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Manners - Part I
Manners - Part I
How near to good is what is fair!
Which we no sooner see,
But with the lines and outward air
Our senses taken be.
Again yourselves compose,
And now put all the aptness on
Of Figure, that Proportion
Or Color can disclose;
That if those silent arts were lost,
Design and Picture, they might boast
From you a newer ground,
Instructed by the heightening sense
Of dignity and reverence
In their true motions found.
- Ben Jonson.
Half the world, it is said, knows not how the other half live. Our
Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee islanders getting their dinner off human
bones; and they are said to eat their own wives and children. The husbandry of
the modern inhabitants of Gournou (west of old Thebes) is philosophical to a
fault. To set up their housekeeping, nothing is requisite but two or three
earthen pots, a stone to grind meal, and a mat which is the bed. The house,
namely, a tomb, is ready without rent or taxes. No rain can pass through the
roof, and there is no door, for there is no want of one, as there is nothing
to lose. If the house do not please them, they walk out and enter another, as
there are several hundreds at their command. "It is somewhat singular," adds
Belzoni, to whom we owe this account, "to talk of happiness among people who
live in sepulchres, among the corpses and rags of an ancient nation which they
know nothing of." In the deserts of Borgoo, the rock-Tibboos still dwell in
caves, like cliff-swallows, and the language of these negroes is compared by
their neighbors to the shrieking of bats, and to the whistling of birds.
Again, the Bornoos have no proper names; individuals are called after their
height, thickness, or other accidental quality, and have nicknames merely. But
the salt, the dates, the ivory, and the gold, for which these horrible regions
are visited, find their way into countries, where the purchaser and consumer
can hardly be ranked in one race with these cannibals and man-stealers;
countries where man serves himself with metals, wood, stone, glass, gum,
cotton, silk, and wool; honors himself with architecture; writes laws, and
contrives to execute his will through the hands of many nations; and,
especially, establishes a select society, running through all the countries of
intelligent men, a self-constituted aristocracy, or fraternity of the best,
which, without written law or exact usage of any kind, perpetuates itself,
colonizes every new-planted island, and adopts and makes its own whatever
personal beauty or extraordinary native endowment anywhere appears.
What fact more conspicuous in modern history, than the creation of the
gentleman? Chivalry is that, and loyalty is that, and, in English, literature
half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir Philip Sidney to Sir Walter
Scott, paint this figure. The word gentleman, which, like the word Christian,
must hereafter characterize the present and the few preceding centuries, by
the importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable
properties. Frivolous and fantastic additions have got associated with the
name, but the steady interest of mankind in it must be attributed to the
valuable properties which it designates. An element which unites all the most
forcible persons of every country; makes them intelligible and agreeable to
each other, and is somewhat so precise, that it is at once felt if an
individual lack the masonic sign, cannot be any casual product, but must be an
average result of the character and faculties universally found in men. It
seems a certain permanent average; as the atmosphere is a permanent
composition, while so many gases are combined only to be decompounded. Comme
il faut, is the Frenchman`s description of good society, as we must be. It is
a spontaneous fruit of talents and feelings of precisely that class who have
most vigor, who take the lead in the world of this hour, and, though far from
pure, far from constituting the gladdest and highest tone of human feeling, is
as good as the whole society permits it to be. It is made of the spirit, more
than of the talent of men, and is a compound result, into which every great
force enters as an ingredient, namely, virtue, wit, beauty, wealth, and power.
There is something equivocal in all the words in use to express the
excellence of manners and social cultivation, because the quantities are
fluctional, and the last effect is assumed by the senses as the cause. The
word gentleman has not any correlative abstract to express the quality.
Gentility is mean, and gentilesse is obsolete. But we must keep alive in the
vernacular, the distinction between fashion, a word of narrow and often
sinister meaning, and the heroic character which the gentleman imports. The
usual words, however, must be respected: they will be found to contain the
root of the matter. The point of distinction in all this class of names, as
courtesy, chivalry, fashion, and the like, is, that the flower and fruit, not
the grain of the tree, are contemplated. It is beauty which is the aim this
time, and not worth. The result is now in question, although our words
intimate well enough the popular feeling, that the appearance supposes a
substance. The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, and
expressing that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner dependent and
servile either on persons, or opinions, or possessions. Beyond this fact of
truth and real force, the word denotes good-nature or benevolence; manhood
first, and then gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a condition of
ease and fortune; but that is a natural result of personal force and love,
that they should possess and dispense the goods of the world. In times of
violence, every eminent person must fall in with many opportunities to approve
his stoutness and worth; therefore every man`s name that emerged at all from
the mass in the feudal ages, rattles in our ear like a flourish of trumpets.
