WORRY ABOUT MANNERS AND SPEECH
Many people are desperately worried about their manners. One has
but to read the letters written to the "Answers to Correspondents"
departments of the newspapers to see how much worry this subject of
manners causes. This springs, undoubtedly, from a variety of causes.
People brought up in the country, removing to the city, find the
conditions of life very different from those to which they have been
accustomed, and they are _uncertain_ as to what city people regard
as the right and proper things to do. Where one, perforce, must act,
uncertainty is always irritating or worrying, and, because of this
uncertainty, many people worry even before the time comes to act. Now,
if their worry would take a practical and useful turn--or, perhaps, I
had better state it in another way, viz., that if they would spend
the same time in deciding what their course of action should be--there
would be an end put to the worry.
We have all seen such people. They are worried lest their clothes are
not all right for the occasion, lest their tie is of the wrong shade,
their shoes of the correct style, and a thousand and one things that
they seem to conjure up for the especial purpose of worrying over
them. Who has not seen the nervousness, the worried expression on the
face, the real misery of such people, caused by trifles that are so
insignificant as not to be worth one-tenth the bother wasted on them.
The learning of a few fundamental principles will help out
wonderfully. The chief end of "good manners" is to oil the wheels
of social converse. Hence, the first and most important principle to
learn is a due and proper consideration for the rights, opinions, and
comfort of others. In other words, don't think of yourself so much as
of the other fellow. Let your question be, not: How can I secure
my own pleasure and comfort? but How can I best secure his? It is a
self-evident proposition that you cannot make him feel comfortable and
happy if you are uncomfortable and unhappy. Hence, the first thing to
do is to quit worrying and be comfortable. This desired state of mind
will come as soon as you have courageously made up your mind as to
what standard of manners you intend to follow. The world is made up
to-day, largely, of two classes: those who have money, and those who
don't. Of the former class, a certain few set themselves up as the
arbiters of good manners; they decide what shall be called "good
form," and what is not allowable. If you belong to that class, the
best thing you can do is to learn "to play the game their way." Study
their rules of calling cards, and learn whether you leave one, two,
three, or six when you are calling upon a man, or a woman, or both, or
their oldest unmarried daughter, or the rest of the family. This is
a regular game like golf, or polo. You have to know the course, the
tools to use, and the method of going from one goal to another. Now, I
never knew any ordinarily intelligent man or woman who couldn't learn
the names of the tools used in golf, the numbers of the holes, and the
rules of the game. _How_ you play the game is another matter. And so
is it in "good society." You can learn the rules as easily as the next
one, and then it is "up to you" as to _how_ you play it. You'll have
to study the fashions in clothes; the fashions in handkerchiefs, and
how to flirt with them; when to drink tea, and where; how to lose
money gracefully at bridge; how to gabble incessantly and not know
what you are talking about; how to listen "intelligently" and not have
the remotest idea what your _vis-a-vis_ is saying to you; you'll have
to join 'steen clubs, and read ten new novels a day; go to every new
play; know all about the latest movies; know all the latest ideas
of social uplift, study art, the spiritual essence of color, the
futurists, and the cubists. Of course, you'll study the peerage of
England and know all about rank and precedence--and, indeed, you'll
have your hands and mind so full of things that will make such a hash
of life that it will take ten specialists to straighten you out and
help you to die forty years before your time. Hence, if that is the
life you intend to live, throw this book into the fire. It will be
wasting your time to read it.
If you don't belong to the class of the extra rich, but are all the
time wishing that you did; that you had their money, could live as
they live, and, as far as you can, you imitate, copy, and follow
them, then, again, I recommend that you give this book to the nearest
newsboy and let him sell it and get some good out of it. You are not
yet ready for it, or else you have gone so far beyond me in life, that
you are out of my reach.
If, on the other hand, you belong to the class of _workers_, those who
have to earn their living and wish to spend their lives intelligently
and usefully, you can well afford to disregard--after you have learned
to apply the few basic principles of social converse--the whims, the
caprices, the artificial code set up by the so-called arbiters of
fashion, manners, and "good form," which are not formulated for
the promotion of intelligent intercourse between real manhood and
womanhood, but for the preservation and strengthening of the barriers
of wealth and caste.
