THE INTERNATIONAL "MRS. GRUNDY."
(FITE Telegraph, and the Pall Mall Gazette, and the Morning Post, and the other newspapers of that group, know their business exceedingly well on one point. They know that one weakness of the average Briton is that fear of neighbour's opinion, long since embodied under the the name of "Mrs. Grundy," his dread—arising mainly from an uneasy consciousness that he is a work-a-day being—lest his neighbours should think what he does a little awkward, or himself a little unfamiliar with the re- quirements of the polite world. They believe that the weakness of the unit is the weakness of the society, and they set them- selves to utilise this weakness of the country in order to forward the policy they support. The abstract Englishman is told once or twice a-day, in half-a-dozen different ways, that his conduct at this juncture is exceedingly improper, that his acquaintance expected very different things of him, that he does not make show enough, that he ought to "take a firm stand," and launch out a little, and not let himself be outdone by any pretentious neighbour, "who," it is always added in a stage aside, "you may be quite sure is insolvent." He seems to get on, but he is paying double for everything, and the weather has been bad for his clover, and "I have private information that his bankers are very tired of his bills." Now it is John Lemoinne, he is told, who, in the Miliats, wonders when he is going to fight ; or the Bou- lonnais peasantry have become unexpectedly sarcastic :—" When at Boulogne some time ago, I found that the rural folk in the neighbourhood had taken, during the last seven or eight years, to calling the donkey ' Le Lion Anglais,' on account of its seeming stupidity and cowardice." Then it is the Austrian Government, which is only waiting for the Englishman to do his duty, and it will pluck up a spirit and begin doing its duty, too. Again, the Indian Mussulmans are named as expecting the Englishman to do some- thing grand, or they will leave off respecting him ; and then the German press is quoted as beginning to consider him cowardly and effete. England, that Press is reported to say, is an effaced Power, with no Army, and a Fleet which can accomplish nothing, with statesmen all divided, and a people devoted to physical pro- sperity. If all this does not succeed, the awful figure of Mrs. Grundy herself—the true Mrs. Grundy in full dress—is lugged forward. Just now, the Mrs. Grundy of Europe, the unquestioned arbiter of every doubtful question, is Prince Bismarck. So the German Chancellor is made to say—it was really said by a German paper—that if Turkey "is the sick man, England is the sick old woman," the statement being the more readily believed because the epigram is not a little Teutonic. The Englishman is expected to think this decisive, and to proceed in the required direction forthwith with a snort of indignation ; and perhaps he would, °lily the goal indicated is a lawsuit, and about lawsuits the Englishman, being au fond a serious person, with some foresight and self-control, and a large experience of affairs, would like to see the experts whom he consults a little more in harmony with each other. So the advisers attack his weakness in -another way. "You are going to be insulted, John. Here is that insolent and insolvent parvenu, Russia, going to give a grand State ceremonial, and she will send you no card, John. No card ! You will be left out, and how will you ever hold up your head after that ? It is clear that is what she intends. When you asked her to give up that prosecution of Bill Thompson, the poacher, did she not say Bill must arrange with the keepers first, and then she would see ? And what insult could be greater than that ? It was in- famous, and all of a piece. You, with your old pedigree and banker's account, and that great property in the Black Country —which Russia covets, John—to be left out of a party where everybody else is invited, and everybody else will go in uniform. Think of that,— in uniform ! Your reputation for being a man of consequence in the neighbourhood will be entirely destroyed, and your children will have to avoid the highway for little back- lanes."