But personal force never goes out of fashion. That is still paramount to -
day, and, in the moving crowd of good society, the men of valor and reality
are known, and rise to their natural place. The competition is transferred
from war to politics and trade, but the personal force appears readily enough
in these new arenas.
Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in trade, bruisers and
pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks. God knows that all
sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but whenever used in strictness, and
with any emphasis, the name will be found to point at original energy. It
describes a man standing in his own right, and working after untaught methods.
In a good lord, there must first be a good animal, at least to the extent of
yielding the incomparable advantage of animal spirits. The ruling class must
have more, but they must have these, giving in every company the sense of
power, which makes things easy to be done which daunt the wise. The society of
the energetic class, in their friendly and festive meetings, is full of
courage, and attempts which intimidate the pale scholar. The courage which
girls exhibit is like a battle of Lundy`s Lane, or a sea fight. The intellect
relies on memory to make some supplies to face these extemporaneous squadrons.
But memory is a base mendicant with basket and badge, in the presence of these
sudden masters. The rulers of society must be up to the work of the world, and
equal to their versatile office: men of the right Caesarian pattern, who have
great range of affinity. I am far from believing the timid maxim of Lord
Falkland, ("that for ceremony there must go two to it; since a bold fellow
will go through the cunningest forms,") and am of opinion that the gentleman
is the bold fellow whose forms are not to be broken through; and only that
plenteous nature is rightful master, which is the complement of whatever
person it converses with. My gentleman gives the law where he is; he will
outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the field, and outshine all
courtesy in the hall. He is good company for pirates, and good with
academicians; so that it is useless to fortify yourself against him; he has
the private entrance to all minds, and I could as easily exclude myself, as
him. The famous gentlemen of Asia and Europe have been of this strong type;
Saladin, Sapor, the Cid, Julius Caesar, Scipio, Alexander, Pericles, and the
lordliest personages. They sat very carelessly in their chairs, and were too
excellent themselves to value any condition at a high rate.
A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, to
the completion of this man of the world: and it is a material deputy which
walks through the dance which the first has led. Money is not essential, but
this wide affinity is, which transcends the habits of clique and caste, and
makes itself felt by men of all classes. If the aristocrat is only valid in
fashionable circles, and not with truckmen, he will never be a leader in
fashion; and if the man of the people cannot speak on equal terms with the
gentleman, so that the gentleman shall perceive that he is already really of
his own order, he is not to be feared. Diogenes, Socrates, and Epaminondas,
are gentlemen of the best blood, who have chosen the condition of poverty,
when that of wealth was equally open to them. I use these old names, but the
men I speak of are my contemporaries. Fortune will not supply to every
generation one of these well-appointed knights, but every collection of men
furnishes some example of the class: and the politics of this country, and the
trade of every town, are controlled by these hardy and irresponsible doers,
who have invention to take the lead, and a broad sympathy which puts them in
fellowship with crowds, and makes their action popular.
The manners of this class are observed and caught with devotion by men of
taste. The association of these masters with each other, and with men
intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and stimulating. The good
forms, the happiest expressions of each, are repeated and adopted. By swift
consent, everything superfluous is dropped, everything graceful is renewed.
Fine manners show themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They are a
subtler science of defence to parry and intimidate; but once matched by the
skill of the other party, they drop the point of the sword, - points and
fences disappear, and the youth finds himself in a more transparent
atmosphere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, and not a
misunderstanding rises between the players. Manners aim to facilitate life, to
get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to energize. They aid our
dealing and conversation, as a railway aids travelling, by getting rid of all
avoidable obstructions of the road, and leaving nothing to be conquered but
pure space. These forms very soon become fixed, and a fine sense of propriety
is cultivated with the more heed, that it becomes a badge of social and civil
distinction. Thus grows up Fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant,
the most fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which
morals and violence assault in vain.
