The Normans were a brilliant and enterprising race; but what before all things (says Freeman) "distinguished them from other nations, was their craft." This was manifest in everything, at all times, and everywhere—in statesmanship, in war, in traffic, and in the trivial interactions of social and domestic life. Craft was no more characteristic of a Norman king in the past than of a Norman trader in modern times. It is as distinctly racial as the commercial "cuteness" or cleverness universally attributed to the American people of to-day. Lord Wolseley may have noted this trait when he said of our people, "They are a race of English-speaking Frenchmen." He may have observed, too, even during the War between the States, that Americans were at times exceedingly profane in their speech, just as in the olden time it was said that the Normans were "peculiarly fond of oaths." Camden tells us that when Carolus Stultus made over Normandy to Rollo, the rude ingrate refused to kiss the king's foot. When urged to do so he viciously exclaimed, "Ne se, by God!" "Whence"—adds the chronicler—"the Normans were familiarly known as Bigodi or Bigods." At every other word, he says, they swore by God. For a like reason, at a later day, the English were known throughout Europe as the English "Goddams." All of us know how terribly the army swore in Flanders. The profane tendencies of the race seemed to have been stimulated by war. "Then, the Soldier," says Shakespeare, "full of strange oaths." Was it not one of our innocent Bluegrass girls who declared that up to the close of her "teens" she believed the familiar phrase "damned Yankee" to be a single word? But it was the Conqueror of England and the founder of the Anglo-Norman race that swore the greatest oath of all. When the merry burghers of AlenÇon were hurling insults from their walls upon the burly son of Arletta and upon her sire—the tanner of Falaise—the infuriated Norman swore an oath which lights up the page of history like the flare of a conflagration—"By the splendor of God!" he exclaimed as he swept to his wild revenge. The profanest Kentuckian in his palmiest days never rose in his profanity to such a plane as this. He preferred the direct and trenchant speech of that Virgin Queen who helped to shape the destiny of our common race. "Do as I say," she said to a recalcitrant prelate, "or by God I will unfrock you!" Even her stately ministers were not safe from the fire of her Anglo-Norman wrath. In the royal council-chamber she sometimes fell to cursing like a very drab. In certain Virginian circles profane swearing seemed to have been proscribed except in a softened or attenuated form, such as "Jeems' River," as an ejaculatory substitute for a very blasphemous phrase. Thomas Jefferson did not regard profane "expletives" as a very rational or philosophic mode of speech; but George Washington, though puritanically truthful, would sometimes infuse into an imprecation the spirit and effectiveness of a prayer. We have all heard of Stonewall Jackson's "teamster" and the moving quality of his profane speech; but Jubal Early never allowed the words to be taken out of his mouth in this way. He did his own swearing, and, presumably, did it well. Swearing or fighting by proxy was not his forte. Judged by military results, Jackson's was probably the better method. As a tactical incentive upon the firing line nothing could be more effective than one of Early's oaths; but for general strategic purposes, nothing could surpass the effectiveness of the deadly imprecations that lurked in Stonewall Jackson's prayer. This was a Cromwellian modification of the Anglo-Norman oath. In the good old Commonwealth of Kentucky there seems to have been a relapse into the simpler forms of profanity—Anglo-Norman and Early English. The historian Collins tells us that one of the pioneer Governors having refused to notice the "challenge" of a truculent upstart, the fellow threatened to "post him a coward." "Post and be damned," said the old soldier, "you will only post yourself a damned liar!" The retort was profane, but it was in punctilious accord with the spirit and habits of the time. Better still, it was more effective than a "gut-shot" at short range. As a rule, the Kentuckian had an instinctive aversion for puritanic oaths. That consecrated phrase, "Jeems' River," had a brief career in this State. The last person to use it, probably, was an elderly, smooth, genial, charming gentleman at the bar who was for many years the judge of a local court in the good old County of Fleming. He was in many respects a marked exception to the common rule.[5] It might have been different had he left the Old Dominion at an earlier date. What brandy is for heroes, strong oaths were for the pioneer. Not mere dicer's oaths; nor the mauldin imprecations of a sot, nor the rounding touches of a raconteur; but good, honest, English oaths, such an oath as that which settled the insistent Corporal Trim—the generous and daring oath that our Uncle Toby swore when the young Lieutenant lay sick of a fever. "'He shall not die, by God,' cried my Uncle Toby." And the accusing spirit that "flew to Heaven's chancery with the oath" had the grace to blush when he gave it in. God bless our Uncle Toby; he was the Uncle Toby of us all, and is as fresh in our remembrance as the good old uncles who told his story and praised his virtues and swore his oaths by the family fireside in the auld lang syne. Tradition throws a strong light on one of these old Kentuckians who denounced with suggestive picturesqueness of phrase a ruthless master who had sold and separated a family of hereditary slaves:—"He is the damnedest scoundrel between hell and Guinea!" the old gentleman exclaimed, giving in effect a touch of lurid or local color to his imprecatory speech. But when one of his own negroes—a broken, helpless creature—was accused of marketing for his own benefit the products of the farm, he gently answered, "Ah, well, I am not sure that, after all, the old slave is not taking his own!" As one recalls that kindly speech, with its reminiscent touch of Uncle Toby, he recalls, likewise, the sentiment of a famous line from a foreign source tenderly adapted to a modern taste—

