The Complete Essays of C. D. Warner

C >> Charles Dudley Warner >> The Complete Essays of C. D. Warner


Whether these anticipations will ever be realized, and whether increased
leisure will make us all happy, is a subject of importance; but it is
secondary, and in a manner incidental, to another and deeper matter,
which may be defined as the responsibility of attractiveness. And this
responsibility takes two forms the duty of every one to be attractive,
and the danger of being too attractive. To be winning and agreeable is
sometimes reckoned a gift, but it is a disposition that can be
cultivated; and, in a world so given to grippe and misapprehension as
this is, personal attractiveness becomes a duty, if it is not an art,
that might be taught in the public schools. It used to be charged against
New Englanders that they regarded this gift as of little value, and were
inclined to hide it under a bushel, and it was said of some of their
neighbors in the Union that they exaggerated its importance, and
neglected the weightier things of the law. Indeed, disputes have arisen
as to what attractiveness consisted in--some holding that beauty or charm
of manner (which is almost as good) and sweetness and gayety were
sufficient, while others held that a little intelligence sprinkled in was
essential. But one thing is clear, that while women were held to strict
responsibility in this matter, not stress enough was laid upon the equal
duty of men to be attractive in order to make the world agreeable. Hence
it is, probably, that while no question has been raised as to the effect
of the higher education upon the attractiveness of men, the colleges for
girls have been jealously watched as to the effect they were likely to
have upon the attractiveness of women. Whether the college years of a
young man, during which he knows more than he will ever know again, are
his most attractive period is not considered, for he is expected to
develop what is in him later on; but it is gravely questioned whether
girls who give their minds to the highest studies are not dropping those
graces of personal attractiveness which they will find it difficult to
pick up again. Of course such a question as this could never arise except
in just such a world as this is. For in an ideal world it could be shown
that the highest intelligence and the highest personal charm are twins.
If, therefore, it should turn out, which seems absurd, that
college-educated girls are not as attractive as other women with less
advantages, it will have to be admitted that something is the matter with
the young ladies, which is preposterous, or that the system is still
defective. For the postulate that everybody ought to be attractive cannot
be abandoned for the sake of any system. Decision on this system cannot
be reached without long experience, for it is always to be remembered
that the man's point of view of attractiveness may shift, and he may come
to regard the intellectual graces as supremely attractive; while, on the
other hand, the woman student may find that a winning smile is just as
effective in bringing a man to her feet, where he belongs, as a
logarithm.

The danger of being too attractive, though it has historic illustration,
is thought by many to be more apparent than real. Merely being too
attractive has often been confounded with a love of flirtation and
conquest, unbecoming always in a man, and excused in a woman on the
ground of her helplessness. It could easily be shown that to use personal
attractiveness recklessly to the extent of hopeless beguilement is cruel,
and it may be admitted that woman ought to be held to strict
responsibility for her attractiveness. The lines are indeed hard for her.
The duty is upon her in this poor world of being as attractive as she
can, and yet she is held responsible for all the mischief her
attractiveness produces. As if the blazing sun should be called to
account by people with weak eyes.




WEATHER AND CHARACTER

The month of February in all latitudes in the United States is uncertain.
The birth of George Washington in it has not raised it in public esteem.
In the North, it is a month to flee from; in the South, at best it is a
waiting month--a month of rain and fickle skies. A good deal has been
done for it. It is the month of St. Valentine, it is distinguished by the
leap-year addition of a day, and ought to be a favorite of the gentle
sex; but it remains a sort of off period in the year. Its brevity
recommends it, but no one would take any notice of it were it not for its
effect upon character. A month of rigid weather is supposed to brace up
the moral nature, and a month of gentleness is supposed to soften the
asperities of the disposition, but February contributes to neither of
these ends. It is neither a tonic nor a soother; that is, in most parts
of our inexplicable land. We make no complaint of this. It is probably
well to have a period in the year that tests character to the utmost, and
the person who can enter spring through the gate of February a better man
or woman is likely to adorn society the rest of the year.

