COURTESY FROM THE YOUNG TO THE OLD
THE pessimist, reading the heading of this chapter, would be inclined
to ask if one writes nowadays of a lost quantity. While we do not
consider the grace of courtesy as entirely lost, we are at times
tempted to think that it has “gone before,” and so far before that it
is lost sight of by the rising generation.
The days have passed when the hoary head was a crown of glory, as the
royal preacher declares. It is certain that if it is a crown, it is one
before which the youth of the twentieth century do not always bow.
Before we condemn the young unsparingly for their lack of reverence,
we must look at the other side of the question. To-day there are few
old people. First, there is youth. That lasts almost until one is a
grandparent; then one is middle-aged. No one is old,—at least few
will acknowledge it. The woman of forty-five is on “the shady side of
thirty,” she of sixty-five, is “on the down slope from fifty.” And,
even when the age is announced, one is reminded that “a woman is only
as old as she feels.” There is sound common sense in all this. Can not
we afford to snap our fingers at Father Time and his laws, when the law
within ourselves tells us that we are young in heart, in feeling, in
aims? So the principle that bids us shut our eyes at the figure on the
mile-stone we are passing is a good one. As long as we feel fresh still
for the journey, as long as every step is a pleasure, what difference
if the walk has been five miles long or fifteen? We judge of the strain
by the effect it has had on us. If we feel unwearied and ready for
miles and miles ahead of us, who shall say that the walk has been ten
miles long, when we are conscious in our energetic limbs that it has
only been two delightful miles?
[Sidenote: NO ONE IS OLD NOW]
The fact that no one is now old has its effect on the Young Person
in our midst. She hesitates to say to the matron, “Take this seat,
please!” when she knows that in her soul the matron will resent the
insinuation that she is on the downward grade. Not long ago I witnessed
the chagrin of a woman of thirty-five who rose and gave her seat in
a stage to a woman who was, if one may judge by the false standard
of appearances, at least fifteen years her senior. The elderly woman
flushed indignantly:
“Pray keep your seat, madam!” she commanded in stentorian tones. “I
may be gray-headed, but I am _not_ old or decrepit!”
I fancy that one reason gray hair is becoming fashionable is this
desire to cling to youth. Every year more young women tell us that they
are prematurely gray, and their sister-women add eagerly, “So many
women are, nowadays!”
[Sidenote: THE IMPORTANCE OF TACT]
Our Young Person must, then, be very careful how she displays the
feeling of reverence for age which, we would like to believe, is
inherent in every well-regulated nature. She must exercise tact,
without which no person will have popularity.
[Sidenote: APPRECIATING ONE’S ELDERS]
One point in which Young America displays lamentable vulgarity is in
the habit of interrupting older people. Interruptions, we of a former
generation were taught, are rude. That is a forgotten fact in many
so-called polite circles. And when people do not interrupt they seem
to be waiting for the person speaking to finish what he has to say in
order to “cut in” (no other expression describes it fitly) with some
new and original remark. That is, apparently, the only reason that one
listens to others,—just for the sake of having some one to answer. The
world is full of things, and getting fuller every day, and unless one
talks most of the time he will never be able to air his opinions on
all points. And every one’s opinion is of priceless value,—at least
to himself. This seems to be the attitude of Young America. Yet in
courtesy to the hoary head one should occasionally pause long enough to
allow the owner thereof to express an opinion. Although one has passed
fifty, one may, nevertheless, have sound judgment and ideas on some
subjects that are worth consideration. I wish young men and women would
occasionally remember this.
The woman of sixty, or over, can really learn little of value from her
granddaughter,—even when that granddaughter is a college graduate,
and has all the arrogance of twenty years. Of course, grandmother may
need enlightenment on college athletics, on golf, even, perhaps, on
bridge,—although that is very doubtful, if she lives in a fashionable
neighborhood. But, after all, these are not the greatest things of
life. She would, perchance, be glad to listen to her young relative’s
accounts of her sports if she would take the trouble to tell the
happenings that interest her in a loving respectful spirit. Our elderly
woman does not like to be patronized, to be told that she dresses like
an old fashion-plate, and that she is, to use the slang of the day, a
“back number.” The grandmother knows better. She has lived and she is
sure that from her store of knowledge of life—of men, women and things
as they really are—she could bring forth treasures, new and old, that
would be of great help to the hot-headed, impulsive young girl about
to risk all on the perilous journey that lies before her.
