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The Project Gutenberg EBook of George Washington's Rules of Civility by Moncure D. Conway This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: George Washington's Rules of Civility Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway Author: Moncure D. Conway Release Date: April 15, 2004 [EBook #12029] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON'S RULES OF CIVILITY *** Produced by Ted Garvin, Shawn Cruze and PG Distributed Proofreaders GEORGE WASHINGTON'S RULES OF CIVILITY Traced to their Sources and Restored BY MONCURE D. CONWAY 1890 Inscribed TO MY SON _EUSTACE CONWAY_ THE RULES OF CIVILITY. Among the manuscript books of George Washington, preserved in the State Archives at Washington City, the earliest bears the date, written in it by himself, 1745. Washington was born February 11, 1731 O.S., so that while writing in this book he was either near the close of his fourteenth, or in his fifteenth, year. It is entitled "Forms of Writing," has thirty folio pages, and the contents, all in his boyish handwriting, are sufficiently curious. Amid copied forms of exchange, bonds, receipts, sales, and similar exercises, occasionally, in ornate penmanship, there are poetic selections, among them lines of a religious tone on "True Happiness." But the great interest of the book centres in the pages headed: "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation." The book had been gnawed at the bottom by Mount Vernon mice, before it reached the State Archives, and nine of the 110 Rules have thus suffered, the sense of several being lost. The Rules possess so much historic interest that it seems surprising that none of Washington's biographers or editors should have given them to the world. Washington Irving, in his "Life of Washington," excites interest in them by a tribute, but does not quote even one. Sparks quotes 57, but inexactly, and with his usual literary manipulation; these were reprinted (1886, 16 deg.) by W.O. Stoddard, at Denver, Colorado; and in Hale's "Washington" (1888). I suspect that the old biographers, more eulogistic than critical, feared it would be an ill servi
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