The Brookhaven leader., 1890-09-04
The COMMON PEOPLE.
Old World Customs That Strike Americana
as Preposterous.


as Preposterous.
In Europe, rank is first OF all ques-
ton of birth. Mr.. Gladstone must go
into dinner after a boy II the boy hap
pens to be duke. This rule OF proceed
ence strikes the American as preposter-
Gus. Our countrymen have been so long
! rid of a privileged class of titled aristo-
Gratis that they can not understand how
! genius and eminent service may be
reckoned after nero family distinc-
ton. We believe in blood in this coun-
try, but we expect it TO tell in achieve
ment before it is accorded the first place
Of honor. 1t is true that Americans are
sometimes accused, not always unjustly,
of tuft-hunting; but the titled foreigner
is sought after over here because he is a
rGrd arts, a social curiosity, and not be-
cause Americans are born with that in
stinctive Difference to rank which Is so
| general on the other side of the At
lantic. An hereditary legislature has
always been impossible here. Strictly
speaking, there are no common people
except commonplace people. The rigid
ity of social forms, the drill of society,
CoIdDlAoh a Iiltf w ObiHuNeSO
which, however decorouS, is not pictur-
esque or otherwise interesting. The
regulation uniform of society, the dress
coat and white cravat, may be defended
upon certain grounds which we need not
examine now; but there should be no
tolerance for the affection of a tone. a
mannerism, which is at war with every
thing expressive of originality or even
of individuality. We would not imply,
of course, that people of good society
are necessarily commonplace ordull. Wit
and humor are always welcome among
sensible men and women; but we have
remarked tendency to make a fetish of
forms, to set up Draconian code on the
authority of Mrs. Grundy, which is only
too suggestive Of another famous lady's
''prunes and prisms." Eat commonplace
people are not confined to any sphere Of
life. We find them wherever a stupid
mental conservatism condemns the
eccentricity OF new thought or
an Independent opinion. If a
man does not enjoy the para
disc Lost" if he is not enthralled by the
genius of Addison or of Steele, we con.
fess that we like to hear him acknowl.
edge his treason frankly. There is more
in him than there is in the solemn hum.
bug who processes to admire every thing
that he has been told he ought to adj
mire, and who has never in all his life
been guilty of one honest criticism.
Originality is the one essential uncom-
mon thing in the world, and-though this
may seem Observation-Disclosures is a great
deal of it among those whom we are
won't to call the common people. Our
great novelists seek it in remote coun-
try districts, IN mountain Businesses, in
the lowly retreats of poverty and ignor-
ance-wherever nature has a chance and
people say what they think 1t fasci-
mates us because it is human rather
than conventional. The society novel
ist essays task of immense difficulty,
for every body prefers Sam Weller to
Fitz Augustus Templeton De We're, and
society Is never dramatic until, under
the impulse of passion. it tears off its
mask and forgets its rules. When we
said just now that there were no COM
mon people except commonplace people.
we meant merely that there is no com
mon mold or brand of human nature.
Twins are not so nearly alike that their
mothers do not know them apart, and
nothing can destroy the impress of in
dividtality but academic restraint and
social discipline. 1t is variety of talent
and taste that makes the necessary di-
vision of labor the joyous activity of
progress, and it is the natural opposi-
ton of temperaments that endows hui
man intercourse with its chief charm.
Nothing could be more stale, fiat and
improbable than symposium of inter-
locutors who all thought and felt alike
on every imaginable subject
The flash of wit, the bright intelligence,
The beam Of song tho blaze Of eloquence
are provoked by the contrast and the
conflict of Independent minds occupying
different points of view.