Etiquette

It is scarcely necessary to point out that the bigger and more ambitious the house, the more perfect its appointments must be. If your house has a great Georgian dining-room, the table should be set with Georgian or an earlier period English silver. Furthermore, in a "great" dining-room, all the silver should be real! "Real" meaning nothing so trifling as "sterling," but genuine and important "period" pieces made by Eighteenth Century silversmiths, such as de Lamerie or Crespell or Buck or Robertson, or perhaps one of their predecessors. Or if, like Mrs. Oldname, you live in an old Colonial house, you are perhaps also lucky enough to have inherited some genuine American pieces made by Daniel Rogers or Paul Revere! Or if you are an ardent admirer of Early Italian architecture and have built yourself a Fifteenth Century stone-floored and frescoed or tapestry-hung dining room, you must set your long refectory table with a "runner" of old hand-linen and altar embroidery, or perhaps Thirteenth Century damask and great cisterns or ewers and beakers in high-relief silver and gold; or in Callazzioli or majolica, with great bowls of fruit and church candlesticks of gilt, and even follow as far as is practicable the crude table implements of that time. It need not be pointed out that Twentieth Century appurtenances in a Thirteenth or Fifteenth Century room are anachronisms.

But because the dining-table in the replica of a palace (whether English, Italian, Spanish or French) may be equipped with great "standing cups" and candelabra so heavy a man can scarcely lift one, it does not follow that all the rest of us who live in medium or small houses, should attempt anything of the sort. Nothing could be more out of proportion—and therefore in worse taste. Nor is it necessary, in order to have a table that is inviting, to set it with any of the completely exquisite things which all people of taste long for, but which are possessed (in quantity at least) only through wealth, inheritance, or "collector's luck."

There is a dining-room in a certain small New York house that is quite as inviting as it is lacking in expensiveness. Its walls are rough-plastered "French gray." Its table is an ordinary drop-leaf kitchen one painted a light green that is almost gray; the chairs are wooden ones, somewhat on the Windsor variety, but made of pine and painted like the table, and the side tables or consoles are made of a cheap round pine table which has been sawed in half, painted gray-green, and the legless sides fastened to the walls. The glass curtains are point d'esprit net with a deep flounce at the bottom and outside curtains are (expensive) watermelon pink changeable taffeta. There is a gilt mirror over a cream (absolutely plain) mantel and over each console a picture of a conventional bouquet of flowers in a flat frame the color of the furniture, with the watermelon color of the curtains predominating in a neutral tint background. The table is set with a rather coarse cream-colored linen drawn-work centerpiece (a tea cloth actually) big enough to cover all but three inches of table edge. In the middle of the table is a glass bowl with a wide turn-over rim, holding deep pink flowers (roses or tulips) standing upright in glass flower holders as though growing. In midwinter, when real flowers are too expensive, porcelain ones take their place—unless there is a lunch or dinner party. The compotiers are glass urns and the only pieces of silver used are two tall Sheffield candelabra at night, without shades, the salts and peppers and the necessary spoons and forks.

If the tablecloth is of white damask, which for dinner is always good style, a "felt" must be put under it. (To say that it must be smooth and white, in other words perfectly laundered, is as beside the mark as to say that faces and hands should be clean!) If the tablecloth has lace insertions, it must on no account be put over satin or over a color. In a very "important" dining-room and on a very large table, a cloth of plain and finest quality damask with no trimming other than a monogram (or crest) embroidered on either side, is in better taste than one of linen with elaborations of lace and embroidery. Damask is the old-fashioned but essentially conservative (and safely best style) tablecloth, especially, suitable in a high-ceilinged room that is either English, French, or of no special period, in decoration. Lace tablecloths are better suited to an Italian room—especially if the table is a refectory one. Handkerchief linen tablecloths embroidered and lace-inserted are also, strangely enough, suited to all quaint, low-ceilinged, old-fashioned but beautifully appointed rooms; the reason being that the lace cloth is put over a bare table. The lace cloth must also go over a refectory table without felt or other lining.

Very high-studded rooms (unless Italian) on the other hand, seem to need the thickness of damask. To be sure, one does see in certain houses—at the Gildings' for instance—an elaborate lace and embroidery tablecloth put on top of a plain one which in turn goes over a felt, but this combination is always somewhat overpowering, whereas lace over a bare table is light and fragile.

