XII. About Contradictory People. READINGS OF CHARACTER, REMEMBERABLE at least by those who have not for gotten the author of Maxwell altogether, is the character-portrait he sketches, in one of his best fictions, of Doctor MacGopus—a clever man, and a kindly at heart, but whose peculiarity it is to differ invariably in opinion from everybody around him. Shape the question how you will, he always contrives to take a different view of it from everybody else, and always meets every assertion with a plump negative. MacGopus stands out a prominent type of the inveterately contradictory man. There are those who, as Hazlitt says in one of his metaphysical essays, seem born to act from a spirit of contradiction only, that is, who are ready to act not only without a reason, but against it, who are ever at cross purposes with themselves and others,-who are not satisfied unless they are doing two opposite things at a time,-who contradict what you say, and if you assent to them, contradict what they have said. In another essay Hazlitt observes that a spirit of contradiction is sure to defeat and turn against itself. It is "everything by turns and nothing long." It is warped and crooked. It cannot bear the least opposition, and sooner than acquiesce in what others approve, it will change sides in a day. "It is offended at every resistance to its captious domineering humour, and will quarrel for straws with its best friends." This is the uglier side of the character of which MacGopus presents the least unamiable phase. Of the same stock come those, again, whom Hazlitt describes as of too fastidious a turn of mind to like anything long, or to assent twice to the same opinion. Picturing one of the family, he says: "I have been delighted to hear him expatiate with the most natural and affecting simplicity on a favourite passage or painting, and all the while afraid of agreeing with him, lest he should instantly turn round and unsay all that he had said, for fear of my going away with too good an opinion of my own taste, or too great an admiration of my idol--and his own. I dare not ask his opinion twice, if I have got a favourable sentence once, lest he should belie his own sentiments to stagger mine." Such a MacGopus's enthusiasm is fickle and treacherous; the instant he finds it shared in common he backs out of it. Sympathy in tastes he cannot away with. A fellow-feeling makes him the reverse of wondrous kind. How salient a contrast to the character portrayed in Wilhelm Meister, and by Mr. Carlyle applied to Goethe himself as one who, in his own imperturbable firmness, had grown into the habit of " never contradicting anyone. On the contrary, he listened with a friendly air to everyone's opinion, and would himself elucidate and strengthen it by instances and reasons of his own." Insomuch that all who did not know him fancied that he thought as they did; for he was possessed of a preponderating intellect, and could transport himself into the mental state of any man, and imitate his manner of conceiving. 66 Miss Martineau, indeed, is not over-pleased that Goethe, the seer of humanity," should have thus formed in himselt the habit of agreeing with all the opinions uttered to him, alleging as his ground that there is always a sense in which everything is true, and that it is a good to encourage, and an evil to discourage, any belief arrived at in a natural course. There are men, however, as she adds, with minds of a far lower order, but still somewhat superior to the average, who do precisely the reverse,-who see far enough to be aware that there is always something to be said to the contrary of what they hear uttered; and who cannot help saying it. "They fall into a habit of invariable opposition, justifying the practice to themselves by the plea of impartiality,—of resistance to dogmatism,—of love of truth, and the like." Miss Martineau expresses her disapproval of both habits,— convinced that both practically injure belief, and damage the interests of truth. The natural operation of Goethe's method she points out, is to encourage in many indolence in the pursuit of truth and carelessness about opinions; but far worse she takes to be the influence of the antagonist order of minds, not only from their comparative numbers, but from the direct operation of their method and their example. A contradictory man allows no rest in any supposition for himself or others. It is curious to note how "men of this order are, above all others, fickle in their opinions." They are shown to be, in fact, the sport of anyone who discerning and playing with their weakness, can put them up to the assertion and defence of any opinions whatever, and lead them into daily self-contradiction. The same placid breadth of character that would withhold the German genius, so Serene, and resolute, and still, from ever falling into a habit of contradiction, if not literally from ever contradicting anyone at all, would also ensure him immunity from irritation at being contradicted by others; such irritation, for instance, as Buffon seems to have felt on very slight grounds. For Buffon, as one of his biographers puts it, was not fond of either contradiction or interruption, and used to stop short in his talk, and betake himself to austere silence, at the very first objection or exception that some adventurous interlocutor might offer to the great man's thread of discourse. Buffon expressly averred that he could not think of continuing to converse with a man who should fancy himself at liberty, in thinking of a subject for the first time, to contradict one who had made it the study of his whole life. This disposition led to Buffon's surrounding himself with familiars and admirers who never contradicted him on any account. Them Sir Oracle could complacently tolerate. Il les supportait aisément. But with Hook's MacGopus on a morning call, or Galt's Mr. Hickery at his dinnertable, or Smollett's Lismahago, or even Lord Lytton's Scaliger Blount at a tête-à-tête, too surely Monsieur de Buffon in all his starch and ruffles would have gone clean daft, stark staring mad. Renowned in table-talk is the disputatious man who, to the remonstrance, "Why, it's as plain as that two and two make four," on the instant answered, "But I deny that as well; for 2 and 2 make twenty-two." No near relation, on the contrary, to the Lismahago clan is that undervalued precursor of Paley and Bentham-in some sort Paley's parent, indeed, so far as the Moral Philosophy is concerned-who quietly observes of himself that, "As well persuaded as I am that two and two make four, if I were to meet with a person of credit, candour, and understanding who should seriously call it in question, I would give him the hearing."* A good listener, this, surely, of quite ideal and transcendent goodness, as realities go. Henri Beyle (De Stendhal) makes fun of a certain provincial the main terror of whose life it was, when in good company, ever to find himself alone in any opinion of his. Beyle was, as M. de Sainte-Beuve says, "volontiers le contrepied de cet homme-là: il est contraiant à plaisir." In everything he liked to take an unexpected side-to contravene the conventional verdict-to contradict the common cry of curs. In one of Mr. Dickens' earliest works there is a Mr. Grimwig, whose salient feature is a habit of contradiction. Whatever his best and oldest friend takes up on the positive side, Mr. Grimwig at once takes up on the negative. The Scaliger Blount of the Caxtonian Essays is a universal contradictor, who spares neither age nor sex, and in whose eyes “the cloth” itself has no sanctity. We read that he would rather contradict a bishop than any other man, except an archbishop—especially if it be on a matter of theology or church discipline. As all opinions have two sides, whatever side you take, he is sure to take the other; and his pre-eminent delight is in setting you down in your own proper department, whatever that may be. “Are you an artist, and venture a remark upon colouring? beware of Scaliger Blount. He knows all about colouring that man ever wrote on it, and you are sure to hear from him, 'Sir, I disagree.' Are you a lawyer, and, as * Abraham Tucker, The Light of Nature Pursued. |