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CLUB ETIQUETTE 
 
 A CONVKRSATION 
 
 BETWEKN A CI.UB WOMAN AND A N0N-ME)MBKR 
 
 WHO ANSWER THK CALIvING QUESTION 
 
 OVER THE TEA CUPS 
 
 (\vG^l4,K 
 
 BT 
 
 ELLA GILES RUDDY 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CALIFORNIA BADGER CLUB 
 OF LOS ANGELES 
 
 WITH A CLUB CREED 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS, ROBERT /. BURDETTE 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 OUT WEST COMPANY 
 
 1902 
 
Copyrig-hted by 
 Ella Giles Ruddy 
 
 1902 
 All rigrhts reserved 
 
TO 
 MRS. W. T. Ll^WIS 
 
 who, as President of the Ebell Society of Los Ang-eles, California, 
 exemplified the beauties of an unwritten but recogrnized code of 
 
 CLUB ETIQUETTE 
 based upon and always difEusing^ Courtesy and Justice; 
 
 and whose lasting- influence, it is hoped, may help many clubs of women 
 
 to fling- wide the portals of a new palace of g-enial feminine 
 
 amenities, this little volume of partial truths and 
 
 exag-g-erated truths is lovinfirly inscribed. 
 
 736984 
 
TO 
 
 MRS. ROBERT J. BURDETTK 
 
 of Pasadena, California 
 
 Vice-President of the General Federation of Women's 
 Clubs, for her g-enerously and magrnanimously contributed 
 "Club Creed," which appears in the following- pagres and 
 which all club women should find most helpful, the writer 
 of this book desires to express sincere thanks. 
 
 Ella Giles Ruddy. 
 
 Mission Cottag-e^ Wilshi/'e Boulevard^ 
 Los Angeles^ California. October /, 1Q02, 
 
MRS. ROBERT J. BURDEXWY? '■>.'%'• 
 
 CREED FOR CLUB LIFE 
 FOR WOMEN 
 
 I believe in afternoon club life for women. 
 
 I believe in evening club life for men and women together 
 when it does not rob the home of father and mother. 
 
 I believe that woman has no right to undertake any work! 
 whatsoever outside of the home, along th€ lines of philan- \ 
 thropy, church, temperance or club life, that does not emanateij 
 from the home and in its final and best results return to thei) 
 home. Home must always be the center, but not the limit of 
 woman's life. /^ 
 
 I believe in equal rights in the family for father and mother 
 in intelligence, affection and filial respect. These the club 
 should foster. 
 
 I believe in nine-tenths of the club members doing the work 
 and one-tenth the criticising, instead of the reverse. 
 
 I believe in individual responsibility for every interest of 
 the club, mutual sympathy and appreciation of results. 
 
 I believe no woman has a right to accept a place on any 
 committee unless she serve faithfully, promptly, intelligently, 
 and is willing to stand by the results of her individual action. 
 
 I believe that women should have a moral responsibility 
 regarding financial matters in the prompt payment of dues 
 and pledges, and a comprehension that as no other phase of 
 life can be carried on without money, neither can the enlarged 
 club life. 
 
 I believe in the value of a minute and that thievery of 
 time on the part of one late member from those in waiting is 
 reprehensible. Railroad trains do not wait; why should im- 
 mortal souls? 
 
,,^ . CREED FOR CLUB LIFE 
 
 - ''I believe, cut of '.consideration for others, in removing the 
 „ '.l$at;in all p'dbHc assemblies. 
 
 '• ' ■' I bdjeretn; occupying the seat farthest from the aisle when 
 there are others to come, and, for the same reason, occupying 
 front seats first. 
 
 I believe that club members should restrain themselves from 
 whispering or the rustling of skirts or papers during club 
 sessions. 
 
 I believe no woman should seek or use official position for 
 1 self aggrandizement, or club affiliations for stepping-stones 
 J \ only, but that she should utilize her opportunities for the 
 altruisms of life. 
 
 I believe the character and good name of each individual 
 member of the club should be as sacredly guarded by all 
 other members as are those of the family, and that the use of 
 dishonorable political methods in club life for women will be 
 the death knell of pure, womanly organizations. 
 
 I believe the Golden Rule for club women should be — 
 Do right unto others, regardless of what others do unto you. 
 
SYNOPTICAL Q U ESTIO NS 
 
 1. THE QUESTION OF CALLS. 
 
 Is the conventional code of etiquette regarding calls 
 adapted to, or a guide for, the conduct of women who are 
 members of the same club? 
 
 Should club etiquette require a woman to wait until called 
 upon by officers and members before entertaining them? 
 
 If a club woman accepts an invitation to a club reception, 
 luncheon or dinner, is she not thus honoring her hostess, 
 and need she feel troubled if she can not get time, or for any- 
 other reason fails to call afterward? 
 
 Should not an officer or director, who has not previously 
 called upon a member, take the earliest opportunity to do so 
 after being invited to any club. or other function at her house, 
 whether she accepts or not? 
 
 Should an officer or member under any circumstances feel 
 slighted, or that she has not been paid proper respect by an- 
 other member, if, not having called — though extremely cor- 
 dial feelings may have been manifested at the club — she is 
 not included among her invited club and other guests? 
 
 Should a thus socially delinquent officer, director or club 
 member, after being left out of such an occasion, hasten to 
 call, as if to make amends, or would she thereby appear to 
 be courting favor for future functions? 
 
 In a general desire for unbroken harmony and unaninjity 
 can club members afford to let the calling question, witIT its 
 intricate disturbances, come between them? 
 
 2. THE QUESTION OF NAMES. 
 
 Is the use of a hyphen in a woman's name ever ad- 
 visable, and are not two hyphens quite undesirable? 
 
 Under how many names should a club woman properly be 
 known, and which of several is it in the best taste for her 
 to choose? 
 
 Is it in good form for a club woman who was not known 
 as a writer, singer or artist under her maiden name, to use 
 it with her husband's surname unless she is a widow? 
 
 In signing a club constitution should not a woman always 
 use her husband's name, placing her full maiden name in 
 brackets opposite? 
 
 Is it not unpardonably rude for any woman — unless known 
 to be weak-minded^ — to persistently forget the names of her 
 club acquaintances, and have to ask them more than twice 
 when she attempts to introduce them? 
 
 3. THE QUESTION OF MANNERS. 
 
 Are club officers or members, however busy in the man- 
 agement of club details, excusable for being so pre-occupied 
 
8 SYNOPTICAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 as to fail in the common courtesies of social life; i. e., passing 
 each other without greetings ; inattentive when approached ; 
 indifferent in manner toward those less busy, and to those 
 more sensitive, and somewhat cold and overbearing toward 
 those who are inexperienced in club work? 
 
 Does not a club itself lose much in general good cheer 
 and harmony when its leaders neglect the minor every-day 
 courtesies, even if they are known to be kind and polite when 
 not too much pre-occupied? 
 
 Are not club members more kind, more cordial and more 
 politely tolerant than the same proportion of the ubiquitous 
 Four Hundred non-members? 
 
 Ought not clubs devoted to the various lines of culture, 
 education and general advancement of women, think more 
 seriously of what constitutes true etiquette in all their rela- 
 tions ? 
 
 In the co-operation of club work, have not women finally 
 lost sight of many of the positive and very delicate rules of 
 etiquette that their grandmothers lived up to? 
 
 Is it best or not for club women to ignore the old forms 
 of etiquette to an extent that would astonish their ancestors? 
 
 4. THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE AND COURTESY. 
 
 Do women in clubs generally base their treatment of each 
 other on ideas of courtesy and justice? 
 
 Upon whose particular merit does a club woman stand — 
 her own or her husband's? 
 
 Should the possession of wealth have as much influence 
 as it does in the prestige or social standing of club members? 
 
 Should a club woman carry her ideas of courtesy so far 
 as to refuse a nomination for the Federation Presidency be- 
 cause the Biennial is being held in her city? 
 
 As a matter of justice and courtesy should not the gen- 
 erally over-worked secretary of the average club be paid more 
 attention in a definite social way, and given more prestige 
 among the officers and among the members than she usually 
 commands ? 
 
 Should not the newspaper women, and girl reporters of 
 club events and club life as a whole, be taken more into fel- 
 lowship, as a matter of confidence, appreciation and sympa- 
 thetic politeness? 
 
 Has not club life had a wonderfully broadening influence 
 upon women, teaching them to despise such traits as envy 
 and petty jealousy, and to take unselfish delight in the general 
 good? 
 
 Does not the highest courtesy seem to consist in a call of 
 some kind? 
 
WHA T MEN HA VE SAID 
 
 "It is easy to see that what is called by distinction society and 
 fashion, has good laws as well as bad, has much that is necessary 
 and much that is absurd." — Bmerson. 
 
 "It is a whim of Mrs. Grundy's, who is all whimsey." 
 
 — George William Curtis. 
 
 "To grasp this scheme of things entire 
 
 Would we not better shatter it to bits — and then 
 
 Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire?" 
 
 — Omar Khayyam. 
 
 "Some to the fascination of a name 
 
 Surrender judgment hoodwink'd." — Cowper, 
 
 "Where can you buy good taste? 
 That can not be manufactured. « * * * 
 
 It is much harder to get the good taste than the means to gratify it." 
 
 — Wm. C. Gannett. 
 
 "It is astonishing what an effect is i)roduced by some human beings 
 of the tender sex by clothing them in silks cut in a certain form, and 
 seating them in a high wooden box on yellow wheels." — George William 
 
 Curtis. 
 
 "Her address and manners were grave, dignified and severely 
 regulated by the rules of etiquette * * * * And yet with all 
 these qualities to excite respect, she was seldom mentioned in the 
 terms of love or affection." — Scott. 
 
 "And all her bearing gracious." — Tennyson. 
 
 "She was highly accomplished; yet she had not learned to sub- 
 stitute the gloss of politeness for the reality of true feeling." — Scott. 
 
 " the motive powers that mould to the sweet graces of courtesy 
 
 and enrich with the noble virtues of womanhood root in kindness." — 
 Joseph Henry Crooker. 
 
TALKING 
 
 I. WAITING FOR THE^ TEA 
 
 "The tea was served out of a majestic delft tea-pot, ornamented 
 with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending 
 pigs — with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and 
 sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies." — Washington Irving. 
 
 II. ovKR the: tka cups 
 
 "Talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine; 
 if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can't help hit- 
 ting it." — Holmes. 
 
 III. RBPIyl^NISHING the: TEA 
 
 "But remember that talking is one of the fine arts; the noblest, 
 the most important and the most difficult — and that its fluent har- 
 monies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note. * * ♦ * 
 
 IV. THE TEA GROWS COIyD 
 
 "The whole course of conversation depends on how much you take 
 for granted — * * * especially when they are good-natured, and 
 expansive, as they are apt to be at table." — Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
 "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." 
 
 V. TEA-GROUND FORTUNES 
 
 In the course of a conversation between a club woman and 
 a non-member many questions arose, some of which were only 
 partially answered by them until its close, when a new system 
 of calling was outlined — ^and one which seems fitted to greatly 
 simplify the social life of club-goers and club-workers. 
 
CLUB ETIQUETTE 
 
 CONVKRSATION BETWEEN A CI^UB WOMAN 
 AND A NON-MEMBER 
 
 WAITING FOR THE TEA, 
 
 "Have all those women called upon you?" 
 
 "What women?" 
 
 "Those club women who received with you recently." 
 
 "Oh, you mean when I entertained in honor of Mrs. Jane 
 Smith-Brownwell-Greenaway-Old." 
 
 "Yes ; but why call her by so many names ?" 
 
 "Because she prefers it. Of course it is an exaggerated 
 case. But like many other women, she doesn't want any of 
 her earlier personality to be effaced." 
 
 "No; there is a subtle suggestion that she desires each 
 phase to be emphasized." 
 
 "I knew her first as Jane Smith." 
 
 "Without the two-story annexes? What a refreshingly 
 simple name — so unpretentious, so easily spoken and remem- 
 bered !" 
 
 "Like all- other Smiths she must have had a solicitous 
 respect for it." 
 
 "Undoubtedly; or she would have dropped it forever after 
 becoming Mrs. Brownwell. Probably she was a talented Jane 
 Smith. Carlyle asks and answers this question — "The talent 
 that can say nothing for itself, what is it ? Nothing,' " 
 
 ^ "Oh, yes, her names must all seem to her to mean some- 
 thing worth while. She has been twice widowed, and then 
 married again." 
 
 "And in the different places where she has lived, I venture 
 to say she has always been a prominent club woman." 
 
 "She certainly has." 
 
 "It is for that reason, then, and not on account of children, 
 or loyalty to their respective fathers, that she wishes all her 
 names to be used. She fears the irreparable loss of a con- 
 solidated club-identity." 
 
 "Presumably." 
 
 "Being yourself a well-known clubbist, with always the — 
 let us hope — very remote possibility of losing your present 
 
12 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 name, which stands for compound executive ability and so- 
 cial decorum " 
 
 "Oh, does it?" 
 
 "Yes; always the liability of your creditable name being 
 entirely changed, owing to the uncertainties of life on the 
 part of another half (don't look s*o startled and skeptical, my 
 dear), or of numerous other halves in the course of long 
 years to come, you try to imagine yourself in the place of 
 Mrs. Old." 
 
 "Please don't call her that. Say at least Mrs. Greenaway 
 Old, or " 
 
 "And you decide that it is in perfectly good taste to fondly 
 cling to all the good names by which she has been known — 
 such being the immediate jewels of her soul." 
 
 "And why not, if it pleases her?" 
 
 "You think it a matter of both courtesy and justice, on the 
 part of others to employ all the hyphens she does." 
 
 "Yes — because her feelings are more or less injured if a 
 single one happens to be omitted." 
 
 "Then you may be quite right in helping her to perpetuat^e, 
 for herself, an unbroken chain of associations. The public 
 recklessly severs such links ; it naturally sees a person as she 
 is now, and not as she was before. We might philosophize 
 about over-estimating the historic value of varied strata in 
 women's names. However, in these cases of cherished maiden 
 names and talented marriage names, among club women, it 
 may be satisfactory to go on hyphenating — if that is one of 
 their sensitive points." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear you say so, for sometimes it is. But I 
 should never care to be known by more than one name myself, 
 or I mean by one husband's name." 
 
 "Neither should I, though it is quite proper for a club 
 woman to mildly insist upon as many husbands' names — and 
 as many husbands — as she can legitimately claim." 
 
 "A superfluity of hyphens suggests a prodigious facility for 
 marrying, doesn't it?" 
 
 "What if your friend should hear that insinuating re- 
 mark?" 
 
 "She would know I only attempted to be slightly facetious." 
 
 "As much as club women respect each others' most pecu- 
 liar whims and little foibles, .there are moments, I suppose, 
 when loyalty is flexible." 
 
 "Oh, yes, among intimates, and in conversations like ours." 
 
 "Slyly poking fun at each other is quite permissible in 
 clubs, I've noticed. Now let us take up what perhaps you 
 would refer to as the 'main m.otion.' I use the expression 
 as unintelligently as if it were Greek. But it concerns 
 women's signatures." 
 
WAITING FOR THE TEA. 13 
 
 "Very well; it gives me a chance to admit that, in spite 
 of being called a stickler for the proprieties, and while wishing 
 to avoid treating any other woman's idea as a peccadillo, I am 
 quite attached to a certain ancient bias — and wish all club 
 women were." 
 
 "For instance?" 
 
 "I like the old fashion of a woman's merging her identity 
 into that of her hiisiband when it comes to names. Let her be 
 known as Mrs. James Young while her husband lives. After 
 his death she can be Mrs. Mabel Pratt Young." 
 
 "Which shows that she has become a widow." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "In other words you would have a married person, of the 
 non-self-assertive kind, hold her maiden name in abeyance, 
 never bringing it to public view unless it proclaimed widow- 
 hood ?" 
 
