{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49263/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49263","id":"gutenberg_49263","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49263","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Conduct of life","Ethics","Great Britain -- Social conditions"],"text":"THE BLIGHT OF RESPECTABILITY.\n\n\n\n\nUNIVERSITY PRESS.\n\n\n\n\n  THE BLIGHT OF RESPECTABILITY\n\n  AN ANATOMY OF THE DISEASE AND A THEORY\n  OF CURATIVE TREATMENT\n\n  BY\n\n  GEOFFREY MORTIMER.\n\n\n  LONDON\n\n  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, LIMITED,\n  16, JOHN STREET, BEDFORD ROW, W.C.\n  1897.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  1. WHAT IS RESPECTABILITY?\n\n  2. THE PATHOLOGY OF THE DISEASE.\n\n  3. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.\n\n  4. SPECIFIC SYMPTOMS OF THE MALADY IN WOMEN.\n\n  5. RESPECTABILITY AND MORALS.\n\n  6. CULTURED GENTILITY.\n\n  7. PLUTOCRACY.\n\n  8. VILLADOM.\n\n  9. THE TYRANNY OF RESPECTABILITY.\n\n  10. RESPECTABLE CIVILISATION AND AFTER.\n\n  11. CONCLUSION.\n\n\n\n\n  \"It was never merry world in England since gentlemen came up.\"\n\n                                         II. HENRY VI. iv. II.\n\n\n  \"Opinion's but a fool that makes us scan,\n    The outward habit by the inward man.\"\n\n                                        PERICLES II.  II.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nWHAT IS RESPECTABILITY?\n\n     \"You live a respectable man, but I ask\n     If it's worth the trouble.\"\n\n                             GEORGE MEREDITH. \"The Beggar's Soliloquy.\"\n\n\nRespectable is a word that has been wrested from its true meaning of\nworthy of respect, and applied to the most sordid characteristics\nand conditions of human life. Respectability, like vulgarity and\nprudery, is an Anglo-Saxon attribute appertinent chiefly to the huge\nmiddle-class part of society. It is not the fetish of \"the upper ten\nthousand,\" nor do the majority of the working class bow down before it.\nRespectability stands for gentility, and the genteel folk are not often\nof the orders aristocratic and proletarian, but of the bourgeoisie.\nTo call a decent, intelligent man respectable is to dub him genteel,\nand to label him so implies that he has reached about the lowest level\nof mental degradation. Would it not be an act of sheer defamation of\ncharacter to describe Ben Jonson, Shakspere, Dryden, Fielding, and\nBurns as \"respectable men?\" No great man has ever been, or ever can be,\nof the respectabilities, for the simple reason that the great are not\nordinary, and the ordinary alone are respectable. Have you ever read or\nheard of a truly noble man or woman who was also respectable? Nobility\nof character and a reputation for respectability, the two things are\nutterly incompatible! Supposing it possible for an original mind to\npursue the preposterous chimera of respectability, where would such a\nmind find itself ultimately? Prone and lazy on \"the unclean straw of\nintellectual habits,\" an impotent among impotents, or a sheep among\nsheep.\n\nThe respectable man is a slave to convention, and therefore a\nstick-i'-the-mire. He is fearful of being deemed a crank, so fearful\nthat he succeeds in becoming a nonentity. Now some men are born\nrespectable; they could never be anything else. But that is no reason\nwhy they should exert the tyranny of their personal preferences over\nthe minorities of their fellow-men. Defiance of Respectability is the\nbeginning and the end of social progress; you cannot be at once highly\nrespectable and progressive. Respectability is one of those dull and\nsordid sins that are entirely without charm.\n\nAll good, regular conduct was once bad and irregular. But originality\nand irregularity are abhorred of the respectable mass. \"He who lets\nthe world, or his portion of it, choose his plan of life for him,\"\nsays J. S. Mill, \"has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like\none of imitation.\" It is by the exercise of this simious instinct that\n\"genteel\" people order their lives down to the minutest detail. They\nscout eccentricity and individuality of speculation and judgment; they\nlive in streets of houses all built alike; they imitate each others'\nmode of dress, think each others' thoughts, and say \"It is better to be\ndead than out of the fashion!\"\n\nOriginality! is there anything greater under the sun? \"Yes,\" say the\nRespectables, \"it is better to be a sheep amongst sheep than to gain a\nname for eccentricity.\" This is why our national, moral, intellectual,\nand artistic advance is so slow: men and women infected by the craze\nfor respectability act as dead weights on the arms of pioneers. Grundy,\nBowdler, and Podsnap are the three gods of the shoddy respectabilities.\n\nRespectability! who has it not cursed and perverted at some time in\nhis life? There is perhaps no better instance of the moral blight that\nrespectability has upon the middle-class mind than the treatment of Mr.\nBradlaugh, not only at the hands of rabid sectarians, but by timorous\nand respectable rationalists and utter indifferentists.\n\nIt may be taken as an axiom that if you want to blast a man's\nreputation as a tolerable specimen of the human race, you have merely\nto class him as respectable. The very word is damnatory and detestable.\nAt best it always leaves a bad flavour of middle-class hashes in the\nmouth, and wafts to the nostrils the reek of stuffy parlours with\nhorsehair couches, dried grass, and wax flowers. \"A most respectable\nman.\" We all know him--a sort of factory-made cheap line in humanity,\nwith a few prim, precise, little superstitions, no reasoned morals, and\nno intellectual or \u00e6sthetic needs. He is a big man of a petty sect,\nand on Sunday he troops a stout, silk-dressed wife and seven or eight\nchildren to hear Boanerges hold forth at the tin Bethel at the end\nof the street. This is one type, perhaps the commonest. Another sort\nis not particularly pietistic, but \"eminently respectable.\" He lives\nat Brixton or Clapham in a continuous struggle to keep up a \"decent\"\nappearance among the neighbours. His wife \"takes in paying guests,\"\nand his daughters spend most of their time in blocking the pavement\nin front of drapers' shops. Mamma and the girls are gangrened with\nrespectability and snobbishness, but were it not for the inherited\nvirus they might have been decent and wholesome women. Their minds are\nblank to all the wider interests of life; they are simply mechanical\ndolls. Says a woman concerning these types: \"I have known miners,\nrailway men, iron and cotton and wool workers, many who have denied\nthemselves physical necessities to buy and read a book, attend\nlectures, or a concert. I never knew a middle-class woman guilty of\nsuch a glaring want of common-sense.\"\n\nTo live respectably, as the world deems respectability, is to live a\nlie. No man or woman with a part to play in life can play it well if\nthey are constantly exercised as to what people will think--people, in\nthis instance, standing for Respectability. Can any wholesome influence\ncome out of the frowsy atmosphere of a villa inhabited by Veneerings?\nAs well expect to find lilies within the fences of the alkali works.\nThe fact is that what Respectability thinks is never of the slightest\nimportance to a man of real moral stamina and vigour of intellect. He\nhas learnt with Schopenhauer that reputation is of little avail in the\nmaking of happiness. \"What we are in and for ourselves,\" says that\nphilosopher, \"is of sole moment; and if we have had an opportunity of\nseeing how the greatest of men will meet with nothing but slight from\nhalf-a-dozen blockheads, we shall understand that to lay great value\nupon what other people say is to pay them too much honour.\"\n\nA woman who was horribly crushed in the Crewe railway accident begged\nthe surgeon with her dying breath to set her bonnet straight. It was\nnot death that she feared, but the opinion of that grimmer monster\nRespectability; a striking instance this of the firm hold that the\ninstinct has upon feeble minds.\n\nYes, to be appraised as a thoroughly respectable man among Philistines,\nyou must either possess scanty ideas, or you must perpetually dissemble\nyour opinions. Dr. Stockman, in Ibsen's \"An Enemy of Society,\"\nis ostracised by respectable society because he refuses to be an\nunmitigated liar. A finer satire on Respectability has never been\nwritten. Stockman discovers that the water supply of the town is\npolluted, and he tells the truth about it. The respectable authorities,\nthe tag-rag of the bourgeoisie, and the toady editor of the local\njournal--who is at heart a Freethinker--hoot him down in compliance\nwith the \"respectable\" methods of toleration usually accorded to\nreformers. At a public meeting the Doctor says:\n\n     \"I am going to make a great revelation to you, fellow-citizens!\n     I am going to disclose that to you which is of infinitely\n     more moment than the unimportant fact that our waterworks are\n     poisonous, and that our hygienic baths are built upon a soil\n     teeming with pestilence.... I have said I should speak of the\n     great discovery I have made within the last few days--the\n     discovery that all our spiritual sources of life are poisoned, and\n     that our whole bourgeois society rests upon a soil teeming with\n     the pestilence of lies. For I am going to revolt against the lie\n     that truth resides in the majority.\"\n\nUpon reading a Philistine opinion of himself, Diderot laughed, and\nsaid: \"I must be an eccentric sort of fellow: but is it such a great\nfault to have preserved amid all the friction of society some vestiges\nof the angularity of nature?\"\n\nNo thralls to Respectability can ever be natural men and women.\nThe respectability of the middle-class is largely a growth of the\nCalvinistic theory of submission and poorness of spirit; the effort of\nthe Respectables is towards docile conformity to the custom of their\nnarrow community, \"until,\" as Mill says, \"by dint of not following\ntheir own nature, they have no nature to follow: their human capacities\nare withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or\nnative pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings\nof home growth or properly their own.\" No fanatical fakir ever endured\nthe torments that some English folk inflict upon themselves before the\nMumbo Jumbo of respectability. Dwarfed social endeavour, suppressed\nhealthy desires, degraded faculties--these are the sacrifices in the\nname of conventionality. Daily, men and women do a score of things that\nthey know to be hurtful and insane, because they fear to be accounted\n\"peculiar,\" and \"not quite respectable;\" and so it comes about that\n\"the keeping up of appearances,\" as it is called, the incessant\nstriving to be popular at all costs, engenders endless hypocrisies and\nfalsehoods, and makes knaves and cowards.\n\nNot content with warping our national character by slavish veneration\nof this abstraction, we have corrupted decent barbarians by inoculating\nthem with our miserable disease of Respectability. We have clothed the\ninnocent nude, and taught them shame, and in making them respectable\nwe have annihilated their pristine morality, and substituted Western\ncant and indecency. Fortunately, however, the savage is too wholesome\nan animal to become respectable without protest, and in most instances,\nwe have failed to convince him of the benefits of insanitary clothing\nas badges of respectability and tokens of civilisation. Quoting from\nDalton, Reclus, in his \"Primitive Folk,\" says of the Kolarian women:--\n\n     \"These savage women win hearts by their frank and open manners\n     and na\u00efve gaiety. Mixing freely from earliest childhood with\n     the other sex, they have none of the prudery of Hindoos and\n     Mussulmans, who have been brought up in strict seclusion; a\n     prudery which at moments gives place to unclean talk, and is full\n     of suggested obscenities. On the other hand, the modest grace of\n     young Hos or Moonah maidens and the little girls of the Larkas is\n     a subject of praise. Patience! Civilisation will soon cure them of\n     this barbarism, will correct their ignorance.\"\n\nIt is a wretched reflection that these delightful women will one day be\nas respectable as the female natives of Stoke Newington.\n\nA lady novelist writes that every English woman is a savage at heart.\nDoes she not pay her sisters too high a compliment? The enforced\nclothing of the Curumbas women of Malabar, at the instigation\nof the \"respectable English ladies\" at Calcutta, is one of the\npitiful examples of the indecency of thought born of our ideas of\nrespectability. These damsels of the Curumbas tribe wore aprons of\nleaves suspended from a bead waistband. Such garb was not only suited\nto the climate, but it was charming as well as healthy. The Calcutta\nBritish Matrons thought such wear abominable. How could these women\nbe respectable in such scanty drapery? Accordingly, by direction of\nBumble, four corporals and two sergeants of infantry were told off\nwith a company to drag the leaf aprons from the front and behind, and\nto put the women into petticoats. The greenery was then burned in a\nbonfire. What a glorious triumph of Respectability! How thoroughly\nBritish matronly and indelicate in conception was this compulsory\nclothing of innocent modest women by Tommy Atkins and his \"pals.\" Is\nthere the least need to dwell upon the contrast of decency that these\nCurumbas women present to the \"respectable English ladies\" of Calcutta?\n\nOur insular arrogance is the twin sister of respectability. When we are\nnot taking pride in the personal possession of a pot-hat and a frock\ncoat, we go about bragging of national respectability and superiority.\n\"Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud,\"\nsays Schopenhauer, \"adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to\nwhich he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and\nfollies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his inferiority.\nFor example, if you speak of the stupid and degrading bigotry of the\nEnglish nation with the contempt it deserves, you will hardly find one\nEnglishman in fifty to agree with you; but if there should be one, he\nwill generally happen to be an intelligent man!\"\n\nNothing can destroy Respectability but a gradual extirpation of the\n_bourgeoisie_. I say gradual advisedly, and in a double sense; first,\nbecause we have many respectable relatives and friends whom we would be\ngrieved to asphyxiate; and, second, because gradual processes in social\nevolution have more permanent resultants than cataclysms. Diderot,\nwith wonderful prescience, asserted that a scientific anarchism is the\nextreme goal of social progress. This was in 1776. In 1897 a thousand\nsociologists recognise this fact, this \"_diablement id\u00e9al_,\" as Diderot\ntermed it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE PATHOLOGY OF THE DISEASE.\n\n     \"The evil is not merely a stagnation of blood, but a stagnation\n     of spirit. Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by\n     constitution and by habit, or they cannot conceive of a man who is\n     actuated by higher motives than they are.\"\n\n                                        THOREAU.\n\n\nI had written my first chapter when I met a friend possessed of the\nqualities of moral and intellectual seriousness, which, when conjoined\nwith a sense of humour, are proper elements for the making of a fine\nman. This estimable Mentor had read my midnight lucubration with a sad\nheart. He told me, with appropriate gravity, that his standpoint was\nthe ethical-cum-philosophic. Judged from that imposing standard, my\n\"screed\" depressed him by reason of its \"cynicism.\"\n\n\"I wish,\" said he, \"that you had dealt less ruthlessly with the\nPhilistine. Is he not a man and a brother?\"\n\nWhereupon he proceeded to administer reproof with Demosthenic\neloquence, concluding with the altruistic admission, \"Though I have\nendured much from the Philistine, I still love him.\"\n\nWell, the Respectables are a large body, very much in the majority\nso far as my researches have informed me; and, if the right and the\ntruth are on their side, they will not be worsted in a fair encounter.\nI am still impertinently chuckling at that charge of cynicism and\nruthlessness. I love not Diogenes nor Torquemada. By all means let us\nbe just and fear not in this anatomy of the Respectable Person. Have\nI not said that \"were it not for the inherited virus,\" the veneering\ngirls \"might have been decent and wholesome women?\" Did I not indicate\na method of prophylaxis, a scientific, humane, and gradual extinction\nof the taint? Vulgarity, snobbery, prudery and obscenity are common\nspecific contagious affections, manifesting a dangerous tendency\nto increase. I regard these diseases, with their concomitants and\nsequel\u00e6 as momentous social evils, and it is entirely on humanitarian\nprinciples that I emphatically refuse to sprinkle rose-water over the\nvictims of the contagion, and to leave the disorders to take their\nlingering and miserable course. These ailments are, without question,\nhereditary, and the microbes have a strong and deadly hold upon the\nhost. I pity the vulgarian, the snob, and the prude; I commiserate them\nwith the same sympathy that I extend to the leper, the blind, and the\ninsane. Every physician must perforce at times be cruel to be kind; and\nI do not intend to exercise injudicious gentleness in treating these\nforms of mental disease.\n\nIt is well known that firmness, amounting occasionally to severity, is\nmost essential in dealing with certain neuroses. Therefore, from that\nethical basis upon which my honourable Mentor takes his stand, I shall\ndiscuss these social disorders in plain vigorous terms, recognising\nthat the Respectable is not to be cured and his offspring preserved\nfrom the inherited sting by sentimental demonstrations of fraternal\naffection and pats on the back. Such methods as that have utterly\nfailed. No, we must endeavour to convince the sufferer from chronic\nrespectability that he is an anti-social being, a moral and mental\nparalytic, a prey to the hallucinations and dreads of his class,\nshowing by this very habit of imitation that serious lesions have\narisen within his brain.\n\nAs in many diseases, the congenital cases of Respectability are the\nmost stubborn, and the prognosis cannot often be technically described\nas \"good.\" It is a serious and important fact to be carefully noted by\nthe Respectable, that many incurable imbeciles are the descendants of\nsteady, stolid, and apparently well-conducted ancestors of the trading\norder, the folk who live in a petty round of narrow interests, without\nthe inclination to form their minds, and without any cultivation of\nthe \u00e6sthetic and poetic sides of their natures. If you add to this a\ndour religiosity of the ultra-puritanic type, you have an excellent\nnidus of insanity. In every asylum you may find the heirs of such\nunfortunate prenatal influences. They are the victims of certain forms\nof Respectability, the result of \"the ape-like faculty of imitation\" in\ntheir forbears.\n\nWhat were the peculiarities of these ancestors whose idiosyncracies\nhave degenerated into actual brain disease? _They tried to be\nconventional._ It was of no matter to them what Bacon or Diderot or\nHerbert Spencer said about the conduct of life. Their ethical guides\nwere the lesser lights of the sectaries, the pastors and deacons of\nZoar and Bethesda, teachers often, akin in intelligence to Mr. Ruskin's\n\"little squeaking idiot,\" telling \"an audience of seventeen old women\nand three louts that they were the only children of God in Turin.