The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2
by Thomas De Quincey · English · Gutenberg #20090 · 575,797 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2
Author: Thomas De Quincey
Editor: James Hogg
Release date: December 11, 2006 [eBook #20090]
Language: English
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[Transcriber's Notes: Text that was in italics in the original book is
shown between _underscore characters_ and text that was in small caps
is shown as ALL CAPS. Footnotes from the article titles are at the end
of the first paragraph of the article; all others follow the paragraph
in which they are referenced. The variation in the spelling of some
words is maintained from the original.]
THE UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS
OF
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
WITH
A PREFACE AND ANNOTATIONS
BY
JAMES HOGG.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1890.
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE ENGLISH IN CHINA. 7
SHAKSPERE'S TEXT.--SUETONIUS UNRAVELLED. 37
HOW TO WRITE ENGLISH. 55
THE CASUISTRY OF DUELLING. 65
THE LOVE-CHARM. 113
LUDWIG TIECK. 153
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.--THE HOUSE OF WEEPING. 160
THE HOUSEHOLD WRECK. 173
MR. SCHNACKENBERGER; OR, TWO MASTERS FOR ONE DOG. 279
ANGLO-GERMAN DICTIONARIES. 348
THE ENGLISH IN CHINA.
This Paper, originally written for me in 1857, and published in _Titan_
for July of that year, has not appeared in any collective edition of the
author's works, British or American. It was his closing contribution to
a series of three articles concerning Chinese affairs; prepared when our
troubles with that Empire seemed to render war imminent. The first two
were given in _Titan_ for February and April, 1857, and then issued with
additions in the form of a pamphlet which is now very scarce. It
consisted of 152 pages thus arranged:--(1) Preliminary Note, i-iv; (2)
Preface, pp. 3-68; (3) China (the two _Titan_ papers), pp. 69-149; (4)
Postscript, pp. 149-152.
In the posthumous supplementary volume (XVI.) of the collected works the
_third section_ was reprinted, but all the other matter was
discarded--with a rather imperfect appreciation of the labour which the
author had bestowed upon it, and his own estimate of the value of what
he had condensed in this Series--as frequently expressed to me during
its progress.
In the twelfth volume of the 'Riverside' Edition of De Quincey's works,
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, U.S.A., the whole of the 152
pp. of the expanded _China_ reprint are given, but not the final section
here reproduced from _Titan_.
The Chinese questions stirred DE QUINCEY profoundly, and roused all the
'John Bullism' of his nature. Two passages from the 'Preliminary Note'
will show his object in throwing so much energy into this subject:--
NATIONAL MORALITY.
'Its purpose[1] is to diffuse amongst those of the middle classes, whose
daily occupations leave them small leisure for direct personal
inquiries, some sufficient materials for appreciating the _justice_ of
our British pretensions and attitude in our coming war with China. It is
a question frequently raised amongst public journalists, whether we
British are entitled to that exalted distinction which sometimes we
claim for ourselves, and which sometimes is claimed on our behalf, by
neutral observers on the national practice of morality. There is no call
in this place for so large a discussion; but, most undoubtedly, in one
feature of so grand a distinction, in one reasonable presumption for
inferring a profounder national conscientiousness, as diffused among the
British people, stands upon record, in the pages of history, this
memorable fact, that always at the opening (and at intervals throughout
the progress) of any war, there has been much and angry discussion
amongst us British as to the equity of its origin, and the moral
reasonableness of its objects. Whereas, on the Continent, no man ever
heard of a question being raised, or a faction being embattled, upon any
demur (great or small) as to the moral grounds of a war. To be able to
face the trials of a war--_that_ was its justification; and to win
victories--_that_ was its ratification for the conscience.'
[1] That is--the publication of the pamphlet.--H.
CHINESE POLICY.
'The dispute at Shanghai, in 1848, equally as regards the origin of that
dispute, and as regards the Chinese mode of conducting it, will give the
reader a key to the Chinese character and the Chinese policy. To begin
by making the most arrogant resistance to the simplest demands of
justice, to end by cringing in the lowliest fashion before the guns of a
little war-brig, there we have, in a representative abstract, the
Chinese system of law and gospel. The equities of the present war are
briefly summed up in this one question: What is it that our brutal enemy
wants from us? Is it some concession in a point of international law, or
of commercial rights, or of local privilege, or of traditional usage,
that the Chinese would exact? Nothing of the kind. It is simply a
license, guaranteed by ourselves, to call us in all proclamations by
scurrilous names; and secondly, with our own consent, to inflict upon
us, in the face of universal China, one signal humiliation.... Us--the
freemen of the earth by emphatic precedency--us, the leaders of
civilisation, would this putrescent[2] tribe of hole-and-corner
assassins take upon themselves, not to force into entering by an ignoble
gate [the reference here is to a previous passage concerning the low
door by which Spanish fanaticism ordained that the _Cagots_ (lepers) of
the Pyrenees should enter the churches in a stooping attitude], but to
exclude from it altogether, and for ever. Briefly, then, for this
licensed scurrility, in the first place; and, in the second, for this
foul indignity of a spiteful exclusion from a right four times secured
by treaty, it is that the Chinese are facing the unhappy issues of war.'
[2] _Putrescent._ See the recorded opinions of Lord Amherst's suite upon
the personal cleanliness of the Chinese.
* * * * *
The position and outcome of matters in those critical years may be
recalled by a few lines from the annual summaries of _The Times_ on the
New Years' days of 1858 and 1859. These indicate that DE QUINCEY was
here a pretty fair exponent of the growing wrath of the English people.
[_January 1, 1858._]
'The presence of the China force on the Indian Seas was especially
fortunate. The demand for reinforcements at Calcutta (caused by the
Indian Mutiny) was obviously more urgent than the necessity for
punishing the insolence at Canton. At a more convenient season the
necessary operations in China will be resumed, and in the meantime the
blockading squadron has kept the offending population from despising the
resentment of England. The interval which has elapsed has served to
remove all reasonable doubt of the necessity of enforcing redress.
Public opinion has not during the last twelvemonth become more tolerant
of barbarian outrages. There is no reason to believe that the punishment
of the provincial authorities will involve the cessation of intercourse
with the remainder of the Chinese Empire.'
* * * * *
[_January 1, 1859._]
'The working of our treaties with China and Japan will be watched with
curiosity both in and out of doors, and we can only hope that nothing will
be done to blunt the edge of that masterly decision by which these two
giants of Eastern tale have been felled to the earth, and reduced to the
level and bearing of common humanity.'
* * * * *
The titles which follow are those which were given by DE QUINCEY himself to
the three Sections.--H.
HINTS TOWARDS AN APPRECIATION OF THE COMING WAR IN CHINA.
Said before the opening of July, that same warning remark may happen to
have a prophetic rank, and practically, a prophetic value, which two
months later would tell for mere history, and history paid for by a
painful experience.
The war which is now approaching wears in some respects the strangest
features that have yet been heard of in old romance, or in prosaic
history, for we are at war with the southernmost province of
China--namely, Quantung, and pre-eminently with its chief city of
Canton, but not with the other four commercial ports of China, nor; in
fact, at present with China in general; and, again, we are at war with
Yeh, the poisoning Governor of Canton, but (which is strangest of all)
not with Yeh's master--the Tartar Emperor--locked up in a far-distant
Peking.
Another strange feature in this war is--the footing upon which our
alliances stand. For allies, it seems, we are to have; nominal, as
regards the costs of war, but real and virtual as regards its profits.
The French, the Americans,[3] and I believe the Belgians, have pushed
forward (absolutely in post-haste advance of ourselves) their several
diplomatic representatives, who are instructed duly to lodge their
claims for equal shares of the benefits reaped by our British fighting,
but with no power to contribute a single file towards the bloodshed of
this war, nor a single guinea towards its money costs. Napoleon I., in a
craze of childish spite towards this country, pleased himself with
denying the modern heraldic bearings of Great Britain, and resuscitating
the obsolete shield of our Plantagenets; he insisted that our true
armorial ensigns were the leopards. But really the Third Napoleon is
putting life and significance into his uncle's hint, and using us, as in
Hindostan they use the cheeta or hunting-leopard, for rousing and
running down his oriental game. It is true, that in certain desperate
circumstances, when no opening remains for pacific negotiation, these
French and American agents are empowered to send home for military
succours. A worshipful prospect, when we throw back our eyes upon our
own share in these warlike preparations, with all the advantages of an
unparalleled marine. Six months have slipped away since Lord Clarendon,
our Foreign Secretary, received, in Downing Street, Sir J. Bowring's
and Admiral Seymour's reports of Yeh's atrocities. Six calendar months,
not less, but more, by some days, have run past us since then; and
though some considerable part of our large reinforcements must have
reached their ground in April, and even the commander-in-chief (Sir John
Ashburnham) by the middle of May, yet, I believe, that many of the
gun-boats, on which mainly will rest the pursuit of Yeh's junks, if any
remain unabsconded northwards, have actually not yet left our own
shores. The war should naturally have run its course in one campaign.
Assuredly it will, if confined within the limits of Yeh's command, even
supposing that command to comprehend the two Quangs. Practically, then,
it is a fantastic impossibility that any reversionary service to our
British expedition, which is held out in prophetic vision as
consecrating our French and American friends from all taint of mercenary
selfishness, ever can be realised. I am not going to pursue this
subject. But a brief application of it to a question at this moment
(June 16) urgently appealing to public favour is natural and fair.
Canvassers are now everywhere moving on behalf of a ship canal across
the Isthmus of Suez. This canal proposes to call upon the subscribers
for £9,000,000 sterling; the general belief is, that first and last it
will call for £12,000,000 to £15,000,000. But at that price, or at any
price, it is cheap; and ultimate failure is impossible. Why do I mention
it? Everywhere there is a rumour that 'a narrow jealousy' in London is
the bar which obstructs this canal speculation. There is, indeed, and
already before the canal proposal there _was_, a plan in motion for a
_railway_ across the isthmus, which seems far enough from meeting the
vast and growing necessities of the case. But be _that_ as it may, with
what right does any man in Europe, or America, impute narrowness of
spirit, local jealousy, or selfishness, to England, when he calls to
mind what sacrifices she is at this moment making for those very
oriental interests which give to the ship canal its sole value--the men,
the ships, the money spent, or to _be_ spent, upon the Canton war, and
then in fairness connects that expense (or the similar expense made by
her in 1840-42) with the operative use to which, in those years, she
applied all the diplomatic concessions extorted by her arms. The first
word--a memorable word--which she uttered on proposing her terms in
1842, was, What I demand for myself, _that_ let all Christendom enjoy.
And since that era (_i. e._, for upwards of fourteen years) all
Christendom, that did not fail in the requisite energy for improving the
opportunities then first laid open, _has_ enjoyed the very same
advantages in Chinese ports as Great Britain; secondly, without having
contributed anything whatever to the winning or the securing of these
advantages; thirdly, on the pure volunteer intercession made by Britain
on their behalf. The world has seen enough of violence and cruelties,
the most bloody in the service of commercial jealousies, and nowhere
more than in these oriental regions: witness the abominable acts of the
Dutch at Amboyna, in Japan, and in Java, &c.; witness the bigoted
oppressions, where and when soever they had power, of the colonising
Portuguese and Spaniards. Tyranny and merciless severities for the ruin
of commercial rivals have been no rarities for the last three and a half
centuries in any region of the East. But first of all, from Great
Britain in 1842 was heard the free, spontaneous proclamation--this was a
rarity--unlimited access, with advantages the very same as her own, to a
commerce which it was always imagined that she laboured to hedge round
with repulsions, making it sacred to her own privileged use. A royal
gift was this; but a gift which has not been received by Christendom in
a corresponding spirit of liberal appreciation. One proof of _that_ may
be read in the invidious statement, supported by no facts or names,
which I have just cited. Were this even true, a London merchant is not
therefore a Londoner, or even a Briton. Germans, Swiss, Frenchmen, &c.,
are settled there as merchants, in crowds. No nation, however, is
compromised by any act of her citizens acting as separate and
uncountenanced individuals. So that, even if better established as a
fact, this idle story would still be a calumny; and as a calumny it
would merit little notice. Nevertheless, I have felt it prudent to give
it a prominent station, as fitted peculiarly, by the dark shadows of its
malice, pointed at our whole nation collectively, to call into more
vivid relief the unexampled lustre of that royal munificence in England,
which, by one article of a treaty, dictated at the point of her
bayonets, threw open in an hour, to all nations, that Chinese commerce,
never previously unsealed through countless generations of man.
[3] '_America_:'--For America in particular there is an American
defence offered in a Washington paper (the _Weekly Union_, for May 28,
1857), which, for cool ignoring of facts, exceeds anything that I
remember. It begins thus:--'Since our treaty with China in 1844' (and
_that_, be it remembered, was possible only in consequence of our war
and its close in 1842), 'the most amicable relations have existed
between the United States and China--China is our friend, and we are
hers.' Indeed! as a brief commentary upon that statement, I recommend to
the reader's attention our Blue-books on China of last winter. The
American commander certainly wound up his quarrel with Yeh in a
mysterious way, that drew some sneers from the various nationalities
then moving in that neighbourhood, but no less certainly he had, during
the October of 1856, a smart exchange of cannon-shots with Yeh, which
lasted for some days (three, at least, according to my remembrance), and
ended in the capture of numerous Chinese forts. The American apologist
says in effect, that the United States will not fight, because they have
no quarrel. But that is not the sole question. Does the United States
mean to take none of the benefits that may be won by our arms? He speaks
of the French as more belligerently inclined than the United States.
Would that this were really so. No good will come of schisms between the
nations of Christendom. There is a posthumous work of Commissioner Lin,
in twelve quartos, printed at Peking, urgently pressing the necessity
for China of building upon such schisms the one sole policy that can
save her from ruin.
Next, then, having endeavoured to place these preliminary points in
their true light, I will anticipate the course by which the campaign
would naturally be likely to travel, supposing no alien and mischievous
disturbance at work for deranging it. Simply to want fighting allies
would be no very menacing evil. We managed to do without them in our
pretty extensive plan of warfare fifteen years ago; and there is no
reason why we should find our difficulties now more intractable than
then. I should imagine that the American Congress and the French
Executive would look on uneasily, and with a sense of shame, at the
prospect of sharing largely in commercial benefits which they had not
earned, whilst the burdens of the day were falling exclusively upon the
troops of our nation; but _that_ is a consideration for their own
feelings, and may happen to corrode their hearts and their sense of
honour most profoundly at some future time, when it may have ceased to
be remediable. If that were all, for us there would be no arrears of
mortified sensibilities to apprehend. But what is ominous even in
relation to ourselves from these professedly inert associates, these
sleeping partners in our Chinese dealings, is, that their presence with
no active functions argues a faith lurking somewhere in the possibility
of _talking_ the Chinese into reason. Such a chimera, still surviving
the multiform experience we have had, augurs ruin to the total
enterprise. It is not absolutely impossible that even Yeh, or any
imbecile governor armed with the same obstinacy and brutal arrogance,
might, under the terrors of an armament such as he will have to face,
simulate a submission that was far from his thoughts. We ourselves found
in the year 1846, when in fidelity to our engagements we gave back the
important island of Chusan, which we had retained for four years, in
fact until all the instalments of the ransom money had been paid, that a
more negligent ear was turned to our complaints and remonstrances. The
vile mob of Canton, long kept and indulged as so many trained bull-dogs,
for the purpose of venting that insolence to Europeans which the
mandarins could no longer utter personally without coming into collision
with the treaty, became gradually unmanageable even by their masters. In
1847 Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, was reduced to the
necessity of fulminating this passage against the executive government
of the murdering city--'You' (Lord Palmerston was addressing Sir John
Davis, at that time H. M. Plenipotentiary in China) 'will inform the
Chinese authorities, in plain and distinct terms, that the British
Government will not tolerate that a Chinese mob shall with impunity
maltreat British subjects in China, whenever they get them into their
power; and that if the Chinese authorities will not punish and prevent
such outrages, the British Government will be obliged to take the matter
into their own hands; and it will not be _their_ fault if, in such case,
the innocent are involved in the punishment sought to be inflicted on
the guilty.'
This commanding tone was worthy of Lord Palmerston, and in harmony with
his public acts in all cases where he has understood the ground which
he occupied. Unhappily he did _not_ understand the case of Canton. The
British were admitted by each successive treaty, their right of entry
was solemnly acknowledged by the emperor. Satisfied with this, Lord
Palmerston said, 'Enough: the principle is secured; the mere details,
locally intelligible no doubt, I do not pretend to understand. But all
this will come in time. In time you will be admitted into Canton. And
for the present rest satisfied with having your right admitted, if not
as yet your persons.' Ay, but unfortunately nothing short of plenary
admission to British flesh and blood ever will satisfy the organised
ruffians of Canton, that they have not achieved a triumph over the
British; which triumph, as a point still open to doubt amongst
mischief-makers, they seek to strengthen by savage renewal as often as
they find a British subject unprotected by armed guardians within their
streets. In those streets murder walks undisguised. And the only measure
for grappling with it is summarily to introduce the British resident, to
prostrate all resistance, and to punish it by the gallows[4] where it
proceeds to acts of murder. It is sad consideration for those, either in
England or China, who were nearly or indirectly connected with Canton
(amongst whom must be counted the British Government), that beyond a
doubt the murders of our countrymen, which occurred in that city, would
have been intercepted by such a mastery over the local ruffians as could
not be effected so long as the Treaty of Nanking was not carried into
effect with respect to free entrance and residence of British subjects.
As things stood, all that Sir J. Davis could do, in obedience to the
directions from the Home Government, was to order a combined naval and
military attack upon all the Chinese forts which belt the approaches to
Canton. These were all captured; and the immense number of eight hundred
and twenty-seven heavy guns were in a few hours made unserviceable,
either by knocking off their trunnions, or by spiking them, or in both
ways. The Imperial Commissioner, Keying, previously known so favourably
to the English by his good sense and discretion, had on this occasion
thought it his best policy to ignore Lord Palmerston's letter: a copy
had been communicated to him; but he took not the least notice of it. If
this were intended for insolence, it was signally punished within a few
hours. It happened that on our English list of grievances there remained
a shocking outrage offered to Colonel Chesney, a distinguished officer
of the engineers,[5] and which to a certainty would have terminated in
his murder, but for the coming up at the critical moment of a Chinese in
high authority. The villains concerned in this outrage were known, were
arrested, and (according to an agreement with our plenipotentiary) were
to be punished in our presence. But in contempt of all his engagements,
and out of pure sycophantic concession to the Canton mob, Keying
notified that we the injured party were to be excluded. _In that case no
punishment at all would have been inflicted._ Luckily, our troops and
our shipping had not yet dispersed. Sir J. Davis, therefore, wrote to
Keying, openly taxing him with his breach of honour. 'I _was_ going'
[these were Sir John's words] 'to Hong-Kong to-morrow; but since you
behave with evasion and bad faith, in not punishing the offenders in
the presence of deputed officers, I shall keep the troops at Canton, and
proceed to-morrow in the steamer to Foshan, where, if I meet with
insult, I will burn the town.' Foshan is a town in the neighbourhood of
Canton, and happened to be the scene of Colonel Chesney's ill usage.
Now, upon this vigorous step, what followed? Hear Sir John:--'Towards
midnight a satisfactory reply was received, and at five o'clock next
morning three offenders were brought to the guard-house--a mandarin of
high rank being present on the part of the Chinese, and deputed officers
on the part of the British. The men were bambooed in succession by the
Chinese officers of justice;' and at the close of the scene, the
mandarin (upon a requisition from our side) explained to the mob who
crowded about the barriers _why_ the men were punished, and warned them
that similar chastisement for similar offences awaited themselves. In
one point only the example made was unsatisfactory: the men punished
were not identified as the same who had assaulted Colonel Chesney. They
might be criminals awaiting punishment for some other offence. With so
shuffling a government as the Chinese, always moving through darkness,
and on the principles of a crooked policy, no perfect satisfaction must
ever be looked for. But still, what a bright contrast between this
energy of men acquainted with the Chinese character, and the foolish
imbecility of our own government in Downing Street, who are always
attempting the plan of soothing and propitiating by concession those
ignoble Orientals, in whose eyes all concession, great or small,
through the whole scale of graduation, is interpreted as a distinct
confession of weakness. Thus did all our governments: thus, above all
others, did the East India Company for generations deal with the
Chinese; and the first act of ours that ever won respect from China was
Anson's broadsides, and the second was our refusal of the _ko-tou_. Thus
did our Indian Government, in the early stages of their intercourse,
deal with the Burmese. Thus did our government deal with the
Japanese--an exaggerated copy of the Chinese. What they wanted with
Japan was simply to do her a very kind and courteous service--namely, to
return safe and sound to their native land seven Japanese who had been
driven by hurricanes in continued succession into the Pacific, and had
ultimately been saved from death by British sailors. Our wise government
at home were well aware of the atrocious inhospitality practised
systematically by these cruel islanders; and what course did they take
to propitiate them? Good sense would have prescribed the course of
arming the British vessel in so conspicuous a fashion as to inspire the
wholesome respect of fear. Instead of which, our government actually
drew the teeth of the particular vessel selected, by carefully
withdrawing each individual gun. The Japanese cautiously sailed round
her, ascertained her powerless condition, and instantly proceeded to
force her away by every mode of insult; nor were the unfortunate
Japanese _ever_ restored to their country. Now, contrast with this
endless tissue of imbecilities, practised through many generations by
our blind and obstinate government (for such it really is in its modes
of dealing with Asiatics), the instantaneous success of 'sharp
practice' and resolute appeals to _fear_ on the part of Sir John Davis.
By midnight of the same day on which the British remonstrance had been
lodged an answer is received; and this answer, in a perfect rapture of
panic, concedes everything demanded; and by sunrise the next morning the
whole affair has been finished. Two centuries, on our old East Indian
system of negotiating with China, would not have arrived at the same
point. Later in the very same year occurred another and more atrocious
explosion of Canton ruffianism; and the instantaneous retribution which
followed to the leading criminals, showed at once how great an advance
had been made in winning respect for ourselves, and in extorting our
rights, by this energetic mode of action. On Sunday, the 5th of
December, six British subjects had gone out into the country on a
pleasure excursion, some of whom unhappily carried pocket-pistols. They
were attacked by a mob of the usual Canton character; one Chinese was
killed and one wounded by pistol-shots; but of the six British,
encompassed by a countless crowd, not one escaped: all six were
murdered, and then thrown into the river. Immediately, and before the
British had time to take any steps, the Chinese authorities were all in
motion. The resolute conduct of Sir John Davis had put an end to the
Chinese policy of shuffling, by making it no longer hopeful. It lost
much more than it gained. And accordingly it was agreed, after a few
days' debate, that the emperor's pleasure should not be taken, except
upon the more doubtful cases. Four, about whose guilt no doubts
existed, were immediately beheaded; and the others, after communicating
with Peking, were punished in varying degrees--one or two capitally.
[4] '_By the gallows:_'--Or much rather by decapitation. Accordingly, we
read of a Ming (_i. e._, native Chinese) emperor, who (upon finding
himself in a dreadfully small minority) retired into his garden with his
daughter, and there hanged both himself and the lady. On no account
would he have decapitated either; since in that case the corpses, being
headless, would in Chinese estimation have been imperfect.
[5] '_Colonel Chesney:_'--The same, I believe, whose name was at one
time so honourably known in connection with the Euphrates and its steam
navigation.
CONDUCT OF THE WAR.
Such is the condition of that guilty town, nearest of all Chinese towns
to Hong-Kong, and indissolubly connected with ourselves. From this town
it is that the insults to our flag, and the attempts at poisoning,
wholesale and retail, have collectively emanated; and all under the
original impulse of Yeh. Surely, in speculating on the conduct of the
war, either as probable or as reasonable, the old oracular sentence of
Cato the Elder and of the Roman senate (_Delenda est Carthago_) begins
to murmur in our ears--not in this stern form, but in some modification,
better suited to a merciful religion and to our western civilization. It
is a great neglect on the part of somebody, that we have no account of
the baker's trial at Hong-Kong. He was acquitted, it seems; but upon
what ground? Some journals told us that he represented Yeh as coercing
him into this vile attempt, through his natural affection for his
family, alleged to be in Yeh's power at Canton. Such a fact, if true,
would furnish some doubtful palliation of the baker's crime, and might
have weight allowed in the sentence; but surely it would place a most
dangerous power in the hands of Chinese grandees, if, through the
leverage of families within their grasp, and by official connivance on
our part, they could reach and govern a set of agents in Hong-Kong. No
sympathy with our horror of secret murders by poison, under the shelter
of household opportunities, must be counted on from the emperor, for he
has himself largely encouraged, rewarded, and decorated these claims on
his public bounty. The more necessary that such nests of crime as
Canton, and such suggestors of crime as Yeh, should be thoroughly
disarmed. This could be done, as regards the city, by three
changes:--First, by utterly destroying the walls and gates; secondly, by
admitting the British to the freest access, and placing their residence
in a special quarter, upon the securest footing; thirdly, and as one
chief means in that direction, by establishing a police on an English
plan, and to some extent English in its composition. As to the cost, it
is evident enough that the colonial head-quarters at Hong-Kong must in
future keep up a _permanent_ military establishment; and since any
danger threatening this colony must be kindled and fed chiefly in
Canton, why not make this large city, sole focus as it is of all
mischief to us, and not a hundred miles distant from the little island,
the main barrack of the armed force?
Upon this world's tariff of international connections, what is China in
relation to Great Britain? Free is she, or not--free to dissolve her
connection with us? Secondly, what is Great Britain, when commercially
appraised, in relation to China? Is she of great value or slight value
to China? First, then, concerning China, viewed in its connection with
ourselves, this vast (but perhaps not proportionably populous) country
offers by accident the same unique advantage for meeting a social
_hiatus_ in our British system that is offered by certain southern
regions in the American United States for meeting another _hiatus_
within the same British system. Without tea, without cotton, Great
Britain, no longer great, would collapse into a very anomalous sort of
second-rate power. Without cotton, the main bulwark of our export
commerce would depart. And without tea, our daily life would, generally
speaking, be as effectually-ruined as bees without a Flora. In both of
these cases it happens that the benefit which we receive is _unique_;
that is, not merely ranking foremost upon a scale of similar benefits
reaped from other lands--a largest contribution where others might still
be large--but standing alone, and in a solitude that we have always
reason to regard as alarming. So that, if Georgia, &c., withdrew from
Liverpool and Manchester her myriads of cotton bales, palsied would be
our commercial supremacy; and, if childish China should refuse her tea
(for as to her silk, that is of secondary importance), we must all go
supperless to bed: seriously speaking, the social life of England would
receive a deadly wound. It is certainly a phenomenon without a parallel
in the history of social man--that a great nation, numbering twenty-five
millions, after making an allowance on account of those amongst the very
poorest of the Irish who do not use tea, should within one hundred years
have found themselves able so absolutely to revolutionise their diet, as
to substitute for the gross stimulation of ale and wine the most
refined, elegant, and intellectual mode of stimulation that human
research has succeeded in discovering.[6] But the material basis of this
stimulation unhappily we draw from the soil of one sole nation--and that
nation (are we ever allowed to forget?) capricious and silly beyond all
that human experience could else have suggested as possible. In these
circumstances, it was not to be supposed that we should neglect any
opening that offered for making ourselves independent of a nation which
at all times we had so much reason to distrust as the Chinese. Might not
the tea-plant be made to prosper in some district of our Indian Empire?
Forty years ago we began to put forth organised botanical efforts for
settling that question. Forty years ago, and even earlier, according to
my remembrance, Dr Roxburgh--in those days the paramount authority upon
oriental botany--threw some energy into this experiment for creating our
own nurseries of the tea-plant. But not until our Burmese victories,
some thirty years since, and our consequent treaties had put the
province of Assam into our power, was, I believe, any serious progress
made in this important effort. Mr Fortune has since applied the benefits
of his scientific knowledge, and the results of his own great personal
exertions in the tea districts of China, to the service of this most
important speculation; with what success, I am not able to report.
Meantime, it is natural to fear that the very possibility of doubts
hanging over the results in an experiment so vitally national, carries
with it desponding auguries as to the ultimate issue. Were the prospects
in any degree cheerful, it would be felt as a patriotic duty to report
at short intervals all solid symptoms of progress made in this
enterprise; for it is an enterprise aiming at a triumph far more than
scientific--a triumph over a secret purpose of the Chinese, full of
anti-social malice and insolence against Great Britain. Of late years,
as often as we have accomplished a victory over any insult to our
national honour offered or meditated by the Chinese, they have recurred
to some old historical tradition (perhaps fabulous, perhaps not), of an
emperor, Tartar or Chinese, who, rather than submit to terms of
equitable reciprocity in commercial dealings with a foreign nation, or
to terms implying an original equality of the two peoples, caused the
whole establishments and machinery connected with the particular traffic
to be destroyed, and all its living agents to be banished or beheaded.
It is certain that, in the contemplation of special contingencies likely
to occur between themselves and the British, the high mandarins dallied
at intervals with this ancient precedent, and forbore to act upon it,
partly under the salutary military panic which has for years been
gathering gloomily over their heads, but more imperatively, perhaps,
from absolute inability to dispense with the weekly proceeds from the
customs, so eminently dependent upon the British shipping. Money, mere
weight of dollars, the lovely lunar radiance of silver, this was the
spell that moonstruck their mercenary hearts, and kept them for ever
see-sawing--
'Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike.'
Now, upon this--a state of things suspected at times, or perhaps known,
but not so established as that it could have been afterwards pleaded in
evidence--a very grave question arose, but a question easily settled:
had the Chinese a right, under the law of nations, to act upon their
malicious caprice? No man, under any way of viewing the case, hesitated
in replying, '_No_.' China, it was argued, had possessed from the first
a clear, undoubted right to dismiss us with our business unaccomplished,
_re infectâ_, if that business were the establishment of a reciprocal
traffic. In the initial stage of the relations between the two powers,
the field was open to any possible movement in either party; but,
according to the course which might be severally pursued on either side,
it was possible that one or both should so act as, in the second stage
of their dealings, wilfully to forfeit this original liberty of action.
Suppose, for instance, that China peremptorily declined all commercial
intercourse with Britain, undeniably, it was said, she had the right to
do so. But, if she once renounced this right, no matter whether
_ex_plicitly in words, or silently and _im_plicitly in acts (as if, for
example, she looked on tranquilly whilst Great Britain erected elaborate
buildings for the safe housing of goods)--in any such case, China
wilfully divested herself of all that original right to withdraw from
commercial intercourse. She might say _Go_, or she might say, _Come_;
but she could not first say, _Come_; and then, revoking this invitation,
capriciously say, _Go_.
[6] Down to George I. there _could_ have been no breakfast in England for a
gentleman or lady--there is none even yet in most parts of the
Continent--without wine of some class or other.
To this doctrine, thus limited, no man could reasonably demur. But to some
people it has seemed that the limitations themselves are the only unsound
part of the argument. It is denied that this original right of refusing a
commercial intercourse has any true foundation in the relations of things or
persons. Vainly, if any such natural right existed, would that broad basis
have been laid providentially for insuring intercourse among nations, which,
in fact, we find everywhere dispersed. Such a narrow and selfish
distribution of natural gifts, all to one man, or all to one place, has in a
first stage of human inter-relations been established, only that men might
be hurried forward into a second stage where this false sequestration might
be unlocked and dispersed. Concentrated masses, impropriations gathered into
a few hands, useless alike to the possessor and to the world, why is it
that, by primary arrangements of nature, they have been frozen into vast,
inert insulation? Only that the agencies of commerce may thus the more
loudly be invoked for thawing and setting them free to the world's use.
Whereas, by a diffusive scattering, all motives to large social intercourse
would have been neutralised.
It seems clear that the practical liberation and distribution throughout the
world of all good gifts meant for the whole household of man, has been
confided to the secret sense of a _right_ existing in man for claiming such
a distribution as part of his natural inheritance. Many articles of almost
inestimable value to man, in relation to his physical well-being (at any
rate bearing such a value when substitutional remedies were as yet unknown)
such as mercury, Jesuit's bark, through a long period the sole remedy for
intermitting fevers, opium, mineral waters, &c., were at one time _locally_
concentred. In such cases, it might often happen, that the medicinal relief
to an hospital, to an encampment, to a nation, might depend entirely upon
the right to _force_ a commercial intercourse.
Now, on the other hand, having thus noticed the question, what
commercial value has China irrevocably for England, next in the reverse
question--namely, what commercial value does England bear to China?--I
would wish to place this in a new light, by bringing it for the first
time into relation to the doctrine of rent. Multitudes in past days,
when political economy was a more favoured study, have spoken and
written upon the modern doctrine of rent, without apparently perceiving
how immediately it bears upon China, and how summarily it shatters an
objection constantly made to the value of our annual dealing with that
country. First, let me sketch, in the very briefest way, an outline of
this modern doctrine. Two men, without communication, and almost
simultaneously, in the year 1815, discovered the law of rent. Suddenly
it struck them that all manufactured products of human industry must
necessarily obey one law; whilst the products of land obey another and
opposite law. Let us for a moment consider arable land as a natural
machine for manufacturing bread. Now, in all manufactures depending upon
machinery of human invention, the natural progress is from the worse
machines to the better. No man lays aside a glove-making machine for a
worse, but only for one that possesses the old powers at a less cost, or
possesses greater powers, let us suppose, at an equal cost. But, in the
natural progress of the bread-making machines, nature herself compels
him to pursue the opposite course: he travels from the best machines to
the worse. The best land is brought into cultivation first. As
population expands, it becomes necessary to take up a second quality of
land; then a third quality; and so on for ever. Left to the action of
this one law, bread would be constantly growing dearer through a long
succession of centuries. Its tendency lies in this direction even now;
but this tendency is constantly met, thwarted, and retarded, by a
counter-tendency in the general practice of agriculture, which is always
slowly improving its own powers--that is, obtaining the same result at a
cost slowly decreasing. It follows as a consequence, when closely
pursued, that, whilst the products of pure human skill and human
machines are constantly, by tendency, growing cheaper, on the other
hand, by a counter-tendency, the products of natural machines (as the
land, mines, rivers, &c.) are constantly on the ascent. Another
consequence is, that the worst of these natural machines gives the
price for the whole; whereas, in a conflict between human machines, all
the products of the worse would be beaten out of the field by those of
the better. It is in dependency upon this law that all those innumerable
proposals for cultivating waste-lands, as in the Scottish Highlands, in
the Irish bogs, &c., are radically vicious; and, instead of creating
plenty, would by their very success impoverish us. For suppose these
lands, which inevitably must have been the lowest in the scale (or else
why so long neglected?) to be brought into tillage--what follows?
Inevitably this: that their products enter the market as the very lowest
on the graduated tariff--_i. e._, as lower than any already cultured.
And these it is--namely, the very lowest by the supposition--that must
give the price for the whole; so that _every_ number on the scale will
rise at once to the level fixed by these lowest soils, so ruinously
(though benevolently) taken up into active and efficient life. If you
add 20,000 quarters of wheat to the amount already in the market, you
_seem_ to have done a service; but, if these 20,000 have been gained at
an extra cost of half-a-crown on each quarter, and if these it is that,
being from the poorest machines, rule the price, then you have added
half-a-crown to every quarter previously in the market.
Meantime, returning to China, it is important to draw attention upon this
point. A new demand for any product of land may happen to be not very large,
and thus may seem not much to affect the markets, or the interests of those
who produce it. But, since the rent doctrine has been developed, it has
become clear that a new demand may affect the producers in two separate
modes: first, in the ordinary known mode; secondly, by happening to call
into activity a lower quality of soil. A very moderate demand, nay, a very
small one, added to that previously existing, if it happens not to fall
within the powers of those numbers already in culture (as, suppose, 1, 2, 3,
4), must necessarily call out No. 5; and so on.
Now, our case, as regards Chinese land in the tea districts, is far beyond
this. Not only has it been large enough to benefit the landholder
enormously, by calling out lower qualities of land, which process again has
stimulated the counteracting agencies in the more careful and scientific
culture of the plant; but also it has been in a positive sense enormous. It
might have been large relatively to the power of calling out lower qualities
of soil, and yet in itself have been small; but _our_ demand, running up at
present to 100,000,000 pounds weight annually, is in all senses enormous.
The poorer class of Chinese tea-drinkers use the leaves three times
over--_i. e._, as the basis of three separate tea-makings. Consequently,
even upon that single deduction, 60,000,000 of Chinese tea-drinkers count
only as 20,000,000 of ours. But I conclude, by repeating that the greatest
of the impressions made by ourselves in the China tea districts, has been
derived from this--that, whilst the native demand has probably been
stationary, ours, moving by continual starts forward, must have stimulated
the tea interest by continual descents upon inferior soils.
There is no doubt that the Emperor and all his arrogant courtiers have
decupled their incomes from the British stimulation applied to inferior
soils, that but for us never would have been called into culture. Not a
man amongst them is aware of the advantages which he owes to England.
But he soon _would_ be aware of them, if for five years this exotic
demand were withdrawn, and the tea-districts resigned to native
patronage. Upon reviewing what I have said, not the ignorant and
unteachable Chinese only, but some even amongst our own well-informed
and reflecting people, will see that they have prodigiously underrated
the commercial value of England to China; since, when an Englishman
calls for a hundred tons of tea, he does not (as is usually supposed)
benefit the Chinese merchant only by giving him the ordinary profit on a
ton, repeated for a hundred times, but also infallibly either calls into
profitable activity lands lying altogether fallow, or else, under the
action of the rent laws, gives a new and secondary value to land already
under culture.
Other and greater topics connected with this coming Chinese campaign
clamorously call for notice: especially these three:--
First, the pretended literature and meagre civilisation of China--what
they are, and with what real effects such masquerading phantoms operate
upon the generation with which accidents of commerce have brought us
connected.
Secondly, what is the true mode of facing that warfare of kidnapping,
garotting, and poisoning, avowed as legitimate subjects of patronage in
the practice and in the edicts of the Tartar Government? Two things may
be said with painful certainty upon this subject: first, the British
Government has signally neglected its duties in this field through a
period of about ninety years, and apparently is not aware of any
responsibility attaching in such a case to those who wield the functions
of supreme power. Hyder Ali, the tiger, and his more ferocious son
Tippoo, practised, in the face of all India, the atrocities of Virgil's
Mezentius upon their British captives. These men filled the stage of
martial history, through nearly forty years of the eighteenth century,
with the tortures of the most gallant soldiers on earth, and were never
questioned or threatened upon the subject. In this nineteenth century,
again, we have seen a Spanish queen and her uncle sharing between them
the infamy of putting to death (unjudged and unaccused) British soldiers
on the idlest of pretences. Was it then in the power of the British
Government to have made a vigorous and effectual intercession? It was;
and in various ways they have the same power over the Chinese sovereign
(still more over his agents) at present. The other thing which occurs to
say is this: that, if we do _not_ interfere, some morning we shall
probably all be convulsed with unavailing wrath at a repetition of Mr
Stead's tragic end, on a larger scale, and exemplified in persons of
more distinguished position.
Finally, it would have remained to notice the vast approaching
revolution for the total East that will be quickened by this war, and
will be ratified by the broad access to the Orient, soon to be laid open
on one plan or other. Then will Christendom first begin to _act_
commensurately on the East: Asia will begin to rise from her ancient
prostration, and, without exaggeration, the beginnings of a new earth
and new heavens will dawn.
