THE FASCINATING SIDE OF SELFISHNESS.
IN the suggestive collection of " Passages from the American Note-books of Nathaniel Hawthorne "—a book which adds interest to all the author's other books, because it gives us a peep into the workshop where they were constructed—there is one sentence at which many readers must have paused to make a mental note of interrogation. It is a sentence which seems to declare that mankind at large has made a mistake concerning a matter about which mistake appeared impossible,—not a matter of argument regarding which we may be misled by reason, or of external fact which may be misapprehended by sense, but of emotional sensation itself. The matter in question is the effect produced by Selfishness upon those who suffer from its manifestations, and there appears little to be said concerning it that would not at once win universal assent. That selfishness is a universally hateful quality seems a maxim not only true enough, but trite enough for a copy-book heading,—one of those ultimate facts of human nature which are too well established to need defence, and, indeed, too obvious to need statement. And yet, in spite of this universal consensus of feeling, Hawthorne, in the sentence of which we have spoken, boldly and unreservedly utters the apparent paradox that " Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love."
Concerning the nature of the special thought that was in Hawthorne's mind when he made the general statement expressed in this enigmatical sentence, we can only form conjectures, which are necessarily unverifiable. The "American Notebooks " were, in the main, a storehouse of hints for future elaboration, and many of them were actually elaborated in his finished works. This, however, is not one of the many. So far as we can remember, Hawthorne never returned to the idea of which this note is a memorandum rather than a record; and it therefore remains a riddle, to which we have to find our own answer. The first impulse of the reader is naturally an impulse of contradiction ; the statement seems to demand not interpretation, but denial. Nothing, at the first blush, seems more certain than that selfishness is the one quality which is absolutely fatal to love. Irritability or violence of temper, instability of emotion, egregious folly, ingrained dishonesty, repeated unfaithfulness, and various forms of vice, all try love to the uttermost; but numberless facts prove incontestably that it may maintain life in spite of them, because it is possible for any of them to exist in company with that genuine affection which the most abandoned seldom give without getting a return in kind somewhere. Bat selfishness is exclusive of this, for when fully developed, it is not merely a love of self, but such an absorbing self-love that it simply leaves no room in which any other affection can grow. If there be in existence a single person in whom selfishness is absolutely supreme, the tenderest emotion of which he can be capable is a feeling of mild complacency in those who contribute to the satisfaction of his desires, and so help to make up the pleasantness of his life. Being thus incapable of feeling love, he seems equally incapable of receiving it ; we see no crevice in his nature through which tenderness can enter, no outgrowth around which affection can cling. Still, we are inclined to think that there is a solution to Hawthorne's enigma, a valid defence for his apparent paradox. Selfishness is one, but its manifestations are many ; and while the naked quality is always repellent, it is possible for it to attire itself in clothing which shall be positively attractive. Of course, in the majority of cases, it does not so attire itself. There is, for example, nothing to attract in the selfishness of the cold-hearted man whose resources are within himself, who has not enough interest in others either to feel their claims upon him, or to make claims upon them ; who does not rob his neighbour, but when the neighbour has been robbed by some one else and lies bleeding on the highway, quietly passes by on the other side. A man of this kind has often many of the sterner virtues, and receives accordingly his tribute of respect ; but a warmer feeling does not visit him, and if it did, he would probably close his door against it. Even less is love drawn out by that volgarer form of selfishness with which we are most familiar, and which is generally in our minds when we use the word. It is not only aggressive, but is often brutal in its aggressiveness. It totally and openly disregards the rights and tastes of others, and is always asserting some real or fancied rights of its own ; always setting up its own tastes as the standard by which those around must regulate their lives. No one can mistake it; it puts on no veil, for if its end be attained, it cares nothing for the unsightliness of the means. It is possible that a man whose ruling characteristic is of this type may have love bestowed upon him—indeed, some of the most pathetic tragedies of life arise from such bestowal— but he does not win the love that he receives ; it is a free gift, or rather an offered sacrifice, and in no sense is it true that the selfishness inspires the love.
