I am somewhat inclined to the opinion, that, if positive legislation
could be brought to bear upon this subject, making it a criminal
offence for one person deliberately to concoct and designedly to
spring a surprise upon another, society would derive incalculable
benefit from the act. For the ordinary and inevitable surprises of
every-day life are sufficiently frequent and startling to content even
the most romantic disposition; entirely dispensing with the necessity
of those artfully contrived, embarrassing little plots which one's
friends occasionally set in motion, greatly to their own diversion and
the extreme discomfort of the surprised unfortunate. For he who has
ever broken his skull on a treacherous sidewalk, or received from the
post a dunning missive when he expected a love-letter, or arrived one
minute late at the car-station, or taken a desperately bad bill in
exchange for good silver, or been caught in a thunderstorm with white
pantaloons and no umbrella, knows that the unavoidable surprises of
life are in themselves staggerers of quite frequent occurrence, and
require not the aid of human invention. But the surprises which we
most dread are not those which _naturally_ fall to us as part of the
misfortune we are born to inherit; not those which result from
unforeseen accidental circumstances, from carelessness on our own part
or from the folly of others, from revolutions in the elements or in
the affairs of nations; these we _can_ bear, by using against them the
best remedies we possess, or by viewing and enduring them as wisdom
and philosophy teach us to do. No; our only prayer, in this
connection, is that we may be saved from our friends; not from their
carelessness, but from their deliberate schemes against our security.
In order to reconcile this apparent contradiction in terms, take the
following instance of a friendly propensity. You walk into your house
at dusky twilight, at that particular hour of evening at which your
_own brother_, if he be a reasonable being, would not expect you to
recognize him; one of your family extends his (or her) head from the
parlor, and calls upon you at once to enter, and greet "an old
friend." You obey, and are immediately confronted with an individual
whose countenance wears an expression associated with some
reminiscences of your youth, but so dim and undefined is it, that you
cannot, for the life of you, give it its appropriate name or
place. What is to be done? The recollections of early childhood are
expected spontaneously to burst forth from under a heap of later and
more vivid associations, and the name, residence, business, and whole
history of the unwelcome guest are called upon to suggest themselves
within a second's time.
After a long moment of painful hesitation, during which you have in
vain tried to _stare_ his name out of him, you clutch at a struggling
idea, and blurt out the name of one of your former associates. You do
this, not by any means because common sense or conviction suggest the
course, but simply because something must instantly be done. The
result, of course, is, that you hit upon the wrong name; and now your
kind friends can do no more for you; even if they rush to the rescue,
and formally introduce the stranger, it is of no avail. The deed is
done; you are placed in a position of awkward mortification, which
both the stranger and yourself will never forget, and never cease to
regret.
Why it is that the feeling of shame which follows upon such mishaps
attaches itself exclusively to the innocent sufferers, rather than to
those who are the cause of the suffering, I never could
understand. This kind of diversion betrays a want of humane
consideration in the contriver. It is infinitely more cruel and
unamiable than Spanish bull-baitings, or the gladiatorial shows of the
ancients, inasmuch as a shock to the finest feelings of human nature
is harder to bear, and longer in duration, than the momentary pang
induced by witnessing a merely physical suffering.