“Τῆς δ’ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάριοθεν ἔθηκαν.
Λθάνατοι, μακρος δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἷμος ἐπ’ αὺτὴν,
Kαὶ τρηχὺς πρῶτον επην δ’εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται
Ρηἴδίη δ’ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα.”
—Hesiod.
Here we have toil, trouble, and a rough road.
Now for a little entanglement of the subject. Who will sit for this aspirant for all the virtues—for civilisation? I look up to the portrait of the Chinese lady, who first set my thoughts upon this speculation. Surely she never got that placid do-nothing look from any long habit of toil and trouble; she never worked hard. I confess, Eusebius, as I question her, she does look a little more silly than I thought her. She never went the up-hill rough road. How should she? She was never shod for it; nay, were the truth told—for the painter has judiciously kept it out of sight—she had no proper feet to walk withal. They had been pinched to next to nothing. She never could have danced; would have been a sorry figure in a European ball-room; and in the way she must have stood, would have made but (as Goldsmith calls it) “a mutilated curtsey.” It is hard to give up a first idea. I proposed her as an emblem of civilisation—and why not? She does not represent civilisation in its progress—in its work; but in its result—its perfection. For look at her,—she stands not up with a bold impudence, like Luxury in the “Choice of Hercules,” puffed up and enlarged in the fat of pride, and redder and whiter than nature—a painted Jezebel. Quite the reverse. She is most delicately slender; her substance is of the purity of the finest China tea-cup. In fact, she seems to have been set up as the work of a whole nation’s toil,—as a sign, a model, of their civilisation. They who imagined such a creature, and set her upon her legs—yet I can hardly say that, considering the feet—must have made many after the same model, or seen many; and exquisite must have been the manners of such a piece of life-porcelain.
Indeed, Eusebius, we have greatly mistaken these people, the Chinese. I will believe their own account of themselves, and that they were a polished people when the ancient Britons went naked, and painted themselves with woad. Besides, here is another picture at hand, clearly showing them to have been, as probably they are still, a sensible people, for they evidently agree with the wisest man who said, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Here they have pictured a school, and the pedagogue is flogging a boy, and he has a very legitimate rod. If this is not a mark of civilisation—for it certainly leaves one, giving, as it were, a bottomry bond of future wisdom—I should like to know what is. Birch-buds are the smart-money of education, and wonderfully improve the memory without touching the head, but reaching the brain by a harmless and distant sympathy. I am sure the Chinese must be a people well worth studying; and, with all our national conceit, we may learn a good deal from them. If we scatter them about with our artillery, and stick them upon bayonets, and despise them because they are innocent, or have been till recently, in the arts of destruction, who are the most savage—the slaughtered or the slaughterers? Are we to call war, civilisation? Perhaps it may be the “rough way” it has to pass. Ask the Czar to answer the question. He will undoubtedly say, that it is cutting the throats of the Turks and filching their property; and he will show you one undoubted proof of the highest civilisation of modern times, consummate hypocrisy—committing murder by wholesale in the name of religion.
Shall I advance a seeming paradox? Civilisation is impeded by knowledge—that is, by the modern demand for it. The memory becomes crammed, till there be no room in the brain for legitimate thought to work in. Hence a bewilderment, a confusion of other men’s ideas, and none of our own; a general perplexity, and little agreement among people in sentiment, for they have no time left to consider upon their differences. The world is overstocked with the materials of knowledge, and yet there is ever a demand for more. The time of man’s best wisdom was when he was not overburthened with books. Happy are scholars that so many of the classics are lost. Were all that have been written extant, the youth that should graduate in honours would be the miracle of a short time, and an idiot the remainder of his life. Then our own literature: it is frightful to see the bulky monthly catalogue of publications. Had I to begin the world, I should throw down the list in despair, and prefer being a literary fool, with a little common sense. Besides, the aspirant in education must learn all modern languages also. What a quantity! I made a note from a paper published, November 1851. Here is a quotation. A letter from Leipsic says—“The catalogue for the book fair of St Michael has been just published. It results from it that during the short space of time which has elapsed since the fair of Easter last, not fewer than three thousand eight hundred and sixty new books have been published in Germany, and that one thousand one hundred and fifty others are in the press. More than one-half of these works are on scientific subjects.” Mercy on the brains of the people!