PREFACE.
The very extensive sale of Practical Etiquette, a sale that has required the issuance of a large number of editions of the little manual, has been very gratifying to its author, as was also the commission of its publisher to re-write and enlarge the work. This commission, however, brought with it a keen sense of responsibility, for the author feels that a new work on etiquette can find a raison d’être only in a fairly successful attempt at answering practically every question that can arise concerning social relations, at least in ordinary social life. But to speak with authority on all matters of “good form” is to speak dogmatically, and so to speak is in itself not good form. Nevertheless, and in spite of this dilemma, the author has attempted herein to decide, when compelled to do so, between conflicting opinions in mere matters of social custom, and has given as authority the opinion that seemed to her to conform most nearly to common sense, embodying such opinion in an unqualified statement without citing authority. Fortunately, social customs are now so nearly uniform in all parts of the country, that one familiar with the ways of good society in the West or in the North, is at home in good society in the East or in the South.
The author is under obligation to so many persons for suggestions and advice, as well as to many authors, that it does not seem best to give a list of the same, especially as such list could be only a partial one, for many of her friends would not desire mention of their names.
N. C.
Dec. 1, 1899.