If any young man desires to be a perfect gentleman, he must begin in his own home. It is delightful to see some young men unobtrusively attentive to their sisters, watchful of every need of their father and mother, cheerful and pleasant in their manner, full of fun and brightness, yet never losing the gentleness that denotes the fine nature, and so beloved in the home for all these endearing qualities, that when they leave it they are sadly missed. The father misses them for the pleasant companionship; the sisters miss them for the boyish spirits and the exuberant fun that never exceeds the bounds of good taste and refinement; and the mother misses them more than any one else, for no one better than she knows how many times a day her boys have set aside their own wishes in deference to hers, quietly, silently, unostentatiously—in a word, out of pure good manners, in the deepest, highest, truest sense of the words. Such gentle, virile natures look out at the world through the countenance, which is a letter of recommendation to them wherever they go.

I have but faintly sketched my ideal. The following pages may fill in the remaining touches.

Difficulties in the way.

“Where amenities yield to practicalities.”

The penalty of ignorance.

The aspirant is not necessarily a snob.

Culture and polish are realities.

Many men who go out into the world while still very young to earn their living have few opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of social observances. Leaving home when boys, at an age when they are utterly careless of such things as etiquette and the “nice conduct of a cane,” they live in lodgings or at boarding-houses of the cheaper sort, where the amenities of existence have to yield to its practicalities. Meals are served in a fashion that means despatch rather than elegance, economy rather than taste, and very few hints can be picked up for the guidance of young fellows when they enter the homes of friends and acquaintances. Their anxiety to fall in accurately and easily with the observances of those they meet on such occasions is as great as it is natural. They know well that to fail in these trifling acts of omission and commission is tacitly to acknowledge that they are unversed in the ways of good society. There is not necessarily any snobbishness in this. A man may be perfectly manly and yet most unwilling to show himself inferior in any way to others of the class to which he belongs by birth and education. Even should those with whom he occasionally associates be his superiors, is he not right to try to rise? Culture may mean little or nothing to the uncultured. Polish may be an empty word to the unpolished. But they are realities, and go far to produce an inward and corresponding refinement of mind and spirit.

The desire to rise deserves encouragement.

There are thousands of young men in London alone at this very moment who are longing to acquire the ease and aplomb of good society. The desire is worthy of all encouragement. Only those with real good in them can feel it. The men who are destitute of it are those who associate with their inferiors, contentedly accept a low moral standard, adopt a mode of speech and action that is coarse and rough, and finally let themselves down to the frequenting of public-houses and places of amusement, where the entertainment has been carefully planned to suit the uneducated, the low-born, and others whose vitiated taste leads them to dislike what is lovely and of good report, and to revel in the reverse.

Men to be pitied.

A word to girls.

But, unfortunately, many a good fellow has been driven to seek companionship with those beneath him by the very difficulty he experiences in getting on in society. He fancies that his small solecisms are