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Good Manners in Hospitality
The Guest Chamber
Good Manners for the Guest
Children at the Table
Good Manners in Hospitality
No home exists just for itself. One of the best reasons for having a home is that we may draw into it from time to time people whom we love, who bring to us their brightness and charm, and to whom we may give pleasure and gladness by the way. If we limit the privileges of the home to ourselves and our children we inevitably grow narrow, and our graces are dwarfed and nipped in the bud.
In the crowded quarters of the usual city home it is at present rather hard to make room for the guest chamber, which once was provided for in every house. Where people live in apartments, and every inch of space is mortgaged, they cannot well give up a whole room to the transient comer, be that comer a relative or a friend, and so the old-fashioned hospitality is, in town, a thing of the past.
Fortunately, the guest chamber is still a feature in the country, not only in beautiful country homes which are springing up everywhere for city people, but also in farmhouses and village life, where there are yet rooms enough and to spare for the family comfort.
The Guest Chamber
Granted that we have a guest chamber: what are its essentials? First and foremost, a good and comfortable bed with spring, mattress, and pillows complete. The bed should be provided with the finest sheets of linen or cotton as the hostess prefers, and should always be spread with a soft blanket and counterpane and an extra quilt folded over the foot.
In making the bed pains should be taken to fold the sheets well in at the foot of the bed, as nothing is more uncomfortable than to have sheets slip up in the night. The blanket should be put on the bed with the folded part at the bottom, so that half of it may be thrown aside if desired. If there are large and showy pillows for the daytime they should be laid aside at night and replaced by smaller ones. Some housekeepers like to have very beautiful spreads of satin and lace on their beds, and some like a round bolster by day which is covered by the elaborate spread. When this is used the bolster is always taken off at night, and its place taken by comfortable pillow. The guest must never have the care of any of this finery, but the maid or some member of the family must go to the guest room early in the evening, remove everything necessary, and turn down the bed so that it will be ready for the sleeper.
Among the other necessary furniture of a guest room are a washstand fitted out with every convenience, plenty of towels, including bath towel and wash cloth, delicate toilet soap, a dressing bureau in which there should be two or three drawers left vacant for the guest's use, a comfortable rocking-chair, and a table or desk fitted out with stationery, pens, note paper, and postage stamps.
On the dressing bureau should be comb, brush, and hand glass, with pins, button hook, and any little thing a guest may need. It is a good plan to have also for the guest's use some sort of bath robe or kimono which she may like to utilize in going to the bath room.
In some homes no provision is made for the toilet of the guest in the guest chamber, and she is expected to take her turn in the family bath room. When this is the case pains should be taken to notify her when the coast is clear, and to leave her sufficient time to perform her ablutions and do whatever she wishes without interference or interruption on the part of the family.
The great necessity of the guest chamber is comfort. If there is entire comfort there will certainly be luxury. Children in the household should not be permitted to invade the guest's room at their pleasure, nor should anyone disturb a guest's privacy when she is in her room, as for the time being it is her independent domain.
Good Manners for the Guest
A guest should not feel that she must claim the entire time of her hostess. In many families a guest is allowed to take care of herself, write her letters, and, in short, do whatever she pleases between breakfast and luncheon, during which hours her hostess is free to settle her own affairs, attend to her housekeeping, and go on precisely as if no guest were under her roof.
The cardinal point of good manners, so far as the guest is concerned, is to arrive when she is expected. Having promised a visit, she is not justified in breaking her engagement for any trivial reason. Nothing is more provoking and vexatious than at the last moment, when every arrangement has been made to receive a guest, to have her telegraph or write that she cannot come. For instance, Mrs. B. has invited Mrs. C. to visit her at a given time. In order to be entirely ready for her friend, Mrs. B. has deferred the coming of her dressmaker, whom she cannot always easily procure. Mr. B. has purchased tickets for himself, wife, and friend, to several pleasant evening affairs, for which the extra ticket would not have been thought of but for the coming of the guest. A good deal of extra care has been given to the house to make it bright and shining, and to have every cobweb swept away, every bit of silver polished, and everything done that the hostess may be at leisure when the guest arrives. No doubt there has been extra cooking, and an extra laying in of supplies, and, in short, the house has been made ready and all plans have been in abeyance in order that the beloved friend may be received with due honor and courtesy. If at the last moment she disappoints the family she incurs the reproach of being an ill-bred and inconsiderate woman.
The guest should take pains to be pleased with whatever is arranged for her amusement and delight. If trips and excursions have been arranged, or friends invited to meet her, she should enter into the spirit of every occasion with real zest. It should be her pleasure to appear punctually at meals, as in some families it is embarrassing to have people coming late to breakfast or luncheon, particularly in homes where only one maid is kept or where the mistress of the house does her own work. Everything may be disarranged if people are not prompt and punctual in meeting the usual engagements of the day.
At times the agreeable guest effaces herself and retires to her own quarters, as in most households the family sometimes desires to be by itself. Should any little friction arise between members of the family a guest must by no means take sides, but must be conveniently deaf and blind to the fact that anything unpleasant is occurring.
When a guest leaves a home she should never by word or look, or allusion, reveal anything concerning its privacy.
Mrs. Florence Howe Hall in her excellent book on Social Customs speaks of one custom which has come in with regard to the behavior of children in the family. It is so much to the point that I think I will quote it, because a guest may be made most uncomfortable if the children in the house are ill trained and behave like little savages:
