In these days, amid what has been strongly stated as "the prevailing
mediocrity of manners," a study of the manners of the past would
seem to reveal to us the fact that in those days of ceremony a man
who was beset with shyness need then have suffered less than he
would do now in these days of impertinence and brass.
A man was not then expected to enter a room and to dash at once into
a lively conversation. The stately influence of the _minuet de la
cour_ was upon him; he deliberately entered a room, made a low bow,
and sat down, waiting to be spoken to.
Indeed, we may go farther back and imagine ourselves at the court of
Louis XIV., when the world was broadly separated into the two
classes--the noble and the _bourgeois_. That world which Moliere
divided in his _dramatis personae_ into the courtier, the provincial
noble, and the plain gentleman; and secondly, into the men of law
and medicine, the merchant, and the shopkeeper. These divisions
shall be for a moment considered. Now, all these men knew exactly,
from the day when they reached ten years of age, how they were
expected to behave in the sphere of life to which they were called.
The marquis was instructed in every art of graceful behavior, the
_bel air_ was taught him as we teach our boys how to dance, even
more thoroughly. The _grand seigneur_ of those days, the man who
would not arrange the folds of his own cravat with his own hands,
and who exacted an observance as punctilious from his valets as if
he were the king himself, that marquis of whom the great Moliere
makes such fun, the courtier whom even the _grand monarque_ liked to
see ridiculed--this man had, nevertheless, good manners. We see him
reflected with marvellous fidelity in those wonderful comedies of
the French Shakespeare; he is more than the fashion of an epoch--he
is one of the eternal types of human nature. We learn what a man
becomes whose business is "deportment." Even despicable as he is in
"Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme"---flattering, borrowing money, cheating
the poor citizen, and using his rank as a mask and excuse for his
vices--we still read that it was such a one as he who took poor
Moliere's cold hands in his and put them in his muff, when, on the
last dreadful day of the actor's life (with a liberality which does
his memory immortal honor), he strove to play, "that fifty poor
workmen might receive their daily pay." It was such a one as this
who was kind to poor Moliere. There was in these _gens de cour_ a
copy of fine feeling, even if they had it not, They were polite and
elegant, making the people about them feel better for the moment,
doing graceful acts courteously, and gilding vice with the polish of
perfect manners. The _bourgeois_, according to Moliere, was as bad a
man as the courtier, but he had, besides, brutal manners; and as for
the magistrates and merchants, they were harsh and surly, and very
sparing of civility. No wonder, when the French Revolution came,
that one of the victims, regretting the not-yet-forgotten marquis,
desired the return of the aristocracy; for, said he, "I would rather
be trampled upon by a velvet slipper than a wooden shoe."
It is the best definition of manners--"a velvet slipper rather than
a wooden shoe." We ask very little of the people whom we casually
meet but that the salutation be pleasant; and as we remember how
many crimes and misfortunes have arisen from sudden anger, caused
sometimes by pure breaches of good manners, we almost agree with
Burke that "manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in
a great measure, the laws depend."
Some one calls politeness "benevolence in trifles, the preference of
others to ourselves in little, daily, hourly occurrences in the
business of life, a better place, a more commodious seat, priority
in being helped at table," etc.
Now, in all these minor morals the marquis was a benevolent man; he
was affable and both well and fair spoken, "and would use strange
sweetness and blandishment of words when he desired to affect or
persuade anything that he took to heart"--that is, with his equals.
It is well to study this man, and to remember that he was not always
vile. The Prince of Cond had these manners and a generous, great
heart as well. Gentleness really belongs to virtue, and a sycophant
can hardly imitate it well. The perfect gentleman is he who has a
strong heart under the silken doublet of a perfect manner.
