Impressions of Theophrastus Such

Only Temper

What is temper? Its primary meaning, the proportion and mode in which

qualities are mingled, is much neglected in popular speech, yet even

here the word often carries a reference to an habitual state or general

tendency of the organism in distinction from what are held to be

specific virtues and vices. As people confess to bad memory without

expecting to sink in mental reputation, so we hear a man declared to

have a bad temper and yet glorified as the possessor of every high

quality. When he errs or in any way commits himself, his temper is

accused, not his character, and it is understood that but for a brutal

bearish mood he is kindness itself. If he kicks small animals, swears

violently at a servant who mistakes orders, or is grossly rude to his

wife, it is remarked apologetically that these things mean nothing--they

are all temper.

Certainly there is a limit to this form of apology, and the forgery of a

bill, or the ordering of goods without any prospect of paying for them,

has never been set down to an unfortunate habit of sulkiness or of

irascibility. But on the whole there is a peculiar exercise of

indulgence towards the manifestations of bad temper which tends to

encourage them, so that we are in danger of having among us a number of

virtuous persons who conduct themselves detestably, just as we have

hysterical patients who, with sound organs, are apparently labouring

under many sorts of organic disease. Let it be admitted, however, that a

man may be "a good fellow" and yet have a bad temper, so bad that we

recognise his merits with reluctance, and are inclined to resent his

occasionally amiable behaviour as an unfair demand on our admiration.

Touchwood is that kind of good fellow. He is by turns insolent,

quarrelsome, repulsively haughty to innocent people who approach him

with respect, neglectful of his friends, angry in face of legitimate

demands, procrastinating in the fulfilment of such demands, prompted to

rude words and harsh looks by a moody disgust with his fellow-men in

general--and yet, as everybody will assure you, the soul of honour, a

steadfast friend, a defender of the oppressed, an affectionate-hearted

creature. Pity that, after a certain experience of his moods, his

intimacy becomes insupportable! A man who uses his balmorals to tread on

your toes with much frequency and an unmistakeable emphasis may prove a

fast friend in adversity, but meanwhile your adversity has not arrived

and your toes are tender. The daily sneer or growl at your remarks is

not to be made amends for by a possible eulogy or defence of your

understanding against depredators who may not present themselves, and on

an occasion which may never arise. I cannot submit to a chronic state of

blue and green bruise as a form of insurance against an accident.

Touchwood's bad temper is of the contradicting pugnacious sort. He is

the honourable gentleman in opposition, whatever proposal or proposition

may be broached, and when others join him he secretly damns their

superfluous agreement, quickly discovering that his way of stating the

case is not exactly theirs. An invitation or any sign of expectation

throws him into an attitude of refusal. Ask his concurrence in a

benevolent measure: he will not decline to give it, because he has a

real sympathy with good aims; but he complies resentfully, though where

he is let alone he will do much more than any one would have thought of

asking for. No man would shrink with greater sensitiveness from the

imputation of not paying his debts, yet when a bill is sent in with any

promptitude he is inclined to make the tradesman wait for the money he

is in such a hurry to get. One sees that this antagonistic temper must

be much relieved by finding a particular object, and that its worst

moments must be those where the mood is that of vague resistance, there

being nothing specific to oppose. Touchwood is never so little engaging

as when he comes down to breakfast with a cloud on his brow, after

parting from you the night before with an affectionate effusiveness at

the end of a confidential conversation which has assured you of mutual

understanding. Impossible that you can have committed any offence. If

mice have disturbed him, that is not your fault; but, nevertheless, your

cheerful greeting had better not convey any reference to the weather,

else it will be met by a sneer which, taking you unawares, may give you

a crushing sense that you make a poor figure with your cheerfulness,

which was not asked for. Some daring person perhaps introduces another

topic, and uses the delicate flattery of appealing to Touchwood for his

opinion, the topic being included in his favourite studies. An

indistinct muttering, with a look at the carving-knife in reply, teaches

that daring person how ill he has chosen a market for his deference. If

Touchwood's behaviour affects you very closely you had better break your

leg in the course of the day: his bad temper will then vanish at once;

he will take a painful journey on your behalf; he will sit up with you

night after night; he will do all the work of your department so as to

save you from any loss in consequence of your accident; he will be even

uniformly tender to you till you are well on your legs again, when he

will some fine morning insult you without provocation, and make you wish

that his generous goodness to you had not closed your lips against

retort.

It is not always necessary that a friend should break his leg for

Touchwood to feel compunction and endeavour to make amends for his

bearishness or insolence. He becomes spontaneously conscious that he has

misbehaved, and he is not only ashamed of himself, but has the better

prompting to try and heal any wound he has inflicted. Unhappily the

habit of being offensive "without meaning it" leads usually to a way of

making amends which the injured person cannot but regard as a being

amiable without meaning it. The kindnesses, the complimentary

indications or assurances, are apt to appear in the light of a penance

adjusted to the foregoing lapses, and by the very contrast they offer

call up a keener memory of the wrong they atone for. They are not a

spontaneous prompting of goodwill, but an elaborate compensation. And,

in fact, Dion's atoning friendliness has a ring of artificiality.

Because he formerly disguised his good feeling towards you he now

expresses more than he quite feels. It is in vain. Having made you

extremely uncomfortable last week he has absolutely diminished his

power of making you happy to-day: he struggles against this result by

excessive effort, but he has taught you to observe his fitfulness rather

than to be warmed by his episodic show of regard.

