Gentlemen who attend ladies to the opera, to concerts, to lectures, etc., should take off their hats on entering the room, and while showing them their seats. Having taken your seats remain quietly in them, and avoid, unless absolute necessity requires it, incommoding others by crowding out and in before them. If obliged to do this, politely apologize for the trouble you cause them. To talk during the performance is an act of rudeness and injustice. You thus proclaim your own ill-breeding and invade the rights of others, who have paid for the privilege of hearing the performers, and not for listening to you.
If you are in attendance upon a lady at any opera, concert, or lecture, you should retain your seat at her side; but if you have no lady with you, and have taken a desirable seat, you should, if need be, cheerfully relinquish it in favor of a lady, for one less eligible.
To the opera, or theater, ladies should wear opera hoods, which are to be taken off on entering. In this country, custom permits the wearing of bonnets; but as they are neither convenient nor comfortable, ladies should dispense with their use whenever they can.
Gloves should be worn by ladies in church, and in places of public amusement. Do not take them off to shake hands. Great care should be taken that they are well made and fit neatly.
If you would have your children grow up beloved and respected by their elders as well as their contemporaries, teach them good manners in their childhood. The young sovereign should first learn to obey, that he may be the better fitted to command in his turn.
Show, but do not show off, your children to strangers. Recollect, in the matter of children, how many are born every hour, each one almost as remarkable as yours in the eyes of its papa and mamma.
Notwithstanding that good general breeding is easy of attainment, and is, in fact, attained by most people, yet we may enlarge upon a saying of Emerson's, by declaring that the world has never yet seen "a perfect gentleman."
It is not deemed polite and respectful to smoke in the presence of ladies, even though they are amiable enough to permit it. A gentleman, therefore, is not in the habit of smoking in the parlor, for if there is nobody present to object, it leaves a smell in the room which the wife has good reason to be mortified at, if discovered by her guests.
It is very common to see persons eat, drink, and smoke to excess. Such habits are vulgar in the lowest degree. Some men pride themselves on their abilities in drinking and smoking—more especially in the latter. These are blunders that need no reasoning to expose them. The man who exhibits a tendency to excesses will, sooner or later, be shunned by all except a few of his own stamp, and not even by them be respected. Guard against excess in all things, as neither gentlemanly nor human.
Spitting is a filthy habit, and annoys one in almost every quarter, in-doors and out. Since vulgarity has had its way so extensively amongst us, every youth begins to smoke and spit before he has well cut his teeth. Smoking is unquestionably so great a pleasure to those accustomed to it, that it must not be condemned, yet the spitting associated with it detracts very much from the enjoyment. No refined person will spit where ladies are present, or in any public promenade; the habit is disgusting in the extreme, and one would almost wish that it could be checked in public by means of law.