The gentle life
w$m ; V '*r*fc?V Jr r ^ * SB© * rfr A* * fc* Git. A?' *6 ... V*7^^ ... <6, ' THE GENTLE LIFE. His life was gentle ; and the elements So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, "This "was a man !" Shakspeare. \ CONTENTS. On the Difference between Leading the Gentle Life and being ^Genteel . . . .. Upon the Alleged Equality of Men On the " Manner of the Man " On what is called Etiquette Touching Teaching and Teachers . » On what is commonly called Luck in Life On Successful People and Others who are not Successful On Male and Female Flirts On "Going a-Courting" .... Relating chiefly to the Wives of Men Principally concerning Women's Husbands. The Disappointments of Life On Religion in the Gentle Life Getting On in the World and Growing Rich. The Question of "Slang" in Writing and Conversation The Servants within our Gates . , On being Soberly Sad. On being Merry and Wise Regarding the Company we keep Page I H 25 34 45 57 77 87 96 105 114 124 133 144 153 164 175 186 196 VI CONTENTS. Page Friendship in Gentle Life . . 205 On the Good Opinion of -Ourselves which the World calls "Conceit" .... . 214 On Speaking within Bounds . 224 Good Humour and Bad Temper • 233 High Life . . 243 Indolence or Laziness. . 252 On Wanting to be Somebody . 261 Concerning certain Illusions , . 272 On Decision of Character . . 280 On the Lottery of Marriage. . . .288 Is Knowledge worth having ? . . 297 Upon Growing Old. • 305 PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS. N Edition of this book having been ex- hausted in less than three months, it is incumbent on the Author to thank the Public, which has so well appreciated his intentions and his efforts. In the Preface to the First Edition he was rash enough to state that his plan was the same as that of the master essayists — of Lord Bacon, Montaigne, Addison, Steele, and Gold- smith— namely, " that of speaking to the heart cer- tain home truths which concern us all, in homely language, which we all understand." A critic has reminded him that it is dangerous to cite great writers, because by so doing one invites com- parison ; a second has insisted that the present writer is an imitator of Mr. Thackeray ; and others find out that he is extremely like Mr. Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, and Mr. Helps, in his style and treatment. The Author might, perhaps, remark viii PREFACE. that there is little similarity between these various writers, save in directness of purpose ; or he might claim a merit in being "not one," but "the epi- tome " of many men. This he has no intention of doing ; but he may explain that, having been a student of English literature — especially of the dramatists and essayists — for some little time, it is just possible that he has formed whatever style he possesses, whether excellent or homely, on the same models as the modern writers he is accused of having imitated. He will only add, that it is with an increased confidence and diminished timidity, arising, not from success, but from kindly treatment, that the Author leaves his work to his best and only Patron — the Public. March, 1 864. To the Third Edition of The Gentle Life the Author can only add that the Essays have under- gone a careful revision, and has but to reiterate his thanks to his many readers, and the friends which this book has made him. August, 1864. ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEADING THE GENTLE LIFE AND BEING GENTEEL. VERY clever young author — who, if he had not succeeded in a petty and provincial manner, and had not thereby been hurried up to town, to strive and to die, would have done great things — once wrote a very violent song against the word "gentleman." In his opinion, any one who used that word was little better than a pretentious fellow, who despised his equals and sought the company of his superiors. He grew morbidly angry at the use of it, and rabidly cried out : — "'Tis a curse to the land, deny it who can, That self-same boast, I'm a gentleman.'" But very many better and more reflective men than he accept the term as one which conveys much in a small com- pass, and which is in itself legitimate. Mr. Thackeray very well sums up the duties of a gentleman in a few queries which can only have one answer. " What is it to be a gentleman ?" says he ; " is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, B 2 THE GENTLE LIFE possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father ? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his tastes to be high and elegant, his aims in life to be noble ?" Yes, he should be all these, and somewhat more — and these all men can be, and women too. Good and quaint Thomas Fuller, indeed, puts it to us that a gentleman should be extracted from an " ancient and worshipfull parentage. When a pepin (pippin) is planted on a pepin stock, the fruit growing thence is called a renate, a most delicious apple, as both by sire and damme well descended. Thus his blood must needs be well purified who is gentilely born on both sides." But we have long outlived the folly of heraldic gentility, nor do we ask for six- teen quarterings on each side before we admit a man to be a gentleman. As any one who knows heraldry can testify, there are certain marks of degradation which most men might wear on their shields, but these are never seen ; whereas the. honourable ensigns remain from year to year. But few of us, from generation to generation, can bear the escutcheon of the spotless knight, and the motto sans tachej therefore, we may, if the reader so please, put out in this book that " folie," as Chaucer calls it, of gentry by birth only. " Also," he writes, " to have pride of gentrie is right gret folie ; for ofte-time the gentrie of the bodie benimeth the gentrie of the soule : and we ben also al of o fader and of o moder ; and we ben al of o nature rotten and corrupt, bothe riche and poure." This is from the sermon of the " Personne" in his Canterbury Tales, and is, doubtless, what he himself thought. GENTILITY. 3 In the Romaunt of the Rose he again tells us how to esti- mate one who leads the gentle life : — " But who so is vertuous, And in his port not outrageous, When such one thou seest thee beforne, Though he be not gentil borne, Thou maiest well seine (this is in soth) That he is gentil, because he dothe As longeth to a gentil man." Now, when we understand, what it really is to be a gentle- man, it is hard to see how any one can get irritated at the word, or how the mere external manner and pompous way of George IV. could have caused his courtiers to apply to him so universally the title of the " first gentleman in Europe." Certainly he did not lead the gentle life ; and surely any one can forgive Mr. Thackeray putting a few queries about him, and about his title to the phrase, and also Robert Brough for being very wildly angry at the word. For it is the abuse of things, not the things themselves, that makes us hate them. Weeds, thorns, and lawyers are very well in their way, but they are very ill in ours. " Dirt," said Lord Palmerston, quoting an unacknowledged authority, "is only matter in the wrong place ;" and, if a man who strives all his lifetime to over- reach others, and to hurt or insult those who are weaker or less well-placed than he, calls himself a gentleman, no wonder the word suffers. " There be some in France," sneers old " Scholemaster" Ascham, " that will needes be jentlemen whether men will or no, and have more jentleship in their hat than their heade, and be at deadlie feud with bothe learn- ing and honestie." And our Laureate bursts out indignantly B 2 4 THE GENTLE LIFE against such upstarts, even m the midst of the most deep and poignant grief that verse ever bore witness to : — "The churl in spirit," he says, " will let his coltish nature break through all assumption, whether he be a king or noble, if he be at heart a clown. For who can always act ?" And, in testimony to his friend, he concludes : — " And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan, And soiled with all ignoble use." But happily a jewel is a jewel, whether soiled or not ; and happily this title of "gentleman" is, like a jewel, easily washed clean, and, in spite of the ignoble use it has had, it will ever be loved and used. No man, be he behind a counter or in a palace, need be ashamed of trying to be a gentleman. Now there is a great difference in leading the gentle life and in being merely "genteel," to which so many of the middle class of people seem to us to limit their aims. " Perhaps, after all, fear is at the root of the English veneration for gentility." So writes George Borrow, author of The Bible in Spain, an extraordinary book, written by an extraordinary man, and, moreover, one who has thought out every sentence. That which we quote is rather a stirring one, full of strange accusation, against some at least. What is gentility ? Everybody prides himself upon the quality. The schoolmaster or mistress, the little village shop- keeper, the doctor, the lawyer, the tooth-drawer, the publican, the parson himself, and the lord in the great house : each and all are genteel. One, no doubt, looks down upon the other, and each makes exceptions to the other's character ; but they GENTILITY. 