disestablishment in England. Every English reader knows the present
state of that question in his own country, and a few years hence
whatever could be written in this book would only be out of date. I
may, however, in a book of comparison between the two countries, point
to the essential difference between disestablishment in France and
England. In France it is desired by the aggressive secular spirit which
is doing all it can to _laïcise_ the country thoroughly. In England
it is the unestablished religious communities that supply most of the
motive power, and the spirit which animates them is not the secular
spirit at all, but religious and social jealousy.
[Sidenote: Dissenters Naturally and Excusably Jealous.]
The use of this word “jealousy” looks like an attack upon the
nonconformists, but it is not employed here in a hostile sense. If
jealousy is a mental aberration when it makes people see falsely,
it is not so when there is no perversion of facts. Nay, there may
be circumstances when an awakened jealousy casts a clear light on
unpleasant truths which would otherwise escape us. It is not in
human nature that communities placed in a position of manifest
social inferiority should not be jealous of the one community whose
predominance makes them inferior. It _is_ in human nature that, even
when there is no active oppression, the inferior communities should
desire a change which would relieve them from a degrading name.
[Sidenote: Opinion of Intellectual Freethinkers.]
The intellectual freethinker is not usually, in England, at all eager
for disestablishment. The existence of a broadly tolerant State Church
is not, from his point of view, a very great hindrance to liberty of
thought. What he most dreads is a watchful universal inquisition, in
which every man and especially every woman is an inquisitor always
ready to examine him as to his opinions, and call him to account
for omissions in religious “exercises.” A distinguished Englishman
of this class, a scientific agnostic, said to me, “It would be a
mistake to bring on disestablishment. The Church is more tolerant than
the dissenters. The English state of things is more favourable to
individual liberty than the American.”
CHAPTER III
SOCIAL POWER
[Sidenote: The Test of Social Power.]
What I mean by the social power of a religion is the power of enforcing
conformity by the double sanction of social rewards and penalties. If
the clergy can improve the social position of one who submits to them,
and if they can inflict upon the nonconformist any, even the slightest,
stigma of social inferiority, then I should say that such a clergy was
socially powerful. It would be still more powerful if it did not appear
in the matter in any direct way, but was able to attain the same ends
through a laity influenced and educated by itself, a laity acting under
the illusion of perfect freedom like a hypnotised patient under the
influence of “suggestion.”
We have seen that there is a plurality of established religions in
France, that Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Jews are equally
recognised by the State. The political equality of these religions is
perfect, but is their social equality of the same kind?
[Sidenote: Absence of Social Equality amongst Religions in France.]
Certainly not. The Church of Rome, having been formerly the one State
Church allied for many centuries with the monarchy and the aristocracy,
has preserved in these days of nominal equality an almost unshaken
social preponderance. Quite independently of the odium attached to
Jews, which is as much a question of race as of religion, the Church
of Rome has been able, in France, to produce a general impression that
a gentleman must be a Roman Catholic, and that a Protestant, though he
may follow his religion even more faithfully than most Catholics follow
theirs, is not likely to be “_un homme du meilleur monde_.”
[Sidenote: The Word “Protestant” in French and English.]
If an English boy were told to translate “He is a Protestant”
into French, he would probably write “Il est Protestant,” and the
translation would be accepted as correct. It is technically but not
socially accurate. The French word has a _nuance_ of social inferiority
that the English fails to convey, and when used by a genuine French
Catholic it implies in addition a _nuance_ of reprobation. Is there any
English word that would carry these meanings with it? Certainly there
is. The word “dissenter” carries them quite perfectly.
[Sidenote: Mr. Voysey.]
[Sidenote: Social Weakness of Law.]
I remember that Mr. Voysey, the English freethinking clergyman, warned
the dissenters some years ago against the idea, illusory according to
him, that by disestablishing the Church of England they would attain
to social equality. “You will do nothing of the kind,” he said, in
substance if not in words; “Anglicanism will still be the fashionable
religion, and you will be just as unfashionable and inferior as you are
at present.” Nor is it probable that any mere legislative enactment
would procure the abolition of the term “dissenter,” any more than of
what is implied by it.
[Sidenote: The Example of France.]
France may afford to English nonconformists an excellent opportunity of
comparing legal equality with that social inequality which the justice
of the law is unfortunately impotent to redress.
[Sidenote: Isolation of Protestants in France.]
The French Protestants form a little world apart, which (except,
perhaps, in the most Protestant districts, and they are of small
extent) appears to be outside the current of the national life. Just
as, in England, you may live in the upper classes for a lifetime
without having once been inside a dissenter’s house, or seen a
dissenter eat, so in France aristocratic people go from the cradle to
the grave without having seen the inside of an “evangelical” home.
I am not speaking of real religious bigotry, of that evil-spirited
intolerance which hates the Protestant as a schismatic, and would
revive the old horrible penalties against him if it could; I am
speaking only of the mild modern objection to people who are under the
ban of a social prejudice.
[Sidenote: Disadvantage of belonging to the Inferior Sects.]
[Sidenote: Dissenters in England.]
[Sidenote: Protestants in France.]
[Sidenote: Dissenters in Former Times.]
A ban of this kind falls with very different effect on different
persons. It scarcely troubles elderly people in comfortable
circumstances, who are content with a retired life, but it weighs
heavily on the young. A Protestant girl in a French country town may
have admirable virtues and a good education, but the simple fact that
she belongs to an inferior religious community restricts her chances
of marriage. In both England and France a young man may suffer both in
that and in other ways from his connection with an unfashionable sect.
A young Englishman may come to turning-points in his career where an
Anglican will be preferred to a dissenter, even although no question
of religious belief may avowedly be involved. A valuable office may be
given to merit when the qualities of a dissenter would not be taken
into consideration. I am thinking of a real instance when a man of
great merit received a private appointment which would certainly not
have been offered to a nonconformist, yet the work to be done had no
connection with theology. In France I know several successful men
who, if they had been Protestants, would have been left out in the
cold. If this may still be the case in an age that has made such very
real advances in justice, what was it two or three generations since?
Then the dissenter was literally an outlaw;[37] to-day he is so only
in a social and metaphorical sense. A Frenchman once said to me, “_Un
Français qui n’est pas Catholique est hors la loi_,” but the law of
good society was understood, not the law of the land.
[Sidenote: Only a Nominal Orthodoxy required.]
[Sidenote: Facilities of Modern Catholicism.]
[Sidenote: Liberty of French Catholics.]
In both countries alike, it is but fair to admit that a merely nominal
orthodoxy is accepted, and that a man is not required to believe
anything in his own intellect and conscience, if he will only conform
to certain outward ceremonies. In France the Church has become so
accommodating that it is not now any harder to be a Catholic than a
fashionable Anglican. The Church requires hardly anything that can be
unpleasant to the upper classes (the fasts are only a variety of good
eating), and conformity now consists in little else than attendance at
a weekly mass. In some respects French orthodoxy is more compatible
with freedom than its English counterpart. After mass, and an early
low mass is sufficient, a French gentleman is free to amuse himself
on Sunday as he pleases. There is, indeed, a rather stern French
puritanism which objects to theatres on Sunday, but it objects to them
equally on all other days of the week.
[Sidenote: Aversion to Nominal Heterodoxy]
[Sidenote: Names and Realities.]
But if a nominal orthodoxy is accepted, a nominal heterodoxy is still
regarded with aversion. It is a mere question of names. Here is a case
in which the persons concerned were known to me. A young gentleman asks
a young Catholic lady in marriage and is accepted. He is perfectly
well known to be a freethinker, as he is entirely without hypocrisy,
never even going to church. Some enemy sets in circulation a sinister
rumour to the effect that he is a Protestant. This might have broken
off the marriage if he had not been able to prove his Catholic baptism.
If people were to put realities before names, it clearly could not be
of any importance to what religion a freethinker nominally belonged
when he was a baby. It is not the baby who is to be married, but the
man. The anxiety in this case was to avoid the objectionable word
“Protestant.” The reader may wonder if _libre penseur_ would not be
infinitely worse. Perhaps, but it is ingeniously avoided by saying,
“_Monsieur X est Catholique, mais il ne pratique pas_.”
[Sidenote: Support given by Unbelievers to Dominant Religions.]
[Sidenote: Discretion and Liberality in the Clergy.]
[Sidenote: Personal Comfort of Unbelievers.]
It would be an omission to close this chapter without recognising
the existence of a quite unforeseen source of strength for dominant
and fashionable religions. That is, the _preferential_ support of
well-educated unbelievers. It is not an active or a visible support,
but it exists extensively, and the value of it steadily increases
with the growth of cultivated doubt. What the unbeliever most dreads
and detests is to be worried by rude religious enthusiasts. He does
not dislike a priest or a parson who is discreet, and ready to sink
religious differences in personal intercourse; nay, he may even
be attracted to the wise clergyman, as to a man of intellect and
education, who has an ideal above the level of the Philistine vulgar.
The experienced unbeliever is generally of opinion that discretion and
liberality are more likely to be found in an ancient Church that is
bound up with the life and experience of the great world, than in the
narrower and more inquisitorial strictness of the minor sects. Hence
the curious but unquestionable fact, that in England the cultivated
unbeliever prefers the Anglican Church to the dissenting bodies, and
does not wish to see them become predominant, whilst in France he
dislikes the Protestants more than the Romish priests. This preference
arises simply from the unbeliever’s knowledge of the state of things
most conducive to his personal comfort, and has nothing to do with
theological doctrines, which are a matter of indifference to him in any
case. In France, he especially congratulates himself that the dominant
religion is not Sabbatarian, the reason being that Sabbatarianism is
much more than a theological doctrine, as it passes so easily into
legislative domination over all men.
CHAPTER IV
FAITH
[Sidenote: Two senses of the Word “Faith.”]
The word “Faith” is used in two different senses. In ordinary language
it means little more than a custom or a name. When people say that
Napoleon I. belonged to the Roman Catholic faith, they only mean that
he bore the name and followed the external customs of that religion,
for we know that his own belief was a kind of fatalistic deism. The
facility with which some exalted personages have gone from one faith to
another, and in some cases have even repeated the change for obviously
political reasons, is explicable only by reading the word “Faith” as a
custom or a ceremony.
[Sidenote: How employed here.]
The sense in which it will be employed in the following pages is
that of sincere inward conviction. Evidently this must be far more
difficult to ascertain than those acts of external conformity which are
intended to be visible by all. In a world like this, where there is so
little moral courage, people are easily browbeaten, easily terrorised,
and they have in general such an abject dread of any term implying
degradation or disgrace, whilst they are at the same time so keenly
alive to the advantages of social advancement, that it seems at first
sight impossible to find any sure test of the genuineness of their
professions.
[Sidenote: The Test of Sacrifice.]
[Sidenote: Deceptive Nature of Pecuniary Sacrifices.]
There is, however, one sure test, and that is sacrifice. When people
make _real_ sacrifices for their faith its sincerity is unquestionable.
But we must be well on our guard in admitting the reality of the
sacrifice. It may seem to be real when it is only a payment for
something held to be more valuable than itself. Pecuniary sacrifices
prove nothing when the donor gets consideration in return, more
valuable to him than superfluous money. It costs no trouble to write a
cheque.
[Sidenote: The Tests of Sincerity.]
Personal labour and trouble, _that cannot be delegated to working
inferiors_, are the best test of sincerity on the active side. On the
passive side, there is the sacrifice of the things that make life
pleasant, its comforts and luxuries, and the happiness of home and
friendship, and especially the renunciation of worldly ambition.
[Sidenote: A Sketch from Life.]
[Sidenote: Renunciations.]
Here is a sketch from life. A young French gentleman, the eldest son
of a rich man, leaves father and mother and a luxurious home to join
one of the teaching orders. The discipline is severe. To begin with,
the aspirant must be ordained, and therefore renounces marriage. He
also renounces wealth by taking the vow of voluntary poverty, and he
gives up his liberty by the vow of obedience. In this instance, the
young man went into exile, as his order was one of the unauthorised
congregations, and he sacrificed health because the discipline was more
than his delicate frame could bear. The work to be done, year after
year, is tedious. Imagine a rich and cultivated young gentleman doing
usher’s work in a poor school for less than usher’s pay, indeed for no
pay, except a providing of the barest necessaries! The separation from
home and family, without being absolutely complete, as in some orders,
is nearly so. Rarely, very rarely, the teacher revisited his old home,
where his place knew him no more.
[Sidenote: Explanation by Supernatural Support.]
I have talked with his father about the immensity of this sacrifice.
