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Page 22
VI.
Of how many dwellings can it be said that no word of anger is ever heard
beneath its roof, and that no unkindly feeling ever exists between the
inmates? Most men's experience would seem to justify them in declaring
that, throughout the inhabited world, no such house exists. I, knowing
at all events of one, admit the possibility that there may be more; yet I
feel that it is to hazard a conjecture; I cannot point with certainty to
any other instance, nor in all my secular life (I speak as one who has
quitted the world) could I have named a single example.
It is so difficult for human beings to live together; nay, it is so
difficult for them to associate, however transitorily, and even under the
most favourable conditions, without some shadow of mutual offence.
Consider the differences of task and of habit, the conflict of
prejudices, the divergence of opinions (though that is probably the same
thing), which quickly reveal themselves between any two persons brought
into more than casual contact, and think how much self-subdual is
implicit whenever, for more than an hour or two, they co-exist in seeming
harmony. Man is not made for peaceful intercourse with his fellows; he
is by nature self-assertive, commonly aggressive, always critical in a
more or less hostile spirit of any characteristic which seems strange to
him. That he is capable of profound affections merely modifies here and
there his natural contentiousness, and subdues its expression. Even
love, in the largest and purest sense of the word, is no safeguard
against perilous irritation and sensibilities inborn. And what were the
durability of love without the powerful alliance of habit?
Suppose yourself endowed with such power of hearing that all the talk
going on at any moment beneath the domestic roofs of any town became
clearly audible to you; the dominant note would be that of moods,
tempers, opinions at jar. Who but the most amiable dreamer can doubt it?
This, mind you, is not the same thing as saying that angry emotion is the
ruling force in human life; the facts of our civilization prove the
contrary. Just because, and only because, the natural spirit of conflict
finds such frequent scope, does human society hold together, and, on the
whole, present a pacific aspect. In the course of ages (one would like
to know how many) man has attained a remarkable degree of self-control;
dire experience has forced upon him the necessity of compromise, and
habit has inclined him (the individual) to prefer a quiet, orderly life.
But by instinct he is still a quarrelsome creature, and he gives vent to
the impulse as far as it is compatible with his reasoned interests--often,
to be sure, without regard for that limit. The average man or woman is
always at open discord with some one; the great majority could not live
without oft-recurrent squabble. Speak in confidence with any one you
like, and get him to tell you how many cases of coldness, alienation, or
downright enmity, between friends and kinsfolk, his memory registers; the
number will be considerable, and what a vastly greater number of everyday
"misunderstandings" may be thence inferred! Verbal contention is, of
course, commoner among the poor and the vulgar than in the class of well-
bred people living at their ease, but I doubt whether the lower ranks of
society find personal association much more difficult than the refined
minority above them. High cultivation may help to self-command, but it
multiplies the chances of irritative contact. In mansion, as in hovel,
the strain of life is perpetually felt--between the married, between
parents and children, between relatives of every degree, between
employers and employed. They debate, they dispute, they wrangle, they
explode--then nerves are relieved, and they are ready to begin over
again. Quit the home and quarrelling is less obvious, but it goes on all
about one. What proportion of the letters delivered any morning would be
found to be written in displeasure, in petulance, in wrath? The postbag
shrieks insults or bursts with suppressed malice. Is it not
wonderful--nay, is it not the marvel of marvels--that human life has
reached such a high point of public and private organization?
And gentle idealists utter their indignant wonder at the continuance of
war! Why, it passes the wit of man to explain how it is that nations are
ever at peace! For, if only by the rarest good fortune do individuals
associate harmoniously, there would seem to be much less likelihood of
mutual understanding and good-will between the peoples of alien lands. As
a matter of fact, no two nations are ever friendly, in the sense of truly
liking each other; with the reciprocal criticism of countries there
always mingles a sentiment of animosity. The original meaning of
_hostis_ is merely stranger, and a stranger who is likewise a foreigner
will only by curious exception fail to stir antipathy in the average
human being. Add to this that a great number of persons in every country
find their delight and their business in exasperating international
disrelish, and with what vestige of common sense can one feel surprise
that war is ceaselessly talked of, often enough declared. In days gone
by, distance and rarity of communication assured peace between many
realms. Now that every country is in proximity to every other, what need
is there to elaborate explanations of the distrust, the fear, the hatred,
which are a perpetual theme of journalists and statesmen? By
approximation, all countries have entered the sphere of natural quarrel.
That they find plenty of things to quarrel about is no cause for
astonishment. A hundred years hence there will be some possibility of
perceiving whether international relations are likely to obey the law
which has acted with such beneficence in the life of each civilized
people; whether this country and that will be content to ease their
tempers with bloodless squabbling, subduing the more violent promptings
for the common good. Yet I suspect that a century is a very short time
to allow for even justifiable surmise of such an outcome. If by any
chance newspapers ceased to exist . . .
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