Friends in Council Part 12

Ellesmere. It is a question of expediency. As government of all kinds becomes better managed, there is less necessity for protection for the press. It must be recollected, however, that this anonymousness (to coin a word) may not only be useful to protect us from any abuse of power, but that at least it takes away that temptation to discuss things in an insufficient manner which arises from personal fear of giving offence. Then, again, there is an advantage in considering arguments without reference to persons. If well-known authors wrote for the press and gave their signatures, we should often pa.s.s by the arguments unfairly, saying, "Oh, it is only so-and-so: that is the way he always looks at things," without seeing whether it is the right way for the occasion in question.

Milverton. But take the other side, Ellesmere. What national dislikes are fostered by newspaper articles, and--

Ellesmere. Articles in reviews and by books.

Milverton. Yes, but somehow or other, people imagine that newspapers speak the opinion of a much greater number of people--

Ellesmere. Do not let us talk any more about it. We may become wise enough and well-managed enough to do without this anonymousness: we may not. How it would astound an ardent Whig or Radical of the last generation if we could hear such a sentiment as this--as a toast we will say--"The Press: and may we become so civilised as to be able to take away some of its liberty."

Milverton. It may be put another way: "May it become so civilised that we shall not want to take away any of its liberty." But I see you are tired of this subject. Shall we go on the lawn and have our essay?

We a.s.sented, and Milverton read the following: --

UNREASONABLE CLAIMS IN SOCIAL AFFECTIONS AND RELATIONS.

We are all apt to magnify the importance of whatever we are thinking about, which is not to be wondered at; for everything human has an outlet into infinity, which we come to perceive on considering it.

But with a knowledge of this tendency, I still venture to say that, of all that concerns mankind, this subject has, perhaps, been the least treated of in regard to its significance. For once that unreasonable expectations of grat.i.tude have been reproved, ingrat.i.tude has been denounced a thousand times; and the same may be said of inconstancy, unkindness in friends.h.i.+p, neglected merit and the like.

To begin with ingrat.i.tude. 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 grat.i.tude from them in proportion to your enlightenment. Then, again, where the service is a palpable one, thoroughly understood, we often require that the grat.i.tude for it should bear down all the rest of the man's character. The dog is the very emblem of faithfulness; yet I believe it is found that he will sometimes like the person who takes him out and amuses him more than the person who feeds him. So, amongst bipeds, the most solid service must sometimes give way to the claims of congeniality. Human creatures are, happily, not to be swayed by self-interest alone: they are many-sided creatures; there are numberless modes of attaching their affections. Not only like likes like, but unlike likes unlike.

To give an instance which must often occur. Two persons, both of feeble will, act together: one as superior, the other as inferior.

The superior is very kind; the inferior is grateful. Circ.u.mstances 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 ingrat.i.tude. 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 ingrat.i.tude, 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 ingrat.i.tude than we do here.

Then, again, we seldom make sufficient allowance for the burden which there is in obligation, at least to all but great and good minds. There are some people who can receive as heartily as they would give; but the obligation of an ordinary person to an ordinary person is more apt to be brought to mind as a present sore than as a past delight.

Amongst the unreasonable views of the affections, the most absurd one has been the fancy that love entirely depends upon the will; still more that the love of others for us is to be guided by the inducements which seem probable to us. We have served them; we think only of them; we are their lovers, or fathers, or brothers: we deserve and require to be loved and to have the love proved to us. But love is not like property: it has neither duties nor rights. You argue for it in vain; and there is no one who can give it you. It is not his or hers to give. Millions of bribes and infinite arguments cannot prevail. For it is not a substance, but a relation. There is no royal road. We are loved as we are lovable to the person loving. It is no answer to say that in some cases the love is based on no reality, but is solely in the imagination--that is, that we are loved not for what we are, but for what we are fancied to be. That will not bring it any more into the dominions of logic; and love still remains the same untamable creature, deaf to advocacy, blind to other people's idea of merit, and not a substance to be weighed or numbered at all.

Then, as to the complaints about broken friends.h.i.+p. Friends.h.i.+p is often outgrown; and his former child's clothes will no more fit a man than some of his former friends.h.i.+ps. Often a breach of friends.h.i.+p 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 friends.h.i.+p is mightily cooled. But imagine the dearest friends, one coming home after a long sojourn, the other going out to new lands: the s.h.i.+ps that carry these meet: the friends talk together in a confused way not relevant at all to their friends.h.i.+p, and, if not well a.s.sured 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 pa.s.s into new systems of thought and action without new ties of all kinds being created, and some modification of the old ones taking place.

