SOCIAL HYPOCRITES.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3125, 22 February 1879, Page 1

SOCIAL HYPOCRITES.

The most notoriously offensive social hypocrite is, to our minds, the man of sham geniality. Concerning even a, real genuine " genial majj' I'it inky be plausibly ururd that he:is often intolerable, us lie is almost always tolerant. He insists on calling pfbplo "good.fellows," " excellent fellows," whom you know by instinct »,o be pestilent creatures, narrow, conceited aDd ehTious: : By a pecn'iarity of vision which must.make.life very enjoyable, the genial man is blind to these things, and no doubt he ip. tlie happier for his blindness. But that docs not make I ins any tjie better companion to people of lower animal spirits people who arc not always in the very pink of mental,moral, and physical condition. On the whole, however people of thoroughly healti.y .minds and bodies seem to be the- majority in this world—a thought which should be a great comfort to the philosopher who takes wide views—because we do fi'id goniiil people decidedly popular. Hence the temptation to be a fauxbonhorhme, which naturally besets men ot a Certain weight and phy* sical confirnjHtiou who arc not naturally genial. A man cun hardly be genial un 'er twelve stone; but it is not desir-

able that all persons who scale and are florid and unctuous should try to be: genial. The result of their efforts is the existence of the most annoying sort of hypocrite* the man who.slaps backs out of malice of aforethought, sits up late and drinks toddy when he would be in bed if he listened to what the inner spirit sings, and who gives an exuberant welcome to people whom he heartily wishes never to see. A great many doctors and a great many lawyers, with a sprinkling of our JDissenting brethren are falsely genial. It would be interesting to know • whether they are aware that they impose on but few persons, while they inspire the rest of, the world with a wild desire to rush on them, to rumple their shirt fronts, tear their broad-cloth, and beat them on the nose. They would be much less unpleasant —if .they were; in fact,- their own disagreeable selves. They are execrable imitations of a type which less than most endures to be imitated. It is agreeable to believe that they are generally mistrusted, that they are always on thepoint olibeing|found out, and that they compensate themselves for the open exercise of a brusque yet oily courtesy and good-will in public by bullying their families at home. ».■:■■■:• ■•'.■'■ ,y "■ ■' •■'■ =■■-•' V; ■ -'• -"

The sham man of the world is^ another most uncomfortable and uneasy social hypocrite. The poor wretch has a little taste, perhaps, and some literary ability ; he took a very fair degree at' college (where he posed as a hunting-man and a player of jioo) ; he is not unsuccessful as a scholar/a professor, a writer, a popular preacher. What he does naturally— namely, his work —he does well enough; what he does detestably is thf thing that is not natural to him—hiat play. The late ingenious Lord JJyron* if we are to believe Leigh Hunt and Mr Trelawny, was the very crown and flower of this class of social hypocrite. His great natural gifts : as a man of the world, his strength, his beauty, his wit,,his. success.with women, . were alloyed and impaired by his even more extraordinary -poetic, powers. The two sides of his nature clashed and made . him miserable, and he always preferred ;■ and'longed for the trivial '• fame of a man ■ like Luttrell. The common man of letters who wishes to seem a man of the world is probably, with his limited power of feelings not mucti happier than Byron. He never caii be .'persuaded that,' if he were not a man of letters.he would be nothing. He is.always craving-for thereputationof the rout or the deer-stalker,oorf r the skekarri, or the athlete, lltis" not his Latin prose (which is not so bad), that he plumes himself on, but his riding, and he rides like a «ack of potatoes. He knows a number of things; -but he will talk about the things he does not know, such as jockey's "■ weights and handicaps. He tries to be the fit companion of young military men; and when he writes he mentions "pedants" and "bookworms" as if he were not himself n member of the brotherhood, He is the pedant of fly-fishing, the prig of cricketing or boating shop. Everyone is a " pedant '■' in) his eyes who writes about distant times, in a. tone, that is not rollicking, and'who• writes correctly where -A«;writes at random. If the contempt of scholars, the amusement of men of the world, and the admiration" of'people ;'who aremeither the one nor-the 1 other,'is a r-desirable^ reward, the( sham mtfn'bf' the world does not lack ; his guerdon^'' He is inosfc 1 offensive, perhaps, wheni being a popular preacher by his trade, lie' haunts billiard-rooms, arid' tries .to win, a reputation* for his knowledge' of risky' strokes. . 3ad_ as are the -ignoramus who affects knowledge and the vulgar man who affects distinction,; the v shamefaced braggart scholar escaped from his cloister into mess-rooms -is even more distasteful. The, refined ..men.., who, pretend to a healthy, blusterous quality are comparatively innocent; .impostors .Nature urging them to speak softly and^td walk delicately, they mast needs strut and shout for fe^r of being effeminate. They hold ■ vague opinions, arid vaguely 'believe in their casual creeds; but to hear...them .talk or- to read their writings,.you would suppose them all to be Cromwells- or Eiioxes.- Mr Carlyle has much to answer for, in.regard to this class of humbugs,. They are always saying that " the ratepayers will hate Lord Lytton's head/ or whatever may be the head in question",; and giving the world to tinderstand that .they,are on the side of the bloodthirsty 'ratepayer. TJney long for .rebellions in> distant colonies; that they may preach,'the virtues of flogging, of tar-caps, and of military executions. To tell the truth, they could not endure the sight of blood, arid their hearts are as tender and womanish (if women's hearts are tender) as their theological opinions are casual and undetermined. Yet/when they treat of the past of theology, or the present restoration of St. Albans, they speak as if they were convinced Calviiiists :'.' hard-shell" Puritans, as if the stool of Jenny Geddes lay over ready to be. thrown at the. first representative of •' black prelacy " .who comes within shot. These decided persons have a feminine . admiration of brute force. Some of them . adore Cromwell, and others Eobespierre, while the charms of that conqueror, Henry :VIIL, still prevail over the lady like minds of others. The result •■ is to be found in the insincere noise of much modern rhetoric which is poured from a dozen very various pulpits. The fires of Smithfield would be nothing to the conflagrations of to-day, if all the pseudo strong minded writers had a period of power,-and did not run away and hide when their chance came. ' The distrust of self; a fine and engaging diffidence, seems to be the motive of most social hypocrites. The sham genial man and the sbam man of the world no donbt hope to gain something, some commercial or social reward, by their travesty.* The others whom we have described find a dubious recompense in the power of occasionally : believing that they really are what they : try to seem—bluff, brutal, overbearing, roughly simple, destitute of distinction, and hopelessly commonplace. The prize, after all, is nearly as valuable as most of those which an approving and self-satisfied conscience can confer.— Saturday Eeview.