Marion Harland's Complete Etiquette

<h2>CHAPTER XXI<br/> <small>THE HOUSE OF MOURNING</small></h2> <p class="drop-cap">THE observance of mourning is a difficult matter to treat, for individual feeling enters largely into the question. Still, there are certain rules accepted by those who would not be made remarkable by their scorn of conventionalities.</p> <p>The matter of mourning-cards and stationery has been treated in the chapter on “Calls and Cards,” and on “Letter-Writing.” A word may here be added with regard to the letter of condolence. This should be written to the bereaved person as soon as practicable after the death for which she mourns. It must not be long, but should express in a few sincere words the sympathy felt, and the wish to do something to help alleviate the mourner’s distress. This letter does not demand an answer, but some persons try, some weeks after such letters have been received, to reply to them. This is not really necessary, except when the writer is a near friend of the family. In many cases, a black-edged card bearing the words, “Mr. and Mrs. —— wish to thank<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</SPAN></span> you for your kind sympathy in their recent bereavement,” is mailed to the writer.</p> <p>If one does not write a letter, one may send to or leave at the house of mourning a card, bearing the words, “Sincere sympathy,” upon it.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">ATTENDING A FUNERAL</div> <p>The funeral notice in the daily papers is now sometimes accompanied by the request, “Kindly omit flowers.” To send flowers after the appearance of such a notice is the height of rudeness and shows little respect to the dead and none for the family.</p> <p>If there are more flowers than can be taken to the cemetery, those left may be sent to the inmates of hospitals, who need not know that they were intended for a funeral. Those who attend a funeral should dress quietly, but they need not wear black unless they prefer to do so.</p> <p>While few persons would be guilty of attending a funeral out of curiosity, there are undoubtedly some who do. Sensitive people are growing to realize that the last ceremony for the dead is too sacred to be shared except with those who are really entitled by close ties to be present and have signified by personal messenger those whom they desired should be present.</p> <p>In attending a funeral one should be prompt, and yet not so far ahead of the hour set as to arrive before<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</SPAN></span> the <i>final</i> arrangements are completed. At a church or house funeral, one should wait to be seated as the undertaker or his assistant directs. Nor should one ever linger after the services to speak to any members of the family, unless one is particularly requested to do so. One should not expect to look on the face of the dead unless one is asked to do so.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">CLOSING THE CASKET</div> <p>In churches of two denominations it is not customary to have the coffin opened to the public gaze. It is a pity that this law is not universal, but it is becoming more common to have the casket left closed through the entire service. It certainly spares the mourners the agonizing period during which the long line of friends, and strangers who come from vulgar curiosity, file past and look on the unshielded features of the dead. Some one has said that the custom of allowing the curious who did not know the deceased, and who cared nothing for him, to gaze on his face after death, seems to be taking an unfair advantage of the dead.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <p>Many persons prefer a quiet house funeral for one they love, for there are few persons vulgar or bold enough to force themselves into the house of mourning, where only those who knew and loved the departed are welcome. But the method of personal<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</SPAN></span> invitation makes the presence of such people impossible.</p> <p>At a house funeral the clergyman stands near the head of the coffin while he reads the service, the audience standing or sitting as the custom of the special service used demands.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">THE CHURCH FUNERAL</div> <p>At a church funeral, the clergyman meets the coffin at the door and precedes it up the aisle, reading the burial service. As he begins to read, the congregation rises and stands as the procession moves forward. When, after the services, the coffin is lifted by the bearers, the congregation again rises and remains standing until the casket has been taken from the church. A private interment, or one at the convenience of the family, is now almost universal. Unless invited, no outsider, even if he be a friend of the family, will go to the cemetery under such circumstances.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <p>After the funeral, and when one’s friends have begun to realize sorrow, is the time when it is the hardest to bear. It is then that the sympathetic person may do much toward brightening the long and dreary days in the house of mourning. Flowers left at the door occasionally, frequent calls, an occasional cheering note, a bright book lent, are a few of the small courtesies that amount to actual benefactions.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</SPAN></span> Only those who have had to learn to live with a grief that is almost forgot by others know what such tokens of thoughtful sympathy mean. All who count themselves friends should call within a month, always telling the maid that if the ladies do not feel like appearing they are not to do so.