\" All\ntheir \"culture\" came from such inspired sources. They were afraid of\nGod, but, as a minor poet says, more afraid of Mrs Grundy. Mrs. Brown,\nMrs. Smith, and Mrs. Robinson were their models; the Brownian view of\nlife was good enough for them. Was not Mr. Brown very respectable?\nDid not Mrs. Smith set the example in _ton_, in Little Muddleton\nRoad? Was not Mrs. Robinson distantly related to a branch of the\naristocracy? They lived like human sheep. If one of the flock jumped\nautomatically, the others began to jump; and one moral or social _baa_\nset all the rest bleating in the same respectable mechanical strain.\nRarely a boy or a girl in the community began to develop healthy\nindependence of judgment, or a taste for one of the arts or sciences.\nIf the youthful rebel had tough grit in him he pursued his own course\nagainst tremendous obstacles, and amid taunts of eccentricity and\ndisrespectability, until he freed himself from the miserable petty\ntyranny of the Brownian and Smithian codes. But if the boy or the girl\nof originality was timid and submissive, Respectability triumphed, and\nsociety lost a useful member. It is impossible to estimate the immense\namount of moral, intellectual, and artistic capacity that has been\nimpaired, perverted, and stamped out of existence in the bud by the\nslavish worshippers at the altar of the Goddess Grundy.\n\nI do not deny that a strong mind may emerge comparatively unscathed\nfrom the blighting environment of Little Muddleton Road; but a man\nor woman with inherited Respectability in his or her fibres, starts\nlife's race handicapped, and it may need years before the poison can\nbe eradicated from the moral system. In most cases the true congenital\nRespectable is a hopeless subject for experimentation. The task of\nreforming him needs far more patience and tact than most reformers\npossess; and even if the patient shows improvement, a transference\ninto the infected areas is certain to result in a recrudescence\nof the disorder. Remember the true Congenital Respectable inherits\na very vigorous and malignant taint; that his system is surcharged\nwith humours that resist the most patient treatment. Are we, then,\nto despair of a cure? The answer must be, \"No, not if all the\navailable hygienic remedies are employed while the Respectable is\nyoung.\" I could not hope to heal the mind of a patient of forty, for\ninstance, and especially a female patient of that age. In women there\nare characteristic symptoms of a nature so peculiar that we must\ndifferentiate them in our pathology from the specific manifestations of\nthe affection in men.\n\nObviously, the greatest impediment to recovery lies in the fact that,\nin nine instances out of ten, the subject has no desire to be cured.\nRespectability presents the phenomenon of most neurotic diseases: the\npatient does not understand that he is ill. If you tell a maniac that\nhe is not the Emperor of Russia, but an inmate of Bedlam, he will think\nyou are the madman, and that he is the sane man. In the same way, a\nperson attacked by an insidious wasting malady imagines he is in\nrobust health, because, when he has eaten a full meal he feels ready\nto eat another. He thumps himself on the chest, and says, \"Sound as a\nbell! Look at my appetite!\" Like these deluded folk, the Respectable\nbelieves firmly that his derangement is a normal healthy state. All his\nfriends are Respectable; he is Respectable also, thank heaven!\n\nWhile the Respectable remains in this grateful frame nothing can be\ndone for him. You must convince him that Respectability is a species\nof mania, and until you have done this, there is palpably no hope of\ncuring him. Ridicule, contempt, satire--these are the instruments\nthat you must employ. Scarify him mentally, if you can, with Titanic\nlaughter at his wretched hallucination. Kick his preposterous idol\ntill the sawdust flies out of it; deride it, mutilate it, tear off its\nflimsy tinsel. You must be prepared for a tussle with the Respectable.\nHe will fight long and savagely for his fetish, for it is the god of\nhis fathers, and he was taught to revere it when he left the cradle. He\nis fighting for all that he conceives to be most dear and sacred to\nhim, and he looks upon you as an impious iconoclast and a fanatic. To\na Respectable, all are mad who seek to destroy illusions, to show the\ninside of things, and to disencumber the social ground of the tares and\nthistles that make such a brave show. He loves his world of seems and\nshams and hypocrisies.\n\nOur hope is in the young, in the rising generation, ere they are\nhopelessly crushed and disfigured beyond all recognition beneath the\nwheels of Respectability's triumphal one-horse brougham; before their\ncallow brains are dwarfed and warped in Dame Grundy's seminary and in\nDr. Birch's select school for the sons of wholesale tea merchants;\nbefore the miasma of Villadom has poisoned their morals and befogged\ntheir mental vision. Education must be widened and democratized. The\nprinciple that \"a mon's a mon for a' that\" must be inculcated, and true\nworth of character will then be dissociated in the mind from that vile,\ntawdry, make-belief virtue called Respectability.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nLADIES AND GENTLEMEN.\n\n     \"The snob in soul who looks above,\n     Trampling on what's beneath.\"\n\n                                        FRANCIS ADAMS.\n\n\n\"Is she a Lady or a Person?\" asked a British Matron when I spoke of\na certain young woman. The question is well calculated to set one\npondering on those nice distinctions of class, and sub-distinctions\nwithin the classes, characteristic of most semi-civilised and so-called\nhighly civilised nations of the world. Unquestionably, my interrogator\nwas a \"lady\" in the popular sense of the title. She lived in a large\nhouse, received visits from the rector and the curate, gave parties\nattended by well-to-do tradesfolk and one or two professional men,\nwith their wives and families, and refrained from committing the\nmisdemeanour of carrying parcels in the street. Undoubtedly she was\nconsidered a lady by most members of her own order. But was she a\nlady? I confess I do not know what you in particular mean by a lady. I\nmust know you tolerably intimately before I can even hazard a surmise.\nThis dame was the daughter of a tradesman, and she earned her own\nlivelihood. That is quite enough to stamp her as a mere person in the\njudgment of an immense class.\n\nFor many years I have been trying to understand the jargon of\nRespectability, and I have failed. I cannot get three people in one\nroom to entirely agree as to the constituents of a lady or a gentleman.\nOne will tell me that the claim to the distinction depends upon birth;\nanother denies this, and says it is simply a matter of good manners;\nbut a third, in spite of my protest that the manners of my housemaid\nbetoken a _gentle_-woman, affirms that her social status debars a\ndomestic servant from the label _lady_, though she may be a very\nwell-behaved young woman. If you think it is easy to obtain a precise\ndefinition of lady and gentleman, I suggest that you interrogate your\nnear acquaintances, and make notes of the answers. Perchance your luck\nis better than mine.\n\nNo, I do not to this day know exactly what people mean by calling this\nman _gentleman_ and that man plain _man_. I have heard that there was a\ntime when only those men who plundered the poor, swore \"gad-zooks\" and\nvery much worse than that, got drunk nearly every night, and debauched\na great number of maids were the only respectable gentlemen in the\nland, all the rest, who were not \"up to\" this \"form\" in usual practice\nbeing churls, and knaves, and clowns. It is a matter of history that\nthese crapulous bandits were the only gentlemen of their day.\n\nBut take the phrase in its most modern sense. A. is a patrician, and\ntherefore pre-eminently a gentleman in the esteem of tens of thousands.\nHe uses the foulest back-slum expressions in the hunting-field, \"pals\"\nwith harlots, gamblers of shady notoriety, and ruffianly hybrid\nsportsmen of the turf and ring, drinks to excess, and, after a career\nof low vice and mean trickery, he pays his creditors--many of them\nstruggling tradesmen--sixpence in the pound, or less than that. _You_\nsay he is no gentleman. Quite so; but he is received in that polite\ncompany where you and I would be cold-shouldered, and the society that\nreceives him is undoubtedly very high and good society. Moreover,\nthe Respectable million, though they may roll their eyes unctuously\nat his misconduct, would be extremely delighted to have the honour of\nentertaining Lord A. at afternoon tea. You know perfectly well, my\nfriend, that his lordship is \"a gentleman bred and born,\" and that\ncircles closed to B., an impecunious artist, but a man of exemplary\ndeportment and refinement of feeling, are open to Lord A.\n\nI hold that the terms lady and gentleman, like the word Respectable,\nhave become grossly perverted, and are now merely the connotations of\nan odious snobbery. I would like to see the phrases deleted from every\ndictionary. In their original sense they were good words, _i.e._,\n_gentle_-man and _gentle_-woman, or if you will, lady. But they are now\nutterly corrupt and meaningless, except when applied to the vulgar of\nall ranks. The lady who does washing calls for the woman's linen. The\ncant term has become the privileged title of the vulgarest plebeian.\nAn ignorant, ill-mannered, middle-class woman dubs herself Lady, and\ndescribes her cultured governess as a Person.\n\nDiogenes went about with a lantern looking for a man. Some of us are\nquesting for those mythical personages known as ladies and gentlemen;\nand, like Mrs. Gamp, who doubted the existence of Mrs. 'Arris, we are\nfeign to believe \"there aint no sich a person.\" When the majority\ndisagree as to the outward semblance and the inner attributes of \"real\ngentlefolk,\" how can we distinguish individuals of the order?\n\nAt a flower show I once overheard the daughter of a provincial\nsolicitor remark to her \"lady\" friend: \"My dear, there is really _no\none_ here but us.\" I looked around, and saw \"bankers and brewers, men\nof evil omen,\" with their resplendent wives and daughters, and a great\nnumber of social small-fry. But these were nobodies. They were not\nlawyers, or the sons and daughters of lawyers, therefore they were\nnonentities. How quaint are the invidious distinctions and the usages\nof Snobbery! For example, it is considered impertinence if a brewer\nfollows the hounds in a scarlet coat, but a banker may wear the \"pink\nand buckskins.\" Such, at any rate, is the unwritten law in some hunting\ndistricts. As for army snobbishness, it is well known that in several\nregiments the impecunious officer, not \"up to\" the extravagant \"form\"\nof the mess, is regarded as a cad by brainless, swaggering subalterns,\nwhose expenditure on their stomachs amounts to several hundred pounds\nper annum. But to write upon the inflated Respectability of \"the\nService\" would require a separate section of this essay. It is enough\nto say that the bullying, blustering military Respectable is usually a\nscion of a _parvenu_ family. The type is not only to be found in the\nregular forces; it is very common in the county militia and in the\nprovincial volunteer corps. A son of a wine merchant, or some other\nprosperous tradesman, secures a lieutenancy in the volunteers, and soon\nrises to a higher rank. He is an officer, and therefore a \"gentleman;\"\nand he lords it over other tradesmen and tradesmen's sons with the air\nof a patrician major-general. One of these precious jackanapes once\nabused me for a \"civilian,\" and threatened me with \"an orderly,\" in a\nraucous tone of wrath, because I inadvertently trespassed within the\nlines of a volunteer camp. I said: \"Where is the orderly? I'll wait for\nhim,\" and I sat down on the grass and smoked my pipe, and summoned\nfortitude for the awful tribunal of a court-martial. But the orderly\ncame not, though the \"civilian\" waited long and patiently.\n\nMuch as I dislike slang, I find the cant terms \"side\" and \"bounce\"\nso admirably adapted to my purpose in delineating certain phases of\nRespectability that I may perhaps be pardoned for using them in this\nattempt at a scientific exposition. Side and bounce will carry you\nfar in Respectable society. Self-assertiveness is an excellent thing.\nJohnson and Carlyle were born with the faculty; they knew how to\ninspire awe, and no one dared to contradict them. The Yankees call this\nquality \"side.\" They say that an egotistical, swaggering, dominant\nman \"puts on a lot of side.\" Many men and women make their way to\nRespectability by putting on side. The rules are: (1) To appear to know\nall about everything. (2) to talk in a loud voice, and to interrupt\nother speakers. (3) to push, jostle, and trample upon the weak, the\nvery young, and the diffident. The man who observes these rules is sure\nto get on in the world.\n\nHave you not seen the crowd cower like frightened sheep at the sound\nof a self-important voice? If you wish to get the better of your\nbrother man, you must terrify him and awe him into admiration. There is\na good story of Colonel Burnaby. He was once speaking on a political\nplatform, and some dissentients made a hubbub, and shouted \"Chuck him\nout!\" Burnaby knew the value of \"side.\" He walked down to the menacing\nrowdies, asked one of them for a light, sat down among them, and smoked\nhis pipe.\n\nWe may not love bumptious, thrusting mortals, who make their brother\nmen their stepping-stones to higher things. But we are all more or less\nenvious of their success; and we are always giving way to them, and\nmaking their path easy and pleasant. When we see a pompous personage\nwalking grandly up Pall Mall, and gazing scorn upon the vulgar herd,\nwe are often tempted to step up to him and say, as Douglas Jerrold, or\nsomeone else, once said to one of these superior persons: \"Pray, sir,\nare you anyone in particular?\" But we don't do it. We wither beneath\nthe glassy stare of an eye-glass.\n\nSome men are born with \"side.\" It is easy and natural to them. As\nchildren they are never the horse, but always the driver when playing\nat horses, and at school they become cocks of the walk and chiefs\nof the dormitories. They are destined to be highly respected among\nthe Respectables, for the rank and file of Respectability like to be\ndominated.\n\nThe other day I read a letter from a young English Respectable settled\nin South Africa. He wrote: \"You have no idea how much time it takes to\nkick sense into nigger servants.\" Glorious British supremacy! That is\nthe way to plant the banner of civilisation in heathen lands.\n\nIn a modern comedy which I have seen played (I forget the title), a\nflunkey who inherits an unexpected fortune, thumps the table with\nhis fist, crying, \"Now I'll be a gentleman! I'll be a _gentleman_,\nby God!\" You will possibly try to convince me that this fellow never\ncould become a gentleman. Why not? Money makes the man. He may not\nbe a _gentle_-man in _your_ sense, but he is a _gentleman_ in the\nestimation of an immense number of the \"general public.\" Do not dupe\nyourself with the notion that there is only one kind of gentleman in\nthe community. There are at least a dozen sorts--the true gentleman,\nthe real gentleman, my idea of a gentleman, your idea of a gentleman,\nMrs. Grundy's gentleman, the Veneering conception of a gentleman, the\nOxford University definition of a gentleman, the crack cavalry notion\nof a gentleman, the county society idea of a gentleman, the gentleman\nwho keeps a shop, but is too gentlemanly to sell you things over the\ncounter, the natural gentleman, the born gentleman, the gentlemanlike\nperson, and so on. Is there no room for Jeames in this mixed\nassemblage? Once and for all, clear your mind of the fallacy that your\nespecial conception of a gentleman is the _only_ true one. There are,\nfortunately, not one, but several standards of feminine beauty. There\nare also several criteria of the real gentleman and the perfect lady.\n\nTurn to the dictionary for a \"correct definition\" of gentleman if you\nwish to fog your mind still more upon this subject: \"Gentleman (from\n_genteel_ and _man_)--In a general sense, every educated person above\na labourer, an artisan, or a tradesman, an individual possessed of the\nconduct, habit, and outward appearance which belong, or are expected to\nbelong, to persons born and educated in a high social position; a man\nin any station of life who is possessed of good breeding and refined\nmanners, strict integrity and honour, kindliness of heart, and suchlike\nqualities; in a limited sense, a person of good fortune and good\nfamily, whether titled or not; one who bears a coat of arms; a term of\ncomplaisance or respect, as in the plural _gentlemen_, when addressing\na number of persons.\" Does this hotchpotch of contradiction help you in\ndetermining the qualities of a gentleman? I confess it is of no service\nto me.\n\nNo, we must end this disquisition as we began it. Terminology merely\nbewilders and frustrates clear thought on the question. There is\nobviously room and to spare for all of us in the temple of gentility.\nWe can all be gentlemen and ladies if we choose. The only thing to\ndecide is, which sort? Personally, I feel honoured at being spoken of\nas \"that man.\" \"I endeavour,\" writes M. Taine, \"rightly to comprehend\nthe epithet so essential 'a gentleman'; it constantly recurs, and\ncomprises a mass of ideas wholly English.... In France we have not the\nword, because we have not the things, and these three syllables, as\nused across the Channel, summarise the history of English society.\"[1]\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] \"Notes on England.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nSPECIFIC SYMPTOMS OF THE MALADY IN WOMEN.\n\n     \"Their hypocrisy is a perpetual marvel to me, and a constant\n     exercise of cleverness of the finest sort.\"\n\n                       THACKERAY, \"Mr. Brown's Letters to a Young Man.\"\n\n     \"It would take a large volume to contain the authentic accounts of\n     deception practised by women.\"\n\n                                  DR. E. J. TILT, \"The Change of Life.\"\n\n\nWomen are particularly susceptible to the disease of Respectability.\nOur sisters esteem rank and birth; they bow down to all kinds of idols\nwith a veneration seldom equalled in men. Form, ceremonies, modes of\ndress, points of etiquette, and social observances mean more to them\nthan to us; and it is difficult to prove to them the hollowness and\ninutility of mere seems, because externals satisfy their sense of\ndecorum and give them pleasure. The average _bourgeois_ woman reads\nthe court news and aristocratic tittle-tattle with avidity mingled\nwith envy. Baubles, insignia, uniforms, and the pomps of officialdom\nattract and dazzle her, and she would rather know a stupid peer than a\nsage, unpretentious philosopher, man of science, or poet.\n\nNotice the large proportion of women in the crowds that gather outside\na West End mansion, or at the door of a church, on the occasions of a\nball or a fashionable wedding. Many women will travel long distances,\nand endure severe fatigue and discomfort to gain a transitory glimpse\nat titled personages. Lacking the power of analysis, and being\ndeficient in imagination, they admire the popular and ostentatious, and\ncontemn the persons and the things of true worth. Besides this, women's\nsense of humour is less keen than that of men; they fail to see the\ndroll side of customs and fetishes, and they get angry with those who\njest and chuckle at grotesque ceremonies and functions. It matters not\nto the middle-class woman how good or wise a man or woman may be if\nthey do not conform to preposterous codes and usages.