Manners and Social Usages | Page 7

introduce it. If a lady call on a person
who is a stranger to her, and if she has difficulty in impressing her
name on the servant, she sends up her card, while she waits to see if the
lady will receive her. But she must never on any occasion hand her own
card to her hostess. If she enters the parlor and finds her hostess there,
she must introduce herself by pronouncing her own name distinctly. If
she is acquainted with the lady, she simply gives her name to the
servant, and does not send up her card.
Wedding-cards have great prominence in America, but we ignore those
elaborate funeral-cards and christening-cards, and printed cards with
announcements of engagements, and many other cards fashionable
abroad. With us the cards of the bride and her parents, and sometimes
of the _fianc‚_, are sent to all friends before the wedding, and those of
the invitation to the wedding to a few only, it may be, or to all, as the
family desire. After the marriage, the cards of the married pair, with
their address, are sent to all whose acquaintance is desired.
Husbands and wives rarely call together in America, although there is
no law against their doing so. It is unusual because, as we have said, we
have no "leisure class." Gentlemen are privileged to call on Sunday,
after church, and on Sunday evenings. A mother and daughter should
call together, or, if the mother is an invalid, the daughter can call,
leaving her mother's card.
"Not at home" is a proper formula, if ladies are not receiving; nor does
it involve a falsehood. It merely means that the lady is not at home to
company. The servant should also add, "Mrs. Brown receives on
Tuesdays," if the lady has a day. Were not ladies able to deny

themselves to callers there would be no time in crowded cities for any
sort of work, or repose, or leisure for self- improvement. For, with the
many idle people who seek to rid themselves of the pain and penalty of
their own vapid society by calling and making somebody else entertain
them, with the wandering book-agents and beggars, or with even the
overflow of society, a lady would find her existence muddled away by
the poorest and most abject of occupations--that of receiving a number
of inconsiderate, and perhaps impertinent, wasters of time.
It is well for all house-keepers to devote one day in the week to the
reception of visitors--the morning to tradespeople and those who may
wish to see her on business, and the afternoon to those who call socially.
It saves her time and simplifies matters.
Nothing is more vulgar than that a caller should ask the servant where
his mistress is, when she went out, when she will be in, how soon she
will be down, etc. All that a well-bred servant should say to such
questions is, "I do not know, madam." A mistress should inform her
servant after breakfast what he is to say to all comers. It is very
offensive to a visitor to be let in, and then be told that she cannot see
the lady of the house. She feels personally insulted, and as if, had she
been some other person, the lady of the house would perhaps have seen
her.
If a servant, evidently ignorant and uncertain of his mistress and her
wishes, says, "I will see if Mrs. Brown will see you," and ushers you
into the parlor, it is only proper to go in and wait. But it is always well
to say, "If Mrs. Brown is going out, is dressing, or is otherwise engaged,
ask her not to trouble herself to come down." Mrs. Brown will be very
much obliged to you. In calling on a friend who is staying with people
with whom you are not acquainted, always leave a card for the lady of
the house. The lack of this attention is severely felt by new people who
may entertain a fashionable woman as their guest--one who receives
many calls from those who do not know her hostess. It is never proper
to call on a guest without asking for the hostess.
Again, if the hostess be a very fashionable woman, and the visitor
decidedly not so, it is equally vulgar to make one's friend who may be a
guest in the house a sort of entering wedge for an acquaintance; a card
should be left, but unaccompanied by any request to see the lady of the
house. This every lady will at once understand. A lady who has a guest

staying with her who receives really calls should always try to place a
parlor at her disposal where she can see her friends alone, unless she be
a