Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society Part 9

When you are helped, begin to eat, without regard to those who have already, or have not yet, been helped.

Never watch the dishes as they are uncovered, nor make any exclamation when you see their contents.

Under no circ.u.mstances tuck your napkin, bib-fashion, into your shirt collar. Unfold it partially and put it in your lap, covering your knees. A lady may slip a corner under her belt if there is danger of its slipping upon her dress, but a gentleman must be awkward indeed if he lets his napkin fall upon the floor.

No gentleman will ever settle himself in his chair, pushing back his cuffs, as if for a "set-to," at the table.

If you make any general remark, do not look up at the waiters to see what effect it has upon them. If they are well-trained they will not move a muscle at hearing the most laughable story, nor will they give any sign whatever that they have not closed their ears like deaf adders to all that has been going on. In any case, however, you must refrain from noticing them.

If you want anything, take the occasion of a waiter being near to you, to ask for it in an undertone. To shout out "Waiter!" or order one about, as if you were in a restaurant, is a certain mark of ill-breeding.

Unless the party is a very small one, general conversation is impossible. In such a case, you must converse with those on either side of you, not confining your remarks exclusively to one.

Talk in a low, quiet tone, but never in a whisper.

To affect an air of mystery or secrecy at a dinner-table, is an insult to your companion and company a.s.sembled.

It is in bad taste to force the attention of the company upon yourself by loud talking or loud laughing.

Too many jokes or anecdotes are in bad taste, but the subjects for conversation should not be too serious.

Any gentleman propounding a conundrum at the dinner-table deserves to be taken away by the police.

To use one's own knife, spoon or fingers, instead of the b.u.t.terknife, sugar-tongs or salt-spoons, is to persuade the company that you have never seen the latter articles before, and are unacquainted with their use.

Never eat all that is on your plate, and above all never be guilty of the _gaucherie_ of sc.r.a.ping your plate, or pa.s.sing your bread over it as if to clean it.

Never fill your mouth so full that you cannot converse; at the same time avoid the appearance of merely playing with your food.

Eat in small mouthfuls, and rather slowly than rapidly.

If upon opening fruit you find it is not perfect, or there is a worm in it, pa.s.s your plate quietly and without remark to the waiter, who will bring you a clean one.

None but a low-bred clown will ever carry fruit or _bon bons_ away from the table.

Drinking wine with people is an old custom, but it will now-adays be found to exist only among the past or pa.s.sing generation. If you are, however, asked to take wine with any one, you should fill your gla.s.s with the same sort of wine your friend has, and raise it to your lips. You need only taste, not act upon the principle of "no heel-taps."

A man would be looked upon as a curiosity, nay, many would not understand what he meant, who should at the present day propose a "sentiment" before drinking wine.

Never spit from your mouth the skins of grapes, the stones or pips of fruits. Receive them upon the p.r.o.ngs of your fork, laid horizontally, and place them as conveniently as so inelegant a process will allow upon the edge of your plate.

Never play with your fingers upon the table.

Never play with your knife and fork, fidget with your salt-cellar, balance your spoon on your tumbler, make pills of your bread, or perform any of those vulgar antics unfortunately too often seen at table.

Never in conversation, ill.u.s.trate your remarks by plans drawn upon the table-cloth with your nail, or built of your knife, fork and spoon.

Never stretch your feet out under the table, so as to touch those of your opposite neighbor. It is quite as bad to put them up under you upon the chair-bar, or curl them up under the chair itself.

Try to take an easy position at table, neither pressing closely up to it, nor yet so far away as to risk depositing your food upon the floor instead of conveying it to your mouth.

Never touch fruit with your fingers. If you wish to peel an apple, a pear or a peach, hold the fruit on a fork in your left hand, and peel with a silver knife in your right. Eat it in small slices cut from the whole fruit, but never bite it, or anything else at table. Need I say no fruit should ever be sucked at the table.

When the hostess thinks her lady friends have taken as much dessert as they wish, she catches the eye of the princ.i.p.al among them; an interchange of ocular telegraphing takes place, the hostess rises, and with her all the company rise; the gentlemen make a pa.s.sage for the ladies to pa.s.s; the one who is nearest to the door opens it, and holds it open until all the ladies have pa.s.sed out of the room.

As soon as the ladies have retired the gentlemen may resume their seats for more wine and conversation, but it is a very poor compliment to the lady guests to linger long in the dining-room.

The ladies upon leaving the dining-room, retire to the drawing- room, and occupy themselves until the gentlemen again join them.

It is well for the hostess to have a reserve force for this interval, of photographic alb.u.ms, stereoscopes, annuals, new music, in fact, all the ammunition she can provide to make this often tedious interval pa.s.s pleasantly.

If you dine in the French fashion, the gentlemen rise with the ladies, each offering his arm to the lady he escorted to dinner, and all proceed to the drawing-room together.

If the gentlemen remain to have coffee served in the dining-room, tea may be served in the drawing-room to the ladies.

Upon returning to the drawing-room the gentlemen should never cl.u.s.ter round the door, but join the ladies at once, striving to repay the hospitality of the hostess by making themselves as agreeable as possible to the guests.

From two to three hours after dinner is the proper time to leave the house.

If the dinner is for the gentlemen guests alone, and the lady of house presides, her duties are over when she rises after dessert.

The gentlemen do not expect to find her in the drawing-room again.

In this case cigars may be served with the coffee, and then the servants may retire, unless especially summoned to wait. If smoking is indulged in, have placed upon the table a number of small match boxes, ashes receivers, and between the chairs spittoons. And here let me add a few words upon smoking taken from an English authority, but which, with a few exceptions will apply equally well to lovers of the weed upon this side of the water. He says:

"But what shall I say of the fragrant weed which Raleigh taught our gallants to puff in capacious bowls; which a royal pedant denounced in a famous 'Counterblast,' which his flattering, laureate, Ben Jonson, ridiculed to please his master; which our wives and sisters protest gives rise to the dirtiest and most unsociable habit a man can indulge in; of which some fair flowers declare that they love the smell, and others that they will never marry an indulger (which, by the way, they generally end in doing); which has won a fame over more s.p.a.ce and among better men than Noah's grape has ever done; which doctors still dispute about, and boys get sick over; but which is the solace of the weary laborer; the support of the ill-fed; the refresher of overwrought brains; the soother of angry fancies; the boast of the exquisite; the excuse of the idle; the companion of the philosopher; and the tenth muse of the poet. I will go neither into the the medical nor the moral questions about the dreamy calming cloud. I will content myself so far with saying what may be said for everything that can bless and curse mankind, that in moderation it is at least harmless; but what is moderate and what is not, must be determined in each individual case, according to the habits and const.i.tution of the subjects. If it cures asthma, it may destroy digestion; if it soothes the nerves, it may, in excess, produce a chronic irritability.

"But I will regard it in a social point of view, and, first as a narcotic, notice its effects on the individual character. I believe then, that in moderation it diminishes the violence of the pa.s.sions, and particularly that of the temper. Interested in the subject, I have taken care to seek instances of members of the same family having the same violent temper by inheritance, of whom the one has been calmed down by smoking, and the other gone on in his pa.s.sionate course. I believe that it induces a habit of calm reflectiveness, which causes us to take less prejudiced, perhaps less zealous views of life, and to be therefore less irritable in our converse with our fellow-creatures. I am inclined to think that the clergy, the squirearchy and the peasantry, are the most prejudiced and most violent cla.s.ses in this country (England); there may be other reasons for this, but it is noteworthy that these are the cla.s.ses which smoke least. On the other hand, I confess that it induces a certain la.s.situde, and a lounging, easy mode of life, which is fatal both to the precision of manners and the vivacity of conversation. The mind of a smoker is contemplative rather than active, and if the weed cures our irritability, it kills our wit. I believe that it is a fallacy to suppose that it encourages drinking. There is more drinking and less smoking in England than in any other country of the the civilized world. There was more drinking among the gentry of last century, who never smoked at all. Smoke and wine do not go well together. Coffee and beer are its best accompaniments; and the one cannot intoxicate, the other must be largely imbibed to do so. I have observed among young bachelors that very little wine is drunk in their chambers, and that beer is gradually taking its place.

The cigar, too, is an excuse for rising from the dinner-table, where there are no ladies to go to.

"In another point of view, I am inclined to think that smoking has conduced to make the society of men, when alone, less riotous, less quarrelsome and even less vicious than it was. Where young men now blow a common cloud, they were formerly driven to a fearful consumption of wine; and this in their heads, they were ready and roused to any iniquity. But the pipe is the bachelors wife. With it, he can endure solitude longer, and is not forced into low society in order to shun it. With it, too, the idle can pa.s.s many an hour, which otherwise he would have given, not to work, but to extravagant follies. With it, he is no longer restless, and impatient for excitement of any kind. We never hear now of young blades issuing in bands from their wine to beat the watch or disturb the slumbering citizens, as we did thirty or forty years ago, when smoking was still a rarity; they are all puffing harmlessly in their chambers now. But, on the other hand, I foresee with dread a too tender allegiance to the pipe, to the destruction of good society, and the abandonment of the ladies. No wonder they hate it, dear creatures! the pipe is the worst rival a woman can have, and it is one whose eyes she cannot scratch out; who improves with age, while she herself declines; who has an art which no woman possesses, that of never wearying her devotee; who is silent, yet a companion; costs little, yet gives much pleasure; who, lastly, never upbraids, and always yields the same joy. Ah!

this is a powerful rival to wife or maid; and no wonder that at last the woman succ.u.mbs, consents, and, rather than lose her lord or master, even supplies the hated herb with her own fair hands.

"There are rules to limit this indulgence. One must never smoke, nor even ask to smoke, in the company of the fair. If they know that in a few minutes you will be running off to your cigar, the fair will do well--say it is in a garden, or so--to allow you to bring it out and smoke it there.

"One must never smoke, again, in the streets--that is, in daylight. The deadly crime may be committed, like burglary, after dark, but not before.

"One must never smoke in a room inhabited at times by the ladies; thus, a well-bred man, who has a wife or sister, will not offer to smoke in the dining-room after dinner.

"One must never smoke in a public place, where ladies are or might be; for instance, a flower-show or promenade.

"One may smoke in a railway-carriage, in spite of by-laws, if one has first obtained the consent of every one present; but if there be a lady there, though she give her consent, smoke not. In nine cases out of ten, she will give it from good nature.*

*In America, cars are especially provided for smokers, and no gentleman will violate etiquette by smoking in any other.

"One must never smoke in a close carriage; one may ask and obtain leave to smoke, when returning from a pic-nic or expedition, in an open carriage.

"One must never smoke in a theatre, on a race-course, nor in church. This last is not, perhaps, a needless caution. In the Belgian churches you see a placard announcing: "_Ici on ne mache pas du tabac._'

"One must never smoke when anybody shows an objection to it.

"One must never smoke a pipe in the streets.

"One must never smoke at all in the coffee-room of a hotel.