ARS RECTE VIVENDI

 BEING ESSAYS CONTRIBUTED TO "THE EASY CHAIR"

 BY

 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

PREFACE

The publication of this collection of Essays was suggested by some remarksof a college professor, in the course of which he said that about a dozenof the "Easy Chair" Essays in Harper's Magazine so nearly cover the morevital questions of hygiene, courtesy, and morality that they might begathered into a volume entitled "Ars Recte Vivendi, " and as such they areoffered to the public. 

CONTENTS

EXTRAVAGANCE AT COLLEGE

BRAINS AND BRAWN

HAZING

THE SOUL OF THE GENTLEMAN

THEATRE MANNERS

WOMAN'S DRESS

SECRET SOCIETIES

TOBACCO AND HEALTH

TOBACCO AND MANNERS

DUELLING

NEWSPAPER ETHICS

EXTRAVAGANCE AT COLLEGE

Young Sardanapalus recently remarked that the only trouble with his lifein college was that the societies and clubs, the boating and balling, and music and acting, and social occupations of many kinds, left him notime for study. He had the best disposition to treat the faculty fairly, and to devote a proper attention to various branches of learning, andhe was sincerely sorry that his other college engagements made itquite impossible. Before coming to college he thought that it might bepracticable to mingle a little Latin and Greek, and possibly a touch ofhistory and mathematics, with the more pressing duties of college life; butunless you could put more hours into the day, or more days into the week, he really did not see how it could be done. 

It was the life of Sardanapalus in college which was the text of some soberspeeches at Commencement dinners during the summer, and of many excellentarticles in the newspapers. They all expressed a feeling which has beengrowing very rapidly and becoming very strong among old graduates, that college is now a very different place from the college which theyremembered, and that young men now spend in a college year what young menin college formerly thought would be a very handsome sum for them to spendannually when they were established in the world. If any reader shouldchance to recall a little book of reminiscences by Dr. Tomes, which waspublished a few years ago, he will have a vivid picture of the life offorty and more years ago at a small New England college; and the similarrecords of other colleges at that time show how it was possible for a poorclergyman starving upon a meagre salary to send son after son to college. The collegian lived in a plain room, and upon very plain fare; he had no"extras, " and the decorative expense of Sardanapalus was unknown. In thevacations he taught school or worked upon the farm. He knew that his fatherhad paid by his own hard work for every dollar that he spent, and therelaxation of the sense of the duty of economy which always accompaniesgreat riches had not yet begun. Sixty years ago the number of Americans whodid not feel that they must live by their own labor was so small that itwas not a class. But there is now a class of rich men's sons. 

The average rate of living at college differs. One of the newspapers, indiscussing the question, said that in most of the New England colleges asteady and sturdy young man need not spend more than six hundred dollarsduring the four years. This is obviously too low an estimate. Anotherthinks that the average rate at Harvard is probably from six hundred to tenhundred a year. Another computes a fair liberal average in the smaller NewEngland colleges to be from twenty-four to twenty-six hundred dollars forthe four years, and the last class at Williams is reported to have rangedfrom an average of six hundred and fifty dollars in the first year to sevenhundred and twenty-eight dollars in the Senior. But the trouble lies inSardanapalus. The mischief that he does is quite disproportioned to thenumber of him. In a class of one hundred the number of rich youth may bevery small. But a college class is an American community in which everymember is necessarily strongly affected by all social influences. 

A few "fellows" living in princely extravagance in superbly furnishedrooms, with every device of luxury, entertaining profusely, elected intoall the desirable clubs and societies, conforming to another taste andanother fashion than that of the college, form a class which is separateand exclusive, and which looks down on those who cannot enter the charmedcircle. This is galling to the pride of the young man who cannot compete. The sense of the inequality is constantly refreshed. He may, indeed, attendclosely to his studies. He may "scorn delights, and live laborious days. "He may hug his threadbare coat and gloat over his unrugged floor as thefitting circumstance of "plain living and high thinking. " It is alwaysopen to character and intellect to perceive and to assert their essentialsuperiority. Why should Socrates heed Sardanapalus? Why indeed? But theaverage young man at college is not an ascetic, nor a devotee, nor anabsorbed student unmindful of cold and heat, and disdainful of eleganceand ease and the nameless magic of social accomplishment and grace. He isa youth peculiarly susceptible to the very influence that Sardanapalustypifies, and the wise parent will hesitate before sending his son toSybaris rather than to Sparta. 

When the presence of Sardanapalus at Harvard was criticised as dangerousand lamentable, the President promptly denied that the youth aboundedat the university, or that his influence was wide-spread. He was thereundoubtedly, and he sometimes misused his riches. But he had notestablished a standard, and he had not affected the life of the university, whose moral character could be favorably compared with that of any college. But even if the case were worse, it is not evident that a remedy is athand. As the President suggested, there are two kinds of rich youth atcollege. There are the sons of those who have been always accustomed toriches, and who are generally neither vulgar nor extravagant, neitherostentatious nor profuse; and the sons of the "new rich, " who are like mendrunk with new wine, and who act accordingly. 

The "new rich" parent will naturally send his son to Harvard, because itis the oldest of our colleges and of great renown, and because he supposesthat through his college associations his son may pave a path withgold into "society. " Harvard, on her part, opens her doors upon thesame conditions to rich and poor, and gives her instruction equally, and requires only obedience to her rules of order and discipline. IfSardanapalus fails in his examination he will be dropped, and that he isSardanapalus will not save him. If his revels disturb the college peace, hewill be warned and dismissed. All that can be asked of the college is thatit shall grant no grace to the golden youth in the hope of endowment fromhis father, and that it shall keep its own peace. 

This last condition includes more than keeping technical order. To removefor cause in the civil service really means not only to remove for a penaloffence, but for habits and methods that destroy discipline and efficiency. So to keep the peace in a college means to remove the necessary causes ofdisturbance and disorder. If young Sardanapalus, by his extravagance andriotous profusion and dissipation, constantly thwarts the essential purposeof the college, demoralizing the students and obstructing the peacefulcourse of its instruction, he ought to be dismissed. The college must judgethe conditions under which its work may be most properly and efficientlyaccomplished, and to achieve its purpose it may justly limit the liberty ofits students. 

The solution of the difficulty lies more in the power of the students thanof the college. If the young men who are the natural social leaders makesimplicity the unwritten law of college social life, young Sardanapaluswill spend his money and heap up luxury in vain. The simplicity and goodsense of wealth will conquer its ostentation and reckless waste. 

(_October_, 1886)

BRAINS AND BRAWN

It is towards the end of June and in the first days of July that the greatcollege aquatic contests occur, and it is about that time, as the soldiersat Monmouth knew in 1778, that Sirius is lord of the ascendant. This yearit was the hottest day of the summer, as marked by the mercury in New York, when the Harvard and Yale men drew out at New London for their race. Fiftyyears ago the crowd at Commencement filled the town green and streets, andthe meeting-house in which the graduating class were the heroes of thehour. The valedictorian, the salutatorian, the philosophical orator, walkedon air, and the halo of after-triumphs of many kinds was not brighter ormore intoxicating than the brief glory of the moment on which they took thegraduating stage, under the beaming eyes of maiden beauty and the profoundadmiration of college comrades. 

Willis, as Phil Slingsby, has told the story of that college life fifty andsixty years ago. The collegian danced and drove and flirted and dined andsang the night away. Robert Tomes echoed the strain in his tale of collegelife a little later, under stricter social and ecclesiastical conditions. There was a more serious vein also. In 1827 the Kappa Alpha Society was thefirst of the younger brood of the Greek alphabet--descendants of the PhiBeta Kappa of 1781--and in 1832 Father Eells, as he is affectionatelycalled, founded Alpha Delta Phi, a brotherhood based upon other aims andsympathies than those of Mr. Philip Slingsby, but one which appealedinstantly to clever men in college, and has not ceased to attract them tothis happy hour, as the Easy Chair has just now commemorated. 

But neither in the sketches of Slingsby nor in the memories of thoseCommencement triumphs is there any record of an absorbing and universaland overpowering enthusiasm such as attends the modern college boat-race. The race of this year between the two great New England universities, Harvard and Yale--the Crimson and the Blue--was a twilight contest, for"high-water, " says the careful chronicler, "did not occur until seveno'clock. " At half-past six he describes the coming of the grand armada andthe expectant scene in these words: "The _Block Island_ came down fromNorwich with every square foot of her three decks occupied, the _ElmCity_ brought a mass of Yale sympathizers from New Haven, and thebig _City of New York_ filled her long saloon-deck with New Londonspectators. A special train of eighteen cars came up from New Haven, ablue flag fluttering from every window. The striking contrast to the lifeand bustle of the lower end of the course was the quiet river at thestarting-point. The college launches, the huge tug _America_, the press-boat _Manhasset_, loaded with correspondents, the tug_Burnside_, swathed in crimson by her charter party of Harvard men, and the steam-yacht _Norma_, gay with party-colored bunting, floatedidly up-stream, waiting for the start. The long train of twenty-fiveobservation-cars stood quietly by the river-side, its occupants closelywatching the boat-houses across the river. "

Did any fleet of steamers solid with eager spectators, or special trainof eighteen cars, or long train of twenty-five observation-cars, a vast, enthusiastic multitude, ever arrive at any college upon any CommencementDay in Philip Slingsby's time to greet with prolonged roars of cheers andfrenzied excitement the surpassing eloquence of Salutatorian Smith, or themelting pathos of Valedictorian Jones? Did ever--for so we read in theveracious history of a day, the newspaper--did ever a college town resoundwith "a perfect babel of noises" from eight in the summer evening untilthree in the summer morning, the town lighted with burning tar-barrelsand blazing with fireworks, the chimes ringing, and ten thousandpeople hastening to the illuminated station to receive the victors intriumph--because Brown had vanquished the calculus, or Jones discovered acomet, or Robinson translated the _Daily Gong and Gas Blower_ intothe purest Choctaw? In a word, was such tumult of acclamation--even thePresident himself swinging his reverend hat, and the illustrious alumni, far and near, when the glad tidings were told, beaming with joyfulcomplacency, like Mr. Pickwick going down the slide, while Samivel Welleradjured him and the company to keep the pot a-bilin'--ever produced by anyscholastic performance or success or triumph whatever?

Echo undoubtedly answers No; and she asks, also, whether in such acompetition, when the appeal is to youth, eager, strong, combative, full ofphysical impulse and prowess, in the time of romantic enjoyment and heroicsusceptibility, study is not heavily handicapped, and books at a sorrydisadvantage with boats. This is what Echo distinctly inquiries; and whatanswer shall be made to Echo? Who is the real hero to young Slingsby, whohas just fitted himself to enter college--the victor in the boat-race orthe noblest scholar of them all? The answer seems to be given unconsciouslyin the statement that the number of students applying for entrance isnotably larger when the college has scored an athletic victory. But thisanswer is not wholly satisfactory. There may be an observable coincidence, but young men usually prepare themselves to enter a particular college, anddo not await the result of boat-races. 

