PART III.--ASSOCIATION.

The association of clergymen with ladies in works of charity affords continual opportunities for the exercise of clerical influence over women. A partnership in good works is set up which establishes interesting and cordial relations, and when the lady has accomplished some charitable purpose she remembers for long afterwards the clergyman without whose active assistance her project might have fallen to the ground. She sees in the clergyman a reflection of her own goodness, and she feels grateful to him for lending his masculine sense and larger experience to the realization of her ideas. There are other cases of a different nature in which the self-esteem of the lady is deeply gratified when she is selected by the clergyman as being more capable of devoted effort in a sacred cause than women of inferior piety and strength of mind. This kind of clerical selection is believed to be very influential in furthering clerical marriages. The lady is told that she will serve the highest of all causes by lending a willing ear to her admirer. Every reader will remember how thoroughly this idea is worked out in "Jane Eyre," where St. John urges Jane to marry him on the plain ground that she would be a valuable fellow-worker with a missionary. Charlotte Brontë was, indeed, so strongly impressed with this aspect of clerical influence that she injured the best and strongest of her novels by an almost wearisome development of that episode.

Clerical influence is immensely aided by the possession of leisure. Without underrating the self-devotion of hard-working clergymen (which is all the more honorable to them that they might take life more easily if they chose), we see a wide distinction, in point of industry, between the average clergyman and the average solicitor, for example. The clergyman has leisure to pay calls, to accept many invitations, and to talk in full detail about the interests that he has in common with his female friends. The solicitor is kept to his office by strictly professional work requiring very close application and allowing no liberty of mind.

Much might be said about the effect of clerical leisure on clerical manners. Without leisure it is difficult to have such quiet and pleasant manners as the clergy generally have. Very busy men generally seem preoccupied with some idea of their own which is not what you are talking about, but a leisurely man will give hospitality to your thought. A busy man wants to get away, and fidgets you; a man of leisure dwells with you, for the time, completely. Ladies are exquisitely sensitive to these differences, and besides, they are generally themselves persons of leisure. Overworked people often confound leisure with indolence, which is a great mistake. Leisure is highly favorable to intelligence and good manners; indolence is stupid, from its dislike to mental effort, and ill-bred, from the habit of inattention.

The feeling of women towards custom draws them strongly to the clergy, because a priesthood is the instinctive upholder of ancient customs and ceremonies, and steadily maintains external decorum. Women are naturally more attracted by custom than we are. A few men have an affectionate regard for the sanctities of usage, but most men only submit to them from an idea that they are generally helpful to the "maintenance of order;" and if women could be supposed absent from a nation for a time, it is probable that external observances of all kinds would be greatly relaxed. Women do not merely submit passively to custom; they uphold it actively and energetically, with a degree of faith in the perfect reasonableness of it which gives them great decision in its defence. It seems to them the ultimate reason from which there is no appeal. Now, in the life of every organized Church there is much to gratify this instinct, especially in those which have been long established. The recurrence of holy seasons, the customary repetition of certain forms of words, the observance at stated intervals of the same ceremonies, the adherence to certain prescribed decencies or splendors of dress, the reservation of sacred days on which labor is suspended, give to the religious life a charm of customariness which is deeply gratifying to good, order-loving women. It is said that every poet has something feminine in his nature; and it is certainly observable that poets, like women, are tenderly affected by the recurrence of holy seasons, and the observance of fixed religious rites. I will only allude to Keble's "Christian Year," because in this instance it might be objected that the poet was secondary to the Christian; but the reader will find instances of the same sentiment in Tennyson, as, for example, in the profoundly affecting allusions to the return of Christmas in "In Memoriam." I could not name another occupation so closely and visibly bound up with custom as the clerical profession, but for the sake of contrast I may mention one or two others that are completely disconnected from it. The profession of painting is an example, and so is that of literature. An artist, a writer, has simply nothing whatever to do with custom, except as a private man. He may be an excellent and a famous workman without knowing Sunday from week-day or Easter from Lent. A man of science is equally unconnected with traditional observances.

It may be a question whether a celibate or a married clergy has the greater influence over women.

There are two sides to this question. The Church of Rome is, from the worldly point of view, the most astute body of men who have ever leagued themselves together in a corporation; and that Church has decided for celibacy, rejecting thereby all the advantages to be derived from rich marriages and good connections. In a celibate church the priest has a position of secure dignity and independence. It is known from the first that he will not marry, so there is no idle and damaging gossip about his supposed aspirations after fortune, or tender feelings towards beauty. Women can treat him with greater confidence than if he were a possible suitor, and then can confess to him, which is felt to be difficult with a married or a marriageable clergy. By being decidedly celibate the clergy avoid the possible loss of dignity which might result from allying themselves with families in a low social position. They are simply priests, and escape all other classification. A married man is, as it were, made responsible for the decent appearance, the good manners, and the proper conduct of three different sets of people. There is the family he springs from, there is his wife's family, and, lastly, there is the family in his own house. Any one of these may drag a man down socially with almost irresistible force. The celibate priest is only affected by the family he springs from, and is generally at a distance from that. He escapes the invasion of his house by a wife's relations, who might possibly be vulgar, and, above all, he escapes the permanent degradation of a coarse and ill-dressed family of his own. No doubt, from the Christian point of view, poverty is as honorable as wealth; but from the worldly point of view its visible imperfections are mean, despicable, and even ridiculous. In the early days of English Protestants the liberty to marry was ruinous to the social position of the clergy. They generally espoused servant-girls or "a lady's maid whose character had been blown upon, and who was therefore forced to give up all hope of catching the steward."[17] Queen Elizabeth issued "special orders that no clergyman should presume to marry a servant-girl without the consent of the master or mistress." "One of the lessons most earnestly inculcated on every girl of honorable family was to give no encouragement to a lover in orders; and if any young lady forgot this precept she was almost as much disgraced as by an illicit amour." The cause of these low marriages was simply poverty, and it is needless to add that they increased the evil. "As children multiplied and grew, the household of the priest became more and more beggarly. Holes appeared more and more plainly in the thatch of his parsonage and in his single cassock. His boys followed the plough, and his girls went out to service."

When clergymen can maintain appearances they gain one advantage from marriage which increases their influence with women. The clergyman's wife is almost herself in holy orders, and his daughter often takes an equally keen interest in ecclesiastical matters. These "clergywomen," as they have been called, are valuable allies, through whom much may be done that cannot be effected directly. This is the only advantage on the side of marriage, and it is but relative; for a celibate clergy has also its female allies who are scarcely less devoted; and in the Church of Rome there are great organized associations of women entirely under the control of ecclesiastics. Again, there is a lay element in a clergyman's family which brings the world into his own house, to the detriment of its religious character. The sons of the clergy are often anything but clerical in feeling. They are often strongly laic, and even sceptical, by a natural reaction from ecclesiasticism. On the whole, therefore, it seems certain that an unmarried clergy more easily maintains both its own dignity and the distinction between itself and the laity.

Auricular confession is so well known as a means of influencing women that I need scarcely do more than mention it; but there is one characteristic of it which is little understood by Protestants. They fancy (judging from Protestant feelings of antagonism) that confession must be felt as a tyranny. A Roman Catholic woman does not feel it to be an infliction that the Church imposes, but a relief that she affords. Women are not naturally silent sufferers. They like to talk about their anxieties and interests, especially to a patient and sympathetic listener of the other sex who will give them valuable advice. There is reason to believe that a good deal of informal confession is done by Protestant ladies; in the Church of Rome it is more systematic and leads to a formal absolution. The subject which the speaker has to talk about is that most interesting of all subjects, self. In any other place than a confessional to talk about self at any length is an error; in the confessional it is a virtue. The truth is that pious Roman Catholic women find happiness in the confessional and try the patience of the priests by minute accounts of trifling or imaginary sins. No doubt confession places an immense power in the hands of the Church, but at an incalculable cost of patience. It is not felt to weigh unfairly on the laity, because the priest who to-day has forgiven your faults will to-morrow kneel in penitence and ask forgiveness for his own. I do not see in the confessional so much an oppressive institution as a convenience for both parties. The woman gets what she wants,--an opportunity of talking confidentially about herself; and the priest gets what he wants,--an opportunity of learning the secrets of the household.

Nothing has so powerfully awakened the jealousy of laymen as this institution of the confessional. The reasons have been so fully treated by Michelet and others, and are in fact so obvious, that I need not repeat them.

The dislike for priests that is felt by many Continental laymen is increased by a cause that helps to win the confidence of women. "Observe," the laymen say, "with what art the priest dresses so as to make women feel that he is without sex, in order that they may confess to him more willingly. He removes every trace of hair from his face, his dress is half feminine, he hides his legs in petticoats, his shoulders under a tippet, and in the higher ranks he wears jewelry and silk and lace. A woman would never confess to a man dressed as we are, so the wolf puts on sheep's clothing."

Where confession is not the rule the layman's jealousy is less acrid and pungent in its expression, but it often manifests itself in milder forms. The pen that so clearly delineated the Rev. Charles Honeyman was impelled by a layman's natural and pardonable jealousy. A feeling of this kind is often strong in laymen of mature years. They will say to you in confidence, "Here is a man about the age of one of my sons, who knows no more concerning the mysteries of life and death than I do, who gets what he thinks he knows out of a book which is as accessible to me as it is to him, and yet who assumes a superiority over me which would only be justifiable if I were ignorant and he enlightened. He calls me one of his sheep. I am not a sheep relatively to him. I am at least his equal in knowledge, and greatly his superior in experience. Nobody but a parson would venture to compare me to an animal (such a stupid animal too!) and himself to that animal's master. His one real and effective superiority is that he has all the women on his side."

You poor, doubting, hesitating layman, not half so convinced as the ladies of your family, who and what are you in the presence of a man who comes clothed with the authority of the Church? If you simply repeat what he says, you are a mere echo, a feeble repetition of a great original, like the copy of a famous picture. If you try to take refuge in philosophic indifference, in silent patience, you will be blamed for moral and religious inertia. If you venture to oppose and discuss, you will be the bad man against the good man, and as sure of condemnation as a murderer when the judge is putting on the black cap. There is no resource for you but one, and that does not offer a very cheering or hopeful prospect. By the exercise of angelic patience, and of all the other virtues that have been preached by good men from Socrates downwards, you may in twenty or thirty years acquire some credit for a sort of inferior goodness of your own,--a pinchbeck goodness, better than nothing, but not in any way comparable to the pure golden goodness of the priest; and when you come to die, the best that can be hoped for your disembodied soul will be mercy, clemency, indulgence; not approbation, welcome, or reward.

ESSAY XIV.

WHY WE ARE APPARENTLY BECOMING LESS RELIGIOUS.

It has happened to me on more than one occasion to have to examine papers left by ladies belonging to the last generation, who had lived in the manner most esteemed and respected by the general opinion of their time, and who might, without much risk of error, be taken for almost perfect models of English gentlewomen as they existed before the present scientific age. The papers left by these ladies consisted either of memoranda of their private thoughts, or of thoughts by others which seemed to have had an especial interest for them. I found that all these papers arranged themselves naturally and inevitably under two heads: either they concerned family interests and affections, or they were distinctly religious in character, like the religious meditations we find in books of devotion.

There may be nothing extraordinary in this. Thousands of other ladies may have left religious memoranda; but consider what a preponderance of religious ideas is implied when written thoughts are entirely confined to them! The ladies in question lived in the first half of the nineteenth century, a period of great intellectual ferment, of the most important political and social changes, and of wonderful material progress; but they did not seem to have taken any real interest in these movements. The Bible and the commentaries of the clergy satisfied not only their spiritual but also their intellectual needs. They seem to have desired no knowledge of the universe, or of the probable origin and future of the human race, which the Bible did not supply. They seem to have cared for no example of human character and conduct other than the scriptural examples.

This restfulness in Biblical history and philosophy, this substitution of the Bible for the world as a subject of study and contemplation, this absence of desire to penetrate the secrets of the world itself, this want of aspiration after any ideal more recent than the earlier ages of Christianity, permitted a much more constant and uninterrupted dwelling with what are considered to be religious ideas than is possible to any active and inquiring mind of the present day. Let it be supposed, for example, that a person to whom the Bible was everything desired information about the origin of the globe, and of life upon it; he would refer to the Book of Genesis as the only authority, and this reference would have the character of a religious act, and he would get credit for piety on account of it; whilst a modern scientific student would refer to some great modern paleontologist, and his reference would not have the character of a religious act, nor bring him any credit for piety; yet the prompting curiosity, the desire to know about the remote past, would be exactly the same in both cases. And I think it may be easily shown that if the modern scientific student appears to be less religious than others think he ought to be, it is often because he possesses and uses more abundant sources of information than those which were accessible to the ancient Jews. It is not his fault if knowledge has increased; he cannot be blamed if he goes where information is most copious and most exact; yet his preference for such information gives an unsanctified aspect to his studies. The study of the most ancient knowledge wears a religious aspect, but the study of modern knowledge appears to be non-religious.

Again, when we come to the cultivation of the idealizing faculties, of the faculties which do not seek information merely, but some kind of perfection, we find that the very complexity of modern life, and the diversity of the ideal pleasures and perfections that we modern men desire, have a constant tendency to take us outside of strictly religious ideals. As long as the writings which are held to be sacred supply all that our idealizing faculties need, so long will our imaginative powers exercise themselves in what is considered to be a religious manner, and we shall get credit for piety; but when our minds imagine what the sacred writers could not or did not conceive, and when we seek help for our imaginative faculty in profane writers, we appear to be less religious. So it is with the desire to study and imitate high examples of conduct and character. There is no nobler or more fruitful instinct in man than a desire like this, which is possible only to those who are at once humble and aspiring. An ancient Jew who had this noble instinct could satisfy it by reading the sacred books of the Hebrews, and so his aspiration appeared to be wholly religious. It is not so with an active-minded young Englishman of the present day. He cannot find the most inspiriting models amongst the ancient Hebrews, for the reason that their life was altogether so much simpler and more primitive than ours. They had nothing that can seriously be called science; they had not any organized industry; they had little art, and hardly any secular literature, so that in these directions they offer us no examples to follow. Our great inspiriting examples in these directions are to be found either in the Renaissance or in recent times, and therefore in profane biography. From this it follows that an active modern mind seems to study and follow non-religious examples, and so to differ widely, and for the worse, from the simpler minds of old time, who were satisfied with the examples they found in their Bibles. This appearance is misleading; it is merely on the surface; for if we go deeper and do not let ourselves be deceived by the words "sacred" and "profane," we shall find that when a simple mind chooses a model from a primitive people, and a cultivated one chooses a model from an advanced people, and from the most advanced class in it, they are both really doing the same thing, namely, seeking ideal help of the kind which is best for each. Both of them are pursuing the same object,--a mental discipline and elevation which may be comprised under the general term _virtue_; the only difference being that one is studying examples of virtue in the history of the ancient Jews, whilst the other finds examples of virtue more to his own special purpose in the lives of energetic Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Germans.

A hundred such examples might be mentioned, for every occupation worth following has its own saints and heroes; but I will confine myself to two. The first shall be a French gentleman of the eighteenth century, to whom life offered in the richest profusion everything that can tempt a man to what is considered an excusable and even a respectable form of idleness. He had an independent fortune, excellent health, a good social position, and easy access to the most lively, the most entertaining, the most amiable society that ever was, namely, that of the intelligent French nobility before the Revolution. There is no merit in renouncing what we do not enjoy; but he enjoyed all pleasant things, and yet renounced them for a higher and a harder life. At the age of thirty-two he retired to the country, made a rule of early rising and kept it, sallied forth from his house every morning at five, went and shut himself up in an old tower with a piece of bread and a glass of water for his breakfast, worked altogether eleven or twelve hours a day in two sittings, and went to bed at nine. This for eight months in the year, regularly, the remaining four being employed in scientific and administrative work at the Jardin des Plantes. He went on working in this way for forty years, and in the whole course of that time never let pass an ill-considered page or an ill-constructed sentence, but always did his best, and tried to make himself able to do better.

Such was the great life of Buffon; and in our own time another great life has come to its close, inferior to that of Buffon only in this, that as it did not begin in luxury, the first renunciation was not so difficult to make. Yet, however austere his beginnings, it is not a light or easy thing for a man to become the greatest intellectual worker of his time, so that one of his days (including eight hours of steady nocturnal labor) was equivalent to two or more of our days. No man of his time in Europe had so vast a knowledge of literature and science in combination; yet this knowledge was accompanied by perfect modesty and by a complete indifference to vulgar distinctions and vain successes. For many years he was the butt of coarse and malignant misrepresentation on the part of enemies who easily made him odious to a shallow society; but he bore it with perfect dignity, and retained unimpaired the tolerance and charity of his nature. His way of living was plain and frugal; he even contented himself with narrow dwellings, though the want of space must have occasioned frequent inconvenience to a man of his pursuits. He scrupulously fulfilled his domestic duties, and made use of his medical education in ministering gratuitously to the poor. Such was his courage that when already advanced in life he undertook a gigantic task, requiring twenty years of incessant labor; and such were his industry and perseverance that he brought it to a splendidly successful issue. At length, after a long life of duty and patience, after bearing calumny and ridicule, he was called to endure another kind of suffering,--that of incessant physical pain. This he bore with perfect fortitude, retaining to the last his mental serenity, his interest in learning, and a high-minded patriotic thoughtfulness for his country and its future, finding means in the midst of suffering to dictate long letters to his fellow-citizens on political subjects, which, in their calm wisdom, stood in the strongest possible contrast to the violent party writing of the hour.

Such was the great life of Littré; and now consider whether he who studies lives like these, and wins virtue from their austere example, does not occupy his thoughts with what would have been considered religious aspirations, if these two men, instead of being Frenchmen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, had happened to be ancient Jews. If it had been possible for so primitive a nation as the Jewish to produce men of such steady industry and so large a culture, we should have read the story of their lives in the Jewish sacred books, and then it would have been a part of the popular religion to study them, whereas now the study of such biography is held to be non-religious, if not (at least in the case of Littré) positively irreligious. Yet surely when we think of the virtues which made these lives so fruitful, our minds are occupied in a kind of religious thought; for are we not thinking of temperance, self-discipline, diligence, perseverance, patience, charity, courage, hope? Were not these men distinguished by their aspiration after higher perfection, by a constant desire to use their talents well, and by a vigilant care in the employment of their time? And are not these virtues and these aspirations held to be parts of a civilized man's religion, and the best parts?

The necessity for an intellectual expansion beyond the limits of the Bible was felt very strongly at the time of the Renaissance, and found ample satisfaction in the study of the Greek and Latin classics. There are many reasons why women appear to be more religious than men; and one of them is because women study only one collection of ancient writings, whilst men have been accustomed to study three; consequently that which women study (if such a word is applicable to devotional, uncritical reading) occupies their minds far more exclusively than it occupies the mind of a classical scholar. But, though the intellectual energies of men were for a time satisfied with classical literature, they came at length to look outside of that as their fathers had looked outside of the Bible. Classical literature was itself a kind of religion, having its own sacred books; and it had also its heretics,--the students of nature,--who found nature more interesting than the opinions of the Greeks and Romans. Then came the second great expansion of the human mind, in the midst of which we ourselves are living. The Renaissance opened for it a world of mental activity which had the inappreciable intellectual advantage of lying well outside of the popular beliefs and ideas, so that cultivated men found in it an escape from the pressure of the uneducated; but the new scientific expansion offers us a region governed by laws of a kind peculiar to itself, which protect those who conform to them against every assailant. It is a region in which authority is unknown, for, however illustrious any great man may appear in it, every statement that he makes is subject to verification. Here the knowledge of ancient writers is continually superseded by the better and more accurate knowledge of their successors; so that whereas in religion and learning the most ancient writings are the most esteemed, in science it is often the most recent, and even these have no authority which may not be called in question freely by any student. The new scientific culture is thus encouraging a habit of mind different from old habits, and which in our time has caused such a degree of separation that the most important and the most interesting of all topics are those upon which we scarcely dare to venture for fear of being misunderstood.

If I had to condense in a short space the various reasons why we are apparently becoming less religious, I should say that it is because knowledge and feeling, embodied or expressed in the sciences and arts, are now too fully and too variously developed to remain within the limits of what is considered sacred knowledge or religious emotion. It was possible for them to remain well within those limits in ancient times, and it is still possible for a mind of very limited activity and range to dwell almost entirely in what was known or felt at the time of Christ; but this is not possible for an energetic and inquiring mind, and the consequence is that the energetic mind will seem to the other, by contrast, to be negligent of holy things, and too much occupied with purely secular interests and concerns. A great misunderstanding arises from this, which has often had a lamentable effect on intercourse between relations and friends. Pious ladies, to whom theological writings appear to contain almost everything that it is desirable to know, often look with secret misgiving or suspicion on young men of vigorous intellect who cannot rest satisfied with the old knowledge, and what such ladies vaguely hear of the speculations of the famous scientific leaders inspires them with profound alarm. They think that we are becoming less religious because theological writings do not occupy the same space in our time and thoughts as they do in theirs; whereas, if such a matter could be put to any kind of positive test, it would probably be found that we know more, even of their own theology, than they do, and that, instead of being indifferent to the great problems of the universe, we have given to such problems an amount of careful thought far surpassing, in mental effort, their own simple acquiescence. The opinions of a thoughtful and studious man in the present day have never been lightly come by; and if he is supposed to be less religious than his father or his grandfather it may be that his religion is different from theirs, without being either less earnest or less enlightened. There is, however, one point of immense importance on which I believe that we really are becoming less religious, indeed on that point we seem to be rapidly abandoning the religious principle altogether; but the subject is of too much consequence to be treated at the end of an Essay.

ESSAY XV.

HOW WE ARE REALLY BECOMING LESS RELIGIOUS.

The reader may remember how, after the long and unsuccessful siege of Syracuse, the Athenian general Nikias, seeing his discouraged troops ill with the fever from the marshes, determined to raise the siege; and that, when his soldiers were preparing to retreat, and striking their tents for the march, there occurred an eclipse of the moon. Nikias, in his anxiety to know what the gods meant by this with reference to him and his army, at once consulted a soothsayer, who told him that he would incur the Divine anger if he did not remain where he was for three times nine days. He remained, doing nothing, allowing his troops to perish and his ships to be shut up by a line of the enemy's vessels chained together across the entrance of the port. At length the three times nine days came to an end, and what was left of the Athenian army had to get out of a situation that had become infinitely more difficult during its inaction. The ships tried to get out in vain; the army was able to retreat by land, but only to be harassed by the enemy, and finally placed in such distress that it was compelled to surrender. Most of the remnant died miserably in the old quarries of Syracuse.

The conduct of Nikias throughout these events was in the highest degree religious. He was fully convinced that the gods concerned themselves about him and his doings, that they were watching over him, and that the eclipse was a communication from them not to be neglected without a breach of religious duty. He, therefore, in the spirit of the most perfect religious faith, which we are compelled to admire for its sincerity and thoroughness, shut his eyes resolutely to all the visible facts of a situation more disastrous every day, and attended only to the invisible action of the invisible gods, of which nothing could be really known by him. For twenty-seven days he went on quietly sacrificing his soldiers to his faith, and only moved at last when he believed that the gods allowed it.

In contrast with this, let us ask what we think of an eclipse ourselves, and how far any religious emotion, determinant of action or of inaction, is connected with the phenomenon in our experience. We know, in the first place, that eclipses belong to the natural order, and we do not feel either grateful to the supernatural powers, or ungrateful, with regard to them. Even the idea that eclipses demonstrate the power of God is hardly likely to occur to us, for we constantly see terrestrial objects eclipsed by cast shadows; and the mere falling of a shadow is to us only the natural interruption of light by the intervention of any opaque object. In the true theory of eclipses there is absolutely no ground whatever for religious emotion, and accordingly the phenomenon is now entirely disconnected from religious ideas. The consequence is that where the Athenian general had a strong motive for religious emotion, a motive so strong that he sacrificed his army to the supposed will of Heaven, a modern general in the same situation would feel no emotion and make no sacrifice.

If this process stopped at eclipses the result would be of little importance, as eclipses of the celestial bodies are not frequently visible, and to lose the opportunity of emotion which they present is not a very sensible loss. But so far is the process from stopping at eclipses, that exactly the same process is going on with regard to thousands of other phenomena which are one by one, yet with increasing rapidity, ceasing to be regarded as special manifestations of Divine will, and beginning to be regarded as a part of that order of nature with which, to quote Professor Huxley's significant language, "nothing interferes." Every one of these transferrences from supernatural government to natural order deprives the religious sentiment of one special cause or motive for its own peculiar kind of emotion, so that we are becoming less and less accustomed to such emotion (as the opportunities for it become less frequent), and more and more accustomed to accept events and phenomena of all kinds as in that order of nature "with which nothing interferes."

This single mental conception of the unfailing regularity of nature is doing more in our time to affect the religious condition of thoughtful people than could be effected by many less comprehensive conceptions.

It has often been said, not untruly, that merely negative arguments have little permanent influence over the opinions of men, and that institutions which have been temporarily overthrown by negation will shortly be set up again, and flourish in their old vigor, unless something positive can be found to supply their place. But here is a doctrine of a most positive kind. "The order of nature is invariably according to regular sequences." It is a doctrine which cannot be proved, for we cannot follow all the changes which have ever taken place in the universe; but, although incapable of demonstration, it may be accepted until something happens to disprove it; and it _is_ accepted, with the most absolute faith, by a constantly increasing number of adherents.

To show how this doctrine acts in diminishing religious emotion by taking away the opportunity for it, let me narrate an incident which really occurred on a French line of railway in the winter of 1882. The line, on which I had travelled a few days before, passes between a river and a hill. The river has a rocky bed and is torrential in winter; the hill is densely covered with a pine forest coming down to the side of the line. The year 1882 had been the rainiest known in France for two centuries, and the roots of the trees on the edge of this pine forest had been much loosened by the rain. In consequence of this, two large pine-trees fell across the railway early one morning, and soon afterwards a train approached the spot by the dim light of early dawn. There was a curve just before the engine reached the trees, and it had come rapidly for several miles down a decline. The driver reversed his steam, the engine and tender leaped over the trees, and then went over the embankment to a place within six feet of the rapid river. The carriages remained on the line, but were much broken. Nobody was killed; nobody was seriously injured. The remarkable escape of the passengers was accounted for as follows by the religious people in the neighborhood. There happened to be a priest in the train, and at the time when the shock took place he made what is called "a pious ejaculation." This, it was said, had saved the lives of the passengers. In the ages of faith this explanation would have been received without question; but the notion of natural sequences--Professor Huxley's "order with which nothing interferes"--had obtained such firm hold on the minds of the townsmen generally that they said the priest was trying to make ecclesiastical capital out of an occurrence easily explicable by natural causes. They saw nothing supernatural either in the production of the accident or its comparative harmlessness. The trickling of much water had denuded the roots of the trees, which fell because they could not stand with insufficient roothold; the lives of the passengers were saved because they did not happen to be in the most shattered carriage; and the men on the engine escaped because they fell on soft ground, made softer still by the rain. It was probable, too, they said, that if any beneficent supernatural interference had taken place it would have maintained the trees in an erect position, by preventive miracle, and so spared the slight injuries which really were inflicted, and which, though treated very lightly by others because there were neither deaths nor amputations, still caused suffering to those who had to bear them.

Now if we go a little farther into the effects of this accident on the minds of the people who shared in it, or whose friends had been imperilled by it, we shall see very plainly the effect of the modern belief in the regularity of natural sequences. Those who believed in supernatural intervention would offer thanksgivings when they got home, and probably go through some special religious thanksgiving services for many days afterwards; those who believed in the regularity of natural sequences would simply feel glad to have escaped, without any especial sense of gratitude to supernatural powers. So much for the effect as far as thanksgiving is concerned; but there is another side of the matter at least equally important from the religious point of view,--that of prayer. The believers in supernatural interference would probably, in all their future railway journeys, pray to be supernaturally protected in case of accident, as they had been in 1882; but the believers in the regularity of natural sequences would only hope that no trees had fallen across the line, and feel more than usually anxious after long seasons of rainy weather. Can there be a doubt that the priest's opinion, that he had won safety by a pious ejaculation, was highly favorable to his religious activity afterwards, whilst the opinion of the believers in "the natural order with which nothing interferes" was unfavorable both to prayer and thanksgiving in connection with railway travelling?

Examples of this kind might easily be multiplied, for there is hardly any enterprise that men undertake, however apparently unimportant, which cannot be regarded both from the points of view of naturalism and supernaturalism; and in every case the naturalist manner of regarding the enterprise leads men to study the probable influence of natural causes, whilst the supernaturalist opinion leads them to propitiate supernatural powers. Now, although some new sense may come to be attached to the word "religion" in future ages, so that it may come to mean scientific thoroughness, intellectual ingenuousness, or some other virtue that may be possessed by a pure naturalist, the word has always been understood, down to the present time, to imply a constant dependence upon the supernatural; and when I say that we are becoming less religious, I mean that from our increasing tendency to refer everything to natural causes the notion of the supernatural is much less frequently present in our minds than it was in the minds of our forefathers. Even the clergy themselves seem to be following the laity towards the belief in natural law, at least so far as matter is concerned. The Bishop of Melbourne, in 1882, declined to order prayers for rain, and gave his reason honestly, which was that material phenomena were under the control of natural law, and would not be changed in answer to prayer. The Bishop added that prayer should be confined to spiritual blessings. Without disputing the soundness of this opinion, we cannot help perceiving that if it were generally received it would put an end to one half of the religious activity of the human race; for half the prayers and half the thanksgivings addressed to the supernatural powers are for material benefits only. It is possible that, in the future, religious people will cease to pray for health, but take practical precautions to preserve it; that they will cease to pray for prosperity, but study the natural laws which govern the wealth of nations; that they will no longer pray for the national fleets and armies, but see that they are well supplied and intelligently commanded. All this and much more is possible; but when it comes to pass the world will be less religious than it was when men believed that every pestilence, every famine, every defeat, was a chastisement specially, directly, and intentionally inflicted by an angry Deity. Even now, what an immense step has been made in this direction! In the fearful description of the pestilence at Florence, given with so much detail by Boccaccio, he speaks of "l'ira di Dio a punire la iniquità degli uomini con quella pestilenza;" and he specially implies that those who sought to avoid the plague by going to healthier places in the country deceived themselves in supposing that the wrath of God would not follow them whithersoever they went. That is the old belief expressing itself in prayers and humiliations. It is still recognized officially. If the plague could occur in a town on the whole so well cared for as modern London, the language of Boccaccio would still be used in the official public prayers; but the active-minded practical citizens would be thinking how to destroy the germs, how to purify air and water. An instance of this divergence occurred after the Egyptian war of 1882. The Archbishop of York, after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, ordered thanksgivings to be offered in the churches, on the ground that God was in Sir Garnet Wolseley's camp and fought with him against the Egyptians, which was a survival of the antique idea that national deities fought with the national armies. On this a Member of Parliament, Mr. George Palmer, said to his constituents in a public meeting at Reading, "At the same time I cannot agree with the prayers that have been made in churches. Though I respect the consciences of other men, I must say that it was not by Divine interference, but from the stuff of which our army was made and our great ironclads, that victory was achieved." I do not quote this opinion for any originality in itself, as there have always been men who held that victory was a necessary result of superior military efficiency, but I quote it as a valuable test of the change in general opinion. It is possible that such views may have been expressed in private in all ages of the world; but I doubt if in any age preceding ours a public man, at the very time when he was cultivating the good graces of his electors, would have refused to the national Deity a special share in a military triumph. To an audience imbrued with the old conception of incessant supernatural interferences, the doctrine that a victory was a natural result would have sounded impious; and such an audience, if any one had ventured to say what Mr. Palmer said, would have received him with a burst of indignation. But Mr. Palmer knew the tendencies of the present age, and was quite correct in thinking that he might safely express his views. His hearers were not indignant, they were not even grave and silent, as Englishmen are when they simply disapprove, but they listened willingly, and marked their approbation by laughter and cheers. Even a clergyman may hold Mr. Palmer's opinion. Soon after his speech at Reading the Rev. H. R. Haweis said the same thing in the pulpit. "Few people," he said, "really doubt that we have conquered the Egyptians, not because we were in the right and they were in the wrong, but because we had the heaviest hand." The preacher went on to say that the idea of God fighting on one side more than another in particular battles seemed to him to be a Pagan or at most a Jewish one. How different was the old sentiment as expressed by Macaulay in the stirring ballad of Ivry! "We of the religion" had no doubt about the Divine interference in the battle,

"For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave, And mocked the counsel of the wise, and the valor of the brave; Then glory to his holy name from whom all glories are, And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of Navarre!"

The way in which the great mental movement of our age towards a more complete recognition of natural order is affecting human intercourse may be defined in a few words. If the movement were at an equal rate of advance for all civilized people they would be perfectly agreed amongst themselves at any one point of time, as it would be settled which events were natural in their origin and which were due to the interposition of Divine or diabolical agency. Living people would differ in opinion from their predecessors, but they would not differ from each other. The change, however, though visible and important, is not by any means uniform, so that a guest sitting at dinner may have on his right hand a lady who sees supernatural interferences in many things, and on his left a student of science who is firmly convinced that there are no supernatural interferences in the present, and that there never have been any in the past. Private opinion, out of which public opinion slowly and gradually forms itself, is in our time in a state of complete anarchy, because two opposite doctrines are held loosely, and one or the other is taken up as it happens to seem appropriate. The interpositions of Providence are recognized or rejected according to political or personal bias. The French Imperialists saw the Divine vengeance in the death of Gambetta, whilst in their view the death of Napoleon III. was the natural termination of his disease, and that of the Prince Imperial a simple accident, due to the carelessness of his English companions. Personal bias shows itself in the belief, often held by men occupying positions of importance, that they are necessary, at least for a time, to fulfil the intentions of Providence. Napoleon III. said in a moment of emotion, "So long as I am needed I am invulnerable; but when my hour comes I shall be broken like glass!" Even in private life a man will sometimes think, "I am so necessary to my wife and family that Providence will not remove me," though every newspaper reports the deaths of fathers who leave their families destitute. Sometimes men believe that Providence takes the same view of their enterprises that they themselves take; and when a great enterprise is drawing near to its termination they feel assured that supernatural power will protect them till it is quite concluded, but they believe that the enterprises of other men are exposed to all the natural risks. When Mr. Gifford Palgrave was wrecked in the sea of Oman, he was for some time in an open boat, and thus describes his situation: "All depended on the steerage, and on the balance and support afforded by the oars, and even more still on the Providence of Him who made the deep; nor indeed could I get myself to think that He had brought me thus far to let me drown just at the end of my journey, and in so very unsatisfactory a way too; for had we then gone down, what news of the event off Sowadah would ever have reached home, or when?--so that altogether I felt confident of getting somehow or other on shore, though by what means I did not exactly know." Here the writer thinks of his own enterprise as deserving Divine solicitude, but does not attach the same importance to the humbler enterprises of the six passengers who went down with the vessel. I cannot help thinking, too, of the poor passenger Ibraheem, who swam to the boat and begged so piteously to be taken in, when a sailor "loosened his grasp by main force and flung him back into the sea, where he disappeared forever." Neither can I forget the four who imprudently plunged from the boat and perished. We may well believe that these lost ones would have been unable to write such a delightful and instructive book as Mr. Palgrave's "Travels in Arabia," yet they must have had their own humble interests in life, their own little objects and enterprises.

The calculation that Providence would spare a traveller towards the close of a long journey may be mistaken, but it is pious; it affords an opportunity for the exercise of devout emotion which the scientific thinker would miss. If Mr. Herbert Spencer had been placed in the same situation he would, no doubt, have felt the most perfect confidence that the order of nature would not be disturbed, that even in such a turmoil of winds and waters the laws of buoyancy and stability would be observed in every motion of the boat to the millionth of an inch; but he would not have considered himself likely to escape death on account of the important nature of his undertakings. Mr. Spencer's way of judging the situation as one of equal peril for himself and his humble companions would have been more reasonable, but at the same time he would have lost that opportunity for special and personal gratitude which Mr. Palgrave enjoyed when he believed himself to be supernaturally protected. The curious inconsistency of the common French expression, "C'est un hasard providentiel" is another example of the present state of thought on the question. A Frenchman is upset from a carriage, breaks no bones, and stands up, exclaiming, as he dusts himself, "It was un hasard vraiment providentiel that I was not lamed for life." It is plain that if his escape was providential it could not be accidental at the same time, yet in spite of the obvious inconsistency of his expression there is piety in his choice of an adjective.

The distinction, as it has usually been understood hitherto, between religious and non-religious explanations of what happens, is that the religious person believes that events happen by supernatural direction, and he is only thinking religiously so long as he thinks in that manner; whilst the non-religious theory is that events happen by natural sequence, and so long as a person thinks in this manner, his mind is acting non-religiously, whatever may be his religious profession. "To study the universe as it is manifested to us; to ascertain by patient inquiry the order of the manifestations; to discover that the manifestations are connected with one another after regular ways in time and space; and, after repeated failures, to give up as futile the attempt to understand the power manifested, is condemned as irreligious. And meanwhile the character of religious is claimed by those who figure to themselves a Creator moved by motives like their own; who conceive themselves as seeing through His designs, and who even speak of Him as though He laid plans to outwit the Devil!"

Yes, this is a true account of the way in which the words irreligious and religious have always been used and there does not appear to be any necessity for altering their signification. Every event which is transferred, in human opinion, from supernatural to natural action is transferred from the domain of religion to that of science; and it is because such transferrences have been so frequent in our time that we are becoming so much less religious than our forefathers were. In how many things is the modern man perfectly irreligious! He is so in everything that relates to applied science, to steam, telegraphy, photography, metallurgy, agriculture, manufactures. He has not the slightest belief in spiritual intervention, either for or against him, in these material processes. He is beginning to be equally irreligious in government. Modern politicians have been accused of thinking that God cannot govern, but that is not a true account of their opinion. What they really think is that government is an application of science to the direction of national life, in which no invisible powers will either thwart a ruler in that which he does wisely, or shield him from the evil consequences of his errors.

But though we are less religious than our ancestors because we believe less in the interferences of the supernatural, do we deserve censure for our way of understanding the world? Certainly not. Was Nikias a proper object of praise because the eclipse seen by him at Syracuse seemed a warning from the gods; and was Wolseley a proper object of blame because the comet seen by him on the Egyptian plain was without a Divine message? Both these opinions are quite outside of merit, although the older opinion was in the highest degree religious, and the later one is not religious in the least. Such changes simply indicate a gradual revolution in man's conception of the universe, which is the result of more accurate knowledge. So why not accept the fact, why not admit that we have really become less religious? Possibly we have a compensation, a gain equivalent to our loss. If the gods do not speak to us by signs in the heavens; if the entrails of victims and the flight of birds no longer tell us when to march to battle and where to remain inactive in our tents; if the oracle is silent at Delos, and the ark lost to Jerusalem; if we are pilgrims to no shrine; if we drink of no sacred fountain and plunge into no holy stream; if all the special sanctities once reverenced by humanity are unable any longer to awaken our dead enthusiasm, have we gained nothing in exchange for the many religious excitements that we have lost? Yes, we have gained a keener interest in the natural order, and a knowledge of it at once more accurate and more extensive, a gain that Greek and Jew might well have envied us, and which a few of their keener spirits most ardently desired. Our passion for natural knowledge is not a devout emotion, and therefore it is not religious; but it is a noble and a fruitful passion nevertheless, and by it our eyes are opened. The good Saint Bernard had his own saintly qualities; but for us the qualities of a De Saussure are not without their worth. Saint Bernard, in the perfection of ancient piety, travelling a whole day by the lake of Geneva without seeing it, too much absorbed by devout meditation to perceive anything terrestrial, was blinded by his piety, and might with equal profit have stayed in his monastic cell. De Saussure was a man of our own time. Never, in his writings, do you meet with any allusion to supernatural interferences (except once or twice in pity for popular superstitions); but fancy De Saussure passing the lake of Geneva, or any other work of nature, without seeing it! His life was spent in the continual study of the natural world; and this study was to him so vigorous an exercise for the mind, and so strict a discipline, that he found in it a means of moral and even of physical improvement. There is no trace in his writings of what is called devout emotion, but the bright light of intelligent admiration illumines every page; and when he came to die, if he could not look back, like Saint Bernard, upon what is especially supposed to be a religious life, he could look back upon many years wisely and well spent in the study of that nature of which Saint Bernard scarcely knew more than the mule that carried him.

ESSAY XVI.

ON AN UNRECOGNIZED FORM OF UNTRUTH.

In the art of painting there are two opposite ways of dealing with natural color. It may be intensified, or it may be translated by tints of inferior chromatic force. In either case the picture may be perfectly harmonious, provided only that the same principle of interpretation be consistently followed throughout.

The first time that I became acquainted with the first of these two methods of interpretation was in my youth, when I met with a Scottish painter who has since become eminent in his art. He was painting studies from nature; and I noticed that whenever in the natural object there was a trace of dull gold, as in some lichen, he made it a brighter gold, and whenever there was a little rusty red he made it a more vivid red. So it was with every other tint. His eye seemed to become excited by every hue, and he translated it by one of greater intensity and power.

Now that is a kind of exaggeration which is very commonly recognized as a departure from the sober truth. People complain that the sky is too blue, the fields too green, and so on.

Afterwards I saw French painters at work, and I noticed that they (in those days) interpreted natural color by an intentional lowering of the chromatic force. When they had to deal with the splendors of autumnal woods against a blue sky they interpreted the azure by a blue-gray, and the flaming gold by a dull russet. They even refused themselves the more quiet brightness of an ordinary wheat-field, and translated the yellow of the wheat by an earthy brown.

