CLEANLINESS.
No one can please in company, however graceful his air, unless he be clean and neat in his person.
He who is not thoroughly clean in his person, will be offensive to all with whom he converses. A particular regard to the cleanliness of your mouth, teeth, hands, and nails, is but common decency.
A foul mouth and unclean hands, are certain marks of vulgarity; the first is the cause of an offensive breath, which nobody can endure, and the last is declarative of dirty work, and disgraceful negligence to remove the filth. One may always know a gentleman by the state of his hands and nails. The flesh at the roots should be kept back, so as to show the semicircles at the bottom of the nails; the edges of the nails should never be cut down below the ends of the fingers, nor should they be suffered to grow longer than the fingers.
For black and dirty teeth, where they are sound, there can be no excuse. They are the mark of a lazy, vulgar fellow. Let me entreat you to form the habit of brushing your teeth, every night before you sleep.
Now, clean garments and a clean person, are as necessary to health, as to prevent giving offence to other people. It is a maxim with me, which I have lived to see verified, that he who is negligent at twenty years of age, will be a sloven at forty, and intolerable at fifty.