2866. Be well read, for the sake of the general company and the ladies, in the literature of the day. You will, thereby, enlarge the regions of pleasurable talk. Besides, it is often necessary.
2867. Hazlitt, who had entertained an unfounded prejudice against Dickens's works when they were first written, confesses that at last he was obliged to read them, because he could not enter a mixed company without hearing them admired and quoted.
2868. Always avoid any thing like absence of mind. Some fops assume this, but it is silly and contemptible.
2869. In order to put everybody in the company at ease, we should adopt the manners and customs of those with whom we happen for the time to consort.
2870. People who, having traveled, adopt, as many do, foreign phraseology, idiom, or accent, are excessively vulgar.