 Etiquette, Chapter 27, Part 4. Etiquette, in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home, by Emily Post. Chapter 27. Notes and Shorter Letters. Part 4. The Letter of Introduction. A letter of business introduction can be much more freely given than a letter of social introduction. For the former it is necessary merely that the persons introduced have business interests in common, which are much more easily determined than social compatibility, which is the requisite necessary for the latter. It is, of course, proper to give your personal representative a letter of introduction to whomever you send him. On the subject of letters of social introduction there is one chief rule. Never ask for letters of introduction, and be very sparing in your offers to write or accept them. Seemingly few persons realize that a letter of social introduction is actually a draft for payment on demand. The form might as well be—the bearer of this has, because of it, the right to demand your interest, your time, your hospitality, liberally and at once, no matter what your inclination may be. Therefore, it is far better to refuse in the beginning than to hedge, and end by committing the greater error of unwarrantedly inconveniencing a valued friend or acquaintance. When you have a friend who is going to a city where you have other friends, and you believe that it will be a mutual pleasure for them to meet, a letter of introduction is proper and very easy to write, but sent to a casual acquaintance, no matter how attractive or distinguished the person to be introduced, it is a gross presumption. The more formal note of introduction. Here, Mrs. Marks, Julian Gibbs is going to Buffalo on January 10th to deliver a lecture on his polar expedition, and I am sending him a card of introduction to you. He is very agreeable personally, and I think that perhaps you and Mr. Marks will enjoy meeting him as much as I know he would enjoy knowing you. With kindest regards, in which Arthur joins, very sincerely, Ethel Norman. If Mr. Norman were introducing one man to another, he would give his card to the former, inscribed as follows. Introducing Julian Gibbs. Mr. Arthur Lee's Norman. Broadlawns. Also Mr. Norman would send a private letter by mail, telling his friend that Mr. Gibbs is coming, as follows. Dear Marks, I am giving Julian Gibbs a card of introduction to you when he goes to Buffalo on the 10th to lecture. He is an entertaining and very decent fellow, and I think possibly Mrs. Marks would enjoy meeting him. If you can conveniently ask him to your house, I know he would appreciate it. If not, perhaps you will put him up for a day or two at a club. Faithfully, Arthur Norman. Informal Letter of Introduction. Dear Claire, a very great friend of ours, James Dawson, is to be in Chicago for several weeks. Any kindness that you can show him will be greatly appreciated by, yours as always, Ethel Norman. At the same time a second and private letter of information is written and sent by mail. Dear Claire, I wrote you a letter today introducing Jim Dawson. He used to be on the Yalvard football team, perhaps you remember. He is one of the best sort in the world, and I know you will like him. I don't want to put you to any trouble, but do ask him to your house if you can. He plays a wonderful game of golf and a good game of bridge, but he is more a man's than a woman's type of man. Maybe if Tom likes him, he will put him up at a club, as he used to be in Chicago for some weeks. Affectionately Always Ethel. Another example. Dear Caroline, a very dear friend of mine, Mrs. Fred West, is going to be in New York this winter, while her daughter is at Barnard. I am asking her to take this letter to you, as I want very much to have her meet you, and have her daughter meet Pauline. Anything that you can do for them will be the same as for me. Yours affectionately, Sylvia Greatlake. The Private Letter by Mail to Accompany the Forgoing. Dearest Caroline, Mildred West, for whom I wrote to you this morning, is a very close friend of mine. She is going to New York with her only daughter, who, in spite of wanting a college education, is as pretty as a picture, with plenty of cum hither in the eye, so do not be afraid that the typical blue stocking is to be thrust upon Pauline. The mother is an altogether lovely person, and I know that you and she will speak the same language. If I didn't, I wouldn't give her a letter to you. Do go and see her as soon as you can. She will be stopping at the Fitz-Cherry, and probably feeling rather lost at first. She wants to take an apartment for the winter, and I told her I was sure you would know the best real estate and intelligence offices, etc., for her to go to. I hope I am not putting you to any trouble about her, but she is really a darling, and you will like her, I know. Devotedly Yours, Sylvia. Directions for procedure upon being given, or receiving, a letter of introduction, will be found in Chapter 2. THE THIRD PERSON. In other days, when even verbal messages began with the presenting of compliments, a social note, no matter what its length or purport, would have been considered rude, unless written in the third person. But as in a communication of any length, the difficulty of this form is almost insurmountable, to say nothing of the pedantic effect of its accomplishment. It is no longer chosen, aside from the formal invitation, acceptance, and regret, except for notes to stores or subordinates. For example, Will B. Stern and Company, please send and charge to Mrs. John H. Smith, to Madison Avenue, one paper of needles, number nine, two spools of white sewing cotton, number seventy, one yard of material, and, for example, enclosed, January 6th, to a servant. Mrs. Eminent wishes Patrick to meet her at the station on Tuesday the 8th, at 11.03. She also wishes him to have the shutters opened, and the house aired on that day, and a fire lighted in the northwest room. No provisions will be necessary, as Mrs. Eminent is returning to town on the 5.16. March 1st. Letters in the third person are no longer signed, unless the sender's signature is necessary for identification, or for some action on the part of the receiver, such as Will Mr. Cash please give the bearer six yards of material to match the sample enclosed, and oblige Mrs. John H. Smith. A note in third person is the single occasion when a married woman signs Mrs. before her name. The Letter of Recommendation A letter of recommendation for membership to a club is addressed to the secretary, and should be somewhat in this form. To the secretary of the town club, my dear Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Titherington Smith, whose name is posted for membership, is a very old and close friend of mine. She is the daughter of the late Reverend Samuel Eminent, and is therefore a member in her own right, as well as by marriage, of representative New York families. She is a person of much charm and distinction, and her many friends will agree with me, I am sure, in thinking that she would be a valuable addition to the club. Very sincerely, Ethel Norman. Recommendation of Employees Although the written recommendation that is given to the employee carries very little weight, compared to the slip from the employment agencies where either yes or no has to be answered to a list of specific and important questions, one is nevertheless put in a trying position when reporting on an unsatisfactory servant. Either a poor reference must be given, possibly preventing a servant from earning her living, or one has to write what is not true. Consequently, it has become the custom to say what one truthfully can of good, and leave out the qualifications that are bad, except in the case of a careless nurse, where evasion would border on the criminal. That solves the poor recommendation problem pretty well, but unless one is very careful, this consideration for the poor one is paid for by the good. In writing for a very worthy servant, therefore, it is of the utmost importance in fairness to her, or him, to put in every merit that you can think of, remembering that omission implies demerit in each trait of character not mentioned. All good references should include honesty, sobriety, capability, and a reason other than their unsatisfactoriness for their leaving. The recommendation for a nurse cannot be too conscientiously written. A lady does not begin a recommendation to whom it may concern, nor this is to certify, although housekeepers and head servants writing recommendation use both of these forms, and third-person letters are frequently written by secretaries. A lady in giving a good reference should write, 200 PARK SQUARE. Selma Johnson has lived with me for two years as cook. I have found her honest, sober, industrious, neat in person as well as her work, of amiable disposition, a very good cook. She is leaving to my great regret because I am closing my house for the winter. Selma is an excellent servant in every way, and I shall be glad to answer personally any inquiries about her. Josephine Smith. Mrs. Titherington Smith, October, 1921. The form of all recommendations is the same. Blank has lived with me. Blank months slash years as blank. I have found him slash her, blank. He slash she is leaving because blank. Any special remark of added recommendation or showing interest. Signed blank. Mrs. blank. Date. Letters of congratulation. Letter of congratulation on engagement. Dear Mary, while we are not altogether surprised, we are both delighted to hear the good news. Jim's family and ours are very close, as you know, and we have always been especially devoted to Jim. He is one of the finest, and now luckiest of young men, and we send you both every good wish for all possible happiness. Affectionately, Ethel Norman. Just a line, dear Jim, to tell you how glad we all are to hear of your happiness. Mary is everything that is lovely, and, of course, from our point of view we don't think her exactly unfortunate either. Every good wish that imagination can think of goes to you from your old friends, Ethel and Arthur Norman. I can't tell you, dearest Mary, of all the wishes I send for your happiness. Give Jim my love and tell him how lucky I think he