Part 18 (1/2)
There is another cla.s.s of people, not fraudulent, but extravagant; though perhaps on the brink of becoming fraudulent. They live up to their means, and often beyond them. They desire to be considered ”respectable people.” They live according to the pernicious adage, ”One must do as others do.” They do not consider whether they can afford to live up to or beyond their means; but they think it necessary to secure the ”respect” of others. In doing so, they usually sacrifice their own self-respect. They regard their dress, their establishments, their manner of living, and their observance of fas.h.i.+on, as the sole tests of respectability and rank. They make an appearance in the eyes of the world; though it may be entirely hypocritical and false.
But they must not _seem_ poor! They must hide their poverty by every effort. They spend their money before it is earned,--run into debt at the grocer's, the baker's, the milliner's, and the butcher's. They must entertain their fas.h.i.+onable ”friends,” at the expense of the shopkeepers. And yet, when misfortunes overtake them, and when their debts have become overwhelming, what becomes of the ”friends”? They fly away, and shun the man who is up to his ears in debt!
Yet poverty is more than half disarmed by those who have the moral courage to say. ”I can't afford it.” Fair-weather friends are of no use whatever, except as an indication of the depth of sn.o.bbery to which human beings can descend. What is ”a visiting connection”? It is not at all calculated to elevate one in social, or even in business life.
Success mainly depends upon character, and the general esteem in which a person is held. And if the attempt is made to s.n.a.t.c.h the reward of success before it is earned, the half-formed footing may at once give way, and the aspirant will fall, unlamented, into the open-mouthed dragon of debt.
”Mrs. Grundy,” in the play, is but an impersonation of the conventionalism of the world. Custom, habit, fas.h.i.+on, use and wont, are all represented in her. She may be a very vulgar and commonplace person, but her power is nevertheless prodigious. We copy and imitate her in all things. We are pinned to her ap.r.o.n-string. We are obedient at her bidding. We are indolent and complaisant, and fear to provoke her ill-word. ”What will Mrs. Grundy say?” quells many a n.o.ble impulse, hinders many a self-denying act.
There seems to be a general, though unconscious conspiracy existing, against each other's individuality and manhood. We discourage self-reliance, and demand conformity. Each must see with others' eyes, and think through others' minds. We are idolaters of customs and observances, looking behind, not forwards and upwards. Pinned down and held back by ignorance and weakness, we are afraid of standing alone, or of thinking and acting for ourselves. Conventionalism rules all. We fear stepping out into the free air of independent thought and action. We refuse to plant ourselves upon our instincts, and to vindicate our spiritual freedom. We are content to bear others' fruit, not our own.
In private affairs, the same spirit is alike deleterious. We live as society directs, each according to the standard of our cla.s.s. We have a superst.i.tious reverence for custom. We dress, and eat, and live, in conformity with the Grundy law. So long as we do this, we are ”respectable,” according to cla.s.s notions. Thus many rush open-eyed upon misery, for no better excuse than a foolish fear of ”the world.” They are afraid of ”what others will say of them;” and, in nine cases out of ten, those who might probably raise the voice of censure, are not the wise or the far-seeing, but much oftener the foolish, the vain, and the short-sighted.
Sir William Temple has said, that ”a restlessness in men's minds to be something that they are not, and to have something that they have not, is the root of all immorality.” The statement is strictly correct. It has been attested by universal experience.
Keeping up appearances is one of the greatest social evils of the age.
There is a general effort, more particularly amongst the middle and upper cla.s.ses, at seeming to be something that they are not. They put on appearances, live a life of sham, and endeavour to look something superior to what they really are.
”Respectability” is one of the chief aims. Respectability, regarded in its true sense, is a desirable thing. To be respected, on right grounds, is an object which every man and woman is justified in obtaining. But modern respectability consists of external appearances. It means wearing fine clothes, dwelling in fine houses, and living in fine style. It looks to the outside,--to sound, show, externals. It listens to the c.h.i.n.k of gold in the pocket. Moral worth or goodness forms no part of modern respectability. A man in these days may be perfectly ”respectable,” and yet altogether despicable.
This false and demoralizing habit arises from the overweening estimate which is formed of two things, well enough in their place,--rank and wealth. Everybody struggles to rise into some superior cla.s.s. The spirit of caste is found as keenly at work among the humblest as among the highest ranks. At Birmingham, there was a club of workmen with tails to their coats, and another without tails: the one looked down upon the other. Cobbett, so felicitous in his nicknames, called his political opponent, Mr. Sadler, ”a linendraper.” But the linendraper also has plenty of people beneath him. The linendraper looks down on the huckster, the huckster on the mechanic, and the mechanic on the day labourer. The flunkey who exhibits his calves behind a baron, holds his head considerably higher than the flunkey who serves a brewer.
It matters not at what cla.s.s you begin, or however low in the social scale, you will find that every man has somebody beneath him. Among the middling ranks, this sort of exclusiveness is very marked. Each circle would think it a degradation to mix on familiar terms with the members of the circle beneath it. In small towns and villages, you will find distinct coteries holding aloof from each other, perhaps despising each other, and very often pelting each other with hard words. The cathedral towns, generally, have at least six of such distinct cla.s.ses, ranking one beneath the other.
And while each has his or her own exclusive circle, which all of supposed inferior rank are precluded from entering, they are at the same time struggling to pa.s.s over the line of social demarcation which has been drawn by those above them. They are eager to overleap it, and thus gain admission into a circle still more exclusive than their own.
There is also a desperate scramble for front places, and many are the mean s.h.i.+fts employed to gain them. We must possess the homage of society! And for this purpose we must be rich, or at least _seem_ to be so. Hence the struggles after style--the efforts made to put on the appearances of wealth--the dash, the glitter, and the show of middle and upper cla.s.s life;--and hence, too, the motley train of palled and vitiated tastes--of shrunken hearts and stunted intellects--of folly, frivolity, and madness.
One of the most demoralizing practices of modern refinement is the ”large party” system. People cram their houses with respectable mobs; thus conforming to a ridiculous custom. Rousseau, with all his aberrations of mind, said, ”I had rather have my house too small for a day, than too large for a twelvemonth.” Fas.h.i.+on exactly reverses the maxim; and domestic mischief is often begun with a large dwelling and suitable accommodations. The misfortune consists in this,--that we never look below our level for an example, but always above it.
It is not so much, however, in the mere appearances kept up, as in the means taken to keep them up, that the fruitful cause of immorality is to be found. A man having a.s.sumed a cla.s.s status, runs all risks to keep it up. It is thought to be a descent in the world, to abridge oneself of a superfluity. The seeming-rich man, who drives his close carriage and drinks champagne, will not tolerate a descent to a gig and plain beer; and the respectable man, who keeps his gig, would think it a degradation to have to travel afoot or in a 'bus, between his country house and his town office. They will descend to immorality rather than descend in apparent rank; they will yield to dishonesty rather than yield up the mock applause and hollow respect of that big fool, ”the world.”
Everybody can call to mind hundreds of cases of men--”respectable men”--who, from one extravagance have gone on to another--wantonly squandering wealth which was not theirs--in order to keep up a worldly reputation, and cut a figure before their admiring fellows;--all ending in a sudden smash, a frightful downfall, an utter bankruptcy--to the ruin, perhaps, of thousands. They have finished up with paying a respectable dividend of sixpence in the pound! Indeed it is not too much to say, that five-sixths of the fraud and swindling that disgrace commercial transactions, have had their origin in the diseased morality of ”keeping up appearances.”
To be ”respectable,” in the false sense of the word,--what is not sacrificed? Peace, honesty, truth, virtue,--all to keep up appearances.
We must cheat, and scrub, and deceive, and defraud, that ”the world” may not see behind our mask! We must torment and enslave ourselves, because we must extort ”the world's” applause, or at least obtain ”the world's”
good opinion!
How often is suicide traceable to this false sentiment! Vain men will give up their lives, rather than their cla.s.s notions of respectability.
They will cut the thread of existence, rather than cut fas.h.i.+onable life.
Very few suicides are committed from real want. ”We never hear,” says Joel Barlow, ”of a man committing suicide for want of a loaf of bread, but it is often done for want of a coach.”
Of this mean and miserable spirit of cla.s.s and caste, women are the especial victims. They are generally brought up with false notions of life, and are taught to estimate men and things rather by their external appearances than by their intrinsic worth. Their education is conducted mainly with the view of pleasing and attracting the admiration of others, rather than of improving and developing their qualities of mind and heart. They are imbued with notions of exclusiveness, fas.h.i.+on, and gentility. A respectable position in society is held up to them as the mark to be aimed at. To be criminal or vicious is virtually represented to them as far less horrible than to be ”vulgar.” Immured within the bastile of exclusivism, woman is held captive to all the paltry s.h.i.+fts and expediencies of convention, fas.h.i.+on, gentility, and so forth. The genuine benevolence of her nature is perverted; her heart becomes contracted; and the very highest sources of happiness--those which consist in a kindly sympathy with humanity in all ranks of life--are as a well shut up and a fountain sealed.
Is it not a fact, that in what is called ”fas.h.i.+onable society,” a fine outside appearance is regarded almost in the light of a virtue?--that to be rich, or to have the appearance of riches, is esteemed as a merit of a high order;--whereas, to be poor, or to seem so, ranks as something like an unpardonable offence? Nay, such is the heartlessness of this cla.s.s spirit, that a young woman, belonging to the better cla.s.s, who, by misfortune or family reverses, has been thrown upon her own resources, and who endeavours, by her own honest hands, to earn her honest bread, immediately loses caste, and is virtually expelled from ”respectable”
society. The resolution to be independent--the most invigorating resolution which can take possession of the human mind--is scouted in such circles as a degrading thing; and those who have been brought up within the influence of fas.h.i.+on, will submit to the most severe privations, rather than submit to the loss of their cla.s.s and caste respectability!
Thus brought up, it is no wonder that woman has been the co-partner with man in upholding the general extravagance of the age. There never was such a rage for dress and finery amongst English women as there is now.
It rivals the corrupt and debauched age of Louis XV. of France. A delirium of fas.h.i.+on exists. Women are ranked by what they wear, not by what they are. Extravagance of dress, and almost indecency of dress, has taken the place of simple womanly beauty. Wordsworth once described the ”perfect woman n.o.bly planned.” Where will you find the perfect woman now? Not in the parti-coloured, over-dressed creature--the thing of shreds and patches--with false hair, false colour, false eyebrows, false everything. ”Some of nature's journeymen have made them, and not made them well, they imitate humanity so abominably.”