Table Etiquette

In order to appear perfectly well-bred at table when in company, or in public, as at a hotel, you must pay attention, three times a day, to the points of table etiquette. If you neglect these little details at home and in private, they will be performed awkwardly and with an air of restraint when you are in company. By making them habitual, they will become natural, and appear easily, and sit gracefully upon you.

Even when eating entirely alone, observe these little details, thus making the most finished and elegant manners perfectly familiar, and thus avoiding the stiff, awkward air you will wear if you keep your politeness only for company, when you will be constantly apprehensive of doing wrong.

At breakfast or tea, if your seat is at the head of the table, you must, before taking anything upon your own plate, fill a cup for each one of the family, and pass them round, being careful to suit each one in the preparation of the cup, that none may return to you for more tea, water, sugar, or milk. If you have a visitor, pass the cup with the tea or coffee alone in it, and hand with the[106] cup the sugar bowl and cream pitcher, that these may be added in the quantity preferred.

After all the cups have been filled and passed round, you may take the bread, butter, and other food upon your own plate. Train your children, so that they will pass these things to you as soon as they see you are ready to receive them.

If you are yourself at the side of the table, pass the bread, butter, etc., to the lady at the head, when you see that she has sent the cups from the waiter before her, to those seated at the table.

If you occupy the place of head of the table, you must watch the cups, offer to fill them when empty, and also see that each one of the family is well helped to the other articles upon the table.

Avoid making any noise in eating, even if each meal is eaten in solitary state. It is a disgusting habit, and one not easily cured if once contracted, to make any noise with the lips when eating.

Never put large pieces of food into your mouth. Eat slowly, and cut your food into small pieces before putting it into your mouth.

Use your fork, or spoon, never your knife, to put your food into your mouth. At dinner, hold in your left hand a piece of bread, and raise your meat or vegetables with the fork, holding the bread to prevent the pieces slipping from the plate.

If you are asked at table what part of the meat you prefer, name your favorite piece, but do not give such information unless asked to do so. To point out any especial part of a dish, and ask for it, is ill-bred. To answer, when asked to select a part, that "it is a matter of indifference," or, "I can eat any part," is annoying to the carver, as he cares less than yourself certainly, and would prefer to give you the piece you really like best.

Do not pour coffee or tea from your cup into your saucer, and do not blow either these or soup. Wait until they cool.

Use the butter-knife, salt-spoon, and sugar-tongs as scrupulously when alone, as if a room full of people were watching you. Otherwise, you may neglect to do so when the omission will mortify you.

Never put poultry or fish bones, or the stones of fruit, upon the table-cloth, but place them on the edge of your plate.

Do not begin to eat until others at the table are ready to commence too.

Sit easily in your chair, neither too near the table, nor too far from it, and avoid such tricks as putting your arms on the table, leaning back lazily in your chair, or playing with your knife, fork, or spoon.

Never raise your voice, when speaking, any higher than is necessary. The clear articulation and distinct pronunciation of each word, will make a low tone more agreeable and more easily understood, than the loudest tone, if the speech is rapid or indistinct.

Never pass your plate with the knife or fork upon it, and when you pass your cup, put the spoon in the saucer.

Never pile up the food on your plate. It looks as if you feared it would all be gone before you could be helped again, and it will certainly make your attempts to cut the food awkward, if your plate is crowded.

If there is a delicacy upon the table, partake of it sparingly, and never help yourself to it a second time.

If you wish to cough, or use your handkerchief, rise from the table, and leave the room. If you have not time to do this, cover your mouth, and turn your head aside from the table, and perform the disagreeable necessity as rapidly and quietly as possible.

Avoid gesticulation at the table. Indeed, a well-bred lady will never gesticulate, but converse quietly, letting the expression and animation of her features give force to her words.

Never, when at the home table, leave it until the other members of the family are also ready to rise.


Source: Hartley, Florence. The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness. (Boston: G.W. Cottrell, 1860) 105-108.

