Etiquette Old and New
Procedure at Christenings
ETIQUETTE
This is how they did it in the XVIIl century: At a Ball.
“Not long after a young man, who had for some time looked at us with a kind of negligent impertinence, advanced on tiptoe towards me; he had a set smile on his face, and his dress was so foppish that I really believe he even wished to be stared at; and yet he was very ugly.”
“Bowing almost to the ground with a sort of swing. And waving his hand with the greatest conceit, after a short and silly pause, he said,’Madam, may I presume?’ and stopt offering to take my hand. I drew it back, but could scarce forbear laughing. ‘Allow me, Madam,’ continued he, affectedly breaking off every half-moment, ‘the honour and happiness – if I am not so unhappy as to address you too late – to have the happiness and honour’… I said no, I believed I shouldn't dance at all… uttering the same ridiculous speeches of sorrow and disappointment… he retreated. Very soon after another gentleman gayly, but not foppishly dressed, desired to know if I would honour him with my hand. So he was pleased to say, though I am sure I know not what honour he could receive from me; but these sort of expressions, I find, are used as words of course, without any distinction of persons, or study of propriety. And so he took my hand and led me to join in the dance.”
(Later Evelina, reproved by the silly beau, admits that she's never once “considered the impropriety of refusing one partner and afterwards accepting another”; the sort of offence that would still hold good at the type of dance where one doesn't cling to one sole dance-partner the whole night.)
On Calls. “Before our dinner was over yesterday Madame Duval came to tea, though it will lessen your surprise to hear that it was near five o’clock, for we never dine until the day is almost over. She was asked into another room, while the table was cleared; and then was invited to partake of the dessert. She was attended by a French gentleman whom she introduced by the name of Monsieur Du Bois; Mrs. Mirvan received them both with her usual politeness, but the Captain looked much displeased. And after a short silence very sternly said to Madame Duval, ‘Pray, who asked you to bring that their spark with you?”.
Well, there are occasions on which we should all like to make that sort of remark nowadays when for instance dear old Dolly will insist on turning up with some impossible blue-eyed “cissie” who cowers behind a large blue button hole to match his eyes, or dear old Doodles brings a girl whose purple-painted mouth looks as if it had been extended in the New Guinea belle’s manner with pieces of wood, but etiquette forbids.
“The first speech was made by Madame Duval, who said,’ It’s quite a shocking thing to see ladies come to so genteel a place as Ranelagh with hats on; it's a monstrous vulgar look.”
“I found Madame Duval at breakfast in bed, though Monsieur Du Bois was in the chamber; which so much astonished me, that I was involuntarily retiring, without considering how odd an appearance my retreat would have, when Madame Duval called me back and laughed very heartily at my ignorance of foreign customs.”
Here is an exposition of the correct etiquette on surprising a would-be suicide.
“Wild with fright, and scarce knowing what I did, I caught, almost involuntarily, hold of both of his arms and exclaimed, ‘Oh, sir, have mercy on yourself!’ The guilty pistols fell from his hands which disengaging from me he fervently clasped and cried: ‘Sweet Heaven is this thy angel… what would you do?’ ‘Awaken you,’ I cried ‘to worthier thoughts, and rescue you from perdition.’ I then seized the pistols… glided quick by him, and tottered downstairs, ere he had recovered from the extremest amazement.”
(Extracts from Evelina by FANNY BURNEY, 1778.)
“When the duck and green peas came, we looked at each other in dismay; we had only two-pronged black-handled forks. It's true the steel was as bright as silver; but what were we to do? Miss Matty picked up her peas, one by one, on the point of the prongs much as Aminé ate her grains of rice after her previous feast with the ghoul. Miss Pole sighed over her delicate young peas as she left them on one side of her plate untasted; for they would drop between the prongs. I looked at my host: the peas were going wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large round-ended knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived! My friends, in spite of my precedent, couldn't muster up such enough courage to do an ungenteel thing: and, if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily hungry, he would probably have seen that the good peas went away almost untouched.”
