contrive to
+get his insight into matters from evidence of men and things which
+is like bad pictures of them.  The contemporary, if he knew the man,
+said of the picture, "I should have known it, but it has very little
+of him in it."  The poor historian, with no original before him, has
+to see through the bad picture into the man.  Then, supposing our
+historian rich in well-selected evidence--I say well-selected,
+because, as students tell us, for many an historian one authority is
+of the same weight as another, provided they are both of the same
+age; still, how difficult is narration even to the man who is rich
+in well-selected evidence.  What a tendency there is to round off a
+narrative into falsehood; or else by parenthesis to destroy its pith
+and continuity.  Again, the historian knows the end of many of the
+transactions he narrates.  If he did not, how differently often he
+would narrate them.  It would be a most instructive thing to give a
+man the materials for the account of a great transaction, stopping
+short of the end, and then see how different would be his account
+from the ordinary ones.  Fools have been hardly dealt with in the
+saying that the event is their master ("eventus stultorum
+magister"), seeing how it rules us all.  And in nothing more than in
+history.  The event is always present to our minds; along the
+pathways to it, the historian and the moralist have walked till they
+are beaten pathways, and we imagine that they were so to the men who
+first went along them.  Indeed, we almost fancy that these ancestors
+of ours, looking along the beaten path, foresaw the event as we do;
+whereas, they mostly stumbled upon it suddenly in the forest.  This
+knowledge of the end we must, therefore, put down as one of the most
+dangerous pitfalls which beset the writers of history.  Then
+consider the difficulty in the "composition," to use an artist's
+word, of our historian's picture.  Before both the artist and the
+historian lies Nature as far as the horizon; how shall they choose
+that portion of it which has some unity and which shall represent
+the rest?  What method is needful in the grouping of facts; what
+learning, what patience, what accuracy!
+
+By whom, then, should history be written?  In the first place, by
+men of some experience in real life; who have acted and suffered;
+who have been in crowds, and seen, perhaps felt, how madly men can
+care about nothings; who have observed how much is done in the world
+in an uncertain manner, upon sudden impulses and very little reason;
+and who, therefore, do not think themselves bound to have a deep-
+laid theory for all things.  They should be men who have studied the
+laws of the affections, who know how much men's opinions depend on
+the time in which they live, how they vary with their age and their
+position.  To make themselves historians, they should also have
+considered the combinations amongst men and the laws that govern
+such things; for there are laws.  Moreover our historians, like most
+men who do great things, must combine in themselves qualities which
+are held to belong to opposite natures; must at the same time be
+patient in research and vigorous in imagination, energetic and calm,
+cautious and enterprising.  Such historians, wise, as we may suppose
+they will be, about the affair of other men, may, let us hope, be
+sufficiently wise about their own affairs to understand that no
+great work can be done without great labour, that no great labour
+ought to look for its reward.  But my readers will exclaim as
+Rasselas to Imlac on hearing the requisites for a poet, "Enough!
+thou hast convinced me that no human being can ever be an historian.
+Proceed with thy narration."
+
+
+IV.  HOW HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN.
+
+One of the first things in writing history is for the historian to
+recollect that it is history he is writing.  The narrative must not
+be oppressed by reflections, even by wise ones.  Least of all should
+the historian suffer himself to become entangled by a theory or a
+system.  If he does, each fact is taken up by him in a particular
+way:  those facts that cannot be so handled cease to be his facts,
+and those that offer themselves conveniently are received too fondly
+by him.
+
+Then, although our historian must not be mastered by system, he must
+have some way of taking up his facts and of classifying them.  They
+must not be mere isolated units in his eyes, else he is mobbed by
+them.  And a man in the midst of a crowd, though he may know the
+names and nature of all the crowd, cannot give an account of their
+doings.  Those who look down from the housetop must do that.
+
+But, above all things, the historian must get out of his own age
+into the time in which he is writing.  Imagination is as much needed
+for the historian as the poet.  You may combine bits of books with
+other bits of books, and so make some new combinations, and this may
+be done accurately, and, in general, much of the subordinate
+preparation for history may be accomplished without any great effort
+of imagination.  But to write history in any large sense of the
+words, you must be able to comprehend other times.  You must know
+that there is a right and wrong which is not your right and wrong,
+but yet stands upon the right and wrong of all ages and all hearts.
+You must also appreciate the outward life and colours of the period
+you write about.  Try to think how the men you are telling of would
+have spent a day, what were their leading ideas, what they cared
+about.  Grasp the body of the time, and give it to us.  If not, and
+these men could look at your history, they would say, "This is all
+very well; we daresay some of these things did happen; but we were
+not thinking of these things all day long.  It does not represent
+us."
+
+After enlarging upon this great requisite, imagination, it seems
+somewhat prosaic to come down to saying that history requires
+accuracy.  But I think I hear the sighs, and sounds more harsh than
+sighing, of those who have ever investigated anything, and found by
+dire experience the deplorable inaccuracy which prevails in the
+world.  And, therefore, I would say to the historian almost as the
+first suggestion, "Be accurate; do not make false references, do not
+mis-state:  and men, if they get no light from you, will not
+execrate you.  You will not stand in the way, and have to be
+explained and got rid of."
+
+Another most important matter in writing history, and that indeed in
+which the art lies, is the method of narrating.  This is a thing
+almost beyond rules, like the actual execution in music or painting.
+A man might have fairness, accuracy, an insight into other times,
+great knowledge of facts, some power even of arranging them, and yet
+make a narrative out of it all, so protracted here, so huddled
+together there, the purpose so buried or confused, that men would
+agree to acknowledge the merit of the book and leave it unread.
+There must be a natural line of associations for the narrative to
+run along.  The separate threads of the narrative must be treated
+separately, and yet the subject not be dealt with sectionally, for
+that is not the way in which the things occurred.  The historian
+must, therefore, beware that those divisions of the subject which he
+makes for our ease and convenience, do not induce him to treat his
+subject in a flimsy manner.  He must not make his story easy where
+it is not so.
+
+After all, it is not by rule that a great history is to be written.
+Most thinkers agree that the main object for the historian is to get
+an insight into the things which he tells of, and then to tell them
+with the modesty of a man who is in the presence of great events;
+and must speak about them carefully, simply, and with but little of
+himself or of his affections thrown into the narration.
+
+
+V.  HOW GOOD WRITERS OF HISTORY SHOULD BE CALLED FORTH, AIDED, AND
+REWARDED.
+
+Mainly by history being properly read.  The direct ways of
+commanding excellence of any kind are very few, if any.  When a
+State has found out its notable men, it should reward them, and will
+show its worthiness by its measure and mode of reward.  But it
+cannot purchase them.  It may do something in the way of aiding
+them.  In history, for instance, the records of a nation may be
+discreetly managed, and some of the minor work, therefore, done to
+the hand of the historian.  But the most likely method to ensure
+good historians is to have a fit audience for them.  And this is a
+very difficult matter.  In works of general literature, the circle
+of persons capable of judging is large; even in works of science or
+philosophy it is considerable:  but in history, it is a very
+confined circle.  To the general body of readers, whether the
+history they read is true or not is in no way perceptible.  It is
+quite as amusing to them when it is told in one way as in another.
+There is always mischief in error:  but in this case the mischief is
+remote, or seems so.  For men of ordinary culture, even if of much
+intelligence, the difficulty of discerning what is true or false in
+the histories they read makes it a matter of the highest duty for
+those few persons who can give us criticism on historical works, at
+least to save us from insolent and mendacious carelessness in
+historical writers, if not by just encouragement to secure for
+nations some results not altogether unworthy of the great enterprise
+which the writing of history holds out itself to be.  "Hujus enim
+fidei exempla majorum, vicissitudines rerum, fundamenta prudentiae
+civilis, hominum denique nomen et fama commissa sunt." {183}
+
+
+Ellesmere.  Just wait a minute for me, and do not talk about the
+essay till I come back.  I am going for Anster's Faust.
+
+Dunsford.  What has Ellesmere got in his head?
+
+Milverton.  I see.  There is a passage where Faust, in his most
+discontented mood, falls foul of history--in his talk to Wagner, if
+I am not mistaken.
+
+Dunsford.  How beautiful it is this evening!  Look at that yellow-
+green near the sunset.
+
+Milverton.  The very words that Coleridge uses.  I always think of
+them when I see that tint.
+
+Dunsford.  I daresay his words were in my mind, but I have forgotten
+what you allude to.
+
+Milverton.
+
+     "O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
+      To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
+        All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
+      Have I been gazing on the western sky,
+      And its peculiar tint of yellow-green:
+      And still I gaze--and with how blank an eye!
+      And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
+      That give away their motion to the stars;
+      Those stars that glide behind them or between,
+      Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
+      Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew
+      In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
+      I see them all so excellently fair,
+      I see, not feel how beautiful they are."
+
+Dunsford.  Admirable!  In the Ode to Dejection, is it not? where,
+too, there are those lines,
+
+     "O Lady! we receive but what we give,
+      And in our life alone does Nature live."
+
+Milverton.  But here comes Ellesmere with triumphant look.  You look
+as jovial, my dear Ellesmere, as if you were a Bentley that had
+found a false quantity in a Boyle.
+
+Ellesmere.  Listen and perpend, my historical friends.
+
+     "To us, my friend, the times that are gone by
+      Are a mysterious book, sealed with seven seals:
+      That which you call the spirit of ages past
+      Is but, in truth, the spirit of some few authors
+      In which those ages are beheld reflected,
+      With what distortion strange heaven only knows.
+      Oh! often, what a toilsome thing it is
+      This study of thine--at the first glance we fly it.
+      A mass of things confusedly heaped together;
+      A lumber-room of dusty documents,
+      Furnished with all approved court-precedents
+      And old traditional maxims!  History!
+      Facts dramatised say rather--action--plot--
+      Sentiment, everything the writer's own,
+      As it bests fits the web-work of his story,
+      With here and there a solitary fact
+      Of consequence, by those grave chroniclers,
+      Pointed with many a moral apophthegm,
+      And wise old saws, learned at the puppet-shows."
+
+Milverton.  Yes; admirable lines; they describe to the life the very
+faults we have been considering as the faults of badly-written
+histories.  I do not see that they do much more.
+
+Ellesmere.
+
+     "To us, my friend, the times that are gone by
+      Are a mysterious book."--
+
+Milverton.  Those two first lines are the full expression of Faust's
+discontent--unmeasured as in the presence of a weak man who could
+not check him.  But, if you come to look at the matter closely, you
+will see that the time present is also in some sense a sealed book
+to us.  Men that we live with daily we often think as little of as
+we do of Julius Caesar, I was going to say--but we know much less of
+them than of him.
+
+Ellesmere.  I did not mean to say that Faust spoke my sentiments
+about history in general.  Still, there are periods of history which
+we have very few authors to tell us about, and I daresay in some of
+those cases the colouring of their particular minds gives us a false
+idea of the whole age they lived in.
+
+Dunsford.  This may have happened, certainly.
+
+Milverton.  We must be careful not to expect too much from the
+history of past ages, as a means of understanding the present age.
+There is something wanted besides the preceding history to
+understand each age.  Each individual life may have a problem of its
+own, which all other biography accurately set down for us might not
+enable us to work out.  So of each age.  It has something in it not
+known before, and tends to a result which is not down in any books.
+
+Dunsford.  Yet history must be of greatest use in discerning this
+tendency.
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes; but the Wagner sort of pedant would get entangled
+in his round of history--in his historical resemblances.
+
+Dunsford.  Now, Milverton, if you were called upon to say what are
+the peculiar characteristics of this age, what should you say?
+
+Ellesmere.  One of Dunsford's questions this, requiring a stout
+quarto volume with notes in answer.
+
+Milverton.  I would rather wait till I was called upon.  I am apt to
+feel, after I have left off describing the character of any
+individual man, as if I had only just begun.  And I do not see the
+extent of discourse that would be needful in attempting to give the
+characteristics of an age.
+
+Ellesmere.  I think you are prudent to avoid answering Dunsford's
+question.  For my own part, I should prefer giving an account of the
+age we live in after we have come to the end of it--in the true
+historical fashion.  And so, Dunsford, you must wait for my notions.
+
+Dunsford.  I am afraid, Milverton, if you were to write history, you
+would never make up your mind to condemn anybody.
+
+Milverton.  I hope I should not be so inconclusive.  I certainly do
+dislike to see any character, whether of a living or a dead person,
+disposed of in a summary way.
+
+Ellesmere.  For once I will come to the rescue of Milverton.  I
+really do not see that a man's belief in the extent and variety of
+human character, and in the difficulty of appreciating the
+circumstances of life, should prevent him from writing history--from
+coming to some conclusions.  Of course such a man is not likely to
+write a long course of history; but that I hold has been a frequent
+error in historians--that they have taken up subjects too large for
+them.
+
+Milverton.  If there is as much to be said about men's character and
+conduct as I think there mostly is, why should we be content with
+shallow views of them?  Take the outward form of these hills and
+valleys before us.  When we have seen them a few times, we think we
+know them, but are quite mistaken.  Approaching from another
+quarter, it is almost new ground to us.  It is a long time before
+you master the outward form and semblance of any small piece of
+country that has much life and diversity in it.  I often think of
+this, applying it to our little knowledge of men.  Now, look there a
+moment:  you see that house; close behind it is apparently a barren
+tract.  In reality there is nothing of the kind there.  A fertile
+valley with a great river in it, as you know, is between that house
+and the moors.  But the plane of those moors and of the house is
+coincident from our present point of view.  Had we not, as educated
+men, some distrust of the conclusions of our senses, we should be
+ready to swear that there was a lonely house on the border of the
+moors.  It is the same in judging of men.  We see a man connected
+with a train of action which is really not near him, absolutely
+foreign to him, perhaps, but in our eyes that is what he is always
+connected with.  If there were not a Being who understands us
+immeasurably better than other men can, immeasurably better than we
+do ourselves, we should be badly off.
+
+Such precautionary thoughts as these must be useful, I contend.
+They need not make us indifferent to character, or prevent us from
+forming judgments where we must form them, but they show us what a
+wide thing we are talking about when we are judging the life and
+nature of a man.
+
+Ellesmere.  I am sure, Dunsford, you are already convinced:  you
+seldom want more than a slight pretext for going over to the
+charitable side of things.  You are only afraid of not dealing
+stoutly enough with bad things and people.  Do not be afraid though.
+As long as you have me to abuse, you will say many unjust things
+against me, you know, so that you may waste yourself in good
+thoughts about the rest of the world, past and present.  Do you know
+the lawyer's story I had in my mind then?  "Many times when I have
+had a good case," he said, "I have failed; but then I have often
+succeeded with bad cases.  And so justice is done."
+
+Milverton.  To return to the subject.  It is not a sort of
+equalising want of thought about men that I desire; only not to be
+rash in a matter that requires all our care and prudence.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, I believe I am won over.  But now to another point.
+I think, Milverton, that you have said hardly anything about the use
+of history as an incentive to good deeds and a discouragement to
+evil ones.
+
+Milverton.  I ought to have done so.  Bolingbroke gives in his
+"Letters on History," talking of this point, a passage from Tacitus,
+"Praecipuum munus annalium,"--can you go on with it, Dunsford?
+
+Dunsford.  Yes, I think I can.  It is a passage I have often seen
+quoted.  "Praecipuum munus annalium, reor, ne virtutes sileantur;
+utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit."
+
+Ellesmere.  Well done; Dunsford may have invented it, though, for
+aught that we know, Milverton, and be passing himself off upon us
+for Tacitus.
+
+Milverton.  Then Bolingbroke goes on to say (I wish I could give you
+his own flowing words), that the great duty of history is to form a
+tribunal like that amongst the Egyptians which Diodorus tells of,
+where both common men and princes were tried after their deaths, and
+received appropriate honour or disgrace.  The sentence was
+pronounced, he says, too late to correct or to recompense; but it
+was pronounced in time to render examples of general instruction to
+mankind.  Now, what I was going to remark upon this is, that
+Bolingbroke understates his case.  History well written is a present
+correction, and a foretaste of recompense, to the man who is now
+struggling with difficulties and temptations, now overcast by
+calumny and cloudy misrepresentation.
+
+Ellesmere.  Yes; many a man makes an appeal to posterity which will
+never come before the court; but if there were no such court of
+appeal--
+
+Milverton.  A man's conviction that justice will be done to him in
+history is a secondary motive, and not one which, of itself, will
+compel him to do just and great things; but, at any rate, it forms
+one of the benefits that flow from history, and it becomes stronger
+as histories are better written.  Much may be said against care for
+fame; much also against care for present repute.  There is a diviner
+impulse than either at the doing of any actions that are much worth
+doing.  As a correction, however, this anticipation of the judgment
+of history may really be very powerful.  It is a great enlightenment
+of conscience to read the opinions of men on deeds similar to those
+we are engaged in or meditating.
+
+Dunsford.  I think Bolingbroke's idea, which I imagine was more
+general than yours, is more important:  namely, that this judicial
+proceeding, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, gave significant lessons
+to all people, not merely to those who had any chance of having
+their names in history.
+
+Milverton.  Certainly:  for this is one of Bolingbroke's chief
+points, if I recollect rightly.
+
+Ellesmere.  Our conversations are much better things than your
+essays, Milverton.
+
+Milverton.  Of course, I am bound to say so:  but what made you
+think of that now?
+
+Ellesmere.  Why, I was thinking how in talk we can know exactly
+where we agree or differ.  But I never like to interrupt the essay.
+I never know when it would come to an end if I did.  And so it swims
+on like a sermon, having all its own way:  one cannot put in an
+awkward question in a weak part, and get things looked at in various
+ways.
+
+Dunsford.  I suppose, then, Ellesmere, you would like to interrupt
+sermons.
+
+Ellesmere.  Why, yes, sometimes--do not throw sticks at me,
+Dunsford.
+
+Dunsford.  Well, it is absurd to be angry with you; because if you
+long to interrupt Milverton with his captious perhapses and
+probablys, of course you will be impatient with discourses which do,
+to a certain extent, assume that the preacher and the hearers are in
+unison upon great matters.
+
+Ellesmere.  I am afraid to say anything about sermons, for fear of
+the argumentum baculinum from Dunsford; for many essay writers, like
+Milverton, delight to wind up their paragraphs with complete little
+aphorisms--shutting up something certainly, but shutting out
+something too.  I could generally pause upon them a little.
+
+Milverton.  Of course one may err, Ellesmere, in too much aphorising
+as in too much of anything.  But your argument goes against all
+expression of opinion, which must be incomplete, especially when
+dealing with matters that cannot be circumscribed by exact
+definitions.  Otherwise, a code of wisdom might be made which the
+fool might apply as well as the wisest man.  Even the best proverb,
+though often the expression of the widest experience in the choicest
+language, can be thoroughly misapplied.  It cannot embrace the whole
+of the subject, and apply in all cases like a mathematical formula.
+Its wisdom lies in the ear of the hearer.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, I not know that there is anything more to say
+about the essay.  I suppose you are aware, Dunsford, that Milverton
+does not intend to give us any more essays for some time.  He is
+distressing his mind about some facts which he wants to ascertain
+before he will read any more to us.  I imagine we are to have
+something historical next.
+
+Milverton.  Something in which historical records are useful.
+
+Ellesmere.  Really it is wonderful to see how beautifully human
+nature accommodates itself to anything, even to the listening to
+essays.  I shall miss them.
+
+Milverton.  You may miss the talk before and after.
+
+Ellesmere.  Well, there is no knowing how much of that is provoked
+(provoked is a good word, is it not?) by the essays.
+
+Dunsford.  Then, for the present, we have come to an end of our
+readings.
+
+Milverton.  Yes, but I trust at no distant time to have something
+more to try your critical powers and patience upon.  I hope that
+that old tower will yet see us meet together here on many a sunny
+day, discussing various things in friendly council.
+
+                              -----
+
+NOTES.
+
+{12} See Statesman, p. 30.
+
+{42} The passage which must have been alluded to is this:  "The
+stricter tenets of Calvinism, which allow no medium between grace
+and reprobation, and doom man to eternal punishment for every breach
+of the moral law, as an equal offence against Infinite truth and
+justice, proceed (like the paradoxical doctrine of the Stoics), from
+taking a half-view of this subject, and considering man as amenable
+only to the dictates of his understanding and his conscience, and
+not excusable from the temptations and frailty of human ignorance
+and passion.  The mixing up of religion and morality together, or
+the making us accountable for every word, thought, or action, under
+no less a responsibility than our everlasting future welfare or
+misery, has also added incalculably to the difficulties of self-
+knowledge, has superinduced a violent and spurious state of feeling,
+and made it almost impossible to distinguish the boundaries between
+the true and false, in judging of human conduct and motives.  A
+religious man is afraid of looking into the state of his soul, lest
+at the same time he should reveal it to heaven; and tries to
+persuade himself that by shutting his eyes to his true character and
+feelings, they will remain a profound secret, both here and
+hereafter."
+
+{53} This was one of the passages which Milverton afterwards read to
+us:-
+
+"Thus, however much may be gained for the world as a whole by this
+fragmentary cultivation, it is not to be denied that the individuals
+whom it befalls are cursed for the benefit of the world.  An
+athletic frame, it is true, is fashioned by gymnastic exercises; but
+a form of beauty only by free and uniform action.  Just so the
+exertions of single talents can create extraordinary men indeed; but
+happy and perfect men only by their uniform temperature.  And in
+what relation should we stand, then, to the past and coming ages, if
+the cultivation of human nature made necessary such a sacrifice?  We
+should have been the slaves of humanity, and drudged for her century
+after century, and stamped upon our mutilated natures the
+humiliating traces of our bondage--that the coming race might nurse
+its moral healthfulness in blissful leisure, and unfold the free
+growth of its humanity!
+
+"But can it be intended that man should neglect himself for any
+particular design?  Ought Nature to deprive us, by its design, of a
+perfection which Reason, by its own, prescribes to us?  Then it must
+be false that the development of single faculties makes the
+sacrifice of totality necessary; or, if indeed the law of Nature
+presses thus heavily, it becomes us to restore, by a higher art,
+this totality in our nature which art has destroyed."--The
+Philosophical and AEsthetical Letters and Essays of SCHILLER,
+Translated by J. WEISS, pp. 74, 75.
+
+{93} Madame Necker de Saussure's maxim about firmness with children
+has suggested the above.  "Ce que plie ne peut servir d'appui, et
+l'enfant veut etre appuye.  Non-seulement il en a besoin, mais il le
+desire, mais sa tendresse la plus constante n'est qu'a ce prix.  Si
+vous lui faites l'effet d'un autre enfant, si vous partagez ses
+passions, ses vacillations continuelles, si vous lui rendez tous ses
+mouvements en les augmentant, soit par la contrariete, soit par un
+exces de complaisance, il pourra se servir de vous comme d'un jouet,
+mais non etre heureux en votre presence; il pleurera, se mutinera,
+et bientot le souvenir d'un temps de desordre et d'humeur se liera
+avec votre idee.  Vous n'avez pas ete le soutien de votre enfant,
+vous ne l'avez pas preserve de cette fluctuation perpetuelle de la
+volonte, maladie des etres faibles et livres a une imagination vive;
+vous n'avez assure ni sa paix, ni sa sagesse, ni son bonheur,
+pourquoi vous croirait-il sa mere."--L'Education Progressive, vol.
+i., p. 228.
+
+{116a} See Health of Towns Report, vol. i., p. 336.  A similar
+result may be deduced from a similar table made by the Rev. J. Clay,
+of Preston.  See the same Report and vol., p. 175.
+
+{116b} See Health of Towns Report, vol. i., p. 75.
+
+{117a} See Dr. Arnott's letter, Claims of Labour, p. 282.
+
+{117b} By zinc ventilators, for instance, in the windows and
+openings into the flues at the top of the rooms.  See Health of
+Towns Report, 1844, vol. i., pp. 76, 77.  Mr.  Coulhart's evidence.-
+-Ibid., pp. 307, 308.
+
+{117c} There are several thousand gratings to sewers and drains
+which are utterly useless on account of their position, and
+positively injurious from their emanations.--Mr. Guthrie's
+evidence.--Ibid., vol. ii., p. 255.
+
+{118} Mr. Wood states that the masters and mistresses were generally
+ignorant of the depressing and unhealthy effects of the atmosphere
+which surrounded them, and he mentions the case of the mistress of a
+dame-school who replied, when he pointed out this to her, "that the
+children thrived best in dirt!"--Health of Towns Report, vol. i.,
+pp. 146, 147.
+
+{126} See "The Fair Maid of Perth."
+
+{161} See "Health of Towns Report," 1844, vol. i., p. 44.
+
+{183} Bacon, de Augmentis Scientiarum.
+
+
+
+
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+     PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+     "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
+<title>Friends in Council (First Series)</title>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h2>
+<a href="#startoftext">Friends in Council (First Series), by Sir Arthur Helps</a>
+</h2>
+<pre>
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Friends in Council (First Series)
+by Sir Arthur Helps
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+Title: Friends in Council (First Series)
+
+Author: Sir Arthur Helps
+
+Release Date: February, 2005  [EBook #7438]
+[This file was first posted on April 30, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+</pre>
+<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p>
+<p>This etext was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<h1>FRIENDS IN COUNCIL (First Series)<br />BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS.</h1>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>Arthur Helps was born at Streatham on the 10th of July, 1813.&nbsp;
+He went at the age of sixteen to Eton, thence to Trinity College, Cambridge.&nbsp;
+Having graduated B.A. in 1835, he became private secretary to the Hon.
+T. Spring Rice, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne&rsquo;s
+Cabinet, formed in April, 1835.&nbsp; This was his position at the beginning
+of the present reign in June, 1837.</p>
+<p>In 1839 - in which year he graduated M.A. - Arthur Helps was transferred
+to the service of Lord Morpeth, who was Irish Secretary in the same
+ministry.&nbsp; Lord Melbourne&rsquo;s Ministry was succeeded by that
+of Sir Robert Peel in September, 1841, and Helps then was appointed
+a Commissioner of French, Danish, and Spanish Claims.&nbsp; In 1841
+he published &ldquo;Essays Written in the Intervals of Business.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Their quiet thoughtfulness was in accord with the spirit that had given
+value to his services as private secretary to two ministers of State.&nbsp;
+In 1844 that little book was followed by another on &ldquo;The Claims
+of Labour,&rdquo; dealing with the relations of employers to employed.&nbsp;
+There was the same scholarly simplicity and grace of style, the same
+interest in things worth serious attention.&nbsp; &ldquo;We say,&rdquo;
+he wrote, towards the close, &ldquo;that Kings are God&rsquo;s Vicegerents
+upon Earth; but almost every human being has, at one time or other of
+his life, a portion of the happiness of those around him in his power,
+which might make him tremble, if he did but see it in all its fulness.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+To this book Arthur Helps added an essay &ldquo;On the Means of Improving
+the Health and Increasing the Comfort of the Labouring Classes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>His next book was this First Series of &ldquo;Friends in Council,&rdquo;
+published in 1847, and followed by other series in later years.&nbsp;
+There were many other writings of his, less popular than they would
+have been if the same abilities had been controlled by less good taste.&nbsp;
+His &ldquo;History of the Conquest of the New World&rdquo; in 1848,
+and of &ldquo;The Spanish Conquest of America,&rdquo; in four volumes,
+from 1855 to 1861, preceded his obtaining from his University, in 1864,
+the honorary degree of D.C.L.&nbsp; In June, 1860, Arthur Helps was
+made Clerk of the Privy Council, and held that office of high trust
+until his death on the 7th of March, 1875.&nbsp; He had become Sir Arthur
+in 1872.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;H.
