THE DANGER OF INTOLERANCE
There is no room for intolerance in the social world. To be honored, respected, one must have a certain friendliness of spirit. The gentleman, the lady treats everyone, from the lowliest beggar to the most distinguished personage with consideration. It is only the man who is unpretentious, who is always eager to please, who is as courteous and considerate in manner to his inferiors as to his equals, that fully deserves the name of gentleman.
The author recently chanced to witness an amusing incident which might be of value to repeat here. It shows forcibly how important the little things are, and how they reveal to the gaze of the world the true story of our actual worth:
An elderly man, who showed quite obviously by his lordly and self-satisfied manner that he was accustomed to travel about in his own car, was on one occasion forced to ride home in the subway. It was rush hour, and thousands of tired men and women were in a hurry to get home. The man impatiently waited his turn on a long line at the ticket office, constantly grumbling and making it disagreeable for those about him. When he finally did reach the window, he offered a ten dollar bill in payment for one five-cent ticket and deliberately remained at the window counting and recounting his change while the people behind him anxiously awaited their turn. When at last he did move away, he had a half smile, half frown of smug and malicious satisfaction on his face which, interpreted to the people he had kept waiting, said that he now felt repaid for having had to travel in the same train with them.
This man, in spite of his self-satisfied manner and well-tailored suit, was very far from being a gentleman. The shabby young man behind him, who also offered a bill in payment for his ticket, but stepped quickly to one side to count his change, and smiled cheerfully at the man behind him, was infinitely more of a gentleman than the one who maliciously, and with evident keen enjoyment, kept the long line waiting.
The true worth of a gentleman is revealed, not in his fashionable clothes or haughty demeanor, but in his regard for the rights of others. It is the little kindnesses that count—and the instinctive recognition of the rights of others. As England's inimitable J. M. Barrie has so aptly remarked, "Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves."
WHY IT PAYS TO BE AGREEABLE
Why should we know the laws of etiquette? Why should we know the way to do and say things? Why should we be agreeable? These are questions that will undoubtedly arise in the mind of the young man or woman who is eager to cultivate and refine his or her manner and speech.
The answer is: to make one's own life happier—to bring into it a new sunshine, a new joy of living that was not even dreamed of when the mind and spirit were shrouded in the gloom of discourtesy, coarseness and vulgarity.
For how can the boor be happy? With his gloomy face, sour disposition, complaining habits and inherent lack of good taste and culture, he sees only the shadows of life. People are repulsed by him, never attracted. Brilliant men and women, people of refinement and taste, will have nothing to do with him. He lives his own life—his ill-bred, complaining, gloomy, companionless life—an outcast from that better society of which we all long to be a part.