The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1859-06-23

sense of good manners, has hint in it Of
the breeding of courts, and the blood of
old Mileslan kings, which very lively runs
in her veins,-thinned by two hundred
years of potato, which, being an under
ground fruit, tends to drag down the gen.
erations that are made of it to the earth
from which 1t came, and, hlling their veins
with starch, turn them into kind of hu-
man vegetable.
say, if you like such people, go with
them. But | am going to make practi-
cal application of the example at the be-
ginning of this particular record, which
some young people who are going to choose
professional advisers by-and- by may re-
member and thank me for. If you are
making choice of physician, be sure you
get one, if possible, with cheerful and
serene countenance. A physician is not
at least, ought not to be-au execu-
tioner; and sentence of death on his
face is as bad as warrant for execution
signed by the Governor. AS a general
rule, no man has right to tell another by
word or look that he is going to die. 1t
may be necessary in some extreme cases !;
but as rule, it is the last extreme of i'm
pertinence which one human being can
offer to another. "You have killed me" !"
said patient once to physician who had
rashly told him he was incurable. He
ought to have lived six months, out he
was dead in six weeks. If we will only
let Nature and the God of Nature alone,
persons will commonly learn their eondi-
ton as early as they ought to know it, and
not TO be cheated out of their natural birth
right of hope ofrecovery, which is intend
ed to accompany sick people as long as
life is comfortable, and is graciously re-
placed by the hope of heaven, or at least
of rest, when life has become burden
which the bearer is ready to let fall
Underbred people tease their sick and
dying friends to death The chance of a
gentleman or lady with given mortal
ailment to live certain time is as good
again as that of the common sort of coarse
people. AS you go down the social scale,
you reach point at length where the
common talk in sick rooms is of church
yards and sephulchres, and kind of per-
petual vivisection is forever carried on,
upon the person of the miserable sufferer.
And so, in choosing your clergyman,
other things being equal, prefer the one
of wholesome and cheerful habit of mind
and body. you can get along with peo-
pie who carry certificate in their faces
that their goodness is SO great as to make
them very miserable, your children can
not. And whatever offends one of these
little ones cannot be right in the eyes of
Him who loved them SO well.
After all, as you are gentleman or a
lady, you will probably select gentlemen
for your bodily and spiritual advisers, and
then all will be right.
This repetition of the above Words
gentleman and tady,-which could not be
conveniently avoided, reminds me how
much use is made of them by those who
ought to know what they mean. Thus,
at a marriage ceremony, once, of two very
excellent persons who had been at service,
instead of, Do you take this man, etc. +?
and, Do you take this womann ? how do
you think the officiating clergyman put
the questions 1t was, Do you, Miss
So and So, take this GENTLEMAN ? and,
Do you, Mr.. This or That, take this LA
DY?! What would any English duchess,
ay, or the Queen of England herself, have
thought, if the Archbishop of Canterbury
had called her and her bridegroom any
thing but plain woman and man at such
time H. @ .L
don't doubt the Poor Relation thought
it was all very fine, if she happened to
have been in the church; but if the wor,
thy man who uttered these monstrous
words-monstrous in such connection
had known the ludicrous surprise, the
CONFUSION of inward disgust and contempt,
that seized upon many of the persons who
were present,-had guessed what sud-
den flash of light it threw on the Dutch
gliding, the pinchbeck, the shabby, perk.
ing pretension belonging to certain social
layers, so inherent in their whole mode
of being, that the holiest Offices of religion
cannot exclude all its impertinences,-
the good man would have given his mar:
riage-fee twice over to recall that superb
and full-blown vulgarism. Any persons
whom it could please have no better no
tion of what the words referred to signify
than of the meaning of apsides and asymp
I totes.
MAN Sir WOMAN! Sir! Gentil
ity is fine thing, not to be undervalued,
as | have been trying to explain but hu
manity comes before that
"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman"
The beauty of that plainness of speech and
manners which comes from the finest
training is not to be understood by those