+M.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h2>FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.</h2>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>None but those who, like myself, have once lived in intellectual
+society, and then have been deprived of it for years, can appreciate
+the delight of finding it again.&nbsp; Not that I have any right to
+complain, if I were fated to live as a recluse for ever.&nbsp; I can
+add little, or nothing, to the pleasure of any company; I like to listen
+rather than to talk; and when anything apposite does occur to me, it
+is generally the day after the conversation has taken place.&nbsp; I
+do not, however, love good talk the less for these defects of mine;
+and I console myself with thinking that I sustain the part of a judicious
+listener, not always an easy one.</p>
+<p>Great, then, was my delight at hearing last year that my old pupil,
+Milverton, had taken a house which had long been vacant in our neighbourhood.&nbsp;
+To add to my pleasure, his college friend, Ellesmere, the great lawyer,
+also an old pupil of mine, came to us frequently in the course of the
+autumn.&nbsp; Milverton was at that time writing some essays which he
+occasionally read to Ellesmere and myself.&nbsp; The conversations which
+then took place I am proud to say that I have chronicled.&nbsp; I think
+they must be interesting to the world in general, though of course not
+so much so as to me.</p>
+<p>Milverton and Ellesmere were my favourite pupils.&nbsp; Many is the
+heartache I have had at finding that those boys, with all their abilities,
+would do nothing at the University.&nbsp; But it was in vain to urge
+them.&nbsp; I grieve to say that neither of them had any ambition of
+the right kind.&nbsp; Once I thought I had stimulated Ellesmere to the
+proper care and exertion; when, to my astonishment and vexation, going
+into his rooms about a month before an examination, I found that, instead
+of getting up his subjects, like a reasonable man, he was absolutely
+endeavouring to invent some new method for proving something which had
+been proved before in a hundred ways.&nbsp; Over this he had wasted
+two days, and from that moment I saw it was useless to waste any more
+of my time and patience in urging a scholar so indocile for the beaten
+path.</p>
+<p>What tricks he and Milverton used to play me, pretending not to understand
+my demonstration of some mathematical problem, inventing all manner
+of subtle difficulties, and declaring they could not go on while these
+stumbling-blocks lay in their way!&nbsp; But I am getting into college
+gossip, which may in no way delight my readers.&nbsp; And I am fancying,
+too, that Milverton and Ellesmere are the boys they were to me; but
+I am now the child to them.&nbsp; During the years that I have been
+quietly living here, they have become versed in the ways of the busy
+world.&nbsp; And though they never think of asserting their superiority,
+I feel it, and am glad to do so.</p>
+<p>My readers would, perhaps, like one to tell them something of the
+characters of Ellesmere and Milverton; but it would ill become me to
+give that insight into them, which I, their college friend and tutor,
+imagine I have obtained.&nbsp; Their friendship I could never understand.&nbsp;
+It was not on the surface very warm, and their congeniality seemed to
+result more from one or two large common principles of thought than
+from any peculiar similarity of taste, or from great affection on either
+side.&nbsp; Yet I should wrong their friendship if I were to represent
+it otherwise than a most true-hearted one; more so, perhaps, than some
+of softer texture.&nbsp; What needs be seen of them individually will
+be by their words, which I hope I have in the main retained.</p>
+<p>The place where we generally met in fine weather was on the lawn
+before Milverton&rsquo;s house.&nbsp; It was an eminence which commanded
+a series of valleys sloping towards the sea.&nbsp; And, as the sea was
+not more than nine miles off, it was a matter of frequent speculation
+with us whether the landscape was bounded by air or water.&nbsp; In
+the first valley was a little town of red brick houses, with poplars
+coming up amongst them.&nbsp; The ruins of a castle, and some water
+which, in olden times, had been the lake in &ldquo;the pleasaunce,&rdquo;
+were between us and the town.&nbsp; The clang of an anvil, or the clamour
+of a horn, or busy wheelwright&rsquo;s sounds, came faintly up to us
+when the wind was south.</p>
+<p>I must not delay my readers longer with my gossip, but bring them
+at once into the conversation that preceded our first reading.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I tell you, Ellesmere, these are the only
+heights I care to look down from, the heights of natural scenery.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Pooh! my dear Milverton, it is only because
+the particular mounds which the world calls heights, you think you have
+found out to be but larger ant-heaps.&nbsp; Whenever you have cared
+about anything, a man more fierce and unphilosophical in the pursuit
+of it I never saw.&nbsp; To influence men&rsquo;s minds by writing for
+them, is that no ambition?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It may be, but I have it not.&nbsp; Let any
+kind critic convince me that what I am now doing is useless, or has
+been done before, or that, if I leave it undone, some one else will
+do it to my mind; and I should fold up my papers, and watch the turnips
+grow in that field there, with a placidity that would, perhaps, seem
+very spiritless to your now restless and ambitious nature, Ellesmere.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; If something were to happen which will not,
+then - O Philosophy, Philosophy, you, too, are a good old nurse, and
+rattle your rattles for your little people, as well as old Dame World
+can do for hers.&nbsp; But what are we to have to-day for our first
+reading?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; An Essay on Truth.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, had I known this before, it is not
+the novelty of the subject which would have dragged me up the hill to
+your house.&nbsp; By the way, philosophers ought not to live upon hills.&nbsp;
+They are much more accessible, and I think quite as reasonable, when,
+Diogenes-like, they live in tubs upon flat ground.&nbsp; Now for the
+essay.</p>
+<p>TRUTH.</p>
+<p>Truth is a subject which men will not suffer to grow old.&nbsp; Each
+age has to fight with its own falsehoods: each man with his love of
+saying to himself and those around him pleasant things and things serviceable
+for to-day, rather than the things which are.&nbsp; Yet a child appreciates
+at once the divine necessity for truth; never asks, &ldquo;What harm
+is there in saying the thing that is not?&rdquo; and an old man finds,
+in his growing experience, wider and wider applications of the great
+doctrine and discipline of truth.</p>
+<p>Truth needs the wisdom of the serpent as well as the simplicity of
+the dove.&nbsp; He has gone but a little way in this matter who supposes
+that it is an easy thing for a man to speak the truth, &ldquo;the thing
+he troweth;&rdquo; and that it is a casual function, which may be fulfilled
+at once after any lapse of exercise.&nbsp; But, in the first place,
+the man who would speak truth must know what he troweth.&nbsp; To do
+that, he must have an uncorrupted judgment.&nbsp; By this is not meant
+a perfect judgment or even a wise one, but one which, however it may
+be biassed, is not bought - is still a judgment.&nbsp; But some people&rsquo;s
+judgments are so entirely gained over by vanity, selfishness, passion,
+or inflated prejudices and fancies long indulged in; or they have the
+habit of looking at everything so carelessly, that they see nothing
+truly.&nbsp; They cannot interpret the world of reality.&nbsp; And this
+is the saddest form of lying, &ldquo;the lie that sinketh in,&rdquo;
+as Bacon says, which becomes part of the character and goes on eating
+the rest away.</p>
+<p>Again, to speak truth, a man must not only have that martial courage
+which goes out, with sound of drum and trumpet, to do and suffer great
+things; but that domestic courage which compels him to utter small sounding
+truths in spite of present inconvenience and outraged sensitiveness
+or sensibility.&nbsp; Then he must not be in any respect a slave to
+self-interest.&nbsp; Often it seems as if but a little misrepresentation
+would gain a great good for us; or, perhaps, we have only to conceal
+some trifling thing, which, if told, might hinder unreasonably, as we
+think, a profitable bargain.&nbsp; The true man takes care to tell,
+notwithstanding.&nbsp; When we think that truth interferes at one time
+or another with all a man&rsquo;s likings, hatings, and wishes, we must
+admit, I think, that it is the most comprehensive and varied form of
+self-denial.</p>
+<p>Then, in addition to these great qualities, truth-telling in its
+highest sense requires a well-balanced mind.&nbsp; For instance, much
+exaggeration, perhaps the most, is occasioned by an impatient and easily
+moved temperament which longs to convey its own vivid impressions to
+other minds, and seeks by amplifying to gain the full measure of their
+sympathy.&nbsp; But a true man does not think what his hearers are feeling,
+but what he is saying.</p>
+<p>More stress might be laid than has been on the intellectual requisites
+for truth, which are probably the best part of intellectual cultivation;
+and as much caused by truth as causing it. <a name="citation12"></a><a href="#footnote12">{12}</a>&nbsp;
+But, putting the requisites for truth at the fewest, see of how large
+a portion of the character truth is the resultant.&nbsp; If you were
+to make a list of those persons accounted the religious men of their
+respective ages, you would have a ludicrous combination of characters
+essentially dissimilar.&nbsp; But true people are kindred.&nbsp; Mention
+the eminently true men, and you will find that they are a brotherhood.&nbsp;
+There is a family likeness throughout them.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>If we consider the occasions of exercising truthfulness and descend
+to particulars, we may divide the matter into the following heads: -
+truth to oneself - truth to mankind in general - truth in social relations
+- truth in business - truth in pleasure.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>1.&nbsp; Truth to oneself.&nbsp; All men have a deep interest that
+each man should tell himself the truth.&nbsp; Not only will he become
+a better man, but he will understand them better.&nbsp; If men knew
+themselves, they could not be intolerant to others.</p>
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to say much about the advantage of a man
+knowing himself for himself.&nbsp; To get at the truth of any history
+is good; but a man&rsquo;s own history - when he reads that truly, and,
+without a mean and over-solicitous introspection, knows what he is about
+and what he has been about, it is a Bible to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;And David
+said unto Nathan, I have sinned before the Lord.&rdquo;&nbsp; David
+knew the truth about himself.&nbsp; But truth to oneself is not merely
+truth about oneself.&nbsp; It consists in maintaining an openness and
+justness of soul which brings a man into relation with all truth.&nbsp;
+For this, all the senses, if you might so call them, of the soul must
+be uninjured - that is, the affections and the perceptions must be just.&nbsp;
+For a man to speak the truth to himself comprehends all goodness; and
+for us mortals can only be an aim.</p>
+<p>2.&nbsp; Truth to mankind in general.&nbsp; This is a matter which,
+as I read it, concerns only the higher natures.&nbsp; Suffice it to
+say, that the withholding large truths from the world may be a betrayal
+of the greatest trust.</p>
+<p>3.&nbsp; Truth in social relations.&nbsp; Under this head come the
+practices of making speech vary according to the person spoken to; of
+pretending to agree with the world when you do not; of not acting according
+to what is your deliberate and well-advised opinion because some mischief
+may be made of it by persons whose judgment in this matter you do not
+respect; of maintaining a wrong course for the sake of consistency;
+of encouraging the show of intimacy with those whom you never can be
+intimate with; and many things of the same kind.&nbsp; These practices
+have elements of charity and prudence as well as fear and meanness in
+them.&nbsp; Let those parts which correspond to fear and meanness be
+put aside.&nbsp; Charity and prudence are not parasitical plants which
+require boles of falsehood to climb up upon.&nbsp; It is often extremely
+difficult in the mixed things of this world to act truly and kindly
+too; but therein lies one of the great trials of man, that his sincerity
+should have kindness in it, and his kindness truth.</p>
+<p>4.&nbsp; Truth in business.&nbsp; The more truth you can get into
+any business, the better.&nbsp; Let the other side know the defects
+of yours, let them know how you are to be satisfied, let there be as
+little to be found as possible (I should say nothing), and if your business
+be an honest one, it will be best tended in this way.&nbsp; The talking,
+bargaining, and delaying that would thus be needless, the little that
+would then have to be done over again, the anxiety that would be put
+aside, would even in a worldly way be &ldquo;great gain.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that the third part of men&rsquo;s
+lives is wasted by the effect, direct or indirect, of falsehoods.</p>
+<p>Still, let us not be swift to imagine that lies are never of any
+service.&nbsp; A recent Prime Minister said, that he did not know about
+truth always prevailing and the like; but lies had been very successful
+against his government.&nbsp; And this was true enough.&nbsp; Every
+lie has its day.&nbsp; There is no preternatural inefficacy in it by
+reason of its falseness.&nbsp; And this is especially the case with
+those vague injurious reports which are no man&rsquo;s lies, but all
+men&rsquo;s carelessness.&nbsp; But even as regards special and unmistakable
+falsehood, we must admit that it has its success.&nbsp; A complete being
+might deceive with wonderful effect; however, as nature is always against
+a liar, it is great odds in the case of ordinary mortals.&nbsp; Wolsey
+talks of</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Negligence<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Fit
+for a fool to fall by,&rdquo;</p>
+<p>when he gives Henry the wrong packet; but the Cardinal was quite
+mistaken.&nbsp; That kind of negligence was just the thing of which
+far-seeing and thoughtful men are capable; and which, if there were
+no higher motive, should induce them to rely on truth alone.&nbsp; A
+very close vulpine nature, all eyes, all ears, may succeed better in
+deceit.&nbsp; But it is a sleepless business.&nbsp; Yet, strange to
+say, it is had recourse to in the most spendthrift fashion, as the first
+and easiest thing that comes to hand.</p>
+<p>In connection with truth in business, it may be observed that if
+you are a truthful man, you should be watchful over those whom you employ;
+for your subordinate agents are often fond of lying for your interests,
+as they think.&nbsp; Show them at once that you do not think with them,
+and that you will disconcert any of their inventions by breaking in
+with the truth.&nbsp; If you suffer the fear of seeming unkind to prevent
+your thrusting well-meant inventions aside, you may get as much pledged
+to falsehoods as if you had coined and uttered them yourself.</p>
+<p>5.&nbsp; Truth in pleasure.&nbsp; Men have been said to be sincere
+in their pleasures; but this is only that the taste and habits of men
+are more easily discernible in pleasure than in business.&nbsp; The
+want of truth is as great a hindrance to the one as to the other.&nbsp;
+Indeed, there is so much insincerity and formality in the pleasurable
+department of human life, especially in social pleasures, that instead
+of a bloom there is a slime upon it, which deadens and corrupts the
+thing.&nbsp; One of the most comical sights to superior beings must
+be to see two human creatures with elaborate speech and gestures making
+each other exquisitely uncomfortable from civility: the one pressing
+what he is most anxious that the other should not accept, and the other
+accepting only from the fear of giving offence by refusal.&nbsp; There
+is an element of charity in all this too; and it will be the business
+of a just and refined nature to be sincere and considerate at the same
+time.&nbsp; This will be better done by enlarging our sympathy, so that
+more things and people are pleasant to us, than by increasing the civil
+and conventional part of our nature, so that we are able to do more
+seeming with greater skill and endurance.&nbsp; Of other false hindrances
+to pleasure, such as ostentation and pretences of all kinds, there is
+neither charity nor comfort in them.&nbsp; They may be got rid of altogether,
+and no moaning made over them.&nbsp; Truth, which is one of the largest
+creatures, opens out the way to the heights of enjoyment, as well as
+to the depths of self-denial.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It is difficult to think too highly of the merits and delights of
+truth; but there is often in men&rsquo;s minds an exaggerated notion
+of some bit of truth, which proves a great assistance to falsehood.&nbsp;
+For instance, the shame of some particular small falsehood, exaggeration,
+or insincerity, becomes a bugbear which scares a man into a career of
+false dealing.&nbsp; He has begun making a furrow a little out of the
+line, and he ploughs on in it to try and give some consistency and meaning
+to it.&nbsp; He wants almost to persuade himself that it was not wrong,
+and entirely to hide the wrongness from others.&nbsp; This is a tribute
+to the majesty of truth; also to the world&rsquo;s opinion about truth.&nbsp;
+It proceeds, too, upon the notion that all falsehoods are equal, which
+is not the case; or on some fond craving for a show of perfection, which
+is sometimes very inimical to the reality.&nbsp; The practical, as well
+as the high-minded, view in such cases, is for a man to think how he
+can be true now.&nbsp; To attain that, it may, even for this world,
+be worth while for a man to admit that he is inconsistent, and even
+that he has been untrue.&nbsp; His hearers, did they know anything of
+themselves, would be fully aware that he was not singular, except in
+the courage of owning his insincerity.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; That last part requires thinking about.&nbsp;
+If you were to permit men, without great loss of reputation, to own
+that they had been insincere, you might break down some of that majesty
+of truth you talk about.&nbsp; And bad men might avail themselves of
+any facilities of owning insincerity, to commit more of it.&nbsp; I
+can imagine that the apprehension of this might restrain a man from
+making any such admission as you allude to, even if he could make up
+his mind to do it otherwise.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; but can anything be worse than a man
+going on in a false course?&nbsp; Each man must look to his own truthfulness,
+and keep that up as well as he can, even at the risk of saying, or doing,
+something which may be turned to ill account by others.&nbsp; We may
+think too much about this reflection of our external selves.&nbsp; Let
+the real self be right.&nbsp; I am not so fanciful as to expect men
+to go about clamouring that they have been false; but at no risk of
+letting people see that, or of even being obliged to own it, should
+they persevere in it.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Milverton is right, I think.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Do not imagine that I am behind either of
+you in a wish to hold up truth.&nbsp; My only doubt was as to the mode.&nbsp;
+For my own part, I have such faith in truth that I take it mere concealment
+is in most cases a mischief.&nbsp; And I should say, for instance, that
+a wise man would be sorry that his fellows should think better of him
+than he deserves.&nbsp; By the way, that is a reason why I should not
+like to be a writer of moral essays, Milverton - one should be supposed
+to be so very good.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Only by thoughtless people then.&nbsp; There
+is a saying given to Rousseau, not that he ever did say it, for I believe
+it was a misprint, but it was a possible saying for him, &ldquo;Chaque
+homme qui pense est m&eacute;chant.&rdquo;&nbsp; Now, without going
+the length of this aphorism, we may say that what has been well written
+has been well suffered.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;He best can paint them who has
+felt them most.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>And so, though we should not exactly declare that writers who have
+had much moral influence have been wicked men, yet we may admit that
+they have been amongst the most struggling, which implies anything but
+serene self-possession and perfect spotlessness.&nbsp; If you take the
+great ones, Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe, you see this at once.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; David, St. Paul.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Such men are like great rocks on the seashore.&nbsp;
+By their resistance, terraces of level land are formed; but the rocks
+themselves bear many scars and ugly indents, while the sea of human
+difficulty presents the same unwrinkled appearance in all ages.&nbsp;
+Yet it has been driven back.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; But has it lost any of its bulk, or only
+gone elsewhere?&nbsp; One part of the resemblance certainly is that
+these same rocks, which were bulwarks, become, in their turn, dangers.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, there is always loss in that way.&nbsp;
+It is seldom given to man to do unmixed good.&nbsp; But it was not this
+aspect of the simile that I was thinking of: it was the scarred appearance.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Scars not always of defeat or flight; scars
+in the front.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Ah, it hardly does for us to talk of victory
+or defeat, in these cases; but we may look at the contest itself as
+something not bad, terminate how it may.&nbsp; We lament over a man&rsquo;s
+sorrows, struggles, disasters, and shortcomings; yet they were possessions
+too.&nbsp; We talk of the origin of evil and the permission of evil.&nbsp;
+But what is evil?&nbsp; We mostly speak of sufferings and trials as
+good, perhaps, in their result; but we hardly admit that they may be
+good in themselves.&nbsp; Yet they are knowledge - how else to be acquired,
+unless by making men as gods, enabling them to understand without experience.&nbsp;
+All that men go through may be absolutely the best for them - no such
+thing as evil, at least in our customary meaning of the word.&nbsp;
+But, you will say, they might have been created different and higher.&nbsp;
+See where this leads to.&nbsp; Any sentient being may set up the same
+claim: a fly that it had not been made a man; and so the end would be
+that each would complain of not being all.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Say it all over again, my dear Milverton:
+it is rather hard.&nbsp; [Milverton did so, in nearly the same words.]&nbsp;
+I think I have heard it all before.&nbsp; But you may have it as you
+please.&nbsp; I do not say this irreverently, but the truth is, I am
+too old and too earthly to enter upon these subjects.&nbsp; I think,
+however, that the view is a stout-hearted one.&nbsp; It is somewhat
+in the same vein of thought that you see in Carlyle&rsquo;s works about
+the contempt of happiness.&nbsp; But in all these cases, one is apt
+to think of the sage in &ldquo;Rasselas,&rdquo; who is very wise about
+human misery till he loses his daughter.&nbsp; Your fly illustration
+has something in it.&nbsp; Certainly when men talk big about what might
+have been done for man, they omit to think what might be said, on similar
+grounds, for each sentient creature in the universe.&nbsp; But here
+have we been meandering off into origin of evil, and uses of great men,
+and wickedness of writers, etc., whereas I meant to have said something
+about the essay.&nbsp; How would you answer what Bacon maintains?&nbsp;
+&ldquo;A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; He is not speaking of the lies of social
+life, but of self-deception.&nbsp; He goes on to class under that head
+&ldquo;vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations
+as one would.&rdquo;&nbsp; These things are the sweetness of &ldquo;the
+lie that sinketh in.&rdquo;&nbsp; Many a man has a kind of mental kaleidoscope,
+where the bits of broken glass are his own merits and fortunes, and
+they fall into harmonious arrangements and delight him - often most
+mischievously and to his ultimate detriment, but they are a present
+pleasure.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, I am going to be true in my pleasures:
+to take a long walk alone.&nbsp; I have got a difficult case for an
+opinion, which I must go and think over.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Shall we have another reading tomorrow?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, if you are both in the humour for it.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>As the next day was fine, we agreed to have our reading in the same
+spot that I have described before.&nbsp; There was scarcely any conversation
+worth noting, until after Milverton had read us the following essay
+on Conformity.</p>
+<p>CONFORMITY.</p>
+<p>The conformity of men is often a far poorer thing than that which
+resembles it amongst the lower animals.&nbsp; The monkey imitates from
+imitative skill and gamesomeness: the sheep is gregarious, having no
+sufficient will to form an independent project of its own.&nbsp; But
+man often loathes what he imitates, and conforms to what he knows to
+be wrong.</p>
+<p>It will ever be one of the nicest problems for a man to solve how
+far he shall profit by the thoughts of other men, and not be enslaved
+by them.&nbsp; He comes into the world, and finds swaddling clothes
+ready for his mind as well as his body.&nbsp; There is a vast scheme
+of social machinery set up about him; and he has to discern how he can
+make it work with him and for him, without becoming part of the machinery
+himself.&nbsp; In this lie the anguish and the struggle of the greatest
+minds.&nbsp; Most sad are they, having mostly the deepest sympathies,
+when they find themselves breaking off from communion with other minds.&nbsp;
+They would go on, if they could, with the opinions around them.&nbsp;
+But, happily, there is something to which a man owes a larger allegiance
+than to any human affection.&nbsp; He would be content to go away from
+a false thing, or quietly to protest against it; but in spite of him
+the strife in his heart breaks into burning utterance by word or deed.</p>
+<p>Few, however, are those who venture, even for the shortest time,
+into that hazy world of independent thought, where a man is not upheld
+by a crowd of other men&rsquo;s opinions, but where he must find a footing
+of his own.&nbsp; Among the mass of men, there is little or no resistance
+to conformity.&nbsp; Could the history of opinions be fully written,
+it would be seen how large a part in human proceedings the love of conformity,
+or rather the fear of non-conformity, has occasioned.&nbsp; It has triumphed
+over all other fears; over love, hate, pity, sloth, anger, truth, pride,
+comfort, self-interest, vanity, and maternal love.&nbsp; It has torn
+down the sense of beauty in the human soul, and set up in its place
+little ugly idols which it compels us to worship with more than Japanese
+devotion.&nbsp; It has contradicted Nature in the most obvious things,
+and been listened to with abject submission.&nbsp; Its empire has been
+no less extensive than deep-seated.&nbsp; The serf to custom points
+his finger at the slave to fashion - as if it signified whether it is
+an old or a new thing which is irrationally conformed to.&nbsp; The
+man of letters despises both the slaves of fashion and of custom, but
+often runs his narrow career of thought, shut up, though he sees it
+not, within close walls which he does not venture even to peep over.</p>
+<p>It is hard to say in what department of human thought and endeavour
+conformity has triumphed most.&nbsp; Religion comes to one&rsquo;s mind
+first; and well it may when one thinks what men have conformed to in
+all ages in that matter.&nbsp; If we pass to art, or science, we shall
+see there too the wondrous slavery which men have endured - from puny
+fetters, moreover, which one stirring thought would, as we think, have
+burst asunder.&nbsp; The above, however, are matters not within every
+one&rsquo;s cognisance; some of them are shut in by learning or the
+show of it; and plain &ldquo;practical&rdquo; men would say, they follow
+where they have no business but to follow.&nbsp; But the way in which
+the human body shall be covered is not a thing for the scientific and
+the learned only: and is allowed on all hands to concern, in no small
+degree, one half at least of the creation.&nbsp; It is in such a simple
+thing as dress that each of us may form some estimate of the extent
+of conformity in the world.&nbsp; A wise nation, unsubdued by superstition,
+with the collected experience of peaceful ages, concludes that female
+feet are to be clothed by crushing them.&nbsp; The still wiser nations
+of the west have adopted a swifter mode of destroying health, and creating
+angularity, by crushing the upper part of the female body.&nbsp; In
+such matters nearly all people conform.&nbsp; Our brother man is seldom
+so bitter against us, as when we refuse to adopt at once his notions
+of the infinite.&nbsp; But even religious dissent were less dangerous
+and more respectable than dissent in dress.&nbsp; If you want to see
+what men will do in the way of conformity, take a European hat for your
+subject of meditation.&nbsp; I dare say there are twenty-two millions
+of people at this minute each wearing one of these hats in order to
+please the rest.&nbsp; As in the fine arts, and in architecture, especially,
+so in dress, something is often retained that was useful when something
+else was beside it.&nbsp; To go to architecture for an instance, a pinnacle
+is retained, not that it is of any use where it is, but in another kind
+of building it would have been.&nbsp; That style of building, as a whole,
+has gone out of fashion, but the pinnacle has somehow or other kept
+its ground and must be there, no one insolently going back to first
+principles and asking what is the use and object of building pinnacles.&nbsp;
+Similar instances in dress will occur to my readers.&nbsp; Some of us
+are not skilled in such affairs; but looking at old pictures we may
+sometimes see how modern clothes have attained their present pitch of
+frightfulness and inconvenience.&nbsp; This matter of dress is one in
+which, perhaps, you might expect the wise to conform to the foolish;
+and they have.</p>
+<p>When we have once come to a right estimate of the strength of conformity,
+we shall, I think, be more kindly disposed to eccentricity than we usually
+are.&nbsp; Even a wilful or an absurd eccentricity is some support against
+the weighty common-place conformity of the world.&nbsp; If it were not
+for some singular people who persist in thinking for themselves, in
+seeing for themselves, and in being comfortable, we should all collapse
+into a hideous uniformity.</p>
+<p>It is worth while to analyse that influence of the world which is
+the right arm of conformity.&nbsp; Some persons bend to the world in
+all things, from an innocent belief that what so many people think must
+be right.&nbsp; Others have a vague fear of the world as of some wild
+beast which may spring out upon them at any time.&nbsp; Tell them they
+are safe in their houses from this myriad-eyed creature: they still
+are sure that they shall meet with it some day, and would propitiate
+its favour at any sacrifice.&nbsp; Many men contract their idea of the
+world to their own circle, and what they imagine to be said in that
+circle of friends and acquaintances is their idea of public opinion
+- &rdquo;as if,&rdquo; to use a saying of Southey&rsquo;s, &ldquo;a
+number of worldlings made a world.&rdquo;&nbsp; With some unfortunate
+people, the much dreaded &ldquo;world&rdquo; shrinks into one person
+of more mental power than their own, or perhaps merely of coarser nature;
+and the fancy as to what this person will say about anything they do,
+sits upon them like a nightmare.&nbsp; Happy the man who can embark
+his small adventure of deeds and thoughts upon the shallow waters round
+his home, or send them afloat on the wide sea of humanity, with no great
+anxiety in either case as to what reception they may meet with!&nbsp;
+He would have them steer by the stars, and take what wind may come to
+them.</p>
+<p>A reasonable watchfulness against conformity will not lead a man
+to spurn the aid of other men, still less to reject the accumulated
+mental capital of ages.&nbsp; It does not compel us to dote upon the
+advantages of savage life.&nbsp; We would not forego the hard-earned
+gains of civil society because there is something in most of them which
+tends to contract the natural powers, although it vastly aids them.&nbsp;
+We would not, for instance, return to the monosyllabic utterance of
+barbarous men, because in any formed language there are a thousand snares
+for the understanding.&nbsp; Yet we must be most watchful of them.&nbsp;
+And in all things, a man must beware of so conforming himself as to
+crush his nature and forego the purpose of his being.&nbsp; We must
+look to other standards than what men may say or think.&nbsp; We must
+not abjectly bow down before rules and usages; but must refer to principles
+and purposes.&nbsp; In few words, we must think, not whom we are following,
+but what we are doing.&nbsp; If not, why are we gifted with individual
+life at all?&nbsp; Uniformity does not consist with the higher forms
+of vitality.&nbsp; Even the leaves of the same tree are said to differ,
+each one from all the rest.&nbsp; And can it be good for the soul of
+a man &ldquo;with a biography of his own like to no one else&rsquo;s,&rdquo;
+to subject itself without thought to the opinions and ways of others:
+not to grow into symmetry, but to be moulded down into conformity?</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, I rather like that essay.&nbsp; I was
+afraid, at first, it was going to have more of the fault into which
+you essay writers generally fall, of being a comment on the abuse of
+a thing, and not on the thing itself.&nbsp; There always seems to me
+to want another essay on the other side.&nbsp; But I think, at the end,
+you protect yourself against misconstruction.&nbsp; In the spirit of
+the essay, you know, of course, that I quite agree with you.&nbsp; Indeed,
+I differ from all the ordinary biographers of that independent gentleman,
+Don&rsquo;t Care.&nbsp; I believe Don&rsquo;t Care came to a good end.&nbsp;
+At any rate he came to some end.&nbsp; Whereas numbers of people never
+have beginning, or ending, of their own.&nbsp; An obscure dramatist,
+Milverton, whom we know of, makes one of his characters say, in reply
+to some world-fearing wretch:</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;While
+you, you think<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;What others think,
+or what you think they&rsquo;ll say,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Shaping
+your course by something scarce more tangible<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Than
+dreams, at best the shadows on the stream<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of
+aspen leaves by flickering breezes swayed - <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Load
+me with irons, drive me from morn till night,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I
+am not the utter slave which that man is<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Whose
+sole word, thought, and deed are built on what<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
+world may say of him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Never mind the obscure dramatist.&nbsp; But,
+Ellesmere, you really are unreasonable, if you suppose that, in the
+limits of a short essay, you can accurately distinguish all you write
+between the use and the abuse of a thing.&nbsp; The question is, will
+people misunderstand you - not, is the language such as to be logically
+impregnable?&nbsp; Now, in the present case, no man will really suppose
+it is a wise and just conformity that I am inveighing against.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am not sure of that.&nbsp; If everybody
+is to have independent thought, would there not be a fearful instability
+and want of compactness?&nbsp; Another thing, too - conformity often
+saves so much time and trouble.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; it has its uses.&nbsp; I do not mean,
+in the world of opinion and morality, that it should be all elasticity
+and no gravitation; but at least enough elasticity to preserve natural
+form and independent being.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I think it would have been better if you
+had turned the essay another way, and instead of making it on conformity,
+had made it on interference.&nbsp; That is the greater mischief and
+the greater folly, I think.&nbsp; Why do people unreasonably conform?&nbsp;
+Because they feel unreasonable interference.&nbsp; War, I say, is interference
+on a small scale compared with the interference of private life.&nbsp;
+Then the absurdity on which it proceeds; that men are all alike, or
+that it is desirable that they should be; and that what is good for
+one is good for all.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I must say, I think, Milverton, you do not
+give enough credit for sympathy, good-nature, and humility as material
+elements in the conformity of the world.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am not afraid, my dear Dunsford, of the
+essay doing much harm.&nbsp; There is a power of sleepy conformity in
+the world.&nbsp; You may just startle your conformists for a minute,
+but they gravitate into their old way very soon.&nbsp; You talk of their
+humility, Dunsford, but I have heard people who have conformed to opinions,
+without a pretence of investigation, as arrogant and intolerant towards
+anybody who differed from them, as if they stood upon a pinnacle of
+independent sagacity and research.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; One never knows, Ellesmere, on which side
+you are.&nbsp; I thought you were on mine a minute or two ago; and now
+you come down upon me with more than Milverton&rsquo;s anti-conforming
+spirit.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; The greatest mischief, as I take it, of this
+slavish conformity, is in the reticence it creates.&nbsp; People will
+be, what are called, intimate friends, and yet no real interchange of
+opinion takes place between them.&nbsp; A man keeps his doubts, his
+difficulties, and his peculiar opinions to himself.&nbsp; He is afraid
+of letting anybody know that he does not exactly agree with the world&rsquo;s
+theories on all points.&nbsp; There is no telling the hindrance that
+this is to truth.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; A great cause of this, Ellesmere, is in the
+little reliance you can have on any man&rsquo;s secrecy.&nbsp; A man
+finds that what, in the heat of discussion, and in the perfect carelessness
+of friendship, he has said to his friend, is quoted to people whom he
+would never have said it to; knowing that it would be sure to be misunderstood,
+or half-understood, by them.&nbsp; And so he grows cautious; and is
+very loth to communicate to anybody his more cherished opinions, unless
+they fall in exactly with the stream.&nbsp; Added to which, I think
+there is in these times less than there ever was of a proselytising
+spirit; and people are content to keep their opinions to themselves
+- more perhaps from indifference than from fear.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, I agree with you.</p>
+<p>By the way, I think your taking dress as an illustration of extreme
+conformity is not bad.&nbsp; Really it is wonderful the degree of square
+and dull hideousness to which, in the process of time and tailoring,
+and by severe conformity, the human creature&rsquo;s outward appearance
+has arrived.&nbsp; Look at a crowd of men from a height, what an ugly
+set of ants they appear!&nbsp; Myself, when I see an Eastern man, one
+of the people attached to their embassies, sweeping by us in something
+flowing and stately, I feel inclined to take off my hat to him (only
+that I think the hat might frighten him), and say, Here is a great,
+unhatted, uncravated, bearded man, not a creature clipt and twisted
+and tortured into tailorhood.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Ellesmere broke in upon me just now, so that
+I did not say all that I meant to say.&nbsp; But, Milverton, what would
+you admit that we are to conform to?&nbsp; In silencing the general
+voice, may we not give too much opportunity to our own headstrong suggestions,
+and to wilful licence?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes: to be somewhat deaf to the din of the
+world may be no gain, even loss, if then we only listen more to the
+worst part of ourselves; but in itself it is a good thing to silence
+that din.&nbsp; It is at least a beginning of good.&nbsp; If anything
+good is then gained, it is not a sheepish tendency, but an independent
+resolve growing out of our nature.&nbsp; And, after all, when we talk
+of non-conformity, it may only be that we non-conform to the immediate
+sect of thought or action about us, to conform to a much wider thing
+in human nature.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Ah me! how one wants a moral essayist always
+at hand to enable one to make use of moral essays.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Your rules of law are grand things - the
+proverbs of justice; yet has not each case its specialities, requiring
+to be argued with much circumstance, and capable of different interpretations?&nbsp;
+Words cannot be made into men.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I wonder you answer his sneers, Milverton.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I must go and see whether words cannot be
+made into guineas: and then guineas into men is an easy thing.&nbsp;
+These trains will not wait even for critics, so, for the present, good-bye.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>Ellesmere soon wrote us word that he would be able to come down again;
+and I agreed to be at Worth-Ashton (Milverton&rsquo;s house) on the
+day of his arrival.&nbsp; I had scarcely seated myself at our usual
+place of meeting before the friends entered, and after greeting me,
+the conversation thus began:</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Upon my word, you people who live in the
+country have a pleasant time of it.&nbsp; As Milverton was driving me
+from the station through Durley Wood, there was such a rich smell of
+pines, such a twittering of birds, so much joy, sunshine, and beauty,
+that I began to think, if there were no such place as London, it really
+would be very desirable to live in the country.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; What a climax!&nbsp; But I am always very
+suspicious, when Ellesmere appears to be carried away by any enthusiasm,
+that it will break off suddenly, like the gallop of a post-horse.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, what are we to have for our essay!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Despair.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I feel equal to anything just now, and so,
+if it must be read sometime or other, let us have it now.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You need not be afraid.&nbsp; I want to take
+away, not to add gloom.&nbsp; Shall I read?</p>
+<p>We assented, and he began.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>DESPAIR.</p>
+<p>Despair may be serviceable when it arises from a temporary prostration
+of spirits: during which the mind is insensibly healing, and her scattered
+power silently returning.&nbsp; This is better than to be the sport
+of a teasing hope without reason.&nbsp; But to indulge in despair as
+a habit is slothful, cowardly, short-sighted; and manifestly tends against
+Nature.&nbsp; Despair is then the paralysis of the soul.</p>
+<p>These are the principal causes of despair - remorse, the sorrows
+of the affections, worldly trouble, morbid views of religion, native
+melancholy.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>REMORSE.</p>
+<p>Remorse does but add to the evil which bred it, when it promotes,
+not penitence, but despair.&nbsp; To have erred in one branch of our
+duties does not unfit us for the performance of all the rest, unless
+we suffer the dark spot to spread over our whole nature, which may happen
+almost unobserved in the torpor of despair.&nbsp; This kind of despair
+is chiefly grounded on a foolish belief that individual words or actions
+constitute the whole life of man: whereas they are often not fair representatives
+of portions even of that life.&nbsp; The fragments of rock in a mountain
+stream may tell much of its history, are in fact results of its doings,
+but they are not the stream.&nbsp; They were brought down when it was
+turbid; it may now be clear: they are as much the result of other circumstances
+as of the action of the stream; their history is fitful: they give us
+no sure intelligence of the future course of the stream, or of the nature
+of its waters; and may scarcely show more than that it has not been
+always as it is.&nbsp; The actions of men are often but little better
+indications of the men themselves.</p>
+<p>A prolonged despair arising from remorse is unreasonable at any age,
+but if possible, still more so when felt by the young.&nbsp; To think,
+for example, that the great Being who made us could have made eternal
+ruin and misery inevitable to a poor half-fledged creature of eighteen
+or nineteen!&nbsp; And yet how often has the profoundest despair from
+remorse brooded over children of that age and eaten into their hearts.</p>
+<p>There is frequently much selfishness about remorse.&nbsp; Put what
+has been done at the worst.&nbsp; Let a man see his own evil word, or
+deed, in full light, and own it to be black as hell itself.&nbsp; He
+is still here.&nbsp; He cannot be isolated.&nbsp; There still remain
+for him cares and duties; and, therefore, hopes.&nbsp; Let him not in
+imagination link all creation to his fate.&nbsp; Let him yet live in
+the welfare of others, and, if it may be so, work out his own in this
+way: if not, be content with theirs.&nbsp; The saddest cause of remorseful
+despair is when a man does something expressly contrary to his character:
+when an honourable man, for instance, slides into some dishonourable
+action; or a tender-hearted man falls into cruelty from carelessness;
+or, as often happens, a sensitive nature continues to give the greatest
+pain to others from temper, feeling all the time, perhaps, more deeply
+than the persons aggrieved.&nbsp; All these cases may be summed up in
+the words, &ldquo;That which I would not that I do,&rdquo; the saddest
+of all human confessions, made by one of the greatest men.&nbsp; However,
+the evil cannot be mended by despair.&nbsp; Hope and humility are the
+only supports under this burden.&nbsp; As Mr. Carlyle says,</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What are faults, what are the outward details of a life; if
+the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, true, often-baffled,
+never-ended struggle of it, be forgotten.&nbsp; &lsquo;It is not in
+man that walketh to direct his steps.&rsquo;&nbsp; Of all acts, is not,
+for a man, <i>repentance</i> the most divine?&nbsp; The deadliest sin,
+I say, were that same supercilious consciousness of no sin; that is
+death: the heart so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility,
+and fact; is dead: it is &lsquo;pure&rsquo; as dead dry sand is pure.&nbsp;
+David&rsquo;s life and history, as written for us in those Psalms of
+his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given of a man&rsquo;s
+moral progress and warfare here below.&nbsp; All earnest souls will
+ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul towards
+what is good and best.&nbsp; Struggle often baffled, sore baffled, down
+as into entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended; ever, with tears,
+repentance, true unconquerable purpose, begun anew.&nbsp; Poor human
+nature! is not a man&rsquo;s walking, in truth, always that: a &lsquo;succession
+of falls!&rsquo;&nbsp; Man can do no other.&nbsp; In this wild element
+of a Life, he has to struggle onwards; now fallen, deep abased; and
+ever, with tears, repentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again,
+struggle again still onwards.&nbsp; That his struggle be a faithful
+unconquerable one: this is the question of questions.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>THE SORROWS OF THE AFFECTIONS.</p>
+<p>The loss by death of those we love has the first place in these sorrows.&nbsp;
+Yet the feeling in this case, even when carried to the highest, is not
+exactly despair, having too much warmth in it for that.&nbsp; Not much
+can be said in the way of comfort on this head.&nbsp; Queen Elizabeth,
+in her hard, wise way, writing to a mother who had lost her son, tells
+her that she will be comforted in time; and why should she not do for
+herself what the mere lapse of time will do for her?&nbsp; Brave words!
