* * * * *
You have probably, my reader, known people who had the faculty of
making themselves extremely agreeable. You have known one or two men
who, whenever you met them, conveyed to you, by a remarkably frank and
genial manner, an impression that they esteemed you as one of their
best and dearest friends. A vague idea took possession of your mind
that they had been longing to see you ever since they saw you
last,--which in all probability was six or twelve months
previously. And during all that period it may be regarded as quite
certain that the thought of you had never once entered their
mind. Such a manner has a vast effect upon young and inexperienced
folk. The inexperienced man fancies that this manner, so wonderfully
frank and friendly, is reserved specially for himself, and is a
recognition of his own special excellences. But the man of greater
experience has come to suspect this manner, and to see through it. He
has discovered that it is the same to everybody,--at least, to
everybody to whom it is thought worth while to put it on. And he no
more thinks of arguing the existence of any particular liking for
himself, or of any particular merit in himself, from that friendly
manner, than he thinks of believing, on a warm summer day, that the
sun has a special liking for himself, and is looking so beautiful and
bright all for himself.
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