The father (who is himself a profoundly religious man) feels unable
to conceive adequately the strength of a man’s natural will, that can
carry out such a sacrifice through life, and accounts for it by the
supposition (in his own mind a certainty) that the devotee receives an
unfailing supernatural support. It is, at any rate, clear evidence of
genuine faith.
[Sidenote: Case of a Peasant Girl.]
In the feminine world we find many examples of sacrifice at least
equivalent to this. Not a week before I write this page the daughter
of a neighbouring farmer came to say good-bye to us. She belongs to
the best class of French peasants, is a comely, well-grown, healthy
girl, and might easily have married. She has chosen rather to join a
teaching Order, and an Order that is principally employed in the French
colonies. It is an austere and hard life that she has before her, and
it is highly improbable that she will ever revisit her old home. This
case also is evidently one of genuine conviction.
[Sidenote: The Working Orders in the Church of Rome.]
It is unnecessary to multiply examples. It is not the splendour of the
Papacy or the episcopate that is the true glory of the Church of Rome,
but the steady and modest devotion of her working Orders. What is more
beautiful than the life of a Sister of Charity or a “Little Sister of
the Poor”? Good Catholics call them “My Sister” when speaking to each
of them individually, and so do I who am not a Catholic, for are they
not sisters of all of us who may be laid one day on a bed of sickness?
If we do not need their gentle watching for ourselves, it soothes our
suffering brethren.
[Sidenote: The “Little Sisters of the Poor.”]
And what a dull monotonous existence many of them accept! What tiresome
and even repulsive duties they go through without flinching! I know a
house kept by some “Little Sisters,” where there are eighty old paupers
entirely fed and tended by them. The “Little Sisters” go about begging
for remnants of food with a small van, and they never eat anything
themselves until they have fed their eighty poor. Two or three of the
Sisters do the washing. They are in the washhouse from morning till
night to keep the old folks clean. Have I ever done as much?--have
you? Till we have sacrificed our own ease and comfort in this way, or
in some way equivalent to this, the next best thing we can do is to
respect such self-sacrifice in others. One of these “Little Sisters” in
the house I know remained humble and unknown like the rest, but when
she was gone we learned by accident that she was of princely rank.
[Sidenote: Evidence collected by Maxime du Camp.]
Maxime du Camp has studied the charitable self-sacrifice of women
belonging to the higher classes. The abundant facts that he collected
were not a surprise for me, but if any English reader happens to retain
the old prejudice that all Frenchwomen are frivolous he ought to read
du Camp’s evidence.
[Sidenote: Cheerfulness a Characteristic of the Active Sisterhoods.]
The active sisterhoods are repaid to some extent in this world by
a beneficent law of human nature. They have one remarkably uniform
characteristic; they seem to be invariably cheerful, with bright
moments of innocent gaiety. This serenity of mind may be explained
naturally without having recourse to miracle. It is gained by the
ever-present sense of duties accomplished in the past and the
determination to face them in the future. It is the spirit that
inspired Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty” with a health surpassing all songs
of love and wine.
[Sidenote: The Saintly Nature in Protestantism.]
[Sidenote: An Anglican Saint.]
[Sidenote: Life of an Anglican Saint.]
These are instances of the saintly nature in practice. I remember a
very dear Roman Catholic friend of mine, a Frenchman, asking me if I
thought it possible that the saintly nature could develop itself under
the influences of Protestantism. It seemed to him that Protestantism
must check its heroic spirit and bring it down to the commonplace.
I answered that the purest example of the saintly nature I had ever
known was an Anglican lady. She belongs to no order and is nothing
but a lonely old maid, who has taken all who suffer to be her sisters
and brethren. She gives them the whole of her time, the whole of
her strength, and all her money except what is reserved for a bare
subsistence. She spends seven shillings a week on her own food and
lodgings, and as for dress, she is content with anything that will
cover her.[38] For perfect courage she is as good as any Catholic saint
in the calendar. There is no malady so repulsive or so contagious that
she will not cheerfully nurse the patient. These practices are by no
means of recent adoption. The lady in question has been leading a
saint’s life for twenty or thirty years. The intensity of her religious
belief reaches the limits of hallucination. Like Joan of Arc, she
hears the angels sing. Whenever a good Christian dies she is filled
with a serene joy, thinking only of the glad new birth in heaven. Like
Sister Dora, she has strong physical health, and can therefore forget
the body as the rich need not think of money. Her existence is almost
angelic already; she lives in a sort of ecstasy, and is as ignorant of
this world as a cloistered nun. Had she been a Roman Catholic she would
have attained to papal beatification.
[Sidenote: Romanism and Anglicanism with regard to the Saintly Life.]
This example is good evidence that the saintly nature may flourish in
perfection outside the Church of Rome, though the fact remains that
Roman Catholicism _encourages_ the development of that character beyond
the limits of reason, whilst the cooler faith of Anglicanism does not
encourage it so far. It is therefore not improbable that saints of the
heroic type are more common in France than in England.
[Sidenote: Religious Work in Common Life.]
[Sidenote: An Anglican Layman.]
[Sidenote: A Good Reason for the Alliance between Priests and Women.]
When we come to religious work done in common life by people without
the special saintly vocation, there may be as much of it in England.
Many of my readers will be acquainted with English people who quite
unostentatiously give time and labour to the lower classes, either
directly in the service of Christianity or simply in behalf of
civilisation against barbarism. I know a busy English layman who gives
a whole day every week, besides one or two evenings, to Christianising
work, often sacrificing necessary rest. He is remarkably free from cant
of all kinds, and opposed to asceticism. Such examples remain almost
unknown, and may therefore be more numerous than we suspect, but it is
not usually the male sex that does the most work of this kind. At a
time when a book of mine called _Human Intercourse_ was published, an
Anglican clergyman wrote me a friendly letter, in which he pointed to a
special reason for the intimate alliance between “priests and women” in
works requiring time and trouble. He said (in effect if not in words)
that the clergy would as willingly appeal to men if they were likely to
find in them coadjutors equally zealous, but that men are comparatively
useless.[39]
To this I felt inclined to answer, in defence of the irreligious
sex, that men have commonly too much on their minds in business to
leave them much liberty for religious undertakings. Besides this,
independently of all questions of faith, the feminine nature is kinder
than ours, and more disposed to beneficent interference.
[Sidenote: Faith outside of this Creed or that.]
[Sidenote: Faith in the Value of Veracity.]
[Sidenote: Faith transferred from Religion to Politics.]
It shocks a Catholic to be told that a Protestant may have strong and
saintly faith, and it equally shocks a Protestant to be told that
strong faith may be the ruling motive of an unbeliever in Christianity,
yet it may be so. If we admit self-sacrifice as evidence of faith in
one case, we must admit it equally in another. There is nothing so
galling to human nature as the loss of social place and consideration,
and it is usually in that form that unbelievers have learned the
hardship of sacrifice. It requires immense faith in the ultimate value
of veracity to express an unfashionable opinion.
Now, this kind of faith has been by no means rare in France during the
last hundred years. Much of the old spirit of faith, once exclusively
religious, has transferred itself in France to political and social
convictions. The democratic idea is not without its saints and martyrs,
who have been willing to sacrifice all the comforts of existence for a
belief and a hope detached from any personal success.
CHAPTER V
FORMALISM
[Sidenote: Distinction between Formalism and Hypocrisy.]
The distinction between formalism and hypocrisy in religion is, that
the formalist follows a custom without setting up any claim to depth or
sincerity of conviction, whilst the hypocrite falsely pretends to be
full of godliness and zeal.
[Sidenote: Formalism in the Anglican Communion.]
[Sidenote: The well-bred Anglican.]
There is probably not a religion in the world that presents so large
a proportion of formalists and so few complete hypocrites as the
Anglican. Decorous obedience to all outward religious observances
is very frequently combined in England with an entire absence of
pretension to sanctity. The gentlemanly Englishman is a regular
attendant at church, he does not forget to say grace at dinner, but he
dislikes cant of all kinds, and it is a part of his habitual reserve to
say nothing about his religious experiences. His observance of form is
so perfect that you may be acquainted with him for many years without
knowing what he really thinks. About politics he is open enough, but he
makes you feel that it would be indiscreet to ask for any confidences
on religion, it would be like asking for his opinion of his wife. He,
on his part, is too well bred to betray any anxiety for the state of
your own soul; he is not a member of the Salvation Army, and your
eternal welfare is not any concern of his.
[Sidenote: The Formalist and his Conscience.]
[Sidenote: Case of an English Atheist.]
Who shall fix precisely the exact place at which formalism ends and
real hypocrisy begins? The formalist has a sort of conscience which
forbids him to go much beyond strictly ceremonial limits. He will
seem to use his prayer-book in church, yet will sometimes shrink from
reading prayers aloud in his own home. He would listen respectfully
if a chaplain read them, but declines to do it with his own voice. I
remember one excellent father of a family who had no objection to take
his children to church, but nothing could induce him to conduct family
worship, and in that household the wife and mother was the chaplain.
Still, this is not any certain test. An English gentleman once told
me that he had been a convinced atheist from boyhood, yet he went
to church with unfailing regularity, and read family prayers like a
clergyman. Are we to call this formalism or hypocrisy? I will leave
the gentleman to make his own defence. He said that he was absolutely
compelled to conform to the national religion externally, and might as
well make his conformity thorough, the more so that it was natural for
a family to have a religion, and he knew of none better than the Church
of England.
[Sidenote: Scotchmen and Dissenters.]
The true English formalist looks upon the Scotch and the Dissenters as
more frequently exposed to the vice of hypocrisy than he is himself.
He is so careful to keep anything resembling piety out of his ordinary
language that it seems to him ill bred in a Scotchman to make pious
reference to the Scriptures or the Sabbath Day. On the other hand, he
unfeignedly disapproves of the continental Sunday, because forms are
not so steadily observed on the Continent, and it seems to him as if
the French and Germans did not know how to behave.
[Sidenote: Formalism in France.]
[Sidenote: French Gentlemen.]
Now with regard to formalism in France I should say that in the
upper classes, where it exists in the greatest force, it is even
more a matter of ceremonial usage than in England. Has the reader
ever observed French gentlemen in church? How many of them have any
appearance, even, of taking part in the service! They are present for
the most part as spectators of a “function” only--they support it by
their presence, by their respectful deportment, and that is all.
[Sidenote: French Marriages and Funerals.]
French formalism has taken its last and most determined stand on
marriages and funerals. Here it is strongly sustained by the general
sentiment that a ceremony is needed on such important occasions, and
the Church of Rome understands ceremony so well that she gives complete
satisfaction to this instinctive need. Quite independently of special
theological tenets, it is felt that marriage requires some kind of
blessing or consecration, and that a solemn pomp should accompany the
dead man to his grave.
[Sidenote: Religious Interments of French Unbelievers.]
I remember being in a room with a number of Frenchmen when the
conversation turned upon funerals. “You will all of you,” I said, “be
buried with the ceremonial of the Church of Rome, and there is not one
of you who is really a Catholic or even a Christian, except in the
sense that you believe Jesus to have been a good man. Why this clinging
to ceremonies that have lost their meaning for you? Why not be buried
with rites in accordance with your convictions?” An old lawyer made
himself the spokesman of the party in reply. He said, “The disposal of
our remains is almost invariably decided by the ladies of the family,
who abominate civil interments. Besides this, many Frenchmen are
neither convinced Catholics nor convinced unbelievers either, so they
cling to established forms.” I then referred the question to a lady in
connection with a recent Catholic interment of a sincere unbeliever,
and she answered that the ceremony, being a matter of usage, really
implied no affirmation whatever concerning the faith of the dead man,
but was the only way of doing him a little honour, as none of those
present would have dared to attend a civil burial.[40]
[Sidenote: Philosophical Anglicanism.]
One of the most interesting of comparisons between England and France
in the present day is suggested by philosophical Anglicanism, but
before seeking for the French equivalent we need some definition of the
English original.
[Sidenote: Its Mental Freedom.]
It appears to be a condition of absolute mental freedom, a freedom
fully equal to that enjoyed by M. Renan, for example, combined with
adhesion to all Anglican forms and a clinging to the Anglican name.
The philosophical Anglican criticises the sacred texts, has no respect
for dogmas, and expresses his own opinions in language of refreshing
candour and frankness, yet at the same time he will not be called a
dissenter, and is certainly not a nonconformist. He has his seat in
church with the motto “_J’y suis et j’y reste._”
[Sidenote: Opinions held by different Philosophical Anglicans.]
[Sidenote: Their Treatment of Dogma.]
