Now there is a great deal of indulgence to be granted to these loquacious7 pessimists9, who are full of a faded sort of spice and are seldom dull. Indeed, they should be more indulgent to themselves, and oftener remember that it is but reasonable that they should have lost the elasticity10 of youth, and the powers of enjoyment11 that no doubt were once theirs, the failure of which leads them to contrast so sadly (and peevishly) the days that are with the days that are no more. But they in their time caused a great deal of head-shaking and uplifting of horror-stricken hands on the part of their elders, and, remembering how little notice they ever took of those antique mutterings, they would be kinder to themselves and to others if they put their ink-bottles away, and looked on at the abandoned revellers who take no great notice of them as comfortably as possible, instead of sitting up to all hours of the night composing liverish reflections about the wickedness of the young men and women of the day. It is a waste of good vitriol to throw it about like that, and it is really wiser to wipe the{219} hot ink from the pen before and not after writing, as one of our most industrious13 social castigators did not so long ago, ‘There is not an ounce of manliness14 in the country.’ For contradiction of so Bedlamitish a sentiment the myriad15 graves in France and Flanders bear a testimony16 that is the more eloquent17 for its being unspoken.
The truth is that every age finds a great deal to condemn18 in the manners and customs that differentiate19 the rising generation from its own. But that does not prove that the elders are right: if it proves anything it proves that they are too old to take in new ideas, and so had better confine their remarks to the old ones, on which they are possibly competent to speak. For in their view, if we take the collective wisdom of the moralists of Mayfair, the country is not now for the first time going to the dogs, but has always been going to the dogs. It has never done anything else, and yet it has not quite arrived at the dogs yet. But the cats appear to have got it.
There has always been, since man became a gregarious20 animal, a vague affair called Society. Nobody knows precisely21 what it is except that when the gregariousness22 of man attained23 sufficient dimensions it happened, and the older generation disapproved24 of it. The more elderly specimens{220} of cave-men without a shadow of doubt deplored25 the manner in which the younger gnawed26 their mutton-bones, and regretted the days when all well-regulated cave-boys and cave-girls always wiped their greasy27 fingers not on their new woad as they now do, but on their hair. Society used to be society then, and only the well-mannered could get into it. And it is in precisely the same tone that the modern moralists croon or croak28 their laments29 beside the waters of the modern Babylon. The present praisers of past time bewail with an acidity30 that betokens31 suppressed gout that their nephews and nieces have lost all decency32 in speech, and actually make public the fact that one or other of them has had appendicitis33. And Uncle cannot bear it! Have appendicitis if you must, but for the sake of Society pretend that it was a sore throat unusually low down. At all costs Uncle’s Victorian sensibilities must be spared, or he will go straight home and embark34 on Chapter IX. of his Recollections, called the ‘Moral Depravity of Modern Society.’ But is it too late for him to remember how once the Queen of Spain caught fire, and was badly burned because nobody could allude35 to the awful fact that she had l-gs? The elderly ladies-in-waiting would have died rather than have done so, and there{221}fore the Royal L-gs were much injured by the flame. But perhaps Uncle would like that.... Or again our truculent36 admonishers remind us that Society was once a very small and esoteric body. Nobody but the de Veres really counted, just as if the de Veres prehistorically37 came down from heaven with the Ark of Society in their possession and thereupon started it. But nobody really started it; the de Veres did not as a matter of fact say, ‘Let there be Society,’ and there was Society. Once the de Veres themselves were parvenus38: when they began to enter the charmed circle they too were accounted nobodies, and the ante-de Veres wondered who Those People were. It was but gradually that the mists of antiquity39 clothed their august forms, until, as from the cloud on Sinai, they looked down on the post-de Veres, and mumbled40 together at the degeneration of that which had once been so select and is now so Verabund.
The great central Aunt Sally at which the memorio-maniacs hurl41 their darts42 most viciously is a thing they call Smart Society, or the Smart Set. For generations they have done so, and the poor Aunt Sally ought to have been battered43 to bits long ago, for they throw their missiles straight at her face from point-blank range. Only,{222} by some process not rightly understood by her assailants, she appears perfectly44 impervious45 to their attack and proceeds on her godless way as brightly as ever. She is also, as we shall see, largely an invention of those who so strenuously46 denounce her. What started the loquacious pessimist8 perhaps was that he found there were a good many nephews and nieces who enjoyed themselves very tolerably, and began to find him and his tedious stories about what the best people did in the age of Henry II. or Charles I. or William IV. (according to the epoch which he remembers best) rather tiresome47, and did not listen to him with due attention. That may or may not have set him going, but the fact that there exists in London a quantity of rich people who like to entertain their friends (among whom the loquacious pessimist would scorn to number himself) fills him with ungovernable fury, and with a pen that blisters48 the paper, he describes how they spend their Sunday.
