Its respects are not confined to the manners of the ball-room
or the dinner-table, of the club or the exchange, but wherever a man may
rejoice with them that rejoice or weep with them that weep, he must
remain one and the same, as polished to the tiller of the soil as to the
leader of the fashion.
But how will the figure of material polish aid us any further? How can
it be said that Polish of Manners is a revelation of that which is
within, a calling up to the surface of the hidden loveliness of the
material? For do we not know that courtesy may cover contempt; that
smiles themselves may hide hate; that one who will place you at his
right hand when in want of your inferior aid, may scarce acknowledge
your presence when his necessity has gone by? And how then can polished
manners be a revelation of what is within? Are they not the result of
putting on rather than of taking off? Are they not paint and varnish
rather than polish?
I must yield the answer to each of these questions; protesting, however,
that with such polish I have nothing to do; for these manners are
confessedly false. But even where least able to mislead, they are, with
corresponding courtesy, accepted as outward signs of an inward grace.
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