Etiquette

The word has become current on every tongue... It means, among other things — and above all among the peoples of Europe and America — "high refinement"... and, in consequence, how we are to conduct ourselves with people.

And this word "etiquette" has a charming story...

The story goes that a Scottish gardener in the service of one of the kings of France was greatly pained to find, every day, that the rose beds of the royal garden lay at the mercy of the court, which trampled them in its comings and goings... So he resolved to put an end to it... He laid down certain rules — "etiquette" — showing the courtiers the paths it was permissible to use; but the courtiers were forever overstepping the bounds of this "etiquette" imposed by the old gardener, so at last he carried the case up to the king, who ruled that the court must respect the gardener's "etiquette"...

With time, people began to widen the meaning of this word until it became a fundamental rule in people's relations with one another; and a breach of it became a breach of general good manners.

The well-bred person holds so fast to the rules of "etiquette" that at times he becomes tiresome and dull about it.

In America these days people talk a great deal about a thick, green-bound book written by "Emily Post" under the title "Etiquette." We have looked over a copy of this book, and it proves to be a compendium of the principles of "etiquette" which the author has spent twenty-five whole years preaching to the select classes of America.

"Emily Post" says: The privileges of the classes are determined not so much by birth as by superior breeding and by sound principles of upbringing in people's relations.

But will "Emily Post's" rules of "etiquette" hold firm, when the circumstances people have passed through since the two past wars have turned social conditions upside down?... In this worldwide whirl, no old rule can hold firm; and this is what has moved the author, over the past twenty-five years, to revise her book more than once.

And here, Madam, are a few of "Emily Post's" "teachings" in the art of etiquette...

● No self-respecting lady may sit in a car on the left of the man escorting her... In Europe, according to "etiquette," they say that any lady on the "left" is not a lady in the true sense.

• A well-bred girl never goes to a nightclub (Boite de Nuit) until after her marriage.

• A well-bred young man, at a dance, may not leave his partner until he has presented her with another cavalier... even if he must remain with her the whole evening.

• It is shameful to give way, in company, to demonstrations of love and cuddling.
And it is not shameful that something of protection and tenderness show in a fiancé's glances at his fiancée.

• An engaged couple ought to take a companion along with them on their outing to the countryside.

• A young man is permitted to give his fiancée jewelry and flowers; he is not permitted to give her a car, or furniture, or a house... He may buy her a scarf, but he may not give her a fur coat.

• A word of advice to the girl: never write a man a letter you might later be ashamed to see published before the public.

• A man may write whatever letters of love and sentiment he pleases to the woman he loves; but the well-bred man does not permit himself to hint at things it is not permissible to say outright.

• It belongs to the principles of high refinement not to talk of money matters — except in your working hours.

• A "gentleman" never pays a call on a respectable lady while the worse for drink.

• Things that must not be said:
"Oh... it seems your boy limps a great deal..."

"...There is no doubt you feel lonely since your daughter's death..."

"Is it true you are thinking of divorce...?"

"Twenty years ago, I was the prettiest girl in this town."

"What... you are in mourning?!"

"What happened?"

And so the author proceeds through a series of social rules which one may find acceptable, or may not, and which can evolve as the times evolve... Yet however matters turn, and however social standards are overturned, "good conduct" — Savoir-Vivre — remains one of the most important social things in the world...

And let us give thanks always, and never forget, to that Scottish gardener to whom that beautiful notion occurred.