for the corresponding actions. The world does not depend on a man's
inner but on his outer life. Emerson once scandalised some of his
admirers by saying that he preferred a person who did not respect the
truth to an unpresentable person. But, no doubt, he would regard the
presentable person as possessing virtues of equal importance. The
nurture of "civility and decent behaviour in company and conversation,"
is not of secondary, but primary, importance.

For what does it imply? If the Rules about to be submitted are examined,
it will be found that their practice draws on the whole moral world, as
in walking every step draws on the universal gravitation. Scarcely one
Rule is there that does not involve self-restraint, modesty, habitual
consideration of others, and, to a large extent, living for others. Yet
other Rules draw on the profounder deeps of wisdom and virtue, under a
subtle guise of handsome behaviour. If youth can be won to excellence by
love of beauty, who shall gainsay?

It may occur to the polished reader that well-bred youths know and
practise these rules of civility by instinct. But the best bred man's
ancestors had to learn them, and the rude progenitors of future
gentlemen have to learn them. Can it be said, however, that those deemed
well-bred do really know and practise these rules of civility
instinctively? Do they practise them when out of the region of the
persons or the community in whose eyes they wish to find approval? How
do they act with Indians, Negroes, or when travelling amongst those to
whose good opinion they are indifferent? In a Kentucky court a witness
who had spoken of a certain man as "a gentleman," was pressed for his
reasons, and answered, "If any man goes to his house he sets out the
whisky, then goes and looks out of the window." It is doubtful if what
commonly passes for politeness in more refined regions is equally