The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-10-13
HONOR.

HONOR.
From the Saturday Review.
There are few moral codes which are at the
same time so rigid in some respects, and so
elastic in others, as the code OF honor. No
body could give very clear account of what
it contains, yet every one is ready to allow
that whetever it says is of supreme and para
mount authority. A New Zealander sud
denly introduced to civilized society would
perhaps find it as difficult to understand the
capriciousness OF honor as to comprehend the
varieties of pronunciation in the English Ian
guage. One day it seems 10 say one thing, and
another day it speaks in a totally different
tone. Occasionally it shrinks from the very
appearance Of evil, with all the fine delicacy
of a sensitive plant. Every now and then
it appears to be as rough and tough and in
sensible as the oak itself. 1t is not merely
that honor fails continually to draw the line
just where it should be drawn, or that
fine casuists are able to detect its incon-
sistencies. There is a much graver difficulty
than this about the case. Frequently it hap
pens that honor turns out to be blind and deaf
altogether in one direction, while it remains
scrupulous and superstitious in another. 1t
never goes about apparently without one wall
eye, and it is a chance and accident on which
side of the road the wall-eye may be fixed. If
one had been considering the matter priori,
one would have imagined that guide so fanci-
full and so fitful must be useless to help men to
discern good from evil. Yet, when we come
down to the region ofeXperience, we soon dis
cover that there is no moral code which inhu-
ences the conduct of human beings more uni
versally. Dishonorabe actions are quite as
pleetiful, no doubt, as blackberries upon
hedge. Men are not, as a rule, any more
strictly honorable than they are moral or
religious; but there is this distinction that
men are immoral or irreligious without re-
morse, while no one flies in honor's face with
out feeling ashamed and degraded by what
he has done. "Falstaff' is commonly considered
to be singular exception to the rest of his
species, in that he unblushingly reduces dis
honor to a system, and processes to glory in
what even bad men would acknowledge to be
shame. But he only manages to defend dis
honor against the common instructive feelings
which condemn it, by making use of verbal
fallacy. He confuses, in his notorious sollo-
guy, between honor and reputation; and
then tauntingly asks whether honor can set
leg, and whether it is any use to him that
died yesterday. But reputation is one thing,
and honor is another. People care for the
latter who do not value the former in the
least. Many cynic or a skeptic who
regards present or posthumous fame as an
idle breath, obeys rigidly, in his private lite,
those maxims which are peculiarly supposed
tleman. 1t is true that honor cannot perform
a surgical operation, but it is equally true
that no one can live in comfort or peace with
his fellows who openly acknowledged no allie
glance to honorable IDEAS There is no honor
among thieves; and If "Falstaff" had not mixed
up the distinct conceptions of fame and of
honor for the sake of brilliant paradox,
honor would have boon ropudlatod oren by
''Falstaf." 1t is, accordingly, the more note
worthy that rule OF life which is universally
accepted should appear to be monstrously
caprIcious and incoherent in its DEGREES.
This incoherency must be patent to any
one who watches the actions of men and
women upon any ythng like an extended scale.
There is mans honor, and there is a woman's
honor, but they scarcely seem to have any
thing to do with one another. And both are
oracles that give forth an uncertain SOUND.
The morality OF the Persians in the time OF
CYRUS admitted of being reduced to simple
pTecept Young gentlemen once upon time
were taught to ride, to avoid debts, and 10
sneak the truth. An English gentleman's
education is not so consistent or so precise.
He need not pay his debts, unless, indeed,
his debtor possesses no other security than
bare promise, in which case honor comes to
the rescue of the debtor, and insists upon
prompt and punctual payment. Financial
obligations which have anything to do
with horses, above all other debts. are
sacred. 1t is, again, established as an import
ant principle, that the truth should be told as
between man and man, but no gentleman Of
tashion-in other days at least-eXpected to
be tied down tightly to the truth in his inter-
| course with the fairer sex. He pursued a
bonnie fortune by stIategem and by deceit
and il was not only Jove who laughed-as
| Shakespeare says-at lovers periuries, for an
experienced lover laughed at them himself
If we turn from love to battle, a similar phe-
nomenon meets us. Sometimes it is discre-
ditable to be afraid, but not always, A cow
ard cannot show his face again in society il
he turns his back to a cannon-ball OF to a
bayonet thrust; but hero may run away
from the cholera or from mad dog A gen
tleman is supposed to be obliged never or
any occasion to exhibit tear OF a gentleman
who is his equal; but a gentleman who
pulls off door-knockers at night, wheI
he has nobly dined, may take to his
heels, it is believed, before the police.
Hospitality. again, is virtue both ac'
knowledged and practised upon princi
ple, Yet the roue who would shTinl
from refusing visitor a glass of wine under
his root feels little hesitation about dining
with credulous host one day, and seducing
his wife upon the next, provided he shows
himself ready and willing to face the injured
Menelaus in mortal combat the day after
And finally, to take conspicuous example
there are q thousand acts OF meannes
which are habitually done, which NJ
one would tamely endure to be reproache(
with. Casual speculation in the fund
NAV thus be tolerated by an easy con.
science, but only base and poor soul would