 "Exactly; and in all cases it would imply or proclaim 
 widowhood." 
 
 "How about famous writers, artists and singers?" 
 
 "As such they should keep for all public use during their 
 lives the names first employed, attaching no other; thus being 
 fair to themselves in the matter of reputation and not con- 
 fusing those who seek them in catalogues, etc. But even 
 one of these famous persons should, in private life or in 
 joining a club, use her husband's name. It is quite a different 
 thing for she is then seen and known as a personal entity, 
 or she is of no importance in the club. It is not what she 
 writes, or what fame she acquires as a singer, or what pic- 
 tures she paints that stamp her as a club woman. It is her 
 membership, pure and simple, and her local habitation is of 
 special interest. In the directory she is found by her hus- 
 band's name if it is known. There are many, many reasons 
 why a club woman should identify her nam.e with that of her 
 husband." 
 
 "You and I seem to agree on certain ultimata. We reach 
 conclusions without argument, taking much for granted. You 
 spoke of Mrs. James Young, which appellation means that 
 Mr. Young still exists in the flesh." 
 
 "Yes; and that he is entitled to the credit of paying all 
 his wife's club dues." 
 
 "Even if she has a private bank account and pays them out 
 of her own pocket !" 
 
 "And that he gallantly presents her with scores of club 
 and federation pins." 
 
 "Even if he secretly thinks that her large collection is 
 extravagant, and that her 'pin-money,' literally, is spent on 
 very ugly little orn?ments !" 
 
14 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "Wie club women think them all pretty." 
 
 "No, my dear, you only think you ought to think them 
 pretty; as several committees have evolved them, and a spe- 
 cial committee accepted them for you, you must praise them 
 or wound somebody's feelings, even if it takes a magnifying 
 glass to decipher the monograms ; and the colors on these 
 insignia never do blend with your waists, neck-ribbons and 
 hats. Pardon me, won't you? I know that they are precious 
 emblems, and whether worn upside-down, or crosswise, or 
 placed as far away from other conflicting colors as possible, 
 and half hidden in filmy laces, they bespeak loyalty to a club, 
 and fealty to the federation idea." 
 
 "An idea which is most worthy, and which you, a non- 
 club friend of mine, treat very indulgently, however coyly." 
 
 "I can merely guess at many things, being an outsider. 
 I've noticed that a group of tri-colored club pins always looks 
 well on black; that there are apt to be many rnourning cos- 
 tumes which they somewhat hesitatingly embellish; and that 
 they are worn timidly by the bereaved, several of whom in 
 fresh weeds, are always among your members." 
 
 "Oh, that is easily accounted for. They must observe the 
 proprieties very carefully." 
 
 "Yes; for the first few months." 
 
 "And it is not considered correct to go anywhere at all 
 but to clubs, which they may hasten to join, and which they 
 can properly attend right along." 
 
 "How much better it is for them, too, than being housed, 
 and isolated, and brooding alone upon their sorrows. You 
 club women get themi to write papers on Egyptian Art, or 
 the Preservation of Forests, or set them to studying deep 
 questions in economies', and it proves a helpful and wholesome 
 diversion for them." 
 
 "I believe you more and more appreciate the inestimable 
 value of our organizations." 
 
 "Yes? Well — perhaps." 
 
 "What are you smiling about now?" 
 
 "I was thinking again of these cases of elongated names, 
 and of Mrs. Kitty Katz Dogberry, the lively young widow 
 who has lately entered clubdom." 
 
 "The chances are that she will become an officer, or be 
 put on the Executive Board." 
 
 "Yes, and hate to drop the name of Dogberry when, by and 
 by, she marries Mr. Sparrowhawk. Here, you see, may arise 
 a hazardous hyphen temptation." 
 
 "I see ; yes. But how can this matter of women's names be 
 better managed?" 
 
 "How indeed^ — if you club women do not take it up?" 
 
WAITING FOR THE TEA. 15 
 
 "I wish you would join us and engage in our discussions. 
 You would excel in debating. One of the essentials is to 
 have an idea to express as a matter of prime importance, and 
 the manner is not to be disregarded. According to our man- 
 uals we may indulge in sarcasm, quiet innuendo, or quick re- 
 tort, if we have the skill to do so without being personal." 
 
 "Have I 'the floor' on this subject of what a woman shall 
 call herself or be called? I have something more to say." 
 
 "You have the floor, and the sofa, and the sofa pillows — 
 all but the white satin one, which it is not proper for guests 
 to lean against or put their heads on!" 
 
 "That would be in as bad form as to indulge in person- 
 alities." 
 
 "Proceed — about names." 
 
 "Verily, a -woman's personal identity is in a precarious 
 state at all times. She loses it in youth, and very willingly, 
 too, when her first lover bestows a new name to take the 
 place of the one familiar, and endeared to her friends. It is 
 only when so many sad changes come into her life, and she 
 is baffled in her purpose to walk down the years with one true 
 and tried companion, whose name she meant to bear until 
 the end of her own career; and then, perhaps baffled again, 
 and yet again, that she is puzzled and perplexed as to whom 
 she really is. It is not so with a man. He is the same 
 from the beginning; and can hardly understand the shifted 
 selfhood that altered names suggest sometimes to a woman. 
 Men often smile and become amusingly jocular about a 
 woman who signs her many names to club essays. They pity 
 her, too, sometimes, when on her business papers, they see 
 her sign names that she uses only when she has to, and leaves 
 out when she can, as if she would gladly forget some 
 phases of an up-springing, buried identity. And, always, men 
 deny the propriety of hyphens, and remark, *A club woman of 
 course.' " 
 
 "But oh, how nice and considerate club women are to each 
 other about all these things. Haven't you noticed it?" 
 
 "I must admit that they do help keep alive each other's 
 fads wonderfully. Their adaptiveness to the idiosyncrasies of 
 their club associates is to me — an outsider — a most pleasing 
 spectacle." 
 
 "You may laugh a little, but really our club women try 
 to base all their treatment of one another on ideas of cour- 
 tesy and justice — as you suggested." 
 
 "Perhaps many of them do. I know you do. But I am 
 sure some are quite heedless. And, if there is any such thing 
 as club etiquette, it often seems to me a pitiful and artificial 
 contrivance." 
 
 "You speak very earnestly." 
 
i6 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "It is because I am a close and most interested observer 
 of all the details of social life. Not being a club member I 
 endeavor to avoid narrowness, or the hypercritical spirit, 
 when I see what seems to be a lack of consistency, or a failure 
 in justice and courtesy, in the realms of club society." 
 
 "Yes, I know you do. I've always liked to take you and 
 certain others on guest-days, because, when the program is 
 not quite as attractive as expected by us, or the piano is out 
 of tune; or Miss Lily Lark has such a cold that when she 
 sings 'Hark, Hark the Lark' you wish you did not have to; 
 or when the one event planned, a lecture on Current Events, 
 is indefinitely postponed, and one on the Dark Ages is sub- 
 stituted, these very polite, if disappointed, non-members say 
 such pleasant things about the club-house acoustics, or the 
 President's new feather boa, ignoring all that has made me 
 so extremely nervous and uncomfortable. Yes ; I like to 
 take you, and others, and I enjoy thinking that you enjoy it 
 all, whether you do or not." 
 
 "Ah, but we non-members do. And club hospitality 
 should never be abused. It is one of the most agreeable 
 phases of woman's social kingdom nowadays, and some of the 
 loveliest women hold sway in it." 
 
 "And still you remain a non-member." 
 
 "I have many reasons. And I could give you, sometimes, 
 rather unflattering impressions, if you would promise to par- 
 don me and still invite me, occasionally to the clubs." 
 
 "The fact that you v>^ant to go is gratifying. We all 
 delight in our privileges on guest days. But don't hesitate to 
 tell me what you think of us. If we err in any important 
 rules of conduct we ought to reform at once." 
 
 "Err? Oh, it isn't that alone. But you flagrantly violate 
 them ; you set them at defiance." 
 
 "Of course all club women are fettered and bound by 
 parliamentary laws in the transaction of business." 
 
 "I know nothing about them, but I do know about ordi- 
 nary rules of conduct." 
 
 "And you think women disregard them at the clubs?" 
 
 "Both at the clubs and in their social affairs, which reflect 
 club life more or less. For there is a close connection, after 
 all, between what used to be known as the Four Hundred, 
 and the several hundred club women who are recognized 
 chiefly as such, but many of whom figure in both circles." 
 
 "Yes, I notice that more and more." 
 
 "While the so-called society woman often looks askance at 
 the conspicuously zealous club woman, the latter likes to pose 
 in the two roles. A student of the times, or an inconsequen- 
 tial social censor like myself, often viewing others as a critical 
 spectator, sees in all this a decided etiquette interregnum." 
 
WAITING FOR THE TEA. 17 
 
 "That is, a suspension of the forms required by good 
 breeding. What a predicament! Women's clubs are not, I 
 hope, responsible for it." 
 
 "To a large extent they are, for it is the result of many 
 changes going on in the world of women — American women 
 more essentially." 
 
 "As for the social intercourse of our club women, I have 
 supposed they were governed by general and conventional 
 ideas of decorum." 
 
 "Haven't you noticed that the ordinary rules do not always 
 apply ?" 
 
 "I may have done so sometimes, half-consciously. Ah, 
 here's the tea." 
 
 "Two lumps ; thank you ; yes, I take cream sometimes ; 
 lemon occasionally; very often nothing; just follow my 
 mood. Tea is a delightful but perplexing beverage; too 
 weak it is insipid and inspires no animation; too strong it 
 induces gigantic sleeplessness." 
 
 "Is that so? I always take mine clear, and I like it very 
 strong." 
 
 "You need it that way as a club woman, perhaps — to 
 keep you going." 
 
 "I always have it at this hour. But proceed." 
 
II 
 
 OVER THE TEA CUPS. 
 
 "Now let us take up the previous question, as I suppose 
 you club women would term it. At least I asked it pre- 
 viously." 
 
 "I have forgotten what it was." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, but have all those women who re- 
 ceived with you called upon you?" 
 
 "Why " 
 
 "I don't mean to be unduly inquisitive. I ask for infor- 
 mation concerning club etiquette, or possibly, as yet, an un- 
 written law. I know that the parties mentioned have all lived 
 here longer than you and I have." 
 
 "And haven't they called upon you?" 
 
 "None of them; and of course I, not being a club woman, 
 would not for a moment think of asking them to any of my 
 functions, or to pay me the honor of receiving with me." 
 
 "I— I— they " 
 
 "Pray don't blush so, my dear. I know that D'ickens 
 says the word 'dear' among women is synonymous with 
 'wretch,' but I use it affectionately." 
 
 "Yes ; I am sure you do." 
 
 "And I must again beg pardon for confusing you." 
 
 "Let me say that I have my husband, and he is not de- 
 pendent upon other men at all. No, I don't mean that; for 
 no man is independent. But he is very wealthy, as you 
 know." 
 
 "You mean that your motives were of the best — no *axes 
 to grind' — in common parlance." 
 
 "We keep horses and carriages, and have double and single 
 automobiles, and a billiard table, and everything that makes 
 life pleasant for others as well as ourselves; our home is 
 said to be palatial ; adapted to large entertainments, and^ — 
 most people seem to feel it an honor to be invited to it." 
 
 "You don't say that you have or have not invited women 
 who have not called. You can hardly forgive me for caus- 
 ing you this embarrassment. And I don't forget the warning 
 that Holmes gave over the coffee cups at the breakfast table." 
 
 "What was the warning?" 
 
 "He told his listeners not to flatter themselves that friend- 
 ship authorized them to say disagreeable things to their inti- 
 mates. 'On the contrary,' he said, 'the nearer you come into 
 a relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and 
 courtesy become.' " 
 
OVER THE TEA CUPS. 19 
 
 "But in this conversation you speak chiefly as a non-club 
 member, and you have thus far succeeded in doing so as tact- 
 fully and politely as any fair-minded club woman could 
 wish." 
 
 "You are very generous to say so." 
 
 "Am I? Let your quotation from the genial autocrat — 
 who was always right — be supplemented by mine from the 
 magnanimous Concord oracle, — *Be as generous to your friend 
 as to a picture/ he said. He would have me always give her 
 the benefit of a good light." 
 
 "Thank you; my defective and seemingly harsh speech, 
 then, is to be softened by the mellow rays of your tolerant 
 attention." 
 
 "I can promise that, at least." 
 
 "And I am sure that you will not, by and by, misunder- 
 stand me, if I have carried my frankness a little farther for 
 once than the very closest friends ordinarily ought to." 
 
 "You are one of those who would not ask personal ques- 
 tions unless you had some very good reason." 
 
 "I have a reason, I assure you, and, for a non-club woman, 
 rather a peculiar one." 
 
 "I wonder what it can be. Perhaps I've been criticised — 
 and even by the women themselves for inviting them !" 
 
 "No, dear; nothing of that kind has reached me. And if 
 such criticisms had, I should not tell you." 
 
 "No, you would be too considerate. I will own to you, 
 honestly, that my pride in my receiving party was somewhat 
 marred by the fact that they had not all called upon me." 
 
 "Just as I suspected." 
 
 "My retrospective pleasure in the event, which was de- 
 scribed in the papers as so brilliant, has also been marred 
 by the fact that none of them have called since." 
 
 "Just as I had guessed." 
 
 "But surely they ought to have done so, and before this, 
 as a matter of " 
 
 "Club etiquette? I don't know." 
 
 "Neither do I — ^but I should feel better, you know." 
 
 "Yes; you are imbued with traditional ideas of politeness. 
 It is difficult to shake off all of them, even if you did rid 
 yourself of a few." 
 
 "Yes; I learned several years ago that club women could 
 not be over-scrupulous in certain matters of formality. It 
 would spoil many pleasant relations. But your mind is wan- 
 dering." 
 
 "How can you tell?" 
 
 "By your looks and the way you balance your tea-spoon, 
 on the edge of your cup." 
 
20 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "I was thinking that perhaps you were wondering if, after 
 all, the two gracious and popular club presidents, and the 
 four or five charming members of boards of directors whom 
 you asked, so kindly, were not the obliging and condescend- 
 ing parties." 
 
 "Yes — in their own estimation. And my conclusions are 
 vague." 
 
 "Isn't it too bad that you can not, for your personal 
 solace and support, quote any authorities for doing what you 
 no doubt slightly hesitated to do?" 
 
 "It is; as I now almost painfully confess. I did not act 
 without a precedent. Others have done the same. But it 
 seems to me that they, too, might have had private com- 
 punctions, followed by secret questionings like mine." 
 
 "Indeed they have. Many a club woman, though trying 
 to hide it, has been made morbid and miserable for a whole 
 month or more at a time, thinking of these derelictions, which 
 occur so often. Outside of clubs they are inexcusable." 
 
 "Inside of clubs one doesn't know whether they are justi- 
 fiable or not; and must embrace experimental theories. Now 
 I can only say in self-defense that I asked those women be- 
 cause they were leaders in clubs, and because my husband's 
 position was such that (on account of his wealth, I mean) 
 they could not fail to place me where I belong and would — 
 would " 
 
 "Understand, yes; these things are taken for granted in 
 society, and especially, it seems to me nowadays, among 
 club women. The modern club woman cares more for the 
 associations of luxury and affluence than she does for those 
 of merely intellectual and social refinement.'* 
 
 "Do you think so?" 
 
 "I know it. There must be not only talent but money. 
 I'm not the proper person to blame women for liking the 
 comlbination that makes a successful club woman. For I 
 like it, too. I am sinfully partial to palatial houses, and 
 handsome Worth gowns, with silk linings, and I think the 
 leading clubbists all ought to wear silk petticoats trimmed 
 elaborately with real lace!" 
 
 "You do, really?" 
 
 "Indeed yes; for they have more influence. A club 
 woman is often put upon a reception committee merely be- 
 cause she can dress decollete without catching cold; or be- 
 cause she has a carriage that will hold all the other women 
 who haven't one." 
 
