CHAPTER VIII--On Canting Nonsense.

The writer now wishes to say something on the subject of canting

nonsense, of which there is a great deal in England. There are various

cants in England, amongst which is the religious cant. He is not going

to discuss the subject of religious cant: lest, however, he should be

misunderstood, he begs leave to repeat that he is a sincere member of the

Church of England, in which he believes there is more religion, and

consequently less cant, than in any other church in the world; nor is he

going to discuss many other cants; he shall content himself with saying

something about two--the temperance cant and the unmanly cant. Temperance

canters say that "it is unlawful to drink a glass of ale." Unmanly

canters say that "it is unlawful to use one's fists." The writer begs

leave to tell both these species of canters that they do not speak words

of truth.

It is very lawful to take a cup of ale, or wine, for the purpose of

cheering or invigorating yourself when you are faint and down-hearted;

and likewise to give a cup of ale or wine to others when they are in a

similar condition. The Holy Scripture sayeth nothing to the contrary,

but rather encourageth people in so doing by the text, "Wine maketh glad

the heart of man." But it is not lawful to intoxicate yourself with

frequent cups of ale or wine, nor to make others intoxicated, nor does

the Holy Scripture say it is. The Holy Scripture no more says that it is

lawful to intoxicate yourself or others, than it says that it is unlawful

to take a cup of ale or wine yourself, or to give one to others. Noah is

not commended in the Scripture for making himself drunken on the wine he

brewed. Nor is it said that the Saviour, when he supplied the guests

with first-rate wine at the marriage-feast, told them to make themselves

drunk upon it. He is said to have supplied them with first-rate wine,

but He doubtless left the quantity which each should drink to each

party's reason and discretion. When you set a good dinner before your

guests, you do not expect that they should gorge themselves with the

victuals you set before them. Wine may be abused, and so may a leg of

mutton.

Second. It is lawful for any one to use his fists in his own defence, or

in the defence of others, provided they can't help themselves; but it is

not lawful to use them for purposes of tyranny or brutality. If you are

attacked by a ruffian, as the elderly individual in Lavengro is in the

inn-yard, it is quite lawful, if you can, to give him as good a thrashing

as the elderly individual gave the brutal coachman; and if you see a

helpless woman--perhaps your own sister--set upon by a drunken lord, a

drunken coachman, or a drunken coalheaver, or a brute of any description,

either drunk or sober, it is not only lawful but laudable, to give them,

if you can, a good drubbing; but it is not lawful because you have a

strong pair of fists, and know how to use them, to go swaggering through

a fair, jostling against unoffending individuals; should you do so, you

would be served quite right if you were to get a drubbing, more

particularly if you were served out by some one less strong, but more

skilful than yourself--even as the coachman was served out by a pupil of

the immortal Broughton--sixty years old, it is true, but possessed of

Broughton's guard and chop. Moses is not blamed in the Scripture for

taking part with the oppressed, and killing an Egyptian persecutor. We

are not told how Moses killed the Egyptian; but it is quite as creditable

to Moses to suppose that he killed the Egyptian by giving him a buffet

under the left ear, as by stabbing him with a knife. It is true that the

Saviour in the New Testament tells His disciples to turn the left cheek

to be smitten, after they had received a blow on the right; but He was

speaking to people divinely inspired, or whom He intended divinely to

inspire--people selected by God for a particular purpose. He likewise

tells these people to part with various articles of raiment when asked

for them, and to go a-travelling without money, and take no thought of

the morrow. Are those exhortations carried out by very good people in

the present day? Do Quakers, when smitten on the right cheek, turn the

left to the smiter? When asked for their coat, do they say, "Friend,

take my shirt also?" Has the Dean of Salisbury no purse? Does the

Archbishop of Canterbury go to an inn, run up a reckoning, and then say

to his landlady, "Mistress, I have no coin?" Assuredly the Dean has a

purse, and a tolerably well-filled one; and, assuredly, the Archbishop,

on departing from an inn, not only settles his reckoning, but leaves

something handsome for the servants, and does not say that he is

forbidden by the gospel to pay for what he has eaten, or the trouble he

has given, as a certain Spanish cavalier said he was forbidden by the

statutes of chivalry. Now, to take the part of yourself, or the part of

the oppressed, with your fists, is quite as lawful in the present day as

it is to refuse your coat and shirt also to any vagabond who may ask for

them, and not to refuse to pay for supper, bed, and breakfast, at the

Feathers, or any other inn, after you have had the benefit of all three.

