WE met as usual at our old spot on the lawn for our next reading. I
forget what took place before reading, except that Ellesmere was very
jocose about our reading “Fiction” in-doors, and the following “November
Essay,” as he called it, “under a jovial sun, and with the power of
getting up and walking away from each other to any extent.”
ON THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS.
The “Iliad” for war; the “Odyssey” for wandering; but where is the great
domestic epic? Yet it is but commonplace to say, that passions may rage
round a tea-table, which would not have misbecome men dashing at one
another in war-chariots; and evolutions of patience and temper are
performed at the fireside, worthy to be compared with the Retreat of the
Ten Thousand. Men have worshipped some fantastic being for living alone
in a wilderness; but social martyrdoms place no saints upon the calendar.
We may blind ourselves to it if we like, but the hatreds and disgusts
that there are behind friendship, relationship, service, and, indeed,
proximity of all kinds, is one of the darkest spots upon earth. The
various relations of life, which bring people together, cannot, as we
know, be perfectly fulfilled except in a state where there will, perhaps,
be no occasion for any of them. It is no harm, however, to endeavour to
see whether there are any methods which may make these relations in the
least degree more harmonious now.
In the first place, if people are to live happily together, they must not
fancy, because they are thrown together now, that all their lives have
been exactly similar up to the present time, that they started exactly
alike, and that they are to be for the future of the same mind. A
thorough conviction of the difference of men is the great thing to be
assured of in social knowledge: it is to life what Newton’s law is to
astronomy. Sometimes men have a knowledge of it with regard to the world
in general: they do not expect the outer world to agree with them in all
points, but are vexed at not being able to drive their own tastes and
opinions into those they live with. Diversities distress them. They
will not see that there are many forms of virtue and wisdom. Yet we
might as well say, “Why all these stars; why this difference; why not all
one star?”
Many of the rules for people living together in peace follow from the
above. For instance, not to interfere unreasonably with others, not to
ridicule their tastes, not to question and re-question their resolves,
not to indulge in perpetual comment on their proceedings, and to delight
in their having other pursuits than ours, are all based upon a thorough
perception of the simple fact that they are not we.
Another rule for living happily with others is to avoid having stock
subjects of disputation. It mostly happens, when people live much
together, that they come to have certain set topics, around which, from
frequent dispute, there is such a growth of angry words, mortified
vanity, and the like, that the original subject of difference becomes a
standing subject for quarrel; and there is a tendency in all minor
disputes to drift down to it.
Again, if people wish to live well together, they must not hold too much
to logic, and suppose that everything is to be settled by sufficient
reason. Dr. Johnson saw this clearly with regard to married people, when
he said, “Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretchedness, who
should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute detail
of a domestic day.” But the application should be much more general than
he made it. There is no time for such reasonings, and nothing that is
worth them. And when we recollect how two lawyers, or two politicians,
can go on contending, and that there is no end of one-sided reasoning on
any subject, we shall not be sure that such contention is the best mode
for arriving at truth. But certainly it is not the way to arrive at good
temper.
If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism upon
those with whom you live. The number of people who have taken out
judges’ patents for themselves is very large in any society. Now it
would be hard for a man to live with another who was always criticising
his actions, even if it were kindly and just criticism. It would be like
living between the glasses of a microscope. But these self-elected
judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to have the persons they
judge brought before them in the guise of culprits.
One of the most provoking forms of the criticism above alluded to is that
which may be called criticism over the shoulder. “Had I been consulted,”
“Had you listened to me,” “But you always will,” and such short scraps of
sentences may remind many of us of dissertations which we have suffered
and inflicted, and of which we cannot call to mind any soothing effect.
Another rule is, not to let familiarity swallow up all courtesy. Many of
us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as we
say about strangers behind their backs. There is no place, however,
where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly think it
would be superfluous. You may say more truth, or rather speak out more
plainly, to your associates, but not less courteously than you do to
strangers.