\n\nThe romantic youth who imagines that most women are more sentimental\nand romantic than himself, discovers his error when he becomes a lover,\nand is received as a suitor in the family of his inamorata. He finds\nthe Little Muddleton Road folk extremely practical and respectable.\nMaterfamilias may possibly have been slightly tinged with romance and\npoetry in her teens; but at fifty she is a slave to Respectability,\nand she teaches her daughters, in season and out, that they must,\nbefore all else, be \"Respectable members of society.\" Is it a matter\nfor wonder? Naturally, the romantic youth puzzles over this shrewd,\nbusiness-like phase of woman's character; but he forgets that \"human\nbeings, cramped under worse than South Sea Isle taboo,\" develop\nastuteness in order to survive. You cannot expect women who have been\nfenced around by Respectability and restricted to the back parlour\nand the kitchen, to be wild, free, natural creatures, and nymphs of\nthe woodland. We ought not to have imprisoned them in this way at the\nbeginning. By this time, alas! the majority of them appear to hug their\nfetters.\n\nThe black shadow of the plague of Respectability is over love and\nthe relations of the sexes, and women suffer more than men from this\nterrible blight. Respectability isolates the sexes before marriage,\nand only allows them to discover each other's idiosyncracies,\ncaprices, and foibles when they are inseparably united ankle to ankle\nand wrist to wrist, to hobble on through life, and pretend that they\nare enjoying the penance. I do not say that the shackles _always_\ngall. It is almost a sheer question of chance if they do not. For\nthis fearful uncertainty Respectability is much to blame. Girls are\nimmured and guarded, like vestal virgins of old; there is no wholesome\nwidespread social commingling of the sexes. Boys are free; but what is\ntheir liberty worth to them, when girls are watched, chaperoned, and\nsecluded at the very age when their society is most sought by the youth\nof the opposite sex? This nunnery system is practically restricted\nto the middle-class Respectables. What is its effect upon the morals\nand the weal of the order? Most disastrous. The young man, in a very\nlarge number of instances, gains his knowledge of womankind among the\nflashy, flighty, and even more undesirable specimens of the sex. He\nmeets the Little Muddleton Road girls at parties occasionally, but if\nhe walks home from chapel with one of them, Paterfamilias or Mamma\nintervenes, and cuts short the friendship, or they want to know the\nyoung fellow's \"intentions\" towards Ethel. His own parents tell him he\nis too youthful, or too poor, to think of wooing yet; and I have even\nknown mothers who excluded all girls from the house for fear that their\nsons should fall in love prematurely.\n\nNow, it is quite probable that the young man has no \"intentions,\"\nbeyond gaining a friend in one of the Little Muddleton Road girls. He\nmay simply desire social intercourse with one of the feminine kind,\nout of obedience to an eternal and immutable law of attraction. But\nno, such intimacies, unless they are distinctly understood to be the\nprelude to marriage, are rarely permitted by the Respectables. \"It\nis not proper for Ethel to be seen about with that young Simpkins.\nWhat will Mrs. Robinson think?\" Therefore Ethel is interdicted from\ncommunication with the estimable Simpkins, and injured propriety is\nappeased and quieted.\n\nI say without hesitation that such isolation is ruinous to the\nmorals of the community. Finding how exceedingly difficult it is to\nassociate with the daughters of the Respectables, young Simpkins finds\ncompanions among the female outcasts of society, women who besmirch his\nromance, and degrade his pure passion to the lowest animal lust. The\nworld is full of love, could he but find it; but Respectability locks\nit up in fusty dens, and says: \"You mustn't be a close friend of my\ndaughter. That will never do! If you were engaged to her it would be a\ndifferent matter; but you're not, and people would talk.\" So Simpkins\ngoes away, and \"picks up\" very questionable girls in the street, and\nbuys his first experience of \"love.\" And the saddest thing is that he\nforms his opinion about women from these types, which is, of course,\nunwise, to say the least. But is he wholly to blame for this? No, he\nis one of the victims of Respectability, the grim tyrant who mars and\nblasts millions of human lives in England. At thirty-five Simpkins is\na _blas\u00e9_, cynical young man-about-town, a sufferer, probably, from\ninordinate sexuality, with a profound contempt for all women, founded\non his miserable experiences with female harpies and panders. \"A fool\nand sinner,\" cries the moralist. Yes, but there are many like to him\namongst us; and they were once decent, healthy, chivalrous young men.\n\nAnd what of the isolated young girl? Her case seems to me even more\nsorrowful and piteous. Half of life is a sealed book to her. She has\nscarcely any ideas that are not delusions about love and the opposite\nsex, and the most important offices of her being. Her natural impulses\nhave been suppressed, stunted, and perverted, and her physical health\nis probably feebler than that of the dissipated young man. She marries\nlate, dazed with joy that her hour has come at last, and frequently\nawakes in the first year of marriage to the truth that she knew little\nabout men in general, and not nearly enough about the man she has\nwedded; that she was wofully inexperienced and ignorant, and that\nRespectability condemns her to drain the bitter cup of disappointment\nto the dregs, to drain it with composure and a smiling face to the\nworld. She was not allowed to mix freely with men. All her ideas of\nmale human nature are derived from mawkish novels and story books,\noften written by women as ill-informed as herself. Many women have\nconfessed to me that they did not understand men till they married one,\nand many men have said the same concerning women.\n\nHow, then, can we lessen the chances of drawing the wrong card in\nthe great lottery of marriage? Certainly not by the sequestration of\nyouths and maidens, for that is one of the chief causes of unsuccessful\nunions. Grundyism and Respectability must be set at defiance, and boys\nand girls in adolescence allowed to form companionships with each\nother. The artificial barriers between them must be broken down; the\nold stupid inhibitions rescinded, and a wholesome association not only\npermitted, but by every means encouraged. Education in life through\nthe fellowship and the interchange of ideas between the sexes is one\nsafeguard against wreckage in the perilous journey of matrimony.\n\nDiscoursing upon the \"eternal feminine,\" Schopenhauer says: \"Individual\nand partial exceptions do not alter the fact that women are, and will\nalways remain, the most thorough and incurable Philistines.... Their\ndomination and influence ruins modern society.... The essentially\nEuropean lady is a being who ought to have no existence at all; there\nought, on the other hand, to be housewives and girls who hope to\nbecome such, and who are, in consequence, brought up to domesticity\nby subordination. Just because there are _ladies_ in Europe, women of\na lower grade, who form, therefore, the great majority of the sex, are\nmuch more unhappy than they are in the East.\"\n\nAs to the charge of Philistinism, I am, unfortunately, compelled to\nagree with the pessimistic mysogynist. Women are the larger part of\nhumanity in this country, and, that part being Philistine, it must\nexercise a bad influence upon society in the mass. I do not deny\nthat the spirit of rebellion lurks in every woman's breast, but, for\nall that, women are not readily persuaded to rebel against absurd\nconventions. Their great desire is to be on the popular side, and in\nthe ranks of the mightier force, because unpopular causes are generally\naccounted discreditable by the majority. Women, therefore, set a high\nvalue on Respectability, and they endure much suffering to maintain\nit. Yet here and there we find women as leaders and foremost fighters\nin assaults upon irrational institutions and customs, and they are\noften wise tacticians and valorous assailers. But such women are not\nof the Respectables; they are thinkers and reformers who have cast\naside the cumbrous, tawdry trappings of that order, so that they may be\nof service to humanity. The Philistine woman cares little or nothing\nfor social advance and the welfare of posterity, and in this respect\nshe is always rather more apathetic or actively hostile to progress\nthan the Philistine man. She feels that a woman has more to lose than\na man by abandoning conventionalities and orthodox opinions. But this\ndread is somewhat ill-founded and exaggerated, because there are many\nunconventional men only too ready to warmly welcome the women who\nrevolt, and not only to bid them cheer, but to pay them high homage for\ntheir bravery and independence. In the long run, a woman gains far more\nesteem and friendship in the army of the Unconventionalists than she\nwins from the host of the Respectables.\n\nTimidity is one of the prime sources of the disease of Respectability\nin both sexes, and women are by nature more timid than men in the\nmatter of revolt against ignorant Public Opinion. The result is that\nwomen are much less free than men in so-called free countries. \"A man\nglories in being considered bold, but a woman shrinks from the charge\nof boldness, as degrading to her sex.\"[2] And here I shelter myself\nbehind a doughty champion of women, because if I wrote the indictment\nwhich he has set down, my ethical-cum-philosophical Gamaliel, and\npossibly many of my women readers, would charge me with \"cynicism\" and\n\"sex-bias.\" I quote again from Mr. Gibson, who, in this charge of the\nalleged untruthfulness of women, is almost as emphatic as Schopenhauer:\n\"Owing to the subordinate position of women, _they are less truthful\nthan men_. They work up to their ends without the exercise of force,\nand must therefore use guile. Men lie as readily as women when they\nthink lies will serve their purpose, but, having more freedom, and\nbeing less afraid of conflict, they have less cause to lie. _Women are\ntaught to lie from their childhood, in order to hide their desires,\ntheir disappointments, and their sufferings._ Women are driven in upon\nthemselves, and in sheer self-defence lie as men are not called upon to\nlie.\"[3]\n\nI know several charming women who lie most glibly and as to the manner\nborn, without a tinge of shame; indeed, it is a difficult matter to\nmake sure that you have \"got them,\" so to speak, for their speech is\nso slippery, and they fib so artistically that no reliance can be\nplaced upon their admissions of belief or disbelief in this or that.\nAll that they say must be swallowed with a large grain of salt. But let\nme qualify this impugnment somewhat. I think we may fairly say that\nthe tarradiddles of women are not generally of the more ignoble order\nof lies. They are mostly pretty little semi-transparent falsehoods\nwhich do not utterly deceive the hearer who has studied the psychology\nof women. It is Respectability that makes cowards and cozeners of\nmen and women; and those who imagine that they have the most to lose\nby frankness will naturally practice the most deception.[4] The\nwoman-thrall to convention is forced to use the weapons of falsehood\nand to don the armour of deceit. In corroboration of this assertion,\nI shall again quote the words of another writer, and a woman to boot.\nMiss Violet Hunt, a clever satiric novelist, thus describes the unhappy\ngirl who has been inoculated with the virus of Respectability:--\n\n     \"How one knows the kind of girl! One meets a specimen in almost\n     every house-party. She is nicely dressed, but not quite so nicely\n     as the other girls staying in the house. She has charming manners,\n     but there is something of the offensive and defensive sharpness\n     of the street Arab about her. She has had to take care of herself\n     ever since she was grown up, and make her tongue do the work of\n     chaperonage. If it rains, she is in mute agony, because she cannot\n     afford to spoil her clothes. She takes Champagne regularly at\n     dinner because she does not have it at home. She is at some pains\n     to propitiate her hostess, because she intends to be asked again.\n     She holds her tongue when grand functions are mentioned, because\n     she was not there. In short, she is a kind of innocent whited\n     sepulchre; a frail, jerry-built edifice, whose prestige may be\n     destroyed at any moment by untoward revelations as to her social\n     standing, whose whole endeavour is to give the impression that she\n     lives in a mentionable part of London, and dresses on more than\n     thirty pounds a year.\"[5]\n\nThis is a pitiless exposure of the shifts and subterfuges to which\nyou must stoop in posing as a lady or gentleman, when you are only a\nperson. What happiness, what profit, come out of such masquerading?\nIt is better, a hundred times better, to save your soul alive, and\npreserve something of self-respect, as one of the unreceived and\nunrecognised Non-Respectables. You will find this enchanted garden of\nPhilistia, fenced with high walls bristling with spikes, and set with\nwarning boards, is a very shoddy Paradise when you are admitted to it\non sufferance. It is the domain of the \"bores and bored,\" the haunt of\nparasites and toadies, incessantly scheming and distrusting each other\nin a deadly dull atmosphere of uncongeniality.\n\nMy sister, you gain _nothing_ by fostering this malady of\nRespectability, by vapouring and wasting your sweetness in the aridity\nof the Little Muddleton Road. So long as you slavishly conform to the\nbarbaric customs and codes of that wretched clan, so long will you be\nabject and unhappy. Come out of the fetid air of the Charnel-house of\nConvention, rip off those corsets and cramping disguises, cast away\nyour high-heeled boots, and stand erect and fearless among men and\nwomen who dare to live free uncontaminated lives, beyond the reek and\nblight of the infected purlieus.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] \"The Emancipation of Women,\" by J. Gibson.\n\n[3] The italics in this passage are mine.\n\n[4] Heine, in his confessions, says: \"We men will sometimes lie\noutright: women, like all passive creatures, seldom invent, but can so\ndistort a fact that they can thereby injure us more surely than by a\ndownright lie.\"\n\n[5] \"The Way of Marriage.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nRESPECTABILITY AND MORALS.\n\n     Mrs. Alving: Oh! that perpetual law and order! I often think it is\n     that which does all the mischief here in the world. \"Ghosts.\"\n\n                                        IBSEN.\n\n     \"Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without\n     merit.\"\n\n                                        \"OTHELLO.\"\n\n\nThat which people call thorough Respectability is, in the main,\nvery bad morality. I do not state that the disease under discussion\ninvariably annihilates the subject's sense of justice, integrity,\nand charity, but it does so in many cases, and in the generality\nof instances, it certainly perverts the ethical judgment. The true\nRespectable is compelled to work out his own social salvation and\nprestige by means of consistent duplicity and craft. He must be\nartificial to succeed in winning the popularity that he craves. He\nhas, therefore, two sets of opinions--one for the sanctum and the\nother for the marketplace. For example, to satisfy the Brownian code,\nour Respectable, though he may be anti-Sabbatarian in private belief\nand practice, is careful to dissemble his views on the question. He\nprobably goes to chapel, at least now and then, in order to maintain\na reputation for Respectability, but he has been known to sneak by\ndevious ways to his favourite side bar at the conclusion of his\npenance. Brown knows nothing about the side bar; he gulls himself with\nthe idea that Smith attends Bethesda from a deep sense of devotion.\n\nBut Brown is as great a humbug as Smith. Has he not been heard to\ndeclare in private that his regular attendance at chapel is a matter of\nbusiness? And, as for Robinson, does he not absent himself from service\nwhenever he is beyond the espionage of the Little Muddleton Road clan?\nI have even seen him fishing at Datchet on Sunday. I do not wonder\nthat these three worthies distrust each other in trading. Each one is\nconscious in fleeting moments of honest self-introspection that the\nman who habitually deceives his neighbours concerning his religious,\npolitical, and social opinions, is scarcely the one to practise strict\ncommercial probity. Nor, indeed, is he. Respectables who dupe their\nneighbours as to their moral and intellectual beliefs and convictions\nare just as likely to defraud them in business transactions, and I\nhave never met an intellectual liar who was scrupulously truthful and\nupright in his business affairs.\n\nA man, for one reason or another, emotional or purely expedient, wishes\nto believe, or to persuade his acquaintances that he believes, certain\ntheological doctrines, and, by a process of deliberate stultification\nof his reason, he may actually cajole himself that he _does_ believe\nthem. Is this the kind of man who will sedulously guard against\nsoiling his hands in dirty commercial enterprises? I think not. If he\ndeceives you about his private views, and plays the mental poltroon and\nhypocrite in public, you may be almost certain that he adulterates his\nbread, or sells his customers American Cheddar, assuring them that it\nis of English make. We cannot draw a sharp line of distinction betwixt\nintellectual and moral dishonesty. The man who pretends to have Radical\nleanings, when he is at heart a Tory, is the man who will probably\nswindle you in the way of trade. A trimmer and an opportunist is to be\ndistrusted all round.\n\nRespectability, like emasculation, makes men cowardly, untruthful,\nand mean-spirited. It is a terrible moral and mental blight upon the\ncommunity. Do you not know the unctuous provincial tradesfolk who\nnever attend their local theatres for fear of the Puritans of Little\nPeddlington? I have known scores of them--aye, and seen them with my\nown eyes at the Alhambra and other places of entertainment in London.\nThey don't spend all their holiday in town at Exeter Hall and the City\nTemple. I need not say any more about these unmitigated impostors; but\nthis passage from Ibsen's \"Ghosts\" will not be an inapt illustration of\ntheir slyness:--\n\n     \"Manders: What! Do you mean to say that respectable men from home\n     here would----?\n\n     \"Oswald: Have you never heard these respectable men, when they got\n     home again, talking about the way in which immorality was getting\n     the upper hand abroad?\n\n     \"Manders: Yes, of course.\n\n     \"Mrs. Alving: I have, too.\n\n     \"Oswald: Well, you may take their word for it. They know what they\n     are talking about! (Presses his hands to his head). Oh! that that\n     great, free, glorious life out there should be defiled in such a\n     way!\"\n\nWhen Respectability has a strong hold on a man's moral sense, there is\nno low crime that it may not lead him to commit. Respectables, like the\ncongenital criminals described by Lombroso, almost invariably profess\nreligion, and many are outwardly very devout, but full within of\nravening and venality. \"He shows the whites of his eyes on the Sabbath,\nand the blacks all the rest of the week,\" says Thoreau. When the plate\nis passed around after divine service, the Respectable ostentatiously\ndeposits a florin upon it, registering a secret vow that he will get\nback that coin, with ample interest, by some shady trick of trade on\nMonday morning. He gets it, too, you may be sure, and with a swinging\nprofit on it, in consideration of his Sabbath generosity. There may be\ntreasure laid up in heaven for the Respectable, but he is not the fool\nto despise the good things of this life. He believes that all things\nhave been given unto him richly to enjoy, here and hereafter, and he\ntakes care that none of these good things go by mistake to the wrong\nquarters. His golden rule is, obtain from others all that you can.