I’ll grant that the quotations from the centennial Etiquette are simply horrendous, but apart from its prose defects it should be noted that we currently live in a society in which the concept of ‘good breeding’ has no proper equivalent (big loss imo), social skill is defined more by charm than class (mixed bag), and business etiquette has been elevated to a minimal cross-cultural norm of tolerance and non-offensiveness (big win). So we should in general expect a modern treatment of manners to be vaguer, and more people to read other sorts of books for social advice.
I’ll grant that the quotations from the centennial Etiquette are simply horrendous, but apart from its prose defects it should be noted that we currently live in a society in which the concept of ‘good breeding’ has no proper equivalent (big loss imo), social skill is defined more by charm than class (mixed bag), and business etiquette has been elevated to a minimal cross-cultural norm of tolerance and non-offensiveness (big win). So we should in general expect a modern treatment of manners to be vaguer, and more people to read other sorts of books for social advice.