fortunes, titles, offices, and connections, as academic or civil
presidents, or senators, or professors, or great lawyers, and impose on
the frivolous, and a good deal on each other, by these fames. At least,
it is a point of prudent good manners to treat these reputations
tenderly, as if they were merited. But the sad realist knows these
fellows at a glance, and they know him; as when in Paris the chief of
the police enters a ballroom, so many diamonded pretenders shrink and
make themselves as inconspicuous as they can, or give him a supplicating
look as they pass. "I had received," said a sybil, "I had received at
birth the fatal gift of penetration:"--and these Cassandras are always
born.

Manners impress as they indicate real power. A man who is sure of his
point, carries a broad and contented expression, which everybody reads.
And you cannot rightly train one to an air and manner, except by making
him the kind of man of whom that manner is the natural expression.
Nature for ever puts a premium on reality. What is done for effect, is
seen to be done for effect; what is done for love, is felt to be done
for love. A man inspires affection and honor, because he was not lying
in wait for these. The things of a man for which we visit him, were done
in the dark and the cold. A little integrity is better than any career.
So deep are the sources of this surface-action, that even the size of
your companion seems to vary with his freedom of thought. Not only is he
larger, when at ease, and his thoughts generous, but everything around
him becomes variable with expression. No carpenter's rule, no rod and
chain, will measure the dimensions of any house or house-lot: go into
the house: if the proprietor is constrained and deferring, 'tis of no
importance how large his house, how beautiful his grounds,--you quickly
come to the end of all; but if the man is self-possessed, happy, and at
home, his house is deep-founded, indefinitely large and interesting, the