In Aunt Hetty's Ordeal, Miss King is alarmed by Gus Pike's ruffian behavior and strives to teach him proper manners. She lends him a book "How to Be A Gentleman" that demonstrates how to dress properly, comb your hair, greet people in public, and most importantly--how to hold your pinky finger in the air!  The following Family Guide style excerpts demonstrate manners and etiquette for the Edwardian gentleman.

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arrow1A gentleman faultlessly gloved cannot go far wrong.
Social Etiquette
Maud C. Cooke, 18-

“Very big canes are in very bad taste, especially for young men.”
How to Behave and How to Amuse
G.H. Sandison, 1895

A man who is badly dressed, feels chilly, sweaty, and prickly.  He stammers, and does not always tell the truth.  He means to, perhaps, but he can’t.       
Search Light on Health
Prof. B.G. Jefferis and J.L. Nichols, 1896

“Don’t dress like a ‘dude,’ or a ‘swell,’ nor carry a little poodle dog (a man’s glory is in his strength and manliness—not in aping silly girls), nor cock your hat on one side, nor tip it back on your head (let it sit straight and square), nor wear anything conspicuous or that will make you offensive to others.”
Modern Manners and Social Forms
Julia M. Bradley, 1889.

A man with a trivial nose should not wear a large moustache.  Doing so will increase the insignificance of his insignificant nose… Sometimes the end of a man’s moustache are visible to persons walking behind him.  This imparts to him a belligerent, aggressive air, that makes small children refrain from asking him the time, and saves him from being asked the way by puzzled pedestrians.
Etiquette for Every Day
Mrs. Humphry, 1904

A gentleman should never attempt to step over a lady’s train; he should go around it.
As Others See Us
Anonymous, 1890

If a gentleman is walking with two ladies in a rain storm, and there is but one umbrella, he should give it to his companions and walk outside.  Nothing can be more absurd than to see a gentleman walking between two ladies holding an umbrella which perfectly protects himself, but half deluges his companions with its dripping streams.
Our Deportment
Compiled by John H. Young, 1881

If a lady and gentleman are walking arm in arm, they should keep step. The gentleman must adapt his long stride to her shorter steps, else they have a curious appearance.
Polite Society At Home and Abroad
Mrs. Annie R. White, 1891

To look back at one who has passed, even if she has on a new dress which does not fit in the back, is not polite.
The Manners That Win
Anonymous, 1880

gentleman sm1A gentleman will not stand on the street corners, or in hotel doorways, or club windows, and gaze impertinently at ladies as they pass by.  This is the exclusive business of loafers, upon which well-bred men will not trespass.
-Social Etiquette, or: Manners and Customs of Polite Society, By Maud C. Cooke, 1896

A gentleman visitor who neither shoots, fishes, boats, reads, writes letters, nor does anything but hang about, letting himself be ‘amused,’ is an intolerable nuisance.  He had better go to the billiard room and practice caroms by himself; or retire to the stables and smoke.
Manners and Social Usages
Mrs. John Sherwood, 1897

On the road, the constant care of the gentleman should be to render the ride agreeable to his companion, by the pointing out of objects of interest with which she may not be acquainted, the reference to any peculiar beauty of landscape which may have escaped her notice, and a general lively tone of conversation, which will, if she be timid, draw her mind from the fancied dangers of horseback riding, and render her excursion much more agreeable than if she be left to imaging horrors whenever her horse may prick up his ears or whisk his tail.
The Gentlemen’s Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness
Cecily B. Hartley, 1860

No gentleman is guilty of smoking when walking or riding with a lady.  It leaves the impression with others that she is of secondary importance to his cigar.
Polite Society At Home and Abroad
Mrs. Annie R. White, 1891

It is not the correct thing for two gentlemen who have collided in the waltz, or who have caused their partners to do so, to glare silently and wrathfully at each other.
The Correct Thing in Good Society
Florence Howe Hall, 1902

A man, … whether he aspires to be a gentleman or not, should learn to box. There are but few rules… , strike out, strike straight, strike sudden. Two gentlemen never fight; the art of boxing is brought into use in punishing a stronger and more impudent fellow of a class beneath your own.
~ The Habits of Good Society (1859)

The power to deliver a good scientific blow may be of inestimable value under certain extreme circumstances…” for a “man may come upon some ruffian insulting a woman in the streets; and in such cases a blow settles the matter.”  “Never assail an offender with words, nor when you strike him, use such expressions as, ‘Take that.’  
Anonymous
The Habits of Good Society, 1859

boatingGentleman unaccustomed to the management of a boat should never venture out with ladies.  To do so is foolhardy, if not criminal...  Men who cannot swim should never take ladies upon the water.
-Social Etiquette, or: Manners and Customs of Polite Society, By Maud C. Cooke, 1896

Great care must be taken not to splash the ladies, either in the first dipping the oars or subsequently.  Neither should anything be done to cause them fright.
-Social Etiquette, or: Manners and Customs of Polite Society, By Maud C. Cooke, 1896

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