RELATIONS.
Owing to the different merits of the different members of a family, and in some measure, also, to the various chances which are vouchsafed to them of bettering their circumstances, we generally see that, though they all begin alike, some goupand some godownin life, so that in the long-run the family, or at least its second generation, is scattered over nearly the whole surface of society, from its top to its bottom. The case may seem startling; but it is our belief that there is hardly any person, be his own situation ever so exalted, who has not relations, and near relations too, in the very lowest walks of life—not only in the condition of servants, perhaps, for that is decent, and, in its way, respectable, but in the most degraded state to which human nature can well be reduced.
In the same way, almost all of us have kinsfolk a little higher in the scale than ourselves, or whom we think so—it is all one. Now, it is quite amazing how accurate our genealogical knowledge becomes respecting one of these individuals, compared with its equally surprising ignorance regarding those who have not been so fortunate. When a cousin or half grand-uncle rises above our level, he risesinto a blaze of light, which enables us to trace our connection with him as plainly as we run our eye along the string of a boy’s kite. But when a poor nephew or grand-nephew descends into poverty and contempt, he seems like a plummet submersed in the ocean, where, though we may occasionally feel him tugging at the bottom of the line, we are totally unable to trace the line itself. We are always most laudably ready to exchange the civilities of life and the affections of kindred with the cousin who has, in the first place, convinced us of his merit by thatching himself well over with bank-notes. It is pleasant to go and dine at a kinsman’s house, where we know that our entertainment can be furnished without any distress to our worthy host. But really it is a totally different case to intrude upon a scene where our poor friend is doing his best, with the tears in his eyes, to satisfy the cravings of his family with, perhaps, a very homely meal. Humanity in that case demands that we should rather stay away, for we know he does not like to be seen in his poor state. And then, too, how easily we can put up with the eccentricities of a wealthy relation, even though they may sometimes gall our pride a little: how strangely liable, on the other hand, are we to fall out with the poor unfortunates below us! On the day after having been regaled to the uttermost excess by our wealthy friend, we will quarrel with the poor one for having drunk a single glass of some plebeian fluid. With the former, nothing—with the latter, every thing, is a fault. The imperfections of the poor are yawning and palpable as their own rags: those of the rich are as smooth as broad-cloth can make them. The truth is, our senses can tolerate almost any odious or improper thing that is found in a scene above our usual grade in the world. We never know enough of it to be able to measure its real odiousness, or it is disguised by the cordial appliances which we always have ready for the sores of the great. But the vices, nay, the smallest foibles of the lowly, come before our senses so bare, so beggarly, so unanealed, and,moreover, they are so immediately followed by that additional wretchedness which wealthy error escapes, that we have no excuse for them. Hence we generally find, that we have shaken off the most of our poor relations on account of some trivial cause of offence, which we find it necessary, however, to be always nursing in our minds, in order to sustain us in the conviction that the breach of treaty—thecasus fœderis—was sufficient.
There is one very obvious mark of the individual who despises poor relations—a perpetual reference to rich ones. Some people are constantly bringing in allusions to “my cousin Mr This,” and “my uncle Mr That,” and even to more remote relations, such as “my great-grandmother the Countess of Somewhere.” A few are so very silly as to tell, in the newspaper announcement of their marriage, that their bride, besides being daughter to this or that plain esquire, is “grand-niece to General So-and-So,” or “cousin to Mr Such-a-Thing, secretary of state.” These announcements are an impertinence fit for the interference of the legislature—or the police. If people have exalted relations, let them enjoy them as much as they can within themselves, but do not let them be perpetually presenting this odious little piece of vanity before others, who not only are not interested in it, but are perhaps reminded by it that they have no fine relations themselves. To be always thus singling out a relation from all the rest, and holding him up in connection with ourselves, is a direct injury to him, in so far as we are thus trying to exalt ourselves at his expense—an indirect insult to our kindred in general, whom we leave out of view, and a nuisance to all before whom we thus exhibit our own poverty of soul. It is acultivationof the most odious character, and necessarily suggests to every thinking person, that in exact proportion to our homage to the great persons of our family must be our haughtiness and severity to the humble. The people addicted to this vice of conversation are evidently satisfied in their own minds that they are talking very fine, and excitingno feeling in their hearers but admiration and respect; but in reality they are always scouted and ridiculed, even to the degree of being honoured with a nickname, carved, perhaps, out of the favourite phrase.
A really good and philosophical spirit will neither plume himself upon his more fortunate, nor despise his less fortunate, relations. He will modestly rejoice in the success of the former, and take care, by avoiding the appearance of intrusiveness on the one hand, and splenetic and pettish jealousy on the other, to afford no reason for the fortunate individual to feel incommoded by the connection, and, consequently, to endeavour to shake it off. To those who are less fortunate than himself, he will be as encouraging and kind as his circumstances render prudent or decent, neither manifesting that vulgar pride which tries needlessly to make a kind of virtue out of a low origin, nor that still more pitiable vanity which denies all inferior kindred, and seeks, at the expense of real dignity, the eclat of a few “great friends.” We allow there is a general difficulty in the case. Friends in different worldly circumstances are like positive and negative clouds in electricity: there is a constant tendency in the poor to an equalization, which is not relished by the parties whose pockets are charged positively. But human nature should be always contending with its weaknesses, and, though full confiding friendship is not perhaps to be expected, there may still be a sufficient interchange of kindness to lighten, in no small degree, the general burden of life.