Etiquette - Emily Post (english novels for students TXT) 📗

All information necessary can be had at any of the automobile clubs, and in going from one country to another, you have merely to show your passports at the border properly viséd and pay a deposit to insure your not selling the car out of the country, which is refunded when you come back.

Garage charges are reasonable, but gasoline is high. Roads are beautiful, and traveling—once you have your car—is much cheaper than by train.

Once off the beaten track, a tourist who has not a working knowledge of the language of the country he is driving through, is at a disadvantage, but plenty of people constantly do it, so it is at least not insurmountable. With English you can go to most places—with English and French nearly everywhere. The Michelin guide shows you in a little drawing, exactly the type of hotels you will find in each approaching town and the price of accommodation, so that you can choose your own stopping places accordingly.

"And etiquette?" you ask. There is no etiquette of motoring that differs from all other etiquette. Except of course not to be a road hog—or a road pig! People who take up the entire road are not half the offenders that others are who picnic along the side of it and leave their old papers and food all over everywhere. For that matter, any one who shoves himself forward in any situation in life, he who pushes past, bumping into you, walking over you, in order to get a first seat on a train, or to be the first off a boat, any one who pushes himself out of his turn, or takes more than his share, anywhere or of anything—is precisely that sort of an animal.

On A Continental Train

Europeans usually prefer to ride backwards, and as an American prefers to face the engine, it works out beautifully. It is not etiquette to talk with fellow passengers, in fact it is very middle-class. If you are in a smoking carriage (all European carriages are smoking unless marked "Ladies alone" or "No smoking") and ladies are present, it is polite to ask if you may smoke. Language is not necessary, as you need merely to look at your cigar and bow with an interrogatory expression, whereupon your fellow passengers bow assent and you smoke.

The Perfect Traveler.

One might say the perfect traveler is one whose digestion is perfect, whose disposition is cheerful, who can be enthusiastic under the most discouraging circumstances, to whom discomfort is of no moment, and who possesses at least a sense of the ridiculous, if not a real sense of humor! The perfect traveler furthermore, is one who possesses the virtue of punctuality; one who has not forgotten something at the last minute, and whose bags are all packed and down at the hour for the start. Those who fuss and flurry about being ready, or those whose disposition is easily upset or who are inclined to be gloomy, should not travel—unless they go alone. Nothing can spoil a journey more than some one who is easily put out of temper and who always wants to do something the others do not. Whether traveling with your family or with comparative strangers, you must realize that your personal likes and dislikes have at least on occasion to be subordinated to the likes and dislikes of others; nor can you always be comfortable, or have good weather, or make perfect connections, or find everything to your personal satisfaction; and you only add to your own discomfort and chagrin, as well as to the discomfort of every one else, by refusing to be philosophical. Those who are bad sailors should not go on yachting parties; they are always abjectly wretched, and are of no use to themselves or any one else. Those who hate walking should not start out on a tramp that is much too far for them and expect others to turn back when they get tired. They need not "start" to begin with, but having once started, they must see it through.

There is no greater test of a man's (or a woman's) "wearing" qualities than traveling with him. He who is always keen and ready for anything, delighted with every amusing incident, willing to overlook shortcomings, and apparently oblivious of discomfort, is, needless to say, the one first included on the next trip.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

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GROWTH OF GOOD TASTE IN AMERICA

Good taste or bad is revealed in everything we are, do, or have. Our speech, manners, dress, and household goods—and even our friends—are evidences of the propriety of our taste, and all these have been the subject of this book. Rules of etiquette are nothing more than sign-posts by which we are guided to the goal of good taste.

Whether we Americans are drifting toward or from finer perceptions, both mental and spiritual, is too profound a subject to be taken up except on a broader scope than that of the present volume. Yet it is a commonplace remark that older people invariably feel that the younger generation is speeding swiftly on the road to perdition. But whether the present younger generation is really any nearer to that frightful end than any previous one, is a question that we, of the present older generation, are scarcely qualified to answer. To be sure, manners seem to have grown lax, and many of the amenities apparently have vanished. But do these things merely seem so to us because young men of fashion do not pay party calls nowadays and the young woman of fashion is informal? It is difficult to maintain that youth to-day is so very different from what it has been in other periods of the country's history, especially as "the capriciousness of beauty," the "heartlessness" and "carelessness" of youth, are charges of a too suspiciously bromidic flavor to carry conviction.

