she never uses craft or deception, if she governs her temper and sets a
good example, let her hold on in good hope, though she cannot produce
the discipline of a man-of-war in her noisy little flock, or make all
move as smoothly as some other women to whom God has given another and
different talent; and let her not be discouraged, if she seem often to
accomplish but little in that arduous work of forming human character
wherein the great Creator of the world has declared Himself at times
baffled.
Family tolerance must take great account of the stages and periods of
development and growth in children.
The passage of a human being from one stage of development to another,
like the sun’s passage across the equator, frequently has its storms
and tempests. The change to manhood and womanhood often involves brain,
nerves, body, and soul in confusion; the child sometimes seems lost to
himself and his parents,--his very nature changing. In this sensitive
state come restless desires, unreasonable longings, unsettled purposes;
and the fatal habit of indulgence in deadly stimulants, ruining all the
life, often springs from the cravings of this transition period.
Here must come in the patience of the saints. The restlessness must be
soothed, the family hearth must be tolerant enough to keep there the
boy, whom Satan will receive and cherish, if his mother does not. The
male element sometimes pours into a boy, like the tides in the Bay of
Fundy, with tumult and tossing. He is noisy, vociferous, uproarious, and
seems bent only on disturbance; he despises conventionalities, he hates
parlors, he longs for the woods, the sea, the converse of rough men,
and kicks at constraint of all kinds. Have patience now, let love have
its perfect work, and in a year or two, if no deadly physical habits set
in, a quiet, well-mannered gentleman will be evolved. Meanwhile, if he
does not wipe his shoes, and if he will fling his hat upon the floor,
and tear his clothes, and bang and hammer and shout, and cause general
confusion in his belongings, do not despair; for if you only get your
son, the hat and clothes and shoes and noise and confusion do not
matter. Any amount of toleration that keeps a boy contented at home is
treasure well expended at this time of life.
One thing not enough reflected on is, that in this transition period
between childhood and maturity the heaviest draft and strain of school
education occurs. The boy is fitting for the university, the girl going
through the studies of the college senior year, and the brain-power,
which is working almost to the breaking-point to perfect the physical
change, has the additional labor of all the drill and discipline of
school.
The girl is growing into a tall and shapely woman, and the poor brain is
put to it to find enough phosphate of lime, carbon, and other what not,
to build her fair edifice. The bills flow in upon her thick and fast;
she pays out hand over hand: if she had only her woman to build, she
might get along, but now come in demands for algebra, geometry, music,
language, and the poor brain-bank stops payment; some part of the work
is shabbily done, and a crooked spine or weakened lungs are the result.
Boarding-schools, both for boys and girls, are for the most part
composed of young people in this most delicate, critical portion of
their physical, mental, and moral development, whose teachers are
expected to put them through one straight, severe course of drill,
without the slightest allowance for the great physical facts of their
being. No wonder they are difficult to manage, and that so many of them
drop, physically, mentally, and morally halt and maimed. It is not the
teacher’s fault; he but fulfils the parent’s requisition, which dooms
his child without appeal to a certain course simply because others have
gone through it.
Finally, as my sermon is too long already, let me end with a single
reflection. Every human being has some handle by which he may be lifted,
some groove in which he was meant to run; and the great work of life, as
far as our relations with each other are concerned, is to lift each one
by his own proper handle, and run each one in his own proper groove.
VI.
DISCOURTESY.
“For my part,” said my wife, “I think one of the greatest destroyers of
domestic peace is Discourtesy. People neglect, with their nearest
friends, those refinements and civilities which they practise with
strangers.”
“My dear Madam, I am of another opinion,” said Bob Stephens. “The
restraints of etiquette, the formalities of ceremony, are tedious enough
in out-door life; but when a man comes home, he wants leave to take off
his tight boots and gloves, wear the gown and slippers, and speak his
mind freely without troubling his head where it hits. Home-life should
be the communion of people who have learned to understand each other,
who allow each other a generous latitude and freedom. One wants one
place where he may feel at liberty to be tired or dull or disagreeable
without ruining his character. Home is the place where we should expect
to live somewhat on the credit which a full knowledge of each other’s
goodness and worth inspires; and it is not necessary for intimate
friends to go every day through those civilities and attentions which
they practise with strangers, any more than it is necessary, among
literary people, to repeat the alphabet over every day before one begins
to read.”
