Foremost in the ranks of despots of our own creating may be mentioned
that allegorical personage Mrs Grundy, who though an unseen power,
seems to be armed with all the force and subtlety of a dreaded tyrant.
Her kindred partake of the same nature. Some are recognised facts,
and known by special names; others are nameless, and perhaps not even
supposed to exist; but all are powerful, and all are to be dreaded.
Ancient as Mrs Grundy—generally living side by side with her amongst
civilised races—is that great uncompromising tyrant called the Proper
Thing; though among barbarous tribes, neither Mrs Grundy nor the
Proper Thing is to be found, because both spring from the corruption
of a refined instinct—the instinct of order and decorum. Races
semi-civilised and over-civilised—terms which mean nearly the same
thing—are most subject to the capricious influences of this tyrant. But
wherever the slightest improvement has been made on complete savagery,
there the gall-nut has appeared upon it, so that a few wild Bush-tribes
seem to be the only portions of the human family over whom the Proper
Thing has not more or less extended sceptre.
The forms assumed by the Proper Thing in various regions are of
infinite variety, and sometimes even more startling than ludicrous. In
certain of the South Sea Islands, for instance, it is the Proper Thing
for children to kill their parents when verging on old age; and the
parents are quite agreeable to the practice, which derives its power
from religious belief, as the tyrant’s dictates often do in heathen
countries. In China the Proper Thing has been a terrible autocrat.
There, women’s feet have been reduced to the shape and size of a
nutmeg, and mandarins’ nails lengthened to a proportionate enormity—all
out of deference to the Proper Thing, which to them means being idle
and known to be idle. There, awe of the imperial presence has made
it indispensable to ‘nine times knock the noddle;’ and we know how
a representative of our own country was justly applauded in England
for refusing to perform that ceremony, or conform to the exigences of
the Proper Thing as by law established in China. It stalks across the
lone expanses of the North American prairies, inspiring men to let
their hair grow to the ground and make pompous speeches; while it lays
heavy weights on women’s shoulders and crops their locks, and in some
places flattens children’s heads in their cradles. East and west, in
the past and in the present, its legislation is always seen taking the
most contradictory forms, but almost equally inconvenient in all. Thus
in ancient Mexico it decreed that the nobility should go to court in
their shabbiest dresses, because no one might dare to be smart in the
presence of the Emperor; and in modern Europe it decrees that ladies
shall impoverish themselves rather than not go to court in a blaze of
splendour. In this instance, however, there is no question as to which
decree is the most convenient.
The capriciousness of this power is its most objectionable
characteristic, since its rule would be highly beneficent if it only
attacked bad manners and customs, which on the contrary it very often
overlooks. In Germany, for example, people with the longest prefaces
to their names, the addresses on whose envelopes are a perfect volume
of titles, are allowed to pass their knives and forks with alarming
celerity in front of their neighbours at dinner, in order to plunge
them into some distant coveted dish. No doubt their appetites are more
enormous than ours, for in the matter of capacity for food, beyond the
widest width there always seems to be a wider still; but the exigences
of the Proper Thing ought at least to make them wait until the dishes
are handed to them in civilised form, or even do without the object of
their desire rather than risk cutting off their neighbours’ noses. But
it really seems that the more stringent the rule of the Proper Thing,
the more latitude is given to disagreeable manners. In the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, for example, it was much more of an autocrat
even than it is now; and yet with all the flattery, the bowing and
scraping and long titles, no one put any constraint on his temper, and
the best bred people thought nothing of throwing things at each other’s
heads when they were in a passion. Occurrences of this sort are rare
now, at least in high-class and diplomatic society.