All needlework, whether to be used on the table or on a bed, must, in a beautifully finished house, be fine rather than striking. Coarse linen, coarse embroideries, all sorts of Russian drawn-work, Italian needlework or mosaic (but avoiding big scrolled patterns), are in perfect keeping—and therefore in good taste—in a cottage, a bungalow or a house whose furnishings are not too fine.

But whatever type of cloth is used, the middle crease must be put on so that it is an absolutely straight and unwavering line down the exact center from head to foot. If it is an embroidered one, be sure the embroidery is "right side out." Next goes the centerpiece which is always the chief ornament. Usually this is an arrangement of flowers in either a bowl or a vase, but it can be any one of an almost unlimited variety of things; flowers or fruit in any arrangement that taste and ingenuity can devise; or an ornament in silver that needs no flowers, such as a covered cup; or an epergne, which, however, necessitates the use of fruit, flowers or candy. Mrs. Wellborn, for instance, whose heirlooms are better than her income, rarely uses flowers, but has a wonderful old centerpiece that is ornament enough in itself. The foundation is a mirror representing a lake, surrounded by silver rocks and grass. At one side, jutting into the lake, is a knoll with a group of trees sheltering a stag and doe. The ornament is entirely of silver, almost twenty inches high, and about twenty inches in diameter across the "lake."

The Normans have a full-rigged silver ship in the center of their table and at either end rather tall lanterns, Venetian really, but rather appropriate to the ship; and the salt cellars are very tall ones (about ten inches high), of sea shells supported on the backs of dolphins.

However, to go back to table setting: A cloth laid straight; then a centerpiece put in the middle; then four candlesticks at the four corners, about half-way between the center and the edge of the table, or two candelabra at either end halfway between the places of the host and hostess and the centerpiece. Candles are used with or without shades. Fashion at the moment, says "without," which means that, in order to bring the flame well above people's eyes, candlesticks or candelabra must be high and the candles as long as the proportion can stand. Longer candles can be put in massive candlesticks than in fragile ones. But whether shaded or not, there are candles on all dinner tables always! The center droplight has gone out entirely. Electroliers in candlesticks were never good style, and kerosene lamps in candlesticks—horrible! Fashion says, "Candles! preferably without shades, but shades if you insist, and few or many—but candles!"

Next comes the setting of the places. (If it is an extension table, leaves have, of course, been put in; or if it is stationary, guests have been invited according to its size.) The distance between places at the table must never be so short that guests have no elbow room, and that the servants can not pass the dishes properly; when the dining-room chairs are very high backed and are placed so close as to be almost touching, it is impossible for them not to risk spilling something over some one. On the other hand, to place people a yard or more apart so that conversation has to be shouted into the din made by everyone else's shouting, is equally trying. About two feet from plate center to plate center is ideal. If the chairs have narrow and low backs, people can sit much closer together, especially at a small round table, the curve of which leaves a spreading wedge of space between the chairs at the back even if the seats touch at the front corners. But on the long straight sides of a rectangular table in a very large—and impressive—dining-room there should be at least a foot of space between the chairs.

The necessary number of plates, with the pattern or initials right side up, are first put around the table at equal distances (spaced with a tape measure if the butler or waitress has not an accurate eye). Then on the left of each plate, handle towards the edge of the table, and prongs up, is put the salad fork, the meat fork is put next, and then the fish fork. The salad fork, which will usually be the third used, is thus laid nearest to the plate. If there is an entrée, the fork for this course is placed between the fish fork and that for the roast and the salad fork is left to be brought in later. On the right of the plate, and nearest to it, is put the steel meat knife, then the silver fish knife, the edge of each toward the plate. Then the soup spoon and then the oyster fork or grape fruit spoon. Additional forks and knives are put on the table during dinner.

In putting on the glasses, the water goblet is at the top and to the right of the knives, and the wine glasses are either grouped to the right of the goblet, or in a straight line slanting down from the goblet obliquely towards the right. (Butter plates are never put on a dinner table.) A dinner napkin folded square and flat is laid on each "place" plate; very fancy foldings are not in good taste, but if the napkin is very large, the sides are folded in so as to make a flattened roll a third the width of its height. (Bread should not be put in the napkin—not nowadays.) The place cards are usually put above the plate on the tablecloth, but some people put them on top of the napkin because they are more easily read.

