Etiquette and Society

Samuel Littleton, a famous Queen’s Counsel in his day. had a family whose manners might cause many a house of noble rank to blush —A Queen's Counsel (postnominal QC), or King's Counsel (postnominal KC) during the reign of a King, is an eminent lawyer (usually a barrister) who's appointed by the Queen to be one of "Her Majesty's Counsel learned in the law." The term is also recognised as an honorific.

What Constitutes Society?

A famous essayist once wrote: "l have but seldom sat at the tables of the great. but on such occasions I did not fail to notice that exalted rank does not always confer a superiority of manners; however, I must confess that while respect must always be paid to nobility, the arts of polite conversation, gentle manners, discretion of speech, kindness, sobriety, wit and learning seem to me most successfully cultivated by those who possess no title to respect other than may be conceded to integrity, Industry and success in life.

“Samuel Littleton, a famous Queen’s Counsel in his day. had a family whose manners might cause many a house of noble rank to blush. He himself was a scholar and a wit, yet a wit who sought not to wound. His son, though apt to blush in conversation, had in him the making of a very pretty wit. His daughter, lovely in person, could also display the graces of the mind. They understood music enough to play movingly upon the spinuet. They were also well read and could aptly quote from Shakespeare. Milton and Dryden. They conversed intelligently on all subjects generally allowed to be Introduced before ladies, without boldness, but with a modesty which always best becomes a young geutiewoman. Of the wife and mother no praise would be too extravagant, but it will be sufficient to say that her daughter*, in attempting the task, despaired of emulating her. 

When contrasting a dinner given by my Lord Fullacre, the noisy talk that prevailed, the low topics introduced, the profusion of wine and other evils and extravagances, with a dinner at the house of Sam Littleton, the sobriety of his table, yet the plenty, the moderation of the drinking, the pretty conversation and lively sallies of the girls, the graciousness of the matron, the innocent mirth and laughter of the company, then you find what is true society—that is, society ordered according to the politeness of the age—must be sought for where the men are scholars of delicacy and breeding, and where the women have been educated to make them fit mates for the men." — San Francisco Call, 1892

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

Gilded Age Etiquette Critic of America

Mrs. Desmond Humphreys, aka “Rita,” the self-appointed British judge and jury of American etiquette and excess in the Gilded Age –

“I was told I ought to go to Maine, or Illinois, or Chicago, or California before I criticised American life or manners, but I concluded that New York and Washington and Boston were very good specimens of the American States, and quite important enough for my attention!” 

A BRIEF two months' experience of American cities, life, manners, habits, and hospitality, is scarce equipment for criticism. One forms opinions which after-results modify. One salutes the Goddess Liberty with respect, and finds oneself laughing in one's sleeve a week later at the free translation of the word "Freedom." One is called upon to admire in one city what is scoffed at in another. But above all one speedily learns that the term "American" is too comprehensive for general use.


New York is not American ; assuredly Washington is not American ; and only a benighted foreigner would ever so misname Boston. Between all these cities there exists a frantic rivalry and a curiously ingenious diversity of claims. Yet if each looked into the heart of the other they could not but recognise brotherhood and amity. They would lose sight of foibles, and grow tolerant of mistakes. The factors of national strength are often the products of national weakness, and the true history of America is at once the most romantic and the most extraordinary yet — unwritten.


Here are cities so splendid and so rich that one would expect perfection of civilisation. Yet one finds palaces set beside tenements, and avenues that run into filthy slums. Slavery has been abolished by civil war ; but there is not a factory, or a foundry, or a dockyard, or an emporium that does not own thousands of white slaves, earning hardly a living wage, worked for long toilful hours, herded together like cattle, tricked by politicians, hounded down by legislature, and yet content to wave a bit of coloured rag on Independence Day and call themselves patriots!


The wealth of America is amazing. The poverty and vice and degradation of America are heart-rending. If the country were not so rich, if dollars were not a blatant fact for ever poured into your ear, for ever appraising every public or private building you admire, every statue, bridge, park, or street you notice, the bewildered tourist might excuse poverty and misrule ; might even class them as incidents too universal for drastic criticism. But the loudly uttered boasts, the useless and absurd extravagance and costly idiocies of society, these are things that draw down harsher censure on a new country than on one long founded on traditions, and in a measure bound to up-hold them.


In Europe we have feudalism, state, royalty, and aristocracy. America claims none of these. Its sole aristocracy is that of Wealth, and it is not one to be proud of, judged by its proclaimed methods. If one surveys the great Republic's life through the noble prescience of a Lincoln, or Washington, it is but to quote Hamlet and murmur : " What a falling-off is there!


