For instance:  you will find, in every group of company, two principal figures, viz., the fine lady and the fine gentleman who absolutely give the law of wit, language, fashion, and taste, to the rest of that society.  There is always a strict, and often for the time being, a tender alliance between these two figures.  The lady looks upon her empire as founded upon the divine right of beauty (and full as good a divine right it is as any king, emperor, or pope, can pretend to); she requires, and commonly meets with, unlimited passive obedience.  And why should she not meet with it?  Her demands go no higher than to have her unquestioned preeminence in beauty, wit, and fashion, firmly established.  Few sovereigns (by the way) are so reasonable.  The fine gentleman’s claims of right are, ‘mutatis mutandis’, the same; and though, indeed, he is not always a wit ‘de jure’, yet, as he is the wit ‘de facto’ of that company, he is entitled to a share of your allegiance, and everybody expects at least as much as they are entitled to, if not something more.  Prudence bids you make your court to these joint sovereigns; and no duty, that I know of, forbids it.  Rebellion here is exceedingly dangerous, and inevitably punished by banishment, and immediate forfeiture of all your wit, manners, taste, and fashion; as, on the other hand, a cheerful submission, not without some flattery, is sure to procure you a strong recommendation and most effectual pass, throughout all their, and probably the neighboring, dominions.  With a moderate share of sagacity, you will, before you have been half an hour in their company, easily discover those two principal figures:  both by the deference which you will observe the whole company pay them, and by that easy, careless, and serene air, which their consciousness of power gives them.  As in this case, so in all others, aim always at the highest; get always into the highest company, and address yourself particularly to the highest in it.  The search after the unattainable philosopher’s stone has occasioned a thousand useful discoveries, which otherwise would never have been made.

What the French justly call ‘les manieres nobles’ are only to be acquired in the very best companies.  They are the distinguishing characteristics of men of fashion:  people of low education never wear them so close, but that some part or other of the original vulgarism appears.  ’Les manieres nobles’ equally forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy.  Low people, in good circumstances, fine clothes, and equipages, will insolently show contempt for all those who cannot afford as fine clothes, as good an equipage, and who have not (as their term is) as much money in their pockets:  on the other hand, they are gnawed with envy, and cannot help discovering it, of those who surpass them in any of these articles; which are far from being sure criterions of merit.  They are likewise jealous of being slighted; and, consequently, suspicious and captious; they are eager and hot about trifles because trifles were, at first, their affairs of consequence.  ‘Les manieres nobles’ imply exactly the reverse of all this.  Study them early; you cannot make them too habitual and familiar to you.