ETIQURTTE.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1834, 18 November 1874, Page 2

ETIQURTTE.

Etiquette seems to bear to morality and law a relation similar to that of the rules of court to an act of Parliment, and to be, like such rules, necessary to the guidance, embodiment, and practical efficiency of general principles, provisions, and prohibitions. The stream can never, in either case, rise higher than its source. It can never be justifiable according to etiquette that you should be summarily shot, or by any rule of court that you be unceremoniously lynched. In the East, you take a whiff of the narghilly proffered by your host, content with its symbolic pledge of a prized hospitality and goodwill. The - conventional form is as nothing; the comity of civilization most desirable. The wise and philosophic Chesterfield bade his son to kiss without hesitation or scruple the toe of Lambertine. Indeed, his lordship generalised the principle and varied the illustrations with homelier earnestness and a robuster philosophy than can I care to risk my character for elegance by exactly ai)d literally citing. The Pope was to be visited, was to receive prescribed homage according to Italian etiqueite, which was absolutely to be obeyed, no matter Jwhich of the august attributes of His Holiness be selected for the reverential osculation.

Civilised life has very many recurrences, too minute and transient to invite or to repay deliberation, yet too numerous and inevitable not to exact forethought and attentive prevision. " Let it be settled somehow, anyhow, but fixed, that we may have peace of mind." Hale refused to sit in the King's Bench Court on the grounds that any and every criminal therein sentenced to death under the rule of Cromwell would be, whatever his guilt, ipso facto, " murdered*" But he consented to preside in the Common Pleas. Yet why ? Surely, by parity of reasoning, every successful suitor in that court was a thief. The mind of Cromwell was too great to be daunted, too benignant to be insulted. "Anyhow, settle it (was his noble answer) anywise so the thing be done. Do justice to men, be her colour black or red. But look to it. For, as the Lord liveth, an ye do it not with black or red gowns, I will come among ye and and bring with me those who will do it with red coats and iron pots on their heads instead of caps. Sit where and as ye will, but be the thing done." lam always grateful to Polonius when, on visiting great functionaries, he ushers me with paternal care this way and that, bundling me about even as a bale of goods, telling me whom I am to take in to dinner, and pointing to my pre-appointed seat, &c. Confusion, disorder, and selfishness are thus precluded. Obedience is generally easier than command, but in this case it is all on the side of freedom.. Anarchy is the slavery «f the weak, the unrest of the strong, and the sorrow of the good. Slavery itself is often a term purely relative. He who is not a slave (or say, if you will, a loyal subject) to cleanliness becomes, and that qmckly, a slave to dirt; he who is not a slave to order becomes one to muddle —and what tyranny so galling; he who is not a devoted slave to rule and temperance becomes tlve slave of drunkenness — a state that defies the powers of imagination to deepen or to color, even when she aspires to depict the horrors of a living hell. Many are the predicaments in which obedienco to a rule, as such, is a passport to frecdoom and a basis for power. Now, in social life, no less than in professional and other ceremonies, forensic, senatorial, and ecclesiastical, occur many incidents perfectly indifferent to a, philosopher, and. beneath his discussion, yet exacting, for public convenience, that order, classification, and routine which, may profitably be relegated to the plenary discretion or arbitrary caprice of minds fitted by nature for such minute and petty rulings—to the talent, the tact, or the sagacity of Polonius, of Malvolio, orofßoyet. Shortly after the establishment and recognition of the Victorian constitution in this colony, news arrived by the English mail of the settlement by the Queen in Council of a long-vexed question touching an important (?) point of etiquette— viz., that henceforth the Bishop of Melbourne according to Tweedledum is to go into dinner just before the Bishop of Melbourne according to Tweedledee. A democratic Scotchman spoiled (even as could a harpy) the otherwise peaceful dinner of six contented philosophers. "Eli, sirs !- Its awfu; A pairfect veolation o' the constitewshon. The precedence owt to hae been settled in Pairleymint! " Imagine our legislature (Norwegian or English) debating on a point of precedence. In vain we urged that fixity was all in all, the reason of the thing neither here nor there, and argument nugatory —that such prerogative had nerer left the Crown— that the quaint old phrase, " Fountain of Honour," proved its antiquity. ■ All such palliatives served but to inflame. " Foontan o' honour ! Hoot awa' wi 1 ycr havers. I say foontan o' dishonour, when the Doonin'-street creatures and their Quin, as ye ca' her, insult and'trample on a free pipple wi' a constitewshun." I took refuge in flight, and was but made more sensible of the cheap and easy virtue of purchasing peace by the sacrafice of trifles to which {per se) I attached no importance. •Etiquette oscillates curiously between pure nonsense and practical sense. Thus —750 j ears-ago the bearer of a challenge, the server of a copy of a writ, and the barber who came to shave andbewigyou, introduced themselves with the words-— " Sir, I have the honor to be your mosfc obedient, humble servant." But now at I

this moment of writing 1, etiquette rules tliaf; whoever calls before afternoon, or an official, a professional, or a man of business at his bureau, should plunge, curtly and at once, into the immediate matter sana faeon, after a .hurried " beg you a pardon," without compliment or digression, and then " thanks" arid a prompt evaporation. All genial expressions and kindly inquiries are relegated to other time and place. Season would fain teach this, but reason is cold and unenterprising, fearful of being thought abruptly eccentric. Etiquette peremptorily commands your snob'to do this, if he wish to be mistaken for a gentleman. Thus,both garrulous kindness and gushing patronage are no longer oppressive corroders of business-time. ( laudunt rivos pueri. Etiquette commands you to wait till a woman bends in recognition before raising your hat. She has the election. For it is to the interest of society that every . gentlewoman be well armed; and this every gentlewoman knows. This rule is strengthened by its apparent exception. When Pylades meets you with a lady on arm you raise hat to him in honor of her, but pass on and speak not. Here etiquette is shone up by the light of reason. 1 praise the Anglican etiquette of never nodding or smiling a salute in church, even while in the act of departure, but herocially restraining 'your criticism on Mrs. Fljaway's bonnet and Miss Tittyfala's panniers till fairly out of the very precincts It is severe, but humanising —like your matutinal plunge. Some places of worship abound with nods and becks. This is scarcdly " severi religio loci." The observance of etiquette tests intellect more than sentiment, proves the man of sense and the gentleman rather than the Christian, or the friend.

Thus, if I be right, etiquette reigns rather over the head than the heart, and is quite apart from affection, gratitude, esteem, or generosity. It is defensive, and even self-assertive,' enabling you to telegraph. ', lam a gentleman, know what is due from, and therefore to, myself; if hostile or unsympathising, beware that you place not yourself in the wrong. I can argue, even rebuke, at the right time and place, which this is not." It seldom imposes a restraint without conferring on the patient and clear-headed a compensating privilege, correlative. Thus, at the table of Royalty you are forbidden to give the tone, to start a subject, or to put a question. .All such is the prerogative of your august hostess. But the question of Royalty is as a command, covering, protecting, justifying you. If Royalty were to ask me " What are the grounds on which Mrs. •—•— claims divorce P" or " What is alleged against a certain devout class-leader ?" I coolly set forth all the facts in their nakedness, calling spades and rakes by their right names, as popularly understood; being freed from all responsibility, and bound to believe it my duty so to enounce and deyelope every fact and every collateral incident, in all its native hideousness and its prosaic anatomy. And I should do so. All would exonerate me —nay, would own that I had done the duty of a true gentleman. But woe to me 1 if I even covertly alluded to it of my own accord. To an equal it might be kind to say, " Do not ask me ;" but if the request be persistently urged there is no alternative. Of etiquette it may indeed be said, in the words of Shylock, " What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong ? " In a minor degree, the etiquette of Royalty should be followed by the wise, with the modifications of tact and good sense, whenever they desire to show respect to age, worth, or goodness.

Many have heard of the severity of official etiquette. Few outsiders know its rigid dicipline. The following instructive example is taken from the memoirs of Kichard Cumberland, the accomplished grandson of Bently, and the traditional model of the Sir Fretful Plagiary of Sheridan. The volume ranks among the most attractive of biographies, from its varied pictures of life and character, and is (allowing for a few mannerisms and an irrepressible vanity) most beautifully

written

Cumberland was sent out to Spain as attache to a diplomatic embassy. Among his instructions were a precept " not to discuss any proposition at all until assured of His Majesty's willingness to treat." Cumberland was informed by the Spanish Minister, Count Florida Blanca, that news had just reached him of the G6rdon riots (1780)— that His Spanish Majesty trembled'-'for the safety of the British throne —that the downfall of the Ministry was certain—that, &c. Cumberland scornfully pooh-poohed the powers of a London mob, expressed his confidence in the firmness of the Executive, and went so far as to write to the Minister explaining the whole matter, and foreteHing speedy tranquility and renewed stability. He. was reprimanded and recalled, gently, but inexorably.

He pleaded that the mere interview supposed a willingness to treat, though the exaggerations of the riot might erince a wavering of purpose—that it was surely his duty to recognise willingness where it existed, and doubting when he saw it waver, to apply the remedies of truth and reason. . • •

He quote's the English Minister's po'ite acknowledgment that certainly " his letter was cautiously worded, and. that his prophecy had come true." He adds that as he felt no error he was conscious of no rebuke. He was recalled for the mere act of writing, and of giving his own theory of the exaggerated news from London. Might he not hare pleaded that he had violated no secrecy, but merely spoken as a common Briiisli subject, acquainted, as of course, with the resources of the Executive, and the great firmness of its head. George 111. had talked of jencamping. Suppose the error had been purely geographical; might not Cumberland correct it ? * A friend suggests that his despatch home may have

been boastful, but the assigned icason for recall must bo taken as the.true' grounds. His chief may have said, " How knew you ; my wishes respecting the error of Florida Blanca ;lio\v knew you I wished his-enlightenment on that or any other subject?"

Poor Cumberland could never understand -why, after having " written so cautiously, and prophesied so truly," he should be reprimanded, and plonds to posterity that it would ha- c been disgraceful to cower beneath an error so grossly untrue, which he had the power to remedy, outside his official position, end as a mere British subje t. This seems an extreme'ease, right upon the boundary line, but the lesson' is valuable to young civil servants. I once took the opinion of a very intelligent blind German metaphysician on ii. Ho said " Dis is a rare case. I must tinks mifc mine bip. To-morrow I vill gif you de subjective verdiotsh of de pure reason." He gave it against Cumberland.. " That he had no warrant to write at all." How important a drill, then, must be that of official-etiquette. Think then.O Telemachus, thus of etiquette. It is a friend, an ally, a guide, a protector. Eycn friendship and love sometimes accept her* wreaths. A French nobleman-was im- — prisoned. A pasty contained the following billet:—" M. de— ! There is a plan for your hberalioH. Arduous — but to hope, courage, and regard, what is not possible ? Hang from your window, a white ribbon, a token of acceptance. I subscribe^ not my more baptismal name, or its initials as in bygone times ; for to assume that you remember now that you are the husband of another were a be'tise, and contrary to etiquette. Bui you hare a friend in Lucile. Comptesse de Beaurelop!" The che'?ry tone of this true elegance must have charmed the captive. Jn short, we escape many. failures mortifications, and estrangements, clinch many friendships and cement much respect and goodwill, by the steady and resolute cultivation, observance, and study, wheresoever we may be, of local and conventional, as well as of general etiquette.