Part 32

Bathing calls for a costume of some material that will not cling to the form when wet. Flannel is appropriate, and a heavy quantity of mohair also makes a successful dress, as it resists water and has no clinging qualities. An oil-silk cap should be worn over the hair. The cut of the dress should be modest; the costume loose and full, and it should be made with a skirt. The neck should be cut quite high.

Yachting Dress.

This is a pretty, nautically devised and ornamented suit, made of warm materials and those that will stand sea water.

Dress for Gentlemen.

The subject of dress, while not so complex for a man as for a woman, must still receive a certain amount of care at his hands, for no gentleman can possess complete disregard of reigning styles without thereby sacrificing a certain amount of dignity in the estimation of his associates.

As far as the cardinal points of the toilet extend, a man is bound by the same laws of exquisite neatness that are incumbent upon a woman. The same care of teeth, finger-nails, hands and hair is necessary. Don’t neglect the small hairs that sometimes project from the nostrils and the apertures of the ears. Use a small pair of scissors.

A gentleman will have spotless collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs, irreproachable gloves, nicely blackened shoes and thoroughly brushed clothes. Hair oil must never be used; it is ill-bred.

Clothes of plain colors are always in good taste, and so is pure white linen. The fancy dotted and striped collars, cuffs and bosoms, so often worn, are not as good taste.

Jewelry should be used very sparingly. Utility should be apparent in the articles worn. Watch chain, sleeve buttons and studs (one or three, as liked) are necessary. Where one stud is used, the stone, though not conspicuous for size, should be a very fine one. A scarf pin is sometimes worn, and one ring is allowable, but not too large or showy. Don’t use quantities of perfumery, it is very bad taste.

Keep a dressing-gown for use in the dressing-room or the sickroom. It is not a proper garment for the table or the sitting-room.

Wear the hat properly and squarely upon the head, Wear a coat at all proper times—in the sitting-room, drawing-room, and at table.

Lastly, a gentleman avoids all conspicuous styles of dress, and confines himself to quiet colors and well-fitting, well-cared-for garments.

Evening Dress for Gentlemen.

The evening dress for gentlemen varies very little from year to year, and the time of wearing it varies not at all. From “dusk to dawn,” in other words, a gentleman wears a dress suit during the same hours that a lady wears an evening dress.

Gentlemen’s evening dress consists of black trousers, a low-cut black or white vest, dress or “swallow-tail” coat, and white necktie. The linen must be immaculate. A young man wears a standing collar; an elderly man, if he choose, may wear his favorite style, with due deference to the reigning style. One or three studs adorn the bosom.

Properly speaking, white or very light kid gloves are a part of evening dress, but to say whether or not they shall be worn always at a formal dinner is hardly safe. If worn, remove them at the table; but at a ball they are indispensable. On all doubtful occasions it is well to be provided with a pair, to use if wished.

Evening dress is to be worn at balls, large dinners, parties and the opera. It is never worn at church, save in case of an evening wedding. It is never worn anywhere on Sunday. In a small town a dress suit on any occasion is apt to seem an affectation. Never wear a dress suit anywhere before six o’clock in the evening.

“A gentleman never looks more thoroughly a gentleman than in an evening dress,” says one writer on etiquette, and it is well for those to whom the occasion is liable to come to learn to wear one gracefully and easily.

In France a dress suit is worn upon nearly all festive occasions. In England the same customs prevail for its use as in our own country.

Morning Dress for Gentlemen.

Black cutaway, or Prince Albert coat (frock coat), black vest, white in summer, light-colored trousers, silk or some other style of stiff hat, and a black necktie. A light coat is never worn with black trousers. This morning dress is worn at church, morning receptions, informal parties, garden parties, when making calls, and at places of amusement.

Wedding Dress for Gentlemen.

At morning weddings, that is, all weddings before six o’clock, the gentlemen, bridegroom, best man, and all, wear morning dress with light-colored ties. If gloves are worn, light-colored ones must be selected. If there is a formal reception held in the evening, evening dress and white or very pale gloves may then be worn. At an evening wedding, evening dress is expected.

Gloves for Gentlemen.

Gentlemen wear gloves when walking, riding, or driving, at church and all places of amusement, when making calls, and at receptions, balls and evening parties. White or very pale tints for balls and weddings; delicate tints for evening parties; any shade preferred for the other occasions.

General Hints.

A silk hat should only be worn on appropriate occasions. Worn with a rough business suit, or on a picnic or mountain ramble, it is in the worst possible taste. It should appear only with frock coats, dress coats and a fine quality of cloth.

Felt or straw hats should be worn with short coats or business suits.

The mourning weed, conventionally speaking, is worn only on a silk hat; but there is no good reason why those who wish to wear mourning for lost friends should always be in dress of ceremony so to do.

