The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1893-04-20
THE DECLINE OF swAeeER.


What Franleness Has Done to Make Peo-
pie Understand Each Other.
We may take it as established that
for the moment, at any rate, swagger is
not the fashion. No doubt the con-
sciousness of personal merit and possible
superiority is as strong in human nature
as ever. But most people are contented
to 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 inferiority by intensely un-
pleasant and supercilious behavior, has
of course been dead and done with a. a
social claim for half a generation.
The high born and wealthy heroes Of
the old nnvelists who wore too grect to
speak at the breafast table, and turned
to fling morsel to their dogs with an
air of high bred nonchalance," exist no
longer in fiction and very rarely in life.
MIR. Grandcourt 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
its epitaph we may call attention to soma
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 60
| tus eaters" of clubland, was the nil ad-
mirari attitude. 1t had quite a vogue
for time, and in addition to conveying
an impression of superiority it saved q
good deal of trouble. Older men who had
seen life were spared the effort of hear
ing about it 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 weapon against the bore, but as
fashionable cult it exists no longer. 1t
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 before
it the ideal of the "plain 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 neighborhoodi
often give themselves airs most comical
to behold by those capable of comparing
what they are with what they claim te
be. The bumptious scientific gentlemen
who have made their class byword
the bloated financier and the overgrowr
shopkeeper, even when success Is at
tanned, are only on the verge Of th,
world where their training should be
gin. Their time has been otherwise, and
let us hope, more proitably occupied
and II they do not reform their childre,
probably will and will do their best t,
reclaim their erring parents.
For there Is no lesson which that In
creaaingly wise young person, the younl
man on his promotion, has laid more (,
} heart than that swagger, or, as b,
!. prefers to call it, "side," does not pay
; and whatever his private opinion as t
} his own merits, he distinguishes ver
; clearly between the swagger which doe
! not pay, and judicious self advertise
ment which does. Moreover, being a
, educated young person with some claim
to good taste he is discriminating eve
In the means he takes to advertise him
self, having recourse only as last IN
, doubtful resource to self assertion or et
l centricities Of dress and manner.
, Probably the strongest guarantee fc
t the continued decline OF swagger is th
growth Of frankness. Formerly to refe
, to money as consideration in actio
D was considered Ill bred. That form {
{ swagger Ia certainly thing Of the pas
{ Nothing 10 more common than to hes
I the remark, II wish could afford 1t
! IL can't afford it," or more surely, br
0 not less pleasantly, II have been luck
0 lately, and l can afford it." No doul
I the last Is capable Of abuse. But IL
l admission into conversation Of thei
( commonplace realities must still fu
o ther hasten the rapid decay Of swagge