The Idealist and Her Victim

— It has long been admitted that the Idealist is not always an agreeable addition to the domestic circle, — meaning by Idealist the woman of noble purpose, true impulses, and intense earnestness, who presses towards a mark of some high calling and would carry all her friends with her. We all have met this woman, and, if she is not a member of our own household, we have admired her. Not that her goodness is questioned by her relations, who indeed are often proud of it ; but still, in the bosom of the family, one sometimes catches a sigh : “ She is n’t easy to live with ! ” Perhaps because her flagrant virtue suggests comparisons ; perhaps because she is apt to be too truthful (who of us has not winced and withered when our family Idealist has called things by their right names ?) ; perhaps because, generally speaking, she is indifferent to what is important to commonplace folk like the rest of us (how often her fine scorn for our cheap desires has made a materialized wish turn to ashes on our lips !).

But it is not for these things that some of us who love and revere her begin to think that she should be suppressed. No ; she may not be agreeable, but we know she is “ for our good,” — a noble phrase, though marred by associations of youth; she “ is good for us,” but we protest that, in her own immediate circle, as friend or lover, she often does harm. The fact is, this particular kind of good woman finds it necessary to personify her ideal of virtue or talent in some character other than her own. There is the whole trouble. She has, in relation to the abstract, what might be called an individualizing imagination.

When her ideals, which command her passionate admiration, are embodied merely in her own character, the idealizing woman is too genuinely humble-minded to rejoice in them : hence she is forced to discover and admire them in some one else. Consequently, though she never thinks of herself more highly than she ought to think, she is likely to think of her lover or her friend without regard to facts.

In her imperative impulse to personify, love and propinquity direct her. A husband, or a lover, or a friend, always stands ready to be draped with the deep and glowing colors of her thoughts.

The Idealist begins the personifying process by desiring noble qualities for her beloved ; she ends by asserting that they exist. To this belief in character she almost always adds a belief in achievement. Happily, a cold world may be trusted to tell the manikin of her morals that his pictures are bad or his books twaddle, but even a temporary belief in his own genius is apt to disturb and distort mediocrity’s mental vision.

In spite, however, of an unappreciative world, the first step in the downward course along which the idealizing woman leads her Victim is full of exultation and inspiration. He is profoundly stirred to find himself and his talents believed in. Generally speaking, he takes a spurt, if one may say so, in goodness or in achievement. He throbs with nobler impulses, because he has been told he is noble ; he paints better pictures, because it has been whispered that he is a great artist ; he performs some fine and picturesque bit of self-sacrifice, because he has learned that he is unselfish ; he assimilates other men’s thoughts, and perhaps writes a book, and his inspirer tells him that he has the ear of the listening earth !

At first, it would seem that the effect of being believed in was only good for the Victim ; but in reality it is a grave menace to his individuality. For, thus believed in, who of us has the courage to be true to his own baseness ? Who dares to be mean, when all the world is being told that he is generous ? Who dares to be outspoken in seeking the loaves and the fishes, when it has been proclaimed that he is far above such considerations ? Little by little the Victim is pushed into a pose ; he puts on the fine ideas, the exalted theories, the honorable impulses, with which the Idealist has furnished him, and for a sincere and glowing period he believes that they are his own. The ass is perfectly comfortable in the lion’s skin, especially when his Una keeps close beside him to tell him how ferocious he appears.

But very soon — perhaps because of an unappreciative world, perhaps because of latent common sense —the Victim realizes the falsity of his position ; then, as it dawns upon him that his identity is being filched from him, it is pathetic to see his struggles. He replies to the insistent and ringing assertions that he is great and good by some feeble protest : “ Madam and lover, I am nothing of the sort! ” But mark the effect : the more he protests, the more he is believed in ; she listens to the bit of dull truth, and cries out to society to admire his modesty and humility ; and it comes to pass that at last the poor sinner, simpering and sighing, accepts the situation.

Now, it is bad enough to be born with merely a plain, decent nature, which acknowledges the expediency of morality and does not pick pockets ; but what must be the moral effect of hearing such commonplace goodness called by some high name which is not in your spiritual lexicon, so to speak, lacking all the while the courage to cry out, “ Not at all ! My motive was beer and skittles ; not the public good, not art for art’s sake, not honor, nor holiness, nor love.” First, cowardice ; then, hypocrisy. For the Victim knows that he thinks the Idealist’s thoughts, accepts her aspirations, acts upon her suggestions, sometimes speaks her words ; and knowing this, he knows he is a sneak.

The cruelty of forcing any human creature into such a position cannot be exaggerated ; and besides, it is a distinct injury to the community, in that the virtues which the Idealist would exploit are too often made foolish in the person of the fool who is exploited.

There is one thing to be said, however : this state of things has generally an end. The Victim begins to weary of the altitude upon which he has been placed. “ I thought,” Guinevere cries out,

and many an idealized man has in his dull way made the same pathetic protest.

It is inevitable that by and by there shall come a crash ; the cloven foot breaks through the veneer of virtue, and the poor Victim exults brutally in his freedom to be mean, or shallow, or cheap, or simply himself. Of course, this is an overwhelming calamity and pain to the Idealist, but that is of small importance ; she has brought it upon herself, and deserves it. The serious thing is the lasting injury to the Victim,— a harmless, negative sort of creature in his natural state : he is lessened in his own eyes, he is humiliated and shamed ; furthermore, he forever distrusts goodness greater than his own.

If only this high-minded destroyer of individuality could be brought face to face with the sober fact that every man of 11s has a right to work out his own salvation in his own way, — a poor way, perhaps, but uis own ! If only some victim would turn and say, “Thief ! where is my personality ? Where is my little nature, my narrow view, my commonplace motive ? You have stolen them ! Give me back my dullness, give me back ray baseness, give me back my life,— give me back myself! ”