grand flowered capitals; at all events, things
that make the family house more pleasing to
the eye, and more comfortable to live in.

A great deal of mischief as well as misery
comes from the neglect of these small virtues,
these minor moralities of life. But as they are
not in the decalogue, save by implication and
extension, people do not take them to be of any
consequence, but think they may be accepted
or rejected according to individual pleasure,
with no forfeiture or fulfilment of duty, which
way soever it is.

Everything in this world goes by gradation.
From truth and justice and doing no murder,
and committing no crying sins generally, up to
having your clothes well cut and your dinners
well cooked, there is an infinite series of steps
or stages; but they are tolerably well defined to
one who has seriously studied social architecture,
and has learnt by heart of what various materials
and graduated values it is composed. And
though all social virtues are but minor moralities
when compared with the great first
principles of religion, truth, and justice, yet they
may be divided and subdivided into various
values, like the rest; some being of really
grave importance, while others are only
desirable—some being part of the very fabric of
society, others only the graces and ornamentations
added.

We are all agreed about the more important.
Such, for example, as the necessity of maintaining
good temper under small crosses—of keeping
secrets which are entrusted to us—of not
setting afloat ill-natured reports, and not
repeating unfounded gossip—of keeping within
our means, and not coming to grief through
reckless expenditure—of not interfering in
other people's business, with which we have no
personal concern—these are all minor moralities
of a high class; and if not quite reaching to
the height of imperative religious duties, yet
attaining that of desirable social virtues, without
which all things human halt and stagger,
and there is no binding of the bundle of sticks
anyhow. But there are other little virtues, not
in general much respected—minor moralities,
which are to religion and heroic goodness what
the finials on the pinnacles, and the acanthus
leaf on the capitals, and the mouldings on the
wall bands are to architecture—virtues which
do not rank even with keeping out of debt and
keeping in good temper, but which are valuable,
and to a certain degree inestimable. And one
of these is keeping appointments; another is
punctuality; and a third is answering letters.

There are people who never keep appointments,
or at least who keep them only when
it suits their temper or convenience to do so;
who put no kind of social honour into the
matter, but who fail or fulfil as chance may
direct. As for any moral obligation in an
appointment, there is as little in their code as
there is a moral obligation to keep an astronomical
reckoning. With unbounded recklessness
they plunge headlong into every kind of
engagement, then think themselves justified if
they can offer what sounds like a reasonable
excuse for not keeping any, or for keeping only
those they care to keep. All their energy and
intellect go into making these excuses—into
rounding off rugged facts, and fitting in gaping
dates. "They really could not," they say, with
a well-planned—tale, shall we call it?—as the
clincher of the excuse. And you may believe
or doubt, according to the measure of faith
that has been dealt out to you. But, believing
or doubting, the result comes to the same
thing; your time has been wasted, and your
arrangements disturbed, your temper has been
tried, and your welfare so far destroyed—and
the excuse, however plausible, will not mend
matters so far as you yourself are concerned.
Do not think that your sufferings will be your
friend's basis of reformation. His morality, or
rather immorality, respecting the keeping of
engagements will not be in any way improved
because you have suffered; and the next time
he or she says: "Yes, at six o'clock, most
certainly. You may count on me: I shall be
there," you may toss up for the chance, and
calculate accordingly. When six o'clock comes
you will probably be making yourself a
spectacle to gods and men by pacing up and down
the street, or lingering about the station, till
the last train has gone; or you may forego
pleasant invitations to things and people much
desired and beloved, on the faith that your
friend will put in an appearance this time,
surely! All mere vanity, and the very babble
of hope! It will not be a matter of
conscience nor yet of breeding; for such people
have no conscience, neither, whatever their
rank, have they any breeding. For my own
part, though keeping one's appointments does
not rank as a virtue, nor breaking them as a
vice, I would hold no man or woman honourable
who was coldly or habitually guilty of this
sin.

Twin brother to this fault is unpunctuality.
If there are people who never keep their
appointments at all, there are others who never
keep them to time. These, too, are apt at clever
excuses, and think a likely-sounding fable quite
sufficient reason to give for throwing your whole
day out of gear. To men of business, whose
time is like an accurately-fitting puzzle, these
people are simply so many forces of destruction.
They upset every plan, derange every
project, destroy every scheme: the accurately-
fitting puzzle of the day, in which each hour
has its own especial work which cannot be
shifted or delayed without disturbing the whole
arrangement, is of no more account to them
than if hours and work were so many bowls to
play at ninepins with. They dash into your
office an hour after time, with, perhaps a real,
perhaps a well-feigned, appearance of hurry and
distress. If they have any conscience at all,
and are faulty by reason of weakness in the
way of gossip and consequent lingering, they
are most probably unaffectedly sorry that they
have suffered themselves to be so beguiled. If
they are sinners of the active kind, and without