Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1913-08-01
Vulgar Familiarity Never IN
Good Form.
Old Enelishman's Advice and Warning
AgaInat Calling Men and Women
by Christian Names on Short
Acquaintance.

mans address" they meant his whoie
social bearing. Nor was 1t by mere
freak or accident of language that the
word thus exchanged a narrower for a
wider significance. A mans way OF
accosting a stranger. or even an ac-
quaintance. or even friend, reveals
a good deal Of his character and goes
long way toward distinguishing
gentleman from boor. Good man
ners are easy and free, but free and
easy" manner Is an abomination. My
attention, says writer in the Man.
chester (England) Guardian. Ia invited
to the subject by one of those young
inquirers who writes as follows:
Il attached no particular Importance
to- the questions until a few weeks ago.
And now / would ask what ex-
perience has taught you. Is one to
call every Tom, Dick ard Harry by his
Christian name, or plain Brown, Jones
and Robinson. prefixed with Mr. ac-
cording to age? ls one to call every
Joan, Jane and Betsy by her Christian
name or merely Miss So-and-So"
must not indicate my correspond
ent by the name of the place in which
he dwells. so for the nonce he shall
be tom Fytton," named after very
attractive hero who suffered from rath-
er similar embarrassments; and tony
friend Tom / would at the outset I'M
part salutary warning which re-
ceived very early in life.
when you once are on terms to call
Christian names, you are on terms 10
quarrel" This somber truth, even If 1t
| stood alone, should be deterrent from
premature and needless intimacies.
fancy that Cowper, who had the double
constituencies Of the gentleman and the
| poet, must have been smarting from
some experiences of this sort when he
wrote his stanzas on Friendships:
| The man who halls you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
| How he esteems your merit.
| Is such a friend that one had need $40
| Be very much his friend indeed.
To pardon or to bear It,
And the odd thing is that the men
who are thus extensively friendly al
ways seem to imagine that they are
| making themselves extremely pleas
ant; they are too blind to see the an
noyance which they cause and too
thick headed to feel that their clumsl-
ness Is resented. Warned by their ex-
ample, let Tom Fytton confine him
self to surnames until he is really sure
of his ground; and then, when &C
quaintance has led to intimacy, he Will
find that the Christian name slips in
sensibly and inevitably, into Its place.
There is no greater error than to
mistake vulgar familiarity for gentle
manlike ease" but there Is familiar
ity which Is not the least vulgar, and
"gentlemanly" has no necessary con-
nection with social rank. Some OF the
truest gentlemen have ever known
have been miners. and I have seen az
ricultural laborers whose manners no
instruction could have mended.
Is Tom to call Joan, Jane and Betsy
by their Christian names? No. l can
not say it too often or too plainly. To
a man, every woman should be a d.
vinity; and the slightest touch of IA
miliarity or free and easiness Is In
consistent with that reverence which
should be his instructive attitude. 1t
is true that my favorite heroine, DIE
Vernon, encouraged Frank Osbaldison
to set convention at defiance. Call
me Tom Vernon, If you have afmind.
but speak to me as you would friend
and companion" But then Die, with
all her charms, was a bit of holden.
and had learnt her manners from her
brutal cousins. Frank, who was gen
'tleman, as we'll as good fellow, de-
clined to take her at her word, and at
their final parting Gas it seemed) she
was still to him Miss Vernon"
II forward or conceited youth pre-
sumes to be free and easy" with what
he will probably call "gurl," he Is
likely to receive snub which will
abide with him, to his great advantage,
all his life long. So direct familiarity
Is difficult and dangerous and the
bounder generally has sense enough
to avoid It. But he compensates him
self indirectly by speaking Of girls.
behind their backs, by their Christian
names, though he knows fill well that
he dare not SO call them to their faces.
There he shows himself coward as
we'll as a cad, and Tom Fytton will
perhaps find an opportunity of telling
him so.
|