Sir Arthur Helps

“ Mankind does not so retrace its steps. But still, though the course of our race is onwards, the nature of man does not change. There is the same need for protection and countenance on the one side, and for reverence and attachment on the other, that there ever has been; and the fact that society is in many respects more disconnected than it used to be, renders it the more necessary to cultivate in the most watchful manner every mode of strengthening the social intercourse between rich and poor, between master and servant, between the employers and the employed, in whatever rank they may be. ”

“ It is true, there are sources of happiness which you now know nothing of, and which may be far beyond any selfish gratification you have ever experienced. Indeed, it may be, that you cannot enjoy the highest delights without sharing them, that they are not things to be given out to each of us as individuals, now to this man, then to that, but that they require a community of love. But, at any rate, I do not wish to scare you into active and useful exertion by indicating that you are, otherwise, in danger of losing any of the good things of this world. ”

“ And, indeed, seeing the multiform suffering which is intertwined with every variety of human life, a man in present ease and well-being may naturally feel as if he had not his share of what is hard to be endured. The fanatic may seek a refuge from prosperity, or strive to elevate his own nature, by self-inflicted tortures; but one, who adds wisdom to sensibility, finds in his own well-being an additional motive for benevolent exertions. It is surely bad management when a man does not make a large part of his self-sacrifices subservient to the welfare of his fellow-men. ”

“ There is no doubt that the rich and great have in most cases a large sphere of usefulness open to them; and they are fatally blind, if they neglect it. That is, however, rather a matter for them to think of, than for those who are under them. And I feel quite certain that the evils we are now, as a nation, beginning to be sensitive to, are such as may be more fairly attributed to the nation, in its collective capacity, than to any one class, or even to any one generation. I notice the error of the opposite opinion, believing it to be a signal hindrance to improvement. ”

“ When we follow men home, who have been cooperating with other civilized men in continuous labour throughout the livelong day, we should not, without experience, expect to find their homes dreary, comfortless, deformed with filth, such homes as poverty alone could not make. Still less, when we gaze upon some pleasant looking village, fair enough in outward seeming for poets’ songs to celebrate, should we expect to find scarcity of fuel, scantiness of food, prevalence of fever, the healthy huddled together with the sick, decency outraged, and self-respect all gone. ”

“ Shall I tell them of great towns in which one half at least of the juvenile population is growing up without education of any kind whatever? Shall I show that working people are often permitted to pass their labour time, the half of their lives, in mines, workshops, and manufactories, where an atmosphere of a deleterious kind prevails: and this, too, not from any invincible evil in the nature of the employment, but from a careless or penurious neglect on the part of their employers? ”

“ You, who have but few dependents, or, perhaps, but one drudge dependent upon you, whether as servant, apprentice, or hired labourer, do not think that you have not an ample opportunity for exercising the duties of an employer of labour. Do not suppose that these duties belong to the great manufacturer with the population of a small town in his own factory, or to the landlord with vast territorial possessions, and that you have nothing to do with them. ”

“ If we are employers of labour, let us bethink ourselves that now is the time for persuading our men to do something for themselves; now is the time for getting improvements made in our town and neighbourhood, the public being in a cheerful mood; now, too, we can ourselves adventure something for the good of those around us. Do not let us be anxious to drain the cup of prosperity to its last drop, holding it up so that we see nothing but it. ”

“ This is the time for the nation to do something. Really a Government with a surplus should put all things to rights.” Oh, these unhappy collective nouns, what have they not to answer for! This word “nation,” for instance: we substitute it instead of writing down some millions of names, a convenience not altogether to be despised. But yours, my friend, is there. The word nation is not an abstract idea; but means an aggregate of human beings. No individual man is eliminated by this process of abbreviation. Your being one of a nation is to enrich you with duties, not to deprive you of them. ”

“ There is nothing in which the aid of imagination, that handmaid of charity, may be more advantageously employed, than in considering the condition of domestic servants. Let a man endeavour to realize it to himself, let him think of its narrow sphere, of its unvarying nature, and he will be careful not to throw in, unnecessarily, the trouble even of a single harsh word, which may make so large a disturbance in the shallow current of a domestic’s hopes and joys. ”

“ Indeed, everybody is likely at some time or other to have great doubts about this distress which is so much talked of. We walk through the metropolis in the midst of activity and splendour: we go into the country and see there a healthful and happy appearance as we pass briskly along: and we naturally think that there must be great exaggeration in what we have heard about the distressed condition of the people. But we forget that Misery is a most shrinking unobtrusive creature. ”

“ Under such a man, the progress of letters, having proceeded in any thing like the manner that it has done, we should have had some general system of national education, which, after the Roman fashion of completeness, would have traversed the state, with iron step, doubtless even to the remote ends of barbarian Britain. To say that this would not have been a signal benefit to mankind would be idle: what we have to say against the despotic system is, that it absorbs private virtue, and suppresses private endeavour; that though it may create better machines, it certainly makes worse men. ”

“ But, if his home is an ill-regulated one, where no links of affection extend throughout the family, whose former domestics (and he has had more of them than he can well remember) look back upon their sojourn with him as one unblessed by kind words or deeds, I contend that that man has not been successful. Whatever good fortune he may have in the world, it is to be remembered that he has always left one important fortress untaken behind him. That man’s life does not surely read well whose benevolence has found no central home. ”

