Adventures in the Moon, and Other Worlds

by Earl John Russell Russell

SPIRIT.

Then you are mistaken: a word may signify nothing, and yet be more powerful than the greatest monarch upon earth. Undoubtedly, there are men so inquisitive as to satisfy themselves whether a word means any thing before they will be zealous in its behalf, but the generality are capable of no such research; and I think it clear, that if none were eager party men except those who know why they are so, the heads of a party would find their followers reduced to a small number. During a century and a half, the two words Whig and Tory divided England into two sets of angry men. Now many a zealous Whig or Tory, had he been asked whether he could explain the difference between himself and his neighbour on the contrary side, would have thought it a very ridiculous question, well knowing how different a sound the two words make to the ear, and how different a figure they present to the eye, and therefore conceiving that the distinction between Whig and Tory must be obvious to every man who had an eye or an ear. Yet such a reasoner as this will frequently adhere to his own word with more resolution and anger than most of those who must know what is signified by a sound before they will risk their fortune in its defence.

Now, when you consider the strange authority that particular words obtain, you must have a curiosity to know what it is that makes a sound so powerful. For manifestly a party cannot select a word at pleasure, and make it popular. Many attempts are made to that purpose in vain; some ambitious word is perpetually assuming importance, but fails to attract notice, and is forgotten. Words resemble men in this particular, that out of all the pretenders to renown very few succeed. And, certainly, in the words of most authority, it is impossible to discover any intrinsic excellence. The word Whig has neither music nor dignity, and yet numbers would have hazarded their lives and fortunes in defence of this sound, which is as harsh as any that could have been made out of the alphabet.

Of those words which have attained to great eminence, many before their advancement had served in the language as common words; some had never engaged themselves in politics, but been altogether without importance, when suddenly they have been promoted to be the leaders of a party. When a word obtains this mysterious influence it seems to prevail in the air, like a distemper, seizing men one after another, and involving them in the same anxiety. An industrious tradesman, who has laboured hard to keep his children alive, if he be suddenly possessed by a prevalent word, abandons his shop, and from that moment neglects his business for the sake of a word which he can neither roast nor boil.

These words cause different troubles of mind: the office of some is to provoke discontent; and when one of these takes possession of a man, while he is enjoying every comfort of life, he instantly imagines himself the most miserable of human beings. In this emergency, he has first to find out what is his distress,—a discovery, which he is commonly unable to make by his own genius; and he is, therefore, very grateful to any person who has invention enough to supply him with something to complain of. Other words excite hope, and a man believes that by often using and insisting upon them he shall soon arrive at unusual prosperity. By one powerful word of this species, a whole country is sometimes triumphant for several months together. There are words that cause alarm; and he who is seized by one of them is in perpetual terror lest it should bring upon him some mischief of which he cannot conceive the nature.

Now you here see how all this is effected. A number of words are always hovering about these webs, and when one of them touches a web, with which it has an affinity, it is retained there like a fly in a cob-web. As soon, then, as it is fixed in the web, it transmits its efficacy down all the threads, and so takes possession of all the men annexed to that web, with different violence, according to their several tempers.

SLEEPER.

I cannot forbear saying that I think the world would be much happier without these party webs, and these deceitful words.

SPIRIT.