Connected with this phase of the subject is a consideration of those
who are worried lest in word or action, they fail in gentility. They
are afraid to do anything lest it should not be regarded as genteel.
When they shake hands, it must be done not so much with hearty,
friendly spontaneity, but with gentility, and you wonder what that
faint touch of fingers, reached high in air, means. They would be
mortified beyond measure if they failed to observe any of the little
gentilities of life, while the larger consideration of their visitor's
disregard of the matter, would entirely escape them. To such people,
social intercourse is a perpetual worry and bugbear. They are on the
watch every moment, and if a visitor fails to say, "Pardon me," at the
proper place, or stands with his back to his hostess for a moment, or
does any other of the things that natural men and women often do, they
are "shocked."
Then it would be amusing, were it not pathetic, to see how particular
they are about their speech--_what_ they say, and _how_ they say it.
As Dr. Palmer has tersely said: "We are terrorized by custom, and
inclined to adjust what we would say to what others have said before,"
and he might have added: It must be said in the same manner.
I cannot help asking why men and women should be terrorized by
custom--the method followed or prescribed by other men and women. Why
be so afraid of others; why so anxious to "kow-tow" to the standards
of others? Who are they? What are they, that they should demand the
reverent following of the world? Have you anything to say? Have you
a right to say it? Is it wise to say it? Then, in the name of God, of
manhood, of common sense, say it, directly, positively, assertively,
as is your right, remembering the assurance of the Declaration of
Independence that "all men are created equal." Don't worry about
whether you are saying it in the genteel fashion of some one else's
standard. Make your own standard. Even the standards of the grammar
books and dictionaries are not equal to that of a man who has
something to say and says it forcefully, truthfully, pointedly,
directly. Dr. Palmer has a few words to say on this phase of the
subject, which are well worthy serious consideration: "The cure for
the first of these troubles is to keep our eyes on our object, instead
of on our listener or ourselves; and for the second, to learn to rate
the expressiveness of language more highly than its compeers.
The opposite of this, the disposition to set correctness above
expressiveness, produces that peculiarly vulgar diction, known as
"school-ma'am English," in which for the sake of a dull accord with
usage, all the picturesque, imaginative, and forceful employment of
words is sacrificed."
There you have it! If you have something to say that really means
something, think of that, rather than of the way of saying it, your
hearer, or yourself. Thus you will lose your self-consciousness, your
dread, your fear, your worry. If your thought is worth anything,
you can afford to laugh at some small violation of grammar, or the
knocking over of some finical standard or other. Not that I would be
thought to advocate either carelessness, laziness, or indifference in
speech. Quite the contrary, as all who have heard me speak well know.
But I fully believe that _thought_ is of greater importance than _form
of expression_. And, as for grammar, I believe with Thomas Jefferson,
that "whenever, by small grammatical negligences, the energy of your
ideas can be condensed or a word be made to stand for a sentence, I
hold grammatical rigor in contempt."
I was present once when Thomas Carlyle and a technical grammarian
were talking over some violation of correct speech--according to the
latter's standard--when Carlyle suddenly burst forth in effect, in his
rich Scotch burr: "Why, mon, I'd have ye ken that I'm one of the men
that make the language for little puppies like ye to paw over with
your little, fiddling, twiddling grammars!"
By all means, know all the grammar you can. Read the best of poets and
prose authors to see how they have mastered the language, but don't
allow your life to become a burden to you and others because of your
worry lest you "slip a grammatical cog" here and there, when you know
you have something worth saying. And if you haven't anything worth
saying, please, please, keep your mouth shut, no matter what the
genteel books prescribe, for nothing can justify the talk of an
empty-headed fool who will insist upon talking when he and his
listeners know he has nothing whatever to say. So, if you must worry,
let it be about something worth while--getting hold of ideas, the
strength of your thought, the power of your emotion, the irresistible
sweep of your enthusiasm, the forcefulness of your indignation about
wrong. These are things it is worth while to set your mind upon, and
when you have decided what you ought to say, and are absorbed with
the power of its thought, the need the world has for it, you will care
little about the exact form of your words. Like the flood of a mighty
stream, they will pour forth, carrying conviction with them, and to
convince your hearer of some powerful truth is an object worthy the
highest endeavor of a godlike man or woman--surely a far different
object than worrying as to whether the words or method of expression
meet some absurd standard of what is conceived to be "gentility."
Congressman Hobson, of Merrimac fame, and Ex-President Roosevelt are
both wonderful illustrations of the point I am endeavoring to impress
upon my readers. I heard Hobson when, in Philadelphia, at a public
dinner given in his honor, he made his first speech after his return
from Cuba. It was evident that he had been, and was, much worried
about what he should say, and the result was everybody else was
worried as he tried to say it. His address was a pitiable failure,
mainly because he had little or nothing to say, and yet tried to make
a speech. Later he entered Congress, began to feel intensely upon the
subjects of national defense and prohibition of the alcoholic liquor
traffic. A year or so ago I heard him speak on the latter of these
subjects. Here, now, was an entirely different man. He was possesed
with a great idea. He was no longer trying to find something to say,
but in a powerful, earnest, and enthusiastic way, he poured forth
facts, figures, argument, and illustration, that could not fail to
convince an open mind, and profoundly impress even the prejudiced.
It was the same with Roosevelt. When he first began to speak in
public, it was hard work. He wrote his addresses beforehand, and then
read them. Perhaps he does now, for aught I know to the contrary, but
I do know that now that he is full of the subjects of national honor
in dealing with such cases as Mexico, Belgium, and Armenia, and our
preparedness to sacrifice life itself rather than honor, his words
pour forth in a perfect Niagara of strong, robust, manly argument,
protest, and remonstrance, which gives one food for deep thought no
matter how much he may differ.
There are those who worry about the "gentility" of others. I remember
when Charles Wagner, the author of _The Simple Life_, was in this
country. We were dining at the home of a friend and one of these
super-sensitive, finical sticklers for gentility was present. Wagner
was speaking in his big, these super-sensitive, finical sticklers for
gentility simple, primitive way of a man brought up as a peasant,
and more concerned about what he was thinking than whether his "table
manners" conformed to the latest standard. There was some gravy on his
plate. He wanted it. He took a piece of bread and used it as a sop,
and then, impaling the gravy-soaked bread on his fork, he conveyed it
to his mouth with gusto and relish. My "genteel" friend commented upon
it afterwards as "disgusting," and lost all interest in the man and
his work as a consequence.
To my mind, the criticism was that of a fool.
John Muir, the eminent poet-naturalist of the _Mountains of
California_, had a habit at the table of "crumming" his bread--that
is, toying with it, until it crumbled to pieces in his hand. He
would, at the same time, be sending out a steady stream of the most
entertaining, interesting, fascinating, and instructive lore about
birds and beasts, trees and flowers, glaciers and rocks, that one
ever listened to. In his mental occupancy, he knew not whether he was
eating his soup with a fork or an ice-cream spoon--and cares less.
Neither did any one else with brains and an awakened mind that soared
above mere conventional manners. And yet I once had an Eastern woman
of great wealth, (recently acquired), and of great pretensions to
social "manners," at whose table Muir had eaten, inform me that she
regarded him as a rude boor, because, forsooth, he was unmindful
of these trivial and unimportant conventions when engaged in
conversation.
Now, neither Wagner nor Muir would justify any advocacy on my part of
neglect of true consideration, courtesy, or good manners. But where
is the "lack of breeding" in sopping up gravy with a piece of bread or
"crumming," or eating soup with a spoon of one shape or another? These
are purely arbitrary rules, laid down by people who have more time
than sense, money than brains, and who, as I have elsewhere remarked,
are far more anxious to preserve the barand unimportant conventions
when engaged in conive realization of the biblical idea of the
"brotherhood of man."