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Title: How not to be a wallflower
Author: John Woodworth
Editor: E. Haldeman-Julius
Release date: August 12, 2026 [eBook #79354]
Language: English
Original publication: Girard: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1928
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79354
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW NOT TO BE A WALLFLOWER ***
LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 488
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
How Not to Be a
Wallflower
John Woodworth
HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1928
Haldeman-Julius Company
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
HOW NOT TO BE A WALLFLOWER
FOREWORD
My definition of a _Wallflower_ is: One who is for some reason or other
always on the outskirts of social life. Strictly defined a _Wallflower_
is one who stands against the wall at dances.
I know perfectly that being a _Wallflower_ hurts more than anything on
earth because that is what I am myself or that is what I was until I
conquered my sensitiveness which after all is the main fault of that
_avis rara_. Even now, criticism, too harsh or too personally aimed,
is liable to drive me into my particular hole whence it takes a mighty
strong bit of persuasion to entice me.
Those lapses are fewer and fewer now, however, and I feel that
eventually I’ll be as hard as nails and quite the life of the party
whenever I choose to be.
The exact mode of dealing with the malady stumped me at first but after
having made my first facetious attempt which was by way of crucifying
the very soul (if there is a soul) of the person I might be trying to
help, severely criticized by one whom I happen to know could never have
been a _Wallflower_, I have chosen the confidential chat manner. I
shall take every one of you quietly aside in a sort of Ben B. Lindsey
manner and try with all I have in me to help you to get as far as
possible from the _Dread Wallfloweritis_.
We shall see together just what can be done to make you, if not the
life of the party, certainly a passable sort of person whom everybody
greets with a happy smile and who feels that he is wanted.
I. FEMALE WALLFLOWERS
Let us attend a dance together. Let us suppose you are a young lady and
that I am your companion who has never taken you to a dance before. Let
us also suppose that I am quite good looking and that you would like to
make the best of all impressions upon me.
It may be that I have met you at a tea or at a dinner and know nothing
whatsoever about you except that you are not ugly or, that is, not too
ugly. You may have an uneven feature or two but that may only enhance
your charm the more. Or it may be that you have come to visit a friend
in a strange city and that I, as one of your friend’s unattached and
obliging male acquaintances, have been asked to escort you to the
dance. Or I may be a new fellow in town.
If we happen to be any or all of these combinations and all the
proprieties have been followed, there is no reason why we should not
proceed to the dance together.
YOUR DRESS
Before we go however, let us take a look into your wardrobe. More
particularly let us come to some sort of understanding about what can
and what cannot be worn.
If it is a formal dance, which fact you should have ascertained before
you started to dress, you would of course wear an evening gown. As to
the particular type of evening gown let us go more into detail.
But why start there? There is no reason on earth why we should not
digress as far back as the bath.
But a bath, you say, is not always possible. To which I reply, a
cleansing of some sort is always possible, weather and taste permitting.
Very well, to the bath then.
Let it be a hot bath or shower followed by a cold dash and that
followed by a brisk rub-down. After the rub-down it isn’t at all a
bad idea to use a toilet water, not too penetrating in odor, over the
entire body. If you use toilet water of a particular scent be sure
to dust the entire body with a powder of the same scent. Whether the
toilet water is used or not, be sure to dust the body with the powder.
Care should be taken not to leave it in great, obvious dabs on the back
of the neck or between the shoulders.
Another good practice after a bath is to stand before a mirror and give
yourself a good once-over. This is not impossible anywhere, which is to
say that if the mirror is small you can stand a little distance from
it and get a very nice view of the ensemble. “Distance,” as they say,
“lends enchantment.”
Now for the lingerie. A young lady whom I know, recently showed me
a very beautiful outfit. It is a three piece combination: a tight
fitting brassiere; tailored trunks very similar to those worn by
trackmen and runners. Both of these were of satin. And over all is a
georgette slip. The latter may be dispensed with, according to the
weather and temperament of the wearer.
If you feel that an elastic girdle of some sort is absolutely
necessary, wear it, but be very careful that there are no rolls of
flesh protruding from its confines. If that, too, is impossible, let it
protrude where your various partners could not possibly notice it.
And now for the makeup. I was informed, only recently, by a young lady
whose appearance I was particularly admiring that she had on a very
light stage makeup. That is what I would advise. The base of this
particular makeup was wheatcroft which can be tinted to any color or
complexion desired. It is a vegetable compound and is quite good for
the skin. If you are disfigured by an excessive growth of hair on the
arms you will find wheatcroft quite desirable. The only trouble with it
is that it smells like a horse’s breath after he has eaten wheat. On
top of the wheatcroft, use whatever you like in good taste. Remember,
however, that your makeup must be just a little stronger for a dance
than for the street. Wheatcroft does not run.
Having done everything else, turn your attention now to that very
necessary detail, your perfume.
There are perfumes and perfumes. Some of them for one purpose and
some for another. Your job should have been from the age of fifteen to
familiarize yourself with the particular properties of each scent that
met your pretty nose. You should know by this time that perfumes were
first designed to take the place of baths. You should also know that
the present use of perfume is for quite another purpose which I cannot
go into here.
Let me add that your perfume affects a young man quite decidedly
whether he knows he’s being affected or not. A friend of mine tells me
that there are perfumes that can and do accomplish anything.
_Choose your perfume carefully and you have won half the battle._
So far I have given details of the toilet which would apply to any
dance. The dress and the coif, of course, must vary.
DRESS FOR FORMAL DANCE
The evening dress should be chosen with the greatest care. In most
cases it must be chosen with the view of lasting at least one season
and possibly two. It is understood, to be sure, that I am talking with
a young person of limited means. As I said, the evening dress should
be chosen with the utmost care. Your community, of course, and the
attitudes of your immediate contemporaries will gauge the cut of the
gown.
I should, if I were asked about my own taste, suggest a dress with a
very tight basque and a circular skirt. But that is all a matter of
your own taste. If you are just a little plump, a straight line dress,
depending from the shoulders and without sign of belt or division would
be very good. If you are quite plump I should suggest a course in
dynamic symmetry from some good commercial art school. My own knowledge
of the principles of that particular phase of the arts is not authentic.
But the most important feature of the whole dress is its color. I have
it from one of the most popular girls I have ever known that the color
of a dress does more to make a girl sought after than anything else
about her. Incidentally this same girl forgets that there is such a
thing as a darkened room. I must say for the young lady’s theory that
she has enjoyed an uninterrupted vogue at dances for the last seven
years.
The color then should be carefully chosen. It should be some hue which
while it attracts attention, should, at the same time, be eminently
suited to your complexion. Blondes with olive skins can wear any color
they may choose, and still look quite smart. Redheads with pale, clear
complexions are equally fortunate except that they should avoid certain
shades of brown and gray.
A brunette is most striking in a very warm color, something say in
crimson or one of the warmer blues; blues, that is to say, which verge
on purple. White on a brunette becomes striking. In the same manner,
blue near a freckled face becomes conspicuous, or rather the freckles
do.
Your coiffeur should not concern you if your hair is bobbed. You
should be sure to keep it clean and if you feel that the young man’s
nose may get among it in the course of the evening, put a subtle
perfume there to meet it halfway, as it were. Long hair produces still
other problems. You should know by this time that straggling wisps of
hair are quite unsightly and dress your hair accordingly.
OFF IN A GALE OF LAUGHTER
You are now ready for the dance. I have come to the house where you are
staying or to your domicile and am now in the parlor talking to your
hostess or your mother. You have been called. Don’t wait too long to
come down. Nothing is more distressing to a young man than to have to
wait.
When you came into the room I should, of course, rise and watch you
exclusively and appreciatively. Your own activities on this occasion
should be actuated by your temperament. Your physical appearance should
determine whether you approach with dignity or with coquettish abandon.
In either case I should, and probably will, be appreciative if you do
it nicely.
Things to say on such occasions are quite easy and should be natural.
Enter the room with some cheery greeting which will at once establish
a glowy feeling in the young man. Above all else, warn your mother or
aunt or cousin not to take on the obvious appearance of a match-maker.
Make her understand that, so far as you know, I think nothing whatever
of you and that I am, after all, only a friend, and a very casual one
at that. Also warn her not to relate anecdotes of your childhood. Make
it plain that most normal young men despise little girls and would
prefer not to hear about them however clever they may have seemed to
their various relations at that age.
