The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 17, 1901, Page 7

1‘._._._._’” - ‘ F it be true that many of the virtues are modern, it is certain that all the vices are ancient.” 8Such was the qualified and doubtful praise accord- ed to the society of his own time by the author of ‘‘The Last Days of Pom- pell” as a comment on the cogged dice found in thats unfortunate city when it was excavated. It would be a strange, if not a pleasant experience, if some. great cataclysm of the kind should overtake and, so to speak, stereotype our mysteri- ous, ugly, but horribly fascinating me- tropolis, which has devoured In the course of its varied menu lives of great men de- voted to world questions; of silly women given up to dress, flirtation and tight lacing; of financlers secretly pulling a complicated system of wires; of the dupes of these gentlemen; of men and women (but chiefly the latter) who have thought the world well lost for love; of | the disappointed, who run second for all the prizes of life; of desverate, maddened gamblers; of jealous and revengeful lov- ers; of the general public, male and fe- male each unit with its own ‘particular ax to grind; of thousands of silent, totl- ing, uncomplaining horses, living, working and dying at last under the lash. The lash, we may truly say, has not been reserved for horses -alone, and, though certain human brutes have been considered too tender to endure it, it has been administered freely enough to our own species—morally, at least—and it is not the less cruel when self-inflicted. Man Is Much the Same. Any comparison between the society of to-day and that of former times must be exceedingly difficult, because, though hu- man nature remains exactly the same and runs like a golden thread up the ages until it is lost in mythology, it is now so differently conditioned and its character- istics so modified by circumstances that its whole form and appearance have com- pletely altered. But if we unwind the different wrappings which shroud the real man. from our view he will be found un- changed. The vices and even the virtues of the parents, however, have sometimes a curi- ously deterrent effect on the children, who unconsciously lean to the opposite side, impelled by nature rather than their own will to trim the boats of habit and cus- tom. : Young Girl Gamblers. Take two of the crying sins which have degraded society ever since social inter- course became a power in the world—gam- bling and drink. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers indulged in the former to an extent which made the temptation to chent an almost overpowering one, but in the days of our fathers and mothers things were not so bad as they have now again become. Certainly young girls who may now be seen of an afternoon or even- ing at the bridge table losing far more than they can afford do not figure as gamblers in the memoirs of former days. As most girls have spent their quarter’s allowance long before it is due, and as . they have not, so far as I know, the young man's resources of borrowing cash from his tailor, it is difficult to see how they can meet what losses they are certain to sustain. The modern girl, too, is in a difficult po- sition. 'She is expected to dress far more handsomely than her predecessors early in the century, for whom a ribbon sash and a white muslin-dress well damped to make it cling represented the height of luxury. The rush and hurry of modern life, traveling expenses, tips to servants, dresses for L.ondon, others for the coun- try, golfing, bicycling and tennis cos- tumes, riding habits, to say nothing of shooting, fishing and ‘motoring”’ gar- ments—all these things run into far more money than the ordinary girl can squeceze or coax out of dear papa. 1 honestly believe that with all their ex- tra amusements, freedom of action and speech and superior education, they are not nearly so happy as their simpler and more easily pleased forbears, who looked reposee, blooming and domestic and had, if we may trust to the accounts which have come down to us, all the men at their feet. 3 L (Continued from Page Two.) B— to observe all the little courtesies even more carefully than if one were to make a briefer stay. Not the least among obl'~ gations is the frequent .self-effacement, to give the household the opportunity of privacy. Tipping the Servants. The feeing of servants upon one's de- parture from a friend’s house seems to some to be in questionable taste, but it has become an almost universal custom, and principles must sometimes make con- cessions to popularity where no question of right and wrong is lnvglved. In England the omission of the custom would be regarded as an evidence of par- simony or of ignorance, and it must b2 confessed that, human nature being what it is, work is done with better grace and with less care to the hosts when self-in- terest supplies a spur, ' It is sometimes a matter of émbarrass- ment to know just how much, one ought to give. It is a preity safe rule that if & woman has spent a few days or a week at a friend’s house, a dollar may b2 given to the housemaid who has carel for her room, and if she has given per- sonal service, brushing gowns, bringing “‘nerves'’ o & o ETIQUETTE---By Y Now, it seems to me that the reverse is the case. There 1is nothing more dis- tressing than to see a pretty girl at a party trying to interest a languid, bored young man, who feebly responds to her advances with the same air, if slightly veiled, of having ‘a stick to keep the