The ambiguity of courtesy: Is politeness a genuine virtue or a calculated performance?

“ I should be sorry to overstate its shortcomings, but I wish I might help it to feel its obligations and to fulfil them.
What shall we accept in the ordinary sense of men as politeness? Shall we consider it a mere surface polish—an attitude expressive of deference—corresponding to no inward grace of good feeling? Will you like to live with the person who, in the great world, can put on fine manners, but who, in the retirement of home, manifests the vulgarity of a selfish heart and an undisciplined temper? ”

“ To such men Politeness is like varnish or veneer; scratch them on the surface, or merely rub them the wrong way, and their real nature comes out.
Politeness is an excellent thing when it is joined to genuine kindness of heart. It then becomes Courtesy. Courtesy is Kindness and Politeness joined together and exhibited at all times to all persons, no matter what their rank in life. The man who is kind to his servant, and speaks politely to him at one time, and at another gets into a furious temper and abuses him, has not learned Courtesy. ”

“ If politeness is but a mask, as many philosophers tell us, it is a mask which will win love and admiration, and is better worn than cast aside. If you wear it with the sincere desire to give pleasure to others, and make all the little meetings of life pass off smoothly and agreeably, it will soon cease to be a mask, but you will find that the manner which you at first put on to give pleasure, has become natural to you, and wherever you have{32} assumed a virtue to please others, you will find the virtue becoming habitual and finally natural, and part of yourself. ”

“ Watch a child and when he begins to grow rough you will see an evil spirit looking out of his eyes. It is a mean and bad thing to be ungentle with our own. Politeness is either a true face or a mask. If worn at one place and not at another, which of them is it? ”

“ In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. ”

“ Some one calls politeness "benevolence in trifles, the preference of others to ourselves in little, daily, hourly occurrences in the business of life, a better place, a more commodious seat, priority in being helped at table," etc. ”

“ Politeness has been defined as love in trifles, courtesy as love in little things. In social standing it is another word for a real gentleman. “Gentleman” has been defined as a man who does things gently, with love. In its relation to God it is self-sacrifice. “To be great-hearted, for the love we bear to our Master, and in imitation of Him, is ideal Christianity, for it is the religion of Him whose life and death were self-sacrifice.” Such love lightens the burdens of other lives, sweetens their toils and imparts music with every step. Such love begets love. ”

“ The sacrifice of personal convenience for the accommodation of others; the repression of our egotism and self-esteem; the occasional endurance of whatever is disagreeable or irksome to us through consideration for the infirmities of others, are not only some of the characteristics of true politeness, but are in the very spirit of benevolence, and, we might add, religion.
The English have a rule of etiquette, that if you are introduced to a person of higher position in society than yourself, you must never recognize him when you meet, until you see whether he intends to notice you. ”

“ The quiet and satisfaction of his conscience make him cheerful by day and sleep sound of nights; he can be alone with pleasure and is not afraid of his own thoughts. Besides this, he is esteemed and respected; for even the most wicked people themselves cannot help admiring and respecting virtue in others. A poet says:
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“Ipsa quidem virtus, sibimet pulcherrima merces.”23 Politeness a Necessity.—Know, then, that as learning, honor, and virtue are absolutely necessary to gain you the esteem and admiration of mankind ”

“ Have some decent object of gallantry in view at some places; frequent others, where people of wit and taste assemble; get into others, where people of superior rank and dignity command respect and attention from the rest of the company; but pray frequent no neutral places, from mere idleness and indolence. Nothing forms a young man so much as being used to keep respectable and superior company, where a constant regard and attention is necessary. ”

“ You will instantly perceive—if the preceding remarks be correct—that it is not only your interest to cultivate good manners, as you hereby recommend yourself to the favorable regards of others, but also your duty, as it increases, in no small degree, your means of usefulness. It will give you access to many persons, and give you an influence over those whom you could otherwise never approach ”

“ As for politeness: whoever keeps good company, and is not polite, must have formed a resolution, and take some pains not to be so; otherwise he would naturally and insensibly take the air, the address, and the turn of those he converses with. You will, probably, in the course of this year, see as great a variety of good company in the several capitals you will be at, as in any one year of your life ”

