DIFFICTJLTIES OF THE SOCIAL NONCONFORMIST. Ill 



be put down to ignorance, to ill-breeding, or to poverty, 

 he becomes a coward. However clearly the recent innova- 

 tion of eating some kinds of fish with knife and fork proves 

 the fork-and-bread practice to have had little but caprice 

 for its basis, yet he dares not wholly ignore that practice 

 while fashion partially maintains it. Though he thinks 

 that a silk handkerchief is quite as appropriate for drawling- 

 room use as a white cambric one, he is not altogether at 

 ease in acting out his opinion. Then, too, he begins to 

 perceive that his resistance to prescription brings round 

 disadvantageous results which he had not calculated upon. 

 lie had expected that it would save him from a great deal 

 of social intercourse of a frivolous kind — that it would 

 ojffend the fools, but not the sensible people ; and so would 

 serve as a self-acting test by which thpse worth knowing 

 would be separated from those not worth knowing. But 

 the fools prove to be so greatly in the majority that, by 

 offending them, he closes against himself nearly all the 

 avenues though which the sensible people are to be 

 reached. Thus he finds, that his nonconformity is fre- 

 quently misinterpreted ; that there are but few directions 

 in which he dares to carry it consistently out ; that the 

 annoyances and disadvantages which it brings upon him 

 are greater than he anticipated ; and that the chances of 

 his doing any good are very remote. Hence he gradually 

 loses resolution, and lapses, step by step, into the ordinary 

 routine of observances. 



Abortive as individual protests thus generally turn out, 

 It may possibly be that nothing effectual will be done until 

 there arises some organized resistance to this invisible 

 despotism, by which our modes and habits are dictated. 

 It may happen, that the government of Manners and Fash- 

 ion will be rendered less tyrannical, as the political and 

 religious governments have been, by some antagonistic 

 union. AHke in Church and State, men's first emancipa. 



