THE MISANTHROPE.
THE friend who had conducted him to Moorfields called upon him again the
next evening. After some talk on the adventures of the preceding day: “I
carried you yesterday,” said he to Harley, “to visit the mad; let me
introduce you to-night, at supper, to one of the wise: but you must not
look for anything of the Socratic pleasantry about him; on the contrary,
I warn you to expect the spirit of a Diogenes. That you may be a little
prepared for his extraordinary manner, I will let you into some
particulars of his history.
“He is the elder of the two sons of a gentleman of considerable estate in
the country. Their father died when they were young: both were
remarkable at school for quickness of parts and extent of genius; this
had been bred to no profession, because his father’s fortune, which
descended to him, was thought sufficient to set him above it; the other
was put apprentice to an eminent attorney. In this the expectations of
his friends were more consulted than his own inclination; for both his
brother and he had feelings of that warm kind that could ill brook a
study so dry as the law, especially in that department of it which was
allotted to him. But the difference of their tempers made the
characteristical distinction between them. The younger, from the
gentleness of his nature, bore with patience a situation entirely
discordant to his genius and disposition. At times, indeed, his pride
would suggest of how little importance those talents were which the
partiality of his friends had often extolled: they were now incumbrances
in a walk of life where the dull and the ignorant passed him at every
turn; his fancy and his feeling were invincible obstacles to eminence in
a situation where his fancy had no room for exertion, and his feeling
experienced perpetual disgust. But these murmurings he never suffered to
be heard; and that he might not offend the prudence of those who had been
concerned in the choice of his profession, he continued to labour in it
several years, till, by the death of a relation, he succeeded to an
estate of a little better than £100 a year, with which, and the small
patrimony left him, he retired into the country, and made a love-match
with a young lady of a similar temper to his own, with whom the sagacious
world pitied him for finding happiness.
“But his elder brother, whom you are to see at supper, if you will do us
the favour of your company, was naturally impetuous, decisive, and
overbearing. He entered into life with those ardent expectations by
which young men are commonly deluded: in his friendships, warm to excess;
and equally violent in his dislikes. He was on the brink of marriage
with a young lady, when one of those friends, for whose honour he would
have pawned his life, made an elopement with that very goddess, and left
him besides deeply engaged for sums which that good friend’s extravagance
had squandered.
“The dreams he had formerly enjoyed were now changed for ideas of a very
different nature. He abjured all confidence in anything of human form;
sold his lands, which still produced him a very large reversion, came to
town, and immured himself, with a woman who had been his nurse, in little
better than a garret; and has ever since applied his talents to the
vilifying of his species. In one thing I must take the liberty to
instruct you; however different your sentiments may be (and different
they must be), you will suffer him to go on without contradiction;
otherwise, he will be silent immediately, and we shall not get a word
from him all the night after.” Harley promised to remember this
injunction, and accepted the invitation of his friend.
When they arrived at the house, they were informed that the gentleman was
come, and had been shown into the parlour. They found him sitting with a
daughter of his friend’s, about three years old, on his knee, whom he was
teaching the alphabet from a horn book: at a little distance stood a
sister of hers, some years older. “Get you away, miss,” said he to this
last; “you are a pert gossip, and I will have nothing to do with
you.”—“Nay,” answered she, “Nancy is your favourite; you are quite in
love with Nancy.”—“Take away that girl,” said he to her father, whom he
now observed to have entered the room; “she has woman about her already.”
The children were accordingly dismissed.
Betwixt that and supper-time he did not utter a syllable. When supper
came, he quarrelled with every dish at table, but eat of them all; only
exempting from his censures a salad, “which you have not spoiled,” said
he, “because you have not attempted to cook it.”
When the wine was set upon the table, he took from his pocket a
particular smoking apparatus, and filled his pipe, without taking any
more notice of Harley, or his friend, than if no such persons had been in
the room.
Harley could not help stealing a look of surprise at him; but his friend,
who knew his humour, returned it by annihilating his presence in the like
manner, and, leaving him to his own meditations, addressed himself
entirely to Harley.
In their discourse some mention happened to be made of an amiable
character, and the words _honour_ and _politeness_ were applied to it.
Upon this, the gentleman, laying down his pipe, and changing the tone of
his countenance, from an ironical grin to something more intently
contemptuous: “Honour,” said he: “Honour and Politeness! this is the coin
of the world, and passes current with the fools of it. You have
substituted the shadow Honour, instead of the substance Virtue; and have
banished the reality of friendship for the fictitious semblance which you
have termed Politeness: politeness, which consists in a certain
ceremonious jargon, more ridiculous to the ear of reason than the voice
of a puppet. You have invented sounds, which you worship, though they
tyrannize over your peace; and are surrounded with empty forms, which
take from the honest emotions of joy, and add to the poignancy of
misfortune.” “Sir!” said Harley—his friend winked to him, to remind him
of the caution he had received. He was silenced by the thought. The
philosopher turned his eye upon him: he examined him from top to toe,
with a sort of triumphant contempt; Harley’s coat happened to be a new
one; the other’s was as shabby as could possibly be supposed to be on the
back of a gentleman: there was much significance in his look with regard
to this coat; it spoke of the sleekness of folly and the threadbareness
of wisdom.
