The decayed gentleman and the lady who
has seen better days are by no means unfamiliar phenomena even
now. This pervading sense of the indignity of the slightest
manual labour is familiar to all civilized peoples, as well as to
peoples of a less advanced pecuniary culture. In persons of a
delicate sensibility who have long been habituated to gentle
manners, the sense of the shamefulness of manual labour may
become so strong that, at a critical juncture, it will even set
aside the instinct of self-preservation. So, for instance, we are
told of certain Polynesian chiefs, who, under the stress of good
form, preferred to starve rather than carry their food to their
mouths with their own hands. It is true, this conduct may have
been due, at least in part, to an excessive sanctity or tabu
attaching to the chief's person. The tabu would have been
communicated by the contact of his hands, and so would have made
anything touched by him unfit for human food. But the tabu is
itself a derivative of the unworthiness or moral incompatibility
of labour; so that even when construed in this sense the conduct
of the Polynesian chiefs is truer to the canon of honorific
leisure than would at first appear.
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