HOW TO BEHAVE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 16, 19 January 1924, Page 16

HOW TO BEHAVE

DIRECTIONS FKOM TEE PAST.

I have m my own possession a small English book, which must be, I think a reprint from a very old work, called Correct Conduct"., (writes Rose Macaulay in "Good Housekeeping"). It is very edifying reading. It is the correct thing, according to this book, to look upon your morning bath as a duty to yourself and to so.ciqj.j-; to appear in he morning fully equipped, but-in a totally different style from that'of thn evening; at breakfast, to choose what is already on tho table unless it is positively disagreeable'to you; at lunch, to make a sufficient but light meal and not to conduct yourself as if you were d;nmg or taking-' your one heavy meal ot the day; at dinner, to remember that this is the repast par excellence, and to treat it as such in every respect; to appear to be well pleased with your dinner-partner, as you have no means of escaping from the tete-a-tete; to eat and drink judiciously; to regard your pocket handkerchief, when you are in society, as an article or ornament, not of use (whether you should use your sleeve, or what, the book does not say) ; and so to live that when old age comes you will be spared the tortures of remorse'and regret. It is not .the correct thing to Jet your hostssat dinner see that you have only come for the food; to put on evening dress before six in tho evening; to come down to breakfast in (ill your jewels, . stars, or orders; for a lady to dance two successive dances with tho sams partner, unless she. is engaged to marry him (0, tempora, 0 mores'!); for a lady at a dance to go down to supper alone; "she has to wait upon the kindness of her geneltmen friends in those matters, unless she is a belle."* Well, it is idla to speculate on tha manners of another age. For myself, 1 have found but little social guidance even in up-to-dats works on etiquette. For they never tell you the things you really want 'to know. I do i}ot want to know how to out asparagus, or how to prder at a restaurant (order what you want, eeems lo mo the only answer, and no book can tell you what that is), nor how to greet acquaintances in the street. All those seem simple matters. But life is, nevertheless, beset with social problems, to which insufficient attention is paid. One day I shall- write a littlo boak of conduct myself, and I shall call it '"Social Problems of the Unsociable.'-' And the root problem, bsucath a. hundreti varying manifestations, is How to Escape.