melancholy. One was a bright fire; another, to remember all the pleasant
things said to her; another, to keep a box of sugar plums on the chimney
piece and a kettle simmering on the hob. These are trivial things in
themselves but life is made up of these little pleasures and none
should be neglected because of their seemingly trifling nature.

If our temperament does not make us naturally cheerful, we can, at
least, cultivate those habits of body and mind which seem most favorable
to the growth of this condition. We can keep the mind open to cheerful
impressions, and close it to those that are gloomy. It is far better to
magnify our blessings than to depreciate them. The Spaniard of whom
Southey tells that he always put on his magnifying glasses when he ate
cherries, in order to make them seem larger, had the true philosophy of
life. So the ancient Pompeiians seem to have well understood the art of
making the most of everything. Their gardens were very small, but by
painting the surrounding walls with plants and landscapes their little
area became indefinitely enlarged to the eye of the observer.

PERSONAL PECULIARITIES.

    _"Eccentricity may be harmless, but it never can be commendable;
    it is one of the children of that prolific failing--vanity. And
    whether it shows in feeling, manners, or peculiarities of dress,
    it is clearly acted upon from the presumptuous supposition that
    the many are in the wrong, the individual in the right."_

    _Society will pardon much to genius and special gifts, but, being
    in its nature a convention, it loves what is conventional or what
    belongs to coming together. That makes the good and bad of
    manners, namely, what helps or hinders fellowship._
                                                          EMERSON.

We all know that the outward address of a person has great influence
upon his success both in the social and the business world. Thousands of
men and women are, in their efforts to please, hindered by some
personal peculiarity which is painfully apparent to other people, but of
which they themselves seem wholly ignorant. Thousands of professional
and business men are prevented from attaining the success they might
reach by some infelicity of manner or speech which could be remedied by
a little painstaking effort.

Here is a physician who has prepared himself thoroughly for his
profession by years of hard study and by the expenditure of a
considerable sum of money, but he knows little of human nature, and but
little of the requirements of good society. He has no tact, and has not
thought it necessary to cultivate that quality. He is cold and
unsympathetic. He has no ability to make friends or to keep them. He is
not sociable, and he does not make himself agreeable to his patients by
those little kindly acts and sympathetic speeches so comforting to
invalids. He feels that he is well prepared to practice his profession,
and he regards any personal defects as of little importance. Other men
of less ability, but with more tact, soon outstrip him in the race for
public favor. He never succeeds in acquiring a large practice, and,
possibly, never knows the reason why.

A young man applies for a position as a teacher. He is well equipped in
scholarship for the place he wishes, for he led his class in college,
and he comes highly recommended as a young man of integrity and
earnestness. After a short interview the superintendent of schools
decides that he is not the man for the position and the applicant goes
away disappointed. Why was he rejected? Not by reason of poor
scholarship, nor for lack of moral character, but simply on account of
his personal appearance. He was untidy in his dress. His linen was
soiled, his coat was not brushed, his cuffs were frayed at the edges,
while his finger-nails gave evidence that he was habitually careless
about personal neatness and cleanliness. The superintendent decided at
once that he did not want him, and the young man did not know why.

Here is a young woman who is fine looking, intelligent and accomplished.
Apparently she possesses all those qualities which are necessary to make
her a favorite in society and she seems to deserve a host of friends.
Yet she is not greatly sought after by her acquaintances, and she has
few firm friends. Young men pay her but little attention, and seem
afraid of her. Other girls, less brilliant intellectually, with fewer
accomplishments, and with plainer faces, are far greater favorites in
society. Her particular weakness is that she has allowed herself to
fall into the practice of employing sarcasm to an extent which is
offensive to those with whom she talks. She has a habit of saying
disagreeable, biting things in a humorous way, and she never suspects
that people are hurt by them. She has cultivated the habit to such a
degree that she can always raise a laugh at some person's expense, and
she is constantly on the watch for opportunities to exercise this
accomplishment. Finally it dawns upon her that she does not hold her
friends; that she is sometimes slighted in the matter of invitations;
that she is not a popular girl, and she doesn't know why.

A certain clergyman is a fine preacher, capable of attracting,
instructing, and inspiring the most cultivated audiences, but he is shut
out from his proper sphere of usefulness and influence, and prevented
from reaching the position for which his endowments qualify him, by a
matter which might seem trifling in itself, but which has become
offensive through its persistent hold upon him. He exhibits a lack of
proper deference to the feelings of others, an arrogant and
unsympathetic tone of voice, and sometimes yields, under opposition, to
unrestrained violence of language. He betrays his weakness every time
anyone crosses his plans and desires. It seems hard for him to
understand that others have an equal right to their preference and
opinions. He forgets that while it is easy to be amiable when everyone
agrees with him, the test of character is in keeping the temper sweet
and reasonable when people differ from him and criticise him. He
understands his power to move audiences; he is told by persons competent
to judge that his sermons are superior; he knows that in higher
intellectual qualities he surpasses many other clergymen who secure and
retain prominent positions; yet the painful truth is forced upon him
that his services as a pastor are not sought for, while inferior
preachers are selected for places of power and influence.

A man goes into trade. He is a shrewd buyer, energetic, honest, and
keeps a good assortment of goods, but he is not obliging to customers.
He is short and crusty in his speech, irritable and sometimes almost
rude in his manner; consequently he does not hold his patrons. They
leave him, one by one, and do their purchasing at other stores where
they receive polite attention. The merchant does not prosper in
business, and he never knows why.

Here is a woman who prides herself upon her plain speaking. She boasts
that when she has anything to say she is willing to say it to one's
face, and not behind one's back. She thinks it is a mark of sincerity
and frankness to say disagreeable things and to bring one's infirmities
to the surface. Her tendencies finally become fixed habits. She finds
herself shunned by her acquaintances, and she does not know why.

Then there is the loquacious woman, the woman who monopolizes the
conversation, the woman who has an apparent contempt for paragraph and
punctuation. No matter what the topic of conversation may be, she at
once takes the management of it into her own hands, and the other
members of the company are made to feel at once that they are expected
to be only listeners. The loquacious woman may talk well--she often
does--but she fails to understand that there may be such a thing as too
much even of good things, and so she talks on and on, with an utter
disregard for the rights and the comfort of those around her.

A professional man, who possesses much intellectual force and
originality, takes pride in his unconventionality in the matter of
dress. His garments are so far from the prevailing style that they
attract attention and invite comment. He does not realize that the man
who rebels against fashion may be open even more to the imputation of
vanity than he who obeys it, because he makes himself conspicuous, and
practically announces that he is wiser than his associates. An
affectation of superior simplicity is vulgarity.

Stop a moment and recall twenty men and women of your acquaintance. You
will probably remember that two-thirds of them have some peculiarity,
some defect of speech or manner which detracts from their social and
business success, or from their usefulness. One is a gossip; another
possesses a hasty temper, while a third is intellectually dishonest,
never yielding his position, even under the most absolute proof that he
is in the wrong. One of your friends is a pessimist, and is continually
attempting to convert you to his point of view, while his wife is so
inquisitive that you at once become nervous when you perceive her
approach. A young woman of your acquaintance would be a most charming
person if she did not laugh too much. A conversation with her is, upon
her part, a perpetual giggle.

These may generally be good, intelligent, and, in many respects,
charming people, but unfortunately they are hampered by these
deficiencies. They have become so unconscious of these personal traits
that, doubtless, they would be greatly surprised were their attention
called to them. The effect of these shortcomings upon others is,
however, just as unfortunate as if they were intentionally retained and
nourished, for we usually regard the outward manner as a true index of
the inward emotion.

If so many of our acquaintances display idiosyncrasies that affect us
disagreeably, is it not possible that we too may be harboring some
remediable evil of temper, some superable infirmity of manner or of
speech which is a bar to our own usefulness, because distressing to
those with whom we are thrown?

Let us think about this.

SUGGESTIONS FROM MANY SOURCES

  FOR

  THE MAN WHO WOULD PLEASE AND
  THE WOMAN WHO WOULD CHARM.

A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene.

                                                            EMERSON.

So I talked a great deal and found myself infinitely pleased with
Brandon's conversational powers, which were rare; being no less than the
capacity for saying nothing, and listening politely to an indefinite
deal of the same thing, in another form, from me.

                                                      CHARLES MAJOR.

Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, and listen to
what others say about subjects you have studied but recently. Knowledge
and timber should not be much used till they are seasoned.

                                                       O. W. HOLMES.

A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a beautiful behavior
is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues
or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.

                                                            EMERSON.

Believe nothing against another but on good authority, nor report what
may hurt another, unless it be a greater hurt to another to conceal it.

                                                       WILLIAM PENN.

"Life is like a mirror. It reflects the face you bring to it. Look out
lovingly upon the world, and the world will look lovingly in upon you."