Breakfast, if we may believe him, goes on from ten till twelve, lunch (a substantial dinner) is prolonged with liqueurs and cigars till close on tea-time, when sandwiches and even ‘bleeding woodcocks’ are provided. Dinner is not till nine, and so late an hour finds everybody hungry again.{223} Then, forgetting that he has told us that eating goes on the whole day, he informs us in another attack on poor Aunt Sally that these same people spend Sunday in riding and driving and going out to tea ten miles away, and careering about on a ‘troop’ of bicycles. Yet again, forgetting that here his text is the sinful extravagance of the present day, he informs us how stately were the good old times, when a rich man kept as many servants as he could afford and ‘sailed along’ in a coach and four, instead of going (as he does in these shambling, undignified days) in the twopenny tube.... After all, the economy effected by using the twopenny tube instead of the coach and four would enable you to buy an occasional ‘bleeding woodcock’ for your friends, and yet not be so extravagant49 as your good, stately, simple old grandfather. Or, when they speak of modern shooting-parties these chroniclers allude to the mounds50 of ‘crushed pheasants’ that are subsequently sent to be sold at the poulterer’s, and speak of the hand-reared birds that almost perch52 on the barrels of their murderers. It would be interesting to place one of these moralists at a modern pheasant-shoot, when the birds rocket above the tree-tops, and see how large a mound51 of crushed pheasants he mowed53 down, and how{224} many hand-reared birds came and sat on his gun before he slaughtered54 them. Such descriptions as these are rank nonsense, the work of outsiders who, while betraying a desolate55 ignorance of what they are talking about, betray also, in ignorance, an unamiable desire to scold somebody.
Now every one has his own notion of what Society (with a big S) is, and most people mean different things. Guileless snobs56 read the small paragraphs in the paper, and think they are learning about it. Others walk in the Park and are sure they see it: the suburbs think that it is the sort of circle in which their pet actor habitually57 moves: South Kensington thinks it is in Park Lane, or the private view of the Academy, or at a garden-party. In point of fact it is, if anywhere, everywhere, and the only thing that can certainly be stated about it is that those who think about it at all, think that it is just a little way ahead, and thus declare themselves to be snobs or ineffectual climbers. But those who really make Society are not those who think about it, but Are it, just because they live the life in which their birth and their circumstances have placed them, with simplicity58 of mind and enjoyment. Society does not live in a spasm59 of social{225} efforts, it lives perfectly naturally and without self-consciousness. It is impossible to make anything of your environment if you are always wishing to be somewhere else, and you will make nothing of any environment at all, unless you are at ease there. Indeed the big S of Society is really the invention of the snobbish60 folk who are not friends with their surroundings, and that in part, at any rate, is why the loquacious pessimist is so unrelenting towards it.
Society, then, and in special Smart Society, as it exists in the minds of the praisers of past time and of snobs, is a perennial61 phantom62, which is the chief reason why none of them can be forced or can succeed in getting into it. As they conceive of it, it is no more than a Will o’ the Wisp, which, if they pursue it, merely leads them on through miry ways to find themselves in the end pursuing nothing at all, and hopelessly bogged64 in the marshes65 of their own imagination. That society exists all the world over is, luckily, perfectly true, but this peculiar66 and odious67 conception of it is the invention of those who want to get into it and of those who fulminate against it. Indeed it is almost allowable to wonder whether these two classes are not really one, for it is impossible to acquit68 some of its bitterest{226} enemies of a certain hint of envy in their outpourings, a grain of curiosity in their commination services.
The pity of it is that they will not rest from these strivings, or realize that what they pursue (either with longings70 or vituperation) exists only in their own excited brains. Each has his feverish71 dream: one pictures a heavenly Salem of dukes and duchesses, another a swimming bath full of champagne72 and paved with ortolans, another an Elysium where infinite bridge consumes the night, and continual changing of your dress the day. These conditions have no existence; they are Wills o’ the Wisp. There does not exist in the world a Smarter Set (to retain the beloved old snobbism) than a circle of friends who, with definite aims of their own, and tastes that are not copied from other people, enjoy themselves and are at ease with each other, not being snobs on the one hand or grousers on the other. All other ideas of Smart Sets, whether in London or Manchester or the Fiji Islands, are mere63 moonshine: the only Smart Set that ever existed or ever will exist is that of uncensorious and simple people who have the sense to appreciate the blessings73 they so richly enjoy. Of these Smart Sets there are many, but they are not the Smart Sets{227} or the capital-lettered Society that are usually meant when allusion74 is made to them.
