Books: The Laws of Etiquette
A >>
A Gentleman >> The Laws of Etiquette
When, at length, yielding to that strong necessity which no
man can control, Brummel was obliged, like Napoleon, to
abdicate, the mystery of that mighty cravat was unfolded.
There was found, after his departure to Calais, written on
sheet of paper upon his table, the following epigram of
scorn: "STARCH IS THE MAN." The cravat of Brummel was merely-
-starched! Henceforth starch was introduced into every cravat
in Europe.
Brummel still lives, an obscure consul in a petty European
town.
Physically there is something to command our admiration in
the history of a man who thus lays at his mercy all ranks of
men,--the lofty and the low, the great, the powerful and the
vain: but morally and seriously, no character is more
despicable than that of the mere man of fashion, Seeking
nothing but notoriety, his path to that end is over the ruins
of all that is worthy in our nature. He knows virtue only to
despise it; he makes himself acquainted with human feelings
only to outrage them. He commences his career beyond the
limits of decency, and ends it far in the regions of infamy.
Feared by all and respected by none, hated by his worshippers
and despised by himself, he rules,--an object of pity and
contempt: and when his power is past, his existence is
forgotten; he lives on in an, oblivion which is to him worse
than death, and the stings of memory goad him to the grave.
The devotee of fashion is a trifler unworthy of his race; the
_mere_ gentleman is a character which may in time become
somewhat tiresome; there is a just mean between the two,
where a better conduct than either is to be found. It is that
of a man who, yielding to others, still maintains his self-
respect, and whose concessions to folly are controlled by
good sense; who remembers the value of trifles without
forgetting the importance of duties, and resolves so to
regulate his conduct that neither others may be offended by
his stiffness, nor himself have to regret his levity.
Live therefore among men--to conclude our homily after the
manner of Quarles--live therefore among men, like them, yet
not disliking thyself; and let the hues of fashion be
reflected from thee, but let them not enter and colour thee
within.
CHAPTER VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.
There is nothing more ill bred in the world than continual
talking about good breeding.
You should never employ the word "_genteel_;" the proper word
is "_respectable._"
If you are walking down the street with another person on
your arm, and stop to say something to one of your friends,
do not commit the too common and most awkward error of
introducing such persons to one another. Never introduce
morning visitors, who happen to meet in your parlour without
being acquainted. If _you_ should be so introduced, remember
that the acquaintance afterwards goes for nothing: you have
not the slightest right to expect that the other should ever
speak to you.
If you wish to be introduced to a lady, you must always have
her consent previously asked; this formality it is not
necessary to observe in the case of gentlemen alone.
Presents are the gauge of friendship. They also serve to
increase it, and give it permanence.
Among friends presents ought to be made of things of small
value; or, if valuable, their worth should be derived from
the style of the workmanship, or from some accidental
circumstance, rather than from the inherent and solid
richness. Especially never offer to a lady a gift of great
cost: it is in the highest degree indelicate, and looks as if
you were desirous of placing her under an obligation to you,
and of buying her good will. The gifts made by ladies to
gentlemen are of the most refined nature possible: they
should be little articles not purchased, but deriving a
priceless value as being the offspring of their gentle skill;
a little picture from their pencil, or a trifle from their
needle.
To persons much your superiors, or gentlemen whom you do not
know intimately, there is but one species of appropriate
present--game.
If you make a present, and it is praised by the receiver, you
should not yourself commence undervaluing it. If one is
offered to you, always accept it; and however small it may
be, receive it with civil and expressed thanks, without any
kind of affectation. Avoid all such deprecatory phrases, as
"I fear I rob you," etc.
To children, the only presents which you offer are sugar-
plums and bon-bons.
Avoid the habit of employing French words in English
conversation; it is in extremely bad taste to be always
employing such expressions as _ci-devant,_ _soi-disant,_ _en
masse,_ _couleur de rose,_ etc. Do not salute your
acquaintances with _bon jour,_ nor reply to every
proposition, _volontiers._
In speaking of French cities and towns, it is a mark of
refinement in education to pronounce them rigidly according
to English rules of speech. Mr. Fox, the best French scholar,
and one of the best bred men in England, always sounded the x
in _Bourdeaux,_ and the s in Calais, and on all occasions
pronounced such names just as they are written.
In society, avoid having those peculiar preferences for some
subjects, which are vulgarly denominated. "_hobby horses._"
They make your company a _bore_ to all your friends; and some
kind-hearted creature will take advantage of them and _trot_
you, for the amusement of the company.
A certain degree of reserve, or the appearance of it, should
be maintained in your intercourse with your most intimate
friends. To ordinary acquaintances retain the utmost reserve-
-never allowing them to read your feelings, not, on the other
hand, attempting to take any liberties with them. Familiarity
of manner is the greatest vice of society. "Ah! allow me, my
dear fellow," says a rough voice, and at the same moment a
thumb and finger are extended into my snuff-box, which, in
removing their prey drop half of it upon my clothes,--I look
up, and recognize a person to whom I was introduced by
mistake last night at the opera. I would be glad to have less
fellowship with such _fellows._ In former times great
philosophers were said to have demons for familiars,--thereby
indicating that a familiar man is the very devil.
Remember, that all deviations from prescribed forms, on
common occasions, are vulgar; such as sending invitations, or
replies, couched in some unusual forms of speech. Always
adhere to the immemorial phrase,--"Mrs. X. requests the
honour of Mr, Y.'s company," and "Mr. Y. has the honour of
accepting Mrs. X.'s polite invitation." Never introduce
persons with any outlandish or new-coined expressions; but
perform the operation with mathematical precision--"Mr. A.,
Mr. A'; Mr. A', Mr. A."
When two gentlemen are walking with a lady in the street,
they should not be both upon the same side of her, but one of
them should walk upon the outside and the other upon the
inside.
When you walk with a lady, even if the lady be young and
unmarried, offer your arm to her. This is always done in
France, and is practised in this country by the best bred
persons. To be sure, this is done only to married women in
France, because unmarried women never walk alone with
gentlemen, but as in America the latter have the same freedom
as the former, this custom should here be extended to them.
If you are walking with a woman who has your arm, and you
cross the street, it is better not to disengage your arm, and
go round upon the outside. Such effort evinces a palpable
attention to form, and _that_ is always to be avoided.
A woman should never take the arms of two men, one being upon
either side; nor should a man carry a woman upon each arm.
The latter of these iniquities is practised only in Ireland;
the former perhaps in Kamskatcha. There are, to be sure, some
cases in which it is necessary for the protection of the
women, that they should both take his arm, as in coming home
from a concert, or in passing, on any occasion, through a
crowd.
When you receive company in your own house, you should never
be much dressed. This is a circumstance of the first
importance in good breeding.
A gentleman should never use perfumes; they are agreeable,
however, upon ladies.
Avoid the use of proverbs in conversation, and all sorts of
cant phrases. This error is, I believe, censured by Lord
Chesterfield, and is one of the most offensively vulgar
things which a person can commit. We have frequently been
astonished to hear such a slang phrase as "the whole hog"
used by persons who had pretensions to very superior
standing. We would be disposed to apply to such an expression
a criticism of Dr. Johnson's, which rivals it in Coarseness:
"It has not enough salt to keep it from stinking, enough wit
to prevent its being offensive." We do not wish to advocate
any false refinement, or to encourage any cockney delicacy:
but we may be decent without being affected. The stable
language and raft humour of Crockett and Downing may do very
well to amuse one in a morning paper, but it exhibits little
wit and less good sense to adopt them in the drawing-room.
This matter should be "reformed altogether."
If a plate be sent to you, at dinner, by the master or
mistress of the house, you should always take it, without
offering it to all your neighbours as was in older times
considered necessary. The spirit of antique manners consisted
in exhibiting an attention to ceremony; the spirit of modern
manners consists in avoiding all possible appearance of form.
