Since censoriousness is a quality utterly antagonistic to good manners,
it is well to reflect that, while etiquette lays down many laws, it
also indulgently grants generous absolution. While we decide that
certain forms and methods of action are _correct_ and _good form_, we
must remember that all people, ourselves included, are liable to be
occasionally remiss in little things, and that we must not too hastily
decide a man's status on the score of breeding by his punctilious
observance of conventional laws. There are some requirements of
etiquette that have their foundation in the idea of convenience or
feasibility; others that are essentially requisite as the exponent of
decency. A man may easily be far from perfect in details of the former
class, and yet be a refined gentleman; but he cannot offend in the
latter class of instances without being a boor. Something worse than
eating with his knife must ostracize a man, and something no greater
than spitting on the sidewalk should accomplish the feat at one fell
stroke.
There is an infallible constancy in good breeding. Like charity, of
which it is so largely an exponent, it "never faileth." One's manner
to two different people, respectively, may not be _the same_, but it
should be _equally courteous_, whether it expresses the cordial
friendliness of social equals or the just esteem of one either higher
or lower than one's self in the social scale. "No man is a hero to his
_valet_," because the heroic is confined to great and rare occasions.
But every gentleman is a _gentleman_ to his _valet_, for the qualities
that distinguish the gentleman are every day and every hour manifested.