Hello mists, hello leader of the pack
Heavy mist almost amounting to fog this morning, still a little hazy by the pm but visibility okay. Several takers for the walk, but, although I have been thinking I am perhaps not on my top form at present, was well out in front, and chatting to the trainer (who has been there for years). Gratifying.
Also, doing Flex and Stretch this morning, came to the conclusion that my yoga classes have had some effect.
Home now. Washing on.
Have lately been dipping into - found on Project Gutenberg - Mrs C E Humphry ('Madge' of Truth), Manners for Men (1897), about which we remark, plus ca change.
There are cautions against manspreading on public transport: True courtesy, for instance, will prevent a man from infringing the rights of his neighbours on either side by occupying more than his own allotted space.
Very stout men are obliged to do so, but at least they need not spread out their knees in a way that is calculated to aggravate the evil. Nor need they arrange themselves in a comfortable oblique position, with the result of enhancing the inconvenience they must necessarily cause to those near them. Even a thin man can take up a quantity of room by thus disposing himself at an angle of forty-five with the other occupants of an omnibus.
And not to be a Victorian Pick Up Artist: Should a man be so fortunate as to be of some service to any lady in the street, such as picking up a parcel or sunshade she may have dropped, or helping her out of any small difficulty, he must raise his hat and withdraw at once. Such trifling acts as these do not by any means constitute an acquaintanceship, and to remain by her side when the incident is over would look like presuming on what he had done, as though it gave him a right to her continued acknowledgments. This would be ungentlemanly.
....
In large towns women of breeding soon learn to view casual attentions from well-dressed men with the deepest distrust. They would suffer any amount of inconvenience rather than accept a favour from a stranger, knowing that so many men make it their amusement to prowl about the streets, looking after pretty faces and graceful figures, and forcing their attentions on the owners.
Contemptible curs they are, whether young or old, and they are of all ages. Very young girls have sometimes extremely unpleasant experiences with such men, not only in the streets but in omnibuses, trams, and trains. Cultivating a gentlemanly exterior, they can yet never be gentlemen, and a good, pure woman finds something hateful in the look of their eyes, the whole expression of their faces.
We may also note the good lady's disapproval of 'The present fashion of taking one’s reading in pills, so to speak, snatching it in scrappy paragraphs from weekly miscellanies': does this not remind us, dear rdrz, of contemporary whinges about the Facebook Generation?
There may well be more of Mrs H's words of wisdom to come: I am only up to dinner-parties. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2532964.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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