For ladies in delicate health who cannot expose throat or arms, there is always the largest liberty allowed; but the dinner dress must be handsome.
In leaving the house and ordering the carriage, name the earliest hour rather than the latest; it is better to keep one's coachman waiting than to weary one's hostess. It is quite impossible to say when one will leave, as there may be music, recitations, and so on, after the dinner. It is now quite the fashion, as in London, to ask people in after the dinner.
Everybody should go to a dinner intending to be agreeable.
"E'en at a dinner some will be unblessed,
However good the viands, and well dressed;
They always come to table with a scowl,
Squint with a face of verjuice o'er each dish,
Fault the poor flesh, and quarrel with the fish,
Curse cook, and wife, and loathing, eat and growl."
Such men should never be asked twice; yet such were Dr. Johnson, and later on, Abraham Hayward, the English critic, who were invited out every night of their lives. It is a poor requital for hospitality, to allow any personal ill-temper to interfere with the pleasure of the feast. Some hostesses send around the champagne early to unloose the tongues; and this has generally a good effect if the party be dull. Excessive heat in a room is the most benumbing of all overweights. Let the hostess have plenty of oxygen to begin with.