Ars Recte Vivendi Part 2

(_February_, 1861)

TOBACCO AND MANNERS

I

The "old school" of manners has fallen into disrepute. Sir Charles Grandison is a comical rather than a courtly figure to this generation; and the man whose manners may be described as Grandisonian is usually called a pompous and grandiloquent old prig. Certainly the elaborately dressed gentleman speaking to a lady only with polished courtesy of phrase, and avoiding in her presence all coa.r.s.e words and acts, handing her in the minuet with inexpressible grace and deference, and showing an exquisite homage in every motion, was a very different figure from the gentleman in a shooting-jacket or morning sack "chaffing" a lady with the freshest slang, and smoking in her face. They are undeniably different, and the later figure is wholly free from Grandisonian elegance and elaboration. But is he much more truly a gentleman? Is he our Sidney, our Chevalier Bayard, our Admirable Crichton? Is that refined consideration and gentle deference, which is the flower of courtesy, an old-fas.h.i.+oned folly?

The overwrought politeness is made very ridiculous upon the stage, and Richardson is undoubtedly hard reading for the general consumer of novels.

It is true, also, that fine morals do not always go with fine manners, and that Lovelace had a fascination of address which John Knox lacked. The chaff and slang of the Bayard of to-day are at least decent, and his morals probably purer than those of the courtly and punctilious old Sir Roger de Coverleys. Possibly; but it has been wisely said that hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue. The good manners of a bad man are a rich dress upon a diseased body. They are the graceful form of a vase full of dirty water. The liquid may be poisonous, but the vessel is beautiful.

Some of the worst Lotharios in the world have a personal charm which is irresistible. Many a stately compliment was paid by a graciously bowing satyr 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 were borrowed, like plumage of living hues to deck carrion. They were not a part of 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 were better, cannot we who live to-day, and who may have everything, combine the new morals and the old manners?

We can spare some elaboration of form, but we cannot safely spare the substance of refined deference. If Romeo be permitted to treat Juliet as hostlers are supposed to treat barmaids, and as the heroes of Fielding and Smollett treat Abigails upon a journey, they will both lose self-respect and mutual respect. It was a wise father who said to his son, "Beware of the woman who allows you to kiss her." The woman who does not require of a man the form of respect invites him to discard the substance. And there is one violation of the form which is recent and gross, and might be well cited as a striking ill.u.s.tration of the decay of manners. It is the practice of smoking in the society of ladies in public places, whether driving, or walking, or sailing, or sitting. There are _preux chevaliers_ who would be honestly amazed if they were told they did not behave like gentlemen, who, sitting with a lady on a hotel piazza, or strolling on a public park, whip out a cigarette, light it, and puff as tranquilly as if they were alone in their rooms. Or a young man comes alone upon the deck of a steamer, where throngs of ladies are sitting, and blows clouds of tobacco smoke in their faces, without even remarking that tobacco is disagreeable to some people. This is not, indeed, one of the seven deadly sins, but a man who unconcernedly sings false betrays that he has no ear for music, and the man who smokes in this way shows that he is not quite a gentleman.

But some ladies smoke? Yes, and some ladies drink liquor. Does that mend the matter? The Easy Chair has seen a lady at the head of her own table smoking a fine cigar. You will see a great many highly dressed women in Paris smoking cigarettes. Does all this change the situation? Does this make it more gentlemanly to smoke with a lady beside you in a carriage, or upon a bench on the piazza? But some ladies like the odor of a cigar? Not many; and the taste of those who sincerely do so cannot justify the habit of promiscuous puffing in their presence. The intimacy of domesticity is governed by other rules; but a gentleman smoking would hardly enter his own drawing-room, where other ladies sat with his wife, without a word of apology. The Easy Chair is no King James, and is more likely to issue blasts of tobacco than blasts against it. But King James belonged to a very selfish s.e.x--a s.e.x which seems often to suppose that its indulgences and habits are to be tenderly tolerated, for no other reason than that they are its habits. Therefore the young woman must defend herself by showing plainly that she prohibits the intrusion of which, if suffered, she is really the victim. In other times the Easy Chair has seen the lovely Laura Matilda unwilling to refuse to dance with the partner who had bespoken her hand for the german, although when he presented himself he was plainly flown with wine. The Easy Chair has seen the hapless, foolish maid encircled by those Bacchic arms, and then a headlong whirl and dash down the 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 to have the manners. They at least were to the imagination a memory and a prophecy. They recalled the idyllic age when fine manners expressed fine feelings, and they foretold the return of Astraea to her ancient haunts.

Here is young Adonis dreaming of a four-in-hand and a yacht, like any other gentleman. Let us hope that he knows the test of a gentleman not to be the owners.h.i.+p of blood-horses and a unique drag, but perfect courtesy founded upon fine human feeling--that rare and indescribable gentleness and consideration 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 harm it; and, Adonis, it is incompatible with smoking in a lady's face, even if she acquiesces.

(_September_, 1879)

II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It appears, then," returned the Easy Chair, a.s.suming the Socratic manner, "that there are circ.u.mstances under which a gentleman will not smoke in the presence of a lady. But to answer your question directly, it is not possible to prescribe an exact code, although certain conditions may be definitely stated. For instance, a gentleman will not smoke while walking with a lady in the street. He will not smoke while paying her an evening visit in her drawing-room. He will not smoke while driving with her in the Park."

It is significant of a radical change in manners that such rules can be laid down, because formerly the question could not have arisen. The grandfather of Apollodorus, who was the flower of courtesy, could no more have smoked with a lady with whom he was walking or driving than he could have attended her without a coat or collar. Yet manners change, and the grandfather must not insist that those of his time were best because they were those of his time. It is but a little while since that a gentleman who 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 good usage.

