#1

Where to Look for Kindness: Orwell, Montaigne, Johnson

In the nineteenth century the British common soldier was usually a farm laborer or slum proletarian who had been driven into the army by brute starvation. However, the weakness of our condition often pushes us to the necessity of using evil means to a good end. That every man should regulate his actions by his own conscience, without any regard to the opinions of the rest of the world, is one of the first precepts of moral prudence; justified not only by the suffrage of reason, which declares that none of the gifts of heaven are to lie useless, but by the voice likewise of experience, which will soon inform us that, if we make the praise or blame of others the rule of our conduct, we shall be distracted by a boundless variety of irreconcilable judgments, be held in perpetual suspense between contrary impulses, and consult for ever without determination.

It was in truth an admirable example, and very fruitful for the education of the people, to see every day before their eyes a hundred, two hundred, even a thousand pairs of men, armed against one another, hack each other to pieces with such extreme firmness of courage that they were observed never to let slip a word of weakness or commiseration, never to turn their back or make even a cowardly movement to avoid their adversary’s blows, but rather to extend their neck to his word and offer themselves to the blow.

Orwell 117. Montaigne 629. Johnson 221. Montaigne 629-630. Orwell 120.

Orwell, “Democracy in the British Army”, 1939
(Essays, Everyman’s Library, 2002)
Montaigne, “Of Evil Means Employed to a Good End”, 1578-1580
(The Complete Works, Everyman’s Library, 2003)
Johnson, The Rambler, #23, Tuesday, 5 June 1750.
(Samuel Johnson, Oxford University Press, 2013)

#2

Good Choices are the Duty of the Free: Orwell, Montaigne, Johnson

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

They do not feel any enmity against me as [an] individual, nor I against them. They are only “doing their duty”, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted, law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.

Among the Germans, to pay honor to a man, they always go to his left side, in whatever position he may be, and consider it an offense to place themselves on his right, saying that in order to show deference to a man you must leave him free on his right side to put his hand to his weapons.

The good and ill of different modes of life are sometimes so equally opposed, that perhaps no man ever yet made his choice between them upon a full conviction, and adequate knowledge; and therefore fluctuation of will is not more wonderful, when they are proposed to the election, than oscillations of a beam charged with equal weights. The mind no sooner imagines itself determined by some prevalent advantage, than some convenience of equal weight is discovered on the other side, and the resolutions which are suggested by the nicest examination, are often repented as soon as they are taken.

Orwell 291, Montaigne 1084, Johnson 274

Orwell, “The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius”, 1941
Montaigne, from “Germany, Austria, and the Alps”, 1580
Johnson, The Rambler, #64, Saturday, 27 October 1750.

#3

Orwell, Montaigne, Johnson

When the Caliph Omar destroyed the libraries of Alexandria he is supposed to have kept the public baths warm for eighteen days with burning manuscripts, and great numbers of tragedies by Euripides and others are said to have perished, quite irrecoverably. I remember that when I read about this as a boy it simply filled me with enthusiastic approval. It was so many less words to look up in the dictionary—that was how I saw it.

I make others say what I cannot say so well, now through the weakness of my language, now through the weakness of my understanding. . . . For I . . . can very well realize, by measuring my capacity, that my soil is not at all capable of producing certain too rich flowers that I find sown there, and that all the fruits of my own growing could not match them.

Those who exalt themselves into the chair of instruction, without enquiring whether any will submit to their authority, have not sufficiently considered how much of human life passes in little incidents, cursory conversation, slight business, and casual amusements; and therefore they have endeavored only to inculcate the more awful virtues without condescending to regard those petty qualities, which grow important only by their frequency, and which though they produce no single acts of heroism, nor astonish us by great events, yet are every moment exerting their influence upon us, and make the fraught of life sweet our bitter by imperceptible installations. They operate unseen and unregarded, as change of air makes us sick or healthy, though we breathe it without attention, and only know the particles that impregnate it by their salutary or malignant effects.

Orwell, “As I Please” 32, Tribune, 7 July 1944 (679)
Montaigne, “Of Books”, (1578-80) (359-360)
Johnson, “Letter to the Rambler”, #72, Saturday, 24 November 1750 (284)

#4

Locke (1632-1704), Johnson (1709-1784), Carlyle (1795-1881)

The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions;

Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odors from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance.

The men of culture are the true apostles of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who have labored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned; yet still remaining the best knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and light.