+and the stern woman, more earnest than the sage in &ldquo;Rasselas,&rdquo;
+would have tried their virtue on herself.&nbsp; But I fear they fell
+somewhat coldly on the mother&rsquo;s ear.&nbsp; Happily, in these bereavements,
+kind Nature with her opiates, day by day administered, does more than
+all the skill of the physician moralists.&nbsp; Sir Thomas Browne says,</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion
+shares with memory a great part even of our living beings; we slightly
+remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave
+but short smart upon us.&nbsp; Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows
+destroy us or themselves.&nbsp; To weep into stones are fables.&nbsp;
+Afflictions induce callosities, miseries are slippery, or fall like
+snow upon us, which, notwithstanding, is no unhappy stupidity.&nbsp;
+To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful
+provision in Nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil
+days, and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances,
+our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The good knight thus makes much comfort out of our physical weakness.&nbsp;
+But something may be done in a very different direction, namely, by
+spiritual strength.&nbsp; By elevating and purifying the sorrow, we
+may take it more out of matter, as it were, and so feel less the loss
+of what is material about it.</p>
+<p>The other sorrows of the affections which may produce despair, are
+those in which the affections are wounded, as jealousy, love unrequited,
+friendship betrayed and the like.&nbsp; As, in despair from remorse,
+the whole life seems to be involved in one action: so in the despair
+we are now considering, the whole life appears to be shut up in the
+one unpropitious affection.&nbsp; Yet human nature, if fairly treated,
+is too large a thing to be suppressed into despair by one affection,
+however potent.&nbsp; We might imagine that if there were anything that
+would rob life of its strength and favour, it is domestic unhappiness.&nbsp;
+And yet how numerous is the bond of those whom we know to have been
+eminently unhappy in some domestic relation, but whose lives have been
+full of vigorous and kindly action.&nbsp; Indeed the culture of the
+world has been largely carried on by such men.&nbsp; As long as there
+is life in the plant, though it be sadly pent in, it will grow towards
+any opening of light that is left for it.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>WORLDLY TROUBLE.</p>
+<p>This appears too mean a subject for despair, or, at least, unworthy
+of having any remedy, or soothing thought out of it.&nbsp; Whether a
+man lives in a large room or a small one, rides or is obliged to walk,
+gets a plenteous dinner every day, or a sparing one, do not seem matters
+for despair.&nbsp; But the truth is, that worldly trouble, such for
+instance, as loss of fortune, is seldom the simple thing that poets
+would persuade us.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;The little or the much she gave
+is quietly resigned;<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Content
+with poverty, my soul I arm,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And
+virtue, though in rags will keep me warm.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>So sings Dryden, paraphrasing Horace, but each of them with their
+knowledge of the world, cross-questioned in prose, could have told us
+how the stings of fortune really are felt.&nbsp; The truth is, that
+fortune is not exactly a distinct isolated thing which can be taken
+away - &rdquo;and there an end.&rdquo;&nbsp; But much has to be severed,
+with undoubted pain in the operation.&nbsp; A man mostly feels that
+his reputation for sagacity, often his honour, the comfort, too, or
+supposed comfort, of others are embarked in his fortunes.&nbsp; Mere
+stoicism, and resolves about fitting fortune to oneself, not oneself
+to fortune, though good things enough in their way, will not always
+meet the whole of the case.&nbsp; And a man who could bear personal
+distress of any kind with Spartan indifference, may suffer himself to
+be overwhelmed by despair growing out of worldly trouble.&nbsp; A frequent
+origin of such despair, as indeed of all despair (not by any means excluding
+despair from remorse), is pride.&nbsp; Let a man say to himself, &ldquo;I
+am not the perfect character I meant to be; this is not the conduct
+I had imagined for myself; these are not the fortunate circumstances
+I had always intended to be surrounded by.&rdquo;&nbsp; Let him at once
+admit that he is on a lower level than his ideal one; and then see what
+is to be done there.&nbsp; This seems the best way of treating all that
+part of worldly trouble which consists of self-reproval.&nbsp; We scarcely
+know of any outward life continuously prosperous (and a very dull one
+it would be): why should we expect the inner life to be one course of
+unbroken self-improvement, either in prudence, or in virtue?</p>
+<p>Before a man gives way to excessive grief about the fortunes of his
+family being lost with his own, he should think whether he really knows
+wherein lies the welfare of others.&nbsp; Give him some fairy power,
+inexhaustible purses or magic lamps, not, however, applying to the mind;
+and see whether he could make those whom he would favour good or happy.&nbsp;
+In the East, they have a proverb of this kind, Happy are the children
+of those fathers who go to the Evil One.&nbsp; But for anything that
+our Western experience shows, the proverb might be reversed, and, instead
+of running thus, Happy are the sons of those who have got money anyhow,
+it might be, Happy are the sons of those who have failed in getting
+money.&nbsp; In fact, there is no sound proverb to be made about it
+either way.&nbsp; We know nothing about the matter.&nbsp; Our surest
+influence for good or evil over others is, through themselves.&nbsp;
+Our ignorance of what is physically good for any man may surely prevent
+anything like despair with regard to that part of the fortunes of others
+dear to us, which, as we think, is bound up with our own.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>MORBID VIEWS OF RELIGION.</p>
+<p>As religion is the most engrossing subject that can be presented
+to us, it will be considered in all states of mind and by all minds.&nbsp;
+It is impossible but that the most hideous and perverted views of religion
+must arise.&nbsp; To combat the particular views which may be supposed
+to cause religious despair, would be too theological an undertaking
+for this essay.&nbsp; One thing only occurs to me to say, namely, that
+the lives and the mode of speaking about themselves adopted by the founders
+of Christianity, afford the best contradiction to religious melancholy
+that I believe can be met with.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>NATIVE MELANCHOLY.</p>
+<p>There is such a thing.&nbsp; Jacques, without the &ldquo;sundry contemplation&rdquo;
+of his travels, or any &ldquo;simples&rdquo; to &ldquo;compound&rdquo;
+his melancholy form, would have ever been wrapped in a &ldquo;most humorous
+sadness.&rdquo;&nbsp; It was innate.&nbsp; This melancholy may lay its
+votaries open to any other cause of despair, but having mostly some
+touch of philosophy (if it be not absolutely morbid), it is not unlikely
+to preserve them from any extremity.&nbsp; It is not acute, but chronic.</p>
+<p>It may be said in its favour that it tends to make men indifferent
+to their own fortunes.&nbsp; But then the sorrow of the world presses
+more deeply upon them.&nbsp; With large open hearts, the untowardness
+of things present, the miseries of the past, the mischief, stupidity,
+and error which reign in the world, at times almost crush your melancholy
+men.&nbsp; Still, out of their sadness may come their strength, or,
+at least, the best direction of it.&nbsp; Nothing, perhaps, is lost;
+not even sin - much less sorrow.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am glad you have ended as you have: for,
+previously, you seemed to make too much of getting rid of all distress
+of mind.&nbsp; I always liked that passage in &ldquo;Philip van Artevelde,&rdquo;
+where Father John says,</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;He that lacks time to mourn,
+lacks time to mend.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Eternity
+mourns that.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>You have a better memory than I have: how does it go on?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis
+an ill cure<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For life&rsquo;s
+worst ills, to have no time to feel them.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Where
+sorrow&rsquo;s held intrusive and turned out,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;There
+wisdom will not enter, nor true power,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nor
+aught that dignifies humanity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Still this does not justify despair, which was what I was writing
+about.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Perhaps it was not a just criticism of mine.&nbsp;
+One part of the subject you have certainly omitted.&nbsp; You do not
+tell us how much there often is of physical disorder in despair.&nbsp;
+I dare say you will think it a coarse and unromantic mode of looking
+at things; but I must confess I agree with what Leigh Hunt has said
+somewhere, that one can walk down distress of mind - even remorse, perhaps.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; I am for the Peripatetics against all
+other philosophers.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; By the way, there is a passage in one of
+Hazlitt&rsquo;s essays, I thought of while you were reading, about remorse
+and religious melancholy.&nbsp; He speaks of mixing up religion and
+morality; and then goes on to say, that Calvinistic notions have obscured
+and prevented self-knowledge. <a name="citation42"></a><a href="#footnote42">{42}</a></p>
+<p>Give me the essay - there is a passage I want to look at.&nbsp; This
+comparison of life to a mountain stream, the rocks brought down by it
+being the actions, is too much worked out.&nbsp; When we speak of similes
+not going on four legs, it implies, I think, that a simile is at best
+but a four-legged animal.&nbsp; Now this is almost a centipede of a
+simile.&nbsp; I think I have had the same thought as yours here, and
+I have compared the life of an individual to a curve.&nbsp; You both
+smile.&nbsp; Now I thought that Dunsford at any rate would be pleased
+with this reminiscence of college days.&nbsp; But to proceed with my
+curve.&nbsp; You may have numbers of the points through which it passes
+given, and yet know nothing of the nature of the curve itself.&nbsp;
+See, now, it shall pass through here and here, but how it will go in
+the interval, what is the law of its being, we know not.&nbsp; But this
+simile would be too mathematical, I fear.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I hold to the centipede.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Not a word has Dunsford said all this time.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I like the essay.&nbsp; I was not criticising
+as we went along, but thinking that perhaps the greatest charm of books
+is, that we see in them that other men have suffered what we have.&nbsp;
+Some souls we ever find who could have responded to all our agony, be
+it what it may.&nbsp; This at least robs misery of its loneliness.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; On the other hand, the charm of intercourse
+with our fellows, when we are in sadness, is that they do not reflect
+it in any way.&nbsp; Each keeps his own trouble to himself, and often
+pretending to think and care about other things, comes to do so for
+the time.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, but you might choose books which would
+not reflect your troubles.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; But the fact of having to make a choice to
+do this, does away, perhaps, with some part of the benefit: whereas,
+in intercourse with living men, you take what you find, and you find
+that neither your trouble, nor any likeness of it, is absorbing other
+people.&nbsp; But this is not the whole reason: the truth is, the life
+and impulses of other men are catching; you cannot explain exactly how
+it is that they take you out of yourself.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No man is so confidential as when he is addressing
+the whole world.&nbsp; You find, therefore, more comfort for sorrow
+in books than in social intercourse.&nbsp; I mean more direct comfort;
+for I agree with what Ellesmere says about society.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; In comparing men and books, one must always
+remember this important distinction - that one can put the books down
+at any time.&nbsp; As Macaulay says, &ldquo;Plato is never sullen.&nbsp;
+Cervantes is never petulant.&nbsp; Demosthenes never comes unseasonably.&nbsp;
+Dante never stays too long.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Besides, one can manage to agree so well,
+intellectually, with a book; and intellectual differences are the source
+of half the quarrels in the world.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Judicious shelving!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Judicious skipping will nearly do.&nbsp;
+Now when one&rsquo;s friend, or oneself, is crotchety, dogmatic, or
+disputatious, one cannot turn over to another day.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t go, Dunsford.&nbsp; Here is a
+passage in the essay I meant to have said something about - &rdquo;why
+should we expect the inner life to be one course of unbroken self-improvement,&rdquo;
+etc. - You recollect?&nbsp; Well, it puts me in mind of a conversation
+between a complacent poplar and a grim old oak, which I overheard the
+other day.&nbsp; The poplar said that it grew up quite straight, heavenwards,
+that all its branches pointed the same way, and always had done so.&nbsp;
+Turning to the oak, which it had been talking at before for some time,
+the poplar went on to remark, that it did not wish to say anything unfriendly
+to a brother of the forest, but those warped and twisted branches seemed
+to show strange struggles.&nbsp; The tall thing concluded its oration
+by saying, that it grew up very fast, and that when it had done growing,
+it did not suffer itself to be made into huge floating engines of destruction.&nbsp;
+But different trees had different tastes.&nbsp; There was then a sound
+from the old oak, like an &ldquo;ah&rdquo; or a &ldquo;whew,&rdquo;
+or, perhaps, it was only the wind amongst its resisting branches; and
+the gaunt creature said that it had had ugly winds from without and
+cross-grained impulses from within; that it knew it had thrown out awkwardly
+a branch here and a branch there, which would never come quite right
+again it feared; that men worked it up, sometimes for good and sometimes
+for evil - but that at any rate it had not lived for nothing.&nbsp;
+The poplar began again immediately, for this kind of tree can talk for
+ever, but I patted the old oak approvingly and went on.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, your trees divide their discourse somewhat
+Ellesmerically: they do not talk with the simplicity La Fontaine&rsquo;s
+would; but there is a good deal in them.&nbsp; They are not altogether
+sappy.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I really thought of this fable of mine the
+other day, as I was passing the poplar at the end of the valley, and
+I determined to give it you on the first occasion.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I hope, Ellesmere, you do not intend to put
+sarcastic notions into the sap of our trees hereabouts.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s
+enough of sarcasm in you to season a whole forest.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Dunsford is afraid of what the trees may
+say to the country gentlemen, and whether they will be able to answer
+them.&nbsp; I will be careful not to make the trees too clever.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Let us go and try if we can hear any more
+forest talk.&nbsp; The winds, shaped into voices by the leaves, say
+many things to us at all times.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>In the course of our walk Milverton promised to read the following
+essay on Recreation the next day.&nbsp; I have no note of anything that
+was said before the reading.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>RECREATION.</p>
+<p>This subject has not had the thought it merits.&nbsp; It seems trivial.&nbsp;
+It concerns some hours in the daily life of each of us; but it is not
+connected with any subject of human grandeur, and we are rather ashamed
+of it.&nbsp; Schiller has some wise, but hard words that relate to it.&nbsp;
+He perceives the pre-eminence of the Greeks, who could do many things.&nbsp;
+He finds that modern men are units of great nations; but not great units
+themselves.&nbsp; And there is some room for this reasoning of his.</p>
+<p>Our modern system of division of labour divides wits also.&nbsp;
+The more necessity there is, therefore, for funding in recreation something
+to expand men&rsquo;s intelligence.&nbsp; There are intellectual pursuits
+almost as much divided as pin-making; and many a man goes through some
+intellectual process, for the greater part of his working hours, which
+corresponds with the making of a pin&rsquo;s head.&nbsp; Must there
+not be some danger of a general contraction of mind from this convergence
+of attention upon something very small, for so considerable a portion
+of a man&rsquo;s life?</p>
+<p>What answer can civilisation give to this?&nbsp; It can say that
+greater results are worked out by the modern system; that though each
+man is doing less himself than he might have done in former days, he
+sees greater and better things accomplished; and that his thoughts,
+not bound down by his petty occupation, travel over the work of the
+human family.&nbsp; There is a great deal, doubtless, in this argument;
+but man is not altogether an intellectual recipient.&nbsp; He is a constructive
+animal also.&nbsp; It is not the knowledge that you can pour into him
+that will satisfy him, or enable him to work out his nature.&nbsp; He
+must see things for himself; he must have bodily work and intellectual
+work different from his bread-getting work; or he runs the danger of
+becoming a contracted pedant with a poor mind and a sickly body.</p>
+<p>I have seen it quoted from Aristotle, that the end of labour is to
+gain leisure.&nbsp; It is a great saying.&nbsp; We have in modern times
+a totally wrong view of the matter.&nbsp; Noble work is a noble thing,
+but not all work.&nbsp; Most people seem to think that any business
+is in itself something grand; that to be intensely employed, for instance,
+about something which has no truth, beauty, or usefulness in it, which
+makes no man happier or wiser, is still the perfection of human endeavour,
+so that the work be intense.&nbsp; It is the intensity, not the nature,
+of the work that men praise.&nbsp; You see the extent of this feeling
+in little things.&nbsp; People are so ashamed of being caught for a
+moment idle, that if you come upon the most industrious servants or
+workmen whilst they are standing looking at something which interests
+them, or fairly resting, they move off in a fright, as if they were
+proved, by a moment&rsquo;s relaxation, to be neglectful of their work.&nbsp;
+Yet it is the result that they should mainly be judged by, and to which
+they should appeal.&nbsp; But amongst all classes, the working itself,
+incessant working, is the thing deified.&nbsp; Now what is the end and
+object of most work?&nbsp; To provide for animal wants.&nbsp; Not a
+contemptible thing by any means, but still it is not all in all with
+man.&nbsp; Moreover, in those cases where the pressure of bread-getting
+is fairly past, we do not often find men&rsquo;s exertions lessened
+on that account.&nbsp; There enter into their minds as motives, ambition,
+a love of hoarding, or a fear of leisure - things which, in moderation,
+may be defended or even justified; but which are not so peremptory,
+and upon the face of them excellent, that they at once dignify excessive
+labour.</p>
+<p>The truth is, that to work insatiably requires much less mind than
+to work judiciously, and less courage than to refuse work that cannot
+be done honestly.&nbsp; For a hundred men whose appetite for work can
+be driven on by vanity, avarice, ambition, or a mistaken notion of advancing
+their families, there is about one who is desirous of expanding his
+own nature and the nature of others in all directions, of cultivating
+many pursuits, of bringing himself and those around him in contact with
+the universe in many points, of being a man and not a machine.</p>
+<p>It may seem as if the preceding arguments were directed rather against
+excessive work than in favour of recreation.&nbsp; But the first object
+in an essay of this kind should be to bring down the absurd estimate
+that is often formed of mere work.&nbsp; What ritual is to the formalist,
+or contemplation to the devotee, business is to the man of the world.&nbsp;
+He thinks he cannot be doing wrong as long as he is doing that.</p>
+<p>No doubt hard work is a great police agent.&nbsp; If everybody were
+worked from morning till night and then carefully locked up, the register
+of crimes might be greatly diminished.&nbsp; But what would become of
+human nature?&nbsp; Where would be the room for growth in such a system
+of things?&nbsp; It is through sorrow and mirth, plenty and need, a
+variety of passions, circumstances, and temptations, even through sin
+and misery, that men&rsquo;s natures are developed.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Again, there are people who would say, &ldquo;Labour is not all;
+we do not object to the cessation of labour - a mere provision for bodily
+ends; but we fear the lightness and vanity of what you call recreation.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Do these people take heed of the swiftness of thought - of the impatience
+of thought?&nbsp; What will the great mass of men be thinking of, if
+they are taught to shun amusements and the thoughts of amusement?&nbsp;
+If any sensuality is left open to them, they will think of that.&nbsp;
+If not sensuality, then avarice, or ferocity for &ldquo;the cause of
+God,&rdquo; as they would call it.&nbsp; People who have had nothing
+else to amuse them have been very apt to indulge themselves in the excitement
+of persecuting their fellow creatures.</p>
+<p>Our nation, the northern part of it especially, is given to believe
+in the sovereign efficacy of dulness.&nbsp; To be sure, dulness and
+solid vice are apt to go hand in hand.&nbsp; But then, according to
+our notions, dulness is in itself so good a thing - almost a religion.</p>
+<p>Now, if ever a people required to be amused, it is we sad-hearted
+Anglo-Saxons.&nbsp; Heavy eaters, hard thinkers, often given up to a
+peculiar melancholy of our own, with a climate that for months together
+would frown away mirth if it could - many of us with very gloomy thoughts
+about our hereafter - if ever there were a people who should avoid increasing
+their dulness by all work and no play, we are that people.&nbsp; &ldquo;They
+took their pleasure sadly,&rdquo; says Froissart, &ldquo;after their
+fashion.&rdquo;&nbsp; We need not ask of what nation Froissart was speaking.</p>
+<p>There is a theory which has done singular mischief to the cause of
+recreation and of general cultivation.&nbsp; It is that men cannot excel
+in more things than one; and that if they can, they had better be quiet
+about it.&nbsp; &ldquo;Avoid music, do not cultivate art, be not known
+to excel in any craft but your own,&rdquo; says many a worldly parent,
+thereby laying the foundation of a narrow, greedy character, and destroying
+means of happiness and of improvement which success, or even real excellence,
+in one profession only cannot give.&nbsp; This is, indeed, a sacrifice
+of the end of living for the means.</p>
+<p>Another check to recreation is the narrow way in which people have
+hitherto been brought up at schools and colleges.&nbsp; The classics
+are pre-eminent works.&nbsp; To acquire an accurate knowledge of them
+is an admirable discipline.&nbsp; Still, it would be well to give a
+youth but few of these great works, and so leave time for various arts,
+accomplishments, and knowledge of external things exemplified by other
+means than books.&nbsp; If this cannot be done but by over-working,
+then it had better not be done; for of all things, that must be avoided.&nbsp;
+But surely it can be done.&nbsp; At present, many a man who is versed
+in Greek metre, and afterwards full of law reports, is childishly ignorant
+of Nature.&nbsp; Let him walk with an intelligent child for a morning,
+and the child will ask him a hundred questions about sun, moon, stars,
+plants, birds, building, farming, and the like, to which he can give
+very sorry answers, if any; or, at the best, he has but a second-hand
+acquaintance with Nature.&nbsp; Men&rsquo;s conceits are his main knowledge.&nbsp;
+Whereas, if he had any pursuits connected with Nature, all Nature is
+in harmony with it, is brought into his presence by it, and it affords
+at once cultivation and recreation.</p>
+<p>But, independently of those cultivated pursuits which form a high
+order of recreation, boyhood should never pass without the boy&rsquo;s
+learning several modes of recreation of the humbler kind.&nbsp; A parent
+or teacher seldom does a kinder thing by the child under his care than
+when he instructs it in some manly exercise, some pursuit connected
+with Nature out of doors, or even some domestic game.&nbsp; In hours
+of fatigue, anxiety, sickness, or worldly ferment, such means of amusement
+may delight the grown-up man when other things would fail.</p>
+<p>An indirect advantage, but a very considerable one, attendant upon
+various modes of recreation, is, that they provide opportunities of
+excelling in something to boys and men who are dull in things which
+form the staple of education.&nbsp; A boy cannot see much difference
+between the nominative and the genitive cases - still less any occasion
+for aorists - but he is a good hand at some game or other; and he keeps
+up his self-respect, and the respect of others for him, upon his prowess
+in that game.&nbsp; He is better and happier on that account.&nbsp;
+And it is well, too, that the little world around him should know that
+excellence is not all of one form.</p>
+<p>There are no details about recreation in this essay, the object here
+being mainly to show the worth of recreation, and to defend it against
+objections from the over-busy and the over-strict.&nbsp; The sense of
+the beautiful, the desire for comprehending Nature, the love of personal
+skill and prowess, are not things implanted in men merely to be absorbed
+in producing and distributing the objects of our most obvious animal
+wants.&nbsp; If civilisation required this, civilisation would be a
+failure.&nbsp; Still less should we fancy that we are serving the cause
+of godliness when we are discouraging recreation.&nbsp; Let us be hearty
+in our pleasures, as in our work, and not think that the gracious Being
+Who has made us so open-hearted to delight, looks with dissatisfaction
+at our enjoyment, as a hard taskmaster might, who in the glee of his
+slaves could see only a hindrance to their profitable working.&nbsp;
+And with reference to our individual cultivation, we may remember that
+we are not here to promote incalculable quantities of law, physic, or
+manufactured goods, but to become men - not narrow pedants, but wide-seeing,
+mind-travelled men.&nbsp; Who are the men of history to be admired most?&nbsp;
+Those whom most things became - who could be weighty in debate, of much
+device in council, considerate in a sick-room, genial at a feast, joyous
+at a festival, capable of discourse with many minds, large-souled, not
+to be shrivelled up into any one form, fashion, or temperament.&nbsp;
+Their contemporaries would have told us that men might have various
+accomplishments and hearty enjoyments, and not for that be the less
+effective in business, or less active in benevolence.&nbsp; I distrust
+the wisdom of asceticism as much as I do that of sensuality; Simeon
+Stylites no less than Sardanapalus.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You alluded to Schiller at the beginning
+of the essay: can you show me his own words?&nbsp; I have a lawyer&rsquo;s
+liking for the best evidence.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; When we go in, I will show you some passages
+which bear me out in what I have made him say - at least, if the translation
+is faithful. <a name="citation53"></a><a href="#footnote53">{53}</a></p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I have had a great respect for Schiller ever
+since I heard that saying of his about death, &ldquo;Death cannot be
+an evil, for it is universal.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Very noble and full of faith.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Touching the essay, I like it well enough;
+but, perhaps, people will expect to find more about recreation itself
+- not only about the good of it, but what it is, and how it is to be
+got.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I do not incline to go into detail about
+the matter.&nbsp; The object was to say something for the respectability
+of recreation, not to write a chapter of a book of sports.&nbsp; People
+must find out their own ways of amusing themselves.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I will tell you what is the paramount thing
+to be attended to in all amusements - that they should be short.&nbsp;
+Moralists are always talking about &ldquo;short-lived&rdquo; pleasures:
+would that they were!</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Hesiod told the world, some two thousand years
+ago, how much greater the half is than the whole.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Dinner-givers and managers of theatres should
+forthwith be made aware of that fact.&nbsp; What a sacrifice of good
+things, and of the patience and comfort of human beings, a cumbrous
+modern dinner is!&nbsp; I always long to get up and walk about.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Do not talk of modern dinners.&nbsp; Think
+what a Roman dinner must have been.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Very true.&nbsp; It has always struck me
+that there is something quite military in the sensualism of the Romans
+- an &ldquo;arbiter bibendi&rdquo; chosen, and the whole feast moving
+on with fearful precision and apparatus of all kinds.&nbsp; Come, come!
+the world&rsquo;s improving, Ellesmere.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Had the Romans public dinners?&nbsp; Answer
+me that.&nbsp; Imagine a Roman, whose theory, at least, of a dinner
+was that it was a thing for enjoyment, whereas we often look on it as
+a continuation of the business of the day - I say, imagine a Roman girding
+himself up, literally girding himself up to make an after-dinner speech.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I must allow that is rather a barbarous practice.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; If charity, or politics, cannot be done without
+such things, I suppose they are useful in their way; but let nobody
+ever imagine that they are a form of pleasure.&nbsp; People smearing
+each other over with stupid flattery, and most of the company being
+in dread of receiving some compliment which should oblige them to speak!</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I should have thought, now, that you would
+always have had something to say, and therefore that you would not be
+so bitter against after-dinner speaking.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; No; when I have nothing to say, I can say
+nothing.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Would it not be a pleasant thing if rich
+people would ask their friends sometimes to public amusements - order
+a play for them, for instance - or at any rate, provide some manifest
+amusement?&nbsp; They might, occasionally with great advantage, abridge
+the expense of their dinners; and throw it into other channels of hospitality.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Ah, if they would have good acting at their
+houses, that would be very delightful; but I cannot say that the being
+taken to any place of public amusement would much delight me.&nbsp;
+By the way, Milverton, what do you say of theatres in the way of recreation?&nbsp;
+This decline of the drama, too, is a thing you must have thought about:
+let us hear your notions.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I think one of the causes sometimes assigned,
+that reading is more spread, is a true and an important one; but, otherwise,
+I fancy that the present decline of the drama depends upon very small
+things which might be remedied.&nbsp; As to a love of the drama going
+out of the human heart, that is all nonsense.&nbsp; Put it at the lowest,
+what a great pleasure it is to hear a good play read.&nbsp; And again,
+as to serious pursuits unfitting men for dramatic entertainments, it
+is quite the contrary.&nbsp; A man, wearied with care and business,
+would find more change of ideas with less fatigue, in seeing a good
+play, than in almost any other way of amusing himself.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What are the causes then of the decline of
+the drama?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; In England, or rather in London, - for London
+is England for dramatic purposes; in London, then, theatrical arrangements
+seem to be framed to drive away people of sense.&nbsp; The noisome atmosphere,
+the difficult approach, the over-size of the great theatres, the intolerable
+length of performances.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Hear! hear!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The crowding together of theatres in one
+part of the town, the lateness of the hours - </p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; The folly of the audience, who always applaud
+in the wrong place - </p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; There is no occasion to say any more; I am
+quite convinced.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; But these annoyances need not be.&nbsp; Build
+a theatre of moderate dimensions; give it great facility of approach;
+take care that the performances never exceed three hours; let lions
+and dwarfs pass by without any endeavour to get them within the walls;
+lay aside all ambition of making stage waves which may almost equal
+real Ramsgate waves to our cockney apprehensions.&nbsp; Of course there
+must be good players and good plays.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Now we come to the part of Hamlet.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Good players and good plays are both to be
+had if there were good demand for them.&nbsp; But, I was going to say,
+let there be all these things, especially let there be complete ventilation,
+and the theatre will have the most abundant success.&nbsp; Why, that
+one thing alone, the villainous atmosphere at most public places, is
+enough to daunt any sensible man from going to them.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; There should be such a choice of plays - not
+merely Chamberlain-clipt - as any man or woman could go to.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There should be certainly, but how is such
+a choice to be made, if the people who could regulate it, for the most
+part, stay away?&nbsp; It is a dangerous thing, the better classes leaving
+any great source of amusement and instruction wholly, or greatly, to
+the less refined classes.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes, I must confess it is.</p>
+<p>Great part of your arguments apply to musical as well as to theatrical
+entertainments.&nbsp; Do you find similar results with respect to them?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Why, they are not attended by any means as
+they would be, or made what they might be, if the objections I mentioned
+were removed.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What do you say to the out-of-door entertainments
+for a town population?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; As I said before, my dear Dunsford, I cannot
+give you a chapter of a &ldquo;Book of Sports.&rdquo;&nbsp; There ought,
+of course, to be parks for all quarters of the town: and I confess it
+would please me better to see, in holiday times and hours of leisure,
+hearty games going on in these parks, than a number of people sauntering
+about in uncomfortably new and unaccustomed clothes.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Do you not see, Dunsford, that, like a cautious
+official man, he does not want to enter into small details, which have
+always an air of ridicule?&nbsp; He is not prepared to pledge himself
+to cricket, golf, football, or prisoner&rsquo;s bars; but in his heart
+he is manifestly a Young Englander - without the white waistcoat.&nbsp;
+Nothing would please him better than to see in large letters, on one
+of those advertising vans, &ldquo;Great match!&nbsp; Victoria Park!!&nbsp;
+Eleven of Fleet Street against the Eleven of Saffron Hill!!!&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, there is a great deal in the spirit
+of Young England that I like very much, indeed that I respect.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I should like the Young England party better
+myself if I were quite sure there was no connection between them and
+a clan of sour, pity-mongering people, who wash one away with eternal
+talk about the contrast between riches and poverty; with whom a poor
+man is always virtuous; and who would, if they could, make him as envious
+and as discontented as possible.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Nothing can be more strikingly in contrast
+with such thinkers than Young England.&nbsp; Young Englanders, according
+to the best of their theories, ought to be men of warm sympathy with
+all classes.&nbsp; There is no doubt of this, that very seldom does
+any good thing arise, but there comes an ugly phantom of a caricature
+of it, which sidles up against the reality, mouths its favourite words
+as a third-rate actor does a great part, under-mimics its wisdom, over-acts
+its folly, is by half the world taken for it, goes some way to suppress
+it in its own time, and, perhaps, lives for it in history.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well brought out, that metaphor, but I don&rsquo;t
+know that it means more than that the followers of a system do in general
+a good deal to corrupt it, or that when a great principle is worked
+into human affairs, a considerable accretion of human folly and falseness
+mostly grows round it: which things some of us had a suspicion of before.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; To go back to the subject.&nbsp; What would
+you do for country amusements, Milverton?&nbsp; That is what concerns
+me, you know.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Athletic amusements go on naturally here:
+do not require so much fostering as in towns.&nbsp; The commons must
+be carefully kept: I have quite a Cobbettian fear of their being taken
+away from us under some plausible pretext or other.&nbsp; Well, then,
+it strikes me that a great deal might be done to promote the more refined
+pleasures of life among our rural population.&nbsp; I hope we shall
+live to see many of Hullah&rsquo;s pupils playing an important part
+in this way.&nbsp; Of course, the foundation for these things may best
+be laid at schools; and is being laid in some places, I am happy to
+say.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Humph, music, sing-song!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t you observe, Dunsford, that when
+Ellesmere wants to attack us, and does not exactly see how, he mutters
+to himself sarcastically, sneering himself up, as it were, to the attack.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You and Dunsford are both wild for music,
+from barrel-organs upwards.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I confess to liking the humblest attempts
+at melody.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I feel as Sir Thomas Browne tells us he felt,
+that &ldquo;even that vulgar and tavern music, which makes one man merry,
+another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion and a profound contemplation
+of the first composer.&nbsp; There is something in it of divinity more
+than the ear discovers; it is an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson
+of the whole world and creatures of God: such a melody to the ear as
+the whole world well understood, would afford the understanding.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Apropos of music in country places, when
+I was going about last year in the neighbouring county, I saw such a
+pretty scene at one of the towns.&nbsp; They had got up a band, which
+played once a week in the evening.&nbsp; It was a beautiful summer evening,
+and the window of my room at the end overlooked the open space they
+had chosen for their performances.&nbsp; There was the great man of
+the neighbourhood in his carriage looking as if he came partly on duty,
+as well as for pleasure.&nbsp; Then there were burly tradesmen, with
+an air of quiet satisfaction, sauntering about, or leaning against railings.&nbsp;
+Some were no doubt critical - thought that Will Miller did not play
+as well as usual this evening.&nbsp; Will&rsquo;s young wife, who had
+come out to look again at him in his band dress (for the band had a
+uniform), thought differently.&nbsp; Little boys broke out into imaginary
+polkas, having some distant reference to the music: not without grace
+though.&nbsp; The sweep was pre-eminent: as if he would say, &ldquo;Dirty
+and sooty as I am I have a great deal of fun in me.&nbsp; Indeed, what
+would May-day be but for me?&rdquo;&nbsp; Studious little boys of the
+free-school, all green grasshopper-looking, walked about as boys knowing
+something of Latin.&nbsp; Here and there went a couple of them in childish
+loving way, with their arms about each other&rsquo;s necks.&nbsp; Matrons
+and shy young maidens sat upon the door-steps near.&nbsp; Many a merry
+laugh filled up the interludes of music.&nbsp; And when evening came
+softly down upon us, the band finished with &ldquo;God save the Queen,&rdquo;
+the little circle of those who would hear the last note moved off, there
+was a clattering of shutters, a shining of lights through casement-windows,
+and soon the only sound to be heard was the rough voice of some villager,
+who would have been too timid to adventure anything by daylight, but
+now sang boldly out as he went homewards.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Very pretty, but it sounds to me somewhat
+fabulous.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I assure you - </p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, you were tired, had a good dinner, read
+a speech for or against the corn-laws, fell asleep of course, and had
+this ingenious dream, which, to this day, you believe to have been a
+reality.&nbsp; I understand it all.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I wish I could have many more such dreams.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>Our last conversation broke off abruptly on the entrance of a visitor:
+we forgot to name a time for our next meeting; and when I came again,
+I found Milverton alone in his study.&nbsp; He was reading Count Rumford&rsquo;s
+essays.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; So you are reading Count Rumford.&nbsp; What
+is it that interests you there?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Everything he writes about.&nbsp; He is to
+me a delightful writer.&nbsp; He throws so much life into all his writings.&nbsp;
+Whether they are about making the most of food or fuel, or propounding
+the benefits of bathing, or inveighing against smoke, it is that he
+went and saw and did and experimented himself upon himself.&nbsp; His
+proceedings at Munich to feed the poor are more interesting than many
+a novel.&nbsp; It is surprising, too, how far he was before the world
+in all the things he gave his mind to.</p>
+<p>Here Ellesmere entered.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I heard you were come, Dunsford: I hope we
+shall have an essay to-day.&nbsp; My critical faculties have been dormant
+for some days, and want to be roused a little.&nbsp; Milverton was talking
+to you about Count Rumford when I came in, was he not?&nbsp; Ah, the
+Count is a great favourite with Milverton when he is down here; but
+there is a book upstairs which is Milverton&rsquo;s real favourite just
+now, a portentous-looking book; some relation to a blue-book, something
+about sewerage, or health of towns, or public improvements, over which
+said book our friend here goes into enthusiasms.&nbsp; I am sure if
+it could be reduced to the size of that tatterdemalion Horace that he
+carries about, the poor little Horace would be quite supplanted.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Now, I must tell you, Dunsford, that Ellesmere
+himself took up this book he talks about, and it was a long time before
+he put it down.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, there is something in real life, even
+though it is in the unheroic part of it, that interests one.&nbsp; I
+mean to get through the book.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What are we to have to-day for our essay?</p>
+<p>Milverton.&nbsp; Let us adjourn to the garden, and I will read you
+an essay on Greatness, if I can find it.</p>
+<p>We went to our favourite place, and Milverton read us the following
+essay.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>GREATNESS.</p>
+<p>You cannot substitute any epithet for great, when you are talking
+of great men.&nbsp; Greatness is not general dexterity carried to any
+extent; nor proficiency in any one subject of human endeavour.&nbsp;
+There are great astronomers, great scholars, great painters, even great
+poets who are very far from great men.&nbsp; Greatness can do without
+success and with it.&nbsp; William is greater in his retreats than Marlborough
+in his victories.&nbsp; On the other hand, the uniformity of C&aelig;sar&rsquo;s
+success does not dull his greatness.&nbsp; Greatness is not in the circumstances,
+but in the man.</p>
+<p>What does this greatness then consist in?&nbsp; Not in a nice balance
+of qualities, purposes, and powers.&nbsp; That will make a man happy,
+a successful man, a man always in his right depth.&nbsp; Nor does it
+consist in absence of errors.&nbsp; We need only glance back at any
+list that can be made of great men, to be convinced of that.&nbsp; Neither
+does greatness consist in energy, though often accompanied by it.&nbsp;
+Indeed, it is rather the breadth of the waters than the force of the
+current that we look to, to fulfil our idea of greatness.&nbsp; There
+is no doubt that energy acting upon a nature endowed with the qualities
+that we sum up in the word cleverness, and directed to a few clear purposes,
+produces a great effect, and may sometimes be mistaken for greatness.&nbsp;
+If a man is mainly bent upon his own advancement, it cuts many a difficult
+knot of policy for him, and gives a force and distinctness to his mode
+of going on which looks grand.&nbsp; The same happens if he has one
+pre-eminent idea of any kind, even though it should be a narrow one.&nbsp;
+Indeed, success in life is mostly gained by unity of purpose; whereas
+greatness often fails by reason of its having manifold purposes, but
+it does not cease to be greatness on that account.</p>
+<p>If greatness can be shut up in qualities, it will be found to consist
+in courage and in openness of mind and soul.&nbsp; These qualities may
+not seem at first to be so potent.&nbsp; But see what growth there is
+in them.&nbsp; The education of a man of open mind is never ended.&nbsp;
+Then, with openness of soul, a man sees some way into all other souls
+that come near him, feels with them, has their experience, is in himself
+a people.&nbsp; Sympathy is the universal solvent.&nbsp; Nothing is
+understood without it.&nbsp; The capacity of a man, at least for understanding,
+may almost be said to vary according to his powers of sympathy.&nbsp;
+Again, what is there that can counteract selfishness like sympathy?&nbsp;
+Selfishness may be hedged in by minute watchfulness and self-denial,
+but it is counteracted by the nature being encouraged to grow out and
+fix its tendrils upon foreign objects.</p>
+<p>The immense defect that want of sympathy is, may be strikingly seen
+in the failure of the many attempts that have been made in all ages
+to construct the Christian character, omitting sympathy.&nbsp; It has
+produced numbers of people walking up and down one narrow plank of self-restraint,
+pondering over their own merits and demerits, keeping out, not the world
+exactly, but their fellow-creatures from their hearts, and caring only
+to drive their neighbours before them on this plank of theirs, or to
+push them headlong.&nbsp; Thus, with many virtues, and much hard work
+at the formation of character, we have had splendid bigots or censorious
+small people.</p>
+<p>But sympathy is warmth and light too.&nbsp; It is, as it were, the
+moral atmosphere connecting all animated natures.&nbsp; Putting aside,
+for a moment, the large differences that opinions, language, and education
+make between men, look at the innate diversity of character.&nbsp; Natural
+philosophers were amazed when they thought they had found a new-created
+species.&nbsp; But what is each man but a creature such as the world
+has not before seen?&nbsp; Then think how they pour forth in multitudinous
+masses, from princes delicately nurtured to little boys on scrubby commons,
+or in dark cellars.&nbsp; How are these people to be understood, to
+be taught to understand each other, but by those who have the deepest
+sympathies with all?&nbsp; There cannot be a great man without large
+sympathy.&nbsp; There may be men who play loud-sounding parts in life
+without it, as on the stage, where kings and great people sometimes
+enter who are only characters of secondary import - deputy great men.&nbsp;
+But the interest and the instruction lie with those who have to feel
+and suffer most.</p>
+<p>Add courage to this openness we have been considering, and you have
+a man who can own himself in the wrong, can forgive, can trust, can
+adventure, can, in short, use all the means that insight and sympathy
+endow him with.</p>
+<p>I see no other essential characteristics in the greatness of nations
+than there are in the greatness of individuals.&nbsp; Extraneous circumstances
+largely influence nations as individuals; and make a larger part of
+the show of the former than of the latter; as we are wont to consider
+no nation great that is not great in extent or resources, as well as
+in character.&nbsp; But of two nations, equal in other respects, the
+superiority must belong to the one which excels in courage and openness
+of mind and soul.</p>
+<p>Again, in estimating the relative merits of different periods of
+the world, we must employ the same tests of greatness that we use to
+individuals.&nbsp; To compare, for instance, the present and the past.&nbsp;
+What astounds us most in the past is the wonderful intolerance and cruelty:
+a cruelty constantly turning upon the inventors: an intolerance provoking
+ruin to the thing it would foster.&nbsp; The most admirable precepts
+are thrown from time to time upon this cauldron of human affairs, and
+oftentimes they only seem to make it blaze the higher.&nbsp; We find
+men devoting the best part of their intellects to the invariable annoyance
+and persecution of their fellows.&nbsp; You might think that the earth
+brought forth with more abundant fruitfulness in the past than now,
+seeing that men found so much time for cruelty, but that you read of
+famines and privations which these latter days cannot equal.&nbsp; The
+recorded violent deaths amount to millions.&nbsp; And this is but a
+small part of the matter.&nbsp; Consider the modes of justice; the use
+of torture, for instance.&nbsp; What must have been the blinded state
+of the wise persons (wise for their day) who used torture?&nbsp; Did
+they ever think themselves, &ldquo;What should we not say if we were
+subjected to this?&rdquo;&nbsp; Many times they must really have desired
+to get at the truth; and such was their mode of doing it.&nbsp; Now,
+at the risk of being thought &ldquo;a laudator&rdquo; of time present,
+I would say, here is the element of greatness we have made progress
+in.&nbsp; We are more open in mind and soul.&nbsp; We have arrived (some
+of us at least) at the conclusion that men may honestly differ without
+offence.&nbsp; We have learned to pity each other more.&nbsp; There
+is a greatness in modern toleration which our ancestors knew not.</p>
+<p>Then comes the other element of greatness, courage.&nbsp; Have we
+made progress in that?&nbsp; This is a much more dubious question.&nbsp;
+The subjects of terror vary so much in different times that it is difficult
+to estimate the different degrees of courage shown in resisting them.&nbsp;
+Men fear public opinion now as they did in former times the Star Chamber;
+and those awful goddesses, Appearances, are to us what the Fates were
+to the Greeks.&nbsp; It is hardly possible to measure the courage of
+a modern against that of an ancient; but I am unwilling to believe but
+that enlightenment must strengthen courage.</p>
+<p>The application of the tests of greatness, as in the above instance,
+is a matter of detail and of nice appreciation, as to the results of
+which men must be expected to differ largely: the tests themselves remain
+invariable - openness of nature to admit the light of love and reason,
+and courage to pursue it.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I agree to your theory, as far as openness
+of nature is concerned; but I do not much like to put that half-brute
+thing, courage, so high.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, you cannot have greatness without it:
+you may have well-intentioned people and far-seeing people; but if they
+have no stoutness of heart, they will only be shifty or remonstrant,
+nothing like great.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You mean will, not courage.&nbsp; Without
+will, your open-minded, open-hearted man may be like a great, rudderless
+vessel driven about by all winds: not a small craft, but a most uncertain
+one.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No, I mean both: both will and courage.&nbsp;
+Courage is the body to will.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I believe you are right in that; but do not
+omit will.&nbsp; It amused me to see how you brought in one of your
+old notions - that this age is not contemptible.&nbsp; You scribbling
+people are generally on the other side.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You malign us.&nbsp; If I must give any account
+for my personal predilection for modern times, it consists perhaps in
+this, that we may now speak our mind.&nbsp; What Tennyson says of his
+own land,</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;The land where, girt with friend
+or foe,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A man may say the thing
+he will,&rdquo; - </p>
+<p>may be said, in some measure, of the age in which we live.&nbsp;
+This is an inexpressible comfort.&nbsp; This doubles life.&nbsp; These
+things surely may be said in favour of the present age, not with a view
+to puff it up, but so far to encourage ourselves, as we may by seeing
+that the world does not go on for nothing, that all the misery, blood,
+and toil that have been spent, were not poured out in vain.&nbsp; Could
+we have our ancestors again before us, would they not rejoice at seeing
+what they had purchased for us: would they think it any compliment to
+them to extol their times at the expense of the present, and so to intimate
+that their efforts had led to nothing?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; &ldquo;I doubt,&rdquo; as Lord Eldon would
+have said; no, upon second thoughts, I do not doubt.&nbsp; I feel assured
+that a good many of these said ancestors you are calling up would be
+much discomforted at finding that all their suffering had led to no
+sure basis of persecution of the other side.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I wonder, Ellesmere, what you would have done
+in persecuting times.&nbsp; What escape would your sarcasm have found
+for itself?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Some orthodox way, I daresay.&nbsp; I do
+not think he would have been particularly fond of martyrdom.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; No.&nbsp; I have no taste for making torches
+for truth, or being one: I prefer humane darkness to such illumination.&nbsp;
+At the same time one cannot tell lies; and if one had been questioned
+about the incomprehensibilities which men in former days were so fierce
+upon, one must have shown that one disagreed with all parties.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Do not say &ldquo;one:&rdquo;&nbsp; <i>I</i>
+should not have disagreed with the great Protestant leaders in the Reformation,
+for instance.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Humph.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; If we get aground upon the Reformation, we
+shall never push off again - else would I say something far from complimentary
+to those Protestant proceedings which we may rather hope were Tudoresque
+than Protestant.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; No, that is not fair.&nbsp; The Tudors were
+a coarse, fierce race; but it will not do to lay the faults of their
+times upon them only.&nbsp; Look at Elizabeth&rsquo;s ministers.&nbsp;
+They had about as much notion of religious tolerance as they had of
+Professor Wheatstone&rsquo;s telegraph.&nbsp; It was not a growth of
+that age.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I do not know.&nbsp; You have Cardinal Pole
+and the Earl of Essex, both tolerant men in the midst of bigots.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, as you said, Milverton, we shall never
+push off, if we once get aground on this subject.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I am in fault: so I will take upon myself
+to bring you quite away from the Reformation.&nbsp; I have been thinking
+of that comparison in the essay of the present with the past.&nbsp;
+Such comparisons seem to me very useful, as they best enable us to understand
+our own times.&nbsp; And, then, when we have ascertained the state and
+tendency of our own age, we ought to strive to enrich it with those
+qualities which are complementary to its own.&nbsp; Now with all this
+toleration, which delights you so much, dear Milverton, is it not an
+age rather deficient in caring about great matters?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; If you mean great speculative matters, I
+might agree with you; but if you mean what I should call the greatest
+matters, such as charity, humanity, and the like, I should venture to
+differ with you, Dunsford.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I do not like to see the world indifferent
+to great speculative matters.&nbsp; I then fear shallowness and earthiness.</p>
+<p>Milverton.&nbsp; It is very difficult to say what the world is thinking
+of now.&nbsp; It is certainly wrong to suppose that this is a shallow
+age because it is not driven by one impulse.&nbsp; As civilisation advances,
+it becomes more difficult to estimate what is going on, and we set it
+all down as confusion.&nbsp; Now there is not one &ldquo;great antique
+heart,&rdquo; whose beatings we can count, but many impulses, many circles
+of thought in which men are moving many objects.&nbsp; Men are not all
+in the same state of progress, so cannot be moved in masses as of old.&nbsp;
+At one time chivalry urged all men, then the Church, and the phenomena
+were few, simple, and broad, or at least they seem so in history.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Very true; still I agree somewhat with Dunsford,
+that men are not agitated as they used to be by the great speculative
+questions.&nbsp; I account for it in this way, that the material world
+has opened out before us, and we cannot but look at that, and must play
+with it and work at it.&nbsp; I would say, too, that philosophy had
+been found out, and there is something in that.&nbsp; Still, I think
+if it were not for the interest now attaching to material things, great
+intellectual questions, not exactly of the old kind, would arise and
+agitate the world.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is one thing in my mind that may confirm
+your view.&nbsp; I cannot but think that the enlarged view we have of
+the universe must in some measure damp personal ambition.&nbsp; What
+is it to be a King, Sheik, Tetrarch, or Emperor, over a bit of a little
+bit?&nbsp; Macbeth&rsquo;s speech, &ldquo;we&rsquo;d jump the life to
+come,&rdquo; is a thing a man with modern lights, however madly ambitious,
+would hardly utter.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Religious lights, Milverton.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Of course not, if he had them; but I meant
+scientific lights.&nbsp; Sway over our fellow-creatures, at any rate
+anything but mental sway, has shrunk into less proportions.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I have been looking over the essay.&nbsp;
+I think you may put in somewhere - that that age would probably be the
+greatest in which there was the least difference between great men and
+the people in general - when the former were only neglected, not hunted
+down.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You are rather lengthy here about the cruelties
+to be found in history; but we are apt to forget these matters.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; They always press upon my mind.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; And on mine.&nbsp; I do not like to read much
+of history for that very reason.&nbsp; I get so sick at heart about
+it all.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Ah, yes, history is a stupendous thing.&nbsp;
+To read it is like looking at the stars; we turn away in awe and perplexity.&nbsp;
+Yet there is some method running through the little affairs of man as
+through the multitude of suns, seemingly to us as confused as routed
+armies in full flight.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Some law of love.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am afraid it is not in the past alone that
+we should be awestruck with horrors: we, who have a slave-trade still
+on earth.&nbsp; But, to go back to the essay, I like what you say about
+the theory of constructing the Christian character without geniality;
+only you do not go far enough.&nbsp; You are afraid.&nbsp; People are
+for ever talking, especially you philanthropical people, about making
+others happy.&nbsp; I do not know any way so sure of making others happy
+as of being so oneself, to begin with.&nbsp; I do not mean that people
+are to be self-absorbed; but they are to drink in nature and life a
+little.&nbsp; From a genial, wisely-developed man good things radiate;
+whereas you must allow, Milverton, that benevolent people are very apt
+to be one-sided and fussy, and not of the sweetest temper if others
+will not be good and happy in their way.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; That is really not fair.&nbsp; Of course,
+acid, small-minded people carry their narrow notions and their acidity
+into their benevolence.&nbsp; Benevolence is no abstract perfection.&nbsp;
+Men will express their benevolence according to their other gifts or
+want of gifts.&nbsp; If it is strong, it overcomes other things in the
+character which would be hindrances to it; but it must speak in the
+language of the soul it is in.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Come, let us go and see the pigs.&nbsp; I
+hear them grunting over their dinners in the farmyard.&nbsp; I like
+to see creatures who can be happy without a theory.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>The next time that I came over to Worth-Ashton it was raining, and
+I found my friends in the study.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Dunsford,&rdquo; said Ellesmere, &ldquo;is it not comfortable
+to have our sessions here for once, and to be looking out on a good
+solid English wet day?&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Rather a fluid than a solid.&nbsp; But I agree
+with you in thinking it is very comfortable here.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I like to look upon the backs of books.&nbsp;
+First I think how much of the owner&rsquo;s inner life and character
+is shown in his books; then perhaps I wonder how he got such a book
+which seems so remote from all that I know of him - </p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I shall turn my books the wrong side upwards
+when you come into the study.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; But what amuses me most is to see the odd
+way in which books get together, especially in the library of a man
+who reads his books and puts them up again wherever there is room.&nbsp;
+Now here is a charming party: &ldquo;A Treatise on the Steam-Engine&rdquo;
+between &ldquo;Locke on Christianity&rdquo; and Madame de Stael&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Corinne.&rdquo;&nbsp; I wonder what they talk about at night
+when we are all asleep.&nbsp; Here is another happy juxtaposition: old
+Clarendon next to a modern metaphysician whom he would positively loathe.&nbsp;
+Here is Sadler next to Malthus, and Horsley next to Priestley; but this
+sort of thing happens most in the best regulated libraries.&nbsp; It
+is a charming reflection for controversial writers, that their works
+will be put together on the same shelves, often between the same covers;
+and that, in the minds of educated men, the name of one writer will
+be sure to recall the name of the other.&nbsp; So they go down to posterity
+as a brotherhood.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; To complete Ellesmere&rsquo;s theory, we
+may say that all those injuries to books which we choose to throw upon
+some wretched worm, are but the wounds from rival books.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Certainly.&nbsp; But now let us proceed to
+polish up the weapons of another of these spiteful creatures.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; What is to be our essay to-day,
+Milverton?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Fiction.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Now, that is really unfortunate.&nbsp; Fiction
+is just the subject to be discussed - no, not discussed, talked over
+- out of doors on a hot day, all of us lying about in easy attitudes
+on the grass, Dunsford with his gaiters forming a most picturesque and
+prominent figure.&nbsp; But there is nothing complete in this life.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Surgit amari aliquid:&rdquo; and so we must listen to Fiction
+in arm-chairs.</p>
+<p>FICTION.</p>
+<p>The influence of works of fiction is unbounded.&nbsp; Even the minds
+of well-informed people are often more stored with characters from acknowledged
+fiction than from history or biography, or the real life around them.&nbsp;
+We dispute about these characters as if they were realities.&nbsp; Their
+experience is our experience; we adopt their feelings, and imitate their
+acts.&nbsp; And so there comes to be something traditional even in the
+management of the passions.&nbsp; Shakespeare&rsquo;s historical plays
+were the only history to the Duke of Marlborough.&nbsp; Thousands of
+Greeks acted under the influence of what Achilles or Ulysses did, in
+Homer.&nbsp; The poet sings of the deeds that shall be.&nbsp; He imagines
+the past; he forms the future.</p>
+<p>Yet how surpassingly interesting is real life when we get an insight
+into it.&nbsp; Occasionally a great genius lifts up the veil of history,
+and we see men who once really were alive, who did not always live only
+in history; or, amidst the dreary page of battles, levies, sieges, and
+the sleep-inducing weavings and unweavings of political combination,
+we come, ourselves, across some spoken or written words of the great
+actors of the time, and are then fascinated by the life and reality
+of these things.&nbsp; Could you have the life of any man really portrayed
+to you, sun-drawn as it were, its hopes, its fears, its revolutions
+of opinion in each day, its most anxious wishes attained, and then,
+perhaps, crystallising into its blackest regrets - such a work would
+go far to contain all histories, and be the greatest lesson of love,
+humility, and tolerance, that men had ever read.</p>
+<p>Now fiction does attempt something like the above.&nbsp; In history
+we are cramped by impertinent facts that must, however, be set down;
+by theories that must be answered; evidence that must be weighed; views
+that must be taken.&nbsp; Our facts constantly break off just where
+we should wish to examine them most closely.&nbsp; The writer of fiction
+follows his characters into the recesses of their hearts.&nbsp; There
+are no closed doors for him.&nbsp; His puppets have no secrets from
+their master.&nbsp; He plagues you with no doubts, no half-views, no
+criticism.&nbsp; Thus they thought, he tells you; thus they looked,
+thus they acted.&nbsp; Then, with every opportunity for scenic arrangement
+(for though his characters are confidential with him, he is only as
+confidential with his reader as the interest of the story will allow),
+it is not to be wondered at that the majority of readers should look
+upon history as a task, but tales of fiction as a delight.</p>
+<p>The greatest merit of fiction is the one so ably put forward by Sir
+James Mackintosh, namely, that it creates and nourishes sympathy.&nbsp;
+It extends this sympathy, too, in directions where, otherwise, we hardly
+see when it would have come.&nbsp; But it may be objected that this
+sympathy is indiscriminate, and that we are in danger of mixing up virtue
+and vice, and blurring both, if we are led to sympathise with all manner
+of wrong-doers.&nbsp; But, in the first place, virtue and vice are so
+mixed in real life, that it is well to be somewhat prepared for that
+fact; and, moreover, the sympathy is not wrongly directed.&nbsp; Who
+has not felt intense sympathy for Macbeth?&nbsp; Yet could he be alive
+again, with evil thoughts against &ldquo;the gracious Duncan,&rdquo;
+and could he see into all that has been felt for him, would that be
+an encouragement to murder?&nbsp; The intense pity of wise people for
+the crimes of others, when rightly represented, is one of the strongest
+antidotes against crime.&nbsp; We have taken the extreme case of sympathy
+being directed towards bad men.&nbsp; How often has fiction made us
+sympathise with obscure suffering and retiring greatness, with the world-despised,
+and especially with those mixed characters in whom we might otherwise
+see but one colour - with Shylock and with Hamlet, with Jeanie Deans
+and with Claverhouse, with Sancho Panza as well as with Don Quixote.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>On the other hand, there is a danger of too much converse with fiction
+leading us into dream-land, or rather into lubber-land.&nbsp; Of course
+this &ldquo;too much converse&rdquo; implies large converse with inferior
+writers.&nbsp; Such writers are too apt to make life as they would have
+it for themselves.&nbsp; Sometimes, also, they must make it to suit
+booksellers&rsquo; rules.&nbsp; Having such power over their puppets
+they abuse it.&nbsp; They can kill these puppets, change their natures
+suddenly, reward or punish them so easily, that it is no wonder they
+are led to play fantastic tricks with them.&nbsp; Now, if a sedulous
+reader of the works of such writers should form his notions of real
+life from them, he would occasionally meet with rude shocks when he
+encountered the realities of that life.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>For my own part, notwithstanding all the charms of life in swiftly-written
+novels, I prefer real life.&nbsp; It is true that, in the former, everything
+breaks off round, every little event tends to some great thing, everybody
+one meets is to exercise some great influence for good or ill upon one&rsquo;s
+fate.&nbsp; I take it for granted one fancies oneself the hero.&nbsp;
+Then all one&rsquo;s fancy is paid in ready money, or at least one can
+draw upon it at the end of the third volume.&nbsp; One leaps to remote
+wealth and honour by hairbreadth chances; and one&rsquo;s uncle in India
+always dies opportunely.&nbsp; To be sure the thought occurs, that if
+this novel life could be turned into real life, one might be the uncle
+in India and not the hero of the tale.&nbsp; But that is a trifling
+matter, for at any rate one should carry on with spirit somebody else&rsquo;s
+story.&nbsp; On the whole, however, as I said before, I prefer real
+life, where nothing is tied up neatly, but all in odds and ends; where
+the doctrine of compensation enters largely, where we are often most
+blamed when we least deserve it, where there is no third volume to make
+things straight, and where many an Augustus marries many a Belinda,
+and, instead of being happy ever afterwards, finds that there is a growth
+of trials and troubles for each successive period of man&rsquo;s life.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>In considering the subject of fiction, the responsibility of the
+writers thereof is a matter worth pointing out.&nbsp; We see clearly
+enough that historians are to be limited by facts and probabilities;
+but we are apt to make a large allowance for the fancies of writers
+of fiction.&nbsp; We must remember, however, that fiction is not falsehood.&nbsp;
+If a writer puts abstract virtues into book-clothing, and sends them
+upon stilts into the world, he is a bad writer: if he classifies men,
+and attributes all virtue to one class and all vice to another, he is
+a false writer.&nbsp; Then, again, if his ideal is so poor, that he
+fancies man&rsquo;s welfare to consist in immediate happiness; if he
+means to paint a great man and paints only a greedy one, he is a mischievous
+writer and not the less so, although by lamplight and amongst a juvenile
+audience, his coarse scene-painting should be thought very grand.&nbsp;
+He may be true to his own fancy, but he is false to Nature.&nbsp; A
+writer, of course, cannot get beyond his own ideal: but at least he
+should see that he works up to it: and if it is a poor one, he had better
+write histories of the utmost concentration of dulness, than amuse us
+with unjust and untrue imaginings.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am glad you have kept to the obvious things
+about fiction.&nbsp; It would have been a great nuisance to have had
+to follow you through intricate theories about what fiction consists
+in, and what are its limits, and so on.&nbsp; Then we should have got
+into questions touching the laws of representation generally, and then
+into art, of which, between ourselves, you know very little.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Talking of representation, what do you two,
+who have now seen something of the world, think about representative
+government?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Dunsford plumps down upon us sometimes with
+awful questions: what do you think of all philosophy? or what is your
+opinion of life in general?&nbsp; Could not you throw in a few small
+questions of that kind, together with your representative one, and we
+might try to answer them all at once.&nbsp; Dunsford is only laughing
+at us, Milverton.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No, I know what was in Dunsford&rsquo;s mind
+when he asked that question.&nbsp; He has had his doubts and misgivings,
+when he has been reading a six nights&rsquo; debate (for the people
+in the country I daresay do read those things), whether representative
+government is the most complete device the human mind could suggest
+for getting at wise rulers.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; It is a doubt which has crossed my mind.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; And mine; but the doubt, if it has ever been
+more than mere petulance, has not had much practical weight with me.&nbsp;
+Look how the business of the world is managed.&nbsp; There are a few
+people who think out things, and a few who execute.&nbsp; The former
+are not to be secured by any device.&nbsp; They are gifts.&nbsp; The
+latter may be well chosen, have often been well chosen, under other
+forms of government than the representative one.&nbsp; I believe that
+the favourites of kings have been a superior race of men.&nbsp; Even
+a fool does not choose a fool for a favourite.&nbsp; He knows better
+than that: he must have something to lean against.&nbsp; But between
+the thinkers and the doers (if, indeed, we ought to make such a distinction),
+<i>what a number of useful links there are in a representative government</i>
+on account of the much larger number of people admitted into some share
+of government.&nbsp; What general cultivation must come from that, and
+what security!&nbsp; Of course, everything has its wrong side; and from
+this number of people let in there comes declamation and claptrap and
+mob-service, which is much the same thing as courtiership was in other
+times.&nbsp; But then, to make the comparison a fair one, you must take
+the wrong side of any other form of government that has been devised.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, but so much power centring in the lower
+house of Parliament, and the getting into Parliament being a thing which
+is not very inviting to the kind of people one would most like to see
+there, do you not think that the ablest men are kept away?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; but if you make your governing body
+a unit or a ten, or any small number, how is this power, unless it is
+Argus-eyed, and myriad-minded, and right-minded too, to choose the right
+men any better than they are found now?&nbsp; The great danger, as it
+appears to me, of representative government is lest it should slide
+down from representative government to delegate government.&nbsp; In
+my opinion, the welfare of England, in great measure, depends upon what
+takes place at the hustings.&nbsp; If, in the majority of instances,
+there were abject conduct there, electors and elected would be alike
+debased; upright public men could not be expected to arise from such
+beginnings; and thoughtful persons would begin to consider whether some
+other form of government could not forthwith be made out.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I have a supreme disgust for the man who
+at the hustings has no opinion beyond or above the clamour round him.&nbsp;
+How such a fellow would have kissed the ground before a Pompadour, or
+waited for hours in a Buckingham&rsquo;s antechamber, only to catch
+the faintest beam of reflected light from royalty.</p>
+<p>But I declare we have been just like schoolboys talking about forms
+of government and so on.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;For forms of government let
+fools contest,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That which is
+<i>worst</i> administered is best,&rdquo; - </p>
+<p>that is, representative government.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I should not like either of you to fancy,
+from what I have been saying about representative government, that I
+do not see the dangers and the evils of it.&nbsp; In fact, it is a frequent
+thought with me of what importance the House of Lords is at present,
+and of how much greater importance it might be made.&nbsp; If there
+were Peers for life, and official members of the House of Commons, it
+would, I think, meet most of your objections, Dunsford.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I suppose I am becoming a little rusty and
+disposed to grumble, as I grow old; but there is a good deal in modern
+government which seems to me very rude and absurd.&nbsp; There comes
+a clamour, partly reasonable; power is deaf to it, overlooks it, says
+there is no such thing; then great clamour; after a time, power welcomes
+that, takes it to its arms, says that now it is loud it is very wise,
+wishes it had always been clamour itself.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; How many acres do you farm, Dunsford?&nbsp;
+How spiteful you are!</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I am not thinking of Corn Laws alone, as you
+fancy, Master Ellesmere.&nbsp; But to go to other things.&nbsp; I quite
+agree, Milverton, with what you were saying just now about the business
+of the world being carried on by few, and the thinking few being in
+the nature of gifts to the world, not elicited by King or Kaiser.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The mill-streams that turn the clappers of
+the world arise in solitary places.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Not a bad metaphor, but untrue.&nbsp; Aristotle,
+Bacon - </p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, I believe it would be much wiser to
+say, that we cannot lay down rules about the highest work; either when
+it is done, where it will be done, or how it can be made to be done.&nbsp;
+It is too immaterial for our measurement; for the highest part even
+of the mere business of the world is in dealing with ideas.&nbsp; It
+is very amusing to observe the misconceptions of men on these points.&nbsp;
+They call for what is outward - can understand that, can praise it.&nbsp;
+Fussiness and the forms of activity in all ages get great praise.&nbsp;
+Imagine an active, bustling little pr&aelig;tor under Augustus, how
+he probably pointed out Horace to his sons as a moony kind of man, whose
+ways were much to be avoided, and told them it was a weakness in Augustus
+to like such idle men about him instead of men of business.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Or fancy a bustling Glasgow merchant of Adam
+Smith&rsquo;s day watching him.&nbsp; How little would the merchant
+have dreamt what a number of vessels were to be floated away by the
+ink in the Professor&rsquo;s inkstand; and what crashing of axes, and
+clearing of forests in distant lands, the noise of his pen upon the
+paper portended.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It is not only the effect of the still-working
+man that the busy man cannot anticipate, but neither can he comprehend
+the present labour.&nbsp; If Horace had told my pr&aelig;tor that</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Abstinuit Venere et vino, sudavit
+et alsit,&rdquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;What, to write a few lines!&rdquo; would his pr&aelig;torship
+have cried out.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why, I can live well and enjoy life; and
+I flatter myself no one in Rome does more business.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; All of it only goes to show how little we
+know of each other, and how tolerant we ought to be of others&rsquo;
+efforts.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The trials that there must be every day without
+any incident that even the most minute household chronicler could set
+down: the labours without show or noise!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; The deep things that there are which, with
+unthinking people, pass for shallow things, merely because they are
+clear as well as deep.&nbsp; My fable of the other day, for instance
+- which instead of producing any moral effect upon you two, only seemed
+to make you both inclined to giggle.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I am so glad you reminded me of that.&nbsp;
+I, too, fired with a noble emulation, have invented a fable since we
+last met which I want you to hear.&nbsp; I assure you I did not mean
+to laugh at yours: it was only that it came rather unexpectedly upon
+me.&nbsp; You are not exactly the person from whom one should expect
+fables.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Now for the fable.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There was a gathering together of creatures
+hurtful and terrible to man, to name their king.&nbsp; Blight, mildew,
+darkness, mighty waves, fierce winds, Will-o&rsquo;-the-wisps, and shadows
+of grim objects, told fearfully their doings and preferred their claims,
+none prevailing.&nbsp; But when evening came on, a thin mist curled
+up, derisively, amidst the assemblage, and said, &ldquo;I gather round
+a man going to his own home over paths made by his daily footsteps;
+and he becomes at once helpless and tame as a child.&nbsp; The lights
+meant to assist him, then betray.&nbsp; You find him wandering, or need
+the aid of other Terrors to subdue him.&nbsp; I am, alone, confusion
+to him.&rdquo;&nbsp; And all the assemblage bowed before the mist, and
+made it king, and set it on the brow of many a mountain, where, when
+it is not doing evil, it may be often seen to this day.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, I like that fable: only I am not quite
+clear about the meaning.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You had no doubt about mine.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Is the mist calumny, Milverton?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; No, prejudice, I am sure.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Familiarity with the things around us, obscuring
+knowledge?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would rather not explain.&nbsp; Each of
+you make your own fable of it.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, if ever I make a fable, it shall be
+one of the old-fashioned sort, with animals for the speakers, and a
+good easy moral.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Not a thing requiring the notes of seven
+German metaphysicians.&nbsp; I must go and talk a little to my friends
+the trees, and see if I can get any explanation from them.&nbsp; It
+is turning out a beautiful day after all, notwithstanding my praise
+of its solidity.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>We met as usual at our old spot on the lawn for our next reading.&nbsp;
+I forget what took place before reading, except that Ellesmere was very
+jocose about our reading &ldquo;Fiction&rdquo; in-doors, and the following
+&ldquo;November Essay,&rdquo; as he called it, &ldquo;under a jovial
+sun, and with the power of getting up and walking away from each other
+to any extent.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>ON THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS.</p>
+<p>The &ldquo;Iliad&rdquo; for war; the &ldquo;Odyssey&rdquo; for wandering;
+but where is the great domestic epic?&nbsp; Yet it is but commonplace
+to say, that passions may rage round a tea-table, which would not have
+misbecome men dashing at one another in war-chariots; and evolutions
+of patience and temper are performed at the fireside, worthy to be compared
+with the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.&nbsp; Men have worshipped some
+fantastic being for living alone in a wilderness; but social martyrdoms
+place no saints upon the calendar.</p>
+<p>We may blind ourselves to it if we like, but the hatreds and disgusts
+that there are behind friendship, relationship, service, and, indeed,
+proximity of all kinds, is one of the darkest spots upon earth.&nbsp;
+The various relations of life, which bring people together, cannot,
+as we know, be perfectly fulfilled except in a state where there will,
+perhaps, be no occasion for any of them.&nbsp; It is no harm, however,
+to endeavour to see whether there are any methods which may make these
+relations in the least degree more harmonious now.</p>
+<p>In the first place, if people are to live happily together, they
+must not fancy, because they are thrown together now, that all their
+lives have been exactly similar up to the present time, that they started
+exactly alike, and that they are to be for the future of the same mind.&nbsp;
+A thorough conviction of the difference of men is the great thing to
+be assured of in social knowledge: it is to life what Newton&rsquo;s
+law is to astronomy.&nbsp; Sometimes men have a knowledge of it with
+regard to the world in general: they do not expect the outer world to
+agree with them in all points, but are vexed at not being able to drive
+their own tastes and opinions into those they live with.&nbsp; Diversities
+distress them.&nbsp; They will not see that there are many forms of
+virtue and wisdom.&nbsp; Yet we might as well say, &ldquo;Why all these
+stars; why this difference; why not all one star?&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Many of the rules for people living together in peace follow from
+the above.&nbsp; For instance, not to interfere unreasonably with others,
+not to ridicule their tastes, not to question and re-question their
+resolves, not to indulge in perpetual comment on their proceedings,
+and to delight in their having other pursuits than ours, are all based
+upon a thorough perception of the simple fact that they are not we.</p>
+<p>Another rule for living happily with others is to avoid having stock
+subjects of disputation.&nbsp; It mostly happens, when people live much
+together, that they come to have certain set topics, around which, from
+frequent dispute, there is such a growth of angry words, mortified vanity,
+and the like, that the original subject of difference becomes a standing
+subject for quarrel; and there is a tendency in all minor disputes to
+drift down to it.</p>
+<p>Again, if people wish to live well together, they must not hold too
+much to logic, and suppose that everything is to be settled by sufficient
+reason.&nbsp; Dr. Johnson saw this clearly with regard to married people,
+when he said, &ldquo;Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretchedness,
+who should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute
+detail of a domestic day.&rdquo;&nbsp; But the application should be
+much more general than he made it.&nbsp; There is no time for such reasonings,
+and nothing that is worth them.&nbsp; And when we recollect how two
+lawyers, or two politicians, can go on contending, and that there is
+no end of one-sided reasoning on any subject, we shall not be sure that
+such contention is the best mode for arriving at truth.&nbsp; But certainly
+it is not the way to arrive at good temper.</p>
+<p>If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism
+upon those with whom you live.&nbsp; The number of people who have taken
+out judges&rsquo; patents for themselves is very large in any society.&nbsp;
+Now it would be hard for a man to live with another who was always criticising
+his actions, even if it were kindly and just criticism.&nbsp; It would
+be like living between the glasses of a microscope.&nbsp; But these
+self-elected judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to have the
+persons they judge brought before them in the guise of culprits.</p>
+<p>One of the most provoking forms of the criticism above alluded to
+is that which may be called criticism over the shoulder.&nbsp; &ldquo;Had
+I been consulted,&rdquo; &ldquo;Had you listened to me,&rdquo; &ldquo;But
+you always will,&rdquo; and such short scraps of sentences may remind
+many of us of dissertations which we have suffered and inflicted, and
+of which we cannot call to mind any soothing effect.</p>
+<p>Another rule is, not to let familiarity swallow up all courtesy.&nbsp;
+Many of us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things
+as we say about strangers behind their backs.&nbsp; There is no place,
+however, where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly
+think it would be superfluous.&nbsp; You may say more truth, or rather
+speak out more plainly, to your associates, but not less courteously
+than you do to strangers.</p>
+<p>Again, we must not expect more from the society of our friends and
+companions than it can give, and especially must not expect contrary
+things.&nbsp; It is something arrogant to talk of travelling over other
+minds (mind being, for what we know, infinite); but still we become
+familiar with the upper views, tastes, and tempers of our associates.&nbsp;
+And it is hardly in man to estimate justly what is familiar to him.&nbsp;
+In travelling along at night, as Hazlitt says, we catch a glimpse into
+cheerful-looking rooms with light blazing in them, and we conclude involuntarily
+how happy the inmates must be.&nbsp; Yet there is heaven and hell in
+those rooms - the same heaven and hell that we have known in others.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>There are two great classes of promoters of social happiness - cheerful
+people, and people who have some reticence.&nbsp; The latter are more
+secure benefits to society even than the former.&nbsp; They are non-conductors
+of all the heats and animosities around them.&nbsp; To have peace in
+a house, or a family, or any social circle, the members of it must beware
+of passing on hasty and uncharitable speeches, which, the whole of the
+context seldom being told, is often not conveying but creating mischief.&nbsp;
+They must be very good people to avoid doing this; for let Human Nature
+say what it will, it likes sometimes to look on at a quarrel, and that
+not altogether from ill-nature, but from a love of excitement, for the
+same reason that Charles II. liked to attend the debates in the Lords,
+because they were &ldquo;as good as a play.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>We come now to the consideration of temper, which might have been
+expected to be treated first.&nbsp; But to cut off the means and causes
+of bad temper is, perhaps, of as much importance as any direct dealing
+with the temper itself.&nbsp; Besides, it is probable that in small
+social circles there is more suffering from unkindness than ill-temper.&nbsp;
+Anger is a thing that those who live under us suffer more from than
+those who live with us.&nbsp; But all the forms of ill-humour and sour-sensitiveness,
+which especially belong to equal intimacy (though indeed, they are common
+to all), are best to be met by impassiveness.&nbsp; When two sensitive
+persons are shut up together, they go on vexing each other with a reproductive
+irritability. <a name="citation93"></a><a href="#footnote93">{93}</a>&nbsp;
+But sensitive and hard people get on well together.&nbsp; The supply
+of temper is not altogether out of the usual laws of supply and demand.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Intimate friends and relations should be careful when they go out
+into the world together, or admit others to their own circle, that they
+do not make a bad use of the knowledge which they have gained of each
+other by their intimacy.&nbsp; Nothing is more common than this, and
+did it not mostly proceed from mere carelessness, it would be superlatively
+ungenerous.&nbsp; You seldom need wait for the written life of a man
+to hear about his weaknesses, or what are supposed to be such, if you
+know his intimate friends, or meet him in company with them.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Lastly, in conciliating those we live with, it is most surely done,
+not by consulting their interests, nor by giving way to their opinions,
+so much as by not offending their tastes.&nbsp; The most refined part
+of us lies in this region of taste, which is perhaps a result of our
+whole being rather than a part of our nature, and, at any rate, is the
+region of our most subtle sympathies and antipathies.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It may be said that if the great principles of Christianity were
+attended to, all such rules, suggestions, and observations as the above
+would be needless.&nbsp; True enough!&nbsp; Great principles are at
+the bottom of all things; but to apply them to daily life, many little
+rules, precautions, and insights are needed.&nbsp; Such things hold
+a middle place between real life and principles, as form does between
+matter and spirit, moulding the one and expressing the other.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Quite right that last part.&nbsp; Everybody
+must have known really good people, with all Christian temper, but having
+so little Christian prudence as to do a great deal of mischief in society.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; There is one case, my dear Milverton, which
+I do not think you have considered: the case where people live unhappily
+together, not from any bad relations between them, but because they
+do not agree about the treatment of others.&nbsp; A just person, for
+instance, who would bear anything for himself or herself, must remonstrate,
+at the hazard of any disagreement, at injustice to others.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; That, however, is a case to be
+decided upon higher considerations than those I have been treating of.&nbsp;
+A man must do his duty in the way of preventing injustice, and take
+what comes of it.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; For people to live happily together, the
+real secret is that they should not live too much together.&nbsp; Of
+course, you cannot say that; it would sound harsh, and cut short the
+essay altogether.</p>
+<p>Again, you talk about tastes and &ldquo;region of subtle sympathies,&rdquo;
+and all that.&nbsp; I have observed that if people&rsquo;s vanity is
+pleased, they live well enough together.&nbsp; Offended vanity is the
+great separator.&nbsp; You hear a man (call him B) saying that he is
+really not himself before So-and-so; tell him that So-and-so admires
+him very much and is himself rather abashed before B, and B is straightway
+comfortable, and they get on harmoniously together, and you hear no
+more about subtle sympathies or antipathies.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What a low view you do take of things sometimes,
+Ellesmere!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I should not care how low it was, but it
+is not fair - at least, it does not contain the whole matter.&nbsp;
+In the very case he has put, there was a subtle embarrassment between
+B and So-and-so.&nbsp; Well, now, let these people not merely meet occasionally,
+but be obliged to live together, without any such explanation as Ellesmere
+has imagined, and they will be very uncomfortable from causes that you
+cannot impute to vanity.&nbsp; It takes away much of the savour of life
+to live amongst those with whom one has not anything like one&rsquo;s
+fair value.&nbsp; It may not be mortified vanity, but unsatisfied sympathy,
+which causes this discomfort.&nbsp; B thinks that the other does not
+know him; he feels that he has no place with the other.&nbsp; When there
+is intense admiration on one side, there is hardly a care in the mind
+of the admiring one as to what estimation he is held in.&nbsp; But,
+in ordinary cases, some clearly defined respect and acknowledgment of
+worth is needed on both sides.&nbsp; See how happy a man is in any office
+or service who is acknowledged to do something well.&nbsp; How comfortable
+he is with his superiors!&nbsp; He has his place.&nbsp; It is not exactly
+a satisfaction of his vanity, but an acknowledgment of his useful existence
+that contents him.&nbsp; I do not mean to say that there are not innumerable
+claims for acknowledgment of merit and service made by rampant vanity
+and egotism, which claims cannot be satisfied, ought not to be satisfied,
+and which, being unsatisfied, embitter people.&nbsp; But I think your
+word Vanity will not explain all the feelings we have been talking about.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Perhaps not.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Certainly not.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, at any rate, you will admit that there
+is a class of dreadfully humble people who make immense claims at the
+very time that they are explaining that they have no claims.&nbsp; They
+say they know they cannot be esteemed; they are well aware that they
+are not wanted, and so on, all the while making it a sort of grievance
+and a claim that they are not what they know themselves not to be; whereas,
+if they did but fall back upon their humility, and keep themselves quiet
+about their demerits, they would be strong then, and in their place
+and happy, doing what they could.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It must be confessed that these people do
+make their humility somewhat obnoxious.&nbsp; Yet, after all, you allow
+that they know their deficiencies, and they only say, &ldquo;I know
+I have not much to recommend me, but I wish to be loved, nevertheless.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Ah, if they only said it a few times!&nbsp;
+Besides, there is a little envy mixed up with the humility that I mean.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Travelling is a great trial of people&rsquo;s
+ability to live together.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; Lavater says that you do not know
+a man until you have divided an inheritance with him; but I think a
+long journey with him will do.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, and what is it in travelling that makes
+people disagree?&nbsp; Not direct selfishness, but injudicious management;
+stupid regrets, for instance, at things not being different from what
+they are, or from what they might have been, if &ldquo;the other route&rdquo;
+had been chosen; fellow-travellers punishing each other with each other&rsquo;s
+tastes; getting stock subjects of disputation; laughing unseasonably
+at each other&rsquo;s vexations and discomforts; and endeavouring to
+settle everything by the force of sufficient reason, instead of by some
+authorised will, or by tossing up.&nbsp; Thus, in the short time of
+a journey, almost all modes and causes of human disagreement are brought
+into action.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; My favourite one not being the least - over-much
+of each other&rsquo;s company.</p>
+<p>For my part, I think one of the greatest bores of companionship is,
+not merely that people wish to fit tastes and notions on you just as
+they might the first pair of ready-made shoes they meet with, a process
+amusing enough to the bystander, but exquisitely uncomfortable to the
+person being ready-shod: but that they bore you with never-ending talk
+about their pursuits, even when they know that you do not work in the
+same groove with them, and that they cannot hope to make you do so.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Nobody can accuse you of that fault, Ellesmere:
+I never heard you dilate much upon anything that interested you, though
+I have known you have some pet subject, and to be working at it for
+months.&nbsp; But this comes of your coldness of nature.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, it might bear a more favourable construction.&nbsp;
+But to go back to the essay.&nbsp; It only contemplates the fact of
+people living together as equals, if we may so say; but in general,
+of course, you must add some other relationship or connection than that
+of merely being together.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I had not overlooked that; but there are
+certain general rules in the matter that may be applied to nearly all
+relationship, just as I have taken that one from Johnson, applied by
+him to married life, about not endeavouring to settle all things by
+reasoning, and have given it a general application which, I believe,
+it will bear.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; There is one thing that I should think must
+often make women very unreasonable and unpleasant companions.&nbsp;
+Oh, you may both hold up your hands and eyes, but I am not married,
+and can say what I please.&nbsp; Of course you put on the proper official
+look of astonishment; and I will duly report it.&nbsp; But I was going
+to say that Chivalry, which has doubtless done a great deal of good,
+has also done a great deal of harm.&nbsp; Women may talk the greatest
+unreason out of doors, and nobody kindly informs them that it is unreason.&nbsp;
+They do not talk much before clever men, and when they do, their words
+are humoured and dandled as children&rsquo;s sayings are.&nbsp; Now,
+I should fancy - mind, I do not want either of you to say that my fancy
+is otherwise than quite unreasonable - I should fancy that when women
+have to hear reason at home it must sound odd to them.&nbsp; The truth
+is, you know, we cannot pet anything much without doing it mischief.&nbsp;
+You cannot pet the intellect, any more than the will, without injuring
+it.&nbsp; Well then, again, if you put people upon a pedestal and do
+a great deal of worship around them, I cannot think but the will in
+such cases must become rather corrupted, and that lessons of obedience
+must fall rather harshly - </p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Why, you Mahometan, you Turk of a lawyer -
+would you do away with all the high things of courtesy, tenderness for
+the weaker, and - </p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No, I see what he means; and there is something
+in it.&nbsp; Many a woman is brought up in unreason and self-will from
+these causes that he has given, as many a man from other causes; but
+there is one great corrective that he has omitted, and which is, that
+all forms, fashions, and outward things have a tendency to go down before
+realities when they come hand to hand together.&nbsp; Knowledge and
+judgment prevail.&nbsp; Governing is apt to fall to the right person
+in private as in public affairs.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Those who give way in public affairs, and
+let the men who can do a thing do it, are so far wise that they know
+what is to be done, mostly.&nbsp; But the very things I am arguing against
+are the unreason and self-will, which being constantly pampered, do
+not appreciate reason or just sway.&nbsp; Besides, is there not a force
+in ill-humour and unreason to which you constantly see the wisest bend?&nbsp;
+You will come round to my opinion some day.&nbsp; I do not want, though,
+to convince you.&nbsp; It is no business of mine.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, I may be wrong, but I think, when we
+come to consider education, I can show you how the dangers you fear
+may be greatly obviated, without Chivalry being obliged to put on a
+wig and gown, and be wise.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Meanwhile, let us enjoy the delightful atmosphere
+of courtesy, unreasonable sometimes, if you like, which saves many people
+being put down with the best arguments in the most convincing manner,
+or being weighed, estimated, and given way to, so as not to spoil them.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Do not tell, either of you, what I have been
+saying.&nbsp; I shall always be poked up into some garret when I come
+to see you, if you do.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I think the most curious thing, as regards
+people living together, is the intense ignorance they sometimes are
+in of each other.&nbsp; Many years ago, one or other of you said something
+of this kind to me, and I have often thought of it since.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; People fulfil a relation towards each other,
+and they only know each other in that relation, especially if it is
+badly managed by the superior one; but any way the relationship involves
+some ignorance.&nbsp; They perform orbits round each other, each gyrating,
+too, upon his own axis, and there are parts of the character of each
+which are never brought into view of the other.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I should carry this notion of yours, Milverton,
+farther than you do.&nbsp; There is a peculiar mental relation soon
+constituted between associates of any kind, which confines and prevents
+complete knowledge on both sides.&nbsp; Each man, in some measure therefore,
+knows others only through himself.&nbsp; Tennyson makes Ulysses say,</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;I am a part of all that I have
+seen;&rdquo;</p>
+<p>it might have run,</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;I am a part of all that I have
+heard.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Ellesmere becoming metaphysical and transcendental!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, well, we will leave these heights,
+and descend in little drops of criticism.&nbsp; There are two or three
+things you might have pointed out, Milverton.&nbsp; Perhaps you would
+say that they are included in what you have said, but I think not.&nbsp;
+You talk of the mischief of much comment on each other amongst those
+who live together.&nbsp; You might have shown, I think, that in the
+case of near friends and relations this comment also deepens into interference
+- at least it partakes of that nature.&nbsp; Friends and relations should,
+therefore, be especially careful to avoid needless comments on each
+other.&nbsp; They do just the contrary.&nbsp; That is one of the reasons
+why they often hate one another so much.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Ellesmere!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Protest, if you like, my dear Dunsford.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Dissentient,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1.&nbsp;
+Because I wish it were not so.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2.&nbsp;
+Because I am sorry that it is.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(Signed)
+DUNSFORD.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hate&rdquo; is too strong a word,
+Ellesmere; what you say would be true enough, if you would put &ldquo;are
+not in sympathy with.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; &ldquo;Have a quiet distaste for.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+That is the proper medium.&nbsp; Now, to go to another matter.&nbsp;
+You have not put the case of over-managing people, who are tremendous
+to live with.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I have spoken about &ldquo;interfering unreasonably
+with others.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; That does not quite convey what I mean.&nbsp;
+It is when the manager and the managee are both of the same mind as
+to the thing to be done; but the former insists, and instructs, and
+suggests, and foresees, till the other feels that all free agency for
+him is gone.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It is a sad thing to consider how much of
+their abilities people turn to tiresomeness.&nbsp; You see a man who
+would be very agreeable if he were not so observant: another who would
+be charming, if he were deaf and dumb: a third delightful, if he did
+not vex all around him with superfluous criticism.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; A hit at me that last, I suspect.&nbsp; But
+I shall go on.&nbsp; You have not, I think, made enough merit of independence
+in companionship.&nbsp; If I were to put into an aphorism what I mean,
+I should say, Those who depend wholly on companionship are the worst
+companions; or thus: Those deserve companionship who can do without
+it.&nbsp; There, Mr. Aphoriser General, what do you say to that?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Very good, but - </p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Of course a &ldquo;but&rdquo; to other people&rsquo;s
+aphorisms, as if every aphorism had not buts innumerable.&nbsp; We critics,
+you know, cannot abide criticism.&nbsp; We do all the criticism that
+is needed ourselves.&nbsp; I wonder at the presumption sometimes of
+you wretched authors.&nbsp; But to proceed.&nbsp; You have not said
+anything about the mischief of superfluous condolence amongst people
+who live together.&nbsp; I flatter myself that I could condole anybody
+out of all peace of mind.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; All depends upon whether condolence goes
+with the grain, or against the grain, of vanity.&nbsp; I know what you
+mean, however: For instance, it is a very absurd thing to fret much
+over other people&rsquo;s courses, not considering the knowledge and
+discipline that there is in any course that a man may take.&nbsp; And
+it is still more absurd to be constantly showing the people fretted
+over that you are fretting over them.&nbsp; I think a good deal of what
+you call superfluous condolence would come under the head of superfluous
+criticism.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Not altogether.&nbsp; In companionship, when
+an evil happens to one of the circle, the others should simply attempt
+to share and lighten it, not to expound it, or dilate on it, or make
+it the least darker.&nbsp; The person afflicted generally apprehends
+all the blackness sufficiently.&nbsp; Now, unjust abuse by the world
+is to me like the howling of the wind at night when one is warm within.&nbsp;
+Bring any draught of it into one&rsquo;s house though, and it is not
+so pleasant.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Talking of companionship, do not you think
+there is often a peculiar feeling of home where age or infirmity is?&nbsp;
+The arm-chair of the sick or the old is the centre of the house.&nbsp;
+They think, perhaps, that they are unimportant; but all the household
+hopes and cares flow to them and from them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I quite agree with you.&nbsp; What you have
+just depicted is a beautiful sight, especially when, as you often see,
+the age or infirmity is not in the least selfish or exacting.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; We have said a great deal about the companionship
+of human beings; but, upon my word, we ought to have kept a few words
+for our dog friends.&nbsp; Rollo has been lolling out his great tongue,
+and looking wistfully from face to face, as we each began our talk.&nbsp;
+A few minutes ago he was quite concerned, thinking I was angry with
+you, when I would not let you &ldquo;but&rdquo; my aphorism.&nbsp; I
+am not sure which of the three I should rather go out walking with now:
+Dunsford, Rollo, Milverton.&nbsp; The middle one is the safest companion.&nbsp;
+I am sure not to get out of humour with him.&nbsp; But I have no objection
+to try the whole three: only I vote for much continuity of silence,
+as we have had floods of discussion to-day.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Agreed!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Come, Rollo, you may bark now, as you have
+been silent, like a wise dog, all the morning.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>It was arranged, during our walk, that Ellesmere should come and
+stay a day or two with me, and see the neighbouring cathedral, which
+is nearer my house than Milverton&rsquo;s.&nbsp; The visit over, I brought
+him back to Worth-Ashton.&nbsp; Milverton saw us coming, walked down
+the hill to meet us, and after the usual greetings, began to talk to
+Ellesmere.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; So you have been to see our cathedral.&nbsp;
+I say &ldquo;our,&rdquo; for when a cathedral is within ten miles of
+us, we feel a property in it, and are ready to battle for its architectural
+merits.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You know I am not a man to rave about cathedrals.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I certainly do not expect you to do so.&nbsp;
+To me a cathedral is mostly somewhat of a sad sight.&nbsp; You have
+Grecian monuments, if anything so misplaced can be called Grecian, imbedded
+against and cutting into Gothic pillars; the doors shut for the greater
+part of the day; only a little bit of the building used: beadledom predominant;
+the clink of money here and there; white-wash in vigour; the singing
+indifferent; the sermons not indifferent but bad; and some visitors
+from London forming, perhaps, the most important part of the audience;
+in fact, the thing having become a show.&nbsp; We look about, thinking
+when piety filled every corner, and feel that the cathedral is too big
+for the Religion which is a dried-up thing that rattles in this empty
+space.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; This is the boldest simile I have heard for
+a long time.&nbsp; My theory about cathedrals is very different, I must
+confess.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Theory!</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, &ldquo;theory&rdquo; is not the word
+I ought to have used - feeling then.&nbsp; My feeling is, how strong
+this creature was, this worship, how beautiful, how alluring, how complete;
+but there was something stronger - truth.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; And more beautiful?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, and far more beautiful.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Doubtless, to the free spirits who brought
+truth forward.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You are only saying this, Milverton, to try
+what I will say; but, despite of all sentimentalities, you sympathise
+with any emancipation of the human mind, as I do, however much the meagreness
+of Protestantism may be at times distasteful to you.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I did not say I was anxious to go back.&nbsp;
+Certainly not.&nbsp; But what says Dunsford?&nbsp; Let us sit down on
+his stile and hear what he has to say.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I cannot talk to you about this subject.&nbsp;
+If I tell you of all the merits (as they seem to me) of the Church of
+England, you will both pick what I say to pieces, whereas if I leave
+you to fight on, one or the other will avail himself of those arguments
+on which our Church is based.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, Dunsford, you are very candid, and
+would make a complete diplomatist: truth-telling being now pronounced
+(rather late in the day) the very acme of diplomacy.&nbsp; But do you
+not own that our cathedrals are sadly misused?</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Now, very likely, if more were made of them,
+you, and men who think like you, would begin to cry out &ldquo;superstition&rdquo;;
+and would instantly turn round and inveigh against the uses which you
+now, perhaps, imagine for cathedrals.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, one never can answer for oneself; but
+at any rate, I do not see what is the meaning of building new churches
+in neighbourhoods where there are already the noblest buildings suitable
+for the same purposes.&nbsp; Is there a church religion, and is there
+a cathedral religion?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You cannot make the present fill the garb
+of the past, Milverton, any more than you could make the past fill that
+of the present.&nbsp; Now, as regards the very thing you are about to
+discuss to-day, if it be the same you told us in our last walk - Education:
+if you are only going to give us some institution for it, I daresay
+it may be very good for to-day, or for this generation, but it will
+have its sere and yellow leaf, and there will be a time when future
+Milvertons, in sentimental mood, will moan over it, and wish they had
+it and all that has grown up to take its place at the same time.&nbsp;
+But all this is what I have often heard you say yourself in other words.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; This is very hard doctrine, and not quite
+sound, I think.&nbsp; In getting the new gain, we always sacrifice something,
+and we should look with some pious regard to what was good in the things
+which are past.&nbsp; That good is generally one which, though it may
+not be equal to the present, would make a most valuable supplement to
+it.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would try and work in the old good thing
+with the new, not as patchwork though, but making the new thing grow
+out in such a way as to embrace the old advantage.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, we must have the essay before we branch
+out into our philosophy.&nbsp; Pleasure afterwards - I will not say
+what comes first.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>EDUCATION.</p>
+<p>The word education is so large, that one may almost as well put &ldquo;world,&rdquo;
+or &ldquo;the end and object of being,&rdquo; at the head of an essay.&nbsp;
+It should, therefore, soon be declared what such a heading does mean.&nbsp;
+The word education suggests chiefly to some minds what the State can
+do for those whom they consider its young people - the children of the
+poorer classes: to others it presents the idea of all the training that
+can be got for money at schools and colleges, and which can be fairly
+accomplished and shut in at the age of one-and-twenty.&nbsp; This essay,
+however, will not be a treatise on government education, or other school
+and college education, but will only contain a few points in reference
+to the general subject, which may escape more methodical and enlarged
+discussions.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>In the first place, as regards government education, it must be kept
+in mind that there is a danger of its being too interfering and formal,
+of its overlying private enterprise, insisting upon too much uniformity,
+and injuring local connections and regards.&nbsp; Education, even in
+the poorest acceptance of the word, is a great thing: but the harmonious
+intercourse of different ranks, if not a greater, is a more difficult
+one; and we must not gain the former at any considerable sacrifice of
+the latter.</p>
+<p>There is another point connected with this branch of the subject
+which requires, perhaps, to be noted.&nbsp; If government provision
+is made in any case, might it not be combined with private payment in
+other cases, or enter in the way of rewards, so as to do good throughout
+each step of the social ladder?&nbsp; The lowest kind of school education
+is a power, and it is desirable that the gradations of this power should
+correspond to other influences which we know to be good.&nbsp; For instance,
+a hard-working man saves something to educate his children; if he can
+get a little better education for them than other parents of his own
+rank for theirs, it is an incentive and a reward to him, and the child&rsquo;s
+bringing up at home is a thing which will correspond to this better
+education at school.&nbsp; In this there are the elements at once of
+stability and progress.</p>
+<p>These views may possibly seem too refined, but at any rate they require
+consideration.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>The next branch of the subject is the ordinary education of young
+persons not of the poorest classes, with which the State has hitherto
+had little or nothing to do.&nbsp; This may be considered under four
+heads: religious, moral, intellectual, and physical education.&nbsp;
+With regard to the first, there is not much that can be put into rules
+about it.&nbsp; Parents and tutors will naturally be anxious to impress
+those under their charge with the religious opinions which they themselves
+hold.&nbsp; In doing this, however, they should not omit to lay a foundation
+for charity towards people of other religious opinions.&nbsp; For this
+purpose, it may be requisite to give a child a notion that there are
+other creeds besides that in which it is brought up itself.&nbsp; And
+especially, let it not suppose that all good and wise people are of
+its church or chapel.&nbsp; However desirable it may appear to the person
+teaching that there should be such a thing as unity of religion, yet
+as the facts of the world are against his wishes, and as this is the
+world which the child is to enter, it is well that the child should
+in reasonable time be informed of these facts.&nbsp; It may be said
+in reply that history sufficiently informs children on these points.&nbsp;
+But the world of the young is the domestic circle; all beyond is fabulous,
+unless brought home to them by comment.&nbsp; The fact, therefore, of
+different opinions in religious matters being held by good people should
+sometimes be dwelt upon, instead of being shunned, if we would secure
+a ground-work of tolerance in a child&rsquo;s mind.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.</p>
+<p>In the intellectual part of education there is the absolute knowledge
+to be acquired, and the ways of acquiring knowledge to be gained.&nbsp;
+The latter of course form the most important branch.&nbsp; They can,
+in some measure, be taught.&nbsp; Give children little to do, make much
+of its being accurately done.&nbsp; This will give accuracy.&nbsp; Insist
+upon speed in learning, with careful reference to the original powers
+of the pupil.&nbsp; This speed gives the habit of concentrating attention,
+one of the most valuable of mental habits.&nbsp; Then cultivate logic.&nbsp;
+Logic is not the hard matter that is fancied.&nbsp; A young person,
+especially after a little geometrical training, may soon be taught to
+perceive where a fallacy exists, and whether an argument is well sustained.&nbsp;
+It is not, however, sufficient for him to be able to examine sharply
+and to pull to pieces.&nbsp; He must learn how to build.&nbsp; This
+is done by method.&nbsp; The higher branches of method cannot be taught
+at first.&nbsp; But you may begin by teaching orderliness of mind.&nbsp;
+Collecting, classifying, contrasting and weighing facts, are some of
+the processes by which method is taught.&nbsp; When these four things,
+accuracy, attention, logic, and method are attained, the intellect is
+fairly furnished with its instruments.</p>
+<p>As regards the things to be taught, they will vary to some extent
+in each age.&nbsp; The general course of education pursued at any particular
+time may not be the wisest by any means, and greatness will overleap
+it and neglect it, but the mass of men may go more safely and comfortably,
+if not with the stream, at least by the side of it.</p>
+<p>In the choice of studies too much deference should not be paid to
+the bent of a young person&rsquo;s mind.&nbsp; Excellence in one or
+two things which may have taken the fancy of a youth (or which really
+may suit his genius) will ill compensate for a complete ignorance of
+those branches of study which are very repugnant to him; and which are,
+therefore, not likely to be learnt when he has freedom in the choice
+of his studies.</p>
+<p>Amongst the first things to be aimed at in the intellectual part
+of education is variety of pursuit.&nbsp; A human being, like a tree,
+if it is to attain to perfect symmetry, must have light and air given
+to it from all quarters.&nbsp; This may be done without making men superficial.&nbsp;
+Scientific method may be acquired without many sciences being learnt.&nbsp;
+But one or two great branches of science must be accurately known.&nbsp;
+So, too, the choice works of antiquity may be thoroughly appreciated
+without extensive reacting.&nbsp; And passing on from mere learning
+of any kind, a variety of pursuits, even in what may be called accomplishments,
+is eminently serviceable.&nbsp; Much may be said of the advantage of
+keeping a man to a few pursuits, and of the great things done thereby
+in the making of pins and needles.&nbsp; But in this matter we are not
+thinking of the things that are to be done, but of the persons who are
+to do them.&nbsp; Not wealth but men.&nbsp; A number of one-sided men
+may make a great nation, though I much incline to doubt that; but such
+a nation will not contain a number of great men.</p>
+<p>The very advantage that flows from division of labour, and the probable
+consequences that men&rsquo;s future bread-getting pursuits will be
+more and more sub-divided, and therefore limited, make it the more necessary
+that a man should begin life with a broad basis of interest in many
+things which may cultivate his faculties and develop his nature.&nbsp;
+This multifariousness of pursuit is needed also in the education of
+the poor.&nbsp; Civilisation has made it easy for a man to brutalise
+himself: how is this to be counteracted but by endowing him with many
+pursuits which may distract him from vice?&nbsp; It is not that kind
+of education which leads to no employment in after-life that will do
+battle with vice.&nbsp; But when education enlarges the field of life-long
+good pursuits, it becomes formidable to the soul&rsquo;s worst enemies.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>MORAL EDUCATION.</p>
+<p>In considering moral education we must recollect that there are three
+agents in this matter - the child himself, the influence of his grown-up
+friends, and that of his contemporaries.&nbsp; All that his grown-up
+friends tell him in the way of experience goes for very little, except
+in palpable matters.&nbsp; They talk of abstractions which he cannot
+comprehend: and the &ldquo;Arabian Nights&rdquo; is a truer world to
+him than that they talk of.&nbsp; Still, though they cannot furnish
+experience, they can give motives.&nbsp; Indeed, in their daily intercourse
+with the child, they are always doing so.&nbsp; For instance, truth,
+courage, and kindness are the great moral qualities to be instilled.&nbsp;
+Take courage, in its highest form - moral courage.&nbsp; If a child
+perpetually hears such phrases (and especially if they are applied to
+his own conduct), as, &ldquo;What people will say,&rdquo; &ldquo;How
+they will look at you,&rdquo; &ldquo;What they will think,&rdquo; and
+the like, it tends to destroy all just self-reliance in that child&rsquo;s
+mind, and to set up instead an exaggerated notion of public opinion,
+the greatest tyrant of these times.&nbsp; People can see this in such
+an obvious thing as animal courage.&nbsp; They will avoid over-cautioning
+children against physical dangers, knowing that the danger they talk
+much about will become a bug-bear to the child which it may never get
+rid of.&nbsp; But a similar peril lurks in the application of moral
+motives.&nbsp; Truth, courage, and kindness are likely to be learnt,
+or not, by children, according as they hear and receive encouragement
+in the direction of these pre-eminent qualities.&nbsp; When attempt
+is made to frighten a child with these worldly maxims, &ldquo;What will
+be said of you?&rdquo; &ldquo;Are you like such a one?&rdquo; and such
+things, it is meant to draw him under the rule of grown-up respectability.&nbsp;
+The last thing thought of by the parent or teacher is, that such maxims
+will bring the child under the especial guidance of the most unscrupulous
+of his contemporaries.&nbsp; They will use ridicule and appeal to their
+little world, which will be his world, and ask, &ldquo;What will be
+said&rdquo; of him.&nbsp; There should be some stuff in him of his own
+to meet these awful generalities.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>PHYSICAL EDUCATION.</p>
+<p>The physical education of children is a very simple matter, too simple
+to be much attended to without great perseverance and resolution on
+the part of those who care for the children.&nbsp; It consists, as we
+all know, in good air, simple diet, sufficient exercise, and judicious
+clothing.&nbsp; The first requisite is the most important, and by far
+the most frequently neglected.&nbsp; This neglect is not so unreasonable
+as it seems.&nbsp; It arises from pure ignorance.&nbsp; If the mass
+of mankind knew what scientific men know about the functions of the
+air, they would be as careful in getting a good supply of it as of their
+other food.&nbsp; All the people that ever were supposed to die of poison
+in the middle ages, and that means nearly everybody whose death was
+worth speculating about, are not so many as those who die poisoned by
+bad air in the course of any given year.&nbsp; Even a slightly noxious
+thing, which is constant, affecting us every moment of the day, must
+have considerable influence; but the air we breathe is not a thing that
+slightly affects us, but one of the most important elements of life.&nbsp;
+Moreover, children are the most affected by impurity of air.&nbsp; We
+need not weary ourselves with much statistics to ascertain this.&nbsp;
+One or two broad facts will assure us of it.&nbsp; In Nottingham there
+is a district called Byron Ward, &ldquo;the densest and worst-conditioned
+quarter of the town.&rdquo;&nbsp; A table has been made by Mr. William
+Hawksley of the mortality of equal populations in different parts of
+the town:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;On comparing the diagram No. 1, relating to Park Ward, with
+the diagram No. 7, relating to Byron Ward, it will be seen that the
+heavier pressure of the causes of mortality occasions in the latter
+district such an undue destruction of early life, that towards 100 deaths,
+however occurring, Byron Ward contributes fifty per cent. more of children
+under five years of age than the Park Ward, for the former sends sixty
+children to an early grave, while the latter sends only forty.&rdquo;
+<a name="citation116a"></a><a href="#footnote116a">{116a}</a></p>
+<p>Mr. Hawksley, the former witness alluded to, goes on to say - </p>
+<p>&ldquo;It has been long known that, with increase of years, up to
+that period of life which has been denominated the second childhood,
+the human constitution becomes gradually more resistful, and as it were
+slowly hardened against the repeated attacks of those more acute disorders,
+incident to an inferior degree of sanitary civilisation, by which large
+portions of an infant population are continually overcome and rapidly
+swept away.&nbsp; From the operation of these and more extraneous influences
+of a disturbing character, an infant population is almost entirely exempted;
+and on this account it is considered that an infant population constitutes,
+as it were, a delicate barometer, from which we may derive more early
+and more certain indications of the presence and comparative force of
+local causes of mortality and disease than can be obtained from the
+more general methods of investigation usually pursued.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>The above evidence is confirmed by Mr. Toynbee: - </p>
+<p>&ldquo;The disease of hydrocephalus, of water in the brain, so fatal
+to children, I find associated with symptoms of scrofula, and arising
+in abundance in these close rooms.&nbsp; I believe water in the brain,
+in the class of patients whom I visit, to be almost wholly a scrofulous
+affection.&rdquo;&nbsp; <a name="citation116b"></a><a href="#footnote116b">{116b}</a></p>
+<p>But supposing people aware of the necessity for good air, and therefore
+for ventilation, what is to be done?&nbsp; In houses in great towns
+certainly, and I should say in all houses, some of the care and expense
+that are devoted to ornamental work, which when done is often a care,
+a trouble, an eyesore, and a mischief, should be given to modes of ventilation,
+<a name="citation117a"></a><a href="#footnote117a">{117a}</a> sound
+building, abundant access of light, largeness of sleeping-rooms, and
+such useful things.&nbsp; Less ormolu and tinsel of all kinds in the
+drawing-rooms, and sweeter air in the regions above.&nbsp; Similar things
+may be done for and by the poor. <a name="citation117b"></a><a href="#footnote117b">{117b}</a>&nbsp;
+And it need hardly be said that those people who care for their children,
+if of any enlightenment at all, will care greatly for the sanitary condition
+of their neighbourhood generally.&nbsp; At present you will find at
+many a rich man&rsquo;s door <a name="citation117c"></a><a href="#footnote117c">{117c}</a>
+a nuisance which is poisoning the atmosphere that his children are to
+breathe, but which he could entirely cure for less than one day&rsquo;s
+ordinary expenses.</p>
+<p>I am afraid that ventilation is very little attended to in school-rooms,
+either for rich or poor.&nbsp; Now it may be deliberately said that
+there is very little learned in any school-room that can compensate
+for the mischief of its being learned in the midst of impure air.&nbsp;
+This is a thing which parents must look to, for the grown-up people
+in the school-rooms, though suffering grievously themselves from insufficient
+ventilation, will be unobservant of it. <a name="citation118"></a><a href="#footnote118">{118}</a>&nbsp;
+In every system of government inspection, ventilation must occupy a
+prominent part.</p>
+<p>The advantage of simple food for children is a thing that people
+have found out.&nbsp; And as regards exercise, children happily make
+great efforts to provide a sufficiency of this for themselves.&nbsp;
+In clothing, the folly and conformity of grown-up people enter again.&nbsp;
+Loving mothers, in various parts of the world, carry about at present,
+I believe, and certainly in times past, carried their little children
+strapped to a board, with nearly as little power of motion as the board
+itself.&nbsp; Could we get the returns of stunted miserable beings,
+or of deaths, from this cause, they would be something portentous.&nbsp;
+Less in degree, but not less fatally absurd in principle, are many of
+the strappings, bandages, and incipient stays for children amongst us.&nbsp;
+They are all mischievous.&nbsp; Allow children, at any rate, some freedom
+of limbs, some opportunity of being graceful and healthy.&nbsp; Give
+Nature - dear motherly, much-abused Nature - some chance of forming
+these little ones according to the beneficent intentions of Providence,
+and not according to the angular designs of ill-educated men and women.</p>
+<p>I do not say that attention to the above matters of good air, judicious
+clothing, and freedom from bandages, will absolutely secure health,
+because these very things may have been so ill attended to in the parents
+or in the parental stock as to have introduced special maladies; but
+at least they are the most important objects to be minded now; and,
+perhaps, the more to be minded in the children of those who have suffered
+most from neglect in these particulars.</p>
+<p>When we are considering the health of children, it is imperative
+not to omit the importance of keeping their brains fallow, as it were,
+for several of the first years of their existence.&nbsp; The mischief
+perpetrated by a contrary course in the shape of bad health, peevish
+temper, and developed vanity, is incalculable.&nbsp; It would not be
+just to attribute this altogether to the vanity of parents; they are
+influenced by a natural fear lest their children should not have all
+the advantages of other children.&nbsp; Some infant prodigy which is
+a standard of mischief throughout its neighbourhood misleads them.&nbsp;
+But parents may be assured that this early work is not by any means
+all gain, even in the way of work.&nbsp; I suspect it is a loss; and
+that children who begin their education late, as it would be called,
+will rapidly overtake those who have been in harness long before them.&nbsp;
+And what advantage can it be that the child knows more at six years
+old than its compeers, especially if this is to be gained by a sacrifice
+of health which may never be regained?&nbsp; There may be some excuse
+for this early book-work in the case of those children who are to live
+by manual labour.&nbsp; It is worth while, perhaps, to run the risk
+of some physical injury to them, having only their early years in which
+we can teach them book-knowledge.&nbsp; The chance of mischief, too,
+will be less, being more likely to be counteracted by their after-life.&nbsp;
+But for a child who has to be at book-work for the first twenty-one
+years of its life, what folly it is to exhaust in the least the mental
+energy, which, after all, is its surest implement.</p>
+<p>A similar course of argument applies to taking children early to
+church, and to over-developing their minds in any way.&nbsp; There is
+no knowing, moreover, the disgust and weariness that may grow up in
+the minds of young persons from their attention being prematurely claimed.&nbsp;
+We are now, however, looking at early study as a matter of health; and
+we may certainly put it down in the same class with impure air, stimulating
+diet, unnecessary bandages, and other manifest physical disadvantages.&nbsp;
+Civilised life, as it advances, does not seem to have so much repose
+in it, that we need begin early in exciting the mind, for fear of the
+man being too lethargical hereafter.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>EDUCATION OF WOMEN.</p>
+<p>It seems needful that something should be said specially about the
+education of women.&nbsp; As regards their intellects they have been
+unkindly treated - too much flattered, too little respected.&nbsp; They
+are shut up in a world of conventionalities, and naturally believe that
+to be the only world.&nbsp; The theory of their education seems to be,
+that they should not be made companions to men, and some would say,
+they certainly are not.&nbsp; These critics, however, in the high imaginations
+they justly form of what women&rsquo;s society might be to men, forget,
+perhaps, how excellent a thing it is already.&nbsp; Still the criticism
+is not by any means wholly unjust.&nbsp; It appears rather as if there
+had been a falling off since the olden times in the education of women.&nbsp;
+A writer of modern days, arguing on the other side, has said, that though
+we may talk of the Latin and Greek of Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth,
+yet we are to consider that that was the only learning of the time,
+and that many a modern lady may be far better instructed, although she
+knew nothing of Latin and Greek.&nbsp; Certain it is, she may know more
+facts, have read more books: but this does not assure us that she may
+not be less conversable, less companionable.&nbsp; Wherein does the
+cultivated and thoughtful man differ from the common man?&nbsp; In the
+method of his discourse.&nbsp; His questions upon a subject in which
+he is ignorant are full of interest.&nbsp; His talk has a groundwork
+of reason.&nbsp; This rationality must not be supposed to be dulness.&nbsp;
+Folly is dull.&nbsp; Now, would women be less charming if they had more
+power, or at least more appreciation, of reasoning?&nbsp; Their flatterers
+tell them that their intuition is such that they need not man&rsquo;s
+slow processes of thought.&nbsp; One would be very sorry to have a grave
+question of law that concerned oneself decided upon by intuitive judges,
+or a question of fact by intuitive jurymen.&nbsp; And so of all human
+things that have to be canvassed, it is better, and more amusing too,
+that they should be discussed according to reason.&nbsp; Moreover, the
+exercise of the reasoning faculties gives much of the pleasure which
+there is in solid acquirements; so that the obvious facts in life and
+history will hardly be acquired by those who are not in the habit of
+reasoning upon them.&nbsp; Hence it comes, that women have less interest
+in great topics, and less knowledge of them, than they might have.</p>
+<p>Again, if either sex requires logical education, it is theirs.&nbsp;
+The sharp practice of the world drives some logic into the most vague
+of men; women are not so schooled.</p>
+<p>But, supposing the deficiency we have been considering to be admitted,
+how is it to be remedied?&nbsp; Women&rsquo;s education must be made
+such as to ensure some accuracy and reasoning.&nbsp; This may be done
+with any subject of education, and is done with men, whatever they learn,
+because they are expected to produce and use their requirements.&nbsp;
+But the greatest object of intellectual education, the improvement of
+the mental powers, is as needful for one sex as the other, and requires
+the same means in both sexes.&nbsp; The same accuracy, attention, logic,
+and method that are attempted in the education of men should be aimed
+at in that of women.&nbsp; This will never be sufficiently attended
+to, as there are no immediate and obvious fruits from it.&nbsp; And,
+therefore, as it is probable, from the different career of women to
+that of men, that whatever women study will not be studied with the
+same method and earnestness as it would be by men, what a peculiar advantage
+there is in any study for them, in which no proficiency whatever can
+be made without some use of most of the qualities we desire for them.&nbsp;
+Geometry, for instance, is such a study.&nbsp; It may appear pedantic,
+but I must confess that Euclid seems to me a book for the young of both
+sexes.&nbsp; The severe rules upon which the acquisition of the dead
+languages is built would of course be a great means for attaining the
+logical habits in question.&nbsp; But Latin and Greek is a deeper pedantry
+for women than geometry, and much less desirable on many accounts: and
+geometry would, perhaps, suffice to teach them what reasoning is.&nbsp;
+I daresay, too, there are accomplishments which might be taught scientifically;
+and so even the prejudice against the manifest study of science by women
+be conciliated.&nbsp; But the appreciation of reasoning must be got
+somehow.</p>
+<p>It is a narrow view of things to suppose that a just cultivation
+of women&rsquo;s mental powers will take them out of their sphere: it
+will only enlarge that sphere.&nbsp; The most cultivated women perform
+their common duties best.&nbsp; They see more in those duties.&nbsp;
+They can do more.&nbsp; Lady Jane Grey would, I daresay, have bound
+up a wound, or managed a household, with any unlearned woman of her
+day.&nbsp; Queen Elizabeth did manage a kingdom: and we find no pedantry
+in her way of doing it.</p>
+<p>People who advocate a better training for women must not, necessarily,
+be supposed to imagine that men and women are by education to be made
+alike, and are intended to fulfil most of the same offices.&nbsp; There
+seems reason for thinking that a boundary line exists between the intellects
+of men and women which, perhaps, cannot be passed over from either side.&nbsp;
+But, at any rate, taking the whole nature of both sexes, and the inevitable
+circumstances which cause them to differ, there must be such a difference
+between men and women that the same intellectual training applied to
+both would produce most dissimilar results.&nbsp; It has not, however,
+been proposed in these pages to adopt the same training: and would have
+been still less likely to be proposed if it could be shown that such
+training would tend to make men and women unpleasantly similar to each
+other.&nbsp; The utmost that has been thought of here is to make more
+of women&rsquo;s faculties, not by any means to translate them into
+men&rsquo;s - if such a thing were possible, which, we may venture to
+say, is not.&nbsp; There are some things that are good for all trees
+- light, air, room - but no one expects by affording some similar advantages
+of this kind to an oak and a beech, to find them assimilate, though
+by such means the best of each may be produced.</p>
+<p>Moreover, it should be recollected that the purpose of education
+is not always to foster natural gifts, but sometimes to bring out faculties
+that might otherwise remain dormant; and especially so far as to make
+the persons educated cognisant of excellence in those faculties in others.&nbsp;
+A certain tact and refinement belong to women, in which they have little
+to learn from the first: men, too, who attain some portion of these
+qualities, are greatly the better for them, and I should imagine not
+less acceptable on that account to women.&nbsp; So, on the other side,
+there may be an intellectual cultivation for women which may seem a
+little against the grain, which would not, however, injure any of their
+peculiar gifts - would, in fact, carry those gifts to the highest, and
+would increase withal, both to men and women, the pleasure of each other&rsquo;s
+society.</p>
+<p>There is a branch of general education which is not thought at all
+necessary for women; as regards which, indeed, it is well if they are
+not brought up to cultivate the opposite.&nbsp; Women are not taught
+to be courageous.&nbsp; Indeed, to some persons courage may seem as
+unnecessary for women as Latin and Greek.&nbsp; Yet there are few things
+that would tend to make women happier in themselves, and more acceptable
+to those with whom they live, than courage.&nbsp; There are many women
+of the present day, sensible women in other things, whose panic-terrors
+are a frequent source of discomfort to themselves and those around them.&nbsp;
+Now, it is a great mistake to imagine that harshness must go with courage;
+and that the bloom of gentleness and sympathy must all be rubbed off
+by that vigour of mind which gives presence of mind, enables a person
+to be useful in peril, and makes the desire to assist overcome that
+sickliness of sensibility which can only contemplate distress and difficulty.&nbsp;
+So far from courage being unfeminine, there is a peculiar grace and
+dignity in those beings who have little active power of attack or defence,
+passing through danger with a moral courage which is equal to that of
+the strongest.&nbsp; We see this in great things.&nbsp; We perfectly
+appreciate the sweet and noble dignity of an Anne Bullen, a Mary Queen
+of Scots, or a Marie Antoinette.&nbsp; We see that it is grand for these
+delicately-bred, high-nurtured, helpless personages to meet Death with
+a silence and a confidence like his own.&nbsp; But there would be a
+similar dignity in women&rsquo;s bearing small terrors with fortitude.&nbsp;
+There is no beauty in fear.&nbsp; It is a mean, ugly, dishevelled creature.&nbsp;
+No statue can be made of it that a woman would like to see herself like.</p>
+<p>Women are pre-eminent in steady endurance of tiresome suffering:
+they need not be far behind men in a becoming courage to meet that which
+is sudden and sharp.&nbsp; The dangers and the troubles, too, which
+we may venture to say they now start at unreasonably, are many of them
+mere creatures of the imagination - such as, in their way, disturb high-mettled
+animals brought up to see too little, and therefore frightened at any
+leaf blown across the road.</p>
+<p>We may be quite sure that, without losing any of the most delicate
+and refined of feminine graces, women may be taught not to give way
+to unreasonable fears, which should belong no more to the fragile than
+to the robust.</p>
+<p>There is no doubt that courage may in some measure be taught.&nbsp;
+We agree that the lower kinds of courage are matter of habit, therefore
+of teaching: and the same thing holds good to some extent of all courage.&nbsp;
+Courage is as contagious as fear.&nbsp; The saying is, that the brave
+are the sons and daughters of the brave; but we might as truly say that
+they must be brought up by the brave.&nbsp; The great novelist, when
+he wants a coward descended from a valorous race, does well to take
+him from his clan and bring him up in an unwarlike home. <a name="citation126"></a><a href="#footnote126">{126}</a>&nbsp;
+Indeed, the heroic example of other days is in great part the source
+of courage of each generation; and men walk up composedly to the most
+perilous enterprises, beckoned onwards by the shades of the brave that
+were.&nbsp; In civil courage, moral courage, or courage shown in the
+minute circumstances of everyday life, the same law is true.&nbsp; Courage
+may be taught by precept, enforced by example, and is good to be taught
+to men, women, and children.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>EDUCATION TO HAPPINESS.</p>
+<p>It is a curious phenomenon in human affairs, that some of those matters
+in which education is most potent should have been amongst the least
+thought of as branches of it.&nbsp; What you teach a boy of Latin and
+Greek may be good; but these things are with him but a little time of
+each day in his after-life.&nbsp; What you teach him of direct moral
+precepts may be very good seed: it may grow up, especially if it have
+sufficient moisture from experience; but then, again, a man is, happily,
+not doing obvious right or wrong all day long.&nbsp; What you teach
+him of any bread-getting art may be of some import to him, as to the
+quantity and quality of bread he will get; but he is not always with
+his art.&nbsp; With himself he is always.&nbsp; How important, then,
+it is, whether you have given him a happy or a morbid turn of mind;
+whether the current of his life is a clear wholesome stream, or bitter
+as Marah.&nbsp; The education to happiness is a possible thing - not
+to a happiness supposed to rest upon enjoyments of any kind, but to
+one built upon content and resignation.&nbsp; This is the best part
+of philosophy.&nbsp; This enters into the &ldquo;wisdom&rdquo; spoken
+of in the Scriptures.&nbsp; Now it can be taught.&nbsp; The converse
+is taught every day and all day long.</p>
+<p>To take an example.&nbsp; A sensitive disposition may descend to
+a child; but it is also very commonly increased, and often created.&nbsp;
+Captiousness, sensitiveness, and a Martha-like care for the things of
+this world, are often the direct fruits of education.&nbsp; All these
+faults of the character, and they are amongst the greatest, may be summed
+up in a disproportionate care for little things.&nbsp; This is rather
+a growing evil.&nbsp; The painful neatness and exactness of modern life
+foster it.&nbsp; Long peace favours it.&nbsp; Trifles become more important,
+great evils being kept away.&nbsp; And so, the tide of small wishes
+and requirements gains upon us fully as fast as we can get out of its
+way by our improved means of satisfying them.&nbsp; Now the unwholesome
+concern that many parents and governors manifest as to small things
+must have a great influence on the governed.&nbsp; You hear a child
+reprimanded about a point of dress, or some trivial thing, as if it
+had committed a treachery.&nbsp; The criticisms, too, which it hears
+upon others are often of the same kind.&nbsp; Small omissions, small
+commissions, false shame, little stumbling-blocks of offence, trifling
+grievances of the kind that Dr. Johnson, who had known hunger, stormed
+at Mrs. Thrale for talking about, are made much of; general dissatisfaction
+is expressed that things are not complete, and that everything in life
+is not turned out as neat as a Long-Acre carriage; commands are expected
+to be fulfilled by agents, upon very rapid and incomplete orders, exactly
+to the mind of the person ordering; - these ways, to which children
+are very attentive, teach them in their turn to be querulous, sensitive,
+and full of small cares and wishes.&nbsp; And when you have made a child
+like this, can you make a world for him that will satisfy him?&nbsp;
+Tax your civilisation to the uttermost: a punctilious, tiresome disposition
+expects more.&nbsp; Indeed, Nature, with her vague and flowing ways,
+cannot at all fit in with a right-angled person.&nbsp; Besides, there
+are other precise, angular creatures, and these sharp-edged persons
+wound each other terribly.&nbsp; Of all the things which you can teach
+people, after teaching them to trust in God, the most important is,
+to put out of their hearts any expectation of perfection, according
+to their notions, in this world.&nbsp; This expectation is at the bottom
+of a great deal of the worldliness we hear so much reprehended, and
+necessarily gives to little things a most irrational importance.</p>
+<p>Observe the effect of this disproportionate care for little things
+in the disputes of men.&nbsp; A man who does so care, has a garment
+embroidered with hooks which catch at everything that passes by.&nbsp;
+He finds many more causes of offence than other men; and each offence
+is a more bitter thing to him than to others.&nbsp; He does not expect
+to be offended.&nbsp; Poor man!&nbsp; He goes through life wondering
+that he is the subject of general attack, and that the world is so quarrelsome.</p>
+<p>The result of a bad education in developing undue care for trifles
+may be seen in its effect on domestic government and government in general.&nbsp;
+If those in power have this fault, they will make the persons under
+them miserable by petty, constant blame; or they will make them indifferent
+to all blame.&nbsp; If this fault is in the governed, they will captiously
+object to all the ways and plans of their superiors, not knowing the
+difficulty of doing anything; they will expect miracles of attention,
+justice, and temper, which the rough-hewed ways of men do not admit
+of; and they will repine and tease the life out of those in authority.&nbsp;
+Sometimes both superiors and inferiors, governors and governed, have
+this fault.&nbsp; This must often happen in a family, and is a fearful
+punishment to the elders of it.&nbsp; Scarcely any goodness of disposition,
+and what are called great qualities, can make such difficult materials
+work well together.</p>
+<p>But I end with somewhat of the same argument as I began with, namely,
+that as a man lives more with himself than with art, science, or even
+with his fellows, a wise teacher, having before him the intent to make
+a happy-minded man of his pupil, will try to lay a groundwork of divine
+contentment in him.&nbsp; If he cannot make him easily pleased, he will
+at least try and prevent him from being easily disconcerted.&nbsp; Why,
+even the self-conceit that makes people indifferent to small things,
+wrapping them in an atmosphere of self-satisfaction, is welcome in a
+man compared to that querulousness which makes him an enemy to all around.&nbsp;
+But most commendable is that easiness of mind which is easy because
+it is tolerant, because it does not look to have everything its own
+way, because it expects anything but smooth usage in its course here,
+because it has resolved to manufacture as few miseries out of small
+evils as can be.</p>
+<p>Most of us know what it is to vex our minds because we cannot recall
+some name or trivial thing which has escaped our memory for the moment.&nbsp;
+But then we think how foolish this is, what little concern it is to
+us.&nbsp; We are right in that; yet any defect of memory is a great
+concern compared to many of the trifling niceties, comforts, offences,
+and rectangularities which, perhaps, we do not think it an ignoble use
+of heart and time to waste ourselves upon.&nbsp; It would be well enough
+to entertain the rabble of small troubles and offences, if we could
+lay them aside with the delightful facility of children, who, after
+an agony of tears, are soon found laughing or asleep.&nbsp; But the
+chagrin and vexation of grown-up people are grown-up too; and, however
+childish in their origin, are not to be laughed or danced or slept away
+in childlike simple-heartedness.</p>
+<p>We must not imagine that too much stress can well be laid upon the
+importance of an education to contentment, for it comes under the head
+of those things which are not adjuncts or acquisitions for a man, but
+which form the texture of his being.&nbsp; What a man has learnt is
+of importance; but what he is, what he can do, what he will become,
+are more significant things.&nbsp; Finally, it may be remarked, that,
+to make education a great work, we must have the educators great; that
+book-learning is mainly good as it gives us a chance of coming into
+the company of greater and better minds than the average of men around
+us; and that individual greatness and goodness are the things to be
+aimed at rather than the successful cultivation of those talents which
+go to form some eminent membership of society.&nbsp; Each man is a drama
+in himself - has to play all the parts in it; is to be king and rebel,
+successful and vanquished, free and slave; and needs a bringing-up fit
+for the universal creature that he is.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You have been unexpectedly merciful to us.&nbsp;
+The moment I heard the head of the essay given out, there flitted before
+my frightened mind volumes of reports, Battersea schools, Bell, Wilderspin,
+normal farms, National Society, British Schools, interminable questions
+about how religion might be separated altogether from secular education,
+or so much religion taught as all religious sects could agree in.&nbsp;
+These are all very good things and people to discuss, I daresay; but,
+to tell the truth, the whole subject sits heavy on my soul.&nbsp; I
+meet a man of inexhaustible dulness, and he talks to me for three hours
+about some great subject - this very one of education, for instance
+- till I sit entranced by stupidity, thinking the while, &ldquo;And
+this is what we are to become by education - to be like you.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Then I see a man like D---, a judicious, reasonable, conversable being,
+knowing how to be silent too - a man to go through a campaign with -
+and I find he cannot read or write.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; This sort of contrast is just the thing to
+strike you, Ellesmere: and yet you know as well as any of us that to
+bring forward such contrasts by way of depreciating education would
+be most unreasonable.&nbsp; There are three things that go to make a
+man - the education that most people mean by education; then the education
+that goes deeper, the education of the soul; and, thirdly, a man&rsquo;s
+gifts of Nature.&nbsp; I agree with all you say about D---; he never
+says a foolish thing, and does a great many judicious ones.&nbsp; But
+look what a clever face he has.&nbsp; There are gifts of Nature for
+you.&nbsp; Then, again, although he cannot read or write, he may have
+been most judiciously brought up in other respects.&nbsp; He may have
+had two, therefore, out of the three elements of education.&nbsp; What
+such instances would show, I believe, if narrowly looked into, is the
+immense importance of the education of heart and temper.</p>
+<p>I feel with you in some measure about the dulness of the subject
+of education.&nbsp; But then it extends to all things of the institution
+kind.&nbsp; Men must have a great deal of pedantry, routine, and folly
+of all sorts, in any large matter they undertake.&nbsp; I had had this
+feeling for a long time (you know the way in which you have a thing
+in your mind, although you have never said it out exactly even to yourself)
+- well, I came upon a passage of Emerson&rsquo;s which I will try to
+quote, and then I knew what it was that I had felt.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;We are full of mechanical actions.&nbsp; We must needs intermeddle,
+and have things in our own way, until the sacrifices and virtues of
+society are odious.&nbsp; Love should make joy; but our benevolence
+is unhappy.&nbsp; Our Sunday-schools, and churches, and pauper societies,
+are yokes to the neck.&nbsp; We pain ourselves to please nobody.&nbsp;
+There are natural ways of arriving at the same ends at which these aim,
+but do not arrive.&nbsp; Why should all virtue work in one and the same
+way?&rdquo; . . . &ldquo;And why drag this dead weight of a Sunday-school
+over the whole of Christendom?&nbsp; It is natural and beautiful that
+childhood should inquire, and maturity should teach; but it is time
+enough to answer questions when they are asked.&nbsp; Do not shut up
+the young people against their will in a pew, and force the children
+to ask them questions for an hour against their will.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Now, without agreeing with him in all points, we may sympathise with
+him.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I agree with him.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I knew you would.&nbsp; You love an extreme.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; But look now.&nbsp; It is well to say, &ldquo;It
+is natural and beautiful that the young should ask and the old should
+teach&rdquo;; but then the old should be capable of teaching, which
+is not the case we have to deal with.&nbsp; Institutions are often only
+to meet individual failings.&nbsp; Let there be more instructed elders,
+and the &ldquo;dead weight&rdquo; of Sunday-schools would be less needed.</p>
+<p>I think the result of our thoughts would be, that there should be
+as much life, joy, and Nature put into teaching as can be; but I, for
+one, am not prepared to say that the most mechanical process is not
+better than none.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, you have now shut up the subject, according
+to your fashion, in a rounded sentence; and you think after that there
+is nothing more to be said.&nbsp; But I say it goes to my heart - </p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What is that?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; To my heart to see the unmerciful quantity
+of instruction that little children go through on a Sunday.&nbsp; I
+suppose I am a very wicked man; but I know how wearied I should have
+been, at any time of my life, if so much virtuous precept and good doctrine
+had been poured into me.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, I will not fight certainly for anything
+that is to make Sunday a wearisome day for children.&nbsp; Indeed, what
+I meant by putting more joy and life into teaching was, that in such
+a thing as this Sunday-schooling, for instance, a judicious man, far
+from being anxious to get a certain quantity of routine done about it,
+would do with the least - would endeavour to connect it with something
+interesting - would, in a word, love children, and not Sunday-schools.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Ah, we will have no more about Sunday-schools.&nbsp;
+I know we all agree in reality, although Dunsford has been looking very
+grave and has not said a word.&nbsp; I wanted to tell you that I think
+you are quite right, Milverton, in saying a good deal about multifariousness
+of pursuit.&nbsp; You see a wretch of a pedant who knows all about tetrameters
+or statutes of uses, but who, as you hinted an essay or two ago, can
+hardly answer his child a question as they walk about the garden together.&nbsp;
+The man has never given a good thought or look to Nature.&nbsp; Well
+then, again, what a stupid thing it is that we are not all taught music.&nbsp;
+Why learn the language of many portions of mankind, and leave the universal
+language of the feelings, as you would call it, unlearnt?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I quite agree with you; but I thought you
+always set your face, or rather your ears, against music.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; So did I.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I should like to know all about it.&nbsp;
+It is not to my mind that a cultivated man should be quite thrown out
+by any topic of conversation, or that there should be any form of human
+endeavour or accomplishment which he has no conception of.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I liked what you said, Milverton, about the
+philosophy of making light of many things, and the way of looking at
+life that may thus be given to those we educate.&nbsp; I rather doubted
+at first, though, whether you were not going to assign too much power
+to education in the modification of temper.&nbsp; But, certainly, the
+mode of looking at the daily events of life, little or great, and the
+consequent habits of captiousness or magnanimity, are just the matters
+which the young especially imitate their elders in.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You see, the very worst kind of tempers are
+established upon the fretting care for trifles that I want to make war
+upon in the essay.&nbsp; A man is choleric.&nbsp; Well, it is a very
+bad thing; it tends to frighten those about him into falseness.&nbsp;
+He has outrageous bursts of temper.&nbsp; He is humble for days afterwards.&nbsp;
+His dependants rather like him after all.&nbsp; They know that &ldquo;his
+bark is worse than his bite.&rdquo;&nbsp; Then there is your gloomy
+man, often a man who punishes himself most - perhaps a large-hearted,
+humorous, but sad man, at the same time liveable with.&nbsp; He does
+not care for trifles.&nbsp; But it is your acid-sensitive (I must join
+words like Mirabeau&rsquo;s Grandison-Cromwell, to get what I mean),
+and your cold, querulous people that need to have angels to live with
+them.&nbsp; Now education has often had a great deal to do with the
+making of these choice tempers.&nbsp; They are somewhat artificial productions.&nbsp;
+And they are the worst.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; You know a saying attributed to the Bishop
+of&nbsp; --- about temper.&nbsp; No?&nbsp; Somebody, I suppose, was
+excusing something on the score of temper, to which the Bishop replied,
+&ldquo;Temper is nine-tenths of Christianity.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is an appearance we see in Nature,
+not far from here, by the way, that has often put me in mind of the
+effect of temper upon men.&nbsp; It is in the lowlands near the sea,
+where, when the tide is not up (the man out of temper), there is a slimy,
+patchy, diseased-looking surface of mud and sick seaweed.&nbsp; You
+pass by in a few hours, there is a beautiful lake, water up to the green
+grass (the man in temper again), and the whole landscape brilliant with
+reflected light.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; And to complete the likeness, the good temper
+and the full tide last about the same time - with some men at least.&nbsp;
+It is so like you, Milverton, to have that simile in your mind.&nbsp;
+There is nothing you see in Nature, but you must instantly find a parallel
+for it in man.&nbsp; Sermons in stones you will not see, else I am sure
+you might.&nbsp; Here is a good hard flint for you to see your next
+essay in.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It will do very well, as my next will be
+on the subject of population.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; What day are we to have it?&nbsp; I think
+I have a particular engagement for that day.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I must come upon you unawares.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; After the essay you certainly might.&nbsp;
+Let us decamp now and do something great in the way of education - teach
+Rollo, though he is but a short-haired dog, to go into the water.&nbsp;
+That will be a feat.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>Ellesmere succeeded in persuading Rollo to go into the water, which
+proved more, he said, than the whole of Milverton&rsquo;s essay, how
+much might be done by judicious education.&nbsp; Before leaving my friends,
+I promised to come over again to Worth-Ashton in a day or two, to hear
+another essay.&nbsp; I came early and found them reading their letters.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>&ldquo;You remember Annesleigh at college,&rdquo; said Milverton,
+&ldquo;do you not, Dunsford?&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Here is a long letter from him.&nbsp; He
+is evidently vexed at the newspaper articles about his conduct in a
+matter of ----, and he writes to tell me that he is totally misrepresented.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Why does he not explain this publicly?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, you naturally think so at first, but
+such a mode of proceeding would never do for a man in office, and rarely,
+perhaps, for any man.&nbsp; At least, so the most judicious people seem
+to think.&nbsp; I have known a man in office bear patiently, without
+attempting any answer, a serious charge which a few lines would have
+entirely answered, indeed, turned the other way.&nbsp; But then he thought,
+I imagine, that if you once begin answering, there is no end to it,
+and also, which is more important, that the public journals were not
+a tribunal which he was called to appear before.&nbsp; He had his official
+superiors.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; It should be widely known and acknowledged
+then, that silence does not give consent in these cases.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It is known, though not, perhaps, sufficiently.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What a fearful power this anonymous journalism
+is!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is a great deal certainly that is mischievous
+in it; but take it altogether, it is a wonderful product of civilisation
+- morally too.&nbsp; Even as regards those qualities which would in
+general, to use a phrase of Bacon&rsquo;s, &ldquo;be noted as deficients&rdquo;
+in the press, in courtesy and forbearance, for example, it makes a much
+better figure than might have been expected; as any one would testify,
+I suspect, who had observed, or himself experienced, the temptations
+incident to writing on short notice, without much opportunity of after-thought
+or correction, upon subjects about which he had already expressed an
+opinion.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Is the anonymousness absolutely necessary?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I have often thought whether it is.&nbsp;
+If the anonymousness were taken away, the press would lose much of its
+power; but then, why should it not lose a portion of its power, if that
+portion is only built upon some delusion?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; It is a question of expediency.&nbsp; As
+government of all kinds becomes better managed, there is less necessity
+for protection for the press.&nbsp; It must be recollected, however,
+that this anonymousness (to coin a word) may not only be useful to protect
+us from any abuse of power, but that at least it takes away that temptation
+to discuss things in an insufficient manner which arises from personal
+fear of giving offence.&nbsp; Then, again, there is an advantage in
+considering arguments without reference to persons.&nbsp; If well-known
+authors wrote for the press and gave their signatures, we should often
+pass by the arguments unfairly, saying, &ldquo;Oh, it is only so-and-so:
+that is the way he always looks at things,&rdquo; without seeing whether
+it is the right way for the occasion in question.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; But take the other side, Ellesmere.&nbsp;
+What national dislikes are fostered by newspaper articles, and - </p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Articles in reviews and by books.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, but somehow or other, people imagine
+that newspapers speak the opinion of a much greater number of people
+- </p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Do not let us talk any more about it.&nbsp;
+We may become wise enough and well-managed enough to do without this
+anonymousness: we may not.&nbsp; How it would astound an ardent Whig
+or Radical of the last generation if we could hear such a sentiment
+as this - as a toast we will say - &rdquo;The Press: and may we become
+so civilised as to be able to take away some of its liberty.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; It may be put another way: &ldquo;May it
+become so civilised that we shall not want to take away any of its liberty.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+But I see you are tired of this subject.&nbsp; Shall we go on the lawn
+and have our essay?</p>
+<p>We assented, and Milverton read the following: - </p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>UNREASONABLE CLAIMS IN SOCIAL AFFECTIONS AND RELATIONS.</p>
+<p>We are all apt to magnify the importance of whatever we are thinking
+about, which is not to be wondered at; for everything human has an outlet
+into infinity, which we come to perceive on considering it.&nbsp; But
+with a knowledge of this tendency, I still venture to say that, of all
+that concerns mankind, this subject has, perhaps, been the least treated
+of in regard to its significance.&nbsp; For once that unreasonable expectations
+of gratitude have been reproved, ingratitude has been denounced a thousand
+times; and the same may be said of inconstancy, unkindness in friendship,
+neglected merit and the like.</p>
+<p>To begin with ingratitude.&nbsp; Human beings seldom have the demands
+upon each other which they imagine; and for what they have done they
+frequently ask an impossible return.&nbsp; Moreover, when people really
+have done others a service, the persons benefited often do not understand
+it.&nbsp; Could they have understood it, the benefactor, perhaps, would
+not have had to perform it.&nbsp; You cannot expect gratitude from them
+in proportion to your enlightenment.&nbsp; Then, again, where the service
+is a palpable one, thoroughly understood, we often require that the
+gratitude for it should bear down all the rest of the man&rsquo;s character.&nbsp;
+The dog is the very emblem of faithfulness; yet I believe it is found
+that he will sometimes like the person who takes him out and amuses
+him more than the person who feeds him.&nbsp; So, amongst bipeds, the
+most solid service must sometimes give way to the claims of congeniality.&nbsp;
+Human creatures are, happily, not to be swayed by self-interest alone:
+they are many-sided creatures; there are numberless modes of attaching
+their affections.&nbsp; Not only like likes like, but unlike likes unlike.</p>
+<p>To give an instance which must often occur.&nbsp; Two persons, both
+of feeble will, act together: one as superior, the other as inferior.&nbsp;
+The superior is very kind; the inferior is grateful.&nbsp; Circumstances
+occur to break this relation.&nbsp; The inferior comes under a superior
+of strong will, who is not, however, as tolerant and patient as his
+predecessor.&nbsp; But this second superior soon acquires unbounded
+influence over the inferior: if the first one looks on, he may wonder
+at the alacrity and affection of his former subordinate towards the
+new man, and talk much about ingratitude.&nbsp; But the inferior has
+now found somebody to lean upon and to reverence.&nbsp; And he cannot
+deny his nature and be otherwise than he is.&nbsp; In this case it does
+not look like ingratitude, except perhaps to the complaining person.&nbsp;
+But there are doubtless numerous instances in which, if we saw all the
+facts clearly, we should no more confirm the charge of ingratitude than
+we do here.</p>
+<p>Then, again, we seldom make sufficient allowance for the burden which
+there is in obligation, at least to all but great and good minds.&nbsp;
+There are some people who can receive as heartily as they would give;
+but the obligation of an ordinary person to an ordinary person is more
+apt to be brought to mind as a present sore than as a past delight.</p>
+<p>Amongst the unreasonable views of the affections, the most absurd
+one has been the fancy that love entirely depends upon the will; still
+more that the love of others for us is to be guided by the inducements
+which seem probable to us.&nbsp; We have served them; we think only
+of them; we are their lovers, or fathers, or brothers: we deserve and
+require to be loved and to have the love proved to us.&nbsp; But love
+is not like property: it has neither duties nor rights.&nbsp; You argue
+for it in vain; and there is no one who can give it you.&nbsp; It is
+not his or hers to give.&nbsp; Millions of bribes and infinite arguments
+cannot prevail.&nbsp; For it is not a substance, but a relation.&nbsp;
+There is no royal road.&nbsp; We are loved as we are lovable to the
+person loving.&nbsp; It is no answer to say that in some cases the love
+is based on no reality, but is solely in the imagination - that is,
+that we are loved not for what we are, but for what we are fancied to
+be.&nbsp; That will not bring it any more into the dominions of logic;
+and love still remains the same untamable creature, deaf to advocacy,
+blind to other people&rsquo;s idea of merit, and not a substance to
+be weighed or numbered at all.</p>
+<p>Then, as to the complaints about broken friendship.&nbsp; Friendship
+is often outgrown; and his former child&rsquo;s clothes will no more
+fit a man than some of his former friendships.&nbsp; Often a breach
+of friendship is supposed to occur when there is nothing of the kind.&nbsp;
+People see one another seldom; their courses in life are different;
+they meet, and their intercourse is constrained.&nbsp; They fancy that
+their friendship is mightily cooled.&nbsp; But imagine the dearest friends,
+one coming home after a long sojourn, the other going out to new lands:
+the ships that carry these meet: the friends talk together in a confused
+way not relevant at all to their friendship, and, if not well assured
+of their mutual regard, might naturally fancy that it was much abated.&nbsp;
+Something like this occurs daily in the stream of the world.&nbsp; Then,
+too, unless people are very unreasonable, they cannot expect that their
+friends will pass into new systems of thought and action without new
+ties of all kinds being created, and some modification of the old ones
+taking place.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>When we are talking of exorbitant claims made for the regard of others,
+we must not omit those of what is called neglected merit.&nbsp; A man
+feels that he has abilities or talents of a particular kind, that he
+has shown them, and still he is a neglected man.&nbsp; I am far from
+saying that merit is sufficiently looked out for: but a man may take
+the sting out of any neglect of his merits by thinking that at least
+it does not arise from malice prepense, as he almost imagines in his
+anger.&nbsp; Neither the public, nor individuals, have the time, or
+will, resolutely to neglect anybody.&nbsp; What pleases us, we admire
+and further: if a man in any profession, calling, or art, does things
+which are beyond us, we are as guiltless of neglecting him as the Caffres
