 | CHAPTER XV. Forest life |  |
15. CHAPTER XV.
What do they in the north when they should be in the south?
Shakspere.
We found a decent inn and a tolerable breakfast,
but the place itself was the image of desolation.
It was one of those which had started into sudden
life in speculating times, and the great mill, the
great tavern and various other abortions had never
known the luxury of a pane of glass or a paint-brush,
nor did they bear marks of having at any time been
occupied. A “variety store,” offering for sale every
possible article of merchandise, from lace gloves to
goose-yokes,—ox-chains, tea-cups, boots and bonnets
inclusive,—displayed its tempting sign; but
the clerk sat smoking on the steps, and a few
loungers around him looked like whisky-customers
only. There was a banking-house, of course; and
(also of course) it was closed, though the sign still
stared impudently at the cheated passenger. And
this was “Wellington!” Hollow honor for “le
vainqueur du vainqueur du monde!”
After breakfast—at which, by the bye, Mr. Butts
and his friend filled high places,—we bade adieu
to the Margolds, who were to regain the great road
after a few miles of further travel, while we took
to the woods again. Before we parted, however,
he returned to Mr. Margold the bank-note which
that gentleman had deposited on Mr. Gaston's table.
“You see, he a'n't no hand to make a fuss,
Gaston a'n't; so he jist told me to give it to ye after
you got away. And he said,” added the agreeable
youth with a smile, “that he'd rather you'd buy
manners with it, if you could.”
How Mr. Margold and his driver got on after we
parted, I cannot pretend to say, but I must confess
I did not find it difficult, on review of what had
passed during our short acquaintance, to decide
which party had been most deficient in propriety
and good feeling.
Butts was certainly boorish and provoking enough,
but what had been his advantages? He was rude
and impertinent to a rich man, but how far greater
the offence of wounding wantonly the feelings of
the poor!
Mr. Margold's indignant estimate of the presumption
of this young man was grounded entirely upon
the difference of condition between employer and
employed. This alone made the offence, for Butts
had neither said nor done any thing which could
be considered wrong in itself. And the opinion
that this difference is such as to make disrespectful
conduct particularly offensive, is one which is acted
upon every day, wherever society has taken a
settled and permanent form. It is invariably recognized
in practice, by all parties.
But Mr. Margold was one of those whose lives
are passed in strenuous efforts to make the people
believe that they recognize no distinctions of rank
or station, of whatever kind, in society. To this
end (as we have since been assured) has he talked
and voted, and by such talk and such votes has he
risen to several profitable offices. Would that such
mean inconsistency were less common! To preach
unmeasured social equality—an equality differing
in no respect from the fraternization which placed
the fishwoman and the princess on a level—and
at the same time to exhibit a most indignant sensitiveness
under the slightest approach to a practical
recognition of this principle,—such is the basely
hypocritical system of too many among us. They
insist loudly upon the theory, yet maintain a constant
struggle against the natural—we do not say
the rational and proper—workings of this vital
principle of our political institutions.
To carry out into full practical effect the common
view of the doctrines alluded to, would indeed
imply nothing short of a lingering mental martyrdom
to the cultivated and the refined. The sacrifices
would be so ruinous that cultivation and
refinement would become a curse instead of a
blessing; and in charity to our children we should
refrain from attempting to give them any instruction
beyond that which is to be acquired at a district
school, or to allow them to imbibe any tastes,
or habits, or manners, which would unfit them for
with such a life in view, for who would wish
his son to be thin-skinned if he knew it would be
his lot to receive a hundred lashes daily?
Do we then contemn the principle? By no
means; but we think it should be expounded to
the people by the philosopher, and not by the
demagogue. We protest against the disadvantages
under which those who desire to act consistently
labor, in consequence of the hypocrisy of place-hunters.
