HUME AND THE QUESTION OF GOOD MANNERS

The question of manners is important in David Hume’s examination of human nature primarily because of the weight he assigns to the so-called ‘social virtues’. Man is, for Hume, a being that naturally tends to form societies, and the study of human nature is, after all, the study of human sociability, which finds its expression in manners. The present paper shows Hume as a participant in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century discussion about the concept of politeness, a concept which oscillated between the domain of manners and morals and the domain of art. The examination of Hume’s ideal of polite manners illustrates the way his classicist taste pervaded the appreciation both of works of art and of social comportment.

the wider and the narrower sense of the word. Second, man, for Hume, is a being that naturally tends to form societies, and the study of human nature is, after all, the study of human sociability, which finds its expression in manners.
Third, the sentiment of taste concerning particular personal manners considerably influences our pleasure or disgust in contemplation of someone's character, of moral beauty or deformity. Fourth, Hume's concept of good manners and other 'companionable qualities' illustrates the preferences of his taste in general, his 'classicism' (owing to the analogy between manners and works of art explicit in his writings). 2 It also testifies to his legendary Francophilia. In his essay 'Of Civil Liberty' , Hume mentions 'that art, the most useful and agreeable of any, l'Art de Vivre, the art of society and conversation ' , 3 which was perfected by the French, whereas in Britain there still remain -in the words of Horace -the traces of the rustic past. This contrast between French 'politeness' , 'elegance' , and British (especially English) 'rusticity' , even 'barbarousness' occurs rather often in Hume's texts, especially in the letters written during his second sojourn in France. According to Hume, one of the criteria of the politeness of a nation was its admiration for men of letters. The enthusiastic reception of the author of The History of England by Parisian society is well known. 4 Hume's application of the term 'polite' is broad, as it is used, for instance, in The study primarily focuses on the last two aspects of Hume's concept of manners, that is, the relations between manners and morals and the connections between his ideal of agreeable manners and his literary and artistic preferences. In both these aspects Hume does not deviate from the models set by continental treatises of savoir-vivre, which are in turn largely indebted to the works of Cicero. The pervasive influence of Hume's early reading becomes in this respect particularly apparent when we consider his use of the Ciceronian concepts of decorum and moderatio. Hume makes the theory of manners a part of his philosophy of human nature, elaborates it, for instance, in regard to his theory of the passions, sets it in a political context, and so forth, but his views concerning what is agreeable in social manners do not substantially evolve during his life. If we compare the earliest texts like 'An Historical Essay on Chivalry and Modern Honour' to the works of his maturity, we find the same emphasis on moderation and disapproval of all excess and extravagance in manners (that are not redeemed by 'greatness of mind' of course -the exception, which appears in the Treatise). The present article therefore considers Hume's opinions as an abstract whole, where the works he wrote within the span of several decades form a surprising unity.
3 David Hume, 'Of Civil Liberty' , in Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987) society, but also to a certain manner of writing, to the beaux arts, and to learning in general. Hume concurs with Shaftesbury in his project of creating 'polite philosophy' , that is, philosophy without pedantry, 'elegant writing' that should help to polish English letters at last and, accordingly, English taste and manners. 'To philosophize, in a just Signification, is but to carry Good-breeding a step higher.' This often-quoted sentence from Characteristicks would undoubtedly be endorsed by Hume. 6 For him, bad manners go hand in hand with unsound philosophizing: 'sensible manners' are hardly compatible with 'subtilities of school philosophy' , 7 with dogmatizing or religious enthusiasm. It is not only scholastic dogmatizing that is connected with the extravagant austerity of morals and manners, but any pretentious teaching (like the 'severe wisdom' of the Stoics) can result in our reasoning 'ourselves out of all virtue as well as social enjoyment'. 8 That would be a fatal loss, because the pleasures of social commerce, especially of friendship and conversation, are the greatest and the most innocent we are granted. (E. C. Mossner shows that where friendship was at stake, the 'inquirer after truth' would yield to 'le bon David'.) 9 The beginning of Section V of the first Enquiry implies that we should expect agreeable manners and active sociability most likely from someone of a moderately sceptical disposition. The texts of the Schoolmen also sin against the principles of polite writing (that means against good taste) and therefore cannot aid in the cultivation of man. To be 'servicable [sic] to Virtue' one must become 'a Writer of Taste'. 