IX.
THE AFFECTED.
“All affectation is vain and ridiculous; it is the attempt of poverty to appear rich.”—Lavater.
This is a talker with whom one sometimes meets in society. He is not generally very difficult to recognise. His physiognomy often indicates the class to which he belongs. He has sometimes a peculiar formation of mouth, which you may notice as the result of his affectation in speaking. His voice, too, is frequently indicative of his fault. It is pathetic, joyous, funereal, strong, weak, squeaking, not according to its own naturalness, but according to the affectation of his mind. And these variations are generally the opposite of what they ought to be. They neither harmonise with the subject spoken of, nor the person speaking.
Affectation is a fault which attaches itself to a certain class of “young ladies and gentlemen” who have spent a few months in a village academy or a city school, and wish to give to their friends and parents unmistakeable evidence of their success in the acquisition of learning. It also belongs to a limited class of young ladies who have advanced somewhere the other side of thirty, and begin to stand in fear of a slip. Their affectation, it is hoped, will be very winning upon the affections of a peculiar sort of young gentlemen who have gone so far in life that they are almost resolved to go all the way without any companion to accompany them. It is a fault, too, which often clings to another class of society,—that which, by a sudden elevation of fortune, are raised from the walks of poverty into the ranks of the wealthy. The elevation of their circumstances has not elevated their education, their intelligence, their good manners. Nevertheless, they affect an equality in these, and at the same time sadly betray the reality of their origin and training.
This affectation in talk as well as in other ways mostly develops itself in society which is supposed to be higher than the parties affected. The ignorant talker is affected in the company of the intelligent; the uneducated in the company of the educated; the poor in the company of the rich; the young lady in the company of the one who is superior to her, and into whose heart she wishes to distil a drop or two of Cupid’s elixir.
Not only, however, among these is the affected talker to be found. He is sometimes met with in those who are supposed to have acquired such attainments in self-knowledge and education as to lift them above this objectionable habit. A clergyman of considerable popularity on a certain occasion was observed to give utterance to his thoughts thus, “The sufferings of the poo-ah increase with the approach of wint-ah; and the glaurious gos-pill is the only cu-ah of all the ills of suffering hoo-man-e-tee.” On another occasion, the same accomplished minister was heard to address himself with much eloquence to the ungodly portion of his congregation: “O sin-nah, the judgment is ne-ah; life is but a va-pah. He that hath ears to ye-ah, let him ye-ah.”
A person of respectable position and intelligence, addicted to this way of speaking, in giving account of a visit he had recently made to a man in dying circumstances, said, “When I arrove at the house of my deseased friend, he was perspiring his last. I stood by his bedside, and said, as he was too far gone to speak, ‘Brother, if you feel happy now, jist squeze my hand;’ and he squoze it.”