 "These things certainly count. But you, as a non-member, 
 are only generalizing." 
 
 "Yes; that is all. Again I am reminded of something said 
 
OVER THE TEA CUPS. 21 
 
 by Holmes in that little book, which has been the pet of so 
 many, because it voices their innermost leanings." 
 
 "We all have leanings and we like to see them phenom- 
 enally considered. You were about to quote something il- 
 lustrative ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes ; the autocrat said : *I go for the man with the 
 gallery of portraits against the one with the twenty-five cent 
 daguerrotype, unless I find out that the last is the better of 
 the two.' " 
 
 "And you have observed, from the outside of clubs, that 
 those inside have an innermost leaning toward the women 
 whose husbands are rich, unless those of limited means are 
 found to be superior?" 
 
 "I have not observed that superiority alone avails in 
 women's clubs. I have repeatedly seen that the money or 
 position of a woman's husband has a great deal to do with 
 her personal power in the manipulating circles." 
 
 "There are delicate points of fitness, and of harmony, and 
 even policy, that are never openly discussed by our club 
 members. All can see them." 
 
 "I will be duly reticent, too. But while I am not yet 
 ready to express an, opinion as to what club etiquette or 
 courtesy is, I am convinced that as a matter of justice all 
 club women should stand upon their individual merits, en- 
 tirely regardless of their husband's character or position." 
 
 "I agree with you; though it's a fact that there are diffi- 
 culties " 
 
 "Yes; of a political nature." 
 
 "But I admit that a woman does not make a fine pre- 
 siding officer merely because her husband is president of a 
 bee-keepers' association — although it might be supposed to 
 aid her in keeping down the hum and the buzzing." 
 
 "You caught more than half of my meaning. But I was 
 going to speak only of the influence that wealth more and 
 more has upon club management and club affairs." 
 
 "I agree with you that it was less noticeable a few years 
 ago, or when women's clubs were first started. Nowadays 
 perhaps a club woman's money, or her husband's money, 
 may give her undue power." 
 
 "Yes, it frequently does. She manifests a spirit of as- 
 sumption; dares defy conventionalities that another woman — 
 among the very brightest, best-balanced and capable — feels 
 obliged to bravely observe. I say bravely because she, too, 
 must often want to break through the traces, and trample 
 upon what remains of established etiquette." 
 
 "What you say is absolutely true. I surely ought to 
 acknowledge it, for I've not always been in a position to do 
 
22 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 what I now can in entertaining. I was a school-teacher, 
 earning my own living before my marriage, and at that time 
 I followed most rigidly every social rule, and exacted obedi- 
 ence on the part of others. But now all is different. I am 
 under a new regime. I should hardly know what to say to 
 pupils in a young ladies' seminary." 
 
 "You would have to tell them that, if they become club 
 women, they will find the laws of propriety capriciously fluc- 
 tuating!" 
 
 "It might be embarrassing to relate my own somewhat 
 recent and disturbing experience." 
 
 "About those women not calling?" 
 
 "Yes, and to explain that those who do call eventually — 
 for some have several times spoken of their delay — will 
 come because my invitation has forced a call as a matter of 
 etiquette, which was not made from choice beforehand." 
 
 "Rather mixed, isn't it?" 
 
 "And all because they are older residents, who should 
 have taken the initiative." 
 
 "Perhaps they should and perhaps they shouldn^t. Who 
 knows? In accordance with club etiquette you may have done 
 just the proper thing." 
 
 "And I would have to tell girls today that they should 
 read and re-read Emerson's essays on 'Manners,' 'Behavior* 
 and 'Social Aims,' which I do think might help all women, 
 whether in clubs or not, far more than any etiquette manuals 
 to understand society, and adapt themselves to its change- 
 able conditions." 
 
 "Yes; that is what you and many other club women are 
 trying to do — adapt yourselves to changing conditions." 
 
 "But are we doing so as gracefully and as happily as we 
 might? I wish my way could be made a little clearer some- 
 times. My club impulses are restrained by conscious fears 
 that members may think if I do things out of the usual order, 
 it is because I don't know any better. When a woman has 
 a large house like mine it seems selfish not to throw it open 
 to the public, or the club." 
 
 "Ah, if you had done that instead of asking only a few 
 members besides the leading ones " 
 
 "I asked all the private members who had called upon 
 me, and none who had not. I asked some upon whom I had 
 meant to call, but had not. Then I hastened to call upon 
 the latter as soon as possible so that in paying their reception 
 call, they would not feel as if I were putting all the visiting 
 upon them." 
 
 "I should think you would feel by this time as if you were 
 worked up into one tense interrogation point — the question of 
 calling." 
 
OVER THE TEA CUPS. 23 
 
 "I must say I do. And to crown it all I had one hundred 
 and fifty reception calls on my day last week, which made the 
 afternoon strain seem like a miniature edition of the re- 
 ception itself. Some women do not think it necessary to call 
 after leaving reception cards, and some do. In order to give 
 another, I must again invite many whom I've not called upon 
 in the meantime, and without knowing whether they resent 
 it or are pleased. For each one is apt to think that a hostess 
 might go sometimes to see her. There are four hundred and 
 fifty names on my visiting-list now whose owners ought to 
 be seen this present week." 
 
 "All whom you invited had not entertained you, of 
 course ?" 
 
 "No; that is not to be considered, or one could never 
 give large affairs. Reciprocity is not expected. But bless 
 your heart, you give almost as large receptions as I do. You 
 know how all these things are managed." 
 
 "My affairs are all non-clubby ones. I wish to get a con- 
 census of club opinions." 
 
 "I must qualify my remark about reciprocal invitations. 
 I always return in kind — a luncheon for a luncheon, a dinner 
 for a dinner, etc., excepting among club women, who enter- 
 tain me several times or I them several times, in just any way 
 it happens, without thinking which owes or what is owed." 
 
 "Is that so? This is not a question. It's a neutral com- 
 ment." 
 
 "Why neutral?" 
 
 "I was wondering if you club women were not, in that 
 manner, sipping some of the quintessence of hospitality. But 
 really, if the calling question, too, could resolve itself into a 
 *just-any- way-it-happens' system; and you didn't have to 
 think so much about hackneyed calling proprieties, how re- 
 lieved you would be." 
 
 "I think all club women would like to see some fossils of 
 conservatism removed. But of course there are instinctive 
 laws that can not be changed. In the case of a club woman 
 who does not include me in her invitations, if she entertains 
 at all; or in that of one who accepts right along, and might 
 manage somehow to respond in at least some simple way, 
 but never does, I draw lines." 
 
 "Certainly; one must not indulge in an excess of hos- 
 pitality. And one must do nothing that looks like deliberate 
 presumption." 
 
 "Still there are lots of women in our clubs who are so 
 attractive, and so complacent, that they are asked and asked 
 until it finally dawns upon one hostess after another that they 
 are not deserving of so many invitations." 
 
24 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "But even then are they d'ropt)ed — or, if so, do they come 
 to their senses and begini to reciprocate?" 
 
 "No; hospitality seems to be horn, not made, notably in 
 Southern women, who enter into its spirit, and do what they 
 can, whether in an elaborate or simple style. The social shirks 
 are all from other parts of the country; they never try to 
 meet the requirements. But when they are dropped, if they 
 have fine manners, they are picked up again by the hostesses, 
 who can, after all, hardly afford to leave them; out." 
 
 "That reminds me of one of your club women whose in- 
 come is enormous; who never entertains at all, but who really 
 goes everywhere, and whom every one wants to invite. What 
 is the explanation?" 
 
 "In the first place she makes- multitudinous calls. She 
 has never gotten behind, as the rest of us have, and so can 
 always seek the strangers. She has no special at-home day, 
 but every one is a miscellaneous calling day with her. I've 
 never heard of a club member who has gained admittance to 
 her house. She is always out in her carriage shopping or 
 calling, when not at the club or attending some function. To 
 have been so very properly called upon puts all her hostesses 
 of the past, present and future in exceeding good humor." 
 
 "Then one secret of her continued social attentions, when 
 she herself does not reciprocate in kind, is that she keeps the 
 call ball perpetually rolling?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; my call ball gets lost or unwound by my days at 
 home and other interruptions, but hers is a part of her religion, 
 and her social salvation depends upon its unceasing rotary 
 motions." 
 
 "I venture to say that there is one other fundamental rea- 
 son for her being so much sought after." 
 
 "Yes, sihe is charming, always perfectly charming, in 
 appearance and manners. Sometimes I think it's the way a 
 woman acts, rather than anything she does that counts in 
 society." 
 
 "Perhaps we will have to decide that Victor Hugo is right 
 when he says that, There is in the world nO' function more 
 important than being charming.' " 
 
 "We might change it a little by saying being charmine 
 and — making calls." 
 
 "Yes, and not only first calls but incessant exchanges of 
 calls, without which an indescribable feeling, almost amounting 
 to a subtle antagonism, is created among women." 
 
 "Very true; and often women, too, who haven't a single 
 thing against each other. But we club women overcome this 
 peculiar mental friction sooner than you society women do. 
 There is a pleasant antidote of geniality, quite beyond analysis, 
 
OVER THE TEA CUPS. 25 
 
 which all repeatedly resort to. In our general desire for un- 
 broken harmony and unanimity, we can hardly afford to let 
 the calling question, with its intricate disturbances, come 
 between us." 
 
 "You certainly are more kind, more cordial and more tol- 
 erant than the same proportion of the ubiquitous Four Hun- 
 dred non-members ever even aspires to be." 
 
 "Possibly we surround each other with excusatory, rather 
 than accusatory, subjunctives." 
 
 "Well do tell me about them. I may need some myself. 
 What are excusatory subjunctives?" 
 
 "They deal with the might, could, would or should ele- 
 ments, and create an atmosphere of wholesorne trust. A club 
 woman gradually acquires a slow and tentative manner." 
 
 "Why, I really believe she does. I think I've noticed it." 
 
 "Yes; she meditates philosophically, and reasons out all 
 sorts of possibilities. In the matter of calls she thinks that 
 all the women who serve on the same committees with her- 
 self, might, could, would or should have been on her visiting 
 list, if only the many complications in the whirling machinery 
 of club and social life had allowed cordial mutual inclinations 
 to be acted upon." 
 
 "You mean that, in the co-operation of club work, women 
 have finally lost sight of many of the positive and very deli- 
 cate rules of etiquette that their grandmothers lived up to." 
 
 "Yes ; the only club rules of etiquette we have are nega- 
 tive ones. Certain social 'rules of procedure' have to be 
 taken for granted." 
 
 "And the way in which the old code is ignored, a new one 
 having been silently but boldly substituted, would quite shock 
 your grandmothers, wouldn't it?" 
 
 "Naturally; because they did not belong to clubs. There 
 were none to join. But is it possible that clubs have had 
 such an effect upon society as you and I, in this conversation, 
 seem to agree they have? And is it best for club women to 
 ignore the old forms of etiquette, to an extent that would 
 horrify thousands of their aristocratic ancestors?" 
 
 "Perhaps it is best. Wlho knows? You seem at last to 
 be on the point of guessing what I'm aiming at, or what is in 
 my mind. For my part I would like to see some system of 
 club etiquette formulated for the social life of a club woman, 
 so that the way would be perfectly clear, and she could be 
 assured of the propriety or impropriety of certain methods of 
 procedure in connection with mingled club and social rela- 
 tions." 
 
 "Not being one of us I'm sure that is most disinterested. 
 If you would like to have more positive knowledge of club 
 
26 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 etiquette, think how much more sadly I need it — so as to 
 avoid too great irreverence for the theories of my grand^ 
 mother, unless time and change have made them untenable." 
 
 "Regardless of Colonial dames, and all the unfitness of 
 their strict rules for present use in clubdom, would you not 
 welcome anything that gave you more authority for doing 
 what, you confess, only lately filled you with doubt and 
 chagrin ?" 
 
 "Indeed I would. To be fully justified in having asked 
 those women to receive with me; parade my parlors in fine 
 gowns ; be the fixed stars that outshone all my true and tried 
 friends; get more marked attention than even my guest of 
 honor, and then never call " 
 
 "Oh, don't worry about that part of it. We will settle 
 that yet. What we want now is to arrive at some conclusion 
 as to the propriety of your inviting them." 
 
 "Well, what do you think?" 
 
 "I don't think. My mind is gently jostled, but it only 
 gravitates." 
 
 "What is your conclusion then?" 
 
 "I don't conclude. I am simply studying club cosmogony !" 
 
 "But you must have already formed some decided opinions. 
 Please let me have the benefit of them." 
 
 "From my standpoint as a non-member a whole club looks 
 impersonal. One could not be criticised at all, rather praised 
 for inviting it; and such guests need not as a matter of eti- 
 quette, call individually afterwards unless they are the oldest 
 residents, when it would be at least an evidence of the highest 
 courtesy — that which is based on kindly feeling." 
 
 "I agree with you there. Proceed." 
 
 "It is rather difficult, for I am trying to decide about 
 your invitations only, and this question of calls will constantly 
 reappear, and — ;— " 
 
 "Yes; the highest courtesy seems to consist in a call of 
 some kind' — whether it is prompted by kindliness or not. If a 
 call must be made to insure an invitation, then another to 
 show one's appreciation of it; or if an invitation happens to 
 have been given when there was no insurance policy on it, 
 because no previous call had been made; and the whole per- 
 formance ends in smoke, damages not being made good by 
 that call afterwards — oh, don't women's calling convictions 
 get fearfully tangled up!" 
 
 "They do, my dear, they do. But calm yourself, and let 
 me finish what I began to say." 
 
 "I beg your pardon. Proceed." 
 
 "From my standpoint as a " 
 
 "As a non-member you are going to say. Now from your 
 standpoint ? Proceed." 
 
OVER THE TEA CUPS. 27 
 
 "I was about to remark that a whole board of directors 
 IS impersonal and might be asked to your house; or all the 
 officers might be entertained together; no individuals consid- 
 ered. Then the question of having called or not having 
 called would not be apt to rise at all." 
 
 "Oh, but it does, though ! I can tell you all about that. 
 When I gave the Old affair — I mean the reception for Mrs. 
 Jane Smith-Brownwell-Greenaway-Old. There; I move that 
 hyphens be annihilated ! They are too cumbersome. One 
 name at a time is all any woman is entitled to." 
 
 "I, a non-club woman, who was never a secretary, treas- 
 urer or chairman of anything in my life, and know nothing 
 whatever about parliamentary usage, would like to be in- 
 structed as to how that motion of yours could become a club 
 law. Will you loan me your manual?" 
 
 "Certainly; any time." 
 
 "I'm going to learn it by heart from beginning to end." 
 
 "I can't see what use you have for it. You surprise me. 
 But you are welcome to it." 
 
 "Thank you. Now go on with your story. As you say 
 to me — proceed." 
 
 "All right, I will. You see one of the directors — when I 
 gave the reception — was my nearest neighbor. She has lived 
 here twenty years and I only two. She had never been in 
 to see me at all. I wrote my invitations and left her out. 
 Then it was so marked I thought it would never do. I asked 
 one of the other directors who had never called, but who 
 had talked a great deal about it " 
 
 "Which is something, and which, in fact, goes a great 
 ways. Don't let me interrupt." 
 
 "I asked her to tell my neighbor that the directors were 
 all expected. So I knew that she knew of my social ex- 
 istence, and of my plans. For a few days before the event 
 the situation was almost grotesque. We passed each other 
 several times, both staring ridiculously into space. It surely 
 was not my place to bow or speak first, when she had lived 
 here the longest, and there had been no introduction." 
 
 "Oh, there had been no introduction?" 
 
 "No; I had seen her a great many times at the club; and 
 her cook and my cook had been exchanging protracted civili- 
 ties every morning for months over the back fence, which, 
 both being garrulous afterward, afforded us frequent inklings 
 of each other's club and social affiliations. Still we had not 
 been introduced." 
 
