MOURNING FOR MEN
For men, black or gray suits, black gloves and ties, and a black band upon the hat, are proper. The tie should be of taffeta or grosgrain silk, not of satin or figured silk. I would lay especial stress on the poor taste of the recent fad of wearing a black band upon the sleeve of a colored coat. The same rule applies to the would-be-smart young woman who sports a narrow black strip upon the left arm of her tan rain-coat or walking-jacket. If she can not wear conventional and suitable mourning, she would better wear none.
JUDGING THE BEREAVED
The matter of the period of time in which a mourner should shun society is a subject on which one may hesitate to express an opinion, as there are too many persons whose views would not coincide with ours. In this case, as in others, one must, to a certain extent, be a rule unto one’s self. One who is very sad shrinks naturally from going into gay society for the first few months after bereavement. The contrast of the gaiety with the mourner’s feelings must, of necessity, cause her pain. To such a one we need suggest no rules. To those less sensitive or less unhappy, it would be well to say that deep black and festive occasions do not form a good combination. While one wears crape and a long veil one should shun receptions, opera boxes, teas and all such places. Later, as one lightens one’s mourning, one may attend the theater, small functions and informal affairs. Even the very sad may go to the theater when they would shrink from attending an affair at which they would meet strangers and where they would be obliged to laugh and be gay. After the first few months of the conventional retirement are past the sufferer must decide for herself what she may and may not do. We would add, rather as a suggestion than as a law of etiquette, that the onlooker forbear to judge of the behavior of the recently-bereaved. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and if that bitterness can be sweetened by some genial outside influence, let others hesitate to condemn the owner of the heart from seeking that sweetness. Those whom we have lost, if they were worth loving, would be glad to know that our lives were not all dark.
The seemly custom followed in France of sending to relatives and friends of the family a letter advising them of a death is not, unfortunately, known in this country, where we, with less propriety, advertise our griefs and our gaieties alike in the public prints.