The opinions of a philosophical Anglican are individual, and so much
his own that we cannot justly attribute any one set of opinions to two
men, each of whom would repudiate responsibility for the other. Some
opinions appear to be what we should once have called Unitarian, others
belong to pure Deism, and the more advanced to scientific Agnosticism,
in which the existence of a conscious and thinking Deity seems doubtful
and the continuity of life beyond the grave a dream. As for the old
dogmas, they are treated as the subjects of past controversies. The
Trinity and the Incarnation have gone the way of the Real Presence,[41]
though we may still retain for them a kind of imaginative credence like
that which, in reading Tennyson, we have for the Holy Grail.
[Sidenote: Difference between Philosophical Anglicanism and ordinary
Formalism.]
[Sidenote: Honest Frankness of the Leaders.]
[Sidenote: Followers probably not so Frank.]
[Sidenote: Philosophical Anglicanism amongst the Clergy.]
Philosophical Anglicanism differs from ordinary formalism in this,
that whereas the ordinary formalist is condemned to life-long silence
because he dares not say what he thinks, the philosophical Anglican,
whilst accepting all the forms like the other, has assumed complete
liberty of utterance. In short, he is a formalist who is tired of being
gagged. How he reconciles his liberty of thought and speech with the
old submission to forms and names it is not my business to explain.
The remarkable peculiarity of the case, and its special interest, is
that in the leaders of the movement there is no hypocrisy. Even Mr.
Tollemache, who admits a certain _ésotérisme inévitable_, takes away
that ground for the accusation of hypocrisy by putting the secret
into print. All is clear and above-board with the leaders, but it
may be suspected that with many of their followers the _ésotérisme
inévitable_ is carried so far in prudence that their position is not
morally different from that of the everyday English formalist, already
so familiar to us. Therefore, in spite of the really admirable honesty
of Mr. Arnold and Mr. Tollemache, I am not sure that the movement is
favourable to honesty in the rank and file, who will not feel under the
same obligation to take mankind into their confidence. And with respect
to the clergy the examples of Dean Stanley and Mark Pattison are even
less encouraging, since in their case the _ésotérisme inévitable_ must
assume still larger proportions. What they thought I do not profess to
know, as we have not any clear and brief statement of their views, but
they were certainly freethinkers in the sense of not being deterred by
dogma. Subject to correction from their admirers, I should say that
their opinions did not differ essentially from those of Renan. They
may have accepted the _moral_ side of the Christian religion, but
even in that they would probably reject what obviously belonged to an
early stage of civilisation. The danger of their example consists in
encouraging a class of freethinking clergymen, who must necessarily
defend an essentially false position by the most disingenuous arts.
[Sidenote: Liberal French Protestantism.]
Most of my English readers will have their own opinion on these
phases of English thought, and will care more to hear whether there
is anything corresponding to them in France. The answer that first
suggests itself is that Liberal Protestantism as represented by
M. Réville[42] is the French form of the same thing, but a little
reflection shows that Liberal Protestantism differs from philosophical
Anglicanism in having no social importance. It is something like
an advanced development of Unitarianism in England, which would
not disturb English society in the least. If Mr. Arnold had been
professedly a Unitarian, his announcement of advanced views would have
interested a small sect; but as he professed Anglicanism and was an
influential leader of opinion, his thoughts interest all who belong,
really or nominally, to the National Church. A French Arnold would have
to arise within the pale of the Church of Rome, where his career as a
reformer would shortly come to an end.
[Sidenote: Nearest French equivalent to Philosophical Anglicanism.]
[Sidenote: The Genuine Catholics.]
[Sidenote: External Conformity in France.]
The nearest French equivalent for philosophical Anglicanism is the
theory that the religion a man professes is a matter of heredity in
his family, and that as an individual he takes what he likes of it and
no more. This theory differs, however, from philosophical Anglicanism
in one important point--_it is never published to the world_. When
expressed at all, which happens very seldom, it is expressed in the
privacy of conversation, but the tacit acceptance of it is very wide.
The genuine Catholics insist, on the contrary, that “all or nothing”
is the one immutable principle of their religion, and that he who
disbelieves the minutest detail of the Catholic dogmas is no more a
Catholic than if he professed Protestantism openly.[43] However this
may be, the fact remains, that any Frenchman who conforms externally
to the Church of Rome is counted as a Catholic from the social point
of view. I need not expatiate upon the convenience of the theory that
the doctrines of the Church are like a banquet offered, of which the
guest may take only what his appetite demands. We most of us accept
_something_ that might be called a Catholic doctrine, if only that it
is wrong to steal.
[Sidenote: Jesuitism.]
[Sidenote: Liberty in the Church of Rome.]
[Sidenote: Pliability of Modern Catholicism.]
Besides this lax idea amongst laymen, there is the influence of
Jesuitism amongst the clergy. The Jesuits are said to confess the
_ésotérisme inévitable_ of a great popular religion so frankly
that the modern intellectual man may find complete liberty in the
Church of Rome. It appears that by an ingenious manner of presenting
them all Roman Catholic doctrines may be made capable of a liberal
interpretation in order that the modern thinker may remain within the
fold.[44] Even the very spirit of Catholicism is ready to adapt itself
to his taste. If he dislikes an intolerant spirit, the Church becomes
most tolerant. He is told that all sincere men who endeavour to do
right are sure of salvation, whatever may be their religious belief.
If it is painful to him to think that the damned are suffering eternal
torture, he is soothed by the assurance that the flames of hell are a
figure of speech, and that the real punishment of the damned is only
regret for their misdeeds, and privation of the sight of God, two evils
that all Christians suffer from in this present world without finding
it unendurable.
[Sidenote: Formalism in Simplicity.]
[Sidenote: Liberty in Variety.]
[Sidenote: Variety of Roman Vestments.]
[Sidenote: Old-fashioned Anglican Formalism.]
[Sidenote: Effect of Use and Habit.]
The success of what is called “Ritualism” in England has some
connection with the increase of formalism, though we ought to remember
that the formal spirit attaches itself quite as readily to a plain
and simple ceremonial as it does to a splendid and elaborate one. The
etiquette about plain black cloth for the masculine evening costume is
quite as severe as it would be for coloured velvets and embroidery,
whilst the modern white tie is more rigidly formal than the lace cravat
of our ancestors; in fact, the simpler the costume the stricter the
rule. The dress of French peasants is much more formal, in the sense of
being governed by rigid custom, than the far more varied dress of the
upper classes. We find formal strictness going with simplicity in the
Anglican vestments before the days of ritualism, and extreme liberty of
artistic design permitted by the Church of Rome in the ornamentation
of mitre, chasuble, and cope. When Leo XIII. received many thousand
chasubles as jubilee gifts, it is probable that there were not two
of them alike. Again, in matters of usage it is quite as much a form
to put incumbent, curate, and clerk in tiers one above another as to
assign to them any other places that might be fixed by the ritual.
Therefore, between one form and another, one costume and another, there
is little difference as to the reality of formalism. The difference is
in the degree of attention given to the matter. Just at first, when
a more splendid ritual is adopted, as it has been by some Anglican
clergymen, the change may be evidence of a formal spirit, but the same
splendours would signify little or nothing if they were traditional and
familiar.
[Sidenote: No Ritualistic Party in France.]
[Sidenote: Simplicity of French Protestantism.]
This marks the difference between England and France with regard to
ritual. In England it has recently been a subject of controversy and
of conscious attention, whereas in France the instinct that desires
it has always been abundantly satisfied by the Church of Rome, so
that there has been no thought about it, and there is no such thing
as a consciously ritualistic party. The gorgeous Roman ritual is
enjoyed by those who have the instinctive need of it, whilst most
people, even unbelievers, consider it natural in a great religion. The
ultra-simplicity of French Protestantism is certainly not natural. It
is an intentional contrast due to the effect of schism; it is dogmatic
dissent expressing itself by external dissimilarity.
[Sidenote: Chilling Effect of Formalism.]
[Sidenote: Formalism only Taste.]
All varieties of formalism have one quality in common, that the
strength they give to religion is not vital, it is only social and
external. They have a weakening effect upon faith, even in the
faithful. Formalism lowers the temperature, not on one side only, but
all round it, like an iceberg floating in the sea. Its disapproval of
dissent is accompanied by a chilling want of sympathy with religious
earnestness and zeal. Formalism is to faith what etiquette is to
affection; it is merely taste, and it is quite as much a violation of
taste to have the motives of a really genuine, pious Christian, and
avow them (in religious language, “to confess Christ before men”), as
it is to abstain from customary ceremonies. In short, formalism is the
world with its usages, substituting itself for Jesus and his teaching;
it is “good form” set up in the place of enthusiastic loyalty and
uncalculating self-devotion.
PART V
VIRTUES
CHAPTER I
TRUTH
[Sidenote: Novelties in Education.]
The Special Committee of the London School Board issued a report in the
early part of the year 1888, in which it declared that “fearless truth,
bravery, honour, activity, manly skill, temperance, hardihood,” were
objects of national education.
[Sidenote: Repression of Individuality.]
[Sidenote: Dictated Opinions.]
[Sidenote: Case of a French Boy.]
[Sidenote: Training in Intellectual Dishonesty.]
Some of these are very remarkable novelties in education, and if
such a scheme should ever be carried into practice, it will produce
unprecedented results. Fearless truth, bravery, and honour (if
moral courage is understood to be a part of bravery) have usually
been represented in education by their opposites, that is to say,
by mental submission, by the timidity of the boy who expects to be
browbeaten, and by the hypocritical expression of dictated opinions.
The individuality of the boy and his honesty have not been encouraged,
but repressed. He has been told what to think and what to say, and
even what line of argument to follow, without pausing to consider
whether he had any intellect or any conscience of his own. I remember a
striking instance of this in the case of a French boy who was preparing
an essay as a pupil of the philosophy class in a public school. We
talked over the subject of his essay, and I thought he expressed his
opinions, which were also mine, with great cogency and clearness.
“There,” I said, “you have all that is wanted for your essay; why not
say what you think in that manner?” He answered, “If I were to write
like that, my essay would not be received, and I should get no marks.
On all philosophical questions we are to express the opinions that
are determined for us by the traditions of the University, so I shall
say the contrary of what I think, and then I shall get marks.” This
training of boys in intellectual dishonesty may be of the greatest
value to them in after life, for in real life nothing is so useful to
a man as to be able to profess, on occasion, the contrary of what he
thinks, but surely it must rob education of all interest even for the
educator, seeing that, as he does not hear the truth from his pupils,
he can never adapt his reasoning to their case. He does not know their
case.
[Sidenote: Dread of Liberty of Thought.]
[Sidenote: That Liberty ensured by Nature.]
“But,” it will be objected, “if you allow boys to express their crude
opinions, it would be encouraging liberty of thought.” No, it would
only be encouraging honesty of expression, the “fearless truth,” the
“honour” of the School Board Committee. There is a happy provision of
nature by which freedom of thought is, and always has been, the assured
possession of every one who values it, only honesty of expression can
be put down. You cannot make boys or men think otherwise than as they
do think, but you may train them in habits of dissimulation.
[Sidenote: Sham Admiration in Literature and Art.]
[Sidenote: A prevalent Vice of the French Mind.]
[Sidenote: The Chinese.]
One of the worst of these habits is that of sham admiration in
literature and art, and this is a prevalent vice of the French mind.
There may be some exceptions, but the general rule is that a Frenchman
will profess to admire what he thinks he ought to admire, even when he
has no genuine ardour of admiration at his disposal. The effect is to
make conversations with Frenchmen uninteresting so soon as they turn
upon famous masters. They will repeat the old laudatory commonplaces,
and if you venture upon any criticism with the slightest originality
in it, they will look upon you as an insular eccentric. They have been
taught at school how to praise the famous men, they have been taught
even the proper terms of laudation. I believe the Chinese learn to
repeat the praises of their classics in the same way.
[Sidenote: Less sham Admiration in England than in France.]
[Sidenote: The Classics.]
[Sidenote: The Temptation to Literary Lying.]
[Sidenote: Apparent Weakness of Honest Work.]
[Sidenote: Partisan Loyalty.]
My own experience leads me to the conclusion that there is less of this
sham admiration in England than in France. I grant that the English are
often sham admirers of Shakespeare, and that the pretence to appreciate
the national poet is not good for the habit of veracity, but I should
say that any Englishman who was accustomed to reading would, as a
rule, say truly what he thought of modern authors. I would not trust
much to his honesty about the Greek and Latin classics, because the
admiration of these is mixed up with ideas of culture and of caste. Mr.
James Payn says that the habit of literary lying is almost universal in
England. The temptation to it is certainly very strong. It is the same
temptation that induces painters to over-colour for the exhibitions.
