Manners and Social Usages - Mrs John M. E. W. Sherwood (mobile ebook reader TXT) 📗
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the word “ball” is used, but no lady invites you to a “ball” at
her own house. The words “At Home,” with “Cotillion” or “Dancing”
in one corner, and the hour and date, alone are necessary. If it
is to be a small, informal dance, the word “Informal” should be
engraved in one corner. Officers of the army and navy giving a
ball, members of the hunt, bachelors, members of a club, heads of
committees, always “request the pleasure,” or, “the honor of your
company.” It is not proper for a gentleman to describe himself as
“at home;” he must “request the pleasure.” A rich bachelor of
Utopia who gave many entertainments made this mistake, and sent a
card—“Mr. Horatio Brown. At Home. Tuesday, November fourteenth.
Tea at four”—to a lady who had been an ambassadress. She
immediately replied: “Mrs. Rousby is very glad to hear that Mr.
Horatio Brown is at home—she hopes that he will stay there; but
of what possible consequence is that to Mrs. Rousby?” This was a
piece of rough wit, but it told the young man of his mistake.
Another card, issued with the singular formula, “Mrs. Ferguson
hopes to see Mrs. Rousby at the church,” on the occasion of the
wedding of a daughter, brought forth the rebuke, “Nothing is so
deceitful as human hope,” The phrase is an improper one. Mrs.
Ferguson should have “requested the pleasure.”
In asking for an invitation to a ball for friends, ladies must be
cautious not to intrude too far, or to feel offended if refused.
Often a hostess has a larger list than she can fill, and she is
not able to ask all whom she would wish to invite. Therefore a
very great discretion is to be observed on the part of those who
ask a favor. A lady may always request an invitation for
distinguished strangers, or for a young dancing man if she can
answer for him in every way, but rarely for a married couple, and
almost never for a couple living in the same city, unless newly
arrived.
Invitations to evening or day receptions are generally “at home”
cards. A lady may use her own visiting cards for five-o’clock tea.
For other entertainments, “Music,” “Lawn-tennis,” “Garden-party,”
“Readings and Recitals,” may be engraved in one corner, or written
in by the lady herself.
As for wedding invitations, they are almost invariably sent out by
the parents of the bride, engraved in small script on notepaper.
The style can always be obtained of a fashionable engraver. They
should be sent out a fortnight before the wedding-day, and are not
to be answered unless the guests are requested to attend a
“sit-down” breakfast, when the answer must be as explicit as to a
dinner. Those who cannot attend the wedding send or leave their
visiting-cards either on the day of the wedding or soon after.
Invitations to a luncheon are generally written by the hostess on
notepaper, and should be rather informal, as luncheon is an
informal meal. However, nowadays ladies’ luncheons have become
such grand, consequential, and expensive affairs, that invitations
are engraved and sent out a fortnight in advance, and answered
immediately. There is the same etiquette as at dinner observed at
these formal luncheons. There is such a thing, however, as a
“stand-up” luncheon—a sort of reception with banquet, from which
one could absent one’s self without being missed.
Punctuality in keeping all engagements is a feature of a well-bred
character, in society as well as in business, and it cannot be too
thoroughly insisted upon.
In sending a “regret” be particular to word your note most
respectfully. Never write the word “regrets” on your card unless
you wish to insult your hostess. Send a card without any
pencilling upon it, or write a note, thus: “Mrs. Brown regrets
that a previous engagement will deprive her of the pleasure of
accepting the polite invitation of Mrs. Jones.”
No one should, in the matter of accepting or refusing an
invitation, economize his politeness. It is better to err on the
other side. Your friend has done his best in inviting you.
The question is often asked us, “Should invitations be sent to
people in mourning?” Of course they should. No one would knowingly
intrude on a house in which there is or has been death within a
month; but after that, although it is an idle compliment, it is
one which must be paid; it is a part of the machinery of society.
As invitations are now directed by the hundreds by hired
amanuenses, a lady should carefully revise her list, in order that
no names of persons deceased may be written on her cards; but the
members of the family who remain, and who have suffered a loss,
should be carefully remembered, and should not be pained by seeing
the name of one who has departed included in the invitations or
wedding-cards. People in deep mourning are not invited to dinners
or luncheons, but for weddings and large entertainments cards are
sent as a token of remembrance and compliment. After a year of
mourning the bereaved family should send out cards with a narrow
black edge to all who have remembered them.
