Monday, Nov. 27, 1978

According to Emily (1922)

American manners will never again rise to the whale-boned grandeur that they achieved in the imagination of Emily Post, if not always in the reality of her time. A sampling of Emily's instructions to the well bred:

A well behaved young girl goes to public dances only when properly chaperoned and to a private dance with her mother or else accompanied by her maid, who waits for her the entire evening in the dressing room.

The fact that you live in a house with two servants, or in an apartment with only one, need not imply that your house lacks charm or even distinction, or that it is not completely the home of a lady or gentleman.

If a young man is talking with some one when an older lady enters the room, he bows formally from where he is, as it would be rude to leave a young girl standing alone while he went up to speak to Mrs. Worldly or Mrs. Toplofty.

No gentleman goes to a lady's house if he is affected by alcohol. A gentleman seeing a young man who is not entirely himself in the presence of ladies, quietly induces the youth to depart.

A young girl may hot, even with her fiance, lunch in a road house without a chaperon, or go on a journey that can by any possibility last over night. To go out with him in a small sailboat sounds harmless enough, but might result in a questionable situation if they are becalmed, or if they are left helpless in a sudden fog. The Maine coast, for example, is particularly subject to fogs that often shut down without warning ... A man and a girl went out from Bar Harbor and did not get back until next day. Everyone knew the fog had come in as thick as pea soup and that it was impossible to get home; but to the end of time her reputation will suffer for the experience.

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