 CHAPTER XIII TEES AND OTHER AFTERNOON PARTYS Accepted 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 as 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 cannot 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 pigeonholed for the afternoon besides Mrs. New Mother, 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 today. 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 everyday 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 formalities of this sort are sent to the hostess's general visiting list, and very big houses are comparatively few, a ballroom is nearly always engaged in a hotel. Many hotels have a big and a small ballroom, and unless one's acquaintance is enormous, the smaller ballroom 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 debutante'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 door to open motor doors and a butler or caterer's man to open the door of the house before anyone has time to ring. Guests, as they arrive, are announced, either by the hostess's 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 debutante 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 the charge of the caterer's men or the hostess's 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 nearby, there are bowls or pictures 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 help themselves to their own selection of bread and cakes. The chocolate already poured into cups and with whipped cream on top is passed on a tray by a servant. Tea also poured into cups, not mixed, but accompanied by a small pitcher of cream, bowl of sugar, and dish of lemon, is also passed on a tray. A guest taking her plate of food in one hand and her tea or chocolate in the other finds herself a chair somewhere, if possible near a table, so that she can take her tea without discomfort. Afternoon Teas Without Dancing Afternoon Teas Without Dancing are given in honor of visiting celebrities or new neighbors or engaged couples or to warm a new house or, most often, for a house guest from another city. The invitation is a visiting card of the hostess to meet Mrs. So-and-So across the top of it and, January 10, tea at four o'clock in the lower corner opposite the address. At a tea of this description, tea and chocolate may be passed on trays or poured by two ladies, as will be explained below. Unless the person for whom the tea is given is such a celebrity that the tea becomes a reception, the hostess does not stand at the door, but merely near it so that anyone coming in may easily find her. The ordinary afternoon tea given for one reason or another is, in winter, merely and literally, being at home on a specified afternoon with the blinds and curtains drawn, the room lighted as at night, a fire burning and a large tea table spread in the dining room or a small one near the hearth. An afternoon tea in summer is the same, except that artificial light is never used and the table is most often on a veranda. Do come in for a cup of tea. This is Best Society's favorite form of invitation. It is used on nearly every occasion, whether there is to be music or a distinguished visitor, or whether a hostess has merely an inclination to see her friends. She writes on her personal visiting card. Do come in on Friday for a cup of tea and hear Elwin play, or Farish sing, or to meet Senator West, or Lady X. Or even more informally, I have not seen you for so long. Invitations to a tea of this description are never general. A hostess asks either none but close friends or at most her dining list. Sometimes this sort of a tea is so small that she sits behind her own tea table, exactly as she does every afternoon. But if the tea is of any size, from twenty upwards, the table is set in the dining room and two intimate friends of the hostess pour, tea at one end and chocolate at the other. The ladies who pour are always especially invited beforehand and always wear afternoon dresses, with hats, of course, as distinguished from the street clothes of other guests. As soon as a hostess decides to give a tea, she selects two friends for this duty who are, in her opinion, decorative in appearance and also who, this is very important, can be counted on for gracious manners to everyone and under all circumstances. It does not matter if a guest going into the dining room for a cup of tea or chocolate does not know the deputy hostesses who are pouring. It is perfectly correct for a stranger to say, may I have a cup of tea? The one pouring should answer very responsively. Certainly, how do you like it, strong or weak? If the latter, she deluges it with hot water, and again watching for the guest's negative or approval, adds cream or lemon or sugar. Or preferring chocolate, the guest perhaps goes to the other end of the table and asks for a cup of chocolate. The table hostess at that end also says certainly and pours out chocolate. If she is surrounded with people, she smiles as she hands it out, and that is all. But if she is unoccupied and her momentary guest by courtesy is alone, it is mere as good manners on her part to make a few pleasant remarks. Very likely when asked for chocolate, she says, how nice of you! I have been feeling very neglected at my end. Everyone seems to prefer tea. Whereupon the guest ventures that people are afraid of chocolate because it is so fattening or so hot. After an observation or two about the weather, or the beauty of the china, or how good the little cakes look, or the sandwich's taste, the guest finishes her chocolate. If the table hostess is still unoccupied, the guest smiles and slightly nods goodbye, but if the other's attention has been called upon by someone else, she who has finished her chocolate leaves unnoticed. If another lady coming into the dining room is an acquaintance of one of the table hostesses, the new visitor draws up a chair if there is room, and drinks her tea or chocolate at the table. But as soon as she has finished, she should give her place up to a newer arrival, or perhaps a friend appears, and the two take their tea together over in another part of the room, or at vacant places farther down the table. The tea table is not set with places, but at a table where ladies are pouring, and especially at a tea that is informal, a number of chairs are usually ready to be drawn up for those who like to take their tea at the table. In many cities, strangers who find themselves together in the house of a friend in common always talk. In New York, smart people always do at dinners or luncheons, but never at a general entertainment. Their cordiality to a stranger would depend largely upon the informal or intimate quality of the tea-party. It would depend on who the stranger might be and who the New Yorker. Mrs. Worley would never dream of speaking to anyone, no matter whom if it could be avoided. Mrs. Kindheart, on the other hand, talks to everyone everywhere and always. This kindheart position is as good as Mrs. Worley's every bit, but perhaps she can be more relaxed, not being the conspicuous hostess that Mrs. Worley is. She is not so besieged by position-makers and invitation-seekers. Perhaps Mrs. Worley, finding that nearly everyone who approaches her wants something, has come instinctively to avoid each new approach. The Everyday Afternoon Tea Table The Everyday Afternoon Tea Table is familiar to everyone. There is not the slightest difference in its service, whether in the tiny band-box house of the newest bride, or in the drawing-room of Mrs. Worley of Great Estates, except that in the little house the tray is brought in by a woman, often a picture in appearance and appointment, instead of a butler with one or two footmen in his wake. In either case a table is placed in front of the hostess. A tea-table is usually of the drop-leaf variety because it is more easily moved than a solid one. There are really no correct dimensions. Any small table is suitable. It ought not to be so high that the hostess seems submerged behind it, nor so small as to be overhung by the tea-tray and easily knocked over. It is usually between twenty-four and twenty-six inches wide and from twenty-seven to thirty-six inches long, or it may be oval or a long. A double-deck table that has its second deck above the main table is not good because the tea-tray perched on the upper deck is neither graceful nor convenient. In proper serving not only if tea but of cold drinks of all sorts, even where a quantity of bottles, pitchers, and glasses need space, everything should be brought on a tray and not trundled in on a tea-wagon. A cloth must always be first placed on the table before putting down the tray. The tea cloth may be a yard, a yard-and-a-half, or two-yard square. It may barely cover the table, or it may hang half a yard over each edge. A yard-and-a-quarter is the average size. A tea cloth can be colored, but the conventional one is of white linen, with little or much white needlework or lace or both. On this is put a tray big enough to hold everything except the plates of food. The tray may be a massive silver one that requires a footman with strong arms to lift it, or it may be a sheffield or merely of effectively lacquered tin. In any case, on it should be a kettle, which ought to be already boiling with a spirit lamp under it, an empty teapot, a caddy of tea, a tea strainer and slot bowl, cream-pitcher and sugar bowl, and, on a glass dish, lemon and slices. A pile of cups and saucers and a stack of little tea-plates all to match with a napkin, about 12 inches square, hemstitched or edged to match the tea cloth, folded on each of the plates, like the filling of a layer cake, complete the paraphernalia. Each plate is lifted off with its own napkin. Then on the tea-table, back of the tray, or on the shelves of a separate currant, a stand made of three small shelves, each just big enough for one good-sized plate, are always two, usually three, varieties of cake and hot breads. Things People Eat at Tea The top dish on the currant should be a covered one, and holds hot bread of some sort. The two lower dishes may be covered or not, according to whether the additional food is hot or cold. The second dish usually holds sandwiches and the third cake. Or perhaps all the dishes hold cake, little fancy cakes, for instance, and pastries and slices of layer cakes. Many prefer a simpler diet and have bread and butter, or toasted crackers, supplemented by plain cookies. Others pile the currant until it literally staggers, under pastries and cream cakes and sandwiches of potato foie gras or mayonnaise. Others again, like marmalade or jam, or honey on bread and butter, or on buttered toast or muffins. This necessitates little butter knives, and a dish of jam added to the already overloaded tea tray. One of afternoon tea food is entirely a matter of whim, and new food fads sweep through communities. For a few months at a time, everyone, whether in a private house or a country club, will eat nothing but English muffins and jam. Then suddenly they like only toasted cheese crackers, or sally lun, or chocolate cake with whipped cream on top. The present fad of a certain group in New York is bacon and toast sandwiches and fresh hot gingerbread. Would it be hoped for the sake of the small household that it will die out rather than become epidemic, since the gingerbread must be baked every afternoon, and the toast and bacon are two other items that come from a range? Sandwiches for afternoon tea, as well as for all colations, are made by buttering the end of the loaf, spreading on the filling, and then cutting off the prepared slice as thin as possible. A second slice, unspread, makes the other side of the sandwich. When it is put together, the crust is either cut off, leaving a square, and the square is again divided diagonally into two triangular sandwiches, or the sandwich is cut into shape with a regular cutter. In other words, a party sandwich is not the sort of sandwich to eat, or order when hungry. The tea served to a lady who lives alone, and cares for only one dish of eatables, would naturally eliminate the other two. But if a visitor is received, the servant on duty should, without being told, at once bring in at least another dish and an additional cup, saucer, plate, and napkin. Afternoon tea at a very large house party, or where especially invited people are expected for tea, should include two plates of hot food, such as toast or hot biscuits split open and buttered, toasted and buttered English muffins, or crumpets, corn muffins, or hot gingerbread. Two cold plates should contain cookies or fancy cakes, and perhaps a layer cake. In hot weather, in place of one of the hot dishes, there should be pâté or lettuce sandwiches, and always a choice of hot or iced tea, or perhaps iced coffee or chocolate frappé, but rarely, if ever, anything else. The Etiquette of Tea Serving and Drinking As tea is the one meal of intimate conversation, a servant never comes to the room at tea time unless wrong for, to bring fresh water or additional china or food, or to take away used dishes. When the tray and curator brought in, individual tables, usually glass-topped, and very small and low, are put beside each of