Etiquette — "When a Guest, When Do You Retire for the Night?"

1910

Delicate Point at Issue

Whether Guest or Hostess Should Make First Move for Retiring for the Night

Until the end of time it will probably be a mooted question whether guest or hostess should make the first move for retiring for the night. When staying in a house for the first time this is one of the most difficult points for a guest to decide, and it takes a great deal of tact and discernment to arrive at a correct conclusion.

In the summer house at country or seashore the chances are, if the host goes to town for business every day, that the whole household is up early. The hostess is certainly, as a rule, if her husband is a business man. In that case it is almost essential that they go to bed early. Logical as this conclusion may seem, a guest fears to suggest going too early to her own room, lest she should seem to be bored during the evening, and thus it is, when both really would like to turn in at a reasonable hour, they and others are kept up by a desperate attempt to be polite.

If any rule of procedure may be laid down for a stranger in the house it is to find out, as soon as possible, at what time breakfast is served and when the host goes to town. It is a safe method, if he goes early, and especially if breakfast is served for all at an early hour, to suggest retiring by ten o'clock at the latest, and in more than one household in the summer the same people who turn night into day in the winter go to their rooms by nine o'clock in the evening. It is better for guests to err on the side of going too soon than too late, for nothing will make strangers more unpopular than to overturn the comfortable habits of the household.

Host and hostess are not required to go to their own rooms because guests may have retired to theirs, but they are obliged to stay up if the stranger makes no move to retire.

It is by no means difficult, even for a person making a first visit, to suggest retiring. She may say that she is tired from having been so much out of doors, or that the heat is rather trying, or any other such simple excuse as may come into her mind, and declare that she would like to retire. She makes her good-nights then at once, and the host and hostess are at liberty to follow their usual customs.