Silver fish-knives are now found on most tables. Where there are none, fish should be eaten with a bit of bread in the left hand and a fork in the right. Neither soup nor fish, where there is any ceremony, is ever offered, much less accepted, twice.
At the table, the most difficult and the most important thing to learn is to use the knife and fork thoroughly well. To do this both must be so held that the ends of the handles are directly in the palms of the hand, _i.e._, when the point of the knife is used.
At all tables where four-tined forks are provided, the knife should be used only to divide the food, never to convey it to the mouth. For this purpose, we use either the fork, a spoon, or the fingers.
As the fork is now used almost exclusively to convey all kinds of food that have any consistency to the mouth, it is very desirable that one should know how to use it properly. There is a right and a wrong way, a skilful and an awkward way to use it, as well as to use any other implement.
The fork must not be used in the left hand with the tines pointing upward, _i.e._, spoon fashion. Persons that so use it, though they may and generally do think they are doing quite the proper thing, are really doing as awkward a thing as it would be possible for them to do at the table. They have--they will doubtless be surprised to hear--their lesson but half learned.
Food that is conveyed to the mouth with the fork held in the left hand should be taken up either on the point of the tines, or on their convex side. In the right hand, the fork may be used with the tines pointing upward or downward, as one will.
Previously to the advent of the four-tined silver fork, which was introduced into England from the Continent about the year 1814 or 1815, everybody ate with the knife--the Chesterfields, the Brummels, the Blessingtons, the Savarins, and all. The fastidious were very careful, however, not to put the knife into the mouth edge first. That was avoided by the well bred then as much as the putting the knife into the mouth at all is avoided by the well bred now.
Eating with the knife is not, in itself, a grievous offence; it does not, as some pretend, endanger the lips, even though the knife is used edge first. It is simply a matter of prejudice. Yet your lady hostess would rather you would speak ill of her friends and make bad puns than eat with your knife at her table. Why? Because your eating with your knife at her table would argue, nowadays, that she associated with low-bred, uncultured people.