the guests, and the servant then withdraws. The hostess herself makes the tea and pours it. Those who sit near enough to her put out their hands for their cup and saucer. If any ladies are sitting farther off and a gentleman is present, he, of course, rises and takes the tea from the hostess to the guest. He also then passes the curate, afterward putting it back where it belongs and resuming his seat. If no gentleman is present, a lady gets up and takes her own tea, which the hostess hands her, carries it to her own little individual table, comes back, takes a plate and napkin, helps herself to what she likes, and goes to her place. If the cake is very soft and sticky or filled with cream, small forks must be laid on the tea-table. As said above, if jam is to be eaten on toast or bread, there must be little butter-knives to spread it with. Each guest, in taking her plate, helps herself to toast and jam and a knife, and carries her plate over to her own little table. She then carries her cup of tea to her table, and sits down comfortably to drink it. If there are no little tables, she either draws her chair up to the tea-table, or manages as best she can to balance plate, cup, and saucer on her lap, a very difficult feat. In fact, the hostess who, providing no individual tables, expects her guest to balance knife, fork, jam, cream-cake, plate, and cup, and saucer, all on her knees, should choose her friends in the circus rather than in society. The Garden Party The Garden Party is merely an afternoon tea out of doors. It may be as elaborate as a sit-down wedding breakfast, or as simple as a miniature strawberry festival. At an elaborate one, in the rainy section of our country, a tent or marquise with sides that can be easily drawn up in fine weather and dropped in rain, and with a good dancing floor, is often put up on the lawn or next to the veranda, so that in case of storm people will not be obliged to go out of doors. The orchestra is placed within or near open sides of the tent, so that it can be heard on the lawn and veranda as well as where they are dancing. Or instead of tea with dancing, if most of the guests are to be older, there may be a concert or other form of professional entertainment. On the lawn there are usually several huge bright-coloured umbrellatents, and under each a table and a group of chairs, and here and there numerous small tables and chairs. For although the afternoon tea is always put in the dining room, footmen or maids carry varieties of food out on large trays to the lawn, and the guests hold plates on their knees and stand glasses on nearby tables. At a garden party the food is often much more prodigal than at a tea in town. Sometimes it is as elaborate as at a wedding reception. In addition to hot tea and chocolate there is either iced coffee or a very melted café parfait or frosted chocolate in cups. There are also pictures of various drinks that have rather mysterious ingredients, but are all very much iced and embellished with crushed fruits and mint leaves. There are often berries with cream, especially in strawberry season, on an estate that prides itself on those of its own growing, as well as the inevitable array of fancy sandwiches and cakes. At teas and musicals and all entertainments where the hostess herself is obliged to stand at the door, her husband or a daughter, if the hostess is old enough and lucky enough to have one, or else a sister or a very close friend should look after the guests to see that any who are strangers are not helplessly wandering about alone and that elderly ladies are given seats if there is to be a performance, or to show any other courtesies that devolve upon a hostess. The Atmosphere of Hospitality The atmosphere of hospitality is something very intangible, and yet nothing is more actually felt or missed. There are certain houses that seem to radiate warmth like an open wood fire. There are others that suggest an arrival by wireless at the North Pole, even though a much brighter actual fire may be burning on the hearth in the drawing-room of the second than of the first. Some people have the gift of hospitality. Others whose intentions are just as kind and whose houses are perfection and luxury of appointments seem to petrify at every approach. Such people appearing at a picnic color the entire scene with the blue light of their austerity. Such people are usually not masters but slaves of etiquette. Their chief concern is whether this is correct or whether that is properly done, or is this person or that such a one as they care to know. They seem, like Hermione, Don Marquise's heroine, to be anxiously asking themselves, have I failed today or have I not? Introspective people who are fearful of others, fearful of themselves, are never successfully popular hosts or hostesses. If you, for instance, are one of these, if you are really afraid of knowing someone who might someday prove unpleasant, if you are such a snob that you can't take people at their face value, then why make the effort to bother with people at all? Why not shut your front door tight, and pull down the blinds, and sitting before a mirror in your own drawing-room order tea for two? CHAPTER XIV. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Clareca. At a kitten society, in business, in politics, and at home, by Emily Post. CHAPTER XIV PART I. FORMAL DINNERS. NOT FOR THE NOVICE TO ATTEMPT. If the great world of society were a university, which issued degrees to those whom it trains to its usages, the magna whom Lauday honors would be awarded without question, not to the hostess who may have given the most marvelous ball of the decade, but to her who knows best every component detail of preparation and service, no less than any inexorable rule of etiquette in formal dinner-giving. To give a perfect dinner of ceremony is the supreme accomplishment of a hostess. It means not alone perfection of furnishing, of service, of culinary skill, but also of personal charm, of tact. The only other occasion when a hostess must have equal, and possibly even greater ability is the large and somewhat formal weekend party, which includes a dinner or two as by no means its least formidable features. There are so many aspects to be considered in dinner-giving that it is difficult to know whether to begin upstairs or down, or with furnishing, or service, or people or manners. One thing is certain no novice should ever begin her social career by attempting a formal dinner, any more than a pupil-swimmer, upon being able to take three strokes alone, should attempt to swim three miles out to sea. The former will as surely drown as the latter. How a dinner is given in a great house. When Mrs. Whirly gives a dinner, it means no effort on her part whatsoever beyond deciding upon the date and the principal guests who are to form the nucleus. Every further detail is left to her subordinates, even to the completion of her list of guests. For instance, she decides that she will have an old dinner, and finding that the tenth is available for herself, she tells her secretary to send out invitations for that date. She does not have a special cards engraved, but uses the dinner blank described in the chapter on invitations. She then looks through her dinner list and orders her secretary to invite the old worlds, the eminence, the learneds, the well-borns, the highbrows, and the once-wors. She also picks out three or four additional names to be substituted for those who regret. When turning to the younger married list, she searches for a few suitable but amusing or good-looking ones to give life to her dinner which might otherwise be heavy, but her favorites do not seem appropriate. It will not do to ask the Bobo Gildings, not because of the difference in age, but because Lucy Gilding smokes like a furnace, and is miserable unless she can play bridge for high stakes, and, just as soon as she can bolt through dinner, set at a card-table, while Mrs. Highbrow and Mrs. One's were quite possibly disapprove of women's smoking, and are surely horrified at gambling. The smartlings won't do either for the same reason, nor the gailies. She can't ask the new old riches either, because Mrs. Old World and Mrs. Well-Born both dislike vulgarity too much to find compensation in qualities which are merely amusing. So she ends by adding her own friends, the kind-hearts, and the normans, who go with everyone, and a few somewhat younger people, and approves her secretary's suggestions as to additional names if those first invited should regret. The list being settled, Mrs. Worldley's own work is done. She sends word to her cook that there will be twenty-four on the tenth. The menu will be submitted to her later, which she will probably merely glance at and send back. She never sees or thinks about her table, which is in the Butler's Province. On the morning of the dinner her secretary brings her the place cards, the name of each person expected, written on a separate card, and she puts them in the order in which they are to be placed on the table, very much as though playing solitaire. Starting with her own card at one end and her husband's at the other, she first places the Lady of Honor on his right, the second in importance on his left. Then, on either side of herself, she puts the two most important gentlemen, the others she fits in between, trying to see side by side those congenial to each other. When the cards are arranged, the secretary attends to putting the name of the Lady, who sits on each gentleman's right, in the envelope addressed to him. She then picks up the place cards still stacked in their proper sequence, and takes them to the Butler, who will put them in the order arranged on the table after it is set. Fifteen minutes before the dinner hour Mrs. Worldley is already standing in her drawing room. She has no personal responsibility other than that of being hostess, the whole machinery of equipment and service seemingly runs by itself. It does not matter whether she knows what the menu is. Her cook is more than capable of attending to it. That the table shall be perfect is merely the everyday duty of the Butler. She knows without looking that one of the chauffeurs is on the sidewalk, that footmen are in the hall, that her own maid is in the Lady's dressing-room, and the valet in that of the gentleman, and that her Butler is just outside the door near which she is standing. So with nothing on her mind, except a jeweled ornament and perfectly done hair, she receives her guests with the tranquility attained only by those whose household, whether great or small, can be counted on to run like a perfectly coordinated machine. How a Dinner Can Be Bungled This is the contrasting picture to the dinner at the Worldley's, a picture to show you, particularly who are a bride, how awful an experiment in dinner giving can be. But a suppose that you have a quite charming house, and that your wedding presents included everything necessary to set a well-appointed table. You have not very experienced servants, but they would all be good ones with a little more training. You have been at home for so few meals you don't quite know how experienced they are. Your cook at least makes good coffee and eggs and toast for breakfast, and the few other meals she has cooked seem to be all right, and she is such a nice clean person. So when your house is in order, and the last pictures and curtains are hung, the impulse suddenly comes to you to give a dinner. Your husband thinks it is a splendid idea. It merely remains to decide whom you will ask. You hesitate between a few of your own intimates, or older people, and decide it would be such fun to ask a few of the hostesses whose houses you have almost lived at ever since you came out. You decide to ask Mrs. Toplofty, Mr. Club window, the Worldley's, the Gildings, and the kindhearts and the well-borns, with yourselves that makes twelve. You can't have more than twelve because you have only a dozen of everything. In fact, you decide that twelve will be pretty crowded, but that it will be safe to ask that number because a few are sure to regret. So you write notes, since it is to be a formal dinner. And they all accept. You are a little worried about the size of the dining room, but you are overcome by the feeling of your popularity. Now the thing to do is to prepare for a dinner. The fact that Nora probably can't make fancy dishes does not bother you a bit. In your mind's eye you see delicious plain food past. You must get Sigrid addressed that properly fits her, and Delia, the chambermaid, who was engaged with the understanding that she was to serve in the dining room when there was company, has not yet been at table, but she is a very willing young person who will surely look well. Nora, when you tell her who are coming, eagerly suggests the sort of menu that would appear on the table of the worldlies or the gildings. You are thrilled at the thought of your own kitchen producing the same. That it may be the same in name only does not occur to you. You order flowers for the table, and candy for your four compoteers. You pick out your best tablecloth, but you find, rather to your