5 are all, in their own opinion, highly genteel persons. That is, they are "the" people ; those whose opinions are worth some- thing, who ought to be consulted, whose behaviour should lead the ton, and without whom the village would not go on. This anti- Christian good opinion of themselves character- izes the genteel. The schoolmaster receives only " young gentlemen to be educated for the Universities," &c. ; the schoolmistress advertises that "no tradesman's" daughter is permitted to associate and to be educated with the "young ladies" who are "domiciled" at her "establishment;" and the girls whose fathers are in trade either sink the fact, or else declare that papa is a " merchant." In common life, too, every one is an " esquire," a shield-bearer — that is to say, a man of military rank, one who had nothing to do but to fight — a term woefully misapplied. Every female is a lady, and, in fact, every man might just as well be called a lord. Lord, in Saxon, was one who saw that justice was administered ; lady, in Saxon (laaf-dien), loaf-giver, bread distributor — in fact, one who presided in assemblies over the distribution of the meal. But Home Tooke, who rejects this derivation, gives the following : — " Liaf or laaf is risen or raised, being the participle of hlifian, to raise ; and laaf, loaf, is so called because the dough is raised or risen. Hence lord and lady are raised, exalted personages." Now, we cannot well be all exalted people, so that the name, as usually applied, is absurd. Better far go back to the old Adamite title of man and woman ; better by far than the subterfuge of " person," which is sad, bad, and insulting enough, as used by some lips. But all this passion for titles and distinction, which is as false and wicked a passion as need be, arises from, and is 6 THE GENTLE LIFE fostered by, the ignorant and wicked, way of treating those people only with respect whose clothes and outward appear- ance demand it. In construing the maxim " Give those respect to whom respect is due," the ordinary mind sees only respect due to the outward man, whereas that is very seldom any guide to the inward man at all. There is a story told of Cogia Effendi, the Persian sage, which quite illustrates our position. Cogia, dressed as a poor man, entered a house where a feast was going forward. His welcome was as might have been expected — he was pushed by this one, hustled by that, could not get near the table, and was so thrust about that he withdrew. Cogia went home, dressed himself in a most splendid style, placed jewelled slippers on his feet, a robe of cloth of gold on his back, and a turban glittering with a diamond aigrette on his head ; he moreover bound a sabre to his side, in the hilt of which were some very valuable jewels, and then strode into the room. The face of matters was at once altered. Not only did the guests give way, but the host himself, rushing up to Cogia, cried out, " Welcome, my lord Effendi, thrice welcome ! What would your lord- ship please to eat ?" Cogia's answer was quaint, but ex- pressive. Stretching out his right toe, so that his slipper sparkled and glittered, he took his golden robe in his hand, and said with bitter irony, " Welcome, my Lord Coat, wel- come, most excellent robe ! What will your lordship please to eat ? For," said he, turning to his surprised host, " I ought to ask my coat what it will eat, since the welcome was solely to it." The " genteel" people in this world do not, for we must be just to them, seek only the coat. There must be more. There GENTILITY. 7 must be manner, place, position, influence. The genteel know only the genteel. Out of their charmed circle a man is nothing. What gentility is, it would be hard to say. The word itself is a very base diminutive : for what " gent" is to gentleman, so " genteel " is to gentilitas, an abbreviation as well as a diminu- tive. The word itself is modern. The gentle man is something, though hard to prove what ; the genteel man is nothing, not even the shadow of a gentleman. It would be more easy to say what is not genteel than what is, to prove it from the negative than from the positive side of the question. Many people live as if they thought that it is not genteel to earn your bread, or to work at any useful kind of employment — to give Provi- dence, in fact, some little excuse for having made you ; but it is highly genteel to be idle, and worse than idle, all day — to be vain, proud, luxurious, or to work at some utterly worthless and silly piece of finery, and to sell the same in the name of charity at a fancy fair. It is never genteel to speak your mind ; but it is so to use a false periphrasis, and with a com- plimentary turn to insinuate a falsehood. It is not genteel to walk quickly in a busy street, or, in fact, to walk naturally and boldly anywhere ; but it is genteel to saunter in the busy thoroughfares of a street — a drone hindering the entrance and exit of the working bees. It is not genteel to have an opinion, 8 THE GENTLE LIFE and to think for yourself: but it is so to follow the dictates of a ridiculous fashion, even if these should be injurious to the health, or positively immoral and noxious to the soul. It is not genteel to blush, to appear simple or innocent, to laugh when all are laughing, to cry when all are crying ; but a dull, stupid unenjoying stolidity, as dense as that of the Russian moujik or English blase noble is highly genteel. It is highly ungenteel, on the other hand, to be clever, to be original, forcible, or