Etiquette | Page 2

followed if we would "play the game." Ages before man felt the need of indigestion
remedies, he ate his food solitary and furtive in some corner, hoping he would not be

espied by any stronger and hungrier fellow. It was a long, long time before the habit of
eating in common was acquired; and it is obvious that the practise could not have been
taken up with safety until the individuals of the race knew enough about one another and
about the food resources to be sure that there was food sufficient for all. When eating in
common became the vogue, table manners made their appearance and they have been
waging an uphill struggle ever since. The custom of raising the hat when meeting an
acquaintance derives from the old rule that friendly knights in accosting each other
should raise the visor for mutual recognition in amity. In the knightly years, it must be
remembered, it was important to know whether one was meeting friend or foe. Meeting a
foe meant fighting on the spot. Thus, it is evident that the conventions of courtesy not
only tend to make the wheels of life run more smoothly, but also act as safeguards in
human relationship. Imagine the Paris Peace Conference, or any of the later conferences
in Europe, without the protective armor of diplomatic etiquette!
Nevertheless, to some the very word etiquette is an irritant. It implies a great pother about
trifles, these conscientious objectors assure us, and trifles are unimportant. Trifles are
unimportant, it is true, but then life is made up of trifles. To those who dislike the word, it
suggests all that is finical and superfluous. It means a garish embroidery on the big
scheme of life; a clog on the forward march of a strong and courageous nation. To such
as these, the words etiquette and politeness connote weakness and timidity. Their notion
of a really polite man is a dancing master or a man milliner. They were always willing to
admit that the French were the politest nation in Europe and equally ready to assert that
the French were the weakest and least valorous, until the war opened their eyes in
amazement. Yet, that manners and fighting can go hand in hand appears in the following
anecdote:
In the midst of the war, some French soldiers and some non-French of the Allied forces
were receiving their rations in a village back of the lines. The non-French fighters
belonged to an Army that supplied rations plentifully. They grabbed their allotments and
stood about while hastily eating, uninterrupted by conversation or other concern. The
French soldiers took their very meager portions of food, improvised a kind of table on the
top of a flat rock, and having laid out the rations, including the small quantity of wine
that formed part of the repast, sat down in comfort and began their meal amid a chatter of
talk. One of the non-French soldiers, all of whom had finished their large supply of food
before the French had begun eating, asked sardonically: "Why do you fellows make such
a lot of fuss over the little bit of grub they give you to eat?" The Frenchman replied:
"Well, we are making war for civilization, are we not? Very well, we are. Therefore, we
eat in a civilized way."
To the French we owe the word etiquette, and it is amusing to discover its origin in the
commonplace familiar warning--"Keep off the grass." It happened in the reign of Louis
XIV, when the gardens of Versailles were being laid out, that the master gardener, an old
Scotsman, was sorely tried because his newly seeded lawns were being continually
trampled upon. To keep trespassers off, he put up warning signs or
tickets--_etiquettes_--on which was indicated the path along which to pass. But the
courtiers paid no attention to these directions and so the determined Scot complained to
the King in such convincing manner that His Majesty issued an edict commanding

everyone at Court to "keep within the etiquettes." Gradually the term came to cover all
the rules for correct demeanor and deportment in court circles; and thus through the
centuries it has grown into use to describe the conventions sanctioned for the purpose of
smoothing personal contacts and developing tact and good manners in social intercourse.
With the decline of feudal courts and the rise of empires of industry, much of the
ceremony of life was discarded for plain and less formal dealing. Trousers and coats
supplanted doublets and hose, and the change in costume was not more extreme than the
change in social ideas. The court ceased to be the arbiter of manners, though the
aristocracy of the land remained the high exemplar of good breeding.
Yet, even so courtly and materialistic a mind as