| | | GRUMBLERS. | | <"Essays on Social Subjects"> | | IF we see three or four men in really confidential talk, | thoroughly at ease with one another, meeting perhaps after | absence or separation, and relieving their minds of what comes | uppermost ~~ or if we observe a man in a state of snug, | comfortable communicativeness, encircled by sympathising | women whom he believes to take an interest in his affairs ~~ | what may we take for granted that this man or those men are | doing and saying? Without doubt they are grumbling ~~ | detailing their grievances, letting drop, according to their | different methods and characters, how the world has ill-used | them, and plotted to deprive them of their deserts. That there is | not much ground for this habit, we ought to infer from the little | sympathy each man gets from his neighbour beyond the | momentary attention of good manners ~~ an attention involving | no great sacrifice, for the observer of human nature is rewarded | for his complacency by some curious revelations. To be listened | to, however, is all that the grumbler expects ~~ almost, | | indeed, all he requires. It is not a case for active sympathy any | more than for activity of any other kind. This pathetic strain of | self-pity is simply a natural propensity finding its natural vent. | We own it generally strikes us that our neighbours ~~ those | whose course we have watched ~~ have done quite as well in | life, are as successful and prosperous as they had any right to | expect. If they have failed, we think we see the cause, not so | much in the mismanagement, spite, or neglect of others, nor in | adverse events, as in something in themselves against getting on. | It is a perfectly obvious case of cause and effect. But people will | not see this where themselves are concerned. Certainly most | men, without any conspicuous vanity or overbearing pretension, | betray an over-estimate of themselves and their claims on | society. They sincerely think they have a right to more of the | good things of this world than they possess or than their | neighbours get, and they consider the deficit as the immediately | traceable result of somebody's fault or mistake. They take their | stand on their strongest point ~~ their most prominent | pretension ~~ and infer that all else about them should come up | to this standard. That is, their highest pretension represents their | rights, nor do they think they are fairly used by fortune so long | as any condition of completeness lags behind. Everything is a | mistake, to be laid to the account of society or an individual, | that mars this ideal. They will not see that every position has its | wrong side. They will not recognise a balance of good and bad, | success and failure, as fair in | | their case, though it is clear as day where others are concerned. | Thus we may observe that the pre-eminent and typical grumbler, | whether he betrays vanity and self-conceit or not, has, at some | time or other of his life, been lifted out of his natural and just | level, and experienced a stimulus to elation of mind and | presumption ~~ some sudden or unlooked-for good fortune | disturbing the equilibrium ~~ some marked success. A man who | has had a hard life of it, who has had no signal successes, whose | existence has been one uniform struggle to keep his head above | water without any lifts or stepping-stones that can be pointed out | ~~ a man who has never seemed to his neighbours lucky ~~ is | seldom a grumbler. He is not likely to have any extreme view of | his own merits and claims; he is often thankful for what he has, | and prone, as a sort of consolation, to contrast his position | advantageously with that of others. It is the men fortunate in the | eyes of their friends who are the real grumblers; and it is easy | to trace the habit to some particular circumstance, occasion, or | course of events which they had not strength of character to bear | with becoming humility. Perhaps a dull man has the good | fortune to marry a charming and rich wife, a thousand times too | good for him. If his whole career is not en suite with this | commencement, if it only answers to his own character and | conduct, he settles into a confirmed grumbler and disappointed | man; and if he happens to have had two rich wives, he only | grumbles with the greater pertinacity because the world | | has not seen with these ladies' eyes. Or a man is visited by a | sudden flush of prosperity, unreasonable in its origin, and | therefore shortlived ~~ he is henceforth a grumbler. A popular | preacher who ceases " to draw " is certain to be one. The world | has retrograded fearfully since it left off crowding to hear his | sermons; his work is flat to him through the neglect of old | admirers; he has much to complain of. Again, the member of a | large family who has been uniformly most considered, who has | had more than his share of its good things, is in a position to be a | grumbler. The