How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, and Guide to Correct Personal Habits / Embracing an Exposition of the Principles of Good Manners; Useful Hints on the Care of the Person, Eating, Drinking, Exercise, Habits, Dress, Self-culture, and Behavior at Home; the Etiquette of Salutations, Introductions, Receptions, Visits, Dinners, Evening Parties, Conversation, Letters, Presents, Weddings, Funerals, the Street, the Church, Places of Amusement, Traveling, Etc., with Illustrative Anecdotes, a Chapter on Love and Courtship, and Rules of Order for Debating Societies

by Samuel R. Wells

V.—VISITS AND CALLS.

Visits are of various kinds, each of which has its own terms and observances. There are visits of ceremony, visits of congratulation, visits of condolence, visits of friendship.

Visits of ceremony, though they take up a large share of the time of the fashionable lady, are very stupid affairs as a general thing, and have little to recommend them except—Fashion. The best thing about them is that they may and should be short.

You pay visits of congratulation to your friends on the occurrence of any particularly auspicious event in his family, or on his appointment to any office or dignity.

Visits of condolence should be made within the week after the event which calls for them.

Let visits of friendship be governed by friendship's own laws, and the universal principles of good manners. We shall give no particular rules for the regulation of their time or their length.

"Morning calls," the "Illustrated Manners Book" says "are the small change of social commerce; parties and assemblies are the heavy drafts. A call is not less than ten nor more than twenty minutes in the city; in the country a little longer. The time for a morning call is between eleven and two o'clock, unless your friends are so fashionable as to dine at five or six, in which case you can call from twelve to three. Morning, in fashionable parlance, means any time before dinner."

In a morning call or visit of ceremony, the gentleman takes his hat and cane, if he carries one, into the room. The lady does not take off her bonnet and shawl. In attending ladies who are making morning calls, a gentleman assists them up the steps, rings the bell, follows them into the room, and waits till they have finished their salutations, unless he has a part to perform in presenting them. Ladies should always be the first to rise in terminating a visa, and when they have made their adieux their cavaliers repeat the ceremony, and follow them out.

Soiled overshoes or wet garments should not be worn into any room devoted to the use of ladies. Gentlemen must never remain seated in the company of ladies with whom he is ceremoniously associated, while they are standing. Always relieve ladies of their parcels, parasols, shawls, etc. whenever this will conduce to their convenience.[B]

If you call on a person who is "engaged," or "not at home," leave your card. If there are several persons you desire to see, leave a card for each, or desire a servant to present your compliments to them severally. All visits should be returned, personally or by card, just as one should speak when spoken to, or answer a respectful letter.

In visiting at a hotel, do not enter your friend's room till your card has announced you. If not at home, send your card to his room with your address written upon it as well as the name of the person for whom it is intended, to avoid mistakes.[C]

When you are going abroad, intending to be absent for some time, you inclose your card in an envelope, having first, written T. T. L. [to take leave], or P. P. C. [pour prendre congé] upon it—for a man the former is better—and direct it outside to the person for whom it is intended. In taking leave of a family, you send as many cards as you would if you were paying an ordinary visit. When you return from your voyage, all the persons to whom, before going, you have sent cards, will pay you the first visit. If, previously to a voyage or his marriage, any one should not send his card to another, it is to be understood that he wishes the acquaintance to cease. The person, therefore, who is thus discarded, should never again visit the other.[D]

Visiting cards should be engraved or handsomely written. Those printed on type are considered vulgar, simply, no doubt, because they are cheap. A gentleman's card should be of medium size, unglazed, ungilt, and perfectly plain. A lady's card may be larger and finer, and should be carried in a card-case.

If you should happen to be paying an evening visit at a house, where, unknown to you, there is a small party assembled, you should enter and present yourself precisely as you would have done had you been invited. To retire precipitately with an apology for the intrusion would create a scene, and be extremely awkward. Go in, therefore, converse with ease for a few moments, and then retire.

In making morning calls, usage allows a gentleman to wear a frock coat, or a sack coat, if the latter happen to be in fashion. The frock coat is now, in this country, tolerated at dinner-parties, and even at a ball, but is not considered in good ton or style.

"Ladies," according to the authority of a writer of their own sex, "should make morning calls in an elegant and simple négligé, all the details of which we can not give, on account of their multiplicity and the numerous modifications of fashion. It is necessary for them, when visiting at this time, to arrange their toilet with great care."