quaint. Those ethereal and polite souls who would " die of a rose in aromatic pain" could not admit the thoughtful, painful, absent, dreaming, earnest, and concentrative worker to be one of them. Belgravia, the Tenth Avenue, the Champs Elysees, and the Prado, not to mention Baker Street and Bloomsbury, would thunder — No ! Etiquette would expire and Privilege would die. Does any one suppose that Cromwell, Archimedes, Savonarola, Luther, John Knox, Watt, Stephenson, Brunei, or the Indian Napier were genteel men ? The word would not fit their names by a long way. Gentility is, moreover, " content to dwell in decencies for ever." The idol to which it bows down is Propriety. Of this, let us hear what a writer of keen observation and of very great force says in regard to us English — " The keeping of proprieties is as indispensable as clean linen. No merit quite counteracts the want of this, whilst this sometimes stands in lieu of all. ' 'Tis in bad taste' is the most formid- able word an Englishman can pronounce. But this Japan GENTILITY. 9 costs them dear. There is a prose in certain Englishmen which exceeds in wooden deadness all rivalry with other countrymen. In this Gibraltar of propriety mediocrity gets intrenched, and consolidated, and founded in adamant. An Englishman of fashion is like one of those ' keepsakes ' bound in vellum and gold, enriched with thick, hot-pressed paper, fit for the hands of ladies and princes, but with nothing in it worth reading or remembering." This is very true ; this it is which makes society so dull, so miserable, so sadly-brilliant, and so melancholy-gay. We amuse ourselves, said the old French chronicler, " sadly, moult tristement, after the manner of our country." This it is that makes the lives of people, who should have everything to make them happy, so weary — so very, very weary. This it is that clothes certain West End streets in funereal gloom, makes the very babies serious, the children given to genteel tracts, the butler dress and look like a Methodist parson, the footman like one with a " call," and a maid-servant a thou- sand times more gloomy than Charlotte Corday on her mission. This it is that represses every kindly feeling, every jollity and merriment ; and the reaction from this fills the world with " fast men," or, worse than fast men, with the gloomy, secret, half-wild sinner, with the frenzied head and broken heart in the other sex, and makes London abound with desolated homes and marked outcasts. One of the vices of gentility is that it is very prone to teach all manner of falsehoods. Lying is diplomatic and is natu- rally eminently genteel, since that quality is full of deception. The poor beau Tibbs, who hungers to be asked to eat, who could digest his kid glove after it had been twice cleaned, will io THE GENTLE LIFE declare that he could not " touch a morsel," or will refuse that which he longs to pocket and to eat in secret, because society compels him to do so. In the struggle to be one of the upper ten thousand one must eat dirty pudding, and take a thou- sand insults, and, after all, perhaps, not succeed. The motto of the brave man is, " To be, rather than seem to be " — that of the genteel person, to seem, rather than to be. Surely, a tradesman must be ignorant or false when he calls his house an emporium, a magazine, or a depot — that is, if he knows the meaning of words. As his shop is merely a shop, he can, from his position, have choice of being either an ignoramus or a deceiver ; but the schoolmaster and mistress who dub their schools "colleges" cannot have this excuse. They know that their places are not colleges ; that they have not the internal economy of a college ; that they are simply schools, and nothing more. Why not stick boldly to the good old name of " school," and spurn the genteel misnomer? Imagine Eton or Harrow being called Harrow or Eton College, and the head-master, the bearer of a title five hundred years old, being degraded by the false name of the principal. Dr. Hawtrey would die of apolplexy at the notion. So also to call a gig, or a phaeton, or a common hack cab a carriage, which is genteel usage, is just as petty and " snobbish " as it is untrue. Carriages such are in one sense, but not in the accepted sense, which is, as every one must know, that of a four-wheel chariot. When a lady talks of her "carriage" the mind is led to expect at least a brougham. This species of exaggeration is by far too common. Now, to call anything out of its name must be ignorance or deception ; upon one horn of the dilemma gentility must fall. GENTILITY. II This absurd passion of being well thought of in the world, of sitting in the highest chamber, and of being greeted in the market-place, is, perhaps, most noxious in two states of life into which it is imported. It is very .bad in trade, for it looks down upon it, and makes a man ashamed of gaining his live- lihood honestly. It