GETTING ON.
CHARITY is the greatest of the virtues, and perhaps there was never more of it than there is now, but the power to " get on " with one's neighbours is simply an art ; it might perhaps be called the art of compati- bility, and just now it is at rather a low ebb. We are told, till we are sick of the words, that nothing succeeds like success. In reality nothing succeeds like the gift of " getting on," whether it be with one's wife or one's em- ployer or one's children or one's customers, with those who suppose themselves socially superior or those whom one supposes to be socially inferior. Like all the arts, it can be to a certain extent acquired and to a large extent developed ; also it is susceptible of revival and of something almost like extinction.
After reading the evening papers it is difficult not to say to ourselves, with a cynical grin, that, to all appearances, husbands and wives do not get on " as they did. Be- coming more serious:we shall doubtless reflect that human love is exactly what it was ; but where there-is no question of the deepest affection involved, where two people have to try to live in harmony without it, they are at present, it seems, managing unusually badly, perhaps worse than they ever did before. Again, parental and filial affection, being -integral parts of man's nature, are what they were, though it is impossible to deny that friendship has deepened between the generations wherever there exists a strong sympathy. Where there is any want of essential affection, however, incompatibility between parents and children is a great deal more patent than it used to be. Families part more readily than they did. Unmarried sisters, for instance, almost always lived together after the death of their parents. Now, as a rule, they part. They are excellent friends, they say, and enjoy nothing more than a temporary association, but as to permanent abode under one roof—no ; they would not be able to " get on." It is such a common thing for people brought up together to be incompatible in one another's sole society that they do not even try. They will not put their friendship to such a hard test. They laugh and say they are " taking no risks," and are content to endure separate poverty rather than enjoy joint affluence. All these changes involve some sort of failure, some incapacity to play, the game of life, not only with decorum but with success. In sacrificing the " rigour of the game " we have lost, in a measure, its zest and charm. There are higher points of view, doubtless, than the one we are taking. Our object is to look not at the moral but the social side of the question. Outside the question of relationship, is it not also true that, while real friendship is as common as ever, there is less pleasure sought and found among acquaintances than there used to be I Opinion divides :so many persons. They cannot "get on " because they are in disagreement upon political or even more abstract questions, and for fear of friction they keep apart. But, apart from private life, it is painfully obvious what a lot of friction is going on all round us. The different classes which give, or hitherto have given, a pleasant variety to life have ceased to "get on." They speak against one another with a good deal of bitterness and to one another with considerable asperity. Suavity has gone out of ordinary life. We do not expect it. The man whom we pay gives us to understand at every opportunity that he is as good as we are, and perhaps we give the man to whom we sell the same impression. Now, we very much doubt whether the usual explanation that all this friction comes of a new desire for freedom really explains. Speaking generally, wives do not desire more freedom than ever they did, and big children have always desired all they could get. Officials do not really hope to be " free " of the public • no merchant or merchant's assistant really wants to be " free " of his customers • and no one has sincerely believed for years and years that social position conferred any tangible rights involving the degradation of anyone. The truth is that an art is suffering a partial eclipse. We have less feeling than we had for the drama of life, and we cannot play our parts. It will, in accordance with all experience, revive, and we shall once more know how to act • till then the critics must be content with an ill-presented play. All acting is pretending in some sense, and involves the acceptation of r6les. There is to-day something in the air which urges to extemporization and tends to confuse want of study with sincerity. The old-fashioned expression to " act the part " of a good wife or a kind husband, a devoted father or son, is seldom heard. Everybody wants to be just as disagreeable or unkind or silly as comes into his or her head. They will be " natural," and nature is a mass of friction. The further we can get from that sort of " nature " the better we shall " get on," and failure in the domestic circle is the most bitter of all failures.
Every really patriotic man is in some sense the humble servant of the public. This is a definite fact involving no effort of imagination. The difficUlty is to realize that such and such an insignificant and indifferent person may represent the public, and that if we are to play our parts well we must remember our subservient position. Here comes in the art of making believe, and it is just as easy and just as sincere to make believe that an unknown quantity is worthy of respect as unworthy. In the one Case we shall preserve our own dignity and show that we " know our words "; in the other we shall not. The person who comes into an office and asks for a postage stamp or for information about his " rebate " is no more likely to be an insolent brute than a model of Christian courtesy and less likely to have come to worry the clerk and show him his place than he is to be solely engrossed with his business. It is waste of time on the part of the clerk to assume that he overrates his own importance. In all probability he is not engaged in rating it at all, but is wonder- ing whether his letter will catch the post or his " rebate " come in time to ease the rent. Yet nowadays how many of these smaller officials seem bent on self-defence, though no one offers or thinks of offering them any offence I The innocent and preoccupied customer is playing his part all right till an unexpected and wholly undeserved snub makes him lose his cue, and his unconscious willingness to " get on " with his interlocutor turns to a conscious readi- ness to fall out with him. Then the public as represented in his person becomes tyrannous and the servant of the public rebellious ; both speak out of their r6les, the scene is spoilt, and every one is very uncomfortable. In the same way the man who, going to give an order to his employees, is met by an assertion expressed in words or manner that one man is as good as another, had in all probability never doubted the truism till it was thrown at him and hit him in the eye. Then he is angry, just as we are all angry when abstract questions are forced on us in moments of practical difficulty. At the moment we have no satirist of any mark--- though we are in great need of one. The social stage s in an uproar and is wearisome to watch. To a great extent, no doubt, the piece is being recast, and one can only hope that the actors who failed in one part will succeed in another, and the whole company will once more "get on " together ; but in private life there is no recasting, and there is no way of " getting on " better but to study our parts more and get rid of all cant about nature and sincerity, and frankly and conscientiously give ourselves to acting the part " as well as we possibly can.
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