Again, we must not expect more from the society of our friends and
companions than it can give, and especially must not expect contrary
things. It is something arrogant to talk of travelling over other minds
(mind being, for what we know, infinite); but still we become familiar
with the upper views, tastes, and tempers of our associates. And it is
hardly in man to estimate justly what is familiar to him. In travelling
along at night, as Hazlitt says, we catch a glimpse into cheerful-looking
rooms with light blazing in them, and we conclude involuntarily how happy
the inmates must be. Yet there is heaven and hell in those rooms—the
same heaven and hell that we have known in others.
* * * * *
There are two great classes of promoters of social happiness—cheerful
people, and people who have some reticence. The latter are more secure
benefits to society even than the former. They are non-conductors of all
the heats and animosities around them. To have peace in a house, or a
family, or any social circle, the members of it must beware of passing on
hasty and uncharitable speeches, which, the whole of the context seldom
being told, is often not conveying but creating mischief. They must be
very good people to avoid doing this; for let Human Nature say what it
will, it likes sometimes to look on at a quarrel, and that not altogether
from ill-nature, but from a love of excitement, for the same reason that
Charles II. liked to attend the debates in the Lords, because they were
“as good as a play.”
* * * * *
We come now to the consideration of temper, which might have been
expected to be treated first. But to cut off the means and causes of bad
temper is, perhaps, of as much importance as any direct dealing with the
temper itself. Besides, it is probable that in small social circles
there is more suffering from unkindness than ill-temper. Anger is a
thing that those who live under us suffer more from than those who live
with us. But all the forms of ill-humour and sour-sensitiveness, which
especially belong to equal intimacy (though indeed, they are common to
all), are best to be met by impassiveness. When two sensitive persons
are shut up together, they go on vexing each other with a reproductive
irritability. {93} But sensitive and hard people get on well together.
The supply of temper is not altogether out of the usual laws of supply
and demand.
* * * * *
Intimate friends and relations should be careful when they go out into
the world together, or admit others to their own circle, that they do not
make a bad use of the knowledge which they have gained of each other by
their intimacy. Nothing is more common than this, and did it not mostly
proceed from mere carelessness, it would be superlatively ungenerous.
You seldom need wait for the written life of a man to hear about his
weaknesses, or what are supposed to be such, if you know his intimate
friends, or meet him in company with them.
* * * * *
Lastly, in conciliating those we live with, it is most surely done, not
by consulting their interests, nor by giving way to their opinions, so
much as by not offending their tastes. The most refined part of us lies
in this region of taste, which is perhaps a result of our whole being
rather than a part of our nature, and, at any rate, is the region of our
most subtle sympathies and antipathies.
* * * * *
It may be said that if the great principles of Christianity were attended
to, all such rules, suggestions, and observations as the above would be
needless. True enough! Great principles are at the bottom of all
things; but to apply them to daily life, many little rules, precautions,
and insights are needed. Such things hold a middle place between real
life and principles, as form does between matter and spirit, moulding the
one and expressing the other.
* * * * *
_Ellesmere_. Quite right that last part. Everybody must have known
really good people, with all Christian temper, but having so little
Christian prudence as to do a great deal of mischief in society.
_Dunsford_. There is one case, my dear Milverton, which I do not think
you have considered: the case where people live unhappily together, not
from any bad relations between them, but because they do not agree about
the treatment of others. A just person, for instance, who would bear
anything for himself or herself, must remonstrate, at the hazard of any
disagreement, at injustice to others.
_Milverton_. Yes. That, however, is a case to be decided upon higher
considerations than those I have been treating of. A man must do his
duty in the way of preventing injustice, and take what comes of it.
_Ellesmere_. For people to live happily together, the real secret is
that they should not live too much together. Of course, you cannot say
that; it would sound harsh, and cut short the essay altogether.
Again, you talk about tastes and “region of subtle sympathies,” and all
that. I have observed that if people’s vanity is pleased, they live well
enough together. Offended vanity is the great separator. You hear a man
(call him B) saying that he is really not himself before So-and-so; tell
him that So-and-so admires him very much and is himself rather abashed
before B, and B is straightway comfortable, and they get on harmoniously
together, and you hear no more about subtle sympathies or antipathies.
