'Acquire!' cried Martin. 'But it's not a question of acquiring anything.
It's a question of losing the natural politeness of a savage, and that
instinctive good breeding which admonishes one man not to offend and
disgust another. Don't you think that man over the way, for instance,
naturally knows better, but considers it a very fine and independent
thing to be a brute in small matters?'
'He is a na-tive of our country, and is nat'rally bright and spry, of
course,' said Mr Pogram.
'Now, observe what this comes to, Mr Pogram,' pursued Martin. 'The
mass of your countrymen begin by stubbornly neglecting little social
observances, which have nothing to do with gentility, custom, usage,
government, or country, but are acts of common, decent, natural, human
politeness. You abet them in this, by resenting all attacks upon their
social offences as if they were a beautiful national feature. From
disregarding small obligations they come in regular course to disregard
great ones; and so refuse to pay their debts. What they may do, or what
they may refuse to do next, I don't know; but any man may see if he
will, that it will be something following in natural succession, and a
part of one great growth, which is rotten at the root.
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