第43章

[My reflection.Oh! oh! no wonder you did n't get married.Served you right.] My remark.Surely, Madam,--if you mean by flattery telling people boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they are not.But a woman who does not carry about with her wherever she goes a halo of good feeling and desire to make everybody contented,--an atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her presence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she is rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble of talking to, as a woman; she may do well enough to hold discussions with.

--I don't think the Model exactly liked this.She said,--a little spitefully, I thought,--that a sensible man might stand a little praise, but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of getting much.

Oh, yes,--I replied,--just as men get sick of tobacco.It is notorious how apt they are to get tired of that vegetable.

--That 's so!--said the young fellow John,--I've got tired of my cigars and burnt 'em all up.

I am heartily glad to hear it,--said the Model,--I wish they were all disposed of in the same way.

So do I,--said the young fellow John.

Can't you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odious instruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed your own?

I wish I could,--said the young fellow John.

It would be a noble sacrifice,--said the Model, and every American woman would be grateful to you.Let us burn them all in a heap out in the yard.

That a'n't my way,--said the young fellow John;--I burn 'em one 't'

time,--little end in my mouth and big end outside.

--I watched for the effect of this sudden change of programme, when it should reach the calm stillness of the Model's interior apprehension, as a boy watches for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into a well.But before it had fairly reached the water, poor Iris, who had followed the conversation with a certain interest until it turned this sharp corner, (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us all off, as the locust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorus after it.It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul of this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out of which she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment that swept all before it.

So we had a great laugh all round, in which the Model--who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yet wanted that one little addition of grace, which seems so small, and is as important as the linchpin in trundling over the rough ways of life--had not the tact to join.She seemed to be "stuffy" about it, as the young fellow John said.In fact, I was afraid the joke would have cost us both our new lady-boarders.It had no effect, however, except, perhaps, to hasten the departure of the elder of the two, who could, on the whole, be spared.

--I had meant to make this note of our conversation a text for a few axioms on the matter of breeding.But it so happened, that, exactly at this point of my record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom several of our boarders and myself go to hear, and whom no doubt many of my readers follow habitually, treated this matter of manners.Up to this point, if I have been so fortunate as to coincide with him in opinion, and so unfortunate as to try to express what he has more felicitously said, nobody is to blame; for what has been given thus far was all written before the lecture was delivered.But what shall I do now? He told us it was childish to lay down rules for deportment,--but he could not help laying down a few.

Thus,--Nothing so vulgar as to be in a hurry.True, but hard of application.People with short legs step quickly, because legs are pendulums, and swing more times in a minute the shorter they are.

Generally a natural rhythm runs through the whole organization:

quick pulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, rapid trains of thought, excitable temper.Stillness of person and steadiness of features are signal marks of good-breeding.Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, at least, they must work their limbs or features.

Talking of one's own ails and grievances.--Bad enough, but not so bad as insulting the person you talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, or appealing to notice any of his personal peculiarities.

Apologizing.--A very desperate habit,--one that is rarely cured.

Apology is only egotism wrong side out.Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology.It is mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so much consequence that you must make a talk about them.

Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and eyes that do not wander,--shyness of personalities, except in certain intimate communions,--to be light in hand in conversation, to have ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them,--to belong to the company you are in, and not to yourself,--to have nothing in your dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies, throughout your person and--dwelling: I should say that this was a fair capital of manners to begin with.