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BART GAENS AND GAURI KHANDEKAR

Inter-Regional Relations
and the Asia-Europe
Meeting (ASEM)
Inter-Regional Relations and the Asia-Europe
Meeting (ASEM)
 Bart Gaens · Gauri Khandekar
Editors

Inter-Regional
Relations and the
Asia-Europe Meeting
(ASEM)
Editors
Bart Gaens Gauri Khandekar
The Finnish Institute of International Brussels, Belgium
Affairs
Helsinki, Finland

ISBN 978-1-137-59763-2 ISBN 978-1-137-59764-9 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59764-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943475

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
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Cover credit: © meshmerize

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW,
United Kingdom
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Bart Gaens and Gauri Khandekar

2 Two Decades of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM)  9

Bart Gaens

3 ASEM: Partnership for Greater Growth?  33

Gauri Khandekar

4 ASEM and the Security Agenda: Talking the Talk but

also Walking the Walk?  59
Axel Berkofsky

5 The Value-Added ASEM: The Socio-Cultural Dialogue  79

Huong Le Thu

6 ASEM and the People’s Involvement: A Focus on the

Parliamentary Partnership (ASEP)  101
Silja Keva

7 ASEM’S Media Exposure and the Promotion of

Connectivity Between Asian and European Publics  131
Suet-Yi Lai

v
vi Contents

8 Reinventing ASEM: A Need for Relevance  157

Gauri Khandekar

9 ASEM’S Process of Enlargement and Its Implications  173

Bart Gaens

10 ASEM for Europe: One Conduit Among Many  191

Gauri Khandekar

11 ASEM: An Asian Perspective  209

Roopmati Khandekar

12 Conclusion 237
Bart Gaens and Gauri Khandekar

Index  
243
 Contributors

Axel Berkofsky University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, e-mail: axel_berkofsky@

yahoo.com
Bart Gaens Senior Research Fellow The Finnish Institute of International
Affairs, Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: bart.gaens@fiia.fi
Gauri Khandekar Deputy Director and Director Europe Global Relations
Forum, Brussels, Belgium, e-mail: gkhandekar@gr-forum.org
Roopmati Khandekar Executive Director Global Relations Forum,
Pune, India, e-mail: Roopmati.khandekar@gmail.com
Silja Keva University Teacher Center for East Asian Studies, University
of Turku, Turku, Finland, e-mail: silja.keva@utu.fi
Huong Le Thu Visiting Fellow Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
Singapore, Singapore, e-mail: le2huong@gmail.com
Suet-Yi Lai Post-Doctoral Researcher Department of International
Relations, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, e-mail: laisuetyi@mail.
tsinghua.cn

vii
 List of Figures

Chapter 3 ASEM: Partnership for Greater Growth?

Fig. 1 Top 5 trading partners for ASEAN countries 40
Fig. 2 Main FTAs in Asia 41
Fig. 3 WTO-plus elements in Asian FTAs 45
Chapter 5 The Value-Added ASEM: The Socio-Cultural Dialogue
Fig. 1 Positioning levels of ASEM and ASEF work 93
Chapter 6 ASEM and the People’s Involvement: A Focus on the
Parliamentary Partnership (ASEP)
Fig. 1 ASEM family insiders and outsiders 109
Chapter 7 ASEM’S Media Exposure and the Promotion
of Connectivity Between Asian and European Publics
Fig. 1 Volume of total news items mentioning ASEM in each of the
10 summit periods and volume of news items in which
ASEM was the major focus 141
Fig. 2 Volume of news items mentioning ASEM in
Bangkok Post, Korea Herald and Strait Times142
Fig. 3 Percentage of Asian respondents who were not aware
of the ASEM process (n = 9448) 147

ix
x List of Figures

Fig. 4 Percentage of European respondents who were not

familiar with the ASEM process 148
Fig. 5 Percentage of Asian respondents who had no
personal or professional tie with any EU member state 149
Fig. 6 Percentage of European respondents who had no
personal or professional tie with any ASEM
Asian member state 150
Fig. 7 Percentage of Asian elites who had no personal
or professional tie with any EU member states 151
 List of Tables

Chapter 2 Two Decades of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM)

Table 1 Institutionalization of the ASEM process 24
Chapter 3 ASEM: Partnership for Greater Growth?
Table 1 Top five trading nations within ASEM
(2013, figures in millions of €)38
Table 2 Bilateral merchandise trade of Asian
countries with the EU (figures in millions of €)38
Table 3 Top 5 trading partners of Asian countries 39
Table 4 A comparison of Asian FTAs 47
Chapter 4 ASEM and the Security Agenda:
Talking the Talk but also Walking the Walk?
Table 1 Overview of security-related issues on the ASEM agenda 63
Chapter 7 ASEM’S Media Exposure and the
Promotion of Connectivity Between
Asian and European Publics
Table 1 English-language dailies monitored 134
Table 2 Periods of media data collection 135
Table 3 Sample sizes of the Asian public survey
in 2008, 2010, and 2012 137
Table 4 Public opinion sample in eight EU member states 137

xi
xii List of Tables

Table 5 Number of ASEM news items

collected in each monitored daily 140
Chapter 9 ASEM’S Process of Enlargement and Its Implications
Table 1 ASEM’s expansion 175
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Bart Gaens and Gauri Khandekar

Launched in 1996 as an initiative of the Singaporean and French govern-

ments to enhance Asia-Europe relations, the first Asia-Europe Meeting
(ASEM) summit in Bangkok, Thailand, in March 1996 brought together
the then 15 member states of the European Union (EU), the European
Commission, 7 members of the Association of East Asian Nations
(ASEAN) , China, South Korea, and Japan. Today, ASEM’s membership
has expanded to a total of 51 European and Asian nations, in addition
to the EU and the ASEAN Secretariat. ASEM remains the sole platform
dedicated exclusively to Asia-Europe relations and is increasingly trans-
forming into a Eurasian forum with recent membership expansions to
Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Still an intergovernmental platform
without the legal framework of an international organization, European
and Asian governments meet within its ambit to discuss the future of
inter-continental relations, interregional interaction at numerous levels,
and global affairs. In two decades of its existence, the forum has brought
together leaders from both sides, in addition to providing a continuous

B. Gaens (*)
The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: bart.gaens@fiia.fi
G. Khandekar
Global Relations Forum, Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: gkhandekar@gr-forum.org

© The Author(s) 2018 1

B. Gaens and G. Khandekar (eds.), Inter-Regional Relations
and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59764-9_1
2 B. Gaens and G. Khandekar

dialogue mechanism for officials, experts, parliamentarians, and civil soci-

ety on foreign affairs, economic, financial, environmental, cultural and
educational issues. As such, ASEM has promoted interregionalism in
unprecedented ways.
Furthermore, in the light of ASEM’s extraordinary growth over the
past two decades, the forum’s potential global weight is undeniable.
According to recent figures, the total population of ASEM countries
hovered around 4.6 billion in 2015, accounting for 62.1% of the global
population (Eurostat 2016a, p. 12). ASEM includes seven out of ten
of the world’s strongest economies, as well as regional powers such as
China, India, Japan, and Russia. It comprises two of the world’s most
integrated regions, the EU and Southeast Asia. It is therefore no sur-
prise that ASEM is also a juggernaut in terms of economy and trade.
According to EU figures, ASEM countries produced 57.6% of global
GDP1, and accounted for nearly 70% of global merchandise trade2 in
2014, namely 71% of exports, and 67% of all imports (Eurostat 2016b,
p. 1–2).
Nevertheless, Europe-Asia relations continue to perform below their
potential. Both regions recognize a shared future but fail to build a
sustainable path towards it. Strategic differences exist in political issues
such as the Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, security matters
including territorial disputes, and efforts to liberalize interregional trade.
Europe currently views Asia principally through a geopolitical lens, a per-
spective the EU as a sui generis organization finds hard to adapt. Today,
individual EU member states have lost the global weight they once bore
to have an impact on Asia’s turbulent geopolitics. Furthermore, when it
comes to trade, EU member states each follow a geoeconomic approach
towards Asia, which sees them competing against each other for prefer-
ential treatment in trade and investment, in particular in countries with
whom the EU does not have a free trade agreement (FTA). The EU has
endeavored to sign FTAs with almost all of its Asian ASEM partners, yet
its approach has lacked strategic direction, and most FTAs remain under
negotiation for nearly a decade. Third, the EU and individual member
states prioritize certain Asian countries such as China over other ASEM
members, which reflects poorly on Europe’s relations with other Asian
countries. As for Asia, geopolitical crises in the EU’s southern and east-
ern neighborhoods are less of a priority than economics. Asia’s key
consideration in relations with the EU and its member states concerns
bilateral trade and investment ties. For almost all of Asia (except perhaps
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

Japan, Australia, and New Zealand), geopolitical themes are sovereign

matters of a state. Most Asian countries continue to harbor a suspicion
of Europe given the continent’s colonial history. Trust remains an issue.
ASEM itself as an interregional forum at twenty years of age, in spite
of its potential global weight, is exposed to external criticism and faces
key internal hurdles. Most importantly, as the only platform solely dedi-
cated to Asia and Europe the process is seen as failing to play a relevant
role as a major international cooperation structure. Dubbed a mini-
United Nations, the forum is seen as lacking concrete outcomes, remain-
ing at the level of a talking shop. Most of ASEM’s initiatives lack visibility
and mass appeal. The general public’s awareness of ASEM as an actor in
the global power structure remains remarkably low. Internally, not all
member governments are equally involved, and some may even be losing
interest in the forum, at a time when it has become crucial to underscore
Europe-Asia relations in an increasingly interconnected world subject to
transnational crises. The lack of a shared vision and different opinions on
the way to move forward constitute some of ASEM’s greatest challenges.
Nevertheless, ASEM remains important for multiple reasons. First,
ASEM represents the combined weight of Asia and Europe, and under-
scores the political, economic, and sociocultural interdependency
between both continents. As such it serves as a mirror of the progress
that both regions have made in establishing a political dialogue including
on sensitive issues such as human rights; in promoting two-way trade and
investment; in enhancing cultural and social exchange; and in involving
different stakeholder groups in order to include a bottom-up dimension
to a summit-level process.
Second, ASEM remains a crucial test case of inter-regional engage-
ment in practice. It is certainly true that ASEM’s initial region-to-region
setup has transformed. Membership has expanded to include South and
Central Asian countries, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, and non-EU
countries Norway and Switzerland. Reflecting a world that is increasingly
multinodal (or multipolar) in nature, ASEM has evolved into a rather
diffuse and comprehensive transregional (Eurasian) gathering. The role
of well-integrated regions displaying a certain degree of actorness has
diminished, and an increasing resistance can be witnessed against the
transfer of sovereign power to transnational entities, as the EU’s internal
crisis and the outcome of the Brexit referendum show. Even so, ASEM
retains its “bipolar” structure and coordination, and improving the inter-
linkage (in all its dimensions) between both regions (or continents) has
4 B. Gaens and G. Khandekar

even turned into ASEM prime raison-d’être. ASEM therefore remains a

salient forum, not so much to examine pure region-to-region relations,
but to observe the interplay between multilateral, transregional, interre-
gional, subregional, and bilateral relations. It other words, it provides an
important opportunity to observe what happens to the contours of inter-
regionalism, when a large number of states and non-state actors from
two regions in addition to two regional organizations come together in
an international institution.
Third, ASEM’s significance as a dialogue forum is only growing, in
particular in an era of political polarization, increasing economic inequal-
ity, rising populism, and transnational challenges (often referred to as
non-traditional security challenges) such as climate change, sustainable
development, and migration. Importantly, ASEM is still a forum without
the United States. It therefore provides the opportunity for European
and Asian countries, the EU and ASEAN to promote a habit of coop-
eration and address shared interests in the economic or non-traditional
security sphere, even if both regions continue to entertain strong rela-
tions with the United States in terms of hard security. The absence of the
United States and the focus on dialogue can also continue facilitating the
engagement and “socialization” of emerging regional and global powers,
such as China, Russia, and India.
Fourth, ASEM’s role as a forum gathering not only political leaders,
but also businesspeople, academic communities, civil society representa-
tives and NGOs, parliaments, labor fora, and youth is gaining in impor-
tance. As this volume shows, ASEM’s “democratic dimension” has made
significant progress, and both horizontal communication between the
different stakeholder groups and the input they can deliver to the gov-
ernment level will be key defining factors for the future of the forum.
It can therefore be said that the ASEM process, bringing together a
highly diverse membership with different priorities, has made remark-
able achievements in transcending numerous differences. Not only has
it brought together the highest level of leadership in a cooperative envi-
ronment, but it has also connected a high number of other stakeholder
groups. The most recent summit in Mongolia, held under the over-
arching theme of “Partnership for the Future through Connectivity,”
endorsed a “strong resolve to work together to energize ASEM, pro-
mote further connectivity, mutually beneficial partnership and coop-
eration between Asia and Europe” (ASEM 2016). The future of
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Asia-Europe relations and of ASEM lies precisely in this ambition to con-

nect regions and their people.
On 15 and 16 July 2016, Heads of State and Government or their
high-level representatives from 51 European and Asian countries, and
leaders from EU and ASEAN institutions gathered in Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the ASEM process.
At this important junction, this edited volume sets out to look back at
ASEM’s two-decade history, by focusing on the process’s key dimen-
sions, defining themes, main driving forces, and core challenges. What
are ASEM’s achievements, and to what extent has ASEM withstood the
test of time? To what extent is external criticism, that ASEM has not
sufficiently promoted cooperation to the benefit of the peoples of both
regions, warranted? In addition, it is the overall aim of the book to scru-
tinize the current state of affairs within ASEM, and look ahead to the
future by pointing out possible new directions to re-energize the forum.
The second chapter by Bart Gaens frames the discussion to be dealt
with in more detail in the other chapters. It starts with a cursory over-
view of the evolving breadth of issue areas ASEM has aimed to tackle
in the course of two decades. It thereafter looks at the particularities
of ASEM’s institutional design, in order to explain the “ASEM Way,”
marked by a focus on informality, consensus, and dialogue. The chap-
ter also sketches ASEM’s changing contours as an interregional forum.
While ASEM was never about pure region-to-region interaction, in
recent years there has been a marked shift towards more transregional
relations and a new emphasis on bilateralism. Looking to the future, the
analysis singles out the tension between informality and institutionaliza-
tion, and the different opinions on whether to prioritize dialogue or tan-
gible outcomes, as two of ASEM’s key internal challenges.
Economy and trade were ASEM’s initial driving forces. Chapter 3
by Gauri Khandekar therefore first assesses ASEM’s so-called economic
pillar. She addresses the main causes of the limited progress in the eco-
nomic pillar, before looking at possible new directions and shifts in focus.
After two decades, it is clear that, while economic relations have contin-
ued to show strong growth, ASEM’s emphasis on economy has weak-
ened. The economic pillar is said to be in need of revitalization, the lack
of progress in economic cooperation is the target of criticism, and the
dialogue on trade and economy is in search of new directions.
The fourth chapter by Axel Berkofsky examines the security dialogue
within ASEM. Security has certainly achieved a much more prominent
6 B. Gaens and G. Khandekar

position in the ASEM dialogue during the past decade. However, the
chapter argues that there exists a strong discrepancy between the com-
prehensive security agenda and the pervasive dialogue taking place on
traditional and non-traditional security issues on the one hand, and
ASEM’s limited mandate and resources on the other. The author identi-
fies a number of issues that explain the gap between inflated expectations
and reality, and proposes a way forward based on realism and a more
confined agenda.
Focusing on the role of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF),
ASEM’s only institution, Chap. 5 by Huong Le Thu zooms in on the
value of social/cultural initiatives in the ASEM process. It looks at
ASEF’s history, development, and relation to the official ASEM process.
The author continues by analyzing the way ASEF has defined cultural
cooperation, and by critically evaluating the foundation’s role as a cul-
tural broker. While highly appraising ASEF’s role in ASEM’s third pillar,
the chapter also points out several weaknesses, challenges and limitations
that ASEF will need to address in the future.
Chapter 6 by Silja Keva examines the involvement of parliamentari-
ans from Europe and Asia in the ASEM process, through their participa-
tion in the Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership (ASEP). The analysis
explores ASEP from a threefold perspective. First, it looks at the link
with “the people” and ASEM’s democratic dimension, thereby contrib-
uting to the debate on democratic accountability and the so-called dem-
ocratic deficit in regional and global governance institutions. Second,
it assesses ASEP’s internal challenges and their relation to the official
Government summits. Third, the chapter analyzes ASEP’s correlation
with national parliaments and individual parliamentarians.
The focus on ASEM’s bottom-up dimension continues in Chap. 7
by Lai Suet-Yi. It explores ASEM’s engagement with non-state actors
and the involvement of stakeholders such as the general public and the
media. At the same time, the chapter conducts a thorough analysis of
ASEM’s lasting challenge of public visibility and awareness. The author
argues that, instead of seeking high visibility, ASEM should focus its lim-
ited resources on improving the quality of its public profile and on pro-
moting its core mission of boosting ties and raising awareness between
both regions. ASEM’s task ahead is to tackle the critique of being too
elite-oriented.
Chapter 8, by Gauri Khandekar, deals with ASEM’s attempts to
implement innovation. An internal process of “reinventing” ASEM has
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

been set in motion with the 2006 Summit in Helsinki, suggesting the
creation of a number of issue/interest-based groups of member coun-
tries to lead projects that could eventually involve others. Yet the chapter
places question marks on the viability of such “coalitions of the willing.”
Instead, the chapter explores whether ASEM could focus on two signa-
ture initiatives in areas of broadly shared interests that could involve all
members and deliver concrete and high-utility outputs with a focus on
connectivity and sustainability.
The following Chap. 9, by Bart Gaens, explores ASEM’s process of
widening and the implications this has had on the forum. Enlargement
is a sign of a forum’s success, but it also has ramifications for the inter-
regional structure, coordination, cohesion, working methods, and so on.
The chapter first provides a thorough overview of the different stages of
enlargement. It then looks at the formal rules for horizontal widening,
and how they tie in with how regions are defined, what role is played
by regional organizations, and how numerical balance between the two
groupings in ASEM plays a role. Enlargement has had an undeniable
impact on a number of issues, which are dealt with throughout the chap-
ters in this volume. This chapter zooms in on two in particular. First, it
looks at the influence enlargement had on cooperation on the ground,
and provides an alternate take on the “issue-based coalitions” also
addressed in the preceding chapter. Second, it looks at the ramifications
of widening on coordination and the attempts to streamline institutional
mechanisms.
Chapter 10, authored by Gauri Khandekar, examines European per-
ceptions of ASEM as a platform over the forum’s two-decade history,
revealing European priorities. ASEM forms an integral part of the inter-
action between Europe and Asia at both the interregional level and
among the group of countries involved. ASEM serves two crucial func-
tions: it is the only platform for Europe-Asia dialogue at an interconti-
nental level, and is the European strategic equivalent to the American-led
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) . The chapter critically
examines Europe’s objectives for ASEM, including how it seeks to utilize
it as a tool to engage with an economically strong region, as well as an
instrument to address and solve regional and global challenges. From a
more comprehensive angle, the chapter seeks to answer the question of
Asia’s strategic importance to Europe.
In Chap. 11, Roopmati Khandekar looks at Asian perspectives on
ASEM, starting from more general perceptions harbored by Asian
8 B. Gaens and G. Khandekar

countries vis-à-vis Europeans and the EU. The chapter gives a compre-
hensive, geographically-structured overview of the policy lines of the
main players in ASEM’s Asian grouping. As a result of the analysis, she
outlines the potential strengths of the forum, but also clearly demarcates
a number of pitfalls that for Asian countries in general may hamper a
more fruitful use of the ASEM forum.

