belonged, with hardly the possibility of an exception, to the humbler
orders of the community. But who will say that the final sufferings and
death of any individual whatsoever are without their pathos? To me,
who have never been able to despise any fellow-creature upon general
considerations, the silent expressive stories related by these little
heaps, possess an interest above all real eloquence. Here, we may
suppose, rests the weary old man, to whom, after many bitter shifts,
all bitterly disappointed, wandering and mendicancy had become a last
trade. His snow-white head, which had suffered the inclemency of many
winters, was here at last laid low for ever. Here also the homeless
youth, who had trusted himself to the wide world in search of fortune,
was arrested in his wanderings; and, whether his heart was as light
and buoyant as his purse, or weighed down with many privations and
disappointments, the end was the same—only in the one case a blight,
in the other a bliss. The prodigal, who had wandered far, and fared
still worse and worse, at length returning, was here cut short in his
better purpose, far from those friends to whom he looked forward as a
consolation for all his wretchedness. Perhaps, when stretched in mortal
sickness in a homely lodging in the neighbouring village, where, though
kindness was rendered, it was still the kindness of strangers, his
mind wandered in repentant fondness to that mother whom he had parted
with in scorn, but for whose hand to present his cup, and whose eye to
melt him with its tenderness, he would now gladly give the miserable
remains of his life. Perhaps he thought of a brother, also parted with
in rage and distrust, but who, in their early years, had played with
him, a fond and innocent child, over the summer leas, and to whom that
recollection forgave every thing. No one of these friends to soothe
the last moments of his wayward and unhappy life—scarcely even to hear
of his death when it had taken place. Far from every remembered scene,
every remembered face, he was doomed here to take his place amidst the
noteless dead, and be as if he had never been. Perhaps one of these
graves contains the shipwrecked mariner, hither transferred from the
neighbouring beach. A cry was heard by night through the storm which
dashed the waves upon the rocky coast; deliverance was impossible;
and next morning, the only memorial of what had taken place was the
lifeless body of a sailor stretched on the sand. No trace of name or
kin, not even the name of the vessel, was learned; but, no doubt, as
the villagers would remark in conveying him to the Strangers’ Nook, he
left _some_ heart to pine for his absence, _some_ eyes to mourn for
him, if his loss should ever be ascertained. There are few so desolate
on earth as not to have one friend or associate. There must either be
a wife to be widowed, or a child to be made an orphan, or a mother to
suffer her own not less grievous bereavement. Perhaps the sole beloved
object of some humble domestic circle, whose incomings and outgoings
were ever pleasant, is here laid low, while neither can the bereaved
learn aught of the fate and final resting-place of their favourite, nor
can those who kindly, but without mourning, performed his last offices,
reach their ears with the intelligence, grateful even in its pain, of
what had been done to his remains; here the energies which had battled
with the waves in their hour of night, and the despair whose expression
had been wasted upon the black tempest, are all stilled into rest, and
forgotten. The storm is done; its work has been accomplished; and here
lies the strange mariner, where no storms shall ever again trouble him.
Such are the imaginings which may arise in contemplating that neglected
nook in our churchyards which is devoted to the reception of strangers.
The other dead have all been laid down in their final beds by long
trains of sorrowing friends. They rest in death in the midst of those
beloved scenes which their infancy knew, and which were associated with
every happiness, every triumph, every sorrow, which befel them. The
burns in which they had “paidlet” when they were children, run still in
their shining beauty all around and about their last resting-place; the
braes over which they wandered hand in hand, “to pu’ the gowans fine,”
still look down in all their summer pride upon the fold into which they
have at last been gathered for eternity. But the homeless strangers!
