If you are visited by any company whom you wish to drive away forever, or any friends whom you wish to alienate, entertain them by reading to them your own productions.
If you ask a lady to dance, and she is engaged, do not prefer a request for her hand at the next set after that, because she may be engaged for that also, and for many more; and you would have to run through a long list of interrogatories, which would be absurd and awkward.
A gentleman must not expect to shine in society, even the most frivolous, without a considerable stock of knowledge. He must be acquainted with facts rather than principles. He needs no very sublime sciences; but a knowledge of biography and literary history, of the fine arts, as painting, engraving, music, etc., will be of great service to him.
Some men are always seen in the streets with an umbrella under their arm. Such a foible may be permitted to such men as Mr. Southey and the Duke of Wellington: but in ordinary men it looks like affectation, and the monotony is exceedingly boring to the sight.
To applaud at a play is not fashionable; but it is respectable to evince by a gentle concurrence of one finger and a hand that you perceive and enjoy a good stroke in an actor.
If you are at a concert, or a private musical party, never beat time with your feet or your cane. Nothing is more unpleasant.
Few things are more agreeable or more difficult, than to relate anecdotes with entire propriety. They should be introduced gracefully, have fit connexion with the previous remarks, and be in perfect keeping with the company, the subject and the tone of the conversation; they should be short, witty and eloquent, and they should be new but not far-fetched.
In rapid and eager discourse, when persons are excited and impatient, as at a ball or in a promenade, repeat nothing but the spirit and soul of a story, leaping over the particulars. There are however many places and occasions in which you may bring out the details with advantage, precisely, but not tediously. When you repeat a true story be always extremely exact. Mem. Not to forget the point of your story, like most narrators.
When you are telling a flat anecdote by mistake, laugh egregiously, that others may do the same: when you repeat a spirited and striking bon mot, be grave and composed, in order that others may not be the same.
For one who has travelled much, to hit the proper medium between too much reserve and too much intrusion, on the subject of his adventures, is not easy. Such a person is expected to give amusement by pleasant histories of his travels, and it is agreeable that he should do so, yet with moderation; he should not reply to every remark by a memoir, commencing, “When I was in Japan.”