Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 704

'If you could only know how hard it has been!' she murmured. 'Think of never being spoken to by any of the others for a week; kept in silence and solitude, and looked upon as the worst creature that ever breathed!'

'All the more credit to you for bearing it. But we will not talk about that. Let us rather think about the future. I told you I am going to be married shortly – in a month or two probably – and then we are going abroad for a time.'

'Shall I have to stay here till you come back, Miss?' she asked anxiously, her face falling at the thought.

'No; I do not wish it; that would be too much to expect. I am sure I shall be able to make some arrangement for you; possibly I may arrange for you to stay with a dear old friend of mine, who has only one young servant, until my return; but I promise you shall not remain here much longer.'

This was better; she brightened up wonderfully again, and we spent the rest of the allotted time very cheerfully. What was perhaps most cheering of all to poor Nancy was my little speech about hoping by-and-by to set things right with her relations.

'It's too late for that, Miss,' she replied sadly; 'they know I've been in prison, and poor mother's gone.'

'Too late, indeed! Why, there is almost a lifetime before you in which to prove your innocence! Besides, after you have lived with me long enough to enable me to speak from experience, I will take the matter in hand, and write to your father and sister. In the meantime, we must seek for the poor creature for whom you suffered, and if we can, get her to give evidence that she put the ring into your box.'

She threw up her head and faced the sky. 'Thank God!'

'You see now where thanks are due, Nancy,' I said softly.

'Yes;' drawing a deep breath.

When a loud clanging bell warned us that the time for my leaving her had come, I was more demonstrative in my manner than is customary with me. Several of the other inmates and their visitors were congregated in the yard, and I chose them to see that Nancy Dean had at anyrate one friend who believed in her. The sudden flush which covered her face, the expression of the eyes turned towards the other women, as though to say 'You see!' sufficiently thanked me. It was a very pleasant walk home.

I was not a little surprised as well as disappointed to find that Philip did not take kindly to the idea of my last protégée. He came down with Robert Wentworth towards the evening, and Lilian mentioned my afternoon's errand to the Home to the latter, who had been extremely interested in Nancy's case.

Philip asked several questions about it; but I could not get him to shew any interest in Nancy, if he felt any. Indeed I could not help seeing that the idea of my visiting the Home was distasteful to him. It was all the more noticeable because Robert Wentworth had entered so warmly into the subject, taking my proceedings quite for granted.

'What led you to go there, Mary?'

What led me to go there? – what but the happiness his own letter had brought me. But that was not a question to be replied to just then, if ever; so I murmured something about having met Nancy in a state of desperation, and persuaded her to return to the Home, &c.

He said very little; his disapproval was more expressed in his manner than anything else. Seeing that he objected, and did not care to give his reasons for so doing, I did not attempt to discuss the point with him. I must trust to Nancy. If by-and-by she proved to be a success, it would be a better argument in my favour than any I could advance. Besides, I was too happy to allow a slight divergence of opinion between us to disturb me. Of course he knew that he would find me ready enough to yield whenever he shewed me a reason for so doing; he would find too, that in my heart of hearts I preferred his gaining the victory when it came to reasoning, though it must be a fair field and no favour between us.

But if Philip did not very favourably regard my visits to Nancy, he entered warmly enough into our scheme for improving the cottage homes. He not only approved but helped us in workmanlike fashion with a little carpentering and what not, which we had been unable to compass, beginning with a bracket and shelves, and launching out into more ambitious attempts. We began to contemplate improving the architectural effect with porches to the doors, over which climbing plants were to be trained, placing a seat at the side, and so forth; and if it was not all of the very highest art as to shape and make, it would be, we flattered ourselves, picturesque and comfortable-looking. If the porch proved as attractive as the village ale-house to sit and smoke in, in the summer evenings, it would be something gained.

