There may be many social purists who will disagree with us in this
statement. Men and women educated in the creeds of the Old World,
with the good blood of a long ancestry of quiet ladies and
gentlemen, find modern American society, particularly in New York
and at Newport, fast, furious, and vulgar. There are, of course,
excesses committed everywhere in the name of fashion; but we
cannot see that they are peculiar to America. We can only answer
that the creed of fashion is one of perpetual change. There is a
Council of Trent, we may say, every five years, perhaps even every
two years, in our new and changeful country, and we learn that,
follow as we may either the grand old etiquette of England or the
more gay and shifting social code of France, we still must make an
original etiquette of our own. Our political system alone, where
the lowest may rise to the highest preferment, upsets in a measure
all that the Old World insists upon in matters of precedence and
formality. Certain immutable principles remain common to all
elegant people who assume to gather society about them, and who
wish to enter its portals; the absent-minded scholar from his
library should not ignore them, the fresh young farmer from the
countryside feels and recognizes their importance. If we are to
live together in unity we must make society a pleasant thing, we
must obey certain formal rules, and these rules must conform to
the fashion of the period.

And it is in no way derogatory to a new country like our own if on
some minor points of etiquette we presume to differ from the older
world. We must fit our garments to the climate, our manners to our
fortunes and to our daily lives. There are, however, faults and
inelegancies of which foreigners accuse us which we may do well to
consider. One of these is the greater freedom allowed in the