You meet a lady, exquisitely attired, with a beautiful face, sweet manners, and brilliant conversation, and you wonder who she can be. She must be the daughter of a leisurely, cultured banker; but, after taking pains to ask the conductor, and several gentlemen in the car, you are at last informed by the brakeman:—
"Why, darn it, she is that Lizzie Brown, the dress-maker."
The fact is, we cannot rely upon the European indications of high and low classes, and so, in America, we have devised numerous arbitrary, and often unreasonable and inconvenient habits, and customs, which are learned and practised by "our set, you know," but which are not generally caught up by the earnest, busy class.
One of these, which will serve for present illustration, is a rule that you must, at table, put everything into your mouth with a fork.
In one of our most reputable monthlies, I read, a day or two since, a chapter in a story, in which it was stated, as a shocking exhibition of depraved vulgarity, that John Smith put his food into his mouth with a knife,—the deplorable wretch!
Last summer, at a sea-side house, I was remarking to an intelligent lady, in an after-dinner chat, that of all the gentlemen on the ground, I was most interested in that tall, reserved, scholarly- looking man.
She replied, with a toss of her head, "I can't bear him. Why, he eats with his knife!"
Of course nobody supposes that for most sorts of food a fork is better than a knife; but unless some tests of what is called gentility can be maintained, you see we shouldn't know who's who and what's what.
I learned somewhat early in life to use the fork almost exclusively; but now that it is made a sign of gentility, I am learning to use the knife.
I always enjoyed the anecdote of that "first gentleman of Europe," a certain King of England, who, on a state occasion, invited to his table a Scotch nobleman, with his two daughters. The nobleman was one of the truest friends of the king, and the daughters were most intelligent, worthy girls; but, living very much out of society, they had not learned all the rules of table etiquette. So upon sipping their coffee, and finding it too hot, they poured from the cup into the saucer, and drank from the saucer. The king, who was at the head of the table, heard a derisive laugh from some of the pets of the court, and looking over where his Scotch friends sat, he saw the occasion of it. Immediately he lifted his own cup, poured into the saucer, and set the cup down on the table with a great noise, whereupon the exquisites colored, and hushed.