CHAPTER VII. 



FOKMS OF ADDRESS. 



392. What an obeisance implies by acts, a form of 

 address says in words. If the two have a common root 

 this is to be anticipated; and that they have a common root 

 is demonstrable. Instances occur in which the one is rec 

 ognized as equivalent to the other. Speaking of Poles and 

 Sclavonic Silesiaiis, Captain Spencer remarks 



&quot;Perhaps no distinctive trait of manners more characterizes both 

 than their humiliating mode of acknowledging a kindness, their ex 

 pression of gratitude being the servile &quot; Upadam do nog&quot; (I fall at 

 your feet), which is no figure of speech, for they will literally throw 

 themselves down and kiss your feet for the trifling donation of a few 

 halfpence.&quot; 



Here, then, the attitude of the conquered man beneath the 

 conqueror is either actually assumed or verbally assumed; 

 and when used, the oral representation is a substitute for 

 the realization in act. Other cases show ns words and deeds 

 similarly associated; as when a Turkish courtier, accus 

 tomed to make humble obeisances, addresses the Sultan 

 &quot; Centre of the Universe! Your s slave s head is at 

 your feet; &quot; or as when a Siamese, whose servile pros 

 trations occur daily, says to his superior &quot; Lord Bene 

 factor, at whose feet I am; &quot; to a prince * I, the sole 

 of your foot; &quot; to the king &quot; I, a dust-grain of your sacred 

 feet.&quot; Early European manners furnish kindred 



evidence. In Russia down to the seventeenth century, a 



144 



