Penguin Persons & Peppermints

by Walter Prichard Eaton

The guests have all gathered by now, but dinner is not yet announced. The hostess moves easily among them, stopping by each with a winning smile, to ask some carefully chosen personal question. Each as politely replies, only to find himself talking to the empty air.

There is soon a confused babble of voices, a whir of windy words—and no one hears.

The author watches her, still curious to know whether she will remember that she has not yet heard his answer. But she has quite forgotten. She moves, the incarnate spirit of politeness, about the room, rousing trains of eager ideas in her guests, and as speedily leaving them to run down a side-track into a bumper.

She has no real interest in any of them, probably she has no real understanding of them. She thinks her manners are above reproach, that she is treating her guests in the most exemplary fashion. In reality, nothing could be worse than her manners, and she is treating her guests most shabbily. By being polite, she ends by being rude. For nothing is so rude in this world as to ask a man a question about some subject close to his heart when you have no intention of listening to his answer, nor any interest in it. The hostess thinks to feed his vanity; she ends by wounding it. She thinks to make her guests comfortable; she ends by making them uncomfortable.

The best manners I have ever seen were possessed by the most impolite man I have ever known. As a result, nobody that he ever invited to his house felt uncomfortable there. He was interested in all kinds and conditions of people, all kinds and conditions of activities. If he asked you a question, it was because he wanted to hear your answer. He paid you the compliment of assuming that it was worth listening to, and other people waited till you were through. At his table you weren't supposed to confine your talk to the sweet young thing on your left, who was more interested in the gay young blade on her left, nor to the sedate, elderly female person on your right, who was more interested in the bishop on her right. Talk was largely for the whole table; and if you hadn't some definite contribution to make, you were usually glad to keep still.

I say nobody ever felt uncomfortable in his house. That is not quite true. Occasionally the person who expressed an opinion on a subject he knew nothing about must have felt uncomfortable. For, though he was listened to gravely while speaking, conversation was at once resumed as if nothing whatever had been said.

Nothing could have been more conventionally impolite. And yet the act was so utterly free from sham that it seemed the only decorous and decent thing to do. Thus was the dignity of conversation maintained; thus was each man and woman made to feel his or her worth along personal lines of endeavor; thus was a true democratic spirit preserved, which is the real essence of good manners. True democracy consists in bringing each man out, not in reducing him to a common level of inanity. Good manners consist in showing him respect for what is worthy of respect in him, treating him as a rational human being, not as a mere social unit who deposits his hard-won opinions, along with his hat and stick, in the care of the butler when he enters the house.

That is why men have, as a rule, better manners than women, though they are far less polite. A man respects the judgment of a specialist on any given subject, and he is rather intolerant of the snap judgments of the dabbler or the dilettante. He listens, if forced to, with unconcealed impatience to the babbling of his pretty neighbor at table about art, perhaps, or engineering, or some other topic concerning which her ignorance is as profound as her cocksureness is lofty. But, after all, to be polite to her is to insult a whole race of engineers or artists! Put one of them beside him, and see how readily he will listen.

Politeness too often consists of shamming. Good manners are the absence of sham. It is not the gentleman's place, certainly, to insult the lady. Good manners seldom go quite so far as that. But even politeness cannot expect him to endure the torture for more than a limited time, especially if the topic chosen chances to be his own specialty. It is his place to lead the conversation, as gently as possible, back upon more neutral ground, where he may find what consolation he can in sprightly personalities—while praying for the coffee.

I enjoy the privilege of acquaintance with a very charming person, who has never paid a compliment to her sex except by being a woman. Some of her sex say that she is a delightful hostess and very beautiful. Others say that she is atrociously rude, and they “can't see what it is people admire in her.” Most men adore her. She herself says that the only people she cares to entertain are those who have earned their own living. Her reasons are, I believe, interesting and significant.