Unlike falsehood by exaggeration, this other kind of falsehood (by diminution) is very seldom recognized as a departure from the truth. Such coloring as this French coloring excited but few protests, and indeed was often praised for being "modest" and "subdued."

Both systems are equally permissible in the fine arts, if consistently followed, because in art the unity and harmony of the work are of greater importance than the exact imitation of nature. It is not as an art-critic that I should have any fault to find with a well-understood and thoroughly consistent conventionalism in the interpretation of nature; but the two kinds of falsity we have noticed are constantly found in action outside of the fine arts, and yet only one of them is recognized in its true character, the other being esteemed as a proof of modesty and moderation.

The general opinion, in our own country, condemns falsehood by exaggeration, but it does not blame falsehood by diminution. Overstatement is regarded as a vice, and understatement as a sort of modest virtue, whilst in fact they are both untruthful, exactly in the degree of their departure from perfect accuracy.

If a man states his income as being larger than it really is, if he adopts a degree of ostentation which (though he may be able to pay for it) conveys the idea of more ample means than he really possesses, and if we find out afterwards what his income actually is, we condemn him as an untruthful person; but lying by diminution with reference to money matters is looked upon simply as modesty.

I remember a most respectable English family who had this modesty in perfection. It was their great pleasure to represent themselves as being much less rich than they really were. Whenever they heard of anybody with moderate or even narrow means, they pretended to think that he had quite an ample income. If you mentioned a man with a family, struggling on a pittance, they would say he was "very comfortably provided for," and if you spoke of another whose expenses were the ordinary expenses of gentlemen, they wondered by what inventions of extravagance he could get through so much money. They themselves pretended to spend much less than they really spent, and they always affected astonishment when they heard how much it cost other people to live exactly in their own way. They considered that this was modesty; but was it not just as untruthful as the commoner vice of assuming a style more showy than the means warrant?

In France and Italy the departure from the truth is almost invariably in the direction of overstatement, unless the speaker has some distinct purpose to serve by adopting the opposite method, as when he desires to depreciate the importance of an enemy. In England people habitually understate, and the remarkable thing is that they believe themselves to be strictly truthful in doing so. The word "lying" is too harsh a term to be applied either to the English or the Continental habit in this matter; but it is quite fair to say that both of them miss the truth, one in falling short of it, the other in going beyond it.

An English family has seen the Alps for the first time. A young lady says Switzerland is "nice;" a young gentleman has decided that it is "jolly." This is what the habit of understatement may bring us down to,--absolute inadequacy. The Alps are not "nice," and they are not "jolly;" far more powerful adjectives are only the precise truth in this instance. The Alps are stupendous, overwhelming, magnificent, sublime. A Frenchman in similar circumstances will be embarrassed, not by any timidity about using a sufficiently forcible expression, but because he is eager to exaggerate; and one scarcely knows how to exaggerate the tremendous grandeur of the finest Alpine scenery. He will have recourse to eloquent phraseology, to loudness of voice, and finally, when he feels that these are still inadequate, he will employ energetic gesture. I met a Frenchman who tried to make me comprehend how many English people there were at Cannes in winter. "Il y en a--des Anglais--il y en a,"--then he hesitated, whilst seeking for an adequate expression. At last, throwing out both his arms, he cried, "_Il y en a plus qu'en Angleterre!_"

The English love of understatement is even more visible in moral than in material things. If an Englishman has to describe any person or action that is particularly admirable on moral grounds, he will generally renounce the attempt to be true, and substitute for the high and inspiring truth some quiet little conventional expression that will deliver him from what he most dreads,--the appearance of any noble enthusiasm. It does not occur to him that this inadequacy, this insufficiency of expression, is one of the forms of untruth; that to describe noble and admirable conduct in commonplace and non-appreciative language is to pay tribute of a kind especially acceptable to the Father of Lies. If we suppose the existence of a modern Mephistopheles watching the people of our own time and pleased with every kind of moral evil, we may readily imagine how gratified he must be to observe the moral indifference which uses exactly the same terms for ordinary and heroic virtue, which never rises with the occasion, and which always seems to take it for granted that there are neither noble natures nor high purposes in the world. The dead mediocrity of common talk, too timid and too indolent for any expression equivalent either to the glory of external nature or the intellectual and moral grandeur of great and excellent men, has driven many of our best minds from conversation into literature, because in literature it is not thought extraordinary for a man to express himself with a degree of force and clearness equivalent to the energy of his feelings, the accuracy of his knowledge, and the importance of his subject. The habit of using inadequate expression in conversation has led to the strange result that if an Englishman has any power of thought, any living interest in the great problems of human destiny, you will know hardly anything of the real action of his mind unless he becomes an author. He dares not express any high feelings in conversation, because he dreads what Stuart Mill called the "sneering depreciation" of them; and if such feelings are strong enough in him to make expression an imperative want, he has to utter them on paper. By a strange result of conventionalism, a man is admired for using language of the utmost clearness and force in literature, whilst if he talked as vigorously as he wrote (except, perhaps, in extreme privacy and even secrecy with one or two confidential companions) he would be looked upon as scarcely civilized. This may be one of the reasons why English literature, including the periodical, is so abundant in quantity and so full of energy. It is a mental outlet, a _dérivatif_.

The kind of untruthfulness which may be called _untruthfulness by inadequacy_ causes many strong and earnest minds to keep aloof from general society, which seems to them insipid. They find frank and clear expression in books, they find it even in newspapers and reviews, but they do not find it in social intercourse. This deficiency drives many of the more intelligent of our countrymen into the strange and perfectly unnatural position of receiving ideas almost exclusively through the medium of print, and of communicating them only by writing. I remember an Englishman of great learning and ability who lived almost entirely in that manner. He received his ideas through books and the learned journals, and whenever any thought occurred to him he wrote it immediately on a slip of paper. In society he was extremely absent, and when he spoke it was in an apologetic and timidly suggestive manner, as if he were always afraid that what he had to say might not be interesting to the hearer, or might even appear objectionable, and as if he were quite ready to withdraw it. He was far too anxious to be well-behaved ever to venture on any forcible expression of opinion or to utter any noble sentiment; and yet his convictions on all important subjects were very serious, and had been arrived at after deep thought, and he was capable of real elevation of mind. His writings are the strongest possible contrast to his oral expression of himself. They are bold in opinion, very clear and decided in statement, and full of well-ascertained knowledge.

ESSAY XVII.

ON A REMARKABLE ENGLISH PECULIARITY.

In De Tocqueville's admirable book on "Democracy in America" there is an interesting chapter on the behavior of Englishmen to each other when they meet in a foreign country:--

"Two Englishmen meet by chance at the antipodes; they are surrounded by foreigners whose language and mode of life are hardly known to them.

"These two men begin by studying each other very curiously and with a kind of secret uneasiness; they then turn away, or, if they meet, they are careful to speak only with a constrained and absent air, and to say things of little importance.

"And yet they know nothing of each other; they have never met, and suppose each other to be perfectly honorable. Why, then, do they take such pains to avoid intercourse?"

De Tocqueville was a very close observer, and I hardly know a single instance in which his faculty of observation shows itself in greater perfection. In his terse style of writing every word tells; and even in my translation, unavoidably inferior to the original, you actually see the two Englishmen and the minute details of their behavior.

Let me now introduce the reader to a little scene at a foreign _table d'hôte_, as described with great skill and truth by a well-known English novelist, Miss Betham-Edwards:--

"The time, September; the scene, a _table d'hôte_ dinner in a much-frequented French town. For the most part nothing can be more prosaic than these daily assemblies of English tourists bound for Switzerland and the South, and a slight sprinkling of foreigners, the two elements seldom or never blending; a visitant from another planet might, indeed, suppose that between English and French-speaking people lay such a gulf as divides the blond New Englander from the swarth African, so icy the distance, so unbroken the reserve. Nor is there anything like cordiality between the English themselves. Our imaginary visitant from Jupiter would here find matter for wonder also, and would ask himself the reason of this freezing reticence among the English fellowship. What deadly feud of blood, caste, or religion could thus keep them apart? Whilst the little knot of Gallic travellers at the farther end of the table straightway fall into friendliest talk, the long rows of Britons of both sexes and all ages speak only in subdued voices and to the members of their own family."

Next, let me give an account of a personal experience in a Parisian hotel. It was a little, unpretending establishment that I liked for its quiet and for the honest cookery. There was a _table d'hôte_, frequented by a few French people, generally from the provinces, and once there came some English visitors who had found out the merits of the little place. It happened that I had been on the Continent a long time without revisiting England, so when my fellow-countrymen arrived I had foolish feelings of pleasure on finding myself amongst them, and spoke to them in our common English tongue. The effect of this bold experiment was extremely curious, and to me, at the time, almost inexplicable, as I had forgotten that chapter by De Tocqueville. The new-comers were two or three young men and one in middle life. The young men seemed to be reserved more from timidity than pride. They were quite startled and frightened when spoken to, and made answer with grave brevity, as if apprehensive of committing themselves to some compromising statement. With an audacity acquired by habits of intercourse with foreigners, I spoke to the older Englishman. His way of putting me down would have been a charming study for a novelist. His manner resembled nothing so much as that of a dignified English minister,--Mr. Gladstone for example, when he is questioned in the House by some young and presumptuous member of the Opposition. A few brief words were vouchsafed to me, accompanied by an expression of countenance which, if not positively stern, was intentionally divested of everything like interest or sympathy. It then began to dawn upon me that perhaps this Englishman was conscious of some august social superiority; that he might even know a lord; and I thought, "If he does really know a lord we are very likely to hear his lordship's name." My expectation was not fulfilled to the letter, but it was quite fulfilled in spirit; for in talking to a Frenchman (for me to hear) our Englishman shortly boasted that he knew an English duchess, giving her name and place of abode. "One day when I was at ---- House I said to the Duchess of ----," and he repeated what he had said to Her Grace; but it would have no interest for the reader, as it probably had none for the great lady herself. Shade of Thackeray! why wast thou not there to add a paragraph to the "Book of Snobs"?

The next day came another Englishman of about fifty, who distinguished himself in another way. He did not know a duchess, or, if he did, we were not informed of his good fortune; but he assumed a wonderful air of superiority to his temporary surroundings, that filled me, I must say, with the deepest respect and awe. The impression he desired to produce was that he had never before been in so poor a little place, and that our society was far beneath what he was accustomed to. He criticised things disdainfully, and when I ventured to speak to him he condescended, it is true, to enter into conversation, but in a manner that seemed to say, "Who and what are you that you dare to speak to a gentleman like me, who am, as you must perceive, a person of wealth and consideration?"

This account of our English visitors is certainly not exaggerated by any excessive sensitiveness on my part. Paris is not the Desert; and one who has known it for thirty years is not dependent for society on a chance arrival from beyond the sea. For me these Englishmen were but actors in a play, and perhaps they afforded me more amusement with their own peculiar manners than if they had been pleasant and amiable. One result, however, was inevitable. I had been full of kindly feeling towards my fellow-countrymen when they came, but this soon gave place to indifference; and their departure was rather a relief. When they had left Paris, there arrived a rich French widow from the south with her son and a priest, who seemed to be tutor and chaplain. The three lived at our _table d'hôte_; and we found them most agreeable, always ready to take their share in conversation, and, although far too well-bred to commit the slightest infraction of the best French social usages, either through ignorance or carelessness, they were at the same time perfectly open and easy in their manners. They set up no pretensions, they gave themselves no airs, and when they returned to their own southern sunshine we felt their departure as a loss.

The foreign idea of social intercourse under such conditions (that is, of intercourse between strangers who are thrown together accidentally) is simply that it is better to pass an hour agreeably than in dreary isolation. People may not have much to say that is of any profound interest, but they enjoy the free play of the mind; and it sometimes happens, in touching on all sorts of subjects, that unexpected lights are thrown upon them. Some of the most interesting conversations I have ever heard have taken place at foreign _tables d'hôte_, between people who had probably never met before and who would separate forever in a week. If by accident they meet again, such acquaintances recognize each other by a bow, but there is none of that intrusiveness which the Englishman so greatly dreads.

Besides these transient acquaintanceships which, however brief, are by no means without their value to one's experience and culture, the foreign way of understanding a _table d'hôte_ includes the daily and habitual meeting of regular subscribers, a meeting looked forward to with pleasure as a break in the labors of the day, or a mental refreshment when they are over. Nothing affords such relief from the pressure of work as a free and animated conversation on other subjects. Of this more permanent kind of _table d'hôte_, Mr. Lewes gave a lively description in his biography of Goethe:--

"The English student, clerk, or bachelor, who dines at an eating-house, chop-house, or hotel, goes there simply to get his dinner, and perhaps look at the 'Times.' Of the other diners he knows nothing, cares little. It is rare that a word is interchanged between him and his neighbor. Quite otherwise in Germany. There the same society is generally to be found at the same table. The _table d'hôte_ is composed of a circle of _habitués_, varied by occasional visitors who in time become, perhaps, members of the circle. _Even with strangers conversation is freely interchanged_; and in a little while friendships are formed over these dinner-tables, according as natural tastes and likings assimilate, which, extending beyond the mere hour of dinner, are carried into the current of life. Germans do not rise so hastily from the table as we, for time with them is not so precious; life is not so crowded; time can be found for quiet after-dinner talk. The cigars and coffee, which appear before the cloth is removed, keep the company together; and in that state of suffused comfort which quiet digestion creates, they hear without anger the opinions of antagonists."

In this account of German habits we see the repast made use of as an opportunity for human intercourse, which the Englishman avoids except with persons already known to him or known to a private host. The reader has noticed the line I have italicized,--"Even with strangers conversation is freely interchanged." The consequence is that the stranger does not feel himself to be isolated, and if he is not an Englishman he does not take offence at being treated like an intelligent human being, but readily accepts the welcome that is offered to him.

The English peculiarity in this respect does not, however, consist so much in avoiding intercourse with foreigners as in shunning other English people. It is true that in the description of a _table d'hôte_ by Miss Betham-Edwards, the English and foreign elements are represented as separated by an icy distance, and the description is strikingly accurate; but this shyness and timidity as regards foreigners may be sufficiently accounted for by want of skill and ease in speaking their language. Most English people of education know a little French and German, but few speak those languages freely, fluently, and correctly. When it does happen that an Englishman has mastered a foreign tongue, he will generally talk more readily and unreservedly with a foreigner than with one of his own countrymen. This is the notable thing, that if English people do not really dislike and distrust one another, if there is not really "a deadly feud of blood, caste, or religion" to separate them, they expose themselves to the accusation of John Stuart Mill, that "everybody acts as if everybody else was either an enemy or a bore."

This English avoidance of English people is so remarkable and exceptional a characteristic that it could not but greatly interest and exercise so observant a mind as that of De Tocqueville. We have seen how accurately he noticed it; how exactly the conduct of shy Englishmen had fixed itself in his memory. Let us now see how he accounted for it.

Is it a mark of aristocracy? Is it because our race is more aristocratic than other races?

De Tocqueville's theory was, that it is _not_ the mark of an aristocratic society, because, in a society classed by birth, although people of different castes hold little communication with each other, they talk easily when they meet, without either fearing or desiring social fusion. "Their intercourse is not founded on equality, but it is free from constraint."

This view of the subject is confirmed by all that I know, through personal tradition, of the really aristocratic time in France that preceded the Revolution. The old-fashioned facility and directness of communication between ranks that were separated by wide social distances would surprise and almost scandalize a modern aspirant to false aristocracy, who has assumed the _de_, and makes up in _morgue_ what is wanting to him in antiquity of descent. I believe, too, that when England was a far more aristocratic country than it is at present, manners were less distant and not so cold and suspicious.

If the blame is not to be laid on the spirit of aristocracy, what is the real cause of the indisputable fact that an Englishman avoids an Englishman? De Tocqueville believed that the cause was to be found in the uncertainty of a transition state from aristocratic to plutocratic ideas; that there is still the notion of a strict classification; and yet that this classification is no longer determined by blood, but by money, which has taken its place, so that although the ranks exist still, as if the country were really aristocratic, it is not easy to see clearly, and at the first glance, who occupies them. Hence there is a _guerre sourde_ between all the citizens. Some try by a thousand artifices to edge their way in reality or apparently amongst those above them; others fight without ceasing to repel the usurpers of their rights; or rather, the same person does both; and whilst he struggles to introduce himself into the upper region he perpetually endeavors to put down aspirants who are still beneath him.

"The pride of aristocracy," said De Tocqueville, "being still very great with the English, and the limits of aristocracy having become doubtful, every one fears that he may be surprised at any moment into undesirable familiarity. Not being able to judge at first sight of the social position of those they meet, the English prudently avoid contact. They fear, in rendering little services, to form in spite of themselves an ill-assorted friendship; they dread receiving attention from others; and they withdraw themselves from the indiscreet gratitude of an unknown fellow-countryman as carefully as they would avoid his hatred."

This, no doubt, is the true explanation, but something may be added to it. An Englishman dreads acquaintances from the apprehension that they may end by coming to his house; a Frenchman is perfectly at his ease on that point by reason of the greater discretion of French habits. It is perfectly understood, in France, that you may meet a man at a _café_ for years, and talk to him with the utmost freedom, and yet he will not come near your private residence unless you ask him; and when he meets you in the street he will not stop you, but will simply lift his hat,--a customary salutation from all who know your name, which does not compromise you in any way. It might perhaps be an exaggeration to say that in France there is absolutely no struggling after a higher social position by means of acquaintances, but there is certainly very little of it. The great majority of French people live in the most serene indifference as regards those who are a little above them socially. They hardly even know their titles; and when they do know them they do not care about them in the least.[18]

It may not be surprising that the conduct of Americans should differ from that of Englishmen, as Americans have no titles; but if they have not titles they have vast inequalities of wealth, and Englishmen can be repellent without titles. Yet, in spite of pecuniary differences between Americans, and notwithstanding the English blood in their veins, they do not avoid one another. "If they meet by accident," says De Tocqueville, "they neither seek nor avoid one another; their way of meeting is natural, frank, and open; it is evident that they hope or fear scarcely anything from each other, and that they neither try to exhibit nor to conceal the station they occupy. If their manner is often cold and serious, it is never either haughty or stiff; and when they do not speak it is because they are not in the humor for conversation, and not because they believe it their interest to be silent. In a foreign country two Americans are friends at once, simply because they are Americans. They are separated by no prejudice, and their common country draws them together. In the case of two Englishmen the same blood is not enough; there must be also identity of rank."

The English habit strikes foreigners by contrast, and it strikes Englishmen in the same way when they have lived much in foreign countries. Charles Lever had lived abroad, and was evidently as much struck by this as De Tocqueville himself. Many readers will remember his brilliant story, "That Boy of Norcott's," and how the young hero, after finding himself delightfully at ease with a society of noble Hungarians, at the Schloss Hunyadi, is suddenly chilled and alarmed by the intelligence that an English lord is expected. "When they shall see," he says, "how my titled countryman will treat me,--the distance at which he will hold me, and the measured firmness with which he will repel, not my familiarities, for I should not dare them, _but simply the ease of my manner_,--the foreigners will be driven to regard me as some ignoble upstart who has no pretension whatever to be amongst them."

Lever also noted that a foreigner would have had a better chance of civil treatment than an Englishman. "In my father's house I had often had occasion to remark that while Englishmen freely admitted the advances of a foreigner and accepted his acquaintance with a courteous readiness, with each other they maintained a cold and studied reserve, as though no difference of place or circumstance was to obliterate that insular code which defines class, and limits each man to the exact rank he belongs to."

These readings and experiences, and many others too long to quote or narrate, have led me to the conclusion that it is scarcely possible to attempt any other manner with English people than that which the very peculiar and exceptional state of national feeling appears to authorize. The reason is that in the present state of feeling the innovator is almost sure to be misunderstood. He may be perfectly contented with his own social position; his mind may be utterly devoid of any desire to raise himself in society; the extent of his present wishes may be to wile away the tedium of a journey or a repast with a little intelligent conversation; yet if he breaks down the barrier of English reserve he is likely to be taken for a pushing and intrusive person who is eager to lift himself in the world. Every friendly expression on his part, even in a look or the tone of his voice, "simply the ease of his manner," may be repelled as an impertinence. In the face of such a probable misinterpretation one feels that it is hardly possible to be too distant or too cold. When two men meet it is the colder and more reserved man who always has the advantage. He is the rock; the other is the wave that comes against the rock and falls shattered at its foot.

It would be wrong to conclude this Essay without a word of reference to the exceptional Englishman who can pass an hour intelligently with a stranger, and is not constantly preoccupied with the idea that the stranger is plotting how to make some ulterior use of him. Such Englishmen are usually men of ripe experience, who have travelled much and seen much of the world, so that they have lost our insular distrust. I have met with a few of them,--they are not very numerous,--and I wish that I could meet the same fellow-countrymen by some happy accident again. There is nothing stranger in life than those very short friendships that are formed in an hour between two people born to understand each other, and cut short forever the next day, or the next week, by an inevitable separation.[19]

ESSAY XVIII.

OF GENTEEL IGNORANCE.

All virtue has its negative as well as its positive side, and every ideal includes not having as well as having. Gentility, for those who aspire to it and value it, is an ideal condition of humanity, a superior state which is maintained by selection amongst the things that life offers to a man who has the power to choose. He is judged by his selection. The genteel person selects in his own way, not only amongst things that can be seen and handled, such as the material adjuncts of a high state of civilization, but also amongst the things of the mind, including all the varieties of knowledge.

That a selection of this kind should be one of the marks of gentility is in itself no more than a natural consequence of the idealizing process as we see it continually exercised in the fine arts. Every work of fine art is a result of selection. The artist does not give us the natural truth as it is, but he purposely omits very much of it, and alters that which he recognizes. The genteel person is himself a work of art, and, as such, contains only partial truth.

This is the central fact about gentility, that it is a narrow ideal, impoverishing the mind by the rejection of truth as much as it adorns it by elegance; and it is for this reason that gentility is disliked and refused by all powerful and inquiring intellects. They look upon it as a mental condition with which they have nothing to do, and they pursue their labors without the slightest deference or condescension to it. They may, however, profitably study it as one of the states of human life, and a state towards which a certain portion of humanity, aided by wealth, appears to tend inevitably.

The misfortune of the genteel mind is that it is carried by its own idealism so far away from the truth of nature that it becomes divorced from fact and unable to see the movement of the actual world; so that genteel people, with their narrow and erroneous ideas, are sure to find themselves thrust aside by men of robust intelligence, who are not genteel, but who have a stronger grip upon reality. There is, consequently, a pathetic element in gentility, with its fallacious hopes, its certain disappointments, so easily foreseen by all whom it has not blinded, and its immense, its amazing, its ever invincible ignorance.

There is not a country in Europe more favorable than France for the study of the genteel condition of mind. There you have it in its perfection in the class _qui n'a rien appris et rien oublié_, and in the numerous aspirants to social position who desire to mix themselves and become confounded with that class. It has been in the highest degree fashionable, since the establishment of the Republic, to be ignorant of the real course of events. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, genteel people either really believed or universally professed to believe during the life-time of the Count de Chambord, that his restoration was not only probable but imminent. No belief could have been more destitute of foundation in fact; and if genteel people had not been compelled by gentility to shut their eyes against what was obvious to everybody else, they might have ascertained the truth with the utmost facility. The truth was simply this, that the country was going away further and further from divine right every day, and from every sort of real monarchy, or one-man government, and was becoming more and more attached to representative institutions and an elective system everywhere; and what made this truth glaringly evident was not only the steadily increasing number of republican elections, but the repeated return to power of the very ministers whom the party of divine right most bitterly execrated. The same class of genteel French people affected to believe that the end of the temporal power of the Papacy by the foundation of the Italian kingdom was but a temporary crisis, probably of short duration; though the process which had brought the Papacy to nothing as a temporal sovereignty had been slow, gradual, and natural,--the progressive enfeeblement of a theocracy unable to defend itself against its own subjects, and dependent on foreign soldiers for every hour of its artificial survival. Such is genteel ignorance in political matters. It is a polite shutting of the eyes against all facts and tendencies that are disagreeable to people of fashion. It is unpleasant to people of fashion to be told that the France of the future is more likely to be governed by men of business than by kings and cardinals; it is disagreeable to them to hear that the Pope is not to do what he likes with the Roman people; and so, to please them, we are to pretend that we do not understand the course of recent history, which is obvious to everybody who thinks. The course of events has always proved the blindness of the genteel world, its incapacity to understand the present and forecast the future; yet still it goes on in the old way, shutting its eyes resolutely against surrounding facts, and making predictions that are sure to be falsified by the event. Such a state of mind is unintelligent to the last degree, but then it is genteel; and there is always, in every country, a large class of persons who would rather be gentlemanly than wise.

In religion, genteel ignorance is not less remarkable than in politics. Here the mark of gentility is to ignore the unfashionable churches, and generally to underestimate all those forces of opinion that are not on the side of the particular form of orthodoxy which is professed by the upper class. In France it is one of the marks of high breeding not to know anything about Protestantism. The fact that there are such people as Protestants is admitted, and it is believed that some of them are decent and respectable people in their line of life, who may follow an erroneous religion with an assiduity praiseworthy in itself, but the nature of their opinions is not known, and it is thought better not to inquire into them.

In England the gentry know hardly anything about Dissenters. As to the organization of dissenting communities, nobody ever hears of any of them having bishops, and so it is supposed that they must have some sort of democratic system. Genteel knowledge of dissenting faith and practice is confined to a very few points,--that Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity, that Baptists have some unusual practice about baptism, and that Methodists are fond of singing hymns. This is all, and more than enough; as it is inconceivable that an aristocratic person can have anything to do with Dissent, unless he wants the Nonconformist vote in politics. If Dissenters are to be spoken of at all, it should be in a condescending tone, as good people in their way, who may be decent members of the middle and lower classes, of some use in withstanding the tide of infidelity.

I remember a lady who condemned some eminent man as an atheist, on which I ventured to object that he was a deist only. "It is exactly the same thing," she replied. Being at that time young and argumentative, I maintained that there existed a distinction: that a deist believed in God, and an atheist had not that belief. "That is of no consequence," she rejoined; "what concerns us is that we should know as little as possible about such people." When this dialogue took place the lady seemed to me unreasonable and unjust, but now I perceive that she was genteel. She desired to keep her soul pure from the knowledge which gentility did not recognize; she wanted to know nothing about the shades and colors of heresy.

There is a delightful touch of determined ignorance in the answer of the Russian prelates to Mr. William Palmer, who went to Russia in 1840 with a view to bring about a recognition of Anglicanism by Oriental orthodoxy. In substance, according to Cardinal Newman, it amounted to this: "We know of no true Church besides our own. We are the only Church in the world. The Latins are heretics, or all but heretics; you are worse; _we do not even know your name_." It would be difficult to excel this last touch; it is the perfection of uncontaminated orthodoxy, of the pure Russian religious _comme il faut_. We, the holy, the undefiled, the separate from heretics and from those lost ones, worse than heretics, into whose aberrations we never inquire, "_we do not even know your name_."

Of all examples of genteel ignorance, there are none more frequent than the ignorance of those necessities which are occasioned by a limited income. I am not, at present, alluding to downright poverty. It is genteel to be aware that the poor exist; it is genteel, even, to have poor people of one's own to pet and patronize; and it is pleasant to be kind to such poor people when they receive our kindness in a properly submissive spirit, with a due sense of the immense distance between us, and read the tracts we give them, and listen respectfully to our advice. It is genteel to have to do with poor people in this way, and even to know something about them; the real genteel ignorance consists in not recognizing the existence of those impediments that are familiar to people of limited means. "I cannot understand," said an English lady, "why people complain about the difficulties of housekeeping. Such difficulties may almost always be included under one head,--insufficiency of servants; people have only to take more servants, and the difficulties disappear." Of course the cost of maintaining a troup of domestics is too trifling to be taken into consideration. A French lady, in my hearing, asked what fortune had such a family. The answer was simple and decided, they had no fortune at all. "No fortune at all! then how can they possibly live? How can people live who have no fortune?" This lady's genteel ignorance was enlightened by the explanation that when there is no fortune in a family it is generally supported by the labor of one or more of its members. "I cannot understand," said a rich Englishman to one of my friends, "why men are so imprudent as to allow themselves to sink into money embarrassments. There is a simple rule that I follow myself, and that I have always found a great safeguard,--it is, _never to let one's balance at the banker's fall below five thousand pounds_. By strictly adhering to this rule one is always sure to be able to meet any unexpected and immediate necessity." Why, indeed, do we not all follow a rule so evidently wise? It may be especially recommended to struggling professional men with large families. If only they can be persuaded to act upon it they will find it an unspeakable relief from anxiety, and the present volume will not have been penned in vain.

Genteel ignorance of pecuniary difficulties is conspicuous in the case of amusements. It is supposed, if you are inclined to amuse yourself in a certain limited way, that you are stupid for not doing it on a much more expensive scale. Charles Lever wrote a charming paper for one of the early numbers of the "Cornhill Magazine," in which he gave an account of the dangers and difficulties he had encountered in riding and boating, simply because he had set limits to his expenditure on those pastimes, an economy that seemed unaccountably foolish to his genteel acquaintances. "Lever will ride such screws! Why won't he give a proper price for a horse? It's the stupidest thing in the world to be under-horsed; and bad economy besides." These remarks, Lever said, were not sarcasms on his skill or sneers at his horsemanship, but they were far worse, they were harsh judgments on himself expressed in a manner that made reply impossible. So with his boating. Lever had a passion for boating, for that real boating which is perfectly distinct from yachting and incomparably less costly; but richer acquaintances insisted on the superior advantages of the more expensive amusement. "These cockle-shells, sir, must go over; they have no bearings, they lee over, and there you are,--you fill and go down. Have a good decked boat,--I should say five-and-thirty or forty tons; _get a clever skipper and a lively crew_." Is not this exactly like the lady who thought people stupid for not having an adequate establishment of servants?

Another form of genteel ignorance consists in being so completely blinded by conventionalism as not to be able to perceive the essential identity of two modes of life or habits of action when one of them happens to be in what is called "good form," whilst the other is not accepted by polite society. My own tastes and pursuits have often led me to do things for the sake of study or pleasure which in reality differ but very slightly from what genteel people often do; yet, at the same time, this slight difference is sufficient to prevent them from seeing any resemblance whatever between my practice and theirs. When a young man, I found a wooden hut extremely convenient for painting from nature, and when at a distance from other lodging I slept in it. This was unfashionable; and genteel people expressed much wonder at it, being especially surprised that I could be so imprudent as to risk health by sleeping in a little wooden house. Conventionalism made them perfectly ignorant of the fact that they occasionally slept in little wooden houses themselves. A railway carriage is simply a wooden hut on wheels, generally very ill-ventilated, and presenting the alternative of foul air or a strong draught, with vibration that makes sleep difficult to some and to others absolutely impossible. I have passed many nights in those public wooden huts on wheels, but have never slept in them so pleasantly as in my own private one.[20] Genteel people also use wooden dwellings that float on water. A yacht's cabin is nothing but a hut of a peculiar shape with its own special inconveniences. On land a hut will remain steady; at sea it inclines in every direction, and is tossed about like Gulliver's large box. An Italian nobleman who liked travel, but had no taste for dirty Southern inns, had four vans that formed a square at night, with a little courtyard in the middle that was covered with canvas and served as a spacious dining-room. The arrangement was excellent, but he was considered hopelessly eccentric; yet how slight was the difference between his vans and a train of saloon carriages for the railway! He simply had saloon carriages that were adapted for common roads.

It is difficult to see what advantage there can be in genteel ignorance to compensate for its evident disadvantages. Not to be acquainted with unfashionable opinions, not to be able to imagine unfashionable necessities, not to be able to perceive the real likeness between fashionable and unfashionable modes of life on account of some external and superficial difference, is like living in a house with closed shutters. Surely a man, or a woman either, might have as good manners, and be as highly civilized in all respects, with accurate notions of things as with a head full of illusions. To understand the world as it really is, to see the direction in which humanity is travelling, ought to be the purpose of every strong and healthy intellect, even though such knowledge may take it out of gentility altogether.

The effect of genteel ignorance on human intercourse is such a deduction from the interest of it that men of ability often avoid genteel society altogether, and either devote themselves to solitary labors, cheered principally by the companionship of books, or else keep to intimate friends of their own order. In Continental countries the public drinking-places are often frequented by men of culture, not because they want to drink, but because they can talk freely about what they think and what they know without being paralyzed by the determined ignorance of the genteel. In England, no doubt, there is more information; and yet Stuart Mill said that "general society as now carried on in England is so insipid an affair, even to the persons who make it what it is, that it is kept up for any reason rather than the pleasure it affords. All serious discussion on matters in which opinions differ being considered ill-bred, and the national deficiency in liveliness and sociability having prevented the cultivation of the art of talking agreeably on trifles, the sole attraction of what is called society to those who are not at the top of the tree is the hope of being aided to climb a little higher. To a person of any but a very common order in thought or feeling, such society, unless he has personal objects to serve by it, must be supremely unattractive; and most people in the present day of any really high class of intellect make their contact with it so slight and at such long intervals as to be almost considered as retiring from it altogether." The loss here is distinctly to the genteel persons themselves. They may not feel it, they may be completely insensible of it, but by making society insipid they eliminate from it the very men who might have been its most valuable elements, and who, whether working in solitude or living with a few congenial spirits, are really the salt of the earth.

ESSAY XIX.

PATRIOTIC IGNORANCE.

Patriotic ignorance is maintained by the satisfaction that we feel in ignoring what is favorable to another nation. It is a voluntary closing of the mind against the disagreeable truth that another nation may be on certain points equal to our own, or even, though inferior, in some degree comparable to our own.

The effect of patriotic ignorance as concerning human intercourse is to place any one who knows the exact truth in the unpleasant dilemma of having either to correct mistakes which are strongly preferred to truth, or else to give assent to them against his sense of justice. International intercourse is made almost impossible by patriotic ignorance, except amongst a few highly cultivated persons who are superior to it. Nothing is more difficult than to speak about one's own country with foreigners who are perpetually putting forward the errors which they have imbibed all their lives, and to which they cling with such tenacity that it seems as if those errors were, in some mysterious way, essential to their mental comfort and well-being. If, on the other hand, we have any really intimate knowledge of a foreign country, gained by long residence in it and studious observation of the inhabitants, then we find a corresponding difficulty in talking reasonably about it and them with our own countrymen, because they, too, have their patriotic ignorance which they prize and value as foreigners value theirs.

At the risk of turning this Essay into a string of anecdotes, I intend to give a few examples of patriotic ignorance, in order to show to what an astonishing degree of perfection it may attain. When we fully understand this we shall also understand how those who possess such a treasure should be anxious for its preservation. Their anxiety is the more reasonable that in these days there is a difficulty in keeping things when they are easily injured by light.

A French lady who possessed this treasure in its perfection gave, in my hearing, as a reason why French people seldom visited England, that there were no works of art there, no collections, no architecture, nothing to gratify the artistic sense or the intelligence; and that it was only people specially interested in trade and manufactures who went to England, as the country had nothing to show but factories and industrial products. On hearing this statement, there suddenly passed before my mind's eye a rapid vision of the great works of architecture, sculpture, and painting that I had seen in England, and a confused recollection of many minor examples of these arts not quite unworthy of a studious man's attention. It is impossible to contradict a lady; and any statement of the simple truth would, in this instance, have been a direct and crushing contradiction. I ventured on a faint remonstrance, but without effect; and my fair enemy triumphed. There were no works of art in England. Thus she settled the question.

This little incident led me to take note of French ideas about England with reference to patriotic ignorance; and I discovered that there existed a very general belief that there was no intellectual light of any kind in England. Paris was the light of the world, and only so far as Parisian rays might penetrate the mental fog of the British Islands was there a chance of its becoming even faintly luminous. It was settled that the speciality of England was trade and manufacture, that we were all of us either merchants or cotton-spinners, and I discovered that we had no learned societies, no British Museum, no Royal Academy of Arts.

An English painter, who for many years had exhibited on the line of the Royal Academy, happened to be mentioned in my presence and in that of a French artist. I was asked by some French people who knew him personally whether the English painter had a good professional standing. I answered that he had a fair though not a brilliant reputation; meanwhile the French artist showed signs of uneasiness, and at length exploded with a vigorous protest against the inadmissible idea that a painter could be anything whatever who was not known at the French _Salon_. "Il n'est pas connu au Salon de Paris, donc, il n'existe pas--il n'existe pas. Les réputations dans les beaux-arts se font au Salon de Paris et pas ailleurs." This Frenchman had no conception whatever of the simple fact that artistic reputations are made in every capital of the civilized world. That was a truth which his patriotism could not tolerate for a moment.

A French gentleman expressed his surprise that I did not have my books translated into French, "because," said he, "no literary reputation can be considered established until it has received the consecration of Parisian approval." To his unfeigned astonishment I answered that London and not Paris was the capital city of English literature, and that English authors had not yet fallen so low as to care for the opinion of critics ignorant of their language.

I then asked myself why this intense French patriotic ignorance should continue so persistently; and the answer appeared to be that there was something profoundly agreeable to French patriotic sentiment in the belief that England had no place in the artistic and intellectual world. Until quite recently the very existence of an English school of painting was denied by all patriotic Frenchmen, and English art was rigorously excluded from the Louvre.[21] Even now a French writer upon art can scarcely mention English painting without treating it _de haut en bas_, as if his Gallic nationality gave him a natural right to treat uncivilized islanders with lofty disdain or condescending patronage.

My next example has no reference to literature or the fine arts. A young French gentleman of superior education and manners, and with the instincts of a sportsman, said in my hearing, "There is no game in England." His tone was that of a man who utters a truth universally acknowledged.

It might be a matter of little consequence, as touching our national pride, whether there was game in England or not. I have no doubt that some philosophers would consider, and perhaps with reason, that the non-existence of game, where it can only be maintained by an army of keepers and a penal code of its own, would be the sign of an advancing social state; but my young Frenchman was not much of a philosopher, and no doubt he considered the non-existence of game in England a mark of inferiority to France. There is something in the masculine mind, inherited perhaps from ancestors who lived by the chase, which makes it look upon an abundance of wild things that can be shot at, or run after with horses and dogs, as a reason for the greatest pride and glorification. On reflection, it will be found that there is more in the matter than at first sight appears. As there is no game in England, of course there are no sportsmen in that country. The absence of game means the absence of shooters and huntsmen, and consequently an inferiority in manly exercises to the French, thousands of whom take shooting licenses and enjoy the invigorating excitement of the chase. For this reason it is agreeable to French patriotic sentiment to be perfectly certain that there is no game in England. When I inquired what reason my young friend had for holding his conviction on the subject, he told me that in a country like England, so full of trade and manufactures, there could not be any room for game.

One of the most popular of French songs is that charming one by Pierre Dupont in praise of his vine. Every Frenchman who knows anything knows that song, and believes that he also knows the tune. The consequence is that when one of them begins to sing it his companions join in the refrain or chorus, which is as follows:--

"Bons Français, quand je vois mon verre Plein de ce vin couleur de feu Je songe en remerciant Dieu Qu'ils n'en ont pas dans l'Angleterre!"

The singers repeat "qu'ils n'en ont pas," and besides this the whole of the last line is repeated with triumphant emphasis.

We need not feel hurt by this little outburst of patriotism. There is no real hatred of England at the bottom of it, only a little "malice" of a harmless kind, and the song is sometimes sung good-humoredly in the presence of Englishmen. It is, however, really connected with patriotic ignorance. The common French belief is that as vines are not grown in England, we have no wine in our cellars, so that English people hardly know the taste of wine; and this belief is too pleasing to the French mind to be readily abandoned by those who hold it. They feel that it enhances the delightfulness of every glass they drink. The case is precisely the same with fruit. The French enjoy plenty of excellent fruit, and they enjoy it all the more heartily from a firm conviction that there is no fruit of any kind in England. "Pas un fruit," said a countryman of Pierre Dupont in writing about our unfavored island, "pas un fruit ne mûrit dans ce pays." What, not even a gooseberry? Were the plums, pears, strawberries, apples, apricots, that we consumed in omnivorous boyhood every one of them unripe? It is lamentable to think how miserably the English live. They have no game, no wine, no fruit (it appears to be doubtful, too, whether they have any vegetables), and they dwell in a perpetual fog where sunshine is totally unknown. It is believed, also, that there is no landscape-beauty in England,--nothing but a green field with a hedge, and then another green field with another hedge, till you come to the bare chalk cliffs and the dreary northern sea. The English have no Devonshire, no valley of the Severn, no country of the Lakes. The Thames is a foul ditch, without a trace of natural beauty anywhere.[22]

It would be easy to give many more examples of the patriotism of our neighbors, but perhaps for the sake of variety it may be desirable to turn the glass in the opposite direction and see what English patriotism has to say about France. We shall find the same principle at work, the same determination to believe that the foreign country is totally destitute of many things on which we greatly pride ourselves. I do not know that there is any reason to be proud of having mountains, as they are excessively inconvenient objects that greatly impede agriculture and communication; however, in some parts of Great Britain it is considered, somehow, a glory for a nation to have mountains; and there used to be a firm belief that French landscape was almost destitute of mountainous grandeur. There were the Highlands of Scotland, but who had ever heard of the Highlands of France? Was not France a wearisome, tame country that unfortunately had to be traversed before one could get to Switzerland and Italy? Nobody seemed to have any conception that France was rich in mountain scenery of the very grandest kind. Switzerland was understood to be the place for mountains, and there was a settled but erroneous conviction that Mont Blanc was situated in that country. As for the Grand-Pelvoux, the Pointe des Écrins, the Mont Olan, the Pic d'Arsine, and the Trois Ellions, nobody had ever heard of them. If you had told any average Scotchman that the most famous Bens would be lost and nameless in the mountainous departments of France, the news would have greatly surprised him. He would have been astonished to hear that the area of mountainous France exceeded the area of Scotland, and that the height of its loftiest summits attained three times the elevation of Ben Nevis.

It may be excusable to feel proud of mountains, as they are noble objects in spite of their inconvenience, but it seems less reasonable to be patriotic about hedges, which make us pay dearly for any beauty they may possess by hiding the perspective of the land. A hedge six feet high easily masks as many miles of distance. However, there is a pride in English hedges, accompanied by a belief that there are no such things in France. The truth is that regions of large extent are divided by hedges in France as they are in England Another belief is that there is little or no wood in France, though wood is the principal fuel, and vast forests are reserved for its supply. I have heard an Englishman proudly congratulating himself, in the spirit of Dupont's song, on the supposed fact that the French had neither coal nor iron; and yet I have visited a vast establishment at the Creuzot, where ten thousand workmen are continually employed in making engines, bridges, armor-plates, and other things from iron found close at hand, by the help of coal fetched from a very little distance. I have read in an English newspaper that there were no singing birds in France; and by way of commentary a hundred little French songsters kept up a merry din that would have gladdened the soul of Chaucer. It happened, too, to be the time of the year for nightingales, which filled the woods with their music in the moonlight.

Patriotic ignorance often gets hold of some partial truth unfavorable to another country, and then applies it in such an absolute manner that it is truth no longer. It is quite true, for example, that athletic exercises are not so much cultivated in France, nor held in such high esteem, as they are in England, but it is not true that all young Frenchmen are inactive. They are often both good swimmers and good pedestrians, and, though they do not play cricket, many of them take a practical interest in gymnastics and are skilful on the bar and the trapeze. The French learn military drill in their boyhood, and in early manhood they are inured to fatigue in the army, besides which great numbers of them learn fencing on their own account, that they may hold their own in a duel. Patriotic ignorance likes to shut its eyes to all inconvenient facts of this kind, and to dwell on what is unfavorable. A man may like a glass of absinthe in a _café_ and still be as energetic as if he drank port wine at home. I know an old French officer who never misses his daily visit to the _café_, and so might serve as a text for moralizing, but at the same time he walks twenty kilomètres every day. Patriotic ignorance has its opportunity in every difference of habit. What can be apparently more indolent, for an hour or two after _déjeûner_, than a prosperous man of business in Paris? Very possibly he may be caught playing cards or dominoes in the middle of the day, and severely blamed by a foreign censor. The difference between him and his equal in London is simply in the arrangement of time. The Frenchman has been at his work early, and divides his day into two parts, with hours of idleness between them.

Many examples of those numerous international criticisms that originate in patriotic ignorance are connected with the employment of words that are apparently common to different nations, yet vary in their signification. One that has given rise to frequent patriotic criticisms is the French word _univers_. French writers often say of some famous author, such as Victor Hugo, "Sa renommée remplit l'univers;" or of some great warrior, like Napoleon, "Il inquiéta l'univers." English critics take up these expressions and then say, "Behold how bombastic these French writers are, with their absurd exaggerations, as if Victor Hugo and Napoleon astonished the universe, as if they were ever heard of beyond our own little planet!" Such criticism only displays patriotic ignorance of a foreign language. The French expression is perfectly correct, and not in the least exaggerated. Napoleon did not disquiet the universe, but he disquieted _l'univers_. Victor Hugo is not known beyond the terrestrial globe, but he is known, by name at least, throughout _l'univers_. The persistent ignorance of English writers on this point would be inexplicable if it were not patriotic; if it did not afford an opportunity for deriding the vanity of foreigners. It is the more remarkable that the deriders themselves constantly use the word in the same restricted sense as an adjective or an adverb. I open Mr. Stanford's atlas, and find that it is called "The London Atlas of _Universal Geography_," though it does not contain a single map of any planet but our own, not even one of the visible hemisphere of the moon, which might easily have been given. I take a newspaper, and I find that the late President of the Royal Society died _universally_ respected, though he was known only to the cultivated inhabitants of a single planet. Such is the power of patriotic ignorance that it is able to prevent men from understanding a foreign word when they themselves employ a nearly related word in identically the same sense.[23]

The word _univers_ reminds me of universities, and they recall a striking example of patriotic ignorance in my own countrymen. I wonder how many Englishmen there are who know anything about the University of France. I never expect an Englishman to know anything about it; and, what is more, I am always prepared to find him impervious to any information on the subject. As the organization of the University of France differs essentially from that of English universities, each of which is localized in one place, and can be seen in its entirety from the top of a tower, the Englishman hears with contemptuous inattention any attempt to make him understand an institution without a parallel in his own country. Besides this, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are venerable and wealthy institutions, visibly beautiful, whilst the University of France is of comparatively recent origin; and, though large sums are expended in its service, the result does not strike the eye because the expenditure is distributed over the country. I remember having occasion to mention the Academy of Lyons to a learned doctor of Oxford who was travelling in France, and I found that he had never heard of the Academy of Lyons, and knew nothing about the organization of the national university of which that academy forms a part. From a French point of view this is quite as remarkable an example of patriotic ignorance as if some foreigner had never heard of the diocese of York, or the episcopal organization of the Church of England. Every Frenchman who has any education at all knows the functions of academies in the university, and which of the principal cities are the seats of those learned bodies.

As Englishmen ignore the University of France, they naturally at the same time ignore the degrees that it confers. They never know what a _Licencié_ is, they have no conception of the _Agrégation_, or of the severe ordeal of competitive examination through which an _Agrégé_ must have passed. Therefore, if a Frenchman has attained either of these grades, his title is unintelligible to an Englishman.

There is, no doubt, great ignorance in France on the subject of the English universities, but it is neither in the same degree nor of the same kind. I should hardly call French ignorance of the classes at Oxford patriotic ignorance, because it does not proceed from the belief that a foreign university is unworthy of a Frenchman's attention. I should call French ignorance of the Royal Academy, for example, genuine patriotic ignorance, because it proceeds from a conviction that English art is unworthy of notice, and that the French _Salon_ is the only exhibition that can interest an enlightened lover of art. That is the essence of patriotism in ignorance,--to be ignorant of what is done in another nation, because we believe our own to be first and the rest nowhere; and so the English ignorance of the University of France is genuine patriotic ignorance. It is caused by the existence of Oxford and Cambridge, as the French ignorance of the Royal Academy is caused by the French _Salon_.

Patriotic ignorance is one of the most serious impediments to conversation between people of different nationality, because occasions are continually arising when the national sentiments of the one are hurt by the ignorance of the other. But we may also wound the feelings of a foreigner by assuming a more complete degree of ignorance on his part than that which is really his. This is sometimes done by English people towards Americans, when English people forget that their national literature is the common possession of the two countries. A story is told by Mr. Grant White of an English lady who informed him that a novel (which she advised him to read) had been written about Kenilworth, by Sir Walter Scott; and he expected her to recommend a perusal of the works of William Shakespeare. Having lived much abroad, I am myself occasionally the grateful recipient of valuable information from English friends. For example, I remember an Englishman who kindly and quite seriously informed me that Eton College was a public school where many sons of the English aristocracy were educated.

There is a very serious side to patriotic ignorance in relation to war. There can be no doubt that many of the most foolish, costly, and disastrous wars ever undertaken were either directly due to patriotic ignorance, or made possible only by the existence of such ignorance in the nation that afterwards suffered by them. The way in which patriotic ignorance directly tends to produce war is readily intelligible. A nation sees its own soldiers, its own cannons, its own ships, and becomes so proud of them as to remain contentedly and even wilfully ignorant of the military strength and efficiency of its neighbors. The war of 1870-71, so disastrous to France, was the direct result of patriotic ignorance. The country and even the Emperor himself were patriotically ignorant of their own inferior military condition and of the superior Prussian organization. One or two isolated voices were raised in warning, but it was considered patriotic not to listen to them. The war between Turkey and Russia, which cost Turkey Bulgaria and all but expelled her from Europe, might easily have been avoided by the Sultan; but he was placed in a false position by the patriotic ignorance of his own subjects, who believed him to be far more powerful than he really was, and who would have probably dethroned or murdered him if he had acted rationally, that is to say, in accordance with the degree of strength that he possessed. In almost every instance that I am able to remember, the nations that have undertaken imprudent and easily avoidable wars have done so because they were blinded by patriotic ignorance, and therefore either impelled their rulers into a foolish course against their better knowledge, or else were themselves easily led into peril by the temerity of a rash master, who would risk the well-being of all his subjects that he might attain some personal and private end. The French have been cured of their most dangerous patriotic ignorance,--that concerning the military strength of the country,--by the war of 1870, but the cure was of a costly nature.

Patriotism has been so commonly associated with a wilful closing of the eyes against unpleasant facts, that those who prefer truth to illusion are often considered unpatriotic. Yet surely ignorance has not the immense advantage over knowledge of having all patriotism on her side. There is a far higher and better patriotism than that of ignorance; there is a love of country that shows itself in anxiety for its best welfare, and does not remain satisfied with the vain delusion of a fancied superiority in everything. It is the interest of England as a nation to be accurately informed about all that concerns her position in the world, and it is impossible for her to receive this information if a stupid national vanity is always ready to take offence when it is offered. It is desirable for England to know exactly in what degree she is a military power, and also how she stands with reference to the naval armaments of other nations, not as they existed in the days of Nelson, but as they will exist next year. It is the interest of England to know by what tenure she holds India, just as in the reign of George the Third it would have been very much the interest of England to know accurately both the rights of the American colonists and their strength. I cannot imagine any circumstances that might make ignorance more desirable for a free people than knowledge. With enslaved peoples the case is different: the less they know and the greater, perhaps, are their chances of enjoying the dull kind of somnolent happiness which alone is attainable by them; but this is a kind of happiness that no citizen of a free country would desire.

ESSAY XX.

CONFUSIONS.

Surely the analytical faculty must be very rare, or we should not so commonly find people confounding together things essentially distinct. Any one who possesses that faculty naturally, and has followed some occupation which strengthens it, must be continually amused if he has a humorous turn, or irritated if he is irascible, by the astounding mental confusions in which men contentedly pass their lives. To be just, this account ought to include both sexes, for women indulge in confusions even more frequently than men, and are less disposed to separate things when they have once been jumbled together.

A confusion of ideas in politics which is not uncommon amongst the enemies of all change is to believe that whoever desires the reform of some law wants to do something that is not legal, and has a rebellious, subversive spirit. Yet the reformer is not a rebel; it is indeed the peculiar distinction of his position not to be a rebel, for there has never been a real reformer (as distinguished from a revolutionist) who wished to do anything illegal. He desires, certainly, to do something which is not legal just at present, but he does not wish to do it so long as it remains in the condition of illegality. He wishes first to make it legal by obtaining legislative sanction for his proposal, and then to do it when it shall have become as legal as anything else, and when all the most conservative people in the kingdom will be strenuous in its defence as "part and parcel of the law of the land."

Another confusion in political matters which has always been extremely common is that between private and public liberty. Suppose that a law were enacted to the effect that each British subject without exception should go to Mass every Sunday morning, on pain of death, and should take the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Holy Communion, involving auricular confession, at Easter; such a law would not be an infringement of the sensible liberty of Roman Catholics, because they do these things already. Then they might say, "People talk of the tyranny of the law, yet the law is not tyrannical at all; we enjoy perfect liberty in England, and it is most unreasonable to say that we do not." The Protestant part of the community would exclaim that such a law was an intolerable infringement of liberty, and would rush to arms to get rid of it. This is the distinction between private and public liberty. There is private liberty when some men are not interfered with in the ordinary habits of their existence; and there has always been much of such private liberty under the worst of despotisms; but there is not public liberty until every man in the country may live according to his own habits, so long as he does not interfere with the rights of others. Here is a distinction plain enough to be evident to a very commonplace understanding; yet the admirers of tyrants are often successful in producing a confusion between the two things, and in persuading people that there was "ample liberty" under some foreign despot, because they themselves, when they visited the country that lay prostrate under his irresistible power, were allowed to eat good dinners, and drive about unmolested, and amuse themselves by day and by night according to every suggestion of their fancy.

Many confusions have been intentionally maintained by political enemies in order to cast odium on their adversaries; so that it becomes of great importance to a political cause that it should not bear a name with two meanings, or to which it may be possible to give another meaning than that which was originally intended. The word "Radical" is an instance of this. According to the enemies of radicalism it has always meant a political principle that strikes at the root of the constitution; but it was not that meaning of the word which induced the first Radicals to commit the imprudence of adopting it. The term referred to agriculture rather than tree-felling, the original idea being to uproot abuses as a gardener pulls weeds up by the roots. I distinctly remember my first boyish notion of the Radicals. I saw them in a sort of sylvan picture,--violent savage men armed with sharp axes, and hewing away at the foot of a majestic oak that stood for the glory of England. Since then I have become acquainted with another instance of the unfortunate adoption of a word which may be plausibly perverted from its meaning. The French republican motto is _Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité_, and to this day there is hardly an English newspaper that does not from time to time sneer at the French Republicans for aspiring to equality, as if equality were not impossible in the nature of things, and as if, supposing an unnatural equality to be established to-day, the operation of natural causes would not bring about inequality to-morrow. We are told that some men would be stronger, or cleverer, or more industrious than others, and earn more and make themselves leaders; that children of the same parents, starting in life with the same fortunes, never remain in precisely the same positions; and much more to the same purpose. All this trite and familiar reasoning is without application here. The word _Égalité_ in the motto means something which _can_ be attained, and which, though it did not exist in France before the Revolution, is now almost a perfect reality there,--it means equality before the law; it means that there shall not be privileged classes exempt from paying taxes, and favored with such scandalous partiality that all posts of importance in the government, the army, the magistracy, and the church are habitually reserved for them. If it meant absolute equality, no Republican could aim at wealth, which is the creation of inequality in his own favor; neither would any Republican labor for intellectual reputation, or accept honors. There would not even be a Republican in the gymnastic societies, where every member strives to become stronger and more agile than his fellows, and knows that, whether in his favor or against him, the most striking inequalities will be manifested in every public contest. There would be no Republicans in the University, for has it not a hierarchy with the most marked gradations of title, and differences of consideration and authority? Yet the University is so full of Republicans that it is scarcely too much to say that it is entirely composed of them. I am aware that there are dreamers in the working classes, both in France and elsewhere, who look forward to a social state when all men will work for the same wages,--when the Meissonier of the day will be paid like a sign-painter, and the sign-painter like a white-washer, and all three perform each other's tasks by turns for equality of agreeableness in the work; but these dreams are only possible in extreme ignorance, and lie quite outside of any theories to be seriously considered.

Religious intolerance, when quite sincere and not mixed up with social contempt or political hatred, is founded upon a remarkable confusion of ideas, which is this. The persecutor assumes that the heretic knowingly and maliciously resists the will of God in rejecting the theology which he knows that God desires him to receive. This is a confusion between the mental states of the believer and the unbeliever, and it does not accurately describe either, for the believer of course accepts the doctrine, and the unbeliever does not reject it as coming from God, but precisely because he is convinced that it has a purely human origin.

"Are you a Puseyite?" was a question put to a lady in my hearing; and she at once answered, "Certainly not, I should be ashamed of being a Puseyite." Here was a confusion between her present mental state and her supposed possible mental state as a Puseyite; for it is impossible to be a real Puseyite and at the same time to think of one's belief with an inward sense of shame. A believer always thinks that his belief is simply the truth, and nobody feels ashamed of believing what is true. Even concealment of a belief does not imply shame; and those who have been compelled, in self-defence, to hide their real opinions, have been ashamed, if at all, of hiding and not of having them.

A confusion common to all who do not think, and avoided only with the greatest difficulty by those who do, is that between their own knowledge and the knowledge possessed by another person who has different tastes, different receptive powers, and other opportunities. They cannot imagine that the world does not appear the same to him that it appears to them. They do not really believe that he can feel quite differently from themselves and still be in every respect as sound in mind and as intelligent as they are. The incapacity to imagine a different mental condition is strikingly manifested in what we call the Philistine mind, and is one of its strongest characteristics. The true Philistine thinks that every form of culture which opens out a world that is closed against himself leaves the votary exactly where he was before. "I cannot imagine why you live in Italy," said a Philistine to an acquaintance; "nothing could induce _me_ to live in Italy." He did not take into account the difference of gifts and culture, but supposed the person he addressed to have just his own mental condition, the only one that he was able to conceive, whereas, in fact, that person was so endowed and so educated as to enjoy Italy in the supreme degree. He spoke the purest Italian with perfect ease; he had a considerable knowledge of Italian literature and antiquities; his love of natural beauty amounted to an insatiable passion; and from his youth he had delighted in architecture and painting. Of these gifts, tastes, and acquirements the Philistine was simply destitute. For him Italy could have had no meaning. Where the other found unfailing interest he would have suffered from unrelieved _ennui_, and would have been continually looking back, with the intolerable longing of nostalgia, to the occupations of his English home. In the same spirit a French _bourgeois_ once complained in my hearing that too much space was given to foreign affairs in the newspapers, "car, vous comprenez, cela n'intéresse pas." This was simply an attribution of his personal apathy to everybody else. Certainly, as a nation, the French take less interest in foreign affairs than we do, but they do take some interest, and the degree of it is exactly reflected by the importance given to foreign affairs in their journals, always greatest in the best of them. An Englishman said, also in my hearing, that to have a library was a mistake, as a library was of no use; he admitted that a few books might be useful if the owner read them through. Here, again, is the attribution of one person's experience to all cases. This man had never himself felt the need of a library, and did not know how to use one. He could not realize the fact that a few books only allow you to read, whilst a library allows you to pursue a study. He could not at all imagine what the word "library" means to a scholar,--that it means the not being stopped at every turn for want of light, the not being exposed to scornful correction by men of inferior ability and inferior industry, whose only superiority is the great and terrible one of living within a cabfare of the British Museum. I remember reading an account of the establishment of a Greek professorship in a provincial town, and it was wisely proposed, by one who understood the difficulties of a scholar remote from the great libraries, that provision should be made for the accumulation of books for the use of the future occupants of the chair, but the trustees (honest men of business, who had no idea of a scholar's wants and necessities) said that each professor must provide his own library, just as road commissioners advertise that a surveyor must have his own horse.

One of the most serious reasons why it is imprudent to associate with people whose opinions you do not wish to be made responsible for is that others will confound you with them. There is an old Latin proverb, and also a French one, to the effect that if a man knows what your friends are, he knows what you are yourself. These proverbs are not true, but they well express the popular confusion between having something in common and having everything in common. If you are on friendly terms with clergymen, it is inferred that you have a clerical mind; when the reason may be that you are a scholar living in the country, and can find no scholarship in your neighborhood except in the parsonage houses. You associate with foreigners, and are supposed to be unpatriotic; when in truth you are as patriotic as any rational and well-informed creature can be, but have a faculty for languages that you like to exercise in conversation. This kind of confusion takes no account of the indisputable fact that men constantly associate together on the ground of a single pursuit that they have in common, often a mere amusement, or because, in spite of every imaginable difference, they are drawn together by one of those mysterious natural affinities which are so obscure in their origin and action that no human intelligence can explain them.

Not only are a man's tastes liable to be confounded with those of his personal acquaintances, but he may find some trade attributed to him, by a perfectly irrational association of ideas, because it happens to be prevalent in the country where he lives. I have known instances of men supposed to have been in the cotton trade simply because they had lived in Lancashire, and of others supposed to be in the mineral oil trade for no other reason than because they had lived in a part of France where mineral oil is found.

Professional men are usually very much alive to the danger of confusion as affecting their success in life. If you are known to do two things, a confusion gets established between the two, and you are no longer classed with that ease and decision which the world finds to be convenient. It therefore becomes a part of worldly wisdom to keep one of the occupations in obscurity, and if that is not altogether possible, then to profess as loudly and as frequently as you can that it is entirely secondary and only a refreshment after more serious toils. Many years ago a well-known surgeon published a set of etchings, and the merit of them was so dangerously conspicuous, so superior, in fact, to the average of professional work, that he felt constrained to keep those too clever children in their places by a quotation from Horace,--

"O laborum Dulce lenimen!"

To present one's self to the world always in one character is a great help to success, and maintains the stability of a position. The kings in the story-books and on playing cards who have always their crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands, appear to enjoy a decided advantage over modern royalty, which dresses like other people and enters into common interests and pursuits. Literary men admire the prudent self-control of our literary sovereign, Tennyson, who by his rigorous abstinence from prose takes care never to appear in public without his singing robes and his crown of laurel. Had he carelessly and familiarly employed the commoner vehicle of expression, there would have been a confusion of two Tennysons in the popular idea, whilst at present his name is as exclusively associated with the exquisite music of his verse as that of Mozart with another kind of melody.

The great evil of confusions, as they affect conversation, is that they constantly place a man of accurate mental habits in such trying situations that, unless he exercises the most watchful self-control, he is sure to commit the sin of contradiction. We have all of us met with the lady who does not think it necessary to distinguish between one person and another, who will tell a story of some adventure as having happened to A, when in reality it happened to B; who will attribute sayings and opinions to C, when they properly belong to D; and deliberately maintain that it is of no consequence whatever, when some suffering lover of accuracy undertakes to set her right. It is in vain to argue that there really does exist, in the order of the universe, a distinction between one person and another, though both belong to the human race; and that organisms are generally isolated, though there has been an exception in the case of the Siamese twins. The death of the wonderful swimmer who attempted to descend the rapids of Niagara afforded an excellent opportunity for confounders. In France they all confounded him with Captain Boyton, who swam with an apparatus; and when poor Webb was sucked under the whirlpool they said, "You see that, after all, his inflated dress was of no avail." Fame of a higher kind does not escape from similar confusions. On the death of George Eliot, French readers of English novels lamented that they would have nothing more from the pen that wrote "John Halifax," and a cultivated Frenchman expressed his regret for the author of "Adam Bede" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin."[24]

Men who have trained themselves in habits of accurate observation often have a difficulty in realizing the confused mental condition of those who simply receive impressions without comparison and classification. A fine field for confused tourists is architecture. They go to France and Italy, they talk about what they have seen, and leave you in bewilderment, until you make the discovery that they have substituted one building for another, or, better still, mixed two different edifices inextricably together. Foreigners of this class are quite unable to establish any distinction between the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, because both have towers; and they are not clear about the difference between the British Museum and the National Gallery, because there are columns in the fronts of both.[25] English tourists will stay some time in Paris, and afterwards not be able to distinguish between photographs of the Louvre and the Hôtel de Ville. We need not be surprised that people who have never studied architecture at all should not be sure whether St. Paul's is a Gothic building or not, but the wonder is that they seem to retain no impressions received merely by the eye. One would think that the eye alone, without knowledge, would be enough to establish a distinction between one building and another altogether different from it; yet it is not so.

I cannot close this chapter without some allusion to a crafty employment of words only too well understood already by those who influence the popular mind. There is such a natural tendency to confusion in all ordinary human beings that if you repeatedly present to them two totally distinct things at the same time, they will, before long, associate them so closely as to consider them inseparable by their very nature. This is the reason why all those branches of education that train the mind in analysis are so valuable. To be able to distinguish between accidental connections of things or characteristics and necessary connections, is one of the best powers that education bestows upon us. By far the greater number of erroneous popular notions are due simply to the inability to make this distinction which belongs to all undisciplined minds. Calumnies, that have great influence over such minds, must lose their power as the habit of analysis enables people to separate ideas which the uncultivated mingle together.

Insufficient analysis leads to a very common sort of confusion between the defectiveness of a part only and a defect pervading the whole. An invention (as often happens) does not visibly succeed on the first trial, and then the whole of the common public will at once declare the invention to be bad, when, in reality, it may be a good invention with a local defect, easily remediable. Suppose that a yacht misses stays, the common sort of criticism would be to say that she was a bad boat, when, in fact, her hull and everything else might be thoroughly well made, and the defect be due only to a miscalculation in the placing of her canvas. I have myself seen a small steel boat sink at her anchorage, and a crowd laugh at her as badly contrived, when her only defect was the unobserved starting of a rivet. The boat was fished up, the rivet replaced, and she leaked and sank no more. When Stephenson's locomotive did not go because its wheels slid on the rails, the vulgar spectators were delighted with the supposed failure of a benefactor of the human species, and set up a noise of jubilant derision. The invention, they had decided, was of no good, and they sang their own foolish _gaudeamus igitur_. Stephenson at once perceived that the only defect was want of weight, and he immediately proceeded to remedy it by loading the machine with ballast. So it is in thousands of cases. The common mind, untrained in analysis, condemns the whole as a failure, when the defect lies in some small part which the specialist, trained in analysis, seeks for and discovers.

I have not touched upon the confusions due to the decline of the intellectual powers. In that case the reason is to be sought for in the condition of the brain, and there is, I believe, no remedy. In healthy people, enjoying the complete vigor of their faculties, confusions are simply the result of carelessness and indolence, and are proper subjects for sarcasm. With senile confusions the case is very different. To treat them with hard, sharp, decided correction, as is so often done by people of vigorous intellect, is a most cruel abuse of power. Yet it is difficult to say what ought to be done when an old person falls into manifest errors of this kind. Simple acquiescence is in this case a pardonable abandonment of truth, but there are situations in which it is not possible. Then you find yourself compelled to show where the confusion lies. You do it as gently as may be, but you fail to convince, and awaken that tenacious, unyielding opposition which is a characteristic of decline in its earlier stages. All that can be said is, that when once it has become evident that confusions are not careless but senile, they ought to be passed over if possible, and if not, then treated with the very utmost delicacy and gentleness.

ESSAY XXI.

THE NOBLE BOHEMIANISM.

Amongst the common injustices of the world there have been few more complete than its reprobation of the state of mind and manner of life that have been called Bohemianism; and so closely is that reprobation attached to the word that I would gladly have substituted some other term for the better Bohemianism had the English language provided me with one. It may, however, be a gain to justice itself that we should be compelled to use the same expression, qualified only by an adjective, for two states of existence that are the good and the bad conditions of the same, as it will tend to make us more charitable to those whom we must always blame, and yet may blame with a more or less perfect understanding of the causes that led them into error.

The lower forms of Bohemianism are associated with several kinds of vice, and are therefore justly disliked by people who know the value of a well-regulated life, and, when at the worst, regarded by them with feelings of positive abhorrence. The vices connected with these forms of Bohemianism are idleness, irregularity, extravagance, drunkenness, and immorality; and besides these vices the worst Bohemianism is associated with many repulsive faults that may not be exactly vices, and yet are almost as much disliked by decent people. These faults are slovenliness, dirt, a degree of carelessness in matters of business, often scarcely to be distinguished from dishonesty, and habitual neglect of the decorous observances that are inseparable from a high state of civilization.

After such an account of the worst Bohemianism, in which, as the reader perceives, I have extenuated nothing, it may seem almost an act of temerity to advance the theory that this is only the bad side of a state of mind and feeling that has its good and perfectly respectable side also. If this seems difficult to believe, the reader has only to consider how certain other instincts of humanity have also their good and bad developments. The religious and the sexual instincts, in their best action, are on the side of national and domestic order, but in their worst action they produce sanguinary quarrels, ferocious persecutions, and the excesses of the most degrading sensuality. It is therefore by no means a new theory that a human instinct may have a happy or an unfortunate development, and it is not a reason for rejecting Bohemianism, without unprejudiced examination, that the worst forms of it are associated with evil.

Again, before going to the _raison d'être_ of Bohemianism, let me point to one consideration of great importance to us if we desire to think quite justly. It is, and has always been, a characteristic of Bohemianism to be extremely careless of appearances, and to live outside the shelter of hypocrisy; so its vices are far more visible than the same vices when practised by men of the world, and incomparably more offensive to persons with a strong sense of what is called "propriety." At the time when the worst form of Bohemianism was more common than it is now, its most serious vices were also the vices of the best society. If the Bohemian drank to excess, so did the nobility and gentry; if the Bohemian had a mistress, so had the most exalted personages. The Bohemian was not so much blamed for being a sepulchre as for being an ill-kept sepulchre, and not a whited sepulchre like the rest. It was far more his slovenliness and poverty than his graver vices that made him offensive to a corrupt society with fine clothes and ceremonious manners.

Bohemianism and Philistinism are the terms by which, for want of better, we designate two opposite ways of estimating wealth and culture. There are two categories of advantages in wealth,--the intellectual and the material. The intellectual advantages are leisure to think and read, travel, and intelligent conversation. The material advantages are large and comfortable houses, tables well served and abundant, good coats, clean linen, fine dresses and diamonds, horses, carriages, servants, hot-houses, wine-cellars, shootings. Evidently the most perfect condition of wealth would unite both classes of advantages; but this is not always, or often, possible, and it so happens that in most situations a choice has to be made between them. The Bohemian is the man who with small means desires and contrives to obtain the intellectual advantages of wealth, which he considers to be leisure to think and read, travel, and intelligent conversation. The Philistine is the man who, whether his means are small or large, devotes himself wholly to the attainment of the other set of advantages,--a large house, good food and wine, clothes, horses, and servants.

The Philistine gratifies his passion for comfort to a wonderful extent, and thousands of ingenious people are incessantly laboring to make his existence more comfortable still, so that the one great inconvenience he is threatened with is the super-multiplication of conveniences. Now there is a certain noble Bohemianism which perceives that the Philistine life is not really so rich as it appears, that it has only some of the advantages which ought to belong to riches, and these not quite the best advantages; and this noble Bohemianism makes the best advantages its first aim, being contented with such a small measure of riches as, when ingeniously and skilfully employed, may secure them.

A highly developed material luxury, such as that which fills our modern universal exhibitions and is the great pride of our age, has in itself so much the appearance of absolute civilization that any proposal to do without it may seem like a return to savagery; and Bohemianism is exposed to the accusation of discouraging arts and manufactures. There is a physical side to Bohemianism to be considered later; and there may, indeed, be some connection between Bohemianism and the life of a red Indian who roams in his woods and contents himself with a low standard of physical well-being. The fair statement of the case between Bohemianism and the civilization of arts and manufactures is as follows: the intelligent Bohemian does not despise them; on the contrary, when he can afford it, he encourages them and often surrounds himself with beautiful things; but he will not barter his mental liberty in exchange for them, as the Philistine does so readily. If the Bohemian simply prefers sordid idleness to the comfort which is the reward of industry, he has no part in the higher Bohemianism, but combines the Philistine fault of intellectual apathy with the Bohemian fault of standing aloof from industrial civilization. If a man abstains from furthering the industrial civilization of his country he is only excusable if he pursues some object of at least equal importance. Intellectual civilization really is such an object, and the noble Bohemianism is excusable for serving it rather than that other civilization of arts and manufactures which has such numerous servants of its own. If the Bohemian does not redeem his negligence of material things by superior intellectual brightness, he is half a Philistine, he is destitute of what is best in Bohemianism (I had nearly written of all that is worth having in it), and his contempt for material perfection has no longer any charm, because it is not the sacrifice of a lower merit to a higher, but the blank absence of the lower merit not compensated or condoned by the presence of anything nobler or better.

Bohemianism and Philistinism are alike in combining self-indulgence with asceticism, but they are ascetic or self-indulgent in opposite directions. Bohemianism includes a certain self-indulgence, on the intellectual side, in the pleasures of thought and observation and in the exercise of the imaginative faculties, combining this with a certain degree of asceticism on the physical side, not a severe religious asceticism, but a disposition, like that of a thorough soldier or traveller, to do without luxury and comfort, and take the absence of them gayly when they are not to be had. The self-indulgence of Philistinism is in bodily comfort, of which it has never enough; its asceticism consists in denying itself leisure to read and think, and opportunities for observation.

The best way of describing the two principles will be to give an account of two human lives that exemplified them. These shall not be described from imagination, but from accurate memory; and I will not have recourse to the easy artifice of selecting an unfavorable example of the class with which I happen to have a minor degree of personal sympathy. My Philistine shall be one whom I sincerely loved and heartily respected. He was an admirable example of everything that is best and most worthy in the Philistine civilization; and I believe that nobody who ever came into contact with him, or had dealings with him, received any other impression than this, that he had a natural right to the perfect respect which surrounded him. The younger son of a poor gentleman, he began life with narrow means, and followed a profession in a small provincial town. By close attention and industry he saved a considerable sum of money, which he lost entirely through the dishonesty of a trusted but untrustworthy acquaintance. He had other mishaps, which but little disturbed his serenity, and he patiently amassed enough to make himself independent. In every relation of life he was not only above reproach, he was much more than that: he was a model of what men ought to be, yet seldom are, in their conduct towards others. He was kind to every one, generous to those who needed his generosity, and, though strict with himself, tolerant towards aberrations that must have seemed to him strangely unreasonable. He had great natural dignity, and was a gentleman in all his ways, with an old-fashioned grace and courtesy. He had no vanity; there may have been some pride as an ingredient in his character, but if so it was of a kind that could hurt nobody, for he was as simple and straightforward in his intercourse with the poor as he was at ease with the rich.

After this description (which is so far from being overcharged that I have omitted, for the sake of brevity, many admirable characteristics), the reader may ask in what could possibly consist the Philistinism of a nature that had attained such excellence. The answer is that it consisted in the perfect willingness with which he remained outside of every intellectual movement, and in the restriction of his mental activity to riches and religion. He used to say that "a man must be contentedly ignorant of many things," and he lived in this contented ignorance. He knew nothing of the subjects that awaken the passionate interest of intellectual men. He knew no language but his own, bought no books, knew nothing about the fine arts, never travelled, and remained satisfied with the life of his little provincial town. Totally ignorant of all foreign literatures, ancient or modern, he was at the same time so slightly acquainted with that of his own country that he had not read, and scarcely even knew by name, the most famous authors of his own generation. His little bookcase was filled almost exclusively with evangelical sermons and commentaries. This is Philistinism on the intellectual side, the mental inertness that remains "contentedly ignorant" of almost everything that a superior intellect cares for. But, besides this, there is also a Philistinism on the physical side, a physical inertness; and in this, too, my friend was a real Philistine. In spite of great natural strength, he remained inexpert in all manly exercises, and so had not enjoyed life on that side as he might have done, and as the Bohemian generally contrives to do. He belonged to that class of men who, as soon as they reach middle age, are scarcely more active than the chairs they sit upon, the men who would fall from a horse if it were lively, upset a boat if it were light, and be drowned if they fell into the water. Such men can walk a little on a road, or they can sit in a carriage and be dragged about by horses. By this physical inertia my friend was deprived of one set of impressions, as he was deprived by his intellectual inertia of another. He could not enjoy that close intimacy with nature which a Bohemian generally finds to be an important part of existence.

I wonder if it ever occurred to him to reflect, in the tedious hours of too tranquil age, how much of what is best in the world had been simply _missed_ by him; how he had missed all the variety and interest of travel, the charm of intellectual society, the influences of genius, and even the physical excitements of healthy out-door amusements. When I think what a magnificent world it is that we inhabit, how much natural beauty there is in it, how much admirable human work in literature and the fine arts, how many living men and women there are in each generation whose acquaintance a wise man would travel far to seek, and value infinitely when he had found it, I cannot avoid the conclusion that my friend might have lived as he did in a planet far less richly endowed than ours, and that after a long life he went out of the world without having really known it.

I have said that the intelligent Bohemian is generally a man of small or moderate means, whose object is to enjoy the _best_ advantages (not the most visible) of riches. In his view these advantages are leisure, travel, reading, and conversation. His estimate is different from that of the Philistine, who sets his heart on the lower advantages of riches, sacrificing leisure, travel, reading, and conversation, in order to have a larger house and more servants. But how, without riches, is the Bohemian to secure the advantages that he desires, for they also belong to riches? There lies the difficulty, and the Bohemian's way of overcoming it constitutes the romance of his existence. In absolute destitution the intelligent Bohemian life is not possible. A little money is necessary for it, and the art and craft of Bohemianism is to get for that small amount of money such an amount of leisure, reading, travel, and good conversation as may suffice to make life interesting. The way in which an old-fashioned Bohemian usually set about it was this: he treated material comfort and outward appearances as matters of no consequence, accepting them when they came in his way, but enduring the privation of them gayly. He learned the art of living on a little.

"Je suis pauvre, très pauvre, et vis pourtant fort bien C'est parce que je vis comme les gens de rien."[26]

He spent the little that he had, first for what was really necessary, and next for what really gave him pleasure, but he spent hardly anything in deference to the usages of society. In this way he got what he wanted. His books were second-hand and ill bound, but he _had_ books and read them; his clothes were shabby, yet still they kept him warm; he travelled in all sorts of cheap ways and frequently on foot; he lived a good deal in some unfashionable quarters in a capital city, and saw much of art, nature, and humanity.

To exemplify the true theory of Bohemianism let me describe from memory two rooms, one of them inhabited by an English lady, not at all Bohemian, the other by a German of the coarser sex who was essentially and thoroughly Bohemian. The lady's room was not a drawing-room, being a reasonable sort of sitting-room without any exasperating inutilities, but it was extremely, excessively comfortable. Half hidden amongst its material comforts might be found a little rosewood bookcase containing a number of pretty volumes in purple morocco that were seldom, if ever, opened. My German Bohemian was a steady reader in six languages; and if he had seen such a room as that he would probably have criticised it as follows. He would have said, "It is rich in superfluities, but has not what is necessary. The carpet is superfluous; plain boards are quite comfortable enough. One or two cheap chairs and tables might replace this costly furniture. That pretty rosewood bookcase holds the smallest number of books at the greatest cost, and is therefore contrary to true economy; give me, rather, a sufficiency of long deal shelves all innocent of paint. What is the use of fine bindings and gilt edges? This little library is miserably poor. It is all in one language, and does not represent even English literature adequately; there are a few novels, books of poems, and travels, but I find neither science nor philosophy. Such a room as that, with all its comfort, would seem to me like a prison. My mind needs wider pastures." I remember his own room, a place to make a rich Englishman shudder. One climbed up to it by a stone corkscrew-stair, half-ruinous, in an old mediæval house. It was a large room, with a bed in one corner, and it was wholly destitute of anything resembling a carpet or a curtain. The remaining furniture consisted of two or three rush-bottomed chairs, one large cheap lounging-chair, and two large plain tables. There were plenty of shelves (common deal, unpainted), and on them an immense litter of books in different languages, most of them in paper covers, and bought second-hand, but in readable editions. In the way of material luxury there was a pot of tobacco; and if a friend dropped in for an evening a jug of ale would make its appearance. My Bohemian was shabby in his dress, and unfashionable; but he had seen more, read more, and passed more hours in intelligent conversation than many who considered themselves his superiors. The entire material side of life had been systematically neglected, in his case, in order that the intellectual side might flourish. It is hardly necessary to observe that any attempt at luxury or visible comfort, any conformity to fashion, would have been incompatible, on small means, with the intellectual existence that this German scholar enjoyed.

Long ago I knew an English Bohemian who had a small income that came to him very irregularly. He had begun life in a profession, but had quitted it that he might travel and see the world, which he did in the oddest, most original fashion, often enduring privation, but never ceasing to enjoy life deeply in his own way, and to accumulate a mass of observations which would have been quite invaluable to an author. In him the two activities, physical and mental, were alike so energetic that they might have led to great results had they been consistently directed to some private or public end; but unfortunately he remained satisfied with the existence of an observant wanderer who has no purpose beyond the healthy exercise of his faculties. In usefulness to others he was not to be compared with my good and admirable Philistine, but in the art of getting for himself what is best in the world he was by far the more accomplished of the two. He fully enjoyed both the physical and the intellectual life; he could live almost like a red Indian, and yet at the same time carry in his mind the most recent results of European thought and science. His distinguishing characteristic was a heroic contempt for comfort, in which he rather resembled a soldier in war-time than any self-indulgent civilian. He would sleep anywhere,--in his boat under a sail, in a hayloft, under a hedge if belated, and he would go for days together without any regular meal. He dressed roughly, and his clothes became old before he renewed them. He kept no servant, and lived in cheap lodgings in towns, or hired one or two empty rooms and adorned them with a little portable furniture. In the country he contrived to make very economical arrangements in farmhouses, by which he was fed and lodged quite as well as he ever cared to be. It would be difficult to excel him in simple manliness, in the quiet courage that accepts a disagreeable situation or faces a dangerous one; and he had the manliness of the mind as well as that of the body; he estimated the world for what it is worth, and cared nothing for its transient fashions either in appearances or opinion. I am sorry that he was a useless member of society,--if, indeed, such an eccentric is to be called a member of society at all,--but if uselessness is blamable he shares the blame, or ought in justice to share it, with a multitude of most respectable gentlemen and ladies who receive nothing but approbation from the world.

Except this fault of uselessness there was nothing to blame in this man's manner of life, but his want of purpose and discipline made his fine qualities seem almost without value. And now comes the question whether the fine qualities of the useless Bohemian may not be of some value in a life of a higher kind. I think it is evident that they may, for if the Bohemian can cheerfully sacrifice luxury for some mental gain he has made a great step in the direction of the higher life, and only requires a purpose and a discipline to attain it. Common men are completely enslaved by their love of comfort, and whoever has emancipated himself from this thraldom has gained the first and most necessary victory. The use that he will make of it depends upon himself. If he has high purposes, his Bohemianism will be ennobled by them, and will become a most precious element in his character; and if his purposes are not of the highest, the Bohemian element may still be very valuable if accompanied by self-discipline. Napoleon cannot be said to have had high purposes, but his Bohemianism was admirable. A man who, having attained success, with boundless riches at his disposal, could quit the luxury of his palaces and sleep anywhere, in any poor farmhouse, or under the stars by the fire of a bivouac, and be satisfied with poor meals at the most irregular hours, showed that, however he may have estimated luxury, he was at least entirely independent of it. The model monarch in this respect was Charles XII. of Sweden, who studied his own personal comfort as little as if he had been a private soldier. Some royal commanders have carried luxury into war itself, but not to their advantage. When Napoleon III. went in his carriage to meet his fate at Sedan the roads were so encumbered by wagons belonging to the Imperial household as to impede the movements of the troops.

There is often an element of Bohemianism where we should least expect to find it. There is something of it in our English aristocracy, though it is not _called_ Bohemianism here because it is not accompanied by poverty; but the spirit that sacrifices luxury to rough travelling is, so far, the true Bohemian spirit. In the aristocracy, however, such sacrifices are only temporary; and a rough life accepted for a few weeks or months gives the charm of a restored freshness to luxury on returning to it. The class in which the higher Bohemianism has most steadily flourished is the artistic and literary class, and here it is visible and recognizable because there is often poverty enough to compel the choice between the objects of the intelligent Bohemian and those of ordinary men. The early life of Goldsmith, for example, was that of a genuine Bohemian. He had scarcely any money, and yet he contrived to get for himself what the intelligent Bohemian always desires, namely, leisure to read and think, travel, and interesting conversation. When penniless and unknown he lounged about the world thinking and observing; he travelled in Holland, France, Switzerland, and Italy, not as people do in railway carriages, but in leisurely intercourse with the inhabitants. Notwithstanding his poverty he was received by the learned in different European cities, and, notably, heard Voltaire and Diderot talk till three o'clock in the morning. So long as he remained faithful to the true principles of Bohemianism he was happy in his own strange and eccentric way, and all the anxieties, all the slavery of his later years were due to his apostasy from those principles. He no longer estimated leisure at its true value when he allowed himself to be placed in such a situation that he was compelled to toil like a slave in order to clear off work that had been already paid for, such advances having been rendered necessary by expenditure on Philistine luxuries. He no longer enjoyed humble travel but on his later tour in France with Mrs. Horneck and her two beautiful daughters, instead of enjoying the country in his own old simple innocent way, he allowed his mind to be poisoned with Philistine ideas, and constantly complained of the want of physical comfort, though he lived far more expensively than in his youth. The new apartments, taken on the success of the "Good-natured Man," consisted, says Irving, "of three rooms, which he furnished with mahogany sofas, card-tables, and bookcases; with curtains, mirrors, and Wilton carpets." At the same time he went even beyond the precept of Polonius, for his garments were costlier than his purse could buy, and his entertainments were so extravagant as to give pain to his acquaintances. All this is a desertion of real Bohemian principles. Goldsmith ought to have protected his own leisure, which, from the Bohemian point of view, was incomparably more precious to himself than Wilton carpets and coats "of Tyrian bloom."

Corot, the French landscape-painter, was a model of consistent Bohemianism of the best kind. When his father said, "You shall have £80 a year, your plate at my table, and be a painter; or you shall have £4,000 to start with if you will be a shop-keeper," his choice was made at once. He remained always faithful to true Bohemian principles, fully understanding the value of leisure, and protecting his artistic independence by the extreme simplicity of his living. He never gave way to the modern rage for luxuries, but in his latter years, when enriched by tardy professional success and hereditary fortune, he employed his money in acts of fraternal generosity to enable others to lead the intelligent Bohemian life.

Wordsworth had in him a very strong element of Bohemianism. His long pedestrian rambles, his interest in humble life and familiar intercourse with the poor, his passion for wild nature, and preference of natural beauty to fine society, his simple and economical habits, are enough to reveal the tendency. His "plain living and high thinking" is a thoroughly Bohemian idea, in striking opposition to the Philistine passion for rich living and low thinking. There is a story that he was seen at a breakfast-table to cut open a new volume with a greasy butter-knife. To every lover of books this must seem horribly barbarous, yet at the same time it was Bohemian, in that Wordsworth valued the thought only and cared nothing for the material condition of the volume. I have observed a like indifference to the material condition of books in other Bohemians, who took the most lively interest in their contents. I have also seen "bibliophiles" who had beautiful libraries in excellent preservation, and who loved to fondle fine copies of books that they never read. That is Philistine, it is the preference of material perfection to intellectual values.

The reader is, I hope, fully persuaded by this time that the higher Bohemianism is compatible with every quality that deserves respect, and that it is not of necessity connected with any fault or failing. I may therefore mention as an example of it one of the purest and best characters whom it was ever my happiness to know. There was a strong element of noble Bohemianism in Samuel Palmer, the landscape-painter. "From time to time," according to his son, "he forsook his easel, and travelled far away from London smoke to cull the beauties of some favorite country side. His painting apparatus was complete, but singularly simple, his dress and other bodily requirements simpler still; so he could walk from village to hamlet easily carrying all he wanted, and utterly indifferent to luxury. With a good constitution it mattered little to him how humble were his quarters or how remote from so-called civilization. 'In exploring wild country,' he writes, 'I have been for a fortnight together, uncertain each day whether I should get a bed under cover at night; and about midsummer I have repeatedly been walking all night to watch the mystic phenomena of the silent hours.' He enjoyed to the full this rough but not uncomfortable mode of travelling, and was better pleased to take his place, after a hard day's work, in some old chimney corner--joining on equal terms the village gossip--than to mope in the dull grandeur of a private room."

Here are two of my Bohemian elements,--the love of travel and the love of conversation. As for the other element,--the love of leisure to think and read,--it is not visible in this extract (though the kind of travel described is leisurely), but it was always present in the man. During the quiet, solitary progress by day and night there were ample opportunities for thinking, and as for reading we know that Palmer never stirred without a favorite author in his pocket, most frequently Milton or Virgil. To complete the Bohemian we only require one other characteristic,--contentment with a simple material existence; and we are told that "the painting apparatus was singularly simple, the dress and other bodily requirements simpler still." So here we have the intelligent Bohemian in his perfection.

All this is the exact opposite of Philistine "common sense." A Philistine would not have exposed himself, voluntarily, to the certainty of poor accommodation. A Philistine would not have remained out all night "to watch the mystic phenomena of the silent hours." In the absence of a railway he would have hired a carriage, and got through the wild country rapidly to arrive at a good dinner. Lastly, a Philistine would not have carried either Milton or Virgil in his pocket; he would have had a newspaper.

Some practical experience of the higher Bohemianism is a valuable part of education. It enables us to estimate things at their true worth, and to extract happiness from situations in which the Philistine is both dull and miserable. A true Bohemian, of the best kind, knows the value of mere shelter, of food enough to satisfy hunger, of plain clothes that will keep him sufficiently warm; and in the things of the mind he values the liberty to use his own faculties as a kind of happiness in itself. His philosophy leads him to take an interest in talking with human beings of all sorts and conditions, and in different countries. He does not despise the poor, for, whether poor or rich in his own person, he understands simplicity of life, and if the poor man lives in a small cottage, he, too, has probably been lodged less spaciously still in some small hut or tent. He has lived often, in rough travel, as the poor live every day. I maintain that such tastes and experiences are valuable both in prosperity and in adversity. If we are prosperous they enhance our appreciation of the things around us, and yet at the same time make us really know that they are not indispensable, as so many believe them to be; if we fall into adversity they prepare us to accept lightly and cheerfully what would be depressing privations to others. I know a painter who in consequence of some change in the public taste fell into adversity at a time when he had every reason to hope for increased success. Very fortunately for him, he had been a Bohemian in early life,--a respectable Bohemian, be it understood,--and a great traveller, so that he could easily dispense with luxuries. "To be still permitted to follow art is enough," he said; so he reduced his expenses to the very lowest scale consistent with that pursuit, and lived as he had done before in the old Bohemian times. He made his old clothes last on, he slung a hammock in a very simple painting-room, and cooked his own dinner on the stove. With the canvas on his easel and a few books on a shelf he found that if existence was no longer luxurious it had not yet ceased to be interesting.

ESSAY XXII.

OF COURTESY IN EPISTOLARY COMMUNICATION.

The universal principle of courtesy is that the courteous person manifests a disposition to sacrifice something in favor of the person whom he desires to honor; the opposite principle shows itself in a disposition to regard our own convenience as paramount over every other consideration.

Courtesy lives by a multitude of little sacrifices, not by sacrifices of sufficient importance to impose any burdensome sense of obligation. These little sacrifices may be both of time and money, but more of time, and the money sacrifice should be just perceptible, never ostentatious.

The tendency of a hurried age, in which men undertake more work or more pleasure (hardest work of all!) than they are able properly to accomplish, is to abridge all forms of courtesy because they take time, and to replace them by forms, if any forms survive, which cost as little time as possible. This wounds and injures courtesy itself in its most vital part, for the essence of it is the willingness to incur that very sacrifice which modern hurry avoids.

The first courtesy in epistolary communication is the mere writing of the letter. Except in cases where the letter itself is an offence or an intrusion, the mere making of it is an act of courtesy towards the receiver. The writer sacrifices his time and a trifle of money in order that the receiver may have some kind of news.

It has ever been the custom to commence a letter with some expression of respect, affection, or good will. This is graceful in itself, and reasonable, being nothing more than the salutation with which a man enters the house of his friend, or his more ceremonious act of deference in entering that of a stranger or a superior. In times and seasons where courtesy has not given way to hurry, or a selfish dread of unnecessary exertion, the opening form is maintained with a certain amplitude, and the substance of the letter is not reached in the first lines, which gently induce the reader to proceed. Afterwards these forms are felt to involve an inconvenient sacrifice of time, and are ruthlessly docked.

In justice to modern poverty in forms it is fair to take into consideration the simple truth, so easily overlooked, that we have to write thirty letters where our ancestors wrote one; but the principle of sacrifice in courtesy always remains essentially the same; and if of our more precious and more occupied time we consecrate a smaller portion to forms, it is still essential that there should be no appearance of a desire to escape from the kind of obligation which we acknowledge.

The most essentially modern element of courtesy in letter-writing is the promptitude of our replies. This promptitude was not only unknown to our remote ancestors, but even to our immediate predecessors. They would postpone answering a letter for days or weeks, in the pure spirit of procrastination, when they already possessed all the materials necessary for the answer. Such a habit would try our patience very severely, but our fathers seem to have considered it a part of their dignity to move slowly in correspondence. This temper even yet survives in official correspondence between sovereigns, who still notify to each other their domestic events long after the publication of them in the newspapers.

A prompt answer equally serves the purpose of the sender and the receiver. It is a great economy of time to answer promptly, because the receiver of the letter is so much gratified by the promptitude itself that he readily pardons brevity in consideration of it. An extremely short but prompt letter, that would look curt without its promptitude, is more polite than a much longer one written a few days later.

Prompt correspondents save all the time that others waste in excuses. I remember an author and editor whose system imposed upon him the tax of perpetual apologizing. He always postponed writing until the delay had put his correspondent out of temper, so that when at last he _did_ write, which somehow happened ultimately, the first page was entirely occupied with apologies for his delay, as he felt that the necessity had arisen for soothing the ruffled feelings of his friend. It never occurred to him that the same amount of pen work which these apologies cost him would, if given earlier, have sufficed for a complete answer. A letter-writer of this sort must naturally be a bad man of business, and this gentleman was so, though he had excellent qualities of another order.

I remember receiving a most extraordinary answer from a correspondent of this stamp. I wrote to him about a matter which was causing me some anxiety, and did not receive an answer for several weeks. At last the reply came, with the strange excuse that as he knew I had guests in my house he had delayed writing from a belief that I should not be able to attend to anything until after their departure. If such were always the effect of entertaining friends, what incalculable perturbation would be caused by hospitality in all private and public affairs!

The reader may, perhaps, have met with a collection of letters called the "Plumpton Correspondence," which was published by the Camden Society in 1839. I have always been interested in this for family reasons, and also because the manuscript volume was found in the neighborhood where I lived in youth;[27] but it does not require any blood connection with the now extinct house of Plumpton of Plumpton to take an interest in a collection of letters which gives so clear an insight into the epistolary customs of England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first peculiarity that strikes the modern reader is the extreme care of almost all the writers, even when near relations, to avoid a curt and dry style, destitute of the ambages which were in those days esteemed an essential part of politeness. The only exception is a plain, straightforward gentleman, William Gascoyne, who heads his letters, "To my Uncle Plumpton be these delivered," or "To my Uncle Plumpton this letter be delivered in hast." He begins, "Uncle Plumpton, I recommend me unto you," and finishes, "Your nephew," simply, or still more laconically, "Your." Such plainness is strikingly rare. The rule was, to be deliberately perfect in all epistolary observances, however near the relationship. Not that the forms used were hard forms, entirely fixed by usage and devoid of personal feeling and individuality. They appear to have been more flexible and living than our own, as they were more frequently varied according to the taste and sentiment of the writers. Sometimes, of course, they were perfunctory, but often they have an original and very graceful turn. One letter, which I will quote at length, contains curious evidence of the courtesy and discourtesy of those days. The forms used in the letter itself are perfect, but the writer complains that other letters have not been answered.

In the reign of Henry VII. Sir Robert Plumpton had a daughter, Dorothy, who was in the household of Lady Darcy (probably as a sort of maid of honor to her ladyship), but was not quite pleased with her position, and wanted to go home to Plumpton. She had written to her father several times, but had received no answer, so she now writes again to him in these terms. The date of the letter is not fully given, as the year is wanting; but her parents were married in 1477, and her father died in 1523, at the age of seventy, after a life of strange vicissitudes. The reader will observe two leading characteristics in this letter,--that it is as courteous as if the writer were not related to the receiver, and as affectionate as if no forms had been observed. As was the custom in those days, the young lady gives her parents their titles of worldly honor, but she always adds to them the most affectionate filial expressions:

_To the right worshipfull and my most entyerly beloved, good, kind father, Sir Robart Plompton, knyght, lying at Plompton in Yorkshire, be thes delivered in hast._

Ryght worshipfull father, in the most humble manner that I can I recommend me to you, and to my lady my mother, and to all my brethren and sistren, whom I besech almyghtie God to mayntayne and preserve in prosperus health and encrese of worship, entyerly requiering you of your daly blessing; letting you wyt that I send to you mesuage, be Wryghame of Knarsbrugh, of my mynd, and how that he should desire you in my name to send for me to come home to you, and as yet I had no answere agane, the which desire my lady hath gotten knowledg. Wherefore, she is to me more better lady than ever she was before, insomuch that she hath promysed me hir good ladyship as long as ever she shall lyve; and if she or ye can fynd athing meyter for me in this parties or any other, she will helpe to promoote me to the uttermost of her puyssaunce. Wherefore, I humbly besech you to be so good and kind father unto me as to let me know your pleasure, how that ye will have me ordred, as shortly as it shall like you. And wryt to my lady, thanking hir good ladyship of hir so loving and tender kyndnesse shewed unto me, beseching hir ladyship of good contynewance thereof. And therefore I besech you to send a servant of yours to my lady and to me, and show now by your fatherly kyndnesse that I am your child; for I have sent you dyverse messuages and wryttings, and I had never answere againe. Wherefore yt is thought in this parties, by those persones that list better to say ill than good, that ye have litle favor unto me; the which error ye may now quench yf yt will like you to be so good and kynd father unto me. Also I besech you to send me a fine hatt and some good cloth to make me some kevercheffes. And thus I besech _Jesu_ to have you in his blessed keeping to his pleasure, and your harts desire and comforth. Wryten at the Hirste, the xviii day of Maye.

By your loving daughter, DORYTHE PLOMPTON.

It may be worth while, for the sake of contrast, and that we may the better perceive the lost fragrance of the antique courtesy, to put the substance of this letter into the style of the present day. A modern young lady would probably write as follows:--

HIRST, _May 18_.

DEAR PAPA,--Lady Darcy has found out that I want to leave her, but she has kindly promised to do what she can to find something else for me. I wish you would say what you think, and it would be as well, perhaps, if you would be so good as to drop a line to her ladyship to thank her. I have written to you several times, but got no answer, so people here say that you don't care very much for me. Would you please send me a handsome bonnet and some handkerchiefs? Best love to mamma and all at home.

Your affectionate daughter, DOROTHY PLUMPTON.

This, I think, is not an unfair specimen of a modern letter.[28] The expressions of worship, of humble respect, have disappeared, and so far it may be thought that there is improvement, yet that respect was not incompatible with tender feeling; on the contrary, it was closely associated with it, and expressions of sentiment have lost strength and vitality along with expressions of respect. Tenderness may be sometimes shown in modern letters, but it is rare; and when it occurs it is generally accompanied by a degree of familiarity which our ancestors would have considered in bad taste. Dorothy Plumpton's own letter is far richer in the expression of tender feeling than any modern letter of the courteous and ceremonious kind, or than any of those pale and commonplace communications from which deep respect and strong affection are almost equally excluded. Please observe, moreover, that the young lady had reason to be dissatisfied with her father for his neglect, which does not in the least diminish the filial courtesy of her style, but she chides him in the sweetest fashion,--"_Show now by your fatherly kindness that I am your child_." Could anything be prettier than that, though the reproach contained in it is really one of some severity?

Dorothy's father, Sir Robert, puts the following superscription on a letter to his wife, "To my entyrely and right hartily beloved wife, Dame Agnes Plumpton, be this Letter delivered." He begins his letter thus, "My deare hart, in my most hartily wyse, I recommend mee unto you;" and he ends tenderly, "By your owne lover, Robert Plumpton, Kt." She, on the contrary, though a faithful and brave wife, doing her best for her husband in a time of great trial, and enjoying his full confidence, begins her letters, "Right worshipful Sir," and ends simply, "By your wife, Dame Agnes Plumpton." She is so much absorbed by business that her expressions of feeling are rare and brief. "Sir, I am in good health, and all your children prays for your daly blessing. And all your servants is in good health and prays diligently for your good speed in your matters."

The generally courteous tone of the letters of those days may be judged of by the following example. The reader will observe how small a space is occupied with the substance of the letter in comparison with the expressions of pure courtesy, and how simply and handsomely regret for the trespass is expressed:--

_To his worshipful Cosin, Sir Robart Plompton, Kt._

Right reverend and worshipful Cosin, I commend me unto you as hertyly as I can, evermore desiring to heare of your welfare, the which I besech _Jesu_ to continew to his pleasure, and your herts desire. Cosin, please you witt that I am enformed, that a poor man somtyme belonging to mee, called Umfrey Bell, hath trespased to a servant of youres, which I am sory for. Wherefore, Cosin, I desire and hartily pray you to take upp the matter into your own hands for my sake, and rewle him as it please you; and therein you wil do, as I may do that may be plesur to you, and my contry, the which I shalbe redy too, by the grace of God, who preserve you.

By your own kynsman, ROBART WARCOPP, of Warcoppe.

The reader has no doubt by this time enough of these old letters, which are not likely to possess much charm for him unless, like the present writer, he is rather of an antiquarian turn.[29]

The quotations are enough to show some of the forms used in correspondence by our forefathers, forms that were right in their own day, when the state of society was more ceremonious and deferential, but no one would propose to revive them. We may, however, still value and cultivate the beautifully courteous spirit that our ancestors possessed and express it in our own modern ways.

I have already observed that the essentially modern form of courtesy is the rapidity of our replies. This, at least, is a virtue that we can resolutely cultivate and maintain. In some countries it is pushed so far that telegrams are very frequently sent when there is no need to employ the telegraph. The Arabs of Algeria are extremely fond of telegraphing for its own sake: the notion of its rapidity pleases and amuses them; they like to wield a power so wonderful. It is said that the Americans constantly employ the telegraph on very trivial occasions, and the habit is increasing in England and France. The secret desire of the present age is to find a plausible excuse for excessive brevity in correspondence, and this is supplied by the comparative costliness of telegraphing. It is a comfort that it allows you to send a single word. I have heard of a letter from a son to a father consisting of the Latin word _Ibo_, and of a still briefer one from the father to the son confined entirely to the imperative _I_. These miracles of brevity are only possible in letters between the most intimate friends or relations, but in telegraphy they are common.

It is very difficult for courtesy to survive this modern passion for brevity, and we see it more and more openly cast aside. All the long phrases of politeness have been abandoned in English correspondence for a generation, except in formal letters to official or very dignified personages; and the little that remains is reduced to a mere shred of courteous or affectionate expression. We have not, it is true, the detestable habit of abridging words, as our ancestors often did, but we cut our phrases short, and sometimes even words of courtesy are abridged in an unbecoming manner. Men will write Dr. Sir for Dear Sir. If I am dear enough to these correspondents for their sentiments of affection to be worth uttering at all, why should they be so chary of expressing them that they omit two letters from the very word which is intended to affect my feelings?

"If I be dear, if I be dear,"

as the poet says, why should my correspondent begrudge me the four letters of so brief an adjective?

The long French and Italian forms of ceremony at the close of letters are felt to be burdensome in the present day, and are gradually giving place to briefer ones; but it is the very length of them, and the time and trouble they cost to write, that make them so courteous, and no brief form can ever be an effective substitute in that respect.

I was once placed in the rather embarrassing position of having suddenly to send telegrams in my own name, containing a request, to two high foreign authorities in a corps where punctilious ceremony is very strictly observed. My solution of the difficulty was to write two full ceremonious letters, with all the formal expressions unabridged, and then have these letters telegraphed _in extenso_. This was the only possible solution, as an ordinary telegram would have been entirely out of the question. It being rather expensive to telegraph a very formal letter, the cost added to the appearance of deference, so I had the curious but very real advantage on my side that I made a telegram seem even more deferential than a letter.

The convenience of the letter-writer is consulted in inverse ratio to the appearances of courtesy. In the matter of sealing, for example, that seems so slight and indifferent a concern, a question of ceremony and courtesy is involved. The old-fashioned custom of a large seal with the sender's arms or cipher added to the importance of the contents both by strictly guarding the privacy of the communication and by the dignified assertion of the writer's rank. Besides this, the time that it costs to take a proper impression of a seal shows the absence of hurry and the disposition to sacrifice which are a part of all noble courtesy; whilst the act of rapidly licking the gum on the inside of an envelope and then giving it a thump with your fist to make it stick is neither dignified nor elegant. There were certain beautiful associations with the act of sealing. There was the taper that had to be lighted, and that had its own little candlestick of chased or gilded silver, or delicately painted porcelain; there was the polished and graven stone of the seal, itself more or less precious, and enhanced in value by an art of high antiquity and noble associations, and this graven signet-stone was set in massive gold. The act of sealing was deliberate, to secure a fair impression, and as the wax caught flame and melted it disengaged a delicate perfume. These little things may be laughed at by a generation of practical men of business who know the value of every second, but they had their importance, and have it still, amongst those who possess any delicacy of perception.[30] The reader will remember the sealing of Nelson's letter to the Crown Prince of Denmark during the battle of Copenhagen. "A wafer was given him," says Southey, "but he ordered a candle to be brought from the cockpit, and sealed the letter with wax, _affixing a larger seal than he ordinarily used_. 'This,' said he, 'is no time to appear hurried and informal.'" The story is usually told as a striking example of Nelson's coolness in a time of intense excitement, but it might be told with equal effect as a proof of his knowledge of mankind and of the trifles which have a powerful effect on human intercourse. The preference of wax to a wafer, and especially the deliberate choice of a larger seal as more ceremonious and important, are clear evidence of diplomatic skill. No doubt, too, the impression of Nelson's arms was very careful and clear.

In writing to French Ministers of State it is a traditional custom to employ a certain paper called "papier ministre," which is very much larger than that sent to ordinary mortals. Paper is by no means a matter of indifference. It is the material costume under which we present ourselves to persons removed from us by distance; and as a man pays a call in handsome clothes as a sign of respect to others, and also of self-respect, so he sends a piece of handsome paper to be the bearer of his salutation. Besides, a letter is in itself a gift, though a small one, and however trifling a gift may be it must never be shabby. The English understand this art of choosing good-looking letter-paper, and are remarkable for using it of a thickness rare in other nations. French love of elegance has led to charming inventions of tint and texture, particularly in delicate gray tints, and these papers are now often decorated with embossed initials of heraldic devices on a large scale, but that is carrying prettiness too far. The common American habit of writing letters on ruled paper is not to be recommended, as the ruling reminds us of copy-books and account-books, and has a mechanical appearance that greatly detracts from what ought to be the purely personal air of an autograph.

Modern love of despatch has led to the invention of the post-card, which, from our present point of view, that of courtesy, deserves unhesitating condemnation. To use a post-card is as much as to say to your correspondent, "In order to save for myself a very little money and a very little time, I will expose the subject of our correspondence to the eyes of any clerk, postman, or servant, who feels the slightest curiosity about it; and I take this small piece of card, of which I am allowed to use one side only, in order to relieve myself from the obligation, and spare myself the trouble, of writing a letter." To make the convenience absolutely perfect, it is customary in England to omit the opening and concluding salutations on post-cards, so that they are the _ne plus ultra_, I will not say of positive rudeness, but of that negative rudeness which is not exactly the opposite of courtesy, but its absence. Here again, however, comes the modern principle; and promptitude and frequency of communication may be accepted as a compensation for the sacrifice of formality. It may be argued, and with reason, that when a man of our own day sends a post-card his ancestors would have been still more laconic, for they would have sent nothing at all, and that there are a thousand circumstances in which a post-card may be written when it is not possible to write a letter. A husband on his travels has a supply of such cards in a pocket-book. With these, and his pencil, he writes a line once or twice a day in train or steamboat, or at table between two dishes, or on the windy platform of a railway station, or in the street when he sees a letter-box. He sends fifty such communications where his father would have written three letters, and his grandfather one slowly composed and slowly travelling epistle.

Many modern correspondents appreciate the convenience of the post-card, but their conscience, as that of well-bred people, cannot get over the fault of its publicity. For these the stationers have devised several different substitutes. There is the French plan of what is called "Un Mot à la Poste," a piece of paper with a single fold, gummed round the other three edges, and perforated like postage-stamps for the facility of the opener.[31] There is the miniature sheet of paper that you have not to fold, and there is the card that you enclose in an envelope, and that prepares the reader for a very brief communication. Here, again, is a very curious illustration of the sacrificial nature of courtesy. A card is sent; why a card? Why not a piece of paper of the same size which would hold as many words? The answer is that a card is handsomer and more costly, and from its stiffness a little easier to take out of the envelope, and pleasanter to hold whilst reading, so that a small sacrifice is made to the pleasure and convenience of the receiver, which is the essence of courtesy in letter-writing. All this brief correspondence is the offspring of the electric telegraph. Our forefathers were not used to it, and would have regarded it as an offence. Even at the present date (1884) it is not quite safe to write in our brief modern way to persons who came to maturity before the electric telegraph was in use.

There is a wide distinction between brevity and hurry; in fact, brevity, if of the intelligent kind, is the best preservative against hurry. Some men write short letters, but are very careful to observe all the forms; and they have the great advantage that the apparent importance of the formal expressions is enhanced by the shortness of the letter itself. This is the case in Robert Warcopp's letter to Sir Robert Plumpton.

When hurry really exists, and it is impossible to avoid the appearance of it, as when a letter _cannot_ be brief, yet must be written at utmost speed, the proper course is to apologize for hurry at the beginning and not at the end of the letter. The reader is then propitiated at once, and excuses the slovenly penmanship and style.

It is remarkable that legibility of handwriting should never have been considered as among the essentials of courtesy in correspondence. It is obviously for the convenience of the reader that a letter should be easily read; but here another consideration intervenes. To write very legibly is the accomplishment of clerks and writing-masters, who are usually poor men, and, as such, do not hold a high social position. Aristocratic pride has always had it for a principle to disdain, for itself, the accomplishments of professional men; and therefore a careless scrawl is more aristocratic than a clean handwriting, if the scrawl is of a fashionable kind. Perhaps the historic origin of this feeling may be the scorn of the ignorant mediæval baron for writing of all kinds as beneath the attention of a warrior. In a cultured age there may be a reason of a higher order. It may be supposed that attention to mechanical excellence is incompatible with the action of the intellect; and people are curiously ready to imagine incompatibilities where they do not really exist. As a matter of fact, some men of eminent intellectual gifts write with as exquisite a clearness in the formation of their letters as in the elucidation of their ideas. It is easily forgotten, too, that the same person may use different kinds of handwriting, according to circumstances, like the gentleman whose best hand some people could read, whose middling hand the writer himself could read, and whose worst neither he nor any other human being could decipher. Legouvé, in his exquisite way, tells a charming story of how he astonished a little girl by excelling her in calligraphy. His scribble is all but illegible, and she was laughing at it one day, when he boldly challenged her to a trial. Both sat down and formed their letters with great patience, as in a writing class, and it turned out, to the girl's amazement, that the scribbling Academician had by far the more copperplate-like hand of the two. He then explained that his bad writing was simply the result of speed. Frenchmen provokingly reserve their very worst and most illegible writing for the signature. You are able to read the letter but not the signature, and if there is not some other means of ascertaining the writer's name you are utterly at fault.

The old habit of crossing letters, now happily abandoned, was a direct breach of real, though not of what in former days were conventional, good manners. To cross a letter is as much as to say, "In order to spare myself the cost of another sheet of paper or an extra stamp, I am quite willing to inflict upon you, my reader, the trouble of disengaging one set of lines from another." Very economical people in the past generation saved an occasional penny in another way at the cost of the reader's eyes. They diluted their ink with water, till the recipient of the letter cried, "Prithee, why so pale?"

The modern type-writing machine has the advantage of making all words equally legible; but the receiver of the printed letter is likely to feel on opening it a slight yet perceptible shock of the kind always caused by a want of consideration. The letter so printed is undoubtedly easier to read than all but the very clearest manuscript, and so far it may be considered a politeness to use the instrument; but unluckily it is impersonal, so that the performer on the instrument seems far removed from the receiver of the letter and not in that direct communication with him which would be apparent in an autograph. The effect on the mind is almost like that of a printed circular, or at least of a letter which has been dictated to a short-hand writer.

The dictation of letters is allowable in business, because men of business have to use the utmost attainable despatch, and (like the use of the lead pencil) it is permitted to invalids, but with these exceptions it is sure to produce a feeling of distance almost resembling discourtesy. In the first place, a dictated letter is not strictly private, its contents being already known to the amanuensis; and besides this it is felt that the reason for dictating letters is the composer's convenience, which he ought not to consult so obviously. If he dictates to a short-hand writer he is evidently chary of his valuable time, whereas courtesy always at least _seems_ willing to sacrifice time to others. These remarks, I repeat, have no reference to business correspondence, which has its own code of good manners.

The most irritating letters to receive are those which, under a great show of courtesy, with many phrases and many kind inquiries about your health and that of your household, and even with some news adapted to your taste, contain some short sentence which betrays the fact that the whole letter was written with a manifestly selfish purpose. The proper answer to such letters is a brief business answer to the one essential sentence that revealed the writer's object, not taking any notice whatever of the froth of courteous verbiage.

Is it a part of necessary good breeding to answer letters at all? Are we really, in the nature of things, under the obligation to take a piece of paper and write phrases and sentences thereupon because it has pleased somebody at a distance to spend his time in that manner?

This requires consideration; there can be no general rule. It seems to me that people commit the error of transferring the subject from the region of oral conversation to the region of written intercourse. If a man asked me the way in the street it would be rudeness on my part not to answer him, because the answer is easily given and costs no appreciable time, but in written correspondence the case is essentially different. I am burdened with work; every hour, every minute of my day is apportioned to some definite duty or necessary rest, and three strangers make use of the post to ask me questions. To answer them I must make references; however brief the letters may be they will take time,--altogether the three will consume an hour. Have these correspondents any right to expect me to work an hour for them? Would a cabman drive them about the streets of London during an hour for nothing? Would a waterman pull them an hour on the Thames for nothing? Would a shoe-black brush their boots and trousers an hour for nothing? And why am I to serve these men gratuitously and be called an ill-bred, discourteous person if I tacitly decline to be their servant? We owe sacrifices--occasional sacrifices--of this kind to friends and relations, and we can afford them to a few, but we are under no obligation to answer everybody. Those whom we do answer may be thankful for a word on a post-card in Gladstone's brief but sufficient fashion. I am very much of the opinion of Rudolphe in Ponsard's "L'Honneur et l'Argent." A friend asks him what he does about letters:--

_Rudolphe._ Je les mets Soigneusement en poche et ne réponds jamais. _Premier Ami._ Oh! vous raillez. _Rudolphe._ Non pas. Je ne puis pas admettre Qu'un importun m'oblige à répondre à sa lettre, Et, parcequ'il lui plaît de noircir du papier Me condamne moi-même à ce fâcheux métier.

ESSAY XXIII.

LETTERS OF FRIENDSHIP.

If the art of writing had been unknown till now, and if the invention of it were suddenly to burst upon the world as did that of the telephone, one of the things most generally said in praise of it would be this. It would be said, "What a gain to friendship, now that friends can communicate in spite of separation by the very widest distances!"

Yet we have possessed this means of communication, the fullest and best of all, from remote antiquity, and we scarcely make any use of it--certainly not any use at all responding to its capabilities, and as time goes on, instead of developing those capabilities by practice in the art of friendly correspondence, we allow them to diminish by disuse.

The lowering of cost for the transport of letters, instead of making friendly correspondents numerous, has made them few. The cheap postage-stamp has increased business correspondence prodigiously, but it has had a very different effect on that of friendship. Great numbers of men whose business correspondence is heavy scarcely write letters of friendship at all. Their minds produce the business letter as by a second nature, and are otherwise sterile.

As for the facilities afforded by steam communication with distant countries, they seem to be of little use to friendship, since a moderate distance soon puts a stop to friendly communication. Except in cases of strong affection the Straits of Dover are an effectual though imaginary bar to intercourse of this kind, not to speak of the great oceans.

The impediment created by a narrow sea is, as I have said, imaginary, but we may speculate on the reasons for it; and my own reflections have ended in the somewhat strange conclusion that it must have something to do with sea-sickness. It must be that people dislike the idea of writing a letter that will have to cross a narrow channel of salt-water, because they vaguely and dimly dread the motion of the vessel. Nobody would consciously avow to himself such a sympathy with a missive exempt from all human ills, but the feeling may be unconsciously present. How else are we to account for the remarkable fact that salt-water breaks friendly communication by letter? If you go to live anywhere out of your native island your most intimate friends cease to give any news of themselves. They do not even send printed announcements of the marriages and deaths in their families. This does not imply any cessation of friendly feeling on their part. If you appeared in England again they would welcome you with the utmost kindness and hospitality, but they do not like to post anything that will have to cross the sea. The news-vendors have not the same delicate imaginative sympathy with the possible sufferings of rag-pulp, so you get your English journals and find therein, by pure accident, the marriage of one intimate old friend and the death of another. You excuse the married man, because he is too much intoxicated with happiness to be responsible for any omission; and you excuse the dead man, because he cannot send letters from another world. Still you think that somebody not preoccupied by bridal joys or impeded by the last paralysis might have sent you a line directly, were it only a printed card.

Not only do the writers of letters feel a difficulty in sending their manuscript across the sea, but people appear to have a sense of difficulty in correspondence proportionate to the distance the letter will have to traverse. One would infer that they really experience, by the power of imagination, a feeling of fatigue in sending a letter on a long journey. If this is not so, how are we to account for the fact that the rarity of letters from friends increases in exact proportion to our remoteness from them? A simple person without correspondence would naturally imagine that it would be resorted to as a solace for separation, and that the greater the distance the more the separated friends would desire to be drawn together occasionally by its means, but in practice this rarely happens. People will communicate by letter across a space of a hundred miles when they will not across a thousand.

The very smallest impediments are of importance when the desire for intercourse is languid. The cost of postage to colonies and to countries within the postal union is trifling, but still it is heavier than the cost of internal postage, and it may be unconsciously felt as an impediment. Another slight impediment is that the answer to a letter sent to a great distance cannot arrive next day, so that he who writes in hope of an answer is like a trader who cannot expect an immediate return for an investment.

To prevent friendships from dying out entirely through distance, the French have a custom which seems, but is not, an empty form. On or about New Year's Day they send cards to _all_ friends and many acquaintances, however far away. The useful effects of this custom are the following:--

1. It acquaints you with the fact that your friend is still alive,--pleasing information if you care to see him again.

2. It shows you that he has not forgotten you.

3. It gives you his present address.

4. In case of marriage, you receive his wife's card along with his own; and if he is dead you receive no card at all, which is at least a negative intimation.[32]

This custom has also an effect upon written correspondence, as the printed card affords the opportunity of writing a letter, when, without the address, the letter might not be written. When the address is well known the card often suggests the idea of writing.

When warm friends send visiting-cards they often add a few words of manuscript on the card itself, expressing friendly sentiments and giving a scrap of brief but welcome news.

Here is a suggestion to a generation that thinks friendly letter-writing irksome. With a view to the sparing of time and trouble, which is the great object of modern life (sparing, that is, in order to waste in other ways), cards might be printed as forms of invitation are, leaving only a few blanks to be filled up; or there might be a public signal-book in which the phrases most likely to be useful might be represented by numbers.

The abandonment of letter-writing between friends is the more to be regretted that, unless our friends are public persons, we receive no news of them indirectly; therefore, when we leave their neighborhood, the separation is of that complete kind which resembles temporary death. "No word comes from the dead," and no word comes from those silent friends. It is a melancholy thought in leaving a friend of this kind, when you shake hands at the station and still hear the sound of his voice, that in a few minutes he will be dead to you for months or years. The separation from a corresponding friend is shorn of half its sorrows. You know that he will write, and when he writes it requires little imagination to hear his voice again.

To write, however, is not all. For correspondence to reach its highest value, both friends must have the natural gift of friendly letter-writing, which may be defined as the power of talking on paper in such a manner as to represent their own minds with perfect fidelity in their friendly aspect.

This power is not common. A man may be a charming companion, full of humor and gayety, a well of knowledge, an excellent talker, yet his correspondence may not reveal the possession of these gifts. Some men are so constituted that as soon as they take a pen their faculties freeze. I remember a case of the same congelation in another art. A certain painter had exuberant humor and mimicry, with a marked talent for strong effects in talk; in short, he had the gifts of an actor, and, as Pius VII. called Napoleon I., he was both _commediante_ and _tragediante_. Any one who knew him, and did not know his paintings, would have supposed at once that a man so gifted must have painted the most animated works; but it so happened (from some cause in the deepest mysteries of his nature) that whenever he took up a brush or a pencil his humor, his tragic power, and his love of telling effects all suddenly left him, and he was as timid, slow, sober, and generally ineffectual in his painting as he was full of fire and energy in talk. So it is in writing. That which ought to be the pouring forth of a man's nature often liberates only a part of his nature, and perhaps that part which has least to do with friendship. Your friend delights you by his ease and affectionate charm of manner, by the happiness of his expressions, by his wit, by the extent of his information, all these being qualities that social intercourse brings out in him as colors are revealed by light. The same man, in dull solitude at his desk, may write a letter from which every one of these qualities may be totally absent, and instead of them he may offer you a piece of perfunctory duty-writing which, as you see quite plainly, he only wanted to get done with, and in which you do not find a trace of your friend's real character. Such correspondence as that is worth having only so far as it informs you of your friend's existence and of his health.

Another and a very different way in which a man may represent himself unfairly in correspondence, so that his letters are not his real self, is when he finds that he has some particular talent as a writer, and unconsciously cultivates that talent when he holds a pen, whereas his real self has many other qualities that remain unrepresented. In this way humor may become the dominant quality in the letters of a correspondent whose conversation is not dominantly humorous.

Habits of business sometimes produce the effect that the confirmed business correspondent will write to his friend willingly and promptly on any matter of business, and will give him excellent advice, and be glad of the opportunity of rendering him a service, but he will shrink from the unaccustomed effort of writing any other kind of letter.

There is a strong temptation to blame silent friends and praise good correspondents; but we do not reflect that letter-writing is a task to some and a pleasure to others, and that if people may sometimes be justly blamed for shirking a _corvée_ they can never deserve praise for indulging in an amusement. There is a particular reason why, when friendly letter-writing is a task, it is more willingly put off than many other tasks that appear far heavier and harder. It is either a real pleasure or a feigned pleasure, and feigned pleasures are the most wearisome things in life, far more wearisome than acknowledged work. For in work you have a plain thing to do and you see the end of it, and there is no need for ambages at the beginning or for a graceful retiring at the close; but a feigned pleasure has its own observances that must be gone through whether one has any heart for them or not. The groom who cleans a rich man's stable, and whistles at his work, is happier than the guest at a state dinner who is trying to look other than what he is,--a wearied victim of feigned and formal pleasure with a set false smile upon his face. In writing a business letter you have nothing to affect; but a letter of friendship, unless you have the real inspiration for it, is a narrative of things you have no true impulse to narrate, and the expression of feelings which (even if they be in some degree existent) you do not earnestly desire to utter.

The sentiment of friendship is in general rather a quiet feeling of regard than any lively enthusiasm. It may be counted upon for what it is,--a disposition to receive the friend with a welcome or to render him an occasional service, but there is not, commonly, enough of it to be a perennial warm fountain of literary inspiration. Therefore the worst mistake in dealing with a friend is to reproach him for not having been cordial and communicative enough. Sometimes this reproach is made, especially by women, and the immediate effect of it is to close whatever communicativeness there may be. If the friend wrote little before being reproached he will write less after.

