Page:The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man.djvu/124

116 There are, to be sure, certain forms that are in use by what are called the 'polite world' that we can know nothing of; but they are not essential to the spirit of good manners. Ours, I believe, is the only country where those who compose the lower classes have the power and the means of good manners; for here there is no sense of degradation from the necessity of labour. Here, if we will, the poorest of us can get education enough for our children to make them feel the dignity of their nature and destiny, and to make them realize the real equality of rights on which the institutions of the country are based. Self-respect is the real basis of good manners. It makes my blood boil to see the manners of the low-born who come here from the old countries—their servility, their meanness, their crouching to their superiors when they expect a favour, and their impertinence, and dis-obligingness, and downright insolence, when the power is in their own hands. They are like horses used to being guided and driven, and know no more than they would how, without harness, reins, and blinders, to do their duty."