THE INDICATIVE STRAIN.
" THIS inconvenience just serves to show what people are made of," said a girl in a large provision-store to the present writer. " I have every opportunity now to know the characters of the customers." She looked very good-tempered herself as she watched the moral straws blowing about the shop, and judged which way the wind blew in the hearts of her cross or civil customers. Outside in the cold the actual straws from the great packing-cases were whirling in the street-draughts quite irrespective of proverbs and theories. A low weathercock on a small house opposite was veering capriciously, as if in defiance of the town-dweller's wit and wisdom.
It was a well-dressed crowd who were jostling each other, and grumbling about the butter and the margarine. Small boarding- houses and huge blocks of flats abound in the neighbourhood, and the clientele of the store consists mostly of anxious young women beginning life " in a small way," and wanting the best food for their children ; bachelor women with much work on hand and always in a hurry ; meek old maids •who almost beg for their modest requirements ; and more or less violent widows emboldened by the thought of insatiable boarders to demand butter and tea. with something like threats. The girl behind the counter likes to disappoint these last ; but they force their demands upon her by sheer strength of will They differ in person considerably, but a sameness of manner brings them together into one type. Most of their conversation consists of reproachful questions. They would like to know the reason of all the favouritism they observe, or think they observe, or have heard tell of. They would like to know what all that butter is doing in one corner there. When it is pointed out to them that the supposed butter is " dummy," they do not conside their qu ation to have been satisfactorily answered. They would like to know why several people were served last night after there was said to be no margarine. They would like to know if any member of the firm is " in control " of the girls behind the counter. " Are you the fin. I appeal Y " asks one in an extremely haughty voice. " Am I what Y " shouts her hearer, losing her temper for the first time, and pausing in her secondary job of cutting cheese into quarter- pound wedges. Then, as the meaning of the words dawns upon her, she turns to the next customer, dismissing the haughty lady with a short " Ask who you like for what you want" Pretty you rg mothers, who in less crowded moments bring their perambu. lators to the store, get the most attention, and perhaps the largest quantity of the things of which there is a shortage. The shop. girl approves of them, and hopes some day to stand in their place. With the bachelor women, too, she is on good terms, recognizes the fact that they are in a hurry, and accepts a little mild chaff from them in good part. With the more old-fashioned type of old maids she has no sympathy. They take a sad view of t'‘.e present priva- tions, and sometimes a bitter one. The girl herself knows what it is to " make do " with much les > than she is accustomed to, and she does it cheerfully, and why should not they ? She does not realize what it is not only to bo poor, but to look forward to greater poverty ; she does not know that when we are young prospects form a per- manent grant in aid of wages. Taking this grant into consideration, we may say that all wages go down automatically as we go on in .life. The old maids know this and are depressed. The tonic of a good snub does the grumblers no good. The lady presiding over the margarine will give them one if she gets the chance, and enjoys doing it, for this young judge, so safely railed off from her appli- cants for justice, acquits and condemns at her pleasure, managing now and then even to reward and punish. She does not know that the straws she watches offer evidence of circumstance, not character. The hoarding-house-keeper cannot please herself. She is the mis- tress of her house and the servant of every one in it. Her mixed
arrogance and subservience are the result of pressure from without. The bachelor woman has no one to please but herself, and can afford her good temper. The mother of a young family feels the safety of her position. She is the person who matters, and she, especially if she has the advantage of more or less gentle nurture, can touch the heart of the world.
What a different thing life would be if we all started fair. We should at least have a chance of condemning one another justly ! Is there any world anywhere where handicaps are unknown, where no cross-currents of circumstance can confuse the issue ? On the whole, it is doubtful whether, human nature being what it is, any one would want to be there. Hitherto the great effort of human society has been to render such a world impossible. It is difficult to think that any real wish for equality exists. We seem to prefer that the struggle should be enlivened by chances. Some- times one wonders where the notion of a perfectly equal contest ever came from. We seem to owe it wholly to games ; that is, we suppose, to some inspiration of childhood originally. Single combat in the days of chivalry and duelling while it lasted required that opponents should be equally equipped, but the wildest dreamers have never thought of introducing such a principle into war. Of all the silly and wise proposals that the present crisis has brought forth, not one has suggested equal numbers equally armed on a field offering equal facilities. Such nonsense is for the nursery, the school, or the betting world.
On the other hand, it is very easy to exaggerate the influence of circumstance on character, though its influence on expression and trivial action is limidess. No sooner do we get into a region where principle is concerned than we rise above the street eddies, and straws do show the direction of the wind. A gratuitous piec.: of cruelty—though it be a small one and only done to an animal—does show character. So does disrespect for another person's property. So does deceit. Now and then, of course, even in larger matters, we all act out of character. We all say to ourselves in genuine horror : " What possessed me ! " The occurrence, however, is not very common, and it is inevitable that it should mislead even an experienced and just-minded onlooker. It is one of the strange, unaccountable facts of existence which defy art. No man of letters, we suppose, has ever lived who could depict convincingly his hero acting against his nature in any essential matter ; yet every real man has so acted—not less than once, we imagine.
Handsome conduct in trifles, so far as it is independent of circum- stances, is chiefly dependent upon that supreme moral convenience. a good temper. It is one ,of the smallest of the virtues, but it ii the one which, if an angel were to offer them a moral gift, nine men in ten would ask for. It is a beautiful quality, and, like so many beautiful things, apparently evanescent. Practically no one loses the great moral qualities between eighteen and eighty, if at eighteen they really were his ; but a good temper may leave a man at any period in his career. Irascibility comes on not unseldom with years. How many of us who have reached middle life look back with a sigh to a better temper ! Strenuous times try the equanimity even of the young, and we suspect that the facetiousness which is fast becoming a noticeable feature of British character is very often the outcome of temper-strain—an outcome possible only to a brave and self-controlled generation.
One other quality besides good temper preserves its owner from exhibiting the silly gusts of feeling by whose expression so many men and women are misjudged, and that is reserve. It is an inhuman peculiarity. Those who were born with it must have been intended for some other world where life is longer, and there is time for men and women to find each other out. Here, where our span is so short, it is surely better to open our hearts, even though there should now and then slip out of them something of which we are not proud, and which we should not like "to bo known for," as the saying is.
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