I plead for it, first and last, on aesthetic grounds. Let
the Graces be cultivated for their own sweet sake.
The difficulty is how to begin. The mothers of the rising generation
were brought up in the unregenerate way. Their scraps of oral
tradition will need to be supplemented by much research. I advise them
to start their quest by reading The Young Lady's Book. Exactly the
right spirit is therein enshrined, though of the substance there is
much that could not be well applied to our own day. That chapter on
`The Escrutoire,' for example, belongs to a day that cannot be
recalled. We can get rid of bad manners, but we cannot substitute the
Sedan-chair for the motor-car; and the penny post, with telephones and
telegrams, has, in our own beautiful phrase, `come to stay,' and has
elbowed the art of letter-writing irrevocably from among us. But notes
are still written; and there is no reason why they should not be
written well. Has the mantle of those anonymous gentlewomen who wrote
The Young Lady's Book fallen on no one? Will no one revise that
`Manual of Elegant Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits,' adapting it
to present needs?... A few hints as to Deportment in the Motor-Car;
the exact Angle whereat to hold the Receiver of a Telephone, and the
exact Key wherein to pitch the Voice; the Conduct of a Cigarette.
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