is bad enough in a profession, in law, and in physic. It is worse in the army ; but it is worse than all in marriage and in the Church. When religion, as old John Bunyan said, begins to walk about in its " silver slippers," there is not much religion at all. Of all pride in the world, spiritual pride is the worst ; it is this that arms each fanatic against the other ; if you despise a man's creed, you are not far from hating him. The cobbler who fulminates against the rector as a man of pride and sin, is not so bad as the rector who despises the vulgar cobbler. The noble patrician and philosopher at the time of Pliny looked down at the poor Christian shrivelling in the flames of martyrdom, and won- dered what the vulgar fellow was so stubborn for — more than one elegant epigram attests this ; so, in after times, the haughty Roman bishop sneered at the Puritan martyr. In marriage, the passion for gentility has been the source of much misery. It is at the bottom of half the romances. The rich old citizen in Hogarth's pictures sells his daughter for a rich match. " Old city snobs," writes the satirist of snobbery, " have a mania for aristocratic marriages. I like to see such. I am of a savage and envious nature. I like to see these two humbugs, dividing as they do the social empire of this kingdom between them, making truce and uniting for the sordid interests of either. I like to see an old aristocrat, swelling with pride of race — the descendant of illustrious 12 THE GENTLE LIFE Norman robbers — who looks down upon common English- men as a free-born American does upon a nigger. I like to see old Stiff-neck bow down his head, and swallow his infernal pride, and drink the cup of humiliation poured out by Pump and Aldgate's butler." But this unpleasant cup is poured out and drank every day. Addison " wedded misery in a noble wife ;" and he was not the last commoner who did so. Many do so every day now. The daughter of a hundred earls marries the son of a city clothier, or vice versa j and a great punishment it is to both of them, after the nourish of trumpets, and the "ceremony" at St. George's, Hanover Square. Gentility has its punishments — and, to be wholly fair, it has even some virtues and merits. The pride and desire to be seen of men rather than of God, is base and vulgar at the core, but it leads to some good external results. The genteel family is, at any rate, not a loud, bawling, and brawling family. The genteel man will frequently overawe the pushing, mus- cular, selfish man, who cares for nobody, and will be well served ; he stares him down, and keeps him in his place. Gentility insists upon broad phylacteries, no doubt ; but yet upon undeniably clean linen, and decidedly clean behaviour. It gives many wounds, but it carries its compensation ; it is a sharp sword when turned against any one, but like that magic blade in the legend, it can be turned into a buckler. Much good cannot, however, be said of it. The best is, that there are but few steps from that quality, which all those of us who are good desire to possess, to that gentle bearing, both of mind and heart, which when once seen is always loved. We cannot all be lords and ladies : we cannot all, in our GENTILITY. 13 manners even, succeed in being genteel ; but all, from the highest to the lowest, can be gentle men and women, and we none of us can be more. To be humble-minded, meek in spirit, but bold in thought and action ; to be truthful, sincere, generous ; to be pitiful to the poor and needy, respectful to all men ; to guide the young, defer to old age ; to enjoy and be thankful for our own lot, and to envy none — this is, indeed, to be gentle, after the best model the world has ever seen, and is far better than being genteel. UPON THE ALLEGED EQUALITY OF MEN. HERE are a great many men who think that they are as good as anybody else in the world ; or, perhaps, as good as everybody else put together. " A man, after all," poor little Snobley will say, after he has been dwelling with unction on his companionship with lords, " can be no more than a gentle- man ;" and, if he had read the elder dramatists, he would have quoted Hey wood : — " I am a gentleman ; and, by my birth, Companion with a king : a king's no more. Nor is a king more ; but, as the mayor of a provincial town said to Alexander Dumas, when he boastingly exclaimed, " If I were not the countryman of Corneille, I should call myself a dramatist"— "Mats Monsieur, il y a des degre'sf so there are differences which the student of the gentle life will accept very readily. Launce's dog— more immortal than that of Aristides— was a vulgar dog, and " thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs," with EQUALITY. 