But still the rule of the Proper Thing is rather severe on all classes
even here at home, nor do any of our liberties and charters interfere
with its prerogatives. We may question them nevertheless. Of course we
do not mean to question regulations made for the comfort and decency
and order of society, such as the hostess sitting at the head of the
table, the eating of fish with a silver knife, or even a duchess taking
precedence of a marchioness. All these regulations and others of the
same kind relate to good manners, which are often quite independent of
the Proper Thing; and without a little code of niceties we should soon
sink to the lowest depths of animalism. But why should it be improper
for a lady to ride alone, whereas a similar fiat has not gone forth
against her walking alone in country roads and lanes, though she must
be much safer from molestation on horseback than on foot? Why must
invited guests to an evening party always be after their time? Why is
it necessary to dine at late unwholesome hours, to dance all night,
and to go to several parties in one evening? But these are really only
the more harmless pranks of the chief ruler. Unfortunately, there are
others which interfere tyrannically with the serious business of life.
The Proper Thing has always taken up its stronghold very specially
in the institution of Caste, where for unnumbered centuries it has
reigned over India with a despotism harsher than that of the native
princes. Nor has it by any means confined its caste regulations to
Eastern lands. Far be it from us to make hostile reflections on the
venerable institution of distinction of classes in our own country;
on the contrary, we might rather lament the confusion into which this
institution has fallen among us. But none the less we may question
the extraordinary laws which govern what is still called ‘loss of
caste.’ Why should a lady lose hers because she earns her bread as a
governess, while a gentleman does not lose his through being a tutor?
Of course she can recover her caste if only she has a fortune left
her; it is not like Indian caste, once lost for ever lost; but in the
majority of cases this does not happen. And why, when wholesome caste
laws are thrown to the winds, should an absurd and unjust one like this
hold its ground? But after all, it is perhaps natural to the spirit
and genius of the Proper Thing, which has always been harsher with
women than with men, according to the principles on which human affairs
have generally been conducted. However, tyranny of this sort is by no
means confined to the upper and middle classes even as regards caste.
In this matter the lower ranks, and especially their female half, are
very much its slaves. In these, though the women do not therefore hold
themselves bound to speak in a low voice, or to cultivate the good
quality which is next to godliness, or to refrain from repairing at all
costs to crowded and not always very sober scenes of holiday-making,
they are fully alive to the necessity of flaunting every new fashion
in the public eye on Sunday through a medium of tawdry tint and flimsy
material; children wearing a _tablier_ or _panier_ of totally different
material and antagonistic colour to the frock which it was intended to
adorn; women with hideous complications of blue feathers and red roses
on their heads. Lately, indeed, since ladies have set the good example
of wearing the dark colours which become nearly every one, it has been
much followed by their imitators below-stairs, though we fear more for
the sake of the example than the goodness of it.
Another and still stranger phase is to be found in some of our
small sea-side ports and fishing-villages, where it is considered a
disgrace to girls to go into service, though it is not derogatory to
their dignity to assume male attire and pick cockles all day on a
mud-bank. The men are held to have formed a _mésalliance_ if they marry
gentlemen’s servants; a falling-off which, if their wives die, they may
retrieve by a second marriage with a lady who (emphatically) ‘has never
been in service.’ But no doubt it is natural enough that the people
should copy their superiors’ worship of the Proper Thing in this as
in the other fashions, though they have different notions of what the
Proper Thing really is.
We hope to have established the fact that this tyrant has nothing to
do with virtue. Its rule has often flourished most where virtue has
been at the lowest ebb. How brilliantly, for example, the Proper Thing
reigned in the court of Louis XIV., which was certainly not a school of
morality. Neither has it much to do with what may be justly called _les
convenances_; we mean those smaller constraints and proprieties which
young American ladies set aside without any deterioration of their real
goodness, but with a certain detriment to their manners and maidenly
charms. Originally, no doubt, the Proper Thing sprang from a sense of
true propriety, but it has degenerated so far as sometimes even to
contradict that sense; and virtue can stand all the better without
such a whimsical attempt at a buttress. Of course it will always set
itself up more or less as a buttress, and as necessary to virtue and
propriety, unless the real things should make such progress as to
crowd out the counterfeit. But we fear that there never will be a
civilisation so pure and simple that delicacy and honour will, of their
own goodness, take the place of the true Proper Thing.