Cantabridgian Actors.
It may be noted as a curiosity of modern English decorum, that when the young men at Cambridge played the Birds of Aristophanes, their legs and feet were bare in the Greek fashion. This would certainly not have been done or tolerated in contemporary France, though the imitation of antiquity went equally far under the first Empire, for example, in the costume of Madame Tallien and her imitators.
The Decorum of Classes.
Every class has its own decorum. Amongst artists’ models there is a kind of professional dignity which makes it disagreeable for the better class of them to be seen by any one who is not an artist. A French girl who was posing in an atelier before thirty students screamed and wrapped herself in a sheet because an unprofessional man had entered the room. In this case there was some reason in the model’s conception of decorum. She was there for her own hard work, but not to be stared at by strangers.
Natural Necessities.
Foolish Decorum.
An English Inconsistency.
There is a very important practical question of decorum with regard to natural necessities. Although no human being can escape from that law, and although by mere healthy living we all openly confess that we have conformed to it, a foolish decorum refuses to recognise it. In England this foolish decorum has long been tyrannically prevalent, but railways have done much to break it down by accustoming travellers of both sexes to acknowledge without shame the existence of the need, and it has now become customary in England to provide for it, both at railway stations and in exhibitions. This is a triumph of reason which acknowledges the whole of human nature over a conventionalism which would set up a false and impossible ideal. There still remains the inconsistency by which a need provided for by all railway companies and organisers of exhibitions is ignored in the streets of the great English towns. This way of treating the matter is, in truth, directly contrary to its own purpose of an ideally decorous life, as these lower wants occupy a very small space in a man’s time and thought when they can be immediately satisfied, whereas they become intrusive and importunate when the satisfaction is denied. In obedience to this unreasonable decorum the English still inflict upon themselves very frequent inconvenience, occasionally amounting to torture, and in some cases to serious physical injury.[69]
French Simplicity
The French have always been more simple and natural in regard to these matters; but they may be justly blamed for cynicism in the sound original meaning of the word. They are now beginning to imitate the English by establishing a proper degree of privacy. This is one of those numerous cases in which the two countries may improve each other’s customs.