Etiquette, Emily Post [read people like a book txt] 📗
- Author: Emily Post
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In a small country house where dressing-room space is limited, the quaint tables copied from old ones are very useful, screened off at the back of the downstairs hall, or in a very small lavatory. They look, when shut, like an ordinary table, but when the top is lifted a mirror, the height of the table's width, swings forward and a series of small compartments and trays both deep and shallow are laid out on either side. The trays of course are kept filled with hairpins, pins and powder, and the compartments have sunburn lotion and liquid powder, brush, comb and whiskbroom, and whatever else the hostess thinks will be useful.
The Announcement Of Guests
The butler's duty is to stand near the entrance to the reception or drawing-room, and as each guest arrives (unless they are known to him) he asks: "What name, please?" He then leads the way into the room where the hostess is receiving, and says distinctly: "Mr. and Mrs. Jones." If Mrs. Jones is considerably in advance of her husband, he says: "Mrs. Jones!" then waits for Mr. Jones to approach before announcing: "Mr. Jones!"
At a very large party such as a ball, or a very big tea or musical, he does not leave his place, but stands just outside the drawing-room, and the hostess stands just within, and as the guests pass through the door, he announces each one's name.
It is said to be customary in certain places to have waitresses announce people. But in New York guests are never announced if there are no men servants. At a very large function such as a ball or tea, a hostess who has no butler at home, always employs one for the occasion. If, for instance, she is giving a ball for her daughter, and all the sons and daughters of her own acquaintance are invited, the chances are that not half or even a quarter of her guests are known to her by sight, so that their announcement is not a mere matter of form but of necessity.
The Announcement Of Dinner
When the butler on entering the room to announce dinner, happens to catch the attention of the hostess, he merely bows. Otherwise he approaches within speaking distance and says, "Dinner is served." He never says, "Dinner is ready."
At a large dinner where it is quite a promenade to circle the table in search of one's name, the butler stands just within the dining-room and either reads from a list or says from memory "right" or "left" as the case may be, to each gentleman and lady on approaching. In a few of the smartest houses a leaf has been taken from the practise of royalty and a table plan arranged in the front hall, which is shown to each gentleman at the moment when he takes the envelope enclosing the name of his partner at dinner. This table plan is merely a diagram made in leather with white name cards that slip into spaces corresponding to the seats at the table. On this a gentleman can see exactly where he sits and between whom; so that if he does not know the lady who is to be on his left as well as the one he is to "take in," he has plenty of time before going to the table to ask his host to present him.
At the end of the evening, the butler is always at the front door—and by that time, unless the party is very large, he should have remembered their names, if he is a perfect butler, and as Mr. and Mrs. Jones appear he opens the door and calls down to the chauffeur "Mr. Jones' car!" And in the same way "Mr. Smith's car!" "Miss Gilding's car!" When a car is at the door, the chauffeur runs up the steps and says to the butler: "Miss Gilding's car" or "Mrs. Jones' car." The butler then announces to either Mr. or Mrs. Jones, "Your car, sir," or "Your car, madam," and holds the door open for her to go out, or he may say, "Your car, Miss," if the Gilding car comes first.
Dining-room Service At Private Entertainments
Supper at a ball in a great house (big enough for a ball) is usually in charge of the butler, who by "supper time" is free from his duties of "announcing" and is able to look after the dining-room service. The sit-down supper at a ball is served exactly like a dinner—or a wedding breakfast; and the buffet supper of a dance is like the buffet of a wedding reception.
At a large tea where the butler is on duty "announcing" at the same time that other guests are going into the dining-room for refreshments, the dining-room service has to be handed over to the first footman and his assistants or a capable waitress is equally able to meet the situation. She should have at least two maids with her, as they have to pour all cups of tea and bouillon and chocolate as well as to take away used cups and plates and see that the food on the table is replenished.
At a small tea where ladies perform the office of pouring, one man or maid in the dining-room is plenty, to bring in more hot water or fresh cups, or whatever the table hostesses have need of.
Formal Service Without Men Servants
Many, and very fastidious, people, who live in big houses and entertain constantly, have neither men servants nor employ a caterer, ever. Efficient women take men's places equally well, though two services are omitted. Women never (in New York at least) announce guests or open the doors of motors. But there is no difference whatsoever in the details of the pantry, dining-room, hall or dressing-room, whether the services are performed by men or women. (No women, of course, are ever on duty in the gentlemen's dressing-rooms.)
