Kind nature's are the best; those next to bestIt is possible, in other words, to have better manners than those of the merely great, by having a surer foundation. Why not strike for the best? Self-respect, self-control, kind feeling, refined habits-these are the basis. If, in addition to these, one happens to inherit an agreeable voice and a good intonation, what more is essential? The trivialities of spoons and napkins are easily enough acquired. I have sat at table with a Pueblo Indian chief, introduced for the first time to silver forks, who handled those and all other implements with an awkwardness so dignified and delicate
That fit us like a nature second-hand,
Which are indeed the manners of the great.
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of a guardsman.
In the same way Lady Eastlake describes Motley's visible annoyance at being constantly addressed as “Milord” at German hotels; and I knew a Boston lady, going abroad for the first time after middle life, who was identified for her husband by the Suisse at a crowded cathedral, where they had got separated, as “the lady with a grand air.”
What we all need to teach our children is that manners are not a matter of veneering, but ingrain.
In Tennyson's phrase:
New York, Harper and Brothers, 1897.
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