SHAKSPERE'S TEXT.--SUETONIUS UNRAVELLED.
_To the Editor of 'Titan'._
Dear Sir,--A year or two ago,[7] I received as a present from a
distinguished and literary family in Boston (United States), a small
pamphlet (twin sister of that published by Mr Payne Collier) on the text
of Shakspere. Somewhere in the United States, as here in England, some
unknown critic, at some unknown time, had, from some unknown source,
collected and recorded on the margin of one amongst the Folio reprints
of Shakspere by Heminge & Condell, such new readings as either his own
sagacity had summarily prompted, or calm reflection had recommended, or
possibly local tradition in some instances, and histrionic tradition in
others, might have preserved amongst the _habitués_ of a particular
theatre. In Mr P. Collier's case, if I recollect rightly, it was the
_First_ Folio (_i. e._, by much the best); in this American case, I
think it is the _Third_ Folio (about the worst) which had received the
corrections. But, however this may be, there are two literary
_collaborateurs_ concerned in each of these parallel cases--namely,
first, the original collector (possibly author) of the various readings,
who lived and died probably within the seventeenth century; and,
secondly, the modern editor, who stations himself as a repeating
frigate that he may report and pass onwards these marginal variations to
us of the nineteenth century.
[7] Written in 1856. H.
COR. for _Corrector_, is the shorthand designation by which I have
distinguished the _first_; REP. for _Reporter_ designates the other. My
wish and purpose is to extract all such variations of the text as seem
to have any claim to preservation, or even, to a momentary
consideration. But in justice to myself, and in apology for the hurried
way in which the several parts of this little memorandum are brought
into any mimicry of order and succession, I think it right to say that
my documents are all dispersed into alien and distant quarters; so that
I am reduced into dependence upon my own unassisted memory.
[THE TEMPEST. _Act I. Scene 1._
'Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd
Some tricks of desperation.'
COR. here substitutes, 'But felt a fever of the _mind_:' which substitution
strikes me as entirely for the worse; 'a fever of the mad' is such a fever
as customarily attacks the delirious, and all who have lost the control of
their reasoning faculties.
[_Ibid._
'O dear father,
Make not too rash a trial of him; for
He's gentle, and not fearful.'
Upon this the _Reporter's_ remark is, that 'If we take _fearful_ in its
common acceptation of _timorous_, the proposed change renders the passage
clearer;' but that, if we take the word _fearful_ in its rarer
signification of _that which excites terror_, 'no alteration is needed.'
Certainly: none _is_ needed; for the mistake (as _I_ regard it) of REP. lies
simply in supposing the passive sense of _fearful_--namely, that which
_suffers_ fear--to be the ordinary sense; which now, in the nineteenth
century, it is; but was _not_ in the age of Shakspere.
[MACBETH. _Scene 7._
'Thus even-handed justice
_Commends_ the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.'
COR. proposes, _Returns_ the ingredients of, &c.; and, after the word
_returns_ is placed a comma; which, however, I suppose to be a press
oversight, and no element in the correction. Meantime, I see no call for any
change whatever. The ordinary use of the word _commend_, in any advantageous
introduction of a stranger by letters, seems here to maintain
itself--namely, placing him in such a train towards winning favour as may
give a favourable bias to his opportunities. The opportunities are not left
to their own casual or neutral action, but are armed and pointed towards a
special result by the influence of the recommender. So, also, it is here
supposed that amongst several chalices, which might else all have an equal
power to conciliate notice, one specially--namely, that which contains the
poison--is armed by Providence with a power to bias the choice, and commend
itself to the poisoner's favour.
[_Ibid._
'His two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so _convince_.'
COR. is not happy at this point in his suggestion: tinkers are accused
(often calumniously, for tinkers have enemies as well as other people) of
insidiously enlarging holes, making simple into compound fractures, and
sometimes of planting two holes where they find one. But I have it on the
best authority--namely, the authority of three tinkers who were
unanimous--that, if sometimes there is a little treachery of this kind
amongst the profession, it is no more than would be pronounced 'in reason'
by all candid men. And certainly, said one of the three, you wouldn't look
for perfection in a tinker? Undoubtedly a seraphic tinker would be an
unreasonable postulate; though, perhaps, the man in all England that came
nearest to the seraphic character in one century _was_ a tinker--namely,
John Bunyan. But, as my triad of tinkers urged, men of all professions _do_
cheat at uncertain times, _are_ traitors in a small proportion, _must be_
perfidious, unless they make an odious hypocritical pretension to the
character of angels. That tinkers are not alone in their practice of
multiplying the blemishes on which their healing art is invoked, seems
broadly illustrated by the practice of verbal critics. Those who have
applied themselves to the ancient classics, are notorious for their corrupt
dealings in this way. And Coleridge founded an argument against the whole
body upon the confessedly dreadful failure of Bentley, prince of all the
order, when applied to a case where most of us could appreciate the
result--namely, to the _Paradise Lost_. If, said Coleridge, this Bentley
could err so extravagantly in a case of mother-English, what must we presume
him often to have done in Greek? Here we may see to this day that practice
carried to a ruinous extent, which, when charged upon tinkers, I have seen
cause to restrict. In the present case from _Macbeth_, I fear that COR. is
slightly indulging in this tinkering practice. As I view the case, there
really is no hole to mend. The old meaning of the word _convince_ is well
brought out in the celebrated couplet--
'He, that's convinc'd against his will,
Is of the same opinion still.
How can _that_ be? I have often heard objectors say. Being convinced by his
opponent--_i. e._, convinced that his opponent's view is the right one--how
can he retain his own original opinion, which by the supposition is in polar
opposition. But this argument rests on a false notion of the sense attached
originally to the word _convinced_. That word was used in the sense of
_refuted; redargued_, the alternative word, was felt to be pedantic. The
case supposed was that of a man who is reduced to an absurdity; he cannot
deny that, from his own view, an absurdity _seems_ to follow; and, until he
has shown that this absurdity is only apparent, he is bound to hold himself
_provisionally_ answered. Yet that does not reconcile him to his adversary's
opinion; he retains his own, and is satisfied that somewhere an answer to it
exists, if only he could discover it.
Here the meaning is, 'I will convince his chamberlains with wine'--_i. e._,
will refute by means of the confusion belonging to the tragedy itself, when
aided by intoxication, all the arguments (otherwise plausible) which they
might urge in self-defence.
['_Thrice_ and once the hedge-pig whined:'--
This our friend COR. alters to _twice_; but for the very reason which
should have checked him--namely, on Theobald's suggestion that '_odd_
numbers are used in enchantments and magical operations;' and here he
fancies himself to obtain an odd number by the arithmetical
summation--_twice_ added to _once_ makes thrice. Meantime the odd number is
already secured by viewing the _whines_ separately, and not as a sum. The
hedge-pig whined thrice--that was an odd number. Again he whined, and this
time only once--this also was an odd number. Otherwise COR. is perfectly
right in his general doctrine, that
'Numero Deus _impare_ gaudet.'
Nobody ever heard of _even_ numbers in any case of divination. A dog, for
instance, howling under a sick person's window, is traditionally ominous of
evil--but not if he howls twice, or four times.
['I _pull_ in resolution.'--_Act V. Scene 5._
COR. had very probably not seen Dr Johnson's edition of _Shakspere_, but in
common with the Doctor, under the simple coercion of good sense, he proposes
'I _pall_;' a restitution which is so self-attested, that it ought
fearlessly to be introduced into the text of all editions whatever, let them
be as superstitiously scrupulous as in all reason they ought to be.
[HAMLET. _Act II. Scene in the Speech of Polonius._
'Good sir, or so, or friend, or gentleman,'
is altered by COR., and in this case with an effect of solemn humour which
justifies itself, into
'Good sir, or sir, or friend, or gentleman;'
meaning good sir, or sir simply without the epithet _good_, which implies
something of familiarity. Polonius, in his superstitious respect for ranks
and degrees, provides four forms of address applying to four separate cases:
such is the ponderous casuistry which the solemn courtier brings to bear
upon the most trivial of cases.
* * * * *
At this point, all at once, we find our sheaf of arrows exhausted: trivial
as are the new resources offered for deciphering the hidden meanings of
Shakspere, their quality is even less a ground of complaint than their
limitation in quantity. In an able paper published by this journal, during
the autumn of 1855, upon the new readings offered by Mr Collier's work, I
find the writer expressing generally a satisfaction with the condition of
Shakspere's text. I feel sorry that I cannot agree with him. To me the text,
though improved, and gradually moving round to a higher and more hopeful
state of promise, is yet far indeed from the settled state which is
desirable. I wish, therefore, as bearing upon all such hopes and prospects,
to mention a singular and interesting case of sudden conquest over a
difficulty that once had seemed insuperable. For a period of three centuries
there had existed an enigma, dark and insoluble as that of the Sphinx, in
the text of Suetonius. Isaac Casaubon had vainly besieged it; then, in a
mood of revolting arrogance, Joseph Scaliger; Ernesti; Gronovius; many
others; and all without a gleam of success.
The passage in Suetonius which so excruciatingly (but so unprofitably) has
tormented the wits of such scholars as have sat in judgment upon it through
a period of three hundred and fifty years, arises in the tenth section of
his Domitian. That prince, it seems, had displayed in his outset
considerable promise of moral excellence: in particular, neither rapacity
nor cruelty was apparently any feature in his character. Both qualities,
however, found a pretty early development in his advancing career, but
cruelty the earliest. By way of illustration, Suetonius rehearses a list of
distinguished men, clothed with senatorian or even consular rank, whom he
had put to death upon allegations the most frivolous: amongst them Aelius
Lamia, a nobleman whose wife he had torn from him by open and insulting
violence. It may be as well to cite the exact words of Suetonius: 'Aelium
Lamiam (interemit) ob suspiciosos quidem, verum et veteres et innoxios
jocos; quòd post abductam uxorem laudanti vocem suam--dixerat, _Heu taceo_;
quòdque Tito hortanti se ad alterum matrimonium, responderat [Greek: mê kai
su gamêsai theleis];'--that is, Aelius Lamia he put to death on account of
certain jests; jests liable to some jealousy, but, on the other hand, of old
standing, and that had in fact proved harmless as regarded practical
consequences--namely, that to one who praised his voice as a singer he had
replied, _Heu taceo_; and that on another occasion, in reply to the Emperor
Titus, when urging him to a second marriage, he had said, 'What now, I
suppose _you_ are looking out for a wife?'
The latter jest is intelligible enough, stinging, and witty. As if the young
men of the Flavian family could fancy no wives but such as they had won by
violence from other men, he affects in a bitter sarcasm to take for granted
that Titus, as the first step towards marrying, counselled his friends to
marry as the natural means for creating a fund of eligible wives. The
primal qualification of any lady as a consort being, in _their_ eyes, that
she had been torn away violently from a friend, it became evident that the
preliminary step towards a Flavian wedding was, to persuade some incautious
friend into marrying, and thus putting himself into a capacity of being
robbed. How many ladies that it was infamous for this family to appropriate
as wives, so many ladies that in their estimate were eligible in that
character. Such, at least in the stinging jest of Lamia, was the Flavian
rule of conduct. And his friend Titus, therefore, simply as the brother of
Domitian, simply as a Flavian, he affected to regard as indirectly providing
a wife, when he urged his friend by marrying to enrol himself as a
_pillagee_ elect.
The latter jest, therefore, when once apprehended, speaks broadly and
bitingly for itself. But the other--what can it possibly mean? For centuries
has that question been reiterated; and hitherto without advancing by one
step nearer to solution. Isaac Casaubon, who about 230 years since was the
leading oracle in this field of literature, writing an elaborate and
continuous commentary upon Suetonius, found himself unable to suggest any
real aids for dispersing the thick darkness overhanging the passage. What he
says is this:--'Parum satisfaciunt mihi interpretes in explicatione hujus
Lamiæ dicti. Nam quod putant _Heu taceo_ suspirium esse ejus--indicem
doloris ob abductam uxorem magni sed latentis, nobis non ita videtur; sed
notatam potius fuisse tyrannidem principis, qui omnia in suo genere pulchra
et excellentia possessoribus eriperet, unde necessitas incumbebat sua bona
dissimulandi celandique.' Not at all satisfactory to me are the
commentators in the explanation of the _dictum_ (which is here equivalent to
_dicterium_) of Lamia. For, whereas they imagine _Heu taceo_ to be a sigh of
his--the record and indication of a sorrow, great though concealed, on
behalf of the wife that had been violently torn away from him--me, I
confess, that the case does not strike in that light; but rather that a
satiric blow was aimed at the despotism of the sovereign prince, who tore
away from their possessors all objects whatsoever marked by beauty or
distinguished merit in their own peculiar class: whence arose a pressure of
necessity for dissembling and hiding their own advantages. '_Sic esse
exponendum_,' that such is the true interpretation (continues Casaubon),
'_docent illa verba_ [LAUDANTI VOCEM SUAM],' (we are instructed by those
words), [to one who praised his singing voice, &c.].
This commentary was obscure enough, and did no honour to the native good
sense of Isaac Casaubon, usually so conspicuous. For, whilst proclaiming a
settlement, in reality it settled nothing. Naturally, it made but a feeble
impression upon the scholars of the day; and not long after the publication
of the book, Casaubon received from Joseph Scaliger a friendly but
gasconading letter, in which that great scholar brought forward a new
reading--namely, [Greek: entaktô], to which he assigned a profound technical
value as a musical term. No person even affected to understand Scaliger.
Casaubon himself, while treating so celebrated a man with kind and
considerate deference, yet frankly owned that, in all his vast reading, he
had never met with this strange Greek word. But, without entering into any
dispute upon that verbal question, and conceding to Scaliger the word and
his own interpretation of the word, no man could understand in what way this
new resource was meant to affect the ultimate question at issue--namely, the
extrication of the passage from that thick darkness which overshadowed it.
'_As you were_' (to speak in the phraseology of military drill), was in
effect the word of command. All things reverted to their original condition.
And two centuries of darkness again enveloped this famous perplexity of
Roman literature. The darkness had for a few moments seemed to be unsettling
itself in preparation for flight: but immediately it rolled back again; and
through seven generations of men this darkness was heavier, because less
hopeful than before.
Now then, I believe, all things are ready for the explosion of the
catastrophe; 'which catastrophe,' I hear some malicious reader whispering,
'is doubtless destined to glorify himself' (meaning the unworthy writer of
this little paper). I cannot deny it. A truth _is_ a truth. And, since no
medal, nor riband, nor cross, of any known order, is disposable for the most
brilliant successes in dealing with desperate (or what may be called
_condemned_) passages in Pagan literature, mere sloughs of despond that yawn
across the pages of many a heathen dog, poet and orator, that I could
mention, the more reasonable it is that a large allowance should be served
out of boasting and self-glorification to all those whose merits upon this
field national governments have neglected to proclaim. The Scaligers, both
father and son, I believe, acted upon this doctrine; and drew largely by
anticipation upon that reversionary bank which they conceived to be
answerable for such drafts. Joseph Scaliger, it strikes me, was drunk when
he wrote his letter on the present occasion, and in that way failed to see
(what Casaubon saw clearly enough) that he had commenced shouting before he
was out of the wood. For my own part, if I go so far as to say that the
result promises, in the Frenchman's phrase, to 'cover me with glory,' I beg
the reader to remember that the idea of 'covering' is of most variable
extent: the glory may envelope one in a voluminous robe--a princely mantle
that may require a long suite of train-bearers, or may pinch and vice one's
arms into that succinct garment (now superannuated) which some eighty years
ago drew its name from the distinguished Whig family in England of Spencer.
Anticipating, therefore, that I _shall_--nay, insisting, and mutinously, if
needful, that I _will_--be covered with glory by the approaching result, I
do not contemplate anything beyond that truncated tunic, once known as a
'spencer,' and which is understood to cover only the shoulders and the
chest.
Now, then, all being ready, and the arena being cleared of competitors
(for I suppose it is fully understood that everybody but myself has
retired from the contest), thrice, in fact, has the trumpet sounded, 'Do
you give it up?' Some preparations there are to be made in all cases of
contest. Meantime, let it be clearly understood what it is that the
contest turns upon. Supposing that one had been called, like OEdipus
of old, to a turn-up with that venerable girl the Sphinx, most
essential it would have been that the clerk of the course (or however
you designate the judge, the umpire, &c.) should have read the riddle
propounded to Greece: how else judge of the solution? At present the
elements of the case to be decided stand thus:--
A Roman noble, a man, in fact, of senatorial rank, has been robbed,
robbed with violence, and with cruel scorn, of a lovely young wife, to
whom he was most tenderly attached. But by whom? the indignant reader
demands. By a younger son[8] of the Roman emperor Vespasian.
[8] But holding what rank, and what precise station, at the time of the
outrage? At this point I acknowledge a difficulty. The criminal was in
this case Domitian, the younger son of Vespasian, the tenth Cæsar,
younger Brother of Titus, the eleventh Cæsar, and himself, under the
name of Domitian, the twelfth of the Cæsars, consequently the closing
prince in that series of the initial twelve Cæsars whom Suetonius had
undertaken to record. Now the difficulty lies here, which yet I have
never seen noticed in any book: was this violence perpetrated before or
after Domitian's assumption of the purple? If _after_, how, then, could
the injured husband have received that advice from Titus (as to
repairing his loss by a second marriage), which forms part of an
anecdote and a _bon-mot_ between Titus and Lamia? Yet again, if not
after but before, how was it Lamia had not invoked the protection of
Vespasian, or of Titus--the latter of whom enjoyed a theatrically fine
reputation for equity and moderation?
For some years the wrong has been borne in silence: the sufferer knew
himself to be powerless as against such an oppressor; and that to show
symptoms of impotent hatred was but to call down thunderbolts upon his
own head. Generally, therefore, prudence had guided him. _Patience_ had
been the word; _silence_, and below all the deep, deep word--_wait_; and
if by accident he were a Christian, not only that same word _wait_ would
have been heard, but this beside, look under the altars for others that
also wait. But poor suffering patience, sense of indignity that is
hopeless, must (in order to endure) have saintly resources. Infinite
might be the endurance, if sustained only by a finite hope. But the
black despairing darkness that revealed a tossing sea self-tormented and
fighting with chaos, showing neither torch that glimmered in the
foreground, nor star that kept alive a promise in the distance,
violently refused to be comforted. It is beside an awful aggravation of
such afflictions, that the lady herself might have co-operated in the
later stages of the tragedy with the purposes of the imperial ruffian.
Lamia had been suffered to live, because as a living man he yielded up
into the hands of his tormentor his whole capacity of suffering; no part
of it escaped the hellish range of his enemy's eye. But this advantage
for the torturer had also its weak and doubtful side. Use and monotony
might secretly be wearing away the edge of the organs on and through
which the corrosion of the inner heart proceeded. On the whole,
therefore, putting together the facts of the case, it seems to have been
resolved that he should die. But previously that he should drink off a
final cup of anguish, the bitterest that had yet been offered. The lady
herself, again--that wife so known historically, so notorious, yet so
total a stranger to man and his generations--had she also suffered in
sympathy with her martyred husband? That must have been known to a
certainty in the outset of the case, by him that knew too profoundly on
what terms of love they had lived. But at length, seeking for crowning
torments, it may have been that the dreadful Cæsar might have found the
'raw' in his poor victim, that offered its fellowship in exalting the
furnace of misery. The lady herself--may we not suppose her at the last
to have given way before the strengthening storm. Possibly to resist
indefinitely might have menaced herself with ruin, whilst offering no
benefit to her husband. And, again, though killing to the natural
interests which accompany such a case, might not the lady herself be
worn out, if no otherwise, by the killing nature of the contest? There
is besides this dreadful fact, placed ten thousand times on record, that
the very goodness of the human heart in such a case ministers fuel to
the moral degradation of a female combatant. Any woman, and exactly in
proportion to the moral sensibility of her nature, finds it painful to
live in the same house with a man not odiously repulsive in manners or
in person on terms of eternal hostility. In a community so nobly
released as was Rome from all base Oriental bondage of women, this
followed--that compliances of a nature oftentimes to belie the native
nobility of woman become painfully liable to misinterpretation. Possibly
under the blinding delusion of secret promises, unknown, nay,
inaccessible, to those outside (all contemporaries being as ridiculously
impotent to penetrate within the curtain as all posterity), the wife of
Lamia, once so pure, may have been over-persuaded to make such _public_
manifestations of affection for Domitian as had hitherto, upon one
motive or another, been loftily withheld. Things, that to a lover carry
along with them irreversible ruin, carry with them final desolation of
heart, are to the vast current of ordinary men, who regard society
exclusively from a political centre, less than nothing. Do they deny the
existence of other and nobler agencies in human affairs? Not at all.
Readily they confess these agencies: but, as movements obeying laws not
known, or imperfectly known to _them_, these they ignore. What it was
circumstantially that passed, long since has been overtaken and
swallowed up by the vast oblivions of time. This only survives--namely,
that what he said gave signal offence in the highest quarter, and that
his death followed. But what was it that he _did_ say? That is precisely
the question, and the whole question which we have to answer. At present
we know, and we do _not_ know, what it was that he said. We have
bequeathed to us by history two words--involving eight letters--which in
their present form, with submission to certain grandees of classic
literature, mean exactly nothing. These two words must be regarded as
the raw material upon which we have to work: and out of these we are
required to turn out a rational saying for Aelius Lamia, under the
following five conditions:--First, it must allude to his wife, as one
that is lost to him irrecoverably; secondly, it must glance at a gloomy
tyrant who bars him from rejoining her; thirdly, it must reply to the
compliment which had been paid to the sweetness of his own voice;
fourthly, it should in strictness contain some allusion calculated not
only to irritate, but even to alarm or threaten his jealous and vigilant
enemy; fifthly, doing all these things, it ought also to absorb, as its
own main elements, the eight letters contained in the present senseless
words--'_Heu taceo._'
Here is a monstrous quantity of work to throw upon any two words in any
possible language. Even Shakspere's clown,[9] when challenged to furnish
a catholic answer applicable to all conceivable occasions, cannot do it
in less than nine letters--namely, _Oh lord, sir_. I, for my part,
satisfied that the existing form of _Heu taceo_ was mere indictable and
punishable nonsense, but yet that this nonsense must enter as chief
element into the stinging sense of Lamia, gazed for I cannot tell how
many weeks at these impregnable letters, viewing them sometimes as a
fortress that I was called upon to escalade, sometimes as an anagram
that I was called upon to re-organise into the life which it had lost
through some dislocation of arrangement. Finally the result in which I
landed, and which fulfilled all the conditions laid down was this:--Let
me premise, however, what _at any rate_ the existing darkness attests,
that some disturbance of the text must in some way have arisen; whether
from the gnawing of a rat, or the spilling of some obliterating fluid at
this point of some critical or unique MS. It is sufficient for us that
the vital word has survived. I suppose, therefore, that Lamia had
replied to the friend who praised the sweetness of his voice, 'Sweet is
it? Ah, would to Heaven it might prove Orpheutic.' Ominous in this case
would be the word Orpheutic to the ears of Domitian: for every
school-boy knows that this means a _wife-revoking voice_. But first let
me remark that there is such a legitimate word as _Orpheutaceam_: and in
that case the Latin repartee of Lamia would stand thus--_Suavem dixisti?
Quam vellem et Orpheutaceam_. But, perhaps, reader, you fail to
recognise in this form our old friend _Heu taceo_. But here he is to a
certainty, in spite of the rat: and in a different form of letters the
compositor will show him, up to you as--_vellem et Orp_. [HEU TACEAM].
Possibly, being in good humour, you will be disposed to wink at the
seemingly surreptitious AM, though believing the real word to be
_taceo_. Let me say, therefore, that one reading, I believe, gives
_taceam_. Here, then, shines out at once--(1) Eurydice the lovely wife;
(2) detained by the gloomy tyrant Pluto; (3) who, however, is forced
into surrendering her to her husband, whose voice (the sweetest ever
known) drew stocks and stones to follow him, and finally his wife; (4)
the word Orpheutic involves an alarming threat, showing that the hope of
recovering the lady still survived; (5) we have involved in the
restoration all the eight, or perhaps nine, letters of the erroneous
form.
[9] In _All's Well that Ends Well_.
HOW TO WRITE ENGLISH.[10]
Among world-wide objects of speculation, objects rising to the dignity
of a mundane or cosmopolitish value, which challenge at this time more
than ever a growing intellectual interest, is the English language. Why
particularly at this time? Simply, because the interest in that language
rests upon two separate foundations: there are two separate principles
concerned in its pretensions; and by accident in part, but in part also
through the silent and inevitable march of human progress, there has
been steadily gathering for many years an interest of something like
sceptical and hostile curiosity about each of these principles,
considered as problems open to variable solutions, as problems already
viewed from different national centres, and as problems also that press
forward to some solution or other with more and more of a clamorous
emphasis, in proportion as they tend to consequences no longer merely
speculative and scholastic, but which more and more reveal features
largely practical and political. The two principles upon which the
English language rests the burden of its paramount interest, are
these:--first, its powers, the range of its endowments; secondly, its
apparent destiny. Some subtle judges in this field of criticism are of
opinion, and ever had that opinion, that amongst the modern languages
which originally had compass enough of strength and opulence in their
structure, or had received culture sufficient to qualify them plausibly
for entering the arena of such a competition, the English had certain
peculiar and inappreciable aptitudes for the highest offices of
interpretation. Twenty-five centuries ago, this beautiful little planet
on which we live might be said to have assembled and opened her first
parliament for representing the grandeur of the human intellect. That
particular assembly, I mean, for celebrating the Olympic Games about
four centuries and a half before the era of Christ, when Herodotus
opened the gates of morning for the undying career of history, by
reading to the congregated children of Hellas, to the whole
representative family of civilisation, that loveliest of earthly
narratives, which, in nine musical cantos, unfolded the whole luxury of
human romance as at the bar of some austere historic Areopagus, and,
inversely again, which crowded the total abstract of human records,
sealed[11] as with the seal of Delphi in the luxurious pavilions of
human romance.
[10] This fragment appeared in _The Instructor_ for July, 1853. The
subject was not continued in any form.--H.
[11] '_Sealed_,' &c.:--I do not believe that, in the sense of holy
conscientious loyalty to his own innermost convictions, any writer of
history in any period of time can have surpassed Herodotus. And the
reader must remember (or, if unlearned, he must be informed) that this
judgment has _now_ become the unanimous judgment of all the most
competent authorities--that is, of all those who, having first of all
the requisite erudition as to Greek, as to classical archæology, &c.,
then subsequently applied this appropriate learning to the searching
investigation of the several narratives authorised by Herodotus. In the
middle of the last century, nothing could rank lower than the historic
credibility of this writer. And to parody his title to be regarded as
the 'Father of History,' by calling him the 'Father of Lies,' was an
unworthy insult offered to his admirable simplicity and candour by more
critics than one. But two points startle the honourable reader, who is
loathe to believe of any laborious provider for a great intellectual
interest that he _can_ deliberately have meant to deceive: the first
point, and, separately by itself, an all-sufficient demur, is
this--that, not in proportion to the learning and profundity brought to
bear upon Herodotus, did the doubts and scruples upon his fidelity
strengthen or multiply. Precisely in the opposite current was the
movement of human opinion, as it applied itself to this patriarch of
history. Exactly as critics and investigators arose like Larcher--just,
reasonable, thoughtful, patient, and combining--or geographers as
comprehensive and as accurate as Major Rennel, regularly in that ratio
did the reports and the judgments of Herodotus command more and more
respect. The other point is this; and, when it is closely considered, it
furnishes a most reasonable ground of demur to the ordinary criticisms
upon Herodotus. These criticisms build the principle of their objection
generally upon the marvellous or romantic element which intermingles
with the current of the narrative. But when a writer treats (as to
Herodotus it happened that repeatedly he treated) tracts of history far
removed in space and in time from the domestic interests of his native
land, naturally he misses as any available guide the ordinary
utilitarian relations which would else connect persons and events with
great outstanding interests of his own contemporary system. The very
abstraction which has silently been performed by the mere effect of vast
distances, wildernesses that swallow up armies, and mighty rivers that
are unbridged, together with the indefinite chronological remoteness, do
already of themselves translate such sequestered and insulated chambers
of history into the character of moral apologues, where the sole
surviving interest lies in the quality of the particular moral
illustrated, or in the sudden and tragic change of fortune recorded.
Such changes, it is urged, are of rare occurrence; and, recurring too
often, they impress a character of suspicious accuracy upon the
narrative. Doubtless they do so, and reasonably, where the writer is
pursuing the torpid current of circumstantial domestic annals. But, in
the rapid abstract of Herodotus, where a century yields but a page or
two, and considering that two slender octavos, on the particular scale
adopted by Herodotus, embody the total records of the human race down to
his own epoch, really it would furnish no legitimate ground of scruple
or jealousy, though every paragraph should present us with a character
that seems exaggerated, or with an incident approaching to the
marvellous, or a catastrophe that is revolting. A writer is bound--he
has created it into a duty, having once assumed the office of a national
historiographer--to select from the rolls of a nation such events as are
the most striking. And a selection conducted on this principle through
several centuries, or pursuing the fortunes of a dynasty reigning over
vast populations, _must_ end in accumulating a harvest of results such
as would startle the sobriety of ordinary historic faith. If a medical
writer should elect for himself, of his own free choice, to record such
cases only in his hospital experience as terminated fatally, it would be
absurd to object the gloomy tenor of his reports as an argument for
suspecting their accuracy, since he himself, by introducing this as a
condition into the very terms of his original undertaking with the
public, has created against himself the painful necessity of continually
distressing the sensibilities of his reader. To complain of Herodotus,
or any public historian, as drawing too continually upon his reader's
profounder sensibilities, is, in reality, to forget that this belongs as
an original element to the very task which he has undertaken. To
undertake the exhibition of human life under those aspects which
confessedly bring it into unusual conflict with chance and change, is,
by a mere self-created necessity, to prepare beforehand the summons to a
continued series of agitations: it is to seek the tragic and the
wondrous wilfully, and then to complain of it as violating the laws of
probability founded on life within the ordinary conditions of
experience.
That most memorable of Panhellenic festivals it was, which first made
known to each other the two houses of Grecian blood that typified its
ultimate and polar capacities, the most and the least of exorbitations,
the utmost that were possible from its equatorial centre; viz., on the
one side, the Asiatic Ionian, who spoke the sweet musical dialect of
Homer, and, on the other side, the austere Dorian, whom ten centuries
could not teach that human life brought with it any pleasure, or any
business, or any holiness of duty, other or loftier than that of war. If
it were possible that, under the amenities of a Grecian sky, too fierce
a memento could whisper itself of torrid zones, under the stern
discipline of the Doric Spartan it was that you looked for it; or, on
the other hand, if the lute might, at intervals, be heard or fancied
warbling too effeminately for the martial European key of the Grecian
muses, amidst the sweet blandishments it was of Ionian groves that you
arrested the initial elements of such a relaxing modulation. Twenty-five
centuries ago, when Europe and Asia met for brotherly participation in
the noblest, perhaps,[12] of all recorded solemnities, viz., the
inauguration of History in its very earliest and prelusive page, the
coronation (as with propriety we may call it) of the earliest (perhaps
even yet the greatest?) historic artist, what was the language employed
as the instrument of so great a federal act? It was that divine Grecian
language to which, on the model of the old differential compromise in
favour of Themistocles, all rival languages would cordially have
conceded the second honour. If now, which is not impossible, any
occasion should arise for a modern congress of the leading nations that
represent civilisation, not probably in the Isthmus of Corinth, but on
that of Darien, it would be a matter of mere necessity, and so far
hardly implying any expression of homage, that the English language
should take the station formerly accorded to the Grecian. But I come
back to the thesis which I announced, viz., to the twofold _onus_ which
the English language is called upon to sustain:--first, to the
responsibility attached to its _powers_; secondly, to the responsibility
and weight of expectation attached to its destiny. To the questions
growing out of the first, I will presently return. But for the moment, I
will address myself to the nature of that DESTINY, which is often
assigned to the English language: what is it? and how far is it in a
fair way of fulfilling this destiny?
[12] Perhaps, seriously, the most of a _cosmopolitical_ act that has
ever been attempted. Next to it, in point of dignity, I should feel
disposed to class the inauguration of the Crusades.
As early as the middle of the last century, and by people with as little
enthusiasm as David Hume, it had become the subject of plain prudential
speculations, in forecasting the choice of a subject, or of the language
in which it should reasonably be treated, that the area of expectation
for an English writer was prodigiously expanding under the development
of our national grandeur, by whatever names of 'colonial' or 'national'
it might be varied or disguised. The issue of the American War, and the
sudden expansion of the American Union into a mighty nation on a scale
corresponding to that of the four great European potentates--Russia,
Austria, England, and France--was not in those days suspected. But the
tendencies could not be mistaken. And the same issue was fully
anticipated, though undoubtedly through the steps of a very much slower
process. Whilst disputing about the items on the tess apettiele, the
disputed facts were overtaking us, and flying past us, on the most
gigantic scale. All things were changing: and the very terms of the
problem were themselves changing, and putting on new aspects, in the
process and at the moment of enunciation. For instance, it had been
sufficiently seen that another Christendom, far more colossal than the
old Christendom of Europe, _might_, and undoubtedly _would_, form itself
rapidly in America. Against the tens of millions in Europe would rise
up, like the earth-born children of Deucalion and Pyrrha (or of the
Theban Cadmus and Hermione) American millions counted by hundreds. But
from what _radix_? Originally, it would have been regarded as madness to
take Ireland, in her Celtic element, as counting for anything. But of
late--whether rationally, however, I will inquire for a brief moment or
so--the counters have all changed in these estimates. The late Mr
O'Connell was the parent of these hyperbolical anticipations. To count
his ridiculous 'monster-meetings' by hundreds of thousands, and then at
last by millions, cost nobody so much as a blush; and considering the
open laughter and merriment with which all O'Connell estimates were
accepted and looked at, I must think that the _London Standard_ was more
deeply to blame than any other political party, in giving currency and
acceptation to the nursery exaggerations of Mr O'Connell. Meantime
those follies came to an end. Mr O'Connell died; all was finished: and a
new form of mendacity was transferred to America. There has always
existed in the United States one remarkable phenomenon of Irish politics
applied to the deception of both English, Americans, and Irish. All
people who have given any attention to partisanship and American
politics, are aware of a rancorous malice burning sullenly amongst a
small knot of Irishmen, and applying itself chiefly to the feeding of an
interminable feud against England and all things English. This, as it
chiefly expresses itself in American journals, naturally passes for the
product of American violence; which in reality it is not. And hence it
happens, and for many years it _has_ happened, that both Englishmen and
Americans are perplexed at intervals by a malice and an _acharnement_ of
hatred to England, which reads very much like that atrocious and
viperous malignity imputed to the father of Hannibal against the Romans.
It is noticeable, both as keeping open a peculiar exasperation of Irish
patriotism absurdly directed against England; as doing a very serious
injustice to Americans, who are thus misrepresented as the organs of
this violence, so exclusively Irish; and, finally, as the origin of the
monstrous delusion which I now go on to mention. The pretence of late
put forward is, that the preponderant element in the American population
is indeed derived from the British Islands, but by a vast overbalance
from Ireland, and from the Celtic part of the Irish population. This
monstrous delusion has recently received an extravagant sanction from
the London _Quarterly Review_. Half a dozen other concurrent papers, in
journals political and literary, hold the same language. And the upshot
of the whole is--that, whilst the whole English element (including the
earliest colonisation of the New England states at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and including the whole stream of British
emigration since the French Revolution) is accredited for no more than
three and a half millions out of pretty nearly twenty millions of
_white_ American citizens, on the other hand, against this English
element, is set up an Irish (meaning a purely Hiberno-_Celtic_) element,
amounting--oh, genius of blushing, whither hast thou fled?--to a total
of eight millions. Anglo-Saxon blood, it seems, is in a miserable
minority in the United States; whilst the German blood composes, we are
told, a respectable nation of five millions; and the Irish-Celtic young
noblemen, though somewhat at a loss for shoes, already count as high as
eight millions!
Now, if there were any semblance of truth in all this, we should have
very good reason indeed to tremble for the future prospects of the
English language throughout the Union. Eight millions struggling with
three and a half should already have produced some effect on the very
composition of Congress. Meantime, against these audacious falsehoods I
observe a reasonable paper in the _Times_ (August 23, 1852), rating the
Celtic contribution from Ireland--that is, exclusively of all the
_Ulster_ contribution--at about two millions; which, however, I view as
already an exaggeration, considering the number that have always by
preference resorted to the Canadas. Two millions, whom poverty, levity,
and utter want of all social or political consideration, have reduced to
ciphers the most absolute--two millions, in the very lowest and most
abject point of political depression, cannot do much to disturb the
weight of the English language: which, accordingly, on another
occasion, I will proceed to consider, with and without the aid of the
learned Dr Gordon Latham, and sometimes (if he will excuse me) in
defiance of that gentleman, though far enough from defiance in any
hostile or unfriendly sense.
THE CASUISTRY OF DUELLING.[13]
This mention of Allan Cunningham recalls to my recollection an affair
which retains one part of its interest to this day, arising out of the
very important casuistical question which it involves. We Protestant
nations are in the habit of treating casuistry as a field of
speculation, false and baseless _per se_; nay, we regard it not so much
in the light of a visionary and idle speculation, as one positively
erroneous in its principles, and mischievous for its practical results.
This is due in part to the disproportionate importance which the Church
of Rome has always attached to casuistry; making, in fact, this
supplementary section of ethics take precedency of its elementary
doctrines in their catholic simplicity: as though the plain and broad
highway of morality were scarcely ever the safe road, but that every
case of human conduct were to be treated as an exception, and never as
lying within the universal rule: and thus forcing the simple,
honest-minded Christian to travel upon a tortuous by-road, in which he
could not advance a step in security without a spiritual guide at his
elbow: and, in fact, whenever the hair-splitting casuistry is brought,
with all its elaborate machinery, to bear upon the simplicities of
household life, and upon the daily intercourse of the world, there it
has the effect (and is expressly cherished by the Romish Church with a
view to the effect) of raising the spiritual pastor into a sort of
importance which corresponds to that of an attorney. The consulting
casuist is, in fact, to all intents and purposes, a moral attorney. For,
as the plainest man, with the most direct purposes, is yet reasonably
afraid to trust himself to his own guidance in any affair connected with
questions of law; so also, when taught to believe that an upright
intention and good sense are equally insufficient in morals, as they are
in law, to keep him from stumbling or from missing his road, he comes to
regard a conscience-keeper as being no less indispensable for his daily
life and conversation, than his legal agent, or his professional 'man of
business,' for the safe management of his property, and for his guidance
amongst the innumerable niceties which beset the real and inevitable
intricacies of rights and duties, as they grow out of human enactments
and a complex condition of society. Fortunately for the happiness of
human nature and its dignity, those holier rights and duties which grow
out of laws heavenly and divine, written by the finger of God upon the
heart of every rational creature, are beset by no such intricacies, and
require, therefore, no such vicarious agency for their practical
assertion. The primal duties of life, like the primal charities, are
placed high above us--legible to every eye, and shining like the stars,
with a splendour that is read in every clime, and translates itself into
every language at once. Such is the imagery of Wordsworth. But this is
otherwise estimated in the policy of papal Rome: and casuistry usurps a
place in her spiritual economy, to which our Protestant feelings demur.
