The Intellectual Life Part 14

LETTER II.

TO AN ENGLISH DEMOCRAT.

The liberal and illiberal spirit of aristocracy--The desire to draw a line--Subst.i.tution of external limitations for realities--The high life of nature--Value of gentlemen in a State--Odiousness of the narrow cla.s.s-spirit--Julian Fane--Perfect knighthood--Democracies intolerant of dignity--Tendency of democracies to fix one uniform type of manners--That type not a high one--A descriptive anecdote--Knowledge and taste reveal themselves in manners--Dr. Arnold on the absence of gentlemen in France and Italy--Absence of a cla.s.s with traditional good manners--Language defiled by the vulgarity of popular taste--Influence of aristocratic opinion limited, that of democratic opinion universal--Want of elevation in the French _bourgeoisie_--Spirit of the provincial democracy--Spirit of the Parisian democracy--Sentiments and acts of the Communards--Romantic feeling towards the past--Hopes for liberal culture in the democratic idea--Aristocracies think too much of persons and positions--That we ought to forget persons and apply our minds to things, and phenomena, and ideas.

All you say against the narrowness of the aristocratic spirit is true and to the point; but I think that you and your party are apt to confound together two states of feeling which are essentially distinct from each other. There is an illiberal spirit of aristocracy, and there is also a liberal one. The illiberal spirit does not desire to improve itself, having a full and firm belief in its own absolute perfection; its sole anxiety is to exclude others, to draw a circular line, the smaller the better, provided always that it gets inside and can keep the millions out. We see this spirit, not only in reference to birth, but in even fuller activity with regard to education and employment--in the preference for certain schools and colleges, for cla.s.s reasons, without regard to the quality of the teaching--in the contempt for all professions but two or three, without regard to the inherent baseness or n.o.bility of the work that has to be done in them: so that the question asked by persons of this temper is not whether a man has been well trained in his youth, but if he has been to Eton and Oxford; not whether he is honorably laborious in his manhood, but whether he belongs to the Bar, or the Army, or the Church. This spirit is evil in its influence, because it subst.i.tutes external limitations for the realities of the intellect and the soul, and makes those realities themselves of no account wherever its traditions prevail. This spirit cares nothing for culture, nothing for excellence, nothing for the superiorities that make men truly great; all it cares for is to have reserved seats in the great a.s.semblage of the world. Whatever you do, in fairness and honesty, against this evil and inhuman spirit of aristocracy, the best minds of this age approve; but there is another spirit of aristocracy which does not always receive the fairest treatment at your hands, and which ought to be resolutely defended against you.

There is really, in nature, such a thing as high life. There is really, in nature, a difference between the life of a gentleman who has culture, and fine bodily health, and independence, and the life of a Sheffield dry-grinder who cannot have any one of these three things. It is a good and not a bad sign of the state of popular intelligence when the people does not wilfully shut its eyes to the differences of condition amongst men, and when those who have the opportunity of leading what is truly the high life accept its discipline joyfully and have a just pride in keeping themselves up to their ideal. A life of health, of sound morality, of disinterested intellectual activity, of freedom from petty cares, _is_ higher than a life of disease, and vice, and stupidity, and sordid anxiety. I maintain that it is right and wise in a nation to set before itself the highest attainable ideal of human life as the existence of the complete gentleman, and that an envious democracy, instead of rendering a service to itself, does exactly the contrary when it cannot endure and will not tolerate the presence of high-spirited gentlemen in the State. There are things in this world that it is right to hate, that we are the better for hating with all our hearts; and one of the things that I hate most, and with most reason, is the narrow cla.s.s-spirit when it sets itself against the great interests of mankind.

It is odious in the narrow-minded, pompous, selfish, pitiless aristocrat who thinks that the sons of the people were made by Almighty G.o.d to be his lackeys and their daughters to be his mistresses; it is odious also, to the full as odious, in the narrow-minded, envious democrat who cannot bear to see any elegance of living, or grace of manner, or culture of mind above the range of his own capacity or his own purse.