“Truth,” continued he, “the most amiable, as well as the most natural of
virtues, you are at pains to eradicate. Your very nurseries are
seminaries of falsehood; and what is called Fashion in manhood completes
the system of avowed insincerity. Mankind, in the gross, is a gaping
monster, that loves to be deceived, and has seldom been disappointed: nor
is their vanity less fallacious to your philosophers, who adopt modes of
truth to follow them through the paths of error, and defend paradoxes
merely to be singular in defending them. These are they whom ye term
Ingenious; ’tis a phrase of commendation I detest: it implies an attempt
to impose on my judgment, by flattering my imagination; yet these are
they whose works are read by the old with delight, which the young are
taught to look upon as the codes of knowledge and philosophy.
“Indeed, the education of your youth is every way preposterous; you waste
at school years in improving talents, without having ever spent an hour
in discovering them; one promiscuous line of instruction is followed,
without regard to genius, capacity, or probable situation in the
commonwealth. From this bear-garden of the pedagogue, a raw,
unprincipled boy is turned loose upon the world to travel; without any
ideas but those of improving his dress at Paris, or starting into taste
by gazing on some paintings at Rome. Ask him of the manners of the
people, and he will tell you that the skirt is worn much shorter in
France, and that everybody eats macaroni in Italy. When he returns home,
he buys a seat in parliament, and studies the constitution at Arthur’s.
“Nor are your females trained to any more useful purpose: they are
taught, by the very rewards which their nurses propose for good
behaviour, by the first thing like a jest which they hear from every male
visitor of the family, that a young woman is a creature to be married;
and when they are grown somewhat older, are instructed that it is the
purpose of marriage to have the enjoyment of pin-money, and the
expectation of a jointure.”
“These, {61} indeed, are the effects of luxury, which is, perhaps,
inseparable from a certain degree of power and grandeur in a nation. But
it is not simply of the progress of luxury that we have to complain: did
its votaries keep in their own sphere of thoughtless dissipation, we
might despise them without emotion; but the frivolous pursuits of
pleasure are mingled with the most important concerns of the state; and
public enterprise shall sleep till he who should guide its operation has
decided his bets at Newmarket, or fulfilled his engagement with a
favourite mistress in the country. We want some man of acknowledged
eminence to point our counsels with that firmness which the counsels of a
great people require. We have hundreds of ministers, who press forward
into office without having ever learned that art which is necessary for
every business: the art of thinking; and mistake the petulance, which
could give inspiration to smart sarcasms on an obnoxious measure in a
popular assembly, for the ability which is to balance the interest of
kingdoms, and investigate the latent sources of national superiority.
With the administration of such men the people can never be satisfied;
for besides that their confidence is gained only by the view of superior
talents, there needs that depth of knowledge, which is not only
acquainted with the just extent of power, but can also trace its
connection with the expedient, to preserve its possessors from the
contempt which attends irresolution, or the resentment which follows
temerity.”
* * * * *
[Here a considerable part is wanting.]
* * “In short, man is an animal equally selfish and vain. Vanity,
indeed, is but a modification of selfishness. From the latter, there are
some who pretend to be free: they are generally such as declaim against
the lust of wealth and power, because they have never been able to attain
any high degree in either: they boast of generosity and feeling. They
tell us (perhaps they tell us in rhyme) that the sensations of an honest
heart, of a mind universally benevolent, make up the quiet bliss which
they enjoy; but they will not, by this, be exempted from the charge of
selfishness. Whence the luxurious happiness they describe in their
little family-circles? Whence the pleasure which they feel, when they
trim their evening fires, and listen to the howl of winter’s wind?
Whence, but from the secret reflection of what houseless wretches feel
from it? Or do you administer comfort in affliction—the motive is at
hand; I have had it preached to me in nineteen out of twenty of your
consolatory discourses—the comparative littleness of our own misfortunes.
“With vanity your best virtues are grossly tainted: your benevolence,
which ye deduce immediately from the natural impulse of the heart,
squints to it for its reward. There are some, indeed, who tell us of the
satisfaction which flows from a secret consciousness of good actions:
this secret satisfaction is truly excellent—when we have some friend to
whom we may discover its excellence.”
He now paused a moment to re-light his pipe, when a clock, that stood at
his back, struck eleven; he started up at the sound, took his hat and his
cane, and nodding good night with his head, walked out of the room. The
gentleman of the house called a servant to bring the stranger’s surtout.
“What sort of a night is it, fellow?” said he.—“It rains, sir,” answered
the servant, “with an easterly wind.”—“Easterly for ever!” He made no
other reply; but shrugging up his shoulders till they almost touched his
ears, wrapped himself tight in his great coat, and disappeared.
“This is a strange creature,” said his friend to Harley. “I cannot say,”
answered he, “that his remarks are of the pleasant kind: it is curious to
observe how the nature of truth may be changed by the garb it wears;
softened to the admonition of friendship, or soured into the severity of
reproof: yet this severity may be useful to some tempers; it somewhat
resembles a file: disagreeable in its operation, but hard metals may be
the brighter for it.”
* * * * *