When we are talking of exorbitant claims made for the regard of others, we must not omit those of what is called neglected merit. A man feels that he has abilities or talents of a particular kind, that he has shown them, and still he is a neglected man. I am far from saying that merit is sufficiently looked out for: but a man may take the sting out of any neglect of his merits by thinking that at least it does not arise from malice prepense, as he almost imagines in his anger. Neither the public, nor individuals, have the time, or will, resolutely to neglect anybody. What pleases us, we admire and further: if a man in any profession, calling, or art, does things which are beyond us, we are as guiltless of neglecting him as the Caffres are of neglecting the differential calculus.

Milton sells his "Paradise Lost" for ten pounds; there is no record of Shakespeare dining much with Queen Elizabeth. And it is Utopian to imagine that statues will be set up to right men in their day.

The same arguments which applied to the complaints of ingrat.i.tude, 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 grat.i.tude. In neither case is it becoming or rational to be clamorous about payment.

There is one thing that people hardly ever remember, or, indeed, have imagination enough to conceive; namely, the effect of each man being shut up in his individuality. Take a long course of sayings and doings in which many persons have been engaged. Each one of them is in his own mind the centre of the web, though, perhaps, he is at the edge of it. We know that in our observations of the things of sense, any difference in the points from which the observation is taken gives a different view of the same thing.

Moreover, in the world of sense, the objects and the points of view are each indifferent to the rest; but in life the points of views are centres of action that have had something to do with the making of the things looked at. If we could calculate the moral parallax arising from these causes, we should see, by the mere aid of the intellect, how unjust we often are in our complaints of ingrat.i.tude, inconstancy, and neglect. But without these nice calculations, such errors of view may be corrected at once by humility, a more sure method than the most enlightened appreciation of the cause of error.

Humility is the true cure for many a needless heartache.

It must not be supposed that in thus opposing unreasonable views of social affections, anything is done to dissever such affections.

The Duke of Wellington, writing to a man in a dubious position of authority, says "The less you claim, the more you will have." This is remarkably true of the affections; and there is scarcely anything that would make men happier than teaching them to watch against unreasonableness in their claims of regard and affection; and which at the same time would be more likely to ensure their getting what may be their due.

Ellesmere (clapping his hands). An essay after my heart: worth tons of soft trash. In general you are amplifying duties, telling everybody that they are to be so good to every other body. Now it is as well to let every other body know that he is not to expect all he may fancy from everybody. A man complains that his prosperous friends neglect him: infinitely overrating, in all probability, his claims, and his friends' power of doing anything for him. Well, then, you may think me very hard, but I say that the most absurd claims are often put forth on the ground of relations.h.i.+p. 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 relations.h.i.+p is to be the talisman of affection.

Dunsford. I do not see exactly how to answer all that you or Milverton have said; but I am not prepared, as official people say, to agree with you. I especially disagree with what Milverton has said about love. He leaves much too little power to the will.

Milverton. I daresay I may have done so. These are very deep matters, and any one view about them does not exhaust them. I remember C---- once saying to me that a man never utters anything without error. He may even think of it rightly; but he cannot bring it out rightly. It turns a little false, as it were, when it quits the brain and comes into life.

Ellesmere. I thought you would soon go over to the soft side.

Here, Rollo; there's a good dog. You do not form unreasonable expectations, do you? A very little petting puts you into an ecstasy, and you are much wiser than many a biped who is full of his claims for grat.i.tude, and friends.h.i.+p, and love, and who is always longing for well-merited rewards to fall into his mouth. Down, dog!

Milverton. Poor animal! it little knows that all this sudden notice is only by way of ridiculing us. Why I did not maintain my ground stoutly against Dunsford is, that I am always afraid of pus.h.i.+ng moral conclusions too far. Since we have been talking, I think I see more clearly than I did before what I mean to convey by the essay--namely, that men fall into unreasonable views respecting the affections FROM IMAGINING THAT THE GENERAL LAWS OF THE MIND ARE SUSPENDED FOR THE SAKE OF THE AFFECTIONS.

Dunsford. That seems safer ground.

