University of Virginia Library

Thursday, A. M.
POLLTENESS.

“Still more important than your habit,
is your air and deportment. It is not sufficient
that these are pleasing to the eye of the superficial
observer. Your behaviour and conversation
must be uniformly governed by the laws of
politeness, discretion, and decorum. Else you
will be disgusting to people of resinement; and
the judicious and discerning will discover the
weakness of your minds, notwithstanding the
showy ornaments, intended to conceal it from
public view.

“Inattention in company is a breach of good
manners. Indeed, it is a downright insult; being
neither more nor less, than declaring that you
have not the least respect for any who are
present. Either you do not value their good
opinion, or you have something more important
than their conversation to occupy your minds.

“You should always be attentive to those with
whom you are conversant, let their rank and
standing be what they may. Your superiors
will esteem you for your respectful treatment of
them; your equals will love you for your kindness

and familiarity; your inferiors will respect
you for your condescension and meekness.

“Attention in company will be advantageous
to yourselves. Like the industrious bee, which
sips honey from every plant, you may derive
some benefit or instruction from all kinds of
society. Some useful remark or information;
some sentiment which may allure you to the
practice of virtue, or deter you from a vicious
perpetration, may repay your labour, and be
serviceable through life.

“But should there be no other motive than
that of pleasing your associates, and rendering them
happy, by making yourselves agreeable, it may
be confidered as a sufficient inducement to the
practice of this branch of good-breeding. Many
girls, in the thoughtless levity of their hearts,
divert themselves at the expense of others; and,
with the utmost glee, point out any thing peculiar
in the appearance, words, or actions of some
one in the company, whom they select for a subject
of merriment and ridicule. This, by shrewd
looks, ironical gestures, or tittering whispers, is
kept up, to the great mortification of the unhappy
victim, and to the reproach and dishonor of the
offenders. Such conduct is a breach, not only
of the rules of common civility, but of humanity;
besides being directly repugnant to the precept
of doing to others as we would that they should
do to us.

“Be particularly careful, then, not to mortify,
or give pain to an inferior.

“Let the question, “who maketh thee to
differ?” suppress every emotion of ridicule, contempt,
or neglect; and induce you to raise and
encourage depressed merit by your notice and
approbation.

“As far as propriety, delicacy, and virtue will
allow, conform to the taste, and participate in
the amusements and conversation of the company
into which you have fallen. If they be disagreeble
to you, avoid a supercilious avowal of your
dislike. This, instead of reforming, would probably
give them a disgust to you, and perhaps
subject you to affronts. Yet where a disapprobating
word or hint may be seasonable, neglect
not the opportunity of contributing to their benefit
and amendment.

“Are you conscious of superior advantages,
either mental or external, make no ostentatious
display of them. Vanity too often leads young
ladies to obtrude their acquirements on the eyes
of observers, inconsiderately apprehending they
may otherwise be unnoticed. Such forwardness
always subjects them to censure, ridicule, and
envy; the expressions of which destroy that
self-approbation which retiring merit invariably
enjoys. However, exert that dignity of virtue
which will render you independent of caprice,
calumny, and unprovoked satire.

“Make no ungenerous, or ill-natured remarks
on the company, or on the individuals of which
it is composed.

“If you dislike them, avoid them in future.
If you witness errors, faults, or improprieties,
conceal, or at least extenuate them, as much as
possible.

“Make just allowances for those who may
differ from you in opinion; and be cautious
never to misrepresent, or circulate what appears
amiss to you, and must, if exposed, be injurious
to others. Charity hides a multitude of faults.
Certainly then, charity will never aggravate nor
create them.

“To give currency to a report, which tends
to the disadvantage and dishonor of another, is
defaming; and defamation is a species of cruelty,
which can never be expiated.

“Of this the unhappy, though imprudent Eudocia,
is an exemplification.

“Eudocia was young, gay, and charming. A
levity of disposition, which the innocence of her
heart attempted not to restrain, sometimes gave
the tongue of slander pretence to aim its envenomed
shafts at her character, and to misrepresent
her sprightliness.

“Independent in fortune; still more so in
mind, calumny gave her no pain, while she was
conscious of the rectitude of her intentions.

“Leontine was a gentleman of property;
agreeable in his person and manners; of strict
honor, and extremely tenacious of it; but of a
severe and unforgiving temper. He paid his
addresses to Eudocia; was accepted, approved,
and beloved. Yet, though he had gained her
affections, he had not sufficient influence to
regulate her conduct, and repress her gaiety.
Her fondness for show and gallantry, in some instances,
induced her to countenance the attentions,
and receive the flattery, of men, whose
characters were exceptionable, in Leontine's estimation.
He remonstrated against her imprudence,
and gave her his ideas of female delicacy.
She laughed at his gravity, and rallied him on
his implicit subjection to the opinions of others.

