The Champion of the Middle Ground: A Conversational Duo Between the One and the Other

The One. When the social constitution of the world shall come to be revised, I hope I shall be present, to suggest the creation of a few new offices with plenary powers. From time to time we hear some hard-headed man or woman inquiring whether the “ fool-killer ” has been on his rounds of late. Undoubtedly, there was a crying need for the services of this functionary long before the creation of such an office was proposed. Now I have in mind another sort of noble ameliorator, to perform a more delicate because it is a more diplomatic service in the world. I should like to create a new knight, if the power were given into my hands to do so.

The Other. Well, why not? “This is the court of the queen.” But what would his cognizance be ?

The One. He should be known as the Champion of the Middle Ground. I had not thought of him as an absolute necessity, until the other day when I was listening to a warm dispute which was waxing acrimonious, as it seemed to me. As the casus belli developed, there appeared to be so many wrongs on the right side, and so many rights on the wrong side of the question that I found myself, mentally, in something like a fierce advocacy between the two disputants. I want a champion who will defend this very position.

The Other. Ah, I see. But your knight would need all the valor in the old Roman world, and all the Machiavellianism in the mediæval, to maintain his position there, to say nothing of doing effective service in the abstract. Your Champion would himself need a champion.

The One. I do not see why. Please explain.

The Other. Because he would have the heroic task of proving that he was not identical with the Man Who Sits on the Fence. There would even be some who would mistake your knight for the Prince of Shysters. The most indulgent of spectators could account for him only on the ground that he was possessed of a temperament too cold to admit of his becoming vehemently involved in the interests of either antagonist. His judicious neutrality would be admired by some, but distrusted by all.

The One. But you forget, or I have not said, that my Champion of the Middle Ground has nothing of all this in his composition. He is not neutral in any question. He is more deeply involved than either of the combatants, in the human issue between them. With such a person as I am thinking of there can be no real indifference. Where he does not either love or hate, he entertains at least what might be called a passionate indifference. Nothing occurs which does not force him into a well-defined mental attitude. He may not embrace the cause of either of the contending parties ; but it is because he is retained by a third party in the dispute, whom the other two have not recognized, and whose claim, if advanced, they would both indignantly repudiate as irrelevant; and thereupon they would fall to abusing its champion, and probably lose sight of the disagreement between themselves.

The Other. That third party is Justice, and your Champion of the Middle Ground might also bear the title of Counsel for Fair Play? Yes; I quite agree with you that he who undertakes this part, so far from being calculating and non-committal, and of a frigid temperament, must be something quite opposite ; else he had never been on the field of combat. His method must be dispassionate ; nevertheless the nature is an impassioned one. But you do not expect the disputants or the spectators in general to recognize this fact, do you ?

The One. Alas, no; for however much they may profit by such intervention, as a rule there is a tendency to depreciate the nature which offers it. Sooner or later all would have banished Aristides, not, as was declared, because they were tired of hearing that he was just, but because they were tired of his being just. Commonly, such persons speak of a scrupulous sense of justice as to the property and right of others as somehow necessarily implying a coldness and hard calculation in one’s mental composition. To borrow and not to restore promptly, to neglect or defer to pay the bill of the laundress (or even the coin to great Cæsar himself, the tyrant !), may be the insignia of an ardent and liberal nature; but in that case it would follow that ardent and liberal natures are in excess in the world, — a statement that no one is ready to corroborate. But as to the Champion of the Middle Ground. We produce out of our own heads the plan of a temperament, hastily cut out by some old wellworn die of popular belief, aligned by some convenient character - gauge, and assign the result to him who acts the thankless part of moderator. In this temperament there is no place left by us for the “generous faults; ” we reserve those to ourselves ! According to the general belief, as you have suggested, the Champion of the Middle Ground exercises his function well, simply because he is of too cold a temperament to become embroiled in the causes which agitate his fellows. Now, why should they have this opinion ?