very sacrifices that have been made for him have | inconvenient results, holding him back; and he realises | hindrances and checks to his career which the less favoured do | not experience or are insensible to in their graver anxieties. We | accept it as an evidence of a-future existence of more perfect | happiness that every man at once assumes happiness as his | natural sphere; that he immediately settles and expatiates in it, | feels it his home, which is very like feeling it his right, and | cannot afterwards condescend to a lower level; and, being what | he is, he expresses this want and need of the supreme good, of | which he has barely tasted, by murmurs, mutterings, and | puzzled speculations on how and why it has eluded his grasp. The | grumbler has an ideal. He has felt, though but for a day, a | certain expansion, a mastery of a new and wider field, an | elevation of spirits, a sense of power, an impression of entering | upon a new and bright course; and the man who knows the | feeling which success is apt to infuse is loth to fall back to | | common things, to the knowledge that he is but one of a | struggling crowd: he looks about for the cause, and will not see | it in himself. He won the success ; it is circumstances that hold | him back from reaping the full and due harvest of its fruits. | However, transient or unequal success is not the only foundation | for a good grumbler. Those who from sluggishness of nature never | assert their rights are standard grumblers. It is a very common | mistake to suppose that such people are insensible to their own | claims. None are more keenly alive to them, though, from | indolence or shyness, they never put them forward at the proper | time. When they find themselves ignored, and see others do their | work for them and stand in then-place, they lift up the voice of | ineffectual complaint. Their friends are made confidants of the | grievance; and as such grievances are sure to accumulate ~~ for | no-one can keep his place without | a pretty tight hold ~~ we have a life-long grumbler of the | subdued sort; for our friend is never roused to active | remonstrance, and does not seriously wish to reverse matters, | but relishes the position of being an

"ill-used gentleman," |

fully sensible of his ill-usage. | Again, there are first-rate grumblers in the class of dabblers in | science, who know a little of everything and nothing well. | These men have a way of supposing themselves the equals of | others who are exclusive in their pursuits, and they grudge the | rewards due to concentration on one object. As they have a | thousand sirings to their bow, they have a thousand rivals, who | | seem to them to be carrying off the fruits of their labours. Every | invention has passed in an incomplete impracticable form | through their brain. They have been within an inch of a hundred | discoveries ; they can encounter | everyone on his own ground; and yet here they are | stranded while narrower intellects win the day. What tales of | neglect and injustice, what hairbreadth misses, what an | entanglement of mischances, all treasured up in an amplifying | memory, have stood in the way of wealth and fame, and are | poured by these sufferers into any ear friendly or patient enough | to receive them! Again, those who miss their opportunity are | grumblers. They have had a dozen chances and let them all slip; | and they look back with feeble, regretful murmurs against fate, | and count up their losses till they are proud of them, and | perhaps enjoy the grumble more than it was ever in them to | enjoy the' good fortune. Indeed, it becomes such a habit that | they cannot live without a grievance. They are always wanting | the thing they cannot have, and should an unlooked-for | opportunity for obtaining it arise, a host of difficulties before | unseen confront the weak and frightened fancy, and they recoil | from the venture. Men of position without money, or of money | without corresponding position, are grumblers. All professions | which leave a man a great deal of compulsory unproductive | leisure make grumblers ; and so do all into which the idea of | promotion enters. Naval and military men ~~ especially the | former ~~ are grumblers. Clerks in public offices are | notoriously such. | | They have one and all substantial grievances, we have no doubt; | but they have also a superabundance of time to arrange and | enhance them. It must be said for the active temperament, that it | exempts men from the temptation to grumble. Busy men are not | querulous. The material for grumbling lies mainly in the | memory, and the busy man has no time for retrospect. We have | often admired how a real grievance, a positive, undeniable | piece of ill-usage, drops off from the consciousness of a hard | worker ~~ the man whose days are filled up with various | occupations. Each day has its burdens, its rubs, its neglects ; but | they disappear with the day, and no