Let me recommend to your consideration the following words, written by one young n.o.bleman about another young n.o.bleman, and reminding us, as we much need to be reminded, that life may be not only honest and vigorous, but also n.o.ble and beautiful. Robert Lytton says of Julian Fane--

"He was, I think, the most graceful and accomplished gentleman of the generation he adorned, and by this generation, at least, appropriate place should be reserved for the memory of a man in whose character the most universal sympathy with all the intellectual culture of his age was united to a refinement of social form, and a perfection of personal grace, which, in spite of all its intellectual culture, the age is sadly in want of. There is an artistry of life as well as of literature, and the perfect knighthood of Sidney is no less precious to the world than the genius of Spenser."

It is just this "perfect knighthood" that an envious democracy sneers at and puts down. I do not say that all democracies are necessarily envious, but they often are so, especially when they first a.s.sert themselves, and whilst in that temper they are very willing to ostracize gentlemen, or compel them to adopt bad manners. I have some hopes that the democracies of the future may be taught by authors and artists to appreciate natural gentlemanhood; but so far as we know them hitherto they seem intolerant of dignity, and disposed to attribute it (very unjustly) to individual self-conceit. The personages most popular in democratic countries are often remarkably deficient in dignity, and liked the better for the want of it, whilst if on the positive side they can display occasional coa.r.s.eness they become more popular still. Then I should say, that although democratic feeling raises the lower cla.s.ses and increases their self-respect, which is indeed one of the greatest imaginable benefits to a nation, it has a tendency to fix one uniform type of behavior and of thought as the sole type in conformity with what is accepted for "common sense," and that type can scarcely, in the nature of things, be a very elevated one. I have been much struck, in France, by the prevalence of what may be not inaccurately defined as the commercial traveller type, even in cla.s.ses where you would scarcely expect to meet with it. One little descriptive anecdote will ill.u.s.trate what I mean. Having been invited to a stag-hunt in the Cote d'Or, I sat down to _dejeuner_ with the sportsmen in a good country-house or chateau (it was an old place with four towers), and in the midst of the meal in came a man smoking a cigar. After a bow to the ladies he declined to eat anything, and took a chair a little apart, but just opposite me. He resumed his hat and went on smoking with a _sans-gene_ that rather surprised me under the circ.u.mstances. He put one arm on the side-board: the hand hung down, and I perceived that it was dirty (so was the shirt), and that the nails had edges of ebony. On his chin there was a black stubble of two days' growth. He talked very loudly, and his dress and manners were exactly those of a bagman just arrived at his inn. Who and what could the man be? I learned afterwards that he had begun life as a distinguished pupil of the _Ecole Polytechnique_, that since then he had distinguished himself as an officer of artillery and had won the Legion of Honor on the field of battle, that he belonged to one of the princ.i.p.al families in the neighborhood, and had nearly 2000_l._ a year from landed property.

Now, it may be a good thing for the roughs at the bottom of the social scale to level up to the bagman-ideal, but it does seem rather a pity (does it not?) that a born gentleman of more than common bravery and ability should level _down_ to it. And it is here that lies the principle objection to democracy from the point of view of culture, that its notion of life and manners is a uniform notion, not admitting much variety of cla.s.ses, and not allowing the high development of graceful and accomplished humanity in any cla.s.s which an aristocracy does at least encourage in one cla.s.s, though it may be numerically a small cla.s.s. I have not forgotten what Saint-Simon and La Bruyere have testified about the ignorance of the old n.o.blesse. Saint-Simon said that they were fit for nothing but fighting, and only qualified for promotion even in the army by seniority; that the rest of their time was pa.s.sed in "the most deadly uselessness, the consequence of their indolence and distaste for all instruction." I am sure that my modern artillery captain, notwithstanding his bad manners, _knew_ more than any of his forefathers; but where was his "perfect knighthood?" And we easily forget "how much talent runs into manners," as Emerson says. From the artistic and poetical point of view, behavior is an expression of knowledge and taste and feeling in combination, as clear and legible as literature or painting, so that when the behavior is coa.r.s.e and unbecoming we know that the perceptions cannot be delicate, whatever may have been learned at school. When Dr. Arnold travelled on the Continent, nothing struck him more than the absence of gentlemen. "We see no gentlemen anywhere," he writes from Italy. From France he writes: "Again I have been struck with the total absence of all gentlemen, and of all persons of the education and feelings of gentlemen." Now, although Dr.

