It has been somewhat paradoxically said, that the fashionable manner of the present day is no manner at all! which means simply—that the manners of the best bred people are those that are least obtruded upon the notice of others,—those most quiet, natural, and unassuming.
There is, however, a possibility of carrying this modish manner to such an extreme as to make it the very height of affectation. If Talleyrand's favorite axiom admits of some qualification, and language is not always used to "conceal our ideas," then should manner, which is the natural adjunct that lends additional expressiveness to words, be in a degree modified by circumstances—be individualized.
Every approach to a rude, noisy, boisterous, manner, is reprehensible, for the obvious reason that it interferes with the comfort, and, consequently, with the rights of others; but this is at a wide remove from the ultra-modishness that requires the total suppression of every manifestation of natural emotion, and apparently, aims to convert beings influenced by the motives, feelings, and principles that constitute humanity, into mere moving automata!
In this, as in too many similar matters, Americans are prone to excess. Because scenes are considered bad ton, in good society abroad, and because the warm-hearted hospitality of olden time sometimes took shape a little more impressingly and noisily than kindness required, some of our fashionable imitators of European models move through the world like resuscitated ghosts, and violate every law of good feeling in an endeavor to sustain at home a character for modish nonchalance! Now, take it as a rule through life, my young friends, that all servile imitation degenerates into caricature, and let your adoption and illustration of every part of your system of life be modified by circumstances, and regulated by good sense and manly independence.
I need scarcely tell you that true politeness is not so much a thing of forms and ceremonies, as of right feelings and nicety of perception. The Golden Rule habitually illustrated in word and action, would produce the most unexceptionable good breeding—politeness so cosmopolitan that it would be a passport to "good society" everywhere.
One of the most polished and celebrated of American authors has given us as fine and laconic a definition of politeness as I remember to have met with—"Self-respect, and a delicate regard for the rights and feelings of others."
The good breeding of a true gentleman is not an appendage put off and on at the dictate of caprice, or interest, it is essentially a part of himself—a constituent of his being, as much as his sense of honesty or honor, and its requirements are no more forgotten or violated than those of any other essential attribute of manhood. You will all remember Sir Philip Sidney's immortal action in presenting the cup of water to the dying soldier. This was a spontaneous result of the habitual self-possession and self-restraint that form the basis of all true good breeding. It is one of the most perfect exhibitions on record of the moral sublime; but it was, also, only a legitimate result of the instinctive politeness of a Christian gentleman!
Manner, then, may be regarded as the expression of inherent qualities, and though it must, necessarily, and should properly, to some extent, at least, vary with the variations of character, it may readily be rendered a more correct and effective exponent of existing characteristics of mind and heart, by judicious and attentive training.
While true good breeding must, from its very nature be, as I have said, in all persons and under every modification of circumstance substantially the same, the proper mode of exemplifying it, must, with equal propriety, be modified by the exercise of practical good sense and discrimination. Thus, the laws of convention,—which, as I have before remarked, is but another name for the rules of politeness, established and adhered to by well-bred people, for mutual convenience—though in some respects as immutable as those of the Medes and Persians, will always be adapted, by persons of good sense, to the mutations of circumstance and the inviolable requisitions of that "higher law," whose vital principle is "kindness kindly expressed!" Having now established general principles, let us turn to the consideration of practical details.
There is, perhaps, no better test of good manners afforded by the intercourse of ordinary life, than that of conduct towards superiors in age or station, ("Young America" seems loth to admit that he has any superiors, but we will venture to assume these premises). The general-in-chief of the Revolutionary Army of America is well known to have always observed the most punctilious respect towards his mother, in his personal intercourse with her, as well as in every other relation of life. My word for it, he never spoke of her as the "old woman;" nor could one of the youthful members of his military family have alluded, in his hearing, to a parent as the "governor," or the "old governor," without exciting the disapproving surprise of Washington and his co-patriots. And yet our young republic has known no more high-bred and polished men than those of that day,—the stately and elegant Hancock, even when broken by time and disease, a graceful and punctilious observer of all the ceremonious courtesies of life; the courtly Carroll, whose benignant urbanity was the very impersonation of a long line of old English gentlemen; and the imposing stateliness of the commander-in-chief, ever observant of the most minute details of propriety, whether in the familiar intercourse of daily life, or while conducting the most momentous affairs of his country. But to return from this unpremeditated digression. Never let youthful levity, or the example of others, betray you into forgetfulness of the claims of your parents or elders, to a certain deference. Depend upon it, the preservation of a just self-respect demands this.