is not happy in the
company cannot find any word in his memory that will
fit the occasion. All his information is a little
impertinent. A man who is happy there finds in every
turn of the conversation equally lucky occasions for
the introduction of that which he has to say. The
favorites of society, and what it calls _whole souls_,
are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no
uncomfortable egoism, but who exactly fill the hour
and the company, contented and contenting, at a
marriage or a funeral, a ball or a jury, a water party
or a shooting match."

_Emerson._

THE ETIQUETTE OF TO-DAY

CHAPTER I

THE REWARDS OF ETIQUETTE

SOCIETY is a game which all men play. "Etiquette" is the name given
the rules of the game. If you play it well, you win. If you play it
ill, you lose. The prize is a certain sort of happiness without which
no human being is ever quite satisfied.

Because the demand for social happiness is thus fundamental in human
nature, the game has to be played quite seriously. If played
seriously, it is perforce successful, even when the outward signs of
triumph are lacking. Played seriously, it becomes a worthy part of the
great enterprise of noble living, the science of which is called
"Ethics." Therefore the best etiquette is that which is based upon the
fundamental principles of ethics.

The etiquette, as well as the ethics, of to-day may well be summed up
in the one maxim known as the "Golden Rule": "Do unto others as you
would that others should do unto you." Or in the philosophic statement
of it, given by Kant: "Act so that the maxim of thy conduct shall be
fit to be universal law."

A certain social sense is, therefore, the foundation upon which all
concerted action rests; and this, permeating the character and winning
conformity in the life, produces a social order which is at once the
criterion of civilization and the source of its power.

Every social code presupposes the trained personality, that is, the
individual who is intelligent enough and controlled enough to conform
to the rules prescribed for the good of all. It is only in the common
good that true individual good can be found. Therefore is it so
essential that every man regard his brother's welfare as anxiously as
his own, and permit himself to be curbed in his extr