Events of the mind as well as of travel may be worth remembering. Columbus, high on a peak of Darien, saw an unexpected sight—never to be forgotten. Of another kind, as far as surprise was concerned, though infinitely less important in other respects, was my first reading of a passage of Pascal, which more than any other revealed to me a new world of human life. The passage was the well-known exclamation:— "What an enigma is man? What a strange, chaotic and contradictory being? Judge of all things, feeble earth-worm, depository of the Truth, mass of uncertainty, glory and butt of the universe, incomprehensible monster! In truth, what is man in the midst of Nature? A cypher in respect to the infinite; all, in comparison with nonentity: a mean betwixt nothing and all."
Everybody knows that not only in different nations, but in the same nation, mankind present a strange variety of qualities and passions. The English are outspoken, the Scotch reticent, the Irish uncertain, the American alert, the French ceremonial. Even our English counties have their special ways of action. London is confident, Birmingham dogged, Manchester resolute, New-castle-on-Tyne has greater modesty and greater pride than any other place. Yes; every one agrees with Pascal that man is a bewildering creature. He is proud and abject, generous and mean, defiant and craven, standing up for inflexible truth, and lying in his daily life. As Byron says, "Man is half dust, half deity." If we go far enough in our search we find people of all qualities. Everybody sees these characteristics of countries and classes. Everybody recognises these conflicting elements of character in a race; but what amazed me was to perceive that they are to be found in each person in varying proportion and force—they are all there. The varieties of the race are to be found in the same individual. No man who understands this ever looks upon society as he did before. Not knowing this fact, not calculating upon it, error, distrust, disappointment, estrangement, grow up needlessly.
Twice within the public recollection, two political parties in England have been formed, and made furious by a common ignorance. During the great Slave War in America, the Southern planter was held up as a gentleman of polished manners, of cultivated tastes, a paternal master and courteous host By others he was described as selfish, sensual, tyrannical, with whom any guest who betrayed sympathy with slaves had an unpleasant time. Both accounts were true. The same model gentleman who showered upon you courtly attentions would tar and feather you if he found you display emotion when you heard the shriek of the slave under the whip. Later, Parliament, the press, and the Church were divided upon the character of the Turk. One party said he was tolerant, picturesque, abounding in concessions and hospitality. The other party described him as subtle, evasive, treacherous, vicious, and cruel. No one seemed to recognise that all the while he was both these things. He was an adept in personal deference, generous in professions, evasive and treacherous—in short, "Abdul the Damned." To those from whom the Sultan had anything to hope, his graciousness was superb—to those at his mercy he was rapacious and murderous.
The Circassians will offer their daughters to the Turk—they send their virgin beauty into the market of lust, and then fight for the purchasers. The Hindoos seem a gentle, unresisting, rice-minded people; yet have such capacity of heroic and vigilant reticence, that though we have been masters of India for one hundred and fifty years, it is said by experienced officials, we do not know the real mind of a single man. The Zulus have savage instincts and habits; but they are honest, speak the truth, and despise a man who is angry or excited.
Thiers, the great French statesman, had trust in individuals, but despised the masses. Yet the masses pulled down the Bastile, where only gentlemen were imprisoned and not themselves. The masses were moved by a generous dislike of oppression as strongly as Thiers himself.
President Washington, looking only at the corruption of classes he came in contact with, predicted evil to the future of American society. Yet, one hundred years after, a latent nobleness of sentiment appeared, which gave a million of lives in order that black men with large feet, as was scornfully said, should be free.
Because oppression had made, for years, assassination frequent in Italy, many thought every man carried a stiletto, and did not know that Italians are more patient and cooler-headed on great occasions than Englishmen or Frenchmen.
The Irish do not conceal that they are our enemies, and ruin every English movement in which they mingle, yet who have such brightness, drollery of imagination as they? Or who will stand by a friend of their country at the peril of their lives without hesitation as they do?
The Scotch display in contest a sort of divine ferocity, such as we read of in the Old Testament. Their battle song at Flodden ran thus:—
     "Burn their women, lean and ugly,
     Burn their children, great and small,
     In the hut and in the palace,
     Prince and peasant—burn them all.
 
     Plunge them in the swelling torrents
     With their gear and with their goods;
     Spare—while breath remains—no Saxon,
     Drown them in the roaring floods."
The Irish could not excel this rage of hell. Yet the same race gave us Burns and Sir Walter Scott, which no seer would have predicted or any would believe. The Scotch have deliberate generosity. Though narrow in piety they are broad in politics and have veracity in their bones.
It concerns us to notice that in every individual there is the same variety of qualities which exist in the race. Not to understand this is to misunderstand everybody with whom we come in contact. Take the case of a man in whom personal ambition predominates. That implies the existence of other qualities which may be even estimable, though subordinated to ends of power. William, the Norman Conqueror, had a gracious manner to any who lent themselves to further his ends; but, as Tennyson tells us, he was "stark as Death to those who crossed him." The first Napoleon gave thrones to generals who would occupy them in his interest, or as his instruments. The third Napoleon was very courteous even to workmen, so long as he believed they would be on his side in the streets; but their throats were not safe in the corridor outside his audience chamber, if he distrusted them.
This unexpected blandishment confused the strong brain of John Arthur Roebuck, who, under the influence of Bonapartean courtesy, forgot that he had become Emperor by perjury and murder. A man caring above all things for power will give anything to acquire it or hold it. If any one will help him even to plunder others, he will share the plunder with a liberal hand among his confederates, who proclaim him as a most amiable, generous, and disinterested gentleman. To them he is so. The political world and private life also abounds in men who, like Byron's captain, was the "best-mannered gentleman who ever scuttled a ship or cut a throat."
There are very few who say as Byron elsewhere wrote:—
     "I wish men to be free,
     From Kings or mobs—from you or me."
The point of importance is that in judging a man we should accustom ourselves to see all about him, and, while we hate the evil, not shut our eyes to what there may be of good in the same person.
For objects of popularity men will encounter peril in promoting measures of public utility, and though they care more for themselves than for the public, the public profit by their ambition. Provided it is understood that these advocates are not to be depended upon any longer than it answers their purpose, nobody is discouraged when they take up with something else, which better serves their ends.
Men like Mr. Gladstone have a passion for conscience in politics; or, like Mr. Bright, have a passion for justice in public affairs; or, like Mr. Mill, have a passion for truth; or, like Mr. Cobden, who had a passion for national prosperity founded on freedom and peace—will encounter labour and obloquy with courage, and regard applause only as a happy accide............