“It is the decisive evidence,” said Cornelia, “of our deficiency in taste.”
“You lack patience,” I persisted. “It is the new social wisdom of democracy.”
“It is the new social idiocy of democracy,” she replied; “and let me assure you there is none of it in my house. If I lack patience, I possess some experience. I was taught by my mother to be kind and considerate to servants—my old nurse loved me like a daughter. And I was taught at home and in church to be charitable to poor people and ignorant people and people without advantages and without manners. But I was also brought up to believe that a nice girl had better be dead than form a sentimental relationship with one who was not in her class—not a gentleman.”
“Don’t you think that is—a rather silly and outworn prejudice?” I ventured.
“I certainly do not,” she replied. “I think the salvation of a girl is her pride—legitimate pride in her family, her position, her connections. I have conscientiously striven to train my daughter to feel that, so far as her personal fortunes are concerned, common people—that is, vulgar ordinary people—simply are not in the world. Call it snobbishness, if you like; I am proud of it.”
“But Cornelia,” I said, “can’t you concede that in the relation we are discussing, there is something more elemental and imperative than can be governed by such considerations as you put foremost?”
“Yes—to the sense of animals and savages. Yes—to the sense of vulgar and ignorant people. To the sense of what my mother used to call gentlefolk—emphatically, No. To them, there can be nothing more elemental and imperative than just those considerations which distinguish them from the ignorant and the vulgar.”
“You yourself have half apologized for the old word, ‘gentlefolk,’” I nagged. “Please tell me what gentlefolk were, or rather, what a gentleman is. Must he belong to the Church and be a member of the militia? For how many generations must he be able to trace his family? How much money must he have in the bank? How much of the Decalogue and how many rules for perfect behavior may he break in a day, without losing caste? Are you quite clear about all this?”
“You have a very irritating way,” said Cornelia, “of trying to make the most sensible and obvious positions absurd to maintain. But you know I am right. You know that there is nothing absurd in being conscious of the claims of the Church and the State and the established system of morals and manners. You know there is nothing absurd in being conscious of the significance of money in enabling one to take and maintain a position of dignity and influence. A man has no dignity nor influence until he enters relations with the instituted and continuing forms of society. And though silly little girls may think they could spend a happy lifetime ‘traipsing’ after a gipsy minstrel, a wife knows better. Every married woman knows that a husband without dignity or influence is a perpetual humiliation.”
“Very possibly,” I said; “but you were going to define a gentleman.”