of the honeymoon demanded by fashionable society.
NEW YEAR’S DAY CALLS.
The old-time habit of serving wines and liquors at these gatherings
has, happily, almost died out, in good society. Those who entertain
elaborately upon New Year’s Day sometimes send out cards of invitation
in the name of the hostess. They are handsomely engraved, and enclosed
in a single envelope. If a daughter or daughters receive with her,
“Miss Blank or Misses Blank” is engraved beneath her own name. If other
ladies than her daughters also receive with her, their visiting-card
may be enclosed in the same envelope with the hostess’ invitation.
Should the lady-guest invite her own personal friends to meet her at
the residence of her hostess for this day, she writes the number of
her residence where she is to receive on New Year’s upon her own card,
adding the receiving hours in ink, and she incloses the visiting-card
of her hostess.
The invitation of the hostess is engraved in the following form:
MRS. WILMER RALSTON
AT HOME,
_January first, from one until ten o’clock._
No. 679 Little Silver Street.
All the ladies are in full toilets, and the house is lighted as if
it were evening. A table is spread, as if for an ordinary reception
or party, in the back parlor or dining-room. A servant opens the
street-door and the gentlemen leave their cards in the hall. They
enter the drawing-room with hat in hand, or they may leave it in
the hall with overcoat and cane. Ladies in full costume require the
atmosphere of their drawing-rooms to be kept comfortably warm. They
rise to receive their guests. The hostess offers her hand to the guest
when he enters, and, after an exchange of compliments he is presented
to her lady friends. After partaking of refreshments, which consist
of oysters, tea, coffee, chocolate, bouillon or lemonade, with cake
and cold meats, boned turkey, etc., he may retire soon from the house
without interrupting his hostess, provided she be occupied with later
visitors. He need only bow to each lady as he passes out.
Ladies who receive New Year’s callers less formally may write “January
1” upon their visiting-cards and send them to such of their gentlemen
acquaintances as they may like to see. They need not provide an
elaborate repast. They may wear a visiting costume with light gloves,
but they need not turn on the gas, because informal receptions are held
in daylight. If they do not mention upon their cards the hours for
receiving, it is etiquette for a gentleman to call at any time between
twelve m. and ten o’clock p. m. The formalities between hostess and
guest are the same as if the reception were held in grand toilet.
Gentlemen who cannot call enclose their visiting-cards in envelopes,
and send them by messengers on the morning of New Year’s, or by mail
the day before. Others drive from door to door and leave their cards,
the right-hand side folded over to signify that they delivered the card
in person. A gentleman leaves as many cards as there are ladies who are
old enough to receive visitors.
Gentlemen should wear a morning costume of dark coat and vest, with
lighter pantaloons, when they pay New Year’s calls. It is not uncommon
to see dress-suits, but they are never strictly correct until evening.
Gloves, while light in tint, should never be white. Medium tints in
scarfs and gloves are in taste upon these occasions.
CHRISTENINGS AND BIRTHDAYS.
There are occasions when family and friendly reunions of the
pleasantest character may be enjoyed. Christening ceremonials among
our superior citizens are becoming more and more beautiful each year
in New York. The formality which is most in favor is the giving of a
reception; the hours are fixed from three or four o’clock until six
p. m. It is equally proper to write the invitations, or to order them
engraved in script.
The engraved form is scarcely varied from the following:
MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM ASHTON
_request the honor of your presence at the
Christening Ceremony
of their son_ [or daughter] _at five o’clock,
Thursday, December sixth.
Reception from four to six o’clock._
No. 1624 W. Eleventh Street.
This card calls for an early response.
At these parties, flowers ornament the house tastefully. The guests all
arrive in reception or visiting toilets, before five o’clock, and meet
the host and hostess just as they would at any reception.
There may be a band of music, or a pianist and a quartette of singers,
to entertain the guests.
Sometimes professional musicians are employed. A temporary font is
arranged in a prominent place in the room, and on a small round table
is placed a silver goblet or bowl, or one of crystal. The edge of the
pedestal is often hung with trailing flowers.
