We all understand the kind of thing which is meant by people who talk of Muscular Christianity. It is certainly a noble and excellent thing to make people discern that a good Christian need not be a muff (pardon the slang term: there is no other that would bring out my meaning). It is a fine thing to make it plain that manliness and dash may co-exist with pure morality and sincere piety. It is a fine thing to make young fellows comprehend that there is nothing fine and manly in being bad and nothing unmanly in being good. And in this view it is impossible to value too highly such characters and such biographies as those of Hodson of Hodson's Horse and Captain Hedley Vicars. It is a splendid combination, pluck and daring in their highest degree, with an unaffected and earnest regard to religion and religious duties,–in short, muscularity with Christianity. A man consists of body and soul; and both would be in their ideal perfection, if the soul were decidedly Christian, and the body decidedly muscular.
But there are folk whose admiration of the muscularity is very great, but whose regard for the Christianity is very small. They are captivated by the dash and glitter of physical pluck; they are quite content to accept it without any Christianity, and even without the most ordinary morality and decency. They appear, indeed, to think that the grandeur of the character is increased by the combination of thorough blackguardism with high physical qualifications: their gospel, in short, may be said to be that of Unchristian Muscularity. And you will find various books in which the hero is such a man: and while the writer of the book frankly admits that he is in strict morality an extremely bad man, the writer still recalls his doings with such manifest gusto and sympathy, and takes such pains to make him agreeable on the whole, and relates with such approval the admiration which empty-headed idiots express for him when he has jumped his horse over some very perilous fence or thrashed some insolent farmer, that it is painfully apparent what is the writer's ideal of a grand and imposing character. You know the kind of man who is the hero of some novels,–the muscular blackguard,–and you remember what are his unfailing characteristics. He has a deep chest. He has huge arms and limbs,–the muscles being knotted. He has an immense moustache. He has (God knows why) a serene contempt for ordinary mortals. He is always growing black with fury, and bullying weak men. On such occasions, his lips may be observed to be twisted into an evil sneer. He is a seducer and liar: he has ruined various women, and had special facilities for becoming acquainted with the rottenness of society: and occasionally he expresses, in language of the most profane, not to say blasphemous character, a momentary regret for having done so much harm,–such as the Devil might sentimentally have expressed, when he had succeeded in misleading our first parents. Of course, he never pays tradesmen for the things with which they supply him. He can drink an enormous quantity of wine without his head becoming affected. He looks down with entire disregard on the laws of God and man, as made for inferior beings. As for any worthy moral quality,–as for anything beyond a certain picturesque brutality and bull-dog disregard of danger, not a trace of such a thing can be found about him.
We all know, of course, that such a person, though not uncommon in novels, very rarely occurs in real life; and if he occur at all, it is with his ideal perfections very much toned down. In actual life, such a hero would become known in the Insolvent Court, and would frequently appear before the police magistrates. He would eventually become a billiard-marker; and might ultimately be hanged, with general approval. If the man, in his unclipped proportions, did actually exist, it would be right that a combination should be formed to wipe him out of creation. He should be put down,–as you would put down a tiger or a rattlesnake, if found at liberty somewhere in the Midland Counties. A more hateful character, to all who possess a grain of moral discernment, could not even be imagined. And it need not be shown that the conception of such a character is worthy only of a baby. However many years the man who deliberately and admiringly delineates such a person may have lived in this world, intellectually he cannot be more than about seven years old. And none but calves the most immature can possibly sympathize with him. Yet, if there were not many silly persons to whom such a character is agreeable, such a character would not be portrayed. And it seems certain that a single exhibition of strength or daring will to some minds be the compendium of all good qualities, or (more accurately speaking) the equivalent for them. A muscular blackguard clears a high fence: he does precisely that,–neither more nor less. And upon the strength of that single achievement, the servants at the house where he is visiting declare that they would follow him over the world. And you may find various young women, and various women who wish to pass for young, who would profess, and perhaps actually feel, a like enthusiasm for the muscular blackguard. I confess that I cannot find words strong enough to express my contempt and abhorrence for the theory of life and character which is assumed by the writers who describe such blackguards, and by the fools who admire them. And though very far from saying or thinking that the kind of human being who has been described is no worse than disagreeable, I assert with entire confidence that to all right-thinking men he is more disagreeable than almost any other kind of human being. And I do not know any single lesson you could instil into a youthful mind which would be so mischievous as the lesson that the muscular blackguard should be regarded with any other feeling than that of pure loathing and disgust. But let us have done with him. I cannot think of the books which delineate him and ask you to admire him without indignation more bitter than I wish to feel in writing such a page.
