EVERY-DAY MANNERS AT HOME
Just as no chain is stronger than its weakest link, no manners can be
expected to stand a strain beyond their daily test at home.
Those who are used to losing their temper in the bosom of their family
will sooner or later lose it in public. Families which exert neither
courtesy nor charm when alone, can no more deceive other people into
believing that either attribute belongs to them than they could hope to
make painted faces look like "real" complexions.
A mother should exact precisely the same behavior at home and every day,
that she would like her children to display in public, and she herself, if
she expects them to take good manners seriously, must show the same
manners to them alone that she shows to "company."
A really charming woman exerts her charm nowhere more than upon her
husband and children, and a noble nature through daily though unconscious
example is of course the greatest influence for good that there is in the
world. No preacher, no matter how saint-like his precept or golden his
voice, can equal the home influence of admirable parents.
It is not merely in such matters as getting up when their mother or other
older relatives enter a room, answering civilly and having good table
manners, but in forming habits of admirable living and thinking that a
parent's example makes or mars.
If children see temper uncontrolled, hear gossip, uncharitableness and
suspicion of neighbors, witness arrogant sharp-dealing or lax honor, their
own characters can scarcely escape perversion. In the same way others can
not easily fail to be thoroughbred who have never seen or heard their
parents do or say an ignoble thing.
No child will ever accept a maxim that is preached but not followed by the
preacher. It is a waste of breath for the father to order his Sons to keep
their temper, to behave like gentlemen, or to be good sportsmen, if he
does or is himself none of these things.
In the present day of rush and hurry, there is little time for "home"
example. To the over-busy or gaily fashionable, "home" might as well be a
railroad station, and members of a family passengers who see each other
only for a few hurried minutes before taking trains in opposite
directions. The days are gone when the family sat in the evening around
the fire, or a "table with a lamp," when it was customary to read aloud or
to talk. Few people "talk well" in these days; fewer read aloud, and fewer
still endure listening to any book literally word by word.
Railroad station reading is as much in vogue as railroad station bolting
of meals. Magazines--"picture" ones--are all that the hurried have time
for, and even those who profess to "love reading" dart tourist-fashion
from page to page only pausing at attractive paragraphs; and family
relationships are followed somewhat in the same way.
Any number of busy men scarcely know their children at all, and have not
even stopped to realize that they seldom or never talk to them, never
exert themselves to be sympathetic with them, or in the slightest degree
to influence them. To growl "mornin'," or "Don't, Johnny," or "Be quiet,
Alice!" is very, very far from being "an influence" on your children's
morals, minds or manners.
=HOME EDUCATION=
A Supreme Court Justice whose education had been cut short in his youth by
the Civil War, when asked how, under the circumstances, his scholastic
attainments had been acquired, answered: "My father believed it was the
duty of every gentleman to bequeath the wealth of his intellect, no less
than that of his pocket, to his children. Wealth might be acquired by
'luck,' but proper cultivation was the birthright of every child born of
cultivated parents. We learned Latin and Greek by having him talk and
read them to us. He wrote doggerel rhymes of history which took the place
of Mother Goose. He also told us 'bed-time stories' of history, and read
classics to us after supper. When there was company, we were brought down
from the nursery so that we might profit by the conversation of our
betters."
Volumes full of "manners" acquired after they are grown are not worth half
so much as the simplest precepts acquired through lifelong habits and
through having known nothing else.
=THE OLD GRAY WRAPPER HABIT=
How many times has one heard some one say: "I won't dress for dinner--no
one is coming in." Or, "That old dress will do!" Old clothes! No manners!
And what is the result? One wife more wonders why her husband neglects
her! Curious how the habit of careless manners and the habit of old
clothes go together. If you doubt it, put the question to yourself: "Who
could possibly have the manners of a queen in a gray flannel wrapper?" And
how many women really lovely and good--especially good--commit esthetic
suicide by letting themselves slide down to where they "feel natural" in
an old gray flannel wrapper, not only actually but mentally.
The woman of charm in "company" is the woman of fastidiousness at home;
she who dresses for her children and "prinks" for her husband's
home-coming, is sure to greet them with greater charm than she who thinks
whatever she happens to have on is "good enough." Any old thing good
enough for those she loves most! Think of it!
A certain very lovely lady whose husband is quite as much her lover as in
the days of his courtship, has never in twenty years allowed him to watch
the progress of her toilet, because of her determination never to let him
see her except at her prettiest. Needless to say, he never meets anything
but "prettiest" manners either. No matter how "out of sorts" she may be
feeling, his key in the door is a signal for her to "put aside everything
that is annoying or depressing," with the result that wild horses
couldn't drag his attention from her--all because neither she nor he has
ever slumped into the gray flannel wrapper habit.
