Queen Victoria sent for Carlyle, who was a Scotch peasant, offering him the t.i.tle of n.o.bleman, which he declined, feeling that he had always been a n.o.bleman in his own right. He understood so little of the manners at court that, when presented to the Queen, after speaking to her a few minutes, being tired, he said, "Let us sit down, madam;"
whereat the courtiers were ready to faint. But she was great enough, and gave a gesture that seated all her puppets in a moment. The Queen"s courteous suspension of the rules of etiquette, and what it may have cost her, can be better understood from what an acquaintance of Carlyle said of him when he saw him for the first time. "His presence, in some unaccountable manner, rasped the nerves. I expected to meet a rare being, and I left him feeling as if I had drunk sour wine, or had had an attack of seasickness."
Some persons wield a scepter before which others seem to bow in glad obedience. But whence do they obtain such magic power? What is the secret of that almost hypnotic influence over people which we would give anything to possess?
Courtesy is not always found in high places. Even royal courts furnish many examples of bad manners. At an entertainment given years ago by Prince Edward and the Princess of Wales, to which only the very cream of the cream of society was admitted, there was such pushing and struggling to see the Princess, who was then but lately married, that, as she pa.s.sed through the reception rooms, a bust of the Princess Royal was thrown from its pedestal and damaged, and the pedestal upset; and the ladies, in their eagerness to see the Princess, actually stood upon it.
When Catherine of Russia gave receptions to her n.o.bles, she published the following rules of etiquette upon cards: "Gentlemen will not get drunk before the feast is ended. n.o.blemen are forbidden to strike their wives in company. Ladies of the court must not wash out their mouths in the drinking-gla.s.ses, or wipe their faces on the damask, or pick their teeth with forks." But to-day the n.o.bles of Russia have no superiors in manners.
Etiquette originally meant the ticket or tag tied to a bag to indicate its contents. If a bag had this ticket it was not examined. From this the word pa.s.sed to cards upon which were printed certain rules to be observed by guests. These rules were "the ticket" or the etiquette.
To be "the ticket," or, as it was sometimes expressed, to act or talk by the card, became the thing with the better cla.s.ses.
It was fortunate for Napoleon that he married Josephine before he was made commander-in-chief of the armies of Italy. Her fascinating manners and her wonderful powers of persuasion were more influential than the loyalty of any dozen men in France in attaching to him the adherents who would promote his interests. Josephine was to the drawing-room and the salon what Napoleon was to the field--a preeminent leader. The secret of her personality that made her the Empress not only of the hearts of the Frenchmen, but also of the nations her husband conquered, has been beautifully told by herself. "There is only one occasion," she said to a friend, "in which I would voluntarily use the words, "I _will_!"--namely, when I would say, "I will that all around me be happy.""
"It was only a glad "good-morning,"
As she pa.s.sed along the way, But it spread the morning"s glory Over the livelong day."
A fine manner more than compensates for all the defects of nature. The most fascinating person is always the one of most winning manners, not the one of greatest physical beauty. The Greeks thought beauty was a proof of the peculiar favor of the G.o.ds, and considered that beauty only worth adorning and transmitting which was unmarred by outward manifestations of hard and haughty feeling. According to their ideal, beauty must be the expression of attractive qualities within--such as cheerfulness, benignity, contentment, charity, and love.
Mirabeau was one of the ugliest men in France. It was said he had "the face of a tiger pitted by smallpox," but the charm of his manner was almost irresistible.
Beauty of life and character, as in art, has no sharp angles. Its lines seem continuous, so gently does curve melt into curve. It is sharp angles that keep many souls from being beautiful that are almost so. Our good is less good when it is abrupt, rude, ill timed, or ill placed. Many a man and woman might double their influence and success by a kindly courtesy and a fine manner.
Tradition tells us that before Apelles painted his wonderful G.o.ddess of Beauty which enchanted all Greece, he traveled for years observing fair women, that he might embody in his matchless Venus a combination of the loveliest found in all. So the good-mannered study, observe, and adopt all that is finest and most worthy of imitation in every cultured person they meet.
Throw a bone to a dog, said a shrewd observer, and he will run off with it in his mouth, but with no vibration in his tail. Call the dog to you, pat him on the head, let him take the bone from your hand, and his tail will wag with grat.i.tude. The dog recognizes the good deed and the gracious manner of doing it. Those who throw their good deeds should not expect them to be caught with a thankful smile.
"Ask a person at Rome to show you the road," said Dr. Guthrie of Edinburgh, "and he will always give you a civil and polite answer; but ask any person a question for that purpose in this country (Scotland), and he will say, "Follow your nose and you will find it." But the blame is with the upper cla.s.ses; and the reason why, in this country, the lower cla.s.ses are not polite is because the upper cla.s.ses are not polite. I remember how astonished I was the first time I was in Paris.
