THE MANAGING MANNER.
WHAT sort of gifts and endowments are most useful to a child who must make his way in the world ? This question is the subject of a thousand fairy stories. The relative values of good fortune, good looks, good tempers, and good hearts are all discussed in these tales, but we do not remember one in which a good manner is spoken of as desirable. In the plural manners can be taught; in the singular they are individual, a gift not an acquirement. A commanding manner, for instance, is a piece of good fortune, whether it is found in a man or a woman—not because it enables those who have it to rule, but because it makes them happy. Yet that is not exactly true, either. It proclaims their happi- ness. Like good looks, it is an advertisement everywhere, and in all societies an introduction. It means optimism, it means self-reliance, and sometimes, but not always, it means strength of mind. It might be said, of course, that the last two qualities are not attractive in a woman. Upon paper they certainly are not; but let us take a rough test of the truth of our contention. Almost all women with a commanding manner marry. It carries with it a vague suggestion of the governing class, even if we see it in a gypsy, and it appears to be the outcome of deference and admiration, good things which always draw to themselves more deference and more admiration, just as money goes where money is. Nothing is more attractive than an air of well-being. Not that any definite manner is the result of circumstances. It is, as we have already said, a true reflection of the character with which a man or woman was born. Grace and misfortune both modify character very much. A man does not always die with the same character he was born with, but manner continues to reflect the original nature. That is why it frequently appears to belie the second nature which casual observers take for the first. Occasionally you see a sad man with a happy manner. Nature meant him to be happy, but his spirit has been broken by circumstances. To take another instance, it is not very unusual to see a woman with a commanding manner entirely overruled by her family. Either she has determined to give in upon all possible occasions, or she has imbued her offspring in a very high degree with her dominant qualities, and where all are dominant numbers count, and whoever is in a minority of one must go to the wall. Take her out of her family, set her to any work, public or private, in which their influence is not felt, and she will once more command. The same thing is very often true of men. A man gives in at home because his womenfolk are too much for him. His commanding manner seems to his social acquaintance to be but a comic adjunct to a pliant dis- position ; but those who know him at work know that this is not so, and those who knew him as a boy will almost always say that his manner shows what he was. He was never intended to give in. The same thing is true of a rough manner. Even where it covers the kindest of hearts, it indicates some original quality, not necessarily a bad one—nothing worse, perhaps, than a certain natural intolerance. We make too much of civility because it is such a convenient thing. A man may have the virtues of an angel and yet not be very oiviL Angels are probably not invariably civil. Dr. Johnson in the Elysian Fields is, we hope, as rough as ever.
It goes without saying that one cannot judge a man by an official manner. That may be put on. A doctor at his patient's bedside may have a manner as detached from his character as his frock-coat is from his person. The employer in the presence of his subordinate or the subordinate in the presence of his employer may choose to wear a uniform or a livery, but his real manner will come back to him when his work is done, and will once more be a true indication of his essential personality. We read in books accounts of persons in whom a very deprecating manner went with great governing qualities. This, we think, is one of the fictions which may be said to be founded on fact without being any more true to life than is the ordinary historical novel. Deprecation is impossible in a person born to rule, but he may have physical peculiarities in common with deprecators. The formation of a man's jaw may affect his enunciation, his vocal cords may account for a small voice, early training may have made him what we call "quiet," but all these things have not much to do with manner. Real deprecation may go with a loud voice. Manner is something which physical peculiarities do not account for, any more than features explain expression. Yet a manner makes a perfectly definite impression upon the discriminating beholder, just as expression does, and it redeems unfortunate physical peculiarities, just as expression redeems unfortunate features.
A managing manner is by no means the same thing as a commanding manner. Yet it too is, we think, a social asset. Naturally so, perhaps, in a woman. That a woman should be persuasive is part of her charm, but persuasiveness has no distinction. It has nothing about it of the atmosphere of the social height. Still, it is charming, and if in a woman it suggest a little innocent guile that does not matter. A very little deception with a good intention is legitimate even in the best woman. It is her last resort, just as violence with a good intention is a good man's last resort. It may entail a slight moral sacrifice ; so does violence. It is not condemned by other women, and, so far as manner is concerned, each sex passes final judgment upon itself. It is men who have written and talked against viragoes and women who expect to govern and show it by their every word and gesture, but, oddly enough, in actual practice it is men who like them, so far as they are liked. Women hate any roughness in another woman. They like gentleness, and are as susceptible as men to flattery. Perhaps they know they are being flattered more quickly than a man would know it, but they like it all the same. It sweetens life, they justly think. A woman with a caressing manner has always many women friends. How far men like flattery from each other it is difficult to say. Perhaps never if they know it. But there is a very subtle flattery about a managing manner which, if it is a really first-rate one, appeals to every one. To the manager the person to be managed really matters. In a sense no one to whom he speaks is indifferent to him. It is something that one's interlocutor should be sufficiently interested in one to care to shift one's mental position, or even actual determination. It lends a momentary importance to one's thoughts and actions. This is, we think, why a managing manner is so often mistaken for a sympathetic manner A really sympathetic manner always admits the independence, both practical and intellectual, of an interlocutor, and that perhaps is wby a sympathetic manner is never universally liked. To the few it is the most charming of gifts or qualities. The many are not impressed by it. It is even condemned as commonplace. So many people do not ask sympathy, they ask only attention.
Of course there is a sense in which there are as many manners as there are men ; but manners, like men, fall into few types. It has been said by pbysiognomists that the human countenance in repose assumes almost always one of two expressions—either sadness or amusement. Types of manner cannot be thus simply differentiated, but perhaps we might say that a good manner in repose falls into not more than three types. When we say "in repose" we mean when not modified by what we may call professional considerations or by any passion, great or small, from love or terror to anger or caprice. A very good manner, we think, is always either commanding or managing or sympathetic. Of these three it is obvious which is the best, but not so obvious which is the best worth having. For which should a conscientious god- parent ask the fairies?
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