So many people save up all their troubles to pour on the one they most
love, the idea being, seemingly, that no reserves are necessary between
lovers. Nor need there be really. But why, when their house looks out upon
a garden that has charming vistas, must she insist on his looking into the
clothes-yard and the ash-can? She who complains incessantly that this is
wrong, or that hurts, or any other thing worries or vexes her, so that his
inevitable answer to her greeting is, "I'm so sorry, dear," or "That's too
bad," or "Poor darling, it's a shame," is getting mentally into a gray
flannel wrapper!
If something is seriously wrong, if she is really ill, that is different.
But of the petty things that are only remembered in order to be told to
gain sympathy--beware!
There is a big deposit of sympathy in the bank of love, but don't draw out
little sums every hour or so--so that by and by, when perhaps you need it
badly, it is all drawn out and you yourself don't know how or on what it
was spent.
All that has been said to warn a wife from slovenly habits of mind or
dress may be adapted to apply with equal force in suggesting a rule for
husbands. A man should always remember that a woman's regard for him is
founded on her impressions when seeing him at his best. Even granting that
she has no great illusions about men in general, he at his best is at
least an approximation to her ideal--and it is his chief duty never to
fall below the standard he set for himself in making his most cogent
appeal. Consequently he should continue through the years to be scrupulous
about his personal appearance and his clothes, remembering the adage that
the most successful marriages are those in which both parties to the
contract succeed in "keeping up the illusion." It is of importance also
that he refrain from burdening his wife with the cares and worries of his
business day. Many writers insist that the wife should be ready to receive
a complete consignment of all his troubles when the husband comes home at
the end of the day. It is a sounder practise for him to save her as much
as possible from the trials of his business hours; and, incidentally, it
is the best kind of mental training for him to put all business cares
behind him as he closes the door of his office and goes home. When it is
said that a husband should not fling all the day's trifling annoyances
into the lap of his wife without reflecting that she may have some cares
of her own, there is no intention to indicate that a wife should not have
a thorough understanding of her husband's affairs. Complete acquaintance
and sympathy with his work is one of the foundation stones of the domestic
edifice.
=THE FAMILY AT TABLE=
Whether "there is company" or whether the family is alone, the linen must
be as spotless, the silver as clean, and the table as carefully set as
though twenty were coming for dinner. Sloppy service is no more to be
tolerated every day at home than at a dinner party, and in so far as
etiquette is concerned, you should live in exactly the same way whether
there is company or none. "Company manners" and "every-day manners" must
be identical in service as well as family behavior. You may not be able to
afford quantities of flowers in your house and on your table, or perhaps
any, but there is no excuse for wilted flowers or an empty vase that
merely accentuates your table's flowerlessness. There are plenty of table
ornaments that need no flowers. In the same way the compotiers can be
filled with candies or conserves of the "everlasting" variety;
silver-foiled chocolates or nougat, or gum drops or crystalized ginger or
conserved fruits--will keep for months! But the table must be decorated
and a certain form observed at the dinner hour; otherwise gray flannel
wrapper habits become imminent. Letters, newspapers, books have no place
at a dinner table. Reading at table is allowable at breakfast and when
eating alone, but a man and his wife should no more read at lunch or
dinner before each other or their children than they should allow their
children to read before them.
=THE TABLE NOT A PLACE FOR PRIVATE DISCUSSION=
One very bad habit in many families is the discussion of all of their most
intimate affairs at table--entirely forgetting whoever may be waiting on
it; and nine times out of ten those serving in the dining-room see no harm
(if they feel like it) in repeating what is said. Why should they? It
scarcely occurs to them that they were "invisible" and that what was
openly talked about at the table was supposed to be a secret!
Apart from the stupidity and imprudence of talking before witnesses, it is
bad form to discuss one's private affairs before any one. And it should be
unnecessary to add that a man and his wife who quarrel before their
children or the servants, deprive the former of good breeding through
inheritance, and publish to the latter that they do not belong to the
"better class" through any qualification except the possession of a bank
account.
Furthermore, parents must never disagree before the children. It simply
can't be! Nor can there be an appeal to one parent against the other by a
child.
"Father told me to jump down the well!"
"Then you must do it, dear," is the mother's only possible comment. When
the child has "jumped down the well," she may pull him out promptly, and
she may in private tell her husband what she thinks about his issuing such
orders and stand her own ground against them; but so long as parents are
living under the same roofs that roof must shelter unity of opinion, so
far as any witnesses are concerned.