Americans and Others | Page 5

delicate and sometimes so complicated, which belong to good
breeding," says M. Rondalet in "La Reforme Sociale," "answer to a
profound unconscious analysis of the duties we owe to one another."
There are people who balk at small civilities on account of their
manifest insincerity. They cannot be brought to believe that the
expressions of unfelt pleasure or regret with which we accept or decline
invitations, the little affectionate phrases which begin and end our
letters, the agreeable formalities which have accumulated around the
simplest actions of life, are beneficent influences upon character,
promoting gentleness of spirit. The Quakers, as we know, made a
mighty stand against verbal insincerities, with one striking
exception,--the use of the word "Friend." They said and believed that
this word represented their attitude towards humanity, their spirit of
universal tolerance and brotherhood. But if to call oneself a "Friend" is
to emphasize one's amicable relations towards one's neighbour, to call
one's neighbour "Friend" is to imply that he returns this affectionate
regard, which is often an unwarranted assumption. It is better and more
logical to accept all the polite phraseology which facilitates intercourse,
and contributes to the sweetness of life. If we discarded the formal
falsehoods which are the currency of conversation, we should not be
one step nearer the vital things of truth.
For to be sincere with ourselves is better and harder than to be
painstakingly accurate with others. A man may be cruelly candid to his
associates, and a cowardly hypocrite to himself. He may handle his
friend harshly, and himself with velvet gloves. He may never tell the
fragment of a lie, and never think the whole truth. He may wound the
pride and hurt the feelings of all with whom he comes in contact, and
never give his own soul the benefit of one good knockdown blow. The
connection which has been established between rudeness and probity
on the one hand, and politeness and insincerity on the other, is based
upon an imperfect knowledge of human nature.
"So rugged was he that we thought him just, So churlish was he that we
deemed him true."

"It is better to hold back a truth," said Saint Francis de Sales, "than to
speak it ungraciously."
There are times doubtless when candour goes straight to its goal, and
courtesy misses the mark. Mr. John Stuart Mill was once asked upon
the hustings whether or not he had ever said that the English
working-classes were mostly liars. He answered shortly, "I did!"--and
the unexpected reply was greeted with loud applause. Mr. Mill was
wont to quote this incident as proof of the value which Englishmen set
upon plain speaking. They do prize it, and they prize the courage which
defies their bullying. But then the remark was, after all, a generalization.
We can bear hearing disagreeable truths spoken to a crowd or to a
congregation--causticity has always been popular in preachers--because
there are other heads than our own upon which to fit the cap.
The brutalities of candour, the pestilent wit which blights whatever it
touches, are not distinctively American. It is because we are a
humorous rather than a witty people that we laugh for the most part
with, and not at, our fellow creatures. Indeed, judged by the unpleasant
things we might say and do not say, we should be esteemed polite.
English memoirs teem with anecdotes which appear to us unpardonable.
Why should Lady Holland have been permitted to wound the
susceptibilities of all with whom she came in contact? When Moore
tells us that she said to him, "This book of yours" (the "Life of
Sheridan") "will be dull, I fear;" and to Lord Porchester, "I am sorry to
hear you are going to publish a poem. Can't you suppress it?" we do not
find these remarks to be any more clever than considerate. They belong
to the category of the monumentally uncouth.
Why should Mr. Abraham Hayward have felt it his duty (he put it that
way) to tell Mr. Frederick Locker that the "London Lyrics" were
"overrated"? "I have suspected this," comments the poet, whose least
noticeable characteristic was vanity; "but I was none the less sorry to
hear him say so." Landor's reply to a lady who accused him of speaking
of her with unkindness, "Madame, I have wasted my life in defending
you!" was pardonable as a repartee. It was the exasperated utterance of
self-defence; and there is a distinction to be drawn between the word

which is flung without provocation, and the word which is the speaker's
last resource. When "Bobus" Smith told Talleyrand that his mother had
been a beautiful woman, and Talleyrand replied, "_C'etait donc
Monsieur votre pere qui n'etait pas bien_," we hold the witticism to
have been cruel because unjustifiable. A man should