MARGINAL COMMENT
By' HAROLD NICOLSON
AM always fascinated by the rise and fall of social conventions. I New tides of etiquette succeed each other every fifty years, and what to one generation will appear as a spontaneous communal habit will to the succeeding generation seem artificial and grotesque. T
have heard it said that a rigid pattern of social behaviour is a sign of decadence, and that the symbol of a truly alert society (such as that of Athens in the fifth century) is complete liberty of human conduct and intercourse. Such a generalisation is surely questionable.
On the one hand' it is in primitive communities, and not in highly civilised communities, that one finds the most elaborate rules of
etiquette. The Kikuyu and the Masai of East Africa could scarcely be described as fin de siècle, and yet their lives are governed and restricted by as many as sixty-eight taboos. A person who violates one of their tribal conventions becomes thahu, rapidly loses weight, and often dies from a sense of guilt. Even animals who commit a flagrant breach of etiquette are tribally condemned ; thus a cow who while grazing entangles her tail in a tree or bush has committed an offence against tribal custom and is slaughtered on the spot. On the other hand, are we so very sure that the ancient Greeks were in 'fact indifferent to social conventions ? It is true that the Symposium today appears to us an easy-going affair. But they also had their taboos and their thahus, they also believed in ceremonial uncleanli- ness and purification, and they also, before deploying their troops in battle, would examine the entrails of goats. Even in the age of Pericles schoolboys were severely disciplined. They were told that little boys should be seen and not heard ; they were conducted to and from school by their paedagogues, who must often have been as harsh as drill-sergeants ; they were not allowed to cross their legs, and if they wore an overcoat in winter they were told that they were showing themselves unworthy descendants of the men of Marathon. It is far more agreeable to be a boy in A.D. 1948 than it was to be a boy in 448 B.c.
* * * * I incline rather to the view that the imposition and general accept- ance of a rigid code of social behaviour are symptoms, not of a decadent society, but of a society which possesses uncritical con- fidence in its own formula. Tribal communities, such as the Kikuyu or the Masai, accept their own mumbo-jumbo as something as im- mutable as a law of nature. In stratified societies also, social con- ventions retain their rigidity so long as the governing classes retain their confidence in their own supremacy. Their code of manners represents for them the shibboleth which distinguishes those who belong to the governing class from those who are outside it. The very word " etiquette" signified in old French the billeting order which enabled a soldier to secure a bed ; it was thus a ticket of entry ; and even in our modem and uncertain world these shibboleths persist. So soon, however, as a governing class loses faith in its own formula, so soon do its members cease to respect the social conven- tions of their predecessors. It is no longer necessary to display one's ticket on entering ; the thing has become an open house ; and since it is a bore carrying one's ticket around with one, even as it is a bore observing the more rigid rules of etiquette, a greater liberty of con- duct results. In periods when a privileged class really exists, people are prepared to pay in terms of personal inconvenience a certain social subscription in order to share that privilege. But when the privilege goes, the subscriptions drop. No longer do we wear top hats in Piccadilly or leave cards after a ball. Thus freedom from social convention is not a sign of an alert society so much as a sign of a society in which the old ruling class has lost its privileges and the new ruling class has not as yet discovered its own formula.
* * . * * It is astonishing, on looking back over the last half-century, to realise how completely the social conventions of our childhood have lost their validity. The other day I wanted to check some figures regarding the rise in the cost of living since Victorian days, and I consulted Mrs. Beeton's work on Household Management, which was first published in 1861. The table of wages in itself provided a startling comparison. A cook in those days expected to receive an annual wage of £12 to £36, a gardener £m to £40, a housemaid £6i- to LH), whereas a stableboy got only £6 a year. I was tempted to read further and to consult those subsequent pages in which Mrs. Beeton describes the then prevailing etiquette. It was before the days of cocktails or sherry, and Mrs. Beeton recognised that the pause before dinner was announced was apt to be trying for a nervous hostess. " The mistress," she writes, " must display no kind of agitation, but show her tact in suggesting light and cheerful subjects of conversation, which will be much aided by the introduction of any particularly new book, curiosity of art, or article of vertu (sic), which may pleasantly engage the attention of the company." In those days, moreover, some ritual was observed in the drinking of wine. It was regarded as bad form to sip one's wine before the soup and fish had been removed. Finger glasses were provided at the end of the meal. Mrs. Beeton utters sharp warnings against the dis- gusting continental habit of a rince-bouche. " It is the custom," she writes, "of some gentlemen to wet a corner of the napkin ; but the hostess, whose behaviour will set the tone to all the ladies present, will merely wet the tips of her fingers, which will serve all the purposes required. The French habit of gargling the mouth is a custom which no English gentlewoman should in the slightest degree imitate."
* * * * A less remote handbook on Victorian etiquette is that written under the title From Kitchen to Garret by Mrs. J. E. Panton, which had run into ten editions by 1896. Mrs. Panton seems to have been a progressive woman and one who was not hide-bound by convention. She displays a rooted objection to the English public school and she advocates three years' military service for all young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. Her suggestions for a simple meal for a middle-class household appear to us today as excessive. There were to be Soup, Soles, Stuffed Pigeons, Roast Beet, Wild Duck, Mince Pies, French Pancakes, Cauliflower au gratin, and dessert. Her ideas on interior decoration fill one with horror ; every door was to be draped in a portiere; there were to be ferns and foot- stools, brass and pottery, cosy corners and Japanese screens. Under no circumstances were cigars to be tolerated ; occasionally, however, " a spoiled guest might be allowed to smoke a cigarette in the con- servatory." Unlike Mrs. Beeton, Mrs. Panton is aware that a slow sad change is coming over the face of England. She faces the situa- tion with robust realism. "The lower classes," she writes, "are rapidly climbing, thanks to education. They will rise whether we like it or not, and we had better, on the lowest grounds, assist them to share the place they will take and push us from." One should for these reasons be kind to one's servants. " Each servant," she writes, " should have a separate bed, if possible." A cupboard of some kind should be provided in their bedrooms. And a considerate mistress should take the trouble to tell her servants about the balls and parties and theatres which she has attended. " Servants," comments Mrs. Panton, " like to know what is going on, even if they cannot go to things themselves."
It is evident, when we compare these two volumes, that some change had occurred since Mrs. Beeton first published her famous handbook in 1861. Mrs. Beeton was convinced that the existing formula was both right and durable : Mrs. Penton was equally con- vinced that it was right, but not equally convinced that it would prove durable. The change which had occurred was a marked diminution in self-confidence. We are old enough in my generation to admit that these Victorian conventions had a certain meaning and a certain charm. But to our grandchildren they will appear as senseless as the taboos and the thahus of the Kikuyu and the Masai.
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