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diff --git a/old/frcc10h.htm b/old/frcc10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c432b9b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/frcc10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5116 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + 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 +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +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. +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.</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. 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.”</p> +<p>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.<br /> 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. 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.</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. +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.</p> +<p>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.</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! 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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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> -----</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. An Essay on Truth.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p>TRUTH.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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> +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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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</p> +<p> “Negligence<br /> Fit +for a fool to fall by,”</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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’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.</p> +<p> -----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Milverton is right, I think.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p> “He best can paint them who has +felt them most.”</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. If you take the +great ones, Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe, you see this at once.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. David, St. Paul.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Scars not always of defeat or flight; scars +in the front.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Shall we have another reading tomorrow?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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. 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. 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.</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. 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.</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’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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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?</p> +<p> ----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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:</p> +<p> “While +you, you think<br /> What others think, +or what you think they’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 - <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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Yes, I agree with you.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. I wonder you answer his sneers, Milverton.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</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’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:</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Well, what are we to have for our essay!</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Despair.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. You need not be afraid. I want to take +away, not to add gloom. 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. 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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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,</p> +<p>“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, <i>repentance</i> 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.”</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. +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,</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</p> +<p> “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.”</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. 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?</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. 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.</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. +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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>NATIVE MELANCHOLY.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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,</p> +<p> “He that lacks time to mourn, +lacks time to mend.<br /> Eternity +mourns that.”</p> +<p>You have a better memory than I have: how does it go on?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>.<br /> “’Tis +an ill cure<br /> For life’s +worst ills, to have no time to feel them.<br /> Where +sorrow’s held intrusive and turned out,<br /> There +wisdom will not enter, nor true power,<br /> Nor +aught that dignifies humanity.”</p> +<p>Still this does not justify despair, which was what I was writing +about.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Yes; I am for the Peripatetics against all +other philosophers.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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. <a name="citation42"></a><a href="#footnote42">{42}</a></p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I hold to the centipede.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Not a word has Dunsford said all this time.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Well, but you might choose books which would +not reflect your troubles.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. Judicious shelving!</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Judicious skipping will nearly do. +Now when one’s friend, or oneself, is crotchety, dogmatic, or +disputatious, one cannot turn over to another day.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</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. 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. 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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</p> +<p> -----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Very noble and full of faith.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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!</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Hesiod told the world, some two thousand years +ago, how much greater the half is than the whole.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Do not talk of modern dinners. Think +what a Roman dinner must have been.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I must allow that is rather a barbarous practice.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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!</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. No; when I have nothing to say, I can say +nothing.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. What are the causes then of the decline of +the drama?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Hear! hear!</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. The crowding together of theatres in one +part of the town, the lateness of the hours - </p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. The folly of the audience, who always applaud +in the wrong place - </p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. There is no occasion to say any more; I am +quite convinced.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Now we come to the part of Hamlet.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Yes, I must confess it is.</p> +<p>Great part of your arguments apply to musical as well as to theatrical +entertainments. Do you find similar results with respect to them?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. What do you say to the out-of-door entertainments +for a town population?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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!!!”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. To go back to the subject. What would +you do for country amusements, Milverton? That is what concerns +me, you know.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Humph, music, sing-song!</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. You and Dunsford are both wild for music, +from barrel-organs upwards.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I confess to liking the humblest attempts +at melody.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Very pretty, but it sounds to me somewhat +fabulous.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I assure you - </p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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. He was reading Count Rumford’s +essays.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. So you are reading Count Rumford. What +is it that interests you there?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p>Here Ellesmere entered.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. What are we to have to-day for our essay?</p> +<p>Milverton. 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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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> -----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. No, I mean both: both will and courage. +Courage is the body to will.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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,</p> +<p> “The land where, girt with friend +or foe,<br /> A man may say the thing +he will,” - </p> +<p>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?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. “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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. I wonder, Ellesmere, what you would have done +in persecuting times. What escape would your sarcasm have found +for itself?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Some orthodox way, I daresay. I do +not think he would have been particularly fond of martyrdom.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Do not say “one:” <i>I</i> +should not have disagreed with the great Protestant leaders in the Reformation, +for instance.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Humph.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I do not know. You have Cardinal Pole +and the Earl of Essex, both tolerant men in the midst of bigots.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Well, as you said, Milverton, we shall never +push off, if we once get aground on this subject.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. I do not like to see the world indifferent +to great speculative matters. I then fear shallowness and earthiness.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Religious lights, Milverton.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Yes.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. They always press upon my mind.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Some law of love.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</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>“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?”</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Rather a fluid than a solid. But I agree +with you in thinking it is very comfortable here.