is, and how much I hope all good fortune will come to you both, lovingly, and Kate. Congratulations on some special success. My dear Mrs. Brown, we have just heard of the honours that your son has won, how proud you must be of him. We are both so glad for him and for you. Please congratulate him for us, and believe me, very sincerely, Ethel Norman. Or, dear Mrs. Brown, we are so glad to hear the good news of David's success. It was a very splendid accomplishment, and we are also proud of him and of you. Please give him our love and congratulations, and with full measure of both to you, affectionately, Martha Kindheart. Congratulations, a friend appointed to high office. Dear John, we are overjoyed at the good news. For once the reward has fallen where it is deserved. Certainly no one is better fitted than yourself for a diplomat's life, and we know you will fill the position to the honour of your country. Please give my love to Alice, and with renewed congratulations to you from us both. Yours always, Ethel Norman. Another example. Dear Michael, we all rejoice with you in the confirmation of your appointment. The state needs just such men as you. If we had more of your sort, the ordinary citizen would have less to worry about. Our best congratulations. John Kindheart. The Letter of Condolence. Intimate letters of condolence are like love letters in that they are too sacred to follow a set form. One rule and one only should guide you in writing such letters. Say what you truly feel. Say that, and nothing else. Sit down at your desk. Let your thoughts dwell on the person you are writing to. Don't dwell on the details of illness or the manner of death. Don't quote endlessly from the poets and scriptures. Remember that eyes filmed with tears and an aching heart cannot follow rhetorical lengths of writing. The more nearly a note can express a hand clasp, a thought of sympathy, above all a genuine love or appreciation of the one who has gone, the greater comfort it brings. Write as simply as possible, and let your heart speak as truly and as briefly as you can. Forget, if you can, that you are using written words. Think merely how you feel. Then put your feelings on paper. That is all. Supposing it is a young mother who has died. You think how young and sweet she was, and of her little children, and literally your heart aches for them, and her husband, and her own family. Into your thoughts must come some expression of what she was and what their loss must be. Or maybe it is the death of a man who has left a place in the whole community that will be difficult, if not impossible, to fill, and you think of all he stood for that was fine and helpful to others, and how much and sorely he will be missed. Or suppose that you are a returned soldier, and it is a pal who has died. All you can think of is, poor old Steve, what a peach he was. I don't think anything will ever be the same again without him. Say just that. Ask if there is anything you can do at any time to be of service to his people. There is nothing more to be said. A line, into which you have unconsciously put a little of the genuine feeling that you had for Steve, is worth pages of eloquence. A letter of condolence may be abrupt, badly constructed, ungrammatical, never mind. Grace of expression counts for nothing. Sincerity alone is of value. It is the expression, however clumsily put, of a personal something which was loved, and will ever be missed, that alone brings solace to those who are left. Your message may speak merely of a small incident, something so trifling that in the seriousness of the present seems not worth recording. But your letter, and that of many others, each bringing a single sprig, may plant a whole memory garden in the hearts of the bereaved. Examples of Notes and Telegrams. As has been said above, a letter of condolence must above everything express a genuine sentiment. The few examples are inserted merely as suggestive guides for those at a loss to construct a short but appropriate note or telegram. Conventional note to an acquaintance. I know how little the words of an outsider mean to you just now, but I must tell you how deeply I sympathize with you in your great loss. Note or telegram to a friend. All my sympathy and all my thoughts are with you in your great sorrow. If I can be of any service to you, you know how grateful I shall be. Telegram to a very near relative or friend. Words are so empty if only I knew how to fill them with love and send them to you. Or if love and thoughts could only help you, Margaret, dear, you should have all the strength of both that I can give. Letter where death was release. The letter to one whose loss is, for the best, is difficult in that you want to express sympathy but cannot feel sad that one who has long suffered has found release. The expression of sympathy in this case should not be for the present death but for the illness or whatever it was that fell long ago. The grief for a paralyzed mother is for the stroke which cut her down many years before, and your sympathy, though you may not have realized it, is for that. You might write, Your sorrow during all these years, and now, is in my heart, and all my thoughts and sympathy are with you. Org. This reading by Kara Schellenberg. Org. The President of the United States, or merely the President, Washington, D.C. There is only one President. I have the honor to remain yours faithfully, or I am, dear Mr. President, yours faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. If you are speaking, you say, Mr. Vice President, and then Sir. Envelope addressed. Informal beginning, my dear Mr. Vice President. Formal close, same as for President. Informal close, believe me, yours faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. The Vice President. Justice of Supreme Court. If you are speaking, you say, Mr. Justice. Envelope addressed. The Honorable William H. Taft, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Washington, D.C. Formal beginning of a letter, Sir. Informal beginning, dear Mr. Justice Taft. Formal close, believe me, yours very truly, or I have the honor to remain yours very truly. Informal close, believe me, yours faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. The Chief Justice, or if an associate justice, Mr. Justice Holmes, member of the President's Cabinet. If you are speaking, you say, Mr. Secretary. Envelope addressed. The Secretary of Commerce, Washington, D.C., or the Honorable Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, Washington, D.C. Formal beginning of a letter, dear Sir, or Sir. Informal beginning, my dear Mr. Secretary. Formal close, same as above. Informal close, same as above. Correct titles in introduction. The Secretary of Commerce. United States, or State Senator. If you are speaking, you say, Senator Lodge. Envelope addressed, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Washington, D.C., or a private letter, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, his house address. Formal beginning of a letter, dear Sir, or Sir. Informal beginning, dear Senator Lodge. Formal close, same as above. Informal close, same as above. Correct titles in introduction. Senator Lodge. On very formal and unusual occasions, Senator Lodge of Massachusetts. Member of Congress, or Legislature. If you are speaking, you say, Mr. Bell, or you may say, Congressman. Envelope addressed. The Honorable H. C. Bell, Jr., House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., or State Assembly, Albany, New York. Formal beginning of a letter, dear Sir, or Sir. Informal beginning, dear Mr. Bell, or dear Congressman. Formal close, believe me, yours very truly. Informal close, yours faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. Mr. Bell. Governor. If you are speaking, you say, Governor Miller. The Governor is not called Excellency when spoken to, and very rarely when he is announced, but letters are addressed and begun with this title of courtesy. Envelope addressed. His Excellency, the Governor, Albany, New York. Formal beginning of a letter, your Excellency. Informal beginning, dear Governor Miller. Formal close, I have the honor to remain yours faithfully. Informal close, believe me, yours faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. The Governor, in his own State, or, out of it, the Governor of Michigan. Mayor. If you are speaking, you say, Mr. Mayor. Envelope addressed. His honor, the Mayor, City Hall, Chicago. Formal beginning of a letter, dear Sir, or Sir. Informal beginning, dear Mayor Rolf. Formal close, believe me, very truly yours. Informal close, yours faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. Mayor Rolf. Cardinal. If you are speaking, you say, your Eminence. Envelope addressed. His Eminence, John Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore, Maryland. Formal beginning of a letter, your Eminence. Informal beginning, your Eminence. Formal close, I have the honor to remain your Eminence's humble servant. Informal close, your Eminence's humble servant. Correct titles in introduction. His Eminence. Roman Catholic Archbishop. There is no Protestant Archbishop in the United States. If you are speaking, you say, your Grace. Envelope addressed. The most reverend Michael Corrigan Archbishop of New York. Formal beginning of a letter, most reverend and dear Sir. Informal beginning, most reverend and dear Sir. Formal close, I have the honor to remain your humble servant. Informal close, same as formal close. Correct titles in introduction. The most reverend, the Archbishop. Bishop, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant. If you are speaking, you say, Bishop Manning. Envelope addressed to the right reverend William T. Manning, Bishop of New York. Formal beginning of a letter, most reverend and dear Sir. Informal beginning, my dear Bishop Manning. Formal close, I have the honor to remain your obedient servant, or to remain respectfully yours. Informal close, faithfully yours. Correct titles in introduction. Bishop Manning. Priest. If you are speaking, you say, Father, or Father Duffy. Envelope addressed. The reverend Michael Duffy. Formal beginning of a letter. Reverend and dear Sir. Informal beginning, dear Father