CONTENTS
[SEVENTY YEARS SINCE.]
[THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.]
[GOOD MANNERS.]
[THE DUKE'S PIPER.]
[HINTS TO SICK-NURSES.]
[INDIAN MILITARY SPORTS.]
[A PROMISING FIELD FOR EMIGRANTS.]
['EVER BELIEVE ME AFFECTIONATELY YOURS.']
| No. 704. | SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1877. | Price 1½d. |
[SEVENTY YEARS SINCE.]
The last representatives of our grandfather's generation having passed away, there is no reason why the following true stories of an old Scotch house should not be made public, for the entertainment of others besides those members of the family to whom only they have hitherto been known. I have slightly changed the names of persons and places, but not a detail of the stories has otherwise been altered from the first-hand accounts given us by those who were themselves their heroes and heroines.
On a winter's afternoon in the year 1816 three young officers were riding 'within a mile of Edinboro' toun;' they were pushing on in advance of their regiment, which was that day marching into new quarters, hoping to reach the city in time to choose lodgings for themselves, to whom rooms in barracks had not been allotted. Suddenly a gaunt gipsy woman of the Meg Merrilies type darted out upon them, and laid her detaining hand upon the bridle of Lieutenant T—— (my grandfather). He tried to shake his rein free, but without effect, and the little cavalcade was brought to a halt by her persistence; then addressing the gentlemen collectively, but keeping her eyes upon my grandfather, she offered to tell their fortunes. The young men laughed at the suggestion, and the gipsy wife waxed angry. 'Ye'll do little good in Edinboro' or elsewhere,' she retorted roughly to the two captains who had declined her services. 'But for ye' (speaking only to Lieutenant T——), 'there's a bonnie bride waiting in the first house ye enter!'
My grandfather threw her a shilling and galloped on with his companions, enduring for some time their good-natured raillery about the spae-wife's prediction; but when they reached the city they were too much engaged in observing the outsides of the houses which might afford them the desired lodgings, to think further of the prophecy. In the dim light, one large house with closed shutters looked as if it were untenanted and likely to suit their requirements; while a light from a lower kitchen window shewed that some one was left in charge who could attend to Lieutenant T——'s loud summons at the knocker. But the young man, accounted a gallant soldier enough, who had seen some service in the late wars, was entirely routed and discomfited by the furious reception his modest inquiry after lodgings met with from the stalwart maid-servant who answered the door. 'Lodgings! What was the world coming to when a daft young fool asked if her mistress let lodgings? The family was away in the north, and this would be a pretty tale to tell them on their return,' stormed the cross maid; and my grandfather, leaving a torrent of rough language behind him, made his escape down the steps of the house over whose threshold he had so mistakenly intruded. He remounted his horse amid the jeers of his two friends, who reminded him of his fate predicted by the gipsy, and begged him, if this were a sample of the 'bonnie bride's' usual temper, to exchange into another regiment as soon as he married. Eventually the young men found rooms to suit them, and in a few days became quite at home in the pleasant capital of the north, which was just beginning its gay winter season.
About a week after their arrival the officers were present at an Assembly ball, and Lieutenant T—— lost his heart at first sight to a lovely young débutante of fifteen, with whom he danced the whole evening. At the close of the ball he was introduced to a grand turbaned lady, his partner's mother; and on seeing the ladies to their carriage he asked leave to do himself the honour of calling for them next day. This permission and their address were given him, and the latter noted in his pocket-book. The next morning he eagerly sought out their house, which he did not recognise as the scene of his first adventure till Ailie, the same stalwart maid, opened the door, and this time admitted him graciously.
This visit was followed by many others; and before a year had passed my grandfather won the 'bonnie bride' of the spae-wife's prediction from the very house across whose threshold he had first set foot on entering Edinburgh. They were a very young pair; he only twenty-one and my grandmother just sixteen at their marriage; and how their housekeeping might have prospered or the reverse I do not know, had not Ailie decided to take service with the young couple, and maintained their interests during the wanderings of the next thirty years as faithfully as she had previously guarded the honour of her mistress's house. She was one of the now extinct race of family servants, a sort of factotum in the house, where she did her own work and a good part of every one else's in a wonderfully indefatigable fashion, only reserving to herself the privilege of keeping every one in order, from the master and mistress down to the kitchen wench.
To three out of the four generations of our family whom she served, she was 'old Ailie;' and her flowered chintz bedgown and mob-cap survived unaltered far into the era of crinoline and chignon. What stories she had to tell of Madam our great-grandmother, a very grand dame indeed, and well-known card-player; and of a certain Mistress Jean, her favourite heroine, whom some of us recollect as Aunt Moir, a little soft-faced, pink-and-white lady, not so imposing to look upon as the miniature of her powdered mamma, but a beauty nevertheless in her day. She lived at a time when it was the acknowledged fate of all Edinburgh belles to fall a prey to dyspeptic old East Indians, who having been drafted off as raw lads to India, were heard of no more till they returned as nabobs half a century later, to take their pick of the blooming lassies for whom the Scottish capital has ever been justly celebrated.
