Sketches of Young Couples | Page 5

dreary courtesies to be observed in a
mourning-coach; knows when to sigh, and when to hide his nose in the
white handkerchief; and looks into the grave and shakes his head when
the ceremony is concluded, with the sad formality of a mute.
'What kind of funeral was it?' says the formal lady, when he returns
home. 'Oh!' replies the formal gentleman, 'there never was such a gross
and disgusting impropriety; there were no feathers.' 'No feathers!' cries
the lady, as if on wings of black feathers dead people fly to Heaven,
and, lacking them, they must of necessity go elsewhere. Her husband
shakes his head; and further adds, that they had seed-cake instead of
plum-cake, and that it was all white wine. 'All white wine!' exclaims
his wife. 'Nothing but sherry and madeira,' says the husband. 'What! no
port?' 'Not a drop.' No port, no plums, and no feathers! 'You will
recollect, my dear,' says the formal lady, in a voice of stately reproof,
'that when we first met this poor man who is now dead and gone, and
he took that very strange course of addressing me at dinner without

being previously introduced, I ventured to express my opinion that the
family were quite ignorant of etiquette, and very imperfectly
acquainted with the decencies of life. You have now had a good
opportunity of judging for yourself, and all I have to say is, that I trust
you will never go to a funeral THERE again.' 'My dear,' replies the
formal gentleman, 'I never will.' So the informal deceased is cut in his
grave; and the formal couple, when they tell the story of the funeral,
shake their heads, and wonder what some people's feelings ARE made
of, and what their notions of propriety CAN be!
If the formal couple have a family (which they sometimes have), they
are not children, but little, pale, sour, sharp-nosed men and women; and
so exquisitely brought up, that they might be very old dwarfs for
anything that appeareth to the contrary. Indeed, they are so acquainted
with forms and conventionalities, and conduct themselves with such
strict decorum, that to see the little girl break a looking-glass in some
wild outbreak, or the little boy kick his parents, would be to any visitor
an unspeakable relief and consolation.
The formal couple are always sticklers for what is rigidly proper, and
have a great readiness in detecting hidden impropriety of speech or
thought, which by less scrupulous people would be wholly unsuspected.
Thus, if they pay a visit to the theatre, they sit all night in a perfect
agony lest anything improper or immoral should proceed from the stage;
and if anything should happen to be said which admits of a double
construction, they never fail to take it up directly, and to express by
their looks the great outrage which their feelings have sustained.
Perhaps this is their chief reason for absenting themselves almost
entirely from places of public amusement. They go sometimes to the
Exhibition of the Royal Academy;--but that is often more shocking
than the stage itself, and the formal lady thinks that it really is high
time Mr. Etty was prosecuted and made a public example of.
We made one at a christening party not long since, where there were
amongst the guests a formal couple, who suffered the acutest torture
from certain jokes, incidental to such an occasion, cut-- and very likely
dried also--by one of the godfathers; a red-faced elderly gentleman,

who, being highly popular with the rest of the company, had it all his
own way, and was in great spirits. It was at supper-time that this
gentleman came out in full force. We-- being of a grave and quiet
demeanour--had been chosen to escort the formal lady down-stairs, and,
sitting beside her, had a favourable opportunity of observing her
emotions.
We have a shrewd suspicion that, in the very beginning, and in the first
blush--literally the first blush--of the matter, the formal lady had not
felt quite certain whether the being present at such a ceremony, and
encouraging, as it were, the public exhibition of a baby, was not an act
involving some degree of indelicacy and impropriety; but certain we
are that when that baby's health was drunk, and allusions were made,
by a grey-headed gentleman proposing it, to the time when he had
dandled in his arms the young Christian's mother,--certain we are that
then the formal lady took the alarm, and recoiled from the old
gentleman as from a hoary profligate. Still she bore it; she fanned
herself with an indignant air, but still she bore it. A comic song was
sung, involving a confession from some imaginary gentleman that he
had kissed a female, and yet the formal lady bore it. But when