Apology is only egotism wrong side out.

Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology.

It is mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so much consequence that you must make a talk about them.
Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and eyes that do not wander,--shyness of personalities, except in certain intimate communions,--to be light in hand in conversation, to have ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them,--to belong to the company you are in, and not to yourself,--to have nothing in your dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies, throughout your person and--dwelling: I should say that this was a fair capital of manners to begin with.
Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity.

It is just here that the very highest society asserts its superior breeding.

Among truly elegant people of the highest ton, you will find more real equality in social intercourse than in a country village.