Is it worth while, among "little morals," to mention gambling? I trow not? Everybody gambles, from the men on the Stock Exchange to the princes of the blood. We gamble on the turf, in the clubs, and in our own homes, with the most admirable persistency. Any trifling excuse serves, as, for example, a man asked me the other day to risk a sovereign on the question as to whether a certain music-hall artiste's Christian name began with a P. or a W. I declined the offer, not being interested in music-hall artistes. And this brings me to a final point in our "little morals," namely, the point of considering how utterly and finally some of us have kicked over the traces with regard to preserving the respectability and virtue of our women. We frequently allow women to do things nowadays that may, or will, in the end degrade them, while we put obstacles in all directions to retard their elevation to distinction in the arts or sciences. We hate the idea of their having a voice in the government of the country, but we do not at all mind their appearing half naked to dance before us on the stage. We are hardly civil to the young daughters of our aristocratic host, but we will make a countess of the public dancer of "break-downs." We will only arrive at an intimate friend's ball in time to eat his supper, but we will hang about for hours to stare at an advertised "beauty barmaid." Yet I should not say "we," since I am not guilty of these things. I am not fond of music-halls, though I confess to finding them more entertaining than Mr. Irving's hydraulic efforts at tragedy. Still I daresay my good friend Gladstone patronises them more than I do. Again, I am not devoted to barmaids. I may here remark a trifling particular connected with "little morals" which has often struck me. It is this. A "man about town" will kiss a pretty housemaid or any other "low-class" woman he fancies without considering himself demeaned by the act. Now, how is it that a lady of equal position never wishes to kiss a footman or a waiter at a restaurant? One would think the situation as tempting to one sex as another. But no. The "lady" would consider herself insulted if kissed by a footman; the "gentleman" chuckles with ecstasy if kissed by the housemaid. Why is this thus? I am inclined to think that here the "fair sex" score the winning number in the trifling matter of self-respect.
And now we have come soundly upon the cause of our open disregard of "little morals." It is this: loss of self-respect. We do not respect ourselves any longer, probably because we do not find ourselves worthy of respect. We cannot respect a creature who is ready to sell soul, body, sentiment, and opinion for hard cash, but that creature is Ourself, in this blessed time of progress. Morals are nowhere weighed against a fat balance at the banker's. Self-respect is ridiculous if it opposes the gospel of Grab. What will self-respect do for us? Simply isolate us from our fellow-men! Our fellow-men tell convenient lies, cheat prettily, steal their neighbour's wives, and yet walk openly in social daylight; why should not we all do the same? Where is the harm? We only hurt ourselves if we try to do otherwise, and, what is far worse, we are looked upon as fools. We cannot possibly be "in the swim" unless we are good hypocrites. Herein is my sore point. I am unable to hypocrise. Candour is part of my composition. It is unfortunate, because it keeps me out of many delightful entertainments where Humbug rules the roast. Socrates was not a "social" favourite, neither am I. I am perfectly aware how unpleasantly tedious I have been all the time I have talked about morals. They are not interesting subjects of conversation at any time, and people would much rather not hear about them at all. True! Only in church o' Sundays are we bound (by fashion's decree) to listen to discourses on morality by a possibly immoral cleric, but during the week we are, thank Heaven, free to forget that morals, little or big, exist. This is as it should be in all civilised communities. Of course we must keep up the pretence of morality—this is a necessity enforced by law and police. But we may piously assure ourselves that our "feigning" is the most perfectly finished art in the world. No nation can out-rival the English in Sunday-show morality. It is the severest, grandest, dullest Sham ever evolved from social history. From its magnitude it commands wondering admiration; from its ludicrous inconsistency it provokes laughter. And I, strolling idler as I am, stop an instant to stare and smile, and involuntarily I think of the Ten Commandments. I believe that on one occasion Moses was so angry that he broke the tablets on which they were graven. This was mere temper on the part of Moses; he should have known better. He should have spared the tablets, and broken the Commandments, every one of them; as we do!
IV.
OF SAVAGES AND SKELETONS.
IV. OF SAVAGES AND SKELETONS.
Pausing awhile to consider the question, I find that on the whole, most of you, my dear friends, appear to get on excellently well without either manners or morals. There you all are, taking your several parts in the pageant before me, pushing, scrambling, and making generally the most infernal din, the while you move heaven and earth to serve your own personal interest and pleasure, regardless of anybody else's convenience, and you manage to make a tolerably good show of respectability. Your finished education in the great art of counterfeiting does everything for you. The sum and substance of modern culture is in the one line, "Assume a virtue though you have it not." You all "assume" superbly. And yet the best actors tell us they find their profession entails fatigue and exhaustion at times, and they are glad when they can throw aside the mask and take to "rough-and-tumble" in the secrecy of their own homes. For there is one great fact about us which we all strive to hide, and yet which is for ever declaring itself, and that is, that despite all our civilisation and progress, we are savages still. Absolute barbarians are we, born so, made so, and neither God nor Time shall alter us. Our education teaches us how to cover Nature with a mask, even as our innocent Scriptural progenitors covered themselves with fig-leaves; but Nature is not thereby destroyed. The savage leaps out at all sorts of times and seasons, in the tempers and habits of the most highly cultured men and women. "My Lord," unbracing himself at night and unbuttoning his waistcoat to give freedom to his ample paunch, hiccoughs himself into bed with as much rude noise as the naked Zulu who has drunk himself nearly dead on rum. "My Lady," unclasping her fashionable "corset" and allowing her beauties to expand, sighs, yawns, shakes herself jelly-wise in freedom, and plumps between the sheets as casually as any squaw in a wigwam. And it is probable that both my lord and my lady asleep, snore as loudly and look as open-mouthed and ugly in their slumbers as any uncivilised brutes ever born. Old Carlyle's notion of the virtue of clothes was the correct one. What should we do with a naked Parliament? The clothes maintain order and respectability, but without artificial covering the whole community would be as they truly are in their heart of hearts—savages, and no more.