At an evening party, the door is opened by the waitress, assisted by the parlor-maid who directs the way to the dressing-rooms. The guests, when they are ready to go in the drawing-room, approach the hostess unannounced. A guest who may not be known by sight does not wait for her hostess to recognize her but says at once, "How do you do, Mrs. Eminent, I'm Mrs. Joseph Blank"; or a young girl says, "I am Constance Style" (not "Miss Style," unless she is beyond the "twenties"); or a married woman merely announces herself as "Mrs. Town." She does not add her husband's name as it is taken for granted that the gentleman following her is Mr. Town.
ToC
TEAS AND OTHER AFTERNOON PARTIESTeas
Except at a wedding, the function strictly understood by the word "reception" went out of fashion, in New York at least, during the reign of Queen Victoria, and its survivor is a public or semi-public affair presided over by a committee, and is a serious, rather than a merely social event.
The very word "reception" brings to mind an aggregation of personages, very formal, very dressed up, very pompous, and very learned, among whom the ordinary mortal can not do other than wander helplessly in the labyrinth of the specialist's jargon. Art critics on a varnishing day reception, are sure to dwell on the effect of a new technique, and the comment of most of us, to whom a painting ought to look like a "picture," is fatal. Equally fatal to meet an explorer and not know where or what he explored; or to meet a celebrated author and not have the least idea whether he wrote detective stories or expounded Taoism. On the other hand it is certainly discouraging after studying up on the latest Cretan excavations in order to talk intelligently to Professor Diggs, to be pigeon-holed for the afternoon beside Mrs. Newmother whose interest in discovery is limited to "a new tooth in baby's head."
Yet the difference between a reception and a tea is one of atmosphere only, like the difference in furnishing twin houses. One is enveloped in the heavy gloom of the mid-Victorian period, the other is light and alluring in the fashion of to-day.
A "tea," even though it be formal, is nevertheless friendly and inviting. One does not go in "church" clothes nor with ceremonious manner; but in an informal and every-day spirit, to see one's friends and be seen by them.
The Afternoon Tea With Dancing
The afternoon tea with dancing is usually given to "bring out" a daughter, or to present a new daughter-in-law. The invitations are the same whether one hundred or two thousand are sent out. For instance:
Mrs. Grantham Jones
Miss Muriel Jones
will be at home
on Tuesday, the third of December
from four until seven o'clock
The Fitz-Cherry
Dancing
As invitations to formal teas of this sort are sent to the hostess' "general" visiting list, and very big houses are comparatively few, a ballroom is nearly always engaged at a hotel. Many hotels have a big and a small ballroom, and unless one's acquaintance is enormous the smaller room is preferable.
Too much space for too few people gives an effect of emptiness which always is suggestive of failure; also one must not forget that an undecorated room needs more people to make it look "trimmed" than one in which the floral decoration is lavish. On the other hand, a "crush" is very disagreeable, even though it always gives the effect of "success."
The arrangements are not as elaborate as for a ball. At most a screen of palms behind which the musicians sit (unless they sit in a gallery), perhaps a few festoons of green here and there, and the débutante's own flowers banked on tables where she stands to receive, form as much decoration as is ever attempted.
Whether in a public ballroom or a private drawing-room, the curtains over the windows are drawn and the lights lighted as if for a ball in the evening. If the tea is at a private house there is no awning unless it rains, but there is a chauffeur or coachman at the curb to open motor doors, and a butler, or caterer's man, to open the door of the house before any one has time to ring.
Guests as they arrive are announced either by the hostess' own butler or a caterer's "announcer." The hostess receives everyone as at a ball; if she and her daughter are for the moment standing alone, the new arrival, if a friend, stands talking with them until a newer arrival takes his or her place.
After "receiving" with her mother or mother-in-law for an hour or so, as soon as the crowd thins a little, the débutante or bride may be allowed to dance.
The younger people, as soon as they have shaken hands with the hostess, dance. The older ones sit about, or talk to friends or take tea.
At a formal tea, the tea-table is exactly like that at a wedding reception, in that it is a large table set as a buffet, and is always in charge of the caterer's men, or the hostess' own butler or waitress and assistants. It is never presided over by deputy hostesses.
The Menu Is Limited
Only tea, bouillon, chocolate, bread and cakes are served. There can be all sorts of sandwiches, hot biscuits, crumpets, muffins, sliced cake and little cakes in every variety that a cook or caterer can devise—whatever can come under the head of "bread and cake" is admissible; but nothing else, or it becomes a "reception," and not a "tea." At the end of the table or on a separate table near by, there are bowls or pitchers of orangeade or lemonade or "punch" (meaning in these days something cold that has fruit juice in it) for the dancers, exactly as at a ball.
Guests go to the table and
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