We do not want all the decent drapery of life torn off; we do not
want to be told that we are full of defects; we do not wish people
to show us a latent antagonism; and if we have in ourselves the
elements of roughness, severity of judgment, a critical eye which
sees defects rather than virtues, we are bound to study how to tone
down that native, disagreeable temper--just as we are bound to try
to break the icy formality of a reserved manner, and to cultivate a
cordiality which we do not feel. Such a command over the
shortcomings of our own natures is not insincerity, as we often find
that the effort to make ourselves agreeable towards some one whom we
dislike ends in leading us to like the offending person. We find
that we have really been the offender, going about with a moral
tape-measure graduated by ourselves, and measuring the opposite
party with a serene conceit which has called itself principle or
honor, or some high-sounding name, while it was really nothing but
prejudice.
We should try to carry entertainment with us, and to seem
entertained with our company. A friendly behavior often conciliates
and pleases more than wit or brilliancy; and here we come back to
those polished manners of the past, which were a perfect drapery,
and therefore should be studied, and perhaps in a degree copied, by
the awkward and the shy, who cannot depend upon themselves for
inspirations of agreeability. Emerson says that "fashion is good-
sense entertaining company; it hates corners and sharp points of
character, hates quarrelsome, egotistical, solitary, and gloomy
people, hates whatever can interfere with total blending of parties,
while it values all particularities as in the highest degree
refreshing which can consist with good-fellowship."
It does the awkward and the shy good to contemplate these words. It
may not immediately help them to become graceful and self-possessed,
but it will certainly have a very good effect in inducing them to
try.
We find that the successful man of the world has studied the temper
of the finest sword. He can bend easily, he is flexible, he is
pliant, and yet he has not lost the bravery and the power of his
weapon. Men of the bar, for instance, have been at the trouble to
construct a system of politeness, in which even an offensive self-
estimation takes on the garb of humility. The harmony is preserved,
a trial goes on with an appearance of deference and respect each to
the other, highly, most highly, commendable, and producing law and
order where otherwise we might find strife, hatred, and warfare.
Although this may be a mimic humility, although the compliments may
be judged insincere, they are still the shadows of the very highest
virtues. The man who is guarding his speech is ruling his spirit; he
is keeping his temper, that furnace of all affliction, and the lofty
chambers of his brain are cool and full of fresh air.
A man who is by nature clownish, and who has what he calls a "noble
sincerity," is very apt to do injustice to the polished man; he
should, however, remember that "the manner of a vulgar man has
freedom without ease, and that the manner of a gentleman has ease
without freedom." A man with an obliging, agreeable address may be
just as sincere as if he had the noble art of treading on
everybody's toes. The "putter-down-upon-system" man is quite as
often urged by love of display as by a love of truth; he is
ungenerous, combative, and ungenial; he is the "bravo of society."
To some people a fine manner is the gift of nature. We see a young
person enter a room, make himself charming, go through the
transition period of boy to man, always graceful, and at man's
estate aim to still possess that unconscious and flattering grace,
that "most exquisite taste of politeness," which is a gift from the
gods. He is exactly formed to please, this lucky creature, and all
this is done for him by nature. We are disposed to abuse Mother
Nature when we think of this boy's heritage of joy compared with her
step-son, to whom she has given the burning blushes, the awkward
step, the heavy self-consciousness, the uncourtly gait, the
hesitating speech, and the bashful demeanor.
But nothing would be omitted by either parent or child to cure the
boy if he had a twisted ankle, so nothing should be omitted that
can, cure the twist of shyness, and therefore a shy young person
should not be expected to confront such a trial.
And to those who have the bringing up of shy young persons we
commend these excellent words of Whately: "There are many otherwise
sensible people who seek to cure a young person of that very common
complaint--shyness--by exhorting him not to be shy, telling him what
an awkward appearance it has, and that it prevents his doing himself
justice, all of which is manifestly pouring oil on the fire to
quench it; for the very cause of shyness is an over-anxiety as to
what people are thinking of you, a morbid attention to your own
appearance. The course, therefore, that ought to be pursued is
exactly the reverse. The sufferer should be exhorted to think as
little as possible about himself and the opinion formed of him, to
be assured that most of the company do not trouble their heads about
him, and to harden him against any impertinent criticisms that he
supposed to be going on, taking care only to do what is right,
leaving others to say and to think what they will."
