Precept & Practice – MAY 11 – Discourteousness

Another thing, in which families might imitate the politeness of strangers, is a wise reticence with regard to the asking of questions and the offering of advice.

A large family includes many people of different tastes, habits, modes of thinking and acting, and it would be wise and well to leave to each one that measure of freedom in these respects, which the laws of general politeness require.   Brothers and sisters may love each other very much, and yet not enough to make joint-stock of all their ideas, plans, wishes, schemes, friendships.  There are in every family circle individuals whom a certain sensitiveness of nature inclines to quietness and reserve;  and there are very well-meaning families where no such quietness or reserve is possible.   Nobody can be let alone, nobody may have a secret, nobody can move in any direction, without a host of inquiries and comments.

…..If there is perfect unreserve and mutual confidence, let it show itself in free communications coming unsolicited.   It may fairly be presumed, that, if there is anything our intimate friends wish us to know, they will tell us of it, and that when we are on close and confidential terms with persons, and there are topics on which they do not speak to us, it is because, for some reason, they prefer to keep silence concerning them;  and the delicacy that respects a friend’s silence is one of the charms of life.

H. Beecher Stowe (Little Foxes)

Cultivate the great art of leaving people alone, even those you think you have a right to direct in the minutest particular.

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW