The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 44, June, 1861

In one respect it will be allowed by all but absolutists that the condition of Europe has changed greatly for the better in the last eleven years, as a consequence of the triumphs of the French Emperor. From the year 1815 to 1850, national independence was in its true sense unknown to Continental Europe. The ascendency of Napoleon I. had small claim to faultlessness, but the men who led in the work of his overthrow proceeded as if they meant to make the world regret his fall. This is the secret—which secret is none—of the reaction that speedily took place in his favor, and which caused an alliance of Liberals and Jacobins and Imperialists to do honor to his memory; so that, being dead, he was from his island-sepulchre a more effective foe to legitimacy and the established order of things than he had been from St. Cloud and the Tuileries. It has been satirically said that a mythical Napoleon rose from the dust of the dead Emperor, who bore no moral resemblance to Europe's master of 1812. As to the resemblance between the master of a hundred legions and "the dead but sceptred sovereign" of 1824, who ruled men's spirits from his urn, we will not stop to inquire; but it can be positively asserted that the mythical Napoleon, if any such creation there was, was the work of the true Napoleon's destroyers. They earned the hatred and detestation of the greater part of the better classes in the civilized world; and as it is the nature of men to love those who have warred against the objects of their hate, nothing was more natural than for Europeans and Americans to turn fondly to the memory of one who had beaten and trampled upon every member of the Holy Alliance, and who had carried the tricolor, that emblem of revolution, to Vienna and Berlin and Moscow. Men wished to have their own feet upon the necks of Francis and Frederick William and Alexander, and therefore they were ready to forget the faults, and to remember only the virtues, of one who had enjoyed the luxury they so much coveted. It would be unreasonable to complain of that disposition of the public mind toward Napoleon I. which prevailed from about the date of his death to that of the restoration of his dynasty in the person of his nephew, or to sneer at the inconsistency of "that many-headed monster thing," the people, who had shouted over the decisions of Vittoria and Leipsic, and before a decade had expired were regretting that those decisions could not be reversed; for the change was the consequence of the operations of an immutable law, of that reaction which dogs the heels of all conquerors. The legitimate despots, whose union had been too much for the parvenu despot, established a tyranny over Europe that threatened to stunt the human mind, and which would have left the world hopeless, if England had not resolved to part company with her military allies. But her condemnation of their policy did not prevent its development. Even the events of 1830 did not restore national freedom to the Continent; and fifteen years after the overthrow of the elder Bourbons, the partitioners of Poland could unite, in defiance of their plighted faith, to destroy the independence of Cracow, the last shadowy remnant of old and glorious Poland. The ascendency of Napoleon III. has put a stop to such proceedings as were common from the invasion of France, in 1815, to the invasion of Hungary, in 1849. He has, to be sure, interfered in the affairs of foreign countries, but his acts of interference have been made against the strong, and not against the weak. He interfered to protect Turkey when she was threatened with destruction by Russia, and he did so with success. He interfered to protect the Italians against the hordes of Austria, and with such effect that the Kingdom of Italy has been called into existence through his action, when there was not another sovereign in the world who would have fired a shot to prevent the whole Italian Peninsula, and the great islands of Sicily and Sardinia, from becoming Austrian provinces. He interfered to protect the Christians of the East against the fire and sword of the Mussulmans, and it is under the shadow of the French flag alone that Christianity can be preached in the Lebanon and in the Hollow Syria, in the aged Damascus and in the historical Sidon. He has interfered to assist England in China, whereby there has been a new world, as it were, opened to the enterprise of commerce. He has falsified the predictions of those who have seen in him only the enemy of England, and who have told us twice a year, for nine years past, that he would attempt to throw his legions into Kent, and to march them upon London. He has added nothing to the territory of France that has not been honorably acquired. Having thus redeemed Europe from degradation, and not having justified the fears of those who expected him to renew the old duel between France and England, his continued prosperity may be earnestly desired by Liberals everywhere, and with perfect consistency; for can any intelligent man venture to say that there would be any hope for a better state of things, either for France or for Europe at large, should his rule be changed for that of either branch of the Bourbons, or for that of the Republicans, Red or Blue? Considering the good that he has done, and the evil that he might have done, and yet has refrained from doing, he will compare advantageously with any living ruler; and mankind can overlook his errors in view of his virtues,—save and except those men whom he vanquished at their own weapons, and whose chief regret it is, that, being no better political moralists than was the Prince-President, their immorality was fruitless, while his, according to their interpretation of his history, gave him empire. Other men, whom his success has not consigned to partisan darkness, will judge him more justly, and say that his victory was the proper meed of superior ability, and that whatever was vicious in his manner of acquiring power has been redeemed by the use he has almost invariably made of that power. He is not without sin; but if he shall not die until he shall be stoned by saints selected from governments and parties, his existence will be prolonged until doomsday.