It does not argue a decline of courtesy that the Grandisonian compliment and the ineffable bending over a lady's hand and respectful kissing of the finger-tips have yielded to a simpler and less stately manner. The woman of the minuet was not really more respected than the woman of the waltz.

However the word gentlemanly may be defined, it will not be questioned that the quality which it describes is sympathetic regard for the feelings of others and the manner which evinces it. The manner, of course, may be counterfeited and put to base uses. To say that Lovelace has a gentlemanly manner is not to say that he is a gentleman, but only that he has caught the trick of a gentleman. To call him or Robert Macaire or Richard Turpin a gentleman is to say only that he behaves as a gentleman behaves. But he is not 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 a gentleman, but it is perfectly easy to see that in his pleasures and in the little indifferent practices of society the gentleman will do nothing which is disagreeable to others. He certainly will not a.s.sume that a personal gratification or indulgence must necessarily be pleasant to others, nor will he make the selfish habits of others a plea for his own.

Apollodorus listened patiently, and then said slowly that he understood the judgment to be that a gentleman would smoke in the presence of ladies only when he knew that it was agreeable to them, but that, as the infinite grace and courtesy of women often led them, as an act of self-denial, to persuade themselves that what others wish to do ought not to annoy them, it was very difficult to know whether the practice was or was not offensive to any particular 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 in whist."

"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 fallen in a duel, the conversation fell upon duelling, and after it had proceeded for some time the host remarked, emphatically, that there were occasions when it was a man's solemn duty to fight. The personal reference was too significant to permit further insistence at that table that duelling was criminal folly, and the subject of conversation was changed.

The host, however, had only reiterated the familiar view of General Hamilton. His plea was, that in the state of public opinion at the time when Burr challenged him, to refuse to fight under circ.u.mstances which by the "code of honor" authorized a challenge, was to accept a brand of cowardice and of a want of gentlemanly feeling, which would banish him to a moral 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 of his time, permitted a worthless fellow to murder him. Yet there is no doubt that he stated accurately the general feeling of the social circle in which he lived. There was probably not a conspicuous member of that society who was of military antecedents who would not have challenged any man who had said of him what Hamilton had said of Burr. Hamilton disdained explanation or recantation, and the result was accepted as tragical, but in a certain sense inevitable.

Yet that result aroused public sentiment to the atrocity of this barbarous survival of the ordeal of private battle. That one of the most justly renowned of public men, of unsurpa.s.sed ability, should be shot to death like a mad dog, because he had expressed the general feeling about an unprincipled schemer, was an exasperating public misfortune. But that he should have been murdered in deference to a practice which was approved in the best society, yet which placed every other valuable life at the mercy of any wily vagabond, was a public peril. From that day to this there has been no duel which could be said to have commanded public sympathy or approval. From the bright June morning, eighty years ago, when Hamilton fell at Weehawken, to the June of this year, when two foolish men shot at each other in Virginia, there has been a steady and complete change of public opinion, and the performance of this year was received with almost universal contempt, and with indignant censure of a dilatory police.

The most celebrated duel in this country since that of Hamilton and Burr was the encounter between Commodores Decatur and Barron, in 1820, near Was.h.i.+ngton, in which Decatur, like Hamilton, was mortally wounded, and likewise lived but a few hours. The quarrel was one of professional, as Burr's of political, jealousy. But as the only conceivable advantage of the Hamilton duel lay in its arousing the public mind to the barbarity of duelling, the only gain from the Decatur duel was that it confirmed this conviction. In both instances there was an unspeakable shock to the country and infinite domestic anguish. Nothing else was achieved. Neither general manners nor morals were improved, nor was the fame of either combatant heightened, nor public confidence in the men or admiration of their public services increased. In both cases it was a calamity alleviated solely by the resolution which it awakened that such calamities should not occur again.

Such a resolution, indeed, could not at once prevail, and eighteen years after Decatur was killed, Jonathan Cilley, of Maine, was killed in a duel at Was.h.i.+ngton by William J. Graves, of Kentucky. This event occurred forty-five years ago, but the outcry with which it was received even at that time--one of the newspaper moralists lapsing into rhyme as he deplored the 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 how deep and strong was the public condemnation, and how radically the general view of the duel was changed.

Even in the burning height of the political and sectional animosity of 1856, when Brooks had a.s.saulted Charles Sumner, the challenge of Brooks by some of Sumner's friends met with little public sympathy. During the excitement the Easy Chair met the late Count Gurowski, who was a constant and devoted friend of Mr. Sumner, but an old-world man, with all the hereditary social prejudices of the old world. The count was furious that such a dastardly blow had not been avenged. "Has he no friends?" he exclaimed. "Is there no honor left in your country?" And, as if he would burst with indignant impatience, he shook both his fists in the air, and thundered out, "Good G.o.d! will not somebody challenge anybody?"

No, that time is pa.s.sed. The elderly club dude may lament the decay of the good old code of honor--a word of which he has a very ludicrous conception--as Major Pendennis, when he pulled off his wig, and took out his false teeth, and removed the padded calves of his legs, used to hope that the world was not sinking into shams in its old age. Quarrelling editors may win a morning's notoriety by stealing to the field, furnis.h.i.+ng a paragraph for the reporters, and running away from the police. But they gain only the unsavory notoriety of the man in a curled wig and flowered waistcoat and huge flapped coat of the last century who used to parade Broadway. The costume was merely an advertis.e.m.e.nt, and of very contemptible wares. The man who fights a duel to-day excites but one comment. Should he escape, he is ridiculous. Should he fall, the common opinion of enlightened mankind writes upon his head-stone, "He died as the fool dieth."