February, however, is merely an illustration of the effect of weather
upon the disposition. Persons differ in regard to their sensitiveness to
cloudy, rainy, and gloomy days. We recognize this in a general way, but
the relation of temper and disposition to the weather has never been
scientifically studied. Our observation of the influence of climate is
mostly with regard to physical infirmities. We know the effect of damp
weather upon rheumatics, and of the east wind upon gouty subjects, but
too little allowance is made for the influence of weather upon the
spirits and the conduct of men. We know that a long period of gloomy
weather leads to suicides, and we observe that long-continued clouds and
rain beget "crossness" and ill-temper, and we are all familiar with the
universal exhilaration of sunshine and clear air upon any company of men
and women. But the point we wish to make is that neither society nor the
law makes any allowance for the aberrations of human nature caused by
dull and unpleasant weather. And this is very singular in this
humanitarian age, when excuse is found for nearly every moral delinquency
in heredity or environment, that the greatest factor of discontent and
crookedness, the weather, should be left out of consideration altogether.
The relation of crime to the temperature and the humidity of the
atmosphere is not taken into account. Yet crime and eccentricity of
conduct are very much the result of atmospheric conditions, since they
depend upon the temper and the spirit of the community. Many people are
habitually blue and down-hearted in sour weather; a long spell of cloudy,
damp, cold weather depresses everybody, lowers hope, tends to melancholy;
and people when they are not cheerful are more apt to fall into evil
ways, as a rule, than when they are in a normal state of good-humor. And
aside from crimes, the vexation, the friction, the domestic discontent in
life, are provoked by bad weather. We should like to have some statistics
as to incompatibility between married couples produced by damp and raw
days, and to know whether divorces are more numerous in the States that
suffer from a fickle climate than in those where the climate is more
equable. It is true that in the Sandwich Islands and in Egypt there is
greater mental serenity, less perturbation of spirit, less worry, than in
the changeable United States. Something of this placidity and resignation
to the ills inevitable in human life is due to an even climate, to the
constant sun and the dry air. We cannot hope to prevent crime and
suffering by statistics, any more than we have been able to improve our
climate (which is rather worse now than before the scientists took it in
charge) by observations and telegraphic reports; but we can, by careful
tabulation of the effects of bad weather upon the spirits of a community,
learn what places in the Union are favorable to the production of
cheerfulness and an equal mind. And we should lift a load of reprobation
from some places which now have a reputation for surliness and
unamiability. We find the people of one place hospitable, lighthearted,
and agreeable; the people of another place cold, and morose, and
unpleasant. It would be a satisfaction to know that the weather is
responsible for the difference. Observation of this sort would also teach
us doubtless what places are most conducive to literary production, what
to happy homes and agreeing wives and husbands. All our territory is
mapped out as to its sanitary conditions; why not have it colored as to
its effect upon the spirits and the enjoyment of life? The suggestion
opens a vast field of investigation.




BORN WITH AN "EGO"

There used to be a notion going round that it would be a good thing for
people if they were more "self-centred." Perhaps there was talk of adding
a course to the college curriculum, in addition to that for training the
all-competent "journalist," for the self-centring of the young. To apply
the term to a man or woman was considered highly complimentary. The
advisers of this state of mind probably meant to suggest a desirable
equilibrium and mental balance; but the actual effect of the self-centred
training is illustrated by a story told of Thomas H. Benton, who had been
described as an egotist by some of the newspapers. Meeting Colonel Frank
Blair one day, he said: "Colonel Blair, I see that the newspapers call me
an egotist. I wish you would tell me frankly, as a friend, if you think
the charge is true." "It is a very direct question, Mr. Benton," replied
Colonel Blair, "but if you want my honest opinion, I am compelled to say
that I think there is some foundation for the charge." "Well, sir," said
Mr. Benton, throwing his head back and his chest forward, "the difference
between me and these little fellows is that I have an EGO!" Mr. Benton
was an interesting man, and it is a fair consideration if a certain
amount of egotism does not add to the interest of any character, but at
the same time the self-centred conditions shut a person off from one of
the chief enjoyments to be got out of this world, namely, a recognition
of what is admirable in others in a toleration of peculiarities. It is
odd, almost amusing, to note how in this country people of one section
apply their local standards to the judgment of people in other sections,
very much as an Englishman uses his insular yardstick to measure all the
rest of the world. It never seems to occur to people in one locality that
the manners and speech of those of another may be just as admirable as
their own, and they get a good deal of discomfort out of their
intercourse with strangers by reason of their inability to adapt
themselves to any ways not their own. It helps greatly to make this
country interesting that nearly every State has its peculiarities, and
that the inhabitants of different sections differ in manner and speech.
But next to an interesting person in social value, is an agreeable one,
and it would add vastly to the agreeableness of life if our widely spread
provinces were not so self-centred in their notion that their own way is
the best, to the degree that they criticise any deviation from it as an
eccentricity. It would be a very nice world in these United States if we
could all devote ourselves to finding out in communities what is likable
rather than what is opposed to our experience; that is, in trying to
adapt ourselves to others rather than insisting that our own standard
should measure our opinion and our enjoyment of them.

