In one of these instances bad manners were the natural expression of the woman, because her impulse was selfish; for it is certainly true that a person of truly unselfish nature will not offend by making personal remarks. Manners are the expression of the heart, and the man or woman who lives mentally in kindly, thoughtful relations with fellow men and women will refrain from expressing the thought which might possibly give offence. There is no mystery in social grace. It is remembering other people in their several relations to us. The woman who is a social success is not the one who has for her purpose in life so much the desire merely to please, but the one whose desire, rather, is to make others happy. One is a polite purpose; the other is a fine type of unselfishness that makes impossible the utterance of unwelcome truths to the chagrin of anyone encountered in the casual personal contact that we term society.
Holmes gave us some good advice when he said: "Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become."
THE
COMPLIMENT OF ATTENTION.
"Were we as eloquent as angels we should please some people more by listening than by talking."
"A good listener is as needful to a witty talker as steel to flint. It is the sharp contact of the two which makes the sparks fly."
There are certain amenities attending social intercourse with which we are all familiar, yet we are constantly forgetting to put them into practice. In no respect is this forgetfulness more noticeable than in conversation, and especially in connection with what may be called "the compliment of attention."
If you despair of becoming a good talker you can, at least, make yourself a good listener, and that is something not to be despised. There are apt to be more good talkers than good listeners, and, although to say so may sound paradoxical, the better you listen, the greater will be your reputation as a conversationalist.
In the opinion of the cynical Rochefoucauld, the reason why so few persons make themselves agreeable in conversation, is because they are more concerned about what they are themselves going to say, than what others are saying to them.