“I mentioned the general rules of common civility, which, whoever does not observe, will pass for a bear, and be as unwelcome as one, in company; there is hardly any body brutal enough not to answer when they are spoken to. But it is not enough not to be rude; you should be extremely civil, and distinguished for your good breeding. The first principle of this good breeding is never to say anything that you think can be disagreeable to any body in company; but, on the contrary, you should endeavor to say what will be agreeable to them; and that in an easy and natural manner, without seeming to study for compliments. There is likewise such a thing as a civil look, and a rude look; and you should look civil, as well as be so; for if, while you are saying a civil thing, you look gruff and surly, as English bumpkins do, nobody will be obliged to you for a civility that seemed to come so unwillingly. If you have occasion to contradict any body, or to set them right from a mistake, it would be very brutal to say, ‘That is not so, I know better, or You are out; but you should say with a civil look, I beg your pardon, I believe you mistake, or, If I may take the liberty of contradicting you, I believe it is so and so; for, though you may know a thing better than other people, yet it is very shocking to tell them so directly, without something to soften it; but remember particularly, that whatever you say or do, with ever so civil an intention, a great deal consists in the manner and the look, which must be genteel, easy, and natural, and is easier to be felt than described.
“Civility is particularly due to all women; and remember, that no provocation whatsoever can justify any man in not being civil to every woman; and the greatest man would justly be reckoned a brute, if he were not civil to the meanest woman. It is due to their sex, and is the only protection they have against the superior strength of ours; nay, even a little flattery is allowable with women; and a man may, without meanness, tell a woman that she is either handsomer or wiser than she is. Observe the French people, and mind how easily and naturally civil their address is, and how agreeably they insinuate little civilities in their conversation. They think it so essential, that they call an honest man and a civil man by the same name, of honnête homme; and the Romans called civility humanitas, as thinking it inseparable from humanity. You cannot begin too early to take that turn, in order to make it natural and habitual to you.”
Again, speaking of the inconveniency of bashfulness, he says:—
“As for the mauvaise honte, I hope you are above it. Your figure is like other people’s; I suppose you will care that your dress shall be so too, and to avoid any singularity. What then should you be ashamed of? and why not go into a mixed company, with as much ease and as little concern, as you would go into your own room? Vice and ignorance are the only things I know, which one ought to be ashamed of; keep but clear of them, and you may go anywhere without fear or concern. I have known some people, who, from feeling the pain and inconveniences of this mauvaise honte, have rushed into the other extreme, and turned impudent, as cowards sometimes grow desperate from the excess of danger; but this too is carefully to be avoided, there being nothing more generally shocking than impudence. The medium between these two extremes marks out the well-bred man; he feels himself firm and easy in all companies; is modest without being bashful, and steady without being impudent; if he is a stranger, he observes, with care, the manners and ways of the people most esteemed at that place, and conforms to them with complaisance.”
Flattery is always in bad taste. If you say more in a person’s praise than is deserved, you not only say what is false, but you make others doubt the wisdom of your judgment. Open, palpable flattery will be regarded by those to whom it is addressed as an insult. In your intercourse with ladies, you will find that the delicate compliment of seeking their society, showing your pleasure in it, and choosing for subjects of conversation, other themes than the weather, dress, or the opera, will be more appreciated by women of sense, than the more awkward compliment of open words or gestures of admiration.
Never imitate the eccentricities of other men, even though those men have the highest genius to excuse their oddities. Eccentricity is, at the best, in bad taste; but an imitation of it—second hand oddity—is detestable.
Never feign abstraction in society. If you have matters of importance which really occupy your mind, and prevent you from paying attention to the proper etiquette of society, stay at home till your mind is less preoccupied. Chesterfield says:—
“What is commonly called an absent man, is commonly either a very weak, or a very affected man; but be he which he will, he is, I am sure, a very disagreeable man in company. He fails in all the common offices of civility; he seems not to know those people to-day, whom yesterday he appeared to live in intimacy with. He takes no part in the general conversation; but, on the contrary, breaks into it from time to time, with some start of his own, as if he waked from a dream. This (as I said before) is a sure indication, either of a mind so weak that it is not able to bear above one object at a time; or so affected, that it would be supposed to be wholly engrossed by, and directed to, some very great and important objects. Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Locke, and (it may be) five or six more, since the creation of the world, may have had a right to absence, from that intense thought which the things they were investigating required. But if a young man, and a man of the world, who has no such avocations to plead, will claim and exercise that right of absence in company, his pretended right should, in my mind, be turned into an involuntary absence, by his perpetual exclusion out of company. However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them, do not show them, by your inattention, that you think them so; but rather take their tone, and conform, in some degree, to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. If, therefore, you would rather please than offend, rather be well than ill-spoken of, rather be loved than hated; remember to have that constant attention about you, which flatters every man’s little vanity; and the want of which, by mortifying his pride, never fails to excite his resentment, or, at least, his ill will. For instance: most people (I might say all people) have their weaknesses; they have their aversions and their likings to such or such things; so that, if you were to laugh at a man for his aversion to a cat, or cheese, (which are common antipathies,) or, by inattention and negligence, to let them come in his way, where you could prevent it, he would, in the first case, think himself insulted, and, in the second, slighted, and would remember both. Whereas your care to procure for him what he likes, and to remove from him what he hates, shows him that he is, at least, an object of your attention; flatters his vanity, and makes him, possibly, more your friend than a more important service would have done. With regard to women, attentions still below these are necessary, and, by the custom of the world, in some measure due, according to the laws of good breeding.”
In giving an entertainment to your friends, while you avoid extravagant expenditure, it is your duty to place before them the best your purse will permit you to purchase, and be sure you have plenty. Abundance without superfluity, and good quality without extravagance, are your best rules for an entertainment.
If, by the introduction of a friend, by a mistake, or in any other way, your enemy, or a man to whom you have the strongest personal dislike, is under your roof, or at your table, as a guest, hospitality and good breeding both require you to treat him with the same frank courtesy which you extend to your other guests; though you need make no violent protestations of friendship, and are not required to make any advances towards him after he ceases to be your guest.