Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1886 — The Semblance of Gravity. [ARTICLE]

The Semblance of Gravity.

There are few qualities which may in the World of society be made to serve a man more materially, than the semblance of gravity. Indeed, this maynot inexactly lie called the secret of social success, and the person who is by nature endowed with the semblance of gravity, or who has by well directed efforts obtained it, has already more than half won the battle of making his way in life. We are frequently instructed in the importance of being able to listen well, but this is only ; one of thp ways in which the art of assuming a 1 'demeanor of seriousness makes itself felt. can but cover himself with the semblance of gravity he wilL.be a {wrfect.success as a listener,, and a corresponding favorite with all who love to talk—a class' embracing nine-tenths of mankind—even though they comprehend not a ygord of what is said to them, and never offer a single remark that might not have emanated from the brains of a towp pump. And the principle is one of universal application.

A society girl, being asked the secret of the immense popularity with her sex of a certain man about town, answered, after due consideration: “It is all because he is so touch in earnest. He asks you how vou are with*a seriousness and an intensity, as if he were perfectly absorbed by a desire to know, and he listens to whatever you say, even if it is only a platitude about the weather, with as devout a seriousness as if he were hearing a Princess speak. No woman alive coiild resist the flattery of that fascinating gravity of his.” Is tile man of whom she speaks more earnest, more serious, more intense than his fellows ? As a matter of fact,

nothing in the universe but his own pleasure interests him in the slightest degree. He has achieved perfectly the semblance of gravity, and, as a consequence, he is success.. That is the whole story. Of course, in this case, the thing we advise savors rat her strongly of hypocrisy; but one who is too conscientious to oblige his neighbors by a trifling exaggeration of the interest he feels in affairs and their words, had better retire" at once tq the solitudes of the wilderness; while those who remain may satisfy their conscience by endeavoring to make their seriousness as genuine as possible. In either ' case, whether one likes it or dislikes it, it does not seem easy to deny that one of the most effective in the whole list of social accomplishments, and yet one of the most easily cultivated, is the semblance of gravity.— Bouton. Courier.