With regard to the interior arrangements, we were altogether satisfied. Our protégés were beginning to take some little pride in their homes, and to brighten up such parts of them as did not match well with our efforts. We still always took care to leave some part of the room as we found it, to serve as a contrast; and the challenge was now more generally accepted than at first. It must, however, be acknowledged that we still met with occasional opposition. When Jemmy Rodgers, for instance, found that his tobacco jar was not refilled after being suggestively placed in our way, he began to shew his independence again; taking to his old ways and using the table for a kettle-stand. But we looked upon ourselves as successful enough to be as independent as he was now, and we took no further trouble about him or his table. At which Sally Dent informed us he gave it as his opinion that we had more 'grit' in us than he had given us credit for having; and that he wasn't sure he should not give in and clean the table himself. To his astonishment a clean table did not open our hearts; the tobacco jar remained unfilled.

In all our other schemes Philip joined heartily with purse and hand, and yet he so markedly stopped short when Nancy and the Home were in question. How was it? Was his remark about 'the impossibility of a woman retaining the delicate grace and refinement of thought – the, so to speak, bloom of her nature – which is her greatest charm, if she became too familiar with scenes of misery and sin,' intended as a gentle warning to me?

For whomsoever it was intended, she found a ready and able advocate in Robert Wentworth. He very decidedly gave it as his opinion that the delicate grace and bloom and all the rest of it could not be got rid of too quickly, if they were to prevent a woman holding out her hand to any of her own sex who needed help. 'But fortunately, or unfortunately, since there are not too many possessed of it, it is just the delicate grace of a refined woman which is required in such cases.'

'All very well in theory, Wentworth; but if it came to practice? I am sure you would be as desirous as I should be to guard a wife or sister from contact with the degraded?'

'My dear fellow, not I; unless I feared the possibility of some of her virtues being rubbed off by the contact; in that case she would of course require very careful guarding. But I should be very proud of a sister who could go safely amongst those who needed her, be they whom they might.'

Philip waived further discussion with a 'By-and-by, Wentworth.' I believe he thought that it was not complimentary to Lilian and me to carry on the conversation in our presence.

I could not but be grateful for the chivalrous respect which both shewed towards women, though I could not help contrasting their very opposite ways of shewing it. One seemed to represent the chivalry of the past, and the other that of the present. I could appreciate both: the poetry and romance of the old chivalry, and the reason and respect in the new; and I did not ask myself which was most really complimentary to women, or whether each was not a little the worse for being so dissevered from the other. It might be that in my heart I should have preferred Philip representing the present rather than the past; but I did not acknowledge so much to myself.

But all this was only a faint ripple on our stream, not sufficient to prevent the current from running smooth.

GOOD MANNERS

Are nothing less than little morals. They are the shadows of virtues, if not virtues themselves. 'A beautiful behaviour is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues and pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.' How well it is then that no one class has a monopoly in this 'finest of fine arts;' that while favourable circumstances undoubtedly do render good manners more common among persons moving in higher rather than in lower spheres, there should nevertheless be no positive hindrance to the poorest classes practising good manners towards each other. For what is a good manner? It is the art of putting our associates at their ease. Whoever makes the fewest persons uncomfortable, is the best-mannered man in a room.

Vanity, ill-nature, want of sympathy, want of sense – these are the chief sources from which bad manners spring. Nor can we imagine an incident in which a man could be at a loss as to what to say or do in company, if he were always considerate for the feelings of others, forgot himself, and did not lose his head or leave his common-sense at home. Such a one may not have studied etiquette, he may be chaotic rather than be in 'good form,' as the slang expression is; and yet because his head and heart are sound, he will speak and act as becomes a gentleman. On the other hand, a very pedant in form and bigot in ceremonies may be nothing better than the 'mildest-mannered man that ever cut a throat.' As we can be wise without learning, so it is quite possible to be well-mannered with little or no knowledge of those rules and forms which are at best only a substitute for common-sense, and which cannot be considered essential to good manners, inasmuch as they vary in every country, and even in the same country change about with the weather-cock of fashion. Vanity renders people too self-conscious to have good manners, for if we are always thinking of the impression we are making, we cannot give enough attention to the feelings and conversation of others. Without trying to be natural – an effort that would make us most artificial – we must be natural by forgetting self in the desire to please others. Elderly unmarried ladies, students, and those who lead lonely lives generally, not unfrequently acquire awkward manners, the result of self-conscious sensitiveness.