—they will be inevitably addled. What with all this learning and reading, summing and analysing, and making book-shelves of themselves, they are retrograding in natural understanding, which ought to be the strong foundation of civilisation. And there is the necessity growing up of reading all the daily papers beside. Better, Eusebius, that the human plant should grow, like a cucumber, to belly, and run along the common ground, than shoot out such head-seed as is likely to come out of such a hotbed under a surfeit of dry manure. Verily it must shortly come to pass, that Ignoramus will be the wisest if not the knowingest among us. He may have common sense, a few flights of imagination unchoked with the dust of learning, or many wholesome prejudices, a great deal of honest feeling, and with these homespun materials keep his morals and religion pure, and, walking in humbleness, reach unawares the summit of civilisation. If you think him an imaginary being, wed him to the Chinese Purity in the japan frame, and no one will write the epithalamium so happily as my friend Eusebius. I might here have ended my letter, rather expecting to receive a solution to the great question than pretending to offer one. But having written so far, and about to add a concluding sentence, I received a visit from our matter-of-fact friend B., whom people hereabout call the Economist General: he is a professed statist, great in all little things. He is alway at work, volunteering unacceptable advices and schemes to boards of guardians and the Government. I told him I was writing to you, and the subject of my letter,—“Then,” said he, “I can assist you. The census newly come out is the thing. In that you will learn everything. You will, in fact, find civilisation depicted scientifically. I will send it to you.” We conversed an hour; I promised to read his census return in the course of the day. He smiled strangely, but said nothing. I soon understood what the smile meant, when I saw a labouring man take out of a little cart a huge parcel, which upon opening I found to contain the Census in nineteen volumes or books, varying in shapes and sizes, some of which being very bulky, I judged to contain heavy matter. The idea of reading over and digesting the Census in an afternoon appeared now so ridiculous that I could not refrain from laughing myself. Nineteen books to examine in an afternoon! It was evident there would be six months’ toil, and as many hands as Briareus wanted to turn over the leaves; to say nothing of the number of heads to hold the matter. What horsepower engine in the brain to work up a digested process equal to the task! I was, however, being somewhat idle, curious to see what could have made our friend such an enthusiast; I therefore looked into some of the books—became interested—read more and more, though in a desultory manner. It is wonderful to see society so daguerreotyped in all its phases. What could have given rise to so much varied ingenuity?—What schemes, what contrivances for getting at everything!—the commissioners must have been Titans in ingenuity. Was it the necessity of the case that induced so much elaboration? I have read that the cost of the Census exceeds £120,000. That accounts for it, Eusebius; such a sum is not to be clutched without some inventive powers. Our friend thinks the Census will help to solve the question of civilisation; so pray borrow the volumes of an M.P. If you cannot get at the marrow of the thing you want, you will find much for after speculation. There is something frightful, Eusebius, in the idea that no class of men, no individuals, can henceforth escape the eye of this Great Inquisitor-General—a Census commission. There is no conceivable thing belonging to man, woman, or child that may not come under the inspection, and be in the books, of this great Gargantuan Busybody. In truth, he was born a gigantic infant in 1801. Hermes, in the Homeric hymn, leaped out of his cradle upon mischievous errands almost as soon as born: so did our big Busybody. Ere he was six months old he took to knocking at people’s doors, and running[[144]] away. He soon grew bolder, stood to his knock, and asked if Mr Thompson did not live there. Then he had the trick of getting into houses like the boy Jones, and counted the skillets in the scullery, the pap-dishes in the nursery, turned over the beds in the garrets, and booked men and maids who slept in them before they could put their clothes on. With a thirst for domestic knowledge, he insisted upon knowing who were married and who not. He would burst in upon a family at their prayers, and note what religion they were of. He would know every one’s age, condition, business, and be very particular as to sex female, why they married or why they lived single; he could tell to a day when any would lie in. The most wonderful thing was the paper case he carried with him wherever he went. It would have made Gargantua himself stare with astonishment, for it is said, upon competent authority, to have weighed “nearly forty tons.” This paper case contained particulars noted down of every one’s possible concerns. He had another at home, in which he kept circulars for distribution, demanding further information. It was said to be bigger still;[[145]] as he grew robust and bold, of course it took more to feed Busybody. It is almost incredible what a number of the people’s loaves he ate up in one year; but that there is the baker’s bill to vouch for it, no one would believe it. The quantity of food required for himself and his numerous retainers has already made him look about with some anxiety to foist upon the country a scheme for sure agricultural statistics, to ascertain the number of loaves to the acre. It cannot be said of him, as of many, that his eye is bigger than his belly, for the former cannot as yet see “bread-stuffs” enough to fill the latter. Besides, he has quite an army to maintain of officials, enumerators, and registrars, who all, after the manner of benchers, must eat their way into the universal knowledge required of them. Such is Busybody. In my afternoon nap, I have dreamed of him, Eusebius, and offer you this description of him—his birth, life, habits, and manners—as by a dreaming intuition I received them. What think you of the monster? As perilous a beast as the Wooden Horse of Troy.
“Inspectura domos, venturaque desuper urbi.” It would not be surprising if Irish mothers, when they find that all their babes are registered, age and sex noted down, were to take into their heads that they are to be fattened; and Swift’s scheme, which a popular author has unwisely characterised as serious cannibalism, is at length to be realised, and thus Bigmouth of the old fair and puppet-show will appear as Busybody-General. Perhaps the “King of the Cannibal Islands,” since we have taught him to read and write, will avail himself of this new registration system; for with him all is alike meat in the market. I have been reading an account of such a people’s doings, and find the only difference between human and other is, that the former is sold as “long pig,” the other short pig.