Notes
1. The total global GDP was 58,741 billion euro, of which Europe contrib-
uted 25.3%. Asia’s share in the global economy is clearly rising, as opposed
to Europe’s. Europe’s share dropped from 32.5 to 25.3%, whereas the
shares of China, India and Russia increased significantly (Eurostat 2016a,
p. 16).
2. The EU accounts for approximately half of this figure, but its share in
total trade in goods is decreasing. In 1996 the EU contributed more than
three fifths of all ASEM trade flows, but in 2014, after the global financial
and economic crisis, the EU’s share fell to 50.6% of exports and 50.7% of
imports (Eurostat 2016a, p. 18).

References
ASEM. 2016. Chair’s Statement of the 11th ASEM Summit. 20 Years of ASEM:
Partnership for the Future through Connectivity. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, July
15–16, 2016.
Eurostat. 2016a. Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). A statistical portrait. Eurostat
Statistical Books. Brussels: European Union Publications Office.
Eurostat. 2016b. Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). International trade. Eurostat
Compact Guides. Brussels: European Union Publications Office.
 CHAPTER 2

Two Decades of the Asia-Europe Meeting

(ASEM)

Bart Gaens

1  Introduction
This chapter takes a closer look at the Asia-Europe Meeting as an inter-
regional forum for dialogue, in order to provide a wider context for the
other, more issue-specific chapters in this volume. The first section gives
a concise historical overview of ASEM’s evolving foci and issue areas,
from the forum’s foundation in 1996 until the most recent summit of
2016 in Mongolia. The chapter then zooms in on ASEM’s idiosyncratic
features as an international institution, in particular as one designed to
promote dialogue between countries from two regions. The analy-
sis thereafter looks at ASEM’s shifting contours and ongoing transition
from an interregional to a transregional forum. The chapter concludes by
looking ahead and pointing out two salient challenges, which divide the
forum: the twofold tension between informality and institutionalization,
and between dialogue and tangible outcomes.

B. Gaens (*)
The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: bart.gaens@fiia.fi

© The Author(s) 2018 9

B. Gaens and G. Khandekar (eds.), Inter-Regional Relations
and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59764-9_2
10 B. Gaens

2   Historical Background: ASEM as an Evolving

Forum
During the two decades since its founding in 1996, ASEM has evolved
in a remarkable fashion. As outlined in more detail in Chap. 9, ASEM
has transformed from an originally 26-member gathering into a vast
summit of 53 partners including 51 states and 2 regional organiza-
tions from Asia and Europe. Also thematically ASEM has transformed
markedly. A child of the post-Cold-War environment, the forum was
conceived at a time when the global economic structure came to be
described in terms of “tripolarity.” This was based on the idea of geo-
economics, namely that economic competitiveness forms a source of
political power (cf. Luttwak 1990; Baru 2012). After the collapse of
the Soviet Union, three major blocs, namely North America, East Asia,
and Western Europe, were seen as driving the global economy. One of
ASEM’s main objectives was to promote the connections between East
Asia and Europe, as these were regarded as being underdeveloped when
compared to both Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic ties. ASEM thus set
out to “close the triangle” or “bridge the missing link” by balancing the
relations between the three engines of the global economy.
It was therefore no surprise that economy and trade were ASEM’s
initial main driving forces. For the European Union (EU), East Asia’s
“miraculous” economic growth as of the 1980s formed an important
incentive to seek rapprochement with Asia. The rise of strongly perform-
ing economies, and the gradual increase in intraregional trade and invest-
ments made East Asia the most dynamic region in the world. The creation
of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 1989 formed an
additional incentive for Europe to try and re-establish deeper links with
countries and groupings in the Asian region. Reinforcing relations with
the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) while at the same
time engaging China into the global system played a particular role
here. The European Commission’s Communication entitled “Towards a
New Asia Strategy” of 1994 was a clear sign of Europe’s “turn to Asia”
(European Commission 1994). The document also articulated the EU’s
deepening political integration, with the 1992 Maastricht Treaty intro-
ducing the Common Foreign and Security policy (CFSP) as a milestone.
Europe’s Asia Strategy therefore emphasized the EU’s strengthened iden-
tity as a political actor on the global stage, underscored by a strong focus
on normative objectives such as the promotion of democracy, rule of law,
and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
 2 TWO DECADES OF THE ASIA-EUROPE MEETING (ASEM) 11

East Asian countries on the other hand were strongly aware of Europe
as an export market and as a source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
in developing Asia. At the same time, the threat of stifling economic
competition and the fear of a protectionist EU (“Fortress Europe”)
formed important rationales. For Asians, the promotion of economic ties
with the EU was therefore a key underlying reason for seeking stronger
ties. Not least importantly, ASEAN aimed to promote itself as the driver
of regional economic integration, and as a dynamic and confident politi-
cal actor. Furthermore, balancing an economically powerful and poten-
tially unilateral United States was a local incentive to intensify relations
with Europe. At the level of identity politics, East Asia was also eager to
lay the ghosts of the colonial past to rest, and establish relations between
equal partners with European countries.
Against this backdrop, Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong
first floated the idea of a summit-level dialogue between both regions in
October 1994, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) (Goh 2015). His
proposal received backing from ASEAN. In Europe, it was France that
lobbied strongly at the EU level, during its Presidency of the European
Council in the first half of 1995.1 After the European Council endorsed
the initiative in June 1995, the agreement was struck to build an interre-
gional partnership revolving around the three “baskets” of political dia-
logue, economic cooperation, and social/cultural ties. The first summit
took place in Bangkok in March 1996, and welcomed 26 participants,
including 15 EU member states plus the European Commission, and
seven-member ASEAN in addition to China, Japan, and the Republic
of Korea (ROK). Europe and Asia formally agreed to engage in a pro-
cess of “mutual re-discovery” by fostering political dialogue, reinforcing
economic links, and promoting cooperation in fields such as science and
technology, education, environment, development, and people-to-people
exchanges. The Bangkok summit marked the beginning of the ASEM
process, highlighted by biennial summits at the level of Heads of State
and Government. In addition to the summits, the process gave birth to a
plethora of other meetings, seminars, workshops, and activities, at minis-
terial, senior official, and expert levels. Furthermore, ASEM also set out
to bring together representatives of parliaments, the business community,
civil society, youth, academia, and media in an interregional context.
As elaborated upon in Chap. 3, ASEM took a flying start in terms
of initiatives geared toward the promotion of trade, economy, and
investment. At least as important for ASEM’s future development was
the emphasis on non-interference, which was applied in order to keep
12 B. Gaens

“sensitive” topics such as human rights off the table and prioritize
economic cooperation. The first ASEM Chair’s Statement of 1996
(ASEM1) stipulated that “the dialogue among the participating coun-
tries should be conducted on the basis of mutual respect, equality, pro-
motion of fundamental rights and, in accordance with the rules of
international law and obligations, non-intervention, whether direct or
indirect, in each other’s internal affairs.” This phrase was repeated in the
Asia-Europe Cooperation Framework (AECF2000), ASEM’s core char-
ter, and has been invoked on numerous occasions, in the first place by
ASEAN countries as well as by China.
The 1997–1978 Asian Financial Crisis, however, stifled the optimism
concerning Asia-Europe economic cooperation and trade liberalization.
It also challenged the ASEAN way including values such as non-inter-
ventionism, and boosted the EU’s return to value-based foreign policy
(Wang 2012, p. 20). At the same time the crisis set in motion a grad-
ual “securitization” process of the ASEM agenda, which was further
enhanced by the attacks of 9/11 and their aftermath, and the 2003 War
in Iraq (Hänggi 2004, pp. 93–94). Whereas ASEM2, held in London in
1998, was preoccupied with dealing with the fallout of the AFC, ASEM3
(Seoul 2000) focused on the situation on the Korean Peninsula. ASEM4
(Copenhagen 2002) paid attention to the root causes of terrorism, and
aimed to promote interfaith and inter-civilizational dialogue. The run-
up to ASEM5 in 2004 further focused the agenda on anti-terrorism and
non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
As of 2004 the intra-institutional challenge of enlargement and its
implications took on a central role in ASEM. The contested member-
ship of Myanmar hampered relations between the EU and ASEAN, and
caused an impasse in the ASEM dialogue. Furthermore, the ASEM6
summit in Helsinki (2006) took the landmark decision to broaden the
Asian grouping in ASEM beyond its ASEAN+3 constellation. It resulted
in a gradual expansion process to include strongly emerging global play-
ers such as India as well as Russia, and to further branch out into Central
Asia and Australasia. Partly in order to facilitate cooperation among an
expanding number of countries, the ASEM6 summit launched the con-
cept of issue-based leadership, allowing informal functional groups
of states to drive forward tangible cooperation based on their interests
through coalitions with other countries.
The global financial crisis (2007–2008) prompted the ensuing ASEM7
(Beijing 2008), ASEM8 (Brussels 2010), and ASEM9 (Vientiane 2012)
 2 TWO DECADES OF THE ASIA-EUROPE MEETING (ASEM) 13

summits to return the focus to economic and financial governance.

