off a certain
percentage from the respect of others.

LISTENING.

The habit of listening with interest and attention is one which should
be specially cultivated. Even if the talker is prosy and prolix, the
well-bred person will appear interested, and at appropriate intervals
make such remarks as shall show that he has heard and understood all
that has been said. Some superficial people are apt to style this
hypocrisy; but if it is, it is certainly a commendable hypocrisy,
directly founded on that strict rule of good manners which commands us
to show the same courtesy to others that we hope to receive ourselves.
We are commanded to check our impulses, conceal our dislikes, and even
modify our likings whenever or wherever these are liable to give
offense or pain to others. The person who turns away with manifest
displeasure, disgust or want of interest when another is addressing him,
is guilty not only of an ill-bred, but a cruel act.

FLIPPANCY.

In conversation all provincialism, affectations of foreign accents,
mannerisms, exaggerations and slang are detestable. Equally to be
avoided are inaccuracies of expression, hesitation, an undue use of
foreign words, and anything approaching to flippancy, coarseness,
triviality or provocation. Gentlemen sometimes address ladies in a very
flippant manner, which the latter are obliged to pass over without
notice, for various reasons, while inwardly they rebel. Many a worthy
man has done himself an irreparable injury by thus creating a lasting
prejudice in the minds of those whom he might have made his friends, had
he addressed them as though he considered them rational beings, capable
of sustaining their part in a conversation upon sensible subjects.
Flippancy is as much an evidence of ill-breeding as is the perpetual
smile, the wandering eye, the vacant stare, and the half-opened mouth of
the man who is preparing to break in upon the conversation.

BE SYMPATHETIC AND ANIMATED.

Do not go into society unless you make up your mind to be sympathetic,
unselfish, animating, as well as animated. Society does not require
mirth, but it does demand cheerfulness and unselfishness, and you must
help to make and sustain cheerful conversation. The manner of
conversation is as important as the matter.

COMPLIMENTS.

Compliments are said by some to be inadmissible. But between equals, or
from those of superior position to those of inferior station,
compliments should be not