Duffy. Formal close, I beg to remain yours faithfully. Informal close, I have the honor to remain yours. Faithfully yours. Correct titles in introduction. Father Duffy. Protestant clergyman. If you are speaking, you say, Mr. Saintly. If he is D.D., or L.L.D., you call him Dr. Saintly. Envelope addressed. The reverend George Saintly. If you do not know his first name, write, The Reverend Saintly, rather than The Reverend Mr. Saintly. Formal beginning of a letter. Sir, or my dear Sir. Informal beginning, dear Dr. Saintly, or dear Mr. Saintly, if he is not a D.D. Formal close, same as above. Informal close, faithfully yours, or sincerely yours. Correct titles in introduction. Doctor, or Mr. Saintly. Rabbi. If you are speaking, you say, Rabbi Wise. If he is D.D., or L.L.D., he is called Dr. Wise. Envelope addressed. Dr. Stephen Wise, or Rabbi Stephen Wise, or Reverend Stephen Wise. Formal beginning of a letter. Dear Sir. Informal beginning, dear Dr. Wise. Formal close, I beg to remain yours sincerely. Informal close, yours sincerely. Correct titles in introduction. Rabbi Wise. Ambassador. If you are speaking, you say, Your Excellency, or Mr. Ambassador. Envelope addressed. His Excellency, the American Ambassador. Footnote. Although our ambassadors and ministers represent the United States of America, it is customary both in Europe and Asia to omit the words, United States, and write to and speak of the American Embassy and Legation. In addressing a letter to one of our representatives in countries of the Western Hemisphere, the United States of America is always specified by way of courtesy to the Americans of South America. End footnote. American Embassy, London. Formal beginning of a letter. Your Excellency. Informal beginning, dear Mr. Ambassador. Formal close, I have the honor to remain yours faithfully, or yours very truly, or yours respectfully, or very formally, I have the honor to remain, sir, your obedient servant. Informal close, yours faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. The American Ambassador. Minister Plenipotentiary. If you are speaking, you say. In English, he is usually called Mr. Prince, though it is not incorrect to call him Mr. Minister. The title Excellency is also occasionally used in courtesy, though it does not belong to him. In French, he is always called Monsieur le Minister. Envelope addressed. The Honorable J. D. Prince, American Legation, Copenhagen, or more courteously, his Excellency, the American Minister, Copenhagen, Denmark. Formal beginning of a letter. Sir is correct, but your Excellency is sometimes used in courtesy. Informal beginning, dear Mr. Minister, or dear Mr. Prince. Formal close, same as above. Informal close, yours faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. Mr. Prince, the American Minister, or merely the American Minister, as everyone is supposed to know his name or find it out. Council. If you are speaking, you say Mr. Smith. Envelope addressed. If he has held office as Assemblyman or Commissioner, so that he has the right to the title of Honorable, he is addressed the Honorable John Smith. Otherwise, John Smith Esquire, American Council, Rue Calquet, chose Paris. Formal beginning of a letter. Sir, or my dear sir. Informal beginning, dear Mr. Smith. Formal close, I beg to remain yours very truly. Informal close, faithfully. Correct titles in introduction. Mr. Smith. Foreign persons of title are not included in the forgoing diagram because an American, unless in the diplomatic service, would be unlikely to address any but personal friends to whom he would write as to any others. An envelope would be addressed in the language of the person written to. His Grace, the Duke of Over There, or merely the Duke of Over There. Hyde Park, London. Madame la Princesse d'Achesia, Avenue Dubois, Paris. Il Principe d'Capri, Cusano Sul Cveso. Lady Alwyn, Craigmear, Scotland, etc. The letter would begin, Dear Duke of Over There, or Dear Duke, Dear Princess, Dear Countess Aix, Dear Lady Alwyn, Dear Sir Hubert, etc. and close, sincerely, faithfully, or affectionately, as the case might be. Should an American have occasion to write to royalty, he would begin Madame, or Sir, and End. I have the honour to remain, Madame, or Sir, your most obedient. Your most obedient servant is a signature reserved usually for our own President, or Vice President. End of Part 5 and the End of Chapter 27 of Etiquette. Read by Kara Schellenberg on April 27, 2007, in Oceanside, California. The art of general letter writing in the present day is shrinking, until the letter threatens to become a telegram, a telephone message, a postcard. Since the events of the day are transmitted in newspapers with far greater accuracy, detail, and dispatch than they could be by the single effort of even Voltaire himself, the circulation of general news, which formed the chief reason for letters of the stagecoach and sailing vessel days, has no part in the correspondence of today. Taking the contents of an average mailbag as sorted in a United States post office, about 50% is probably advertisement or appeal, 40% business, and scarcely 10% personal letters and invitations. Of course, love letters are probably as numerous as need be, though the long-distance telephone must have lowered the average of these, too. Young girls write to each other, no doubt, much as they did in olden times, and letters between young girls and young men flourished today like unpulled weeds in a garden where weeds were formerly never allowed to grow. It is the letter from the friend in this city to the friend in that, or from the traveling relative to the relative at home that is gradually dwindling. As for the letter which younger relatives dutifully used to write, it is gone already with old-fashioned grace of speech and deportment. Still, people do write letters in this day, and there are some who possess the divinely flexible gift for a fresh turn of phrase, for delightful keenness of observation. It may be, too, that in other days the average writing was no better than the average of today. It is, naturally, the letters of those who had unusual gifts which have been preserved all these years, for the failures of a generation are made to die with it, and only its successes survive. The difference, though, between letter writers of the past and of the present is that in other days they all tried to write and to express themselves the very best they knew how. Today people don't care a bit whether they write well or ill. Mental effort is one thing that the younger generation of the smart world seems to consider it unreasonable to ask, and just as it is the fashion to let their spines droop until they suggest nothing so much as Tenniel's drawing in Alice in Wonderland of the caterpillars sitting on the toadstool, so do they let their mental faculties relax, slump, and atrophy. To such as these, to whom effort is an insurmountable task, it might be just as well to say frankly, if you have a mind that is entirely bremitic, if you are lacking in humor, all power of observation, and facility for expression, you would best join the ever-growing class of people who frankly confess, I can't write letters to save my life, and confine your literary efforts to picture postcards with the engaging captions, X is my room, or beautiful weather wish you were here. It is not at all certain that your friends and family would not rather have frequent postcards than occasional letters, all too obviously displaying the meagerness of their messages in halting orthography. Beginning a letter. For most people, the difficulty in letter writing is in the beginning and the close. Once they are started, the middle goes smoothly enough until they face the difficulty of the end. The direction of the professor of English to begin at the beginning of what you have to say and go on until you have finished and then stop is very like a celebrated artist's direction for painting. You simply take a little of the right color paint and put it on the right spot. How not to begin. Even one who loves the very sight of your handwriting could not possibly find any pleasure in a letter beginning. I have been meaning to write you for a long time, but haven't had a minute to spare, or I suppose you've been thinking me very neglectful, but you know how I hate to write letters. Or I know I ought to have answered your letters sooner, but I haven't had a thing to write about. The above sentences are written time and again by persons who are utterly unconscious that they are not expressing a friendly or loving thought. If one of your friends were to walk into the room and you were to receive him stretched out and yawning in an easy chair, no one would have to point out the rudeness of such behavior. Yet countless kindly-intentioned people begin their letters mentally reclining and yawning in just such a way. How to begin a letter. Suppose you merely change the wording of the above sentences, so that instead of slamming the door in your friend's face you hold it open. Do you think I've forgotten you entirely? You don't know, dear Mary, how many letters I have written you in thought. Or time and time again I have wanted to write you, but each moment that I say for myself was always interrupted by something. One of the frequent difficulties in beginning a letter is that your answer is so long delayed that you begin with an apology, which is always a lame duck. But these examples indicate a way in which even an opening apology may be attractive rather than repellent. If you are going to take the trouble to write a letter, you are doing it because you have at least remembered some of them with friendly regard, or you would not be writing at all. You certainly would like to convey the impression that you want to be with your friend in thought for a little while, at least. Not that she, through some malignant force, is holding you to a grindstone and forcing you to the task of making hateful schoolroom pot hooks for her selfish gain. A perfect letter has always the effect of being a light dipping off the top of a spring. A poor letter suggests digging into the dried ink at the bottom of an inkwell. It is easy to begin a letter if it is an answer to one that has