Summit hosts China and Laos in particular used the opportunity to try
and re-launch trade and investment liberalization measures in ASEM.
At the same time ASEM started to pay more attention to issues that
can be placed under the label of non-traditional security (NTS). These
“new,” “soft,” or NTS challenges included environmental degradation,
disaster management, infectious diseases, migration, transnational crime,
and illicit trafficking. More than on states, the emphasis came to lie on
society, communities, people, and sustainable development. ASEM was
perceived as a valuable tool to promote consensus-building, to share
experiences through informal consultations, and to build a common
agenda in the sphere of NTS, for example in issues such as customs coop-
eration and the fight against piracy.
The ASEM10 summit (Milan 2014), held under the theme of
“Responsible Partnership for Sustainable Growth and Security,” illus-
trated well the new focus on sustainable development. Water manage-
ment and education in particular stand out as issues in which ASEM
can serve as a valuable forum to share experiences and best practices.
Education, for example, can contribute to lifting people out of poverty,
preventing social exclusion, and promoting more sustainable growth.
Dialogue and cooperation on compulsory education, on the use of
new technologies in education, or on the development of employment-
promoting skills are a promising area of cooperation, especially since, as
of (2009), ASEM comprises a “sectoral secretariat” to ensure continuity
and follow-up. The ASEM Education Secretariat functions on the basis
of rotation and is hosted by one ASEM country for the term of 4 years,
while other ASEM members are invited to second staff to the secretariat.
Germany hosted the secretariat in Bonn for the first 4 years, after which
Jakarta, Indonesia, took over in 2013. Belgium will host the secretariat
as of Autumn 2017.
As of the latest ASEM11 summit (Ulaanbaatar 2016), all attention is
geared toward connectivity. Connectivity is a very broad concept which
can imply political connectivity (political and diplomatic linkages); physi-
cal connectivity and hard infrastructure (transport by air, road, rail, or
sea); institutional connectivity and soft infrastructure (customs integra-
tion, liberalization of trade and services); technological connectivity
(technology and innovation); and people-to-people connectivity (tour-
ism, education, culture, exchanges between think tank and research
communities). As such it encapsulates ASEM’s evolving foci in one key
14 B. Gaens

overarching banner, tying together trade, economy, sustainable devel-

opment, and people-to-people exchanges. The most recent summit
confirmed enhanced connectivity as an objective that should be main-
streamed in all ASEM cooperation frameworks.

3  Institutional Design: ASEM as an International

Forum for Dialogue
ASEM’s focal points and themes have thus evolved in the course of two
decades, often in parallel to a transforming international environment.
The process’s core philosophy, working methods, and general objec-
tives, however, have not changed dramatically. The forum’s founding
principles, working methods and meeting format were enshrined in the
year 2000 in the Asia-Europe Cooperation Framework (AECF), the
basic charter outlining the “ASEM Way” which can be said to consist of
five core components. First, ASEM is comprehensive and multidimen-
sional. The agenda therefore covers all aspects of relations between the
two regions, multilateral, interregional, subregional, as well as bilateral,
including issues related to politics and security, economy and trade, and
the sociocultural field. Second, dialogue is a goal in and of itself. ASEM
was in the first place intended to serve as a platform fostering “mutual
understanding and enhanced awareness through dialogue” (European
Commission 1997) between two regional groupings. At the same time,
the dialogue aimed to result in the identification of common ground
and of priorities for concerted and supportive action. The process was
to be conducted on the basis of equal partnership, mutual respect and
joint benefit. Third, ASEM was intended to evolve in an open fashion.
This applied in the first place to membership and partnership expan-
sion, which aimed to be inclusive and conducted on the basis of con-
sensus (see Chap. 9). But the topics and themes tackled by ASEM were
to evolve as well. It was foreseen that ASEM’s agenda would inevitably
change along with the transforming global environment, not in the least
because the forum intended to act as a political catalyst contributing to
the ongoing cooperation at other levels of global governance, includ-
ing the UN or the WTO. Furthermore, ASEM’s internal development
would steer the evolving agenda—new members would add potential
and dynamism to the ASEM partnership, and drive the dialogue and
cooperation forward in new directions.
 2 TWO DECADES OF THE ASIA-EUROPE MEETING (ASEM) 15

Informality was a fourth key component of the process. The loose,

non-binding and informal character as well as the comprehensive scope
of the meeting derived in the first place from the novelty of the dialogue
between the EU and Asia, a region that was regarded not only as very
large but also as highly heterogeneous (European Commission 1996, p.
4). It was seen that an emphasis on informality would facilitate a non-
binding exchange of views, experiences, and expertise on any topical and
relevant political issue. Informality would also allow leaders of states and
representatives of regions to confer with each other on topical and timely
issues, while at the same time fostering closer personal and professional
relationships. Dialogue would lead to a socialization process, which
in turn would result in cooperation while at the same time smoothen-
ing progress in other multilateral, interregional, or bilateral contexts.
ASEM’s informal approach furthermore allows it to address issues that
are considered “sensitive.” In other words, it reduces obstacles to dia-
logue and cooperation, allowing for flexibility, speed, privacy, simplicity,
and a swift adaptation to changed circumstances (Lipson 1991, p. 500).
Fifth and not least importantly, ASEM was intended to be a high-level
gathering as well as a bottom-up process. The forum aimed to provide
the opportunity for group-to-group and intergovernmental contacts at
the Heads of State and Government level as well as at ministerial and
official levels. At the same time, the explicit goal was to broaden the
dialogue beyond the government level, and allow for bottom-up input
in the discussions at higher levels. ASEM therefore from the outset
expected to include civil society, an inter-parliamentary dialogue, and a
meeting of business leaders (European Commission 1996, p. 12). The
increasing involvement of youth and social actors is only the logical con-
tinuation of this idea.
ASEM’s institutional design can be explained using both rationalist
(the logic of consequences) and constructivist (the logic of appropriate-
ness) perspectives. First, the forum’s membership, scope, centralization,
control, and flexibility can be accounted for by applying the rational-
choice argument (Koremenos et al. 2001, p. 762) that “states use
international institutions to further their own goals, and they design
institutions accordingly.” As for membership, an institution should
restrict its membership as an enforcement problem poses itself, that is,
as collective action based on voluntary contributions to group goals fails
to deliver (Koremenos et al. 2001, p. 783). However, as not cooperation
16 B. Gaens

but dialogue is ASEM’s prime stated aim, and an enforcement prob-

lem does not arise, membership can be open, and extended to parlia-
ments and non-state actors. Importantly however, ASEM has limited
itself to comprehensively defined geographic regions of Asia and Europe
(Eurasia), and hence excludes the United States. This was an important
factor in the early years, but the risk of a more inward-turned United
States during the Trump Presidency likely increases ASEM’s importance
again.
Issue scope dealt with by an institution increases with heterogene-
ity among larger numbers of actors (Koremenos et al. 2001, p. 785).
ASEM’s stated objective is to carry forward three key dimensions or pil-
lars: fostering political dialogue, reinforcing economic cooperation, and
promoting cooperation in other areas (cultural, social, and people-to-
people). Crosscutting these pillars, issues have proliferated along with
growing membership and increasing heterogeneity. The recent focus
on connectivity, for example, interlinks political exchange, economic
integration, trade and investment, sustainable development, and people-
to-people contacts.
Furthermore, according to rationalist theory, centralization increases
with number (Koremenos et al. 2001, p. 788). Thus far ASEM has
shown increasing centralization of information, but aversion toward
institutionalization remains high, again due to the emphasis on dialogue
and not on tangible outcomes. The forum still lacks a secretariat, and as
an informal process is only very loosely institutionalized. It does include
one institution, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), which focuses on
cooperation in the socio-cultural dimension, that is, the so-called third
pillar (see Chap. 6). Furthermore, ASEM does not have a Secretary-
General.
The control factor in ASEM, in other words the body of rules for
controlling the institution, is strongly embedded in equality and con-
sensus. To decide on membership enlargement for example, a candi-
date country first needs to get support among the partners of its own
region, before acquiring the approval of all the participants in the other
region. As numbers increase, individual control decreases (Koremenos
et al. 2001, p. 791). ASEM’s growth can therefore also be explained as
an attempt to dilute the influence of individual countries. At the same
time, however, it cannot be denied that, as asymmetry among partners
increases with enlargement, larger and more powerful individual coun-
tries hold greater sway in the institution.
 2 TWO DECADES OF THE ASIA-EUROPE MEETING (ASEM) 17

ASEM’s flexibility is high, as the institution emphasizes process over

product, and allows for a low-profile discussion of issues on the global
agenda without too much public scrutiny. ASEM is therefore often seen
as a very Asian structure, closely incorporating elements of the so-called
ASEAN Way and involving a high degree of discretion, privacy, prag-
matism, informality, consensus-building, non-confrontation, and non-
interference. As a result, ASEM does bear similarities to ASEAN-driven
fora that value form over substance, often “confusing a proliferation of
meetings and acronyms for a deepening of ties” (Banyan 2016).
In addition to the rationalist argument, ASEM’s institutional design
can be described in terms of constructivist models that “do not contra-
dict rational-design theory but embed it within broader social or his-
torical contexts that construct its elements (preferences, beliefs, and so
on)” (Wendt 2001, p. 1021). According to the logic of appropriateness,
states design institutions on the basis of what is normatively appropri-
ate. For example, in the early-1990s when ASEM was conceived, EU
member states were seeking to re-establish ties with former colonies
in Southeast Asia, while at the same time aiming to engage or increase
interaction with countries in Northeast Asia. For the EU countries, a
focus on equality and consensus seemed normatively appropriate when
dealing with former colonies, and an “Asian” institutional design aiming
to promote informal dialogue was probably regarded as the proper way
to seek closer ties with other Asian countries. Asian countries, for their
part, regarded informal dialogue and soft institutionalization as desirable
in order to bridge the perceived gap in communication between two dis-
tinct regions. ASEM is therefore also rooted in Habermas’s concept of
communicative rationality, which, unlike strategic rationality, is aimed at
achieving consensus or understanding through deliberation and persua-
sion (Wendt 2001, p. 1046).
Dialogue and networking are thus core ingredients of the ASEM pro-
cess. At the very basic level, it provides a forum to address a wide vari-
ety of international matters through dialogue, while at the same time
helping to increase understanding through people-to-people contacts. It
does not seek to make decisions or negotiate treaties, but to have indi-
rect policy-shaping effects based on networking and alliance-building.
As contended by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier,
“(w)ith ASEM cooperation, we are not looking for front-page news. It
is rather the long-term and patient weaving of ties and networks that we
work on, connecting Asia and Europe in an active partnership—ready for
18 B. Gaens

