Books in Brief

Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts that Guided Our First President in War and Peace, by Richard Brookhiser (Free Press, 90 pp., $16)

THIN, beautifully bound little books delight my soul. When I was one of Doubleday’s authors, my editor would send me such a present at Christmastime. Once it was a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets, songs, and most powerful soliloquies-a book I keep near my bedside table. Such a small treasure is Mr. Brookhiser’s The Rules of Civility, the 110 precepts that George Washington copied into a notebook as a young man and kept by his bedside. The first reads: “Every action done in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those that are present,” a refreshing adjuration in this churlish age. Mr. Brookhiser remarks in his introduction: “Americans act like louts and dress like louts because they are, in fact, boorish and loutish.” A few paragraphs later he ruminates sadly, “There is a special reason why Washington’s ‘Rules of Civility’ are not taken seriously today and that is the withering of the ambition to be great.” Yes: the greatness of his character being one reason why the popularity of the first of our Founding Fathers has declined, repelling a people who fail to be revolted by the vulgarity of William Clinton.

RB

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Reid Buckley

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Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts that Guided Our First President in War and Peace, by Richard Brookhiser (Free Press, 90 pp., $16)

THIN, beautifully bound little books delight my soul. When I was one of Doubleday’s authors, my editor would send me such a present at Christmastime. Once it was a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets, songs, and most powerful soliloquies-a book I keep near my bedside table. Such a small treasure is Mr. Brookhiser’s The Rules of Civility, the 110 precepts that George Washington copied into a notebook as a young man and kept by his bedside. The first reads: “Every action done in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those that are present,” a refreshing adjuration in this churlish age. Mr. Brookhiser remarks in his introduction: “Americans act like louts and dress like louts because they are, in fact, boorish and loutish.” A few paragraphs later he ruminates sadly, “There is a special reason why Washington’s ‘Rules of Civility’ are not taken seriously today and that is the withering of the ambition to be great.” Yes: the greatness of his character being one reason why the popularity of the first of our Founding Fathers has declined, repelling a people who fail to be revolted by the vulgarity of William Clinton.