Wednesday, October 10, 2007

"Wittness" by Wittaker Chambers

I'm reading "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers, which was written in 1952 about the Alger Hiss (communist in the US State Department)trial. It's very well written, and very interesting. I thought it was particularly cute, when he was telling about certain rules his mother had with respect to manners:

" A man of 'breeding' is known not so much by what he does as by what he will not do.

1. First and foremost, he never imputes a base motive to anyone else.

2. If someone is rude to him, he assumes that the rudeness is unintentional. If he knows that it is intentional, he acts as if it were not.

3. He never meets anger with anger.

4. He never patronizes anyone because he never assumes that he knows more than anyone else or that uneducated people are unintelligent.

5. He never corrects other people's slips. Always allow people the luxury of being mistaken. They will find out for themselves soon enough. If they don't, they are the kind of people in whom it does not matter.

6. Never, under any circumstances, eat in public in front of people who are not eating."


BTW, Chamber was born in 1901 if that helps :>D

9 comments:

The Merry Widow said...

Good advice for any age!

tmw

Gayle said...

Sadly, there aren't very many people left who still go by those rules, Eyes. It would be a far better rule if they did!

Gayle said...

Sheesh! I meant to type "world" not "rule".

In Russet Shadows said...

#5 is especially worthy. I've learned that you look mean and small when you jump on someone over a minor slip. I think this applies only to interpersonal, live, communication BTW.

Eyes said...

Yes, they are good rules, especially as RS says for 'live' chats... WRT #5, I've made enough mistakes to keep me humble:>D

nanc said...

it is the mistaken who make mistakes constantly who are a thorn in my side - i always try to apologize for mine, but the other person may not and that's when i become angry - guess i need to work on that aspect a bit more.

been having p.c. troubles again - i recently made a comment on your post below this and my p.c. went haywire! hopefully we're all fixed up now.

good to see you eyes!

*:]

Eyes said...

Yes, and the ones who are too lazy to take the time to figure out whether they're right or wrong, but go by what they've 'heard'... Eeeeee!

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