Читать книгу Etiquette - Agnes H. Morton - Страница 8

The personal, or visiting, card is the representative of the individual whose name it bears. It goes where he himself would be entitled to appear, and in his absence it is equivalent to his presence. It is his "double," delegated to fill all social spaces which his variously-occupied life would otherwise compel him to leave vacant.

Since the card is to be received as the equivalent of one's self, it is important that it shall be discreetly sent upon its embassy. In every case where personal cards are correctly used the owner is accredited with having performed de facto whatever the card expresses for him, be it a "call," a "regret," a "congratulation," an "apology," an "introduction," a "farewell-taking," or whatever.

The rules guiding the uses of visiting cards are based upon this idea of representation. The deputy is on duty only in the absence of his superior, so the card is usually superfluous when the owner himself is present.

A card sent at a wrong time suggests the possibility that the owner might blunder similarly in his personal appearing. The neglect to send a card at a proper time is equivalent to a personal neglect. The man who comes himself and hands you his card also is apt to have too many elbows at a dinner, too many feet at a ball. He has about him a suggestion of awkward superfluousness that is subtly consistent with his duplicate announcement of himself.

For want of the much-needed genderless singular pronoun I have been using the masculine form; but upon reflection I remember that it is the women of society who have the most diverse responsibility in the management of personal cards, their duties extending even to the care and oversight of the cards of their socially careless and negligent male relatives. But no matter who attends to the proprieties, the relation of the card to its owner is the same in all cases. If his card blunders, he gets the discredit of it. If his card always flutters gracefully into the salver at exactly the right time and place, the glory is all his own, even though his tireless wife or mother or sister has done all the hard thinking bestowed on the matter. Happy the man allied by the ties of close kindred to a gifted society woman, for lo! his cards shall never be found missing, wherever he may stray.