The Pleasure of Quarrelling - Page 2

gentleness will pass. Yet it has had increasing
sway now for some years. An unhealthy generation has arisen--among the
more educated class at least--that quarrels little, regards the function
as a vice or a nuisance, as the East-ender does a taste for fine art or
literature. We seem indeed to be getting altogether out of the way of
it. Rare quarrels, no doubt, occur to everyone, but rare quarrelling is
no quarrelling at all. Like beer, smoking, sea-bathing, cycling, and the
like delights, you cannot judge of quarrelling by the early essay. But
to show how good it is--did you ever know a quarrelsome person give up
the use? Alcohol you may wean a man from, and Barrie says he gave up the
Arcadia Mixture, and De Quincey conquered opium. But once you are set as
a quarreller you quarrel and quarrel till you die.

How to quarrel well and often has ever been something of an art, and it
becomes more of an art with the general decline of spirit. For it takes
two to make a quarrel. Time was when you turned to the handiest human
being, and with small care or labour had the comfortable warmth you
needed in a minute or so. There was theology, even in the fifties it was
ample cause with two out of three you met. Now people will express a
lamentable indifference. Then politics again, but a little while ago fat
for the fire of any male gathering, is now a topic of mere tepidity. So
you are forced to be more subtle, more patient in your quarrelling. You
play like a little boy playing cricket with his sisters, with those who
do not understand. A fellow-votary is a rare treat. As a rule you have
to lure and humour your antagonist like a child. The wooing is as
intricate and delicate as any wooing can well be. To quarrel now,
indeed, requires an infinity of patience. The good old days of
thumb-biting--"Do you bite your thumbs at us, sir?" and so to clash and
stab--are gone for ever.

There are certain principles in quarrelling, however, that the true
quarreller ever bears in mind, and which, duly observed, do much to
facilitate encounters. In the first place, cultivate Distrust. Have
always before you that this is a wicked world, full of insidious people,
and you never know what villainous encroachments upon you may be hidden
under fair-seeming appearances. That is the flavour of it. At the first
suspicion, "stick up for your rights," as the vulgar say. And see that
you do it suddenly. Smite promptly, and the surprise and sting of your
injustice should provoke an excellent reply. And where there is least
ground for suspicion, there, remember, is the most. The right hand of
fellowship extended towards you is one of the best openings you have.
"Not such a fool," is the kind of attitude to assume, and