two terms are synonymous, must protect them
selves by not calling that a dollar which is not a
dollar, and by making every dollar worth every
other dollar, including the gold dollars. ** *
MANNERS AND DRAINS.
The scorn for manners and conventionalities
manifested by a large contingent among our intel
lectual men and women is one of the unfortunate
features of society as it is now constituted.
“I know that is the way they do it, but what do
1 care? I’m not going to put myself out !” an
grily exclaimed a distinguished author when he
was urged to adept a certain style of dress for an
evening entertainment. He carried out his threat
and was consequently a conspicuous and ridiculed
figure—ridiculed by stupid, well-dressed nonenti
ties, who were as inferior to him, in all that goes
to make a man, as an ape is to a scholar. He al
most illustrated Emerson’s saying, “Dress should
reveal the spirit.” There are men who are so
brutally wilful and indifferent to civilization that
they remind one of the veldt, the dhow, and the
kraal. They ought to go about, with their faces
smeared with woad, in skins of wild animals, with
a bone club on their shoulders, and a sword of
shark tooth, beating drums offish-skin.”
Some writer has remarked “that there is
nothing more painful than the sight of a gifted
man under obligations to a fool.” It is almost as
painful to see a gifted man wantonly and need
lessly making himself sport for a group of idle,
silly society moths.
In all our higherinstitutions of learning more at
tention than there used to be is paid to the forma
tion of easy manners among the pupils. No stud
ent of history can undervalue the power of fine
manners. From the earliest dawn of civilization,
the ruling caste has been the well-mannered caste.
Tney were well-mannered, largely because they
ruled also, but the fact remains that they have
been well mannered. The proud old kings and
barons of feudal times, though they despised
THE FREE LANCE.
learning, and considered it fit only for “louts,”
as one of their most famous representatives once
said, still taught their children the courtly cus
toms of the day ; to bow gracefully, to enter a
room with dignity, to practice the forms of ad
dress to be used in approaching all classes whom
they are likely to meet, and the primitive table
etiquette of the forkless castle. “The gentle man
ners” of the great have always been the outward
sign and symbol of their greatness. Monarchs of
“ye olden time” had little enough of re
spect for any sort of an unseen power, like learn
ing and saintliness, and comprehended not the
value of men who could not bear themselves ac
cording to the the standards of the courts. Man
ners and address, on the other hand, as now, float
ed the veriest knaves. As Emerson says again,
“No man can resist their influence. Manners
make.the.fortune of the ambitious youth ; for the
most part, his manners marry him and he marries
manners.”
Possibly this astute thinker has defined, as well
as one may, the essentials of good manners. They
are, first, self-reliance or self-possession; second
the absence of haste.
It is only in leisure that manners can be brought
to the pitch of art; but in any well-ordered home,
however humble, much may be accomplished in
this direction by constant insistence upon the ob
servance of the best known rules for outward con
duct and by dwelling upon the importance of cul
tured manners when the morals and the mind are
under training. Every opportunity should be
seized for imparting to children ease and natural
ness of bearing in company. The conductors of
all kinds of institutions of learning should see to
it that a certain ceremony is scrupulously kept
up during all of their receptions and parties. It
is possible always to tell how much the intellect
or the heart is profiting by instruction. Progress
made in the culture of the manners, on the other
hand, can be gauged by the commonest observer.
It is true that the very finest kind of manners can
not exist without the highest development of the