\nHowever latitudinarian he may be upon some points of doctrine, he is\nstrictly orthodox in the application of that useful text, \"Blessed are\nthe poor.\" \"Decent Society\" is full of these whited sepulchres; their\ndank, poisonous stench pervades every Little Muddleton Road in the\nKingdom.\n\nI like to hear the working man speak his mind on the Respectables.\nThe British working man has his palpable faults and failings, but he\nis most often free from the disease of Respectability. He knows worth\nof character when he sees it, and he detests the two-faced dealings,\nsnobbishness, and cant of his self-styled superiors. The British\nworking man has his failings, I say, but he is not very seriously\ninfected with Respectability, except in rare instances. He is a\ncleaner, much more moral man than the _bourgeois_, and considerably\nmore intelligent as a rule, because he is under no social necessity to\nlie to his better judgment and juggle with his reason. The proletariat,\nlike the aristocratic class, have obtained a tolerable liberty of\nopinion and conduct. They can afford to be Non-Respectables, and they\npossess the pluck to be honest thinkers. And one can say this without\nhaving a profound veneration for \"noble lords\" and the institution of\nthe peerage, and without intending to whitewash blackguards, whether\nthey be mere patricians or simple costermongers. A friends of mine, a\nman of feeling, once sojourned for a space in the home of a provincial\nlinen-draper of eminent, Respectability. I don't know what my friend\nwas doing in that galley; I can't explain the juxtaposition of a Man\nof Feeling in such company; but it is enough to say that my eccentric\nfriend was there. Well, the highly Respectable linen-draper was\nlikewise \"very religious,\" as the phrase is, and he used continually to\ndwell upon the importance of devotional exercise, as most Respectables\ndo. He read Scripture aloud to his family and assistants, went to\nchapel regularly, observed Sunday scrupulously, behind drawn window\nblinds, believed in small profits and quick returns, drove a good\ntrade, and held his head high, for the sober, God-fearing, enterprising\nshopkeeper that he was. At meal times this fellow would hold forth on\ngrace--a virtue in which he was strangely lacking--also on obeying the\nprecepts of Christ. \"Ah,\" he would say, rolling the yellows of his\ngreedy little eyes; \"ah, that I were more like the Master!\" Now, this\nspeech incessantly on the lips of a sweater and a hypocrite began to\ncause the Man of Feeling's gorge to rise, for he was a healthy, decent\nliver, and a hater of cant. So one day, when the Respectable lifted\nhis gaze to the ceiling and muttered his usual aspiration, the Man of\nFeeling could endure the sickening ordeal no longer.\n\n\"Like the Master!\" he cried vehemently. \"You wish to be like the\nMaster, and you pay your female assistants eight or ten shillings a\nweek, and expect them to live on that miserable sum! Don't insult\nChrist! Don't cant and pretend that you wish to be a penniless\nsocialist, and go about trying to do good. _You!_\" And, with these\nwords, the Man of Feeling arose, and left that Respectable house,\nshaking its dust from his feet, and panting to breathe once more a\npure and bracing air among the Non-Respectables, to whom, by moral\nconviction, he rightly belonged.\n\nAh! \"the mud-hearted Bourgeois!\" I don't wonder that another Man of\nFeeling, poor, sensitive, pitying, indignant Francis Adams, called you\nby that title! Can you by any human power be dragged out of the slime\nin which you love to wallow?\n\nYet these are the censors of genius, the founders of public taste,\nthe friends of religion, the conservers of morality, forsooth! Every\nlittle shallow, mean-souled Respectable thinks himself capable of\ndeciding that Shelley and Burns were \"immoral;\" that this or that work\nof genius is \"injurious to morals;\" that one brilliant man is morally\nincapacitated from assisting in legislation, and that another ought to\nbe imprisoned for the expression of heterodox religious or political\nopinions. British Respectability makes Britain the laughing-stock and\nbutt of the wits of the world. Nay, more; the Respectable's stupid\nblatant \"patriotism\" and bullying arrogance cause us to be hated in all\nthe quarters of the globe.\n\nI repeat that Respectability is practically incompatible with moral\nworth. With true, sound, broad morality it is quite incompatible.\nYou cannot grow grapes on thorn bushes, nor force lilies among\nstinging-nettles. Politics, commerce, the relations of the sexes,\nscience, art, and literature, are all more or less corrupted by the\nmephitic blight of Respectability.\n\nI will conclude this chapter with a quotation from M. Taine, who\nestimates our insular propriety very shrewdly in his entertaining\n\"Notes on England.\" \"I am acquainted with a London merchant who visits\nParis twice yearly on business. When he is there he is very jovial,\nand amuses himself on Sunday as freely as anyone else. His Paris host,\nwho visited him at his home in London, where he was made thoroughly\nwelcome, going downstairs on Sunday to the room where there was a\nminiature billiard table, pushed the balls about on it. The merchant\nin alarm begged him to stop at once, saying, 'The neighbours will be\nscandalised should they hear this.'\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nCULTURED GENTILITY.\n\n     \"I hardly know an _intellectual_ man, even, who is so broad and\n     truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with\n     whom you endeavour to talk soon come to a stand against some\n     institution in which they appear to hold stock--that is some\n     particular, not universal way of viewing things.\"\n\n                                        THOREAU.\n\n     \"Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?\"\n\n                                        \"MEASURE FOR MEASURE.\"\n\n\nCultured gentility is one of the signs of the times. Snobbishness is\na deep-seated vice of human beings, and a trait of the gregarious\nmammalia, with which the human snob, when he is more than ordinarily\nignorant, disclaims relationship. When Darwin told people that their\nearly progenitors were hairy and ape-like, with prehensile feet, great\ncanine teeth, and tails equipped with the proper muscles, all the\nRespectables jeered at him, and said that they were \"only a little\nlower than the angels,\" and that monkeys must have been fashioned as\ntravesties of men. But though we have moved upwards, \"working out of\nthe beast,\" Man still exhibits race prejudice, patriotic bias, and\nthe low instinct of class exclusiveness. Perhaps at no period of our\nsocial evolution have we been more cultured, and yet more vulgar, than\nat the present time. Such a juxtaposition may appear to indicate that\na little knowledge for the masses is not without its disadvantages as\nwell as its blessing. The proletarian of the sixteenth century could\nnot read nor write; but he was probably less vulgar than those among\nhis descendants whose acquaintance with modern literature is restricted\nto the gutter library of cuts and snips and racing tips. Simple, merry\nDick trolled \"Old Rose\"; flash 'Arry and his blatant mates hiccough the\nstaccato of \"Glorious Beer.\"\n\nContemporaneous with a widespread vulgarity of thought and a hideous\nbanality of living, there is an immense development of culture.\nNowadays it is the fashion to \"go in\" for \"culture,\" and in society you\nmust know, or affect to know, something about evolution, the higher\ncriticism, Ibsen, Whistler's pictures, and Chippendale furniture. You\nmay learn much about these, and be \"smart\" at the same time; for\nsmartness and culture go hand-in-hand to the \"crushes\" and \"at homes,\"\nand are as brother and sister one to the other. To use a phrase from\nthe vocabulary of culture-cum-smartness, you are \"not in the running\"\nif you have merely mastered the theory of the universal germ, and\nneglected to practise the skirt dance or the plantation song.\n\nOnce upon a time, the philosopher and the man of letters came out and\nwas separate from amongst the crowd. He lived mostly in the seclusion\nof his library, which was neither good for his understanding nor\nhis digestion. But he forewent the pomps of smart society, partly\nbecause smart society did not wish to be bored, and partly owing\nto his enlightened instinct of Bohemianism, which found wholesome\ngratification in the unostentatious amenities of the literary\nsymposium, the forgathering with one or two of his craft at the\nhistoric \"Cheshire Cheese\" or the \"Cock Tavern.\" He dressed himself\nwith a certain careless distinction; he drank cider with Porson, and\nspent ambrosial nights in the fumes from churchwardens with genial\nLamb, Hazlitt, Godwin, Leigh Hunt, and Landor. These were men of\nculture who refused to hover on the fringe of a shallow, fashionable\nsociety, not because they were intellectual snobs, but because their\npursuits were on a higher plane than the frivolities of Respectability.\n\nWordsworth dwelt remote among the hills; De Quincey led laborious days\nin the solitude of Mavis Bush; Shelley lived unknown of his neighbours\nat Marlow; and Landor, \"a noble-looking old man, badly dressed in\nshabby snuff-clothes, a dirty old blue necktie and unstarched cotton\nshirt,\" lived chiefly aloof in Florence. None of these qualified\nthemselves for lionisation in society. The arts of gentility are not\ncompatible with the study of science and philosophy.\n\nAmp\u00e8re, the scientific investigator, went one day to dine with Madame\nBeauregard. His hands were stained by a drug which leaves its mark on\nthe skin for several days. Poor Amp\u00e8re! what did he in a company where\nexternals count for all a man is worth? His hostess could not dine with\none whose hands were soiled in the interest of posterity: \"I promised\nnot to return there before my hands were white. Of course, I shall\nnever enter the house again,\" wrote Amp\u00e8re to his wife. And have we not\nread how Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds were mistaken by a finical\nlady for a pair of working men when she saw them conversing together?\n\nBut we have fallen upon different days. The philosopher has been lured\nfrom his den; the poets have come down from Parnassus to sport with\nthe nymphs of Philistia, the intellectual rogue elephant has been\ntamed to \"caper nimbly in my lady's chamber,\" and the recusant and\nthe pariah sat down to table with the imposing dignitaries of the\nChurch and State. It may be well on the whole, but these gracious\nconcessions from the Philistine are not without their perils for the\nphilosopher and the artist. Even the wisest of them cannot always\nescape the moral and mental deterioration that comes of being _au fait_\nin the whiffles and frothy small talk of drawing-rooms, the parlour\ntricks and pretty deportments; and the donning of a chimney-pot hat\nand a dress coat is often the first step on the downward career of\nthe intellectual. Have we not seen it? One season will transform the\nmodest, single-hearted, plain-living artist or student into a vain,\ninsufferable, intellectual mountebank. A few months of interviewing,\nand \"log-rolling,\" and posturing in Mayfair, and you change your\nideas, stultify your conscience, and degenerate into a Respectable. It\nis almost inevitable. We are all sweetly human, and vanity is one of\nour prime characteristics. Most of us, also, as some critic of life\nobserves, would rather be \"the chief of a committee of four than the\nunknown benefactor of our species.\" An author of mediocre ability,\npossessing that quality of self-assertiveness known commonly as \"side,\"\ncan far outpace the shy genius in the race for public esteem. The\nbrazen bumptiousness and supercilious disdain of the mere talent which\nlacks astute worldly wisdom are the components of the snobbishness\nthat makes for social success. Society closes the door upon the needy\nphilosopher in his threadbare garb; but it throws its portals wide to\nwelcome the adept of claptrap, whose higher philosophy is the study of\nthe main chance.\n\nI do not applaud the intellectual exclusiveness with which some of the\ncultured attempt to keep their immaculate souls unspotted from the\nworld. We want no Respectability of pedants and book-worms. Erudition\nis worthy of the highest respect; but the erudite snob is imperfectly\ncultivated. He is frequently more ignorant of many important phases\nof life than the sheer illiterates whom he pities for a narrowness of\njudgment upon men. Who can gainsay Sir Thomas Browne, when he writes:\n\"It is an unjust way of compute to magnify a weak head for some Latin\nabilities; and to under-value a solid judgment because he knows not\nthe genealogy of Hector\"? It is difficult to dissociate arrogance\nfrom ignorance, even when we know that the arrogant man is learned.\nSnobbishness is a mark of shallowness.\n\nUndoubtedly, many men and women of genius have evinced the specific\nsnobbery of culture. Shakspere, Jonson, Victor Hugo, and Turguenieff,\nare great figures that suggest exceptions to the rule. Carlyle is a bad\ncase of playing to the Respectables; for, despite his loudly-proclaimed\nreverence for humanity, his vanity, like that of Antisthenes, peered\nthrough the rents in his cloak. In extolling the imposers of brute\nforce in the community, the sage displayed a tendency to cajole the\noppressing class, for whom he had about as much real sympathy as\nthe Southerner has for the negro race. He jeered at and snubbed his\ncontemporary writers; he despised mere literary artists; he told a\nnow eminent novelist that he was \"ganging to the de'il by the very\nvulgarest road\"; he described Lecky as \"a willow-pattern sort o' man,\nvoluble but harmless, a pure herbivorous, nay, mere graminivorous\ncreature;\" he called Landor a \"wild man,\" and sighed \"over the\nspectacle of the commonplace torn to rags;\" Maurice was \"uninteresting\n... twisted, screwed, wiredrawn;\" and it is said that the most he could\nsay for George Meredith was that he was \"nae fule.\" To a host of minor\nessayists, journalists, and literary hangers-on, Carlyle set that\nfashion of priggishness and snobbery that prevails so widely at the\npresent time.\n\nWhat a mighty and fearsome foe to knowledge is Academic Respectability.\nBeneath its sway the seats of learning become fusty abiding-places of\nmouldy pedantry. It posts its wary lackeys at every avenue of research\nto warn back adventurous explorers, with their theological or political\nred flags and notice boards. Academic Respectability expelled Shelley.\nIt frowns upon Bain, Francis Newman, and other bold investigators and\nscholars of modern times. It killed Socrates, persecuted Spinoza,\ninsulted David Hume, sneered at Buckle, and derided Darwin. De Quincey\ntells us that he scarcely spoke to a soul while he was at Worcester\nCollege, Oxford. Was the pensive opium-eater thoroughly overawed or\ndepressed by the Respectability of the classic city? Possibly those\nwere the days of the genesis of the \"Oxford manner,\" that supercilious\ndrawling affectation of superior sapience which characterises the sons\nof _bourgeois_ families at Alma Mater.\n\nLet William Morris speak: \"Oxford was beautiful even in the nineteenth\ncentury, when Oxford, and its less interesting sister, Cambridge,\nbecame definitely commercial. They (and especially Oxford) were the\nbreeding places of a peculiar class of parasites, who called themselves\ncultivated people; they were, indeed, cynical enough, as the so-called\neducated classes of the day generally were; but they affected an\nexaggeration of cynicism, in order that they might be thought knowing\nand worldly-wise.\" (\"News from Nowhere.\") Thomas Hardy, in describing\nthe manners of Christminster,[6] writes in a similar strain of the\nsystem that has elbowed the proletariat off the pavements, to make room\nfor the sons of millionaires.\n\nAcademic stubborn opposition to new and revolutionary theories of\nall kinds is one phase of the mental malady of Respectability. All\nhierarchies and autocracies have the sacrosanct seal of Respectability;\nthey have a conventional reputation to maintain, and it is to their\nvital interest to fight innovating opinion. For instance, the French\nAcademy refuses persistently to elect M. Zola, on the very plea of his\nliterary unconventionality and virility. He writes for the thoughtful\nand wide-visioned, and not for the horde of shallow Respectables. Yet\nZola is beyond doubt the greatest novelist of our age; and perhaps\nthe only French novelist of his day who can count upon immortality.\nIt is his greatness, his genius, that exclude him from the narrow\ncoterie. \"My position is simple,\" he writes. \"Since there is an Academy\nin France, I ought to belong to it. I have stood for election, and\nI cannot recognise anything wrong on my part in having done so. So\nlong as I continue to stand, I am not beaten, therefore I will always\nstand.\" But Zola may rest well content; he has won greater fame and\nhonour than the Academy could confer upon him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nInstance, again, the Respectable hostility to the evolutionary\ntheory. Was the opposition entirely motived by a spirit of scientific\nscepticism and caution? Certainly not. The main attack was made by the\narmy of Respectables, who became exceedingly angry with Charles Darwin\nbecause he calmly demolished a number of groundless suppositions as\nto the origin of life, the descent of man, and the development of the\nsense of morality. Your true conventionalist, confronted with a new and\nstartling idea, is like the savage who lashes himself into a passion at\nthe sight of a steamboat or some other mechanical invention. The savage\nwants to smash the machine and the man who made it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMr. Lawson Tait, the well-known physician, has stated that he suffered\nin social and professional life for his acceptance of the Darwinian\nhypothesis. Mr. Tait writes: \"'The Origin of Species' was published in\n1859. I came across it in 1861--as a boy of 17--it captivated me, and\ntook such a hold of me that I tried the application of its principle\nin every direction open to my youthful mind. In 1863, as president of\nthe Hunterian Medical Society (the Society of University Students),\nI applied Darwin's doctrines in directions which brought upon me the\nexpressed anger of the authorities, and my career as a University\nstudent was in danger of a premature ending. Not only was there not a\nsingle professor of the University of Edinburgh at that time who was\nother than actively hostile to Darwin's views, but the acceptance of\nthem actually drove me from my native city, in 1866.\"\n\nSuch is a typical illustration of the mental corrosion induced by the\ninsanity of Academic Respectability.\n\nI am not tilting at Universities, but against Respectability in\nevery guise. With the growth of power in the _bourgeois_ class, the\nUniversities have, to a large degree, degenerated from halls of\nknowledge into mere forcing beds of the disease of Respectability.\n\nThe case seems even worse in \"free America.\"\n\nPlutocracy has taken the colleges under its \u00e6gis, and knowledge has\nbeen cramped to suit the whims of millionaire patrons. Just as happened\nin the case of the academic professors who protested against slavery,\nso are they now threatened when they advocate new economic doctrines,\nwhich do not fit in with the ideas of big capitalists. Sensational\nlight was thrown on this matter by a letter written by one of the\nprofessors of the Leland Stanford University of California, and given\nto the public by the chief of the Literary Bureau of the Democratic\nBryan Party, though its language seems to suggest that its writer\ndid not expect its publication. This professor states that college\nprofessors enjoy no freedom of expression on the money question.