TO the uninstructed, socially, the bare rules and conventions regulating social life seem often meaningless and arbitrary. A careful consideration of these conventions, such as it has been the aim of this book to give, shows that no one of them is without a reason for its being. The classification, however, of social forms, together with the reasons governing these forms, does not provide a body of knowledge sufficient to serve as guide in the matter of comporting one’s self easily and to advantage socially. There are many situations and points of behavior that it is impossible for a book of etiquette to cover. The laws laid down are only a small social capital. They discuss the more obvious matters of social contact. Numerous points,—and these of the finer sort,—must be left without comment. In the treatment of these points and problems the person desirous of solving them properly must rely largely on his own good sense. One must apply to social exigencies the same methods of reasoning that one applies in meeting the other exigencies of life. In a word, one must resort to the principle of self-help.

Much, too, and this in the pleasantest fashion, may be done to extend one’s knowledge of good form by observation of people who have unusual tact and social discrimination. In every city, town and village, there are such persons who are distinguished above their fellow citizens by social instinct, by the talent for performing gracefully and acceptably the offices of society. In differing degrees, but still perceptibly, these people, like the painter, the musician, the poet, are marked by a taste and a thirst for perfection. To render social life as interesting, as charming, as beautiful as possible, to make the social machinery run smoothly and without friction,—this is their aim. Such people give quality to social intercourse. They observe the little amenities of life with grace. They know how to enter a room and how to leave it. They convey by the bow with which they greet one on the street the proper degree of acquaintanceship or friendship. They dress with propriety. They take time by the forelock in the adoption of new devices for the entertainment of their friends. Their parties are the prettiest; their houses are the most popular. Not necessarily clever of speech, they are clever in small and charming activities. They have a marked talent for all the little graces that make social intercourse easy and delightful. This talent, of course, can not be communicated, but much may be learned by watching its operation. Certainly one can gain from it a knowledge of particulars, of how to perform certain definite acts, even if the conquest of the method is impossible.

It is not difficult in any community to discover people who approach more or less nearly the type described. They have a recognized distinction. To watch them, and, by this means, to wrest from them a part at least of their secret, is the surest way for the individual, timid or unversed socially, to discover his own social power and to increase it.

Doubtless some of those who read this book may be disposed to ask why, in social life, so much stress is laid on comparatively small matters and why one can not do as one pleases? To these we recommend Gilbert Hamerton’s delightful essay, Custom and Tradition, addressed “To a young gentleman who had firmly resolved never to wear anything but a gray coat.” We quote briefly: “The penalties imposed by society for the infraction of very trifling details of custom are often, as it seems, out of all proportion to the offense; but so are the penalties of nature.... Nature will be obeyed. Society will be obeyed.... Society does not desire to exclude you because you will not wear evening dress; but the dress is customary, and your exclusion is merely a consequence of your non-conformity. The view of society goes no farther in this than the artistic conception (not very delicately artistic, perhaps) that it is prettier to see men in black coats regularly placed between ladies round a dinner-table than men in gray coats or brown coats. The uniformity of custom appears to represent uniformity of sentiment.... Society does not argue the point with you, but only excludes you.”

THE END

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