_they_ died far from every endeared scene. The rills were not here like
those which _they_ had known; the hills were different too. Instead of
the circle of friends, whose anticipated grief tends so much to smooth
the last bed of suffering man, the pillow of the homeless was arranged
by strangers: they were carried to the burial-ground, not by a train
of real mourners, anxious to express their respect and affection for
the departed, but by a few individuals, who, in so doing, complimented
human nature in general, but not the individual. To the other graves
there was also some one to resort afterwards, to lament the departure
of those who lay below. The spot was always cherished and marked by
at least one generation of kind ones; and, whether distinguished by a
monument or not, it was always a greater or less space of time before
the memory of the deceased entirely perished from its place. Still,
as each holy day came round, and the living flocked to the house of
prayer, there was always some one to send a kind eye aside towards that
little mound, and be for a moment moved with a pensive feeling, as the
heart recalled a departed parent, or child, or friend. But the graves
of the strangers! all regard was shut out from them as soon as they
were closed. The decent few who had affected mourning over them had
no sooner turned away than they were at once forgotten. That ceremony
over, their kind had done with them for ever. And so, there they lie,
distinguished from the rest only by the melancholy mark that they are
themselves undistinguished from each other; no eye to weep over them
now or hereafter, and no regard whatsoever to be paid to them till they
stand forth, with their fellow-men, at the Great and Final Day.
NOBODY TO BE DESPISED—
Except on particular grounds of demerit. This is a maxim which it would
be well if the world would pay more attention to.
There are many people—very good people, too—who have a habit of
speaking contemptuously or lightly of almost every body but themselves.
There are still more who do not seem to consider it necessary to treat
the absent with the least respect, but, to use the words of a modern
writer, are remarkably candid in owning and showing up the faults of
their neighbours.
These, I think, are detestable practices of human nature—the issue of
its weakness rather than its strength.
When I think of a great and good character, I cannot conceive that he
has a habit of depreciating the respect due to his absent friends, or
of treating any of his fellow-creatures with scorn, unless for some
specific delinquency. Such a person will be already too secure of his
own reputation to seek to raise it at the expense of others. He will
be able to take an enlarged view of human society, and, seeing that
the condition of all men is in a great measure accidental, or at least
moulded greatly by circumstances, will not despise any man on account
of his mere place in the general system, but, on the contrary, give him
respect in proportion to his good conduct in that place, whatever it
may be. Such a man, also, will have too much respect for himself, to
use language at any time which he would be ashamed to own at another
time. He would not indulge in a tone of levity or rancour respecting
any man, on whose entrance accidentally into the room he would have to
alter his style, and hypocritically offer him the usual courtesies of
society.
It happens, however, that all men are more or less remote from the
greatness and goodness of this ideal character. We are, as yet, only
in a state of comparative approximation to those qualities; hence we
find that nearly all are alike given to speak slightingly of each
other. There are two grand causes at the bottom of this—Selfishness and
Thoughtlessness. The former gives us such an intense appreciation of
ourselves, and of the rank we hold in society, that we speak and think
as if every man and every class beneath us were too mean to be entitled
to the least respect; we look upon the whole as a degraded caste, whose
very existence must only be acknowledged indirectly, as a thing we
have become acquainted with by seeing it at a distance, not by having
ever come in contact with it. In this view of society our ordinary
literature is very apt to confirm us. The key-note is there struck
always in _alt._ The whole strain of the work, its characters, its
philosophy, its manners, are presumed to be something above the common
level; for literary men are still, after all, very much the slaves of
the great which they used to be. If the writer describes humble life
at all, he describes it as seen by a bird’s-eye view from some lofty
station—not as seen by a person who mingles in it, and partakes of its
sympathies. Even the middle ranks of the community, who in this country
form the great mass of readers, and from which, moreover, almost all
literary men arise, have no literature of their own: they have to read
a literature which has been calculated for the sphere above them,
and in which, of course, their sympathies must be of an imperfect
character. And thus, after all that has been done, it still appears a
desideratum that there should be both a literature and a philosophy
_for the human race_.
