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

mud and the dirty streets. “Yes,” said

the lady, “but it is very bright overhead.” “I am not going that

way,” replied the gentleman.

 

A gentleman should not be urged to stay when he calls. He has

generally but five minutes in which to express a desire that old

and pleasant memories shall be continued, that new and cordial

friendships shall be formed, and after that compliment, which

every wall-bred man pays a lady, “How remarkably well you are

looking to-day!” he wishes to be off.

 

In France it is the custom for a gentleman to wear a dress-coat

when calling on a great public functionary on New-Year’s day, but

it is not so in America. Here he should, wear the dress in which

he would make an ordinary morning visit. When he enters a room he

should not remove his gloves, nor should he say, as he greets his

hostess, “Excuse my glove.” He should take her gloved hand in his

and give it a cordial pressure, according to our pleasant American

fashion. When leaving, the ceremony is very brief—simply,

“Good-morning,” or “Good-evening,” as the case may be.

 

It is proper for gentlemen to call late in the evening of

New-Year’s day, and calls are made during the ensuing evenings by

people who are otherwise occupied in the daytime. If the family

are at dinner, or the lady is fatigued with the day’s duties, the

servant must say at the door that Mrs._____ desires to be excused.

He must not present the card to her, and thus oblige her to send

to her visitor a message which might be taken as a personal

affront. But she must have the servant instructed to refuse all at

certain hours; then none can be offended.

 

Many ladies in New York are no longer “at home” on New-Year’s day;

and when this is the case a basket is tied at the door to receive

cards. They do this because so many gentlemen have given up the

custom of calling that it seems to be dying out, and all their

preparations for a reception become a hollow mockery. How many

weary women have sat with novel in hand and luncheon-table spread,

waiting for the callers who did not come! The practice of sending

cards to gentlemen, stating that a lady would be at home on

New-Year’s day, has also very much gone out of fashion, owing to

the fact that gentlemen frequently did not respond to them.

 

It is, however, proper that a married lady returning to her home

after a long absence in Europe, or one who has changed her

residence, or who is living at a hotel or boarding-house (or who

is visiting friends), should send her card to those gentlemen whom

she wishes to receive. It must be remembered that many gentlemen,

generally those no longer young, still like very much the fashion

of visiting on New-Year’s day, and go to see as many people as

they can in a brief winter’s sunshine. These gentlemen deplore the

basket at the door, and the decadence of the old custom in New

York. Family friends and old friends, those whom they never see at

any other time, are to be seen—or they should be seen, so these

old friends think—on New-Year’s day.

 

A personal call is more agreeable than a card. Let a gentleman

call, and in person, or take no notice of the day. So say the most

trustworthy authorities, and their opinion has an excellent

foundation of common-sense.

 

Could we only go back to the old Dutch town where the custom

started, where all animosities were healed, all offences

forgotten, on New-Year’s day, when the good Dutch housewives made

their own cakes and spiced the loving-cup, when all the women

stayed at home to receive and all the men called, what a different

New-Year’s day we should enjoy in New York. Nowadays, two or three

visitors arrive before the hostess is ready to receive them; then

one comes after she has appeared, vanishes, and she remains alone

for two hours; then forty come. She remembers none of their names,

and has no rational or profitable conversation with any of them.

 

But for the abusers of New-Year’s day, the pretenders who, with no

right to call, come in under cover of the general hospitality of

the season—the bores, who on this day, as on all days, are only

tiresome—we have no salve, no patent cure. A hostess must receive

them with the utmost suavity, and be as amiable and agreeable as

possible.

 

New-Year’s day is a very brilliant one at Washington. All the

world calls on the President at twelve o’clock; the diplomats in

full dress, officers of the army and navy in full uniform, and the

other people grandly attired. Later, the heads of departments,

cabinet ministers, judges, etc., receive the lesser lights of

society.

 

In Paris the same etiquette is observed, and every clerk calls on

his chief.

 

In a small city or village etiquette manages itself, and ladies

have only to let it be known that they will be at home, with hot

coffee and oysters, to receive the most agreeable kind of

callers—those who come because they really wish to pay a visit,

to express goodwill, and to ask for that expression of friendship

which our reserved Anglo-Saxon natures are so prone to withhold.

 

In New York a few years ago the temperance people made a great

onslaught on ladies who invited young men to drink on New-Year’s

day. It was said to lead to much disorder and intemperance; and

so, from fear of causing one’s brother to sin, many have banished

the familiar punch-bowl. In a number of well-known houses in New

York no luncheon is offered, and a cup of bouillon or coffee and a

sandwich is the usual refreshment in the richest and most stylish

houses. It will be seen, therefore, that it is a day of largest

liberty. There are no longer any sumptuary laws; but it is

impossible to say why ladies of the highest fashion in New York do

not still make it a gala-day. The multiplicity of other

entertainments, the unseen yet all-powerful influence of fashion,

these things mould the world insensibly. Yet in a thousand homes,

thousands of cordial hands will be extended on the great First of

January, and to all of them we wish a Happy New Year.

