Part 3

We often forget that criticism does not mean fault-finding. It means rather the art of finding virtues; and after any private entertainment, at which each performer has done his best for his audience, it is very bad taste to point out all the defects in his work: you may do this at rehearsal, but not after the work is done; you may discourage him by touching on something that he cannot help. A friend of mine once played a part in _Box and Cox_, but on the day after the performance he was much cast down by the comments in one of the daily papers. “Mr. Smith,” the critic said, “was admirable, but he should not have made himself ridiculous by wearing such an abnormally _long false_ nose.” As the nose happened to be Mr. Smith’s _own_, he was discouraged. Criticism of music especially, unless it be intelligent, is likely to make the critic seem ignorant. For instance, there was on one occasion on a musical programme a _ballade_ by Chopin in A flat major. The young woman who played it on the piano was afterwards horrified to find herself described as having sung a _lively_ ballad called “A Fat Major”! The musical critic had better know what he is talking about or be silent. No, no, gentlemen, let us not be censorious about the efforts of those who do their best for us; and good-fellowship—what the French call _esprit de corps_—ought to show itself in our manners. Anybody can blame injudiciously, but few can praise judiciously. At college boys especially must remember that the college is part of ourselves, and that any reproach on our _alma mater_ is a reproach on _ourselves_. Its reputation is our reputation, and the critically censorious student will find that, in the end, it is the wiser course to dwell on the best side of his college life. The world hates a fault-finder: he will soon see himself left entirely alone with those acute perceptions that help him to find out all that is bad in his fellow-creatures and nothing that is good. To be a gentleman, one must be tolerant, and, above all, grateful.

In the world outside there are many kinds of entertainment. We disposed of the dinner-party in a preceding page. One’s conduct anywhere must be guided by good sense and the usages of the occasion. At a concert, for instance, the main object of each person present is to hear the music. Anything that interferes with this is a breach of good manners. To chatter during a song or while a piece of music is played shows selfish disregard for the comfort of others and a contemptible indifference to the feelings of the performer. Music may be a great aid to conversation, but conversation is no assistance to music; and people who go to a concert do not pay for their tickets to hear somebody in the next seat tell his private affairs in a loud voice. There are some human creatures who seem to imagine that they may reveal everything possible to their next neighbor in a crowded theatre without being heard by anybody else. There is an old anecdote, but a true one, of a very fashionable lady in Boston who attended an organ recital in the Music Hall there. She was supposed to be an amateur of classical music, but her reputation was shattered by an unlucky pause in the tones of the organ. The music ceased unexpectedly, and the only sound heard was that of her voice, soaring above the silence and saying to her friend, “We FRY ours in LARD.” Her reputation was ruined in musical circles. One goes to a concert or an opera to listen, not to talk. It is only the vulgar, the ostentatious, the ignorant, that distinguish themselves in public places by a disregard of the rights of others. To enter a concert-room late and to interrupt a singer, to enter any public hall while a speaker is making an address, is to excite the disapproval of all well-bred people. Sir Charles Thornton, for a long time British minister at Washington, was noted for his care in this particular: he would stand for half an hour outside the door of a concert-room rather than enter while a piece of music was in progress.

Weddings, I presume, may be put down under the head of entertainments. The etiquette of the assistants is very simple. A wedding invitation requires no answer: a card sent by mail and addressed to the senders of the invitation, who are generally the father and mother of the bride, is quite sufficient. It is unnecessary to say that it is not proper during a marriage ceremony to stand on the seats of the pews in order to get a good look at the happy pair. A tradition exists to the effect that a man during a wedding ceremony once climbed on a confessional. It is added, too,—and I am glad of it,—that he fell and broke his neck. But there is no knowing what some barbarians will do: watch them on Sundays, chewing toothpicks, standing in ranks outside of the churches, and believing that the ladies are admiring their best clothes.

My list of entertainments would be incomplete without the dancing party. St. Francis de Sales says of dancing, that a little of it ought to go a great way. Society ordains that every man shall learn to dance; but if he can talk intelligently, society will forgive him for not dancing. Dancing, after all, is only a substitute for conversation; and, properly directed, it is a very good substitute for scandal, mean gossip, or the frivolous chatter which makes assemblies of young people unendurable to anybody who has not begun to be afflicted with softening of the brain.

Public dances—dances into which anybody can find entrance by paying a fee—are avoided by decent people. A young man who has any regard for his reputation will avoid them; and as nearly every young man has his way to make in the world, he cannot too soon realize how the report that he frequents such places will hurt him; for, as I said, there are no secrets in this world,—everything comes out sooner or later.

