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1、Four short words sum up what has lifted most successful individuals above the crowd: a little bit more.-author-dateA-TREATISE-ON-GOOD-MANNERS-AND-GOOD-BREEDINGA-TREATISE-ON-GOOD-MANNERS-AND-GOOD-BREEDINGA TREATISE ON GOOD MANNERS AND GOOD BREEDING Jonathan SwiftGood manners is the art of making thos

2、e people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company. As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best manners. And as some lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into common law, so likewise many teachers have introduced absurd thi

3、ngs into common good manners. One principal point of this art is to suit our behavior to the three several degrees of men; our superiors, our equals, and those below us. For instance, to press either or a tradesman must be thus treated, or breach of manners; but a farmer or a tradesman must be thus

4、treated, or else it will be difficult to persuade them that they are welcome. Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience; or of what, in the language of fools, is called kn

5、owing the world. I defy any one to assign an incident wherein reason will not direct us what we are to say or do in the company, if we are not misled by pride or ill nature. Therefore I insist that good sense is the principal foundation of good manners; but because the former is a gift which very fe

6、w among mankind are possessed of, therefore all the civilized nations of the world have agreed upon fixing some rules for common behavior, best suited to their general customs, or fancies, as a kind of artificial good sense, to supply the defects of reason. Without which the gentlemanly part of dunc

7、es would be perpetually at cuffs, as they seldom fail when they happen to be drunk, or engaged in squabbles about women or play. And, God be thanked, there hardly happens a duel in a year, which may not be imputed to one of those three motives. Upon which account, I should be exceedingly sorry to fi

8、nd the legislature make any new laws against the practice of dueling; because the methods are easy and many for a wise man to avoid a quarrel with honor, or engage in it with innocence. And I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by

9、a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient. As the common forms of good manners were intended for regulating the conduct of those who have weak understandings; so they have been corrupted by the persons for whose use they were contrived. For these people have fallen

10、 into a needless and endless way of multiplying ceremonies; which have been extremely troublesome to those who practice them, and insupportable to everybody else: insomuch that wise men are often more uneasy at the over civility of these refiners, than they could possibly be in the conversations of

11、peasants or mechanics. The impertinencies of this ceremonial behavior are nowhere better seen than at those tables where ladies preside, who value themselves upon account of their good breeding; where a man must reckon upon passing an hour without doing any one thing he has a mind to; unless he will

12、 be so hardy to break through all the settled decorum of the family. She determines what he loves best, and how much he shall eat; and if the master of the house happens to be of the same disposition, he proceeds in the same tyrannical manner to prescribe in the drinking part: at the same time, you

13、are under the necessity of answering a thousand apologies for your entertainment. And although a good deal of this humor is pretty well worn off among many people of the best fashion, yet too much of it still remains, especially in the country; where an honest gentleman assured me, that having been

14、kept four days, against his will, at a friends house, with all the circumstances of hiding his boots, locking up the stable, and other contrivances of the like nature, he could not remember, from the moment he came into the house to the moment he left it, any one thing, wherein his inclination was n

15、ot directly contradicted; as if the whole family had entered into a combination to torment him. But, besides all this, it would be endless to recount the many foolish and ridiculous accidents I have observed among these unfortunate proselytes to ceremony. I have seen a duchess fairly knocked down, b

16、y the precipitancy of an officious coxcomb running to save her the trouble of opening a door. I remember, upon a birthday at court, a great lady was utterly desperate by a dish of sauce let fall by a page directly upon her head-dress and brocade, while she gave a sudden turn to her elbow upon some p

17、oint of ceremony with the person who sat next her. Monsieur Buys, the Dutch envoy, whose politics and manners were much of a size, brought a son with him, about thirteen years old, to a great table at court. The boy and his father, whatever they put on their plates, they first offered round in order

18、, to every person in the company; so that we could not get a minutes quiet during the whole dinner. At last their two plates happened to encounter, and with so much violence, that, being china, they broke in twenty pieces, and stained half the company with wet sweetmeats and cream. There is a pedant

19、ry in manners, as in all arts and sciences; and sometimes in trades. Pedantry is properly the overrating any kind of knowledge we pretend to. And if that kind of knowledge be a trifle in itself, the pedantry is the greater. For which reason I look upon fiddlers, dancing-manners, heralds, masters of

