Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1881-03-08

duced 80 many stocks which score al
many generations of magnificent men
and women as have made illustrious the
names of Boteler and Built and John
ston and Preston and Tucker and Rives
and Pendleton and Buford and Cabell
and Stuart and Harrison and Monroe
and Crittenden and Breckenridge and
Marshall and Lee?
BLIND AS LOVE
is in choosing, the fact that loves choice
was confined to class which had nc
distinction but its supreme regard fol
certain qualities of character gave those
qualities an extraordinary culture. They
became notes of body as well as of soul.
They regulated the pulse, spun the
nerves to finer strand, sensitized the
whole frame like photographers plate,
to take the impression of whatever hu-
man mood came near it. Thus the man
became all sympathy, but it was sym
pathy under control. And it was this
disciplined sympathy that endowed his
politeness with peculiar grace which
etiquette vainly strives to initiate. For
the pOliteness Of a coarse nature is sure
in some way to betray its coarseness. 1t
will be too precise and self conscious, or
overdo itself with pomposity, or obse
quiOusness, for want of that free yet
unerring tact of fine feeling which
is the very instinct of courtesy. This
instinct the old Virginia gentleman aad
There was no necessity for bin to take
thought of his department.. He could
not be rude without special effort and q
sense of pain. His respect for others
was simply his respect for the self he
saw in them and whose wounds he felt
instantly as his own. But for woman
this respect was more than courteous, it
was something devout. Their delicacy
and purity and purifying love were
everywhere as beautiful and sacred to
him as the altar light of his mothers
eyes.
He could no more have kept his seat
in street-car while lady stood than
he could have put on ball and chain
by mistake for party slippers. No
weariness of day-long work could have
even suggested to him the possibility
of an excuse to the ill-bred posture
Better stay away from home be would
have thought, and sleep in ,cow-s.all,
tlan 60 to ones wife with sense of
coarseness that must turn her fondest
enGearments into rebukes. For whose
does not respect woman for woman's
sake cannot rightly respect the woman
hood of his own family. His public
rudeness exposes his private tyranny.
Depend upon it, his uDgenial hearth has
no mother in law for his guardian an
gel. And, therefore, we should rejoice,
my comrades, that to this day no son,
nor grandson, nor great. grandson of the
old Virginia gentleman has ever sat
h In Int haf
rupted by foreign manners, his will
bred to endure the cramp of so low q
squat of manhood.
THIS CULTIVATED SENSITIvENESS,
which rendered the old Virginian's
courtesy so sympathetic and true, made
his honor quick to feel the shadow of a
slur. am aware that honor is a fallen
word. Its prime and knightly mean
ing has become mongrel with common
use. Lips whose purest utterance would
defile it belch it out in drunken brawls.
Clowns, loafers, rowdies, all have sacred
honor nowadays, which they boast
themselves ready to die for. notwith-
standing the boast is as ridiculous as if
ducaa cOronets. Honor to the old Vir
X X
self-respect by the esteem of q class
whose esteem could, indeed, confer
honor.
Its code differed from morality and
religion in that whilelts laws might or
might not coincide with theirs, its mo-
tive was neither ethical right nor the
divine approval, but the Infinite value
the gentleman set upon his own good
name, in comparison with which all
other aims were counted as of less worth
than SO many frost bitten potatoes, and
without which life itself would be the
fore felt blister of perditiOn. The gentle
man who did notso think lacked proper
notion of his gentlenanly character,
and had no right to complain if others
failed TO pay him the honor he failed TO
pay himself. Bnt this honor did not
admit of degrees. Like chastity in a
maiden, it WAS either absolute or not at
all. 1t could not brook the least look,
whisper, shrug of suspicion. Not 10
stand ready on any occasion to defend
it with life was to lose it at once and
forever. COwardice was its unpardona-
BILE sin. Hence the duel.
No doubt the appeal to arms for the
redress of private grievances was often
q folly and always crime. have not
a word to say in its defense. Every
law-lOvlng citizen is glad that the bar
barOus custom is obsolete. And yet it
must be acknowledged that the motives
which gave that customs majesty above
the state were themselves noble-as
much nobler than those which ordina-
rily enter into suits for damages as q
mans soul is nobler than his pocket or
spleen. Nor were the evils of dueling
half SO great as they commonly have
been described. So long as thecOde was
confined to gentlemen, its dangers form
ed stern sanction to the unwritten
laws of courtesy. Gentlemen did not
exchange pistol shots at twenty PAGES
aud then rush into each others arms
like maudlin idiots. Gentlemen did not
appoint meeting and Immediately re-
quest the chief of police to engage a sur
weapons to right what were felt as
deep wrongs-wrongs which could be
righted only by deep wounds. And the
very fact that the duel had to be fought,
and grimly fought, made the need for
fighting rare. Slander, detraction, and
libel are not frequent in communities
where they are punished as attempts to
assassinate character. People spoke eau
tiously of their neighbour in old Vir
ginia. Even newspapers were civil
there.
But on no occasion did the old Vir-
ginia gentleman appear
so PERFECTLY HIMSELF
as when his country home. roomy as
his own heart. was full of guests who
had come not for an evenings frolic, but
to enjoy solid week or month of hos
pitaiity. And enjoyment it was, for
hospitality was his forte. wherein he
displayed not only heart but the learn
ing and wit which, too fond of leisure
to undertake the drudgery of writing
books, delighted to play forth in half
bookish, half-bantering style of talk.
AS for money, he thought it well in
vested when spent on the happiness OF
his friends, and while they were under
his roof he knew nothing of the lapse
Of time-time seemed to tarry there
with them. Besides, if time went on,
what of it? The farm would stay,
corn and tobacco would not run away,
rains could neither be scared back nor
whistled forward the negroes worked
to an inward tune, and their hoes would
rise and fall to about the same measure
when by themselves as when under
watch. Besides, he didinOt care to drive