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CONCERNING THINGS SLOWLY LEARNT

You will see in a little while what sort of things they are which I understand by Things Slowly Learnt. Some are facts, some are moral truths, some are practical lessons; but the great characteristic of all those which are to be thought of in this essay is, that we have to learn them and act upon them in the face of a strong bias to think or act in an opposite way. It is not that they are so difficult in themselves, not that they are hard to be understood, or that they are supported by arguments whose force is not apparent to every mind. On the contrary, the things which I have especially in view are very simple, and for the most part quite unquestionable. But the difficulty of learning them lies in this: that, as regards them, the head seems to say one thing and the heart another. We see plainly enough what we ought to think or to do; but we feel an irresistible inclination to think or to do something else. It is about three or four of these things that we are going, my friend, to have a little quiet talk. We are going to confine our view to a single class, though possibly the most important class, in the innumerable multitude of Things Slowly Learnt.

The truth is, a great many things are slowly learnt. I have lately had occasion to observe that the Alphabet is one of these. I remember, too, in my own sorrowful experience, how the Multiplication Table was another. A good many years since, an eminent dancing-master undertook to teach a number of my schoolboy companions a graceful and easy deportment; but comparatively few of us can be said as yet to have thoroughly attained it. I know men who have been practising the art of extempore speaking for many years, but who have reached no perfection in it, and who, if one may judge from their confusion and hesitation when they attempt to speak, are not likely ever to reach even decent mediocrity in that wonderful accomplishment. Analogous statements might be made, with truth, with regard to my friend Mr. Snarling's endeavors to produce magazine articles; likewise concerning his attempts to skate, and his efforts to ride on horseback unlike a tailor. Some folk learn with remarkable slowness that Nature never intended them for wits. There have been men who have punned, ever more and more wretchedly, to the end of a long and highly respectable life. People submitted in silence to the infliction; no one liked to inform those reputable individuals that they had better cease to make fools of themselves. This, however, is part of a larger subject, which shall be treated hereafter.

On the other hand, there are things which are very quickly learnt,—which are learnt by a single lesson. One liberal tip, or even a few kind words heartily said, to a manly little schoolboy, will establish in his mind the rooted principle that the speaker of the words or the bestower of the tip is a jolly and noble specimen of humankind. Boys are great physiognomists: they read a man's nature at a glance. Well I remember how, when going to and from school, a long journey of four hundred miles, in days when such a journey implied travel by sea as well as by land, I used to know instantly the gentlemen or the railway officials to whom I might apply for advice or information. I think that this intuitive perception of character is blunted in after years. A man is often mistaken in his first impression of man or woman; a boy hardly ever. And a boy not only knows at once whether a human being is amiable or the reverse, he knows also whether the human being is wise or foolish. In particular, he knows at once whether the human being always means what he says, or says a great deal more than he means. Inferior animals learn some lessons quickly. A dog once thrashed for some offence knows quite well not to repeat it. A horse turns for the first time down the avenue to a house where he is well fed and cared for; next week, or next month, you pass that gate, and though the horse has been long taught to submit his will to yours, you can easily see that he knows the place again, and that he would like to go back to the stable with which, in his poor, dull, narrow mind, there are pleasant associations. I would give a good deal to know what a horse is thinking about. There is something very curious and very touching about the limited intelligence and the imperfect knowledge of that immaterial principle in which the immaterial does not imply the immortal. And yet, if we are to rest the doctrine of a future life in any degree upon the necessity of compensation for the sufferings and injustice of the present, I think the sight of the cab-horses of any large town might plead for the admission of some quiet world of green grass and shady trees, where there should be no cold, starvation, over-work, or flogging. Some one has said that the most exquisite material scenery would look very cold and dead in the entire absence of irrational life. Trees suggest singing-birds; flowers and sunshine make us think of the drowsy bees. And it is curious to think how the future worlds of various creeds are described as not without their lowly population of animals inferior to man. We know what the "poor Indian" expects shall bear him company in his humble heaven; and possibly various readers may know some dogs who in certain important respects are very superior to certain men. You remember how, when a war-chief of the Western prairies was laid by his tribe in his grave, his horse was led to the spot in the funeral procession, and at the instant when the earth was cast upon the dead warrior's dust, an arrow reached the noble creature's heart, that in the land of souls the man should find his old friend again. And though it has something of the grotesque, I think it has more of the pathetic, the aged huntsman of Mr. Assheton Smith desiring to be buried by his master, with two horses and a few couples of dogs, that they might all be ready to start together when they met again far away.

This is a deviation; but that is of no consequence. It is of the essence of the present writer's essays to deviate from the track. Only we must not forget the thread of the discourse; and after our deviation we must go back to it. All this came of our remarking that some things are very quickly learnt; and that certain inferior classes of our fellow-creatures learn them quickly. But deeper and larger lessons are early learnt. Thoughtful children, a very few years old, have their own theory of human nature. Before studying the metaphysicians, and indeed while still imperfectly acquainted with their letters, young children have glimpses of the inherent selfishness of humanity. I was recently present when a small boy of three years old, together with his sister, aged five, was brought down to the dining-room at the period of dessert. The small boy climbed upon his mother's knee, and began by various indications to display his affection for her. A stranger remarked what an affectionate child he was. "Oh," said the little girl, "he suspects (by which she meant expects) that he is going to get something to eat!" Not Hobbes himself had reached a clearer perception or a firmer belief of the selfish system in moral philosophy. "He is always very affectionate," the youthful philosopher proceeded, "when he suspects he is going to get something good to eat!"

By Things Slowly Learnt I mean not merely things which are in their nature such that it takes a long time to learn them,—such as the Greek language, or the law of vendors and purchasers. These things indeed take long time and much trouble to learn; but once you have learnt them, you know them. Once you have come to understand the force of the second aorist, you do not find your heart whispering to you, as you are lying awake at night, that what the grammar says about the second aorist is all nonsense; you do not feel an inveterate disposition, gaining force day by day, to think concerning the second aorist just the opposite of what the grammar says. By Things Slowly Learnt, I understand things which it is very hard to learn at the first, because, strong as the reasons which support them are, you find it so hard to make up your mind to them. I understand things which you can quite easily (when it is fairly put to you) see to be true, but which it seems as if it would change the very world you live in to accept. I understand things you discern to be true, but which you have all your life been accustomed to think false, and which you are extremely anxious to think false. And by Things Slowly Learnt I understand things which are not merely very hard to learn at the first, but which it is not enough to learn for once ever so well. I understand things which, when you have made the bitter effort and admitted to be true and certain, you put into your mind to keep (so to speak); and hardly a day has passed, when a soft, quiet hand seems to begin to crumble them down and to wear them away to nothing. You write the principle which was so hard to receive upon the tablet of your memory; and day by day a gentle hand comes over it with a bit of india-rubber, till the inscription loses its clear sharpness, grows blurred and indistinct, and finally quite disappears. Nor is the gentle hand content even then; but it begins, very faintly at first, to trace letters which bear a very different meaning. Then it deepens and darkens them day by day, week by week, till at a month's or a year's end the tablet of memory bears, in great, sharp, legible letters, just the opposite thing to that which you had originally written down there. These are my Things Slowly Learnt: things you learn at first in the face of a strong bias against them; things, when once taught, you gradually forget, till you come back again to your old way of thinking. Such things, of course, lie within the realm to which extends the influence of feeling and prejudice. They are things in the accepting of which both head and heart are concerned. Once convince a man that two and two make four, and he learns the truth without excitement, and he never doubts it again. But prove to a man that he is of much less importance than he has been accustomed to think,—or prove to a woman that her children are very much like those of other folk,—or prove to the inhabitant of a country parish that Britain has hundreds of parishes which in soil and climate and production are just as good as his own,—or prove to the great man of a little country town that there are scores of towns in this world where the walks are as pleasant, the streets as well paved, and the population as healthy and as well conducted; and in each such case you will find it very hard to convince the individual at the time, and you will find that in a very short