I spent the first night with a banker, who took me to a pension, or, as we call it, a boarding-house. When we got there, a servant girl came to the door, and the banker took off his hat, and bowed to the servant girl, and called her mademoiselle, as though she were a lady. Now, the reason why the lower cla.s.ses there are so polite is because the upper cla.s.ses are polite and civil to them."
A fine courtesy is a fortune in itself. The good-mannered can do without riches, for they have pa.s.sports everywhere. All doors fly open to them, and they enter without money and without price. They can enjoy nearly everything without the trouble of buying or owning. They are as welcome in every household as the sunshine; and why not? for they carry light, sunshine, and joy everywhere. They disarm jealousy and envy, for they bear good will to everybody. Bees will not sting a man smeared with honey.
"A man"s own good breeding," says Chesterfield, "is the best security against other people"s ill manners. It carries along with it a dignity that is respected by the most petulant. Ill breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid. No man ever said a pert thing to the Duke of Marlborough, or a civil one to Sir Robert Walpole."
The true gentleman cannot harbor those qualities which excite the antagonism of others, as revenge, hatred, malice, envy, or jealousy, for these poison the sources of spiritual life and shrivel the soul.
Generosity of heart and a genial good will towards all are absolutely essential to him who would possess fine manners. Here is a man who is cross, crabbed, moody, sullen, silent, sulky, stingy, and mean with his family and servants. He refuses his wife a little money to buy a needed dress, and accuses her of extravagance that would ruin a millionaire. Suddenly the bell rings. Some neighbors call: what a change! The bear of a moment ago is as docile as a lamb. As by magic he becomes talkative, polite, generous. After the callers have gone, his little girl begs her father to keep on his "company manners" for a little while, but the sullen mood returns and his courtesy vanishes as quickly as it came. He is the same disagreeable, contemptible, crabbed bear as before the arrival of his guests.
What friend of the great Dr. Johnson did not feel mortified and pained to see him eat like an Esquimau, and to hear him call men "liars"
because they did not agree with him? He was called the "Ursa Major,"
or Great Bear.
Benjamin Rush said that when Goldsmith at a banquet in London asked a question about "the American Indians," Dr. Johnson exclaimed: "There is not an Indian in North America foolish enough to ask such a question."
"Sir," replied Goldsmith, "there is not a savage in America rude enough to make such a speech to a gentleman."
After Stephen A. Douglas had been abused in the Senate he rose and said: "What no gentleman should say no gentleman need answer."
Aristotle thus described a real gentleman more than two thousand years ago: "The magnanimous man will behave with moderation under both good fortune and bad. He will not allow himself to be exalted; he will not allow himself to be abased. He will neither be delighted with success, nor grieved with failure. He will never choose danger, nor seek it.
He is not given to talk about himself or others. He does not care that he himself should be praised, nor that other people should be blamed."
A gentleman is just a gentle man: no more, no less; a diamond polished that was first a diamond in the rough. A gentleman is gentle, modest, courteous, slow to take offense, and never giving it. He is slow to surmise evil, as he never thinks it. He subjects his appet.i.tes, refines his tastes, subdues his feelings, controls his speech, and deems every other person as good as himself. A gentleman, like porcelain-ware, must be painted before he is glazed. There can be no change after it is burned in, and all that is put on afterwards will wash off. He who has lost all but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-respect, is a true gentleman, and is rich still.
"You replace Dr. Franklin, I hear," said the French Minister, Count de Vergennes, to Mr. Jefferson, who had been sent to Paris to relieve our most popular representative. "I succeed him; no man can replace him,"
was the felicitous reply of the man who became highly esteemed by the most polite court in Europe.
"You should not have returned their salute," said the master of ceremonies, when Clement XIV bowed to the amba.s.sadors who had bowed in congratulating him upon his election. "Oh, I beg your pardon," replied Clement. "I have not been pope long enough to forget good manners."
Cowper says:--
A modest, sensible, and well-bred man Would not insult me, and no other can.
"I never listen to calumnies," said Montesquieu, "because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they are true, of hating people not worth thinking about."
"I think," says Emerson, "Hans Andersen"s story of the cobweb cloth woven so fine that it was invisible--woven for the king"s garment--must mean manners, which do really clothe a princely nature."
No one can fully estimate how great a factor in life is the possession of good manners, or timely thoughtfulness with human sympathy behind it. They are the kindly fruit of a refined nature, and are the open sesame to the best of society. Manners are what vex or soothe, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us by a constant, steady, uniform, invincible operation like that of the air we breathe. Even power itself has not half the might of gentleness, that subtle oil which lubricates our relations with each other, and enables the machinery of society to perform its functions without friction.
