Marion Harland's Complete Etiquette. Marion Harland
would do well to shun society.
Nor should a black-edged card accompany an invitation to a social function. Several seasons ago a matron introduced to society in a large city a niece who had, eighteen months before, lost a brother. With the hostess’ invitations to the reception was enclosed the card of the young guest, and this card had a black border an eighth of an inch wide. The recipients of the invitations were to be pardoned if they wondered a bit at the incongruity of a person in mourning receiving at a large party. Under the circumstances she should have declined to have the social function given in her honor, or should have laid aside her insignia of dolor.
If, then, one has reached the point where one is ready to reenter society, let one give up the mourning-cards and again use plain white bits of pasteboard.
CALLING AFTER A DEATH
In calling at a house after a bereavement, it is well, except when the afflicted one is an intimate friend, to leave the card with a message of sympathy at the door. One may, if one wishes, leave flowers with the card. A fortnight after the funeral one may call and ask to see the ladies of the family, adding that if they do not feel like seeing callers they will please not think of coming down. Under such circumstances only a supersensitive person will be hurt by receiving the message that the ladies beg to be excused, and that they are grateful for the kind thought that prompted the call.
The rule that we have just given applies to the household in which there is serious illness. A call may consist of an inquiry at the door, and leaving a card. This may be accompanied by some such message as, “Please express my sincere hope that Mrs. Smith will soon be better, and assure Mr. Smith that if I can be of any service to him, or Mrs. Smith, I shall be grateful if he will let me know.”
MAKING PARTY CALLS
One should always return a first call within three weeks after it has been made. After a dinner, luncheon or card-party, a call must be made within a fortnight. An afternoon tea requires no “party call.” After a large reception one may call within the month. After a wedding reception one must call within a fortnight on the mother of the bride, and on the bride on her “At Home” day as soon as possible after her return from the wedding trip. If one is in doubt as to the propriety of calling after an invitation, it is better to err on the side of making the call. One’s courteous intention will surely be appreciated while not to call may seem an unpardonable omission.
In the case of an invitation extended without a first call having been made, women sometimes express doubt as to the course they should pursue. In the first place they will do well to realize that some of the people who entertain most delightfully are extremely busy people to whom the rigid routine of formal etiquette would be an intolerable burden. A clever woman is known by nothing more certainly than by the unerring instinct with which she relaxes her demands in such instances. If the woman who wishes to entertain encloses her own card this may be accepted as a substitute for the usual first call. The social value of one dinner invitation transcends many calls. Even if the visiting-card is not enclosed the recipient of the invitation will—if she be a sensible woman—accept if she really wishes to do so. At this point, however, social usage should begin to assert itself and the invited one should not fail to make the customary call of appreciation after the “party.” If one does not wish to make the acquaintance offered a formal note of declination will serve to discourage further intrusion.
EXCEPTIONS TO SOCIAL RULES
A rather surprising question sometimes asked is whether one should call after a dinner or dance invitation that has been declined. Certainly, the call should be made. One has been honored by one’s friends and the fact that one was prevented by circumstances from actually enjoying their hospitality makes no difference whatever with one’s responsibility for expressing appreciation.
A card with a message written on it fills many convenient social needs but it should never be used to take the place of a formal note. So employed it suggests haste and a degree of indifference that are contrary to the best breeding. The corners of cards are no longer turned down for any purpose.
If one, on calling, is told by the servant opening the door that “Mrs. Brown is not at home,” this does not mean literally that Mrs. Brown is of necessity out of the house, neither does it mean that the servant has been instructed to tell an untruth. “Not at home” is an accepted abbreviation for “Not at home to visitors.” There are those to whom the phrase will, however, always have a disagreeable ring, and if Mrs. Brown have more tact and originality than the conventions demand she will probably direct her maid to say instead, “Mrs. Brown is not receiving to-day. She receives on Mondays.”
WHO SHOULD CALL FIRST
Who calls first? The custom of residents calling on the newcomer is so firmly established in almost all communities that one may wonder at the question being asked. Yet in Washington—that is to say, in official Washington, this custom is reversed, and it is the newcomer who calls at the White House, on the vice-president, members of the cabinet, etc. In the case of the highest officials a return call is not expected but the courtesy is recognized by an invitation to some general reception.
CUSTOM IN SMALL TOWNS
The hours for calling vary according to the community one is in—though no afternoon call should be made before three o’clock. In small towns and villages where supper is eaten at six o’clock, one should not prolong a call after five-thirty. Evening calls in most American cities are usually made at eight o’clock or soon after, though in large eastern places where dinner is not served until seven, seven-thirty or eight, the nine o’clock call is not unusual.
Calls on the sick should be made with the greatest discretion. One should ascertain in the first place whether or not one’s friend will really be equal to seeing one, and then stay for a few moments only. Sick-bed visits especially should not be allowed to become visitations. Many a person with a chance for recovery has literally been talked into his grave by well-meaning callers. Intelligent nurses will quietly ask such people to remain away.
CHAPTER III
LETTER-WRITING
THE writing of letters, of the good old-fashioned kind, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. People used to write epistles. Now they write notes. Before the days of the stenographer, the typewriter, the telegraph and telephone, when people made their own clothes by hand, wove their own sheets and had no time-saving machines, they found leisure to write epistles to their friends. Some of us are so fortunate as to have stowed away in an old trunk a bundle of these productions. The ink is pale and the paper yellowed, but the matter is still interesting. All the news of the family, the neighborhood gossip, the latest sayings and doings of the children and of callers, an account of the books read, of the minister’s last sermon and of the arrival of the newest of many olive branches, filled pages. What must these same pages have meant to the exile from home! And how much there was in such letters to answer!
Still, even in this day and generation, there are a few people who have so far held to the good old traditions that they write genuine letters. And—wonder of wonders!—they answer questions asked them in letters written by their correspondents. Only those who have written questions to which they desired prompt answers, appreciate how maddening it is to receive a letter that tells you everything except the answers to your queries. And this ignoring of the epistle one is supposed to be answering is a feature of the up-to-date letter-writer. There is, even in friendly correspondence, a right and a wrong way of doing a thing.
HOW NOT TO WRITE
The wrong, and well-nigh universal, way of treating a letter is as follows: It is read as rapidly as possible, pigeonholed and forgot. Weeks hence, in clearing out the desk it is found, the handwriting recognized, and it is laid aside to be answered later. When that “later” comes depends on the leisure of the owner. At last a so-called answer is hastily written without a second reading of the letter to which one is replying. Such a reply begins with an apology for a long and unavoidable silence, an account of how cruelly busy one is nowadays, a passing mention