Courtesy at Home | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1879

Courtesy at Home.

By courtesy at home we do not mean the courtesy which is shown at home to guests, but that which is exhibited to the inmates of home in every-day life. It is not a pleasant trait in people's characters that they should treat their acquaintances with less and less deference as they become more and more familiar with them, increasing their discourtesy in proportion to the increase of their intimacy; but unfortunately this is too commonly the case. It is usually assumed that a true gentleman is always courteous at home, but this assumption can only be accepted with certain reservations. We have known men perfectly unimpeachable in the matters of education, culture, and refinement, whose manners, though most charming on first acquaintance, relapse on intimacy into absolute unpleasantness. We admit that nobody whose apparent courteousness to strangers is only on the surface, and who thus seems to be that which he is not, can be a perfect gentleman in the highest sense of the word; but taking the expression in its ordinary social acceptance we fear it must be granted that, in the matter of courtesy, a great many gentlemen do occasionally seem to be that which they are not. These refined beings do not perhaps relapse into absolute rudeness among their relatives and intimates, but they replace their attractive manners with icy sarcasms, taciturnity, and irritability, which exceeds the border line of courtesy. They seem to take a pleasure in demonstrating the unhappy fact that the refinement of the agreeable has its counterpart in the refinement of the disagreeable.

In these days it is unfortunately true that, even in the highest society, there is too little courtesy either at home or away from it. In our opinion, the best test of the difference between courtesy and humbug, will be found in the observation of home-life. Humbug will assume the form of courtesy, but it cannot stand the strain of continual use; whereas true courtesy becomes more developed by constant habit, and thrives best in its native soil. People often confuse courtesy with humbug, because they imagine that it necessarily implies personal esteem and respect. Where therefore, they observe a deferential manner in the absence of personal esteem and respect, they immediately suspect humbug.

Then there are persons who are so utterly devoid of any innate courtesy, that they are incredulous of its existence in others; and when they meet with it, they mistake it for humbug. It must be admitted, however, that there are occasions when skepticism is quite legitimate. For instance, when we see ostentatious displays of affection and respect on the part of husbands toward their wives, or parents toward their children, in public, we are apt to form our own opinion of their private life, shrewdly suspecting that this profusion of good things is not an every day affair. To treat your children like servants or retrievers, whose highest duty is to fetch and carry is not the surest means of indoctrinating them with the virtue of courtesy. It may be considered a superannuated idea that husbands and wives ought to treat each other with any semblance of ceremony; but we are old-fashioned enough to fancy that the opposite tendency is carried rather to an excess just at present. It may be prejudice to think that there can possibly be anything objectionable in smoking cigarettes in ladies' drawing-rooms and boudoirs, but there always will be some people who lag behind their times.

Among brothers and sisters a little harmless banter is perfectly admissible, and even, perhaps, desirable; but a family whose members are always snapping at each other, in the style at present approved as clever, both in fiction and reality, can scarcely be upheld as a model of courtesy at home. Both among brothers and sisters, and husbands and wives, a great deal of talk, which begins with chaff, ends in rudeness. In society, conventional politeness sets certain limits to repartee, but at home there are no such barriers. In private life, when the more refined weapons of conversational dispute fail, the combatants are apt to resort to vulgar personal abuse. Servants could sometimes tell curious stories about the courtesy of their employers at home, or rather their want of it. There are ladies renowned for their charming manners in society, who use their maids as safety valves for innate rudeness which they contrive to repress and conceal in public. Doubtless they are hurt when, in dressing their heads, their maids drag the hair with the brush! but that is no excuse for pretty mouths permitting ugly words to escape from them. The master may be very fond of his horse, but after speaking to it in tones of the gentlest affection, it is scarcely the sign of a gentleman to swear at the groom because his stirrup leathers are too short.

Courtesy at home, like other virtues, cannot be practiced too constantly, or be too well fortified by undeviating habit. Even when a man is alone, it is not well to throw aside too freely the restraints and observance of social usage. We do not hesitate to say that no one can, when alone, discard all customary forms and ceremonies in dress, meals, or the like, without incurring danger and self-degradation. A man who neglects his toilet when he is going to spend the evening in his own society, is decidedly wanting in self-respect, and the bachelor who only makes his rooms comfortable and attractive when he expects visitors, must be pronounced unworthy of promotion to the more dignified state of life to which all bachelors presumably aspire.—Sel.