This is an excerpt from an interview with the writer of Downton Abbey found here
Are there any little details of etiquette from this period that you wish would be revived?
[Laughs] Well, I think that thing of being polite, of making people easy in your company, of not burdening them with your troubles; that’s quite nice, to be honest. These days, we always pour everything out…
Even the English?
The English less than the Americans, but far more than we once did. Formality has had a very bad press lately, but formality is quite refreshing when everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing. We live in the age where it says on the invitation, casual chic. What does that mean? Back then, they knew what they were supposed to wear; they knew what they were supposed to do — that during the first course of the dinner you talk in one direction, set by the hostess; during the second course you talk in the other direction; and by the time it comes to the pudding, you can please yourself. Many people would now find that very artificial, but what it means is that nobody gets left out. How many times have you been to a dinner these days and one guy or one woman is just sitting there and nobody’s talking to them? That didn’t happen. A lot of these rules that people think were silly, they did have a point.
I thought the business of talking in one direction during the first course and then the other direction during the second course very interesting. I never knew this. Did you?
