Hugo's novels read like prose epics--overwhelming and at
times almost convulsive in their effort to give expression
to his tremendous imaginings. One of the most striking of
them is "Ninety-Three," from which the accompanying passage
is taken. The book is a great drama of the breaking out of
the French Revolution, a time when every passion was at its
height and was exhibited with utter unrestraint.
With such a theme Hugo was perfectly at home. He flames and
thunders. He flings before the reader actions in which the
Titanic energy of the writer is felt in every line, and he
revels in the conflict of the two great forces of repression
and revolt which made that period memorable. In the passage
quoted here many of the author's conspicuous qualities are
seen. The translation is that contained in the
"International Library of Famous Literature," and is
reprinted by the courtesy of the Avil Publishing Company, of
Philadelphia.
La Vieuville's words were suddenly cut short by a desperate cry, and at
the same instant they heard a noise as unaccountable as it was awful. The
cry and this noise came from the interior of the vessel.
The captain and lieutenant made a rush for the gun-deck, but could not get
down. All the gunners were hurrying frantically up.
A frightful thing had just happened.
One of the carronades of the battery, a twenty-four-pounder, had got
loose.
This is perhaps the most formidable of ocean accidents. Nothing more
terrible can happen to a vessel in open sea and under full sail.
A gun that breaks its moorings becomes suddenly some indescribable
super-natural beast. It is a machine which transforms itself into a
monster. This mass turns upon its wheels, has the rapid movements of a
billiard-ball; rolls with the rolling, pitches with the pitching; goes,
comes, pauses, seems to meditate; resumes its course, rushes along the
ship from end to end like an arrow, circles about, springs aside, evades,
rears, breaks, kills, exterminates. It is a battering-ram which assaults a
wall at its own caprice. Moreover, the battering-ram is metal, the wall
wood. It is the entrance of matter into liberty.
One might say that this eternal slave avenges itself. It seems as if the
power of evil hidden in what we call inanimate objects finds a vent and
bursts suddenly out. It has an air of having lost patience, of seeking
some fierce, obscure retribution; nothing more inexorable than this rage
of the inanimate.
The mad mass has the bounds of a panther, the weight of the elephant, the
agility of the mouse, the obstinacy of the ox, the unexpectedness of the
surge, the rapidity of lightning, the deafness of the tomb. It weighs ten
thousand pounds, and it rebounds like a child's ball. Its flight is a wild
whirl abruptly cut at right angles. What is to be done? How to end this?
A tempest ceases, a cyclone passes, a wind falls, a broken mast is
replaced, a leak is stopped, a fire dies out; but how to control this
enormous brute of bronze? In what way can one attack it?
You can make a mastiff hear reason, astound a bull, fascinate a boa,
frighten a tiger, soften a lion; but there is no resource with that
monster--a cannon let loose. You cannot kill it--for it is dead; while at
the same time it lives. It lives with a sinister life bestowed on it by
Infinity.
The planks beneath it give it play. It is moved by the ship, which is
moved by the sea, which is moved by the wind. This destroyer is a
plaything. The ship, the waves, the blasts, all aid it; hence its
frightful vitality. How to assail this fury of complication? How to fetter
this monstrous mechanism for wrecking a ship? How foresee its comings and
goings, its returns, its stops, its shocks? Any one of these blows upon
the sides may stave out the vessel. How divine its awful gyrations! One
has to deal with a projectile which thinks, seems to possess ideas, and
which changes its direction at each instant. How stop the course of
something which must be avoided?
The horrible cannon flings itself about, advances, recoils, strikes to the
right, strikes to the left, flees, passes, disconcerts ambushes, breaks
down obstacles, crushes men like flies. The great danger of the situation
is in the mobility of its base. How combat an inclined plane which has
blind caprices? The ship, so to speak, has lightning imprisoned in its
womb which seeks to escape; it is like thunder rolling above an
earthquake.
In an instant the whole crew were on foot. The fault was the chief
gunner's; he had neglected to fix home the screw-nut of the mooring-chain,
and had so badly shackled the four wheels of the carronade that the play
given to the sole and frame had separated the platform, and ended by
breaking the breeching. The cordage had broken, so that the gun was no
longer secure on the carriage. The stationary breeching which prevents
recoil was not in use at that period. As a heavy wave struck the port-hole
the carronade, weakly attached, recoiled, burst its chain, and began to
rush wildly about.