20、the ceremony, etc. to be greater pedants than Lipsius, or the elder Scaliger. With these kind of pedants, the court, while I knew it, was always plentifully stocked; I mean from the gentleman usher (at least) inclusive, downward to the gentleman porter; who are, generally speaking, the most insignif

21、icant race of people that this island can afford, and with the smallest tincture of good manners, which is the only trade they profess. For being wholly illiterate, and conversing chiefly with each other, they reduce the whole system of breeding within the forms and circles of their several offices;

22、 and as they are below the notice of ministers, they live and die in court under all revolutions, with great obsequiousness to those who are in any degree of favor or credit, and with rudeness or insolence to everybody else. Whence I have long concluded, that good manners are not a plant of the cour

23、t growth: for if they were, those people who have understandings directly of a level for such acquirements, and who have served such long apprenticeships to nothing else, would certainly have picked them up. For as to the great officers, they are a transient body, who have no better a title to good

24、manners than their neighbors, nor will probably have recourse to gentlemen ushers for instruction. So that I know little to be learnt at court upon this head, except in the material circumstance of dress; wherein the authority of the maids of honor must indeed be allowed to be almost equal to that o

25、f a favorite actress. I remember a passage my Lord Bolingbroke told me, that going to receive Prince Eugene of Savoy at his landing, in order to conduct him immediately to the Queen, the Prince said, he was much concerned that he could not see her Majesty that night; for Monsieur Hoffman (who was th

26、en by) had assured his Highness that he could not be into her presence with a tied-up periwig; that his equipage was not arrived; and that he had endeavored in vain to borrow a long one among all his valets and pages. My lord turned the matter into a jest, and brought the Prince to her Majesty; for

27、which he was highly censured by the whole tribe of gentlemen ushers; among whom Monsieur Hoffman, an old dull resident of the Emperors, had picked up this material point of ceremony; and which, I believe, was the best lesson he had learned in five-and-twenty years residence. I make a difference betw

28、een good manners and good breeding; although, in order to vary my expression, I am sometimes forced to confound them. By the first, I only understand the art of remembering and applying certain settled forms of general behavior. But good breeding is of a much larger extent; for besides an uncommon d

29、egree of literature sufficient to qualify a gentleman for reading a play, or a political pamphlet, it takes in a great compass of knowledge; no less than that of dancing, fighting, gaming, making the circle of Italy, riding the great horse, and speaking French; not to mention some other secondary, o

30、r subaltern accomplishments, which are more easily acquired. So that the difference between good breeding and good manners lies in this, that the former cannot be attained to by the best understandings, without study and labor; whereas a tolerable degree of reason will instruct us in every part of g

31、ood manners, without other assistance. I can think of nothing more useful upon this subject, than to point out some particulars, wherein the very essentials of good manners are concerned, the neglect or perverting of which doth very much disturb the good commerce of the world, by introducing a traff

32、ic of mutual uneasiness in most companies. First, a necessary part of good manners, is a punctual observance of time at our own dwellings, or those of others, or at third places; whether upon matter of civility, business, or diversion; which rule, though it be a plain dictate of common reason, yet t

33、he greatest minister I ever knew was the greatest trespasser against it; by which all his business doubled upon him, and placed him in a continual arrear. Upon which I often used to rally him, as deficient in point of good manners. I have known more than one ambassador, and secretary of state with a

34、 very moderate portion of intellectuals, execute their offices with good success and applause, by the mere force of exactness and regularity. If you duly observe time for the service of another, it doubles the obligation; it upon your own account, it would be manifest folly, as well as ingratitude,

35、to neglect it. If both are concerned, to make your equal or inferior attend on you, to his own disadvantage, is pride and injustice. Ignorance of forms cannot properly be styled ill manners; because forms are subject to frequent changes; and consequently, being not founded upon reason, are beneath a

36、 wise mans regard. Besides, they vary in every country; and after a short period of time, very frequently in the same; so that a man who travels, must needs be at first a stranger to them every court through which he passes; and perhaps at his return, as much a stranger in his own; and after all, th

37、ey are easier to be remembered or forgotten than faces or names. Indeed, among the many impertinencies that superficial young men bring with them form abroad, this bigotry of forms is one of the principal, and more prominent than the rest; who look upon them not only as if they were matters capable

38、of admitting of choice, but even as points of importance; and are therefore zealous on all occasions to introduce and propagate the new forms and fashions they have brought back with them. So that, usually speaking, the worst bred person in the company is a young traveler just returned from abroad.-