Where are those dusky bondsmen of the past? They mingle their dust with the dust of them they served: and resting in old country graveyards, in the peace of immemorial graves, they await the Morning Light and the Master's Call.

Among the most popular of the well-trained African servitors of the mid-century days in the Bluegrass was our versatile drudge, Ben Briler, one of the most active and useful functionaries of that old-time tavern life.

Evil days came to Ben's master, and Ben was sold—becoming the joint chattel of the young swells of the poker-room. But the joint chattel proved to be too versatile for his vocation, and one of the stockholders denounced him as "a damned kinky-headed corporation," and kicked him downstairs. As Governor Desha, in a recent message to the Legislature, had effectively arraigned those "dangerous corporations which embodied the interests of powerful men," the prompt action of the stockholder at the old tavern brought great relief to the public mind. It showed that corporations could be reached—that, contrary to the general impression, they had "bodies that could be kicked and souls that could be damned."

The advent of the abolition "emissary," the emancipated negro, and the "burnt cork" minstrel was practically contemporaneous in Kentucky. In the gentle mid-century days a company of strolling minstrels had announced an entertainment at the old county seat of Mason—the town where Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe (a frequent guest of Mrs. Marshall Key) first witnessed a "sale" of negro slaves. On the evening announced for the entertainment, the Courthouse was packed from floor to dome. Among the conspicuous figures toward the front was Colonel Robert B., a fine old Kentuckian of antique Norman type—tall, ruddy, high-featured, light haired; hearty, convivial, and profane—a boon companion and bon vivant. He sat expectantly but at ease, a bandaged arm resting upon the seat in front. He was cordially greeted by kinsmen and friends in every part of the house. The curtain rose and the minstrels filed upon the stage, looking for all the world like a lot of "free nigger" swells. Their very appearance was an offense, and provoked at once a collision with the young Mohawks of the town. The violoncello was shivered into splinters, and the flutes, fiddles, and castanets went singing through the air. No trace of harmony was left. There was a universal dash for windows and doors; none stood upon the order of his going. All went at once—all except "Colonel Bob," who sat unmoved, fixed to his seat as if fascinated by the moving scene in front. The spectators were amazed. "Hell's fire, Bob!" exclaimed an anxious friend, "don't you know there is a fight going on down there?" The Colonel looked incredulous. "I wish I may be damned," he said, "if I didn't think it was part of the play!" There was universal condemnation of these minstrel folk by persons who did not see the show; but the Colonel, who was a "stayer," insisted that "the niggers made a good fight."

Unquestionably there is a certain lack of modernity, or at least of civilized amenity, in such a manifestation as this: but there was a spontaneous and elemental vivacity in their unpremeditated assault upon the counterfeit African bucks which betrayed the rude fantastic humor of their Norman blood, and imparted a pleasant tang to the crude flavor of early plantation life. Mr. Barrett Wendell finds in the still earlier life of the West conditions described as existing in the times of the Plantagenet kings; and Mr. Owen Wister seems inclined to adopt his startling views. Apparently, then, we must count with inherited conditions and characteristics even in the politics of the times. The modern world is probably not ideally moral, but it is sensitively fastidious and scrupulously observant of "good form." It would wreck a railway, perhaps, or deplete a bloated insurance exchequer, but it would not launch an ungentlemanly imprecation or utter a trivial or unproductive oath. It even discountenances the oath in court— a solemn asseveration or attestation before a judge. It utterly discredits—socially and otherwise—the blas-phe-mous ejaculation or the vulgar "cuss-word," or the light conversational "swear" familiar in the dialect of the "back shop," the groggery, and the street. The variety of oath known as a "swear," considered psychologically, is not a very serious offense. In a philosophical aspect, indeed, it is in some sense a temperamental necessity, dependent on physiological conditions, and is essentially the result of a defensive or protective instinct. Where not merely idle, wanton, and unmeaning, it is a psychological regulator nervorum. It is the unpremeditated product of a prompt cerebral reaction. It gives the centers of speech a chance to rally when thrown into disorder by a sudden attack. There is no time for the picking and arranging of words, and, except in persons of lymphatic temperament, no capacity for the leisurely elaborations of speech. One is confronted, not with a problem, or theory or condition, but with an emergency that must be decisively met. Silence perhaps is golden, but there is a certain steel-like quality in trenchant speech. Profane, "rapid-fire" ejaculation is not only a deeply implanted instinct, but by frequent indulgence becomes an invincible habit—a habit so odious and offensive as to make even a Chesterfield swear. As a racial instinct it survives transplantation to any clime, and religious training of every sort. Even the disciplinary methods of Calvinism fail to eradicate it. But an "inherited drill" may at times soften, or modify, or mask the mode of manifestation, as is cleverly illustrated in the familiar lines—

