d8 MANNKRS AKD FASHION- 



forgetting that the toleration of abuses seems amiable 

 merely from its passivity ; the mass of men contract a bias 

 against advanced vieAvs, and in favour of stationary ones, 

 from intercourse with their respective adherents. " Con- 

 servatism," as Emerson says, " is debonnair and social ; 

 reform is individual and imj^erious." And this remains 

 true, however vicious the system conserved, however 

 righteous the reform to be effected. Nay, the indigna- 

 tion of the purists is usually extreme in proportion as 

 the evils to be got rid of are great. The more urgent 

 the required change, the more intemperate is the vehe- 

 mence of its promoters. Let no one, then, confound with 

 the principles of this social nonconformity the acerbity 

 and the disagreeable self-assertion of those who first dis- 

 play it. 



The most plausible objection raised against resistance 

 to conventions, is grounded on its impolicy, considered 

 even from the progressist's point of view. It is urged by 

 many of the more liberal and intelligent — usually those 

 who have themselves shown some independence of be- 

 haviour in earlier days — that to rebel in these small 

 matters is to destroy your ot\ti power of helping on 

 reform in greater matters. " If you show yourself eccen- 

 tric in manners or dress, the world," they say, " will not 

 listen to you. You will be considered as crotchety, and 

 impracticable. The opinions you express on important 

 subjects, which might have been treated with respect had 

 you conformed on minor points, will now inevitably be 

 put down among your singularities ; and thus, by dissent- 

 ing in trifles, you disable yourself from spreading dissent 

 in essentials." 



Only noting, as we pass, that this is one of those antici- 

 pations which bring about their own fulfilment — that it is 

 because most who disapprove these conventions do not show 



