FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 34: Chapter V of "The Conduct of Life," 1860.]
[Footnote 35: Theory of gait and demeanor.]
[Footnote 36: From Landor's "Pericles and Aspasia."]
MANNERS AND FASHION[37]
HERBERT SPENCER
Some who shun drawing-rooms do so from inability to bear the restraints
prescribed by a genuine refinement, and they would be greatly improved
by being kept under these restraints. But it is not less true that, by
adding to the legitimate restraints, which are based on convenience and
a regard for others, a host of factitious restraints based only on
convention, the refining discipline, which would else have been borne
with benefit, is rendered unbearable, and so misses its end. Excess of
government invariably defeats itself by driving away those to be
governed. And if over all who desert its entertainments in disgust
either at their emptiness or their formality, society thus loses its
salutary influence--if such not only fail to receive that moral culture
which the company of ladies, when rationally regulated, would give them,
but, in default of other relaxation, are driven into habits and
companionships which often end in gambling and drunkenness; must we not
say that here, too, is an evil not to be passed over as insignificant?
Then consider what a blighting effect these multitudinous preparations
and ceremonies have upon the pleasures they profess to subserve.
Pages:
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312