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Classic
Cook Books
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page 500
dinner; and making yourself agreeable to the company. There is a reason for
everything in polite usage; thus the reason why one does not blow a thing to
cool it,it is not only that it is an inelegant and vulgar action intrinsically,
but because it may be offensive to others--can not help being so, indeed; and
it, moreover implies haste, which, whether from greediness or a desire to get
away, is equally objectionable. Everything else may be as easily traced to it's
origin in the fit and becoming.
If, to conclude, one seats one's self properly at table, and takes reason into
account, one will do tolerably well. One must not pull one's chair too closely
to the table, for the natural result of that is the inability to use one's knife
and fork without inconveniencing one's neighbors; the elbows are to be held well
in and close to one's side, which cannot be done if the chair is too near the
board. One must not lie or lean along the table, nor rest one's arms upon it.
Nor is one to touch any of the dishes; if a member of the family, one can
exercise all the duties of hospitality through servants, and wherever there are
servants, neither family nor guests are to pass or help from any dish. Finally,
when rising from your chair leave it where it stands.
Dinner-Giving.
THE LAYING OF THE TABLE AND THE TREATMENT OF GUESTS.
In giving "dinners," the apparently trifling details are of great importance
when taken as a whole.
We gather around our board agreeable persons, and they pay us and our dinner the
courtesy of dressing for the occasion, and this reunion should be a time of
profit as well as pleasure. There are certain established laws by which "dinner
giving" is regulated in polite society; and it may not be amiss to give a few
observances in relation to them. One of the first is that an invited guest
should arrive at the house of his host at least a quarter of an hour before the
time appointed for dinner. In laying the table for dinner all the linen should
be a spotless white throughout, and underneath the linen table-cloth should be
spread one of thick cotton-flannel or baize, which gives the linen a heavier and
finer appearance, also deadening the sound of moving dishes. Large and neatly
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