And passing to the consideration of human beings who, though disagreeable, are good in the main, it may be laid down as a general principle, that any person, however good, is disagreeable from whom you feel it a relief to get away. We have all known people, thoroughly estimable, and whom you could not but respect, in whose presence it was impossible to feel at ease, and whose absence was felt as the withdrawal of a sense of constraint of the most oppressive kind. And this vague, uncomfortable influence, which breathes from some men, is produced in various ways. Sometimes it is the result of mere stiffness and awkwardness of manner: and there are men whose stiffness and awkwardness of manner are such as would freeze the most genial and silence the frankest. Sometimes it arises from ignorance of social rules and proprieties; sometimes from incapacity to take, or even to comprehend, a joke. Sometimes it proceeds from a pettedness of nature, which keeps you ever in fear that offence may be taken at the most innocent word or act. Sometimes it comes of a preposterous sense of his own standing and importance, existing in a man whose standing and importance are very small. It is quite wonderful what very great folk very little folk will sometimes fancy themselves to be. The present writer has had little opportunity of conversing with men of great rank and power; yet he has conversed with certain men of the very greatest: and he can say sincerely that he has found head-stewards to be much more dignified men than dukes; and parsons of no earthly reputation, and of very limited means, to be infinitely more stuck-up than archbishops. And though at first the airs of stuck-up small men are amazingly ridiculous, and so rather amusing, they speedily become so irritating that the men who exhibit them cannot be classed otherwise than with the disagreeable of the earth.
Few people are more disagreeable than the man who, while you are conversing with him, is (you know) taking a mental estimate of you, more particularly of the soundness of your doctrinal views,–with the intention of showing you up, if you be wrong, and of inventing or misrepresenting something to your prejudice, if you be right. Whenever you find any man trying (in a moral sense) to trot you out, and examine your paces, and pronounce upon your general soundness, there are two courses you may follow. The one is, severely to shut him up, and sternly make him understand that you don't choose to be inspected by him. Show him that you will not exhibit for his approval your particular views about the Papacy, or about Moral Inability, or about Pelagianism or the Patripassian heresy. Indicate that you will not be pumped: and you may convey, in a kindly and polite way, that you really don't care a rush what he thinks of you. The other course is, with deep solemnity and an unchanged countenance, to horrify your inspector by avowing the most fearful views. Tell him, that, on long reflection, you are prepared to advocate the revival of Cannibalism. Say that probably something may be said for Polygamy. Defend the Thugs, and say something for Mumbo Jumbo. End by saying that no doubt black is white, and twice ten are fifty. Or a third way of meeting such a man is suddenly to turn upon him, and ask him to give you a brief and lucid account of the views he is condemning. Ask him to tell you what are the theological peculiarities of Bunsen; and what is the exact teaching of Mr. Maurice. He does not know, you may be tolerably sure. In the case of the latter eminent man, I never met anybody who did know: and I have the firmest belief that he does not know himself. I was told, lately, of an eminent foreigner who came to Britain to promote a certain public end. For its promotion, the eminent man wished to conciliate the sympathies of a certain small class of religionists. He procured an introduction to a leading man among them,–a good, but very stupid and self-conceited man. This man entered into talk with the eminent foreigner, and ranged over a multitude of topics, political and religious. And at an hour's end the foreigner was astonished by the good, but stupid man suddenly exclaiming,–"Now, Sir, I have been reckoning you up: you won't do: you are a"–no matter what. It was something that had nothing earthly to do with the end to be promoted. The religious demagogue had been trotting out the foreigner; and he had found him unsound. The religious demagogue belonged to a petty dissenting sect, no doubt; and he was trying for his wretched little Shibboleth. But you may have seen the like, even with leading men in National Churches. And I have seen a pert little whipper-snapper ask a venerable clergyman what he thought of a certain outrageous lay-preacher, and receive the clergyman's reply, that he thought most unfavorably of many of the lay-preacher's doings, with a self-conceited smirk that seemed to say to the venerable clergyman, "I have been reckoning you up: you won't do."