_Dunsford_. What a low view you do take of things sometimes, Ellesmere!
_Milverton_. I should not care how low it was, but it is not fair—at
least, it does not contain the whole matter. In the very case he has
put, there was a subtle embarrassment between B and So-and-so. Well,
now, let these people not merely meet occasionally, but be obliged to
live together, without any such explanation as Ellesmere has imagined,
and they will be very uncomfortable from causes that you cannot impute to
vanity. It takes away much of the savour of life to live amongst those
with whom one has not anything like one’s fair value. It may not be
mortified vanity, but unsatisfied sympathy, which causes this discomfort.
B thinks that the other does not know him; he feels that he has no place
with the other. When there is intense admiration on one side, there is
hardly a care in the mind of the admiring one as to what estimation he is
held in. But, in ordinary cases, some clearly defined respect and
acknowledgment of worth is needed on both sides. See how happy a man is
in any office or service who is acknowledged to do something well. How
comfortable he is with his superiors! He has his place. It is not
exactly a satisfaction of his vanity, but an acknowledgment of his useful
existence that contents him. I do not mean to say that there are not
innumerable claims for acknowledgment of merit and service made by
rampant vanity and egotism, which claims cannot be satisfied, ought not
to be satisfied, and which, being unsatisfied, embitter people. But I
think your word Vanity will not explain all the feelings we have been
talking about.
_Ellesmere_. Perhaps not.
_Dunsford_. Certainly not.
_Ellesmere_. Well, at any rate, you will admit that there is a class of
dreadfully humble people who make immense claims at the very time that
they are explaining that they have no claims. They say they know they
cannot be esteemed; they are well aware that they are not wanted, and so
on, all the while making it a sort of grievance and a claim that they are
not what they know themselves not to be; whereas, if they did but fall
back upon their humility, and keep themselves quiet about their demerits,
they would be strong then, and in their place and happy, doing what they
could.
_Milverton_. It must be confessed that these people do make their
humility somewhat obnoxious. Yet, after all, you allow that they know
their deficiencies, and they only say, “I know I have not much to
recommend me, but I wish to be loved, nevertheless.”
_Ellesmere_. Ah, if they only said it a few times! Besides, there is a
little envy mixed up with the humility that I mean.
_Dunsford_. Travelling is a great trial of people’s ability to live
together.
_Ellesmere_. Yes. Lavater says that you do not know a man until you
have divided an inheritance with him; but I think a long journey with him
will do.
_Milverton_. Well, and what is it in travelling that makes people
disagree? Not direct selfishness, but injudicious management; stupid
regrets, for instance, at things not being different from what they are,
or from what they might have been, if “the other route” had been chosen;
fellow-travellers punishing each other with each other’s tastes; getting
stock subjects of disputation; laughing unseasonably at each other’s
vexations and discomforts; and endeavouring to settle everything by the
force of sufficient reason, instead of by some authorised will, or by
tossing up. Thus, in the short time of a journey, almost all modes and
causes of human disagreement are brought into action.
_Ellesmere_. My favourite one not being the least—over-much of each
other’s company.
For my part, I think one of the greatest bores of companionship is, not
merely that people wish to fit tastes and notions on you just as they
might the first pair of ready-made shoes they meet with, a process
amusing enough to the bystander, but exquisitely uncomfortable to the
person being ready-shod: but that they bore you with never-ending talk
about their pursuits, even when they know that you do not work in the
same groove with them, and that they cannot hope to make you do so.
_Dunsford_. Nobody can accuse you of that fault, Ellesmere: I never
heard you dilate much upon anything that interested you, though I have
known you have some pet subject, and to be working at it for months. But
this comes of your coldness of nature.
_Ellesmere_. Well, it might bear a more favourable construction. But to
go back to the essay. It only contemplates the fact of people living
together as equals, if we may so say; but in general, of course, you must
add some other relationship or connection than that of merely being
together.
