Pushing to the Front

by Orison Swett Marden

When Edward Everett took a professor's chair at Harvard after five years of study in Europe, he was almost worshiped by the students. His manner seemed touched by that exquisite grace seldom found except in women of rare culture. His great popularity lay in a magical atmosphere which every one felt, but no one could describe, and which never left him.

A New York lady had just taken her seat in a car on a train bound for Philadelphia, when a somewhat stout man sitting just ahead of her lighted a cigar. She coughed and moved uneasily; but the hints had no effect, so she said tartly: "You probably are a foreigner, and do not know that there is a smoking-car attached to the train. Smoking is not permitted here." The man made no reply, but threw his cigar from the window. What has her astonishment when the conductor told her, a moment later, that she had entered the private car of General Grant. She withdrew in confusion, but the same fine courtesy which led him to give up his cigar was shown again as he spared her the mortification of even a questioning glance, still less of a look of amusement, although she watched his dumb, immovable figure with apprehension until she reached the door.

Julian Ralph, after telegraphing an account of President Arthur's fishing-trip to the Thousand Islands, returned to his hotel at two o'clock in the morning, to find all the doors locked. With two friends who had accompanied him, he battered at a side door to wake the servants, but what was his chagrin when the door was opened by the President of the United States!

"Why, that's all right," said Mr. Arthur when Mr. Ralph asked his pardon. "You wouldn't have got in till morning if I had not come. No one is up in the house but me. I could have sent my colored boy, but he had fallen asleep and I hated to wake him."

The late King Edward, when Prince of Wales, the first gentleman in Europe, invited an eminent man to dine with him. When coffee was served, the guest, to the consternation of the others, drank from his saucer. An open titter of amusement went round the table. The Prince, quickly noting the cause of the untimely amusement, gravely emptied his cup into his saucer and drank after the manner of his guest. Silent and abashed, the other members of the princely household took the rebuke and did the same.

Queen Victoria sent for Carlyle, who was a Scotch peasant, offering him the title of nobleman, which he declined, feeling that he had always been a nobleman in his own right. He understood so little of the manners at court that, when presented to the Queen, after speaking to her a few minutes, being tired, he said, "Let us sit down, madam;" whereat the courtiers were ready to faint. But she was great enough, and gave a gesture that seated all her puppets in a moment. The Queen's courteous suspension of the rules of etiquette, and what it may have cost her, can be better understood from what an acquaintance of Carlyle said of him when he saw him for the first time. "His presence, in some unaccountable manner, rasped the nerves. I expected to meet a rare being, and I left him feeling as if I had drunk sour wine, or had had an attack of seasickness."

Some persons wield a scepter before which others seem to bow in glad obedience. But whence do they obtain such magic power? What is the secret of that almost hypnotic influence over people which we would give anything to possess?

Courtesy is not always found in high places. Even royal courts furnish many examples of bad manners. At an entertainment given years ago by Prince Edward and the Princess of Wales, to which only the very cream of the cream of society was admitted, there was such pushing and struggling to see the Princess, who was then but lately married, that, as she passed through the reception rooms, a bust of the Princess Royal was thrown from its pedestal and damaged, and the pedestal upset; and the ladies, in their eagerness to see the Princess, actually stood upon it.

When Catherine of Russia gave receptions to her nobles, she published the following rules of etiquette upon cards: "Gentlemen will not get drunk before the feast is ended. Noblemen are forbidden to strike their wives in company. Ladies of the court must not wash out their mouths in the drinking-glasses, or wipe their faces on the damask, or pick their teeth with forks." But to-day the nobles of Russia have no superiors in manners.

Etiquette originally meant the ticket or tag tied to a bag to indicate its contents. If a bag had this ticket it was not examined. From this the word passed to cards upon which were printed certain rules to be observed by guests. These rules were "the ticket" or the etiquette. To be "the ticket," or, as it was sometimes expressed, to act or talk by the card, became the thing with the better classes.