When the Kentuckian describes a man as a "high-toned gentleman" he means
exactly the same that a Bostonian means when, he says that a man is a
"very good fellow," only the men described have a different culture, a
different personal flavor; and it is fortunate that the Kentuckian is not
like the Bostonian, for each has a quality that makes intercourse with
him pleasant. In the South many people think they have said a severe
thing when they say that a person or manner is thoroughly Yankee; and
many New Englanders intend to express a considerable lack in what is
essential when they say of men and women that they are very Southern.
When the Yankee is produced he may turn out a cosmopolitan person of the
most interesting and agreeable sort; and the Southerner may have traits
and peculiarities, growing out of climate and social life unlike the New
England, which are altogether charming. We talked once with a Western man
of considerable age and experience who had the placid mind that is
sometimes, and may more and more become, the characteristic of those who
live in flat countries of illimitable horizons, who said that New
Yorkers, State and city, all had an assertive sort of smartness that was
very disagreeable to him. And a lady of New York (a city whose dialect
the novelists are beginning to satirize) was much disturbed by the
flatness of speech prevailing in Chicago, and thought something should be
done in the public schools to correct the pronunciation of English. There
doubtless should be a common standard of distinct, rounded, melodious
pronunciation, as there is of good breeding, and it is quite as important
to cultivate the voice in speaking as in singing, but the people of the
United States let themselves be immensely irritated by local differences
and want of toleration of sectional peculiarities. The truth is that the
agreeable people are pretty evenly distributed over the country, and
one's enjoyment of them is heightened not only by their differences of
manner, but by the different, ways in which they look at life, unless he
insists upon applying everywhere the yardstick of his own locality. If
the Boston woman sets her eyeglasses at a critical angle towards the
'laisser faire' flow of social amenity in New Orleans, and the New
Orleans woman seeks out only the prim and conventional in Boston, each
may miss the opportunity to supplement her life by something wanting and
desirable in it, to be gained by the exercise of more openness of mind
and toleration. To some people Yankee thrift is disagreeable; to others,
Southern shiftlessness is intolerable. To some travelers the negro of the
South, with his tropical nature, his capacity for picturesque attitudes,
his abundant trust in Providence, is an element of restfulness; and if
the chief object of life is happiness, the traveler may take a useful
hint from the race whose utmost desire, in a fit climate, would be fully
satisfied by a shirt and a banana-tree. But to another traveler the
dusky, careless race is a continual affront.

If a person is born with an "Ego," and gets the most enjoyment out of the
world by trying to make it revolve about himself, and cannot
make-allowances for differences, we have nothing to say except to express
pity for such a self-centred condition; which shuts him out of the
never-failing pleasure there is in entering into and understanding with
sympathy the almost infinite variety in American life.




JUVENTUS MUNDI

Sometimes the world seems very old. It appeared so to Bernard of Cluny in
the twelfth century, when he wrote:

"The world is very evil,
The times are waning late."

