Perfect Behavior: A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in All Social Crises

Then follows the religious ceremony. Immediately after the church service, a reception is held at the bride’s home, where refreshments are served and two hundred and forty-two invited guests make the same joke about kissing the bride. At the reception it is customary for the ushers and the best man to crawl off in separate corners and die. The wedding “festivities” are generally concluded with the disappearance of the bride, the bridegroom, one of the uninvited guests and four of the most valuable presents. The Man of Refinement Controls His Emotions The man of culture and refinement, while always considerate to those beneath him in station, never, under any circumstances, loses control of his emotions for an instant. Though the gentleman-rider in the picture may be touchingly fond of his steeplechase horse, it is unpardonably bad form for him to make an exhibition of his affection while going over the brush in plain view of numbers of total strangers. In doing so he simply is making a “guy” of himself, and it is no more than he deserves if those in the gallery raise their eyebrows at each other and smile knowingly. Comparative Advantages of the Pen— the Phone The Romans had a proverb, “Litera scripta manet,” which means “The written letter remains.” The subtle wisdom of these words was no doubt well known to the men of the later Paleolithic Age before them, but evidently the gentleman in the engraving never heard of it. If he had kept this simple little rule of social correspondence in mind he would have avoided the painful experience of hearing his obsolete emotions exposed to the eager ears of twelve perfect strangers. It is customary nowadays for unmarried elder sons of our most aristocratic families to express their appreciation of the qualities of fascinating bachelor girls over the sensible, though plebeian, telephone.