\n\"I know,\" he says, \"there are many who wish to champion national\nbi-metallism, but I am very sure if there were such, they would be\ncompelled to surrender their present livelihoods.\" He cites by name\nseveral instances of instructors who have been placed under duresse for\nteaching views that are considered heterodox by the wealthy men who\nrule the Board of some of our principal colleges, and rule them in\northodox obedience to the gospel of self-interest.[7]\n\nThe same writer informs us that for advocating the passage of a Bill\nby the Illinois State Legislature to give the City of Chicago the\noption of becoming the owner of a municipal gas plant, and for some\nother exhibitions of a spirit of economic freedom, Professor Bemis\nwas dismissed from his position in the University of Chicago, an\ninstitution created and largely maintained by a great millionaire,\npart of whose fortune is in gas stock. Wisconsin has a university\nsupported by the people of that State, and there learning has a chance\nto flourish. But wherever the influence of the patron is found, there\nprogress is blocked by plutocracy.\n\n     \"A most competent professor of political economy, in one of the\n     greatest of our universities, allowing himself to become an\n     advocate of the ownership and operation of our telegraphs by the\n     Government, was compelled to give up his place by the influence of\n     one of the trustees, who happened to be a large owner of telegraph\n     stock.... The victorious trustee carries about with him in his\n     pocket-book a little printed slip, containing the offensive views\n     of the discharged professor, and it is his pleasant habit to read\n     this when occasion offers, to instructors or students who may, he\n     thinks, need bracing up, and he accompanies the reading with\n     cheering comments on the fate which befel the heretic who uttered\n     such doctrines.\"\n\nAn important scientific school in America had been created and endowed\nby one of our \"poor boys,\" become plutocrat. He was dissuaded with\ndifficulty by the President from carrying out the idea which he\nproposed, that the teachers should be hired by the month, as were the\nclerks in his factories, so that they could be discharged whenever he\nwanted to do so! You see, even in democratic nations, the trail of\nRespectability is over education.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[6] \"Jude the Obscure.\"\n\n[7] From article \"Freedom in the American Colleges,\" in \"Progressive\nReview,\" January, 1897.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nPLUTOCRACY.\n\n     \"Constant at church and change; his gains were sure,\n     His givings rare, save farthings to the poor.\"\n\n                                        POPE. \"Of the Use of Riches.\"\n\n     \"Here you a muckworm of the town might see\n     At his dull desk, amid his ledgers stall'd,\n     Eat up with carking care.\"\n\n                                        THOMSON. \"Castle of Indolence.\"\n\n\nEveryone knows Pugsley, _the great Pugsley_, proprietor of Pugsley's\nPure Piquant Pickles. You have seen his gracefully alliterative\nadvertisements on the hoardings at the railway stations, and all\ndown the Great Turnover Line, glaring at you in pastoral scenes,\nwhere Chloris led her lambkins in the pre-plutocratic days of \"merrie\nEngland,\" and even obtruding their hideous drawing of the pickle\nbottles (\"Ask for Pugsley's, Pure and Piquant\") upon you in lonely\nmountain inns of the Grampians. There is no escaping the all-pervading\nPugsley. Your grocer has foisted Pugsley's Pickles on you, and you\nhave had to taste them, willy-nilly. He had a good reason for sending\nyou Pugsley's Pickles. The firm are able to undersell all other\ncompetitors in the drysaltery interest, because they pay low wages to\ntheir workpeople.\n\nBut, though you are familiar with the name of the Great Pugsley,\nand know the flavour of his relishes and condiments, you have never\ntroubled to learn how the man made his huge business. I will tell you\nhis history. It is very instructive.\n\nPugsley's father was a village grocer at Hookham Nooton. He sold\nbutter and cheese and tea for forty years, and left his son \u00a3500 at\nhis demise. Young Pugsley early developed shrewd commercial instincts.\nAt school he retailed his father's sugar to the boys, making a clear\nhalfpenny profit on each penny; and when he had made a little capital\nby this huckstering, he launched out into bigger trading ventures, such\nas the vending of knives and cricket bats, and cheap magic lanterns,\ntill he became a kind of \"Universal Provider\" at the select academy for\nyoung gentlemen. This was good training for his after career of buying,\nand selling, and exploiting. There is nothing like beginning these\nthings when you are young.\n\nAt fifteen, Pugsley, junior, was installed behind the parental counter\nat Hookham Nooton, where he learned how to weigh tea with a bit of\npaper under the scale pan, and other recognised dodges of the trade, so\nthat he soon became his father's right hand, and a great acquisition\nto the business. When Pugsley, senior, departed hence, his son took\nsole control of the shop. But the young man realised that he was born\nto be a great merchant, and not a petty trader in a remote village.\nOne day he chanced upon an old book of practical recipes, which told\nyou how to make ketchup and sauces, and, by dint of messing with\nvinegar and spices, he hit upon the famous blend that made his name\nas a sauce maker. Bottles of the stuff sold readily in the village\nand neighbouring small towns, for there is no denying that it was a\ntasty relish. Then came small wholesale orders, and trade began \"to\nhum,\" as business slang has it. Five years later we find Pugsley the\nowner of a pickle factory in Spitalfields, and the employer of fifty\nhands, mostly girls and boys. Ten years after, his pickles are used in\nevery Respectable family in the kingdom, and their repute has reached\nAmerica and the Colonies; and so, before the prime of life, Pugsley is\na pursy citizen, with a fine house at Richmond, a horse and chaise, a\nhousekeeper, maidservants, and a gardener and coachman--all the proper\nrewards of industry.\n\nAt thirty-six, Pugsley married money, and further extended his\nbusiness. His wife \"received\" local snobs, and gave \"at homes,\"\nattended by inferior celebrities and \"all the people who are likely to\nbe of use to us.\" At forty Pugsley was a Constitutional candidate for\nDiddleham, the hope of the Respectables, the cynosure of the hide-bound\nconventionalists in politics. You may remember that he was returned\nby the imposing majority of six. Now came the zenith of his fame.\nPugsley's politics like his pickles, are notoriously piquant. He has\nvoted against every democratic measure, and prated about \"the natural\nleaders of the working class.\"\n\nSee him now, in his honoured old age, hated of his workpeople,\nenvied by Respectables, despised by the county gentry and feared by\nalmost everyone, a millionaire to-day, with a seat in Clodshire, a\nhouse in Portland Terrace, a yacht at Brighton, and a deer forest in\nInverness-shire. I have met his son, the Master of the Slowcomb Hounds,\na good sort of Philistine, who would rather do his fellow-men a good\nturn than an ill one, but a terrible ignoramus and deadweight for all\nthat; with far less real knowledge of men and books than my cobbler\nround the corner. There are three daughters. One of them, Miss Evelyn,\nis betrothed to Lord Durt, the young impoverished peer, who was lately\nearning thirty shillings a week as society reporter to the \"Gadabout.\"\nI am glad for Durt. He has had a rough time, and Evelyn is an amiable,\neven hopeful specimen of the Respectable girl. She has lately talked\nabout industrial questions, and I believe she is half ashamed already\nthat papa has women in his employment earning nine shillings a week\nupon which to keep body and soul together.\n\nYes, it is with the sweat of women and children that Pugsley has become\na plutocrat. His wife is the Patroness of the Refuge for the Fallen.\nHow many of Pugsley's women have been forced to supplement their\nwretched earnings by prostitution? Someone once put this question to\nthe pickleman. \"Really, Mrs. ----,\" he said, \"I am not responsible for\nthe morals of my working people.\" But I say that it is such fellows as\nPugsley who force girls to sell themselves in the street. I ask you, my\nRespectable sister, could you live yourself and help to support your\nwidowed mother and two young children on a wage of seven shillings a\nweek? I have known one of Pugsley's women workers try to do this till\ndeath came with its eternity of rest for that poor, semi-starved,\naching body. To me it is a constant source of wonder, and a matter\nof profound respect for woman's moral courage that more of Pugsley's\nill-paid women helpers do not walk the streets for hire.\n\nO! Great Pugsley, I would that I could be certain of a day of reckoning\nbetwixt you and an Almighty Judge! Sometimes, in dreams, I hear the\ntramp, tramp, of thousands of feet, and see the white faces of toilers\ngleam in the murk of a London night, a night of violent retribution.\nMust we wait for this? Must hands be stained with men's blood ere the\nrich will bestir themselves to render justice to the poor? I pray the\nfates that it may not be so! But everywhere, in the great cities, and\nout in the fields, I hear the murmur of deep, sullen discontent.\n\nThink what such a man as Pugsley has wrought in the name of\nRespectability. He has systematically lied, cheated, and crushed the\nweaker to the wall. He has piled up wealth by defrauding the widow and\nthe orphan of bare human rights, turning them into worse than slaves\nby his thrice-accursed lust for money. I have heard of old servants\nbeing deposed in his warehouse, and put into subordinate positions to\nmake way for the young; of men dismissed for the expression of Liberal\npolitical opinions; of hands threatened with discharge for professing\ntrades union principles; of fines wrung from hungry children for\ntrivial offences; and of bullying and insult and injustices without\nnumber.\n\nI hear my cut-and-dried economist calling me to account with his\nformulas and expositions. Ah! I have listened to them; I have read\nthem; but they never have, and never will, persuade me that Pugsley,\nthe plutocrat, does what is right and humane and reasonable towards\nthose who have built up his fortune, and bought his mansions and his\nyacht, and dowered his daughters. I know about competition, and the\nlaw of demand and supply, and I take my stand on sound social science.\nBut no science that I have studied convinces me that this plutocracy\nand plunder and monopoly are good for anyone but the plutocrats and\nthe plunderers. And not good for them, either, in any moral sense. Is\nit moral to kill the social affections? I say that the professional\nburglar is a model of virtue by the side of Pugsley. He does not pose\nas a Christian philanthropist and a friend of the people when he goes\nabout his nefarious business. Pugsley, the great successful gambler,\nfines poor country louts for playing pitch and toss with halfpence. The\nnext day he perpetrates a filthy fraud on 'Change. Shelley was right,\nthe true ruffian of a community is not the cutpurse who knocks you down\nin the Gray's Inn Road, and gags you, while his accomplice grabs your\nwatch and valuables, but the \"Respectable man--the smooth, smiling\nvillain whom all the City honours, whose very trade is lies and murder;\nwho buys his daily bread with the blood and tears of men.\" I want to\nknow why the big thief, Pugsley, is made a peer, and the man who steals\na handful of turnips is sent to the County gaol?\n\nThe other day, a labourer, out of work, wired a rabbit on Pugsley's\nestate, and went to prison for a week for the misdemeanour. But Pugsley\nannexed the very land that the rabbit was on, a good wide strip of it,\ntoo, which belonged to the people. I used to walk on that same ground,\nlooking for the first primroses. Now I must ask Pugsley's permission\nbefore I dare set a foot there, on this property which I own in common\nwith my neighbours! And you tell me that this sort of \"law and order\"\nis good for my morals.\n\nI am glad that my ethical-cum-philosophical friend is not at my elbow\njust now, to suggest that I ought to be kind to Pugsley. Why, in the\nname of reason, am I to flatter and applaud this commercial gamester?\nI look upon him as a victim of morbid acquisitiveness induced by\nRespectability. Pugsley thinks he must keep up his reputation among\nthe Respectables of his set, and to do this he is urged to plunder the\npoor. He is a dangerous maniac; he ought to be detained and set to\nhard labour to cure him of his derangement.\n\nThe stupidest farce played by the Pugsleys is when one of the girls\ngoes district visiting, and tells the wives of the peasants earning\ntwelve shillings a week, that they \"ought to put by for a rainy day.\" I\nwonder that the women can keep their patience with the ninny. If Miss\nClara Pugsley were to use her atrophied brain for five minutes, she\nwould know that no woman with a husband and five children to feed and\nclothe, and a rent of eighteenpence a week to pay, can save a farthing\nout of such wages. It is gross insolence of this over-fed, idle,\nignorant girl to talk in this fashion to the poor. But this fatuous\nnonsense is preached all over the country every day in the week. Ladies\ncall it \"helping the poor to be thrifty,\" \"elevating the workers,\" etc.\n\nO, Great Pugsley, it is not envy of your possessions that makes me dip\nmy pen in gall, though I know well that is what you will think should\nyou read these words of mine. I would be well content with the income\nof your under-steward. You have measured human nature with your little\nfoot-rule, and come to the opinion that all men are naturally greedy\nvampires like yourself. Believe me, Pugsley, you are sadly wrong in\nthis view. I know men and women who would not stain their fingers with\nyour wretched blood-money for their own usage, though they would gladly\nemploy it for the benefit of those from whom you filched it, drib and\ndrab, by underpayment of their hard, dull toil.\n\nI wish, how I wish in malignant moments, that I had assurance of a\nhereafter for Pugsley in a dark, noisome factory, where he would have\nto work for ten hours a day on skilly. The parson tells me that there\nis a mansion in the skies prepared for Pugsley. And another equally\nsumptuous residence for the more honest Bill Brown, the poacher? Why\nnot?\n\nLondon, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield--these are the paradises\nof the Pugsleys; they batten in the rechy air of these gambling\ncentres. How do these dismal, over-crowded, smoke-blackened haunts of\nRespectability impress \"the intelligent foreigner?\" \"Send a philosopher\nto London, but no poet,\" says Heine. \"Everywhere we are stared down on\nby wealth and Respectability, while, crammed away in retired lanes and\ndamp alleys, poverty dwells, with her rags and her tears.\" Heine, like\nmany another thinker, was struck by the wretchedness and poverty of\nLondon, hiding away behind the mansions of plutocrats and Respectables.\nHe saw \"gaunt hunger staring beseechingly at the rich merchant who\nhurries along, busy and jingling gold, or at the lazy lord who, like\nthe surfeited god, rides by on his high horse, casting now and then\nan aristocratically indifferent glance at the mob below, as though\nthey were swarming ants, or, at all events, a mass of baser beings,\nwhose joys and sorrows have nothing in common with his feelings;\" and\nthe poet cried to poor Poverty, \"Well art thou in the right when thou\nalliest thyself to vice and crime. Outlawed criminals often bear more\nhumanity in their hearts than those cold, blameless citizens of virtue,\nin whose white hearts the power of evil is quenched, but also the power\nof good.\"\n\nMr. Grant White has written a book entitled \"England Within and\nWithout,\" a very pungent and witty delineation of the English\ncharacter from an American point of view. He tells us that the British\nPhilistine is \"perfect of his kind;\" that \"Philistinism pervades the\nwhole society of Great Britain south of the Tweed.\" Mr. Grant says\nthat this Philistinism is of late growth in England, a phenomenon\nof the last hundred and fifty years. We cannot find traces of it\nin the \"spacious days,\" in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben\nJonson, Ford, and Massinger, nor in all the comedies of Shakspere.\nMaster Ford and Master Page, the townsmen of Windsor, are neither\nsnobs nor Philistines. But now, in this wonderful nineteenth century,\nthe Philistines are as obvious as the poor; they swarm and teem\neverywhere. The dense-minded middle-class man, rich, purse-proud,\nvulgar, incapable of apprehending anything beyond the range of his\nown personal experience, comes upon the stage. Enter Pugsley, with a\ncapacious abdomen, a red beef face, set off with cropped side whiskers,\na shiny pow, a big voice, and an imposing cough. \"He is the butt, it\nis true, of the courtier and of the travelled man; nevertheless, he is\nrepresented as the type of a large class, and as one who is becoming a\npower in the land, and who is recognised as one of the characteristic\nelements of its society. He is conscious at once of his importance, and\nof his social inferiority, and he submits, although with surliness, to\nthe snubbing of his superiors, which sometimes takes a very active and\naggressive shape.\"\n\nOne day they will be coming round to me for a subscription towards\nerecting a statue of the Great Pugsley. You know the kind of\neffigy--Pugsley in a pot-hat, beaming benevolence, on a granite\npedestal, that all who pass by may behold and envy the glory of this\napotheosis of the Successful Man. But why should not Pugsley have his\nmonument? Could one devise a better way of advertising his Piquant\nPickles? Yes, let us have a colossal bronze figure of Peter Pugsley,\nM.P., in the market place of Diddleham, with raised pickle-bottles in\nmetal festooned around the pedestal, and the words, \"Ask for Pugsley's\"\ngraven in the polished stone. There is not much artistic beauty in\nDiddleham in the way of statuary. The statue will supply a long-felt\nwant. Besides, there is a purely utilitarian aspect to the question\n(they are very utilitarian at Diddleham). At six meetings of the Town\nCouncil, the question of where to put the public fire-escape has been\ndiscussed with great heat. Let me suggest that it should be stood\nagainst the memorial to Pugsley.\n\nIf I had a son who began to develop the faculty of \"getting on\" upon\nthe Pugsley lines, I would do all I could to encourage the youngster.\nHe would earn success so easily that he would not care a rap for it. I\nwould go, unbeknown to him, and scatter pins on the ground in front of\nthe office where he intended to apply for a clerkship, so that he might\nstoop to pick them up, thereby, like the youth in the story, convincing\nthe employer of his thrifty and methodical qualities. His library\nshould be stocked with the lives of self-made men, the biographies of\nsmart bagmen, and works on how to grow money. Portraits of successful\nmerchants should deck the walls of his bedroom, and he should be taught\nto revere them as patron saints. I warrant such methods of fostering\nthe love of commercial success would have the desired effect. The boy\nwould run away to \"a hollow tree, a crust of bread, and liberty.