Shyness was a source of misery to the late Archbishop Whately. When at Oxford, his white rough coat and white hat obtained for him the sobriquet of 'The White Bear;' and his manners, according to his own account of himself, corresponded with the appellation. He was directed, by way of remedy, to copy the example of the best-mannered men he met in society; but the attempt to do this only increased his shyness. He found that he was all the while thinking of himself rather than of others; whereas thinking of others rather than of one's self is the essence of politeness. Finding that he was making no progress, he said to himself: 'I have tried my very utmost, and find that I must be as awkward as a bear all my life, in spite of it. I will endeavour to think about it as little as a bear, and make up my mind to endure what can't be cured.' In thus endeavouring to shake off all consciousness as to manner, he says: 'I succeeded beyond my expectations; for I not only got rid of the personal suffering of shyness, but also of most of those faults of manner which consciousness produces; and acquired at once an easy and natural manner – careless indeed in the extreme, from its originating in a stern defiance of opinion, which I had convinced myself must be ever against me; rough and awkward, for smoothness and grace are quite out of my way, and of course tutorially pedantic; but unconscious, and therefore giving expression to that good-will towards men which I really feel; and these I believe are the main points.'

Vanity again is the source of that boasting self-assertion which is the bane of manners. He is an ill-mannered man who is always loud in the praises of himself and of his children; who boasting of his rank, of his business, of achievements in his calling, looks down upon lower orders of people; who cannot refrain from having his joke at the expense of another's character, whose smart thing must come out because he has not the gentlemanly feeling that suggests to us

Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow to the meanest thing that lives.

The habit of saying rude things, of running people down, springs not so much from ill-nature as from that vanity that would rather lose a friend than a joke. On this point Dr Johnson once remarked: 'Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one – no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.' The vain egotism that disregards others is shewn in various unpolite ways; as, for instance, by neglect of propriety in dress, by the absence of cleanliness, or by indulging in repulsive habits. Some think themselves so well-born, so clever, or so rich, as to be above caring what others say and think of them. It is said that the ancient kings of Egypt used to commence speeches to their subjects with the formula, 'By the head of Pharaoh, ye are all swine!' We need not wonder that those who take this swine-theory view of their neighbours should be careless of setting their tastes and feelings at defiance. Contrast such puppyism with the conduct of David Ancillon, a famous Huguenot preacher, one of whose motives for studying his sermons with the greatest care was 'that it was shewing too little esteem for the public to take no pains in preparation, and that a man who should appear on a ceremonial day in his night-cap and dressing-gown could not commit a greater breach of civility.'

'Spite and ill-nature,' it has been said, 'are among the most expensive luxuries of life;' and this is true, for none of us can afford to surround himself with the host of enemies we are sure to make if, when young, we allow ill-nature to produce in us unmannerly habits. Good manners, like good words, cost nothing, and are worth everything. What advantage, for instance, did the book-seller on whom Dr Johnson once called to solicit employment get from his brutal reply: 'Go buy a porter's knot and carry trunks?' The surly natures of such men prevent them from ever entertaining angels unawares.

It is want of sympathy, however, much more than a bad nature that produces the ill-mannered hardness of character so well described by Sydney Smith: 'Hardness is a want of minute attention to the feelings of others. It does not proceed from malignity or carelessness of inflicting pain, but from a want of delicate perception of those little things by which pleasure is conferred or pain excited. A hard person thinks he has done enough if he does not speak ill of your relations, your children, or your country; and then, with the greatest good-humour and volubility, and with a total inattention to your individual state and position, gallops over a thousand fine feelings, and leaves in every step the mark of his hoofs upon your heart. Analyse the conversation of a well-bred man who is clear of the besetting sin of hardness; it is a perpetual homage of polite good-nature. In the meantime the gentleman on the other side of you (a highly moral and respectable man) has been crushing little sensibilities, and violating little proprieties, and overlooking little discriminations; and without violating anything which can be called a rule, or committing what can be denominated a fault, has displeased and dispirited you, from wanting that fine vision which sees little things, and that delicate touch which handles them, and that fine sympathy which this superior moral organisation always bestows.'

