Decorum

“ Deviations from the code of decorum have become intrinsically odious to all men, and good breeding is, in everyday apprehension, not simply an adventitious mark of human excellence, but an integral feature of the worthy human soul. There are few things which so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breech of decorum; and so far have we progressed in the direction of imputing intrinsic utility to the ceremonial observances of etiquette that few of us, if any, can dissociate an offence against etiquette from a sense of the substantial unworthiness of the offender. ”

“ And can I do homage to decorum, the idol to which we are sacrificed, the empty scarecrow that the selfishness of men sets up to keep us within our prison-walls? In the folds of its garment lie hidden tyranny, hate and revenge, jealousy and envy, malice and uncharitableness, ready to crawl out like poisonous serpents and attack its victims. What free spirit will not curse it if it has ever been aware of even the shadow of its rod? ”

“ How often it happens that for years one sees a family cover themselves over with a conventional cloak of decorum, and preserve the real relations of its members a secret from every eye! How often, too, have I remarked that, the more impenetrable (and therefore the more decorous) is the cloak, the harsher are the relations which it conceals! ”

“ One may imagine the emotions of shame, sorrow, and indignation with which the vast assembly, consisting of both sexes, listened to the words of an instrument, every sentence of which seemed to convey a personal indignity to the hearers—an outrage on all those ideas of decorum and decency in which they had been nurtured from infancy ”

“ What a deal of innocent mirth has been spoiled by the disuse of it!—It is not an easy matter to preserve decorum in courts of justice. The smallest circumstance that interferes with the solemnity of the proceedings, throws the whole place into an uproar of laughter. People at the point of death often say smart things. ”

“ It should be denounced as
inappropriate decorum in this place.
And for those who wish to be equally rude by holding up something,
let me suggest that it is a free country. And I do appreciate,
sometimes we make mistakes, I admit to mistakes. ”

“ When our growing sense of priggish decorum and our dishonest ceremoniousness of speech made the jester a figure no longer possible, we substituted for him the poet-laureate!—not to persuade us of our follies, but to chant our undeserved praises. ”

“ It is certain, however, that it was so, and that there was something in virtue and innocence which in those days was a very strong safeguard against the attacks of scandal, calumny, and malice. In the present day, even the servants of virtue are found to be the absolute slaves of decorum; but in those days, so long as they obeyed the high commands of their rightful mistress, they had but little occasion to apprehend that the scourge of calumny, or the fear thereof, would drive them continually back into one narrow and beaten path. ”

“ Knowing that 'due decorum's' breach foulest disgrace will cause.
Those firm in mind will not slacken in their observance of the proprieties of life, knowing, as they do, the misery that flows from the transgression from them. ”

“ Has not the Scripture something upon "the lusting after a woman" being no less criminal than the crime? "A step beyond decorum," in short, any step beyond the instep, is a step from a precipice to the lady who permits it. ”

“ From stories of this nature, both ancient and modern, which abound, the poets also, and some English, have been in this point so mindful of decorum as to put never more pious words in the mouth of any person than of a tyrant. ”

“ Observe decorum in every thing you represent, that is, fitness of action, dress, and situation, according to the dignity or meanness of the subject to be represented. Be careful that a king, for instance, be grave and majestic in his countenance and dress ”

“ Let them cant about decorum, Who have character to lose. ”

“ As little acquainted with the rules of decorum, as with the laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you, that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last ”

“ Few other essays in this direction appear worth noting, until we come to a few seasons back, when certain members of the administration were caricatured upon the stage of the Court Theatre, after a fashion that speedily brought down the rebuke of the Chamberlain, and the exhibition was prohibited within his jurisdiction. But the question of "good manners and decorum" has induced much controversy. For where, indeed, is discoverable an acceptable standard of "good manners and decorum"? In such matters there is always growth and change of opinion. ”

“ Labouring under such calumnies, it cannot be considered as a violation of decorum, or unnecessary infraction upon delicacy, if I state the truth, in order, though I cannot acquit myself of censurable conduct, at least not silently to submit to unlimited calumny, and charges of crimes which I hope I have too much honour and integrity to commit. ”

“ How the public exhibition of such a drama could be tolerated, before the most exalted personages of the state, ladies of the highest character, and religionists of the most plausible professions, is very difficult for us, in our cold climate, and with our severer as well as juster sentiments of decorum, to imagine. ”

“ Ease, it might be observed, is not enough; dignity is too much. There must be a certain retenu, a conscious decorum, added to the first,—and a certain ‘familiarity of regard, quenching the austere countenance of controul,’ in the other, to answer to our conception of this character. ”

“ This, we think, should be according to the unwritten law of decorum, which is stamped upon every innocent heart. The precepts of prudery are often steeped in the guilt of contamination, which blasts the expectations of better moments. ”

“ They mistake quantity for quality, they 'terrify babes with painted devils,' but they know not how a soul is capable of being moved; their terrors want dignity, their affrightments are without decorum."—C. Lamb, Spec. ”

“ The taste for personal anecdote, and for the exposure of domestic privacy, has of late years been grossly fed; and even where the exhibition of individual life is not misplaced, it is difficult to arrange it with a proper attention to decorum. ”

“ There is neither Propriety in the Name, nor Contrivance in the Plot, nor Decorum in the Characters. 'Tis a thorough Contradition to Nature, and impossible in Time, and Place. Its Shining Graces as the Author calls them,Pref. [433] are Blasphemy and Baudy, together with a mixture of Oaths, and Cursing. Upon the whole; The Relapser's Judgment, and his Morals, are pretty well adjusted. The Poet, is not much better than the Man. As for the Profane part, 'tis hideous and superlative.see Chap. ”