People whom you cannot get to attend to you when you talk to them are disagreeable. There are men whom you feel it is vain to speak to,–whether you are mentioning facts or stating arguments. All the while you are speaking, they are thinking of what they are themselves to say next. There is a strong current, as it were, setting outward from their minds; and it prevents what you say from getting in. You know, if a pipe be full of water, running strongly one way, it is vain to think to push in a stream running the other way. You cannot get at their attention. You cannot get at the quick of their mental sensorium. It is not the dull of hearing whom it is hardest to get to hear; it is rather the man who is roaring out himself, and so who cannot attend to anything else. Now this is provoking. It is a mortifying indication of the little importance that is attached to what we are saying; and there is something of the irritation that is produced in the living being by contending with the passive resistance of inert matter. And there is something provoking even in the outward signs that the mind is in a non-receptive state. You remember the eye that is looking beyond you,–the grin that is not at anything funny in what you say,–the occasional inarticulate sounds that are put in at the close of your sentences, as if to delude you with a show of attention. The non-receptive mind is occasionally found in clever men; but the men who exhibit it are invariably very conceited: they can think of nothing but themselves. And you may find the last-named characteristic strongly developed even in men with gray hair, who ought to have learned better through the experience of a pretty long life. There are other minds which are very receptive. They seem to have a strong power of suction. They take in, very decidedly, all that is said to them. The best mind, of course, is that which combines both characteristics,–which is strongly receptive when it ought to be receiving, and which gives out strongly when it ought to be giving out. The power of receptivity is greatly increased by habit. I remember feeling awe-stricken by the intense attention with which a very great judge was wont, in ordinary conversation, to listen to all that was said to him. It was the habit of the judgment-seat, acquired through many years of listening, with every faculty awake, to the arguments addressed to him. But when you began to make some statement to him, it was positively alarming to see him look you full in the face, and listen with inconceivable fixedness of attention to all you said. You could not help feeling that really the small remark you had to make was not worth that great mind's grasping it so intently, as he might have grasped an argument by Follett. The mind was intensely receptive, when it was receiving at all. But I remember, too, that, when the great judge began to speak, then his mind was (so to speak) streaming out; and he was particularly impatient of inattention or interruption, and particularly non-receptive of anything that might be suggested to him.
It is extremely disagreeable, when a vulgar fellow, whom you hardly know, addresses you by your surname with great familiarity of manner. And such a person will take no hint that he is disagreeable,–however stiff, and however formally polite, you may take pains to be to him. It is disagreeable, when persons, with whom you have no desire to be on terms of intimacy, persist in putting many questions to you as to your private concerns,–such as your annual income and expenditure, and the like. No doubt, it is both pleasant and profitable for people who are not rich to compare notes on these matters with some frank and hearty friend whose means and outgoings are much the same as their own. I do not think of such a case,–but of the prying curiosity of persons who have no right to pry, and who, very generally, while diligently prying into your affairs, take special care not to take you into their confidence. Such people, too, while making a pretence of revealing to you all their secrets, will often tell a very small portion of them, and make various statements which you at the time are quite aware are not true. There are not many things more disagreeable than a very stupid and ill-set old woman, who, quite unaware what her opinion is worth, expresses it with entire confidence upon many subjects of which she knows nothing whatever, and as to which she is wholly incapable of judging. And the self-satisfied and confident air with which she settles the most difficult questions, and pronounces unfavorable judgment upon people ten thousand times wiser and better than herself, is an insufferably irritating phenomenon. It is a singular fact, that the people I have in view invariably combine extreme ugliness with spitefulness and self-conceit. Such a person will make particular inquiries of you as to some near relative of your own,–and will add, with a malicious and horribly ugly expression of face, that she is glad to hear how very much improved your relative now is. She will repeat the sentence several times, laying great emphasis and significance upon the very much improved. Of course, the notion conveyed to any stranger who may be present is that your relative must in former days have been an extremely bad fellow. The fact probably is, that he has always, man and boy, been particularly well-behaved, and that really you were not aware that he needed any special improvement,–save, indeed, in the sense that every human being might be and ought to be a great deal better than he is.
