Even a kind look will give pleasure and confer happiness. In one
of Robertson of Brighton's letters, he tells of a lady who related
to him "the delight, the tears of gratitude, which she had
witnessed in a poor girl to whom, in passing, I gave a kind look on
going out of church on Sunday. What a lesson! How cheaply
happiness can be given! What opportunities we miss of doing an
angel's work! I remember doing it, full of sad feelings, passing
on, and thinking no more about it; and it gave an hour's sunshine
to a human life, and lightened the load of life to a human heart
for a time!" {35}
Morals and manners, which give colour to life, are of much greater
importance than laws, which are but their manifestations. The law
touches us here and there, but manners are about us everywhere,
pervading society like the air we breathe. Good manners, as we
call them, are neither more nor less than good behaviour;
consisting of courtesy and kindness; benevolence being the
preponderating element in all kinds of mutually beneficial and
pleasant intercourse amongst human beings. "Civility," said Lady
Montague, "costs nothing and buys everything." The cheapest of all
things is kindness, its exercise requiring the least possible
trouble and self-sacrifice.
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