10 The amelioration of morals and manners needs 'elegant writers' such as Cicero or Addison, writers of 'easy and obvious' philosophy. The conclusion of the third book of the Treatise suggests that the abstruse reasoning of the whole work is only preliminary to more engaging, more elegant writing which will be more directly 'subservient to practical morality'. 11 This writing will include the 31 Essays as well as The History of England -Hume had a high opinion of historians' ability to promote the case of virtue. 12 He himself eventually succeeded in cutting the desired figure of a philosopher who is at the same time ingenious and agreeable, 'who joins the greatest depth of thought to the greatest elegance of expression' , 13 the figure of a man, who is at home in both the learned and the conversible world. 14 The importance of the social qualities of man is derived from Hume's emphasis on his social dimension: it is mainly these qualities that make up the virtuousness of a person. 15 Hume defines virtue as a useful or agreeable quality of mind. The second Enquiry lists four classes of such qualities: qualities useful to others, qualities useful to the person himself, qualities immediately agreeable to others and qualities immediately agreeable to the person himself. 16 'Good Manners or Politeness' (also 'good-breeding' in the Treatise) are dealt with as a quality of the third class, which further includes wit, modesty, decency (or decorum), cleanliness and je-ne-sais-quoi. 17 Politeness represents only a 'limited endowment' in comparison with the 'enlarged virtues of humanity, generosity, beneficence' 18 but it is an indispensable part of any character that aspires to perfection. Hume describes politeness as a kind of supplement to justice: As the mutual shocks, in society, and the oppositions of interest and self-love have constrained mankind to establish the laws of justice, in order to preserve the advantages of mutual assistance and protection: in like manner, the eternal contrarieties, in company, of men's pride and self-conceit, have introduced the rules of Good Manners or Politeness, in order to facilitate the intercourse of minds, and an undisturbed commerce and conversation. 19 Politeness, as well as justice, is, then, an artificial rein to human egoism and represents a developed stage in the civilizing of pride. Departing from Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, Hume follows Mandeville in this respect, but he For a brief survey, see ibid., 106-17. 17 Ibid., 98-105. (The list in the Treatise is fairly similar.) 18 Ibid., 120. 19 Ibid., 98. does not see politeness as depending exclusively on social conventions. 20 (Hume's only specific reference to Mandeville in Of Refinement in the Arts is disapproving, yet he often concurs with him, for example, holding the same opinion regarding the evolution of politeness that is expressed in Mandeville's sentence: 'Luxury and Politeness ever grew up together.' 21 ) Politeness is not exclusively an arbitrary invention of some 'skilful politicians' or legislators for Hume, it also evolves naturally and spontaneously as a result of family life, which is the first school of politeness: 'In a little time, custom and habit operating on the tender minds of the children, makes them sensible of the advantages, which they may reap from society, as well as fashions them by This conversation takes place in a mixed-sex society; it is not a discourse of male savants. However much Hume condemns chivalry and the fantastic gallantry connected with it, he defends the natural gallantry against those 'more zealous partizans of the ancients, ' who 'have asserted it to be foppish and ridiculous, and a reproach, rather than a credit, to the present age.' 26 In this sentence from Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences he is referring to Shaftesbury's Moralists, most likely to the passage where modern gallantry is treated as 'false, monstrous, and Gothick; quite out of the way of Nature, and sprung from the mere Dregs of Chivalry or Knight-Errantry' , which even aggravates it, the original chivalry in itself being 'of a better Taste than that which reigns at present in its stead'. 27 Hume's defence of gallantry is based on an assumption that it refines manners: 'What better school for manners, than the company of virtuous women'. 28 This is a commonplace, because almost every writer who had before him dealt with the question of politeness stresses the importance of female company, like La Bruyère or Hume's favourite Saint-Évremond (to limit ourselves to those Hume certainly read). Hume's 'progallantry' stance is quite in line with his predilection for French polite authors. 29 But it is the company of 'virtuous' women that improves manners, not 'the company of women of fashion' recommended by the Earl of Chesterfield in one of the letters to his son. 30 The essay 'Of National Characters' also suggests that the most important source of politeness is 'free intercourse between sexes' , but only when 'properly managed' , that is, without excesses of debasing passions such as jealousy: unlike gallantry, duelling does not refine manners. 31 This proper management of contact between the sexes is of course to be expected only in society where gallantry is devoid of lasciviousness and politeness is not a mere polish that masks moral depravity.
