Some philosopher has very truthfully said that he must be a very great man that can afford to ignore social observances. He might have added that of all places—in English-speaking countries at least—the one where a man can least afford to ignore social observances is the dinner-table. It is there that the well-bred man and the ill-bred man are the most strongly contrasted; and the man that does not there conform to those usages that constitute what is called manners is likely soon to find the doors of the better houses closed against him. Indeed, such men are not likely ever to find their way within them.

“Dinner-parties rank first among all entertainments, being of more frequent occurrence, and having more social significance than any other form of entertainment. An invitation to dinner conveys a greater mark of esteem, or friendship and cordiality toward the guest invited, than is conveyed with an invitation to any other social gathering, it being the highest social compliment that is offered by one person to another. It is also a civility that can be easily interchanged, which in itself gives it an advantage over all other civilities.”

An invitation to dine should be promptly replied to, whether you accept or decline. It may run thus:

Mr. and Mrs. —— request the favor [or pleasure] of Mr. ——’s company at dinner on ——day, the ——, at —— o’clock.

The reply, if an acceptance, may be worded thus:

Mr. —— has the pleasure to accept Mr. and Mrs. ——’s kind invitation to dinner on the ——.

If the invitation be declined, some good reason should be stated:

Mr. —— regrets that, owing to a previous engagement [or in consequence of leaving town, etc.] he cannot have the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. ——’s kind invitation for the ——.

The answer, whether affirmative or negative, should be addressed to the mistress of the house, and despatched within twenty-four hours, if possible, of the receipt of the invitation.

Having accepted an invitation, be punctual. “To be too late is a crime, and to be too early a blunder.” You should not fail to arrive within a very few minutes after the time named, say within five, or ten at most. “Dinner,” somebody has said, “is the hope of the hungry, the occupation of the idle, the rest of the weary, and the consolation of the miserable!” It is certainly the event of the day that should be honored with punctuality. In general, well-bred people and people that dine out frequently, make a point of arriving in good time. It is not well to arrive before the hour named, as you might find no one in the drawing-room to receive you.

“It is said that Beau Brummell had, among other follies, that of choosing to be always too late for dinner. Whenever he was invited he liked to be waited for. He considered it a proof of his fashion and consequence; and the higher the rank of his entertainer, the later was the arrival of this impudent parvenu. The Marquis of Abercorn had on several occasions submitted silently to this trial of his patience, but at length he resolved to bear it no longer. Accordingly, one day, when he had invited Brummell to dine, he desired to have the dinner on the table punctually at the appointed time. The servants obeyed, and Brummell and the cheese arrived together. The wondering Beau was desired by the master of the house to sit down. He vouchsafed no apology for what had happened, but coolly said, ‘I hope, Mr. Brummell, cheese is not disagreeable to you.’ The story runs that Brummell was never again late at that house.”

On entering the drawing-room, without looking to the right or the left, you will go and pay your respects to the hostess, then to the other members of the family, and finally to any acquaintances you may recognize.

Should you be stopped, on your way to the hostess, by an acquaintance ignorant of the proprieties, you will not refuse to respond to his greeting, but will make the response as brief as civility will permit.

Take good care that you do not offer your hand either to hostess, host, or to any other member of the family. For obvious reasons, any offer to shake hands should come from them.

On leaving, you may offer your hand to those of your entertainers that offered their hands to you when you arrived. But if the family is large, it is as well to confine your formal leave-taking to the hostess and the host. It is better not to go about the drawing-room to hunt up and take leave of all the members of the family, as some men do, especially if you are among the first to take leave. Of course it is still worse to go the rounds and take leave of the whole company individually. In such a proceeding there is always something egotistic and patronizing. In a word, never make more ado in leave-taking, whatever the occasion, than is really necessary.

If there is a lady with you, you will not enter the drawing-room arm in arm nor side by side. The lady, or the ladies—if more than one—will enter the room in advance of you.

Gentlemen do not wear gloves at dinner-parties.

When dinner is announced, the hostess will give the signal to leave the drawing-room. A gentleman does not choose the lady he will take in to dinner. The choice is made for him either by his host or his hostess. Offer whichever arm you please. On this point the authorities differ. Most men prefer to have a lady take the right arm. In some countries this is a matter of real importance, the right side being the place of honor. In passing through doors you will take the lead, until you reach the dining-room, when you may let the lady pass first. Should there be a flight of steps to descend that are so narrow that it is necessary to proceed single file, you may allow the lady to pass first, or—better perhaps—go a step or two in advance of her. If you go down side by side, give her the side toward the wall.

