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

A young lady of good breeding, when walking alone, should not talk or laugh in a loud boisterous manner. “Capers” (e. g. climbing trees, etc.), while good exercise and undoubtedly fashionable in certain “speedy” circles, are of questionable taste for ladies, especially if indulged in to excess or while walking with young gentlemen on the Sabbath. Sport is sport, and no one loves a stiff game of “fives” or “rounders” more than I, but the spectacle of a young unmarried lady and her escort hanging by their limbs on the Lord’s Day from the second or third cross arm of an electric telegraph pole is certainly carrying things a bit too far, in my opinion, even in this age of “golf” and lawn “tennis.” A young gentleman escorting a young lady on foot to a formal ball or the opera should walk on the outside, especially if they are both in evening dress and have a long distance to go. It is never incorrect to suggest the use of a street car, or as one gets near the Opera House, a carriage or a “taxicab.” A young man walking with a young lady, when accosted by a beggar, always gives the beggar something unless the young lady is his wife or his sister. So much for pedestrians. I can not, of course, pretend to give here all the rules for those who “go afoot” and I can only say that the safest principle for correct behavior in this, as in many social matters, is the now famous reply Thomas Edison once made to the stranger who asked him with what he mixed his paints in order to get such marvellous effects. “One part inspiration,” replied the great inventor, “and NINE parts perspiration.” In other words, etiquette is not so much a matter of “genius” as of steady application to small details.