(Cranford, by E. GASKELL.)
(Thus the early nineteenth century.)
Now let us turn to those dreadful, prurient-minded, prim but good people the Victorians, and see how they managed things in their days.
Those folk who daren't mention “trousers” because of the awful associations conjured up in the minds of the pure by the word. Call them “nether garments,” “pantaloons,” “limb-coverings,” or even as is delicately put in a little book of etiquette popular in those days, “Werther showed his misery by wearing the same coat and appendices for a whole year” – but never call them trousers!
By the way, the author of this delightful book also assures us, while on the subject of cleanliness, that since ”a hot bath is a unnatural agent it should be but sparingly indulged in, for it exhausts the physical powers and leaves us prostrate.”
Now he tells the male of his correct attire on all occasions should he aspire to be mistaken for a gentleman:
“In London where a man is supposed to make visits along with lounge in the park, the frock coat of very dark blue or black, or a black cloth cut-away, the white waistcoat, and lavender gloves are almost essential.”
“The frock coat, or black cut-away, with a white waistcoat in summer, is the best dress for making calls in.”
Another author of the same date tells us that “it's no longer in good taste for a gentleman to be married in a black coat; a blue coat, tight grey trousers, white satin or silk waistcoat; ornamental tie, and white (not primrose-coloured) gloves, form the usual costume of a bride groom according to present usage.”
One supposes that the ornamental tie and satin waistcoat were the only way by which the bridegroom could burst into song… Now our author gets busy with the dress of a lady.
He tells us how those dresses referred to loosely as “of the Regency period” were “happily obliged to yield, and the full-flowing dresses came into fashion, and kept their place, after a disgraceful interregnum of very short petticoats, only not showing the knee.”
In fact this author’s book is so full of plums that we can't do better than just take a run through some of the choicer passages. One is tempted to think sometimes that he wrote with his tongue in his cheek, or a waggish finger on his nose.
Respect to the Sex: “It should be the boast of every man that he had never put modesty to the blush, nor encourage modesty to remove her mask. But we fear there's far too little chivalry in the present day. If young men don't chuck their partners under the chin they're often guilty of pressing their hands when the dance affords an opportunity. There's a calm dignity with which to show that the offence has been noticed, but if a lady condescends to reprove it in words, she forces the culprit to defend himself. And often ends by making the breach worse. On the other hand, let a woman once overlook the slightest familiarity. And fail to show her surprise in her manner, and she can never be certain that will not be repeated. There are few actions so atrociously familiar as a wink. I would rather kiss a lady outright than wink or leer at her, for that silent movement seems to imply a secret understanding which may be interpreted in anyway you like.”
What villainous behaviour! Surely the author gave one wink as he wrote the above, and leered to himself.
“It can never be pardonable to swagger and lounge, nor to carry into even the family circle the actions proper to the dressing room.
A man may cross his legs but should never stretch them apart.
“Scratching, pinching, or lying down… should never be permitted in a mixed society of men and women.”
“It's clear that nature has intended some things to be hidden… civilisation, removing farther and farther from nature yet not going against it, has added many more. In this respect civilisation has becomes second nature and what it has once concealed cannot be exposed without indelicacy. Take nothing is more beautiful than the bosom of a woman. And to a pure mind there's nothing shocking, but something touching indeed, in seeing a poor woman who has no bread to give it suckling her baby in public.”
(Perhaps the Victorian babies whose mammies did have bread to give them were fitted with special Victorian teeth to masticate it, or is that bread-giving of the rich, the reason why so many died?)
Our author deplores the tight-lacing still prevalent.