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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 - </p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I shall turn my books the wrong side upwards +when you come into the study.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Certainly. But now let us proceed to +polish up the weapons of another of these spiteful creatures.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Yes. What is to be our essay to-day, +Milverton?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Fiction.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p>FICTION.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. +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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</p> +<p> -----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Talking of representation, what do you two, +who have now seen something of the world, think about representative +government?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. It is a doubt which has crossed my mind.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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), +<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. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p>But I declare we have been just like schoolboys talking about forms +of government and so on.</p> +<p> “For forms of government let +fools contest,<br /> That which is +<i>worst</i> administered is best,” - </p> +<p>that is, representative government.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. How many acres do you farm, Dunsford? +How spiteful you are!</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. The mill-streams that turn the clappers of +the world arise in solitary places.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Not a bad metaphor, but untrue. Aristotle, +Bacon - </p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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</p> +<p> “Abstinuit Venere et vino, sudavit +et alsit,”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. All of it only goes to show how little we +know of each other, and how tolerant we ought to be of others’ +efforts.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Now for the fable.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Well, I like that fable: only I am not quite +clear about the meaning.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. You had no doubt about mine.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Is the mist calumny, Milverton?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. No, prejudice, I am sure.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Familiarity with the things around us, obscuring +knowledge?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I would rather not explain. Each of +you make your own fable of it.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. 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.</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. +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.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>ON THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS.</p> +<p>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.</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. +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.</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. +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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</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. 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.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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. <a name="citation93"></a><a href="#footnote93">{93}</a> +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.</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. 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.</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. 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. 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.</p> +<p> -----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. What a low view you do take of things sometimes, +Ellesmere!</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Perhaps not.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Certainly not.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Ah, if they only said it a few times! +Besides, there is a little envy mixed up with the humility that I mean.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Travelling is a great trial of people’s +ability to live together.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. My favourite one not being the least - over-much +of each other’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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. 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 - </p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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,</p> +<p> “I am a part of all that I have +seen;”</p> +<p>it might have run,</p> +<p> “I am a part of all that I have +heard.”</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Ellesmere becoming metaphysical and transcendental!</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Ellesmere!</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Protest, if you like, my dear Dunsford.<br /> Dissentient,<br /> 1. +Because I wish it were not so.<br /> 2. +Because I am sorry that it is.<br /> (Signed) +DUNSFORD.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. “Hate” is too strong a word, +Ellesmere; what you say would be true enough, if you would put “are +not in sympathy with.”</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. “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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I have spoken about “interfering unreasonably +with others.”</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Very good, but - </p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Agreed!</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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’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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. You know I am not a man to rave about cathedrals.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. This is the boldest simile I have heard for +a long time. My theory about cathedrals is very different, I must +confess.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Theory!</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. And more beautiful?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Yes, and far more beautiful.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Doubtless, to the free spirits who brought +truth forward.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. Well, we must have the essay before we branch +out into our philosophy. 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 “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.</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. 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. 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.</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. 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.</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. +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</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. 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:</p> +<p>“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.” +<a name="citation116a"></a><a href="#footnote116a">{116a}</a></p> +<p>Mr. Hawksley, the former witness alluded to, goes on to say - </p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>The above evidence is confirmed by Mr. Toynbee: - </p> +<p>“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.” <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? 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. 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. <a name="citation117b"></a><a href="#footnote117b">{117b}</a> +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 <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’s +ordinary expenses.</p> +<p>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. <a name="citation118"></a><a href="#footnote118">{118}</a> +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. 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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</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. +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.</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. 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.</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. 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. +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. <a name="citation126"></a><a href="#footnote126">{126}</a> +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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. +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.</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. 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.</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. +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.</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. 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.</p> +<p> -----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Now, without agreeing with him in all points, we may sympathise with +him.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. I agree with him.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. I knew you would. You love an extreme.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</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>. 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 - </p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. What is that?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I quite agree with you; but I thought you +always set your face, or rather your ears, against music.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. So did I.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. It will do very well, as my next will be +on the subject of population.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. What day are we to have it? I think +I have a particular engagement for that day.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I must come upon you unawares.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</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’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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“You remember Annesleigh at college,” said Milverton, +“do you not, Dunsford?”</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Yes.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Why does he not explain this publicly?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. It should be widely known and acknowledged +then, that silence does not give consent in these cases.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. It is known, though not, perhaps, sufficiently.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. What a fearful power this anonymous journalism +is!</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Is the anonymousness absolutely necessary?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. But take the other side, Ellesmere. +What national dislikes are fostered by newspaper articles, and - </p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Articles in reviews and by books.