Aunt Moir would describe how she and her mother went every Sabbath morning to 'sit under' Dr M'——; and how, as they mounted the high steps to the entrance of the place of worship, the beaus young and old—some in blue swallow-tailed coats buttoned tight across the chest, and frilled jabots like protruding fins; others with military pigtails and riding-boots—stood on each side of the door and criticised their figures (a lady's face in those days being pretty well hidden by her telescopic bonnet), and more particularly their feet and ankles, incased in sandalled shoes and silk stockings. Aunt Moir admitted that her feet passed their examination creditably enough, though the criticism was sometimes more severe than gallant; and one of her young-lady friends went by the name of 'Flat-foot Meg.' But Aunt Jean's were evidently of a different order, and were swift and light enough to do even more than please the fastidious taste of the Edinburgh bucks. Some years after her marriage with an old and invalid husband, who had carried her away from Edinburgh to a country home, Mistress Moir, little more than a girl still, one day going over her domains started a hare from a barley-stook, and throwing all her matronly dignity to the winds, she pursued Puss through a couple of meadows, and eventually captured and brought him struggling to the house. Whether she kept maukin as a pet and proof of her agility, or converted him into the excellent soup for which she has left us her recipe, labelled in a pointed Italian hand-writing 'Mistress Moir's Hare Broth,' history does not relate. Let us hope the former fate was his, for the recipe says in conclusion, 'Without the meat of two hares is the broth poor and meagre.'
Aunt Moir had no children of her own; but her heart and home were always open to the numerous members of the T—— family, her nephews and nieces. She found queer old ornaments, Indian beads and tartan scarfs, in her store-boxes for the girls; and the town-bred boys found rare opportunities for healthful delightful mischief when the High School released them for their holidays at Moir. One species of entertainment was specially sacred to Aunt Jean's kail-yard: to mount astride upon tall, well-grown, firm-hearted cabbages, and rock gently to and fro, with short leather-breeched, gray-stockinged legs sticking out straight like a cavalry officer's, until a warning crack in the stalk, or the sudden appearance of Aunt Jean's Tam rushing round some unexpected corner, with his climax of threats: 'I'll tell Mistress Alice,' drove the boys from their position.
A gray-headed, cross-grained old fellow was Tam, affecting to disapprove highly of the annual summer incursion of boys and girls into the Moir fruit-gardens, trampling among his strawberries that were destined for Mistress Jean's preserves, and rifling his bushes for 'honeyblobs.' But he had a soft spot in his heart for my mother, Anna T——, who reminded him, he fancied, of his little daughter Kirsty, dead thirty years before; and many a Sunday afternoon did Tam give mother a helping hand through her portion of the Shorter Catechism, imposed as a becoming exercise for the mind by Aunt Moir on each of the children. Tam was a rigid Sabbatarian of course, and even his favourite Anna was not exempted from blame when one Sabbath evening the whole young party were discovered in pursuit of a marauding rabbit who had for days past ravaged their gardens. Ananias and Sapphira, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were somewhat irrelevantly cited as cases in point, or at least as fellow-sinners; but he ended by muttering to himself, as he left the abashed T—— children to meditate over his sermon: 'An' the Lord spare me till the morn's morn, I'll shoot that deil mysel.'
Tam had been with Aunt Moir's parents at Portcorry before they migrated southwards to Edinburgh, to settle the boys in life and the girls in marriage. She had a queer story to tell us of her childhood connected with Tam's wife Kirsty, who lived as nursery-maid in her father's house, and had somewhat indifferently, and in the spirit of the lass who sang,
If it's ordained I maun tak him,
Wha will I get but Tam Glen?
married Tam the 'gairdner lad,' and retired with him to the lodge. When her little Kirsty was born, however, she gladly accepted the post of wet-nurse to the contemporaneous baby just arrived at the house, and returned to her old position in the nursery, bringing all her newly awakened maternal love, as well as her boundless devotion and respect for 'the family,' to lavish upon little weakly Uncle Donald. Baby Kirsty at the lodge flourished upon oatmeal porridge administered by Tam's clumsy hands, and was soon 'creeping' about everywhere with the big collie dog as her sole attendant; while up at the house Master Donald took all the devotion of two mothers to rear him, and was all-sufficient to Mrs Kirsty, who forgot husband, child, and home in her tendance of her foster-son.