You have, I repeat, entered the drawing room of your present abode. You
have greeted me with an outstretched hand and appreciative smile. You
are subtly complimenting my neat appearance. Let me give you a secret.
Young men of whatever age are as vain of their appearance as peacocks.
They love to be thought handsome or well dressed and intelligent. A
well chosen phrase about their taste in clothing will do more to make
them appreciate your beauty than anything else on earth. That is, most
young men. Others practice a studied indifference to their personal
appearance, going to no end of trouble to ruin the press in a pair of
trousers in order to seem slightly disheveled.
The latter type likes to be thought quite brilliant. He may recite
poetry to you. He, of all types, is most dangerous because, while
he seems attentive, you get the feeling eventually that he is a
hair-brained idealist and needs a mother and when that occurs to
you—well—. Be cautious about poets and indifferent young men. They can
make you excessively happy for a short time but more often they make a
perfect hash of life.
The meticulous dressers come of two types. One is the gay type, the
trifler, the drug store cowboy, etc., _ad infinitum_. The other type
is the Babbitt-like youth who is interested principally in girls and
work. He makes the most satisfactory husband. He will never let you go
unfed or unclothed and your life will be even, often dull and sometimes
maddening, but your vegetable happiness should be complete if you
don’t let yourself believe everything you hear and read about the fine
average American.
Probably I have digressed too far. Back again to us. We have greeted
each other and after a little small talk, gotten our wraps against
going to the dance. Your mother or aunt or cousin or friend has told us
goodby but she has not, as is often thought proper, trusted you to my
gentlemanly care.
It depends on several things whether I have come for you in a taxi. All
that will be taken up when we speak about the young man wallflower.
Needless to say there are certain young men of very good families who
have a perfect penchant for doing the incorrect thing on all occasions.
If I have an automobile everything is different. Let us say I have a
nice coupe of a popular make, not too showy but still quite nice.
We descend the steps from your house, you hanging to my right biceps,
seeming, so I think, to be quietly admiring the feel of so strong an
arm. That gets over big. Don’t let the young man think you consider
him a hairy ape; just let him understand that you feel protected but
at the same time give him the assurance that you know all about taking
care of yourself. Be to the best of your ability and particularly your
ingenuity, a woman. Let me tell you before I go farther that any woman
can get herself a man or a husband but that is not what she should
strive for. What she really wants is admirers.
Will we never get to that dance? It seems not.
During the ride to the dance gauge your man. Find out what his thoughts
and emotions (be careful with the latter) are, if any. You can tell in
this way just what the evening is going to be.
If he is silent mostly and his sentences come in funny spurts and
starts, he is probably bashful himself as we have assumed you are.
If he starts talking at a great rate, mouthing good, sweet, moral
sentiments at every breath and asking you if you attend B.Y.P.U. or
Epworth League, he probably has a dirty mind and will very soon switch
to the pornography in the Bible. That is a slur. Some talkative youths
are quite bright and while they may be sophomoric in their mental
attitudes, still they are most entertaining.
If he adopts the gay strain and quotes in reckless wise such things as
_Yukon Jake_[*] or, say, the youthful salaciousnesses of Edna Millay
before she grew to her full stature in such things as _The King’s
Henchmen and Fear_. Let us suppose he quotes:
I burn my candle at both ends,
It will not last the night.
But O, my foes, and Ah, my friends,
It gives a lovely light.
rest assured that he is a complete “dud.” He is, in the beginning, a
hedonist, a pseudo-intellectual with a dash of cynicism, just enough
to make him say at frequent intervals, “This age is decadent, quite
putrid.” Avoid him, beware! He will protest that he is an intellectual
and he will say that he must laugh loud and long to keep from weeping
so much. Beware! Beware! He is a goat in sheep’s clothing.
[Footnote *: _The Ballad of Yukon Jake_ in Little Blue Book No. 1025.]
I am one of these young men. Your problem between your house and the
dance is to determine which one I am. I’ll give you a hint. I like the
last one described. You are finding out what I want to talk about. You
are establishing a personal relationship. You are, or should be, making
me one of your admirers. Say that you have discovered in spite of my
hint that I _am_ the last young man.
I have flatly denied being a cynic and then rather paradoxically
gone on to prove to you that I am one. You should listen to me very
attentively for a little and then quietly bomb my ship by saying,
What is the use of talking?
There is no end to talking.
There is no end of things in the heart.
I should understand by that that you have dealt me a very neat blow in
the abdomen, that you are, therefore, my equal and that you see clear
through me and out the other side. By that one statement you have made
me ridiculous, yourself sage and us compatible.
If I am the first youth, who speaks as if he had an impediment in his
throat or behind his tongue, the kindest thing that you could possibly
do would be to talk a great deal yourself at first. Don’t sit silently
by, waiting for me to start things. Like as not I never will and, while
you may enjoy your own thoughts more, you will probably be surprised to
discover that I am, behind all my bashfulness, quite a likable person.
Of course I may be horribly repressed and self conscious but still for
that very reason, I become intensely grateful to you if you try to make
me understand that you don’t see it that way and that you think me the
most charming young person of your acquaintance.
If I begin by deploring the activities of the younger generation and
ask you if you really don’t think the world is coming to a pretty pass,
the best thing for you to do is to remark that so far as you know it
has always been at a pretty pass. Tell me before I have a chance to
that you really think, as far as literature is concerned, that the
Bible is just as naughty as anything that has been written in the last
ten years. To get along with that sort of person you can talk about
anything and get away with it just so long as it implies something
quite risque and at the same time deplores it.
If I am just a talkative sophomore, let me talk on and be sure to laugh
at the right places. Be careful to laugh with me and not at me, however.
If I am a well dressed Rotarian of good address, I think I said that
this type make choice husbands, the best way to get me is by being
about the worthiest business proposition in sight. Don’t think it
will be necessary to love me. That isn’t what I want at all; I want
somebody, who either by association or by some subtle means like social
standing or membership in a good church, that is to say, a church where
the richer people of the community go, will be of advantage to me
financially. So if you are pretty and well dressed and ever so slightly
intelligent you are just what I want. But if you talk to me about your
ambitions along some line such as biology or law or medicine, you are
out. Whatever your ambitions may be, your abilities for the type of man
I have so suddenly become should be simply two: how to dress and how
to cook. And there is that other one; how to flatter till it makes you
laugh inside at man’s vanity.
The best thing to say to this type of man is something about the new
receipt for something or other that you saw today. Or mention the fact
to him that you made the dress you are wearing, whether you did or
not. Most struggling young businessmen, if they are to be at all worth
while, will spend money freely but they like to think that they are
really being economical. Let him understand that you would be a very
practical appliance to have around the house. Let him know, too, that
you could and would make his home into a veritable paradise. In a word
the best way to catch the most desirable husband is to make him think
that you are working for his best interests at all times. Probably I
have said too much about these boys, but remember, they are the ones
who will have the prettiest cars and the best houses and the most
_things_.
But on to the dance. Let us say that we have at last reached the scene
of riotous mirth and glee whither we started several hours ago. You
have discovered, much to your dismay, that I am not one but all of the
young men combined and that at all times during the evening you will be
forced to watch your step in order to keep me interested.
We have come to the palatial home of one of your wealthier friends, let
us say, and we are let in by a footman either hired or not, that is
none of our business even if we do choose to comment upon the fact, our
wraps are taken from us and we look at each other again as if it were a
treat long denied. At this very point you can tell what I think of you.
If I look at you and smile and do not turn my head away but insist upon
looking at you and listening to you if you are still talking and seem
not a whit interested in whom else is there, you have me, I am yours.
But if, on the other hand, I look at you shortly, smile with a far
preoccupied smile and then turning seem to want to run away, you have
lost the first half of the battle. Something is wrong. You have not
followed the proper advice. You had best go back home and start over
or else concentrate your technique on another man than me during the
remainder of the evening.
Very well, you have pleased me then; I offer you my arm and wander
into the ballroom with you. Your hostess and host, let us say, are
waiting by the wide door into the salon to greet their guests, the most
alluring music on earth is floating from the room. As we walk, the
violin and piano weave a long bright cloak about us and when we stand
to be greeted we seem to be quite happy to have come.
If I am unknown, be polite enough to introduce me to the hostess with
some remark about me or my people. Always be careful to introduce me
to the hostess first, never, under any circumstance, to the host.
Something like this is in very good taste: “Madam Recamier, this is
Horace Walpole van Stotenbottle, whose mother was a schoolmate of my
Aunt Letitia Buhecker.” “How do you do,” says the hostess, “surely you
aren’t the son of Nancy Walpole. I knew her well as a girl. Mr. van
Stotenbottle, this is my husband.” And in my turn I say, “Delighted,
I’m sure.” And Mr. Recamier grunts.
Another small detail. A young man who gets along well with older ladies
is a pretty safe bet any way you take him. No, I take that back. I
should have qualified it by saying, a young man who gets along with
happy old ladies, elderly women who have been happily married, is a
pretty safe bet.
Let us say there is a waltz in progress. A waltz of all musical
compositions is one of the best testers extant for the dancing ability
of a young man. If he can’t do a simple old-fashioned waltz there is
very little else he can hope to do. A girl’s part in dancing, that
is, with a good dancer, is comparatively easy. She must, to be sure,
be rhythmical and able to move lightly but definitely to the least
nuance of her partner. Fortunately she does not have to lead and if she
learns to depend on the man and does not feel that she could make a
better job of it herself and try to do so she should get along without
any trouble. If, however, she has danced much with women and led them
she is liable to do a little independent foot work of her own, much to
the dismay of her partner. Avoid dancing with women, as the leader. Of
course, follow them if you like, but never lead.
We waltz away. Halfway down the floor I am tagged by some person of
your acquaintance to whom you may or may not introduce me. Either is
quite proper. Usually a wise hostess has invited several young men,
known as stags, who have not brought young ladies along. The young man
who has just tagged me is one of these and has a wide acquaintance
among the girls present. In that case, introduce me, and while you are
dancing with him ask him to help me fill up my card, which, if not done
by you or the hostess in case I am a stranger, will be done at some
convenient time later in the evening. Usually the first two or three
dances are free dances designed to allow time for the guests to arrive
and to become accustomed to the crowd and the orchestra.
Suppose we enter the room at the end of the third dance and that the
music stops soon after I have been tagged, and that the time has come
for the young males to bicker and battle over their programs. Let us
say that you have brought the young man back to me and that he has
asked me for the second and fifth dances. He has done his polite bit
and it is time for you to spy a girl friend across the hall to whom you
just must say hello. You depart, and your friend guides me to other
youths who, because of you or because of me or because of your friend,
are willing to fill up the rest of my program which ordinarily contains
about ten dances.
After this comes the grand march, led by the host and hostess or their
debutante daughter and her boy friend. When this is over the first
dance begins, which, of course, we have together. Let us say that the
first dance is not a tag dance and that we will be forced, whether
we like it or not, to dance together for ten minutes. Your technique
during this time should do much for both of us. Let us hope that we are
both passable dancers and that that is not bothering us too greatly.
Very well, the thing for you to do now is to listen to me attentively
if I am saying anything but if I am not don’t take on a bored
expression and seem to be suffering under some violent inquisitory
priest or other. That kills my chances with the other girls. They think
when they see you that I am a perfect washout. Nor let yourself seem
too hilarious.
Let us suppose for the sake of decency that you are one of the most
popular girls there and that you and I are able to discuss the various
wallflowers with sympathy and no little humor.
Our hostess not being as acute socially as I had formerly supposed has
invited several more young ladies than young gentlemen. Let us say that
these extra maidens are five of the most carefully picked wallflowers
in the world.
1. THE OVERDRESSED WALLFLOWER
If you have paid strict attention to what has gone before you will not
come under this heading or, to be sure, under any other heading I may
choose to name.
There on the sidelines is a gauche maiden whom we shall call Miss
Sunflower. She is the second cousin of Madam Recamier, our Hostess. How
she got here is problematic. Whether she is from the country or not I
cannot say definitely. Probably so, because country girls not being
faced with as keen competition as city girls are not as careful as they
might be. But their state is usually only temporary. They feel their
way slowly at first and then one fine day when they have observed their
fill, blossom out into most amazing creatures, clever, vivacious and
often very beautiful.
At the present time, however, we are assuming that Miss Sunflower is
just in that seedling stage when one is not sure whether she will grow
into a gigantic brownfaced flower, a sweet pea or an ordinary castor
bean. Her face still retains that muddy look of one who has spent
a lifetime without the proper skin treatment. That very tan which
she has acquired may prove her fortune later but to date she has not
utilized it properly.
And to make matters worse, she has daubed her face with a perfectly
white powder over which, not under, which is the proper method, she has
put a magenta shade of rouge. And there is that little ring around her
neck which looks like dirt but which is really only a little tanned
line.
And the dress! What an interesting specimen. It is one the style of
which was in vogue no less than ten years ago. Not satisfied with
the simple base on which the dress was constructed, and which could
have been made quite passable, she has be-frilled and be-flowered and
be-ruffled it almost out of recognition. She has heard somewhere that
ostentation is the secret of social success.
When she speaks we are quite amazed to discover that she has a very
mellow voice with an undertone of warm richness to it. She probably
developed her vocal cords by hog calling or some such bucolic endeavor.
We find too that she is droll and that she knows animals quite well.
That will eventually be called the secret of her success; the fact that
she knows animals and can talk about them intelligently not to say
humorously. Nor is it at all odd that knowing animals she should be
entirely ignorant of men.
Now the best way for Miss Sunflower to commercialize her abilities,
put them on the market and make them eminently salable, would be to
begin on her dress and her skin. The skin as it is is very nice and she
should not attempt to bleach it. The thing to do would be to even it
up a little about the neck, cleanse it with some good cream, use only
a little rouge on her cheeks and lots of lipstick and then a brunette
powder on top.
Her dress, as I said, had a very simple base, in this case a tight
basque and a very long full skirt, the whole in salmon pink taffeta.
Now that as a base isn’t so bad, but our little friend has chosen to
run quite wild. She has ruffled it around the lower hem with pink
tulle and around the neck she has a perfect mountain mist of the same
material. About the waist she has put a series of rather large bouquets.
In the first place she should not wear too much frilly-frally; hers
should be a severe exterior. We should not concern ourselves with her
for very long, however, as she is only a rather vital maiden in transit
and is at the moment among the wallflowers.
2. THE QUESTIONING WALLFLOWER
“But why,” you ask rather impishly, “is that clever looking little
creature over there sitting against the wall? She seems to have
everything you have suggested is desirable in girls.”
I look and discover the garish Zinnia. I was fooled by that exterior
earlier in the evening as were several other expectant males.
I had tagged her expecting the usual small talk, but not exactly what I
got.
I began as I usually begin with: “Howdy, nice dance, what?”
And then: “O, Mr. van Stotenbottle, I have been wondering why you
didn’t dance with me. I’ve been simply in a nervous jerk to ask you all
about yourself.”
“Shoot! What do you want to know?” This would be interesting at least.
I actually thought that it would.
“I just wanted to ask if you are married and if your wife is happy
with you. I hardly see how she could be with such a handsome man as
you are. Don’t you think it is a shame how these flapper wives treat
their husbands? I think they are positively disgraceful. Are you going
to be here in the city long? If you are I want to see a great deal of
you because you look as if you are positively unconsolable. I really
mean you do. I think it is a terrible sin too. Poor man! What does she
do to you? Run about with other men? Or maybe you have one of those
companionate marriages. What do you think of them anyway? I think there
is a lot to it and yet I can’t say that I think it is strictly moral.
What do you think? How much did you pay for that suit? I am always
interested in those things. I may have to support a husband of my own
some day, you know.” Then she actually paused.
“I am not married, young lady.” I said that at the top of my voice and
right into her ear. “And furthermore,” I added from sheer anger, “you
will never be.”
Now I ask you, my dear, can you say in all fairness that such as she
should be allowed more than three feet from the wall? And I know of
nothing that will stop her unless she finds some fatuous old fool who
loves bright flowers and who can’t talk very well or very long himself
and who thinks that he must be pampered to be loved. That is the
only thing that would save her from being a wallflower and that only
temporarily, for it would not be long before she found herself growing
against another wall. But that is her problem not ours.
3. THE SUPPRESSED AND APOLOGETIC WALLFLOWER
This poor little girl should elicit more of our sympathy than of our
contempt. She is the sad little victim of over-indulgent parents. She
doesn’t quite understand what it is all about nor can she understand
just exactly what it is that keeps her against the wall and those
others, some of them not half so pretty as she, dancing all the time.
Nor can she understand why she of all people has to suffer this way.
Poor little kid! So very sensitive is she that she notices everything
that is liable to hurt her. She hears, when she shouldn’t, things that
make her hurt the worse.