“ The hazards of crime, such as are present in modern drama—the useless, or quite as much the so-called noble criminal, with his empty talk about fate, we meet with in the tragedy of ancient literature, rarely, if at all, and for the good reason that the decision and deed depends on the wholly personal aspect of interest and character, upon lust for power, love, honour, or other similar passions, whose justification has its roots exclusively in the particular inclination and individuality. ”

“ No gleam of goodness throughout the whole for the heart to cling to,—no thought of remorseful penitence,—no spark of noble feeling; nothing but vice,—low, grovelling, brutal vice,—from the moment the curtain rises to display the obscene spectacle, to that which sees it fall between the fictitious infamy on one side, and the real impurity left on the other! ”

“ The decree of the court which at a later day gave her the guardianship of her children, and the friendship of many illustrious and of some irreproachable men, must be accepted in favor of her of whom we write,—and the known fanaticism of slander, and the love of the marvellous, which craves, in stories of good or evil, such monstrous forms for its gratification, cause us, on the other side, to deduct a large average from the narrations current against her. ”

“ With foul offenders thou perforce must bear,
When they in thee the like offences prove:
If but for fear of this, thy will remove;
For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look.
'And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn?
Must he in thee read lectures of such shame?
Wilt thou be glass wherein it shall discern
Authority for sin, warrant for blame,
To privilege dishonour in thy name?
Thou black'st reproach against long-living laud,
And makest fair reputation but a bawd. ”

“ Vice is set off with every ornament which can make it pleasing and amiable; while virtue and piety are made ridiculous, by tacking to them something that is silly or absurd. Crimes which would be considered as hanging matter at our county assizes—at least if I were a juryman, I should bring in the whole train of heroes, Guilty—Death—are here made to the appearance of virtue, by being mixed with some wild flight of unnatural generosity. ”

“ What afflicted and terrified him far more than all this, was the perversion of all ideas, this fearful evil, the corrupting of all notions; vice, in truth, is taken for virtue, virtue counted for vice. ”

“ Iniquity of every description goes hand in hand; vice, in all its sickening and disgusting forms, revels in the palace, in the city, in the cottage; depravity, corruption, debauchery, and abominations abound, and man, that once stood proudly erect in the image of his Maker, pure, virtuous, holy, and noble, is vitiated, weak, immoral, and degraded; and the earth, which was once a garden, not only brings forth briars and thorns, but is actually "defiled under the inhabitants thereof." ”

“ Till that the very weary means do ebb 2 What woman in the city do I name, When that I say, The city-woman bears The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders ?"— The motive for this general censure of vice is, indeed, as wide apart from that of individual slander, as benevolence is from malice. ”

“ What shall we call you? Wicked? why, even if the recognizances had been forfeited, yet in making such a demand and confiscation of his goods, you were proved to be most wicked. Malignant? you do not deny it. Dishonest? you have already claimed that as your character, and you think it a fine thing. Audacious? covetous? perfidious? those are vulgar and worn-out imputations, but this conduct is novel and unheard-of. What then are we to say? I fear forsooth lest I should either use language severer than men's nature is inclined to bear, or else more gentle than the cause requires. ”

“ We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure in him what we should in another loathe or despise. If we endured without praising, respect for the father of our drama might excuse us; but I have seen, in the book of some modern critick, a collection of anomalies, which show that he has corrupted language by every mode of depravation, but which his admirer has accumulated as a monument of honour. ”

“ If, as Englishmen, we blush at the disgrace of a King sold to France, and a court and nation abandoned to such licentious contempt of all Christian obligations, that even decency is compelled to consign their polite literature to oblivion, we must seek for the seeds of this twofold degradation in the times of which I propose to exhibit a familiar portrait, illustrated by imaginary characters and events, but carefully compared with warranted originals. ”

“ But the birds resting upon the thorn are the devils, who incline man to vice, so that he becomes their servant. Therefore they will exclaim, in the last day, "Cast this man to us, O righteous judge! for since he would not be thine in all virtue, he is our's in all malice." ”

“ As for your ruin, you have brought it on yourself. This is your signature, not mine. It is your honesty that is at stake, not mine. The villainous old usurer, the devil that is not so black as he is painted, wants only his rights--nothing more. ”

“ Fly from the court's pernicious neighbourhood; Where innocence is sham'd, and blushing modesty Is made the scorner's jest; where hate, deceit, And deadly ruin, wear the masks of beauty, And draw deluded fools with shows of pleasure. ”

“ The learned dulness of declamation will be silent; and even the venal muse, though happiest in fiction, will forget your virtues. Yet, for the benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your retreat might be deferred until your morals shall happily be ripened to that maturity of corruption, at which the worst examples cease to be contagious. ”

“ Men have been thy victims: now take the due reward of all thy wickedness. What art thou, that I should have idolized and gazed with rapture on that form?—something even more treacherous and perverted than myself. ”

“ All this may awaken in us contempt and disgust; but if we consider these figures in themselves as realities, and compare them with the evil figures of our drama, we find that they are mere venial sinners—light, fickle, amorous, fibbing—very human in their faults; human, trifling, mild, not at all monstrous, like all the art products of the Renaissance. ”

“ The dread and trouble of the times filling all minds, men wished to be forehanded with the decrees of Providence. Into this brooding silence the low, vibrating tones of this mysterious voice entered, and this is what we heard:
“Doom! doom! For him—the one—the betrayer—the passing bell is tolling. Hear it, ye weak ones and grow strong. Hear it, ye mighty and tremble. Not alone for him will it ring. For ye! for ye! if the decree of the linked rings goes forth—-”
Here there was a perceptible quiver of the drapery back of the dais. ”