girls away’” which prevails in less ele- vated circles. Then, again, the hurry and scurry are so terrible. Society is enormous and fed to repletion, The area in which calls have to be paid is a})palllng. and the fa- tigue of this particular duty such that I feel sure our successors will dispense with it altogether or adopt some more conven- ient form of conveying the fact that they are in town or wish to be on visiting terms with some one. Professor Dolbear, in his summary of the world's progress in science, has said: The nineteenth century received from its redecessors the horse; we bequeath the ocomotive, the bicycle and the automo- bile. We received the sailing ship; we be- queath the steamship. We received the beacon signal fire; we bequeath the tele- phone and wireless telegraphy. All these discoveries have had a deep and lasting influence on society, but whether for good or ill, who shall say? Saturday-Monday Jaunts. In any case, if the aim and object of gociety is to enable persons of wealth and leisure to spend their lives agreeably together, guarded by certain unwritten laws and self-imposed restrictions, I doubt whether that result has becn at- tainéd as matters stand. . Formerly the great dining days for the London world were Wednesdays and Sat- urdays, these days being free from House of Commens duties, but now the former only remains to the giver or eater of dinners. Saturday is devoted to a hop, skip and a jump visit into the country till the following Monday. These flying visits are no rest to the overtaxed worldling or to the tired official or litterateur, and the amount of fresh air each is able to imbibe must be considerably counterbal- anced in its tonic properties by the ener- vating effects of overgood cheer, the reac- tion which follows.the airy stimulus of champagne and the deteriorating effects on what cur doctors are pleased to call the by a rapid railway journey down to the country and wup again to town within a limited number of heours. Add to this that we are nearly all of us trying to drive four horses while we stand precariously balanced on the backs of the other two, and that, what with so- cial *‘pleasures,” ‘“duties’’ to match, phu- anthropy, education, literary, artistic or athletic avocations, to which we may add various forms of serious gambling either on the Stock Exchange ¢or in the drawing room, we can scarcely pause to enjoy what we have most desired, labored to MMEQ BY RY acquire and at length obtained. Such, for - instance, I may say, in the unfortunate case of certain persons with old-fash- ioned views of the family tie, is the re- sult of the stress of modern life that we hardly ever see those most dear to us— our husbands or our children; they ave all swallowed up, the former in meeting the terrific competition which confronts them in every career, our -sons in passing competitive examinations until they are well on into the thirties, our daughters in tearing from one house to another, from one dinner dance to the next, or. in tak- ing up what they fondly believe to be some serious study, which occupies their time if not their minds, and deceives the empty heart with artificial food just as starving men devour the most innutri- tious substances. “Bachelor” Girls Not Happy. This special development of our social edifice rests on the gradually acquired ‘“bachelor” habits of our girls, partly ow- ing to the greater safety and rapidity with whici they can move about the world; their wider knowledge of life so acquired, which fits them in a measure to protect themselves, and lastly, on their more extensive education. Are they happier? 1 shrewdly suspect not. The charmed veil of mystery which made of their mothers and grandmothers longed for prizes, whgse society could scarcely be enjoyed in fullness, has dropped from our lovely, athletic, accom- plished, but prosaic young women, whom ambulance classes and lectures on physi- the breakfast tray, etc.—a dollar and a half at least and two dollars at most will be sufficient. Sometimes the maid of the hostess performs these services for the guest, in which case a dollar should b2 given her and one to the housemaid. Any extra service should be recognized by an additional half dollar. A single woman rarely tips the butler, but she sheuld *‘‘re- member” the coachman who drive . to the station, Fifty cents or a llar may be given him, according to his¥ser- vice during her visit. A bachelor gives a dollar to the house- -maid, if he sees her héfore he goes, or sometimes leaves it for her in his room if he please. He would not give less than a dollar and a half to the valet, or two to the butler who has brushed his clothes, drawn his rath, laid out his clothes, ete, Thre coachman -should re- ceive a dollar and the groom half that sum, if the visitor has ridden or drivea about the country, " ‘When the visitors are husband and wife the wife would give a dollar and,a half to two dollars to the housemald and- the husband from two to five dollars to the butler if he has received speeclal ser- vice from him, and to the coachman a dollar or two, accoring to the demands that have been made upon him. A dollar is sometimes sent to the cook, espaecial- ly if she is known to be valued by their entertainers. . Taking Leave, One should endeavor, in timing one's ology have robbed of something of the tender freshness which dilated the eye and flushed the cheek of their ancestresses. And yet in some ftespects the position of women has greatly improved. They found early in the century