Dame Curtsey on Table Manners

From earliest childhood one should be taught to sit erect at table; not to reach forward to catch a mouthful of food; not to eat fast; to have the seat at just the right distance from the table; not to put one's elbows on the table during the progress of a meal; not to toy with napkin-ring, fork, or spoon, but keep the hands quietly in the lap when not occupied in eating.

THERE is but one way to judge people by a casual glance, and that is by their knowledge of etiquette, or, as one of more gifted tongue than the writer puts it, “by the several politenesses of the time.” The little niceties of social usage should not be things apart from the every-day life, but be so moulded into the very existence that they are not realized, but are as natural as the air breathed without effort.

There should be no such thing as “company manners.” From earliest childhood one should be taught to sit erect at table; not to reach forward to catch a mouthful of food; not to eat fast; to have the seat at just the right distance from the table; not to put one's elbows on the table during the progress of a meal; not to toy with napkin-ring, fork, or spoon, but keep the hands quietly in the lap when not occupied in eating.

A man should always wait until his hostess is seated, whether that individual is his mother, sister, wife, or some grand dame of fashion. One of the greatest sins of the age is the lack of deference paid by the average man to the women of his household. The sons of the family follow closely in the footsteps of the father, and the first thing criticised by visitors from the Continent is the lack of breeding in our young Americans, girls as well as boys.

It seems dreadful to have to tell a lad of seventeen that he must rise and offer a seat to an elderly woman who stands in a crowded car, that he must see that his mother is seated before he places himself in the most comfortable chair in the room and buries his head in a book, but this is a digression from table manners. Must it be said that napkins are laid across the lap and never tucked under the chin, bib fashion? If one has to wear a bib, he should not accept invitations to dine away from home.

When a meal is finished in a café or hotel, the napkin is never folded but laid as it was used on the table beside the plate. The same rule applies when at a repast in the home of a friend, if it is for one occasion only. If one is a guest in the house, a clean napkin should not be expected at every meal in the average household, so it may be carefully folded and laid beside the plate. It is the rule in most families to have a fresh napkin at dinner, which is the most ceremonious meal of the day, and partaken of with the most leisure.

In the same category, let it here be chronicled that toothpicks are never passed at the table, and never used in public. One might just as well take out false teeth and cleanse them, or manicure one's fingers; yet these questions are asked so often that an emphatic denial seems necessary here.—From Ellye Howell Glover’s Dame Curtsey’s Book of Etiquette, 1916

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