| | | | | THERE is a good deal in the tone and manners of our day to | foster a habit of quiet, passive contempt. In simpler states of | society, the man who values himself highly has little scruple in | confessing as much. Savages have no more reticence in parading | their good points than peacocks. We know that even the | Anglo-Saxon, when removed from the restraints of refined cultivation, | can expatiate on his own merits with perfectly unqualified, | unblushing complacency. American writers themselves are the | first to acknowledge this as a characteristic of their remote | outlying social life. There, men extol themselves in all the | simplicity of an ignorance which knows nothing higher or | better, and are frankly astonished at their own successes. | Nobody is thought the worse of for praising himself; and where | this is the case, whether in England or in the backwoods, we | shall not find the practice out of favour or out of date. But | among ourselves it is out of date. A man cannot puff himself off | with impunity ~~ without, | | in fact, being taken for a fool; and therefore, if he have ordinary | capacity, he keeps within bounds. But not the less must the | thought of the heart find some outlet. Men draw wide | distinctions between pride and vanity, but both have at least this | in common, they like to feel and to be acknowledged | first; and both agree, not only in the | craving for pre-eminence, but in the instinct to gain their end by | a side-wind ~~ to boast themselves by implication, if | circumstances will not permit the more agreeable incense of | positive praise and adulation. This resource evidently lies in | detraction, not spoken, not even conscious detraction, but a | process of disparagement, by which, without any visible, active | self-exaltation, the mind may keep uppermost in its own | estimation. It is not possible, Clarendon observes, to overvalue | ourselves without undervaluing our neighbours ~~ which he | calls contempt. Contempt, then, in some form, is the necessary | accompaniment of self-conceit. This is self-evident on | reflection, though not always apparent. A man may be vain | without being in manner contemptuous, and may indulge in a | habit of general contempt towards others, when we do not think | of him in connection with either pride or vanity. Nor is he | necessarily vain for himself. A vicarious vanity belongs to all | hero-worship. All people who have an idol are contemptuous; it | is, indeed, a necessary part of their cultus. In either case, a man | may be very far gone in contempt without being conscious of it | himself, or committing any strong overt act offensive to the | people about him; for, in its passive state, | | it is a mere practice of depreciation, and is taken for | sensitiveness or a fastidious taste. | | It is only now and then that a glimpse into motives discovers to | us how much contempt there is in the world. We may live in | intimate relations with people and only casually discover it. We | may be acquainted with two sets, and some chance may first | make us aware of the contempt in which each holds the other. | Indeed, there is this poetical justice to console the observer ~~ | the sentiment is seldom all on one side. We are sometimes taken | by surprise at the amount of scorn and superciliousness which | lurks under the most demure and seemingly unpretending | exterior. It would not be comfortable to the most philosophical | of us to know the tone of disparagement with which we are | treated ~~ the estimate at which our pretensions are rated ~~ in | certain quarters; and yet, if contempt is so common a habit of | thought, all must fall more or less under it. There are natures | with which we infallibly come in collision, so that they are | driven in a certain self-defence to look upon our weak points, | and take their stand upon them. We are told | We suspect that what is sometimes | loftily spoken of as "withering scorn" is the "curse" here | intended, especially as it is taken for granted that we likewise | oftentimes curse others, and few persons' consciences can be | quite clear on the point before us. | | There are minds, belonging to respectable good sort of people | too, so eaten into by this exclusiveness that | | they do not, at the bottom of their hearts, attribute to nine-tenths | of the people with whom they come in casual contact the same | nature as themselves, the same affections and passions. It needs | to be admitted to the honour of their friendship and esteem to | possess either head or heart. A great deal that passes for | goodness and even self-denial in the world has this passive form | of contempt at its root. There is a tacit assumption that nothing | good can be got out of people not included in a certain circle, | sect, or party ~~ that of course their pursuits are frivolous, their | aims mean, their conversation empty, their interests unworthy. | Under a profession of humility, there is the notion that in | intercourse all the gain and benefit must necessarily be on one, | that is, on their side ~~ that they must impart all, and can hope | to receive nothing good. This is the state of mind engendered by | every form of exclusiveness, whether religious or social. It | indefinitely restricts those natural bounds by which all | intercourse must be ordered and limited. It is often called | fastidiousness, but in fact the poor have as much of it as their | betters, and decent people contract habits of sour seclusion from | the same persuasion that their own company is the only safe | company they can indulge in. There are persons of every rank | who, as a matter of course, have a contempt for all people they | do not know; just as the Dodson family despised all who were | not Dodsons. They have fallen into a habit of regarding | themselves as fountains of honour. | To be out of their range is to be | "these people" and "those people," the "good | | folks," the "wiseacres," the "gossips" of their neighbourhood. It | is amazing the narrowness, the dulness, the utter vacuity which | can gather self-consequence and feed its importance by this | contumelious mode of grouping and classifying the world | outside itself; and yet, in a modified degree, this must be | recognised as so common a habit of mind that we are convinced | there is no rarer, as there is no more amiable and candid quality, | than habitual justice to the motives of people not in our own set, | and not subject to our influences. | | Contempt may well be a common failing, for it is the easiest and | most attainable form of self-assertion. If we seek for instances, | we are perhaps driven to witty or weighty examples, because | such contemners can give a poignancy and force to the | expression of their sentiments. We think of Gray pronouncing | his own University, where he chose to spend his days, | ~~ or of | Johnson, in dispute with an antagonist whom he considered | beneath him, | ~~ or of Pope's "dunces" and | "fools," or Warburton's "wretches" and "crews of scoundrels;" | but, in fact, contempt can exist as vigorously without the | pretence of brilliant and intoxicating qualities. Mr Gedge, the | landlord of the Royal Oak, could pronounce all the people he | knew, ~~ | could | without being ever compel1ed to prove his own superiority to | the people he despised. It was enough that he had an ideal. | Indeed, as contempt is avowedly an act of opinion and | judgment, it often | | flourishes most where there is no chance of being challenged to | do better, and so of shaming the ideal. Beggars are proverbially | proud, for this very reason ~~ they have an ideal for every | station and every duty of civilised life, and are never called on | to act out one of them. In the same way negroes are represented | as supercilious. They have no social status apart from their | masters. A white skin, then, is their ideal; they are contemptuous | on quadroons as being | ~~ mere | pretenders, as it were. It may be noted that nobody is so critical | of dinners as the man that never gives them. With what weight | he comes down on entrees and wines! | How pure and fastidious his ideal on every point of order and | arrangement! There is consolation, no doubt, in criticism of this | character; for the time it equalises distinctions. Our mind is | above our fortunes. It is a great thing to know what is what ~~ to | be on a level with the man we despise, if not even above him for | the time being. What a solace to despair would poor discarded | Brummel find, for the instant, in reducing his lost ally the | Regent to the mere impersonation of obesity ~~ | The death of rich or | great men often awakes the same sort of feeling. For once the | living dog is master of the position and enjoys a triumph. When | the young blood announced at his coffee-house the demise of | the Grand Monarque, | the airy familiarity was veiled contempt. He | was inflated with more than a sense of equality. Death had | placed him uppermost. | | | We have taken this side of our subject first, and regarded | contempt in its passive and least intelligent aspect, because | certainly learning, study of character, and mixing with mankind | tend to allay and moderate it; but no doubt contempt is quite at | home in its more recognised sphere, when backed and prompted | by acknowledged superiority, and with seeming right on its side. | It would not be easy to match from any age of the world, or any | station of society, learned or ignorant, Mr Ruskin's habitual | contempt for all persons and things that contradict his views. It | is headlong, monstrous, scarcely reconcilable with the | possession of reason; and yet Mr Ruskin has a wide knowledge | of his own peculiar subjects, and might have been in his own | line a great authority. But then he has acted on the assumption | that success in one pursuit qualifies him to judge of all pursuits | and all lines of thought. He has thought that study of art, of | Turner's pictures, of nature, constituted him a judge, as well of | all painters, as of every human need, character, and action. The | conclusion he appears to have come to is, that the man who does | not see all things with his eyes is wicked and stupid, a liar and a | fool. This is contempt in its most rabid form. Thus, though his | knowledge is great, it is ignorance which has misled him into | the frenzies which we regret; and we think all misplaced | contempt is to be traced to the same cause ~~ partial ignorance. | Few recognised pursuits amongst men will cause contempt if we | give ourselves the trouble to consider them attentively. But this, | clever men intent on their one hobby | | are as little ready to do as the most circumscribed intellect. All | have some vein of Touchstone in them.. When they survey | something not in their way, in another world than theirs, they | are ready to plume themselves on their want of sympathy as a | sort of distinction, and to find it | Thus severely practical minds enjoy | their contempt for every effort of imagination. People who | cannot see a joke have a contempt for fun. We have heard an | artist merrily enlarge on the utter folly of the study of language. | Swift condensed all that can be thought and said about music | into the difference between tweedledum and tweedle-dee. | Addison treats as a sort of drivelling the minute researches of | the naturalist. Fifty years ago, half the world was contemptuous | on science, and vast numbers now despise classical learning, as | if it were a very clever and original thing to despise it. In one | and all these instances we feel that only knowledge is wanting | for the feeling to evaporate. There is one motive for contempt, | however, on which the dull have it all their own way. There are | people who not only despise any given form or pursuit of the | intellect as perhaps we all do, but who have a contempt for | active thought and all its results as such ~~ as if it were an | inferior thing to write books, to know things, to think at all. | They regard themselves as the Hindoos do their Supreme God | ~~ as something above the vulgar processes of thought and | action. | | | | | Analysed, studied, looked in the face, it becomes a wonder that | contempt should be so potent a thing as it is. The poet tells us | that ~~ | | We ought, then, to despise the contemner as betraying defect | and deficiency in the very act. But in truth it is an effort of | independence which few can reach, to disregard the dictum of | what seems deliberate weighty disparagement from any quarter | whatever. Certainly there is a contempt justly terrible. The most | confident and defiant would shrink from such scorn as Dante, in | the very sublime of contempt, bestowed, for all comment, on the | weak and pusillanimous band who had lived only for themselves: | | | But it is neither the contempt of goodness nor of intellect which | men most dread. It is when it is vague, undefinable, neither to be | got at nor propitiated, a mere fear and shadow, that it is the | greatest bugbear ~~ the contempt of society or of the world for | something, we know not what, and expressed or entertained by | people whom, in their individual separate capacity, we may | really rather look down upon. The sort of fear people are prone | to have of servants illustrates, while it is an evidence of, this | dependent and abject state of mind. Now, as servants are our | fellow-mortals, they may be as worthy of the distinction of our | fear as anyone else; | | but the proverbial dread of falling in the opinion of a butler and | incurring his contempt, has nothing whatever to do with the | great doctrine of inherent equality. It is the sneaking part of a | man that here suffers, that quails under the notion that | something is done to him which he can never know, from which | there is no appeal. It is the closed doors of the servants' hall that | invest the voice of opinion there in such terrors. Still, it has its | grounds, and the very fear may work out its fulfilment. In | externals, servants are very likely to be correct judges. They | have an instinct as to who has lived in habits of command. They | respect those who show by some nameless freemasonry that | they are used to be attended upon, that the service of inferiors is | part of their heritage. They have a nice though unconscious | discernment of self-respect, and know at once where it resides. | They like a man who asserts himself without bluster or | assumption, they are judges of the particular qualities which | affect their intercourse. To be afraid of a butler is, then, to have | a misgiving whether we are quite the thing. The man who fears | such contempt should take home the humiliating lesson, and | regard it as a revelation of something wanting in himself. And | so of all contempt ~~ either it is deserved or it is not. There is a | remedy in either case, though we admit that our feelings cannot | really be settled by square and rule as easily as this argument | seems to imply. | | No doubt, contempt has its charm where it procures a monopoly | of regard. But this is but a narrow, ignoble satisfaction. A man | much engaged in important concerns, | | who has to act with a variety of characters and | tempers, and to clash with none, must not be | contemptuous. If he have disdain in his | disposition, he must suppress it at whatever effort. | But what an advantage over others he has who, by | nature or from an enlarged interest in human | affairs, from caring for what others care for, is | actually free from it, and can put himself in the | place of the people he acts with frankly and | unaffectedly! He finds a common ground in the midst | of all differences of training or station, and thus | feels the social link which it is the work of | contempt at once to ignore and to break.