But somehow the notion of the existence of ‘A Smart Set’ or Society with a big S is so deep-rooted that it will be well to examine the evidence for its existence before labelling it ‘Bad Meat,’ to be destroyed by the Board of Moral Health. The evidence in favour of its existence (if they insist on it) is derivable75 from three possible sources:
(i.) First-hand evidence of those who have witnessed or partaken in these ungodly orgies.
(ii.) Report.
(iii.) Reporters.
Now the purveyors of the intelligence, those who distribute it, are largely the praisers of past time, who so persistently76 attack it and paint such lurid77 pictures of its Neronism. But they must have got their information from somewhere (unless we are reluctantly compelled to suppose they made it up) and they can have got it from no other sources than those specified78 above.
But on their own fervent79 asseverations they have never so much as set foot in these Medmenham Abbeys, and if their information is derived81 directly from the Abbeys, it must have been conveyed either by the revellers themselves, by their{228} valets and ladies’ maids, or have grown out of the Tranby Croft trial. It is unlikely that the revellers should have recounted the story of their shame to those sleuth-hounds on the trail of decadence82, and if we rule out the Tranby Croft trial as not covering all that the sleuth-hounds say about Smart Life, we must conclude that they must have induced (no doubt with suitable remuneration) the gentleman’s gentleman and the lady’s lady to say what their owners did and when they went to bed. But not for a moment can we believe that these distinguished scribes resorted to such a trick. The statement of the proposition shows how incredible it is, for these high-minded moralists simply could not have applied83 for the knowledge of ‘sich goings on’ from chattering84 servants.
First-hand evidence, then, being ruled out, the purveyors may have derived their information from report. Here the baffled aspirants85 to the social distinction of being Smart may have helped them. But still such knowledge if worth anything must be based on something, and if on report it is merely the more valueless for having gone through so many mouths.
We are left then with the question of evidence derived from reporters, and here I think we{229} touch the source of the appalling86 state of things pictured by the loquacious pessimist. The delightful87 anonymous88 author of the Londoner’s Log-book, has grouped the organs of those who chronicle social happenings under the title of Classy Cuttings, and it is from these columns that we must conclude that the praisers of past time derive80 their awful information. It is they who give to the thirsty public the details of the menu of the supper that followed the dance, and hint how great were the losings of a certain Countess who lives not a hundred miles from B-lgr-v-Sq-r-, when she played poker89 at St-l-n-. But, does that sort of information carry the required conviction? Indeed it only carries conviction of the lamb-like credulity of the person who believes it. Once upon a time an eminent90 and excellent lady revealed to a horrified91 audience that the Smart Set habitually drank what she called ‘White Cup’ at tea (sensation). It sounded thoroughly92 Neronian, but lost its impressiveness when the further revelation was made that at a tennis-party certain individuals had been so lost to all sense of decency as to partake of hock and soda93 instead of tea and cream.
It is on such foundations, columned by Classy{230} Cuttings, that the praisers of past time build the Old Bailey, where, bewigged and berobed, they so solemnly pronounce the extreme sentence on Smart Sets and Society. We must not deny to their summing-up something of the gorgeously Oriental vocabulary of Ouida, though we cannot allow them much share in her wit. She told in the guise94 of fiction the sort of thing which the praisers of past time—after consulting Classy Cuttings—expect us to accept as facts; she and Classy Cuttings mixed the effervescent beverage95 which they allow to get flat, and then label it the beef-tea of Fact. And when we are offered these fantastic imaginings and are assured that the lurid pictures are positively96 photographic in their accuracy, all our pleasure, as readers, is gone, and we expire with a few hollow yawns. We had hoped it was Ouida, but to our unspeakable dismay we are told that it is all Too True. Not being able to swallow that, we can but remember the story of Dr. Johnson and the hot potato.
Tempora mutantur, and unless we change with them we shall never grasp the true values of the marching years. Society (with a final curse on the large S) changes, and the changes represent on the whole the opinion of people who are on the right lines. The praisers of past time have{231} cried ‘Wolf’ too often with regard to the decadence they invariably detect in the present time, and until we are more certain that at last the wolf is really there, it is wiser to push along, than to trust in the denunciations of those who, firmly immured97 in the sedan-chairs of sixty years ago, squint98 through the chinks of their lowered blinds (lowered, lest they behold99 vanity) at the crowd they do not know, and the bustle100 that they altogether fail to understand. In their day they kicked up their heels much higher than their grandmammas approved. They disregarded the denunciations of their elders then, and they must not be surprised if the younger generation, whose antics their creaking joints101 and croaking102 minds are unable to imitate, think of them as antique and peevish12 progenitors103 now. The arts of fifty years ago are doubtless theirs, all except the art of gracefully104 retiring. Instead, the more accomplished105 of them, since their loquacity106 no longer can hold an audience, proceed to volumes of uncomprehending memoirs. As long as they stick to the past, their recollections often possess an old-world fragrance107 as of lavender-bags shut in disused Victorian wardrobes, but when they come to the present the lavender-scent fades, and they reek108 of brimstone and burning. A grandmamma,{232} talking of past days, is a delightful and adorable member of any circle, but when she laments the dangerous speed at which trains go nowadays, every one younger than she feels she does not quite understand. And if, getting her information from fiction (as the praisers of past days do from the columns of Classy Cuttings), she tells us that motors habitually run over a hundred thousand people a day in the streets of London, the younger folk, with the kindness characteristic of youth, merely shout in her ear-trumpet, ‘Yes, Grandma, isn’t it awful?’ and wonder when her maid will fetch her to go to bed.