There was a general impression among the Christians of the first century
of our era that the end was near. The world must have seemed very ancient
to the Egyptians fifteen hundred years before Christ, when the Pyramid of
Cheops was a relic of antiquity, when almost the whole circle of arts,
sciences, and literature had been run through, when every nation within
reach had been conquered, when woman had been developed into one of the
most fascinating of beings, and even reigned more absolutely than
Elizabeth or Victoria has reigned since: it was a pretty tired old world
at that time. One might almost say that the further we go back the older
and more "played out" the world appears, notwithstanding that the poets,
who were generally pessimists of the present, kept harping about the
youth of the world and the joyous spontaneity of human life in some
golden age before their time. In fact, the world is old in spots--in
Memphis and Boston and Damascus and Salem and Ephesus. Some of these
places are venerable in traditions, and some of them are actually worn
out and taking a rest from too much civilization--lying fallow, as the
saying is. But age is so entirely relative that to many persons the
landing of the Mayflower seems more remote than the voyage of Jason, and
a Mayflower chest a more antique piece of furniture than the timbers of
the Ark, which some believe can still be seen on top of Mount Ararat.
But, speaking generally, the world is still young and growing, and a
considerable portion of it unfinished. The oldest part, indeed, the
Laurentian Hills, which were first out of water, is still only sparsely
settled; and no one pretends that Florida is anything like finished, or
that the delta of the Mississippi is in anything more than the process of
formation. Men are so young and lively in these days that they cannot
wait for the slow processes of nature, but they fill up and bank up
places, like Holland, where they can live; and they keep on exploring and
discovering incongruous regions, like Alaska, where they can go and
exercise their juvenile exuberance.

In many respects the world has been growing younger ever since the
Christian era. A new spirit came into it then which makes youth
perpetual, a spirit of living in others, which got the name of universal
brotherhood, a spirit that has had a good many discouragements and
set-backs, but which, on the whole, gains ground, and generally works in
harmony with the scientific spirit, breaking down the exclusive character
of the conquests of nature. What used to be the mystery and occultism of
the few is now general knowledge, so that all the playing at occultism by
conceited people now seems jejune and foolish. A little machine called
the instantaneous photograph takes pictures as quickly and accurately as
the human eye does, and besides makes them permanent. Instead of fooling
credulous multitudes with responses from Delphi, we have a Congress which
can enact tariff regulations susceptible of interpretations enough to
satisfy the love of mystery of the entire nation. Instead of loafing
round Memnon at sunrise to catch some supernatural tones, we talk words
into a little contrivance which will repeat our words and tones to the
remotest generation of those who shall be curious to know whether we said
those words in jest or earnest. All these mysteries made common and
diffused certainly increase the feeling of the equality of opportunity in
the world. And day by day such wonderful things are discovered and
scattered abroad that we are warranted in believing that we are only on
the threshold of turning to account the hidden forces of nature. There
would be great danger of human presumption and conceit in this progress
if the conceit were not so widely diffused, and where we are all
conceited there is no one to whom it will appear unpleasant. If there was
only one person who knew about the telephone he would be unbearable.
Probably the Eiffel Tower would be stricken down as a monumental
presumption, like that of Babel, if it had not been raised with the full
knowledge and consent of all the world.

This new spirit, with its multiform manifestations, which came into the
world nearly nineteen hundred years ago, is sometimes called the spirit
of Christmas. And good reasons can be given for supposing that it is. At
any rate, those nations that have the most of it are the most prosperous,
and those people who have the most of it are the most agreeable to
associate with. Know all men by these Presents, is an old legal form
which has come to have a new meaning in this dispensation. It is by the
spirit of brotherhood exhibited in giving presents that we know the
Christmas proper, only we are apt to take it in too narrow a way. The
real spirit of Christmas is the general diffusion of helpfulness and
good-will. If somebody were to discover an elixir which would make every
one truthful, he would not, in this age of the world, patent it. Indeed,
the Patent Office would not let him make a corner on virtue as he does in
wheat; and it is not respectable any more among the real children of
Christmas to make a corner in wheat. The world, to be sure, tolerates
still a great many things that it does not approve of, and, on the whole,
Christmas, as an ameliorating and good-fellowship institution, gains a
little year by year. There is still one hitch about it, and a bad one
just now, namely, that many people think they can buy its spirit by jerks
of liberality, by costly gifts. Whereas the fact is that a great many of
the costliest gifts in this season do not count at all. Crumbs from the
rich man's table don't avail any more to open the pearly gates even of
popular esteem in this world. Let us say, in fine, that a loving,
sympathetic heart is better than a nickel-plated service in this world,
which is surely growing young and sympathetic.




A BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE

In Autumn the thoughts lightly turn to Age. If the writer has seemed to
be interested, sometimes to the neglect of other topics, in the American
young woman, it was not because she is interested in herself, but because
she is on the way to be one of the most agreeable objects in this lovely
world. She may struggle against it; she may resist it by all the
legitimate arts of the coquette and the chemist; she may be convinced
that youth and beauty are inseparable allies; but she would have more
patience if she reflected that the sunset is often finer than the
sunrise, commonly finer than noon, especially after a stormy day. The
secret of a beautiful old age is as well worth seeking as that of a
charming young maidenhood. For it is one of the compensations for the
rest of us, in the decay of this mortal life, that women, whose mission
it is to allure in youth and to tinge the beginning of the world with
romance, also make the end of the world more serenely satisfactory and
beautiful than the outset. And this has been done without any amendment
to the Constitution of the United States; in fact, it is possible that
the Sixteenth Amendment would rather hinder than help this gracious
process. We are not speaking now of what is called growing old gracefully
and regretfully, as something to be endured, but as a season to be
desired for itself, at least by those whose privilege it is to be
ennobled and cheered by it. And we are not speaking of wicked old women.
There is a unique fascination--all the novelists recognize it--in a
wicked old woman; not very wicked, but a woman of abundant experience,
who is perfectly frank and a little cynical, and delights in probing
human nature and flashing her wit on its weaknesses, and who knows as
much about life as a club man is credited with knowing. She may not be a
good comrade for the young, but she is immensely more fascinating than a
semi-wicked old man. Why, we do not know; that is one of the unfathomable
mysteries of womanhood. No; we have in mind quite another sort of woman,
of which America has so many that they are a very noticeable element in
all cultivated society. And the world has nothing more lovely. For there
is a loveliness or fascination sometimes in women between the ages of
sixty and eighty that is unlike any other--a charm that woos us to regard
autumn as beautiful as spring.

Perhaps these women were great beauties in their day, but scarcely so
serenely beautiful as now when age has refined all that was most
attractive. Perhaps they were plain; but it does not matter, for the
subtle influence of spiritualized-intelligence has the power of
transforming plainness into the beauty of old age. Physical beauty is
doubtless a great advantage, and it is never lost if mind shines through
it (there is nothing so unlovely as a frivolous old woman fighting to
keep the skin-deep beauty of her youth); the eyes, if the life has not
been one of physical suffering, usually retain their power of moving
appeal; the lines of the face, if changed, may be refined by a certain
spirituality; the gray hair gives dignity and softness and the charm of
contrast; the low sweet voice vibrates to the same note of femininity,
and the graceful and gracious are graceful and gracious still. Even into
the face and bearing of the plain woman whose mind has grown, whose
thoughts have been pure, whose heart has been expanded by good deeds or
by constant affection, comes a beauty winning and satisfactory in the
highest degree.

It is not that the charm of the women of whom we speak is mainly this
physical beauty; that is only incidental, as it were. The delight in
their society has a variety of sources. Their interest in life is broader
than it once was, more sympathetically unselfish; they have a certain
philosophical serenity that is not inconsistent with great liveliness of
mind; they have got rid of so much nonsense; they can afford to be
truthful--and how much there is to be learned from a woman who is
truthful! they have a most delicious courage of opinion, about men, say,
and in politics, and social topics, and creeds even. They have very
little any longer to conceal; that is, in regard to things that should be
thought about and talked about at all. They are not afraid to be gay, and
to have enthusiasms. At sixty and eighty a refined and well-bred woman is
emancipated in the best way, and in the enjoyment of the full play of the
richest qualities of her womanhood. She is as far from prudery as from
the least note of vulgarity. Passion, perhaps, is replaced by a great
capacity for friendliness, and she was never more a real woman than in
these mellow and reflective days. And how interesting she is--adding so
much knowledge of life to the complex interest that inheres in her sex!
Knowledge of life, yes, and of affairs; for it must be said of these
ladies we have in mind that they keep up with the current thought, that
they are readers of books, even of newspapers--for even the newspaper can
be helpful and not harmful in the alembic of their minds.