The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-08-10
ELATT,BRK.
From the Saturday Revicw.l

ELATTKRH
From the Saturday Revicw.l
Nothing ls so delightful as Gattery. To hear
and believe pleasan fctions about oneself is
q temntation TOO seductive Tor weak mortals
to resist. as the typical legends Of all my ytholo-
uals snow; i'll consequences CT which. home
truths, to one used to ideal portraiture, come
Like draush;s Of bitter cup" to the dram
drlnkcr. Aud fattery ia dram-drinkug; and
Mndenlabe evil, # only It be exaggeration, and
not wholly falschocd; that is, If it assumes as
meter Of course { he presence Of virtues po-
1entlal 10 the o. cLaracer but not always active,
and praises tor what might be il the person
chose to live up to hissDest. 7'.0
The Il tterlus Q! men TO VIC men, and those OF
women 10 men, are vely different In kind and
difec,k,n. hieu hatter women for what they
are--1or their beauty, thor grace. their sweet
ness, thclc charmnghess in general. while a
woman will fattcr man for what he does
Tor his speech III the house last night, of which
she unlci staNus li,tle;. for his bo6E, of which
y she und rs, ~rus less; or for his pleading. Of
,Whsc she understands nothlpg at al. NoG
that thus s,en,fi g much on either side The
: most 1i.ilnleliectual 1ttle woman IN the wol Id
hos brains enough to look up in your face
sweetly and breathe ont something that sounds
like beautiful chalmiuG-sO clever" vaguely
skotchlng he outline of hymn of praise to
which SOlr own vanity supplies the versic.es.
For you must have an exceptionally strong
head ii YOU can rate the skotch Of its real value
is. You Way We the most mystlcal poet or the
day. ucgesllhgto your acutest readers grave
doubts as 10 your own power of comprehend.
ngyoarseii; or you may DO the most subtle
labyrinth OF reasoning requires perhaps the
rarest Older Of brains TO be met with; but you
Will nevertheless believe any narrow-b,o owed,
small-headed woman who tells you in q low,
sweet voice, with gentle uplifting of her eyes,
and suggestive curve OF the lip that she has
toand you both inteiligible and charming. and
That she quite agrees Nith YOU, and shares
that all her life long she has thous ht in exact
~ the same way but was wholly unable to OK
press herself, and that you have now supplied
ner id. want ana translated into words her vague
ideas, and ii she says this with reverential
k1nd OF eftusiveness. you are done for, so far as
your crltlcal lpower goes; and should some
candid friend. whom she has not dattered, tell
you WI h brutal frankness that your bewitching
little hatterer has neither brains nor the edu-
cation to understand. you, you will set him
down as ssnderer, spiteful and malignant.
snyy ne has not
There is one kind OF fattery which is COM
mon to both men and women, and that is the
expressed preference of sex. Thus when men
want to fattcr women, they see how infinitely
they prefer their society to that Of their own
sex: and women will say the same to men. Or
II they do not say 1t, they will act it. See set
light ora manly couatenance among them.
They will talk to each other oel taiply; and one
or two will sit away together and dicuss their
plivate afiirs with AnimatioI; but the great
mass OF them are only halt vitaiZod while
W@Sll g The advent OF the men to rouse them
into lite and the desire to please. No man who
goes up hrst and earher than he vas expected
from the dinner table can fail to see the change
which GENES over those woarled, limp, lndlf-
ferent looking faces and figures as soon as he
enters the room. He Is like tae prince whose
KISS woke up the sleeping beauty and
all her court; q. can any one say thas this is
not fattery OF the most dignifed kind? To be
the Pygmalion even for moment, and for the
weakest order OF soul giving, is about the
greatest pleasure hat man can know. it he is
susceptible to the finer kinds Of fattery.
Some women, indeed, not ouly show their
preference for men, but openly confess it, and
CONFESS at the same Time to q lofty contempt
are generally women who are or have been
beauties, or who have literary and intellectual
pretensons, or who despise babies aud con-
demn r housekeeping. and profess themselves
unable to talk to other women because or their
narrowness and stupidity. But for the most
part they are women who, by their beauty or
their position. have been used to receive ex-
ira attention from men, and thus their prefer.
}ence is not fattery so much as erigeance Wo-
men who have been in India, or wherever else
women are in the minority IN society, ale Of
this kind; and nothing is more amazing to
them when they irst come home than the at
Nntlons whi o certain stylo of Ecgiishwo-
man payS to mep, instead of demanding and
receiving attentions from them. These are
those sweet, humble, caressing women who
Halter You with every word and look. but whose
fiattery is nothing but q pretty dress put on
tor show, and taken of when the show ia done
with.
The fattery met with in society is not often
very harmful save to coarse or specially simple
natures. You must be either one or the other
to be able to believe It,. Lady Morgan was
perhaps the most nnblushing and excessive OF
the tribe of social fatterers; but that was her
engine, the ladder by which she did o good
]'art OF her climbing. We must not contOund
with this kind Of fattery the impulsive ex:
precision Of praise or love which certain out
spoken people indulge IN to th last. You may
as we'll try to dam up Niagara as to make some
folks ret,cent in auy direction. And when one
OF this kind sees anything that he or she likes,
the praise has to come out with superlatives
the creatnrels prone TO exaggeratiop. But
TINS 10 not hattery; 1t is merely want of reti.
cence. 1s anda certain ,ldlikeness which lasts
derstand when they see it, and which subjects
1ts possessor to Misrepresentation and un-
friendly jbes as soon as his or her back is
turoed, and the explosion of exaggerated
praise Is discussed critically by the uninter-
essed part Of ths audience. ofsh
= ,.ss ------------T-A-4 --o----