She notices when her hostess, in a fit of compassion for her, tries to
guide one of the young men in her direction, and she notices, too,
that the young man makes a wry face and she imagines she hears him say
that he is so sorry but he is all full and can’t possibly do a thing
for her.
After not a few attempts this very evening, our hostess got me to dance
with her. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that she was a very
good dancer and withal quite a nice little girl who seemed to be quite
young. I discovered, when I asked her, that she had attended a convent
school in New Orleans.
The fact that she had gone to such a school would explain her general
fear of men and possibly her intense dislike for them in some cases.
She had allowed herself to be influenced too greatly by the teachings
of the sisters and from their precept she had seen that a life of
chastity was the only life for bringing perfect happiness.
That was my first diagnosis. Later I discovered that she had long since
seen the error of that and in trying to remedy it herself had become
excessively self-conscious.
I found her to be quite apologetic about every little thing. Due to her
sudden attempt at change she had become body-conscious. If she touched
me ever so slightly in a way that seemed to her mind improper she
would be very careful to call my attention to it by saying: “O, I beg
your pardon.” She did not know that the greater number of her supposed
gaucheries or unintended intimacies would have gone unnoticed if she
had not been so very careful about my noticing them. And it is not
because I am unusually opaque that I do not notice such things either.
I’m just not conscious of other bodies any more.
And besides she would not say the word “pardon” in that connection; she
should use the better and certainly less emphatic word “excuse.”
I can think of nothing which will cure this type of wallflower. The
only thing to do, so far as I know, is to let the poor child grow up
and grow out of it the best way she can. All she needs is experience
and age.
4. THE ELDERLY INGENUE
That lady over there, my sweet, is of a type that somehow never misses
a dance. She is the elderly ingenue. From this distance one would judge
her to be a very nice young lady but when you get closer you find that
she is not at all what you expected her to be. She is a perennial. Let
us call her Miss Phlox. One can but admire her ability to last and to
appear at the first of every season remodeled and refurbished.
Her dress is in exceptionally good taste and her makeup is quite
perfect but she has that something which makes all the men avoid her.
She has chosen, for some reason, to adopt with a peculiar translation
all the little tricks she has seen practiced by the more popular girls
of the younger set.
She cannot be cured. Let her have her fling. But let’s just ask her
why she wants to have fifteen flings.
5. THE COLD WALLFLOWER
I shall call her Miss Eidelweis because she is so cold, so beautiful
and so hard to get.
Miss Eidelweis is one of your real aristocrats. The blood in her veins
is steely blue. The antiquity of her name is only antedated by Lilith
and you know, my dear, Lilith was not what one would call a nice young
lady.
There is really so little to her personally that she has taken on a
heavy hauteur which makes her only more beautiful but which denies
absolutely that she is a maiden of any particular consequence. If she
really knew the whole truth about her redoubtable family and if she
knew just how adroit these etymologists can be, she would be desolated
to discover that her family was quite as base as any other family and
that what really makes an emperor of earth is very red blood and not
blue blood at all.
Of course, she is dressed beautifully and her hair is coifed with
amazing care and most becomingly. But there is something about her,
something undefinable, you may say, which makes the men stay away.
What is it? Their own vanity! To most men real vanity in a woman is
quite unthinkable. Man’s vanity is the only thing that is allowable in
this universe, according to man. Among the women she is quite popular
because they know, they know.
“What do they know?” the imp within you asks.
They know men, old sox; they know their men and they also know that
beauty and blood have nothing to do with the case whatsoever. They may
help out but they are useless.
Women are quite wonderful, aren’t they? I could not possibly think of
living in a world bereft of them.
II. MALE WALLFLOWERS
Having pretty well made an oaf of myself among the ladies in the
first half of this tome, it is best that I start on that strange
manifestation known as the male wallflower.
Let us suppose for this half of the argument that I am just about the
cleverest little girl alive. Let us suppose that I have not only brains
but an extraordinary amount of beauty.
I began in the first half, in the guise of a young man, by telling
the girls to take a bath. The same applies here. Of course, you don’t
need to trouble yourself with perfumes and all that balderdash. If you
are old enough, be sure to shave and powder your face with an almost
odorless powder.
The ladies, if you just will wrest my girlish secrets from me, you big
handsome brute, like nothing better than the strong masculine odors
of Ivory soap, clean linen and tobacco smoke. If you smell of these
you are safe with me and with most other young ladies. I mean you are
unsafe.
As to the urgent detail of a bath. My dear, I once knew a young man
whom I had always liked very much and who attended all the dances I
did. One night he was so rushed that he was unable to get his usual
bath. Totally unaware of his bodily odor he came to the dance as he
was. Of course, he had attended to the other details of dressing for
that particular dance but without having taken a bath first. The result
was horrible.
During one of the intermissions several of us girls remarked upon the
phenomenon among ourselves. We agreed after a very slight discussion
that we would much prefer that the young man came late and bathed than
on time and unbathed. Most girls are lenient about such things, so
there is no excuse for your not taking a bath before you go to a dance.
Let us say that you have come to take me to a dance from my mother’s
house. You are at present in the parlor with my mother and my aunt who
lives with us. You suppose that I am not concerned about how you treat
those individuals. You are mistaken; I am vitally concerned about that.
You may not know it, but my mother and my aunt are very good judges of
young men, and older men too for that matter. They were popular girls
in their youth and they know what’s what about you and every other man
alive, bar none. My mother has never claimed to care a snap of her
finger for women; she is a man’s woman. She is much happier in the
society of men than anywhere else.
My father tells me that when first married he was amazed at the number
of young men that used to come to visit him in their home. While he
was relating certain little anecdotes about this and other details of
his early and somewhat harrowed married life, I looked at mother and
she actually winked at me. Rest assured then that I come of a race of
charmers. Be careful how you treat my mother and especially my aunt.
That dear lady has had no fewer than three husbands. Alas, all of them
are under ground. And now old Judge Balsam is trying to get her. Ha!
Let us say that you are in the parlor with my mother and my aunt at the
same time. They are appraising you with practiced eyes. What shall you
do?
Begin to talk. Say something. Anything will do. But avoid mentioning
me or my youth. A real, honest-to-goodness woman never likes to be
reminded that she is the mother or the aunt of anything or even the
wife, for that matter. If you are clever, and it is to be hoped that
you are just such a young man, you will have guessed already that the
best thing to do is to make a conquest of one or both of them right on
the spot.
Really I won’t mind because I know perfectly well that they haven’t a
chance against me. So go ahead, spill your line on the elders. It will
be awfully good practice and you know by now that you will have to be
pretty smooth around me to get anywhere at all.
Appeal to their femininity first. Don’t tell them that they are
remarkably well preserved nor let them think that you would call them
my sisters. They know that that’s not true at all. I have you stumped,
haven’t I? Well, Pinkey (you have red hair), you’re right where I want
you. Let them throw the first brick.
They may begin by trying to place you to their satisfaction somewhere
in the universe. If you are wise you will mention only your male
acquaintances and relations. If you mention any ladies, mention them
with an implied slur in your voice and possibly a slight curl to your
lip as if you were saying, “But you know her type.” That carries you
far. You will find by the use of this simple technique that you have
literally placed yourself as close as possible to them in the universe.
Next they will begin on you and now is your chance to make them flatter
you and when they flatter you, why then, you flatter them and they are
yours and that’s all there is to winning an aunt or a mother.
“Yes,” you say, “that’s all very good advice but what earthly good is
it to me when I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And I say, “O, you men, are so funny, you never seem to understand the
most logical things.” You will probably look quite dazed now and wonder
where and when I used any logic or even any continuity in my advice.
That, dear lad, is the secret of secrets. Woman, if you are really
interested, is a paradox.
But now comes your greatest test. When I come upon the scene, you must
forget my mother and my aunt and center your entire attention upon me.
Your eyes and your whole being should say:
And when you come upon the scene
I drown in my adrenaline.
“But you are advising me to do something you warned me against just a
moment ago,” you will cry.
“O, but I’m not, cher. I’m just telling you to let my mother and aunt
know that I am another attractive woman and that if they expect to get
anywhere with you they will have me to contend with. That will please
them in a rather round about way too. They will feel that since they
can’t get you, at least one of their strain has the latent ability to
do so.”
That sounds like so much foolishness but let me tell you that no woman
on earth, unless she is something else besides a perfectly normal and
respectable woman, thinks that she, under proper conditions, cannot get
any man. The word respectable causes you to wonder, doesn’t it? Don’t
let it. We are just as human as you are and certainly more aware.
We have said goodby to my aunt and mother and have at last departed for
the dance. It might be wise at this point to tell you just what a young
lady expects of a young man in that matter of expenditures.
This is our first date, let us say, and therefore you should know just
what sort of layout will please me most. Something neat but not gaudy!
In the first place if you are a young lawyer or doctor or a very
promising newspaperman, please know that I do not expect you to go to
any great expense on my account. Of course, some women like to feel
that you would spend your last cent on them but you can easily give
that impression without actually doing so. Don’t think for a minute
that I’ll have anything to do with you if you are at all pecksniffian
about what you spend on me. I always like to feel that you are doing
your noble best and I want you to understand that I appreciate it.
Since we are going to a dance together; and, let us say, that the dance
is about four blocks from my home; there is no reason why you should
come for me in a taxi or even bring your own car if you have one.
Really, girls in good health don’t mind walking if for no other reason
than that it makes for pretty legs and nice carriage.
Of course, if the dance is all the way across town and it entails too
much of an expense to come for me in a taxi, why we’ll go on a street
car but I don’t like to and you might as well know right now that I’d
rather have you ragged in a taxi than dressed within an inch of your
life afoot. Anyway we girls don’t like for men to be, ostensibly,
peacocks.
If you have a car of your own that makes everything different. I really
don’t mind what make it is or how rakish it may look. In fact I rather
like riding on a warm spring night in one of those clever little
contraptions that college boys have, with the queer, crazy labels all
over them. They show your ingenuity.
Let us say that you have one of those new Ford Coupes with or without a
rumble seat and that we have started at last. If you don’t know me very
well, which you don’t, be careful to put me in my seat first and then
walk around to the other side of the car and get in yourself. I’ll
like that. It will show me that you know your stuff.
Well, here we go. What shall we talk about now? The time has come, as
Lewis Carroll and the walrus said, to speak of many things. What shall
they be?
Now is the time to find out just what you have picked for the evening’s
entertainment.
Pretend I’m a flapper first. Now there are flappers and flappers, but
what I really mean by a flapper is somebody who does an excessive
amount of flapping. Which is saying what? Merely this. That I cavort
about with cute little kittenish ways and deliver myself of thousands
of witticisms that mean nothing whatsoever but which get over nobly
with the fellows. I may be the baby type with cute little perky
mannerisms and the cleverest possible line of baby talk or near baby
talk. The early American baby talk which was widespread during the
great vogue of the Newlyweds and Snookems who, strangely, were the
ancestors of Maggie and Jiggs, is now greatly demoded. The present baby
talk girls are child prodigies who use the biggest of all possible
words on whatever occasion and in the most unique places. To hear
one of them you would think that their high school dictionaries were
written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Pwesus, you just simply ossified me Tuesday last with your
lubrications anent the b.f.” What does that mean? It means, “Precious,
you just simply surprised me last Tuesday with your talk about your
present sweetheart.”
If I am one of these just stand by and let me have the air all to
myself. I’ll like you better and you may be vastly entertained by my
strange and unheard of use of the English language, so called.
You might start by asking whether or not I’ve read the latest fictional
atrocity by van Stotenbottle and since van Stotenbottle appeals so to
my type you are liable to get the most choice bit of literary criticism
that has ever come your way. With my type very little you can do makes
me like you more or less.
But suppose I am not that type. Let’s suppose I am a very beautiful
but haughty maiden immaculate and cold. Let us say that you have
ascertained this from the attitude of my mother and aunt toward you.
Don’t be afraid of me, old dear, I’m really not nearly so terrible
as I seem. Would I have given you a date if you hadn’t seemed quite
attractive to me? Not on your life. Don’t get the silly idea that I am
anything other than just a plain ordinary woman behind a rather chilly
mask.
What is to be said to such a creature? You can and probably will say
several things very unpleasant to me before you actually find out what
I want to hear about. That can be avoided by your not saying them and
going immediately to the things that I like and am really interested in.
I want to know first just who you are. I want for reasons of my own, to
discover whether your ancestors came over in the steerage, by student
cabin or how; and I want to know when they did it and why they moved
from the old country. Was it from pressure or preference? Were they
really nice people forced to weather pioneer life or whom?
You must know just why there is a northern branch of the van
Stotenbottles and a southern branch. Was there a rift in the ancestral
lute? Or was it only because of certain economic conditions that
your family was forced to move from New York to Ohio, from Ohio to
Missouri and from Missouri to Utah? To satisfy me completely you must
know just what females were picked up by the most honorable Dutch van
Stotenbottles in their hitherings and yonings over the surface of this
earth. You should make me respect your line so deeply that my only
remaining regret is that my name is not Miss Adam so that it may seem
more respectable and more antique than your own.
For your further edification let us say that I am a business woman of
the most successful type. I have been the branch manager for one of
the larger and more reputable insurance firms for no less than three
years. I have come to this position by sheer acumen and a whole lot of
perseverance. It has not made me at all masculine; no more than being a
modiste or a chef would make a man effeminate. I know, old dear, that
your preconceived ideas of a business woman are that she must be almost
half male to get along in the world of finance and men. Why should she
be? That is just another bit of your vanity cropping out. It hurts your
pride that women, who have led harbored lives for centuries, should
suddenly burst forth and become such eminent successes as they are.
Very well, I am a young business woman and I am a very tired young
business woman. I want some sort of diversion and you had better give
it to me or I’ll dead sure find some other young man who will.
What shall we talk about? Why we can talk about my dress. We can tell
each other little anecdotes about all sorts of things. It really
doesn’t matter what because I can take care of myself. I haven’t worked
among men all my life for nothing. They can’t scare me but I have been
known to hurt them.
Let us suppose that we have chosen to talk in a very high-minded sort
of way about certain sex manifestations throughout the human race.
Don’t think that I am giving you any house and become familiar. I’m
liable to slap you down. Mentally my type is very free but biologically
our integrity is irreproachably intact.
If I am the intellectual type you have hit another problem quite as
tenacious as the other three. I am the easiest of all the types to
distinguish but the hardest of the lot to handle with cleverness and
finesse.
I indicate myself by a series of nicely worded epigrams and perhaps a
brief review of every article in the current _Vanity Fair_. Be sure you
know what is in the current issue because I never go back a month for
a single idea. I am the angel of the new. I laugh loudly at your taste
for Washington Irving.
And when I do that you may rest tranquil that I am pretty young and
pretty light and pretty. It should be no great problem for you to
make me wonder at your intellect if you like Washington Irving.
The things I like to talk about are not so myriad as they might be.
Don’t let my long sentences about Maillot and Picasso frighten you.
Please get the idea that if you pooh-pooh them, saying that they are
after all quite old fashioned, that I will think that you are going
just a little beyond my depth and that you must be a perfect wonder. I
will seem to be quite bored by what you have to say but I will go home
after we have had this date together and try to discover whence came
all of your esoteric information. I will even have had to look up a
great many words that you used.
Behind my high brow you may find me to be a woman of no little ability
in various lines. Very often I am a wonderful petter and can hold my
liquor very gracefully.
Having determined to become an intellectual I have with unusual zest
decided to find out in a very cursory manner about several varieties of
life. If you have any new bit I would be delighted to learn about it.
AT THE DANCE
Let us pop back to your room now and tell you what things are worn by
the young men at the various dances.
If you live in a large city and are connected socially with a very
formal crowd say in New Orleans, New York, Charleston or San Francisco,
to the formal evening dance you should wear full evening dress.
That, however, is not a hard and fast rule. The most acceptable costume
at present is the dinner jacket for almost every occasion. (Foreigners
deplore our calling it a tuxedo.) It is the proper costume at any
formal gathering attended by the younger generation.
Young people have generally made hash of the formal ideas of their
elders and this is just another manifestation of their desire to be
comfortable at the cost of convention.
Informal evening wear is as flexible as a garter snake. In college
towns young people attend the dances in everything from business suits
to sport costumes. The best thing to wear in any case wherever you are
going is a tuxedo and then, come what may, you will always have the
assurance of being properly dressed.
At a private dance you can use your own judgment unless, of course, you
have been informed by some means or other that it is to be formal.
Very well, let us suppose that you have consulted some older person
about the details of dress and that we are at last at the dance.
It is now time for us to discuss the various types of male wallflower
that are present.
