Why Are Salutations Important?
The salutation, mentions a French writer, is the touchstone of great breeding. According to means, it should be courteous, cordial, civil, affectionate or common: an inclination of the head, an indication with the hand, the touching or doffing of the hat.
If you eliminate your hat you need not at the same time bend the dorsal vertebr’ of your body, except if you wish to be very reverential, as in saluting a bishop.
If an individual of the lowest rank, or with no rank at all, takes off his hat to you, you should do the same in return. A bow, mentions La Fontaine, is a note drawn at sight. If you acknowledge it, you must pay the full amount. The two best-bred men in England, Charles the Second and George the Fourth, not failed to take off their hats to the meanest of their subjects.
If you have anything to say to any one in the street however intimate you may be, don’t stop the person, but turn round and walk in company; you can take leave at the end of the street.
If there is any one of your colleagues, with whom you have a difference, don’t avoid looking at him, unless from the nature of things the quarrel is exactly for life. It is nearly always best to bow with cold civility, though without speaking.
Good sense and benefit are the foundations of good breeding; and it is assuredly vastly more reasonable and more cool to enjoy a passing gratification, when no sequent evil is to be apprehended, than to be rendered uncomfortable by an ill-founded pride. It is therefore best to carry on a simple and civil dialogue. A snuff-box, or some polite accommodation rendered, may serve for an opening. Talk only about generalities, the play, the roads, the weather. Break away from speaking of persons or politics, for, if the associate is of the opposite party to yourself, you will be engaged in a controversy: if he holds similar opinions, you will be astonished with a flood of vulgar intelligence, that can soil your mind. Be reservedly civil while the colloquy lasts, and let the acquaintance cease with the occasion.
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