The one great anxiety that torments thoughtful Englishmen, and still more thoughtful Frenchmen, in the present day, is the establishment of an accepted moral authority. I am able to perceive only one that might be efficacious, and that is a severe public opinion. It may be answered that public opinion exists already; and so no doubt it does, but chiefly to reward conformity and punish nonconformity in externals. We want a public opinion that would sustain and encourage every one in the practice of unostentatious virtues, especially in temperance, self-denial, and simplicity of life. As an example of what might be I may mention the French disapproval of debt. That is extremely strong, and as it is accompanied by the permission to live simply it does really operate as an effective restraint upon extravagance, at least in provincial life. The American disapproval of idleness, even in the rich, is another case in point, and in the English upper classes there is a general and salutary disapproval of everything that is held to be ungentlemanly. Notwithstanding what has been said in this chapter about the want of moral authority in laymen, they can effect something by combination. For example, military men are laymen, yet they keep up amongst themselves a splendid spirit of courage and self-sacrifice, and so do physicians and surgeons, with the addition of a manly charity and tenderness. CHAPTER V THE EDUCATION OF THE FEELINGS [Sidenote: Mill’s Opinion on French Feeling.] [Sidenote: English Stoicism.] [Sidenote: The Frenchman’s love for his Mother.] [Sidenote: Euryalus.] [Sidenote: Ascanius and his Sentiments of Friendship.] [Sidenote: Un-English.]