REPUTATION.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2110, 8 October 1875, Page 2

REPUTATION.

lioo.—Aii idle and most, false imposition, often gai.iod witout merit, and lost without deserving." ■ Skaksmaek (" Othello.") Into the mouth of lago, that hard, intelleclual materialist, also, in some degree, into that of Edmund the Bastard, in "King Lear," Shakespeare has put no small amount of strong, practical comijoon-sense, based on contempt for the world. That world sees not the remorse of Oassio nor will it appreciate the purifying mental discipline resulting from his own selfcondemnation. Ii will pronounce him to be that which his soul spurns and shakes off, and its sentence, though based ou objective fact, will be most unjust, because essentially false. Yes, despite a!?. philosophy, Oassio is. realty " hu:-t pait all surgery." Reputation is a solid good. Life is short, its business pressing. - We cannot be always holding a board of inquiry, and must be content with practical approximations to truth, taken roughly, and offhand as they present themselves. He who has succeeded in satisfying a body,*^men, or a community, must possess qualities appreciable by many besides his friends. He who has escaped the ceasura of the rigid, the scrutiny of the prying, and the innuendoes of the malignant, cannot but be endowed with either some virtue, or with much prudence; and if detraction, driven to her last resource, aver that his escape is due to good luck and happy chance, the practical son of business objects not to have on his side) or in his establishment, a colleague or an offic* r so favoured by fortune. " May sh3 not bo my o:*asla as well, And set me up in hope ?" ')f reputation it may be confidently said that " possession is nine points of the law." Howsoever acquired, it is a definite good. " I care not," said Chartres," a fig for moral virtues, but I would cheerfully give £10,000 for a good reputation. I could soon double my outlay by effective cheating." In courts of justice, testimonies of character allow of the one sole exception to the rule excluding hearsay evidence. For this is the very essence of any possible answer, " What character has he borne for mildness and command of temper ? " this is in cases of homicide or of violent assaults, &c. Or, " for probity, punctuality, and trustworthiness ? " in cases of larceny, &c. Or, " for sobriety, decency, good conduct, and self-respect?" in cases of rape or indecent assaults, &c. The value of such testimony varies indefinitely, from zero upwards; the mere fact of its recognition is all I care now and here to cite. The practical uses of reputation as far as a safeguard and a passport are concerned are sufficiently definite to justify even a larger amount of care, attention, and method, than is really, in .practical life, required to attain and secure them. To a mind that adds habitual reflection and mental analysis to experience, such advantages of reputation will appear, however great, to be finite. Reputation cannot prove the existence of a single great quality of intellect—of a single commanding virtue of the heart. It can be (and I agree with lago very often is) earned, possessed, and enjoyed by many wholly destitute of either. S\ What say you ? " asks Sir Oliver Surface, " what say you of my nephew—that no one speaks ill of him, but everyone praises ? Bah ! 'Ihen he has cringed as low to vice and frivolity as to the honest dignity of genius or virtue." A higher authority bids us to " bew.are when all men speak well of us." Reputation is no guarantee for any high or noble qualities ; indeed, I doubt their great efficacy in the gaining of it. Tlieir range and their pabulum are elsewhere. "We have all good characters," said Garrow, " ti:l we are found out." The village lad, overwhelmed by the prospect of seeing a live lord, finds to his surprise a man as coarse, vulgar, and ignorant as if he were obliged to earn his bread by industry, and to obtain empl yment by serving and conciliating: others. Reputation is an estate, a property, undervalued by"«o sensible m&t ; it may be possessed by a smart seLiindrel, by a callous hypocrite, or by a lucky fool. Disposed as I am thus go prune its laurels and to limit iis value, I acknowledge that much remaios to pay the labor necessary to attain it; nay more, that the wages bear a remunerating proportion to the toil. The attainment of a good reputation is not always, cr to all men arduous. Few men think, still fewer think justly ; few men observe, and still fewer compare and judge. Many pride themselves on their rapid judgments from minute trifles ; these tokens can be observed, recorded, and tabulated, and can thus