Arnold spoke merely from the experience of a tourist, and was perhaps not quite competent to judge of Frenchmen and Italians otherwise than from externals, still there was much truth in his observation. It was not quite absolutely true. I have known two or three Italian officers, and one Savoyard n.o.bleman, and a Frenchman here and there, who were as perfect gentlemen as any to be found in England, but they were isolated like poets, and were in fact poets in behavior and self discipline. The plain truth is, that there is no distinct cla.s.s in France maintaining good manners as a tradition common to all its members; and this seems to be the inevitable defect of a democracy. It may be observed, further, that language itself is defiled by the vulgarity of the popular taste; that expressions are used continually, even by the upper middle cla.s.s, which it is impossible to print, and which are too grossly indecent to find a place even in the dictionaries; that respectable men, having become insensible to the meaning of these expressions from hearing them used without intention, employ them constantly from habit, as they decorate their speech with oaths, whilst only purists refrain from them altogether.

An aristocracy may be very narrow and intolerant, but it can only exclude from its own pale, whereas when a democracy is intolerant it excludes from all human intercourse. Our own aristocracy, as a cla.s.s, rejects Dissenters, and artists, and men of science, but they flourish quite happily outside of it. Now try to picture to yourself a great democracy having the same prejudices, who could get out of the democracy? All aristocracies are intolerant with reference, I will not say to religion, but, more accurately, with reference to the outward forms of religion, and yet this aristocratic intolerance has not prevented the development of religious liberty, because the lower cla.s.ses were not strictly bound by the customs of the n.o.bility and gentry. The unwritten law appears to be that members of an aristocracy shall conform either to what is actually the State Church or to what has been the State Church at some former period of the national history.

Although England is a Protestant country, an English gentleman does not lose caste when he joins the Roman Catholic communion; but he loses caste when he becomes a Dissenter. The influence of this caste-law in keeping the upper cla.s.ses within the Churches of England and of Rome has no doubt been very considerable, but its influence on the nation generally has been incomparably less considerable than that of some equally decided social rule in the entire mind of a democracy. Had this rule of conformity to the religion of the State been that of the English democracy, religious liberty would have been extinguished throughout the length and breadth of England. I say that the customs and convictions of a democracy are more dangerous to intellectual liberty than those of an aristocracy, because, in matters of custom, the gentry rule only within their own park-palings, whereas the people, when power resides with them, rule wherever the breezes blow. A democracy that dislikes refinement and good manners can drive men of culture into solitude, and make morbid hermits of the very persons who ought to be the lights and leaders of humanity. It can cut short the traditions of good-breeding, the traditions of polite learning, the traditions of thoughtful leisure, and reduce the various national types of character to one type, that of the _commis-voyageur_. All men of refined sentiment in modern France lament the want of elevation in the _bourgeoisie_. They read nothing, they learn nothing, they think of nothing but money and the satisfaction of their appet.i.tes. There are exceptions, of course, but the tone of the cla.s.s is mean and low, and devoid of natural dignity or n.o.ble aspiration. Their ignorance pa.s.ses belief, and is accompanied by an absolute self-satisfaction. "La fin de la bourgeoisie," says an eminent French author, "commence parcequ'elle a les sentiments de la populace. Je ne vois pas qu'elle lise d'autres journaux, qu'elle se regale d'une musique differente, qu'elle ait des plaisirs plus eleves.