catalogue of them is kept. | We do not know that the habit of grumbling is altogether | repulsive. A gentle murmur of regrets and discontents, when not | too strongly tinctured by envy or malignity, sometimes makes a | man tolerable who in prosperity is not so. It implies reliance and | trust in our good-nature, and a need of sympathy which is | engaging; and, to say the least of it, it puts us on a level with the | complainant. A man who has unburdened his breast of a | grievance, who has been confidingly peevish, who has let us see | ~~ under, perhaps, some decorous veil of disguise ~~ all his | inner grudges and his littlenesses generally, cannot ride his high | horse with us at any rate. There is, indeed, a philosophic form | of grumbling which is positively instructive when instigated by | a gentle cynicism. A man theorises calmly and dispassionately | on human affairs, himself never prominent, but pulling the | wires nevertheless, | | while he proves satisfactorily what a poor and worthless world | that must be which leaves certain minds and certain | intelligences in unrecognised obscurity. | Perhaps this fastidious age may be especially given to grumble. | In former times, people worked openly for promotion ~~ for | their own advantage in any line of life. There was no scruple or | disguise about it. We are mending this in delicacy. We assume | an air of lofty disregard to material interests; we will not | coarsely put ourselves forward; Ave wait for the world's good | things to come to us; we will not clamorously demand them. | This is excellent if they do come unsought, but if they do | not? When, after waiting and, truth to say, expecting, | we begin in middle life to realise that the good things are | not coming ~~ that they are not for us ~~ then we grumble. We | have indeed known precocious grumblers who prose in their | teens about the blunders of their education, but they are | monsters, not members of a class. Most people, we suspect, take | for granted during youth that a good time is coming ~~ that | everything, however perverse, may be tending to that good time | ~~ and are slow to criticise the training they are undergoing. | Trials and drawbacks are not supposed to be more than | temporary impediments to be certainly surmounted. But a | dawning of the true state of things comes in time ~~ we shall not | fulfil our expectations ~~ we shall never make a great figure in the | world or enjoy any large share of its prizes. Then, if there is | grumbling in us, we begin the habit, and | | henceforth we are either obtrusive grumblers, mere bores and | nuisances ~~ or speculative grumblers, tracing all to first | principles, serenely reasonable and consistent on false premises | ~~ or humorous grumblers, venting our personal discontent | under a quaint veil of satire on the world and its follies ~~ or, | lastly, grotesque grumblers, attributing every misfortune, small | and great, to the evil influence of our domestic star, to | something that happened before we were born, or when we went | to school, the more far-fetched the better ~~ regarding the most | ordinary operations of nature and effects of time as something | caused by neglect, and which proper vigilance might have | prevented. We have known men on the way to threescore, | account for failing eyes and incipient wrinkles by some | mismanagement of their childhood ~~ and proving that any defect | of mind or body, health or wealth, is directly due to somebody's | fault, and a legitimate ground for anathemas in the vein of M. | Jourdain ~~ | Grumbling is, in fact, a mode of accounting for all | our misfortunes without self-reproach or any appeal to | conscience. | To conclude, grumbling is a privilege ~~ it is self-assertion, a | sign of individual rights and a recognised status. Perhaps for | this reason women are not such grumblers as men. They are | often fretful, but fretful-ness is temper, and there is no | necessary connection between ill-temper and grumbling. When | women grumble, it is for their class, not each on her own | account, openly, unblushingly, boastingly, as is the way | | with men. They are not yet allowed enough independence of | action or play of individual character to have each an | appropriate grievance of her own. They complain that their class | is not represented; but whatever may be said of them, women | rarely murmur openly that they have not had their due chance in | life ~~ that their merits and accomplishments have been | underrated. The most strong-minded do not get beyond general | remonstrances at their sex's depressed condition, at the slow | recognition of women's claims to equality. When these ladies | carry their point, those who live to see the day will hear the | women of their acquaintance, each with an independent | grievance of her own, emulating their male friends in histories | of broken purposes, neglect, indifference, selfishness, blunders | of friends, and perversities of fortune.