Friends in Council | Page 9

to me to want another essay on the other
side. But I think, at the end, you protect yourself against
misconstruction. In the spirit of the essay, you know, of course, that I
quite agree with you. Indeed, I differ from all the ordinary biographers
of that independent gentleman, Don't Care. I believe Don't Care came
to a good end. At any rate he came to some end. Whereas numbers of
people never have beginning, or ending, of their own. An obscure
dramatist, Milverton, whom we know of, makes one of his characters
say, in reply to some world-fearing wretch:
"While you, you think What others think, or what you think they'll say,
Shaping your course by something scarce more tangible Than dreams,
at best the shadows on the stream Of aspen leaves by flickering breezes
swayed-- Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night, I am not
the utter slave which that man is Whose sole word, thought, and deed
are built on what The world may say of him."
Milverton. Never mind the obscure dramatist. But, Ellesmere, you
really are unreasonable, if you suppose that, in the limits of a short
essay, you can accurately distinguish all you write between the use and
the abuse of a thing. The question is, will people misunderstand

you--not, is the language such as to be logically impregnable? Now, in
the present case, no man will really suppose it is a wise and just
conformity that I am inveighing against.
Ellesmere. I am not sure of that. If everybody is to have independent
thought, would there not be a fearful instability and want of
compactness? Another thing, too--conformity often saves so much time
and trouble.
Milverton. Yes; it has its uses. I do not mean, in the world of opinion
and morality, that it should be all elasticity and no gravitation; but at
least enough elasticity to preserve natural form and independent being.
Ellesmere. I think it would have been better if you had turned the essay
another way, and instead of making it on conformity, had made it on
interference. That is the greater mischief and the greater folly, I think.
Why do people unreasonably conform? Because they feel unreasonable
interference. War, I say, is interference on a small scale compared with
the interference of private life. Then the absurdity on which it proceeds;
that men are all alike, or that it is desirable that they should be; and that
what is good for one is good for all.
Dunsford. I must say, I think, Milverton, you do not give enough credit
for sympathy, good-nature, and humility as material elements in the
conformity of the world.
Ellesmere. I am not afraid, my dear Dunsford, of the essay doing much
harm. There is a power of sleepy conformity in the world. You may
just startle your conformists for a minute, but they gravitate into their
old way very soon. You talk of their humility, Dunsford, but I have
heard people who have conformed to opinions, without a pretence of
investigation, as arrogant and intolerant towards anybody who differed
from them, as if they stood upon a pinnacle of independent sagacity
and research.
Dunsford. One never knows, Ellesmere, on which side you are. I
thought you were on mine a minute or two ago; and now you come
down upon me with more than Milverton's anti-conforming spirit.
Ellesmere. The greatest mischief, as I take it, of this slavish conformity,
is in the reticence it creates. People will be, what are called, intimate
friends, and yet no real interchange of opinion takes place between
them. A man keeps his doubts, his difficulties, and his peculiar
opinions to himself. He is afraid of letting anybody know that he does

not exactly agree with the world's theories on all points. There is no
telling the hindrance that this is to truth.
Milverton. A great cause of this, Ellesmere, is in the little reliance you
can have on any man's secrecy. A man finds that what, in the heat of
discussion, and in the perfect carelessness of friendship, he has said to
his friend, is quoted to people whom he would never have said it to;
knowing that it would be sure to be misunderstood, or half-understood,
by them. And so he grows cautious; and is very loth to communicate to
anybody his more cherished opinions, unless they fall in exactly with
the stream. Added to which, I think there is in these times less than
there ever was of a proselytising spirit; and people are content to keep
their opinions to themselves--more perhaps from indifference than from
fear.
Ellesmere. Yes, I agree with you.
By the way, I think your taking dress as an illustration of extreme
conformity is not bad. Really it is wonderful the