Milverton. Now to ill.u.s.trate what I mean by a very similar instance. The mind is avid of new impressions. It "travels over,"

or thinks it travels over, another mind; and, though it may conceal its wish for "fresh fields and pastures new," it does so wish.

However harsh, therefore, and unromantic it may seem, the best plan is to humour Nature, and not to exhaust by overfrequent presence the affection of those whom we would love, or whom we would have to love us. I would not say, after the manner of Rochefoucauld, that the less we see of people the more we like them; but there are certain limits of sociality; and prudent reserve and absence may find a place in the management of the tenderest relations.

Dunsford. Yes, all this is true enough: I do not see anything hard in this. But then there is the other side. Custom is a great aid to affection.

Milverton. Yes. All I say is, do not fancy that the general laws are suspended for the sake of any one affection.

Dunsford. Still this does not go to the question whether there is not something more of will in affection than you make out. You would speak of inducements and counter-inducements, aids and hindrances; but I cannot but think you are limiting the power of will, and therefore limiting duty. Such views tend to make people easily discontented with each other, and prevent their making efforts to get over offences, and to find out what is lovable in those about them.

Ellesmere. Here we are in the deep places again. I see you are pondering, Milverton. It is a question, as a minister would say when Parliament perplexes him, that we must go to the country upon; each man's heart will, perhaps, tell him best about it. For my own part, I think that the continuance of affection, as the rise of it, depends more on the taste being satisfied, or at least not disgusted, than upon any other single thing. Our hearts may be touched at our being loved by people essentially distasteful to us, whose modes of talking and acting are a continual offence to us; but whether we can love them in return is a question.

Milverton. Yes, we can, I think. I begin to see that it is a question of degree. The word love includes many shades of meaning.

When it includes admiration, of course we cannot be said to love those in whom we see nothing to admire. But this seldom happens in the mixed characters of real life. The upshot of it all seems to me to be, that, as Guizot says of civilisation, every impulse has room; so in the affections, every inducement and counter-inducement has its influence; and the result is not a simple one, which can be spoken of as if it were alike on all occasions and with all men.

Dunsford. I am still unanswered, I think, Milverton. What you say is still wholly built upon inducements, and does not touch the power of will.

Milverton. No; it does not.

Ellesmere. We must leave that alone. Infinite piles of books have not as yet lifted us up to a clear view of that matter.

Dunsford. Well, then, we must leave it as a vexed question; but let it be seen that there is such a question. Now, as to another thing; you speak, Milverton, of men's not making allowance enough for the unpleasant weight of obligation. I think that weight seems to have increased in modern times. Ess.e.x could give Bacon a small estate, and Bacon could take it comfortably, I have no doubt. That is a much more wholesome state of things among friends than the present.

Milverton. Yes, undoubtedly. An extreme notion about independence has made men much less generous in receiving.

Dunsford. It is a falling off, then. There was another comment I had to make. I think, when you speak about the exorbitant demands of neglected merit, you should say more upon the neglect of the just demands of merit.

Milverton. I would have the Government and the public in general try by all means to understand and reward merit, especially in those matters wherein excellence cannot, otherwise, meet with large present reward. But, to say the truth, I would have this done, not with the view of fostering genius so much as of fulfilling duty: I would say to a minister--it is becoming in you--it is well for the nation, to reward, as far as you can, and dignify, men of genius.

Whether you will do them any good or bring forth more of them, I do not know.

Ellesmere. Men of great genius are often such a sensitive race, so apt to be miserable in many other than pecuniary ways and want of public estimation, that I am not sure that distress and neglect do not take their minds off worse discomforts. It is a kind of grievance, too, that they like to have.

Dunsford. Really, Ellesmere, that is a most unfeeling speech.

Milverton. At any rate, it is right for us to honour and serve a great man. It is our nature to do so, if we are worth anything. We may put aside the question whether our honour will do him more good than our neglect. That is a question for him to look to. The world has not yet so largely honoured deserving men in their own time, that we can exactly p.r.o.nounce what effect it would have upon them.

Ellesmere. Come, Rollo, let us leave these men of sentiment. Oh, you will not go, as your master does not move. Look how he wags his tail, and almost says, "I should clearly like to have a hunt after the water-rat we saw in the pond the other day, but master is talking philosophy, and requires an intelligent audience." These dogs are dear creatures, it must be owned. Come, Milverton, let us have a walk.