Writing which guards and keeps the delicacy of an exquisite honesty,
writing which says exactly what the writer feels, and refuses to go
beyond his feeling, such writing can rarely appear forcible, especially
in comparison with work that is done for force alone without any regard
for truth. It will certainly seem weak if it comes after exaggerated
writing on the same subject, and it is liable to be eclipsed at any
time by coarser work that may be done afterwards. This is especially
the case with regard to the criticism or appreciation of great men. The
public likes to hear them loudly praised, and easily acquires a sort of
partisan loyalty to their names even when it cares nothing for their
work. To offend this partisan loyalty is to set it against ourselves,
but there is no risk in judicious lying.
[Sidenote: Sentence of a Court at Ipswich.]
[Sidenote: Systematic Lying.]
[Sidenote: Handsomely rewarded.]
I cannot but think that the sentence of the court at Ipswich on George
Frederick Wilfrid Ellis was excessively severe. He was condemned to
seven years’ penal servitude for having pretended to be a clergyman
of the Church of England. For five years he lived as Rector of
Wetheringsett, and appears to have given perfect satisfaction in
that capacity. He did no perceptible harm in that parish, for even
the marriages that he solemnised are valid in English law. He only
lied systematically and acted a part to perfection, that was all. But
systematic lying is constantly practised by unbelieving laymen who
conform outwardly, and they, too, act their part with skill. They
may also, like the false Rector of Wetheringsett, often derive great
pecuniary advantages from their falsehood, either by getting rich
wives or lucrative situations that would be refused to them if their
real opinions were known. Yet instead of being condemned to seven
years’ hard labour as the sham clergyman was, these sham Christians
get nothing but rewards for their lying. It becomes, therefore, an
important question, in estimating the general truthfulness of a
country, whether religious hypocrisy is encouraged in it or not, and
to what degree. Is this kind of lying more encouraged in England or in
France?
[Sidenote: Value of Hypocrisy in England and France.]
[Sidenote: “Fearless Truth” gaining in English Estimation.]
[Sidenote: French Truthfulness.]
[Sidenote: Power of the English Clergy.]
[Sidenote: Discipline of Society.]
[Sidenote: English Fear of the Clergy.]
Having touched upon this question elsewhere, I need not dwell upon it
here, but will give results only, in a few words. There cannot be a
doubt that the kind of lying which belongs to outward conformity is,
on the whole, a more useful accomplishment in England than in France.
Of the extent to which it is practised we know little. Sham Christians
pass for real Christians, and bear no outward mark by which they may
be detected. It is certain, however, that the English are becoming
much more outspoken than they used to be, and that the quality of
“fearless truth” is gaining in esteem amongst them, whilst hypocrisy
is considered less meritorious. As for the vulgar French idea that all
Englishmen are hypocrites, it may be dismissed with the answer that a
majority has no motive for hypocrisy, which is the vice of vituperated
minorities. And again, with reference to French truthfulness and
courage in the expression of heterodox religious opinion, I admire it,
and consider it far preferable to hypocrisy and moral cowardice, but at
the same time I remember that a Frenchman has less to risk and less to
lose by veracity than an Englishman. A Frenchman can with difficulty
conceive the force of that quiet pressure which is brought to bear upon
an Englishman from his infancy. It is like hydraulic pressure, gentle
and slow, but practically irresistible. He is taught and governed
in boyhood by clergymen, their feminine allies compel him to go to
church and to observe the English Sunday if he intends to marry in
England. There is the discipline, too, of the daily family prayers, the
Scripture readings, and the discipline of “good form” in conversation.
Even the strong-minded Englishman is a little afraid of a clergyman. I
once knew an English officer in Paris, a man of tried courage, who was
not proof against this timidity. He possessed in his library a number
of heterodox books, but when a clerical brother from England came to
stay with him he packed up all that literature and sent it elsewhere
for the time, as a boy puts a forbidden volume out of his master’s
sight.[45]
[Sidenote: Political Lying.]
[Sidenote: International Misrepresentation.]
Political lying must be very common in both countries, if we accept
the testimony of the politicians themselves, for they always tell us
that the newspapers opposed to their own are remarkable chiefly for
their mendacity. This field of political lying is far too extensive
for me to enter upon it. I prefer to confine myself to a few examples
of international misrepresentation, as they will throw light upon the
general subject of this book. Like political parties, the nations
themselves are enemies, and consider it a legitimate part of the
chronic warfare that is maintained between them to say whatever may be
to each other’s disadvantage, provided only that it has a chance of
being believed.
[Sidenote: Difference between English and French Lying.]
[Sidenote: Superiority of English Craft.]
I notice, however, a difference in kind and quality between French and
English lying. The French are daring enough, but they are not really
clever in the art. They have much audacity, but little skill. They will
say what is not true with wonderful decision, and they will stick to
it afterwards; but the English surpass them infinitely in craft and
guile. The typical French lie is a simple, shameless invention; the
typical English lie is not merely half a truth; it is entangled with
half a dozen truths, or semblances of truths, so that it becomes most
difficult to separate them, unless by the exercise of great patience
and judicial powers of analysis. Besides this, if the patient analyst
came and put the falsehood on one side, and the semblances of truth on
the other, the process of separation would be too long, too minute, and
too wearisome, for a heedless world to follow him.
[Sidenote: French Reliance on Ignorance.]
[Sidenote: English Reference to imperfect Knowledge.]
The French writer who publishes a falsehood always relies greatly upon
the ignorance of his readers. He is audacious because he believes
himself to be safe from detection; or he may be merely reckless in
his statements, without intentional mendacity, knowing that any
degree of carelessness is of little consequence in addressing his own
careless public. The English writer, on the other hand, is aware that
_his_ public knows a little of everything, though its knowledge is
inexact; and he pays some deference to this sort of inexact knowledge
by referring to those facts that an indolent and confused memory may
retain. His assertions have therefore a sufficiently good appearance
both of truth and of knowledge, and they satisfy a public that has some
information and a great theoretical respect for truth combined with
much critical indolence.
[Sidenote: A French Example.]
The first example I shall give is of the reckless French kind. The
critic has malevolent feelings towards England (the shadow cast by
his French patriotism), and he indulges these feelings to the utmost
by writing what is unfavourable to the country he detests, without
stopping to inquire if it is true.
[Sidenote: Toussenel.]
[Sidenote: _L’Esprit des Bêtes._]
Toussenel is a very popular French author. His name is known to every
Frenchman who reads, and he has a great reputation for wit. His book
entitled _L’Esprit des Bêtes_ appeared first in the year 1847, and is
now almost a French classic. I find the following paragraph on page 35
of Hetzel’s popular edition. After speaking of the horse in past times,
Toussenel directs our attention to the present:--
[Sidenote: Toussenel on the English Blood-horse.]
[Sidenote: Toussenel on English Law.]
[Sidenote: Norman Families.]
[Sidenote: Serfdom in England.]
[Sidenote: Peers the only Landowners.]
“Which is the country in Europe where the blood-horse plays the most
brilliant part? It is England. Why? The horse continues to reign and
govern in England because England is the country of all the world where
oppression is most odious and most revolting. There we find a thousand
Norman families which possess, by themselves, all the soil, which
occupy all posts, and make all the laws, exactly as on the day after
the Battle of Hastings. In England the conquering race is everything,
the rest of the nation nothing. The English lord esteems his horse in
proportion to the contempt he has for the Irishman, for the Saxon,
inferior races that he has vanquished by his alliance with his horse.
Take good heed, then, that you offend not one hair of the tail of a
noble courser of Albion, you who care for your money and your liberty;
for the horse is the appanage of the House of Lords, and these Lords
have caused the law to declare their horse inviolable and sacred. You
may knock down a man with your fist, you may take your wife to market
with a halter round her neck, you may trail the wretched prostitute in
the mud of the gutter, the daughter of the poverty-stricken artisan
whom misery has condemned to infamy. The law of Great Britain tolerates
these peccadilloes. For the Norman race of Albion, the English people
has never formed part of humanity.”
What strikes us at once in writing of this kind is the astonishing
confidence of the author in the profound ignorance of his readers. The
confidence was fully justified. There are few Frenchmen even at the
present day to whom anything in this passage would seem inaccurate or
exaggerated. The statement that only the Norman families can be lords
and landowners is quite one that the French mind would be prepared to
accept, because it implies that England is in a more backward condition
than France. I have met with an intelligent Frenchman who maintained
that serfdom still exists in England--the serfdom of the Saxon, the
serfdom of Gurth and Wamba; and when I happened to mention an English
estate as belonging to a certain commoner, another Frenchman, a
man of superior culture and gentle breeding, first looked politely
sceptical, and then raised the unanswerable objection that in England,
as everybody knew, land could only be held by peers. Others will repeat
Toussenel’s statement that all the public posts (what we call _places_)
are held by the nobility.
[Sidenote: Toussenel’s Kind of Falsehood.]
The kind of falsehood of which Toussenel’s statements are an example
arises from complete indifference to truth. He pays no attention to
it whatever, has no notion that a writer who fails to inform himself
neglects a sacred duty, but sets down in malice any outrageous idea
that comes uppermost, and then affirms it to be fact.
[Sidenote: The English Family Bath.]
My next example is of less importance, because it is not spread abroad
in a famous and permanent book; still, it shows a kind of falsehood
that may be dictated by French malevolence. A Frenchman had been
staying in England, and on his return to France he told any one who
would listen to him that the English have a strange custom--the family
bath. All the members of an English family, without regard to sex or
age, bathe together every morning in a state of perfect nudity.
[Sidenote: Cause of the Lie.]
This, I think, is rather a representative specimen of a French lie. It
is a pure invention, suggested by anger at the superior cleanliness of
the English upper classes, and by a desire to make them pay for their
cleanliness by a loss of reputation for decency.
[Sidenote: French Mendacity Artless.]
[Sidenote: English Falsehood Intellectually Superior.]
[Sidenote: French Cabinets _laïc_.]
By reckless invention on the one hand, and complete carelessness about
verification on the other, the French have accumulated a mass of
information about the English which is as valuable as the specimens
here given. But there is no real interest in the study of artless
French mendacity. It is but the inventiveness of children who say
no matter what. It displays no intelligence. English falsehood is
incomparably superior to it as an exercise of mental sharpness, and is
always worth studying as an inexhaustible subject for the most watchful
and interesting analysis. Nothing can surpass the ingenuity with which
that marvellous patchwork of truth and its opposite is put together.
The intelligent Englishman knows that truth is the most important
ingredient in a well-concocted falsehood.
The following example has remained in my memory, and is worth
quoting for its concentration. In scarcely more than twenty words it
contains three deceptive phantoms of truths, and conveys three false
impressions. I found it in an English newspaper of repute, but am
unable to give the date. This, however, is in some degree indicated by
the passage itself.
[Sidenote: An Example of English Falsehood.]
“The present atheistical government of France, after expelling the
religious orders, has now decreed that the crosses shall be removed
from the cemeteries.”
[Sidenote: Analysis of the Example given.]
The adjective “atheistical” is here quietly substituted for the
true one, which would be _laïc_. The French Government is not
more atheistic than a board of railway directors. There are four
antagonistic established religions in France, and the right to freedom
of thought is recognised by law,[46] so that a French Government
is necessarily non-theocratic and neutral. French cabinets no more
profess atheism than they profess Judaism or Romanism; and since the
establishment of the Third Republic they have never shown themselves
more actively hostile to the idea of Deity than the Royal Society or
any other purely secular institution in London.
[Sidenote: The Religious Orders.]
[Sidenote: What happened in 1880.]
[Sidenote: Action of the Ferry Cabinet.]
[Sidenote: Laymen under the same Law.]
[Sidenote: Sir Robert Peel’s Opinion.]
The expression, “after expelling the religious orders,” was intended to
convey the idea that the religious orders _in general_ were expelled
_from France_, that being the recognised English view of the Ferry
decrees. In reality not a single monk was expelled from France,
nor were the orders generally disturbed in any way. The religious
orders were classed under two categories,--the authorised, which were
recognised by the State, and the unauthorised, which existed only on
sufferance. The laws, which required them to ask for “authorisation,”
had not been passed under the republic but under the monarchy. What
happened in 1880 was this. The authorised congregations were left
entirely undisturbed. The unauthorised were not expelled from France,
but invited to ask for an authorisation, which the Government was
disposed to grant in every case except that of the Jesuits. They
declined to ask, in obedience to commands from Rome, the object of
which was to place the Government in the position of a persecutor,
or compel it to retreat. Ferry would not retreat, and turned the
unauthorised congregations out of their houses. This was represented
as a persecution of religion; but, in truth, the monks _were treated
exactly as French laymen_, for unauthorised associations of laymen were
equally illegal, and lay associations were equally obliged to submit
their statutes and ask for authorisation.[47] Sir Robert Peel said in
1843, “If a Church chooses to have the advantages of an establishment,
and to hold those privileges which the law confers, that Church,
whether it be the Church of Rome, or the Church of England, or the
Presbyterian Church of Scotland, _must conform to the law_.” The French
cabinet was therefore only acting upon a recognised English principle.
