selects her partners.

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.