The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1904-09-16
Where Aereeability is of Service.

| Now, when you have gone thus far
along in the theory and practice or
good and graceful manners. you Will be-
sure to find that your investment OF
time and effort. in the study of how to
be agreeable, Is beginning to pay you
In business. occupied with the steady
grind of getting your own living. you
will pretty soon begin to appreciate
the helpful effects of your improved
bearing on your work, and in your life.
Men will begin to like you better and
more readily. They VIII approach you
more freely. listen to you more atten-
lively. and do you favors more gladly
because you have learned how to set
them at their ease, to draw them out.
to understand their little preferences.
and to huinor their small and harm
less prejudices. 1t needs, please re-
member the eye OF an expert to detect
the value of rough diamond, but the
very newsboy in the street is able to
appreciate the Importance and the
beauty of a polished one.
| Therefore, in this world and day OF
progress and competition, the most
highly lustrous diamond always COM
mands the highest price, and 1t Is the
man with the best learning that re-
ceires the first hearing. Exactly the
same truth holds good with regard to
| the woman who wishes to succeed In
her sphere. whatever that may be. 1t
Is not beauty and it is not wealth alone
that will win for any healthy minded
| woman the position she CoVetS. If she
longs to be the leader in her church
work. her family life, in her club, or at
a ball. she cannot lure the admiration,
| the confidence or the social power she
wants merely by virtue of a fair face
or full pocket. We Americans are IL
very independent and critical people;
y,,fg. no
not rarties among u.s. and we demand
something else in our favortes.
Above all things, we demand to be
won by charm and sweetness of man
ner, and we are just independent
enough to give all our admiration at
the shrine of the woman who. without
beauty and without wealth and without
fame for her intellectual attachments. is
still loved Tor her lovely manners.
l stand ready to bring forward any
amount of actual and irrefutable evil
dence to prove that there are many
such women, and that with them agree
ability is an art which they have
studied with much devotion, and which
they have learned to use through the
exercise of care and steady practice.
Therefore l do most unhestatingly
maintain that charm is the result OF
effort expended In the right direction.
also maintain in consequence that 1t
| Is your fault or my fault II we are not
genuine favorites in that society. do
nestle, religious or fashionable, in
which we are called upon to move.
Social Culture is Soul Culture.
Twenty years ago l would never have
dared make such statement. SO short
n time ago there We're no such Oppor-
tunities open to the aspirant after in
struction in good manners as are now
offered. But nowadays we take oul
studies in social self-culture seriously
for we have learned now essential they
are, and that social culture leads di-
rectly to soul culture. l have tried II
all my authorship on the topic of the art
of being agreeable to make this clear
The man or the woman who desires fol
practical reasons even for pure van
ity's sake, to be charming, is bound td
be considerate to think of others quite
as much as himself. and to be ready
to serve others.
AS you study the art of being agree.
able, you study the habit of showing
yourself less self-centered. less aggres
sive, and in short, less selfish every
day. For this reason then, as well a:
for all the worldly reasons, l believe
most heartily that the art of being
agreeable is. take it all in all, the high
est and most important art of then
all.