Men, as a whole, do not take polish readily. As John Newlyrich did not wear a dress coat before he was twenty-one he is seldom quite at ease in a “swallow-tail” at forty. As a millionaire of fifty, he rebels against the obligation to wear it to the family dinner every evening in the week. If he has read Dickens, which is hardly likely, he echoes Mrs. Boffin’s “Lor’! let us be comfortable!” He butters a whole slice of bread, using his knife trowel-wise, and if busy talking of something that interests him particularly, he lays the slice upon the cloth during the troweling. He cuts up his salad, and makes the knife a good second to a fork while eating fish. Loyal to the memories of early life, he never gets over the habit of speaking of dinner as “supper,” and observes in conversation at a fashionable reception, “As I was eating my dinner at noon to-day.” In like absent-mindedness, he tucks his napkin into his collar to protect the expanse of shirt-front exposed by the low-cut waistcoat of his dress suit. He says “sir,” to his equals, and addresses facetious remarks to the butler, or draws the waitress into conversation while meals are going on. Anxious wife and despairing daughters are grateful if he does not put his knife into his mouth when off-guard.
Trifles—are they? Not to the climbers who are exercised thereby. They are gravel between the teeth, and pebbles in the dainty foot-wear of Mrs. Newlyrich. The history of her social struggles would be incomplete without the mention of this drawback. She has learned the by-laws of social usage by heart, and, loving and loyal wife though she is, she sometimes loses patience with John for not doing the same.
PROPER SOCIAL ASPIRATION
In this, and in many another perplexity, more or less grievous, our heroine has our sympathy and deserves our respect. We use the word “heroine” advisedly. We have put the wealthy pushing vulgarian, who is part of the stock company of caricature and joke-wright, entirely out of the question. She has her sphere and her reward. Our business is with the woman of worthy aspirations and innate refinement, raised by a whirl of fortune’s wheel from decent poverty to actual wealth. She has a natural desire to mingle on equal terms with the better sort of rich people. She is glad of her wealth, but not purse-proud. It has introduced her to another world. Of her social life it may be truly said that old things have passed away and all things have become new. It would be phenomenal if she fitted at once and easily into it. Money has bought her fine house, and for money the artistic upholsterer has furnished it. Money has hired a staff of servants, whereas up to now, a maid-of-all-work was her sole “help.”
ELEGANCE IN SPEECH
Money does not enable her to master the “shibboleth” that would be her passport to the land she would possess. And to mangle it into “sibboleth”—as the least sophisticated of us know—means social slaughter at the passages of Jordan. One’s speech and manner of speaking are of the first importance socially, and fortunately it is not difficult to improve them if one earnestly determines to do so. One may frankly take private lessons, or one may learn much by listening closely to the talk of people of high social finish. One should not, however, imitate slavishly or attempt the impossible. To use the “broad a” gracefully one must either have been born to it or assiduously trained in one’s younger days. Otherwise it is bound to seem an affectation. An error heard with surprising frequency even from well-educated people is the use of “don’t” for “doesn’t.”
In Sesame and Lilies Ruskin remarks, “A false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign a man to a certain degree of inferior standing forever.” This is an extreme statement, of course, but there is much truth in it.
One thing Mrs. Newlyrich sometimes mistakenly permits is the correcting of her grammatical blunders and her husband’s by their better-educated children. To allow this shows a wrong sense of proportion. It is infinitely more important for a child to respect his parents and to show them respect than that the laws of Lindley Murray be observed.