just been received. The news contained in it is fresh, and the impulse to reply needs no prodding. Nothing can be simpler than to say we were all overjoyed to hear from you this morning, or your letter was the most welcome thing the postman has brought for ages, or it was more than good to have news of you this morning, or your letter from Capri brought all the allure of Italy back to me, or you can't imagine, dear Mary, how glad I was to see an envelope with your writing this morning. And then you take up the various subjects of Mary's letter, which should certainly launch you without difficulty upon topics of your own. Ending a letter. Just as the beginning of a letter should give the reader an impression of greeting, so should the end express friendly or affectionate leave-taking. Nothing can be worse than to seem to scratch helplessly around in the air for an idea that will affect your escape. Well, I guess I must stop now. Well, I must close, or you are probably bored with this long epistle, so I have better close. All of these are as bad as they can be, and suggest the untutored man who stands first on one foot and then in the other, running his finger around the brim of his hat, or the country girl twisting the corner of her apron. How to end a letter. An intimate letter has no end at all. When you leave the house of a member of your family, you don't have to think up in a special sentence in order to say goodbye. Leave-taking in a letter is the same. Goodbye, dearest, for today, devotedly Kate, or best love to you all, Martin, or we'll write again in a day or two, lovingly Mary, or luncheon was announced half a page ago, so goodbye, dear Mary, for today. The close of a less intimate letter, like taking leave of a visitor in your drawing-room, is necessarily more ceremonious. And the ceremonious close presents to most people the greatest difficulty in letter writing. It is really quite simple, if you realize that the aim of the closing paragraph is merely to bring in a personal hyphen between the person writing and the person written to. The mountains were beautiful at sunset. It is a bad closing sentence because the mountains have nothing personal to either of you. But if you can add, they reminded me of the time we were in Colorado together, or how different from our wide prairies at home you've crossed a bridge as it were. Or we have had a wonderful trip, but I do miss you all at home and long to hear from you soon again. Or from one at home your closed house makes me very lonely to pass. I do hope you are coming back soon. Sometimes an ending falls naturally into a sentence that ends with your signature. If I could look up now and see you coming into the room, there would be no happier woman in the whole state than your devoted mother. Letters no one cares to read. Letters of Calamity. First and foremost, in the category of letters that no one can possibly receive with pleasure, might be put the letter of Calamity, the letter of gloomy apprehension, the letter filled with petty annoyances. Less disturbing to receive, but far from enjoyable, are such letters as the blank, the meandering, the letter of the capital I, the plaintive, the apologetic. There is scarcely anyone who is not one or more relatives or friends whose letters belong in one of these classes. Even in so personal a matter, as a letter to an absent member of one's immediate family, it should be borne in mind not to write needlessly of misfortune or unhappiness. To hear from those we love how ill or unhappy they are is to have our distress intensified in direct proportion to the number of miles by which we are separated from them. This last example, however, has nothing in common with the choosing of Calamity and gloom as a subject of welcome tidings and ordinary correspondence. The chronic Calamity writers seem to wait until the skies are darkest and then, rushing to their desk, luxuriate and pouring all of their troubles and fears of troubles out on paper to their friends. Letters of Gloomy Apprehension My little Betty, my little adds to the pathos much more than saying merely Betty, has been feeling miserable for several days. I am worried to death about her as there are so many sudden cases of typhoid and appendicitis. The doctor says the symptoms are not at all alarming as yet, but doctors see so much of illness and death they don't seem to appreciate what anxiety means to a mother, etc. Another writes, The times seem to be getting worse and worse. I always said we would have to go through a long night before any chance of daylight. You can mark my words, the night of bad times isn't much more than big gun. Or, I have scarcely slept for nights, worrying about whether Junior has passed his examinations or not. Letters of Petty Misfortunes Other perfectly well-meaning friends, fancy that they are giving pleasure when they write such news as, My cook has been sick for the past ten days, and follow this with a page or two descriptive of her ailments, or, I have a slight cough, I think I must have cut it yesterday when I went out in the rain without rubbers, or, The children have not been doing as well in their lessons this week as last. Johnny's arithmetic marks were dreadful, and Katie got an E in spelling and an F in geography. Her husband and her mother would be interested in the children's weekly reports and her own slight cough, but no one else. How could they be? If the writers of all such letters would merely read over what they have written and ask themselves if they could find pleasure in receiving messages of like manner and matter, perhaps they might begin to do a little thinking and break the habit of cataleptic unthinkingness that seemingly descends upon them as soon as they are seated at their desk. The Blank The writer of the blank letter begins fluently with a date in Dear Mary, and then sits and chooses penholder or makes little dots and squares and circles on the blotter, utterly unable to attack the cold forbidding blankness of that first page. Menly he seems to say, Well, here I am, and now what? He has not an idea. He can never find anything of sufficient importance to write about. A murder next door, a house burned to the ground, a burglary, or an allotment could loan furnished material, and that, too, would be finished off in a brief sentence stating the bare fact. A person whose life is a revolving wheel of routine may have really very little to say, but a letter does not have to be long to be welcome. It can be very good indeed if it has a message it seems to have been spoken. Dear Lucy, life here is as dull as ever, duller, if anything, just the same old things done in the same old way, not even a fire engine out or a new face in town, but this is to show you that I am thinking of you and longing to hear from you. Or I wish something really exciting would happen so that I might have something with a little thrill in it to write you, but everything goes on and on. If there were any check in its sameness I think we'd all land in a heap against the edge of the town. The meandering letter, as its name implies, the meandering letter is one which dawdles through disconnected subjects, like a trolley car gone downgrade off the track, through fences and fields and flowerbeds indiscriminately. Mrs. Blake's cow died last week. The governor and his wife were on the reception committee. Mary Selfridge went to stay with her aunt in Riverview. I think the new shag called Harding Blue is perfectly hideous. Another, that is almost akin to it, runs glibly on, page after page of meaningless repetition and detail. I thought at first that I would get a gray dress. I think gray is such a pretty color, and I have had so many blue dresses. I can't decide this time whether to get blue or gray. Sometimes I think gray is more becoming to me than blue. I think gray looks well on fair-haired people. I don't know whether you could call my hair fair or not. I am certainly not dark and yet fair hair suggests a sort of straw color. Maybe I might be called medium fair. Do you think I'm light enough to wear gray? Maybe blue would be more serviceable. Gray certainly looks pretty in the spring. It is so clean and fresh-looking. There is a lovely French model at Benson's in gray, but I can have it copied for less in blue. Maybe it won't be as pretty, though, as a gray, etc., etc., by the above method of cudd-chewing, any subject, clothes, painting the house, children's school, planning a garden, or even the weather, need be limited only by the supply of paper and ink. The Letter of the Capital Eye The letter of the capital eye is a pompous effusion which drives through pretentiousness to impress its reader with its writer's wealth, position, ability, or whatever possession or attribute is thought to be rated most highly. Numb but unfortunate dependence or the cringing in spirit would subject themselves to a second letter of this kind by answering the first. The letter which hints at hoped-for benefits is no worse. The Letter of Chronic Apology The letter written by a person with an apologetic habit of mine is different totally from the sometimes necessary letter of genuine apology. The former is as senseless as it is irritating. It was so good of you to come to my horrid little shanty. The house and the food she served were both probably better than that of the person she is writing to. I know you had nothing fit to eat, and I know that everything was just all wrong. Of course, everything is always so beautifully done at everything you give. I wonder I have the courage to ask you to dine with me. The Dangerous Letter A pitfall that those of sharp wit have to guard against is the thoughtless tendency toward writing ill-natured things. Ridicule is a much more amusing medium for the display of a subject than praise, which is always rather brimitic. The amusing person catches foibles and exploits them, and it is easy to forget that wit flashes all too irresistibly at the expense of other people's feelings, and the brilliant tongue is all too often sharpened to rapier point. Admiration for the quickness of a spoken quip somewhat mitigates its cruelty. The exuberance of the retailer of verbal gossip eliminates the implication of