Another cardinal principle is to learn to consider yourself as a minute fractional part of society. When your name is bawled out by usher or footman at a large party, it sounds like the trump of doom in your unaccustomed ears. To your excited imagination all eyes are riveted upon you. In point of fact, you are of no more consequence to the eyes, ears and minds of your fellow guests than the carpet that seems to rise to meet your uncertain feet. Stubborn conviction of your insignificance is the first step that counts in the acquisition of well-mannered composure among your fellows.
In forming new acquaintances, be courteous in the reception of advances, and slow in making them until you have reason to think that you are liked for yourself, and not because your husband represents six, or it may be seven numerals. There are sure to be dozens of critics who will accuse you of parading these figures, as vessels fly bunting in entering a strange harbor. Stamp on your mind that adventitious circumstance has nothing to do with the worth of YOU, YOURSELF!
For a long while after you embark upon your new life, be watchful and studious—yet covertly, lest your study be noted. Return calls promptly, sending in the right number of cards, and bearing yourself in conversation with gentle self-possession. Never be flattered by any attention into a flutter of pleasure. Above all, do not be obsequious, be the person who honors you by social notice a multi-millionaire, or the Chief Magistrate of these United States. Servility is invariably vulgarity. Familiarity is, if possible, a half-degree more repulsive. Self-respect and a wholesome oblivion of dollars and cents are a catholicon amid the temptations of your novel sphere.
If you chance to entertain some one who is still as obscure as you were once yourself, avoid all temptation to make a display or to be patronizing. “I am so glad you could come to-night,” effusively commented such a hostess to one of her guests. “I know you go out so seldom!” The guest in question showed by her silence that she did not relish being publicly reminded that she was of limited social opportunities.
When you begin to entertain in your turn avoid, scrupulously, startling effects and novelties of all kinds. Until you are used to the task, be strictly conventional in arrangements for your guests’ reception and pleasure. Let floral decorations and “souvenirs” be modest and tasteful. Mantels banked with orchids, boutonnières of hothouse roses at a dollar apiece, and cases of expensive jewelry as favors, may express a generous hospitality on your part and a desire to gratify the acquaintances you would convert into friends. They will surely be set down to ostentatious display of means that few of the guests possess.