It is quite unnecessary to say that the talk about clothes ran into
the question of dress-reform, and ran out, of course. You cannot
converse on anything nowadays that you do not run into some reform.
The Parson says that everybody is intent on reforming everything but
himself. We are all trying to associate ourselves to make everybody
else behave as we do. Said--
OUR NEXT DOOR. Dress reform! As if people couldn't change their
clothes without concert of action. Resolved, that nobody should put
on a clean collar oftener than his neighbor does. I'm sick of every
sort of reform. I should like to retrograde awhile. Let a dyspeptic
ascertain that he can eat porridge three times a day and live, and
straightway he insists that everybody ought to eat porridge and
nothing else. I mean to get up a society every member of which shall
be pledged to do just as he pleases.
THE PARSON. That would be the most radical reform of the day. That
would be independence. If people dressed according to their means,
acted according to their convictions, and avowed their opinions, it
would revolutionize society.
OUR NEXT DOOR. I should like to walk into your church some Sunday
and see the changes under such conditions.
THE PARSON. It might give you a novel sensation to walk in at any
time. And I'm not sure but the church would suit your retrograde
ideas. It's so Gothic that a Christian of the Middle Ages, if he
were alive, couldn't see or hear in it.
HERBERT. I don't know whether these reformers who carry the world on
their shoulders in such serious fashion, especially the little fussy
fellows, who are themselves the standard of the regeneration they
seek, are more ludicrous than pathetic.
THE FIRE-TENDER. Pathetic, by all means. But I don't know that they
would be pathetic if they were not ludicrous. There are those reform
singers who have been piping away so sweetly now for thirty years,
with never any diminution of cheerful, patient enthusiasm; their hair
growing longer and longer, their eyes brighter and brighter, and
their faces, I do believe, sweeter and sweeter; singing always with
the same constancy for the slave, for the drunkard, for the
snufftaker, for the suffragist,--"There'sa-good-time-com-ing-boys
(nothing offensive is intended by "boys," it is put in for euphony,
and sung pianissimo, not to offend the suffragists), it's-
almost-here." And what a brightening up of their faces there is when
they say, "it's-al-most-here," not doubting for a moment that "it's"
coming tomorrow; and the accompanying melodeon also wails its wheezy
suggestion that "it's-al-most-here," that "good-time" (delayed so
long, waiting perhaps for the invention of the melodeon) when we
shall all sing and all play that cheerful instrument, and all vote,
and none shall smoke, or drink, or eat meat, "boys." I declare it
almost makes me cry to hear them, so touching is their faith in the
midst of a jeer-ing world.
HERBERT. I suspect that no one can be a genuine reformer and not be
ridiculous. I mean those who give themselves up to the unction of
the reform.
THE MISTRESS. Does n't that depend upon whether the reform is large
or petty?
THE FIRE-TENDER. I should say rather that the reforms attracted to
them all the ridiculous people, who almost always manage to become
the most conspicuous. I suppose that nobody dare write out all that
was ludicrous in the great abolition movement. But it was not at all
comical to those most zealous in it; they never could see--more's the
pity, for thereby they lose much--the humorous side of their per-
formances, and that is why the pathos overcomes one's sense of the
absurdity of such people.
THE YOUNG LADY. It is lucky for the world that so many are willing
to be absurd.
HERBERT. Well, I think that, in the main, the reformers manage to
look out for themselves tolerably well. I knew once a lean and
faithful agent of a great philanthropic scheme, who contrived to
collect every year for the cause just enough to support him at a good
hotel comfortably.
THE MISTRESS. That's identifying one's self with the cause.
MANDEVILLE. You remember the great free-soil convention at Buffalo,
in 1848, when Van Buren was nominated. All the world of hope and
discontent went there, with its projects of reform. There seemed to
be no doubt, among hundreds that attended it, that if they could get
a resolution passed that bread should be buttered on both sides, it
would be so buttered. The platform provided for every want and every
woe.
THE FIRE-TENDER. I remember. If you could get the millennium by
political action, we should have had it then.
MANDEVILLE. We went there on the Erie Canal, the exciting and
fashionable mode of travel in those days. I was a boy when we began
the voyage. The boat was full of conventionists; all the talk was of
what must be done there. I got the impression that as that boat-load
went so would go the convention; and I was not alone in that feeling.
I can never be grateful enough for one little scrubby fanatic who was
on board, who spent most of his time in drafting resolutions and
reading them privately to the passengers. He was a very
enthusiastic, nervous, and somewhat dirty little man, who wore a
woolen muffler about his throat, although it was summer; he had
nearly lost his voice, and could only speak in a hoarse, disagreeable
whisper, and he always carried a teacup about, containing some sticky
compound which he stirred frequently with a spoon, and took, whenever
he talked, in order to improve his voice. If he was separated from
his cup for ten minutes, his whisper became inaudible. I greatly
delighted in him, for I never saw any one who had so much enjoyment
of his own importance. He was fond of telling what he would do if
the conven-tion rejected such and such resolutions. He'd make it hot
for them. I did n't know but he'd make them take his mixture. The
convention had got to take a stand on tobacco, for one thing. He'd
heard Gid-dings took snuff; he'd see. When we at length reached
Buffalo he took his teacup and carpet-bag of resolutions and went
ashore in a great hurry. I saw him once again in a cheap restaurant,
whispering a resolution to another delegate, but he did n't appear in
the con-vention. I have often wondered what became of him.
OUR NEXT DOOR. Probably he's consul somewhere. They mostly are.
THE FIRE-TENDER. After all, it's the easiest thing in the world to
sit and sneer at eccentricities. But what a dead and uninteresting
world it would be if we were all proper, and kept within the lines!
Affairs would soon be reduced to mere machinery. There are moments,
even days, when all interests and movements appear to be settled upon
some universal plan of equilibrium; but just then some restless and
absurd person is inspired to throw the machine out of gear. These
individual eccentricities seem to be the special providences in the
general human scheme.
HERBERT. They make it very hard work for the rest of us, who are
disposed to go along peaceably and smoothly.
MANDEVILLE. And stagnate. I 'm not sure but the natural condition
of this planet is war, and that when it is finally towed to its
anchorage--if the universe has any harbor for worlds out of
commission--it will look like the Fighting Temeraire in Turner's
picture.
HERBERT. There is another thing I should like to understand: the
tendency of people who take up one reform, perhaps a personal
regeneration in regard to some bad habit, to run into a dozen other
isms, and get all at sea in several vague and pernicious theories and
practices.
MANDEVILLE. Herbert seems to think there is safety in a man's being
anchored, even if it is to a bad habit.
HERBERT. Thank you. But what is it in human nature that is apt to
carry a man who may take a step in personal reform into so many
extremes?
OUR NEXT DOOR. Probably it's human nature.
HERBERT. Why, for instance, should a reformed drunkard (one of the
noblest examples of victory over self) incline, as I have known the
reformed to do, to spiritism, or a woman suffragist to "pantarchism"
(whatever that is), and want to pull up all the roots of society, and
expect them to grow in the air, like orchids; or a Graham-bread
disciple become enamored of Communism?
MANDEVILLE. I know an excellent Conservative who would, I think,
suit you; he says that he does not see how a man who indulges in the
theory and practice of total abstinence can be a consistent believer
in the Christian religion.
HERBERT. Well, I can understand what he means: that a person is
bound to hold himself in conditions of moderation and control, using
and not abusing the things of this world, practicing temperance, not
retiring into a convent of artificial restrictions in order to escape
the full responsibility of self-control. And yet his theory would
certainly wreck most men and women. What does the Parson say?
THE PARSON. That the world is going crazy on the notion of individual
ability. Whenever a man attempts to reform himself, or anybody else,
without the aid of the Christian religion, he is sure to go adrift,
and is pretty certain to be blown about by absurd theories, and
shipwrecked on some pernicious ism.
THE FIRE-TENDER. I think the discussion has touched bottom.