CHAPTER XVIII.OFFENCES.
If the visits of an acquaintance become less frequent than formerly, the falling off is not always to be imputed to want of regard for you, or to having lost all pleasure in your society. The cause may be want of time, removal to a distance, precarious health, care of children, absence from town, family troubles, depressed fortunes, and various other circumstances. Also, with none of these causes, visiting may gradually and almost insensibly decline, and neither of the parties have the slightest dislike to each other. If no offence has been intended, none should be taken; and when you chance to meet, instead of consuming the time in complaints of estrangement, meet as if your intercourse had never been interrupted, and you will find it very easy to renew it; and perhaps on a better footing than before. The renewal should be marked by a prompt interchange of special invitations—followed by visits.
Unless your rooms are spacious, you cannot have what is called a large general party. Some of your acquaintances must be omitted, and all that are left out, are generally offended. Therefore it is not wellever to have such parties, unless your accommodations are ample.Squeezesare out of fashion in the best American society. We have heard of parties at great houses in London, where, after the rooms were crowded to suffocation, a large portion of the company had to pass the evening on the stairs; and where coaches, unable to draw up from the immense number of these vehicles that were in advance, had to remain all night at the foot of the line, with ladies sitting in them. When morning came, they had to turn back, and drive home, the carriages being all they saw of the party.
It is better to give two or three moderate entertainments in the course of the season, than to crowd your rooms uncomfortably; and even then to risk giving offence to those who could not be added to the number.
If such offence has been given, try to atone for it by inviting the offended to dine with you, or to pass an evening, and asking at the same time a few pleasant people whom you know she likes.
You may have a very intimate and sincere friend who does not find it convenient to send for you every time she has company. If, in all things else, she treats you with uniform kindness, and gives reason to believe that she has a true affection for you, pass over these occasional omissions of invitation, and do not call her to account, or treat her coolly when you see her. True friendship ought not depend uponparties. It should be based on a better foundation.
If no answer is returned to a note of invitation, be not hasty in supposing that the omission has sprung from rudeness or neglect. Trust that your friend is neither rude nor neglectful; and believe that the answer was duly sent, but that it miscarried from some accidental circumstance.
A friend may inadvertently say something that you do not like to hear, or may make a remark that is not pleasant to you. Unless it is prefaced with apreviousapology; or unless she desires you “not to be offended at what she is going to say;” or unless she informs you that “she considers it her duty always to speak her mind,”—you have no right to suppose the offence premeditated, and therefore you should restrain your temper, and calmly endeavour to convince her that she is wrong; or else acknowledge that she is right. She ought then to apologize for what she said, and you should immediately change the subject, and never again refer to it. In this way quarrels may be prevented, and ill-feeling crushed in the bud. When what is called “a coolness” takes place between friends, the longer it goes on the more difficult it is to get over. But “better late than never.” If, on consideration, you find thatyouwere in the wrong, let no false pride, no stubborn perverseness prevent you from making that acknowledgement. If your friend, on her part, first shows a desire for reconciliation, meet her half-way. A vindictive disposition is a bad one, and revenge is a most unchristian feeling. People of sense (unless the injury is very great, and of lasting consequences) are easy to appease, becausethey generally have good feelings, and know how to listen to reason. Dr. Watts most truly says—
“The wise will let their anger cool,At least before ’tis night;But in the bosom of a fool,It burns till morning light.”
“The wise will let their anger cool,At least before ’tis night;But in the bosom of a fool,It burns till morning light.”
“The wise will let their anger cool,At least before ’tis night;But in the bosom of a fool,It burns till morning light.”
“The wise will let their anger cool,
At least before ’tis night;
But in the bosom of a fool,
It burns till morning light.”
Should you chance to be thrown into the presence of persons who have proved themselves your enemies, and with whom you can have no intercourse, say nothing eithertothem oratthem; and do not place yourself in their vicinity. To talkata person, is mean and vulgar. Those who do it are fully capable of writing anonymous and insulting letters; and they often do so. High-minded people will always be scrupulously careful in observing toward those with whom they are at variance, all the ceremonies usual in polite society—particularly the conventional civilities of the table.
If you have, unfortunately, had a quarrel with a friend, talk of it to others as little as possible; lest in the heat of anger, you may give an exaggerated account, and represent your adversary in darker colours than she deserves. You may be very sure these misrepresentations will reach her ear, and be greatly magnified by every successive relater. In this way a trifle may be swelled into importance; a mole-hill may become a mountain; and a slight affront may embitter the feelings of future years. “Blessed are the peacemakers,”—and a mutual friend, if well-disposed toward both opponents, generally has it in her power to effecta reconciliation, by repeating, kindly, any favourable remark she may chance to have heard one of the offended parties make on the other. In truth, we wish it were the universal custom for all people to tell other people whatever good they may hear of them—instead of the wicked and hateful practice of telling only the bad. Make it a rule to repeat to your friends all the pleasant remarks that (as far as you know) are made on them, and you will increase their happiness, and your own popularity. We do not mean that you should flatter them, by reciting compliments that are not true; but truth is not flattery, and there is no reason why agreeable truths should not always be told. There would then be far more kind feeling in the world. Few persons are so bad as not to have some good in them. Let them hear of the good. Few are so ugly as not to have about them something commendable even externally, if it is only a becoming dress. Let them hear of that dress. Flattery is praise without foundation. To tell a person with heavy, dull gray eyes, that her eyes are of a bright and beautiful blue; to talk of her golden locks to a woman with positive red hair of the tint called carroty; to tell a long, thin, stoop-shouldered girl, that she possesses the light and airy form of a sylph; or a short-necked, fat one that her figure has the dignity of an empress; to assure a faded matron that she looks like a young girl; to fall into raptures on listening to bad music, or when viewing a drawing that depicts nothing intelligible; or praising album poetry that has neither “rhyme nor reason,”—allthis is gross flattery, which the object (if she has any sense) will easily detect, and suspect that you are trying experiments on her vanity and credulity.
Still where agreeable qualitiesreallyexist, it is not amiss to allude to them delicately. It will give pleasure without compromising veracity.
When any thing complimentary is said to you, acknowledge it by a bow and smile, but do not attempt an answer unless you can say something in return that will be equally sincere and pleasant. Most probably you cannot; therefore look gratified, and bow your thanks, but remain silent. Few ladies are distinguished, like the Harriet Byron of Grandison, “for a very pretty manner of returning a compliment.” Do not reject the compliment by pretending to prove that you do not deserve it. But if it is a piece of bare-faced flattery, the best answer is to look gravely, and say or do nothing.
Should you chance accidentally to overhear a remark to your disadvantage, consider first if there may not be some truth in it. If you feel that there is, turn it to profitable account, and try to improve, or to get rid of the fault, whatever it may be. But never show resentment at any thing not intended for your ear, unless it is something of such vital importance as to render it necessary that you should come forward in self-defence. These instances, however, are of rare occurrence.
If you are so placed that you can hear the conversation of persons who are talking about you, it is very mean to sit there and listen. Immediatelyremove to a distance far enough to be out of hearing.
It is a proverb that listeners seldom hear any good of themselves. It were a pity if they should. Eavesdropping or listening beneath an open window, the crack of a door, or through a key-hole, are as dishonourable as to pick pockets.