Routledges Manual of Etiquette | Page 7

lady may accept the arm of a gentleman with whom she is walking, even
though he be only an acquaintance. This is not the case either in America or on the
Continent. There a lady can take the arm of no gentleman who is not either her husband,
lover, or near relative.
If a lady has been making purchases during her walk, she may permit the gentleman who
accompanies her to carry any small, parcel that she may have in her own hand; but she
should not burthen him with more than one under any circumstances whatever.
Two ladies may without any impropriety take each one arm of a single cavalier; but one
lady cannot, with either grace or the sanction of custom take the arms of two gentlemen
at the same time.
When a lady is walking with a gentleman in a park, or public garden, or through the
rooms of an exhibition, and becomes fatigued, it is the gentleman's duty to find her a seat.
If, however, as is very frequently the case, he is himself obliged to remain standing, the
lady should make a point of rising as soon as she is sufficiently rested, and not abuse
either the patience or politeness of her companion.
It is the place of the lady to bow first, if she meets a gentleman of her acquaintance.
When you meet friends or acquaintances in the streets, the exhibitions, or any public
places, be careful not to pronounce their names so loudly as to attract the attention of
bystanders. Never call across the street, or attempt to carry on a dialogue in a public
vehicle, unless your interlocutor occupies the seat beside your own.
* * * * *
VII.--DRESS.
To dress well requires something more than a full purse and a pretty figure. It needs taste,
good sense, and refinement. Dress may almost be classed as one of the fine arts. It is
certainly one of those arts, the cultivation of which is indispensable to any person moving
in the upper or middle classes of society. Very clever women are too frequently
indifferent to the graces of the toilette; and women who wish to be thought clever affect
indifference. In the one case it is an error, and in the other a folly. It is not enough that a
gentlewoman should be clever, or well-educated, or well-born. To take her due place in
society, she must be acquainted with all that this little book proposes to teach. She must,
above all else, know how to enter a room, how to perform a graceful salutation, and how
to dress. Of these three important qualifications, the most important, because the most
observed, is the latter.
Let your style of dress always be appropriate to the hour of the day. To dress too finely in
the morning, or to be seen in a morning dress in the evening, is equally vulgar and out of
place.
Light and inexpensive materials are fittest for morning wear; dark silk dresses for the
promenade or carriage; and low dresses of rich or transparent stuffs for the dinner and
ball. A young lady cannot dress with too much simplicity in the early part of the day. A
morning dress of some simple material, and delicate whole colour, with collar and cuffs
of spotless linen, is, perhaps, the most becoming and elegant of morning toilettes.
Never dress very richly or showily in the street. It attracts attention of no enviable kind,
and is looked upon as a want of good breeding. In the carriage a lady may dress as
elegantly as she pleases. With respect to ball-room toilette, its fashions are so variable,
that statements which are true of it to-day, may be false a month hence. Respecting no
institution of modern society is it so difficult to pronounce half-a-dozen permanent rules.

We may, perhaps, be permitted to suggest the following leading principles; but we do so
with diffidence. Rich colours harmonize with rich brunette complexions and dark hair.
Delicate colours are the most suitable for delicate and fragile styles of beauty. Very
young ladies are never so suitably attired as in white. Ladies who dance should wear
dresses of light and diaphanous materials, such as _tulle_, gauze, crape, net, &c., over
coloured silk slips. Silk dresses are not suitable for dancing. A married lady who dances
only a few quadrilles may wear a _décolleté_ silk dress with propriety.
Very stout persons should never wear white. It has the effect of adding to the bulk of the
figure.
Black and scarlet, or black and violet, are worn in mourning.
A lady in deep mourning should not dance at all.
However fashionable it may be to wear very long dresses, those ladies who go to a ball
with the intention of dancing