classes there are so polite is because the upper
classes are polite and civil to them."

A fine courtesy is a fortune in itself. The good-mannered can do
without riches, for they have passports everywhere. All doors fly open
to them, and they enter without money and without price. They can
enjoy nearly everything without the trouble of buying or owning. They
are as welcome in every household as the sunshine; and why not? for
they carry light, sunshine, and joy everywhere. They disarm jealousy
and envy, for they bear good will to everybody. Bees will not sting a
man smeared with honey.

"A man's own good breeding," says Chesterfield, "is the best security
against other people's ill manners. It carries along with it a dignity
that is respected by the most petulant. Ill breeding invites and
authorizes the familiarity of the most timid. No man ever said a pert
thing to the Duke of Marlborough, or a civil one to Sir Robert Walpole."

The true gentleman cannot harbor those qualities which excite the
antagonism of others, as revenge, hatred, malice, envy, or jealousy,
for these poison the sources of spiritual life and shrivel the soul.
Generosity of heart and a genial good will towards all are absolutely
essential to him who would possess fine manners. Here is a man who is
cross, crabbed, moody, sullen, silent, sulky, stingy, and mean with his
family and servants. He refuses his wife a little money to buy a
needed dress, and accuses her of extravagance that would ruin a
millionaire. Suddenly the bell rings. Some neighbors call: what a
change! The bear of a moment ago is as docile as a lamb. As by magic
he becomes talkative, polite, generous. After the callers have gone,
his little girl begs her father to keep on his "company manners" for a
little while, but the sullen mood returns and his courtesy vanishes as
quickly as it came. He is the same disagreeable, contemptible, crabbed
bear as before the arrival of his guests.

What friend of the great Dr. Johnson did not feel mortified and pained
to see him eat like an Esquimau, and to hear him call men "liars"
because they did not agree with him? He was called the "Ursa Major,"
or Great Bear.

Benjamin Rush said that when Goldsmith at a banquet in London asked a
question about "the American Indians," Dr. Johnson exclaimed: "There is
not an Indian in North America foolish enough to ask such a question."
"Sir," replied Goldsmith, "there is not a savage in Amer