The present generation is at least ahead of some of its "very proper" predecessors in that weddings do not have to be set for noon because a bridegroom's sobriety is not to be counted on later in the day! That young people of to-day prefer games to conversation scarcely proves degeneration. That they wear very few clothes is not a symptom of decline. There have always been recurring cycles of undress, followed by muffling from shoe-soles to chin. We have not yet reached the undress of Pauline Bonaparte, so the muffling period may not be due!

However, leaving out the mooted question whether etiquette may not soon be a subject for an obituary rather than a guide-book, one thing is certain: we have advanced prodigiously in esthetic taste.

Never in the recollection of any one now living has it been so easy to surround oneself with lovely belongings. Each year's achievement seems to stride away from that of the year before in producing woodwork, ironwork, glass, stone, print, paint and textile that is lovelier and lovelier. One can not go into the shops or pass their windows on the streets without being impressed with the ever-growing taste of their display. Nor can one look into the magazines devoted to gardens and houses and house-furnishings and fail to appreciate the increasing wealth of the beautiful in environment.

That such exquisite "best" as America possessed in her Colonial houses and gardens and furnishings should ever have been discarded for the atrocities of the period after the Civil War, is comparable to nothing but Titania's Midsummer Night's Dream madness that made her believe an ass's features more beautiful than those of Apollo!

Happily, however, since we never do things by halves, we are studying and cultivating and buying and making, and trying to forget and overcome that terrible marriage of our beautiful Colonial ancestress with the dark-wooded, plush-draped, jig-sawed upstart of vulgarity and ignorance. In another country her type would be lost in his, forever! But in a country that sent a million soldiers across three thousand miles of ocean, in spite of every obstacle and in the twinkling of an eye, why even comment that good taste is pouring over our land as fast as periodicals, books and manufacturers can take it. Three thousand miles east and west, two thousand miles north and south, white tiled bathrooms have sprung like mushrooms seemingly in a single night, charming houses, enchanting gardens, beautiful cities, cultivated people, created in thousands upon thousands of instances in the short span of one generation. Certain great houses abroad have consummate quality, it is true, but for every one of these, there are a thousand that are mediocre, even offensive. In our own country, beautiful houses and appointments flourish like field flowers in summer; not merely in the occasional gardens of the very rich, but everywhere.

And all this means? Merely one more incident added to the many great facts that prove us a wonderful nation. (But this is an aside merely, and not to be talked about to anyone except just ourselves!) At the same time it is no idle boast that the world is at present looking toward America; and whatever we become is bound to lower or raise the standards of life. The other countries are old, we are youth personified! We have all youth's glorious beauty and strength and vitality and courage. If we can keep these attributes and add finish and understanding and perfect taste in living and thinking, we need not dwell on the Golden Age that is past, but believe in the Golden Age that is sure to be.

INDEX

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Acceptance of an invitation, 122-123; to a formal dinner, 187, 188; to an informal dinner, 125; to a wedding, 111. Acknowledgment of Christmas presents, 407-408; of wedding presents, 320; of messages of condolence, 406-408. Address, forms of. See: Forms of address. Address, notification of, 180; by bride and groom, 108-109. Address on envelopes, 460, 486, 488; on letters, 450, 455, 460, 461; on visiting cards, 74-76. Afternoon parties, chapter on, 165-176. Afternoon teas. See: Teas. Ambassador, close of letter to, 456; function of in presentation at court, 609; how to address, 488; how to announce as a guest, 214; how to introduce, 4, 489. Americans abroad, 604-616. Announcement of a death, 390; of an engagement, 89, 304-306, 309; of a second marriage, 108; of a wedding,106-10 7. Announcing dinner, 217. Announcing guests, at afternoon tea, 167; at dinner, 214-215. Answering the door, 145. See also: "Not at home." Anthem, national, 23. Apology, form of, 23-24; letters of, 462-463; at the theater, 41. Archbishop, close of letter to, 489; how to address, 488; how to introduce, 489. Argumentativeness, 50. Arm, etiquette of offering and taking, 30. Artichokes, how to eat, 583. Asking for a dance, 267, 270. Asparagus, how to eat, 582. Assemblies, 272-275. Assemblyman, 486, 487. At home with dancing, invitations to an, 112-116. Au revoir, avoidance of use of, 19. Automobiles. See: Motoring; Vehicles. Baby, clothes for, at a christening, 385; letters of thanks for gifts to, 468; training in table manners, 571. Bachelor's apartment, tea in, 292; dinner, 230, 336-337, 375; party, 71, 296-298; theater party, 38. Bachelor girl,