Southwest-sentinel. [volume] (Silver City, N.M.) 1883-189?, 1894-04-24

centuries when a lady of rank BAN
tered Congreve across the pit of a
theater in phrases which shock us
today; when a Duchess Of North
cumberland accepted the dedication
of novel fit to be read only 10y
the creatures Of brothel; and
when Young destroyed the notes
Of Lady Mary Wortley as too
gross for print. But when per-
sons today boast of their "refne-
ment," what is it that they mean?
Do they mean true purity Of mind
reflected in the conduct, language
and manners, or do they mean only
fastidiousness? 1t has been Justly
said that refinement, like modesty,
consists in negatives. 1t is not
self-conscious, coarse or impure.
This Inconsistencies is a safe
guard from contamination and
suspicion; so that in no age is in
dividual refinement impossible.
True refinement is slow to sus-
pect evil. 1t interprets what it
sees on the principles of charity.
A man is not more refined than
another because he suspects the
loaf he eats, and assumes, therefore
that tho kneader was a dirty fell
low. On the contrary, refinement
being clean, itself, thinks that 9TH
ers are clean also, until forcibly
undeceiyed. The "father of poe
try," barbarous as we deem the
age in which.h he lived, has keenly
Disseminated between true and
mock delicacy. When, in the
Odyssey, the Princess Nausicaa
and her maids are washing their
garments in the river, and the
naked, shipwrecked mariner APP
pears as a suppliant before them,
they act precisely as a high bred
princess and her half-bred maids
would act today. The one, with
real dignity, listens to his suppli-
cations and relieves his necessities
while the others ran screaming
away. Addison complained that
in his day the more polish people
got by social privilege, the more
prone they were to language which
ga clown would blush to hear" It
is only the meretricious and wan
ton mind that is over-nice and
squemish in it's choice of words,
for the simple reason that it seeks
the daintiest garments Of language
in which to veil its moral impur-
ity. True dehcacy, on the other
hand, is never for a moment per-
picked to find proper terms to ex-
press itself in, because it thinks
no impropriety. For it to think,
Is to give utterance to its thought
amp to feel is to give expression
to its emotions, with a guileless
simplicity, unconscious Of ill-na-
tured misrepresentation, and fear,
less, because unconscious of the
possibility of misconstruction.
There are some persons of ex,
ceeding refinement in their OWL
estimation, whose delicacy, OF
which they make a great parade
is only a delicacy, and a false one
at that, in words. 1t is of that
spurious kind which abhors plain
noun substantives, and would hide
its improper imaginings in studied
circumlocutions. If a word has
two meanings it is sensitively con,
scious of the worst one, and il
shocked at its utterance as if the
better meaning could not have
been intended. It was lady Will
this mock delicacy-the forerun-
ner of those of a later day that are
said to have "pantaletted the limbs
of their pianos, and TO have woveI
aprons to cover the nakedness o.
marble Cupids and Psyches--who
after the publication of Johnson'l
dictionary, wrote TO the author
complaining Of the naughty words
he had put in it, and drew from
him the cutting sarcasm, $50 you
have been looking for them, i
seemsp When Boswell asked th'
, doctor, as they were standing il
front of classic nude statue, "D'
you not think this statue is indie
cent?" he bluntly replied: mo
but / think your remark is" Whel
a man boasts of his refinement, h
shows by his very act that he i
not refined, but only fastidious.
| The daughter of Maeklin, tn
famous English actor, died of