amazement, that when the waitress asks you about setting the table, you have never noticed in detail how the places are laid. Knives and spoons go on the right of the plate, of course, and forks on the left, but which goes next to the plate, or whether the wine glasses should stand nearer or beyond the goblet you can only guess. It is quite simple, however, to give directions in serving. You just tell the chambermaid that she is to follow the waitress, and pass the sauces and the vegetables, and you have already explained carefully to the latter that she must not deal plates around the table like a pack of cards, or ever take them off in piles, either. That much, at least you do know. You also make it a point above everything that the silver must be very clean. Sigurd seems to understand, and with the optimism of youth, you approach the dinner hour without misgiving. The table, set with your wedding silver and glass, looks quite nice. You are a little worried about the silver. It does look rather yellow, but perhaps it is just a shadow. Then you notice there are a great many forks on the table. You ask your husband what is the matter with the forks. He does not see anything wrong. You need them all for the dinner you ordered. How can there be less? So you straighten a candlestick that was out of line, and put the place cards on. Then you go into the drawing-room. You don't light the fire until the last moment, because you want it to be burning brightly when your guests arrive. Your drawing-room looks a little stiff somehow, but an open fire more than anything else makes a room inviting, and you light it just as your first guest rings the bell. As Mr. Club window enters, the room looks charming, then suddenly the fire smokes, and in the midst of the smoke your other guests arrive. Everyone begins to cough and blink. They are very polite, but the smoke growing each moment denser is not to be overlooked. Mrs. Toplofty takes matters into her own hands, and makes Mr. Doe and your husband carry the logs, smoke and all, and throw them into the yard. The room still thick with smoke is now cheerlessly fireless, and another factor beginning to distress you is that, although everyone has arrived, there is no sign of dinner. You wait, at first merely eager to get out of the smoke-filled drawing-room. Gradually you are becoming nervous. What can have happened? The dining-room door might be that of a tomb for all the evidence of life behind it. You become really alarmed. Is dinner never going to be served? Everyone's eyes are red from the smoke, and conversation is getting weaker and weaker. Mrs. Toplofty, evidently despairing, sits down. Mrs. Whirly also sits, both hold their eyes shut and say nothing. At last the dining-room door opens, and Sigrid, instead of bowing slightly and saying in a low tone of voice, dinner is served, stands stiff as a block of wood, and fairly shouts, dinner's all ready. You hope no one hurt her, but you know very well that nothing escaped any one of those present, and between the smoke and the delay and your waitress's manners, you are already thoroughly mortified by the time you reach the table, but you hope that at least the dinner will be good. For the first time you are assailed with doubt on that score, and again you wait, but the oyster course is all right, and then comes the soup. You don't have to taste it to see that it is wrong. It looks not at all as a clear soup should. Its color, instead of being glass-clear amber, is greasy-looking brown. You taste it, fearing the worst, and the worst is realized. It tastes like dish-water, and is barely tepid. You look around the table. Your kind heart alone is trying to eat it. And removing the plates, Delia, the assistant, takes them up by piling one on top of the other, clashing them together as she does so. You can feel Mrs. Whirly looking with almost hypnotized fascination as her attention might be drawn to a street accident against her will. Then there is a wait. You wait in wait, and, looking in front of you, you notice the bare tablecloth without a plate. You know instantly that the service is wrong, but you find yourself puzzled to know how it should have been done. Finally Sigrid comes in with a whole dozen plates stacked in a pile, which she proceeds to deal around the table. You at least know that to try and interfere would only make matters worse. You hold your own cold fingers in your lap, knowing that you must sit there and that you can do nothing. The fish which was to have been a mousse with hollandaise sauce is a huge mound, much too big for the platter, with a narrow gutter of water around the edge, and the center dabbed over with a curdled yellow mass. You realize that not only is the food itself awful, but that the quantity is too great for one dish. You don't know what to do next. You know there is no use in apologizing. There is no way of dropping through the floor or waking yourself up. You have collected the smartest and the most critical people around your table to put them to torture such as they will never forget. Never. You have to bite your lips to keep from crying. Never possessed you to ask these people to your horrible house. Mr. Kindheart, sitting next to you, says gently, cheer up, little girl, it doesn't really matter. And then you know to the full how terrible the situation is. The meal is endless, each course is equally unappetizing to look at, and abominably served. You notice that none of your guests eat anything. They can't. You leave the table literally sick, but realizing fully that the giving of a dinner is not as easy as you thought. And in the drawing-room, which is now fireless and freezing, but at least smokeless, you start to apologize and burst into tears. As you are very young and those present are all really fond of you, they try to be comforting, but you know that it will be years, if ever, before any of them will be willing to risk an evening in your house again. You also know that without malice, but in truth and frankness they will tell everyone. Whatever you do, don't wind with the new-weds unless you eat your dinner before you go, and wear black glasses so no sight can offend you. When they have all gone, you drag yourself miserably upstairs, feeling that you never want to look in that drawing-room or dining-room again. Your husband, remembering the trenches, tries to tell you it was not so bad, but you know. You lie awake planning to let the house and to discharge each one of your awful household the next morning, and then you realize that the fault is not a bit more theirs than yours. If you had tried the chimney first and learned its peculiarities, if you yourself had known every detail of cooking and service, of course you would not have attempted to give the dinner in the first place. Not at least until, through giving little dinners, the technique of your household had become good enough to give a big one. On the other hand, supposing that you had a very experienced cook and waitress, dinner would, of course, not have been bungled, but it would have lacked something somewhere if you added nothing of your own personality to its perfection. It is almost safe to make the statement that no dinner is ever really well done unless the hostess herself knows every smallest detail thoroughly. Mrs. worldly pays seemingly no attention, but nothing escapes her. She can walk through a room without appearing to look either to the right or left, yet if the slightest detail is a miss, an ornament out of place, or there is one dull button on a footman's livery, her house telephone is rung at once. Having generalized by drawing two pictures, it is now time to take up the specific details to be considered in giving a dinner. Detailed Directions for Dinner Giving The requisites at every dinner, whether a great one of two hundred covers or a little one of six, are as follows. Guests, people who are congenial to one another. This is of first importance. Food, a suitable menu perfectly prepared and dished. Hot food to be hot and cold cold. Table furnishing, faultlessly laundered linen, brilliantly polished silver, and all other table accessories suitable to the occasion and surroundings. Service, expert dining-room servants and enough of them. Drawing-room, adequate in size to number of guests and inviting in arrangement. A cordial and hospitable host. A hostess of charm. Charm says everything. Tacked, sympathy, poise, and perfect manners. Always. And though for all dinners these requisites are much the same, the necessity for perfection increases in proportion to the formality of the occasion. Taste in Selection of People The proper selection of guests is the first essential in all entertaining, and the hostess who has a talent for assembling the right people has a great asset. Taste in house furnishings, or in clothes, or in selecting a cook, is as nothing compared to taste in people. Some people have this sense, others haven't. The first are the great hosts and hostesses. The others are the mediocre or the failures. It is usually a mistake to invite great talkers together. Brilliant men and women who love to talk want hearers, not rivals. Every silent people should be sandwiched between good talkers, or at least valuable talkers. Silly people should never be put anywhere near learned ones, nor the dull near the clever, unless the dull one is a young and pretty woman with a talent for listening, and the clever a man with admiration for beauty and a love for talking. Most people think two brilliant people should be put together. Often they should, but with discretion. If both are valuable or nervous or temperamental, you may create a situation like putting two operatic sopranos in the same part and expecting them to sing together. The endeavour of a hostess, when seating her table, is to put those together who are likely to be interesting to each other. Professor Bug might bore you to tears, but Mrs. Entomoid would probably delight in him, just as Mr. Stockman bonds and Mrs. Rich would probably have interests in common. Making a dinner list is a little like making a Christmas list. Down what they will, you hope like, not what you like. Those who are placed between congenial neighbours remember your dinner as delightful, even though both food and service were mediocre, but ask people out of their own groups and seat them next to their pet aversions, and wild horses could not drag them to your house again. How a dinner list is kept. Nearly every hostess keeps a dinner list, apart from her general visiting list, of people with whom she is accustomed to dine, or to invite to dinners or other small entertainments. But the prominent hostess, if she has grown daughters and continually gives parties of all sorts in sizes and ages, usually keeps her list in a more complete and ready reference order. Mrs. Gilding, for instance, has guest lists separately indexed. Under the general heading dinners, she has older married, younger married, girls, men. Her lunch and list is taken from her dinner list. Bridge includes especially good players of all ages. Mrs. Young married people, young girls, and dancing men. Then she has a cross-index list of important persons, meaning those of real distinction who are always the foundation of all good society. Amusing, usually people of talent, invaluable for house parties, and new people, including many varieties and unassorted. Mrs. Gilding exchanges invitations with a number of these because they are interesting or amusing, or because their parties are diverting and dazzling, and Mrs. Gilding herself, being typical of New York's Cavalier element rather than its Puritan strain, personally prefers diversion to edification. Needless to say, Boston's best, being 98% Puritan, has no new list. Beside her list of new people, she has a short frivolous list of other Cavaliers like herself, and a neutral list which is the most valuable of all because it compromises those who go with everyone. Beside her own lists she has a pantry list, a list that is actually made out for the benefit of the butler, so that on occasions he can invite guests to fill in. The pantry list comprises only intimate friends who belong on the neutral list and fit in everywhere, young girls, and young and older single men. Allowing the butler to invite guests at his own discretion is not quite as casual as it sounds. It is very often an unavoidable expedient. For instance, at four o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Blank telephones that he cannot come to dinner that same evening. Mrs. Gilding is out. To wait until she returns will make it too late to fill the place. Her butler who has been with her for years knows quite as well as Mrs. Gilding herself, exactly which people belong in the same group. The dinner cards being already in his possession, he can see not only who is expected for dinner, but the two ladies between whom Mr. Blank has been placed, and he thereupon selects someone of the pantry list, who is suitable for Mr. Blank's place at the table, and telephones the invitation. Perhaps he calls up a dozen before he finds one disengaged. When Mrs. Gilding returns, he says, Mr. Blank telephones he would not be able to come for dinner as he was called to Washington. Mr. Batchelor will be happy to come in his place. Married people are seldom on this list because the butler need not undertake to fill any but an odd place, that of a gentleman particularly, otherwise two ladies would be seated together. Inviting someone to fill a place. Since no one but a fairly intimate friend is ever asked to fill a place, this invitation is always telephoned. A very young man is asked by the butler if he will dine with Mrs. Gilding that evening, and very likely no explanation is made, but if the person to be invited is a lady or an older gentleman, except on such occasions as noted above, the hostess herself telephones. Can you do me a great favour and fill a place at dinner tonight? The one who receives this invitation is rather bound by the rules of good manners to accept if possible. End of Chapter 14 Part 1 Chapter 14 Part 2 of Etiquette This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Clarica. Etiquette and Society in Business in Politics and at Home by Emily Post. Chapter 14 Part 2 Formal Dinners Importance of Dinner Engagements Dinner invitations must be answered immediately. Engraved are written ones by return post, or those which were telephoned by telephone and at once. Also nothing but serious illness or death, or an utterly unavoidable accident can excuse the breaking of a dinner engagement. To accept a dinner at Mrs. Nobody's, and then break the obligation upon being invited to dine with the Worldleys, proclaims anyone capable of such rudeness and unmitigated snob, whom Mrs. Worldly would be the first to cut from her visiting list if she knew of it. The rule is, don't accept an invitation if you don't care about it. Having declined the Nobody invitation in the first place, you are then free to accept Mrs. Worldly's or to stay at home. There are other times, however, when engagements between very close friends or members of the family may perhaps be broken, but only if made with a special stipulation, come to dinner with us alone Thursday if nothing better turns up, and the other answers, I'd love to and you let me know too if you want to do anything else. Meanwhile, if one of them is invited to something unusually tempting there is no rudeness in telephoning her friend. Mrs. Worldly has asked us to hear golly-kirchy on Sunday, and the other says, go by all means, we can dine Tuesday next week if you like, or come Sunday for supper. This privilege of intimacy can, however, be abused. An engagement, even with a member of one's family, ought never to be broken twice within a brief period, or it becomes apparent that the other's presence is more a fill-in of idle time than a longed-for pleasure. The Menu It may be due to the war period which accustomed everyone to going with very little meat, and to marked reduction in all food, or it may be, of course, merely vanity that is causing even grandparents to aspire to spelt figures. But whatever the cause, people are putting much less food on their tables than formerly. The very rich, living in the biggest houses with the most imposing array of servants, sit down to three or at most four courses when alone, or when intimate friends, who are known to have moderate appetites, are dining with them. Under no circumstances would a private dinner, no matter how formal, consist of more than one, or derv, two, soup, three, fish, four, entree, five, roast, six, salad, seven, dessert, eight, coffee. The Menu for an informal dinner would leave out the entree, and perhaps either the hors d'oeuvre or the soup. As a matter of fact, the marked shortening of the menu is in informal dinners and at the home table of the well-to-do. Formal tables have been as short as the above schedule for twenty-five years. A dinner interlarded with a row of extra entrees, Roman punch and hot dessert is unknown except at a public dinner, or in the dining-room of a parvenu. About thirty-five years ago such dinners are said to have been in fashion. The Balanced Menu One should always try to choose well-balanced dishes, an especially rich dish balanced by a simple one. Timble with a very rich sauce of cream and pâté de foie gras might perhaps be followed by French chops, broiled chicken, or some other light, plain meat. An entree of about four broiled mushrooms on a small round of toast should be followed by bon capon, or saddle of mutton, or spring lamb. It is equally bad to give your guests very peculiar food unless as an extra dish. Some people love highly-flavored Spanish or Indian dishes, but they are not appropriate for a formal dinner. At an informal dinner an Indian curry or Spanish enchilada for one dish is delicious for those who like it, and if you have another substantial dish, such as a plain roast, which practically everyone is able to eat, those who don't like Indian food can make their dinner of the other course. It is the same way with the Italian dishes. One hating garlic and onions would be very wretched if onions were put in each and every course, and liberally. With Indian curry a fatally bad selection would be a very peppery soup, such as croute au pot, filled with pepper, and fish with green peppers, and then the curry, and then something casserole, filled again with peppers and onions, and other throat searing ingredients, finishing with an endive salad. Yet more than one hostess has done exactly this. Or equally bad is a dinner of flavorless white sauces from beginning to end. A creamed soup, boiled fish with white sauce, then vol au vent of creamed sweet-breads, followed by breast of chicken and mashed potatoes and cauliflower, palm root salad, vanilla ice cream, and lady-cake. Each thing is good in itself, but dreadful in the monotony of its combination. Another thing. Although a dinner should not be long, neither should it consist of samples, especially if set before men who are hungry. The following menu might seem at first glance a good dinner, but it is one from which the average man would go home and forage ravenously in the ice-box. A can of pay, good, but merely an appetizer. Clear soup, a dinner-party helping, and no substance. One a piece. Individual croutards of sweet-breads, holding about a dessert spoonful. Broiled squab, small potato croquette, and string beans. Let a salad with about one small cracker a piece. Ice cream. The only thing that had any sustaining quality, barring the potato which was not more than a mouthful, was the last, and very few men care to make their dinner of ice cream. If instead of squab there had been a fillet of beef cut in generous slices, and the potato croquettes had been more numerous, it would have been adequate. Or if there had been a thick cream soup, and a fish with more substance such as salmon or shad, or a baked thick fish of which he could have had a generous helping, the squab would have been adequate also. But many women order trimmings rather than food, men usually like food. The dinner table of yesterday. All of us old enough to remember the beginning of this century can bring to mind the typical and most fashionable dinner table of that time. Occasionally it was oblong or rectangular, but its favorite shape was round, and a thick white damask cloth hung to the flora on all sides. Often as not there was a large lace centerpiece, and in the middle of it was a floral mound of roses, like a funeral piece exactly, usually red. The four compoteurs were much scrolled and embossed, and the four candlesticks also scrolled, but not to match, had shades of perforated silver over red silk linings, like those in restaurants today. And there was a gas drop-light thickly petticoated with fringed red silk. The plates were always heavily jeweled and hand-painted, and enough forks and knives and spoons were arrayed at each place for a dozen courses. The glasses numbered at least six, and the entire table was laden with little dishes and spoons. There were olives, radishes, celery, and salted nuts in glass dishes, and about ten kinds of sugar-plums in ten different styles of ornate and bumpy silver dishes, and wherever a small space of tablecloth showed through it was filled with either a big apostle-spoon or little Dutch ones crisscrossed. Bread was always rolled in the napkin, and usually fell on the floor, and the oysters were occasionally found already placed on the table when the guests came in to dinner. Loading a table to the utmost of its capacity with useless implements, which only in rarest circumstances had the least value, would seem to prove that quantity without quality must have been thought evidence of elegance and generous hospitality. And the astounding part of the bad taste epidemic was that few, if any, escaped. Even those who had inherited colonial silver and glass and china of consummate beauty sent it dust-gathering to the attic and cluttered their tables with stuffy and spurious lumber. But today the classic has come into its own again. As though recovering from an illness, good taste is again demanding severe beauty of form and line, and banishing everything that is useless or superfluous. During the last twenty years most of us has sent an army of lumpy dishes to the melting-pot, and junky ornaments to the ash-sheep, along with plush table covers, upholstered mantel boards, and fern dishes. Today we are going almost to the extreme of bareness and putting nothing on our tables not actually needed for use. The dining-room. It is scarcely necessary to point out that the bigger and more ambitious the house, the more perfect its appointments must be. If your house has a great Georgian dining-room, the table should be set with Georgian or an earlier period English silver. Furthermore, in a great dining-room, all the silver should be real, real meaning nothing so trifling as a sterling, but genuine and important period pieces made by eighteenth-century silversmiths, such as D'Lammery or Cressbull or Buck or Robertson, or perhaps one of their predecessors. Or, if like Mrs. Oldname you live in an old colonial house, you are perhaps also lucky enough to have inherited some genuine American pieces made by Daniel Rogers or Paul Revere. Or, if you are an ardent admirer of early Italian architecture, and have built yourself a fifteenth-century stone, floored, and frescoed, or tapestry-hung dining-room, you must set your long refractory table with a runner of old hand linen and an altar embroidery, or perhaps thirteenth-century damask, and great cisterns or ewers and beakers in high relief silver and gold, or in Cala Ziolli, or Majolica, with great bowls of fruit and church candlesticks of guilt, and even follow as far as is practicable the crude table implements of that time. It need not be pointed out that twentieth-century of pernitanenses in a thirteenth or fifteenth-century room are anachronisms, but because the dining-table in the replica of a palace, whether English, Italian, Spanish, or French, may be equipped with great standing cups, and can the labra so heavy a man can scarcely lift one, it does not follow that all the rest of us who live in medium or small houses should attempt anything of the sort. Nothing could be more out of proportion, and therefore in worse taste. Nor is it necessary, in order to have a table that is inviting, to set it with any of the completely exquisite things which all people have taste long for, but which are possessed, in quantity at least, only through wealth, inheritance, or collector's luck. A pleasing dining-room at limited cost. Enchanting dining-rooms and tables have been achieved with an outlay amounting to comparatively nothing. There is a dining-room in a certain small New York house that is quite as inviting as it is lacking in expensiveness. Its walls are rough-plastered French gray. Its table is an ordinary drop-leaf kitchen one, painted a light green that is almost gray. The chairs are wooden ones, somewhat on the winds of variety, but made of pine and painted like the table, and the side tables or consoles are made of a cheap round pine table which has been sawed in half, painted gray green, and the legless sides fastened to the walls. The glass curtains are point-despry net, with a deep flounce at the bottom, and outside curtains are expensive watermelon-pink changeable taffeta. There is a gilt mirror over a cream, absolutely plain mantle, and over each console a picture of a conventional bouquet of flowers in a flat frame the color of the furniture, with the watermelon color of the curtains predominating in a neutral tint background. The table is set with a rather coarse, cream-colored linen-drawn work centerpiece, a tea-cloth, actually, big enough to cover all but three inches of table edge. In the middle of the table is a glass bowl, with a wide turnover rim, holding deep pink flowers, roses or tulips, standing upright in glass flower holders as though growing. In midwinter, when real flowers are too expensive, porcelain ones take their place, unless there is a lunch or dinner party. The compotiers are glass urns, and the only pieces of silver used are too tall Sheffield candelabra at night without shades. The salts and peppers, and the necessary spoons and