This is a very common question, usually put and answered with more
or less levity. We seldom hear of any one answering very favourably
as to the usage he experiences from the world. More generally, the
questioned seems to feel that his treatment is not, and never has
been, quite what it ought to be. It has sometimes occurred to me,
that a great oversight is committed in our so seldom putting to
ourselves the co-relative question: What have I done to make the
world use me well? What merit have I shewn--by what good intention
towards the world have I been animated--what has been the positive
amount of those services of mine on which I found my pretensions to
the world's rewards? All of these are interrogations which it would
be necessary to answer satisfactorily before we could be truly
entitled to take measure of the world's goodness to us in return;
for surely it is not to be expected that the world is to pay in mere
expectancy: time enough, in all conscience, when the service has
been rendered, or at soonest, when a reasonable ground of hope has
been established that it will not be withheld or performed
slightingly. Only too much room there is to fear that, if these
questions were put and faithfully answered, the ordinary result
would be a conviction that the world had used us quite as well as we
deserved.
Men are of course prevented from going through this process by their
self-love. Unwillingness to see or own their shortcomings, keeps
them in a sort of delusion on the subject. Well, I do not hope to
make an extensive change upon them in this respect; but perhaps it
may not be impossible to rouse one here and there to the correct
view, and thus accomplish a little good.
Let us address ourselves to commercial life first, for the labour by
which man lives is at the bottom of everything. Here we meet the now
well-recognised principle in political economy, that generally
wages, salaries, remunerations of all kinds, are in pretty exact
relation to the value of the services performed--this value being of
course determined, in a great degree, by the easiness or difficulty
of the work, the commonness or rarity of the faculties and skill
required for it, the risk of non-success in the profession, and so
forth. Many a good fellow who feels that his income is
inconveniently small, and wonders why it is not greater, might have
the mystery solved if he would take a clear, unprejudiced view of
the capacity in which he is acting towards the public. Is he a slave
of the desk, in some office of routine business? Then let him
consider how many hundreds of similar men would answer an
advertisement of his seat being vacant. The fatal thing in his case
evidently is, that the faculties and skill required in his situation
are possessed by so many of his fellow-creatures. Is he a shopkeeper
in some common line of business?--say a draper. Then let him
consider how easy it is to be a draper, and how simple are the
details of such a trade. While there are so many other drapers in
the same street, his going out of business would never be felt as an
inconvenience. He is perhaps not doing any real good to the public
at all, but only interloping with the already too small business of
those who were in 'the line' before him. Let him think of the many
hours he spends in idleness, or making mere appearances of business,
and ask if he is really doing any effective service to his
fellow-creatures by keeping a shop at all. It may be a hardship to
him to have failed in a good intention; but this cannot be helped.
He may succeed better in some other scheme. Let him quit this, and
try another, or set up in a place where there is what is called 'an
opening'--that is, where his services are required--the point
essential to his getting any reward for his work. We sometimes see
most wonderful efforts made by individuals in an overdone trade; for
example, those of a hatter, who feels that he must give mankind a
special direction to his shop, or die. Half-a-dozen tortoise-like
missionaries do nothing but walk about the streets from morning to
night, proclaiming from carapace and plastron,[1] that there are no
hats equal to those at No. 98 of such a street. A van like the
temple of Juggernauth parades about all day, propagating the same
faith. 'If you want a good hat,' exclaims a pathetic poster, 'try
No. 98.' As you walk along the street, a tiny bill is insinuated
into your hand, for no other purpose, as you learn on perusing it,
but to impress upon you the great truth, that there are no hats in
the world either so good or so cheap as those at No. 98. The same
dogma meets you in omnibuses, at railway platforms, and every other
place where it can be expected that mankind will pause for a moment,
and so have time to take in an idea. But it is all in vain if there
be a sufficient supply of good and cheap hats already in that
portion of the earth's surface. The superfluous hatter must submit
to the all-prevailing law, that for labours not required, and an
expenditure of capital useless as regards the public, there can be
no reward, no return.
Sometimes great inconveniences are experienced in consequence of
local changes; such as those effected by railways, and the
displacement of hand-labour by machinery. A country inn that has
supplied post-horses since the days of the civil war, is all at
once, in consequence of the opening of some branch-line, deserted by
its business. It is a pitiable case; but the poor landlord must not
attempt to be an innkeeper without business, for then he would be a
misapplied human being, and would starve. Now the world uses him a
little hardly in the diversion of his customers; that may be
allowed: we must all lay our account with such hardships so long as
each person is left to see mainly after himself. But if he were to
persist in keeping his house open, and thus reduce himself to
uselessness, he would not be entitled to think himself ill-used by
reason of his making no profits, seeing that he did nothing for the
public to entitle him to a remuneration. The poor handloom
weavers--I grieve to think of the hardships they suffer. Well do I
remember when, in 1813 or 1814, a good workman in this craft could
realise 36s. a week. There were even traditions then of men who had
occasionally eaten pound-notes upon bread and butter, or allowed
their wives to spend L.8 upon a fine china tea-service. There being
a copious production of cotton-thread by machinery, but no machinery
to make it into cloth, was the cause of the high wages then given to
weavers. Afterwards came the powerloom; and weavers can now only
make perhaps 4s. 6d. per week, even while working for longer hours
than is good for their health. The result is most lamentable; but it
cannot be otherwise, for the public will only reward services in the
ratio of the value of these services to itself. It will not
encourage a human being, with his glorious apparatus of intelligence
and reflection, to mis-expend himself upon work which can be
executed equally well by unthinking machinery. Were the poor weavers
able so far to shake themselves free from what is perhaps a very
natural prejudice, as to ask what do we do to entitle us to any
better usage from the public, they would see that the fault lies in
their continuing to be weavers at all. They are precisely as the
innkeeper would be, if he kept his house open after the railway had
taken all his customers another way.