It is on Grandma’s data that the praisers of past time form their notions of society. She prides herself on never having been in one of those horrible automobiles109: the praisers pride themselves on never having set foot within the doors of these unspeakable temples. Apparently110 it is for this reason that they can tell us with precision what happens there, except when they forget what they have previously111 written, and flatly contradict themselves. Like the Fat Boy, the loquacious pessimist wants to make our flesh creep, and sepulchrally112 announces that he saw Miss Wardle and Mr. Tupman ‘a-kissing and a-hugging.’ But unlike the Fat Boy, who really{233} saw it, the pessimist has only ‘heard tell of it’ in Classy Cuttings, and with Wardle we should exclaim, ‘Pooh, he must have been dreaming.’ So he was, all alone one night when nobody had asked him out to dinner, and falling into a reverie proceeded to contrast the Sancta Simplicitas of the days when everybody sailed along in a coach and four with those extravagant times when he has to pay for his own mutton-chop, and rich folk save their money to go in the twopenny tube. This sounded a little illogical, but it would do, and refreshing113 himself with another drink of Classy Cuttings, he lashed114 out at the poker-party at St-l-n-, by way of punishing those who were not his hosts on that terrible occasion. Of course he would not have gone in any case, since he has never and will never set foot in those restaurants (not homes) of vice69 and extravagance. One cannot help wondering whether, if he condescended115 to go there, he would not feel a little kinder after ortolans and a bleeding woodcock for tea, and with greater indulgence to the degeneration he deplores116, write a few pages about Progress instead of Decadence. But who knows? The ortolans might disagree with him, and he would become unkinder than ever.
Possibly all is for the best.
The End
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1
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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delve
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| v.深入探究，钻研 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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loquacious
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| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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pessimist
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| n.悲观者；悲观主义者；厌世 | |
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pessimists
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| n.悲观主义者( pessimist的名词复数 ) | |
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elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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peevish
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| adj.易怒的，坏脾气的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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manliness
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| 刚毅 | |
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myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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differentiate
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| vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同 | |
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gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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gregariousness
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| 集群性；簇聚性 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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disapproved
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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deplored
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gnawed
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| 咬( gnaw的过去式和过去分词 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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laments
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| n.悲恸，哀歌，挽歌( lament的名词复数 )v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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acidity
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| n.酸度，酸性 | |
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betokens
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| v.预示，表示( betoken的第三人称单数 ) | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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appendicitis
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| n.阑尾炎，盲肠炎 | |
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embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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prehistorically
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| adj.史前的 | |
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parvenus
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| n.暴富者( parvenu的名词复数 )；暴发户；新贵；傲慢自负的人 | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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darts
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| n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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impervious
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| adj.不能渗透的，不能穿过的，不易伤害的 | |
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strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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blisters
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| n.水疱( blister的名词复数 )；水肿；气泡 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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50
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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52
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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53
mowed
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| v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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snobs
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| （谄上傲下的）势利小人( snob的名词复数 )； 自高自大者，自命不凡者 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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snobbish
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| adj.势利的，谄上欺下的 | |
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perennial
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| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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bogged
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| adj.陷于泥沼的v.（使）陷入泥沼， （使）陷入困境( bog的过去式和过去分词 )；妨碍，阻碍 | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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acquit
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| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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derivable
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| adj.可引出的，可推论的，可诱导的 | |
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persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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aspirants
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| n.有志向或渴望获得…的人( aspirant的名词复数 )v.渴望的，有抱负的，追求名誉或地位的( aspirant的第三人称单数 )；有志向或渴望获得…的人 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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beverage
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| n.(水，酒等之外的)饮料 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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immured
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| v.禁闭，监禁( immure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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squint
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| v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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croaking
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的现在分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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progenitors
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| n.祖先( progenitor的名词复数 )；先驱；前辈；原本 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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loquacity
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| n.多话，饶舌 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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sepulchrally
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| 坟墓的； 丧葬的； 阴森森的； 阴沉的 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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deplores
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的第三人称单数 ) | |
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