RESERVE.
TIIE miserable condition in which two brides have recently found themselves from marrying a man of whom they really knew nothing,—one the prey of a bigamist, and the other, the Birmingham lady of whose misfortunes we have just heard, the wife of a convict under a false name,—is but an emphatic exemplification of the sort of trouble that too often arises in our age of too rapid intimacies from the loss or the neglect of the instinct of reserve. Indeed, the still more shocking story of which the papers were full all last week, is only another illustration on a large scale of the terrible conse- quences of the complete extinction of all those warning instincts which, under various names,—purity, modesty, self-respect, the sense of shame,—teach us to keep at a distance influences which threaten with desecration all that is most sacred in the mind and heart. A moral nature destitute of a deep instinc- tive reserve, is a moral nature without protection against the most destructive influences, like an eye without the instinct which shuts it against blows or dust, or a nerve which does not shrink from the touch of fire. Perhaps the most dangerous consequence of what is called a high state of civilisation, and what really is civilisation with a highly stimulated form of trivial intercourse among the classes with much leisure for society, is that people get to be on terms of great familiarity with those of whom they really know extremely little,—whom they have never seen exposed to any real trial of their nature ; indeed, of whom they know only that they have a few tastes and distastes in common, even if they really know as much as this. And yet, except where a habit of reserve is strong and healthy, this sort of superficial familiarity too often disarms it, or even destroys it, so that those who live in an exciting social atmosphere are hardly even aware that the persons with whom they are so familiar are utterly unknown to them in the only sense in which knowledge can justify anything like mutual dependence,—in the sense, that is, of knowing how far there is ground for real mutual trust between them, how far their natures will gain strength from each other, or lose strength by close association. Nothing is so unnatural or so full of danger as the habit of easy and familiar companionship with people who are only known under the conditions of what is called ' society,'—conditions which imply mutual complaisance up to a certain point very easily reached, conventional ease of manner, courteous frankness of speech which need not be very deep, superficial mutual intelligence which seldom knows how far it penetrates,—though it enjoys the evidence of having penetrated further than was expected,—and alacrity in discerning and complying with the wishes of others. The danger consists in the facility with which companionship of this kind is mistaken for true intimacy, though it does not really imply anything approaching to it. As we have recently seen, a woman will sometimes marry a man of whom she knows nothing at all except that she has found it pleasant to be flattered and admired by him during a com- panionship of this superficial kind. In other words, she will trust her life to the keeping of a man of whose aims, of whose standard of right and wrong, of whose power and habit of living up to that standard, she knows just as much and just as little as she does of the actors whom she has seen on the stage, though she is deceived into thinking that she knows more, only because she happens in this case to have been one of the actors, and not merely a passive spectator. Society is, indeed, a sort of expedient for rubbing off the natural and wholesome reserves which keep people from trusting each other till they have had real experience of what each is made of,—till they have seen what are the objects of reverence, what is the depth of reverence ; what is the force of practical fidelity to the higher aims that determine the true character working behind the familiar forms and faces of so-called society. The surface of the sea on a calm and sunny day is as little of an index to the dangers which the sea may cause, as the familiar manner of mere society to the deeper influences which those who mingle in that society can exert. It would be as wise to drink the deadly juices of the belladonna because of the beauty of the nightshade's flowers, as to welcome intimacy with many of those whose manners in general society
are faultless and fascinating, without knowing anything more of them beyond those manners.
Perhaps, indeed, the worst part of that kind of life which the leisurely classes call the life of society, is that it tends to brush off the tenacity of reserve and to discourage all those reticences which prevent the appearance of intimacy from preceding the reality. Society likes best those who allow themselves to be most completely at home in society, so long as in being at home in it, they do not expect other people to conform to their tastes and wishes. Yet to be in this sense completely at home in society,—that is, to be conscious of no part of your nature to which society is not more or less irksome,—implies either a very superficial life in the individual, or a very unique and rare society. To the better class of minds, such society as is usually available is agreeable enough, just as amusement is agreeable, as a relaxation from the more strenuous part of life, not as an expression of it. If men were not conscious how much of themselves cannot and ought not to bubble over in general society, they could hardly enjoy it as they do. It is because they can express only part of themselves, and that the lighter part, that they feel society the refreshment that it often is. It is the reserve oehind which makes society a relaxation, just as it is study which gives all the zest to holiday-making. Yet no one would judge the man from the holiday-maker only. Unless the man has been seen both when the bow MS bent and when it was relaxed, he has not been really seen ; and the same is true of the deeper character. Unless the character has been seen at its tensest, as well as at its easiest, it has not been truly seen. And the worst of the purely social life, the life lived in what is called society, is that it tends to loosen the texture of the whole ; it tends to dissipate all that is most individual, most earnest, most strenuous,—to minimise the reserves of life, and to make the most of the superficial eddies. In this way, it often quite destroys the trustworthiness of the higher instincts, weakens those recoils of feeling of which you can give yourself no clear account, and accustoms you to adapt yourself so habitually to the moods and attitudes of others, that you almost cease to be shocked, when some deep-rooted feeling warns you of the presence of something hostile to the deepest in- stincts of your being. So far as the man himself is concerned, it would be a hundred times wiser to carry a lump of dynamite about with him habitually, as to marry a woman of whose inward life and aims he knows nothing more than be can learn from ordinary drawing-room intercourse ; and if it would be a hundred times wiser for the man to do so, it would be a thousand times wiser for the woman, who is even more certain to be crushed under the weight of a miserable marriage than the man. After all, a lump of dynamite can only maim or kill. But an attempt to live in the closest possible intimacy with a person all of whose aims and views are hostile and degrading to your own, may be a con- tinuous and permanent process of moral maiming and killing which never ceases so long as the unnatural tie continues. In- deed, the mere fact that any one wants to marry without a con- siderable depth of mutual knowledge, ought to be in itself the best possible evidence that a marriage, in the highest sense of the word, is not even intended. It ought to be a shock to any person of right instincts that such a relation as marriage should be even proposed without the genuine intimacy which could alone justify it,—an intimacy which may of course be in certain exceptional cases very speedily formed, but which can never be formed without going far beneath the surface of mere social intercourse. A few days' acquaintance may now and then mean a great deal more than many years' acquaintance means in other cases. But when the few days' acquaintance consists, as it did apparently in the Aston case, on the part of the reputed Yankee, of days of ostentatious display of wealth and prodigality, and of nothing else, a healthy instinct would have suspected all this to be a piece of acting, and only shrunk the more from one whose ostentation was the most conspicuous of his social characteristics. There is nothing apparently very amiable about suspiciousness ; and yet without a suspiciousness sufficient to distrust superficial passion, superficial flattery, super- ficial display, there cannot easily be any of that reserve which is at the very heart of all true life. There ought to be some- thing in all of us to take alarm at unmeaning and unaccountable willingness to fuse one life with another. Such a willingness is the most dangerous and miaow; of dispositions, where it is un- justified; and the mere proposal to be headlong and inconsiderate in such a matter is itself well-nigh a confession of evil intent. Without a real force of reserve in the heart, the heart must he either feeble or false.
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