l to any
occasion, however novel. They never commit blunders, or if they do
commit them, they seem not to be blunders in them. So there are those
who sing, speak, or draw intuitively--by inspiration. The great
majority of us, however, must be content to acquire these arts by
study and practice. In the same way we must acquire the art of
behavior, so far as behavior is an art. We must possess, in the first
place, a sense of equity, good-will toward our fellow-men, kind
feelings, magnanimity and self-control. Cultivation will do the rest.
But we most never forget that manners as well as morals are founded on
certain eternal principles, and that while "the _letter_ killeth,"
"the _spirit_ giveth _life_."

The account which Lord Chesterfield gives of the method by which he
acquired the reputation of being the most polished man in England, is
a strong example of the efficacy of practice, in view of which no one
need despair. He was naturally singularly deficient in that grace
which afterward so distinguished him. "I had a strong desire," he
says, "to please, and was sensible that I had nothing but the desire.
I therefore resolved, if possible, to acquire the means too. I studied
attentively and minutely the dress, the air, the manner, the address,
and the turn of conversation of all those whom I found to be the
people in fashion, and most generally allowed to please. I imitated
them as well as I could: if I heard that one man was reckoned
remarkably genteel, I carefully watched his dress, motions, and
attitudes, and formed my own upon them. When I heard of another whose
conversation was agreeable and engaging I listened and attended to the
turn of it. I addressed myself, though _de tres mauvaise grace_ [with
a very bad grace], to all the most fashionable fine ladies; confessed
and laughed with them at my own awkwardness and rawness, recommending
myself as an object for them to try their skill in forming."

Lord Bacon says: "To attain good manners it almost sufficeth not to
despise them, and that if a man labor too much to express them, he
shall lose their grace, which is to be natural and unaffected."

To these testimonies we may add the observation of La Rochefoucauld,
that "in manners there are no good copies, for besides that the copy
is almost always clumsy or exaggerated, the air which is suited to one
person sits ill upon another."

The greater must have been the genius of Chesterfield which enabled
him to make th