space the individual has succeeded in entirely escaping from the disagreeable conviction. You may possibly find, if you endeavor to instil such belief into minds of but moderate cultivation, that your arguments will be met less by force of reason than by roaring of voice and excitement of manner; you may find that the person you address will endeavor to change the issue you are arguing, to other issues, wholly irrelevant, touching your own antecedents, character, or even personal appearance; and you may afterwards be informed by good-natured friends, that the upshot of your discussion had been to leave on the mind of your acquaintance the firm conviction that you yourself are intellectually a blockhead and morally a villain. And even when dealing with human beings who have reached that crowning result of a fine training, that they shall have got beyond thinking a man their "enemy because he tells them the truth," you may find that you have rendered a service like that rendered by the surgeon's amputating knife,—salutary, yet very painful,—and leaving forever a sad association with your thought and your name. For among the things we slowly learn are truths and lessons which it goes terribly against the grain to learn at first, which must be driven into us time after time, and which perhaps are never learnt completely.

One thing very slowly learnt by most human beings is, that they are of no earthly consequence beyond a very small circle indeed, and that really nobody is thinking or talking about them. Almost every commonplace man and woman in this world has a vague, but deeply-rooted belief that they are quite different from anybody else, and of course quite superior to everybody else. It may be in only one respect they fancy they are this, but that one respect is quite sufficient. I believe, that, if a grocer or silk-mercer in a little town has a hundred customers, each separate customer lives on under the impression that the grocer or the silk-mercer is prepared to give to him or her certain advantages in buying and selling which will not be accorded to the other ninety-nine customers. "Say it is for Mrs. Brown," is Mrs. Brown's direction to her servant, when sending for some sugar; "say it is for Mrs. Brown, and he will give it a little better." The grocer, keenly alive to the weaknesses of his fellow-creatures, encourages this notion. "This tea," he says, "would be four-and-sixpence a pound to any one else, but to you it is only four-and-threepence." Judging from my own observation, I should say that retail dealers trade a good deal upon this singular fact in the constitution of the human mind, that it is inexpressibly bitter to most people to believe that they stand on the ordinary level of humanity,—that, in the main, they are just like their neighbors. Mrs. Brown would be filled with unutterable wrath, if it were represented to her that the grocer treats her precisely as he does Mrs. Smith, who lives on one side of her, and Mrs. Snooks, who lives on the other. She would be still more angry, if you asked her what earthly reason there is why she should in any way be distinguished beyond Mrs. Snooks and Mrs. Smith. She takes for granted she is quite different from them, quite superior to them. Human beings do not like to be classed,—at least, with the class to which in fact they belong. To be classed at all is painful to an average mortal, who firmly believes that there never was such a being in this world. I remember one of the cleverest friends I have—one who assuredly cannot be classed intellectually, except in a very small and elevated class—telling me how mortified he was, when a very clever boy of sixteen, at being classed at all. He had told a literary lady that he admired Tennyson. "Yes," said the lady, "I am not surprised at that: there is a class of young men who like Tennyson at your age." It went like a dart to my friend's heart. Class of young men, indeed! Was it for this that I outstripped all competitors at school, that I have been fancying myself a unique phenomenon in Nature, different at least from every other being that lives, that I should be spoken of as one of a class of young men? Now in my friend's half-playful reminiscence I see the exemplification of a great fact in human nature. Most human beings fancy themselves, and all their belongings, to be quite different from all other beings and the belongings of all other beings. I heard an old lady, whose son is a rifleman, and just like all the other volunteers of his corps, lately declare, that, on the occasion of a certain grand review, her Tom looked so entirely different from all the rest. No doubt he did to her, poor old lady,—for he was her own. But the irritating thing was, that the old lady wished it to be admitted that Tom's superiority was an actual fact, equally patent to the eyes of all mankind. Yes, my friend: it is a thing very slowly learnt by most men, that they are very much like other people. You see the principle which underlies what you hear so often said by human beings, young and old, when urging you to do something which it is against your general rule to do. "Oh, but you might do it for me!" Why for you more than for any one else? would be the answer of severe logic. But a kindly man would not take that ground: for doubtless the Me, however little to every one else, is to each unit in humankind the centre of all the world.

Arising out of this mistaken notion of their own difference from all other men is the fancy entertained by many, that they occupy a much greater space in the thoughts of others than they really do. Most folk think mainly about themselves and their own affairs. Even a matter which "everybody is talking about" is really talked about by each for a very small portion of the twenty-four hours. And a name which is "in everybody's mouth" is not in each separate mouth for more than a few minutes at a time. And during those few minutes, it is talked of with an interest very faint, when compared with that you feel for yourself. You fancy it a terrible thing, when you yourself have to do something which you would think nothing about, if done by anybody else. A lady grows sick, and has to go out of church during the sermon. Well, you remark it; possibly, indeed, you don't; and you say, "Mrs. Thomson went out of church to-day; she must be ill"; and there the matter ends. But a day or two later you see Mrs. Thomson, and find her quite in a fever at the awful fact. It was a dreadful trial, walking out, and facing all the congregation: they must have thought it so strange; she would not run the risk of it again for any inducement. The fact is just this: Mrs. Thomson thinks a great deal of the thing, because it happened to herself. It did not happen to the other people, and so they hardly think of it at all. But nine in every ten of them, in Mrs. Thomson's place, would have Mrs. Thomson's feeling; for it is a thing which you, my reader, slowly learn, that people think very little about you.

Yes, it is a thing slowly learnt,—by many not learnt at all. How many persons you meet walking along the street who evidently think that everybody is looking at them! How few persons can walk through an exhibition of pictures at which are assembled the grand people of the town and all their own grand acquaintances, in a fashion thoroughly free from self-consciousness! I mean without thinking of themselves at all, or of how they look; but in an unaffected manner, observing the objects and beings around them. Men who have attained recently to a moderate eminence are sometimes, if of small minds, much affected by this disagreeable frailty. Small literary men, and preachers with no great head or heart, have within my own observation suffered from it severely. I have witnessed a poet, whose writing I have never read, walking along a certain street. I call him a poet to avoid periphrasis. The whole get-up of the man, his dress, his hair, his hat, the style in which he walked, showed unmistakably that he fancied that everybody was looking at him, and that he was the admired of all admirers. In fact, nobody was looking at him at all. Some time since I beheld a portrait of a very, very small literary man. It was easy to discern from it that the small author lives in the belief, that, wherever he goes, he is the object of universal observation. The intense self-consciousness and self-conceit apparent in that portrait were, in the words of Mr. Squeers, "more easier conceived than described." The face was a very commonplace and rather good-looking one: the author, notwithstanding his most strenuous exertions, evidently could make nothing of the features to distinguish him from other men. But the length of his hair was very great: and, oh, what genius he plainly fancied glowed in those eyes! I never in my life witnessed such an extraordinary glare. I do not believe that any human being ever lived whose eyes habitually wore that expression: only by a violent effort could the expression be produced, and then for a very short time, without serious injury to the optic nerves. The eyes were made as large as possible; and the thing after which the poor fellow had been struggling was that peculiar look which may be conceived to penetrate through the beholder, and pierce his inmost thoughts. I never beheld the living original, but, if I saw him, I should like in a kind way to pat him on the head, and tell him that that sort of expression would produce a great effect on the gallery of a minor theatre. The other day I was at a public meeting. A great crowd of people was assembled in a large hall: the platform at one end of it remained unoccupied till the moment when the business of the meeting was to begin. It was an interesting sight for any philosophic observer seated in the body of the hall to look at the men who by-and-by walked in procession on to the platform, and to observe the different ways in which they walked in. There were several very great