The conduct of Lavengro with respect to drink may, upon the whole, serve

as a model. He is no drunkard, nor is he fond of intoxicating other

people; yet when the horrors are upon him he has no objection to go to a

public-house and call for a pint of ale, nor does he shrink from

recommending ale to others when they are faint and downcast. In one

instance, it is true, he does what cannot be exactly justified; he

encourages the Priest in the dingle, in more instances than one, in

drinking more hollands and water than is consistent with decorum. He has

a motive indeed in doing so; a desire to learn from the knave in his cups

the plans and hopes of the Propaganda of Rome. Such conduct, however,

was inconsistent with strict fair dealing and openness; and the author

advises all those whose consciences never reproach them for a single

unfair or covert act committed by them, to abuse him heartily for

administering hollands and water to the Priest of Rome. In that instance

the hero is certainly wrong; yet in all other cases with regard to drink,

he is manifestly right. To tell people that they are never to drink a

glass of ale or wine themselves, or to give one to others, is cant; and

the writer has no toleration for cant of any description. Some cants are

not dangerous; but the writer believes that a more dangerous cant than

the temperance cant, or as it is generally called, teetotalism, is

scarcely to be found. The writer is willing to believe that it

originated with well meaning, though weak people; but there can be no

doubt that it was quickly turned to account by people who were neither

well meaning nor weak. Let the reader note particularly the purpose to

which this cry has been turned in America; the land, indeed, par

excellence, of humbug and humbug cries. It is there continually in the

mouth of the most violent political party, and is made an instrument of

almost unexampled persecution. The writer would say more on the

temperance cant, both in England and America, but want of space prevents

him. There is one point on which he cannot avoid making a few brief

remarks--that is, the inconsistent conduct of its apostles in general.

The teetotal apostle says, it is a dreadful thing to be drunk. So it is,

teetotaller; but if so, why do you get drunk? I get drunk? Yes, unhappy

man, why do you get drunk on smoke and passion? Why are your garments

impregnated with the odour of the Indian weed? Why is there a pipe or a

cigar always in your mouth? Why is your language more dreadful than that

of a Poissarde? Tobacco-smoke is more deleterious than ale, teetotaller;

bile more potent than brandy. You are fond of telling your hearers what

an awful thing it is to die drunken. So it is, teetotaller. Then take

good care that you do not die with smoke and passion, drunken, and with

temperance language on your lips; that is, abuse and calumny against all

those who differ from you. One word of sense you have been heard to say,

which is, that spirits may be taken as a medicine. Now you are in a

fever of passion, teetotaller; so, pray take this tumbler of brandy; take

it on the homoeopathic principle, that heat is to be expelled by heat.

You are in a temperance fury, so swallow the contents of this tumbler,

and it will, perhaps, cure you. You look at the glass wistfully--you

occasionally take a glass medicinally--and it is probable you do. Take

one now. Consider what a dreadful thing it would be to die passion

drunk; to appear before your Maker with intemperate language on your

lips. That's right! You don't seem to wince at the brandy. That's

right!--well done! All down in two pulls. Now you look like a

reasonable being!

If the conduct of Lavengro with regard to drink is open to little

censure, assuredly the use which he makes of his fists is entitled to

none at all. Because he has a pair of tolerably strong fists, and knows

to a certain extent how to use them, is he a swaggerer or oppressor? To

what ill account does he turn them? Who more quiet, gentle, and

inoffensive than he? He beats off a ruffian who attacks him in a dingle;

has a kind of friendly tuzzle with Mr. Petulengro, and behold the extent

of his fistic exploits.

Ay, but he associates with prize-fighters; and that very fellow,

Petulengro, is a prize-fighter, and has fought for a stake in a ring.

