“He who has never known a sister’s kind administration, nor felt his heart warming beneath her endearing smile and love-beaming eye, has been unfortunate indeed. It is not to be wondered at if the fountains of pure feeling flow in his bosom but sluggishly, or if the gentle emotions of his nature be lost in the sterner attributes of mankind.
“‘That man has grown up among affectionate sisters,’ I once heard a lady of much observation and experience remark.
“‘And why do you think so?’ said I.
“‘Because of the rich development of all the tender feelings of the heart.’
“A sister’s influence is felt even in manhood’s riper years; and the heart of him who has grown cold in chilly contact with the world will warm and thrill with pure enjoyment as some accident awakens within him the soft tones, the glad melodies of his sister’s voice; and he will turn from purposes which a warped and false philosophy had reasoned into expediency, and even weep for the gentle influences which moved him in his earlier years.”
The man who would treat a sister with harshness, rudeness, or disrespect, is unworthy of the name of gentleman, for he thus proves that the courtesies he extends to other ladies, are not the promptings of the heart, but the mere external signs of etiquette; the husk without the sweet fruit within.
39. When walking with a friend in the street, never leave him to speak to another friend without apologizing for so doing.
40. If walking with a lady, never leave her alone in the street, under any circumstances. It is a gross violation of etiquette to do so.
41. The most truly gentlemanly man is he who is the most unselfish, so I would say in the words of the Rev. J. A. James:
“Live for some purpose in the world. Act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Conduct yourselves so that you shall be missed with sorrow when you are gone. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of their existence, but are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are while they live, like one pebble lying unobserved amongst a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach. They are neither regretted by the rich, wanted by the poor, nor celebrated by the learned. Who has been the better for their life? Who has been the worse for their death? Whose tears have they dried up? whose wants supplied? whose miseries have they healed? Who would unbar the gate of life, to re-admit them to existence? or what face would greet them back again to our world with a smile? Wretched, unproductive mode of existence! Selfishness is its own curse; it is a starving vice. The man who does no good, gets none. He is like the heath in the desert, neither yielding fruit, nor seeing when good cometh—a stunted, dwarfish, miserable shrub.”