scandal, but both quip and gossip become deadly poison when transferred permanently to paper. Permanence of Written Emotion For all emotions, written words are a bad medium. The light-gesting tone that saves a quip from a fence cannot be expressed, and remarks that a spoken would amuse can but peek and even insult their subject. Without the interpretation of the voice, gaiety becomes levity, railery becomes accusation. Moreover, words of a passing moment are made to stand forever. Anger in the letter carries with it the effect of solidified fury. The words spoken in reproof melt with the breath of the speaker once the cause is forgiven. The written words on the page fix them for eternity. Love in a letter endures likewise forever. Admonitions from parents to their children may very properly be put on paper. They are meant to endure and be remembered, but momentary annoyance should never be more than briefly expressed. There is no better way of ensuring his letters against being read than for a parent to get into the habit of writing irritable or fault-finding letters to his children. The Letters of Two Wives Do you ever see a man look through a stack of mail and notice that suddenly his face lights up as he seizes a letter from home? He tears it open eagerly, his mouth up curving at the corners as he lingers over every word. You know without being told that the wife he had to leave behind puts all the best she can devise and save for him into his life as well as on paper. Do you ever see a man go through his mail and see him suddenly droop as though a fog had fallen upon his spirits? Do you see him reluctantly pick out a letter, start to open it, hesitate, and then push it aside? His expression says plainly, I can't face that just now. Then, by and by, when his lips have been set in a hard line, he will doggedly open his letter to see what the trouble is now. If for once there is no trouble, he sighs with relief, relaxes, and starts the next thing he has to do. Usually, though, he frowns, looks worried, annoyed, harassed, and you know that every small unpleasantness is punctiliously served to him by one who promised to love and to cherish and who probably thinks she does. The letter everyone loves to receive. The letter we all love to receive is one that carries so much of the writer's personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us directly and talking just as she really would could she have come on a magic carpet instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere paper. Let us suppose we have received one of those perfect letters from Mary, one of those letters that seem almost to have written themselves so easily do the words flow, so bubbling and effortless is their spontaneity. There was a great deal in the letter about Mary, not only about what she has been doing, but what she has been thinking or perhaps feeling. And there is a lot about us in the letter, nice things that make us feel rather pleased about something that we have done or are likely to do or that someone has said about us. We know that all things of concern to us are of equal concern to Mary. And though there will be nothing of it in actual words, we are made to feel that we are just as secure in our corner of Mary's heart as ever we were. And we finish the letter with a very vivid remembrance of Mary's sympathy and a sense of loss in her absence and a longing for the time when Mary herself may again be sitting on the sofa beside us and telling us all the details her letter cannot but leave out. The letter no woman should ever write. The males carry letters every day that are so many packages of TNT should their contents be exploded by falling into the wrong hands. Letters that should never have been written are put in evidence in courtrooms every day. Many cannot, under any circumstances, be excused. But often silly girls and foolish women write things that sound quite different from what they innocently but stupidly intended. Few persons, except professional writers, have the least idea of the value of words and the effect that they produce. And the thoughtless letters of emotional women and underbred men add sensation to news items in the press almost daily. Of course, the best advice to a young girl who is impelled to write letters to men can be put in one word. Don't. However, if you are a young girl or woman and are determined to write letters to a special or any other man, no matter how innocent your intention may be, there are some things you must remember. Remember so intensely that no situation in life, no circumstances, no temptation can ever make you forget. There are a few set rules, not of etiquette, but of the laws of self-respect. Never send a letter without reading it over and making sure that you have said nothing that can possibly sound different from what you intend to say. Never so long as you live, write a letter to a man, no matter who he is, that you would be ashamed to see in a newspaper above your signature. Remember that every word of writing is immutable evidence for or against you and words which are thoughtlessly put on paper may exist a hundred years hence. Never write anything that can be construed as sentimental. Never take a man to task about anything. Never ask for explanations. To do so implies too great an intimacy. Never put a single clinging tentacle into writing. Say nothing ever that can be construed as demanding, asking, or even being eager for his attentions. Always keep in mind and never for one instant forget that a third person, and that the very one you would most object to, may find and read the letter. One word more. It is not alone bad form but laying yourself open to every sort of embarrassment and danger to correspond with a man you slightly know. Proper Letters of Love or Affection If you are engaged, of course you should write love letters, the most beautiful that you can, but don't write baby talk and other silliness that would make you feel idiotic if a letter were to fall into strange hands. On the other hand few can find objection to the natural, friendly, and even affectionate letter from a young girl to a young man she has been brought up with. It is such a letter as she would write to her brother. There is no hint of coquetry or self-consciousness, no word from first to last that might not be shouted aloud before her whole family. Her letter may begin, dear, or even dearest, Jack, then follows all the home news she can think of that might possibly interest him about the Simpsons dance, Tom and Pauline's engagement, how many trout Bill Henderson got at Duckbrook, how furious Mrs. Davis was because some distinguished visitor accepted Mrs. Brown's dinner instead of hers, how the new people who have moved on to the Rush Farm don't know the first thing about farming, and so on. Perhaps there will be one personal line such as, we all missed you at the picnic on Wednesday, Ollie made the flatjacks and they were too awful. Everyone groaned, if Jack were only here. Or, we all hope you are coming back in time for the town's dance. Kate has at last inveigled her mother into letting her have an all-black dress, which we rather suspect was bought with the especial purpose of impressing you with her advanced age and dignity. Mother came in just as I wrote this and says to tell you she has a new recipe for chocolate cake that is even better than her old one, and that you would better have a piece added to your belt before you come home. Carrie will write you very soon, she says, and we all send love. Affectionately, Ruth. The letter no gentleman writes. One of the fundamental rules for the behavior of any man who has the faintest pretension to being a gentleman is that never by word or gesture must he compromise a woman. He never therefore writes a letter that can be construed even by a lawyer as damaging to any woman's good name. His letters to an unmarried woman may express all the ardor and devotion that he cares to subscribe to, but there must be no hint of his having received a special favors from her. Don't for correspondence. Never type right an invitation, acceptance, or regret. Never type right a social note. Be cherry of underscoring and postscripts. Do not write across a page already written on. Do not use unmatched paper and envelopes. Do not write in pencil. Accept a note to one of your family written on a train or where ink is unprocurable or unless you are flat on your back because of illness. Never send a letter with a blot on it. Never sprinkle French, Italian, or any other foreign words through a letter written in English. You do not give an impression of cultivation but of ignorance of your own language. Use a foreign word if it has no English equivalent, not otherwise unless it has become anglicized. If hesitating between two words always select the one of Saxon origin rather than Latin. For the best selection of words to use study the King James Version of the Bible. Chapter 29 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 Chris Gladys Etiquette in Society in Business in Politics and at Home by Emily Post Chapter 29 The Fundamentals of Good Behavior Far more important than any mere dictum of Etiquette is the fundamental code of honor without strict observance of which no man, no matter how polished, can be considered a gentleman. The honor of a gentleman demands the inviability of his word and the incorruptibility of his principles. He is the descendant of the knight, the crusader. He is the defender of the defenseless and the champion of justice. Or he is not a gentleman. Decencies of Behavior A gentleman does not, and a man who aspires to be one must not, ever, borrow money from a woman. Nor should he, except in unexpected circumstances, borrow money from a man. Money borrowed without security is a debt of honor, which must be paid without fail and promptly as possible. The debts incurred by a deceased parent, brother, sister, or grown child are assumed by honorable men and women as debts of honor. A gentleman never takes advantage of a woman in a business dealing, nor of the poor or the helpless. One who is not well off does not sponge, but pays his own way to the utmost of his ability. One who is rich does not make a display