Etiquette by Emily Post (top novels to read .txt) 📖

next fancy dress ball, where you may wear what you please, but in your business clothing be reasonable.

Above everything, don't wear white socks, and don't cover yourself with chains, fobs, scarf pins, lodge emblems, etc., and don't wear "horsey" shirts and neckties. You will only make a bad impression on every one you meet. The clothes of a gentleman are always conservative; and it is safe to avoid everything than can possibly come under the heading of "novelty."

Jewelry

In your jewelry let diamonds be conspicuous by their absence. Nothing is more vulgar than a display of "ice" on a man's shirt front, or on his fingers.

There is a good deal of jewelry that a gentleman may be allowed to wear, but it must be chosen with discrimination. Pearl shirt-studs (real ones) are correct for full dress only, and not to be worn with a dinner coat unless they are so small as to be entirely inconspicuous. Otherwise you may wear enamel studs (that look like white linen) or black onyx with a rim of platinum, or with a very inconspicuous pattern in diamond chips, but so tiny that they can not be told from a threadlike design in platinum—or others equally moderate.

Waistcoat buttons, studs and cuff links, worn in sets, is an American custom that is permissible. Both waistcoat buttons and cuff links may be jewelled and valuable, but they must not have big precious stones or be conspicuous.

A watch chain should be very thin and a man's ring is usually a seal ring of plain gold or a dark stone. If a man wears a jewel at all it should be sunk into a plain "gypsy hoop" setting that has no ornamentation, and worn on his "little," not his third, finger.

In The Country

Gay-colored socks and ties are quite appropriate with flannels or golf tweeds. Only in your riding clothes you must again be conservative. If you can get boots built on English lines, wear them; otherwise wear leggings. And remember that all leather must be real leather in the first place and polished until its surface is like glass.

Have your breeches fit you. The coat is less important, in fact, any odd coat will do. Your legs are the cynosure of attention in riding.

Most men in the country wear knickerbockers with golf stockings, with a sack or a belted or a semi-belted coat, and in any variety of homespuns or tweeds or rough worsted materials. Or they wear long trousered flannels. Coats are of the polo or ulster variety. For golf or tennis many men wear sweater coats. Shirts are of cheviot or silk or flannel, all with soft collars attached and to match.

The main thing is to dress appropriately. If you are going to play golf, wear golf clothes; if tennis, wear flannels. Do not wear a yachting cap ashore unless you are living on board a yacht.

White woolen socks are correct with white buckskin shoes in the country, but not in town.

If some semi-formal occasion comes up, such as a country tea, the time-worn conservative blue coat with white flannel trousers is perennially good.

Other Hints

The well-dressed man is always a paradox. He must look as though he gave his clothes no thought and as though literally they grew on him like a dog's fur, and yet he must be perfectly groomed. He must be close-shaved and have his hair cut and his nails in good order (not too polished). His linen must always be immaculate, his clothes "in press," his shoes perfectly "done." His brown shoes must shine like old mahogany, and his white buckskin must be whitened and polished like a prize bull terrier at a bench show. Ties and socks and handkerchief may go together, but too perfect a match betrays an effort for "effect" which is always bad.

The well-dressed man never wears the same suit or the same pair of shoes two days running. He may have only two suits, but he wears them alternately; if he has four suits he should wear each every fourth day. The longer time they have "to recover" their shape, the better.

What To Wear On Various Occasions

The appropriate clothes for various occasions are given below. If ever in doubt what to wear, the best rule is to err on the side of informality. Thus, if you are not sure whether to put on your dress suit or your Tuxedo, wear the latter.

Full Dress

At the opera. At an evening wedding. At a dinner to which the invitations are worded in the third person. At a ball, or formal evening entertainment. At certain State functions on the Continent of Europe in broad daylight.

Tuxedo

At the theater. At most dinners. At informal parties. Dining at home. Dining in a restaurant.

A Cutaway Or Frock Coat With Striped Trousers

At a noon or afternoon wedding. On Sunday for church (in the city). At any formal daytime function. In England to business. As usher at a wedding. As pall-bearer.

Business Suits

All informal daytime occasions. Traveling. The coat of a blue suit with white flannel or duck trousers for a lunch, or to church, in the country. A blue or black sack suit will do in place of a cutaway at a wedding, but not if you are the groom or an usher.

Country Clothes

Only in the country.

To wear odd tweed coats and flannel trousers in town is not only inappropriate, but bad taste.

