| Citation |
VGW(HU.752.080
1 Dec 1752:11 (99)
To the Printer, &c. Sir, There is nothing so generally
misunderstood, and so frequently talked of as that of good
manners; few people are willing to be thought deficient in
complaisance, and fewer still give themselves much trouble
to acquire the requisites of politeness. . . [1/2 column]
That complaisance has a happier effect upon the world than
even the most shining abilities without it, is irresistably
demonstrated in the behaviour of Cleora and Teraminta.
Cleora is endowed by nature with very distinguished
abilities. . . but tho she can declaim with great
powerfulness on these topics, she always does it with so
little reverence to the company she is in, that none can
hear her without indignation. . . I have often heard her
declare, that Shakespear was not so great a poet as the
world imagined, and that Garrick cannot play above two parts
tolerably. When she enters or leaves a room she does it
with disdain, and her courtesies are so very philosophical,
that not a dancing-master in town will undertake to polish
her air; she has no change ever to be courted for a wife,
and when she comes to be an old maid; heavens have mercy on
her acquaintance: . . .
|