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Updated: May 20, 2025
I pointed out that there is no law to protect the "decencies of controversy" in any but religious discussions, and this exception can only be defended on the ground that Christianity is true and must not be attacked. But Lord Coleridge holds that it may be attacked. How then can he ask that it shall only be attacked in polite language?
Her husband shakes his head; and further adds, that they had seed-cake instead of plum-cake, and that it was all white wine. ‘All white wine!’ exclaims his wife. ‘Nothing but sherry and madeira,’ says the husband. ‘What! no port?’ ‘Not a drop.’ No port, no plums, and no feathers! ‘You will recollect, my dear,’ says the formal lady, in a voice of stately reproof, ‘that when we first met this poor man who is now dead and gone, and he took that very strange course of addressing me at dinner without being previously introduced, I ventured to express my opinion that the family were quite ignorant of etiquette, and very imperfectly acquainted with the decencies of life.
The right detail is seized; the right word, bold and trenchant, is thrust into its place. Whitman has small regard to literary decencies, and is totally free from literary timidities. He is neither afraid of being slangy nor of being dull; nor, let me add, of being ridiculous. The result is a most surprising compound of plain grandeur, sentimental affectation, and downright nonsense.
The New York Subway is a masterpiece of celerity, and in other ways less evil than an Elevated, but in the minimum decencies of travel it appeared to me to be inferior to several similar systems in Europe. The surface-cars in all the large cities that I saw were less smart and less effective than those in sundry European capitals.
It was a painful spectacle, a lapse from the well-ordered decencies of civilization. For to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offence, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path. An Englishwoman once said to Mr. Whistler that the politeness of the French was "all on the surface," to which the artist made reply: "And a very good place for it to be."
For it is here as with many inventions in the arts and luxuries of life; which, being at the first the exclusive privilege and possession of the wealthy and refined, gradually descend into lower strata of society, until at length what were once the elegancies and luxuries of a few, have become the decencies, well-nigh the necessities, of all.
"There is another gentleman with him do you suspect them both of being poets?" "Oh, no, Miss, the other is the waiter of the poet; that we know, as he serves him at dinner, and otherwise superintends his concerns; such as brushing his clothes, and keeping his room in order." "This is being in luck for a poet, for they are of a class that are a little apt to neglect the decencies.
We only have learnt from this Portuguese, that Fucarandono was put to silence upon the point in question, and that, a little to save his reputation, he changed the subject, but to no purpose, for even there too he was confounded; for, forgetting those decencies which even nature prescribes to men, and common custom has taught us in civil conversation, he advanced infamous propositions, which cannot be related without offending modesty; and these he maintained with a strange impudence, against the reasons of the Father, though the king and the noble auditory thought the Christian arguments convincing.
But this life was unspeakably wearisome, after the first novelty had worn away. Cornelia lived in an age when many of the common proprieties and decencies of our present society would have been counted prudish, but she could not close her eyes to the looseness and license that pervaded her mother's world.
"Macgregor. Shock, we used to call him." "Yes, of course. I remember I saw him last year at the McGill match." "Well, what was up?" said Brown, scenting something good. "Let us have it. Do the reporter act." "Well, it's good copy, let me tell you, but I don't want to allow my professional zeal to obliterate my sense of the decencies of polite society." "Go on," said Brown, "I want to hear.
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