When the places have been set, four silver dishes (or more on a very big table), either bowl or basket or paten shaped, are put at the four corners, between the candlesticks (or candelabra) and the centerpiece; or wherever there are four equally spaced vacancies on the table. These dishes, or compotiers, hold candy or fruit, chosen less for taste than for decorative appearance.

On a very large table the four compotiers are filled with candy, and two or four larger silver dishes or baskets are filled with fruit and put on alternately with the candy dishes. Flowers are also often put in two or four smaller vases, in addition to a larger and dominating one in the center.

Don't put any silver on your table if you can't have it cleaned. Infinitely rather have every ornament of glass or china—and if knives and forks have crevices in the design of their handles that are hard to clean, buy plain plated ones, or use tin! Anything is better than yellow-faced dirty-finger-nailed silver. The first thing to ask in engaging a waitress is, "Can you clean silver?" If she can't, she would better be something else.

Of course no waitress and no single-handed butler can keep silver the way it is kept in such houses as the Worldlys', nor is such perfection expected. The silver polishing of perfection in huge houses is done by such an expert that no one can tell whether a fork has that moment been sent from the silversmiths or not. It is not merely polished until it is bright, but burnished so that it is new! Every piece of silver in certain of the great establishments, or in smaller ones that are run like a great one, is never picked up by a servant except with a rouged chamois. No piece of silver is ever allowed by the slightest chance to touch another piece. Every piece is washed separately. The footman who gathers two or three forks in a bunch will never do it a second time, and keep his place. If the ring of a guest should happen to scratch a knife handle or a fork, the silver-polisher may have to spend an entire day using his thumb or a silver buffer, and rub and rub until no vestige of a scratch remains. Perfection such as this is attainable only in a great house where servants are specialists of super-efficiency; but in every perfectly run house, where service is not too limited, every piece of silver that is put on the table, at every meal, is handled with a rouged chamois and given a quick wipe-off as it is laid on the dining table. No silver should ever be picked up in the fingers as that always leaves a mark.

In view of the present high cost of living (including wages) and the consequent difficulty, with a reduced number of servants, of keeping a great quantity of silver brilliant, even the most fashionable people are more and more using only what is essential, and in occasional instances, are taking to china! People who are lucky enough to have well-stored attics these days are bringing treasures out of them.

But the modern manufacturers are making enchanting "sets" that are replicas of the old. These tea sets with cups and saucers to match and with a silver kettle and tray, are seen almost as often as silver services in simple houses in the country, as well as in the small apartment in town.

Don't put ribbon trimmings on your table. Satin bands and bows have no more place on a lady's table than have chop-house appurtenances. Pickle jars, catsup bottles, toothpicks and crackers are not private-house table ornaments. Crackers are passed with oyster stew and with salad, and any one who wants "relishes" can have them in his own house (though they insult the cook!). At all events, pickles and tomato sauces and other cold meat condiments are never presented at table in a bottle, but are put in glass dishes with small serving spoons. Nothing is ever served from the jar or bottle it comes in except certain kinds of cheese, Bar-le-Duc preserves (only sometimes) and wines. Pickles, jellies, jams, olives, are all put into small glass dishes.

Saucers for vegetables are contrary to all etiquette. The only extra plates ever permitted are the bread and butter plates which are put on at breakfast and lunch and supper above and to the left of the forks, but never at dinner. The crescent-shaped salad plate, made to fit at the side of the place plate, is seen rarely in fashionable houses. When two plates are made necessary by the serving of game or broiled chicken or squab, for which the plate should be very hot, at the same time as the salad which is cold, the crescent-shaped plate is convenient in that it takes little room.

Napkin rings are unknown in fashionable houses outside of the nursery. But in large families where it is impossible to manage such a wash as three clean napkins a day entail, napkin rings are probably necessary. In most moderately run houses, a napkin that is unrumpled and spotless after a meal, is put aside and used again for breakfast; but to be given a napkin that is not perfectly clean is a horrid thought. Perhaps though, the necessity for napkin rings results in the achievement of the immaculate napkin—which is quite a nice thought.

For faultless service, if there are many "accompanied" dishes, two servants are necessary to wait on as few as two persons. But two can also efficiently serve eight; or with unaccompanied dishes an expert servant can manage eight alone, and with one assistant, he can perfectly manage twelve.