Oh, Behave! Part IV

More excerpts from the antiquated "Lady's Guide to Perfect Gentility (1856)" by Emily Thornwell. In this installment: Where Caroline Bingley went wrong and Elizabeth Bennett triumphed and where one wonders if "Emily Thornwell" is really just a nom de plume for a man whose mother was a beautiful but cruel cynic.

Talking excessively.--Beware of talking too much; if you do not talk to the purpose, the less you say the better; but even if you do, and if, withal, you are gifted with the best powers of conversation, it will wise for you to guard against excessive loquacity. By this, we do not advise you to yield to a prudish reserve; but even that would scarcely be a more offensive extreme than to monopolize the conversation of a whole circle.

Undue pretensions to learning.--Avoid even the appearance of pedantry. If you are conversing with persons of very limited attainments, you will make yourself far more acceptable, as well as useful to them, by accommodating yourself to their capacities, than by compelling them to listen to what they cannot understand. Possibly in some instances you may make them stare at your supposed wisdom, and perhaps they may even quote you as an oracle of learning; but it is much more probable that even they will smile at such an exhibition as a contemptible weakness.
With the intelligent and discerning, this effect will certainly be produced; and that whether your pretensions to learning are well founded or not; the simple fact that you aim to appear learned, that you deal much in allusion to the classics, or the various departments of science, with an evident intention to display your familiarity with them, will be more intolerable than absolute ignorance.

Against sarcastic remarks.--Be careful also ahow you indulge in sarcasm. If you are constitutionally inclined to this, you will find that there is no point in your character which needs to be more faithfully guarded. There are some few cases in which severe irony may be employed to advantage; cases in which vice and error will shrink before it, when they will unhesitatingly confront every other species of opposition.
It too often happens, however, that those who possess this talent use it indiscriminately; and perhaps even more frequently to confound modest and retiring virtue than to abash bold and insolent vice. But be assured that it is a contemptible triumph that is gained, when, by the force of sarcasm, the lips of a deserving individual are sealed, and the countenance crimsoned with blushes.