About 1875, a new generation with new manners began to make its appearance.A number of its members had been educated at English universities, and came home burning to upset old ways and teach their elders how to live.They broke away from the old clubs and started smaller and more exclusive circles among themselves, principally in the country.This was a period of bad manners.
True to their English model, they considered it "good form" to be uncivil and to make no effort towards the general entertainment when in society.Not to speak more than a word or two during a dinner party to either of one's neighbors was the supreme CHIC.As a revolt from the twice-told tales of their elders they held it to be "bad form" to tell a story, no matter how fresh and amusing it might be.An unfortunate outsider who ventured to tell one in their club was crushed by having his tale received in dead silence.
When it was finished one of the party would "ring the bell," and the circle order drinks at the expense of the man who had dared to amuse them.How the professional story-teller must have shuddered - he whose story never was ripe until it had been told a couple of hundred times, and who would produce a certain tale at a certain course as surely as clock-work.
That the story-telling type was a bore, I grant.To be grabbed on entering your club and obliged to listen to Smith's last, or to have the conversation after dinner monopolized by Jones and his eternal "Speaking of coffee, I remember once," etc.added an additional hardship to existence.But the opposite pose, which became the fashion among the reformers, was hardly less wearisome.