The child is brought to the parents, who stand by the font, and the
sponsors join them. If it be a girl, its selected guardians are usually
two young ladies, who are dressed in white and who arrange themselves
one at each side of the father and mother, and a hymn or chant is sung.
The clergyman performs the rite according to the formalities of his
own established church; more music follows, and then a benediction.
Directly after this, congratulations are offered to the father and
mother, and the child is admired and shortly afterward removed.
Refreshments are offered as at any afternoon entertainment.
Children’s birthdays are celebrated more and more after the customs
of Europeans. A little feast is made for the child, to which its
companions are invited, but the invitations seldom extend beyond a
number that may be seated at table. The feast is dainty but not rich,
and with a pretty cake in which may be placed as many toy wax-candles
as there are years in the age of the young host. They are already
lighted when the young people enter the room. Plays follow the supper.
Guests are not expected to make presents.
Among the elders of a family the yearly return of the birthday is
seldom celebrated except by his or her own kinspeople. The twenty-first
birthday of a young man is often made an occasion for a dinner, or a
party, but a lady’s age is not thus publicly celebrated. When the lady
or gentleman becomes very old, delightful attentions are often bestowed
upon them by their young friends, and by the companions of their youth.
Flowers, letters of congratulation, cards of inquiry and respect, gifts
that will interest, breakfast or dinner parties, and receptions, are
considered proper for such celebrations.
MOURNING ETIQUETTE.
Death comes to all alike and custom has long established a conventional
observance in dealing with the presence of death, in our own homes or
elsewhere. In our own country black is worn as the typical attire of
sorrow, and it has come to be regarded as a token of respect to the
lost one. It is now decreed that crape shall only be worn six months,
even for the nearest relative, and that the duration of mourning
shall not exceed a year. A wife’s mourning for her husband is the
most conventionally deep mourning allowed. Bombazine and crape, a
widow’s cap, and a long, thick veil—such is the modern English idea.
Some widows even have the cap made of black _crêpe lisse_, but it is
generally of white. In this country a widow’s first mourning dresses
are covered almost entirely with crape. There are now, however, other
and pleasanter fabrics which also bear the dead black, lustreless look
which is alone considered respectful to the dead, and which are not so
costly as crape or so disagreeable to wear. The Henrietta cloth and
imperial serges are chosen for heavy winter dresses, while for those of
less weight are tamise cloth, Bayonnaise, grenadine, nuns’ veiling, and
the American silk.
Mourning is expensive, and often costs a family more than they can well
afford; but it is a sacrifice that all gladly make. Many consider it an
act of disrespect to the memory of the dead if the living are not clad
in gloomy black.
Widows wear deep mourning, consisting of woolen stuffs and crape, for
about two years, and sometimes by choice for life. Children wear the
same for parents for one year, and then lighten it with black silk,
trimmed with crape. Half mourning gradations of gray, purple, or lilac
have been abandoned, and, instead, combinations of black and white are
used. Complimentary mourning is black silk without crape. The French
have three grades of mourning—deep, ordinary, and half mourning. In
deep mourning, woolen cloths only are worn; in ordinary mourning, silk
and woolen; in half mourning, gray and violet. In France, etiquette
prescribes mourning for a husband—six months of deep mourning, six
of ordinary, and six weeks of half mourning. For a wife, a father,
or a mother, six months—three deep and three half mourning; for a
grandparent, two months and a half of slight mourning; for a brother or
a sister, two months, one of which is in deep mourning; for an uncle or
an aunt, three weeks of ordinary black. Here, ladies have been known
to go into deepest mourning for their own relatives or those of their
husbands, or for people, perhaps, whom they have never seen, and have
remained for seven or ten years, constantly in black; then, on losing a
child or a relative dearly loved, they have no extremity of dress left
to express the real grief. Complimentary mourning should be limited to
two or three weeks.
