| | | | Every now and then one comes across the path of a | Superior Being ~~ a being that seems to imagine itself | made out of a different kind of clay from that which forms | the coarser ruck of humanity, and whose presence crushes | us with a sense of our own inferiority, exasperating or | humiliating, according to the amount of natural pride | bestowed upon us. The superior being is of either sex, and | of all denominations; and its superiority comes from many | causes, being due sometimes to a wider grasp of intellect, | sometimes to a loftier standard of morals, sometimes to | better birth or a longer purse, and very often to the simple | conceit of itself which simulates superiority, and believes | in its own apery. The chief characteristic of the superior | being is that exalted pity for inferiority which springs from | the consciousness of excellence. In fact, one of the main | elements of superiority consists in this sublime | consciousness of private exaltation, and of the immense | interval that separates it from the grosser condition it | surveys. Rivalry is essentially angry and contentious, but | confessed superiority can afford to be serene and | compassionate. The little people who live in that meager | sphere of theirs, mental or social, with which not one point | of its own extended circle comes in contact, are deserving | of all pity, and are below anything like active displeasure. | That they should be content with such a meager sphere | seems inconceivable to the superior being, as it | contemplates its own enlarged horizon with the | complacency that belongs to a dweller in vastness. Or it | may be that its own world is narrow; and its superiority will | then be that it is high, safe, and exclusive, while its pity | will flow down for those poor wayfarers who wander afield | in broad latitudes, and know nothing of the pleasure found | in reserved places. In any case the region in which a | superior being dwells is better than the region in which any | other person dwells. | Take a superior being who has made up a private account | with truth, and who has, in his own mind at least, unlocked | the gate of the great mysteries of life, and got to the back of | that eternal bono for ever | confronting us. It does not in the least degree signify how | the key is labeled; it may be High Church or Low Church, | Swedenborgianism or Positivism. The name has nothing to | do with the thing; it is the contented certainty of having | unlocked that great gate at which others are only | hammering in vain which confers the superiority, and how | the thing has been done does not affect the result. Neither | does it disturb the equanimity of the superior being when | he meets with opposing superior beings who have also | made up their private accounts with truth, but in quite | another handwriting and with a different sum-total at the | bottom of the page; who have also unlocked the gate of the | great mysteries, but with a key of contradictory wards, | while the gate itself is of another order of architecture | altogether. But then nothing ever does disturb the | equanimity of the superior being; for, as he is above all | rivalry, so is he beyond all teaching. The meeting of two | superior beings of hostile creeds is only like the meeting of | the two blind kings in the story, each claiming the crown | for his own, and both ignorant of the very existence of a | rival. It may be that the superior being has soared away | into the cold region of spiritual negation, whence he | regards the praying and praising multitudes who go to | church and believe in Providence as grown people regard | children who still believe in ghosts and fairies. Or it may | be that he has plunged into the phosphorescent atmosphere | of mysticism and an all-pervading superstition; and then all | who hold by scientific law, and who think the test of | common sense not absolutely valueless, are Sadducees who | know nothing of the glorious liberty of the light, but who | prefer to live in darkness, and make themselves the agents | of the great Lord of Lies. Sometimes the superior being | goes in for the doctrine of love and impulse, as against | reason or experience, holding the physiologist and political | economist as creatures absolutely devoid of feeling; and | sometimes his superiority is shown in the application of the | hardest material laws to the most subtle and delicate | manifestations of the mind. But on which side soever he | ranks himself ~~ as a spiritualist to whom reason and | matter are stumbling-blocks and accursed, or as a | materialist denying the existence of spiritual influences at | all ~~ he is equally secure of his own superiority and serene | in his own conceit. That there should be two sides to any | question never seems to strike him; and that a man of | another creed should have as much right as himself to a | hearing and consideration is the one hard saying impossible | for him to receive. With a light and airy manner of playful | contempt ~~ sometimes with a heavy and Johnsonian scorn | that keeps no terms with an opponent ~~ the superior being | meets all your arguments or batters down all your | objections; sometimes, indeed, he will not condescend even | so far as this, but when you express your adverse opinion | just lifts up his eyebrows with a good-humoured kind of | surprise at your mental state, but lets you see that he thinks | you too hopeless, and himself too superior, to waste | powder and shot upon you. It is of the nature of things that | there should be moles and that there should be eagles; so | much the worse for the moles, who must be content to | remain blind, not seeing