ette, and within triple barriers of
reserve: and, as all the world knows from Madame de Stael,[420] was
wont, when he found himself observed, to discharge his face of all
expression. But emperors and rich men are by no means the most
skillful masters of good manners. No rent roll nor army-list can
dignify skulking and dissimulations: and the first point of courtesy
must always be truth, as really all forms of good-breeding point that
way.

12. I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt's[421] translation,
Montaigne's[422] account of his journey into Italy, and am struck with
nothing more agreeably than the self-respecting fashions of the time.
His arrival in each place, the arrival of a gentleman of France, is an
event of some consequence. Wherever he goes, he pays a visit to
whatever prince or gentleman of note resides upon his road, as a duty
to himself and to civilization. When he leaves any house in which he
has lodged for a few weeks, he causes his arms to be painted and hung
up as a perpetual sign to the house, as was the custom of gentlemen.

13. The complement of this graceful self-respect, and that of all the
points of good breeding I most require and insist upon, is deference.
I like that every chair should be a throne, and hold a king. I prefer
a tendency to stateliness, to an excess of fellowship. Let the
incommunicable objects of nature and the metaphysical isolation of man
teach us independence. Let us not be too much acquainted. I would have
a man enter his house through a hall filled with heroic and sacred
sculptures, that he might not want the hint of tranquillity and
self-poise.[423] We should meet each morning, as from foreign
countries, and spending the day together, should depart at night, as
into foreign countries. In all things I would have the island of a man
inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all
round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion. This
is myrrh and rosemary to keep the other sweet. Lovers should guard
their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion
and meanness. It is easy to push this deference to a Chinese
etiquette;[424] but coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate
fine qualities. A gentleman makes no noise: a lady is serene
Proportionate is our disgust at those invaders who fill a studious
house with blast and running, to secure some paltry convenience. Not
less I dislike a low sympathy of each with h