Excerpt from Perfect Etiquette: Or, How to Behave in Society, a Complete Manual for Ladies and Gentlemen
Civility and good breeding arc necessary to success in life. Politeness never costs anything, and as nothing is ever lost by it, is it not well to cultivate it ? It is safe to say, that the person possessing those virtues, are not only welcome in all society, but they can rest assured that life with them will not be a failure.
Good breeding, like charity, not only covers a multitude of faults, but to a certain degree supplies the want of some virtues. In every-day life it acts good nature, and often does what good nature will not always do: it keeps both wits and fools within the bounds of decency, which the former arc too apt to transgress, and which the latter never know.
Good breeding implies politeness; but the latter does not imply the former, as good breeding has its weight and value, which politeness adorns and doubles by its workmanship.
Unfortunately, good breeding has not reached what may be called perfection yet; but where the real gentleman or lady arc met with, those two requisites of every-day life will be found as natural as water springing from a well.
We may be asked to define the words, gentleman and lady, and will now proceed to do so according to our way of thinking.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Perfect Etiquette