| | | | | An old proverb says that a burnt child dreads the fire. If so, the | child must be uncommonly astute, and with a power of reasoning by | analogy in excess of impulsive desire rarely found either in children | or adults. As a matter of fact, experience goes a very little way | towards directing folks wisely. People often say how much they would | like to live their lives over again with their present experience. | That means, they would avoid certain specific mistakes of the past, of | which they have seen and suffered from the issue. But if they retained | the same nature as now, though they might avoid a few special | blunders, they would fall into the same class of errors quite as | readily as before, the gravitation of character towards circumstance | being always absolute in its direction. | Our blunders in life are not due to ignorance so much as to | temperament; and only the exceptionally wise among us learn to correct | the excesses of temperament by the lessons of experience. To the mass | of mankind these lessons are for the time only, and prophesy nothing | of the future. They hold them to have been mistakes of method, not of | principle, and they think that the same lines more carefully laid | would lead to a better superstructure in the future, not seeing that | the fault was organic and in those very initial lines themselves. No | impulsive nor wildly hopeful person, for instance, ever learns by | experience, so long as his physical condition remains the same. | No-one | with a large faculty of faith ~~ that is, credulous and easily imposed | on ~~ becomes suspicious or critical by mere experience. | How much soever | people of this kind have been taken in, in times past, they are just | as ready to become the prey of the spoiler in times to come; and it | would be sad, if it were not so silly, to watch how inevitably one | half of the world gives itself up as food whereon the roguery of the | other half may wax fat. | The person of facile confidence, whose secrets have been blazed abroad | more than once by trusted friends, makes yet another and another safe | confidant ~~ quite safe this time; one of whose fidelity there is no | doubt ~~ and learns when too late that one panier percé | is very like another panier percé . The speculating man, | without business faculty or knowledge, who has burnt his fingers bare | to the bone with handling scrip and stock, thrusts them into the fire | again so soon as he has the chance. The gambler blows his fingers just | cool enough to shuffle | the cards for this once only, sure that this time hope will tell no | flattering tale, that ravelled ends will knit themselves up into a | close and seemly garment, and heaven itself work a miracle in his | favour against the law of mathematical certainty. In fact we are all | gamblers in this way, and play our hazards for the stakes of faith and | hope. We all burn our fingers again and again at some fire or another; | but experience teaches us nothing; save perhaps a more hopeless, | helpless resignation towards that confounded ill-luck of ours, and a | weary feeling of having known it all before when things fall out amiss | and we are blistered in the old flames. | In great matters this persistency of endeavour is sublime, and gets a | wealth of laurel crowns and blue ribands; but in little things it is | obstinacy, want of ability to profit by experience, denseness of | perception as to what can and what cannot be done; and the apologue of | Bruce's spider gets tiresome if too often repeated. The most | hopelessly inapt people at learning why they burnt their fingers last | time, and how they will burn them again, are those who, whatever their | profession, are blessed or cursed with what is called the artistic | temperament. A man will ruin himself for love of a particular place; | for dislike of a certain kind of necessary work; for the prosecution | of a certain hobby. Is he not artistic? and must he not have all the | conditions of his life exactly square with his desires? else how can | he do good work? So he goes on burning his fingers through | self-indulgence, and persists in his unwisdom to the end of his life. | He will paint his unsaleable pictures or write his unreadable books; | his path is one in which the money-paying public will not follow; but | though his very existence depends on the following of that paying | public, he will not stir an inch to meet it, but keeps where he is | because he likes the particular run of his hedgerows; and spends his | days in thrusting his hand into the fire of what he chooses to call | the ideal, and his nights in abusing the Philistinism of the world | which lets him be burnt. | And what does any amount of experience do for us in the matter of | friendship or love? As the world goes round, and our credulous morning | darkens into a more sceptical twilight, we believe as a general | principle ~~ a mere abstraction ~~ that all new friends | are just so much | gilt gingerbread; and that a very little close holding and hard | rubbing brings off the gilt, and leaves nothing but a slimy, sticky | mess of little worth as food and of none as ornament. And yet, if of | the kind to whom friendship is necessary for happiness, we rush as | eagerly into the new affection as if we had never philosophized on the | emptiness of the old, and believe as firmly in the solid gold of our | latest cake as if we had never smeared our hands with one of the same | pattern before. So with love. A man sees his comrades fluttering like | enchanted moths about some stately man-slayer, some fair and shining | light set like a false beacon on a dangerous cliff to lure men to | their destruction. He sees how they singe and burn in the flame of her | beauty, but he is not warned. If one's own experience teaches one | little or nothing, the experience of others goes for even less, and no | man yet was ever warned off the destructive fire of love because his | companions had burnt their fingers there before him and his own are | sure to follow. | It is the same with women; and in a greater degree. They know all | about Don Juan