TRUE POLITENESS by Lizzie M. Whittlesey

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 6, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 39.

TRUE POLITENESS.

By Lizzie M. Whittlesey

"Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous."

I think if we had ever felt any doubts as to the divine inspiration of the Bible, they would be dissipated by these words. For it is not human nature to "be of the same mind." As Mrs. Whitney says, "We are constantly meeting people who pride themselves they can make up their minds, even if they make them up in a hard knot to throw at your head." If two persons meet who are each thus constituted, the catch and toss is apt to prove a mental and conversational gymnastic not always insuring spiritual vigor.

Did you ever hear a piano tortured by the unskillful fingers of a child? How the ear shrinks from the discordant tones thus relentlessly drawn from the suffering instrument! And then some music lover speaks peace to the shivering chords, and to our shuddering nerves, by touching the keys into quiet and bringing therefrom sweet, tender harmony. So into our jangling life come these apostolic words, the truest code of etiquette that was ever written.

It is of the more practical service to us because penned by the hasty, impulsive Peter. He who in his impetuous, ill-timed zeal, cut off the servant's ear in the strange garden scene must have grown wonderfully on the Christ side of his nature, to put forth so calmly afterwards, "Be pitiful, be courteous."

When we come to think of it, the root of true politeness is always sympathy. That bright, gay girl from whose voluble tongue you shrink as from a barbed arrow, who makes her cruel, heartless speeches concerning this one's dress and that one's manner, gets the acid for her conversational melange from her unsympathy with the great human family.

"Courtesy," someone has recently said, "is the sugar that sweetens the lemonade of life." And courtesy here does not mean a slavish conformity to the latest points of Mrs. Grundy, but it is the sweet outgrowth of unselfish heart culture. I wish there might be a special course in this branch of morals in every school and college of our land. It is needed by every girl in every possible position.

Geometry and the languages may not be of practical use to the girl who is suddenly left an orphan and obliged to make dresses for a living. But what success can she have if she be lacking in the ready smile, the gentle touch, the well-turned sentence that springs from trained kindliness of heart?

I once had the misfortune to know a young lady who was well equipped for society, but for the absence of a well-ordered mind and manner. Bright, vivacious, handsome, she won hearts only to break them, until by some odd caprice of fate—we can hardly call it Providence—she, while still a school-girl, assumed the exacting position of a minister's wife.

Her attractive face made quick friendships, but her sharp tongue and constant impoliteness as quickly unmade them. Her long-suffering husband has many parish trials, but none greater than those springing from his girl-wife's hostility to even civility of manner.

Whatever advantages we may have missed, girls, we can all cultivate the sweet home plant of winsome politeness, for in every place it is worth more than wealth or beauty, and is second only to an intelligent, well-balanced mind.

We are apt to make politeness an adjustable thing, subject to the manner of others. If Sue didn't invite us to her last tennis party, we propose to show our wounded dignity by cutting her at our next chance meeting. Society rather indorses this action. "It is really the only thing that can be done under the circumstances, and of course one must show proper resentment," chorus her devotees. But is that sort of silly "paying back" true politeness? Does it betoken a level head or a rightly balanced heart to be unladylike simply because someone else is? It is not to be even thought of by girls who professedly know "a more excellent way."

If life were a bundle of opportunities for high and conspicuous doing, we might—though I doubt it—spend the "off time" in noticing petty slights and "catching up" with old grudges.

But, as I take it, life—especially feminine life—is made up of the trivial happenings of each sixty minutes. Every day has its morning for breakfast, reading the papers, washing dishes, baking, getting and eating dinner. Its afternoon brings reading, sewing, driving, making or receiving calls, and the worth and meaning of these things is gauged by the presence or absence of true politeness.

Suppose through some misrepresentation Maud thinks we failed in duty at that last lawn party, and gives us a rather rough and jagged "piece of her mind"? Human nature, and what we are pleased to term our "sense of justice," prompts us to sharp retort or sullen silence. Girls, it is a fact that we show a truer dignity of character by either laughing off the matter as a joke at our expense, or, if there has been an inadvertence on our part, honestly explaining it. This is the season for picnics and tennis courts and outdoor church fairs. Let us make it our study to steer clear of the shoals of criticism, and the back-water of jealousy. I know that half-veiled glances of scorn and sly nudges of malicious contempt are rather looked for at these trial times, where God doesn't need martyrs, but there are committees instead! Disappoint the expectation. Yielding is one of the prime factors of politeness. It doesn't matter much whether you or Fannie display the larger number of flowers at the fancy table, but it does matter whether you keep cool when she robs you of half for herself!

Let us show our sense and breeding by a steady good-humor that will not be snubbed down, and we will as surely win the day as did the sunshine against Boreas in the good old fable.

True politeness doesn't veer with the wind of public opinion, or get scorched in the hot breath of prosperity, but grows in all soils, and blossoms in all atmospheres—fragrant in either praise or blame. It is our safest guard in all intercourse, preventing prudishness on the one hand, or undue familiarity on the other, helping us to say and do the right thing at the right time, keeping us from introducing unfortunate subjects and making personal allusions. In short, it makes the crooked ways straight and the rough places plain, and will make every wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose.

Its essence is unselfishness, and its only perfect exemplar is the Lord Jesus Christ. What truer courtesy than his refusal to send the multitude fasting away, or his gracious service at the Cana marriage party? And is there any irreverence in taking that life as our highest standard of true politeness?—Lizzie M. Whittlesey, in Christian at Work.