GOOD MANNERS, DRESS AND THE WORLD[16]

There is a _bienseance_ with regard to people of the lowest degree; a
gentleman observes it with his footman, even with the beggar in the
street. He considers them as objects of compassion, not of insult; he
speaks to neither _d'un ton brusque_, but corrects the one coolly, and
refuses the other with humanity. There is no one occasion in the
world, in which _le ton brusque_ is becoming a gentleman. In short,
_les bienseances_ are another word for manners, and extend to every
part of life. They are propriety; the Graces should attend in order to
complete them: the Graces enable us to do genteelly and pleasingly
what _les bienseances_ require to be done at all. The latter are an
obligation upon every man; the former are an infinite advantage and
ornament to any man.

People unused to the world have babbling countenances, and are
unskilful enough to show what they have sense enough not to tell. In
the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank
countenance, upon very disagreeable occasions; he must seem pleased,
when he is very much otherwise; he must be able to accost and receive
with smiles those whom he would much rather meet with swords. In
courts he must not turn himself inside out. All this may, nay, must be
done, without falsehood and treachery: for it must go no further than
politeness and manners, and must stop short of assurances and
professions of simulated friendship. Good manners to those one does
not love are no more a breach of truth than "your humble servant," at
the bottom of a challenge, is; they are universally agreed upon and
understood to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the
decency and peace of society: they must only act defensively; and then
not with arms poisoned with perfidy. Truth, but not the whole truth,
must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either
religion, honor, or prudence.

I can not help forming some opinion of a man's sense and character
from his dress; and I believe most people do as well as myself. Any
affectation whatsoever in dress implies in my mind a flaw in the
understanding.... A man of sense carefully avoids any particular
character in his dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but
all the rest is for other people's. He dresses as well, and in the
same manner, as the people of sense and fashion of the place where he
is. If he dresses better, as he thinks--that is, more th