Well, and if he had not associated with prize-fighters, how could he have

used his fists? Oh, anybody can use his fists in his own defence,

without being taught by prize-fighters. Can they? Then why does not the

Italian, or Spaniard, or Affghan use his fists when insulted or outraged,

instead of having recourse to the weapons which he has recourse to?

Nobody can use his fists without being taught the use of them by those

who have themselves been taught, no more than any one can "whiffle"

without being taught by a master of the art. Now let any man of the

present day try to whiffle. Would not any one who wished to whiffle have

to go to a master of the art? Assuredly! but where would he find one at

the present day? The last of the whifflers hanged himself about a

fortnight ago on a bell-rope in a church steeple of "the old town," from

pure grief that there was no further demand for the exhibition of his

art, there being no demand for whiffling since the discontinuation of

Guildhall banquets. Whiffling is lost. The old chap left his sword

behind him; let any one take up the old chap's sword and try to whiffle.

Now much the same hand as he would make who should take up the whiffler's

sword and try to whiffle, would he who should try to use his fists who

had never had the advantage of a master. Let no one think that men use

their fists naturally in their own disputes--men have naturally recourse

to any other thing to defend themselves or to offend others; they fly to

the stick, to the stone, to the murderous and cowardly knife, or to abuse

as cowardly as the knife, and occasionally more murderous. Now which is

best when you hate a person, or have a pique against a person, to clench

your fist and say "Come on," or to have recourse to the stone, the

knife,--or murderous calumny? The use of the fist is almost lost in

England. Yet are the people better than they were when they knew how to

use their fists? The writer believes not. A fisty combat is at present

a great rarity, but the use of the knife, the noose, and of poison, to

say nothing of calumny, are of more frequent occurrence in England than

perhaps in any country in Europe. Is polite taste better than when it

could bear the details of a fight? The writer believes not. Two men

cannot meet in a ring to settle a dispute in a manly manner without some

trumpery local newspaper letting loose a volley of abuse against "the

disgraceful exhibition," in which abuse it is sure to be sanctioned by

its dainty readers; whereas some murderous horror, the discovery for

example of the mangled remains of a woman in some obscure den, is

greedily seized hold of by the moral journal, and dressed up for its

readers, who luxuriate and gloat upon the ghastly dish. Now, the writer

of Lavengro has no sympathy with those who would shrink from striking a

blow, but would not shrink from the use of poison or calumny; and his

taste has little in common with that which cannot tolerate the hardy

details of a prize-fight, but which luxuriates on descriptions of the

murder dens of modern England. But prize-fighters and pugilists are

blackguards, a reviewer has said; and blackguards they would be provided

they employed their skill and their prowess for purposes of brutality and

oppression; but prize-fighters and pugilists are seldom friends to

brutality and oppression; and which is the blackguard, the writer would

ask, he who uses his fists to take his own part, or instructs others to

use theirs for the same purpose, or the being who from envy and malice,

or at the bidding of a malicious scoundrel, endeavours by calumny,

falsehood, and misrepresentation to impede the efforts of lonely and

unprotected genius?

One word more about the race, all but extinct, of the people

opprobriously called prize-fighters. Some of them have been as noble,

kindly men as the world ever produced. Can the rolls of the English

aristocracy exhibit names belonging to more noble, more heroic men than

those who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring? Did ever

one of the English aristocracy contract the seeds of fatal consumption by

rushing up the stairs of a burning edifice, even to the topmost garret,

and rescuing a woman from seemingly inevitable destruction? The writer

says no. A woman was rescued from the top of a burning house; but the

man who rescued her was no aristocrat; it was Pearce, not Percy, who ran

up the burning stairs. Did ever one of those glittering ones save a

fainting female from the libidinous rage of six ruffians? The writer

believes not. A woman was rescued from the libidinous fury of six

monsters on --- Down; but the man who rescued her was no aristocrat; it

was Pearce not Paulet, who rescued the woman, and thrashed my lord's six

gamekeepers--Pearce, whose equal never was, and probably never will be,

found in sturdy combat. Are there any of the aristocracy of whom it can

be said that they never did a cowardly, cruel, or mean action, and that

they invariably took the part of the unfortunate and weak against cruelty

and oppression? As much can be said of Cribb, of Spring, and the other;

but where is the aristocrat of whom as much can be said? Wellington?