form the stock-in-trade of the charlatan. " You are thought," said Cobbett to Perceval, " to be. more religious than other men. There is nothing in you to justify it. But you have hit upon a capital way of seeming so, and of gulling John Bull; Every Sunday, as you santimoniously walk to church, your wellpondered livery servant precedes you, carrying several huge quarto prayer books aud a Bible, gilt lettered and gorgeously bound. This, sir, is the secret of y<J»j^ reputation for religion, and contains tfie whole of your distinctive merits." Now, if Cobbett's coarse insolence possess a lurking grain of truth (which I' suspect it does), who would be without a useful property that can be so very cheaply bought? A reputation for being " religious " will, as is pretty well-known, bring many to your side, even when accused and convicted of a crime. Who, then, will deny (hat it is opera preiium? In short, that the bound prayer book of Perceval was a profitable investment. Its suggestions, and his large family, were all that the poor man had to repose upon for a name after the inhuman murder of him by Bellingham, that made the public so willing to praise. 1 "In tl-3 dirge we sang- o'er him no censure was heard Unembittored and pu.e did the tear-drop descend We forgot hi that hour haw the Soai,eiuiaahade»Ted And we wept for the husband, the father, the fr'end- • -Moore. . If, then, a good reputation can be so easily, so cheaply gained, what is he who has neglected its attainment ? A wasteful, surely, and an unreasoning man, who knows not the value of life's blessings, the uses of life's weapons, is the answer of good sense. This foremost deduction requires some modifying. When great and good qualities are known to exist, and " prove their own standing," v?e may pardon a Bismarck for inability to dance,' or a Herschel for self-involved silence, &c. When from the heart has risen the noble impulse that braves the sneers of the worldling and the cant of the Pharisee, we rejoice with good Sir Oliver that these have received no homage, and have failed to check the virtue they cannot understand. Reputation is a good* But never,

nevfir, let it be an idol. . When it stands in the way of high duty, or of inte-lect sanctioned by conscience, I say boldly that any servile regard to it is the coward's curse. It aiay even be your duty, on great exceptional occasions to act in direct contrariety to your reputation, and to apply to high priuciple what the poet wrote of love— "He either fears his fate too much, ■ I Or his desei t is small, AVho dares not put it to the touch j To win or lo3c it all." ' I would go still further. Convinced by sheer experience of the faciliy with which j a reputation can often be gained, I would " certainly neglect no harmless, easy trifle j so well rewarded. But directly the price begins to rise, the struggle to become arduous, I would advise that no "solid, tangible benefit be sacrificed without the exercise of all your powers of a very careful comparison— e.g., I will not cramp my feet anrl cripple myself, but will persist in wearing boots that my friends term "portmanteaux," yea, ey.cn though menaced with the " reputation" of eccen triciiy. * And I will eat aud drink to <^k please myself solely, as to quantity, quality, and.times, anything urged by care of " reputation" to the contrary not withstanding. .Neither will I prolong enjoyment's hours beyond enjoyment's limits, but most " eccentrically" — go to bed. What! shall „ not the game be wo'-'th the candle. ? Reputation is often, I know, easy and cheap, but in some cases reputation itself may be purchased too dearly. " Two wives of resurrection men promised a dead child's body to some surgeons, for a consideration. They unfortunately could not get one. Being upon honor, not liking to disoblige their customers by breaking their word, and, especially their reputation being at stake, they stole a live child and murdered it. They n ere, however, hanged, but it was for the plagium, and not for the felony." (j his is one of Walter Scott's legal reminiscences.) Regard to reputation should, like other prudential virtues be measured and confined within its proper limits, and carefully controlled by a due estimate of its definite value as compared with the price exacted in the particular case. " You would," says Lady Teazle, " have me sin in obedience to my conscience, and part with my virtue to preserve my ! reputation." Turning the medal, and testing the question by its converse, what should a ; philosopher say of one who has a had re- j putation P. The first idea that arises is that such a'man is probably deficient in tact and prudence —that he has neglected to