CHAPTER XVIII WORRY ABOUT MANNERS AND SPEECH Many people are desperately worried about their manners. One has but to read the letters written to the "Answers to Correspondents" departments of the newspapers to see how much worry this subject of manners causes. This springs, undoubtedly, from a variety of causes. People brought up in the country, removing to the city, find the conditions of life very different from those to which they have been accustomed, and they are uncertain as to what city people regard as the right and proper things to do. Where one, perforce, must act, uncertainty is always irritating or worrying, and, because of this uncertainty, many people worry even before the time comes to act. Now, if their worry would take a practical and useful turn--or, perhaps, I had better state it in another way, viz., that if they would spend the same time in deciding what their course of action should be--there would be an end put to the worry.
We have all seen such people. They are worried lest their clothes are not all right for the occasion, lest their tie is of the wrong shade, their shoes of the correct style, and a thousand and one things that they seem to conjure up for the especial purpose of worrying over them. Who has not seen the nervousness, the worried expression on the face, the real misery of such people, caused by trifles that are so insignificant as not to be worth one-tenth the bother wasted on them.
The learning of a few fundamental principles will help out wonderfully. The chief end of "good manners" is to oil the wheels of social converse. Hence, the first and most important principle to learn is a due and proper consideration for the rights, opinions, and comfort of others. In other words, don't think of yourself so much as of the other fellow. Let your question be, not: How can I secure my own pleasure and comfort? but How can I best secure his? It is a self-evident proposition that you cannot make him feel comfortable and happy if you are uncomfortable and unhappy. Hence, the first thing to do is to quit worrying and be comfortable. This desired state of mind will come as soon as you have courageously made up your mind as to what standard of manners you intend to follow. The world is made up to-day, largely, of two classes: those who have money, and those who don't. Of the former class, a certain few set themselves up as the arbiters of good manners; they decide what shall be called "good form," and what is not allowable. If you belong to that class, the best thing you can do is to learn "to play the game their way." Study their rules of calling cards, and learn whether you leave one, two, three, or six when you are calling upon a man, or a woman, or both, or their oldest unmarried daughter, or the rest of the family. This is a regular game like golf, or polo. You have to know the course, the tools to use, and the method of going from one goal to another. Now, I never knew any ordinarily intelligent man or woman who couldn't learn the names of the tools used in golf, the numbers of the holes, and the rules of the game. How you play the game is another matter. And so is it in "good society." You can learn the rules as easily as the next one, and then it is "up to you" as to how you play it. You'll have to study the fashions in clothes; the fashions in handkerchiefs, and how to flirt with them; when to drink tea, and where; how to lose money gracefully at bridge; how to gabble incessantly and not know what you are talking about; how to listen "intelligently" and not have the remotest idea what your vis-a-vis is saying to you; you'll have to join 'steen clubs, and read ten new novels a day; go to every new play; know all about the latest movies; know all the latest ideas of social uplift, study art, the spiritual essence of color, the futurists, and the cubists. Of course, you'll study the peerage of England and know all about rank and precedence--and, indeed, you'll have your hands and mind so full of things that will make such a hash of life that it will take ten specialists to straighten you out and help you to die forty years before your time. Hence, if that is the life you intend to live, throw this book into the fire. It will be wasting your time to read it.
