Keep your engagements. Nothing is ruder than to make an engagement, be it of business or pleasure, and break it. If your memory is not sufficiently retentive to keep all the engagements you make stored within it, carry a little memorandum book and enter them there. Especially keep any appointment made with a lady, for, depend upon it, the fair sex forgive any other fault in good breeding, sooner than a broken engagement.
The right of privacy is sacred, and should always be respected. It is exceedingly improper to enter a private room anywhere without knocking. No relation, however intimate, will justify an abrupt intrusion upon a private apartment. So the trunks, boxes, packets, papers, and letters of every individual, locked or unlocked, sealed or unsealed, are sacred. It is ill-manners even to open a book-case, or to read a written paper lying open, without permission expressed or implied. Books in an open case or on a center-table, cards in a card-case, and newspapers, are presumed to be open for examination. Be careful where you go, what you read, and what you handle, particularly in private apartments.
Avoid intermeddling with the affairs of others. This is a most common fault. A number of people seldom meet but they begin discussing the affairs of some one who is absent. This is not only uncharitable but positively unjust. It is equivalent to trying a cause in the absence of the person implicated. Even in the criminal code a prisoner is presumed to be innocent until he is found guilty. Society, however, is less just, and passes judgment without hearing the defence. Depend upon it, as a certain rule, that the people who unite with you in discussing the affairs of others will proceed to scandalize you the moment that you depart.
Be well read also, for the sake of the general company and the ladies, in the literature of the day. You will thereby enlarge the regions of pleasurable talk. Besides, it is often necessary. Haslitt, who had entertained an unfounded prejudice against Dickens's works when they were first written, confesses that he was at last obliged to read them, because he could not enter a mixed company without hearing them admired and quoted.
Always conform your conduct, as near as possible, to the company with whom you are associated. If you should be thrown among people who are vulgar, it is better to humor them than to set yourself up, then and there, for a model of politeness. It is related of a certain king that on a particular occasion he turned his tea into his saucer, contrary to the etiquette of society, because two country ladies, whose hospitalities he was enjoying, did so. That king was a gentleman; and this anecdote serves to illustrate an important principle: namely, that true politeness and genuine good manners often not only permit, but absolutely demand, a violation of some of the arbitrary rules of etiquette. Bear this fact in mind.
Although these remarks will not be sufficient in themselves to make you a gentleman, yet they will enable you to avoid any glaring impropriety, and do much to render you easy and confident in society.
Gentility is neither in birth, manner, nor fashion—but in the Mind. A high sense of honor—a determination never to take a mean advantage of another—an adherence to truth, delicacy, and politeness toward those with whom you may have dealings—are the essential and distinguishing characteristics of a Gentleman.
THE END.
Typographical errors corrected in text: [ToC]
p. 5 "withuot" corrected to "without"
p. 13 double word "heard" corrected
p. 21 "there" corrected to "their"
p. 22 closing quotation mark added to block quotation
p. 27 "sermom" corrected to "sermon"
p. 43 "fluctating" corrected to "fluctuating"
p. 49 "unmindul" corrected to "unmindful"
p. 50 missing comma supplied after "one who is neither"
p. 50 "similiar" corrected to "similar"
p. 50 "supenderless" corrected to "suspenderless"
p. 53 quotation mark supplied after "superficial observer."
p. 56 "four and-twenty" corrected to "four-and-twenty"
p. 61 "repectability" corrected to "respectability"
p. 62 "uneviable" corrected to "unenviable"
p. 70 "digusting" corrected to "disgusting"
p. 73 "you" corrected to "your"
p. 76 "alllowed" corrected to "allowed"
p. 76 "canibals" corrected to "cannibals"
p. 77 "you knife" corrected to "your knife"
p. 83 superfluous comma removed in "very, large"
p. 84 missing "a" supplied in "find good carver"
p. 108 period supplied after "each other at a party"
p. 115 "entranc" corrected to "entrance"
p. 115 final period supplied in footnote
p. 125 final period supplied after "been afforded them"
p. 146 "judicioulsy" corrected to "judiciously"
p. 148 "unless he intimate" corrected to "unless he intimates"
p. 148 "intercourse it desired" corrected to "intercourse is desired"
p. 149 double word "to" corrected
p. 151 "departmemt" corrected to "department"
p. 151 "husbands should" at start of sentence capitalized
p. 158 "digusting" corrected to "disgusting"
p. 159 "thought it is" corrected to "though it is"
p. 161 double word "call" corrected