Manners and Social Usages | Page 8

very young person, to whom the chaperonage of the hostess is
indispensable.
If the lady of the house is in the drawing-room when the visitor arrives
to call on her guest, she is, of course, introduced and says a few words;
and if she is not in the room, the guest should inquire of the visitor if
the lady of the house will see him or her, thus giving her a chance to
accept or decline.
In calling on the sons or the daughters of the house, every visitor
should leave a card for the father and mother. If ladies are at home,
cards should be left for the gentlemen of the family.
In Europe a young man is not allowed to ask for the young ladies of the
house in formal parlance, nor is he allowed to leave a card on
them--socially in Europe the "_jeune fille_" has no existence. He calls
on the mother or chaperon; the young lady may be sent for, but he must
not inquire for her first. Even if she is a young lady at the head of a
house, he is not allowed to call upon her without some preliminaries;
some amiable female friend must manage to bring them together.
In America the other extreme has led to a very vicious system of
etiquette, by which young ladies are recognized as altogether leaders of
society, receiving the guests and pushing their mothers into the
background. It would amaze a large number of ambitious young ladies
to be told that it was not proper that young men should call on them
and be received by them alone. But the solution would seem to be that
the mother or chaperon should advance to her proper place in this
country, and while taking care of her daughter, appearing with her in
public, and receiving visits with her, still permit that good-natured and
well-intended social intercourse between young men and women which
is so seldom abused, and which has led to so many happy marriages. It
is one of the points yet debatable how much liberty should be allowed
young ladies. Certainly, however, we do not wish to hold our young
girls up to the scorn and ridicule of the novelist or the foreign critic by
ignoring what has been a recognized tenet of good manners since
society was formed. The fact that the chaperon is a necessary institution,
and that to married ladies and to elderly ladies should be paid all due
respect, is a subject of which we shall treat later. No young lady who is

visiting in a strange city or country town should ever receive the visits
of gentlemen without asking her hostess and her daughters to come
down and be introduced to them; nor should she ever invite such
persons to call without asking her hostess if it would be agreeable. To
receive an ordinary acquaintance at any hour, even that of the afternoon
reception, without her hostess would be very bad manners. We fear the
practice is too common, however. How much worse to receive a lover,
or a gentleman who may aspire to the honor of becoming one, at
unusual hours, without saying anything to the lady of the house! Too
many young American girls are in the habit of doing so: making of
their friend's house a convenience by which an acquaintance with a
young man may be carried on--a young man too, perhaps, who has
been forbidden her own home.
A bride receives her callers after she has settled down in her married
home just as any lady does. There is no particular etiquette observed.
She sends out cards for two or three reception days, and her friends and
new acquaintances call or send cards on these days. She must not,
however, call on her friends until they have called upon her.
As many of these callers--friends, perhaps, of the bridegroom--are
unknown to the bride, it is well to have a servant announce the names;
and they should also leave their cards in the hall that she may be able to
know where to return the visits.
What has so far been said will serve to give a general idea of the card
and its uses, and of the duties which it imposes upon different members
of society. Farther on in this volume we will take up, in much more
particular fashion, the matters only alluded to in this opening chapter.
We may say that cards have changed less in the history of etiquette and
fashion than anything else. They, the shifting pasteboards, are in style
about what they were fifty--nay, a hundred--years ago.
The plain, unglazed card with fine engraved script cannot be improved
upon. The passing fashion for engraved autographs, for old English, for
German text, all