Everyday etiquette; a practical manual of social usages

Dedication

As mother and daughter, — as author and amanuensis, — we, who have collaborated in the preparation of this book, have had equal opportunities of knowing how much it is needed. Thousands of letters have been received and answered by us yearly, asking for just such information as we have written down here.

One fact enlisted our sympathizing interest at an early stage of the correspondence. Those who were most anxious to learn the by-laws of polite society, and to order their manners in accordance with what we long ago elected to call the **Gospel of Conventionalityr were not the illiterate and vulgar. Men and women — women, in particular — to whom changed circumstances or removal from secluded homes to fashionable neighborhoods involved the necessity of altered habits of social intercourse ; girls, whose parents are content to live and move in the deep ruts in which they and their forebears were born ; people of humble lineage and rude bringing up, who yet have longings and tastes for gentlehood and for the harmony and beauty that go with really good breeding — these make up the body of our clientele. Every page of our manual was written with a thought of them in our minds. We have tried to make the lessons they would learn simple, and in all to show the aptness of the phrase quoted above as descriptive of the code made up of decorous and gracious ordinances.

We could ask no greater measure of success for the volume we here and now dedicate to these, our correspondents and their congeners, than that a copy of it may find welcome and use in every home from which have come to us requests for light and help upon Everyday Etiqiiette.

Contents

CHAPTER

. I

Sending and Receiving Invitations .

II

The styles of calling-cards change from year to year, even from season to season, so that it is impossible to make hard-andfast rules as to the size and thickness of the bits of pasteboard, or the script with which they are engraved. Any up-to-date stationer can give one the desired information on these points.

In choosing a card-plate it is well to select a style of script so simple yet elegant that it will not be outre several seasons hence, unless one’s purse will allow one to revise one’s plate with each change of fashion. It should not be necessary to remark that a printed card is an atrocity. Even a man’s business card should be engraved, not printed.

It is no longer considered the proper thing for one card to bear the husband’s and wife’s names together, as was a few years ago the mode, thus, — “Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sprague.” Still, some persons have a few cards thus marked and use them in sending gifts from husband and wife. As a rule, however, the husband’s card is inclosed in an envelop with that of his wife in sending gifts, regrets, and the like.

The card of a matron bears her husband’s full name unless she be a divorcee, thus, — “Mrs. George Williams Brown.” Even widows retain this style of address. In the lower right-hand corner is the address, and in the lower left-hand corner one’s “at home” days are named, as “Tuesdays until Lent,” or “Wednesdays in February and March,” or “Thursdays until May.”

A young woman’s cards bear her name, 14

^‘Miss Blank,” if she be the oldest or only daughter in the family. The address on her cards is in the lower left-hand corner. If she have an older sister the card reads “Miss Mary Hilton Blank.”

A man’s card is much smaller than that of a woman and often has no address on it, unless it be a business card, which must never be used for social purposes. The “Mr.” is put before his signature as, “Mr. James John Smith.” By the time a boy is eighteen years of age he is considered old enough to have his cards marked with the prefix “Mr.”

Perhaps there is no social obligation that is more neglected and ignored than that of calling at proper times and regular intervals. In the rush and hurry of American life, it is well-nigh impossible for the busy woman to perform her duty in this line unless she have a certain degree of system about it. To this end she should 15 keep a regular calling-list or book, and pay strict heed to the debit and credit columns. It will require much management and thought to arrange her visits so that they will always fall on the At Home” days of her acquaintances. When a woman has an “At Home” day it is an unwarrantable liberty for any one to call at any other time unless it be on business, or by special invitation, or permission. As many women have the same day at home one must limit the length of a call to fifteen or twenty minutes upon a casual acquaintance, never making it longer than half-an-hour even at the house of a friend.

Some persons seem to feel that there is a certain amount of pomp and circumstance about calling on an “At Home” day and the novice in society asks timidly what she is to do at such a time. She is to do simply what she would do on any other day when she is sure of finding her hostess 16 in and disengaged. The caller hands her card to the servant opening the door ; then enters the parlor, greets her hostess, who will probably introduce her to any other guests who happen to be present, unless there be a large number of these, in which case she will probably be introduced to a few in her immediate vicinity. The caller will chat for a few minutes, take a cup of tea, coffee or chocolate offered her, with a biscuit, sandwich or piece of cake, or decline all refreshment if she prefer. At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes, she will rise, say “Good Afternoon” to her hostess, murmur a “Good Afternoon” to the company in general and take her departure. If her card has not been taken by the servant who opened the door for her, our caller may lay it on the hall table as she goes out.

When a woman is at home one day a week for several months, she is expected 17 to make very little preparation in the way of refreshment for her chance guests. The tea tray is ready on the tea-table at one side of the room, and upon it are cups and saucers, tea-pot, canister, and hot water kettle. A plate of thin bread-and-butter, or sandwiches, or biscuits, and another of sweet wafers or fancy cakes, stand on this table. Sugar and cream and sliced lemon complete the outfit. The kettle is kept boiling that fresh tea may be made when required, and a servant enters when needed to take out the used cups. If there are many callers, the services of this maid may be required to assist in passing cups, and sugar and cream. Otherwise the hostess may attend to such matters herself, chatting pleasantly as she does so. It is not incumbent on a caller to take anything to eat or drink unless she wishes to do this. When one attends half-a-dozen such “At Homes” in an afternoon one would have to carry a bag like that worn by Jack the Giant-Killer of fairy-lore, if one were to accept refreshments at each house. The hostess should, therefore, never insist that a guest eat and drink if she has declined to do so.

In calling on a married woman a matron leaves one of her own cards and two of her husband’s. Her card is for the hostess, one of her husband’s is for the hostess and the other for the man of the house. If there be several ladies in the family, as for instance, a mother and two daughters, the caller leaves one of her own and one of her husband’s cards for each woman, and an extra card from her husband for each man of the household.

This is the general rule, but it must have some exceptions. For instance, in a household where there are five or six women it is ridiculous to leave an entire pack of visiting-cards. In this case a woman leaves 19 her card for “the ladies,” and leaves it with her husband’s, also for “the ladies.” One of his cards is also left for the man of the family. Or if there be several men it may be left simply for “the gentlemen.”

If one knows that there is a guest staying at a house at which one calls, one must send in one’s card for this guest. Or, if one have a friend staying in the same town with one, and one calls on her, it is a breach of good breeding not to inquire for the friend’s hostess and leave a card for her whether she appear or not.

Custom clings to the black-edged card for those in mourning. It has its uses and surely its abuses. For those in deep mourning it is a convenience to send in the form of regrets, as the black edge gives sufficient reason in itself for the nonacceptance of invitations. It may also be sent with gifts to friends. If one uses it 20 as a calling-card the border should be very narrow. If one is in such deep mourning that one’s card must appear with a halfinch of black around it, one is certainly in too deep mourning to pay calls. Until the black edge can be reduced to the less ostentatious eighth-of-an-inch width, the owner would do well to shun society.

Nor should a black-edged card accompany an invitation to a social function. Several seasons ago a matron introduced to society in a large city a niece who had, eighteen months before, lost a brother. With the hostess’ invitations to the reception was inclosed the card of the young guest, and this card had a black border an eighth-of -an-inch wide. The recipients of the invitations were to be pardoned if they wondered a bit at the incongruity of a person in mourning receiving at a large party. Under the circumstances she should have declined to have the social 21 function given in her honor, or should have laid aside her insignia of dolor.

If, then, one has reached the point where one is ready to reenter society, let one give up the mourning-cards and again use plain white bits of pasteboard.

In calling at a house after a bereavement, it is well, except when the afflicted one is an intimate friend, to leave the card with a message of sjunpathy at the door. One may, if one wishes, leave flowers with the card. A fortnight after the funeral one may call and ask to see the ladies of the family, adding that if they do not feel like seeing callers they will please not think of coming down. Under such circumstances only a supersensitive person will be hurt by receiving the message that the ladies beg to be excused, and that they are grateful for the kind thought that prompted the call.

The rule that we have just given ap- 22 plies to the household in which there is serious illness. A call may consist of an inquiry at the door, and leaving a card. This may be accompanied by some such message as “Please express my sincere hope that Mrs. Smith will soon be better, and assure Mr. Smith that if I can be of any service to him, or Mrs. Smith, I shall be grateful if he will let me know.”

One should always return a first call within three weeks after it has been made. After a dinner, luncheon, or card-party, a call must be made within a fortnight. An afternoon tea requires no “party call.” After a large reception one may call within the month. After a wedding reception one must call within a fortnight on the mother of the bride, and on the bride on her “At Home” day as soon as possible after her return from the wedding trip.

Ill

The writing of letters, of the good old-fashioned kind, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. People used to write epistles. Now they write notes. Before the days of the stenographer, the type-writer, the telegraph and telephone, when people made their own clothes by hand, wove their own sheets, and had no timesaving machines, they found leisure to write epistles to their friends. Some of us are so fortunate as to have stowed away in an old tnmk some of these productions. The ink is pale and the paper yellowed, but tlie matter is still interesting. All the news of the family, the neighborhood gossip, the latest sayings and doings of the children and of callers, an account of the

24> books read, of the minister’s last sermon, and of the arrival of the newest of many olive branches, filled pages. What must these same pages have meant to the exile from home! And how much there was in such letters to answer!

Still, even in this day and generation there are a few people who have so far held to the good old traditions that they write genuine letters. And — wonder of wonders! — they answer questions asked them in letters written by their correspondents. Only those who have written questions to which they desired prompt answers, appreciate how maddening it is to receive a letter w^hich tells you everything except the answers to your queries. And this ignoring of the epistle one is supposed to be answering is a feature of the up-to-date letter-writer. There is, even in friendly correspondence, a right and a wrong way of doing a thing.

The wrong, and well-nigh universal, way of treating a letter is as follows; It is read as rapidly as possible, pigeonholed, and forgotten. Weeks hence, in clearing out the desk it is found, the handwriting recognized, and it is laid aside to be answered later. When that “later” comes depends on the leisure of the owner. At last a so-called answer is hastily written without a second reading of the letter to which one is replying. Such a reply begins with an apology for a long and unavoidable silence, an account of how cruelly busy one is nowadays, a passing mention of the number of duties one has to perform, a wish that the two correspondents may meet in the near future, and a rushing final sentence of affection followed by the signature. Such is the up-to-date letter.

If a correspondent is worth having, she is worth treating fairly. Let her letter be 26 read carefully, and laid aside until such time as one can have a half-hour of uninterrupted writing. Then, let the^letter one would answer be read, and the questions it contains be -answered in order, and first of all. This is common courtesy. After which one may write as much as time and inclination permit. If one has not the time to conduct one’s correspondence in this way, let one have fewer correspondents. It is more fair to them and to oneself.

Colored letter-paper is in bad form unless the color be a pale gray or a light blue. From time to time, stationers have put upon the market paper outre in design and coloring, and the persons who have used it were just what might be expected. It reminds one of what Richard Grant White said of the words “gents” and “pants” — ^he noticed “that the one generally wore the other.” So, paper that 27 is such bad form as this is usually used by persons who are “bad form/’

Plain white paper of good quality is always in fashion. For social correspondence this paper must be so cut that it is folded but once to be slipped into an envelop. At the top of the page in the middle may be the address, as 123 West Barrows Street^ and the name of the city. Just now, this is the only marking that is used on the sheet, although some persons have the initials or monogram, or crest, in place of the address. It is no longer fashionable to have the crest or monogram and the address also. Except for business purposes the envelop is unmarked.

Letter-heads, such as are used for business correspondence, should never be used for social purposes. Even the business man may keep in his office desk a quire or two of plain paper upon which to write 28 society notes and replies to invitations. INor is it permissible for him to use the type-writer in inditing these. All his business correspondence may be conducted with the aid of the invaluable machine, and he may, if he ask permission to do so, send letters to members of his own family on the type-writer. But all other correspondence should be done with pen and ink.

Unfortunately, mourning stationery is still in vogue, but the recipient of a black-edged letter is often conscious of a distinct shock when she first sees the emblem of dolor, and wonders if it contains the notice of a death. For this reason many considerate followers of conventionalities do not use the black-edged stationery, but content themselves with plain white paper marked with the address or monogram in black lettering.

A social or friendly letter is frequently 29 dated at the end, at the left-hand lower corner of the signature. A business communication is dated at the upper right-hand corner.

The expression “My dear Mr. Blank” is more formal than is “Dear Mr. Blank,” and is, therefore, used in society notes. Business letters addressed to a man should begin with the name of the person to whom they are intended on one line, the salutation on the next, as: “Mr. John Smith” on the upper line, and below this, “Dear Sir.” In addressing a firm consisting of more than one person, write the name of the firm, as “Smith, Jones and Company,” then below, “Dear Sirs.” Never use the salutation “Gentlemen” in such a case.

