You cannot be polite, however courteous you mean to be, unless you take pains to prepare yourself with knowledge of the usages of polite people.  In order to be polite, it is necessary that you do not only the courteous thing, but the correct thing.  Your courtesy might displease if it were unsuited to the circumstances.  It would not be polite, for example, to invite an orthodox Jew to dinner and then to serve him with a pork tenderloin.  Your intention to be a courteous host would not lessen your offense against good manners.  Your guest would be incensed by your impoliteness, not pleased by your courteous intention.

[Sidenote:  Virility Pleases]

No quality you have is more generally pleasing than virility—­your man stuff.  Therefore on all occasions show yourself “every inch a man.”  Moreover, act like a he-man.  Never appear “sissyfied” in even the slightest degree.  Swing your legs from the hips when you walk; don’t mince along.  The stride of a he-man is strong and free.  If yours lacks the qualities of virility, change your habit of walking.

When you make gestures, move your whole arm.  A wrist movement suggests effeminacy.  It is important, too, that you train your voice to ring with manliness.  Even a squeaky, weak tone can be made to suggest man stuff if the words are spoken crisply, and the sentences are cleanly cut.  Do things with the ease that indicates a man’s strength, not with evident effort.  Perhaps you have not realized that by cultivating grace in your movements you can make impressions of your man power. Grace means the least possible expenditure of energy in efficient action. A man can accomplish things with ease and grace that a child or a woman would make hard work of and do awkwardly.

[Sidenote:  Pleasing Tones]

A pleasing tone helps to assure one’s success.  You may think your voice is a heavy handicap.  Perhaps it is high pitched and squeaky; or, on the other hand, a “growly” bass suggestive of ill-nature.  Again it may be faltering or hoarse.  Such faults are not serious to a master salesman. If your vocal equipment is physically normal, your voice can be made pleasing. In order to make your tones agreeable, learn to vibrate them naturally through your nose.  A mouth tone is displeasing.  The so-called “nasal twang” that sounds so unpleasant is a mouth tone prevented from free vibration through the nose.  Humming, as you know, both indicates pleasure and is a pleasant sound.  It is produced with the mouth closed, by a vibration of the bone structure of the face and of the nasal cavities.  Certainly, even if you have a disagreeable voice, you can make your tones hum, and thereby render them more pleasing.  Adenoids that could be removed—­even failure to keep the nose clean—­may prevent a man from succeeding. Whatever hinders the free vibration of tones makes displeasing impressions of the speaker.  When a man has a bad cold in his head that blocks the nasal passages, his voice rasps the ears of a hearer.