se with
such a person, and he is a constant source of annoyance to those about
him. For want of self-restraint, many men are engaged all their lives
in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success
impossible by their own crossgrained ungentleness; whilst others, it
may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple
patience, equanimity, and self-control.

It has been said that men succeed in life quite as much by their temper
as by their talents. However this may be, it is certain that their
happiness depends mainly on their temperament, especially upon their
disposition to be cheerful; upon their complaisance, kindliness of
manner, and willingness to oblige others--details of conduct which are
like the small-change in the intercourse of life, and are always in
request.

Men may show their disregard of others in various unpolite ways--as,
for instance, by neglect of propriety in dress, by the absence of
cleanliness, or by indulging in repulsive habits. The slovenly dirty
person, by rendering himself physically disagreeable, sets the tastes
and feelings of others at defiance, and is rude and uncivil only under
another form.

David Ancillon, a Huguenot preacher of singular attractiveness, who
studied and composed his sermons with the greatest care, was accustomed
to say "that it was showing too little esteem for the public to take
no pains in preparation, and that a man who should appear on a
ceremonial-day in his nightcap and dressing-gown, could not commit a
greater breach of civility."

The perfection of manner is ease--that it attracts no man's notice
as such, but is natural and unaffected. Artifice is incompatible with
courteous frankness of manner. Rochefoucauld has said that "nothing so
much prevents our being natural as the desire of appearing so." Thus we
come round again to sincerity and truthfulness, which find their outward
expression in graciousness, urbanity, kindliness, and consideration for
the feelings of others. The frank and cordial man sets those about him
at their ease. He warms and elevates them by his presence, and wins
all hearts. Thus manner, in its highest form, like character, becomes a
genuine motive power.

"The love and admiration," says Canon Kingsley, "which that truly brave
and loving man, Sir Sydney Smith, won from every one, rich and poor,
with whom he came in contact seems to have arisen from the one fact,
that without, perhaps, having