It should be unnecessary to remind women not to preface their signatures with the title “Mrs.” or “Miss.” Such a mistake stamps one as a vulgarian or an 30 ignoramus. The name in full may be signed, as : “Mary Bacon Smith.” If the writer be a married woman, and the person to whom she writes does not know whether she be married or single, she should write her husband’s name with the preface “Mrs.” below her signature, or in the lower left-hand corner of the sheet, as (“Mrs. James Hayes Smith.”)

To sign one’s name prefaced by the first letter is no longer considered good form. “J. Henry Wells” should be “John Henry Wells.” If one would use one initial letter instead of the full name, let that letter be the middle initial, as “John H. Wells,” or better still, “J. H. Wells.”

I wish I could impress on all followers of good form that a postal card is a solecism except when used for business purposes. If it is an absolute necessity to send one to a friend or a member of one’s family, as, when stopping for a moment 31

EVERYDAY ETIQUETTE "

at a railroad station one wishes to send a line home telling of one’s safety at the present stage of the journey, the sentences should be short and to the point, and unprefaced by an affectionate salutation. All love-messages should he omitted, as should the intimate termination that is entirely proper in a sealed letter. “Affectionately” or “Lovingly” are out of place when written upon a postal card. Expressions such as “God bless you!” or “I love you,” or “Love to the dear ones,” are in shockingly bad taste except under cover of an envelop. A good rule to impress on those having a penchant for the prevalent post-card is as follows: “Use only for business, and then only when brevity and simplicity are the order of the day; never use for friendly correspondence unless the purchase of a sheet of paper, envelop and postage stamp is an impossibility.”

The friendly letter may be as long as 32 time and inclination permit. The business communication should be written in as few and clear sentences as possible. Some one has said that to write a model business letter one should “begin in the middle of it.” In other words, it should be unprefaced by any unnecessary sentences, but should begin immediately on the business in hand, continue and finish with it. For such letters “Very truly yours” is the correct ending, unless, as in the case of a man or firm addressing a letter to a person totally unknown to the writer, when the expression “Respectfully yours” may be used.

Many people consider letters of congratulation and condolence the most difficult to write. This is because one feels that a certain kind of form is necessary and that conventional and stilted phrases are proper under the circumstances. This is a mistake, for, going on the almost un- 33 failing principle that what comes from the heart, goes to the heart, the best form to be used toward those in sorrow or joy is a genuine expression of feeling. If you are sorry for a friend, write to her that you are, and that you are thinking of her and longing to help her. If you are happy in her happiness, say so as cordially as words can express it.

We can not close this chapter on letter-writing without a word to the person who writes a letter asking a question on his own business, and fails to inclose a stamp. This is equivalent to asking the recipient on whom one has no claim, to give one the time required for writing an answer to one’s query, and a two-cent stamp as well. When the matter on which one writes is essentially one’s own business, and not that of the person to whom one writes and from whom one demands a reply, one should always inclose a stamp or S4 a self-addressed and stamped envelop, thus making the favor one asks of the least possible trouble to one’s correspondent.

In all business and society correspond-^ ence a letter should be answered as soon as possible after it is received. One may afford to take a certain amount of liberty with one’s friends, and lay aside a letter for some days before answering it. But the acceptance or declinature of an invitation, and the answer to a business communication, should be sent with as little delay as possible.

S5

IV

For most of us the active business of the day is over at sundown. Mothers of large families, physicians and occasionally other workers are employed over time; but most of us can count on leisure after six o’clock. Much of our happiness depends upon how this leisure is employed. That it should afford recreation of one sort or another is a commonly accepted opinion, though one that is accepted usually without appreciation of the obligations involved. Recreation implies something more than idleness. One can not be amused in any worth-while sense without sitting up and paying attention. Foreigners complain habitually that Americans take their pleasures sadly, that they do not 36 go in for gaiety with spirit. We are much more vital in our attitude toward work than toward play. We know that we must pay for success in labor of any sort, but the debt we owe to amusement is a point not yet so widely grasped. Pleasure is shy of the person who makes only occasional advances to her. She must be courted habitually in order to give a full return. We are all acquainted with the dull, unhappy appearance of the sedulous man of business off for a rare holiday. Pie is out of his element. He knows how to behave himself at work but he is not acquainted with the fundamental principles of having a good time. These can not be learned in a minute. One must have practice in enjoyment in order to carry off the matter easily; and this practice should be a habit of every-day life. Many people who stand shyly off from the delights of the world and wonder why they are de- 37 prived of them, fail to realize that diversion of any sort worthy the name, is a thing for which one must make some effort.

