"NICENESS" AS A SOCIAL ASSET.
IT has always been possible to enter the highest English society without birth or exceptional beauty, without wealth or conversational wit, and without genius of any description. It was possible even a hundred and twenty years ago, while the theory of the identity of blue and red blood remained academic, when money was not all-powerful, when society was small, and when no one was ashamed of being proud. The Miss Berrys (who were born in the middle of the eighteenth century and died in the middle of the nine- teenth) lived, to use their own favourite expression, " dans le tii.3 grand monde." They had no natural connexion with it whatever, and they did not enter it till both were over twenty. They were the daughters of an amiable middle-class gentleman whose chief characteristic was "an odd inherent easiness," and of whose antecedents the world knew nothing save that be was the nephew, though not the heir, of a rich Glasgow merchant. They were brought up on a small income without educational advantages, and though later on, at the death of their great-uncle, they and their father together had not less than fifteen to seventeen hundred a year, that sum even in those days was not accounted wealth. Of their looks and abilities it may be said that they were good, but not brilliant or remarkable. They owed, no doubt, their introduction to the world of fashion to luck. Had they never known Horace Walpole they must have remained outside the aristocratic, enclosure ; but once in they never came out, and they died there—at the ages of eighty-eight and eighty-nine respectively. To make a list of their acquaintance would mean the tran- scription of those pages of the Peerage and the Dictionary of National Biography which relate to a period covering the sixty years from 1790 to 1850. Why were they thus accepted on their merits ? Simply because they were superlatively pleasant. To use a universal colloquialism, because they were quite exceptionally nice.
In what does social niceness consist ? Those who read Mr. Lewis Melville's new book, The Bemy Papers (John Lane, 20s. net), will find a charming answer to this question. Judging from the Miss Berrys' letters to their intimate friends and to each other, we should say that the first qualification for complete social "niceness" is of the nature of a defect. It is a species of mental and spiritual short- sight. No wide horizon must fascinate the eyes of the man or woman who would succeed by pleasantness. The horizon which straitened the scope of Miss Austen's pen was the horizon which limited the vision of the Miss Berrys' souls. The small bit of the world which is called the drawing-room offered a sufficient field for the genius of the one and repre- sented the known world to the other. Miss Austen's heroines and Horace Walpole's protegees adorned very different circles, but both sought the meaning of life in its unending comedy, and found in the consolations of common-sense a sufficient refuge from its occasional tragedy.
Given, then, the requisite short-sight, what is the next thing necessary for the success of those who would be universally declared "nice "? Having recourse again to The Berry Papers for instruction, we should say that it is to make a business of the social game. All men and all women who pursue any business or profession successfully exercise in it an immense deal of self-control. Their opinions, their moods, their small ailments, even their big troubles, do not interfere with their work. They do not refuse to serve a customer or to advise a client because they happen to have a contempt for his character. They do not seek to controvert his convictions or in any circumstances to make him feel a fooL If they find them- selves in the company of the authoritative, they accept them at their own valuation, and offer the deference that they expect. Among subordinates, on the other hand, they grudge, if they are wise, neither civility nor consideration. They give ear to their client's or patient's troubles; they do not recount their own. They do their work as long as they have strength to do it, and are found in harness when they feel far too ill or tired or sad or angry to seek any form of pleasure. This amount of self-suppression is common, is almost universal daring working hours, among those who must make a living, and it is essential for such a social success as the Berrys attained to. Miss Mary Berry worked at her self-imposed job when any doctor would have ordered any working man
to "go on his club." However, it did her no harm, no doubt because she so intensely enjoyed it. Like all the pre-eminently "nice," her interest in persons was insatiable. Nothing that she could hear about anyone was too small to interest her, but her mind was a benevolent medium, and sweetened the gossip which passed through it. Then, again, the smaller details of the social business, those details which it was, even in her day, the fashion to pretend to despise, interested her hugely. When she was over fifty she found as much pleasure in buying and planning her wardrobe as though she had been still eighteen. She was far too " nice " to be vain at any age, and far too wise to pretend to youth when it was past; but she enjoyed these details, and they refreshed her mind for her more serious work. All "nice" people appear at home in whatever world they may happen to live, but the Miss Berrys did not, we think, forget that they came origin. ally from elsewhere. Newcomers live in glass houses, and "nice" newcomers never throw stones. Inwardly the Miss Berrys must have been socially very critical, for they steered their course constantly in one direction; but outwardly they were not critical at all, and lived therefore in perfect safety under their glass roof, speaking ill of no one.
Another great aid to "niceness " is to have no very strong ties of affection. To be unmarried is, ordinarily speaking, a social disadvantage; but to women as "nice," as socially industrious, and as socially self-suppressive as the Berrys we believe it might be accounted an advantage. Their atten- tion would have been distracted by children, who do, without doubt, hinder their mothers in the pursuit of either causes, pleasures, or professions. They cared very much for one another, but their small interests were more identical than is possible either between the sexes or between the generations.
But when all is said, negative qualities do not account for social " niceness." The "nice" man, and more especially the "nice" woman, must have the capacity for making other people appear at their beat—that is, at their cleverest and at their most genial. This is just as tree now, we suppose, as in the days of salons, though the disappearance of the salon has deprived social aspirants of a convenient stage. The gift of making others pleasant is the ne plus ultra of pleasant- ness, and it is impossible to analyse. The reverse is a detestable quality, yet how often we see it in the well endowed. Just as there are some men and women whose true home is in company, so there are others who ought never to be allowed to see a stranger. They take a wicked pleasure in exposing the weaknesses of their acquaintance. They like to make a good man show his vanity, or a charming woman her folly. They draw to the light the silly or inferior facets of their interlocutors' characters. Sometimes they are significant and not at all bad people, but they are never popular. There is a momentary delight in giving reins to one's folly, one's vanity, one's caprice, but the recollection is bitter, and the result is resentment. Their victims resent their own bad qualities to the person who draws them out. Those who can do this are people of some power and often quite super- ficial malevolence. Against them we must set the type of which we have been talking—the people of often superficial benevolence, who take delight in the act of admiration. They win almost more gratitude than they deserve, and men uncon- sciously thank them for the abilities and charm which they know how to make evident. The truly " nice" evoke gratitude wherever they go, and that is why they have always been able to go anywhere.
Previous page