</p> <div class="sidenote">A WIDOW’S DRESS</div> <p>The heaviest mourning demanded by conventionality is worn by a widow, but even she is now allowed to dispense with the heavy crape veil. In its place is the long veil of nun’s veiling, which is worn over the face only at the funeral. With it is a face-veil, trimmed with crape, and a white ruche or “widow’s cap” stitched inside of the brim of the small bonnet. The dress is of Henrietta cloth, or other lusterless material, and may be trimmed with crape. Black suède gloves and black-bordered handkerchiefs—if these are liked—are proper. The widow seldom discards her veil under two years,—some widows wear it always. After the first year it is shortened.</p> <p>It is a matter for congratulation that crape, that most expensive, unwholesome, perishable and inartistic of materials, is worn less and less with each passing year. Surely to have to wrap one’s self in its stiff and malodorous folds adds discomfort to grief. It is now seldom worn except by widows, although a daughter may wear it for a parent, a mother for her child.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</SPAN></span></p> <p>The matter of the mourning-veil is one each person must settle for herself, although the strictest followers of fashion deprecate its use for any women except widows. Some bereaved daughters and mothers wear it, but not for a long period, seldom longer than six months.</p> <p>Mourning for the members of one’s immediate family may be worn for a year, then lightened. Mourning for a relative-in-law is lightened at the end of three or six months.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">INCONGRUOUS MOURNING</div> <p>While on this subject it would be well to call attention to the fact that one should either wear conventional black, or no black at all. For a widow to wear, as a well-known woman did recently, a long veil and gray suède gloves, borders on the ridiculous. Nor should velvet, cut jet, satin and lace be donned by those wearing the insignia of grief. Nor are black-and-white combined deep mourning. They may be worn when the weeds are lightened, but not when one is wearing the strictly conventional garb of dolor. Even widows may wear all white, but not with black ribbons, unless the heavy black has been laid aside for what may be called the “second stage” of bereavement. At first, all materials either in black or white, must be of dull finish. Dresses may be of nun’s veiling, Henrietta cloth, and other unshining wool fabrics, or of dull, lusterless<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</SPAN></span> silks. Simple white muslins, lawns and mulls are proper, but must not be trimmed with laces or embroidered.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">MOURNING FOR MEN</div> <p>For men, black or gray suits, black gloves and ties, and a black band upon the hat, are proper. The tie should be of taffeta or grosgrain silk, not of satin or figured silk. I would lay especial stress on the poor taste of the recent fad of wearing a black band upon the sleeve of a colored coat. The same rule applies to the would-be-smart young woman who sports a narrow black strip upon the left arm of her tan rain-coat or walking-jacket. If she can not wear conventional and suitable mourning, she would better wear none.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="sidenote">JUDGING THE BEREAVED</div> <p>The matter of the period of time in which a mourner should shun society is a subject on which one may hesitate to express an opinion, as there are too many persons whose views would not coincide with ours. In this case, as in others, one must, to a certain extent, be a rule unto one’s self. One who is very sad shrinks naturally from going into gay society for the first few months after bereavement. The contrast of the gaiety with the mourner’s feelings must, of necessity, cause her pain. To such a one we need suggest no rules. To those less sensitive or less unhappy, it would be well to say that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</SPAN></span> deep black and festive occasions do not form a good combination. While one wears crape and a long veil one should shun receptions, opera boxes, teas and all such places. Later, as one lightens one’s mourning, one may attend the theater, small functions and informal affairs. Even the very sad may go to the theater when they would shrink from attending an affair at which they would meet strangers and where they would be obliged to laugh and be gay. After the first few months of the conventional retirement are past the sufferer must decide for herself what she may and may not do. We would add, rather as a suggestion than as a law of etiquette, that the onlooker forbear to judge of the behavior of the recently-bereaved. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and if that bitterness can be sweetened by some genial outside influence, let others hesitate to condemn the owner of the heart from seeking that sweetness. Those whom we have lost, if they were worth loving, would be glad to know that our lives were not all dark.</p> <hr class="tb" /> <p>The seemly custom followed in France of sending to relatives and friends of the family a letter advising them of a death is not, unfortunately, known in this country, where we, with less propriety, advertise our griefs and our gaieties alike in the public prints.</p> <hr class="chap" /></div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</SPAN></span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />