Effeminacy of character arises from a prevalence of the sensibility
over the will; or it consists in a want of fortitude to bear pain or to
undergo fatigue, however urgent the occasion. We meet with instances of
people who cannot lift up a little finger to save themselves from ruin,
nor give up the smallest indulgence for the sake of any other person.
They cannot put themselves out of their way on any account. No one makes
a greater outcry when the day of reckoning comes, or affects greater
compassion for the mischiefs they have occasioned; but till the time
comes, they feel nothing, they care for nothing. They live in the
present moment, are the creatures of the present impulse (whatever it
may be)--and beyond that, the universe is nothing to them. The slightest
toy countervails the empire of the world; they will not forego the
smallest inclination they feel, for any object that can be proposed to
them, or any reasons that can be urged for it. You might as well ask of
the gossamer not to wanton in the idle summer air, or of the moth not to
play with the flame that scorches it, as ask of these persons to put
off any enjoyment for a single instant, or to gird themselves up to
any enterprise of pith or moment. They have been so used to a studied
succession of agreeable sensations that the shortest pause is a
privation which they can by no means endure--it is like tearing
them from their very existence--they have been so inured to ease and
indolence, that the most trifling effort is like one of the tasks of
Hercules, a thing of impossibility, at which they shudder. They lie on
beds of roses, and spread their gauze wings to the sun and summer gale,
and cannot bear to put their tender feet to the ground, much less to
encounter the thorns and briars of the world. Life for them
Rolls o'er Elysian flowers its amber stream,
and they have no fancy for fishing in troubled waters. The ordinary
state of existence they regard as something importunate and vain,
and out of nature. What must they think of its trials and sharp
vicissitudes? Instead of voluntarily embracing pain, or labour, or
danger, or death, every sensation must be wound up to the highest pitch
of voluptuous refinement, every motion must be grace and elegance; they
live in a luxurious, endless dream, or
Die of a rose in aromatic pain!
Siren sounds must float around them; smiling forms must everywhere
meet their sight; they must tread a soft measure on painted carpets or
smooth-shaven lawns; books, arts, jests, laughter occupy every thought
and hour--what have they to do with the drudgery, the struggles, the
poverty, the disease or anguish which are the common lot of humanity?
These things are intolerable to them, even in imagination. They disturb
the enchantment in which they are lapt. They cause a wrinkle in the
clear and polished surface of their existence. They exclaim with
impatience and in agony, 'Oh, leave me to my repose!' How 'they shall
discourse the freezing hours away, when wind and rain beat dark December
down,' or 'bide the pelting of the pitiless storm,' gives them no
concern, it never once enters their heads. They close the shutters, draw
the curtains, and enjoy or shut out the whistling of the approaching
tempest 'They take no thought for the morrow,' not they. They do not
anticipate evils. Let them come when they will come, they will not run
to meet them. Nay more, they will not move one step to prevent them,
nor let any one else. The mention of such things is shocking; the very
supposition is a nuisance that must not be tolerated. The idea of the
obviate disagreeable consequences oppresses them to death, is an
exertion too great for their enervated imaginations. They are not like
Master Barnardine in _Measure for Measure_, who would not 'get up to
be hanged'--they would not get up to avoid being hanged. They are
completely wrapped up in themselves; but then all their self-love is
concentrated in the present minute. They have worked up their effeminate
and fastidious appetite of enjoyment to such a pitch that the whole of
their existence, every moment of it, must be made up of these exquisite
indulgences; or they will fling it all away, with indifference and
scorn. They stake their entire welfare on the gratification of the
passing instant. Their senses, their vanity, their thoughtless gaiety
have been pampered till they ache at the smallest suspension of
their perpetual dose of excitement, and they will purchase the hollow
happiness of the next five minutes by a mortgage on the independence and
comfort of years. They must have their will in everything, or they grow
sullen and peevish like spoiled children. Whatever they set their eyes
on, or make up their minds to, they must have that instant. They may pay
for it hereafter. But that is no matter. They snatch a joy beyond
the reach of fate, and consider the present time sacred, inviolable,
unaccountable to that hard, churlish, niggard, inexorable taskmaster,
the future. _Now or never_ is their motto. They are madly devoted to the
plaything, the ruling passion of the moment. What is to happen to them
a week hence is as if it were to happen to them a thousand years hence.
