Manners and Social Usages by Mrs John M. E. W. Sherwood (great book club books TXT) 📖

>himself, and it adds much to his confusion to see that poor little

pretender, Tom Titmouse, talking and laughing and making merry.

There are, however, no ancestral diversities fighting for the

possession of Tom Titmouse. The grandfathers and grandmothers of Tom

Titmouse were not people of strong character; they were a decorous

race on both sides, with no heavy intellectual burdens, good enough

people who wore well. But does our bashful man know this? No. He

simply remembers a passage in the “Odyssey” which Tom Titmouse could

not construe, but which the bashful man read, to the delight of the

tutor:

 

“O gods! How beloved he is, and how honored by all men to whatsoever

land or city he comes! He brings much booty from Troy, but we,

having accomplished the same journey, are returning home having

empty hands!” And this messenger from Troy is Tom Titmouse!

 

Not that all poor scholars and inferior men have fine manners, nor

do all good scholars and superior men fail in the drawing-room. No

rule is without an exception. It is, however, a comfort to those who

are awkward and shy to remember that many of the great and good and

superior men who live in history have suffered, even as they suffer,

from the pin-pricks of bashfulness. The first refuge of the

inexperienced, bashful person is often to assume a manner of extreme

hauteur. This is, perhaps, a natural fence—or defence; it is,

indeed, a very convenient armor, and many a woman has fought her

battle behind it through life. No doubt it is the armor of the many

so-called frigid persons, male and female, who must either suffer

the pangs of bashfulness, or affect a coldness which they do not

feel. Some people are naturally encased in a column of ice which

they cannot break, but within is a fountain which would burst out at

the lips in words of kindliness if only the tongue could speak them.

These limitations of nature are very strange; we cannot explain

them. It is only by referring to Grandfather Brown and Grandmother

Williams again that we understand them at all. One person will be

furnished with very large feet and very small hands, with a head

disproportionately large for the body, or one as remarkably small.

Differences of race must account for these eccentricities of nature;

we cannot otherwise explain them, nor the mental antagonisms, But

the awkward and the shy do not always take refuge in a cold manner;

Sometimes they study manner as they would the small-sword exercise,

and exploit it-with equal fervor. Exaggeration of manner is quite as

common a refuge for these unfortunates as the other extreme of

calmness. They render themselves ridiculous by the lowness of their

bows and the vivid picturesqueness of their speech. They, as it

were, burst the bounds of the calyx, and the flower opens too wide.

Symmetry is lost, graceful outline is destroyed. Many a bashful man,

thinking of Tom Titmouse, has become an acrobat in his determination

to be lively and easy. He should remember the juste milieu,

recommended by Shakespeare when he says,

 

“They are as sick that surfeit with too much. As they that starve

with nothing.”

 

The happy people who are born unconscious of their bodies, who grow

through life more and more graceful, easy, cordial, and agreeable;

the happy few Who were never bashful, never nervous, never had

clammy hands, they need not read these pages—they are not written

for such blessed eyes. It is for the well-meaning, but shy and

awkward, people that the manners of artificial society are most

useful.

 

For the benefit of such persons we must “improve a ceremonial nicety

into a substantial duty,” else we shall see a cultivated scholar

confused before a set of giggling girls, and a man who is all

Wisdom, valor and learning, playing the donkey at an evening party.

If he lack the inferior arts of polite behavior, who will take the

trouble to discover a Sir Walter Raleigh behind his cravat?

 

A man who is constrained, uneasy, and ungraceful, can spoil the

happiness of a dozen people. Therefore he is bound to create an

artificial manner, if a natural one does not come to him,

remembering always that “manners are shadows of virtues.”

 

The manners of artificial society have this to commend them: they

meditate the greatest good to the greatest number. We do not like

the word “artificial,” or to commend anything which is supposed to

be the antipodes of the word “sincere,” but it is a recipe, a

doctor’s prescription that we are recommending as a cure for a

disease. “Good manners are to special societies what good morals are

to society in general—their cement and their security. True

politeness creates perfect ease and freedom; it and its essence is

to treat others as you would have others treat you.” Therefore, as

you know how embarrassing embarrassment is to everybody else, strive

not to be embarrassed.

 

CHAPTER L. HOW TO TREAT A GUEST.

 

No one possessed of his senses would invite a person to his country

house for the purpose of making him unhappy. At least so we should

say at first thought. But it is an obvious fact that very many

guests are invited to the country houses of their friends, and are

made extremely miserable while there. They have to rise at unusual

hours, eat when they are not hungry, drive or walk or play tennis

when they would prefer to do everything else, and they are obliged

to give up those hours which are precious to them for other duties

or pleasures; so that many people, after an experience of visiting,

are apt to say, “No more of the slavery of visiting for me, if you

please!”

 

Now the English in their vast country houses have reduced the custom

of visiting and receiving their friends to a system. They are said

to be in all respects the best hosts in the world, the masters of

the letting-alone system. A man who owns a splendid place near

London invites a guest for three days or more, and carefully

suggests when he shall come and when he shall go—a very great point

in hospitality. He is invited to come by the three o’clock train on

Monday, and to leave by the four o’clock train on Thursday. That

means that he shall arrive before dinner on Monday, and leave after

luncheon on Thursday. If a guest cannot accede to these hours, he

must write and say so. Once arrived, he rarely meets his host or

hostess until dinner-time. He is conducted to his room, a cup of tea

with some light refreshment is provided, and the well-bred servant

in attendance says at what hour before dinner he will be received in

the drawing-room. It is possible that some member of the family may

be disengaged and may propose a drive before dinner, but this is not

often done; the guest is left to himself or herself until dinner.

General and Mrs. Grant were shown to their rooms at Windsor Castle,

and locked up there, when they visited the Queen, until the steward

came to tell them that dinner would be served in half an hour; they

were then conducted to the grand salon, where the Queen presently

entered. In less stately residences very much the same ceremony is

observed. The hostess, after dinner and before the separation for

the night, tells her guests that horses will be at their disposal

the next morning, and also asks if they would like to play lawn-tennis, if they wish to explore the park, at what hour they will

breakfast, or if they will breakfast in their rooms. “Luncheon is at

one; and she will be happy to see them at that informal meal.”

 

Thus the guest has before him the enviable privilege of spending the

day as he pleases. He need not talk unless he choose; he may take a

book and wander off under the trees; he may take a horse and explore

the county, or he may drive in a victoria, phaeton, or any other

sort of carriage. To a lady who has her letters to write, her novel

to read, or her early headache to manage, this liberty is precious.

 

It must also be said that no one is allowed to feel neglected in an

English house. If a lady guest says, “I am a stranger; I should like

to see your fine house and your lovely park,” some one is found to

accompany her. Seldom the hostess, for she has much else to do; but

there is often a single sister, a cousin, or a very intelligent

governess, who is summoned. In our country we cannot offer our

guests all these advantages; we can, however, offer them their

freedom, and give them, with our limited hospitality, their choice

of hours for breakfast and their freedom from our society.

 

But the questioner may ask, Why invite guests, unless we wish to see

them? We do wish to see them—a part of the day, not the whole day.

No one can sit and talk all day. The hostess should have her

privilege of retiring after the mid-day meal, with her novel, for a

nap, and so should the guest: Well-bred people understand all this,

and are glad to give up the pleasure of social intercourse for an

hour of solitude. There is nothing so sure to repay one in the long

run as these quiet hours.

 

If a lady invites another to visit her at Newport or Saratoga, she

should evince her thought for her guest’s comfort by providing her

with horses and carriage to pay her own visits, to take her own

drives, or to do her shopping. Of course, the pleasure of two

friends is generally to be together, and to do the same things; but

sometimes it is quite the reverse.

 

The tastes and habits of two people staying in the same house may be

very different, and each should respect the peculiarities of the

other. It costs little time and no money for an opulent Newport

hostess to find out what her guest wishes to do with her day, and

she can easily, with a little tact, allow her to be happy in her own

way.

 

Gentlemen understand this much better than ladies, and a gentleman

guest is allowed to do very much as he pleases at Newport. No one

asks anything about his plans for the day, except if he will dine at

home. His hostess may ask him to drive or ride with her, or to go to

the Casino, perhaps; but if she be a well-bred woman of the world

she will not be angry if he refuses. A lady guest has not, however,

such freedom; she is apt to be a slave, from the fact that as yet

the American hostess has not learned that the truest hospitality is

to let her guest alone, and to allow her to enjoy herself in her own

way. A thoroughly well-bred guest makes no trouble in a house; she

has the instinct of a lady, and is careful that no plan of her

hostess shall be disarranged by her presence. She mentions all her,

separate invitations, desires to know when her hostess wishes her

presence, if the carriage can take her hither and yon, or if she may

be allowed to hire a carriage.

 

There are hostesses, here and in England, who do not invite guests

to their houses for the purpose of making them happy, but to add to

their own importance. Such hostesses are not apt to consider the

individual rights of any one, and they use a guest merely to add to

the brilliancy of their parties, and to make the house more

fashionable and attractive. Some ill-bred women, in order