THE VALUE OF NATIONAL CONCEIT.
WE have been at once amused and pained by the receipt of a number of letters, both from Germans and Anglo- Germans, complaining, often in bitter terms, of the "attacks on Germany," made in the letters of our humorous friend, "Tom Balbus." We publish only one of them,--first, because the writer gives his name for publication ; and secondly, because we feel sore, if the writers understood either the character or the objects of "Tom Balbus," they would all of them be as amused at their own vehemence as we are amazed. We can assure Dr, Altha,us that " acridity" is not exactly the peculiar foible of "Tom Balbus." We should have thought the countrymen of Jean Paul, of all men, would have understood the kind of humour which consists in bringing out incidents of travel and points of national demeanour by a touch of whimsical exaggeration, sometimes cynical, and sometimes affectedly ill-tempered. The surface fault of North Germans, like that of most Yorkshiremen, in manner, is a kind of brutal directness of speech, arising half from simplicity and half from the universal military training; and our friend, who knows Germans, Germany, and German a good deal better than our correspondents imagine, brought this to the front, with his laughable talk of " Woss P" just as a Frenchman would have brought an Englishman's morgue and impassive self-approval, or a German would have brought what seems to him the Italiau's hungry servility. Of course, the German denies the charge of boorishness, and from his point of view quite truly ; but then, so does the Frenchman deny that of frivolity, often more truly still ; and the Italian that of servility ; while the English- man remarks in the stolidest way that he cannot understand how anybody can couple stolidity and him together. Yet the English stolidity and woodenness so impress foreigners, that we have heard a German lady of marked intellectual attain- ments say that on her arrival they impressed her with a certain horror, and that when happening to drop a coin iu a full omnibus, she saw eleven men, stoop instinctively to catch it for her, she was as astonished as if so many statues had done it. We do not doubt that if Chinamen were aware that Englishmen take their prominent characteristic to be immo- bility, while Americans always satirise them as falsely childlike, they would set down both descriptions as new illustrations of the intellectual erassitude natural to barbarians. There is truth of a kind, however, in all the hits, as there is truth in the uglinesses revealed in every photograph, and this not the lees because the humourist, like the sun, exag- gerates all patent defects. That the subjects should fail to see the accuracy of sketches avowedly caricatures is natural—we should never recognise our own noses, if Cruikshank drew them, though our friends would—but what puzzles us, and has puzzled us for years, is why such sketches excite so much resentment,
or, at all events, why the resentment should be so great, and sO unequally distributed, if every nation were wroth with its caricaturists, we could understand it. We have always supposed that nations with unfortunate histories would resent satire most; and that is true of the Irish, who get savagely
angry with Punch, and were as wroth with Thackeray as ever Lord Beaconsfield, was ; and it is true of the Jews, who grow 'vindictive under the bitter jesting, which once meant mockery,
though It is now much more like a result of fear. But the Spaniards, who consider themselves the most ill-used of nations, are not sensitive to caricature ; while the Americans, the most fortunate of earthly peoples, hardly know how to put up with it, and before their Civil War were ready to make of a joke a national offence. The French, although defeated, would not care if they were caricatured all the world over,--unless the drawing was bad ; while the Germans are quite insulted if anybody hints that with their masses suavity of manner is not the distinguishing feature. What on earth can that signify, if one has the qualities which lead to the top of the world ? The German dictates to Europe, he fills the world with his philosophy, he is rapidly acquiring everywhere wealth, dis- tinction, and appreciation ; but he is not content, because Democritus will tell him that there are men more polished thaa his nation, on the average, is. Why is he so discontent? The Englishman is not more successful than the German, he is almost as Teutonic, and he is constantly quite as boorish, especially outside London, though his boorishness is stolid, while the German's is grumpy ; but if he is told of it ten times a day, as he is by French and American novelists, he does not care one whit, any more than he cares because all Parisian caricaturists depict him with long teeth. He does not even inquire whether long teeth are exceptionally common in England—we have a fancy they are—but goes on chuckling at the Caricatures, as quite proper attempts at fun, but hopelessly badly done. If those teeth were attributed to Germans, a dozen savants would collect all the dental statistics of all the schools, and call upon " Cham " to explain why he made such an ill-natured charge. Yet the Germans are probably quite as humorous as the English, though they enjoy their humour more as our forefathers did in Shakespeare's time, than as we do now. Why arc they so sensitive because a travelling Englishman, with a turn for farcical description, declares they ask "What P" too often, too abruptly, and with their lips too rigidly shut. Suppose they retort that Englishmen are always saying " Neau," for "No," in an abrupt manner, and with that unapellable accent—which, as regards millions of us, is quite true —what Englishman will be hurt enough to remember the charge five minutes? " Very comical of the German to notice it," he will say ;" " and I wish people would say ' No 1'"
A friend near us says it is all conceit, and. that the German is annoyed because he considers himself to have attained a posi- tion which ought to exempt him from such remarks ; but we should attribute sensitiveness rather to want of conceit. Your conceited man has uaually., in compensation for his foible, a healthy thickness of skin. No one takes "chaff," and espe- cially chaff of the malignant kind, such as Irish newspapers very often pour on him, with the composure of the Englishman, because nobody else can be so certain that he is unassailable, and that anybody who assails him on any ground whatever— unless, indeed, such person denies that the Englishman, who is always wandering away from his kinsfolk in search of work or wealth, is domestic—is either out of temper, or is making fun, the latter a process which, on the whole, he is inclined to approve. That conceit not only shields him, but distinctly sweetens his temper, and so far from thinking it a bad quality, we shall be tempted, if intercommunication is to outrun inter- community of understanding, as it now does, to wish that the quality were a little more widely diffused. The nations are listen- ing to each other, and watching each other, and longing for each other's good opinion, till every word of description tolls; but they still fail to understand one another to a degree which sometimes makes satire seem purposely ill-natured. The German, who is really, au fond, both kindly and sentimental, asks crossly why he is to modern Englishmen always a martinet ; while the Frenchmen, who is the best of sons, the kindest of fathers, and, outside Paris, a very fair husband, cannot con-
ceive why he is depicted by Englishmen as a rather vicious person, of undue levity. Perhaps, however, it is better as it is. If all satirists exactly understood the weak point, they might hit a little too hard, for it is the exposure of faults we have and conceal, not the exposure of faults we have not, which cuts to the bone. Tell a Frenchman that in business his countrymen are the most greedily rapacious of mankind, and by no means scrupulous, and he gets seriously angry ; while the Manchester people, who have had many hard things said of them without a wince, were not pleased when their Bishop the other day told them that ho was by no means sure that the great fault of their city was not excessive licentiousness. If "Tom Balbus " exactly under- stood the Germans, perhaps he would hit a raw, and then Goa knows what might not happen,—perhaps an Invasion of England, and an Indemnity of Ten Billions.
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