198 THE ORIGIN OF BOWING. 



ro}'alty, or when " God save the Queen " is sung 

 or played ; servants bow and touch tlieir hats to 

 tlieir masters ; soldiers salute their ofiicers respect- 

 fully ; schoolboys are always rigorously required 

 to " cap " their teachers. On the other hand, our 

 modern American notions of the dignity of man- 

 hood, and the touching respect due to women, 

 have largely modified and even altered the sense 

 attached to those antique observances. They are 

 no longer servile ; they are courteous and grace- 

 ful. Equals now bow to one another, not obsequi- 

 ously, but as an act of self-respecting and recipro- 

 / cal politeness; the more thoroughly a man recog- 

 \ nizes the natural digi.ity of his own position, the 

 ] more scrupulous will he be in saluting others with 

 I the proper respect due to their personality. The 

 \influence of the chivalrous conception of woman 

 Jias still more profoundly metamorphosed the 



i ceremony of bowing. We raise our hat to a lady, 

 partly as a mark of courtesy to her sex, but partly, 

 too, as a sign of our own politeness and good 

 breeding — a habit that differentiates the gentle- 

 jnan from the boor, the man of education and 

 pefinement from the churl and the rustic. In this 

 way, a ceremony that started in slavish submissive- 

 ness and savage prostration has grown at last into a 

 distinguishing habit of the polished and civilized 

 modern gentleman. Politeness generally has un- 

 dergone a similar slow transforming process; it 



