The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-21
Doing as You Please.
From Harper's Weekly.

From HarperS S Weekly.
 There lived, not long since. in this
 country. an irascible and learned old
 Scotch professor who dsapproved of most
 matters American, but beyond and above
 all else of American women. "When you
 ask thom to do anything" he was won't
 to say, with rising wrath, they say
 they don't want to, as if not wanting to were a law!"
 One of the first lessons of life is that all rules are relative. It is difficult to come at an absolute and unchangeable law of conduct. Here is MT. Bernard Shaw questioning even the golden rule and urg- ing people not to do to him as they would be done by, because of the great variety of tastes in the world. It Is quite true that kindness and good intentions may err, and that the whole of life Is con stant and necessary concessions and all lowances amongst fragmentary beings whose wills pull In different directions It is generally admitted that one may not injure other people by word or deed, however much one may want to, and that to break the accepted commandments, or
 In any way to add to the confusion and
 misery of the world, or too greatly to up- heave its settled convictions. invites pen atty It is not fair to be a stumbling DlOCR 10 anyone S NiihS pJ Pchi' ing out too persisctently the divergencies | between convention and morality There are too certain minor virtues-industry, social amenities, conventional att1re-to be accepted as conducting to universal comfort and we'll being; but beyond all this there lies a vast area of life where one may quite 1egitimately do as one pleases There is, for example. no radi- , cally moral point about dancing the two i,,rr points to reading philosophy in the dim lampllght of one's own room. The pursuits of bot any and astronomy are fundamentally as virtuous as knitting and the newest em- broidery stitches and to many mlnds even more exciting; to explore the country on horseback is honest an occupation
 as to gossip on the front porch or hotei with accurately undulated halr' ana to subdue one's preferences in such matters for the mere sake of a tentative essay to fall in with the wishes of the majority, Ia at hest feeble If not actually wrong. First place to fall unnecessarily IS Tn ltseil kind of crime, and 1t may here be stat cd for the encouragement of those Who nrefer sunsets to bows and chat' anu hooks to dancing that, suppress their in- c1inations as they may, they will surely
 ,,n eaI,s-ht and their attempts to play the
 came they do not know and TOT "hieh sso,, have no aptitude will sooner or
 
 later fall through. gossip. Hke poet
 ia horn and not made, and let one With
 mind tense and earnest about the ior,n-
 oorning observations of Mars try to ns.en to nroner converse on the hotel porch" dila before he realizes 1t he will nave hea,u
 ,,,,th blank stare or an amiable sn'ile ,le
 startline news that Jane wore the sa,le
 drass three times last week, or that DitA
 took Carrie out two days in succession III his trap. .,, ,;,a oxactIy so let each man draw the me eSa0sl,
 at the edge of what he is obliged to uo -pa inc good of his kind, and re1oice m .ao
 great stretch of life which lies oNei ,t sn line where he may consult no taste pus is his own. and no limitations but those ms Creator has seen fit to set TOT mn, n
 to do as one pleases along all iesltiiiisse lines. means that life progresses from II
 terost to interest. from enthuslas" .o VT thusiasm. until age has no terrors anu anu
 death m sting For let life but nave ires
 n1av through a temperament and It "iIl convince the most dubious and nesita'ins
 of it's power, it's continuance. It's grown
 beyond the bounds of finitnde; It will ieau one hopeful and open1minded and Keen
 hearted, on through the new adventure that lies on the other side Of death