The Other. Perhaps because your Champion, however vehemently he may feel, is slow to define in words the position he holds. And words, my dear friend, speak louder than actions, whatever you may have heard to the contrary from our preceptors. What is said is invariably heeded, unless in case of poor Cassandra and her order of prophetesses. What is done is sometimes heeded ; but it can always be rendered of no effect by a judicious use of the antidote of words. Your Champion must not indulge his inclination to taciturnity, if he hopes to vindicate his position. It will be a long time yet in the world’s little history before the violently assertive person learns that he who remains silent is not therefore timidly acquiescent. There is a species of arrogance which thinks to do the contumelious act vulgarly known as “ sitting down upon” him who does not readily retaliate. It mistakes nonbelligerency for cowardly humility, which it is at first inclined to visit with irony of compassion, and then to treat as in the significant phrase used most frequently by the Irish, “Knock a man down, and then kick him for falling.” These two can never really come together in fair fight. One approaches with the sword of the spirit, and the other with a bludgeon as material in composition as words can make it. The combat between them is even more quixotic in its character; it is “ to take arms against a sea of troubles.” It is not in the nature of things that the tempest should recognize the fact of there being dispatch in steel. But to come back. The difficulty seems to be that your Champion of the Middle Ground occupies an entirely anomalous position. As I see him, he is not merely an umpire ; his interest is too impassioned, too personal, — not in behalf of persons, but of justice as a personal cause. He is not a judge, for he has never been gowned and invested with the unimpeachable high powers of the judiciary. He is not a professional mediator, for he is not even benevolently pragmatic ; he does not take the initiative, and though his interest is readily roused, he prefers to keep away from inflammatory occasions. He “ rescues the drowning and ties his shoestrings,” and does not remain to receive the reward therefor (or, what is quite as likely to follow, criticisms of his method of rescue). Your Champion is the Disinherited Knight who in general makes no very striking figure on a given occasion, but a few who were present may afterwards recall him with an interest half regretful, sometimes even poignant. They would fain have deciphered the legend on his shield, and learned “ what he was all about.” There, have I discerned him at all in his true colors ?

The One. You make me think that you have been at some tournament where he was present. But is n’t it strange that there should be any confusion as to the device on his banner ?

The Other. Is there anything so rare in this world as a “ sense of justice ” ? It would be a satisfactory thing could we determine how far it is inherent in human nature, how far due to the world’s growing recognition of the fact that the exercise of this trait is a matter of reciprocal convenience. However, there is an intimation that it is recognized as a useful expedient, in the old popular injunction, “ Live and let live.” One must move with the motion of the system to which one belongs. The reign of injustice has been found, in the evolution of the race, to be inexpedient. No individual cares to be obsolescent, and so no one is as despotic and unreasonable as the primal instinct in him would at times dictate.

The One. Say also, “ the primal instinct in her.”

The Other. My dear lady, I could not say it. You yourself so exemplify —

The One. Oh, make no mistake. It is very hard for a woman to be entirely just. I wonder our old Greek friends, the mythologists, ever figured Justice in the guise of woman. It was a great pity; and the distinction only emphasizes the disparity between fact and fancy. Pray do not insist upon an exception. Don’t you know that it is a sort of injustice to attribute to one merits which one does not possess, to assign a character more sternly great than one will ever be able to bear out ?

The Other. But what if it is exemplified before my very eyes that a woman can be just, and if I have within the moment past heard her affirm a desire for a Champion who shall exercise the faculty of just judgment in the highest degree ?

The One. I can only say that this woman—such a woman — has made a very valiant conflict against a native propensity towards injustice. You have sometimes said that it requires intelligence to be able to tell the truth. Any acquisition of the sense of justice which I may have made is due to such exercise of intelligence. Perceiving that the progress of the race no longer permits us to be un just, I am determined to throw myself in line. Once having seen so cruel a defect, who would not save herself from being unjust, as much as is possible ? Such is the force of habit, I own, that now, after having practiced taking large draughts of tolerance for some time, possibly I am myself hurt more than any other human creature when I have on any occasion yielded to the “ primal instinct,” as you call it. There ! having made my confession, I am disposed to modify it in one direction, if you will have patience : I do not think I am actively unjust; that is to say, I would not hasten to volunteer judgment, which act nearly always results in injustice. God has made his creatures, and it is his affair to judge them. It seems to me that we ought to be supremely thankful that we are not deputed to this office. It grows more and more a wonder to me that so many should be willing to assume so onerous (and gratuitous) a responsibility. Then, too, I observe that none are more willing to administer justice than those who possess the least sense of what justice is. None are more willing to condemn than the culpable. Per contra, I notice that the nearer the just man is to being made perfect in that respect, the more lenient will be his judgment of those peccant. So far from its being the sign of the kingdom of heaven within us, — this desire to levy judgment and to execute justice, — it might be regarded as a particular designation of the world and its way.