the next decades” (Steinmeier 2016). In other words, ASEM caters to

the very basic need for communication and interaction. As such ASEM
“helps to reduce tensions, it promotes understanding, and it compels
both sides to strengthen their own internal coordination—a feat in itself.
Neither Asia nor Europe is a monolithic bloc: within each bloc, partners
have their differences. Talking to each other in groupings makes us tran-
scend these differences, or at least try to do so” (Ayrault 2016).
It is clear that this basic approach—the value of non-confrontational
dialogue and the search for consensus—can be criticized. As mentioned
above, ASEM’s approach bears similarities to the ASEAN Way, in that
the point of departure seems to be that “the overarching consensus is to
have a consensus, usually in the form of a post-summit joint statement”
(Banyan 2016, p. 46). Countries such as China, Laos, and Cambodia
emphasize that ASEM is not a suitable forum to discuss contentious
issues, and that they should be dealt with bilaterally. In spite of efforts by
Japan, for example, to include issues such as China’s actions in the South
China Sea in the Chair’s Statement, the EU in general exercises restraint,
wary of affronting China.
On the positive side, the dialogue and outcome documents of sum-
mits can also result in an outline of joint policies and concrete deliv-
erables that can be achieved elsewhere, for example in the field of
development. The ASEM11 Chair’s Statement, for example, included
both the generally agreed principles on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development and its implementation. These included an agreement to,
externally, contribute to the follow-up and review of the UN and other
global institutions, and, internally, to share best practices and experiences
(ASEM 2016a). ASEM dialogue, therefore, often limits itself to the
lowest common denominator but at its best it allows leaders from both
regions to confirm their commitment to global goals, and pave the way
for implementable steps for action.
Furthermore, ASEM as a dialogue forum provides the opportunity
for bilateral meetings, thereby serving as a rationalizing agent. Allowing
Heads of State and Government to engage with their counterparts from
other countries in informal bilateral meetings behind closed doors and
in rapid succession, has been and still is one of ASEM’s main attrac-
tions. For example, at the ASEM Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (FMM8) in
Hamburg in 2007, over 60 bilateral meetings took place in the sidelines
of the official gathering, offering opportunities “to get to know each
other, to sound out common ground—and also to get an idea of the
Another random document with
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predecessors can have nothing to say to this question, however they
may have anticipated us on others; future ages, in all probability, will
not trouble their heads about it; we are the panel. How hard, then,
not to avail ourselves of our immediate privilege to give sentence of
life or death—to seem in ignorance of what every one else is full of—
to be behind-hand with the polite, the knowing, and fashionable part
of mankind—to be at a loss and dumb-founded, when all around us
are in their glory, and figuring away, on no other ground than that of
having read a work that we have not! Books that are to be written
hereafter cannot be criticised by us; those that were written formerly
have been criticised long ago: but a new book is the property, the
prey of ephemeral criticism, which it darts triumphantly upon; there
is a raw thin air of ignorance and uncertainty about it, not filled up
by any recorded opinion; and curiosity, impertinence, and vanity
rush eagerly into the vacuum. A new book is the fair field for
petulance and coxcombry to gather laurels in—the butt set up for
roving opinion to aim at. Can we wonder, then, that the circulating
libraries are besieged by literary dowagers and their granddaughters,
when a new novel is announced? That Mail-Coach copies of the
Edinburgh Review are or were coveted? That the Manuscript of the
Waverley romances is sent abroad in time for the French, German, or
even Italian translation to appear on the same day as the original
work, so that the longing Continental public may not be kept waiting
an instant longer than their fellow-readers in the English metropolis,
which would be as tantalising and insupportable as a little girl being
kept without her new frock, when her sister’s is just come home and
is the talk and admiration of every one in the house? To be sure,
there is something in the taste of the times; a modern work is
expressly adapted to modern readers. It appeals to our direct
experience, and to well-known subjects; it is part and parcel of the
world around us, and is drawn from the same sources as our daily
thoughts. There is, therefore, so far, a natural or habitual sympathy
between us and the literature of the day, though this is a different
consideration from the mere circumstance of novelty. An author now
alive has a right to calculate upon the living public: he cannot count
upon the dead, nor look forward with much confidence to those that
are unborn. Neither, however, is it true that we are eager to read all
new books alike: we turn from them with a certain feeling of distaste
and distrust, unless they are recommended to us by some peculiar
feature or obvious distinction. Only young ladies from the boarding-
school, or milliners’ girls, read all the new novels that come out. It
must be spoken of or against; the writer’s name must be well known
or a great secret; it must be a topic of discourse and a mark for
criticism—that is, it must be likely to bring us into notice in some
way—or we take no notice of it. There is a mutual and tacit
understanding on this head. We can no more read all the new books
that appear, than we can read all the old ones that have disappeared
from time to time. A question may be started here, and pursued as
far as needful, whether, if an old and worm-eaten Manuscript were
discovered at the present moment, it would be sought after with the
same avidity as a new and hot-pressed poem, or other popular work?
Not generally, certainly, though by a few with perhaps greater zeal.
For it would not affect present interests, or amuse present fancies, or
touch on present manners, or fall in with the public egotism in any
way: it would be the work either of some obscure author—in which
case it would want the principle of excitement; or of some illustrious
name, whose style and manner would be already familiar to those
most versed in the subject, and his fame established—so that, as a
matter of comment and controversy, it would only go to account on
the old score: there would be no room for learned feuds and heart-
burnings. Was there not a Manuscript of Cicero’s talked of as having
been discovered about a year ago? But we have heard no more of it.
There have been several other cases, more or less in point, in our
time or near it. A Noble Lord (which may serve to shew at least the
interest taken in books not for being new) some time ago gave
2000l. for a copy of the first edition of the Decameron: but did he
read it? It has been a fashion also of late for noble and wealthy
persons to go to a considerable expense in ordering reprints of the
old Chronicles and black-letter works. Does not this rather prove that
the books did not circulate very rapidly or extensively, or such
extraordinary patronage and liberality would not have been
necessary? Mr. Thomas Taylor, at the instance, I believe, of the old
Duke of Norfolk, printed fifty copies in quarto of a translation of the
works of Plato and Aristotle. He did not choose that a larger
impression should be struck off, lest these authors should get into
the hands of the vulgar. There was no danger of a run in that way. I
tried to read some of the Dialogues in the translation of Plato, but, I
confess, could make nothing of it: ‘the logic was so different from
ours!’[34] A startling experiment was made on this sort of
retrospective curiosity, in the case of Ireland’s celebrated Shakspeare
forgery. The public there certainly manifested no backwardness nor
lukewarmness: the enthusiasm was equal to the folly. But then the
spirit exhibited on this occasion was partly critical and polemical,
and it is a problem whether an actual and undoubted play of
Shakspeare’s would have excited the same ferment; and, on the other
hand, Shakspeare is an essential modern. People read and go to see
his real plays, as well as his pretended ones. The fuss made about
Ossian is another test to refer to. It was its being the supposed
revival of an old work (known only by scattered fragments or
lingering tradition) which gave it its chief interest, though there was
also a good deal of mystery and quackery concerned along with the
din and stir of national jealousy and pretension. Who reads Ossian
now? It is one of the reproaches brought against Buonaparte that he
was fond of it when young. I cannot for myself see the objection.
There is no doubt an antiquarian spirit always at work, and opposed
to the spirit of novelty-hunting; but, though opposed, it is scarcely a
match for it in a general and popular point of view. It is not long ago
that I happened to be suggesting a new translation of Don Quixote to
an enterprising bookseller; and his answer was,—‘We want new Don
Quixotes.’ I believe I deprived the same active-minded person of a
night’s rest, by telling him there was the beginning of another novel
by Goldsmith in existence. This, if it could be procured, would satisfy
both tastes for the new and the old at once. I fear it is but a fragment,
and that we must wait till a new Goldsmith appears. We may observe
of late a strong craving after Memoirs and Lives of the Dead. But
these, it may be remarked, savour so much of the real and familiar,
that the persons described differ from us only in being dead, which is
a reflection to our advantage: or, if remote and romantic in their
interest and adventures, they require to be bolstered up in some
measure by the embellishments of modern style and criticism. The
accounts of Petrarch and Laura, of Abelard and Eloise, have a
lusciousness and warmth in the subject which contrast quaintly and
pointedly with the coldness of the grave; and, after all, we prefer
Pope’s Eloise and Abelard with the modern dress and flourishes, to
the sublime and affecting simplicity of the original Letters.
In some very just and agreeable reflections on the story of Abelard
and Eloise, in a late number of a contemporary publication, there is a
quotation of some lines from Lucan, which Eloise is said to have
repeated in broken accents as she was advancing to the altar to
receive the veil:
‘O maxime conjux!
O thalamis indigne meis! Hoc juris habebat
In tantum fortuna caput? Cur impia nupsi,
Si miserum factura fui? Nunc accipe pœnas,
Sed quas sponte luam.’ Pharsalia, lib. 8.

