MR. W. H. SMITH'S EQUANIMITY. T HE most distinctive feature of
the late Mr. W. H. Smith was his remarkable, his almost distinguished, equanimity. The evenness of his mind amounted to more than a talent,—a kind of moral genius. In him, tameness became something rare and conspicuous,—almost an incom- municable excellence. In most men, tameness is more or less contemptible. In him it was a quality of invaluable worth, because it implied the perfect subjugation of all the irritable self-love which stands in the way of a man's higher aims,—something like, indeed, to the equanimity of that
"Even-balanced soul,
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild," which Matthew Arnold attributes to Sophocles,—though Mr. W. H. Smith certainly had not the rarer gift which the great Attic poet associated with it, for seeing life, not only steadily,—as the late First Lord of the Treasury cer- tainly did,—but seeing it "whole,"—which he never even tried to do. This singular and unsurpassable equanimity was certainly never better illustrated than by the indiffer- ence and even mild amusement which Mr. Smith felt for the kind of satire with which he would have been over- whelmed, had it annoyed him at all, (as it did not,) for his unique tameness of character. Probably he knew it to be,—what it certainly was,—his distinction and not his deficiency. If we could all tame ourselves as he did, so as neither to be vexed at the caricatures of our own tameness, nor proud of that tameness, but simply conscious of it and its uses, we should probably be able to do as much with ourselves and with other not very unique gifts, as he did. Mr. Smith had. the energy which many men who make fortunes also have, which, for instance, his father certainly had, though he had it in its wilder, more aggressive form, and wholly without that indomitable equanimity which his son combined with it. The statesman, on the other hand, had, like his father, plenty of common-sense, which almost all successful commonplace men more or less possess ; he had habits of business and of method which are inseparable from success of this kind ; but, in addition to all these qualities, which are common enough, he had this rare power of self-subjugation, which made it as easy and almost as inevitable for him to ignore wounds to his own vanity, as it was to ignore wounds to other people's. He probably hardly felt the wound more, even if he did not feel it toss, when it affected himself, than he did when it affected others. When he was quizzed as "Old Morality," he smiled and did not object. When Mr. Harry Pumas drew a picture in Punch of the contrast between the prevalent Continental idea of General Sir Smith, Secre- t lry of State for War, armed to the teeth and eclipsing all the Jingoes who ever boasted of their own in- solence, in ferocity, and the mild old citizen with the hat on the very back of his head, and his countenance irradiated by a complacent ordinariness which approached something like helplessness, who then filled the office of Secretary for War, he was sincerely amused ; and his family have felt his indifference to the satire so heartily, that Sir Herbert Maxwell has borrowed these caricatures for the benefit of the readers of Mr. Smith's Life. Far from being ashamed of his own supreme tameness, Mr. Smith truly felt that it was a power,—indeed, it was a much rarer power than he knew it to be,—and was not at all indisposed to let the world see that he knew himself. He was not only a man of tame energy, but of energy so conspicuously tame, that there was no need for holding himself in by bit and bridle when be was ridiculed ; he hardly felt, if indeed he did feel, the vestige of wounded vanity or pride. Now, this quality would seem to be one which almost any successful man of business might cultivate, though it is, at present, almost as rare as the highest genius. It is said of horses that you cannot get a horse capable of enduring great and protracted fatigue without a temper ; and it is certainly true of men that you can hardly secure the energy and tenacity which can drive a great machine, which can keep a great number of different strings well in hand, and some of them strings at full tension, without that devil that hates to be thwarted. But Mr. Smith had this energy in its highest civilian form, and he had no devil at all. If he hated to be thwarted, he never revealed it, unless in a mild private letter to his wife or daughter. He had so completely tamed himself, that even his political enemies said of him it was simply impossible not to like "Old Morality." He knew the full extent of his own patience, and that it surpassed the patience of even a callous British public, who looked on at the political strife without any of the irritability or soreness of an active combatant. And therefore he knew exactly when he could safely use the public impatience as the political in- strument of his own imperturbable patience. That was his great power. He was so impartial a judge of the public impatience that he never weakened his own influ- ence by anticipating it, or allowed his own vexation to forestall the more lagging impatience of mere onlookers. "Old Morality" never applied the curb to the curvettings of political obstruction, till he saw that the irritation of the English people was well in advance of his own.
There could hardly be a more important and impressive lesson to the Conservative statesmen of the future than Sir Herbert Maxwell's life of this remarkable man,—all the more remarkable for his general unremarkableness. He was educated by trade. He had the tradesman's sagacity for what would satisfy best the public demand. He had not a trace of the obstinacy that is supposed to be properly Tory. If there was a visible fault in the work- ing of any system, Mr. Smith was the first to see it and get it removed. He was a moderate Liberal of the old sort,—one who could not endure to let a clearly remediable grievance go unremedied. He was a moderate Conserva- tive of the new sort, one who could not endure to let a rash and dangerous experiment be tried merely through impatience of the irksomeness of a situation which might much more probably be aggravated than alleviated by rest- lessness. He had good, sound instincts as to what was a clearly remediable grievance and as to what was a rash experiment. He thought Mr. Gladstone's experiment in Irish Home-rule so rash that he seriously contemplated expatriating himself and his family, if Mr. Gladstone's first (and least rash) measure of Home-rule had suc- ceeded. Beyond this point his was not a remarkable judgment ; multitudes of successful men had judgments quite as sound. What was most remarkable in him was his temper, his immovable equanimity, his absolute inability to be thrown off his balance by the difficulties or vexations of his position. He could not regard his own convenience or desires as in any respect more im- portant than any one else's convenience or desires. There was his unique quality. He had completely tamed himself. What seems most unnatural to most men, namely, that others should not see the positive duty of consulting their convenience, seemed perfectly natural to Mr. Smith. He was of little more importance to him- self than he was to any one else. He was just a unit and nothing more. At the time that he led the House of Commons, one of the Members said, as he passed him in the lobby, "Here is the head-master, let us refer it to him."—" Ah, don't call me that," said Mr. Smith, "I am only one of the big boys." And that was not a mere phrase. It was his genuine and intimate feeling. In other words, his life teaches us what seems a much less signi- ficant, but really is & much more significant and unique lesson, than the lives of very much more brilliant states- men,—that with ordinary abilities such as any successful middle-class man may possess, extraordinary temper, and especially extraordinary equanimity, not arising from want of energy, but from the self-restraint of energy that has completely mastered itself, is a quality of inexpressible value for political purposes. This is no doubt a quality which very few successful men do attain, because very few successful men cultivate it. But surely a much larger number might cultivate it, and cultivate it successfully. It does not imply weakness, but strength. It implies especially the kind of strength which Conservative states- men now most need, the strength which is not founded in brilliance or in originality, but in self-forgetfulness and willingness to bear small evils for a great end. This is a quality which is as inconsistent with indifference to remediable evils, as it is with rash impatience of irreme- diable evils. Therefore it is the quality which all Liberal- Conservatives especially need, but which very few indeed possess in anything like the high degree in which Mr. W. H. Smith certainly possessed it. In him this singular combination of perfect equanimity with great energy was certainly of true religious origin, and we can hardly con- ceive that such a quality as his could have had any other.
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