which they were kept. You will receive no thanks for it, nor will it alter his mode of thinking and acting towards them on any future occasion. When great Self-esteem is combined with Adhesiveness, it begets selfishness in friendship. Friendship will indeed be probably confined either entirely to near relations, or to those who are in some way or another connected with self. There are individuals who never form an attachment without some selfish end. The attachment, when once formed, may be perhaps sincere; but it is not founded on any regard to merit, or to the intellectual or moral qualities of the object, but to the connexion of that object to self. It is also accompanied with the same engrossing spirit, which we formerly noticed in regard to another propensity. The self-esteeming person cannot endure that his friend should love another better than, or even equally with himself. When the parties are of opposite sex, this unfortunate feeling becomes peculiarly irritable and tormenting, and forms the disposition to jealousy, which is the cause of so much misery in the world. When Self-esteem and Combativeness are predominant in the character, we find an irritability added to the love of contention, which is sometimes as amusing as it is troublesome. The self-esteeming combative man is a perfect spitfire; the smallest appearance of opposition puts him in a fume, and yet he can as little endure that you should agree with him, for he will, on no account, agree with you. You cannot annoy him more, than by saying that you are entirely of his opinion; he will endeavour to prove the contrary. He is snappish and worrying, and is "nothing, if not critical." His element is the gale and the tempest, and he gets sick in a calm. A person of this stamp once boasted that he never took any one's advice, and that no one could pretend to say he was able to manage him. When he, to whom he addressed himself, told him that he was quite mistaken, for that he had always found 66 66 him perfectly manageable. "How ?" cries his combative friend in a fury. "I am sure I never did any thing you advised "me." "I grant you,” replied the other; "but then I knew you too well ever to advise you to do what I wished. When "I had any object to be served with you, I always desired you to do the direct contrary of what I wanted, and thus I was sure that you would act exactly agreeably to my wishes." This is a genuine anecdote. The individual is now dead, but he was well known to many who would bear testimony to this trait in his disposition. This spirit of contradiction has not escaped the comic poets and writers of farces, and nothing can be more laughable than some of its examples. As an instance, I may refer to this scene in "Love in a Village : "Mrs Deb. I wish, brother, you would let me examine him a "little. Justice Woodcock. You sha'n't say a word to him. "You sha'n't say a word to him. Mrs Deb. She says he was "recommended here, brother. Ask him by whom. Justice "Woodcock. No, I won't now, because you desire it." "Whenever I am in doubt about any thing," says Mr Bundle in "The Waterman," "I always ask my wife; "and then whatever she advises I do the direct contrary." There are in real life many Mr and Mrs Bundles. Self-esteem large, with Destructiveness predominating, is a fearful combination, unless balanced by a large proportion of benevolent and conscientious sentiment. The individual, in whom this combination is found predominant, (always supposing Benevolence and Conscientiousness deficient) will be cruel as a boy and ferocious as a man. Hogarth's Progress of Cruelty is a just but melancholy picture of what would be the result of this combination in its worst form. The individual will be prone to take offence, furious when offended, and never forgetting it, or forgiving the party offending. When offences are of a trifling description, and do not rise to such importance as to appear to deserve a heavier infliction, they will beget the feeling of hatred; that inward aversion and loathing which extends itself from the offending party himself to all that belongs to, or is connected with him. But when the offence is of a more serious nature, and touches sufficiently near any of the other predominant propensities, it gives rise to the passion of revenge, and nothing can or will satisfy its deadly rancour, except the blood of the offender. It is necessary to the full gratification of this feeling, not merely that the offender be punished, but that he be punished by him who has been injured or offended. We desire to inflict the mortal blow, and if we do not inflict it, we do not care, or rather we do not desire that it should be inflicted by another. Thus Macduff, in the first eagerness of his revenge against Macbeth, prays to Heaven to "Cut short all intermission. Front to front Afterwards, when seeking him in battle, he exclaims : "If thou be'st slain, and with no stroke of mine, 66 My wife and children's ghosts are unappeased." Many instances of a similar kind might be produced from the tragic poets. In the "Maid's Tragedy," in the scene where Evadne murders the