This speech, quoted by another person, on such an occasion, might

seem cold and pedantic; but from the mouth of the passionate and
unaffected Eloise it cannot bear that interpretation. What sounding
lines! What a pomp, and yet what a familiar boldness in their
application—‘proud as when blue Iris bends!’ The reading this
account brought forcibly to mind what has struck me often before—
the unreasonableness of the complaint we constantly hear of the
ignorance and barbarism of former ages, and the folly of restricting
all refinement and literary elegance to our own. We are indeed,
indebted to the ages that have gone before us, and could not well do
without them. But in all ages there will be found still others that have
gone before with nearly equal lustre and advantage, though by
distance and the intervention of multiplied excellence, this lustre
may be dimmed or forgotten. Had it then no existence? We might,
with the same reason, suppose that the horizon is the last boundary
and verge of the round earth. Still, as we advance, it recedes from us;
and so time from its store-house pours out an endless succession of
the productions of art and genius; and the farther we explore the
obscurity, other trophies and other landmarks rise up. It is only our
ignorance that fixes a limit—as the mist gathered round the
mountain’s brow makes us fancy we are treading the edge of the
universe! Here was Heloise living at a period when monkish
indolence and superstition were at their height—in one of those that
are emphatically called the dark ages; and yet, as she is led to the
altar to make her last fatal vow, expressing her feelings in language
quite natural to her, but from which the most accomplished and
heroic of our modern females would shrink back with pretty and
affected wonder and affright. The glowing and impetuous lines which
she murmured, as she passed on, with spontaneous and rising
enthusiasm, were engraven on her heart, familiar to her as her daily
thoughts; her mind must have been full of them to overflowing, and
at the same time enriched with other stores and sources of
knowledge equally elegant and impressive; and we persist,
notwithstanding this and a thousand similar circumstances, in
indulging our surprise how people could exist, and see, and feel, in
those days, without having access to our opportunities and
acquirements, and how Shakspeare wrote long after, in a barbarous
age! The mystery in this case is of our own making. We are struck
with astonishment at finding a fine moral sentiment or a noble image
nervously expressed in an author of the age of Queen Elizabeth; not
considering that, independently of nature and feeling, which are the
same in all periods, the writers of that day, who were generally men
of education and learning, had such models before them as the one
that has been just referred to—were thoroughly acquainted with
those masters of classic thought and language, compared with whom,
in all that relates to the artificial graces of composition, the most
studied of the moderns are little better than Goths and Vandals. It is
true, we have lost sight of, and neglected the former, because the
latter have, in a great degree, superseded them, as the elevations
nearest to us intercept those farthest off; but our not availing
ourselves of this vantage-ground is no reason why our forefathers
should not (who had not our superfluity of choice), and most
assuredly they did study and cherish the precious fragments of
antiquity, collected together in their time, ‘like sunken wreck and
sumless treasuries;’ and while they did this, we need be at no loss to
account for any examples of grace, of force, or dignity in their
writings, if these must always be traced back to a previous source.
One age cannot understand how another could subsist without its
lights, as one country thinks every other must be poor for want of its
physical productions. This is a narrow and superficial view of the
subject: we should by all means rise above it. I am not for devoting
the whole of our time to the study of the classics, or of any other set
of writers, to the exclusion and neglect of nature; but I think we
should turn our thoughts enough that way to convince us of the
existence of genius and learning before our time, and to cure us of an
overweening conceit of ourselves, and of a contemptuous opinion of
the world at large. Every civilised age and country (and of these there
is not one, but a hundred) has its literature, its arts, its comforts,
large and ample, though we may know nothing of them; nor is it
(except for our own sakes) important that we should.
Books have been so multiplied in our days (like the Vanity Fair of
knowledge), and we have made such progress beyond ourselves in
some points, that it seems at first glance as if we had monopolised
every possible advantage, and the rest of the world must be left
destitute and in darkness. This is the cockneyism (with leave be it
spoken) of the nineteenth century. There is a tone of smartness and
piquancy in modern writing, to which former examples may, in one
sense, appear flat and pedantic. Our allusions are more pointed and
personal: the ancients are, in this respect, formal and prosaic
personages. Some one, not long ago, in this vulgar, shallow spirit of
criticism (which sees every thing from its own point of view), said
that the tragedies of Sophocles and Æschylus were about as good as
the pieces brought out at Sadler’s Wells or the Adelphi Theatre. An
oration of Demosthenes is thought dry and meagre, because it is not
‘full of wise saws and modern instances:’ one of Cicero’s is objected
to as flimsy and extravagant, for the same reason. There is a style in
one age which does not fall in with the taste of the public in another,
as it requires greater effeminacy and softness, greater severity or
simplicity, greater force or refinement. Guido was more admired
than Raphael in his day, because the manners were grown softer
without the strength: Sir Peter Lely was thought in his to have
eclipsed Vandyke—an opinion that no one holds at present:
Holbein’s faces must be allowed to be very different from Sir Thomas
Lawrence’s—yet the one was the favourite painter of Henry VIII., as
the other is of George IV. What should we say in our time to the
euphuism of the age of Elizabeth, when style was made a riddle, and
the court talked in conundrums? This, as a novelty and a trial of the
wits, might take for a while: afterwards, it could only seem absurd.
We must always make some allowance for a change of style, which
those who are accustomed to read none but works written within the
last twenty years neither can nor will make. When a whole
generation read, they will read none but contemporary productions.
The taste for literature becomes superficial, as it becomes universal
and is spread over a larger space. When ten thousand boarding-
school girls, who have learnt to play on the harpsichord, are brought
out in the same season, Rossini will be preferred to Mozart, as the
last new composer. I remember a very genteel young couple in the
boxes at Drury Lane being very much scandalised some years ago at
the phrase in A New Way to Pay Old Debts—‘an insolent piece of
paper’—applied to the contents of a letter—it wanted the modern
lightness and indifference. Let an old book be ever so good, it treats
(generally speaking) of topics that are stale in a style that has grown
‘somewhat musty;’ of manners that are exploded, probably by the
very ridicule thus cast upon them; of persons that no longer figure on
the stage; and of interests that have long since given place to others
in the infinite fluctuations of human affairs. Longinus complains of
the want of interest in the Odyssey, because it does not, like the Iliad,
treat of war. The very complaint we make against the latter is that it
treats of nothing else; or that, as Fuseli expresses it, every thing is
seen ‘through the blaze of war.’ Books of devotion are no longer read
(if we read Irving’s Orations, it is merely that we may go as a lounge
to see the man): even attacks on religion are out of date and insipid.
Voltaire’s jests, and the Jew’s Letters in answer (equal in wit, and
more than equal in learning), repose quietly on the shelf together.
We want something in England about Rent and the Poor Laws, and
something in France about the Charter—or Lord Byron. With the
attempts, however, to revive superstition and intolerance, a spirit of
opposition has been excited, and Pascall’s Provincial Letters have
been once more enlisted into the service. In France you meet with no
one who has read the New Heloise: the Princess of Cleves is not even
mentioned in these degenerate days. Is it not provoking with us to
see the Beggar’s Opera cut down to two acts, because some of the
allusions are too broad, and others not understood? And in America
—that Van Diemen’s Land of letters—this sterling satire is hooted off
the stage, because fortunately they have no such state of manners as
it describes before their eyes; and because, unfortunately, they have
no conception of any thing but what they see. America is singularly
and awkwardly situated in this respect. It is a new country with an
old language; and while every thing about them is of a day’s growth,
they are constantly applying to us to know what to think of it, and
taking their opinions from our books and newspapers with a strange
mixture of servility and of the spirit of contradiction. They are an
independent state in politics: in literature they are still a colony from
us—not out of their leading strings, and strangely puzzled how to
determine between the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. We have
naturalised some of their writers, who had formed themselves upon
us. This is at once a compliment to them and to ourselves. Amidst
the scramble and lottery for fame in the present day, besides puffing,
which may be regarded as the hotbed of reputation, another mode
has been attempted by transplanting it; and writers who are set
down as drivellers at home, shoot up great authors on the other side
of the water; pack up their all—a title-page and sufficient impudence;
and a work, of which the flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication, in
Shenstone’s phrase, is well known to every competent judge, is
placarded into eminence, and ‘flames in the forehead of the morning
sky’ on the walls of Paris or St. Petersburgh. I dare not mention the
instances, but so it is. Some reputations last only while the
possessors live, from which one might suppose that they gave
themselves a character for genius: others are cried up by their
gossiping acquaintances, as long as they give dinners, and make their
houses places of polite resort; and, in general, in our time, a book
may be considered to have passed the ordeal that is mentioned at all
three months after it is printed. Immortality is not even a dream—a
boy’s conceit; and posthumous fame is no more regarded by the
author than by his bookseller.[35]
This idle, dissipated turn seems to be a set-off to, or the obvious
reaction of, the exclusive admiration of the ancients, which was
formerly the fashion: as if the sun of human intellect rose and set at
Rome and Athens, and the mind of man had never exerted itself to
any purpose since. The ignorant, as well as the adept, were charmed
only with what was obsolete and far-fetched, wrapped up in technical
terms and in a learned tongue. Those who spoke and wrote a
language which hardly any one at present even understood, must of
course be wiser than we. Time, that brings so many reputations to
decay, had embalmed others and rendered them sacred. From an
implicit faith and overstrained homage paid to antiquity, we of the
modern school have taken too strong a bias to what is new; and
divide all wisdom and worth between ourselves and posterity,—not a
very formidable rival to our self-love, as we attribute all its
advantages to ourselves, though we pretend to owe little or nothing
to our predecessors. About the time of the French Revolution, it was
agreed that the world had hitherto been in its dotage or its infancy;
and that Mr. Godwin, Condorcet, and others were to begin a new
race of men—a new epoch in society. Every thing up to that period
was to be set aside as puerile or barbarous; or, if there were any
traces of thought and manliness now and then discoverable, they
were to be regarded with wonder as prodigies—as irregular and fitful
starts in that long sleep of reason and night of philosophy. In this
liberal spirit Mr. Godwin composed an Essay, to prove that, till the
publication of The Enquiry concerning Political Justice, no one
knew how to write a word of common grammar, or a style that was
not utterly uncouth, incongruous, and feeble. Addison, Swift, and
Junius were included in this censure. The English language itself
might be supposed to owe its stability and consistency, its roundness
and polish, to the whirling motion of the French Revolution. Those
who had gone before us were, like our grandfathers and
grandmothers, decrepit, superannuated people, blind and dull; poor
creatures, like flies in winter, without pith or marrow in them. The
past was barren of interest—had neither thought nor object worthy to
arrest our attention; and the future would be equally a senseless
void, except as we projected ourselves and our theories into it. There
is nothing I hate more than I do this exclusive, upstart spirit.
‘By Heavens, I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on some pleasant lea,
Catch glimpses that might make me less forlorn,
Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.’
Wordsworth’s Sonnets.

