Manners and Social Usages

by M. E. W. Sherwood

Happy those ladies who can give up an evening a week to their friends; that rubs out the score on the social slate, besides giving a number of people a chance to spend a very agreeable hour in that society which gathers around a hospitable lamp.

The danger of this kind of hospitality is that it is abused by bores, who are too apt to congregate in numbers, and to wear out the lady of the house by using her parlor as a spot where they are safe from the rain and cold and free to bestow their tediousness on anybody, herself included. Then a lady after committing herself to a reception evening often wishes to go out herself. It requires unselfishness to give up an evening to that large circle, some of whom forget it, some go elsewhere, some come too often, and sometimes, alas! no on e calls. These are the drawbacks of an "evening at home." However, it is a laudable custom; one could wish it were more common.

No one can forget the eloquent thanks of such men as Horace Walpole, and other persons of distinction, to the Misses Berry, in London, who kept up their evening receptions for sixty years. But, from the trials of those who have too much visiting, we turn to the people who have all the means and appliances of visiting and no one to visit.

The young married woman who comes to New York, or any other large city, often passes years of loneliness before she has made her acquaintances. She is properly introduced, we will say by her mother-in-law or some other friend, and then, after a round of visits in which she has but, perhaps, imperfectly apprehended the positions and names of her new acquaintances, she has a long illness, or she is called into mourning, or the cares of the nursery surround her, and she is shut out from society until it has forgotten her; and when she is ready to emerge, it is difficult for her to find her place again in the visiting-book. If she is energetic and clever, she surmounts this difficulty by giving a series of receptions, or engaging in charities, or working on some committee, making herself of use to society in some way; and thus picks up her dropped stitches. But some young women are without the courage and tact to do this thing; they wait, expecting that society will find them out, and, taking them up, will do all the work and leave them to accept or refuse civilities as they please. Society never does this; it has too much on its hands; a few conspicuously beautiful and gifted people may occasionally receive such an ovation, but it is not for the rank and file.

Every young woman should try to make at least one personal visit to those who are older than herself, and she should show charity towards those who do not return this visit immediately. Of course, she has a right to be piqued if her visit be persistently ignored; and she should not press herself upon a cold or indifferent acquaintance, but she should be slow to wrath; and if she is once invited to the older lady's house, it is worth a dozen calls so far as the intention of civility is concerned.

It is proper to call in person, or to leave a card, after an acquaintance has lost a relative, after an engagement is announced, after a marriage has taken place, after a return from Europe, and of course after an invitation has been extended; but, as society grows larger and larger, the first four visits may be omitted, and cards sent if it is impossible to pay the visits personally. Most ladies in large cities are invisible except on their days; in this way alone can they hope to have any time for their own individual tastes, be these what they may—china painting, authorship, embroidery, or music. So the formal visiting gets to be a mere matter of card-leaving; and the witty author who suggested that there should be a "clearing-house for cards," and who hailed the Casino at Newport as a good institution for the same, was not without genius. One hates to lose time in this world while greasing the machinery, and the formal, perfunctory card-leaving is little else.

Could we all have abundant leisure and be sure to find our friends at home, what more agreeable business than visiting? To wander from one pleasant interior to another, to talk a little harmless gossip, to hear the last mot, the best piece of news, to see one's friends, their children, and the stranger within their gates—all this is charming; it is the Utopia of society; it would be the apotheosis of visiting—if there were such a thing!

Unfortunately, it is impossible. There may be here and there a person of such exalted leisure that he can keep his accounts to society marked in one of those purple satin manuals stamped "Visites," and make the proper marks every day under the heads of "address," "received," "returned visits," and "reception days," but he is a rara avis.

Certain rules are, however, immutable. A first call from a new acquaintance should be speedily returned. These are formal calls, and should be made in person between the hours of four and six in New York and other large cities. Every town has its own hours for receiving, however. When calling for the first time on several ladies not mother and daughters in one family, a card should be left on each. In the first call of the season, a lady leaves her own card and those of her husband, sons, and daughters.

A lady has a right to leave her card without asking for the lady of the house if it is not her day, or if there is any reason—such as bad weather, pressure of engagements, or the like—which renders time an important matter.