Yet these are the censors of genius, the founders of public taste, the friends of religion, the conservers of morality, forsooth! Every little shallow, mean-souled Respectable thinks himself capable of deciding that Shelley and Burns were "immoral;" that this or that work of genius is "injurious to morals;" that one brilliant man is morally incapacitated from assisting in legislation, and that another ought to be imprisoned for the expression of heterodox religious or political opinions. British Respectability makes Britain the laughing-stock and butt of the wits of the world. Nay, more; the Respectable's stupid blatant "patriotism" and bullying arrogance cause us to be hated in all the quarters of the globe.
I repeat that Respectability is practically incompatible with moral worth. With true, sound, broad morality it is quite incompatible. You cannot grow grapes on thorn bushes, nor force lilies among stinging-nettles. Politics, commerce, the relations of the sexes, science, art, and literature, are all more or less corrupted by the mephitic blight of Respectability.
I will conclude this chapter with a quotation from M. Taine, who estimates our insular propriety very shrewdly in his entertaining "Notes on England." "I am acquainted with a London merchant who visits Paris twice yearly on business. When he is there he is very jovial, and amuses himself on Sunday as freely as anyone else. His Paris host, who visited him at his home in London, where he was made thoroughly welcome, going downstairs on Sunday to the room where there was a miniature billiard table, pushed the balls about on it. The merchant in alarm begged him to stop at once, saying, 'The neighbours will be scandalised should they hear this.'"
CHAPTER VI.
CULTURED GENTILITY.
"I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you endeavour to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock—that is some particular, not universal way of viewing things."
Thoreau.
"Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?"