p. 272 | MANNER | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 16, 1881

MANNER.

ONE of the most prominent men of our time lately said: "I have lived sixty-three years in the world, and have come in contact with all ranks and all quality of men; but I have never met one who, when I spoke to him with sincerity and courtesy, would not reply to me in like manner."

This testimony is the more valuable as it comes from a man who probably possesses more personal popularity than any living American, and who owes it to the magnetic charm of his sincerity and courtesy of manner.

Dorothy Dix, who visited almost every prison in the United States, said that she never once received a rude word from a convict, no matter how degraded he might have been.

"I showed them by my manner that I trusted them," was her secret.

There is no personal quality which young people are so apt to neglect as this, an attractive, magnetic manner, which is so much more potent and enduring a charm than the beauty of face and figure, which they prize so highly.

It is not a charm to be learned, for it is not attractive when artificial. All the world, down to your dog, knows by instinct when the suavity, the genial smile, the friendly word, are assumed.

The basis, the absolute essential, in a thoroughly well-bred manner, is that total lack of self-consciousness which not even the most expert actor can assume. Hence, all the awkwardness, the diffidence, the social mistakes of boys and girls. They are usually intensely self-conscious. The world, their knowledge, their very selves, are all so new to them; their opinions and thoughts and the part they mean to play in life, are so important to themselves, that they are apt to thrust them on others. After a while, when they learn how insignificant they are, they will begin to be considerate of others, easy, and unembarrassed.

"I ceased to be awkward," says Sydney Smith, "as soon as I discovered nobody was looking at me."

But sometimes a man most anxious to please, never finds out during a long life, that the manner which attracts is that which shows that its possessor forgets himself, and is generously interested in his companion.—Youth's Companion.