Florida Pier : writings and about / jmcvey.net
Random Railings
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (August 24, 1912) : 23
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Only people with portable employments should ever be invited as guests. For a visit of a week it is incumbent upon a really proper guest to be a novelist, bookbinder, or unceasing letter-writer. Then he will disappear for hours together. One feels at ease about him and is enabled to carry on one’s own activities without interruption. The pleasant sense is with one that the guest is in the house, and there is always the chance that one may meet him on the stairs. It is very nice to meet nice people on one’s stairs. He ought to do something that would give him a “now you see me, now you don’t” quality. It is the one thing that cannot fail to insure success as a guest. If one has not seen them for some hours it is a delightful surprise when they turn up at meal-time. A person preparing himself to meet all emergencies with tact should provide himself with an occupation to be used when visiting. He could write his autobiography or make statistics or study Russian. He ought to do something that would give him a “now you see me, now you don’t” quality. It is the one thing that cannot fail to insure success as a guest. For a guest to do nothing but visit from the beginning to the end of his stay is an almost unforgivable solecism. Sleeping is preferable.
It is self-pity that pulls a lot of us through a lot of things. (If the statement is felt to be dogmatic, it will at least be admitted that it is sometimes self-pity that pulls some of us through certain types of things.) We frequently bear troubles with what looks like noble equanimity. If the Fates take such trouble to badger us they must know that we exist, and to be noticed by life, even though only in the form of missiles being thrown at our head, is a considerable solace. We have, at any rate, not been passed over. At least, both we and our supporters would challenge any one to define it as anything less than noble equanimity, though all the time what stiffens us to the storm is our shameless attitude to the calamities which have fallen upon us. Some of the stiffening comes from the extremeness and frequency of our woe. If the Fates take such trouble to badger us they must know that we exist, and to be noticed by life, even though only in the form of missiles being thrown at our head, is a considerable solace. We have, at any rate, not been passed over. If our case is extreme we are as much struck by the interesting sadness of it as any one else, and so a blend of intense sympathy for ourselves and satisfaction in being worthy of so much notice achieves in us a brave calm that looks very well and may make us act very well and is twice as diverting to feel as the quality it passes for.
Half of our laudable results are brought about by characteristics almost blame-worthy in themselves. If we lacked them we would make far less respectable a showing. It is our weaknesses that make us manageable and drive us to painstaking imitations of the finer moralities. We are constantly hearing admonitions addressed to unruly egos as though it were advisable to have them lie low, whereas half the work of the world is done by irrepressible egos and done because the egos had to attract attention or die. If we eliminated the minor vices from the world a host of desirable things would go with them. They serve us so well. If we eliminated the minor vices from the world a host of desirable things would go with them. They serve us so well. We have trained them to such a multitude of paradoxical maneuvers that half of them have the idea they are virtues.
Where would half of us be without self-love? Surface sensibilities prick us to a hundred decencies. We ape virtues we cannot understand, for we would not have it thought that some one else had a quality we lack. We may even in time make the assumed virtue our own, and if it is a serviceable one it may make us ashamed of the way we acquired it. If we dislike a person enough to dread failing before him more than anything else, there is almost no limit to the height of success we will spur ourselves to attaining. Our springs of action are frequently no better than they should be. Vices make us presentable, virtues involve us in predicaments. Our safety is that we frequently cannot tell them apart are are generally unconscious of having any dealing with either.
For the masculine half of society to deplore the idea of woman’s economic independence so warmly is almost chivalrous. The ladies who regret the end of those days when gallantry was the rule should feel their spirits revive. The women did not at all like the idea of earning their livings, married or unmarried. The infinitely preferred the pleasing occupation of living alone. They were appalled at the idea of becoming brokers and managers of rolling-mills, but their consciences forced them to note facts which made economic independence seem right, and consequently they announced their views. With hardly an exception the men have indignantly denied the existence of any such need. Such generosity is beautiful. It is overwhelming. The women are quite speechless with surprise. To learn that they were prized so highly is most gratifying. They have cried, not man to woman, perhaps, but as a body, speaking loudly through the newspapers: “We will support you; we insist upon supporting you. You were perfect as you were. Society was civilized by you, so were we; to change is to wound us unspeakably.” The women are quite speechless with surprise. To learn that they were prized so highly is most gratifying. They were aware to the soul of their own futility and blankness, but it is delightful to know that every one else had failed to notice it, had ever mistaken them for the keenest and most valuable members of society, creating ideals and spiritual influence at a perfectly enormous rate of industry. The women are so complimented that they feel capable of rising to a really sublime pitch of altruism. They warn the stronger sex that if they continue to press them to economic dependence their offer may be accepted. It has its pleasant points. Its opposite is clearly a trying alternative. Their brave embrace of it covered appalled hearts. They may never manage to rise to such heights again. Honesty forces them to warn society that this may be its only chance at such an offer. It had better make quite sure that it does not wish to accept it. It is exhausting to stay at such peaks of unselfishness with nothing decided one way or the other. It is just possible that, if the women are not spurred on by being taken at their word, they may slump, and the reaction will be a dependence on the part of all, even those who have never before known it, such as it is only fair that those who will suffer most should know of it in advance.
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