A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge

by John Breckinridge; Samuel Miller

Study to exercise gentleness and mildness in all your deportment and conversation. Guard against every thing harsh, severe, rough, abrupt, or in any way repulsive in your language, voice, or manner. Let the meekness and gentleness of wisdom appear in every look, tone, and expression. By a mild, respectful address, you may at once reprove impertinence, disarm violence, and put even brutality to shame. Give all diligence, then, to be "gentle toward all men." Learn the happy art of conversing with gentleness, of giving your commands with gentleness, of arguing with gentleness, of contending with gentleness, and of even reproving with gentleness. Both commands and reproofs, as well as arguments, when dispensed in this manner, have not only more dignity, but also more weight than when invested with an opposite character.

Few things are more opposed to good breeding than a loud, boisterous manner in social intercourse. Whether this be indulged in laughter, or in conversation, it is equally exceptionable as an offence against both delicacy and dignity. With regard to females, an offence against this rule, is peculiarly revolting. It is a sure sign of vulgarity, and ought to be carefully avoided. But, in either sex, it is a blemish which well bred people never fail to notice.

Closely allied to this is the habit of rude familiarity which some affect, and to which they give the name of social pleasantry. This is undignified, and, to all delicate people, offensive. Mutual dignity and respect are indispensable to the continued existence of Christian intercourse, in its most pure, delicate, and profitable form. If you wish to maintain such intercourse, be free and unconstrained; but never indulge in coarse familiarity. Those who are worthy of your love will certainly be repelled rather than attracted by it.

Remember, too, that all interruption of any one with whom you are conversing, or blunt contradiction of his statements, is an offence against delicate manners. However erroneous he may be, hear him out; and however certain you may be that his representations are false, rectify his mistake, not bluntly, but with kindness and respect.

Guard against talking too much in company. He who is very talkative incurs disadvantages of a very serious kind. He cheapens himself; tires his hearers; and must, of course, diminish his usefulness. However rich and instructive any one's talk may be, yet, if there be too much of it, both his dignity and his influence cannot fail of being impaired. "A fool's voice," says Solomon, "is known by the multitude of his words." "In the multitude of words," says the same inspired teacher, "there wanteth not sin; but he that refraineth his lips is wise." And again, "He that hath knowledge, spareth his words."

But another extreme in social intercourse, is that of excessive reserve and taciturnity. Some from physical temperament; others from abstraction or absence of mind; and a third class, perhaps, from still more exceptionable causes, wrap themselves up in a chilling reserve in company—never speaking but when addressed; and then answering as briefly as possible, and relapsing into silence again. This is surely unhappy in a social being, and ought to be carefully avoided. While you avoid garrulity, then, sink not down into obstinate silence. If you find yourselves, from any cause, prone to this, it is abundantly worth while to take pains to counteract it, and to labour to have something ready to say that shall be at once acceptable and instructive.

In regard to uncleanly and vulgar personal habits, I will not suppose you capable of them: and, therefore, shall not dwell upon them. All spitting on floors, lounging in your seats, putting up your feet on chairs or stools, leaning with your elbows on tables—these, and all similar habits, I hope, after the training you have had, you will avoid with instinctive repugnance. But there is one habit which I would earnestly recommend, as favourable not merely to good manners, but also to health. Learn to sit erect, not only in company, but even in your most private apartment. Reading or writing in a half-sunken or reclining posture is unfriendly to a graceful carriage; is apt to betray unwarily into similar postures in company; prepares the way for the sinking, half-bent postures which disfigure so many of the feeble and aged; and really tends to bring on premature decrepitude.

Do not affect wit or punning in conversation. So many of those who try to make themselves acceptable by such attempts, not only fail, but often render themselves a laughing stock by it, that there is little probability of your succeeding as wits or punsters. But even with respect to those whose talents in this way are ever so great, there is so much danger of their indulging those talents unseasonably and imprudently, so as to offend and alienate friends, that such powers ought to be deprecated rather than desired, and their exercise, if possessed, subjected to the severest restriction. I never knew more than one person of wit who was strictly discreet and delicate in its use. But I have known thousands who, by their miserable attempts to display what they possessed either not at all, or in a very small degree, succeeded only in exposing themselves to ridicule. And I have known many real wits, who almost every day wounded feelings, and alienated friends by their reckless effusions.

Do not indulge the habit in conversation of talking of yourselves. Hardly any quality is more apt to appear in social intercourse than personal vanity. This leads to egotism, so that the idea of self appears to be ever present to the imagination. Hence we perpetually find people talking of themselves; what they have done; what they have said; what others have said and done to their honour; in short, bringing into view something to their own advantage, or that of their family or relatives. Rely upon it, if you have real worth, the less you say about it the better; and if you have it not, every claim of it, direct or indirect, can only sink you lower in the estimation of those with whom you converse.

Carefully form the habit of adverting to all the properties of time, place and circumstances in conversation. When you are about, in company, to make a remark, or to introduce a new topic of conversation, look round on the circle, and ask yourself, whether there is any one present whose feelings would be likely to be hurt by what you are about to say, or who would be placed by it in embarrassing circumstances. Be very sure for example, when about to make, in company, an unfavourable remark on an absent person, that no relative or special friend of that person is among your hearers. For, although you ought never to make a remark on any one which the Christian spirit cannot justify; yet in certain circumstances, a remark perfectly proper in itself, may be unseasonable, and peculiarly painful to some who hear it. Guard against the possibility of such an occurrence. This is a dictate of sound worldly policy. A departure from it is a gross violation of true politeness. But it may be said, still more emphatically, to be a departure from the principles of Christian benevolence.