Arrived at the dining-room, you will assist your lady to be seated, and wait till all the other ladies are in their places before you take your seat. The host remains standing in his place until all his guests are seated.

Abroad, the question of precedency is a very important one. In this country it is perhaps sufficient for the younger persons to yield the pas to the older in passing from the drawing-room to the dining-room.

A man’s bearing at the table depends very much upon the distance he sits from it. He should sit rather close; indeed, it is rare that we see any one sit too near the table, while we often see people sit too far from it. This is a fault that is wellnigh universal with the Germans—a people whose table manners I would not counsel any one to copy. Sit close to the table, and sit erect.

If no grace is said, you will immediately proceed to unfold your napkin and spread it over your lap. There are those that would tell you partly to unfold it and throw it over one knee; others would tell you to throw it over both knees; but when it is simply thrown over your knees, it cannot serve the purpose for which it is supplied—that of protecting your clothing. In fact, the clothing of no man that has a heavy moustache is out of danger, unless he virtually makes a bib of his napkin, a thing that from time immemorial has been considered a sin against good usage. Men that are not slaves to fickle fashion, to the dicta of nobody knows whom, will use their napkins so as to accomplish the object for which they are provided. A man of sense, however, will consider the occasion, and be governed somewhat by it.

Previously to being served and during the waits that occur between the courses, do not play with the knives, the forks, the spoons, or with anything that is before you. Leave everything as you find it, unless you should find a piece of bread on your right hand, in which case you may remove it to your left.

As soon as you are helped, begin to eat, or at least begin to occupy yourself with what you have before you. Do not wait till your neighbors are served—a custom that was long ago abandoned.

Never offer to pass to another a plate to which you have been helped. What your host or hostess sends you you should retain.

The second course, at all formal dinners, however served, is usually a soup, which, if its consistency and the beard on your upper lip will admit of it, you will take from the side of the spoon, being careful the while to make no noise. Better far to put your spoon into your mouth, handle and all, than to make a noise in sipping your soup, as some people do, that can be heard all over the dining-room; better also put your spoon into your mouth than to slobber or to bespatter yourself. The writer would have to materially shorten his moustache, or to go without his daily dish of soup, if he had to take it from the side of the spoon. He is not willing to do either. Soup, when practicable, should be sipped from the side of the spoon, not, as most people suppose, because there is any objection to putting a spoon in the mouth, but because to put the spoon in the mouth the elbow must be extended, whereas, when we sip from the side of the spoon, the elbow remains almost stationary at the side, the spoon being manipulated wholly with the forearm—a much more graceful movement, because simpler than that that the putting of the spoon in the mouth renders necessary. Not only soup, but everything else eaten with a spoon should be sipped from its side when practicable, but then only. For any one to attempt to sip from the side of the spoon certain soups that are usually served nearly as thick as porridge—pea, bean, and tomato with rice, for example—is absurd. Nothing has a more vulgar look than an obvious endeavor to be fine. The spoon should be filled by an outward rather than an inward movement, and the plate should never be tilted to get the last teaspoonful. If your soup is too hot, do not blow it, but wait till it cools. In eating it sit upright, and do not rest your forearms on the table.

Silver fish-knives are now found on most tables. Where there are none, fish should be eaten with a bit of bread in the left hand and a fork in the right. Neither soup nor fish, where there is any ceremony, is ever offered, much less accepted, twice.

At the table, the most difficult and the most important thing to learn is to use the knife and fork thoroughly well. To do this both must be so held that the ends of the handles are directly in the palms of the hand, i.e., when the point of the knife is used.

At all tables where four-tined forks are provided, the knife should be used only to divide the food, never to convey it to the mouth. For this purpose, we use either the fork, a spoon, or the fingers.

As the fork is now used almost exclusively to convey all kinds of food that have any consistency to the mouth, it is very desirable that one should know how to use it properly. There is a right and a wrong way, a skilful and an awkward way to use it, as well as to use any other implement.

The fork must not be used in the left hand with the tines pointing upward, i.e., spoon fashion. Persons that so use it, though they may and generally do think they are doing quite the proper thing, are really doing as awkward a thing as it would be possible for them to do at the table. They have—they will doubtless be surprised to hear—their lesson but half learned.

Food that is conveyed to the mouth with the fork held in the left hand should be taken up either on the point of the tines, or on their convex side. In the right hand, the fork may be used with the tines pointing upward or downward, as one will.

Previously to the advent of the four-tined silver fork, which was introduced into England from the Continent about the year 1814 or 1815, everybody ate with the knife—the Chesterfields, the Brummels, the Blessingtons, the Savarins, and all. The fastidious were very careful, however, not to put the knife into the mouth edge first. That was avoided by the well bred then as much as the putting the knife into the mouth at all is avoided by the well bred now.

