A DEFENCE OF CLUB LIFE

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1429, 15 February 1888, Page 6

A DEFENCE OF CLUB LIFE

Time, and even money may be wasted at the clubs ; but the general tone of their manners is unimpeachable, and on the whole their influences have been all for good. No lively young law student need be driven to choose now between a lonely evening in bis dreary chambers aud the spirits and tobacco of the tavern. The lawyer in busy practice is no longer condemned to seek solitary relaxation over his bottles of port. Man meets man, mind clashes with mind, and sparks of brilliant intelligence are set flying, as from the sharp contact of flint striking upon steel. No doubt there is dullness enough in the clubs, with the infinite trivialities of unmeaning chatter ; while perverse spirits bent on going to mischief, will be held back by no conceivable restraints. But the clubs keep many a man from harm, and should be more favourably regarded by the ladies than they are ; at least, they cultivate the hypocrisies of superficial self-respect, and they warm up the interest in public affairs which goes far towards making a man a useful citizen. Moreover, thf\t life of the clubs has been reacting on London dinner-tables. The bores satirised by Thackeray are still unhappiiy with us ; but we are glad to think that the breed becomes rarer, and we have some faint hopes that it may ultimately be exterminated. Club smokingrooms are conversational, sullen, or meditative ; they cultivate sententious intercourse by ejaculation, and discourage wearisome twaddle. The man must be clad in something thicker than hippopotamus-hide who can stand on the rug like Jawkins and silence all other voices. There are natures which are comparatively insensible to snubbing ; but each club member, as a rule, is brought to his bearings. These unwritten laws of social equality have been stretched even further at fashionable or intellectual dinner tables. Crisp talk is everything ; and -every man with anything in him hopes to be heard in his turn. Coleridge's interminable disquisitions, with all the fire of their philosophical eloquence, would never be tolerated ; and we suspect that even Macaulay would have been scratched from the dinner lists of many of his admirers unless his brilliant flashes of science had become more frequent. — Half a Century, by Alex. Innes Shand.