So far, however, the question between us and Rome is a question of
degrees. They push casuistry into a general and unlimited application;
we, if at all, into a very narrow one. But another difference there is
between us even more important; for it regards no mere excess in the
_quantity_ of range allowed to casuistry, but in the _quality_ of its
speculations: and which it is (more than any other cause) that has
degraded the office of casuistical learning amongst us. Questions are
raised, problems are entertained, by the Romish casuistry, which too
often offend against all purity and manliness of thinking. And that
objection occurs forcibly here, which Southey (either in _The Quarterly
Review_ or in his _Life of Wesley_) has urged and expanded with regard
to the Romish and also the Methodist practice of _auricular
confession_--viz., that, as it _is_ practically managed, not leaving the
person engaged in this act to confess according to the light of his own
conscience, but at every moment interfering, on the part of the
confessor, to suggest _leading questions_ (as lawyers call them), and to
throw the light of confession upon parts of the experience which native
modesty would leave in darkness,--so managed, the practice of confession
is undoubtedly the most demoralising practice known to any Christian
society. Innocent young persons, whose thoughts would never have
wandered out upon any impure images or suggestions, have their ingenuity
and their curiosity sent roving upon unlawful quests: they are
instructed to watch what else would pass undetained in the mind, and
would pass unblameably, on the Miltonic principle: ('Evil into the mind
of God or man may come unblamed,' &c.) Nay, which is worst of all,
unconscious or semi-conscious thoughts and feelings or natural impulses,
rising, like a breath of wind under some motion of nature, and again
dying away, because not made the subject of artificial review and
interpretation, are now brought powerfully under the focal light of the
consciousness: and whatsoever is once made the subject of consciousness,
can never again have the privilege of gay, careless thoughtlessness--the
privilege by which the mind, like the lamps of a mail-coach, moving
rapidly through the midnight woods, illuminate, for one instant, the
foliage or sleeping umbrage of the thickets; and, in the next instant,
have quitted them, to carry their radiance forward upon endless
successions of objects. This happy privilege is forfeited for ever, when
the pointed significancy of the confessor's questions, and the direct
knowledge which he plants in the mind, have awakened a guilty
familiarity with every form of impurity and unhallowed sensuality.
[13] This appeared in _Tait's Magazine_ for February, 1841. Although
practically an independent paper, it was included in the series entitled
'Sketches of Life and Manners; from the Autobiography of an English
Opium-Eater.' The reference to Allan Cunningham occurs in the previous
chapter of these 'Sketches.'--H.
Here, then, are objections sound and deep, to casuistry, as managed in
the Romish church. Every possible objection ever made to auricular
confession applies with equal strength to casuistry; and some
objections, besides these, are peculiar to itself. And yet, after all,
these are but objections to casuistry as treated by a particular church.
Casuistry in itself--casuistry as a possible, as a most useful, and a
most interesting speculation--remains unaffected by any one of these
objections; for none applies to the essence of the case, but only to its
accidents, or separable adjuncts. Neither is this any curious or subtle
observation of little practical value. The fact is as far otherwise as
can be imagined--the defect to which I am here pointing, is one of the
most clamorous importance. Of what value, let me ask, is Paley's Moral
Philosophy? What is its imagined use? Is it that in substance it reveals
any new duties, or banishes as false any old ones? No; but because the
known and admitted duties--duties recognised in _every_ system of
ethics--are here placed (successfully or not) upon new foundations, or
brought into relation with new principles not previously perceived to be
in any relation whatever. This, in fact, is the very meaning of a
theory[14] or contemplation, [[Greek: Theôria],] when A, B, C, old and
undisputed facts have their relations to each other developed. It is
not, therefore, for any practical benefit in action, so much as for the
satisfaction of the understanding, when reflecting on a man's own
actions, the wish to see what his conscience or his heart prompts
reconciled to general laws of thinking--this is the particular service
performed by Paley's Moral Philosophy. It does not so much profess to
tell _what_ you are to do, as the _why_ and the _wherefore_; and, in
particular, to show how one rule of action may be reconciled to some
other rule of equal authority, but which, apparently, is in hostility to
the first. Such, then, is the utmost and highest aim of the Paleyian or
the Ciceronian ethics, as they exist. Meantime, the grievous defect to
which I have adverted above--a defect equally found in all systems of
morality, from the Nichomachéan ethics of Aristotle downwards--is the
want of a casuistry, by way of supplement to the main system, and
governed by the spirit of the very same laws, which the writer has
previously employed in the main body of his work. And the immense
superiority of this supplementary section, to the main body of the
systems, would appear in this, that the latter I have just been saying,
aspires only to guide the reflecting judgment in harmonising the
different parts of his own conduct, so as to bring them under the same
law; whereas the casuistical section, in the supplement, would seriously
undertake to guide the conduct, in many doubtful cases, of action--cases
which are so regarded by all thinking persons. Take, for example, the
case which so often arises between master and servant, and in so many
varieties of form--a case which requires you to decide between some
violation of your conscience, on the one hand, as to veracity, by saying
something that is not strictly true, as well as by evading (and that is
often done) all answer to inquiries which you are unable to meet
satisfactorily--a violation of your conscience to this extent, and in
this way; or, on the other hand, a still more painful violation of your
conscience in consigning deliberately some young woman--faulty, no
doubt, and erring, but yet likely to derive a lesson from her own
errors, and the risk to which they have exposed her--consigning her, I
say, to ruin, by refusing her a character, and thus shutting the door
upon all the paths by which she might retrace her steps. This I state as
one amongst the many cases of conscience daily occurring in the common
business of the world. It would surprise any reader to find how many
they are; in fact, a very large volume might be easily collected of such
cases as are of ordinary occurrence. _Casuistry_, the very word
_casuistry_ expresses the science which deals with such _cases_: for as
a case, in the declension of a noun, means a falling away, or a
deflection from the upright nominative (_rectus_), so a case in ethics
implies some falling off, or deflection from the high road of catholic
morality. Now, of all such cases, one, perhaps the most difficult to
manage, the most intractable, whether for consistency of thinking as to
the theory of morals, or for consistency of action as to the practice of
morals, is the case of DUELLING.
[14] No terms of art are used so arbitrarily, and with such perfect
levity, as the terms _hypothesis_, _theory_, _system_. Most writers use
one or other with the same indifference that they use in constructing
the title of a novel, or, suppose, of a pamphlet, where the phrase
_thoughts_, or _strictures_, or _considerations_, upon so and so, are
used _ad libitum_. Meantime, the distinctions are essential. That is
properly an _hypothesis_ where the question is about a cause: certain
phenomena are known and given: the object is to place below these
phenomena a basis [[Greek: a hypothosis]] capable of supporting them,
and accounting for them. Thus, if you were to assign a cause sufficient
to account for the _aurora borealis_, that would be an hypothesis. But a
theory, on the other hand, takes a multitude of facts all disjointed,
or, at most, suspected, of some inter-dependency: these it takes and
places under strict laws of relation to each other. But here there is no
question of a cause. Finally, a system is the synthesis of a theory and
an hypothesis: it states the relations as amongst an undigested mass,
_rudis indigestaque moles_, of known phenomena; and it assigns a basis
for the whole, as in an hypothesis. These distinctions would become
vivid and convincing by the help of proper illustrations.
As an introduction, I will state my story--the case for the casuist; and
then say one word on the reason of the case.
First, let me report the case of a friend--a distinguished lawyer at the
English bar. I had the circumstances from himself, which lie in a very
small compass; and, as my friend is known, to a proverb almost, for his
literal accuracy in all statements of fact, there need be no fear of any
mistake as to the main points of the case. He was one day engaged in
pleading before the Commissioners of Bankruptcy; a court then, newly
appointed, and differently constituted, I believe, in some respects,
from its present form. That particular commissioner, as it happened, who
presided at the moment when the case occurred, had been recently
appointed, and did not know the faces of those who chiefly practised in
the court. All things, indeed, concurred to favour his mistake: for the
case itself came on in a shape or in a stage which was liable to
misinterpretation, from the partial view which it allowed of the facts,
under the hurry of the procedure; and my friend, also, unluckily, had
neglected to assume his barrister's costume, so that he passed, in the
commissioner's appreciation, as an attorney. 'What if he _had_ been an
attorney?' it may be said: 'was he, therefore, less entitled to courtesy
or justice?' Certainly not; nor is it my business to apologise for the
commissioner. But it may easily be imagined, and (making allowances for
the confusion of hurry and imperfect knowledge of the case) it _does_
offer something in palliation of the judge's rashness, that, amongst a
large heap of 'Old Bailey' attorneys, who notoriously attended this
court for the express purpose of whitewashing their clients, and who
were in bad odour as tricksters, he could hardly have been expected to
make a special exception in favour of one particular man, who had not
protected himself by the insignia of his order. His main error, however,
lay in misapprehending the case: misapprehension lent strength to the
assumption that my friend was an 'Old Bailey' (_i. e._, a sharking)
attorney; whilst, on the other hand, that assumption lent strength to
his misapprehension of the case. Angry interruptions began: these, being
retorted or resented with just indignation, produced an irritation and
ill temper, which, of themselves, were quite sufficient to raise a cloud
of perplexity over any law process, and to obscure it for any
understanding. The commissioner grew warmer and warmer; and, at length,
he had the presumption to say:--'Sir, you are a disgrace to your
profession.' When such sugar-plums, as Captain M'Turk the peacemaker
observes, were flying between them, there could be no room for further
parley. That same night the commissioner was waited on by a friend of
the barrister's, who cleared up his own misconceptions to the
disconcerted judge; placed him, even to his own judgment, thoroughly in
the wrong; and then most courteously troubled him for a reference to
some gentleman, who would arrange the terms of a meeting for the next
day. The commissioner was too just and grave a man to be satisfied with
himself, on a cool review of his own conduct. Here was a quarrel ripened
into a mortal feud, likely enough to terminate in wounds, or, possibly,
in death to one of the parties, which, on his side, carried with it no
palliations from any provocation received, or from wrong and insult, in
any form, sustained: these, in an aggravated shape, could be pleaded by
my friend, but with no opening for retaliatory pleas on the part of the
magistrate. That name, again, of magistrate, increased his offence and
pointed its moral: he, a conservator of the laws--he, a dispenser of
equity, sitting even at the very moment on the judgment seat--_he_ to
have commenced a brawl, nay to have fastened a quarrel upon a man even
then of some consideration and of high promise; a quarrel which finally
tended to this result--shoot or be shot. That commissioner's situation
and state of mind, for the succeeding night, were certainly not
enviable: like Southey's erring painter, who had yielded to the
temptation of the subtle fiend,
With repentance his only companion he lay;
And a dismal companion is she.
Meantime, my friend--what was _his_ condition; and how did _he_ pass the
interval? I have heard him feelingly describe the misery, the blank
anguish of this memorable night. Sometimes it happens that a man's
conscience is wounded; but this very wound is the means, perhaps, by
which his feelings are spared for the present: sometimes his feelings
are lacerated; but this very laceration makes the ransom for his
conscience. Here, on the contrary, his feelings and his happiness were
dimmed by the very same cause which offered pain and outrage to his
conscience. He was, upon principle, a hater of duelling. Under any
circumstances, he would have condemned the man who could, for a light
cause, or almost for the weightiest, have so much as _accepted_ a
challenge. Yet, here he was positively _offering_ a challenge; and to
whom? To a man whom he scarcely knew by sight; whom he had never spoken
to until this unfortunate afternoon; and towards whom (now that the
momentary excitement of anger had passed away) he felt no atom of
passion or resentment whatsoever. As a free 'unhoused' young man,
therefore, had he been such, without ties or obligations in life, he
would have felt the profoundest compunction at the anticipation of any
serious injury inflicted upon another man's hopes or happiness, or upon
his own. But what was his real situation? He was a married man, married
to the woman of his choice within a very few years: he was also a
father, having one most promising son, somewhere about three years old.
His young wife and his son composed his family; and both were dependent,
in the most absolute sense, for all they possessed or they expected--for
all they had or ever could have--upon his own exertions. Abandoned by
him, losing him, they forfeited, in one hour, every chance of comfort,
respectability, or security from scorn and humiliation. The mother, a
woman of strong understanding and most excellent judgment--good and
upright herself--liable, therefore, to no habit of suspicion, and
constitutionally cheerful, went to bed with her young son, thinking no
evil. Midnight came, one, two o'clock; mother and child had long been
asleep; nor did either of them dream of that danger which even now was
yawning under their feet. The barrister had spent the hours from ten to
two in drawing up his will, and in writing such letters as might have
the best chance, in case of fatal issue to himself, for obtaining some
aid to the desolate condition of those two beings whom he would leave
behind, unprotected and without provision. Oftentimes he stole into the
bedroom, and gazed with anguish upon the innocent objects of his love;
and, as his conscience now told him, of his bitterest perfidy. 'Will you
then leave us? Are you really going to betray us? Will you deliberately
consign us to life-long poverty, and scorn, and grief?' These affecting
apostrophes he seemed, in the silence of the night, to hear almost with
bodily ears. Silent reproaches seemed written upon their sleeping
features; and once, when his wife suddenly awakened under the glare of
the lamp which he carried, he felt the strongest impulse to fly from the
room; but he faltered, and stood rooted to the spot. She looked at him
smilingly, and asked why he was so long in coming to bed. He pleaded an
excuse, which she easily admitted, of some law case to study against the
morning, or some law paper to draw. She was satisfied; and fell asleep
again. He, however, fearing, above all things, that he might miss the
time for his appointment, resolutely abided by his plan of not going to
bed; for the meeting was to take place at Chalk Farm, and by half-past
five in the morning: that is, about one hour after sunrise. One hour and
a half before this time, in the gray dawn, just when the silence of
Nature and of mighty London was most absolute, he crept stealthily, and
like a guilty thing, to the bedside of his sleeping wife and child;
took, what he believed might be his final look of them: kissed them
softly; and, according to his own quotation from Coleridge's _Remorse_,
In agony that could not be remembered;
and a conflict with himself that defied all rehearsal, he quitted his
peaceful cottage at Chelsea in order to seek for the friend who had
undertaken to act as his second. He had good reason, from what he had
heard on the night before, to believe his antagonist an excellent shot;
and, having no sort of expectation that any interruption could offer to
the regular progress of the duel, he, as the challenger, would have to
stand the first fire; at any rate, conceiving this to be the fair
privilege of the party challenged, he did not mean to avail himself of
any proposal for drawing lots upon the occasion, even if such a proposal
should happen to be made. Thus far the affair had travelled through the
regular stages of expectation and suspense; but the interest of the case
as a story was marred and brought to an abrupt conclusion by the conduct
of the commissioner. He was a man of known courage, but he also, was a
man of conscientious scruples; and, amongst other instances of courage,
had the courage to own himself in the wrong. He felt that his conduct
hitherto had not been wise or temperate, and that he would be sadly
aggravating his original error by persisting in aiming at a man's life,
upon which life hung also the happiness of others, merely because he had
offered to that man a most unwarranted insult. Feeling this, he thought
fit, at first coming upon the ground, to declare that, having learned,
since the scene in court, the real character of his antagonist, and the
extent of his own mistake, he was resolved to brave all appearances and
ill-natured judgments, by making an ample apology; which, accordingly,
he did; and so the affair terminated. I have thought it right, however,
to report the circumstances, both because they were really true in every
particular, but, much more, because they place in strong relief one
feature, which is often found in these cases, and which is allowed far
too little weight in distributing the blame between the parties: to this
I wish to solicit the reader's attention. During the hours of this
never-to-be-forgotten night of wretchedness and anxiety, my friend's
reflection was naturally forced upon the causes which had produced it.
In the world's judgment, he was aware that he himself, as the one
charged with the most weighty responsibility, (those who depended upon
him being the most entirely helpless,) would have to sustain by much the
heaviest censure: and yet what was the real proportion of blame between
the parties? He, when provoked and publicly insulted, had retorted
angrily: that was almost irresistible under the constitution of human
feelings; the meekest of men could scarcely do less. But surely the true
_onus_ of wrong and moral responsibility for all which might follow,
rested upon that party who, giving way to mixed impulses of rash
judgment and of morose temper, had allowed himself to make a most
unprovoked assault upon the character of one whom he did not know; well
aware that such words, uttered publicly by a person in authority, must,
by some course or other, be washed out and cancelled; or, if not, that
the party submitting to such defamatory insults, would at once exile
himself from the society and countenance of his professional brethren.
Now, then, in all justice, it should be so ordered that the weight of
public indignation might descend upon him, whoever he might be, (and, of
course, the more heavily, according to the authority of his station and
his power of inflicting wrong,) who should thus wantonly abuse his means
of influence, to the dishonour or injury of an unoffending party. We
clothe a public officer with power, we arm him with influential
authority over public opinion; not that he may apply these authentic
sanctions to the backing of his own malice, and giving weight to his
private caprices: and, wherever such abuse takes place, then it should
be so contrived that some reaction in behalf of the injured person
might receive a sanction equally public. And, upon this point, I shall
say a word or two more, after first stating my own case; a case where
the outrage was far more insufferable, more deliberate, and more
malicious; but, on the other hand, in this respect less effectual for
injury, that it carried with it no sanction from any official station or
repute in the unknown parties who offered the wrong. The circumstances
were these:--In 1824, I had come up to London upon an errand in itself
sufficiently vexatious--of fighting against pecuniary embarrassments, by
literary labours; but, as had always happened hitherto, with very
imperfect success, from the miserable thwartings I incurred through the
deranged state of the liver. My zeal was great, and my application was
unintermitting; but spirits radically vitiated, chiefly through the
direct mechanical depression caused by one important organ deranged;
and, secondly, by a reflex effect of depression through my own thoughts,
in estimating my prospects; together with the aggravation of my case, by
the inevitable exile from my own mountain home,--all this reduced the
value of my exertions in a deplorable way. It was rare indeed that I
could satisfy my own judgment, even tolerably, with the quality of any
literary article I produced; and my power to make sustained exertions,
drooped, in a way I could not control, every other hour of the day:
insomuch, that what with parts to be cancelled, and what with whole days
of torpor and pure defect of power to produce anything at all, very
often it turned out that all my labours were barely sufficient (some
times not sufficient) to meet the current expenses of my residence in
London. Three months' literary toil terminated, at times, in a result =
0; the whole _plus_ being just equal to the _minus_, created by two
separate establishments, and one of them in the most expensive city of
the world. Gloomy, indeed, was my state of mind at that period: for,
though I made prodigious efforts to recover my health, (sensible that
all other efforts depended for their result upon this elementary effort,
which was the _conditio sine qua non_ for the rest), yet all availed me
not; and a curse seemed to settle upon whatever I then undertook. Such
was my frame of mind on reaching London: in fact it never varied. One
canopy of murky clouds (a copy of that dun atmosphere which settles so
often upon London) brooded for ever upon my spirits, which were in one
uniformly low key of cheerless despondency; and, on this particular
morning, my depression had been deeper than usual, from the effects of a
long, continuous journey of 300 miles, and of exhaustion from want of
sleep. I had reached London, about six o'clock in the morning, by one of
the northern mails; and, resigning myself as usual in such cases, to the
chance destination of the coach, after delivering our bags in Lombard
Street, I was driven down to a great city hotel. Here there were hot
baths; and, somewhat restored by this luxurious refreshment, about eight
o'clock I was seated at a breakfast table; upon which, in a few minutes,
as an appendage not less essential than the tea-service, one of the
waiters laid that morning's _Times_, just reeking from the press. The
_Times_, by the way, is notoriously the leading journal of Europe
anywhere; but, in London, and more peculiarly in the city quarter of
London, it enjoys a pre-eminence scarcely understood elsewhere. Here it
is not _a_ morning paper, but _the_ morning paper: no other is known, no
other is cited as authority in matters of fact. Strolling with my eye
indolently over the vast Babylonian confusion of the enormous columns,
naturally as one of the _corps littéraire_, I found my attention drawn
to those regions of the paper which announced forthcoming publications.