There are, however, other forms of selfishness, so cunningly veiled that they often pass without recognition; or if the veil do not altogether hide the ugly reality beneath, it so transfigures it as to give it an inexplicable charm. If the word might be applied to a being in whom the moral sense is quite undeveloped, we might say that a very young baby is the most absolutely and frankly selfish of mortals. It insists upon every desire being gratified, and cares nothing whatever for the inconvenience or even the pain that such gratification may entail upon its vassals. And yet the person who suffers the most from these demands, the mother, is the person who loves the most ; and it is not fantastic, but quite reasonable, to attribute the unique intensity of her affection to the very constancy of these demands, to her recognition of the fact that the little life is sustained in health and happiness only by the warmth of her heart and the activity of her hand. This is the explanation of the double sense of the word "care," when used as a verb. It is in caring for her baby, in the sense of taking care of it, by protecting it on every side, and allowing it to know no unsatisfied want, that she comes to care for it so intensely in that other sense of being drawn to it by affection ; and it is, indeed, impossible to find a genesis for the peculiar love of the mother, unless we can trace it to the mother's pains and burdens.
Now, there are men and women who throughout their lives play consciously the part which the baby in the household plays unconsciously. They pose as the poor, helpless, unprotected member of the social circle, the baby of the family; and if the role be skilfully maintained, the results are frequently the same as in the case of the long-robed tyrant of the cradle. They manage, like him, to impress the surrounders with the feeling that from them nothing is to be expected, but that to them everything is to be rendered. They are not, like the exigent little morsel of humanity, vociferous in their demands; but they have a quiet way of taking it for granted that every one wishes to do just what they desire to have done, which is as effective as the baby's wrathful cry or mournful wail. Few people who find themselves thus credited with an unfailing store of self-abnegation can refrain from an endeavour to live up to their reputation. " This afternoon," says the student, "I ought to write the chapter of my book for which the printer is waiting ; but I know poor Mary expects me to offer to take her out, and it would be brutal to disappoint her." "I should like to go to the concert to-night," says the young girl, who hardly ever has an evening's enjoyment ; "but if we all go out, there will be no one to read aloud to Uncle Edward while he smokes his cigar, and I know he will be hurt." And so poor Mary and Uncle Edward get their own way, and are, moreover, thought of pityingly and tenderly as people who need to be " cOmpaised about
with sweet observances," and who suffer keenly when they are withheld. True, they suffer in silence, but there is a look of 'disappointment which is harder to bear than any words of reproach ; and how cruel to call it up, when it can so easily be keptaway ! And so, out of pity and the multitude of little services which pity prompts, springs a genuine affection, of something the same kind as that of the mother for the baby. Love, indeed, is not given for love half so often as it is given for musical tones, and soft touches, and sweetly-urged claims. Affection tends to fix itself, not upon those from whom we receive gifts, but upon those who receive gifts from us. The irresistible appeal, made, not with rude demand, but with touching confidence, calls out the most generous part of our nature ; the best and noblest of our capacities—that of sweet self-renunciation— becomes inextricably associated with them ; and as they become bound up with oar loftiest ideal, they become the recipients of our purest love. With no feeling into which the thought of self does not enter, they attract the ardent affection of unselfish souls, and their very demands are the weapons with which love is conquered.
There are people in whose lives selfishness assumes another disguise, which equally justifies Hawthorne's statement. They are people of the pure, pleasure-loving nature, refined and sensitive, with keen aesthetic appreciation, and an intense delight in .all harmonious and tranquil life. Really caring for no pleasure but his own, the man who belongs to this species is too tremblingly alive to be able to feel pleasure while in view of pain. He will, if need be, sacrifice everything and everybody to the satisfaction of his tastes, but of these tastes the most noteworthy is for a life of Epicurean calm. The storms which .surround the course of the aggressively selfish man would mar his keenest delights ; it is absolutely essential to his happiness .that his social atmosphere should be peaceful,—stirred by gentle breezes, but never agitated by tempests. To secure this, he must be pleasure-giving as well as pleasure-getting, the giving being, indeed, a needful preliminary to the getting. To scatter gladness among others is not more truly the aim of the benevolent man than it is of the man of whom we are speaking ; but with this difference, that in his case it is not an end, but simply -a means to the supreme end,—the making of his own life comfortable.
