The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-12
Hair.ShirtS.


thought IL a particularly virtuous thing to in
fict grstuitous modification upon the flesh
aud all feshly desires. Anybody who should
nowadays pass his time on the top
of column, or who should be known
always to wear a shirt Of horse-har
next his skin and to endure the consequent
flthness would be thought something worse
than fool for his pains, and would soon be
able to count his acquaintance on the fingers
of a single hand. But though the hair-shirt
and its unpleasant parasites have fallen out of
fashion, the feeling of which that vexatious
garment was an uncomely expression is not
by any means extinguished, perhaps never
will be. 1t still seems to be thought by
great many persons to put oneself to discom-
fort and inconvenience is in itself very fine
thing, quite irrespectively of any further pur-
pose or advantage to be secured. And in one
point the modern wearer of the hair-shirt is
distinctly a worse nuisance than his old
counterpart for the secret of the latter was
commonly not found out until he was dead,
when the dressers of the corpse revealed to
mankind how virtuous spirit had departed
and how mortified shell had been left behind.
The modern ascetic insists on disclosing his
secret every day. To every friend he lays
down the duty of Standardization, and points
his moral most effectively by his own hsro.
ism. The ascetic of old was at any rate con-
tent with posthumous honor; his imitator
glorfes himself with tranquil and irritating
confidence, and, although he may die daily,
fLds his Tecompense in daily surrounding
his own head with divine nimbus or with
peIishable laurel. selt-gratulatien and per-
sonal glorif0atiOn is one of the things to
which his ascetic principle does not extend;
this, at any rate, he will never deny himself
for ia not this the end to which all the other
items of his modification are but as means
Yet, in all reason, the glorifoation stops at
self, while the modification, on the contrary,
is felt mostly by other people. Nobody of
sense thinks particularly well of the man
who wears a hair-shirt just for the
sake of wearing it. but we are compelled to
share in the modification which it inhicts, be-
cause one consideration which recommends it
to the wearer is the airs which it enables him
to assume over us poor souls who don't see
what use there is in a Standardization that
does nobody any good. Early rising, for in
stance is one of the favorite modern forms of
the hair-shiIt. Of course, to rise early is
virtue of the highest quality if you want to
catch the first railway train, or if you want to
get through certain quantity of special work
or correspondence before beginning the
routine business of the day. But w'oo
does not know creature =, the
ascetic sort who will tell ror ot rine Inc
o'clock with invincibe ".arisaism that he has
been up, ever sine, six, has had his breakfast
ever SO TO- IL ago, and that he cannot endure to
ne bed after sunrise You ask him what he
has been doing with the three hours which his
heroic fcrtitude has thus given him. The
chances are that he has been doing nothing,
except contemplating in Brahminic fashion the
beauties of his own perfection, and comparing
them with the miserable weakness of men who
lie abed until Seven eight o'clock, because
they know that there are still hours enough
LEFT in the solid day to use up all
their energies On the whole, perhaps man
tilt ha forta nri1ifi hir,,
self in bed as stalking hither and thither over
the house, round the garden, into the stables,
thinking all the time how good and great a
being he is because he goes in for hair shirts.
Eating and drinking give men of this temper
another fine chance, of which they never re-
fuse to avail themselves, of donniDg the hair
shirt and the laurelwreath which they sup
pose to belong to it. Here again, it is possi-
BILE that rigorous abstention may be virtue.
For dyspeptic with work to do in the world,
moderation and temperance cannot be carried
too far. But the ascetic in principle, as he
loves to call himself believes, or acts as if he
believed, that there is indescribable merit
in the preference of poor and unvaried
food and washy drinks. 1t is not that be
saves the money or gives the difference to the
poor. Benevolence is not common with the
egotists of ascetism; it is too useful, has ends
beyond itself, is something else besides being
merely introspective, and hence does not fall
In with their ways of looking at virtue. The
hair-shirt is only perfect, and unimprovable in
fit and texture, when it is absolutely useless.
As certain school of critics maintain that the
slightest ingredient of utility is fatal to true
art, SO our friends of the hair-shrts take
constant pains that this, their symbol, shall
be its own end. They thus cut away
from beneath their feet the sort of argument
by which Paley defended certain kind O.
asceticism. Train yourselves, Paley said, to
read Aristotle rather than novels, for instance
because, then, if you should find yourself in 6
country inn with no books but novels, you
would be able to read them, whereas if you
had been used to read novels, and should fnd
yourself with no companion but Aristotle
your case would be desperate. There wa
something in this, though not much. Bu
why habituate oneself to what is difficult anC
tiresome and narrowing, when it is barren
and merely because it is difficult and tire
some? Why deny the palate, for example
its lawful pleasures, not because they ar
too unwholesome or too costly or too dis
tracing from worthier affairs, but simply be
cause they are pleasures
The weak ascetic, like most other blunder
ers, deludes himself with a metaphor. ID
has conviction that to find comfort or plea
sure in anything except doing without com
fort and pleasure is to be in bondage. If on
enjoys good dinner or days lounging il
sunny idleness, or an extra hour in bed OF
frosty morning, then you are slave. On tn
hair-shirt theory he only is free who has NJ
tastes or capacities except the simple passion
for doing without. The perfect life seems t.
consist in being perpetually ready for som
heroic and astounding campaign where you will
only have muddy water, bad food, hard beds