[Footnote 1: Niebuhr, Letters, etc., Vol. III. p. 196.] [Footnote 2: Heimskringla, Vol. I. p. 221.] [Footnote 3: Miss Shepard's "Counterparts," Vol. I. p. 67.] SOCIAL AIMS. SOCIAL AIMS. MUCH ill-natured criticism has been directed on American manners. I do not think it is to be resented. Rather, if we are wise, we shall listen and mend. Our critics will then be our best friends, though they did not mean it. But in every sense the subject of manners has a constant interest to thoughtful persons. Who does not delight in fine manners? Their charm cannot be predicted or overstated. 'Tis perpetual promise of more than can be fulfilled. It is music and sculpture and picture to many who do not pretend to appreciation of those arts. It is even true that grace is more beautiful than beauty. Yet how impossible to overcome the obstacle of an unlucky temperament, and acquire good manners, unless by living with the well-bred from the start; and this makes the value of wise forethought to give ourselves and our children as much as possible the habit of cultivated society. 'Tis an inestimable hint that I owe to a few persons of fine manners, that they make behavior the very first sign of force,--behavior, and not performance, or talent, or, much less, wealth. Whilst almost everybody has a supplicating eye turned on events and things and other persons, a few natures are central and forever unfold, and these alone charm us. He whose word or deed you cannot predict, who answers you without any supplication in his eye, who draws his determination from within, and draws it instantly,--that man rules. The staple figure in novels is the man of _aplomb_, who sits, among the young aspirants and desperates, quite sure and compact, and, never sharing their affections or debilities, hurls his word like a bullet when occasion requires, knows his way, and carries his points. They may scream or applaud, he is never engaged or heated. Napoleon is the type of this class in modern history; Byron's heroes in poetry. But we, for the most part, are all drawn into the _charivari_; we chide, lament, cavil, and recriminate. I think Hans Andersen's story of the cobweb cloth woven so fine that it was invisible,--woven for the king's garment,--must mean manners, which do really clothe a princely nature. Such a one can well go in a blanket, if he would. In the gymnasium or on the sea-beach his superiority does not leave him. But he who has not this fine garment of behavior is studious of dress, and then not less of house and furniture and pictures and gardens, in all which he hopes to lie _perdu_, and not be exposed.