52 ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNER. 



already another reaction has begun, not backwards to the 

 old system, but towards fitness either from natural aptitude 

 or special training. But will it always be safe to let ev^s 

 work their own cure by becoming unendurable ? Every one 

 of them leaves its taint in the constitution of the body- 

 politic, each in itself, perhaps, trifling, yet altogether powerful 

 for evil. 



But whatever we might do or leave undone, we were not 

 genteel, and it was uncomfortable to be continually reminded 

 that, though we should boast that we were the Great West 

 till we were black in the face, it did not bring us an inch 

 nearer to the world s West-End. That sacred enclosure of 

 respectability was tabooed to us. The Holy Alliance did not 

 inscribe us on its visiting-list. The Old World of wigs and 

 orders and liveries would shop with us, but we must ring at 

 the area-bell, and not venture to awaken the more august 

 clamours of the knocker. Our manners, it must be granted, 

 had none of those graces that stamp the caste of Vere de 

 Vere, in whatever museum of British antiquities they may be 

 hidden. In short, we were vulgar. 



This was one of those horribly vague accusations, the 

 victim of which has no defence. An umbrella is of no avail 

 against a Scotch mist. It envelops you, it penetrates at 

 every pore, it wets you through without seeming to wet you 

 at all. Vulgarity is an eighth deadly sin, added to the list in 

 these latter days, and worse than all the others put together, 

 since it perils your salvation in this world, far the more im 

 portant of the two in the minds of most men. It profits 

 nothing to draw nice distinctions between essential and con 

 ventional, for the convention in this case is the essence, and 

 you may break every command of the decalogue with perfect 

 good-breeding, nay, if you are adroit, without losing caste. 

 We, indeed, had it not to lose, for we had never gained it. 

 How am I vulgar ? asks the culprit, shudderingly. Because 

 thou art not like unto Us, answers Lucifer, Son of the 

 Morning, and there is no more to be said. The god of this 

 world may be a fallen angel, but he has us there ! We were 

 as clean, so far as my observation goes, I think we were 

 cleaner, morally and physically, than the English, and there 

 fore, of course, than everybody else. But we did not pro 

 nounce the diphthong ou as they did, and we said eethcr and 

 not cyther, following therein the fashion of our ancestors, who 