Diamonds should not be worn during business hours by men who are obliged to stand behind counters or engage in any toil.

Business suits should never be worn to an evening party in the city, though in small country gatherings they might be permissible.

Even various styles of outing suits are allowable in some of the informal gatherings at summer resorts.

“Nice customs courtesy to great kings,” or to occasions.

Evening Suit for Boys.

This is black cloth with the rough surface that is seen in the material used for grown-up, evening clothes. His trousers are the proper width and show a slight but not too pronounced crease. His waistcoat is cut low, and over it he wears an Eton jacket of black cloth that is accentuated by the deep white linen collar which turns over it, and which is attached, like his cuffs, to his immaculate white shirt.

He scorns all jewelry but a little watch and the white enamel buttons that are in his shirt. His silk hat has a lower and a somewhat broader crown than that made for an older gentleman.

A suit like this is worn by a boy from the time he is twelve until he is eighteen, and then he is supposed to assume the regulation evening dress worn by men.

Letter Writing

“Letters are the memory of friendship, and are to be reckoned among the chief links in the social chain that binds parent and child, lover and sweetheart, friend and friend, in harmonious accord.”

A letter may, from a business point of view, make or mar the fortunes of its sender, while none the less surely, from a social standard, will our epistles approve or condemn our claim for consideration. Every position in life, and every occasion which may arise therein, demand more or less exercise of our epistolary powers, and while but few can hope for the grace, the wit, the repartee that sparkle in the missives of a de Staël, a Récamier, a Walpole, a Macaulay, every one can and should learn to write a clear, concise, intelligent, appropriate letter.

A Rare Accomplishment.

To do this properly is a social accomplishment, and one of the greatest boons that education confers. A graceful note, a kindly, sparkling letter, are each the exponent of a true lady or gentleman, though it must be confessed, since our country furnishes no so-called “leisure class,” the art of letter-writing has, in great measure, fallen into feminine hands, the cares of business and professional life ofttimes preventing the sterner half of creation from mere friendly exercise of the pen. It is among women, therefore, that we will find in the present, as we have found in the past, the best and most fluent of correspondents.

A certain dread of letter-writing, however, seems to haunt a large class of people. This dread, arising either from imperfect education, a lack of practice or a fear of “nothing to say,” can be overcome in great measure by careful study of the few main requisites of the art, as embraced in style, orthography, forms to be adopted and stationery to be used for certain occasions.

The Style

Of course, is a subtle something inherent in each individual, not to be entirely done away with in any case, but to be improved by a careful study of good models, such, for example, as the letters of the above mentioned authors. To read the best prose writers also cannot fail to work an improvement. For instance, the writer once, after an enthusiastic study of Taine, was rewarded by the assurance from a literary correspondent that her letters were thoroughly “Tainesque” in style.

By judicious reading and carefully taking thought, an abrupt style may be softened and more graceful, flowing sentences substituted for its short, sharp phrases; while a redundant style, by the same care, may be pruned of its exuberance.

The chief charm of a letter consists in it being written naturally and as one would talk. “We should write as we speak, and that’s a true familiar letter which expresseth a man’s mind as if he were discoursing with the party to whom he writes,” says Howell, and, ancient as the words are, no better advice can be given to-day.

Write easily, and never simply for effect; this gives a constrained, stilted style that will soon cool the correspondence. Let your thoughts flow as they would were you conversing with your friend, but do not gossip; give friendly intelligence only when certain of its truth. This will not seem too much when it is remembered how written words sometimes rise up in judgment against their authors when the spoken words would long since have been forgotten. A lapse of time will brush the bloom from our sentences and nothing can bring back again the tender grace that transfigured the over-sweetness of some little written sentiment, or redeem it from the realm of the bombastic in our eyes to-day. Then “let your communications be, not exactly ‘yea and nay,’ but do let them be such that you would not fear to hear them read aloud before you, for more than this ‘cometh of evil.’”

Grammar and Orthography.

These should receive most careful attention. “A great author is one,” according to Taine, “who, having passions, knows also his dictionary and grammar.” And a good letter-writer, as well, must “know his dictionary and grammar” to render his missives presentable.

Grammatical errors are almost unpardonable, and a misspelled word is an actual crime in these days of dictionaries. Punctuation and capitalization, too, must be looked after, and the whole letter give evidence of thought and care on the writer’s part.

Handwriting, Paper and Ink

Are all of importance, and etiquette has prescribed certain formulas for these adjuncts of a good letter, that, however the vagaries of fashion may invade the outer borders of the realm epistolary, are always correct and in good style.

The paper in best taste is thick, white or creamy-tinted, unruled and of such a size as to fold once for fitting square-shaped envelopes, creamy-white like the paper. Never use envelopes so thin in quality as to permit the writing to be seen through from the outside. The square envelope is not a necessity; the slightly oblong is also used, the paper being folded twice to fit this size.