 "Introductions of the casual sort are rather farcical any- 
 way. Know ye, Mrs. Thackeray Green, that this is Mrs. Dick- 
 ens White, and they look each other squarely in the eye,. 
 
28 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 for the first time, though they've seen each other for months 
 and months. Th-ey grasp each other's hands, thus identifying 
 each other. They smile, thus signaHng to each other. They 
 answer each other's questions as to what street they live on. 
 They soon find out which has been longest in the city. And 
 lo, acquaintance is estafblished. The whole matter has been 
 managed according to etiquette. Oh, the satisfaction — to 
 Americans — of having been casually introduced! It really 
 means nothing at all in this country to be introduced, but 
 the ceremony bears an equivocal semblance to a guaranty of 
 immense respectability." 
 
 "Merely to be a member of one of the leading clubs is 
 equivalent to such a guaranty. So don't you think that it is 
 quite comme il faut for all club women to bow and speak 
 when they meet anywhere, without having had personal in- 
 troductions?" 
 
 "Yes; just as people do in private homes, when they are 
 all invited guests. This is a privilege, sanctioned by etiquette, 
 which too many forget or ignore. The custom is all right 
 and should be encouraged. Whatever helps fellowship in 
 clubs, or ease and pleasure in society, is good. Everything 
 should be avoided that helps to alienate in clubs, or anywhere 
 prevents the flowing association, which is indispensable to 
 magnanimity of deportmenit." 
 
 "Do you realize that, for a non-club woman, you have the 
 most remarkable comprehension of a club's purposes; and 
 perception of its needs ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; I am quite aware of it. I am like the inex- 
 perienced but wise single woman, who thinks she knows bet- 
 ter how to bring up children than the majority of parents do." 
 
 "It occurs to me that, in this conversation or random dis- 
 cussion of club etiquette, I a *clubbist' as you call me, and 
 you a non-clubbist, are arriving at some conclusions that are 
 quite satisfactory." 
 
 "Satisfactory to ourselves^ — yes. But would they be to 
 others?" 
 
 "We could prove their acceptability to a majority of club 
 members only by putting them to vote." 
 
 "At present that is impossible. But it may be accomplished 
 yet, if we can finally emerge from general indefiniteness to a 
 transparent atmosphere, where no misunderstandings can long 
 prevail." 
 
 "There would have to be a series of resolutions to be 
 adopted. Our heads just now, and lots of other women's 
 beads, too, are full of unanswered questions. Emerson says 
 that he who can answer a question so as to admit of no 
 further answer, is the best man." 
 
OVER THE TEA CUPS. 29 
 
 "And we may say, she who can answer these club ques- 
 tions so as to admit of no further answer, after full and free 
 discussion, might be considered authority in club etiquette, 
 even if not a member herself." 
 
 "I agree with you there. And are you going to answer 
 them ?" 
 
 "Yes, in my own time and way I am going to attempt to 
 give to you club women a definite answer to every one of , 
 them." 
 
 "That will be hard work. But it will be appreciated. As 
 soon as the water boils again, let me give you another cup 
 of tea. Don't you want it stronger next time?" 
 
 "Yes, very much stronger — even if it keeps me awake." 
 
Ill 
 
 REPLENISHING THE TEA. 
 
 "Don't you think that club women are, upon the whole, 
 rather clannish?" 
 
 "Not too much so." 
 
 "I knew an active club woman who went to a card party 
 on the day her club met to discuss the General Federation to 
 be held in Milwaukee. She had forgotten certain dates, or 
 perhaps had her own reasons for going to the function in- 
 stead of the club. She was never forgiven by some of the 
 leading members, and was quite ignored when local com- 
 mittees were appointed later. On the day she went to the 
 card party she nearly suffocated in an over-crowded parlor, 
 both fresh air and daylight being excluded; and she did not 
 get the prize she fairly won, because etiquette prevented her 
 from questioning the honesty of those who did the counting." 
 
 "Oh, we have all had that experience." 
 
 "She did not enjoy the card party at all, and on the way 
 home when she met a lot of club women who told her what 
 a lively discussion she had missed, she was most regretful. 
 She explained, when upbraided by them, that she had no 
 special responsibilities that day at the club, or she would not, 
 probably, have been likely to forget them. But she was 
 blamed — as if a club were one vast, sensitive, exacting human 
 organism; a stupendous I, or a mountainous me, whose in- 
 terests had been neglected, and who had been flagrantly 
 snubbed." 
 
 "Oh, yes; a club woman who goes anywhere else on the 
 day her club meets, always subjects herself to a suspicion of 
 disloyalty, or club discourtesy." 
 
 "I should think her absence would be more abusively re- 
 garded on election days, when every vote counts." 
 
 "Oh, no; that shows you are not a club member! There 
 are never, in any of my clubs, so few members present as on 
 those days." 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 "There are always nominating committees, and everything 
 is cut and dried, as they say, beforehand. Almost the whole 
 club might stay away on election days, and nothing be said !" 
 
 "How very strange." 
 
 "Yes; quite paradoxical, isn't it?" 
 
 "Please explain this, to me, rather contradictory feature 
 «f club etiquette." 
 
REPLENISHING THE TEA. 31 
 
 "It would take too long. We are not talking of club 
 politics now." 
 
 "That's so; we are merely airing our views of club 
 clannishness. It seems to me that you women have to think 
 of your club first of all, then of home, then of the non-club 
 side of society." 
 
 "Perhaps so; but home life is not often really neglected 
 by club women. The better and broader the club the more 
 it cultivates in the woman a taste for all that makes home 
 ideal. If a worker in a club falls ill, why do so many people 
 always hold the club accountable? Do not the mere society 
 women, who perhaps scorn clubs, break down much oftener 
 with sheer nervous prostration? Where one woman breaks 
 down because of too much club work in addition to her 
 home duties, fifty break down because they have not learned 
 at clubs, devoted to art, and science, and literature, and do- 
 mestic life, how to get the most from social relations; or 
 have not found the maximum of enjoyment in a home whose 
 drudgery is made divine only by putting a certain amount of 
 cheerful, club-inspired philosophy into it." 
 
 "And yet I've always noticed that the women on your plat- 
 forms who tell you that home duties should come first, are 
 the very ones who are compelled to drop them, and fly on 
 the wings of the wind several mornings and afternoons of 
 every week, to keep their club appointments." 
 
 "They may not want to, and they may conscientiously rebel 
 against it — ^but they just have to." 
 
 "Of course they do. I can understand that." 
 
 "You see if a woman stays away too often to bake bread, 
 or can fruit, or do any _ of those things that our grand- 
 mothers used to take pride in doing themselves, the club 
 says she can buy bread of a baker " 
 
 "Suppose her husband insists upon home-made bread?" 
 
 "Or buy fruit already canned." 
 
 "Suppose it's too expensive?" 
 
 "Oh, one section of the club deals with all these domestic 
 problems — and very often settles them, too." 
 
 "To the perfect satisfaction of husbands and families?" 
 
 "Outwardly, yes.^ For nowadays it's a positive fact that 
 husbands and families of club women are so well educated, 
 so considerate, and polite, that they observe a sort of club 
 etiquette themselves. A man, especially, beareth all things, 
 hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things con- 
 nected with a woman's club." 
 
 "The clubs, in other words have created a new chivalry 
 among men?" 
 
 "Yes; everybody can see that." 
 
32 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "One reason why I do not join them is that my husband 
 says it would naturally increase my social responsibilities, 
 complicate my already far from simple routine of social duties, 
 and make too strenuous my social life." 
 
 "Yes, it would certainly be apt to do all that; but after 
 awhile you would find yourself drawing the lines between 
 what is calculated to broaden and develop, and what has a 
 tendency to limit and check a woman's happiness in and use- 
 fulness to society. And you would give up many other things 
 in order to avail yourself of all the club privileges and op- 
 portunities." 
 
 "Many things that might be of really more value to me 
 I fear — leisure to read the best books of the year with my 
 growing daughters; time to keep up my neglected piano prac- 
 tice so as to accompany the violin and cornet solos of my 
 sons on their evenings at home, and " 
 
 "Ah, your allusions make me half-envious." 
 
 "What an admission for a club woman !" 
 
 "Oh, I only mean envious of the daughters you read with. 
 I've never cultivated a taste for amateur music ! As for 
 evenings at home, my husband says my club gossip is as di- 
 verting to him as the theater." 
 
 "No doubt it is." 
 
 "If you do not care to join any of our working clubs, 
 or culture clubs, I should think a woman of your ancestry 
 would be sure to unite with the "Daughters of the American 
 Revolution." In our progressive age, and among all the 
 changes that the attitude of the new woman — as she is called— 
 has brought about, one element of our social life needed above 
 all others to be preserved. I refer to the element of con- 
 servatism. It is well to be broad and democratic, and to keep 
 alive our sympathies and our kindness, in our association 
 with our fellow beings everywhere. But there is the golden 
 mean to be observed in all our relations with each other. 
 The Colonial dame knows how to mingle with all kinds and 
 classes of people and yet keep her own dignified reserve; 
 losing none of the sweetness of her well-born and well-bred 
 ancestors, yet adding to it much of the tactful strength that 
 only nineteenth century opportunities could germinate and 
 bring to fruition. The whole fabric of social relations in a 
 large majority of our towns and villages has been made more 
 graciously beautiful by the interweaving of Colonial revivals 
 every year. The stately manner and the silvered hair (arti- 
 ficially if not naturally) of our Colonially-descended women, 
 on occasions familiar to all in both towns and cities, always 
 excites a spirit of becoming reverence and patriotism in the 
 public mind. Yearly, because of them, there are created 
 fresh forms of 'ye olden courtesie.' " 
 
REPLENISHING THE TEA. 33 
 
 "I admit that all you say is true, and that these women 
 in society should command the chivalrous respect of all men. 
 They awaken a species of admiring awe in the breast of less 
 favored sisters, who can claim good blood, perhaps, but 
 not the noble inheritances bequeathed by the remote nobility 
 of those famous times. Kind hearts were more than coronets 
 then, as they are now, but high blood or blue blood established 
 rather limited and exclusive social relations, and there is 
 still desirable a certain degree of restriction. Women must 
 preserve the queenly element of pre-revolutionary days if 
 they would have men forever retain the princely manner of 
 gentle, genial politeness, which marks the American today." 
 
 "Little has thus far been lost. Even unsocial business men 
 in the circles where refinement and intelligence abound, have 
 an inherent respect for women which marks their behavior 
 everywhere. There is magnetism in the presence of our 
 modern representatives of the Colonial days, who maintain 
 and perpetuate a consciousness of native culture. These 
 magnetisms are forceful enough to penetrate our social strata, 
 and they are instrumental in keeping alive a certain ele- 
 mentary aristocracy, which is, after all, most legitimate and 
 a decided lever, or leaven in our social life. It is easy indeed 
 to overpraise the hero of today, however vulgar he may be. 
 But the heroes and the heroines of the past ! Ah, they pos- 
 sessed physical, and moral, and social courage and refinement; 
 they had a distinct code of politeness and gallantry for men, 
 and a persistently high standard for women, which have 
 proven the most affluent sources of our real social upbuilding. 
 We have in American social relations the distilled elixir from 
 the European gardens or courts, and we cherish the memory 
 of the days when knighthood was in flower." 
 
 "Now suppose I joined a club or two and never appeared 
 at any of the regular sessions?" 
 
 "But you would be the gainer even then." 
 
 "I don't see how." 
 
 "Of course you would attend all the big club receptions 
 for celebrities; and you would enjoy going to the annual 
 luncheons anyway." 
 
 "But according to my ideas of club etiquette it would be 
 most seriously out of taste. I know there are plenty of such 
 club members. I should think they would feel sneaky, pay- 
 ing for all the fun of course in money, but never allying 
 themselves or their influence to anything but a club's social 
 affairs." 
 
 "Back of which you might add, there is always much 
 thought and work on the part of a few. However, it's a part 
 of the whole system of club etiquette — unformulated though 
 
34 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 it be — to let those work who can or will, and to let those 
 shirk who will or must, and to say very little in praise of the 
 one class, or dispraise of the other. 
 
 "That is partially true, but if a woman needs the re- 
 laxation of a ping-pong party, or a game of golf, rather than 
 a lecture on Roman Antiquities, she is often pronounced frivo- 
 lous, or lacking in club loyalty." 
 
 "In some cases, yes ; decidedly so. Proceed." 
 
 "Possibly she has heard Miss Betty Bright report for tTie 
 book committee so many times that she stays away certain 
 days to make non-club calls " 
 
 "As I did just once with you, thinking that Miss Betty 
 would after awhile have told all she knew about the per- 
 plexing heroines of recent fiction. Yes ; I did step into the 
 pitfall of miscellaneous five-minute calls ; and made so many 
 that I was nearly exhausted at night, and quite disgusted, too, 
 when told that Miss Betty was not on the program for 
 once; and that all the smartest women in the club took part 
 in an animated general discussion of the five most popular 
 novels of the year." 
 
 "I'll warrant that this devious calling snare, into which I 
 led you ; and the one temptation to catch up in your long list 
 of unpaid social debts, which you did not resist, has forever 
 tabooed you from being asked to tell what you know about 
 books, new or old." 
 
 "Well, yes, I suspect so. There are only certain women 
 now, right along, who have a place on the book committee." 
 
 "And always headed by Miss Betty Bright?" 
 
 "Yes; but why not? She is charming. I enjoy her now 
 more and more; especially since I have accepted the fact that 
 I am only one of several hundred other women who are not 
 expected to analyze fictional freaks." 
 
 "Yes, I believe you clubbists always enjoy anything that 
 has finally reduced you to a state of absolute modesty or 
 willing self-effacement." 
 
 "I must say we do get a great deal of wholesome discipline. 
 And we find, really, that the only way to thoroughly enjoy a 
 club, and all its members, is to persist in giving those on top 
 every chance to shine, or rise still higher." 
 
 "And to amiably pose as being dull yourselves ; and to sit 
 week after week apparently lost in abject appreciation of their 
 talents. Oh, I never could thus help to distill the quintes- 
 sence of politeness, as a body of sweet-souled, self-abnegating 
 club women must." 
 
 "Thanks, my friend, thanks in behalf of all the silent, well- 
 behaved, never-on-the-program, under-the-bushel lights of 
 clubdom!" 
 
REPLENISHING THE TEA. 35 
 
 "Now I am one of those opinionated, egotistical, personally 
 ambitious women myself, who would not care to be in a club 
 at all unless I had an active part in at least several of its 
 movements. I would want to be sometimes on the book com- 
 mittee, so as to show how scientifically I could dissect the 
 characters of Henry James — " 
 
 "They are sufficiently dissected when he dissects them." 
 
 "All the more skillful I, then." 
 
 "And you would surely be down for papers on art, — you 
 are so very aesthetic." 
 
 "Yes, I would feel much hurt if never asked to air my art 
 ideas before the whole society. And I would want to have 
 full charge of the domestic section, not because I can cook, 
 but because it having been fashionable to go to cooking schools, 
 I am a graduate of seven. And I would, honestly, feel hu- 
 miliated if, after being a member of a club ten years or more 
 I was never known well enough to be called anything but 
 Mrs. What's-her-name." 
 
 "That reminds me of one of the several things we have 
 agreed upon in club etiquette." 
 
 "And which one?" 
 
 "That about a woman's name." 
 
 "Oh yes, — one name at a time." 
 
 "And now let's agree that, at same rate, that one name 
 must be remembered by every club sister who has ever heard 
 it spoken." 
 
 "We can so agree, but wouldn't it be an utter impossi- 
 bility?" 
 
 "No ; it could be managed by a clause in the by-laws. 
 Not only the club but society in general might in the course 
 of time overcome a most inexcusable habit. It's all non- 
 sense this saying 'Pardon me, but I've forgotten your name.' 
 The trouble is people do not seriously set about trying to fix 
 names firmly in their minds." 
 
