Produced by Holly Ingraham.
[frontispiece]THE MODERN DINNER-TABLE.
"Manners are the shadows of great virtues."—Whateley
"Solid Fashion is funded politeness."—Emerson
This etiquette manual was probably originally a series of columnsin a newspaper or a magazine like Harper's, as the chapters onweddings in the different seasons refer to how the fashions havechanged since the last one—by the original copyright, 1884,though the book version appeared in 1887. Notable features amongthe usual: how to dance the German, or Cotillon; remarks and fourchapters on English, French, or others in contrast to Americancustoms, making it a guide to European manners; proper behaviorfor the single woman past girlhood; appropriate costumes for manyoccasions; three chapters on staff and servants.
There is no country where there are so many people asking what is"proper to do," or, indeed, where there are so many genuinelyanxious to do the proper thing, as in the vast conglomerate whichwe call the United States of America. The newness of our countryis perpetually renewed by the sudden making of fortunes, and bythe absence of a hereditary, reigning set. There is no aristocracyhere which has the right and title to set the fashions.
But a "reigning set," whether it depend upon hereditary right oradventitious wealth, if it be possessed of a desire to lead and adisposition to hospitality, becomes for a period the dictator offashion to a large number of lookers-on. The travelling world,living far from great centres, goes to Newport, Saratoga, NewYork, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, and gazes on what iscalled the latest American fashion. This, though exploited by whatwe may call for the sake of distinction the "newer set," isinfluenced and shaped in some degree by people of nativerefinement and taste, and that wide experience which is gained bytravel and association with broad and cultivated minds. Theycounteract the tendency to vulgarity, which is the great danger ofa newly launched society, so that our social condition improves,rather than retrogrades, with every decade.
There may be many social purists who will disagree with us in thisstatement. Men and women educated in the creeds of the Old World,with the good blood of a long ancestry of quiet ladies andgentlemen, find modern American society, particularly in New Yorkand at Newport, fast, furious, and vulgar. There are, of course,excesses committed everywhere in the name of fashion; but wecannot see that they are peculiar to America. We can only answerthat the creed of fashion is one of perpetual change. There is aCouncil of Trent, we may say, every five years, perhaps even everytwo years, in our new and changeful country, and we learn that,follow as we may either the grand old etiquette of England or themore gay and shifting social code of France, we still must make anoriginal etiquette of our own. Our political system alone, wherethe lowest may rise to the highest preferment, upsets in a measureall that the Old World insists upon in matters of precedence andformality. Certain immutable principles remain common to allelegant people who assume to gather society about them, and whowish to enter its portals; the absent-minded scholar from hislibrary should not ignore them, the fresh young farmer from thecountryside feels and recognizes the