This paper would be suitable and in perfect style in any portion of the civilized world, and on any occasion, and no one with any pretensions to good breeding should be found unsupplied. This is an item in which we cannot afford to economize, for one judges a lady or gentleman, unconsciously, by the contents of his or her writing desk, as exemplified by the letters sent from their hands.

Monograms are not entirely “out,” but they are only used by those to whom their own especial design, through long use, has come to seem almost a part of themselves. All fleeting fancies in stationery should be passed by on the other side, or, at most, left to the wayward tastes of “sweet sixteen,” or to some few whose very eccentricities are part of their fame. Sarah Bernhardt, for instance, uses blue paper framed in a pale gray line on the top of the page, and the flap of the envelope is a tragic mark, above which her initials are traversed by a scroll bearing her motto, “_Quand méme_.” She is as exact, however, in the formulas of her letters as any dowager of the old school. The Royal Highnesses of England use the paper and square envelopes before described; initials, monograms and crests are left to foreigners and outsiders, and the Orleans family, of France, are severely plain in their choice of stationery.

Given the correct paper and envelopes and plain, jet-black ink (no other tint should ever be used), the penmanship must next be considered. It is very well for Madame Bernhardt to write an elegant, graceful hand that is absolutely impossible to decipher, and for General Bourbaki to indite his epistles in a microscopically minute script, but less important people will do well to render their chirography as perfect and legible as possible, and not to flourish.

Avoid always too near an approach to the clerkly, commercial hand. A talented foreigner once remarked to the writer upon his astonishment at the predominance of this hand in America. “I do not like it,” he said; “the clerk sends me in my rates, the landlord my bill, and the young lady her reply to my invitation, all in that same commercial hand. There is no individuality, no character, in such writing.” And there was too much reason in his remonstrance. We are not quite “a nation of shopkeepers,” and there is no reason why this business handwriting should so permeate all classes of society.

The lines should be straight, and as ruled paper is not permissible in formal notes, invitations or punctilious correspondence, savoring too nearly of the schoolroom and the counting-house, some little practice may be necessary to keep the lines even. Should this prove impossible, let a sheet of paper with heavily ruled black lines that will show through the writing paper, be kept in the desk and slipped beneath the page as a guide. It may also be inserted in the envelope to keep the superscription or address perfectly straight.

The lines should be rather far apart, and the fashionable hand just now is not the pointed English style, but somewhat verging on the large, round hand of the last century; the ladies, as a rule, indulging in a rather masculine style.

Thin foreign note paper may be used for letters abroad, unless the most formal. This is usually ruled. So is the commercial note used for business letters.

These forms answer for ladies and gentlemen alike. There is no particular objection to gentlemen using in their informal friendly letters, business note with printed letter head, but for ceremonious occasions they must be bound by the foregoing forms.

Very faintly perfumed paper is the prerogative of the ladies. Gentlemen are denied this privilege and a lady avails herself of it with discretion, selecting a favorite odor and adhering closely to it, so that correspondents could tell her missives with closed eyes, by their very fragrance.

Where black-edged paper and envelopes are used by persons in mourning, the width of the black border varies according to the nearness of the deceased relative or the length of time since the loss, though some never use more than the narrowest line of black, while others still, with the most perfect propriety, discard it altogether. Its use is a matter of taste simply, and must cease so soon as the mourning garb is dropped. Never be guilty, however, of writing a letter of congratulation on black-edged paper, even if in mourning; use plain white for this purpose. At the same time, it is never necessary to write a letter of condolence on black-bordered paper, unless the writer himself is in mourning.

The careful writing of a note or letter is a mark of respect to the recipient, and blots, erasures and mended words should never be permitted to disfigure it. Erasing cannot be done without marring the entire page and a mended or rewritten word is an offense to the eye. To copy the letter afresh is the only real remedy, and those who value their own standing will not grudge the pains spent in the composition of a letter that shall be a credit to the writer and a pleasure to the receiver.

This comes under the general recommendation of doing everything you do as it ought to be done. There should be no slipshod way of writing a letter by which you are to be judged.

Figures and abbreviations are often used. Few numerals are allowable, except the dates, the street number and the hour of the day. Very large sums of money are also stated in figures unless they begin a sentence, when all numbers must be written out fully. Figures are also preferable in uneven sums of money too long to be written with one, or at most two words; per cent., as well, is rulable in figures. Degrees should be either written “75°”, or “seventy-five degrees.” Fractions, given alone, should be in words, and all other numerals occurring in a letter must follow the same rule, except quotations from stock and market reports. For extra precaution, sometimes sums of money are written, followed by figures representing the same, in parenthesis.

Common Abbreviations.