 "Then you think it a good reform for a club to inaug- 
 urate?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed I do. I myself plead guilty to unpardon- 
 able heedlessness about other people's names, as touchy as 
 I am when the same persons repeatedly forget mine." 
 
 "What would you suggest in the line of club reformation?" 
 
 "Courses of lectures on 'Criminology,' — the proceeds to be 
 devoted to a general effort to exterminate from the face of 
 the earth all those absent-minded, selfishly indifferent human 
 beings who have no difficulty whatever in remembering every 
 little thing under the sun but the names of the people they 
 are introduced to." 
 
 "The race of Americans at least would be terribly de- 
 populated." 
 
36 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "Yes, but those who remained to tell the tale would have 
 some claim to politeness ; and a memory not vague and flabby, 
 but worth transmitting to children who would never help 
 to perpetuate what's-her-names, and what-you-call-'ems/' 
 
 "Speaking of ambitions if you were a club woman, gives 
 me a chance to predict that you will yet be a high and mighty 
 one. If you ever join you will know just how to work 
 your way to the front/' 
 
 "Oh, but I don't like that type of successful club women! 
 They get to the front of the ranks, but they recklessly knock 
 down every other aspiring woman, regardless of her aches, 
 sprains, and bruises. I don't mean that they countenance 
 gossip or character-hurt3. I credit club women with great 
 fairness in that matter. But they have a mysterious way of 
 thrusting a woman into the background when she promises 
 to stand in their way. I don't know just how they do it." 
 
 "Oh, don^t you? Why they always see that she is on 
 the nominating committees. She innocently feels flattered; 
 thinks she must have great discernment, good judgment, etc., 
 and performs her thankless duties most willingly. All the 
 while she is the same as defeating herself." 
 
 "Oh, because she cannot with any propriety nominate 
 herself — I see." 
 
 "Yes, there are fine diplomats in women's clubs." 
 
 "I'm afraid of them. In general society I can have 
 things my way " 
 
 "Yes, you are a born leader." 
 
 "But club women are so much more shrewd and tact- 
 ful than the average scheming and shallow society woman, 
 that it is not easy to weigh all their motives. Club women 
 are dangerously affable." 
 
 "And so you are afraid of them — you?" 
 
 "Yes; the leaders have such a gentle and unobtrusive way 
 of sizing one up; classifying one, as if to be used for 
 this or that purpose; or labeling ooie as explosive — ^and^ to 
 be shelved. I should never know what they were tHinking 
 about me, or what they were deciding to do with me." 
 
 "After awhile you wouldn't notice all this, or if you did 
 you wouldn't care. And when you once reached such a 
 position you would have solid and continuous enjoyment 
 of your club." 
 
 "It would take a whole life-time to discipline me. And 
 I do not care for the posthumous pleasure of simply being 
 a club woman!" 
 
 "You mean posthumous honor." 
 
 "No; I meant what I said. To have been conspicuous, 
 or to have been inconspicuous has the same result. One 
 
REPLENISHING THE TEA. 37 
 
 soon becomes an ex-officer, or an ex-member in old age, and 
 is the same as dead when thus relegated to oblivion." 
 
 "But there are honorary life-memberships." 
 
 "And they are the worst sort of farces, sometimes." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "You have not told me that the first President of your 
 favorite club, who was made an honorary life-member out 
 of courtesy, but who long ago stopped attending, has sent 
 in her resignation as such." 
 
 "No; it has been regarded as a club secret." 
 
 "We outsiders always get hold of your secrets; a parcel 
 of women cannot keep them !" 
 
 "Tell me what you heard." 
 
 "The whole story, and how her name stands in ten year- 
 books as a life-member; and how her bust has been ordered, 
 and must be paid for out of club funds, and hid in a dark 
 place out of sight; and how mad she is because the club has 
 changed her early policy and amended the by-laws too often; 
 and, in fact, how her life-membership has become a hollow 
 mockery. Sometimes it's hard enough to be alive, and hor- 
 rible to be dead; but to be a club ex-president, struggling 
 to be more alive than she is, and more dead than she is at 
 one and the same time, is — " 
 
 "Let me complete the sentence. It is both ludicrous and 
 pathetic." 
 
 "Pardon me. Your club is very loyal. Its strict eti- 
 quette in this instance is praiseworthy. I will say no more." 
 
 "What were we talking of awhile ago, when we switched 
 off?" 
 
 "I don't know which turn you mean. In desultory con- 
 versations like ours there are so many switches. But I 
 think we were side-tracked on the subject of my not join- 
 ing any of the clubs, and my acknowledged unfitness for 
 membership." 
 
 "And yet you find club women, as such, so attractive a 
 study that you wish to formulate a system of etiquette, 
 which would be of inestimable value to them," 
 
 "Yes, perhaps it's the only way I can distinguish myself. 
 When I arrive at conclusions worth holding to I am going 
 to make a summary of them. But before doing so, I want 
 to get more information as to the inside life of clubs." 
 "It seems to me you have sufficient already." 
 
 "By no means." 
 
 "Then why don't you become one of us?" 
 
 "I have given you several reasons. But the paramount 
 one really concerns the question of calls, which is and may 
 forever remain the inextinguishable bug-bear of the social 
 life of womankind." 
 
38 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "Yes; it seems to underlie or overlap all the other prob- 
 lems, doesn't it? Whatever points of etiquette we begin 
 to discuss, back we go again to the question of calls." 
 
 "As a non-club woman my calling code is already alarm- 
 ingly involved. If I joined even one small club, whether 
 a culture club, or a whist club, I would be extending my 
 relations in such a manner as to over-crowd the already 
 haunted chambers of my mind." 
 
 "No doubt you would — no doubt at all; for you are 
 naturally very social, very responsive, and kind-hearted. Pro- 
 ceed." 
 
 "More women would call upon me, and I would have 
 to return their first visits, at least right away. I would be 
 certain to seek the strangers, even when I already owed 
 more calls than I could pay. I acquired the miscellaneous 
 calling habit in my youth, and I have never been able to 
 break it." 
 
 "Nor I. Mine isn't a habit, nor yet a tendency. Mine 
 is an inherited weakness. I simply cannot resist it. When I 
 most firmly resolve to stay at home awhile, I find my brain 
 fairly haunted, just as you say yours is, by these ghostly 
 obligations. My mother was the same, and all my aunts. 
 It's in the family — this calling mania !" 
 
 "It's in the whole human family — of American women. 
 You perceive that I Hmit my remarks to Americans. This 
 is because, when I get ready to formulate my ideas of club 
 etiquette they will apply only to such women, and not to 
 general society which is presumed to be, as stated by high 
 authority, 'steeped in Cologne water, and perfumed, and 
 dined, and introduced, and properly grounded in all the bi- 
 ography, and politics, and anecdotes of the boudoirs.'" 
 
 "As a woman, and not merely a club woman, I shall 
 for the sake of my sex in general, welcome even a partial 
 solution of the algebraic calling question." 
 
 "Mine will be faulty, of course, and inadequate. But the 
 calling system in America is evolutionary." 
 
 "Oh, is it really? I had not thought of that. Proceed." 
 
 "Our grandmothers used to be ready, having changed 
 their gowns, and perhaps put on a pretty silk apron — " 
 
 "This was before they were our grandmothers, you mean?" 
 
 "Yes; in their prime, and as society personages, too, they 
 used to be ready to see their callers any day, and every day, 
 after two or three o'clock. Then, for some reason, the 
 majority decided it was best to have one regular day of the 
 week." 
 
 "I follow your thought. That, too, became unsatisfactory. 
 Some chose the first and third Tuesday, or the second and 
 
REPLENISHING THE TEA. 39 
 
 fourth Wednesday, etc. Even that has become a nightmare 
 to all of us." 
 
 "Yes, and especially to you club women, whose days here 
 and there, and everywhere, are marked off like a pendulum, 
 anyway. We do not need to enter into details regarding the 
 day that one means to spend at home, and can not or does 
 not. Some women are half offended if you ignore their 
 special day, and just go when you can, as your pre-natal 
 grandmothers used to! It is all a stupendous farce, a dis- 
 appointing, aggravating hap-hazard system." 
 
 "Indeed it is. We might talk all day about its harrowing 
 defects." 
 
 "Its absurdities are so apparent." 
 
 "Its exactions are so idiotic." 
 
 "We are getting excitec^." 
 
 "Never mind if we are. It's a thoroughly impersonal 
 theme." 
 
 "And we are earnestly trying to find some way in which 
 this dreadful condition of affairs can be ameliorated." 
 
 "The task is heroic; but proceed." 
 
 "It will take too many words for me to present to you 
 all the dilemmas I encounter. But I'll mention a few. I 
 want to call upon Mrs. Samuel Star, who recently arrived; 
 she lives 'way across the city; I have to take circuitous 
 street car routes and change several times; even on her day 
 I may not find her at home; my card may reach her or may 
 be lost by her children, etc., etc. I fatigue myself miserably. 
 I put her in the position when she must very shortly repeat 
 my process, and fatigue herself, too." 
 
 "Yes, yes ; proceed." 
 
 "Why proceed? The calling situations are endless in their 
 variety and trials." 
 
 "Admitted." 
 
 "Then why cannot you club women, at least, head a move- 
 ment to abolish entirely the present system of formal calling 
 at each other's houses?" 
 
 "Do you ask why?" 
 
 "Yes, why?" 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 "Inaugurate and carry into effect a simple substitute." 
 
 "How very simple that seems ! The very idea rests me." 
 
 "Of course it does. All your physical, mental and moral 
 joints immediately relax." 
 
 "Yes; I seem to be free and unrestrained. All my social 
 being revels in the thought that at last I am going to be 
 victorious and break the fixed calling habit. My pet club is 
 going to be a pioneer in abolishing the system. Now pro- 
 ceed." 
 
40 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "The term *new woman' is supposed to imply a club- 
 woman, is it not?" 
 
 "Yes, I— I think so." 
 
 "And she surely must meet many new emergencies, and 
 have to consider many questions from an entirely new point 
 of view; does she not?" 
 
 "Yes, oh yes, very often." 
 
 "Now let us take up the 'amendment to the amendment,* 
 or some 'unfinished business,' or whatever that club manual 
 of yours might sanction." 
 
 "Oh, but I am waiting for your proposed substitute. 
 There's a call for the question of formal calls. I am ready 
 for the question, — the question' of calling." 
 
 "Yes; but the committee is not yet ready to report. I am 
 the committee in this case, you know, and my report must 
 be a written one — by and by." 
 
 'D^cm't -fail to give it to me. I want it as a means of 
 gratifying my curiosity — ^if for nothing more. And at the 
 same time, all nonsense aside, you do seem to be very much 
 in earnest." 
 
 "Yes, I am in earnest; and I shall want you to lay the 
 document as a whole before one of your clubs." 
 
 "All right, I'll do it. Why my tea has grown so cold, I 
 can't drink it. If there's any one thing that I insist upon 
 it's having my tea hot" 
 
IV 
 
 THE TEA GROWS COLD 
 
 "I have often thought of the position of the more promi- 
 nent club members, and what ought and ought not to be ex- 
 pected of them. Can you give me any pointers?" 
 
 "As a member who wishes to encourage your benevolent 
 explorations, I will if I can. Now my idea is that no woman 
 should consent to be a club director, or officer, unless willing 
 to assume all the duties involved, and make them, for the 
 time being, primary. From the very day that she becomes a 
 club president, more particularly, she is under a new social 
 order. Each director and the other officers are under it, too, 
 in a modified sense." 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "If they can not make visits, as most of them, perhaps 
 all, would like to do, can they not send their cards to every 
 member who has been a resident less time than they have, 
 thus establishing a sort of personal relation?" 
 
 "I don't think that is to be expected, or is really feasible." 
 
 "Oh, I was doing some guess-work! I thought some such 
 calling-dodge was in your mind." 
 
 "No; it would be rather expensive, — a big club, lots of 
 postage; and a bother, too." 
 
 "But if a woman can not afford extra stamps, extra sta- 
 tionery, etc., and if she is not also equal to extra tact, kind- 
 ness, amiability, and unfailing courtesy, she ought not to be 
 a club president nowadays." 
 
 "Very true. You know what has been told about a man 
 on the cars one morning going from Concord to Boaton: 
 Tm sent to the city to procure an angel to do the cooking,' 
 he said. You women expect angels of skill, and good-na- 
 ture, and patience to keep the club kettle boiling, and to 
 prepare delectable feasts for you." 
 
 "They do a lot of thankless work, I know, but there 
 is no law compelling them to, and they don't do it to earn 
 a living, as Bridget does." 
 
 "I declare; my Emersonian anecdote has fallen flat. And 
 I must say I don't think you expect too much of your offi- 
 cers. Everything is left to their judgment." 
 
 "And if they haven't the angelic qualities required ; if they 
 cannot see that the success of a club depends upon their 
 consecration, and their breadth; and that the club should 
 
42 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 be unanimous in its views of their fairness and politeness 
 at all times ; and find in them an example of the finest amen- 
 ities, then they are not fit for the honor we confer upon them." 
 
 "Indeed they are not; but I think a woman, as a general 
 thing, rises to these supernal heights after her election." 
 
 "Yes ; that is what we all say. It is opportunity that 
 brings out her only half-suspected power." 
 
 "As a non-member, I can say, without being disloyal, 
 that a snippy club president, who enjoys the distinction of 
 her office, but pays little heed to the rights or the feelings 
 of the individual members, without whose vote it is sup- 
 posed she could not have held it, always amuses me." 
 
 "Because she is so conspicuously ungrateful?" 
 
 "Yes, and so comically unaware of her approaching doom 
 if she should wish to be re-elected." 
 
 "It is, I think, better for a woman to afifect more cordiality 
 than she really possesses — if naturally a matter-of-fact per- 
 son — than to have the appearance of ignoring the just claims 
 that the nominating committee may have put forth. Notice 
 the fine distinction I make, since my recent avowal, about the 
 elections, and that responsible committee." 
 
 "Yes, I am learning fast to see behind the scenes, but 
 I shall make legitimate use of my discoveries. I was going 
 to say that it's better for an officer to overdo in geniality, 
 than to seem oblivious to the presence of private members, 
 as some do." 
 
 "But there are some morbidly constituted club women; 
 some who imagine they are slighted ; some who are chronic 
 complainers, alas ! and who are not only not satisfied with the 
 choice of the committee, but who do not turn out and help 
 the club to make a ticket of its own, when given a chance. 
 The more courteous an officer is to them, the more apt are 
 they to pronounce her manners arrogant, or condescending." 
 
 "Of course definitions of manners are always difficult. 
 Somewhere I've seen them likened to the cob-web cloth 
 that Hans Christian Andersen wrote about : Woven so fine 
 as to be invisible, woven for the king's garments.' How true 
 it is that exquisite manners do seem to clothe the very natures 
 of some women, like a royal garment." 
 
 "Yes, and when some very intellectual, but far from gra- 
 cious club woman puts on sweet manners, and takes them 
 oflF, when she forgets; and they are not genuine, but based 
 upon her desire for power, they are often sorry misfits." 
 
 "Still if they wear these courtesy-clothes long enough 
 they adjust themselves to the form, like too stiffiy starched 
 apparel that softens after awhile, and is more becoming. 
 I have in mind a case like that. How unapproachable and 
 
THE TEA GROWS COLD. 43 
 
 unresponsive the president of the Amalgamation Club used 
 to be ! She was very much in earnest, very zealous and de- 
 voted to all the best interests of the society, but she was a 
 severe critic; and when it came to the recognition of in- 
 dividual members and their righteous projects, she did not 
 herself try to amale^amate anything." 
 
 "I've known dozens of women like that, — dozens of them. 
 They are perfectly invulnerable." 
 
