Yet polish alone often succeeds.
At the same time, many young men “with nothing in them” are socially successful, being possessed of those superficial qualities and that outward polish which are, for the purposes of everyday intercourse, more useful than abysmal personal depths. Was it Goethe or Schiller who said that for domestic utility a farthing candle is more useful than all the stars of heaven?
A light playfulness of fancy, combined with the gentleness that carefully avoids wounding even the smallest, is a high recommendation in society; but to be for ever laughing is wearisome in the extreme to the spectators.
I make no apology for quoting here the following passages from “Mr. Brown’s Letters to a Young Man About Town” from a Punch of 1849. “Mr. Brown” was Thackeray, I believe.
“Mr. Brown’s” advice.
He says:—
“I beseech and implore you to make a point of being intimate with one or two families where you can see kind and well-bred English ladies. I have seen women of all nations in the world, but I never saw the equals of English women (meaning, of course, to include our cousins the MacWhirters of Glasgow and the O’Tooles of Cork); and I pray sincerely, my boy, that you may always have a woman for a friend.”
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“It is better for you to pass an evening once or twice a week in a lady’s drawing-room, even though the conversation is rather slow and you know the girl’s songs by heart, than in a club, tavern, or smoking-room, or pit of a theatre.”
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