habitual drunkenness; they will leave sobriety. They found the cearsest of language and a flow of oaths on the slightest provoca- tion; and they leave, outside a certain very limited set which seems to rejoice in the unelean and the ambiguous, careful if slangy speech, in which such a thing as a big, big D is as rare as plums in a work- house pudding. The .modern hygienic comforts and facilities of our houses must also have their effect; and it is strange to picture a condition of affairs which compelied the architects of our old castles to build the bedrooms all opening one out of another, the innermost one, which had no other exit, being inhabited by the women of the family for their protection. Dinners Too Elaborate. Our dinners are too long, too hot, too gorgeous, too large and therefore usually too deadly dull to be enjoyable; but even if they were perfect in every detail they could not continue to amuse a person who dines out every night of his life. Still, with all their faults, they must be less intolerable than those interminable feasts of roast beef, cygnet or pea chick at which our grandfather sat, flanked by bottles of port and brown sherry, from 3 in the afternoon till they were carried to bed or perhaps tottered unsteadily 'into the presence of the ladies. They drank, no doubt, to still the gnawing worm of boredom, which even then must have had ‘'some power; but now we bear our disil- lusions and satiety in soberness, if with depression and languor. It is said—with what truth I know not— that the abstinence of our ladies of to-day from the flowing bowl is not so conspicu- ous as that of the men. I trust this is a libel, But worse than this is the secret habit of taking drugs—more fatal, if pos- sible, than alcohol, and less easy to de- tect and control. 7 Another conspicuous change in society is the worshin of wealth and the altered views of the most ancient and aristocratic families on the subject of trade. Dukes, marquises, earls and their female rela= tions keep shops, issue advertisements of their wares, and, in the case of the former, display their. names on a city prospectus or the bill of a theater without feeling at all uvncomfortable, unless, indeed, their venture is not a financial success. The whole tone of the social mind has altered in this respect, and if some antiquated and semi-barbaric ideas have been up- rooted with the tares, much alas! of the good corn of noblesse oblige has shared their fate. Short Visits Necessary. Life in country houses has undergone perhaps the greatest variation of all, ow- ing to railways, telegraphs and the scurry in which we spend our days. Short visits are not only customary, but necessary, where each engagement in succession overlaps the other and has to be fitted in almost like a Chinese puzzle. I am told that a book which recently appeared, and which purported to give a realistic account of the visits of a young girl to a series of country houses, presents a fair picture of what goes on in a certain set; but, if so, I must honestly declare that it is not cne with which I am at all acquainted. Then, again, we found (to continue our paraphrase of the American professor) private charity; we leave professional hilanthropy. I hope I may be forgiven or saying that I ccnsider this one of the greatest blots on our modern system, for too often it hardly affords a decent cloak for the grossest hypocrisy and self-inter- est. 1t is utilized, on the one hand, by some to erase a stain from their escutch- con, dnd by others to advance themselves either in society or in the more material search after a well paid appointment. Charity for the love of God, and not either for excitement, gain, or for whitewashin purposes, is as rare as it is refreshing a.ng ennnbllmf to witness, ‘The great name, the brilliant talents, the cultured leisure, given by some of our conspicuous men and women to the cause of the poor and suffering are beacons to follow and monu- ments raised -for future generations to keep before their eyes, departure, to make as little trouble as possible for one's host, whose conven- ience may be better considered in the choice of one train ‘than another. Should it be necessary to take an early train it is considerate for a woman guest to urge hér hostess not to rise earlier than her habit is, but to let her say good-by the night before, and tryst to the good offices of some trusty ser- vant to see her off, A man visitor would take this for irnnted. and bid his hostess and her family farewell before retiring for the night. ’ ‘When taking leave of one's hosts adieux should be said to each member of the family and farewell messages sent to any who may not be present, There 18 a suggestion that ought not to be required, and yet is of such im- portance that it were best, perhaps, not to omit to mention, It is that a guest should hold sacred anything that he or she may have learned of the family life, or of the peculiarities of any member of a household where hespitality has been accepted. A person visiting at different houses cannot be too careful to avoid re- peating anything that may reflect in the slightest degree upon his entertainers, or uglsfy the ignoble curlosity of one of tht expense of another, ‘Such social traitors there have been, but their popularity is usually short- lived, every ome rightly judging that nothing secures his immunity from like treatment, where no honorable reticence can be counted upon. ‘to a long forgotten type—chang .disorder, In literature, as far as society Is