| | | | It would save much useless striving and needless | disappointment if the necessity of paying one's shot were | honestly accepted as absolute ~~ if it were understood, | once for all, that society, like other manifestations of | humanity, is managed on the principle of exchange and | batter, and equivalents demanded for value received. The | benevolence which gives out of its own impulse, with no | hope of reward save in the wellbeing of the recipient, has | no place in the drawing-room code of morals. We may | keep a useless creature from starving at the cost of so much | of our substance per diem, for the sole remuneration of | thanks and the consciousness of an equivocal act of charity; | but who among us opens his doors, or gives a seat at his | table, to drawing-room paupers unable to pay their shot? | who cares to cultivate the acquaintance of men or women | that are unable to make him any return? It is not necessary | that this return should be in kind ~~ a dinner for a dinner, a | champagne supper for a champagne supper, and balls with | waxed doors for balls with stretched linen; but shot must be | paid in some form, whether in kind or not, and the social | pauper who cannot pay his quota is the social Lazarus | excluded from the feast. This is a hard saying, but it is a | true one. We often hear worthy people who do not | understand this law complain that they are neglected, left | out of wedding breakfasts, passed over in dinner | invitations, and find it difficult to keep acquaintances when | made. But the fact is, these miserable sinners who know so | much about the cold-shoulder of society are simply those | who cannot pay their shot according to the currency of the | class to which they aspire; and so by degrees they get | winnowed through the meshes, and fall to a level where | their funds will suffice to meet all demands triumphantly. | For the rejected of one level is not necessarily the rejected | of all, and the base metal of one currency is sound coinage | to another. People who would find it impossible to enter a | drawing-room in Grosvenor Square may have all | Bloomsbury at their command, and what was caviare to My | Lord will be ambrosia to his valet ~~ all depending on the a | mount of the shot to be paid and the relative value of | coinage to pay it with. | The most simple form of payment is of course by the | elemental process of reciprocity in kind; a dinner for a | dinner, and a supper for a supper, being as purely | instinctive as an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ~ the | of early jurisprudence | administered among wine-cups instead of in the shambles. | But there are other modes of payment as efficient if less | evident, and as imperative if more subtle. For instance, | women pay their shot ~~ when they pay it individually, and | not through the vicarious merits of their masculine relations | ~~ by dressing well and looking nice; some by being pretty, | some by being fashionable, a few by brilliant talk, while all | ought to add to their private speciality the generic virtue of | pleasant manners. If they are not pretty, pleasant, | well-dressed, or well-connected, and if they have no masculine | advantages to hook them on to the higher lines, they are let | drop through the social meshes without an effort made to | retain them, as little fishes swim away unopposed through | the loops which hold the bigger ones. These are their social | duties ~~ the final cause of their drawing-room existence; | and if they fail in them they fail in the purpose for which | they were created socially, and may die out as soon as | convenient. They have other duties, of course, and duties | doubtless of far higher moment and greater worth; but the | question now is only of their drawing-room duties ~~ of the | qualities which secure them recognition in society, of the | special coinage in which they must pay their shot if they | would assist at the great banquet of social life. A dowdy, | humdrum, well-principled woman, whose toilette looks as | if it had been made with the traditionary pitch-fork, and | whose powers of conversation do not go beyond the | strength of Cobwebs to Catch Flies, | or Manguali's Questions, | may be an admirable wife, the painstaking mother of future | honest citizens, invaluable by a sick-bed, beyond price in | the nursery, a pattern of all household economies, a woman | absolutely faultless in her sphere ~~ and that sphere a very | sweet and lovely one. But her virtues are not those by | which she can pay her shot in society; and the motherly | goodness, of so much account in a dressing-jacket and | list-slippers, gets put out of court when the fee to be paid is | liveliness of manner or elegance of appearance. Certainly, | worthy women who dress ill and look ungraceful, and | whose conversation is about up to the mark of their | children's easy-spelling-books, are plentiful in society ~~ | unfortunately for those bracketed with them for two hours' | penance; but they have their shot paid for them by the | wealth, the importance, the repute, or the desirableness of | their relatives. They may pay it themselves by their own | wealth and consequent liberal tariff of reciprocity; but this | is rare; the possession of personal superiority of any kind | for the most part acting as a patent moral stimulus with | women whom the superiority of their male relatives does | not touch. And, by the way, it is rather hard lines that so | many celebrated men have dowdy wives. Artists, poets, | self-made men of all kinds often fail in this special article; | and while they themselves have caught the tone of the | circle to which they have risen, and pay their shot by | manner as well as by repute, their wives lag behind among | the ashes of the past like Cinderellas before the advent of | the fairy godmother. How many of them are carried | through society as clogs or excrescences which a polite | world is bound to tolerate, with more or less equanimity, | according to the amount of sensitiveness bestowed by | nature and cultivated by art. Sometimes, however | self-made men and their wives are wise in their generation, | and understand the terms on which society receives its | members; in which case the reputation goes to the front | alone, and the conjugal Cinderella rests tranquil in the rear. | Notoriety of all kinds, short of murder or forgery, is one | way of paying one's shot, specially into the coffers of the | Leo Hunters, of whom there are many. It is shot paid to the | general fund when one has seen an accident ~~ better still, | if one has been in it. Many a man has owed a rise in his | scale of dinners to a railway smash; and to have been | nearly burnt to death, to have escaped by a miracle from | drowning, to have been set on by footpads, or to have been | visited by burglars, is worth a round of At Homes, because | of the ready cash of a real adventure. To