When you are going abroad, intending to be absent for some time, you inclose your card in an envelope, having first, written T. T. L. [to take leave], or P. P. C. [pour prendre congé] upon it—for a man the former is better—and direct it outside to the person for whom it is intended. In taking leave of a family, you send as many cards as you would if you were paying an ordinary visit. When you return from your voyage, all the persons to whom, before going, you have sent cards, will pay you the first visit. If, previously to a voyage or his marriage, any one should not send his card to another, it is to be understood that he wishes the acquaintance to cease. The person, therefore, who is thus discarded, should never again visit the other.[D]
Visiting cards should be engraved or handsomely written. Those printed on type are considered vulgar, simply, no doubt, because they are cheap. A gentleman's card should be of medium size, unglazed, ungilt, and perfectly plain. A lady's card may be larger and finer, and should be carried in a card-case.
If you should happen to be paying an evening visit at a house, where, unknown to you, there is a small party assembled, you should enter and present yourself precisely as you would have done had you been invited. To retire precipitately with an apology for the intrusion would create a scene, and be extremely awkward. Go in, therefore, converse with ease for a few moments, and then retire.
In making morning calls, usage allows a gentleman to wear a frock coat, or a sack coat, if the latter happen to be in fashion. The frock coat is now, in this country, tolerated at dinner-parties, and even at a ball, but is not considered in good ton or style.
"Ladies," according to the authority of a writer of their own sex, "should make morning calls in an elegant and simple négligé, all the details of which we can not give, on account of their multiplicity and the numerous modifications of fashion. It is necessary for them, when visiting at this time, to arrange their toilet with great care."
VI.—APPOINTMENTS.
Be exact in keeping all appointments. It is better never to avail yourself of even the quarter of an hour's grace sometimes allowed.
If you make an appointment with another at your own house, you should be invisible to the rest of the world, and consecrate your time solely to him.
If you accept an appointment at the house of a public officer or a man of business, be very punctual, transact the affair with dispatch, and retire the moment it is finished.