Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/199
feel. Enough personal attention should be given to manners to enable one to see his faults, but not his good points. If there is a strong desire to make everybody happier, if the beauty and joy of life are felt, feelings will naturally express themselves in manners that will be agents of peace, mirth, and comfort. They must be trained, however, by the old-fashioned means of attention to the carriage of the body; by the posture in sitting; by looking attentive when listening or pretending to listen; by bowing at the right degree of inclination, which should be neither a sweeping curve nor a right angle with eyes cast on the ground; and by regard to commas, periods, and tones of voice in conversation. Before a man has spoken he is involuntarily judged by his motions, then by modulations of his voice, next by his language, and lastly by his sense.
Manners, involuntarily, have some predominant mark. Through them is felt, at once, in