Erasmus, in his ‘Remains,’ tells a story of two thieves, who were recommended by their mother to rob every one they met with; but warned, on peril of their lives, to avoid one Black-breeches (Hercules). Meeting him, however, without knowing him, they set upon him, and were slung across his shoulder,—where Hercules heard them muttering behind his back, a long way off, ‘This must surely be he that our mother warned us of.’ In contempt and pity he let them escape. What modern wit can come up to the grotesque grandeur of this invention?
XXI
People addicted to secresy are so without knowing why; they are so not ‘for cause,’ but for secresy’s sake. It is a mixture of cowardice and conceit. They think, if they tell you any thing, you may understand it better than they do, or turn it in some way against them; but that while they shut up their mouths they are wiser than you, just as liars think by telling you a falsehood they have an advantage over you. There are others who deal in significant nods, smiles, and half-sentences, so that you never can get at their meaning, and indeed they have none, but leave it to you to put what interpretation you please on their embryo hints and conceptions. They are glad to find a proxy for their want of understanding.
XXII
It is the force and violence of the English mind that has put it into the safe custody of the law, and it is every man’s disposition to act upon his own judgment and presumption, without regard to others, that has made it absolutely necessary to establish equal claims to curb them. We are too much in a state of nature to submit to what Burke calls ‘the soft collar of social esteem,’ and require ‘the iron rod, the torturing hour,’ to tame us. But though the foundations of liberty, life, and property, are formally secured in this way from the ebullitions of national character, yet the spirit breaks out upon the surface of manners, and is often spurted in our face. Lord Castlereagh was wrong in saying that ‘liberty was merely a custom of England;’ it is the indigenous growth of our temper and our clime; and woe to him who deprives us of the only amends for so many disadvantages and failings! The wild beast roaming his native forests is respectable though formidable—shut up in Exeter ‘Change, he is equally odious and wretched.
XXIII
It was a long time made an argument for not throwing open the galleries of noblemen and others to the public, that if permission were given they would be filled with the lowest of the rabble, and with squalid wretches, who would run up against well-dressed people, and damage the works of art. Nothing could be more false than this theory, as experience has shown. It was in vain to quote the example of foreign countries, as it was said the common people there were kept more in subjection; but if they are tamer, ours are prouder for that very reason. The National Gallery in Pall-Mall is now open to all the world; and, except a shabby artist or two, who ever saw a soul there who was not, if not well-dressed, yet dressed in his best, and behaving with decency, instead of trying to turn the place into a bear-garden, as had been predicted.[[42]] People will not go out of their way to see pictures unless they have an interest in them, which gives the title, and is a security against ill consequences; much less will any class of people obtrude themselves where they are pointed at as inferior to the rest of the company, or subject themselves to looks of scorn and disgust, to see any sights in the world. There is no man so poor or low but he loves himself better than pictures or statues; and if he must get snubbed and treated with contempt to indulge his admiration of celebrated works, he will forego the latter. Comparisons are odious; and we avoid them. The first object of every human being (high or low, great or small) is to stand well with himself, and to appear to the best advantage to others. A man is not very fond of passing along the streets in a thread-bare coat, and shoes with holes in them. Will he go in this trim into a group of well-dressed people to make himself ridiculous? The mind, so far from being dull or callous on this point, is but too sensitive; our jealousy of public opinion is the ruling passion, a morbid disease. Does not the consciousness of any singularity or impropriety of appearance immediately take off from our pleasure at a play? How seldom we observe an interloper in the dress circle; and how sure he is to pay for it! If a man has any defect or inferiority, this is certain, he will keep it in the back-ground. If a chimney-sweeper or scavenger had a ticket to a ball, would he go? Oh! no; it is enough to bear the sense of our own infirmity and disgrace in silence, and unnoticed, without having it wrought to agony by the glare of contrast and ostentation of insult! What linendraper or grocer’s son would dine with a prince every day though he might, to be crushed into insignificance, and stifled with ironical civility? Do we not observe the difficulty there is in making servants and mechanics sit down, or keep on their hats in speaking to their betters, for fear of being thought to encroach, and made liable to a rebuff in consequence? Assuredly, then, the great may throw open their palace-doors and galleries of art without having to dread the inroad or outrages of the mob, or fancying that any one will go who is not qualified to appear, or will not come away with his mind and manners improved. The wooden shoes and mob caps in the Louvre or the Vatican do no harm to the pictures on the walls: but add a new interest to them, and throw a pleasing light on human nature. If we are behind other nations in politeness and civilization, the best way to overtake them is to tread in their steps.
XXIV
It is at the same time true that familiarity breeds contempt; or that the vulgar, if admitted to an intimacy and footing of equality, try to make you feel all your defects, and to pay for the superiority you have so long usurped over them. The same pride that before kept them at a distance makes them ready to throw down any barrier of deference or distinction the moment they can do so with impunity. No one willingly admits a superiority in another; or does not secretly prefer himself to the whole universe beside. The slave would kill the tyrant, whose feet he kisses; and there is no Turk so loyal that he would not cut off the head of the best of Sultans, if he was sure of putting the diadem upon his own.