There exists a strict relation between the class of power, and the
exclusive and polished circles. The last are always filled or filling from the
first. The strong men usually give some allowance even to the petulances of
fashion, for that affinity they find in it. Napoleon, child of the revolution,
destroyer of the old noblesse, never ceased to court the Faubourg St. Germain:
doubtless with the feeling, that fashion is a homage to men of his stamp.
Fashion, though in a strange way, represents all manly virtue. It is virtue
gone to seed: it is a kind of posthumous honor. It does not often caress the
great, but the children of the great: it is a hall of the Past. It usually
sets its face against the great of this hour. Great men are not commonly in
its halls: they are absent in the field: they are working, not triumphing.
Fashion is made up of their children; of those, who, through the value and
virtue of somebody, have acquired lustre to their name, marks of distinction,
means of cultivation and generosity, and, in their physical organization, a
certain health and excellence, which secures to them, if not the highest power
to work, yet high power to enjoy. The class of power, the working heroes, the
Cortez, the Nelson, the Napoleon, see that this is the festivity and permanent
celebration of such as they; that fashion is funded talent; is Mexico,
Marengo, and Trafalgar beaten out thin; that the brilliant names of fashion
run back to just such busy names as their own, fifty or sixty years ago. They
are the sowers, their sons shall be the reapers, and their sons, in the
ordinary course of things, must yield the possession of the harvest to new
competitors with keener eyes and stronger frames. The city is recruited from
the country. In the year 1805, it is said, every legitimate monarch in Europe
was imbecile. The city would have died out, rotted, and exploded long ago, but
that it was reinforced from the fields. It is only country which came to town
day before yesterday, that is city and court to-day.
Aristocracy and fashion are certain inevitable results. These mutual
selections are indestructible. If they provoke anger in the least favored
class, and the excluded majority revenge themselves on the excluding minority,
by the strong hand, and kill them, at once a new class finds itself at the
top, as certainly as cream rises in a bowl of milk: and if the people should
destroy class after class, until two men only were left, one of these would be
the leader, and would be involuntarily served and copied by the other. You may
keep this minority out of sight and out of mind, but it is tenacious of life,
and is one of the estates of the realm. I am the more struck with this
tenacity, when I see its work. It respects the administration of such
unimportant matters, that we should not look for any durability in its rule.
We sometimes meet men under some strong moral influence, as, a patriotic, a
literary, a religious movement, and feel that the moral sentiment rules man
and nature. We think all other distinctions and ties will be slight and
fugitive, this of caste or fashion, for example; yet come from year to year,
and see how permanent that is, in this Boston or New York life of man, where,
too, it has not the least countenance from the law of the land. Not in Egypt
or in India a firmer or more impassable line. Here are associations whose ties
go over, and under, and through it, a meeting of merchants, a military corps,
a college-class, a fire-club, a professional association, a political, a
religious convention; - the persons seem to draw inseparably near; yet, that
assembly once dispersed, its members will not in the year meet again. Each
returns to his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains
porcelain, and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion may be frivolous, or
fashion may be objectless, but the nature of this union and selection can be
either frivolous nor accidental. Each man`s rank in that perfect graduation
depends on some symmetry in his structure, or some agreement in his structure
to the symmetry of society. Its doors unbar instantaneously to a natural claim
of their own kind. A natural gentleman finds his way in, and will keep the
oldest patrician out, who has lost his intrinsic rank. Fashion understands
itself; good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily
fraternize with those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have
distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their tournure.