Then, as to _thoughtlessness_, as a cause for this universally mutual
contempt. It must be admitted, I should think, that if we only took a
proper consideration of the noble destiny which all partake in common
with ourselves, both in respect to the grand moral ends of this life,
and the more sublime prospects for the future, we would hardly think
meanly of any one, except, as before mentioned, on account of some
specific worthlessness. For my part, I wonder how any man can _dare_
to despise a fellow-creature upon other grounds. Is it difference of
tongue, of rank, of personal character, of external manners, that makes
you despise any one? What, I would ask, are all these distinctions to
the great fellowship of our common humanity—the social end which we are
working to as parts of a great community—as parts of a glorious world,
or the general destiny which awaits us at the close of this brief life?
Reflect upon these things before you permit yourself to think lightly
of a fellow-creature; or, if these things are of no avail with you,
consider what you are yourself, that you thus scorn another. I must say
that I have often observed the most contemptible man to be the most
contemptuous. There are some men who hardly make any other pretension
to the respect of the world, than in so far as they profess to treat
_every thing_ cavalierly. But as he who sheds blood must submit to have
his blood shed by others, so are these men at length detected, and
tossed, as they deserve, in a blanket of their own weaving. Individuals
may be assured that it is not by proclaiming a war of contempt against
the world, or any large number of its members, that a comfortable
situation is to be gained for themselves.
There is a good old national proverb, which tells us that the king’s
errand may come in the pedlar’s road—that is to say, a very lofty man
may occasionally have to take a favour from one in humble life. This is
no mere flattering unction applied by the common people to themselves.
It breathes the very spirit of an enlarged and humane philosophy. It
tells us that all ranks of men are in reality dependent upon each
other, and that every one, filling its proper place, is entitled to
its proportion of regard from the rest. Treating the expression in its
more limited sense, it instructs us that, in the prospect of our being
occasionally obliged to accept of favours from very mean hands, we
should never treat any person beneath us with disrespect—as, otherwise,
with what grace can we accept of such a favour? On this point I take
the liberty to relate a simple anecdote, as told to me some years ago,
in illustration of the subject of this essay, by the individual chiefly
concerned—the wife of a shopkeeper in a country town in the north of
Scotland.
“In —— there lived a poor woman, named Peggy Williamson, a kind of
washerwoman, whom every body looked upon as a wretched creature. This
despised and not very reputable person had a son, who on one occasion
was taken up by the town-officers for some trifling offence, and would
have been thrown into prison, if I had not thought the case rather a
hard one, and interceded with the magistrate in his behalf. Peggy, with
all her faults, was not ungrateful; she came to me, and said she never
would forget my kindness.
“A long time after this, in consequence of a particular calamity, my
husband’s affairs got into a very hopeless state. I was attending the
shop one bleak November day. Few customers were coming in, or likely
to come in, and our prospects were gloomy and dull as the atmosphere
itself. I never, indeed, since we began business, saw a day when
things seemed less promising. The whole street—the whole town—appeared
deserted. All was desolate, cold, and wintry; and with the dread of
utter ruin impending over us, you may suppose that our spirits were not
very good. Well, just while we were in this dolorous state, in came my
old friend Peggy Williamson, accompanied by a country girl, who, she
said, wanted to provide herself with a number of our wares, being about
to be married. This person expended six or eight pounds with us, and we
could not help feeling it as a kind of godsend. It was, however, the
result of my having at one time done a just, for I can hardly call it
a kind, action, to a person whom the most of people despised. Peggy,
who was not perhaps aware of the full extent to which we appreciated
her good offices, told me very modestly, as she left the shop with her
friend, that she was glad to have had it in her power to recommend any
body to us for goods, ‘as she never could forget my kindness to Tam.’
I thus satisfied myself, not only that an act of ordinary benevolence
is likely to produce its reward where it is least expected, but that
some good feeling may exist even in those characters, whom on ordinary
principles we may be most inclined to despise.”
