M. E. W. Sherwood

“ The grand seigneur of those days, the man who would not arrange the folds of his own cravat with his own hands, and who exacted an observance as punctilious from his valets as if he were the king himself, that marquis of whom the great Moliere makes such fun, the courtier whom even the grand monarque liked to see ridiculed—this man had, nevertheless, good manners. We see him reflected with marvellous fidelity in those wonderful comedies of the French Shakespeare; he is more than the fashion of an epoch—he is one of the eternal types of human nature. ”

“ Some people seem to look at nature through a glass of red wine or in a Claude Lorraine mirror; to them the landscape has ever the bloom of summer or a spring-tide grace. To others, it is always cloudy, dreary, dull. The desolate ravine, the stony path, the blighted heath—that is all they can find in a book which should have a chapter for everybody. And the latter are apt to call the former dreamers, visionaries, fools. They are dubbed in society often flatterers, people whose "geese are all swans." ”

“ A lady can give a matinee or a soiree in a small house with very little expenditure of money; and if she has the inspiration of the model entertainer, every one whom she honors with an invitation will flock to her small and unpretending menage. There are numbers of people in our large cities who can give great balls, dazzle the eye, confuse and delight the senses, drown us in a sensuous luxury; but how few there are who, in a back street and in a humble house, light that lamp by which the Misses Berry summoned to their little parlor the cleverest and best people! ”

“ How can we say to a mother who bends over a fresh grave, that we regret the loss she has sustained in the death of her child? Can language measure the depth, the height, the immensity, the bitterness of that grief? What shall we say that is not trite and commonplace—even unfeeling? Shall we be pagan, and say that "whom the gods love die young," or Christian, and remark that "God does not willingly afflict the children of men?" ”

“ Those who have suffered and been strong, those whom we love and respect, those who have the honest faith in human nature which enables them to read aright the riddle of this strange world, those who by faith walk over burning ploughshares and dread no evil, those are the people who write the best letters of condolence. They do not dwell on our grief, or exaggerate it, although they are evidently writing to us with a lump in the throat and a tear in the eye—they do not say so, but we feel it. ”

“ And what are, after all, these social relations which call for so much courage, and which can create so much suffering to most of us as we conquer for them our awkwardness and our shyness? Let us pause for a moment, and try to be just. Let us contemplate these social ethics, which call for so much that is, perhaps, artificial and troublesome and contradictory. Society, so long as it is the congregation of the good, the witty, the bright, the intelligent, and the gifted, is the thing most necessary to us all. ”

“ The discarding of mourning should be effected by gradations. It shocks persons of good taste to see a light-hearted young widow jump into colors, as if she had been counting the hours. If black is to be dispensed with, let its retirement be slowly and gracefully marked by quiet costumes, as the feeling of grief, yielding to the kindly influence of time, is shaded off into resignation and cheerfulness. We do not forget our dead, but we mourn for them with a feeling which no longer partakes of anguish. ”

“ How many a girl has had her society life ruined by the cruelty of a society leader! how many a young man has had his blood frozen by a contemptuous smile at his awkwardness! How much of the native good-will of an impulsive person has been frozen into a caustic and sardonic temper by the lack of a little optional civility? The servant who comes for a place, and seats herself while the lady who speaks to her is standing, is wanting in optional civility. She sins from ignorance, and should be kindly told of her offence, and taught better manners. ”

“ The elegant, the unpretentious, the quiet soire to which the woman of fashion shall welcome the littrateur and the artist, the aristocrat who is at the top of the social tree and the millionaire who reached his culmination yesterday, would seem to be that Ultima Thule for which all people have been sighing ever since society was first thought of. There are some Americans who are so foolish as to affect the pride of the hereditary aristocracies, and who have some fancied traditional standard by which they think to keep their blue blood pure. ”

“ Joy opens the closet of language, and the gems of expression are easily found; but the fountain of feeling being chilled by the uncongenial atmosphere of grief, by the sudden horror of death, or the more terrible breath of dishonor or shame, or even by the cold blast of undeserved misfortune, leaves the individual sympathizer in a mood of perplexity and of sadness which is of itself a most discouraging frame of mind for the inditing of a letter. ”

“ Perhaps much of our dread of death is the result of a false education, and the wearing of black may after all be a mistake. At the moment when we need bright colors, fresh flowers, sunshine, and beauty, we hide ourselves behind crape veils and make our garments heavy with ashes; but as it is conventional it is in one way a protection, and is therefore proper. No one feels like varying the expressions of a grief which has the Anglo-Saxon seriousness in it, the Scandinavian melancholy of a people from whom Nature hides herself behind a curtain of night. ”

“ Could we all have abundant leisure and be sure to find our friends at home, what more agreeable business than visiting? To wander from one pleasant interior to another, to talk a little harmless gossip, to hear the last mot, the best piece of news, to see one's friends, their children, and the stranger within their gates—all this is charming; it is the Utopia of society ”