“Yes,” said Jennie, “when a young gentleman is paying his addresses, he
helps a young lady out of a carriage so tenderly, and holds back her
dress so adroitly, that not a particle of mud gets on it from the
wheels; but when the mutual understanding is complete, and the affection
perfect, and she is his wife, he sits still and holds the horse and lets
her climb out alone. To be sure, when pretty Miss Titmouse is visiting
them, he still shows himself gallant, flies from the carriage, and holds
back _her_ dress: that’s because he doesn’t love her nor she him, and
they are _not_ on the ground of mutual affection. When a gentleman is
only engaged, or a friend, if you hem him a cravat or mend his gloves,
he thanks you in the blandest manner; but when you are once sure of his
affection, he only says, ‘Very well; now I wish you would look over my
shirts, and mend that rip in my coat,--and be sure don’t forget it, as
you did yesterday.’ For all which reasons,” said Miss Jennie, with a
toss of her pretty head, “I mean to put off marrying as long as
possible, because I think it far more agreeable to have gentlemen
friends with whom I stand on the ground of ceremony and politeness than
to be restricted to one who is living on the credit of his affection. I
don’t want a man who gapes in my face, reads a newspaper all
breakfast-time while I want somebody to talk to, smokes cigars all the
evening, or reads to himself when I would like him to be entertaining,
and considers his affection for me as his right and title to make
himself generally disagreeable. If he has a bright face, and pleasant,
entertaining, gallant ways, I like to be among the ladies who may have
the benefit of them, and should take care how I lost my title to it by
coming with him on to the ground of domestic affection.”
“Well, Miss Jennie,” said Bob, “it isn’t merely our sex who are guilty
of making themselves less agreeable after marriage. Your dapper little
fairy creatures, who dazzle us so with wondrous and fresh toilettes, who
are so trim and neat and sprightly and enchanting, what becomes of them
after marriage? If _he_ reads the newspaper at the breakfast-table,
perhaps it’s because there is a sleepy, dowdy woman opposite, in a faded
gingham wrapper, put on in the sacredness of domestic privacy, and
perhaps she has laid aside those crisp, sparkling, bright little sayings
and doings that used to make it impossible to look at or listen to
anybody else when she was about. Such things _are_, sometimes, among
the goddesses, I believe. Of course, Marianne and I know nothing of
these troubles; we, being a model pair, sit among the clouds and
speculate on all these matters as spectators merely.”
“Well, you see what your principle leads to, carried out,” said Jennie.
“If home is merely the place where one may feel at liberty to be tired
or dull or disagreeable, without losing one’s character, I think the
women have far more right to avail themselves of the liberty than the
men; for all the lonesome, dull, disagreeable part of home-life comes
into their department. It is they who must keep awake with the baby, if
it frets; and if they do not feel spirits to make an attractive toilette
in the morning, or have not the airy, graceful fancies that they had
when they were girls, it is not so very much against them. A housekeeper
and nursery-maid cannot be expected to be quite as elegant in her
toilette and as entertaining in her ways as a girl without a care in
her father’s house; but I think that this is no excuse for husbands
neglecting the little civilities and attentions which they used to show
before marriage. They are strong and well and hearty; go out into the
world and hear and see a great deal that keeps their minds moving and
awake; and they ought to entertain their wives after marriage just as
their wives entertained them before. That’s the way my husband must do,
or I will never have one,--and it will be small loss, if I don’t,” said
Miss Jennie.
“Well,” said Bob, “I must endeavor to initiate Charley Sedley in time.”
“Charley Sedley, Bob!” said Jennie, with crimson indignation. “I wonder
you will always bring up that old story, when I’ve told you a hundred
times how disagreeable it is! Charley and I are good friends, but--”
“There, there,” said Bob, “that will do; you don’t need to proceed
further.”