But the fact remains that the true college hero of to-day is the victor ingames and sports, not in studies; and it is not unnatural that it shouldbe so. It is partly a reaction of feeling against the old notion that ascholar is an invalid, and that a boy must be down in his muscle because heis up in his mathematics. But, as Lincoln said in his debate with Douglas, it does not follow, because I think that innocent men should have equalrights, that I wish my daughter to marry a negro. It does not follow, because the sound mind should be lodged in a sound body, that the care ofthe body should become the main, and virtually the exclusive, interest. 

Yet that this is now somewhat the prevailing tendency of average feeling isundeniable, and it is a tendency to be considered by intelligent collegiansthemselves. For the true academic prizes are spiritual, not material; andthe heroes for college emulation are not the gladiators, but the sagesand poets of the ancient day and of all time. The men that the collegeremembers and cherishes are not ball-players, and boat-racers, andhigh-jumpers, and boxers, and fencers, and heroes of single-stick, goodfellows as they are, but the patriots and scholars and poets and oratorsand philosophers. Three cheers for brawn, but three times three for brain!

(_September_, 1887)

HAZING

As if a bell had rung, and the venerable dormitories and halls uponthe green were pouring forth a crowd of youth loitering towards therecitation-room, the Easy Chair, like a college professor, meditatingserious themes, and with a grave purpose, steps to the lecture-desk. Itbegins by asking the young gentlemen who have loitered into the room, andare now seated, what they think of bullying boys and hunting cats and tyingkettles to a dog's tail, and seating a comrade upon tacks with the pointupward. Undoubtedly they reply, with dignified nonchalance, that it is allchild's play and contemptible. Undoubtedly, young gentlemen, answers theprofessor, and, to multiply Nathan's remark to David, You are the men!

As American youth you cherish wrathful scorn for the English boy who makesanother boy his fag, and you express a sneering pity for the boy whoconsents to fag. You have read _Dr. Birch and His Young Friends_, andyou would like to break the head of Master Hewlett, who shies his shoe atthe poor shivering, craven Nightingale, and you justly remark that closeobservation of John Bull seems to warrant the conclusion that the nature ofhis bovine ancestor is still far from eliminated from his descendant. Andwhat is the secret of your feeling? Simply that you hate bullying. Why, then, young gentlemen, do you bully?

You retort perhaps that fagging is unknown in America, and thathigh-spirited youth would not tolerate it. But permit the professor totell you what is not unknown in America: a crowd of older young gentlemensurrounding one younger fellow, forcing him to do disagreeable anddisgusting things, pouring cold water down his back, making a fool of himto his personal injury, he being solitary, helpless, and abused--all thisis not unknown in America, young gentlemen. But it is all very differentfrom what we have been accustomed to consider American. If we would morallydefine or paraphrase the word America, I think we should say fair-play. That is what it means. That is what the Brownist Puritans, the precursorsof the Plymouth Pilgrims, left England to secure. They did not bringit indeed, at least in all its fulness, across the sea. Let us say, young gentlemen, that its potentiality, its possibility, rather than itsactuality, stepped out of the _Mayflower_ upon Plymouth Rock. But fromthe moment of its landing it has been asserting itself. You need not say"Baptist" and "Quaker. " I understand it and allow for it all. But fair-playhas prevailed over ecclesiastical hatred and over personal slavery, andwhat are called the new questions--corporate power, monopoly, capital, andlabor--are only new forms of the old effort to secure fair-play. 

Now the petty bullying of hazing and the whole system of college tyranny isa most contemptible denial of fair-play. It is a disgrace to the Americanname, and when you stop in the wretched business to sneer at Englishfagging you merely advertise the beam in your own eyes. It is not possible, surely, that any honorable young gentleman now attending to the lecture ofthe professor really supposes that there is any fun or humor or joke inthis form of college bullying. Turn to your _Evelina_ and see whatwas accounted humorous, what passed for practical joking, in Miss Burney'stime, at the end of the last century. It is not difficult to imagine Dr. Johnson, who greatly delighted in _Evelina_, supposing the intentionalupsetting into the ditch of the old French lady in the carriage to be ajoke. For a man who unconsciously has made so much fun for others as "thegreat lexicographer, " Dr. Johnson seems to have been curiously devoid of asense of humor. But he was a genuine Englishman of his time, a true JohnBull, and the fun of the John Bull of that time, recorded in the novels andtraditions, was entirely bovine. 

The bovine or brutal quality is by no means wholly worked out of theblood even yet. The taste for pugilism, or the pummelling of the humanframe into a jelly by the force of fisticuffs, as a form of enjoyment orentertainment, is a relapse into barbarism. It is the instinct of the tigerstill surviving in the white cat transformed into the princess. I will notcall it, young gentlemen, the fond return of Melusina to the gambols of themermaid, or Undine's momentary unconsciousness of a soul, because these arepoetic and pathetic suggestions. The prize-ring is disgusting and inhuman, but at least it is a voluntary encounter of two individuals. But collegebullying is unredeemed brutality. It is the extinction of Dr. Jekyll in Mr. Hyde. It is not humorous, nor manly, nor generous, nor decent. It is baldand vulgar cruelty, and no class in college should feel itself worthy ofthe respect of others, or respect itself, until it has searched out alloffenders of this kind who disgrace it, and banished them to the remotestCoventry. 

The meanest and most cowardly fellows in college may shine most in hazing. The generous and manly men despise it. There are noble and inspiring waysfor working off the high spirits of youth: games which are rich in poetictradition; athletic exercises which mould the young Apollo. To drivea young fellow upon the thin ice, through which he breaks, and by theicy submersion becomes at last a cripple, helpless with inflammatoryrheumatism--surely no young man in his senses thinks this to be funny, oranything but an unspeakable outrage. Or to overwhelm with terror a comradeof sensitive temperament until his mind reels--imps of Satan might delightin such a revel, but young Americans!--never, young gentlemen, never!

The hazers in college are the men who have been bred upon dime novels andthe prize-ring--in spirit, at least, if not in fact--to whom the trainingand instincts of the gentleman are unknown. That word is one of the mostprecious among English words. The man who is justly entitled to it wearsa diamond of the purest lustre. Tennyson, in sweeping the whole range oftender praise for his dead friend Arthur Hallam, says that he bore withoutabuse the grand old name of gentleman. "Without abuse"--that is the wisequalification. The name may be foully abused. I read in the morning'spaper, young gentlemen, a pitiful story of a woman trying to throw herselffrom the bridge. You may recall one like it in Hood's "Bridge of Sighs. "The report was headed: "To hide her shame. " "_Her_ shame?" Why, gentlemen, at that very moment, in bright and bewildering rooms, the armsof Lothario and Lovelace were encircling your sisters' waists in theintoxicating waltz. These men go unwhipped of an epithet. They are evenenticed and flattered by the mothers of the girls. But, for all that, theydo not bear without abuse the name of gentleman, and Sidney and Bayard andHallam would scorn their profanation and betrayal of the name. 

The soul of the gentleman, what is it? Is it anything but kindly andthoughtful respect for others, helping the helpless, succoring the needy, befriending the friendless and forlorn, doing justice, requiring fair-play, and withstanding with every honorable means the bully of the church andcaucus, of the drawing-room, the street, the college? Respect, younggentlemen, like charity, begins at home. Only the man who respects himselfcan be a gentleman, and no gentleman will willingly annoy, torment, orinjure another. 

There will be no further recitation today. The class is dismissed. 

(_March_, 1888)

THE SOUL OF THE GENTLEMAN

To find a satisfactory definition of gentleman is as difficult as todiscover the philosopher's stone; and yet if we may not say just whata gentleman is, we can certainly say what he is not. We may affirmindisputably that a man, however rich, and of however fine a title incountries where rank is acknowledged, if he behave selfishly, coarsely, andindecently, is not a gentleman. "From which, young gentlemen, it follows, "as the good professor used to say at college, as he emerged from a hopelesslabyrinth of postulates and preliminaries an hour long, that the guests whoabused the courtesy of their hosts, upon the late transcontinental trip todrive the golden spike, may have been persons of social eminence, but werein no honorable sense gentlemen. 

It is undoubtedly a difficult word to manage. But gentlemanly conduct andungentlemanly conduct are expressions which are perfectly intelligible, andthat fact shows that there is a. Distinct standard in every intelligentmind by which behavior is measured. To say that a man was born a gentlemanmeans not at all that he is courteous, refined, and intelligent, but onlythat he was born of a family whose circumstances at some time had beeneasy and agreeable, and which belonged to a traditionally "good society. "But such a man may be false and mean, and ignorant and coarse. Is he agentleman because he was born such? On the other hand, the child of longgenerations of ignorant and laborious boors may be humane, honorable, andmodest, but with total ignorance of the usages of good society. He maybe as upright as Washington, as unselfish as Sidney, as brave as Bayard, as modest as Falkland. But he may also outrage all the little socialproprieties. Is he a gentleman because he is honest and modest and humane?In describing Lovelace, should we not say that he was a gentleman? Shouldwe naturally say so of Burns? But, again, is it not a joke to describeGeorge IV. As a gentleman, while it would be impossible to deny the name toMajor Dobbin?

The catch, however, is simple. Using the same word, we interchange itsdifferent meanings. To say that a man is born a gentleman is to say thathe was born under certain social conditions. To say in commendation ordescription of a man that he is a gentleman, or gentlemanly, is to saythat he has certain qualities of character or manner which are whollyindependent of the circumstances of his family or training. In the lattercase, we speak of individual and personal qualities; in the former, wespeak of external conditions. In the one case we refer to the man himself;in the other, to certain circumstances around him. The quality which iscalled gentlemanly is that which, theoretically, and often actually, distinguishes the person who is born in a certain social position. Itdescribes the manner in which such a person ought to behave. 

Behavior, however, can be imitated. Therefore, neither the fact of birthunder certain conditions, nor a certain ease and grace and charm of manner, certify the essential character of gentleman. Lovelace had the air andbreeding of a gentleman like Don Giovanni; he was familiar with politesociety; he was refined and pleasing and fascinating in manner. Even thesevere Astarte could not call him a boor. She does not know a gentleman, probably, more gentlemanly than Lovelace. She must, then, admit thatshe can not arbitrarily deny Lovelace to be a gentleman because he is alibertine, or because he is false, or mean, or of a coarse mind. She may, indeed, insist that only upright and honorable men of refined mind andmanner are gentlemen, and she may also maintain that only men of trulylofty and royal souls are princes; but there will still remain crowds ofimmoral gentlemen and unworthy kings. 

