Modesty and self-effacement
Are two of the qualities of gentlefolk;
Others there are, as we all know
Who find such things to be a joke.
Take Bobert, that bluesman grand
He'd like to cop a hundred
But he will not leap on a sitting duck
That's done by a dunderhead.
Or gnu, or Eiseley, or even Stilly
Gentlefolks all, letting others go first
They know their manner, as do I --
They ingested such as they were nursed.
But there are others much more crude
Who belch at table, blow their nose
In the damask napkins or even worse --
On THEM the social doors will close!\

       --Miranda Amelia Limpingcot, "Untitled",
          from The Complete Poems (Mendon, Illinois:
          Manners and Morals Press, 1897), p. 342.