CHAPTER XII
THE passing of General Fombombo with the peon girl, Madruja, will call to the philosophical mind one of the sharpest distinctions between North American chastity and Venezuelan laxity. In America, no man, not even the most degraded specimen of our race, would think of parading his mistress before his wife. Such a thing is not done in America. Where the Latin flaunts his dalliances openly, the puritanical North American invariably makes an effort to conceal his shortcomings and to present to the world an innocuous and inoffensive front.
Spanish-American moralists are prone to ascribe this flowering of the great Anglo-Saxon cult of concealment to hypocrisy. Nothing could be shorter of the truth. Hypocrisy is an effort to deceive, but the best English and American types deceive no one. Their intention is not to deceive but to keep life clean, pure, and enjoyable for their fellow-men. For here is the peculiar thing about vice: A man's own shortcomings never appear censure-worthy, whereas the sins of other men are hideous. To be seen openly sinning is to make of oneself a public nuisance.
The genius of the Anglo-Saxon realizes this, and he avoids paining and distressing others by performing his dalliances as privately as possible. This secrecy is each man's private contribution to the comfort and reassurance of his fellow-citizens. Taking us all in all, perhaps America's greatest gift to the world is the peccadillo of low visibility. As an instance of the deplorable effect of being seen,
observe how the passing of General Fombombo and Madruja
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