con- cerned, 1 fear we cut a poor figure as compared with our forbears; for though we are copious, we are not original, as a rule, or entertaining. - X Too Many Itch to Write. We found writers of witty and some- times learned letters, dlaries or memoirs, expressed with eloquence and ease; we leave the new journalism, where titles fetch their price; postcards, and a lan- guage compounded of the slang of many nations choicely culled and shortened to fit in with our telegraphic needs and fleeting opportunities, It is not only mine enemy who needs no pressing to write a book; it is his wife, his family, his seoretary, his valet—and even his little children contribute in their degree, either pertly or priggishly, to the pages of weekly papers. Their poems are marvelously good, all things considered, if rather tiresome and obvious; and one hesitates as to which characteristic in them is most developed—preternatural sharpnes and a weird instinctive insight into the foibles of their elders, for it cludes punishment-and reduces the parent to the condition of a silent witness of the gambols of his offspring among the eggs of life and society, not all of which are strictly new laid, and some of which “break, obviously addled, beneath the un- conscious foot of the little dancer. Will their precocious knowledge fade away as problems spread themselves, no longer simple, but complex, before their adoles- cent eyes? or are they young plants, seedlings of a future race of strange, un- known forest trees, with virtues which we cannot reach at, and a nearness to na- ture from which education and ex;)erlence pes have debarred our blunted minds? Whet- . ever they may prove eventually to be, to us they seem mysterious little offshoots . of some alien stock, reversipns, ;{frha.ps. elings in which we seem to have no part. What they are as compared with the social children of the past it {s difficult to say, for records on this point are sparse; but it is certain that their relations with their elders have suffered a complete rev- olution not entirely in favor of the latter. One of the great disadvantages of modern soclety is ‘the disproportionate number of women, which is much felt in a Protestant country, where few seek the protection of a convent from a world which has no use for them, and where, although they know that they cumber the ground, they must always look bright and amused even when they are dull and _sick at heart. Many such now resort to studios and other kindred haunts to es- cape from the trammels of a life where it is not all sunshine, although it may be all luxury. Growth of Moral Laws. As society becomes more complex, larger and more elastic, so the moral law must fit itself to protect the weak from themselves and from the strong, and to enable this large and buzzing beehive of a world to get along without too much ust as in the streets we walk to the right or keep to the left, according to the rule of the road. y Social laws which often seem hard are really beneficent, and the relaxation which seems to have taken place in them in earnest of late years m&y not prove a blessing even to those in whose favor they are loosened. G It should be remembered that the time when Dante wrote his “Inferno’’ the story of Francesca da Rimini was barely ten vears old: but it will be difficult to judge of the true state of the society of our day from its published records, which contain highly Bowdlerized accounts of its real doings. And in spite of all that can be said either of our period or of pre- vious ones, pure 'lives shine out; ‘the good deed in a naughty world’’ casts a glow round darker prospects, but virtue is not always triumphant nor vice always scouted. . The good and the bad flourish together in the world’'s great fleld—flowers and weeds and corn alike; but it is evident that the good must predominate over the bad, or.society and its rules, its petty laws, its great warm life and historic continuity would long since have faded inte nothing, as some day It must and will, which it'shall have fulfilled the pur- pose for which it is allowed to exist. MRS. KINGSLAND. & o It has always been a point of etiquette for a guest, immediately upon returning home, to write a polite and cordial note of thanks to his or her hostess for the pleasure of the visit not forgetting greetings to the other members of her family—in soclety slang “bread and but- -ter letters.” An Important Custom. ‘It is sometimes difficult, to be truthful and kind, considerate and sincere at the same time, but the fusion of these qualities 1s possible to those whose lives are based upon great grinc&plas. Charity leads us to see the best side of those with whom we are brought into contact, Unselfishness brlnfn to us the pleasure that it always yields to those who try to promote that of others, and courtesy predisposes one to an amiable frame of mind and a readiness to receive enjoy- ment from whatever is offered us, If these “three graces' of charity, unself- ishness and courtesy accomfia.ny a guest the success of the visit will be a fore- gone conclusion. It is a graceful act—so it be gracefully done—to send one's hostess a trifling gift soon after one's return home-—something of which the attraction does not con- sist in intrinsic value but in the inter- est or pleasure that it y inspire; a book, a plece of music, a clever game or a bit of one's own handiwork. It should seem to be prompted by pleasant remin- iscent thoughts of one's visit, and never sugxelt the idea of the payment of & debt.