Abbreviations proper to social and formal letter-writing are few in number. Honorary titles, such as Dr., Prof., Hon., Rev., Messrs., Esq., Capt., etc., are usually abbreviated as above, though very good authorities advocate, and with much reason, the use of the full word “Reverend,” as also the titles “Honorable” and “Professor.” The scholastic titles are also abbreviated by the proper initials, as A. M., M. D., LL.D., following the name. The names of months, of states, the words “County” and “Post Office,” when used on the superscription are also abbreviated.

The use of A. M., M., P. M., to mark the divisions of the day, technical abbreviations, and the usual e. g., i. e., viz., etc., are too familiar to the users to need mention. Further than the above, brevity is _not_ always the soul of wit.

The letter itself, as a whole, is now to be considered, and to facilitate its writing there should be some one corner in every home devoted to this purpose. The incentive to letter-writing is always damped, the happy thought we would send our friend takes flight, if we must find the pens upstairs, the paper down, the ink bottle in the pantry, empty or not, as the case may be, and our patience wherever it may be after the search is ended.

Letters would be more frequently written, more punctually answered, and half the unreasonable dread of writing done away with, were this matter attended to properly. Let the writing desk stand in some well-lighted corner of sitting, dining, or “mother’s” room, and let it be stored with all articles necessary to the exigencies of correspondence. Should the desk prove beyond the depth of the family purse, then, let its substitute be found in a firm, good-sized table or stand, with a drawer where necessary supplies may be kept. Two or more sizes of note paper, unruled, with envelopes to match, for the elders of the household; writing tablets and commercial note, together with plain envelopes, for the school-children and everyday uses; a good dictionary, a tray with pen rack and inkstand thereon, and a goodly supply of pens, will complete a corner that will do more toward the family education in good breeding and culture than any other expenditure that can be made, and will render letter-writing the pleasure it should be, instead of the dread it too often is.

If one possesses a permanent address, street, number and city may, with great propriety, be engraved on the paper at the top of the sheet. If this is not done the address should always be written clearly on all letters. It is too much to expect one’s friends to remember the private addresses of all their correspondents, and time is too precious to be spent searching out some missing letter in quest of street or number, in default of which more than one letter has gone unanswered.

The date of a letter, month, day, year and city is first in place. This should be written on one line, beginning, according to length, more or less near the center of the sheet and ending at the right-hand margin. In business letters, unless the printed letter head fixes the place, this line should not be more than one-quarter down the page; while in social or formal letters it should be one-third the distance down. If it should be desirable to give the county also, the date may be allowed to occupy two or more lines, as follows:

MENDOTA, LA SALLE CO., ILL., May 29, 189—.

In the same manner a city number and address may be given:

309 POST STREET, OTTAWA, ILL., January 30, 189—.

In writing from hotels, the following form should be adopted:

THE ARLINGTON, BINGHAMTON, N. Y., October 3, 189—.

Some, in polite letter-writing, prefer to give the address at the conclusion rather than the beginning of the letter. Under these circumstances the prescribed form would be:

Truly your friend, MARY N. PRESCOTT.

FRANKLIN GROVE, Lee Co., Ill., January 14, 189—.

There are several ways of writing the figures that compose the date of a letter. Many business men and others use this form, 1—2—189—. or, 1/2/9—, for January 2, 189—. Others still would write as follows: Jan. 2nd, 1896. Taste and habit will decide the matter for each. To give the name instead of the number of the month is, perhaps, more elegant.

The address, supposing it to be a business letter would come next in order, beginning at the left-hand margin, and our letter would stand thus:

TIPTON, IOWA, April 1, 189—.

MR. WILLIAM H. HILL, 307 Wall Street, New York.

The salutation is a matter wherein there is great latitude of usage. In conformity with custom, some title is to be used in addressing correspondents, and this title differs greatly in accordance with the degree of acquaintance, or friendship, with the party addressed. It should always begin at the left of the page. In the business letter just above, the form might be as follows:

TIPTON, IOWA, April 1, 189-.

MR. WILLIAM H. HILL, 307 Wall Street, New York,

DEAR SIR: (or, SIR:)

Or, if there should be a firm name, the address would be as follows:

Messrs. WILLIAMS & HILL, 307 Wall Street, New York.

DEAR SIRS: (or, SIRS:) (or, GENTLEMEN:)

Again, if wished, the salutation might be omitted and the address made to serve as title. Another form is this:

MR. WILLIAM H. HILL, 307 Wall Street, New York. MR. HILL:

The following form, though causing an unpleasant repetition of the name, is often adopted in business letters to unmarried ladies, probably to escape the problem that the choice of Miss or Madam offers to so many:

305 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS., February 10, 189—.

MISS MARY WRIGHT, Cherry Valley, Ill. MISS WRIGHT: