24 January 2007

Emily Post

Journal report: I just found Emily Post on line, at Bartleby.com, and I've decided to peruse the words over the coming weeks.

Here, from the introduction, are some interesting thoughts about how etiquette, society and even Christianity meld:

Selfishness is at the polar remove from the worldly manners of the old school, according to which . . . others were preferred to self, pain was given to no one, no one was neglected, deference was shown to the weak and the aged, and unconscious courtesy extended to all inferiors. Such was the “beauty” of the old manners, which . . . consisted in “acting upon Christian principle, and if in any case it became soulless, as apart from Christianity, the beautiful form was there, into which the real life might re-enter.”

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