entitled, in consideration of their sex, not only to an attentive, but an officious good-breeding from men.
Not too much Familiarity.—The most familiar
and intimate habitudes, connections, and friendships
require a degree of good-breeding both to preserve
and cement them. If ever a man and his wife,
or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well
as days together, absolutely lay aside all good-breeding,
their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse
familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.
The best of us have our bad sides; and it is
as imprudent, as it is ill-bred, to exhibit them. I
shall certainly not use ceremony with you; it would
be misplaced between us: but I shall certainly
observe that degree of good-breeding with you,
which is, in the first place, decent, and which, I am
sure, is absolutely necessary to make us like one
another's company long.
The deepest learning, without good-breeding, is unwelcome and tiresome pedantry, and of use nowhere but in a man's own closet; and consequently of little or no use at all.
A man, who is not perfectly well-bred, is unfit for good company, and unwelcome in it; will consequently dislike it soon, afterward renounce it; and be
