Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1878 — Other People’s Feelings and Fallings. [ARTICLE]

Other People’s Feelings and Fallings.

Most of us have a very tender regard | for our own feelings. We do not like to >ave them injured. We are amaxed that people can be so rude and clumsy as to tread upon our toes, or roughly expose to the air our scarcely-healed wound. But so weak is human nature and so prone are we to think less generously of others than of purselves, that we often sin in the very wot which we would be swiftest to condemn in our neighbors. It is a great delight to meet a man or woman who is always considerate, gentle and polite in his treatment of those he or she meets in daily life. This topic came up around the break-fast-table in a city nouse one morning lately. You, happy readers, who live in the country, know comparatively little of the persistent annoyances which city folks undergo from the continual rappings and ringings and shoutings and screamings of people who go from door to door to buy, to sell, or to beg. The room in which the breakfast alluded to as being taken was a front basement, on a pleasant street, intersecting a busy thoroughfare. Coffee was poured, biscuits had been passed, eggs were being broken, fruit was being pared. Interruption No. 1: “Any r-a-a-ags?” The speaker darkened the Window with his head and dimmed the shining glass with his breath, as he hurled this remark, ascending, interrogative and declamatory, at our shivering ears Somebody shook her curls at him pleasantly, and he departed with a jingling of bells at the hand-cart he was wheeling along, and a fainter cry of “ Any r-a-args?” gradually lessening in the air as he went his way. Interruption No. 2: “Please, ma’am, any cold meat and bread?” It is a little, blue-looking, pinchedlooking mite of a boy, with a basket nearly as big as himself. ** Don’t encourage professional beggars,” says the gentleman of the house. “O! my dear,” returns the lady, as aha atuponu tho tis t.lio hi’OH.n011X7 OVVX7x7IzB VIIX7 WFIIUXSIIVO XZX VIXX7 KzX X7CWXX plate into the not fastidiously clean receptacle. “I can't refuse a child when he looks as hungry as that little fellow does. Just think. It might be our own Harry!” Interruption No. 3: Man rings the door-bell violently. Domestic responds. Presently she enters and inquires if the mistress can step out and look at some prize packages of stationery, etc. “No!” cries paterfamilias, loud enough to be heard outside. “ Tell him to be off with his trash!” “My dear,” the lady urges, seriously, having dismissed the children first, “I do wish you would not be so impolite in your manner to tramps and peddlers. It is their only way of earning a livelihood, and I think Christians ought to be kind to them.” “Ifully agree with you. Your sentiments and mine precisely correspond, but your patience is greater than mine, you see. How you endure it, staying here all day, too, is quite beyond me to comprehend. I believe in politeness to one's equals and superiors—but I won’t take my hat off to inferiors.”

“ A tramp is not necessarily your inferior, my friend,” observed the Philosopher, who happened to be staying at the house, and who was giving lectures in the lyceum course. “ I have heard of tramps who had at one time been millionaires, and of others who had received the education of a university.” “I shouldn’t wonder,” said Madame, meditatively balancing her spoon on the transparent edge of her Sevres teacup —“I shouldn’t wonder if you called Homer a tramp, or Diogenes, if either of them were lining now.” “Very likely,” replied Monsieur, taking up the newspaper, to find out whether our Representative in Congress had been giving any more National ob-ject-lessons on good manners. And then the talk drifted to the affairs of the day, what engagements each had, what visits were to be made, what shopping done, which closets cleaned, etc., etc. One person only remembered the morning’s discussion, and sat down to think upon this matter of courtesy. And she came to the conclusion that courtesy is a word of very wide meaning. It is an index finger to character. You observe a true lady, a true gentleman, anywhere. They cannot commit a rudeness. Itrwould hurt them and jar them to wound the feelings of the lowest and the farthest below them. To be truly polite implies that one shall be thoughtful of the feelings of everybody, and of inferiors most of all.

When are we to begin our training in this regard? With our little children, at once. Do not permit Susy or Jennie, unreproved, to bother or tease or annoy Bridget in the kitchen. Never let them allude to her as the “ servant-girl,” or speak of “ servant-girls” in her presence. The phrase may define her position, but she does not like to hear it, and it takes off the bloom of their refinement every time they use it. Do not jump to pick up your own thimble which has rolled away when Charlie is in the room. Let him bring it to you. and say “ Thank you” to him for the kindness. Do not encourage in yourself the habit of criticising and commenting upon the foibles or faults of any member of your own family. There is nothing gained by it, and a great deal is lost. Love itself is often choked back and hindered in its growth by the rank sturdiness of weeds which spring up against it, unchecked, in houses where people say all manner of ungentle speeches to each other. If you want to cultivate real happiness, cultivate goodness. Think more of others’- excellent qualities than of their failings, and be gentle and amiable to all.— Christian at Work.