and distinguished men: every one of these walked on to the platform and took his seat in the most simple and unaffected way, as if quite unconscious of the many eyes that were looking at them with interest and curiosity. There were many highly respectable and sensible men, whom nobody cared particularly to see, and who took their places in a perfectly natural manner, as though well aware of the fact. But there were one or two small men, struggling for notoriety; and I declare it was pitiful to behold their entrance. I remarked one, in particular, who evidently thought that the eyes of the whole meeting were fixed upon himself, and that, as he walked in, everybody was turning to his neighbor, and saying with agitation, "See, that's Snooks!" His whole gait and deportment testified that he felt that two or three thousand eyes were burning him up: you saw it in the way he walked to his place, in the way he sat down, in the way he then looked about him. If anyone had tried to get up three cheers for Snooks, Snooks would not have known that he was being made a fool of. He would have accepted the incense of fame as justly his due. There once was a man who entered the Edinburgh theatre at the same instant with Sir Walter Scott. The audience cheered lustily; and while Sir Walter modestly took his seat, as though unaware that those cheers were to welcome the Great Magician, the other man advanced with dignity to the front of the box, and bowed in acknowledgment of the popular applause. This of course was but a little outburst of the great tide of vain self-estimation which the man had cherished within his breast for years. Let it be said here, that an affected unconsciousness of the presence of a multitude of people is as offensive an exhibition of self-consciousness as any that is possible. Entire naturalness, and a just sense of a man's personal insignificance, will produce the right deportment. It is very irritating to see some clergymen walk into church to begin the service. They come in, with eyes affectedly cast down, and go to their place without ever looking up, and rise and begin without one glance at the congregation. To stare about them, as some clergymen do, in a free and easy manner, befits not the solemnity of the place and the worship; but the other is the worse thing. In a few cases it proceeds from modesty; in the majority from intolerable self-conceit. The man who keeps his eyes downcast in that affected manner fancies that everybody is looking at him; there is an insufferable self-consciousness about him; and he is much more keenly aware of the presence of other people than the man who does what is natural, and looks at the people to whom he is speaking. It is not natural nor rational to speak to one human being with your eyes fixed on the ground; and neither is it natural or rational to speak to a thousand. And I think that the preacher who feels in his heart that he is neither wiser nor better than his fellow-sinners to whom he is to preach, and that the advices he addresses to them are addressed quite as solemnly to himself, will assume no conceited airs of elevation above them, but will unconsciously wear the demeanor of any sincere worshipper, somewhat deepened in solemnity by the remembrance of his heavy personal responsibility in leading the congregation's worship; but assuredly and entirely free from the vulgar conceit which may be fostered in a vulgar mind by the reflection, "Now everybody is looking at me!" I have seen, I regret to say, various distinguished preachers whose pulpit demeanor was made to me inexpressibly offensive by this taint of self-consciousness. And I have seen some, with half the talent, who made upon me an impression a thousandfold deeper than ever was made by the most brilliant eloquence; because the simple earnestness of their manner said to every heart, "Now I am not thinking in the least about myself, or about what you may think of me: my sole desire is to impress on your hearts these truths I speak, which I believe will concern us all forever!" I have heard great preachers, after hearing whom you could walk home quite at your ease, praising warmly the eloquence and the logic of the sermon. I have heard others, (infinitely greater in my poor judgment,) after hearing whom you would have felt it profanation to criticize the literary merits of their sermon, high as those were: but you walked home thinking of the lesson and not of the teacher, solemnly revolving the truths you had heard, and asking the best of all help to enable you to remember them and act upon them.