Chez l'une comme chez l'autre, c'est le meme amour de l'argent, le meme respect du fait accompli, le meme besoin d'idoles pour les detruire, la meme haine de toute superiorite, le meme esprit de denigrement, la meme cra.s.se ignorance!" M. Renan also complains that during the Second Empire the country sank deeper and deeper into vulgarity, forgetting its past history and its n.o.ble enthusiasms. "Talk to the peasant, to the socialist of the International, of France, of her past history, of her genius, he will not understand you. Military honor seems madness to him; the taste for great things, the glory of the mind, are vain dreams; money spent for art and science is money thrown away foolishly. Such is the provincial spirit." And if this is the provincial spirit, what is the spirit of the metropolitan democracy? Is it not clearly known to us by its acts? It had the opportunity, under the Commune, of showing the world how tenderly it cared for the monuments of national history, how anxious it was for the preservation of n.o.ble architecture, of great libraries, of pictures that can never be replaced. Whatever may have been our illusions about the character of the Parisian democracy, we know it very accurately now. To say that it is brutal would be an inadequate use of language, for the brutes are only indifferent to history and civilization, not hostile to them. So far as it is possible for us to understand the temper of that democracy, it appears to cherish an active and intense hatred for every conceivable kind of superiority, and an instinctive eagerness to abolish the past; or, as that is not possible, since the past will always _have been_ in spite of it, then at least to efface all visible memorials and destroy the bequests of all preceding generations. If any one had affirmed, before the fall of Louis Napoleon, that the democratic spirit was capable of setting fire to the Louvre and the national archives and libraries, of deliberately planning the destruction of all those magnificent edifices, ecclesiastical and civil, which were the glory of France and the delight of Europe, we should have attributed such an a.s.sertion to the exaggerations of reactionary fears. But since the year 1870 we do not speculate about the democratic temper in its intensest expression; we have seen it at work, and we know it. We know that every beautiful building, every precious ma.n.u.script and picture, has to be protected against the noxious swarm of Communards as a sea-jetty against the Pholas and the Teredo.

Compare this temper with that of a Marquis of Hertford, a Duke of Devonshire, a Duc de Luynes! True guardians of the means of culture, these men have given splendid hospitality to the great authors and artists of past times, by keeping their works for the future with tender and reverent care. Nor has this function of high stewardship ever been more n.o.bly exercised than it is to-day by that true knight and gentleman, Sir Richard Wallace. Think of the difference between this great-hearted guardian of priceless treasures, keeping them for the people, for civilization, and a base-spirited Communard setting fire to the library of the Louvre.

The ultra-democratic spirit is hostile to culture, from its hatred of all delicate and romantic sentiment, from its scorn of the tenderer and finer feelings of our nature, and especially from its brutish incapacity to comprehend the needs of the higher life. If it had its way we should be compelled by public opinion to cast all the records of our ancestors, and the shields they wore in battle, into the foul waters of an eternal Lethe. The intolerance of the sentiment of birth, that n.o.ble sentiment which has animated so many hearts with heroism, and urged them to deeds of honor, a.s.sociated as it is with a cynical disbelief in the existence of female virtue,[9] is one of the commonest signs of this evil spirit of detraction. It is closely connected with an ungrateful indifference towards all that our forefathers have done to make civilization possible for us. Now, although the intellectual spirit studies the past critically, and does not accept history as a legend is accepted by the credulous, still the intellectual spirit has a deep respect for all that is n.o.ble in the past, and would preserve the record of it forever. Can you not imagine, have you not actually seen, the heir of some ancient house who shares to the full the culture and aspirations of the age in which we live, and who nevertheless preserves, with pious reverence, the towers his forefathers built on the ancestral earth, and the oaks they planted, and the shields that were carved on the tombs where the knights and their ladies rest? Be sure that a right understanding of the present is compatible with a right and reverent understanding of the past, and that, although we may closely question history and tradition, no longer with childlike faith, still the spirit of true culture would never efface their vestiges. It was not Michelet, not Renan, not Hugo, who set fire to the Palace of Justice and imperilled the Sainte-Chapelle.

And yet, notwithstanding all these vices and excesses of the democratic spirit, notwithstanding the meanness of the middle cla.s.ses and the violence of the mob, there is one all-powerful reason why our best hopes for the liberal culture of the intellect are centred in the democratic idea. The reason is, that aristocracies think too much of persons and positions to weigh facts and opinions justly. In an aristocratic society it is thought unbecoming to state your views in their full force in the presence of any social superior. If you state them at all you must soften them to suit the occasion, or you will be a sinner against good-breeding. Observe how timid and acquiescent the ordinary Englishman becomes in the presence of a lord. No right-minded person likes to be thought impudent, and where the tone of society refers everything to position, you are considered impudent when you forget your station. But what has my station to do with the truths the intellect perceives, that lie entirely outside of me? From the intellectual point of view, it is a necessary virtue to forget your station, to forget yourself entirely, and to think of the subject only, in a manner perfectly disinterested.

