GOOD MANNERS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 31, Issue 44, 31 October 1907, Page 38

GOOD MANNERS

Writing upon good manners, Emerson remarked : ' Manners are the happy ways of doing thing's, each one a stroke of genius ox of love, now repeated and hardened into usage, they form at last a rich varnish with which the routine of life is washed and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dewdrops which give such a depth to the morning meadows. Manners are very communicable ; men catch them from each other. No man can resist their influence. There are certain manners which are learned in good society of that force that if a person have them he or she must be considered and is everywhere welcome, though " without beauty or wealth or genius. Give a boy address and accomplishments, and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes. He has not Jbhe trouble of earning or of owning them ; they solicit him to enter and possess.'