1. THE TERRIBLE DANCER
This type of wallflower can be divided into any number. Bad dancing has
a habit of manifesting itself in so many ways that it is difficult to
say just what is wrong with each one.
Some young men seem to be totally unaware of the fact that the beats
in music should be considered. Take my friend Horace, for example. He
seems, when you watch him dancing, to know a great many steps but why
is it that the girls all avoid dancing with him. The reason is quite
simple. He does not know anything about timing himself to the music.
I can dance with him because I went to the trouble to find out that
he is exactly a half beat behind the orchestra. His is a very common
case and was in the beginning caused by his indifference to his foot
work. Dancing he considered a conversational medium. When he awoke to
the fact that he was not dancing with the more interesting girls he
began to learn new steps immediately. The result was that his former
indifference played him false.
And there is Lupine. Lupine could be such a good dancer if he were not
so acrobatic. It seems to be his pet delight to try the latest dancing
tricks on all the girls. Of course, they know he’s a good dancer but
they don’t like to be made foolish by his wild activities.
George, there, is really quite smooth but he doesn’t hold one in the
right place or very firmly. If you must dance you should learn that
to hold a girl by the base of her spine is not only uncomfortable but
highly impracticable. The better dancers usually take a firm grip
across the middle of a girl’s back.
Orville is not a good dancer because he not only takes short steps
greatly out of time but he invariably steps on one’s toes not less
than fifteen times during the course of a dance. Girls have ways of
discouraging all of these. The best method we use is by stiffening.
In fact, with these men we have a habit of becoming atrocious dancers
ourselves.
2. THE ROUGH-NECK
The main characteristic of the rough-neck is loudness. Everything about
him is loud, even his clothes.
Harry, there, is one of them. He is really not such a terrible fellow
but just note him for a moment and you will see what it is that makes
him unpopular.
That suit, for example. Of course, this is an informal dance, but why
did he have to wear a suit made of orange tweed? And his necktie! Look
at it! Most atrocious! Of course the cloth and the cut of that suit are
quite nice, taken separately. That’s Harry’s main fault, he wants the
most modish suits that he can find. He wants it plainly understood that
he is here.
And his dancing: have you ever witnessed such an abomination? Down the
hall he goes pushing some poor unsuspecting girl before him, laughing
and talking at the top of his voice. He sees somebody halfway across
the hall and re-exerts his voice to greet them.
You may think he is drunk. He isn’t. That manner is natural. As for
drinking, Harry never drinks and only smokes when he is not in
training, and he is in training most of the time.
The men like him immensely outside, but notice how they resent his
good-humored pinching and back-slapping in here.
The only cure for this type of wallflower is an intense love affair
with some clever little girl who can make something other than a big
ham out of him.
3. THE OBVIOUS INTELLECTUAL
Oswald, there, is a sad case. He knows too much and that, you know, is
very dangerous. He always wears his hair that way. It would be such
nice hair if it were properly cared for. His clothing is quite modest
too, but look how sloppy it is. Really he is a nice fellow, though.
You will find if you talk to him for any length of time that he really
hasn’t much time for this sort of thing but thinks he must do it for
relaxation.
That is where he makes his first sad mistake. All of us resent people
who throw themselves into play because they think they should. Their
sense of well being tells them that they must do it; they must, they
must. We want people who do this sort of thing because they really
enjoy doing it. Spontaneity is everything to the pleasures of life.
But that is not the only thing that Oswald does to insult. He
insists on bringing his laboratory with him. He is a firm believer
in bio-chemistry and looks at each girl while dancing with her as if
she were some sort of elementary plant or animal organism. When some
flapper or other becomes quite ecstatic over a strain of music or a
nice looking fellow (the latter is bad technique on her part) he will
invariably tell her that her reaction had nothing to do with her soul
at all but was just chemical. I forgot to say that Oswald has probably
informed her before that she is nothing but a sort of animated test
tube and that all this stuff she has been saying about her thrills and
her spirit and her soul are utter hooey.
Need I explain to you why it is that we don’t like to dance with
Oswald. Of course, he is amusing for a while but when you get past that
part of him and find that he is really a very bad dancer, where are you
and what have you?
Of course, we don’t mind hobbies being aired in public. We have those
ourselves. And there is another thing, if you can talk quite amusingly
about your work, that’s fine, but if you cannot, let there be silence.
4. THE DRUNK
Drinking at dances in this day and age is quite common in spite of
prohibition and the Methodist ministry. I suppose there is hardly a
young man here tonight including yourself who has not had a little
something. I will give you this much credit, old dear; you do hold it
quite well.
He is easily distinguished. He is drunk. He is disheveled. Of course,
there are some young men like you who can hold excessive amounts of
liquor without actually getting drunk.
I once knew a young man who said that he got so tired of watching the
silly young drunks cavort about at dances that he decided to give them
a classic example to strive toward. Something, he promised, that would
make them pale with envy and shame them into sobriety.
It all happened at a dress ball. Let us say that my friend’s name was
Horace Walpole van Stotenbottle. Indeed he is an old friend of ours so
we should certainly feel familiar with him.
Horace had gone to a great deal of trouble to prepare his costume which
was, in the end, very simple. He went to the dance as the head of John
the Baptist on a salver. The costume was so very cleverly designed that
one seemed to see a tray about five feet and a half from the ground
with a long black scarf floating in the air under it. On the tray was
the head with a long red beard, and a silver halo. The tray on which
the head lay and the long black cloth depending from it were spattered
with crimson duco and the head was garnished with parsley.
Underneath the black drapery Horace had put on a very tight fitting
turkish costume, a small bolero and almost transparent trousers. To
hold the bolero together he had taken a bit of false hair and pinned it
across his chest. Around his neck he had a long golden cloth to keep
the tray from cutting him. Thus decked out he went to the dance.
At the very entrance people began to remark the originality of the
costume and many because he attracted their attention offered him
drinks. Others took up the cry, “Watch the head of John come to life,”
and putting bottles to his lips would let out wild huzzas. This became
quite a game for a while. Of course, it was Horace’s idea to get
himself thoroughly soused or he would have stopped their merry little
pastime soon after the second or third drink. After the eighteenth or
nineteenth drink he began to be hilarious. He soon discovered that his
cheap tin tray was quite uncomfortable so he took it off, bound the
golden scarf about his head, pulled off some of his beard and presto he
was a Persian prince with hair on his chest.
From then on he got happier and happier and finally feeling the utter
futility of dancing decided to join the orchestra and generally lead
festivities. He mounted to the little platform at one end of the hall
and began to direct the activities of the entire room. Becoming quite
heated in his activities he divested himself of his bolero after some
young squirt had appropriated the false hair from his chest. This same
young squirt was found in Child’s several hours later trying to mix the
same false hair with shredded wheat.
Somehow or other Horace next got hold of a music rack and was trying
to lead the orchestra with it when it broke. He soon discovered by the
trial and error method that none of them would stand up under his harsh
treatment. It was not until he stepped through the drum, however, that
he was evicted. Since several rather well known ladies were sponsoring
the affair the police had been shooed to another part of town.
On the street, Horace found himself quite furious. He went stalking
off home in a high dudgeon and a daze. At home he found a friend
playing his Victrola. Encouraged by his friend to change his costume
and go back to the dance he took off the turkish trousers and, spying
his green linen bed spread, threw it about him and thus decked in
green sandles and a bed spread and, I forgot, a wide green sash about
his middle he returned to the dance. On the way back, however, he
somehow lost the sash. The doorman admitted him without question and
he proceeded to the platform once more and standing there in full view
of everybody threw aside the green coverlet. “See my new costume,” he
howled to the astonished crowd and then looking down and seeing his
actual condition pulled the spread back around him and tried to leave
the dance entirely. But he was intercepted by no fewer than fifteen
persons intent on seeing his costume again.
Finally he got out. The rest of the story is quite short. He flagged a
street car with the spread and somebody on it grabbed the waving spread
as the car whizzed by. Horace not entirely bereft of common sense
clambered up a lamp post and perched upon the arm until everybody had
gone from the dance; then he descended and slipped silently to rest.
Now that was one of the most classic drunks I ever heard of. It is
wise then, unless you are able to pull one as complete, to drink only
moderately on all occasions. Besides, drunkenness is quite vulgar and
certainly in bad taste. If people had not had the bad taste to get
drunk before prohibition days we would never have had prohibition.
(Please recall reader that that is speaking through the mouth and mind
of a woman.)
Your safest bet then is to be moderate in your drinking if you would
keep yourself from being pariah to the social world.
5. THE LEWD DANCER
And that youth over there doing the intimate dancing in the corner, do
you see him? He is a very naughty fellow. He attracts attention by the
gyrations of his hips and the avid appearance of his face.
Girls as a rule don’t like to dance with that sort of young man because
he makes them generally uncomfortable. He may be an unusually good
dancer but he seems to have lost all control. The best thing for him to
do would be to get rid of his emotional excess at some other time and
in another place.
6. THE BASHFUL YOUTH
Being a very wise young lady I could give you a long dissertation on
the various causes of bashfulness, but being a very wise young lady I
will only tell you a few of the outward manifestations.
Let us suppose that you were once a bashful person and have decided to
give me the requisite information instead of my giving it to you.
_What You Said of Bashfulness_
You said that bashfulness is mostly youth and when it lasts past
adolescence it is a sure sign of arrested development. Please
understand, you said, that it is not at all bad to be just the least
bit bashful. Most of the greater minds have been behind the most
bashful faces in the universe.
It takes a very small thing to make a boy become a bashful young
animal. Usually he is quite sensitive. That is his heritage or his
childhood training; I will not attempt to say which, because we are
going into a long dissertation on the relative values and importance of
heredity and environment.
Let us say that he has been born with very active sensory nerves and
that lack of sufficient practice or co-ordination has made him most
awkward.
We have already said that his sensory reactions are very acute and that
he understands the most hidden, even the most veiled jibe delivered
in his direction by one of his more fortunate contemporaries. We will
say that the contemporary is one of those youths who from babyhood
concentrates on his muscular activity and that his movements even
at the age of fifteen are facile and fluid. Like as not our bashful
fellow, while he has swum and played outdoors a great deal, has been
more concerned about his mind and what was going on in it. You will
find, too, that this youth is far more sexually aware than his facile
little enemy.
His is a fire that burns slowly. Probably at twenty-five people will
be amazed at his extreme youth. He is the type of young person who
attracts people by his vital appearance and who disappoints them later
because he is so simple. You will find him using words of one syllable
mostly and those very sparingly. I am telling you what he is liable
to be, not what he is now. He may become one of the best dancers
possible or he may develop his conversational abilities so that he is
not only brilliant and scintillating but sought after. He is usually
acute enough to see just what things please the greater number of
people and then proceed to cloak himself in a perfect disguise to guard
his sensitive nature against the ravages of his more active but less
understanding contemporaries.
You wonder how I know so much about that sort of young man? It is quite
a simple matter. I am he. But you also wonder what it is that I cloak
myself with? It is my dilettante exterior. Despite all my insouciance I
really have convinced myself that I have a rare understanding. And I am
skeptical of that. Sometimes one’s shell becomes so thick that there is
scarcely any kernel at all.
The only possible assistance that can be given to this sort of youth
is a lot of understanding and sympathy in the earlier stages of his
boyhood when that awkwardness is so rampant.
7. THE HUNGRY-EYED
But now I want to talk again. I want to tell you what a young lady has
discovered in her own halting way about the hungry-eyed man. Let us say
that John, there, is the perfect example. John, as you know, stands on
the sidelines at every dance and looks at the girls with a wishful look.
My diagnosis is that John was at one time one of those bashful youths
you have just been talking about but he took the wrong tack; he
specialized on something that made him unpopular with the girls as well
as the men. Probably he chose, because of some hurt, to deny himself
the society of women entirely only to discover when he reached the full
flush of manhood that he was not as roundly developed as he might be.
Having discovered this he went about remedying the fault but he overdid
it. He emphasized his sensuality. That was too bad.
He did not know that in the clever little game of life that the maidens
do not like to be made conscious of that side of their natures. They
think that it is animalistic and quite unrefined. More’s the pity.
Theirs the fault, not his.
And now that he has failed to cure himself, John has taken to
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. He has become the great blond beast seeking
whom he may devour. All the girls are aware and being aware of this
avoid him most assiduously.
The only possible remedy for this is a little more understanding than
he has acquired. He should know that men are no more wonderful animals
than women. In fact, we are the same animal but unlike the worm we were
divided so long ago that we have forgotten it.
III. OTHER WALLFLOWERS
I hope that in what has gone before, I have been able by precept and
example to help not a few young people. Possibly I have been just a
little crude, and mayhap rough-shod, but that, let me assure, has been
far from my intent.
Now remains to be given a brief summary, in the simplest of all
possible language, of what I have gleaned from wallflowers in other
phases of the social world.
THE WALLFLOWER AT BRIDGE
There are some people who have found that they just aren’t getting on
at all at the bridge parties they attend. They are invited once and
then for some unknown reason are not asked again.
Personally I care nothing whatsoever for the game and can really feel,
sincerely feel, that the uninvited are the luckier. Of course, I can
play bridge and pride myself with the feeling that I can hold my own
among good average players.
If one learns the very simplest beginnings of the game one soon
discovers that it is more than anything else a memory test. You should
remember what cards are played and by whom. Also you should remember
which are the higher cards and which are the higher suits. Outside of
this there is nothing to bridge. So far in my rather varied career as
a bridge player, I have found that three rules and no more do me very
nicely.
1. Lead through weakness or lead the fourth from the highest card in
your longest and strongest suit.
2. Third hand high.
3. Never trump your partner’s trick.
And that has carried me far. Of course, I learned how to keep score but
that is a mere detail.
A few of the simpler social rules of bridge might come in handy.
1. Never argue. It is very uncouth.
2. Don’t talk too much.
3. If you happen to be dummy, take an interest in the game but don’t be
too avid. It isn’t appreciated.
4. Never leave the bridge table under any circumstances in the middle
of a game.
THE WALLFLOWER AT DINNER
This wallflower is usually a young man wedged in between two very
lovely ladies or a young lady wedged in between two most interesting
men. Being a wallflower in a situation of this kind is usually quite
maddening to everybody present. And you are one in this particular
circumstance because you cannot converse.
Conversation, the most artificial flower of life! Something that, like
philosophy, is thought by many to be totally useless! Ah, how sad are
those two exclamations above, particularly the last. The first is quite
true but too painfully frank. The second is a cockeyed lie.
There are several Little Blue Books which would be of assistance to you
should you desire to make a better conversationalist of yourself.[*]
[Footnote *: Little Blue Books, No. 367 (How to Improve Your
Conversation); No. 821 (How to Improve Your Vocabulary), No. 734 (A
Book of Useful Phrases), etc.]
The thing that most of all makes you a conversational dud is a tendency
to voice too rabid opinions on subjects which are of little or no
concern to the people about you. To be quietly opinionated, lack too
virulent a dose of religiosity is quite all right. That is the sauce
piquant to any conversation. Only narrowness and intolerance are to
be avoided. Most intelligent people have discovered that there is
no absolute of whatever nature and find all sorts of opinions and
judgments quite naive and entertaining.
It is always wise in any sort of conversation to avoid pedantry, school
teacherishness. You are assuming when you talk to people that they are
of equal intelligence. If you are sure that they aren’t, reduce the
length of your words and simplify your comparisons and analogies.
And don’t be a preacher unless you are as clever as George Bernard
Shaw. Most people hate being preached at.
With these few simples you should find conversation quite easy. It,
however, like everything else, must have glitter and sparkle and a
great deal of subtlety. More must hit the ear than is actually heard.
But that is all there is to say to the young man wallflower except
that his is not such a sorry state. After all, there are other things
that could be worse. Even if you are deformed in some way it shouldn’t
bother you in the slightest; women don’t care what you look like, so
long as you are clean and not too utterly repulsive for words.
And it is not your personal appearance that can make you repulsive;
it’s your personality and the habits of speech and attitude you have
acquired.
THE ALCHEMY OF PRIDE AND VANITY
It is the common thing among people of little consequence to look upon
the proud and vain with eyes of envy and disapproval. I have chosen
to conclude my advice to wallflowers with this little essay because
I feel that they need to know that these two qualities, of all other
qualities, are the best to have or to acquire.
Alchemy was the medieval science of chemistry, the main object of which
was to learn formulas or to discover formulas for changing base metals
into gold. Another object of alchemy was to discover a universal cure
for all ills and a means for prolonging life indefinitely. It was an
art in its beginning. The fine art of vanity. It was fostered by the
great of the earth because of their excessive prides. They felt, no
doubt, that the earth would be a very sorry place without their minds
and genius to guide it.