The true inspiration of the friendly letter is the perfect faith that all the concerns of the writer will interest his friend. If James, who is separated by distance from John, thinks that John will not care about what James has been doing, hoping, suffering, the fount of friendly correspondence is frozen at its source. James ought to believe that John loves him enough to care about every little thing that can affect his happiness, even to the sickness of his old horse or the accident that happened to his dog when the scullery-maid threw scalding water out of the kitchen window; then there will be no lack, and James will babble on innocently through many a page, and never have to think.

The believer in friendship, he who has the true undoubting faith, writes with perfect carelessness about great things and small, avoiding neither serious interests, as a wary man would, nor trivial ones that might be passed over by a writer avaricious of his time. William of Orange, in his letters to Bentinck, appears to have been the model of friendly correspondents; and he was so because his letters reflected not a part only of his thinking and living, but the whole of it, as if nothing that concerned him could possibly be without interest for the man he loved. Familiar as it must be to many readers, I cannot but quote a passage from Macaulay:

"The descendants of Bentinck still preserve many letters written by William to their master, and it is not too much to say that no person who has not studied those letters can form a correct notion of the Prince's character. He whom even his admirers generally accounted the most frigid and distant of men here forgets all distinctions of rank, and pours out all his thoughts with the ingenuousness of a schoolboy. He imparts without reserve secrets of the highest moment. He explains with perfect simplicity vast designs affecting all the governments of Europe. Mingled with his communications on such subjects are other communications of a very different but perhaps not of a less interesting kind. All his adventures, all his personal feelings, his long runs after enormous stags, his carousals on St. Hubert's Day, the growth of his plantations, the failure of his melons, the state of his stud, his wish to procure an easy pad-nag for his wife, his vexation at learning that one of his household, after ruining a girl of good family, refused to marry her, his fits of sea-sickness, his coughs, his headaches, his devotional moods, his gratitude for the Divine protection after a great escape, his struggles to submit himself to the Divine will after a disaster, are described with an amiable garrulity hardly to have been expected from the most discreetly sedate statesman of his age. Still more remarkable is the careless effusion of his tenderness, and the brotherly interest which he takes in his friend's domestic felicity."

Friendly letters easily run over from sheet to sheet till they become ample and voluminous. I received a welcome epistle of twenty pages recently, and have seen another from a young man to his comrade which exceeded fifty; but the grandest letter that I ever heard of was from Gustave Doré to a very old lady whom he liked. He was travelling in Switzerland, and sent her a letter eighty pages long, full of lively pen-sketches for her entertainment. Artists often insert sketches in their letters,--a graceful habit, as it adds to their interest and value.

The talent for scribbling friendly letters implies some rough literary power, but may coexist with other literary powers of a totally different kind, and, as it seems, in perfect independence of them. There is no apparent connection between the genius in "Childe Harold," "Manfred," "Cain," and the talent of a lively letter-writer, yet Byron was the best careless letter-writer in English whose correspondence has been published and preserved. He said "dreadful is the exertion of letter-writing," but by this he must have meant the first overcoming of indolence to begin the letter, for when once in motion his pen travelled with consummate naturalness and ease, and the exertion is not to be perceived. The length and subject of his communications were indeterminate. He scribbled on and on, every passing mood being reflected and fixed forever in his letters, which complete our knowledge of him by showing us the action of his mind in ordinal times as vividly as the poems display its power in moments of highest exaltation. We follow his mental phases from minute to minute. He is not really in one state and pretending to be in another for form's sake, so you have all his moods, and the letters are alive. The transitions are quick as thought. He darts from one topic to another with the freedom and agility of a bird, dwelling on each just long enough to satisfy his present need, but not an instant longer, and this without any reference to the original subject or motive of the letter. He is one of those perfect correspondents _qui causent avec la plume_. Men, women, and things, comic and tragic adventures, magnificent scenery, historical cities, all that his mind spontaneously notices in the world, are touched upon briefly, yet with consummate power. Though the sentences were written in the most careless haste and often in the strangest situations, many a paragraph is so dense in its substance, so full of matter, that one could not abridge it without loss. But the supreme merit of Byron's letters is that they record his own sensations with such fidelity. What do I, the receiver of a letter, care for second-hand opinions about anything? I can hear the fashionable opinions from echoes innumerable. What I _do_ want is a bit of my friend himself, of his own peculiar idiosyncrasy, and if I get _that_ it matters nothing that his feelings and opinions should be different from mine; nay, the more they differ from mine the more freshness and amusement they bring me. All Byron's correspondents might be sure of getting a bit of the real Byron. He never describes anything without conveying the exact effect upon himself. Writing to his publisher from Rome in 1817, he gives in a single paragraph a powerful description of the execution of three robbers by the guillotine (rather too terrible to quote), and at the end of it comes the personal effect:--

"The pain seems little, and yet the effect to the spectator and the preparation to the criminal are very striking and chilling. The first turned me quite hot and thirsty, and made me shake so that I could hardly hold the opera-glass (I was close, but was determined to see as one should see everything once, with attention); the second and third (which shows how dreadfully soon things grow indifferent), I am ashamed to say, had no effect on me as a horror, though I would have saved them if I could."

How accurately this experience is described with no affectation of impassible courage (he trembles at first like a woman) or of becoming emotion afterwards, the instant that the real emotion ceased! Only some pity remains,--"I would have saved them if I could."

The bits of frank criticism thrown into his letters, often quite by chance, were not the least interesting elements in Byron's correspondence. Here is an example, about a book that had been sent him:--

"Modern Greece--good for nothing; written by some one who has never been there, and, not being able to manage the Spenser stanza, has invented a thing of his own, consisting of two elegiac stanzas, an heroic line and an Alexandrine, twisted on a string. Besides, why _modern_? You may say _modern Greeks_, but surely _Greece_ itself is rather more ancient than ever it was."

The carelessness of Byron in letter-writing, his total indifference to proportion and form, his inattention to the beginning, middle, and end of a letter, considered as a literary composition, are not to be counted for faults, as they would be in writings of any pretension. A friendly letter is, by its nature, a thing without pretension. The one merit of it which compensates for every defect is to carry the living writer into the reader's presence, such as he really is, not such as by study and art he might make himself out to be. Byron was energetic, impetuous, impulsive, quickly observant, disorderly, generous, open-hearted, vain. All these qualities and defects are as conspicuous in his correspondence as they were in his mode of life. There have been better letter-writers as to literary art,--to which he gave no thought,--and the literary merits that his letters possess (their clearness, their force of narrative and description, their conciseness) are not the results of study, but the characteristics of a vigorous mind.

The absolutely best friendly letter-writer known to me is Victor Jacquemont. He, too, wrote according to the inspiration of the moment, but it was so abundant that it carried him on like a steadily flowing tide. His letters are wonderfully sustained, yet they are not _composed_; they are as artless as Byron's, but much more full and regular. Many scribblers have facility, a flux of words, but who has Jacquemont's weight of matter along with it? The development of his extraordinary epistolary talent was due to another talent deprived of adequate exercise by circumstances. Jacquemont was by nature a brilliant, charming, amiable talker, and the circumstances were various situations in which this talker was deprived of an audience, being often, in long wanderings, surrounded by dull or ignorant people. Ideas accumulated in his mind till the accumulation became difficult to bear, and he relieved himself by talking on paper to friends at a distance, but intentionally only to one friend at a time. He tried to forget that his letters were passed round a circle of readers, and the idea that they would be printed never once occurred to him:--

"En écrivant aujourd'hui aux uns et aux autres, j'ai cherché à oublier ce que tu me dis de l'échange que chacun fait des lettres qu'il reçoit de moi. Cette pensée m'aurait retenu la plume, ou du moins, _ne l'aurait pas laissée couler assez nonchalamment sur le papier pour en noircir, en un jour, cinquante-huit feuilles_, comme je l'ai fait.... _Je sais et j'aime beaucoup causer à deux; à trois, c'est autre chose; il en est de même pour écrire._ Pour parler comme je pense et sans blague, _il me faut la persuasion que je ne serai lu que de celui à qui j'écris_."

To read these letters, in the four volumes of them which have been happily preserved, is to live with the courageous observer from day to day, to share pleasures enjoyed with the freshness of sensation that belongs to youth and strength, and privations borne with the cheerfulness of a truly heroic spirit.

This Essay would run to an inordinate length if I even mentioned the best of the many letter-writers who are known to us; and it is generally by some adventitious circumstance that they have ever been known at all. A man wins fame in something quite outside of letter-writing, and then his letters are collected and given to the world, but perfectly obscure people may have been equal or superior to him as correspondents. Occasionally the letters of some obscure person are rescued from oblivion. Madame de Rémusat passed quietly through life, and is now in a blaze of posthumous fame. Her son decided upon the publication of her letters, and then it became at once apparent that this lady had extraordinary gifts of the observing and recording order, so that her testimony, as an eye-witness of rare intelligence, must affect all future estimates of the conqueror of Austerlitz. There may be at this moment, there probably are, persons to whom the world attributes no literary talent, yet who are cleverly preserving the very best materials of history in careless letters to their friends.

It seems an indiscretion to read private letters, even when they are in print, but it is an indiscretion we cannot help committing. What can be more private than a letter from a man to his wife on purely family matters? Surely it is wrong to read such letters; but who could repent having read that exquisite one from Tasso's father, Bernardo Tasso, written to his wife about the education of their children during an involuntary separation? It shows to what a degree a sheet of paper may be made the vehicle of a tender affection. In the first page he tries, and, lover-like, tries again and again, to find words that will draw them together in spite of distance. "Not merely often," he says, "but continually our thoughts must meet upon the road." He expresses the fullest confidence that her feelings for him are as strong and true as his own for her, and that the weariness of separation is painful alike for both, only he fears that she will be less able to bear the pain, not because she is wanting in prudence but by reason of her abounding love. At length the tender kindness of his expressions culminates in one passionate outburst, "poi ch' io amo voi in quello estremo grado che si possa amar cosa mortale."

It would be difficult to find a stronger contrast than that between Bernardo Tasso's warmth and the tranquil coolness of Montaigne, who just says enough to save appearances in that one conjugal epistle of his which has come down to us. He begins by quoting a sceptical modern view of marriage, and then briefly disclaims it for himself, but does not say exactly what his own sentiments may be, not having much ardor of affection to express, and honestly avoiding any feigned declarations:--

"Ma Femme vous entendez bien que ce n'est pas le tour d'vn galand homme, aux reigles de ce temps icy, de vous courtiser & caresser encore. Car ils disent qu'vn habil homme peut bien prendre femme: mais que de l'espouser c'est à faire à vn sot. Laissons les dire: ie me tiens de ma part à la simple façon du vieil aage, aussi en porte-ie tantost le poil. Et de vray la nouuelleté couste si cher iusqu'à ceste heure à ce pauure estat (& si ie ne sçay si nous en sommes à la dernière enchere) qu'en tout & par tout i'en quitte le party. Viuons ma femme, vous & moy, à la vieille Françoise."

If friendship is maintained by correspondence, it is also liable to be imperilled by it. Not unfrequently have men parted on the most amiable terms, looking forward to a happy meeting, and not foreseeing the evil effects of letters. Something will be written by one of them, not quite acceptable to the other, who will either remonstrate and cause a rupture in that way, or take his trouble silently and allow friendship to die miserably of her wound. Much experience is needed before we entirely realize the danger of friendly intercourse on paper. It is ten times more difficult to maintain a friendship by letter than by personal intercourse, not for the obvious reason that letter-writing requires an effort, but because as soon as there is the slightest divergence of views or difference in conduct, the expression of it or the account of it in writing cannot be modified by kindness in the eye or gentleness in the tone of voice. My friend may say almost anything to me in his private room, because whatever passes his lips will come with tones that prove him to be still my friend; but if he wrote down exactly the same words, and a postman handed me the written paper, they might seem hard, unkind, and even hostile. It is strange how slow we are to discover this in practice. We are accustomed to speak with great freedom to intimate friends, and it is only after painful mishaps that we completely realize the truth that it is perilous to permit ourselves the same liberty with the pen. As soon as we _do_ realize it we see the extreme folly of those who timidly avoid the oral expression of friendly censure, and afterwards write it all out in black ink and send it in a missive to the victim when he has gone away. He receives the letter, feels it to be a cold cruelty, and takes refuge from the vexations of friendship in the toils of business, thanking Heaven that in the region of plain facts there is small place for sentiment.

ESSAY XXIV.

LETTERS OF BUSINESS.

The possibilities of intercourse by correspondence are usually underestimated.

That there are great natural differences of talent for letter-writing is certainly true; but it is equally true that there are great natural differences of talent for oral explanation, yet, although we constantly hear people say that this or that matter of business cannot be treated by correspondence, we _never_ hear them say that it cannot be treated by personal interviews. The value of the personal interview is often as much over-estimated as that of letters is depreciated; for if some men do best with the tongue, others are more effective with the pen.

It is presumed that there is nothing in correspondence to set against the advantages of pouring forth many words without effort, and of carrying on an argument rapidly; but the truth is, that correspondence has peculiar advantages of its own. A hearer seldom grasps another person's argument until it has been repeated several times, and if the argument is of a very complex nature the chances are that he will not carry away all its points even then. A letter is a document which a person of slow abilities can study at his leisure, until he has mastered it; so that an elaborate piece of reasoning may be set forth in a letter with a fair chance that such a person will ultimately understand it. He will read the letter three or four times on the day of its arrival, then he will still feel that something may have escaped him, and he will read it again next day. He will keep it and refer to it afterwards to refresh his memory. He can do nothing of all this with what you say to him orally. His only resource in that case is to write down a memorandum of the conversation on your departure, in which he will probably make serious omissions or mistakes. Your letter is a memorandum of a far more direct and authentic kind.

Appointments are sometimes made in order to settle a matter of business by talking, and after the parties have met and talked for a long time one says to the other, "I will write to you in a day or two;" and the other instantly agrees with the proposal, from a feeling that the matter can be settled more clearly by letter than by oral communication.

In these cases it may happen that the talking has cleared the way for the letter,--that it has removed subjects of doubt, hesitation, or dispute, and left only a few points on which the parties are very nearly agreed.

There are, however, other cases, which have sometimes come under my own observation, in which men meet by appointment to settle a matter, and then seem afraid to cope with it, and talk about indifferent subjects with a half-conscious intention of postponing the difficult one till there is no longer time to deal with it on that day. They then say, when they separate, "We will settle that matter by correspondence," as if they could not have done so just as easily without giving themselves the trouble of meeting. In such cases as these the reason for avoiding the difficult subject is either timidity or indolence. Either the parties do not like to face each other in an opposition that may become a verbal combat, or else they have not decision and industry enough to do a hard day's work together; so they procrastinate, that they may spread the work over a larger space of time.

The timidity that shrinks from a personal encounter is sometimes the cause of hostile letter-writing about matters of business even when personal interviews are most easy. There are instances of disputes by letter between people who live in the same town, in the same street, and even in the same house, and who might quarrel with their tongues if they were not afraid, but fear drives them to fight from a certain distance, as it requires less personal courage to fire a cannon at an enemy a league away than to face his naked sword.

Timidity leads people to write letters and to avoid them. Some timorous people feel bolder with a pen; others, on the contrary, are extremely afraid of committing anything to paper, either because written words remain and may be referred to afterwards, or because they may be read by eyes they were never intended for, or else because the letter-writer feels doubtful about his own powers in composition, grammar, or spelling.

Of these reasons against doing business by letter the second is really serious. You write about your most strictly private affairs, and unless the receiver of the letter is a rigidly careful and orderly person, it may be read by his clerks or servants. You may afterwards visit the recipient and find the letter lying about on a disorderly desk, or stuck on a hook suspended from a wall, or thrust into a lockless drawer; and as the letter is no longer your property, and you have not the resource of destroying it, you will keenly appreciate the wisdom of those who avoid letter-writing when they can.

The other cause of timidity, the apprehension that some fault may be committed, some sin against literary taste or grammatical rule, has a powerful effect as a deterrent from even necessary business correspondence. The fear which a half-educated person feels that he will commit faults causes a degree of hesitation which is enough of itself to produce them; and besides this cause of error there is the want of practice, also caused by timidity, for persons who dread letter-writing practise it as little as possible.

The awkwardness of uneducated letter-writers is a most serious cause of anxiety to people who are compelled to intrust the care of things to uneducated dependants at a distance. Such care-takers, instead of keeping you regularly informed of the state of affairs as an intelligent correspondent would, write rarely, and they have such difficulty in imagining the necessary ignorance of one who is not on the spot, that the information they give you is provokingly incomplete on some most important points.

An uneducated agent will write to you and tell you, for example, that damage has occurred to something of yours, say a house, a carriage, or a yacht, but he will not tell you its exact nature or extent, and he will leave you in a state of anxious conjecture. If you question him by letter, he will probably miss what is most essential in your questions, so that you will have great difficulty in getting at the exact truth. After much trouble you will perhaps have to take the train and go to see the extent of damage for yourself, though it might have been described to you quite accurately in a short letter by an intelligent man of business.

Nothing is more wonderful than the mistakes in following written directions that can be committed by uneducated men. With clear directions in the most legible characters before their eyes they will quietly go and do something entirely different, and appear unfeignedly surprised when you show them the written directions afterwards. In these cases it is probable that they have unconsciously substituted a notion of their own for your idea, which is the common process of what the uneducated consider to be understanding things.

The extreme facility with which this is done may be illustrated by an example. The well-known French _savant_ and inventor, Ruolz, whose name is famous in connection with electro-plating, turned his attention to paper for roofing and, as he perceived the defects of the common bituminous papers, invented another in which no bitumen was employed. This he advertised constantly and extensively as the "Carton _non_ bitumé Ruolz," consequently every one calls it the "Carton bitumé Ruolz." The reason here is that the notion of papers for roofs was already so associated in the French mind with bitumen, that it was absolutely impossible to effect the disjunction of the two ideas.

Instances have occurred to everybody in which the consequence of warning a workman that he is not to do some particular thing, is that he goes and does it, when if nothing had been said on the subject he might, perchance, have avoided it. Here are two good instances of this, but I have met with many others. I remember ordering a binder to bind some volumes with red edges, specially stipulating that he was not to use aniline red. He therefore carefully stained the edges with aniline. I also remember writing to a painter that he was to stain some new fittings of a boat with a transparent glaze of raw sienna, and afterwards varnish them, and that he was to be careful _not_ to use opaque paint anywhere. I was at a great distance from the boat and could not superintend the work. In due time I visited the boat and discovered that a foul tint of opaque paint had been employed everywhere on the new fittings, without any glaze or varnish whatever, in spite of the fact that old fittings, partially retained, were still there, with mellow transparent stain and varnish, in the closest juxtaposition with the hideous thick new daubing.

It is the evil of mediocrity in fortune to have frequently to trust to uneducated agents. Rich men can employ able representatives, and in this way they can inform themselves accurately of what occurs to their belongings at a distance. Without riches, however, we may sometimes have a friend on the spot who will see to things for us, which is one of the kindest offices of friendship. The most efficient friend is one who will not only look to matters of detail, but will take the trouble to inform you accurately about them, and for this he must be a man of leisure. Such a friend often spares one a railway journey by a few clear lines of report or explanation. Judging from personal experience, I should say that retired lawyers and retired military officers were admirably adapted to render this great service efficiently, and I should suppose that a man who had retired from busy commercial life would be scarcely less useful, but I should not hope for precision in one who had always been unoccupied, nor should I expect many details from one who was much occupied still. The first would lack training and experience; the second would lack leisure.

The talent for accuracy in affairs may be distinct from literary talent and education, and though we have been considering the difficulty of corresponding on matters of business with the uneducated, we must not too hastily infer that because a man is inaccurate in spelling, and inelegant in phraseology, he may not be an agreeable and efficient business correspondent. There was a time when all the greatest men of business in England were uncertain spellers. Clear expression and completeness of statement are more valuable than any other qualities in a business correspondent. I sometimes have to correspond with a tradesman in Paris who rose from an humble origin and scarcely produces what a schoolmaster would consider a passable letter; yet his letters are models in essential qualities, as he always removes by plain statements or questions every possibility of a mistake, and if there is any want of absolute precision in my orders he is sure to find out the deficiency, and to call my attention to it sharply.

The habit of _not acknowledging orders_ is one of the worst negative vices in business correspondence. It is most inconveniently common in France, but happily much rarer in England. Where this vice prevails you cannot tell whether the person you wish to employ has read your order or not; and if you suppose him to have read it, you have no reason to feel sure that he has understood it, or will execute it in time.

It is a great gain to the writer of letters to be able to make them brief and clear at the same time, but as there is obscurity in a labyrinth of many words so there may be another kind of obscurity from their paucity,--that kind which Horace alluded to with reference to poetry,--

"Brevis esse laboro Obscurus fio."

Sometimes one additional word would spare the reader a doubt or a misunderstanding. This is likely to become more and more the dominant fault of correspondence as it imitates the brevity of the telegram.

Observe the interesting use of the word _laboro_ by Horace. You may, in fact, _labor_ to be brief, although the result is an appearance of less labor than if you had written at ease. It may take more time to write a very short letter than one of twice the length, the only gain in this case being to the receiver.

Letters of business often appear to be written in the most rapid and careless haste; the writing is almost illegible from its speed, the composition slovenly, the letter brief. And yet such a letter may have cost hours of deliberate reflection before one word of it was committed to paper. It is the rapid registering of a slowly matured decision.

It is a well-known principle of modern business correspondence that if a letter refers only to one subject it is more likely to receive attention than if it deals with several; therefore if you have several different orders or directions to give it is bad policy to write them all at once, unless you are absolutely compelled to do so because they are all equally pressing. Even if there is the same degree of urgency for all, yet a practical impossibility that all should be executed at the same time, it is still the best policy to give your orders successively and not more quickly than they can be executed. The only danger of this is that the receiver of the orders may think at first that they are small matters in which postponement signifies little, as they can be executed at any time. To prevent this he should be strongly warned at first that the order will be rapidly followed by several others. If there is not the same degree of urgency for all, the best way is to make a private register of the different matters in the order of their urgency, and then to write several short notes, at intervals, one about each thing.

People have such a marvellous power of misunderstanding even the very plainest directions that a business letter never _can_ be made too clear. It will, indeed, frequently happen that language itself is not clear enough for the purposes of explanation without the help of drawing, and drawing may not be clear to one who has not been educated to understand it, which compels you to have recourse to modelling. In these cases the task of the letter-writer is greatly simplified, as he has nothing to do but foresee and prevent any misunderstanding of the drawing or model.

Every material thing constructed by mankind may be explained by the three kinds of mechanical drawing,--plan, section, and elevation,--but the difficulty, is that so many people are unable to understand plans and sections; they only understand elevations, and not always even these. The special incapacity to understand plans and sections is common in every rank of society, and it is not uncommon even in the practical trades. All letter-writing that refers to material construction would be immensely simplified if, by a general rule in popular and other education, every future man and woman in the country were taught enough about mechanical drawing to be able at least to _read_ it.

It is delightful to correspond about construction with any trained architect or engineer, because to such a correspondent you can explain everything briefly, with the perfect certainty of being accurately understood. It is terrible toil to have to explain construction by letter to a man who does not understand mechanical drawing; and when you have given great labor to your explanation, it is the merest chance whether he will catch your meaning or not. The evil does not stop at mechanical drawing. Not only do uneducated people misunderstand a mechanical plan or section, but they are quite as liable to misunderstand a perspective drawing, as the great architect and draughtsman Viollet-le-Duc charmingly exemplified by the work of an intelligent child. A little boy had drawn a cat as he had seen it in front with its tail standing up, and this front view was stupidly misunderstood by a mature _bourgeois_, who thought the animal was a biped (as the hind-legs were hidden), and believed the erect tail to be some unknown object sticking out of the nondescript creature's head. If you draw a board in perspective (other than isometrical) a workman is quite likely to think that one end of it is to be narrower than the other.

Business correspondence in foreign languages is a very simple matter when it deals only with plain facts, and it does not require any very extensive knowledge of the foreign tongue to write a common order; but if any delicate or complicated matter has to be explained, or if touchy sensitiveness in the foreigner has to be soothed by management and tact, then a thorough knowledge of the shades of expression is required, and this is extremely rare. The statement of bare facts, or the utterance of simple wants, is indeed only a part of business correspondence, for men of business, though they are not supposed to display sentiment in affairs, are in reality just as much human beings as other men, and consequently they have feelings which are to be considered. A correspondent who is able to write a foreign language with delicacy and tact will often attain his object when one with a ruder and more imperfect knowledge of the language would meet with certain failure, though he asked for exactly the same thing.

It is surety possible to be civil and even polite in business correspondence without using the deplorable commercial slang which exists, I believe, in every modern language. The proof that such abstinence is possible is that some of the most efficient and most active men of business never have recourse to it at all. This commercial slang consists in the substitution of conventional terms originally intended to be more courteous than plain English, French, etc., but which, in fact, from their mechanical use, become wholly destitute of that best politeness which is personal, and does not depend upon set phrases that can be copied out of a tradesman's model letter-writer. Anybody but a tradesman calls your letter a letter; why should an English tradesman call it "your favor," and a French one "_votre honorée_"? A gentleman writing in the month of May speaks of April, May, and June, when a tradesman carefully avoids the names of the months, and calls them _ultimo_, _courant_, and _proximo_; whilst instead of saying "by" or "according to," like other Englishmen, he says _per_. This style was touched upon by Scott in Provost Crosbie's letter to Alexander Fairford: "Dear Sir--Your _respected favor_ of 25th _ultimo_, _per_ favor of Mr. Darsie Latimer, reached me in safety." This is thought to be a finished commercial style. One sometimes meets with the most astonishing and complicated specimens of it, which the authors are evidently proud of as proofs of their high commercial training. I regret not to have kept some fine examples of these, as their perfections are far beyond all imitation. This is not surprising when we reflect that the very worst commercial style is the result of a striving by many minds, during several generations, after a preposterous ideal.

Tradesmen deserve credit for understanding the one element of courtesy in letter-writing which has been neglected by gentlemen. They value legible handwriting, and they print clear names and addresses on their letter-paper, by which they spare much trouble.

Before closing this chapter let me say something about the reading of business letters as well as the writing of them. It is, perhaps, a harder duty to read such letters with the necessary degree of attention than to compose them, for the author has his head charged with the subject, and writing the letter is a relief to him; but to the receiver the matter is new, and however lucid may be the exposition it always requires some degree of real attention on his part. How are you, being at a distance, to get an indolent man to bestow that necessary attention? He feels secure from a personal visit, and indulges his indolence by neglecting your concerns, even when they are also his own. Long ago I heard an English Archdeacon tell the following story about his Bishop. The prelate was one of that numerous class of men who loathe the sight of a business letter; and he had indulged his indolence in that respect to such a degree that, little by little, he had arrived at the fatal stage where one leaves letters unopened for days or weeks. At one particular time the Archdeacon was aware of a great arrear of unopened letters, and impressed his lordship with the necessity for taking some note of their contents. Yielding to a stronger will, the Bishop began to read; and one of the first communications was from a wealthy man who offered a large sum for church purposes (I think for building), but if the offer was not accepted within a certain lapse of time he declared his intention of making it to that which a Bishop loveth not--a dissenting community. The prelate had opened the letter too late, and he lost the money. I believe that the Archdeacon's vexation at the loss was more than counterbalanced by gratification that his hierarchical superior had received such a lesson for his neglect. Yet he did but imitate Napoleon, of whom Emerson says, "He directed Bourrienne to leave all letters unopened for three weeks, and then observed with satisfaction how large a part of the correspondence had disposed of itself and no longer required an answer." This is a very unsafe system to adopt, as the case of the Bishop proves. Things may "dispose of themselves" in the wrong way, like wine in a leaky cask, which, instead of putting itself carefully into a sound cask, goes trickling into the earth.

The indolence of some men in reading and answering letters of business would be incredible if they did not give clear evidence of it. The most remarkable example that ever came under my notice is the following. A French artist, not by any means in a condition of superfluous prosperity, exhibited a picture at the _Salon_. He waited in Paris till after the opening of the exhibition and then went down into the country. On the day of his departure he received letters from two different collectors expressing a desire to purchase his work, and asking its price. Any real man of business would have seized upon such an opportunity at once. He would have answered both letters, stayed in town, and contrived to set the two amateurs bidding against each other. The artist in question was one of those unaccountable mortals who would rather sacrifice all their chances of life than indite a letter of business, so he left both inquiries unanswered, saying that if the men had really wanted the picture they would have called to see him. He never sold it, and some time afterwards was obliged to give up his profession, quite as much from the lack of promptitude in affairs as from any artistic deficiency.

Sometimes letters of business are _read_, but read so carelessly that it would be better if they were thrown unopened into the fire. I have seen some astounding instances of this, and, what is most remarkable, of repeated and incorrigible carelessness in the same person or firm, compelling one to the conclusion that in corresponding with that person or that firm the clearest language, the plainest writing, and the most legible numerals, are all equally without effect. I am thinking particularly of one case, intimately known to me in all its details, in which a business correspondence of some duration was finally abandoned, after infinite annoyance, for the simple reason that it was impossible to get the members of the firm, or their representatives, to attend to written orders with any degree of accuracy. Even whilst writing this very Essay I have given an order with regard to which I foresaw a probable error. Knowing by experience that a probable error is almost certain if steps are not taken energetically to prevent it, I requested that this error might not be committed, and to attract more attention to my request I wrote the paragraph containing it in red ink,--a very unusual precaution. The foreseen error was accurately committed.

ESSAY XXV.

ANONYMOUS LETTERS.

Probably few of my mature readers have attained middle age without receiving a number of anonymous letters. Such letters are not always offensive, sometimes they are amusing, sometimes considerate and kind, yet there is in all cases a feeling of annoyance on receiving them, because the writer has made himself inaccessible to a reply. It is as if a man in a mask whispered a word in your ear and then vanished suddenly in a crowd. You wish to answer a calumny or acknowledge a kindness, and you may talk to the winds and streams.

Anonymous letters of the worst kind have a certain value to the student of human nature, because they afford him glimpses of the evil spirit that disguises itself under the fair seemings of society. You believe with childlike simplicity and innocence that, as you have never done any intentional injury to a human being, you cannot have a human enemy, and you make the startling discovery that somewhere in the world, perhaps even amongst the smiling people you meet at dances and dinners, there are creatures who will have recourse to the foulest slanders if thereby they may hope to do you an injury. What _can_ you have done to excite such bitter animosity? You may both have done much and neglected much. You may have had some superiority of body, mind, or fortune; you may have neglected to soothe some jealous vanity by the flattery it craved with a tormenting hunger.

The simple fact that you seem happier than Envy thinks you ought to be is of itself enough to excite a strong desire to diminish your offensive happiness or put an end to it entirely. That is the reason why people who are going to be married receive anonymous letters. If they are not really happy they have every appearance of being happy, which is not less intolerable. The anonymous letter-writer seeks to put a stop to such a state of things. He might go to one of the parties and slander the other openly, but it would require courage to do that directly to his face. A letter might be written, but if name and address were given there would come an inconvenient demand for proofs. One course remains, offering that immunity from consequences which is soothing to the nerves of a coward. The envious or jealous man can throw his vitriol in the dark and slip away unperceived--_he can write an anonymous letter_.

Has the reader ever really tried to picture to himself the state of that man's or woman's mind (for women write these things also) who can sit down, take a sheet of paper, make a rough draft of an anonymous letter, copy it out in a very legible yet carefully disguised hand, and make arrangements for having it posted at a distance from the place where it was written? Such things are constantly done. At this minute there are a certain number of men and women in the world who are vile enough to do all that simply in order to spoil the happiness of some person whom they regard with "envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness." I see in my mind's eye the gentleman--the man having all the apparent delicacy and refinement of a gentleman--who is writing a letter intended to blast the character of an acquaintance. Perhaps he meets that acquaintance in society, and shakes hands with him, and pretends to take an interest in his health. Meanwhile he secretly reflects upon the particular sort of calumny that will have the greatest degree of verisimilitude. Everything depends upon his talent in devising the most _credible_ sort of calumny,--not the calumny most likely to meet general credence, but that which is most likely to be believed by the person to whom it is addressed, and most likely to do injury when believed. The anonymous calumniator has the immense advantage on his side that most people are prone to believe evil, and that good people are unfortunately the most prone, as they hate evil so intensely that even the very phantom of it arouses their anger, and they too frequently do not stop to inquire whether it is a phantom or a reality. The clever calumniator is careful not to go too far; he will advance something that might be or that might have been; he does not love _le vrai_, but he is a careful student of _le vraisemblable_. He will assume an appearance of reluctance, he will drop hints more terrible than assertions, because they are vague, mysterious, disquieting. When he thinks he has done enough he stops in time; he has inoculated the drop of poison, and can wait till it takes effect.

It must be rather an anxious time for the anonymous letter-writer when he has sent off his missive. In the nature of things he cannot receive an answer, and it is not easy for him to ascertain very soon what has been the result of his enterprise. If he has been trying to prevent a marriage he does not know immediately if the engagement is broken off, and if it is not broken off he has to wait till the wedding-day before he is quite sure of his own failure, and to suffer meanwhile from hope deferred and constantly increasing apprehension. If the rupture occurs he has a moment of Satanic joy, but it _may_ be due to some other cause than the success of his own calumny, so that he is never quite sure of having himself attained his object.

It is believed that most people who are engaged to be married receive anonymous letters recommending them to break off the match. Not only are such letters addressed to the betrothed couple themselves, but also to their relations. If there is not a doubt that the statements in such letters are purely calumnious, the right course is to destroy them immediately and never allude to them afterwards; but if there is the faintest shadow of a doubt--if there is the vaguest feeling that there may be _some_ ground for the attack--then the only course is to send the letter to the person accused, and to say that this is done in order to afford him an opportunity for answering the anonymous assailant. I remember a case in which this was done with the best results. A professional man without fortune was going to marry a young heiress; I do not mean a great heiress, but one whose fortune might be a temptation. Her family received the usual anonymous letters, and in one of them it was stated that the aspirant's father, who had been long dead, had dishonored himself by base conduct with regard to a public trust in a certain town where he occupied a post of great responsibility towards the municipal authorities. The letter was shown to the son, and he was asked if he knew anything of the matter, and if he could do anything to clear away the imputation. Then came the difficulty that the alleged betrayal of trust was stated to have occurred twenty years before, and that the Mayor was dead, and probably most of the common councillors also. What was to be done? It is not easy to disprove a calumny, and the _onus_ of proof ought always to be thrown upon the calumniator, but this calumniator was anonymous and intangible, so the son of the victim was requested to repel the charge. By a very unusual and most fortunate accident, his father had received on quitting the town in question a letter from the Mayor of a most exceptional character, in which he spoke with warm and grateful appreciation of services rendered and of the happy relations of trust and confidence that had subsisted between himself and the slandered man down to the very termination of their intercourse. This letter, again by a most lucky accident, had been preserved by the widow, and by means of it one dead man defended the memory of another. It removed the greatest obstacle to the marriage; but another anonymous writer, or the same in another handwriting, now alleged that the slandered man had died of a disease likely to be inherited by his posterity. Here, again, luck was on the side of the defence, as the physician who had attended him was still alive, so that this second invention was as easily disposed of as the first. The marriage took place; it has been more than usually happy, and the children are pictures of health.

The trouble to which anonymous letter-writers put themselves to attain their ends must sometimes be very great. I remember a case in which some of these people must have contrived by means of spies or agents to procure a private address in a foreign country, and must have been at great pains also to ascertain certain facts in England which were carefully mingled with the lies in the calumnious letter. The nameless writer was evidently well informed, possibly he or she may have been a "friend" of the intended victim. In this case no attention was paid to the attack, which did not delay the marriage by a single hour. Long afterwards the married pair happened to be talking about anonymous letters, and it then appeared that each side had received several of these missives, coarsely or ingeniously concocted, but had given them no more attention than they deserved.

An anonymous letter is sometimes written in collaboration by two persons of different degrees of ability. When this is done one of the slanderers generally supplies the basis of fact necessary to give an appearance of knowledge, and the other supplies or improves the imaginative part of the common performance and its literary style. Sometimes one of the two may be detected by the nature of the references to fact, or by the supposed writer's personal interest in bringing about a certain result.

It is very difficult at the first glance entirely to resist the effect of a clever anonymous letter, and perhaps it is only men of clear strong sense and long experience who at once overcome the first shock. In a very short time, however, the phantom evil grows thin and disappears, and the motive of the writer is guessed at or discerned.

The following brief anonymous letter or one closely resembling it (I quote from memory) was once received by an English gentleman on his travels.

"DEAR SIR,--I congratulate you on the fact that you will be a grandfather in about two months. I mention this as you may like to purchase baby-linen for your grandchild during your absence. I am, Sir, yours sincerely,

"A WELL-WISHER."

The receiver had a family of grown-up children of whom not one was married. The letter gave him a slight but perceptible degree of disquietude which he put aside to the best of his ability. In a few days came a signed letter from one of his female servants confessing that she was about to become a mother, and claiming his protection as the grandfather of the child. It then became evident that the anonymous letter had been written by the girl's lover, who was a tolerably educated man whilst she was uneducated, and that the pair had entered into this little plot to obtain money. The matter ended by the dismissal of the girl, who then made threats until she was placed in the hands of the police. Other circumstances were recollected proving her to be a remarkably audacious liar and of a slanderous disposition.

The torture that an anonymous letter may inflict depends far more on the nature of the person who receives it than on the circumstances it relates. A jealous and suspicious nature, not opened by much experience or knowledge of the world, is the predestined victim of the anonymous torturer. Such a nature jumps at evil report like a fish at an artificial fly, and feels the anguish of it immediately. By a law that seems really cruel such natures seize with most avidity on those very slanders that cause them the most pain.

A kind of anonymous letter of which we have heard much in the present disturbed state of European society is the letter containing threats of physical injury. It informs you that you will be "done for" or "disabled" in a short time, and exhorts you in the meanwhile to prepare for your awful doom. The object of these letters is to deprive the receiver of all feeling of security or comfort in existence. His consolation is that a real intending murderer would probably be thinking too much of his own perilous enterprise to indulge in correspondence about it, and we do not perceive that the attacks on public men are at all proportionate in number to the menaces addressed to them.

As there are malevolent anonymous letters intended to inflict the most wearing anxiety, so there are benevolent ones written to save our souls. Some theologically minded person, often of the female sex, is alarmed for our spiritual state because she fears that we have doubts about the supernatural, and so she sends us books that only make us wonder at the mental condition for which such literature can be suitable. I remember one of my female anonymous correspondents who took it for granted that I was like a ship drifting about without compass or rudder (a great mistake on her part), and so she offered me the safe and spacious haven of Swedenborgianism! Others will tell you of the "great pain" with which they have read this or that passage of your writings, to which an author may always reply that as there is no Act of Parliament compelling British subjects to read his books the sufferers have only to let them alone in order to spare themselves the dolorous sensations they complain of.

Some kind anonymous correspondents write to console us for offensive criticism by maintaining the truth of our assertions as supported by their own experience. I remember that when the novel of "Wenderholme" was published, and naturally attacked for its dreadful portraiture of the drinking habits of a past generation, a lady wrote to me anonymously from a locality of the kind described bearing mournful witness to the veracity of the description.[33] In this case the employment of the anonymous form was justified by two considerations. There was no offensive intention, and the lady had to speak of her own relations whose names she desired to conceal. Authors frequently receive letters of gently expressed criticism or remonstrance from readers who do not give their names. The only objection to these communications, which are often interesting, is that it is rather teasing and vexatious to be deprived of the opportunity for answering them. The reader may like to see one of these gentle anonymous letters. An unmarried lady of mature age (for there appears to be no reason to doubt the veracity with which she gives a slight account of herself) has been reading one of my books and thinks me not quite just to a most respectable and by no means insignificant class in English society. She therefore takes me to task,--not at all unkindly.

"DEAR SIR,--I have often wished to thank you for the intense pleasure your books have given me, especially the 'Painter's Camp in the Highlands,' the word-pictures of which reproduced the enjoyment, intense even to pain, of the Scottish scenery.

"I have only now become acquainted with your 'Intellectual Life,' which has also given me great pleasure, though of another kind. Its general fairness and candor induce me to protest against your judgment of a class of women whom I am sure you underrate from not having a sufficient acquaintance with their capabilities.

"'_Women who are not impelled by some masculine influence are not superior, either in knowledge or in discipline of the mind, at the age of fifty to what they were at twenty-five.... The best illustration of this is a sisterhood of three or four rich old maids.... You will observe that they invariably remain, as to their education, where they were left by their teachers many years before.... Even in what most interests them--theology, they repeat but do not extend their information._'

"My circle of acquaintance is small, nevertheless I know many women between twenty-five and forty whose culture is always steadily progressing; who keep up an acquaintance with literature for its own sake, and not 'impelled' thereto 'by masculine influence;' who, though without creative power, yet have such capability of reception that they can appreciate the best authors of the day; whose theology is not quite the fossil you represent it, though I confess it is for but a small number of my acquaintance that I can claim the power of judicially estimating the various schools of theology.

"Without being specialists, the more thoughtful of our class have such an acquaintance with current literature that they are able to enter into the progress of the great questions of the day, and may even estimate the more fairly a Gladstone or a Disraeli for being spectators instead of actors in politics.

