Footnotes:
[4] I shall take the liberty to use the word "mistress," throughout these letters, in the sense appropriated to it by Addison, Johnson, and other English classic authors. Sweetheart is too old-fashioned. "Lady-love" suits the style of my fashionable nieces, better than mine. Mistress is an authorized Saxon word, of well-defined meaning, though, like some others, perverted to a bad use, at times.
LETTER V.
MANNER—PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS.
My dear Nephews:
Though good breeding is always and everywhere essentially the same, there are phases of daily life, especially demanding its exhibition. Manner in the street is one of these.
Even in hours most exclusively devoted to business, do not allow yourself to hurry along with a clouded, absent face and bent head, as if you forever felt the foot of the earth-god on your neck! Carry an erect and open brow into the very midst of the heat and burden of the day. Take time to see your friends, as they cross you in the busy thoroughfares of life and, at least by a passing smile or a gesture of recognition, give token that you are not resolved into a mere money-making machine, and both will be better for this fleeting manifestation of the inner being.
During business hours and in crowded business-streets no man should ever stop another, whom he knows to be necessarily constantly occupied at such times, except upon a matter of urgent need, and then if he alone is to be benefited by the detention, he should briefly apologize and state his errand in as few words as possible.
But the habit of a cheerful tone of voice, a cordial smile, and friendly grasp of the hand, when meeting those with whom one is associated in social life, is not to be regarded as unimportant.