As a reader of Castiglione, Gracián, La Bruyère, and Saint-Évremond, Hume could not fail to realize that the origins of gallantry and the development of politeness are bound up with court life. French manners are more refined than manners in Britain because France is a monarchy and one must 'court the good graces and favour of the great' there to gain an office: 'To be prosperous […], it is requisite for him to render himself agreeable, by his wit, complaisance, or civility.' 32 Unlike Shaftesbury, Hume does not try to separate politeness from the court, because courtliness is not something psychosocially and artistically destructive for him. Hume is not, however, particularly interested in the politeness of courtiers -what he examines is urban politeness in general, which was, in his day, no longer limited to court society. He considers the French emphasis on politeness a result of a more developed sociability. (The French love of company was one of the first things he experienced as a young man while staying at La Flèche 33 -Hume's first sojourn in France was an impulse for his early reflexions on politeness.) This emphasis should not occur at the expense of 'more solid qualities'. 34 Hume never praised manners alone as a moyen de parvenir, but he clearly saw that polished manners were often more conducive to social and political prominence than less visible qualities. 35 The History of England abounds with examples of successful men whose accomplishments in matters of 'graceful demeanour' and 'polite address' were not complemented by solid or intrinsic virtues (for example, the Earl of Somerset) or even served to hide a vicious nature (as in Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester). The old discussion about the relation between real, solid virtue and superficial, fashionable politeness (or good manners) results for Hume in the following observation: the greater the man, the lesser need there is for him to be polite. Social virtues (politeness is one of them) are our compensation for the  Hume,Enquiry Concerning Morals,99. 35 In the words of one of Hume's favourite authors, Girard: 'C'est presque toujours les manières, plutôt que les qualités essentielles qui font qu'on est goûté dans le monde ou qu'on ne l'est pas. ' Girard,Synonymes françois,13. grandeur that the ancients possessed. A hero, a genius can be 'rough'; for 'men of more ordinary talents' , on the other hand, the social virtues are 'still more essentially requisite'. 36 In other words: 'Only perfect integrity can atone for rough manners and unamiable character.' 37 Hume does not reject the idea that outward politeness should to a certain degree make up for the lack of other qualities, but he reminds us -in the passage quoted above -that politeness represents only a 'limited endowment'. He occasionally 38 adopts the distinction between politeness and civility that was common in French discourse -politesse as a quality of the 'heart' , civilité as something inferior, superficial, deceptive. 39 Mostly, however, he employs politeness only as an equivalent of good manners, that is, mere civility. Politeness, according to Hume, involves a certain pretence: 'Among well-bred people, a mutual deference is affected; contempt of others The compliance with what a particular time and country see as politeness does not necessarily bring any 'alienation' or deformation of the individual. The civilizing process is not something, for Hume, that entails falsehood; 43 no substantial conflict arises between the 'central' self and the 'social' self, 44 because there is no real, inner, natural, authentic, or even transcendent self that could clash with the social self and its manners. Man is originally a social being; society is not a place of corruption of his ideal, innocent pre-social state. Such a state remains a fiction of philosophers, 'not unlike that of the golden age, which poets have invented'. 45 A prominent driving force of the social self is vanity (or self-love), an important agent in the progress of sociability: men 'love […] to show their wit or their breeding; their taste in conversation or living, in clothes or furniture'. 46 Vanity is closely connected with 'love of fame' which makes us take account of the opinion of others in correcting our conduct.
Society represents an ever-present mirror of our manners, and paying attention to the images it shows has a morally beneficent effect: 'This constant habit of surveying ourselves, as it were, in reflection, keeps alive all the sentiments of right and wrong.' 47 It is a part of the inevitable 'simulation' , which directs our actions in society. 48 Hume realizes the theatricality of social commerce, buthere his view differs from the opinion of the French moralistes -it does not mean for him that the life of society is based on illusiveness, lying, and flattery.