We suppose all this kind of thing does have some effect, or so many people would not write to the papers saying they are ill with humiliation, and so many Chauvinist cheers would not be given in the music-halls, and so many people would not quarrel with you at dinner about your want of patriotism ; but the effect of using this instrument, is, we suspect, a good deal exaggerated. Those who use it are apt to confound the effect of taunting with the effect of ridicule, but the two are by no means or with many natures absolutely identical. Ridicule either produces exactly the same effect as reasoning, being nothing but argument used in a rather bitter, or it may be, rather comical way ; or it is an expression of contempt intended to break down the self-confidence of the victim by showing him either that he is foolish, or that he is isolated. When it is merely peppered reason or acidulated reason, as it was, for example, in such hands as Sydney Smith's or Macaulay's, its effect is enormous, the acid acting as mordant, and giving just that grip to the reasoning which makes it take deep hold. When, again, ridicule is intended only to break down confidence, its effect is still very great, because an enormous number of men have an I inner self-distrust, and are greatly afraid of isolation, and espe- cially of isolation in opinion. It is not only the weak who are moved by the second kind of ridicule, though that is the popular idea ; for the strong, unless their strength is of a peculiar kind, are very often so moved, particularly if the ridicule does not rouse the desire of combat which with so many men is the substitute for tranquil strength. We think we have observed that the power of resistance to ridicule depends, not so much upon strength either of intellect or character, though the latter is a grand ally, as upon experience. The young are moved by ridicule, not the old ; the recluse, not the men of affairs. It is very difficult to make a man feel ridiculous when he knows he is right, and very easy when he knows nothing about the matter. You cannot move an old lawyer by ridiculing him about a conveyance, even if he is wrong and knows he is wrong ; but you can make him feel very embarrassed, or even do very silly things, by ridiculing him about his neglect or misreading of an etiquette which he did not know. A certain ignorance is required to give bitter ridicule its full effect; perfect knowledge, or even unusual knowledge, acting as an armour so impenetrable, that the man who possesses it will stand up unmoved before any amount of sneering crowd. So will the man who thinks he possesses it, which is one at least of the reasons why ridicule is BO lost upon fanatics, except in the way of making them angry. But taunting, used as a weapon, ex- ercises a different effect from either of these. Its object is not to destroy a man's self-confidence, but to rouse it by rousing his pride ; not to overcome his judgment, but to give preponderance to one part of the judgment that is in him. The man who taunts, appeals, in fact, to an idea or a feeling already in his victim's mind, but in his judgment not sufficiently strong. It is of no use, for example, to taunt a man into doing a visible im- possibility, to taunt Holland, for example, into declaring war with France. You may make him angry, but it is with you, not with the enemy he cannot resist. Nor is it of any use to taunt a man with not showing valour, when he deliberately thinks he ought to show meekness. There is no latent feeling to excite, and he simply despises or frets over his assailant's incapacity to understand the situation. It is when the victim at heart agrees with his tormentor, but is too sluggish or too cowardly to act on his opinion, that taunts really tell, for then they may change, or, as it were, heat up a mere opinion of the intellect into an opinion strong enough to move the will which produces action. Ridicule is a solvent ; but taunting, when successful, only developes. A lad at a school can taunt another into a fight which he thinks in his heart he ought to wage, but he cannot taunt him into throwing the inkstand at a master's head. Nothing in him responds to the provocation, and he only smiles in de- rision, or tells his adviser to do it himself. If this is true, as we believe it to be, the effect of taunting in politics is limited. It may make an existing party act, but it cannot add greatly to the number of that party. Those who already think we are skulking in not fighting for Turkey, will be worried by "B.'s " story of "Le Lion Anglais," if they believe it ; but those who do not so think, only acquire a deeper conviction that Boulonnais peasants know nothing. Bismarck's opinion, supposing him to entertain it, will infuriate men who wish to act as he suggests, but only annoy those who have already decided that the suggestion is a mistake. The party for war is not increased by the taunts, though the party half-inclined for war may be made more energetic by their repetition. In some cases this change is of great importance, because men have hardly asked them- selves their own opinion ; but in the special case of war it is not, most men making up their minds, so far as the conditions are known, unmistakably and finally.
Of course, knowledge diminishes the effect of taunting, as it does of ridicule. You cannot taunt a sailor by attacks on his seamanship into carrying more sail than his ship will bear. Nor can you taunt a statesman into a course he knows to be futile by attacks upon his policy. You may taunt the sailor or the statesman into losing the ship by attacks upon his courage ; but in that case, unless he is absolutely sure of himself, you are not attacking him on the side he knows. Similarly, it is utterly useless to taunt Englishmen who know their country's history into war by representing that England will be con- sidered effaced. They know perfectly well that England at intervals is always considered effaced, often truly, and that those who believe the effacement to be lasting have always been awakened from their delusion. England was effaced under Charles II., only a few years before Blenheim, and after the loss of the American Colonies, and just before the French Revolution, and in 1850, and so on, whenever she is in one of her pauses either of content, or of caution, or of ex- haustion from effort. And they know, moreover, that what- ever the vulgar might think, statesmen never made the mis- take of thinking her effaced ; that Louis XIV., for example, when England was at her lowest point, moved heaven and earth to prevent her having a strong Government. Napoleon called us a nation of shopkeepers, but it was in anger, not contempt, and with the fullest recognition of the fact that the shopkeepers being inaccessible, and nearly omnipresent, were his most dan- gerous opponents. If Bismarck really said the sentence attri- buted to him, he said it because he had objects which would be served by England occupying herself, not because he really believed it ; or if he did believe it, he has a weak point, an unex- pected ignorance of certain facts. Taunts do not move those who know, nor, as we contend, anybody else, except those who at heart agree with the taunter, and already think the chivalry, if inot the reason, is entirely on his side.
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