And the same thing, I think, applies to those who visit foreign countries. It is their business to respect the morals and conventions of those countries even if they do not share them or like them. It is, for example, one thing for an American citizen who loves wine and liberty to denounce Prohibition in his own country, and quite another thing for a stranger on a visit to show disrespect to the law of the land, however mistaken he may regard it. It seems silly to us to try to get morally indignant at women smoking cigarettes. It has become a commonplace which we accept without comment. But it is not long since such a thing would have been undreamed of in our world, and when a visitor from abroad who did it deliberately would have given great and very proper offence. The axiom "When in Rome do as Rome does" is a counsel of civility. It does not mean that it is our duty to kiss the Pope's toe or adopt the moral code of Rome ourselves; but it does mean that we should not scoff at Roman ways or publicly, or semi-publicly, indicate that we dislike them.
When I go to a foreign country I do my best to be inconspicuous, and to pass myself off as one of the people. I do not succeed, for I happen to be an insular person, who carries the marks of his origin on him in every gesture, accent and movement. If I dislike a law in my own country and think it should be altered, I have no hesitation in holding it up to opprobrium, and even breaking it, if only in that way can it be successfully fought. But it would be an impertinence on my part to go to France and defy the liquor laws of that country because I did not think they were stringent enough, or denounce the inspection of women because I think it is a loathsome practice, liable to the vilest insults and misuse. French morality accepts these things, and I have no right of interference if I go there.
I am not sure that I even like moral missionaries from one country to another. The offence, if it is an offence, is in a different category from that of the man who publicly flouts the laws and customs of another land in which he happens to be a visitor; but it certainly borders on bad manners. I express no opinion about "Pussyfoot" Johnson's gospel, but I confess I always feel an irritation at his intrusions here. However much I wanted the country to be converted to his point of view, I should still wish that he would stay at home and cultivate his own garden, and leave us to look after our own morals and practices. And by the same token I should resent the idea of a person going from this country to America and openly flouting its public morality, or taking sides in a domestic controversy that happened to be raging there. In short, it is a question not of morals, but of manners.
I do not think the idea I have in my mind could be better illustrated than by a famous story of Spurgeon. I daresay it is familiar to some of my readers, but it is so apposite and so good that they will not object to renew its acquaintance. In the days of his unparalleled popularity, when the great preacher filled the Tabernacle from floor to ceiling, it was the custom of the young bucks sometimes to show by their ill-manners their contempt for something they did not understand. One night three of them went into the gallery with their hats on, and refused to remove them when the attendant requested them to do so. Spurgeon watched the incident, and when the preliminaries of the service had been concluded and the time came for the sermon, he prefaced his remarks with something like these words: "In all the occasions of life it is our duty and should be our pleasure to respect the feelings of others and the customs of others, even if we do not share them. The other day I went into a Jewish synagogue and, according to my practice when entering a place of worship, I removed my hat. But, having done so, an attendant came to me and reminded me that in the Jewish synagogue it was necessary that the head should be covered. I thanked him and, of course, obeyed the reminder. Now" (looking up to the gallery and raising his voice) "will those three young Jews in the gallery show that respect to the customs of this place of worship which I showed to theirs?"
THE JESTS OF CHANCE
There is one story in Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson's autobiography that is sure of a place among the legends of celebrated men. It is that in which he tells by what a lucky accident he was saved, when "a raw recruit," from deserting from the Army, of which he was destined to become one of the most illustrious ornaments. Another young private who occupied a bed in the room in which he slept stole the civilian clothes in which Robertson contemplated making his escape, and vanished. I daresay Robertson said some harsh things at the time about the thief, who had put temptation out of his way; but he must have thanked him almost every day of his life since. For in taking away Robertson's clothes the thief had put a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack.
Not many of us have the luck to become field-marshals through the purloining of our trousers, but few of us are without experience of the part which trifles that seem of small moment at the time play in our careers. "Character," says Victor Hugo, "is destiny," and a greater than Hugo has observed that it is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are thus and thus. This is no doubt true, though the doctrine may be carried too far. For example, I think that Hazlitt is a little unjust to Charles James Fox when he says that the history of his failure is written in his fluctuating chin. I doubt whether, if the parts had been reversed, Pitt would have done any better. But no one can compare the easy, good-natured profile of Fox with the haughty masterfulness of Pitt's without knowing which of the two would win in an encounter of will-power where the circumstances were even.
I remember Lord Fisher once describing to me with great admiration a wonderful feat of navigation by which that famous sailor, Admiral Wilson, had brought the fleet through great perils in a fog, fighting all the way with his obstinate chief officer over charts and calculations. "But Wilson had his way," said Fisher. "You see, his jaw stuck out half an inch farther than the other fellow's." There is much virtue in a jaw that will stand no nonsense. You can read the whole history of the most wonderful one-man achievement in the annals of trade in the stubborn chin of Lord Leverhulme, just as you can read the tale of Mr. Balfour's political purposelessness in his amiable but indecisive countenance. "I can see him now," wrote a friend quoted in Mrs. Drew's Some Hawarden Letters. "I can see him now, standing at the top of the great double staircase, torn with doubts which way to go down. 'The worst of this staircase,' he would say, 'is that there is absolutely no reason why one should go down one side rather than the other. What am I to do?'"
But though destiny is much a matter of chins, the Imp of Chance who comes in and steals our trousers has no small part in determining our lives and shaping events. I have read that Wallenstein in his youth had a crack on the head which he, no doubt, felt was a misfortune, but it gave him just the surgical treatment that converted him from a dullard into a great general. Loyola got wounded in battle, and, thanks to that circumstance, found his true vocation and became the creator of the greatest religious order in history, and, with Luther, perhaps the greatest maker of history for six centuries. Newton, according to the legend, sees an apple fall and starts a train of thought that reveals one of the profoundest secrets of the universe. I suppose no one who has advanced far in life can fail to recall trifles that shaped the whole course of his career—a broken engagement, a misdirected letter, a chance meeting. At the time it seemed nothing, and now, in the retrospect, it is seen to have meant everything. The chin may dictate events within limits, but the Imp of Chance has as often as not the final word.