POLITENESS.
“Still more important than your habit, is your air and deportment. It is not sufficient that these are pleasing to the eye of the superficial observer. Your behavior and conversation must be uniformly governed by the laws of politeness, discretion, and decorum. Else you will be disgusting to people of refinement; and the judicious and discerning will discover the weakness of your minds, notwithstanding the showy ornaments, intended to conceal it from public view.
“Inattention in company is a breach of good manners. Indeed, it is a downright insult; being neither more nor less, than declaring that you have not the least respect for any who are present. Either you do not value their good opinion, or you have something more important than their conversation to occupy your minds.
“You should always be attentive to those with whom you are conversant, let their rank and standing be what they may. Your superiors will esteem you for your respectful treatment of them; your equals will love you for your kindness and familiarity; your inferiors will respect you for your condescension and meekness.
“Attention in company will be advantageous to yourselves. Like the industrious bee, which sips honey from every plant, you may derive some benefit or instruction from all kinds of society. Some useful remark or information; some sentiment which may allure you to the practice of virtue, or deter you from a vicious perpetration, may repay your labor, and be serviceable through life.
“But should there be no other motive than that of pleasing your associates, and rendering them happy, by making yourselves agreeable, it may be considered as a sufficient inducement to the practice of this branch of good-breeding. Many girls, in the thoughtless levity of their hearts, divert themselves at the expense of others; and, with the utmost glee, point out any thing peculiar in the appearance, words, or actions of some one in the company, whom they select for a subject of merriment and ridicule. This, by shrewd looks, ironical gestures, or tittering whispers, is kept up, to the great mortification of the unhappy victim, and to the reproach and dishonor of the offenders. Such conduct is a breach, not only of the rules of common civility, but of humanity; besides being directly repugnant to the precept of doing to others as we would that they should do to us.
“Be particularly careful, then, not to mortify, or give pain to an inferior.
“Let the question, ‘who maketh thee to differ?’ suppress every emotion of ridicule, contempt, or neglect; and induce you to raise and encourage depressed merit by your notice and approbation.
“As far as propriety, delicacy, and virtue will allow, conform to the taste, and participate in the amusements and conversation of the company into which you have fallen. If they be disagreeable to you, avoid a supercilious avowal of your dislike. This, instead of reforming, would probably give them a disgust to you, and perhaps subject you to affronts. Yet where a disapprobating word or hint may be seasonable, neglect not the opportunity of contributing to their benefit and amendment.
“Are you conscious of superior advantages, either mental or external, make no ostentatious display of them. Vanity too often leads young ladies to obtrude their acquirements on the eyes of observers, inconsiderately apprehending they may otherwise be unnoticed. Such forwardness always subjects them to censure, ridicule, and envy; the expressions of which destroy that self-approbation which retiring merit invariably enjoys. However, exert that dignity of virtue which will render you independent of caprice, calumny, and unprovoked satire.
“Make no ungenerous, or ill-natured remarks on the company, or on the individuals of which it is composed.
“If you dislike them, avoid them in future. If you witness errors, faults, or improprieties, conceal, or at least extenuate them, as much as possible.
“Make just allowances for those who may differ from you in opinion; and be cautious never to misrepresent, or circulate what appears amiss to you, and must, if exposed, be injurious to others. Charity hides a multitude of faults. Certainly then, charity will never aggravate nor create them.
“To give currency to a report, which tends to the disadvantage and dishonor of another, is defaming; and defamation is a species of cruelty, which can never be expiated.
“Of this the unhappy, though imprudent Eudocia, is an exemplification.
“Eudocia was young, gay, and charming. A levity of disposition, which the innocence of her heart attempted not to restrain, sometimes gave the tongue of slander pretence to aim its envenomed shafts at her character, and to misrepresent her sprightliness.
“Independent in fortune; still more so in mind, calumny gave her no pain, while she was conscious of the rectitude of her intentions.
“Leontine was a gentleman of property; agreeable in his person and manners; of strict honor, and extremely tenacious of it; but of a severe and unforgiving temper. He paid his addresses to Eudocia; was accepted, approved, and beloved. Yet, though he had gained her affections, he had not sufficient influence to regulate her conduct, and repress her gaiety. Her fondness for show and gallantry, in some instances, induced her to countenance the attentions, and receive the flattery, of men, whose characters were exceptionable, in Leontine’s estimation. He remonstrated against her imprudence, and gave her his ideas of female delicacy. She laughed at his gravity, and rallied him on his implicit subjection to the opinions of others.
