Our Deportment | Page 7

culture of good training. He continues: "Of the higher
type of ladyhood may always be said what Steele said of Lady
Elizabeth Hastings, 'that unaffected freedom and conscious innocence
gave her the attendance of the graces in all her actions.' At its highest,
ladyhood implies a spirituality made manifest in poetic grace. From the
lady there exhales a subtle magnetism. Unconsciously she encircles
herself with an atmosphere of unruffled strength, which, to those who
come into it, gives confidence and repose. Within her influence the
diffident grow self-possessed, the impudent are checked, the
inconsiderate are admonished; even the rude are constrained to be
mannerly, and the refined are perfected; all spelled, unawares, by the
flexible dignity, the commanding gentleness, the thorough
womanliness of her look, speech and demeanor. A sway is this, purely
spiritual. Every sway, every legitimate, every enduring sway is spiritual;
a regnancy of light over obscurity, of right over brutality. The only real
gains ever made are spiritual gains--a further subjection of the gross to
the incorporeal, of body to soul, of the animal to the human. The finest
and most characteristic acts of a lady involve a spiritual ascension, a
growing out of herself. In her being and bearing, patience, generosity,
benignity are the graces that give shape to the virtues of truthfulness."
Here is the test of true ladyhood. Whenever the young find themselves
in the company of those who do not make them feel at ease, they

should know that they are not in the society of true ladies and true
gentlemen, but of pretenders; that well-bred men and women can only
feel at home in the society of the well-bred.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TRIFLES.
Some people are wont to depreciate these kind and tender qualities as
trifles; but trifles, it must be remembered, make up the aggregate of
human life. The petty incivilities, slight rudenesses and neglects of
which men are guilty, without thought, or from lack of foresight or
sympathy, are often remembered, while the great acts performed by the
same persons are often forgotten. There is no society where smiles,
pleasant looks and animal spirits are not welcomed and deemed of
more importance than sallies of wit, or refinements of understanding.
The little civilities, which form the small change of life may appear
separately of little moment, but, like the spare pennies which amount to
such large fortunes in a lifetime, they owe their importance to repetition
and accumulation.
VALUE OF PLEASING MANNERS.
The man who succeeds in any calling in life is almost invariably he
who has shown a willingness to please and to be pleased, who has
responded heartily to the advances of others, through nature and habit,
while his rival has sniffed and frowned and snubbed away every
helping hand. "The charming manners of the Duke of Marlborough," it
is said, "often changed an enemy to a friend, and to be denied a favor
by him was more pleasing than to receive one from another. It was
these personal graces that made him both rich and great. His address
was so exquisitely fascinating as to dissolve fierce jealousies and
animosities, lull suspicion and beguile the subtlest diplomacy of its arts.
His fascinating smile and winning tongue, equally with his sharp sword,
swayed the destinies of empires." The gracious manners of Charles
James Fox preserved him from personal dislike, even when he had
gambled away his last shilling, and politically, was the most unpopular
man in England.
MANNERS AND PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

A charming manner not only enhances personal beauty, but even hides
ugliness and makes plainness agreeable. An ill-favored countenance is
not necessarily a stumbling-block, at the outset, to its owner, which
cannot be surmounted, for who does not know how much a happy
manner often does to neutralize the ill effects of forbidding looks? The
fascination of the demagogue Wilkes's manner triumphed over both
physical and moral deformity, rendering even his ugliness agreeable;
and he boasted to Lord Townsend, one of the handsomest men in Great
Britain, that "with half an hour's start he would get ahead of his
lordship in the affections of any woman in the kingdom." The ugliest
Frenchman, perhaps, that ever lived was Mirabeau; yet such was the
witchery of his manner, that the belt of no gay Lothario was hung with
a greater number of bleeding female hearts than this "thunderer of the
tribune," whose looks were so hideous that he was compared to a tiger
pitted with the small-pox.
FORTUNES MADE BY PLEASING MANNERS.
Pleasing manners have made the fortunes of men in all professions and
in every walk of life--of lawyers, doctors, clergymen, merchants, clerks
and mechanics--and instances of this are so numerous that they may be
recalled by almost any person. The politician who has the advantage of
a courteous, graceful and