Cleo. Have you thought on the novelty I started?
Hor. I have, and think it not void of probability; for that there are no innate ideas, and men come into the world without any knowledge at all, I am convinced of, and therefore it is evident to me, that all arts and sciences must once have had a beginning in somebody’s brain, whatever oblivion that may now be lost in. I have thought twenty times since I saw you last, on the origin of good manners, and what a pleasant scene it would be to a man who is tolerably well versed in the world, to see among a rude nation those first essays they made of concealing their pride from one another.
Cleo. You see by this, that it is chiefly the novelty of things that strikes, as well in begetting our aversion, as in gaining our approbation; and that we may look upon many indifferently, when they come to be familiar to us, though they were shocking when they were new. You are now diverting yourself with a truth, which eight days ago you would have given an hundred guineas not to have known.
Hor. I begin to believe there is nothing so absurd, that it would appear to us to be such, is we had been accustomed to it very young.
Cleo. In a tolerable education, we are so industriously and so assiduously instructed, from our most early infancy, in the ceremonies of bowing, and pulling off hats, and other rules of behaviour, that even before we are men we hardly look upon a mannerly deportment as a thing acquired, or think conversation to be a science. Thousand things are called easy and natural in postures and motions, as well as speaking and writing, that have caused infinite pains to others as well as ourselves, and which we know to be the product of art. What awkward lumps have I known, which the dancing-master has put limbs to!
Hor. Yesterday morning as I sat musing by myself, an expression of yours which I did not so much reflect upon at first, when I heard it, came into my head, and made me smile. Speaking of the rudiments of good manners in an infant nation, when they once entered upon concealing their pride, you said, that improvements would be made every day, “till some of them grew impudent enough, not only to deny the high value they had for themselves, but likewise to pretend that they had greater value for others than they had for themselves.”
Cleo. It is certain, that this every where must have been the forerunner of flattery.
Hor. When you talk of flattery and impudence, what do you think of the first man that had the face to tell his equal, that he was his humble servant?
Cleo. If that had been a new compliment, I should have wondered much more at the simplicity of the proud man that swallowed, than I would have done at the impudence of the knave that made it.
Hor. It certainly once was new: which pray do you believe more ancient, pulling off the hat, or saying, your humble servant?