Eating with the knife is not, in itself, a grievous offence; it does not, as some pretend, endanger the lips, even though the knife is used edge first. It is simply a matter of prejudice. Yet your lady hostess would rather you would speak ill of her friends and make bad puns than eat with your knife at her table. Why? Because your eating with your knife at her table would argue, nowadays, that she associated with low-bred, uncultured people.

Should you, however, find yourself at a table where they have the old-fashioned steel forks, eat with your knife, as the others do, and do not let it be seen that you have any objection to doing so, nor let it be known that you ever do otherwise. He that advised us “to do in Rome as the Romans do” was a true gentleman.

The fork is used in eating such vegetables as can be easily managed with it; those that cannot be easily managed with it are eaten with a dessert-spoon—peas, stewed tomatoes, and succotash, for example, especially when they are served in small dishes. A high English authority says: “Eat peas with a dessert-spoon, and curry also.”

Asparagus may be handled with the fingers of the left hand. So may Saratoga potatoes and olives. On this subject we recently clipped the following paragraph from one of our periodicals: “That there is a variety of ways to eat asparagus, one may convince one’s self by a single visit to the dining-room of any of our fashionable summer hotels. There one will see all the methods of carrying the stalk to the mouth. But the Paris Figaro, in one of its ‘Conseils par Jour,’ on ‘How is Asparagus Eaten in Good Society?’ says: ‘One must carefully abstain from taking the stalk in the fingers to dip it in the sauce and afterward put it in the mouth, as a great many people do. The tip should be cut off and eaten by means of the fork, the rest of the stalk being laid aside on the plate, of course without being touched by the fingers. Those that proceed in any other way are barbarians.’ We may observe, in reply to ‘Pau de Paris,’ that many persons belonging to the best society do not hesitate to eat asparagus À la bonne franquette, and yet are by no means ‘barbarians.’ We do not agree with our confrÈre for two reasons. In the first place, the exquisite vegetable cannot be properly appreciated unless eaten in the way that excites the ire of our contemporary. Our second reason is that, from an art point of view, there cannot be a more charming sight than to see a pretty woman ‘caressing’ a piece of asparagus.”

Green corn should be cut from the cob and then eaten with a fork. First run your knife through the middle of each row of kernels and then cut them off. A dull knife is the best, because it does not really cut the kernels off, but forces them out of the hulls.

Cheese is eaten with a fork, or is placed, with a knife, on bits of bread and carried to the mouth with the thumb and finger, care being taken not to touch the cheese.

Pies and pÂtÉs, as a rule, are eaten with a fork only. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to use a knife to divide the crust, but not often.

“Jellies, blanc-mange, iced puddings, and the like are eaten,” says an English authority, “with a fork, as are all sweets sufficiently substantial to admit of it.” This may be very sensible, but it will seem to many persons, as it does to the writer, to be very senseless. By and by the fork mania will banish the spoon altogether.

In a late number of the London Queen this fork-and-spoon question is discussed as follows: “But to go back to the debatable lands of our own compatriots, and the odd things that some do, and the undecided cases that still give rise to controversy. There is that battlefield of the fork and the spoon, and whether the former ought to be used for all sweets whatsoever, with the exception of custard and gooseberry food, which answer the question for themselves; or whether it is not better to use a spoon where slipperiness is an element, and ‘the solution of continuity’ a condition. Some people hunt their ice, for example, with a fork, which lets the melting margin drop through the prongs; and some stick their small trident into jelly, at the risk of seeing the whole thing slip off like an amorphous, translucent, gold-colored snake. The same with such compounds as custard pudding, crÈme renversÉe, and the like, where it is a feat of skill to skewer the separate morsels deftly, and where a small sea of unutilized juice is left on the plate. This monotonous use of the fork and craven fear of the vulgarity lying in the spoon seems to us mere table snobbery. It is a well-known English axiom that the fork is to be used in preference to the spoon when possible and convenient. But the people who use it always—when scarcely possible and decidedly inconvenient—are people so desperately afraid of not doing the right thing, that they do the wrong out of very flunkeyism and of fear of Mrs. Grundy in the corner. It is the same with the law of eating all soft meats with the fork only, abjuring the knife. On the one hand, you will see people courageously hewing with their knives at sweetbread, suprÊme de volaille, and the like; on the other, the snobbish fine work themselves into a fever with their forks against a cutlet, and would not for the lives of them use a knife to cut with ease that which by main force and at great discomfort they can tear asunder with a fork.”