Of course we must not judge people too much by external manner, for many a man has nothing of the bear about him but his skin. Nevertheless as we cannot expect people in general to take time to see whether we are what we seem to be, it is foolish to roll ourselves into a prickly ball on the approach of strangers. If we do so, we cannot wonder at their exclaiming: 'A rough Christian!' as the dog said of the hedgehog.

It is difficult to see how the 'natural-born fool' – to use an American expression – can ever hope to become well mannered, for without good sense, or rather tact, a man must continually make a fool of himself in society. Why are women as a rule better mannered than men? Because their greater sympathy and power of quicker intuition give to them finer tact. Nor is talent which knows what to do of much use, if the tact he wanting which should enable us to see how to do it. He who has talent without tact is like the millionaire who never has a penny of ready-money about him. Mr Smiles illustrates the difference between a man of quick tact and of no tact whatever by an interview which he says once took place between Lord Palmerston and Mr Behnes the sculptor. At the last sitting which Lord Palmerston gave him, Behnes opened the conversation with: 'Any news, my lord, from France? How do we stand with Louis Napoleon?' The Foreign Secretary raised his eyebrows for an instant, and quietly replied: 'Really, Mr Behnes, I don't know; I have not seen the newspapers!' Behnes, with much talent, was one of the many men who entirely missed their way in life through want of tact.

Nowhere is there room for the display of good manners so much as in conversation. Well-mannered people do not talk too much. Remembering that the first syllable of the word conversation is con (with), that it means talking with another, they abstain from lecturing, and are as ready to listen as to be heard. They are neither impatient to interrupt others nor uneasy when interrupted themselves. Knowing that their anecdote or sharp reply will keep, or need not find utterance at all, they give full attention to their companion, and do not by their looks vote him a bore, or at least an interruption to their own much better remarks. But beside the rule, that we should not be impatient to get in our word, that a few brilliant flashes of silence should occur in our conversation, another rule is, not to take for our theme – ourselves. We must remember that, as a rule, we and our concerns can be of no more importance to other men than they and their concerns are to us. Why then should we go over the annals of our lives generally and of our diseases in particular to comparative strangers; why review the hardships we have suffered in money matters, in love, at law, in our profession, or loudly boast of successes in each of these departments? Why, lastly, should the pride that apes humility induce us to fish for compliments by talking ad nauseam of our faults? We need not say that low gossip or scandal-bearing is quite incompatible with good manners. 'The occasions of silence,' says Bishop Butler, 'are obvious – namely when a man has nothing to say, or nothing but what is better unsaid; better either in regard to some particular persons he is present with, or from its being an interruption to conversation of a more agreeable kind; or better, lastly, with regard to himself.'

A well-mannered man is courteous to all sorts and conditions of men. He is respectful to his inferiors as well as to his equals and superiors. Honouring the image of God in every man, his good manners are not reserved for the few who can pay for them, or who make themselves feared. Like the gentle summer air, his civility plays round all alike. 'The love and admiration,' says Canon Kingsley, 'which that truly brave and loving man Sir Sidney Smith won from every one, rich and poor, with whom he came in contact, seems to have arisen from the one fact, that without, perhaps, having any such conscious intention, he treated rich and poor, his own servants, and the noblemen his guests, alike, and alike courteously, considerately, cheerfully, affectionately – so leaving a blessing and reaping a blessing wherever he went.' Certainly the working-classes of England, however respectful they may be to those whom – often for interested reasons – they call 'their betters,' are far from being sufficiently polite to each other. Why should not British labourers when they meet take off their hats to each other, and courteously ask after Mrs Hardwork and family? There is not a moment of their lives the enjoyment of which might not be enhanced by kindliness of this sort – in the workshop, in the street, or at home.

