No one could be more attentive to every consideration based upon the laws of nature, and even on the laws of good society; but the former are always preferred before the latter, and Emile will show more respect to an elderly person in private life than to a young magistrate of his own age.  As he is generally one of the youngest in the company, he will always be one of the most modest, not from the vanity which apes humility, but from a natural feeling founded upon reason.  He will not have the effrontery of the young fop, who speaks louder than the wise and interrupts the old in order to amuse the company.  He will never give any cause for the reply given to Louis XV by an old gentleman who was asked whether he preferred this century or the last:  “Sire, I spent my youth in reverence towards the old; I find myself compelled to spend my old age in reverence towards the young.”

His heart is tender and sensitive, but he cares nothing for the weight of popular opinion, though he loves to give pleasure to others; so he will care little to be thought a person of importance.  Hence he will be affectionate rather than polite, he will never be pompous or affected, and he will be always more touched by a caress than by much praise.  For the same reasons he will never be careless of his manners or his clothes; perhaps he will be rather particular about his dress, not that he may show himself a man of taste, but to make his appearance more pleasing; he will never require a gilt frame, and he will never spoil his style by a display of wealth.

All this demands, as you see, no stock of precepts from me; it is all the result of his early education.  People make a great mystery of the ways of society, as if, at the age when these ways are acquired, we did not take to them quite naturally, and as if the first laws of politeness were not to be found in a kindly heart.  True politeness consists in showing our goodwill towards men; it shows its presence without any difficulty; those only who lack this goodwill are compelled to reduce the outward signs of it to an art.

“The worst effect of artificial politeness is that it teaches us how to dispense with the virtues it imitates.  If our education teaches us kindness and humanity, we shall be polite, or we shall have no need of politeness.

“If we have not those qualities which display themselves gracefully we shall have those which proclaim the honest man and the citizen; we shall have no need for falsehood.

“Instead of seeking to please by artificiality, it will suffice that we are kindly; instead of flattering the weaknesses of others by falsehood, it will suffice to tolerate them.

“Those with whom we have to do will neither be puffed up nor corrupted by such intercourse; they will only be grateful and will be informed by it.” [Footnote:  Considerations sur les moeurs de ce siecle, par M. Duclos.]

It seems to me that if any education is calculated to produce the sort of politeness required by M. Duclos in this passage, it is the education I have already described.