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nVILLADOM.\n\n     \"There is less inconvenience in being mad with the mad than by\n     being wise by oneself.\"\n\n                                        DIDEROT.\n\n     \"It is among the respectable classes of this vast and happy empire\n     that the greatest profusion of snobs is to be found.\"\n\n                                        THACKERAY.\n\n\n\"I sojourned perforce for a long while in Villadom,\" says an enemy\nof Respectability; \"and I came away with some of its froust about my\nperson.\" You can't bide there without getting harm; but the worst of\nit is, we have no option, many of us; we have to live in Villadom at\nsome time or another in our lives. Thackeray, Guy de Maupassant, George\nGissing, and George Moore have given us some clever studies of the\nkind of folk who live in those genteel residences in the suburbs. Mr.\nMoore's picture of Ashbourne Crescent, in the last chapter of \"A Drama\nin Muslin,\" is about the finest of the sort I have met with in fiction.\nIt is so good a description of the region that I am tempted beyond\nresistance to steal parts of it.\n\n     \"In Ashbourne Crescent there is neither dissent nor Radicalism,\n     but general aversion to all considerations which might disturb\n     belief in all the routine of existence, in all its temporal and\n     spiritual aspects, as it had come amongst them. The fathers\n     and the brothers go to the City every day at nine, the young\n     ladies play tennis, read novels, and beg to be taken to dances\n     at the Kensington Town Hall. On Sunday the air is alive with\n     the clanging of bells, and, in orderly procession, every family\n     proceeds to church, the fathers in all the gravity of umbrellas\n     and prayer-books, the matrons in silk mantles and clumsy,\n     ready-made elastic sides; the girls in all the gaiety of their\n     summer dresses, with lively bustles bobbing; the young men in\n     frock-coats which show off their broad shoulders, as from time to\n     time they pull their tawny moustaches. Each house keeps a cook and\n     housemaid, and on Sunday afternoons, when the skies are flushed\n     with sunset, and the outlines of this human warren grow harshly\n     distinct--black lines upon pale red--these are seen walking\n     arm-in-arm away towards a distant park with their young men....\n     And that Ashbourne Crescent, with its bright brass knockers, its\n     white-capped maidservants, and spotless oilcloths, will in the\n     dim future pass away before some great tide of revolution that is\n     now gathering strength far away, deep down and out of sight in\n     the heart of a nation, is probable enough; but it is certainly\n     now, in all its cheapness and vulgarity, more than anything else\n     representative, though the length and breadth of the land be\n     searched, of the genius of Empire that has been glorious through\n     the long tale that nine hundred years have to tell.\"\n\nI have conceived of a suburban colony of houses where a man might\nlive and be natural and healthy-minded among his neighbours; where\nhe might, if he chose, walk about in cool, backwoods dress, a shirt,\nbreeks, and wide-brimmed hat--or no hat--in hot weather, without\ninciting derision, or becoming a pariah. But Villadom cares nothing\nfor naturalness, nor liberty of opinion and conduct; and, unconscious\nof the madness of its severe conventionality, it deems those insane\nwho cultivate ideas and try to live up to them. What! is there one man\nin ten in this great sheep-pen who would like to be seen blacking his\nown boots or sweeping the snow from the front of his house? No, they\nprefer to ill-pay some man's daughter to do all their irksome and dirty\nwork. What does Villadom read, talk of, and think upon? The fathers\nread the newspapers, the mothers and daughters peruse \"John Halifax,\"\nand such like literature of the Pap-boat and Pumplighter sort; and\nthe talk is of money, the neighbours, and the back-parlour window\ncurtains and carpets--all good themes enough in their season, but not\nthe only things in life of vast importance. The denizens of Villadom\ntell you that they have their livings to earn, dinners to cook, and\nhouses to control; therefore there is no time for cultivating their\nintellects, and developing their sense of the beautiful in nature and\nart. No time! It is the old plea of the men and women who squander\nhours in tittle-tattle and loafing. Gerald Massey, a bargeman's son,\nand a fag in a factory; Elihu Burritt, a blacksmith; Thomas Edward,\na shoemaker; Walt Whitman, a compositor; Bradlaugh, a soldier, and\nafterwards a clerk; James Hosken, a postman, not to mention a hundred\nother hard-working men, found time to read, and think, and improve\nthemselves. It is the _will_, and not the leisure, that is lacking in\nVilladom, the will to be something better than mere Respectables in the\neyes of society.\n\nThe foppery and frippery of Villadom are miserable outlets for human\nenergy. If this is the end of civilised beings, give me rather the\nwildest life of primitive barbarians, for they, at least, wish to\nlearn higher arts of living. No past civilisation presents this\npicture of Philistine apathy to the nobler interests of life. Karl\nPearson says truly that the two most pitiful illustrations of our\npseudo-civilisation may be seen in the main streets of the West End\nof London. In the afternoon you see crowds of idle, shallow women\nstanding, rapt in the admiration of bits of ribbon in the windows of\nthe drapery stores. A few hours later, when the shops are closed,\nanother army of women parade the pavements, ogling and smirking in\ntheir nightly quest for the bread of prostitution. The \"ladies\"\nof the afternoon promenade are mostly the wives and daughters of\nVilladom. They do not know how largely responsible they are for that\nnocturnal orgy of the streets when they are snug in their luxurious\ndrawing-rooms. It is the fetish-worship of Respectability that makes\nthousands of women redundant, drives some to the streets, and condemns\nothers to withered celibacy. Men realise that the Respectable daughters\nof Villadom are luxuries that they cannot afford to maintain, in early\nlife, at least; and the _demi-monde_ know this, too. As Mr. W. R. Greg\nwrote: \"While the _monde_ has been deteriorating, the _demi-monde_ has\nbeen improving; as the one has grown stupider and costlier, the other\nhas grown, more attractive, more decorous, and more easy. The ladies\n_there_ are now often as clever and amusing, usually more beautiful,\nand not infrequently (in external demeanour, at least,) as modest, as\ntheir rivals in more recognised society.\"\n\nThis writer, rightly or wrongly, affirms that the way to set things\nstraight in this anomaly of polyandry for thousands of women, and\ncelibacy for thousands of their sisters is by the respectable ladies\nemulating the manners, and attaining the charms of the het\u00e6r\u00e6, in\n\"cheerfulness and kindliness of demeanour,\" \"economy of style,\" and\n\"ease and simplicity.\"\n\nI know the advanced women--some of them, at any rate--will tell me that\nmen are not worth winning at this expense, and that they prefer to go\ntheir own ways alone. So be it. There is no coercion to matrimony for\nsuch as elect to remain in single independence. On the other hand, we\nhave not yet killed the sexual attraction and the maternal instinct in\nall our emancipated women. And, as for the girls of Villadom, _they_,\nat all events, look upon marriage as their destiny. Then, I say, let\nthem get rid of this spurious virtue of Respectability, which costs\nso much to maintain, and is worth nothing after all their pains.\nVilladom exists principally for women. Bachelor men do not, as a rule,\nneed domestic whim-whams and nick-nacks to make them happy in their\n\"diggings.\" Villadom has been built and embellished for the fair sex;\nthey reign almost supreme there, and it is their part to refine the\natmosphere of their domain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE TYRANNY OF RESPECTABILITY.\n\n     \"Men, and still more women, who lift themselves above the ordinary\n     standard by their philosophical tastes and speculations, may\n     indeed be accounted fortunate if they escape calumny or obloquy\n     from general society.\"\n\n                                        W. CAREW HAZLITT.\n\n\n\"Mankind is an ass, who kicks those who endeavour to take off his\npanniers,\" says a Spanish proverb. When we are very young and\nenthusiastic about the great part we mean to play in the reformation\nof society, we work ourselves into fearful furies of indignation with\nthose who have persecuted innovators in all ages. Later in life we\nlearn that the persecutor is more of an ass than a villain; and the\nmore we study humanity, not forgetting our own human nature, the more\nare we persuaded that this is the right scientific view to take. While\nwe had the taint of Respectability in us (and very few men and women\nare born without it), we were disposed sometimes to do some of this\nasinine kicking upon those whom we considered dangers to society. We\ndid not pause to think whether they wished to help us by removing the\npacks from our galled backs; but, as soon as a Samaritan approached\nus with kindly intent, we let fly our heels and attacked him. The\nfact is, as Thoreau says, there are really very few men, even of\nthe Non-Respectables, without some trace of Respectable prejudice.\nLet us, therefore, be as tolerant as possible towards the misguided\nRespectables who brutally maltreat their would-be benefactors. Perhaps\nyou have never thrown flints at an itinerant evangelist, nor hustled a\nSocialist in the parks; nevertheless, you have persecuted in some shape\nor form at one time of your life. Too lazy by nature to inquire into\na novel social doctrine, or to dispassionately examine a new theory\nof morals, you have misunderstood and denounced the promulgators and\ntheorists. This is very often the outcome of your Respectability, and\na purely emotional manifestation of prejudice against something that\nyou have not tried to understand. Thus persecution begins. If you have\na large element of the savage in you, your opposition will take the\nform of actual physical violence and scurrilous abuse; if you are\nmoderately humane and intelligent, you will merely scorn and deride\nthe heretic. Your blood seethes when you read of the persecution of\nmartyrs. Take heed of yourself that you do not evince the malevolent\nspirit that impels men to denounce others unheard, at the first\nsuggestion of heterodox opinion.\n\nPriestley, a Unitarian minister, of Birmingham, experimented in\nchemistry, and discovered oxygen, alone and entirely unassisted, in a\nlaboratory fitted up at his own expense. The world owes much to this\nindustrious man of science. But the human nature that killed Christ and\nBruno, hated Priestley because he tried to convey new truths. A mob of\nfanatical Respectables burned down his house, and destroyed all his\nbooks, notes, and apparatus, and drove him from his native land.\n\nHome, the author of the tragedy of \"Douglas,\" was persecuted and\nturned out of the ministry by Scotch Respectables for writing a play\nto amuse and instruct his fellow men; and Dr. Alexander Carlyle was\nthreatened with a prosecution for standing by Home, his friend.\nReligious Respectability persecuted the devout Hannah More for\ninstructing the children of the poor. Moneyed Respectability hanged\nJohn Brown, mobbed Theodore Parker, and threatened to shoot Ernestine\nRose for endeavouring to free negro slaves. Shelley, one of the\nhumanest souls who ever lived, was driven from Eton by respectable\nyoung cads, expelled from Oxford by Respectability, and banished\nto another country. Byron, who taught men, by brave precept and\nexample to love liberty, was reviled, slandered, and forced to live\nabroad. Walt Whitman, for showing men the beauty and purity of the\nreproductive function, degraded and assailed by Respectability, was\n\"greeted with howls of execration.\" Respectability has cursed Ibsen,\nZola, and Bj\u00f6rnson, three mighty forces for righteousness in Europe.\nCharles Bradlaugh, who devoted his life to the service of man, was\nbitterly assailed and vilely aspersed by his contemporary Respectables.\nRespectable human nature kicks everyone who sets himself to benefit\nhumanity. The history of this moral pest and mental blight abounds with\ninstances of its venomous effect upon men's hearts and minds.\n\n\"I can bear it no longer,\" cries Thackeray, \"this diabolical invention\nof gentility which kills natural kindliness and honest friendship.\nProper pride, indeed! Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks\nand degrees is a lie, and should be flung into the fire. Organise\nrank and precedence! That was well for the masters of ceremonies\nof former ages. Come forward, some great marshal, and organise\nequality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling\nold court 'goldsticks.'\" Carlyle calls England \"the wealthiest and\nworst instructed of European nations.\" Respectability piles up money,\naccumulates vast stores of material products, and starves men's minds\nin the process. It tyrannises in every province of ethics, science,\nart, literature, and politics, laying continually on our shoulders\nburdens grievous to bear. You can scarcely move without coming into\ncollision with Respectability; you are expected to eat, drink,\ndress, think, marry, and be buried in accordance with its canon. The\nRespectables of the Exchange will snub and insult an independent-minded\nman who ventures within the shoddy circle without a chimney-pot hat. I\nhave heard this stupid tyranny of majorities defended as a safeguard\nof decency and order. What! These attempts to stamp out individuality\nof character promote social progress? This is an odd way of reasoning.\nBut the Respectable doesn't reason; he follows the crowd mechanically.\n\nYou have only to give the Respectables plenty of rope, and they will\nstrangle every effort of advance. They form societies for suppressing\nthis thing and harrying that, with their wary scouts prowling in every\ndirection; they try to \"rob the poor man of his beer,\" while they\ngorge themselves with fat meats; they fought tooth and nail against\nthe Sunday opening of museums and picture-galleries; they prosecuted\nMr. Vizetelly for selling translations of Zola's novels; they oppose\namelioration of our absurd, cruel, and ineffective prison system; they\nban the teaching of physiological morality in sex matters; and they put\nhobbles and blinkers on women.\n\nI have no especial veneration for Lord Beaconsfield as a politician,\nbut I admire him for his unconventionality. How many young men possess\nthe pluck to appear at a dinner party in green velvet trousers, a\ncanary-coloured waistcoat, low shoes with silver buckles, lace at\ntheir wrists, and their hair in ringlets? On another occasion, Disraeli\nturned up at a diocesan gathering at Oxford clad in a black velveteen\nshooting jacket, with a wideawake hat. A Respectable booby, writing\nthe other day to a Liberal newspaper, referred to these eccentricities\nas though they were vices in a man, instead of recognising that such\nflaunting of a dull, drab Respectability, betokened courage and\nindividuality. Immediately you dress in accordance with your own taste,\ninstead of in the mufti of convention, you are dubbed a mountebank and\na posturer. Of course, after these aberrations of deportment and form,\nthere is not a good word to be said for Dizzy, only vehement abuse and\ndenunciation. Yet the same Radical Respectable knew perfectly well,\nwhen he sat down to write that diatribe, that many of his class affect\npeculiarities of dress.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nRESPECTABLE CIVILISATION AND AFTER.\n\n     \"I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual,\n     bold.\"\n\n                                        WALT WHITMAN.\n\n\nIt is the boast of the ordinary patriotic Briton that he lives in a\nhighly civilised country. During his tutelage, he learns that climate,\nor insularity of position on the face of the globe, or the system of\nmonarchy, or the Bible, has, or have, combined or separately, made\nEngland the foremost nation on earth. In later life he is sometimes\nprone to exclaim against our \"advanced civilisation,\" and even to go\nto the extreme of asserting that we could well dispense with much of\nit. The latter-day Anglo-Saxon, who thinks without thought, has for\nhimself a very clear and satisfying idea of civilisation. Emerson, on\nthe other hand, remarks that \"nobody has attempted a definition of\ncivilisation,\" and that \"we usually suggest it by negations;\" and he\nadduces instances of people lacking an alphabet, iron, and abstract\nthought. Thus, when we ask for an explanation of the term Civilisation,\nwe usually hear an enumeration of the constituents of a state of primal\nsavagery, and are then possibly referred to the material products,\nmoney, and Gatling guns of a nation for signs of its civilisation.\n\nIt is then much simpler for the majority to formulate intrinsic\nbarbarism than to define refinement, and to delineate a reliable ideal\nof Civilisation. They are conscious that much, if not most of that\nwhich they would designate civilised could, upon close examination,\nbe proved to be barbaric. Their easy exposition will not withstand\nkeen scientific scrutiny; and a definition which will not stand this\ntest is merely a stumbling-block in the way of inquiry. A member of a\nreputedly cultured community or class naturally resents attack upon\nthose views and customs which in his estimate denote civilisation, and\nare of its very essence. If he is a pious Englishman, he will probably\nconfess that in the matter of faith the people of Eastern countries\nare barbaric, while he fails to discern the trail of barbarity in his\nown creed and ritual. In like manner, a Philistine aristocrat will\nscarcely accede that there is barely one degree of coarseness betwixt\nhis pleasures and those of the illiterate proletarian, who, in his\nturn, persuades himself that he is more intelligent and decent than his\ncompeers of another land.\n\nYet the truth is that a very small number of the inhabitants of these\nisles can be justly labelled civilised. We must search, as it were, in\nthe mode of Diogenes for \"the highly organised man, brought to supreme\ndelicacy of sentiment, as in practical power, religion, liberty, sense\nof honour and taste,\" who stands for Emerson's type of civilised\nhumanity. That such examples are not unknown at this stage is as\ncertain as the fact that many more are in the process of evolution. And\nalthough savagery in idea and practice confronts us this way and that\nin each scale of society, we shall do ill if we approach the study of\nmodern barbarism in a vein of mocking pessimism. It is also necessary\nthat a lively faith in the evolutionary principle applied to human\nnature should be tempered by a look behind while our hopes are young.\n\nSlowly and painfully are we \"working out the beast,\" slowly and\npainfully must we climb the stages till we cease to obey the blind\ndictates of instinctive impulse and to base our codes on the reigning\nopinions of the irrational mass. It is hardly needful to reiterate even\none of the preliminary conclusions of all philosophers and humanists\nto prove that most men have no reasoned views upon the conduct of\nlife. Seneca says that \"the common sort find it easier to believe than\nto judge, and content themselves with what is usual, never examining\nwhether it be good or no. By the common sort is intended the man of\ntitle as well as the clouted shoe.\" The veracity of Swift's aphorism\nthat most men have as much turn for flying as for thinking, and of\nCarlyle's laconic \"mostly fools,\" is unquestioned.