be connected | more or less remotely with the fashionable tragedy of the | hour is paying one's shot handsomely; to have been on | speaking terms with the latest respectable scoundrel | unmasked, or to have had dealings, sufficiently remote to | have been cleanly, with the newest villany, will be accepted | as shot while the public interest in the matter lasts. A | chance visit to ultra-grandees ~~ grandees in ratio to the | ordinary sphere ~~ is shot paid with an air. A bad illness, | or the attendance on one, with the apparently unconscious | heroism of the details, comes in as part of the social line, | especially if the person relating it has the knack of epigram | or exaggeration, while still keeping local colour and | verisimilitude intact. Interesting people who have been | abroad and seen things are good counters for a dinner-party; | paying their shot for themselves and their hosts too, | who put them forward as their contribution to the funds of | the commonwealth, with a certainty of acceptance. Some | pay their shot by their power of procuring orders and free | admissions. They know the manager of this theatre or the | leading actor of that; they are acquainted with the principal | members of the hanging committees, and are therefore | great in private views; they are always good for a gratuitous | | treat to folks who can afford to pay twice the sum | demanded for their day's pleasure. Such people may be | stupid, ungainly, not specially polished, and in grain | unpleasant; but they circulate in society because they pay | their shot, and give back equivalents for value received. | A country-house, where there is a good croquet lawn and a | blushing bed of strawberries is coinage that will carry the | possessor very far ahead through London society; and by | the same law you will find healthy, well-conditioned | country folk tolerate undeniable little snobs of low calibre | because of that sixteen-roomed house in Tyburnia a visit to | which represents so many concerts, so many theatres, a | given number of exhibitions, and a certain quantity of | operas and parties. Had those undesirable little snobs no | funds wherewith to pay their shot, they would have no | place kept for them; but bringing their quota as they do, | they take their seat with the rest, and are helped in their | turn. | In fact, humiliating to our self-love as it may be, the truth is | we are all valued socially, not for ourselves integrally, not | for the mere worth of naked soul, but for the kind of shot | that we pay ~~ for the advantage or amusement to others | that we can bring, for something in ourselves which renders | us desirable as companions, or for something belonging to | our condition which makes us remunerative as guests. If | we have no special qualification, if we neither look nice nor | talk well, neither bring glory nor confer pleasure, we must | expect to be shunted to the side in favour of others who are | up to the right mark, and who give as much as they receive. | If this truth were once fully established as a matter of social | science, a great advance would be made, for nothing helps | people more than to clear a subject of what fog may lie | about it. And as the tendency of the age is to discover the | fixed laws which regulate the mutable affairs of man, it | would be just as well to extend the inquiry from the | jury-box to the dinner-table, and from the blue-book to the | visting-list. Why is it that some people struggle all their | lives to get a footing in society, yet die as they have lived | ~~ social Sisyphi, never accomplishing their perpetually | recurring task? There must be a reason for it, nothing being | ruled by blind chance, though much seeming to lie outside | the independent will of the individual. Now enlighten these | worthy people's minds on the unwritten laws of invitation, | and show them that ~~ though thoroughly honest souls, and | to be trusted with untold gold as the saying is, or with their | neighbour's pretty wife, which is perhaps a harder test ~~ | they are by no means to be trusted with the amusement of a | couple of companions at a dinner-table. Show them that, | how rich soever they may be in the rough gold of domestic | morality, they are bankrupts in the small change which | alone passes current in society, and if invited where they | aspire, would be taken on as pauper cousins, unable to pay | their footing, and good for neither meat nor garnish. Let | them, then, learn how to pay their shot, and their | difficulties would vanish; they would leave off repeating | the fable of Sisyphus, and attain completion of endeavour. | No-one need say this is a hard | or a selfish doctrine, for we all follow it in practice. | Among the people we invite to our houses are some whom | we do not specially like, but whom we must ask because of | shot paid in kind. There are people who may be personally | agreeable or disagreeable, graceful or ungainly, but whom | we cannot cut because of the relations in which we stand | towards them, and who take their place by right, because | they pay their shot with punctuality. There are others | whom we ask because of like or desirability, and shot paid | in some specific form of pleasantness, as in beauty, fashion, | good manner, or notoriety; but there are none absolutely | barren of all gifts of pleasantness to the guests, of reflected | honour to ourselves, and of social small change according | to the currency. We do not go into the byways or hedges to | pick up drawing-room tatterdemalions, who bring nothing | with them, and are simply so much dead weight on the rest, | occupying valuable space, and consuming so much vital | energy. The law of reciprocity may be hard on the strivers | who are ignorant of its inexorable provisions; but it is a | wholesome law, like other rules and enactments against | remediable pauperism. And were we once thoroughly to | understand that, if we would sit securely at the table we | must put something of value into the pool ~~ that we must | possess advantageous circumstances, or personal | desirabilities, as the shot to be paid for our place ~~ the art | of society would be better cultivated then it is now, and the | classification of guests carried out with greater judgment. | Surely, if the need of being gracious in manner, sprightly in | talk, and of pleasant appearance generally ~~ all cultivable | qualities, and to be learnt if not born in us by nature ~~ | were accepted as an absolute necessity, without which we | must expect to be overlooked and excluded, drawing-rooms | would be far brighter and dinner-tables far pleasanter than | they are at present; to the advantage of all concerned. And, | after all, society is a great thing in human life; if not equal | in importance to the family, or the private household, it has | its own special value; and whatever adds to its better | organization is a gain in every sense.