Nathan Dane Urner

“ Remember that self-respect is as much of a virtue as respect for others. 44
Never be self-conscious. Guzzle quietly, and let others take care of themselves.
Never, on the other hand, push self-depreciation to the wall. Never lose sight of the fact that, while you are a gentleman, you are also an American sovereign feasting at some one else’s expense. All sovereigns do that.
Never, if called upon for a toast, be afraid to pledge yourself. It you don’t blow your own trumpet, who will blow it for you?
Never use your fork for a tooth-pick, nor the edge of the table-cloth for a napkin. ”

“ Stop, howsoever tempted, at the allurements of roguery, embezzlement, rascality, and satanic suggestions of every description. If you must be a cutpurse let it be on the broad highway, pistol in hand, dime-novel at heart, and the gallows in sight.
Stop, if contemplating a political career, and distinctly settle this question in your mind: Am I to boss the party, or is the party to boss me? There is nothing like avoiding a confusion of ideas. ”

“ Nothing is more incongruous than a fine gentleman, in other respects quite the swell, with his foot-leather burst out around the instep, his stocking heels wabbling up and down at every jump, and his bare toes courting the public gaze. ”

“ Stop on the threshold of gambling of every description, and, if already in the 51 toils, shut down on the practice with all the ponderosity at your command.
Stop, moreover, and understand that gambling—the worship of chance—is death to the soul, to faith in human nature, to man’s nobler attributes. In this regard, it is more literally demoralizing than alcoholic drunkenness; and there is yet to be found the veteran professional gambler who is not a materialistic atheist.
Stop, once more, and remember that every man who will play cards for money, will in time, cheat. ”

“ Never enter a crowded auditorium with your thumbs in the arm-holes of your waistcoat, head thrown back, chin in air, and the stub of a cigar between the teeth. Self-consciousness may be pushed to an extreme.
Never lunch between acts, in full view of audience, on cheap sandwiches, peanuts and ginger-beer, even if you have missed your supper. ”

“ Stop, first, and understand the value of money—the importance of never being without some money, even if a very little.
Stop, next, and understand that money is nothing in itself alone, but valuable and powerful only in what it will purchase and can purchase. A pure love of it for itself, and not for what it represents, develops a loathsome disease—the disease of miserliness.
Stop short of envying the rich, even if penniless yourself. A philosophical reflection as to the causes of your bad 40 fortune, together with a resolve to mend it by a more enlightened course, is your only remedy. ”

“ Never gorge at a luncheon, as if there were never to be a dinner-hour. A gentleman is never supposed to be ravenous.
Never indiscriminately mix your liquors at this hour. A little whisky or brandy as an appetizer, with not more than four 32 varieties of wine while eating, and topping off with a few mugs of beer, should be quite satisfying.
Never, if at a fashionable collation, discuss business, politics or abstruse scientific problems with the fair creatures present. Sink the shop, if only for ten minutes.
Never jocosely give wrong names to well-known dishes before you. ”

“ As the alcoholic habit has been likened to an enchantress, a circean witch, so the opium habit is a dream-woman, the sorceress of a phantom 69 realm, elysian at first, but changing at last into a horror-haunted sphere that appals the spirit while it tortures and consumes the frame.
Stop before applying yourself to excessive gymnastics as a relaxation, if a horse-car conductor or a letter-carrier. Variety is the spice of life. ”

“ A lady’s parlor is not a bear-garden.
Never, on the other hand, be cowering and sniveling, as though desirous of some one to kick you as a boon. In deportment, the demeanor of the rabbit is no more to be emulated than that of the famished wolf. ”

“ Stop on the threshold of a temptation to distort the truth. Plausibility in lying is an art in which but few can earn distinction.
Stop before disputing a fact, however distasteful, that can be proved by statistical evidence. Figures are not apt to lie, save on gas-metres.
Stop before adhering to an error through a mistaken sense of shame. “Who acknowledgeth his error showeth an increase of wisdom; who stubbornly adhereth 25 to what hath been disproved confesseth himself a fool.”
Stop short of the conceit that irresistibility with the fair sex depends on good-looks alone. ”

“ Never loudly discuss politics, divorce suits or ministerial scandals at the theater or at a concert when the performance is going on. If speech is silver and silence golden, discussion at such times is metallic to annoyance. ”

“ Stop short of thinking that marriage and settlement in life can acquit you of the tenderness and reverence due your parents, even if they are well-to-do. It is a moral obligation which, contracted at your birth, should cease not even with their death, but live on and on, an evergreen of the memory, an amaranth of the heart. ”

“ Never, if suddenly confronted on the promenade by a hostile acquaintance, accept his proposition to fight him in the gutter for a pot of beer. You are not a Prize Fighter.
Never forget to pick up a lady’s handkerchief, if she lets it fall by accident; not with effusive familiarity, but daintily on the end of your cane or umbrella. Common civility is one of the cardinal points of good breeding. ”

“ Stop, rather, and fortify your uprightness on the broad grounds, “that honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom; since however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off.” ”

“ Never pose on street corners, attitudinize before show-case mirrors, or whistle an opera bouffe air while watching a funeral cortege.
Never, if with a lady, ask her to wait for you on the curb while you step into an adjacent bar-room to see a man. The ruse is a transparent one, and, moreover, she may be thirsty herself. ”