Anonymous journalism was a device to escape from that continual reference to the rank and fortune of the speaker which is an inveterate habit in all aristocratic communities. A young man without t.i.tle or estate knows that he would not be listened to in the presence of his social superiors, so he holds his tongue in society and relieves himself by an article in the _Times_. The anonymous newspapers and reviews are a necessity in an aristocratic community, for they are the only means of attracting attention to facts and opinions without attracting it to yourself, the only way of escaping the personal question, "Who and what are you, that you venture to speak so plainly, and where is your stake in the country?"

The democratic idea, by its theoretic equality amongst men, affords an almost complete relief from this impediment to intellectual conversation. The theory of equality is good, because it negatives the interference of rank and wealth in matters that appertain to the intellect or to the moral sense. It may even go one step farther with advantage, and ignore intellectual authority also. The perfection of the intellectual spirit is the entire forgetfulness of persons, in the application of the whole power of the mind to things, and phenomena, and ideas. Not to mind whether the speaker is of n.o.ble or humble birth, rich or poor; this indeed is much, but we ought to attain a like indifference to the authority of the most splendid reputation. "Every great advance in natural knowledge," says Professor Huxley, "has involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates hold them, not because their verity is testified by portents and wonders, but because his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source, Nature--whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and to observation--Nature will confirm them."

FOOTNOTES:

[8] I think it right to inform the reader that there is no fiction in this letter.

[9] The a.s.sociation between the two is this. If you believe that you are descended from a distinguished ancestor, you are simple enough to believe in his wife's fidelity.

PART IX.

_SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE._

LETTER I.

TO A LADY WHO DOUBTED THE REALITY OF INTELLECTUAL FRIENDSHIPS.

That intellectual friendships are in their nature temporary, when there is no basis of feeling to support them--Their freshness soon disappears--Danger of satiety--Temporary acquaintances--Succession in friendships--Free communication of intellectual results--Friendships between ripe and immature men--Rembrandt and Hoogstraten--Tradition transmitted through these friendships.

I heartily agree with you so far as this, that intellectual relations will not sustain friendship for very long, unless there is also some basis of feeling to sustain it. And still there is a certain reality in the friendships of the intellect whilst they last, and they are remembered gratefully for their profit when in the course of nature they have ceased. We may wisely contract them, and blamelessly dissolve them when the occasion that created them has gone by. They are like business partnerships, contracted from motives of interest, and requiring integrity above all things, with mutual respect and consideration, yet not necessarily either affection or the semblance of it. Since the motive of the intellectual existence is the desire to ascertain and communicate truth, a sort of positive and negative electricity immediately establishes itself between those who want to know and those who desire to communicate their knowledge; and the connection is mutually agreeable until these two desires are satisfied. When this happens, the connection naturally ceases; but the memory of it usually leaves a permanent feeling of good-will, and a permanent disposition to render services of the same order. This, in brief, is the whole philosophy of the subject; but it may be observed farther, that the purely intellectual intercourse which often goes by the name of friendship affords excellent opportunities for the formation of real friendship, since it cannot be long continued without revealing much of the whole nature of the a.s.sociates.

We do not easily exhaust the mind of another, but we easily exhaust what is accessible to us in his mind; and when we have done this, the first benefit of intercourse is at an end. Then comes a feeling of dulness and disappointment, which is full of the bitterest discouragement to the inexperienced. In maturer life we are so well prepared for this that it discourages us no longer. We know beforehand that the freshness of the mind that was new to us will rapidly wear away, that we shall soon a.s.similate the fragment of it which is all that ever can be made our own, so we enjoy the freshness whilst it lasts, and are even careful of it as a fruiterer is of the bloom upon his grapes and plums. It may seem a hard and worldly thing to say, but it appears to me that a wise man might limit his intercourse with others before there was any danger of satiety, as it is wisdom in eating to rise from table with an appet.i.te.