The Republic of their dreams, political, ecclesiastical, and social, is now transformed into a huge iconoclastic machine ; a thing of tyranny and cruelty and unsparing greed. The word " millionaire " is no longer expressive enough to acclaim riches. Even a unit with eighteen ciphers scarcely advertises multi-millionairism to the satisfaction of the New York or Chicago standard. 


New York itself seems to abhor economy in any shape or form. It only believes in glitter, show, and ostentation. The wildest extravagance, and a perpetual advertisement of startling absurdities, mark the deeds of its social world.


If a stranger comes to New York unheralded by the ubiquitous reporter, inclined for comfort, not display, with a desire to study life from an outsider's and not an American's point of view, that stranger is unwelcome. Only the credentials of rank open the door of democracy ; and the cranks and tricks of the wildest madman would be received with acclamation if they meant novelty for a blase society. There is sort of social insanity in the United States that sets the rest of the world agape. But also it brings down the ridicule and condemnation of calm and sensible minds. 


Yet the individual American is so thin-skinned that the very fact of unfavourable criticism makes him your lifelong enemy. Give him praise, flattery, admiration, wonder, and he will perhaps lend you a — greenback. Tell him straight that his nation is vulgar, ostentatious, and blind to its own best interests, and he will advise you to "git."


Possibly this is a somewhat sweeping assertion from the point of view of a mere writer ; but the three great cities I have seen, and about which I have written the following articles, are sufficiently representative as subjects for such an assertion.


I was told I ought to go to Maine, or Illinois, or Chicago, or California before I criticised American life or manners, but I concluded that New York and Washington and Boston were very good specimens of the American States, and quite important enough for my attention !


So of these three cities I have written, calling down much wrath, and much criticism, and many vituperative letters from unknown American correspondents by so doing.


I am sorely tempted to publish some of these letters, but for sake of many kindnesses received, and many pleasant friendships made, I refrain from retaliation. Yet I would like to say that no English writer, however severe or however critical, has ever written harsher truths of the Americans than the Americans have written of themselves.  – “Rita” 1910

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

Etiquette and the Porcupine

"Freeze or get stabbed, mate. It's your choice." Meeting someone half-way helps make society cohere.

"Politeness is a signal of readiness to meet someone half-way; the question of whether politeness makes society cohere, or keeps other people safely at arms length, is actually a false opposition. Politeness does both, and that is why it's so frightening to contemplate losing it. Suddenly, the world seems both alien and threatening and all because someone's mother never taught him to say, 'Excuse me' or 'Please.' 

There is an old German fable about porcupines who need to huddle together for warmth, but are in danger of hurting each other with their spines. When they find the optimum distance to share each other's warmth without putting each other's eyes out, their state of contrived cooperation is called good manners. Well, those old German fabulists certainly knew a thing or two. 

When you acknowledge other people politely, the signal goes out, 'I'm here. You're there. I'm staying here. You're staying there. Aren't we both glad we sorted that out?' When people don't acknowledge each other politely, the lesson from the porcupine fable is unmistakeable. 'Freeze or get stabbed, mate. It's your choice.'" –From Lynne Truss', 2005's Talk to the Hand

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

19th C. Thoughts on Etiquette, Society and Civilization

Where the meaning of its rules may be somewhat obscure at first sight, there is an underlying reason for the regulation laid down.

"Etiquette is, in point of fact, nothing more nor less than the law, written and unwritten, which regulates the society of civilized people, distinguishing them from the communities of barbarous tribes, whose lives are hard and their manners still harder.

It is to a well disciplined and refined mind the fundamental principle of action in all intercourse with society, and they are interested in maintaining it in its integrity, and bound to heed and obey its simplest as well as more formal precepts.

The real law-giver is the general convenience, speaking with authority and the experience of many years; and it will be found that even in those cases, where the meaning of its rules may be somewhat obscure at first sight, there is an underlying reason for the regulation laid down." –by Sarah Annie Frost, 1869

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

Etiquette in Conversation

Hospitality and good conversation at a California beach picnic, early 1900s

One Should Show a Gentle Hospitality to the Thoughts of Another

A distinguished conversationist of the past was wont to say that the secret of being agreeable in conversation was to be hospitable to the ideas of others. He affirmed that some people only half listened to you, because they were considering, even while you spoke, with what wealth of wit, with what words they should reply, and they began to speak almost before your sentence had died from your lips.

Those people, he said, might be brilliant, witty, dazzling, but they could never be agreeable. You do not love to talk to them. You feel that they are impatient for their turn to come, and that they have no hospitality toward your thoughts —none of that gentle friendliness that asks your idea in and makes much of it. –Los Angeles Herald, 1891

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

Etiquette and Victorian Snobs

The London Spectator Explains Bad Manners:

Snobbishness the Cause of Society's Rudeness— The Steady Improvement 

                                                 

“Did you hear? The smart people gave up being formally polite and making bows and ‘graceful inclinations of assent’ when the middle class grew polite and shopboys and shopgirls adopted the etiquette of the old regime?”

