In an English work of high authority, entitled “Mixing in Good Society,” I find the following admonitions:
“Never enter a ball-room in other than full evening dress, and white or light kid gloves.
“A gentleman cannot be too careful not to injure a lady’s dress. This he is sure to do if he dances a round dance with her without gloves.”
“The young women of the country,” says Col. Donan, “send forth a huge, universal wail of indignant protest against the ungloved men who persist in leaving their finger-marks on the backs of delicately tinted dresses at fashionable germans, hops and balls. From Cape Cod to Corpus Christi, no dancing party ever takes place that is not followed by a day of lamentation and execration on the part of the unhappy girls who wake from dreams of waltz and galop and quadrille, to find their dainty costumes ruined by the bare-paw prints of men for whose ruthless crime against decency there is no excuse. The fashion of going without gloves originated in the vilest foreign flunkeyism. The Prince of Wales forgot his gloves one evening when he went to the opera, and consequently was compelled to appear with his hands uncovered. The next evening every asinine toady and swell in the theatre showed his hands in native nakedness, and the vulgar apery was promptly caught up on this side of the ocean. Let gentlemen remember that no ungloved man can pretend to be fully dressed.
“It is an affront to a lady to hold her hand behind you, or on your hip, when dancing a round dance.
“Never forget a ball-room engagement. It is the greatest neglect and slight that a gentleman can offer a lady.
“If a lady happens to forget a previous engagement, and stand up with another partner, the gentleman whom she has thus slighted is bound to believe that she has acted from inadvertence, and should by no means suffer his pride to master his good temper. To cause a disagreeable scene in a private ball-room is to affront your host and hostess, and to make yourself absurd. In a public room it is not less reprehensible.
“Always remember that good breeding and good temper--or the appearance of good temper--are inseparably connected.
“However much pleasure a man may take in a lady’s society, he must not ask her to dance too frequently. Engaged persons would do well to bear this in mind. A ball is too formal a place for any one to indulge in personal preferences of any kind.