The persons who abused the generous courtesy of the Northern Pacific tripwere gentlemen in one sense, and not in the other. They were gentlemen sofar as they could not help themselves, but they were not gentlemen in whatdepended upon their own will. According to the story, they did not evenimitate the conduct of gentlemen, and Astarte must admit that they belongedto the large class of ungentlemanly gentlemen. 

(_December_, 1883)

THEATRE MANNERS

An admirable actress said the other day that the audience in the theatrewas probably little aware how much its conduct affected the performance. Alistless, whispering, uneasy house makes a distracted and ineffective play. To an orator, or an actor, or an artist of any kind who appeals personallyto the public, nothing is so fatal as indifference. In the originalWallack's Theatre, many years ago, the Easy Chair was one of a party ina stage-box during a fine performance of one of the plays in which theacting of the manager was most effective. It was a gay party, and with thecarelessness of youth it made merry while the play went on. As the box wasdirectly upon the stage, the merriment was a gross discourtesy, althoughunintentional, both to the actors and to the audience; and at last the oldWallack, still gayly playing his part, moved towards the box, and withoutturning his head, in a voice audible to the offenders but not to the restof the audience, politely reminded the thoughtless group that they wereseriously disturbing the play. There was some indignation in the box, butthe rebuke was courteous and richly deserved. Nothing is more unpardonablethan such disturbance. 

During this winter a gentleman at one of the theatres commented severelyupon the loud talking of a party of ladies, which prevented his enjoymentof the play, and when the gentleman attending the ladies retorted warmly, the disturbed gentleman resorted to the wild justice of a blow. There wasan altercation, a publication in the newspapers, and finally an apology anda reconciliation. But it is to be hoped that there was some good resultfrom the incident. A waggish clergyman once saw a pompous clerical brothermarch quite to the head of the aisle of a crowded church to find a seat, with an air of expectation that all pew-doors would fly open at hisapproach. But as every seat was full, and nobody stirred, the crestfallenbrother was obliged to retrace his steps. As he retreated by the pew, fardown the aisle, where the clerical wag was sitting, that pleasant manleaned over the door, and greeted his comrade with the sententious whisper, "May it be sanctified to you, dear brother!" Every right-minded man willwish the same blessing to the rebuke of the loud-talking maids and youthsin theatres and concert-halls, whose conversation, however lively, is notthe entertainment which their neighbors have come to hear. 

Two or three winters ago the Easy Chair applauded the conduct of Mr. Thomas, who, at the head of his orchestra, was interrupted in the midst ofa concert in Washington by the entry of a party, which advanced towards thefront of the hall with much chattering and rustling, and seated themselvesand continued the disturbance. The orchestra was in full career, butThomas rapped sharply upon his stand, and brought the performance to anabrupt pause. Then, turning to the audience, he said--and doubtless withevident and natural feeling: "I am afraid that the music interrupts theconversation. " The remark was greeted with warm and general applause; and, waiting until entire silence was restored, the conductor raised his batonagain, and the performance ended without further interruption. 

The Easy Chair improved the occasion to preach a short sermon upon badmanners in public places. But to its great surprise it was severely rebukedsome time afterward by Cleopatra herself, who said, with some feeling, thatshe had two reasons for complaint. The first was, that her ancient friendthe Easy Chair should place her in the pillory of its public animadversion;and the other was, that the Easy Chair should gravely defend such conductas that of Mr. Thomas. No remonstrance could be more surprising and nothingmore unexpected than that Cleopatra should differ in opinion upon such apoint. To the personal aspect of the matter the Easy Chair could say onlythat it had never heard who the offenders were, and that it declined tobelieve that Cleopatra herself could ever be guilty of such conduct. HerMajesty then explained that she was not guilty. She was not of the party. But it was composed of friends of hers who seated themselves near her, andwhen the words of Mr. Thomas concentrated the gaze of the audience upon thedisturbers of the peace, her Majesty, known to everybody, was supposed tobe the ringleader of the _émeute_. The story at once flew abroad, uponthe wings of those swift birds of prey--as she called them--the Washingtoncorrespondents, and she was mentioned by name as the chief offender. 

It was not difficult to persuade the most placable of queens that the EasyChair could not have intended a personal censure. But the Chair could notagree that Thomas's conduct was unjustifiable. Cleopatra urged that theconductor of an orchestra at a concert is not responsible for the behaviorof the audience. An audience, she said, can take care of itself, and it isan unwarrantable impertinence for a conductor to arrest the performancebecause he is irritated by a noise of whispering voices or of slammingdoors. "I saw you, Mr. Easy Chair, " she said, "on the evening of Rachel'sfirst performance in this country. What would you have thought if she hadstopped short in the play--it was Corneille's _Les Horaces_, youremember--because she was annoyed by the rustling of the leaves of athousand books of the play which the audience turned over at the samemoment?"

The Easy Chair declined to step into the snare which was plainly set in itssight. It would not accept an illustration as an argument. The enjoyment ata concert, it contended, for which the audience has paid in advance, and towhich it is entitled, depends upon conditions of silence and order whichit can not itself maintain without serious disturbance. It may indeed cry"Hush!" and "Put him out!" but not only would that cry be of doubtfuleffect, but experience proves that a concert audience will not raise it. Ifthe audience were left to itself, it would permit late arrivals, and allthe disturbance of chatter and movement. To twist the line of Goldsmith, those who came to pray would be at the mercy of those who came to scoff;and such mercy is merciless. The conductor stands _in loco parentis_. He is the _advocatus angeli_. He does for the audience what it wouldnot do for itself. He protects it against its own fatal good-nature. Heinsists that it shall receive what it has paid for, and he will deal withdisturbers as they deserve. The audience, conscious of its own good-humoredimpotence, recognizes at once its protector, and gladly applauds him fordoing for it what it has not the nerve to do for itself. No audience whoserights were defended as Thomas defended those of his Washington audienceever resented the defence. 

"No, " responded Cleopatra, briskly; "the same imbecility prevents. "

"Very well; then such an audience plainly needs a strong and resoluteleadership; and that is precisely what Thomas supplied. A crowd is alwaysgrateful to the man who will do what everybody in the crowd feels ought tobe done, but what no individual is quite ready to undertake. "

When Cleopatra said that an audience is quite competent to take care ofitself, her remark was natural, for she instinctively conceived theaudience as herself extended into a thousand persons. Such an audiencewould certainly be capable of dispensing with any mentor or guide. But whenthe Easy Chair asked her if she was annoyed by the chattering interruptionwhich Thomas rebuked, she replied that of course she was annoyed. Yetwhen she was further asked if she cried "Hush!" or resorted to any meanswhatever to quell the disturbance, the royal lady could not help smiling asshe answered, "I did not, " and the Easy Chair retorted, "Yet an audience iscapable of protecting itself!"

Meanwhile, whatever the conductor or the audience may or may not do, nothing is more vulgar than audible conversation, or any other kind ofdisturbance, during a concert. Sometimes it may be mere thoughtlessness;sometimes boorishness, the want of the fine instinct which avoidsoccasioning any annoyance; but usually it is due to a desire to attractattention and to affect superiority to the common interest. It is, indeed, mere coarse ostentation, like wearing diamonds at a hotel table or a purplevelvet train in the street. If the audience had the courage which Cleopatraattributed to it, that part which was annoyed by the barbarians who chatterand disturb would at once suppress the annoyance by an emphatic andunmistakable hiss. If this were the practice in public assemblies, suchincidents as that at the Washington concert would be unknown. Untilit is the practice, even were Cleopatra's self the offender, everyself-respecting conductor who has a proper sense of his duties to theaudience will do with its sincere approval what Mr. Thomas did. 

(_April_, 1883)

WOMAN'S DRESS

The American who sits in a street omnibus or railroad-car and sees a youngwoman whose waist is pinched to a point that makes her breathing merepanting and puffing, and whose feet are squeezed into shoes with a highheel in the middle of the sole, which compels her to stump and hobble asshe tries to walk, should be very wary of praising the superiority ofEuropean and American civilization to that of the East. The grade ofcivilization which squeezes a waist into deformity is not, in that respectat least, superior to that which squeezes a foot into deformity. It is inboth instances a barbarous conception alike of beauty and of the functionof woman. The squeezed waist and the squeezed foot equally assume thatdistortion of the human frame may be beautiful, and that helpless idlenessis the highest sphere of woman. 

But the imperfection of our Western civilization shows itself in moreserious forms involving women. The promiscuous herding of men and womenprisoners in jails, the opposition to reformatories and penitentiariesexclusively for women, and, in general, the failure to provide, as a matterof course, women attendants and women nurses for all women prisoners andpatients, is a signal illustration of a low tone of civilization. The mostrevolting instance of this abuse was the discovery during the summer thatthe patients in a woman's insane hospital in New Orleans were bathed bymale attendants. 

It should not need such outrages to apprise us of the worth of the generalprinciple that humanity and decency require that in all public institutionswomen should be employed in the care of women. A wise proposition duringthe year to provide women at the police-stations for the examination ofwomen who are arrested failed to become law. It is hard, upon the merits ofthe proposal, to understand why. Women who are arrested may be criminals, or drunkards, or vagabonds, or insane, or witless, or sick. But whateverthe reason of the arrest, there can be no good reason whatever, in a trulycivilized community, that a woman taken under such circumstances should beabandoned to personal search and examination by the kind of men to whomthat business is usually allotted. The surest sign of the civilizationof any community is its treatment of women, and the progress of ourcivilization is shown by the constant amelioration of that condition. Butthe unreasonable and even revolting circumstances of much of the publictreatment of them may wisely modify ecstasies over our vast superiority. 

The squeezed waists and other tokens of the kind show that our civilizationhas not yet outgrown the conception of the most meretricious epochs, thatwoman exists for the delight of man, and is meant to be a kind of decoratedappendage of his life, while the men attendants and men nurses of womenprisoners and patients show a most uncivilized disregard of the justinstincts of sex. We are far from asserting that therefore the position ofwomen in this country is to be likened to their position in China, wherethe contempt of men denied them souls, or to that among savage tribes, where they are treated as beasts of burden. But because we are notwallowing in the Slough of Despond, it does not follow that we are sittingin the House Beautiful. The traveller who has climbed to the _mer deglace_ at Chamouni, and sees the valley wide outstretched far below him, sees also far above him the awful sunlit dome of "Sovran Blanc. " Whateverpoint we may have reached, there is still a higher point to gain. Nowherein the world are women so truly respected as here, nowhere ought they to bemore happy than in this country. But that is no reason that the New Orleansoutrage should be possible, while the same good sense and love of justicewhich have removed so many barriers to fair-play for women should press onmore cheerfully than ever to remove those that remain. 

