Manners and etiquette are nowadays very important for any individual. We all live in a civilized society and have to obey the unwritten rules, though they may be contradicting our animal instincts. Manners and proper behavior lie at the heart of social order, and moreover, the manners and ideas of how to behave oneself not only are the expression of someone`s level of "civilizity", but also characterize a person`s social position or status.

Let`s analyze letters to Mrs. Manners and find out which social relations form the base of the letter. The first letter to be taken is entitled "Mad in America", it is constituted by two letters. In the first one a man cites two examples when his property was damaged, both examples were rather an uncomfortable experience for each of their participants; although there were no arguments or rude expressions from any of the participants of the incidents, there occurred a situation of confusion and guilt. The author asks how to avoid it. In general the tone of the letter shows that the author values material things more than people, even those who are his relatives or friends. It can be also seen from the letter that the people surrounding the author have different ideas and priorities; in both cases people witnessing the awkward situation stressed that it would be much better and much more polite if the author didn`t care so much about material losses, and would accept the excuses of those who initiated the accident. Actually the author by his writing style and by his actions during the events showed his narrow-mindedness and indifference to other person`s feelings. Mrs. Manners in a neat and careful way tried to show the author his mistake and again, reminded that though it is difficult to stay civilized in such situations, it is nevertheless necessary to stay socially polite and tolerant, first of all to people and their actions. Mrs. Manners by her answer demonstrates an opposite type of social thinking, she is more altruistic compared to the egoistic tone of the original letter (it could be read between the lines). The answer of Mrs. Manners shows the type of person that is first of all attentive to people surrounding her, and not the one that likes venting (though in a hidden way) own anger on other people; contrary to that, Mrs. Manners demonstrates eagerness to help people get out of the difficult situation, which is obviously much more civilized than the actions of the author of the letter. And her advice was given carefully and wisely, not sharply or ironically, but with a part of humor that helps to ease the conversation. Actually if I was to answer this letter, I would answer the same as Mrs. Manners.

"Mad in America" contains another letter, where a woman asks whether it will be all right if her husband didn`t eat pork ribs. The tone of the authoress of this letter shows first of all concern for her husband and for the feelings of the hostess at the party; she raised this question beforehand which is also a sign of good manners. Judging by the presentation of the letter, the authoress is a cultural and attentive woman that cares about people most; and it also looks like that her social surrounding is less cultured and educated than she is. I can make this conclusion out of the assumption of the authoress that the hostess would ask why her husband doesn`t eat pork ribs. So the awkward situation, as Mrs. Manners accurately noted, could take place because of the impoliteness of the hostess. In this situation the authoress and Mrs. Manners seem to have the same cultural level, and the answer of Mrs. Manners illustrates that. The tone of her answer is very respectful and without a single note of irony; it significantly differs from the tone of previous answer where the aim of answering was also to gently teach a lesson to the author here the correspondence is a civilized dialogue of two educated and cultured people, as it should in ideal be during all Mrs. Manners correspondence.

These two letters show us that the social difference between a cultured and false-cultured people can be noticed at once and that being civilized makes an individual`s life in modern society a lot easier. In my opinion, it is important to stay always polite and attentive to people, whatever situation occurred. As the joke says: "A gentlemen is the one who calls a kitten a kitten even if he stumbled over it and has fallen down"!
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