INTRODUCTION.
Books on Etiquette generally confine their attention to the usages of exclusively fashionable life, and are useful only in forming the habits of youth, or those who, suddenly elevated to a status higher than their natural reach, wish to adapt themselves to a kind of society to which they are more frequently allured by vanity than sense; for there is nothing more really hollow than the life termed par-excellence FASHIONABLE. The middle ranks of life are acknowledged to be most tinctured with virtue, manliness, and religious feeling; for the vanities of wealth, and the debasements of poverty, are alike destructive of that uprightness of heart which civilization professes to insure. Not but that there are many estimable personages to be found in the highest walks of fashion and distinction; and many, aye, more than would be believed, who adorn the rugged paths of penury with the noblest examples of gentleness of manners and moral rectitude. Still, between these two extremes, what an enormous mass of individuals we find, who, immured in trade, hurried along in the anxieties of commercial life, find but few opportunities for the acquisition of the higher kinds of knowledge, and the refining usages which rob life of its harshness, and soften the heart in its communion with the world. Here we find the deficiencies of good-breeding mostly manifested; and here, too, the most laudable desire prevails for the attainment of those polishing touches which make us more congenial in our social intercourse, and which, by giving our better feelings their proper shape, by moulding our sentiments into elegance of expression, help us to resist all temptations to petty dealing, and even to check vice by making it unfashionable. Virtue and religion are not only compatible with elegance of manners, but are strengthened in their exercise by them; and every man who is not a misanthropist, every woman who is not a nun, must feel the necessity of attention to forms and usages, and to those elegancies of manner which characterize good-nature and uprightness of heart as much as they do a fashionable education. Politeness is as essential to the man of business as to the haunter of gaming-tables and west-end saloons; it is even more so to remove that reproach against trading influences in which the wealthy so often indulge. Good feeling is not improved by roughness of manner, nor is hospitality heightened by a negligent display. Friendship is more acceptable when its salutations and kindly offices are well-timed; and religion herself delights to be clothed in vestments of elegance and purity. Every man must account it a boon to enjoy admission to the best society, to mingle with those who, by learning, by polite accomplishments, and by the exercise of philanthropic and moral feelings, have lifted their lives out of the dull round of days and hours into a region of social sunshine; and none would willingly mar the perfection of such circles by carrying boorish manners into their midst, or destroy his enjoyment by the exhibition of an inaptitude to elegant society; nay, elegance should go with us to our homes; we should exercise politeness at the fireside to our wives, our husbands, our children, and our kindred generally, and not keep our good-manners exclusively as articles of exhibition to strangers. Many heart-burnings, many foolish indulgences in temper, many unkind words and deeds would thus be avoided; and while elegance of manner served frequently to check us in the pursuit of wrong, it would often prompt us to the culture of goodness, so long as we maintained that necessary distinction between the refinement of the heart and the mere outside show of feigned courtesy. Such hints as are offered here are intended to help in this direction, and are addressed to such as have not had the advantage of polite education and example in youth, and who may have formed their habits under adverse circumstances, and are not too vain of them to seek for improvement.