(_December_, 1882)

SECRET SOCIETIES

The melancholy death of young Mr. Leggett, a student at the CornellUniversity, has undoubtedly occasioned a great deal of thought in everycollege in the country upon secret societies. Professor Wilder, of Cornell, has written a very careful and serious letter, in which he strongly opposesthem, plainly stating their great disadvantages, and citing the orderof Jesuits as the most powerful and thoroughly organized of all secretassociations, and therefore the one in which their character and tendencymay best be observed. The debate recalls the history of the Antimasonicexcitement in this country, which is, however, seldom mentioned in recentyears, so that the facts may not be familiar to the reader. 

In the year 1826 William Morgan, living in Batavia, in the western part ofNew York, near Buffalo, was supposed to intend the publication of a bookwhich would reveal the secrets of Masonry. The Masons in the vicinity wereangry, and resolved to prevent the publication, and made several forciblebut ineffective attempts for that purpose. On the 11th of September, 1826, a party of persons from Canandaigua came to Batavia and procured the arrestof Morgan upon a criminal charge, and he was carried to Canandaigua forexamination. He was acquitted, but was immediately arrested upon a civilprocess, upon which an execution was issued, and he was imprisoned in thejail at Canandaigua. The next evening he was discharged at the instance ofthose who had caused his arrest, and was taken from the jail after nineo'clock in the evening. Those who had obtained the discharge instantlyseized him, gagged and bound him, and throwing him into a carriage, hurriedoff to Rochester. By relays of horses and by different hands he was bornealong, until he was lodged in the magazine of Fort Niagara, at the mouth ofthe Niagara River. 

The circumstances of his arrest, and those that had preceded it, had aroused and inflamed the minds of the people in Batavia and theneighborhood. A committee was appointed at a public meeting to ascertainall the facts, and to bring to justice any criminals that might be found. They could discover only that Morgan had been seized upon his discharge inCanandaigua and hurried off towards Rochester; but beyond that, nothing. The excitement deepened and spread. A great crime had apparently beencommitted, and it was hidden in absolute secrecy. Other meetings were heldin other towns, and other committees were appointed, and both meetings andcommittees were composed of men of both political parties. Investigationshowed that Masons only were implicated in the crime, and that scarcely aMason aided the inquiry; that many Masons ridiculed and even justified theoffence; that the committees were taunted with their inability to procurethe punishment of the offenders in courts where judges, sheriffs, juries, and witnesses were Masons; that witnesses disappeared; that the committeeswere reviled; and gradually Masonry itself was held responsible for themysterious doom of Morgan. 

The excitement became a frenzy. The Masons were hated and denounced as theIrish were in London after the "Irish night, " or the Roman Catholics duringthe Titus Oates fury. In January, 1827, some of those who had been arrestedwere tried, and it was hoped that the evidence at their trials would clearthe mystery. But they pleaded guilty, and this hope was baffled. Meanwhilea body of delegates from the various committees met at Lewiston toascertain the fate of Morgan, and they discovered that in or near themagazine in which he had been confined he had been put to death. His book, with its revelations, had been published, and what was not told was, ofcourse, declared to be infinitely worse than the actual disclosures. Theexcitement now became political. It was alleged that Masonry held itselfsuperior to the laws, and that Masons were more loyal to their Masonicoaths than to their duty as citizens. Masonry, therefore, was held to be afatal foe to the government and to the country, which must be destroyed;and in several town-meetings in Genesee and Monroe counties, in the springof 1827, Masons, as such, were excluded from office. At the next generalelection the Antimasons nominated a separate ticket, and they carried thecounties of Genesee, Monroe, Livingston, Orleans, and Niagara against boththe great parties. A State organization followed, and in the electionof 1830 the Antimasonic candidate, Francis Granger, was adopted by theNational Republicans, and received one hundred and twenty thousand votes, against one hundred and twenty-eight thousand for Mr. Throop. From a Stateorganization the Antimasons became a national party, and in 1832 nominatedWilliam Wirt for the presidency. The Antimasonic electoral ticket wasadopted by the National Republicans, and the union became the Whig party, which, in 1838, elected Mr. Seward Governor of New York, and in 1840General Harrison President of the United States. 

The spring of this triumphant political movement was hostility to a secretsociety. Many of the most distinguished political names of Western NewYork, including Millard Fillmore, William H. Seward, Thurlow Weed, FrancisGranger, James Wadsworth, George W. Patterson, were associated with it. Andas the larger portion of the Whig party was merged in the Republican, thedominant party of to-day has a certain lineal descent from the feelingsaroused by the abduction of Morgan from the jail at Canandaigua. And ashis disappearance and the odium consequent upon it stigmatized Masonry, sothat it lay for a long time moribund, and although revived in later years, cannot hope to regain its old importance, so the death of young Leggett islikely to wound fatally the system of college secret societies. 

The young man was undergoing initiation into a secret society. He wasblind-folded, and two companions were leading him along the edge of a cliffover a deep ravine, when the earth gave way, or they slipped and fell fromthe precipice, and Leggett was so injured that he died in two hours. Therewas no allegation or suspicion of blame. There was, indeed, an attempt ofsome enemies of the Cornell University--a hostility due either to supposedconflict of interests or sectarian jealousy--to stigmatize the institution, but it failed instantly and utterly. Indeed, General Leggett, of thePatent-office in Washington, the father of the unfortunate youth, at oncewrote a very noble and touching letter to shield the university and thecompanions of his son from blame or responsibility. He would not allow hisgrief to keep him silent when a word could avert injustice, and his modestmagnanimity won for his sorrow the tender sympathy of all who read hisletter. 

Every collegian knows that there is no secrecy whatever in what is calleda secret society. Everybody knows, not in particular, but in general, that its object is really "good-fellowship, " with the charm of mysteryadded. Everybody knows--for the details of such societies in all countriesare essentially the same--that there are certain practical jokes ofinitiation--tossings in blankets, layings in coffins, dippings in coldwater, stringent catechisms, moral exhortations, with darkness and suddenlight and mysterious voices from forms invisible, and then mystic signsand clasps and mottoes, "the whole to conclude" with the best supper thatthe treasury can afford. Literary brotherhood, philosophic fraternity, intellectual emulation, these are the noble names by which the youthdeceive themselves and allure the Freshmen; but the real business of thesociety is to keep the secret, and to get all the members possible from theentering class. 

Each society, of course, gets "the best fellows. " Every touter informs thecallow Freshman that all men of character and talent hasten to join hissociety, and impresses the fresh imagination with the names of the famoushonorary members. The Freshman, if he be acute--and he is more so everyyear--naturally wonders how the youth, who are undeniably commonplace inthe daily intercourse of college, should become such lofty beings in thehall of a secret society; or, more probably, he thinks of nothing but thesport or the mysterious incentive to a studious and higher life which thesociety is to furnish. He feels the passionate curiosity of the neophyte. He is smitten with the zeal of the hermetical philosophy. He would learnmore than Rosicrucian lore. That is a vision soon dispelled. But theearnest curiosity changes into _esprit du corps_, and the mischief isthat the secrecy and the society feeling are likely to take precedence ofthe really desirable motives in college. There is a hundredfold greaterzeal to obtain members than there is generous rivalry among the societiesto carry off the true college honors. And if the purpose be admirable, why, as Professor Wilder asks, the secrecy? What more can the secret societydo for the intellectual or social training of the student than the opensociety? Has any secret society in an American college done, or can it do, more for the intelligent and ambitious young man than the Union DebatingSociety at the English Cambridge University, or the similar club at Oxford?There Macaulay, Gladstone, the Austins, Charles Buller, Tooke, Ellis, andthe long illustrious list of noted and able Englishmen were trained, andin the only way that manly minds can be trained, by open, free, generousrivalry and collision. The member of a secret society in college is reallyconfined, socially and intellectually, to its membership, for it is foundthat the secret gradually supplant the open societies. But that membershipdepends upon luck, not upon merit, while it has the capital disadvantageof erecting false standards of measurement, so that the _Mu Nu_ mancannot be just to the hero of _Zeta Eta_. The secrecy is a spice thatoverbears the food. The mystic paraphernalia is a relic of the baby-house, which a generous youth disdains. 

There is, indeed, an agreeable sentiment in the veiled friendship of thesecret society which every social nature understands. But as studentsare now becoming more truly "men" as they enter college, because of thehigher standard of requirement, it is probable that the glory of thesecret society is already waning, and that the allegiance of the olderuniversities to the open arenas of frank and manly intellectual contests, involving no expense, no dissipation, and no perilous temptation, isreturning. At least there will now be an urgent question among many of thebest men in college whether it ought not to return. 

(_January_, 1874)

TOBACCO AND HEALTH

We do not know if readers upon your side of the water have watched withany interest the present violent onslaught in both England and France uponthe use of tobacco. Sir Benjamin Brodie (of London) has declared stronglyagainst its use; and at a recent meeting at Edinburgh of the BritishAnti-Tobacco Society, Professor Miller, moving the first resolution, asfollows: "That as the constituent principles which tobacco contains arehighly poisonous, the practices of smoking and snuffing tend in a varietyof ways to injure the physical and mental constitution, " continued: "No manwho was a hard smoker had a steady hand. But not only had it a debilitatingand paralyzing effect; but he could tell of patients who were completelyparalyzed in their limbs by inveterate smoking. He might tell of apatient of his who brought on an attack of paralysis by smoking; who wascured, indeed, by simple means enough, accompanied with the completediscontinuance of the practice; but who afterwards took to it again, andgot a new attack of paralysis; and who could now play with himself, as itwere, because when he wanted a day's paralysis or an approach to it, hehad nothing to do but to indulge more or less freely with the weed. Onlythe other day, the French--among whom the practice was carried even toa greater extent than with us--made an estimate of its effects in theirschools, and academies, and colleges. They took the young men attendingthese institutions, classified them into those who smoked habitually andthose who did not, and estimated their physical and intellectual standing, perhaps their moral standing too, but he could not say. The result was, that they found that those who did not smoke were the stronger lads andbetter scholars, were altogether more reputable people, and more usefulmembers of society than those who habitually used the drug. What wasthe consequence? Louis Napoleon--one of the good things which he haddone--instantly issued an edict that no smoking should be permitted in anyschool, college, or academy. In one day he put out about 30, 000 pipes inParis alone. Let our young smokers put that in their pipe and smoke it. "The resolution was agreed to. 