The man who is not only selfish, but sensitive, must consider 'others, must endeavour to make himself and the circumstances over which he has control pleasant to them. This is simply a necessity of his nature. Pain of all kinds is distasteful to 'him, and as his finely-made organism compels him to feel the pain which he sees, he must needs exclude pain from his presence. The unjust judge of the parable was a specimen of this type, though an imperfect one. When the woman came with her pleading again and again, he said,—" I will grant her request, lest by her continual coming she weary me." Her happiness was nothing to him, until it was brought into a certain definite relation to his own. Had be been a more typical example of the species, he would not have waited for repeated .demands ; had his sensibilities been more acute, they would not have needed the stimulus of importunity; he would have seen and foreseen the whole state of the case, would have yielded graciously to the first and least pressing request, and so would Lave won a rich store of nngrndged gratitude and humble affection. For in these matters people are, perhaps happily, 'very easily deceived. If appearances be pleasant, they are not careful to look for an unpleasant reality behind them ; and if they get kind words and considerate actions, if, indeed, they get nothing but pleasant common-places of courtesy uttered in feeling tones, they are ready to give their hearts away, with a full belief that there is a heart waiting to be taken in 'exchange.
Though Hawthorne did not elaborate his own hint, it has been elaborated by other writers of fiction. Charles Dickens and Alphonse Daudet,' in their portraits of Harold Skimpole and M. Delobelle, have done justice to the selfishness which cunningly plays the part of the grown-up baby, and ingenuously casts all its cares upon other people ; and in Tito itelema, George Eliot has given ns a subtle and veracious study of the other and more complex type of which we have spoken. Tito is an admirable embodiment of Hawthorne's thought. An inferior author would have told us that Tito was fascinating and loveable, but the value of George Eliot's portraiture lies in the subtle manner in which she enables us to feel his power, and to analyse the elements out of which it was evolved. She has shown us how his peculiar attractiveness was the inevitable result of his peculiar form of selfishness. Absorbing pleasure, he must needs radiate it, and his mere presence brought indefinable satisfaction. The account of the early days of Romola's love for him enables us to realise the true nature of this gift, and to understand something which is almost unsusceptible of expression, save by actual representation. The nearness of such a joyous, joy-loving nature gave to Romola'a life a light and colour it had never possessed before, and she could not but love him who had glorified her world for her. And yet "the trail of the serpent was over it all." She, like Baldassarre, found out the truth, when the finding could bring only pain. She found that the pleasure he gave, in so far as it was a conscious gift, was given simply for the sake of its reflex action upon himself. He was glad to diffuse delight, because it made his world delightful. He could not keep pain away for ever, but he would do so for a time ; he would make the most of the noon, and ignore the inevitable night. When brought to bay, his selfishness came out in its naked repulsiveness; and, unable to gain any new delight from the contemplation of her delight, he never hesitated to purchase safety at the price of her pain.
When a woman like Romola is attracted by a man like Tito —and attracted she surely will be, if he cross her path—there is a tragedy in preparation. The veil of superficial graciousness cannot long hide from some eyes the features behind. A really great nature will sooner or later see through it, and then, save for the strongest, there is nothing left but despairing faithlessness. Smaller souls—souls like Tessa—may be deluded for ever, and in their delusion will be happy ; but for Romola and Baldassarre there is a great blank in the universe, and their poor consolation is that woe has brought wisdom, and that they have learned the lesson of Hawthorne's paradox.
Previous page
