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Page 77
The other curse of the happy, has a range more wide and indiscriminate.
It, too, tortures only the comparatively rich and fortunate; but is most
active among the least distinguished; and abates in malignity as we
ascend to the lofty regions of pure _ennui_. This is the desire of being
fashionable;--the restless and insatiable passion to pass for creatures
a little more distinguished than we really are--with the mortification
of frequent failure, and the humiliating consciousness of being
perpetually exposed to it. Among those who are secure of "meat, clothes,
and fire," and are thus above the chief physical evils of existence, we
do believe that this is a more prolific source of unhappiness, than
guilt, disease, or wounded affection; and that more positive misery is
created, and more true enjoyment excluded, by the eternal fretting and
straining of this pitiful ambition, than by all the ravages of passion,
the desolations of war, or the accidents or mortality. This may appear a
strong statement; but we make it deliberately; and are deeply convinced
of its truth. The wretchedness which it produces may not be so intense;
but it is of much longer duration, and spreads over a far wider circle.
It is quite dreadful, indeed, to think what a sweep of this pest has
taken among the comforts or our prosperous population. To be though
fashionable--that is, to be thought more opulent and tasteful, and on a
footing of intimacy with a greater number of distinguished persons than
they really are, is the great and laborious pursuit of four families out
of five, the members of which are exempted from the necessity of daily
industry. In this pursuit, their time, spirits, and talents are wasted;
their tempers soured; their affections palsied; and their natural
manners and dispositions altogether sophisticated and lost.
These are the great twin scourges of the prosperous: But there are
other maladies, of no slight malignity, to which they are peculiarly
liable. One of these, arising mainly from want of more worthy
occupation, is that perpetual use of stratagem and contrivance--that
little, artful diplomacy of private life, by which the simplest and most
natural transactions are rendered complicated and difficult, and the
common business of existence made to depend on the success of plots and
counterplots. By the incessant practice of this petty policy, a habit of
duplicity and anxiety is infallibly generated, which is equally fatal to
integrity and enjoyment. We gradually come to look on others with the
distrust which we are conscious of deserving; and are insensibly formed
to sentiments of the most unamiable selfishness and suspicion. It is
needless to say, that all these elaborate artifices are worse than
useless to the person who employs them; and that the ingenious plotter
is almost always baffled and exposed by the downright honesty of some
undesigning competitor. Miss Edgeworth, in her tale of "Manoeuvring,"
has given a very complete and most entertaining representation of "the
by-paths and indirect crooked ways," by which these artful and
inefficient people generally make their way to disappointment. In the
tale, entitled "Madame de Fleury," she has given some useful examples of
the ways in which the rich may most effectually do good to the poor--an
operation which, we really believe, fails more frequently from want of
skill than of inclination: And, in "The Dun," she has drawn a touching
and most impressive picture of the wretchedness which the poor so
frequently suffer, from the unfeeling thoughtlessness which withholds
from them the scanty earnings of their labour.
THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL CHARACTER.
The immense importance of personal character is a subject which does not
enough draw the attention of individuals or society, yet it is to the
power of gaining influence, what the root is to the tree,--the soul to
the body. It is doubtful if any of us can be acquainted with the
infinitely minute ramifications into which this all-pervading influence
extends. A slight survey of society will enable us, in some degree, to
judge of it. There are individuals who, by the sole force of personal
character, seem to render wise, better, more elevated, all with whom
they come in contact. Others, again, stand in the midst of the society
in which they are placed, a moral upas, poisoning the atmosphere around
them, so that no virtue can come within their shadow and live. Family
virtues descend with family estates, and hereditary vices are hardly
compensated for by hereditary possessions. The characters of the junior
members of a family are often only reflections or modifications of those
of the elder. Families retain for generations peculiarities of temper
and character. The Catos were all stern, upright, inflexible; the Guises
proud and haughty at the heart, though irresistibly popular and
fascinating in manner. We _see_ the influence which men, exalted and
powerful, exert on their age, and on society; it is difficult to
believe that a similar influence is exerted by every individual man and
woman, however limited his or her sphere of life: the force of the
torrent is easily calculated,--that of the under-current is hidden, yet
its existence and power are no less actual.
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