s will
carefully guard against obtrusiveness. This is a defect in the manners
of so many people, both young and old, and includes such a multitude of
things, that it is worth while to particularize a little upon it.
Quietness, repose, order, are distinguishing marks of cultivated social
life everywhere, and to people who are habituated to these conditions of
life it is painful to have incongruous or inappropriate acts or sounds
thrust upon their attention. Here is a generalization that explains the
reason why many things, harmless in themselves are unpleasant to and
offend the taste of cultivated people. No really cultivated young girl
will, for instance, open and play upon a piano in a hotel parlor or any
other parlor at inappropriate times or when it is occupied by strangers.
She will never perform in public any of the duties of the toilet, such
as cleaning her nails or using a tooth-pick. She will not eat peanuts or
fruit or candy, or chew gum, in public places. In fact, I cannot imagine
a really refined young lady chewing gum even in the privacy of her own
room, so offensive is it to good taste. She will not descant upon bodily
ailments in the drawing-room or at the table. She will not rush noisily
up and down stairs or through the house, clashing doors and startling
everyone with unpleasant noises. She will not interrupt people who are
conversing, to ask an irrelevant question or one pertaining to her own
affairs. She will not slap an acquaintance familiarly on the shoulder,
or make special displays of affection or intimacy before people. She
will if possible suppress the sudden sneeze, and use every effort to
quiet a cough. She will not go uninvited into the private room of
anyone, nor into the kitchen of her hostess where she is a visitor. All
such things really inflict pain upon sensitive people; they offend
because they obtrude; and all similar actions and obtrusiveness are to
be carefully avoided by everyone who desires to acquire a true and
genuine culture of action, speech, and manners. It is well worth your
while to think earnestly and often upon these things; to learn to
understand why so many thoughtless actions on the part of young people
are set down to a general lack of cultivation. All such obtrusiveness
must be done away with before we shall be able to realize the prayer of
David, "that our daughters may be like corner-stones, polished after the
similitude of a palace."

LETTER VIII.

WHO ARE