_Milverton_. I had not overlooked that; but there are certain general
rules in the matter that may be applied to nearly all relationship, just
as I have taken that one from Johnson, applied by him to married life,
about not endeavouring to settle all things by reasoning, and have given
it a general application which, I believe, it will bear.
_Ellesmere_. There is one thing that I should think must often make
women very unreasonable and unpleasant companions. Oh, you may both hold
up your hands and eyes, but I am not married, and can say what I please.
Of course you put on the proper official look of astonishment; and I will
duly report it. But I was going to say that Chivalry, which has
doubtless done a great deal of good, has also done a great deal of harm.
Women may talk the greatest unreason out of doors, and nobody kindly
informs them that it is unreason. They do not talk much before clever
men, and when they do, their words are humoured and dandled as children’s
sayings are. Now, I should fancy—mind, I do not want either of you to
say that my fancy is otherwise than quite unreasonable—I should fancy
that when women have to hear reason at home it must sound odd to them.
The truth is, you know, we cannot pet anything much without doing it
mischief. You cannot pet the intellect, any more than the will, without
injuring it. Well then, again, if you put people upon a pedestal and do
a great deal of worship around them, I cannot think but the will in such
cases must become rather corrupted, and that lessons of obedience must
fall rather harshly—
_Dunsford_. Why, you Mahometan, you Turk of a lawyer—would you do away
with all the high things of courtesy, tenderness for the weaker, and—
_Milverton_. No, I see what he means; and there is something in it.
Many a woman is brought up in unreason and self-will from these causes
that he has given, as many a man from other causes; but there is one
great corrective that he has omitted, and which is, that all forms,
fashions, and outward things have a tendency to go down before realities
when they come hand to hand together. Knowledge and judgment prevail.
Governing is apt to fall to the right person in private as in public
affairs.
_Ellesmere_. Those who give way in public affairs, and let the men who
can do a thing do it, are so far wise that they know what is to be done,
mostly. But the very things I am arguing against are the unreason and
self-will, which being constantly pampered, do not appreciate reason or
just sway. Besides, is there not a force in ill-humour and unreason to
which you constantly see the wisest bend? You will come round to my
opinion some day. I do not want, though, to convince you. It is no
business of mine.
_Milverton_. Well, I may be wrong, but I think, when we come to consider
education, I can show you how the dangers you fear may be greatly
obviated, without Chivalry being obliged to put on a wig and gown, and be
wise.
_Dunsford_. Meanwhile, let us enjoy the delightful atmosphere of
courtesy, unreasonable sometimes, if you like, which saves many people
being put down with the best arguments in the most convincing manner, or
being weighed, estimated, and given way to, so as not to spoil them.
_Ellesmere_. Do not tell, either of you, what I have been saying. I
shall always be poked up into some garret when I come to see you, if you
do.
_Dunsford_. I think the most curious thing, as regards people living
together, is the intense ignorance they sometimes are in of each other.
Many years ago, one or other of you said something of this kind to me,
and I have often thought of it since.
_Milverton_. People fulfil a relation towards each other, and they only
know each other in that relation, especially if it is badly managed by
the superior one; but any way the relationship involves some ignorance.
They perform orbits round each other, each gyrating, too, upon his own
axis, and there are parts of the character of each which are never
brought into view of the other.
_Ellesmere_. I should carry this notion of yours, Milverton, farther
than you do. There is a peculiar mental relation soon constituted
between associates of any kind, which confines and prevents complete
knowledge on both sides. Each man, in some measure therefore, knows
others only through himself. Tennyson makes Ulysses say,
“I am a part of all that I have seen;”
it might have run,
“I am a part of all that I have heard.”
_Dunsford_. Ellesmere becoming metaphysical and transcendental!
_Ellesmere_. Well, well, we will leave these heights, and descend in
little drops of criticism. There are two or three things you might have
pointed out, Milverton. Perhaps you would say that they are included in
what you have said, but I think not. You talk of the mischief of much
comment on each other amongst those who live together. You might have
shown, I think, that in the case of near friends and relations this
comment also deepens into interference—at least it partakes of that
nature. Friends and relations should, therefore, be especially careful
to avoid needless comments on each other. They do just the contrary.
