Etiquette by Emily Post (top novels to read .txt) 📖

incidentally, it is the best kind of mental training for him to put all business cares behind him as he closes the door of his office and goes home. When it is said that a husband should not fling all the day's trifling annoyances into the lap of his wife without reflecting that she may have some cares of her own, there is no intention to indicate that a wife should not have a thorough understanding of her husband's affairs. Complete acquaintance and sympathy with his work is one of the foundation stones of the domestic edifice.

The Family At Table

Whether "there is company" or whether the family is alone, the linen must be as spotless, the silver as clean, and the table as carefully set as though twenty were coming for dinner. Sloppy service is no more to be tolerated every day at home than at a dinner party, and in so far as etiquette is concerned, you should live in exactly the same way whether there is company or none. "Company manners" and "every-day manners" must be identical in service as well as family behavior. You may not be able to afford quantities of flowers in your house and on your table, or perhaps any, but there is no excuse for wilted flowers or an empty vase that merely accentuates your table's flowerlessness. There are plenty of table ornaments that need no flowers. In the same way the compotiers can be filled with candies or conserves of the "everlasting" variety; silver-foiled chocolates or nougat, or gum drops or crystalized ginger or conserved fruits—will keep for months! But the table must be decorated and a certain form observed at the dinner hour; otherwise gray flannel wrapper habits become imminent. Letters, newspapers, books have no place at a dinner table. Reading at table is allowable at breakfast and when eating alone, but a man and his wife should no more read at lunch or dinner before each other or their children than they should allow their children to read before them.

The Table Not A Place For Private Discussion

One very bad habit in many families is the discussion of all of their most intimate affairs at table—entirely forgetting whoever may be waiting on it; and nine times out of ten those serving in the dining-room see no harm (if they feel like it) in repeating what is said. Why should they? It scarcely occurs to them that they were "invisible" and that what was openly talked about at the table was supposed to be a secret!

Apart from the stupidity and imprudence of talking before witnesses, it is bad form to discuss one's private affairs before any one. And it should be unnecessary to add that a man and his wife who quarrel before their children or the servants, deprive the former of good breeding through inheritance, and publish to the latter that they do not belong to the "better class" through any qualification except the possession of a bank account.

Furthermore, parents must never disagree before the children. It simply can't be! Nor can there be an appeal to one parent against the other by a child.

"Father told me to jump down the well!"

"Then you must do it, dear," is the mother's only possible comment. When the child has "jumped down the well," she may pull him out promptly, and she may in private tell her husband what she thinks about his issuing such orders and stand her own ground against them; but so long as parents are living under the same roofs that roof must shelter unity of opinion, so far as any witnesses are concerned.

CHAPTER XXXVII

ToC

TRAVELING AT HOME AND ABROAD

To do nothing that can either annoy or offend the sensibilities of others, sums up the principal rules for conduct under all circumstances—whether staying at home or traveling. But in order to do nothing that can annoy or give offense, it is necessary for us to consider the point of view of those with whom we come in contact; and in traveling abroad it is necessary to know something of foreign customs which affect the foreign point of view, if we would be thought a cultivated and charming people instead of an uncivilized and objectionable one. Before going abroad, however, let us first take up the subject of travel at home.

Since it is not likely that any one would go around the world being deliberately offensive to others, it may be taken for granted that obnoxious behavior is either the fault of thoughtlessness or ignorance—and for the former there is no excuse.

On A Railroad Train

On a railroad train you should be careful not to assail the nostrils of fellow passengers with strong odors of any kind. An odor that may seem to you refreshing, may cause others who dislike it and are "poor travelers" to suffer really great distress. There is a combination of banana and the leather smell of a valise containing food, that is to many people an immediate emetic. The smell of a banana or an orange, is in fact to nearly all bad travelers the last straw. In America where there are "diners" on every Pullman train, the food odors are seldom encountered in parlor cars, but in Europe where railroad carriages are small, one fruit enthusiast can make his traveling companions more utterly wretched than perhaps he can imagine. The cigar which is smoldering has, on most women, the same effect. Certain perfumes that are particularly heavy, make others ill. To at least half of an average trainful of people, strong odors of one kind or another are disagreeable if not actually nauseating.