“ Stop on the verge of suicidal despair as a result of your first lovers’ quarrel. This is but the pepper-sauce of passion, the curry of courtship, the horse-radish of happiness, without which that crowning reflection, the kiss-gilt, teardrop-rainbowed making-up were banished forever from Love’s golden feast!
Stop, in a general way, before making love for the fun of the thing. There is no meaner, more reptilian creature in society than the professional male flirt.
Stop before yielding an iota to the allurements 38 of a notorious coquette. ”

“ Never, in being introduced to a lady, make a pun on her name, if it is a homely one, or jokingly allude to rouge-pots and whited sepulchers, if she is no longer young, with an air of having resorted to preservative aids. Illogical but intuitive, the feminine mind is swift to imagine and resent an innuendo where perhaps none was intended. ”

“ Stop before disclaiming all love for music, or suggesting the banjo or bagpipe as your favorite instrument, should she dote on the opera, sing divinely and be a piano-pounder of no mean ability in her own person. ”

“ Stop long enough in one vocation to give 11 it a fair trial. Jacks-of-all-trades—men who are studying law in the morning, counter-hopping after dinner, peddling soap to-day, starting a bank to-morrow—are seldom successful.
Stop, and ponder deeply, before becoming that pitiable object, a professional office-seeker. Rather sink your independence of thought and action at once by marrying for money, or toadying upon a rich relative. ”

“ Never, if escorting one lady or several, scuffle and bandy oaths with ticket-speculators at a theater-entrance. Cultivate an easy hauteur of manner.
Never, under like environments, offer to bounce the attendant policeman, boots, blue-coat and buttons, if he will only drop his club. Your ladies may object, if the policeman does not.
Never, upon entering, seize an usher by the throat, rub your coupons into his eyes, and loudly demand your seats or 87 his life. A public entertainment is not a rat-baiting.
Never retain your hat and take off your coat and waistcoat at theater or opera. ”

“ Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, if possible, but to make a dead set for the Presidency and bring up as a police-court janitor, or coroner’s assistant, is apt to prove discouraging.
Stop, even if rich, before entering upon pleasure as a business. Few constitutions can long stand the racket, ennui is the result, and premature death its bourne. ”

“ Even your excuse that you want to borrow your car-fare may not be mollifying, and people have nerves.
Never keep gnawing your mustache, twisting your whiskers into fantastic braids, nor making your hat wag about on your head through muscular contraction of the scalp.
Never crackle your knuckles with sharp reports, grit your teeth, heave deep, wheezing sighs, nor keep running your 84 fingers through your hair till it stands up like a brush-heap. If you imagine one or all of these feats to be uniquely interesting, hire out to a dime museum. ”

“ Stop far short of any indulgence that can affect your general reputation. “The two most precious things this side the grave,” says Lacon, “are our reputation and our life; the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, the weakest weapon of the other.” ”

“ Walter Raleigh, the father of tobacco-using, even carried his own cuspidor. 51
Never munch nuts or gorge fruits in public. A lady or gentleman on the afternoon promenade, with a peeled pineapple in one hand, a huge slice of watermelon in the other, and the jaws industriously working, is not an edifying spectacle.
Never forget, if with a lady, that she is under your protection, not you under hers.
Never rush her past an oyster-saloon at a run, or wildly distract her attention from a confectioner’s window. As a woman, she has her privileges. ”

“ Stop before permitting your admiration of an actress, or ballet dancer, to glide into a master passion. Disenchantment, if desired, is mostly within easy reach, and you can console yourself with the reflection that there is far more beauty off the stage than on it.
Stop short of making love at all, if you are not of an affectionate disposition; or, when too late—that is, when married, love will be likely to stop short of you. 39
In Money Matters. ”

“ Apologize, even if you have slumbered on your neighbor’s shoulder, and murmur your excuses even while disappearing under the table. An exponent of high breeding never forgets to be a gentleman under the most adverse circumstances. ”

“ In Recreation. Stop before making a regular business of any form of diversion, which then ceases to be either recreative or relaxing, and but adds to the tissue-waste that should be restored.
Stop, next, and consider that recreation, in its literal and best sense, is something more than relaxation. More than to merely loosen, slacken and remit, to recreate is to revive, reanimate, recuperate and build up afresh. ”

“ Never be so self-conscious as to fancy yourself a cave-bear and other people but field-mice. “True politeness will betray no hoggishness,” as an ancient writer has sagely observed.
Never, especially with your superiors, buttonhole people, or shake your fist in their faces, or pound them in the ribs when you have occasion to address them. This is more appropriate to a horse auction than a drawing-room, and is in violation of good form.
Never lean across one person with your 16 hands on his knees and your back-hair in his face, to talk to another. ”

“ Stop, however, yet shorter of the vulgar, pigheaded notion that money, even by the ton-weight, can be everything without moral or intellectual backing. If this were so, wealth would be more glorious than wisdom, which happily, it is not. ”

“ Never, on the other hand, be so over-civil as to be mistaken for a dancing master or a bunco-steerer.
Never forget that a gentleman is a gentleman everywhere. Even McGilder was occasionally taken for one. ”