Conceive, in order to have an idea of this strange sliding, the movements
of a drop of water running down a pane of glass.
At the moment when the lashings gave way the gunners were in the battery,
some in groups, others standing alone, occupied with such duties as
sailors perform in expectation of the command to clear for action. The
carronade, hurled forward by the pitching, dashed into this knot of men,
and crushed four at the first blow; then, flung back and shot out anew by
the rolling, it cut in two a fifth poor fellow, glanced off to the
larboard side, and struck a piece of the battery with such force as to
unship it.
Then rose the cry of distress which had been heard. The men rushed toward
the ladder; the gun-deck emptied in the twinkling of an eye. The enormous
cannon was left alone. She was given up to herself. She was her own
mistress, and mistress of the vessel. She could do what she willed with
both. The whole crew of the corvette, men accustomed to laugh in battle,
trembled now. To describe the universal terror would be impossible.
Captain Boisberthelot and Lieutenant Vieuville, although both intrepid
men, stopped at the head of the stairs, and remained mute, pale,
hesitating, looking down on the deck. Some one pushed them aside with his
elbow and descended.
It was their passenger, the peasant--the man of whom they had been
speaking a moment before.
When he reached the foot of the ladder, he stood still.
The cannon came and went along the deck. One might have fancied it the
living chariot of the Apocalypse. The marine lantern, oscillating from the
ceiling, added a confusing whirl of lights and shadows to the strange
vision. The shape of the cannon was undistinguishable from the rapidity of
its course; now it looked black in the light, now it cast weird
reflections through the gloom.
It kept on its work of destruction. It had already shattered four other
pieces, and dug two crevices in the side, fortunately above the
water-line, though they would leak in case a squall should come on. It
dashed itself frantically against the framework; the solid tiebeams
resisted, their curved form giving them great strength, but they creaked
ominously under the assaults of this terrible club, which seemed endowed
with a sort of appalling ubiquity, striking on every side at once. The
strokes of a bullet shaken in a bottle would not be madder or more rapid.
The four wheels passed and repassed above the dead men, cut, carved,
slashed them, till the five corpses were a score of stumps rolling about
the deck; the heads seem to cry out, streams of blood twisted in and out
of the planks with every pitch of the vessel. The ceiling, damaged in
several places, began to gape. The whole ship was filled with the awful
tumult.
The captain promptly recovered his composure, and at his order the sailors
threw down into the deck everything which could deaden and check the mad
rush of the gun--mattresses, hammocks, spare sails, coils of rope, extra
equipments, and the bales of forged French currency of which the corvette
carried a whole cargo--an infamous deception which the English considered
a fair trick in war.
But what could these rags avail? No one dared descend to arrange them in
any useful fashion, and in a few instants they were mere heaps of lint.
There was just sea enough to render the accident as complete as possible.
A tempest would have been desirable--it might have thrown the gun upside
down; and the four wheels once in the air, the monster could have been
mastered. But the devastation continued and increased. There were gashes
and even fractures in the masts, which, embedded in the woodwork of the
keel, pierce through the decks of ships like great round pillars.
The mizzenmast was cracked, and the mainmast itself was injured under the
convulsive blows of the gun. The battery was being destroyed. Ten pieces
out of the thirty were disabled; the breaches multiplied in the side, and
the corvette began to take in water.
The old passenger, who had descended to the gun-deck, looked like a form
of stone stationed at the foot of the stairs. He stood motionless, gazing
sternly about upon the devastation. Indeed, it seemed impossible to take a
single step forward.
Each bound of the liberated carronade menaced the destruction of the
vessel. A few minutes more and shipwreck would be inevitable.
They must perish or put a summary end to the disaster. A decision must be
made--but how?
What a combatant--this cannon!
They must check this mad monster. They must seize this flash of lightning.
They must overthrow this thunderbolt.
Boisberthelot said to La Vieuville:
"Do you believe in God, chevalier?"
La Vieuville replied:
"Yes. No. Sometimes."
"In a tempest?"
"Yes; and in moments like this."
"Only God can aid us here," said Boisberthelot.
All were silent; the cannon kept up its horrible fracas.
The waves beat against the ship; their blows from without responded to the
strokes of the cannon.
It was like two hammers alternating.
Suddenly, into the midst of this sort of inaccessible circus, where the
escaped cannon leaped and bounded, there sprang a man with an iron bar in
his hand. It was the author of this catastrophe--the gunner whose culpable
negligence had caused the accident; the captain of the gun. Having been
the means of bringing about the misfortune, he desired to repair it. He
had caught up a handspike in one fist, a tiller rope with a slipping noose
in the other, and thus equipped had jumped down into the gun-deck.
Then a strange combat began, a Titanic strife--the struggle of the gun
against the gunner; a battle between matter and intelligence; a duel
between the inanimate and the human.
The man was posted in an angle, the bar and rope in his two fists; backed
against one of the riders, settled firmly on his legs as on two pillars of
steel, livid, calm, tragic, rooted as it were in the planks, he waited.
He waited for the cannon to pass near him.
The gunner knew his piece, and it seemed to him that she must recognize
her master. He had lived a long while with her. How many times he had
thrust his hand between her jaws! It was his tame monster. He began to
address it as he might have given an order to his dog.
"Come!" said he. Perhaps he loved it.
He seemed to wish that it would turn toward him.
But to come toward him would be to spring upon him. Then he would be lost.
How to avoid its crush? There was the question. All stared in terrified
silence.
Not a breast respired freely, except perchance that of the old man who
alone stood in the deck with the two combatants, a stern second.
He might himself be crushed by the piece. He did not stir.
Beneath them the blind sea directed the battle.
At the instant when, accepting this awful hand-to-hand contest, the gunner
approached to challenge the cannon, some chance fluctuation of the waves
kept it for a moment immovable, as if suddenly stupefied.
"Come on!" the man said to it. It seemed to listen.
Suddenly it darted upon him. The gunner avoided the shock.
The struggle began--struggle unheard of. The fragile matching itself
against the invulnerable. The living thing of flesh attacking the
inanimate brass. On the one side blind force, on the other a soul.
The whole passed in a half light. It was like the indistinct vision of a
miracle.
A soul--strange thing; but you would have said that the cannon had one
also--a soul filled with rage and hatred. This blindness appeared to have
eyes. The monster had the air of watching the man. There was--one might
have fancied so at least--cunning in this mass. It also chose its moment.
It became some gigantic insect of metal, having, or seeming to have, the
will of a demon.
Sometimes this colossal grasshopper would strike the low ceiling of the
gun-deck, then fall back on its four wheels like a tiger upon its four
claws, and dart anew on the man. He, supple, agile, adroit, would glide
away like a snake from the reach of these lightning-like movements. He
avoided the threatened encounters; but the blows which he escaped fell
upon the vessel and continued the havoc.
An end of broken chain remained attached to the carronade. This chain had
twisted itself, one could not tell how, about the screw of the breech
button. One extremity of the chain was fastened to the carriage. The
other, hanging loose, whirled wildly about the gun and added to the danger
of its blows.
The screw held it like a clinched hand, and the chain, multiplying the
strokes of the battering-ram by its strokes of a thong, made a fearful
whirlwind about the cannon--a whip of iron in a fist of brass. This chain
complicated the battle.
Nevertheless, the man fought. Sometimes, even, it was the man who attacked
the cannon. He crept along the side, bar and rope in hand, and the cannon
had the air of understanding, and fled as if it perceived a snare. The
man pursued it, formidable, fearless.
Such a duel could not last long. The gun seemed suddenly to say to itself,
"Come, we must make an end!" and it paused. One felt the approach of the
crisis. The cannon, as if in suspense, appeared to have, or had--because
it seemed to all a sentient being--a furious premeditation. It sprang
unexpectedly upon the gunner. He jumped aside, let it pass, and cried out
with a laugh, "Try again!" The gun, as if in a fury, broke a carronade to
larboard; then, seized anew by the invisible sling which held it, was
flung to starboard toward the man, who escaped.
Three carronades gave way under the blows of the gun; then, as if blind
and no longer conscious of what it was doing, it turned its back on the
man, rolled from the stern to the bow, bruising the stem and making a
breach in the plankings of the prow. The gunner had taken refuge at the
foot of the stairs, a few steps from the old man, who was watching.
The gunner held his handspike in rest. The cannon seemed to perceive him,
and, without taking the trouble to turn itself, backed upon him with the
quickness of an ax-stroke. The gunner, if driven back against the side,
was lost. The crew uttered a simultaneous cry.
But the old passenger, until now immovable, made a spring more rapid than
all those wild whirls. He seized a bale of the forged currency, and at the
risk of being crushed, succeeded in flinging it between the wheels of the
carronade. This maneuver, decisive and dangerous, could not have been
executed with more adroitness and precision by a man trained to all the
exercises set down in Durosel's "Manual of Sea Gunnery."
The package had the effect of a plug. A pebble may stop a log, a
tree-branch turn an avalanche. The carronade stumbled. The gunner, in his
turn, seizing this terrible chance, plunged his iron bar between the
spokes of one of the hind wheels. The cannon was stopped.
It staggered. The man, using the bar as a lever, rocked it to and fro. The
heavy mass turned over with a clang like a falling bell, and the gunner,
dripping with sweat, rushed forward headlong and passed the slipping noose
of the tiller-rope about the bronze neck of the overthrown monster.
It was ended. The man had conquered. The ant had subdued the mastodon; the
pygmy had taken the thunderbolt prisoner.
The marines and the sailors clapped their hands.
The whole crew hurried down with cables and chains, and in an instant the
cannon was securely lashed.
The gunner saluted the passenger.
"Sir," he said to him, "you have saved my life."
The old man had resumed his impassible attitude, and did not reply.
The man had conquered, but one might say that the cannon had conquered
also. Immediate shipwreck had been avoided, but the corvette was by no
means saved. The dilapidation of the vessel seemed irremediable. The sides
had five breaches, one of which, very large, was in the bow. Out of the
thirty carronades, twenty lay useless in their frames.
The carronade which had been captured and rechained was itself disabled;
the screw of the breech button was forced, and the leveling of the piece
impossible in consequence. The battery was reduced to nine pieces. The
hold had sprung a leak. It was necessary at once to repair the damages and
set the pumps to work.
The gun-deck, now that one had time to look about it, offered a terrible
spectacle. The interior of a mad elephant's cage could not have been more
completely dismantled.
However great the necessity that the corvette should escape observation, a
still more imperious necessity presented itself--immediate safety. It had
been necessary to light up the deck by lanterns placed here and there
along the sides.
But during the whole time this tragic diversion had lasted, the crew were
so absorbed by the one question of life or death that they noticed little
what was passing outside the scene of the duel. The fog had thickened; the
weather had changed; the wind had driven the vessel at will; it had got
out of its route, in plain sight of Jersey and Guernsey, farther to the
south than it ought to have gone, and was surrounded by a troubled sea.
The great waves kissed the gaping wounds of the corvette--kisses full of
peril. The sea rocked her menacingly. The breeze became a gale. A squall,
a tempest perhaps, threatened. It was impossible to see before one four
oars' length.
While the crew were repairing summarily and in haste the ravages of the
gun-deck, stopping the leaks and putting back into position the guns which
had escaped the disaster, the old passenger had gone on deck.
He stood with his back against the mainmast.
He had paid no attention to a proceeding which had taken place on the
vessel. The Chevalier La Vieuville had drawn up the marines in line on
either side of the mainmast, and at the whistle of the boatswain the
sailors busy in the rigging stood upright on the yards.
Count du Boisberthelot advanced toward the passenger.
Behind the captain marched a man, haggard, breathless, his dress in
disorder, yet wearing a satisfied look under it all. It was the gunner who
had just now so opportunely shown himself a tamer of monsters, and who had
got the better of the cannon.
The count made a military salute to the unknown in peasant garb, and said
to him:
"General, here is the man."
The gunner held himself erect, his eyes downcast, standing in a soldierly
attitude.
Count du Boisberthelot continued:
"General, taking into consideration what this man has done, do you not
think there is something for his commanders to do?"
"I think there is," said the old man.
"Be good enough to give the orders," returned Boisberthelot.
"It is for you to give them. You are the captain."
"But you are the general," answered Boisberthelot.
The old man looked at the gunner.
"Approach," said he.
The gunner moved forward a step. The old man turned toward Count du
Boisberthelot, detached the cross of Saint-Louis from the captain's
uniform and fastened it on the jacket of the gunner.
"Hurrah!" cried the sailors.
The marines presented arms. The old passenger, pointing with his finger
toward the bewildered gunner, added:
"Now let that man be shot."
Stupor succeeded the applause.
Then, in the midst of a silence like that of the tomb, the old man raised
his voice. He said:
"A negligence has endangered this ship. At this moment she is perhaps
lost. To be at sea is to face the enemy. A vessel at open sea is an army
which gives battle. The tempest conceals, but does not absent itself. The
whole sea is an ambuscade. Death is the penalty of any fault committed in
the face of the enemy. No fault is reparable. Courage ought to be rewarded
and negligence punished."
These words fell one after the other, slowly, solemnly, with a sort of
inexorable measure, like the blows of an ax upon an oak.
And the old man, turning to the soldiers, added:
"Do your duty."
The man upon whose breast shone the cross of Saint-Louis bowed his head.
At a sign from Count du Boisberthelot, two sailors descended between
decks, then returned, bringing the hammock winding sheet. The ship's
chaplain, who since the time of sailing had been at prayer in the
officers' quarters, accompanied the two sailors; a sergeant detached from
the line twelve marines, whom he arranged in two ranks, six by six; the
gunner, without uttering a word, placed himself between the two files. The
chaplain, crucifix in hand, advanced and stood near him.
"March!" said the sergeant.
The platoon moved with slow steps toward the bow. The two sailors who
carried the shroud followed.
A gloomy silence fell upon the corvette. A hurricane moaned in the
distance.
A few instants later there was a flash; a report followed, echoing among
the shadows; then all was silent; then came the thud of a body falling
into the sea.
Good Manners Fifty Years Ago.
Easier for a Camel to Pass Through a Needle's Eye Than for the Modern
Aspirant to Butt into Society Through the Rules of Deportment
Prevalent in the Middle of the Last Century.
Eliza Leslie was born in Philadelphia in 1787. Her father
was a personal friend of Franklin, Jefferson, and other
eminent men. She went with her family to England as a child,
remaining until her sixteenth year. She wrote some verse at
different periods, but not until her fortieth year did she
publish any prose. This took the form of a cookery-book,
which met with great success. Later, _Godey's Ladies' Book_
published a prize story from her pen--"Mrs. Washington
Potts"--and she adopted literature as a profession. Several
books on household topics and manners were among her most
popular productions, and in one of the latest of these--the
"Behavior Book," published in 1853--one may find so many
illuminating suggestions and such a wealth of instruction
for ladies "as regards their conversation; manners; dress;
introductions; entree to society; shopping; conduct in the
street; at places of amusement; in traveling; at the table,
either at home, in company, or at hotels; deportment in
gentlemen's society; lips; complexion; teeth; hands; the
hair; etc., etc.," that it would seem to have been a
straight way and a narrow gate indeed which led to the land
of good form and good looks fifty years ago.
It would also seem, from her having addressed the work
particularly to ladies, that they were the worst offenders
in matters of manners; she avows her purpose, however, in a
conciliatory preface, to be "to amend and not to offend; to
improve her young countrywomen, and not to annoy them." The
few "habitual misbehavements" to which she would call their
attention she has noted during a "long course of
observation, on a very diversified field."
Shopping.
When circumstances render it expedient to carry much money out with you,
divide it; putting half in one purse or pocketbook and half in another,
and put these portions in two pockets.
Gentlemen consider it a very irksome task to go on shopping expeditions,
and their ill-concealed impatience becomes equally irksome to you.