things patent to the nobler vision. | The superior being is sometimes a person who is above all | the passions and weaknesses of ordinary men; a | philosopher, or an etherialized woman dwelling on serene | Olympian heights which no clouds obscure, and where no | earth-fogs rise. The passions which shake the human soul, | as tempests shake the forest trees, and warp men's lives | according to the run of their own lines, are unknown to | these Olympian personages, and they cannot understand | their power. They look on these tempestuous souls with a | curious analytical gaze according to the direction of the | agony through which they pass, and wonder why they | cannot keep as calm and quiet as they themselves are. | They sit in scornful judgment on the mysterious impulses | regulating human nature ~~ regulating and disturbing ~~ | and think how perfect all things would be if only passions | and instincts were cut out of the great plan, and men and | women were left to the dominion of pure reason. But they | do not take into their account the law of constitutional | necessity, and they are utterly unable to strike anything like | a balance between the good and evil wrought both by the | tempests of souls and by those of nature. They only know | that storms are inconvenient, and that for themselves they | have no need for such convulsions to clear off stagnant | humours, or are they made of elements which kindle and | explode at the contact of such or such materials. And if | they know nothing of all this, why then should others? If | they can sit on Olympian heights serene above all passion, | why should not the whole world sit with them, and fogs and | fires be conditions unknown? When this kind of superior | being is a woman, there is something pretty in the sublime | assumption of her supremacy, and the sweeping range of | her condemnation. Sheltered from temptation and secure | from danger, she looks out on life from the serene heights | of her safe place, and wonders how men can fail and | women fall before the power of trials of which she knows | only the name. Her circulation is languid and her | temperament phlegmatic, and therefore the burning desire | of life which sends the strong into danger, perhaps into sin, | is as much unknown to her as is the fever of the tropics to a | Laplander crouching in his snow-hut; but she judges none | the less positively because of her ignorance, and, as she | looks into your quivering face with her untroubled eyes, | lets you see plainly enough how she despises all the human | frailties under which you or yours may have tripped and | stumbled. Sometimes she rebukes you loftily. Your soul is | sore with the consciousness of your sin, your heart is weak | with the pain of life; but the superior being tells you that | repentance cannot undo the evil that has been done, and | that to feel pain is weak. The superiority which some | women assume over men is very odd. It is like the grave | rebuke of a child, not knowing what it is that it rebukes. | When women take up their parable, and censure men for | the wild or evil things they do, not understanding how or | why it has come | | about that they have done them, and knowing as little of the | inner causes as of the outer, they are in the position of | superior beings talking unmitigated rubbish. To be sure, it | is very sweet and innocent rubbish, and has a lofty air about | it that redeems what else would be mere presumption; but | there is no more practical worth in what they say than there | is in the child's rebuke when its doll will not stand upright | on sawdust legs, or eat a crumb of cake with its waxen lips. | This is one reason why women of the order of superior | beings have so little influence over men; they judge without | knowledge, and condemn without insight. If they could | thoroughly fathom man's nature, so as to understand his | difficulties, they would then have moral power if their aims | were higher than his, their principles more lofty, their | practice more pure. As it is, they have next to none, and | the very men who seem to yield to them most go only so | far as to conceal what the superior being disapproves of; | they do not change because of her greater weight of | doctrine. | Men show themselves as superior beings to women on | another count ~~ intellectually, rather than morally. While | women rebuke men for their sins, men snub women for | their follies; the one wields the spiritual, the other the | intellectual, weapon of castigation, and both hold | themselves superior, beyond all possibility of rivalry, | according to the chance of sex. The masculine view of a | subject always imposes itself on women as something | unattainable by the feminine mind; and nine times out of | ten brings them to a due sense of their own inferiority, save | in the case of the superior being, to whom of course the | masculine view counts for nothing against her own. But | even when women do not accept a man's opinions, they | instinctively recognise their greater value, their greater | breadth and strength. Perhaps they cry out against their | hardness, if he is a political economist and they are | emotional; or against their lower morality if he goes in for | universal charity and latitudinarianism, and they are | enthusiasts with a clearly-defined faith, and a belief in its | infallibility. There are wide tracts of difference between | the two minds, not to be settled by the | ipse dixit of even a superior being; but in | general the superiority of the man makes itself more felt | than the superiority of the woman. While one talks, the | other acts, and snubbing does more than condemnation.