“Towards the close of a fine day, Eudocia
rambled along a retired road, to enjoy the air.
She was alone; but the hope of meeting her
beloved Leontine, whom she expected that evening,
imperceptibly led her beyond her intended
excursion. The rattling of a carriage caused her
to stop; and, thinking it to be Leontine's, she approached
it before she perceived her mistake. A
gentleman of an elegant appearance alighted,
and accosting her politely, expressed his surprise
at finding her so far from home without an attendant.
She found it was Florio, with whom
she had a slight acquaintance, having once met
with him in company. She frankly owned her

motive for walking thus far; and refused his invitation
to return in his carriage. He renewed
his request; and his importunity, seconded by
her satigue, at last prevailed. At this moment
the detracting Lavina passed by. She saw Eudocia,
and with a sneering smile, wished her a
good night. Eudocia was unconscious of fault,
and therefore fearless of censure. But the artful
Florio, desirous of protracting the pleasure
of her company, took a circuitous route, which
considerably increased the distance to her father's
house. However, he conveyed her safely home,
though not so soon as she wished. She found
that Leontine had been there, and had gone
to visit a friend; but would soon return. Leontine
was just seated at his friend's, when Lavina
entered.

“She told the circle, that Florio had just
passed her, and that he had company she little
expected to see with him. They inquired if it
was his former mistress? No, said she, he has
discarded her some time ago, and if we may
judge by appearances, has chosen a new one.
Upon being asked who, she presumed to name
Eudocia. Every countenance expressed surprise
and regret. In Leontine's, rage and resentment
were visibly depicted. He rose, and stepping
hastily to Lavina, told her he was a party concerned,
and demanded an explanation of what
she had infinuated. She perceived that she had

given offence, and endeavoured to excuse herself;
but he resolutely told her that no evasions
would avail; that he insisted on the real truth of
her scandalous report. Finding him thus determined,
she related the simple fact of seeing Eudocia
in a carriage with Florio, who was a known
libertine, and accustomed to the society of loose
women. Leontine asked her how she came to
associate the ideas she had mentioned with Eudocia's
name? She replied that the lightness of her
behaviour had sometimes rendered her censurable;
and she thought this instance, in particular, authorized
suspicion. Leontine could not deny that
she was culpable in appearance; yet made answer,
that though scandal might feast on the
failings of virtue, he believed Eudocia's innocence
much purer, and her heart much better
than her detracters'; and, taking his hat, he wished
the company a good evening, and left them.

“His passions were on fire. He could not
comprehend the mysterious conduct of Eudocia.
Her absence from home, at a time when he expected
her to receive him, and her being seen
at a distance, in company with a professed debauchee,
were a labyrinth which he could not explore.
Though he doubted not Eudocia's honor,
yet her folly and imprudence, in subjecting her
character to suspicion and reproach, he thought
unpardonable. His resentment determined him
to break the proposed connexion immediately;

and, left his love should get the better of his resolution, he went directly to the house.

“As he could not command his temper, he
appeared extremely agitated, and angrily told
Eudocia that she had caused him great uneasiness;
and that he came to claim the satisfaction
of knowing, why she had avoided his society,
and made an assignation with a man who had
involved her in infamy? Eudocia was astonished,
and justly offended at this address. With all
the dignity of conscious innocence, she replied,
that as yet he had no right to challenge an account
of her conduct; but for her own sake,
she would condescend to give it. This she did,
by a faithful and undisguissed relation of facts.
She then asked him, if he was satisfied. He
answered, No. For, said he, though you have
cleared yourself of guilt, in my apprehension,
you will find it very difficult to free your character
from the blemish it has received in the
opinion of the world. Saying this, he told her,
that, however highly he esteemed her, so opposite
were their dispositions, that they must often
be at variance; and so nice was his sense of
honor, that his wife, like Cæfar's, must not only
be virtuous, but unsuspected. She rejoined, that
his sentiments were apparent; and if what he
then expressed were his opinion of her, it was
best they should part.

“Some further conversation passed; when,
promising to call, the next day, and satisfy her parents,
and wishing Eudocia all possible happiness
in life, he took his leave.

“The impropriety of her conduct, and her
losing the affections of a man she too ardently
loved, together with the cruel treatment she had
just received from him, overwhelmed her with
grief, and produced the most violent emotions
of regret. She walked her room in all the anguish
of disappointed hope. Her parents used
every argument to soothe and console her; but
in vain.

“She yielded to their persuasions so far as to
retire to bed; but rest she found not; and the
morning presented her in a burning sever. Leontine
called in the course of the day; but the
friends of Eudocia refused to see him. An account
of her disorder had roused him to a sense
of his rashness, and he begged to be admitted to
her chamber; but this she utterly denied.

“Her fever left her; but the disease of her
mind was beyond the power of medicine. A
settled melancholy still remains; and she lives
the victim of calumniation!

“To detract from the merit of others, beside
the want of politeness which it betrays, and beside
the injuries which it always occasions, is
extremely impolitic. It is to confess your inferiority,
and to acknowledge a wish, not to rise to

greater respectability; but to bring down those
about you to your own level! Ill-natured remarks
are the genuine offspring of an envious
and grovelling mind.

“Call yourselves to a severe account, therefore,
whenever you have been guilty of this degrading
offence; and always check the first impulses towards
it.

“Accustom yourselves to the exercise of sinoerity,
benevolence, and good-humour, those endearing
virtues, which will render you beloved
and respected by all.

“To bestow your attention, in company, upon
trifling singularities in the dress, person, or manners
of others, is spending your time to little
purpose. From such a practice you can derive
neither pleasure nor profit; but must unavoidably
subject yourselves to the imputation of incivility
and malice.”