Nobody need suggest that these people
would probably, after our search, not be worth looking for. What shall
we do with the North-west Passage when we have found it?

R. H. D.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF BEING AGREEABLE.

"A man will please more by never offending than by giving a great deal
of delight." In this remark of Doctor Johnson's lies the art of being
agreeable. But nothing is more difficult than to avoid offending. Most
people are offended by trifles. For instance, persons generally take
umbrage at superior brilliance of conversation. "The man who talks for
fame will never please." Even he who talks to unburden his mind will
please only some old and solitary friend. Large experience and great
learning, however quietly carried, are very offensive to those who
have them not. Clever things cannot be said unobtrusively enough. A
person so brilliant as to make others feel that his efforts are above
theirs will be detested. Moreover, one of the difficulties of being
agreeable is that the apprehension of offending and the small hope of
pleasing destroy all captivation of manner. The confident expectation
of pleasing is an infallible means of pleasing. Characters pleased
with themselves please others, for they are joyous and natural in
mien, and are at liberty from thinking of themselves to pay successful
attention to others. Still, the self-conceited and the bragging are
never attractive, self being the topic on which all are fluent and
none interesting. They who dwell on self in any way--the self-deniers,
the self-improvers--are hateful to the heart of civilized man.
The Chinese, who knew everything beforehand, are perfect in
self-abnegation of manner. "How are your noble and princely son and
your beautiful and angelic daughter?" says Mandarin Number One.--"Dog
of a son have I none, but my cat of a daughter is well," says Mandarin
Number Two.

To set up for an invariably agreeable person you must adjust yourself
to the peculiarities of others. You must talk of books to bookworms:
you must be musical with musicians, scientific with savants.
Furthermore, you have to make believe all the time that you are
enjoying yourself. The belle is a lady who has an air of enjoying
herself with whomsoever she talks. We like those who seem to delight
in our company. You must not overdo it, and thus make yourself
suspected of acting; but do not imagine that you will please without
trying. Those who are careless of pleasing are n