His treatment of vanity is decidedly non-Augustinian: neither vanity nor amor sui is a mark of depravity of condemned mankind. 49 The origin of politeness lies in self-interest, but we approve of politeness not only because it serves well one's self-assertion -we also feel 'sympathy' resulting from our apprehension of its public utility. Although the approbation of polite manners is bound up with utility, their agreeableness is an immediate effect that does not depend on 'any consideration of utility or beneficial tendencies'. 50 Most of the qualities immediately agreeable to others allow of explanation, at least to a certain degree, but there is a quality that makes all reasoning stop short. Like so many 'polite' writers before him, Hume has to acknowledge the irreducible je-ne-sais-quoi as the mysterious source of our affection, the indescribable constituent of pleasing manners. The second Enquiry is more explicit than the Treatise on this point: But besides all the agreeable qualities, the origin of whose beauty we can, in some degree, explain and account for, there still remains something mysterious and inexplicable, which conveys an immediate satisfaction to the spectator, but how, or why, or for what reason, he cannot pretend to determine. There is a manner, a grace, an ease, a genteelness, an I-know-not-what, which some men possess above others, which is very different from external beauty and comeliness, and which, however, catches our affection almost as suddenly and powerfully.
[…] This class of accomplishments, therefore, must be trusted entirely to the blind, but sure testimony of taste and sentiment; and must be considered as part of ethics, left by nature to baffle all the pride of philosophy, and make her sensible of her narrow boundaries and slender acquisitions. 51 37 Jan Staněk 46 Hume, 'Refinement in Arts' , 271. There is another agreeable sentiment evoked by personal manners, which evades explanation by the principle of utility -namely, the sentiment of the moral sublime. 58 We experience the moral sublime in the presence of heroic virtue and this experience is an agreeable one, although we understand that heroism is dangerous and destructive and therefore often not useful either to the individual in question, or to others. Hume  Montrose's portrait shows the traits which constitute the 'sublime kind of merit' , notably 'excessive courage and magnanimity'; there is definitely 'something so dazzling in his character, the mere contemplation of it so elevates the mind, that we cannot refuse it our admiration' , 62 notwithstanding some bloody deeds.
Hurtfulness and excessiveness can be redeemed for the appreciation of taste by personal greatness and splendour: only then may they elicit a certain kind of approval. The sentiment of the moral sublime also defies the principles of politeness. It forms an exception to the 'polite' rule that visible pride and selfesteem are disagreeable because they offend our own vanity.
The examination of heroic virtue in the Treatise is preceded by a mention of Christian humility. Hume is rather reserved towards humility as a thoroughgoing persuasion of one's unworthiness, because he sees it as unnatural and detrimental to the character. The problem of Christian humility is connected with the problem of modesty in general. ( 61 Hume, History of England, vol. 6, 24. 62 Hume, Treatise, 600-1. 63 Hume, Enquiry Concerning Morals, 129; Hume's italics. ultimately places in 'the catalogue of vices'. 64 As for the 'internal sentiment' of a person, Hume allows only a 'small bias towards modesty' , while in our comportment there should be 'strong bias' towards it. 65 The display of humility or modesty is one of the essential components of agreeable manners and it often serves only to flatter the vanity of others; it is used as a means. None the less, Hume does not call such civility 'superficial' or 'false' as, for instance, Courtin would do. (Courtin treats civilité as based upon modestie, which is not studied and 'fills the spirit with a Christian contempt of oneself & with an esteem for all the others'; he condemns pretended modesty as an artifice of pride -un artifice de l'orgueil. 66 ) Hume does not propose a theory of civilité chrétienne; for him modesty is just a counterweight to man's natural propensity to overvalue himself, and as such renders social commerce more agreeable, but this is far from saying that man should be 'ignorant of his own merits and accomplishments'. 67 The Treatise expresses this more resolutely: I believe no one, who has any practice of the world […], will assert, that the humility, which good-breeding and decency require of us, goes beyond the outside, or that a thorough sincerity in this particular is esteem'd a real part of our duty. On the contrary, we may observe, that a genuine and hearty pride, or selfesteem, if well conceal'd and well founded, is essential to the character of a man of honour […]. 68 Outward humility must be proper, decorous, which means it must suit our age, social 'rank' , and so forth. Although obvious, humility, which forms a part of good manners, avoids ostentation, for ostentatious humility smacks of pride and even impudence. 69 In one of the withdrawn essays, Of Impudence and Modesty, Hume shows the special place impudence occupies among the vices.
