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 

Etiquette and Social Life

Be Clever and Avoid Such Etiquette Slips… you got a compliment and fell all over yourself. But compliments like everything else in social life, are just a matter of etiquette.

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 “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. — Santa Ana Journal Home Service, 1937

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

Etiquette, Poise and Queenliness

“The girl who attracts pleasant attention is the one who holds her head tilted upward, as though she were unafraid of the world and who looks at you fearlessly, but without boldness.” 

There seems to be a fad for walking and standing with the chin down. This is wrong, both from an artistic point and from a health one. The girl who attracts pleasant attention is the one who holds her head tilted upward, as though she were unafraid of the world and who looks at you fearlessly, but without boldness.

A fashionable girl of prominence here, never forgot that the well poised head meant queenliness, and probably her name will go down in history as one whose pose expressed this rare attribute. Even now, when other young women are affecting the artistic drooping pose, she continues to hold her imperious, litte head high in the air. - San Francisco Call, 1911

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

Proper Carriage and Posture

One of the first lessons the young girl learns in fashionable deportment is how to stand correctly. If 10 or 20 girls are asked to take a standing position in a drawing room with nothing to occupy their hands, there may be two or three out of the number who will fall into graceful and attractive positions.

The Charm of Gentle Manners

Deportment is a gentler course in the training of young girl than physical culture. Physical training, however, forms a large part of the foundation upon which good manners are built. The girl who carries herself gracefully on all occasions is like an accomplished actress— has mastered the art which conceals art. Her rhythmic movements, her attractive poses have been so carefully studied that they seem to be perfectly natural. 

One of the first lessons the young girl learns in fashionable deportment is how to stand correctly. If 10 or 20 girls are asked to take a standing position in a drawing room with nothing to occupy their hands, there may be two or three out of the number who will fall into graceful and attractive positions. The others will lean on one foot, drop the arms awkwardly at the side, hold the head at an unbecoming jangle or illustrate any one of the countless other “don'ts” which the young girl must learn to avoid before she is ready to make a good favorable impression in the drawing-room and ballroom.  

Even a wallflower may be decorative if she knows how to stand and sit without expressing in her pose the anxiety of her mind. She can not be an ornament if she is the least bit awkward. The correct standing position, whether one is chatting with a friend in the street in class or in the ballroom, is to balance easily on the balls of the feet, with the body poised in such a way that a quick movement backward or forward can be made without, causing discomfiture to one's self or one’s neighbor. While resting in this position one should always be on the alert for change of position. Do not stand with one knee slightly bent, as so many girls stand unconsciously. They think that standing first on one foot and then on the other, rests them, but it makes them grow tired quicker than if they stood twice as long, balanced evenly on both feet.

Standing on one foot gives the figure a one sided appearance. It makes one hip look larger than the other, one shoulder seems to droop below its mate, and altogether the position throws the body into unsymmetrlcal lines and curves. Keep the knees stiff. This will prevent the one sided effect. One instructor told her girls: “Stand on your bones,” meaning that they should stand with the knee joints rigid and the whole weight of the body evenly distributed on the two feet. As soon as you shift the weight from one foot to the other, you begin to tire yourself and look awkward. Almost any girl will be able to stand in this correct position for a long time without feeling fatigued in the least. And for classwork, this point is well worth remembering, if it has not already been brought to your attention. The girl who is restless when she stands is a burden to herself and a worry to her companions.

Sitting is more of an art than the average girl imagines. The untrained girl drops into a chair and gets out of it any way, but the trained girl becomes a part of the chair when she is seated. First, she learns how to walk up to it, facing the chair, how to swing her body as on a pivot while changing her position, and after her feet are properly placed so that she can sit down gracefully, she gently lowers herself into the chair. When preparing to rise the feet should be placed firmly on the floor, one in front of the other, and the body brought upward by balancing it on the balls of the feet again. 

It more difficult to lift the body to a standing position when the feet are placed side by side, than when one foot is advanced slightly. This position prepares one for the first step in walking to another part of the room or when taking one’s departure. The awkward girl shifts her weight first from one foot to the other and usually has difficulty in getting under way when she could avoid it all by placing her feet in the correct position when she prepares to rise from the chair. After a few lessons, the position becomes quite simple.  – 1911

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