Is it possible to entertain the idea that Louis Napoleon has increasedthe tax on tobacco, latterly, very largely, in the hope of discouragingits use, and so contributing to the weal of the nation? If so, it wouldillustrate one of the beautiful uses of despotic privilege. 

(_February_, 1861)

TOBACCO AND MANNERS

I

The "old school" of manners has fallen into disrepute. Sir CharlesGrandison is a comical rather than a courtly figure to this generation; andthe man whose manners may be described as Grandisonian is usually calleda pompous and grandiloquent old prig. Certainly the elaborately dressedgentleman speaking to a lady only with polished courtesy of phrase, andavoiding in her presence all coarse words and acts, handing her in theminuet with inexpressible grace and deference, and showing an exquisitehomage in every motion, was a very different figure from the gentleman in ashooting-jacket or morning sack "chaffing" a lady with the freshest slang, and smoking in her face. They are undeniably different, and the laterfigure is wholly free from Grandisonian elegance and elaboration. But is hemuch more truly a gentleman? Is he our Sidney, our Chevalier Bayard, ourAdmirable Crichton? Is that refined consideration and gentle deference, which is the flower of courtesy, an old-fashioned folly?

The overwrought politeness is made very ridiculous upon the stage, andRichardson is undoubtedly hard reading for the general consumer of novels. It is true, also, that fine morals do not always go with fine manners, andthat Lovelace had a fascination of address which John Knox lacked. Thechaff and slang of the Bayard of to-day are at least decent, and his moralsprobably purer than those of the courtly and punctilious old Sir Rogerde Coverleys. Possibly; but it has been wisely said that hypocrisy is thehomage paid by vice to virtue. The good manners of a bad man are a richdress upon a diseased body. They are the graceful form of a vase full ofdirty water. The liquid may be poisonous, but the vessel is beautiful. Some of the worst Lotharios in the world have a personal charm which isirresistible. Many a stately compliment was paid by a graciously bowingsatyr in laced velvet coat and periwig, at the court of Louis the Great, and paid for the basest purpose; but the grace and the courtesy wereborrowed, like plumage of living hues to deck carrion. They were not a partof the baseness, and you do not escape dirty water by breaking the vase. If the older morals were worse than the new, and the older manners werebetter, cannot we who live to-day, and who may have everything, combine thenew morals and the old manners?

We can spare some elaboration of form, but we cannot safely spare thesubstance of refined deference. If Romeo be permitted to treat Juliet ashostlers are supposed to treat barmaids, and as the heroes of Fielding andSmollett treat Abigails upon a journey, they will both lose self-respectand mutual respect. It was a wise father who said to his son, "Beware ofthe woman who allows you to kiss her. " The woman who does not requireof a man the form of respect invites him to discard the substance. Andthere is one violation of the form which is recent and gross, and mightbe well cited as a striking illustration of the decay of manners. Itis the practice of smoking in the society of ladies in public places, whether driving, or walking, or sailing, or sitting. There are _preuxchevaliers_ who would be honestly amazed if they were told they didnot behave like gentlemen, who, sitting with a lady on a hotel piazza, orstrolling on a public park, whip out a cigarette, light it, and puff astranquilly as if they were alone in their rooms. Or a young man comes aloneupon the deck of a steamer, where throngs of ladies are sitting, and blowsclouds of tobacco smoke in their faces, without even remarking that tobaccois disagreeable to some people. This is not, indeed, one of the sevendeadly sins, but a man who unconcernedly sings false betrays that he hasno ear for music, and the man who smokes in this way shows that he is notquite a gentleman. 

But some ladies smoke? Yes, and some ladies drink liquor. Does that mendthe matter? The Easy Chair has seen a lady at the head of her own tablesmoking a fine cigar. You will see a great many highly dressed women inParis smoking cigarettes. Does all this change the situation? Does thismake it more gentlemanly to smoke with a lady beside you in a carriage, orupon a bench on the piazza? But some ladies like the odor of a cigar? Notmany; and the taste of those who sincerely do so cannot justify the habitof promiscuous puffing in their presence. The intimacy of domesticity isgoverned by other rules; but a gentleman smoking would hardly enter hisown drawing-room, where other ladies sat with his wife, without a wordof apology. The Easy Chair is no King James, and is more likely to issueblasts of tobacco than blasts against it. But King James belonged to a veryselfish sex--a sex which seems often to suppose that its indulgences andhabits are to be tenderly tolerated, for no other reason than that theyare its habits. Therefore the young woman must defend herself by showingplainly that she prohibits the intrusion of which, if suffered, she isreally the victim. In other times the Easy Chair has seen the lovely LauraMatilda unwilling to refuse to dance with the partner who had bespoken herhand for the german, although when he presented himself he was plainlyflown with wine. The Easy Chair has seen the hapless, foolish maidencircled by those Bacchic arms, and then a headlong whirl and dash downthe room, ending in the promiscuous overthrow and downfall of maid, Bacchus, and musicians. 

If in the Grandisonian day the morals were wanting, it was something tohave the manners. They at least were to the imagination a memory and aprophecy. They recalled the idyllic age when fine manners expressed finefeelings, and they foretold the return of Astræa to her ancient haunts. Here is young Adonis dreaming of a four-in-hand and a yacht, like any othergentleman. Let us hope that he knows the test of a gentleman not to be theownership of blood-horses and a unique drag, but perfect courtesy foundedupon fine human feeling--that rare and indescribable gentleness andconsideration which rests upon manner as lightly as the bloom upon a fruit. It may be imitated, as gold and diamonds are. But no counterfeit can harmit; and, Adonis, it is incompatible with smoking in a lady's face, even ifshe acquiesces. 

(_September_, 1879)

II

Apollodorus came in the other morning and announced to the Easy Chair thatit had been made by common consent arbiter of a dispute in a circle ofyoung men. "The question, " said he, "is not a new one in itself, but itconstantly recurs, for it is the inquiry under what conditions a gentlemanmay smoke in the presence of ladies. "

The Easy Chair replied that it could not answer more pertinently than inthe words of the famous Princess Emilia, who, upon being asked by a youthwho was attending her in a promenade around the garden, "What should yousay if a gentleman asked to smoke as he walked with you?" replied, "It isnot supposable, for no gentleman would propose it. "

Naturally that youth did not venture to light even a cigarette. Emilia hadparried his question so dexterously that, although the rebuke was stinging, he could not even pretend to be offended. His question was merely a form ofsaying, "I am about to smoke, and what have you to say?" That he asked thequestion was evidence of a lingering persuasion, inherited from an ancestryof gentlemen, that it was not seemly to puff tobacco smoke around a ladywith whom he was walking. 

Apollodorus was silent for a moment, as if reflecting whether this anecdotewas to be regarded as a general judgment of the arbiter that a gentlemanwill never smoke in the presence of a lady. But the Easy Chair broke inupon his meditation with a question, "If you had a son, should you wish tomeet him smoking as he accompanied a lady upon the avenue? or, were youthe father of a daughter, should you wish to see her cavalier smoking ashe walked by her side? Upon your own theory of what is gentlemanly andcourteous and respectful and becoming in the manner of a man towards awoman, should you regard the spectacle with satisfaction?"

"Well, " replied Apollodorus, "isn't that rather a high-flying view? Whencan a man smoke--"

"But you are not answering, " interrupted the Easy Chair. "Of two youthswalking with your daughter, one of whom was smoking a cigarette, or acigar, or a pipe, as he attended her, and the other was not smoking, whichwould seem to you the more gentlemanly?"

"The latter, " said Apollodorus, promptly and frankly. 

"It appears, then, " returned the Easy Chair, assuming the Socratic manner, "that there are circumstances under which a gentleman will not smoke inthe presence of a lady. But to answer your question directly, it is notpossible to prescribe an exact code, although certain conditions may bedefinitely stated. For instance, a gentleman will not smoke while walkingwith a lady in the street. He will not smoke while paying her an eveningvisit in her drawing-room. He will not smoke while driving with her in thePark. "

It is significant of a radical change in manners that such rules canbe laid down, because formerly the question could not have arisen. Thegrandfather of Apollodorus, who was the flower of courtesy, could no morehave smoked with a lady with whom he was walking or driving than he couldhave attended her without a coat or collar. Yet manners change, and thegrandfather must not insist that those of his time were best because theywere those of his time. It is but a little while since that a gentlemanwho appeared at a party without gloves would have been a "queer" figure. But now should he wear gloves he would be remarked as unfamiliar with goodusage. 

It does not argue a decline of courtesy that the Grandisonian complimentand the ineffable bending over a lady's hand and respectful kissing of thefinger-tips have yielded to a simpler and less stately manner. The womanof the minuet was not really more respected than the woman of the waltz. However the word gentlemanly may be defined, it will not be questionedthat the quality which it describes is sympathetic regard for the feelingsof others and the manner which evinces it. The manner, of course, may becounterfeited and put to base uses. To say that Lovelace has a gentlemanlymanner is not to say that he is a gentleman, but only that he has caughtthe trick of a gentleman. To call him or Robert Macaire or Richard Turpin agentleman is to say only that he behaves as a gentleman behaves. But he isnot a gentleman, unless that word describes manners and nothing more. 

This is the key to the question of Apollodorus. It is not easy to define agentleman, but it is perfectly easy to see that in his pleasures and in thelittle indifferent practices of society the gentleman will do nothing whichis disagreeable to others. He certainly will not assume that a personalgratification or indulgence must necessarily be pleasant to others, norwill he make the selfish habits of others a plea for his own. 

Apollodorus listened patiently, and then said slowly that he understood thejudgment to be that a gentleman would smoke in the presence of ladies onlywhen he knew that it was agreeable to them, but that, as the infinite graceand courtesy of women often led them, as an act of self-denial, to persuadethemselves that what others wish to do ought not to annoy them, it was verydifficult to know whether the practice was or was not offensive to anyparticular lady, and therefore--therefore--

The youth seemed to be unable to draw the conclusion. 

"Therefore, " said the mentor, "it is well to remember the old rule inwhist. "

"Which is--?" asked Apollodorus. 

"When in doubt, trump the trick. "

"But what is the special application of that rule to this case?"

"Precisely this, that the doubting smoker should follow the advice of_Punch_ to those about to marry. "

"Which is--?" asked Apollodorus. 

"Don't. "

(_September_, 1883)

DUELLING

Twenty-five years ago, at the table of a gentleman whose father had fallenin a duel, the conversation fell upon duelling, and after it had proceededfor some time the host remarked, emphatically, that there were occasionswhen it was a man's solemn duty to fight. The personal reference was toosignificant to permit further insistence at that table that duelling wascriminal folly, and the subject of conversation was changed. 