[Sidenote: Removal of the Crosses from the Cemeteries.]
[Sidenote: English Belief about it.]
We may next examine the statement that the French Government ordered
the crosses to be removed from the cemeteries. If the reader does not
know the truth he is sure to receive the intended impression that this
order, emanating from the Government, took effect throughout France. He
will receive another impression, well calculated upon, that the crosses
_upon the graves_ were removed. In fact, this is what the English
believed about the matter. What an unholy outrage on Christianity
and on the feelings of pious relatives! What a perfect subject for
indignant denunciation of republican tyranny and violence! However,
English travellers still find the crosses on the graves, and they see
the stone-cutters near the cemeteries continually carving new ones
under their wooden sheds.
[Sidenote: The True History about the Crosses.]
The explanation is very simple. The decree did not issue from the
French Government at all, but from the town council of a single
city--Paris. Even in Paris it had no application to the graves, but
referred exclusively to the crosses on the gateways of the Parisian
cemeteries. These crosses, which were very few in number, the municipal
council decided to remove, because they appeared to indicate that
Christians alone (or, perhaps, even Roman Catholics alone) had a right
to interment in the public burial-grounds, whereas these were in fact
open to Jews and unbelievers as well as to Catholics and Protestants.
Now, I would ask the reader to observe in how few words the false
impressions are conveyed and how many have been needed for a reply.
And how can one count upon the sustained attention necessary for the
reception of the truth?
[Sidenote: English Newspapers and French Religious Orders.]
[Sidenote: The Expulsion of the Princes.]
[Sidenote: English Perversion of the Truth.]
[Sidenote: The Illustrated Journals.]
[Sidenote: Extract from the _Saturday Review_.]
The English newspapers quite succeeded in conveying the impression
that the religious congregations were expelled from France, as if they
had been sent into exile. Since then there has been a second case of
turning-out, and when it occurred I observed with great interest what
the English press would make of it and what the English public could
be induced to believe. Until the Duke of Aumale wrote an intentionally
offensive letter to the President of the Republic, in a form which no
Head of a State would have tolerated, only two members of the House of
Orleans had been expelled--the Count of Paris and the Duke of Orleans.
The English newspapers, in order to augment the appearance of tyranny
on the part of the French Government, had the ingenuity to pervert this
into an expulsion of the entire Orleans family, ladies, children, and
all. The ladies and children were introduced to win the sympathy of the
reader, and arouse his indignation against the republican persecutors.
The daily papers announced the expulsion of the Orleans family in
capital letters, but the best appeal to sympathy was made by the
illustrated journals, which impartially engraved portraits of them all
as interesting and illustrious exiles. Nor was this fiction temporary.
The false legend which the English people seriously believe has already
entered into history. See how neatly and briefly it is inserted in the
following extract from the _Saturday Review_ for 9th July 1887: “About
the time of the expulsion of himself _and his family_ from France,
the Count of Paris advised his friends to abandon the practice of
indiscriminate opposition.” Meanwhile, as a matter of fact, members
of the house supposed to be languishing in exile were enjoying full
liberty in France, travelling, staying, and receiving any guests they
pleased.
[Sidenote: English Story about a French Catechism.]
[Sidenote: Children in the French Public Schools.]
In the year 1886 some English newspapers got up an account of a
sort of French catechism, using the name of Mr. Matthew Arnold as
an authority. The nature of this catechism may be understood from a
speech at the Harvard celebration by Mr. Lowell, who trusted to these
statements. Here are Mr. Lowell’s words: “Mr. Matthew Arnold has told
us that in contemporary France, which seems doomed to try every theory
of enlightenment by which the fingers may be burned or the house set on
fire, the children of the public schools are taught, in answer to the
question, ‘Who gives you all these fine things?’ to say, ‘The State.’
Ill fares the State in which the parental image is replaced by an
abstraction.”
[Sidenote: The Author’s Inquiry into the Matter.]
[Sidenote: Its Results.]
Being well aware of the extreme skill with which false impressions are
conveyed in England, I said to myself that it would be interesting
to institute a little inquiry into this matter, and did not rest
till I had got to the bottom of it. “The public schools” is a very
comprehensive expression, including and at once suggesting the
_lycées_, so I began my inquiry in them. The result was as I expected;
no such question and answer were known in the _lycées_, or had ever
been heard of there. My next move was to cause inquiries to be made
in the elementary schools. There, also, the question and answer were
wholly unknown; but the masters added that since many manuals were
used, no single manual being imposed by the Government, as implied by
the newspaper statement, there might possibly be some school in which
a manual might contain something resembling the question and answer
quoted.
[Sidenote: Mr. Arnold’s Answer.]
[Sidenote: A Simple Fact.]
Finally, I wrote to Mr. Arnold himself, hoping to get from him the
little scrap of truth on which the falsehood had grown. Mr. Arnold
could not give me the name of any school in which anything resembling
that question and answer had been heard; he only remembered that “in
some school in Paris” he had made a note of the matter. Finally,
Mr. Arnold frankly acknowledged that the word “State” (_l’État_)
was not used at all. The word really used was _le Pays_, which is
not an abstraction but a reality--the land of France with all its
inhabitants. The question and answer seemed to Mr. Arnold to exhibit
“the superficiality, nay silliness, of the French in treating religion
and morals.” I see in it nothing but a truthful account of a matter of
fact. The children were reminded that they owed their education to the
country as a reason for serving the country when the time came.
[Sidenote: Scott’s Denial of the Authorship of _Waverley_.]
[Sidenote: Lying in Self-defence.]
[Sidenote: Defences against Impertinent Curiosity.]
[Sidenote: Robert Chambers.]
Sir Walter Scott has often been severely blamed for defending the
anonymous character of the Waverley novels by falsehoods, but he would
not have been blamed for defending it by silence, even when silence
was fully equivalent to a falsehood. This opens an important question
in casuistry. It is likely that almost all French people would say
that Sir Walter had a right to defend himself in that way, as the
falsehood in self-defence against curiosity is usually considered
legitimate in France. Many English people do not think that kind of
falsehood legitimate, yet would practise the silence that deceives, or
utter a sentence carefully worded so as to be literally true whilst
it conveyed an erroneous idea. Everybody defends himself against
impertinent curiosity in his own way, and it can seldom be done without
some sacrifice of veracity. When Robert Chambers said he wondered how
the author of _Vestiges of Creation_ would have felt under Herschell’s
attack, it was not true, he did not wonder, he knew accurately, being
himself the author.
[Sidenote: French Opinion about English Truth.]
[Sidenote: English Opinion about French Truth.]
[Sidenote: The Author’s Experience.]
The French believe the English to be usually truthful in private
transactions, but slippery and deceitful in great international
affairs; the English have very little confidence in French truth,
either in private or public matters. For my part, I have met with
extremely deceitful and extremely honourable men in both countries. I
have been cheated in both, and treated fairly and justly in both. If,
however, I were asked to say which of the two nations is according to
my own intimate convictions the more truthful, I should say decidedly
the English, except on religious topics, and there the French are more
truthful, or, if you will, more unreserved.
CHAPTER II
JUSTICE
[Sidenote: Intellectual Justice.]
What is meant by “justice” in this chapter is the power of suspending
judgment until evidence is forthcoming, and then the disposition to
decide on the merits of the case unbiassed by prepossessions of any
kind. It is one of the rarest, perhaps the very rarest, of intellectual
virtues, and hardly ever to be found in times of strife, either between
nations or between parties in the same nation.
[Sidenote: Little of it in France.]
[Sidenote: Guyau.]
It would be a proof of ignorance of human nature to expect much of
this virtue in contemporary France, a country divided, more than any
other in Europe, by political and religious animosity. And, in fact,
there is very little intellectual justice in France, the only men who
cultivate the virtue being a few thoughtful philosophers who have
little influence in the nation. I may mention Guyau as a representative
of this small class.[48] He certainly endeavoured to think justly,
which is one of several reasons for regretting his premature death. I
myself have known two or three Frenchmen in private life who have the
same desire to be just.
[Sidenote: Justice Commoner in England than in France.]
[Sidenote: Party Dissensions in England.]
[Sidenote: Even amongst Philosophers.]
The English are more favourably situated for the cultivation of this
virtue, and, in fact, it is more frequently found amongst them; but
the English themselves have entered upon a period of strong political
dissension since the Irish question reached an acute stage, and even
if that question were settled there are others beyond it which are not
less likely to produce great intensity of party hatred. There will not
be much justice whilst these dissensions continue. Even so ordinary an
occurrence as a simple parliamentary election is now enough to divide
the society of an English country town into hostile camps almost as
bitter as French parties. What is most to be deplored is that some of
the philosophers themselves, who might be expected to keep cool heads,
have caught the contagion exactly like ordinary mortals.
[Sidenote: Class Ideas.]
[Sidenote: Sympathy with the Slaveholders.]
[Sidenote: Antipathy to French Republicans.]
[Sidenote: English Sympathy with the Church of Rome.]
[Sidenote: Father du Lac. Queen Victoria a “Monstrous Anomaly.”]
Independently of political questions, the commonest cause of injustice
in England is to be found in the ideas of class. The class of gentlemen
has a tendency to give its sympathy, without question, to gentlemen,
and to refuse it to those who are not, in its opinion, of that caste.
One of the best examples of this tendency was the unanimity of the
English gentry in their sympathy with the slaveholders during the
American war of secession, purely on the ground that the slaveholders
were a gentlemanly class. In comparison with this important point,
the injustice of slavery itself sank into complete insignificance.
The same rule of sympathy for gentlemen extends to the continent of
Europe, although the gentlemen there are often of a very dubious
species. Anybody who would put down French popular aspirations was
sure of class sympathy in England. A French republican is simply a
Frenchman who desires representative government, that is what he is;
but class-antipathy set English gentlefolks against him, though they
themselves had been the first to profit by representative institutions
in their own country. So with regard to French conflicts between
Church and State, the English upper classes always side instinctively
with the Church, although they themselves accepted Church property
after the great English spoliation, and many of them are still living
upon it, some actually in the very walls of the old abbeys, others
within sight of their ruins, whilst others, again, appropriate tithes.
If a French mayor prohibits a religious procession it is an act of
republican tyranny, yet Roman Catholic processions are not permitted
in English streets, and the republicans do not carry their distrust
of the clergy so far as to make them ineligible for the Chamber of
Deputies as they are for the House of Commons. Neither is a French
priest compelled to lay aside his ecclesiastical costume except when he
goes to England. However, polite English sympathy with the Church of
Rome has one incontestable merit; it is at the same time disinterested
and unrequited. The Rev. Father du Lac, who took his Jesuit school to
Canterbury after the Ferry decrees, and who enjoys British protection,
calls Queen Victoria a monstrous anomaly, the anomaly being that
royalty and heresy are monstrously combined in the person of Her
Majesty.[49]
[Sidenote: Injustice produced by Class Ideas in England itself.]
The sharp separation of classes produces much injustice within the
limits of England itself. When an Englishman feels himself authorised
to despise his equal in wealth, culture, and wisdom, if he happens to
be a dissenter, there is a strong temptation to do so, and we find
public writers in England who quietly look down upon all dissenters _en
bloc_ as people of low caste and unrefined manners. After all, these
wretched dissenters are Englishmen and Englishwomen, which is surely
some title to consideration.
[Sidenote: Superiority of many English People to Class Prejudices.]
[Sidenote: Class Prejudices amongst the French.]
I am far from wishing to imply that the English never rise above the
region of class prejudices. Many have done so, and these amongst the
most distinguished. Shelley did so completely, Byron partially; in our
own day several of the most famous poets and thinkers appear to live,
intellectually at least, outside of class. My impression is that the
French do not get rid of class prejudices so frequently as the English.
If they belong either to the real or the false _noblesse_ they think
that _noblesse oblige_ in a peculiar sense, that it lays them under an
obligation to condemn popular aspirations without a hearing.
[Sidenote: Comparative Mental Independence of the Poor.]