“You only said that because you couldn’t answer my argument,” said
Jennie.
“Well, my dear,” said Bob, “you know everything has two sides to it, and
I’ll admit that you have brought up the opposite side to mine quite
handsomely; but, for all that, I am convinced, that, if what I said was
not really the truth, yet the truth lies somewhere in the vicinity of
it. As I said before, so I say again, true love ought to beget a freedom
which shall do away with the necessity of ceremony, and much may and
ought to be tolerated among near and dear friends that would be
discourteous among strangers. I am just as sure of this as of anything
in the world.”
“And yet,” said my wife, “there is certainly truth in the much quoted
lines of Cowper, on Friendship, where he says,--
“As similarity of mind,
Or something not to be defined,
First fixes our attention,
So manners decent and polite,
The same we practised at first sight,
Will save it from declension.”
“Well, now,” said Bob, “I’ve seen enough of French politeness between
married people. When I was in Paris, I remember there was in our
boarding-house a Madame de Villiers, whose husband had conferred upon
her his name and the _de_ belonging to it, in consideration of a snug
little income which she brought to him by the marriage. His conduct
towards her was a perfect model of all the graces of civilized life. It
was true that he lived on her income, and spent it in promenading the
Boulevards, and visiting theatres and operas with divers fair friends of
easy morals; still all this was so courteously, so politely, so
diplomatically arranged with Madame, that it was quite worth while to be
neglected and cheated for the sake of having the thing done in so
finished and elegant a manner. According to his showing, Monsieur had
taken the neat little apartment for her in our _pension_, because his
circumstances were embarrassed, and he would be in despair to drag such
a creature into hardships which he described as terrific, and which he
was resolved heroically to endure alone. No, while a sous remained to
them, his adored Julie should have her apartment and the comforts of
life secured to her, while the barest attic should suffice for him.
Never did he visit her without kissing her hand with the homage due to a
princess, complimenting her on her good looks, bringing bonbons,
entertaining her with most ravishing small-talk of all the interesting
_on-dits_ in Paris; and these visits were most particularly frequent as
the time for receiving her quarterly instalments approached. And so
Madame adored him and could refuse him nothing, believed all his
stories, and was well content to live on a fourth of her own income for
the sake of so engaging a husband.”
“Well,” said Jennie, “I don’t know to what purpose your anecdote is
related, but to me it means simply this: if a rascal, without heart,
without principle, without any good quality, can win and keep a woman’s
heart merely by being invariably polite and agreeable, while in her
presence, how much more might a man of sense and principle and real
affection do by the same means! I’m sure, if a man who neglects a woman,
and robs her of her money, nevertheless keeps her affections, merely
because whenever he sees her he is courteous and attentive, it certainly
shows that courtesy stands for a great deal in the matter of love.”
“With foolish women,” said Bob.
“Yes, and with sensible ones too,” said my wife. “Your Monsieur presents
a specimen of the French way of doing a bad thing; but I know a poor
woman whose husband did the same thing in English fashion, without
kisses or compliments. Instead of flattering, he swore at her, and took
her money away without the ceremony of presenting bonbons; and I assure
you, if the thing must be done at all, I would, for my part, much rather
have it done in the French than the English manner. The courtesy, as far
as it goes, is a good, and far better than nothing,--though, of course,
one would rather have substantial good with it. If one must be robbed,
one would rather have one’s money wheedled away agreeably, with kisses
and bonbons, than be knocked down and trampled upon.”
“The mistake that is made on this subject,” said I, “is in comparing, as
people generally do, a polished rascal with a boorish good man; but the
polished rascal should be compared with the polished good man, and the
boorish rascal with the boorish good man, and then we get the true value
of the article.
“It is true, as a general rule, that those races of men that are most
distinguished for outward urbanity and courtesy are the least
distinguished for truth and sincerity; and hence the well-known
alliterations, ‘fair and false,’ ‘smooth and slippery.’ The fair and
false Greek, the polished and wily Italian, the courteous and deceitful
Frenchman, are associations which, to the strong, downright, courageous
Anglo-Saxon, make up-and-down rudeness and blunt discourtesy a type of
truth and honesty.
