est details of life, and contributing to render
it, as a whole, agreeable and pleasant.

Manner is not so frivolous or unimportant as some may think it to be;
for it tends greatly to facilitate the business of life, as well as
to sweeten and soften social intercourse. "Virtue itself," says Bishop
Middleton, "offends, when coupled with a forbidding manner."

Manner has a good deal to do with the estimation in which men are held
by the world; and it has often more influence in the government of
others than qualities of much greater depth and substance. A manner at
once gracious and cordial is among the greatest aids to success, and
many there are who fail for want of it. [181] For a great deal depends
upon first impressions; and these are usually favourable or otherwise
according to a man's courteousness and civility.

While rudeness and gruffness bar doors and shut hearts, kindness and
propriety of behaviour, in which good manners consist, act as an "open
sesame" everywhere. Doors unbar before them, and they are a passport to
the hearts of everybody, young and old.

There is a common saying that "Manners make the man;" but this is not so
true as that "Man makes the manners." A man may be gruff, and even
rude, and yet be good at heart and of sterling character; yet he would
doubtless be a much more agreeable, and probably a much more useful man,
were he to exhibit that suavity of disposition and courtesy of manner
which always gives a finish to the true gentleman.

Mrs. Hutchinson, in the noble portraiture of her husband, to which
we have already had occasion to refer, thus describes his manly
courteousness and affability of disposition:--"I cannot say whether
he were more truly magnanimous or less proud; he never disdained the
meanest person, nor flattered the greatest; he had a loving and sweet
courtesy to the poorest, and would often employ many spare hours with
the commonest soldiers and poorest labourers; but still so ordering his
familiarity, that it never raised them to a contempt, but entertained
still at the same time a reverence and love of him." [182]

A man's manner, to a certain extent, indicates his character. It is
the external exponent of his inner nature. It indicates his taste, his
feelings, and his temper, as well as the society to which he has been
accustomed. There is a conventional manner, which is of comparatively
little importance; but the natural manner, the outcome of natural gifts,
improve