I was present at a lively discourse, administered by a young lady just from Europe to a veteran politician.  “It is of very little consequence,” she said, “what kind of men you send out as foreign ministers.  The thing of real importance is that they should have the right kind of wives.  Any man can sign a treaty, I suppose, if you tell him what kind of treaty it must be.  But all his social relations with the nations to which you send him will depend on his wife.”  There was some truth, certainly, in this audacious conclusion.  It reminded me of the saying of a modern thinker, “The only empire freely conceded to women is that of manners,—­but it is worth all the rest put together.”

Every one instinctively feels that the graces and amenities of life must be largely under the direction of women.  The fact that this feeling has been carried too far, and has led to the dwarfing of women’s intellect, must not lead to a rejection of this important social sphere.  It is too strong a power to be ignored.  George Eliot says well that “the commonest man, who has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between a lovely, delicate woman, and a coarse one.  Even a dog feels a difference in their presence.”  At a summer resort, for instance, one sees women who may be intellectually very ignorant and narrow, yet whose mere manners give them a social power which the highest intellects might envy.  To lend joy and grace to all one’s little world of friendship; to make one’s house a place which every guest enters with eagerness, and leaves with reluctance; to lend encouragement to the timid, and ease to the awkward; to repress violence, restrain egotism, and make even controversy courteous,—­these belong to the empire of woman.  It is a sphere so important and so beautiful, that even courage and self-devotion seem not quite enough, without the addition of this supremest charm.

This courtesy is so far from implying falsehood, that its very best basis is perfect simplicity.  Given a naturally sensitive organization, a loving spirit, and the early influence of a refined home, and the foundation of fine manners is secured.  A person so favored may be reared in a log hut, and may pass easily into a palace; the few needful conventionalities are so readily acquired.  But I think it is a mistake to tell children, as we sometimes do, that simplicity and a kind heart are absolutely all that are needful in the way of manners.  There are persons in whom simplicity and kindness are inborn, and who yet never attain to good manners for want of refined perceptions.  And it is astonishing how much refinement alone can do, even if it be not very genuine or very full of heart, to smooth the paths and make social life attractive.

All the acute observers have recognized the difference between the highest standard, which is nature’s, and that next to the highest, which is art’s.  George Eliot speaks of that fine polish which is “the expensive substitute for simplicity,” and Tennyson says of manners,—­