They put off the consideration for another day, and their heedless
unconcern laughs at it as a fable. Their life is 'a cell of ignorance,
travelling a-bed'; their existence is ephemeral; their thoughts are
insect-winged; their identity expires with the whim, the folly, the
passion of the hour.
Nothing but a miracle can rouse such people from their lethargy. It is
not to be expected, nor is it even possible in the natural course of
things. Pope's striking exclamation,
Oh! blindness to the future kindly given,
That each may fill the circuit mark'd by Heaven!
hardly applies here; namely, to evils that stare us in the face, and
that might be averted with the least prudence or resolution. But nothing
can be done. How should it? A slight evil, a distant danger, will not
move them; and a more imminent one only makes them turn away from it in
greater precipitation and alarm. The more desperate their affairs grow,
the more averse they are to look into them; and the greater the effort
required to retrieve them, the more incapable they are of it. At first,
they will not do anything; and afterwards, it is too late. The very
motives that imperiously urge them to self-reflection and amendment,
combine with their natural disposition to prevent it. This amounts
pretty nearly to a mathematical demonstration. Ease, vanity,
pleasure are the ruling passions in such cases. How will
you conquer these, or wean their infatuated votaries from them? By the
dread of hardship, disgrace, pain? They turn from them, and you who
point them out as the alternative, with sickly disgust; and instead of a
stronger effort of courage or self-denial to avert the crisis, hasten
it by a wilful determination to pamper the disease in every way, and arm
themselves, not with fortitude to bear or to repel the consequences, but
with judicial blindness to their approach. Will you rouse the indolent
procrastinator to an irksome but necessary effort, by showing him
how much he has to do? He will only draw back the more for all your
entreaties and representations. If of a sanguine turn, he will make
a slight attempt at a new plan of life, be satisfied with the first
appearance of reform, and relapse into indolence again. If timid and
undecided, the hopelessness of the undertaking will put him out of heart
with it, and he will stand still in despair. Will you save a vain man
from ruin, by pointing out the obloquy and ridicule that await him in
his present career? He smiles at your forebodings as fantastical; or the
more they are realised around him, the more he is impelled to keep out
the galling conviction, and the more fondly he clings to flattery and
death. He will not make a bold and resolute attempt to recover his
reputation, because that would imply that it was capable of being soiled
or injured; or he no sooner meditates some desultory project, than he
takes credit to himself for the execution, and is delighted to wear
his unearned laurels while the thing is barely talked of. The chance of
success relieves the uneasiness of his apprehensions; so that he makes
use of the interval only to flatter his favourite infirmity again. Would
you wean a man from sensual excesses by the inevitable consequences to
which they lead?--What holds more antipathy to pleasure than pain? The
mind given up to self-indulgence revolts at suffering, and throws it
from it as an unaccountable anomaly, as a piece of injustice when it
comes. Much less will it acknowledge any affinity with or subjection to
it as a mere threat. If the prediction does not immediately come true,
we laugh at the prophet of ill: if it is verified, we hate our adviser
proportionably, hug our vices the closer, and hold them dearer and
more precious the more they cost us. We resent wholesome counsel as an
impertinence, and consider those who warn us of impending mischief as
if they had brought it on our heads. We cry out with the poetical
enthusiast--
And let us nurse the fond deceit;
And what if we must die in sorrow?
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
Though grief and pain should come to-morrow?
But oh thou! who didst lend me speech when I was dumb, to whom I owe
it that I have not crept on my belly all the days of my life like the
serpent, but sometimes lift my forked crest or tread the empyrean, wake
thou out of thy mid-day slumbers! Shake off the heavy honeydew of thy
soul, no longer lulled with that Circean cup, drinking thy own thoughts
with thy own ears, but start up in thy promised likeness, and shake the
pillared rottenness of the world! Leave not thy sounding words in air,
write them in marble, and teach the coming age heroic truths! Up, and
wake the echoes of Time! Rich in deepest lore, die not the bed-rid churl
of knowledge, leaving the survivors unblest! Set, set as thou didst rise
in pomp and gladness! Dart like the sunflower one broad, golden flash of
light; and ere thou ascendest thy native sky, show us the steps by which
thou didst scale the Heaven of philosophy, with Truth and Fancy for thy
equal guides, that we may catch thy mantle, rainbow-dipped, and still
read thy words dear to Memory, dearer to Fame!
There is another branch of this character, which is the trifling or
dilatory character. Such persons are always creating difficulties, and
unable or unwilling to remove them. They cannot brush aside a cobweb,
and are stopped by an insect's wing. Their character is imbecility,
rather than effeminacy. The want of energy and resolution in the persons
last described arises from the habitual and inveterate predominance of
other feelings and motives; in these it is a mere want of energy and
resolution, that is, an inherent natural defect of vigour of nerve and
voluntary power. There is a specific levity about such persons, so that
you cannot propel them to any object, or give them a decided _momentum_
in any direction or pursuit. They turn back, as it were, on the occasion
that should project them forward with manly force and vehemence. They
shrink from intrepidity of purpose, and are alarmed at the idea of
attaining their end too soon. They will not act with steadiness or
spirit, either for themselves or you. If you chalk out a line of conduct
for them, or commission them to execute a certain task, they are sure
to conjure up some insignificant objection or fanciful impediment in the
way, and are withheld from striking an effectual blow by mere feebleness
of character. They may be officious, good-natured, friendly, generous in
disposition, but they are of no use to any one. They will put themselves
to twice the trouble you desire, not to carry your point, but to defeat
it; and in obviating needless objections, neglect the main business. If
they do what you want, it is neither at the time nor in the manner that
you wish. This timidity amounts to treachery; for by always anticipating
some misfortune or disgrace, they realise their unmeaning apprehensions.
The little bears sway in their minds over the great: a small
inconvenience outweighs a solid and indispensable advantage; and their
strongest bias is uniformly derived from the weakest motive. They
hesitate about the best way of beginning a thing till the opportunity
for action is lost, and are less anxious about its being done than the
precise manner of doing it. They will destroy a passage sooner than let
an objectionable word pass; and are much less concerned about the truth
or the beauty of an image than about the reception it will meet with
from the critics. They alter what they write, not because it is, but
because it may possibly be wrong; and in their tremulous solicitude to
avoid imaginary blunders, run into real ones. What is curious enough is,
that with all this caution and delicacy, they are continually liable
to extraordinary oversights. They are, in fact, so full of all sorts of
idle apprehensions, that they do not know how to distinguish real
from imaginary grounds of apprehension; and they often give some
unaccountable offence, either from assuming a sudden boldness half in
sport, or while they are secretly pluming themselves on their dexterity
in avoiding everything exceptionable; and the same distraction of motive
and shortsightedness which gets them into scrapes hinders them from
seeing their way out of them. Such persons (often of ingenious and
susceptible minds) are constantly at cross-purposes with themselves and
others; will neither do things nor let others do them; and whether they
succeed or fail, never feel confident or at their case. They spoil the
freshness and originality of their own thoughts by asking contradictory
advice; and in befriending others, while they are _about it and about
it,_ you might have done the thing yourself a dozen times over.
There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision
of character. I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it;
who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it.
He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes
the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends or
to accomplish a useful object. If he can serve you, he will do so; if
he cannot, he will say so without keeping you in needless suspense,
or laying you under pretended obligations. The applying to him in any
laudable undertaking is not like stirring 'a dish of skimmed milk.'
There is stuff in him, and it is of the right practicable sort. He is
not all his life at hawk-and-buzzard whether he shall be a Whig or a
Tory, a friend or a foe, a knave or a fool; but thinks that life is
short, and that there is no time to play fantastic tricks in it, to
tamper with principles, or trifle with individual feelings. If he gives
you a character, he does not add a damning clause to it: he does not
pick holes in you lest others should, or anticipate objections lest he
should be thought to be blinded by a childish partiality. His object is
to serve you; and not to play the game into your enemies' hands.
A generous friendship no cold medium knows,
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows.
I should be sorry for any one to say what he did not think of me; but I
should not be pleased to see him slink out of his acknowledged opinion,
lest it should not be confirmed by malice or stupidity. He who is well
acquainted and well inclined to you ought to give the tone, not to
receive it from others, and may set it to what key he pleases in certain
cases.
There are those of whom it has been said, that to them an obligation is
a reason for not doing anything, and there are others who are invariably
led to do the reverse of what they should. The last are perverse, the
first impracticable people. Opposed to the effeminate in disposition
and manners are the coarse and brutal. As those were all softness and
smoothness, these affect or are naturally attracted to whatever is
vulgar and violent, harsh and repulsive in tone, in modes of speech, in
forms of address, in gesture and behaviour. Thus there are some who ape
the lisping of the fine lady, the drawling of the fine gentleman, and
others who all their life delight in and catch the uncouth dialect, the
manners and expressions of clowns and hoydens. The last are governed by
an instinct of the disagreeable, by an appetite and headlong rage for
violating decorum and hurting other people's feelings, their own being
excited and enlivened by the shock. They deal in home truths, unpleasant
reflections, and unwelcome matters of fact; as the others are all
compliment and complaisance, insincerity and insipidity.
We may observe an effeminacy of style, in some degree corresponding to
effeminacy of character. Writers of this stamp are great interliners
of what they indite, alterers of indifferent phrases, and the plague of
printers' devils. By an effeminate style I would be understood to mean
one that is all florid, all fine; that cloys by its sweetness, and tires
by its sameness. Such are what Dryden calls 'calm, peaceable writers.'
They only aim to please, and never offend by truth or disturb by
singularity. Every thought must be beautiful _per se_, every expression
equally fine. They do not delight in vulgarisms, but in common-places,
and dress out unmeaning forms in all the colours of the rainbow. They
do not go out of their way to think--that would startle the indolence
of the reader: they cannot express a trite thought in common words--that
would be a sacrifice of their own vanity. They are not sparing of
tinsel, for it costs nothing. Their works should be printed, as they
generally are, on hot-pressed paper, with vignette margins. The Della
Cruscan school comes under this description, which is now nearly
exploded. Lord Byron is a pampered and aristocratic writer, but he is
not effeminate, or we should not have his works with only the printer's
name to them! I cannot help thinking that the fault of Mr. Keats's
poems was a deficiency in masculine energy of style. He had beauty,
tenderness, delicacy, in an uncommon degree, but there was a want of
strength and substance. His _Endymion_ is a very delightful description
of the illusions of a youthful imagination given up to airy dreams--we
have flowers, clouds, rainbows, moonlight, all sweet sounds and smells,
and Oreads and Dryads flitting by--but there is nothing tangible in it,
nothing marked or palpable--we have none of the hardy spirit or rigid
forms of antiquity. He painted his own thoughts and character, and did
not transport himself into the fabulous and heroic ages. There is a
want of action, of character, and so far of imagination, but there is
exquisite fancy. All is soft and fleshy, without bone or muscle. We
see in him the youth without the manhood of poetry. His genius breathed
'vernal delight and joy.' 'Like Maia's son he stood and shook his
plumes,' with fragrance filled. His mind was redolent of spring. He had
not the fierceness of summer, nor the richness of autumn, and winter he
seemed not to have known till he felt the icy hand of death!