How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, and Guide to Correct Personal Habits by Samuel Roberts Wells (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📕

"There should be mingled with the habitual deference and attention that marks your manner to your mother the indescribable tenderness and rendering back of care and watchfulness that betokens remembrance of early days. No other woman should ever induce you to forget this truest, most disinterested friend, nor should your manner ever indicate even momentary indifference to her wishes or her affection."

The intercourse of brothers and sisters should be marked by the frankness and familiarity befitting their intimate relation; but this certainly does not preclude the exercise of all the little courtesies of life. Young man, be polite to your sister. She is a woman, and all women have claims on you for courteous attentions; and the affection which exists between you adds tenfold to the sacredness of the claims she has upon you, not only for protection, but for the exercise toward her of all the sweet amenities of life. Except your mother and your wife or affianced mistress (if you have one), no one can possibly have an equal right to your attentions. If you are young and have neither wife nor lady-love, let your mother and your sisters be to you the embodiment of all that is tenderest, most beautiful, and best in the human world. You can have no better school than your daily intercourse with them, to fit you for female society in general. The young man who loves his sisters and always treats them with the politeness, deference, and kindness which is their due, is almost certain to be a favorite with their sex generally; so, as you value your reputation for good manners and your success with other ladies, fail in no act of courtesy to your sisters.

The gentle and loving sister will need no injunction to treat an affectionate, polite, and attentive brother with the tender and respectful consideration which such a brother deserves. The charming little courtesies which you practice so gracefully in your intercourse with other gentlemen will not, you may be sure, be lost upon him. True politeness is never lost, and never out of place; and nowhere does it appear more attractive than at home.

Stiff formality and cold ceremoniousness are repulsive anywhere, and are particularly so in the family circle; but the easy, frank, and genial intercourse of the fireside, instead of being marred, is refined and made still more delightful by courtesy.

Reader, are you married? But excuse us, if the question is not a proper one. If you are not, you doubtless hope to be, sooner or later, and therefore we will address you just as if you were.

The husband should never cease to be a lover, or fail in any of those delicate attentions and tender expressions of affectionate solicitude which marked his intercourse before marriage with his heart's queen. All the respectful deference, every courteous observance, all the self-sacrificing devotion that can be claimed by a mistress is certainly due to a wife, and he is no true husband and no true gentleman who withholds them. It is not enough that you honor, respect, and love your wife. You must put this honor, respect, and love into the forms of speech and action. Let no unkind word, no seeming indifference, no lack of the little attentions due her, remind her sadly of the sweet days of courtship and the honey-moon. Surely the love you thought would have been cheaply purchased at the price of a world is worth all you care to preserve. Is not the wife more, and better, and dearer than the sweetheart? We venture to hint that it is probably your own fault if she is not.

The chosen companion of your life, the mother of your children, the sharer of all your joys and sorrows, as she possesses the highest place in your affections, should have the best place everywhere, the choicest morsels, the politest attentions, the softest, kindest words, the tenderest care. Love, duty, and good manners alike require it.

And has the wife no duties? Have the courteous observances, the tender watchfulness, the pleasant words, the never-tiring devotion, which won your smiles, your spoken thanks, your kisses, your very self, in days gone by, now lost their value? Does not the husband rightly claim as much, at least, as the lover? If you find him less observant of the little courtesies due you, may this not be because you sometimes fail to reward him with the same sweet thanks and sweeter smiles? Ask your own heart.

Have the comfort and happiness of your husband always in view, and let him see and feel that you still look up to him with trust and affection—that the love of other days has not grown cold. Dress for his eyes more scrupulously than for all the rest of the world; make yourself and your home beautiful for his sake; play and sing (if you can) to please him; try to beguile him from his cares; retain his affections in the same way you won them, and—be polite even to your husband.

Hospitality takes a high rank among the social virtues; but we fear it is not held in so high esteem as formerly. Its duties are often fatiguing and irksome, no doubt, and sometimes quite unnecessarily so. One of the most important maxims of hospitality is, "Let your guests alone!" If it were generally observed it would save both hosts and visitors a world of trouble. Your first object should be to make your guests feel at home. This they never can do while your needless bustle and obtrusive attentions constantly remind them that they are not at home, and perhaps make them wish they were.