It is difficult for the poor in any country to be just, because they so
often suffer; still, in France, they are more frequently independent
in their judgments than the upper classes, the proof being that they
support a greater variety of opinions. You never know how a French
peasant will vote till you know him individually, but you may predict
to a certainty that a noble will vote against the republican candidate.
[Sidenote: French Parties not becoming more Tolerant.]
Whether, in quieter and more settled times, French parties will be less
virulent, must depend upon the effects of experience. The events of the
next decade may have either a calming or an exasperating influence. I
do not perceive that parties have become more tolerant during the last
ten years. The one good sign is, that with all their hatred they have
avoided civil war.
[Sidenote: Vulgar Patriotism.]
[Sidenote: Hatred of Powerful Neighbours.]
Next to the rancour of internal politics, the greatest obstacle to
justice is that kind of vulgar patriotism which cannot love its own
country without hating its neighbours. This sentiment of hatred is
strictly proportionate to the neighbour’s power. The English have
no animosity against Swiss republicanism, though it is still more
democratic than French. The French had a romantic sympathy with Italy
in her weakness, but they detest her in her strength.
[Sidenote: Justice to Citizens of Insignificant States.]
Most English and French people are capable of justice towards
foreigners who belong to insignificant States, such as the Danes, the
Dutch, the Belgians, the Swiss, and the Greeks. A few are capable of
justice towards citizens of great and powerful States.
[Sidenote: Mr. Grant Allen just to the French about Algeria.]
[Sidenote: French Sympathy with Gordon at Khartoum.]
Mr. Grant Allen has given an excellent example of this rare kind
of justice in saying simply what is true about the French colony
of Algeria, and in expressing the desire, in the interests of
civilisation, that the beneficent French power might ultimately be
permitted to extend itself over Morocco. I remember that when the fate
of Gordon at Khartoum was still unsettled, some Frenchmen expressed a
hearty desire for his preservation and success. They considered that he
represented civilisation against barbarism, and placed themselves on
the side of civilisation.
[Sidenote: French Feeling about War.]
I have occasionally met with French people who tried to be just even to
the Germans, and that, of course, is very hard for them, but the great
majority are unable to look upon war as a simple game in which the
loser pays the penalty. They think of it as a glorious enterprise when
they win, and as a cruel inhuman outrage when they are defeated.
[Sidenote: The Defects of one’s own Country.]
[Sidenote: French Criticisms of France.]
It is a part of strict justice to see the defects of one’s own country
as plainly as those of another. This is certainly not incompatible with
strong affection, as in private life we see very plainly the defects of
those whom we love well and faithfully, and for whom we are ready to
make the utmost sacrifices. In this way a few Englishmen see clearly
the defects of England, but I should say that many more Frenchmen
see clearly and justly the defects of France. I have heard severe
criticisms of France from English people, but far more telling and
formidable criticisms from the French themselves, because they knew the
weak points and could criticise in detail. This is especially true with
regard to the defects of French administration, apparently so perfect
and looking so laboriously after centimes, yet in reality unable to
prevent either waste or corruption.
[Sidenote: Inconvenience of Justice in Literature.]
[Sidenote: Baits for the French Reader.]
[Sidenote: Gallic Sharpness.]
[Sidenote: M. Philippe Daryl.]
[Sidenote: His Invention about the Queen.]
The natural refuge of justice ought to be in the press, but
unfortunately, as I have observed elsewhere, justice is not a very
convenient or acceptable quality in literature, and least of all
in journalism. Its constant tendency is to diminish the display of
what people foolishly take for literary force, and to make what
might otherwise have been called forcible writing seem dull and
commonplace. Now, the French journalist may be wildly inaccurate, he
may be wrong in all his statements, and give suppositions in the place
of facts, but he cannot afford to be dull, as he addresses readers
whose chief peculiarity, as he well knows, is to be inattentive. Wit
and exaggeration are the baits by which the French reader is to be
caught, but wit is seldom just, and exaggeration never is. There was
poor John Brown, the Queen’s domestic, I will not say what the French
press made of him, but in the exercise of its Gallic sharpness it
got a good way beyond the truth. French writers are rather fond of
laughing at the Queen, as English writers have laughed at various
foreign sovereigns, and sometimes the laugh is harmless yet based
on inaccurate information. For example, M. Philippe Daryl says that
after a drawing-room “la reine remonte dans son carosse à six chevaux
café-au-lait, de race hanovrienne comme elle, et prend le chemin de
Windsor.” This is a French fiction, intended to make the Queen a little
ridiculous; the Frenchman is trotting out the cream-coloured horses
(they are eight, not six) for the occasion, and despatches them on the
road to Windsor. As a matter of fact the Queen travels to Windsor by
rail, and usually drives to the Paddington Station behind four bays, so
that the whole pleasantry falls rather flat on an English reader. It
is a trifle, but it may serve to illustrate the position of a French
writer who must be amusing at all costs.
[Sidenote: Great Writers not Just.]
[Sidenote: Sparkle and Glitter more Valuable than Justice.]
The great writers are in the same position with a difference. They
need not amuse; but they are bound to provide a stirring stimulus.
Was Victor Hugo a just writer? Was Carlyle? They knew their business,
which was to be forcible; but nobody who understood their nature, or
their art either, would go to Victor Hugo for a faithful account of
the English, or to Carlyle for an exact appreciation of the French. Or
shall we turn to Michelet and Ruskin?--both makers of delightful prose,
but too much biassed by their own genius to be just. In literature
force and brilliance, nay, even mere glassy sparkle or glitter of
tinsel, are more effective qualities than the hesitancy that cannot
round off a sentence without stopping to inquire whether the praise in
it is not too much for the occasion, or the censure undeserved.
Suppose that a just writer were asked to give, in five or six lines,
his opinion of the railway system, and its action for good and evil,
how would he describe it?
[Sidenote: A just Account of Railways.]
He might say, “The use of railways is to transport merchandise and
passengers quickly and cheaply. They favour human intercourse by
enabling people to meet in spite of distance, and to exchange letters
without delay. They are sometimes, to a limited extent, injurious to
beautiful scenery. Railway travelling is sometimes injurious to health;
and railway accidents occasionally cause loss of life.”
This is exactly just and true; but it has the fatal defect of being
commonplace. It is also quite destitute of sublimity. Now listen to Mr.
Ruskin on the same subject.
[Sidenote: A Powerful Description of Railways.]
“They are to me the loathsomest form of devilry now extant, animated
and deliberate earthquakes, destructive of all wise social habits and
possible natural beauty, carriages of damned souls on the ridges of
their own graves.”
[Sidenote: Analysis of Mr. Ruskin’s Description.]
These lines have several most valuable literary qualities. They give
a shock of surprise, they captivate attention, they entirely avoid
the quagmire of the commonplace. They introduce very sublime elements,
the Miltonic elements of devilry, earthquakes, and lost spirits. There
is, too, a mysterious grandeur about the damned souls who take railway
tickets and travel over their own corpses buried in the embankments.
But is this account of railways accurate and true? Is it just to the
memory of George Stephenson?
CHAPTER III
PURITY
[Sidenote: Difficulty of the Subject.]
[Sidenote: Conventionalisms.]
[Sidenote: Tacit Tolerations.]
Of all subjects this is the most difficult to treat satisfactorily;
because there is, and must be, an inevitable reticence that is sure
to weaken the argument at the most important points. Besides this,
the subject, more than any other, is steeped in conventionalisms,
some of which it is considered right or pardonable to act upon, but
not pardonable to express. There are tacit tolerations which it is
an offence to avow, as if the avowal incurred a new and personal
responsibility. And even the most frank and courageous of writers might
well shrink from a subject that cannot be fully discussed, at least in
an English book.
There is, however, one point of great importance which has never, so
far as I know, been frankly touched upon before, and which may help us
to understand the varieties and inconsistencies of public opinion.
[Sidenote: Partiality of our Conventionalism.]
[Sidenote: Two Weights and Two Measures.]
[Sidenote: Opposite Views of the Marriage of Ecclesiastics.]
[Sidenote: Marriage of a Bishop.]
[Sidenote: Catholic Horror.]
We all know that the relation between the sexes is of a dual nature;
that it is both physical and mental. A man may be attracted to a woman
by a physical impulse, or by a desire for her companionship, or by
both at the same time. This we all know and admit; but the fiction of
our conventionalism, and a very curious and wonderful fiction it is,
excludes one or the other of the two reasons for cohabitation after
ascertaining whether it is, or is not, in accordance with received
usages. If the cohabitation is not of a customary kind, it is at
once assumed that physical pleasure is the only object of it; and
that pleasure is spoken of in terms of disgust, as vile, sensual,
and degrading. If, however, the cohabitation is of a customary kind,
not only is the physical pleasure permitted without reproach, but
it is conventionally ignored as non-existent, and the motive for
cohabitation is held to be the pure desire for companionship. One of
the best examples of this contrast is the different way of regarding
the marriage of ecclesiastics in a Catholic and in a Protestant
community. An Anglican clergyman gets married, and the incident, being
in accordance with custom, conveys no idea to the Protestant mind
beyond this--that the clergyman may have felt lonely by himself, and
wanted the help, the companionship, the gentle affection of a wife.
The physical relation is set aside, it is simply not thought about,
and even this slight and passing allusion to it may be condemned as
unbecoming. Now let us turn to the state of opinion in Roman Catholic
countries. There, when people hear of the marriage of an ecclesiastic,
they think of nothing but the physical relation, and they think of
it as disgusting, filthy, and obscene, though, in fact, it is simply
natural and no more. In this case the desire for companionship is
ignored, and physical appetite alone is assumed to be the motive for
the union. A case has occurred of a Protestant ecclesiastic, who
married after his elevation to a bishopric. I despair of conveying
to the English reader any idea of the aspect that such a union must
have for Catholics who have never lived amongst Protestants. For them
it is not only monstrous as an outrage against custom, but it even
seems monstrous in the sense of being unnatural. Something of this
Catholic horror remained even in the strong mind of Queen Elizabeth.
She was near enough to Catholic times, and had still enough of Catholic
sentiment, to be unable to look upon a bishop’s wife without loathing.
[Sidenote: Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister.]
When custom partly but not entirely tolerates cohabitation, we find the
two ideas predominating in different people. Marriage with a deceased
wife’s sister is, for those who are favourable to it, the desire for
affectionate companionship or for motherly tenderness towards children
already existing; for those who are unfavourable it is a lust of the
flesh. In like manner there are two estimates of the conduct of a
divorced woman who marries again during her first husband’s lifetime.
[Sidenote: Illegitimate Unions.]
[Sidenote: Cohabitation in large Towns.]
[Sidenote: Customs of the Lower Classes.]
We may now approach the subject of illegitimate unions. In societies
where they are tolerated the idea of companionship prevails; in
societies where they are not tolerated the physical aspect of the union
immediately suggests itself. In the large towns both of England and
France it is not rare amongst the lower classes for men and women to
live together without formal marriage. With reference to these cases
the complaint of moralists is that the people have no proper sense of
the necessity of marriage, they have not the proper consciousness that
they are doing wrong. The reason is that these unions are permitted
by the customs of the lower classes, and are scarcely blamed when the
man remains faithful to the woman and treats her well; therefore the
physical relation is as much ignored as it is in formal marriage, and
companionship alone is thought of.
[Sidenote: Illicit Unions in the Artistic and Intellectual Classes.]
The same great power of custom, in casting a veil over the grosser side
of the sexual relation, is seen in higher classes whenever illicit
unions are tolerated by public opinion, and they often are so in the
artistic and intellectual classes of great capitals when it is evident
that the union is one of genuine companionship, and when it is of a
lasting character, and both parties remain at least apparently faithful
to it. Here is an expression of this toleration by M. Alfred Asseline,
true for Paris, but not true for the provinces. I give it in the
original, because the exact shades of expression could not easily be
reproduced in a translation.
[Sidenote: Quotation from M. Alfred Asseline.]
“Dans l’état où sont nos mœurs, il est admis que les hommes supérieurs
ont le privilège d’imposer à ce qu’on appelle le monde, à la société
dont ils sont le charme et l’honneur, une amie,--l’amie,--la femme
qu’il leur a plu de choisir comme le témoin voilé de leurs travaux,
celle qui, légitime ou non, se tient dans l’ombre, confidente discrète
du génie, au moment ou ses rayons s’allument.
“Ce n’est pas la vulgaire Égérie, c’est la Muse, c’est l’âme même du
poète qu’il nous est permis, dans les épanchements de l’amitié, de
voir, d’admirer, de respecter.”
[Sidenote: Careful Exclusion of Impure Ideas.]
The reader will observe in these carefully chosen words how
deliberately all suggestion of impurity is excluded, and how the writer
dwells upon intellectual companionship alone. He may understand this
still better by reference to a special case.
[Sidenote: Story of Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet.]
[Sidenote: Parisian Opinion on that _liaison_.]
[Sidenote: Respectful Tone of the Press.]
About the year 1833 there was an actress at the theatre of the
Porte-Saint-Martin, named Juliette Drouet, who performed in two of
Victor Hugo’s plays, _Lucrèce Borgia_ and _Marie Tudor_. The poet was
pleased with her performance, and thought well of her intelligence.
In this way he was attracted to herself, and she became his mistress,
and lived either with him, or very near him, till she died many years
afterwards. She had a residence close to his own at Guernsey, which
Victor Hugo arranged and decorated. When he returned to Paris she
returned with him and continued to be his very near neighbour. It was
the fashion in Paris to think only of the intellectual side of this
_liaison_, and to speak of Madame Drouet with the utmost respect as
the poet’s wise and discreet friend, a kind of living Muse for him.
The lawful wife herself, who knew all, spoke without bitterness of her
rival. “These gentlemen,” she said one day to her cousin, meaning her
husband and son, “have arranged a little _fête_ at Madame Drouet’s,
and they are expecting you. I insist on your going, it will please my
husband.” When Madame Drouet died, the notices in the newspapers were
most respectful to her, and sympathetic with the old poet who had lost
“the faithful friend and wise and gentle adviser of so many years.”
[Sidenote: Protection by the Use of Pure Language.]
It will be seen from these extracts that illicit unions may under
certain favourable circumstances (especially that of intellectual
or artistic companionship) come to be conventionally protected, as
marriage itself is, by the use of the purest possible language. There
have been cases in London more or less resembling that of Victor Hugo,
which it would be considered an offence against good taste to speak
about in the plain terms of old-fashioned morality.
[Sidenote: André Theuriet on Parisian and Provincial Opinion.]
M. André Theuriet, in his excellent novel _Amour d’Automne_, says
that adulterous _liaisons_ are conventionally tolerated in Paris, but
judged very severely by the stricter provincial opinion. Those who
feel disposed to tolerate them, speak of them in words so carefully
selected that they may be used before virgins and children. There was
“an affectionate friendship” between the gentleman and lady, or “an
old attachment.” Fidelity in these cases gives them an air of positive
virtue:--
“Le temps, vieillard divin, honore et blanchit tout!”
[Sidenote: Toleration in Italy and Germany.]
[Sidenote: Lewes and Liszt.]
[Sidenote: Liszt and the Princess of Wittgenstein.]
This kind of toleration is not by any means confined to London and
Paris; it has long existed in Italy and Germany. Lewes might have
counted upon it in Liszt, yet at Weimar he asked if he might present
Miss Evans to the musician, not feeling sure “as their position was
irregular.” Liszt himself was living at Weimar with the Princess of
Wittgenstein, who had left her husband for his sake; and the duke had
been so accommodating as to lend them the Altenburg residence, where
they dispensed a graceful hospitality to many friends. The long series
of Liszt’s successes with distinguished ladies did not exclude him from
the world of London and Paris.
[Sidenote: Great Capitals--their Opinion of each Other.]
[Sidenote: Divorce-Court Evidence.]
[Sidenote: Statistics of Prostitution.]
[Sidenote: Clandestine Prostitution.]
Every great capital believes that some other great capital is the most
vicious in the world. London accords that distinction to Paris, Paris
to Vienna, but these accusations are vague, and it is impossible to
know the truth. The evidence in the Divorce Courts reveals a little
of it now and then, and is good evidence so far as it extends, but
it is never published in France. Statistics of prostitution are also
admissible as evidence, but it is difficult to found any comparative
argument upon them; because, in great cities, there is so much
clandestine prostitution, so much eking out of miserable incomes by
that means. The decent, modestly-dressed girl, the sad-looking young
widow whom nobody suspects, may have yielded to the pressure of want.
[Sidenote: The Author’s Unwillingness to believe Evil on Insufficient
Evidence.]
I am unable to follow the English habit of taking French novels as
evidence of the general corruption of French life, and will give good
reasons for this rejection. Before doing so let me observe that I am
equally unwilling to believe evil, on insufficient evidence, of the
English. For example, I have never attached the slightest weight to
what were called the “revelations of the _Pall Mall Gazette_,” which
all the viler French newspapers affected to believe merely because they
would have been, if true, such precious facts for the enemy.
[Sidenote: The English Arguments from French Fiction.]
The English argument usually assumes one of two forms:--
1. Novelists draw from life; consequently, as adultery is almost
universal in French novels it must be equally common in French life.
2. French people purchase novels about adultery in great numbers;
consequently, the readers of these books must commit adultery
themselves.
[Sidenote: Frequency of Crime in Imaginative Literature.]
[Sidenote: Shakespeare.]
[Sidenote: Stories read by the Young.]
[Sidenote: The Suicide Club.]
[Sidenote: Jane Eyre.]
[Sidenote: Adam Bede.]
[Sidenote: Paul Ferroll.]
[Sidenote: Daniel Deronda.]
With regard to the first of these propositions, I should say that
crimes of all kinds occur more frequently in all imaginative literature
than they do in the dull routine of everyday existence. Murder, for
example, is much more frequent in _Shakespeare_ than it is in ordinary
English life. Even stories that are considered innocent enough to be
read by the young, such as _The Arabian Nights_, _Robinson Crusoe_,
and, in recent times, Mr. Stevenson’s _Treasure Island_, are full of
villainy and homicide, introduced for no purpose in the world but to
excite the interest of the reader. What would English critics say to a
Frenchman who should affirm that there are suicide clubs in England
like the mutual murder society described with such circumstantial
detail in the _New Arabian Nights_? If we think of a few famous English
novels we shall find that they often describe situations which are
certainly not common in the ordinary lives of respectable people like
ourselves. We are not generally either bigamists, or seducers, or
wife-slayers, yet _Jane Eyre_ turned upon an intended bigamy, _Adam
Bede_ turned upon a case of seduction and infanticide, and _Paul
Ferroll_ fascinated us by the wonderfully self-possessed behaviour of a
gentleman who had quietly murdered his wife, as she lay in bed, early
one summer morning. In _Daniel Deronda_ the most polished gentleman in
the book has a family of illegitimate children, and the most brilliant
young lady becomes, in intention, a murderess, whilst the sweetest girl
is rescued from attempted suicide. These things _may_ happen, which is
enough for the purposes of the novelist. In France the great difficulty
of that artist is the uninteresting nature of the usual preliminaries
of marriage, so that he is thrown back upon adulterous love as the only
kind that is adventurous and romantic.
[Sidenote: That Fiction only represents Collected Cases.]
[Sidenote: Situations often Invented.]
[Sidenote: Materials not necessarily Abundant.]
The argument that the world of reality must be like the world of
fiction fails in another way. Real people are almost infinitely more
numerous than the creations of novelists, therefore, if every immoral
adventure in novels were drawn from life, it would only prove that
the novelist had collected cases, as a medical student might collect
cases of disease in a fairly healthy population. As a matter of
fact, however, the novelist does not usually take his _incidents_
from reality; he will often go to nature for his characters, and to
invention for his situations. The material in real life that suggests
the stories need not be very abundant. The cases of immorality found
in the English newspapers alone would be more than enough to keep the
principal French novelists at work all the year round.
[Sidenote: Novelists a small Class.]
[Sidenote: Tempted by Money.]
[Sidenote: The Reader must be Excited.]
[Sidenote: Novelists acute Tradesmen.]
The novelists themselves are a small class working under immense
temptations. They live in Paris, where life is terribly expensive,
rents enormous, habits luxurious. It is part of their business to see
society, and that entails an expenditure above the ordinary gains of
quiet unsensational literature. The temptation to gain more money
is, in such a situation, almost irresistible. Money is to be earned
by exciting the reader. Writers for the populace do this chiefly by
murders; but murders are not so attractive to the richer and more
refined classes as adventures of pleasure and sensuality. The novelist
works for his public, and enjoys both a world-wide notoriety and a
handsome income. The most successful novelists describe the pleasures
of luxury and vice, and the excitement to be derived from their
pursuit. They are simply acute tradesmen, like their publishers, who
supply what is in demand.
[Sidenote: Why People read Novels.]
[Sidenote: Dull Lives.]
[Sidenote: An English old Maid.]
Now with regard to the second proposition, that the readers of immoral
stories must themselves be immoral, observation of actual cases
entirely fails to confirm it. People read these stories because they
feel dull, and seek the interest of exciting situations. Here is a
case well known to me. A lady lives in a very out-of-the-way country
house and sees very little society; so reading is her only resource.
Fiction is naturally an important part of her reading, and as she is
not a linguist she is confined to the works of French authors and a few
translations. In this way she has read a good deal about adultery, but
her own life is unimpeachable. In like manner, for the sake of a little
excitement, an English old maid always read about the murders of the
day, and was accurately informed about the horrible details; yet she
never murdered anybody, nor even betrayed any homicidal impulse.
[Sidenote: Cosmopolitan Audience of French Novelists.]
[Sidenote: Daudet well known in London.]
[Sidenote: Fashionable Rage for French Novels in England.]
[Sidenote: Not all Frenchwomen Novel-Readers.]
[Sidenote: Pious Women. Girls.]
[Sidenote: Statistics of Novel-Reading near Paris.]
It is quietly assumed that French novels are written only for the
depraved tastes of French readers. French novels are, in fact, the
most cosmopolitan of all literatures since the Latin classics. They
have a great circulation in Russia, Germany, Italy, England, and other
countries. It appears that they answer accurately to the present state
of civilisation. In England they are bought by thousands both in the
originals and in translations. In a London drawing-room some years ago
I found that everybody could talk about Daudet except myself, and this
made me read some of his books that I might appear less ignorant. A
writer in the _Saturday Review_[50] speaks of those music halls and
restaurants which are chiefly frequented by the _demi-monde_, and
then goes on to say: “There is the same fascination in going to these
places that there is in reading French novels of more than doubtful
morality. Let it be known that there is a book that is hardly decent,
and the rush for it is immense amongst our young married ladies, and
even among some of the elder spinsters. Indeed, not to have read any
book that is more indecent than usual is to be out of the fashion.”
This is probably exaggerated, as many books are perfectly decorous
in expression whilst depicting an immoral kind of life, and a life
may preserve the strictest purity of language though given over to
unbridled desires. But, however bad may be the books they read, no
one supposes that Englishwomen misconduct themselves in a practical
manner because they have read them. Would it be more than fair to
extend the same charity to Frenchwomen? It might, at least, be borne
in mind that all Frenchwomen are not novel-readers. Many do not
read novels at all, others are extremely careful in their choice.
All pious women naturally avoid impure literature, and they are a
numerous class. Girls are usually limited, in fiction, to translations
from English stories and to a few harmless French ones. The habit of
novel-reading seems even to vary with localities. The Prefect of the
Seine procured some interesting statistics in 1886 about the lending
libraries on the outskirts of Paris (for a purpose connected with the
budget of the department), and from these it appears that there are
the most surprising degrees of variety in the habit of novel-reading
in different localities. At Asnières, out of a hundred volumes asked
for in the libraries, eighty-six are novels, whilst at St. Denis we
find them suddenly falling to twelve in the hundred. At Courbevoie
the demand for this class of literature is represented by eighty-two
per cent, at St. Ouen by twelve and three-quarters. Other places vary
between these extremes.
[Sidenote: The _Saturday Review_ on Public Education in France.]
[Sidenote: How the French use their Knowledge.]
The _Saturday Review_, never very charitable in its judgments about
France, and not often very well informed, has spoken as follows about
public education in that country: “France has taken a great step
forward in these days. It has gone all the way to an expenditure of
ninety millions of francs a year, and although Mr. Matthew Arnold
does not say so, has materially added to its now permanent deficit
by lavish outlay on schools, in which it trains thousands of children
to read.” (Well, surely there can be no harm in teaching children to
read, but international malevolence is ingenious enough to find evil
even here. I resume my suspended quotation:) “Thousands of children to
read who _will never use their knowledge again, or will use it only to
read obscenity, to the great and manifest advantage of their minds and
morals_.”
This is the kind of information about France which appears to satisfy
the readers of the _Saturday Review_. It is on a level with the
surprising statements about the English that we find in the most
ignorant French newspapers.
[Sidenote: What the French Lower Classes read.]
[Sidenote: Trashy Novels.]
[Sidenote: Horrible Situations.]
