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110 MANNERS AND MORALS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
- - And Prompt Me " , Hence Plain And , ...
One point of improvement in sincerity of social intercourse I am Inclined to find in the behaviour of children to their parents . I
know that the free-and-easy manners of sons in these days havei ' the been same held one up to of reprobation the crying , sins and that that call our down prop on hets _xis h the ave vengeance found in
, of Heaven . No doubt such freedom may be carried too far . But , surely , it is better that the outward respect of old days should be
replaced hy : love . I rejoice that that most tragical farce of respect , which would not suffer children to sit in their parents' presence or
to speak to them in other than copy-book phrases , has become obsolete on our modern domestic stage .
In the language , too , of public affairs we are not so insincere as we once were . Fine professions are at a discount , and people are
inclined to doubt magniloquent virtue . The fashion is for us to conceal the deep feelings we really have rather than to make loud
professions of feelings which we have not . If there is an alarming symptom of public self-glorification , it is
in the spread of lecturing . Lectures are excellent things if the lecturer knows his subjectand restricts himself to giving
informa-, tion , not fine talk , about it . But lecturing has become a trade and , yet further than this , an amusement . Not only have we the
travelling lecturer , with his set of antiquated diagrams or damaged apparatus , but we have , too , our private lecturers , clerical or lay ,
who hold forth on popular subjects to the inhabitants of their own town or village . The spreading of knowledge in this way is
excellent ; but we need to be more careful in estimating knowledge . To lecture accurately on the steam-enginethe lecturer requires a little
, more mathematical learning than he can gather from a hand-book : to read Shakespeare adequatelythe reader should possess other
, qualifications than a sonorous voice . This pretence to learning finds its way from the rostrum to our
houses . Sciolism never confesses its ignorance on any subject ; it is silent in no conversation , and never abstains from expressing an
opinion . We are ashamed to say we do not know ; forgetting that It is impossible for us to have knowledge of more than a very few
things ; Our subject is wide and our space limited . The tone of
mercantile manners , ( " the custom of the trade , " ) as distinguished from mercantile morals , should have been touched upon here . Again ,
the tone of our present literature demands further investigation from , this point of view . Howeverthese points and others
we-, must leave our readers to work out for themselves . In conclusion , I would urge the influence of women on the ;
manners of an age , and through manners on its morals . It is they ' "who give to society the tone which , though seemingly addressed to
the idle senses , penetrates to the heart of it . They may always , if they will , strike a noble chord to which the time shall set itself in
Mgh . and solemn music * J . A .
110 Manners And Morals.
110 MANNERS AND _MORALS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Oct. 1, 1862, page 110, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01101862/page/38/
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