Neither do I see the good of it even in a personal and interested point

of view. By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to
despise ourselves. Where there is no established scale nor rooted
faith in excellence, all superiority—our own as well as that of others—
soon comes to the ground. By applying the wrong end of the
magnifying glass to all objects indiscriminately, the most respectable
dwindle into insignificance, and the best are confounded with the
worst. Learning, no longer supported by opinion, or genius by fame,
is cast into the mire, and ‘trampled under the hoofs of a swinish
multitude.’ I would rather endure the most blind and bigotted
respect for great and illustrious names, than that pitiful, grovelling
humour which has no pride in intellectual excellence, and no
pleasure but in decrying those who have given proofs of it, and
reducing them to its own level. If, with the diffusion of knowledge,
we do not gain an enlargement and elevation of views, where is the
benefit? If, by tearing asunder names from things, we do not leave
even the name or shadow of excellence, it is better to let them remain
as they were; for it is better to have something to admire than
nothing—names, if not things—the shadow, if not the substance—the
tinsel, if not the gold. All can now read and write equally; and, it is
therefore presumed, equally well. Any thing short of this sweeping
conclusion is an invidious distinction; and those who claim it for
themselves or others are exclusionists in letters. Every one at least
can call names—can invent a falsehood, or repeat a story against
those who have galled their pragmatical pretensions by really adding
to the stock of general amusement or instruction. Every one in a
crowd has the power to throw dirt: nine out of ten have the
inclination. It is curious that, in an age when the most universally-
admitted claim to public distinction is literary merit, the attaining of
this distinction is almost a sure title to public contempt and obloquy.
[36]
They cry you up, because you are unknown, and do not excite
their jealousy; and run you down, when they have thus distinguished
you, out of envy and spleen at the very idol they have set up. A public
favourite is ‘kept like an apple in the jaw of an ape—first mouthed, to
be afterwards swallowed. When they need what you have gleaned, it
is but squeezing you, and spunge, you shall be dry again.’ At first they
think only of the pleasure or advantage they receive; but, on
reflection, they are mortified at the superiority implied in this
involuntary concession, and are determined to be even with you the
very first opportunity. What is the prevailing spirit of modern
literature? To defame men of letters. What are the publications that
succeed? Those that pretend to teach the public that the persons they
have been accustomed unwittingly to look up to as the lights of the
earth are no better than themselves, or a set of vagabonds or
miscreants that should be hunted out of society.[37] Hence men of
letters, losing their self-respect, become government-tools, and
prostitute their talents to the most infamous purposes, or turn dandy
scribblers, and set up for gentlemen authors in their own defence. I
like the Order of the Jesuits better than this: they made themselves
respected by the laity, kept their own secret, and did not prey on one
another. Resume then, oh! Learning, thy robe pontifical; clothe
thyself in pride and purple; join the sacred to the profane; wield both
worlds; instead of twopenny trash and mechanics’ magazines, issue
bulls and decretals; say not, let there be light, but darkness visible;
draw a bandage over the eyes of the ignorant and unlettered; hang
the terrors of superstition and despotism over them;—and for thy
pains they will bless thee: children will pull off their caps as thou
dost pass; women will courtesy; the old will wipe their beards; and
thou wilt rule once more over the base serving people, clowns, and
nobles, with a rod of iron!
 ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE

The Monthly Magazine.]

[August, 1827.

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are

disagreeable to others. I do not here mean to speak of persons who
offend intentionally, or are obnoxious to dislike from some palpable
defect of mind or body, ugliness, pride, ill-humour, &c.,—but of those
who are disagreeable in spite of themselves, and, as it might appear,
with almost every qualification to recommend them to others. This
want of success is owing chiefly to something in what is called their
manner; and this again has its foundation in a certain cross-grained
and unsociable state of feeling on their part, which influences us,
perhaps, without our distinctly adverting to it. The mind is a finer
instrument than we sometimes suppose it, and is not only swayed by
overt acts and tangible proofs, but has an instinctive feeling of the air
of truth. We find many individuals in whose company we pass our
time, and have no particular fault to find with their understandings
or character, and yet we are never thoroughly satisfied with them:
the reason will turn out to be, upon examination, that they are never
thoroughly satisfied with themselves, but uneasy and out of sorts all
the time; and this makes us uneasy with them, without our reflecting
on, or being able to discover the cause.
Thus, for instance, we meet with persons who do us a number of
kindnesses, who shew us every mark of respect and good-will, who
are friendly and serviceable,—and yet we do not feel grateful to them,
after all. We reproach ourselves with this as caprice or insensibility,
and try to get the better of it; but there is something in their way of
doing things that prevents us from feeling cordial or sincerely
obliged to them. We think them very worthy people, and would be
glad of an opportunity to do them a good turn if it were in our power;
but we cannot get beyond this: the utmost we can do is to save
appearances, and not come to an open rupture with them. The truth
is, in all such cases, we do not sympathise (as we ought) with them,
because they do not sympathise (as they ought) with us. They have
done what they did from a sense of duty in a cold dry manner, or
from a meddlesome busybody humour; or to shew their superiority
over us, or to patronise our infirmity; or they have dropped some
hint by the way, or blundered upon some topic they should not, and
have shewn, by one means or other, that they were occupied with any
thing but the pleasure they were affording us, or a delicate attention
to our feelings. Such persons may be styled friendly grievances. They
are commonly people of low spirits and disappointed views, who see
the discouraging side of human life, and, with the best intentions in
the world, contrive to make every thing they have to do with
uncomfortable. They are alive to your distress, and take pains to
remove it; but they have no satisfaction in the gaiety and ease they
have communicated, and are on the look-out for some new occasion
of signalizing their zeal; nor are they backward to insinuate that you
will soon have need of their assistance, to guard you against running
into fresh difficulties, or to extricate you from them. From large
benevolence of soul and ‘discourse of reason, looking before and
after,’ they are continually reminding you of something that has gone
wrong in time past, or that may do so in that which is to come, and
are surprised that their awkward hints, sly inuendos, blunt
questions, and solemn features do not excite all the complacency and
mutual good understanding in you which it is intended that they
should. When they make themselves miserable on your account, it is
hard that you will not lend them your countenance and support. This
deplorable humour of theirs does not hit any one else. They are
useful, but not agreeable people; they may assist you in your affairs,
but they depress and tyrannise over your feelings. When they have
made you happy, they will not let you be so—have no enjoyment of
the good they have done—will on no account part with their
melancholy and desponding tone—and, by their mawkish
insensibility and doleful grimaces, throw a damp over the triumph
they are called upon to celebrate. They would keep you in hot water,
that they may help you out of it. They will nurse you in a fit of
sickness (congenial sufferers!)—arbitrate a law-suit for you, and
embroil you deeper—procure you a loan of money;—but all the while
they are only delighted with rubbing the sore place, and casting the
colour of your mental or other disorders. ‘The whole need not a
physician;’ and, being once placed at ease and comfort, they have no
farther use for you as subjects for their singular beneficence, and you
are not sorry to be quit of their tiresome interference. The old
proverb, A friend in need is a friend indeed, is not verified in them.
The class of persons here spoken of are the very reverse of summer-
friends, who court you in prosperity, flatter your vanity, are the
humble servants of your follies, never see or allude to any thing
wrong, minister to your gaiety, smooth over every difficulty, and,
with the slightest approach of misfortune or of any thing unpleasant,
take French leave:—
‘As when, in prime of June, a burnished fly,
Sprung from the meads, o’er which he sweeps along,
Cheered by the breathing bloom and vital sky,
Tunes up amid these airy halls his song,
Soothing at first the gay reposing throng;
And oft he sips their bowl, or nearly drowned,
He thence recovering drives their beds among,
And scares their tender sleep with trump profound;
Then out again he flies to wing his mazy round.’
Thomson’s Castle of Indolence.

However we may despise such triflers, yet we regret them more than
those well-meaning friends on whom a dull melancholy vapour
hangs, that drags them and every one about them to the ground.
Again, there are those who might be very agreeable people, if they
had but spirit to be so; but there is a narrow, unaspiring, under-bred
tone in all they say or do. They have great sense and information—
abound in a knowledge of character—have a fund of anecdote—are
unexceptionable in manners and appearance—and yet we cannot
make up our minds to like them: we are not glad to see them, nor
sorry when they go away. Our familiarity with them, however great,
wants the principle of cement, which is a certain appearance of frank
cordiality and social enjoyment. They have no pleasure in the
subjects of their own thoughts, and therefore can communicate none
to others. There is a dry, husky, grating manner—a pettiness of detail
—a tenaciousness of particulars, however trifling or unpleasant—a
disposition to cavil—an aversion to enlarged and liberal views of
things—in short, a hard, painful, unbending matter-of-factness, from
which the spirit and effect are banished, and the letter only is
attended to, which makes it impossible to sympathise with their
discourse. To make conversation interesting or agreeable, there is
required either the habitual tone of good company, which gives a
favourable colouring to every thing—or the warmth and enthusiasm
of genius, which, though it may occasionally offend or be thrown off
its guard, makes amends by its rapturous flights, and flings a
glancing light upon all things. The literal and dogged style of
conversation resembles that of a French picture, or its mechanical
fidelity is like evidence given in a court of justice, or a police report.
From the literal to the plain-spoken, the transition is easy. The
most efficient weapon of offence is truth. Those who deal in dry and
repulsive matters-of-fact, tire out their friends; those who blurt out
hard and home truths, make themselves mortal enemies wherever
they come. There are your blunt, honest creatures, who omit no
opportunity of letting you know their minds, and are sure to tell you
all the ill, and conceal all the good they hear of you. They would not
flatter you for the world, and to caution you against the malice of
others, they think the province of a friend. This is not candour, but
impudence; and yet they think it odd you are not charmed with their
unreserved communicativeness of disposition. Gossips and tale-
bearers, on the contrary, who supply the tittle-tattle of the
neighbourhood, flatter you to your face, and laugh at you behind
your back, are welcome and agreeable guests in all companies.
Though you know it will be your turn next, yet for the sake of the
immediate gratification, you are contented to pay your share of the
public tax upon character, and are better pleased with the falsehoods
that never reach your ears, than with the truths that others (less
complaisant and more sincere) utter to your face—so short-sighted
and willing to be imposed upon is our self-love! There is a man, who
has the air of not being convinced without an argument: you avoid
him as if he were a lion in your path. There is another, who asks you
fifty questions as to the commonest things you advance: you would
sooner pardon a fellow who held a pistol to your breast and
demanded your money. No one regards a turnpike-keeper, or a
custom-house officer, with a friendly eye: he who stops you in an
excursion of fancy, or ransacks the articles of your belief obstinately
and churlishly, to distinguish the spurious from the genuine, is still
more your foe. These inquisitors and cross-examiners upon system
make ten enemies for every controversy in which they engage. The
world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors. In
doing them this piece of service, you make war equally on their
prejudices, their interests, their pride, and indolence. You not only
set up for a superiority of understanding over them, which they hate,
but you deprive them of their ordinary grounds of action, their topics
of discourse, of their confidence in themselves, and those to whom
they have been accustomed to look up for instruction and advice. It is
making children of them. You unhinge all their established opinions
and trains of thought; and after leaving them in this listless, vacant,
unsettled state—dissatisfied with their own notions and shocked at
yours—you expect them to court and be delighted with your
company, because, forsooth, you have only expressed your sincere
and conscientious convictions. Mankind are not deceived by
professions, unless they choose. They think that this pill of true
doctrine, however it may be gilded over, is full of gall and bitterness
to them; and, again, it is a maxim of which the vulgar are firmly
persuaded, that plain-speaking (as it is called) is, nine parts in ten,
spleen and self-opinion; and the other part, perhaps, honesty. Those
who will not abate an inch in argument, and are always seeking to
recover the wind of you, are, in the eye of the world, disagreeable,
unconscionable people, who ought to be sent to Coventry, or left to
wrangle by themselves. No persons, however, are more averse to
contradiction than these same dogmatists. What shews our
susceptibility on this point is, there is no flattery so adroit or
effectual as that of implicit assent. Any one, however mean his
capacity or ill-qualified to judge, who gives way to all our sentiments,
and never seems to think but as we do, is indeed an alter idem—
another self; and we admit him without scruple into our entire
confidence, ‘yea, into our heart of hearts.’
It is the same in books. Those which, under the disguise of plain-
speaking, vent paradoxes, and set their faces against the common
sense of mankind, are neither ‘the volumes
——‘That enrich the shops,
That pass with approbation through the land;’
nor, I fear, can it be added—
‘That bring their authors an immortal fame.’

