This same spirit spoken of by Saint Paul as “in honor preferring one another” can be inculcated in the children in our homes. The small of the human species are, like their elders, naturally selfish, and must be taught consideration for others. It is the grafting that makes the rose what it is. You may graft a Jacqueminot or Maréchal Neil upon the stump of the wild rose. The grafting, the pruning, and the training are the work of the careful gardener. The mother can never be idle, for, while the stock is there, she does the grafting.
Obedience must be taught in small things as well as in great. The tiny child must be taught to remove his hat when he is spoken to, to give his hand readily in greeting, to say “please” and “thank you”; not to pass in front of people, or between them and the fire; to say “excuse me!” when he treads on his mother’s foot or dress; to rise when she enters the room; and to take off his hat when he kisses her. The mother who insists that her child do these things at home need not fear that he will forget her training when abroad.
CHAPTER XXXII
OUR NEIGHBORS
THE fact that people live next door to you does not make them your neighbors in the higher and better sense of that word. There may be nothing in their persons or characters to commend them to you, or for that matter, to commend you to them. “Neighborhood” in literal interpretation signifies nearness of vicinity. You have the right to choose your associates and to elect your friends.
Presuming on this truth, dwellers in cities are prone to vaunt their ignorance of, and indifference to, those who live in the same street, block and apartment-house with themselves. If newly come to what is a kingdom by comparison with their former estate, they make a point of seeking society elsewhere than among residents of their neighborhood. “Let us be genteel or die!” says Dickens of Mrs. Fielding’s struggles to eat dinner with gloves on. “Let us be exclusive or cease to live!” says Mrs. Upstart, and refuses to learn the names of her neighbors on the right and left.
One of the hall-marks of the thoroughbred is his daily application of the maxim, “Live and let live.” His social standing is so firm that a jostle, or even a push from a vulgarian who chances to pass his way, can not disturb him. When the mongrel cur bayed at the moon, “the moon kept on shining.” If he be a gentleman in heart as well as in blood and name, he has a real interest in people who breathe the same air and tread the same street with himself—interest as far removed from vulgar curiosity in other people’s concerns as the gentle courtesy of his demeanor is removed from the familiar bumptiousness of the forward and underbred.
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