of his money or his possessions, only a vulgarian talks ceaselessly about how much this or that cost him. A very well-bred man intensely dislikes the mention of money, and never speaks of it, out of business hours, if he can avoid it. A gentleman never discusses his family affairs, either in public or with acquaintances, nor does he speak more than casually about his wife. A man is a cad who tells anyone, no matter who, what his wife told him in confidence, or describes what she looks like in her bedroom. To impart details of her beauty is scarcely better than to publish her blemishes. To do either is unspeakable. Nor does a gentleman ever criticize the behavior of a wife whose conduct is scandalous. What he says to her in the privacy of their own apartments is no one's affair but his own, but he must never treat her with disrespect before their children, or a servant, or anyone. A man of honor never seeks publicly to divorce his wife, no matter what he believes her conduct to have been. But for the protection of his own name and that of the children, he allows her to get her freedom on other than criminal grounds. No matter who he may be, whether rich or poor, in high life or low, the man who publicly besmirches his wife's name besmirches still more his own, and proves that he is not, was not, and never will be a gentleman. No gentleman goes to a lady's house if he is affected by alcohol. A gentleman, seeing a young man who is not entirely himself in the presence of ladies, quietly induces the youth to depart. An older man, addicted to the use of too much alcohol, need not be discussed, since he ceases to be asked to the houses of ladies. A gentleman does not lose control of his temper. In fact, in his own self-control under difficult or dangerous circumstances lies his chief ascendancy over others, who impulsively betray every emotion which animates them. Exhibitions of anger, fear, hatred, embarrassment, ardor or hilarity are all bad form in public, and bad form is merely an action which jars the sensibilities of others. A gentleman does not show a letter written by a lady, unless perhaps to a very intimate friend, if the letter is entirely impersonal, and written by someone who is equally the friend of the one to whom it is shown. But the occasions when the letter of a woman may be shown properly by a man are so few, that it is safest to make it rule never to mention a woman's letter. A gentleman does not bow to a lady from a club window, nor according to good form should ladies ever be discussed in a man's club. A man whose social position is self-made is apt to be detected by his continual cataloging of prominent names. Mr. Parvinu invariably interlarges conversation with, when I was dining at the Bobo Gildings, or even at Lucy Gildings, and quite often accentuates, in his ignorance, those of rather second rate though conspicuous position, I was spending last weekend with the rich and vulgars, or my great friends the got-a-crusts. When a so-called gentleman insists on imparting information interesting only to the social register, shun him. The born gentleman avoids the mention of names exactly as he avoids the mention of what things cost. Both are an abomination to his soul. A gentleman's manners are an integral part of him, and are the same whether in his dressing room, or in a ballroom, whether in talking to Mrs. Worldly, or to the laundress bringing in his clothes. He whose manners are only put on in company is a veneered gentleman, not a real one. A man of breeding does not slap strangers on the back, nor so much as lay his fingertips on a lady. Nor does he punctuate his conversation by pushing or nudging or patting people, nor take his conversation out of the drawing-room. Notwithstanding the advertisements in the most dignified magazines, a discussion of underwear and toilet articles and their merit or their use is unpleasant in polite conversation. All thoroughbred people are considerate of the feelings of others, no matter what the station of the others may be. Thackeray's climber, who licks the boots of those above him and kicks the faces of those below him on the social ladder, is a very good illustration of what a gentleman is not. A gentleman never takes advantage of another's helplessness or ignorance, and assumes that no gentleman will take advantage of him. Simplicity and Unconsciousness of Self These words have been literally sprinkled through the pages of this book, yet it is doubtful if they convey a clear idea of the attributes meant. Unconsciousness of Self is not so much unselfishness as it is the mental ability to extinguish all thoughts of oneself, exactly as one turns out the light. Simplicity is like it, in that it also has a quality of self-effacement, but it really means a love of the essential and of directness. Simple people put no trimmings on their phrases nor in their manners. But remember, simplicity is not crudeness nor anything like it. On the contrary, simplicity of speech and manners means language in its purest, most limpid form, and manners of such perfection, that they do not suggest manner at all. The Instincts of a Lady The instincts of a lady are much the same as those of a gentleman. She is equally punctilious about her debts, equally averse to pressing her advantage, especially if her adversary is helpless or poor. As an unhappy wife, her dignity demands that she never show her disapproval of her husband, no matter how publicly he slights or outrageous her. If she has been so unfortunate as to have married a man not a gentleman, to draw attention to his behavior would put herself on his level. If it comes actually to the point where she divorces him, she discusses her situation, naturally, with her parents or her brother or whoever are her nearest and wisest relatives, but she shuns publicity and avoids discussing her affairs with anyone outside of her immediate family. One cannot too strongly censure the unspeakable vulgarity of the woman so unfortunate as to be obliged to go through divorce proceedings, who confides the private details of her life to reporters. The Hallmark of the Climber Nothing so blatantly proclaims a woman climber as the repetition of prominent names, the owners of which she must have struggled to know. Otherwise why so eagerly boast of the achievement? Nobody cares whom she knows, nobody that is, but a climber like herself. To those who were born and who live, no matter how quietly, in the security of a perfectly good ledge above and away from the social ladder's rungs, the evidence of one frantically climbing and trying to vault her exalted position is merely ludicrous. All thoroughbred women and men are considerate of others less fortunately placed, especially of those in their employ. One of the tests by which to distinguish between the woman of breeding and the woman merely of wealth is to notice the way she speaks to dependence. Queen Victoria's Duchesses, those great ladies of grand manner, were the very ones who, on entering the house of a close friend, said, How do you do Hawkins to a butler, and to a sister Duchess is made? Good morning, Jenkins! A Maryland lady, still living on the estate granted to her family three generations before the Revolution, is quite as polite to her friend's servants as to her friends themselves. When you see a woman in silks and sables and diamonds speak to a little errand girl or a footman or a scullery maid, as though they were the dirt under her feet, you may be sure of one thing. She hasn't come a very long way from the ground herself. End of chapter 29. Chapter 30. etiquette in society. This is a LibraBox recording. All LibraBox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraBox.org. This reading by Lucy Burgoyne. etiquette in society, in business, in politics, and at home by Emily Post. Chapter 30. Clubs and Club etiquette. A club, as everyone knows, is merely an organization of people, men or women or both, who establish club rooms in which they meet at specified times for specified purposes, or which they use casually and individually. A club's membership may be limited to a dozen or may include several thousands, and a procedure in joining a club may be easy or difficult, according to the type of club and the standing of the would-be member. Membership in many athletic associations may be had by walking in and paying dues. Also, many country golf clubs are as free to the public as country-ins, but joining a purely social club of rank and exclusiveness is a very different matter. A man to be eligible for membership in such a club must not only be completely a gentleman, but he must have friends among the members who like him enough to be willing to propose him and second him and write letters for him. And furthermore, he must be disliked by no one, at least not sufficiently for any member to object seriously to his company. There are two ways of joining a club, by invitation and by making application or having it made for you. To join by invitation means that you are invited when the club is started, to be one of the founders or charter members, or if you are a distinguished citizen, you may, at the invitation of the governors, become an honorary member, or in a small or informal club, you may become an ordinary member by invitation or suggestion of the governors that you would be welcome. A charter member pays dues, but not always an initiation fee. An honorary member pays neither dues nor initiation, he is really a permanent guest of the club. A life member is one who pays his dues for 20 years, also in a lump sum, and is exempted from dues even if he lives to be a hundred. Few clubs have honorary members and none have more than half a dozen, so that this type of membership may as well be disregarded. The ordinary members of a club are either resident, meaning that they live within 50 miles of the club, or non-resident, living beyond that distance and paying less dues but having the same privileges. In certain of the London clubs, one or two New York ones, and the leading club in several other cities, it is not unusual for a boy's name to be put up for membership as soon as he is born. If his name comes up while he is a minor, it is laid aside until after his 21st