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Virtues and Vices
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (February 1, 1913) : 26
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      If people could ever be made to believe that their vices were vices they would, no doubt, change them at once. But we are each of us convinced that what other people regard as our vices are in reality our most interesting virtues and that criticism of them is mere carping bad nature, or perhaps covert envy. This holds so true of national characteristics that to upbraid and stab in cartoons is merely to bring a pleased grin to the multiple face of the nation thus portrayed. America does not object to being called material and money mad. She likes it. She interprets it as a tribute to her final prowess. Scotland adores being called churlish and taciturn. She mutters under her breath, “Str-r-rength!” and never once does it occur to her that the charge was serious, deserving attention. Nations and human beings have the sense not merely of self-protection, but of the self being the thing most worthy of protection. No matter what the self is, they feel it to be the thing that gives them whatever value they may have. No matter what the self is, they feel it to be the thing that gives them whatever value they may have. The precise blend of characteristics that is so characteristic of them is a thing they have an incurable penchant for, and it is impossible for them to doubt that the world shares it with them. We are all like the yokel whom Phillada flouted. When the other dairy-maid threw milk on his clothes, he was comforted to know that she at least loved him. We will admit that we have faults, but think how well we get on in spite of them! It fairly constitutes another virtue.
      We could surely change if we genuinely desired to... Yet who ever changes more than his vocabulary? We could surely change if we genuinely desired to. Think of our heterogeneous inheritance! We are potentially everything and anything. If we wished to develop a trait, it is almost superstitious and unscientific to say that it would be impossible for us to do it. Yet who ever changes more than his vocabulary? We keep one or two characteristics to grapple with, just as we choose one or two muscles for use in our morning exercises. And we talk about our moral gymnastics with the same disproportionate volubility with which we discuss our physical gymnastics. We think them both extremely creditable performances, and having the thing systematized in this way saves the bother of keeping a constant lookout for new needs. It is as though every one had an artificial tooth kept for the express purpose of having it filled at stated intervals. It is a type of precaution most naturally popular, for if attacking criticism does come one’s way it permits of a much injured and extremely heated refutation, with a wounded reminder of its being a well-known fact that you struggle constantly.

      One starts off unwilling and small, one’s family pushing valiantly from the rear, and crying not, “Good luck,” which would have been very nice, but, “Justice must be done you,” which is somehow the perfect phrase.There comes a time in every woman’s life when she regrets that “Home, Sweet Home” has already been written, as she would so thoroughly enjoy creating it afresh. The feeling comes after one has gone forth to try and secure recognition for what one’s family considers one’s genius. One starts off unwilling and small, one’s family pushing valiantly from the rear, and crying not, “Good luck,” which would have been very nice, but, “Justice must be done you,” which is somehow the perfect phrase. One goes and one gets through it somehow, though one has constant difficulty in remembering one’s reason for being there. One’s voice is almost inaudible when one asks for justice — needless to say, one does not use precisely those words — and one giggles foolishly at the situation, which is not the way to bully an unappreciative public, so that one is a little frightened at the thought that that giggle will have to be lied about to one’s family. Then when the ordeal is over one returns and is received by one’s family. They treat you as an exhausted person, and of course you are. It is very exhausting demanding to be appreciated. They ask to hear everything you said and everything the other people said. You tell them with all the force that reminiscent desire gives. They are impressed. You really are a devil of a fellow. They chuckle at your craftiness. Then they ask, “How did they receive you?”
      You say, reluctantly, “Well, they were a little cool at first; they just stared at me.”
      One’s family says: “That would be because they had not expected you to look the way you do. You probably startled them.”
      You say, with dimpling humility, “Perhaps.”
      “Do you really think, then, that you’ve brought them around?” says your family next, and you with faltering honesty reply, “I can’t say that I have.”
      “Jealousy,” says one’s family; “it can’t be anything else. They’re jealous because you’re so clever.”
      It is at this point that you want to sing with perfect burst of creative ecstasy, “Home, Sweet Home.”
 

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