Amongst them was a notice of a satirical journal, very low priced, and
already advanced to its third or fourth number. My heart palpitated a
little on seeing myself announced as the principal theme for the malice
of the current number. The reader must not suppose that I was left in
any doubt as to the quality of the notice with which I had been
honoured; and that, by possibility, I was solacing my vanity with some
anticipation of honeyed compliments. That, I can assure him, was made
altogether impossible, by the kind of language which flourished in the
very foreground of the _programme_, and even of the running title. The
exposure and _depluming_ (to borrow a good word from the fine old
rhetorician, Fuller,) of the leading 'humbugs' of the age--_that_ was
announced as the regular business of the journal: and the only question
which remained to be settled was, the more or less of the degree; and
also one other question, even more interesting still, viz.--whether
personal abuse were intermingled with literary. Happiness, as I have
experienced in other periods of my life, deep domestic happiness, makes
a man comparatively careless of ridicule, of sarcasm, or of abuse. But
calamity--the degradation, in the world's eye, of every man who is
fighting with pecuniary difficulties--exasperates beyond all that can be
imagined, a man's sensibility to insult. He is even apprehensive of
insult--tremulously fantastically apprehensive, where none is intended;
and like Wordsworth's shepherd, with his very understanding consciously
abused and depraved by his misfortunes is ready to say, at all hours--
And every man I met or faced,
Methought he knew some ill of me.
Some notice, perhaps, the newspaper had taken of this new satirical
journal, or some extracts might have been made from it; at all events, I
had ascertained its character so well that, in this respect, I had
nothing to learn. It now remained to get the number which professed to
be seasoned with my particular case; and it may be supposed that I did
not loiter over my breakfast after this discovery. Something which I saw
or suspected amongst the significant hints of a paragraph or
advertisement, made me fear that there might possibly be insinuations or
downright assertion in the libel requiring instant public notice; and,
therefore, on a motive of prudence, had I even otherwise felt that
indifference for slander which now I _do_ feel, but which, in those
years, morbid irritability of temperament forbade me to affect, I should
still have thought it right to look after the work; which now I did:
and, by nine o'clock in the morning--an hour at which few people had
seen me for years--I was on my road to Smithfield. Smithfield? Yes; even
so. All known and respectable publishers having declined any connexion
with the work, the writers had facetiously resorted to this _aceldama_,
or slaughtering quarter of London--to these vast shambles, as typical, I
suppose, of their own slaughtering spirit. On my road to Smithfield, I
could not but pause for one moment to reflect on the pure defecated
malice which must have prompted an attack upon myself. Retaliation or
retort it could not pretend to be. To most literary men, scattering
their written reviews, or their opinions, by word of mouth, to the right
and the left with all possible carelessness, it never can be matter of
surprise, or altogether of complaint, (unless as a question of degrees,)
that angry notices, or malicious notices, should be taken of themselves.
Few, indeed, of literary men can pretend to any absolute innocence from
offence, and from such even as may have seemed deliberate. But I, for my
part, could. Knowing the rapidity with which all remarks _of_ literary
men _upon_ literary men are apt to circulate, I had studiously and
resolutely forborne to say anything, whether of a writer or a book,
unless where it happened that I could say something that would be felt
as complimentary. And as to written reviews, so much did I dislike the
assumption of judicial functions and authority over the works of my own
brother authors and contemporaries, that I have, in my whole life,
written only two; at that time only one; and that one, though a review
of an English novel, was substantially a review of a German book, taking
little notice, or none, of the English translator; for, although he, a
good German scholar now, was a very imperfect one at that time, and was,
therefore, every way open to criticism, I had evaded this invidious
office applied to a novice in literature, and (after pointing out one or
two slight blemishes of trivial importance) all that I said of a general
nature was a compliment to him upon the felicity of his verses. Upon the
German author I was, indeed, severe, but hardly as much as he deserved.
The other review was a tissue of merriment and fun; and though, it is
true, I _did_ hear that the fair authoress was offended at one jest, I
may safely leave it for any reader to judge between us. She, or her
brother, amongst other Latin epigrams had one addressed to a young lady
_upon the loss of her keys_. This, the substance of the lines showed to
have been the intention; but (by a very venial error in one who was
writing Latin from early remembrance of it, and not in the character of
a professing scholar) the title was written _De clavis_ instead of _De
clavibus amissis_; upon which I observed that the writer had selected a
singular topic for condolence with a young lady,--viz., '_on the loss of
her cudgels_;' (_clavis_, as an ablative, coming clearly from _clava_).
This (but I can hardly believe it) was said to have offended Miss H.;
and, at all events, this was the extent of my personalities. Many kind
things I had said; much honour; much admiration, I had professed at that
period of my life in occasional papers or private letters, towards many
of my contemporaries, but never anything censorious or harsh; and simply
on a principle of courteous forbearance which I have felt to be due
towards those who are brothers of the same liberal profession with one's
self. I could not feel, when reviewing my whole life, that in any one
instance, by act, by word, or by intention, I had offered any
unkindness, far less any wrong or insult, towards a brother author. I
was at a loss, therefore, to decipher the impulse under which the
malignant libeller could have written, in making (as I suspected
already) my private history the subject of his calumnies. Jealousy, I
have since understood, jealousy, was the foundation of the whole. A
little book of mine had made its way into drawing-rooms where some book
of his had not been heard of. On reaching Smithfield, I found the
publisher to be a medical bookseller, and, to my surprise, having every
appearance of being a grave, respectable man; notwithstanding this
undeniable fact, that the libellous journal, to which he thought proper
to affix his sanction, trespassed on decency, not only by its slander,
but, in some instances, by downright obscenity; and, worse than that,
by prurient solicitations to the libidinous imagination, through blanks,
seasonably interspersed. I said nothing to him in the way of inquiry;
for I easily guessed that the knot of writers who were here clubbing
their _virus_, had not so ill combined their plans as to leave them open
to detection by a question from any chance stranger. Having, therefore,
purchased a set of the journal, then amounting to three or four numbers,
I went out; and in the elegant promenades of Smithfield, I read the
lucubrations of my libeller. Fit academy for such amenities of
literature! Fourteen years have gone by since then; and, possibly, the
unknown hound who yelled, on that occasion, among this kennel of curs,
may, long since, have buried himself and his malice in the grave.
Suffice it here to say, that, calm as I am now, and careless on
recalling the remembrance of this brutal libel, at that time I was
convulsed with wrath. As respected myself, there was a depth of
malignity in the article which struck me as perfectly mysterious. How
could any man have made an enemy so profound, and not even have
suspected it? _That_ puzzled me. For, with respect to the other objects
of attack, such as Sir Humphrey Davy, &c., it was clear that the malice
was assumed; that, at most, it was the gay impertinence of some man upon
town, armed with triple Irish brass from original defect of feeling, and
willing to raise an income by running amuck at any person just then
occupying enough of public interest to make the abuse saleable. But, in
my case, the man flew like a bull-dog at the throat, with a pertinacity
and _acharnement_ of malice that would have caused me to laugh
immoderately, had it not been for one intolerable wound to my feelings.
These mercenary libellers, whose stiletto is in the market, and at any
man's service for a fixed price, callous and insensible as they are,
yet retain enough of the principles common to human nature, under every
modification, to know where to plant their wounds. Like savage hackney
coachmen, they know where there is a _raw_. And the instincts of human
nature teach them that every man is vulnerable through his female
connexions. There lies his honour; there his strength; there his
weakness. In their keeping is the heaven of his happiness; in them and
through them the earthy of its fragility. Many there are who do not feel
the _maternal_ relation to be one in which any excessive freight of
honour or sensibility is embarked. Neither is the name of _sister_,
though tender in early years, and impressive to the fireside
sensibilities, universally and through life the same magical sound. A
sister is a creature whose very property and tendency (_qua_ sister) is
to alienate herself, not to gather round your centre. But the names of
_wife_ and _daughter_ these are the supreme and starry charities of
life: and he who, under a mask, fighting in darkness, attacks you there,
that coward has you at disadvantage. I stood in those hideous shambles
of Smithfield: upwards I looked to the clouds, downwards to the earth,
for vengeance. I trembled with excessive wrath--such was my infirmity of
feeling at that time, and in that condition of health; and had I
possessed forty thousand lives, all, and every one individually, I would
have sacrificed in vindication of her that was thus cruelly libelled.
Shall I give currency to his malice, shall I aid and promote it by
repeating it? No. And yet why not? Why should I scruple, as if afraid to
challenge his falsehoods?--why should I scruple to cite them? He, this
libeller, asserted--But faugh!
This slander seemed to have been built upon some special knowledge of
me; for I had often spoken with horror of those who could marry persons
in a condition which obliged them to obedience--a case which had
happened repeatedly within my own knowledge; and I had spoken on this
ground, that the authority of a master might be _supposed_ to have been
interposed, whether it really were so or not in favour of his designs;
and thus a presumption, however false it might be, always remained that
his wooing had been, perhaps, not the wooing of perfect freedom, so
essential to the dignity of woman, and, therefore, essential to his own
dignity; but that perhaps, it had been favoured by circumstances, and by
opportunities created, if it had not even been favoured, by express
exertions of authority. The libeller, therefore, _did_ seem to have some
knowledge of my peculiar opinions: yet, in other points, either from
sincere ignorance or from affectation, and by way of turning aside
suspicion, he certainly manifested a non-acquaintance with facts
relating to me that must have been familiar enough to all within my
circle.
Let me pursue the case to its last stage. The reader will say, perhaps,
why complain of a paltry journal that assuredly never made any noise;
for I, the reader, never heard of it till now. No, that is very
possible; for the truth is, and odd enough it seems, this malicious
journal prospered so little, that, positively, at the seventh No. it
stopped. Laugh I did, and laugh I could not help but do, at this picture
of baffled malice: writers willing and ready to fire with poisoned
bullets, and yet perfectly unable to get an effective aim, from sheer
want of co-operation on the part of the public.
However, the case as it respected me, went farther than it did with
respect to the public. Would it be believed that human malice, with
respect to a man not even known by sight to his assailants, as was clear
from one part of their personalities, finally--that is to say, months
afterwards--adopted the following course:--The journal had sunk under
public scorn and neglect; neglect at first, but, perhaps, scorn at the
last; for, when the writers found that mere malice availed not to draw
public attention, they adopted the plan of baiting their hooks with
obscenity; and they published a paper, professing to be written by Lord
Byron, called, '_My Wedding Night_;' and very possible, from internal
evidence, to have been really written by him; and yet the combined
forces of Byron and obscenity failed to save them,--which is rather
remarkable. Having sunk, one might suppose the journal was at an end,
for good and evil; and, especially, that all, who had been molested by
it, or held up to ridicule, might now calculate on rest. By no means:
First of all they made inquiries about the localities of my residence,
and the town nearest to my own family. Nothing was effected unless they
carried the insult, addressed to my family, into the knowledge of that
family and its circle. My cottage in Grasmere was just 280 miles from
London, and eighteen miles from any town whatsoever. The nearest was
Kendal; a place of perhaps 16,000 inhabitants; and the nearest
therefore, at which there were any newspapers printed. There were two:
one denominated _The Gazette_; the other _The Chronicle_. The first was
Tory and Conservative; had been so from its foundation; and was,
besides, generous in its treatment of private character. My own
contributions to it I will mention hereafter. _The Chronicle_, on the
other hand, was a violent reforming journal, and conducted in a
partisan spirit. To this newspaper the article was addressed; by this
newspaper it was published; and by this it was carried into my own
'_next-door_' neighbourhood. Next-door neighbourhood? But that surely
must be the very best direction these libellers could give to their
malice; for there, at least, the falsehood of their malice must be
notorious. Why, yes: and in that which _was_ my neighbourhood, according
to the most literal interpretation of the term, a greater favour could
not have been done me, nor a more laughable humiliation for my
unprovoked enemies. Commentary or refutation there needed none; the
utter falsehood of the main allegations were so obvious to every man,
woman, and child, that, of necessity, it discredited even those parts
which might, for any thing known to my neighbours, have been true. Nay,
it was the means of procuring for me a generous expression of sympathy,
that would else have been wanting; for some gentlemen of the
neighbourhood, who were but slightly known to me, put the malignant
journal into the fire at a public reading-room. So far was well; but, on
the other hand, in Kendal, a town nearly twenty miles distant, of
necessity I was but imperfectly known; and though there was a pretty
general expression of disgust at the character of the publication, and
the wanton malignity which it bore upon its front, since, true or not
true, no shadow of a reason was pleaded for thus bringing forward
statements expressly to injure me, or to make me unhappy; yet there must
have been many, in so large a place, who had too little interest in the
question, or too limited means of inquiry, for ever ascertaining the
truth. Consequently, in _their_ minds, to this hour, my name, as one
previously known to them, and repeatedly before the town in connexion
with political or literary articles in their Conservative journal, must
have suffered.
But the main purpose, for which I have reported the circumstances of
these two cases, relates to the casuistry of duelling. Casuistry, as I
have already said, is the moral philosophy of _cases_--that is, of
anomalous combinations of circumstances--that, for any reason
whatsoever, do not fall, or do not seem to fall, under the general rules
of morality. As a general rule, it must, doubtless, be unlawful to
attempt another man's life, or to hazard your own. Very special
circumstances must concur to make out any case of exception; and even
then it is evident, that one of the parties must always be deeply in the
wrong. But it _does_ strike me, that the present casuistry of society
upon the question of duelling, is profoundly wrong, and wrong by
manifest injustice. Very little distinction is ever made, in practice,
by those who apply their judgments to such cases, between the man who,
upon principle, practises the most cautious self-restraint and
moderation in his daily demeanour, never under any circumstance offering
an insult, or any just occasion of quarrel, and resorting to duel only
under the most insufferable provocation, between this man, on the one
side, and the most wanton ruffian, on the other, who makes a common
practice of playing upon other men's feelings, whether in reliance upon
superior bodily strength, or upon the pacific disposition of
conscientious men, and fathers of families. Yet, surely, the difference
between them goes the whole extent of the interval between wrong and
right. Even the question, 'Who gave the challenge?' which _is_ sometimes
put, often merges virtually in the transcendant question, 'Who gave the
provocation?' For it is important to observe, in both the cases which I
have reported, that the _onus_ of offering the challenge was thrown upon
the unoffending party; and thus, in a legal sense, that party is made to
give the provocation who, in a moral sense, received it. But surely, if
even the law makes allowances for human infirmity, when provoked beyond
what it can endure,--we, in our brotherly judgments upon each other,
ought, _a fortiori_, to take into the equity of our considerations the
amount and quality of the offence. It will be objected that the law, so
far from allowing for, expressly refuses to allow for, sudden sallies of
anger or explosions of vindictive fury, unless in so far as they are
extempore, and before the reflecting judgment has had time to recover
itself. Any indication that the party had leisure for calm review, or
for a cool selection of means and contrivances in executing his
vindictive purposes, will be fatal to a claim of that nature. This is
true; but the nature of a printed libel is, continually to renew itself
as an insult. The subject of it reads this libel, perhaps, in solitude;
and, by a great exertion of self-command, resolves to bear it with
fortitude and in silence. Some days after, in a public room, he sees
strangers reading it also: he hears them scoffing and laughing loudly:
in the midst of all this, he sees himself pointed out to their notice by
some one of the party who happens to be acquainted with his person; and,
possibly, if the libel take that particular shape which excessive malice
is most likely to select, he will hear the name of some female relative,
dearer, it may be to him, and more sacred in his ears, than all this
world beside, bandied about with scorn and mockery by those who have not
the poor excuse of the original libellers, but are, in fact, adopting
the second-hand malignity of others. Such cases, with respect to libels
that are quickened into popularity by interesting circumstances, or by a
personal interest attached to any of the parties, or by wit, or by
extraordinary malice, or by scenical circumstances, or by circumstances
unusually ludicrous, are but too likely to occur; and, with every fresh
repetition, the keenness of the original provocation is renewed, and in
an accelerated ratio. Again, with reference to my own case, or to any
case resembling that, let it be granted that I was immoderately and
unreasonably transported by anger at the moment;--I thought so myself,
after a time, when the journal which published the libel sank under the
public neglect; but this was an after consideration; and, at the moment,
how heavy an aggravation was given to the stings of the malice, by the
deep dejection, from embarrassed circumstances and from disordered
health, which then possessed me; aggravations, perhaps, known to the
libellers as encouragements for proceeding at the time, and often enough
likely to exist in other men's cases. Now, in the case as it actually
occurred, it so happened that the malicious writers had, by the libel,
dishonoured themselves too deeply in the public opinion, to venture upon
coming forward, in their own persons, to avow their own work; but
suppose them to have done so (as, in fact, even in this case, they might
have done, had they not published their intention of driving a regular
trade in libel and in slander); suppose them insolently to beard you in
public haunts; to cross your path continually when in company with the
very female relative upon whom they had done their best to point the
finger of public scorn; and suppose them further, by the whole artillery
of contemptuous looks, words, gestures, and unrepressed laughter, to
republish, as it were, ratify, and publicly to apply, personally, their
own original libel, as often as chance or as opportunity (eagerly
improved) should throw you together in places of general resort; and
suppose, finally, that the central figure--nay, in their account, the
very butt throughout this entire drama of malice--should chance to be an
innocent, gentle-hearted, dejected, suffering woman, utterly unknown to
her persecutors, and selected as their martyr merely for her
relationship to yourself--suppose her, in short, to be your wife--a
lovely young woman sustained by womanly dignity, or else ready to sink
into the earth with shame, under the cruel and unmanly insults heaped
upon her, and having no protector upon earth but yourself: lay all this
together, and then say whether, in such a case, the most philosophic or
the most Christian patience might not excusably give way; whether flesh
and blood could do otherwise than give way, and seek redress for the
past, but, at all events, security for the future, in what, perhaps,
might be the sole course open to you--an appeal to arms. Let it not be
said that the case here proposed, by way of hypothesis, is an extreme
one: for the very argument has contemplated extreme cases: since, whilst
conceding that duelling is an unlawful and useless remedy for cases of
ordinary wrong, where there is no malice to resist a more conciliatory
mode of settlement, and where it is difficult to imagine any deliberate
insult except such as is palliated by intoxication--conceding this, I
have yet supposed it possible that cases may arise, with circumstances
of contumely and outrage, growing out of deep inexorable malice, which
cannot be redressed, _as things now are_, without an appeal to the _voye
de fait_. 'But this is so barbarous an expedient in days of high
civilisation.' Why, yes, it labours with the semi-barbarism of
chivalry: yet, on the other hand, this mention of chivalry reminds me
to say, that if this practice of duelling share the blame of chivalry,
one memorable praise there is, which also it may claim as common to them
both. It is a praise which I have often insisted on; and the very
sublime of prejudice I would challenge to deny it. Burke, in his
well-known apology for chivalry, thus expresses his sense of the
immeasurable benefits which it conferred upon society, as a
supplementary code of law, reaching those cases which the weakness of
municipal law was then unavailing to meet, and at a price so trivial in
bloodshed or violence--he calls it 'the cheap defence of nations.' Yes,
undoubtedly; and surely the same praise belongs incontestably to the law
of duelling. For one duel _in esse_, there are ten thousand, every day
of our lives, amid populous cities, _in posse_: one challenge is given,
a myriad are feared: one life (and usually the most worthless, by any
actual good rendered to society) is sacrificed, suppose triennially,
from a nation; _every_ life is endangered by certain modes of behaviour.