Let us judge, then, or at least let us always be inclined to judge,
with tenderness, both of persons and of things. Let us not take our
impressions of the characters of our fellow-creatures from the little
obvious fault or foible which lies upon the surface, and affords, of
course, the subject of largest discourse to the superficial; but,
dashing aside the weeds which mantle the surface of the character,
ascertain the extent and sweetness of the clear water beneath. It is
of great importance to men, but especially to young men, to acquire a
power of judging correctly and definitely of every thing. They must
learn to estimate every thing relatively, and not be prevented from
allowing merit, even where it exists in the smallest quantities, by its
being mingled with a larger proportion of less worthy qualities. We
often find one kind of merit denied, because it is not another. A man
of untutored genius is sneered at because he wants learning. A learned
man is termed a stupid dunce or a pedant, because he wants genius.
The writer of an unpretending narrative is described by some of his
invidious fellows as no Hume, or Gibbon, or Robertson. An industrious
tradesman is ridiculed as a mere plodder; a farmer is laughed at
because he is only acquainted with country affairs. Glasgow is
condemned as deficient in the refined professional and literary classes
of inhabitants, who reside in Edinburgh; and Edinburgh is scouted for
its being “not at all a place of business.” These are vicious habits
of thought and speech—if _thought_ there can be in what argues a total
absence of every thing like reason.
TRUST TO YOURSELF.
This is a glorious principle for the industrious and trading classes of
the community, and yet the philosophy of it is not perhaps understood
so well as it ought to be.
There is hardly any thing more common in the country than to hear men
spoken of who originally, or at some period of their lives, were rich,
but were ruined by “_security_”—that is, by becoming bound to too great
an extent for the engagements of their neighbours. This must arise in
a great measure from an imperfect understanding of the question; and it
therefore seems necessary that something should be said in explanation
of it.
I would be far from desiring to see men shut up their hearts against
each other, and each stand, in the panoply of his own resolutions,
determined against every friendly appeal whatsoever. It is possible,
however, to be not altogether a churl, and yet to take care lest we be
tempted into an exertion of benevolence, dangerous to ourselves, while
it is of little advantage to our friends.
Notwithstanding the many ties which connect a man with society, he
nevertheless bears largely imprinted on his forehead the original doom,
that he must chiefly be dependent on his own labour for subsistence. It
is found by all men of experience, that, in so far as one trusts to his
own exertions solely, he will be apt to flourish; and, in so far as he
leans and depends upon others, he will be the reverse. Nothing can give
so good a _general_ assurance of well-doing as the personal activity of
the individual, day by day exerted for his own interest. If a man, on
the contrary, suddenly finds, in the midst of such a career, a prospect
of some patronage which seems likely to enrich him at once, or if he
fails into the heritage of some antiquated claims to property or title,
which he thinks it necessary to prosecute, it is ten to one that he
declines from that moment, and is finally ruined. The only true way
to make a happy progress through this world, is to go on in a dogged,
persevering pursuit of one good object, neither turning to the right
nor to the left, making our business as much as possible our pleasure,
and not permitting ourselves to awake from our _dream of activity_—not
permitting ourselves to _think that we have been active_—till we
suddenly find ourselves at the goal of our wishes, with fortune almost
unconsciously within our grasp.
