often the jewel of deeper water in the social crown of her
time.

The most advertised commodity is not always intrinsically the best, but is
sometimes merely the product of a company with plenty of money to spend on
advertising. In the same way, money brings certain people before the
public--sometimes they are persons of "quality," quite as often the
so-called "society leaders" featured in the public press do not belong to
good society at all, in spite of their many published photographs and the
energies of their press-agents. Or possibly they do belong to "smart"
society; but if too much advertised, instead of being the "queens" they
seem, they might more accurately be classified as the court jesters of
to-day.

=THE IMITATION AND THE GENUINE=

New York, more than any city in the world, unless it be Paris, loves to be
amused, thrilled and surprised all at the same time; and will accept with
outstretched hand any one who can perform this astounding feat. Do not
underestimate the ability that can achieve it: a scintillating wit, an
arresting originality, a talent for entertaining that amounts to genius,
and gold poured literally like rain, are the least requirements.

Puritan America on the other hand demanding, as a ticket of admission to
her Best Society, the qualifications of birth, manners and cultivation,
clasps her hands tight across her slim trim waist and announces severely
that New York's "Best" is, in her opinion, very "bad" indeed. But this is
because Puritan America, as well as the general public, mistakes the
jester for the queen.

As a matter of fact, Best Society is not at all like a court with an
especial queen or king, nor is it confined to any one place or group, but
might better be described as an unlimited brotherhood which spreads over
the entire surface of the globe, the members of which are invariably
people of cultivation and worldly knowledge, who have not only perfect
manners but a perfect manner. Manners are made up of trivialities of
deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know
them; manner is personality--the outward manifestation of one's innate
character and attitude toward life. A gentleman, for instance, will never
be ostentatious or overbearing any more than he will ever be servile,
because these attributes never animate the impulses of a well-bred person.
A man whose manners suggest the grotesque is invariably a person of
imitation rather than of real po