Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1887 — Cynical Ouida on “ Vulgarity.” [ARTICLE]

Cynical Ouida on “ Vulgarity.”

I have said that Socrates must have been in a certain degree vulgar, because he Avas so abominaliy inquisitive. I’or surely all interrogation is vulgar. When strangers A-isit me I can at once tell whether they are ill-bred or highbred persons bv the mere fact of whether they do or do not ask me questions. Even in intimacy, much interrogation is a vulgarity; it may be taken for granted that your friend will tell you what he wishes you to know. Here and there when a question seems necessary, if silence Avould imply coldness or indifference, then must it be put with the utmost delicacy without any kind of semblance of it being considered a demand which must be anSAvered. Ail interrogation for purposes of curiosity is vulgar, curiosity itself being so vulgar; and even the plea of friendship or of love cannot be pleaded in extenuation of it. — Ouida, in North American Review.