The American Gentleman’s Guide to Politeness and Fashion

Happily for the gratification of fancy, however, the all-potent goddess, arbitrary and imperative as are her laws, permits, at least to some extent, such variations from her general standard as personal convenience, physical peculiarities, or varying circumstances may require. However, regarding these and similar considerations, it does not involve the exhibition of eccentricity, which I hold to be inconsistent with good taste, whether displayed in dress or manner. A violation of the established rules of the Convention cannot easily be defended, except when required by our obligations to the more strenuous duty requirements. Usually, however, departures from conventional propriety evince simply an ill-regulated character.

The Laws of Convention, like all wise laws, are instituted to promote “the greatest good of the greatest number.” They constitute a Code of Politeness and Propriety, adapted to the promotion of social convenience, varying somewhat with local circumstances, it may be, but everywhere substantially the same. It is expected to talk of the eccentricities of genius as though they are essential concomitants of genius itself. Nothing can be more unfounded and pernicious than this impression. The eccentricities that sometimes characterize the intellectually gifted are but so many humiliating proofs of the imperfection of human nature, even when exhibiting its highest attributes. Hence, the affectation of such peculiarities subjects one to ridicule and, in many instances, to the contempt of sensible people. Some years since, when Byron was the “bright, particular star” worshipped by young Sophs, it was quite a habit among our juvenile collegians to drink gin, wear their collars à la mode de Byron, cultivate misanthropy upon the system, and manifest the most concentrated horror of seeing women eat! In too many instances, the sublimity of genius was meagerly illustrated by these aspirants for notoriety.

In place of catching an inspiration, they only caught cold; their gloomy indifference to the hopes, the enjoyments, and pursuits of ordinary life distressed no one, save, perhaps, their ci-devant nurses or the “most tender of mothers;” their “killing” peculiarities of costume were scarcely daguerreotyped even upon the impressible hearts of the school-girls whose smiling observance they might chance passingly to arrest; women of sense and education pertinaciously adhered to a liking for roast beef, with variations, and manifested an equally decided partiality for the society and attention of men who were not indebted for the activity of their intellects to the agency of the juniper berry! Falling into such absurdities, a man cannot hope to escape the obnoxious imputation of being very young!