Frosts Laws and By-Laws of American Society | Page 3

this code of
Modern Etiquette has been prepared. To them it is offered as supplying
a need which it is their misfortune, rather than their fault, to experience,
in the hope that it will be found to contain a complete guide for them in
the open paths and by-paths too of good society.
Before beginning to lay down the rules and ordinances of Etiquette, it
will be well to say a few words upon Etiquette itself.
Etiquette is, in point of fact, nothing more nor less than the law, written
and unwritten, which regulates the society of civilized people,
distinguishing them from the communities of barbarous tribes, whose
lives are hard and their manners still harder. It is to a well disciplined
and refined mind the fundamental principle of action in all intercourse
with society, and they are interested in maintaining it in its integrity,
and bound to heed and obey its simplest as well as more formal
precepts. The real law-giver is the general convenience, speaking with
authority and the experience of many years; and it will be found that
even in those cases, where the meaning of its rules may be somewhat
obscure at first sight, there is an underlying reason for the regulation
laid down.
Etiquette, like every other human institution, is of course liable to
abuse; it may be transformed from a convenient and wholesome means
of producing universal comfort into an inconvenient and burdensome
restraint upon freedom and ease. It may become the first consideration,
instead of more properly the second, as is often the case with the
instrumental accompaniment to a song, and then it becomes, as does
the accompaniment, an intolerable nuisance. The mere form,
over-riding and hiding the spirit which should control and guide it; an
entirely artificial state of things, taking the place of the natural, must
inevitably produce discomfort and extravagance of behavior. Nature is
thus made the slave of Art, instead of Art taking its proper place as the
handmaid to Nature.
Etiquette, to be perfect, therefore, must be like a perfectly fitting
garment, which, beautifying and adorning the person, must yet never
cramp or restrain perfect freedom of movement. Any visible restraint
will mar its grace, as a wrinkle will mar the pure outline of the garment.
Most people have heard of the gentleman (?) who was perfect in his

knowledge of the laws of etiquette, and who, seeing a man drowning,
took off his coat and was about to plunge into the water to rescue him,
when he suddenly remembered that he had never been introduced to the
struggling victim, and resuming his coat, tranquilly proceeded upon his
way.
Not less absurd are a thousand instances where a regard for formal
mannerism takes the place of the easy grace that is the mark of true
politeness, which being well acquired and habitual, is never obtrusive
or offensively prominent. Too rigid an observance of the laws of
etiquette makes them an absurdity and a nuisance.
But, because the laws of etiquette may be made a restraint under
injudicious management, it does not follow that they should be
disregarded or in any way set aside. The abuse of them is no argument
against them, any more than gluttony is any reason for starvation. It is
not the food that is in fault, but the excess of the person partaking of it.
The fault must be laid wholly and solely at the door of those who
misunderstand the use and intention of really sound and excellent
precepts. The extravagance of an overdisplay of etiquette is really only
another form of innate vulgarity, although there are instances which
may be drawn from the side of over refinement, from the history of
people and societies, who become extravagant in their devotion to what
they deem good breeding, simply because, like the stars that looked
down upon Molly Bawn, "they'd nothing else to do."
There are to be found, even in grave history--amid the records of war,
treaties, conquests, administrations and revolutions-- accounts given in
equally grave language of deep questions of etiquette which seem to
have been debated and settled with as much care and energy as the
most serious questions of state affairs. Cases of this sort are announced
and well founded. Whoever likes to see the extent to which attention
was given to the subject can seek instances in the memoirs of public
characters who lived in the seventeenth century, in the diaries of minute
detailers like the Duke de St. Simon, Page to His Most Christian
Majesty, Louis the Fourteenth; like Sir John Finett, Master of
Ceremonies to Charles the First, and in the domestic histories of the
courtiers and grandees of the Spanish and Venetian courts.
Fortunately, the time has gone by when nice questions about trifling
points of