Certainly, if the friends of our intellect live near enough for us to antic.i.p.ate no permanent separation by mere distance, if we may expect to meet them frequently, to have many opportunities for a more thorough and searching exploration of their minds, it is a wise policy not to exhaust them all at once. With the chance acquaintances we make in travelling, the case is altogether different; and this is, no doubt, the reason why men are so astonishingly communicative when they never expect to see each other any more. You feel an intense curiosity about some temporary companion; you make many guesses about him; and to induce him to tell you as much as possible in the short time you are likely to be together, you win his confidence by a frankness that would perhaps considerably surprise your nearest neighbors and relations. This is due to the shortness of the opportunity; but with people who live in the same place, you will proceed much more deliberately.

Whoever would remain regularly provided with intellectual friends, ought to arrange a succession of friendships, as gardeners do with peas and strawberries, so that, whilst some are fully ripe, others should be ripening to replace them. This doctrine sounds like blasphemy against friendship; but it is not intended to apply to the sacred friendship of the heart, which ought to be permanent like marriage, only to the friendship of the head, which is of the utmost utility to culture, yet in its nature temporary. I know a distinguished Englishman who is quite remarkable for the talent with which he arranges his intellectual friendships, so as never to be dependent on any one, but always sure of the intercourse he needs, both now and in the future. He will never be isolated, never without some fresh and living interest in humanity. It may seem to you that there is a lamentable want of faith in this; and I grant at once that a system of this kind does presuppose the extinction of the boyish belief in the permanence of human relations; still, it indicates a large-minded confidence in the value of human intercourse, an enjoyment of the present, a hope for the future, and a right appreciation of the past.

Nothing is more beautiful in the intellectual life than the willingness of all cultivated people--unless they happen to be accidentally soured by circ.u.mstances that have made them wretched--to communicate to others the results of all their toil. It is true that they apparently lose nothing by the process, and that a rich man who gives some portion of his material wealth exercises a greater self-denial; still, when you consider that men of culture, in teaching others, abandon something of their relative superiority, and often voluntarily incur the sacrifice of what is most precious to them, namely, their time, I think you will admit that their readiness in this kind of generosity is one of the finest characteristics of highly-developed humanity. Of all intellectual friendships, none are so beautiful as those which subsist between old and ripe men and their younger brethren in science, or literature, or art. It is by these private friendships, even more than by public performance, that the tradition of sound thinking and great doing is perpetuated from age to age. Hoogstraten, who was a pupil of Rembrandt, asked him many questions, which the great master answered thus:--"Try to put well in practice what you already know; in so doing you will, in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about." That answer of Rembrandt's is typical of the maturest teaching. How truly friendly it is; how full of encouragement; how kind in its admission that the younger artist _did_ already know something worth putting into practice; and yet, at the same time, how judicious in its reserve! Few of us have been so exceptionally unfortunate as not to find, in our own age, some experienced friend who has helped us by precious counsel, never to be forgotten. We cannot render it in kind; but perhaps in the fulness of time it may become our n.o.blest duty to aid another as we have ourselves been aided, and to transmit to him an invaluable treasure, the tradition of the intellectual life.

LETTER II.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN FASHIONABLE SOCIETY.

Certain dangers to the intellectual life--Difficult to resist the influences of society--Gilding--Fashionable education--Affectations of knowledge--Not easy to ascertain what people really know--Value of real knowledge diminished--Some good effects of affectations--Their bad effect on workers--Skill in amus.e.m.e.nts.

The kind of life which you have been leading for the last three or four years will always be valuable to you as a past experience, but if the intellectual ambition you confess to me is quite serious, I would venture to suggest that there are certain dangers in the continuation of your present existence if altogether uninterrupted. Pray do not suspect me of any narrow prejudice against human intercourse, or of any wish to make a hermit of you before your time, but believe that the few observations I have to make are grounded simply on the desire that your career should be entirely satisfactory to your own maturer judgment, when you will look back upon it after many years.