Now, it is a most violent and unhappy disturbance of this system, to
be always poking about after large favours from friends, whether
for the purpose of adding fuel to what we think a good fire, or
preserving a bad one from extinction. All that is obtained in this
way is obtained against the very spirit of correct business, and is
likely to be only mischievous to both parties. In the first place,
it is probable that we shall not make such a good use of money got
thus in a slump, without being painfully and gradually won, as of
that which is the acquisition of our own daily industry. Then, it
is always a presumption against a man that he should require such
subsidies; and, accordingly, his commercial reputation is apt to suffer
from every request he makes. Next, to consider the case in reference
to the friend from whom the demand is made, it is obviously a most
unfair thing, that, when men find it so necessary to be cautious in
adventuring money on unusual risks, even for their own interest, and
are, in such circumstances, so strongly called upon to make themselves
acquainted with every circumstance of the case before venturing—when,
moreover, they only do so in the prospect of an unusual profit—I say it
is unfair, that, when they only adventure money on their own account
under these circumstances, they should be called upon occasionally to
adventure it for the profit of a friend, without knowing any thing of
the likelihood of its turning out well, without being able to take
any of those expedients which they would use in their own case for
insuring its eventual re-appearance, without the least chance of profit
to compensate the risk—trusting the whole, in fact, to the uncertain
and hidden sea of another man’s mind, when perhaps they would not
trust it upon their own, with a full knowledge of soundings, tide,
wind, and pilotage. Men may grant such favours, from their dislike to
express such a want of confidence in a friend as a refusal is supposed
to intimate. But this proceeds upon the erroneous principle that the
refusal indicates want of confidence. In reality, it ought only to be
held as indicating a want of confidence in the particular line of use
upon which it is to be adventured. When the man _now_ wanting the loan
of money expresses himself as certain to reproduce it at the proper
time, he pledges too much of his honour; for there cannot be a stronger
proof of the unlikelihood of his having money _then_ than his wanting
it _now_, so that the uncertainty of the reproduction of the sum could
never be greater. The person from whom it is demanded is entitled,
therefore, to take care that the petitioner is not deceiving both
himself and the individual whom he wishes to supply his necessities.
Humanity—kindred—friendship—have many claims; and these will always be
considered and answered by a man of good feelings. All that is here
contended for, is the inconsistency of a system of large accommodations
with just business, as well as with the real interests of either of
the two parties concerned. Upon the whole, a man will not only be
obliging himself in the best manner, but he will also be obliging
society in a higher degree than he otherwise could do, if he simply
looks well after himself, so that he never _requires_ a favour. Let
no man be unduly alarmed at the outcry of “_selfishness_;” it is the
only principle which can ever become nearly general, and therefore
the only one which can be equal or impartial in its action. When this
cry is raised, let the petitioned party always take pains to consider
whether he in reality _is_ the selfish person—whether the odium of that
bad feeling does not indeed rather lie with the petitioner, who is
content, for the purpose of saving himself some present inconvenience,
or otherwise advantaging himself, to bring a portion of his friend’s
substance into hazard—for hazard, of course, there always is, whenever
money leaves the possession of its owner, and in hardly any kind of
adventure is it ever in greater peril than when lent, or engaged for,
in this manner, without the prospect of a profit. It is, in a great
measure, a mere error arising from want of reflection, to suppose that
there can only be inhumanity on the part of the individual who refuses
to lend or become bound. Inhumanity, of course, there may often be in
such refusals; but is there to be no sympathy, on the other hand, for
the friend betrayed? Are we only to have pity for the man who wants
money—no matter through what causes he wants it—in March, and none for
him who is called upon to undertake the risk of having to pay it in
June, to his grievous inconvenience? Does pity only acknowledge the
present tense, and not the future? Is it so silly a passion that it
only feels for the present wants of an individual who goes a-borrowing,
and has no regard to the contingent sorrows of him who, without fault
of his own, but with every merit to the contrary, is beguiled into a
ruin he did not purchase, in the ineffectual attempt, perhaps, to save
one who, supposing him to be personally as worthy, was at least the
only person with whom blame, if blame there be, can in such a case be
said to rest?
SUMMARY.—Fortune is most easily and most certainly to be won by your
own unaided exertions. Therefore, depend as little as possible upon
prospects of advantages from others, all of whom, you will find, have
enough ado with themselves. Be liberal, affable, and kind; but, knowing
that you cannot do more injury to society than by greatly injuring
yourself, exercise a just caution in giving way to the solicitations
of your friends. Never be too ready to convince yourself that it is
right to involve yourself largely, in order to help any person into a
particular station in society; rather let him begin at the bottom, and
he will be all the better fitted for his place, when he reaches it, by
having fought his way up through the lower stages.
LEISURE.