“No one can read French literature without feeling how the element of
courtesy pervades every department of life,--how carefully people avoid
being personally disagreeable in their intercourse. A domestic quarrel,
if we may trust French plays, is carried on with all the refinements of
good breeding, and insults are given with elegant civility. It seems
impossible to translate into French the direct and downright brutalities
which the English tongue allows. The whole intercourse of life is
arranged on the understanding that all personal contacts shall be smooth
and civil, and such as to obviate the necessity of personal jostle and
jar.
“Does a Frenchman engage a clerk or other _employé_, and afterwards hear
a report to his disadvantage, the last thing he would think of would be
to tell a downright unpleasant truth to the man. He writes him a civil
note, and tells him, that, in consequence of an unexpected change of
business, he shall not need an assistant in that department, and much
regrets that this will deprive him of Monsieur’s agreeable society, etc.
“A more striking example cannot be found of this sort of intercourse
than the representation in the life of Madame George Sand of the
proceedings between her father and his mother. There is all the romance
of affection between this mother and son. He writes her the most devoted
letters, he kisses her hand on every page, he is the very image of a
gallant, charming, lovable son, while at the same time he is secretly
making arrangements for a private marriage with a woman of low rank and
indifferent reputation,--a marriage which he knows would be like death
to his mother. He marries, lives with his wife, has one or two children
by her, before he will pain the heart of his adored mother by telling
her the truth. The adored mother suspects her son, but no trace of the
suspicion appears in her letters to him. The questions which an English
parent would level at him point-blank she is entirely too delicate to
address to her dear Maurice; but she puts them to the Prefect of Police,
and ferrets out the marriage through legal documents, while yet no trace
of this knowledge dims the affectionateness of her letters, or the
serenity of her reception of her son when he comes to bestow on her the
time which he can spare from his family cares. In an English or American
family there would have been a battle royal, an open rupture; whereas
this courteous son and mother go on for years with this polite drama,
she pretending to be deceived while she is not, and he supposing that he
is sparing her feelings by the deception.
“Now it is the reaction from such a style of life on the truthful
Anglo-Saxon nature that leads to an undervaluing of courtesy, as if it
were of necessity opposed to sincerity. But it does not follow, because
all is not gold that glitters, that nothing that glitters is gold, and
because courtesy and delicacy of personal intercourse are often
perverted to deceit, that they are not valuable allies of truth. No
woman would prefer a slippery, plausible rascal to a rough,
unceremonious honest man; but of two men equally truthful, and
affectionate, every woman would prefer the courteous one.”
“Well,” said Bob, “there is a loathsome, sickly stench of cowardice and
distrust about all this kind of French delicacy that is enough to drive
an honest fellow to the other extreme. True love ought to be a robust,
hardy plant, that can stand a free out-door life of sun and wind and
rain. People who are too delicate and courteous ever fully to speak
their minds to each other are apt to have stagnant residuums of
unpleasant feelings which breed all sorts of gnats and mosquitos. My
rule is, Say everything out as you go along; have your little tiffs, and
get over them; jar and jolt and rub a little, and learn to take rubs and
bear jolts.
“If I take less thought and use less civility of expression, in
announcing to Marianne that her coffee is roasted too much, than I did
to old Mrs. Pollux when I boarded with her, it’s because I take it
Marianne is somewhat more a part of myself than old Mrs. Pollux
was,--that there is an intimacy and confidence between us which will
enable us to use the short-hand of life,--that she will not fall into a
passion or fly into hysterics, but will merely speak to cook in good
time. If I don’t thank her for mending my glove in just the style that I
did when I was a lover, it is because now she does that sort of thing
for me so often that it would be a downright bore to her to have me
always on my knees about it. All that I could think of to say about her
graceful handiness and her delicate needle-work has been said so often,
and is so well understood, that it has entirely lost the zest of
originality. Marianne and I have had sundry little battles, in which the
victory came out on both sides, each of us thinking the better of the
other for the vigor and spirit with which we conducted matters; and our
habit of perfect plain-speaking and truth-telling to each other is
better than all the delicacies that ever were hatched up in the hot-bed
of French sentiment.”
