IGH birth and good breeding are the privi
leges of the few; but the habits and manners of a gentleman may be acquired by all. Nor is their acquirement attended with difficulty. Etiquette is not an art requiring the study of a lifetime; on the contrary, its principles are simple, and their practical application involves only ordinary care, tact and sagacity.
To gain the good opinion of those who surround them, is the first interest and the second duty of men in every profession of life. For power and for pleasure, this preliminary is equally indispensable. Unless we are eminent and respectable before our fellow-beings, we cannot possess that influence which is essential to the accomplishment of great designs; and men have so inherent, and one might almost say constitutional, a disposition to refer all that they say and do, to the thoughts and feelings of others, that upon the tide of the world's opinion floats the complacency of every man.