MISCELLANIES.
It may be well to caution our young friends against certain bad
practices, easily contracted, but sometimes difficult to relinquish. The
following are things not to be done:--Biting your nails. Slipping a ring
up and down your finger. Sitting cross-kneed, and, jogging your feet.
Drumming on the table with your knuckles; or, still worse, tinking on a
piano with _your fore-finger only_. Humming a tune before strangers.
Singing as you go up and down stairs. Putting your arm round the neck of
another young girl, or promenading the room with arms encircling waists.
Holding the hand of a friend all the time she sits beside you; or
kissing and fondling her before company. Sitting too closely.
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. Pulling at your own ringlets, or
your own ear-rings--or fingering your neck ribbon. Suffering a
gentleman to touch your curls. Reading with a gentleman off the same
book or newspaper. Looking over the shoulder of any person who is
reading or writing. Taking up a _written_ paper from the table, and
examining it.
To listen at door-cracks, and peep through key-holes, is vulgar and
contemptible. So it is to ask children questions concerning their
parents, though such things are still done.
If you mean that you were angry, do not say you were "mad."--"It made me
so mad"--"I was quite mad at her," are phrases not to be used by people
considering themselves genteel. Anger and madness are not the same, or
should not be; though it is true that ungoverned rage, is, sometimes,
carried so far as to seem like insanity.
Enter into no freaks of fashion that are silly, unmeaning, and
unlady-like; even if they _have_ been introduced by a belle, and
followed by other belles. Commit no absurdity because a public singer or
dancer has done so in her ignorance of good behaviour. During the Jenny
Lind fever, there were young ladies who affected to skuttle into a
drawing-room all of a sudden, somewhat as the fair Swede came skuttling
in upon the concert stage, because in reality she knew not how to make
her entrance gracefully. Other demoiselles twined and waved about, with
body, head, and eyes, never a moment quiet. This squirming (as it was
called) originated in a very bad imitation of Fanny Elssler's dancing
motions. At one time there were girls at parties, who stood on one
foot, and with the other kicked up their dresses behind, while talking
to gentlemen. This fashion began with a celebrated beauty who "dared do
any thing." Luckily, these "whims and oddities" are always of short
duration, and are never adopted by young ladies of good taste and
refinement.
Do not nod your head, or beat time with fan or foot while listening to
music.
Never at a party consent to accompany another lady in a duet, unless you
are accustomed to singing with her. Still worse--do not volunteer to
"assist" her in a song that is not a duet. Each voice will interrupt and
spoil the other. A lady who sings by ear only, cannot accompany one that
sings by note.
One of the most horrible sounds imaginable is that produced by several
fine voices all singing different songs. This cats' concert (as
school-girls call it) results in a shocking and yet ludicrous discord,
equally frightful and laughable. And yet all the performers are singing
individually well. Try it.
Raising a window-sash, in cold weather, without first ascertaining if
the rest of the company are, like yourself, too warm. Leaving the
parlour door open in winter--a perpetual occurrence at hotels and
boarding-houses.
Talking so loudly that you can be heard all over the room. Or so low
that you cannot be heard at all, even by those who are conversing with
you. This last fault is the worst. To talk with one who has a habit of
muttering unintelligibly, is like trying to read a letter illegibly
written.
Using too often the word "madam" or "ma'am," which in fact, is now
nearly obsolete in familiar conversation. In the old French tragedies
the lovers addressed their mistresses as "madam." But then the stage
Alexander wore a powdered wig, and a laced coat, knee-breeches, and a
long-skirted waistcoat; and Roxana figured in a hoop-petticoat, a
brocade gown, a flowered apron, and a towering gauze cap. The frequent
use of "sir" is also out of fashion. "Yes, ma'am," "No, ma'am," "Yes,
sir," "No, sir," no longer sounds well, except from children to their
elders. If you have not distinctly heard what another lady has just said
to you, do not denote it by saying, "Ma'am?" but remark to her, "Excuse
me, I did not exactly hear you!"
Never, in a public parlour, place yourself in a position where you can
secretly hear conversation that is not intended for you--for instance in
a corner behind a pillar. If you hear yourself talked of, it is mean to
stay and listen. It is a true adage that "Listeners seldom hear any good
of themselves."
However smart and witty you may be considered, do not exercise your wit
in rallying and bantering your friends. If you do so, their friendship
will soon be worn out, or converted into positive enmity. A jest that
carries a sting with it can never give a pleasant sensation to the
object. The bite of a musquito is a very little thing, but it leaves
pain and inflammation behind it, and the more it is rubbed the longer it
rankles in the blood. No one likes to have their foibles or mishaps
turned into ridicule--before other persons especially. And few can
cordially join in a laugh that is raised against themselves.
The slightest jest on the personal defects of those you are conversing
with, is an enormity of rudeness and vulgarity. It is, in fact, a sneer
at the Creator that made them so. No human creature is accountable for
being too small, or too large; for an ill-formed figure, or for
ill-shaped limbs; for irregular features, or a bad complexion.
Still worse, to rally any person (especially a woman) on her age, or to
ask indirect questions with a view of discovering what her age really
is. If we continue to live, we must continue to grow old. We must either
advance in age, or we must die. Where then is the shame of surviving our
youth? And when youth departs, beauty goes along with it. At least as
much beauty as depends on complexion, hair, and teeth. In arriving at
middle age, (or a little beyond it,) a lady must compound for the loss
of either face or figure. About that period she generally becomes
thinner, or fatter. If thin, her features shrink, and her skin shrivels
and fades; even though she retains a slender and perhaps a girlish form.
If she grows fat, her skin may continue smooth, and her complexion fine,
and her neck and arms may be rounder and handsomer than in girlhood; but
then symmetry of shape will cease--and she must reconcile herself to the
change as best she can. But a woman with a good mind, a good heart, and
a good temper, can never at any age grow ugly--for an intelligent and
pleasant expression is in itself beauty, and the best sort of beauty.
Sad indeed is the condition of women in the decline of life when "No
lights of age adorn them." When, having neglected in the spring and
summer to lay up any stores for the winter that is sure to come, they
find themselves left in the season of desolation with nothing to fall
back upon--no pleasant recollections of the acquisition of knowledge or
the performance of good deeds, and nothing to talk about but the idle
gossip of the day--striving painfully to look younger than they really
are; still haunting balls and parties, and enduring all the discomforts
of crowded watering-places, long after all pleasure in such scenes must
have passed away. But then they must linger in public because they are
miserable at home, having no resources within themselves, and few
enduring friends to enliven them with their society.
The woman that knows how to grow old gracefully, will adapt her dress to
her figure and her age, and wear colours that suit her present
complexion. If her neck and arms are thin, she will not expose them
under any circumstances. If her hair is grey, she will not decorate it
with flowers and flimsy ribbons. If her cheeks are hollow, she will not
make her face look still longer and thinner by shadowing it with long
ringlets; and setting her head-dress far back--but she will give it as
much softness as she can, by a light cap-border tied under her chin. She
will not squeeze herself out of all human shape by affecting a long
tight _corsage_; and she will wear no dresses glaring with huge flowers,
or loaded with gaudy trimmings. She will allude to her age as a thing of
course; she will speak without hesitation of former times, though the
recollection proves her to be really old. She will be kind and indulgent
to the young; and the young will respect and love her, and gladly
assemble near her chair, and be amused and unconsciously instructed. As
long as she lives and retains her faculties she will endeavour to
improve, and to become still a wiser and a better woman; never excusing
herself by indolently and obstinately averring that "she is too old to
learn," or that she cannot give up her old-fashioned habits. If she
finds that those habits are unwarrantable, or that they are annoying to
her friends, she ought to relinquish them. No one with a mind
unimpaired, and a heart still fresh, is too old to learn.
This book is addressed chiefly to the young; but we shall be much
gratified by finding that even old ladies have found in it some
advantageous suggestions on points that had hitherto escaped their
notice.
THE END.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Typos, spelling and punctuation errors fixed.
P. 168, "inverted commas"--represented as curved opening and closing
quotation marks as used throughout the original.
P. 218, "you know," repeated, is faithful to the original. Retained
since repetition may have been intended by the author to indicate
over-use of the phrase.
P. 279, "placing this mark /\ below"--the symbol is an upside-down V
(joined at the top) in the original.
P. 288, "ankles;" original reads "ancles."
P. 289, "Blind-man's bluff;" original reads "buff."
P. 330, Original chapter heading numbered "XXIV." Corrected to "XXV."
Variations changed to more frequent usage: Commonplace to common-place,
despatch/ to dispatch/, drest to dressed, inclos/ to enclos/, inquiries
to enquiries, intrust/ to entrust/, steam-boat to steamboat, and
unladylike to unlady-like.
Entremets and entremets corrected to entremets.
Unusual spellings in the original that were retained include:
cotemporary, extatic, mattrass, negor, receipt (for recipe), segars,
Shakspeare, sociablist, and visiter.
Also retained because used equally: bed-chambers and bedchambers,
before-hand and beforehand, foot-stool(s) and footstool(s), ink-stand
and inkstand (in this case, one each was present in original, plus one
broken at line's end. I opted to remove the hyphen on rejoining, as it
was closer in the text to the other non-hyphenated version).