THE EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE OF THE FUTURE. 321 



confine within ever narrower limits all manifestations of unpleasant 

 feeling. Since it is a grateful thing to witness pleasurable feeling, and 

 painful to see the expression of suffering in another, a polite form of 

 society does all it can to encourage the one and to suppress the other. 

 A man is for the most part supposed to be able to obtain all needed 

 sympathy, in his troubles, from his family and his intimate friends. 

 Before the rest of the world he is expected to hide his grief and main- 

 tain a cheerful aspect. It is one of the delicate forms of sensibility, 

 produced by a high culture, to be fearful of obtruding one's feelings 

 on unconcerned onlookers. This growing perception of the vulgar 

 aspects of uncontrolled emotional display appears to have much to do 

 with the partial concealments of feeling of which Mr. Spencer speaks. 

 ■ But comparatively few persons are completely able to hide a sharp 

 and sudden vexation, however public the occasion of experiencing it. 

 An annoying piece of intelligence, affecting, it may be, one's matrimo- 

 nial chances or equally dear ambitions, will very likely call up a mo- 

 mentary expression of dismay even in presence of a fashionable com- 

 pany. We wonder to how many persons it is still a necessity, under 

 the smart of a sudden disappointment, to flee as soon as possible from 

 all spectators, and relieve the pressure of emotion by a few energetic 

 expletives, if not a spare shower of tears ? We do not know how many 

 ages it may require to discipline our species in a perfect concealment 

 of painful feeling ; but, at present, it looks as though we were passing 

 through the hardest stages of this schooling. 



One other influence which probably contributes to make emotion 

 more and more private and invisible is the partial revival of the Stoical 

 doctrine that all sentiment is a moral weakness. This idea appears to 

 hold most sway in our own country, and especially among those classes 

 who are most concerned to maintain a not too obvious gentility. A 

 common supposition among young aspirants to social rank seems to 

 be, that lofty breeding is best seen in a uniformly passionless and 

 vacuous arrangement of the facial muscles. To appear interested in 

 any object in his environment strikes the pseudo-aristocrat as a pitia- 

 ble infirmity of vulgar minds. The ways in which this curious self- 

 imposed check acts are at times very funny. We remember hearing 

 Macready give a series of readings to a fashionably-dressed assembly, 

 in a small provincial town, and we were much struck by the almost 

 heroic efforts which many of the company made to conceal the emo- 

 tion so powerfully aroused by the tragedian's art. Possibly English 

 people are less impressible by scenic display and music than Continen- 

 tal nations. Whether this be so or not, it is very curious to contrast 

 the perfectly apathetic aspect of an assembly at Covent Garden with 

 the lively demonstrations of an audience at a Paris opera, or the deep, 

 earnest absorption of the worshipers of Wagner at Berlin or Munich. 

 This notion that it is the final attainment of civilization to appear im- 

 partially indifferent to every thing about one, and constantly to pre- 

 vol. iv. — 21 



