Be dainty and skillful in using your napkin and cutlery, avoiding soiling the tablecloth.
Discussions and unpleasant topics of conversation should never be introduced. One should regard not only one's own aversions but those of the others present.
Never put your finger in your mouth at table, nor pick your teeth.
Tidiness of personal appearance is never at a higher premium than at the dining table. Soiled hands, negligee dress, shirt sleeves, and disheveled hair are disgusting there.
It is quite proper to take the last helping of any dish which may be passed you. To refrain looks as if you doubted the supply.
Bread is not cut, but broken into fairly small pieces. One should never nibble from a large piece.
It is permissible to eat crackers, olives, celery, radishes, salted nuts, crystallized fruits, corn on the cob, bonbons, and most raw fruits from the fingers. Apples, pears, and peaches are quartered, peeled, and then cut into small pieces. Cherries, plums, and grapes are eaten one by one, the stones being removed with the fingers and laid upon the plate.
Cheese may be laid in small pieces on bread or crackers, and conveyed to the mouth in that way.
Asparagus should be eaten with the fork, the part which is not readily broken off by it being left.
At a formal meal a second helping of a dish is never offered, and should never be asked for; but at an informal dinner party it is not out of place to accept a second helping, if one is offered, but is complimentary to the hostess, who is responsible for the cook.