 

CHAPTER XXVII.

MATIN�ES AND SOIR�ES.

 

A matin�e in America means an afternoon performance at the theatre

of a play or opera. In Europe it has a wider significance, any

social gathering before dinner in France being called a matin�e,

as any party after dinner is called a soir�e.

 

The improper application of another foreign word was strikingly

manifested in the old fashion of calling the President’s evening

receptions levees. The term “levee,” as originally used, meant

literally a king’s getting up. When he arose, and while he was

dressing, such of his courtiers as were privileged to approach him

at this hour gathered in an anteroom-waiting to assist at his

toilet, to wish him good morning, or perhaps prefer a request. In

time this morning gathering grew to be an important court

ceremonial, and some one ignorant of the meaning of the word named

President Jackson’s evening receptions “the President’s levees.”

So with the word matin�e. First used to indicate a day reception

at court, it has now grown to mean a day performance at a theatre.

Sometimes a lady, bolder than her neighbors, issues an invitation

for “a matin�e dansante,” or “a matin�e musicale,” but this

descriptive style is not common.

 

There are many advantages in a morning party. It affords to ladies

who do not go to evening receptions the pleasure of meeting

informally, and is also a well-chosen occasion for introducing a

new pianist or singer.

 

For a busy woman of fashion nothing can be more conveniently timed

than a matin�e, which begins at two and ends at four or half

past. It does not interfere with a five-o’clock tea or a drive in

the park, nor unfit her for a dinner or an evening entertainment.

Two o’clock is also a very good hour for a large and informal

general lunch, if a lady wishes to avoid the expense, formality,

and trouble of a “sit-down” lunch.

 

While the busy ladies can go to a matin�e, the busy gentleman

cannot; and as men of leisure in America are few, a morning

entertainment at a theatre or in society is almost always an

assemblage of women. To avoid this inequality of sex, many ladies

have their matin�es on some one of the national

holidays—Washington’s Birthday, Thanksgiving, or Decoration-day.

On these occasions a matin�e, even in busy New York, is well

attended by gentlemen.

 

When, as sometimes happens, a prince, a duke, an archbishop, an

author of celebrity, a Tom Hughes, a Lord Houghton, a Dean

Stanley, or some descendant of our French allies at Yorktown,

comes on a visit to our country, one of the most satisfactory

forms of entertainment that we can offer to him is a morning

reception. At an informal matin�e we may bring to meet him such

authors, artists, clergymen, lawyers, editors, statesmen, rich and

public-spirited citizens, and beautiful and cultivated women of

society, as we may be fortunate enough to know.

 

The primary business of society is to bring together the various

elements of which it is made up—its strongest motive should be to

lighten up the momentous business of life by an easy and friendly

intercourse and interchange of ideas.

 

But if we hope to bring about us men of mind and distinction, our

object must be not only to be amused but to amuse.

 

To persuade those elderly men who are maintaining the great

American name at its present high place in the Pantheon of nations

to spend a couple of hours at a matin�e, we must offer some

tempting bait as an equivalent. A lady who entertained Dean

Stanley said that she particularly enjoyed her own matin�e given

for him, because through his name she for the first time induced

the distinguished clergy of New York to come to her house.

 

Such men are not tempted by the frivolities of a fashionable

social life that lives by its vanity, its excitement, its rivalry

and flirtation. Not that all fashionable society is open to such

reproach, but its tendency is to lightness and emptiness; and we

rarely find really valuable men who seek it. Therefore a lady who

would make her house attractive to the best society must offer it

something higher than that to which we may give the generic title

fashion. Dress, music, dancing, supper, are delightful

accessories-they are ornaments and stimulants, not requisites. For

a good society we need men and women who are “good company,” as

they say in England—men and women who can talk. Nor is the

advantage all on one side. The free play of brain, taste, and

feeling is a most important refreshment to a man who works hard,

whether in the pulpit or in Wall Street, in the editorial chair or

at the dull grind of authorship. The painter should wash his

brushes and strive for some intercourse of abiding value with

those whose lives differ from his own. The woman who works should

also look upon the divertissements of society as needed

recreation, fruitful, may be, of the best culture.

 

On the other hand, no society is perfect without the elements of

beauty, grace, taste, refinement, and luxury. We must bring all

these varied potentialities together if we would have a real and

living social life. For that brilliant thing that we call society

is a finely-woven fabric of threads of different sizes and colors