character so well described by Sydney Smith: 'Hardness is a want of minute attention to the feelings of others. It does not proceed from malignity or carelessness of inflicting pain, but from a want of delicate perception of those little things by which pleasure is conferred or pain excited. A hard person thinks he has done enough if he does not speak ill of your relations, your children, or your country; and then, with the greatest good-humour and volubility, and with a total inattention to your individual state and position, gallops over a thousand fine feelings, and leaves in every step the mark of his hoofs upon your heart. Analyse the conversation of a well-bred man who is clear of the besetting sin of hardness; it is a perpetual homage of polite good-nature. In the meantime the gentleman on the other side of you (a highly moral and respectable man) has been crushing little sensibilities, and violating little proprieties, and overlooking little discriminations; and without violating anything which can be called a rule, or committing what can be denominated a fault, has displeased and dispirited you, from wanting that fine vision which sees little things, and that delicate touch which handles them, and that fine sympathy which this superior moral organisation always bestows.'

Of course we must not judge people too much by external manner, for many a man has nothing of the bear about him but his skin. Nevertheless as we cannot expect people in general to take time to see whether we are what we seem to be, it is foolish to roll ourselves into a prickly ball on the approach of strangers. If we do so, we cannot wonder at their exclaiming: 'A rough Christian!' as the dog said of the hedgehog.

It is difficult to see how the 'natural-born fool'—to use an American expression—can ever hope to become well mannered, for without good sense, or rather tact, a man must continually make a fool of himself in society. Why are women as a rule better mannered than men? Because their greater sympathy and power of quicker intuition give to them finer tact. Nor is talent which knows what to do of much use, if the tact he wanting which should enable us to see how to do it. He who has talent without tact is like the millionaire who never has a penny of ready-money about him. Mr Smiles illustrates the difference between a man of quick tact and of no tact whatever by an interview which he says once took place between Lord Palmerston and Mr Behnes the sculptor. At the last sitting which Lord Palmerston gave him, Behnes opened the conversation with: 'Any news, my lord, from France? How do we stand with Louis Napoleon?' The Foreign Secretary raised his eyebrows for an instant, and quietly replied: 'Really, Mr Behnes, I don't know; I have not seen the newspapers!' Behnes, with much talent, was one of the many men who entirely missed their way in life through want of tact.

Nowhere is there room for the display of good manners so much as in conversation. Well-mannered people do not talk too much. Remembering that the first syllable of the word conversation is con (with), that it means talking with another, they abstain from lecturing, and are as ready to listen as to be heard. They are neither impatient to interrupt others nor uneasy when interrupted themselves. Knowing that their anecdote or sharp reply will keep, or need not find utterance at all, they give full attention to their companion, and do not by their looks vote him a bore, or at least an interruption to their own much better remarks. But beside the rule, that we should not be impatient to get in our word, that a few brilliant flashes of silence should occur in our conversation, another rule is, not to take for our theme—ourselves. We must remember that, as a rule, we and our concerns can be of no more importance to other men than they and their concerns are to us. Why then should we go over the annals of our lives generally and of our diseases in particular to comparative strangers; why review the hardships we have suffered in money matters, in love, at law, in our profession, or loudly boast of successes in each of these departments? Why, lastly, should the pride that apes humility induce us to fish for compliments by talking ad nauseam of our faults? We need not say that low gossip or scandal-bearing is quite incompatible with good manners. 'The occasions of silence,' says Bishop Butler, 'are obvious—namely when a man has nothing to say, or nothing but what is better unsaid; better either in regard to some particular persons he is present with, or from its being an interruption to conversation of a more agreeable kind; or better, lastly, with regard to himself.'

A well-mannered man is courteous to all sorts and conditions of men. He is respectful to his inferiors as well as to his equals and superiors. Honouring the image of God in every man, his good manners are not reserved for the few who can pay for them, or who make themselves feared. Like the gentle summer air, his civility plays round all alike. 'The love and admiration,' says Canon Kingsley, 'which that truly brave and loving man Sir Sidney 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 any such conscious intention, he treated rich and poor, his own servants, and the noblemen his guests, alike, and alike courteously, considerately, cheerfully, affectionately—so leaving a blessing and reaping a blessing wherever he went.' Certainly the working-classes of England, however respectful they may be to those whom—often for interested reasons—they call 'their betters,' are far from being sufficiently polite to each other. Why should not British labourers when they meet take off their hats to each other, and courteously ask after Mrs Hardwork and family? There is not a moment of their lives the enjoyment of which might not be enhanced by kindliness of this sort—in the workshop, in the street, or at home.

We know that extremes meet, and there is an over-civility that becomes less than civil, because it forces people to act contrary to their inclinations. Well-mannered people consult the wishes of others rather than their own. They do not proceed in a tyrannical manner to prescribe what their friends shall eat and drink, nor do they put them in the awkward position of having to answer a thousand apologies for their entertainment. When guests refuse an offered civility, we ought not to press it. When they desire to leave our house, it is really bad manners to lock the stable-door, hide their hats, and have recourse to similar artifices to prevent their doing so. As, however, this zeal of hospitality without knowledge is a good fault, and one not too common, there is perhaps no need to say more about it. It leans to virtue's side.

We must not confound etiquette with good manners, for the arbitrary rules of the former are very often absurd, and differ in various ages and countries; whereas good manners, founded as they are on common-sense, are always and everywhere the same. It would be invidious to illustrate this assertion from the society of our own country, so we shall import a reductio ad absurdum of etiquette from Japan. In The Gentle Life, the following account is given by a resident at the Japanese court. 'When one courtier was insulted by another, he who bore the insult turned round to the insulter, and quietly uncovering the stomach, ripped himself open. The aggressor, by an inexorable law of etiquette, was bound to follow the lead, and so the two die. The most heart-rending look ever witnessed was one given by a Japanese, who, having been insulted by an American, carried out the rule, expecting his opponent to follow suit. But the Yankee would do nothing of the sort; and the Japanese expired in agonies—not from the torture of his wound, but from being a sacrifice to so foolish and underbred a fellow—whilst the American looked at him in a maze of wonder.' If it were not so sad, we