“ They only thus find out which of their new neighbors are the most worth cultivating. This sort of courtesy is as far as possible from the dreadful word "pushing." As dress was made to dignify the human body, so a generous courtesy clothes the mind. Let no one be afraid of draping the spirit with this purple and gold.
And in all fresh neighborhoods the new-comers should try to cultivate society. There is something in its attrition which stimulates the mind. Society brightens up the wits, and causes the dullest mind to bring its treasures to the surface. ”

“ The woman who works should also look upon the divertissements of society as needed recreation, fruitful, may be, of the best culture.
On the other hand, no society is perfect without the elements of beauty, grace, taste, refinement, and luxury. We must bring all these varied potentialities together if we would have a real and living social life. For that brilliant thing that we call society is a finely-woven fabric of threads of different sizes and colors of contrasting shades. ”

“ But if a woman laces herself into a sixteen-inch belt, and then clothes herself in brocade, satin, and bright colors, and makes herself conspicuous, she should not object to the fact that men, seeing her throw aside her mantle, comment upon her charms in no measured terms. She has no one to blame but herself.
We might add that by this over-dressing women deprive themselves of the advantage of contrast in style. Lace, in particular, is for the house and for the full-dress dinner or ball. So are the light, gay silks, which have no fitness of fold or of texture for the climbing of a coach. ”

“ It is not an uncommon sight to see a lady in a diamond tiara in a London hansom by the blazing light of a summer sun. Thus what we should shun as a very public thing the reserved English woman does in crowded London, and regards it as proper, while she smiles if she sees an American lady alone in a victoria in Hyde Park, and would consider her a very improper person if she asked a gentleman to drive out with her—as we do in our Park every day of our lives—in an open carriage. Truly etiquette is a curious and arbitrary thing, and differs in every country. ”

“ In America, with no fixity of rule, ladies have been known to go into deepest mourning for their own relatives or those of their husbands, or for people, perhaps, whom they have never seen, and have remained as gloomy monuments of bereavement for seven or ten years, constantly in black; then, on losing a child or a relative dearly loved, they have no extremity of dress left to express the real grief which fills their lives—no deeper black to go into. ”

“ Women are seldom troubled, at the age at which men suffer, with bashfulness or awkwardness. It is as if Nature thus compensated the weaker vessel. Cruel are those women, however, and most to be reprobated, who laugh at a bashful man!
The sufferings of a shy man would fill a volume. It is a nervous seizure for which no part of his organization is to blame; he cannot reason it away, he can only crush it by enduring it: "To bear is to conquer our Fate." Some men, finding the play not worth the candle, give up society and the world ”

“ He reaches his hostess, and wishes she were the "cannon's mouth," in order that his sufferings might be ended; but she is not. His agony is to last the whole evening. Tea-parties are eternal: they never end; they are like the old-fashioned ideas of a future state of torment—they grow hotter and more stifling. As the evening advances towards eternity he upsets the cream-jug. He summons all his will-power, or he would run away. No; retreat is impossible. One must die at the post of duty. ”

“ A mourning dress does protect a woman while in deepest grief against the untimely gayety of a passing stranger. It is a wall, a cell of refuge. Behind a black veil she can hide herself as she goes out for business or recreation, fearless of any intrusion. ”

“ If a lady takes a letter to Sir John Bowring, and he has illness in his family and cannot ask her to dinner, he comes to call on her, he sends her tickets for every sort of flower show, the museums, the Botanical Garden, and all the fine things; he sends her his carriage—he evidently has her on his mind. Sir Frederick Leighton, the most courted, the busiest man in London, is really so kind, so attentive, so assiduous in his response to letters of introduction that one hesitates to present a letter for fear of intruding on his industrious and valuable life. ”

“ CHAPTER LIV. THE MANNERS OF THE SYMPATHETIC. Sympathy is the most delicate tendril of the mind, and the most fascinating gift which nature can give to us. The most precious associations of the human heart cluster around the word, and we love to remember those who have sorrowed with us in sorrow, and rejoiced with us when we were glad. But for the awkward and the shy, the sympathetic are the very worst company. They do not wish to be sympathized with—they wish to be with people who are cold and indifferent; they like shy people like themselves. ”

“ It is a compliment to ask one's friends and neighbors to any ceremony or anniversary in which our own deep feelings are concerned, such as a christening, a child's wedding, and the celebration of a birthday. Why not still more when a married pair have weathered the storms of twenty-five years? People fully aware of their own respectability should never be afraid to bow first, speak first, or call first. Courtesy is the most cosmopolitan of good qualities, and politeness is one of the seven capital virtues. No people giving such an invitation need be hurt if it is received coldly. ”

“ A dining-room, square in shape, hung with richly-embroidered, old- gold tapestry, with a round table set for twenty, with silver and glass and a great bunch of lilies and green ferns in the middle, and a "crazy quilt" of flowers over one's head, may well reproduce the sense of dreamland which modern luxury is trying to follow. ”