“ Let the poor be cared for in their health, their amusements, their education, and their labour. Still the great work for an employer of labour remains for ever to be renewed; that which consists in the daily intercourse of life, in that perpetual exercise of care and kindness concerning those small things which, small as they may be, are nevertheless the chief part of men’s lives. Perhaps the greatest possible amelioration of the human lot is to be found in the improvement of our notions of the duties of master to man. ”

“ When you are wearied with statistical details, vexed with the difficulty of trying to make men do any thing for themselves, disgusted with demagogues playing upon the wretchedness of the poor, then think of some such signal fact as this; and you will cheerfully, again, gird up yourself to fight, as heretofore, against evils which are not to be conquered without many kinds of endurance as well as many forms of endeavour.
I do not wish to raise a senseless moan over human suffering. Pain is to be borne stoutly, nor always looked on with unfriendly eye. ”

“ The same with a private individual, an employer of labour for instance, if he values the independence of character and action in those whom he employs, he will be careful in all his benevolent measures, to leave room for their energy to work. What does he want to produce? Something vital, not something mechanical. It is often a deficiency of benevolence, and not an overflow, that makes people interfering in a bad sense. Frequently the same spirit which would make a man a tyrant in government, would make him a busy-body, a meddler, or a pedantic formalist, in the relations of ordinary life. ”

“ Trust me, these domestic evils are foes not less worthy of our attention than any foreign invaders. It seems to me, I must confess, a thing far more to be dreaded, that any considerable part of our population should be growing up in a state of absolute ignorance, than would be the danger, not new to us, of the combined hostility of the civilized world. Our trials, as a nation, like our individual ones, are perpetually varied as the world progresses. ”

“ Indeed, it is hard to estimate the enormous benefit of enabling a man to commune with the most exalted minds of all time, to read the most significant records of all ages, to find that others have felt and seen and suffered as himself, to extend his sympathy with his brother-man, his insight into nature, his knowledge of the ways of God. Now the above is but a poor description of what the humblest education offers. ”

“ Assuredly the government may do something towards removing part of the evils we have been considering as connected with the system of labour. It seems as if there were a want of more departments; and certainly of many more able men. The progress of any social improvement appears to depend too much on chance and clamour. I do not suppose, for a moment, that we can have the cut-and-dried executive, or legislative, arrangements that belong to despotic governments; and it is, in some respects, a wholesome fear that we have of the interference of government. ”

“ This imperfection of sympathy, which prevents an equal from becoming a friend, may easily make a superior into a despot. Indeed, I almost doubt whether the head of a family does not do more mischief if he is unsympathetic, than even if he were unjust. The triumph of domestic rule is for the master’s presence not to be felt as a restraint.
In a larger sphere than the domestic one, such as amongst the employers of labour and their men, the same elements are required on the part of the masters to produce confidence. ”

“ There are several ungenerous motives, of some subtlety, which hide in the dark corners of the heart, and stand in the way of benevolence. For instance, even in good minds, there is apt to lurk some tinge of fear, or of dislike, at the prospect of an undoubted amelioration of the lot of others coming too fast, as these good people would say. Indeed, some persons find it hard to reconcile themselves to the idea of others’ burdens being readily removed, even when they themselves are making exertions to remove them. ”

“ I cannot close the chapter better than by entreating those, who are endeavouring to carry on any system of benevolence, to be very watchful in the management of details, and to strengthen themselves against any feelings of disgust and weariness which may encroach upon them, when their undertaking has lost the attraction of novelty. Details are like the fibres at the root of a tree: without their aid the tree would have but little hold against the wind: they are the channels for its terrestrial nutriment; they are its ties to earth, its home and birth-place ”

“ But how strange it is that men should require to be urged to this good work of education. The causing children to be taught is a thing so full of joy, of love, of hope, that one wonders how such a gladsome path of benevolence could ever have been unfrequented. ”

“ How large that freedom is, it needs but a slight acquaintance with the past to estimate. Through what ages have we not toiled to the conviction that people should not be burnt for their opinions. The lightest word about dignities, the slightest claim to freedom of thought or speech upon those matters which, perhaps, angelic natures would hardly venture to pronounce upon, even the wayward play of morbid imagination, were not unlikely in former times to lead to signal punishments. A man might almost in his sleep commit treason, or heresy, or witchcraft. ”

“ It is in vain that you have learned to move with double or treble the velocity of your immediate predecessors: it is in vain that you can show new modes of luxury, or new resources in art. The inquiring historian will give these things their weight, but will, nevertheless, persevere in asking how the great mass of the people were fed, and clothed, and taught: and whether the improvement in their condition corresponded at all with the improvement of the condition of the middle and upper classes. ”

“ All charitable institutions require vigorous attention; and the better kind of men must not shrink from the public business which they are the fittest to transact. If founders or benefactors were the only people needed, one generation might monopolize the beneficence of all time; but charitable institutions require for ever duty to be done by living men. And, as I have intimated before, it is in giving thought and labour, that we may often make the greatest and the most profitable sacrifices for the good of others. ”