The same arguments which applied to the complaints of ingratitude, apply to the complaints of neglected merit. The merit is oftentimes not understood. Be it ever so manifest, it cannot absorb men’s attention. When it is really great, it has not been brought out by the hope of reward, any more than the kindest services by the hope of gratitude. In neither case is it becoming or rational to be clamorous about payment.
There is one thing that people hardly ever remember, or, indeed, have imagination enough to conceive; namely, the effect of each man being shut up in his individuality. Take a long course of sayings and doings in which many persons have been engaged. Each one of them is in his own mind the centre of the web, though, perhaps, he is at the edge of it. We know that in our observations of the things of sense, any difference in the points from which the observation is taken gives a different view of the same thing. Moreover, in the world of sense, the objects and the points of view are each indifferent to the rest; but in life the points of views are centres of action that have had something to do with the making of the things looked at. If we could calculate the moral parallax arising from these causes, we should see, by the mere aid of the intellect, how unjust we often are in our complaints of ingratitude, inconstancy, and neglect. But without these nice calculations, such errors of view may be corrected at once by humility, a more sure method than the most enlightened appreciation of the cause of error. Humility is the true cure for many a needless heartache.
It must not be supposed that in thus opposing unreasonable views of social affections, anything is done to dissever such affections. The Duke of Wellington, writing to a man in a dubious position of authority, says “The less you claim, the more you will have.” This is remarkably true of the affections; and there is scarcely anything that would make men happier than teaching them to watch against unreasonableness in their claims of regard and affection; and which at the same time would be more likely to ensure their getting what may be their due.
Ellesmere (clapping his hands). An essay after my heart: worth tons of soft trash. In general you are amplifying duties, telling everybody that they are to be so good to every other body. Now it is as well to let every other body know that he is not to expect all he may fancy from everybody. A man complains that his prosperous friends neglect him: infinitely overrating, in all probability, his claims, and his friends’ power of doing anything for him. Well, then, you may think me very hard, but I say that the most absurd claims are often put forth on the ground of relationship. I do not deny that there is something in blood, but it must not be made too much of. Near relations have great opportunities of attaching each other; if they fail to use these, I do not think it is well to let them imagine that mere relationship is to be the talisman of affection.
Dunsford. I do not see exactly how to answer all that you or Milverton have said; but I am not prepared, as official people say, to agree with you. I especially disagree with what Milverton has said about love. He leaves much too little power to the will.
Milverton. I daresay I may have done so. These are very deep matters, and any one view about them does not exhaust them. I remember C— once saying to me that a man never utters anything without error. He may even think of it rightly; but he cannot bring it out rightly. It turns a little false, as it were, when it quits the brain and comes into life.
Ellesmere. I thought you would soon go over to the soft side. Here, Rollo; there’s a good dog. You do not form unreasonable expectations, do you? A very little petting puts you into an ecstasy, and you are much wiser than many a biped who is full of his claims for gratitude, and friendship, and love, and who is always longing for well-merited rewards to fall into his mouth. Down, dog!
Milverton. Poor animal! it little knows that all this sudden notice is only by way of ridiculing us. Why I did not maintain my ground stoutly against Dunsford is, that I am always afraid of pushing moral conclusions too far. Since we have been talking, I think I see more clearly than I did before what I mean to convey by the essay—namely, that men fall into unreasonable views respecting the affections from imagining that the general laws of the mind are suspended for the sake of the affections.
Dunsford. That seems safer ground.
Milverton. Now to illustrate what I mean by a very similar instance. The mind is avid of new impressions. It “travels over,” or thinks it travels over, another mind; and, though it may conceal its wish for “fresh fields and pastures new,” it does so wish. However harsh, therefore, and unromantic it may seem, the best plan is to humour Nature, and not to exhaust by overfrequent presence the affection of those whom we would love, or whom we would have to love us. I would not say, after the manner of Rochefoucauld, that the less we see of people the more we like them; but there are certain limits of sociality; and prudent reserve and absence may find a place in the management of the tenderest relations.