f etiquette is no less an asset in business or public life, or
in any other contact with people, than it is in society.

Just as any expert, whether at a machine bench, an accountant's desk, or
at golf, gives an impression of such ease as to make his accomplishment
seemingly require no skill, a bungler makes himself and every one watching
him uneasy if not actually fearful of his awkwardness. And as inexpertness
is quite as irritating in personal as in mechanical bungling, so there is
scarcely any one who sooner or later does not feel the need of social
expertness. Something, some day, will awaken him to the folly of scorning
as "soft," men who have accomplished manners; despising as "effeminate,"
youths who have physical grace; of being contemptuous of the perfect
English of the well-bred gentleman; of consoling himself with the thought
that his own crudeness is strong, and manly, and American!

=THE "X" MARKERS=

But let "success" come to this same inexpert man--let him be appointed to
high office, let him then shuffle from foot to foot, never knowing what to
do or say, let him meet open derision or ill-concealed contempt from every
educated person brought in contact with him, let opprobrium fall upon his
State because its governor is a boor, and let him as such be written of in
the editorials of the press and in the archives of history! Will he be so
pleased with himself then? Does any one think of Theodore Roosevelt as
"soft" or "effeminate" because he was one of the greatest masters of
etiquette who ever bore the most exalted honor that can be awarded by the
people of the United States? Washington was completely a gentleman--and so
was Abraham Lincoln. Because Lincoln's etiquette was self-taught it was no
less masterly for that! Whether he happened to know a lot of trifling
details of pseudo etiquette matters not in the least. Awkward he may have
been, but the essence of him was courtesy--unfailing courtesy. No "rough,
uneducated" man has command of perfect English, and Lincoln's English is
supreme.

One thing that some Men of Might forget is that lack of polish in its
wider aspects is merely lack of education. They themselves look down upon
a man who has to make an "X" mark in place of signing his name--but they
overlook entirely that to those more highly educated, they are themselves
in degree quite as ignorant.

=SONS OF SELF-MADE MEN=

And yet, speak to self-made men of the need of the social graces fo