It is the only vice that is 'difficult to be attained' , one which has positive effects The manuals of savoir-vivre often warn against the disagreeable effects of improper humility. See, for example, Giovanni della Casa, Galatée (Paris: René Guignard, 1666), 58-60. Mandeville states that to pretend we have a greater esteem for others than we have for ourselves we must simply 'grow impudent enough'. Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, 145. This kind of 'bare-faced' flattery is incompatible with polished manners (see ibid., 152).
'upon a man's fortune'. 70 Hume sees it as useful natural talent, the lack of which is hard, almost impossible, to compensate for by some 'counterfeit': 'Nothing carries a man through the world like a true genuine natural impudence.' 71 Hume's treatment of impudence is devoid of moral indignation; it simply states the expediency of certain manners, whether they undermine morality or not: 'overbearing airs' , though shameless, replace personal merit in the eyes of the world. Impudence is called a vice, but modesty is not mentioned as a virtue anywhere in this essay: the virtuous opposite of impudence represents a 'decent assurance' , not 'modesty'. Impudence is here not only a quality useful to ourselves (as it capacitates us 'for business and action'), it even seems to pass sometimes for a quality immediately agreeable to others, because many are unable to distinguish it from the 'decent assurance' that naturally accompanies personal merit and does not transgress the rules of politeness. 72 The search for something like 'decent' or 'modest' assurance is a recurrent motif in the literature of savoir-vivre: the Aristotelian search for a mean between overassurance and diffidence, or, with some, the art of a seeming undervaluation of oneself. 73 We saw that in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century discourse the term 'polite' applied not only to social behaviour, but also to the domain of art, especially belles-lettres. The entry 'Politesse' written by Diderot for the Encyclopédie, for instance, constantly switches from politeness of manners and conversation to that of writings as a matter of course. 74 Klein,Shaftesbury, See, for example, Hume,Enquiry Concerning Morals,104;David Hume,'Of Simplicity and Refinement in Writing' ,in Essays,195. 77 Hume uses the adjective 'Gothic' in accord with the meaning of the 'barbarous' current in the eighteenth century. See Alfred E. Longueil, 'The Word "Gothic" in Eighteenth Century Criticism' , Modern Language Notes 38 (1923): 455. Once more, in his campaign against everything 'Gothic' , Hume concurs with the authors of The Spectator: they also wanted to 'banish this Gothic Taste' which sins against just simplicity. See Joseph Addison, 'Spectator, no. 409' , in The Spectator, vol. 6, 130-34 (London: J. S. Jordan, 1794), 133. 78 Mossner, 'Hume's "An Historical Essay"' ,58. 79 Ernest C. Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Edinburgh and Austin: Nelson, 1954), 47. See also Hume,History of England,vol. 1,487: 'Ideas of chivalry infected the writings, conversation, and behaviour of men, during some ages; and even after they were, in a great measure, banished by the revival of learning, they left modern gallantry and the point of honour, which still maintain their influence, and are the genuine offspring of those ancient affectations.' Gothic architecture continued to serve Hume as an example of artistic failure. See Hume,'Simplicity and Refinement' , This poet contains great beauties, a sweet and harmonious versification, easy elocution, a fine imagination: Yet does the perusal of his work become so tedious, that one never finishes it from the mere pleasure which it affords: It soon becomes a kind of task-reading […]. This effect, of which every one is conscious, is usually ascribed to the change of manners: But manners have more changed since Homer's age; and yet that poet remains still the favourite of every reader of taste and judgment. Homer copied true natural manners, which, however rough or uncultivated, will always form an agreeable and interesting picture: But the pencil of the English poet was employed in drawing the affectations, and conceits, and fopperies of chivalry, which appear ridiculous as soon as they lose the recommendation of the mode. 80 This again clearly echoes the opinion expressed already in the essay on chivalry: 'plain roughness' is preferable to 'chimerical and affected Politeness'. 81 The traits that a work of art and social manners, which aspire to satisfy refined, up-to-date taste in Humean terms, must have in common are fairly evident.
First of all it is the observation of propriety (Ciceronian decorum, 82 and also decency), which entails moderation as an expression of sound judgement (Art and manners founded on 'fantastic notions' lack both propriety and moderation).