I suspect that many persons who have an uncertain, incalculable temper

flatter themselves that it enhances their fascination; but perhaps they

are under the prior mistake of exaggerating the charm which they suppose

to be thus strengthened; in any case they will do well not to trust in

the attractions of caprice and moodiness for a long continuance or for

close intercourse. A pretty woman may fan the flame of distant adorers

by harassing them, but if she lets one of them make her his wife, the

point of view from which he will look at her poutings and tossings and

mysterious inability to be pleased will be seriously altered. And if

slavery to a pretty woman, which seems among the least conditional forms

of abject service, will not bear too great a strain from her bad temper

even though her beauty remain the same, it is clear that a man whose

claims lie in his high character or high performances had need impress

us very constantly with his peculiar value and indispensableness, if he

is to test our patience by an uncertainty of temper which leaves us

absolutely without grounds for guessing how he will receive our persons

or humbly advanced opinions, or what line he will take on any but the

most momentous occasions.

For it is among the repulsive effects of this bad temper, which is

supposed to be compatible with shining virtues, that it is apt to

determine a man's sudden adhesion to an opinion, whether on a personal

or impersonal matter, without leaving him time to consider his grounds.

The adhesion is sudden and momentary, but it either forms a precedent

for his line of thought and action, or it is presently seen to have been

inconsistent with his true mind. This determination of partisanship by

temper has its worst effects in the career of the public man, who is

always in danger of getting so enthralled by his own words that he looks

into facts and questions not to get rectifying knowledge, but to get

evidence that will justify his actual attitude which was assumed under

an impulse dependent on something else than knowledge. There has been

plenty of insistance on the evil of swearing by the words of a master,

and having the judgment uniformly controlled by a "He said it;" but a

much worse woe to befall a man is to have every judgment controlled by

an "I said it"--to make a divinity of his own short-sightedness or

passion-led aberration and explain the world in its honour. There is

hardly a more pitiable degradation than this for a man of high gifts.

Hence I cannot join with those who wish that Touchwood, being young

enough to enter on public life, should get elected for Parliament and

use his excellent abilities to serve his country in that conspicuous

manner. For hitherto, in the less momentous incidents of private life,

his capricious temper has only produced the minor evil of inconsistency,

and he is even greatly at ease in contradicting himself, provided he can

contradict you, and disappoint any smiling expectation you may have

shown that the impressions you are uttering are likely to meet with his

sympathy, considering that the day before he himself gave you the

example which your mind is following. He is at least free from those

fetters of self-justification which are the curse of parliamentary

speaking, and what I rather desire for him is that he should produce the

great book which he is generally pronounced capable of writing, and put

his best self imperturbably on record for the advantage of society;

because I should then have steady ground for bearing with his diurnal

incalculableness, and could fix my gratitude as by a strong staple to

that unvarying monumental service. Unhappily, Touchwood's great powers

have been only so far manifested as to be believed in, not demonstrated.

Everybody rates them highly, and thinks that whatever he chose to do

would be done in a first-rate manner. Is it his love of disappointing

complacent expectancy which has gone so far as to keep up this

lamentable negation, and made him resolve not to write the comprehensive

work which he would have written if nobody had expected it of him?

One can see that if Touchwood were to become a public man and take to

frequent speaking on platforms or from his seat in the House, it would

hardly be possible for him to maintain much integrity of opinion, or to

avoid courses of partisanship which a healthy public sentiment would

stamp with discredit. Say that he were endowed with the purest honesty,

it would inevitably be dragged captive by this mysterious, Protean bad

temper. There would be the fatal public necessity of justifying

oratorical Temper which had got on its legs in its bitter mood and made

insulting imputations, or of keeping up some decent show of consistency

with opinions vented out of Temper's contradictoriness. And words would

have to be followed up by acts of adhesion.

Certainly if a bad-tempered man can be admirably virtuous, he must be so

under extreme difficulties. I doubt the possibility that a high order of

character can coexist with a temper like Touchwood's. For it is of the

nature of such temper to interrupt the formation of healthy mental

habits, which depend on a growing harmony between perception,

conviction, and impulse. There may be good feelings, good deeds--for a

human nature may pack endless varieties and blessed inconsistencies in

its windings--but it is essential to what is worthy to be called high

character, that it may be safely calculated on, and that its qualities

shall have taken the form of principles or laws habitually, if not

perfectly, obeyed.

If a man frequently passes unjust judgments, takes up false attitudes,

intermits his acts of kindness with rude behaviour or cruel words, and

falls into the consequent vulgar error of supposing that he can make

amends by laboured agreeableness, I cannot consider such courses any the

less ugly because they are ascribed to "temper." Especially I object to

the assumption that his having a fundamentally good disposition is

either an apology or a compensation for his bad behaviour. If his temper

yesterday made him lash the horses, upset the curricle and cause a

breakage in my rib, I feel it no compensation that to-day he vows he

will drive me anywhere in the gentlest manner any day as long as he

lives. Yesterday was what it was, my rib is paining me, it is not a main

object of my life to be driven by Touchwood--and I have no confidence in

his lifelong gentleness. The utmost form of placability I am capable of

is to try and remember his better deeds already performed, and, mindful

of my own offences, to bear him no malice. But I cannot accept his

amends.

If the bad-tempered man wants to apologise he had need to do it on a

large public scale, make some beneficent discovery, produce some

stimulating work of genius, invent some powerful process--prove himself

such a good to contemporary multitudes and future generations, as to

make the discomfort he causes his friends and acquaintances a vanishing

quality, a trifle even in their own estimate.