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MANNERS.

BY T. T. MUNGER.'

IF truth is the foundation and kindness is the superstructure of the gentleman, honor is his atmosphere-a hard thing to define, but a very real thing as we see it, or the lack of it. It is akin to truth, but is more-its aroma, its flower, its soul. It is that which makes a 5 gentleman's word as good as his bond. We get its exact meaning when it is used in connection with female virtue. It may be defined as an exquisite and imperative self-respect. Honor is an absolute and ultimate thing. It knows nothing of abatement, or change, or 10 degree. It governs with a noble and inexorable necessity. The man of honor dies sooner than break its lightest behest. To those who do not know it it is less than the summer cloud; to those who have it adamant is not so solid. The man of honor may be trusted 15 to the uttermost; he does not know temptation. It is a mail that prevents even the aiming of arrows. Charles Sumner thought there was but little bribery in Washington; he had never seen anything of it. The man of honor has no price. Mr. Smiles,' in one of his 20 admirable books, says that Wellington' was once offered half a million for a state secret not of any special value to the Government, but the keeping of which was a matter of honor. "It appears you are capable of keeping a secret," he said to the official. "Certainly," he replied. "5 "Then so am I," said the general, and bowed him out.

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Honor is offended even at the thought of its violation. It is the poetry of noble manhood,—

"That away,

Men are but gilded loam or painted clay."

Unhappy is he who comes to years of manhood and finds it weak and dull; unhappier still is he who has lost it by some deliberate act. He can never again be quite the same man. Tarnished honor in man or woman is the one stain that cannot be washed out. The best word upon it in all literature, I think, is in that fine poem 10 of Burns's, "Epistle to a Young Friend:"_

"But where ye feel your honor grip,

Let that aye be your border;

Its slightest touches, instant pause;
Debar a' side pretences,

And resolutely keeps its laws,
Uncaring consequences."

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We put next delicacy-fineness of fiber. It is made up of quick perception and fine feeling. It leads one to see instantly the line beyond which he may not go; to 20 detect the boundary between friendliness and familiarity, between earnestness and heat, between sincerity and intolerance in pressing your convictions, between style and fussiness, between deference and its excess. It is the critic and mentor of the gentlemanly character. It tells 25 him what is coarse and unseemly and rude and excessive. It warns him away from all doubtful acts and persons. It gives little or no reason-it is too fine for analysis and logical process-but acts like a divine instinct, and is to be heeded as divine. A man may be good without 30 it, but he will lack a nameless grace; he will fail of highest respect; he will miss the best companionship; he will make blunders that hurt him without his knowing why; he will feel a reproach that he cannot under

stand. It is this quality more than any other that draws the line in all rational society.... It is this quality that decides matters of dress, the length and frequency of visits; that discriminates between the shadow and the substance in all matters of etiquette. It determines the nature and number of questions one may ask of another, and sees everywhere and always the invisible boundary that invests personality.

I name next respect and consideration for others-something more than kindness and less ethereal than delicacy, 10 but entering quite as largely and imperatively into the everyday life of the gentleman. You perceive at once that it is of the very nature of our faith-not self, but another. To consider tenderly the feelings, opinions, circumstances, of others—what is this but Christian?

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There is one respect in which our Anglo-Saxon race -especially when the Norman' strain is thin-is simply brutal in its manners, namely, its treatment of the ludicrous when it involves pain. A mistake, a peculiarity, an accident, often involves a ludicrous element, but it is 20 well to remember that a sense of the ludicrous is not the loftiest of emotions. The simple question in such cases is not, How does the looker-on feel? but, How does the other person feel? The word vulgar will not often be found in these pages, but we would like to gather up all 25 the meaning and emphasis lodged in it and pour them upon this habit of inconsiderate laughter at the misfortunes of others.

The great historical illustration of this grace of consideration, never to be passed by, is that of Sidney," at a the battle of Zutphen, handing the cup of water, for which he longed with dying thirst, to the wounded soldier beside him: "He needs it more than I."

"How far that little candle throws his beams!"

Like it is the incident of Sir Ralph Abercrombie"-told by Smiles-who, when mortally wounded, found under his head the blanket of a private soldier. "Whose blanket is this?" "Duncan Roy's." "See that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night," said Sir Ralph, and died, without its comfort. Mr. Smiles gives another fine instance of this divine grace, all the better for its spontaneity. Two English navvies" in Paris saw one rainy day a hearse, with its burden, winding along the streets unattended by a single mourner. Falling in behind, they followed it to the cemetery. It was only sentiment, but it was fine and true. Such sentiment leads a captain to go down with his ship; the fireman to pass through flame; the soldier to go on the forlorn hope. When spontaneous, it shows that our nature is sound at 15 the core; when wrought into a conscious habit, it reveals the divine glory that every life may take on.

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One imbued with this high quality never sees personal deformity or blemish. A lame man could easily classify his friends as to their breeding by drawing a 20 line between those who ask how it happened and those who refrain from all question. I say distinctly, the gentleman never sees deformity. He will not talk to a beggar of his rags, nor boast of his health before the sick, nor speak of his wealth among the poor; he will 25 not seem to be fortunate among the hapless, nor make any show of his virtue before the vicious. He will avoid all painful contrast, always looking at the thing in question from the standpoint of the other person.

The gentleman is largely dowered with forbearance. The preacher will not dogmatize nor indulge in personalities since his audience has no chance to reply. The lawyer will not browbeat the witness-no, not even to win his case-if he is a gentleman. The physician is as

delicate as purity itself, and as secretive as the grave. There is no finer touchstone" of the gentleman than the forbearing use of power or advantage over another: the employer to his men, the husband to his wife, the creditor to his debtor, the rich to the poor, the educated to the ignorant, the teacher to pupils, the prosperous to the unfortunate.

"Oh, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.".

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... If one is centrally true, kind, honorable, delicate, and considerate, he will almost without fail have manners that will take him into any circle where culture and taste prevail over folly. Still this inward seed needs training. It should levy on all graceful forms, on prac-15 tice and discipline, on observation, on fashion even, and make them subserve its native grace. Watch those of excellent reputation in manners. Keep your eyes open when you go to the metropolis, and learn its grace; or, if you live in the city, when you go to the country, 20 mark the higher quality of simplicity. Catch the temper of the great masters of literature: the nobility of Scott, the sincerity of Thackeray, the heartiness of Dickens, the tenderness of Macdonald, the delicacy of Tennyson, the grace of Longfellow, the repose of Shakespeare. „

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Manners in this high sense and so learned take one far on in the world. They are irresistible. If you meet the king he will recognize you as a brother. They are a defence against insult. All doors fly open when he who bears them approaches. They cannot be bought. 30 They cannot be learned as from a book; they cannot pass from lip to lip; they come from within, and from a within that is grounded in truth, honor, delicacy, kindness, and consideration."

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