To say what good of fashion we can, - it rests on reality, and hates
nothing so much as pretenders; - to exclude and mystify pretenders, and send
them into everlasting "Coventry," is its delight. We contemn, in turn, every
other gift of men of the world; but the habit even in little and the least
matters, of not appealing to any but our own sense of propriety, constitutes
the foundation of all chivalry. There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so
it be sane and proportioned, which fashion does not occasionally adopt, and
give it the freedom of its saloons. A sainted soul is always elegant, and, if
it will, passes unchallenged into the most guarded ring. But so will Jock the
teamster pass, in some crisis that brings him thither, and find favor, as long
as his head is not giddy with the new circumstance, and the iron shoes do not
wish to dance in waltzes and cotillons. For there is nothing settled in
manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The
maiden at her first ball, the countryman at a city dinner, believes that there
is a ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed, or
the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later, they learn that
good sense and character make their own forms every moment, and speak or
abstain, take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a chair or sprawl with
children on the floor, or stand on their head, or what else soever, in a new
and aboriginal way: and that strong will is always in fashion, let who will be
unfashionable. All that fashion demands is composure, and self-content. A
circle of men perfectly well-bred would be a company of sensible persons, in
which every man`s native manners and character appeared. If the fashionist
have not this quality, he is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance,
that we excuse in a man many sins, if he will show us a complete satisfaction
in his position, which asks no leave to be, of mine, or any man`s good
opinion. But any deference to some eminent man or woman of the world, forfeits
all privilege of nobility. He is an underling: I have nothing to do with him;
I will speak with his master. A man should not go where he cannot carry his
whole sphere or society with him, - not bodily, the whole circle of his
friends, but atmospherically. He should preserve in a new company the same
attitude of mind and reality of relation, which his daily associates draw him
to, else he is shorn of his best beams, and will be an orphan in the merriest
club. "If you could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on!_____" But Vich Jan
Vohr must always carry his belongings in some fashion, if not added as honor,
then served as disgrace.
There will always be in society certain persons who are mercuries of its
approbation, and whose glance will at any time determine for the curios their
standing in the world. These are the chamberlains of the lesser gods. Accept
their coldness as an omen of grace with the loftier deities, and allow them
all their privilege. They are clear in their office, nor could they be thus
formidable, without their own merits. But do not measure the importance of
this class by their pretension, or imagine that a fop can be the dispenser of
honor and shame. They pass also at their just rate; for how can they
otherwise, in circles which exist as a sort of herald`s office for the sifting
of character?
As the first thing man requires of man, is reality, so, that appears in
all the forms of society. We pointedly, and by name, introduce the parties to
each other. Know you before all heaven and earth, that this is Andrew, and
this is Gergory; - they look each other in the eye; that grasp each other`s
hand, to identify and signalize each other. It is a great satisfaction. A
gentleman never dodges: his eyes look straight forward, and he assures the
other party, first of all, that he has been met. For what is it that we seek,
in so many visits and hospitalities? Is it your draperies, pictures, and
decorations? Or, do we not insatiably ask, Was a man in the house? I may
easily go into a great household where there is much substance, excellent
provision for comfort, luxury, and taste, and yet not encounter there any
Amphitryon, who shall subordinate these appendages. I may go into a cottage,
and find a farmer who feels that he is the man I have come to see, and fronts
me accordingly. It was therefore a very natural point of old feudal etiquette,
that a gentleman who received a visit, though it were of his sovereign, should
not leave his roof, but should wait his arrival at the door of his house. No
house, though it were the Tuileries, or the Escurial, is good for anything
without a master. And yet we are not often gratified by this hospitality.
Every body we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books,
conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to
interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a
very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre
front to front with his fellow? It were unmerciful, I know, quite to abolish
the use of these screens, which are of eminent convenience, whether the guest
is too great, or too little. We call together many friends who keep each other
in play, or, by luxuries and ornaments we amuse the young people, and guard
our retirement. Or if, perchance, a searching realist comes to our gate,
before whose eye we have no care to stand, then again we run to our curtain,
and hide ourselves as Adam at the voice of the Lord God in the garden.
Cardinal Caprara, the Pope`s legate at Paris, defended himself from the
glances of Napoleon, by an immense pair of green spectacles. Napoleon remarked
them, and speedily managed to rally them off: and yet Napoleon, in this turn,
was not great enough with eight hundred thousand troops at his back, to face a
pair of freeborn eyes, but fenced himself with etiquette, and within triple
barriers of reserve: and, as all the world knows from Madame de Stael, was
wont, when he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all expression.
But emperors and rich men are by no means the most skilful masters of good
manners. No rent-roll nor army-list can dignify skulking and
dissimulation: and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as really
all the forms of good-breeding point that way.