The duration of a mourner’s retirement from the world has been much
shortened of late. For one year no formal visiting is undertaken, nor
any gayety. Black is often worn for a husband or wife two years, for
parents one year, and for brothers and sisters one year; a heavy black
is lightened after that period. Ladies are beginning to wear a small
black gauze veil over the face, and are in the habit of throwing the
heavy crape veil back over the hat. It is also proper to wear a quiet
black dress when going to a funeral, although not absolutely necessary.
Friends may call on the bereaved family within a month, not expecting,
of course to see them. Kind notes expressing sympathy are welcome from
intimate friends; and flowers, or any similar testimonial of sympathy,
are thoughtful and appropriate.
Cards and note-paper are put in mourning, but very broad borders of
black are in bad taste. A narrow border of black is correct. The use of
handkerchiefs with a two-inch square of white cambric and a four-inch
border of black is to be deprecated.
Mourning which soldiers, sailors, and courtiers wear is pathetic and
effective. A flag draped with crape, a gray cadet-sleeve with a black
band, or a piece of crape about the left arm of a senator, a black weed
on a hat, are in proper taste.
For light mourning, jet is used on silk, and makes a handsome dress.
Elegant dresses are made with jet embroidery on soft French crape, but
lace is never “mourning.” During half mourning, however, black lace
may be worn on white silk; but this is questionable. Diamond ornaments
set in black enamel are allowed even in the deepest mourning, and also
pearls set in black. Gold is never worn in mourning.
The Swedish kid glove is now much more in use for mourning, and the
silk glove is made with such neatness and with such a number of buttons
that it is equally stylish, and much cooler and more agreeable.
Mourning bonnets are worn rather larger than ordinary bonnets.
People of sense, of course, manage to dress without going to
extremities in either direction. Exaggeration is to be deprecated
in mourning as in everything. The discarding of mourning should be
effected by slow stages. It shocks persons of good taste to see a widow
change into colors hurriedly. If black is to be dispensed with, let its
retirement be slowly and gracefully marked by quiet costumes, as the
grief, yielding to time, is giving way to resignation and cheerfulness.
Before a funeral the ladies of a family see no one but the most
intimate friends. The gentlemen, of course, see the clergyman and
officials who manage the ceremony. It is now the almost universal
practice to carry the remains to a church, where the friends of the
family can pay the last tribute of respect without crowding into a
private house. Pall-bearers are invited by note, and assemble at the
house. They, accompanying the remains, after the ceremonies at the
church, to their final resting-place. The nearest lady friends seldom
go to the church or to the grave. This is, however, entirely a matter
of feeling, and they can go if they wish. After the funeral only the
members of the family return to the house. It is not expected that a
bereaved wife or mother will see any one other than the members of her
family for several weeks.
All the preparations for a funeral in the house are committed to the
care of an undertaker, who removes the furniture from the drawing-room,
filling all the space possible with camp-stools. The clergyman reads
the service at the head of the coffin, the relatives being grouped
around. The body, if not disfigured by disease, is often dressed in the
clothes worn in life, and laid in an open casket, as if reposing on a
sofa, and all friends are asked to take a last look. The body of a man
is usually dressed in black.
The custom of decorating the coffin with flowers is beautiful, but has
been overdone, and now the request is frequently made that no flowers
be sent.
No one in mourning for a parent, child, brother, or husband, is
expected to be seen at a concert, a dinner, a party, or at any other
place of public amusement, before three months have passed. After that
one may be seen at a concert. But to go to the opera, or a dinner, or
a party, before six months have elapsed, is considered heartless and
disrespectful. If one choose, as some do, to wear no mourning, then
he can go, unchallenged, to any place of amusement, but if he put on
mourning he must respect its etiquette.
A woman may wear mourning all her life if she choose, but it is a
question whether in so doing she does not injure the welfare and
happiness of the living.
THE ETIQUETTE OF CORRESPONDENCE.