It is no longer the fashion for a young man to invite a young woman to accompany him to a dance, even at a private house. He must first ask her mother. This European fashion has—thank Heaven!—reached many remote districts of late, where young people hitherto ignored the existence of their parents when social pleasures were concerned. The young girl who doesn’t want the “old man to know” had better be avoided. And in the best circles young women are not permitted to go to the theatre or to dances without a _chaperon_,—that is, the mother or some elderly lady is expected to accompany the young people. This, of course, makes trips to the theatre expensive; but the young man who cannot afford to take an extra aunt or mother had better avoid such amusements until he can.

As to whether you are to take part in the round dances or not, that will be settled by your confessor: I have no right to dictate on that subject. But if you are invited to a dance, pay your respects to your hostess _first_, and say something pleasant. You must remember that she intends that you shall be useful,—that you shall dance with the ladies to whom she introduces you, and that you shall not think of your own pleasure entirely, but help to give others pleasure by dancing with the ladies who have no partners. In a word, you must be as unselfish in this frivolous atmosphere as on more serious occasions. When the refreshments are served, you must think of yourself last. If you want to gorge yourself, you can take a yard or two of Bologna sausage to your room after the entertainment is over. A young man over twenty-one should wear an evening suit and no jewelry at a dance. Infants under that age are supposed to be safely tucked in bed at the time the ordinary dance begins.

At a dance or at any other entertainment no introduction should be made thoughtlessly. If a gentleman is presented to a lady, it should be done only after her permission has been asked and received. And the form should be, “Mrs. Jones, allow me to present Mr. Smith.” A younger man should always be introduced to an older man, one of inferior position to one of superior position. If you are introducing a friend to the mayor of your city, you ought not to say, “Let me introduce the Mayor to you.” On the contrary, the form should be “Mr. Mayor, allow me to present my friend Mr. Smith.”

On being introduced to a lady, it is not the fashion for a man to extend his hand,—for hand-shaking on first introduction is a thing of the past. If the lady extends her hand, it is proper to take it; but the pump-handle style is no longer practised, except perhaps in some unknown wilds of Alaska. After a man is introduced to a lady and he meets her again, he must not bow until she has bowed to him. In France the man bows first; in America and England we give that privilege to the woman. An American takes his hat entirely from his head when he meets a lady; a foreigner raises it but slightly, but he bows lower than we do. In introducing people, we ought always to be careful to give them their titles, and to add, if possible, the place from which they come. If Mr. Jones, of Chicago, is introduced to Mr. Robinson, of New York, the subject for conversation is already arranged. We know what they will talk about. If the wife of the President introduced you to him, she would call him the President; but if you addressed him, you would call him “Mr. President,” as you would address the mayor of a city as “Mr. Mayor.” Mrs. Grant was the only President’s wife who did not give her husband his title in introductions: she called him simply and modestly, “Mr. Grant.”

An English bard sings:

“I know a duke, well—let him pass— I may not call his grace an ass, Though if I did, I’d do no wrong— Save to the asses and my song.

“The duke is neither wise nor good: He gambles, drinks, scorns womanhood; And at the age of twenty-four Is worn and battered as threescore.

“I know a waiter in Pall Mall, Who works and waits and reasons well; Is gentle, courteous, and refined, And has a magnet in his mind.

“What is it makes his graceless grace So like a jockey out of place? What makes the waiter—tell who can— The very flower of gentleman?

“Perhaps their mothers!—God is great! It can’t be accident or fate. The waiter’s heart is true,—and then, Good manners make our gentlemen.”

IV. What Does Not Make a Gentleman.

We have touched on the etiquette of dress and of entertainments; and now I beg leave to repeat some things already said, and to add a few others that need to be said.

A young man cannot afford to be slovenly in his dress. Carelessness in dress will prejudice people against him as completely as a badly written letter. He will find himself mysteriously left out in invitations. If he applies for a position in an office or a bank, or anywhere else, where neatness of dress is expected, he will get the cold shoulder. A young man who wears grease spots habitually on the front of his coat, whose trousers are decorated with dark shadows and the mud of last week, whose shoes are red and rusty, and who hangs a soiled handkerchief, like a flag of truce, more than half out of his pocket, will find himself barred from every place which his ambition would spur him to enter. You may say that dress does not make the man. You may call to mind Burns’ lines to the effect that “a man’s a man for a’ that;” a piece of silver is only a piece of silver, worth more or less, until the United States mint stamps it a dollar. The stamp of your character and the manner of your bringing up give you the value at which the world appraises you.

