Manners and Social Usages by Mrs John M. E. W. Sherwood (great book club books TXT) 📖

the Assembly, Patriarchs’, Charity ball, or any public affair,

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