Good or ill-breeding is no more marked in general deportment than in
the writing of notes and letters. A gracefully and courteously worded
note is always pleasantly received. Very long letters are now rendered
unnecessary by the increase of mail and telegraphic facilities, but
the writing of notes has correspondingly increased; and the last few
years have seen a profuse introduction of crests, ciphers, designs, and
monograms in the corners of ordinary note-paper. The use of sealing-wax
has almost been abandoned, although it is still the only elegant,
formal, and ceremonious way acknowledged in England, of sealing a
letter.
Colored note-paper fell into disuse long ago, and for the last few
years we have not seen the heavy tints. Pale greens, grays, blues,
and lilacs have found a place in fashionable stationery, but now no
color that is appreciable is considered stylish, unless it be _écru_,
a creamy white. Fanciful emblazoned and colored monograms have been
dropped; the crest and cipher are laid aside, and ladies have simply
the address of their city residence, or the name of their country place
printed in one corner (generally in color), or, a fac-simile of their
initials, engraved and set across the corner of the note-paper. The day
of the week, also copied from their own handwriting, is often impressed
upon the square cards now so much in use for short notes, or on the
note-paper. Good, plain, thick, English note-paper, folded square, put
in a square envelope, and sealed with red sealing-wax is always stylish
in any part of the world.
The plan of having all the note-paper marked with the address is an
excellent one. It gives a stylish finish to the appearance of the
note-paper, is simple, and useful. The ink should be plain black ink,
which gives the written characters great distinctness.
Every lady should study to acquire a free, and educated hand; a
cramped, poor, slovenly, unformed handwriting is sure to produce a poor
impression upon the reader.
Custom demands that we begin all notes in the first person, with the
formula of “My dear Mrs. Brown,” and close with “Yours, cordially,”
or “Yours with much regard,” etc. The laws of etiquette do not permit
us to use numerals, as 3, 4, 5, but demand that we write out _three_,
_four_, _five_. No abbreviations are allowed in a note to a friend,
as, “S’d be glad to see you;” one must write out, “I should be glad to
see you.” The date should follow the signing of the name. A note in
answer to an invitation should be written in the third person, if the
invitation be in the third person. An acceptance of a dinner invitation
must be written in this form:
MR. AND MRS. GREEN
_have great pleasure in accepting the polite
invitation of_
MR. AND MRS. DINSMORE
_for dinner, on the seventeenth inst., at seven
o’clock.
18 Golden Square.
July sixth._
Above all things, in letter writing, _spell correctly_. A word badly
spelled stands out like a blot on a familiar or ceremonious note. Do
not send a blurred, blotted, slovenly note to any one. The fashion is
not now, as once, imperative that a margin be left around the edge of
the paper. People now write all over the paper. Do not _cross_ your
letters: such letters are a nuisance to all people who have not the
keenest of eyes.
No letter or note should be written on ruled paper. Every person should
learn to write without lines. The square cards are much used, and are
quite large enough for the transmission of all that a lady ordinarily
wishes to say in giving or accepting an invitation. The day of the week
and the address are often printed on the card. Square envelopes have
also driven the long ones from the table of the elegant note-writer,
and the custom of closing all ceremonious notes with sealing-wax
is still adhered to by the most fastidious. Dates and numerical
designations, such as the number of a house, may be written in Arabic
figures, but quantities should be expressed in words. Few abbreviations
are respectful. A married lady should always be addressed with the
prefix of her husband’s Christian name. In this country, it is the
custom to abbreviate everything except the title of “Reverend,” which
we always give to the clergy. A properly written note honors the writer
and the person to whom it is written, while a careless one may injure
both.
BEHAVIOR IN CHURCH.
It may not be out of place to furnish a hint as to behavior in church.
There is, of course, such a thing as church etiquette, although its
code is rather implied than written. As a preliminary, it should be
assumed that the right spirit has drawn the worshiper thither and
that a reverent attention will be given to the service. The following
suggestion may be accepted as embodying the general view of church
etiquette:
1. If possible, be in time. You need at least five minutes after coming
to get warm or cool: to compose your body and mind, and to whisper a
prayer before the service begins.
