Search-Light Letters. Grant Robert

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066172251

Table of Contents

       To A Young Man or Woman in Search of the Ideal. II.

       To A Young Man or Woman in Search of the Ideal. III.

       To A Young Man or Woman in Search of the Ideal. IV.

       To A Modern Woman with Social Ambitions. I.

       To A Modern Woman with Social Ambitions. II.

       To A Modern Woman with Social Ambitions. III.

       To A Modern Woman with Social Ambitions. IV.

       To A Young Man wishing to be an American. I.

       To A Young Man wishing to be an American. II.

       To A Young Man wishing to be an American. III.

       To A Young Man wishing to be an American. IV.

       To A Political Optimist . I.

       To A Political Optimist . II.

       To A Political Optimist . III.

      To A Young Man or Woman in Search of the Ideal. I.

      I take it for granted that you have reached the moral and social plane which this assumption implies. Manners are, indeed, a secondary consideration as compared with ethics. A man who eats with his knife may, nevertheless, be a hero. And yet, it is not always easy to fix where manners and ethics begin. Many a finished young woman who stealthily heightens the hue of her complexion and blackens her eyebrows with paint probably regards the girl who chews gum with superior scorn. Yet tradition associates paint rather than gum with the scarlet woman. To avoid introducing the subtleties of discussion where all is so clear, it is simpler to exclude the use of either as a possible characteristic of fine womanhood. The homely adage that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear is full of meaning for democracy. Manners must go hand in hand with morals, or character will show no more lustre than the uncut and unpolished diamond, whose latent brilliancy is marred by uncouthness, so that it may readily be mistaken for a vulgar stone.

      I assume, then, that you possess honesty, purity, and courage, the intention to be unselfish and sympathetic, and an appreciation of the stigma of vulgarity. If you are seeking the ideal, you will try to be, in the first place, an uncommon person. A common person is one who is content to be just like every one else in his or her own walk of life. The laws on our statute-books are made for the benefit of common people; that is to say, they are tempered to the necessities of the weak and erring. If you stop short there you will keep out of jail, but you will be a very ordinary member of society. This sounds trite, but the application of the principle involved is progressive. It is easy to be ordinary in the higher walks of civilization and yet pass for a rather superior person. It is only necessary to be content to "do as every one else does," and accept the bare limit of the social code under which you live as the guide of conduct.

      [Note.—I am reminded here by my wife, Josephine, that, though the statute-laws are broken by few of our friends, there is one law which women who claim to be highly civilized and exceedingly superior are constantly breaking—the statute which forbids them to smuggle.]

      ¶ Scene: An Ocean Steamship. Two sea-chairs side by side.

      ¶ Dramatis Personæ: A Refined and Gifted Instructress of Youth on the home passage from a summer's vacation abroad, and your Philosopher. A perfect sea and sky, which beget confidences.

      Refined and Gifted Instructress of Youth. It's rather a bother to have friends ask you to bring in things.

      The Philosopher. I always say "Certainly; but I shall be obliged to declare them." That ends it.

      Refined and Gifted. My friends wouldn't like that at all. It would offend them. You mustn't tell, but I have as commissions a dress, two packages of gloves, and a large French doll, in my trunk.

      The Philosopher. Yet you will be obliged to sign a paper that you have nothing dutiable and that everything you have is yours.

      Refined and Gifted. If I were to declare the things, the duties would all have to come out of my own pocket. I shouldn't have the face to collect it from my friends.

      The Philosopher. They expect you to fib, of course. You prefer, then, to cheat the Government rather than disappoint persons who made use of you in order to accomplish that very thing?

      Refined and Gifted. You don't put it nicely at all, Mr. Philosopher. Besides, the things are mine. I paid for them with my own money; and, until I am paid back, the things belong to me. There, now, why shouldn't I sign the paper?

      The Philosopher. A shallow sophistry. A merchant who acted on that theory would be sent to jail. Will a refined and gifted instructress of youth, whose mission in life it is to lead the young in the paths of virtue, evade the law by a subterfuge?

      Refined and Gifted. It's an odious law. My family all believe in free trade.

      The Philosopher. Very possibly. But it