well enough. They are perfectly well aware how he | treated A. and B. and C. and D. But when it comes to their own turn, | they think that this time surely, and to them, things will be | different and he will be in earnest. So they slide down into the | alluring flame, and burn their fingers for life by playing with | forbidden fire. But have we not all the secret belief that we shall | escape the snares and pitfalls into which others have dropped and | among which we choose to walk? that fire will not burn our fingers, at | least so very badly, when we thrust them into it? and that, by some | legerdemain of Providence, we shall be delivered from the consequences | of our own folly, and that two and two may be made to count five in | our behalf? Who is taught by the experience of an unhappy marriage, | say? No sooner has a man got himself free from the pressure of one | chain and bullet, than he hastens to fasten on another, quite sure | that this chain will be no heavier than the daintiest little thread of | gold, and this bullet as light and sweet as a cowslip-ball. Everything | that had gone wrong before will come right this time; and the hot bars | of close association with an uncomfortable temper and unaccommodating | habits will be only like a juggling trick, and will burn no one's | heart or hands. | People too, who burn their fingers in giving good advice unasked, | seldom learn to hold them back. With an honest intention, and a strong | desire to see right done, it is difficult to avoid putting our hands | into fires with which we have no business. While we are young and | ardent, it seems to us as if we have distinct business with all fraud, | injustice, folly, wilfulness, which we believe a few honest words of | ours will control and annul; but nine times out of ten we only burn | our own hands, while we do not in the least strengthen those of the | right nor weaken those of the wrong. We may say the same of | good-natured people. There was never a row of chestnuts roasting at | the fire for which your good-natured oaf will not stretch out his hand | at the bidding and for the advantage of a friend. Experience teaches | the poor oaf nothing; not even that fire burns. To put his name at the | back of a bill, just as a mere form; to lend his money, just for a few | days; or to do any other sort of self-immolating folly, on the | faithful promise that the fire will not burn nor the knife cut ~~ | it all | comes as easy to men of the good-natured sort as their alphabet. | Indeed it is their alphabet, out of which they spell their own ruin; | but so long as the impressionable temperament lasts ~~ so long as the | liking to do a good-natured action is greater than caution, suspicion, | or the power of analogical reasoning ~~ so long will the oaf make | himself the catspaw of the knave, till at last he has left himself no | fingers wherewith to pluck out the chestnuts for himself or another. | The first doubt of young people is always a source of intense | suffering. Hitherto they have believed what they saw and all they | heard; and they have not troubled themselves with motives nor facts | beyond those given to them and lying on the surface. But when they | find out for themselves that seeming is not necessarily being, and | that all people are not as good throughout as they thought them, then | they suffer a moral shock which often leads them into a state of | practical atheism and despair. Many young people give up altogether | when they first open the book of humanity and begin to read beyond the | title-page; and, because they have found specks in the cleanest parts, | they believe that nothing is left pure. They are as much bewildered as | horror-struck, and cannot understand how | anyone they have loved and | respected should have done this or that misdeed. Having done it, there | is nothing left to love nor respect further. It is only by degrees | that they learn to adjust and apportion, and to understand that the | whole creature is not necessarily corrupt because there are a few | unhealthy places here and there. But in the beginning this first | scorching by the fire of experience is very painful and bad to bear. | Then they begin to think the knowledge of the world, as got from | books, so wonderful, so profound; and they look on it as a science to | be learned by much studying of aphorisms. They little know that not | the most affluent amount of phrase knowledge can ever regulate that | class of action which springs from a man's inherent disposition; and | that it is not facts which teach but self-control which prevents. | After very early youth we all have enough theoretical knowledge to | keep us straight; but theoretical knowledge does nothing without | self-knowledge, or its corollary, self-control. The world has never | yet got beyond the wisdom of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes; and Solomon's | advice to the Israelitish youth lounging round the gates of the Temple | is quite as applicable to young Hopeful coming up to London chambers | as it was to them. Teaching of any kind, by books or events, is the | mere brute weapon; but self-control is the intelligent hand to wield | it. To burn one's fingers once in a lifetime tells nothing against a | man's common-sense nor dignity; but to go on burning them is the act | of a fool, and we cannot pity the wounds, however sore they may be. | The Arcadian virtues of unlimited trust and hope and love are very | sweet and lovely; but they are the graces of childhood, not the | qualities of manhood. They are charming little finalities, which do | not admit of modification nor of expansion; and in a naughty world, to | go about with one's heart on one's sleeve, believing | everyone and | accepting everything to be just as it presents itself, is offering | bowls of milk to tigers, and meeting armed men with a tin sword. Such | universal trust can only result in a perpetual burning of one's | fingers; and a life spent in pulling out hot chestnuts from the fire | for another's eating is by no means the most useful nor the most | dignified to which a man can devote himself.