Elbows are universally seen on tables in restaurants, especially when people are lunching or dining at a small table of two or four, and it is impossible to make oneself heard above the music by one’s table companions, and at the same time not be heard at other tables nearby, without leaning far forward.  And in leaning forward, a woman’s figure makes a more graceful outline supported on her elbows than doubled forward over her hands in her lap as though in pain!  At home, when there is no reason for leaning across the table, there is no reason for elbows.  And at a dinner of ceremony, elbows on the table are rarely seen, except at the ends of the table, where again one has to lean forward in order to talk to a companion at a distance across the table corner.

Elbows are never put on the table while one is eating.  To sit with the left elbow propped on the table while eating with the right hand (unless one is alone and ill), or to prop the right one on the table while lifting the fork or glass to the mouth, must be avoided.

CHAPTER XXXVI

EVERY-DAY MANNERS AT HOME

Just as no chain is stronger than its weakest link, no manners can be expected to stand a strain beyond their daily test at home.

Those who are used to losing their temper in the bosom of their family will sooner or later lose it in public.  Families which exert neither courtesy nor charm when alone, can no more deceive other people into believing that either attribute belongs to them than they could hope to make painted faces look like “real” complexions.

A mother should exact precisely the same behavior at home and every day, that she would like her children to display in public, and she herself, if she expects them to take good manners seriously, must show the same manners to them alone that she shows to “company.”

A really charming woman exerts her charm nowhere more than upon her husband and children, and a noble nature through daily though unconscious example is of course the greatest influence for good that there is in the world.  No preacher, no matter how saint-like his precept or golden his voice, can equal the home influence of admirable parents.

It is not merely in such matters as getting up when their mother or other older relatives enter a room, answering civilly and having good table manners, but in forming habits of admirable living and thinking that a parent’s example makes or mars.

If children see temper uncontrolled, hear gossip, uncharitableness and suspicion of neighbors, witness arrogant sharp-dealing or lax honor, their own characters can scarcely escape perversion.  In the same way others can not easily fail to be thoroughbred who have never seen or heard their parents do or say an ignoble thing.

No child will ever accept a maxim that is preached but not followed by the preacher.  It is a waste of breath for the father to order his Sons to keep their temper, to behave like gentlemen, or to be good sportsmen, if he does or is himself none of these things.