forks, the knives are ivory-handled. Setting the table Everything on the table must be geometrically spaced. The centerpiece in the actual center, the places at equal distances, and all utensils balanced. Beyond this one rule you may set your table as you choose. If the table cloth is of white to mask, which for dinner is always good style, a felt must be put under it. To say that it must be smooth and white, in other words, perfectly laundered, is as beside the mark as to say that faces and hands should be clean. If the table cloth has lace insertions, it must on no account be put over satin or over a color. In a very important dining room and on a very large table, a cloth of plain and finest quality to mask with no trimming, other than a monogram or crest embroidered on either side, is in better taste than one of linen with elaborations of lace and embroidery. To mask is the old-fashioned, but essentially conservative and safely best style, tablecloth, especially suitable in a high-ceiling-droom that is either English, French, or of no special period in decoration. Laced tablecloths are better suited to an Italian room, especially if the table is a refectory one. Hankerchiflin and tablecloths embroidered and lace-inserted are also, strangely enough, suited to all quaint, low-ceilinged, old-fashioned, but beautifully appointed rooms, the reason being that the lace cloth is put over a bare table. The lace cloth must also go over a refectory table without felt or other lining. Very high-studded rooms, unless Italian, on the other hand, seem to need the thickness of the mask. To be sure, one does see in certain houses, at the gildings, for instance, an elaborate lace and embroidery tablecloth put on top of a plain one, which in turn goes over a felt, but this combination is always somewhat overpowering, whereas lace over a bare table is light and fragile. Another thing, variornate, large, and arabesque designs, no matter how marvellous is examples of workmanship, inevitably produce a vulgar effect. All needlework, whether to be used on the table or on a bed, must, in a beautifully finished house, be fine rather than striking. Course linen, course embroideries, all sorts of Russian-drawn work, Italian needlework or mosaic, but avoiding big scroll patterns, are in perfect keeping and therefore in good taste, in a cottage, a bungalow, or a house whose furnishings are not too fine. But whatever type of cloth is used, the middle crease must be put on, so that it is an absolutely straight and unwavering line down the exact center from head to foot. If it is an embroidered one, be sure the embroidery is right side out. Next goes the centerpiece, which is always the chief ornament. Usually this is an arrangement of flowers in either a bowl or a vase, but it can be any one of an almost unlimited variety of things. Flowers are fruit in any arrangement that taste and ingenuity can devise, or an ornament in silver that needs no flowers, such as a covered cup or any pern, which, however, necessitates the use of fruit, flowers or candy. Mrs. Wellborn, for instance, whose heirlooms are better than her income, rarely uses flowers, but has a wonderful old centerpiece that is ornament enough in itself. The foundation is a mirror representing a lake, surrounded by silver rocks and grass. At one side, jutting into the lake, is a knoll with a group of trees sheltering a stag and dough. The ornament is entirely of silver, almost 20 inches high, and about 20 inches in diameter across the lake. The Normans have a full rigged silver ship in the center of their table, and at either end, rather tall lanterns, Venetian, really, but rather appropriate to the ship, and the salt cellars are very tall ones, about 10 inches high, of seashells supported on the backs of dolphins. However, to go back to the table setting, a cloth laid straight, then a centerpiece put in the middle, then four candlesticks at the four corners, about halfway between the center and the edge of the table, or two candelabra at either end, halfway between the places of the host and hostess and the centerpiece. Candles are used with or without shades. Fashion at the moment says without, which means that, in order to bring the flame well above people's eyes, candlesticks or candelabra must be high, and the candles as long as the proportion can stand. Longer candles can be put in massive candlesticks than in fragile ones. But whether shaded or not, there are candles on all dinner tables always. The center droplight has gone out entirely. Actroliers and candlesticks were never good style, and kerosene lamps and candlesticks horrible. Fashion says candles, preferably without shades, but shades if you insist, and fewer mini, but candles. Next comes the setting of the places. If it is an extension table, leaves have, of course, been put in, or if it is stationary, guests have been invited according to its size. The distance between places at the table must never be so short that guests have no elbow room, and that the servants cannot pass the dishes properly. When the dining-room chairs are very high-backed and are placed so closest to be almost touching, it is impossible for them not to risk spilling something over someone. On the other hand, to place people a yard or more apart so that conversation has to be shouted into the din made by everyone else's shouting is equally trying. About two feet from plate center to plate center is ideal. If the chairs have narrow and low backs, people can sit much closer together, especially at a small round table, the curve of which leaves a spreading wedge of space between the chairs at the back, even if the seats touch at the front corners. But on the long straight sides of a rectangular table, in a very large and impressive dining room, there should be at least a foot of space between the chairs. Setting the places. The necessary number of plates with the pattern or initials right side up are first put around the table at equal distances, spaced with a tape measure if the butler or waitress has not an accurate eye. Then, on the left of each place, handle towards the edge of the table and prongs up, is put the salad fork. The meat fork is put next, and then the fish fork. The salad fork, which will usually be the third used, is thus laid nearest to the plate. If there is an entree, the fork for this course is placed between the fish fork and that for the roast, and the salad fork is left to be brought in later. On the right of the plate and nearest to it is put the steel meat knife, then the silver fish knife, the edge of each toward the plate, then the soup spoon, and then the oyster fork or grapefruit spoon. Additional forks and knives are put on the table during dinner. In putting on the glasses, the water goblet is at the top and to the right of the knives, and the wine glasses are either grouped to the right of the goblet or in a straight line slanting down from the goblet obliquely towards the right. Butter plates are never put on a dinner table. A dinner napkin folded square and flat is laid on each place plate. Very fancy foldings are not in good taste, but if the napkin is very large, the sides are folded in so as to make a flattened roll a third the width of its height. Bread should not be put in the napkin, not nowadays. The place cards are usually put above the plate on the tablecloth, but some people put them on top of the napkin because they are more easily read. When the places have been set, four silver dishes, or more on a very big table, either bowl or basket or patent shaped, are put at the four corners between the candlesticks or candelabra and the centerpiece, or wherever there are four equally spaced vacancies on the table. These dishes or compoteers hold candy or fruit, chosen less for taste than for decorative appearance. On a very large table, the four compoteers are filled with candy and two or four larger silver dishes or baskets are filled with fruit and put on alternately with the candy dishes. Flowers are also often put in two or four smaller vases in addition to a larger and dominating one in the center. Peppers and salts should be put at every other place. For a dinner of twelve there should be six salt cellars at least, if not six pepper pots. Olives and radishes are served from the side table, but salted nuts are often put on the dinner table either in two big silver dishes or in small individual ones. Have silver that shines or none. Lots of people who would not dream of using a wrinkled tablecloth or chipped glass or china seem perfectly blind to dirty silver. Silver that is washed clean of food of course, but so dull that it looks like jaundice pewter. Don't put any silver on your table if you can't have it cleaned. Infinitely rather have every ornament of glass or china, and if knives or forks have crevices in the design of their handles that are hard to clean, buy plain plated ones or use tin. Anything is better than yellow faced dirty fingernailed silver. The first thing to ask in engaging a waitress is, can you clean silver? If she can't, she would better be something else. Of course no waitress and no single-handed butler can keep silver the way it is kept in such houses as the world leaves, nor is such perfection expected. The silver polishing of perfection in huge houses is done by such an expert that no one can tell whether a fork has that moment been sent from the silversmiths or not. It is not merely polished until it is bright, but burnished so that it is new. Every piece of silver in certain of the great establishments, or in smaller ones that are run like a great one, is never picked up by a servant except with a rouged chamois. No piece of silver is ever allowed the slightest chance to touch another piece. Every piece is washed separately. The footman who gathers two or three forks in a bunch will never do it a second time and keep his place. If the ring of a guest should happen to scratch a knife handle or a fork, the silver polisher may have to spend an entire day using his thumb or a silver buffer and rub-and-rub until no vestige of a scratch remains. Perfection such as this is attainable only in a great house where servants are specialists of super efficiency, but in every perfectly run house where service is not too limited, every piece of silver that is put on the table at every meal is handled with a rouged chamois and given a quick wipe off as it is laid on the dining table. No silver should ever be picked up in the fingers as that always leaves a mark. And the way moderate households which are nevertheless perfectly run for their size and type have burnished silver is by using not more than they can have cleaned. In view of the present high cost of living, including wages, and the consequent difficulty with a reduced number of servants of keeping a great quantity of silver brilliant, even the most fashionable people are more and more using only what is essential and in occasional instances are taking to China. People who are lucky enough to have well-stored addicts these days are bringing treasures out of them. But services of swanxi or lowstaff or spode while easily cleaned are equally easily broken so that genuine 18th century pieces are more apt to see a cabinet than a dinner table. But the modern manufacturers are making enchanting sets that are replicas of the old. These tea sets with cups and saucers to match and with a silver kettle and tray are seen almost as often as silver services in simple houses in the country as well as in the small apartment in town. Don'ts in table setting. Don't put ribbon tribings on your table. Satin bands and bows have no more place on a lady's table than have chop house appurtenances. Pickle jars, ketchup bottles, toothpicks and crackers are not private house table ornaments. Crackers are passed with oyster stew and with salad and anyone who wants relishes can have them in his own house, though they insult the cook. At all events pickles and tomato sauces and other cold meat condiments are never presented at table in a bottle but are put in glass dishes with small serving spoons. Nothing is ever served from the jar or bottle it comes in except certain kinds of cheese, barlodook preserves only sometimes, and wines. Pickles, jellies, jams, olives are all put into small glass dishes. Saucers for vegetables are contrary to all etiquette. The only extra plates ever permitted are the bread and butter plates which are put on at breakfast and lunch and supper above and to the left of the forks but never at dinner. The crescent shaped salad plate made to fit at the side of the plate's plate is seen rarely in fashionable houses. When two plates are made necessary by the serving of game or broiled chicken or squab for which the plate should be very hot, at the same time as the salad which is cold, the crescent shaped plate is convenient in that it takes very little room. A correct and very good serving dish for a family of two is the vegetable dish that has a partition dividing it into two or even three divisions so that a small quantity of two or three vegetables can be passed at the same time. Napkin rings are unknown in fashionable houses outside