\n\nIt is therefore no unsupported postulate that the larger part of\ncivilised people always tend to lead barbaric lives, and that what\neach class is apt to accept as an approximation to a complete\ncivilisation is a very inchoate form of that truer culture urged upon\nsociety by individualist reformers in each successive age. A very\nslight examination of the thought and pursuits of what is called the\nhighest class in our existing social scale will serve to demonstrate\nthe prevalence of barbarism. For there, as in the lower circles,\nwe find the lines of apathy, vulgarity, and animalism graven on\npatrician faces, and proclaimed in the talk of the dinner-table, the\nsmoking-room, and the covert-side. Obviously, all our peers are not\nultra-barbarians; neither are all our bargees and coalheavers savages.\nYet the dominant tone is just as often low and inane in the mansion\nas in the tenement, and with much less to offer in its extenuation.\nMillions toil and ache, and are vulgarised in order that a coterie of\nhereditary lords and titled parvenus shall enjoy the leisure which\nthey mainly devote to frivolity and the killing of the \u00e6ons of time.\nUpon these, the intimates of monarchs, the protectors of the sacred\npheasant, the distributors of largess, a barbaric populace alternately\nlavishes its affection and its abuse. So long as the baron flings his\ngroats to the churls, all is peace in vassaldom; but when rents are\nracked, game laws enforced to their utmost limits, and the dice rattled\nin the hall, the voice of the people is upraised in tumult, and the\nvirtuous artizan, clinking his silver winnings on the way from the\nracecourse, thanks heaven he is not as these nobles are, gamblers,\nadulterers, and oppressors of the widow and the orphan.\n\nSet a barbarian to lash a barbarian if you wish to see injustice done.\nThe fact is that, being barbarous, we first allow an accident of birth\nto raise a man to a position of power, and then run atilt at our shoddy\ndignities because the power tends to impede general well-being. Worth\nof mind is the one qualification for esteem, a trite enough dictum in\nthe mouths of those who persistently ignore its truth. But the time\nmust come when the aristocracy of character will be the only recognised\naristocracy in civilised nations.\n\nI think that if one should suggest that it is right to hate the members\nof our \"bloated aristocracy,\" he is no less absurd than those who\nfawn around the lackeys of a court. Our noble lords are not of one\ntype, as our common people are not of one cast, though in many rude\nexamples of nobility we can trace the basic elements of ruffianism,\nand see the bestial fruits thereof. What most concerns us is the\nquestion whether a society that grants titles to its successful\nmoney-grabbers is clean-purged of its antique barbarism. An academical\ndiploma conferred upon a teacher of the arts or sciences is possibly\none means by which the respectful heed of the uncultured is secured\nfor new doctrine. For the one who appends certain characters to his\nsignature will be held in esteem by the many as a man worth hearing.\nEven in the matter of degrees given to scholars of distinction, we too\noften discover that such award fosters moral and mental deterioration,\nand that it narrows and mars the career of thinkers who are elevated\nto a throne of authority. Our laureates must need be eminently wary\nin their main theories, though they may pipe an undernote of revolt\nin the sequestered grove, to ease their souls of the sting of the\nstultifying penalty of vulgar rank. Yes, titles of all kinds seem to\nhave a tendency to degrade; and the sun of courtly favour often withers\nthe real and aids the growth of the spurious nobility. \"Brave old\nSamuel,\" ever a Respectable in leading sentiments, was more so when he\ntook a dole from the palace. There is little hope for the amendment\nof the semi-barbaric prophet when he is taken from the wilderness\nand thrust into a position only tenurable by wily compromise with the\nRespectabilities.\n\nVery engrossing is the study of Respectability in high places. \"These\nbe the men we are told to look up to,\" said a tattered plebeian, whose\neyes had been blasted by the hunting magistrate who was riding on other\nmen's land. But that we do \"look up to\" our rich, idle folk with an\navid awe is undoubted. Few persons in a town are especially interested\nin hearing that Mr. Herbert Spencer is there on a visit; but we are\nmost of us anxious to shake hands with a prize-fighter, or the \"Jubilee\nPlunger,\" or to take tea with a millionaire's wife. We look up to or\nhunt after such because they have vulgar notoriety or money, and we are\nnot concerned to know how they came by their popularity and their cash,\nand whether they deserve either, and make a good use of their power.\nWere it not for the few civilised beings who dare to be considered odd,\nthis odious admiration of trivial character and empty claims would mean\na ripening to the decay of society. Involuntarily, the civilised make\nthe ways of barbarity easy to thousands, for they absolve the lethargic\nfrom the exertion of severe thinking.\n\nThe paradise towards which the _bourgeoisie_ strive is not the\nleisure to refine the mind, but the opportunity to vie with the more\ncommonplace section of the upper class in dissipation. The labourer who\nresents the lordling's contumely, and indicts him for living a lazy\nlife, may only work when he is starving, and perhaps not then. His\nideal may rise no higher than perpetual beer and ninepins, while the\nsquire craves no higher satisfaction in life than hunting six days a\nweek, and champagne, billiards, and the sporting papers on Sunday. The\nevil is in the setting up of a barbaric aim of life in all classes.\nOur greatest ideals are the commercial and the voluptuous. The eternal\npursuit of the frivolous, which makes up the chief part of what is\nfoolishly termed \"high life,\" and the sordid middle-class struggle to\namass money, are accepted by the shallow as tokens of our progress in\ncivilisation. We are rich and luxurious; we are therefore far above the\nsavage. Yet how far? Our leisured and affluent have for the greater\nnumber returned to the employment of a pre-pastoral epoch. Look at\nthe lives of thousands of English gentlemen. Truer barbarians never\nexisted of old than many of those whose whole thought, energy, and\nwealth are given up to sport. Many of them are restless nomads, ever\nhurrying from one quarter of the globe to another in search of fresh\ngame to kill. I do not underrate the need for the development of the\nphysical man, nor ignore the value of sports rightly comprehended as a\nmeans to the end of training and recreating the body. But what shall be\nsaid of that multitude of our countrymen who live to amuse themselves\nin such primitive fashion? It is these who waste their powers, and\nbarbarise the vulgar by the force of ill example.\n\nLet us not wonder that, in bygone days, a gaping peasantry, with\nquaint uncouth notions of what constituted an efficient mouthpiece\nof their wants, yelled at the hustings for the return of those who\nrode straight, and could pummel the best man of the mob in a brace of\nrounds. Of such order are still the credentials in some of the Pagan\nconstituencies, where the beer-steeped intelligence pleads the election\nof \"an old-fashioned sort and a thorough sportsman.\"\n\nWe are still rearing these rude types in our public schools and\nuniversities, and for these we laudably reserve the chief places on\nthe senate, on justiciary benches, and in local boards. Despite their\neducational chances and social opportunities, these are surely among\nthe retrograde, with their _argot_ culled from the racing journals,\ntheir strange drawling pronunciation of the English tongue, their\npoints of breeding, their caddish _hauteur_, their rampant John\nBullisms, and their innate aversion to thought and earnestness. \"The\nfop of Charles's time,\" says Leslie, in Mr. Mallock's \"New Republic,\"\n\"aimed at seeming a wit and a scholar. The fop of ours aims at being a\nfool and a dunce.\"\n\nQuitting this strange horde, let us descend to the mart for an\nexamination of the Commercial Ideal. No one denies that for a nation\nof shopkeepers we have done great things in the world's history. In a\nvery large measure we are civilised by the shop, and it is only when\nthe shop absorbs the best of us, mental and physical, that commercial\nactivity tends to retard progress. Provide that a man's moral sense and\nintellect are not warped or unexercised in the making of money, and\nthere is nothing degrading, but the opposite, in his desire to succeed\ncommercially. But in the fierceness of competition in an over-populated\ncountry, cruel barbarity and detestable meanness and cunning arise.\nAnd not only these, but the curse of intellectual and \u00e6sthetic atrophy\nlights upon the host. Out of this undue stress is developed a tendency\nto sordid living, a preference for the lower gratifications of life.\nYet need money-getting always degrade the people? Will the prosperous\nbusiness career of the future be alone compatible with a low standard\nof thought, and a corrupt canon of commercial morals?\n\n\"Life without industry is guilt; industry without art is brutality.\"\nNow, in the push and drive of industry at the close of this century\nit is as hard for myriads to keep the soul alive, as it is for many\nthousands to find food for the body. The trader who makes Mammon his\nidol, who thinks money, and spends his wealth irrationally, brutalises\nlife. But for the others, let us rather pity and try to amend the\ncondition of those who cannot, in plain terms, \"leave the shop.\" There\nare strong-minded and somewhat exceptional tradesmen who can shake\noff the dust of the warehouse, and spend the hours of freedom in\nthe cultivation of the intellect. There are men of business who do\nexcellent work in art and science, while their jaded associates are\nsatisfying their purely animal wants. The question is--Can a man live\nthe higher life, and _succeed_ in the worldly meaning of prosperity?\nMen do not grow money by storing the brain with knowledge, and the\nmerchant who ponders upon a phase of evolution, or murmurs a rhythm\nof Tennyson while he is at the ledger, will most probably be an\nindifferent money-maker. Lamb's _Good Clerk_, you will remember, \"gets\non\" because his first aim is to be a good piece of mechanism. It is a\ngrievous reflection that zeal for the desk should eat up the brain and\nbetter part of a good man, and leave him a machine. The expert clerk is\nas valuable as the clever author or the great painter; but the trouble\nis that while the trader is making himself efficient as a trader, he\nis frequently neglecting his mind, narrowing his social judgments, and\ntending backwards.\n\nIs there no escape from a seemingly invincible fate that restricts the\nthought and energy of the million to the bare affairs of the shop? It\ndoes almost seem at first that there is none. What we have to determine\nis whether we shall aid the production of mediocre shopkeepers, who\nwill desire to live cultured lives, while they devote a due share of\nthought to the shop, or whether we shall continue to rear a class who\nplace business first and culture last, or practically without their\nscheme of life. For every sociologist this is a great problem. Speaking\nout of my own prejudice, I would rather live in a country of moderately\nprosperous men, who read, and speculated, and had aspirations for\nsomething higher than lucre, than in the land where the mass were rich\nand unintellectual.\n\nThere is an economic aspect of the alternatives. Art thrives where\nthere is wealth; but money does not of necessity make good art. At\npresent two formidable hindrances stand in the way of developing\nculture--over-population, and a passion for ostentation. Regulate the\nreproductive faculty, and save the potential slave of industrialism\nfrom a struggle that waxes keener yearly. This must be done in the\nindividual and national interest, to the gradual diminishment of abject\npoverty and the lessening of the awful strain in the congested centres.\nAllied with this teaching, there should be a wide inculcation of the\nvalue of a refined simplicity of material life, a substitution of\nhigh-thinking for mere barbarous display in living. These were the\nleading precepts of John Stuart Mill to an unheedful generation; but I,\nfor one, take courage in the view that this will become the creed of\nmany as we advance in the art of living. In _Liberty_, Mill writes:\n\n     \"The superior worth of simplicity of life, the enervating and\n     demoralising effects of the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial\n     society, are ideas which have never been entirely absent from\n     cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote; and they will in time\n     produce their due effect, though at present needing to be asserted\n     by deeds, for words, on this subject, have nearly exhausted their\n     power.\"\n\nThe way of the civiliser is hard. If the men and women of ideals and\nbroad sympathies go, as Mills enjoins, into Barbaria and Philistia\nas apostles, they must be prepared to receive the hurts of primitive\nweapons. Missionaries are not welcomed with barbaric shouts of glee\nwhen they land to subvert ancient faiths. Neither are apostles of\nrighteousness and sweetness and light beloved of our children of\ndarkness in Belgravia and Bloomsbury. But as Mr. Hamerton asks in his\n\"Intellectual Life\": \"Are the Philistines to have all the talk to\nthemselves for ever; are they to rehearse their stupid old platitudes\nwithout the least fear of contradiction? How long, O Lord, how long?\"\nYet, let your apostle be the quintessence of tact and humility, he will\nnot escape slander, odium, and contempt when he essays to contradict\nthe ancient platitudes. Broach boldly any subject, from religion to\ncorset-wearing, in the drawing-room at Bloomsbury, or in the back\nparlour at Lambeth, and you will have to contend against stubborn\napathy. To cultivate eccentricity of opinion and conduct for the\npurpose of evoking the curiosity of the languid Respectables, is a form\nof insanity which no one will suppose I am advocating as an effort\ntowards civilisation. But social danger is always to be apprehended\nfrom conventionality that is stagnantly content with the existing\norder, and has not the desire nor energy to advance. It is, then,\nthe onerous duty of a thoughtful member of the respectable classes\nto awaken his relatives or associates from a blank contentment with\nmere animal well-being and trivial aims. He must not shrink from the\nburden because it is the habit of unthinking persons to believe that\nthe conclusions of sounder brains have been gained by the same meagre\nthinking as their own flimsy theories, or that his wrought-out views\nare only crotchets advanced to flatter his egoism. For by those who\nshirk deep thinking, intellectual seriousness in others is merely\nregarded as a more or less peculiar temperamental trait. They do\nnot know that the eternal voluntary martyrdom of thinkers is their\nsalvation. They are unaware that the good and the earnest toil daily\nin order that the evil and the frivolous may be preserved to reap the\nreward of toilsome thought, in which the apathetic have had no share,\nand for which they have little praise. Reflect upon what Darwin has\ndone for morality, science, and art, and then mark the mean ingratitude\nand ignorant misrepresentation of some of those who are now being made\nwhole by his sane science. Will the Respectables always crucify their\nsocial redeemers?\n\nNot wholly encouraging is the investigation of barbarism in our\nindustrial and proletarian classes. Yet perhaps, if there is one\nparty above another that appears to be progressing rapidly towards a\nhigher civilisation, it is the operative. When one thinks of what the\nworking class has done, with its lack of advantage in the past, and\nits scant opportunity in the present, the progress is one of the most\nwonderful and hopeful omens of modern times. It is inevitable that the\nacquisition of a little knowledge should bear some ill fruit among\nthe sound; but the humanising influences of education far exceed in\ntheir proved result the expectation of the early pioneers of a noble\nmovement. Much has been done, and much remains to be accomplished,\nin the work of constructing the foundations and superstructure of\nan ultimate democratic civilisation. Whitman and Ibsen, latter-day\nprophets of sound social foresight, predicted at the outset of their\ncareers that in the fibre and stuff of a cultured democracy lies our\nhope.\n\nUndoubtedly, the moral tone of the industrial class is growing higher\nyearly. The rough hand of the artisan has fashioned much of our\ncivilisation, and his hard, calculating intelligence will have a larger\nshare in the government of the near future. I confess that it thrills\nme to hear that a set of miners in the North have begged the custodian\nof a public library to provide them with Mr. Meredith's fine but\n\"difficult\" novels. Again, we should rejoice to learn that a factory\nworker, who has taught himself to read at the age of forty, is studying\nMr. Spencer's \"First Principles.\"\n\nAs I have before tried to show, the neglect of civilising thought and\nstudy is not voluntary in the case of many busy men and women. It is\nlargely an outcome of complex commercial rivalry and overpressure that\nthousands should not share in the higher refinements of civilisation,\nand that science should be outside their rule of life instead of at\nthe bottom of it. Thoreau speaks of the best part of the husbandman\nbeing ploughed into the soil for compost; and the figure represents\nthe case for legions of toilers. Mr. Ruskin is among the oracles when\nhe announces that \"the final outcome of all wealth is the producing as\nmany as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human\ncreatures.\" Perhaps so; but for the nonce, we mostly plod on in that\n\"dim-eyed and narrow-chested state of being,\" which we are wont to\ndescribe as \"getting on in the world.\"\n\nIt is a great thing, this educational advance of the tool-skilled. Yet\nthere is much to be done. It is needless to rehearse the manifold\nsavage characteristics, the mob frenzies, and the low pleasures of many\nof the working class--imperfections which all of us exhibit either\nin like kind or with faint difference. We forget that a mechanic who\nindulges in a weekly debauch, and sometimes beats a constable, has\nhis counterpart in those who call themselves superior. Ruffianism,\nbrutality, and gross sensuality are not restricted to one class.\nEnglish epicurism is mostly of the lower kind in every rank. The\nuncivilised of the upper class spend the larger part of their incomes\nupon dishes and drinks; the coarse of the labouring class expend nearly\nhalf their wages on beer. Our sensuousness trends in the direction of\nsensuality. We pride ourselves that we are able to consume quantities\nof flesh, and we apotheosise John Barleycorn with Shakspere.\n\nVery sombre is the spectacle of the life that bruises the million. To\none who walks the streets observantly on public holidays, the white\nfaces and worn bodies of his toiling brothers tell of dull, grinding\nlives. See the poor mercantile clerks and the shopmen, the genteel\ndrudges, the indispensable factors of wealth which they will never\nshare. Well does Guy de Maupassant picture the type:\n\n     \"With sallow faces and twisted bodies, and one of their shoulders\n     a little forced up by perpetual bending at work over a table\n     ... they all belonged to the army of poor threadbare devils who\n     vegetate frugally in a mean little plaster-house, with a flower\n     bed for a garden.