Education: Gracious Living for All

Walter Winchell did not present a problem when Emily Post began piloting Americans along the winding bayous of gracious living, and the proper adjustments of falsies was not a matter of social import. But manners change: this week, Socialite Amy Vanderbilt (a 44-year-old offshoot of the Staten Island Vanderbilts, who is married to Photographer Hans Knopf) brought out a new book of etiquette which is unblushingly concerned with areas of human endeavor which ladies & gentlemen did not discuss—or had not yet discovered—back in the day of the bustle and the Prince Albert beard.

Not that Arbiter Vanderbilt has been stingy with advice for those who may have to hold a hunt breakfast, staff a 100-room mansion, or participate in an evening horse show (a dinner jacket is often worn with evening trousers cut slightly narrow in the leg with elastic straps under the insteps). But in Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette (Doubleday; plain $5, indexed $5.75), a 700-page tome, the author not only writes with an un-verbenaed frankness but has pushed the horizon of social propriety out to include such goings-on as divorce proceedings, the entertainment of problem drinkers, and appearances on television.

Do not wear shiny jewelry when before the TV cameras, she advises; it reflects light glaringly. When properly approached, it is socially permissible to endorse foods, liquors, cosmetics and cars, but such intimate products as tooth paste, depilatories and underwear are obviously unsuitable. What to do about gossip columnists? “A well-known individual,” Miss Vanderbilt seems to feel, will just have to “endure” them—unless a “damaging” story warrants a libel suit. Apparently aware that some of her readers are not trying to avoid columnists, she blandly adds: “The debutante who . . . enters a nightclub with a gazelle on a leash can be virtually sure [of] a line of print somewhere.”

Such oddments are only a beginning for Amy. In the four years it took her to get out her book she has not only viewed etiquette as a cradle-to-the-grave proposition, but turned out advice (most of it highly sensible) on almost every conceivable aspect of life. Amid voluminous dissertations on manners she does not hesitate to write: “Nothing, not even a bad clam, is ever spit, however surreptitiously, into a napkin. But it is sheer masochism to down . . . something really spoiled.” What to do? She suggests depositing partly chewed food with the fork on the side of the plate, to be quickly “screened” thereafter with celery or bread. Other items:

¶ To hostesses whose guests are prone to get soused: just give them limited drinks.

¶ Under Correspondence: “Love letters are sometimes bombshells. It has often been said that nothing should go into a letter that couldn’t be read in court.”

¶ Under Education of Children: “[Girls may wear] a natural pink lipstick at 13 or 14 for parties, a little darker one at 15, and from 16 on, lipstick as they wish [and] a little powder.”

¶ Under Home Entertaining: “If you have a septic tank or cesspool, you need to explain [to house guests] that . . . facial tissues . . . should not be thrown into the toilet bowl . . .”

¶ When you are traveling by plane, a stewardess should be addressed as “Stewardess” or (if her name is displayed on a plaque) “Miss James.” “You need never exchange a single word with your seat mate, but conversation is permissible.”

¶ On a train, occupants of private quarters may play their portable radios if the door is closed, but Pullman and day-coach passengers had better not.

Amy devotes whole chapters to Men and their place in contemporary life (“The old-fashioned pater familias … is as extinct as the Stanley Steamer. Most modern fathers can change a diaper . . .”). The pre-tied bow tie for evening is now permissible, she admits, but adds: “It seems to me a sad little invention, like the old-time . . . sleeve garter.”

“An Englishman feels that his raincoat must be dirty—in fact, I am sure he tramps on a new one . . . but in the U.S. a dirty raincoat is just a sign of careless grooming.” Men would do well to wear cologne instead of violently scented hair rubs and shaving lotions.

At one point the author feels moved to advise fishermen that even low conversation is not permissible in surface fishing, since “fish can hear and they feel vibrations such as are made by throwing an empty beer bottle into the water.” A faint note of envy finally seems to creep in as she discusses Bachelors. “Unlike his unmarried sister, he need give no thought at all to his appearance . . . Everyone knows that a man can always marry even if he reaches 102, is penniless, and has all faculties gone. There is always some woman willing to take a chance on him.”

Amid such a variety of observation and counsel, Miss Vanderbilt would be more than human if her own taste did not slip occasionally. In giving advice on dinner-table conversation, she cites as “one of the funniest anecdotes I ever heard at table” a newspaper heading quoted by Punch:

John Longbottom, Aged 3 mo. Dies

On this, Punch commented: “Ars longa, vita brevis.” Miss Vanderbilt says that this “would be impossibly vulgar, if explained.” Here lies the root trouble with all books of etiquette: so much that is sensible and even wise sounds impossibly vulgar when explained.