“Towards the close of a fine day, Eudocia rambled along a retired road, to enjoy the air. She was alone; but the hope of meeting her beloved Leontine, whom she expected that evening, imperceptibly led her beyond her intended excursion. The rattling of a carriage caused her to stop; and, thinking it to be Leontine’s, she approached it before she perceived her mistake. A gentleman of an elegant appearance alighted and accosting her politely, expressed his surprise at finding her so far from home without an attendant. She found it was Florio, with whom she had a slight acquaintance, having once met with him in company. She frankly owned her motive for walking thus far; and refused his invitation to return in his carriage. He renewed his request; and his importunity, seconded by her fatigue, at last prevailed. At this moment the detracting Lavina passed by. She saw Eudocia, and with a sneering smile, wished her a good night. Eudocia was unconscious of fault, and therefore fearless of censure. But the artful Florio, desirous of protracting the pleasure of her company, took a circuitous route, which considerably increased the distance to her father’s house. However, he conveyed her safely home, though not so soon as she wished. She found that Leontine had been there, and had gone to visit a friend; but would soon return. Leontine was just seated at his friend’s, when Lavina entered.
“She told the circle, that Florio had just passed her, and that he had company she little expected to see with him. They inquired if it was his former mistress? No, said she, he discarded her some time ago, and if we may judge by appearances, has chosen a new one. Upon being asked who, she presumed to name Eudocia. Every countenance expressed surprise and regret. In Leontine, rage and resentment were visibly depicted. He rose, and stepping hastily to Lavina, told her he was a party concerned, and demanded an explanation of what she had insinuated. She perceived that she had given offence, and endeavored to excuse herself; but he resolutely told her that no evasions would avail; that he insisted on the real truth of her scandalous report. Finding him thus determined, she related the simple fact of seeing Eudocia in a carriage with Florio, who was a known libertine, and accustomed to the society of loose women. Leontine asked her how she came to associate the ideas she had mentioned with Eudocia’s name? She replied that the lightness of her behavior had sometimes rendered her censurable; and she thought this instance, in particular, authorised suspicion. Leontine could not deny that she was culpable in appearance; yet made answer, that though scandal might feast on the failings of virtue, he believed Eudocia’s innocence much purer, and her heart much better than her detractors’; and taking his hat, he wished the company a good evening, and left them.
“His passions were on fire. He could not comprehend the mysterious conduct of Eudocia. Her absence from home, at a time when he expected her to receive him, and her being seen at a distance in company with a professed debauchee, were a labyrinth which he could not explore. Though he doubted not Eudocia’s honor, yet her folly and imprudence, in subjecting her character to suspicion and reproach, he thought unpardonable. His resentment determined him to break the proposed connexion immediately; and, lest his love should get the better of his resolution, he went directly to the house.
“As he could not command his temper, he appeared extremely agitated, and angrily told Eudocia that she had caused him great uneasiness; and that he came to claim the satisfaction of knowing, why she had avoided his society, and made an assignation with a man who had involved her in infamy? Eudocia was astonished and justly offended at this address. With all the dignity of conscious innocence, she replied, that as yet he had no right to challenge an account of her conduct; but for her own sake, she would condescend to give it. This she did by a faithful and undisguised relation of facts. She then asked him if he was satisfied. He answered, No. For, said he, though you have cleared yourself of guilt, in my apprehension, you will find it very difficult to free your character from the blemish it has received in the opinion of the world. Saying this he told her, that however highly he esteemed her, so opposite were their dispositions, that they must often be at variance; and so nice was his sense of honor, that his wife like Cæsar’s must not only be virtuous, but unsuspected. She rejoined, that his sentiments were apparent; and if what he then expressed were his opinion of her, it was best they should part.
“Some further conversation passed; when promising to call, the next day, and satisfy her parents, and wishing Eudocia all possible happiness in life, he took his leave.
“The impropriety of her conduct, and her losing the affections of a man she too ardently loved, together with the cruel treatment she had just received from him, overwhelmed her with grief, and produced the most violent emotions of regret. She walked her room in all the anguish of disappointed hope. Her parents used every argument to soothe and console her, but in vain.
“She yielded to their persuasions so far as to retire to bed; but rest she found not; and the morning presented her in a burning fever. Leontine called in the course of the day; but the friends of Eudocia refused to see him. An account of her disorder had roused him to a sense of his rashness, and he begged to be admitted to her chamber; but this she utterly denied.
“Her fever left her; but the disease of her mind was beyond the power of medicine. A settled melancholy still remains; and she lives the victim of calumniation!
“To detract from the merit of others, beside the want of politeness which it betrays, and beside the injuries which it always occasions, is extremely impolitic. It is to confess your inferiority, and to acknowledge a wish not to rise to greater respectability; but to bring down those about you to your own level! Ill-natured remarks are the genuine offspring of an envious and grovelling mind.
“Call yourselves to a severe account, therefore, whenever you have been guilty of this degrading offence; and always check the first impulses towards it.
“Accustom yourselves to the exercise of sincerity, benevolence and good humor, those endearing virtues, which will render you beloved and respected by all.
“To bestow your attention in company, upon trifling singularities in the dress, person, or manners of others, is spending your time to little purpose. From such a practice you can derive neither pleasure nor profit; but must unavoidably subject yourselves to the imputation of incivility and malice.”
Thursday, P. M.