Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1879 — English Manners. [ARTICLE]

English Manners.

English people impress you first of all .by a sense of the genuineness of their actions and of their speech. Warm or cold they may be, gracious or ungracious, arrogant or considerate, but you feel that they are real. Englishmen adulterate their goods, but not their conduct. If an Englishman makes you welcome, you feel at home; and you know that, within reason, and often out of reason, he will look after your comfort—that for your well-being while Jou are under his roof he considers imself responsible. And yet he does not thrust himself upon you, and you may do almost what you choose, and go almost whither you will. If he wants you to come to him, he will take more trouble to bring you than you will to go, and yet make no fuss about it any more than he does about the sun’s rising, without which he would be in darkness. If he meets you and gives you two fingers, it means only two fingers; if his whole hand grasps yours, you have his hand, and you have it most warmly at your parting.. His speech is like his action. His social word is his social bond; you may trust him for all that it promises, and commonly for more. If you do not understand him well, you may suppose at first that he is indifferent and careless, until something is done for you, or suggested to you, that shows you that his friend’s welfare has been upon his mind.— Richard Grant White, in December Atlantic. —This free education is getting played out when dinner is made late by the cook’s stopping work to discuss the principles of evolution with a book agent.— Boaton Post.