Author of "How to be Happy Though Married," etc., etc.

A Fatal Error - Advice Which Failed - An Ill-mannered Poet - How to Rebuke a Chinaman-mutual Admiration Families - The Test of Manners

It is a mistake to suppose that the forms of civility can be safely dispensed with in family life. With the disappearance of the forms, the reality may also disappear. Husband and wife think that they may omit small courtesies because they understand each other, but they cannot. More coldness and quarrels in married life come from a disregard of courtesy than from any other cause.

"Me and My Missus Never Argued"

I knew of a couple who were happy in a marriage that lasted sixty-four years. Talk-of their married life, the old man used to say:

"Me and my missus never argued." To be polite and pleasant to each other, and never to argue, is the way for husband and wife to retain love for each other after marriage. A friend who was with me at a hotel said of a couple who were also staying there:

"I did not know they were married, for the lady always converses with the man and is so polite to him." What a satire on other couples who take geniality for granted, instead of granting it!

True home geniality is too rare. Too often there is "joy abroad and grief at home." A man is politeness itself in his club, and his wife at home "starves for a merry look." He is suave and tactful at his place of business, but before starting for it in the morning, he depresses his wife and children for the day. He is painfully funny when dining out, but mute and murmuring at his own table.

"My difficulty," said a bride to her friend,

"is how to know whether beef is tough or not." "If you wait till dinner-time," said the other, your husband will tell you."

Before marriage women speak with their eyes, after it with their tongues; but even with their tongues they are not as courteous to their husbands as they are to strangers. The poor husbands may even be ridiculed by such women for the amusement of their friends, instead of being made the most of, as good breeding would prompt.

A Bad Beginning

The whole day is rendered dismal and disagreeable when there has been "a storm" in the breakfast tea-cup between husband and wife. So far as happiness goes, each must confess in the evening, "I have lost a day!"

"Oh, what matter! It's only my wife." So spoke a man in my hearing when accepting an invitation to join some friends at the hour he had promised to be at home to help his wife to entertain a party of guests.

"Only my wife!" Only a wife, only a husband! Why, no two people can torment each other more than husband and wife, therefore they should be especially careful not to break appointments or disregard in any way each other's feelings.

A lecturer on marriage, after telling wives to make their husbands speak to them as they speak to strangers, went on to advise husbands to kiss their wives as they did in courting days. An old man meeting the lecturer the following day said: "That about kissing in your lecture was all nonsense.

When I went home and put my arm round my old woman to kiss her, she pushed me from her and said: 'what's gone wrong with you, you idiot? ' "

That softening of the heart should have been mistaken for softening of the brain, showed how lamentably deficient the husband had been in manifestation of affection.

It was said of the celebrated scientific man, George John Romanes, that, although he had always on hand much work, he was "never too busy to be kind." Smaller men think that they have no time to be attentive to their wives and children. They leave home early in the morning, stay away all day, and come back in the evening morose and uncommunicative. This is to be busier than they ought to be, and to neglect true riches. They should make less money and more wealth or well-being.

And there are wives who are not less rude to their husbands. They are all smiles when they welcome other men to their drawing-rooms, and if, when they are conversing with them, they are called away they say, "Excuse me for a moment." But politeness like this is not shown to husbands.

The appalling intimacy of domestic life tends, when not guarded against, to deteriorate manners. People put on silk and velvet to go out into the world, and think that anything will do to wear at home. They have company conduct for abroad, but home is to them not only Liberty Hall, but a hall of licence, where they allow their evil natures full play.

What A Home Should Be

Home should be a place of peace; the shelter, not only from injury, but from doubt and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home, but only a part of the outer world which we have roofed over and put fire in.

Too often the hours that should be spent in sweet companionship between husband and wife are wasted in trying to get the last word, and this last word is seldom a polite one. It may be as uncourteous as the one word with which Lord Byron sometimes answered his wife. Lady Byron would knock at her husband's study door and ask: "Do I disturb you, Byron?" And the noble poet would reply: "Confoundedly!" An interruption when composing must be very annoying to an ardent poet, but an answer like Byron's takes poetry out of life.

When the manners of husband and wife are not what they ought to be, the children take after them. What can be expected of those who are reared in an atmosphere of rudeness? On the other hand, if "a gentleman, always a gentleman," and "a lady, always a lady," are the examples set by papa and mamma, the children will take them in almost through the pores of the skin.

If a man is well-mannered, it is because he has had a nice mother or has early married a girl who knew how wisely to wield a moral and social pruning-knife.

Certainly the daughter-in-law of a mother who has not inculcated chivalry into her son, will not rise up and call her blessed.

When I lived in China, it struck me that the manners of the Chinese to their parents and to old people generally were much better than are ours. In China parents are held responsible for the manners of their children; accordingly, for the credit of their parents, people try to be polite. If you are mobbed in a Chinese town, you should look straight at one or two of the people and say: "Your parents did not pay much attention to your manners; they did not teach you the rules of propriety." A remark like this will make the crowd slink away ashamed.

Home Truths

The expression "home truths" has come to be almost synonymous with abuse, for members of a home say things to each other which they would not dare say to outsiders. A little bracing criticism may do good, but we protest against the cynical spirit that prevails in some families. In these everyone has a nickname, and the slightest enthusiasm is snubbed. Censoriousness is not a mark of good taste, but just the reverse. A person of good taste is the first to discover excellence in persons and in things.

In his advice to a bridegroom starting on his honeymoon, Coventry Patmore says: "Beware of finding fault." If a husband is censorious and fault-finding during the honeymoon, what will he be afterwards? A wife said of her husband: "If he lived with the Angel Gabriel, he would tell him his wings were a wrong shape and colour." What must it be to live with a man like this in the searchlight of matrimonial intimacy!

Self is the shadow that darkens our lives and prevents us from being bright companions. Occupied with thoughts of our own unhappiness, we become a cloud on the sunshine of those with whom we live.

The Wisdom Of Mrs. Wiggs

How much better it is to be like "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch," who always put her worries down in the bottom of her heart, sat on the lid, and smiled.

But if some families are uncourteously censorious to their members, others go to the opposite extreme, and see no good in any person who has not the honour of belonging to them.

They seem only to care to talk to each other, and praise each other so much that you become uncomfortable in the presence of perfection. This is bad manners towards any stranger who may be within the gates of the mutual admiration society.

A good manner is the art of putting people, either at home or outside it, at their ease. Whoever makes the fewest uncomfortable, is the best-mannered person in a room. Politeness is real kindness kindly expressed; it is the small change of Christian charity, and we know that charity should begin at home.

Give, if thou canst, in alms; if not, afford Instead of that a sweet and gentle word.