HOW TO BE GENTEEL.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1846, 2 December 1874, Page 3

HOW TO BE GENTEEL.

1. Do no manner of useful work that you can afford to leave undone; for work is the necessity of the vulgar, and idleness the privilege of the supremely genteel. 2. If you cannot afford to keep, this law of idleness, enforce it with double severity on your wives, and especially your daughters, for in their case work is not only ungenteel; it is also unfeminine. 3. The third precept is addressed, I was going to say to women, forgetting that in the realms of gentility there are no women, only ladies. It runs thus:— If you would be genteel, be—or at least ■eem to be —weak and helpless, requiring service from all and doing none to "any. Be ornamental if you can j but beware of being useful. The next two precepts are general, and apply to both sexes ; the fourth says:— 11 Do in all things as your neighbours do who are above you in rank and fortune ; they who depart one jot or one tittle from this law shall not enter into the kingdom of gentility." Last and most important is this:— "Fret not yourselves about what you are, only about what you seem. Cleanse and gild the outside of the platter; this is what gentility requires of you. You may attend to the inside on Sundays, for it is without doubt genteel to go to church, provided always that you go as well dressed as your richer neighbours."— Fraser. _____^