Hence, then, and at a cost inconceivably trifling, the peace of society
is maintained in cases which no law, no severity of police, ever could
effectually reach. Brutal strength would reign paramount in the walks of
public life; brutal intoxication would follow out its lawless impulses,
were it not for the fear which now is always in the rear--the fear of
being summoned to a strict summary account, liable to the most perilous
consequences. This is not open to denial: the actual basis upon which
reposes the security of us all, the peace of our wives and our
daughters, and our own immunity from the vilest degradations under their
eyes, is the necessity, known to every gentleman, of answering for his
outrages in a way which strips him of all unfair advantages, except one
(which is not often possessed), which places the weak upon a level with
the strong, and the quiet citizen upon a level with the military
adventurer, or the ruffian of the gambling-house. The fact, I say,
cannot be denied; neither can the low price be denied at which this vast
result is obtained. And it is evident that, on the principle of
expediency, adopted as the basis of morality by Paley, the justification
of duelling is complete: for the greatest sum of immediate happiness is
produced at the least possible sacrifice.[15] But there are many men of
high moral principle, and yet not professing to rest upon Christianity,
who reject this prudential basis of ethics as the death of all morality.
And these men hold, that the social recognition of any one out of the
three following dangerous and immoral principles, viz.--_1st_, That a
man may lawfully sport with his own life; _2dly_, That he may lawfully
sport with the life of another; _3dly_, That he may lawfully seek his
redress for a social wrong, by any other channel than the law tribunals
of the land: that the recognition of these, or any of them, by the
jurisprudence of a nation, is a mortal wound to the very key-stone upon
which the whole vast arch of morality reposes. Well, in candour, I must
admit that, by justifying, in courts of judicature, through the verdicts
of juries, that mode of personal redress and self-vindication, to heal
and prevent which was one of the original motives for gathering into
social communities, and setting up an empire of public law as paramount
to all private exercise of power, a fatal wound is given to the sanctity
of moral right, of the public conscience, and of law in its elementary
field. So much I admit; but I say also, that the case arises out of a
great dilemma, with difficulties on both sides; and that, in all
_practical_ applications of philosophy, amongst materials so imperfect
as men, just as in all attempts to realize the rigour of mathematical
laws amongst earthly mechanics, inevitably there will arise such
dilemmas and cases of opprobrium to the reflecting intellect. However,
in conclusion, I shall say four things, which I request my opponent,
whoever he may be, to consider; for they are things which certainly
ought to have weight; and some important errors have arisen by
neglecting them.
[15] Neither would it be open to Paley to plead that the final or
remotest consequences must be taken into the calculation; and that one
of these would be the weakening of all moral sanctions, and thus,
indirectly, an injury to morality, which might more than compensate the
immediate benefit to social peace and security; for this mode of arguing
the case would bring us back to the very principle which his own
implicitly, or by involution, rejects: since it would tell us to obey
the principle itself without reference to the apparent consequences. By
the bye, Paley has an express section of his work against the law of
honour as a valid rule of action; but, as Cicero says of Epicurus, it
matters little what he says; the question for us is _quam sibi
convenienter_, how far consistently with himself. Now, as Sir James
Mackintosh justly remarks, all that Paley says in refutation of the
principle of worldly honour is hollow and unmeaning. In fact, it is
merely one of the commonplaces adopted by satire, and no philosophy at
all. Honour, for instance, allows you, upon paying gambling debts, to
neglect or evade all others: honour, again, allows you to seduce a
married woman: and he would secretly insinuate that honour _enjoins_ all
this; but it is evident that honour simply forbears to forbid all this:
in other words, it is a very limited rule of action, not applying to one
case of conduct in fifty. It might as well be said, that Ecclesiastical
Courts sanction murder, because that crime lies out of their
jurisdiction.
_First_, then, let him remember that it is the principle at stake--viz.,
the recognition by a legal tribunal, as lawful or innocent of any
attempt to violate the laws, or to take the law into our own hands: this
it is and the mortal taint which is thus introduced into the public
morality of a Christian land, thus authentically introduced; thus sealed
and countersigned by judicial authority; the majesty of law actually
interfering to justify, with the solemnities of trial, a flagrant
violation of law; this it is, this only, and not the amount of injury
sustained by society, which gives value to the question. For, as to the
injury, I have already remarked, that a very trivial annual loss--one
life, perhaps, upon ten millions, and that life often as little
practically valuable as any amongst us--that pays our fine or ransom in
that account. And, in reality, there is one popular error made upon this
subject, when the question is raised about the institution of some
_Court of Honour_, or _Court of Appeal in cases of injury to the
feelings_, under the sanction of parliament, which satisfactorily
demonstrates the trivial amount of injury sustained: it is said on such
occasions that _de minimis non curat lex_--that the mischief, in fact,
is too narrow and limited for the regard of the legislature. And we may
be assured that, if the evil were ever to become an extensive one, the
notice of Parliament soon _would_ be attracted to the subject; and hence
we may derive a hint for an amended view of the policy adopted in past
ages. Princes not distinguished for their religious scruples, made it,
in different ages and places, a capital offence to engage in a duel:
whence it is inferred, falsely, that, in former times, a more public
homage was paid to Christian principle. But the fact is, that not the
anti-Christian character of the offence so much as its greater
frequency, and the consequent extension of a civil mischief was the
ruling consideration with the lawgiver. Among other causes for this
greater prevalence of duels, was the composition of armies, more often
brought together upon mercenary principles from a large variety of
different nations, whose peculiar usages, points of traditional honour,
and even the oddness of their several languages to the ear, formed a
perpetual occasion of insult and quarrel. Fluellen's affair with Pistol,
we may be sure, was no rare but a representative case.
_Secondly_, In confirmation of what I have said about duelling, as the
great conductor for carrying off the excess of angry irritation in
society, I will repeat what was said to me by a man of great ability and
distinguished powers, as well as opportunities for observation, in
reference to a provincial English town, and the cabals which prevailed
there. These cabals--some political, arising out of past electioneering
contests; some municipal, arising out of the corporation disputes; some
personal, arising out of family rivalships, or old traditionary
disputes--had led to various feuds that vexed the peace of the town in a
degree very considerably beyond the common experience of towns reaching
the same magnitude. How was this accounted for? The word _tradesman_ is,
more than even the term _middle class_, liable to great ambiguity of
meaning; for it includes a range so large as to take in some who tread
on the heels even of the highest aristocracy, and some at the other end,
who rank not at all higher than day-labourers or handicraftsmen. Now,
those who ranked with gentlemen, took the ordinary course of gentlemen
in righting themselves under personal insults; and the result was, that,
amongst _them_ or _their_ families, no feuds were subsisting of ancient
standing. No ill blood was nursed; no calumnies or conspicuous want of
charity prevailed. Not that they often fought duels: on the contrary, a
duel was a very rare event amongst the indigenous gentry of the place;
but it was sufficient to secure all the effects of duelling, that it was
known, with respect to this class, that, in the last resort, they were
ready to fight. Now, on the other hand, the lowest order of tradesmen
had _their_ method of terminating quarrels--the old English method of
their fathers--viz., by pugilistic contests. And _they_ also cherished
no malice against each other or amongst their families. 'But,' said my
informant, 'some of those who occupied the intermediate stations in this
hierarchy of trade, found themselves most awkwardly situated. So far
they shared in the refinements of modern society, that they disdained
the coarse mode of settling quarrels by their fists. On the other hand,
there was a special and peculiar reason pressing upon this class, which
restrained them from aspiring to the more aristocratic modes of
fighting. They were sensible of a ridicule, which everywhere attaches to
many of the less elevated or liberal modes of exercising trade in going
out to fight with sword and pistol. This ridicule was sharpened and made
more effectual, in _their_ case, from the circumstance of the Royal
Family and the court making this particular town a frequent place of
residence. Besides that apart from the ridicule, many of them depended
for a livelihood upon the patronage of royalty or of the nobility,
attached to their suite; and most of these patrons would have resented
their intrusion upon the privileged ground of the aristocracy in
conducting disputes of honour. What was the consequence? These persons,
having no natural outlet for their wounded sensibilities, being
absolutely debarred from _any_ mode of settling their disputes,
cherished inextinguishable feuds: their quarrels in fact had no natural
terminations; and the result was, a spirit of malice and most
unchristian want of charity, which could not hope for any final repose,
except in death.' Such was the report of my observing friend: the
particular town may be easily guessed at; and I have little doubt that
its condition continues as of old.
_Thirdly_, It is a very common allegation against duelling, that the
ancient Romans and Grecians never practised this mode of settling
disputes; and the inference is, of course, unfavourable, not to
Christianity, but to us as inconsistent disciples of our own religion;
and a second inference is, that the principle of personal honour, well
understood, cannot require this satisfaction for its wounds. For the
present I shall say nothing on the former head, but not for want of
something to say. With respect to the latter, it is a profound mistake,
founded on inacquaintance with the manners and the spirit of manners
prevalent amongst these imperfectly civilised nations. Honour was a
sense not developed in many of its modifications amongst either Greeks
or Romans. Cudgelling was at one time used as the remedy in cases of
outrageous libel and pasquinade. But it is a point very little to the
praise of either people, that no vindictive notice was taken of any
possible personalities, simply because the most hideous license had been
established for centuries in tongue license and unmanly Billingsgate.
This had been promoted by the example hourly ringing in their ears of
vernile scurrility. _Verna_--that is, the slave born in the family--had
each from the other one universal and proverbial character of
foul-mouthed eloquence, which heard from infancy, could not but furnish
a model almost unconsciously to those who had occasion publicly to
practise vituperative rhetoric. What they remembered of this vernile
licentiousness, constituted the staple of their talk in such situations.
And the horrible illustrations left even by the most accomplished and
literary of the Roman orators, of their shameless and womanly fluency in
this dialect of unlicensed abuse, are evidences, not to be resisted, of
such obtuseness, such coarseness of feeling, so utter a defect of all
the gentlemanly sensibilities, that no man, alive to the real state of
things amongst them, would ever think of pleading their example in any
other view than as an object of unmitigated disgust. At all events, the
long-established custom of deluging each other in the Forum, or even in
the Senate, with the foulest abuse, the precedent traditionally
delivered through centuries before the time of Cæsar and Cicero, had so
robbed it of its sting, that, as a subject for patient endurance, or an
occasion for self conquest in mastering the feelings, it had no merit at
all. Anger, prompting an appeal to the cudgel, there might be, but sense
of wounded honour, requiring a reparation by appeal to arms, or a
washing away by blood, no such feeling could have been subdued or
overcome by a Roman, for none such existed. The feelings of wounded
honour on such occasions, it will be allowed, are mere reflections
(through sympathetic agencies) of feelings and opinions already
existing, and generally dispersed through society. Now, in Roman
society, the case was a mere subject for laughter; for there were no
feelings or opinions pointing to honour, personal honour as a principle
of action, nor, consequently, to wounded honour as a subject of
complaint. The Romans were not above duelling, but simply not up to that
level of civilisation.
_Finally_, with respect to the suggestion of a _Court of Honour_, much
might be said that my limits will not allow; but two suggestions I will
make. _First_, Recurring to a thing I have already said, I must repeat
that no justice would be shown unless (in a spirit very different from
that which usually prevails in society) the weight of public indignation
and the displeasure of the court were made to settle conspicuously upon
the AGGRESSOR; not upon the challenger, who is often the party suffering
under insufferable provocation (provocation which even the sternness of
penal law and the holiness of Christian faith allow for), but upon the
author of the original offence. _Secondly_, A much more searching
investigation must be made into the conduct of the SECONDS than is usual
in the unprofessional and careless inquisitions of the public into such
affairs. Often enough, the seconds hold the fate of their principals
entirely in their hands; and instances are not a few, within even my
limited knowledge, of cases where murder has been really committed, not
by the party who fired the fatal bullet, but by him who (having it in
his power to interfere without loss of honour to any party) has cruelly
thought fit--[and, in some instances, apparently for no purpose but
that of decorating himself with the name of an energetic man, and of
producing a public '_sensation_,' as it is called--a sanguinary
affair]--to goad on the tremulous sensibility of a mind distracted
between the sense of honour on the one hand, and the agonising claims of
a family on the other, into fatal extremities that might, by a slight
concession, have been avoided. I could mention several instances; but,
in some of these, I know the circumstances only by report. In one,
however, I had my information from parties who were personally connected
with the unhappy subject of the affair. The case was this:--A man of
distinguished merit, whom I shall not describe more particularly,
because it is no part of my purpose to recall old buried feuds, or to
insinuate any _personal_ blame whatsoever (my business being not with
this or that man, but with a system and its principles); this man, by a
step well-meant but injudicious, and liable to a very obvious
misinterpretation, as though taken in a view of self-interest, had
entangled himself in a quarrel. That quarrel would have been settled
amicably, or, if not amicably, at least without bloodshed, had it not
been for an unlucky accident combined with a very unwise advice. One
morning, after the main dispute had been pretty well adjusted, he was
standing at the fireside after breakfast, talking over the affair so far
as it had already travelled, when it suddenly and most unhappily came
into his head to put this general question--'Pray, does it strike you
that people will be apt, on a review of this whole dispute, to think
that there has been too much talking and too little doing?' His evil
genius so ordered it, that the man to whom he put this question, was one
who, having no military character to rest on, could not (or thought he
could not) recommend those pacific counsels which a truly brave man is
ever ready to suggest--I put the most friendly construction upon his
conduct--and his answer was this--'Why, if you insist upon my giving a
faithful reply, if you _will_ require me to be sincere (though I really
wish you would not), in that case my duty is to tell you, that the world
_has_ been too free in its remarks--that it has, with its usual
injustice, been sneering at literary men and _paper pellets_, as the
ammunition in which they trade; in short, my dear friend, the world has
presumed to say that not you only, but that both parties, have shown a
little of'----'Yes; I know what you are going to say,' interrupted the
other, 'of the _white feather_. Is it not so?'--'Exactly; you have hit
the mark--that is what they say. But how unjust it is; for, says I, but
yesterday, to Mr. L. M., who was going on making himself merry with the
affair in a way that was perfectly scandalous--"Sir," says I,'----but
this _says I_ never reached the ears of the unhappy man: he had heard
enough; and, as a secondary dispute was still going on that had grown
out of the first, he seized the very first opening which offered itself
for provoking the issue of a quarrel. The other party was not backward
or slack in answering the appeal; and thus, in one morning, the prospect
was overcast--peace was no longer possible; and a hostile meeting was
arranged. Even at this meeting much still remained in the power of the
seconds: there was an absolute certainty that all fatal consequences
might have been evaded, with perfect consideration for the honour of
both parties. The principals must unquestionably have felt _that_; but
if the seconds would not move in that direction, of course _their_ lips
were sealed. A more cruel situation could not be imagined: two persons,
who never, perhaps, felt more than that fiction of enmity which
belonged to the situation, that is to say, assumed the enmity which
society presumes rationally incident to a certain position--assumed it
as a point of honour, but did not heartily feel it; and even for the
slight shade of animosity which, for half an hour, they might have
really felt, had thoroughly quelled it before the meeting, these two
persons--under no impulses whatever, good or bad, from within, but
purely in a hateful necessity of servile obedience to a command from
without--prepared to perpetrate what must, in that frame of
dispassionate temper have appeared to each, a purpose of murder, as
regarded his antagonist--a purpose of suicide, as regarded himself.
Simply a word, barely a syllable, was needed from the 'Friends' (such
Friends!) of the parties, to have delivered them, with honour, from this
dreadful necessity: that word was not spoken; and because a breath, a
motion of the lips, was wanting--because, in fact, the seconds were
thoughtless and without feeling, one of the parties has long slept in a
premature grave--his early blossoms scattered to the wind--his golden
promise of fruit blasted; and the other has since lived that kind of
life, that, in my mind, _he_ was happier who died. Something of the same
kind happened in the duel between Lord Camelford and his friend, Mr.
Best; something of the same kind in that between Colonel Montgomery and
Captain Macnamara. In the former case, the quarrel was, at least, for a
noble subject; it concerned a woman. But in the latter, a dog, and a
thoughtless lash applied to his troublesome gambols, was the sole
subject of dispute. The colonel, as is well known, a very elegant and
generous young man, fell; and Captain Macnamara had thenceforwards a
worm at his heart whose gnawings never died. He was a post-captain; and
my brother afterwards sailed with him in quality of midshipman. From
him I have often heard affecting instances of the degree in which the
pangs of remorse had availed, to make one of the bravest men in the
service a mere panic-haunted, and, in a moral sense, almost a paralytic
wreck. He that, whilst his hand was unstained with blood, would have
faced an army of fiends in discharge of his duty, now fancied danger in
every common rocking of a boat: he made himself at times, the subject of
laughter at the messes of the junior and more thoughtless officers: and
his hand, whenever he had occasion to handle a spy-glass, shook, (to use
the common image,) or, rather, shivered, like an aspen tree. Now, if a
regular tribunal, authenticated, by Parliament, as the fountain of law,
and, by the Sovereign, as the fountain of honour, were, under the very
narrowest constitution, to apply itself merely to a review of the whole
conduct pursued by the seconds, even under this restriction such a
tribunal would operate with great advantage. It is needless to direct
any severity to the conduct of the principals, unless when that conduct
has been outrageous or wanton in provocation: supposing anything
tolerably reasonable and natural in the growth of the quarrel, after the
quarrel is once 'constituted,' (to borrow a term of Scotch law,) the
principals, as they are called with relation to the subject of dispute,
are neither principals nor even secondaries for the subsequent
management of the dispute: they are delivered up, bound hand and foot,
into the hands of their technical 'friends'; passive to the law of
social usage as regards the general necessity of pursuing the dispute;
passive to the directions of their seconds as regards the particular
mode of pursuing it. It is, therefore, the seconds who are the proper
objects of notice for courts of honour; and the error has been, in
framing the project of such a court, to imagine the inquiry too much
directed upon the behaviour of those who cease to be free agents from
the very moment that they become liable to any legal investigation
whatever: simply as quarrellers, the parties are no objects of question;
they are not within the field of any police review; and the very first
act which brings them within that field, translates the responsibility
(because the free agency) from themselves to their seconds. The whole
_questio vexata_, therefore, reduces itself to these logical moments,
(to speak the language of mathematics:) the two parties mainly concerned
in the case of duelling, are Society and the Seconds. The first, by
authorising such a mode of redress; the latter, by conducting it. Now, I
presume, it will be thought hopeless to arraign Society at the bar of
any earthly court, or apply any censure or any investigation to its mode
of thinking.[16] To the _principals_, for the reasons given, it would be
unjust to apply them; and the inference is, that the _seconds_ are the
parties to whom their main agency should be directed--as the parties in
whose hands lies the practical control of the whole affair, and the
whole machinery of opportunities, (so easily improved by a wise
humanity)--for sparing bloodshed, for promoting reconciliation, for
making those overtures of accommodation and generous apology which the
brave are so ready to agree to, in atonement for hasty words, or rash
movements of passion, but which it is impossible for _them_ to
originate. In short, for impressing the utmost possible spirit of
humanising charity and forbearance upon a practice which, after all,
must for ever remain somewhat of an opprobrium to a Christian people;
but which, tried by the law of worldly wisdom, is the finest bequest of
chivalry; the most economic safety-valve for man's malice that man's wit
could devise; the most absolute safe-guard of the weak against the
brutal; and, finally, (once more to borrow the words of Burke,) in a
sense the fullest and most practical, 'the cheap defence of nations;'
not indeed against the hostility which besieges from _without_, but
against the far more operative nuisance of bad passions that vex and
molest the social intercourse of men by ineradicable impulses from
within.