The old custom of deferring punctiliously to others was
awkward and inconvenient. For, the person, in favor of whom
the courtesy was shown, shocked at the idea of being exceeded
in politeness, of course declined it, and a plate was thus
often kept vibrating between two bowing mandarins, till its
contents were cold, and the victims of ceremony were deprived
of their dinner. In a case like this, to reverse the decision
which the host has made as to the relative standing of his
guests, is but a poor compliment to him, as it seems to
reprove his choice, and may, besides, materially interfere
with his arrangements by rendering _unhelped_ a person whom
he supposes attended to.
The same avoidance of too much attention to yielding place is
proper in most other cases. Shenstone, in some clever verses,
has ridiculed the folly; and Goldsmith, in his "Vicar," has
censured the inconvenience, of such outrageous formality.
These things are now managed better. One person yields and
another accepts without any controversy.
When you are helped to anything at a dinner table, do not
wait, with your plate untouched, until others have begun to
eat. This stiff-piece of mannerism is often occurring in the
country, and indeed among all persons who are not thoroughly
bred. As soon as your plate is placed before you, you should
take up your knife and arrange the table furniture around
you, if you do not actually eat.
As to the instruments by which the operation of dining is
conducted, it is a matter of much consequence that entire
propriety should be observed as to their use. We have said
nothing about the use of silver forks, because we do not
write for savages; and where, excepting among savages, shall
we find any who at present eat with other than a French
fork?. There are occasionally to be found some ancients,
gentlemen of the old school, as it is termed, who persist in
preferring steel, and who will insist on calling for a steel
fork if there is none on the table. They consider the modem
custom an affectation, and deem that all affectation should
be avoided. They tread upon the pride of Plato, with more
pride. There is often affectation in shunning affectation. It
is better in things not material to submit to the established
habits, especially when, as in the present case, the balance
of convenience is decidedly on the part of fashion. The
ordinary custom among well bred persons, is as follows:--soup
is taken with a spoon. Some foolish _fashionables_ employ a
fork! They might as well make use of a broomstick. The fish
which follows is eaten with a fork, a knife not being used at
all. The fork is held in the right hand, and a piece of bread
in the left. For any dish in which cutting is not
indispensable, the same arrangement is correct. When you have
upon your plate, before the dessert, anything partially
liquid, or any sauces, you must not take them up with a
knife, but with a piece of bread, which is to be saturated
with the juices, and then lifted to the mouth. If such an
article forms part of the dessert, you should eat it with a
spoon. In carving, steel instruments alone are employed. For
fowls a peculiar knife is used, having the blade short and
the handle very long. For fish a broad and pierced silver
blade is used.
A dinner--we allude to _dinner-parties_--in this country, is
generally despatched with too much hurry. We do not mean,
that persons commonly eat too fast, but that the courses
succeed one another too precipitately. Dinner is the last
operation of the day, and there is no subsequent business
which demands haste. It is usually intended, especially when
there are no ladies, to sit at the table till nine, ten, or
eleven o'clock, and it is more agreeable that the _eating_
should be prolonged through a considerable portion of the
entire time. The conveniences of digestion also require more
deliberation, and it would therefore not be unpleasant if an
interval of a quarter of an hour or half an hour were allowed
to intervene between the meats and the dessert.
At dinner, avoid taking upon your plate too many things at
once. One variety of meat and one kind of vegetable is the
_maximum._ When you take another sort of meat, or any dish
not properly a vegetable, you always change your plate.
The fashion of dining inordinately late in this country is
foolish. It is borrowed from England without any regard to
the difference in circumstances between the two nations. In
London, the whole system of daily duties is much later. The
fact of parliament's sitting during the evening and not in
the morning, tends to remove the active part of the day to a
much more advanced hour. When persons rise at ten or two
o'clock, it is not to be expected that they should dine till
eight or twelve in the evening. There is nothing of this sort
in France. There they dine at three, or earlier. We have
known some fashionable dinners in different cities in this
country at so late an hour as eight or nine o'clock. This is
absurd, where the persons have all breakfasted at eight in
the morning. From four o'clock till five varies the proper
hour for a dinner party here.
Never talk about politics at a dinner table or in a drawing
room.