But it is mostly my own dreams I talk of, and that will somewhat excuse
me for talking of dreams at all. Everyone knows how delightful the
dreams are that one dreams one's self, and how insipid the dreams of
others are. I had an illustration of this fact not many evenings ago,
when a company of us got telling dreams. I had by far the best dreams of
any; to be quite frank, mine were the only dreams worth listening to;
they were richly imaginative, delicately fantastic, exquisitely
whimsical, and humorous in the last degree; and I wondered that when the
rest could have listened to them they were always eager to cut in with
some silly, senseless, tasteless thing, that made me sorry and ashamed
for them. I shall not be going too far if I say that it was on their
part the grossest betrayal of vanity that I ever witnessed.

                                               WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.

"There is a great mistake in supposing that giving is concerned only
with material benefits. These form indeed but a small part of its
mission. Whoever creates happiness, whether by a kindly greeting, or
tender sympathy, or inspiring presence, or stimulating thought, is as
true a giver as he who empties his purse to feed the hungry."

Politeness and good breeding are absolutely necessary to adorn any or
all other good qualities or talents. Without them no knowledge, no
perfection whatever, is seen in its best light. The scholar, without
good breeding, is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic; the soldier a
brute; and every man, disagreeable.

                                                  LORD CHESTERFIELD.

"Tact, though partly a natural gift, is a good deal indebted to
education and early habits. The superiority of one sex to the other in
this respect will often be found to depend on art quite as much as upon
nature."

"Never is silence more eloquent than when it is preserved toward persons
older than ourselves when they voice opinions long since proven
erroneous. Age doesn't like to be contradicted, right or wrong."

In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of the
ideal man: not to be impulsive, not to be spurred hither and thither by
each desire that in turn comes uppermost; but to be restrained,
self-balanced, governed by the joint decision of the feelings in council
assembled, before whom every action shall have been fully debated and
calmly determined.

                                                    HERBERT SPENCER.

In the exhaustless catalogue of heaven's mercies to mankind, the power
we have of finding some germs of comfort in the hardest trials must ever
occupy the foremost place; not only because it supports and upholds us
when we most require to be sustained, but because in this source of
consolation there is something, we have every reason to believe, of the
Divine Spirit; something which, even in our fallen nature we possess in
common with the angels.

                                                            DICKENS.

"When you bury animosity don't set up a headstone over its grave."

I don't never hav truble in regulating mi own kondukt, but tew keep
other pholks straight iz what bothers me.

                                                      JOSH BILLINGS.

"Hundreds of the most agreeable persons in fashionable society are those
who are content to be taught the things they already know."

It is better to return a dropped fan genteelly than give a thousand
pounds awkwardly; you had better refuse a favor gracefully than grant it
clumsily. All your Greek can never advance you from secretary to envoy,
or from envoy to embassador, but your address, your air, your manner, if
good, may.

                                                  LORD CHESTERFIELD.

"The art of not hearing should be learned by all. It is fully as
important to domestic happiness as a cultivated ear, for which both
money and time are expended. There are so many things which it is
painful to hear, so many which we ought not to hear, so very many which
if heard will disturb the temper, corrupt simplicity and modesty,
detract from contentment and happiness that everyone should be educated
to take in or shut out sounds according to his or her pleasure."

                                                      _Once A Week._

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and
deeds left undone. She never knew how I loved her. He never knew what he
was to me. I always meant to make more of your friendship. I did not
know what he was to me till he was gone. Such are the poisoned arrows
which cruel death shoots back at us from the door of the sepulchre."

We are only really alive when we enjoy the good will of others.

                                                             GOETHE.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

                                                       GEORGE ELIOT.

"Power hath not one-half the might of gentleness."

Manner is of importance. A kind no is often more agreeable than a rough
yes.

                                                             BENGEL.

We are always clever with those who imagine we think as they do. To be
shallow you must differ from people; to be profound you must agree with
them.

                                                             BULWER.

If you want to spoil all that God gives you; if you want to be miserable
yourself and a maker of misery to others, the way is easy enough. Only
be selfish, and it is done at once.

                                                   CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Language was given us that we might say pleasant things.

                                                              BOVEE.

"The specially social qualities are good nature, amiability, the desire
to please, and the kindness of heart that avoids giving offence. A good
natured person may frankly disagree with you, but he never offends."

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

                                                            EMERSON.

Pride of origin, whether high or low, springs from the same principle of
human nature; one is but the positive, the other the negative pole of a
single weakness.

                                                             LOWELL.

The best possible impression that you can make by your dress is to make
no separate impression at all; but so to harmonize its material and
shape with your personality, that it becomes tributary in the general
effect, and so exclusively tributary that people cannot tell after
seeing you what kind of clothes you wear.

