DINNER ENGAGEMENTS BINDING
No matter how informal a dinner is to be, if the invitation is once accepted, nothing must be allowed to interfere with one’s attendance unless one is so ill that one’s physician absolutely forbids one leaving the house.
Some wit said that a man’s only excuse for non-attendance at such a function is his death, in which case he should send his obituary notice as an explanation. Certain it is that nothing short of one’s own severe illness or the dangerous illness of a member of the family should interfere with one’s attendance at a dinner. Should such a contingency arise, a telegram or telephone message should be sent immediately that the hostess may try to engage another guest to take the place of the one who is unavoidably prevented from being present.
When it becomes necessary to ask a guest to fill such a vacancy, the hostess will do best to explain the situation frankly, while the guest on his part need feel no slight at the lateness of his invitation. A clever woman always has several persons on whom she can rely for such emergencies and whose good nature she does not fail to reward.
THE LUNCHEON
All the rules that apply to the sending and receiving of invitations to a dinner prevail with regard to a luncheon. It is next in importance as a function, and the acceptance or declinature of a letter requesting that one should attend it must be promptly despatched.
In planning any social affair the hostess should think twice about asking together people who have for a long time lived in the same neighborhood or who are old residents of the city in any part but who are not apparently in the habit of seeing one another. Sometimes it is safer to ask one’s prospective guests outright if it will be agreeable for them to meet.
Before closing this chapter we should like to remind the possible guest that an invitation is intended as an honor. The function to which one is asked may be all that is most boring, and the flesh and spirit may shrink from attending it. But if one declines what is meant as a compliment, let one do so in a manner that shows one appreciates the honor intended. To decline as if the person extending the invitation were a bit presumptuous in giving it, or to accept in a condescending manner, is a lapse that shows a common strain under a recently-acquired polish. A thoroughbred accepts and declines all invitations as though he were honored by the attention. In doing so he shows himself worthy to receive any compliment that may under any circumstances be extended to him. Would that more of the strugglers up Society’s ladders would appreciate this truth!
If a woman wishes to give any other special form of entertainment than a dance, she writes the suitable word, “Music,” “Bridge,” “Garden-party,” etc., in place of the word “Dancing.”