birthday, and then put at the head of the list of applicants and voted upon at the next meeting of the governors. In all clubs in which membership is limited and much sought after, the waiting list is sure to be long, and a name takes anywhere from five to more than ten years to come up. How a name is put up? Since a gentleman is scarcely likely to want to join a club in which the members are not his friends, he tells a member of his family or an intimate friend that he would like to join the nearby club and adds, do you mind putting me up? I will ask Dick to second me. The friend says I'll be glad to, and Dick says the same. It is still more likely that the suggestion to join comes from a friend who says one day, why don't you join the nearby club? It would be very convenient for you. The other says I think I should like to, and the first replies, let me put you up, and Dick will be only too glad to second you. It must be remembered that a gentleman has no right to ask anyone who is not really one of his best friends to propose or second him. It is an awkward thing to refuse in the first place, and in the second it involves considerable effort, and on occasion a great deal of annoyance and trouble. For example, let us suppose that Jim Smarlington asks Donald Lovejoy to propose him, and Club Wynn Doe to second him. His name is written in the book kept for the purpose and signed by both proposer and seconder. Smarlington, James, proposer, Donald Lovejoy, seconder, Club Wynn Doe. Nothing more is done until the name is posted, meaning that it appears among a list of names put up on the bulletin board in the clubhouse. It is then the duty of Lovejoy and Doe, each to write a letter of endorsement to the governors of the club, to be read by them when they hold the meeting at which his name comes up for election. Example, Board of Governors, the nearby club. Dears Sears, it affords me much pleasure to propose for membership in the nearby club, Mr. James Smarlington. I have known Mr. Smarlington for many years, and consider him qualified in every way for membership. He is a graduate of Yalvard, Class 1916, road on the Varsity crew, and served in the 118th as First Lieutenant overseas during the war. He is now in his father's firm, Jones, Smarlington and Co. Yours very truly, Donald Lovejoy. Lovejoy must also at once tell Smarlington to ask about six friends who are club members, but not governors, to write letters endorsing him. Furthermore, the candidate cannot come up for election unless he knows several of the governors personally who can vouch for him at the meeting. Therefore, Lovejoy and Doe must one or the other take Smarlington to several governors at their offices generally, and personally present him, or very likely they invite two or three of the governors and Smarlington to lunch. Even under the best of circumstances, it is a nuisance for a busy man to have to make appointments at the offices of other busy men. And since it is uncertain which of the governors will be present at any particular meeting, it is necessary to introduce the candidate to a sufficient number so that at least two among those at the meeting will be able to speak for him. In the example we have chosen, Club Window, having himself been a governor and knowing most of the present ones very well, has less difficulty in presenting his candidate to them than many other members might have, who, though they have for years belonged to the club, have used it so seldom that they know few, if any, of the governors even by sight. At the leading women's club of New York, the governors appoint an hour on several afternoons before elections when they are in the visitors' rooms at the clubhouse on purpose to meet the candidates whom their proposes must present. This would certainly seem a more practicable method to say nothing of its being easier for everyone consumed than the masculine etiquette which requires that the governors be stalked one by one to the extreme inconvenience and loss of time, and occasionally the embarrassment of everyone. As already said, Jim Smarlington, having unusually popular and well-known sponsors, and being also very well-liked himself, is elected with little difficulty. But take the case of young Breezy. He was put up by two not well-known members, who wrote half-hearted endorsements themselves and did nothing about getting letters from others. They knew none of the governors and trusted that two who knew Breezy slightly would do. His casual proposer forgot that enemies write letters as well as friends, and that, moreover, enmity is active where friendship is often passive. Two men who disliked his manner wrote that they considered him unsuitable, and as he had no friends strong enough to stand up for him, he was turned down. A gentleman is really blackball, as such an action could not fail to endure him in the eyes of the world. The expression blackball comes from the customer voting for a member by putting a whiteball in a ballot box, or against him by putting in a black one. If the candidate is likely to receive a blackball, the governors do not vote on him at all. But inform the proposer that the name of his candidate would better be withdrawn. Later on, if the objection to him is disproved or overcome, his name can again be put up. The more popular the candidate, the less work there is for his proposer and seconder. A stranger, if he is not a member of the representative club in his own city, would have need of strong friends to elect him to an exclusive one in another, and an unpopular man has no chance at all. However, in all except very rare instances events run smoothly, the candidate is voted on at a meeting of the board of governors, and is elected. A notice is mailed to him next morning, telling him that he has been elected, and that his initiation fee and his dues make a total of so much. The candidate, thereupon at once, draws his check for the amount and mails it. As soon as the secretary has had ample time to receive the check, the new member is free to use the club as much or as little as he cares to. The new member, the new member usually, but not necessarily, goes for the first time to a club with his proposer or his seconder, or at least an old member. For since, in exclusive clubs, visitors living in the same city are never given the privilege of the club, none that members can know their way about. Let us say he goes for lunch or dinner. At which he is host, and his friend in part such unwritten information as, that chair in the window is where old got-tricks always sits. Don't occupy when you see him coming in, or he will be disagreeable to everybody for a week. Or they always play double stakes at this table, so don't sit at it unless you mean to. Or that stubble coming in now, avoid him at bridge, as you would the plague. The roasts are always good and that waiter is the best in the room, etc. A new member is given, or should ask for, a copy of the club book, which contains, besides the list of the members, the constitution and the bylaws, or house rules, which he must study carefully and be sure to obey. Country clubs. Country clubs are, as a rule, less exclusive and less expensive than the representative city clubs. For those like the Myopopia Hunt, the Tuxedo, the Saddle and Cycle, the Berlingain and countless others in between, are many of the more expensive to belong to than any clubs in London or New York, and are precisely the same in matters of membership and management. They are also quite as difficult to be elected to as any of the exclusive clubs in the cities, more so if anything, because they are open to the family and friends of every member, whereas in a man's club in a city, his membership gives the privilege of the club to no one but himself personally. The test question always put by the governors at elections is, are the candidate's friends as well as his family likely to be agreeable to the present members of the club? If not, he is not admitted. Nearly all country clubs have, however, one open door, unknown to city ones. People taken houses in the neighbourhood are often granted season privileges, meaning that on being proposed by a member and upon paying a season subscription, new householders are accepted as transient guests. In some clubs, this season subscription may be indefinitely renewed. In others, a man must come up for regular election at the end of three months or six or a year. Apart from what may be called the few representative and exclusive country clubs, there are hundreds, more likely thousands, which are very simple requirements for membership. The mere form of having one or two members vouch for a candidate's integrity and good behaviour is sufficient. Golf clubs, hunting clubs, political or sports clubs have special membership qualifications. All good golf players are, as a rule, welcomed at all golf clubs, all huntsmen at hunting clubs, and yet the myopia would not think of admitting the best rider ever known if he was not unquestionably a gentleman. But this is unusual. As a rule, the great player is welcomed in any club, specially devoted to the sport in which he excels. In many clubs, a stranger may be given a three, sometimes it is six, months transient membership, available in some instances to foreigners only, in others to strangers living beyond a certain distance. A name is proposed and seconded by two members and then voted on by the Governor's or the House Committee. The best known and most distinguished club of New England has an annex in which there are dining rooms to which ladies as well as gentlemen who are not members are admitted and this annex plan has since been followed by others elsewhere. All men's clubs have private dining rooms in which members can give stag dinners, but the representative men's clubs exclude ladies absolutely from ever crossing their thresholds. Women's clubs. Accepting that the luxurious women's club has an atmosphere that a man really knows how to give to the interior of a house, no matter how architecturally perfect it may be, there is no difference between women's and men's clubs. In every state of the union there are women's clubs of every kind and grade, social, political, sports, professional, some