The Other. Did you ever reflect that by nature we are all attorneys ; the judicial faculty is a matter of cultivation ? “ Attorneying ” has become a phrase of more than professional application. It is the advocate’s business to gather up all the testimony favorable to bis client, and from it to construct liis argument and his Ci eloquent appeal to the jury.” All negative testimony be carefully rules out of iiis plea, and endeavors to annihilate it in the minds of that discriminate twelve, the jury. How singular a thing it is, when we consider it, that the judge, in our courts of justice, has himself been one of those habituated to ruling out the negative testimony ; and yet now, in his judicial capacity, he must give impartial ear to both affirmative and negative testimony ! How can he overcome the mental habit of the advocate ? It would sometimes seem that there should be training schools for the judiciary, something quite different from those in which the lawyer receives his education. But as I was saying, we are all natural attorneys, and those of us who are constituted judges (self-constituted, or otherwise) bring to the adjudication of human affairs the methods and point of view of the attorney, of him who has been retained by his own strong prejudices or predilections.

The One. Speaking of such methods, have you ever noticed that in all societies there are certain individuals who are never just, who have no impulse to be so, except when they undertake to defend the unjust ? They can endure to see the innocent assailed without coming to the rescue, and ridicule cast upon unpretending merit; but let a word be uttered which is, constructively, unfair to an inconsiderate and violent person, and our advocate dashes out with all the equipment and valor of noble championship in that person’s behalf. And this is often the case where the advocate is gifted with a really large measure of the judicial faculty ; and it cannot be said in excuse that the intelligence is lacking which is necessary to a just discrimination.

The Other. I know those of whom you speak. It is not easy at all times to understand the rationale of their conduct or motives. The judicial faculty is indeed present, and one might expect it to be exerted on the side of obvious justice. It is a question whether it is mere indolence and inertia that interfere with its exercise in behalf of worthy objects, on the one hand, or whether, on the other, it is pride in unique and solitary action that rushes the Champion into the field when but the smallest show of deserving calls forth so chivalrous a demonstration. Don’t you think we might call such individuals the Criminal Lawyers of Society, since it is their forte to feel the fictitious grievance of a client without a cause, the wrongs of a defendant against whom the general voice of a sturdy commonalty is unanimously raised? There are others to whom some preconceived situation requiring adjustment so appeals that, without waiting to learn the individual rights of the case, the general idea of justice and fair play runs away with them as the horses of the Sun ran away with Phaethon. “ If there ’s a government, sure, I’m agin it,” satisfied that all stringent measures must needs be despotism. They are the same order of individuals who, on the most incomplete testimony, or with no testimony at all, espouse the cause of the “under dog” in any fight. I recall having read somewhere a very clever little poem which slyly satirizes this exuberant enthusiasm for the losing side, right or wrong, by representing as among the spectators of a “ free fight ” one who boldly proclaims that as for himself, however others may choose, he is for the “ outside dog in the fight.” Might not this humorous commentator have been one and the same with your Champion of the Middle Ground ? — indulging in a somewhat grotesque humor and the broad vernacular, it is true ; but then he must have his little diversions and undress occasions. It would be a wearisome thing never to descend from the “ high horse. ”

The One. Ah, you are laughing at my cavalier. But then he does a great deal of laughing at himself, as well as at others. He strongly suspects at times that he cuts a figure much resembling that of Cervantes’ old Don, while the “ high horse ” he rides can but suggest Rosinante to the general observer. All the same, he is not discouraged from his knight-errantry.