2. Never pass up the aisle during prayer or Scripture reading. If you
do, your presence will distract the minds of many in the audience.
3. Be devout in every attitude; all whispering should be studiously
avoided. Find the hymn and sing it if you can. Share the book with your
neighbor. If in a strange church, conform to its customs.
4. If the sermon has begun, take a seat near the door—no matter if you
are “at home.”
5. Be thoughtful for the comfort of others. Take the inside of the pew,
if you are the first to enter, and leave all vacant space at the end
next to the aisle.
6. Speak a bright, cheery word to as many as possible at the close of
the service. If you are a stranger, ask one of the ushers to introduce
you to the pastor, or to some of the church officers. This will always
insure you a hearty welcome.
7. Never put on your coat, overshoes or wraps during the closing hymn,
and do not make a rush for the door immediately after the benediction
is pronounced.
8. There should be no loud talking and jesting after the service is
concluded. They are as much out of place in the house of God as at a
house of mourning.
VARIOUS POINTS ON DEPORTMENT.
POLITE TERMS OF ADDRESS.
Not every one who is accustomed to most of the usages of good society,
is familiar with the approved forms of address, even in the simplest
matters. A good authority writes:
Say “_Thank you_,” not “_Thanks_”—a lazy and disrespectful
abbreviation. If you say “Pardon me,” let your manner be appropriate
to your words. “I beg your pardon” is sometimes uttered in prefacing
the expression of a contrary opinion, and the insolence of the tone
and manner give the words all the force of a contradiction. In most
phrases of compliment the words are nothing, the manner everything. So
of adding “Sir” or “Ma’am” to “Yes” and “No.” “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,”
may be rude and defiant; “Yes” and “No” may be polite and deferential.
There is a difference of opinion as to whether it is necessary, or even
proper, for people of social equality to add _sir_ or _madam_ to these
responses, and especially as to whether children should be taught to do
so. It is a provincial custom, but the best usage does not allow it.
Children may be taught to say “Yes” and “No” with a well-bred courtesy
of tone and inflection to which the additional syllable “Sir” could
give no additional grace. It is an important point of training in
etiquette to enforce the truth that the _spirit_ of words and deeds is
the _essence_ of good manners, or good _anything_, in fact.
FAULTY SOCIAL TRAINING.
That society is bad whose members, however tenacious they be of forms
of etiquette and elaborate ceremonials, have one code of manners for
those whom they deem their equals, and another for those whom they
esteem to be of less importance to them by reason of age, pecuniary
condition, or relative social influence, writes Mrs. Sherwood. Bad
manners are apt to prove the concomitant of a mind and disposition that
are none too good, and the woman who slights and wounds people because
they cannot minister to her ambitions, challenges criticism of her own
shortcomings. A girl who is impertinent or careless in her demeanor to
her mother or her mother’s friends; who talks slang; who is careless in
her bearing toward young men; who accepts the attentions of a man of
bad character or dissipated habits; who is loud in dress or manner—such
a girl must be classed as ill-bred and undesirable in good society.
So with a young man who is indifferent to his elders, neglects to
acknowledge invitations, sits while a lady stands, does not speak to
his host; who is selfish, immoral and careless of his reputation. No
matter how rich, or how agreeable to those he may wish to please, he is
to be avoided by a wise host or hostess.
If a young girl comes from a secluded circle, and sees some handsome,
well dressed woman much courted, and observes in her what seems to be
insolent pretence, unkindness, frivolity, and superciliousness, let
her inquire and wait before she accepts her acquaintance. Good society
is the bringing together of the best men and women in a pleasant and
proper way. Good breeding, personal superiority, beauty, genius,
culture, are all estimable things, and every one likes a person of
charming manners; but the best society is that of those who have virtue
and good manners combined.
TACTFUL HOSTESSES.