I wonder how many wives could resist rising up in unholy protest if husbands suddenly took to wrapping their heads up in wire and head rags, greasing their faces, tying up their own chins, putting on oiled mittens for the night.--Vanderbilt 513Amy Vanderbilt is a good read. If you've run out of Jane Austen, consider a nightcap--settle into a good chapter of New Complete Book of Etiquette / The Guide to Gracious Living.
Ms. Vanderbilt is side-splitting (not generally an acceptable mannerism) for several reasons:
1. She often writes tongue-in-cheek (but only in private; tongues should not reside in cheeks in the public domain).
2. This historical edition of Etiquette, this interminable commentary on correctness, all 706 pages (excluding the index), is an archaic catalog of the many graces our modern society blithely deposited in a waste can. And this is hilarious, because I am me and you are you. We only remember manners like Amy's in some past great aunt or in the blue flickers of a British sitcom.
3. The minutia is astounding and worth remark. Jane Austen, yes, but here the minutia is broken down in instructional chapters. My manners have slipped, yes, but just how many disappeared? For example, I can choose from a list of topics, from pages 212-220, read, and master The Social Pleasantries:
"Gifts of Love" * A Guide to Tactful Conversation *
When to Use a First Name * If You Cannot Remember Names *
Personal Questions--What Are They? * Dangerous Topics of Conversation * How to Parry Direct Questions * That Word "Lady" * How about "Miss!"?
And so on. I wish I could delight you with the entire list.
And egad! I certainly encourage good manners. Suddenly, as when you look at your dirty house in spring sunlight, I have viewed our table manners and shuddered. "When we come back from vacation," I warned at dinner tonight, "We are lodging a frontal attack!"
I talk with my mouth full, keep my knife in my right hand at all times, and point with my silverware. I am up and down from the table like a wind-up toy. Martin leaves his napkin on the table for the duration, sprinkles crumbs like Hansel, and occasionally brings along reading material (not for group edification, mind you). Merry eats many no-no things with her fingers and groans about soup for the third time in a week. And Elspeth is our crowning glory. She kicks up her feet into her food, which resides temptingly on the bare tabletop. She casts all things to the ground while grunting and smiling. She stuffs vegetables into the unreachable crevices of her highchair.
Every woman should change for dinner, if only into a clean house dress. Dinner is the high point of the day, the forerunner--it is to be hoped--of a free evening. Every little girl should be clean and in fresh clothes, even if they are just clean pajamas and bathrobe for nursery supper, every night, so that the idea of changing for dinner is inculcated at the earliest possible time. . .[she goes on]. . .Fresh grooming for evening is one of the criteria of gentility. --Vanderbilt 183
Scene: Evening. Mother and children lying exhausted on couch. Husband Martin sets the table and cooks dinner. Wife requests a cup of tea but receives none. Dinner is ready. The lovely family enters grandly (no bagpipes) for this "forerunner of a free evening:" Elspeth is still in pajamas from the morning. Merry is stained by tomato soup (did we brush her hair this morning?) and her face is crusty. And I, that paragon of gentility, have already showered and am clad in my biggest, softest, smelliest red bathrobe. Hair freshly brushed? No. Make-up? Heck, no. Heels? Try slippers.
All right, we do all have head colds. But Amy Vanderbilt would point out that is no excuse.
And last night, I gave myself a sharp wake-up call when I tossed a cooked carrot across the table, head of to foot of, mind you.
My great aunt would have di-ed. Actually, it is probably a good thing she has, because our table manners have become worthy of a Berenstein Bear's Book, a TV reality show, a PBS special.
In fact, Fred Rogers surfaced earlier this week as Merry critiqued our table manners and then systematically listed new rules for a new, gentler family dinner.
One, one, one! One, we need to start putting bibs on Elspeth.
Two, we need to start putting napkins on the table.
[Merry goes on--skips four, and continues--]
and seven [two fingers thrust into air]--We need to start behaving at other people's houses,
and number eight, we need to start turning lights on,
and the last one, we need to start picking up Elspeth's food that she throws on the floor.
Then she paused to survey our shocked faces, since we had all suddenly grown pig snouts and were snuffling in main dishes like the parents in Spirited Away. Undisturbed (she had seen it before), she concluded, "The person who wrote Mr. Rogers is very talentive."
Gentle people are often acutely embarrassed by the table manners of those with whom they find themselves eating. A carefully bred wife may suffer much inner torture because her husband--always when manner seem very important--forgetfully leaves his spoon in his cup or absent-mindedly licks his fingers. --Vanderbilt 229
I think I can conduct myself with adequate propriety. My mother certainly pressed upon us all the importance of the placement of the knife, the proper usage of napkins, appropriate dinner time conversation (no bodily details, no fights, no descriptions of illnesses.) And so on. She even let me know what to do when a "foreign matter" entered my mouth, such as a disgusting piece of gristle or fat or bug (and we had those occasionally on our produce growing up in Kenya). But I forgot this one night on a date with Martin as I audibly expectorated a piece of sushi, back onto the artful arrangement of lettuce and beet shreds on my plate. I love sushi. But my taste buds told me something was amiss with this one. Martin, let me tell you, was utterly horrified. Really. In retrospect, I feel I should have brushed up on foreign matter, or foreign bodies as Miss Vanderbilt terms them:
Foreign bodies accidentally taken into the mouth with food--gravel, fish, stones, bird shot--are removed with thumb and forefinger. . .If a gnat gets into a beverage or some other unappetizing creature turns up in or on a diner's food, he fishes it out, unobserved. . .or leaves the drink or dish untouched, depending on the degree of odiousness of the intruder. A gnat or a tiny inchworm on lettuce shouldn't bother anyone, but most fastidious people draw the line at a fly or worse. --Vanderbilt 232
This leaves me in pleasant reflection as I imagine what "or worse" could be. A rat. A human finger. A chicken head. Teeth.
But I am clearly missing the point. Besides, the list above does not constitute polite conversation, in any company.
Forgive me.
GUESS BELOW IN 'COMMENTS': WHAT YEAR WAS THIS EDITION OF VANDERBILT'S NEW COMPLETE BOOK OF ETIQUETTE PUBLISHED? AND DON'T CHEAT. IT'S NOT GOOD MANNERS.
**For more on Amy Vanderbilt, and for the source of her photograph, go to: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9074800/Amy-Vanderbilt (photo: 1956, Brown Brothers).
