§ 13. We may now pass from the intellectual conditions of conversation
to what I may call, for simplicity’s sake, the moral conditions. It is,
of course, certain that these so-called moral qualities are frequently
congenital or constitutional, and that, therefore, the owner of them
deserves no credit for possessing them. But as they are qualities
enjoined upon us by moralists, and are in any case analogous to moral
virtues, we may in this book, which does not affect precise philosophy,
class them as moral. For example, the instinct of sociality, which is
really the same as the gregarious instinct in birds and animals, is not
the same as the love of our neighbour enjoined by the Gospel, but is
closely connected with it, for to be social without being civil is not
possible, and civility is at least the imitation of friendship, if it be
not friendship or benevolence in outward acts of social intercourse.
This, too, appears to be the reason why a particular class of social
instincts is so agreeable to men, and so honoured in society—their close
relationship to moral virtues.
Let me take up the first and most obvious—Modesty.[3] It is quite
certain that modesty and its opposite are congenital to various people.
Those who have to do with the education of children can see it within
the limits of a family, not to say a school. Some boys and girls are
naturally retiring, and think little of their powers; others are the
reverse. But here too, as we all know, early education may make great
changes. A child not originally remarkable in either way may be unduly
brought forward and applauded, or again unduly repressed and cowed, so
that the constant habit of early years may actually modify the original
character in either of two opposite directions. But this is only
possible when the original nature is not strongly declared; if it be so,
I hold education to be almost helpless.
Footnote 3:
I include here under the word all its various gradations from mere
bashfulness to that moral self-restraint which makes us fear to assert
ourselves, as implying an over-estimate of our powers.
When the child is growing to maturity it is likely to be strongly
affected by watching the defects of others, or hearing the frequent
censure of them. Thus I see that the children of people with too much
manner are apt to have no manner at all (as the phrase is), and the
children of incessant talkers are so bored with this social vice that
they never think of practising talk during the absence of their parents.
Let us apply these remarks to modesty.
§ 14. There is no quality in man, still more in woman, which is more
attractive and which commands more respect. Every intelligent and
sympathetic person makes allowance for it, and strives to lessen the
necessary pains which it inflicts upon the possessor of it in society.
It is akin to simplicity and honesty, and opposed to that artificiality
which is the outward and visible sign of some kind of dishonesty. It
lends a charm to youth and inexperience, so that people who are wearied
with the labours of talking to worn and world-stained equals feel, as it
were, the breath of gorse and heather after the odours of city air when
they come in contact with genuine modesty. It is a quality sometimes
allied with that heaven-born genius which attains great results without
apparent effort, and, therefore, is not infected with the pride of
having gained conscious and hard-fought successes. It is, lastly, the
outcome of great and solid labour, which teaches the specialist how much
he fails to know, and the general student how small a fragment of human
knowledge he has compassed. Here it is no natural quality, but an
acquired virtue; yet it excites the same kind of feeling in society.
There is, therefore, no quality more highly valuable in society and more
certain, _within limits_, to conduce to agreeable conversation. Perhaps
the clearest reservation, and one which will cover almost all the
various cases, is this: _modesty without simplicity_, though it may
still be a moral virtue, is always a social vice; and therefore highly
detrimental to good conversation; for as soon as modesty becomes
conscious, it assumes one of two forms—the parade of apology or the
cloak of reserve.
I need hardly insist that the man or woman who displays modesty by
constantly apologising for native ignorance or stupidity injures
conversation, and can only amuse a company by becoming ridiculous. What
we want to learn from each member is his free opinion on the subject in
hand, not his own estimate of the value of that opinion. How evidently
this is a social vice will appear from the fact that an assumption of
this kind of modesty is one of the commonest and most diverting forms of
humour—I mean the irony which has been the helper of conversation ever
since the days of Socrates, as we find him in Plato’s _Dialogues_.
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