If you have occasion to help yourself from a dish, or if any one else helps you, move your plate quite close to the dish.

At a dinner served in courses, it is better, as a rule, not to take a second supply of anything. It might delay the dinner.

The English eat boiled eggs from the shell, a custom that is followed to some extent in this country; but most Americans prefer to break them, or to have them broken, into a glass, a mode that certainly has its advantages, and that will commend itself to those that have not time to dawdle over their breakfast. In noticing a little book on manners that recently appeared, the New York Sun feelingly inveighs in this wise against eating boiled eggs from a glass:

“We are glad to think that the time has gone by when Americans with any pretensions to refinement needed to be informed that an egg beaten up in a glass is an unsightly mess that has often turned the stomach of the squeamish looker-on. Those who cannot learn to eat boiled eggs from the shell will do well to avoid them altogether. If the author of this hand-book had watched American experiments with exhaustive attention, he might have deemed it well to add that no part of the contents of the egg should be allowed to drip down the outside of the shell, and that the eggshell, when depleted, should be broken before being deposited on the plate.”

It would seem to be as unpleasant to the writer of this paragraph to see an egg eaten from a glass as it is to a Bavarian to see a man wait till he gets over the threshold of a lager-beer saloon before he takes his hat off. A matter of mere prejudice in both cases. If an egg broken into a glass is really “an unsightly mess,” then let us have some opaque egg-glasses.

Bread should be broken. To butter a large piece of bread and then bite it, as children do, is something the knowing never do.

In eating game or poultry do not touch the bones with your fingers. To take a bone in the fingers for the purpose of picking it is looked upon as being a very inelegant proceeding.

Never gesticulate with your knife or fork in your hand, nor hold them pointing upward when you are not using them; keep them down on your plate.

Never load up your fork with food until you are ready to convey it to your mouth, unless you are famishing and you think your life depends on your not losing a second.

Never put your own knife into the butter or the salt if there is a butter-knife and a salt-spoon. If you are compelled to use your own knife, first wipe it as clean as possible on your bread.

Never use your own knife or fork to help another. Use rather the knife or fork of the person you help.

Never send your knife and fork, or either of them, on your plate when you send for a second supply. There are several good reasons for not doing so, and not one good reason for doing so. Never hold your knife and fork meanwhile in your hand, either, but lay them down, and that, too, with something under them—a piece of bread, for example—to protect the table-cloth. Never carry your food to your mouth with any curves or flourishes, unless you want to look as though you were airing your company manners. Better a pound of awkwardness at any time than an ounce of self-consciousness.

Never use a steel knife to cut fruit if there is a silver one.

Never stick your elbows out when you use your knife and fork. Keep them close to your sides.

Having finished using your knife and fork, lay them on your plate, side by side, with the handles pointing a little to your right. This will be taken by an experienced waiter as an intimation that you are ready to have your plate removed.

Whenever you use the fingers to convey anything to the mouth or to remove anything from the mouth, let it be the fingers of the left hand.

When you eat a fruit that has a pit or a skin that is not swallowed, the pit or skin must be removed from the mouth with the fingers of the left hand, or with a spoon or fork in the right. Any other mode is most offensive.

Tea, coffee, chocolate and the like are drunk from the cup and never from the saucer. Put your spoon in the saucer should you send your cup to be refilled; otherwise, it may be left in the cup. Never blow your tea or coffee; if it is too hot to be drunk, wait till it cools.

In handling glasses, keep your fingers a goodly distance from the top, but do not go to the other extreme; and if you handle a goblet or a wine-glass, take hold of the stem only. Take hold of the bowl just above the stem.

In helping yourself to butter, take at once as much as you think you shall require, and try to leave the roll in as good shape as you find it. In returning the knife, do not stick it into the roll, but lay it on the side of the plate.

In masticating your food, keep your mouth shut; otherwise you will make a noise that will be very offensive to those around you.

Don’t eat in a mincing, dainty manner, as though you had no appetite, nor devour your food as though you were famishing. Eat as though you relished your food, but not as though you were afraid you would not get enough.

Don’t attempt to talk with a full mouth. One thing at a time is as much as any man can do well.

Few men talk well when they do nothing else, and few men chew their food well when they have nothing else to do.

Partake sparingly of delicacies, which are generally served in small quantities, and decline them if offered a second time.

Should you find a worm or an insect in your salad or in a plate of fruit, hand your plate to a waiter, without comment, and he will bring you another.

See that the lady that you escorted to the table is well helped. Anticipate her wants, if possible.

Never tip your chair, nor lounge back in it, nor put your thumbs in the arm holes of your waistcoat.