"I have spoken of my own acquaintances, but they are such as may be met within any middle-class society. For myself, I look back to the painful bewilderment of twenty-five and contrast it with satisfaction with the brighter perceptions of forty, finding out 'a little more, and yet a little more, of the eternal order of the universe.' One reason for your underrating us may be that our receptive powers only are in constant use, and we have little power of expression. I dislike anonymous letters as a rule, but as I write as the representative of a class, I beg to sign myself,

"Yours gratefully, "ONE OF THREE OR FOUR RICH OLD MAIDS.

"_November 13, 1883._"

Letters of this kind give no pain to the receiver, except when they compel him to an unsatisfactory kind of self-examination. In the present case I make the best amends by giving publicity and permanence to this clearly expressed criticism. Something may be said, too, in defence of the passages incriminated. Let me attempt it in the form of a letter which may possibly fall under the eye of the Rich Old Maid.

DEAR MADAM,--Your letter has duly reached me, and produced feelings of compunction. Have I indeed been guilty of injustice towards a class so deserving of respect and consideration as the Rich Old Maids of England? It has always seemed to me one of the privileges of my native country that such a class should flourish there so much more amply and luxuriantly than in other lands. Married women are absorbed in the cares and anxieties of their own households, but the sympathies of old maids spread themselves over a wider area. Balzac hated them, and described them as having souls overflowing with gall; but Balzac was a Frenchman, and if he was just to the rare old maids of his native country (which I cannot believe) he knew nothing of the more numerous old maids of Great Britain. I am not in Balzac's position. Dear friends of mine, and dearer relations, have belonged to that kindly sisterhood.

The answer to your objection is simple. "The Intellectual Life" was not published in 1883 but in 1873. It was written some time before, and the materials had been gradually accumulating in the author's mind several years before it was written. Consequently your criticism is of a much later date than the work you criticise, and as you are forty in 1883 you were a young maid in the times I was thinking of when writing. It is certainly true that many women of the now past generation, particularly those who lived in celibacy, had a remarkable power of remaining intellectually in the same place. This power is retained by some of the present generation, but it is becoming rarer every day because the intellectual movement is so strong that it is drawing a constantly increasing number of women along with it; indeed this movement is so accelerated as to give rise to a new anxiety, and make us look back with a wistful regret. We are now beginning to perceive that a certain excellent old type of Englishwomen whom we remember with the greatest affection and respect will soon belong as entirely to the past as if they had lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. From the intellectual point of view their lives were hardly worth living, but we are beginning to ask ourselves whether their ignorance (I use the plain term) and their prejudices (the plain term again) were not essential parts of a whole that commanded our respect. Their simplicity of mind may have been a reason why they had so much simplicity of purpose in well-doing. Their strength of prejudice may have aided them to keep with perfect steadfastness on the side of moral and social order. Their intellectual restfulness in a few clear settled ideas left a degree of freedom to their energy in common duties that may not always be possible amidst the bewildering theories of an unsettled and speculative age.

Faithfully yours, THE AUTHOR OF "THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE."

ESSAY XXVI.

AMUSEMENTS.

One of the most unexpected discoveries that we make on entering the reflective stage of existence is that amusements are social obligations.

The next discovery of this kind is that the higher the rank of the person the more obligatory and the more numerous do his so-called "amusements" become, till finally we reach the princely life which seems to consist almost exclusively of these observances.

Why should it ever be considered obligatory upon a man to amuse himself in some way settled by others? There appear to be two principal reasons for this. The first is, that when amusements are practised by many persons in common it appears unsociable and ungracious to abstain. Even if the amusement is not interesting in itself it is thought that the society it leads us into ought to be a sufficient reason for following it.

The second reason is that, like all things which are repeated by many people together, amusements soon become fixed customs, and have all the weight and authority of customs, so that people dare not abstain from observing them for fear of social penalties.

If the amusements are expensive they become not only a sign of wealth but an actual demonstration and display of it, and as nothing in the world is so much respected as wealth, or so efficient a help to social position, and as the expenditure which is visible produces far more effect upon the mind than that which is not seen, it follows that all costly amusements are useful for self-assertion in the world, and become even a means of maintaining the political importance of great families.

On the other hand, not to be accustomed to expensive amusements implies that one has lived amongst people of narrow means, so that most of those who have social ambition are eager to seize upon every opportunity for enlarging their experience of expensive amusements in order that they may talk about them afterwards, and so affirm their position as members of the upper class.

The dread of appearing unsociable, of seeming rebellious against custom, or inexperienced in the habits of the rich, are reasons quite strong enough for the maintenance of customary amusements even when there is very little real enjoyment of them for their own sake.

But, in fact, there are always _some_ people who practise these amusements for the sake of the pleasure they give, and as these people are likely to excel the others in vivacity, activity, and skill, as they have more _entrain_ and gayety, and talk more willingly and heartily about the sports they love, so they naturally come to lead opinion upon the subject and to give it an appearance of earnestness and warmth that is beyond its real condition. Hence the tone of conversation about amusements, though it may accurately represent the sentiments of those who enjoy them, does not represent all opinion fairly. The opposite side of the question found a witty exponent in Sir George Cornewall Lewis, when he uttered that immortal saying by which his name will endure when the recollection of his political services has passed away,--"How tolerable life would be were it not for its pleasures!" There you have the feeling of the thousands who submit and conform, but who would have much to say if it were in good taste to say anything against pleasures that are offered to us in hospitality.

Amusements themselves become work when undertaken for an ulterior purpose such as the maintenance of political influence. A great man goes through a certain regular series of dinners, balls, games, shooting and hunting parties, races, wedding-breakfasts, visits to great houses, excursions on land and water, and all these things have the outward appearance of amusement, but may, in reality, be labors that the great man undertakes for some purpose entirely outside of the frivolous things themselves. A Prime Minister scarcely goes beyond political dinners, but what an endless series of engagements are undertaken by a Prince of Wales! Such things are an obligation for him, and when the obligation is accepted with unfailing patience and good temper, the Prince is not only working, but working with a certain elegance and grace of art, often involving that prettiest kind of self-sacrifice which hides itself under an appearance of enjoyment. Nobody supposes that the social amusements so regularly gone through by the eldest son of Queen Victoria can be, in all cases, very entertaining to him; we suppose them to be accepted as forms of human intercourse that bring him into personal relations with his future subjects. The difference between this Prince and King Louis II. of Bavaria is perhaps the most striking contrast in modern royal existences. Prince Albert Edward is accessible to everybody, and shares the common pleasures of his countrymen; the Bavarian sovereign is never so happy as when in one of his romantic and magnificent residences, surrounded by the sublimity of nature and the embellishments of art, he sits alone and dreams as he listens to the strains of exquisite music. Has he not erected his splendid castle on a rock, like the builder of "The Palace of Art"?

"A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd brass I chose. The ranged ramparts bright From level meadow-bases of deep grass Suddenly scaled the light.

"Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf The rock rose clear, or winding stair. My soul would live alone unto herself In her high palace there."

The life of the King of Bavaria, sublimely serene in its independence, is a long series of tranquil omissions. There may be a wedding-feast in one of his palaces, but such an occurrence only seems to him the best of all reasons why he should be in another. He escapes from the pleasures and interests of daily life, making himself an earthly paradise of architecture, music, and gardens, and lost in his long dream, assuredly one of the most poetical figures in the biographies of kings, and one of the most interesting, but how remote from men! This remoteness is due, in great part, to a sincerity of disposition which declines amusements that do not amuse, and desires only those real pleasures which are in perfect harmony with one's own nature and constitution. We like the sociability, the ready human sympathy, of the Prince of Wales; we think that in his position it is well for him to be able to keep all that endless series of engagements, but has not King Louis some claim upon our indulgence even in his eccentricity? He has refused the weary round of false amusements and made his choice of ideal pleasure. If he condescended to excuse himself, his _Apologia pro vitâ sua_ might take a form somewhat resembling this. He might say, "I was born to a great fortune and only ask leave to enjoy it in my own way. The world's amusements are an infliction that I consider myself at liberty to avoid. I love musical or silent solitude, and the enchantments of a fair garden and a lofty dwelling amidst the glorious Bavarian mountains. Let the noisy world go its way with its bitter wranglings, its dishonest politics, its sanguinary wars! I set up no tyranny. I leave my subjects to enjoy their brief human existence in their own fashion, and they let me dream my dream."

These are not the world's ways nor the world's view. The world considers it essential to the character of a prince that he should be at least apparently happy in those pleasures which are enjoyed in society, that he should seem to enjoy them along with others to show his fellow-feeling with common men, and not sit by himself, like King Louis in his theatre, when "Tannhauser" is performed for the royal ears alone.

Of the many precious immunities that belong to humble station there are none more valuable than the freedom from false amusements. A poor man is under one obligation, he must work, but his work itself is a blessed deliverance from a thousand other obligations. He is not obliged to shoot, and hunt, and dance against his will, he is not obliged to affect interest and pleasure in games that only weary him, he has not to receive tiresome strangers in long ceremonious repasts when he would rather have a simple short dinner with his wife. Béranger sang the happiness of beggars with his sympathetic humorous philosophy, but in all seriousness it might be maintained that the poor are happier than they know. They get their easy unrestrained human intercourse by chance meetings, and greetings, and gossipings, and they are spared all the acting, all the feigning, that is connected with the routine of imposed enjoyments.

Avowed work, even when uncongenial, is far less trying to patience than feigned pleasure. You dislike accounts and you dislike balls, but though your dislike may be nearly equal in both cases you will assuredly find that the time hangs less heavily when you are resolutely grappling with the details of your account-books than when you are only wishing that the dancers would go to bed. The reason is that any hard work, whatever it is, has the qualities of a mental tonic, whereas unenjoyed pleasures have an opposite effect, and even though work may be uncongenial you see a sort of result, whilst a false pleasure leaves no result but the extreme fatigue that attends it,--a kind of fatigue quite exceptional in its nature, and the most disagreeable that is known to man.

The dislike for false amusements is often misunderstood to be a puritanical intolerance of all amusement. It is in this as in all things that are passionately enjoyed,--the false thing is most disliked by those who best appreciate the true.

What may be called the truth or falsehood of amusements is not in the amusements themselves, but in the relation between one human idiosyncrasy and them. Every idiosyncrasy has its own strong mysterious affinities, generally distinguishable in childhood, always clearly distinguishable in youth. We are like a lute or a violin, the tuned strings vibrate in answer to certain notes but not in answer to others.

To convert amusements into social customs or obligations, to make it a man's duty to shoot birds or ride after foxes because it is agreeable to others to discharge guns and gallop across fields, is an infringement of individual liberty which is less excusable in the case of amusements than it is in more serious things. For in serious things, in politics and religion, there is always the plausible argument that the repression of the individual conscience is good for the unity of the State; whereas amusements are supposed to exist for the recreation of those who practise them, and when they are not enjoyed they are not amusements but something else. There is no single English word that exactly expresses what they are, but there is a French one, the word _corvée_, which means forced labor, labor under dictation, all the more unpleasant in these cases that it must assume the appearance of enjoyment.[34]

Surely there is nothing in which the independence of the individual ought to be so absolute, so unquestioned, as in amusements. What right have I, because a thing is a pleasant pastime to me, to compel my friend or my son to do that thing when it is a _corvée_ to him? No man can possibly amuse himself in obedience to a word of command, the most he can do is to submit, to try to appear amused, wishing all the time that the weary task was over.

To mark the contrast clearly I will describe some amusements from the opposite points of view of those who enjoy them naturally, and those to whom they would be indifferent if they were not imposed, and hateful if they were.

Shooting is delightful to genuine sportsmen in many ways. It renews in them the sensations of the vigorous youth of humanity, of the tribes that lived by the chase. It brings them into contact with nature, gives a zest and interest to hard pedestrian exercise, makes the sportsmen minutely acquainted with the country, and leads to innumerable observations of the habits of wild animals that have the interest without the formal pretensions of a science. Shooting is a delightful exercise of skill, requiring admirable promptitude and perfect nerve, so that any success in it is gratifying to self-esteem. Sir Samuel Baker is always proud of being such a good marksman, and frankly shows his satisfaction. "I had fired three _beautifully correct_ shots with No. 10 bullets, and seven drachms of powder in each charge; these were so nearly together that they occupied a space in her forehead of about three inches." He does not aim at an animal in a general way, but always at a particular and penetrable spot, recording each hit, and the special bullet used. Of course he loves his guns. These modern instruments are delightful toys on account of the highly developed art employed in their construction, so that they would be charming things to possess, and handle, and admire, even if they were never used, whilst the use of them gives a terrible power to man. See a good marksman when he takes a favorite weapon in his hand! More redoubtable than Roland with the sword Durindal, he is comparable rather to Apollo with the silver bow, or even to Olympian Zeus himself grasping his thunders. Listen to him when he speaks of his weapon! If he thinks you have the free-masonry of the chase, and can understand him, he talks like a poet and lover. Baker never fails to tell us what weapon he used on each occasion, and how beautifully it performed, and due honor and advertisement are kindly given to the maker, out of gratitude.

"I accordingly took my trusty little Fletcher double rifle No. 24, and running knee-deep into the water to obtain a close shot I fired exactly between the eyes near the crown of the head. At the reports of the little Fletcher the hippo disappeared."

Then he adds an affectionate foot-note about the gun, praising it for going with him for five years, as if it had had a choice about the matter, and could have offered its services to another master. He believes it to be alive, like a dog.

"This excellent and handy rifle was made by Thomas Fletcher, of Gloucester, and accompanied me like a faithful dog throughout my journey of nearly five years to the Albert Nyanza, and returned with me to England as good as new."

In the list of Baker's rifles appears his bow of Ulysses, his Child of a Cannon, familiarly called the Baby, throwing a half-pound explosive shell, a lovely little pet of a weapon with a recoil that broke an Arab's collar-bone, and was not without some slight effect even upon that mighty hunter, its master.

"Bang went the Baby; round I spun like a weather-cock with the blood flowing from my nose, as the recoil had driven the top of the hammer deep into the bridge. My Baby not only screamed but kicked viciously. However I knew the elephant would be bagged, as the half-pound shell had been aimed directly behind the shoulder."

We have the most minute descriptions of the effects of these projectiles in the head of a hippopotamus and the body of an elephant. "I was quite satisfied with my explosive shells," says the enthusiastic sportsman, and the great beasts appear to have been satisfied too.

Now let me attempt to describe the feelings of a man not born with the natural instinct of a sportsman. We need not suppose him to be either a weakling or a coward. There are strong and brave men who can exercise their strength and prove their courage without willingly inflicting wounds or death upon any creature. To some such men a gun is simply an encumbrance, to wait for game is a wearisome trial of patience, to follow it is aimless wandering, to slaughter it is to do the work of a butcher or a poulterer, to wound it is to incur a degree of remorse that is entirely destructive of enjoyment. The fact that somewhere on mountain or in forest poor creatures are lying with festering flesh or shattered bones to die slowly in pain and hunger, and the terrible thirst of the wounded, and all for the pleasure of a gentleman,--such a fact as that, when clearly realized, is not to be got over by anything less powerful than the genuine instinct of the sportsman who is himself one of Nature's own born destroyers, as panthers and falcons are. The feeling of one who has not the sporting instinct has been well expressed as follows by Mr. Lewis Morris, in "A Cynic's Day-dream:"--

"Scant pleasure should I think to gain From endless scenes of death and pain; 'Twould little profit me to slay A thousand innocents a day; I should not much delight to tear With wolfish dogs the shrieking hare; With horse and hound to track to death A helpless wretch that gasps for breath; To make the fair bird check its wing, And drop, a dying, shapeless thing; To leave the joy of all the wood A mangled heap of fur and blood, Or else escaping, but in vain, To pine, a shattered wretch, in pain; Teeming, perhaps, or doomed to see Its young brood starve in misery."

Hunting may be classed with shooting and passed over, as the instinct is the same for both, with this difference only that the huntsman has a natural passion for horsemanship that may be wanting to the pedestrian marksman. An amusement entirely apart from every other, and requiring a special instinct, is that of sailing.

If you have the nautical passion it was born with you, and no reasoning can get it out of you. Every sheet of navigable water draws you with a marvellous attraction, fills you with an indescribable longing. Miles away from anything that can be sailed upon, you cannot feel a breeze upon your cheek without wishing to be in a sailing-boat to catch it in a spread of canvas. A ripple on a duck-pond torments you with a teazing reminder of larger surfaces, and if you had no other field for navigation you would want to be on that duck-pond in a tub. "I would rather have a plank and a handkerchief for a sail," said Charles Lever, "than resign myself to give up boating." You have pleasure merely in being afloat, even without motion, and all the degrees of motion under sail have their own peculiar charm for you, from an insensible gliding through glassy waters to a fight against opposite winds and raging seas. You have a thorough, intimate, and affectionate knowledge of all the details of your ship. The constant succession of little tasks and duties is an unfailing interest, a delightful occupation. You enjoy the manual labor, and acquire some skill not only as a sailor but as ship's carpenter and painter. You take all accidents and disappointments cheerfully, and bear even hardship with a merry heart. Nautical exercise, though on the humble scale of the modest amateur, has preserved or improved your health and activity, and brought you nearer to Nature by teaching you the habits of the winds and waters and by displaying to you an endless variety of scenes, always with some fresh interest, and often of enchanting beauty.

Now let us suppose that you are simple enough to think that what pleases you, who have the instinct, will gratify another who is destitute of it. If you have power enough to make him accompany you, he will pass through the following experiences.

Try to realize the fact that to him the sailing-boat is only a means of locomotion, and that he will refer to his watch and compare it with other means of locomotion already known to him, not having the slightest affectionate prejudice in its favor or gentle tolerance of its defects. If you could always have a steady fair wind he would enjoy the boat as much as a coach or a very slow railway train, but he will chafe at every delay. None of the details that delight you can have the slightest interest for him. The sails, and particularly the cordage, seem to him an irritating complication which, he thinks, might be simplified, and he will not give any mental effort to master them. He cares nothing about those qualities of sails and hull which have been the subject of such profound scientific investigation, such long and passionate controversy. You cannot speak of anything on board without employing technical terms which, however necessary, however unavoidable, will seem to him a foolish and useless affectation by which an amateur tries to give himself nautical airs. If you say "the mainsheet" he thinks you might have said more rationally and concisely "the cord by which you pull towards you that long pole which is under the biggest of the sails," and if you say "the starboard quarter," he thinks you ought to have said, in simple English, "that part of the vessel's side that is towards the back end of it and to your right hand when you are standing with your face looking forwards." If you happen to be becalmed he suffers from an infinite _ennui_. If you have to beat to windward he is indifferent to the wonderful art and vexed with you because, as his host, you have not had the politeness and the forethought to provide a favorable breeze. If you are a yachtsman of limited means and your guest has to take a small share in working the vessel, he will not perform it with any cheerful alacrity, but consider it unfit for a gentleman. If this goes on for long it is likely that there will be irritation on both sides, snappish expressions, and a quarrel. Who is in fault? Both are excusable in the false situation that has been created, but it ought not to have been created at all. You ought not to have invited a man without nautical instincts, or he ought not to have accepted the invitation. He was a charming companion on land, and that misled you both. Meet him on land again, receive him hospitably at your house. I would say "forgive him!" if there were anything to forgive, but it is not any fault of his or any merit of yours if, by the irrevocable fate of congenital idiosyncrasy, the amusement that you were destined to seek and enjoy is the _corvée_ that he was destined to avoid.

I find no language strong enough to condemn the selfishness of those who, in order that they may enjoy what is a pleasure to themselves, deliberately and knowingly inflict a _corvée_ upon others. This objection does not apply to paid service, for that is the result of a contract. Servants constantly endure the tedium of waiting and attendance, but it is their form of work, and they have freely undertaken it. Work of that kind is not a _corvée_, it is not forced labor. Real _corvées_ are inflicted by heads of families on dependent relations, or by patrons on humble friends who are under some obligation to them, and so bound to them as to be defenceless. The father or patron wants, let us say, his nightly game at whist; he must and will have it, if he cannot get it he feels that the machine of the universe is out of gear. He singles out three people who do not want to play, perhaps takes for his partner one who thoroughly dislikes the game, but who has learned something of it in obedience to his orders. They sit down to their board of green cloth. The time passes wearily for the principal victim, who is thinking of something else and makes mistakes. The patron loses his temper, speaks with increasing acerbity, and finally either flies into a passion and storms (the old-fashioned way), or else adopts, with grim self-control, a tone of insulting contempt towards his victim that is even more difficult to endure. And this is the reward for having been unselfish and obliging, these are the thanks for having sacrificed a happy evening!

If this is often done by individuals armed with some kind of power and authority, it is done still more frequently by majorities. The tyranny of majorities begins in our school-days, and the principal happiness of manhood is in some measure to escape from it. Many a man in after-life remembers with bitterness the weary hours he had to spend for the gratification of others in games that he disliked. The present writer has a vivid recollection of what, to him, was the infinite dulness of cricket. He was not by any means an inactive boy, but it so happened that cricket never had the slightest interest for him, and to this day he cannot pass a cricket-ground without a feeling of strong antipathy to its level surface of green, and of thankfulness that he is no longer compelled to go through the irksome old _corvée_ of his youth. One of the many charms, to his taste, of a rocky mountain-side in the Highlands is that cricket is impossible there. At the same time he quite believes and admits everything that is so enthusiastically claimed for cricket by those who have a natural affinity for the game.

There are not only sports and pastimes, but there is the long reverberating echo of every sport in endless conversations. Here it may be remarked that the lovers of a particular amusement, when they happen to be a majority, possess a terrible power of inflicting _ennui_ upon others, and they often exercise it without mercy. Five men are dining together, and three are fox-hunters. Evidently they ought to keep fox-hunting to themselves in consideration for the other two, but this requires an almost superhuman self-discipline and politeness, so there is a risk that the minority may have to submit in silence to an inexhaustible series of details about horses and foxes and dogs. Indeed you are never safe from this kind of conversation, even when you have numbers on your side. Sporting talk may be inflicted by a minority when that minority is incapable of any other conversation and strong in its own incapacity. Here is a case in point that was narrated to me by one of the three _convives_. The host was a country gentleman of great intellectual attainments, one guest was a famous Londoner, and the other was a sporting squire who had been invited as a neighbor. Fox-hunting was the only subject of talk, because the squire was garrulous and unable to converse about any other topic.

Ladies are often pitiable sufferers from this kind of conversation. Sometimes they have the instinct of masculine sport themselves, and then the subject has an interest for them; but an intelligent woman may find herself in a wearisome position when she would rather avoid the subject of slaughter, and all the men around her talk of nothing but killing and wounding.

It is natural that men should talk much about their amusements, because the mere recollection of a true amusement (that for which we have an affinity) is in itself a renewal of it in imagination, and an immense refreshment to the mind. In the midst of a gloomy English winter the yachtsman talks of summer seas, and whilst he is talking he watches, mentally, his well-set sails, and hears the wash of the Mediterranean wave.

There are three pleasures in a true amusement, first anticipation, full of hope, which is

"A feast for promised triumph yet to come,"

often the best banquet of all. Then comes the actual fruition, usually dashed with disappointments that a true lover of the sport accepts in the most cheerful spirit. Lastly, we go through it all over again, either with the friends who have shared our adventures or at least with those who could have enjoyed them had they been there, and who (for vanity often claims her own delights) know enough about the matter to appreciate our own admirable skill and courage.

In concluding this Essay I desire to warn young readers against a very common mistake. It is very generally believed that literature and the fine arts can be happily practised as amusements. I believe this to be an error due to the vulgar notion that artists and literal people do not work but only display talent, as if anybody could display talent without toil. Literary and artistic pursuits are in fact _studies_ and not amusements. Too arduous to have the refreshing quality of recreation, they put too severe a strain upon the faculties, they are too troublesome in their processes, and too unsatisfactory in their results, unless a natural gift has been developed by earnest and long-continued labor. It does indeed occasionally happen that an artist who has acquired skill by persistent study will amuse himself by exercising it in sport. A painter may make idle sketches as Byron sometimes broke out into careless rhymes, or as a scholar will playfully compose doggerel in Greek, but these gambols of accomplished men are not to be confounded with the painful efforts of amateurs who fancy that they are going to dance in the Palace of Art and shortly discover that the muse who presides there is not a smiling hostess but a severe and exigent schoolmistress. An able French painter, Louis Leloir, wrote thus to a friend about another art that he felt tempted to practise:--

"Etching tempts me much. I am making experiments and hope to show you something soon. Unhappily life is too short; we do a little of everything and then perceive that each branch of art would of itself consume the life of a man, to practise it very imperfectly after all.... We get angry with ourselves and struggle, but too late. It was at the beginning that we ought to have put on blinkers to hide from ourselves everything that is not art."

If we mean to amuse ourselves let us avoid the painful wrestling against insuperable difficulties, and the humiliation of imperfect results. Let us shun all ostentation, either of wealth or talent, and take our pleasures happily like poor children, or like the idle angler who stands in his old clothes by the purling stream and watches the bobbing of his float, or the glancing of the fly that his guileful industry has made.

INDEX.

Absinthe, French use, 273.

Absurdity, in languages, 157.

Academies, in a university, 275.

Accidents, Divine connection with (Essay XV.), 218-222.

Acquaintances: new and humble, 21, 22; chance, 23-26; met in travelling (Essay XVII.), 239-252 _passim_.

Adaptability: a mystery, 9; in life's journey, 44; to unrefined people, 72.

Adultery, overlooked in princes, 168.

Affection: not blinding to faults, 10; how to obtain filial, 98; in the beginning of letters, 316.

Affinities, mysterious, 288.

Age: affecting human intercourse, ix; outrun by youth, 86-93 _passim_; affecting friendship, 112; senility hard to convince, 293, 294; middle and old, 302; kind letter to an old lady, 345.

Agnosticism, affecting filial relations, 93.

Agriculture: under law, 228; and Radicals, 282.

Albany, Duke of, his associations, 5.

Albert Nyanza, Baker's exploits, 392.

Alexis, Prince, sad relations to his father, 95, 96.

Alps: first sight, 235; grandeur, 271.

Americans: artistic attraction, 8; inequalities of wealth, 248; behaviour towards strangers, 249; treated as ignorant by the English, 277; under George III., 279; use of ruled paper, 328.

Amusements: pursuit of, 27; sympathy with youthful, 88; out-door, 302, 303; praise for indulgence not deserved, 342; in general (Essay XXVI.), 383-401; obligatory, 383; expensive and pleasurable, 384; laborious, 385; princely enjoyments, 386, 387; poverty not compelled to practise, 388; feigned, 388, 389; converted into customs, 389; should be independent in, 390; shooting, 391-393; boating, 394-396; selfish compulsion, 397; tyranny of majorities, 398; conversational echoes, 398, 399; ladies not interested, 399; three stages of pleasure, 399, 400; artistic gambols, 400; to be taken naturally and happily, 401.

Analysis: important to prevent confusion (Essay XX.), 280-294 _passim_; analytical faculty wanting, 280, 292-294.

Ancestry: aristocratic, 123; boast, 130; home, 138; less religion, 214.

Angels, and the arts, 191.

Anglicanism, and Russian Church, 257, 258.

Angling, pleasure of, 401.

Animals, feminine care, 177.

Annuities, affecting family ties, 68, 69.

Answers to letters, 334, 335.

Anticipation, pleasure of, 399, 400.

Antiquarianism, author's, 323.

Apollo, a sportsman compared to, 391.

Arabs: use of telegraph, 323; collar-bone broken, 392.

Archæology: a friend's interest, x; affected by railway travel, 14.

Architecture: illustration, vii, xii; studies in France, 17, 23, 24; connection with religion, 189, 190, 192; ignorance about English, 265; common mistakes, 291; letters about, 365.

Aristocracy: French rural, 18, 19; English laws of primogeniture, 66; English instance, 123, 124; discipline, 128; often poor, 135, 136; effect of deference, 146, 147; a mark of? 246, 247; Norman influence, 251, 252; antipathy, to Dissent, 256, 257; sent to Eton, 277; and Bohemianism, 309; dislike of scholarship, 331, 332. (See _Rank_.)

Aristophilus, fictitious character, 146.

Armies: national ignorance, 277-279; monopoly of places in French, 283. (See _War_.)

Art: detached from religion, xii; affecting friendship, 6, 8; Claude and Turner, 13; chance acquaintances, 23, 24; purposes lowered, 28, 29; penetrated by love, 42, 43; affecting fraternity, 64; friendship, 113, 114; lifts above mercenary motives, 132; literary, 154; adaptability of Greek language, 158; preferences of artists rewarded, 165; affecting relations of Priests and Women (Essay XIII. part II.), 187-195, _passim_; exaggeration and diminution, both admissible, 232, 233; result of selection, 253; French ignorance of English, 265, 266, 267; antagonized by Philistinism, 285, 286, 301; not mere amusement, 400. (See _Painting_, _Sculpture_, _Turner_, etc.)

Asceticism, tinges both the Philistine and Bohemian, 299, 300. (See _Priesthood_, _Roman Catholicism_, etc.)

Association: pleasurable or not, 3; affected by opinions, 5, 6; by tastes, 7, 8; London, 20; of a certain French painter, 28; between Priests and Women (Essay XIII. part III.), 195-204 _passim_; among travellers (Essay XVII.), 239-252; leads to misapprehension of opinions, 287, 288. (See _Companionship_, _Friendship_, _Society_, etc.)

Atavism, puzzling to parents, 88.

Atheism: reading prayers, 163; apparent, 173; confounded with Deism, 257. (See _God_, _Religion_, etc.)

Attention: how directed in the study of language, 154; want of, 197.

Austerlitz, battle, 350. (See _Napoleon I._)

Austria, Empress, 180.

Authority, of fathers (Essay VI.), 78-98 _passim_. (See _Priests_.)

Authors: illustration, 9; indebtedness to humbler classes, 22, 23; relations of several to women, 46 _et seq._; sensitiveness to family indifference, 74; in society and with the pen, 237, 238; a procrastinating correspondent, 317; anonymous letters, 378. (See _Hamerton_, etc.)

Authorship, illustrating interdependence, 12. (See _Literature_, etc.)

Autobiographies, revelations of faithful family life, 65.

Autumn tints, 233.

Avignon, France, burial-place of Mill, 53.

Bachelors: independence, 26; dread of a wife's relations, 73; lonely hearth, 76; friendship destroyed by marriage, 115, 116; reception into society, 120; eating-habits, 244. (See _Marriage_, _Wives_, etc.)

Baker, Sir Samuel, shooting, 390-392.

Balzac, his hatred of old maids, 381.

Baptism, religious influence, 184, 185. (See _Priesthood_.)

Baptists: in England, 170; ignorance about, 257. (See _Religion_.)

Barbarism, emerging from, 161. (See _Civilization_.)

Baronius, excerpts by Prince Alexis, 95.

Barristers, mercenary motives, 132, 133.

Bavaria, king of, 385-387.

Bazaar, charity, 188.

Beard, not worn by priests, 202.

Beauty: womanly attraction, 38, 39; sought by wealth, 299.

Bedford, Duke of, knowledge of French, 151.

Belgium, letters written at the date of Waterloo, 153.

Beljame, his knowledge of English, 152.

Bell, Umfrey, in old letter, 323.

Benevolence, priestly and feminine association therein, 195, 196. (See _Priests_, etc.)

Ben Nevis, and other Scotch heights, 271.

Bentinck, William, letters to, 344, 345.

Betham-Edwards, Amelia, her description of English bad manners, 240, 245.

Bible: faith in, 6; allusion to Proverbs and Canticles, 41; reading, 123; Babel, 159; commentaries studied, authority, 206; examples, 208; narrow limits, 211, 212; commentaries and sermons, 302. (See _Religion_, etc.)

Bicycle, illustration, 15.

Birds, in France, 272.

Birth, priestly connection with, 184, 185. (See _Priests_, _Women_.)

Black cap, illustration, 204.

Blake, William, quotation about Folly and Wisdom, 31.

Blasphemy, royal, 167. (See _Immorality_, etc.)

Boating: affected by railways, 14; French river, 128; rich and poor, 138, 139; comparison, 154; Lever's experience, 260; mistaken judgments, 292, 293; not enjoyed, 302; sleeping, 307; on the Thames, 335; painting a boat, 359; amusement, 394-396. (See _Yachts_, etc.)

Boccaccio, quotation about pestilence, 222.

Bohemianism: Noble (Essay XXI.), 295-314; unjust opinions, 295; lower forms, 296; social vices, 297; sees the weakness of Philistinism, 298; how justifiable, 299; imagination and asceticism, 300; intimacy with nature, 302; estimate of the desirable, 303; living illustration, 304; furniture, mental and material, 305; an English Bohemian's enjoyment, 306; contempt for comfort, uselessness, 307; self-sacrifice, 308; higher sort, 309; of Goldsmith, 309, 310; Corot, Wordsworth, 311; Palmer, 312, 313; part of education, 313, 314; a painter's, 314. (See _Philistinism_.)

Bonaparte Family, criminality of, 168. (See _Napoleon I._)

Books: how far an author's own, 13; in hospitality, 142; refusal to read, 195; indifference to, 286, 287; cheap and dear, 304, 305; Wordsworth's carelessness, 311; binding, 359. (See _Literature_, etc.)

Bores, English dread of, 245. (See _Intrusion_.)

Borrow, George, on English houses, 145.

Botany, allusion, 166.

Bourbon Family, criminality of, 168.

Bourrienne, Fauvelet de, Napoleon's secretary, 367.

Boyton, Captain, swimming-apparatus, 290.

Boys: French, 23, 24; English fraternal jealousies, 66; education, and differences with older people, 78-98 _passim_; roughened by play, 100; friendships, 111. (See _Brothers_, _Fathers_, _Sons_, etc.)

Brassey, Sir Thomas, his yacht, 138, 139.

Brevity, in correspondence, 324-331, 361.

Bright, John, his fraternity, 68.

British Museum: ignorance about, 266; library, 287; confused with other buildings, 291. (See _London_.)

Brontë, Charlotte, her St. John, in Jane Eyre, 196.

Brothers: divided by incompatibility, 10; English divisions, 63; idiosyncrasy, 64; petty jealousy, 65, 66; love and hatred illustrated, 67; the Brights, 68; money affairs, 69; generosity and meanness, 70; refinement an obstacle, 71; lack of fraternal interest, 74; riches and poverty, 77. (See _Boys_, _Friendship_, _Sons_, etc.)

Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc de, his noble life, 209, 210.

Buildings, literary illustration, vii.

Bulgaria, lost to Turkey, 278.

Bull-fights, women's presence, 180. (See _Cruelty_.)

Bunyan, John: choice in religion, 173; imprisoned, 181.

Business: affecting family ties, 64, 67; affecting letter-writing, 342, 343; Letters of (Essay XXIV.), 354-369; orally conducted or written, 354-357; stupid agents, 358, 359; talent for accuracy, 360; acknowledging orders, 361; apparent carelessness, one subject best, 362; knowledge of drawing important to explanations on paper, 363, 364; acquaintance with languages a help, 364; commercial slang, 365; indolence in letter-reading has disastrous results, 366-369. (See _Correspondence_.)

Byron, Lord: on Friendship, 30; Haidée, 39; marriage relations, 46, 48-50, 55-57; as a letter-writer, 345-349; careless rhymes, 400.

Calumny: caused by indistinct ideas, 292; in letters, 370-377.

Cambridge University, 275, 276.

Camden Society, publication, 318.

Cannes, anecdote, 235.

Cannon-balls, national intercourse, 160. (See _Wars_.)

Canoe, illustration, 15.

Card-playing: incident, 128, 129; French habit, 273; kings, 289; laborious, 397.

Carelessness, causing wrong judgments, 293.

Caste: as affecting friendship, 4; not the uniting force, 9; French rites, 16; English prejudice, 19; sins against, 22; among authors, 46-56; kinship of ideas, 67; ease with lower classes, 64; really existent, 124, 125; loss through poverty, 136; among English travellers, 240-242, 245, 246. (See _Classes_, _Rank_, _Titles_, etc.)

Cat, drawing by a child, 364.

Cathedrals: drawing a French, 23, 24; imposing, 189, 190, 192.

Celibacy: Shelley's experience, 34; in Catholic Church, 120; clerical, 198-201; of old maids, 379-382. (See _Clergy_, _Priests_, _Wives_, etc.)

Censure, dangerous in letters, 352, 353.

Ceremony: dependent on prosperity, 125, 126; fondness of women for, 197, 198; also 187-195 _passim_. (See _Manners_, _Rank_, etc.)

Chamberlain, the title, 137.

Chambord, Count de, restoration possible, 254, 255.

Channel, British, illustration, 14.

Charles II., women's influence during his reign, 181.

Charles XII., his hardiness, 308.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, on birds, 272.

Cheltenham, Eng., treatment of Dissenters, 19.

Chemistry, illustration, 3.

Cheshire, Eng., a case of generosity, 68.

Children: recrimination with parents, 75; as affecting parental wealth, 119; social reception, 120; keenly alive to social distinctions, 121; imprudent marriages, 123; a poor woman's, 139; interruptions, 140, 141; ignorance of foreign language makes us seem like, 151; feminine care, 177; of clergy, 200, 201; cat picture, 364; pleasures of poor, 401. (See _Boys_, _Brothers_, _Marriage_, _Sons_, etc.)

Chinese mandarins, 130.

Chirography, in letters, 331-333.

Christ: his divinity a past issue, 6; Church instituted, 178, 179; Dr. Macleod on, 186; limits of knowledge in Jesus' day, 213. (See _Church_, _Religion_, etc.)

Christianity: as affecting intercourse, 5, 6; its early disciples, 142; preferment for adherence, 162, 163; morality a part of, 168, 169; state churches, 170; in poetry, 198; early ideal, 206. (See _Roman Catholicism_, etc.)

Christmas: decorations, 188; in Tennyson, 198. (See _Clergy_, _Priesthood_, _Women_.)

Church: attendance of hypocrites, 163; compulsory, 172; instituted by God in Christ, 178, 179; influence at all stages of life, 183-186; æsthetic industry, 188; dress, 189; buildings, 190; menaces, 193; partisanship, 194; power of custom, 198; authority, 203. (See _Religion_, _Roman Catholicism_, etc.)

Church of England: as affecting friendship, 6; freedom of members in their own country, instance of Dissenting tyranny, 164; dangers of forsaking, 165; bondage of royalty, 166, 168; adherence of nobility, 169, 170, 173; of working-people, 170, 171; compulsory attendance, liberality, 172, 173; ribaldry sanctioned by its head, 181; priestly consolation, 183; the _legal_ church, 185; ritualistic art, 188-190; a bishop's invitation to a discussion, 192; story of a bishop's indolence, 366, 367; French ignorance of, 275. (See _England_, _Christ_, etc.)

Cipher, in letters, 326.

Civility. (See _Hospitality_.)

Civilization: liking for, xiii; antagonism to nature in love-matters, 41; lower state, 72; affected by hospitality, 100; material adjuncts, 253; physical, 298; duty to further, 299; forsaken, 310. (See _Barbarism_, _Bohemianism_, _Philistinism_, etc.)

Classes: Differences of Rank (Essay X.), 130-147 _passim_; affected by religion (Essay XII.), 161-174; limits, 250; in connection with Gentility (Essay XVIII.), 253-263 _passim_. (See _Caste_, _Ceremonies_, _Rank_, etc.)

Classics, study of, in the Renaissance, 212.

Claude, helps Turner. (See _Painters_, etc.)

Clergy: mercenary motives, 132, 133; more tolerant of immorality than of heresy, 168; belief in natural law, 221; dangers of association with, 287. (See _Priesthood_, _Religion_, etc.)

Clergywomen, 200, 201.

Clerks, their knowledge an aid to national intercourse, 149, 150. (See _Business_, _Languages_, etc.)

Coats-of-arms: usurped, 135; in letters, 326, 327. (See _Rank_.)

Cockburn, Sir Alexander, knowledge of French, 151.

Cock Robin, boat, 138. (See _Boating_.)

Coffee, satire on trade, 133, 134.

Cologne Cathedral, 190.

Colors, in painting, 232, 233.

Columbus, Voltaire's allusion, 274.

Comet, in Egyptian war, 229. (See _Superstition_.)

Comfort, pursuit of, 27, 298, 299. (See _Philistinism_.)

Commerce, affected by language, 148-150, 159, 160. (See _Business_, _Languages_, etc.)

Communism, threats, 377.

Como, Italy, solitude, 31.

Companionship: how decided, 4; affected by opinions, 5, 6; by tastes, 7, 8; in London, 20; with the lower classes, 21-23; chance, 24-26; intellectual exclusiveness, 27, 28; books, 29; nature, 30; in Marriage (Essay IV.), 44-62; travelling, absence, 44; intellectual, 45; instances of unlawful, 46, 47; failures not surprising, 48; of Byron, 49, 50; Goethe, 51, 52; Mill, 53, 54; discouraging examples, 55, 56; difficulties of extraordinary minds, 57; artificial, 58; hopelessness of finding ideal associations, 59; indications and realizations, 60; trust, 61, 62; hindered by refinement, 71, 72; affected by cousinship, 73; parents and children (Essay VI.), 78-98 _passim_; Death of Friendship (Essay VIII.), 110-118; affected by wealth and poverty (Essays IX. and X.), 119-147 _passim_; between Priests and Women (Essay XIII.), 175-204. (See _Association_, _Friendship_, etc.)

Comradeship, difficult between parents and children, 89. (See _Association_, etc.)

Concession: weakening the mind, 147; national, 148; feminine liking, 175.

Confessional, the: influencing women, 201-203; a supposititious compulsion, 281. (See _Religion_, etc.)

Confirmation, priestly connection with, 185. (See _Women_.)

