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Vice
| "I have never allowed my duty as a gentleman to
interfere with my pleasure in the slightest degree" |
| Oscar Wilde, "The
Importance of Being Earnest" |
Simply because a book condemned a practice did not mean that
the practice ceased immediately after the book hit the stands.
It was precisely because people were committing sins, large
and small, that authors felt compelled to advise against them--usually
with little effect.
| 19th Century American men were men, and
were not significantly more virtuous than men before or
since--despite the preaching of moralists and etiquette
writers. The following page discusses a few of the Victorian
gentleman's sins and, when applicable, describes some
means whereby they may be properly committed. This includes
the rules to several popular card games of 19th Century
America. |
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"A man doesn't think he had a good time unless he
has a headache the next morning"
"The hardest part about the 'next morning' is not the
headache; it's the effort to recall what particular story
you told your wife the night before"
"A man seldom escapes temptation because he is so careful
not to let any interesting temptations escape him"
"It must be awful to live with a man after you have
reformed him and he has become so superlatively good that
you don't feel superior to him anymore"
"College boys are addicted to cigarettes and flirtations,
bachelors to cigars and sweethearts; it takes a married man
to get real joy out of anything so economical as a pipe or
a wife"
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Reflections of a Bachelor
Girl, 1909 |
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"Many are the resorts open to youth who seek amusement
outside the family circle. Brilliant lights, music, exhibitions,
games of chance and skill, and delightful beverages are fascinations
hard to be resisted, but danger lurks beneath these attractions...
Social pleasures, carried to excess, expose young men and
women to danger of moral corruption and physical disorders.
The feast, the dance, the social glass, immoderately indulged
in, with late hours and evil associates, have often wrought
ruin to the pure and good".
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Hill's Forms, 1873
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| "Sometimes people get a habit of spitting--which they
do with much noise as though it gave them an air of importance.
The inhabitants of the United States are notorious for it. It
accompanies the bad custom of smoking or chewing tobacco...that
anyone should allow such a habit to grow upon them is very surprising". |
| How to Behave. 1853 |
| "I remarked one young man, whose handsome person, and
most elaborate toilet, led me to conclude he was a first rate
personage, and so I doubt not he was; nevertheless, I saw him
take from the pocket of his silk waistcoat a lump of tobacco,
and daintily deposit it within his cheek". |
| Domestic Manners of the
Americans, Fanny Trollope, 1832 |
| "Doctor,"said an old gentleman, who was an inveterate
snuff-taker, to a physician, "is it true that snuff destroys
the olfactory nerves, clogs and otherwise injures the brain?".
"It cannot be true" was the caustic reply, "since
those who have any brains never take snuff at all". |
| Hints on Etiquette, 1836 |
| "Few women understand, at the outset, that in marrying,
they have simply captured a wild animal, and staked their chances
for future happiness on their ability to tame him. He is beautiful
physically very likely, of pleasing manners and many external
graces, and often possessed of noble qualities of mind and heart;
but at the core of his nature he cherishes still his original
savagery, the taming of which is to be the life work of the
woman who has taken him in charge." |
| Letters from a Chimney
Corner, 1886 |
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