of the nursery but in large families, where it is impossible to manage such a wash as three clean napkins a day and tale, napkin rings are probably necessary. In most moderately run houses, a napkin that is unrumpled and spotless after a meal is put aside and used again for breakfast, but to be given a napkin that is not perfectly clean is a horrid thought. Perhaps though the necessity for napkin rings results in the achievement of the immaculate napkin, which is quite a nice thought. CHAPTER XIV PART III. FORMAL DINNERS CORRECT SERVICE OF DINNER Whether they are two at table or two hundred, plates are changed in courses presented in precisely the same manner. For faultless service, if there are many accompanying dishes, two servants are necessary to wait on as few as two persons, but two can also efficiently serve eight, or with unaccompanied dishes an expert servant can manage eight alone, and with one assistant he can perfectly manage twelve. In old-fashioned times people apparently did not mind waiting tranquilly through courses and between courses, even though meat grew cold long before the last of many vegetables was passed, and they waited endlessly while a slow talker and eater finished his topic and his food. But people of today do not like to wait in unnecessary second. The moment fish is past them they expect the cucumbers or sauce or whatever should go with the fish to follow immediately, and when the first servant hands the meat course they consider that they should not be expected to wait a moment for a second servant to hand the gravy or jelly or whatever goes with the meat. No service is good in this day unless swift and, of course, soundless. A late leader of Newport society who had a worldwide reputation for the brilliancy of her entertainments had an equally well-known reputation for rapidly served dinners. Twenty minutes is quite long enough to sit at table, ever, is what she used to say, and what her household had to live up to. She had a footman to about every two guests and any one dining with her had to cling to the edge of his plate, or it would be whisked away. One who looked aside or let go for a second found his plate gone. That was extreme, but even so better than a snail-paste dinner. The Dinner Hour In America, the dinner hour is not a fixture since it varies in various sections of the country. The ordinary New York hour, when giving a dinner, is eight o'clock, half past eight in Newport. In New York, when dining and going to the opera, one is usually asked for seven fifteen and for seven thirty before going to a play. Otherwise, only quiet people dine before eight, but invitation should, of course, be issued for whatever hour is customary in the place where the dinner is given. The Butler in the Dining Room When the dinner guests enter the dining room, it is customary for the butler to hold out the chair of the mistress of the house. This always seems a discourtesy to the guests, and an occasional hostess insists on having the chair of the guest of honour held by the butler instead of her own. If there are footmen enough, the chair of each lady is held for her, otherwise the gentleman who takes her into dinner helps her to be seated. Ordinarily, where there are two servants, the head one holds the chair of the hostess, and the second the chair on the right of the host. The hostess always seats herself as quickly as possible, so that the butler may be free to assist a guest to draw her chair up to the table. In a big house, the butler always stands throughout the meal at the back of the hostess's chair, except when giving one of the men under him a direction, or when pouring wine. He is not supposed to leave the dining room himself or ever to handle a dish. In a smaller house where he has no assistant, he naturally does everything himself. When he has a second man or parlor maid, he passes the principal dishes, and the assistant follows with the accompanying dishes or vegetables. So-called Russian service is the only one known in New York, which merely means that nothing to eat is ever put on the table, except ornamental dishes of fruit and candy. The meat is carved in the kitchen or pantry, vegetables are passed and returned to the side table. Only at breakfast, or possibly at supper, are dishes of food put on the table. The ever-present plate. From the setting of the table until it is cleared for dessert, a plate must remain at every cover. Under the first two courses, there are always two plates. The plate on which oysters or derves are served is put on top of the place plate. At the end of the course, the used plate is removed, leaving the place plate. The soup plate is also put on top of the same plate, but when the soup plate is removed, the underneath plate is removed with it, and a hot plate immediately exchange for the two taken away. The place plate merely becomes a hot fish plate, but it is there just the same. The exchange plate. If the first course had been a canapé or any cold dish that was offered in bulk instead of being brought on separate plates, it would have been eaten on the place plate, and an exchange plate would have been necessary before the soup could be served. That is, a clean plate would have been exchanged for the used one, and the soup plate then put on top of that. The reason for it is that a plate with food on it can never be exchanged for a plate that has had food on it. A clean one must come between. If an entree served on individual plates follows the fish, clean plates are first exchanged for the used ones until the whole table is set with clean plates. Then the entree is put at each place in exchange for the clean plate. Although dishes are always presented at the left of the person served, places are removed and replaced to the right. Glasses are poured and additional knives placed at the right, but forks are put on as needed from the left. May the plates for two persons be brought in together. The only plates that can possibly brought into the dining room, one in each hand, are for the hors d'oeuvres, soup, and dessert. The first two plates are placed on others which have not been removed, and the dessert plates need merely to be put down on the tablecloth. But the plates of every other course have to be exchanged, and therefore each individual service requires two hands. Soup plates, two at a time, would better not be attempted by any but the expert ensure handed, as it is in placing one plate while holding the other aloft that the mishap of soup poured down to someone's back occurs. If only one plate of soup is brought in into time, that accident at least cannot happen. In the same way the spoon and fork on the dessert plate can easily fall off unless it is held level. Two plates at a time therefore is not a question of etiquette but of the servant's skill. Plate removed when fork is laid down. Once upon a time it was actually considered impolite to remove a single plate until the last guest at the table had finished eating. In other days people evidently did not mind looking at their own dirty plates indefinitely, nor could they have minded sitting for hours at table. Good service today requires the removal of each plate as soon as the fork is laid upon it, so that by the time the last fork is put down the entire table is set with clean plates and is ready for the next course. Double service in the order of table precedence. At every well ordered dinner there should be a double service for ten or twelve persons, that is no hot dish should, if avoidable, be presented to more than six or nine at the outside. At a dinner of twelve, for instance, two dishes each holding six portions are garnished exactly alike and presented at opposite ends of the table. One to the lady on the right of the host and the other to the lady at the opposite end of the table. The services continue around to the right, but occasional butlers direct that after serving the lady of honour on the right of the host, the host is skipped and the dish presented to the lady on his left, after which the dish continues around the table to the left, to ladies and gentlemen as they come. In this event the second service starts opposite the lady of honour and also skips the first gentleman, after which it goes around the table to the left, skips the lady of honour and ends with the host. The first service when it reaches the other end of the table skips the lady who was first served and ends with the gentleman who was skipped. It is perhaps more polite to the ladies to give them preference, but it is complicated and leaves another gentleman as well as the host sitting between two ladies who are eating while he is apparently forgotten. The object which is to prevent the lady who is second in precedence from being served last can be accomplished by beginning the first service from the lady on the right of the host and continuing on the right six places. The second service begins with the lady on the left of the host and continues on the left five places and then comes back to the host. The best way of all perhaps is to vary the honor by serving the entree and salad courses first to the lady on the left instead of to the lady on the right and continued the service of these two courses to the left. A dinner of 18 has sometimes two services but if a very perfect three. Where there are three services they start with the lady of honor and the sixth from her on either side and continue to the right. Filling glasses As soon as the guests are seated in the first course put in front of them the butler goes from guest to guest on the right hand side of each and asks a pollinaris or plain water and fills the goblet accordingly. In the same way he asks later before pouring wine cider sir grapefruit cup madame or in a house which has the remains of a cellar champagne or do you care for a whiskey soda sir? But the temperature and service of wines which used to be an essential detail of every dinner have now no place at all. Whether people will offer frappe cider or some other ice drink in the middle of dinner and a warm something else to take the place of claret with the fish remains to be seen. A water glass standing alone at each place makes such a meager and untrimmed looking table that most people put on at least two wine glasses sherry and champagne or claret and sherry and pour something pinkish or yellowish into them. A rather popular drink at present is an equal mixture of white grape juice and ginger ale with mint leaves and much ice. Those few who still have cellars serve wines exactly as they used to white wine claret sherry and burgundy warm champagne ice cold and after dinner green mint poured over crushed ice in little glasses and other liqueurs of room temperature. Whisky is always poured at the table over ice in a tall tumbler each gentleman saying when by putting his hand out the glasses then filled with soda or a pollinaris. As soon as soup is served the parlor maid or a footman passes a dish or a basket of dinner rolls. If rolls are not available bread cut in about two inch thick slices is cut crossways again in three. An old fashioned silver cake basket makes a perfect modern bread basket or a small wicker basket that is shallow and inconspicuous will do. A guest helps himself with his fingers and lays the roll or bread on the tablecloth always. No bread plates are ever on a table where there is no butter and no butter is ever served at a dinner. Whenever there is no bread left at any one's place at table more should be passed. The glasses should also be kept filled. Presenting dishes Dishes are presented held flat on the palm of the servant's right hand. Every hot one must have a napkin placed as a pad under it. An especially heavy meat platter can be steadied if necessary by holding the edge of the platter with the left hand. The finger is protected from being burned by a second folded napkin. Each dish is supplied with whatever implements are needed for helping it. A serving spoon, somewhat larger than an ordinary tablespoon, is put on all dishes and a fork of large size is added for fish, meat, salad and any vegetables or other dishes that are hard to help. String beans, braised celery, spinach en branche, et cetera need a fork and spoon. Asparagus has various special lifters and tongs, but most people use the ordinary spoon and fork. Putting the spoon underneath and the fork prongs down to hold the stalks on the spoon while being removed to the plate. Corn on the cob is taken with the fingers, but is never served at a dinner party. A gallantine or mousse, as well as peas, mashed potatoes, rice, et cetera, are offered with a spoon only. The serving table The serving table is an ordinary table placed in this corner of the dining room near the door to the pantry and behind the screen so that it may not be seen by the guests at table. In a small dining room where space is limited, a set of shelves like a single bookcase is useful. The serving table is a halfway station between the dinner table and the pantry. It holds stacks of cold plates, extra forks and knives, and the finger bowls and dessert plates. The latter are sometimes put out on the sideboard if the serving table is too small or crowded. At little informal dinners, all dishes of food after being passed are left on the serving table in case they are called upon for a second helping. But at formal dinners, dishes are never passed twice and are therefore taken direct to the pantry after being passed. Clearing table for dessert At dinner always, whether at a formal one or whether a member of the family is alone, the salad plates or the plates of whatever course precedes dessert are removed, leaving the table plateless. The salt cellars and pepper pots are taken off on the serving tray without being put on any napkin or doily, as used to be the custom. And the crumbs are brushed off each place at table with a folded napkin onto a tray held under the table edge. A silver crumb scraper is still seen occasionally when the tablecloth is playing. But its hard edge is not suitable for embroidery and lace and ruinous to a bare table so that a napkin folded to about the size and thickness of an iron holder is the crumb scraper of today. Dessert The captchas say dessert means the fruit and candy which come after the ices. Isis is a misleading word, too, because suggested of the individual ices which flourished at private dinners in the Victorian age and still survive at public dinners, suppers at balls, and at wedding breakfasts, but which are seen at not more than one private dinner in a thousand, if that. In the present world of fashion the dessert is ice cream served in one mold, not ices, a lot of little frozen images. And the refusal to call the sweets at the end of the dinner, which certainly include ice cream and cake, dessert, is at least not the interpretation of either good usage or good society. In France, where the word dessert originated, ices were set apart from dessert merely because French chefs delight in designating each item of a meal as a separate course. But chefs and cookbooks notwithstanding, dessert means everything sweet that comes at the end of a meal. And the great American dessert is ice cream, or pie. Pie, however, is not a company dessert. Ice cream, on the other hand, is the inevitable conclusion of a formal dinner. The fact that the spoon which is double the size of a teaspoon is known as nothing but a dessert spoon is offered in further proof that dessert is a spoon and not finger food. Dessert service. There are two almost equally used methods of serving dessert. The first, or hotel method, also seen in many fashionable private houses, is to put on a china plate for ice cream or a first course, and the finger bowl on a plate by itself afterwards. In the private house service, the entire dessert paraphernalia is put on it once. In detail, in the two course or hotel service, the dessert plate is of china, or if of glass, it must have a china one under it. A china dessert plate is just a fairly medium sized plate, and it is always put on the table with a dessert spoon and fork on it. After the inevitable ice cream has been eaten, a fruit plate with a finger bowl on it is put on in exchange. A doily goes under the finger bowl and a fruit knife and fork on either side. In the single course, or private house service, the ice cream plate is of glass and belongs under the finger bowl which it matches. The glass plate and finger bowl in turn are put on the fruit plate with a doily between, and the dessert spoon and fork go on either side of the finger bowl instead of the fruit knife and fork. This arrangement of plates is seen in such houses as the worldlies and the old names, and in fact most very well done houses. The finger bowls and glass plates that match make a prettier service than the finger bowl on a china plate by itself. Also it eliminates a change but not a removal of plates. In this service, a guest lifts the finger bowl off and eats his ice cream on the glass plate, after which the glass plate is removed and the china one is left for fruit. Some people think this service confusing because an occasional guest in lifting off the finger bowl lifts the glass plate too and eats his dessert on his china plate. It is merely necessary for the servants to notice at which plate the china plate has been used and to bring a clean one. Otherwise a cover is left with a glass plate or a bare tablecloth for fruit. Also anyone taking fruit must have a fruit knife and fork brought to him. Fruit is passed immediately after ice cream and chocolates, conserves, or whatever the decorative sweets may be are passed last. This single service may sound as though it were more complicated than the two course service but actually it is less. Few people use the wrong plate and usually the ice cream plates having others under them can be taken away too at a time. Furthermore scarcely anyone takes fruit so that the extra knives and forks are few if any. Before finishing dessert it may be as well to add in detail that the finger bowl doily is about five or six inches in diameter. It may be round or square and of the finest and sheerst needlework that can be found or afforded. It must always be cream or white. Coloured embroideries look well sometimes on a country lunch table but not at dinner. No matter where it is used the finger bowl is less than half filled with cold water and at dinner parties a few violets, sweet peas, or occasionally a gardenia is put in it. A slice of lemon is never seen outside of a chop house where eating with the fingers may necessitate the lemon in removing grease. Pretty thought. Black coffee is never served at a fashionable dinner table but is brought afterwards with cigarettes and liqueurs to the drawing room for the ladies and with cigars, cigarettes, and liqueurs into the smoking room for the gentlemen. If there is no smoking room coffee and cigars are brought to the table for the gentlemen after the ladies have gone into the drawing room. End of Chapter 14 Part 3 Chapter 14 Part 4 of Etiquette This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Clarica at a kitten society in business in politics and at home by Emily Post Chapter 14 Part 4 Formal Dinners Place Cards The place cards are usually about an inch and a half high by two inches long sometimes slightly larger. People of old family have their crest embossed in plain white occasionally an elderly hostess following a lifelong custom has her husband's crest stamped in gold. Nothing other than a crest must ever be engraved on a place card and usually they're plain even in the houses of old families. Years ago hand-painted place cards are said to have been in fashion but accepting on such occasions as Christmas or a birthday dinner they are never seen in private houses today. Menu Cards Small standing porcelain slates on which the menu is written are seen on occasional dinner tables. Most often there is only one which is placed in front of the host but sometimes there is one between every two guests. Seating the table As has already been observed the most practical way to seat the table is to write the names on individual cards first and then place them as though playing solitaire. The guest of honour on the host's right the second lady in rank on his left the most distinguished or oldest gentleman on the right of the hostess and all the other guests filled in between. Who is the guest of honour? The guest of honour is the oldest lady present or stranger whom you wish for some reason to honour a bride at her first dinner in your house after her return from her honeymoon takes if you choose to have her precedence over older people or if a younger woman has been long away she in this instance of welcoming her home takes precedence over her elders. The guest of honour is always led into dinner by the host and placed on his right. The second in importance sits on his left and is taken into dinner by the gentleman on whose right she sits. The hostess is always the last to go in the dining room at a formal dinner. Envelopes for the gentleman In an envelope addressed to each gentleman is put a card on which is written the name of the lady he is to take down to dinner. This card just fits in the envelope which is an inch or slightly less high and about two inches long. When the envelopes are addressed and filled they are arranged in two neat rows on a silver tray and put in the front hall. The tray is presented to each gentleman just before he goes into the drawing room on his arrival. The table diagram A frame made of leather, round or rectangular with small openings at regular intervals around the edge in which names written on cards can be slipped shows the seating of the table at a glance. In a frame holding 24 cards twelve guests would be indicated by leaving every other card placed blank or for eight only one in three is filled. This diagram is shown to each gentleman upon his arrival so that he can see who is coming for dinner and where he himself is placed. At a dinner of ten or less this diagram is especially convenient as envelopes are only used at formal dinners of twelve and over. When the hostess sits at the side When the number of guests is a multiple of four the host and hostess never sit opposite each other it would bring two ladies and two gentlemen together if they did. At a table which seats two together at each end the fact that the host is opposite a gentleman and the hostess opposite a lady is not noticeable nor is it ever noticeable at a round table but at a narrow table which has room for only one at the end the hostess invariably sits in the next seat to that which is properly her own putting in her place a gentleman at the end. The host usually keeps his seat rather than the hostess because the seat of honor is on his right and in the etiquette governing dinners the host and not the hostess is the more important personage. When there are only four they keep their own places otherwise the host and hostess would sit next to each other. At a dinner of eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty, etc. the host keeps his place but at a supper for eight or twelve the hostess keeps her place and the host moves a place to the right or left because the hostess at supper pours coffee or chocolate. And although the host keeps his seat at a formal dinner in honor of the lady he takes in at a little dinner of eight where there is no guest of honor the host does not necessarily keep his seat at the expense of his wife unless he carves in which case he must have the end place just as at supper she has the end place in order to pour. Sidewalk, hall, and dressing rooms One can be pretty sure on seeing a red velvet carpet spread down the steps of a house or up since there are so many sunken American basement entrances that there are people for dinner. The carpet is kept rolled or turned under near the foot or top of the steps until a few minutes before the dinner hour when it is spread across the width of the pavement by the chauffeur or whoever is on duty on the sidewalk. Very big or formal dinners often have an awning especially at a house where there is much entertaining and which has an awning of its own but at an ordinary house for a dinner of twelve or so the man on the pavement must, if it is raining, shelter each arriving guest under his coachman's umbrella from carriage to door. If it does not rain he merely opens the doors of vehicles. Checks are never given at dinners no matter how big. Every motor is called by address at the end of the evening. The worldly car is not shouted for as worldly but XOX Fifth Avenue. The typical coachman of another day used to tell you carriages are ordered for ten fifteen. Carriages were nearly always ordered for that hour though with slow and long dinners no one ever actually left until the horses had exercised for at least an hour. But the chauffeur of today opens the door in silence unless there is to be a concert or amateur theatricals when he, like the coachman, says motors are ordered for twelve o'clock or whatever hour he is told to say. In this day of telephone and indefinite bridge games many people prefer to have their cars telephone for when they are ready to go home. Those who do not play bridge leave an eight o'clock dinner about half past ten or at least order their cars for that hour. In all modern houses of size there are two rooms on the entrance floor built sometimes as dressing rooms and nothing else but more often they are small reception rooms each with a lavatory off of it. In the one given to the ladies there is always a dressing table with toilet appointments on it and the ladies may should be on duty to give whatever service may be required. When there is no dressing room on the ground floor the back of the hall is arranged with coat hangers and an improved dressing table for the ladies since modern people in New York at least never go upstairs to a bedroom if they can help it. In fact nine ladies out of ten drop their evening cloaks at the front door handing them to the servant on duty and go at once without more ado to the drawing room. A lady arriving in her own closed car can't be very much blown about in a completely airtight compartment and within two or three minutes of time. Gentlemen also leave their hats and coats in the front part of the hall. A servant presents to each a tray of envelopes and if there is one the table diagram. Envelopes are not really necessary when there is a table diagram since every gentleman knows that he takes in the lady placed on his right but at very big dinners in New York or Washington where many people are sure to be strangers to one another an absent minded gentleman might better perhaps have his partner's name safely in his pocket. Announcing guests A gentleman always falls behind his wife in entering the drawing room. If the butler knows the guests he merely announces the wife's name first and then the husband's. If he does not know them by sight he asks whichever is nearest to him what name please and whichever one is asked answers Mr. and Mrs. Lake. The butler then precedes the guests a few steps into the room where the hostess is stationed and standing aside says in a low tone but very distinctly Mrs. Lake a pause and then Mr. Lake. Married people are usually announced separately as above but occasionally people have their guests announced Mr. and Mrs. Blank. Announcing persons of rank All men of high executive rank are not alone announced first but take precedence of their wives in entering the room. The President of the United States is announced simply the President and Mrs. Harding. His title needs no qualifying appendage since he and he solely is the President. He enters first and alone of course and then Mrs. Harding follows. The same form precisely is used for the Vice President and Mrs. Coolidge. A Governor is sometimes in courtesy called Excellency but the correct announcement would be the Governor of New Jersey and Mrs. Edwards. He enters the room and Mrs. Edwards follows. The Mayor and Mrs. Thompson observe the same etiquette or in a city other than his own he would be announced the Mayor of Chicago and Mrs. Thompson. Other announcements are the Chief Justice and Mrs. Taft the Secretary of State and Mrs. Hughes Senator and Mrs. Washington but in this case the latter enters the room first because his office is not executive. According to Diplomatic etiquette an Ambassador and his wife should be announced. Their Excellencies the Ambassador and Ambassador Dress of Great Britain the Ambassador enters the room first A Minister Plenipotentiary is announced the Minister of Sweden. He enters a moment later and Mrs. Algren follows but a First Secretary and his wife are announced if they have a title of their own Count and Countess European or Mr. and Mrs. American. The President the Vice President the Governor of a State the Mayor of a City the Ambassador of a Foreign Power in other words all executives take precedence over their wives and enter rooms and vehicles first but Senators, Representatives, Secretaries of Legations and all other officials who are not executive allow their wives to proceed them just as they would if they were private individuals. Foreigners who have hereditary titles are announced by them the Duke and Duchess of over there the Marquis and Marquianness of Lanzan or Sir Edward in Lady Blank, etc. Titles are invariably translated into English Count and Countess Lorraine Not Mangeur le camp et Madame la Contesse Lorraine How a Hostess receives at a formal dinner On all occasions of formality at a dinner as well as at a ball the Hostess stands near the door of her drawing room and as guests are announced she greets them with a smile and a handshake and says something pleasant to each What she says is nothing very important Charm of expression and of manner can often wordlessly express a far more gracious welcome than the most elaborate phrases which, as a matter of fact, should be studiously avoided Unless a woman's loveliness springs from generosity of heart and sympathy her manners, no matter how perfectly practiced are nothing but cosmetics applied to hide a want of inner beauty Precisely as rouge and powder are applied in the hope of hiding the lack of a beautiful skin One device is about as successful as the other quite pleasing unless brought into comparison with the real Mrs. Oldname, for instance, usually welcomes you with some such sentences as, I am very glad to see you or, I am so glad you could come or if it is raining she very likely tells you that you are very unselfish to come out in the storm But no matter what she says or whether anything at all she takes your hand with a firm pressure and her smile is really a smile of welcome not a mechanical exercise of the facial muscles She gives you always, even if only for the moment her complete attention and you go into her drawing-room with a distinct feeling that you are under the roof not of a mere acquaintance but of a friend Mr. Oldname, who stands never very far from his wife always comes forward and, grasping your hand, accentuates his wife more subtle but no less vivid welcome and either you join a friend standing near or he presents you if you are a man to a lady or if you are a lady he presents a man to you Some hostesses, especially those of the lion hunting and the new to best society variety are much given to explanations and love to say Mrs. Jones, I want you to meet Mrs. Smith Mrs. Smith is the author of Dragged from the Depths a most enlightening work of psychic insight or to a good-looking woman I am putting you next to the Assyrian ambassador I want him to carry back a flattering impression of American women But people of good breeding do not overexploit their distinguished guests with embarrassing hyperbole or make personal remarks Both are in the worst possible taste Do not understand by this that explanations cannot be made It is only that they must not be embarrassingly made to their faces Nor must a specialist's subject be forced upon him like a pair of manacles by any exploiting hostess who has captured him Mrs. Oldname might, perhaps, in order to assist conversation for an interesting but reticent person tell a lady just before going into dinner Mr. Traveller, who is sitting next to you at the table has just come back from two years alone with the cannibals This is not to exploit her traveled lion but to give his neighbor a starting point for conversation at table And although personal remarks are never good form it would be permissible for an older lady in welcoming a very young one especially a debutante or a bride to say How lovely you look, Mary dear, and what an adorable dress you have on But to say to an older lady that is a very handsome string of pearls you are wearing would be objectionable The duty of the host The host stands fairly near his wife so that if any guest seems to be unknown to all the others he can present him to someone At formal dinners introductions are never general and people do not as a rule speak to strangers except those next to them at table or in the drawing room after dinner The host therefore makes a few introductions if necessary before dinner since the hostess is standing and no gentleman may therefore sit down and as it is awkward for a lady who is sitting to talk with a gentleman who is standing the ladies usually also stand until dinner is announced When dinner is announced It is the duty of the butler to count heads so that he may know when the company has arrived As soon as he has announced the last person he notifies the cook The cook being ready, the butler, having glanced into the dining room to see that the windows have been closed and the candles on the table lighted enters the drawing room, approaches the hostess, bows and says quietly, dinner is served The host offers his arm to the lady of honour and leads the way to the dining room while the other gentlemen offer their arms to the ladies appointed to them and follow the host in an orderly procession two and two The only order of precedent is that the host and his partner lead while the hostess and her partner come last At all formal dinners, place cards being on the table, the hostess does not direct people where to sit If there was no table diagram in the hall, the butler, standing just within the dining room door, tells each gentleman as he approaches, right or left R or L is occasionally written on the lady's name card in the envelopes given to the gentleman or if it is such a big dinner that there are many separate tables the tables are numbered with standing placards as at a public dinner and the table number written on each lady's name card The manners of a hostess First of all, a hostess must show each of her guests equal and impartial attention Although engrossed in the person she is talking to, she must be able to notice anything amiss that may occur The more competent her servants, the less she need be aware of details herself but the hostess giving a formal dinner with uncertain dining room efficiency has a far from smooth path before her No matter what happens, if all the china in the pantry falls with a crash she must not appear to have heard it No matter what goes wrong, she must cover it as best she may and at the same time cover the fact that she is covering it To give hectic directions merely accentuates the awkwardness If a dish appears that is unpresentable, she, as quietly as possible, orders the next one to be brought in If a guest knocks over a glass and breaks it, even though the glass be a piece of genuine stegel her only concern must seemingly be that her guests placed has been made uncomfortable She says, I am so sorry, but I will have it fixed at once The broken glass is nothing, and she has a fresh glass brought, even though it doesn't match, and dismisses all thought of the matter Both the host and hostess must keep the conversation going, if it lags, but this is not as definitely their duty at a formal as at an informal dinner It is at the small dinner that the skillful hostess has need of what Thackeray calls the showman quality. She brings each guest forward in turn to the center of the stage In a lull in the conversation she says beguilingly to a clever but shy man John, what was that story you told me? And then she repeats briefly an introduction to a topic in which John particularly shines, or later on she begins a narrative and breaks off suddenly, turning to someone else, you tell them These examples are rather bald and overemphasize the method in order to make it clear Practice in the knowledge of human nature, or of the particular temperament with which she is trying to deal, can alone tell her when she may lead or provoke this, or that one, to being at his best, to his own satisfaction, as well as that of the others who may be present Her own character and sympathy are the only real showman assets, since no one shows to advantage except in a congenial environment The late guest A polite hostess waits twenty minutes after the dinner hour, and then orders dinner served To wait more than twenty minutes, or actually fifteen after those who took the allowable five minutes grace, would be showing lack of consideration to many for the sake of one When the late guest finally enters the dining room, the hostess rises, shakes hands with her, but does not leave her place at table She doesn't rise for a gentleman It is the guest who must go up to the hostess and apologize for being late The hostess must never take the guest to task, but should say something polite and conciliatory, such as, I was sure you would not want us to wait dinner The newcomer is usually served with dinner from the beginning, unless she is considerate enough, to say to the butler, just let me begin with this course Old Mrs. Toplofty's manners to late guests are an exception On the last stroke of eight o'clock in winter, and half after eight in Newport, dinner is announced She waits for no one Furthermore, a guest arriving after a course has been served does not have to protest against just arranging the order of dinner, since the rule of the house is that a course which has passed a chair is not to be returned A guest missing his turn misses that course The result is that everyone dining with Mrs. Toplofty arrives on the stroke of the dinner hour, which is also rather necessary, as she is one of those who like the service to be rushed through at top speed, and anyone arriving half an hour late would find dinner over It would be excellent discipline if there were more hostesses like her, but no young woman should be so autocratic, and few older ones care or dare to be Nothing shows selfish want of consideration more than being habitually late for dinner Not only are others who were themselves considerate kept waiting, but dinner is dried and ruined for everyone else through the fault of the tardy one And though expert cooks know how to keep food from becoming uneatable, no food can be so good as at the moment for which it is prepared, and habitually late guests should be made to realize how unfairly she is meeting her host's generosity by destroying for everyone the hospitality which she was invited to share On the other hand before a formal dinner it is the duty of the hostess to be dressed and in her drawing room fifteen or ten minutes at least before the hour set for dinner For a very informal dinner it is not important to be ready ahead of time, but even then a late hostess is an inconsiderate one