 "No; not always. Sometimes a very little blow to their 
 dignity completely changes them. It's interesting to see 
 them wilt and then revive. For instance, this woman jvas 
 finally told that what had once promised to be a general 
 coalescence, or assimilation, would be impossible, if she did 
 not make a study of common courtesy in the details of her 
 club work." 
 
 "And then what?" 
 
 . "It was a shocking revelation to her when she found 
 that she was lacking in ordinary politeness." 
 
 "Wasn't she angry?" 
 
 "No, she was only stunned. She was so conscientious 
 in her desire for the amalgamation of — whatever the club 
 stood for — that she reformed in her demeanor as quickly as 
 if she had just experienced the old-fashioned religion, — only 
 she had a change of manners, instead of a change of heart." 
 
 "That's what you think all our clubs ought to have, 
 a great revival of etiquette, followed by anxious-seat con- 
 fessions; and a general tremulousness, and many changes of 
 manners. Proceed." 
 
 "Yes; this woman shook hands with every one she met. 
 I was told that she smiled blandly from the platform when 
 she encountered the upturned gaze of any member." 
 
 "How refreshingly edifying, like the painless groans, and 
 sympathetic amens, of a pompous preacher. Proceed." 
 
 "A shy woman in a golf skirt, which, by the way, Madame 
 President thought it quite improper to wear to club meet- 
 ings " 
 
 "So do I." 
 
 "A spirituelle looking woman, who was most striking in 
 diamond ear-rings and sunburst, which, in Madam President's 
 estimation, were donned most inappropriately at an afternoon 
 session " 
 
 "I agree with her." 
 
 "A small and too-talkative woman, who persisted in whis- 
 pering, during the musical programs, much to the President's 
 annoyance " 
 
 "Oh, there's always the whispering fiend to spoil some- 
 body's pleasure." 
 
44 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "The woman who was always late, and wore rustling 
 skirts that disturbed the whole club as she advanced when 
 some one was speaking; and the irrepressible and inattentive 
 woman who repeatedly made motions that had been carried, 
 were all smiled upon in the same way, and with an eagerness 
 that betokened a firm resolution, on the erring President's 
 part, to ever after cultivate a state of benignant courtesy. 
 But was not this air of magnificent toleration better than the 
 useless frowns, or the superciliousness of her past record?" 
 
 "Really, I think it was." 
 
 "Then let us agree that, in the question of club etiquette, 
 no matter what happens, or how the President feels, her be- 
 havior must suggest acceptance rather than dictation of 
 affairs." 
 
 "In other words she must adopt the ignoring policy; and 
 she must combine in her conduct all the synonyms of affa- 
 bility, which, I believe, are courtesy, complaisance, urbanity 
 and civility." 
 
 "In your club life have you ever known of such a paragon ?" 
 
 "Just one." 
 
 "Tell me about her." 
 
 "I'd like to. It is pleasant to recall her. She approached 
 the ideal. She made such use of all her opportunities that 
 when she retired after the second term, refusing a third, 
 there was no limit, really, to the functions given in her honor. 
 She had not striven for popularity, but she simply enjoyed 
 to the fullest measure her many chances to carry out her 
 ideas of what a leader should be. She was full of won- 
 derfully generous sentiments." 
 
 "And did she preside well?" 
 
 "Oh, members differed about that, but I thought she did." 
 
 "It seems to me you club women always differ on such 
 points. I've never heard of but one who pleased everybody 
 and that was a Southern woman, who was the very embodi- 
 ment of club courtesy." 
 
 "You refer to the President of the Biennial when it met 
 in Los Angeles, and who was said to rule with a feather, or 
 better still, 
 
 'With hammer soft as snow-flakes' flight.' 
 There was only one opinion of her manners and that was that 
 they were perfect. What more could be said? Her name 
 should be handed down right along to all club posterity as a 
 model, when the question of proper presiding arises." 
 
 "Club women ought to see to that for, as Joubert writes — 
 'Without a model and without an ideal model, no one could 
 do well.' " 
 
 "Our clubs have great variety in their presiding officers. 
 I've never traced much similarity between any of them — 
 
THE TEA GROWS COLD. 4S 
 
 rather strange, too, as their official routine is always the 
 same." 
 
 "We have already said that manners are hard to define, 
 and yet they are communicable. 'If they are superficial, so 
 are the dew-drops which give such a depth to the morning 
 meadows.' Ever since I was a child I've been interested in 
 the subtile descriptions of manners that writers have tried to 
 give. 'Your manners are always under examination, and by 
 committees little suspected.' Emerson says that, 'In all clubs 
 manners make the members.' And he also says that 'Fine 
 manners need the support of fine manners in others.^ " 
 
 "How true it is that they are communicable. Women, 
 more especially, catch them from each other ! Our Culture 
 Club caught the most beautiful behavior from the president 
 I referred to. It was impossible to be anything but cheerful, 
 genial, and courteous while she was at the head.'* 
 
 "Your enthusiastic tone when you mention her makes me 
 feel like dancing the minuet before her, lifting my skirts 
 daintily and courtesying. The discussion of manners creates 
 in me feelings most gracious and polite toward every one — 
 even toward you sitting here over the tea cups !" 
 
 "That reminds me that I meant to heat up my tea. It's 
 stone cold now. But I've had one or two cups anyway." 
 
 "Yes, two I think. You were speaking of the paragon^ 
 when I interrupted you. Excuse me." 
 
 "Certainly; your sensation of exuberant civility was con- 
 tagious. I have one too! I think if clubs would discuss 
 fine manners more all the members might be thrilled with a 
 unanimous desire to exhibit them!" 
 
 "Oh, the clubs will discuss all these questions by and by. 
 Never fear. What I want now is to talk with you about one 
 of your favorite leaders, and what made her a favorite." 
 
 "Her manners were marked with sympathy. In spite of 
 an embarrassment which caused blushes of confusion on her 
 part when she presided over large meetings, she could not 
 really make mistakes because she was so sincerely anxious 
 to be just and to be courteous. The fullness of her heart 
 was apparent to all. At times she seemed to me to be really 
 above mere parliamentary practice. If she understood it 
 and exercised it, there was something so spontaneously cor- 
 rect in her demeanor, that its rigidity was lost in her natural- 
 ness." 
 
 "You have spoken of her desire to be just and to be 
 courteous. That would help, I should suppose, to convey an 
 impression of parliamentary knowledge. For no doubt justice 
 and courtesy are the prime requirements in the accepted set 
 rules for the conduct of club meetings." 
 
46 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "Oh, yes; and there is a chance left for infinite tact, too. 
 My favorite president had a great deal of that. I called 
 her the Persian Lady." 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 "She was like all that has been written of the Persian 
 Lady, 'Lilla;' an elemental force; 'a solvent powerful to 
 reconcile all heterogeneous persons into one society.' Mem- 
 bers of the club who had fallen out with each other once, 
 all made up during her presidency. I was one of them my- 
 self. I was ashamed to treat a certain woman coolly any 
 more because I had heard that she criticised the committee 
 of which I was chairman — for buying 500 blue tea cups 
 after she had suggested in the club that 500 Japanese cups 
 be purchased — and no two alike." 
 
 "And how was the reconcihation effected?" 
 
 "It was simultaneous, as if there were something fragrant 
 and sweet left in the atmosphere that day when our president 
 simply said in her inimitably gracious way, 'The club stands 
 adjourned. We will now have tea.' As we all stood around 
 chatting and drinking from the pretty little blue and white 
 cups, I caught the eye of my deadly enemy. I smiled, and she 
 approached me saying, 'I like your choice after all. They 
 won't break so easily.' " 
 
 "And you think this air of mutual concession was due to 
 the manners of the president?" 
 
 "Yes, because we had taken tea at least a dozen times 
 under a former one without even bowing to each other." 
 
 "She must have been like one of the Delphic Sybils ; one 
 of those women who have been credited with filling vases 
 with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs 
 over, filling the place with perfume and inspiring courtesy. 
 I have always noticed that mere conventionalism humbles 
 itself before a person whose character is a fountain of gen- 
 erosity and truth. In the presence of a woman with a heart 
 full of real love for other women, there are new meanings 
 to every little act of politeness." 
 
 "Yes indeed ; and before she sailed for Europe, in the 
 midst of a series of farewell receptions, dinners, luncheons 
 and teas given for her — I mean the Persian Lady — she did 
 not fail in a single thing she could do that would show her 
 appreciation of those who had worked with her, and helped 
 her two terms to be so successful. She even gave an ele- 
 gantly appointed luncheon for the women and girl newspaper 
 reporters on the different dailies. Of course it was hard 
 for them to get the time to go to her house. If they had 
 not liked her so much they couldn't have put themselves out 
 as they did. And if certain editors had not known so well 
 
THE TEA GROWS COLD. 47 
 
 of her unfailing courtesy and justice at all times in her 
 press dealings, they would not have spared them at a busy 
 hour." 
 
 "It was surely a new form of club etiquette." 
 
 "Yes ; they were all there in pretty gowns and with no 
 visible note-books or pencils, enjoying such a menu and deco- 
 rations as they had often described — without having a chance 
 to do more." 
 
 "There will be other luncheons like that. It was too 
 happy an idea of the Persian Lady's not to be adopted, some- 
 time, somewhere, by other club presidents." 
 
 "I think so too. After round upon round of reportorial 
 calls, when, tired, faint and dizzy in their efforts for copy — 
 which some clubs make it so hard for them to get — they had 
 sat down in dingy office corners to write up club affairs, 
 with hungry presses thundering near " 
 
 "And for lack of time to eat anything really delicious or 
 nourishing all day, quite as ravenous themselves, yes " 
 
 "They at last ate a meal fit for goddesses. They had 
 artistic place cards done in water-color, with their own 
 names on them, and they brightly responded to toasts, and 
 felt that they were distinctly honored." 
 
 "But did not some of your members say that it was es- 
 tablishing an undesirable precedent? The press women do 
 not have the time for these functions, we all know ; and 
 neither does the club president always have the finances, 
 the servants, the strength, and all that is required for such 
 an entertainment." 
 
 "Nevertheless, I don't think it was a bad precedent. The 
 spirit of it all will be remembered, even if a simpler form 
 must be chosen. Such a thing might not naturally occur 
 oftener than once a year, or once in two years." 
 
 "It would be a most cheering event to look back upon, 
 and forward to, if the faithful reporters were in some marked 
 way given more special social attention; if it could be ar- 
 ranged by every club to have their little affair a regular one 
 among the other annual gatherings at the close of the club 
 season. In some cases they are quite ignored, or treated like 
 mere automatons." 
 
 "They seem to expect to be; and although they are often 
 really the intellectual superiors of the women whose papers 
 they gather for accurate data; and far more cultured and 
 well-born than those whose elaborate functions they are 
 willing to report in order to make a living for themselves — 
 they quietly do their work, and no one ever sees them put 
 on airs or hears from them a word of fault. And as for 
 politeness I do think their manners are enviable. Sweetness, 
 
48 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 self-forgetfulness, and fidelity to all trusts, are the badges 
 v/orn by these club reporters." 
 
 "Might not a good reporter, after proving herself in 
 every way worthy, be made a complimentary or associate 
 member of the clubs she professionally visits?" 
 
 "I've known such cases. It is a fine thing, too. A sense 
 of loyalty causes her to be more fair in her reports. She 
 often has it in her power to turn the affairs of a club and 
 its management into ridicule. The conduct of certain offi- 
 cers and members is not always as dignified as it might be. 
 However, nowadays, the reporter gives to the public only 
 the facts she considers worth while. She is very judicious." 
 
 "Oh, yes; the favorable light in which the public now 
 regards women's clubs has been largely influenced by the 
 tactfully written reports in the dailies. Very seldom do they 
 indulge in merely sensational exposures of club secrets. When 
 they do I think it is because there are flagrant violations of 
 what may be called club etiquette — or rather failures in the 
 attitudes or acts of justice and courtesy, which the club 
 should carefully observe." 
 
 "A newspaper reporter is generally capable of finer writing 
 than she is doing." 
 
 "Yes, I've observed that in more than one instance. There- 
 fore, as women's clubs aim at general culture, development, 
 and a broader field of opportunities for women, intelligent 
 reporters should sometimes be asked to prepare papers on 
 such subjects as they may prefer to handle." 
 
 "But the clubs are already filled with women who perhaps 
 think they ought to be asked to write papers." 
 
 "When writing or reading papers is not exactly in their 
 line? Then they should learn their own limitations. They 
 should be willing to do what they can do well, and not reach 
 out too much for the impossible, and unattainable. Many 
 times, it seems to me, your club women are in danger of 
 cherishing the vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and 
 falls. They are too ready to produce essays in which there 
 is not the least sparkle of originality." 
 
 "That's so; and I'm sure it would be much better if the 
 program committees ceased to encourage the efforts of 
 mediocrity as they do. Did I ever tell you about poor Mrs. 
 Tryon's experience? She wa& asked to respond to a toast 
 at the annual luncheon on 'The Essentials of the Essentially 
 Essential.' She is naturally a witty little woman, but very 
 quiet and retiring. Probably she was expected to be funny. 
 Instead of that, she had laboriously attacked the subject; 
 written an essay in which she attempted to be philosophical 
 and profound; and had sought to commit it all to memory. 
 
TEA-GROUND FORTUNES. 49 
 
 She was frightened out of her senses, could only be heard 
 by those at her elbow, and broke down in the midst of 
 it all." 
 
 "What was the behavior of the club?" 
 
 "Oh, shocking! There was a burst of laughter and a 
 clapping of hands." 
 
 "How did she behave?" 
 
 "Oh, she cried like a baby." 
 
 "What followed then?" 
 
 "Why of course women rushed to her side, and there had 
 to be mutual explanations. She was told that The Essentials 
 of the Essentially Essential' was of itself so amusing a 
 theme, that the club thought it must laugh and applaud; and 
 that it didn't know that she hacf forgotten her piece; and, 
 not hearing, it did not know that she had been tragically 
 stranded on an island of solemnity." 
 
 "Your story serves to illustrate two things in women's 
 clubs — one is the temptation for a shallow member to go 
 beyond her depth, and the other is the tendency to taKe 
 everything too seriously." 
 
 "I believe you are right. But I did not mean to interrupt 
 your train of thought regarding newspaper reporters or press 
 women. Proceed." 
 
 "Oh. I was only going to suggest that, as a matter of 
 extreme courtesy — a kindly recognition of their talents — they 
 should not always be confined to the discussion of their own 
 special work, as if it were their only resource or interest." 
 
 "No, that is so. How surprised I was lately to hear that 
 stately Miss Hunter of the Times, who is always hunting 
 down society items, or chasing up club news, learnedly ex- 
 patiating upon the beauty of Samoan tapa cloth; the intrica- 
 cies of Chinese music, and other subjects upon which the 
 rest of us knew nothing. She was not on duty then, but 
 having a vacation of one blessed week, which she surely de- 
 served. Her accuracy, and her ingratiating manners when 
 seeking material make her invaluable to the paper and to the 
 clubs." 
 
 "Hasn't she a marvelous memory for names, and even 
 initials?" 
 
 "Yes; she has to cultivate it. We all ought to. It's not 
 only a part of her *stock in trade,' but ours too, if we stop 
 to think." 
 
 "And when it comes to celebrities, I do think Miss Hunter 
 has great skill. She uses her eyes and ears most attentively, 
 and her tongue scarcely at all." 
 
 "Ah, our clubs do enjoy lionizing famous men! I'm sure 
 they like it, too, and as La Galliene says, fairly dote on *the 
 soft, restless whisper of women's gowms, and the music of 
 
50 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 their vowelled voices.' Frederick Warde, for instance, de- 
 lights in speaking to large groups of women in their . club- 
 houses." 
 
 "And there's Robert J. Burdette, the genial and ever- 
 welcome guest of women's clubs, who feels so much at home 
 talking to them and with them, when he travels all over the 
 country." 
 
 "Oh, we don't devote ourselves exclusively to lions; we 
 have lionesses also." 
 
