Calling.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 10, 7 March 1908, Page 67

Calling.

It Will be a sad day when the art of cslUbg dies out. It will mean we shall either have no friends at all, or only those friends we can count on by bribery or payment—namely, the offer of a meal. An afternoon call is a compliment to the hostess. The acceptance of an invitation where food is offered is quite the other way round; the compliment then comes from the hostess, and not from the guest, as in the case of an afternoon visit. “Life is too short to call!” someone exclaims. Life is nothing of the kind. In London it is certainly difficult to make calls at long distances on particular days, but even that can be accomplished, and should be, at least once a year. Life is rather short to toil about paying visits and finding no one at home, or to find some selfish hostess has gone out on her own particular day because she thought she could amuse herself better at a wedding or a matinee. A woman who tells her friends she has a day, and then uses that day for some other amusement, deserves to be cut off a visiting list. She shows herself unworthy of consideration and undesirable for friendship. That woman is a selfish woman. Absence from home or illness should be the only causes to keep a lady from her drawing-room on the day she specifies she is at home. Everyone has not a large enough circle of friends to be at home every week, or even every fortnight. Then let her be at home one day in every month, and, if she chooses her day by the date, and not the day of the week, she will give all her friends who have days of their own a chance of calling on her. Suppose she says “the 9th.” Well one month the 9th will fall on a Tuesday, the next on a Friday, the next on a Monday, and so on, so that in time all her friends will find her in. Besides notifying the date on her cards, she can ask a few special friends in to tea each month on that particular date, and gradually gather quite a little coterie about her on her at-home days. No, the art of calling must not go out. Young men must be encouraged to call on Sundays, and niee girls asked to meet them. ' Calling is a necessity. It is a social convention that must be kept up, because, even if inconvenient at times, it is a requirement in the wheel of life. If «e never see people we become shy, egotistical, overbearing, and sour. It is only by contact with others we are dragged from a little groove, which, left alone, narrows every year. Friends are the most precious assets of life, and friends are largely made and fostered by the art of calling. How cold and dreary, how sad and cruel our lives would be if we took no interest in anyone, and no one took any interest in us! Visiting is the fuel which keeps the flame of friendship kindled, and it will be a sad day for everyone, ’men, women, and children, if selfishness and laziness do away with the art of calling. —From “The Queen.” © © ©