Manners and customs

“ How much more would the publick be benefitted by the remarks of travellers on the manners and customs of countries, would they divest themselves of their prejudices, passions, and partialities, and confine themselves to the relation of simple truths. ”

“ These are, in whole nations, as in individuals, but the conduct, or general system of will and action which necessarily results from their education, their government, their laws, their religious opinions, their wise or foolish institutions. In short, manners and customs are the habits of nations; good when they produce solid and true happiness for society, and detestable in the eyes of reason, in spite of the sanction of laws, usage, religion, public opinion or example, when they have the support only of habit and prejudice, which seldom consult experience and good sense. ”

“ All we can do is endeavor to mention those fashions and customs which we believe to be the best, remembering always, as we have said, that the great law of change goes on forever, that our stately grandfathers had fashions which we should now consider gross and unbecoming, while we have customs, particularly of speech, which would have shocked them. This law of change is not only one which time modifies, but with us the South, the North, the East, and the West differ as to certain points of etiquette. ”

“ Manners and customs that differ from those we are used to we are apt at first to consider improper and immodest, until we find that to those who are used to them they convey no prurient ideas, and lead to no immoral consequences. ”

“ And then, too, upon further examination, they would discover that the manners and customs of the people, the sentiments and disputes, are not such as belong to the period of the world in which the people are represented to have lived ”

“ There are distinctive p. 73 manners and customs—there is, in short, a certain recognisable likeness, it may be an indefinably subtle or an unmistakably broad and general one, which may be traced in faces and costumes, in tongue and literature, in courtesy and in conflict, in business and in policy, in street and in house, from hovel to palace, from prison to cathedral. Thus it is that every folk comes to have its own ways, and every town its own school. ”

“ PICKWICKIAN MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. No English book has so materially increased the general gaiety of the country, or inspired the feeling of comedy to such a degree as, "The Pickwick Club." It is now some "sixty years since" this book was published, and it is still heartily appreciated. What English novel or story is there which is made the subject of notes and commentaries on the most elaborate scale; whose very misprints and inconsistencies are counted up; whose earliest "states of the plates" are sought out and esteemed precious? ”

“ Customs and manners, indeed, were very different in those days, though human beings were the same; but we must not stop to dwell upon minute particulars, or to detail forms and ceremonies, for it is not so much our object to depict the fashions and habits of that age, as to sketch a sad and extraordinary part of its history. ”

“ Yet it is well to have some established customs as to visiting and dress in order that the gay and the heartless may in observing them avoid that which shocks every one—an appearance of lack of respect to the memory of the dead—that all society may move on in decency and order, which is the object and end of the study of etiquette. ”

“ This difference of feeling, sentiment, and custom, exists in those countries that are so near each other. If you go to France, you find that they walk over the customs and manners of England, as unworthy of their notice. ”

“ When once that fortunate Majority is gain'd, between wise Laws and good Customs, People take up general Maxims and Manners, that direct their Conduct, and form both their private and publick Behaviour, so as to conduce to the good of the Whole, and the well Being of each Individual. ”

“ When it is necessary that you should mingle with people whose customs you can not follow in all points without a violation of principle, you will courteously, and with proper respect for what they probably think entirely right, fall back upon the "higher law;" but if it is a mere matter of gloved or ungloved hands, cup or saucer, fork or knife, you will certainly have the courtesy and good sense to conform to usage.
[Pg 56]
V. DOMESTIC MANNERS.
Home is a little world of itself, and furnishes a sphere for the exercise of every virtue and for the experience of every pleasure or pain. ”

“ The second head of customs is “Manner.” For a gentleman should not present a perfect appearance as to dress, and at the same time accompany his good taste with bad or impolite manners. A gentleman should have a thorough knowledge of polite manners as established by custom, such as are defined in this work. ”

“ He will daily meet with customs which he will otherwise be at a loss to understand, and be brought face to face with those who have retained with little change the manners, language, and dress of a patriarchal race. ”

“ But side by side with these customs, necessary to the life of societies and the preservation of the race, other desires, other passions, and therefore other habits and customs, are evolved in human associations. ”

“ The only novelty I have aimed at is one of treatment, and consists in never losing sight of the fact that to all military customs there is a moral and human side which has been only too generally ignored in this connection. To read books like Grose’s ‘Military Antiquities,’ one would think their writers were dealing with the manners, not of men but of ninepins, so utterly do they divest themselves of all human interest or moral feeling, in reference to the customs they describe with so laudable but toneless an accuracy. ”

“ Some Important Social Forces.—The basis of custom is habit. Customs, in other words, are habits which extend 10|Two important social forces: habit and imitation.| to the whole community and receive its approval. We do not always realize how great a part habit plays in our daily lives. ”

“ Though unconsciously, the man conforming Page 420 to a custom is considering his fellows, and the values and traditions which have become current among them.
Customs, moreover, are the first invasion of moral chaos. They establish enduring standards; they give common and permanent bases of action. ”

“ EVOLUTION OF THE MORES
All modern social institutions arise from the evolution of the primitive customs of your savage ancestors; the conventions of today are the modified and expanded customs of yesterday. What habit is to the individual, custom is to the group; and group customs develop into folkways or tribal traditions—mass conventions. From these early beginnings all of the institutions of present-day human society take their humble origin. ”

“ There comes a time when one set of customs, wherever it may be found, grows to seem to you about as provincial as another; and then I suppose it may be said of you that you have become a cosmopolite. You have formed the habit of comparing, of looking for points of difference and of resemblance, for present and absent advantages, for the virtues that go with certain defects, and the defects that go with certain virtues. ”

