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It is much to conquer one's face, and
perhaps the ambitious youth thinks he has got the whole secret when he
has learned that disengaged manners are commanding. Don't be deceived by
a facile exterior. Tender men sometimes have strong wills. We had, in
Massachusetts, an old statesman, who had sat all his life in courts and
in chairs of state, without overcoming an extreme irritability of face,
voice, and bearing: when he spoke, his voice would not serve him; it
cracked, it broke, it wheezed, it piped;--little cared he; he knew that
it had got to pipe, or wheeze, or screech his argument and his
indignation. When he sat down, after speaking, he seemed in a sort of
fit, and held on to his chair with both hands: but underneath all this
irritability was a puissant will, firm and advancing, and a memory in
which lay in order and method, like geologic strata, every fact of his
history, and under the control of his will.
Manners are partly factitious, but, mainly, there must be capacity for
culture in the blood. Else all culture is vain.


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