POLITENESS | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 14, 1892

POLITENESS.

“NEW YORKERS are in too great haste to be polite,” said a gentleman one day. “They have not time in these bustling, hurrying days of competition, and the eager rush to be rich, for the courtly gallantry of days gone by. The gracious manner, the deference, the ceremony of the Southern man is seldom practiced by anybody at the North. It takes time to be polite.”

“More’s the pity then!” rejoined a lady. “We have only one life to live, and we ought not to sacrifice every sweet thing in it to the one frantic endeavor to accumulate money.”

“Not money making alone, madam,” said her friend, “but the mere effort to keep in line, to keep one’s position, crucifies the instinct to politeness. Else, why do we, the stronger sex, habitually seize upon the seats in the ladies’ cabin of the ferry boats, while gray-haired matrons and delicate girls stand wearily in sight? Why is a man singular who now rises and offers a seat in a street car to a woman? Why do men keep their hats on in places of business when talking to women? Why do boys let their mothers carry bundles and bags? Why do young men forget to rise when ladies enter the parlor? Why”—

“My dear sir,” interrupted the lady, “you must see that our sex, not yours, is to blame. We mothers have the early training of the boys in our own hands. A mother said to me the other day that she dropped the book she was reading on the floor by accident, and two of her sons, lads of twelve and fourteen, sprang to pick it up and restore it to her. Before either could reach it, she picked it up herself.

“‘Mamma,’ said John, in grave remonstrance, ‘you won’t let us be polite to you when we try to.’”

Is it not true that mothers fail to demand and accept attentions to which they have a right?

And do they always show politeness themselves?

Who has not seen mother forget to say “thank you” in the right place, forget to acknowledge the motive when the act has perhaps been blundering? When politeness is again the rule of everyday life in the everyday home, New Yorkers and others, too, will find time to be polite.

Never economize politeness. To be courteous is a divine injunction. Courtesy should flavor every act of the most ordinary day. Its practice would invest life with beauty and sweetness, would garland the rough places and soften the hard, and be a soothing balm to the sensitive spirit so often needlessly wounded.—Christian Intelligencer.