AN OLD BOOK ON ETIQUETTE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19292, 3 April 1926, Page 6 (Supplement)

AN OLD BOOK ON ETIQUETTE

A meek little volume, bound in crimson cloth, its front cover embellished with a wreath of impossible white pansies and their leaves, and the legend " Etiquette, or the Perfect Lady," it lay upon the street barrow, Alas! some vandal, obviously not a perfect lady, had torn out its prefatory leaves. A tiny label pasted within it informed the reader that the book had been sold by "A. and 11. Milne, stationers, Aberdeen." The date of the book's appearance is lost with the missing pages, but as the Duke of Cambridge is given after the King and Queen and IVince of Wales in the " Directions for Superscriptions and Forms of Address to Persons of every Rank," it seems safe to assume that it was published before Victoria mounted the throne. The writer begins by observing that etiquetto has become essentially necessary to the comfort and happiness and, indeed, to the very existence of society. Its laws are " an effectual barrier against the innovations of the vulgar; a rubicon the uncouth in manners and low in speech can never hope to pass." Depressinglv it adds that, " the rules laid down in these pages will not absolutely make a lady .... but an adherence to them will at all times prevent any glaring impropriety of conduct." In the chapter given over to "General Behaviour." a pleasing and modest reserve is advocated. "A well-bred woman,

says the gifted author, " finds not the least difficulty in effectually promoting the most elegant and useful conversation without speaking a word; the modes of speech, numerous as they are, arc scarcely more variable than the modes of silence." As to visits of ceremony: "In these days, ladies are allowed a considerable licence in visiting. . . . Visits of ceremony are usually paid between one and three. From a quarter of an hour to half an hour is quite long enough for a visit of ceremony. Do not by any means remove either shawl or bonnet during your stay. If the lady you are visiting requests you to do so, politely decline. . . . Young married ladies must not pay visits of ceremony without their husbands. Ladies should particularly avoid being out after dusk." As to the dinner table, ladies are advised not to put their knives in their mouths and not to "put bones or the seed of fruit on the tablecloth." They arc warned not to explain that any dish which they may decline makes them sick. " You will sip your soup as quietly as possible from the side of your spoon, and you, of course, will not commit the vulgarity of blowing on it or trying to cool it, after it is in your mouth, by drawing in an unusual quantity of air, for by doing so you will be sure to annoy, if you do not turn tlio stomach of the lady or gentleman next to you." As to finger-glasses: "They are placed on the table with the dessert. Wet your fingers in them and then wipe them on your napkin. The habit of rinsing the mouth at tablo is a disgusting piece of delicacy, which is nexer practised by any well-bred person. No lady will pick her teeth with her fork." Finally, "if you should be thrown among people who are vulgar, it is better to humour them than to set yourself up then and there for a model of politeness." There is a great deal of good sense in the book as well as the assumption that it is being written for social Philistines, but, as Pepys wonld say: "Lord, to think how much they make of a little."