ass upon one of them without a
violation of good manners. We can not go into a complete exposition of
the "bill of rights" of each. You can analyze them for yourself, and
learn the nature of their claims upon you. In the mean time, we will
touch upon a point or two here and there.
3. _Opinions._
Each person has a right to his or her opinions, and to the expression
of them _on proper occasions_, and there is no duty more binding upon
us all than the most complete and respectful toleration. The author of
"The Illustrated Manners Book" truly says:
"_Every denial of, or interference with, the personal freedom or
absolute rights of another, is a violation of good manners._ He who
presumes to censure me for my religious belief, or want of belief; who
makes it a matter of criticism or reproach that I am a Theist or
Atheist, Trinitarian or Unitarian, Catholic or Protestant, Pagan or
Christian, Jew, Mohammedan, or Mormon, is guilty of rudeness and
insult. If any of these modes of belief make me intolerant or
intrusive, he may resent such intolerance or repel such intrusion; but
the basis of all true politeness and social enjoyment is the mutual
tolerance of personal rights."
4. _The Sacredness of Privacy._
Here is another passage from the author just quoted which is so much
to the point that we can not forbear to copy it:
"One of the rights most commonly trespassed upon constituting a
violent breach of good manners, is the right of privacy, or of the
control of one's own person and affairs. There are places in this
country where there exists scarcely the slightest recognition of this
right. A man or woman bolts into your house without knocking. No room
is sacred unless you lock the door, and an exclusion would be an
insult. Parents intrude upon children, and children upon parents. The
husband thinks he has a right to enter his wife's room, and the wife
would feel injured if excluded, by night or day, from her husband's.
It is said that they even open each other's letters, and claim, as a
right, that neither should have any secrets from the other.
"It in difficult to conceive of such a state of intense barbarism in a
civilized country, such a denial of the simplest and most primitive
rights, such an utter absence of delicacy and good manners; and had we
not been assured on good authority that such things existed, we
should consider any suggestions respecting them needless and
impertinent.
"Each person in a
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