That is one of the reasons why they often hate one another so much.
_Dunsford_. Ellesmere!
_Ellesmere_. Protest, if you like, my dear Dunsford.
Dissentient,
1. Because I wish it were not so.
2. Because I am sorry that it is.
(Signed) DUNSFORD.
_Milverton_. “Hate” is too strong a word, Ellesmere; what you say would
be true enough, if you would put “are not in sympathy with.”
_Ellesmere_. “Have a quiet distaste for.” That is the proper medium.
Now, to go to another matter. You have not put the case of over-managing
people, who are tremendous to live with.
_Milverton_. I have spoken about “interfering unreasonably with others.”
_Ellesmere_. That does not quite convey what I mean. It is when the
manager and the managee are both of the same mind as to the thing to be
done; but the former insists, and instructs, and suggests, and foresees,
till the other feels that all free agency for him is gone.
_Milverton_. It is a sad thing to consider how much of their abilities
people turn to tiresomeness. You see a man who would be very agreeable
if he were not so observant: another who would be charming, if he were
deaf and dumb: a third delightful, if he did not vex all around him with
superfluous criticism.
_Ellesmere_. A hit at me that last, I suspect. But I shall go on. You
have not, I think, made enough merit of independence in companionship.
If I were to put into an aphorism what I mean, I should say, Those who
depend wholly on companionship are the worst companions; or thus: Those
deserve companionship who can do without it. There, Mr. Aphoriser
General, what do you say to that?
_Milverton_. Very good, but—
_Ellesmere_. Of course a “but” to other people’s aphorisms, as if every
aphorism had not buts innumerable. We critics, you know, cannot abide
criticism. We do all the criticism that is needed ourselves. I wonder
at the presumption sometimes of you wretched authors. But to proceed.
You have not said anything about the mischief of superfluous condolence
amongst people who live together. I flatter myself that I could condole
anybody out of all peace of mind.
_Milverton_. All depends upon whether condolence goes with the grain, or
against the grain, of vanity. I know what you mean, however: For
instance, it is a very absurd thing to fret much over other people’s
courses, not considering the knowledge and discipline that there is in
any course that a man may take. And it is still more absurd to be
constantly showing the people fretted over that you are fretting over
them. I think a good deal of what you call superfluous condolence would
come under the head of superfluous criticism.
_Ellesmere_. Not altogether. In companionship, when an evil happens to
one of the circle, the others should simply attempt to share and lighten
it, not to expound it, or dilate on it, or make it the least darker. The
person afflicted generally apprehends all the blackness sufficiently.
Now, unjust abuse by the world is to me like the howling of the wind at
night when one is warm within. Bring any draught of it into one’s house
though, and it is not so pleasant.
_Dunsford_. Talking of companionship, do not you think there is often a
peculiar feeling of home where age or infirmity is? The arm-chair of the
sick or the old is the centre of the house. They think, perhaps, that
they are unimportant; but all the household hopes and cares flow to them
and from them.
_Milverton_. I quite agree with you. What you have just depicted is a
beautiful sight, especially when, as you often see, the age or infirmity
is not in the least selfish or exacting.
_Ellesmere_. We have said a great deal about the companionship of human
beings; but, upon my word, we ought to have kept a few words for our dog
friends. Rollo has been lolling out his great tongue, and looking
wistfully from face to face, as we each began our talk. A few minutes
ago he was quite concerned, thinking I was angry with you, when I would
not let you “but” my aphorism. I am not sure which of the three I should
rather go out walking with now: Dunsford, Rollo, Milverton. The middle
one is the safest companion. I am sure not to get out of humour with
him. But I have no objection to try the whole three: only I vote for
much continuity of silence, as we have had floods of discussion to-day.
_Dunsford_. Agreed!
_Ellesmere_. Come, Rollo, you may bark now, as you have been silent,
like a wise dog, all the morning.