Poise and Politeness at Home

A man of poise, Harry Gordon Selfridge, played winningly by Jeremy Piven in the series “Mr. Selfridge”  – H.G. Selfridge changed the way Americans, and then the British, shopped. Charismatic, innovative and flawed, the department store he built in 1909 on Oxford Street in London, still stands proudly today as his prominent and popular legacy.

Do You Show Your Own Family the Deference You Pay to the Merest Stranger? Politeness Is Rooted in Kindness, You Know! - Says Fern Howard

Most people are able to cope with circumstances under ordinary conditions, but few of us are capable of saving poise in the case of an emergency.

Several years ago, Mr. H. G. Selfridge was showing the late Elbert Hubbard thru the various departments of Marshall Field & Company. They were passing thru the cut glass department, when there was a terrific crash. Turning about, they observed that a clerk had fallen from a step ladder and, in falling, had destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of cut glass. 

Mr. Selfridge made but one remark: “Are you hurt, young man?” On receiving word that the man was uninjured. Mr. Selfridge joined his guest and passed on as though nothing had happened. It was an admirable example of what poise will do for a man.

Recently, while seated in a certain church where I had gone to listen to a minister whose only son had been killed while fighting in France, a women who was a spiritualist entered and took the seat directly in front of me. 

After the services were over she remarked to the pastor. “I wanted to take the front seat but your son was sitting there.” With the most perfect poise in the world, the minister replied, “My son is a gentleman and would be glad to give his seat to a lady.” The minister was not a spiritualist and I'd not believe that the astral body of his son was seated there, hut as he had perfect poise, he was able to make a sane and balanced reply,

But perhaps the most perfect example of poise I have ever heard of. was that of a young mother whose six-year-old child upset a glass of milk on a fresh table cloth. There were no guests at her table - stranger to hear, and marvel at, her poise-but that splendid young mother merely said, softly, to the child: “Table cloths will wash. Never mind, dear.”

This mother showed to her child the same politeness she would have shown to a guest. How many mothers, in a case of this sort, would have spoken as she did? Very few. She was a mother in a hundred.

All social forms and laws of etiquette are based in kindness, so when we observe the rules of politeness in our family circle, we are in reality, only showing them the same kindness we show strangers. Our poise is often a means of saving others from embarrassment. Why should we not exert poise in our own homes and show our dear ones the consideration we pay to the merest stranger?

“You get on my nerves!” I once heard a mother exclaim - a mother of a type very different from the one Just mentioned and, as I passed on, I thought to myself: “That child hears rasping ejaculations of that sort all her childhood; consequently, when she grows up and marries, she will talk in that fashion to her own children; and when her children’s children marry, they will perpetuate the custom - the lack of poise in dealing with young children.”

So, the time to stop this endless chain of rudeness to our loved ones is now. And the place to stop it is in our own homes. Let us start to day! – By Fern Howard, for Long Beach Telegram, 1916

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Poise and Avoiding Slips in Etiquette

Giggling at compliments? So embarrassing! Be clever and exhibit poise.

Be Clever and Avoid Such Etiquette Slips

So embarrassing! You looked so sophisticated and charming to the vacation crowd. Then you got a compliment and fell all over yourself.

But compliments, like everything else in social life, are just a matter of etiquette.

If you receive them with a titter and an, “Aw, you don't mean that.” you betray a sad lack of manners.

But if you smile graciously, say, “You’re nice to say so.” you show poise and breeding. And how it helps to have a reputation for perfect manners! 

Invitations a-plenty for the girl who knows enough not to rise when she’s introduced to men: who says good-bye to the sponsors at a dance; who to an apology, says a quiet, “It doesn’t matter.” And so few invitations come to girls who don’t.

Know what's expected of you- at dances, dinners, motoring – all occasions. – The Santa Ana Journal, Home Service, 1937

  🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette and “Being Agreeable”

Miss Una Ware looks agreeable, but Mrs. Gorham Ware does not look agreeable when meeting Mr. Bessemer Steele

Why should we know the laws of etiquette? Why should we know the way to do and say things? Why should we be agreeable? These are questions that will undoubtedly arise in the mind of the young man or woman who is eager to cultivate and refine his or her manner and speech. The answer is: to make one's own life happier – to bring into it a new sunshine, a new joy of living that was not even dreamed of when the mind and spirit were shrouded in the gloom of discourtesy, coarseness and vulgarity.

For how can the boor be happy? With his gloomy face, sour disposition,complaining habits and inherent lack of good taste and culture, he sees only theshadows of life. People are repulsed by him, never attracted. Brilliant men and women, people of refinement and taste, will have nothing to do with him. He lives his own life – his ill-bred, complaining, gloomy, companionless life – an outcast from that better society of which we all long to be a part.

Culture and cheer go hand-in-hand. The cultured man or woman is alwayscheerful, always finding something good and beautiful in all mankind and nature. Cheerfulness itself means poise -a wholesome, happy, undaunted poise that makes life well-balanced and worth the living. The person of low, vulgar tastes and desires is seldom contented, seldom happy. He finds everywhere evil, ugliness, selfishness, and a tendency for the world generally to degrade itself to the lower levels of coarseness. He finds it because he looks for it. And he looks for it because it already exists in his mind.

And yet, he may be educated; he may be a recognized power in the financial world; he may even possess enviable talents. But if he lacks that glorious open-hearted generosity, that sincere sympathy and simple understanding with all mankind, that helpful, healthful, ever-inspiring agreeableness of mind and spirit – the world will have none of him.

The man who feels constantly grieved and injured at some injustice, real or imaginary, is sacrificing some of the best things life has to offer. He does not know what it means to be greeted with a smile of pleasure and a warm handclasp. He does not know what it means to be taken whole-heartedly into one's confidence, to be relied upon, to be appealed to. He does not know what it means, in his hours of darkest adversity, to receive the genuine sympathy and encouragement of a friend.

But with culture, with development of mind and spirit, with the desire to adhere truly to society’s laws and regard as inviolable the rights of others, there comes a new understanding of human relationship. Where once everything seemed narrow and selfish, one now sees love and beauty and helpfulness. Instead of harsh words and unkind glances, there are words of cheer and encouragement, smiles of friendliness and understanding. The world that once seemed coarse, shallow and unpolished, seems now strangely cordial and polite. – Lillian Eichler, 1921

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia