The American Democrat/On American Deportment
ON AMERICAN DEPORTMENT.
The American people are superior in deportment, in several particulars, to the people of Europe, and inferior in others. The gentlemen have less finesse, but more frankness of manner, while the other classes have less vulgarity and servility, relieved by an agreeable attention to each other's rights, and to the laws of humanity in general. On the whole, the national deportment is good, without being polished, supplying the deficiency in this last essential, by great kindness and civility. In that part of deportment which affects the rights of all, such as the admission of general and common laws of civility, the absence of social selfishness, and a strict regard to the wants and feebleness of woman, all other nations might be benefitted by imitating this.
The defects in American deportment are, notwithstanding, numerous and palpable. Among the first, may be ranked insubordination in children, and a general want of respect for age. The former vice may be ascribed to the business habits of the country, which leave so little time for parental instruction, and perhaps, in some degree, to the arts of political agents, who, with their own advantage in view, among the other expedients of their cunning, have resorted to the artifice of separating children from their natural advisers, by calling meetings of the young, to decide on the fortunes and policy of the country. Every advertisement calling assemblies of the young, to deliberate on national concerns, ought to be deemed on insult to the good sense, the modesty, and the filial piety of the class to which it is addressed.
The Americans are reproached, also, with the want of a proper deference for social station; the lower classes manifesting their indifference by an unnecessary insolence. As a rule, this charge is unmerited, civility being an inherent quality of the American character; still, there are some who mistake a vulgar audacity for independence. Men and women of this disposition, require to be told that, in thus betraying their propensities, they are giving the strongest possible proofs that they are not what their idle vanity would give reason to suppose they fancy themselves, the equals of those whom they insult by their coarseness.
More of this class err from ignorance, want of reflection, or a loose habit of regulating their conduct in their intercourse with others, than from design. The following anecdote will give an instance of what is meant, and, as the circumstance related is true, the reader will perceive the ludicrous impression that is left, by these gross improprieties of behaviour. A gentleman, who shall be called Winfield, perceiving a girl of eight or ten years of age, endeavoring to find an entrance to his house, enquired her errand. "I have some hats for Winifield's girls," was the answer. Although shocked at this rudeness, Mr. Winfield told the child, that by going to a certain door, she would find a servant to receive her. "Oh!" replied the girl, "I have already seen the Irish lady, in the kitchen." This Irish lady, was the cook, a very good woman in her way, but one who had no pretensions to be so termed!
Such a confusion in the ideas of this child, is a certain proof of a want of training, for the young ladies who were treated so disrespectfully, were not the less ladies, nor did the cook become more than a cook, for the vulgarity. Facts are not to be changed by words, and all they obtain, who fancy their language and deportment can alter the relations of society, is an exposure of their own ignorance.
The entire complexion, and in many respects, the well being of society, depends on the deportment of its different members, to each other. It behoves the master to be kind to the servant, the servant to be respectful and obedient to his master; the young and inexperienced to defer to the aged and experienced; the ignorant to attend to the admonitions of the wise, and the unpolished to respect the tastes and habits of the refined.
In other countries, where positive ordinances create social distinctions in furtherance of these ends, it is believed they cannot be obtained in any other manner; but it is to be hoped that America is destined to prove, that common sense and the convictions of propriety and fitness, are as powerful agents as force. The servility and arrogance of a highly artificial social scale are not to be desired, but, having positive social facts, also, which cannot be dispensed with, it is vain to resist them. Civility and respect, are the sure accompaniments of a high civilization, and the admission of obvious facts is an indispensable requisite of common sense, as their denial is evidence of infatuation and folly.
There is a moral obligation in every man to conduct himself with civility to all around him. Neither are his particular notions of what is proper, to be taken as an excuse for his rudeness and insults. Refinement and the finesse of breeding are not expected from the majority, but none are so ignorant, in this country, as not to distinguish between what improper and what is improper in deportment.
Some men imagine they have a right to ridicule what are termed "airs," in others. If it could be clearly established what are "airs," and what not, a corrective of this sort might not be misapplied. But the term is conventional, one man experiencing disgust at what enters into the daily habits of another. It is exceedingly hazardous, therefore, for any but those who are familiar with the best usages of the world, to pronounce any thing "airs," because it is new to them, since what has this appearance to such persons may be no more than a proof of cultivation and of a good tone of manners.
On the other hand, many who have been thrown accidentally and for short periods, into the society of the more refined classes, adopt their usages without feeling or understanding their reasons and advantages, caricaturing delicacy and sentiment, and laying stress on habits, which, though possibly convenient in themselves, are not deemed at all essential by men and women of the world. These affectations of breeding are laughed at, as the "silver-forkisms" of pretenders. To the man of the world it is unnecessary to point out the want of taste in placing such undue stress on these immaterial things, but it may not be unnecessary to the novice in the usages of the better circles, to warn him that his ignorance will be more easily seen by his exaggerations, than by his deficiencies of manner. The Due de Richlieu is said to have detected an impostor by his not taking olives with his fingers.
But these are points of little interest with the mass, while civility and decency lie at the root of civilization. There is no doubt that, in general, America has retrograded in manners within the last thirty years. Boys, and even men, wear their hats in the houses of all classes, and before persons of all ages and conditions. This is not independence, but vulgarity, for nothing sooner distinguishes a gentleman from a blackguard, than the habitual attention of the former to the minor civilities established by custom. It has been truly said, that the man who is well dressed respects himself more, and behaves himself better, than the man that is ill dressed; but it is still more true that the man who commences with a strict observance of the commoner civilities, will be the most apt to admit of the influence of refinement on his whole character.