Manners.
The ancients had but one word for *manners and morals*. It might be well
if the same were the case with us,—yet with this essential difference,
that while they degraded morals to the level of manners, a higher culture
would lead us to raise manners to the level of morals. The main
characteristics of good manners are comprised in the three preceding
Sections. They are the observance, in one’s demeanor and conduct toward
others, of the fitnesses of time and place, and of the due and graceful
mean between overwrought, extravagant, or fantastic manifestations of
regard on the one hand, and coldness, superciliousness, or indifference on
the other. Courtesies, like more substantial kindnesses, are neutralized
by delay, and, when slow, seem forced and reluctant. Attentions, which in
their place are gratifying, may, if misplaced, occasion only mortification
and embarrassment, as when civilities befitting interior home-life are
rehearsed for the public eye and ear. Nor is there any department of
conduct in which excess or deficiency is more painfully felt,—a redundance
of compliments and assiduities tending to silence and abash the recipient,
while their undue scanting inflicts a keen sense of slight, neglect, and
injury.
*Politeness* must, indeed, in order even to appear genuine, be the
expression of sincere kindness. There is no pretence so difficult to
maintain as the false show of genial and benevolent feeling. The mask
cannot be so fitted to the face as not to betray its seams and sutures.
Yet kindness is not of itself politeness. Its spontaneous expressions may
be rude and awkward; or they may take forms not readily understood and
appreciated. There are conventional modes of polite demeanor no less than
of courteous speech. These modes may have no intrinsic fitness, yet they
acquire a fitness from their long and general use; and while the mere
repetition of stereotyped formulas whether in word or deportment is justly
offensive, he who would have his politeness recognized and enjoyed must
beware lest he depart too widely from the established sign-language of
society. There is a _brusquerie_ often underlying hearty kindness and good
fellowship, which at the outset pains, wounds, and repels those brought
within its sphere, and which the most intimate friends endure and excuse
rather than approve.
*Politeness is to be regarded as an indispensable duty.* It is believed
that from its neglect or violation more discomfort ensues than from any
other single cause, and in some circles and conditions of society more
than from all other causes combined. There are neighborhoods and
communities that are seldom disturbed by grave offences against the
criminal law, but none which can insure itself against the affronts,
enmities, wounded sensibilities, rankling grievances, occasioned by
incivility and rudeness. Moreover, there are persons entirely free from
vice, perhaps ostentatious in the qualities which are the opposites of
vices, and not deficient in charitable labors and gifts, who cultivate
discourtesy, are acrid or bitter in their very deeds of charity, and carry
into every society a certain porcupine selfhood, which makes their mere
presence annoying and baneful. Such persons, besides the suffering they
inflict on individuals, are of unspeakable injury to their respective
circles or communities, by making their very virtues unlovely, and piety,
if they profess it, hateful. On the other hand, there is no truer
benefactor to society—if the creation of happiness be the measure of
benefit—than the genuine gentleman or gentlewoman, who adds grace to
virtue, politeness to kindness; who under the guidance of a sincere
fellow-feeling, studies the fitnesses of speech and manner, in civility
and courtesy endeavors to render to all their due, and in the least
details that can affect another’s happiness, does carefully and
conscientiously all that the most fastidious sensibility could claim or
desire.