+are of neglecting the differential calculus.&nbsp; Milton sells his
+&ldquo;Paradise Lost&rdquo; for ten pounds; there is no record of Shakespeare
+dining much with Queen Elizabeth.&nbsp; And it is Utopian to imagine
+that statues will be set up to right men in their day.</p>
+<p>The same arguments which applied to the complaints of ingratitude,
+apply to the complaints of neglected merit.&nbsp; The merit is oftentimes
+not understood.&nbsp; Be it ever so manifest, it cannot absorb men&rsquo;s
+attention.&nbsp; When it is really great, it has not been brought out
+by the hope of reward, any more than the kindest services by the hope
+of gratitude.&nbsp; In neither case is it becoming or rational to be
+clamorous about payment.</p>
+<p>There is one thing that people hardly ever remember, or, indeed,
+have imagination enough to conceive; namely, the effect of each man
+being shut up in his individuality.&nbsp; Take a long course of sayings
+and doings in which many persons have been engaged.&nbsp; Each one of
+them is in his own mind the centre of the web, though, perhaps, he is
+at the edge of it.&nbsp; We know that in our observations of the things
+of sense, any difference in the points from which the observation is
+taken gives a different view of the same thing.&nbsp; Moreover, in the
+world of sense, the objects and the points of view are each indifferent
+to the rest; but in life the points of views are centres of action that
+have had something to do with the making of the things looked at.&nbsp;
+If we could calculate the moral parallax arising from these causes,
+we should see, by the mere aid of the intellect, how unjust we often
+are in our complaints of ingratitude, inconstancy, and neglect.&nbsp;
+But without these nice calculations, such errors of view may be corrected
+at once by humility, a more sure method than the most enlightened appreciation
+of the cause of error.&nbsp; Humility is the true cure for many a needless
+heartache.</p>
+<p>It must not be supposed that in thus opposing unreasonable views
+of social affections, anything is done to dissever such affections.&nbsp;
+The Duke of Wellington, writing to a man in a dubious position of authority,
+says &ldquo;The less you claim, the more you will have.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+This is remarkably true of the affections; and there is scarcely anything
+that would make men happier than teaching them to watch against unreasonableness
+in their claims of regard and affection; and which at the same time
+would be more likely to ensure their getting what may be their due.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i> (clapping his hands).&nbsp; An essay after my heart:
+worth tons of soft trash.&nbsp; In general you are amplifying duties,
+telling everybody that they are to be so good to every other body.&nbsp;
+Now it is as well to let every other body know that he is not to expect
+all he may fancy from everybody.&nbsp; A man complains that his prosperous
+friends neglect him: infinitely overrating, in all probability, his
+claims, and his friends&rsquo; power of doing anything for him.&nbsp;
+Well, then, you may think me very hard, but I say that the most absurd
+claims are often put forth on the ground of relationship.&nbsp; I do
+not deny that there is something in blood, but it must not be made too
+much of.&nbsp; Near relations have great opportunities of attaching
+each other; if they fail to use these, I do not think it is well to
+let them imagine that mere relationship is to be the talisman of affection.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I do not see exactly how to answer all that
+you or Milverton have said; but I am not prepared, as official people
+say, to agree with you.&nbsp; I especially disagree with what Milverton
+has said about love.&nbsp; He leaves much too little power to the will.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I daresay I may have done so.&nbsp; These
+are very deep matters, and any one view about them does not exhaust
+them.&nbsp; I remember C---- once saying to me that a man never utters
+anything without error.&nbsp; He may even think of it rightly; but he
+cannot bring it out rightly.&nbsp; It turns a little false, as it were,
+when it quits the brain and comes into life.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I thought you would soon go over to the soft
+side.&nbsp; Here, Rollo; there&rsquo;s a good dog.&nbsp; You do not
+form unreasonable expectations, do you?&nbsp; A very little petting
+puts you into an ecstasy, and you are much wiser than many a biped who
+is full of his claims for gratitude, and friendship, and love, and who
+is always longing for well-merited rewards to fall into his mouth.&nbsp;
+Down, dog!</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Poor animal! it little knows that all this
+sudden notice is only by way of ridiculing us.&nbsp; Why I did not maintain
+my ground stoutly against Dunsford is, that I am always afraid of pushing
+moral conclusions too far.&nbsp; Since we have been talking, I think
+I see more clearly than I did before what I mean to convey by the essay
+- namely, that men fall into unreasonable views respecting the affections
+<i>from imagining that the general laws of the mind are suspended for
+the sake of the affections.</i></p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; That seems safer ground.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Now to illustrate what I mean by a very similar
+instance.&nbsp; The mind is avid of new impressions.&nbsp; It &ldquo;travels
+over,&rdquo; or thinks it travels over, another mind; and, though it
+may conceal its wish for &ldquo;fresh fields and pastures new,&rdquo;
+it does so wish.&nbsp; However harsh, therefore, and unromantic it may
+seem, the best plan is to humour Nature, and not to exhaust by overfrequent
+presence the affection of those whom we would love, or whom we would
+have to love us.&nbsp; I would not say, after the manner of Rochefoucauld,
+that the less we see of people the more we like them; but there are
+certain limits of sociality; and prudent reserve and absence may find
+a place in the management of the tenderest relations.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes, all this is true enough: I do not see
+anything hard in this.&nbsp; But then there is the other side.&nbsp;
+Custom is a great aid to affection.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; All I say is, do not fancy that
+the general laws are suspended for the sake of any one affection.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Still this does not go to the question whether
+there is not something more of will in affection than you make out.&nbsp;
+You would speak of inducements and counter-inducements, aids and hindrances;
+but I cannot but think you are limiting the power of will, and therefore
+limiting duty.&nbsp; Such views tend to make people easily discontented
+with each other, and prevent their making efforts to get over offences,
+and to find out what is lovable in those about them.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Here we are in the deep places again.&nbsp;
+I see you are pondering, Milverton.&nbsp; It is a question, as a minister
+would say when Parliament perplexes him, that we must go to the country
+upon; each man&rsquo;s heart will, perhaps, tell him best about it.&nbsp;
+For my own part, I think that the continuance of affection, as the rise
+of it, depends more on the taste being satisfied, or at least not disgusted,
+than upon any other single thing.&nbsp; Our hearts may be touched at
+our being loved by people essentially distasteful to us, whose modes
+of talking and acting are a continual offence to us; but whether we
+can love them in return is a question.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, we can, I think.&nbsp; I begin to see
+that it is a question of degree.&nbsp; The word love includes many shades
+of meaning.&nbsp; When it includes admiration, of course we cannot be
+said to love those in whom we see nothing to admire.&nbsp; But this
+seldom happens in the mixed characters of real life.&nbsp; The upshot
+of it all seems to me to be, that, as Guizot says of civilisation, every
+impulse has room; so in the affections, every inducement and counter-inducement
+has its influence; and the result is not a simple one, which can be
+spoken of as if it were alike on all occasions and with all men.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I am still unanswered, I think, Milverton.&nbsp;
+What you say is still wholly built upon inducements, and does not touch
+the power of will.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No; it does not.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; We must leave that alone.&nbsp; Infinite
+piles of books have not as yet lifted us up to a clear view of that
+matter.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, then, we must leave it as a vexed question;
+but let it be seen that there is such a question.&nbsp; Now, as to another
+thing; you speak, Milverton, of men&rsquo;s not making allowance enough
+for the unpleasant weight of obligation.&nbsp; I think that weight seems
+to have increased in modern times.&nbsp; Essex could give Bacon a small
+estate, and Bacon could take it comfortably, I have no doubt.&nbsp;
+That is a much more wholesome state of things among friends than the
+present.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, undoubtedly.&nbsp; An extreme notion
+about independence has made men much less generous in receiving.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; It is a falling off, then.&nbsp; There was
+another comment I had to make.&nbsp; I think, when you speak about the
+exorbitant demands of neglected merit, you should say more upon the
+neglect of the just demands of merit.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would have the Government and the public
+in general try by all means to understand and reward merit, especially
+in those matters wherein excellence cannot, otherwise, meet with large
+present reward.&nbsp; But, to say the truth, I would have this done,
+not with the view of fostering genius so much as of fulfilling duty:
+I would say to a minister - it is becoming in you - it is well for the
+nation, to reward, as far as you can, and dignify, men of genius.&nbsp;
+Whether you will do them any good or bring forth more of them, I do
+not know.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Men of great genius are often such a sensitive
+race, so apt to be miserable in many other than pecuniary ways and want
+of public estimation, that I am not sure that distress and neglect do
+not take their minds off worse discomforts.&nbsp; It is a kind of grievance,
+too, that they like to have.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Really, Ellesmere, that is a most unfeeling
+speech.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; At any rate, it is right for us to honour
+and serve a great man.&nbsp; It is our nature to do so, if we are worth
+anything.&nbsp; We may put aside the question whether our honour will
+do him more good than our neglect.&nbsp; That is a question for him
+to look to.&nbsp; The world has not yet so largely honoured deserving
+men in their own time, that we can exactly pronounce what effect it
+would have upon them.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Come, Rollo, let us leave these men of sentiment.&nbsp;
+Oh, you will not go, as your master does not move.&nbsp; Look how he
+wags his tail, and almost says, &ldquo;I should clearly like to have
+a hunt after the water-rat we saw in the pond the other day, but master
+is talking philosophy, and requires an intelligent audience.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+These dogs are dear creatures, it must be owned.&nbsp; Come, Milverton,
+let us have a walk.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>After the reading in the last chapter, my friends walked homewards
+with me as far as Durley Wood, which is about half-way between Worth-Ashton
+and my house.&nbsp; As we rested here, we bethought ourselves that it
+would be a pleasant spot for us to come to sometimes and read our essays.&nbsp;
+So we agreed to name a day for meeting there.&nbsp; The day was favourable,
+we met as we had appointed, and finding some beech logs lying very opportunely,
+took possession of them for our council.&nbsp; We seated Ellesmere on
+one that we called the woolsack, but which he said he felt himself unworthy
+to occupy in the presence of King Log, pointing to mine.&nbsp; These
+nice points of etiquette being at last settled, Milverton drew out his
+papers and was about to begin reading, when Ellesmere thus interrupted
+him: - </p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; You were not in earnest, Milverton, about
+giving us an essay on population?&nbsp; Because if so, I think I shall
+leave this place to you and Dunsford and the ants.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I certainly have been meditating something
+of the sort; but have not been able to make much of it.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; If I had been living in those days when it
+first beamed upon mankind that the earth was round, I am sure I should
+have said, &ldquo;We know now the bounds of the earth: there are no
+interminable plains joined to the regions of the sun, allowing of indefinite
+sketchy outlines at the edges of maps.&nbsp; That little creature man
+will immediately begin to think that his world is too small for him.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There has probably been as much folly uttered
+by political economy as against it, which is saying something.&nbsp;
+The danger as regards theories of political economy is the obvious one
+of their abstract conclusions being applied to concrete things.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; As if we were to expect mathematical lines
+to bear weights.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Something like that.&nbsp; With a good system
+of logic pervading the public mind, this danger would of course be avoided;
+but such a state of mind is not likely to occur in any public that we
+or our grandchildren are likely to have to deal with.&nbsp; As it is,
+an ordinary man hears some conclusion of political economy, showing
+some particular tendency of things, which in real life meets with many
+counteractions of all kinds: but he, perhaps, adopts the conclusion
+without the least abatement, and would work it into life, as if all
+went on there like a rule-of-three sum.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; After all, this error arises from the man&rsquo;s
+not having enough political economy.&nbsp; It is not that a theory is
+good on paper, but unsound in real life.&nbsp; It is only that in real
+life you cannot get at the simple state of things to which the theory
+would rightly apply.&nbsp; You want many other theories and the just
+composition of them all to be able to work the whole problem.&nbsp;
+That being done (which, however, scarcely can be done), the result on
+paper might be read off as applicable at once to life.&nbsp; But now,
+touching the essay; since we are not to have population, what is it
+to be?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Public improvements.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Nearly as bad; but as this is a favourite
+subject of yours, I suppose it will not be polite to go away.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; No; you must listen.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.</p>
+<p>What are possessions?&nbsp; To an individual, the stores of his own
+heart and mind pre-eminently.&nbsp; His truth and valour are amongst
+the first.&nbsp; His contentedness, or his resignation may be put next.&nbsp;
+Then his sense of beauty, surely a possession of great moment to him.&nbsp;
+Then all those mixed possessions which result from the social affections
+- great possessions, unspeakable delights, much greater than the gift
+last mentioned in the former class, but held on more uncertain tenure.&nbsp;
+Lastly, what are generally called possessions?&nbsp; However often we
+have heard of the vanity, uncertainty, and vexation that beset these
+last, we must not let this repetition deaden our minds to the fact.</p>
+<p>Now, national possessions must be estimated by the same gradation
+that we have applied to individual possessions.&nbsp; If we consider
+national luxury, we shall see how small a part it may add to national
+happiness.&nbsp; Men of deserved renown, and peerless women, lived upon
+what we should now call the coarsest fare, and paced the rushes in their
+rooms with as high, or as contented thoughts, as their better-fed and
+better-clothed descendants can boast of.&nbsp; Man is limited in this
+direction; I mean, in the things that concern his personal gratification;
+but when you come to the higher enjoyments, the expansive power both
+in him and them is greater.&nbsp; As Keats says,</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;A thing of beauty is a joy for
+ever;<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Its loveliness increases;
+it will never<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pass into nothingness;
+but still will keep<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A bower
+quiet for us, and a sleep<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Full
+of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>What then are a nation&rsquo;s possessions?&nbsp; The great words
+that have been said in it; the great deeds that have been done in it;
+the great buildings, and the great works of art, that have been made
+in it.&nbsp; A man says a noble saying: it is a possession, first to
+his own race, then to mankind.&nbsp; A people get a noble building built
+for them: it is an honour to them, also a daily delight and instruction.&nbsp;
+It perishes.&nbsp; The remembrance of it is still a possession.&nbsp;
+If it was indeed pre-eminent, there will be more pleasure in thinking
+of it than in being with others of inferior order and design.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>On the other hand, a thing of ugliness is potent for evil.&nbsp;
+It deforms the taste of the thoughtless: it frets the man who knows
+how bad it is: it is a disgrace to the nation who raised it; an example
+and an occasion for more monstrosities.&nbsp; If it is a great building
+in a great city, thousands of people pass it daily, and are the worse
+for it, or at least not the better.&nbsp; It must be done away with.&nbsp;
+Next to the folly of doing a bad thing is that of fearing to undo it.&nbsp;
+We must not look at what it has cost, but at what it is.&nbsp; Millions
+may be spent upon some foolish device which will not the more make it
+into a possession, but only a more noticeable detriment.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>It must not be supposed that works of art are the only, or the chief,
+public improvements needed in any country.&nbsp; Wherever men congregate,
+the elements become scarce.&nbsp; The supply of air, light, and water
+is then a matter of the highest public importance: and the magnificent
+utilitarianism of the Romans should precede the nice sense of beauty
+of the Greeks.&nbsp; Or rather, the former should be worked out in the
+latter.&nbsp; Sanitary improvements, like most good works, may be made
+to fulfil many of the best human objects.&nbsp; Charity, social order,
+conveniency of living, and the love of the beautiful, may all be furthered
+by such improvements.&nbsp; A people is seldom so well employed as when,
+not suffering their attention to be absorbed by foreign quarrels and
+domestic broils, they bethink themselves of winning back those blessings
+of Nature which assemblages of men mostly vitiate, exclude, or destroy.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>Public improvements are sometimes most difficult in free countries.&nbsp;
+The origination of them is difficult there, many diverse minds having
+to be persuaded.&nbsp; The individual, or class, resistance to the public
+good is harder to conquer than in despotic states.&nbsp; And, what is
+most embarrassing, perhaps, individual progress in the same direction,
+or individual doings in some other way, form a great hindrance, sometimes,
+to public enterprise.&nbsp; On the other hand, the energy of a free
+people is a mine of public welfare; and individual effort brings many
+good things to bear in much shorter time than any government could be
+expected to move in.&nbsp; A judicious statesman considers these things;
+and sets himself especially to overcome those peculiar obstacles to
+public improvement which belong to the institutions of his country.&nbsp;
+Adventure in a despotic state, combined action in a free state, are
+the objects which peculiarly demand his attention.</p>
+<p>To return to works of art.&nbsp; In this also the genius of the people
+is to be heeded.&nbsp; There may have been, there may be, nations requiring
+to be diverted from the love of art to stern labour and industrial conquests.&nbsp;
+But certainly it is not so with the Anglo-Saxon race, or with the Northern
+races generally.&nbsp; Money may enslave them; logic may enslave them;
+art never will.&nbsp; The chief men, therefore, in these races will
+do well sometimes to contend against the popular current, and to convince
+their people that there are other sources of delight, and other objects
+worthy of human endeavour, than severe money-getting or more material
+successes of any kind.</p>
+<p>In fine, the substantial improvement, and even the embellishment
+of towns, is a work which both the central and local governing bodies
+in a country should keep a steady hand upon.&nbsp; It especially concerns
+them.&nbsp; What are they there for but to do that which individuals
+cannot do?&nbsp; It concerns them, too, as it tells upon the health,
+morals, education, and refined pleasures of the people they govern.&nbsp;
+In doing it, they should avoid pedantry, parsimony, and favouritism;
+and their mode of action should be large, considerate, and foreseeing.&nbsp;
+Large; inasmuch as they must not easily be contented with the second
+best in any of their projects.&nbsp; Considerate; inasmuch as they have
+to think what their people need most, not what will make most show.&nbsp;
+And therefore, they should be contented, for instance, at their work
+going on underground for a time, or in byways, if needful; the best
+charity in public works, as in private, being often that which courts
+least notice.&nbsp; Lastly, their work should be with foresight, recollecting
+that cities grow up about us like young people, before we are aware
+of it.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Another very merciful essay!&nbsp; When we
+had once got upon the subject of sanitary improvements, I thought we
+should soon be five fathom deep in blue-books, reports, interminable
+questions of sewerage, and horrors of all kinds.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I am glad you own that I have been very tender
+of your impatience in this essay.&nbsp; People, I trust, are now so
+fully aware of the immense importance of sanitary improvements, that
+we do not want the elementary talking about such things that was formerly
+necessary.&nbsp; It is difficult, though, to say too much about sanitary
+matters, that is, if by saying much one could gain attention.&nbsp;
+I am convinced that the most fruitful source of physical evil to mankind
+has been impure air, arising from circumstances which might have been
+obviated.&nbsp; Plagues and pestilences of all kinds, cretinism too,
+and all scrofulous disorders, are probably mere questions of ventilation.&nbsp;
+A district may require ventilation as well as a house.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Seriously speaking, I quite agree with you.&nbsp;
+And what delights me in sanitary improvements is, that they can hardly
+do harm.&nbsp; Give a poor man good air, and you do not diminish his
+self-reliance.&nbsp; You only add to his health and vigour - make more
+of a man of him.&nbsp; But now that the public mind, as it is facetiously
+called, has got hold of the idea of these improvements, everybody will
+be chattering about them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The very time when those who really do care
+for these matters should be watchful to make the most of the tide in
+their favour, and should not suffer themselves to relax their efforts
+because there is no originality now about such things.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Custom soon melts off the wings which Novelty
+alone has lent to Benevolence.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; And down comes the charitable Icarus.&nbsp;
+A very good simile, my dear Dunsford, but rather of the Latin-verse
+order.&nbsp; I almost see it worked into an hexameter and pentameter,
+and delighting the heart of an Eton boy.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Ellesmere is more than usually vicious to-day,
+Milverton.&nbsp; A great &ldquo;public improvement&rdquo; would be to
+clip the tongues of some of these lawyers.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Possibly.&nbsp; I have just been looking
+again at that part of the essay, Milverton, where you talk of the little
+gained by national luxury.&nbsp; I think with you.&nbsp; There is an
+immensity of nonsense uttered about making people happy, which is to
+be done, according to happiness-mongers, by quantities of sugar and
+tea, and such-like things.&nbsp; One knows the importance of food, but
+there is no Elysium to be got out of it.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I know what you mean.&nbsp; There is a kind
+of pity for the people now in vogue which is most effeminate.&nbsp;
+It is a sugared sort of Robespierre talk about &ldquo;The poor but virtuous
+People.&rdquo;&nbsp; To address such stuff to the people is not to give
+them anything, but to take away what they have.&nbsp; Suppose you could
+give them oceans of tea and mountains of sugar, and abundance of any
+luxury that you choose to imagine, but at the same time you inserted
+a hungry, envious spirit in them, what have you done?&nbsp; Then, again,
+this envious spirit, when it is turned to difference of station, what
+good can it do?&nbsp; Can you give station according to merit?&nbsp;
+Is life long enough for it?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Of course we cannot always be weighing men
+with nicety, and saying, &ldquo;Here is your place, here yours.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Then, again, what happiness do you confer
+on men by teaching them to disrespect their superiors in rank, by turning
+all the embellishments which adorn various stations wrong side out,
+putting everything in its lowest form, and then saying, &ldquo;What
+do you see to admire here?&rdquo;&nbsp; You do not know what injury
+you may do a man when you destroy all reverence in him.&nbsp; It will
+be found out some day that men derive more pleasure and profit from
+having superiors than from having inferiors.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; It is seldom that I bring you back to your
+subject, but we are really a long way off at present; and I want to
+know, Milverton, what you would do specifically in the way of public
+improvements.&nbsp; Of course you cannot say in an essay what you would
+do in such matters, but amongst ourselves.&nbsp; In London, for instance.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The first thing for Government to do, Dunsford,
+in London, or any other great town, is to secure open spaces in it and
+about it.&nbsp; Trafalgar Square may be dotted with hideous absurdities,
+but it is an open space.&nbsp; They may collect together there specimens
+of every variety of meanness and bad taste; but they cannot prevent
+its being a better thing than if it were covered with houses.&nbsp;
+Public money is scarcely ever so well employed as in securing bits of
+waste ground and keeping them as open spaces.&nbsp; Then, as under the
+most favourable circumstances, we are likely to have too much carbon
+in the air of any town, we should plant trees to restore the just proportions
+of the air as far as we can. <a name="citation161"></a><a href="#footnote161">{161}</a>&nbsp;
+Trees are also what the heart and the eye desire most in towns.&nbsp;
+The Boulevards in Paris show the excellent effect of trees against buildings.&nbsp;
+There are many parts of London where rows of trees might be planted
+along the streets.&nbsp; The weighty dulness of Portland Place, for
+instance, might be thus relieved.&nbsp; Of course, in any scheme of
+public improvements, the getting rid of smoke is one of the first objects.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, smoke is a great abuse; but then there
+is something ludicrous about it, just as there is about sewerage.&nbsp;
+I believe, myself, that for one person that the Corn Laws have injured,
+a dozen have had their lives shortened and their happiness abridged
+in every way by these less palpable nuisances.&nbsp; But there is no
+grandeur in opposing them - no &ldquo;good cry&rdquo; to be raised.&nbsp;
+And so, as abuses cannot be met in our days but by agitation - a committee,
+secretaries, clerks, newspapers, and a review - and as agitation in
+this case holds out fewer inducements than usual, we have gone on year
+after year being poisoned by these various nuisances, at an incalculable
+expense of life and money.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is something in what you say, I think,
+but you press it too far; for of late these sanitary subjects have worked
+themselves into notice, as you yourself admit.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Late indeed.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Well, but to go on with schemes for improving
+London.&nbsp; Open spaces, trees - then comes the supply of water.&nbsp;
+This is one of the first things to be done.&nbsp; Philadelphia has given
+an example which all towns ought to imitate.&nbsp; It is a matter requiring
+great thought, and the various plans should be thoroughly canvassed
+before the choice is made.&nbsp; Great beauty and the highest utility
+may be combined in supplying a town like London with water.&nbsp; By
+the way, how much water do you think London requires daily?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; As much as the Serpentine and the water in
+St. James&rsquo;s Park.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You are not so far out.</p>
+<p>Well, then, having gone through the largest things that must be attended
+to, we come to minor matters.&nbsp; It is a great pity that the system
+of building upon leases should be so commonly adopted.&nbsp; Nobody
+expects to live out the leasehold term which he takes to build upon.&nbsp;
+But things would be better done if people were more averse to having
+anything to do with leasehold property.&nbsp; C. always says that the
+modern lath-and-plaster system is a wickedness, and upon my word I think
+he is right.&nbsp; It is inconceivable to me how a man can make up his
+mind to build, or to do anything else, in a temporary, slight, insincere
+fashion.&nbsp; What has a man to say for himself who must sum up the
+doings of his life in this way, &ldquo;I chiefly employed myself in
+making or selling things which seemed to be good and were not, and nobody
+has occasion to bless me for anything I have done.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Humph! you put it mildly.&nbsp; But the man
+has made perhaps seven per cent. off his money; or, if he has made no
+per cent., has ruined several men of his own trade, which is not to
+go for nothing when a man is taking stock of his good deeds.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is one thing I forgot to say, that
+we want more individual will in building, I think.&nbsp; As it is at
+present, a great builder takes a plot of ground and turns out innumerable
+houses, all alike, the same faults and merits running through each,
+thus adding to the general dulness of things.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when she came
+from abroad, remarked that all her friends seemed to have got into drawing-rooms
+which were like a grand piano, first a large square or oblong room,
+and then a small one.&nbsp; Quite Georgian, this style of architecture.&nbsp;
+But now I think we are improving immensely - at any rate in the outside
+of houses.&nbsp; By the way, Milverton, I want to ask you one thing:
+How is it that Governments and Committees, and the bodies that manage
+matters of taste, seem to be more tasteless than the average run of
+people?&nbsp; I will wager anything that the cabmen round Trafalgar
+Square would have made a better thing of it than it is.&nbsp; If you
+had put before them several prints of fountains, they would not have
+chosen those.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I think with you, but I have no theory to
+account for it.&nbsp; I suppose that these committees are frequently
+hampered by other considerations than those which come before the public
+when they are looking at the work done; and this may be some excuse.&nbsp;
+There was a custom which I have heard prevailed in former days in some
+of the Italian cities, of making large models of the works of art that
+were to adorn the city, and putting them up in the places intended for
+the works when finished, and then inviting criticism.&nbsp; It would
+really be a very good plan in some cases.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Now, Milverton, would you not forthwith pull
+down such things as Buckingham Palace and the National Gallery?&nbsp;
+Dunsford looks at me as if I were going to pull down the Constitution.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would pull them down to a certainty, or
+some parts of them at any rate; but whether &ldquo;forthwith&rdquo;
+is another question.&nbsp; There are greater things, perhaps, to be
+done first.&nbsp; We must consider, too,</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;That eternal want of pence<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Which
+vexes public men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Still, I think we ought always to look upon such buildings as temporary
+arrangements, and they vex one less then.&nbsp; The Palace ought to
+be in the higher part of the Park, perhaps on that slope opposite Piccadilly.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, it does amuse me the way in which you
+youngsters go on, pulling down, in your industrious imaginations, palaces
+and national galleries, building aqueducts and cloac&aelig; maxim&aelig;,
+forming parks, destroying smoke (so large a part of every Londoner&rsquo;s
+diet), and abridging plaster, without fear of Chancellors of the Exchequer,
+and the resistance of mankind in general.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; We must begin by thinking boldly about things.&nbsp;
+That is a larger part of any undertaking than it seems, perhaps.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; We must, I am afraid, break off our pleasant
+employment of projecting public improvements, unless we mean to be dinnerless.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; A frequent fate of great projectors, I fear.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Now then, homewards.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
+<p>My readers will, perhaps, agree with me in being sorry to find that
+we are coming to the end of our present series.&nbsp; I say, &ldquo;my
+readers,&rdquo; though I have so little part in purveying for them,
+that I mostly consider myself one of them.&nbsp; It is no light task,
+however, to give a good account of a conversation; and I say this, and
+would wish people to try whether I am not right in saying so, not to
+call attention to my labour in the matter, but because it may be well
+to notice how difficult it is to report anything truly.&nbsp; Were this
+better known, it might be an aid to charity, and prevent some of those
+feuds which grow out of the poverty of man&rsquo;s power to express,
+to apprehend, to represent, rather than out of any malignant part of
+his nature.&nbsp; But I must not go on moralising.&nbsp; I almost feel
+that Ellesmere is looking over my shoulder, and breaking into my discourse
+with sharp words; which I have lately been so much accustomed to.</p>
+<p>I had expected that we should have many more readings this summer,
+as I knew that Milverton had prepared more essays for us.&nbsp; But
+finding, as he said, that the other subjects he had in hand were larger
+than he had anticipated, or was prepared for, he would not read even
+to us what he had written.&nbsp; Though I was very sorry for this -
+for I may not be the chronicler in another year - I could not but say
+he was right.&nbsp; Indeed, my ideas of literature, nourished as they
+have been in much solitude, and by the reading, if I may say so, mainly
+of our classical authors, are very high placed, though I hope not fantastical.&nbsp;
+And, therefore, I would not discourage anyone in expending whatever
+thought and labour might be in him upon any literary work.</p>
+<p>In fine, then, I did not attempt to dissuade Milverton from his purpose
+of postponing our readings: and we agreed that there should only be
+one more for the present.&nbsp; I wished it to be at our favourite place
+on the lawn, which had become endeared to me as the spot of many of
+our friendly councils.</p>
+<p>It was later than usual when I came over to Worth-Ashton for this
+reading; and as I gained the brow of the hill, some few clouds tinged
+with red were just grouping together to form the accustomed pomp upon
+the exit of the setting sun.&nbsp; I believe I mentioned in the introduction
+to our first conversation that the ruins of an old castle could be seen
+from our place of meeting.&nbsp; Milverton and Ellesmere were talking
+about it as I joined them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, Ellesmere, many a man has looked out
+of those windows upon a sunset like this, with some of the thoughts
+that must come into the minds of all men on seeing this great emblem,
+the setting sun - has felt, in looking at it, his coming end, or the
+closing of his greatness.&nbsp; Those old walls must have been witness
+to every kind of human emotion.&nbsp; Henry the Second was there; John,
+I think; Margaret of Anjou and Cardinal Beaufort; William of Wykeham;
+Henry the Eighth&rsquo;s Cromwell; and many others who have made some
+stir in the world.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; And, perhaps, the greatest there were those
+who made no stir.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;The world knows nothing of its
+greatest men.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I am slow to believe that.&nbsp; I cannot
+well reconcile myself to the idea that great capacities are given for
+nothing.&nbsp; They bud out in some way or other.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes, but it may not be in a noisy way.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; There is one thing that always strikes me
+very much in looking at the lives of men: how soon, as it were, their
+course seems to be determined.&nbsp; They say, or do, or think, something
+which gives a bias at once to the whole of their career.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; You may go farther back than that, and speak
+of the impulses they got from their ancestors.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Or the nets around them of other people&rsquo;s
+ways and wishes.&nbsp; There are many things, you see, that go to make
+men puppets.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I was only noticing the circumstance that
+there was such a thing, as it appeared to me, as this early direction.&nbsp;
+But, if it has been ever so unfortunate, a man&rsquo;s folding his hands
+over it in a melancholy mood, and suffering himself to be made a puppet
+by it, is a sadly weak proceeding.&nbsp; Most thoughtful men have probably
+some dark fountains in their souls, by the side of which, if there were
+time, and it were decorous, they could let their thoughts sit down and
+wail indefinitely.&nbsp; That long Byron wail fascinated men for a time;
+because there is that in Human Nature.&nbsp; Luckily, a great deal besides.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I delight in the helpful and hopeful men.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; A man that I admire very much, and have met
+with occasionally, is one who is always of use in any matter he is mixed
+up with, simply because he wishes that the best should be got out of
+the thing that is possible.&nbsp; There does not seem much in the description
+of such a character; but only see it in contrast with that of a brilliant
+man, for instance, who does not ever fully care about the matter in
+hand.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I can thoroughly imagine the difference.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The human race may be bound up together in
+some mysterious way, each of us having a profound interest in the fortunes
+of the whole, and so, to some extent, of every portion of it.&nbsp;
+Such a man as I have described acts as though he had an intuitive perception
+of that relation, and therefore a sort of family feeling for mankind,
+which gives him satisfaction in making the best out of any human affair
+he has to do with.</p>
+<p>But we really must have the essay, and not talk any more.&nbsp; It
+is on History.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>HISTORY.</p>
+<p>Among the fathomless things that are about us and within us, is the
+continuity of time.&nbsp; This gives to life one of its most solemn
+aspects.&nbsp; We may think to ourselves: Would there could be some
+halting-place in life, where we could stay, collecting our minds, and
+see the world drift by us.&nbsp; But no: even while you read this, you
+are not pausing to read it.&nbsp; As one of the great French preachers,
+I think, says, We are embarked upon a stream, each in his own little
+boat, which must move uniformly onwards, till it ceases to move at all.&nbsp;
+It is a stream that knows &ldquo;no haste, no rest&rdquo;; a boat that
+knows no haven but one.</p>
+<p>This unbated continuity suggests the past as well as the future.&nbsp;
+We would know what mighty empires this stream of time has flowed through,
+by what battle-fields it has been tinged, how it has been employed towards
+fertility, and what beautiful shadows on its surface have been seized
+by art, or science, or great words, and held in time-lasting, if not
+in everlasting, beauty.&nbsp; This is what history tells us.&nbsp; Often
+in a faltering, confused, be-darkened way, like the deed it chronicles.&nbsp;
+But it is what we have, and we must make the best of it.</p>
+<p>The subject of this essay may be thus divided: Why history should
+be read - how it should be read - by whom it should be written - how
+it should be written - and how good writers of history should be called
+forth, aided, and rewarded.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>I.&nbsp; WHY HISTORY SHOULD BE READ.</p>
+<p>It takes us out of too much care for the present; it extends our
+sympathies; it shows us that other men have had their sufferings and
+their grievances; it enriches discourse, it enlightens travel.&nbsp;
+So does fiction.&nbsp; But the effect of history is more lasting and
+suggestive.&nbsp; If we see a place which fiction has treated of, we
+feel that it has some interest for us; but show us a spot where remarkable
+deeds have been done, or remarkable people have lived, and our thoughts
+cling to it.&nbsp; We employ our own imagination about it: we invent
+the fiction for ourselves.&nbsp; Again, history is at least the conventional
+account of things: that which men agree to receive as the right account,
+and which they discuss as true.&nbsp; To understand their talk, we must
+know what they are talking about.&nbsp; Again, there is something in
+history which can seldom be got from the study of the lives of individual
+men; namely, the movements of men collectively, and for long periods
+- of man, in fact, not of men.&nbsp; In history, the composition of
+the forces that move the world has to be analysed.&nbsp; We must have
+before us the law of the progress of opinion, the interruptions to it
+of individual character, the principles on which men act in the main,
+the trade winds, as we may say, in human affairs, and the recurrent
+storms which one man&rsquo;s life does not tell us of.&nbsp; Again,
+by the study of history, we have a chance of becoming tolerant travelling
+over the ways of many nations and many periods; and we may also acquire
+that historic tact by which we collect upon one point of human affairs
+the light of many ages.</p>
+<p>We may judge of the benefit of historical studies by observing what
+great defects are incident to the moral and political writers who know
+nothing of history.&nbsp; A present grievance, or what seems such, swallows
+up in their minds all other considerations; their little bottle of oil
+is to still the raging waves of the whole human ocean; their system,
+a thing that the historian has seen before, perhaps, in many ages, is
+to reconcile all diversities.&nbsp; Then they would persuade you that
+this class of men is wholly good, that wholly bad; or that there is
+no difference between good and bad.&nbsp; They may be shrewd men, considering
+what they have seen, but would be much shrewder if they could know how
+small a part that is of life.&nbsp; We may all refer to our boyhood,