I would, therefore, suggest that Our Girl practise deference toward her
elders. At first she may not find it easy, but it is worth cultivating.
It is, moreover, much more becoming than arrogance and aggressiveness,
too common nowadays. There is something wrong when a person feels no
respect for one who has attained to double or treble her years. There
is something lacking. The collegians of both sexes would do well to
turn their analytical minds on themselves, and, as improvement is the
order of the day, add to their fund of becoming attainments the sweet
old-fashioned attribute of courtesy and reverence toward age.
[Sidenote: SMALL COURTESIES]
It is easy, after all, if one will watch carefully, to do the little
kind thing that makes for comfort, and not do it aggressively. It is
not necessary to adjust a pillow at the elderly person’s back as if she
needed it. I saw a sweet woman put a pillow behind an invalid with such
tact that the sufferer, who was acutely sensitive on the subject of her
condition, did not suspect that her hostess had her illness in mind.
“My dear,” said this tactful woman, “if you are ‘built’ as I am, you
must find that chair desperately uncomfortable without a cushion
behind you! _I_ simply _will not_ sit in it without this little bit of
a pillow wedged in at the small of my back. I find it so much more
comfortable _so_, that I am sure you will.”
And the cushion was adjusted. Could even supersensitive and suspicious
Old Age have resented such attention?
Of course elderly people like to talk. Why should they not be allowed
to do it? The boy or girl listener is impatient of what he or she terms
inwardly “garrulousness.” Is not the prattle of youth as trying to old
people? But, to do them justice, unless they are very crabbed, they
listen to it kindly.
Unfortunately, one seldom sees a young person rise and remain standing
when an old person enters the room. Yet to loll back in a chair under
such circumstances is one of the greatest rudenesses of which a girl or
boy is capable.
[Sidenote: THE OLD MAN]
[Sidenote: GENEROSITY TO AGE]
Right here, may I put in a plea for the old man? In the first place, he
is not so popular as the old woman. _She_ is often beloved; he, poor
soul! is too often endured. In very truth he is not so lovable as his
lady-wife. He did not take the time while he was young to cultivate
the little niceties of life as she did. Women have more regard for
appearances than men have, and their life is not spent so often in
counting-room and office; they are, in their daily life, surrounded
by refined persons more than are their husbands; they do not have to
talk by the hour with rough men, give orders to surly underlings, eat
at lunch counters, and join in the morning and evening rush-for-life
to get a seat in the crowded car or train where the law is “_Sauve
qui peut!_” or, in brutal English “Every man for himself”—no matter
who—“for the hindmost!” All these things, after years and years,
influence the man or woman. It is inevitable. It even affects the inner
life. The Book of books tells us that though the outward man perish,
the inward man is renewed day by day. Sometimes the inward man is
hardly worth renewing at the end of a life of such rush and mad haste
after the elusive dollar that there has been no place for the gentle
amenities of existence. Therefore, as the man gets old, his nature
comes to the front, and, too often, the courtesies that were pinned
on him by a loving wife, and kept polished up by her, drop off and he
does not want to bother to have them readjusted. Consequently, he often
has habits that are not pretty. He is irascible; he is intolerant with
youth, and, now that he is laid aside, he likes to tell of what he did
when he was as active as the young men about him. Dear young people,
let him talk! Listen to him, and remember that at your age he was just
as agreeable as you. Consider, too, that if, when you are old, you
would escape being the self-absorbed being you think him, you would do
well now to begin to avoid the selfishness and self-absorption that you
find make the old man objectionable. Practise on him, and he will in
his old age still be doing a good work.
[Sidenote: A WORD TO THE WISE]
It is not pleasant to feel old, to know that you are set aside in the
minds of others as “a has-been.” There are few more cruel lessons
given to human beings to learn in this hard school we call life. And
this task has to be learned when strength and courage wane, and the
grasshopper is a burden. If young people would only make it unnecessary
for the older person to acquire it! It lies with youth to make the
declining years of those near the end of the journey a weary waiting
for that end, or a peaceful loitering on a road that shall be a
foretaste of a Land in which no one ever grows old.