POLITENESS AND ETIQUETTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17294, 18 October 1919, Page 4 (Supplement)

POLITENESS AND ETIQUETTE.

It is not the chief end in life to art " according to the card," as Hamlet says; but it is to be honest, gentle, good, brave cheerful, and manly (or womanly, as the case may be). Lady Slylove, or the Honourable Mrs. Fauxpas, may laugh at awkwardness, and may sneer if a man does not handle his hat well, or omits a morning call at the proper time; but it may be that in the end they, foolish people, will get laughed at for their nonsense. As a man may be wise without learning, so one may be polite without etiquette: true politeness arises from the heart, not the liead. A man who, in the popular phrase, is said to be a gentleman when he likes, seldom is a gentleman at all : but simply a fellow with some artificial polish on him, which he rubs up. as one does furniture, when one's friends call. To show no vulgar surprise, to laugh or to smile within reason and in the right place, to use one's knife and fork at dinner gracefully, to speak gently and kindly, and to act with case and naturalness is the sum and substance of etiquette. It is by striving to be more than we are, by giving 0111sclves airs, by assuming more knowledge than we have, and by a vast deal of nonsensical pretence, that we render ourselves contemptible and ridiculous: for such people, perhaps, the rules of etiquette may be useful.