Do not interfere with the shopping of other customers (who may chance to
stand near you at the counter), by either praising or depreciating any of
the articles they are looking at. Leave them to the exercise of their own
judgment, unless they ask your opinion; and then give it in a low voice
and sincerely.
Always object to a parcel being put up in newspaper, as the printing ink
will rub off and soil the article enclosed. If it is a little thing that
you are going to take home in your own hand, it will smear your gloves.
All shopkeepers in good business can afford to buy proper wrapping-paper,
and they generally do so. It is very cheap. See also that they do not wrap
your purchase in so small a bit of paper as to squeeze and crush it.
We knew an instance of a lady in New York giving a hundred-dollar note to
a strawberry-woman, instead of a note of one dollar. Neither note nor
woman were seen or heard of more.
In getting change, see that three-cent pieces are not given you for five
cents.
Traveling.
Previous to departing, put into the hand of your escort rather more than a
sufficient sum for the expenses of your journey, so as to provide for all
possible contingencies. He will return you the balance when all is paid.
Having done this, should any person belonging to the line come to you for
your fare, refer them to the gentleman (mentioning his name), and take
care to pay nothing yourself.
Dress very plainly when traveling. Few ladies that _are_ ladies wear
finery in railcars and steamboats--still less in stages, stage-roads being
usually very dusty. Showy silks, and what are called dress-bonnets, are
preposterous; so are jewelry ornaments--which, if real, you run a great
risk of losing, and if false, are very ungenteel. Above all, do not travel
in white kid gloves. Respectable women never do.
Such are the facilities of traveling that a lady evidently respectable,
plainly dressed, and behaving properly, may travel very well without a
gentleman. Two ladies still better. On commencing the journey, she should
speak to the conductor, requesting him to attend to her and her baggage,
and to introduce her to the captain of the boat, who will, of course, take
charge of her during the voyage.
Arrival at a Hotel.
On arriving at the hotel, ask immediately to see the proprietor, give him
your name and address, tell how long you purpose staying, and request him
to see that you are provided with a good room. Request him also to conduct
you to the dining-room at dinner-time, and allot you a seat near his own.
For this purpose he will wait for you near the door (do not _keep him
waiting_), or meet you in the ladies' drawing-room. While at table, if the
proprietor or any other gentleman asks you to take wine with him, politely
refuse.
If you do not wish to be encumbered by carrying the key in your pocket,
let it be left during your absence with the clerk in the office, or with
the barkeeper; and send to him for it on your return. Desire the servant
who attends the door to show no person up to your room during your
absence. If visitors wish to wait for your return, it is best they should
do so in the parlor.
In a public parlor, it is selfish and unmannerly to sit down to the
instrument uninvited and fall to playing or practising without seeming to
consider the probability of your interrupting or annoying the rest of the
company, particularly when you see them all engaged in reading or in
conversation. If you want amusement, you had better read or occupy
yourself with some light sewing or knitting-work.
If you have breakfasted early, it will be well to put some
gingerbread-nuts or biscuits into your satchel when you go out, as you may
become very hungry before dinner.
Hotel Breakfast.
Always take butter with the butter-knife, and then do not forget to return
that knife to the butter-plate. Carefully avoid cutting bread with your
own knife, or taking salt with it from the salt-cellar. It looks as if you
had not been accustomed to butter-knives and salt-spoons.
Ladies no longer eat salt-fish at a public table. The odor of it is now
considered extremely ungenteel, and it is always very disagreeable to
those who _do not_ eat it. If you breakfast alone, you can then indulge in
it.
It is ungenteel to go to the breakfast-table in any costume approaching to
full dress. There must be no flowers or ribbons in the hair. A morning-cap
should be as simple as possible. The most genteel morning-dress is a close
gown of some plain material, with long sleeves, which in summer may be
white muslin. A merino or cashmere wrapper (gray, brown, purple, or
olive), faced or trimmed with other merino of an entirely different color
(such as crimson, scarlet, green, or blue), is a becoming morning-dress
for winter. In summer, a white cambric-muslin morning-robe is the
handsomest breakfast attire, but one of gingham or printed muslin the most
convenient. The colored dress may be made open in front, with short, loose
sleeves, and a pointed body. Beneath it a white under-dress, having a
chemisette front down to the belt, and long white sleeves down to the
wrist. This forms a very graceful morning-costume, the white skirt
appearing where the colored skirt opens.
The fashion of wearing black silk mittens at breakfast is now obsolete. It
was always inconvenient, and neither useful nor ornamental.
Hotel Dinner.
When eating fish, remove the bones carefully, and lay them on the edge of
your plate. Then, with the fork in your right hand (the concave or hollow
side held uppermost), and a small piece of bread in your left, take up the
flakes of fish. Servants, and all other persons, should be taught that the
butter-sauce should not be poured over the fish, but put on one side of
the plate, that the eater may use it profusely or sparingly, according to
taste, and be able to mix it conveniently with the sauce from the
fish-castors. Pouring butter-sauce over anything is now ungenteel.
It is an affectation of ultra-fashion to eat pie with a fork, and has a
very awkward and inconvenient look. Cut it up with your knife and fork,
then proceed to eat it with the fork in your right hand.
Much of this determined fork-exercise may be considered foolish; but it is
fashionable.
It is, however, customary in eating sweet potatoes of a large size to
break them in two, and, taking a piece in your hand, to pierce down to the
bottom with your fork, and then mix in some butter, continuing to hold it
thus while eating it.
If a lady wishes to eat lobster, let her request the waiter that attends
her to extract a portion of it from the shell, and bring it to her on a
clean plate--also to place a castor near her.
On no consideration let any lady be persuaded to take two glasses of
champagne. It is more than the head of an American female can bear. And
she may rest assured that (though unconscious of it herself) all present
will find her cheeks flushing, her eyes twinkling, her tongue unusually
voluble, her talk loud and silly, and her laugh incessant. Champagne is
very insidious, and two glasses may throw her into this pitiable
condition.
We have seen a young _gentleman_ lift his plate of soup in both hands,
hold it to his mouth, and drink, or rather lap it up. This was at no less
a place than Niagara.
On Shipboard.
If you are sick yourself, say as little about it as possible. And never
allude to it at table, where you will receive little sympathy, and perhaps
render yourself disgusting to all who hear you. At no time talk about it
to gentlemen. Many foolish commonplace sayings are uttered by ladies who
attempt to describe the horrors of seasickness. For instance this: "I felt
all the time as if I wished somebody to take me up and throw me
overboard." This is untrue--no human being ever really _did_ prefer
drowning to seasickness.
A piano never sounds well on shipboard--the cabins are too small and the
ceilings too low. To the sick and nervous (and all who are seasick become
very nervous) this instrument is peculiarly annoying. Therefore, be kind
enough to spare them the annoyance. You can practise when the weather is
fine, and the invalids are on deck. Pianos have been abolished in many of
the finest ships. Such instruments as can be carried on deck and played in
the open air are, on the contrary, very delightful at sea, when in the
hands of good performers--particularly on a moonlight evening.
Things Not to Do.
Slapping a gentleman with your handkerchief, or tapping him with your fan.
Allowing him to take a ring off your finger, to look at it. Permitting him
to unclasp your bracelet, or, still worse, to inspect your brooch. When
these ornaments are to be shown to another person always take them off for
the purpose.
Introductions.
Where the company is large, the ladies of the house should have tact
enough to avoid introducing and placing together persons who cannot
possibly assimilate, or take pleasure in each other's society. The dull
and the silly will be far happier with their compeers. To a woman of
talent and a good conversationalist it is a cruelty to put her
unnecessarily in contact with stupid or unmeaning people. She is wasted
and thrown away upon such as are neither amusing nor amusable. Neither is
it well to bring together a gay, lively woman of the world, and a solemn,
serious, repulsive dame, who is a contemner of the world and all its
enjoyments.
Avoid giving invitations to bores. They will come without.
We saw no less a person than Charles Dickens compelled at a large party to
devote the whole evening to writing autographs for a multitude of young
ladies--many of whom, not satisfied with obtaining one of his signatures
for themselves, desired half a dozen others for "absent friends." All
conversation ceased with the first requisition for an autograph. He had no
chance of saying anything. We were a little ashamed of our fair
townswomen.