The host, however, had only reiterated the familiar view of GeneralHamilton. His plea was, that in the state of public opinion at the timewhen Burr challenged him, to refuse to fight under circumstances whichby the "code of honor" authorized a challenge, was to accept a brand ofcowardice and of a want of gentlemanly feeling, which would banish him to amoral and social Coventry, and throw a cloud of discredit upon his family. So Hamilton, one of the bravest men and one of the acutest intellects ofhis time, permitted a worthless fellow to murder him. Yet there is no doubtthat he stated accurately the general feeling of the social circle in whichhe lived. There was probably not a conspicuous member of that society whowas of military antecedents who would not have challenged any man who hadsaid of him what Hamilton had said of Burr. Hamilton disdained explanationor recantation, and the result was accepted as tragical, but in a certainsense inevitable. 

Yet that result aroused public sentiment to the atrocity of this barbaroussurvival of the ordeal of private battle. That one of the most justlyrenowned of public men, of unsurpassed ability, should be shot to deathlike a mad dog, because he had expressed the general feeling about anunprincipled schemer, was an exasperating public misfortune. But that heshould have been murdered in deference to a practice which was approved inthe best society, yet which placed every other valuable life at the mercyof any wily vagabond, was a public peril. From that day to this there hasbeen no duel which could be said to have commanded public sympathy orapproval. From the bright June morning, eighty years ago, when Hamiltonfell at Weehawken, to the June of this year, when two foolish men shot ateach other in Virginia, there has been a steady and complete change ofpublic opinion, and the performance of this year was received with almostuniversal contempt, and with indignant censure of a dilatory police. 

The most celebrated duel in this country since that of Hamilton and Burrwas the encounter between Commodores Decatur and Barron, in 1820, nearWashington, in which Decatur, like Hamilton, was mortally wounded, andlikewise lived but a few hours. The quarrel was one of professional, asBurr's of political, jealousy. But as the only conceivable advantage ofthe Hamilton duel lay in its arousing the public mind to the barbarity ofduelling, the only gain from the Decatur duel was that it confirmed thisconviction. In both instances there was an unspeakable shock to the countryand infinite domestic anguish. Nothing else was achieved. Neither generalmanners nor morals were improved, nor was the fame of either combatantheightened, nor public confidence in the men or admiration of their publicservices increased. In both cases it was a calamity alleviated solely bythe resolution which it awakened that such calamities should not occuragain. 

Such a resolution, indeed, could not at once prevail, and eighteen yearsafter Decatur was killed, Jonathan Cilley, of Maine, was killed in a duelat Washington by William J. Graves, of Kentucky. This event occurredforty-five years ago, but the outcry with which it was received even atthat time--one of the newspaper moralists lapsing into rhyme as he deploredthe cruel custom which led excellent men to the fatal field, "where Cilleys meet their Graves"--

and the practical disappearance of Mr. Graves from public life, showed howdeep and strong was the public condemnation, and how radically the generalview of the duel was changed. 

Even in the burning height of the political and sectional animosity of1856, when Brooks had assaulted Charles Sumner, the challenge of Brooksby some of Sumner's friends met with little public sympathy. During theexcitement the Easy Chair met the late Count Gurowski, who was a constantand devoted friend of Mr. Sumner, but an old-world man, with all thehereditary social prejudices of the old world. The count was furiousthat such a dastardly blow had not been avenged. "Has he no friends?" heexclaimed. "Is there no honor left in your country?" And, as if he wouldburst with indignant impatience, he shook both his fists in the air, andthundered out, "Good God! will not somebody challenge anybody?"

No, that time is passed. The elderly club dude may lament the decayof the good old code of honor--a word of which he has a very ludicrousconception--as Major Pendennis, when he pulled off his wig, and took outhis false teeth, and removed the padded calves of his legs, used to hopethat the world was not sinking into shams in its old age. Quarrellingeditors may win a morning's notoriety by stealing to the field, furnishinga paragraph for the reporters, and running away from the police. But theygain only the unsavory notoriety of the man in a curled wig and floweredwaistcoat and huge flapped coat of the last century who used to paradeBroadway. The costume was merely an advertisement, and of very contemptiblewares. The man who fights a duel to-day excites but one comment. Should heescape, he is ridiculous. Should he fall, the common opinion of enlightenedmankind writes upon his head-stone, "He died as the fool dieth. "

(_September_, 1883)

NEWSPAPER ETHICS

I

Newspaper manners and morals hardly fall into the category of minor mannersand morals, which are supposed to be the especial care of the Easy Chair, but there are frequent texts upon which the preacher might dilate, andpush a discourse upon the subject even to the fifteenthly. Indeed, inthis hot time of an opening election campaign, the stress of the contestis so severe that the first condition of a good newspaper is sometimesfrightfully maltreated. The first duty of a newspaper is to tell the news;to tell it fairly, honestly, and accurately, which are here only differingaspects of the same adverb. "Cooking the news" is the worst use to whichcooking and news can be put. The old divine spoke truly, if with exceedingcare, in saying, "It has been sometimes observed that men will lie. " So ithas been sometimes suspected that newspapers will cook the news. 

A courteous interviewer called upon a gentleman to obtain his opinions, let us say, upon the smelt fishery. After the usual civilities upon suchoccasions, the interviewer remarked, with conscious pride: "The paper thatI represent and you, sir, do not agree upon the great smelt question. Butit is a newspaper. It prints the facts. It does not pervert them for itsown purpose, and it finds its account in it. You may be sure that whateveryou may say will be reproduced exactly as you say it. This is the newsdepartment. Meanwhile the editorial department will make such comments uponthe news as it chooses. " This was fair, and the interviewer kept his word. The opinions might be editorially ridiculed from the other smelt point ofview, and they probably were so. But the reader of the paper could judgebetween the opinion and the comment. 

Now an interview is no more news than much else that is printed in a paper, and it is no more pardonable to misrepresent other facts than to distortthe opinions of the victim of an interview. Yet it has been possible attimes to read in the newspapers of the same day accounts of the sameproceedings of--of--let us say, as this is election time--of a politicalconvention. The _Banner_ informs us that the spirit was unmistakable, and the opinion most decided in favor of Jones. True, the convention voted, by nine hundred to four, for Smith, but there is no doubt that Jones is thename written on the popular heart. The _Standard_, on the other hand, proclaims that the popular heart is engraved all over with the inspiringname of Smith, and that it is impossible to find any trace of feeling forJones, except, possibly, in the case of one delegate, who is probably anidiot or a lunatic. This is gravely served up as news, and the papers payfor it. They even hire men to write this, and pay them for it. How Udeand Carême would have disdained this kind of cookery! It is questionablewhether hanging is not a better use to put a man to than cooking news. SirHenry Wotton defined an ambassador as an honest man sent to lie abroad forthe commonwealth. This kind of purveyor, however, does not lie for hiscountry, but for a party or a person. 

It is done with a purpose, the purpose of influencing other action. It isintended to swell the paean for Jones or for Smith, and to procure resultsunder false pretences. Procuring goods under false pretences is a crime, but everybody is supposed to read the newspapers at his own risk. Has thereader yet to learn that newspapers are very human? A paper, for instance, takes a position upon the Jones or Smith question. It decides, upon all theinformation it can obtain, and by its own deliberate judgment, that Jonesis the coming man, or ("it has been observed that men will sometimes lie")it has illicit reasons for the success of Smith. Having thus taken itscourse, it cooks all the news upon the Smith and Jones controversy, inorder that by encouraging the Jonesites or the Smithians, according to thecolor that it wears, it may promote the success of the side upon which itsopinion has been staked. It is a ludicrous and desperate game, but it iscertainly not the honest collection and diffusion of news. It is a losinggame also, because, whatever the sympathies of the reader, he does not careto be foolishly deceived about the situation. If he is told day after daythat Smith is immensely ahead and has a clear field, he is terribly shakenby the shock of learning at the final moment that he has been cheated fromthe beginning, and that poor Smith is dead upon the field of dishonor. 

Everybody is willing to undertake everybody else's business, and an EasyChair naturally supposes, therefore, that it could show the able editor aplan of securing and retaining a large audience. The plan would be thatdescribed by the urbane reporter as the plan of his own paper. It isnothing else than truth-telling in the news column, and the peremptorypunishment of all criminals who cook the news, and "write up" thesituation, not as it is, but as the paper wishes it to be. This is morethan an affair of the private wishes or preferences of the paper. To cookthe news is a public wrong, and a violation of the moral contract whichthe newspaper makes with the public to supply the news, and to use everyreasonable effort to obtain it, not to manufacture it, either in the officeor by correspondence. 

(_July_, 1880)

II

If, as a New York paper recently said, the journalist is superseding theorator, it is full time for the work upon _Journals and Journalism_, which has been lately issued in London. The New York writer holds that inour political contests the "campaign speech" is not intended or adaptedto persuade or convert opponents, but merely to stimulate and encouragefriends. The party meetings on each side, he thinks, are composed ofpartisans, and the more extravagant the assertion and the more unsparingthe denunciation of "the enemy, " the more rapturous the enthusiasm of theaudience. In fact, his theory of campaign speeches is that they are merelythe addresses of generals to their armies on the eve of battle, which arenot arguments, since argument is not needed, but mere urgent appeals toparty feeling. "Thirty centuries look down from yonder Pyramid" is theNapoleonic tone of the campaign speech. 

As an election is an appeal to the final tribunal of the popular judgment, the apparent object of election oratory is to affect the popular decision. But this, the journalist asserts, is not done by the orator, for the reasonjust stated, but by the journal. The newspaper addresses the voter, notwith rhetorical periods and vapid declamation, but with facts and figuresand arguments which the voter can verify and ponder at his leisure, and notunder the excitement or the tedium of a spoken harangue. The newspaper, also, unless it be a mere party "organ, " is candid to the other side, andstates the situation fairly. Moreover, the exigencies of a daily issue andof great space to fill produce a fulness and variety of information and ofargument which are really the source of most of the speeches, so that theorator repeats to his audience an imperfect abstract of a complete andample plea, and the orator, it is asserted, would often serve his causeinfinitely better by reading a carefully written newspaper article than bypouring out his loose and illogical declamation. 

But the argument for the newspaper can be pushed still further. Sincephonographic reporting has become universal, and the speaker is consciousthat his very words will be spread the next morning before hundreds ofthousands of readers, it is of those readers, and not of the thousandhearers before him, of whom he thinks, and for whom his address is reallyprepared. Formerly a single charge was all that was needed for thefusillade of a whole political campaign. The speech that was originallycarefully prepared was known practically only to the audience that heardit. It grew better and brighter with the attrition of repeated delivery, and was fresh and new to every new audience. But now, when delivered to anaudience, it is spoken to the whole country. It is often in type beforeit is uttered, so that the orator is in fact repeating the article ofto-morrow morning. The result is good so far as it compels him to precisionof statement, but it inevitably suggests the question whether the newspaperis not correct in its assertion that the great object of the oration isaccomplished not by the orator, but by the writer. 