At last, almost a year afterwards, the boy being weaned and fairly strong, it was thought time to dismiss the foster-mother to her home duties; and accordingly, after a violent and distressing parting, she tore herself away from the child and returned to the lodge for good. That same night Aunt Jean, a child of nine, who slept in the same room occupied by the head-nurse and the baby brother, woke suddenly without any particular reason, and saw by the dim light of the nursery lamp, Kirsty's well-known figure walking to and fro through the room with the little white bundle of a Donald in her arms. Presently she laid the quieted child down in his cot again; and then catching the wide-open eyes in the next bed, she made a sign to be silent, turning her head in the direction of the sleeping head-nurse. Aunt Jean, well aware of various little nursery jealousies between Mrs Macnab and Mrs Kirsty, gave a nod of acquiescence, and lay quite still, watching Kirsty as she softly bent over the little boy, settled him comfortably, and kissed him again and again. She was still there hovering round the cot with noiseless footsteps when the little girl fell asleep again.
Next morning, the first news that came to the house was that poor Mistress Kirsty had died suddenly in the night in her own bed of a sudden attack of heart complaint; brought on, the doctor said, by the excessive grief to which she gave way on parting from her adopted son. Tam and little Kirsty did not miss her much, I believe; nor, sad to say, did the little lad for whom she had spent her strength so willingly; but Aunt Jean held persistently to her story of the 'vision;' and the tale of 'faithful Kirsty' is still a beloved tradition in our nursery. Thanks to her care, Uncle Donald grew up a strapping lad, and when only fifteen served at the battle of Waterloo, and was present at the entry of the allied powers into Paris. There is still extant a funny etching, executed by some wit of the regiment, in which Ensign Donald is represented 'looting' a confectioner's shop, with drawn sword in one hand and immense half-demolished brioche in the other; the young ladies of the counter, attired in the classical costumes of the First Empire, flying every way from the onslaught of this hero from the Land o' Cakes.
They were a kindly race these Scotch relations of ours; less extravagant in their habits, customs, and ways of thought than their descendants of the present generation; handsomer and healthier too, perhaps, if we judge from the bright eyes and rosy smiling faces of the portraits they have left us; though even in these degenerate days, a return to the early hours, simple habits, and oatmeal porridge of the last century might yet make our lads and lassies, who inherit the friendly Scottish nature, as handsome, healthy, and happy as their grandfathers and grandmothers were seventy years since.
[THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.]
CHAPTER XXIX.—PHILIP AND ROBERT.
We found Robert Wentworth with Mrs Tipper, and he too, I saw, very curiously examined Philip as they were introduced to each other. Each eyed the other curiously and critically for a moment or two, as they uttered the first few words; and I think each was as favourably impressed towards the other as I could desire them to be. They were kindred spirits, and soon recognised that they were, making acquaintance in easy, undemonstrative, manly fashion.
Robert Wentworth was like an elder brother of Philip's, and there was just sufficient difference between their minds to give a zest to their companionship. Philip's was a more mercurial temperament; whilst there was a vein of satire in the other, lacking in him. Lilian thought that Robert Wentworth had not the same poetical perception which Philip possessed; but that did not I, for whom the former had unfolded the hidden meaning, the subtle essence of some of the poet's most delicate imagery. Of course I could not suppose Robert Wentworth to be Philip's superior; but neither would I do him the injustice of calling him inferior. They were different.
One thing puzzled me not a little as time went on. Whether it was that my love for Philip made me shyer and more reticent with him, or whether he did not look for certain things in me, I know not; but one part of my mind, which was as an open book to Robert Wentworth, remained undiscovered and even unsuspected by my lover. Once when Philip made a little jest about Lilian's romance and enthusiasm, Robert Wentworth smilingly opined that there were graver offenders in that way than Lilian; but I knew that I was the only one to perceive his meaning. If Philip had any suspicion that the allusion was intended for me, he did not perceive its application. Would it have made any difference if I had been able to let my thoughts flow into words when alone with him? When I was his wife—when this foolish shyness, reticence, or whatever it might be, was once overcome—I knew that he would find me a much more attractive companion than now. But while I longed to give more expression to my feelings, I nervously shrank from doing so. I almost wished that he would force me to shew my thoughts, as Robert Wentworth used to take so much delight in doing.
What girl could love as I did? What love could be deeper and more intense than mine? Yet the consciousness that I was not a girl kept me silent whilst my soul vibrated to every look and word of his. Ah me—ah Philip! would it have been wiser to let you see? That night when we stood together in the moonlight—when you good-naturedly jested me about my matter-of-fact way of regarding things—would it have been better to let you see the volcano hidden beneath the snow? Ah Philip, when you feared I had caught a chill, and wrapped my shawl closer about me, would it have been wiser to let you know why I was trembling beneath your touch?
