13 IT CHAPTER II. CONCERNING THE WORLD'S OPINION: WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON COWED PEOPLE. T seems to me that there are few things in which it is more difficult to hold the just mean, than our feeling as to the opinion of those around us. For the most part, you will find human beings taking a quite extreme position as to what may be called the World's Opinion. They pay either too much regard to it, or too little. Either they are thoroughly cowed by it, or they stand towards it in an attitude of defiance. The cowed people, unquestionably, are in the majority. Most people live in a vague atmosphere of dread of the world, and of what the world is saying of them. You may discern the belief which prevails with the steady-going mass of humankind, in the typical though not historical fact which was taught most of us in childhood,—that DON'T CARE came to a bad end. The actual idea which is present to very many minds is difficult to define. Even to attempt to define it takes away that vagueness which is of the essence of its nature, and which is a great reason of the fear it excites. And the actual idea varies much in different minds, and in the same mind at different times. Sometimes, if put into shape, it would amount to this:—that some great and uncounted number of human beings is watching the person; is thinking of him; is forming an estimate of him, and an opinion as to what he ought to do. Sometimes the world's opinion becomes a more tangible thing: it means the opinion of the little circle of the person's acquaintance; or the opinion of the family in which he or she lives; or the opinion of even some single individual of a somewhat strong, and probably somewhat coarse and meddlesome nature. In such a case the world becomes personified in the typical Mrs. Grundy; and the fear of the world's opinion is expressed in the question-What will Mrs. Grundy say? Most people, then, live in a vague fear of that which may be styled Mrs. Grundy; and are cowed into abject submission not merely to her ascertained opinions, but also to what they fancy that possibly her opinions may be. Others, again—a smaller number, and a number lessening as the individuals who constitute it grow older-confront Mrs. Grundy, and defy her. DON'T CARE was a leader of this little band. But even though Don't Care had not come to trouble, it is highly probable that as he advanced in years he would have found that he must care, and that he did care. For a good many years I have en joyed the acquaintance and the conversation of a man who, even after he became Solicitor-General, held bravely yet temperately by the forlorn hope of which a large part has always consisted of the young and the wrongheaded; and from which, with advancing years and increasing experience, men are so apt to drop away. I know that it was not vapouring in him to say, 'The hissing of collected Europe, provided I knew the hissers could not touch me, would be a grateful sound rather than the reverse—that is, if heard at a reasonable distance.'* But though I believe the words were sincere when he said them, yet I am convinced it was only by a stiffening of the moral nature, implying effort too great to last, that he was able to keep the feeling which these words expressed. I see in these words the expression of a desperate reaction against a strong natural bias; and I believe that time would gradually crumble that resolute purpose down. By a determined effort you may hold out a heavy weight at arm's length for a few minutes; you may defy and vanquish the law of gravitation for that short space; but the law of gravitation, quietly and unvaryingly acting, will beat you at last. And even if Ellesmere could peacefully go about his duty, and tranquilly enjoy his home, with that universal hiss in his ears, I know of those into whose hearts that hiss would sink down-whose hearts that hiss would break. How * Ellesmere, in Companions of my Solitude: about his wife and children? And how would the strong man himself feel, when day by day he saw by the pale cheek, the lined brow, the anxious eye, the unnatural submissiveness, that they were living in a moral atmosphere that was poisoning them? Think of the little children coming in and saying that the other children would not play with them or speak to them. Think of the poor wife going to some meeting of charitable ladies, and left in a corner without one to notice her or take pity on her. Ah, my friend Ellesmere, once you have given hostages to fortune, we know where the world can make you feel! Let us give a little time to clearing up our minds on this great practical question, as to the influence which of right belongs to the world's opinion; as to the deference which a wise man will accord to it. Let us try to define that great shadowy phantom which holds numbers through all their life in a slavery which extends to all they say and do; to the food they eat, and the raiment they put on, and the home they dwell in ; and in many cases even to what they think, and to what they will admit to themselves that they think. The tyranny of the world's opinion is a tyranny infinitely more subtle and farther-reaching than that of the Inquisition in its worse days; one which passes its sentences, though no one knows who are the judges that pronounce them; and one which inflicts its punishments by the hands of numbers who utterly disapprove them. And yet, one has not the comfort of feeling able to condemn this strange tribunal out and out; you are obliged to confess that in the main its judgments are just, and its supervision is a wholesome one. Now and then it does things that are flagrantly unjust and absurd; but if I could venture, with my experience of life, to lay down any general principle, it would be the principle, abhorrent to warm young hearts, and to hasty young heads, that in the main the world's opinion is right in those matters to which the world's opinion has a right to extend. I dare say you will think that this is a general principle promulgated with considerable reservation. So it is; and I hardly know to which thing, the principle or the reservation, it seems to me that the greater consideration is due. It is wrong, doubtless, to be always thinking what people will say. It is a low and wretched state of mind to come to. There is no more contemptible or miserable mortal than one of whom this can be said: While you, you think What others think, or what you think they'll say; Of aspen trees by flickering breezes swayed— Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night, I am not the utter slave which that man is Whose sole thought, word, and deed are built on what The world may say of him! The condition of mind described in these indignant lines is doubtless wrong and wretched. But still one feels that these lines must be understood with much C |