NOBODY TO BE DESPISED—
Except on particular grounds of demerit. This is a maxim which it would be well if the world would pay more attention to.
There are many people—very good people, too—who have a habit of speaking contemptuously or lightly of almost every body but themselves. There are still more who do not seem to consider it necessary to treat the absent with the least respect, but, to use the words of a modern writer, are remarkably candid in owning and showing up the faults of their neighbours.
These, I think, are detestable practices of human nature—the issue of its weakness rather than its strength.
When I think of a great and good character, I cannot conceive that he has a habit of depreciating the respect due to his absent friends, or of treating any of his fellow-creatures with scorn, unless for some specific delinquency. Such a person will be already too secure of his own reputation to seek to raise it at the expense of others. He will be able to take an enlarged view of human society, and, seeing that the condition of all men is in a great measure accidental, or at least moulded greatly by circumstances, will not despise any man on account of his mere place in the general system, but, on the contrary, give him respect in proportion to his good conduct in that place, whatever it may be. Such a man, also, will have too much respect for himself, to use language at any time which he would be ashamed to own at another time. He would not indulge in a tone of levity or rancour respecting any man, on whose entrance accidentally into the room he would have to alter his style, and hypocritically offer him the usual courtesies of society.
It happens, however, that all men are more or less remote from the greatness and goodness of this ideal character. We are, as yet, only in a state of comparative approximation to those qualities; hence we find that nearly all are alike given to speak slightingly of each other. There are two grand causes at the bottom of this—Selfishness and Thoughtlessness. The former gives us such an intense appreciation of ourselves, and of the rank we hold in society, that we speak and think as if every man and every class beneath us were too mean to be entitled to the least respect; we look upon the whole as a degraded caste, whose very existence must only be acknowledged indirectly, as a thing we have become acquainted with by seeing it at a distance, not by having ever come in contact with it. In this view of society our ordinary literature is very apt to confirm us. The key-note is there struck always inalt.The whole strain of the work, its characters, its philosophy, its manners, are presumed to be something above the common level; for literary men are still, after all, very much the slaves of the great which they used to be. If the writer describes humble life at all, he describes it as seen by a bird’s-eye view from some lofty station—not as seen by a person who mingles in it, and partakes of its sympathies. Even the middle ranks of the community, who in this country form the great mass of readers, and from which, moreover, almost all literary men arise, have no literature of their own: they have to read a literature which has been calculated for the sphere above them, and in which, of course, their sympathies must be of an imperfect character. And thus, after all that has been done, it still appears a desideratum that there should be both a literature and a philosophyfor the human race.
Then, as tothoughtlessness, as a cause for this universally mutual contempt. It must be admitted, I should think, that if we only took a proper consideration of the noble destiny which all partake in common with ourselves, both in respect to the grand moral ends of this life, and the more sublime prospects for the future, we would hardly think meanly of any one, except, as before mentioned, on account of some specific worthlessness. For my part, I wonder how any man candareto despise a fellow-creature upon other grounds. Is it difference of tongue, of rank, of personal character, of external manners, that makes you despise any one? What, I would ask, are all these distinctions to the great fellowship of our common humanity—the social end which we are working to as parts of a great community—as parts of a glorious world, or the general destiny which awaits us at the close of this brief life? Reflect upon these things before you permit yourself to think lightly of a fellow-creature; or, if these things are of no avail with you, consider what you are yourself, that you thus scorn another. I must say that I have often observed the most contemptible man to be the most contemptuous.There are some men who hardly make any other pretension to the respect of the world, than in so far as they profess to treatevery thingcavalierly. But as he who sheds blood must submit to have his blood shed by others, so are these men at length detected, and tossed, as they deserve, in a blanket of their own weaving. Individuals may be assured that it is not by proclaiming a war of contempt against the world, or any large number of its members, that a comfortable situation is to be gained for themselves.
There is a good old national proverb, which tells us that the king’s errand may come in the pedlar’s road—that is to say, a very lofty man may occasionally have to take a favour from one in humble life. This is no mere flattering unction applied by the common people to themselves. It breathes the very spirit of an enlarged and humane philosophy. It tells us that all ranks of men are in reality dependent upon each other, and that every one, filling its proper place, is entitled to its proportion of regard from the rest. Treating the expression in its more limited sense, it instructs us that, in the prospect of our being occasionally obliged to accept of favours from very mean hands, we should never treat any person beneath us with disrespect—as, otherwise, with what grace can we accept of such a favour? On this point I take the liberty to relate a simple anecdote, as told to me some years ago, in illustration of the subject of this essay, by the individual chiefly concerned—the wife of a shopkeeper in a country town in the north of Scotland.
“In —— there lived a poor woman, named Peggy Williamson, a kind of washerwoman, whom every body looked upon as a wretched creature. This despised and not very reputable person had a son, who on one occasion was taken up by the town-officers for some trifling offence, and would have been thrown into prison, if I had not thought the case rather a hard one, and interceded with the magistrate in his behalf. Peggy, with all her faults,was not ungrateful; she came to me, and said she never would forget my kindness.
“A long time after this, in consequence of a particular calamity, my husband’s affairs got into a very hopeless state. I was attending the shop one bleak November day. Few customers were coming in, or likely to come in, and our prospects were gloomy and dull as the atmosphere itself. I never, indeed, since we began business, saw a day when things seemed less promising. The whole street—the whole town—appeared deserted. All was desolate, cold, and wintry; and with the dread of utter ruin impending over us, you may suppose that our spirits were not very good. Well, just while we were in this dolorous state, in came my old friend Peggy Williamson, accompanied by a country girl, who, she said, wanted to provide herself with a number of our wares, being about to be married. This person expended six or eight pounds with us, and we could not help feeling it as a kind of godsend. It was, however, the result of my having at one time done a just, for I can hardly call it a kind, action, to a person whom the most of people despised. Peggy, who was not perhaps aware of the full extent to which we appreciated her good offices, told me very modestly, as she left the shop with her friend, that she was glad to have had it in her power to recommend any body to us for goods, ‘as she never could forget my kindness to Tam.’ I thus satisfied myself, not only that an act of ordinary benevolence is likely to produce its reward where it is least expected, but that some good feeling may exist even in those characters, whom on ordinary principles we may be most inclined to despise.”
Let us judge, then, or at least let us always be inclined to judge, with tenderness, both of persons and of things. Let us not take our impressions of the characters of our fellow-creatures from the little obvious fault or foible which lies upon the surface, and affords, of course, the subject of largest discourse to the superficial; but, dashing asidethe weeds which mantle the surface of the character, ascertain the extent and sweetness of the clear water beneath. It is of great importance to men, but especially to young men, to acquire a power of judging correctly and definitely of every thing. They must learn to estimate every thing relatively, and not be prevented from allowing merit, even where it exists in the smallest quantities, by its being mingled with a larger proportion of less worthy qualities. We often find one kind of merit denied, because it is not another. A man of untutored genius is sneered at because he wants learning. A learned man is termed a stupid dunce or a pedant, because he wants genius. The writer of an unpretending narrative is described by some of his invidious fellows as no Hume, or Gibbon, or Robertson. An industrious tradesman is ridiculed as a mere plodder; a farmer is laughed at because he is only acquainted with country affairs. Glasgow is condemned as deficient in the refined professional and literary classes of inhabitants, who reside in Edinburgh; and Edinburgh is scouted for its being “not at all a place of business.” These are vicious habits of thought and speech—ifthoughtthere can be in what argues a total absence of every thing like reason.