A Book of Etiquette
The Ladies' Pocket Book of Etiquette (1838). (Golden Cockerel Press. 15s.) To try to recapture the past is one of the most delightful and tantalizing of pastimes. Those who are fond of playing at it find that it is often the least important relics of a vanished century that are able to bring it back most vividly to the imagination. One can gaze, day after day, at the portrait of Great-great-aunt Blanche over the dining-room fireplace without being very convinced that the deceased lady did actually live and move and have her being. Then one dis- covers, in the recesses of an old cabinet, an ivory-bound note- book, scribbled with a shopping list in Aunt Blanche's delicate, faded handwriting, and she is turned from an ancestress into a personality 1
The volume before me is just such an insignificant yet illu- minating link with the past. The author's identity is hidden under the initials " A. F." That he was a man is probable by the bland patronage of the remark : " We have all profited by female writers." That he was a person with the loftiest of natures is certain. Only the hope of " being the instrument of sparing one blush to the cheek of modesty and innocence,", so hetells us in the preface, induced him to write the book...at all. The resalt of his labours was first published at a periOd when ladies had sloping shoulders, and wore poke bonnets and-. bell-shaped skirts, and indulged in archery and cheeks that- mantled with blushes at the least provocation. The rakish, era of the Georges was over ; Queen Victoria had ascended the Throne a year 'previously, and an -oppressive feeling of decorum was in the' air. " Propriety " was the watchword for the " gentler sex." The author never wearies of impressing on his readers the immense importance of propriety. To -this end he quotes from -Mrs. More : " A woman may be active; witty and amusing, but 'Without -propriety she cannot be - amiable." Later on he lays down the rather ambiguous dictum that " a lady should be divine rather than sensual."
That the young lady of 1928 will profit from these precepts, as the publishers mockingly suggest, is a somewhat forlorn hope. She will, however, find much to entertain her -within these small orange covers. Not that the social difficulties -of 1888 are all unknown in 1928. I wish, for instance, that " A.- F." had given us even fuller instructions about the correct method of leaving a partY—a procedure that always seems to me to be fraught with difficulties ! - Nor has time -rendered valueless .
his on the desirability of - maintaining a serene coun- tenance " when a gentleman has injured your dress in his anxiety to Offer refreslurient," while many modern debutantes , will sympathize with the question, " Why should a lady be compelled to dance with every fool to-whom she has -had- the misfortune to be introduced? " _
With these few exceptions, however, this glimpse into the manners and modes of ninety years ago will cause the Miss of 192$ " to gasp and stretch her eyes," and indulge in
delicions speculations as to what would be " A. F.'s 7.feelings
, .
if he could he, transported into modern society. What would he say, for instance, of our rate for MU' tation jewellery-Lhe who so- sternly warns his readers " never to exhibit a super- fluity of jewellery. Let what you do wear be of the very best
quality and of chaste design " ? .
As for our -modern dances, the remark, " Choose such steps as require grace rather than ability. Prefer the gliding to those more masculine steps which appear to require muscular exertion " leads one at first to imagine that he might , at any rate approve of the Yale Blues. Bid the chapter on waltzing shatters this timid hope. It seems incredible thatthere was a time When that staid dance (so frequently lamented by our
elders and betters) could be described as " indelicate," " obnoxious to our best feelings," and " anti-English." But so it was. Let " A. F." speak :—
" Ask the father if he would oommit the innocence of his child to the pollution of the waltz. Ask the lover, could he endure the sight of the adopted of his heart, half embraced and all but reclining in the arms of another ? All tacitly allow not only of the impro- priety but of the absolutely dissolute tendency of this dance, yet fathers, mothers, husbands and lovers permit it."
And so on, ending up with an appeal to .Queen Victoria " to banish this impurity from the Court." The shuddering mind refuses even to contemplate what Mr. " A. F." would have thought of the Charleston or Black Bottom. Thus one is inevitably led to wonder how we ourselves will appear to our descendants ninety years hence. Will our behaviour inspire them with the pious horror that " A. F." felt for the departed Georgians, or will our manners and morals seem as quaintly decorous to the young ladies of 2018 as those of 1838 appeal to us ? Mortifying and salutary thought MAGDALEN KING-BALI.
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