The Map of Life / Conduct and Character

by William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Another man is of a different type. Shy, retiring, hating publicity, and not much interested in politics, he is a gigantic landowner, and the work of his life is concentrated on the development of his own estate. He knows the circumstances of every village, almost of every farm. It is his pride that no labourer on his estate is badly housed, that no part of it is slovenly or mismanaged or poverty-stricken. He endows churches and hospitals, he erects public buildings, encourages every local industry, makes in times of distress much larger remissions of rent than would be possible for a poorer man, superintends personally the many interests on his property, knows accurately the balance of receipts and expenditure, takes a great interest in sanitation, in new improvements and experiments in agriculture, in all the multifarious matters that affect the prosperity of his numerous tenantry. He subscribes liberally to great national undertakings, as he considers it one of the duties of his position, but his heart is not in such things, and the well-being of his own vast estate and of those who live upon it is the aim and the work of his life. For a few weeks of the year he exercises the splendid and lavish hospitality which is expected from a man in his position, and he is always very glad when those weeks are over. He has, however, his own expensive hobby, which gives him real pleasure—his yacht, his picture gallery, his museum, his collection of wild animals, his hothouses or his racing establishment. One or more of these form the real amusement of his active and useful life.

A more common type in England is that of the active politician. Great wealth and especially great landed property bring men easily into Parliament, and, if united with industry and some measure of ability, into official life, and public life thus becomes a profession and in many cases a very laborious one. There are few better examples of a well-filled life and of the skilful management and economy of time than are to be found in the lives of some great noblemen who take a leading part in politics and preside over important Government departments without suffering their gigantic estates to fall into mismanagement, or neglecting the many social duties and local interests connected with them. Most of their success is indeed due to the wise use of money in economising time by trustworthy and efficient delegation. Yet the superintending brain, the skilful choice, the personal control cannot be dispensed with. In a life so fully occupied the few weeks of pleasure which may be spent on a Scotch moor or in a Continental watering-place will surely not be condemned.

The economy of time and the elasticity of brain and character such lives develop are, however, probably exceeded by another class. Nothing is more remarkable in the social life of the present generation than the high pressure under which a large number of ladies in great positions habitually live. It strikes every Continental observer, for there is nothing approaching it in any other European country, and it certainly far exceeds anything that existed in England in former generations. Pleasure-seeking, combined, however, on a large scale with pleasure-giving, holds a much more prominent place in these lives than in those I have just described. With not a few women, indeed, of wealth and position, it is the all-in-all of life, and in general it is probable that women obtain more pleasure from most forms of society than men, though it is also true that they bear a much larger share of its burdens. There are, however, in this class, many who combine with society a truly surprising number and variety of serious interests. Not only the management of a great house, not only the superintendence of schools and charities and local enterprises connected with a great estate, but also a crowd of philanthropic, artistic, political, and sometimes literary interests fill their lives. Few lives, indeed, in any station are more full, more intense, more constantly and variously occupied. Public life, which in most foreign countries is wholly outside the sphere of women, is eagerly followed. Public speaking, which in the memory of many now living was almost unknown among women of any station in English society, has become the most ordinary accomplishment. Their object is to put into life from youth to old age as much as life can give, and they go far to attain their end. A wonderful nimbleness and flexibility of intellect capable of turning swiftly from subject to subject has been developed, and keeps them in touch with a very wide range both of interests and pleasures.

There are no doubt grave drawbacks to all this. Many will say that this external activity must be at the sacrifice of the duties of domestic life, but on this subject there is, I think, at least much exaggeration. Education has now assumed such forms and attained such a standard that usually for many hours in the day the education of the young in a wealthy family is in the hands of accomplished specialists, and I do not think that the most occupied lives are those in which the cares of a home are most neglected. How far, however, this intense and constant strain is compatible with physical well-being is a graver question, and many have feared that it must bequeath weakened constitutions to the coming generation. Nor is a life of incessant excitement in other respects beneficial. In both intellectual and moral hygiene the best life is that which follows nature and alternates periods of great activity with periods of rest. Retirement, quiet, steady reading, and the silent thought which matures character and deepens impressions are things that seem almost disappearing from many English lives. But lives such as I have described are certainly not useless, undeveloped, or wholly selfish, and they in a large degree fulfil that great law of happiness, that it should be sought for rather in interests than in pleasures.

I have already referred to the class who value money chiefly because it enables them to dismiss money thoughts and cares from their minds. On the whole, this end is probably more frequently attained by men of moderate but competent fortunes than by the very rich. This is at least the case when they are sufficiently rich to invest their money in securities which are liable to no serious risk or fluctuation. A gigantic fortune is seldom of such a nature that it does not bring with it great cares of administration and require much thought and many decisions. There is, however, one important exception. When there are many children the task of providing for their future falls much more lightly on the very rich than on those of medium fortune.

There is a class, however, who are the exact opposite of these and who make the simple acquisition of money the chief interest and pleasure of their lives. Money-making in some form is the main occupation of the great majority of men, but it is usually as a means to an end. It is to acquire the means of livelihood, or the means of maintaining or improving a social position, or the means of providing as they think fit for the children who are to succeed them. Sometimes, however, with the very rich and without any ulterior object, money-making for its own sake becomes the absorbing interest. They can pursue it with great advantage; for, as has been often said, nothing makes money like money, and the possession of an immense capital gives innumerable facilities for increasing it. The collecting passion takes this form. They come to care more for money than for anything money can purchase, though less for money than for the interest and the excitement of getting it. Speculative enterprise, with its fluctuations, uncertainties and surprises, becomes their strongest interest and their greatest amusement.

