I know too well that my
tact is not the same as their tact, and that my habit of a different
society constituted, not only no qualification, but a positive
disability to move easily and becomingly in this. When Jones
complimented me - because I 'managed to behave very pleasantly' to my
fellow-passengers, was how he put it - I could follow the thought in
his mind, and knew his compliment to be such as we pay foreigners on
their proficiency in English. I dare say this praise was given me
immediately on the back of some unpardonable solecism, which had led
him to review my conduct as a whole. We are all ready to laugh at
the ploughman among lords; we should consider also the case of a lord
among the ploughmen. I have seen a lawyer in the house of a
Hebridean fisherman; and I know, but nothing will induce me to
disclose, which of these two was the better gentleman. Some of our
finest behaviour, though it looks well enough from the boxes, may
seem even brutal to the gallery. We boast too often manners that are
parochial rather than universal; that, like a country wine, will not
bear transportation for a hundred miles, nor from the parlour to the
kitchen.
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