I once heard a man call this age the age of demagogues. Of this I can
only say, in the admirably sensible words of the angry coachman in
“Pickwick,” that “that remark’s political, or what is much the same, it
ain’t true.” So far from being the age of demagogues, this is really
and specially the age of mystagogues. So far from this being a time in
which things are praised because they are popular, the truth is that
this is the first time, perhaps, in the whole history of the world in
which things can be praised because they are unpopular. The demagogue
succeeds because he makes himself understood, even if he is not worth
understanding. But the mystagogue succeeds because he gets himself
misunderstood; although, as a rule, he is not even worth
misunderstanding. Gladstone was a demagogue: Disraeli a mystagogue. But
ours is specially the time when a man can advertise his wares not as a
universality, but as what the tradesmen call “a speciality.” We all
know this, for instance, about modern art. Michelangelo and Whistler
were both fine artists; but one is obviously public, the other
obviously private, or, rather, not obvious at all. Michelangelo’s
frescoes are doubtless finer than the popular judgment, but they are
plainly meant to strike the popular judgment. Whistler’s pictures seem
often meant to escape the popular judgment; they even seem meant to
escape the popular admiration. They are elusive, fugitive; they fly
even from praise. Doubtless many artists in Michelangelo’s day declared
themselves to be great artists, although they were unsuccessful. But
they did not declare themselves great artists because they were
unsuccessful: that is the peculiarity of our own time, which has a
positive bias against the populace.
Another case of the same kind of thing can be found in the latest
conceptions of humour. By the wholesome tradition of mankind, a joke
was a thing meant to amuse men; a joke which did not amuse them was a
failure, just as a fire which did not warm them was a failure. But we
have seen the process of secrecy and aristocracy introduced even into
jokes. If a joke falls flat, a small school of æsthetes only ask us to
notice the wild grace of its falling and its perfect flatness after its
fall. The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company
has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was
not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane
individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and
uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They
have made laughter lonelier than tears.
There is a third thing to which the mystagogues have recently been
applying the methods of a secret society: I mean manners. Men who
sought to rebuke rudeness used to represent manners as reasonable and
ordinary; now they seek to represent them as private and peculiar.
Instead of saying to a man who blocks up a street or the fireplace,
“You ought to know better than that,” the moderns say, “You, of course,
don’t know better than that.”
I have just been reading an amusing book by Lady Grove called “The
Social Fetich,” which is a positive riot of this new specialism and
mystification. It is due to Lady Grove to say that she has some of the
freer and more honourable qualities of the old Whig aristocracy, as
well as their wonderful worldliness and their strange faith in the
passing fashion of our politics. For instance, she speaks of Jingo
Imperialism with a healthy English contempt; and she perceives stray
and striking truths, and records them justly—as, for instance, the
greater democracy of the Southern and Catholic countries of Europe. But
in her dealings with social formulæ here in England she is, it must
frankly be said, a common mystagogue. She does not, like a decent
demagogue, wish to make people understand; she wishes to make them
painfully conscious of not understanding. Her favourite method is to
terrify people from doing things that are quite harmless by telling
them that if they do they are the kind of people who would do other
things, equally harmless. If you ask after somebody’s mother (or
whatever it is), you are the kind of person who would have a
pillow-case, or would not have a pillow-case. I forget which it is; and
so, I dare say, does she. If you assume the ordinary dignity of a
decent citizen and say that you don’t see the harm of having a mother
or a pillow-case, she would say that of course _you_ wouldn’t. This is
what I call being a mystagogue. It is more vulgar than being a
demagogue; because it is much easier.
The primary point I meant to emphasise is that this sort of aristocracy
is essentially a new sort. All the old despots were demagogues; at
least, they were demagogues whenever they were really trying to please
or impress the demos. If they poured out beer for their vassals it was
because both they and their vassals had a taste for beer. If (in some
slightly different mood) they poured melted lead on their vassals, it
was because both they and their vassals had a strong distaste for
melted lead. But they did not make any mystery about either of the two
substances. They did not say, “You don’t like melted lead?.... Ah! no,
of course, _you_ wouldn’t; you are probably the kind of person who
would prefer beer.... It is no good asking you even to imagine the
curious undercurrent of psychological pleasure felt by a refined person
under the seeming shock of melted lead.” Even tyrants when they tried
to be popular, tried to give the people pleasure; they did not try to
overawe the people by giving them something which they ought to regard
as pleasure. It was the same with the popular presentment of
aristocracy. Aristocrats tried to impress humanity by the exhibition of
qualities which humanity admires, such as courage, gaiety, or even mere
splendour. The aristocracy might have more possession in these things,
but the democracy had quite equal delight in them. It was much more
sensible to offer yourself for admiration because you had drunk three
bottles of port at a sitting, than to offer yourself for admiration (as
Lady Grove does) because you think it right to say “port wine” while
other people think it right to say “port.” Whether Lady Grove’s
preference for port wine (I mean for the phrase port wine) is a piece
of mere nonsense I do not know; but at least it is a very good example
of the futility of such tests in the matter even of mere breeding.
“Port wine” may happen to be the phrase used in certain good families;
but numberless aristocrats say “port,” and all barmaids say “port
wine.” The whole thing is rather more trivial than collecting
tram-tickets; and I will not pursue Lady Grove’s further distinctions.
I pass over the interesting theory that I ought to say to Jones (even
apparently if he is my dearest friend), “How is Mrs. Jones?” instead of
“How is your wife?” and I pass over an impassioned declamation about
bedspreads (I think) which has failed to fire my blood.
The truth of the matter is really quite simple. An aristocracy is a
secret society; and this is especially so when, as in the modern world,
it is practically a plutocracy. The one idea of a secret society is to
change the password. Lady Grove falls naturally into a pure perversity
because she feels subconsciously that the people of England can be more
effectively kept at a distance by a perpetual torrent of new tests than
by the persistence of a few old ones. She knows that in the educated
“middle class” there is an idea that it is vulgar to say port wine;
therefore she reverses the idea—she says that the man who would say
“port” is a man who would say, “How is your wife?” She says it because
she knows both these remarks to be quite obvious and reasonable.
The only thing to be done or said in reply, I suppose, would be to
apply the same principle of bold mystification on our own part. I do
not see why I should not write a book called “Etiquette in Fleet
Street,” and terrify every one else out of that thoroughfare by
mysterious allusions to the mistakes that they generally make. I might
say: “This is the kind of man who would wear a green tie when he went
into a tobacconist’s,” or “You don’t see anything wrong in drinking a
Benedictine on Thursday?.... No, of course _you_ wouldn’t.” I might
asseverate with passionate disgust and disdain: “The man who is capable
of writing sonnets as well as triolets is capable of climbing an
omnibus while holding an umbrella.” It seems a simple method; if ever I
should master it perhaps I may govern England.