The devil is a citizen of every country, but only in our own are we in
constant peril of an introduction to him. That is democracy. All men
are equal; the devil is a man; therefore, the devil is equal. If that
is not a good and sufficient syllogism I should be pleased to know what
is the matter with it.
To write in riddles when one is not prophesying is too much trouble;
what I am affirming is the horror of the characteristic American custom
of promiscuous, unsought and unauthorized introductions.
You incautiously meet your friend Smith in the street; if you had been
prudent you would have remained indoors. Your helplessness makes you
desperate and you plunge into conversation with him, knowing entirely
well the disaster that is in cold storage for you.
The expected occurs: another man comes along and is promptly halted
by Smith and you are introduced! Now, you have not given to the
Smith the right to enlarge your circle of acquaintance and select the
addition himself; why did he do this thing? The person whom he has
condemned you to shake hands with may be an admirable person, though
there is a strong numerical presumption against it; but for all that
the Smith knows he may be your bitterest enemy. The Smith has never
thought of that. Or you may have evidence (independent of the fact of
the introduction) that he is some kind of thief—there are one thousand
and fifty kinds of thieves. But the Smith has never thought of that.
In short, the Smith has never thought. In a Smithocracy all men, as
aforesaid, being equal, all are equally agreeable to one another.
That is a logical extension of the Declaration of American
Independence. If it is erroneous the assumption that a man will be
pleasing to me because he is pleasing to another is erroneous too, and
to introduce me to one that I have not asked nor consented to know is
an invasion of my rights—a denial and limitation of my liberty to a
voice in my own affairs. It is like determining what kind of clothing I
shall wear, what books I shall read, or what my dinner shall be.
In calling promiscuous introducing an American custom I am not unaware
that it obtains in other countries than ours. The difference is that
in those it is mostly confined to persons of no consequence and no
pretensions to respectability; here it is so nearly universal that
there is no escaping it. Democracies are naturally and necessarily
gregarious. Even the French of to-day are becoming so, and the time
is apparently not distant when they will lose that fine distinctive
social sense that has made them the most punctilious, because the most
considerate, of all nations excepting the Spanish and the Japanese. By
those who have lived in Paris since I did I am told that the chance
introduction is beginning to devastate the social situation, and men of
sense who wish to know as few persons as possible can no longer depend
on the discretion of their friends.
To say so is not the same thing as to say “Down with the republic!” The
republic has its advantages. Among these is the liberty to say, “Down
with the republic!”
It is to be wished that some great social force, say a billionaire,
would set up a system of disintroductions. It should work somewhat like
this:
MR. WHITE—Mr. Black, knowing the low esteem in which you hold each
other, I have the honor to disintroduce you from Mr. Green.
MR. BLACK (_bowing_)—Sir, I have long desired the advantage of your
unacquaintance.
MR. GREEN (_bowing_)—Charmed to unmeet you, sir. Our acquaintance (the
work of a most inconsiderate and unworthy person) has distressed me
beyond expression. We are greatly indebted to our good friend here for
his tact in repairing the mischance.
MR. WHITE—Thank you. I’m sure you will become very good strangers.
This is only the ghost of a suggestion; of course the plan is capable
of an infinite elaboration. Its capital defect is that the persons
who are now so liberal with their unwelcome introductions, will be
equally lavish with their disintroductions, and will estrange the best
of friends with as little ceremony as they now observe in their more
fiendish work.
1902.