Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1858-06-24
A Few Words on Social Philosophy.
[From Blackwood's Magazine

A Few Words on Social Philosophy
From Backwood's Magazine
sometimes am tempted to wish / cou
reverse the process of the sleepers o
Ephesus, and sleep generation or two bacl
in the world. Some great geniuses are
said to have been born in advance of thei
age. Fer my own part, being the reverse
of genius, suppose, | think must have
come in the world too late at least by a life
time. | miss the social life which / wei
remember even in the days of my boyhood
People are getting too grand, or too refined
or too spirituel (they like French word) tc
enjoy themselves. Some allowance l all
willing to make for natural reaction. Sick
and disgusted, and very reasonably, at the
coarse animal bent of our forefather's pleas
ures, and the excesses into which theil
social tempers and love of hospitality toe
often carried them, their descendants have
made rush into the opposite extreme.
have no desire to bring back the days when
men staggered into drawing rooms under
their two bottles of wine. No rational be-
ing calls that enjoyment. Whist is not the
serious business life, as some of our grand
fathers and grandmothers seem to have sup
posed it, and there was a mixture of what
was evil as we'll as what was good in the
I'-glasses round" which even fair lips were
not even ashamed to taste after late sup
per.
But there is no possible form of social
life for Engl ishmen intermediate between
:he registering boon companionship of a
Squire Western and the miserable, un-
healthy, stuck up form of intercourse Zone
has to invent epithets for it out of indigna-
tion, or borrow them from slang, SO natur-
ally un English is iD which has of late
sprung up amongst our middle classes?-nig-
gardly at once and expensive, encouraging,
instead of kindly feeling and good neigh
oorship. a petty pride, and rivalry and az
| fection, catching at the shadow of cold
| dignity and refinement, which they imagine
to be the characteristics of superior station
instead of enjoying, heartily and thankfully,
the wealth of social blessings which lie
| around them in their own. The state of
isolation in which a man of moderate means
in country neighborhoods lives and moves
from year to year is notorious; it would be
pitiable if it were not SO often his own fault
By men of moderate means | mean chiefly
the village rector and the small landed pro-
prietor, This latter class, indeed, tor the
same social reasons, has for some time been
fast diminishing. AS to the professional
man." as we call him, who has every right
to take his place among them, it is one
symptom of an unhealthy tone in English
society that his position of late years has
VIGOROUSLY sunk. With some few excep-
tions made in favor Of the man, and not OF
the profession, he is no longer met at the
kind of table at which he was welcome fifty
years ago. The lawyer who knows all our
family secrets, in whose honor, though we
place a confidence which we seldom find
abused; the surgeon, to whose care and
skill we trust our lives. Our health, Our
family hopes, and, may almost say, the
honor of our wives and ghters-these
men we do all we can to force down into a
class of society whose habits, whose tastes
and, therefore, we have a right to sup
pose, whose princip ples--are lower than our
own. We complain of these men not be-
ing gentlemen, and we Go all in our power
10 prevent them having one OF the most
essential qualifications, the believing them
selves to be so. So the rector dwells in his
little world, and finds his excitement and
amusement (or excitement and amusement,
lay it down as rule, every heal thy mind
must have) in war with his disseH tsrs, or
still better with his neighbor and revered
brother; or in church politics, narrowing
his mind by The constant reading of politicu-
relig gious church newspapers, high or low,
instead of enlarging it by the study of the
wide, open book Of human kind; and run
nj ng up occasionally if the railway station
be handy, to his university or to town like
a miner for breath OF upper air. And the
squire of limited acres and expanding tamil
ly dwells in his little world also, or most
probably does not dwell there, but unable to
afford his house in town for the season, like
his neighbor, the M. p, or to surround him.
self. when a, home in the country, like him
with housetul of pleasant people-unless
he be mad enough to ruin himself in the at
temp.-he betakes himself, with his pretty
daughters, TO the Continent in search OF
cheap living, cheap eduction, and perhaps
above all, cheap society. And the lawyer
ard the doctor, being of companionable
disposition, try, perhaps, to form little
world of their own, sort OF a double
hemisphere, and meet and chat over their
bottle of por: or their brandy and water,
md discuss the tightness of the squire's
exchequer, or the pattern of humanity and
Christian sympathy which is get before
them by their reCior's .ady, not much to the
improvement OF their minds, or progress in
their duty towards their neighbor; the law
yer, perhaps, with a mental anticipation of
the time to come, when few years hence,
if my lords agency turns out as well as he
hopes, he, 200, shall become an independent
gentleman, possibly take lease OF the
squirc's place, or buys it advantageuusly-I
for it is very likely TO be in the market by
that tme-doubting whether he shall find
it in his heart to do the right thing, and cut
his friend Bolus; but determining. at all
events, to show the rector that he's as good
as he is and lancyin that he is to be a
happier man when he has high wall and
pair Of double gutes to shut him out from
the sight o! his neighbors, and one or two
gentlemen in plush to stand ard watch him
eat his dinner.
In short the hearty, reniul old English