People who are always vaporing about their own importance, and the value of their own possessions, are disagreeable. We all know such people: and they are made more irritating by the fact, that their boasting is almost invariably absurd and false. I do not mean ethically false, but logically false. For doubtless, in many cases, human beings honestly think themselves and their possessions as much better than other men and their possessions as they say they do. If thirty families compose the best society of a little country-town, you may be sure that each of the thirty families in its secret soul looks down upon the other twenty-nine, and fancies that it stands on a totally different level. And it is a kind arrangement of Providence, that a man's own children, horses, house, and other possessions, are so much more interesting to himself than are the children, horses, and houses of other men, that he can readily persuade himself that they are as much better in fact as they are more interesting to his personal feeling. But it is provoking, when a man is always obtruding on you how highly he estimates his own belongings, and how much better than yours he thinks them, even when this is done in all honesty and simplicity; and it is infuriating, when a man keeps constantly telling you things which he knows are not true, as to the preciousness and excellence of the gifts with which fortune has endowed him. You feel angry, when a man who has lately bought a house, one in a square containing fifty, all as nearly as possible alike, tells you with an air of confidence that he has got the finest house in Scotland, or in England, as the case may be. You are irritated by the man who on all occasions tells you that he drives in his mail-phaeton "five hundred pounds' worth of horse-flesh." You are well aware that he did not pay a quarter of that sum for the animals in question: and you assume as certain that the dealer did not give him that pair of horses for less than they were worth. It is somewhat irritating, when a man, not remarkable in any way, begins to tell you that he can hardly go to any part of the world without being recognized by some one who remembers his striking aspect or is familiar with his famous name. "It costs me three hundred a year, having that picture to look at," said Mr. Windbag, pointing to a picture hanging on a wall in his library. He goes on to explain that he refused six thousand pounds for that picture; which at five per cent. would yield the annual income named. You repeat Windbag's statement to an eminent artist. The artist knows the picture. He looks at you fixedly, and for all comment on Windbag's story says, (he is a Scotchman,) "HOOT TOOT!" But the disposition to vapor is deep-set in human nature. There are not very many men or women whom I would trust to give an accurate account of their family, dwelling, influence, and general position, to people a thousand miles from home, who were not likely ever to be able to verify the picture drawn.
It is hardly necessary to mention among disagreeable people those individuals who take pleasure in telling you that you are looking ill,–that you are falling off physically or mentally. "Surely you have lost some of your teeth since I saw you last," said a good man to a man of seventy-five years: "I cannot make out a word you say, you speak so indistinctly." And so obtuse, and so thoroughly devoid of gentlemanly feeling, was that good man, that, when admonished that he ought not to speak in that fashion to a man in advanced years, he could not for his life see that he had done anything unkind or unmannerly. "I dare say you are wearied wi' preachin' to-day: you see you're gettin' frail noo," said a Scotch elder, in my hearing, to a worthy clergyman. Seldom has it cost me a greater effort than it did to refrain from turning to the elder, and saying with candor, "What a boor and what a fool you must be, to say that!" It was as well I did not: the boor would not have known what I meant. He would not have known the provocation which led me to give him my true opinion of him. "How very bald you are getting!" said a really good-natured man to a friend he was meeting for the first time in several years. Such remarks are for the most part made by men who, in good faith, have not the least idea that they are making themselves disagreeable. There is no malicious intention. It is a matter of pure obtuseness, stupidity, selfishness, and vulgarity. But an obtuse, stupid, selfish, and vulgar person is disagreeable. And your right course will be to carefully avoid all intercourse with such a person.
