Reading aloud from some book, enunciating every word clearly and distinctly, with a dictionary at hand to settle instantly in your own mind any question as to the proper pronunciation of particular words, is a practice so abundantly fruitful of good results, that those who will practise it even for a short time, will scarcely be induced to relinquish it. In reading, cultivate the purely conversational tone. It is as easy to read as it is to talk, yet there are few good readers. The tone of voice, modulation, accent, etc., should be precisely as if you were in conversation, not as if you were preaching in a drawling, monotonous way. Read well and you will converse well, and both are superior accomplishments, acquired with facility; though the orator who pours forth his thoughts with such apparent ease, achieves his wonderful power only by means of patient labor, after much repetition, and, like Disraeli, often after bitter disappointments.
So take courage, young men, and if you have a difficulty to overcome, grapple with it at once; facility will come with practice, and strength and success with repeated effort. And always recollect, that the mind and character may be trained to almost perfect discipline, enabling it to move with a grace, spirit and freedom almost incomprehensible to those who have not subjected themselves to a similar training.
Take a raw recruit; he stoops, he walks in a shuffling, slouchy manner; he is painfully awkward. A few weeks under the Drill-Sergeant, and he walks forth erect, dignified, with the true soldierly bearing. Life seems but for the purpose of mere drilling. In one form or another we cannot escape it; neither should we desire to do so.
[Bashfulness from Ignorance of the Ways of Society.]
It is certainly very embarrassing and conducive of bashfulness to be thrust into a glittering room filled with people superior to one’s self in position, and equally cultured in the knowledge of what is due to the place and occasion. A sensitive, uncultured man or maiden, with rustic garb and rustic speech, and little knowledge respecting correct manners, introduced at once to the presence of cultured ladies and gentlemen, does not know what to do with hands nor feet; whether to sit or to stand, or to hide. Is it to be wondered at that such a person acts and feels cheap and diminutive?
But, diffident reader, do not be discouraged, for general good breeding is very easy of attainment. You must possess simply common sense, self-possession, and a habit of observation.
The exercise of a good common sense will show you plainly enough what is right and wrong—what is proper and improper. Self-possession will prevent from doing awkward and bungling things; and by observation you will soon learn the manners of the well-bred.
“But I won’t know how to act, mother,” said a lad as he was about starting to his first party. “Keep your eyes open, and just do as the others do,” was the answer, and better advice could not have been given.