Manners and Social Usages

Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

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• Publié par: choim
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 32
• Langue: English

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by Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
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Title: Manners and Social UsagesAuthor: Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8399] [Yes, we
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Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK MANNERS AND SOCIAL USAGES ***
Produced by Holly Ingraham.
[frontispiece]THE MODERN DINNER-TABLE.
MANNERS AND SOCIAL USAGES BY MRS.
JOHN SHERWOOD M.E.W.
AUTHOR OF "A TRANSPLANTED ROSE"
"Manners are the shadows of great virtues."—
Whateley
"Solid Fashion is funded politeness."—EmersonNEW AND ENLARGED EDITION, REVISED BY
THE AUTHOR
JUN 11 1887PG TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
This etiquette manual was probably originally a
series of columns in a newspaper or a magazine
like Harper's, as the chapters on weddings in the
different seasons refer to how the fashions have
changed since the last one—by the original
copyright, 1884, though the book version appeared
in 1887. Notable features among the usual: how to
dance the German, or Cotillon; remarks and four
chapters on English, French, or others in contrast
to American customs, making it a guide to
European manners; proper behavior for the single
woman past girlhood; appropriate costumes for
many occasions; three chapters on staff and
servants.
PREFACE.
There is no country where there are so many
people asking what is "proper to do," or, indeed,
where there are so many genuinely anxious to do
the proper thing, as in the vast conglomerate which
we call the United States of America. The newness
of our country is perpetually renewed by the
sudden making of fortunes, and by the absence of
a hereditary, reigning set. There is no aristocracy
here which has the right and title to set the
fashions.
But a "reigning set," whether it depend uponhereditary right or adventitious wealth, if it be
possessed of a desire to lead and a disposition to
hospitality, becomes for a period the dictator of
fashion to a large number of lookers-on. The
travelling world, living far from great centres, goes
to Newport, Saratoga, New York, Washington,
Philadelphia, Boston, and gazes on what is called
the latest American fashion. This, though exploited
by what we may call for the sake of distinction the
"newer set," is influenced and shaped in some
degree by people of native refinement and taste,
and that wide experience which is gained by travel
and association with broad and cultivated minds.
They counteract the tendency to vulgarity, which is
the great danger of a newly launched society, so
that our social condition improves, rather than
retrogrades, with every decade.
There may be many social purists who will disagree
with us in this statement. Men and women
educated in the creeds of the Old World, with the
good blood of a long ancestry of quiet ladies and
gentlemen, find modern American society,
particularly in New York and at Newport, fast,
furious, and vulgar. There are, of course, excesses
committed everywhere in the name of fashion; but
we cannot see that they are peculiar to America.
We can only answer that the creed of fashion is
one of perpetual change. There is a Council of
Trent, we may say, every five years, perhaps even
every two years, in our new and changeful country,
and we learn that, follow as we may either the
grand old etiquette of England or the more gay and
shifting social code of France, we still must makean original etiquette of our own. Our political
system alone, where the lowest may rise to the
highest preferment, upsets in a measure all that
the Old World insists upon in matters of
precedence and formality. Certain immutable
principles remain common to all elegant people
who assume to gather society about them, and
who wish to enter its portals; the absent-minded
scholar from his library should not ignore them, the
fresh young farmer from the countryside feels and
recognizes their importance. If we are to live
together in unity we must make society a pleasant
thing, we must obey certain formal rules, and these
rules must conform to the fashion of the period.
And it is in no way derogatory to a new country like
our own if on some minor points of etiquette we
presume to differ from the older world. We must fit
our garments to the climate, our manners to our
fortunes and to our daily lives. There are, however,
faults and inelegancies of which foreigners accuse
us which we may do well to consider. One of these
is the greater freedom allowed in the manners of
our young women a freedom which, as our New
World fills up with people of foreign birth, cannot
but lead to social disturbances. Other national
faults, which English writers and critics kindly point
out, are our bumptiousness, our spread- eagleism,
and our too great familiarity and lack of dignity, etc.
Instead of growing angry over these criticisms,
perhaps we might as well look into the matter
dispassionately, and see if we cannot turn the
advice in some degree to our advantage. We can,however, decide for ourselves on certain points of
etiquette which we borrow from nobody; they are a
part of our great nation, of our republican
institutions, and of that continental hospitality which
gives a home to the Russian, the German, the
Frenchman, the Irishman, man, and the "heathen
Chinee." A somewhat wide and elastic code, as
boundless as the prairies, can alone meet the
needs of these different citizens. The old traditions
of stately manners, so common to the Washington
and Jefferson days, have almost died out here, as
similar manners have died out all over the world.
The war of 1861 swept away what little was left of
that once important American fact—a grandfather.
We began all over again; and now there comes up
from this newer world a flood of questions: How
shall we manage all this? How shall we use a fork?
When wear a dress-coat? How and when and on
whom shall we leave our cards? How long and for
whom shall we wear mourning? What is the
etiquette of a wedding? How shall we give a dinner-
party? The young housekeeper of Kansas writes
as to the manners she shall teach to her children;
the miner's wife, having become rich, asks how
she shall arrange her house, call on her neighbors,
write her letters? Many an anxious girl writes as to
the propriety of "driving out with a gentleman," etc.
In fact, there is one great universal question, What
is the etiquette of good society?
Not a few people have tried to answer these
questions, and have broken down in the attempt.
Many have made valuable manuals, as far as they
went; but writers on etiquette commonly fail, forone or two different reasons. Many attempt to write
who know nothing of good society by experience,
and their books are full of ludicrous errors. Others
have had the disadvantage of knowing too much,
of ignoring the beginning of things, of supposing
that the person who reads will take much for
granted. For a person who has an intuitive
knowledge of etiquette, who has been brought up
from his mother's knee in the best society, has
always known what to do, how to dress, to whom
to bow, to write in the simplest way about etiquette
would be impossible; he would never know how
little the reader, to whose edification he was
addressing himself, knew of the matter.
If, however, an anxious inquirer should write and
ask if "mashed potato must be eaten with a knife
or a fork," or if "napkins and finger bowls can be
used at breakfast," those questions he can answer.
It is with an effort to answer thousands of these
questions, written in good faith to Harper's Bazar,
that this book is undertaken. The simplicity, the
directness, and the evident desire "to improve,"
which characterize these anonymous letters, are all
much to be commended. Many people have found
themselves suddenly conquerors of material
wealth, the most successful colonists in the world,
the heirs of a great inheritance, the builders of a
new empire. There is a true refinement manifested
in their questions. Not only do men and women like
to beha