The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1893-05-11
TIE DECLINE OF swAeesn.


4
What Franlkness Has Done to Make Pee
pie Understand Each Other.
We may take it as established that
for the moment, at any rate, swagger ID
not the fashion. No doubt the con-
seriousness of personal merit and possible
superiority is as strong in human nature
as ever. But most people are contented
30 acquiesce in the knowledge Of the
fact, and are willing not only to forego
the particular form OF its expression
which is known as swagger, but even
to live without expressing it visibly at
all. The most obvious and Disagree
able form of self assertion, which con-
sists in making other people conscious
Of their infeliority by intensely un-
pleasant and supercilious behavior. han
of course been dead and done with as
social claim for half generation
The high born and wealthy heroes az
the old novelists who were too great in
speak at the breakfast table, and "turnesl
to fling morsel to their dogs with an
air of high bred nonehalance," exist no
longer III fiction and very rarely in life.
Mr.. Grandceurt was perhaps the last Of
them. But swagger in its minor and
more amusing manifestations is also dy-
Ing, and though it is premature to write
It's epitaph we may call attention to some
Of the symptoms of its decay. One Of
the later forms of swagger, much affect.
ed by men of the bachelor leisured class.
and especially by the much abused ssloa
tus eaters" of clubland, was the nil ad.
mirari attitude. 1t had quite vogue
for time, and IN addition to conveying
an impression of superiority ii saved a
good deal of trouble. Older men who had
seen life were spared the effort Of hear.
ing about 1t again, and young men who
had not were enabled to convey the inn
preston that they had.
This form of swagger had positive
merits in negative form. It is still in
use as a weapon against the bore, but as
fashionable cult it exists no longer. II
is dead as wigs and powder. The lei
sured class, as such, does not assert itself
by any explicit form of swagger, and
would seem for the moment to set befoH,
1t the ideal of the aplain man. In its
dealings with the world.
Swagger nowadays is mainly limited
to people living in little worlds Of their
own. Contact with the big world and
realities rubs it away. Petty country
squires buried in.remote neighborhoods
often give themselves airs most coinical
TO behold by those capatIeof comparing
what they are with what they claim to
be. The buinptious neutrality-suspicious.
who have made their class a byword,
the bloated fnancier and the overgrown
shopkeeper, even when success is at
tanned, are only ON the verge of the
world where their training should be-
gin. Their time has been otherwise, and,
let us hope, more proftably occupied.
and il they do not reform their children
probably will ind will do their best to
reclaim their erring parents.
For there is no lesson which that in
creasingly wise young person, the young
man on his promotion, has laid more. to
heart than that swagger, or, as he
prefers to Gala it, 'side," does not pay,
and whatever his private opinion as to
his own merits, he distinguishes very
clearly between the swagger which does
not pay, and judicious self ADVERTISE
ment which does. Moreover, being an
educated young person with some claims
to good taste he is discriminating even
in the means he takes to advertise HIM
self, having recourse only as last and
doubtful resource to self assertion or CO.
eentricities of dress and manner.
Probably the strongest guarantee for
the continued decline of swagger is tho
growth of frankness. Formerly to refer
to money as consideration in action
was considered i'll bred. That form Of
swagger is certainly a thing Of the past.
Nothing Is more common than to hear
the remark, II wish l could afford it,"
II can't afford it, or more surely, but
not less pleasantly, 81 have been lucky
lately, and | can afford it," No doubt
the last ia capable of abuse. But the
admission into conversation of these
commonplace realities must still fur
Their hasten the rapid decay Of swsgger,
--London SPECTATOR