All this philosophy is excellent, and is like the sensible
archbishop. But the presence of a set of carefully cultivated,
artificial manners, or a hat to hold in one's hand, will better help
the shy person when he is first under fire, and when his senses are
about deserting him, than any moral maxims can be expected to do.
Carlyle speaks of the fine manners of his peasant father (which he
does not seem to have inherited), and he says: "I think-that they
came from his having, early in life, worked for Maxwell, of Keir, a
Scotch gentleman of great dignity and worth, who gave to all those
under him a fine impression of the governing classes." Old Carlyle
had no shame in standing with his hat off as his landlord passed; he
had no truckling spirit either of paying court to those whose lot in
life it was to be his superiors.
Those manners of the past were studied; they had, no doubt, much
about them which we should now call stiff, formal, and affected, but
they were a great help to the awkward and the shy.
In the past our ancestors had the help of costume, which we have
not. Nothing is more defenceless than a being in a dress-coat, with
no pockets allowable in which he can put his hands. If a man is in a
costume he forgets the sufferings of the coat and pantaloon. He has
a sense of being in a fortress. A military man once said that he
always fought better in his uniform--that a fashionably cut coat and
an every-day hat took all heroism out of him.
Women, particularly shy ones, feel the effect of handsome clothes as
a reinforcement. "There is an _appui_ in a good gown," said Madame
de Stal. Therefore, the awkward and the shy, in attempting to
conquer the manners of artificial society, should dress as well as
possible. Perhaps to their taste in dress do Frenchmen owe much of
their easy civility and their success in social politics; and herein
women are very much more fortunate than men, for they can always
ask, "Is it becoming?" and can add the handkerchief, fan, muff, or
mantle as a refuge for trembling hands. A man has only his pockets;
he does not wish to always appear with his hands in them.
Taste is said to be the instantaneous, ready appreciation of the
fitness of things. To most of us who may regret the want of it in
ourselves, it seems to be the instinct of the fortunate few. Some
women look as if they had simply blossomed out of their inner
consciousness into a beautiful toilet; others are the creatures of
chance, and look as if their clothes had been hurled at them by a
tornado.
Some women, otherwise good and true, have a sort of moral want of
taste, and wear too bright colors, too many glass beads, too much
hair, and a combination of discordant materials which causes the
heart of a good dresser to ache with anguish. This want of taste
runs across the character like an intellectual bar-sinister, forcing
us to believe that their conclusions are anything but legitimate.
People who say innocently things which shock you, who put the
listeners at a dinner-table upon tenter-hooks, are either wanting in
taste or their minds are confused with shyness.
A person thus does great injustice to his own moral qualities when
he permits himself to be misrepresented by that disease of which we
speak. Shyness perverts the speech more than vice even. But if a man
or a woman can look down on a well-fitting, becoming dress (even if
it is the barren and forlorn dress which men wore to parties in
1882), it is still an _appui_. We know how it offends us to see a
person in a dress which is inappropriate. A chief-justice in the
war-paint and feathers of an Indian chief would scarcely be listened
to, even if his utterances were those of a Marshall or a Jay.
It takes a great person, a courageous person, to bear the shame of
unbecoming dress; and, no doubt, to a nature shy, passionate, proud,
and poor, the necessity of wearing poor or unbecoming clothes has
been an injury for life. He despised himself for his weakness, but
the weakness remained. When the French Revolution came in with its
_sans-culotteism_, and republican simplicity found its perfect
expression in Thomas Jefferson, still, the prejudices of powdered
hair and stiff brocades remained. They gradually disappeared, and
the man of the nineteenth century lost the advantages of becoming
dress, and began anew the battle of life stripped of all his
trappings. Manners went with these flowing accessaries, and the
abrupt speech, curt bow, and rather exaggerated simplicity of the
present day came in.
But it is a not unworthy study--these manners of the past. We are
returning, at least on the feminine side, to a great and magnificent
"princess," or queenly, style of dress. It is becoming the fashion
to make a courtesy, to flourish a fan, to bear one's self with
dignity when in this fine costume. Cannot the elegance, the repose,
and the respectfulness of the past return also?