We give our sincere, and hearty, and
devoted support to that broad basis of our Constitution—the
natural equality of all—but we are compelled
to deny some of the inferences which are
attempted to be drawn from it. The social equality
of all is acted upon by nobody. The roughest
farmer in the backwoods expects from the grownup
son who shares his business—from the man
whom he has hired to assist him in his labors—
nay, from the wife of his bosom—a deference
which he does not look for from those over whom
he has no control. He would as soon give up his
right hand as relinquish this supremacy. Yet he
would be indignant if you should attempt to prove
to him by argument that the distinctions which he
finds so necessary for the harmony and usefulness
of the members of his family, are equally requisite
for the well-being of society at large. This is a
view of the subject which he has never heard discussed
at town-meetings; never read in his newspaper;
gained his vote and voice by declaring that the rich
are the natural enemies and oppressors of the poor.
We do not need to have our privileges extolled,
but we do sadly need faithfully and fearless exposition
of the duties which are entailed upon us by those
privileges. Yet it would seem to be left for foreigners
to discern and to explain the difficulties and
peculiarities of our position, while those among us,
who are qualified to render this essential service to
their country, stand coldly aloof, disdaining to counteract,
even by a whisper, the loud and hollow
brawlings of the venal demagogue who pretends to
long for agrarian laws, and to approve of universal
and unmitigated coarseness. What honest man of
tolerable intellect and information really believes
that because men are “born equal,” there ought to
be no distinctions in society? Yet do we not see
this put forth daily by those who claim to be directors
of the public mind? While none can attempt
to deny or conceal that the highest earthly reward
of strenuous effort and consistent virtue is to be
found in the respect, esteem, or admiration of our
fellow-beings, there are those who advance, side by
side with this reluctant confession, the insincere and
futile dogma that virtue, talent, accomplishments,
manners, wealth—should of right create no grades
in social life.
Why not go one step further, and say that all
these—art, science, intellectual power, virtue,
annihilated? Some one has lately given this as the
only consistent interpretation of the doctrine.
The distinction which arises from wealth alone
—wealth ungraced by enlarged views, literary
acquirements, virtuous aspirations, or even elegant
manners—can indeed be but a sordid one. It was
on this basis only, if I read aright, that Mr. Margold
and his family built their lofty pretensions;
and it is certain that those pretensions were felt to
be supremely ridiculous by all who witnessed their
display. But the haughty demeanor which such
people suppose to be a representative of true dignity,
though it may pass unrebuked as long as they remain
within the circle of their dependants and their
semblables, will be detected and exposed as counterfeit
the moment it comes in contact with independent
minds. And if one may judge by the
angry remarks of such persons as our city acquaintances,
it is hard to say what degree of servility,
short of absolute slavery, would content their magnificent
claims to the respect of those who chance
to lack their summum bonum. It is, in fact, slavery
which they desire. They are so intensely vexed
when poor people stand up rudely and boldly
for the rights which they suppose in danger, that it
is hard to make them willing these offenders should
be allowed any rights at all.
Politicians may talk of the simplicity of our
national maxims, but those who have seen their
among the people,—not in the great cities, where
society is, in many particulars, but a reflex of the
condition of the old world,—these will bear witness
that nothing can be more complex and puzzling
than the aspect given to our social relations by the
honest carrying out of these maxims. Not that the
maxims themselves involve contradictions when
rightly understood; but that they are misinterpreted
to inculcate impossible sacrifices, and so, like custom-house
oaths, trouble only the honest.
There is indeed one key to the difficulty—the
short and simple rule of Christian kindness. This
would smooth all salient and rugged points. There
need be no sacrifice of proper dignity or reasonable
taste, and yet no wounding of natural human
feelings. In fact, distinctions are never offensive,
even among us, unless there be found haughtiness
on the one part or envy on its opposite; and if any
thing can be more inimical to the spirit of Christian
love than a self-worshipping pride, it is that master-passion
of the fallen angels which gnashes its teeth
at the exaltation of another.
“A high look and a proud heart,” saith the wise
man, “is sin;—but who shall be able to stand
before envy?”
| CHAPTER XV. Forest life | |