Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-12-30
Dorothy Dix
Writes of
Manners
BY DOROTHY DIX
(CODVripht. 1929


TT is announced that we are to
have a good manners week. For
the space of seven days every
polite, and speak to others as they
would like to be spoken to, and be
considerate of orher peoples feel
ings, and otherwise do their bit to.
wards usherng in the millennium.
Fine idea! Push it along for all
it is worth! But why put a time
limit on good manners? Why not
make them a continuous perform
ance? Why keep good manners, as
provincial people do Their Sunday
clothes, just for occasional wear,
and for dress-up occasions?
It is curious how little attention
we pay to the cultivation of good
manners when we all realize what
great asset they are, for there is
no one so ignorant as not to know
the values of good manners. There
is no one sueh as insensible clod as
not to feel and respond to the at
, traction of good manners.
The reason playwrights and nov
elists depict their Williams as hav
ing polished manners is because a
IIlclll Will SOOu Sclll sc
away with anything short of muir
der. Every conf dence man has
good manners as his stock in trade,
or else he would never persuade us
into buying his gold bricks, and
is helping to support some lazy
ne'er- do well, simply because we
cannot resist his or her good man
ilerS.
A husband who continues to treat
his wife with the gallantry that he
showed her before marriage; who
remembers to pay her compliments,
and pull out her chair for her at the
table, and pick up her handker-
ehief, may beat her and starve her
and she will consider that Lady
Luck was her bridesmaid when she
got married. The first thing that
an astute business man considers in
hiring a new employe is his man.
ners, and he figures that a good adj
dress covers a multitude Of other
shortcomings.
On the other hand, the man and
woman who have brusque, unpleas-
ant manners have & handicap
against which they struggle in vain.
They may have a hundred times
the ability and the sterling worth of
the good hammered. but they never
get their just deserts, because kiss
ing goes by favor, and people do
good many things for US because
! they like us that they would not do
! for us because it is our due.
The ill-mannered antagonize us
! at the moment of meeting. They
tread all over our delicate sensibili-
ties with their brutal feet. They
wound our vanity to the quick, and
we simply steer clear Of them, and
hate them for offenses against us
that they do not even know they
have committed. 1t may be that at
heart they are good and kind, and
| tender and loving, but the outside
of the fruit is so prickly that we
don't bother to get at the inside OF
lit.
OF the value of good manners In
business it is superfluous to speak.
When we pick out our lawyer, or
doctor, or dentist, ninety nine times
out of a hundred we go to the one
we do, not because of his peculiar
skill and knowledge, but because he
has an agreeable personality. He
has made himself charming to us on
some occasion, and so when we need
professional skill we appeal to him.
For the same reason we patronlze
certain shops. The thing that catches
and holds us is not the marked down,
bargain sale, but the good manners
of some clerk who makes us feel
that she is interested in serving us
instead of her wearing the air Of
GRAND d1cheSS cOndeScending to be-
stow a favor on a mental.
1t is in the home, however, that
good manners should have their
great and perfect work, and where
they should function the whole year
round instead of only during Good
Manners Week.
We talk a great deal about home,
sweet home, and the sanctity of the
home, and the sacred influence Of
the home, and most of the home
stuff is bally rot. The average home
isn't sweet. 1t isn't Peaceful, and
there is nothing sacred about it. 1t