Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-10-09
Manners Of the Present Day.

There are persons who believe that the
standard of good manners in this country is
on the whole much lower than it was that
politeness and courtesy are neither so COM
mon nor so well understood as they used to
be; and that the acquisition of enormous
wealth by the few has been the means of
EMBARRASSING us all to really formidable ez-
tent. Evidence of this is supposed to be
| found in the rudeness which one is accus
| toned TO meet with and to hear of in railway
travelling; in the pushing and undisguised
selfshness with which every man does that
which is right in his own eyes, with the
| smallest possible consideration for his next
door neighbor; in the substitution of stiff
Journalism by the vulgar rich for frank and
genial intercourse.
About the actual fact there may be some
difference of opinion. There are so many
optimists in the world who insist that every
thing goes on in the finest way imaginable,
that there is sure to besome resistance to the
admission of disagreeable truth. We need
mt be reluctant to admit it, at any rate, on
merely patriotic grounds, for English and
Frenchmen are making just the same COM
plant of their countries, too.
The essence of good manners is ease, and
ease is just what the suddenly enriched can
not have. Look at the conduct and carriage
of the first Of them you meet. 1t has all the
stiffness, discomfort, elaborate artifciality,
of his own shiniest new furniture. He is
no more like a truly well-mannered scholar
or farmer than his own gorgeous mansion
of bright stone, with gilt laid thick on every
room, adorned with the staring pictures of
those modern masters whom rich manufac-
turers love to honor, and pranked outwith
all manner of costly gaudinesses, is like the
venerable glory of an ancient baronial hall,
Or the simple propriety of an humble mans
home.
The truth is, that to the making of good
manners there must either be in the man
himself, or have been in those from whom
he inherits their tradition, a mixture of moral
and intellectual qualities, in neither ingred-
tents of which are our new rich men strong.
An empress can be polite, and 50 can Robert
Burns. We require the moral capacity for
genial sympathy, and the intellectual capac-
ity for discerning the fitness of things in this
or that special set of circumstances. To
possess either of these gifts fully and without
detriment, one must have certain serenity
of mind which shall allow the unconstrained
and gracious play of interest in other per-
sons, and shall permit ones vision of the
true aspect of our relations with them to
operate free from the clouds which hungry
hunting for their good opinion or good word
interposes. The worst and the commonest
fault in manners arises from double mis-
take-frst, that artificial effusion is the same
thing as sympathetic interest; and next, that
friendly relations demand an unreserved in
terchange Of all inmost condolences.
Hence the most edious of all varieties of
bad manners. lll-bred reserve is bad enough,
but it is not nearly 50 insuferable, because
it does not show nearly so absolute hollow
ness of character as fluent unreserye An un-
due reserve may arise from mistaken notions
of what constitutes self-respect, but at worst
it is the excess of virtue. A corresponding
excess of unreserve shows that the man who
displays it does not know what the virtue
means. Vulgar-minded people believe that
good manners are altogether contained in
cordially, and tina. cordiality consists mainly
in an overlooking readiness to ask and to
answer all questions regardless of results.
There is nothing which they will not ask
nothing which they are not ready to tell.
They have no inner shrine of their own, and
they do not dream of there being any such
sacred place in the minds of others. Relig-
ious doubts, spiritual aspirations, annual in
come, your feelings to wife or husband or
sister-in-law-all and everything must be
held for common wares, to be handled and
stared at without let or remonstrance
In the minds of these vulgar folks man
can have no right Of private property in
himself. Their theory is sort of moral
communism; each person is to hold his ideas,
emotions, and all the rest of himself, subject
to the constant right of inspection in any
body who happens to think that they both
belong to the same circle. And the double
sidedness of this makes it especially obnox-
ious; for, if it is particularly unpleasant to
have to unbosom oneself at a moments no
tice, is it much pleasanter thing to keep
yourself in readiness to receive the unbos-
omed selves of other people? The probable
secret of the eagerness of SO many persons
to receive the condolences of their acquaint-
ances is, that they are thus enabled by all
laws of fairness and reciprocity to retaiate
by inAicting their condolences in turn.
Hence what appears like disinterestedness
is nothing better than rapaGous egotism.
Manners, after all, are but the outcome
and symbol of the larger morals. An age
of bad manners is always an age of selfish
ness, in which small and personal interests
reign in mems minds to the exclusion of
wider and higher interests. When the