Posted 3:12 PM by Blah blah

Manners and Class

Getting along with people (Please read my old entry first.)

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Manners." Emerson's writing, which I read throughout high school and college, is full of richness that you must chew and digest as slowly as a chunky chocolate bar. His point: regardless of wealth, education, or social class, we naturally befriend or gravitate to each other based on our manners:
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[E]very collection of men furnishes some example of the class: and the politics of this country, and the trade of every town, are controlled by these hardy and irresponsible doers, who have invention to take the lead, and a broad sympathy which puts them in fellowship with crowds, and makes their action popular.

[Translation: People with manners and class tend to be the popular leaders of their communities.]

The manners of this class are observed and caught with devotion by men of taste. The association of these masters with each other, and with men intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and stimulating. The good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are repeated and adopted. By swift consent, everything superfluous is dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine manners show themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They are a subtler science of defence to parry and intimidate; but once matched by the skill of the other party, they drop the point of the sword, -- points and fences disappear, and the youth finds himself in a more transparent atmosphere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, and not a misunderstanding rises between the players....

[Translation: Well-mannered people can do business with each other much more smoothly and agreeably.]

Each returns to his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains porcelain, and earthen earthen....Each man's rank in that perfect graduation depends on some symmetry in his structure, or some agreement in his structure to the symmetry of society. Its doors unbar instantaneously to a natural claim of their own kind. A natural gentleman finds his way in, and will keep the oldest patrician out, who has lost his intrinsic rank. Fashion understands itself; good-breeding and personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with those of every other....

[Translation: Regardless of the official clubs and cliques to which we belong, we are all really bound to natural clubs of humankind, based on our manners and character.]

Once or twice in a lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the charm of noble manners, in the presence of a man or woman who have no bar in their nature, but whose character emanates freely in their word and gesture. A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form: it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts. A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating from his countenance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the world. I have seen an individual, whose manners, though wholly within the conventions of elegant society, were never learned there, but were original and commanding, and held out protection and prosperity; one who did not need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his eye; who exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes of existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy, spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood; yet with the port of an emperor, -- if need be, calm, serious, and fit to stand the gaze of millions....

[Translation: A well-mannered, charming person is ready to interact with millions worldwide. He's fit to be an actor, CEO, or anyone who must deal with the public and represent his organization.]

Woman, with her instinct of behavior, instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or imbecility, or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and magnanimous deportment, which is indispensable as an exterior in the hall.

[Translation: Women can instantly sense when we're a cheapskate or a bastard.]