You have often endeavoured to impress upon your readers an observation of
more truth than novelty, that life passes, for the most part, in petty
transactions; that our hours glide away in trifling amusements and slight
gratifications; and that there very seldom emerges any occasion that can
call forth great virtue or great abilities.
It very commonly happens that speculation has no influence on conduct.
Just conclusions, and cogent arguments, formed by laborious study, and
diligent inquiry, are often reposited in the treasuries of memory, as
gold in a miser's chest, useless alike to others and himself. As some are
not richer for the extent of their possessions, others are not wiser for
the multitude of their ideas.
You have truly described the state of human beings, but it may be doubted
whether you have accommodated your precepts to your description; whether
you have not generally considered your readers as influenced by the
tragick passions, and susceptible of pain or pleasure only from powerful
agents, and from great events.
To an author who writes not for the improvement of a single art, or
the establishment of a controverted doctrine, but equally intends the
advantage and equally courts the perusal of all the classes of mankind,
nothing can justly seem unworthy of regard, by which the pleasure of
conversation may be increased, and the daily satisfactions of familiar
life secured from interruption and disgust.
For this reason you would not have injured your reputation, if you had
sometimes descended to the minuter duties of social beings, and enforced
the observance of those little civilities and ceremonious delicacies,
which, inconsiderable as they may appear to the man of science, and
difficult as they may prove to be detailed with dignity, yet contribute
to the regulation of the world, by facilitating the intercourse between
one man and another, and of which the French have sufficiently testified
their esteem, by terming the knowledge and practice of them _Sçavoir
vivre_, The art of living.
Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly
but by the inconvenience of its loss. Its influence upon the manners
is constant and uniform, so that, like an equal motion, it escapes
perception. The circumstances of every action are so adjusted to each
other, that we do not see where any errour could have been committed, and
rather acquiesce in its propriety than admire its exactness.
But as sickness shews us the value of ease, a little familiarity with
those who were never taught to endeavour the gratification of others, but
regulate their behaviour merely by their own will, will soon evince the
necessity of established modes and formalities to the happiness and quiet
of common life.
Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental
laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating to rudeness,
or self-esteem from swelling into insolence; a thousand incivilities may
be committed, and a thousand offices neglected, without any remorse of
conscience or reproach from reason.
The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than
pleasure. The power of delighting must be conferred by nature, and cannot
be delivered by precept, or obtained by imitation; but though it be the
privilege of a very small number to ravish and to charm, every man may
hope by rules and caution not to give pain, and may, therefore, by the
help of good-breeding, enjoy the kindness of mankind, though he should
have no claim to higher distinctions.
The universal axiom in which all complaisance is included, and from
which flow all the formalities which custom has established in civilized
nations, is, _That no man shall give any preference to himself_. A rule
so comprehensive and certain, that, perhaps, it is not easy for the mind
to image an incivility, without supposing it to be broken.
There are, indeed, in every place some particular modes of the ceremonial
part of good-breeding, which, being arbitrary and accidental, can
be learned only by habitude and conversation; such are the forms
of salutation, the different gradations of reverence, and all the
adjustments of place and precedence. These, however, may be often
violated without offence, if it be sufficiently evident, that neither
malice nor pride contributed to the failure; but will not atone, however
rigidly observed, for the tumour of insolence, or petulance of contempt.
I have, indeed, not found among any part of mankind, less real and
rational complaisance, than among those who have passed their time in
paying and receiving visits, in frequenting publick entertainments,
in studying the exact measures of ceremony, and in watching all the
variations of fashionable courtesy.
They know, indeed, at what hour they may beat the door of an acquaintance,
how many steps they must attend him towards the gate, and what interval
should pass before his visit is returned; but seldom extend their care
beyond the exterior and unessential parts of civility, nor refuse their
own vanity any gratification, however expensive to the quiet of another.
Trypherus is a man remarkable for splendour and expense; a man, that having
been originally placed by his fortune and rank in the first class of the
community, has acquired that air of dignity, and that readiness in the
exchange of compliments, which courts, balls, and levees, easily confer.
But Trypherus, without any settled purposes of malignity, partly by his
ignorance of human nature, and partly by the habit of contemplating with
great satisfaction his own grandeur and riches, is hourly giving disgust
to those whom chance or expectation subjects to his vanity.
To a man whose fortune confines him to a small house, he declaims upon
the pleasure of spacious apartments, and the convenience of changing his
lodging-room in different parts of the year; tells him, that he hates
confinement; and concludes, that if his chamber was less, he should never
wake without thinking of a prison.
To Eucretas, a man of birth equal to himself, but of much less estate, he
shewed his services of plate, and remarked that such things were, indeed,
nothing better than costly trifles, but that no man must pretend to the
rank of a gentleman without them; and that for his part, if his estate
was smaller, he should not think of enjoying but increasing it, and would
inquire out a trade for his eldest son.
He has, in imitation of some more acute observer than himself, collected a
great many shifts and artifices by which poverty is concealed; and among
the ladies of small fortune, never fails to talk of frippery and slight
silks, and the convenience of a general mourning.
I have been insulted a thousand times with a catalogue of his pictures,
his jewels, and his rarities, which, though he knows the humble neatness
of my habitation, he seldom fails to conclude by a declaration, that
wherever he sees a house meanly furnished, he despises the owner's taste,
or pities his poverty.
This, Mr. Rambler, is the practice of Trypherus, by which he is become
the terrour of all who are less wealthy than himself, and has raised
innumerable enemies without rivalry, and without malevolence.
Yet though all are not equally culpable with Trypherus, it is scarcely
possible to find any man who does not frequently, like him, indulge his
own pride by forcing others into a comparison with himself when he knows
the advantage is on his side, without considering that unnecessarily
to obtrude unpleasing ideas, is a species of oppression; and that it is
little more criminal to deprive another of some real advantage, than to
interrupt that forgetfulness of its absence which is the next happiness
to actual possession.