Men being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent, which is done by agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it.

Locke, An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government, 26, 46. (1690)
Carlyle, Culture and Anarchy, 36, 38-9. (1869)
Johnson, The Idler, #58, Saturday, 26 May 1759

#5

Johnson, Carlyle, Locke

It is impossible to take a view on any side, or observe any of the various classes that form the great community of the world, without discovering the influence of example; and admitting with new conviction the observation of Aristotle, that man is an imitative being. The greatest, far the greater, number follow the track which others have beaten, without any curiosity after new discoveries or ambition of trusting themselves to their own conduct. And, of those who break the ranks and disorder the uniformity of the march, most return in a short time from the deviation and prefer the equal and steady satisfaction of security before the frolicks of caprice and the honors of adventure.

Our prevalent notion is . . . that it is a most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as he likes. On what he is to do when he is thus free to do as he likes, we do not lay so much stress.

As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty.

Johnson, The Rambler, #135, Tuesday, 2 July 1751, 341
Carlyle, Culture and Anarchy, 43. (1869)
Locke, Concerning Human Understanding, 191 (1690-1704, various editions)

#6

Johnson, Locke, Carlyle

The desires of man encrease with his acquisitions; every step which he advances brings something within his view, which he did not see before, and which, as soon as he sees it, he begins to want. (1758)

As to present happiness and misery, when that alone comes into consideration and the consequences are quite removed, a man never chooses amiss: he knows what best pleases him and that he actually prefers. . . . But since our voluntary actions carry not all the happiness and misery that depend on them along with them in their present performance, but are the precedent causes of good and evil, which they draw after them, and bring upon us, when they themselves are past and cease to be; our desires look beyond our present enjoyments, and carry the mind out to absent good, according to the necessity which we think there is of it, to the making or increase of our happiness. It is our opinion of such a necessity that gives it its attraction: without that, we are not moved by absent good.

The graver self of the Barbarian likes honors and consideration; his more relaxed self, field-sports and pleasure. The graver self of one kind of Philistine likes fanaticism, business, and money-making; his more relaxed self, comfort and tea-meetings. Of another kind of Philistine, the graver self likes rattening; the relaxed self, deputations, or hearing Mr. Odgar speak. The sterner self of the Populace likes bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, beer. . . . . Therefore, when we speak of ourselves as divided into barbarians, Philistines, and Populace, we must be understood always to imply that within each of these classes there are a certain number of aliens, if we may so call them,—persons who are mainly led, not by their class spirit, but by a general humane spirit, by the love of human perfection; and that this number is capable of being diminished or augmented. I mean, the number of those who I will succeed in developing this happy instinct will be greater or smaller, in proportion both to the force of the original instinct within them, and to the hindrance or encouragement which it needs with from without. (1869)

Johnson, The Idler, #30, Saturday, 11 November, 1758, 585
Locke, Concerning Human Understanding, 194 (1690-1704, various editions)
Carlyle, Culture and Anarchy, 84-85. (1869)

#7

Bacon, Johnson, Ruskin

Ambition is like choler; which is an humor that make the men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring if it not be stripped. But if it be stopped, and cannot have his way, it be cometh adjust, and thereby malign and venomous. So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased when things go backward. (1625)

Idleness predominates in many lives where it is not. Suspected, for being a vice which terminates in itself, it may be enjoyed without injury to others, and is therefore not watched like Fraud, which endangers property, or like Pride which naturally seeks its gratifications in another’s inferiority.

A Pride is sometimes hid under humility, Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment, naturally endeavors to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favor.

My Friends,

A day seldom passes, now that people begin to notice these letters a little, without my receiving a monstrance on the absurdity of writing “so much above the level” of those whom I address.

I have said, however, that eventually you shall understand, if you care to understand, every word in these pages. Through all this year I have only been putting questions; some of them such as have puzzled the wisest, and which may, for a long time yet, provide too hard for you and me: but, next year, I will go over all the ground again, answering the questions, where I know of any answers; or making them plain for your examination, when I now of none.

But, in the meantime, be it admitted, for argument’s sake, that this way of writing, which is easy to me, and which most educated persons can easily understand, is very much above your level. I want to know why it is assumed so quietly that your brains must always be at a low level? Is it essential to the doing of the work by which England exists, that its workmen should to be able to understand scholar’s English (remember, I only assume mine too be so for argument’s sake), but only newspaper’s English?

