GAUCHERIE.
THE French make use of this term to express awkwardness of every kind, but principally awkwardness arising out of mental obliquity. The etymology of the word is significant. It is derived from an adjective which signifies left; and may, in reference to this deri- vation, be de fined—intellectual left-handedness. Unhomme gauche is one who, in all he says and does, exhibits the same constraint and awkwardness which are perceptible in the movements of him that is left-handed. It may happen, that the effect is not very different from that which a process of more grace and apparent fitness would lead to ; but, whatever be the end, the means never fail to impress the beholder with a feeling of risibility or contempt. In its ludicrous form, the gaucherie is akin to theirs in whom left- handedness appears to be inborn. Some children will put the spoon in the left-hand, let their knuckles be rapped for it ten times an hour. They have as strong a tendency to do every thing that they attempt in the worst way possible, as others in whom the mind and body are more fitly composed have to do every thing in the best way. At such persons we laugh, but we canlhardry frown. In its contemptible form, the gaucherie is put on; the left-handed- ness does not arise out of accidental misdirection, but has either been studied in despair of attaining to what is just and right, or from the petty vanity of appearing to stand distinguished from the rest of mankind. The assumed gaucherie is not always ma- lignant; but as the motive to its assumption is selfish, if it do not inspire hatred, there is at least no kindness in the emotion to which it gives birth—it may, be tolerated, but it is also des- pised. Such gaucherie is by no means incompatible with talent, of which it argues the abuse, rather than the absence. With the gaucherie of nature, on the contrary, there is commonly some in- tellectual defect associated. It is the abuse of talent, provoking our anger, while its effects excite our laughter, that kindles the compound feeling with which the put-on gaucherie is visited. If the talent that has been abused be great, the anger will naturally predominate until the risible feeling is altogether absorbed, and no other emotion than indignation is felt at the homme gauche and his actions. This emotion will be very much increased if the homme gauche be placed in a station in which his gaucheries tend to bring contempt, not on himself merely, but to involve third parties in their consequences—if they be of that kind which HoaacE speaks of when he says,
" His ludicra in seria ducunt."
Even the native gaucherie may in such a case provoke, and most justly, our highest anger. There is, indeed, but a small difference in affairs of importance, between the blunders of him that cannot, and the blunders of him that will not do right. We have been led into these profound reflections on left-handed- ness, by the perusal, in the Irish newspapers, of a correspondence between the Right Honourable EDWARD GEOFFRY SMITH STAN- LEY, Secretary for Ireland, and Mr. EDWARD DWYER, a gentleman who boasts a Secretaryship too, as well as Mr. STANLEY does. Mr. DWYER writes to Mr. STANLEY, in the name of the Political Union of Ireland, requesting to know for their information what is meant by the phrase " municipal taxes," in the Irish Reform Bill. The inquiry was not impertinent. The time of the registry was hurrying by ; every elector was for himself deeply interested in the interpretation of the Act—all electors were deeply interested for the community at large. The inquiry- was one which any body meeting for political purposes might be expected to make ; it was one the answer to which the Union might be most usefully employed in disseminating. Such an answer, a sensible man in office would have been forward to.give—a just man would have deemed it a matter of duty to give it. But what does Mr. STAN- LEY ? Having discovered that the Political. Union was not a body recognized in law,—that it was not the chartered corporation of a totten borough, for instance,—having discovered this important fact by dint of hard study, Mr. STANLEY thus answers Mr. DWYER's letter:
" " Dublin Castle, September 24.
• Sir—In answer to a letter which I have received this mewing, signed I Xdward.Theyer, Secretary to the Political Union of Ireland,' I must beg to decline entering into any communication or correspondence with that body, or any of a similar description. " I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, " E. G. STANLEY." Now, Mr. STANLEY was not asked to " enter into correspond- ence" with the Political Union of Ireland,. or " any of a similar description." All that Mr. DWYER asked was a simple answer to a question touching a difficulty in a bill of Mr. STANLEY'S own carrying. And what was Mr. STANLEY, that he should not give that answer to Mr. DWYER, or to the Political Union of Ireland, or to any body of a similar description ? Lord JOHN RUSSELL re- plied to the thanks of the Political Union of Birmingham, con- veyed by its President ; Lord ALTHORP (lid not disdain to corre- spond with the same gentleman ; and why should Mr. EDWARD GEOFFRY SMITH STANLEY object to answer a pertinent question, ci- villy put to him by the Secretary of the Political Union of Ireland? Mr. STANLEY is a gentleman of fair understanding and fair infor- mation ; and he is a man of honour, and an honourable man's son. We charge him not with folly, or with crime—we charge him only with gaucherie. A right-handed man would have re- plied to Mr. DWYER, as in fact Mr. STANLEY did to another gen- tleman of the same name, in a plain, business fashion, without travelling out of the way in order to take notice of the Union with which Mr. DWYER was connected. But Mr. STANLEY is not a right-handed man; he is, and ever will be, to the great damage of his party, un homme gauche.
Previous page
