Every change in our circumstances must bring some
change in our manners; it depends on ourselves, very
largely, whether the change is for the better or the
worse. Emerson says: —

" Manners are the revealers of secrets, the betrayers
of any disproportion or want of symmetry in mind
and character. It is the law of our constitution that
every change in our experience instantly indicates
itself on our countenance and carriage, as the lapse of
time tells itself on the face of a clock. We may be
too obtuse to read it, but the record is there. Some
men may be obtuse to read it, but some men are not
obtuse and do read it."

In our own country, fortunes change hands so
constantly, and with such startling rapidity, that many
men and women have their characters, and conse-
quently their manners, put to a severe test. Of the
two extremes, a sudden rise in fortune is a greater
test of good breeding, I think, than a sudden fall.
It takes greater strength to ascend than to descend,
and we demand greater things of a successful man than
we do of a defeated one. We worship the rising sun;
but our sympathies are with the sunset, and we admire
it more than we do its gaudy and boastful brother of
the early morning.