When you are going into a company it is of advantage to run
over in your mind, beforehand, the topics of conversation
which you intend to bring up, and to arrange the manner in
which you will introduce them. You may also refresh your
general ideas upon the subjects, and run through the details
of the few very brief and sprightly anecdotes which you are
going to repeat; and also have in readiness one or two
brilliant phrases or striking words which you will use upon
occasion. Further than this it is dangerous to make much
preparation. If you commit to memory long speeches with the
design of delivering them, your conversation will become
formal, and you will be negligent of the observations of your
company. It will tend also to impair that habit of readiness
and quickness which it is necessary to cultivate in order to
be agreeable.
You must be very careful that you do not repeat the same
anecdotes or let off the same good things twice to the same
person. Richard Sharpe, the "conversationist" as he was
called in London, kept a regular book of entry, in which he
recorded where and before whom he had uttered severally his
choice sayings. The celebrated Bubb Doddington prepared a
manuscript book of original _faceti',_ which he was
accustomed to read over when he expected any distinguished
company, trusting to an excellent memory to preserve him from
iteration.
If you accompany your wife to a ball, be very careful not to
dance with her.
The lady who gives a ball dances but little, and always
selects her partners.
If you are visited by any company whom you wish to drive away
forever, or any friends whom you wish to alienate, entertain
them by reading to them your own productions.
If you ask a lady to dance, and she is engaged, do not prefer
a request for her hand at the next set after that, because
she may be engaged for that also, and for many more; and you
would have to run through a long list of interrogatories,
which would be absurd and awkward.
A gentleman must not expect to shine in society, even the
most frivolous, without a considerable stock of knowledge. He
must be acquainted with facts rather than principles. He
needs no very sublime sciences; but a knowledge of biography
and literary history, of the fine arts, as painting,
engraving, music, etc., will be of great service to him.
Some men are always seen in the streets with an umbrella
under their arm. Such a foible may be permitted to such men
as Mr. Southey and the Duke of Wellington: but in ordinary
men it looks like affectation, and the monotony is
exceedingly _boring_ to the sight.
To applaud at a play is not _fashionable_; but it is
_respectable_ to evince by a gentle concurrence of one finger
and a hand that you perceive and enjoy a good stroke in an
actor.
If you are at a concert, or a private musical party, never
beat time with your feet or your cane. Nothing is more
unpleasant.
Few things are more agreeable or more difficult, than to
relate anecdotes with entire propriety. They should be
introduced gracefully, have fit connexion with the previous
remarks, and be in perfect keeping with the company, the
subject and the tone of the conversation; they should be
short, witty and eloquent, and they should be new but not
far-fetched.
In rapid and eager discourse, when persons are excited and
impatient, as at a ball or in a promenade, repeat nothing but
the spirit and soul of a story, leaping over the particulars.
There are however many places and occasions in which you may
bring out the details with advantage, precisely, but not
tediously. When you repeat a true story be always extremely
exact. Mem. Not to forget the point of your story, like most
narrators.
When you are telling a flat anecdote by mistake, laugh
egregiously, that others may do the same: when you repeat a
spirited and striking bon mot, be grave and composed, in
order that others may not be the same.
For one who has travelled much, to hit the proper medium
between too much reserve and too much intrusion, on the
subject of his adventures, is not easy. Such a person is
expected to give amusement by pleasant histories of his
travels, and it is agreeable that he should do so, yet with
moderation; he should not reply to every remark by a memoir,
commencing, "When I was in Japan."
Rampant witticisms which require one to laugh, are apt to
grow fatiguing: it is better to have a sprightly and amusing
vein running through your conversation, which, betraying no
effort, allows one to be grave without offence, or to smile
without pain.
Punning is now decidedly out of date. It is a silly and
displeasing thing, when it becomes a habit. Some one has
called it the wit of fools. It is within the reach of the
most trifling, and is often used by them to puzzle and
degrade the wise. Whatever may be its merits, it is now out
of fashion.
It is respectable to go to church once on Sunday. When you
are there, behave with decency. You should never walk in
fashionable places on Sunday afternoon. It is notoriously
vulgar. If your health requires you to take the air, you
should seek some retired street.
