The Essentials of a Lady : Part 1

Girls and Women
by Harriet E. Paine

(Page 8 of 17)

Within the last twenty-five years the wish to be considered a lady has spread so among all classes of American women as to have become almost ridiculous, as in the authentic case of the individual who presented herself at the front door of a fine house, and describing herself as an ash-lady, inquired for the woman of the house. It has been so often repeated that: "The rank is but the guinea's stamp," and that "A man's a man for a' that," that all the ash-ladies and wash-ladies of the land have hastily concluded that the term "lady" stands for nothing substantial.

I will not say that a washer-woman may not be a lady. It is certainly possible for her to have all the essentials of a lady. But such a case is so rare that I think we are justified in taking the contrary for granted till we have proof of the fact. Not there are washer-women so truthful, unselfish, and noble in character that they are far superior as women to many whom we may fairly call ladies. Such women usually have self-respect enough to understand that they lose rather than gain dignity in claiming to be anything they are not. The essential point in life is not the being considered a lady. It is not even to be a lady, though that is a beautiful thing.

A woman is like a vigorous plant, with strong roots firmly fixed in the soil and abundant fresh green leaves. A lady is such a plant crowned by a beautiful blossom. You have sometimes seen a plant, a geranium, for instance, which had lost all its leaves, and yet bore at the top of its crooked stem a cluster of flowers. Such flowers are not very beautiful. The thrifty plant without a blossom is more beautiful. Of course my moral is this, that while the term "lady" does mean something different from "woman," it is only as a crown of womanhood that it is really significant.

Every girl should try to be a lady, however, and every girl who sincerely tries will have some measure of success. I remember when I was a girl, I once said to a high-bred woman, "Do you think, after all, that Mrs. A. is much of a lady?" She replied so firmly as to crush me for the time, "One is either a lady or she is not a lady." I supposed she was right, and that there were no stages on the perilous upward path which led to being a lady. I have changed my mind now. I think each of us may have some virtues without having all the virtues. I think with Emerson that in a society of gentlemen and ladies we should find no complete gentleman and no complete lady; and so I say that every girl who tries to be a lady will have some measure of success. I do not mean that she should try to be recognized as a lady. If she is one she will probably, but not certainly, be so recognized. In a small community, where she can be known personally, she will be sure of her place, but not in a large town.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, speaking in England, said something to this effect: "You think we have no classes in America because we have no titles to distinguish them. But a barbed wire fence is as effectual in keeping out intruders as one of boards, though you can see the boards and the barbed wire is invisible."

Why is a barbed wire fence put up in America? Because there is a real difference between coarse people and refined people, even when both have the best intentions. To be sure there are other less valid reasons. There are coarse people whom accident has put among the higher classes, who make themselves ridiculous by putting up a fence between themselves and poorer people even when the poor are refined. Nevertheless, there is a true basis for distinction of classes. Only the distinction is not as sharp as many would have it. The highly refined and the very coarse have so little in common that they can never associate with comfort.

But the highly refined do not need barbed wire between themselves and those with one degree less of cultivation. We can always reach one hand to those below us, and if we reach the other to those above us, we should be able to lift the lower to our plane instead of sinking to theirs. Such a chain of love, reaching from the lowest to the highest, is the ideal society, and the highest man does not need to lift all his fellows up by his unaided strength, because there is infinite help above him.

But in the present most of us will sometimes be called upon to stand outside the charmed circle of barbed wire which encloses more fortunate mortals, in spite of all we can do for ourselves. We may be better women than those within the circle, we may be better-educated, more careful in our habits, and our manners may be finer, and yet we may not have the magic word which would admit us. There is no doubt, for instance, that blood and breeding do tell powerfully in refinement. I can think of half a dozen women, however, of no birth at all in the ordinary sense, and of no home education, who have blossomed into the loveliest and most refined of women.

In one case, the ancestors had for generations been earnestly religious, so that the girl was really of noble birth and predestined to refinement, though she had nothing to help her in the world's estimation. But some of the girls came from wretched homes, some of them did not even have good mothers, and one was the illegitimate daughter of a servant girl. But they all had aspiration and intellect, and their refinement was not only wonderful under the circumstances, but wonderful under any circumstances. They were suitable associates for the most exclusive ladies in our cities so far as genuine refinement goes, only as their experience of life was much wider than that of these carefully guarded dames, perhaps they would not have assimilated very well with them after all.

Of course, the exclusive circles are suspicious of women whose antecedents are like these, and perhaps they have a right to be suspicious, because these girls were certainly exceptions to the rule. At all events, none of us can help ourselves by grasping at a position. We may, to be sure, get invitations sometimes if we are vulgar enough to ask for them, but we should find the barbed wire fence even in the drawing-room to which we have been admitted. We must be content to stand outside every circle till we are invited to enter it, and our self-respect must heal our wounded pride.

One thing, however, we can do. We can quietly resist being patronized. We are not often called upon to accept favors from those who are not our superiors but who condescend to us because we are poor or obscure. It is true we must be humble, and we need not resent such favors, but we must beware of being flattered by the notice of any one who is simply rich or powerful. When we recognize true superiority either in the rich or the poor, we should to be glad to acknowledge it. We can accept a favor from those who are really above us, though we know we cannot return it. And we can always be ready to do our best work for others whether they slight us or not. That does not show a mean but a noble spirit.

What are the essentials of a lady?

A knowledge of the manners of the world is generally considered necessary if one would be a lady. Even where customs themselves are trivial, ignorance of them makes a woman awkward and self-conscious, so that she does not have the grace we associate with a perfect lady. Etiquette is superficial, it is true, but it has a genuine value. The manners which belong instinctively to a woman of kindness and refinement are a far better test of her real rank.

Copyright, 1890 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., All rights reserved.