Social Life / or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society

"1. Learn to govern yourself and to be gentle and patient.

"2. Guard your temper, especially in seasons of ill-health, irritation, and trouble, and soften it by a sense of your own shortcomings and errors.

"3. Never speak or act in anger.

"4. Remember that, valuable as is the gift of speech, silence is often more valuable.

"5. Do not expect too much from others, but forbear and forgive, as you desire forbearance and forgiveness yourself.

"6. Never retort a sharp or angry word. It is the second word that makes the quarrel.

"7. Beware of the first disagreement.

"8. Learn to speak in a gentle tone of voice.

"9. Learn to say kind and pleasant things when opportunity offers.

"10. Study the characters of those with whom you come in contact, and sympathize with them in all their troubles, however small.

"11. Do not neglect little things if they can affect the comfort of others in the smallest degree.

"12. Avoid moods, and pets, and fits of sulkiness.

"13. Learn to deny yourself and prefer others.

Duc de Morny's definition of a polite man, as "one who listens with interest to things he knows all about, when they are told by a person who knows nothing about them."

These little things that mark one as being "to the manor born" are not the growth of moments but the slow accretions of years;