第42章

Good-breeding is surface-Christianity.Every look, movement, tone, expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to another is habitually excluded from conversational intercourse.This is the reason why rich people are apt to be so much more agreeable than others.

--I thought you were a great champion of equality,--said the discreet and severe lady who had accompanied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's daughter.

I go politically for equality,--I said,--and socially for the quality.

Who are the "quality,"--said the Model, etc., in a community like ours?

I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,--I said.

--Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks which exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define.The great gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and mistresses; they are the quality, whether in a monarchy or a republic; mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are nothing to them.How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, Ibelieve in man as man, and I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own true laws.But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth; and there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to the stratification of society.

Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of social position,--as you see by the circumstances that the core of all the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in a regular scale of precedence among themselves, but superior as a body to all else.

Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we have been getting farther away from since the days of the Primitive Church, can prevent this subdivision of society into classes from taking place everywhere,--in the great centres of our republic as much as in old European monarchies.Only there position is more absolutely hereditary,--here it is more completely elective.

--Where is the election held? and what are the qualifications? and who are the electors?--said the Model.

Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there never is a formal vote.The women settle it mostly; and they know wonderfully well what is presentable, and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and the critical eye and ear of people trained to know a staring shade in a ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an ill-bred tone, an angular movement, everything that betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training.As a general thing, you do not get elegance short of two or three removes from the soil, out of which our best blood doubtless comes,--quite as good, no doubt, as if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots on their heads, to whom some great people are so fond of tracing their descent through a line of small artisans and petty shopkeepers whose veins have held "base" fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima!

Does not money go everywhere?--said the Model.

Almost.And with good reason.For though there are numerous exceptions, rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable companions.The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a position so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony and refinement to the character and manners which we feel, if we cannot explain their charm.Yet we can get at the reason of it by thinking a little.

All these appliances are to shield the sensibility from disagreeable contacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences.In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as the hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in soft gloves.The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity.I confess I like the quality ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones.They have n't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to you when you are talking to them.

If they are never learned, they make up for it in tact and elegance.

Besides, I think, on the whole, there is less self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas.I don't know where you will find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor play-girl of King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel when she went before her lord.I have no doubt she was a more gracious and agreeable person than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story of Sisera.The wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something that you know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance.

Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality.The highest fashion is intensely alive,--not alive necessarily to the truest and best things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its extremities and to the farthest point of its surface, so that the feather in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock, and the rosette on its slipper as clean-cut and pimpant (pronounce it English fashion,--it is a good word) as a dahlia.As a general rule, that society where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that where it is spoken.Don't you see why? Attention and deference don't require you to make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness (lies) and returning all the compliments paid you.This is one reason.

--A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man,--said the Model.