Left or Right? - Part 3 (Final)

To judge from the eagerness with which our correspondents pursue this point, we are induced to believe that it is one of national importance, probably not less urgent than the questions that have now occupied the attention of five or six hundred gentlemen for five nights. Indeed that this is a legitimate conclusion we have a more ancient authority than "Ambidexter," or "Hafiz," or "A Constant Reader." Louis le Grand, when told that something or other was only a ceremony, asked, "And is not the monarchy itself a ceremony?"


Having thus admitted the dignity of the subject, we proceed to such a grave consideration of it as may have the effect of setting all future doubts at rest. When a modest and discreet Alumnus of the University of Cambridge originally, and with befitting deference, referred this matter to our decision, we did not hesitate to give an opinion that ought to have been decisive. But the inconvenient modern practice, of setting up private judgement against decisions pronounced ex cathedru, induced a correspondent, calling himself "Ambidexter," to question our judgement. He availed himself  - dexterously we grant - of the fantastic tricks of certain architects in the construction of dwelling-houses to show that in particular cases our rule did not apply. He instanced the somewhat apocryphal existence of such modes of communication as passages, and the rare occurrence of central stairs, to prove that it was not always possible to give the wall to a lady. In the answer we gave to the plain question of our original correspondent we did not feel it necessary to lay down a code that should embrace every imaginable contingency; but, as the subject has since been mooted by two other writers, we will not shrink from the enunciation of a general rule. The following are the letters to which we refer :-

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING POST.

"Sire - Having seen in your valuable paper two articles respecting the custom of handing a lady from the drawing-room into the dining-room, I beg to offer my opinion, that when a gentleman hands a lady down stairs from the drawing-room he should, in ordinary staircases, always give her the wall; and if, as your correspondent "Ambidexter," in this day's Post, says, there is a central staircase, with a baluster on both sides, the lady should always in that case have the side of the baluster where the step is the broadest, whether it be right or left it matters not. In handing a lady from one room to the other it is the custom always to give the lady the right arm. - I beg to remain, Sir, your very obedient humble servant,

"May 7.                "A CONSTANT READER."

Left or Right? - Part 2

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING POST.

SIR - Having a real and somewhat sensitive regard for the credit of the Morning Post, I cannot but feel a proportionate mortification and regret that you should have fallen so short of the mark in your rather oracular answer returned to a consulting question of so much social importance as that of "Juvenis," in your paper of Wednesday. May I respectfully beg of you accordingly to re-consider it, and give us something more generally philosophical and satisfactory.
"There is but one rule," you say, "in such cases, the gentleman gives the wall to the lady." Is it possible to be content with this solution? I will not open at large the more delicate bearings of the question, nor drag prominently forward the suspicions of a want of due gallantry to which you may have rendered yourself here liable, considering what sort of persons are proverbially said "to go to the wall." Any covert insinuation of that nature, I am well persuaded, was most remote from your intention. But your response is plainly contracted and partial, and not at all fitted to meet the comprehensiveness of the question proposed. You seem in the first place, to assume, as matter of course, a handing down stairs, into the dining-room.

Left or Right? - Part 1

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING POST.

SIR - A dispute having arisen on a subject on which some bets have been made, we have agreed to refer to you for your decision in the matter (as being the best judge we could think of). It is this, viz. - Whether a gentleman handing a lady down to dinner should give her his right arm or left. If you would be kind enough to answer this in your next, you will oblige your constant reader,

JUVENIS.

Trin. Coli., Cambridge, Monday, April 26.

[We hold that there is but one rule in the case referred to: the gentleman gives the wall to the lady. Is it quite true that some two or three years ago the law was violated for a short time, like many other laws, for the sake of expediency. The ladies then - the more's the pity - wore enormous sleeves, and a proximity to the wall was considered dangerous to the contour of the manches bouffantes. During the continuance of this very absurd fashion, it became advisable to secure as much space as possible for the gigots, and the lady, therefore, preferred being placed next the banisters. But now that the sex have returned to something like their fair proportions, the necessity no longer exists, and the "majesty of the law" is vindicated. The lady resumes the post of honour - ED. MORNING POST.]

Source: The Morning Post, Wednesday April 28, 1841, Page 5, Issue 21929