15 a sad result to himself and to his master. The votary of equality will, perhaps, do as the dog did : for it is a dangerous " rabble charming" word, as South says, and turns the heads of most of us. The American Revolution of 186 1-2, and the political failure of the so-called Republicanism of the great Western Continent will have taught us something, if we are thereby induced to think over the doctrine of " equality," which has been since 1793 a great favourite with the poorer classes. The usual assertion, quoted from the Declaration of American Independence, that " all men are born equal," has formed the basis of a great mistake. We certainly cannot swallow that assertion whole. All men are not born equal. In a Christian sense we all may and do have equal rights : the right to liberty, the right of life, air and motion, to wise and limited enjoyment ; but with these our equality ends. All •men are not equally wise, gifted, clever, strong, handsome, or tall. The brains of one nation and the brain of one man are superior in weight, form, and activity to the brains of another nation or another man. We all differ — " No being on this earthy ball Is like another, all in all." Therefore every individual should live not for himself, but to be valuable to others ; for it would be sheer midsummer madness to preach up that ail are equally valuable. The nation of Scotchmen and the nation of Londoners are about equal in numbers, the former somewhat the more numerous ; but just compare them with, let us say, the nation of Kroo- men, and the Affghan or Egyptian nations, taking them 1 6 THE GENTLE LIFE as numerically the same. Who would not say that the pre- servation of the Scotch or the Londoners to the world would not outweigh in value that of the half-savage nations a hundred-fold? Now, every schoolboy who is learning Euclid knows that things. which are unequal in the whole must be unequal in part ; hence an individual of a civilized nation, which has proceeded through centuries of teaching, must be more valuable and, in almost every way, superior to the individual of an untaught nation. Nature continually asserts this ; the savage dies out as the civilized man advances ; the more noble growth supplants the lower and indigenous growth. A grand doctrine this : to the timid and unreflect- ing, apparently cruel ; but, to the thinking, full of the deep and hidden wisdom of God. It is due reflection on this that has made one most philosophical poet cry out — " Yet I doubt not through ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen' d with the process of the suns;" but such an admission is fatal to equality. Plain-speaking like this will, without doubt, offend some. But, nevertheless, it is no more plain than true. The framers of the celebrated American Declaration knew just as well as we do that they were preaching a doctrine of romantic false- hood. It suited them at the time ; but they no more meant that the Negro and the Red man within their gates were equal to themselves than they meant to assert that they could fly. What they meant to say was this : " WTe are no longer colonists. We are a sovereign people ; we are quite equal to King George and his whole crew. We will be free, and EQUALITY. 17 independent ; the English cannot hold us any longer ; and — all men are equal." They proved that they meant something very different by surrounding their constitution with checks and guards upon private citizens, by forming two houses exactly answering to our Lords and Commons — circum- stances being considered — and by electing a sovereign Pre- sident, who, they declared, and still declare, was superior to any man then living upon earth. As time went on and the j sovereign Republic increased, when want of labourers was ? felt, they introduced (for the guilt is not and was not ours) the Slave Trade ; and, under the protection of that precious sophism that "all men are born equal," went and quietly stole poor Quashee from Africa, put him in chains and ( durance vile, and made him cultivate a foreign land for their own benefit, they growing rich on the fruits of his labours, and still talking about equality. To England, misfortune and a long war had taught something. The doctrine of equality had reached us ; but, luckily foi* us, wise and good men gave the poetical legend a Christian significance, and Brougham and Wilberforce thundered in our ears for the poor Black. Chained and kneeling, his portrait was brought before us in print-shops, on crockery, in pictures and in statues, and the figure was made plaintively to ask, "Am I not a man and a brother ?" That question carried the day. We all owned that the Black was a brother, although the free and equal Americans have some doubt about it still ; and we quietly laid out twenty millions of money to purchase his freedom. Wonderfully have we gained by the whole bargain. We gained moral force — belief in ourselves ; we felt that we had done what c 1 8 THE GENTLE LIFE was good and true, a certain something which would last. It will last. The anniversary of the great day of freedom has just passed by, and the free blacks of America