MORAL INTOXICANTS.
ALEARNED judge said of Mr. Gladstone that he was often " the worse" for flattery. It is an intoxicant against which few beads are proof. The true cynic and the truly modest man alone remain sober, however strong the dose. Such men are few. Of course, there are plenty of people who believe themselves immune from its effects. Most of them have never tasted it, and some have not known when they were drunk. They and they only laugh with real ill- nature and without a thought of sympathy when they meet a friend who is palpably " the worse " for the heady stuff which he has taken in. But however ridiculous a man may be when he has had too much flattery, it is certain that a vast number of men are the better for a little. The conscious flatterer is a sycophant—a hateful and despicable person; but the best flattery, the flattery which stimulates most and intoxicates quickest, is given unconsciously. The flattery of the crowd is never intentional, but it is tremendously powerful. It would be interesting to know how many successes and how many failures in the life of any given great man were due to it. Without doubt it strengthens to action ; without doubt it is liable to unsteady the reason. Dutch courage, however, may be as good as any other courage at a pinch. For all that, courage is always lost by the drunkard in the end.
Thousands of ordinary men who suffer agonies of self- distrust are saved from actually succumbing to this defect by the flattery of their wives. Perhaps it is wrong to call such a thing flattery, but it is difficult to call unreasoning and undeserved praise by any other name, whether that praise be constantly spoken or constantly suggested. Children, while they can be brutally truthful, are also unconscious adepts at flattery. The kind speech of a child will often elate the hearer to the pitch of hilarity All day he or she goes under the influence of a delicious stimulant, well knowing, very likely, that the words though sincere are untrue, yet buoyed up by an unreasonable conviction that love is a greater thing than truth. Perhaps the only occasion when conscious flattery may be excused is when it is deliberately made use of by mature men and women who are trying to strengthen some young person whom they see to be in need of a moral or mental fillip. It is often very much more efficacious than censure, and has less serious after-effects, besides the fact that it does not endanger affection. Some otherwise worthy persons make use of a little flattery as an antidote to be offered to those who suffer habitually from the worse intoxication of unreasonable anger. Put down in black and white, the expedient seems rather despicable. The explanation of most small sins can only be adequately studied under temptation. One thing may be said for certain : those people who have never in their lives felt the temptation to flatter, who have never longed to give pleasure or soothe pain, obtain regard or excite high spirits, by a few words of friendly exaggeration, are unlovable people—as inhuman as those whose cheeks have never glowed from the generous draught.
The result of a moderate amount of flattery upon the ordinary man is to increase his faith in himself. The danger is lest it should increase that faith to credulity, or even to fanaticism. When a man begins to boast it is a pretty sure sign he has had too much flattery. It is a mere question of manners whether or no we openly and aggressively over-value our possessions, but for a man blatantly to over-value his opinions and recount the occasions of his verbal success is as a rule a question of his metaphorical sobriety. There are, one must admit, certain persons who would seem to be born drunk. They are always full of themselves, and the stranger who is not familiar with their habitual condition imagines them to be full of new wine, the new wine of flattery. As a rule, however, states of blatant self-sufficiency are short-lived, and go off with a headache. Intoxication by flattery does not, we hasten to add, exhibit the same symptoms in all cases. In some it engenders a silent and happy superiority, a blissful state which only the very critical would grudge, bat which is never- theless a dangerous state, one in which any man may fear to take an important step.
It is, we think, true to say that women have better heads for flattery than men. On the other band, flattery is not offered to them in so many kinds. Ordinary women are subjected to flattery only while they are young. They are flattered for their beauty or their charm. The effect of the intoxicant upon them is like the effect of champagne— it is soon gone. Very few women are flattered on the score of their abilities—partly perhaps because they flatter themselves unduly upon them. An able woman is not generally very much admired on the score of her talent either by her own or by the opposite sex. Marked intellectual or artistic talent is not so very common among women. George Eliot, it is true, was said to be habitually "the worse" for flattery. Miss Austen received less, and it certainly had no effect upon her head. The whole acting profession seems to out- siders to live in a chronic state of unnatural exhilaration due to flattery. The luxury of the ordinary world is the necessity of " the profession." It is impossible to say what they would be like without flattery. An actor or an actress suffering from what is vulgarly called "the want of it" is, we understand, a very depressing sight.
Flattery, when all is said, is not more of an intoxicant than money, though more people are able to withstand its effects. We do not need to be millionaires in order to feel its heady influence. There are temperaments to whom economy is impossible. They may be scrupulously honest, but when they are flush of money they must spend it. Occasionally the effect of an influx of money, even though the amount be small, is perceptible in its effects upon the whole man. The work- man when he gets his wages is not exactly the same man he was the day before, even though he be a teetotaller. One often hears it said—it is a most unjust generalization—that extrava- gant people are mean. No doubt selfish people are not made unselfish by money, but it would be more true to say that some people's generosity is but a manifestation of their natural extravagance. Money goes to their heads; they cannot keep it, and lest they spend it on themselves they give it away. It is easier far for a man of the spending temperament to force himself to generosity, and so recon- cile his financial insobriety to his conscience, than to force himself to money moderation. This is especially true of those who make money easily or who make it with trouble and pain out of nothing. However vain a writer may be, he seldom altogether loses the sense of pleasant surprise which comes over him when he first gets golden money in exchange for his ink and paper. They are more susceptible to the exciting influence of money than those who make it by merchandise or come into it by inheritance. There is a great joy, however reprehensible the moralist may consider the sentiment, in money intoxication. We do not know if millionaires ever feel it to the full. We feel pretty sure that men of solid fortune seldom do. They get less acute delight out of money than anyone. A very little money serves to get delightfully drunk on, if such a rough word may be used even in a metaphor to express the exhilaration which comes of the knowledge that one has something to spend— some money, we mean, which is not a mere token representing bread or bills. Who will say that life is not worth having while he can eat with an appetite, buy, even on the smallest scale, without calculation, and give to please, not to relieve P
Oddly enough, work acts as an intoxicant on some tempera.. ments. Some men are enamoured of their work. They become obsessed and excited by it. We know they have been over- working not because they look dull or tired, but because they are unnaturally energetic and bright. We see that they have had too much of some stimulant, but they do not know it themselves. A short life and a busy one is their motto. Length of days is perhaps not the greatest of their sacrifices. No leisure means no friends. Leisure would seem at times to have intoxicating qualities. We are told in our youth that those who will not or need not' work become dull and devitalized. Our instructors compare such persons to cabbages. Many of us believe this whole- some teaching all our lives, and pass it on to our children. But when we come to look at our own experience, does it carry out this generally accepted theory ? Too much leisure may, it is true, impair the powers, but we would maintain that it very seldom dulls the mind, no matter from -what class we draw our leisured man. We doubt if a talkative tramp would prove worse company than his bard-working brother. Work, we do believe, improves the judgment and
develops many valuable qualities, but it is not as necessary either to brain or character as is commonly supposed. When leisure intoxicates, the fancy runs riot—the emotions prevail against the reason—and the sense of proportion disappears. "Fullness of bread and abundance of idleness" is still the largest cause of folly. Many men, however, can stand a very great deal of leisure without apparent detriment to their mental or moral health, especially when they get used to it. The same thing is true of flattery. Unfortunately no man is a judge of his own "head."
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