Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/315

 même d'un peu de polissonerie, is pardonable with the latter. [Same date.]

—Loud laughter is extremely inconsistent with les bienséances, as it is only the illiberal and noisy testimony of the joy of the mob, at some very silly thing. A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard, to laugh. Nothing is more contrary to les bienséances than horse-play, or ''jeux de main'' of any kind whatever, and has often very serious, sometimes very fatal consequences. Romping, struggling, throwing things at one another's head, are the becoming pleasantries of the mob, but degrade a gentleman; giuoco di mano, giuoco di villano, is a very true saying, among the few true sayings of the Italians.

There is a bienséance also with regard to people of the lowest degree; a gentleman observes it with his footman, even with the beggar in the street. He considers them as objects of compassion, not of insult; he speaks to neither d'un ton brusque, but corrects the one coolly, and refuses the other with humanity. There is no one occasion in the world in which le ton brusque is becoming a gentleman. In short, les bienséances are another word for manners. [Same date.]

—Now that all tumultuous pas