not partake till
commanded; if equal, you exchange pipes, and present him with coffee,
taking the next cup yourself; if a little below you, and you wish to
pay him attention, you leave him to smoke his own pipe, but the servant
gives him, according to your condescending nod, the first cup of
coffee; if much inferior, you keep your distance and maintain your
rank, by taking the first cup of coffee yourself, and then directing
the servant, by a wave of the hand, to help the guest. 'When a visitor
arrives, the coffee and pipe are called for to welcome him; a second
call for these articles announces that he may depart; but this part of
the ceremony varies according to the relative rank or intimacy of the
parties.

'These matters may appear light to those with whom observances of this
character are habits, not rules; but in this country they are of
primary consideration, a man's importance with himself and with others
depending on them.'

In ancient customary societies the influence of manner, which is a
primary influence, has been settled into rules, so that it may aid
established usages and not thwart them--that it may, above all, augment
the HABIT of going by custom, and not break and weaken it. Every aid,
as we have seen, was wanted to impose the yoke of custom upon such
societies; and impressing the power of manner to serve them was one of
the greatest aids.

And lastly, we now understand why order and civilisation are so
unstable even in progressive communities. We see frequently in states
what physiologists call 'Atavism'--the return, in part, to the unstable
nature of their barbarous ancestors. Such scenes of cruelty and horror
as happened in the great French Revolution, and as happen, more or
less, in every great riot, have always been said to bring out a secret
and suppressed side of human nature; and we now see that they were the
outbreak of inherited passions long repressed by fixed custom, but
starting into life as soon as that repression was catastrophically
removed and when sudden choice was given. The irritability of mankind,
too, is only part of their imperfect, transitory civilisation and of
their original savage nature. They could not look steadily to a given
end for an hour in their pre-historic state; and even now, when excited
or when suddenly and wholly thrown out of their old grooves, they can
scarcely do so. Even some very high races, as the French and the Irish,
seem in troubled times hardly to