| | | | | MR DICKENS'S story of "Great Expectations" illustrates a | certain temper of mind which is perhaps a characteristic of | our age. Pip, from the time of his introduction to Estella, is | the victim of false shame. Her contempt for the manners of | the common boy forced on her companionship, curdled the | milk of human kindness in him. Naturally affectionate, from | that moment a shadow comes between him and his friend and | protector to whom he owed everything, but who had taught | him to call the Knave "Jack." What Estella is likely to think | interferes with what he ought to think; and gratitude slowly | but inevitably yields before the new influence. The picture is, | on the whole, a true one. So far as we can realise Pip's | situation at all, we can understand his temptations, and | acknowledge that his was the very character, or no-character, | to fall under them. But, indeed, false shame has not always so | much to say for itself as in this instance. Pip is taken from the | forge and made a gentleman, a member of | | what is technically called society ~~ so at least Mr Dickens | intends us to understand it. Now, undoubtedly people do owe | something to the class for which they have been trained and | to which they belong; and if Pip is a gentleman, the | honestest, truest-hearted blacksmith in the world, especially | if addicted to Joe Gargery's system of expression, must be an | awkward appendage. It is more easy to be shocked at Pip's | ingratitude than to know precisely what he ought to have | done with his brother-in-law. However, we see he is intended | to represent one of the vices of society, and we recognise his | fitness for the part in a general want of force and stamina, | and a predominance of the imagination over the judgment. | | Though we call it hard names, it would still be almost a | discourtesy to assume our readers to be ignorant of the | sensation of false shame, by which we mean shame the fruit | of vanity and imagination; for never to have known it is, in | our imperfect state, to be without the kindred quality of | which it is the abuse ~~ sensitiveness, a want which would | argue bluntness of feeling and dulness of perception. | Occasional fits of false shame, ~~ of being unreasonably | perturbed at circumstances we cannot alter, that are not of our | own making, that have nothing in them of which we ought, in | strict reason, to be ashamed ~~ have visited most of us. They | belong to civilisation as opposed to the more primitive forms | of society, ~~ to a state of existence where different interests | clash, where social and domestic ties may, and do, interfere | with one another. | | Young people, on their first admission to this outer world, are | especially afflicted by false shame; so that it may be regarded | as one of the moral diseases of the mind's infancy. It is at the | bottom of a great deal of their shyness. They cannot feel at | ease, because they mistrust something about themselves or | their belongings, and have that feeling of bareness and | exposure in the presence of unfamiliar eyes which attaches to | sensitiveness under untried circumstances. Everything then | assumes a magnified, exaggerated character, the place they | occupy on the one hand, and the importance of the occasion | on the other. The present company is the world, the universe, | a convention of men and gods, all forming a deliberate and | irreversible judgment upon them, and deciding to their | disadvantage on account of some oddness, or awkwardness, | or passing slip in themselves or in the accessories about | them. But, in most persons, time and experience bring so | much humility as teaches them their insignificance. It is not, | we soon learn, very likely that at any given time a mixed | assemblage is thinking very much about us; and then the | horror of a conspicuous position loses its main sting. This on | the one hand; on the other, we are not as dependent on the | award of society as we were. Even a room-full comprises, to | our enlarged imagination, by no means the whole creation. | There is something worth caring for outside those walls. And | also we have come to form a sort of estimate of ourselves. | There is now a third party in the question, in the shape of | self-respect. We realise that we are to | | ourselves of immeasurably more consequence than any one | else can be to us. Thus, either by reason or by the natural | hardening and strengthening process of the outer air, most | people overcome any conspicuous display of the weakness. | By the time youth is over, they have either accepted their | position or set about in a businesslike way to mend it. | | But there are some people who never get over this disorder of | the faculties ~~ who are always its victims ~~ who live in a | habitual state of subservience ~~ who defer perpetually to | some opinion, or supposed opinion, which they respect more | than their own, and under which they crouch, whether it be | that of an individual, a clique, or the world. The sanction of | their own judgment is no guarantee; it is powerless | unsupported by society's good word. If a man after twenty, or | at latest twenty-five, will harp in all companies on his red | hair, or be perpetually reminding people that he is little, or | embarrass them by allusions to his plebeian birth, or be | making absurd apologies for his relations, or depreciate the | dinner he has set before his guests, we have not much hope of | him. He fails in the quality which defies and puts to flight | false shame. He may be wise, he may be witty, he may have | the clearest head, the most fluent tongue, the readiest pen; but | he wants manliness. The fears, flusters, and perturbations of | false shame are a sign of some inherent discrepancy between | his intellect and his moral nature which will always keep him | immature. Undue compliance with either the social or | domestic instinct produces the same effect. | | Whether a man sacrifices himself by a superstitious worship | of public opinion or of private affection, the result is the | same. He may stultify himself as effectually by an excessive | devotion to his mother and sisters as by a like devotion to | Mrs Grundy; but our concern is with the latter devotee, who | lives in fear of being singular, who suspects all closely allied | to him of some misfit or incongruity. He is pretty certain to | accomplish his own forebodings; for such men are sure to do | odd things, as people must who think constantly whether | everything they do is according to rule, not what is | convenient to do. All our natural actions are done without | thought, and we can make breathing a difficulty by thinking | about it. | | A person under this thraldom, whatever his disposition, will | never be of the use he might be to his friends, while he | presents an easy mark to his enemies. No one is safe from | being thrown over by a friend who makes the world his | bugbear; for, whatever the justice of his own perceptions, the | opinion which he dreads, and which influences him, is an | inferior one. There is actually no limit to such a dependence; | it bows before every standard, irrespective of all capacity or | right to judge. Whoever can use the weapon of contempt is | formidable. Such a man is a prey to the insolence of footmen; | he trembles before the tribunal of the servants' hall, and | dreads the criticism of his butler, whose definition of a | gentleman ~~ of what is expected of a gentleman, of what a | gentleman ought and ought not to do ~~ he practically | accepts in preference to his own. All | | this is essentially demoralising. In fact, no benefits can secure | a man of this sort, no ties can bind him, under a particular | form of trial; and this not at all from baseness of nature, but | because he wants a man's generous self-reliance ~~ that | quality which the weak and the dependent learn to trust, and | which gives to manliness a value for which no intellectual | excellence whatever is an equivalent. All people are, of | course, in a considerable measure, guided in their ways of | thinking by general consent ~~ as, being members of a | community, they must be; but there is, beyond this, a slavery | in which its victim stands as it were unrepresented in the | world's parliament. Few errors bring less reward with them. | Nobody likes a coward; and a careless indifference, or even | defiance, of popular usage is often taken for a sign of | superiority. Human nature is not so hard and cynical as the | theory of false shame assumes it to be; and the world is much | more good-natured than men of this temper give it credit for. | It can discriminate, and sympathise, and tolerate exceptions | from its ordinary standard. As no phantoms are so monstrous | as the fears of a mind which abandons itself to the | apprehensions of false shame, so no predicament or dilemma | of actual existence has the pangs and stings which a busy | fancy conjures up in anticipation ~~ just as most disagreeable | things are not, when the time comes, as disagreeable as we | expected. | | There is a hardened class of self-seekers who override all | considerations to attain their end, to gratify a low ambition, | and get on in the world ~~ people whom Mr | | Dickens again portrays in his Mr Bounderby ~~ with whom | the genuine victim of false shame must not be confounded. | His conscience does not sleep, but his fancy predominates. | He owes his uneasiness to his susceptible nature, to the | rapidity of his flights, quick to conjure up scenes, and prolific | of imaginary contingencies. We may despise the weakness, | but must pity its victim as the main sufferer. Indeed, in some | cases it would be easy to trace a whole career changed by it. | Advantages of education are lost, friendships checked, | opportunities shunned, and habits of moody self-contemplation | induced at the age when action, the spirit of | adventure, and the excitement of new impressions are at their | highest in the more healthy and strong temperament; and this | not by any means wholly from the sufferer's own fault, but | because adverse circumstances, which vigorous and less | contemplative minds shake off or bend to their will, tell with | such blighting force on more sensitive characters. Writers of | modern fiction often show such suspicious familiarity with | the workings of false shame that it is easy to suppose the | ranks of authors may receive some valuable additions | through its paralysing influence, unfitting men as it does to | take that stand in the world of action which their intellect | might claim for them. The fashionable novel, a development | of modern society, has heretofore done much to create or to | foster the feeling. People no longer young bear witness to the | singular impression which those pictures made upon a crude, | uninformed fancy ~~ to the discontent they engendered in the | childish | | mind for the dull or homely circumstances of actual life. | Nothing could be more frivolous and merely external then the | tests of superiority and refinement set up by those arbiters of | manners and social standing; but for these very reasons they | were more within the compass of a young raw apprehension. | The best corrective (not to speak here of the moralist's grave | antidotes) was the romantic class of fiction contemporary | with and succeeding to the Almacks school, which took the | opposite line altogether. In tales of this order, characters over | whom the domestic affections do not tyrannise are | represented as mere monsters, and are treated without mercy. | Our readers will remember that in "Undine," which so | bewitched our youth, Bertha's pride is held up to scorn and | obloquy because she, who had been trained a princess, could | not reconcile herself at once to be a peasant's child; and all | romance takes for granted that the primitive instincts in every | noble nature predominate absolutely and without a struggle | over every mere social consideration. Miss Austen, who is | never led away by what is not true, ventures, in opposition to | this notion, to make one of her purest and most conscientious | characters, Fanny Price, acutely ashamed of her father and of | her home, because, under the circumstances, it was not | possible for her to be otherwise. But, in Sir WaIter Scott, | romance predominates; and in the only example of false | shame that occurs to us in his writings, Sir Piercie Shafton, a | not unnatural sensitiveness is rendered extremely ridiculous. | Modern writers enter into the sensation analytically, | | as they do into other complex workings of our | social being. As we said at the outset, false | shame and mere sensitiveness are closely | allied. People make their way in the world a | good deal better without either; and the one | slips into the other so easily upon trying | occasions, that it is wise not to test our friends | too hardly, nor to expose them to the minor | miseries and real dangers of this mood by | anything in ourselves that may be rightly | avoided.