V
One public man in a recent angry altercation with another taunted him with elaborately preparing his invective, and some notoriously vituperative speeches are known to have been written out and printed before they were spoken. Such cold venom is undoubtedly as effective in reading as the hot outbreak of the moment, and it may be even more effective in the delivery, since self-command is as useful to the orator as to the actor. But if a man be guilty of a gross offence who upon a dignified scene violates the self-restraint and respect for the company which are not only becoming, but so much assumed that whoever violates the requirement is felt to insult his associates and the public, why do we not consider whether every scene is not too dignified for mature and intelligent men to attempt to rival in blackguardism the traditional fishwives of Billingsgate?
If an orator or a newspaper conducts a discussion without discharging the fiercest and foulest epithets at the opponent, it is often declared to be tame and feeble and indifferent. But to whom and to what does vituperation appeal? When an advocate upon the platform shouts until he is very hot and very red that the supporter of protection is a thief, a robber, a pampered pet of an atrociously diabolical system, he inflames passion and prejudice, indeed, to the highest fury, and he produces a state of mind which is inaccessible to reason, but he does not show in any degree whatever either that protection is inexpedient or how it is unjust. In the same way, to assail an opponent who favors revision of the tariff and incidental protection as a rascally scoundrel who is trying to ruin American industry—as if he could have any purpose of injuring himself materially and fatally—is absurd. The tirade merely injures the cause which the blackguard intends to help. But the man who carried on discussion in this style is described by other professors of the same art as manly and virile and hitting from the shoulder, and he comes perhaps to think himself a doughty champion of the right.
The weapon that demolishes an antagonist and an argument is not rhetoric, but truth. This accumulation of "bad names" and ingenious combination of scurrility is merely rhetoric. It serves the rhetorical purpose, but it does not convince. It does not show the hearer or reader that one course is more expedient than another, nor give him any reason whatever for any opinion upon the subject. Virility, vigor, masculinity of mind, and essential force in debate are revealed in quite another way. If an American were asked to mention the most powerful speech ever made in the debates of Congress, he would probably mention Mr. Webster's reply to Hayne. It contained the great statement of nationality and the argument for the national interpretation of the Constitution, and it was spoken in the course of a famous controversy. Let any man read it, and ask himself whether it would have gained in power, in effect, in weight, dignity, or character, by personal invective and elaborate vituperation of any kind and any degree whatever.
The truth is that the fury which is supposed to imply force is the conclusive proof of weakness. The familiar advice, "If you have no evidence, abuse the plaintiff's attorney," contains by implication the whole philosophy of what is called the manliness and force of the blackguard. He has no reason, therefore he sneers. He has no argument, therefore he swears. He will get the laugh upon his adversary if he can, forgetting that those who laugh at the clown may also despise him.
Of wit, humor, satire, sarcasm, we are not speaking. The ordinary blackguardism of the political platform and press does not belong to that category. Caricature, however, easily may. There are certain pictures in American caricature which are wit made visible. They are the satire of instructive truth. Indeed, they tell to the eye the indisputable truth as words cannot easily tell it to the ear. In this way caricature is one of the most powerful agents in public discussion. But, like speech or writing, it may be merely blackguard. The incisive wit, the rich humor, the withering satire of speech, gain all their point and effect from the truth. They have no power when they are seen to be false.
So it is with caricature. Nobody can enjoy it more than its subject when it is merely humorous; nobody perceive so surely its pungent touch of truth; nobody disregard more completely its mere malice and falsehood. True wit and humor, whether in controversial letters or art, whether in the newspaper article or the "cartoon," as we now call it, often reveal to the subject in himself what otherwise he might not have suspected. It is very conceivable that an actor, seeing a really clever burlesque of himself, may become aware of tendencies or peculiarities or faults which otherwise he would not have known, and quietly address himself to their correction.
This sanitary service of humor in every form, as well as that of the honest wrath which shakes many a noble sentence of sinewy English as a mighty man-of-war is shaken by her own broadside, is something wholly apart from the billingsgate and blackguardism which are treated as if they were real forces. Publicity itself, as the Easy Chair has often said, has a certain power, and to call a man a rascal to a hundred thousand persons at once produces an undeniable effect. But we must not mistake it for what it is not. Being false, it is not an effect which endures, nor does it vex the equal mind.
It is the fact that the public often seems to demand that kind of titillation, to enjoy fury instead of force, and ridicule instead of reason, which suggests the inquiry whether, if self-restraint and wise discipline are desirable for every faculty of the mind and body, the tongue and hand alone should be allowed to riot in wanton excess. If even the legitimate superlative must be handled, like dynamite, with extreme caution, blackguardism of every degree is a nuisance to be summarily discountenanced and abated by those who know the difference between grandeur and bigness, between Mercutio and Tony Lumpkin, between fair-play and foul.
(September, 1888)