Part 8

No one can please in company, however graceful his air, unless he be clean and neat in his person.

He who is not thoroughly clean in his person, will be offensive to all with whom he converses. A particular regard to the cleanliness of your mouth, teeth, hands, and nails, is but common decency.

A foul mouth and unclean hands, are certain marks of vulgarity; the first is the cause of an offensive breath, which nobody can endure, and the last is declarative of dirty work, and disgraceful negligence to remove the filth. One may always know a gentleman by the state of his hands and nails. The flesh at the roots should be kept back, so as to show the semicircles at the bottom of the nails; the edges of the nails should never be cut down below the ends of the fingers, nor should they be suffered to grow longer than the fingers.

For black and dirty teeth, where they are sound, there can be no excuse. They are the mark of a lazy, vulgar fellow. Let me entreat you to form the habit of brushing your teeth, every night before you sleep.

Now, clean garments and a clean person, are as necessary to health, as to prevent giving offence to other people. It is a maxim with me, which I have lived to see verified, that he who is negligent at twenty years of age, will be a sloven at forty, and intolerable at fifty.

GRACEFULNESS.

Be graceful in your manners. The different effects of the same thing, said or done, when accompanied or deserted by graceful manners, is almost inconceivable. They prepare the way to the heart. From your own observations, reflect what a disagreeable impression, an awkward address, a slovenly figure, an ungraceful manner of speaking, whether fluttering, or drawling, &c., make upon you, at first sight, in a stranger, and how they prejudice you against them.

MODESTY.

Modesty is a polite accomplishment, and generally attendant upon merit. It is engaging, in the highest degree, and wins the hearts of all with whom we are acquainted. None are more disgusting in company, than the impudent and presuming.

Nothing can atone for the want of modesty; without it, beauty is ungraceful, and wit detestable.

Be particularly careful not to speak of yourself, if you can help it. An impudent person intrudes himself abruptly upon all occasions, and is ever the hero of his own story.

The less you say of yourself, the more the world will give you credit for; and the more you say of yourself, the less they will believe you.

Whatever perfections you may have, be assured people will find them out; but whether they do or not, nobody will take them upon your own word.

CIVILITY.

The art of pleasing is a very necessary one to possess, but a very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules, and your own good sense and observation will teach you more of it than I can. Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.

Observe carefully what is pleasing to you in others; and probably the same things in you will please others.

If you are pleased with the complaisance and attention of others to you, depend upon it, the same complaisance and attention, on your part, will equally please them.

It is not enough not to be rude; you should be civil and distinguished for your good breeding. The first principle of this good breeding is, never to say anything that you think can be disagreeable to anybody in company; but, on the contrary, you should endeavor to say what will be agreeable to them; and that in an easy and natural manner, without seeming to study for compliments. There is likewise such a thing as a civil look and a rude look; you should look civil, as well as be so; for if, while you are saying a civil thing, you look gruff and surly, nobody will be obliged to you for a civility that seemed to come so unwillingly.

If you have occasion to contradict any one, or to set him right from a mistake, it would be very brutal to say, “That is not so; I know better;” or, “You are wrong;” but you should say, with a civil look, “I beg your pardon, I believe you mistake;” or, “If I may take the liberty of contradicting you, I believe it is so and so:” for, though you may know a thing better than other people, yet is very disagreeable to tell them so, directly, without something to soften it; but remember particularly, that whatever you may say or do, with ever so civil an intention, a great deal consists in the manner and the look, which must be genteel, easy, and natural.

Civility is particularly due to all women; and remember that no provocation whatever can justify any person in being uncivil to a woman; and the greatest man in the land would be reckoned a brute, if he was not civil to the meanest woman. It is due to their sex, and is the only protection they have against the superior strength of ours.

MORAL CHARACTER.

There is nothing so delicate as your moral character, and nothing that it is your interest so much to preserve pure. Should you be suspected of injustice, malignity, perfidy, lying, &c., all the parts and knowledge in the world will never procure you esteem, friendship, or respect. A strange concurrence of circumstances has sometimes raised very bad men to high stations; but they have been raised, like criminals to a pillory, where their persons and their crimes, by being more conspicuous, are only the more known, the more pelted and insulted. If in any case whatsoever, dissimulation were pardonable, it would be in the case of morality; though, even then, a Pharasaical pomp of virtue would not be advisable. But I will recommend to you a most scrupulous tenderness for your moral character, and the utmost care not to do or say anything that may ever so slightly taint it. Show yourself, upon all occasions, the advocate, the friend, but not the bully, of virtue.

GOOD BREEDING.

Observe the best and most well-bred of the French people; how agreeably they insinuate little civilities in their conversation. They think it so essential that they call an honest and a civil man by the same name, of “honnete homme;” and the Romans called civility, “humanitas,” as thinking it inseparable from humanity: and depend upon it, that your reputation and success will, in a great measure, depend upon the degree of good breeding of which you are master.

From what has been said, I conclude with the observation, that gentleness of manners, with firmness of mind, is a short but full description of human perfection, on this side of religious and moral duties.

Transcriber’s Notes

A few minor errors in punctuation and spelling were corrected.