+and recollect the time when we thought the things about us were the
+type of all things everywhere.&nbsp; That was, perhaps, after all no
+silly princess who was for feeding the famishing people on cakes.&nbsp;
+History takes us out of this confined circle of child-like thought;
+and shows us what are the perennial aims, struggles, and distractions
+of mankind.</p>
+<p>History has always been set down as the especial study for statesmen,
+and for men who take an interest in public affairs.&nbsp; For history
+is to nations what biography is to individual men.&nbsp; History is
+the chart and compass for national endeavour.&nbsp; Our early voyagers
+are dead: not a plank remains of the old ships that first essayed unknown
+waters; the sea retains no track; and were it not for the history of
+these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in hoarded lore of
+all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start with all the aids of
+advanced civilisation (if you could imagine such a thing without history),
+would need the boldness of the first voyager.</p>
+<p>And so it would be with the statesman, were the civil history of
+mankind unknown.&nbsp; We live to some extent in peace and comfort upon
+the results obtained for us by the chronicles of our forefathers.&nbsp;
+We do not see this without some reflection.&nbsp; But imagine what a
+full-grown nation would be if it knew no history - like a full-grown
+man with only a child&rsquo;s experience.</p>
+<p>The present is an age of remarkable experiences.&nbsp; Vast improvements
+have been made in several of the outward things that concern life nearly,
+from intercourse rapid as lightning to surgical operation without pain.&nbsp;
+We accept them all; still, the difficulties of government, the management
+of ourselves, our relations with others, and many of the prime difficulties
+of life remain but little subdued.&nbsp; History still claims our interest,
+is still wanted to make us think and act with any breadth of wisdom.</p>
+<p>At the same time, however, that we claim for history great powers
+of instruction, we must not imagine that the examples which it furnishes
+will enable its readers to anticipate the experience of life.&nbsp;
+An experienced man reads that C&aelig;sar did this or that, but he says
+to himself, &ldquo;I am not C&aelig;sar.&rdquo;&nbsp; Or, indeed, as
+is most probable, the reader has not to reject the application of the
+example to himself: for from first to last he sees nothing but experience
+for C&aelig;sar in what C&aelig;sar was doing.&nbsp; I think it may
+be observed, too, that general maxims about life gain the ear of the
+inexperienced, in preference to historical examples.&nbsp; But neither
+wise sayings nor historical examples can be understood without experience.&nbsp;
+Words are only symbols.&nbsp; Who can know anything soundly with respect
+to the complicated affections and struggles of life, unless he has experienced
+some of them?&nbsp; All knowledge of humanity spreads from within.&nbsp;
+So in studying history, the lessons it teaches must have something to
+grow round in the heart they teach.&nbsp; Our own trials, misfortunes,
+and enterprises are the best lights by which we can read history.&nbsp;
+Hence it is that many an historian may see far less into the depths
+of the very history he has himself written than a man who, having acted
+and suffered, reads the history in question with all the wisdom that
+comes from action and suffering.&nbsp; Sir Robert Walpole might naturally
+exclaim, &ldquo;Do not read history to me, for that, I know, must be
+false.&rdquo;&nbsp; But if he had read it, I do not doubt that he would
+have seen through the film of false and insufficient narrative into
+the depth of the matter narrated, in a way that men of great experience
+can alone attain to.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>II.&nbsp; HOW HISTORY SHOULD BE READ.</p>
+<p>I suppose that many who now connect the very word history with the
+idea of dulness, would have been fond and diligent students of history
+if it had had fair access to their minds.&nbsp; But they were set down
+to read histories which were not fitted to be read continuously, or
+by any but practised students.&nbsp; Some such works are mere framework,
+a name which the author of the <i>Statesman</i> applies to them; very
+good things, perhaps, for their purpose, but that is not to invite readers
+to history.&nbsp; You might almost as well read dictionaries with a
+hope of getting a succinct and clear view of language.&nbsp; When, in
+any narration, there is a constant heaping up of facts, made about equally
+significant by the way of telling them, a hasty delineation of characters,
+and all the incidents moving on as in the fifth act of a confused tragedy,
+the mind and memory refuse to be so treated; and the reading ends in
+nothing but a very slight and inaccurate acquaintance with the mere
+husk of the history.&nbsp; You cannot epitomise the knowledge that it
+would take years to acquire into a few volumes that may be read in as
+many weeks.</p>
+<p>The most likely way of attracting men&rsquo;s attention to historical
+subjects will be by presenting them with small portions of history,
+of great interest, thoroughly examined.&nbsp; This may give them the
+habit of applying thought and criticism to historical matters.</p>
+<p>For, as it is, how are people interested in history? and how do they
+master its multitudinous assemblage of facts?&nbsp; Mostly, perhaps,
+in this way.&nbsp; A man cares about some one thing, or person, or event,
+and plunges into its history, really wishing to master it.&nbsp; This
+pursuit extends: other points of research are taken up by him at other
+times.&nbsp; His researches begin to intersect.&nbsp; He finds a connection
+in things.&nbsp; The texture of his historic acquisitions gradually
+attains some substance and colour; and so at last he begins to have
+some dim notions of the myriads of men who came, and saw, and did not
+conquer - only struggled on as they best might, some of them - and are
+not.</p>
+<p>When we are considering how history should be read, the main thing
+perhaps is, that the person reading should desire to know what he is
+reading about, not merely to have read the books that tell of it.&nbsp;
+The most elaborate and careful historian must omit, or pass lightly
+over, many points of his subject.&nbsp; He writes for all readers, and
+cannot indulge private fancies.&nbsp; But history has its particular
+aspect for each man: there must be portions which he may be expected
+to dwell upon.&nbsp; And everywhere, even where the history is most
+laboured, the reader should have something of the spirit of research
+which was needful for the writer: if only so much as to ponder well
+the words of the writer.&nbsp; That man reads history, or anything else,
+at great peril of being thoroughly misled, who has no perception of
+any truthfulness except that which can be fully ascertained by reference
+to facts; who does not in the least perceive the truth, or the reverse,
+of a writer&rsquo;s style, of his epithets, of his reasoning, of his
+mode of narration.&nbsp; In life, our faith in any narration is much
+influenced by the personal appearance, voice, and gesture of the person
+narrating.&nbsp; There is some part of all these things in his writing;
+and you must look into that well before you can know what faith to give
+him.&nbsp; One man may make mistakes in names, and dates, and references,
+and yet have a real substance of truthfulness in him, a wish to enlighten
+himself and then you.&nbsp; Another may not be wrong in his facts, but
+have a declamatory or sophistical vein in him, much to be guarded against.&nbsp;
+A third may be both inaccurate and untruthful, caring not so much for
+anything as to write his book.&nbsp; And if the reader cares only to
+read it, sad work they make between them of the memories of former days.</p>
+<p>In studying history, it must be borne in mind that a knowledge is
+necessary of the state of manners, customs, wealth, arts, and science
+at the different periods treated of.&nbsp; The text of civil history
+requires a context of this knowledge in the mind of the reader.&nbsp;
+For the same reason, some of the main facts of the geography of the
+countries in question should be present to him.&nbsp; If we are ignorant
+of these aids to history, all history is apt to seem alike to us.&nbsp;
+It becomes merely a narrative of men of our own time, in our own country;
+and then we are prone to expect the same views and conduct from them
+that we do from our contemporaries.&nbsp; It is true that the heroes
+of antiquity have been represented on the stage in bag-wigs, and the
+rest of the costume of our grandfathers: but it was the great events
+of their lives that were thus told - the crisis of their passions -
+and when we are contemplating the representation of great passions and
+their consequences, all minor imagery is of little moment.&nbsp; In
+a long-drawn narrative, however, the more we have in our minds of what
+concerned the daily life of the people we read about, the better.&nbsp;
+And in general it may be said that history, like travelling, gives a
+return in proportion to the knowledge that a man brings to it.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>III.&nbsp; BY WHOM HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN.</p>
+<p>Before entering directly on this part of the subject, it is desirable
+to consider a little the difficulties in the way of writing history.&nbsp;
+We all know the difficulty of getting at the truth of a matter which
+happened yesterday, and about which we can examine the living actors
+upon oath.&nbsp; But in history the most significant things may lack
+the most important part of their evidence.&nbsp; The people who were
+making history were not thinking of the convenience of future writers
+of history.&nbsp; Often the historian must contrive to get his insight
+into matters from evidence of men and things which is like bad pictures
+of them.&nbsp; The contemporary, if he knew the man, said of the picture,
+&ldquo;I should have known it, but it has very little of him in it.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+The poor historian, with no original before him, has to see through
+the bad picture into the man.&nbsp; Then, supposing our historian rich
+in well-selected evidence - I say well-selected, because, as students
+tell us, for many an historian one authority is of the same weight as
+another, provided they are both of the same age; still, how difficult
+is narration even to the man who is rich in well-selected evidence.&nbsp;
+What a tendency there is to round off a narrative into falsehood; or
+else by parenthesis to destroy its pith and continuity.&nbsp; Again,
+the historian knows the end of many of the transactions he narrates.&nbsp;
+If he did not, how differently often he would narrate them.&nbsp; It
+would be a most instructive thing to give a man the materials for the
+account of a great transaction, stopping short of the end, and then
+see how different would be his account from the ordinary ones.&nbsp;
+Fools have been hardly dealt with in the saying that the event is their
+master (&ldquo;eventus stultorum magister&rdquo;), seeing how it rules
+us all.&nbsp; And in nothing more than in history.&nbsp; The event is
+always present to our minds; along the pathways to it, the historian
+and the moralist have walked till they are beaten pathways, and we imagine
+that they were so to the men who first went along them.&nbsp; Indeed,
+we almost fancy that these ancestors of ours, looking along the beaten
+path, foresaw the event as we do; whereas, they mostly stumbled upon
+it suddenly in the forest.&nbsp; This knowledge of the end we must,
+therefore, put down as one of the most dangerous pitfalls which beset
+the writers of history.&nbsp; Then consider the difficulty in the &ldquo;composition,&rdquo;
+to use an artist&rsquo;s word, of our historian&rsquo;s picture.&nbsp;
+Before both the artist and the historian lies Nature as far as the horizon;
+how shall they choose that portion of it which has some unity and which
+shall represent the rest?&nbsp; What method is needful in the grouping
+of facts; what learning, what patience, what accuracy!</p>
+<p>By whom, then, should history be written?&nbsp; In the first place,
+by men of some experience in real life; who have acted and suffered;
+who have been in crowds, and seen, perhaps felt, how madly men can care
+about nothings; who have observed how much is done in the world in an
+uncertain manner, upon sudden impulses and very little reason; and who,
+therefore, do not think themselves bound to have a deep-laid theory
+for all things.&nbsp; They should be men who have studied the laws of
+the affections, who know how much men&rsquo;s opinions depend on the
+time in which they live, how they vary with their age and their position.&nbsp;
+To make themselves historians, they should also have considered the
+combinations amongst men and the laws that govern such things; for there
+are laws.&nbsp; Moreover our historians, like most men who do great
+things, must combine in themselves qualities which are held to belong
+to opposite natures; must at the same time be patient in research and
+vigorous in imagination, energetic and calm, cautious and enterprising.&nbsp;
+Such historians, wise, as we may suppose they will be, about the affair
+of other men, may, let us hope, be sufficiently wise about their own
+affairs to understand that no great work can be done without great labour,
+that no great labour ought to look for its reward.&nbsp; But my readers
+will exclaim as Rasselas to Imlac on hearing the requisites for a poet,
+&ldquo;Enough! thou hast convinced me that no human being can ever be
+an historian.&nbsp; Proceed with thy narration.&rdquo;</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>IV.&nbsp; HOW HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN.</p>
+<p>One of the first things in writing history is for the historian to
+recollect that it is history he is writing.&nbsp; The narrative must
+not be oppressed by reflections, even by wise ones.&nbsp; Least of all
+should the historian suffer himself to become entangled by a theory
+or a system.&nbsp; If he does, each fact is taken up by him in a particular
+way: those facts that cannot be so handled cease to be his facts, and
+those that offer themselves conveniently are received too fondly by
+him.</p>
+<p>Then, although our historian must not be mastered by system, he must
+have some way of taking up his facts and of classifying them.&nbsp;
+They must not be mere isolated units in his eyes, else he is mobbed
+by them.&nbsp; And a man in the midst of a crowd, though he may know
+the names and nature of all the crowd, cannot give an account of their
+doings.&nbsp; Those who look down from the housetop must do that.</p>
+<p>But, above all things, the historian must get out of his own age
+into the time in which he is writing.&nbsp; Imagination is as much needed
+for the historian as the poet.&nbsp; You may combine bits of books with
+other bits of books, and so make some new combinations, and this may
+be done accurately, and, in general, much of the subordinate preparation
+for history may be accomplished without any great effort of imagination.&nbsp;
+But to write history in any large sense of the words, you must be able
+to comprehend other times.&nbsp; You must know that there is a right
+and wrong which is not your right and wrong, but yet stands upon the
+right and wrong of all ages and all hearts.&nbsp; You must also appreciate
+the outward life and colours of the period you write about.&nbsp; Try
+to think how the men you are telling of would have spent a day, what
+were their leading ideas, what they cared about.&nbsp; Grasp the body
+of the time, and give it to us.&nbsp; If not, and these men could look
+at your history, they would say, &ldquo;This is all very well; we daresay
+some of these things did happen; but we were not thinking of these things
+all day long.&nbsp; It does not represent us.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>After enlarging upon this great requisite, imagination, it seems
+somewhat prosaic to come down to saying that history requires accuracy.&nbsp;
+But I think I hear the sighs, and sounds more harsh than sighing, of
+those who have ever investigated anything, and found by dire experience
+the deplorable inaccuracy which prevails in the world.&nbsp; And, therefore,
+I would say to the historian almost as the first suggestion, &ldquo;Be
+accurate; do not make false references, do not mis-state: and men, if
+they get no light from you, will not execrate you.&nbsp; You will not
+stand in the way, and have to be explained and got rid of.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Another most important matter in writing history, and that indeed
+in which the art lies, is the method of narrating.&nbsp; This is a thing
+almost beyond rules, like the actual execution in music or painting.&nbsp;
+A man might have fairness, accuracy, an insight into other times, great
+knowledge of facts, some power even of arranging them, and yet make
+a narrative out of it all, so protracted here, so huddled together there,
+the purpose so buried or confused, that men would agree to acknowledge
+the merit of the book and leave it unread.&nbsp; There must be a natural
+line of associations for the narrative to run along.&nbsp; The separate
+threads of the narrative must be treated separately, and yet the subject
+not be dealt with sectionally, for that is not the way in which the
+things occurred.&nbsp; The historian must, therefore, beware that those
+divisions of the subject which he makes for our ease and convenience,
+do not induce him to treat his subject in a flimsy manner.&nbsp; He
+must not make his story easy where it is not so.</p>
+<p>After all, it is not by rule that a great history is to be written.&nbsp;
+Most thinkers agree that the main object for the historian is to get
+an insight into the things which he tells of, and then to tell them
+with the modesty of a man who is in the presence of great events; and
+must speak about them carefully, simply, and with but little of himself
+or of his affections thrown into the narration.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p>V.&nbsp; HOW GOOD WRITERS OF HISTORY SHOULD BE CALLED FORTH, AIDED,
+AND REWARDED.</p>
+<p>Mainly by history being properly read.&nbsp; The direct ways of commanding
+excellence of any kind are very few, if any.&nbsp; When a State has
+found out its notable men, it should reward them, and will show its
+worthiness by its measure and mode of reward.&nbsp; But it cannot purchase
+them.&nbsp; It may do something in the way of aiding them.&nbsp; In
+history, for instance, the records of a nation may be discreetly managed,
+and some of the minor work, therefore, done to the hand of the historian.&nbsp;
+But the most likely method to ensure good historians is to have a fit
+audience for them.&nbsp; And this is a very difficult matter.&nbsp;
+In works of general literature, the circle of persons capable of judging
+is large; even in works of science or philosophy it is considerable:
+but in history, it is a very confined circle.&nbsp; To the general body
+of readers, whether the history they read is true or not is in no way
+perceptible.&nbsp; It is quite as amusing to them when it is told in
+one way as in another.&nbsp; There is always mischief in error: but
+in this case the mischief is remote, or seems so.&nbsp; For men of ordinary
+culture, even if of much intelligence, the difficulty of discerning
+what is true or false in the histories they read makes it a matter of
+the highest duty for those few persons who can give us criticism on
+historical works, at least to save us from insolent and mendacious carelessness
+in historical writers, if not by just encouragement to secure for nations
+some results not altogether unworthy of the great enterprise which the
+writing of history holds out itself to be.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hujus enim fidei
+exempla majorum, vicissitudines rerum, fundamenta prudenti&aelig; civilis,
+hominum denique nomen et fama commissa sunt.&rdquo; <a name="citation183"></a><a href="#footnote183">{183}</a></p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Just wait a minute for me, and do not talk
+about the essay till I come back.&nbsp; I am going for Anster&rsquo;s
+<i>Faust</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; What has Ellesmere got in his head?</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I see.&nbsp; There is a passage where Faust,
+in his most discontented mood, falls foul of history - in his talk to
+Wagner, if I am not mistaken.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; How beautiful it is this evening!&nbsp; Look
+at that yellow-green near the sunset.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; The very words that Coleridge uses.&nbsp;
+I always think of them when I see that tint.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I daresay his words were in my mind, but I
+have forgotten what you allude to.</p>
+<p>Milverton.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;O Lady! in this wan and heartless
+mood,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To other thoughts by
+yonder throstle woo&rsquo;d,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;All
+this long eve, so balmy and serene,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Have
+I been gazing on the western sky,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And
+its peculiar tint of yellow-green:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And
+still I gaze - and with how blank an eye!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And
+those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That
+give away their motion to the stars;<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Those
+stars that glide behind them or between,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Now
+sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Yon
+crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In
+its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I
+see them all so excellently fair,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I
+see, not feel how beautiful they are.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Admirable!&nbsp; In the <i>Ode to Dejection</i>,
+is it not? where, too, there are those lines,</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;O Lady! we receive but what
+we give,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And in our life alone
+does Nature live.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; But here comes Ellesmere with triumphant
+look.&nbsp; You look as jovial, my dear Ellesmere, as if you were a
+Bentley that had found a false quantity in a Boyle.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Listen and perpend, my historical friends.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;To us, my friend, the times
+that are gone by<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Are a mysterious
+book, sealed with seven seals:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That
+which you call the spirit of ages past<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Is
+but, in truth, the spirit of some few authors<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In
+which those ages are beheld reflected,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With
+what distortion strange heaven only knows.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Oh!
+often, what a toilsome thing it is<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This
+study of thine - at the first glance we fly it.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+mass of things confusedly heaped together;<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+lumber-room of dusty documents,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Furnished
+with all approved court-precedents<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And
+old traditional maxims!&nbsp; History!<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Facts
+dramatised say rather - action - plot - <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sentiment,
+everything the writer&rsquo;s own,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As
+it bests fits the web-work of his story,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With
+here and there a solitary fact<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of
+consequence, by those grave chroniclers,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pointed
+with many a moral apophthegm,<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And
+wise old saws, learned at the puppet-shows.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes; admirable lines; they describe to the
+life the very faults we have been considering as the faults of badly-written
+histories.&nbsp; I do not see that they do much more.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;To us, my friend, the times
+that are gone by<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Are a mysterious
+book.&rdquo; - </p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Those two first lines are the full expression
+of Faust&rsquo;s discontent - unmeasured as in the presence of a weak
+man who could not check him.&nbsp; But, if you come to look at the matter
+closely, you will see that the time present is also in some sense a
+sealed book to us.&nbsp; Men that we live with daily we often think
+as little of as we do of Julius C&aelig;sar, I was going to say - but
+we know much less of them than of him.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I did not mean to say that Faust spoke my
+sentiments about history in general.&nbsp; Still, there are periods
+of history which we have very few authors to tell us about, and I daresay
+in some of those cases the colouring of their particular minds gives
+us a false idea of the whole age they lived in.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; This may have happened, certainly.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; We must be careful not to expect too much
+from the history of past ages, as a means of understanding the present
+age.&nbsp; There is something wanted besides the preceding history to
+understand each age.&nbsp; Each individual life may have a problem of
+its own, which all other biography accurately set down for us might
+not enable us to work out.&nbsp; So of each age.&nbsp; It has something
+in it not known before, and tends to a result which is not down in any
+books.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yet history must be of greatest use in discerning
+this tendency.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes; but the Wagner sort of pedant would
+get entangled in his round of history - in his historical resemblances.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Now, Milverton, if you were called upon to
+say what are the peculiar characteristics of this age, what should you
+say?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; One of Dunsford&rsquo;s questions this, requiring
+a stout quarto volume with notes in answer.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I would rather wait till I was called upon.&nbsp;
+I am apt to feel, after I have left off describing the character of
+any individual man, as if I had only just begun.&nbsp; And I do not
+see the extent of discourse that would be needful in attempting to give
+the characteristics of an age.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I think you are prudent to avoid answering
+Dunsford&rsquo;s question.&nbsp; For my own part, I should prefer giving
+an account of the age we live in after we have come to the end of it
+- in the true historical fashion.&nbsp; And so, Dunsford, you must wait
+for my notions.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I am afraid, Milverton, if you were to write
+history, you would never make up your mind to condemn anybody.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I hope I should not be so inconclusive.&nbsp;
+I certainly do dislike to see any character, whether of a living or
+a dead person, disposed of in a summary way.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; For once I will come to the rescue of Milverton.&nbsp;
+I really do not see that a man&rsquo;s belief in the extent and variety
+of human character, and in the difficulty of appreciating the circumstances
+of life, should prevent him from writing history - from coming to some
+conclusions.&nbsp; Of course such a man is not likely to write a long
+course of history; but that I hold has been a frequent error in historians
+- that they have taken up subjects too large for them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; If there is as much to be said about men&rsquo;s
+character and conduct as I think there mostly is, why should we be content
+with shallow views of them?&nbsp; Take the outward form of these hills
+and valleys before us.&nbsp; When we have seen them a few times, we
+think we know them, but are quite mistaken.&nbsp; Approaching from another
+quarter, it is almost new ground to us.&nbsp; It is a long time before
+you master the outward form and semblance of any small piece of country
+that has much life and diversity in it.&nbsp; I often think of this,
+applying it to our little knowledge of men.&nbsp; Now, look there a
+moment: you see that house; close behind it is apparently a barren tract.&nbsp;
+In reality there is nothing of the kind there.&nbsp; A fertile valley
+with a great river in it, as you know, is between that house and the
+moors.&nbsp; But the plane of those moors and of the house is coincident
+from our present point of view.&nbsp; Had we not, as educated men, some
+distrust of the conclusions of our senses, we should be ready to swear
+that there was a lonely house on the border of the moors.&nbsp; It is
+the same in judging of men.&nbsp; We see a man connected with a train
+of action which is really not near him, absolutely foreign to him, perhaps,
+but in our eyes that is what he is always connected with.&nbsp; If there
+were not a Being who understands us immeasurably better than other men
+can, immeasurably better than we do ourselves, we should be badly off.</p>
+<p>Such precautionary thoughts as these must be useful, I contend.&nbsp;
+They need not make us indifferent to character, or prevent us from forming
+judgments where we must form them, but they show us what a wide thing
+we are talking about when we are judging the life and nature of a man.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am sure, Dunsford, you are already convinced:
+you seldom want more than a slight pretext for going over to the charitable
+side of things.&nbsp; You are only afraid of not dealing stoutly enough
+with bad things and people.&nbsp; Do not be afraid though.&nbsp; As
+long as you have me to abuse, you will say many unjust things against
+me, you know, so that you may waste yourself in good thoughts about
+the rest of the world, past and present.&nbsp; Do you know the lawyer&rsquo;s
+story I had in my mind then?&nbsp; &ldquo;Many times when I have had
+a good case,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I have failed; but then I have often
+succeeded with bad cases.&nbsp; And so justice is done.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; To return to the subject.&nbsp; It is not
+a sort of equalising want of thought about men that I desire; only not
+to be rash in a matter that requires all our care and prudence.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, I believe I am won over.&nbsp; But now
+to another point.&nbsp; I think, Milverton, that you have said hardly
+anything about the use of history as an incentive to good deeds and
+a discouragement to evil ones.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; I ought to have done so.&nbsp; Bolingbroke
+gives in his &ldquo;Letters on History,&rdquo; talking of this point,
+a passage from Tacitus, &ldquo;Pr&aelig;cipuum munus annalium,&rdquo;
+- can you go on with it, Dunsford?</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Yes, I think I can.&nbsp; It is a passage
+I have often seen quoted.&nbsp; &ldquo;Pr&aelig;cipuum munus annalium,
+reor, ne virtutes sileantur; utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate
+et infami&acirc; metus sit.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well done; Dunsford may have invented it,
+though, for aught that we know, Milverton, and be passing himself off
+upon us for Tacitus.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Then Bolingbroke goes on to say (I wish I
+could give you his own flowing words), that the great duty of history
+is to form a tribunal like that amongst the Egyptians which Diodorus
+tells of, where both common men and princes were tried after their deaths,
+and received appropriate honour or disgrace.&nbsp; The sentence was
+pronounced, he says, too late to correct or to recompense; but it was
+pronounced in time to render examples of general instruction to mankind.&nbsp;
+Now, what I was going to remark upon this is, that Bolingbroke understates
+his case.&nbsp; History well written is a present correction, and a
+foretaste of recompense, to the man who is now struggling with difficulties
+and temptations, now overcast by calumny and cloudy misrepresentation.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Yes; many a man makes an appeal to posterity
+which will never come before the court; but if there were no such court
+of appeal - </p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; A man&rsquo;s conviction that justice will
+be done to him in history is a secondary motive, and not one which,
+of itself, will compel him to do just and great things; but, at any
+rate, it forms one of the benefits that flow from history, and it becomes
+stronger as histories are better written.&nbsp; Much may be said against
+care for fame; much also against care for present repute.&nbsp; There
+is a diviner impulse than either at the doing of any actions that are
+much worth doing.&nbsp; As a correction, however, this anticipation
+of the judgment of history may really be very powerful.&nbsp; It is
+a great enlightenment of conscience to read the opinions of men on deeds
+similar to those we are engaged in or meditating.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I think Bolingbroke&rsquo;s idea, which I
+imagine was more general than yours, is more important: namely, that
+this judicial proceeding, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, gave significant
+lessons to all people, not merely to those who had any chance of having
+their names in history.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Certainly: for this is one of Bolingbroke&rsquo;s
+chief points, if I recollect rightly.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Our conversations are much better things
+than your essays, Milverton.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Of course, I am bound to say so: but what
+made you think of that now?</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Why, I was thinking how in talk we can know
+exactly where we agree or differ.&nbsp; But I never like to interrupt
+the essay.&nbsp; I never know when it would come to an end if I did.&nbsp;
+And so it swims on like a sermon, having all its own way: one cannot
+put in an awkward question in a weak part, and get things looked at
+in various ways.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; I suppose, then, Ellesmere, you would like
+to interrupt sermons.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Why, yes, sometimes - do not throw sticks
+at me, Dunsford.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Well, it is absurd to be angry with you; because
+if you long to interrupt Milverton with his captious perhapses and probablys,
+of course you will be impatient with discourses which do, to a certain
+extent, assume that the preacher and the hearers are in unison upon
+great matters.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; I am afraid to say anything about sermons,
+for fear of the argumentum baculinum from Dunsford; for many essay writers,
+like Milverton, delight to wind up their paragraphs with complete little
+aphorisms - shutting up something certainly, but shutting out something
+too.&nbsp; I could generally pause upon them a little.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Of course one may err, Ellesmere, in too
+much aphorising as in too much of anything.&nbsp; But your argument
+goes against all expression of opinion, which must be incomplete, especially
+when dealing with matters that cannot be circumscribed by exact definitions.&nbsp;
+Otherwise, a code of wisdom might be made which the fool might apply
+as well as the wisest man.&nbsp; Even the best proverb, though often
+the expression of the widest experience in the choicest language, can
+be thoroughly misapplied.&nbsp; It cannot embrace the whole of the subject,
+and apply in all cases like a mathematical formula.&nbsp; Its wisdom
+lies in the ear of the hearer.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, I not know that there is anything more
+to say about the essay.&nbsp; I suppose you are aware, Dunsford, that
+Milverton does not intend to give us any more essays for some time.&nbsp;
+He is distressing his mind about some facts which he wants to ascertain
+before he will read any more to us.&nbsp; I imagine we are to have something
+historical next.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Something in which historical records are
+useful.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Really it is wonderful to see how beautifully
+human nature accommodates itself to anything, even to the listening
+to essays.&nbsp; I shall miss them.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; You may miss the talk before and after.</p>
+<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.&nbsp; Well, there is no knowing how much of that
+is provoked (provoked is a good word, is it not?) by the essays.</p>
+<p><i>Dunsford</i>.&nbsp; Then, for the present, we have come to an
+end of our readings.</p>
+<p><i>Milverton</i>.&nbsp; Yes, but I trust at no distant time to have
+something more to try your critical powers and patience upon.&nbsp;
+I hope that that old tower will yet see us meet together here on many
+a sunny day, discussing various things in friendly council.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-----</p>
+<p>NOTES.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12">{12}</a> See <i>Statesman</i>,
+p. 30.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote42"></a><a href="#citation42">{42}</a> The passage
+which must have been alluded to is this: &ldquo;The stricter tenets
+of Calvinism, which allow no medium between grace and reprobation, and
+doom man to eternal punishment for every breach of the moral law, as
+an equal offence against Infinite truth and justice, proceed (like the
+paradoxical doctrine of the Stoics), from taking a half-view of this
+subject, and considering man as amenable only to the dictates of his
+understanding and his conscience, and not excusable from the temptations
+and frailty of human ignorance and passion.&nbsp; The mixing up of religion
+and morality together, or the making us accountable for every word,
+thought, or action, under no less a responsibility than our everlasting
+future welfare or misery, has also added incalculably to the difficulties
+of self-knowledge, has superinduced a violent and spurious state of
+feeling, and made it almost impossible to distinguish the boundaries
+between the true and false, in judging of human conduct and motives.&nbsp;
+A religious man is afraid of looking into the state of his soul, lest
+at the same time he should reveal it to heaven; and tries to persuade
+himself that by shutting his eyes to his true character and feelings,
+they will remain a profound secret, both here and hereafter.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote53"></a><a href="#citation53">{53}</a> This was
+one of the passages which Milverton afterwards read to us:-</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Thus, however much may be gained for the world as a whole
+by this fragmentary cultivation, it is not to be denied that the individuals
+whom it befalls are cursed for the benefit of the world.&nbsp; An athletic
+frame, it is true, is fashioned by gymnastic exercises; but a form of
+beauty only by free and uniform action.&nbsp; Just so the exertions
+of single talents can create extraordinary men indeed; but happy and
+perfect men only by their uniform temperature.&nbsp; And in what relation
+should we stand, then, to the past and coming ages, if the cultivation
+of human nature made necessary such a sacrifice?&nbsp; We should have
+been the slaves of humanity, and drudged for her century after century,
+and stamped upon our mutilated natures the humiliating traces of our
+bondage - that the coming race might nurse its moral healthfulness in
+blissful leisure, and unfold the free growth of its humanity!</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But can it be intended that man should neglect himself for
+any particular design?&nbsp; Ought Nature to deprive us, by its design,
+of a perfection which Reason, by its own, prescribes to us?&nbsp; Then
+it must be false that the development of single faculties makes the
+sacrifice of totality necessary; or, if indeed the law of Nature presses
+thus heavily, it becomes us to restore, by a higher art, this totality
+in our nature which art has destroyed.&rdquo; - <i>The Philosophical
+and &AElig;sthetical Letters and Essays of</i> SCHILLER, <i>Translated
+by</i> J. WEISS, pp. 74, 75.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote93"></a><a href="#citation93">{93}</a> Madame Necker
+de Saussure&rsquo;s maxim about firmness with children has suggested
+the above.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ce que plie ne peut servir d&rsquo;appui, et
+l&rsquo;enfant veut &ecirc;tre appuy&eacute;.&nbsp; Non-seulement il
+en a besoin, mais il le d&eacute;sire, mais sa tendresse la plus constante
+n&rsquo;est qu&rsquo;&agrave; ce prix.&nbsp; Si vous lui faites l&rsquo;effet
+d&rsquo;un autre enfant, si vous partagez ses passions, ses vacillations
+continuelles, si vous lui rendez tous ses mouvements en les augmentant,
+soit par la contrari&eacute;t&eacute;, soit par un exc&egrave;s de complaisance,
+il pourra se servir de vous comme d&rsquo;un jouet, mais non &ecirc;tre
+heureux en votre pr&eacute;sence; il pleurera, se mutinera, et bient&ocirc;t
+le souvenir d&rsquo;un temps de d&eacute;sordre et d&rsquo;humeur se
+liera avec votre id&eacute;e.&nbsp; Vous n&rsquo;avez pas &eacute;t&eacute;
+le soutien de votre enfant, vous ne l&rsquo;avez pas pr&eacute;serv&eacute;
+de cette fluctuation perp&eacute;tuelle de la volont&eacute;, maladie
+des &ecirc;tres faibles et livr&eacute;s &agrave; une imagination vive;
+vous n&rsquo;avez assur&eacute; ni sa paix, ni sa sagesse, ni son bonheur,
+pourquoi vous croirait-il sa m&egrave;re.&rdquo; - <i>L&rsquo;Education
+Progressive</i>, vol. i., p. 228.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote116a"></a><a href="#citation116a">{116a}</a> See
+<i>Health of Towns Report</i>, vol. i., p. 336.&nbsp; A similar result
+may be deduced from a similar table made by the Rev. J. Clay, of Preston.&nbsp;
+See the same Report and vol., p. 175.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote116b"></a><a href="#citation116b">{116b}</a> See
+<i>Health of Towns Report</i>, vol. i., p. 75.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote117a"></a><a href="#citation117a">{117a}</a> See
+Dr. Arnott&rsquo;s letter, <i>Claims of Labour</i>, p. 282.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote117b"></a><a href="#citation117b">{117b}</a> By
+zinc ventilators, for instance, in the windows and openings into the
+flues at the top of the rooms.&nbsp; See <i>Health of Towns Report</i>,
+1844, vol. i., pp. 76, 77.&nbsp; Mr.&nbsp; Coulhart&rsquo;s evidence.
+- <i>Ibid</i>., pp. 307, 308.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote117c"></a><a href="#citation117c">{117c}</a> There
+are several thousand gratings to sewers and drains which are utterly
+useless on account of their position, and positively injurious from
+their emanations. - Mr. Guthrie&rsquo;s evidence. - <i>Ibid</i>., vol.
+ii., p. 255.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote118"></a><a href="#citation118">{118}</a> Mr. Wood
+states that the masters and mistresses were generally ignorant of the
+depressing and unhealthy effects of the atmosphere which surrounded
+them, and he mentions the case of the mistress of a dame-school who
+replied, when he pointed out this to her, &ldquo;that the children thrived
+best in dirt!&rdquo; - <i>Health of Towns Report</i>, vol. i., pp. 146,
+147.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote126"></a><a href="#citation126">{126}</a> See &ldquo;The
+Fair Maid of Perth.&rdquo;</p>
+<p><a name="footnote161"></a><a href="#citation161">{161}</a> See &ldquo;Health
+of Towns Report,&rdquo; 1844, vol. i., p. 44.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote183"></a><a href="#citation183">{183}</a> Bacon,
+<i>de Augmentis Scientiarum</i>.</p>
+<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<p>End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Friends in Council</p>
+<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FRIENDS IN COUNCIL (FIRST SERIES) ***</p>
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