quette, vary with the age and with the people.

A French writer has said: "To be truly polite, it is necessary to be, at
the same time, good, just, and generous. True politeness is the outward
visible sign of those inward spiritual graces called modesty,
unselfishness and generosity. The manners of a gentleman are the index
of his soul. His speech is innocent, because his life is pure; his
thoughts are right, because his actions are upright; his bearing is
gentle, because his feelings, his impulses, and his training are gentle
also. A gentleman is entirely free from every kind of pretence. He
avoids homage, instead of exacting it. Mere ceremonies have no
attraction for him. He seeks not to say any civil things, but to do
them. His hospitality, though hearty and sincere, will be strictly
regulated by his means. His friends will be chosen for their good
qualities and good manners; his servants for their truthfulness and
honesty; his occupations for their usefulness, their gracefulness or
their elevating tendencies, whether moral, mental or political."

In the same general tone does Ruskin describe a gentleman, when he says:
"A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in
the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation, and of
that structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate
sympathies--one may say, simply, 'fineness of nature.' This is, of
course, compatible with the heroic bodily strength and mental firmness;
in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy.
Elephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no
touch of the boughs, but the white skin of Homer's Atrides would have
felt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its feelings in the glow of battle and
behave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar
animal; but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his
non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine
nature--not in his insensitive hide nor in his clumsy foot, but in the
way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way, and in his
sensitive trunk and still more sensitive mind and capability of pique on
points of honor. Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of
high breeding in men generally, will be their kindness and mercifulness,
these always indicating more or less firmness of make in the mind."

Can any one fancy what our society might be, if all its me