QUERIES AND ANSWERS; OR THE RULE OF CONTRARY
The London Weekly Review.] [November 17, 1827.
1. Why is the word comfort so continually in the mouths of the English?—Because the English are the most uncomfortable of all people: for being so liable to receive pain from outward objects, and being made uneasy by everything that is not as they wish it, they are obliged to remove, if possible, every source of annoyance, and have all their comforts about them.
2. Why are the English so fond of clubs, corporate bodies, joint-stock companies, and large associations of all kinds?—Because they are the most unsociable set of people in the world: for being mostly at variance with each other, they are glad to get any one else to join and be on their side; having no spontaneous attraction, they are forced to fasten themselves into the machine of society; and each holds out in his individual shyness and reserve, till he is carried away by the crowd, and borne with a violent, but welcome shock against some other mass of aggregate prejudice or self-interest. The English join together to get rid of their sharp points and sense of uncomfortable peculiarity. Hence, their clubs, their mobs, their sects, their parties, their spirit of co-operation, and previous understanding in every thing. An English mob is a collection of violent and headstrong humours, acting with double force from each man’s natural self-will, and the sense of opposition to others; and the same may be said of the nation at large. The French unite and separate more easily; and therefore do not collect into such formidable masses, and act with such unity and tenacity of purpose. It is the same with their ideas, which easily join together, and easily part company; but do not form large or striking masses: and hence, the French are full of wit and fancy, but without imagination and principle. The French are governed by fashion, the English by cabal.
3. Why are the English a credulous nation, and the eager dupes of all sorts of quacks and impostors?—Because they are a dry, plodding, matter-of-fact people, and having, in general, no idea of the possibility of telling lies, think all they hear or read must be true, and are left at the mercy of every empiric or knavish pretender, who will take the trouble to impose on them. From their very gravity and seriousness, they are the dupes of superficial professions and appearances, which they think, (judging from themselves,) must imply all they pretend. Their folly and love of the marvellous takes a practical and mischievous turn; they despise the fictitious, and require to be amused by something that they think solid and useful. Hence, they swallow Dr. Brodum’s pills, Joanna Southcote’s prophecies, the Literary Gazette, and Blackwood’s Magazine, taking them all for gospel. They constantly have a succession of idols or bugbears. There is always some one to be hunted down at the time for their amusement, like a strange dog in a village; and some name, some work that is cried up for half-a-dozen years, as containing all wisdom, and then you hear no more of it. No people judge so much as the English at second-hand, except in mere matters of pounds, shillings, and pence; and even then they may be gulled by impudence and quackery. Every thing is either in collusion or collision. Thimble was a great man in the O. P. Row, and now regulates the debates in Parliament. If a man has a monstrous good opinion of himself, and nothing will drive him out of it, the English will come into his way of thinking, sooner than be left in a minority, or not appear to be in the secret! Lest they should seem stupid, they try to be knowing, as they become forward in aiming to be witty, and vulgar in affecting to be genteel.