ETIQUETTE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 8150, 22 April 1887, Page 6

ETIQUETTE.

Count Brunnow, the Russian Ambassador here before the outbreak of the Crimean War, may not have been a very great diplomatist, but he was an ideal courtier. In Count Beust’s Memoirs, of which we (Daily News ) have had the opportunity of submitting advance sheets to the English-speaking public, there is a singular anecdote of Count Brunnow’s courtly stoicism. Just before the arrival of the newly - wedded Duchess of Edinburgh into the town where Count Brunnow was living, the Countess died. A man who was less of a stoic, or less of a courtier, would never have dreamed of concealing the event. But the Count went through the dreadful ordeal of appearing in public with a composed face, and of answering questions as to his wife’s health with perfect success. He had the poor lady’s body preserved in ico, and was thus able to defer the funeral till its solemnity would no longer interfere with the gaiety of the Duchess’ entrance. All this may be attributed to the Count’s desire “ to make himself agreeable at Cimrr,” but it is very possible that he had much higher motives. No man with the ordinary amount of human feeling could have undergone the horrible strain for the mere purpose of gaining credit by not becoming an involuntary kill-joy. More probably Count Brunnow sympathised with the young bride herself, wished to spare her an evil omen, and was anxious not to interfere with the happiness of a whole class, and with the trade and industry of another. No doubt all these feelings were heightened by that old-fashioned loyalty which it would be an anacronism to condemn as snobbish. If this be a correct view of Count Brunnow’s motives, he really displayed great self sacrifice, and endured much pain rather than inflict pain on others. This is the essence of real goodness, though cynics may question whether Brunnow “served the Czar for naught.” Positivists may, if they like to take this view, ask whether “tbe service of man,” of man in the abstract, can ever be so constraining a motive as the service of some individual man, crowned or uncrowned. Probably our mortal nature will never reach, with any favourable moral results, the height of Positivist abstraction. Holy Writ says that perchance for a good man some would even dare to die. It is pretty certain that very few people indeed will ever either die, or in any other way discomfort themselves, for the sake of Man, a noun of multitude with a capital M. Things must bo made more concrete than this if they are to produce self-sacrifice. A Russian will do almost anything for the Czar ; an Englishman will dare anything (if he be of the right sort) for “ the great name of England;” but few people will imperil or disturb themselves for such a shapeless abstraction as humanity. Courtiers before now had done and undergone many things for the sake of that tranquillity which etiquette takes for the natural condition of a monarch. Raleigh with his new cloak (in the old myth—for probably it is now called a mith) laboured under the charge of merely “ wishing to make himself agreeable at Court.” But who can read motives infallibly? Raleigh, too, may have been moved by that queer unreasoning loyalty that died with the Baron of Bradwardine or perished of the ludicrous when Scott sat down on the wine-glass of George IV. The Stuarts ruined that sentiment in England. It was the mainspring of our national life, as it is the mainspring of Russian life, and perhaps of German military loyalty. But the Stuarts kept winding up the watch till the mainspring broke. Some new motive, some less concrete dynamic, has to be found, and should be found, if parties would permit it, in the love of England. Mr Herbert Spencer, in his “ Ceremonial Government,” has shown how much human nature is the toy of hereditary sentiment, expressing itself in hereditary loyalty and traditional ceremonies and observations. There is scarcely anything but men will die for it, if perpetual custom sanctions the law. “ I am the king’s ox,” says the warrior in Mr Haggard’s picture of African life when be is condemned to die for some infinitesimal infringement of African etiquette. Count Brunnow was, in Zulu phrase, “ the Czar’s Ox,” and even more patient than that patient animal. Yet, if the poem by Mr Browning is based on history, the young French aide-de-camp, who brought a message to Napoleon when Bis nrniy leader Laimea Faltered at yonder wall, was even more obedient to discipline than Brunnow to etiquette. He sat moveless till the Emperor had read the message and had noticed the lad’s white face, and then fell dead with a single haughty word of reply to Bonaparte. These are the examples in great things which so many people follow in less things, and so many other people don’t. Now to let our own worry, or pain, or pre occupation, or regret be visible to others who are unconcerned, is the duty that Brunnow illustrated in perhaps a mistaken and fantastic fashion. His concern for Court decorum was like that of the Spanish King who was roasted rather than get up and go away when the fire was too hot, and when the proper hidalgo to remove the chair was not present. The French wife of Charless 11. of Spain suf-

fered a long martyrdom to similar rules, and probably she and all her Court would have died rather than let the fact that" the Queen of Spain has legs ” become matter of general observation and notoriety. All was up, the game was played and lost, when Eoland the Just appeared at Court not in full Court dress, and when the rigorous Minister prevailed in his design of approaching his monarch “ with ribbons in his shoes.” Pessimists in like manner may draw from the prevalence of ' ‘ pot hats ” the gloomiest conclusions as to the fortunes of Parliamentary government. Pessimists, too, may argue that with Courts (which are bound to disappear one day, as certainly as they will reappear again) good manners will also go out. Probably they will be, to speak commercially, at a discount for some time. It is doubtful whether a Eepublicau envoy would have attained the stoicism of Count Brunnow. A President on his deathbed would perhaps not apologise so politely as the Merry Monarch. Yet there is an anecdote, true or apocryphal, of a certain “Mr Partington ” and President Lincoln, which combines humour, good humour, and high breeding beyond the reach of a Bourbon or a Hapsburg. Even a cataclysm of anarchism would not really sweep away manners which ” makyth man ” more than superficial observers might suppose. Manners are probably much, older than laws, and begin very low down in the scale of evolution. Dogs have obviously a highly organised though somewhat mysterious etiquette, as any-, body may observe when two strange dogs meet, and exchange civilities, protocols, or declarations of war. The lower the race of humanity, the stricter is etiquette. An Australian wench will, perhaps, die rather than speak to her father-in-law, nor will anything short of torture make a Kaffir woman mention her husband’s name. Court mourning in Tonga was carried to such lengths that no person who had touched the dead King was allowed to carry meat to his mout h with his band for six months. If nobody would feed him, the mourner had to eat out of the plate on all fours, like a dog. There must have been a furious revolution whenever mankind, like Eoland the Just, arose against this etiquette. Yet manners did not expire; they only became modified, as will always be the rule in human experience. Unluckily the ages in which the modifications occur are apt to be periods of extreme social danger and discomfort. It may become the rule to speak in the House of Commons, as in Trafalgar square, with one’s hat on and one’s coat off. But before that there will be " wigs on the green.”