iven! What
opportunities we miss of doing an angel's work! I remember doing it,
full of sad feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about it; and
it gave an hour's sunshine to a human life, and lightened the load of
life to a human heart for a time."

Morals and manners, which give color to life, are of much greater
importance than laws, which are but their manifestations. The law
touches us here and there, but manners are about us everywhere,
pervading society like the air we breathe. Good manners, as we call
them, are neither more nor less than good behavior; consisting of
courtesy and kindness; benevolence being the preponderating element
in all kinds of mutually beneficial and pleasant intercourse amongst
human beings. "Civility," said Lady Montague, "costs nothing and buys
everything." The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise
requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. "Win
hearts," said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you have all men's
hearts and purses." If we would only let nature act kindly, free from
affectation and artifice, the results on social good humor and
happiness would be incalculable. The little courtesies which form the
small change of life, may separately appear of little intrinsic
value, but they acquire their importance from repetition and
accumulation. They are like the spare minutes, or the groat a day,
which proverbially produce such momentous results in the course of a
twelvemonth, or in a lifetime.

Manners are the ornament of action; and there is a way of speaking a
kind word, or of doing a kind thing, which greatly enhances its
value. What seems to be done with a grudge, or as an act of
condescension, is scarcely accepted as a favor. Yet there are men who
pride themselves upon their gruffness; and though they may possess
virtue and capacity, their manner is often such as to render them
almost insupportable. It is difficult to like a man who, though he
may not pull your nose, habitually wounds your self-respect, and
takes a pride in saying disagreeable things to you. There are others
who are dreadfully condescending, and cannot avoid seizing upon every
small opportunity of making their greatness felt. When Abernethy was
canvassing for the office of surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital,
he called upon such a person--a rich grocer, one of the governors.
The great man behind the counter seeing the great surgeon enter
immediately assumed the grand air toward t