housed in enormous and perfect buildings constructed for them and some perhaps in only a room or two. When the pioneer women's club of New York was started, a club that aspired to be in the same class as the most important men's club, various governors at the latter were unflatteringly outspoken. Women could not possibly run a club as it should be run. It was unthinkable that they should be foolish enough to attempt it and the husbands and fathers of the founders expected to have to dig down in their pockets to make up the deficit, forgetting entirely that the running of a club is merely the running of a house on a large scale and that women, not men, are the perfect housekeepers. Today no clubs anywhere are more perfect in appointment or better run than the representative women's clubs. In fact some of the men's clubs have been forced to follow the lead of the foremost of them and to realise that a club in which members merely sit about and look out of the window is a pretty dull place to the type of younger members they most want to attract and that the combination of the comfort and smartness of a perfectly run private house with every equipment for athletics is becoming the ideal in club life and club building today. Good manners in clubs. Good manners in clubs are the same as good manners elsewhere, only a little more so. A club is for the pleasure and convenience of many. It is never intended as a stage setting for a star or clown or monologist. There is no place where a person has greater need of restraint and consideration for the reserves of others than in a club. In every club there is a reading room or library where conversation is not allowed. There are books and easy chairs and good light for reading both by day and night and it is one of the unbreakable rules not to speak to anybody who is reading or writing. When two people are sitting by themselves and talking another should on no account join them unless he is an intimate friend of both. To be a mere acquaintance or still less to have been introduced to one of them gives no privilege whatever. The fact of being a club member does not except in a certain few especially informal clubs grant anyone the right to speak to strangers. If a new member happens to find no one in the club whom he knows he goes about his own affairs. He either sits down and reads or writes or looks out of the window or plays solitaire or occupies himself as he would if he were alone in a hotel. It is courteous of a governor or habitual member on noticing a new member or a visitor especially one who seems to be rather at a loss to go up and speak to him but the latter must on no account be the one to speak first. Certain New York and Boston clubs as well as those of London have earned a reputation for snoggishness because the members never speak to those they do not know through no intent to be disagreeable but just because it is not customary. New York people do not speak to those they do not know and it does not occur to them that strangers feel slighted until they themselves are given the same medicine in London or going elsewhere in America. They appreciate the courtesy and kindness of the South and West. The fundamental rule for behaviour in a club is the same as in the drawing room of a private house. In other words heels have no place on furniture. Ashes belong in ash receivers. Books should not be abused and all evidence of exercising should be confined to the courts or courses and the locker room. Many people who wouldn't think of lolling around the house in unfit attire come trooping into a country clubs with their steaming faces, clammy shirts and rumpled hair giving too awful evidence of recent exertion and present fitness for the bathtub. The perfect clubman. The perfect clubman is another word for the perfect gentleman. He never allows himself to show irritably to anyone. He makes it a point to be courteous to a new member or an older member's guest. He scriptulously observes the rules of the club. He discharges his card debts at the table. He pays his share always with an instinctive horror of sponging and lastly he treats everyone the same consideration which he expects and demands from them. The informal club. The informal club is often more suggestive of a fraternity than a club in that every member speaks to every other always. In one of the best known of this type the members are artists, authors, scientists, sportsmen and other thinkers and doers. There is a long table set every day for lunch at which the members gather and talk everyone to everyone else. There is another dining room where solitary members may sit by themselves or bring in outsiders if they care to. None but members sit at the round table which isn't round in the least. The informal club is always a comparatively small one but the method of electing members varies. In some it is customary to take the vote of the whole club. In others members are elected by the governors first and then asked to join. In this case no man may ask to have his name put up. In others the conventional methods are followed. The visitors in a club. In every club in the United States a member is allowed to introduce a stranger living at least 50 miles away for a length of time varying with the bylaws of the club. In some clubs guests may be put up for a day only. In others the privilege extends for two weeks or more. Many clubs allow each member a certain number of visitors a year. In others visitors are unlimited but in all city clubs the same guest cannot be introduced twice within the year. In country clubs visitors may always be brought in by members in unlimited numbers. As a rule when a member introduces a stranger he takes him to the club personally, writes his name in the visitors book and introduces him to those who may be in the room at the time. Very possibly asking another member whom he knows particularly well to look out for his guest. If for some reason it is not possible for the stranger's host to take him to the club he writes to the secretary of the club for a card of introduction. Example secretary the town club. Dear sir kindly seen Mr. A.M. Strangely a card extending the privileges of the club for one week. Mr. Strangely is a resident of London. He owns very truly Club Window. The secretary then sends a card to Mr. Strangely. The town club extends its privileges to Mr. Strangely from January the 2nd to January the 14th through the courtesy of Mr. Club Window. Mr. Strangely goes to the club by himself a visitor who has been given the privileges of the club has during the time of his visit all the rights of a member accepting that he is not allowed to introduce others to the club and he can not give a dinner in the private dining room. Strict etiquette also demands if he wishes to ask several members to dine with him that he take them to a restaurant rather than into the club dining room since the club is their home and he is a stranger in it. He may ask a member whom he knows well to lunch with him in the club rooms but he must not ask one whom he knows only slightly. As accounts are sent to the member who put him up unless the guest arranges at the club's office to have his charges rendered to himself he must be punctilious to ask for his bill upon leaving and pay it without question. Putting a man up at a club never means that the member is host. The visitor's status throughout his day is founded on the courtesy of the member who introduced him and he should try to show an equal courtesy to everyone about him. He should remember not to obtrude on the privacy of the members he does not know. He has no right to criticise the management, the rules or the organisation of the club. He has in short no actual rights at all and he must not forget that he hasn't. Club etiquette in London, Paris and New York. In a very smart London club the words quoted are clubwing does. You keep your hat on and glare about. In Paris you take your hat off and behave with such courtesy and politeness as seems to you and affection. In New York you take your hat off and behave as though the rooms were empty but as though you were being observed through loopholes in the walls. In New York you are introduced occasionally but you may never ask to be introduced and you speak only to those you have been introduced to. In London you are never introduced to anyone but if the member who has taken you with him joins the group and you all sit down together you talk as you would after dinner in a gentleman's house. But if you are made a temporary member and meet those you have been talking to when you are alone the next day you do not speak unless spoken to. In Paris your host punctiliously introduces you to various members and you must just as punctiliously go the next day to their houses and leave your card upon each one. This is customary in the strictly French clubs only. In any one which has members of other nationalities especially with Americans predominating or seeming to American customs obtain. In French clubs a visitor cannot go to the club unless he is with a member but there are no restrictions on the number of times he may be taken by the same member or another one. Failure to pay one debt or behaviour unbefitting a gentleman is caused for expulsion from every club which is looked upon in much the same light as expulsion from the army. In certain cases expulsion for debt may seem unfair since one may find himself in unexpectedly straightened circumstances and the greatest fault or crime could not be more severely dealt with than being expelled from his club but club honour except under very temporary and mitigating conditions takes no account of any reason for being unable to meet his obligations. He must or he is not considered honourable. If the man cannot afford to belong to a club he must resign while he is still in good standing. If later on he is able to rejoin his name is put at the head of the waiting list and if he was considered a desirable member he is re-elected at the next meeting of the governors but a man who has been expelled unless he can show cause why his expulsion was unjust and be reinstated can never again belong to that or be elected to any other club. End of chapter 30