The Man Who Pleases and the Woman Who Charms by John A. Cone (books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📕

and inspiring the most cultivated audiences, but he is shut out from his proper sphere of usefulness and influence, and prevented from reaching the position for which his endowments qualify him, by a matter which might seem trifling in itself, but which has become offensive through its persistent hold upon him. He exhibits a lack of proper deference to the feelings of others, an arrogant and unsympathetic tone of voice, and sometimes yields, under opposition, to unrestrained violence of language. He betrays his weakness every time anyone crosses his plans and desires. It seems hard for him to understand that others have an equal right to their preference and opinions. He forgets that while it is easy to be amiable when everyone agrees with him, the test of character is in keeping the temper sweet and reasonable when people differ from him and criticise him. He understands his power to move audiences; he is told by persons competent to judge that his sermons are superior; he knows that in higher intellectual qualities he surpasses many other clergymen who secure and retain prominent positions; yet the painful truth is forced upon him that his services as a pastor are not sought for, while inferior preachers are selected for places of power and influence.

A man goes into trade. He is a shrewd buyer, energetic, honest, and keeps a good assortment of goods, but he is not obliging to customers. He is short and crusty in his speech, irritable and sometimes almost rude in his manner; consequently he does not hold his patrons. They leave him, one by one, and do their purchasing at other stores where they receive polite attention. The merchant does not prosper in business, and he never knows why.

Here is a woman who prides herself upon her plain speaking. She boasts that when she has anything to say she is willing to say it to one's face, and not behind one's back. She thinks it is a mark of sincerity and frankness to say disagreeable things and to bring one's infirmities to the surface. Her tendencies finally become fixed habits. She finds herself shunned by her acquaintances, and she does not know why.

Then there is the loquacious woman, the woman who monopolizes the conversation, the woman who has an apparent contempt for paragraph and punctuation. No matter what the topic of conversation may be, she at once takes the management of it into her own hands, and the other members of the company are made to feel at once that they are expected to be only listeners. The loquacious woman may talk well--she often does--but she fails to understand that there may be such a thing as too much even of good things, and so she talks on and on, with an utter disregard for the rights and the comfort of those around her.

A professional man, who possesses much intellectual force and originality, takes pride in his unconventionality in the matter of dress. His garments are so far from the prevailing style that they attract attention and invite comment. He does not realize that the man who rebels against fashion may be open even more to the imputation of vanity than he who obeys it, because he makes himself conspicuous, and practically announces that he is wiser than his associates. An affectation of superior simplicity is vulgarity.

Stop a moment and recall twenty men and women of your acquaintance. You will probably remember that two-thirds of them have some peculiarity, some defect of speech or manner which detracts from their social and business success, or from their usefulness. One is a gossip; another possesses a hasty temper, while a third is intellectually dishonest, never yielding his position, even under the most absolute proof that he is in the wrong. One of your friends is a pessimist, and is continually attempting to convert you to his point of view, while his wife is so inquisitive that you at once become nervous when you perceive her approach. A young woman of your acquaintance would be a most charming person if she did not laugh too much. A conversation with her is, upon her part, a perpetual giggle.

These may generally be good, intelligent, and, in many respects, charming people, but unfortunately they are hampered by these deficiencies. They have become so unconscious of these personal traits that, doubtless, they would be greatly surprised were their attention called to them. The effect of these shortcomings upon others is, however, just as unfortunate as if they were intentionally retained and nourished, for we usually regard the outward manner as a true index of the inward emotion.

If so many of our acquaintances display idiosyncrasies that affect us disagreeably, is it not possible that we too may be harboring some remediable evil of temper, some superable infirmity of manner or of speech which is a bar to our own usefulness, because distressing to those with whom we are thrown?

Let us think about this.

SUGGESTIONS FROM MANY SOURCES

 

FOR

THE MAN WHO WOULD PLEASE AND THE WOMAN WHO WOULD CHARM.

A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene.

EMERSON.

* * * * *

So I talked a great deal and found myself infinitely pleased with Brandon's conversational powers, which were rare; being no less than the capacity for saying nothing, and listening politely to an indefinite deal of the same thing, in another form, from me.

CHARLES MAJOR.

* * * * *

Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, and listen to what others say about subjects you have studied but recently. Knowledge and timber should not be much used till they are seasoned.

W. HOLMES.

* * * * *

A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.

EMERSON.

* * * * *

Believe nothing against another but on good authority, nor report what may hurt another, unless it be a greater hurt to another to conceal it.

WILLIAM PENN.

* * * * *

"Life is like a mirror. It reflects the face you bring to it. Look out lovingly upon the world, and the world will look lovingly in upon you."

* * * * *

But it is mostly my own dreams I talk of, and that will somewhat excuse me for talking of dreams at all. Everyone knows how delightful the dreams are that one dreams one's self, and how insipid the dreams of others are. I had an illustration of this fact not many evenings ago, when a company of us got telling dreams. I had by far the best dreams of any; to be quite frank, mine were the only dreams worth listening to; they were richly imaginative, delicately fantastic, exquisitely whimsical, and humorous in the last degree; and I wondered that when the rest could have listened to them they were always eager to cut in with some silly, senseless, tasteless thing, that made me sorry and ashamed for them. I shall not be going too far if I say that it was on their part the grossest betrayal of vanity that I ever witnessed.

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.

* * * * *

"There is a great mistake in supposing that giving is concerned only with material benefits. These form indeed but a small part of its mission. Whoever creates happiness, whether by a kindly greeting, or tender sympathy, or inspiring presence, or stimulating thought, is as true a giver as he who empties his purse to feed the hungry."

* * * * *

Politeness and good breeding are absolutely necessary to adorn any or all other good qualities or talents. Without them no knowledge, no perfection whatever, is seen in its best light. The scholar, without good breeding, is a pedant; the philosopher, a cynic; the soldier a brute; and every man, disagreeable.

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

* * * * *

"Tact, though partly a natural gift, is a good deal indebted to education and early habits. The superiority of one sex to the other in this respect will often be found to depend on art quite as much as upon nature."

* * * * *

"Never is silence more eloquent than when it is preserved toward persons older than ourselves when they voice opinions long since proven erroneous. Age doesn't like to be contradicted, right or wrong."

* * * * *

In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of the ideal man: not to be impulsive, not to be spurred hither and thither by each desire that in turn comes uppermost; but to be restrained, self-balanced, governed by the joint decision of the feelings in council assembled, before whom every action shall have been fully debated and calmly determined.

HERBERT SPENCER.

* * * * *

In the exhaustless catalogue of heaven's mercies to mankind, the power we have of finding some germs of comfort in the hardest trials must ever occupy the foremost place; not only because it supports and upholds us when we most require to be sustained, but because in this source of consolation there is something, we have every reason to believe, of the Divine Spirit; something which, even in our fallen nature we possess in common with the angels.

DICKENS.

* * * * *

"When you bury animosity don't set up a headstone over its grave."

* * * * *

I don't never hav truble in regulating mi own kondukt, but tew keep other pholks straight iz what bothers me.

JOSH BILLINGS.

* * * * *

"Hundreds of the most agreeable persons in fashionable society are those who are content to be taught the things they already know."

* * * * *

It is better to return a dropped fan genteelly than give a thousand pounds awkwardly; you had better refuse a favor gracefully than grant it clumsily. All your Greek can never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to embassador, but your address, your air, your manner, if good, may.

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

* * * * *

"The art of not hearing should be learned by all. It is fully as important to domestic happiness as a cultivated ear, for which both money and time are expended. There are so many things which it is painful to hear, so many which we ought not to hear, so very many which if heard will disturb the temper, corrupt simplicity and modesty, detract from contentment and happiness that everyone should be educated to take in or shut out sounds according to his or her pleasure."

Once A Week.

* * * * *

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. She never knew how I loved her. He never knew what he was to me. I always meant to make more of your friendship. I did not know what he was to me till he was gone. Such are the poisoned arrows which cruel death shoots back at us from the door of the sepulchre."

* * * * *

We are only really alive when we enjoy the good will of others.

GOETHE.

* * * * *

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

GEORGE ELIOT.

* * * * *

"Power hath not one-half the might of gentleness."

* * * * *

Manner is of importance. A kind no is often more agreeable than a rough