But this, after all, is like asking whether a chromo copy of a greatpicture does not supersede painting, and prove it to be an antiquated orobsolete art. Oratory is an art, and its peculiar charm and power cannot besuperseded by any other art. Great orations are now prepared with care, andmay be printed word for word. But the reading cannot produce the impressionof the hearing. We can all read the words that Webster spoke on Bunker Hillat the laying of the corner-stone of the monument fifty years after thebattle. But those who saw him standing there, in his majestic prime, andspeaking to that vast throng, heard and saw and felt something that wecannot know. The ordinary stump speech which imperfectly echoes a leadingarticle can well be spared. But the speech of an orator still remains awork of art, the words of which may be accurately lithographed, while thespirit and glow and inspiration of utterance which made it a work of artcannot be reproduced. 

The general statement of the critic, however, remains true, and theeffective work of a political campaign is certainly done by the newspaper. The newspaper is of two kinds, again--that which shows exclusively thevirtue and advantage of the party it favors, and that which aims to bejudicial and impartial. The tendency of the first kind is obvious enough, but that of the last is not less positive if less obvious. The tendencyof the independent newspaper is to good-natured indifference. The veryardor, often intemperate and indiscreet, with which a side is advocated, prejudices such a paper against the cause itself. Because the hot oratorexclaims that the success of the adversary would ruin the country, theindependent Mentor gayly suggests that the country is not so easily ruined, and that such an argument is a reason for voting against the orator. Theposition that in a party contest it is six on one side and half a dozenon the other is too much akin to the doctrine that naught is everythingand everything is naught to be very persuasive with men who are reallyin earnest. Such a position in public affairs inevitably, and often veryunjustly to them, produces an impression of want of hearty conviction, which paralyzes influence as effectually as the evident prejudice andpartiality of the party advocate. Thorough independence is perfectlycompatible with the strongest conviction that the public welfare will bebest promoted by the success of this or that party. Such independencecriticises its own party and partisans, but it would not have wavered inthe support of the Revolution because Gates and Conway were intriguers, andCharles Lee an adventurer, and it would have sustained Sir Robert Walpolealthough he would not repeal the Corporation and Test laws, and withdrewhis excise act. 

Journalism, if it be true that it really shapes the policy of nations, welldeserves to be treated as thoughtfully as Mr. "John Oldcastle" apparentlytreats it in the book we have mentioned, for it is the most exacting ofprofessions in the ready use of various knowledge. Mr. Anthony Trollopesays that anybody can set up the business or profession of literature whocan command a room, a table, and pen, ink, and paper. Would he also saythat any man may set up the trade of an artist who can buy an easel, apalette, a few brushes, and some colors? It can be done, indeed, but onlyas a man who can hire a boat may set up for an East India merchant. 

(_December_, 1880)

III

"If you find that you have no case, " the old lawyer is reported to havesaid to the young, "abuse the plaintiff's attorney, " and Judge MartinGrover, of New York, used to say that it was apparently a great relief toa lawyer who had lost a case to betake himself to the nearest tavern andswear at the court. Abuse, in any event, seems to have been regarded byboth of these authorities as a consolation in defeat. It is but carryingthe theory a step further to resort to abuse in argument. Timon, who is aclub cynic--which is perhaps the most useless specimen of humanity--saysthat 'pon his honor nothing entertains him more than to see how littleargument goes to the discussion of any question, and how immediate isthe recourse to blackguardism. "The other day, " he said, recently, "Iwas sitting in the smoking-room, and Blunt and Sharp began to talk aboutyachts. Sharp thinks that he knows all that can be known of yachts, andBlunt thinks that what he thinks is unqualified truth. Sharp made a strongassertion, and Blunt smiled. It was that lofty smile of amused pity andsuperiority, which is, I suppose, very exasperating. Sharp was evidentlysurprised, but he continued, and at another observation Blunt looked athim, and said, simply, 'Ridiculous!' As it seemed to me, " said Timon, "thestronger and truer were the remarks of Sharp, the more Blunt's tone changedfrom contempt to anger, until he came to a torrent of vituperation, underwhich Sharp retired from the room with dignity. 

"I presume, " said the cynic, "that Sharp was correct upon every point. But the more correct Sharp was, the more angry Blunt became. It was veryentertaining, and it seems to me very much the way of more seriousdiscussion. " Timon was certainly right, and those who heard his remarks, and have since then seen him chuckling over the newspapers, are confidentit is because he observes in them the same method of carrying ondiscussion. Much public debate recalls the two barbaric methods of warfare, which consist in making a loud noise and in emitting vile odors. Amember of Congress pours out a flood of denunciatory words in the utmostrhetorical confusion, and seems to suppose that he has dismayed hisopponent because he has made a tremendous noise. He is only an overgrownboy, who, like some other boys, imagines that he is very heroic when heshakes his head, and pouts his lip, and clinches his fist, and "callsnames" in a shrill and rasping tone. Other members, who ought to knowbetter, pretend to regard his performances as worthy of applause, andmetaphorically pat him on the back and cry, "St, boy!" They only share--andin a greater degree, because they know better--the contempt with which heis regarded. 

In the same way a newspaper writer attacks views which are not acceptableto him, not with argument, or satire, or wit, or direct refutation, but bymetaphorically emptying slops, and directing whirlwinds of bad smells upontheir supporters. The intention seems to be, not to confute the arguments, but to disgust the advocates. The proceeding is a confession that the viewsare so evidently correct that they will inevitably prevail unless theirsupporters can be driven away. This is an ingenious policy, for gunscertainly cannot be served if the gunners are dispersed. Men shrink fromridicule and ludicrous publicity. However conscious of rectitude a manmay be, it is exceedingly disagreeable for him to see the dead-walls andpavements covered with posters proclaiming that he is a liar and a fool. Ifhe recoils, the enemy laughs in triumph; if he is indifferent, there is afresh whirlwind. 

A public man wrote recently to a friend that he had seen an attack upon hisconduct in a great journal, and had asked his lawyer to take the necessarylegal steps to bring the offender to justice. His friend replied that hehad seen the attack, but that it had no more effect upon him than thesmells from Newtown Creek. They were very disgusting, but that was all. This is the inevitable result of blackguardism. The newspaper reader, as he sees that one man supports one measure because his wife's uncle isinterested in it, and another man another measure to gratify his grudgeagainst a rival, gradually learns from his daily morning mentor that thereis no such thing as honor, decency, or public spirit in public affairs; hechuckles with the club cynic, although for a very different reason, andforgets the contents of one column as he begins upon the next. If a mancovers his milk toast, his breakfast, his lunch, dinner, and supper with acoating of Cayenne pepper, the pepper becomes as things in general becameto Mr. Toots--of no consequence. 

This kind of fury in personal denunciation is not force, as young writerssuppose; it is feebleness. Wit, satire, brilliant sarcasm, are, indeed, legitimate weapons. It was these which Sydney Smith wielded in the early_Edinburgh Review_. But "calling names, " and echoing the commonplacesof affected contempt, that is too weak even for Timon to chuckle over, except as evidence of mental vacuity. The real object in honest controversyis to defeat your opponent and leave him a friend. But the Newtown Creekmethod is fatal to such a result. Of course that method often apparentlywins. But it always fails when directed against a resolute and earnestpurpose. The great causes persist through seeming defeat to victory. But tooppose them with sneers and blackguardism is to affect to dam Niagara witha piece of paper. The crafty old lawyer advised the younger to reserve hisabuse until he felt that he had no case. Judge Grover remarked that it waswhen the case was lost that the profanity began. 

(_September_, 1882)

IV

There is a delicate question in newspaper ethics which is sometimes widelydiscussed, namely, whether "journalism" may be regarded as a distinctprofession which has a moral standard of its own. The question arises whenan editorial writer transfers his services from one journal to another ofdifferent political opinions. Is a man justified in arguing strenuously forfree trade to-day and for protection to-morrow? Are political questions andmeasures of public policy merely points of law upon which an editor is anadvocate to be retained indifferently and with equal morality upon eitherside?

This question may be illuminated by another. Would John Bright be a man ofequal renown, character, and weight of influence if, being an adherent ofpeace principles, he had remained in an administration whose policy waswar? This question will be thought to beg the whole question. But doesit? Must it not be assumed that a man of adequate ability for the properdiscussion of political questions must have positive political convictions, and can a man who has such convictions honorably devote himself todiscrediting them, and to defeating the policy which they demand, under theplea that he has professionally accepted a retainer or a salary to do so?Would his arguments have any moral weight if they were known to be those ofa man who was not himself convinced by them? And is not the concealment ofthe fact indispensable to the value of his services?

To continue this interrogation: is not the parallel sought to beestablished between the editorial writer and the lawyer vitiated bythe fact that it is universally understood that a lawyer's service isperfunctory and official; that he takes one side rather than anotherbecause he is paid for it, and because that is the condition of hisprofession, and that that condition springs from the nature of legalprocedure, society not choosing to take life or to inflict punishmentof any kind until the whole case has been stated according to certainstipulated forms? For this reason the advocate who defends a criminalis not supposed necessarily to believe him to be innocent. But no suchreason existing in the case of the editor, is it not an equally universalunderstanding that an editor does honestly and personally hold the viewthat he presents and defends? For instance, the _Times_ in New Yorkis a Republican and free-trade journal. If it should suddenly appear somemorning as a Democratic and protectionist paper, would not the generalconclusion be that it had changed hands? But if it should be announced thatit was in the same hands, and had changed its views because of a pecuniaryarrangement, could the _Times_ continue to have the same standing andinfluence which it has now?

A distinction may be attempted between the owner of a paper and the editor. But for the public are they not practically the same? It is not, in fact, the owner or the editor, it is the paper, which is known to the public. Ifthe public considers at all the probable relation of the owner and editor, it necessarily assumes their harmony, because it does not suppose that anowner would employ an editor who is injuring the property, and if the paperflourishes under the editor, it is because the owner yields his privateopinion to the editor's, if they happen to differ, so that there is nodiscord. On the other hand, if the paper flags and fails, and the owner, to rescue his property, employs another editor, who holds other views, and changes the tone of the paper, the result is the same so far as thepublic is concerned. The profit of the paper may increase, but its powerand influence surely decline. In the illustration that we have supposed, the proprietorship of the _Times_ might decide that a Democratic andprotection paper would have a larger sale and greatly increase the profit. But could the change be made without a terrible blow to the character andinfluence of the paper? Now why is not an editor in the same position? Hehas a certain standing, and he holds certain views, like the paper. Thepaper changes its tone for a price. He does the same thing. The paper losescharacter and influence. Why does not he?

Journalism is not a profession in the sense claimed. It does not demand acertain course of study, which is finally tested by an examination andcertified by a degree. It is a pursuit rather than a profession. Of coursespecial knowledge in particular branches of information is of the highestvalue, and indeed essential to satisfactory editorial writing, as to allother public exposition. There are also certain details of the collectionof news, the organization of correspondence, and the "make up" of thepaper, the successful management of which depends upon an energeticexecutive faculty, which is desirable in every pursuit. It is sometimessaid that an editor, like the late Mr. Delane of the London _Times_, should not write himself, but select the topics and procure the writingupon them by others. And so long as a man is merely an anonymous writer fora paper, so long as he writes to sustain the views of the paper, his actualopinions, being unknown to the reader, do not affect the power of thepaper. Such a man, indeed, may write at the same time upon both sides ofthe same question for different papers. But if he have any convictions oropinions upon the subject, he is with one hand consciously injuring what hebelieves to be the truth, and a man cannot do that without serious harm tohimself. If he have no convictions, his influence will vanish the momentthat the fact is known. 

Such strictures do not apply to papers which expressly renounceconvictions, and blow hot or cold as the chances of probable profit andthe apparent tenor of public opinion at the moment invite. Such papers, properly speaking, have no legitimate influence whatever. They producea certain effect by mere publicity, and reiteration, and ridicule, anddistortion and suppression of facts, and appeals to prejudice. There is alegitimate and an illegitimate power of the press. A lion and a skunk bothinspire terror. 

But a paper which represents convictions, and promotes a public policyin accordance with them, necessarily implies sincerity in its editorialwriting. The public assumes that among papers of all opinions the writerattaches himself to one with which he agrees. The nature of the pursuitis such that he cannot make himself a free lance without running the riskof being thought an adventurer, a soldier without patriotism, a citizenwithout convictions. If the best American press did not represent realconvictions, but only the clever ingenuity of paid advocates, it would beworthless as an exponent of public opinion, and could not be the beneficentpower that it is. 

(_October_, 1882)

V

One public man in a recent angry altercation with another taunted him withelaborately preparing his invective, and some notoriously vituperativespeeches are known to have been written out and printed before they werespoken. Such cold venom is undoubtedly as effective in reading as the hotoutbreak of the moment, and it may be even more effective in the delivery, since self-command is as useful to the orator as to the actor. But if aman be guilty of a gross offence who upon a dignified scene violates theself-restraint and respect for the company which are not only becoming, butso much assumed that whoever violates the requirement is felt to insult hisassociates and the public, why do we not consider whether every scene isnot too dignified for mature and intelligent men to attempt to rival inblackguardism the traditional fishwives of Billingsgate?

If an orator or a newspaper conducts a discussion without discharging thefiercest and foulest epithets at the opponent, it is often declared to betame and feeble and indifferent. But to whom and to what does vituperationappeal? When an advocate upon the platform shouts until he is very hot andvery red that the supporter of protection is a thief, a robber, a pamperedpet of an atrociously diabolical system, he inflames passion and prejudice, indeed, to the highest fury, and he produces a state of mind which isinaccessible to reason, but he does not show in any degree whatever eitherthat protection is inexpedient or how it is unjust. In the same way, to assail an opponent who favors revision of the tariff and incidentalprotection as a rascally scoundrel who is trying to ruin Americanindustry--as if he could have any purpose of injuring himself materiallyand fatally--is absurd. The tirade merely injures the cause which theblackguard intends to help. But the man who carried on discussion in thisstyle is described by other professors of the same art as manly and virileand hitting from the shoulder, and he comes perhaps to think himself adoughty champion of the right. 

The weapon that demolishes an antagonist and an argument is not rhetoric, but truth. This accumulation of "bad names" and ingenious combination ofscurrility is merely rhetoric. It serves the rhetorical purpose, but itdoes not convince. It does not show the hearer or reader that one courseis more expedient than another, nor give him any reason whatever forany opinion upon the subject. Virility, vigor, masculinity of mind, andessential force in debate are revealed in quite another way. If an Americanwere asked to mention the most powerful speech ever made in the debatesof Congress, he would probably mention Mr. Webster's reply to Hayne. Itcontained the great statement of nationality and the argument for thenational interpretation of the Constitution, and it was spoken in thecourse of a famous controversy. Let any man read it, and ask himselfwhether it would have gained in power, in effect, in weight, dignity, orcharacter, by personal invective and elaborate vituperation of any kind andany degree whatever. 

The truth is that the fury which is supposed to imply force is theconclusive proof of weakness. The familiar advice, "If you have noevidence, abuse the plaintiff's attorney, " contains by implicationthe whole philosophy of what is called the manliness and force of theblackguard. He has no reason, therefore he sneers. He has no argument, therefore he swears. He will get the laugh upon his adversary if he can, forgetting that those who laugh at the clown may also despise him. 

Of wit, humor, satire, sarcasm, we are not speaking. The ordinaryblackguardism of the political platform and press does not belong to thatcategory. Caricature, however, easily may. There are certain pictures inAmerican caricature which are wit made visible. They are the satire ofinstructive truth. Indeed, they tell to the eye the indisputable truthas words cannot easily tell it to the ear. In this way caricature is oneof the most powerful agents in public discussion. But, like speech orwriting, it may be merely blackguard. The incisive wit, the rich humor, thewithering satire of speech, gain all their point and effect from the truth. They have no power when they are seen to be false. 

So it is with caricature. Nobody can enjoy it more than its subject when itis merely humorous; nobody perceive so surely its pungent touch of truth;nobody disregard more completely its mere malice and falsehood. Truewit and humor, whether in controversial letters or art, whether in thenewspaper article or the "cartoon, " as we now call it, often reveal to thesubject in himself what otherwise he might not have suspected. It is veryconceivable that an actor, seeing a really clever burlesque of himself, maybecome aware of tendencies or peculiarities or faults which otherwise hewould not have known, and quietly address himself to their correction. 

This sanitary service of humor in every form, as well as that of the honestwrath which shakes many a noble sentence of sinewy English as a mightyman-of-war is shaken by her own broadside, is something wholly apart fromthe billingsgate and blackguardism which are treated as if they were realforces. Publicity itself, as the Easy Chair has often said, has a certainpower, and to call a man a rascal to a hundred thousand persons at onceproduces an undeniable effect. But we must not mistake it for what it isnot. Being false, it is not an effect which endures, nor does it vex theequal mind. 

It is the fact that the public often seems to demand that kind oftitillation, to enjoy fury instead of force, and ridicule instead ofreason, which suggests the inquiry whether, if self-restraint and wisediscipline are desirable for every faculty of the mind and body, thetongue and hand alone should be allowed to riot in wanton excess. If eventhe legitimate superlative must be handled, like dynamite, with extremecaution, blackguardism of every degree is a nuisance to be summarilydiscountenanced and abated by those who know the difference betweengrandeur and bigness, between Mercutio and Tony Lumpkin, between fair-playand foul. 

(_September_, 1888)

VI

The Easy Chair has been asked whether there is any code of newspapermanners. It has no doubt that there is. But it is the universal code ofcourtesy, and not one restricted to newspapers. Good manners in civilizedsociety are the same everywhere and in all relations. A newspaper is nota mystery. It is the work of several men and women, and their manners indoing the work are subject to the same principles that govern their mannersin society or in any other human relation. If a man is a gentleman, he doesnot cease to be one because he enters a newspaper office, and it would seemto be equally true that if his work on the paper does not prove to be thatof a gentleman, it could not have been a gentleman who did the work. 

A gentleman, we will suppose, does not blackguard his neighbors, nor talkincessantly about himself and his achievements, nor behave elsewhere as hewould be ashamed to behave in his club or in his own family. If a gentlemandoes not do these things, of course a gentleman does not do them in anewspaper. And does it not seem to follow, if such things are done in anewspaper, and are traced to a hand supposed to be that of a gentleman, that there has been some mistake about the hand?

Good manners are essentially a disposition which moulds conduct. They canbe feigned, indeed, as gilt counterfeits gold, and plate silver. But theclearest glass is not diamond. A man may smile and smile and be a villain. Scoundrels are sometimes described as of gentlemanly manners, and Lothariowas not personally a boor. But he was not a gentleman, and he merelyaffected good manners. A gentleman, indeed, may sometimes lose his temperor his self-control, but no one who habitually does it, and swears andrails vociferously, can be called properly by that name. Here again it iseasy to apply the canon to a newspaper. When a newspaper habitually takesan insulting tone, and deliberately falsifies, whether by assertion of anuntruth or by a distortion and perversion of the truth, it is not the workof a gentleman, and if the writer be responsible for the tone of the paper, the manners of that newspaper are not good manners. 

But there is no uniformity in newspaper manners, as there is noneelsewhere. Therefore it cannot be said that newspapers, as a whole, areeither well-mannered or unmannerly, as you cannot say that men, as a body, are courteous or uncouth. Some newspapers are unmistakably vulgar, likesome people. They are not so of themselves, however; they are made vulgarby vulgar people. There are very able newspapers which have very badmanners, and some which have no other distinction than good manners. Avery dull man may be very urbane, and so may a very dull newspaper. On theother hand, a newspaper which is both brilliant and clever may be sometimesguilty of an injustice, a deliberate and persistent misrepresentation, toattain a particular end--conduct which is sometimes called "journalistic. "But the person who is responsible for the performance, for similar conductwould be metaphorically kicked out of a club. But gentlemen are not kickedout of clubs. 

A newspaper gains neither character nor influence by abandoning goodmanners. It may indeed make itself disagreeable and annoying, and sosilence opposition, as a polecat may effectually close the wood path whichyou had designed to take. It may be feared, and in the same way as thatanimal--feared and despised. But this effect must not be confounded withnewspaper power and influence. It is exceedingly annoying, undoubtedly, to be placarded all over town as a liar or a donkey, a hypocrite or asneak-thief. But although the effect is most unpleasant, very littleability is required to produce it. A little paper and printing, a littlepaste, a great deal of malice, and a host of bill-stickers are all that areneeded, and even the pecuniary cost is not large. The effect is produced, but it does not show ability or force or influence upon the part of itsproducer. 

The manners of newspapers, as such, cannot be classified any more than themanners of legislatures, or of the professions or trades. This, however, seems to be true, that a well-mannered man will not produce an ill-mannerednewspaper. 

(_April_, 1891)

THE END