Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-05-19
SUllE ~VULGARlTIES.
MANY LITTLE THINGS THAT MAKE
PEOPLE OBNOXIOUS.

PEOPLE OBNOXIOUS.
Uncatalogued Lapses Of Good Breeding |
Committed by Otherwise Eminently De-
Chief Offenders.
BY vulgarity we generally mean certain
solecisms which the world has
agreed to consider bad form" and worthy |
social r%eprobation. These are 81 the kind
best expressed by a struggle with ones his;
a hazy understanding of ones persons,
moods and lenses; difficulties over adverbs
and a general hash of propositions; too great
familiarity with the blade Of ones knife in
eating, or, worse still, some disgusting per-
sonal habit which brings into the drawing
room and before folk tricks and feats Of
manipulation which should never be seen
by eyes other than ones own.
OF these things and their congeners we
make great account-also of what we mean
by unsuitable dress"-i. e., diamonds in
the morning and feathers in the hair for a
home supper, huge gold ornaments, plas-
tered like miniature warming pans overthe
neck and bodice; a su%per1uity of bracelets
II a vulgar, because ostentatious display Of
rings; staring colors Enthusiastically matched
and obtrusive patterns not even beautiful
in the outline. These are the things at
which the cultured sniff and look upon the
perpetrators thereof as beyond the pale of
consideration. But there are other forms
of vulgarity which escape notice, which are
yet infinitely more damaging as revelations
of character and breeding than these sole
cisms against conventional good taste.
What is it when two young people
spoon" before folk? Engaged, they are EN-
barrassing; newly married, intolerable.
They speak in whispers, firt with their
eyes, hold each others hands, give sly ca
resses in the fond belief that no one sees.
The converse of this is the vulgarity of
those who quarrel and snap and jangle be-
fore folk. And of these the worst sinners
are the hopelessly lost who turn to the by
stander and ask him for his advocacy, his
sympathy, his verdict. Better a knife play
ing about the tongue and lips than this
horrible lapse of good breeding-this selfish
want Of consideration for others. To be
sure, that knife is not pleasant to look at,
but it Is a thousand times less objectiona-
BILE than the jarring of two i'll yoked people
who do not care to control themselves in
society, and who try to drag in the unof-
Tending neutral and force him to take sides
in an affair that does not concern him.
Another form of vulgarity is the habit of
contradiction. Certain people are, as it
were, cursed with this propensity as with q
disease they cannot shake off. You state
the simplest fact, known to you as we'll as
you know the alphabet. Your otherwise
minded interlocuter c%ontradicts, objects,
reads differently. If you are a novice and
easily caught, you quite seriously, quite
co%nscientiously, state your reasons and
prove automatically that you are right.
Your contradictions friend, unable to con-
t~rovert, closes the discussion by saying
loftily, II do not agree with you"
Some of this kind will not even allow
you to agree with them. If they make .
statement and you back it up, they incon-
tinently turn round on you and rend you.
mo. did not mean that at all" they say
in a displeased n They do not state
explicitly what they did mean. All they
maintain is they did not mean what you
do. Is not that a vulgarity worse than a
few gold warming pans plastered over the
breast n neck?
Another of the same kidney volunteers
advice unasked. This kind knows better
than you do on all matters under heaven.
You are a young mother, and she is a child
less wife, but she can give you instructions
how to manage yourself and your baby,
which for aplomb, If not for accuracy,
would make her appear as q mother in Is-
rael at the very least. When associated
with this kind, your soul is not your own,
nor your body, nor your life. You are
schooled and drilled and lectured and ar
ranged till not as much free will is left
you as would serve a 2-year-old in nursing
its doll. You are with your superior, and
whether you like it or not you must prac,
tically acknowledge the fact.
Again, a vulgarity that a great many
worthy people commit-people whose his
and syntax are impeccable-is in a certain
coarse and callous want Of sympathy with
what you say to them that is even more
rasping than contradiction, more annoying
| than interference. You tell them a pitiful
! story of some one for whose woes you claim
| their sympathy. They answer you and
cap your account by something that has
happened either to themselves or to their
friends or something that they have heard
of in the vague.
Now, how does it help your poor sweet
protege in her troubles to be told of some
one else in the farotf distance who has gone
through a like melancholy experience?
Does thinking m the frosty Caucasus cool
your fever? Does the misfortune of A.
make the misery of B. less painful to your
sympathies? What good does it do you
when you val a kindly voice to echo your
reflected sorrow to have a hard, unsympa,
thetic reference to some other PERSONS af.
fairs, some II whom perhaps you do not
know, or knowing do not likei
This, too, is one of the unnoted vulgarities
of life, rs is also that graver offense of max.
ing you regret a confidence. 1t is always
wrong and not quite straight to retail to .
third person the doings of a friend. Some
times, however, the heart gets overburdened
and seeks a sympathetic bosom into which
to pour the overflow. Say that it is a love
affair which is less wise than passionate
less c~ircumspect than whole hearted-a love
! affair whereof cool reason can see the flaws
but wherein the principal actors see only
the bcauty-you deprecate and deplore, but
you sympaIhize all the same-you have Nc
hard feeling Of censure, nothing but soft
and tender regret.
You tell the story to your friend, asking
for sympathy for your poor girls trouble
| You are met by stern condemnation-by
| the knOwledue that Won have given this