Confusion: (Essay XX.), 280-294; masculine and feminine, 280; political, 280-284; rebels and reformers, 280; private and public liberty, 281; Radicals, 282; _égalité_, 283; religious, 284, 285; Philistines and Bohemians, 285-287; confounding people with their associates, 287, 288; vocations, 288, 289; persons, 290; foreign buildings, 291; inducing calumny, 292; caused by insufficient analysis, 292, 293; about inventions, 293; result of carelessness, indolence, or senility, 293, 294.

Consolation, of clergy, 179-183. (See _Religion_.)

Construing, different from reading, 154. (See _Languages_.)

Continent, the: family ties, 63; friendship broken by marriage, 116; religious liberality, 173; marriage, 184; flowers, 188, 189; confessional, 202, 203; exaggeration, 234, 235; table-manners of travellers, 240-252 _passim_; drinking-places, 262. (See _France_, etc.)

Controversy, disliked, xiii.

Conventionality: affecting personality, 15-17; genteel ignorance engendered by, 260-262. (See _Courtesy_, _Manners_, etc.)

Conversation: chance, 26; compared with literature, 29; study of languages, 156; at _table d'hôte_, 239-249; among strangers, 247-252 _passim_; useless to quote, 291; Goldsmith's enjoyment, 309.

Convictions, our own to be trusted, iii, iv.

Copenhagen, battle, 327.

Cornhill Magazine, Lever's article, 259, 260.

Corot (Jean Baptiste Camille), his Bohemianism, 310, 311.

Correspondence: akin to periodicals, 30; Belgian letters, 153; Courtesy of Epistolary Communication (Essay XXII.), 315-335; introductions and number of letters, 316; promptness, 317, 318; Plumpton Letters, 318-323; brevity, 324; telegraphy and abbreviations, 325; sealing, 326, 327; peculiar stationery, 328; post-cards, 329; _un mot à la poste_, 330; brevity and hurry, 331; handwriting, 332; crossed lines, ink, type-writers, 333; dictation, outside courtesy, 334; to reply or not reply? 335; Letters of Friendship (Essay XXIII.), 336-353; a supposed gain to friendship, 336; neglected, 337; impediments, 338; French cards, 339; abandonment to be regretted, 340; letter-writing a gift, 341; real self wanted in letters, 342; letters of business and friendship, 343; familiarity best, 344; lengthy letters, 345; Byron's, 346-348; Jacquemont's, 349; the Rémusat letters, 350; Bernardo Tasso's, Montaigne's, 350; perils of plain speaking, 352, 353; Letters of Business (Essay XXIV.), 354-369; differences of talent, 354; repeated perusals, 355; refuge of timidity, 356; letters exposed, literary faults, omissions, 357; directions misunderstood, 358, 359; acknowledging orders, 361; slovenly writing, one subject in each letter, 362; misunderstanding through ignorance, 363; in foreign languages, 364; conventional slang, 365; careful reading necessary, 366; unopened letters, 367; epistles half-read, 368; a stupid error, 369; Anonymous Letters (Essay XXV.), 370-382; common, 370; slanderous, 371; vehicle of calumny, 372; written to betrothed lovers, 373; story, 374; written in collaboration and with pains, 375; an expected grandchild, 376; torture and threats, 377; kindly and critical, 378-382.

Corvée: allusion, 342; definition, 389, 390, 396, 397. (See _Amusements_.)

Cottage, love in a, 35, 36.

Court-circulars, 166, 167.

Courtesy: its forms, 127-129; idioms, 157; in Epistolary Communication (Essay XXII.), 315-335; in what courtesy consists, 315; the act of writing, phrases, 316; promptitude, 317; instance of procrastination, 317, 318; illustrations, in the Plumpton Correspondence, of ancient courtesy, 318-323, 331; consists in modern brevity, 324; foreign forms, 325; by telegraph, 326; in little things, 327; in stationery, 328; affected by postal cards, 329, 330; in chirography, 331, 332; affected by type-writers, 333; for show merely, 334; requiring answers, 335. (See _Manners_, _Classes_, etc.)

Cousins: French proverb, general relationship, 72; lack of friendly interest, 74. (See _Brothers_, etc.)

Creuzot, French foundry, 272.

Cricket: not played in France, 272; author's dislike, 398. (See _Amusements_.)

Crimean War, caused by ignorance, 278. (See _War_.)

Criticism: intolerant of certain features in books, 89; in Byron's letters, 347; in anonymous letters, 379; explained by a date, 381.

Cromwell, Oliver, contrasted with his son, 96.

Culture and Philistinism, 285-287.

Customs: upheld by clergy, 197, 198; amusements changed into, 383, 384, 389. (See _Ceremonies_, _Courtesy_, _Rank_, etc.)

Daily News, London, illustration of natural law _vs._ religion, xii.

Dancing: French quotation about, 31; religious aversion, 123; not compulsory to the poor, 388. (See _Amusements_, etc.)

Dante, his subjects, 192.

Daughters, their respectful and impertinent letters, 319-321. (See _Fathers_, _Sons_, _Women_, etc.)

Death: termination of intercourse, x, xi; from love, 39; Byron's lines, 50; ingratitude expressed in a will, 69; of wife's relations, 73; of Friendship (Essay VIII.), 110-118; not personal, 110; of a French gentleman, 182; priestly connection with, 184-186, 203; of absent friends, 338; French customs, 339; silence, 340. (See _Priests_, _Religion_.)

Debauchery, destructive of love, 34.

Deference, why liked, 122. (See _Rank_, etc.)

Deism, confounded with Atheism, 257. (See _God_, _Religion_, etc.)

Delos, oracle of, 229.

Democracies, illustration of broken friendships, 114, 115.

Democracy: accusation of, 131; confounded with Dissent, 257. (See _Nationality_, etc.)

Denmark, the crown-prince of, 327.

Dependence, of one upon all, 12.

De Saussure, Horace Benedict, his life study, 230, 231.

Despotism, provincial and social, 17. (See _Tyranny_.)

De Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Clerel: allusion, 147; translation, 152; on English unsociability (Essay XVII.), 239-252 _passim_.

Devil: priestly opposition, 195; belief in agency, 224; God's relation to, 228. (See _Clergy_, _Superstition_, _Religion_, etc.)

Devonshire, Eng., its beauty, 270.

Dickens, Charles: his middle-class portraitures, 20; his indebtedness to the poor, 22; humor, 72.

Dictionary, references, 155. (See _Languages_.)

Diderot, Denis, Goldsmith's interview, 309.

Dignity, to be maintained in middle-life, 117.

Diminution, habit in art and life (Essay XVI.), 232-238. (See _Exaggeration_.)

Diogenes, his philosophy, 127.

Discipline: of children, 78-98 _passim_; delegated, 83; mental, 208; of self, 308.

Discord, the result of high taste, 6.

Dishonesty, part of Bohemianism, 296.

Disraeli, Benjamin, female estimate, 380.

Dissenters: French estimate, 18, 19; English exclusion, 19, 256; liberty in religion, 164, 165; position not compulsory, 170; small towns, 171-173. (See _Church of England_, etc.)

Dissipation: among working-men, 124; in France, 272, 273. (See _Wine_, etc.)

Distinctions forgotten (Essay XX.), 280-294 _passim_. (See _Confusion_.)

Divorce, causes of, 38. (See _Marriage_, _Women_, etc.)

Dobell, Sidney, social exclusion, 19.

Dog, rifle compared to, 392. (See _Amusements_.)

Dominicans, dress, 189. (See _Religion_, etc.)

Dominoes in France, 273. (See _Amusements_.)

Don Quixote, illustration of paternal satire, 97.

Doré, Gustave, his kind and long letter, 345.

Double, Léopold, home, 142.

Dover Straits, 337.

Drama: power of adaptation, 72; amateur actors, 143.

Drawing: a French church, 23, 24; aid to business letters, 363, 364. (See _Painters_, etc.)

Dreams, outgrown, 60.

Dress: connection with manners, 126, 127; ornaments to indicate wealth, 131; feminine interest, 187; clerical vestments, 187, 188, 198; sexless, 202, 203; of the Philistines, 297, 298; Bohemian, 304-307, 313, 314. (See _Women_.)

Driving, sole exercise, 302.

Drunkenness: part of Bohemianism, 296; in best society, 297. (See _Table_, _Wine_, etc.)

Duelling, French, 273.

Du Maurier, George, his satire on coffee-dealers, 133, 134.

Dupont, Pierre, song about wine, 268, 269, 272.

Ear, learning languages by, 156. (See _Languages_.)

Easter: allusion, 198; confession, 281.

Eccentricity: high intellect, 56; in an artist, 307; claims indulgence, 387.

Eclipse, superstitious view, 215-217, 229.

Economy, necessitated by marriage, 26. (See _Wealth_.)

Edinburgh Review, editor, 152.

Editor, a procrastinating correspondent, 317.

Education: similarity, 10; affecting idiosyncrasy, 13; conventional, 15; effect upon humor, 20; literary, derived from the poor, 22; affected by change in filial obedience, 80-88; home, 81 _et seq._; authority of teachers, 81, 83; divergence of parental and filial, 84; special efforts, 85; divergent, 90-92; profound lack of, 91; never to be thrown off, 92; of hospitality, 99, 100; the effect on all religion (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_; knowledge of languages, 245; of Tasso family, 350, 351. (See _Languages_, etc.)

Egypt: Suez Canal, xii; illustration of school tasks, 85; war of 1882, 222-224, 229.

Eliot, George: hints from the poor, 22; her peculiar relation to Mr. Lewes, 45, 46, 55, 56; often confounded with other writers, 290.

Elizabeth, Queen: order about the marriage of clergy, 200; her times, 381. (See _Celibacy_.)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo: the dedication, iii, iv; anecdote of Napoleon, 367.

England: newspaper reports, 41; a French woman's knowledge of, 107; respect for rank, 136; title-worship, 137; estimate of wealth, 144-146; slavery to houses, 145; French ideas slowly received, 150; religious freedom, 164-168, 172; two religions for the nobility, 169, 170, 173; a most relentless monarch, 180; women during reign of Charles II., 181; marriage rites, 184, 185; aristocracy, 246; A Remarkable Peculiarity (Essay XVII.), 239-252; meeting abroad, 239; reticence in each other's company, 240; anecdotes, 241, 242; dread of intrusion, 243, 244; freedom with foreigners and with compatriots, 245; not a mark of aristocracy, 246; fear of meddlers, 247; interest in rank, 248; reticence outgrown, 249; Lever's illustration, 250; exceptions, 251; Saxon and Norman influence, 251, 252; Dissenters ignored, 256, 257; general information, 263; French ignorance of art and literature in, 265-267, 269; game, 268; mountains, 270, 271; landscapes, 270; Church, 275; supposed law about attending the Mass, 281; homes longed for, 286; the architectural blunders of tourists, 291; Philistine lady, 304; painter and Philistine, 306; letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 318-321; use of telegraph, 323; letters shortened, 325; letter-paper 328; post-cards, 329, 330; communication with France, 337; trade habits, 361, 365; reading of certain books not compulsory, 378; old maids, 381; winter, 399. (See _Church of England_, _France_, etc.)

English Language: ignorance of, a misfortune, 149, 150; familiar knowledge unusual in France, 151-153; forms of courtesy, 157; conversation abroad, 240; _Bohemian_, 295; literature, 305; bad spelling, 360, 361; no synonym for _corvée_, 389; nautical terms, 396. (See _England_, etc.)

English People: Continental repulsion, 7; artistic attraction, 8; undervaluation of chance conversations, 26; looseness of family ties, 63; ashamed of sentiment, 82; feeling about heredity, 93; one lady's empty rooms, 104; another's incivility, 106; a merchant's loss of wealth, 121, 122; deteriorated aristocrat, 123; letters by ladies, 153; no consoling power, 182; gentlewomen of former generation, 205, 206; where to find inspiriting models, 208; companions of Prince Imperial, 225; understatement a habit, 234-238; a lady's ignorant remark about servants, 258, 259; ignorance of French mountains, etc., 270-271; fuel and iron, 272; universities, 275, 276; patronage of Americans, 277; anonymous letter to a gentleman, 376.

Ennui: banished by labor, 32; on shipboard, 396.

Enterprise, affecting individualism, 14.

Envy, expressed in anonymous letters, 371.

Epiphany, annual Egyptian ceremony, xii. (See _Science_, _Superstition_, etc.)

Epithets, English, 235.

Equality: affecting intercourse, 246; _égalité_, 282, 283. (See _Rank_, _Ignorance_.)

Equestrianism, affected by railways, 14.

Etching, Leloir's fondness for, 401.

Etheredge, Sir George, his ribaldry, 181.

Eton College, allusion, 277.

Eugénie, Empress: her influence over her husband, 176; his regard, 225.

Europe: vintages, 133; influence of Littré, 210; Southern, 240; allusion, 254; Turkey nearly expelled, 278; latest thought, 306; cities, 309; William of Orange, on complications, 344; communistic disturbances, 377. (See _England_, _France_, etc.)

Evangelicism, English peculiarities, 123. (See _Dissenters_, etc.)

Evans, Marian. (See _George Eliot_.)

Evolution, theory of, 176.

Exaggeration, the habit in art and life (Essay XVI.), 232-238. (See _Diminution_.)

Exercise: love of, 14; in the young and the old, 86, 87. (See _Amusements_.)

Experience: value, 30; needed to avoid dangers in letter-writing, 352.

Extravagance: part of Bohemianism, 295; Goldsmith's, 310.

Family: Ties (Essay V.), 63-77; looseness in England, 63; brotherly coolness, 64; domestic jealousies, 65; laws of primogeniture, 66; instances of strong attachment, 67; illustrations of kindness, 68; pecuniary relations, 69; parsimony, 70; discomfort of refinement, 71; cousins, 72; wife's relations, 73; indifference to the achievements of kindred, 74; aid from relatives, domestic rudeness, 75; brutality, misery, 76; home privations, 77; Fathers and Sons (Essay VI.), 78-98; intercourse, to be distinguished from individual, 119, 120; rich friends, 121; false, 122; children's marriages, 123; old, 135, 136; clerical, 199, 200; subjects of letters, 205; regard of Napoleon III., 225. (See _Brothers_, _Sons_, etc.)

Fashion, transient, 307.

Fathers: separated from children by incompatibility, 10; by irascibility, 75; by brutality of tongue, 76; and Sons (Essay VI.), 78-98; unsatisfactory relation, interregnum, 78; old and new feelings and customs, 79; commanding, 80; exercise of authority, 81; Mill's experience, 82; abdication of authority, 83; personal education of sons, 84, 85; mistakes of middle-age, 86; outstripped by sons, 87; intimate friendship impossible, 88; differences of age, 89; divergences of education and experience, 90, 91; opinions not hereditary, 92, 93; the attempted control of marriage, 94; Peter the Great and Alexis, 95; other illustrations of discord, 96; satire and disregard of personality, 97; true foundation of paternal association, 98; death of a French parent, 182; a letter, 319-322.

Favor, fear of loss, 147.

Ferdinand and Isabella, religious freedom in their reign, 164.

Fiction: love in French, 41; absorbing theme, 42; in a library, 305.

Fletcher, Thomas, firearms made by, 391, 392.

Florence, Italy, pestilence, 222.

Flowers: illustration, 179; church use, 188; Flower Sunday, 189. (See _Women_, etc.)

Fly, artificial, 377.

Fog, English, 270.

Foreigners: associations with, 7; view of English family life, 63; in travelling-conditions (Essay XVII.), 239-252 _passim_; association leads to misapprehension, 287; in England, 291.

Fox-hunting, 180, 398, 399. (See _Amusements_, _Sports_, etc.)

France: a peasant's outlook, xii; social despotism in small cities, 17-19; pleasant associations in a cathedral city, 23, 24; political criticism, 115; noisy card-players, 128, 129; disregard of titles, 136, 137; adage about riches, 145; English ideas slowly received, 150; travel in Southern, 150; religious freedom, 165; marriage, 184; railway accident, 218-220; the Imperialists, 225; feudal fashions, 246; obstinacy of the old régime, 254-256; mountains, 271; vigor of young men, 272, 273; universities, 275, 276; equality attained by Revolution, 283; bourgeois complaint of newspapers, 286; mineral oil, 288; confusion of tourists, 291; Goldsmith's travels, 309, 310; landscape painter, 310; end of Plumpton family, 323; use of telegraph, 323; letters shortened, 325; letter-paper, 328; post-cards, 330; chirography, 332; New Year's cards, 339; _carton non bitumé_, 358, 359; habits of tradesmen, 360, 361, 365; the _Salon_, 367; old maids, 381; a _corvée_, 389, 390; Leloir the painter, 401. (See _Continent_, etc.)

Fraternity, _fraternité_, 282, 283. (See _Brothers_.)

Freedom: national, 279; public and private liberty confounded, 281, 282.

French Language: teaching, 85; ignorance a misfortune, 149, 150; rare knowledge of, by Englishmen, 151, 152; letters by English ladies, 153; forms of courtesy, 157; prayers, 158; as the universal tongue, 158, 159; English knowledge of, 245; _univers_, 273, 274. (See _Languages_.)

French People: excellence in painting, and relations to Americans and English, 7; an ideal of _good form_, 15; old conventionality, 16-18; love in fiction, 41; family ties, 63; proverb about cousins, 72; unbelieving sons, 93; bourgeois table manners formerly, 101, 102; state apartments, 105; incivility towards, at an English table, 106; girls, 106; a woman's clever retort, 107; literature condemned by wholesale, 147; royal daily life, 167; power of consolation, 182; examples of virtue, 208; old nobility, 209; Buffon and Littré, 209-211; _hazard providentiel_, 227; painters, 232, 233; overstatement, 234, 235; sociability with strangers contrasted with the English want of it (Essay XVII.), 239-252 _passim_; a widow and suite, 242, 243; discreet social habits, 247, 248; a disregard of titles, 248; a weak question about fortune, 259; ignorance of English matters, 265-270; wine-song, 268, 269; fuel and iron, 271, 272; seeming vanity of language, 273, 274; conceit cured by war, 278; communist dreamers, 284; proverb, 287; confusion of persons, 290.

Friendship: supposed impossible in a given case, viii, ix; real, x; how formed, 4; not confined to the same class, 5; affected by art and religion, 6; by taste and nationality, 7, 8; by likeness, 8; with those with whom we have not much in common, 9, 10; affected by incompatibility, 10; Byron's comparison, 30; affecting illicit love, 41; akin to marriage, 48; elective affinity, 75; Death of (Essay VIII.), 110-118; sad subject, no resurrection, definition, 110; boyish alliances, growth, 111; personal changes, 112; differences of opinion, 113; of prosperity, financial, professional, political, 114; habits, marriage, 115; neglect, poor and rich, 116; equality not essential, acceptance of kindness, new ties, 117; intimacy easily destroyed, 118; affected by wealth (Essays IX., X.), 119-147 _passim_; by language, 149; between Priests and Women (Essay XIII.), 175-204 _passim_; formed with strangers, 251; leads to misunderstood opinions, 287, 288; disturbed by procrastination, 317; Letters of, (Essay XXIII.), 336-353; infrequency, 336; obstacles, 337; the sea a barrier, 338; aid of a few words at New Year's, 339; death-like silence, 340; charm of manner not always carried into letters, 341; excluded by business, 342; cooled by reproaches, 343; all topics interesting to a friend, 344; affection overflows in long letters, 345-351; fault-finding dangerous, 352, 353; journeys saved, 360. (See _Association_, _Companionship_, _Family_, etc.)

Fruit, ignorance about English, 269, 270.

Fruition, pleasure of, 400.

Fuel, French, 272.

Furniture: feminine interest in, 187; regard and disregard (Essay XXI.), 295-314 _passim_; Goldsmith's extravagance, 310. (See _Women_.)

Gambetta, his death, 225.

Game: in England, 267, 268, 270; elephant and hippopotamus, 392. (See _Sports_.)

Games, connection with amusement, 385, 397. (See _Cards_, etc.)

Garden, illustration, 9.

Gascoyne, William, letters, 318, 319.

Generosity: affecting family ties, 69, 70; of a Philistine, 301.

Geneva Lake, as seen by different eyes, 230, 231.

Genius, enjoyment of, 303.

Gentility: Genteel Ignorance (Essay XVIII.), 253-263; an ideal condition, 253; misfortune, 254; French noblesse, 255; ignores differing forms of religion, 256, 257; poverty, 258; inferior financial conditions, 259, 260; real differences, 261; genteel society avoided, 262; because stupid, 263.

Geography: London Atlas, 274; work of Reclus, 291. (See _Ignorance_.)

Geology, allusion, 166. (See _Science_.)

George III., colonial tenure, 279.

Germany: models of virtue, 208; hotel fashions, 244; a Bohemian and scholar, 304-306.

German Language, English knowledge, 245.

Gladstone, William E.: the probable effect of a French training, 17, 18; indebtedness to trade, 135; _Lord_, 137; foreign troubles ending in inkshed, 150; allusion, 241; use of post-cards, 335; female estimate, 380.

Glasgow, steamer experience, 25.

Gloucester, Eng., manufactory of rifles, 391, 392.

God: of the future, 177; personal care, 178, 179; against wickedness, 180; Divine love, 178-181, 186, 187; interference with law (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_; human motives, 228. (See _Religion_, etc.)

Gods: our valors the best, 177; siege of Syracuse, 215-217. (See _Superstition_.)

Godwin, Mary, relations to Shelley, 46-48.

Goethe: Faust's Margaret, 39; relation to women, 46, 50, 56, 57; Life, 244.

Gold: in embroidery to indicate wealth, 131; color, 232, 233.

Goldsmith, Oliver, his Bohemianism, 309, 310.

Gormandizing, 103. (See _Table_.)

Government: feminine, 176; scientific, 229.

Grammar: French knowledge of, 152; rival of literature, 154; in correspondence, 356, 357. (See _Languages_, etc.)

Gratitude: a sister's want of, 69; hospitality not reciprocated, 122.

Greece: Byron's enthusiasm, 50, 57; story of Nikias, 215-217; advance of knowledge, 230; Byron's notice of a book, 348.

Greek Church: Czar's headship, 168; the only true, 258. (See _Church of England_, etc.)

Greek Language: teaching, 84; fitness as the universal language, 158, 159; in the Renaissance, 212; professorship and library, 287; doggerel, 400. (See _Languages_.)

Groom, true happiness in a stable, 343.

Guests: Rights of (Essay VII.), 99-109; respect, exclusiveness, 99; two views, 100; conformity insisted upon, 101; left to choose for himself, 102; duties towards a host, generous entertainment, 103; parsimonious treatment, 104; illustrations, ideas to be respected, 105; nationality also, 107; a host the ally of his guests, 107; discourtesy towards a host, 108; illustration, 109; among rich and poor, 140-144.

Guiccioli, Countess, her relations to Byron, 49, 50.

Guillotine, Byron's description, 347.

Gulliver's Travels, allusion, 261.

Gymnastics: by young Frenchmen, 272; aristocratic monopoly, 283. (See _Amusements_, etc.)

Habits: in language, 157; French discretion, 247, 248.

Hamerton, Philip Gilbert: indebtedness to Emerson, iii, iv; plan of the book, vii-ix; omissions, ix; the pleasures of friendship, x; on death, x, xi; a liking for civilization and all its amenities, xii; thoughts in French travel, 17 _et seq._; pleasant experience in studying French architecture, 23, 24; conversation in Scotland, 24, 25; in a steamer, 25, 26; acquaintance with a painter, 28; belief in Nature's promises, 60 _et seq._; what a sister said, 65; the love of two brothers, 67; delightful experience with wife's relations, 73; experience of hospitable tyranny, 100 _et seq._; Parisian dinner, 107; experience with friendship, 113; noisy French farmers, 128, 129; Scotch dinner, 131; country incident, 139, 140; questioning a Parisian lady, 152; Waterloo letters, 156; how Italian seems to him, 155; incident of Scotch travel, 173; visit to a bereaved French lady, 182; travel in France, 219; lesson from a painter, 232; snubbed at a hotel, 240-242; a French widow on her travels, 242, 243; a lady's ignorance about religious distinctions, 257; personal anecdotes about ignorance between the English and French, 265-279 _passim_; translations into French, 267; Puseyite anecdote, 284, 285; conversations heard, 291; boat incident, 292, 293; life-portraits, 300-308; experience with procrastinators, 317, 318; residence in Lancashire, 318; interest in Plumpton family, 323, 324; telegraphing a letter, 326; experience with _un mot à la poste_, 330; his boat wrongly painted, 359; his Parisian correspondent, 360, 361; efforts to ensure accuracy, 368, 369; a strange lady's anxiety for his religious condition, 378; his Wenderholme, 378; anonymous letter answered, 379-382; dislike of cricket, 398.

Harewood, Earl of, 323.

Haste, connection with refinement and wealth, 125, 126. (See _Leisure_.)

Hastings, Marquis of, his elopement, 321.

Haweis, H. R., sermon on Egyptian war, 224.

Hedges: English, 270, 271; sleeping under, 307.

Hell, element in oratory, 192, 193. (See _Priests_.)

Heredity, opinions not always hereditary, 92-97.

Heresy: banishment for, 161; disabilities, 162 _et seq._; punishment by fire, 180; pulpit attack, 192; shades in, 257, 258; resistance to God, 284. (See _Roman Catholicism_, etc.)

Highlanders, their rowing, 154.

Hirst, Eng., letters from, 320, 321.

History, French knowledge of, 152.

Holland, Goldsmith's travels, 309.

Home: Family Ties (Essay V.), 62-77; a hell, 76; crowded, 77; absence affecting friendship, 111; French, 142; English (Essay X.), 130-147 _passim_; the confessional, 202; nostalgia, 286.

Homer: indebtedness to the poor, 22; on the appetite, 103.

Honesty, at a discount, 162, 163, 170.

Honor, in religious conformity, 162.

Horace: familiarity with, 155; quoted, 289, 361.

Horneck, Mrs., Goldsmith's friend, 310.

Horseback: illustration, 168, 260; luxury, 298.

Hospitality: (Essay VII.), 99-109; help to liberty, 99; an educator for right or wrong, 100; opposite views, 100; tyranny over guests, 101; reaction against old customs, 102; a host's rights, some extra effort to be expected, 103; disregard of a guest's comfort, 104; instances, opinions to be respected, 105; host should protect a guest's rights, 106; anecdote, 107; invasion of rights, 108; glaring instance, 109; affected by wealth, 140-144; excuse by a procrastinator, 318. (See _Guests_.)

Hosts, rights and duties (Essay VII.), 99-109 _passim_. (See _Hospitality_.)

Houghton, Lord, his knowledge of French, 151, 152.

Housekeeping: ignorance of cost, 258, 259; cares, 381.

Houses: effect of living in the same, ix; big, 145; evolution of dress, 189; movable, 261, 262; damage, 358.

Hugo, Victor, use of a word, 273, 274.

Humanity: obligations to, 12; future happiness dependent upon a knowledge of languages, 148 _et seq._

Humor: in different classes, 20; lack of it, 72; in using a foreign language, 157, 158; not carried into letters and pictures, 340-342.

Hungarians, their sociability, 249.

Hurry, to be distinguished from brevity in letter-writing, 331.

Husbands: narration of experience, 25, 26; unsuitable, 40; relations of noted men to wives, 44-62 _passim_; compulsory unions, 94-98; old-fashioned letter, 322; use of post-cards, 329, 330; privacy of letters, 350; Montaigne's letter, 351, 352. (See _Wives_, etc.)

Hut: suggestions of a, 261, 262; for an artist, 314.

Huxley, Thomas Henry, on natural law, 217, 219.

Hypocrisy: to be avoided, xi-xiii; in religion (Essay XII.), 161-174 _passim_; not a Bohemian vice, 296.

Ibraheem, lost at sea, 226.

Ideas, their interchange dependent upon language, 148.

Idiosyncrasy: its charm, 9; in art and authorship, 12, 13; nullified by travel, 14, 15; affecting marital happiness, 48-62 _passim_; affecting family ties, 64; wanted in letters, 347; in amusements, 389; congenital, 396.

Ignorance: Genteel (Essay XVIII.), 253-263; among French royalists, 254, 255; in religion, 256, 257; in regard to pecuniary conditions, 258, 259; of likeness and unlikeness, 260, 261; disadvantages, 262; drives people from society, 263; Patriotic (Essay XIX.), 264-279; a narrow satisfaction, 264; French ignorance of English art, 265, 267; of English game, 268; of English fruit, 269; English errors as to mountains, 270, 271; fuel, manly vigor, 272, 273; word _universal_, 274; universities, 275, 276; literature, 277; leads to war, 277, 278; not the best patriotism, 279; unavoidable, 301; contented, 302; of gentlewomen, 381, 382. (See _Nationality_, etc.)

Imagination, a luxury, 300.

Immorality: too easily forgiven in princes, 168; considered essential to Bohemianism, 295. (See _Vice_.)

Immortality: connection with music, 191; menaces and rewards, 193. (See _Priests_, etc.)

Impartiality, not shown by clergy, 194.

Impediments, to national intercourse (Essay XI.), 148-160.

Impertinence, ease of manner mistaken for, 250.

Incompatibility: inexplicable, 10; one of two great powers deciding intercourse, 11. (See _Friendship_, etc.)

Independence: (Essay II.), 12-32; illusory and real, influence of language, 12; illustrations, 13; railway travel destructive to, 14; conventionality and French ideas of _good form_, 15; social repressions and London life, 16; local despotism, 17; the French rural aristocracy, 18; illustrations and social exclusion, 19; humor and domestic anxiety, society not essential, 20; palliations to solitude, outside of society, absolute solitude, 21; rural illustrations, 22; incident in a French town, 23; one in Scotland, 24; on a steamer, 25; English reticence, 26; an evil of solitude, pursuits in common, 27; illustration from Mill, deterioration of an artist, 28; patient endurance, the refreshment of books, 29; companionship of nature, 30; consolation of labor, 31; an objection to this relief, 32; a fault, 69; of Philistines and Bohemians (Essay XXI.), 295-314 _passim_. (See _Society_, etc.)

Independents, the, in England, 170.

India: a brother's cold farewell, 67; relations of England, 279.

Indians, their Bohemian life, 298, 306.

Individualism, affected by railways, 13-15.

Individuality, reliance upon our own, iv.

Indolence: destroying friendship, 116; stupid, 197; causes wrong judgment, 293; part of Bohemianism, 295; in business, 356; in reading letters, 366-369.

Indulgences, affecting friendship, 115.

Industry: to be respected, 132; professional work, 196; Buffon's and Littré's, 209, 210; ignorance about English, 265, 266; of a Philistine, 300; in letter-writing, 356.

Inertia, in middle-life, 302.

Infidelity: affecting political rights, 162, 163; withstood by Dissent, 257.

Ink: dilution to save expense, 333; red, 369.

Inquisition, the, in Spain, 180.

Inspiration, in Jacquemont's letters, 348.

Intellectuality: a restraint upon passion, 38; affecting family ties, 73, 74; its pursuits, 127; denied to England, 265, 266, 267; ambition for, 283; the accompaniment of wealth, 297; outside of, 301; enjoyed, 306.

Intelligence: the supreme, 176, 177; connection with leisure, 197.

Intercession, feminine fondness for, 175, 176.

Intercourse. (This subject is so interwoven with the whole work that special references are impossible.)

Interdependence, illustrated by literary work, 12.

Interviews, compared with letters, 354-357.

Intimacy: mysteriously hindered, 10; with nature, 302.

Intolerance, of amusements, 389.

Intrusion, dreaded by the English, 243, 247.

Inventions, why sometimes misjudged, 292, 293.

Irascibility, in parents, 75, 76.

Iron, in France, 272.

Irving, Washington, on Goldsmith, 310.

Isolation: affecting study, 28, 29; alleviations, 29-31. (See _Independence_.)

Italian Language: Latin naturalized, 155; merriment in using, 158.

Italy: Byron's sojourn, 50; Goethe's, 51, titles and poverty, 136; overstatement a habit, 234; papal government, 255, 256; travelling-vans, 261, allusion, 271; why live there, 285, 286; tourists, 291; Goldsmith's travels, 309; forms in letter-writing, 325.

Jacquemont, Victor, his letters, 348-350.

James, an imaginary friend, 343, 344.

Jardin des Plantes, Buffon's work, 209.

Jealousy: national, 7; domestic, 65, youthful, effect of primogeniture, 66; between England and France, 150; Greece need not awaken, 159, excited by the confessional, 202, 203; in anonymous letters, 371.

Jerusalem, the Ark lost, 229.

Jewelry: worn by priests, 202; enjoyment of, 297.

Jews: not the only subjects of useful study, 207, 208, 211; God of Battles, 224; advance of knowledge, 230. (See _Bible_.)

John, an imaginary friend, 344, 345.

Jones, an imaginary gentleman, 130.

Justice: feminine disregard, 180; connection with priesthood, 194.

Keble, John, Christian Year, 198.

Kempis, Thomas à, his great work, 95.

Kenilworth, anecdote, 277.

Kindness, how to be received, 117.

Kindred: affected by incompatibility, 10; Family Ties (Essay V.), 63, 77; given by Fate, 75. (See _Sons_, etc.)

Kings: divine right, 255; on cards, 289; courtesy in correspondence, 317; a poetic figure, 386, 387. (See _Rank_, etc.)

Knarsbrugh, Eng., 320.

Knyghton, Henry, quotation, 251.

Lakes, English, 270.

Lancashire, Eng.: all residents not in cotton-trade, 288; residence, 318, drinking-habits, 378.

Land-ownership, 131.

Landscape: companionship, 31; ignorance about the English, 270.

Languages: as affecting friendship, 7; similarity, 10; influences interdependence, 12; study of foreign, 29, 84, 85; ignorance of, an Obstacle (Essay XI.), 148-160; impediment to national intercourse, 148; mutual ignorance of the French and English, 149; commercial advantages, American kinship, 150; an imperfect knowledge induces reticence, 151; rarity of full knowledge, 152; illustrations, first stage of learning a tongue, 153; second, 154; third, fourth, 155; fifth, learning by ear, 156; absurdities, idioms, forms of politeness, 157; a universal speech, 158; Greek commended, 159; advantages, 160; one enough, 301, 305; acquaintance with six, 304; foreign letters, 364, 365.

Latin: teaching, 84; construction unnatural, 155; in the Renaissance, 212; church, 258; proverb, 287; poetry, 289; in telegrams, 324; Horace, 361; _corrogata_, 390.

Laws: difficult to ascertain, viii; human resignation to, xi; of Human Intercourse (Essay I.), 3-11; fixed knowledge difficult, 3, common belief, 4; similarity of interest, 5; may breed antagonism, 6; national prejudices, 7; likeness begets friendship, 8; idiosyncrasy and adaptability, 9; intimacy slow, 10; law of the pleasure of human intercourse still hidden, 11; fixed, 179; feminine disregard, 184; quiet tone, 193; regularity and interference (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_; legal distinctions, 280, 281.

Laymen, contrasted with clergy, 181, 182.

Lectures, one-sided, 29.

Legouvé, M.: on filial relations, 78; religious question, 93; anecdote of chirography, 332.

Leisure: its connection with refinement, 125, 126; varying in different professions, 196, 197.

Leloir, Louis, fondness for etching, 401.

Lent, allusion, 198.

Letters. (See _Correspondence_.)

Lever, Charles: quotation from That Boy of Norcott's, 249, 250; finances misunderstood, 259, 260; boating, 259, 394.

Lewes, George Henry: relation to Marian Evans, 45; quotation from Life of Goethe, 244.

Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, immortal saying, 385.

L'Honneur et l'Argent, quotation, 304, 335.

Liberality: French lack of, 18, 19; induced by hospitality, 99, 100; apparent, 173.

Liberty: in religion (Essay XII.), 161-174; private and public, 281, 282; _liberté_, 282, 283; with friends in letters, 353.

Libraries: value, 286, 287; narrow specimens, 302.

Lies, at a premium, 162, 163.

Life: companionship for, 44-62; enjoyed in different ways, 306.

Likeness, the secret of companionship, 8.

Limpet, an illustration of incivility, 108.

Literature: conventional, 15; influence of the humbler classes, 22, 23; softens isolation, 29, 31; deaths from love, 39; affecting fraternity, 64; youthful nonsense not tolerated in books, 89; superiority to mercenary motives, 132; advantages of mutual national knowledge, 149-153; rivals in its own domain, 154; not necessarily religious, 198; English periodical, 237; ignorance about English, 267; and Philistinism, 286, 287; singleness of aim, 289; English, 305; not an amusement, 400.

Littré, Maximilien Paul Émile, his noble life, 209-211.

Livelihood, anxiety about, 20.

London: mental independence, 16-18; solitude needless, 20; Mill's rank, 56; old but new, 136; Flower Sunday, 189; pestilence improbable, 222; The Times, 244; centre of English literature, 267; business time contrasted with that of Paris, 273; buildings, 291; Palmer leaving, 310; cabman, 335; a famous Londoner, 399.

Lottery, illustrative of kinship, 75.

Louis II., amusements, 386-388.

Louis XVIII., impiety, 167.

Louvre: English art excluded, 267; confounded with other buildings, 291.

Love: of nature, 30; Passionate (Essay III.), 33-43; nature, blindness, 33; not the monopoly of youth, debauchery, 34; permanence not assured, 35; "in a cottage," perilous to happiness, socially limited, 36; restraints, higher and lower, 37; varieties, selfishness, in intellectual people, 38; poetic subject, dying for, 39; old maids, unlawful in married people, 40; French fiction, early marriage repressed by civilization, 41; passion out of place, the endless song, 42; natural correspondences and Shelley, 43; in marriage, 44-62; some family illustrations, 63-77; wife's relations, 73; paternal and filial (Essay VI.), 78-98 _passim_; between friends (Essay VIII.), 110-118; divine, 178, 179; family, 205. (See _Brothers_, _Family_, etc.)

Lowell, James Russell, serious humor, 20.

Lower Classes, the: English rural, 22; rudeness, 75; religious privileges, 170, 171.

Luxury, material, 298. (See _Philistinism_.)

Lyons, France, the Academy, 275.

Macaulay, T. B., quotations, 181, 200, 224, 344, 345.

Macleod, Dr. Norman, his sympathy, 186, 187.

Magistracy, French, 283.

Mahometanism, as affecting intercourse, 5.

Malice: harmless, 269; in letters, 371-377.

Manchester, Eng., life there, 31.

Manners: affected by wealth, 125-129; by leisure, 197; by aristocracy, 246. (See _Courtesy_, etc.)

Manufactures: under fixed law, 228; ignorance about English, 265, 266, 268.

Marriage: responsibility increased, 25, 26; or celibacy? 34; Shelley's, does not assure love, 35; following love, 36; irregular, 37; restraints of superior intellects, 38; love outside of, 40; early marriage restrained by civilization, 41; philosophy of this, 42; Companionship in (Essay IV.), 44-62; life-journey, 44; alienations for the sake of intellectual companionship, 45; illustrations, 46, 47; mistakes not surprising, 48; Byron, 49, 50; Goethe, 51, 52; Mill, 53, 54; difficulty in finding true mates, 55; exceptional cases not discouraging, 56; easier for ordinary people, 57; inequality, 58; hopeless tranquillity, 59; youthful dreams dispelled, 60; Nature's promises, how fulfilled, 61; "I thee worship," 62; wife's relations, 73; filial obedience, 94-97; destroying friendship, 115; affecting personal wealth, 119; social treatment, 120; of children, 123; effect of royal religion, 166; and of lower-class, 171; civil and religious, 184, 185; clerical, 196, 198-201; of absent friends, 338; French customs, 339; Montaigne's sentiments, 351, 352; slanderous attempts to prevent, 371-375; household cares, 381; breakfasts, 385, 386. (See _Women_, etc.)

Mask, a simile, 370.

Mediocrity, dead level of, 236.

Mediterranean Sea, allusion, 399.

Meissonier, Jean Ernest Louis, his talent, 284.

Melbourne, Bishop of, 221.

Men, choose for themselves, 197. (See _Marriage_, _Sons_, _Women_, etc.)

Mephistopheles, allusion, 235.

Merchants, connection with national peace, 149, 150.

Mérimée, Prosper, Correspondence, 321.

Metallurgy, under fixed law, 228.

Methodists, the: in England, 170; hymns, 257.

Michelet, Jules: on the Church, 189, 190; on the confessional, 202, 203.

Middle Classes: Dickens's descriptions, 20; rank of some authors, 56; domestic rudeness, 75; table customs, 103; religious freedom, 170; clerical inferences, 183. (See _Classes_, _Lower Class_, etc.)

Mignet, François Auguste Marie: friendship with Thiers, 120; condition, 121.

Military Life: illustration, 21; filial obedience, 80; religion, 123; religious conformity, 169; antagonistic to toleration, 173, 174; French, 272; allusion, 300, 307.

Mill, John Stuart: social affinities, 20; aversion to unintellectual society, 27, 28; relations to women, 53-55; social rank, 56; education by his father, 81-84; on friendship, 112, 113; on sneering depreciation, 237; on English conduct towards strangers, 245; on social stupidity, 263.

Milnes, Richard Monckton. (See _Lord Houghton_.)

Milton, John, Palmer's constant interest, 313.

Mind, weakened by concession, 147.

Misanthropy, appearance of, 27.

Montaigne, Michel: marriage, 59; letter to wife, 351, 352.

Montesquieu, Baron, allusion, 147.

Months, trade terms for, 365.

Morris, Lewis, A Cynic's Day-dream, 393.

Mothers, "loud-tongued," 75. (See _Children_, _Women_, etc.)