An intellectual man may go into general society quite safely if only he can resist its influence upon his serious work; but such resistance is difficult in maturity and impossible in youth.

The sort of influence most to be dreaded is this. Society is, and must be, based upon appearances, and not upon the deepest realities. It requires some degree of reality to produce the appearance, but not a substantial reality. Gilding is the perfect type of what Society requires. A certain quant.i.ty of gold is necessary for the work of the gilder, but a very small quant.i.ty, and skill in applying the metal so as to cover a large surface, is of greater consequence than the weight of the metal itself. The mind of a fashionable person is a carefully gilded mind.

Consider fashionable education. Society imperatively requires an outside knowledge of many things; not permitting the frank confession of ignorance, whilst it is yet satisfied with a degree of knowledge differing only from avowed ignorance in permitting you to be less sincere. All young ladies, whether gifted by nature with any musical talent or not, are compelled to say that they have learned to play upon the piano; all young gentlemen are compelled to affect to know Latin. In the same way the public opinion of Society compels its members to pretend to know and appreciate the masterpieces of literature and art.

There is, in truth, so much compulsion of this kind that it is not easy to ascertain what people do really know and care about until they admit you into their confidence.

The inevitable effect of these affectations is to diminish the value, in Society, of genuine knowledge and accomplishment of all kinds. I know a man who is a Latin scholar; he is one of the few moderns who have really learned Latin; but in fashionable society this brings him no distinction, because we are all supposed to know Latin, and the true scholar, when he appears, cannot be distinguished from the mult.i.tude of fashionable pretenders. I know another man who can draw; there are not many men, even amongst artists, who can draw soundly; yet in fashionable society he does not get the serious sort of respect which he deserves, because fashionable people believe that drawing is an accomplishment generally attainable by young ladies and communicable by governesses. I have no wish to insinuate that Society is wrong, in requiring a certain pretence to education in various subjects, and a certain affectation of interest in masterpieces, for these pretences and affectations do serve to deliver it from the darkness of a quite absolute ignorance. A society of fashionable people who think it necessary to be able to talk superficially about the labors of men really belonging to the intellectual cla.s.s, is always sure to be much better informed than a Society such as that of the French peasantry, for example, where n.o.body is expected to know anything. It is well for Society itself that it should profess a deep respect for cla.s.sical learning, for the great modern poets and painters, for scientific discoverers, even though the majority of its members do not seriously care about them. The pretension itself requires a certain degree of knowledge, as gilding requires a certain quant.i.ty of gold.

The evil effects of these affectations may be summed up in a sentence.

They diminish the apparent value of the realities which they imitate, and they tend to weaken our enthusiasm for those great realities, and our ardor in the pursuit of them. The impression which fashionable society produces upon a student who has strength enough to resist it, is a painful sense of isolation in his earnest work. If he goes back to the work with courage undiminished, he still clearly realizes--what it would be better for him not to realize quite so clearly--the uselessness of going beyond fashionable standards, if he aims at social success. And there is still another thing to be said which concerns you just now very particularly. Whoever leads the intellectual life in earnest is sure on some points to fail in strict obedience to the exigencies of fashionable life, so that, if fashionable successes are still dear to him, he will be constantly tempted to make some such reflections as the following:--"Here am I, giving years and years of labor to a pursuit which brings no external reward, when half as much work would keep me abreast of the society I live with, in everything it really cares about.

I know quite well all that my learning is costing me. Other men outshine me easily in social pleasures and accomplishments. My skill at billiards and on the moors is evidently declining, and I cannot ride or drive so well as fellows who do very little else. In fact I am becoming an old m.u.f.f, and all I have to show on the other side is a degree of scholarship which only six men in Europe can appreciate, and a speciality in natural science in which my little discoveries are sure to be either antic.i.p.ated or left behind."

The truth is, that to succeed well in fashionable society the higher intellectual attainments are not so useful as distinguished skill in those amus.e.m.e.nts which are the real business of the fashionable world.