                                                      J. G. HOLLAND.

Nothing is more dangerous than to paint men as they are when by chance
they are not as handsome as they would wish to be.

                                                       EDMOND ABOUT.

"Borrow trouble if you have not enough already."

Refinement creates beauty everywhere.

                                                            HAZLITT.

"A lady may always judge of the estimation in which she is held by the
conversation which is addressed to her."

Some people cannot drive to happiness with four horses, and others can
reach the goal on foot.

                                                          THACKERAY.

"The clown who excites the multitudes to mirth is more a benefactor than
the conqueror who drapes a thousand homes in mourning."

"Tact is the art of putting yourself in another's place, and being quick
about it."

"It pays 100 per cent. to be polite to everyone, from the garbage
gatherer to the governor."

"If you wish that your own merit should be recognized, recognize the
merits of others."

"If you cannot be happy in one way, be happy in another; and this
facility of disposition wants but little aid from philosophy, for health
and good humor are almost the whole affair. Many run about after
felicity, like an absent man hunting for his hat while it is on his head
or in his hand. Such persons want nothing to make them the happiest
people in the world but the knowledge that they are so."

"An Atchison woman, who three days ago was considered the most popular
woman in town, has not one friend left; instead of sympathizing with her
friends, as she has heretofore, she began telling them her troubles."

                                                   _Atchison Globe._

It is the characteristic of folly to discern the faults of others and to
forget one's own.

                                                             CICERO.

What is it to be a gentleman? It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be
generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities,
to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner.

                                                          THACKERAY.

  _Teach me to feel another's woe,
    To hide the fault I see;
  That mercy I to others show,
    That mercy show to me._
                                                               POPE.

"The Persians say of noisy, unreasonable talk: 'I hear the noise of the
mill-stone, but I see no meal.'"

We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.

                                                              ALGER.

It is much easier to be critical than correct.

                                                       BEACONSFIELD.

"'I am busy, Johnnie, and can't help it,' said the father, writing away
when the little fellow hurt his finger. 'Yes, you could--you might have
said oh!' sobbed Johnnie. There's a Johnnie in tears inside all of us
upon occasions."

                                                 REV. W. C. GANNETT.

"You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but
you may prevent them from stopping to build their nests there."

In general society one should always avoid discussions upon two
subjects--religion and politics. In a discussion upon either of these
subjects you will find very little intellectual honesty, and it will
almost invariably lead to irritating differences of opinion.

A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to
the claims of self-love in others and exacts it in return from them.

                                                            HAZLITT.

"There is no real conflict between truth and politeness; what is
imagined to be such is only the crude mistake of those who fail to
discover their harmony. Politeness, taken in its best sense, is the
graceful expression of respect, kind feeling, and good will."

"Beloved among women is she who, having warned a friend of the
consequences to follow rash doings, will, when her prophecies have
come true, withhold the triumphant: I told you so!"

                                                   _Boston Journal._

"No one loses by politeness to, or by the trifling exercise of apparent
pleasure in a caller. While I have no wish to counsel insincerity, there
is a wide difference between that offensive veneer and the pure metal of
consideration for the feelings of a stranger within one's gate."

LADY BELLAIR'S ADVICE TO GIRLS.

WHAT TO AVOID.

A loud, weak, affected, whining, harsh or shrill tone of voice.
Extravagances in conversation--such phrases as "Awfully this," "Beastly
that," "Loads of time," "Don't you know," "Hate" for "dislike," etc.

Sudden exclamations of annoyance, surprise and joy,--often dangerously
approaching to "female swearing"--as "Bother!" "Gracious!" "How jolly!"

Yawning when listening to anyone.

Talking on family matters, even to bosom friends.

Attempting any vocal or instrumental piece of music that you cannot
execute with ease.

Crossing your letters.

Making a sharp, short nod with the head, intended to do duty as a bow.

WHAT TO CULTIVATE.

An unaffected, low, distinct, silver-toned voice.

The art of pleasing those around you, and seeming pleased with them and
all they may do for you.

The charm of making little sacrifices quite naturally, as if of no
account to yourself.

The habit of making allowances for the opinions, feelings, or prejudices
of others.

An erect carriage--that is, a sound body.

A good memory for faces, and facts connected with them--thus avoiding
giving offence through not recognizing or bowing to people, or saying to
them what had best been left unsaid.

The art of listening without impatience to prosy talkers, and smiling at
the twice-told tale or joke.

"He who would see his sons and daughters thoroughly and truly gentle,
must forbid selfishness of action, rudeness of speech, carelessness of
forms, impoliteness of conduct from the first, and demand that in
childhood and the nursery shall be laid the foundation of that good
breeding which is as a jewel of price to the mature man and woman."