You will not, of course, understand us to mean that you should devote no attention to your guests. On the contrary, you should assiduously labor to promote their comfort and enjoyment, opening to them every source of entertainment within your reach; but it should be done in that easy, delicate, considerate way which will make it seem a matter of course, and no trouble whatever to you. You should not seem to be conferring but receiving a favor.

Begging your visitors to "make themselves at home," does not give them the home feeling. Genuine, unaffected friendliness, and an unobtrusive and almost unperceived attention to their wants alone will impart this. Allow their presence to interfere as little as possible with your domestic arrangements; thus letting them see that their visit does not disturb you, but that they fall, as it were, naturally into a vacant place in your household.

Observe your own feelings when you happen to be the guest of a person who, though he may be very much your friend, and really glad to see you, seems not to know what to do either with you or himself; and again, when in the house of another, you feel as much at ease as in your own. Mark the difference, more easily felt than described, between the manners of the two, and deduce therefrom a lesson for your own improvement.

Furnish your rooms and table for your guests in as good style as your means and the circumstances of the case will permit, and make no fuss about it. To be unnecessarily sparing shows meanness, and to be extravagantly profuse is absurd as well an ruinous. Probably your visitors know whether your income is large or small and if they do not they will soon learn, on that point, all that it is necessary for them to know. But if any circumstance out of the ordinary course of things should render an apology necessary, make it at once and say no more about it.

Avoid by all means the very common but very foolish habit of depreciating your own rooms, furniture, or viands, and expressing uncalled-for regrets that you have nothing better to offer, merely to give your guests an opportunity politely to contradict you. But you need not go to the other extreme and extol the meats you set before them. Say nothing about these matters.

When visitors show any intention of leaving, you will of course express the desire you feel to have them stay longer, but good manners do not require you to endeavor to retain them against their wishes or sense of duty. It is to be supposed that they know their own affairs best.

Guests sometimes forget (if they ever learned) that they have any duties. We beg leave to jog their memory with the following hints from the graceful pen of "Mrs. Manners:"

"To accommodate yourself to the habits and rules of the family, in regard to hours of rising or retiring, and particularly the hours for meals, is the first duty of a guest. Inform yourself as soon as possible when the meals occur—whether there will be a dressing-bell—at what time they meet for prayers, and thus become acquainted with all the family regulations. It is always the better way for a family to adhere strictly to all their usual habits; it is a much simpler matter for one to learn to conform to those than for half a dozen to be thrown out of a routine, which may be almost indispensable to the fulfillment of their importunate duties. It certainly must promote the happiness of any reasonable person to know that his presence is no restraint and no inconvenience.

"Your own good sense and delicacy will teach you the desirability of keeping your room tidy, and your articles of dress and toilet as much in order as possible. If there is a deficiency of servants, a lady will certainly not hesitate to make her own bed, and to do for herself as much as possible, and for the family all that is in her power. I never saw an elegant lady of my acquaintance appear to better advantage than when once performing a service which, under other circumstances, might have been considered menial; yet, in her own house, she was surrounded by servants, and certainly she never used a broom or made a bed a her life."

We are all dependent, in one way or another, upon others. At one time we serve, at another we are served, and we are equally worthy of honor and respect in the one case as in the other. The man or the woman who serves us may or may not be our inferior in natural capacity, learning, manners, or wealth. Be this as it may, the relation in which we stand to him or her gives us no right beyond the exaction of the service stipulated or implied in that relation. The right to tyrannize over our inferiors in social position, to unnecessarily humiliate them, or to be rude and unkind can not exist, because it would be an infringement of other rights. Servants have rights as well as those whom they serve, and the latter have duties as well as the former. We owe those who labor for us something more than their wages. They have claims on us for a full recognition of their manhood or womanhood, and all the rights which grow out of that state.

The true gentleman is never arrogant, or overbearing, or rude to domestics or employées. His commands are requests, and all services, no