But besides people who blunder into saying unpleasant things, there are a few who do so of set intention. And such people ought to be cracked. They can do a great deal of harm,–inflict a great deal of suffering. I believe that human beings in general are more miserable than you think. They are very anxious,–very careworn,–stung by a host of worries,–a good deal disappointed, in many ways. And in the case of many people, worthy and able, there is a very low estimate of themselves and their abilities, and a sad tendency to depressed spirits and gloomy views. And while a kind word said to such is a real benefit, and a great lightener of the heart, an ingenious malignant may suggest to such things which are as a stunning blow, and as an added load on the weary frame and mind. I have seen, with burning indignation, a malignant beast (I mean man) playing upon that tendency to a terrible apprehensiveness which is born with many men. I have seen the beast vaguely suggest evil to the nervous and apprehensive man. "This cannot end here": "I shall take my own measures now": "A higher authority shall decide between us": I have heard the beast say, and then go away. Of course I knew well that the beast could and would do nothing, and I hastened to say so to the apprehensive man. But I knew that the poor fellow would go away home, and brood over the beast's ominous threats, and imagine a hundred terrible contingencies, and work himself into a fever of anxiety and alarm. And it is because I know that the vague threatener counted on all that, and wished it, and enjoyed the thought of the slow torment he was causing, that I choose to call him a beast rather than a man. Indeed, there is an order of beings, worse than beasts, to which that being should rather be referred. You have said or done something which has given offence to certain of your neighbors. Mr. Snarling comes and gives you a full and particular account of the indignation they feel, and of their plans for vengeance. Mr. Snarling is happy to see you look somewhat annoyed, and he kindly says, "Oh, never mind: this will blow over, as other things you have said and done have blown over." Thus he vaguely suggests that you have given great offence on many occasions, and made many bitter enemies. He adds, in a musing voice, "Yes, as MANY other things have blown over." Turn the individual out, and cut his acquaintance. It would be better to have a upas-tree in your neighborhood. Of all disagreeable men, a man with his tendencies is the most disagreeable. The bitterest and longest-lasting east-wind acts less perniciously on body and soul than does the society of Mr. Snarling.
Suspicious people are disagreeable; also people who are always taking the pet. Indeed, suspiciousness and pettedness generally go together. There are many men and women who are always imagining that some insult is designed by the most innocent words and doings of those around them, and always suspecting that some evil intention against their peace is cherished by some one or other. It is most irritating to have anything to do with such impracticable and silly mortals. But it is a delightful thing to work along with a man who never takes offence,–a frank, manly man, who gives credit to others for the same generosity of nature which he feels within himself, and who, if he thinks he has reason to complain, speaks out his mind and has things cleared up at once. A disagreeable person is he who frequently sends letters to you without paying the postage,–leaving you to pay twopence for each penny which he has thus saved. The loss of twopence is no great matter; but there is something irritating in the feeling that your correspondent has deliberately resolved that he would save his penny at the cost of your twopence. There is a man, describing himself as a clergyman of the Church of England, (I cannot think he is one,) who occasionally sends me an abusive anonymous letter, and who invariably sends his letters unpaid. I do not mind about the man's abuse; but I confess I grudge my twopence. I have observed, too, that the people who send letters unpaid do so habitually. I have known the same individual send six successive letters unpaid. And it is probably within the experience of most of my readers, that, out of (say) a hundred correspondents, ninety-nine invariably pay their letters properly, while time after time the hundredth sends his with the abominable big 2 stamped upon it, and your servant walks in and worries you by the old statement that the postman is waiting. Let me advise every reader to do what I intend doing for the future: to wit, to refuse to receive any unpaid letter. You may be quite sure that by so doing you will not lose any letter that is worth having. A class of people, very closely analogous to that of the people who do not pay their letters, is that of such as are constantly borrowing small sums from their friends, which they never restore. If you should ever be thrown into the society of such, your right course will be to take care to have no money in your pocket. People are disagreeable who are given to talking of the badness of their servants, the undutifulness of their children, the smokiness of their chimneys, and the deficiency of their digestive organs. And though, with a true and close friend, it is a great relief, and a special tie, to have spoken out your heart about your burdens and sorrows, it is expedient, in conversation with ordinary acquaintances, to keep these to yourself.