[Sidenote: _Cent Bons Livres._]
[Sidenote: _La Bibliothèque Populaire._]
[Sidenote: _La Bibliothèque Utile._]
[Sidenote: Lending Libraries.]
[Sidenote: In Schools and Barracks.]
[Sidenote: Recent Progress.]
[Sidenote: Self-made Frenchmen.]
The principal reading of the lower classes is the newspapers published
at one sou. Some of these are very ably conducted (for example, the
_Lyon Républicain_), some others at the same price are much inferior,
but the better class of these journals have a great circulation and
are doing more good than harm. The inferior ones publish the sort
of trash, in the way of novels, that suits an uncultivated taste.
The principal difference between these novels and those read by
educated people does not seem to be so much in morality as in the more
abundant variety of horrible situations supplied by the writer for
the populace. In France, as in England and elsewhere, the desire for
excitement which characterises the beginner in reading seems to turn
naturally to harrowing scenes. But the poor Frenchman is not confined
to his newspaper. He has now plenty of opportunities for purchasing
cheap scientific and literary works, and also for borrowing them. The
collection of _Cent Bons Livres_, published by Félix Vernay, contains
books of both classes issued in a legible type at two sous, and not
one of them is immoral. The _Bibliothèque Populaire_, also at two
sous, consists of selections from French and foreign literature. The
texts are very accurately printed, the translations are good, and the
publishers are strict in the exclusion of immoral works; yet the sale
of the collection is extensive, and it is found in the dwellings of
the humbler classes. The same may be said of the _Bibliothèque Utile_,
published by Alcan. But perhaps the best evidence on this subject is in
the popular lending libraries instituted by the Government. The books
for these libraries are specially examined by a commission appointed
for the purpose, which excludes indecent publications. There are also
the _bibliothèques scolaires_ or lending libraries in the schools,
and regimental libraries in the barracks, besides the older town
libraries, often extensive and valuable, which are open to all. With
regard to the providing of literature in a form suitable for readers
of limited education, I may add that this class of literature, simple
in expression, yet neither deficient in intelligence nor behind the
age in knowledge, scarcely existed in France twenty-five years ago,
but is now produced in constantly increasing quantity. Even in former
times, however, when facilities were so few, men of the humbler classes
frequently rose in the world, and they could not have done that without
self-education, nor without better reading than the “obscenity” of the
_Saturday Review_. I have known several such Frenchmen, and have always
found their minds preoccupied with creditable pursuits, generally of a
scientific character.[51]
[Sidenote: Matthew Arnold.]
[Sidenote: The Great Goddess Lubricity.]
The wild statements of anonymous and irresponsible writers are hardly
deserving of serious attention, but I have always deeply regretted that
several English writers of note, and especially Matthew Arnold, should
have allowed their patriotism to express itself in similar accusations.
In 1885 Arnold wrote an article on America for the _Nineteenth
Century_, and went out of his way to say that “the French” are “at
present vowed to the worship of the great goddess Lubricity.”
[Sidenote: English Satisfaction in French Immorality.]
[Sidenote: Examples.]
This is one of those statements about France which obtain ready
currency in England, because they gratify the patriotic desire to feel
better than the neighbours across the water. The ordinary Englishman,
learning on the authority of a distinguished writer that the French are
vowed to the worship of such a goddess, can think to himself, “Well, we
have our faults, perhaps we worship money too much, but at any rate we
do not bow down to such a filthy idol as that,” and he has a sense of
inward satisfaction. I, for my part, have never understood how anybody
can derive satisfaction from anything but well-tested truth, and when I
hear a comprehensive statement of this kind, my way is always to think
of living examples known to me. I invite the reader to follow me, from
a settled conviction that my method is a good one.
[Sidenote: Two Extreme Cases of Vicious Lives.]
Have I ever known any Frenchman of whom it could be fairly said that he
was vowed to the worship of the great goddess Lubricity? Yes, I have
known one absolutely given over to that vice. His life had been that
of a Sultan entirely absorbed in the pleasures of the harem; he was
rich, idle, “noble,” with no pursuits but that, and nature paid him
with a terrible penalty. In his premature old age he would cynically
boast of the exploits of that which, for his bestial nature, had been
a sort of manhood. I have known a similar case in England, a man of
some rank, whose whole mind centred itself on that one pleasure, till
at length it led him to conduct of such a character as to involve utter
social ruin. Applied to these men Mr. Arnold’s expression would be
absolutely just.
[Sidenote: Rarity of the Sexual Monomania.]
[Sidenote: Strictness of French Provincial Opinion.]
[Sidenote: Social Penalties.]
[Sidenote: Kept Mistresses in Provincial England and France.]
But this state of mind, which amounts to a species of insanity or
monomania, is rare. Men have other interests and pursuits. Those of
the middle class have business, those of the upper have field sports,
horses, yachting, travelling. A few have special studies, in France
generally archæology, natural history, music, or painting. Are they
all strictly virtuous in France? No. Are they all strictly virtuous in
England? No. It is often suspected that when a young Englishman goes to
town he yields to certain temptations, and when a provincial Frenchman
_va à Paris pour s’amuser_, his friends imagine very frequently that he
is tired of the strict surveillance of public opinion in the country.
That rural public opinion is almost as strict in France as in England.
A rich lady near a provincial town that I know committed adultery many
years ago, and has been living in forced retirement ever since. Another
rich lady in another provincial town, very beautiful, very charming,
had a romantic adventure, and she, too, has been left alone in her
great house. A wealthy young man brought a mistress down from Paris;
she had not been out three times in her little pony carriage before it
became a public scandal. In a similar neighbourhood in England it was
perfectly well known that some of the rich young men had mistresses at
a distance, but they could not bring them near to their own homes for
fear of the same scandal. I remember asking a French gentleman if he
received a clever young man who had rendered services to his political
party. “No,” he said, “he is immoral, and I have a fixed rule never to
receive immoral men.”
[Sidenote: Zola’s Picture of Rural Life.]
[Sidenote: Lancashire and Yorkshire. Saône-et-Loire.]
[Sidenote: A Comparison.]
Whilst writing this chapter I have got a letter from a well-known
Englishman who asks me if Zola’s picture of rustic morals in _La Terre_
is true. I have never read any of Zola’s novels, preferring the study
of life in nature, but I am told that the book is disgusting. In that
case it cannot be true as a general representation of nature. I have
lived in the country in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and in the French
department of Saône-et-Loire, and so far as my observation has extended
I should say that rustic morals are very nearly on the same level in
both places. Cases of adultery are rare in both though not unknown.
Illegitimate births occur occasionally in both. Our servants have
conducted themselves as well in France as in England, and as well in
England as in France. There have been a very few mishaps. It is not
uncommon in the north of England for a child to be born too soon after
marriage, and the same thing occurs in Saône-et-Loire. The daughters of
the better class of farmers are, so far as I know, a most respectable
class both in England and France. Some of the best quiet manners I have
met with have been in that class--modest and simple manners, without
any pretension, but with dignity and self-respect.
[Sidenote: Parallel Examples amongst Country Gentlefolks.]
For the country gentlefolks here are parallel examples. I had a
neighbour in England who lived quietly in the country, had certain
rather refined tastes, and was respected by every one. I have a
neighbour in France who lives quietly in the country, has precisely the
same tastes as the Englishman, and lives with his family exactly in
the same way, except, perhaps, that he has _déjeuner_ at eleven when
the Englishman had luncheon at one. The Frenchman and his wife are
also respected by everybody, and I have not the faintest reason for
supposing that they do not deserve it. Yet I am asked to believe that
they are intensely vicious, and if I inquire for proofs I am referred
to novels written by some Parisian who has never seen my neighbours.
[Sidenote: Unmarried Girls.]
A large class, both in France and England, whose general good conduct
is doubted by nobody who knows the countries, is that of unmarried
girls in the middle and upper classes. Here a fall is so rare as to be
practically unknown. The English girl is less retiring than the French
_jeune fille_, and she knows more, but she is equally safe. It is
something that the two civilisations should have produced at least one
class that is so very nearly immaculate.
[Sidenote: The French Clergy.]
[Sidenote: The Anglican Clergy.]
There are a few flagrant cases of immorality every year amongst the
French clergy; but although surrounded by enemies eager to publish
every fault, and powerless now to impose or procure silence, they
keep, on the whole, a reputation equal to that of the Catholic clergy
anywhere. Even their enemies believe them to be far more moral than the
Italian priesthood, for example. The clergy in England have an equally
good reputation, in spite of occasional scandals, and there is no
reason for supposing it to be undeserved; but they have the safeguard
of marriage.
[Sidenote: Soldiers and Sailors.]
[Sidenote: English Medical Opinion.]
[Sidenote: French Sanitary Legislation.]
With the armies the case is different. Soldiers and sailors enjoy
a reputation for bravery, but not for sexual morality in either
country. There is terribly strong medical evidence on this subject
which I cannot go into, _real_ evidence, better than the inventions of
novelists. English medical opinions are of the gravest possible import,
as they point to a danger to the military strength of the country in
comparison with which the Channel tunnel would be a trifle; but it
may be argued, as regards the health of the nation generally, that
the English army is but a part of the nation, whereas the French army
represents the nation itself. Another difficulty in the comparison
arises from the fact that, although the French may be quite as immoral
as the English, their sanitary legislation is more rigorously prudent,
so that the consequent physical evils are much diminished. This subject
is almost forbidden me in a book intended for general reading; but
if any one cares to form a just opinion, I recommend him to study
authentic statistics of the health of armies.
[Sidenote: Student Life in the Two Nations.]
[Sidenote: Student Life in Capital Cities.]
[Sidenote: Struggling Students in Paris.]
[Sidenote: Two Cases of French Students.]
[Sidenote: Poor Students in Paris.]
[Sidenote: Efforts of poor Students for their own Support.]
English student life is, on the whole, quieter and more moral than
French. France has plenty of public schools in the country, or at least
in country towns, where the boys are kept under the most rigorous
restraint; but she has no country universities, she has no Oxford and
Cambridge, where young men live under a sort of gentle restraint,
and in places of comparatively small size, where the army of vice
is not in full force, but represented only by a detachment. French
student life is chiefly concentrated in Paris, and resembles that of
medical students and art students in London, which may, of course,
be perfectly moral if they choose to make it so, but which, in the
midst of innumerable facilities and temptations, depends entirely
upon themselves. Student life in Edinburgh has the same liberty
as in Paris, but is probably more moral on account of the greater
seriousness of the Scottish character, and the intellectual ambition
of Scottish youth. Both in England and France the errors of young men
are very lightly passed over and excused; but in France they are more
_expected_, more taken as a matter of course, and there is more of a
settled tradition of immorality amongst French students than amongst
English. Still, there is nothing in the French system to prevent a
young man from living like a good Scotchman if he likes. Foreigners
know nothing about the struggling student who is at Paris for his work
and has neither time nor money for much else. The reader is probably
aware that amongst Scottish students there are striking examples of
courage and self-denial, but he is not likely to know that Paris
abounds with instances that, for a richer country, are precisely of
the same kind. I will mention two cases, those of young men whom I
know personally and regard with all the respect which they deserve.
One of them, in consequence of a family misfortune, was dependent upon
his mother’s labour, and by hard work and close economy she was able
to support him when at school. She could not undertake the expense of
his student life at Paris, but she had a relation there who offered
two great helps, a bed and one meal every day. This was absolutely
all the young man had to count upon; the rest had to be won by his
own labour. He contrived--I have not space to tell how--to earn all
the money necessary for everything else, and became an army surgeon,
after which, by further hard work, he gained the medical _agrégation_
(a sort of fellowship won by a severe medical examination). I know
from his companions that during his student days he carefully kept
aloof from idle and dissipated society. The other case is that of a
young man whose mother, a widow, could do nothing for him. His earlier
education was paid for by the bounty of a rich lady, but as soon as he
could earn money by teaching he did so, and went on vigorously with
his studies at the same time. He even managed to keep his mother by
his labour without hindering his own advancement. He won a fellowship,
and is now occupying the chair of a professor of history--I do not
mean in a school, but as a _professeur de faculté_. He is one of the
most cultivated men I ever knew, and probably one of the happiest.
Such a career as his is not the usual consequence of a frivolous and
dissipated youth. I was talking, an hour before writing this page, with
a Frenchman whose own life has been a remarkable example of labour and
self-denial, and he told me that there are at this moment hundreds of
students in Paris who are supporting themselves, at least in part, by
means of lessons and humble literary work, in order that they may enter
the professions.
[Sidenote: French School Life.]
[Sidenote: Morality of Boys in French Schools.]
[Sidenote: Morality in English Schools.]