Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 THE MYSTERY OF CHARM and probably never happened at all. But the beauty of the truth of it is ir- refragible. In the panorama disclosed, you see harmony disrupted by discord, you see discord ousted and harmony re- stored. It is, perhaps, demonstrable, therefore, that could discord be elim- inated from the scheme of things, Utopia would cease to be utopian. any event, it follows, or seems to fol- low, that the test of an action consists in its assonance or its dissonance, and that, according as it conduces to har- mony or to discord, so does it attract or repel. By the same token it becomes rather clear that, were the validity of. the test generally recognized, and, in being recognized, adopted, no one could again accuse us of rudeness, for we should then all omit to do anything that could fail to please. There, at any rate, is the criterion for which the philosophic and the polite have equally groped, and which it is our mere duty to supply. While we are at it, we will supply something else. We scorn to have a secret from our readers. For there is a secret, a deeper mystery, an inner shrine. By way of prelude, it may be remem- bered that: a long time ago, at an epoch when the world was too leisurely to be progressive, and too ornate to be rude, there were schools where girls were taught how to be charming. The gradu- ates are said to have been admirable. But it is said, too, that they were ad- mired less for their beauty, which must have been admirable also, than because their study of every grace had enabled them to display in the art of pleasing a maestria that was almost perfect. Al- most, but not quite. To them still the In: 83 inner shrine was hidden. But to those who had not only studied, but medi- tated, to such as they the veil was lifted, and they saw that, while beauty may at- tract and graciousness detain, yet to please generally is not to please pro- foundly, and that they alone do both who put their vibrations in tune with the vibrations of others. There it is. To vary with another’s varying moods, to be not only gracious, but intuitive, not merely attractive but sympathetic, to feel as others feel, to put yourself in their place, to rise with their rising and with them subside—in the ability to do that is the great secret, the only secret of all. It is the core of the law of harmonics, the impalpable but prodigious quintessence of charm. Neophytes may have the soul of Chopin, the manners of Chesterfield, the wealth of Croesus; if they lack that, neophytes they will remain. If they possess it, then, in their company, poets lose their abashment, thugs feel at home, kings are at ease, wild beasts be- come tame. Even in the limits of this paragraph there are no limits to what they may attain. In default of it, there are always con- solation prizes for those who succeed in doing what deserves to be written, for those also who succeed in writing what deserves to be read. Moreover, apart from such necromancy, and in spite, too, of an incivility that is becom- ing, perhaps, rather generally diffused, the world is full of delightful people, whom the majority of us never meet, unless, indeed, we seek them in fairy tales that are out of print, in ballets that are out of date. For in these, also, is contained the simple secret of charming. (C@) .OOKX (E@)