I have learned to say: 'No; better as it was.'
But I have been anticipating. This first evening of the meeting between Robert Wentworth and Philip, all was couleur de rose, and my mind was at rest. I sat more silent than usual, congratulating myself upon the prospect of the great desire of my heart being gratified. They two would be friends, even according to my somewhat exigeante notion of what friendship should be. Then it was pleasant to listen to Robert Wentworth's few words respecting his appreciation of Philip, so honestly and heartily spoken.
'You must not forget that it is a brother's right to give you away, when the time for giving away comes, Mary,' he said gently, as he and I stood together by the open window a few minutes, whilst Philip was turning over the music for Lilian, who was singing some of his favourite airs for him.
'Will you? It is kind to wish it,' I murmured, feeling that it was a great deal more than kind.
'Mr Dallas is, I believe, worthy of any man's sister, Mary.'
'I am glad you think so'—I paused a moment, then, as a sister should, added—'Robert.'
He smiled, and talked pleasantly on, contriving to set me quite at ease respecting the state of his own mind. I was now able to persuade myself that he had been deceived, and that his friendship for me had never really developed into a stronger feeling. Presently he said in his abrupt friendly fashion: 'Why do you not sing, Mary?'
'Oh, Lilian sings that so much better than I; and it is a favourite of Philip's.'
'Well, come now and enchant our ears;' going towards the piano as Lilian ceased, and looking out a song which he always said I sang well. 'Now, do your best.'
But although Philip and Lilian were more than satisfied, Robert was not. He and I knew that it was not my best, their kind speeches notwithstanding. He seemed to have quite changed his tactics with regard to me—doing everything in his power to make me appear to advantage in Philip's eyes. But he unconsciously deprived me of the pleasant termination of the day, which I had been looking forward to. Philip and he set forth together to walk to the railway station, and of course there was no moonlight walk for me that night.
But there was the morrow—many a happy morrow to come, now, I told myself, looking after them as they went down the lane together. The more they saw of each other, the sooner they would become friends. Lilian, who stood beside me at the gate, slipped her arm round my waist, and laid her head against my shoulder in eloquent silence.
It was fortunate that the day had come round for paying my promised visit to Nancy Dean. I felt that I needed some kind of reminder that I did not live in a world all flowers and sunshine. I set forth the next morning alone, thinking that Nancy might possibly feel less under constraint than if Lilian were present during our interview. Philip had some banking business to transact which would prevent his getting down to us until late in the afternoon; and I had therefore ample time for my errand before his arrival.
This time I found no difficulty in obtaining admittance; and was informed that the rules allowed me to remain an hour, if I chose so to do, with my friend Nancy Dean. That hour we were at liberty to spend in either the dining-hall or exercise-ground, as we chose. We gazed earnestly and curiously at each other as we shook hands; and I hope she was as pleased with me by daylight as I was with her.
Without being handsome or even pretty, Nancy Dean's was a face which pleased me much. If expressing a shade too much self-will and the firmness which, untrained, is so apt to degenerate into obstinacy, there was no trace of meanness, deceit, or dishonesty.
'You expected me to-day of course, Nancy?'
'I shouldn't be here if I hadn't, Miss,' she returned with a grave smile. We had elected to spend the hour in the open air; and with my arm linked in hers, we paced slowly up and down part of the old court-yard, or exercise-ground as it was called.
'In that case, I ought to be thankful that no accident occurred to prevent my coming. It might have, you know, and then poor I should have had to bear the blame for anything which followed.'
'How could you have been to blame if an accident had happened, Miss?'
'My dear Nancy, if you had fallen back, some one would have been in fault, since we could hardly throw the blame upon an accident.'
'You mean I should have been to blame, if I had gone wrong again because you did not come?'
I smiled. 'I am not altogether sure which of us would have been most in fault, Nancy.'
'But how could you'——
'One thing is clear. I did not succeed in giving you faith in me, although I had faith in you.'
She looked dubiously at me a moment, then her eyes slowly filled with tears. 'Perhaps I haven't been ready enough to believe in people. Till now, nobody ever seemed to believe in me.'
'It is not for me to judge, Nancy. I can only say I am pleased that you had the strength and courage to return here and remain, under the circumstances.'
'You seem to know exactly the best thing to say to encourage me, Miss!' ejaculated Nancy. 'And even when you hit hard, as you sometimes do, I don't seem to mind it so much from you as I do from other people—it's different, somehow! You don't seem to enjoy thinking about my wickedness.'
'If I thought you wicked, I certainly should not enjoy thinking so; and if you were, you would not have come back here. Poor Nancy, I am afraid it has been rather hard for you!'
'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.