When it is honestly conducted there is no real reason why it should be condemned. On these conditions a life so spent is, I think, usually useful to the world, for it generally encourages works that are of real value. All that can be truly said is that it brings with it grave temptations and is very apt to lower a man's moral being. Speculation easily becomes a form of gambling so fierce in its excitement that, when carried on incessantly and on a great scale, it kills all capacity for higher and tranquil pleasures, strengthens incalculably the temptations to unscrupulous gain, disturbs the whole balance of character, and often even shortens life. With others the love of accumulation has a strange power of materialising, narrowing and hardening. Habits of meanness—sometimes taking curious and inconsistent forms, and applying only to particular things or departments of life—steal insensibly over them, and the love of money assumes something of the character of mania. Temptations connected with money are indeed among the most insidious and among the most powerful to which we are exposed. They have probably a wider empire than drink, and, unlike the temptations that spring from animal passion, they strengthen rather than diminish with age. In no respect is it more necessary for a man to keep watch over his own character, taking care that the unselfish element does not diminish, and correcting the love of acquisition by generosity of expenditure.

It is probable that the highest form of charity, involving real and serious self-denial, is much more common among the poor, and even the very poor, than among the rich. I think most persons who have had much practical acquaintance with the dealings of the poor with one another will confirm this. It is certainly far less common among those who are at the opposite pole of fortune. They have not had the same discipline, or indeed the same possibility of self-sacrifice, or the same means of realising the pains of poverty, and there is another reason which tends not unnaturally to check their benevolence. A man with the reputation of great wealth soon finds himself beleaguered by countless forms of mendicancy and imposture. He comes to feel that there is a general conspiracy to plunder him, and he is naturally thrown into an attitude of suspicion and self-defence. Often, though he may give largely and generously, he will do so under the veil of strict anonymity, in order to avoid a reputation for generosity which will bring down upon him perpetual solicitations. If he is an intellectual man he will probably generalise from his own experience. He will be deeply impressed with the enormous evils that have sprung from ill-judged charity, and with the superiority even from a philanthropic point of view of a productive expenditure of money.

And in truth it is difficult to overrate the evil effects of injudicious charities in discouraging thrift, industry, foresight and self-respect. They take many forms; some of them extremely obvious, while others can only be rightly judged by a careful consideration of remote consequences. There are the idle tourists who break down, in a once unsophisticated district, that sense of self-respect which is one of the most valuable lessons that early education can give, by flinging pence to be scrambled for among the children, or who teach the poor the fatal lesson that mendicancy or something hardly distinguishable from mendicancy will bring greater gain than honest and continuous work. There is the impulsive, uninquiring charity that makes the trade of the skilful begging-letter writer a lucrative profession, and makes men and women who are rich, benevolent and weak, the habitual prey of greedy impostors. There is the old-established charity for ministering to simple poverty which draws to its centre all the pauperism of the neighbouring districts, depresses wages, and impoverishes the very district or class it was intended to benefit. There are charities which not only largely diminish the sufferings that are the natural consequence and punishment of vice; but even make the lot of the criminal and the vicious a better one than that of the hard-working poor. There are overlapping charities dealing with the same department, but kept up with lavish waste through the rivalry of different religious denominations, or in the interests of the officials connected with them; belated or superannuated charities formed to deal with circumstances or sufferings that have in a large degree passed away—useless, or almost useless, charities established to carry out some silly fad or to gratify some silly vanity; sectarian charities intended to further ends which, in the eyes of all but the members of one sect, are not only useless but mischievous; charities that encourage thriftless marriages, or make it easy for men to neglect obvious duties, or keep a semi-pauper population stationary in employments and on a soil where they can never prosper, or in other ways handicap, impede or divert the natural and healthy course of industry. Illustrations of all these evils will occur to every careful student of the subject. Unintelligent, thoughtless, purely impulsive charity, and charity which is inspired by some other motive than a real desire to relieve suffering, will constantly go wrong, but every intelligent man can find without difficulty vast fields on which the largest generosity may be expended with abundant fruit.

Hospitals and kindred institutions for alleviating great unavoidable calamities, and giving the sick poor something of the same chances of recovery as the rich, for the most part fall under this head. Money will seldom be wasted which is spent in promoting kinds of knowledge, enterprise or research that bring no certain remuneration proportioned to their value; in assisting poor young men of ability and industry to develop their special talents; in encouraging in their many different forms thrift, self-help and co-operation; in alleviating the inevitable suffering that follows some great catastrophe on land or sea, or great transitions of industry, or great fluctuations and depressions in class prosperity; in giving the means of healthy recreation or ennobling pleasures to the denizens of a crowded town. The vast sphere of education opens endless fields for generous expenditure, and every religious man will find objects which, in the opinion not only of men of his own persuasion, but also of many others, are transcendently important. Nor is it a right principle that charity should be denied to all calamities which are in some degree due to the fault of the sufferer, or which might have been averted by exceptional forethought or self-denial. Some economists write as if a far higher standard of will and morals should be expected among the poor and the uneducated than can be found among the rich. Good sense and right feeling will here easily draw the line, abstaining from charities that have a real influence in encouraging improvidence or vice, yet making due allowance for the normal weaknesses of our nature.