We know that extremes meet, and there is an over-civility that becomes less than civil, because it forces people to act contrary to their inclinations. Well-mannered people consult the wishes of others rather than their own. They do not proceed in a tyrannical manner to prescribe what their friends shall eat and drink, nor do they put them in the awkward position of having to answer a thousand apologies for their entertainment. When guests refuse an offered civility, we ought not to press it. When they desire to leave our house, it is really bad manners to lock the stable-door, hide their hats, and have recourse to similar artifices to prevent their doing so. As, however, this zeal of hospitality without knowledge is a good fault, and one not too common, there is perhaps no need to say more about it. It leans to virtue's side.

We must not confound etiquette with good manners, for the arbitrary rules of the former are very often absurd, and differ in various ages and countries; whereas good manners, founded as they are on common-sense, are always and everywhere the same. It would be invidious to illustrate this assertion from the society of our own country, so we shall import a reductio ad absurdum of etiquette from Japan. In The Gentle Life, the following account is given by a resident at the Japanese court. 'When one courtier was insulted by another, he who bore the insult turned round to the insulter, and quietly uncovering the stomach, ripped himself open. The aggressor, by an inexorable law of etiquette, was bound to follow the lead, and so the two die. The most heart-rending look ever witnessed was one given by a Japanese, who, having been insulted by an American, carried out the rule, expecting his opponent to follow suit. But the Yankee would do nothing of the sort; and the Japanese expired in agonies – not from the torture of his wound, but from being a sacrifice to so foolish and underbred a fellow – whilst the American looked at him in a maze of wonder.' If it were not so sad, we might laugh at such accounts of self-torture, as well as at people of our own acquaintance who, worshipping conventionality, are ever on the rack about 'the right thing to do,' about 'good form.'

But this sort of folly should not blind us to the value of good manners as distinguished from etiquette.

Manners are not idle, but the fruit
Of noble nature and of loyal mind.

Were it not for the oil of civility, how could the wheels of society continue to work? Money, talent, rank, these are keys that turn some locks; but kindness or a sympathetic manner is a master-key that can open all. If 'virtue itself offends when coupled with a forbidding manner,' how great must be the power of winning manners, such as steer between bluntness and plain-dealing, between giving merited praise and flattery.

Men succeed in their professions quite as much by complaisance and kindliness of manner as by talent. Demosthenes, in giving his well-known advice to an orator – that eloquence consisted in three things, the first 'action,' the second 'action,' and the third 'action' – is supposed to have intended manner only. A telling preacher in his opening remarks gains the good-will of his hearers, and makes them feel both that he has something to say and that he can say it – by his manner. The successful medical man on entering a sick-room inspires into his patients belief in himself, and that hope which is so favourable to longevity – by his manner. Considering that jurymen are scarcely personifications of pure reason unmixed with passion or prejudice, a barrister cannot afford to neglect manner if he would bring twelve men one after another to his way of thinking. Again, has the business man any stock-in-trade that pays him better than a good address? And as regards the 'survival of the fittest' in tournaments for a lady's hand, is it not a 'natural selection' when the old motto 'Manners makyth man' decides the contest? At least Wilkes, the best-mannered but ugliest man of his day, thought so. 'I am,' he said, 'the ugliest man in the three kingdoms; but if you give me a quarter of an hour's start, I will gain the love of any woman before the handsomest.'

If kindliness of disposition be the essence of good manners, our subject is seen at once to shade off into the great one of Christianity itself. It is the heart that makes both the true gentleman and the great theologian. The apostle Paul (see speech delivered on Mars' Hill) always endeavoured to conciliate his audience when he commenced addressing them. And his letters, as well as those of his fellow-apostles, are full of sympathy and consideration for every one's feelings, because he had learned from Him whose sympathy extended to even the greatest of sinners.

THE DUKE'S PIPER

A STORY Of THE WEST HIGHLANDS

IN FOUR CHAPTERS. – CHAPTER II

'Oh, Angus!' Maggie held out her hand to him on the pier, and he held it as in a vice. 'It iss your own poat, then, Angus?'