Etiquette by Emily Post (top novels to read .txt) 📖
- Author: Emily Post
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The formal acceptance to an invitation, whether it is to a dance, wedding breakfast or a ball, is identical:
Mr. and Mrs. Donald Lovejoy
accept with pleasure
Mr. and Mrs. Smith's
kind invitation for dinner
on Monday the tenth of December
at eight o'clock
The formula for regret:
Mr. Clubwin Doe
regrets extremely that a previous engagement
prevents his accepting
Mr. and Mrs. Smith's
kind invitation for dinner
on Monday the tenth of December
or
Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Kerry
regret that they are unable to accept
Mr. and Mrs. Smith's
kind invitation for dinner
on Monday the tenth of December
In accepting an invitation the day and hour must be repeated, so that in case of mistake it may be rectified and prevent one from arriving on a day when one is not expected. But in declining an invitation it is not necessary to repeat the hour.
Visiting Card Invitations
With the exception of invitations to house-parties, dinners and luncheons, the writing of notes is past. For an informal dance, musical, picnic, for a tea to meet a guest, or for bridge, a lady uses her ordinary visiting card:
To meet
Miss Millicent Gilding
Mrs. John Kindhart
Tues. Jan. 7.
Dancing at 10. o'ck.
350 Park Avenue
or
Wed. Jan. 8.
Bridge at 4. o'ck.
Mrs. John Kindhart
R.s.v.p.
350 Park Avenue
Answers to invitations written on visiting cards are always formally worded in the third person, precisely as though the invitation had been engraved.
Invitations In The Second Person
The informal dinner and luncheon invitation is not spaced according to set words on each line, but is written merely in two paragraphs. Example:
Dear Mrs. Smith:
Will you and Mr. Smith dine with us on Thursday, the seventh of January, at eight o'clock?
Hoping so much for the pleasure of seeing you,
Very sincerely,
Caroline Robinson Town.
The Informal Note Of Acceptance Or Regret
Dear Mrs. Town:
It will give us much pleasure to dine with you on Thursday the seventh, at eight o'clock.
Thanking you for your kind thought of us,
Sincerely yours,
Margaret Smith.
Wednesday.
or
Dear Mrs. Town:
My husband and I will dine with you on Thursday the seventh, at eight o'clock, with greatest pleasure.
Thanking you so much for thinking of us,
Always sincerely,
Margaret Smith.
or
Dear Mrs. Town:
We are so sorry that we shall be unable to dine with you on the seventh, as we have a previous engagement.
With many thanks for your kindness in thinking of us,
Very sincerely,
Ethel Norman.
Invitation To Country House
To an intimate friend:
Dear Sally:
Will you and Jack (and the baby and nurse, of course) come out the 28th (Friday), and stay for ten days? Morning and evening trains take only forty minutes, and it won't hurt Jack to commute for the weekdays between the two Sundays! I am sure the country will do you and the baby good, or at least it will do me good to have you here.
With much love, affectionately,
Ethel Norman.
To a friend of one's daughter:
Dear Mary:
Will you and Jim come on Friday the first for the Worldly dance, and stay over Sunday? Muriel asks me to tell you that Helen and Dick, and also Jimmy Smith are to be here and she particularly hopes that you will come, too.
The three-twenty from New York is the best train—much. Though there is a four-twenty and a five-sixteen, in case Jim is not able to take the earlier one.
Very sincerely,
Alice Jones.
Confirming a verbal invitation:
Dear Helen:
This note is merely to remind you that you and Dick are coming here for the Worldly dance on the sixth. Mother is expecting you on the three-twenty train, and will meet you here at the station.
Affectionately,
Muriel.
Invitation to a house party at a camp:
Dear Miss Strange:
Will you come up here on the sixth of September and stay until the sixteenth? It would give us all the greatest pleasure. There is a train leaving Broadway Station at 8.03 A.M. which will get you to Dustville Junction at 5 P.M. and here in time for supper.
It is only fair to warn you that the camp is very primitive; we have no luxuries, but we can make you fairly comfortable if you like an outdoor life and are not too exacting. Please do not bring a maid or any clothes that the woods or weather can ruin. You will need nothing but outdoor things: walking boots (if you care to walk), a bathing suit (if you care to swim in the lake), and something comfortable rather than smart for evening (if you care to dress for supper). But on no account bring evening, or any good clothes!
Hoping so much that camping appeals to you and that we shall see you on the evening of the sixth,
Very sincerely yours,
Martha Kindhart.
The Invitation By Telephone
Custom which has altered many ways and manners has taken away all opprobrium from the message by telephone, and with the exception of those of a very small minority of letter-loving hostesses, all informal invitations are sent and answered by telephone. Such messages, however, follow a prescribed form:
"Is this Lenox 0000? Will you please ask Mr. and Mrs. Smith if they will dine with Mrs. Grantham Jones next Tuesday the tenth at eight o'clock? Mrs. Jones' telephone number is Plaza, one two ring two."
