There are two ways of causing an animal to advance—whether that animal be an artist, a writer, or a prime minister—first, by kind encouragements ... in front; secondly, by something less pleasant ... on the other side.
I firmly believe the second process to be the more efficient of the two.
It is only indifference that kills; in religion, in love, in politics, in literature, in everything.
Christianity came out of the Roman arenas, English Protestantism out of the Smithfield fires; and many a demagogue owed his success, under the Second Empire, to the few months' imprisonment at Ste. Pélagie that the Imperialist judges were silly enough to condemn him to.
Enemies? Why, they are our fortune. When I hear a man spoken of after his death as never having had any enemies, as a Christian I admire him, but I also come to the conclusion that the dear fellow must have been a very insignificant member of the community.
If you do something new, you make enemies of all the red tapeists; if you do something intelligent, you make enemies of all the fools; if you are successful, you make enemies of all the army of failures, the misunderstood, the crabbed, and the jealous; but these little outbursts of hatred, one as diverting as the other, are really so many testimonials in your favor.
If you send in your application for some vacant post, and you succeed in obtaining it, you may be sure that there will be but one candidate who will consider that the election was made according to merit; yourself. The rest will cry out in chorus that your luck is something wonderful. Luck! What a drudge this poor word is made of! The privations you have imposed upon yourself, and the long nights that you have devoted to work, are luck. Luck, as a great English moralist puts it, means rising at six in the morning; luck means spending tenpence when you earn a shilling; luck means minding your own business and not meddling with other people's.
The Englishman knows that it falls to everyone's lot to be criticised, and he makes up his mind to endure it. He even has a certain admiration for those who criticise and rally him, if the operation is performed with a little dexterity. Violent criticism is the only kind he has a contempt for. "The fellow loses his temper," says he; "he is a fool, who proves that his cause is a bad one;" and he goes on his way unconcerned. So, while, in Paris, a Republican and a Bonapartist, who meet on the Boulevards, will look daggers at each other; a Liberal and a Conservative, who meet in Pall Mall, will shake hands and go and dine together amicably. They both know that it is all humbug. After dinner, they repair to the House of Commons; one takes his seat on the left, the other on the right of the Speaker, who ought rather to be called the Spoken to, since everyone addresses his remarks to him, but he very rarely opens his lips.
Never any insults in this Parliament. You will never hear any such phrase as "the honorable member has lied," but rather, "the honorable member has just made a remark which is scarcely in accordance with strict truth." These euphemisms are the soul of the English language, the outcome of the cool British temperament. Violent language has not the least power to move an Englishman to wrath—it rather excites his pity. In an English club, two members who had called each other "liars," would find their names promptly struck off the roll, and there would be an end of the matter. In France they would fight a duel.
The following anecdote shows how ready the English are to acknowledge their little failings.