Witness the sad story of Faust, an alchemist, who sold his very soul
for youth. Of course, in this unregenerate age of agnosticism nothing
of the sort could happen. We are vain, of course, and we want youth but
we have no credulous souls to barter for that youth. However, we have
retained two very human chemicals which will do more to make us great
than any of the medieval formulas. They are Pride and Vanity.
There grew in the world along with alchemy a philosophy of humbleness.
It was a very unhealthy philosophy, this metaphysics of denial. And
what has it ever done for the individual man? It has made great droves
of the lowly satisfied with their unhappy lot. It has made it quite
easy for those who have discovered the chemicals, pride and vanity, to
conquer this earth.
This humbleness! What is there in it? These moral scruples that the
humble have taken great pride in accruing to themselves? Ah, the idiocy
of these things. Humble man has said that he being less than God is
nothing. He has assumed that he is above the animal but being thus
above, he has concluded, is nothing. He has screamed at the great earth
that God has a place for him in heaven. Of course, say the humble, it
is a lowly place at the feet of God but it is nevertheless a place in
heaven. Think of that lovely propaganda. It is we, the proud and vain,
who have made the humble. We have said in a variety of places that it
is the humble who inherit the kingdom of heaven. We have told them that
they will come to the feet of God but at the same time we have taken
no stock in the belief. We have lived happy, contented, rational lives
on this earth with our rubies and diamonds and sapphires and emeralds
and our golden crowns and our silver thrones and our halls of marble
and porphyr. We have cleansed our bodies with sweet scented waters,
oiled them with unguents from Palestine, clothed them with silks from
the Levant. And what else? We have grown plump and beautiful on the
richness of this earth and we have enjoyed all these things because we
were too indolent to worry about your Gods.
But that is not all. We have kept you, the humble, grovelling with our
fables about humbleness. We have made you see that somewhere somehow
you would acquire the ease and luxury of our existence and be happy.
Often and often one of the humble sees clearly that all is not as it
should be upon this earth. We will say that you, the humble one whom
I am addressing, is that very person. Already you have had dreams of
an earthly Utopia. Already you have understood that man is an animal
and a rather superior animal at that, and that there is no particular
reason why he should humble himself before anything. Already you have
seen that the great in spite of their excessive pride, grovel before
something even greater. In casting about, you soon discover that it is
the approving smile of the humble to which they are bowing down.
“And why do they bow so low and why do the humble bow even lower to
them?”
It is a very simple secret. The humble have made them and the humble
are only children with dreams and fantasies. I know I have just said
that the proud and vain are the great. I should have said that the
proud and vain and clever are the great.
And that chemical is, of the three, the most important. To be full of
pride without being clever is very dangerous. Why did I not mention
that? Possibly because I am not very clever myself.
But already I have been guilty of a paradox. I have said that the great
of earth have made the humble and that the humble have made the great.
What kind of a statement is that? A paradox, pure and simple! Yet it
is true. In the beginning it was the mental credulity and ignorance of
the humble who raised the clever to the heights of the great and it was
the clever, become great, who in their turn made the humble more humble
than ever.
We have said that you, who were humble, have seen the error of all this
and, being clever, have decided to do away with the false barriers
that the great have thrown about you. You come to me, who have always
known you and your family to be of the worthiest stock in the country,
and you tell me that I am nothing but a gay colored balloon. I start
rather violently to object to what you have just said. I bluster and
object that I can do such and such a thing a little better than any
other person on earth. I tell you that I am a very clever fellow. And
then you say to me: “Look here, old fellow, you have misunderstood me
entirely. I am not trying to puncture you; I am just telling you what
you are and admiring you for it. I am not one of those who would run
about shouting wild socialistic folderol. I hold no brief with the
socialists, anyway. No, old dear, I merely came to tell you that I know
what is up your sleeve and that I want you to tell me where to buy one
for myself.”
With that I breathe a happy sigh and smile upon you and ask you what
you can do. You name over several things and I clap upon one and say to
you that I know of a man who needs somebody who can do just that. Then
I add: “But remember this, my lad, whether you are more than passably
clever at that sort of thing, don’t for a minute let anybody think that
you feel yourself incapable of doing it. The thing to do is to get what
you want and then learn how to do it at your leisure.”
And you go away and take my advice and we admire each other and say
great things about each other and credit each other with virtues that
we don’t pretend to have. Years later we may meet each other again and
you will say to me: “I am doing very nicely with so and so. Oh, by the
way, I have been wanting to tell you that I have taken on one of the
haughtiest masks in the world, lately. I see clearly now that we cannot
afford to give up our little secrets, they are too damn dangerous in
the hands of the humble.” You have become vain and proud and clever.
This matter of cleverness that I mentioned above has to do with the
very simplest of human factors. In the beginning, I said the humble
made the clever great and the clever, become suddenly great, had in
their turn made the humble humbler still. The clever have seen from the
beginning they must perfect themselves in at least one of the admired
qualities of the humble. They must, to become great, be the most
clever sorcerers or the best dancers or the finest talkers or the best
aviators or the most subtle actors of their race. They know that it is
simple to make the humble adore them if they take one or more of the
better qualities of the humble and accentuate them.
They may discover that the humble like to be fooled. They may find
that they have certain mental quirks that make whatever they choose to
say, thought wise. They may discover that they have learned more than
anybody else about all the great literature or painting on this earth.
They may find that they have the ability for giving the humble a wide
and sane attitude toward life. But, having discovered this, do they
give out all their secrets? They do not. They guard them with their
very lives. If they are most wise they tell only half of what they have
learned.
Some there are who, coming suddenly to this understanding, have wanted
to spread it near and far in some form or other. They have soon
discovered that the humble do not want to hear these things. The
humble want to believe that these people are geniuses and that they
themselves could never aspire to such heights. Nor do they care to.
Being children they choose to believe their fairy tales and legends.
They trust that some kind genie will come to them and say: “You have
been chosen. You are the man of the hour. You can do thus and so better
than your brother. I have come to heap the rewards of earth about your
arm chair. You are chosen.”
Sometimes, as I have said, this very thing takes place but you must be
clever enough to recognize it at its true value.
I have said all these things to the wallflowers because I wanted them
to see that being like everybody else is not what one should call a
very desirable quality. Most wallflowers have some difference. There is
an occult quality in them which they deplore. They should not. They are
for that very quality most fortunate. If they will soon recognize that
they are just a little out of tune, that they are not common, that they
are unusual, they will find that they, when they have discovered this,
have ceased to be wallflowers.
POSTSCRIPT
I hope that I have said nothing which will offend. There is grave
danger in that. There is the danger that I may drive some of my more
sensitive readers to uncommon activities which will make them more
ridiculous than ever. It is to be hoped that I have dealt with them
carefully. I have tried to avoid being too didactic. I have tried to
tell the wallflowers that even if they are not popular, there is no
particular reason for deploring the situation.
And in that essay there is some mighty dangerous material. Probably
I should not have said that the chemicals of pride and vanity and
cleverness will carry one on to fame but, from quiet observation, that
is what they seem to do.
I could go on for hours about the dangers of being too outwardly proud
or vain. I think however, that a few paragraphs on this subject will be
quite enough.
Pride is dangerous only when it insults the intelligence. Self-respect
when it descends into self-conceit can make an ass of the most worthy
person on earth. Pride is the quality which makes one feel that one is
living and accomplishing something in this earth which, though it may
not benefit humanity or, particularly, posterity, is certainly making
the greatest number of contemporaries happy and contented. Pride it is
that makes man go about this earth trying to understand just what is
wrong with things as they are and trying to remedy them to the best of
his meager abilities.
But vanity! Ah, sweet vanity! What great things she has done for
this unlovely world. She has made women beautiful. She has made men
stronger. She has made humor. She has fostered literature. She has made
fame and vice and above all she has made love.
I could not urge one to adopt a more useful thing than vanity. It was
an old and dying man who said: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
Only an old and dying man could say that vanity is useless. Even vanity
has its usages. Even vanity is to be sought near and far.
And cleverness? Ah, lads and ladies, that is something else again.
Cleverness so far as I see it is only a matter of practice. Children
are not born to it; they acquire it by long specialization.
So in parting, dearly beloved wallflowers, let me add to this already
garbled bit of advice a plea for pride and vanity. If you find that
they are latent within you, for the love of all that is bad and unholy,
culture and tend them with care. As the youth in school so ably
misquoted: “Young man, if you have a spark of genius, water it.”
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