Etiquette and Manners Simplified

The little courtesy of suggesting to an interested acquaintance that you will be glad to see him in your own home, can not be improper. It offers dignified hospitality and suggests friendly good will, so it is kind. It is surely in better taste to meet your friends in your home than at dances or public entertainments of any sort. 

MANNERS are the gracious way of doing things. No better rule for “good form” and “etiquette” can ever be evolved than this simple little statement. Kind hearted people have the first asset toward good manners. If they govern their kindly impulses by good taste and common sense, they are sure to act in a manner that far exceeds “the proper thing” in human value. 

Take the simple question of whether a girl shall ask a man to call on her or not. The little courtesy of suggesting to an interested acquaintance that you will be glad to see him in your own home, can not be improper. It offers dignified hospitality and suggests friendly good will, so it is kind. It is surely in better taste to meet your friends in your home than at dances or public entertainments of any sort. 

And common sense ought to indicate to any girl whether a man is sufficiently interested in her to want the opportunity of seeing her again or not. For most of any question where you doubt the certainty as to what is the proper thing to do, just apply kindness, common sense and good taste. And you will be as well off as if you had studied manners in a finishing school or a book of etiquette. – By Beatrice Fairfax, 1916

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia