Marion Harland's Complete Etiquette A Young People's Guide to Every Social Occasion

THE dinner is the most important and the most delightful of social functions. It is the most civilized of entertainments, and to say of a town that it is a dinner-giving town me...

SEEING the prevalence of rudeness in human intercourse, one is forced to believe that the natural man is a cross-grained brute. That breeding and culture often convert him into...

TO the uninstructed, socially, the bare rules and conventions regulating social life seem often meaningless and arbitrary. A careful consideration of these conventions, such as...

THE rules that apply to a dinner hold good at a luncheon, to which function ladies only are usually invited, although when served at twelve o’clock, and called “breakfast,” men...

TO be comfortably and becomingly clothed is an acknowledged aspiration of most women and many men. The time to be ashamed of such an aspiration is now happily gone by with some...

WE have ridiculed our newly-rich woman’s fads, pretensions and failures so sharply and for so long that we find it hard to do justice to the solid virtues she often possesses. T...

AN invitation to visit a friend in her home must always be answered promptly. The invited person should think seriously before accepting such an invitation, and, unfortunately,...

THE styles of calling-cards change from year to year, even from season to season, so that it is impossible to make hard-and-fast rules as to the size and thickness of the bits o...

THE sending and receiving of invitations underlies social obligations. It therefore behooves both senders and recipients to learn the proper form in which these evidences of hos...

THE selection of proper receptacles for one’s baggage is the first point to be considered in making preparations for a journey. The trunk-makers offer great variety in the mater...

THE matter with which we have especially to do just now is the manners of the eater. The table may be simply or elaborately laid, as circumstances and taste dictate. It goes wit...

“AS a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” declares the Book of books. And as a man is in his home, so will he be abroad, when the “company manner” rubs off.

A man always uncovers his head completely when he returns a woman’s bow. He does the same when he meets a man he knows walking with a woman, whether she be known to him or not....

SPORT, scientists tell us, is a relic of prehistoric pursuits; and the so-called sporting instinct is a stirring of the primeval nature within civilized breasts. Perhaps that is...

THERE is some difference of opinion as to whether properly a man should ask permission to call upon a woman or the woman should confer the favor of her own volition. Sometimes t...

THE writing of letters, of the good old-fashioned kind, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. People used to write epistles. Now they write notes. Before the days of the sten...

THERE is about a church wedding a formality that is dispensed with at a home ceremony. The cards of invitation may be engraved in the same form as those described in the last ch...

THERE is no better place than a hotel in which to study the manners, or lack of manners, of the world at large. It is here that selfishness is rampant, and unselfishness hides i...

THE popularity of women’s societies for literary study, for economic discussion, for the consideration of municipal and social improvement, is enormous. They are to be found all...

THIS chapter is, perhaps, rather a _Familiar Talk with Our Girl_ on the proprieties—which she may not recognize as such—than the emphasizing of various points of etiquette. But...

THE thought of being without a maid strikes dismay to the heart of many a woman who can not be accused of laziness. She thinks of the manual toil connected with housekeeping as...

IS IT a good thing to send a young girl away to school, and, if so, shall one send her to boarding-school or college? are the questions that agitate many a household where the d...

THE idea of coeducation is a peculiarly American idea. Perhaps nowhere else in the world do such large bodies of young men and young women meet together for purposes of study an...

“Talking with a mother when her children are in the room is the most trying thing conversationally; she listens to you with one ear, but the other is listening to Johnnie; right...

TO a home wedding, invitations may be issued two weeks in advance. Their style depends upon how formal the function is to be. If a quiet family affair, the notes of invitation m...

FOR most of us the active business of the day is over at sundown. Mothers of large families, physicians and occasionally other workers are employed over time; but most of us can...

THE pessimist, reading the heading of this chapter, would be inclined to ask if one writes nowadays of a lost quantity. While we do not consider the grace of courtesy as entirel...

IT has been said,—and with an unfortunate amount of truth, that the gracious old-fashioned art of hospitality is dying out. Those who keep open house from year’s end to year’s e...

THE observance of mourning is a difficult matter to treat, for individual feeling enters largely into the question. Still, there are certain rules accepted by those who would no...

WHILE it is important to master the minutiæ that govern the conduct of social life, it is well to remember that a good manner is to be desired even above good manners. “Not what...

Where, in this day and in this country, is found the family servant who follows the fortunes of her employers through adversity and evil report, asking only to be allowed to liv...

CHARITY begins at home, but it is a great mistake to suppose that it should end there. Indeed, in the last analysis, to do for one’s own family is not charity, but a form of sel...

These and other Pietistic platitudes, whether tame or tuneful, are technical, and so nearly meaningless as not to provoke debate. Every reasonable man and woman knows and does n...

THE day is past when the bachelor is supposed to have no home, no mode of entertaining his friends, no lares and penates, and no “ain fireside.” He is now an independent househo...

I quote a paragraph, the force of which has been confirmed to my mind by the additional experience and observation of three more decades than were set to my credit upon the age-...

THE woman who, for the first time, is taken to dinner in a large restaurant is naturally slightly confused by the experience. She needs, however, to know only a few essential po...

WEDDING gifts may be sent any time after the wedding cards are issued. They are sent to the bride, and may be as expensive and elaborate, or as simple and inexpensive, as the me...

IN some parts of America the chaperon is, like Sairey Gamp’s interesting friend, “Mrs. Harris,”—a mere figment of the imagination. Nowhere in America does she occupy the perfect...

THE number of women who enter into business life and the number of avenues open to them for earning a living are constantly increasing. And however much we may be disposed to ri...

THE fact that people live next door to you does not make them your neighbors in the higher and better sense of that word. There may be nothing in their persons or characters to...

IF ours were a perfect state of society, constructed on the Golden Rule, animated and guided throughout by unselfish love for friend and neighbor, and charity for the needy, the...

A CLEVER young girl, when asked by an acquaintance if she had “come out” yet, answered, “I didn’t come out. I just _leaked_ out.” Doubtless this states the case, in a somewhat s...

THIS matter of introductions is one rather too lightly considered on our free American soil. Unless the social exigencies are such as to make the atmosphere formal and unpleasan...

THE arrangement between husband and wife concerning money matters should be no more definite and businesslike than that subsisting between father and children. To be taught earl...