propitiate or to repel a very large class i of men, viz., the foolish and the malignant—that he has taken no precautions againt vermin whose recurring activity he should know, and has thus made enemies i of those whom he should fail to awe, and J who now, even though tod late subdued. I will leave in the wound inflicted by their struggling malice their life, their sting, and their venom, huch a man has himself to blame. He has neglected the well-bound prayer book, &c. Yet no amount of bad reputation should do more than put us on our guard. Want of minor prudences there probably is, but want of nigh and noble virtues is, as yet, unproven. Kay, there is* even a slender probability that this careless ease, this blameworthy negligence, arose from inward consciousness of strength, from a disdain of petty finesse akm to nobility of mind rather than to worldly prudence. How often does that which we see flatly contradict all that which we have heard. Yet there may be — or, perhaps, may have been—reasons for the error. The man may have neglected those minute external observances so indispensably necessary to mediocre minds ; his real .good qualities arc apparent to you, though to those whose reports you have borne in mind they never cou'd be, and never can. Still is he (to them) "a clown ;" for are not his boots like portmanteaux? Still is he (to them) " eccentric ;'" for does he a not prefer the classics of Greece and Rome, together with Pope, Milton, and Spenser, and Shakespeare, &c, to the novels of " Ouida,' and the " poetry " of Browning ? {Still (to them) an 'atheist;" for does he not despise tea Jfights ? Yet you have pardoned the boots, &c, and can discern something higher than the atheist A reasonable regard to reputation is in all cases necessary and wise. A reckless disregard, total and sweeping, of the public common-ser.se is, if just, by no means easy, and, even when easiest, scarcely wise. sTet I know not which of the two extremes be the greater evil - wh (her that of reckless disregard, or of martinet scrupulosity. " The best things," say Churchill, " carried to exceso are wrong." Were it not rather cumbrous to drag about through life this eternal "reputation" on one's back, like Sinbad's old manP To have perpetually to consult him on every fresli, new predicament, and to respect his "veto" even whea one is. longing for action? To find him, like Sancho's doctor, touching with his prohibitive wand dish after dish proffered to, and desired by, your robust '± appetite, and bidding so many enterprises % - of pith and moment to lose the name of action ? Methinks I should feel somewhat like the Grand Monarque, shivering (poor little gentleman!) on many a sharp winter morning because of the non-arrival of the proper nobleman whose prerogative it was to put on the Royal shirt, &c , and no doubt envying the happy bourgeois who can and may put on bis own p^beian small-clothes. Or even, perhaps, on some occasions, like the same Louis, who, during hot action in the battle-field, main- . - tamed ly others, to cite the words of Boileau— " Se plaint do sa grandeur, • Qui l'attaohe au rivage." —Ode, " Prise de Namur." But, alas! profane cynics suggested a motive by no means "great," viz., a reverend regard for his own personal safely. A happy mean point I doubt not there . is, however undiscerned by me. I however, would fain urge that action, enterprise, and, above both, beneficence, also self-denial, elegance, and self-respect, should have in every case the benefit of any fair doubt That "reputation" of which our timid, over-scrupulous care may lead to the disappointment of the public, and the diminution ot its stock of elevating pleasures, as did that of Campbell ; or perhaps- to spoil our attentions to a Royal guest, as it would or might have done that of Montgomery—is surely rather a cumbrous travelling companion, if indeed, it does not resemble the traditional white elephant bestowed by the celebrated Indian sultan, so oppressively bounteous. Xiei)"-then, reputation, if sometimes a fetteyi be oftener a spur. Let not men of wofthy proved and recognised; slumber on.

it in fresh new cases (as Erskine ia reported to have been ironically advised to retire on his retainers ") but rather let such magnates recall to mind, the homely saying, " Behave as such, and act accordingltr." Also, let them be spmred on by something more lofty still, viz., Homer's noble picture-of valour alternating with true tenderness—- " Me, glory summons to the martial plain— The field of combat is the sphere fo: 1 men ; Where heroes war the foremost place I claim, The first in danger as the first in fame." I prefer Hector to Louis XlV.—Australasian.