He tells us impressively:
“A physician at dinner one day with his was summoned by knocks and rings to a house in the same street where there had been a dinner-party. The ladies had just retired to the drawing-room when suddenly, the youngest and fairest of them fell back fainting into her chair… The physician came, an aged and practical man well versed in every variety of female folly. He took out his penknife: the company around thought he he was going to bleed the unconscious patient. ‘Ha, this is tight lacing’ he suddenly said; and adding, ‘No time to be lost, he cut open the bodice of the dress; it opened. And with a gush, gave the poor young lady breath: the heart had been compressed by tight lacing and bad nearly ceased to art.”
Now he lays down the law as to female wear in the country:
“The bonnet may still, though plan, and perhaps of straw or whalebone, be becoming. The hat, now so prevalent used, admits of some decoration… long feathers, even in the most tranquil scenes aren't inappropriate.”
(For beagling or hiking and other country pursuits we suppose.)
Now he tells the would-be gentleman a little about boxing, ending up:
“Two gentlemen never fight; the art of boxing is only brought into use in punishing a stronger and more impudent man of a class beneath your own.”
”Of course” (he observes naively), “to knock a man down is never good manner, but there's a way of doing it gracefully… Never assail an offender with words, nor when you strike him use expressions like ‘Take that,”.
An English lady without her piano, or her pencil or her fancy work, or her favourite French authors and German poets, is an object of wonder, and perhaps of pity… and to work neatly and skilfully at fancy work is one of the of good female society.”
“After finishing one song, a lady should rise from the piano even if she be brought back again and again.”
All accomplishments have the one great merit of giving a lady something to do, something to preserve her from ennui; to console her in seclusion, to arouse her in grief; to compose her occupation in joy. And none answers this purpose much better than fancy work or even plain work.”
”Sketching and archery stand first among out-door amusements. They're healthy, elegant, and appropriate to the feminine character; while, first thoughts of mammas; – they assemble rather than exclude the younger members of the other sex.”
How many men reading the following passage will sigh for the good old days when they really were gods?
“When Pater Familias asserts his rights, standing with his coat-tails spread before the fire, which he hides from everybody else, we cannot, daren't object openly, but we certainly feel chilled, inwardly, by his solemn dignity, and outwardly by the deprivation of calorific.”
”But when a man finds that his lively badinage suits a band of merry, lissome girls, he must not be so wild as to rush at papa with the same kind of banter.”
Even nowadays pa would object, poor fellow, and its little enough respect he gets from the boy-friends.
Now for the carriage of that noble beast the Victorian man:
“A certain dignity is the first requisite… the chest should be expanded but not so much as to make a ‘presence.’ The head should be set well back on the shoulders but not tossed up nor jerked on one side with that air of pertness you see in some men… In standing the legs ought to be straight, or one of them bent a little… in walking they should be moved gently but firmly from the hips. There is, however, one good habit which must not be over looked. You should never speak without a slight smile, or at least a beam of goodwill in your eyes, and that to all, whether your equals or inferiors.”
This advice was obviously based on general custom, for doesn't the foregoing paragraph conjure up immediately one of those photographs in an old family album, of your great-uncle John,” chest very expanded, one of his tartan clad legs slightly bent, and as required, a beam of stern goodwill for all emanating from the eye?
Of Smoking: “One must never smoke, nor even ask to smoke, in the company of the fair… again one must never smoke in the streets; that is, in daylight. The deadly crime may be committed, like burglary, after dark, but not before; one must never smoke in a room, inhabited at times, by the ladies…. One must never smoke without consent, in the presence of a clergyman, and one must never offer a cigar to any ecclesiastic over the rank of curate.” (Poor vicar!)
Of Flirtations: “One great discredit to the present day is the fast young lady.” Also: “We all dread for our daughters imprudent and harassing attachments, let it not, however, be supposed that long practised flirtations are without their evil effects on character and manners. They excite and amuse, but also exhaust the spirit. Yet the fast young lady clings to flirtation as the type of her class… she forgets that, with every successive flirtation, one charm after another, disappears like the petals from a fading rose) until all the deliciousness of a fresh and pure character is lost in the destructive sport. On all these points a woman should take a high tone in the beginning of her life.” (Here the autho