exchange add bitterness to irritation.

And yet there are many who are highly indignant when told that, as a type,
we are not at all admired abroad. Instead of being indignant, how much
simpler and better it would be to make ourselves admirable, especially
since it is those who most lack cultivation who are most indignant. The
very well-bred may be mortified and abashed, but they can't be indignant
except with their fellow countrymen who by their shocking behavior make
Europe's criticism just.

Understanding of, and kind-hearted consideration for the feelings of
others are the basic attributes of good manners. Without observation,
understanding is impossible--even in our own country where the attitude of
our neighbors is much the same as our own. It is not hard to appreciate,
therefore, that to understand the point of view of people entirely foreign
to ourselves, requires intuitive perception as well as cultivation in a
very high degree.

=AMERICANS IN EUROPEAN SOCIETY=

It is only in musical comedy that one can go into a strange city and be
picked out of the crowd and invited to the tables of the high of the land,
because one looks as though one might be agreeable! To see anything of
society in the actual world it is necessary to have friends, either
Americans living or "stationed" or married abroad; or to take letters of
introduction. Taking letters of introduction should never be done
carelessly, because of the obligation that they impose. But to go to a
strange country and see nothing of its social life, is like a blind
person's going to the theater, and the only way a stranger can know people
is through the letters he brings.

Under ordinary circumstances no knowledge whatsoever beyond the social
amenities the world over are necessary. A dinner abroad is exactly the
same as one here. You enter a room, you bow, you shake hands, you say,
"How do you do." You sit at table, you talk of impersonal things, say
"Good-by" and "Thank you" to your hostess, and you leave.

The matter of addressing people of title correctly is of little
importance. The beautiful Lady Oldworld (who was Alice Town) was asked one
day by a fellow countryman, what she called this person of title and that
one, and she replied:

"I'm not sure that I know! Why should I call them at all?" which was a
perfectly sensible answer. One never says anything but "you" to the person
spoken to; and it might be an excellent thing not to know how to spe