Children On Trains

People with children are most often the food-offenders. Any number not only let small children eat continuously so that the car is filled with food odors, but occasional mothers have been known to let a child with smeary fingers clutch a nearby passenger by the dress or coat and seemingly think it cunning! Those who can afford it, usually take the drawing-room and keep the children in it. Those who are to travel in seats should plan diversions for them ahead of time; since it is unreasonable to expect little children to sit quietly for hours on end by merely telling them to "be good." Two little girls on the train to Washington the other day were crocheting doll's sweaters with balls of worsted in which were wound wrapped and disguised "prizes." The amount of wool covering each might take perhaps a half hour to use up. They were allowed the prize only when the last strand of wool around it was used. They were then occupied for a while with whatever it was—a little book, or a puzzle, or a game. When they grew tired of its novelty, they crocheted again until they came to the next prize. In the end they had also new garments for their dolls.

Ladies Do Not Travel With Escorts

In a curiously naïve book on etiquette appeared a chapter purporting to give advice to a "lady" traveling for an indefinite number of days with a gentleman escort! That any lady could go traveling for days under the protection of a gentleman is at least a novelty in etiquette. As said elsewhere, in fashionable society an "escort" is unheard of, and in decent society a lady doesn't go traveling around the country with a gentleman unless she is outside the pale of society, in which case social convention, at least, is not concerned with her.

Ladies are sometimes accompanied on short, direct trips by gentlemen of their acquaintance, but not for longer than a few hours.

If a lady traveling alone on a long journey, such as a trip across the continent, happens to find a gentleman on board whom she knows, she must not allow him to sit with her in the dining-car more often than a casual once or twice, nor must she allow him to sit with her or talk to her enough to give a possible impression that they are together. In fact she would be more prudent to take her meals by herself, as it is scarcely worth running the risk of other passengers' criticism for the sake of having companionship at a meal or two. If, on a short trip, a gentleman asks a lady, whom he knows, to lunch with him in the dining-car, there is no reason why she shouldn't.

The Young Woman Traveling Alone

In America, a young woman can go across every one of our thousands upon thousands of railed miles without the slightest risk of a disagreeable occurrence if she is herself dignified and reserved. She should be particularly careful if she is young and pretty not to allow strange men to "scrape an acquaintance" with her. If a stranger happens to offer to open a window for her, or get her a chair on the observation platform, it does not give him the right to more than a civil "thank you" from her. If, in spite of etiquette, she should on a long journey drift into conversation with an obviously well-behaved youth, she should remember that talking with him at all is contrary to the proprieties, and that she must be doubly careful to keep him at a formal distance. There is little harm in talking of utterly impersonal subjects—but she should avoid giving him information that is personal.

Every guardian should also warn a young girl that if, when she alights at her destination, her friends fail to meet her, she should on no account accept a stranger's offer, whether man or woman, to drive her to her destination. The safest thing to do is to walk. If it is too far, and there is no "official" taxicab agent belonging to the railroad company, she should go to the ticket seller or some one wearing the railroad uniform and ask him to select a vehicle for her. She should never—above all in a strange city where she does not even know her direction—take a taxi on the street.

Registering In A Hotel

A gentleman writes in the hotel register:

"John Smith, New York."

Under no circumstances "Mr." or "Hon." if he is alone. But if his wife is with him, the prefix to their joint names is correct:

"Mr. and Mrs. John Smith, New York."

He never enters his street and house number. Neither "John Smith and Wife" nor "John Smith and Family" are good form. If he does not like the "Mr." before his name he can sign his own without, on one line, and then write "Mrs. Smith" on the one below. The whole family should be registered: