MANNERS

THERE is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world to get a good name or to supply the want of it.

Good manners are a part of good morals, and it is as much our duty as our interest to practice in both.

Good manners is the art of making those around us easy. Who ever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred man in the company.

Good manners should begin at home. Politeness is not an article to be worn in all dress only, to be put on when we have a complimentary visit.

Nothing prevents a person from being natural and easy, so much as an extreme anxiety to appear so.

A man’s own good breeding is the best security against other people’s ill manners.

The beauty of  behavior consists in the manner, not the matter, of your discourse.

An honest heart makes a gentleman; but honest modesty makes a gentle manner,

“Manners make the man,” says the proverb. It may be true that some men’s manners have been the making of them; but as manners are rather the expression of the man, it would be more proper to say —the man makes the manners.

Social courtesies should emanate from the heart, for remember always that the worth of manners consists in being the sincere express ions of feelings. Like the dial of the watch they should indicate that the work within is good and true.

The young should be mannerly, but they feel timid, bashful and self-distrustful the moment they are addressed by a stranger or pear in company. There is but one way to get over this feeling, and acquire easy and graceful manners, and that is to do the best they can at home as well as abroad. Good manners are not learned  much as acquired by habit. They grow upon us by use. We must be courteous, agreeable, civil, kind, gentlemanly, and manly at home and then it will become a kind of second nature everywhere. A coarse rough manner at home begets a habit of roughness, which we can not lay off if we try, when we go among strangers. The meat agreeable persons in company are those who are the most agreeable at home. Rome is the school for all the test things.

Levity of manners is prejudicial to every virtue. Avoid all sourness and austerity of manners. Virtue is a pleasant and agreeable quality, and gay and civil wisdom is always engaging.

There are a thousand pretty, engaging little ways, which every person may put on, without running the risk of being deemed either affected or foppish. The sweet smile; the quiet, cordial bow; the earnest movement in addressing a friend—more especially a stranger—whom one may recommend to our good regards; the inquiring glance; the graceful attention, which is so captivating when united with self-possession: these will secure us the good regards of even a churl. Above all, there is a certain softness of manner which should be cultivated, and which, in either man or woman, adds a charm that always entirely compensates for a lack of beauty.

Lord Chatham, who was almost as remarkable for his manners as for his eloquence and public spirit, has thus defined good breeding: “Benevolence in trifles, or a preference of others to ourselves in the little daily occurrences of life.

Says Emerson, I wish cities would teach their best lesson—of quiet manners. It is the foible especially of American youth—pretension. The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy.

One of the most marked tests of character is the manner in which we conduct ourselves toward others. A graceful behavior toward superiors, inferiors, and equals, is a constant source of pleasure. It pleases others because it indicates respect for their personality; but it gives tenfold more pleasure to ourselves. Every man may to a large extent be a self-educator in good behavior, as in everything else; he can be civil and kind, if he will, though he have not a penny in his purse.

Good manners, as we call them, are neither more nor less than good behavior; consisting of courtesy and kindness; for benevolence is the preponderating element in all kinds of mutually beneficial and plea san t intercourse amongst human beings. “Civility,” said lady Montague, “costs nothing and buys everything.  The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise’ requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. Those little courtesies which form the small change of life, may separately appear of little intrinsic value, but they acquire their importance from repetition and accumulation. They are like the spare minutes, or the groat a day, which proverbially produce such momentous results in the course of a twelvemonth, or in a life time.

Manners are the ornament of action; and there is a way of speaking a kind word, or of doing a kind thing, which greatly enhances their value. What seems to be done with a grudge, or as an act of condescension, is scarcely accepted as a favor. Yet there are men who pride themselves upon their gruffness; and though they may possess virtue and capacity, their manner is often formed to render them almost insupportable. It is difficult to like a man who, though he may not pull your nose, habitually wounds your self-respect, and takes a pride in saying disagreeable things to you. There are others who are dreadfully condescending, and cannot avoid seizing upon every small opportunity of making their greatness felt.

The cultivation of manner,—though in excess it is foppish and foolish,—is highly necessary in a person who has occasion to negotiate with others in matters of business. Affability and good-breeding may even be regarded as essential to the success of a man in any eminent station and enlarged sphere of life; for the want of it has not infrequently  been found in a great measure to neutralize the results of much industry, integrity, and honesty of character. There are, no doubt, a few strong tolerant minds which can bear with defects and angularities of manner, and look only to the more genuine qualities; but the world at large is not so forbearant, and cannot help forming its judgments and likings mainly according to outward conduct.

Agreeable manners contribute wonderfully to a man’s success. Take two men, possessing equal advantages in every other respect; but let one be gentlemanly, kind, obliging and conciliating; the other disobliging, rude, harsh and insolent, and the one will become rich while the other will starve.

If Christianity had no higher recommendation than this, that it makes a man a gentleman, it would still be an invaluable element. The New Testament inculcates good manners. Our Savior was courteous even to his persecutors. Look at Paul before Agrippa! His speech is a model of dignified courtesy as well as of persuasive eloquence. A spirit of kindly consideration for all men characterized the Twelve. The same mild, self-sacrificing spirit which pervaded the sayings and doings of the early disciples is exhibited by the true followers of the cross at the present day. A man, it is true, may be superficially polite without being a Christian; but a Christian, by the very conditions of his creed and the obligations of his faith, is necessarily in mind and soul—and therefore in word and act—a gentleman.