\"\n\nHow can we inveigh against these tired workers for the drowsy\noccupation of their few leisure hours? What is chiefly at fault is the\ncrushing system that leaves so little time for expansion of the mind\nand the sympathies, the ideal that shapes the many to this level cast.\nMr. Grant White gives a grimly sardonic sketch of a London shopkeeping\npair in his \"England Without and Within.\" He tells of faces that had\nprobably \"once expressed some of the vivacity of youth; but this had\npassed away, and nothing, no trace of thought or feeling, had come into\nits place--only fat; a greasy witness of content.\" But there is more\npathos than humour in this study from lower middle-class life. Were\nthere not originally the germs of ideas, imagination, and emotion, in\nthese unfortunate contented souls? Are such doomed to take no thought\nfor higher things than bread-getting and eating, and will their minds\nfor ever starve on the Bethel hymn and the newspaper?\n\nMore pitiful and tragic is the state of the lowest, the lapsed, the\nuntameable of the slums. \"Our society,\" says M. Taine, \"is a fine\nedifice, but in the lowest story what a sink of impurity.... It seems\nto me that the evil and the good are greater here than in France.\"\nThe law cannot cure inherent propensities to evil doing, and pious\nphilanthropy can merely patch a rotten vestment; but scientific\ncriminologists will eventually probe to the root. Too long have we\nrelied upon the gaoler and the priest. We are learning now that\ncongenital crime is a subject for the physiologist and the mental\npathologist. So, too, with the plague of chronic destitution, the\nprime infamy of pseudo-civilisation. Instinctive barbaric pity urges\nliberal almsgiving; but the beautiful emotion of sympathy needs as\nmuch control in its gratification as the purely animal appetites. We\nshall awake soon to the truth that it is our selfish Respectability\nthat must be fought with the weapons of a new economic science, based\nupon righteousness. We should strive to destroy the sources of hopeless\nwant, as we endeavour to exterminate disease microbes in the body.\n\nAre these the visions of Utopianism? No; for when we consider what\nmodern science has done in its infancy, we may surely reckon upon\ngreater victory in days now dawning. To support this inspiring creed\nof science we do not need to fabricate evidences out of improbability,\nconjecture, and fallacy; for the proofs are plain and convincing, and\nwill survive the severest criticism. Truly, if we make moan one day\nfor the tenacity of unreason in the human brain, we may rejoice on\nthe morrow in the thought that never in history has the outlook been\nbrighter.\n\nIt is too evident that thousands who can no longer be satisfied with\nthe guesses of primitive barbarians concerning man's origin and destiny\nstill cover their inner convictions with the cloak of Respectability,\nand endeavour to seem that which they are not. Honesty will thrive with\nthe wane of Respectability.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\n     \"Respect is often paid in proportion as it is claimed.\"\n\n                                        DR. JOHNSON.\n\n\nRespectable reader, you are perchance by this time partly inclined\nto at least agree that this disease of yours may be harmful to\nyourself and to others. I have not minced my words in discussing the\nunpleasant symptoms of your ailment. You are a prey to hallucinations,\nand it behoved me, as a judicious physician, to jeer at your fancies\nand to deride your dreads. I have endeavoured to convince you that\nRespectability is anti-social, improgressive, and often cruel. You\ncannot deny that the world's greatest moral worthies have been the\nNon-Respectables, the Unconventionalists, the enlightened Eccentrics.\nThey have all deviated in some particular, or in many ways, from the\nordinary standards and customs of the majority. In many instances they\nhave been accounted immoral, but that has not deterred them, because\nnew morality has always been deemed immorality by the Respectables.\nWesley, for example, thought it immoral to doubt the existence of\nwitches. Yet, who to-day but the most degraded peasants of the wild\nhills believes in witches? Mr. Gladstone considers divorce immoral;\nbut those who differ from him may be counted in millions. They are the\nadherents of a new morality, more reasonable, just, and humane than the\nold which has passed away.\n\nTherefore, to make progress we are compelled to defy Respectability,\nand to outrage propriety. But that does not mean that we are to become\nruthless Vandals, taking delight in destroying everything that is\nold. Far from it. We must pull down that idol Respectability from\nits throne, and set up some worthier object of veneration in its\nplace. True worth and integrity of character can have no alliance\nwith intellectual insincerity and social hypocrisy. We need more\nbrave-hearted men and women, with the courage of their opinions,\nmore heterodox thinkers, more consistent heretics to stand solidly\ntogether in a great attack on the shams and falsehoods that constitute\nRespectability.\n\nOur children must be taught to use their brains, so that when they\ngrow up they will not allow their little corner of the world to rule\ntheir lives and make them cowardly and deceitful. The words of the\nKnight in \"Pericles\" should be taught to boys: \"_We are gentlemen that\nneither in our hearts nor outward eyes envy the great, nor do the low\ndespise._\" Education must be freed from the restrictions and hindrances\nof Respectability, and made catholic, comprehensive, and equal for both\nsexes.\n\nThe canker has eaten too long at the heart of our great nation. Its\nravages, if unchecked, will ultimately destroy our prestige, and\nwe shall fall as Babylon, Rome, and Greece have fallen. Our social\naffections are blighted and chilled by this fell disease, our emotions\nare shrivelled, our national virility enfeebled. Colonies in their\nyouth offer us a good illustration of the rapid progress of a people\nwho have abandoned the cant of Respectability. In such communities\nmen and women work for the commonweal, on a fraternal basis, with\nno heed to rank and precedence, and it is in these societies that\nindividualism, independence, and unconventionality have full play and\noutlet. Only at a later stage does the blight of Respectability descend\nupon the people of a new country, as we see it now in America, and, to\na certain extent in Australia and Canada, where the _bourgeoisie_ have\nestablished themselves and infected the populace with their disease.\n\"This diabolical invention of gentility,\" as Thackeray terms it, is\ndisintegrating society in England, slowly and surely. It is not foreign\naggression, nor anarchy within, that we should most fear, but the\ninsidious virus of the disease that is sapping our vitals.\n\nIt is the middle-men of the middle class who chiefly spread the\ncontagion and transmit it to posterity. Antiquated political economists\ntell us that the middleman is useful to everyone, and that the man\nwho gambles with other folk's money is a benefactor. There was a\ntime when trade meant a handicraft; now it is a term for gambling\nwith articles made by ill-rewarded workers. And the man who lives by\nthis system of dealing expects the farmer, the miner, and craftsmen\nto doff their caps to him, and call him gentleman. \"Since every Jack\nbecame a gentleman, there's many a gentle person made a Jack,\" says\nShakspere. No one with a clear gaze on the future can delude himself\nthat the middleman is a permanent institution, to be preserved and\ncommended. His respectability, without dwelling upon his economic\n_raison d'\u00eatre_, has made him the contempt of the upper class and the\ndetestation of the working population. He has made himself king of\nprovincial towns, censor of morals, and patron of the arts; and the mob\nhas let him gain the upper hand, looking on with mouths agape at his\ncleverness. Respectability in its worst forms will last as long as the\n_bourgeoisie_ possess this power over the masses.\n\nI leave it to Anarchists, Socialists, Individualist, Tories, and the\nrest to settle whether the shoddy god, Respectability, is to reign\ndespotically over England.\n\n\n\n\nTHE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE\n\nAND\n\nFREE REVIEW.\n\n\nAmong the high-class magazines, the _University Magazine and Free\nReview_ takes the first place in English advanced literature.\nIndependence of thought, freedom from conventional fetters, and\nboldness where necessary, impart a freshness and vigour to the articles\nof this publication, which we miss even in the best and most earnest\nliterature of the day.\n\nIt is _the_ Magazine for such readers as care for progressive thought\nin all or any of the main fields of discussion--the religious, the\npolitical, the sociological, the ethical, the economic, the literary,\nthe scientific, and the \u00e6sthetic.\n\nIt always takes the part of the weak and oppressed, and this Magazine\nhas done much to call attention to indisputable evils.\n\n\nContents of the APRIL No., 1897, Vol. VIII., No. I--\n\n  The Case Of Dr. Romanes, _by John M. Robertson_.\n  Cardinal Manning, the Sceptic, _by R. de Villiers_.\n  The Inertia of English Universities, _by F. R. Sarritor_.\n  The Bible and the Child, _by Chilperic_.\n  Tourgenieff, _by Ernest Newman_.\n  Roden Noel, _by Karl Blind_.\n  The Whole Duty of Woman, _by Geoffrey Mortimer_.\n  The Blasphemy Laws, _by Fred. Verinder_.\n  Martin Turner, _by H. J. Cressingham_.\n  The Intellectual Movement in France, _by A. Hamon_.\n  Periodicals, _by Walter Shaw Sparrow_.\n\n\nContents of the MAY No., 1897, Vol. VIII., No. 2--\n\n  Bentley and Anthony Collins, _by M. W. Wiseman_.\n  Roden Noel, _by Karl Blind_.\n  Tourgenieff, _by Ernest Newman_.\n  The Downfall of Olive Schreiner, _by X_.\n  Marie Corelli and her Public, _by A. W. Stanbury_.\n  Moral Instruction without Theology, _by F. J. Gould_.\n  The Social Purity Hallucination, _by J. P. Gilmour_.\n  Current Pseudo-Philosophy, _by John M. Robertson_.\n  Slumland by Night, _by G. M._\n  William Blake and Modern Problems, _by Edward Willmore_.\n  The Social Evil and the Moral Law, _by A. Macevir_.\n  Periodicals, _by Walter Shaw Sparrow_.\n  New Books.\n\n\nContents of the JUNE No., 1897, Vol. VIII., No. 3--\n\n  Nietzsche's Indictment of Christianity, _by John M. Robertson_.\n  An Ethical Excursion, _by Hugh Mortimer Cecil_.\n  The Teachings of Thomas Hardy, _by Duane Williams_.\n  The Tory Professor, _by Robert Duncanson_.\n  Mr. Gladstone's Latest Postcard, _by Alan Stephens_.\n  Usury and Thrift, _by J. Greevz Fisher_.\n  A Specimen of Religious Journalism, _by Stanley Bruce_.\n  In Extremis, _by Allan Laidlaw_.\n  The Legitimation League, _by A. Goldwin_.\n  Nancy, _by Ernest Newman_.\n  New Books.\n\n\n\n\nTHE UNIVERSITY PRESS, LIMITED,\n\n16, JOHN STREET, BEDFORD ROW, LONDON, W.C.\n\n\nJust published, 10s. nett,\n\nPSEUDO-PHILOSOPHY\n\n_AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY_.\n\nBy HUGH MORTIMER CECIL.\n\n_An Irrational Trio: Kidd, Drummond, Balfour._\n\nA vigorous refutation of the well-known Pseudo-Philosophical Works,\n_Social Evolution_ (Kidd), _The Ascent of Man_ (Drummond), and\n_The Foundations of Belief_ (Balfour), showing the absurdity of\nthe methods adopted on the one hand, and the insincerity of these\nPseudo-Philosophers on the other.\n\n\n_The Academy_, APRIL 17, 1897:\n\nMr. Hugh Mortimer Cecil will have none of this legerdemain; the flank\nof the rationalist position shall not be so turned if his vigilance can\nfrustrate the manoeuvre; and with a pen steeped in sulphuric acid, he\nhas set out to confute these writers one by one.\n\n... He is one who must be reckoned with as a clear thinker, a cogent\nreasoner, a lucid and accomplished writer....\n\nIt is impossible, in the space at our disposal, to consider at large\nMr. Cecil's criticism of \"Foundations of Belief.\" It is a very serious\nand capable attack which will have to be reckoned with. Especially\ndamaging is the criticism of Mr. Balfour's theory of authority. That\nargument can be employed with effect only by one religious body, and\nit is not that body of which Mr. Balfour is a member. And here we\nventure to suggest to Mr. Cecil that it would be well were he to find\nout, before the issue of a second edition, the meaning of the Roman\nCatholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception, to which he more than\nonce alludes; he appears to be under the impression that the phrase is\nequivalent to parthenogenesis.\n\n\n_The New Saturday Review_, APRIL 17, 1897:\n\nThe book is only one of many evidences of the fact that it is quite\ntime the theologians recognised the real danger of their position, and\nsent into the lists stronger champions than those we have been writing\nabout. It is little to the credit of the theological leaders that,\nafter first condemning Darwin and vilifying some of his supporters,\nthey should adopt his teaching only to misrepresent it, and to make a\nsophistical use of that misrepresentation. Of what moment are all the\nquestions concerning ecclesiastical tradition and ritual in comparison\nto the great question of the relation between science and religion\nwhich is agitating the minds of those who will be the shapers and\nformers of the next generation?\n\nIt is not the simple souls who find their modern gospel in Kidd's\n\"Social Evolution\" or in Drummond's \"Ascent of Man,\" good as those\nsimple souls are, that will make the dominant public opinion of the\nnext half century. Nor are the rank-and-file of the clergy--of all\ndenominations--in many instances qualified to engage effectively in\nthis controversy. Their pulpit science has long been a by-word. Unless\nsome defenders of the orthodox position abler than those that have yet\nappeared can be found, the rationalists will be believed when they\nboast, as our author does, that they hold a \"fortress that is quite\nimpregnable.\" Pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy are not science or\nphilosophy at all.\n\nOur author's book will probably win its way into only a few of the\nlibraries of the orthodox. Rationalists will read it, and will find in\nit only a vigorous statement of their own opinions. The proper use of\nthe book is to show the orthodox what they have to do, if they would\ndefend their position....\n\nIt is a challenge which would deserve attention if it stood alone.\nBut it does not stand alone; it is backed up by a great body of\nphilosophers and scientists and social reformers, and men of the\nhighest culture and noblest characters, as well as by a vast amount of\nsmouldering suspicion and distrust and doubt among the people.\n\n\n_National Observer and British Review_, APRIL 17, 1897:\n\nPortions of the author's criticisms are not only just, but valuable;\nand when he is judicious enough to suppress his own personality, he can\noften be read not only with assent, but with satisfaction. The chief\nobject of Mr. Cecil's antipathy is any attempt at reconciling positive\nscience with religion, whether the religion be Christianity, or merely\na natural theism; and, as types of the methods by which the attempt is\nnow being made, he takes the arguments of three modern apologists--Mr.\nKidd, Mr. Drummond, and Mr. Arthur Balfour. He takes these in order.\nThe first section of his work is a criticism of \"Social Evolution\";\nthe second of \"The Ascent of Man\"; the third, of \"The Foundations\nof Belief.\" In completely discrediting the two first of these three\nworks, Mr. Cecil's task has been easy, and he has shown considerable\nskill in accomplishing it. If we take Mr. Kidd's \"Social Evolution\"\nas it stands, it is difficult to imagine a more signal monument of\nself-deception; and when we recollect the avidity with which a large\nsection of the public devoured the volume, and allowed themselves to\nbe deceived with the author, we feel that such a fallacious guide\ncan hardly be too trenchantly exposed. Mr. Cecil contrives, with the\nadroitness of a sharp solicitor, to collect and place side by side a\nnumber of Mr. Kidd's self-contradictions, and shows that his argument,\ntaken as a whole, falls to pieces at one touch of serious criticism. He\nshows also that Mr. Kidd's history is as childish and imperfect as his\nlogic.\n\n... But, in spite of these omissions, he has said quite enough to\ndiscredit effectually what would rank as the most remarkable specimen\nof contemporary pseudo-philosophy, if it were not for a specimen\nproduced by a Scottish writer, who has distanced altogether the\nfallacies of his English rival. This last is Mr. Drummond's \"Ascent\nof Man;\" and it is in his criticism of this that Mr. Cecil shows\nhimself at his best. Had he only been less destitute of the rudiments\nof good behaviour and good feeling, we should have had little but\ncommendation to bestow on the manner in which he exposes Mr. Drummond's\nabsurd justifications of the ways of God to man, and the hopeless\ninaccuracies of his theories as to altruism, and \"the struggle for the\nlife of others.\" Few books in the long run do more harm than such books\nas \"The Ascent of Man.\" Instead of really reconciling religion and\nscience, they injure religion by making the attempt at reconciliation\nridiculous.\n\n\n_The Morning Leader_, MARCH 25, 1897:\n\nMr. Cecil is a born fighter. He attacks with courage and cunning and\nresource, having at command a never-failing artillery of invective to\ncomplete the havoc he works by means of his sapping and mining. This\nlatter plan of campaign he mercilessly pursues by quotation after\nquotation from previous essays and pamphlets of his \"irrationalist\ntrio,\" preparing his reader for the overthrow of the citadel by\nshowing how hollow and unsubstantial are the outworks. So savagely\ncomplete, indeed is the attack that as one gazes upon the ruins of\nKidd, Drummond, and Balfour, a feeling of sympathy with the fallen\nphilosophers must take the place of joy in the whizzing of the\nrationalist shells.\n\nThe method of attack adopted by this new and puissant slogger shows,\nperhaps, a little too much contempt for the enemy, a little too much\nconfidence in the impregnability of the attacking party's position.\nBut, although the book may enrage the philosophic doubters, it is bound\nto make a glorious show for the robuster members of the rationalist\nparty. The author's advice to the former is to \"feed on the religious\nnovel of Mrs. Humphry Ward, the geology of Sir J. W. Dawson, the\napologetics of Mr. Gladstone, and the biographies of Jesus that are\nsaid to be in preparation by Mr. Hall Caine, Mr. Ian Maclaren, and\nMr. Crockett--three gentlemen whose capacity for sentimental fiction\nis the best guarantee of their fitness for such a task.\" Language\nof this kind is distinctly provocative, but it may be found bracing\nenough to the energetic rejector of scientific compromise. Whatever\n\"Pseudo-Philosophy\" may lack in urbanity and serenity, no charge can\nbe brought against it on the score of dulness or stupidity. The book\nis at once a brilliant and pitiless exposure of loose thinking, and a\nliterary entertainment of the richest kind.\n\n\n\n\n  +----------------------------------------------------------------- +\n  | Transcriber's Note:                                              |\n  |                                                                  |\n  | Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.     |\n  |                                                                  |\n  | Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.            |\n  |                                                                  |\n  | Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters,         |\n  | _like this_.                                                     |\n  +----------------------------------------------------------------- +","title":"The Blight of Respectability: An Anatomy of the Disease and a Theory of Curative Treatment","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26158}