The three things which tell best in your favor amongst young gentlemen are to be an excellent shot, to ride well to hounds, and to play billiards with great skill. I wish to say nothing against any of these accomplishments, having an especially hearty admiration and respect for all good hors.e.m.e.n, and considering the game of billiards the most perfectly beautiful of games; still, the fact remains that to do these things as well as some young gentlemen do them, we must devote the time which they devote, and if we regularly give nine hours a day to graver occupations, pray, how and where are we to find it?

LETTER III.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN FASHIONABLE SOCIETY.

Some exceptional men may live alternately in different worlds--Instances--Differences between the fashionable and the intellectual spirit--Men sometimes made unfashionable by special natural gifts--Sometimes by trifling external circ.u.mstances--Anecdote of Ampere--He did not shine in society--His wife's anxieties about his material wants--Apparent contrast between Ampere and Oliver Goldsmith.

You ask me why there should be any fundamental incompatibility between the fashionable and the intellectual lives. It seems to you that the two might possibly be reconciled, and you mention instances of men who attained intellectual distinction without deserting the fashionable world.

Yes, there _have_ been a few examples of men endowed with that overflow of energy which permits the most opposite pursuits, and enables its possessors to live, apparently, in two worlds between which there is not any natural affinity. A famous French novelist once took the trouble to elaborate the portrait of a lady who pa.s.sed one half of her time in virtue and churches, whilst she employed the other half in the wildest adventures. In real life I may allude to a distinguished English engraver, who spent a fortnight over his plate and a fortnight in some fashionable watering-place, alternately, and who found this distribution of his time not unfavorable to the elasticity of his mind. Many hard-working Londoners, who fairly deserve to be considered intellectual men, pa.s.s their days in professional labor and their evenings in fashionable society. But in all instances of this kind the professional work is serious enough, and regular enough, to give a very substantial basis to the life, so that the times of recreation are kept daily subordinate by the very necessity of circ.u.mstances. If you had a profession, and were obliged to follow it in earnest six or eight hours a day, the more Society amused you the better. The danger in your case is that your whole existence may take a fashionable tone.

The _esprit_ or tone of fashion differs from the intellectual tone in ways which I will attempt to define. Fashion is nothing more than the temporary custom of rich and idle people who make it their princ.i.p.al business to study the external elegance of life. This custom incessantly changes. If your habits of mind and life change with it you are a fashionable person, but if your habits of mind and life either remain permanently fixed or follow some law of your own individual nature, then you are outside of fashion. The intellectual spirit is remarkable for its independence of custom, and therefore on many occasions it will clash with the fashionable spirit. It does so most frequently in the choice of pursuits, and in the proportionate importance which the individual student will (in his own case) a.s.sign to his pursuits. The regulations of fashionable life have fixed, at the least temporarily, the degree of time and attention which a fashionable person may devote to this thing or that. The intellectual spirit ignores these regulations, and devotes its possessor, or more accurately its _possessed_, to the intellectual speciality for which he has most apt.i.tude, often leaving him ignorant of what fashion has decided to be essential. After living the intellectual life for several years he will know too much of one thing and too little of some other things to be in conformity with the fashionable ideal. For example, the fashionable ideal of a gentleman requires cla.s.sical scholarship, but it is so difficult for artists and men of science to be cla.s.sical scholars also that in this respect they are likely to fall short. I knew a man who became unfashionable because he had a genius for mechanics. He was always about steam-engines, and, though a gentleman by birth, a.s.sociated from choice with men who understood the science that chiefly interested him, of which all fashionable people were so profoundly ignorant that he habitually kept out of their way. He, on his part, neglected scholarship and literature and all that "artistry of life," as Mr. Robert Lytton calls it, in which fashionable society excels. Men are frequently driven into unfashionable existence by the very force and vigor of their own intellectual gifts, and sometimes by external circ.u.mstances, apparently most trifling, yet of infinite influence on human destiny. There is a good instance of this in a letter from Ampere to his young wife, that "Julie" who was lost to him so soon. "I went to dine yesterday at Madame Beauregard's with hands blackened by a harmless drug which stains the skin for three or four days. She declared that it looked like manure, and left the table, saying that she would dine when I was at a distance.