celebrated it by going to church, and by prayer. Years hence, when the negro race enjoys a larger freedom and a brighter prospect, it will celebrate it still. Yet we must not forget that the white and black races are totally unequal, so much so, that there are those who argue for a perfectly separate creation of the two races. A lower organization, a less beautiful form, a lower facial angle, less ingenuity and activity, and more endurance, patience, and content — all these prove the in- ferior organization of the negro to the Caucasian race. We might show also how very unequal nations are. Preachers tacitly admit this when they talk of a people being "highly favoured," or "highly gifted "by Providence : and this favour, which establishes the inequality of man, is shown very constantly and very remarkably. It extends not only to nations, but to families and to individuals. As there are races who fancy they are doomed, so there are others who may readily be said to carry fortune with them, and others whom Providence sees fit to supply with constant intellect and brain power. As these are the elements of success, and as from the latter riches and honour spring, it does not seem illogical that a universal system of inequality should reign all over the world, and that the dream of the enthusiasts should die out. " Alas !" cries a French hero in a novel, "equality exists only in the grave !" He is quite right. A hundred years after death we may weigh the dust of the greatest hero, and it is no more than that of the poorest beggar ; and the name that remains is as light and useless as the dust. The proxi- EQUALITY. 19 mity of the tombs of Henry the Sixth and Edward the Fourth, in St. George's Chapel, teaches a lesson : " Here, o'er the Martyr-King the marble weeps, And, fast beside him, once fear'd Edward sleeps : The grave unites, where e'en the grave finds rest, And mingled lie the oppressor and the opprest." The equality which many preach up means in their mouths little more than the universal scramble system — the share- and-share-alike andall-begin-over-again suggestion, of which, in times of revolution, King Mob has not been slow to avail himself. But people have soon seen that a dead level is far from being equality. If we were to share all the worldly goods to- day, the distinction between rich and poor would have arisen on the morrow. One would work, another would not ; some would abstain, others would feast ; some would chaffer and barter, others would be far above dealing in " vile merchan- dise." Thus money would pass from hand to hand, and the inequality would begin again. It is not perhaps very satis- factory to repeat these old truths ; but old truths are like old diamonds, and are brought into fashion by being reset. One man would learn and acquire where the other would forget or despise. The inequality at once would commence ; and it is as impossible to hope for a dead level in mankind as it is to wish to plough down all the mountains and to fill up all the valleys. But, acknowledging all this, we must also be awake to the fact that there is an equality of responsibility towards God, and a true religious equality, as it were, in man. We have all parts to play, and these must be well played, or C 2 20 THE GENTLE LIFE we are blameworthy. Whether we be kings or scavengers, whatever we are about should be well done. Herein lies our duty to work earnestly in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call us ; and this thorough equality of duty, if well performed, will lead to the equality of final reward ; which mystery is, indeed, the subject of one of the most puzzling of the parables : the hiring of Labourers, and the One Payment to all. There our true equality commences and ends. It is not of this world : thus much is certain. It may therefore be at once said that equality is not the law of Nature, and is consequently utterly false. As it is false, so it is dangerous. The most tyrannical of times have been those in which the government of the Democracy has in- sisted on a forced equality, a man being guillotined for wear- ing finer linen and having a whiter hand than another. The most despotic of modern people are precisely those two, the teacher and the pupil, which have abolished titular distinc- tions, and endeavoured to run down all men to the same political and social standard. La Belle France, who relied upon her mission of holy bayonets, who destroyed the law of entail and primogeniture, and banished her old nobility, is the most warlike and restless of nations, and keeps us in a constant state of military and naval preparation to keep abreast of her. She has her hands quite full in China, Rome,. Mexico, and Algeria, teaching the blessed doctrine of equality with armed men and rifled cannon ! America, the disciple of Lafayette and French doctrines, determined to propagate liberty by enslaving six millions of brothers, and does not find the equality doctrine to quite coincide with her supreme wishes. So far from believing in that equality, her free and EQUALITY. 