New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-08-20
FALSE REFINEMENT.

lne gentleman WHOSE uOutSilC tlOuuiCo
have for several weeks monOpOized the news
papers of the American continent was In the
habit, we are informed, of buying more pic
lures than he could well afford to buy. lie
was also prolific writer OF verses OF the sub
jective sort, putting the most precious emo
tions into "tens" and eights' with uncOm-
mon fecundity, and many OF these are now
reproduced, and are read. we presume, with
tender interest 1t is q startling fact that
almost everybody engaged directly or indl-
recty in these ill-smeliing transactions had
what is usually considered fine taste either
for music or pictures, statuary or poetry, or
what you will. The hero Of the tragi-comedy,
we are told by his unhappy wife, could MT eat
with any relish the plain roast and broiled of
the home kitchen; and at frequent intervals
of the story we catch glimpses OF him taking
his meals in first-cass restaurants and dropping
his teaDs into expensive ragOuts. whenever
he wished to unbosom himself. and he wished
it very often, it was his custom to invite his
confdant to dine with him. We can imagine
him in his most indignant mood stabblng the
potatoes Is la SiddOns) or saying things cal
culated to drive any sensitive waiter into
frenzy. He was also an amateur OF female
beauty, 80 that the short stature OF the wife
of his bosom sometimes made his life mad
ness and a mOckory. We lay no stress upon
his fondness for being photographed. for that
i, the endemic weakness OF the age but we
do say that it would have been more whole
some for him if he had not thought himself
physically beauiiful-and more wholesome per-
haps for some others.
But it is not orr wish to be personal and
we have ventured to be slightly 50 only to
illustrate What we want to point out is, that
very fine taste may be quite consistent with
a substantially coarse nature, just as con-
no;sseur may collect fifty pictures of the
Nativity or the Crucifxion and not be par
ticularly good Christian after all. We have
known exquisite musicians whose whole
natures were saturated with indecency.
We have met with frst-rate painters
of ideal or heroic subjects who were alto
cether of the earth earthly. We have encoun-
tered actors who played Hamlet charmingly,
and whose talk was redO!ent OF moral garlic.
We have been acquainted with verse makers,
and good ones, whose only hippOcrene was
gin or beer. These, we confess, are mortify-
ing admissions, for if we were all that we
seem or profess to be what a congregation OF
heroes or of poets would MANKIND become!
Unfortunately the first encounter with re-
atty brushes Off the thin varnish and ex-
poses the sham color and the awkward draw
ing below The first rude wind blows aside
the lions skin, and we see what we see be-
meath it. We remember Methodist minister
who for fifteen or twenty years cheated soci-
ety into the belief that he was one of
the most eloquent of preachers. Long
before he died he was found out, and
toward the last he made considerable work
for ecclesiastical tribunals We mention him
because he was man OF great refinement,
dressed in perfect taste, was cOnsummate
elocutionist and sang as swcetly as King Da-
vid. There is reason for believing that this
preacher was a thorough sensualst-Of the
miserable shallowness Of his preaching there
is no manner of doubt.
After all there is a good deal in an expe-
rence, which reconciles us to rudeness of
nature, if only it be genuine; for there may
also be an empty affectation OF rudeness.
Talk about Shakespeare and the musical
"gasses" is of no more value now than it
was in the days of the Vicar of Wakefield;
and we need now as much as was needed
then, some worthy Mr.. Burchell to cry Fudgew
at our Alterations. But asses still die and
Sternes still weep over them. Some lesson
surely should be extorted from the late scar
latina of scandal. Pray do not let us get
from it only an access of shabby and second
hand Werterism 1t may be better after all
for man to sell his books and his pictures,
to abjure pen and ink, to lift up no more his
voice in the lecture-room; but having put off
fine raiment and put on canvas Overalls, to
seek the piers, there to earn his bread by
rolling barrels and by handling bales.