Never dress against any one. Choose those garments which suit you, and look well upon you, perfectly irrespective of the fact that a lady or gentleman in the same village or street may excel you.
When dressed for company, strive to appear as easy and natural as if you were in undress. Nothing is more distressing to a sensitive person, or more ridiculous to one gifted with an esprit moqueur, than to see a lady laboring under the consciousness of a fine gown; or a gentleman who is stiff, awkward, and ungainly in a bran-new coat.
Dress according to your age. It is both painful and ridiculous to see an old lady dressed as a belle of four-and-twenty, or an old fellow, old enough for a grandfather, affecting the costume and the manners of a beau.
Young men should be well dressed. Not foppishly, but neatly and well. An untidy person at five-and-twenty, degenerates, very frequently, into a sloven and a boor at fifty.
Be not too negligent, nor too studied in your attire; and lastly, let your behavior and conversation suit the clothes you wear, so that those who know you may feel that, after all, dress and external appearance is the least portion of a Lady or Gentleman.
INTRODUCTIONS.
The custom which prevails in country places of introducing everybody you meet to each other, is both an annoying and an improper one. As a general rule, introductions ought not to be made, except where there is undoubted evidence that the acquaintance would be mutually agreeable and proper.
But if you should find an agreeable person in private society, who seems desirous of making your acquaintance, there cannot be any objection to your meeting his advances half way, although the ceremony of an "introduction" may not have taken place; his presence in your friend's house being a sufficient guarantee for his respectability, as of course if he were an improper person he would not be there.