distinguished themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their
tournure.[409]

9. To say what good of fashion we can,--it rests on reality, and hates
nothing so much as pretenders;--to exclude and mystify pretenders, and
send them into everlasting "Coventry,"[410] is its delight. We
contemn, in turn, every other gift of men of the world; but the habit,
even in little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our
own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry.
There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so it be sane and
proportioned, which fashion does not occasionally adopt, and give it
the freedom of its saloons. A sainted soul is always elegant, and, if
it will, passes unchallenged into the most guarded ring. But so will
Jock the teamster pass, in some crisis that brings him thither, and
find favor, as long as his head is not giddy with the new
circumstance, and the iron shoes do not wish to dance in waltzes and
cotillions. For there is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of
behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The maiden at her
first ball, the countryman at a city dinner, believes that there is a
ritual according to which every act and compliment must be performed,
or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. Later, they
learn that good sense and character make their own forms every moment,
and speak or abstain, to take wine or refuse it, stay or go, sit in a
chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their head, or
what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way: and that strong will is
always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable. All that fashion
demands is composure, and self-content. A circle of men perfectly
well-bred would be a company of sensible persons, in which every man's
native manners and character appear. If the fashionist have not this
quality, he is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance, that we