Eliza Leslie - The Ladies' Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners

We know, by experience , that it is possible to make very fine butter even in the State of New York, and to have it fresh in winter as in summer, though not so rich and yellow. Let the cows be well fed, well sheltered, and kept fat and clean – the dairy utensils always in perfect order – churning done twice or thrice every week – all the milk worked well out – and the butter will surely be good.

If cakes for tea have been made at home, and they have turned out failures, (as is often the case with home-made cakes where there is not much practice in baking them,) do not have them brought to table at all, but send to a shop and get others. It is rude to set before your guests what you know is unfit for them to eat. And heavy, tough, ill-baked things are discreditable to any house where the means of obtaining better are practicable.

In sending for cakes to a confectioner, do not a second time allow him to put you off with stale ones. This many confectioners are in the practice of doing, if it is passed over without notice. Stale cakes should at once be sent back, (with a proper reproof,) and fresh ones required. Let the confectioner with whom you deal understand that he is not to palm off his stale cakes upon you , and that you will not keep them when sent. You will then find that fresh ones will generally be forthcoming. It is always well to send for cakes in the early part of the afternoon.

Have a pitcher of ice-water on the side-table, and a tumbler beside every plate – as most persons like to finish with a glass of water.

Do not, on sitting down to table, inform your guest that "you make no stranger of her," or that you fear she will not be able to "make out" at your plain table. These apologies are ungenteel and foolish. If your circumstances will not allow you on any consideration to make a little improvement in your usual family-fare, your friend is, in all probability, aware of the fact, and will not wish or expect you to incur any inconvenient expense on her account. But if you are known to possess the means of living well, you ought to do so; and to consider a good, though not an extravagantly luxurious table as a necessary part of your expenditure. There is a vast difference between laudable economy and mean economy. The latter (whether it shows itself in bad food, bad fires, bad lights, bad servants) is never excused in persons who dress extravagantly, and live surrounded by costly furniture, and who are universally known to be wealthy, and fully able to afford comfort, as well as show.

If you invite a friend to tea, in whose own family there is no gentlemen, or no man-servant, it is your duty previously to ascertain that you can provide her on that evening with an escort home; and in giving the invitation, you should tell her so, that she may know on what to depend. If you keep a carriage, it will be most kind to send her home in it.

Even if it is your rule to have the entry-lamp extinguished at a certain hour, let your servants understand that this rule must be dispensed with, as long as an evening-visiter remains in the house. Also, do not have the linen covers put on the furniture, and the house audibly shut up for the night, before she has gone. To do this is rude, because she cannot but receive it as a hint that she has staid too long.

If your visiter is obliged to go home with no other escort than your servant-man, apprize him, in time, that this duty will be expected of him; desiring that he takes care to be at hand before ten o'clock.

A lady that has no escort whose services she can command, ought not to make unexpected tea-visits. In many cases these visits produce more inconvenience than pleasure. If you wish to "take tea sociably" with a friend, inform her previously of your intention. She will then let you know if she is disengaged on that evening, or if it is in any way inconvenient to receive you; and she will herself appoint another time. Generally, it is best not to volunteer a tea-visit, but to wait till invited.

If you are engaged to take tea with an intimate friend, who assures you that you will see none but the family; and you afterward receive an invitation to join a party to a place of public amusement, which you have long been desirous of visiting, you may retract your first engagement, provided you send an apology in due time, telling the exact truth, and telling it in polite terms. Your intimate friend will then take no offence, considering it perfectly natural that you should prefer the concert, the play, or the exhibition, to a quiet evening passed at her house with no other guests. But take care to let her know as early as possible. 2 2 Where the city-post is to be depended on, a note can always be sent in that way. And be careful not to disappoint her again in a similar manner.

If you are accustomed to taking coffee in the evening, and have an insuperable dislike to tea, it is best not to make an unexpected visit – or at least, if you go at all, go early – so as to allow ample time for the making of coffee – a much slower process than that of tea; particularly as there may chance to be no roasted coffee in the house. Much inconvenience has been caused by the "sociable visiting" of determined coffee-drinkers. It is very easy to make green or black tea at a short notice – but not coffee.

In inviting "a few friends," which means a small select company, endeavour to assort them suitably, so as not to bring together people who have no community of tastes, feelings, and ideas. If you mix the dull and stupid with the bright and animated, the cold and formal with the frank and lively, the professedly serious with the gay and cheerful, the light with the heavy, and above all, those who pride themselves on high birth (high birth in America?) with those who boast of "belonging to the people," none of these "few friends" will enjoy each other's society; the evening will not go off agreeably, and you and the other members of your family will have the worst of it. The pleasantest people in the room will naturally congregate together, and the task of entertaining the unentertainable will devolve on yourself and your own people.

Still, it is difficult always to assort your company to your satisfaction and theirs. A very charming lady may have very dull or very silly sisters. An intelligent and refined daughter may be unfortunate in a coarse, ignorant mother, or a prosing, tiresome, purse-proud father. Some of the most delighted persons you may wish to invite, may be encumbered with relations totally incapable of adding any thing to the pleasure of the evening; – for instance, the numerous automatons, whom we must charitably believe are speechless merely from diffidence, and of whom we are told, that "if we only knew them," we should discover them, on intimate acquaintance, to be "quite intelligent people." Perhaps so. But we cannot help thinking that when a head is full of ideas, some of them will involuntarily ooze out and be manifest. Diffidence is very becoming to young people, and to those who are new to the world. But it is hardly credible that it should produce a painful taciturnity in persons who have passed from youth into maturity; and who have enjoyed the advantages of education and of living in good society. Still those who, as the French say, have "a great talent for silence," may redeem themselves from suspicion of stupidity, by listening attentively and understandingly. A good talker is never displeased with a good hearer.

We have often met with young ladies from whom it was scarcely possible for one of their own sex to extract more than a few monosyllables at long intervals; those intervals being passed in dozing, rather than in hearing. And yet, if any thing in the shape of a beau presented itself, the tongues of these "dumb belles" were immediately loosened, and the wells of their minds commenced running as glibly as possible. To be sure, the talk amounted to nothing definite; but still they did talk, and often became quite lively in a few minutes. Great is the power of beaux!