I recall to mind an instance which shows that we cannot always control our dress. There was a boy at school who was the shortest and the youngest among three tall brothers. He never had any clothes of his own. He had to wear the cast-off suits of the other brothers, and it was no unusual thing for his trousers to trip him up when he tried to run, although they were fastened well up under his shoulders. This unhappy youth was the victim of circumstances; if he made a bad impression, he could not help it. But he was always neat and clean, and he never put grease on his hair or leaned against papered walls in order to leave his mark there. He never saturated himself with cologne to avoid a bath; he never chewed gum; he was never seen with a dirty-yellow rivulet at either side of his lips, which flowed from a plug of tobacco somewhere in his gullet; and so, though he was pitied for the eccentricities of his toilet, he was not despised.

In a country where we do not have to buy water there is no excuse for neglecting the bath. The average Englishman talks so much of his bath and his tub, that one cannot help thinking that the Order of Bath is a late discovery in his country, although we know it was instituted long ago. Every boy ought to keep himself “well groomed;” to be clean outside and in gives him a solid respect for himself that makes others respect him. It is like a college education: it causes him to feel that he is any man’s equal. But one with a sham diamond in his bosom, or cuffs that he has to shove up his sleeves every now and then to prevent them from showing how dirty they are, can never feel quite like a man.

We Americans have reason to be proud of the decay of two arts which Charles Dickens when he wrote “American Notes” found in a flourishing condition,—the art of swearing in public and the art of tobacco-chewing. When Dickens made his first visit to this country he was amazed by the skill which Americans showed in the art of tobacco-chewing. The “spit-box,” the spittoon, the cuspidore,—which is supposed to be an elegant name for a very inelegant utensil,—seemed to him to be the most important of American institutions. We who have become accustomed to the cuspidore do not realize how its constant presence surprises foreigners. They do not understand why the floor of every hotel should be furnished with conveniences for spitting, because no country except the United States is infested by tobacco-chewers. Charles Dickens was severe on the prevalence of the tobacco-chewing habit. He was roundly abused for his criticisms on our public manners. No doubt his censure was well founded, for the manners of Americans have improved since. To Dickens it seemed as if the principal American amusement was tobacco-chewing. He found the American a gloomy being, who regarded all the refinements with dislike, and whose politeness to women was his one redeeming feature. Dickens admitted that a woman might travel alone from one end of the country to the other and receive the most courteous attention from even the roughest miner. And this is as true now as it was then. There are no men in any country so polite to women as Americans; and in no other country on the face of the earth is the sex of our mothers so publicly respected. This chivalric characteristic, which Tom Moore tells us was the most brilliant jewel in the crown of the Irish, “When Malachi wore the collar of gold,” is now an American characteristic, and distinctively an American characteristic. So sure are the ladies of every attention, that they take the reverential attitude of men as a matter of course. They no longer thank us when we give up our places in the street-car to them, or walk in the mud to let them pass; and it is probably regard for them that has caused the American to cease to flood every public place with vile tobacco-juice.

There was a time when the marble floors of our largest hotels were so spotted with this vicious fluid that their color could not be recognized, when the atmosphere reeked with filthy fumes, and many a man bit off a large chunk of tobacco between every second word. It was his method of punctuating his talk. He expectorated when he wanted to make a comma and bit off a “chew” at a period; he squirted a half-pint of amber liquid across the room for an interrogation-mark, and struck his favorite spot on the ceiling to mark an exclamation. But we are not so bad as we used to be. George Washington, whose first literary effort was an essay on Manners, might complain that we lack much, but he would find that the tobacco-chewer is not so prominent a figure in all landscapes as he formerly was.

The truth is, that American good sense is putting an end to this dirty and disgusting habit. There was a time when a man was asked for a “chew” on almost every street corner. But this was in the days of the Bowery boys and of the old volunteer fire-departments, when strange things occurred. It is related that an English traveller riding down Broadway, some time about the year 1852, found that the light was suddenly shut out of his left eye. He fancied for an instant that his optic nerves had been paralyzed. He was relieved by the sound of an apologetic voice coming from the opposite seat. It said: “I didn’t intend to put that ‘chew’ into your eye, sir. I was aiming at the window when you bobbed your head!” And the thoughtful expectorator gently removed the ball of tobacco from the Englishman’s eye!

That could hardly occur now. Chewers do not take such risks, or they aim straighter. For a long time the typical American, as represented in English novels or on the English stage, chewed tobacco and whittled a wooden nutmeg. The English have learned only of late that every American does not do these things.

If foreigners hate this savage practice, who can blame them? How we should sneer and jeer at the English if, in ferry-boats, in horse-cars, in public halls, pools of tobacco-juice should be seen, and if perpetual yellow, ill-smelling fountains sprung from men’s mouths. How _Puck_ would caricature John Bull in his constant attitude of chewing! How filthy and barbaric we would say the British were! We should speak of it, in Fourth-of-July orations, as a proof of British inferiority. But we cannot do this, for the English do not chew tobacco,—and some of us do.