"Have you not seen in the woods, in a late autumn morning," asks Emerson, "a poor fungus, or mushroom,--a plant without any solidity, nay, that seemed nothing but a soft mush or jelly,--by its constant, total, and inconceivably gentle pushing, manage to break its way up through the frosty ground, and actually to lift a hard crust on its head? It is the symbol of the power of kindness."
"There is no policy like politeness," says Magoon; "since _a good manner often succeeds where the best tongue has failed_." The art of pleasing is the art of rising in the world.
The politest people in the world, it is said, are the Jews. In all ages they have been maltreated and reviled, and despoiled of their civil privileges and their social rights; yet are they everywhere polite and affable. They indulge in few or no recriminations; are faithful to old a.s.sociations; more considerate of the prejudices of others than others are of theirs; not more worldly-minded and money-loving than people generally are; and, everything considered, they surpa.s.s all nations in courtesy, affability, and forbearance.
"Men, like bullets," says Richter, "go farthest when they are smoothest."
Napoleon was much displeased on hearing that Josephine had permitted General Lorges, a young and handsome man, to sit beside her on the sofa. Josephine explained that, instead of its being General Lorges, it was one of the aged generals of his army, entirely unused to the customs of courts. She was unwilling to wound the feelings of the honest old soldier, and so allowed him to retain his seat. Napoleon commended her highly for her courtesy.
President Jefferson was one day riding with his grandson, when they met a slave, who took off his hat and bowed. The President returned the salutation by raising his hat, but the grandson ignored the civility of the negro. "Thomas," said the grandfather, "do you permit a slave to be more of a gentleman than yourself?"
"Lincoln was the first great man I talked with freely in the United States," said Fred Dougla.s.s, "who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and me, of the difference in color."
"Eat at your own table," says Confucius, "as you would eat at the table of the king." If parents were not careless about the manners of their children at home, they would seldom be shocked or embarra.s.sed at their behavior abroad.
James Russell Lowell was as courteous to a beggar as to a lord, and was once observed holding a long conversation in Italian with an organ-grinder whom he was questioning about scenes in Italy with which they were each familiar.
In hastily turning the corner of a crooked street in London, a young lady ran with great force against a ragged beggar-boy and almost knocked him down. Stopping as soon as she could, she turned around and said very kindly: "I beg your pardon, my little fellow; I am very sorry that I ran against you." The astonished boy looked at her a moment, and then, taking off about three quarters of a cap, made a low bow and said, while a broad, pleasant smile overspread his face: "You have my parding, miss, and welcome,--and welcome; and the next time you run ag"in" me, you can knock me clean down and I won"t say a word." After the lady had pa.s.sed on, he said to a companion: "I say, Jim, it"s the first time I ever had anybody ask my parding, and it kind o" took me off my feet."
"Respect the burden, madame, respect the burden," said Napoleon, as he courteously stepped aside at St. Helena to make way for a laborer bending under a heavy load, while his companion seemed inclined to keep the narrow path.
A Washington politician went to visit Daniel Webster at Marshfield, Ma.s.s., and, in taking a short cut to the house, came to a stream which he could not cross. Calling to a rough-looking farmer near by, he offered a quarter to be carried to the other side. The farmer took the politician on his broad shoulders and landed him safely, but would not take the quarter. The old rustic presented himself at the house a few minutes later, and to the great surprise and chagrin of the visitor was introduced as Mr. Webster.
Garrison was as polite to the furious mob that tore his clothes from his back and dragged him through the streets as he could have been to a king. He was one of the serenest souls that ever lived. Christ was courteous, even to His persecutors, and in terrible agony on the cross, He cried: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." St.
Paul"s speech before Agrippa is a model of dignified courtesy, as well as of persuasive eloquence.
Good manners often prove a fortune to a young man. Mr. Butler, a merchant in Providence, R. I., had once closed his store and was on his way home when he met a little girl who wanted a spool of thread. He went back, opened the store, and got the thread. This little incident was talked of all about the city and brought him hundreds of customers.
He became very wealthy, largely because of his courtesy.
Ross Winans of Baltimore owed his great success and fortune largely to his courtesy to two foreign strangers. Although his was but a fourth-rate factory, his great politeness in explaining the minutest details to his visitors was in such marked contrast with the limited attention they had received in large establishments that it won their esteem. The strangers were Russians sent by their Czar, who later invited Mr. Winans to establish locomotive works in Russia. He did so, and soon his profits resulting from his politeness were more than $100,000 a year.