The Project Gutenberg EBook of Are You A Bromide?, by Gelett Burgess

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Title: Are You A Bromide? The Sulphitic Theory Expounded And Exemplified According To The Most Recent Researches Into The Psychology Of Boredom Including Many Well-Known Bromidioms Now In Use

Author: Gelett Burgess

Release Date: January 30, 2004 [EBook #10870]

Language: English

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ARE YOU A BROMIDE?

OR,

THE SULPHITIC THEORY

EXPOUNDED AND EXEMPLIFIED ACCORDING TO THE MOST RECENT RESEARCHES INTO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BOREDOM

Including many well-known Bromidioms now in use

BY

GELETT BURGESS, S.B.

Author of "Goops and How to Be Them," "The Burgess Nonsense Book,"
"Vivette," &c., &c.

WITH DECORATIONS BY THE AUTHOR

Note: Decorations replaced with five asterisks * * * * *

1906

_NOTE

This essay is reprinted, with revisions and enlargement additions, from "The Sulphitic Theory" published in "The Smart Set" for April, 1906, by consent of the editors._

TO

GERTRUDE McCALL

CHATELAINE OF MAC MANOR

[Illustration]

AND DISCOVERER OF

THE SULPHITIC THEORY

ARE YOU A BROMIDE?

The terms "Bromide" and "Sulphite" as applied to psychological rather than chemical analysis have already become, among the illuminati, so widely adopted that these denominations now stand in considerable danger of being weakened in significance through a too careless use. The adjective "bromidic" is at present adopted as a general vehicle, a common carrier for the thoughtless damnation of the Philistine. The time has come to formulate, authoritatively, the precise scope of intellect which such distinctions suggest and to define the shorthand of conversation which their use has made practicable. The rapid spread of the theory, traveling from Sulphite to Sulphite, like the spark of a pyrotechnic set-piece, till the thinking world has been over-violently illuminated, has obscured its genesis and diverted attention from the simplicity and force of its fundamental principles.[1] In this, its progress has been like that of slang, which, gaining in popularity, must inevitably decrease in aptness and definiteness.

[Footnote 1: It was in April that I first heard of the Theory from the Chatelaine. The following August, in Venice, a lady said to me: "Aren't these old palaces a great deal more sulphitic in their decay than they were originally, during the Renaissance?"]

In attempting to solve the problem which for so long was the despair of philosophers I have made modest use of the word "theory." But to the Sulphite, this simple, convincing, comprehensive explanation is more; it is an opinion, even a belief, if not a credo. It is the crux by which society is tested. But as I shall proceed scientifically, my conclusion will, I trust, effect rational proof of what was an a priori hypothesis.

* * * * *

The history of the origin of the theory is brief. The Chatelaine of a certain sugar plantation in Louisiana, in preparing a list of guests for her house-party, discovered, in one of those explosive moments of inspiration, that all people were easily divided into two fundamental groups or families, the Sulphites and the Bromides. The revelation was apodictic, convincing; it made life a different thing; it made society almost plausible. So, too, it simplified human relationship and gave the first hint of a method by which to adjust and equalize affinities. The primary theorems sprang quickly into her mind, and, such is their power, they have attained almost the nature of axioms. The discovery, indeed, was greater, more far-reaching than she knew, for, having undergone the test of philosophical analysis as well as of practical application, it stands, now, a vital, convincing interpretation of the mysteries of human nature.

* * * * *

We have all tried our hands at categories. Philosophy is, itself, but a system of definitions. What, then, made the Chatelaine's theory remarkable, when Civilization has wearied itself with distinctions? The attempt to classify one's acquaintance is the common sport of the thinker, from the fastidious who says: "There are two kinds of persons—those who like olives and those who don't," to the fatuous, immemorial lover who says: "There are two kinds of women—Daisy, and the Other Kind!"

* * * * *

Previous attempts, less fantastic, have had this fault in common: their categories were susceptible of gradation—extremes fused one into the other. What thinking person has not felt the need of some definite, final, absolute classification? We speak of "my kind" and "the other sort," of Those who Understand, of Impossibles, and Outsiders. Some of these categories have attained considerable vogue. There is the Bohemian versus the Philistine, the Radical versus the Conservative, the Interesting versus the Bores, and so on. But always there is a shifting population at the vague frontier—the types intermingle and lose identity. Your Philistine is the very one who says: "This is Liberty Hall!"—and one must drink beer whether one likes it or not. It is the conservative business man, hard-headed, stubborn, who is converted by the mind-reader or the spiritualistic medium—one extreme flying to the other. It is the bore who, at times, unconsciously to himself, amuses you to the point of repressed laughter. These terms are fluent—your friends have a way of escaping from the labeled boxes into which you have put them; they seem to defy your definitions, your Orders and Genera. Fifteen minutes' consideration of the great Sulphitic Theory will, as the patent medicines say, convince one of its efficacy. A Bromide will never jump out of his box into that ticketed "Sulphite."

* * * * *

So much comment has been made upon the terminology of this theory that it should be stated frankly, at the start, that the words Sulphite and Bromide, and their derivatives, sulphitic and bromidic, are themselves so sulphitic that they are not susceptible of explanation. In a word, they are empirical, although, accidentally it might seem, they do appeal and convince the most skeptical. I myself balked, at first, at these inconsequent names. I would have suggested the terms "Gothic" and "Classic" to describe the fundamental types of mind. But it took but a short conversation with the Chatelaine to demonstrate the fact that the words were inevitable, and the rapid increase in their use has proved them something more real than slang—an acceptable and accepted terminology. Swallow them whole, therefore, and you will be