king, (a scene infinitely exceeding in horror any thing that Shakspeare ever introduced upon the stage,) after she has, by a stratagem, fastened him to his chair, and has begun her bloody work by inflicting one wound, she seems to glory in her crime, by repeating at every stab the grievous wrongs which had led her to such a dreadful excess of vengeance. In answer to his cries for mercy, she replies, "Hell take me then, this for my Lord Amyntor; (stabbing him.) "This for my noble brother; and this stroke "For the most wronged of women." When, however, to the combination, now considered, is added an ample endowment of the better sentiments, the individual will be irascible, and subject to starts of sudden rage; but when these are over (and their very fury will soon work itself out) the better sentiments will regain the ascendant, and he will repent what he has said or done when under their influence. It may even be, that, in order to make up for the injustice which his anger has made him commit, he will go as far to the opposite extreme of kindness and generosity. There are persons of this character who are reputed to be very passionate, but very goodhearted; and whom you will find striking their children for trifling faults in one minute, and the next overwhelming them with caresses. We have been told of a lady who was extremely apt to get into a rage with her woman, but as soon as the fit of passion was over, she endeavoured to make up for the hard words, or perhaps blows, she had given her, by bestowing on her some gown, or other article of apparel; and so common had this become, and so completely had the maid got into her mistress's cue, that when she had set her heart on any new piece of dress, she generally contrived to irritate her mistress by some petty fault, when she was sure afterwards to be repaid with what she wanted. Self-esteem large, joined with predominating Constructiveness, is a harmless combination. It will probably shew itself in a minute attention to all the little niceties of personal accommodation in house, furniture, dress, &c. While Love of Approbation and Ideality in ample proportion, joined with Constructiveness, would lead to a showy splendid taste in all these particulars; Self-esteem, on the contrary, will, in all its constructive operations, have an eye exclusively to personal convenience, and give rise to that truly English feeling, for which there is no adequate word in any other European language, comfort. This corresponds exactly with what we know of the English character, in which observation shews Self-esteem to be a predominant ingredient. Thus, we conceive that Ideality and Love of Approbation, joined with Constructiveness, have, in dress, given rise to the French invention of ruffles. But these, it has been wittily observed, are very much improved by the English addition of shirts: which last certainly have proceeded from the constructive faculty, aided by Self-esteem. This last combination does not regard outward shew, but substantial convenience. John Bull evinces this in all his appointments. He wears, perhaps, a snuff-brown coat, but its texture is the best West of England broad-cloth. He goes abroad with a slouched hat and gray galligaskins, but his linen is of "Holland at eight shillings an ell." He cannot bear that his toes shall be pinched in order to give a handsome shape to his shoe, but insists that his feet shall have full room to expatiate in receptacles, well lined with warm flannel socks, and protected from the damp by soles of half an inch thick. He never thinks of subjecting his viscera to the confinement of stays, but protects the protuberance by the folds of his ample doublet. The same regard to comfort, and disdain of appearance, is seen in his house, which, in the outside, has little attraction, and is built in defiance of all the rules of architecture; but enter it and behold its numerous conveniences; its huge kitchen chimney capacious of a fire, fit for the roasting of two oxen; its hall-table of solid oak, three inches thick, and shining like a looking-glass; its ample store-rooms and cellars; its bed-chambers, where heaps of down and sheets of unrivalled whiteness might induce a monarch to repose in them-and you will be ready to exclaim, "What wants this knave that a king should "have!" Within proper bounds this feeling is a highly desirable one, when it leads us no farther than to a just degree of self-respect shewn in our attention to personal cleanliness and accommodations. But it is often carried to an excess which is perfectly preposterous and unworthy of a rational creature. The extreme fastidiousness and selfishness, in this particular, of those whose Self-esteem, originally great, has been fostered by wealth, ease, and the want of any necessity for exertion, can hardly be conceived by those whose minds are differently constituted, or who have been placed in different circumstances. The English, with many good qualities, are, perhaps, more liable to this fault than any other people, and more instances of its excess occur among them than elsewhere. The superior wealth |