They excite a clamour and opposition at first, and are in general soon
consigned to oblivion. Even if the opinions are in the end adopted,
the authors gain little by it, and their names remain in their original
obloquy; for the public will own no obligations to such ungracious
benefactors. In like manner, there are many books written in a very
delightful vein, though with little in them, and that are accordingly
popular. Their principle is to please, and not to offend; and they
succeed in both objects. We are contented with the deference shown
to our feelings for the time, and grant a truce both to wit and
wisdom. The ‘courteous reader’ and the good-natured author are well
matched in this instance, and find their account in mutual
tenderness and forbearance to each other’s infirmities. I am not sure
that Walton’s Angler is not a book of this last description—
‘That dallies with the innocence of thought,
Like the old age.’

Hobbes and Mandeville are in the opposite extreme, and have met
with a correspondent fate. The Tatler and the Spectator are in the
golden mean, carry instruction as far as it can go without shocking,
and give the most exquisite pleasure without one particle of pain.
‘Desire to please, and you will infallibly please,’ is a maxim equally
applicable to the study or the drawing-room. Thus also we see actors
of very small pretensions, and who have scarce any other merit than
that of being on good terms with themselves, and in high good
humour with their parts (though they hardly understand a word of
them), who are universal favourites with the audience. Others, who
are masters of their art, and in whom no slip or flaw can be detected,
you have no pleasure in seeing, from something dry, repulsive, and
unconciliating in their manner; and you almost hate the very
mention of their names, as an unavailing appeal to your candid
decision in their favour, and as taxing you with injustice for refusing
it.
We may observe persons who seem to take a peculiar delight in the
disagreeable. They catch all sorts of uncouth tones and gestures, the
manners and dialect of clowns and hoydens, and aim at vulgarity as
desperately as others ape gentility. [This is what is often understood
by a love of low life.] They say the most unwarrantable things,
without meaning or feeling what they say. What startles or shocks
other people, is to them a sport—an amusing excitement—a fillip to
their constitutions; and from the bluntness of their perceptions, and
a certain wilfulness of spirit, not being able to enter into the refined
and agreeable, they make a merit of despising every thing of the
kind. Masculine women, for example, are those who, not being
distinguished by the charms and delicacy of the sex, affect a
superiority over it by throwing aside all decorum. We also find
another class, who continually do and say what they ought not, and
what they do not intend, and who are governed almost entirely by an
instinct of absurdity. Owing to a perversity of imagination or
irritability of nerve, the idea that a thing is improper acts as a
provocation to it: the fear of committing a blunder is so strong, that
in their agitation they bolt out whatever is uppermost in their minds,
before they are aware of the consequence. The dread of something
wrong haunts and rivets their attention to it; and an uneasy, morbid
apprehensiveness of temper takes away their self-possession, and
hurries them into the very mistakes they are most anxious to avoid.
If we look about us, and ask who are the agreeable and
disagreeable people in the world, we shall see that it does not depend
on their virtues or vices—their understanding or stupidity—but as
much on the degree of pleasure or pain they seem to feel in ordinary
social intercourse. What signify all the good qualities any one
possesses, if he is none the better for them himself? If the cause is so
delightful, the effect ought to be so too. We enjoy a friend’s society
only in proportion as he is satisfied with ours. Even wit, however it
may startle, is only agreeable as it is sheathed in good-humour.
There are a kind of intellectual stammerers, who are delivered of
their good things with pain and effort; and consequently what costs
them such evident uneasiness does not impart unmixed delight to
the bystanders. There are those, on the contrary, whose sallies cost
them nothing—who abound in a flow of pleasantry and good-
humour; and who float down the stream with them carelessly and
triumphantly,—
‘Wit at the helm, and Pleasure at the prow.’
 Perhaps it may be said of English wit in general, that it too much
resembles pointed lead: after all, there is something heavy and dull
in it! The race of small wits are not the least agreeable people in the
world. They have their little joke to themselves, enjoy it, and do not
set up any preposterous pretensions to thwart the current of our self-
love. Toad-eating is accounted a thriving profession; and a butt,
according to the Spectator, is a highly useful member of society—as
one who takes whatever is said of him in good part, and as necessary
to conduct off the spleen and superfluous petulance of the company.
Opposed to these are the swaggering bullies—the licensed wits—the
free-thinkers—the loud talkers, who, in the jockey phrase, have lost
their mouths, and cannot be reined in by any regard to decency or
common sense. The more obnoxious the subject, the more are they
charmed with it, converting their want of feeling into a proof of
superiority to vulgar prejudice and squeamish affectation. But there
is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body. There
are some objects that shock the sense, and cannot with propriety be
mentioned: there are naked truths that offend the mind, and ought
to be kept out of sight as much as possible. For human nature cannot
bear to be too hardly pressed upon. One of these cynical truisms,
when brought forward to the world, may be forgiven as a slip of the
pen: a succession of them, denoting a deliberate purpose and malice
prepense, must ruin any writer. Lord Byron had got into an irregular
course of these a little before his death—seemed desirous, in
imitation of Mr. Shelley, to run the gauntlet of public obloquy—and,
at the same time, wishing to screen himself from the censure he
defied, dedicated his Cain to Sir Walter Scott—a pretty godfather to
such a bantling!
Some persons are of so teazing and fidgetty a turn of mind, that
they do not give you a moment’s rest. Every thing goes wrong with
them. They complain of a headache or the weather. They take up a
book, and lay it down again—venture an opinion, and retract it
before they have half done—offer to serve you, and prevent some one
else from doing it. If you dine with them at a tavern, in order to be
more at your ease, the fish is too little done—the sauce is not the
right one; they ask for a sort of wine which they think is not to be
had, or if it is, after some trouble, procured, do not touch it; they give
the waiter fifty contradictory orders, and are restless and sit on
thorns the whole of dinner-time. All this is owing to a want of robust
health, and of a strong spirit of enjoyment; it is a fastidious habit of
mind, produced by a valetudinary habit of body: they are out of sorts
with every thing, and of course their ill-humour and captiousness
communicates itself to you, who are as little delighted with them as
they are with other things. Another sort of people, equally
objectionable with this helpless class, who are disconcerted by a
shower of rain or stopped by an insect’s wing, are those who, in the
opposite spirit, will have every thing their own way, and carry all
before them—who cannot brook the slightest shadow of opposition—
who are always in the heat of an argument—who knit their brows and
clench their teeth in some speculative discussion, as if they were
engaged in a personal quarrel—and who, though successful over
almost every competitor, seem still to resent the very offer of
resistance to their supposed authority, and are as angry as if they had
sustained some premeditated injury. There is an impatience of
temper and an intolerance of opinion in this that conciliates neither
our affection nor esteem. To such persons nothing appears of any
moment but the indulgence of a domineering intellectual superiority
to the disregard and discomfiture of their own and every body else’s
comfort. Mounted on an abstract proposition, they trample on every
courtesy and decency of behaviour; and though, perhaps, they do not
intend the gross personalities they are guilty of, yet they cannot be
acquitted of a want of due consideration for others, and of an
intolerable egotism in the support of truth and justice. You may hear
one of these Quixotic declaimers pleading the cause of humanity in a
voice of thunder, or expatiating on the beauty of a Guido with
features distorted with rage and scorn. This is not a very amiable or
edifying spectacle.
There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they? Those
who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding or good-
nature, of entertaining or useful qualities, that you complain of: on
the contrary, they have probably many points of attraction; but they
have one that neutralises all these—they care nothing about you, and
are neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. They
manifest no joy at your approach; and when you leave them, it is
with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is not
sullenness, nor indifference, nor absence of mind; but they are intent
solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of the subjects
they exercise them upon. They live in society as in a solitude; and,