"Many persons consider that 'bad temper' is entirely voluntary on the
part of the person who displays it. As a matter of fact it is often, to
a very great extent, involuntary, and no one is more angry at it than
the bad tempered person himself. Of course everyone, whether he is born
with a bad temper or has acquired one from habit, or has been visited
with one as the result of disease or injury, should at least try to
control it. But his friends should also bear in mind that bad temper may
be, and often is, an affliction to be sympathized with, not an offence
to be punished."

                                                      _Once A Week._

There are some people so given over to the pettiness of fault-picking,
that if they should suddenly see the handwriting on the wall, they would
disregard its awful warning in their eager haste to point out its
defective penmanship.

                                                   BRANDER MATTHEWS.

"We are all dissatisfied. The only difference is that some of us sit
down in the squalor of our dissatisfaction, while others make a ladder
of it."

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe said, in speaking of Longfellow, that "his personal
charm was in a delicateness of mind that was truly cosmopolitan; he had
a vivid appreciation of what was beautiful and noble, and he represented
the purest taste and the most perfect feeling." Was there ever given a
finer definition of a gentleman?

"Set a watch over thy mouth, and keep the door of thy lips, for a
tale-bearer is worse than a thief."

                                                          THE BIBLE.

"He submits to be seen through a microscope who suffers himself to be
caught in a passion."

"It isn't what you wear in this life, gentlemen; it is how you wear it.
It isn't so much what you do; it is how you do it. There are people who
do tasteful things vulgarly, and vulgar things tastefully. Who was it
that

  _'Kicked them downstairs with such very fine grace,
   They thought he was handing them up'?_

"A sense of humor is one of the most precious gifts that can be
vouchsafed to a human being. He is not necessarily a better man for
having it, but he is a happier one. It renders him indifferent to good
or bad fortune. It enables him to enjoy his own discomfiture. Blessed
with this sense, he is never unduly elated or cast down. No one can
ruffle his temper. No abuse disturbs his equanimity. Bores do not bore
him. Humbugs do not humbug him. Solemn airs do not impose on him.
Sentimental gush does not influence him. The follies of the moment have
no hold on him."

                                                   _Boston Journal._

There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be but to boil an
egg. Manners are the happy way of doing things; each one the stroke of
genius or of love--now repeated and hardened into usage. Your manners
are always under examination, and by committees little suspected--a
police in citizen's clothes--but are awarding or denying you very high
prizes when you least think of it.

                                                            EMERSON.

My experience of life makes me sure of one truth, which I do not try to
explain; that the sweetest happiness we ever know, the very wine of
human life, comes not from love, but from sacrifice--from the effort to
make others happy. This is as true to me as that my flesh will burn if I
touch red-hot metal.

                                                JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.

"A wise man will turn adverse criticism and malicious attacks to good
account. He will consider carefully whether there is not in him some
weakness or fault which, although he never discovered, was plain to the
eye of his enemy. Many men profit more by the assaults of foes than by
the kindness of friends."

"Politeness is like an air cushion: there may be nothing in it, but it
eases our jolts wonderfully."

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say
disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you
come into relation with a person the more necessary do tact and courtesy
become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend
to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies: they are ready enough to
tell them. Good breeding never forgets that _amour-propre_ is universal.

                                                       O. W. HOLMES.

Whatever our disbeliefs, most of us profoundly believe in goodness; and
we incline to believe that a man who has practically learned the secret
of noble living has somehow got near the truth of things.

                                                    GEO. S. MERRIAM.

"A man's bad temper sometimes does more toward spoiling a dinner than a
woman's bad cooking."

  _Her voice was ever soft,
  Gentle and low; an excellent thing in
  Woman._

                                                        SHAKESPEARE.

True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It simply consists in
treating others just as you love to be treated yourself.

                                                       CHESTERFIELD.

A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one, no more
right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.

                                                            JOHNSON.

  How sweet and gracious, even in common speech,
  Is that fine sense which men call courtesy!
  Wholesome as air and genial as the light,
  Welcome in every clime as breath of flowers,----
  It transmutes aliens into trusting friends,
  And gives its owner passport round the globe.

                                                       J. T. FIELDS.

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.

2. Punctuation errors have been corrected without note.

3. The following misprints have been corrected:
    "repuation" corrected to "reputation" (page 2)
    "sympatheic" corrected to "sympathetic" (page 38)
    "Stael" corrected to "Staël" (page 59)

4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies
in spelling and hyphenation have been retained.