Bacon, “On Ambition”, Essays, 414, (1625)
Johnson, The Idler, Saturday, 18 November 1758 (587-588)
Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, Letter XI, 15 October 1871 (141-2)

#8

Bacon, Johnson, Ruskin

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that ‘the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired’. . . . The virtue of Prosperity is temperance, the virtue of Adversity is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroically virtue. . . Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed to crushed; for Prosperity doth best discover vice, but Adversity doth best discover virtue. (1625)

Power and superiority are so flattering and delightful, that, fraught with temptation and exposed to danger as they are, scarcely any virtue is so cautious, or any prudence so timorous, as to decline them. Even those that have most reverence for the laws of right, are pleased with shewing that not fear, but choice, regulates their behavior; and would be thought to comply, rather than obey. We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass; and, as the Roman satirist remarks, he that has no design to take the life of another, is yet glad to have it in his hands. (1751)

I think it first desirable that you should know something about Marmontel himself. He was a French gentleman of the old school; not noble, nor, in French sense, even “gentilhomme”; but a peasant’s son, who made his way into Parisian society by gentleness, wit, and a dainty and candid literary power. He became one of the humblest, yet honestest, placed scholars at the court of Louis XV. . . . For introduction , then, you shall have, to-day, his own description of his native place, Bort, in central south France, and of the circumstances of his child-life.

“Bort, situated in the river Dordogne, between Auvergne and the province of Limoges, is a frightful place enough, seen by the traveller descending suddenly on it; lying, as it does, at the bottom of a precipice, and looking as if the storm torrents would sweep it away, or as if, some day, it must be crushed under a chain of volcanic rocks, some planted like towers on the height which commands the town, and others already overhanging , or half uprooted: but, once in the valley, and with the eye free to wander there, Bort becomes full of smiles. Above the town, on a green island which the river embraces with equal streams,, there is a thicket peopled with birds, and animated also with the motion and noise of a mill. On each side of the river are orchards and fields, cultivated with laborious care. Below the village the valley opens, on one side of the river into a broad flat meadow, watered by springs; on the other, into sloping fields, crowned by a belt of hills whose slope contrasts with the opposing rocks, and is divided, farther on, by a torrent which rolls and leaps through the forest, and falls into the Dorgogne in one of the most beautiful cataracts on the Continent. Neat that spot is situated the little farm of St. Thomas, where I used to read Virgil under the blossoming trees that surrounded our bee-hives, and where I made delicious lunches of their honey. On the other side of the town, above the mill, and on the slope to the river, was the enclosure where, on fete days, my father took me to gather grapes from the vines he himself had planted, or cherries, plums, and apples from the trees he had grafted.

But what in my memory is the chief charm of my native place is the impression of the affection which my family had for me, and with which my soul was penetrated in earliest infancy. If there is any goodness in my character, it is to these sweet emotions, and the perpetual happiness of loving and being loved that I believe it is owing. What a gift does Heaven bestow on us in the virtue of parents? (1872)

Bacon, On Ambition, Essays, 348, (1625)
Johnson, The Idler, #114, Saturday, 20. April 1751 (325)
Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, Letter XIV, 1 February 1872 (191-3)

#9

Ruskin

The first root of distinction between the soldier and peasant is in barrenness and fruitfulness of possessed ground; the inhabitant of sands and rocks “redeeming his share” . . . from the inhabitant of corn-bearing ground. . . .

Again, the first root of distinction between clergymen and peasant is the greater intelligence, which instinctively desires both to learn and teach, and is content to accept the smallest maintenance, if it may remain so occupied.

The second root of distinction is that which gives rise to the word ‘clergy’, properly signifying persons chosen by lot, or in a manner elect, for the practice and exhibition of good behavior; the visionary or passionate anchorite being content to beg his bread, so only that he may have leave by undisturbed prayer, or meditation, to bring himself into closer union with the spiritual world; and the peasant being always content to feed him, on condition of his becoming venerable in that higher state, and, as a peculiarly blessed person, a communicator of blessing.

Now, both these classes of men remain noble, as long as they are content with daily bread, if they may be allowed to live in their own way; but the moment the one of them uses his strength, and the other his sanctity, to get riches with, or pride of elevation over other men, both of them become tyrants, and capable of any degree of evil.

Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, Letter XV Denmark Hill, 1st March, 1872. (199-200)