Society and solitude: Twelve chapters
Things which you fancy wrong they know to be right and profitable;
things which you reckon superstitious they know to be true. They have
found virtue in the strangest homes; and in the rich store of their
adventures are instances and examples which you have been seeking in
vain for years, and which they suddenly and unwittingly offer you.
I remember a social experiment in this direction, wherein it appeared
that each of the members fancied he was in need of society, but himself
unpresentable. On trial they all found that they could be tolerated
by, and could tolerate, each other. Nay, the tendency to extreme
self-respect which hesitated to join in a club was running rapidly down
to abject admiration of each other, when the club was broken up by new
combinations.
The use of the hospitality of the club hardly needs explanation. Men
are unbent and social at table; and I remember it was explained to me,
in a Southern city, that it was impossible to set any public charity
on foot unless through a tavern dinner. I do not think our metropolitan
charities would plead the same necessity; but to a club met for
conversation a supper is a good basis, as it disarms all parties, and
puts pedantry and business to the door. All are in good-humor and at
leisure, which are the first conditions of discourse; the ordinary
reserves are thrown off, experienced men meet with the freedom of boys,
and, sooner or later, impart all that is singular in their experience.
The hospitalities of clubs are easily exaggerated. No doubt the suppers
of wits and philosophers acquire much lustre by time and renown.
Plutarch, Xenophon, and Plato, who have celebrated each a banquet of
their set, have given us next to no data of the viands; and it is to
be believed that an indifferent tavern dinner in such society was more
relished by the _convives_ than a much better one in worse company.
Herrick’s verses to Ben Jonson no doubt paint the fact:--
“When we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet, each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.”
Such friends make the feast satisfying; and I notice that it was when
things went prosperously, and the company was full of honor, at the
banquet of the Cid, that “the guests all were joyful, and agreed in one
thing,--that they had not eaten better for three years.”
I need only hint the value of the club for bringing masters in
their several arts to compare and expand their views, to come to an
understanding on these points, and so that their united opinion shall
have its just influence on public questions of education and politics.
’Tis agreed that in the sections of the British Association more
information is mutually and effectually communicated, in a few hours,
than in many months of ordinary correspondence, and the printing and
transmission of ponderous reports. We know that _l’homme de lettres_
is a little wary, and not fond of giving away his seed-corn; but there
is an infallible way to draw him out, namely, by having as good as
he. If you have Tuscaroora and he Canada, he may exchange kernel for
kernel. If his discretion is incurable, and he dare not speak of fairy
gold, he will yet tell what new books he has found, what old ones
recovered, what men write and read abroad. A principal purpose also is
the hospitality of the club, as a means of receiving a worthy foreigner
with mutual advantage.
Every man brings into society some partial thought and local culture.
We need range and alternation of topics, and variety of minds. One
likes in a companion a phlegm which it is a triumph to disturb, and,
not less, to make in an old acquaintance unexpected discoveries of
scope and power through the advantage of an inspiring subject. Wisdom
is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable
of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable
conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire
electric power for a while. But, while we look complacently at these
obvious pleasures and values of good companions, I do not forget that
Nature is always very much in earnest, and that her great gifts have
something serious and stern. When we look for the highest benefits
of conversation, the Spartan rule of one to one is usually enforced.
Discourse, when it rises highest and searches deepest, when it lifts us
into that mood out of which thoughts come that remain as stars in our
firmament, is between two.
COURAGE.
COURAGE.
I observe that there are three qualities which conspicuously attract
the wonder and reverence of mankind:--
1. Disinterestedness, as shown in indifference to the ordinary bribes
and influences of conduct,--a purpose so sincere and generous that it
cannot be tempted aside by any prospects of wealth or other private
advantage. Self-love is, in almost all men, such an overweight, that
they are incredulous of a man’s habitual preference of the general good
to his own; but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth,
rank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration. This
has made the power of the saints of the East and West, who have led
the religion of great nations. Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out
of which all the reported miracles grew. This makes the renown of the
heroes of Greece and Rome,--of Socrates, Aristides, and Phocion; of
Quintus Curtius, Cato, and Regulus; of Hatem Tai’s hospitality; of
Chatham, whose scornful magnanimity gave him immense popularity; of
Washington, giving his service to the public without salary or reward.
