LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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TRAINING IN ETIQUETTE. 19 promoted to a rank much higher than my father's. But I did not pay any attention to such a matter, as some young fellows of our neighbors did, -that is, to be very polite in bowing, and expert in using flat­tering terms. My boyishness disliked it. :Further­more I was very shy, and had some slight impediment in my speech. I could hardly speak distinctly when I was obliged to converse with strangers. Sometimes I refused to speak even to our neighbors. It caused a great anxiety to my mother. Either through her influence or my father's decision, I was sent to a school of etiquette, to learn to make the most pro­found bows, most graceful manners and movements, etc., in a company of noblemen, and to acquire also the polite style of conversational phrases. My teacher seemed to me a man of real genius. He told me many interesting stories, and invited me to come to him as often as I could. I believe I spent more than a year in acquiring the old-fashioned politeness, al­though I was not aware at the time of its benefit. "All the events of my younger life took place within the square inclosure belonging to my prince. It was a mere little spot, but to me it was no small world. Whatsoever events took place, or whatsoever gossip was circulated, all seemed to my boyish mind no small affair. And above all, the prince seemed a regular terror to us. He could either behead us or expel us at his own pleasure, as disgraced servants. Any little favor conferred upon us from him was considered by us a great luck. So everybody belonging to him'de­sired to secure his favor through his elder men, who were really the governors of his whole estate. My father used to take me to one of these elder men while I was quite young ; afterward I went to his house

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