SOCIAL FEARLESSNESS.
IN the handicap of life social fearlessness is an immense advantage. It is almost the equivalent of birth. The strange thing is that it should be so uncommon. A small amount of reflection should encourage even the most arrant social coward. Society is the only place in which courage is actually a protection. Roughly speaking, no harm can happen to us if only we are not afraid. Intrepidity implies almost no risk. Yet how few of us can say to ourselves that our hearts have never sunk in a new social atmosphere, or that we have never lost our heads in the presence of those persons who cultivate the repute of social greatness and dread. But there are a few men and women to whom social fear is unknown. We can all call to mind some such. They belong to many types and to all ranks of life.
Some of the socially fearless are among the most lovable characters in the world. .There are a few childlike natures who retain for ever an instinctive trust in humanity. They seem always to be in sympathy with their company. They know how to disarm the world. As a' rule, there is something in their attitude towards strangers which we can only describe as deference ; but their deference, like that of children, lies very close to dignity. They pay it instinctively to every One, to rich and poor alike, as the best-mannered children pay it. They never, as we say, let themselves down ; yet they seem always to be looking up. There is something in them of the very spirit of youth, and they have always the supreme charm of happiness. Men say that they are lucky; it would be truer to say that they are gifted.
But it is not only the good who are fearless, though the world, with its instinctive desire to give admiration, would like to think so. Even socially the notion is a fallacy. There are plenty of bullies who love to strike terror and plenty of thick- skinned persons into whom one only wishes that terror could be struck ; plenty also of men and women to whom social life, though fate obliges them to take part in it, is a matter of such small importance as to be impotent to rouse any emotion whatever. Of course there are a great variety of thick skins. Some insensitive people are attractive and very restful. They do not need to be considered; they take things as they come. They do not notice this person's airs, or that person's Ungraciousness. Differences of atmosphere are not recognised by them. Their notion of social intercourse is to answer when you are spoken to, speak when you have something to say, and ask what you want to know. On this principle they get through their, social lives very comfortably, and on the whole they find society very pleasant and interesting. Any snub they may get they innocently put down to the ill manners of the snubber, and, for themselves, they never hurt any one except by accident. Other thick-skinned persons are, however, nothing but a nuisance. No one can abate them. They always come where they are not wanted. They push into every enclosure, no matter the reason of its reservation. They pay to all above them the sometimes unpalatable and always unwholesome conipliment of constantly seeking them. There is a form of social brute-courage which generally belongs to the most complete snobs and the most expert brain-pickers. They try to share in joys with Which the Stranger should not intermeddle, and offer sympathy for sorrows of 'which the afflicted persons were hoping that they did not know. They are a ceaseless source of annoy- ance to strangers, and of shame to their intimates. "The worst of her is that you can't offend her," said a poor woman not long ago to the present • writer, as she described a socially fearless neighbour wholeft her neither peace nor privacy.
' Neither of these types means any harm. Among the socially fearless, however, there are some really ill-natured and cruel people. For them, as a rule, social life is the whole of life. Not to know its minutest rules, or to ignore them by reason of other cares, is a crime, and the punishment of such crime is sport. Nearly always they get on in the world, or one might say they have got on. Their arrogance is usually the outcome of success. Just now and then, when they have rendered a shy person desperate with fright, they get a blow back which lookers-on hope they may really feel, but anyhow they have too much courage to show it. Outside criminality, there is perhaps no study in the world so destructive of sympathy and judgment as the 'minute study of social custom, with all its ramifications and its bearing on social grade; and when it is attained there is no knowledge in the world so ephemeral and despicable,. Yet to bow many social strugglers is it the crown and seal of their triumph. No doubt there are a few people who, born where social knowledge seems to come by instinct, overrate their birthright, and enjoy it most when it is made conspicuous by contrast ; but they are rare. There are some socially fearless people, who, because they startle the timid, are occa- sionally confused with the unkind, who simply go on the principle of saying and doing as they like. If they are men and women of goodwill, they are among the most wholesome of social elements. They accord the liberty they demand. The higher up in the world they are, the more good they do. They destroy the game of the student of fash?on, make straight the path of the able ignorant, and keep the social waters sweet with movement.
Inevitably the greater number of the socially fearless are to be found among the highly placed. There is, of course, a purely physical terror of a crowd to which we believe certain people in every rank of life are equally subject. To them a sense of hostility comes with numbers, and if chance places the crowd-shy person in a conspicuous position among a number of eyes, he has a sense of almost unbearable dis- comfort. A man or woman may be socially fearless—that is, may be able to face any social dilemma or any change of social circumstance with absolute calm—and yet be quite unnerved by a sudden sense of conspicuousness among a con- course of people. Social courage is susceptible of no such test, any more than physical courage can be judged of by tolerance or intolerance of heights. Putting aside this constitutional form of shyness, it is difficult to see why the very highly placed should ever feel any social fear. Can one imagine' a shy King ? Is it possible that Royalty may sometimes feel'shy in their desire to put other people at their ease ? Do the very great sometimes turn cold and stiff as they realise that they have failed to charm away a hauteur which may have humble origin, or an awkwardness which hides first-rate ability, or when they have failed—for once—to render transparent that opaque social barrier through which, if they love human nature, they would often like to examine the real man? A baffled desire to please is a fruitful source of shyness, and that desire may spring, and in gracious natures does spring, from benevolence and intelligence as well as from self-seeking and folly. We sometimes wonder whether a new shyness may not have attacked the socially great of late years. They do not live any longer exclusively among themselves. Are they ever rendered shy by the atmosphere of criticism which the newcomer must bring with him P If we may believe their own account—their social biographies and published letters—they have changed considerably in manners and customs. In deference, one wonders, to what emotion ?
Of all the people who ought by all the rules of logic to be socially fearless, we should put the social artist first. We mean the person whose whole pleasure is in the drama of life, and whose delight it is to express his impressions Oddly enough, this is not the case. The man or woman who ought to accept even disagreeable social experience gladly, as so much grist to his or her mill, is often very fearful. Even that rarest of all things, the consciousness of genius, has no power to strengthen the shaking social knees, though, like Homy IV., their owners may not give in, but pursue their end in gallant terror. Take the Brontes as a case in point.
More of those flood-tides which lead on to fortune are missed through social fear, we should imagine, than through any other single cause. Let their powers be what they may, few men, be they labourers or princes, and no women can afford to do without favour. How many people with courage to analyse their own failure must trace it to social fear ? Can social courage be cultivated ? About as much, we imagine, as courage in any other form. Some men are born timid and some fierce, some fearful and some friendly. We cannot alter our nature; but, roughly speaking, the majority of those who have undergone drill and discipline not only do best at the moment of danger, but suffer least.
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