“Perfectly true, perfectly right,” said I. “Every word good as gold.
Truth before all things; sincerity before all things: pure, clear,
diamond-bright sincerity is of more value than the gold of Ophir; the
foundation of all love must rest here. How those people do who live in
the nearest and dearest intimacy with friends who they believe will lie
to them for any purpose, even the most refined and delicate, is a
mystery to me. If I once know that my wife or my friend will tell me
only what they think will be agreeable to me, then I am at once lost, my
way is a pathless quicksand. But all this being premised, I still say
that we Anglo-Saxons might improve our domestic life, if we would graft
upon the strong stock of its homely sincerity the courteous graces of
the French character.
“If anybody wishes to know exactly what I mean by this, let him read the
Memoir of De Tocqueville, whom I take to be the representative of the
French ideal man; and certainly the kind of family life which his
domestic letters disclose has a delicacy and a beauty which adorn its
solid worth.
“What I have to say on this matter is, that it is very dangerous for any
individual man or any race of men continually to cry up the virtues to
which they are constitutionally inclined, and to be constantly dwelling
with reprobation on faults to which they have no manner of temptation.
“I think that we of the English race may set it down as a general rule,
that we are in no danger of becoming hypocrites in domestic life through
an extra sense of politeness, and in some danger of becoming boors from
a rough, uncultivated instinct of sincerity. But to bring the matter to
a practical point, I will specify some particulars in which the
courtesy we show to strangers might with advantage be grafted into our
home-life.
“In the first place, then, let us watch our course when we are
entertaining strangers whose good opinion we wish to propitiate. We
dress ourselves with care, we study what it will be agreeable to say, we
do not suffer our natural laziness to prevent our being very alert in
paying small attentions, we start across the room for an easier chair,
we stoop to pick up the fan, we search for the mislaid newspaper, and
all this for persons in whom we have no particular interest beyond the
passing hour; while with those friends whom we love and respect we too
often sit in our old faded habiliments, and let them get their own
chair, and look up their own newspaper, and fight their own way daily,
without any of this preventing care.
“In the matter of personal adornment, especially, there are a great many
people who are chargeable with the same fault that I have already
spoken of in reference to household arrangements. They have a splendid
wardrobe for company, and a shabby and sordid one for domestic life. A
woman puts all her income into party-dresses, and thinks anything will
do to wear at home. All her old tumbled finery, her frayed, dirty silks
and soiled ribbons, are made to do duty for her hours of intercourse
with her dearest friends. Some seem to be really principled against
wearing a handsome dress in every-day life; they ‘cannot afford’ to be
well-dressed in private. Now what I should recommend would be to take
the money necessary for one or two party-dresses and spend it upon an
appropriate and tasteful home-toilette, and to make it an avowed object
to look prettily at home.
“We men are a sort of stupid, blind animals: we know when we are
pleased, but we don’t know what it is that pleases us; we say we don’t
care anything about flowers, but if there is a flower-garden under our
window, somehow or other we are dimly conscious of it, and feel that
there is something pleasant there; and so when our wives and daughters
are prettily and tastefully attired, we know it, and it gladdens our
life far more than we are perhaps aware of.”
“Well, Papa,” said Jennie, “I think the men ought to take just as much
pains to get themselves up nicely after marriage as the women. I think
there are such things as tumbled shirt-collars and frowzy hair and muddy
shoes brought into the domestic sanctuary, as well as frayed silks and
dirty ribbons.”
“Certainly,” I said; “but you know we are the natural Hottentot, and you
are the missionaries who are to keep us from degenerating; we are the
clumsy, old, blind Vulcan, and you the fair Cytherea, the bearers of the
magic cestus, and therefore it is to you that this head more
particularly belongs.