 "Most assuredly you do. A club with a lioness on hand 
 from Boston or New York, if it is a western club, or from 
 California if it is an eastern one, is all a-quiver. Some time 
 when I visit one of your clubs I expect to be told by some 
 one 'There's a lady here from Denver. She is a prominent 
 
 club member who knows Mrs. intimately — the woman 
 
 who carried her ideas of courtesy so far as to refuse the Fede- 
 ration Presidency because the Biennial was held in her city.' 
 Just to meet the woman who knows such a woman will sug- 
 gest politeness as an affirmative force." 
 
 "And did she, or did she not exaggerate the requirements 
 of true hospitality in this instance?" 
 
 "You ask if I think the lady from Denver carried her ideas 
 of justice and courtesy too far in refusing the Presidential 
 nomination, because, when it was tendered her the Biennial 
 was being held in her own city. If that was her reason it 
 was surely a noble exhibition of courtesy. As for justice, 
 I might quote from Thackeray, — 'who ever accused women of 
 being just? They are always sacrificing themselves, or some- 
 body, for somebody else's sake.' " 
 
V 
 
 TEA-GROUND FORTUNES. 
 
 "Sometimes club women are careful about telling each 
 other things for fear of getting into trouble, or having the 
 appearance of being gossips, when they do not hesitate to 
 talk freely with an outsider." 
 
 "Is that so? Well — not belonging to the inner circle, 
 you may get hold of many things that I do not. Now if 
 there is anything I don't like to lose it's club gossip — of the 
 harmless kind, I mean." 
 
 "Of course you'll promise not to tell?" 
 
 "Never ; oh, my husband might be interested." 
 
 "But he might tell." 
 
 "Was a husband ever known to tell his wife's club se- 
 crets? I'm sure mine never does. But he is the soul of dis- 
 cretion." 
 
 "H — ^m; out of 300 women at least 250 get home from 
 the club and relate to as many men every detail of its 
 affairs, and give out personal opinions and private impres- 
 sions that would shock a whole community from center to 
 circumference, if the husbands were not so trustworthy. Yes, 
 I believe you are right. There is always this pent-qp volcano 
 of information, but it keeps perfectly quiet, and may be safe 
 enough." 
 
 "I interrupted you. Proceed." 
 
 "You don't know how much your frequent use of the 
 word 'proceed' amuses me." 
 
 "It means that I am not only prone to talk, but listen." 
 
 "I can say the same. Perhaps I am more like that char- 
 acter in one of Stockton's stories who was willing to pay 
 some one for listening to him." 
 
 "Yes, but I talk too, most glibly, at intervals. Go on." 
 
 "A friend of mine who is now in Hong Kong once told 
 me an experience that I think I can relate to you without 
 betraying her confidence. She invited to her house a woman 
 whom I will call Mrs. John Jenkins." 
 
 "That shows that her husband is alive. If you called her 
 Jenny Wren Jenkins I would know he was not." 
 
 "See how much better it will be when society generally, 
 after your club starts it, adopts our way of using names." 
 
 "I may not be able to place Mrs. John Jenkins, even if I 
 do know that she is not a widow, which, however, is one 
 clue to her present status." 
 
5^ CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "I was going to say that my friend felt acquainted with 
 her because she was the president of her favorite club — 
 the Tuesday Morning. She had seen her and heard her at 
 every meeting for a year or more. She had been introduced 
 to her at a Tuesday Morning's Saturday afternoon tea." 
 
 "These Wednesday Afternoon Club's Thursday evenings, 
 or Thursday Morning's Monday afternoon teas are supposed 
 to promote and facilitate social relations, you know." 
 
 "Yes, and my friend had so much appreciated the genial 
 smiles and pretty gowns of Mrs. John Jenkins, the president, 
 when she got near enough to her one day to see her sip a 
 cup of tea, that she went home singing her praises enthu- 
 siastically. Again when she saw her nibbling a wafer that 
 she had the pleasure of passing, as instructed by the chair- 
 man of the refreshment committee, she began to think she 
 knew her quite well. Meeting her on the street a few days 
 later she flattered herself that Mrs. John Jenkins gave her 
 a very slight nod of semi-recognition. She more and more 
 longed to have the president know how much she admired 
 her. She thought of writing a letter and telling her how 
 rapidly she was acquiring an easy, dignified manner of pre- 
 siding, and how proud the whole club was of its chief rep- 
 resentative. But she refrained, and let concealment do as it 
 would with her cheek. It did not prey upon it very long 
 as she was so active. By and by a reception list loomed 
 before her. She saw her opportunity to let the popular presi- 
 dent into her own and other women's admiration secrets, 
 and in fact almost love-secrets. She would send her an in- 
 vitation." 
 
 "A formal one, I suppose ?'[ 
 
 "Yes, only her engraved visiting card, with a date and 
 an at-home written on it." 
 
 "Under certain circumstances quite proper, but only under 
 certain circumstances, perhaps you'll decide." 
 
 "What would make it proper or improper we have not 
 yet fully determined." 
 
 "Alas, too true." 
 
 "My friend looked forward eagerly to the day when so 
 many club women at her house would meet each other, and 
 her non-club acquaintances, too. Here is a point for you to 
 note. It was to be quite general, not a reception confined to 
 club women." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 "But all, my friend well knew, would be delighted to meet 
 the popular club president; they would pay her the special 
 attentions she so richly deserved." 
 
 "And to which all normal human beings are more or less 
 susceptible. Proceed." 
 
TEA-GROUND FORTUNES. 53 
 
 "My friend wished that Mrs. John Jenkins had called 
 upon her. But she was made comfortable, in a sense, by 
 her husband's remark that he knew her husband a little at 
 his club. By addressing the diminutive envelope to the 
 club-house, which plainly sliowed that she did not mean to 
 trespass upon any personal or private habitat, she really felt, 
 at the last, that she was doing a proper thing in a proper 
 way." 
 
 "No lingering doubts?" 
 
 "I can not say, but I think she had made up her mind 
 that she was paying Mrs. John Jenkins a distinct honor." 
 
 "And she certainly was, too." 
 
 "However, Mrs. John Jenkins did not appear; did not 
 send her card; did not call; did not seem to see her when, 
 later at the club, they met face to face." 
 
 "What did your friend do?'' 
 
 "What could she do ?" 
 
 "Nothing^ — simply nothing." 
 
 "But she did. She was a person of high family; of de- 
 cidedly aristocratic feelings ; and besides all that, she was a 
 lover of courtesy and justice. She wished to place herself 
 right. So she asked a well-known club woman to please in- 
 troduce her to Mrs. John Jenkins." 
 
 "Go on, go on; Fm much interested." 
 
 "Mrs. John Jenkins was not effusive, but sufficiently po- 
 lite. My friend asked pleasantly, ^Madame President, did you 
 receive my invitation?' *Yes,' she said, *oh yes.' 'Perhaps I 
 owe you an apology,' said my friend, pausing. No answer 
 being made, she continued, *I thought it might have been 
 lost. I felt as if I knew you, and I really wanted to have 
 you at my reception. I invited you officially you understand. 
 You are an old resident, while I have lived here a much 
 shorter time. Possibly I have violated one of the strict 
 rules that are supposed to govern our social life. Anyway I 
 feel like explaining my position to you. I do not know what 
 club etiquette is in these cases. I would be glad to know.' " 
 
 "And then what happened?" 
 
 "Very amiably and smilingly the popular president re- 
 sponded, 'Yes, we would all be glad to know just what club 
 etiquette is,' and she gracefully sailed down the aisle, and 
 ascended the platform to call the club to ord'er." 
 
 "When really the club might better have called her to 
 order." 
 
 "We are not so sure about that." 
 
 "Wihy how easy it would have been to make your friend 
 feel more comfortable, by expressing some regret." 
 
 "Yes; but I think Mrs. John Jenkins was sincere." 
 
54 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "She was painfully and almost brutally impolite; that's 
 what she was." 
 
 "I think your club officers often do carry sincerity too 
 far. That is they discriminate too plainly in greeting or 
 talking to members; they should preserve the uniform cour- 
 tesy of a hostess who treats all guests alike in public. But 
 we are not through with Mrs. John Jenkins." 
 
 "Oh, I thought we were. Was she finally 'churched?' I 
 mean clubbed?" 
 
 "She did not, for some reason, want to go to my friend's 
 house. Perhaps she did not care to establish a precedent." 
 
 "She managed the whole matter without showing either 
 justice or courtesy. I think her conduct was abominable." 
 
 "I thought so for a time. But lately, since I've given 
 some attention to this subject of club etiquette, I have sus- 
 pended judgment." 
 
 "You are in doubt; you don't conclude anything; your 
 mind still only gravitates." 
 
 ^ "Yes, toward the center. I want to get at the core of 
 this whole club idea." 
 
 "When you formulate that code for us will it put Mrs. 
 John Jenkins in a better light?" 
 
 "Perhaps it will, though we can see that in this instance 
 she lacked genuine politeness — a perception of those minute 
 things which occasion pleasure or pain." 
 
 "She was not obliged to accept the invitation. That we 
 admit, of course. But as it was sent to the club-house she 
 might have had the secretary acknowle'dge it -" 
 
 "Is it the duty of club secretaries to do such things for 
 the president? This was not a club reception, remember; 
 it was a general function, having more or less of the social 
 elements of the club, but just as many that were foreign 
 to it." 
 
 "Well, haven't you a single suggestion to offer as to what 
 Mrs. Jenkins might have done, or any other club president 
 might do in such a case?" 
 
 "If clubs, in time, agree that my system is fairly good, 
 and ought to be widely observed, there will be no such cases 
 by and by." 
 
 "You have nothing more to say, then, about Mrs. John 
 Jenkins ?" 
 
 "Yes; although she was at the head of a large club, she 
 herself entertained only the same old clique outside of it, 
 and chiefly made up of non-members like myself. Her calling 
 list was no longer than before. She never in the slightest 
 way united her club life, or her club sociability and her 
 societv life." 
 
TEA-GROUND FORTUNES. 55 
 
 "But as long as other women did, and still do make club 
 and society affairs interchangeable, I think there ought to 
 be a more general understanding on their part as to whether 
 such a position as hers is justifiable or not." 
 
 "I agree with you ; there are two sides to every question, 
 or, we may say two questions in this case. Was it proper 
 for my friend, as a club woman, to ask a president with whom 
 she had no personal acquaintance, to attend a general recep- 
 tion at her house? The fact that she admired her, and kn€w 
 that others did ; and that such popular leaders are always 
 'drawing cards,' in common parlance; and that she honestly 
 wanted to make Mrs. John Jenkins even more widely popu- 
 lar; and to make Mrs. John Jenkins just as happy as possible 
 from 3 until 5 o'clock on a certain afternoon, does not, in 
 my opinion, make it proper. It was not a club reception. My 
 friend, with none but the purest motives, did take advantage 
 of her club membership. Any other woman whom she liked 
 just as well, but who had not called upon her or shown her 
 any special attention, would not have been invited." 
 
 "No ; of course not." 
 
 "Now for Mrs. John Jenkins' position. She was president 
 of a large club. I think its membership was 500. She had her 
 social affiliations outside of it. But she could not, even if she 
 had desired, open the club doors to any and all friends. 
 The club is a close corporation. But suppose that nearly 
 all of the 500 members had, during her term, opened their 
 private doors to her, hoping to proudly introduce her to 
 troops of wom-en whom she really had no time, and no in- 
 clination to know. Wouldn't they be placing her in an em- 
 barrassing predicament, from the first, if they expected at- 
 tendance, or, following non-attendance, cards, calls and ex- 
 planatory or apologetic remarks? When she said that she, 
 too, would like to know what club etiquette is, her side of 
 the question was slightly reflected." 
 
 "You have spoken of the propriety of asking a whole 
 board, or all the officers in a body, as being proper. Now 
 this feature of club life is getting more and more observable. 
 Might not such attentions spread, until between four and 
 five hundred hostesses extended such invitations? Officers 
 and directors might finally conduct themselves, or miscon- 
 duct themselves, just as Mrs. John Jenkins did." 
 
 "All these points have been perplexing me. I want to 
 ask you if there is as great harmony in clubs nowadays, when 
 there are so many board luncheons; affairs in honor of the 
 officers; luncheons in honor of the president, etc., in which 
 only a very few members, comparatively, take part, as there 
 used to be when they seldom occurred." 
 
56 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "Vm sure there are no signs of decreasing club harmony 
 anywhere." 
 
 "But do not these semi-private club entertainments create 
 envy, and jealousy, and discontent? There are many who, 
 like Glory McQuirk, must think, *0h, such good times, but 
 I ain't in 'em!' " 
 
 "In the widest sense they certainly do not cause discon- 
 tent. On the contrary, the majority of club members take it 
 for granted that they are not entitled to be in all such good 
 times. The expense incurred is always met by the indi- 
 viduals rather than by the club. If these mutual-admiration 
 groups want to get off in a corner sometimes by themselves, 
 it is considered proper, and that their pleasure is legitimate." 
 
 "This welcome information from you advances me an- 
 other step toward my conclusions. Club life has had a won- 
 derfully broadening influence upon women. It has taught 
 them to despise such traits as envy and petty jealousy; to 
 live and let live, or enjoy and let enjoy, and to take unselfish 
 delight in the general good." 
 
 "I wish you would utter these praises publicly. I wish 
 you would speak sometimes at club meetings." 
 
 "I have had no training, and my voice would not rise 
 above a whisper, I am so timid. But I believe in women's 
 clubs, with all my heart." 
 
 "And you would be one of us if we had fixed rules of be- 
 havior as well as parliamentary laws !" 
 
 "I have not said so. But I have said that, with my tem- 
 perament, and as members now manage or mismanage the 
 matter of calls, or no calls, invitations, or no invitations, and 
 all that is implied, I should meet too many complications, and 
 I should not have the time, nor strength, nor wisdom I would 
 need, in order to be a consistent club woman." 
 
 "I can hardly understand such extreme conscientious- 
 ness." 
 
 "Can you not see that with my circle too large, and my 
 obligations too numerous already, I would have to be like 
 Mrs. John Jenkins if I joined even one club?" 
 
 "You mean that you would have to cut short all ad- 
 vances of members wishing to cultivate your acquaintance?" 
 
 "Beyond club limits — yes." 
 
 "But you would not imitate her methods of doing so?" 
 
 "I should try to be more kind, but even then I might cause 
 some pain." 
 
 "Yes, because all are not as independent as you are; 
 many women are lonely, and have a very small sphere and 
 uneventful weeks, and they have to rely upon their clubs 
 for any social variety." 
 
TEA-GROUND FORTUNES. 57 
 
 "I could perhaps do my part in the club-house, but as it 
 is now, when there is so much exacted of us all anyway, 
 the unsatisfied demands of the lonely club sisters would de- 
 press me. I should have nervous prostration if I entered the 
 crowded arena of clubdom and kept getting deeper and deeper 
 into that awful maelstrom of duty-visits." 
 
 "You take it all too seriously, my dear." 
 
 "Perhaps I do, but I can not help it." 
 
 "While the hunger for companionship must be appeased, 
 we must all be discriminating and economical of our forces. 
 You know what Emerson says in regard to visits and a 
 certain prescribed limit — 'That every well-dressed lady or 
 gentleman should be at liberty to exceed ten minutes in his 
 or her serious call on serious people, shows a civilization still 
 rude.'" 
 
 "But short calls are unsatisfactory. I like to make long 
 ones; stay until the hunger you speak of goes and I feel as if 
 nourished." 
 
 "So do I, but about twice a year I have to make a round 
 of five-minute calls, or I could never catch up." 
 
 "You could if there were some central place where women 
 met simply to exchange visits?" 
 
 "Oh yes, what a saving of time and energy !" 
 
 "It might be managed — a calling centre, and women who 
 are not intimate friends would never be expected to enter 
 each other's houses at all, unless on business, or when specially 
 invited." 
 
