Impressions of Theophrastus Such | Page 4

merit? Is the ugly unready man in the corner, outside the
current of conversation, really likely to have a fairer view of things than
the agreeable talker, whose success strikes the unsuccessful as a
repulsive example of forwardness and conceit? And as to compensation
in future years, would the fact that I myself got it reconcile me to an
order of things in which I could see a multitude with as bad a share as
mine, who, instead of getting their corresponding compensation, were
getting beyond the reach of it in old age? What could be more
contemptible than the mood of mind which makes a man measure the
justice of divine or human law by the agreeableness of his own shadow
and the ample satisfaction of his own desires?
I dropped a form of consolation which seemed to be encouraging me in
the persuasion that my discontent was the chief evil in the world, and
my benefit the soul of good in that evil. May there not be at least a
partial release from the imprisoning verdict that a man's philosophy is
the formula of his personality? In certain branches of science we can
ascertain our personal equation, the measure of difference between our
own judgments and an average standard: may there not be some
corresponding correction of our personal partialities in moral theorising?

If a squint or other ocular defect disturbs my vision, I can get instructed
in the fact, be made aware that my condition is abnormal, and either
through spectacles or diligent imagination I can learn the average
appearance of things: is there no remedy or corrective for that inward
squint which consists in a dissatisfied egoism or other want of mental
balance? In my conscience I saw that the bias of personal discontent
was just as misleading and odious as the bias of self-satisfaction.
Whether we look through the rose-coloured glass or the indigo, we are
equally far from the hues which the healthy human eye beholds in
heaven above and earth below. I began to dread ways of consoling
which were really a flattering of native illusions, a feeding-up into
monstrosity of an inward growth already disproportionate; to get an
especial scorn for that scorn of mankind which is a transmuted
disappointment of preposterous claims; to watch with peculiar alarm
lest what I called my philosophic estimate of the human lot in general,
should be a mere prose lyric expressing my own pain and consequent
bad temper. The standing-ground worth striving after seemed to be
some Delectable Mountain, whence I could see things in proportions as
little as possible determined by that self-partiality which certainly plays
a necessary part in our bodily sustenance, but has a starving effect on
the mind.
Thus I finally gave up any attempt to make out that I preferred cutting a
bad figure, and that I liked to be despised, because in this way I was
getting more virtuous than my successful rivals; and I have long looked
with suspicion on all views which are recommended as peculiarly
consolatory to wounded vanity or other personal disappointment. The
consolations of egoism are simply a change of attitude or a resort to a
new kind of diet which soothes and fattens it. Fed in this way it is apt to
become a monstrous spiritual pride, or a chuckling satisfaction that the
final balance will not be against us but against those who now eclipse
us. Examining the world in order to find consolation is very much like
looking carefully over the pages of a great book in order to find our
own name, if not in the text, at least in a laudatory note: whether we
find what we want or not, our preoccupation has hindered us from a
true knowledge of the contents. But an attention fixed on the main
theme or various matter of the book would deliver us from that slavish

subjection to our own self-importance. And I had the mighty volume of
the world before me. Nay, I had the struggling action of a myriad lives
around me, each single life as dear to itself as mine to me. Was there no
escape here from this stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation?
Clearly enough, if anything hindered my thought from rising to the
force of passionately interested contemplation, or my poor pent-up
pond of sensitiveness from widening into a beneficent river of
sympathy, it was my own dulness; and though I could not make myself
the reverse of shallow all at once, I had at least learned where I had
better turn my attention.
Something came of this alteration in my point of view, though I admit
that the result is of no striking kind. It is unnecessary for me to utter
modest denials, since none have assured me that