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Yes, but somehow or other, people imagine +that newspapers speak the opinion of a much greater number of people +- </p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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?</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. +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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p> -----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i> (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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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!</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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 +<i>from imagining that the general laws of the mind are suspended for +the sake of the affections.</i></p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. That seems safer ground.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Yes. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. I am still unanswered, I think, Milverton. +What you say is still wholly built upon inducements, and does not touch +the power of will.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. No; it does not.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. We must leave that alone. Infinite +piles of books have not as yet lifted us up to a clear view of that +matter.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Yes, undoubtedly. An extreme notion +about independence has made men much less generous in receiving.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Really, Ellesmere, that is a most unfeeling +speech.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</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. 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: - </p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. I certainly have been meditating something +of the sort; but have not been able to make much of it.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. As if we were to expect mathematical lines +to bear weights.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Public improvements.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. No; you must listen.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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,</p> +<p> “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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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.</p> +<p> -----</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. Custom soon melts off the wings which Novelty +alone has lent to Benevolence.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Ellesmere is more than usually vicious to-day, +Milverton. A great “public improvement” would be to +clip the tongues of some of these lawyers.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Of course we cannot always be weighing men +with nicety, and saying, “Here is your place, here yours.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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. <a name="citation161"></a><a href="#footnote161">{161}</a> +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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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>. Late indeed.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. As much as the Serpentine and the water in +St. James’s Park.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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,</p> +<p> “That eternal want of pence<br /> Which +vexes public men.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. We must begin by thinking boldly about things. +That is a larger part of any undertaking than it seems, perhaps.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. A frequent fate of great projectors, I fear.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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. 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.</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. 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.</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. 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. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. And, perhaps, the greatest there were those +who made no stir.</p> +<p> “The world knows nothing of its +greatest men.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Yes, but it may not be in a noisy way.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. You may go farther back than that, and speak +of the impulses they got from their ancestors.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Or the nets around them of other people’s +ways and wishes. There are many things, you see, that go to make +men puppets.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. I delight in the helpful and hopeful men.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. I can thoroughly imagine the difference.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p>But we really must have the essay, and not talk any more. 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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</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. 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. +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.</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. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. +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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>II. 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. 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 <i>Statesman</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</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. +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.</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. 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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>III. 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. +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!</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>IV. 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. 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.</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. +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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>V. HOW GOOD WRITERS OF HISTORY SHOULD BE CALLED FORTH, AIDED, +AND REWARDED.</p> +<p>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.” <a name="citation183"></a><a href="#footnote183">{183}</a></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Just wait a minute for me, and do not talk +about the essay till I come back. I am going for Anster’s +<i>Faust</i>.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. What has Ellesmere got in his head?</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. How beautiful it is this evening! Look +at that yellow-green near the sunset.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. The very words that Coleridge uses. +I always think of them when I see that tint.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. I daresay his words were in my mind, but I +have forgotten what you allude to.</p> +<p>Milverton.</p> +<p> “O Lady! in this wan and heartless +mood,<br /> To other thoughts by +yonder throstle woo’d,<br /> 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 - 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.”</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Admirable! In the <i>Ode to Dejection</i>, +is it not? where, too, there are those lines,</p> +<p> “O Lady! we receive but what +we give,<br /> And in our life alone +does Nature live.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Listen and perpend, my historical friends.</p> +<p> “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 - 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! History!<br /> Facts +dramatised say rather - action - plot - <br /> Sentiment, +everything the writer’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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>.</p> +<p> “To us, my friend, the times +that are gone by<br /> Are a mysterious +book.” - </p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. This may have happened, certainly.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. Yet history must be of greatest use in discerning +this tendency.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Yes; but the Wagner sort of pedant would +get entangled in his round of history - in his historical resemblances.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. One of Dunsford’s questions this, requiring +a stout quarto volume with notes in answer.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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?</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.”</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Certainly: for this is one of Bolingbroke’s +chief points, if I recollect rightly.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Our conversations are much better things +than your essays, Milverton.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Of course, I am bound to say so: but what +made you think of that now?</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. I suppose, then, Ellesmere, you would like +to interrupt sermons.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Why, yes, sometimes - do not throw sticks +at me, Dunsford.</p> +<p><i>Dunsford</i>. 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>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. Something in which historical records are +useful.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. Really it is wonderful to see how beautifully +human nature accommodates itself to anything, even to the listening +to essays. I shall miss them.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. You may miss the talk before and after.</p> +<p><i>Ellesmere</i>. 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>. Then, for the present, we have come to an +end of our readings.</p> +<p><i>Milverton</i>. 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.</p> +<p> -----</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: “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.”</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>“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!</p> +<p>“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.” - <i>The Philosophical +and Æsthetical 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’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.” - <i>L’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. 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.</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’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. See <i>Health of Towns Report</i>, +1844, vol. i., pp. 76, 77. Mr. Coulhart’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’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, “that the children thrived +best in dirt!” - <i>Health of Towns Report</i>, vol. i., pp. 146, +147.</p> +<p><a name="footnote126"></a><a href="#citation126">{126}</a> See “The +Fair Maid of Perth.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote161"></a><a href="#citation161">{161}</a> See “Health +of Towns Report,” 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> +<pre> + +******This file should be named frcc10h.htm or frcc10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, frcc11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, frcc10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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