[16] If it be asked by what title I represent Society as authorising
(nay, as necessitating) duels, I answer, that I do not allude to any
floating opinions of influential circles in society; for these are in
continual conflict, and it may be difficult even to guess in which
direction the preponderance would lie. I build upon two undeniable
results, to be anticipated in any regular case of duel, and supported by
one uniform course of precedent:--_First_, That, in a civil adjudication
of any such case, assuming only that it has been fairly conducted, and
agreeably to the old received usages of England, no other verdict is
ever given by a jury than one of acquittal. _Secondly_, That, before
military tribunals, the result is still stronger; for the party liable
to a challenge is not merely acquitted, as a matter of course, if he
accepts it with any issue whatsoever, but is positively dishonoured and
degraded (nay, even dismissed the service, virtually under colour of a
request that he will sell out) if he does not. These precedents form the
current law for English society, as existing amongst gentlemen. Duels,
pushed _à l'outrance_, and on the savage principles adopted by a few
gambling ruffians on the Continent, (of which a good description is
given in the novel of _The most unfortunate Man in the World_,) or by
old buccaneering soldiers of Napoleon, at war with all the world, and in
the desperation of cowardice, demanding to fight in a saw-pit or across
a table,--this sort of duels is as little recognised by the indulgence
of English law, as, in the other extreme, the mock duels of German
Burschen are recognised by the gallantry of English society. Duels of
the latter sort would be deemed beneath the dignity of judicial inquiry:
duels of the other sort, beyond its indulgence. But all other duels,
fairly managed in the circumstances, are undeniably privileged amongst
non-military persons, and commanded to those who are military.
I may illustrate the value of one amongst the suggestions I have made,
by looking back and applying it to part of my last anecdote: the case of
that promising person who was cut off so prematurely for himself, and so
ruinously for the happiness of the surviving antagonist. I may mention,
(as a fact known to me on the very best authority,) that the Duke of
Wellington was consulted by a person of distinction, who had been
interested in the original dispute, with a view to his opinion upon the
total merits of the affair, on its validity, as a 'fighting' quarrel,
and on the behaviour of the parties to it. Upon the last question, the
opinion of his Grace was satisfactory. His bias, undoubtedly, if he has
any, is likely to lie towards the wisdom of the peacemaker; and
possibly, like many an old soldier, he may be apt to regard the right of
pursuing quarrels by arms as a privilege not hastily to be extended
beyond the military body. But, on the other question, as to the nature
of the quarrel, the duke denied that it required a duel; or that a duel
was its natural solution. And had the duke been the mediator, it is
highly probable that the unfortunate gentleman would now have been
living. Certainly, the second quarrel involved far less of irritating
materials than the first. It grew out of a hasty word, and nothing more;
such as drops from parliamentary debaters every night of any interesting
discussion--drops hastily, is as hastily recalled, or excused, perhaps,
as a venial sally of passion, either by the good sense or the
magnanimity of the party interested in the wrong. Indeed, by the
unanimous consent of all who took notice of the affair, the seconds, or
one of them at least, in this case, must be regarded as deeply
responsible for the tragical issue; nor did I hear of one person who
held them blameless, except that one who, of all others, might the most
excusably have held them wrong in any result. But now, from such a case
brought under the review of a court, such as I have supposed, and
improved in the way I have suggested, a lesson so memorable might have
been given to the seconds, by a two-years' imprisonment--punishment
light enough for the wreck of happiness which they caused--that soon,
from this single case, raised into a memorable precedent, there would
have radiated an effect upon future duels for half a century to come.
And no man can easily persuade me that he is in earnest about the
extinction of duelling, who does not lend his countenance to a
suggestion which would, at least, mitigate the worst evils of the
practice, and would, by placing the main agents in responsibility to the
court, bring the duel itself immediately under the direct control of
that court; would make a legal tribunal not reviewers subsequently, but,
in a manner, spectators of the scene; and would carry judicial
moderation and skill into the very centre of angry passions; not, as now
they act, inefficiently to review, and, by implication, sometimes to
approve their most angry ebullitions, but practically to control and
repress them.
THE LOVE-CHARM.
A TALE FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK.[17]
Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend
Roderick. The light was burning before him; the winter evening was cold;
and to-day he wished for the presence of his fellow-traveller, though at
other times wont rather to avoid his society: for on this evening he was
about to disclose a secret to him, and beg for his advice. The timid,
shy Emilius found in every business and accident of life so many
difficulties, such insurmountable hindrances, that it might seem to have
been an ironical whim of his destiny which brought him and Roderick
together, Roderick being in everything the reverse of his friend.
Inconstant, flighty, always determined by the first impression, and
kindling in an instant, he engaged in everything, had a plan for every
occasion; no undertaking was too arduous for him, no obstacle could
deter him. But in the midst of the pursuit he slackened and wearied just
as suddenly as at first he had caught fire and sprung forward. Whatever
then opposed him, was for him not a spur to urge him onward, but only
led him to abandon what he had so hotly rushed into; so that Roderick
was every day thoughtlessly beginning something new, and with no better
cause relinquishing and idly forgetting what he had begun the day
before. Hence, never a day passed but the friends got into a quarrel,
which seemed to threaten the death of their friendship; and yet what to
all appearance thus severed them, was perhaps the very thing that most
closely bound them together; each loved the other heartily; but each
found passing satisfaction in being able to discharge the most justly
deserved reproaches upon his friend.
[17] See the remarks in Prefatory Note, vol. i.
Emilius, a rich young man, of a susceptible and melancholy temperament,
on the death of his parents had become master of his fortune. He had set
out on a journey in order thereby to complete his education, but had now
already spent several months in a large town, for the sake of enjoying
the pleasures of the carnival, about which he never gave himself the
least trouble, and of making certain arrangements of importance about
his fortune with some relations, to whom as yet he had scarcely paid a
visit. On the road he had fallen in with the restless, ever-shifting and
veering Roderick, who was living at variance with his guardians, and
who, to free himself wholly from them and their burdensome admonitions,
eagerly grasped at the opportunity held out to him by his new friend of
becoming his companion on his travels. During their journey they had
often been on the point of separating; but each after every dispute had
only felt the more clearly that he could not live without the other.
Scarce had they left their carriage in any town, when Roderick had
already seen everything remarkable in it, to forget it all again on the
morrow; while Emilius took a week to acquire a thorough knowledge of the
place from his books, lest he should omit seeing anything that was to be
seen; and after all, from indolence and indifference thought there was
hardly anything worth his while to go and look at. Roderick had
immediately made a thousand acquaintances, and visited every public
place of entertainment; often too he brought his new-made friends to the
lonely chamber of Emilius, and would then leave him alone with them, as
soon as they began to tire him. At other times he would confound the
modest Emilius by extravagantly praising his merits and his acquirements
before intelligent and learned men, and by giving them to understand how
much they might learn from his friend about languages, or antiquities,
or the fine arts, although he himself could never find time for
listening to him on such subjects, when the conversation happened to
turn on them. But if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood,
he might almost make sure of his truant friend having caught cold the
night before at a ball or a sledge-party, and being forced to keep his
bed; so that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative
of men for his companion, Emilius lived in the greatest solitude.
To-day he confidently expected him; for Roderick had been forced to give
him a solemn promise of spending the evening with him, in order to learn
what it was that for weeks had been depressing and agitating his
thoughtful friend. Meanwhile Emilius wrote down the following lines:
'Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,
And every nightingale is steeping
The trees in his melodious weeping,
Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.
Fair is the net which moonlight weaves;
Fair are the breezes' gambolings,
As with lime-odours on their wings
They chase each other through the leaves.
Bright is the glory of the rose,
When Love's rich magic decks the earth,
From countless roses Love looks forth,
Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.
But sweeter, fairer, brighter far
To me that little lamp's pale gleaming,
When through the narrow casement streaming,
It bids me hail my evening star;
As from their braids her locks she flings,
Then twines them in a flowery band,
While at each motion of her hand
The white robe to her fair form clings;
Or when she breaks her lute's deep slumbers,
And as at morning's touch up-darting,
The notes, beneath her fingers starting,
Dance o'er the strings in playful numbers.
To stop their flight her voice she pours
Full after them; they laugh and fly,
And to my heart for refuge hie;
Her voice pursues them through its doors.
Leave me, ye fierce ones! hence remove!
They bar themselves within, and say,
'Till this be broken, here we stay,
That thou mayst know what 'tis to love.'
Emilius arose fretfully. It grew darker, and Roderick came not, and he was
wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who dwelt in the
opposite house, and who kept him all day long at home, and waking through
many a night. At length footsteps sounded up the stairs; the door opened
without anybody knocking at it, and in walked two gay masks with ugly
visages, one a Turk, dressed in red and blue silk, the other a Spaniard in
pale yellow and pink with many waving feathers on his hat. As Emilius was
becoming impatient, Roderick took off his mask, showed his well-known
laughing countenance, and said: 'Heyday, my good friend, what a drowned
puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in carnival time? I and our dear
young officer are come to fetch you away. There is a grand ball to-night at
the masquerade rooms; and as I know you have forsworn ever going out in any
other suit than that which you always wear, of the devil's own colour, come
with us as black as you are, for it is already somewhat late.'
Emilius felt angry, and said: 'You have, it seems, according to custom,
altogether forgotten our agreement. I am extremely sorry,' he continued,
turning to the stranger, 'that I cannot possibly accompany you; my friend
has been over-hasty in promising for me; indeed I cannot go out at all,
having something of importance to talk to him about.'
The stranger, who was well-bred, and saw what Emilius meant, withdrew; but
Roderick, with the utmost indifference, put on his mask again, placed
himself before the glass, and said: 'Verily I am a hideous figure, am I not?
To say the truth, it is a tasteless, worthless, disgusting device.'
'That there can be no question about,' answered Emilius, in high
indignation. 'Making a caricature of yourself, and making a fool of
yourself, are among the pleasures you are always driving after at full
gallop.'
'Because you do not like dancing yourself,' said the other, 'and look upon
dancing as a mischievous invention, not a soul in the world must wear a
merry face. How tiresome it is, when a person is made up of nothing but
whims!'
'Doubtless!' replied his angry friend, 'and you give me ample opportunity
for finding that it is so. I thought after our agreement you would have
given me this evening; but----'
'But it is the carnival, you know,' pursued the other, 'and all my
acquaintances and certain fair ladies are expecting me at the grand ball
to-night. Assure yourself, my good friend, it is mere disease in you that
makes you so unreasonable against all such matters.'
'Which of us has the fairest claim to disease,' said Emilius, 'I will not
examine. At least your inconceivable frivolousness, your hunger and thirst
after stop-gaps for every hour you are awake, your wild-goose chase after
pleasures that leave the heart empty, seem not to me altogether the
healthiest state of the soul. In certain things, at all events, you might
make a little allowance for my weakness, if it must once for all pass for
such: and there is nothing in the world that so jars through and through me
as a ball with its frightful music. Somebody once said, that to a deaf
person who cannot hear the music, a set of dancers must look like so many
patients for a mad-house; but, in my opinion, this dreadful music itself,
this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each
treading on its own heels, in those accursed tunes which ram themselves
into our memories, yea, I might say, mix themselves up with our very blood,
so that one cannot get rid of their taint for many a miserable day
after--this to me is the very trance of madness; and if I could ever bring
myself to think dancing endurable, it must be dancing to the tune of
silence.'
'Well done, signor Paradox-monger!' exclaimed the mask. 'Why, you are so far
gone, that you think the most natural, most innocent, and merriest thing in
the world unnatural, ay, and shocking.'
'I cannot change my feelings,' said his grave friend. 'From my very
childhood these tunes have made me wretched, and have often well-nigh driven
me out of my senses. They are to me the ghosts and spectres and furies in
the world of sound, and come thus and buzz round my head, and grin at me
with horrid laughter.'
'All nervous irritability!' returned the other; 'just like your extravagant
abhorrence of spiders and many other harmless insects.'
'Harmless you call them,' cried Emilius, now quite untuned, 'because you
have no repugnance toward them. To one, however, who feels the same disgust
and loathing, the same nameless horror, that I feel, rise up in his soul and
shoot through his whole being at the sight of them, these miscreate
deformities, such as toads, spiders, or that most loathsome of nature's
excrements, the bat, are not indifferent or insignificant: their very
existence is directly at enmity and wages war with his. In truth, one might
smile at the unbelievers whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and
fearful spectres, and those births of night which we see in sickness, to
take root therein, or who stare and marvel at Dante's descriptions, when the
commonest every-day life brings before our eyes such frightful distorted
master-pieces among the works of horror. Yet, can we really and faithfully
love the beautiful, without being stricken with pain at the sight of such
monstrosities?'
'Wherefore stricken with pain?' asked Roderick. 'Why should the great realm
of the waters and the seas present us with nothing but those terrors which
you have accustomed yourself to find there? Why not rather look on such
creatures as strange, entertaining, and ludicrous mummers, and on the whole
region in the light of a great masked ball-room? But your whims go still
further; for as you love roses with a kind of idolatry, there are many
flowers for which you have a no less vehement hatred: yet what harm has the
dear good tulip ever done you, or all the other dutiful children of summer
that you persecute? So again you have an aversion to many colours, to many
scents, and to many thoughts; and you take no pains to harden yourself
against these weaknesses, but yield to them and sink down into them as into
a luxurious feather-bed; and I often fear I shall lose you altogether some
day, and find nothing but a patchwork of whims and prejudices sitting at
that table instead of my Emilius.'
Emilius was wrath to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word.
He had long given up all design of making his intended confession; nor
did the thoughtless Roderick show the least wish to hear the secret
which his melancholy friend had announced to him with such an air of
solemnity. He sat carelessly in the arm-chair, playing with his mask,
when he suddenly cried: 'Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend me your large
cloak.'
'What for?' asked the other.
'I hear music in the church on the opposite side of the street,'
answered Roderick, 'and this hour has hitherto escaped me every evening
since we have been here. To-day it comes just as if called for. I can
hide my dress under your cloak, which will also cover my mask and
turban, and when it is over I can go straight to the ball.'
Emilius muttered between his teeth as he looked in the wardrobe for his
cloak, then constraining himself to an ironical smile, gave it to
Roderick, who was already on his legs. 'There is my Turkish dagger which
I bought yesterday,' said the mask, as he wrapped himself up; 'put it by
for me; it is a bad habit carrying about toys of cold steel: one can
never tell what ill use may be made of them, should a quarrel arise, or
any other knot which it is easier to cut than to untie. We meet again
to-morrow; farewell; a pleasant evening to you.' He waited for no reply,
but hastened down-stairs.
When Emilius was alone, he tried to forget his anger, and to fix his
attention on the laughable side of his friend's behaviour. After a while
his eyes rested upon the shining, finely-wrought dagger, and he said:
'What must be the feelings of a man who could thrust this sharp iron
into the breast of an enemy! but oh, what must be those of one who could
hurt a beloved object with it! He locked it up, then gently folded back
the shutters of his window, and looked across the narrow street. But no
light was there; all was dark in the opposite house; the dear form that
dwelt in it, and that used about this time to show herself at her
household occupations, seemed to be absent. 'Perhaps she is at the
ball,' thought Emilius, little as it suited her retired way of life.
Suddenly, however, a light entered; the little girl whom his beloved
unknown had about her, and with whom, during the day and evening, she
busied herself in various ways, carried a candle through the room, and
closed the window-shutters. An opening remained light, large enough for
over-looking a part of the little chamber from the spot where Emilius
stood; and there the happy youth would often bide till after midnight,
fixed as though he had been charmed there. He was full of gladness when
he saw her teaching the child to read, or instructing her in sewing and
knitting. Upon inquiry he had learnt that the little girl was a poor
orphan whom his fair maiden had charitably taken into the house to
educate her. Emilius's friends could not conceive why he lived in this
narrow street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be
seen in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in
solitude he was happy: only he felt angry with himself and his own
timidity and shyness, which kept him from venturing to seek a nearer
acquaintance with this fair being, notwithstanding the friendliness with
which on many occasions she had greeted and thanked him. He knew not
that she would often bend over him eyes no less love-sick than his own;
nor boded what wishes were forming in her heart, of what an effort, of
what a sacrifice she felt herself capable, so she might but attain to
the possession of his love.
After walking a few times up and down the room, when the light had
departed with the child, he suddenly resolved upon going to the ball,
though it was so against his inclination and his nature; for it struck
him that his Unknown might have made an exception to her quiet mode of
life, in order for once to enjoy the world, and its gaieties. The
streets were brilliantly lighted up, the snow crackled under his feet,
carriages rolled by, and masks in every variety of dress whistled and
chirped as they passed him. From many a house there sounded the
dancing-music he so abhorred, and he could not bring himself to go the
nearest way towards the ball-room, whither people from every direction
were streaming and thronging. He walked round the old church, gazed at
its lofty tower rising solemnly into the dark sky, and felt gladdened by
the stillness and loneliness of the remote square. Within the recess of
a large door-way, the varied sculptures of which he had always
contemplated with pleasure, recollecting, while so engaged, the olden
times and the arts which adorned them, he now again paused, to give
himself up for a few moments to his thoughts. He had not stood long,
before a figure drew his attention, which kept restlessly walking to and
fro, and seemed to be waiting for somebody. By the light of a lamp that
was burning before an image of the Virgin, he clearly distinguished its
features as well as its strange garb. It was an old woman of the
uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye the more from being brought
out by its extravagant contrast with a scarlet bodice embroidered with
gold; the gown she wore was dark, and the cap on her head shone likewise
with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some tasteless mask that
had strayed there by mistake; but he was soon convinced by the clear
light that the old, brown, wrinkled face was one of Nature's ploughing,
and no mimic exaggeration. Many minutes had not passed when there
appeared two men, wrapped up in cloaks, who seemed to approach the spot
with cautions footsteps, often looking about them, as if to observe
whether anybody was following. The old woman walked up to them. 'Have
you got the candles?' asked she hastily, and with a gruff voice. 'Here
they are,' said one of the men; 'you know the price; let the matter be
settled forthwith.' The old woman seemed to be giving him money, which
he counted over beneath his cloak. 'I rely upon you,' she again began,
'that they are made exactly according to the prescription, at the right
time and place, so that the work cannot fail.' 'Feel safe as to that,'
returned the man, and walked rapidly away. The other, who remained
behind, was a youth: he took the old woman by the hand, and said: 'Can
it then be, Alexia, that such rites and forms of words, as those old
stories, in which I never could put faith, tell us, can fetter the free
will of man, and make love and hatred grow in the heart?' 'So it is,'
answered the scarlet woman; 'but one and one must make two, and many a
one must be added thereto, before such things come to pass. It is not
these candles alone, moulded beneath the midnight darkness of the new
moon, and drenched with human blood, it is not the muttering magical
words and invocations alone, that can give you the mastery over the soul
of another; much more than this belongs to such works; but it is all
known to the initiated.' 'I rely on you then,' said the stranger.
'To-morrow after midnight I am at your service,' returned the old woman.
'You shall not be the first person that ever was dissatisfied with the
tidings I brought him. To-night, as you have heard, I have some one else
in hand, one whose senses and understanding our art shall twist about
whichever way we choose, as easily as I twist this hair out of my head.'
These last words she uttered with a half grin: they now separated, and
withdrew in different directions.
Emilius came from the dark niche shuddering, and raised his looks upon
the image of the Virgin with the Child. 'Before thine eyes, thou mild
and blessed one,' said he, half aloud, 'are these miscreants daring to
hold their market, and trafficking in their hellish drugs. But as thou
embracest thy Child with thy love, even so doth the unseen Love hold us
all in its protecting arms, and we feel their touch, and our poor hearts
beat in joy and in trembling toward a greater heart that will never
forsake us.'
Clouds were wandering along over the pinnacles of the tower and the
steep roof of the church; the everlasting stars looked down from amongst
them, sparkling with mild serenity; and Emilius turned his thoughts
resolutely away from these nightly horrors, and thought upon the beauty
of his Unknown. He again entered the living streets, and bent his steps
toward the brightly illuminated ball-room, whence voices, and the
rattling of carriage
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