The southern sentinel. (Winnfield, La.) 1883-1910, 1885-02-06
Social Culture.

may be not honest and true aud generous
though his forcfathers were unedueated
and undistinguished. 1t means that So
cial culture is only to be attained through
domestic discipline and refined family
traditions.
Some of the most famous men of learn
ing in England, Germany and France,
have been men of humble origin. When
they wrote, or made formal speeches, they
were correct beyond the suspicion of in
accuracy. But they moved with GER
tain stiff awkwartlness in their fine Ian
guase like rustic lout in his Sunday
clothes. In sudden gust of anger, or
surprise Of any sort, they returned to the
vernacular of their youth in words that
had the vivid strength cf Embarrassed i'm
pulse in them, however strange to ears
polite.
The sarant sprung from peasant stock is
always translating his mother tongue in
to the words or phrases of the bookma-
kers. II he is not very proud-as, for in
stance, Carlyle was,-he will no more
call Il spade spade than he will carry his
cousins to the houses of his aristocratie
patrons.
Scholarship and breeding combined re-
suit in that simplicity of speech which is
everywhere an unmistakable evidence of
distinction. Sometimes even very young
ladies. who have not taken degrees at any
university or college, convince you in
three sentences that they have been nnr-
tured under patrician roof-tree. They
use very few long words. and no coarse
ones; but they go to the mark with nm
conscious ease, and you see at once that
good English with them at least is not an
affectation.
We begin with language because it is
Illustrative of the general rule. Social
culture is never, in any respect. complete
in one generation. The parvenu is too
much impressed with his own advance
ment to take it quietly. He is so much
fiattered by good company that he must
keep list of it and tell it over to to-mor-
rows visitors. In short. it is clear that
he is not ut home in his new house. 1t is
only when the ways and means and man
ners of high life have been habitual from
the first that they are revealed without
ostentasion.
How is it, then. in new country like
our own? Where there is no law of
primogeniture, where local ties are light
ly regarded, and homes are not enduring,
where speculation and political changes
are constantly churning up society from
its bottom, how can we expect that sta
bility of family fortunes which is requi-
site for social culture? Let us explain
that this question is not our own. 1t
comes to us from abroad. Foreigners,
who connect the idea of aristocracy with
land, who cannot conceive the possibility
of a distinguished or well-bred family
without y long-established family seat,
enriched and beautified by the gradual
contributions of generations, can hardly
help regarding us Americans as crude,
nomadic people, in some respects. it may
be, civilized and progressive, but socially
considered, at least, nation still in the
rough.
or course it Is not denied that there is
an exceptionally large number of veal
thy men and women in the United States.
Naturally they build magnificent houses
and patronize the upholsterer. But sur
rounded by all the elegancies and luxu-
ries that money can buy, they may yet
lack something that money cannot buy.
In the millionaire's palace it often hap
pens that there is nothing so piueh out Of
place rs the millionaire himself. He has
however, friends, cr, ut all events, ac-
quaintances to keep him in countenance,
and together they consulate sort of So
ciety, which is perhaps more exclusive
than select. But his children and his
neighbor's children win receive an edu-
cation better than his own, their hands
will be soft and white. and they will be
quite at ease in doing nothing. Another
generation would make the gentleman;
but a panic in Wall street, a succession Of
bad crops, a general shrinkage Of value,
or some other disaster oycrtakes our
Dives, aud he will go back to .'the COM
mon people,
There are those that hold that the
highest form of social development is too
expressive, that a free country cannot af-
ford to maintain the artificial conditions
that foster the perfect type. Better, they
tell ms, some solecism In speech, some
rudeness in manner, even in our best So
ciefy. than that the lines Of caste should
fixed and impossible. In this
country the rich man expects to be Pres
ident. and the poorest may cast into shade
the Accommodations Of Crnsus The ben
fit Of stimulus like that cannot be sac
riiieed for the sake Of few human hot
house flowers.