I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt`s translation, Montaigne`s
account of his journey into Italy, and am struck with nothing more aggreeably
than the self-respecting fashions of the time. His arrival in each place,
the arrival of a gentleman of France, is an event of some consequence.
Wherever he goes, he pays a visit to whatever prince or gentleman of note
resides upon his road, as a duty to himself and to civilization. When he
leaves any house in which he has lodged for a few weeks, he causes him arms to
be painted and hung up as a perpetual sign to the house, as was the custom of
gentlemen.
The complement of this graceful self-respect, and that of all the
points of good breeding I most require and insist upon, is deference. I like
that every chair should be a throne, and hold a king. I prefer a tendency to
stateliness, to an excess of fellowship. Let the incommunicable objects of
nature and the metaphysical isolation of man each us independence. Let us not
be too much acquainted. I would have a man enter his house through a hall
filled with heroic and sacred sculptures, that he might not want the hint of
tranquillity and self-poise. We should meet each morning, as from foreign
countries, and spending the day together, should depart at night, as into
foreign countries. In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate.
Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all around Olympus. No
degree of affection need invade this religion. This is myrrh and rosemary to
keep the other sweet. Lovers should guard their strangeness. If they forgive
too much, all slides into confusion and meanness. It is easy to push this
deference to a Chinese etiquette; but coolness and absence of heat and haste
indicate fine qualities. A gentleman makes no noise: a lady is serene.
Proportionate is our disgust at those invaders who fill a studious house with
blast and running, to secure some paltry convenience. Not less I dislike a low
sympathy of each with his neighbor`s needs. Must we have a good understanding
with one another`s palates? as foolish people who have lived long together,
know when each wants salt or sugar. I pray my companion, if he wishes for
bread, to ask me for bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, to ask
me for them, and not to hold out his plate, as if I knew already. Every
natural function can be dignified by deliberation and privacy. Let us leave
hurry to slaves. The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding should
signify, however remotely, the recollection of the grandeur of our destiny.
The flower of courtesy does not very well bide handling, but if we dare
to open another leaf, and explore what parts go to its conformation, we shall
find also an intellectual quality. To the leaders of men, the brain as well as
the flesh and the heart must furnish a proportion. Defect in manners is
usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the
delicacy of beautiful carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good
breeding, a union of kindness and independence. We imperatively require a
perception of, and a homage to beauty in our companions. Other virtues are in
request in the field and workyard, but a certain degree of taste is not to be
spared in those we sit with. I could better eat with one who did not respect
the truth or the laws, than with a sloven and unpresentable person. Moral
qualities rule the world, but at short distances, the senses are despotic. The
same discrimination of fit and fair runs out, if with less vigor, into all
parts of life. The average spirit of the energetic class is good sense, acting
under certain limitations and to certain ends. It entertains every natural
gift. Social in its nature, it respects everything which tends to unite men.
It delights in measure. The love of beauty is mainly the love of measure or
proportion. The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or
converses with heat, puts whole drawingrooms to flight. If you wish to be
loved, love measure. You must have genius, or a prodigious usefulness, if you
will hide the want of measure. This perception comes in to polish and perfect
the parts of the social instruments. Society will pardon much to genius and
special gifts, but, being in its nature a convention, it loves what is
conventional, or what belongs to coming together, That makes the good and bad
of manners, namely, what helps or hinders fellowship. For, fashion is not good
sense absolute, but relative; not good sense private, but 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; whilst it values all peculiarities
as in the highest degree refreshing, which can consist with good fellowship.
And besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct
splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society as the
costliest addition to its rule and its credit.
The dry light must shine in to adorn our festival, but it must be
tempered and shaded, or that will also offend. Accuracy is essential to
beauty, and quick perceptions to politeness, but not too quick perceptions.
One may be too punctual and too precise. He must leave the omniscience of
business at the door, when he comes into the palace of beauty. Society loves
creole natures, and sleepy, languishing manners, so that they cover sense,
grace, and goodwill; the air of drowsy strength, which disarms criticism;
perhaps because such a person seems to reserve himself for the best of the
game, and not spend himself on surfaces; an ignoring eye, which does not see
the annoyances, shifts and inconvenience, that cloud the brow and smother the
voice of the sensitive.
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