Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Etiquette for American Ladies 1840 - Avoid Indelicate Expressions


Etiquette for Ladies: With Hints on the Preservation, Improvement, and Display of Female Beauty. Published by Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia. 1838-1840

Avoid all indelicate expressions, and appear not to understand any that may be uttered in your presence. Some ladies not only relish double entendres, but actually use them. Yet, however much it may create a feeling of cleverness at the moment, cool reflection is afterwards sure to condemn it both on the part of the speaker and listener. Such discourse, wanton glances, and lightness of carriage, are considered by men as gauntlets to dare them to speak and act in a more free and unguarded manner than they otherwise would have the boldness to do.

Let it be impressed upon your mind, that many ladies have lost their character through a little indiscretion on these heads—and it is as bad with the world to appear to have lost caste, as really to have lost it.