2i enlightened citizens every day proclaim themselves and their country to be superior to any other country in the world ; and they have publicly preached the mischievous doctrine that no one power, save America, had any right to exist upon that hemisphere. Their fine assertions, therefore, have been well said to have ended by proving "that, after a very short trial, equality creates discontents as fatal as inequality ; that, for want of regulation, freedom may degenerate into mere law- lessness ; and that people who have been accustomed to bully all other people, end by fighting amongst themselves." The fox in the fable was a very wise fellow, when, finding the grapes were above his reach, he contented himself with the remark that they were sour. Having shown that equality is perfectly unattainable, save in the grave and the church — " One place there is beneath the burial sod, Where all mankind are equalized by death ; Another place there is — the Fane of God, "Where all are equal who draw living breath " — let us endeavour to show that it is very wisely so ordained ; and that, after all, equality, could it be obtained, would not be worth a pinch of snuff, and would not add to the happiness of mankind. As variety adds beauty to the landscape, so distinction adds happiness to life. A man would sink down to the merest trifler or sensualist had he not an object before him. That object is, colour it how he may, Social Distinc- tion. He does not want to be equal to his fellow-men ; he wants to be above them. The natural desire of all of us is to excel ; and with this aim we go through the world, pleased and active, with a constant unattainable hope before us. A great artist once told the author a story of a boy who was placed with him by a fond father, for the purpose of being made an historical painter. The wishes of the father were stronger than the talent of the son, and the poor lad was found crying bitterly in the studio, over his smeared and clumsy drawings. " What is the matter, my dear fellow ?" said the artist. The kindly question touched the boy, and he no longer concealed his tastes, " Boo — boo — boo," sobbed he, with a burst of tears and ingenuousness ; " Pa thinks I can draw ; but I wants to be a butcher." There was his affection set, not in portraying the human face divine, but in chining beef and cutting up mutton chops. But great artists think differently, as witness wondrous Giotto, the shepherd boy, and our own clever but mediocre Opie, the " Cornish boy, in tin mines bred." No, our thoughts and tastes are unequal ; equally useful, EQUALITY. 23 perhaps, in the eye of One far, far above us, but not equally honourable in the world's eye. How we wonder at each other's varying tastes ! The man who collects coins cannot hold patience with one who dabbles in wet, chalky rocks, is enthusiastic about sea anemones, paddles in Hampstead Ponds to fill his fresh-water aquarium, and is learned upon infusoria and diatorus. We have, too, as our minds have expanded, reversed the story which Horace tells ; and, instead of the merchant envying the lawyer, and the lawyer the farmer, we are all delighted with our own hobbies. The naturalist and the foxhunter, delighted each with his sphere, equally look down upon the man who heaps up Roman coins — family, consular, or imperial — and regard the little rounds of metal which so delight him with no more pleasure than they would a heap of curried or leather money, or American circulating postage-stamps. Such is the beneficent rule which makes men unequal but equally happy. When Pope asked, in very polished and excellent verses, where happiness was, he might have been answered by a cross-question, where was it not ? One places it in fine horses, another in little dogs, a third in the fine robes and pictures of the classic. Before Lord Dundreary existed, a nobleman of his school placed all his excitement — he called it happiness — in the possession of an abundant collection of street-door knockers : and a second outdid him by treasuring up a bag full of marble noses from various antique statues which he had seen in his travels. This may be going over very old ground ; but we may be permitted sometimes to take and furbish up an old jewel. Nothing is too frivolous, nothing too great, to constitute or feed happi- 24 THE GENTLE LIFE. ness, because the mind of man can contract or expand almost infinitely ; and he who lives the gentle life will not trouble himself about being equal to this man or superior to that, but will be delighted in the contemplation of the fact that, perhaps, all the happiness in the world arises from the universal inequality of power, virtue, riches, possession, in- tellect, and acquirement — nay, of every mental or physical quality with which man is endowed. 