HOME MANNERS by Beatrice Fairfax

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Mar 28, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 13.

HOME MANNERS.

By Beatrice Fairfax

[Beatrice Fairfax, in the Examiner.]

You can’t have two sets of manners—that is to say, one manner for home use and one for public.

The habits and mannerisms of home life are bound to slip out in public.

For instance, I know a girl who has an irritating and unbecoming habit of clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

She imagines that she only does it in the privacy of the home circle, but she very often does it quite unconsciously in public.

We have no right to be careless about our home manners.

To those whom we love best we quite complacently show our worst side.

Sisters think nothing of appearing before their brothers in untidy, unbecoming curl papers and wrappers.

Brothers go unshaved before their sisters without a thought of how ugly they look.

I wonder how many brothers think of offering their sisters the most comfortable chair in the room, or how many sons offer it to their mothers, for that matter.

If a stranger came into the room they would be on their feet at once; but any old manner will do for the home circle.

A man may love his wife very dearly and yet he will speak to her in a tone of voice that he would not dare to use in speaking to another woman.

It’s a queer way of doing things, isn’t it, to be all courtesy to a perfect stranger and brusque rudeness to those we love best?

You see, we got into the way of thinking, “O, our own people understand us; they know we mean well; we don’t have to be polite with them.”

And that is just where we make a great mistake, for we should be just as courteous at home as abroad.

You can’t slip good manners on like a cloak. Home training shows. You can tell in a minute whether good manners are put on for the occasion or whether they are natural.

Just because a girl happens to be a man’s sister is no reason why he should not show her the little courtesies he does other girls.

He would fight to the death for her if need be, but he would not dream of putting out her chair for her when she came to the dinner table.

I know a girl who is all sweetness when in a strange house and far from it when in her own.

All her bad tempers are vented on the family. She will sit through meals without speaking a word, save to snap at some one who ventures to address her.

Lots of people are like that. They are sweet in public because they don’t dare to be anything else, but to the poor home people they show a vastly different side.

Don’t have two sets of manners. One is all you need, but let that one be a good one.