AIRS AND GRACES.
£1. all and graces are rather resented just now. We are
all very much afraid lest our neighbours should think too much of themselves. Miss Austen, on the other hand, rather admired an "air." Emma, our readers may remember, was shocked to find that her little protegee had allowed herself to think of marriage with a man "completely without air." The fact that he was sensible and simple did not appeal to Emma in the least. It was not that he wanted in assurance, but that he failed to bring with him the sweet atmosphere of a more or less artificial world.
Is there not, perhaps, a certain selfishness in the modern exaltation of unselfconsciousness? To the ungrudging admirer there is something charming about the airs cf a girl who has discovered that she is very pretty and who is enjoying—con- sciously enjoying—the triumph of her own beauty. There may be one charm more in her to whom it is still a secret, but the onlooker must remember that she is missing a happiness which can at beat be of but short duration. Every old woman
who, looking back, cannot remember what it felt like to be pretty realises that she has not had all that life can give. -Very much the same thing is true of boys as of girls, though vanity sits less becomingly on male shoulders. Still, easy though it is for a vain boy to be ridiculous, a man must be sadly given to grudging who cannot share in the pleasure of a very young man who is pleased with himself. The remembrance of the sensation of perfect health and wellbeing, to which a know- ledge of good looks has added a crowning delight, is a possession for life. It is possible for a boy or girl to have all these gifts and not know his or her good fortune. It is not possible for either of them to know and not show the know- ledge. At least it would argue a sophistication which in itself would destroy more charm than vanity.
There are, of course, fashions in these sort of "airs." The young people of Shakespeare's time did not give them- selves quite the same airs as young people do now. We know a great deal about Shakespeare's heroines. We know what they said and what they thought; what a pleasure if we could see their "airs"; but alas ! these little mannerisms are evanescent and cannot be perpetuated upon paper. If we could bat see the airs and graces which Shakespeare had in his memory when he made his heroines make love, how deeply in love we should fall! Shakespeare did not over-rate unselfconsciousness, but he gave his creations such wonderfully charming selves to be conscious of. Shakespeare, however, knew as well as we that there are plenty of airs and graces which have nothing to do with youth and happiness. There are social airs which are little connected with anything so simple as vanity. There are people who, now as in Shakespeare's time, take immense pleasure in making upon others an impression of social importance, and who are always saying in effect, "Receives not thy nose court-odour from me ? " Many people value social success solely as a thing to boast of. The same value is set by many of us upon many forms of experience. Travel, for instance, pleases many of those who undertake it only in con- versational retrospect. The "court odours" received are as a rule rather cloying, but many persons are willing to put up with them because they would like to know the atmosphere of a court, and they do learn something about it from the airs and graces of those who have breathed it at intervals. The " graces " displayed to them are for the most part imitations, and give the amount of instruction usually supplied by caricatures. Almost all airs and graces have the effect of making those who do not know how to assume them uncomfortable, but there are always some people in every society whose sense of social curiosity will lead them to put up with considerable discomfort.
The airs affected by those persons who believe themselves above the average in what is called cultivation are more resented, we think, than even social airs. Self-conscious- ness in this direction is seldom forgiven. Such airs are, no doubt, a bore to witness, but they, like the airs of the young, are often nothing but an expression of happiness—. a consciousness of a citizenship not shared by all. It is sometimes said that consciousness of high birth gives the same sense of initiation and differentiation, and that it also produces airs—airs of arrogant happiness. Whether this be true or not, it is certain that the airs of the consciously great are lighter than those of the ostentatiously cultivated. Those who give themselves these latter airs, while they delight themselves, are often accounted kill-joys. " With these forced thoughts I pr'ythee darken not the mirth of the feast," are Shakespeare's words, and they express very well the attitude of the ordinary man towards one who gives himself airs on the score of his cultivation. -Very often the man thus condemned is a very simple though not often a very sociable person. People who live in a world of abstract thought have often an intense fastidious dislike to close mental contact with their more practical fellows. They feel as men feel who bate to be in a crowd. They long to clear themselves a space, and they are specially tempted if the persons pushing upon them belong to a class with which they are not in sympathy. After all, a man who knows more than those amongst whom he lives has a posses- sion of which it is only human to be proud. Rich people give themselves airs with far less excuse. Their airs are the airs of power, and airs of power are not always accompanied by any graces at all. They are the airs of those who can afford
to smile at other people's airs. But power always does and always will command admiration, even from those who have nothing to gain from the powerful person. Hardly anyone has power without self-consciousness, and the temptation to "airs" when something so real exists behind all the veils of convention must be strong indeed.
Religious airs and graces are nowadays rare, but they were no doubt common once, and the altered voice assumed by some clerics in church and by some persons when quoting Scripture is of the nature of a survival. There is no doubt that some rather hard-hearted people, who mistakenly imagine that their habitual cheerfulness is due to their creed and not to their temperament, still remain to show to their struggling and sorrowing neighbours what is meant by religious airs. They patronise the sad in a manner scarcely to be borne. Very nearly as disagreeable are the airs which accompany an immense stock of conclusions. The airs of the dogmatist stifle the intellectual capacity of all those with whom he comes in contact. That is why he triumphantly believes himself abler than his fellows.
Shyness is very often mistaken for "airs." There is a formality of manner and address which appears in a free- and-easy society to be an assumption of superiority. It is often nothing of the kind. There are many originally ,s.hy people who cannot appear upon the social stage and begin to improvise. They must have some notion of what they are going to say before they can trust themselves to open their mouths. Formality is a support to them without which they would be obliged to remain in seclusion. Consciousness of bad manners or of an original want of education often leads men to suspect " airs " in others. It is a very petty form of suspicion, or perhaps we should say a very puerile form. Only schoolboys have a right to hate a man for an affectation. A dislike to airs in other people is not always a sign of simplicity. Envy has often a part in it. The fear of airs shows far more self-consciousness and, as a rule, far more vanity than the practice of them.
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