Let it be understood that in all countries a card sent by a
private hand in an envelope is equivalent to a visit. In England
one sent by post is equivalent to a visit, excepting after a
dinner. Nothing is pencilled on a card sent by post, except the
three letters “P.P.C.” No such words as “accepts,” “declines,”
“regrets” should be written on a card. As much ill-will is
engendered in New York by the loss of cards for large receptions
and the like, some of which the messenger-boys fling into the
gutter, it is a thousand pities that we cannot agree to send all
invitations by mail. People always get letters that are sent by
post, particularly those which they could do without. Why should
they not get their more interesting letters that contain
invitations? It is considered thoroughly respectful in England,
and as our people are fond of copying that stately etiquette, why
should they not follow this sensible part of it?
It is in every sense as complimentary to send a letter by the post
as by the dirty fingers of a hired messenger. Very few people in
this country can afford to send by their own servants, who, again,
rarely find the right address.
CHAPTER VII.
CARDS OF COMPLIMENT, COURTESY, CONDOLENCE, AND CONGRATULATION.
A distinguished lady of New York, on recovering from a severe
illness, issued a card which is a new departure. In admiring its
fitness and the need which has existed for just such a card, we
wonder that none of us have before invented something so compact
and stately, pleasing and proper—that her thought had not been
our thought. It reads thus, engraved in elegant script, plain and
modest: “Mrs. ____ presents her compliments and thanks for recent
kind inquiries.” This card, sent in an envelope which bears the
family crest as a seal, reached all those who had left cards and
inquiries for a useful and eminent member of society, who lay for
weeks trembling between life and death.
This card is an attention to her large circle of anxious friends
which only a kind-hearted woman would have thought of, and yet the
thought was all; for after that the engraver and the secretary
could do the rest, showing what a labor-saving invention it is to
a busy woman who is not yet sufficiently strong to write notes to
all who had felt for her severe suffering. The first joy of
convalescence is of gratitude, and the second that we have created
an interest and compassion among our friends, and that we were not
alone as we struggled with disease. Therefore we may well
recommend that this card should become a fashion. It meets a
universal want.
This may be called one of the “cards of compliment”—a phase of
card-leaving to which we have hardly reached in this country. It
is even more, it is a heartfelt and friendly blossom of etiquette,
“just out,” as we say of the apple-blossoms.
Now as to the use of it by the afflicted: why would it not be well
for persons who have lost a friend also to have such a card
engraved? “Mr. R____ begs to express his thanks for your kind
sympathy in his recent bereavement,” etc. It would save a world of
letter-writing to a person who does not care to write letters, and
it would be a very pleasant token to receive when all other such
tokens are impossible. For people leave their cards on a mourner,
and never know whether they have been received or not.
Particularly is this true of apartment-houses; and when people
live in hotels, who knows whether the card ever reaches its
destination? We generally find that it has not done so, if we have
the courage to make the inquiry.
Those cards which we send by a servant to make the necessary
inquiries for a sick friend, for the happy mother and the new-born
baby, are essentially “cards of compliment.” In excessively
ceremonious circles the visits of ceremony on these occasions are
very elaborate—as at the Court of Spain, for instance; and a lady
of New York was once much amused at receiving the card of a superb
Spanish official, who called on her newly arrived daughter when
the latter was three days old, leaving a card for the “new
daughter.” He of course left a card for the happy mamma, and did
not ask to go farther than the door, but he came in state.
In England the “family” were wont to send christening cards after
a birth, but this has never been the fashion in this country, and
it is disappearing in England. The complimentary card issued for
such events is now generally an invitation to partake of caudle—a
very delicious porridge made of oatmeal and raisins, brandy,
spices, and sugar, and formally served in the lady’s chamber
before the month’s seclusion is broken. It will be remembered that
Tom Thumb was dropped into a bowl of fermity, which many
antiquarians suppose to have been caudle. Nowadays a caudle party
is a very gay, dressy affair, and given about six weeks after
young master or mistress is ready to be congratulated or condoled
with on his or her entrance upon this mundane sphere. We find in
English books of etiquette very formal directions as to these
cards of compliment. “Cards to inquire after friends during
illness must be left in person, and not sent by post. On a lady’s
visiting-card must be written above the printed name, ‘To
inquire,’ and nothing else should be added to these words.”
For the purpose of returning thanks, printed cards are sold, with
the owner’s name written above the printed words. These printed
cards are generally sent by post, as they are despatched while the
person inquired after is still an invalid. These cards are also
used to convey the intelligence of the sender’s recovery.
Therefore they would not be sent while the person was in danger or
seriously ill. But this has always seemed to us a very poor and.
business-like way of returning “kind inquiries.” The printed card
looks cheap. Far better the engraved and carefully prepared card
of Mrs. ____, which has the effect of a personal compliment.
We do not in this country send those hideous funeral or memorial
cards which are sold in England at every stationer’s to apprise
one’s friends of a death in the family. There is no need of this,
as the newspapers spread the sad intelligence.
There is, however, a very elaborate paper called a “faire
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