Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 431

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Chambers's Edinburgh Journal,
No. 431

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 Volume 17, New Series,
April 3, 1852
Author: Various
Editor: Robert Chambers and William Chambers
Release Date: December 3, 2005 [EBook #17207]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS,
EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,'
'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
NO. 431. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1852. PRICE 11/2
_d._

IMPERFECT RESPECTABILITIES.
Everybody must have had some trouble in his time with imperfect
respectabilities. Nice, well-dressed, well-housed, civil, agreeable
people are they. No fault to find with them but that there is some little
flaw in their history, for which the very good (rigid) don't visit them.
The degree to which one is incommoded with imperfect respectabilities,
depends of course a good deal upon the extent of his good-nature, or
his dislike of coming to strong measures in social life. Some have an
inherent complaisance which makes them all but unfit for any such
operation as cutting, or even for the less violent one of cooling off.
Some take mild views of human infirmity, and shrink from visiting it
too roughly. They would rather that the sinners did not cross them; but,
since the contrary is the fact, what can they do but be civil?
One great source of perplexity in the case, is the excessive urbanity of
the imperfect respectabilities themselves. They come up to you on the
street with such sunny faces, and have so many kind inquiries to make,
and so many pleasant things to say, that, for the life of you, you cannot
stiffen up as you ought to do. Some haunting recollection of a bad
affair of cards, or some awkward circumstances attending an
insolvency, will come across your mind, and make you wish the fellow
in the next street; but, unluckily, there he is, cheerful, even funny,
talking of all sorts of respectable things, such as the state of the
money-market, and what Sir George said to him the other day about the
reviving prospects of Protection; and what avails your secret writhing?

He holds you by the glittering eye. You listen, you make jocular
observations in reply; the cards and the insolvency vanish from your
thoughts; you at length shake hands, and part in a transport of
good-humoured old acquaintanceship, and not till you have got a
hundred yards away, do you cool down sufficiently to remember that
you have made a fool of yourself by patronising an imperfect
respectability.
It is, after all, not a harsh and censorious world. Let the imperfect
respectabilities bear witness. If rigid justice held rule below, or men
were really persecutors of each other, there would be no life for that
class. In point of fact, they not only live, but sometimes do tolerably
well in the world. They only could do so by virtue of a certain mutual
tolerance which pervades society. It is a nice matter, however, to say
what degree of imperfect respectability will be endured. Some things,
we all know, cannot be forgiven upon earth; and in such cases there is
no resource but in obscurity. But there is also a large class of offences,
the consequences of which may be overcome. Perhaps the facts do not
come fully out into general notice. Perhaps there may be some little
thing to say in exculpation. If the offender can, after a short space,
continue to make his usual personal appearances, he is safe, because the
great bulk of his old friends would rather continue to recognise him,
than come to a positive rupture--an event always felt as inconvenient.
Of course, they will be too well-bred to allude before him to any
unpleasant fact in his history. He will never recall it to their minds. By
being thus thrown out of all common reference, it will become
obscured to a wonderful degree, insomuch that many will at length
think of it only as a kind of domestic myth, to which no importance is
to be attached. Thus Time is continually bringing in his bills of
indemnity in favour of these unconfessing culprits. Were the world as
harsh as is said, we should rather be having _post-facto_ acts to punish
them, supposing that existing statutes were