2. Practical power. Men admire the man who can organize their wishes
and thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass,--the man who can
build the boat, who has the impiety to make the rivers run the way
he wants them, who can lead his telegraph through the ocean from
shore to shore; who, sitting in his closet, can lay out the plans of
a campaign,--sea-war and land-war; such that the best generals and
admirals, when all is done, see that they must thank him for success;
the power of better combination and foresight, however exhibited,
which, whether it only plays a game of chess, or whether, more loftily,
a cunning mathematician, penetrating the cubic weights of stars,
predicts the planet which eyes had never seen; or whether, exploring
the chemical elements whereof we and the world are made, and seeing
their secret, Franklin draws off the lightning in his hand, suggesting
that one day a wiser geology shall make the earthquake harmless and
the volcano an agricultural resource. Or here is one who, seeing the
wishes of men, knows how to come at their end; whispers to this friend,
argues down that adversary, moulds society to his purpose, and looks at
all men as wax for his hands,--takes command of them as the wind does
of clouds, as the mother does of the child, or the man that knows more
does of the man that knows less; and leads them in glad surprise to the
very point where they would be: this man is followed with acclamation.
3. The third excellence is courage, the perfect will, which no terrors
can shake, which is attracted by frowns or threats or hostile armies,
nay, needs these to awake and fan its reserved energies into a pure
flame, and is never quite itself until the hazard is extreme; then
it is serene and fertile, and all its powers play well. There is a
Hercules, an Achilles, a Rustem, an Arthur, or a Cid in the mythology
of every nation; and in authentic history, a Leonidas, a Scipio, a
Cæsar, a Richard Cœur de Lion, a Cromwell, a Nelson, a Great Condé, a
Bertrand du Guesclin, a Doge Dandolo, a Napoleon, a Massena, and Ney.
’Tis said courage is common, but the immense esteem in which it is
held proves it to be rare. Animal resistance, the instinct of the male
animal when cornered, is no doubt common; but the pure article, courage
with eyes, courage with conduct, self-possession at the cannon’s mouth,
cheerfulness in lonely adherence to the right, is the endowment of
elevated characters. I need not show how much it is esteemed, for the
people give it the first rank. They forgive everything to it. What an
ado we make through two thousand years about Thermopylæ and Salamis!
What a memory of Poitiers and Crecy, and Bunker Hill, and Washington’s
endurance! And any man who puts his life in peril in a cause which
is esteemed becomes the darling of all men. The very nursery-books,
the ballads which delight boys, the romances which delight men, the
favorite topics of eloquence, the thunderous emphasis which orators
give to every martial defiance and passage of arms, and which the
people greet, may testify. How short a time since this whole nation
rose every morning to read or to hear the traits of courage of its sons
and brothers in the field, and was never weary of the theme! We have
had examples of men who, for showing effective courage on a single
occasion, have become a favorite spectacle to nations, and must be
brought in chariots to every mass meeting.
Men are so charmed with valor, that they have pleased themselves with
being called lions, leopards, eagles, and dragons, from the animals
contemporary with us in the geologic formations. But the animals have
great advantage of us in precocity. Touch the snapping-turtle with a
stick, and he seizes it with his teeth. Cut off his head, and the teeth
will not let go the stick. Break the egg of the young, and the little
embryo, before yet the eyes are open, bites fiercely; these vivacious
creatures contriving,--shall we say?--not only to bite after they are
dead, but also to bite before they are born.
But man begins life helpless. The babe is in paroxysms of fear the
moment its nurse leaves it alone, and it comes so slowly to any power
of self-protection, that mothers say the salvation of the life and
health of a young child is a perpetual miracle. The terrors of the
child are quite reasonable, and add to his loveliness; for his utter
ignorance and weakness, and his enchanting indignation on such a small
basis of capital, compel every by-stander to take his part. Every
moment, as long as he is awake, he studies the use of his eyes, ears,
hands, and feet, learning how to meet and avoid his dangers, and thus
every hour loses one terror more. But this education stops too soon.
A large majority of men being bred in families, and beginning early
to be occupied day by day with some routine of safe industry, never
come to the rough experiences that make the Indian, the soldier, or
the frontiersman self-subsistent and fearless. Hence the high price
of courage indicates the general timidity. “Mankind,” said Franklin,
“are dastardly when they meet with opposition.” In war even, generals
are seldom found eager to give battle. Lord Wellington said, “Uniforms
were often masks”; and again, “When my journal appears, many statues
must come down.” The Norse Sagas relate that when Bishop Magne reproved
King Sigurd for his wicked divorce, the priest who attended the bishop,
expecting every moment when the savage king would burst with rage
and slay his superior, said “that he saw the sky no bigger than a
calf-skin.” And I remember when a pair of Irish girls, who had been run
away with in a wagon by a skittish horse, said that, when he began to
rear, they were so frightened that they could not see the horse.
Cowardice shuts the eyes till the sky is not larger than a calf-skin;
shuts the eyes so that we cannot see the horse that is running away
with us; worse, shuts the eyes of the mind and chills the heart. Fear
is cruel and mean. The political reigns of terror have been reigns
of madness and malignity,--a total perversion of opinion; society is
upside down, and its best men are thought too bad to live. Then the