Never drum upon the table between the courses, fidget in your chair, or with your dress, or in any manner indicate impatience of due order and deliberation, or indifference to the conversation of those about you. A gentleman will take time to dine decorously and comfortably. Those whose subserviency to anything, or any one, prevents this, are not freemen!
Holding, as I do, that
"To enjoy is to obey,"
let me call your attention, in this connection, to the truth that the pleasures of the table consist not so much in the quantity eaten as in the mode of eating. A moderate amount of simple food, thoroughly and deliberately masticated, and partaken of with the agreeable accessories of quiet, neatness and social communion, will not only be more beneficial to the physical man, but afford more positive enjoyment, than a larger number of dishes, when hurriedly eaten in greater quantities.
I have frequently remarked among our young countrymen a peculiarity which a moment's reflection will convince you is exceedingly injurious to health—that of swallowing an enormous amount of fluid at every meal. Reflect that the human stomach is scarcely so large as one of the goblets which is repeatedly emptied at dinner, by most men, and that all liquids taken into that much-abused organ, must be absorbed before the assimilation of solid food commences, and you will see, at once, what a violation of the natural laws this practice involves. Here, again, is one of the evil effects of the fast-eating of fast Americans. Hurrying almost to feverishness, at table, and only half masticating their food, the assistance of ice-water is invoked to facilitate the process of swallowing, and to allay the more distressing symptoms produced by haste and fatigue!
Before we leave these little matters, let us return for an instant, to that of the position assumed while sitting. The "Yankee" peculiarity, so often ridiculed by foreigners, of tipping the chair back upon the two hind feet, is not yet obsolete, even in our "best society." Occasionally some uninstructed rustic finds his way into a fashionable drawing-room, where "modern antique furniture," as the manufacturers call it in their advertisements, elicits all the proverbial ingenuity of his native land, to enable him to indulge in his favorite attitude. "I thought I saw the ghost of my chair!" said a fair friend to me, as soon as a visitor had left us together, one morning, not long since. "I was really distressed by his efforts to tilt it back—these fashionable chairs are so frail, and he would have been intensely mortified had he broken it! Have you seen the last 'Harper,' Colonel?"
Do not permit yourself, through an indifference to trifles, to fall into any unrefined habits in the use of the handkerchief, etc., etc. Boring the ears with the fingers, chafing the limbs, sneezing with unnecessary sonorousness, and even a too fond and ceaseless caressing of the moustache, are in bad taste. Everything connected with personal discomfort, with the mere physique, should be as unobtrusively attended to as possible.
When associated with women of cultivation and refinement—and you should addict yourself to no other female society—you cannot attend too carefully to the niceties of personal habit. Sensitive, fastidious, and very observant of minutiæ—indeed often judging of character by details—you will inevitably lose ground with these discriminating observers, if neglectful of the trifles that go far towards constituting the amenities of social life. An elegant modern writer is authority for the fact that the Gauls attributed to woman, "an additional sense—the divine sense." Perhaps the Creator may have bestowed this gift upon the defenseless sex, as a counterpoise to the superior strength and power of man, even as he has given to the more helpless of the lower creatures swiftness of motion, instead of capacity for resistance. But be that as it may, no man should permit himself any habit that will not bear the scrutiny of this divine sense—much less, one that will outrage all its fine perceptions.
Apropos of details—I will take leave to warn you against the swaggering manner that some young men, whose bearing is otherwise unexceptionable, fall into among strangers, apparently with the mistaken idea that they will thus best sustain their claims to an unequivocal position in society. So in the sitting-rooms at hotels, in the pump-rooms at watering-places, on the decks of steamers, etc., persons whose juvenility entitles them to be classed with those who have nursery authority for being "seen and not heard," are frequently the most conspicuous and noisy. Shallow, indeed, must be the discernment of observers who conceive a favorable impression of a young man from such an exhibition!
In company, do not stand, or walk about while others sit, nor sit while others stand—especially ladies. Acquire a light step, particularly for in-door use, and a quiet mode of conducting yourself, generally. Ladies and invalids will not then dread your presence as dangerous—like that of a rampant war-horse, ill-taught to