A Kentuckian casually encountering a distinguished New Englander at the buffet of an exclusive Eastern club, exclaimed: "Does a Puritan drink?" "I would not give a damn," was the decisive answer, "for a Puritan that could not drink, pray, and fight." It is probably no secret that in our amphibious Scandinavian, General William Nelson, the swearing instinct was abnormally developed. He did not swear "like a sailor," to be sure; nor "like a trooper" of the olden time; since neither soldier nor sailor of the ordinary type was ever gifted with his extraordinary abundance and facility of profane expression. It is but just to say, however, that at times he struggled manfully against the habitual inclination. "Christ give me patience!" he cried when his favorite aide, Colonel Samuel Owens (a joker of the Norman type), inadvertently "sat down" upon his military hat. The utterance was a sincere and reverent appeal for Divine help. He instinctively shrank from the coming torrent of profane ejaculation, and with a prayerful effort was bracing himself against the flood.

"There is some soul of goodness in things evil"; but in this instance one does not lessen the force of the evil by modifying or "softening" the form of the oath. The essence remains unchanged. When Pecksniff slams the door in a rage, he simply "swears" what Hood describes as a "wooden damn." The devout Moslem will not tread upon a scrap of paper in his path, "Lest," he says, "the name of God be written upon it"; but the impetuous Anglo-Norman recklessly flings the name of God into the contaminated environment of his daily life. And he has done so, history attests, since the day he sprang full-armed upon the planetary sphere—the most portentous apparition of mediÆval days. "Long ago," says Canon Bardsley, "under the offensive title of Jean Gotdam, we [the English] had become known as a people given to strange and unpleasant oaths." The very name—Jean Gotdam—vouches for its antiquity, as well as for the fearless sincerity of him who swore.

There came into one of our Bluegrass communities just after the war a clever Confederate adventurer, who speedily established very pleasant social relations by exploiting his military record. A venerable Kentuckian, who had come through the war with his Confederate principles and Virginian prejudices intact, was asked by a friend how he liked their Virginian visitor—the ci-devant "aide to General Lee." "I don't like him, sir," he said with vicious emphasis, "he is not what he professes to be; I never in my life heard a Virginian gentleman say 'God dern!' He either swore or he didn't swear." He had no indulgence for a marked card nor for an emasculated oath. He would not substitute a sickly, modernized variant for a venerated traditional form. By "Gad" or by "gosh" or by "gobbs" was good enough for a reforming purist; for himself he preferred to say, with the irascible Robert of Normandy, "Ne se, by God!" It is not the form, after all, but the sentiment or suggestion, that lies behind the "swear."

It is discouraging to the spirit of philosophic optimism to note the slinking figure of the iconoclast now running amuck in every field. The instinct and habit of reverence is almost gone, and the solidest traditional reputations are no longer safe. We no longer say with Wallenstein—

Even the fine historic character of Washington is "at a discount" in the modern world—partly on account of his alleged indulgence in profane speech, but chiefly because of his recognized incapacity to tell a lie. He had not only lost (we are told by one biographer) the useful—the indispensable—instinct of "prevarication," but (as we are told by another) "when deeply angered, he would swear a hearty English oath." One may survive in the Darwinian struggle without the capacity to swear, but scarcely without the capacity to deceive. There seems to be no salvation in this life except for the successful liar; but for the man of many oaths there appears to be no salvation either in this life or the next. Happily, the material prosperity of Virginia was but little affected by the ethics of the Washingtonian Code. Her commercial instincts had been powerfully quickened in her early years by an admonitory imprecation from a royal, or official, source. When the Commissioners of Virginia were pleading the interests of "learning and religion" before the Attorney-General of Charles II (an Anglo-Norman lawyer, no doubt), he promptly responded with a hearty English oath—"Damn your souls! Grow tobacco!" There is no need for such an adjuration to the planters of the fine old Anglo-Norman Commonwealth of Kentucky. The tobacco will be planted, whatever may become of their souls.