“ What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you. Paris is indisputably the seat of the GRACES; they will even court you, if you are not too coy. Frequent and observe the best companies there, and you will soon be naturalized among them; you will soon find how particularly attentive they are to the correctness and elegance of their language, and to the graces of their enunciation: they would even call the understanding of a man in question, who should neglect or not know the infinite advantages arising from them. ”

“ Adorn yourself with all those graces and accomplishments, which, without solidity, are frivolous; but without which solidity is, to a great degree, useless. Take one man, with a very moderate degree of knowledge, but with a pleasing figure, a prepossessing address, graceful in all that he says and does, polite, ‘liant’, and, in short, adorned with all the lesser talents: and take another man, with sound sense and profound knowledge, but without the above-mentioned advantages ”

“ The motive for politeness should not be the desire to shine, or to raise one's self into society supposed to be better than one's own. The cultivation of good manners is not merely a means to the gratification of personal vanity, but it is a duty we owe not only to other people but to ourselves ”

“ A good house, rich furniture, a fine garden, horses, dogs, ancestors, relations, beauty, strength, excellency in any thing whatever; vices as well as virtue, may all be accessary to make men long for society, in hopes that what they value themselves upon will at one time or other become the theme of the discourse, and give an inward satisfaction to them. Even the most polite people in the world, and such as I spoke of at first, give no pleasure to others that is not repaid to their self-love, and does not at last centre in themselves, let them wind it and turn it as they will. ”

“ Politeness, however, requires that a man should offer his seat to a lady who is less well accommodated; for it would be improper that [p160] he should be seated upon the back seat, while she should be seated upon the front one. Some persons cannot bear the motion of a coach when they ride backwards; and this manner of riding incommodes them extremely. Polite travellers will take pleasure in relieving them from this trouble. Ladies, on their part, ought not to require too much, nor put to too severe a test the complaisance of gentlemen. ”

“ And the whole world will serve you so, if you give them the same cause. Let every one, therefore, see that you do care for them, by showing them, what Sterne so happily calls, "the small, sweet courtesies of life," those courtesies in which there is no parade; whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little, kind acts of attention, giving others the preference in every little enjoyment at the table, in the field, walking, sitting, or standing. ”

“ A truly polite person endeavors to put all at ease around him. If he is learned, in the presence of the unlettered he does not set off his knowledge; if he is better dressed than those around him, he does not direct attention to this fact, but leads to other topics of consideration; if he is handsome, he acts as if he did not know it; if he is of a higher station in life than others who may be present, he still treats all with due attention and kindness. ”

“ A little consideration for the feelings of those whom we are bound to love and cherish, and a little sacrifice of our own wills, would, in multitudes of instances, [148] make all the difference between alienation and growing affection. The principle of genuine politeness would accomplish this; and what a pity it is that those whose only spring of rational enjoyment is to be found at home, should miss that enjoyment by a disregard of little things, which, after all, make up the sum of human existence! ”

“ In fine, that politeness which is the fruit of self-denial and humility no less than of charity and friendship; which is the art of self-restraint and self-conquest, without restraining others; which is the care of avoiding everything that might displease, and doing all that can please, in order to make others content with us and with themselves. ”

“ The woman on a train should never sacrifice the comfort of the people around her for her own. It is exceedingly discourteous to insist upon having a window open, when you know that others around you object, even though they are all men. And it is just as discourteous to accept a seat that a gentleman has kindly relinquished, or to accept any other courtesy, without offering polite thanks. ”

“ Be careful, therefore, to secure your libretto, concert-bill, or programme, as the case may be, before assuming your seat; and when you have ladies with you, or are one of a party, especially, as then you cannot so readily accept the penalty of carelessness, by not returning to your first seat. Should any unforeseen necessity compel you to crowd past others, and afterwards resume your seat, presume as little as possible upon their polite forbearance, by great care of dresses, toes, etc., and each time politely apologize for the inconvenience you occasion. ”

“ Renunciation is not a wholly passive thing; it is not a mere suspicion of all that is joyful, a dull abnegation of happiness. It is not that self-sacrifice means a frame of mind too despondent to enjoy, so fearful of every kind of pleasure that it has not the heart to take part in it. It is rather a vigorous discrimination between pleasure and joy, an austerity which is not deceived by selfish, obvious, apparent pleasure, but sees what sort of pleasure is innocent, [Pg 207] natural, social, and what sort of pleasure is corroding, barren, and unreal. ”

“ To natures cold originally, or extinguished by a false asceticism, many seeming acts of sacrifice are but the subtle indulgence of that curious selfishness which is not the more spiritual because it is independent of others, or the less repulsive because it is most contented in its isolation from every responsibility. A renunciation means the deliberate putting away of something keenly loved, anxiously desired, or actually possessed; it does not mean a well-weighed acceptance of the lesser, rather than the greater, trials of life. ”

“ Sri Yukteswar used to poke gentle fun at the commonly inadequate conceptions of renunciation.
“A beggar cannot renounce wealth,” Master would say. “If a man laments: ‘My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all and enter a monastery,’ to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!”
Saints like Gandhi, on the other hand, have made not only tangible material sacrifices, but also the more difficult renunciation of selfish motive and private goal, merging their inmost being in the stream of humanity as a whole. ”

“ The mere circumstance of there being invariably included in a just or generous action more or less of self-denial, self-restraint, or self-sacrifice, must always sober down the gratification by which virtue is rewarded, and make it appear tame beside the delirium of gladness caused by [Pg 10] many things with which virtue has nothing to do. ”

“ The self is precious on its own account. The non-self, the other, equally so. A virtuous act is one in which the ends of self and of the other are respected and promoted jointly. It is an act which has for its result the more vivid consciousness of this very jointness. Egocentric self-sacrifice errs on the one side, the personality of another being made tributary to the empirical self, despite the actual benefits conferred. Altruistic self-sacrifice errs in the opposite way. In it the personality of the self is effaced or made servile to the interests or supposed interests of another. ”

“ If sacrifice, in its more amiable aspect, can become thanksgiving and an expression of profitable dependence, it can suffer an even nobler transformation while retaining all its austerity. Renunciation is the corner-stone of wisdom, the condition of all genuine achievement. The gods, in asking for a sacrifice, may invite us to give up not a part of our food or of our liberty but the foolish and inordinate part of our wills. ”

“ Now, that which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man—that which constitutes human goodness, human greatness, human nobleness—is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness—it is self-sacrifice—it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantages remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right. ”

“ Conversely, injustice, wickedness, cruelty are signs of the opposite, thus of the deep entanglement in that illusion. Secondly, however, these virtues are a means of advancing self-renunciation, and accordingly the denial of the will to live. For true integrity, inviolable justice, this first and most important of cardinal virtues, is so hard a task that whoever professes it unconditionally and from the bottom of his heart has to make sacrifices that soon deprive life of the sweetness which is demanded to make it enjoyable, and thereby turn away the will from it, thus lead to resignation. ”

“ You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognise the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours. Why should they? When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably. Men seek but one thing in life—their pleasure." ”

“ The truest politeness comes of sincerity. It must be the outcome of the heart, or it will make no lasting impression; for no amount of polish can dispense with truthfulness. The natural character must be allowed to appear, freed of its angularities and asperities. ”

“ He restricts himself for the sake of others, accommodates himself to their tastes, is indulgent where he can be; he praises what is praiseworthy, and knows how to soften a necessary rebuke by sympathy and friendly interest. Cheerful without excess, he is obliging, affable, polite, without cringing; modest with superiors, benign with his equals, and condescending to inferiors.
O the power of love! O holy violence of self-denial.
Shall not such politeness, arising from such motives, and purchased at the price of such sacrifices, bear on its brows the stamp of genuine virtue? ”

“ With respect to what are termed polite manners, without sacrificing too much the sincerity of language, I would wish my countrymen to adopt just so much of European politeness, as to be ready to make all those little sacrifices of self, which really render European manners amiable, and relieve society from the disagreeable scenes to which rudeness often subjects it. Here, it seems that a man might pass a life without encountering a single rudeness. In the pleasures of the table they are far before us, because with good taste they unite temperance. ”