James Merrill's manners and Elizabeth Bishop's dismay

Twentieth Century Literature, Summer, 2004 by Luke Carson

And yet there is a way in which manners as constituting a community is morally respectable. Bishop comments on the Moores' bowing to the elevator boy who, though

      unaccustomed to such civility ... was very pleased and tried hard
       not to push his handle or close the doors as quickly as on the
       other floors. Elevator men, subway changemakers, ticket takers,
       taxi drivers--all were treated to these formalities, and, as a
       rule, they were pleasantly surprised and seemed to respond in
       kind. (136-37)

But considering that manners here, unlike morals, cost very little, it is difficult to say whether this example of civility has much moral substance, particularly when it is compared to the weight of moral substance brought to bear on the man who contradicted Mrs. Moore, and so found himself unwelcome in their home. While manners may constitute insiders and outsiders, some manners are welcoming and hospitable to others who are not friends. What are the tests one must pass in order to be welcomed with respect, as opposed to welcomed with mere politeness or turned away? How does one's code of manners allow for the acknowledgment of different manners, or the conferring of respect on strangers with strange customs?

Bishop implicitly raises such questions in her own treatment of the Moores, which attempts to be respectful even as their alignment of manners and morals seems to bewilder her and provide her only with amusing anecdotes at the expense of our taking the Moores' manners seriously. While she acknowledges that the Moores' manners and morals are anachronistic, Bishop nonetheless admits to finding them "still applicable and very moving" (155). But she can only express this feeling of respect indirectly, by citing a letter in which Gerard Manley Hopkins praises "the ideal of the 'gentleman'" at the expense of the artist--particularly the modern artist, whose work is prone, in Hopkins's words, to exhibiting "airs and affectations" (qtd. in Bishop, Prose 155): for Hopkins, the gentleman's manners, though they fall short of the good, protect virtue more capably than does the poet's aesthetic expression. Identifying herself with the moderns whom Hopkins criticizes, Bishop writes, "The word 'gentleman' makes us uncomfortable now, and its feminine counterparts, whether 'lady' or 'gentlewoman,' embarrass us even more" (155). Nonetheless, her invocation of Hopkins, whose ideas she acknowledges "may sound impossibly Victorian," allows her to voice the tone of moral respect that her memoir cannot bring itself to voice. The citation signals a different attitude to the Moores' manners: rather than simply bemused at the expense of the Moores, Bishop feels embarrassed and foolish.

Bishop's embarrassment has two sources. On the one hand, she identifies herself as a member of a younger generation who are embarrassed by their elders' beliefs. Her embarrassment, which she assumes her audience shares, is on someone else's behalf--someone who does not fit into the social circle in which Bishop includes herself: having brought Hopkins and the Moores into the company of her modern readership, Bishop apologizes behind their backs for their anachronistic beliefs. On the other hand, Bishop's "foolish" embarrassment reflects a lack of confidence in her own self-consciously modern manners and morals. The respect she voices through Hopkins is embarrassing because it is unmodern and may not command the respect of her audience. In the rhetorical gestures of bemused condescension in "Efforts of Affection," Bishop appeals to the figure of the precociously adult Alice, whose voice is echoed elsewhere in Bishop's work--particularly in the child's voice in "In the Waiting Room," whose attitude to her "foolish aunt" is one of superior bemusement and empathetic embarrassment, and who proudly points out that "[she] could read." Foolishness, however, or embarrassment on one's own behalf, requires another kind of child, one who is capable of a childlike respect rather than the precociously adult disrespect of the bemused Alice. This child is innocently inspired by the apparent goodness and innocence of the adults to whom she pays tribute. (6) Though little in the memoir seems to justify respect for the Moores' etiquette, something in their anachronistic manners elicits Bishop's faith in a way that parallels Hopkins's unembarrassed defense of the manners of the gentleman. Bishop admits the impression made on her by the Moores' manners by making herself into a child who has been taught--or rather inspired--to do good: "I never left Cumberland Street without feeling happier: uplifted, even inspired, determined to be good, to work harder, not to worry about what other people thought" (137). In figuring herself as a child in this way, however, Bishop realizes that she cannot expect her audience to share her respect, and the tone at the end of the memoir suggests embarrassment more than the urbane bemusement of the modern Bishop.