No well-bred person ever loses temper at the card-table. You have no right to sit down to the game unless you can bear a long run of ill luck with perfect composure, and are prepared cheerfully to pass over any blunders that your partner may chance to make.
If you are an indifferent player, make a point of saying so before you join a party at whist. If the others are fine players they will be infinitely more obliged to you for declining than accepting their invitation. In any case you have no right to spoil their pleasure by your bad play.
Never let even politeness induce you to play for very high stakes. Etiquette is the minor morality of life; but it never should be allowed to outweigh the higher code of right and wrong.
Be scrupulous to observe silence when any of the company are playing or singing. Remember that they are doing this for the amusement of the rest; and that to talk at such a time is as ill-bred as if you were to turn your back upon a person who was talking to you, and begin a conversation with some one else.
If you are yourself the performer, bear in mind that in music, as in speech, "brevity is the soul of wit." Two verses of a song, or four pages of a piece, are at all times enough to give pleasure. If your audience desire more they will ask for more; and it is infinitely more flattering to be encored than to receive the thanks of your hearers, not so much in gratitude for what you have given them, but in relief that you have left off. You should try to suit your music, like your conversation, to your company. A solo of Beethoven's would be as much out of place in some circles as a comic song at a Quakers' meeting. To those who only care for the light popularities, of the season, give Balfe and Verdi, Glover and Jullien. To connoisseurs, if you perform well enough to venture, give such music as will be likely to meet the exigences of a fine taste. Above all, attempt nothing that you cannot execute with ease and precision.
In retiring from a crowded party it is unnecessary that you should seek out the hostess for the purpose of bidding her a formal good night. By doing this you would, perhaps, remind others that it was getting late, and cause the party to break up.
If you meet the lady of the house on your way to the drawing-room door, take your leave of her as unobtrusively as possible, and slip away without attracting the attention of her other guests.
[Footnote A: For a succinct guide to whist, loo, vingt-et-un, speculation, &c., &c., &c., see Routledge's "Card-player," by G.F. Pardon, price sixpence.]
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