CHAPTER XXXV

ToC

THE KINDERGARTEN OF ETIQUETTE

In the houses of the well-to-do where the nursery is in charge of a woman of refinement who is competent to teach little children proper behavior, they are never allowed to come to table in the dining-room until they have learned at least the elements of good manners. But whether in a big house of this description, or in a small house where perhaps the mother alone must be the teacher, children can scarcely be too young to be taught the rudiments of etiquette, nor can the teaching be too patiently or too conscientiously carried out.

Training a child is exactly like training a puppy; a little heedless inattention and it is out if hand immediately; the great thing is not to let it acquire bad habits that must afterward be broken. Any child can be taught to be beautifully behaved with no effort greater than quiet patience and perseverance, whereas to break bad habits once they are acquired is a Herculean task.

Elementary Table Manners

Since a very little child can not hold a spoon properly, and as neatness is the first requisite in table-manners, it should be allowed to hold its spoon as it might take hold of a bar in front of it, back of the hand up, thumb closed over fist. The pusher (a small flat piece of silver at right angles to a handle) is held in the same way, in the left hand. Also in the first eating lessons, a baby must be allowed to put a spoon in its mouth, pointed end foremost. Its first lessons must be to take small mouthfuls, to eat very slowly, to spill nothing, to keep the mouth shut while chewing and not smear its face over. In drinking, a child should use both hands to hold a mug or glass until its hand is big enough so it can easily hold a glass in one. When it can eat without spilling anything or smearing its lips, and drink without making grease "moons" on its mug or tumbler (by always wiping its mouth before drinking), it may be allowed to come to table in the dining-room as a treat, for Sunday lunch or breakfast. Or if it has been taught by its mother at table, she can relax her attention somewhat from its progress. Girls are usually daintier and more easily taught than boys, but most children will behave badly at table if left to their own devices. Even though they may commit no serious offenses, such as making a mess of their food or themselves, or talking with their mouths full, all children love to crumb bread, flop this way and that in their chairs, knock spoons and forks together, dawdle over their food, feed animals—if any are allowed in the room—or become restless and noisy.

Once graduated to the dining-room, any reversion to such tactics must be firmly reprehended, and the child should understand that continued offense means a return to the nursery. But before company it is best to say as little as possible, since too much nagging in the presence of strangers lessens a child's incentive to good behavior before them. If it refuses to behave nicely, much the best thing to do is to say nothing, but get up and quietly lead it from the table back to the nursery. It is not only bad for the child but annoying to a guest to continue instructions before "company," and the child learns much more quickly to be well-behaved if it understands that good behavior is the price of admission to grown-up society. A word or two such as, "Don't lean on the table, darling," or "pay attention to what you are doing, dear," should suffice. But a child that is noisy, that reaches out to help itself to candy or cake, that interrupts the conversation, that eats untidily has been allowed to leave the nursery before it has been properly graduated.

Table manners must, of course, proceed slowly in exactly the same way that any other lessons proceed in school. Having learned when a baby to use the nursery implements of spoon and pusher, the child, when it is a little older, discards them for the fork, spoon and knife.

The Proper Use Of The Fork

As soon, therefore, as his hand is dexterous enough, the child must be taught to hold his fork, no longer gripped baby-fashion in his fist, but much as a pencil is held in writing; only the fingers are placed nearer the "top" than the "point," the thumb and two first fingers are closed around the handle two-thirds of the way up the shank, and the food is taken up shovel-wise on the turned-up prongs. At first his little fingers will hold his fork stiffly, but as he grows older his fingers will become more flexible just as they will in holding his pencil. If he finds it hard work to shovel his food, he can, for a while, continue to use his nursery pusher. By and by the pusher is changed for a small piece of bread, which is held in his left hand and between thumb and first two fingers, and against which the fork shovels up such elusive articles as corn, peas, poached egg, etc.

The Spoon

In using the spoon, he holds it in his right hand like the fork. In eating cereal or dessert, he may be allowed to dip the bowl of the spoon toward him and eat from the end, but in eating soup he must dip his spoon away from him—turning the outer rim of the bowl down as he does so—fill the bowl not more than three-quarters full and sip it, without noise, out of the side (not the end) of the bowl. The reason why the bowl must not be filled full is because it is impossible to lift a brimming spoonful of liquid to his mouth without spilling some, or in the case of porridge without filling his mouth too full. While still very young he may be taught never to leave the spoon in a cup while drinking out of it, but after stirring the cocoa, or whatever it is, to lay the spoon in the saucer.

A very ugly table habit, which seems to be an impulse among all children, is to pile a great quantity of food on a fork and then lick or bite it off piecemeal. This must on no account be permitted. It is perfectly correct, however, to sip a little at a time, of hot liquid from a spoon. In taking any liquid