It is at home that one should cultivate the graces that make one attractive abroad; and this is only preliminary to saying that planning for the every-day recreation of a household should be as much a matter of course as devising ways and means for the purchase of food and clothing.

The first requisite for bringing about an atmosphere of festivity and good cheer at home is to adopt in some degree the methods that one uses away from home. If one is invited out to dinner, one makes some preparation for it, and so one should do for dinner at home. Externals have much to do with coaxing gaiety to live as a guest in the house. A pretty table and food managed with some regard to es- 38 thetic values as well as to the palatable quality, have a happy effect upon the mind and temper of the diners. A few flowers properly distributed assist still further. If all the inmates of a house are in the habit, as they should be, of making some change in their toilet for dinner, this of itself makes a sharp line of demarcation between the work-time and the playtime of the twenty-four hours. The hint of festivity in attire induces a happy and a festive frame of mind, imparts just that touch of difference from the habit of prosaic daylight necessary to send the mind sailing off into pleasant channels.

The care for the dinner-table, for the personal appearance and, generally speaking, for pretty environment implies effort. Lazy people can not hope for these delightful effects of a material kind. Neither can they expect the happiness which comes to those who make some effort at home for the mental entertainment of themselves and their household. There are many people who regard it as deceitful and insincere to forecast what one shall talk about and it is quite true that formally planned talk is a foe to spontaneity and naturalness. But usually the man or woman who entertains by his conversation is the person who, in a general way, has taken some thought about what he shall say. Given the opportunity, conversation, charming in its spontaneity, rises out of the mental habit of noting down for future reference pleasant or odd personal experiences, good stories, the quirks in one’s own mind. One must not intrude these in a place where they do not fit, but it is not in the least a social sin to guide the talk toward your own thought provided you do not thereby push out something better. We are all given tongues and with them a certain conversational responsibility. If 40 each member of the family made it his business and his pleasure during the day to remember the best part of his experience that he might relate it at the dinnerhour, some part of that gloom which descends upon so many American families at the evening meal would be dissipated.

If one cultivates the prettier touches of personal appearance for that part of the day after six o’clock, whether at home or abroad, one should also cultivate the pleasanter and more agreeable states of mind. Business should be put behind one. The petty cares of the day should go unmentioned. The ills of body and mind should be, as far as possible, forgotten. Those little courtesies and formalities of manner that we admire in the practised man or woman of society are as decorative at home as away and equally creative of a festive atmosphere. In one of the magazines of the last decade there is a homely.

effective story of a young girl, just home from a house-party and full of its gaiety, to whom the idea occurred that the methods employed by her hostess might make a delightful week in her own large family circle. She took the matter in hand, and invited her mother to be the guest of honor for the seven days. Some entertainment was planned for each evening in the week, sometimes with visitors and sometimes not. The women of the family wore their best frocks frequently during the week. The prettiest china and the best silver were used as freely as if for company. The result of it all was that the family voted visiting at home a signal success.

There are many specific ways of providing amusement for evenings at home. One has space only for the mention of a few of these in a short article on the subject. Games of various kinds are an excellent resource for making the after- 42 dinner time pass pleasantly. They cultivate quickness of decision, sociability, a friendly rivalry. Success in games is partly a matter of chance hut much more of attention and skill. Many people sniff at them who are too lazy to make the conquest of their methods.

Charades, of which English people never grow tired, as a means of diversion, have their ups and downs in the more quickly changing fashions of America. They provide one of the easiest and merriest means of entertainment. They may be of any degree of simplicity or elaboration, and they call forth as much or as little ingenuity as is possessed by the actors in any given case. They are usually popular because almost everybody has latent a little talent for the actor’s art at which he is willing to try his luck. Many people who are afraid to join in formal theatricals find an outlet for this taste in charades;