Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No.306
Various
Various
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No.306 / New Series, Saturday, November 10, 1849
APPEARANCES
It is considered a sound rule not to sacrifice reality for appearances. To be good is held as better than only to seem good. Appearances, in as far as they may serve, and often do serve, as a means of cloaking some evil reality, are not, upon the whole, in good esteem among mankind. It is a word seldom mentioned without some expression of contempt or reprobation. Yet it may be questioned if we could, in this world, quite dispense with appearances.
To lead a life free of gross improprieties is undoubtedly the first requisite. If, however, while doing this, we allow much of our conduct to be interpretable into something opposite, is the result a matter of indifference to society? The thoughtless lady who flirts, or, as the common phrase is, allows herself latitudes, and who is yet studious to be substantially correct, answers, Yes; or perhaps she goes no farther than to say, Being in my own mind conscious of perfect rectitude, I have nothing to say to society on the subject, and it has no title to interfere, so long as I commit no actual transgression. This is specious, and seems to exclude reply. Most people give way to its force, yet do not act or speak as if they felt it to be quite right. It is wrong in this way: such conduct tends to become a screen to actual error; for if the virtuous appear to act exactly as the vicious do, how can we know where vice exists? It is our duty even to appear pure and irreproachable, because, when all that are pure present only the symptoms of purity in their external behaviour, it is the more difficult for the erring to conceal their guilt. They are forced into hypocrisy, which is not merely a homage to virtue, but a means of recruiting her ranks from the bands of vice, seeing that there is an additional pain and trouble in being wicked. All hypocrites would be, or have the advantages attendant on being, what they pretend to be. Can we doubt that, under a system of perfect freedom, they would be something worse than they are?
It thus appears that there is a philosophy in those little decorums of society which minds of a bold and sprightly character are so apt to deride, and which many persons, without the least ill intention, are so often seen to disregard. Every great cause must have its banner. Under every banner there will be a few rogues and cowards. But how much worse would it be with an army to have no ensign at all? It might then have the whole force of the enemy mingling in its ranks, and unresistedly hewing it in pieces.
When we hear of people keeping up appearances, we usually either condemn or laugh. Very often the condemnation or the ridicule is just, but not always so. There is much to object to in endeavours to attain or keep up a style of living different from that which is suitable to our actual means or our actual place in society. Let this error be abandoned to the unsparing satire of those who delight in exposing human weakness and frailty. But all keeping up of appearances is not of this nature. A family is often invested with a rank which its income will scarcely support in proper style, yet which it must support, or forfeit that rank altogether. Even in particular professions there is this hard necessity. The style is part of the very profession itself, something without which it cannot be practised. There is also such a thing as a decline of worldly prosperity, where to appear poor would be to become so even more rapidly than is strictly unavoidable. In such cases, if a family does not basely, by incurring debt, throw the actual suffering upon others – if it only pinches itself at one time, that it may make a decent show at another – if it only spares in its own grosser necessaries, that it may appear on a footing of equality with those of its own nominal social rank, or escape the pity which it is heavenly to give, but bitter to receive, there surely is no offence committed. I must own I never could exactly s