Aberystwith is a little fishing-village, which has of late years first
bloomed as a railway-station, and then fruited into prosperity as a
bathing-place. Like many _parvenus_, it makes a great display of its
Norman ancestor, the old castle, saying little about the long centuries
of plebeian obscurity in which it was once buried. This castle, after
being woefully neglected during the days when nobody cared for its early
respectability, has been suddenly remembered, now that better times have
come, and, though not restored, has been made comely with grass banks,
benches, and gravel walks, reminding one of an Irish grandfather in
America, taken out on a Sunday with "the childher," and looking "gintale"
in the clean shirt and whole coat unknown to him for many a decade in
Tipperary. Of course the castle and the wealth, or the hotels and
parade, are well to the fore, or boldly displayed, as Englishly as
possible, while the little Welsh town shrinks quietly into the hollow
behind. And being new to prosperity, Aberystwith is also a little
muddled as to propriety. It would regard with horror the idea of
allowing ladies and gentlemen to bathe together, even though completely
clad; but it sees nothing out of the way when gentlemen in pre-fig-leaf
costume disport themselves, bathing just before the young ladies'
boarding-school and the chief hotel, or running joyous races on the
beach. I shall never forget the amazement and horror with which an
Aberystwithienne learned that in distant lands ladies and gentlemen went
into the water arm in arm, although dressed. But when it was urged that
the Aberystwith system was somewhat peculiar, she replied, "Oh, _that_ is
a very different thing!"
On which words for a text a curious sermon might be preached to the
Philistiny souls who live perfectly reconciled to absurd paradoxes,
simply because they are accustomed to them. Now, of all human beings, I
think the gypsies are freest from trouble with paradoxes as to things
being different or alike, and the least afflicted with moral problems,
burning questions, social puzzles, or any other kind of mental rubbish.
They are even freer than savages or the heathen in this respect, since of
all human beings the Fijian, New Zealander, Mpongwe, or Esquimaux is most
terribly tortured with the laws of etiquette, religion, social position,
and propriety. Among many of these heathen unfortunates the meeting with
an equal involves fifteen minutes of bowing, re-bowing, surre-bowing, and
rejoinder-bowing, with complementary complimenting, according to old
custom, while the worship of Mrs. Grundy through a superior requires a
half hour wearisome beyond belief. "In Fiji," says Miss C. F. Gordon
Cumming, "strict etiquette rules every action of life, and the most
trifling mistake in such matters would cause as great dissatisfaction as
a breach in the order of precedence at a European ceremonial." In
dividing cold baked missionary at a dinner, especially if a chief be
present, the host committing the least mistake as to helping the proper
guest to the proper piece in the proper way would find himself promptly
put down in the _menu_. In Fiji, as in all other countries, this
punctilio is nothing but the direct result of ceaseless effort on the
part of the upper classes to distinguish themselves from the lower.
Cannibalism is a joint sprout from the same root; "the devourers of the
poor" are the scorners of the humble and lowly, and they are all grains
of the same corn, of the devil's planting, all the world over. Perhaps
the quaintest error which haunts the world in England and America is that
so much of this stuff as is taught by rule or fashion as laws for "the
_elite_" is the very nucleus of enlightenment and refinement, instead of
its being a remnant of barbarism. And when we reflect on the degree to
which this naive and child-like faith exists in the United States, as
shown by the enormous amount of information in certain newspapers as to
what is the latest thing necessary to be done, acted, or suffered in
order to be socially saved, I surmise that some future historian will
record that we, being an envious people, turned out the Chinese, because
we could not endure the presence among us of a race so vastly our
superiors in all that constituted the true principles of culture and
"custom."
Arthur Mitchell, in inquiring What is Civilization? {209} remarks that
"all the things which gather round or grow upon a high state of
civilization are not necessarily true parts of it. These
conventionalities are often regarded as its very essence." And it is
true that the greater the fool or snob, the deeper is the conviction that
the conventional is the core of "culture." "'It is not genteel,' 'in
good form,' or 'the mode,' to do this or do that, or say this or say
that." "Such things are spoken of as marks of a high civilization, or by
those who do not confound civilization with culture as differentiators
between the cultured and the uncultured." Dr. Mitchell "neither praises
nor condemns these things;" but it is well for a man, while he is about
it, to know his own mind, and I, for myself, condemn them with all my
heart and soul, whenever anybody declares that such brass counters in the
game of life are real gold, and insists that I shall accept them as such.
For small play in a very small way with small people, I would endure
them; but many men and nearly all women make their capital of them. And
whatever may be said in their favor, it cannot be denied that they
constantly lead to lying and heartlessness. Even Dr. Mitchell, while he
says he does not condemn them, proceeds immediately to declare that
"while we submit to them they constitute a sort of tyranny, under which
we fret and secretly pine for escape. Does not the exquisite of Rotten
Row weary for his flannel shirt and shooting-jacket? Do not
'well-constituted' men want to fish and shoot or kill something,
themselves, by climbing mountains, when they can find nothing else? In
short, does it not appear that these conventionalities are irksome, and
are disregarded when the chance presents itself? And does it not seem as
if there were something in human nature pulling men back to a rude and
simple life?" To find that _men_ suffer under the conventionalities,
"adds, on the whole," says our canny, prudent Scot, "to the
respectability of human nature." _Tu ha ragione_ (right you are), Dr.
Mitchell, there. For the conventional, whether found among Fijians as
they were, or in Mayfair as it is, whenever it is vexatious and merely
serves as a cordon to separate "sassiety" from society, detracts from the
respectability of humanity, and is in itself vulgar. If every man in
society were a gentleman and every woman a lady, there would be no more
conventionalism. _Usus est tyrannus_ (custom is a tyrant), or, as the
Talmud proverb saith, "Custom is the plague of wise men, but is the idol
of fools." And he was a wise Jew, whoever he was, who declared it.
But let us return to our black sheep, the gypsy. While happy in not
being conventional, and while rejoicing, or at least unconsciously
enjoying freedom from the bonds of etiquette, he agrees with the Chinese,
red Indians, May Fairies, and Fifth Avenoodles in manifesting under the
most trying circumstances that imperturbability which was once declared
by an eminent Philadelphian to be "the Corinthian ornament of a
gentleman." He who said this builded better than he knew, for the
ornament in question, if purely Corinthian, is simply brass. One morning
I was sauntering with the Palmer in Aberystwith, when we met with a young
and good-looking gypsy woman, with whom we entered into conversation,
learning that she was a Bosville, and acquiring other items of news as to
Egypt and the roads, and then left.
We had not gone far before we found a tinker. He who catches a tinker
has got hold of half a gypsy and a whole cosmopolite, however bad the
catch may be. He did not understand the greeting _Sarishan_!--he really
could not remember to have heard it. He did not know any gypsies,--"he
could not get along with them." They were a bad lot. He had seen some
gypsies three weeks before on the road. They were curious dark people,
who lived in tents. He could not talk Romany.
This was really pitiable. It was too much. The Palmer informed him that
he was wasting his best opportunities, and that it was a great pity that
any man who lived on the roads should be so ignorant. The tinker never
winked. In the goodness of our hearts we even offered to give him
lessons in the _kalo jib_, or black language. The grinder was as calm as
a Belgravian image. And as we turned to depart the professor said,--
"_Mandy'd del tute a shahori to pi moro kammaben_, _if tute jinned sa
mandi pukkers_." (I'd give you a sixpence to drink our health, if you
knew what I am saying.)