The Other. Heaven forbid ! Among the services rendered by the Champion of the Middle Ground would be the destruction of what you a little while ago termed a “ character -gauge: ” a man is this because he is that; or, a man cannot be this because he is that. One is a spendthrift; but then you can rely on his being generous to his friends. One is rough and ready in his speech; but at least you can learn the truth from him. A woman is intellectual; she is therefore a “ spirit,” and “ too bright and good ” to meet the requisitions of Mr. Wordsworth’s ideal of gracious womanhood. And so on. We should be much indebted to the Champion of the Middle Ground for taking away from us these toys of a false dialectic, these too convenient units of measurement which we employ to save the trouble of finding out in what special way one individual differs from another, even when both fall under some given type. The pigeon-hole and label system is so much more convenient and time-saving than is any outlay of ingenuity in determining and naming all the human variations from the generic specimens which come in our way.

The One. I seem to hear my Champion say, in one of those whimsical moods in which he sometimes indulges, that it is not so much a moral good as it is a certain artistic sense of proportion that impels him to interfere in behalf of moderation. The balance is too heavily weighted on one side ; he cannot help throwing in whatever shall serve as make-weight. “ It is not quite as you think it is,” he says in effect. “ There is this plus quantity, there is this outstanding consideration : what will you do with these ? ” Moreover, he knows that there are certain causes forever dear and forcibly eloquent to the human heart. Indeed, their eloquence is so appealing that, like siren music, it preoccupies the ear to the exclusion of all claims from the opposite quarter. One class of petitioners, while the world stands, is sure to have audience and able advocacy, — sure of the heart-beats, if not the heart-blood of its champions freely expended in its behalf. I do not say that this is not well. But the weak will be supported always, the strong almost never.

The Other. If you will leave it to the Muse to state the case, might not the whole matter be put in this way ? —

The One. Yes. Again I see you have met my Champion in some of his quixotic but perhaps not altogether hopeless contests. It will be a great triumph if he can bring the world, to have consideration for its burden-bearers, and a peculiar triumph if he can persuade Strength to have compassion for Strength as well as for the Weakness whose blind eyes will never be opened to see how great is the debt it owes to the arm on which it leans. But I have another commission for the Champion to execute, — perhaps a twofold commission. It is, to persuade the zealous and partial friend, while he is sparing from chastisement those dear to himself, to forbear balancing the account of justice by inflicting double punishment upon those not dear to him, and who may be guilty of no greater obliquity than he has extenuated in his own elect. I know that my swans may be geese ; I am sure that another’s are so ; but I must be indulgent to the masquerade which that other one chooses to encourage, while I hug closely the same delusion. Still another task for the Champion to perform. It is to convince the friend, the lover, the ward, that declared hostility towards one’s errors of thought or of conduct in no wise affects the real situation between any two who are mutually dear. I have tried to love the faults of several of my friends ; but the effort too often seems like encouraging a known traitor in the house of a friend. If I love my friend well, shall I not apprise him of the lurking enemy ? Now, if I, too, were to call the Muse to my aid to state the case, I think she would speak in some such language as the following : —

The Other. If I remember rightly, Emerson has some such observation as this : He will find himself in sufficiently tragic situations in life who resolves to tell the truth. The Champion of the Middle Ground seems to have been born with a fatal instinct for telling the truth. In this heroic venture, he relies on an intelligent and joyous hospitality on the part of others, as great as his own, to receive the truth. He cannot understand party reserve nor partisan hostility towards the same. Is the position a false one ? Shift your position, is the only remedy. Is there a doubt ? Hazard the doubt; for until its voice has been audited, the confirmation of faith is impossible. While others propose, at the start, to make the best of things, he is disposed to make the worst of them ; so to build upon a securer foundation. How many times have we spoken of that pathetic text in Job, and the usually suppressed human cry in its conclusion : “ Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” With that voice from Arabia still crying in the wilderness, how can the world be so summary with its honest doubters, its Champions (whether they will or not) of the Middle Ground of religious thought!

THE TRAGEDY OF THE MIDDLE GROUND.

SUPPLEMENTARY VERSES WHICH MAY HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY THE ONE OR THE OTHER.

Edith M. Thomas.