The answer:
"Mr. and Mrs. Huntington Smith regret that they will be unable to dine with Mrs. Jones on Tuesday the tenth, as they are engaged for that evening.
Or
"Will you please tell Mrs. Jones that Mr. and Mrs. Huntington Smith are very sorry that they will be unable to dine with her next Tuesday, and thank her for asking them."
Or
"Please tell Mrs. Jones that Mr. and Mrs. Huntington Smith will dine with her on Tuesday the tenth, with pleasure."
The formula is the same, whether the invitation is to dine or lunch, or play bridge or tennis, or golf, or motor, or go on a picnic.
"Will Mrs. Smith play bridge with Mrs. Grantham Jones this afternoon at the Country Club, at four o'clock?"
"Hold the wire please * * * Mrs. Jones will play bridge, with pleasure at four o'clock."
In many houses, especially where there are several grown sons or daughters, a blank form is kept in the pantry:
These slips are taken to whichever member of the family has been invited, who crosses off "regret" or "accept" and hands the slip back for transmission by the butler, the parlor-maid or whoever is on duty in the pantry.
If Mr. Smith and Mrs. Jones are themselves telephoning there is no long conversation, but merely:
Mrs. Jones:
"Is that you Mrs. Smith (or Sarah)? This is Mrs. Jones (or Alice). Will you and your husband (or John) dine with us to-morrow at eight o'clock?"
Mrs. Smith:
"I'm so sorry we can't. We are dining with Mabel."
Or
"We have people coming here."
Invitations to a house party are often as not telephoned:
"Hello, Ethel? This is Alice. Will you and Arthur come on the sixteenth for over Sunday?"
"The sixteenth? That's Friday. We'd love to!"
"Will you take the 3:20 train? etc."
"A gem of a house may be no size at all, but its lines are honest, and its painting and window curtains in good taste ... and its bell is answered promptly by a trim maid with a low voice and quiet, courteous manner." [Page 131.]
ToC
THE WELL-APPOINTED HOUSEEvery house has an outward appearance to be made as presentable as possible, an interior continually to be set in order, and incessantly to be cleaned. And for those that dwell within it there are meals to be prepared and served; linen to be laundered and mended; personal garments to be brushed and pressed; and perhaps children to be cared for. There is also a door-bell to be answered in which manners as well as appearance come into play.
Beyond these fundamental necessities, luxuries can be added indefinitely, such as splendor of architecture, of gardening, and of furnishing, with every refinement of service that executive ability can produce. With all this genuine splendor possible only to the greatest establishments, a little house can no more compete than a diamond weighing but half a carat can compete with a stone weighing fifty times as much. And this is a good simile, because the perfect little house may be represented by a corner cut from precisely the same stone and differing therefore merely in size (and value naturally), whereas the house in bad taste and improperly run may be represented by a diamond that is off color and full of flaws; or in some instances, merely a piece of glass that to none but those as ignorant as its owner, for a moment suggests a gem of value.
A gem of a house may be no size at all, but its lines are honest, and its painting and window curtains in good taste. As for its upkeep, its path or sidewalk is beautifully neat, steps scrubbed, brasses polished, and its bell answered promptly by a trim maid with a low voice and quiet courteous manner; all of which contributes to the impression of "quality" evens though it in nothing suggests the luxury of a palace whose opened bronze door reveals a row of powdered footmen.
But the "mansion" of bastard architecture and crude paint, with its brass indifferently clean, with coarse lace behind the plate glass of its golden-oak door, and the bell answered at eleven in the morning by a butler in an ill fitting dress suit and wearing a mustache, might as well be placarded: "Here lives a vulgarian who has never had an opportunity to acquire cultivation." As a matter of fact, the knowledge of how to make a house distinguished both in appearance and in service, is a much higher test than presenting a distinguished appearance in oneself and acquiring presentable manners. There are any number of people who dress well, and in every way appear well, but a lack of breeding is apparent as soon as you go into their houses. Their servants have not good manners, they are not properly turned out, the service is not well done, and the decorations and furnishings show lack of taste and inviting arrangement.
The personality of a house is indefinable, but there never lived a lady of great cultivation and charm whose home, whether a palace, a farm-cottage or a tiny apartment, did not reflect the charm of its owner. Every visitor feels impelled to linger, and is loath to go. Houses without personality are a series of rooms with furniture in them. Sometimes their lack of charm is baffling; every article is "correct" and beautiful, but one has the feeling that the decorator made chalk-marks indicating the exact spot on which each piece of furniture is to stand. Other houses are filled with things of little intrinsic value, often with much that is shabby, or they are perhaps empty to the point of bareness, and yet they have that "inviting" atmosphere, and air of unmistakable quality which is an unfailing indication of high-bred people.
"Becoming" Furniture
Suitability is the test of good taste always. The manner to the moment, the dress to the occasion, the article to the place, the furniture to the background. And yet to combine many periods in one and commit no anachronism, to put something French, something Spanish, something Italian, and something English into an American house and have the result the perfection of American taste—is a feat of legerdemain that has been accomplished time and again.
"The personality of a house is indefinable, but there never lived
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