In conversation avoid such phrases as "My _dear_ sir or
madam."
A gentleman is distinguished as much by his composure as by
any other quality. His exertions are always subdued, and his
efforts easy. He is never surprised into an exclamation or
startled by anything. Throughout life he avoids what the
French call _scenes,_ occasions of exhibition, in which the
vulgar delight. He of course has feelings, but he never
exhibits any to the world. He hears of the death of his
pointer or the loss of an estate with entire calmness when
others are present.
It is very difficult for a literary man to preserve the
perfect manners and exact semblance of a gentleman. He must
be able to throw aside all the qualities which authorship
tends to stamp so deeply upon him, and thoroughly to despise
the cant of the profession. Yet this must be done without any
affectation. Upon the whole, unless he has rare tact, he will
please as much by going into company with all the marks of
his employment upon his manners, than by awkwardly attempting
to throw off his load. One would rather see a man with his
fingers inked, than to see him nervously striving to cover
them with a tattered kid glove. As to literary ladies, they
make up their minds to sacrifice all present and personal
admiration for future and abiding renown.
It is not considered fashionable to carry a watch. What has a
fashionable man to do with time? Besides he never goes into
those obscure parts of the town where there are no public
clocks, and his servant will tell him when it is time to
dress for dinner. A gentleman carries his watch in his
pantaloons with a plain black ribbon attached. It is only
worthy of a shop-boy to put it in his waistcoat pocket.
Custom allows to men the privilege of taking snuff, however
unneat this habit may appear. If you affect the "tangible
smell," always take it from a box, and not from your
waistcoat pocket or a paper. The common opinion, that
Napoleon took snuff from his pocket, (which fact, by the way,
is denied by Bourrienne,) has for ever driven this convenient
custom from the practice of gentlemen, for the same reason
that Lord Byron's anti-neckcloth fashion has compelled every
man of sense to bind a cravat religiously about his throat.
As to taking snuff from a paper, it is vile.
Women should abstain most scrupulously from tobacco, for
nothing can be more fatal to their divinity: they should at
least avoid it until past fifty;--that is to say, if a woman
past fifty can anywhere be found. Chewing is permitted only
to galley-slaves and metaphysicians.
It was a favourite maxim of Rivarol, "Do you wish to succeed?
Cite proper names." Rivarol is dead in exile, having left
behind him little property and less reputation. Judging from
all experience, if we were to frame an extreme maxim, it
should be, "If you wish to succeed never cite a proper name."
It will make you agreeable and hated. Your conversation will
be listened to with interest, and your company shunned with
horror. You will obtain the reputation of a gossip and a
scandal-bearer, and you will soon be obliged either to
purchase a razor or apply for a passport. If you are holding
a tete-a-tete with a notorious Mrs. Candour, then, indeed,
your tongue should be as sharp and nimble as the forked
lightning. You must beat her at her own weapons, and convince
her that it would be dangerous to traduce your character to
others.
A bachelor is a person who enjoys everything and pays for
nothing; a married man is one that pays for everything and
enjoys nothing. The one drives a sulky through life, and is
not expected to take care of any one but himself: the other
keeps a carriage, which is always too full to afford him a
comfortable seat. Be cautious then how you exchange your
sulky for a carriage.
In ordinary conversation about persons employ the expressions
_men_ and _women_; _gentleman_ and _lady_ are _distinctive_
appellations, and not to be used upon general occasions.
You should say _forte-piano,_ not _piano-forte_: and the
_street door,_ not the _front door._
"A man may have virtue, capacity, and good conduct," says La
Bruy,re, "and yet be insupportable; the air and manner which
we neglect, as little things, are frequently what the world
judges us by, and makes them decide for or against us."
In your intercourse with the world you must take persons as
they are, and society as you find it. You must never oppose
the one, nor attempt to alter the other. Society is a
harlequin stage, upon which you never appear in your own
dress nor without a mask. Keep your real dispositions for
your fireside, and your real character for your private
friend. In public, never differ from anybody, nor from
anything. The _agreeable_ man is one who _agrees._
THE END.