No doubt manners just now appear to be growing uglier and ruder. It is, however, merely a conventional, and not a real roughness and rudeness. And the reason for it is plain. The manners of the upper classes in England are putting on a veneer of roughness, and adopting the use of "rustication," to employ the architectural phrase, for the same reason that society is always changing or tending to change its place of meeting in the park. That reason is the desire to get away, to keep separate from the herd.

The smart people gave up being formally polite and making bows and "graceful inclinations of assent" when the middle class grew polite and shop-boys and shop-girls adopted the etiquette of the old regime. When the manners of those below them in the social scale became thoroughly polite, the only way of escape was the adoption of a self conscious roughness. It became the right thing to say, "May I have a dance" in Mayfair, because at middle class balls a beautiful bow and a formal demand have become the fashion.

Haven't you heard? It's for the same reason that we're always changing, or tending to change, our place of meeting in the park? We need to get away, to "keep separate from the herd." 

Society is only apparently unmannerly because it is trying to dodge its humbler followers and arrange a set of conventions which will not be pirated. As soon, however, as its retreat is discovered, it will have to find a new device. Then, in all probability, we shall see a reaction in favor of formality and our young men and maidens will bow and simper and pass formal compliments after the manner of the eighteenth century. But, after all, these things are only externals, and really matter very little. The main fact is that our manners in essentials are growing less, not more, rough.

If we take the wider view of the social situation, we shall see that men are less, not more, disagreeable than they used to be. Let any one who doubts this compare the way men treat each other when alone to the way in which they acted 40 years ago. Tho old ideas of what was fair in the way of "roosting" a fool or a boor or a nervous man have completely changed, and few now can be found to defend the old fashioned style of practical joke. Theodore Hook was not counted a specially rude or discourteous man by his contemporaries. If he tried to practice his form of wit now he would not be tolerated for an hour in the society of well bred people, and no doubt if even in the stables, his ways would be counted possible. Instead of our manners decaying they are steadily improving.—The London Spectator, 1896 

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

Etiquette and the Ceremonial Observances of Society

Polite conduct is not necessarily more exclusive than correct speaking.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that the ceremonial observances of society are merely a set of edicts arbitrarily established by the capricious tyrant, Fashion, for the government only of her slavish subjects. Polite conduct is not necessarily more exclusive than correct speaking. The laws of the one are indeed, like those of the other, founded upon the usage of the refined few, but there is no better reason why these should enjoy a monopoly of good manners than of good grammar. 

There are many, however, who seem to think that social ceremonies are so many frivolous afiectations by which the wealthy or fashionable strive to raise themselves to a factious elevation above others, and consequently refuse all observance of them with scorn. It is an unfortunate thing for general culture when the many acquire such a prejudice against the few that in their aversion to their pretentious superiority they reject their real excellence. 

The small class of the rich and refined have time to cultivate the elegancies of life; and although, in the excess of their leisure, they superadded a variety of frivolous ceremonies, their example in what is practically useful should be followed. Wesley used to say, when advocating the adaptation of the music of the opera and theatre to the sacred songs of the Church, that he did not know why the devil should have all the best tunes. We may ask, with equal reason, why Fashion should have all the good manners, and elevation above others, and consequently refuse all observance of them with scorn. 

It would be easy to show that many ceremonious observances which appear at first sight frivolous are founded upon a solid basis of common sense. Consider, for example, that rule of the dinner-table, "Do not ask twice for soup," This appears at first sight both silly and arbitrary. It is, however, a very sensible ordinance, and is to be justified by the laws of health, and the general comfort and convenience. The soup, being a fluid substance, can easily be absorbed in small quantities, and, thus taken, is a good reason for ceremony, and preparative for the solidities of the dinner. 

If, however, the stomach is deluged with it, the appetite and digestion become weakened, and there is neither the inclination to eat nor the power to digest the more substantial food essential to the due nutrition of the body. As for the convenience or comfort of the single-plate rule, no one can deny it who has ever looked upon an array of hungry guests whose eager appetite for the coming roast has been forced to an impatient delay by some social monster capable of asking twice for soup. The cook in the meantime is, of course, thrown out in his calculations, and the dish, when it does come at last, is either spoiled by overcooking, or cold from being withdrawn so long from the fire. The guests thus are not only tried in temper by a protracted expectation, but balked of their anticipated enjoyment.

The advantage of not putting the knife in the mouth will be obvious, we suppose, to all who are conscious that the one can cut and the other is capable of being cut. There is an excellent chemical reason for that other table rule which forbids the use of a knife of steel with the fish, the ordinary sauces of which combine with the metal, and produce a composition neither wholesome nor appetizing.

A sampling from Bazaar's "Book of Decorum"