 "Was such a thing ever attempted?" 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "And have you thought it all out — this new calling sys- 
 tem?" 
 
 "Not in every practical detail. But my mind still gravi- 
 tates toward an original idea. It might be worked out first 
 in women's clubs. After a time there might be a national 
 understanding, at least, fixing the iron limit not only to 
 our social relations, but to our time in giving or receiving 
 visits. Even Presidents of the United States come to realize 
 and act upon an unwritten law of social relations — there 
 rnust be no trespassing either upon the time of the indi- 
 vidual or the time, we may say, of the nation itself. The 
 immeasurable demands of the gossip must be almost rudely 
 and ruthlessly cut off. In all our movements we must con- 
 sider the bases of civil and polite society, namely, refined and 
 elegant manners, high ideals of conduct, pure and ennobling 
 thoughts, intelligent conversation and due respect to the 
 feelings, sentiments, time, aims and the social attainments of 
 those about us. There may be much to mend in the man- 
 ners of the American people, but there is much to praise, 
 
58 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 and there is much for foreigners to emulate in the peculiar 
 methods by which Americans are gradually reaching the ideal 
 of true companionship in their social relations." 
 
 "I see that you are still thinking of the evolution of calls." 
 
 "Yes; from any day to a fixed weekly day; then a fixed 
 monthly day ; then general efforts to maKC an exchange of 
 cards the substitute for personal visits until, finally, there is 
 a really national desire to put some such high meaning into 
 calls that, excepting in one's neighborhood, it would be per- 
 missible never to make them at all without some definite end 
 in view." 
 
 "Excepting also, you mean, at the calling centre you men- 
 tioned." 
 
 "Yes, if women wanted to idle away a few hours in 
 pleasantly chatting with each other about everything in gen- 
 eral, and nothing in particular, they could go there. It would 
 always be open on calling day." 
 
 "Any woman's club-house — yes. And it always has easy 
 chairs, soft lights, cosy corners, sofa pillows, etc. On the 
 day of general meetings it is much used in this way, but for 
 lack of time the miscellaneous visiting has to be abandoned 
 for the program of exercises." 
 
 "On the club's calling days a woman would be just as apt 
 to meet the one she wanted to call upon there, as she would 
 to find her at home. The chances would be better." 
 
 "Yes, but how would one know whether a woman sat 
 there calling on some one, or was being called upon?" 
 
 "Oh, such things would adjust themselves." 
 
 "And whom would it be proper to call upon under this 
 club system?" 
 
 "The club members in choosing a list would want to call 
 upon those who joined after they did." 
 
 "Regardless of the time of residence in the place?" 
 
 "Not always." 
 
 "But generally they would consider each other only in the 
 light of membership of the same club or clubs, no matter 
 how long or how short a time either had lived in the town 
 or city." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What would constitute a call?" 
 
 "There would be messengers, ushers, maids or other chosen 
 parties to take a caller's card to the party she wished to see, 
 and if present at that time, and ready to talk with her, word 
 would be given to that efifect ; the bearer of the message would 
 at the same moment hand to her the card of the person to be 
 called upon, which would be equivalent to a return of her 
 visit." 
 
 "Well — if that wouldn't simplify the whole matter!" 
 
TEA-GROUND FORTUNES. 59 
 
 "Yes; one call of sufficient length to be mutually agree- 
 able, and the exchange of the two cards, would be supposed 
 to establish a social relation between the two members. 
 Either party could, with propriety, consider the acquaintance 
 freed from all impediments, and invite the other to the club 
 functions in homes without being criticised." 
 
 "How about the officers and directors, upon whom so 
 many would wish to call? Or how about the members who 
 would feel slighted if all the leaders did not take advantage 
 of such easy opportunities and call upon them?" 
 
 "Your first question is readily answered. There is gen- 
 erally a public reception for the incoming officers and board. 
 The members who assemble to meet them hand in their cards 
 at the door as they enter; they are introduced and their duty 
 is done. They have been called upon in the only way re- 
 quired or desirable, for they are or will be too busy for 
 miscellaneous visiting during their term of office." 
 
 "Yes, this is even now, a generally accepted custom." 
 
 "Now about the slights. If I understand the average 
 charitable club woman of today, and I think I do, she would 
 not expect too much of the club-workers, even when calling 
 was made so easy." 
 
 "That is true. The class of fault-finders I spoke of a 
 few moments ago, is decidedly in the minority. Few would 
 mind it if they went to the club-house, on calling day, and no 
 one asked for them at all; for the present habit of reading 
 while waiting, or of chatting with friends who pass in 
 and out would still prevail; or they would themselves be 
 mjtking club calls, and no time on calling day would then 
 be lost." 
 
 "You enter most thoroughly into the spirit of this new 
 system, I am happy to see." 
 
 "Are you going to advocate it, or are you only experi- 
 menting on me?" 
 
 "Oh, it's like all the rest of our preliminary conversa- 
 tion. I'm glad, however, that you think such a partial solu- 
 tion of the visiting question is worth considering." 
 
 "An accumulation of calling debts would be paid the very 
 first day the system was tried." 
 
 "No doubt of it; for all women are in such arrears. You 
 have read Barry's Tillyloss Scandal? *Ye'll be none the bet- 
 ter though she does call,' Haggart used to say, to which 
 Christy's inhuman answer was, 'Maybe no; but 'twill make 
 every other woman in Tillyloss miserable.' " 
 
 "None would be made miserable in the clubs. I think 
 general good- will and sociability would be greatly heightened 
 on all sides." 
 
 "Your enthusiasm pleases me." 
 
6o CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "And your suggestion pleases me. I want to see some- 
 thing done about it right away. Why, I could call on ten 
 women in one afternoon, at the club-house; and I have a list 
 of new members who are strangers, but who brought letters 
 from other clubs and " 
 
 "You do not say proceed, but I will do so. There was a 
 time when a stranger, permanently moving to or temporarily 
 sojourning in a town or city, had to become more or less 
 identified with some church, in order to make congenial ac- 
 quaintances or substantial friends. Nowadays it is quite 
 common to find women presenting their club credentials, in 
 order to get well started where they belong, socially, in a new 
 place. In fact, the undenominational, unsectarian lines of 
 the popular clubs make speedily possible a broad and saTis- 
 factory social introduction, which it otherwise would take 
 years to effect." 
 
 "And as a non-member you have observed all this. The 
 strength of the 'Sorosis' of New York and San Francisco, 
 the 'Woman's Club,' so-named, in Chicago, Milwaukee, In- 
 dianapolis, Denver and scores of other cities, and the Ebell 
 and Friday Morning Clubs in Los Angeles are too well known 
 to need comment. They have all led in brilliant social func- 
 tions. What receptions tO' foreign and American diplomats, 
 politicians, literary celebrities, dramatic stars, home returning 
 warriors; indeed, how meaningless much of the social life 
 of the country would be today were it not for women's 
 clubs. They stand, par excellence, for better impersonality, 
 for a complete diffusion of individualities, and for the very 
 best social relations." 
 
 "Yes ; it is all true. Every home feels somewhat the 
 stimulating atmosphere of women's clubs. From the wife, 
 the mother, the daughter, the sister of every man, of their 
 guests, perhaps, for a dinner or a day, there emanate the 
 intellectual sparkle, the fresh thought, the social ozone which 
 belong only to those modern women who congregate for mu- 
 tual pleasure, and for manifold purposes of self-improvement. 
 This fact can not be disputed. All the American homes of 
 today, whose owners represent the class mentioned, are liable 
 to be invaded' at certain times by the club woman's ideas, 
 whether they will it to be so or not. In social relations, the 
 club in America today, means more than the church." 
 
 "How many clubs do you belong to?" 
 
 "Only four at present." 
 
 "I met a woman from New York, not long ago, who said 
 she belonged to twenty-three." 
 
 "I don't see how she could ever get any time to^ write 
 letters; to cultivate the acquaintance of her own family, or 
 
TEA-GROUND FORTUNES. 6i 
 
 any persons outside of clubs. Was she one of the women 
 who goes to clubs to talk, or to hear? There are two 
 classes." 
 
 "I judged she was one of those who hasn't the courage to 
 second a motion, or move to adjourn. She was very quiet and 
 unassuming. I wondered what had induced her to join so 
 many clubs. Fm wondering still." 
 
 "One club of its kind is enough for any woman, I sup- 
 pose; but my clubs are not at all alike. Really, if I had not 
 made so many acquaintances outside of them, to begin with, 
 I would limit my calling list to a few near neighbors, and 
 those persons that, under the visiting system of the future 
 in the club-house, I could so easily reach. And this would 
 give me all the society desired. I never had my cup so full 
 of tea-grounds as it is today. Have you the key to un- 
 lock all those strange hieroglyphics? Just see them!" 
 
 "Oh, yes ; and how fascinating they are ; perhaps you 
 didn't know that I am an expert; and that, like Cassandra, I 
 am endowed with the gift of penetration. Those grounds 
 are irresistible. They kindle prophetic fires in my brain. 
 Now " 
 
 "Let me see yours." 
 
 "There's not a single speck. I seem to have no future." 
 
 "That's because you are not a club woman !" 
 
 "Granted. Pass your tea cup, dear, and let me tell your 
 club fortune." 
 
 "Why, you look as if you had some kind of a vision !" 
 
 "I believe I have. But I'll not allow my imagination to 
 run riot. I shall confine my remarks strictly to what the 
 tea-grounds foretell." 
 
 "You appear to be positively serious." 
 
 "Of course I am. Concentration is absolutely necessary. 
 All the questions suggested by our conversation stand before 
 my mind's eye, and opposite them are our answers to ajl but 
 one. To fill in that, I will consult the depths of your cup, 
 which seems to you to hold only straggling grounds, but to 
 me a meaningful design." 
 
 "How very solemn you are. But proceed. I am all at- 
 tention." 
 
 "Now listen — I see you standing on the platform at y?5ur 
 club-house." 
 
 "Very good; I'm to have a paper there next month; any 
 subject I wish; haven't begun it yet; feel relieved." 
 
 "The room is thronged with women who represent every 
 degree of curiosity, skepticism, amusement and polite won- 
 der. They think that you are going to lay before them an 
 elaborate, formulated system of club etiquette, as tTiat is the 
 subject announced." 
 
62 CLUB ETIQUETTE. 
 
 "Now let me turn the cup three times, and cross it with 
 silver." 
 
 "Oh, no " 
 
 "Yes, yes; that's the way my great-aunt used to do. Now 
 I have wished. There; proceed. What do you see in the 
 cup?" 
 
 "I behold, as in a perfect revelation, the summary of our 
 heterogeneous talk, which I had supposed it would take a 
 long time to prepare." 
 
 "The strong tea, no doubt, has stimulated you." 
 
 "I drain the cup. Each ground keeps its place, and is as 
 fixed as if it were giving me the laws of the Medes and 
 Persians. I will submit the rules as they manifest themselves. 
 They relate only to calling, which you and I have agreed is 
 the fundamental basis of the social life of womankind. It is 
 the only problem we have failed to elucidate somewhat to 
 our satisfaction." 
 
 "Not entirely to mine. I would like further and general 
 discussion at different clubs. But proceed." 
 
 "Very well, but first let me suggest that Herbert Spencer 
 might be your best authority. He says that 'A right rule of 
 conduct must be one which may with advantage be adopted 
 by all.' " 
 
 "Yes; but what do the tea-grounds say?" 
 
 "I am glad to report to you on the one primal thing: 
 
A CLUB CALLING SYSTEM 
 
 1. Every club having a membership sufficiently large 
 to own its club-house, or to have a regular place of meeting, 
 should institute a calling system. 
 
 2. There should be one calling day or more each month. 
 
 3. At the club meeting preceding the day fixed, members 
 who wish to receive in the club-house on that day should 
 register in a book, or on slips of paper alphabetically ar- 
 ranged, stating the hours on which they may be found there. 
 Or this could be done during the week, or on the day itself. 
 
 4. On arriving at the club-house those who are receiv- 
 ing should remove their hats and take seats wherever they 
 may be disposed, in the library, parlor or auditorium. They 
 should be provided with cards. 
 
 5. There should be in the club-house one person, or more 
 if so decided, to receive the card or cards of a certain lady, 
 who wishes to call upon one or more of those who have 
 registered. 
 
 6. As each lady who wishes to call upon others arrives, 
 she should consult the register. She should then give her 
 card to the attendant to take to the person upon whom she 
 wishes to call. Her husband's card should not accompany 
 it, unless she is paying a dinner or reception call and he 
 was also invited. 
 
 7. The attendant should find the person desired and leave 
 the card, getting her card to return to the caller. This card 
 would serve a double purpose — that of informing the caller 
 that she wished to see her, and that of being equivalent to a 
 return visit. 
 
 8. Upon seeing or meeting the other club members, 
 whether receiving or calling, the manners of all should be 
 cordial and genial, as at the regular meetings. But any 
 miscellaneous visiting that might be done would not take 
 the place of calhng. There should be the one act of for- 
 mality, i. e., between each call the register, or the registrar 
 should be consulted; the attendant given the card, and the 
 caller wait for the return card, before approaching the per- 
 son whom she wishes to pay the distinct attention of a call. 
 
 9. Although at first there might be some laughter and 
 confusion under such a system of club calling, it really would 
 have no absurdities greater than those which exist in gen- 
 eral society. Especially marked is the absurdity of the 
 at-home system of one fixed day of the week, or one or two 
 certain days of the month (when the parties are not always 
 at home), or when many women are obliged to pay their 
 calls on non-receiving days or not at all. Certain neighbor- 
 hoods with one generally understood day have simplified the 
 matter somewhat. Yet even this system is unsatisfactory, as 
 
64 A CLUB CALLING SYSTEM. 
 
 those in the same vicinity are not able to call upon each 
 other without missing their own visitors. The present sys- 
 tem of calling is, upon the whole, a check to social inclina- 
 tions. But the club system would presumably, in the case 
 of club women, remove many hindrances, and be better 
 adapted to the convenience, time, and inclinations of both 
 parties — the caller and the called-upon. 
 
 10. If, under this easy method of exchanging calls, women 
 who had lived longest in the place did not avail themselves 
 of it and call finally at the club-house upon later comers, it 
 would naturally be decided that they still lacked time, or 
 desire to cultivate a closer acquaintance. Therefore, in a 
 majority of cases after the club system had been adopted and 
 in use for a reasonable length of time, etiquette would re- 
 quire a woman to wait until she had received a club call from 
 members, officers and directors before entertaining them in 
 her home. 
 
 11. Members of the same club who had exchanged club- 
 house calls would be sufficiently honoring each other in ac- 
 cepting an invitation to a luncheon, a dinner or a reception in 
 their homes, and need not feel bound to call at the home 
 afterward, though it might be mutually pleasant. No call 
 would be necessary. But the hostess would be pleased at the 
 proof of appreciation shown by a call at the club-house when 
 receiving there, and, of course, in giving a reception, more apt 
 to invite again. 
 
 12. Club-house calls would, it is believed, not only sim- 
 plify the social life of many women, individually, but en- 
 hance and extend the geniality and pleasure which club women 
 seek to create and foster in all their club relations, and 
 therefore aid in the general good." 
 
 "I shall put your twelve separate remarks or prognosti- 
 cations in the form of twelve resolutions, and have them sub- 
 mitted to my clubs for discussion and adoption." 
 
 "I think I shall have to join the first club that adopts 
 them, just to enjoy the luxury of feeling that when I re- 
 ceive a call I am also paying it ! What kind of tea have we 
 been sipping, dear ?" 
 
 "A mixture of rare Old Hyson and Oolong — a new blend." 
 blend." 
 
 "Your own experiment?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It's a successful one." 
 
 "Glad you think so." 
 
 "And what a treasure of an antique tea pot. Where did 
 you get it?" 
 
 "It's the only thing I have left that belonged to my 
 grandmother." 
 
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