Avoid by all means the very common but very foolish habit of depreciating your own rooms, furniture, or viands, and expressing uncalled-for regrets that you have nothing better to offer, merely to give your guests an opportunity politely to contradict you. But you need not go to the other extreme and extol the meats you set before them. Say nothing about these matters.
When visitors show any intention of leaving, you will of course express the desire you feel to have them stay longer, but good manners do not require you to endeavor to retain them against their wishes or sense of duty. It is to be supposed that they know their own affairs best.
Guests sometimes forget (if they ever learned) that they have any duties. We beg leave to jog their memory with the following hints from the graceful pen of "Mrs. Manners:"
"To accommodate yourself to the habits and rules of the family, in regard to hours of rising or retiring, and particularly the hours for meals, is the first duty of a guest. Inform yourself as soon as possible when the meals occur—whether there will be a dressing-bell—at what time they meet for prayers, and thus become acquainted with all the family regulations. It is always the better way for a family to adhere strictly to all their usual habits; it is a much simpler matter for one to learn to conform to those than for half a dozen to be thrown out of a routine, which may be almost indispensable to the fulfillment of their importunate duties. It certainly must promote the happiness of any reasonable person to know that his presence is no restraint and no inconvenience.
"Your own good sense and delicacy will teach you the desirability of keeping your room tidy, and your articles of dress and toilet as much in order as possible. If there is a deficiency of servants, a lady will certainly not hesitate to make her own bed, and to do for herself as much as possible, and for the family all that is in her power. I never saw an elegant lady of my acquaintance appear to better advantage than when once performing a service which, under other circumstances, might have been considered menial; yet, in her own house, she was surrounded by servants, and certainly she never used a broom or made a bed a her life."
VI.—SERVANTS.
We are all dependent, in one way or another, upon others. At one time we serve, at another we are served, and we are equally worthy of honor and respect in the one case as in the other. The man or the woman who serves us may or may not be our inferior in natural capacity, learning, manners, or wealth. Be this as it may, the relation in which we stand to him or her gives us no right beyond the exaction of the service stipulated or implied in that relation. The right to tyrannize over our inferiors in social position, to unnecessarily humiliate them, or to be rude and unkind can not exist, because it would be an infringement of other rights. Servants have rights as well as those whom they serve, and the latter have duties as well as the former. We owe those who labor for us something more than their wages. They have claims on us for a full recognition of their manhood or womanhood, and all the rights which grow out of that state.
The true gentleman is never arrogant, or overbearing, or rude to domestics or employées. His commands are requests, and all services, no matter how humble the servant, are received with thanks, as if they were favors. We might say the same with still greater emphasis of the true lady. There is no surer sign of vulgarity than a needless assumption of the tone of authority and a haughty and supercilious bearing toward servants and inferiors in station generally. It is a small thing to say, "I thank you," but those little words are often better than gold. No one is too poor to bestow, or too rich to receive them.