Twentieth Century Culture and Deportment / Or the Lady and Gentleman at Home and Abroad; Containing Rules of Etiquette for All Occasions, Including Calls; Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions; Dinners and Teas; Etiquette of the Street; Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete Guide to Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well; Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and Interior Decorations, Etc.

by Maud C. Cooke

Important Trifles.

See or correspond with each other often. Love will not bear neglect. Nothing kills it equally. In this it is most exacting. It will not, should not, be second in anything. “First or nothing,” is its motto. Meet as often as possible. After its fires have once been lit, they must be perpetually resupplied with their natural fuel; else they die down, go out, or go elsewhere; and are harder to rekindle than to light at first.

A splendid young man, son of one of New England’s most talented and pious divines, endowed with one of the very best of organisms, physical and phrenological, having selected his mate, and plighted their mutual vows, being the business manager of a large manufactory, and obliged to defend several consecutive lawsuits for patent-right infringements, neglected for weeks to write to his betrothed, presupposing, of course, that all was right. This offended her ladyship, and allowed evil-minded meddlers to sow seeds of alienation in her mind; persuade her to send him his dismissal, and accept a marriage proposal from another.

As he told his mournful story, he seemed like a sturdy oak riven by lightning and torn by whirlwinds; its foliage scorched, bark stripped, limbs tattered, even its very rootlets scathed; yet standing, a stern, proud, defiant, resolute wreck. A gushing tear he manfully tried but failed to suppress. His lips quivered and voice faltered. Perceiving his impending fate, he seemed to dread his future more than present; and hesitated between self-abandonment, and a merely mechanical, objectless, business life. In attempting his salvation, by proffering advice to the “broken-hearted,” he respectfully but firmly declined; deliberately preferring old-bachelorship, with all its dearths, of which he seemed fully conscious. He felt as if he had been deeply wronged.

Yet was not he the first practically to repudiate? He suffered terribly, because he had sinned grievously, not by commission, but omission. He felt the deepest, fullest, manliest love, and revelled in anticipations of their future union, but did not express it; which was to her as if he had not felt it; whereas, had he saved but one minute per week to write lovingly, “I long to be with you, and love you still,” or, “Business does not, cannot diminish my fondness,” he would have saved her broken vows, and his broken heart.

Mingling other enjoyments with love, by going together to picnics and parties, sleigh-rides and Mayings, concerts, and lectures, marvellously cements the affections.