Manners and Social Usages

by M. E. W. Sherwood

A bride receives her callers after she has settled down in her married home just as any lady does. There is no particular etiquette observed. She sends out cards for two or three reception days, and her friends and new acquaintances call or send cards on these days. She must not, however, call on her friends until they have called upon her.

As many of these callers—friends, perhaps, of the bridegroom—are unknown to the bride, it is well to have a servant announce the names; and they should also leave their cards in the hall that she may be able to know where to return the visits.

What has so far been said will serve to give a general idea of the card and its uses, and of the duties which it imposes upon different members of society. Farther on in this volume we will take up, in much more particular fashion, the matters only alluded to in this opening chapter.

We may say that cards have changed less in the history of etiquette and fashion than anything else. They, the shifting pasteboards, are in style about what they were fifty—nay, a hundred—years ago.

The plain, unglazed card with fine engraved script cannot be improved upon. The passing fashion for engraved autographs, for old English, for German text, all these fashions have had but a brief hour. Nothing is in worse taste than for an American to put a coat-of-arms on his card. It only serves to make him ridiculous.

A lady should send up her card by a servant, but not deliver it to the lady of the house; a card is yourself, therefore if you meet a lady, she does not want two of you. If you wish to leave your address, leave a card on the hall table. One does right in leaving a card on the hall table at a reception, and one need not call again. An invitation to one's house cancels all indebtedness. If a card is left on a lady's reception, she should make the next call, although many busy society women now never make calls, except when they receive invitations to afternoon teas or receptions.

When a gentleman calls on ladies who are at home, if he knows them well he does not send up a card; the servant announces his name. If he does not know them well, he does send up a card. One card is sufficient, but he can inquire for them all. In leaving cards it is not necessary to leave seven or eight, but it is customary to leave two—one for the lady of the house, the other for the rest of the family or the stranger who is within their gates. If a gentleman wishes particularly to call on any one member, he says so to the servant, as "Take my card up to Miss Jones," and he adds, "I should like to see all the ladies if they are at home." The trouble in answering this question is that authorities differ. We give the latest London and New York fashion, so far as we know, and also what we believe to be the common-sense view. A gentleman can ask first for the lady of the house, then for any other member of the family, but he need never leave more than two cards. He must in this, as in all etiquette, exercise common-sense. No one can define all the ten thousand little points.

CHAPTER II. OPTIONAL CIVILITIES.

There are many optional civilities in life which add very much to its charm if observed, but which cannot be called indispensable. To those which are harmless and graceful we shall give a cursory glance, and to those which are doubtful and perhaps harmful we shall also briefly allude, leaving it to the common-sense of the reader as to whether he will hereafter observe in his own manners these so-called optional civilities.

In France, when a gentleman takes off his hat in a windy street or in an exposed passage-way, and holds it in his hand while talking to a lady, she always says, "Couvrez vous" (I beg of you not to stand uncovered). A kind-hearted woman says this to a boatman, a coachman, a man of low degree, who always takes off his hat when a lady speaks to him. Now in our country, unfortunately, the cabmen have such bad manners that a lady seldom has the opportunity of this optional civility, for, unlike a similar class in Europe, those who serve you for your money in America often throw in a good deal of incivility with the service, and no book of etiquette is more needed than one which should teach shop-girls and shop-men the beauty and advantages of a respectful manner. If men who drive carriages and street cabs would learn the most advantageous way of making money, they would learn to touch their hats to a lady when she speaks to them or gives an order. It is always done in the Old World, and this respectful air adds infinitely to the pleasures of foreign travel.