e historian will
record that we, being an envious people, turned out the Chinese, because
we could not endure the presence among us of a race so vastly our
superiors in all that constituted the true principles of culture and
"custom."

Arthur Mitchell, in inquiring What is Civilization? {209} remarks that
"all the things which gather round or grow upon a high state of
civilization are not necessarily true parts of it. These
conventionalities are often regarded as its very essence." And it is
true that the greater the fool or snob, the deeper is the conviction that
the conventional is the core of "culture." "'It is not genteel,' 'in
good form,' or 'the mode,' to do this or do that, or say this or say
that." "Such things are spoken of as marks of a high civilization, or by
those who do not confound civilization with culture as differentiators
between the cultured and the uncultured." Dr. Mitchell "neither praises
nor condemns these things;" but it is well for a man, while he is about
it, to know his own mind, and I, for myself, condemn them with all my
heart and soul, whenever anybody declares that such brass counters in the
game of life are real gold, and insists that I shall accept them as such.
For small play in a very small way with small people, I would endure
them; but many men and nearly all women make their capital of them. And
whatever may be said in their favor, it cannot be denied that they
constantly lead to lying and heartlessness. Even Dr. Mitchell, while he
says he does not condemn them, proceeds immediately to declare that
"while we submit to them they constitute a sort of tyranny, under which
we fret and secretly pine for escape. Does not the exquisite of Rotten
Row weary for his flannel shirt and shooting-jacket? Do not
'well-constituted' men want to fish and shoot or kill something,
themselves, by climbing mountains, when they can find nothing else? In
short, does it not appear that these conventionalities are irksome, and
are disregarded when the chance presents itself? And does it not seem as
if there were something in human nature pulling men back to a rude and
simple life?" To find that _men_ suffer under the conventionalities,
"adds, on the whole," says our canny, prudent Scot, "to the
respectability of human nature." _Tu ha ragione_ (right you are), Dr.
Mitchell, there. For the conventional, whether found among Fijians as
they were, or in Mayfair as it is, whenever it is vexatious an