It must be admitted, with great regret, that people who make a considerable profession of religion have succeeded in making themselves more thoroughly disagreeable than almost any other human beings have ever made themselves. You will find people, who claim not merely to be pious and Christian people, but to be very much more pious and Christian than others, who are extremely uncharitable, unamiable, repulsive, stupid, and narrow-minded, and intensely opinionated and self-satisfied. We know, from a very high authority, that a Christian ought to be an epistle in commendation of the blessed faith he holds. But it is beyond question that many people who profess to be Christians are like grim Gorgons' heads, warning people off from having anything to do with Christianity. Why should a middle-aged clergyman walk about the streets with a sullen and malignant scowl always on his face, which at the best would be a very ugly one? Why should another walk with his nose in the air, and his eyes rolled up till they seem likely to roll out? And why should a third be always dabbled over with a clammy perspiration, and prolong all his vowels to twice the usual length? It is, indeed, a most woful thing, that people who evince a spirit in every respect the direct contrary of that of our Blessed Redeemer should fancy that they are Christians of singular attainments; and it is more woful still, that many young people should be scared away into irreligion or unbelief by the wretched delusion, that these creatures, wickedly caricaturing Christianity, are fairly representing it. I have beheld more deliberate malice, more lying and cheating, more backbiting and slandering, denser stupidity, and greater self-sufficiency, among bad-hearted and wrong-headed religionists, than among any other order of human beings. I have known more malignity and slander conveyed in the form of a prayer than should have consigned any ordinary libeller to the pillory. I have known a person who made evening prayer a means of infuriating and stabbing the servants, under the pretext of confessing their sins. "Thou knowest, Lord, how my servants have been occupied this day": with these words did the blasphemous mockery of prayer begin one Sunday evening in a house I could easily indicate: and then the man, under the pretext of addressing the Almighty, raked up all the misdoings of the servants (they being present, of course) in a fashion, which, if he had ventured on it at any other time, would probably have led some of them to assault him. "I went to Edinburgh," said a Highland elder, "and was there a Sabbath. It was an awfu' sight! There, on the Sabbath-day, you would see people walking along the street, smiling AS IF THEY WERE PERFECTLY HAPPY!" There was the gravamen of the poor Highlander's charge. To think of people being or looking happy on the Lord's day! And, indeed, to think of a Christian man ever venturing to be happy at all! "Yes, this parish was highly favored in the days of Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown," said a spiteful and venomous old woman,–with a glance of deadly malice at a young lad who was present. That young lad was the son of the clergyman of the parish,–one of the most diligent and exemplary clergymen in Britain. Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown were the clergymen who preceded him. And the spiteful old woman adopted this means of sticking a pin into the young lad,–conveying the idea that there was a sad falling off now. I saw and heard her, my reader. Now, when an ordinary spiteful person says a malicious thing, being quite aware that she is saying a malicious thing, and that her motive is pure malice, you are disgusted. But when a spiteful person says a malicious thing, all the while fancying herself a very pious person, and fancying that in gratifying her spite she is acting from Christian principle,–I say the sight is to me one of the most disgusting, perplexing, and miserable, that ever human eye beheld. I have no fear of the attacks of enemies on the blessed faith in which I live, and hope to die; but it is dismal to see how our holy religion is misrepresented before the world by the vile impostors who pretend to be its friends.