Mountains: climbing affected by railways, 14; quotation from Byron, 30; in pictures, 43; glory in England and France, 270, 271; Mont Blanc, where situated, 271.

Mozart, Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus, allusion, 289.

Muloch, Dinah Maria, confounded with George Eliot, 290.

Music: detached from religion, xii, xiii; voice of love, 42; affecting fraternity, 64; connection with religion, 191; illustration of harmony, 389.

Nagging, by parents, 76.

Napoleon I.: and the Universe, 273, 274; privations, 308; _mot_ of the Pope, 341; Rémusat letters, 350.

Napoleon III.: death, son, 225; ignorance of German power, 278; losing Sedan, 308.

Nationality: prejudices, 7; to be respected at table, 106, 107; different languages an obstacle to intercourse (Essay XI.), 148-160; mutual ignorance (Essay XIX.), 264-279 _passim_.

National Gallery, London, 291.

Nature: compensations, iv; causes, xii; laws not deducible from single cases, 4; inestimable gifts, 26; beauty an alleviation of solitude, loyalty, 30, 31; opposed to civilization in love-matters, 41; universality of love, 42, 43; promises fulfilled, 60-62; revival of study, 212; laws fixed (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_; De Saussure's study, 230, 231; expressed in painting, 232, 233; nearness, 303-314 _passim_; her destroyers, 393.

Navarre, King Henry of, 224.

Navy, a young officer's acquaintance, 25, 26.

Neglect, destroys friendship, 116.

Nelson, Lord: the navy in his time, 279; letter in battle, 327, 328.

Nerves, affected by rudeness, 128, 129.

New England, a blond native, 240.

Newspapers: on nature and the supernatural, xii; adultery reports in English, 41; personal interest, 124; regard for titles, 137; quarrels between English and American, 150; reading, 156; on royalty, 166, 167; deaths in, 225; English and French subservience to rank, 248; a bourgeois complaint, 286; crossing the seas, 337, 338.

New Year's, French customs, 339.

Niagara Rapids, 290.

Night, Palmer's watches, 312.

Nikias, a military leader, his superstition, 215-217, 229.

Nineteenth Century, earlier half, 205, 206.

Nobility: the English have two churches to choose from, 169-171, 173; opposition to Dissent, 256, 257.

Nonconformity, English, 256, 257. (See _Dissent_, etc.)

Normans, influence of the Conquest, 251, 252.

Oaths, no obstacle to hypocrisy, 162.

Obedience, filial (Essay VI.), 78-98.

Observation, cultivated, 290, 291.

Obstacles: of Language, between nations (Essay XI.), 148-160; of Religion (Essay XII.), 161-174.

Occupations, easily confused, 288, 289.

Oil, mineral, 288.

Old Maids, defence, 379-382.

Olympus, unbelief in its gods, 162.

Oman, sea of, 226.

Opinions: not the result of volition, xiii; of guests to be respected, 105, 106; changes affecting friendship, 112, 113.

Orange, William of, correspondence, 344, 345.

Oratory, connection with religion, xii, 191-195.

Order of the Universe, to be trusted, iii.

Originality: seen in authorship, 12; how hindered and helped, 13, 14; French estimate, 15.

Orthodoxy, placed on a level with hypocrisy, 162, 163.

Ostentation, to be shunned in amusements, 401.

Oxford: opinion of a learned doctor about Christ's divinity, 6; Shelley's expulsion, 96; its antiquity, 275, 276.

Paganism: hypocrisy, and preferment, 162; gods and wars, 224.

Paget, Lady Florence, curt letter, 321.

Pain, feminine indifference to, 180.

Painters: taste in travel, 14; deterioration of a, 28; discovering new beauties, 60; Corot, 310, 311; Palmer, 312; one in adversity, 314; gayety not in pictures, 341; sketches in letters, 345; of boats, 359; lack of business in French painter, 367, 368; idle sketches, 400; Leloir, 401.

Painter's Camp in the Highlands, 379.

Painting: fondness for it a cause of discord, 6; French excellence, 8; interdependence, 13; high aims, 28; palpitating with love, 43; affecting fraternity, 64; none in heaven, 191; not necessarily religious, 198; copies, 203; two methods, 232, 233; convenient building, 261; ignorance about English, 265-267; not merely an amusement, 400. (See _Art_, etc.)

Paleontology, allusion, 206.

Palgrave, Gifford, saved from shipwreck, 226-228.

Palmer, George, a speech, 223.

Palmer, Samuel, his Bohemianism, 312, 313.

Palmer, William, in Russia, 257, 258.

Paper, used in correspondence, 328.

Paradise: the arts in, 191; affecting pulpit oratory, 193. (See _Priests_.)

Paris: an artistic centre, 8; incivility at a dinner, 107; effect of wealth, 121; elegant house, 142; English residents, 150; a lady's reply about English knowledge of French language, 152; Notre Dame, 190; Jardin des Plantes, 209; hotel incident, 240-242; not a desert, 242; light of the world, 266, 267, 274; resting after _déjeûner_, 273; confusion about buildings, 291; an illiterate tradesman, 360, 361; the _Salon_, 367.

Parliament: illustration of heredity, 93; indebtedness of members to trade, 135; infidelity in, 162; superiority of pulpit, 191; George Palmer, 223; questions in, 241; Houses, 291.

Parsimony: affecting family ties, 70; in hospitality, 104, 105.

Patriotism: obligations, 12; Littré's, 210; Patriotic Ignorance (Essay XIX.), 264-279; places people in a dilemma, 264; anecdotes of French and English errors, about art, literature, mountains, landscapes, fuel, ore, schools, language, 265-277; ignorance leading to war, 277-279; suspected of lacking, 287-288.

Peace, affected by knowledge of, languages, 148-150, 160.

Peculiarity, of English people towards each other (Essay XVII.), 239-252.

Pedagogues, their narrowness, 154.

Pedestrianism: as affected by railways, 14; in France, 272, 273; not enjoyed, 302.

Peel, Arthur, his indebtedness to trade, 135.

Pencil, use, when permissible, 333.

Periodicals, akin to correspondence, 30.

Persecution, feminine sympathy with, 80, 181.

Perseverance, Buffon's and Littré's, 209, 210.

Personality: its "abysmal deeps," 11; repressed by conventionality, 15; accompanies independence, 17; affecting family ties, 63-77 _passim_; paternal and filial differences, 78-98 _passim_; its frank recognition, 98; confused, anecdotes, 289, 290.

Persuasion, feminine trust in, 175.

Pestilence, God's anger in, 222.

Peter the Great, sad relations to his son, 95, 96.

Philistinism: illustrative stories, 285, 286; defined, 297; passion for comfort, 298; asceticism and indulgence, 299, 300; a life-portrait, 300-303; estimate of life, 303; an English lady's parlor, 304, 305; contrast, 306; avoidance of needless exposure, 313.

Philology: a rival of literature, 154; favorable to progress in language, 155.

Philosophy: detached from religion, xii; rational tone, 193.

Photography: a French experience, 24; under fixed law, 228.

Physicians: compared with priests, 186; rational, 193; Littré's service, 210.

Picturesque, regard for the, 7.

Piety: and law (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_; shipwreck, 226, 227.

Pitt, William, foreign disturbances in his day, 150.

Pius VII., on Napoleon, 341.

Play, boyish friendship in, 111.

Pleasures, three in amusements, 399, 400.

Plebeians, in England, 251, 252.

Plumpton Correspondence, 318-323, 331.

Poetry: detached from religion, xii; of love, 42; dulness to, 47; Shelley's, 47; Byron's, 50, 345-349; Goethe's, 51; and science, 57; Tennyson on Brotherhood, 67; lament, 73; art, 154; music in heaven, 191; Keble, 198; Battle of Ivry, 224; French, 268, 269; Latin, loyalty of Tennyson, 289; French couplet, 304; in a library, 305; "If I be dear," 325; Horace, 361; Palace of Art, 386; quotation from Morris, 393; line about anticipation, 399.

Poets: ideas about the harmlessness of love, 36; avoidance of practical difficulties, 39; love in natural scenery, 43.

Politics: conventional, 15; French narrowness, 18, 19; coffee-house, 28; inherited opinions, 93; opinions of guests to be respected, 105, 106; affecting friendship, 113-115; affected by ignorance of language, 148, 150, 160; adaptation of Greek language, 158; disabilities arising from religion, 161-174; divine government, 229; genteel ignorance, 254-256; votes sought, 257; affected by national ignorance, 277-279; distinctions confounded, 280-284; verses on letter-writing, 335.

Ponsard, François, quotations, 304, 335.

Popes: their infidelity, 162; temporal power, 255, 256. (See _Roman Catholicism_, etc.)

Popular Notions, often wrong, 292.

Postage, cheap, 336.

Postal Union, a forerunner, 159.

Post-cards, affecting correspondence, 329, 330, 335.

Poverty: allied with shrewdness, 22; affecting friendship (Essay IX.), 116, 119-129; priestly visits, 183; Littré's service, 210; ignorance about, 258-260; French rhyme, 304; not always the concomitant of Bohemianism, 309; not despised, 314; in epistolary forms, 317.

Prayers: reading in French, 158; averting calamities, 220-231 _passim_.

Prejudices: about great men, 4; national, 7; of English gentlewomen, 382.

Pride: of a wife, 59; in family wealth, 66; refusal of gifts, 68; in shooting, 390.

Priesthood: Priests and Women (Essay XIII.), 175-204; meeting feminine dependence, 178; affectionate interest, 179; representing God, 182; sympathy, 183; marriages and burials, 184; baptism and confirmation, 185; death, 186; Queen Victoria's reflections, 186, 187; æsthetic interest, 188; vestments, 189; architecture, 190; music, 191; oratory and dignity, 192; heaven and hell, 193; partisanship, 194; association in benevolence, 195; influence of leisure, 196; custom and ceremony, 197; holy seasons, 198; celibacy, 199; marriage in former times, 200; sceptical sons, 201; confessional, 202; assumption of superiority, 203; perfunctory goodness, 204.

Primogeniture, affecting family ties, 66.

Privacy: of a host, to be respected, 109; in letters, 350, 357.

Procrastination: in correspondence, 318, 319, 356; anecdotes, 366-369.

Profanity, definition, 208.

Professions, contrasted with trades, 132, 133.

Progress, five stages in the study of language, 153-157.

Promptness: in correspondence, 316, 317, 329; in business, 368.

Propriety, cloak for vice, 297.

Prose: an art, 154; eschewed by Tennyson, 289.

Prosody, rival of literature, 154.

Protestantism: in France, 19, 165, 256; Prussian tyranny, 173; exclusion of music, 191; clerical marriages, 200, 201; auricular confession, 201-203; liberty infringed, 281.

Providence and Law (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_.

Prussia: Protestant tyranny, 173; a soldier's cloak, 189; military strength, 278.

Public Men, wrong judgment about, 4.

Punch's Almanack, quoted, 133.

Pursuits, similarity in, 10.

Puseyism, despised, 284, 285.

Puzzle, language regarded as a, 153, 154.

Rabelais, quotation, 165.

Racehorses, illustration, 65.

Radicalism, definition, 282, 283.

Railways: affecting independence, 13-15; meditations in a French, 17; story in illustration of rudeness, 108, 109; distance from, 116; French accident, 218-220; moving huts, 261, 262; Stephenson's locomotive, 293; allusion, 309; journeys saved, 360; compared to sailing, 395.

Rain: cause of accident, 219; prayers for, 221.

Rank: a power for good, 5; conversation of French people of, 16; pursuit of, 27; discrimination in hospitality, 104; affecting friendship, 116; Differences (Essay X.), 130-147; social precedence, 130; land and money, 131; trades and professions, 132-135; unreal distinctions, 135; to be ignored, 136; English and Continental views, 136, 137; family without title, 138; affecting hospitality, 139-145; price, deference, 145-147; English admiration, 241, 242, 248, 249-252; connection with amusement, 383-401 _passim_.

Rapidity, in letter-writing, 324, 325.

Reading, in a foreign language, 154-158.

Reading, Eng., speech, 223, 224.

Reasoning, in letters, 384, 385.

Rebels, contrasted with reformers, 280.

Recreation, the purpose of amusement, 389.

Reeve, Henry, knowledge of French, 152.

Reformers, and rebels, 280, 281.

Refinement: affecting family harmony, 64; companionship, 71; enhanced by wealth, 125, 126.

Religion: affecting human intercourse, xi-xiii; detached from the arts, xii; affecting friendship, 5, 6; conventional, 15; Cheltenham prejudice, 19; formal in England, 63; affecting fraternity, 64; affecting family regard, 74; clergyman's son, 90, 91; family differences, 93, 94; to be respected in guests, 105, 106; destroying friendship, 113; Evangelical, 123; personal deterioration, 124; mercenary motives, 132, 133; title-worship, 137; an Obstacle (Essay XII.), 161-174; the dominant, 161; a hindrance to honest people, 162; dissimulation, 163; apparent liberty, 164; social penalties, 165; no liberty for princes, 166; French illustration, 167; royal liberty in morals, 168; official conformity, 169; greater freedom in the lower ranks, 170; less in small communities, 171; liberty of rejection and dissent, 172; false position, 173; enforced conformity, 174; Priests and Women (Essay XIII.), 175-204; of love, 178, 179; Why we are Apparently becoming Less Religious (Essay XIV.), 205-214; meditations of ladies of former generation, 205; trust in Bible, 206; idealization, 207; Nineteenth Century inquiries, 208; Buffon as an illustration, 209; Littré, 210; compared with Bible characters, 211; the Renaissance, 212; boundaries outgrown, 213; less theology, 214; How we are Really becoming Less Religious (Essay XV.), 215-231; superstition, 215; supernatural interference, 216, 217; idea of law diminishes emotion, 218; railway accident, 219; prayers and accidents, 220; future definition, 221; penitence and punishment, 222; war and God, 223; natural order, 224; Providence, 225; salvation from shipwreck, 226; _un hazard providentiel_, 227; _irreligion_, 228; less piety, 229; devotion and science, 230; wise expenditure of time, 231; feuds, 240; genteel ignorance of established churches, 255-258; French ignorance of English Church, 275; distinctions confounded, 281, 282; intolerance mixed with social contempt, 284, 285; activity limited to religion and riches, 301; in old letters, 320, 321, 323; female interest in the author's welfare, 377, 378; in theology, 379, 380. (See _Church of England_, _Methodism_, _Protestantism_, etc.)

Rémusat, Mme. de, letters, 350.

Renaissance, expansion of study in the, 212.

Renan, Ernest, one objection to trade, 132.

Republic, French, 254, 283, 284.

Residence, affecting friendship, 116.

Respect: the road to filial love, 98; why liked, 122; in correspondence, 316.

Restraints, of marriage and love, 36, 37.

Retrospection, pleasures of, 400.

Revolution, French, 209, 246, 283. (See _France_.)

Riding, Lever's difficulties, 260.

Rifles: in hunting, 391-393; names, 392.

Rights. (See different heads, such as _Hospitality_, _Sons_, etc.)

Robinson Crusoe, illustration, 21.

Rock, simile, 251.

Roland, his sword Durindal, 391.

Roman Camp, site, 14.

Roman Catholicism: its effect on companionship, 6; seen in rural France, 19; illustration of the Pope, 87; infidel sons, 93; wisdom of celibacy, 120; infidel dignitaries, 162; liberty in Spain, 164; royalty hearing Mass, 167; military salute to the Host, 169; recognition in England, 169, 170, 173; Continental intolerance, 172, 173; a conscientious traveller, 173; oppression in Prussia, 173; tradesmen compelled to hear Mass, 174; Madonna's influence, 176; priestly consolation, 183; use of art, 188-190; Dominican dress, 189; cathedrals, the Host, 190; astuteness, celibacy, 199; female allies, 200; confessional, 201, 202; feudal tenacity, 255; Protestantism ignored, 256; Romanism ignored by the Greek Church, 258; compulsory attendance, 282. (See _Priesthood_, _Religion_, etc.)

Romance: like or dislike for, 7; glamour of love, 42.

Rome: people not subjected to the papacy, 255, 256; Byron's letter, 347.

Rossetti, on Mrs. Harriett Shelley, 46.

Rouen Cathedral, 190.

Royal Academy, London, 266, 276.

Royal Society, London, 274.

Royalty, its religious bondage, 166-169, 171.

Rugby, residence of a father, 84.

Ruolz, the inventor, his bituminous paper, 358, 359.

Russell, Lord Arthur, his knowledge of French, 152.

Russia: religious position of the Czar, 168; orthodoxy, 257, 258; war with Turkey, 278. (See _Greek Church_.)

Sabbath, its observance, 123.

Sacredness, definition of, 208.

Sacrifices: demanded by courtesy, 315, 316; in letter-writing, 329-331; to indolence, 368.

Sahara, love-simile, 60.

Saint Bernard, qualities, 230, 231.

Saint Hubert's Day, carousal, 345.

Saints, in every occupation, 209.

Salon, French, 266, 276, 367.

Sarcasm: lasting effects, 66; brutal and paternal, 97.

Satire. (See _Sarcasm_.)

Savagery, return to, 298. (See _Barbarism_, _Civilization_.)

Saxons, influence in England, 251, 252.

Scepticism: and religious rites, 184, 185; in clergymen's sons, 201. (See _Heresy_.)

Schools, prejudice against French, 106.

Schuyler's Life of Peter the Great, 96.

Science: study affected by isolation, 29; and poetry, 57; superiority to mercenary motives, 132; in language, 154; adaptation of Greek language to, 158; illustration, 166; cold, 176, 178, 190; disconnected with religion, 198; affecting Bible study, 206; connection with religion (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_.

Scolding, 75, 76.

Scotland: a chance acquaintance, 25, 26; gentleman's sacrifice for his son, 84; incident in a country-house, 131; religious incident in travel, 173; a painter's hint, 232; the Highlands, 271; scenery, 379; cricket impossible, 398.

Scott, Sir Walter: indebtedness to the poor, 22; Lucy of Lammermoor, 39, 143, 144; Jeanie Deans, 175; supposed American ignorance of, 277; quotation from Waverley, 327; Provost's letter, 365.

Sculpture: warmed by love, 42, 43; none in heaven, 191; ignorance about English, 265. (See _Art_, etc.)

Seals on letters, 326-328.

Secularists: in England, 171; tame oratory, 193.

Sedan, cause of lost battle, 308.

Seduction, how restrained, 38.

Self-control, grim, 397.

Self-esteem, effect of benevolence in developing, 196.

Self-examination, induced by letters, 380.

Self-indulgence, of opposite kinds, 299, 300.

Self-interest: affecting friendship, 116; at the confessional, 202.

Selfishness: affected by marriage, 26; desire for comfort, 27; affecting passion, 38; in hosts, 101, 102; in a letter, 334; in amusements, 397.

Sensuality, connection with Bohemianism, 296.

Sentences, reading, 156.

Sentiment, none in business, 353, 364.

Separations: between friends, 111-118; letter-writing during, 338; Tasso family, 350, 351.

Sepulchre, whited, 297.

Sermons: one-sided, 29; in library, 302.

Servants: marriage to priests, 200; often needful, 259; concomitants of wealth, 297, 298; none, 307; in letters, 324; anonymous letter, 376; hired to wait, 397.

Severn River, 270.

Sexes: pleasure in association, 3; passionate love, 34; relations socially limited, 36, 37; antagonism of nature and civilization, 41; in natural scenery, 43; inharmony in marriages, 44-62 _passim_; sisters and brothers, 65; connection with confession, 201-204; lack of analysis, 280; Bohemian relations, 296, 297.

Shakspeare: indebtedness to the poor, 22; Juliet, 39; portraiture of youthful nonsense, 88; allusion by Grant White, 277; Macbeth and Hamlet confused, 290; Polonius's advice applied to Goldsmith, 310.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe: his study of past literature, 13; passionate love, 34; marriages, 35, 46-48, 55, 56; quotation, 43; disagreement with his father, 96, 97.

Ships: passing the Suez canal, xii; interest of Peter the Great, and dislike of his son, 85; at siege of Syracuse, 215; of war, 277, 278; as affecting correspondence, 337; drifting, 378; fondness for details, 394.

Shoeblack, illustration, 335.

Shyness, English, 245.

Siamese Twins, allusion, 290.

Silence, golden, 85.

Sin, affecting pulpit oratory, 193.

Sir, the title, 137.

Sisters: affection, 63-77 _passim_; jealousy of admiration, 65; pecuniary obligations, how regarded, 69.

Slander: by rich people, 146, 147; in anonymous letters, 370-377.

Slang, commercial, 365.

Slovenliness, part of Bohemianism, 296.

Smith, an imaginary gentleman, 130.

Smith, Jane, an imaginary character, 178.

Smoking: affecting friendship, 115; Bohemian practice, 305.

Snobbery, among English travellers, 240-242.

Sociability: affecting the appetite, 102; English want of (Essay XVII.), 239-252; in amusements, 383, 384.

Society: good, in France, 15, 16; eccentricity no barrier in London, 16-18; exclusion, 21, 22; unexpectedly found, 23-26; alienation from common pursuits, 27, 28; aid to study, 29-31; restraints upon love, 36, 37; laws set aside by George Eliot, 45, 46, 55; Goethe's defiance, 52, 56, 57; rights of hospitality, illustrated (Essay VII.), 99-109; aristocratic, 124; affected by rank and wealth (Essay X.), 130-147 _passim_; and by religion (Essay XII.), 161-174 _passim_; ruled by women, 176; tyranny, 181; clerical leisure, 196, 197; inimical to Littré, 210; absent air in, 237; affected by Gentility (Essay XVIII.), 253-263; secession of thinkers, 262, 263; intellectual, 303; usages, 304; outside of, 307.

Socrates, allusion, 204.

Solicitors, their industry, 196.

Solitude: social, 19; dread, 21; pleasant reliefs, 22-26; serious evil, 27; sometimes demoralizing, 28; affecting study, 29; mitigations, 29-31; preferred, 31; forgotten in labor, 31, 32; picture of, 43; Shelley's fondness, 47; free space necessary, 77; dislike prompting to hospitality (_q. v._), 143.

Sons: separated from fathers by incompatibility, 10; escape from paternal brutality, 76; Fathers and (Essay VI.), 78-98; change of circumstances, 78; former obedience, 79; orders out of fashion, 80; outside education, 81; education by the father, 82-85; rapidity of youth, 86, 87; lack of paternal resemblance, 88; differing tastes, 89; fathers outgrown, 90; changes in culture, 91; reservations, 92; differing opinions, 93; oldtime divisions, 94; an imperial son, 95; other painful instances, 96; wounded by satire, 97; right basis of sonship, 98. (See _Family_, _Fathers_, etc.)

Sorbonne, the, professorship of English, 152.

Southey, Robert, Life of Nelson, 327.

Spain: religious freedom, 164; heretics burned, 180.

Speculation, compared with experience, 30.

Speech, silvern, 85.

Spelling, inaccurate, 360. (See _Languages_, etc.)

Spencer, Herbert: made the cover for an assault upon a guest's opinions, 106; on display of wealth, 145; confidence in nature's laws, 227.

Spenser, Edmund, his poetic stanza, 384.

Sports: often comparatively unrestrained, 36; affecting fraternity, 64; youth fitted for, 86; roughening influence, 100; affecting friendship, 115; aristocratic, 124; among the rich, 143; ignorance about English, 267, 268; concomitant of wealth, 297; not enjoyed, 302; William of Orange's, 345; connection with amusement, 385-401 _passim_.

Springtime of love, 34.

Stanford's London Atlas, 274.

Stars, illustration of crowds, 77.

Steam, no help to friendship, 337.

Stein, Baroness von, relations to Goethe, 51-53.

Stephenson, George, his locomotive not a failure, 293.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, her works confounded with George Eliot's, 290.

Strangers, treatment of by the English and others (Essay XVII.), 239-252 _passim_.

Stream, illustration from the impossibility of upward flow, 98.

Strength, accompanied with exercise, 302.

Studies: affecting friendship, 111; literary and artistic, 400, 401.

Subjugation, the motive of display of wealth, 145.

Suez Canal, and superstition, xii.

Sunbeam, yacht, 138, 139.

Sunday: French incident, 128, 129; allusion, 198; supposed law, 281. (See _Sabbath_.)

Sunset, allusion, 31.

Supernaturalism (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_; doubts about, 377, 378.

Superstition and religion (Essay XV.), 215-231 _passim_.

Surgeon, an artistic, 289.

Sweden, king of, 308.

Swedenborgianism, commended to the author, 378.

Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver's box, 261.

Swimming: affected by railways, 14; in France, 272.

Switzerland: epithets applied to, 235; tourists, 240; Alps, 271; Goldsmith's travels, 309; Doré's travels, 345.

Sympathy: with an author, 9; one of two great powers deciding human intercourse, 11; of a married man with a single, 25, 26; between parents and children (Essay VI.), 78-98 _passim_; between Priests and Women (Essay XIII. part I.), 175-186 _passim_.

Symposium, antique, allusion, 29.

Syracuse, siege, 215-217, 229.

Table: its pleasures comparatively unrestrained, 36; former tyranny of hospitality, 101, 102; modern customs, appetite affected by sociability, 102; excess not required by hospitality, 103; French fashion, 105; instances of bad manners, 106, 107, 126-128; rules of precedence, 130, 131; matrons occupied with cares, 140, 141; among the rich, 143; tyranny, 172; English manners towards strangers contrasted with those of other nations (Essay XVII.), 239-252; _déjeûner_, 273; among the rich, 297; talk about hunting, 398, 399.

Talking, contrasted with writing, 354-357.

Tasso, Bernardo, father of the poet, his letters, 350, 351.

Taylor, Mrs., relations to Mill, 53-55.

Telegraphy: under fixed law, 228; affecting letters, 324, 325, 331, 361; anecdote, 326.

Telephone, illustration, 336.

Temper, destroys friendship, 112, 118.

Temperance, sometimes at war with hospitality, 102-104.

Tenderness, in letters, 320, 322.

Tennyson: study of past literature, 13; line about brotherhood, 67; religious sentiment of In Memoriam, 198; loyalty to verse, 289; Palace of Art, 386, 400.

Thackeray, William Makepeace: Rev. Honeyman in The Newcomes, 203; Book of Snobs, 242.

Thames River, 270, 335.

Theatre: avoidance, 123; English travellers like actors, 242; gifts of a painter, 341.

Thélème, Abbaye de, its motto, 165.

Thierry, Augustin, History of Norman Conquest, 251, 252.

Thiers, Louis Adolphe, friendship with Mignet, 120, 121.

Time, forgotten in labor, 31, 32.

Timidity, taking refuge in correspondence, 356, 357.

Titles: table precedence, 130; estimate in England and on the Continent, 136, 137; British regard, 241, 242, 248-252 _passim_; French disregard, 248.

Tolerance: induced by hospitality, 99; of amusements, 389.

Towneley Hall, library, 318.

Trade: English and social exclusion, 19; foolish distinctions, 132-135; connection with national peace, 150; adaptation of Greek language, 158; interference of religion, 171, 174; ignorance about English, 265, 266, 268; Lancashire, 288; careless tradesmen, 360, 361; slang, 365.

Translations: disliked, 154; of Hamerton into French, 267.

Transubstantiation: private opinion and outward form, 169; poetic, 190. (See _Roman Catholicism_, etc.)

Trappist, freedom of an earnest, 164, 165.

Travel: railway illustration, 13-15; marriage simile, 44; affecting fraternity, 64; affecting friendship, 111; facilitated, 160; in Arabia, 226; unsociability (Essay XVII.), 239-252; in vans, 261, 262; confusion of places, 291; dispensing with luxury, 300; an untravelled man, 301; not cared for, 302; cheap conveyances, 304; books of, 305; Goldsmith's, 309.

Trees, and Radicals, 282, 283.

Trinity, denial of, 257.

Truth, violations (Essay XVI.), 232-238.

Tudor Family: Mary's reign, 164; criminality, 168; Mary's persecution, 180.

Turkey, war with Russia, 278.

Turner, Joseph Mallord William, aided by Claude, 13.

Type-writers, effect on correspondence, 333.

Tyranny: of religion (Essay XII.), 161-174; meanest form, 172, 174; of majorities, 398.

Ulysses: literary simile, 29; Bow of, 392.

Understatement. (See _Untruth_.)

Union of languages and peoples, 148-150.

Unitarianism: no European sovereign dare profess, 167, 168; difficulty with creeds, 172; ignorance about, 257.

United States, advantage of having the same language as England, 150.

Universe, _univers_, 273-275.

Universities: degrees, 91; French and English, 275, 276; Radical members, 284.

Untruth: an Unrecognized Form of (Essay XVI.), 232-238; two methods in painting, 232; exaggeration and diminution, 233; self-misrepresentation, 234; overstatement and understatement illustrated in travelling epithets, 235; dead mediocrity in conversation, 236; inadequacy, 237; illustration, 238.

Vanity: national (Essay XIX.), 264-279 _passim_; taking offence, 279; absence, 301.

Vice: of classes, 124, 125; devilish, 195; part of Bohemianism, 295, 296; of best society, 297.

Victoria, Queen: quotation from her diary, 186, 187; her oldest son, 385.

Violin, illustration, 389.

Viollet-le-Duc, anecdote, 364.

Virgil, Palmer's constant companion, 313. (See _Latin_.)

Virgin Mary, her influence, 176. (See _Eugénie_, etc.)

Virtue: of classes, 124, 125; priestly adherence, 195; definition, 208; Buffon's and Littré's, 211.

Visiting, with rich and poor, 139-144.

Vitriol, in letters, 371.

Vituperation, priestly, 194.

Vivisection, feminine dislike, 180.

Voltaire: quotation about Columbus, 274; Goldsmith's interview, 309.

Vulpius, Christiane, relations to Goethe, 52, 53.

Wagner, Richard, his Tannhaüser, 388.

Wales, Prince of, laborious amusements, 385-387.

Warcopp, Robert, in Plumpton letters, 323, 331.

Wars: affected by study of languages, 148-150, 151, 160; Eugénie's influence, 176; divine connection, 215-224; caused by national ignorance, 277, 278.

Waterloo, battle, 153.

Wave, simile, 251.

Wealth: affecting fraternity, 66; affecting domestic harmony, 77; destroying friendship, 114, 116; Flux of (Essay IX.), 119-129; property variable, influence of changes, 119; access of bachelors and the married to society, 120; instances of friendship affected by poverty, 121; false friends, 122; imprudent marriages, 123; middle-class instances of contentment, 124; aid to refinement, 125; dress, 126; cards, and other forms of courtesy, superfluities, 127; discipline of courtesy, 128; rural manners in France, 129; Differences (Essay X.), 130-147; social precedence, 130; land-ownership, 131; trade, 132-134; _nouveau riche_ and ancestry, 135; titles, 136, 137; varied enjoyments, 138, 139; hospitality, 140-144; English appreciation, 144-146; undue deference, 146, 147; overstatement and understatement, 234; assumption, 242; plutocracy, 246, 247; American inequalities, 248; genteel ignorance, 258-260; two great advantages, 297, 298; small measure, 298; connection with Philistinism and Bohemianism, 299-314; employs better agents, 359, 360; connection with amusements, 383-401. (See _Poverty_, etc.)

Webb, Captain, lost at Niagara, 290.

Weeds, illustration of Radicalism, 282.

Weimar: Goethe's home, 52, 57; Duke of, 57.

Wenderholme, Hamerton's story, 378.

Wesley, John, choice in religion, 173. (See _Methodism_.)

Westbrook, Harriett, relation to Shelley, 46, 47, 97.

Westminster Abbey, mistaken for another building, 291.

White, Richard Grant, story, 277.

Whist, selfishness in, 397.

William, emperor of Germany, table customs, 103.

Wine: connection with hospitality, 101-103, 121; traders in considered superior, 133; ignorance about English use, 268, 269, 270; port, 273; concomitant of wealth, 297, 298; simile, 367. (See _Table_, etc.)

Wives: a pitiful confession, 41; George Eliot's position, 45, 46; relations to noted husbands, 47-62; dread of a wife's kindred, 73; unions made by parents, 94-98; destroying friendship, 115, 116; tired, 144; regard of Napoleon III., 225; old letters, 322; gain from post-cards, 329, 330; privacy of letters, 350; Montaigne's letter, 251, 252. (See _Marriage_, _Women_, etc.)

Wolf, priestly, 203.

Wolseley, Sir Garnet, victory, 222, 223, 229.

Wood, French use of, 272.

Women: friendship between two, viii, ix; absorption in one, 33; beauty's attraction, 33, 38, 39; passion long preserved, 40; relations to certain noted men, 44-62 _passim_; sisterly jealousy, 65; governed by sentiment, 69; adding to home discomfort, 75, 76; English incivility, 106; French incivility to English, and defence, 106; social acuteness, 130; Priests and Women (Essay XIII.), 175-204; dislike of fixed rules, 175; persuasive powers, ruling society, 176; dependence, advisers, 177; _love_, 178; gentleness, 179; sympathy with persecution, 180; harm of both frivolity and seriousness, 181; injustice of female sex, anxiety for sympathy, 182; sensitiveness, 183; services desired at special times, 184; motherhood, 185; consolation, 186; æsthetic nature, 187; fondness for show, 188; dress, 189; churches, 190; worship in music, 191; eloquence, 192; eager for the right, 194; obstinacy, 195; association in benevolence, 196; love of ceremony, 197; festivals, 198; confidence in a clergyman, 199; marriage formerly disapproved, _clergywomen_, 200; relief in confession, 201, 202; gentlewomen's letters, 205, 206; French, among strangers, 242, 243; want of analysis, 280; strong theological interest, 377-380; old maids, 379-382; gentlewomen, 381, 382; not interested in sporting talk, 399. (See _Marriage_, _Wives_, etc.)

Word, power of a, 118.

Wordsworth: indebtedness to the poor, 22; on Nature's loyalty, 30; instance of his uncleanness, 311.

Work, softens solitude, 31, 32.

Working-men. (See _Lower Classes_.)

World, possible enjoyment of, 303.

Worship: word in wedding-service, 62; limited by locality, 171-174; musical, 191; expressions in letters, 321.

Writing, a new discovery supposed, 336.

Wryghame, message by, 320.

Wycherley, William, his ribaldry, 181.

Yachting, 258, 259, 292, 358. (See _Boating_.)

York: Minster, 190; archbishop, 222; diocese, 275.

Yorkshire, letter to, 320.

Youth: contrasted with age, 87-89; nonsense reproduced by Shakspeare, 89; insult, 107; in friendship, 111, 112; acceptance of kindness, 117; semblance caused by ignorance of a language, 151.

Zeus, a hunter compared to, 391.

THE END.

University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] An expression used to me by a learned Doctor of Oxford.

[2] The causes of this curious repulsion are inquired into elsewhere in this volume.

[3] The exact degree of blame due to Shelley is very difficult to determine. He had nothing to do with the suicide, though the separation was the first in a train of circumstances that led to it. It seems clear that Harriett did not desire the separation, and clear also that she did nothing to assert her rights. Shelley ought not to have left her, but he had not the patience to accept as permanent the consequences of a mistaken marriage.

[4] Lewes's "Life of Goethe."

[5] Only a poet can write of his private sorrows. In prose one cannot sing,--

"A dirge for her, the doubly dead, in that she died so young."

[6] Schuyler's "Peter the Great."

[7] That valiant enemy of false pretensions, Mr. Punch, has often done good service in throwing ridicule on unreal distinctions. In "Punch's Almanack" for 1882 I find the following exquisite conversation beneath one of George Du Maurier's inimitable drawings:

_Grigsby._ Do you know the Joneses?

_Mrs. Brown._ No, we--er--don't care to know _Business_ people, as a rule, although my husband's in business; but then he's in the _Coffee_ business,--and they're all GENTLEMEN in the _Coffee_ business, you know!

_Grigsby_ (who always suits himself to his company). _Really_, now! Why, that's more than can be said of the Army, the Navy, the Church, the Bar, or even the _House of Lords_! I don't _wonder_ at your being rather _exclusive_!

[8] I am often amused by the indignant feelings of English journalists on this matter. Some French newspaper calls an Englishman a lord when he is not a lord, and our journalists are amazed at the incorrigible ignorance of the French. If Englishmen cared as little about titles they would be equally ignorant, and two or three other things are to be said in defence of the French journalist that English critics _never_ take into account. They suppose that because Gladstone is commonly called Mr. a Frenchman ought to know that he cannot be a lord. That does not follow. In France a man may be called Monsieur and be a baron at the same time. A Frenchman may answer, "If Gladstone is not a lord, why do you call him one? English almanacs not only say that Gladstone is a lord, but that he is the very First Lord of the Treasury. Again, why am I not to speak of Sir Chamberlain? I have seen a printed letter to him beginning with 'Sir,' which is plain evidence that your 'Sir' is the equivalent of our _Monsieur_." A Frenchman is surely not to be severely blamed if he is not aware that the First Lord of the Treasury is not a lord at all, and that a man who is called a "Sir" inside every letter addressed to him has no right to that title on the envelope.

[9] That of M. Léopold Double.

[10] I need hardly say that this is not intended as a description of poor men's hospitality generally, but only of the effects of poverty on hospitality in certain cases. The point of the contrast lies in the difference between this uncomfortable hospitality, which a lover of pleasant human intercourse avoids, with the easy and agreeable hospitality that the very same people would probably have offered if they had possessed the conveniences of wealth.

[11] Italian, to me, seems Latin made natural.

[12] So far as the State and society generally are concerned; but there are private situations in which even a member of the State Church does not enjoy perfect religious liberty. Suppose the case (I am describing a real case) of a lady left a widow and in poverty. Her relations are wealthy Dissenters. They offer to provide for her handsomely if she will renounce the Church of England and join their own sect. Does she enjoy religious liberty? The answer depends upon the question whether she is able to earn her own living or not. If she is, she can secure religious freedom by incessant labor; if she is unable to earn her living she will have no religious freedom, although she belongs, in conscience, to the most powerful religion in the State. In the case I am thinking of, the lady had the honorable courage to open a little shop, and so remained a member of the Church of England; but her freedom was bought by labor and was therefore not the same thing as the best freedom, which is unembittered by sacrifice.

[13] The phrase adopted by Court journalists in speaking of such a conversion is, "The Princess has received instruction in the religion which she will adopt on her marriage," or words to that effect, just as if different and mutually hostile religions were not more contradictory of each other than sciences, and as if a person could pass from one religion to another with no more twisting and wrenching of previous beliefs than he would incur in passing from botany to geology.

[14] The word "generally" is inserted here because women do apparently sometimes enjoy the infliction of undeserved pain on other creatures. They grace bull-fights with their presence, and will see horses disembowelled with apparent satisfaction. It may be doubted, too, whether the Empress of Austria has any compassion for the sufferings of a fox.

[15] I have purposely omitted from the text another cause for feminine indifference to the work of persecutors, but it may be mentioned incidentally. At certain times those women whose influence on persons in authority might have been effectively employed in favor of the oppressed were too frivolous or even too licentious for their thoughts to turn themselves to any such serious matter. This was the case in England under Charles II. The contrast between the occupations of such women as these and the sufferings of an earnest man has been aptly presented by Macaulay:--

"The ribaldry of Etherege and Wycherley was, in the presence and under the special sanction of the head of the Church, publicly recited by female lips in female ears, while the author of the 'Pilgrim's Progress' languished in a dungeon, for the crime of proclaiming the gospel to the poor."

This is deplorable enough; but on the whole I do not think that the frivolity of light-minded women has been so harmful to noble causes as the readiness with which serious women place their immense influence at the service of constituted authorities, however wrongfully those authorities may act. Ecclesiastical authorities especially may quietly count upon this kind of support, and they always do so.

[16] Since this Essay was written I have met with the following passage in Her Majesty's diary, which so accurately describes the consolatory influence of clergymen, and the natural desire of women for the consolation given by them, that I cannot refrain from quoting it. The Queen is speaking of her last interview with Dr. Norman Macleod:--

"He dwelt then, as always, on the love and goodness of God, and on his conviction that God would give us, in another life, the means to perfect ourselves and to improve gradually. No one ever felt so convinced, and so anxious as he to convince others, that God was a loving Father who wished all to come to Him, and to preach of a living personal Saviour, One who loved us as a brother and a friend, to whom all could and should come with trust and confidence. No one ever raised and strengthened one's faith more than Dr. Macleod. His own faith was so strong, his heart so large, that all--high and low, weak and strong, the erring and the good--_could alike find sympathy, help, and consolation from him_."

"_How I loved to talk to him, to ask his advice, to speak to him of my sorrows and anxieties._"

A little farther on in the same diary Her Majesty speaks of Dr. Macleod's beneficial influence upon another lady:--

"He had likewise a marvellous power of winning people of all kinds, and of sympathizing with the highest and with the humblest, and of soothing and comforting the sick, the dying, the afflicted, the erring, and the doubting. _A friend of mine told me that if she were in great trouble, or sorrow, or anxiety, Dr. Norman Macleod was the person she would wish to go to._"

The two points to be noted in these extracts are: first, the faith in a loving God who cares for each of His creatures individually (not acting only by general laws); and, secondly, the way in which the woman goes to the clergyman (whether in formal confession or confidential conversation) to hear consolatory doctrine from his lips in application to her own personal needs. The faith and the tendency are both so natural in women that they could only cease in consequence of the general and most improbable acceptance by women of the scientific doctrine that the Eternal Energy is invariably regular in its operations and inexorable, and that the priest has no clearer knowledge of its inscrutable nature than the layman.

[17] These quotations (I need hardly say) are from Macaulay's History,