Wellington indeed! a skilful general, and a good man of valour, it is

true, but with that cant word of "duty" continually on his lips, did he

rescue Ney from his butchers? Did he lend a helping hand to Warner?

In conclusion, the writer would advise those of his country-folks who

read his book to have nothing to do with the two kinds of canting

nonsense described above, but in their progress through life to enjoy as

well as they can, but always with moderation, the good things of this

world, to put confidence in God, to be as independent as possible, and to

take their own parts. If they are low-spirited, let them not make

themselves foolish by putting on sackcloth, drinking water, or chewing

ashes, but let them take wholesome exercise, and eat the most generous

food they can get, taking up and reading occasionally, not the lives of

Ignatius Loyola and Francis Spira, but something more agreeable; for

example, the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, the deaf and

dumb gentleman; the travels of Captain Falconer in America, and the

journal of John Randall, who went to Virginia and married an Indian wife;

not forgetting, amidst their eating and drinking, their walks over

heaths, and by the sea-side, and their agreeable literature, to be

charitable to the poor, to read the Psalms and to go to church twice on a

Sunday. In their dealings with people, to be courteous to everybody, as

Lavengro was, but always independent like him; and if people meddle with

them, to give them as good as they bring, even as he and Isopel Berners

were in the habit of doing; and it will be as well for him to observe

that he by no means advises women to be too womanly, but bearing the

conduct of Isopel Berners in mind, to take their own parts, and if

anybody strikes them, to strike again.

Beating of women by the lords of the creation has become very prevalent

in England since pugilism has been discountenanced. Now the writer

strongly advises any woman who is struck by a ruffian to strike him

again; or if she cannot clench her fists, and he advises all women in

these singular times to learn to clench their fists, to go at him with

tooth and nail, and not to be afraid of the result, for any fellow who is

dastard enough to strike a woman, would allow himself to be beaten by a

woman, were she to make at him in self-defence, even if, instead of

possessing the stately height and athletic proportions of the aforesaid

Isopel, she were as diminutive in stature, and had a hand as delicate,

and foot as small, as a certain royal lady, who was some time ago

assaulted by a fellow upwards of six feet high, whom the writer has no

doubt she could have beaten had she thought proper to go at him. Such is

the deliberate advice of the author to his countrymen and women--advice

in which he believes there is nothing unscriptural or repugnant to common

sense.

The writer is perfectly well aware that, by the plain language which he

has used in speaking of the various kinds of nonsense prevalent in

England, he shall make himself a multitude of enemies; but he is not

going to conceal the truth or to tamper with nonsense, from the fear of

provoking hostility. He has a duty to perform and he will perform it

resolutely; he is the person who carried the Bible to Spain; and as

resolutely as he spoke in Spain against the superstitions of Spain, will

he speak in England against the nonsense of his own native land. He is

not one of those who, before they sit down to write a book, say to

themselves, what cry shall we take up? what principles shall we advocate?

what principles shall we abuse? before we put pen to paper we must find

out what cry is the loudest, what principle has the most advocates,

otherwise, after having written our book, we may find ourselves on the

weaker side.

A sailor of the "Bounty," waked from his sleep by the noise of the

mutiny, lay still in his hammock for some time, quite undecided whether

to take part with the captain or to join the mutineers. "I must mind

what I do," said he to himself, "lest, in the end, I find myself on the

weaker side;" finally, on hearing that the mutineers were successful, he

went on deck, and seeing Bligh pinioned to the mast, he put his fist to

his nose, and otherwise insulted him. Now, there are many writers of the

present day whose conduct is very similar to that of the sailor. They

lie listening in their corners till they have ascertained which principle

has most advocates; then, presently, they make their appearance on the

deck of the world with their book; if truth has been victorious, then has

truth the hurrah! but if truth is pinioned against the mast, then is

their fist thrust against the nose of truth, and their gibe and their

insult spirted in her face. The strongest party had the sailor, and the

strongest party has almost invariably the writer of the present day.