It is a habit that had better be unlearned as soon as possible. It is happily ceasing to be an American vice, and with it will cease the chronic dyspepsia and many of the stomach and throat diseases which have become almost national. Many a man, come to the years of discretion, bitterly regrets that he ever learned to chew tobacco; but he thought once that it was a manly thing, and he learns when too late that the manly thing would have been to avoid it. Some of you will perhaps remember a fashion boys had—I don’t know whether they have it now—of getting tattooed by some expert who practised the art. What pain we suffered while a small star was picked in blue ink at the junction of the thumb with the hand!—and how proud we were of a blue anchor printed indelibly on our wrists! But a day came when we should have been glad to have blotted out this insignia with thrice the pain. And so the day will come when the inveterate tobacco-chewer will wish with all his heart that he had never been induced to put a piece of tobacco into his mouth. It is one of those vices which has an unpleasant sting and which is its own punishment. It is unbecoming to a gentleman; it violates every rule of good manners,—the spectacle of a young man dropping a “quid” into his hand before he goes into dinner and trying on the sly to wipe off the dirty stains on his chin is enough to turn the stomach of a cannibal.

Going back to the subject of entertainments, let me impress on you that it is your duty when you go into society to think as little of yourselves as possible, and to talk as little of yourselves. If a man can sing or play on any musical instrument or recite, and he is asked to do any of these things, let him not refuse. Young women sometimes say no in society when they mean yes; but young men are not justified in practising such an affectation. It is not good taste to show that one is anxious to sing or to play or to recite. If you are invited out, do not begin at once by talking about elocution, until somebody is forced to ask you to recite; and do not hum snatches of song until there is no escape for your friends from the painful duty of asking you to sing. The restless efforts of some amateurs to get a hearing in society always brings to mind a certain theatrical episode. There was a young actress who thought she could sing, and consequently she introduced a vocal solo whenever she could. She was cast for the principal part in a melodrama full of tragic situations. The manager congratulated himself that here, at least, there was no chance for the tuneful young lady to try her scales. But he was mistaken. The great scene was on. A flash of lightning illumined the stage. The actress was holding a pathetic conversation with her mother as the thunder rolled. The mother suddenly fell with a shriek, struck dead. And then the devoted daughter said, “Aha, mee mother is dead! Alas, I will now sing the song she loved so much in life!” And the young lady walked to the footlights and warbled “Comrades.”

She _would_ and she did sing, but I am afraid the audience laughed. I offer this authentic anecdote as a warning to young singers that they should neither be hasty nor reluctant in displaying their talents. A man goes into society that he may give as well as gain pleasure. The highest form of social pleasure is conversation; but conversation does not mean a monologue. Good listeners are as highly appreciated in society as good talkers. A good listener often gives an impression of great wisdom which is dispelled the moment he opens his mouth. Mr. Gladstone was charmed by a young lady who sat next to him at dinner; he concluded that she was one of the most intelligent women he had ever met, until she spoiled it all by saying, with effusion, “Oh, I love cabbage!”

A young man should neither talk too much nor too little, and he should never talk about himself unless he is forced to. Madame Roland, a famous Frenchwoman, who perished during the Reign of Terror under the guillotine, said that by listening attentively to others she made more friends than by any remarks of her own. “Judicious silence,” the author of “In a Club Corner” says, “is one of the great social virtues.” A man who tries to be funny at all times is a social nuisance. Two famous men suffered very much for their tendency to be always humorous. These were Sydney Smith and our own lamented S. S. Cox. Sydney Smith could not speak without exciting laughter. Once, when he had said grace, a young lady next to him exclaimed, “You are always so amusing!” And S. S. Cox, one of the most serious of men at heart and the cleverest in head, never attained the place in politics he ought to have gained because he was supposed to be always in fun. Jokes are charming things in a limited circle, but no gentleman nowadays indulges in those practical jokes which we have heard of. It is not considered a delicate compliment to pull a chair away just as anybody is about to sit down; and the young person who jabs acquaintances in the ribs, to make them laugh at his delightful sayings, is not rapturously welcomed in quiet families.

A young man should not make a practice of using slang, and he should never use it in the presence of ladies. To advise a friend to “shut his face” or to “come off the perch” may sound “smart,” but it is vulgar, and is fatal to those ambitious young men who feel that their success in life depends on the good opinion of cultivated people. Moreover, this habitual slang is likely to crop out at the most inopportune times. Mr. Sankey, of the evangelizing firm of Moody and Sankey, at a camp-meeting once asked a devout young man if he loved the Lord. There was profound silence until the young man, who thought in slang, answered in a loud voice, “You bet!”