“ Between a general and a spy the common-law rule of principal and agent plainly holds good: ‘He who acts through another acts through himself.’ In a case of espionage either both principal and agent are guilty of a criminal act, or neither is. If the spy as such violates the laws of war, so does the general who employs him; and either deserves the same punishment. Were it not so, a general who should hire a bravo to assassinate an enemy would incur no moral blame, nor could be held to act outside the boundary of lawful and honourable hostilities. ”

“ As one person primarily differs from another by fineness of nature, and, secondarily, by fineness of training, so also, a polite nation differs from a savage one, first, by the refinement of its nature, and secondly by the delicacy of its customs. ”

“ It would matter little that it should lead to or involve a political despotism, for the greater despotism would ever be the military one, crushing out all individuality, moral liberty, and independence, and consigning to the soul-destroying routine of petty military details all the talent, taste, knowledge, and wealth of our country, which have hitherto given it a distinctive character in history, and a foremost place among the nations of the earth. ”

“ It is not contrary to the law of nations to seduce one of the hostile side to turn spy, nor to bribe a governor to deliver a town, because such actions do not, like the use of poison or assassination, strike at the common welfare and safety of mankind. Such actions are the common episodes of every war. But that they are not in themselves honourable or compatible with a good conscience is proved by the fact that generals who resort to such means never boast of them ”

“ They invent the expression civilised warfare to emphasise a distinction they would fain think inherent in the nature of things; and look, by its help, even on the mode of killing an enemy, with a moral vision that is absurdly distorted. How few of us, for example, but see the utmost barbarity in sticking a man with an assegai, yet none whatever in doing so with a bayonet? And why should we pride ourselves on not mutilating the dead, while we have no scruples as to the extent to which we mutilate the living? ”

“ Many customs and habits, by reason of their peculiar surroundings and requirements, have become necessities, and, indeed, second nature to some people; while to others, whose observation has shown the graces and beauties of these same customs and habits, they are studied with great diligence and application, and acquired, as far as such things can be acquired, as accomplishments. ”

“ It is also characteristic of them, that when introduced into society, where the customs are different from theirs and entirely new, they manifest no embarrassment or ignorance, but conform with wonderful tact ”

“ But, however much the frequency and ferocity of the wars waged by barbarian races as compared with those waged by civilised nations has been exaggerated, there is no doubt but that in warfare, more than in anything else, there is most in common between civilisation and savagery, and that the distinction between them most nearly disappears. In art and knowledge and religion the distinction between the two is so wide that the evolution of one from the other seems still to many minds incredible ”

“ By what principle of morality or common sense were they justified in declining a particular service as too iniquitous for them and yet in holding themselves bound to the larger iniquity of an aggressive war? What right has a machine to choose or decide between good and bad any more than between just and unjust? ”

“ Therefore, since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor, to obtain good customs. ”

“ It is pleasant to turn from these practical illustrations of the theory that no laws of war need be regarded in hostilities with savage tribes to the only recorded trial of a contrary system, and to find, not only that it is associated with one of the greatest names in English history, but also that the success it met with fully justifies the suspicion and disfavour with which the commoner usage is beginning to be regarded. ”

“ Military servility could scarcely go further than that, but such baseness is only possible under a state of discipline which, to make a soldier, unmakes a man, by depriving him of all that distinguishes his species. Under no other than military training, and in no other than the military class, would the atrocities have been possible which used to be perpetrated in the barrack riding-school in the old flogging days. ”

“ Good Lack! what a Crowd of People collected to see which out of six-and twenty Horses should run the fastest, and what a Medley of Vans, Omnibusses, and Taxed Carts on either Side of the Course with the People in Front of them, and the Grand Stand crowded with Heads, plenty as Blackberries and seeming like a huge Mass of them. ”

“ Much less can one realize without seeing it, how—apart from the corruption of sin, depravity, wickedness, and inveterate customs—how kind, honorable, content, gentle, pleasant, tractable, and easily governed these people are by nature ”

“ But believe me, dear reader, the times and the country, the climate and the water, do make very great difference in the notions which obtain regarding customs, and even morals,—ay, morals. Half the morals in the world are made by society,—and all the customs. ”

“ THE ORIGIN AND THE PERSISTENCE OF CUSTOMS.—From the fact that customs are, in general, to be regarded as expressions of the social will, it might be assumed that their purposive character and social utility should be a sufficient explanation of their coming into being. But the matter is not so simple. A man may fall into habits which are no indication of what he regards as useful to him. ”

“ The Windows and House Fronts crowded, and School-Boys mounted on Walls and Gates, and they and the Urchins in the Street shouting, as though we were going to the Races for their Amusement. But Lack! to see the pretty smart Damsels come out to gaze at us, or peeping behind Blinds and Curtains, all in high Glee, as if glad that we were taking our Pleasure, and good Humour do wonderfully heighten Beauty, as I do tell my Wife. ”

“ Success without culture is like old-fashioned strawberry short cake without the whipped cream. It has no flavor.
There are certain little courteous observances, certain social formalities that bespeak the true lady, the true gentleman. Some of us call it good form. Some of us call it culture. Some of us call it etiquette. But we all admit that it makes the world a better place to live in. ”

“ Fighting is only possible between civilised countries, because discipline first fits men for war and for nothing else, and then war again necessitates discipline. Nor is anything gained by ignoring the conquests that have already been won over the savage propensity to war. Single States no longer suffer private wars within their boundaries, like those customary between the feudal barons; we decide most of our quarrels in law courts, not upon battle-fields, and wisely prefer arguments to arms. ”