Never hitch up your sleeves, as some men have the habit of doing, as though you were going to make mud pies.

If the conversation tends to be general—and it should tend to be general at a small dinner-party—take good heed that you, at least, listen, which is the only sure way I know of for every man to appear to advantage.

Never, under any circumstances, no matter where you are, cry out “Waiter!” No man of any breeding ever does it. Wait till you can catch the attendant’s eye, and by a nod bring him to you.

Unless you are asked to do so, never select any particular part of a dish; but if you are asked choose promptly, though you may have no preference.

If a dish is distasteful to you decline it, and without comment.

Never put bones or the pits of fruit on the table-cloth. Put them on the side of your plate.

Always wipe your mouth before drinking, in order that you may not grease the brim of your glass with your lips.

Taking wine with people and the drinking of toasts at private dinners are no longer the fashion. Every one drinks much or little or none at all as he chooses, without attracting attention.

If, however, you should find yourself at a table where the old custom is observed, you will not invite your host to take wine with you; it is his privilege to invite you.

If you are invited to drink with an acquaintance, and you do not drink wine, bow, raise your glass of water, and drink with him. If you do drink wine, take the same sort as that selected by the person you drink with.

It is considered ill bred to empty your glass on these occasions or to drink a full glass of wine at a draught on any occasion.

While on the subject of wine-drinking, it may not be amiss to observe that in England it is considered inelegant to say “port wine” or “sherry wine.” In England they always say “port” or “sherry.” On the other hand, no well-bred Frenchman ever speaks of wines in any other way than as “Vin de Champagne,” “Vin de Bordeaux,” and so on. Thus we see that what is the wrong thing to do in one country is the right thing to do in another.

Do not offer a lady wine till she has finished her soup.

Do not hesitate to take the last piece on a dish or the last glass of wine in a decanter simply because it is the last. To do so is to indirectly express the fear that you would exhaust the supply.

Avoid picking your teeth at the table if possible; but if pick them you must, do it, if you can, when you are not observed. “There is one continental custom,” says the London Queen, “which the true-born Briton holds in holy horror—that is, the use of those convenient little lengths of wood which to every foreigner are as necessary to his comfort as a napkin for his mouth or water for his fingers. We English regard the use of the toothpick as a barbarism, a horror, an indecency, and would not take one of those clean wooden spills between our lips for all the world. Nevertheless, a great many of us who would shudder at the iniquity of a toothpick, thrust our fingers into our mouths and free our back teeth with these natural ‘cure-dents,’ which gives a singularly wolfish and awful appearance to the operator, and makes the onlooker regret the insular prejudice which will not rather use the universal continental toothpick, wherein, at least, if properly and delicately done, is no kind of indecency or disgust.”

The procedure with finger-bowls and doilies differs somewhat on different occasions, the difference depending upon the time the bowl is brought, and whether a little white napkin comes with it. If the bowl, with a doily only, comes on your dessert-plate, you will remove it to your left, placing the doily under it. When you come to use the bowl, you will wet your fingers in the perfumed water it contains, and then dry them on your napkin. But if a little white napkin is brought with the bowl and doily, you will use that to wipe your fingers on. It is entirely permissible to wet the corner of your table-napkin, or of the little white napkin that comes with the bowl, and pass it over your lips. Of course, you would do this before putting your fingers in the water. If there are any fruit-stains on your fingers, you will use the bit of lemon that comes in the water to remove them.

If an accident of any kind soever should occur during dinner, the cause being who or what it may, you should not seem to note it.

Should you be so unfortunate as to overturn or to break anything, you would make no apology. You might let your regret appear in your face, but it would not be proper to put it in words.

Never fold your napkin where you are invited for one meal only, nor at a hotel or restaurant, but lay it loosely on the table. By folding it you would intimate that you thought some one else might use it before it had been sent to the laundry. But if you are at a friend’s house for a day or two or longer, then you will do with your napkin as you see the members of the family do with theirs. At the last meal, however, you should lay your napkin on the table unfolded.

If the ladies withdraw after dinner, leaving the gentlemen, rise when they leave the table and remain standing until they have left the room.

The gentleman that is seated nearest the door or that is quickest of movement should open the door for the ladies to pass out and close it after them.

It is no longer the custom for the gentlemen to remain at the table for more than fifteen or twenty minutes, instead of from three quarters of an hour to an hour, as formerly. Indeed, there are those that look upon the custom of remaining at all as a relic of barbarism.

One should remain in the drawing-room from half an hour to an hour after dinner. To leave sooner would betray a lack of good breeding.

If you would be what you would like to be—abroad, take care that you are what you would like to be—at home.