adds, "the instinct of courtesy is not enough, nor is
opportunity equivalent to possession. The truth is palpable, that our
men are not all gentlemen, nor our women all ladies, nor our children
all docile and obliging. In that small and insignificant circle which
is called 'Society,' which, small and insignificant as it is, gives
the tone to the manners of the nation, the chief efforts seem to be,
to cleanse the outside of the platter, to conceal defects by gloss and
glitter. Its theory of politeness and its maxims of behavior are drawn
from a state of things so different from that which here prevails,
that they produce in us little besides an exaggerated ungracefulness,
a painful constraint, a complete artificiality of conduct and
character. We are trying to shine in borrowed plumes. We would glisten
with foreign varnish. To produce an _effect_ is our endeavor. We
prefer to _act_, rather than _live_. The politeness which is based on
sincerity, good-will, self-conquest, and a minute, habitual regard for
the rights of others, is not, we fear, the politeness which finds
favor in the saloons upon which the upholsterer has exhausted the
resources of his craft. Yet without possessing, in a certain degree,
the qualities we have named, no man ever did, and no man ever will,
become a gentleman. Where they do not bear sway, society may be
brilliant in garniture, high in pretension, but it is intrinsically
and incurably _vulgar_!"

The utility of good manners is universally acknowledged perhaps, but
the extent to which genuine courtesy may be made to contribute to our
success as well as our happiness is hardly realized. We can not more
satisfactorily illustrate this point than by quoting the following
lesson of experience from the Autobiography of the late Dr. Caldwell,
the celebrated physician and phrenologist:

"In the year 1825 I made, in London, in a spirit of wager, a decisive
and satisfactory experiment as to the effect of civil and courteous
manners on people of various ranks and descriptions.

"There were in a place a number of young Americans, who often
complained to me of the neglect and rudeness experienced by them from
citizens to whom they spoke in the streets. They asserted, in
particular, that as often as they requested directions to any point in
the city toward which they were proceeding, they either received an
uncivil and evasive answer, or none at all. I told them that my
experience on the same subject had