Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 305, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1916 — Etiquette [ARTICLE]

Etiquette

Certain rules of social life govern the matters of the arrival and departure of guests at formal functions: these are the result of thought on the pnrt of entertainer and entertained. If guests rushed into parlor and drawing rooms regardless of one another’s convenience, or If host and hostess received only those they best liked with a cordial greeting, Buch affairs would soon he of the past. But when an invitation is accepted, the person accepting should remember that an obligation 1b Incurred: so should the person sending the invitation realize that its acceptance argues a certain amount of regard for Its value socially.

So it is true that courtesy shows Itself in a crowded ballroom, where pushing and elbowing would be certainly a breach, to use a mild term, of ijiq respect due host and hostess. An unwritten law Is that to meet under tife roof of a hostess means that a formal introduction may be dispensed with for the occasion, anyway, even If parties do not choose to recognize me another when meeting afterwards in street, or wherever the case may be. Introductions are In order, of course, but pleasant conversation may pass between those personally unknown to one another, the fact that they are recipients of the Invitations being quite sufficient. Nothing can excuse a lack of courtesy from one guest to another; It is exactly the same as a rudeness to one’s hostess.