There are many cases in the professional walks of life fully as
deplorable as that of the weavers. Few things in the world are more
painful to contemplate than a well-educated and able man vainly
struggling to get bread as a physician, an artist, or an author. It
is of course right that such a man should not be too ready to
abandon the struggle as hopeless; for a little perseverance and
well-directed energy may bring him into a good position. But if a
fair experiment has been made, and it clearly appears that his
services are not wanted, the professional aspirant ought undoubtedly
to pause, and take a full unprejudiced view of his relation to the
world. 'Am I,' he may say, 'to expect reward if I persist in
offering the world what it does not want? Are my fellow-creatures
wrong in withholding a subsistence from me, while I am rather
consulting my own tastes and inclinations than their necessities?'
It may then occur to him that the great law must somehow be
obeyed--a something must be done for mankind which they require, and
it must be done where and how they require it, in order that each
individual may have a true claim upon the rest. To get into the
right and fitting place in the social machine may be difficult; but
there is no alternative. Let him above everything dismiss from his
mind the notion, that others can seriously help him. Let him be
self-helpful, think and do for himself, and he will have the better
chance of success.
We now come to a second branch of the subject--namely, as regards
our conduct and manners in the scenes of social life. One might
suppose it to be a very clear thing, that a person possessing no
pleasing accomplishment could never be so agreeable a member of
society as one who possessed one or more of such qualifications. It
might seem very evident, that a person who had never taken any
trouble to acquire such accomplishments, did not deserve so much of
society as one who had taken such trouble. Yet such is the blinding
influence of self-love, that we continually find the dull and
unaccomplished speaking and acting as if they considered themselves
entitled to equal regard with others who, on the contrary, can
contribute greatly to the enjoyments of their fellow-creatures. This
is surely most unreasonable--it is, as in the case of the
unnecessary shopkeeper or weaver, to desire the reward and yet not
perform the service. Were such persons to clear themselves of
prejudice, and take an unflattering view of their relation to
society, they would see that the reward can only be properly
expected where it has been worked for. They might in some instances
be prompted to make efforts to attain some of those accomplishments
which contribute to make the social hour pass agreeably, and thus
attain to a true desert, besides 'advancing themselves in the scale
of thinking beings.' If not, they might at least learn to submit
unrepiningly to that comparatively moderate degree of notice and
regard which is the due of those who are perfectly ordinary in their
minds, and fit only to take a place amongst the audience.
Society, as is well known, has its favourites, and also its
unpopular characters. If we dissect the character of the favourite,
we shall invariably find a great substratum of the amiable. He will
probably have accomplishments also, and thus be able to add to the
happiness of his fellows. It is not improbable that in many cases a
good share of love of approbation will be detected; but this is of
no consequence in the matter. The general fact we assume to be, that
the genuinely amiable is there in some force. It will, I believe, be
likewise found that the unpopular character has something too much
of the centripetal system about him--that is to say, desires things
to centre in himself as much as possible--and neither has any great
natural impulse to the amiable, nor will take the trouble to assume
the complaisant. Now, it is not uncommon to observe traces of
dissatisfaction in the unpopular characters, as if they felt
themselves to be treated unjustly by the world. But can these
persons reasonably expect to be received with the same favour as men
who are at once gentle and inoffensive in their ordinary demeanour,
and actively good among their fellow-creatures? Certainly not. Let
us see here, too, the complaining party take an unprejudiced view of
his relation to society. Let him understand that he only will be
loved if he is lovable, and we may hope to see him taking some pains
to correct his selfishness, and both seem and be a kind and genial
man. Most assuredly, in no other way will his reputation and his
treatment by the world be reversed.
In fine, we would have all who are inclined to doubt whether the
world uses them well or not, to ask of themselves, in the first
place, how they use the world. If they find that they do little for
it--are stupid, illiterate, possessed of not one graceful
accomplishment, neither useful nor ornamental, but selfish, sulky,
and unamiable, then let them try whether a remedy cannot be found in
themselves. It is not to be expected of all that they are to be
greatly serviceable in any way to the world, or very agreeable
either; but it is the duty of all who desire the world's good
treatment, to do the best they can for the general interest, and to
be as good and amiable as possible. At the worst, if they cannot
make any change on themselves, let them resign themselves to be
comparatively poor and neglected, as such is, by the rules of
Providence, their inevitable fate.
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: The upper and under plates of the tortoise are so called by
naturalists.]