Furthermore, they must be natural, that is, devoid of obvious artificiality; only then they can have the desired elegance, simplicity, and ease. (Hume approaches the latter characteristics also with expressions like smooth(ness) and polish(ed).) The term polite comprises all these traits in relation to both art and manners. Negative evaluations virtually represent the opposites of these attributes: indecorum, exaggeration, excessiveness, affectation, over-refinement, and rudeness. Hume sometimes calls a synthesis of such undesirable features 'Gothic' or 'Asiatic' (as opposed to 'Attic').
Hume's disapproval of indecorum is, at the ethical level, a disapproval of excessive passions, whether they are displayed in eloquence, writing, or in social intercourse. Politeness in general demands the restraint of violent passions, and even classical eloquence, especially when exuberantly figurative, often offends the taste of the polite age. 83 83 Potkay writes about an 'ideology of polite style' , which 'encompasses Hume's censure of "excessive" figures. Figures, as the language of the passions, will be stigmatized by a social ethos that applauds restraint. And to possess polished manners means, in word and in deed, precisely to restrain one's passions, while polite taste is the corresponding ability to appreciate restraint in social and esthetic expression.' Adam Potkay, 'Classical Eloquence and Polite style in the Age of Hume' , Eighteenth-Century Studies 25 (1991): 50. For a discussion of Hume's reservations about some aspects of classical eloquence, see ibid., 43-9. The relation between preferences of artistic taste and social demands on the manners of individuals is analysed by Elias: classicism lies also in its being a result of the ability to resist the temptation of various exaggerated and ostentatious 'conceits' , the ability to conceal artifice and effort, which was essential for classicist taste. Proper simplicity is an essential condition of elegant ease, the highest achievement in the combined realms of art and personal manners. The fact that Hume's treatment of manners is indebted to the theory of rhetoric becomes particularly apparent when we consider this ideal of ease or disengagement, which is nothing other than the famous sprezzatura of Castiglione corresponding to the rhetoric principle of neglegentia diligens. 84 (Hume himself refers to Castiglione, whose treatise was, moreover, extensively drawn on by his favourite 'elegant' authors. Il Cortegiano derives the principles of manners from Cicero's De oratore 85 -it must have suited Hume perfectly.) Hume's praise of ease shows that he was one of those who considered grace an indispensable element of consummate manners. 86 The emphasis on easiness also concurs with Addison's observations concerning 'modish' urban civility, which, according to him, recently tended to 'agreeable negligence' that returned good breeding its 'natural beauty'. 87 John Locke thought easiness -and the resulting gracefulness -in demeanour was a 'natural emanation' of a mind free from all great defects. Similarly, for Addison the unaffected negligence which marked a 'fine gentleman' was a result of his virtuousness and piety. 88 Hume, on the other hand, was well aware that graceful manners have no necessary complement in moral perfection, only in wit that outshines moral beauty or deformity. Although we know that the 'bearer' of manners is a moral agent, this knowledge can be suppressed by the powerful effect of his presence, by the immediate pleasure we feel. Our approbation depends entirely on taste and is born apart from any consideration of the consequences of his actions. All kinds of advantages of mind, body and fortune come into play in Hume's ideal of disengaged manners: the 'easy address' modelled on the witty conversation of the French salon 89 is accompanied by 'easy and unconstrained postures and motions' , 'an air of health and vigour' , 'well-fashioned clothes' that do not hamper bodily movements, 90 the agreeableness of someone obviously 'at his ease' , and presents us with 'the pleasing ideas of plenty'. 91 But all these accomplishments would not suffice, for the ideal ease blends in with the je-ne-sais-quoi.
We have already considered Hume's criticism of various 'notions' that demand too much of humanity, such as the Stoic or Cynic conceptions of virtuousness or the excesses of chivalry, and we have every reason to presume that this criticism applies also to the ideal of honnêteté formulated by numerous 'polite' authors. Hume's own ideal of 'accomplished merit' from the second Enquiry, which owes much to the continental theorists of honnêteté, remains, as a 'model of perfect virtue' , 92  Hume realized that his own manners were far from the flawless mondanité, and felt better in a select circle of literary friends than in 'general company'. 95 He seems to comply in a way with another ideal that he cherished, with the ideal of 'simple' manners, which, albeit not polished, impress others with mildness, moderation, and easiness. 96