Part 41

Public picnics, like Sunday-school picnics, fed with ice cream and strawberries; or the clam bake, a unique and enjoyable affair by the sea, are in the hands of experts, and need no description here. The French people picnic every day in the Bois de Boulogne, the woods of Versailles, and even on their asphalt, eating out of doors when they can. It is a very strange thing that we do not improve our fine climate by eating our dinners and breakfasts with the full draught of an unrivalled ozone.

PASTIMES OF LADIES.

Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they feared the light; But oh, she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter day Is half so fine a sight. SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

The "London Times" says that the present season has seen "driving jump to a great height of favour amongst fashionable women."

It is a curious expression, but enlightens us as to the liberty which even so great an authority takes with our common language. There is no doubt of the fact that the pony phaeton and the pair of ponies are becoming a great necessity to an energetic woman. The little pony and the Ralli cart, as a ladies' pastime, is a familiar figure in the season at Newport, at a thousand country places, at the seaside, in our own Central Park, and all through the West and South.

It has been much more the custom for ladies in the West and South to drive themselves, than for those at the North; consequently they drive better. Only those who know how to drive well ought ever to attempt it, for they not only endanger their own lives, but a dozen other lives. Whoever has seen a runaway carriage strike another vehicle, and has beheld the breaking up, can realize for the first time the tremendous force of an object in motion. The little Ralli cart can become a battering-ram of prodigious force.

No form of recreation is so useful and so becoming as horseback exercise. No English woman looks so well as when turned out for out-of-door exercise. And our American women, who buy their habits and hats in London, are getting to have the same chic. Indeed, so immensely superior is the London habit considered, that the French circus-women who ride in the Bois, making so great a sensation, go over to London to have their habits made, and thus return the compliment which English ladies pay to Paris, in having all their dinner gowns and tea gowns made there. Perhaps disliking this sort of copy, the Englishwomen are becoming careless of their appearance on horseback, and are coming out in a straw hat, a covert coat, and a cotton skirt.

The soft felt hat has long been a favourite on the Continent, at watering-places for the English; and it is much easier for the head. Still, in case of a fall it does not save the head like a hard, masculine hat.

We have not yet, as a nation, taken to cycling for women; but many Englishwomen go all over the globe on a tricycle. A husband and wife are often seen on a tricycle near London, and women who lead sedentary lives, in offices and schools, enjoy many of their Saturday afternoons in this way.

Boating needs to be cultivated in America. It is a superb exercise for developing a good figure; and to manage a punt has become a common accomplishment for the riverside girls. Ladies have regattas on the Thames.

Fencing, which many actresses learn, is a very admirable process for developing the figure. The young Princesses of Wales are adepts in this. It requires an outfit consisting of a dainty tunic reaching to the knees, a fencing-jacket of soft leather with tight sleeves, gauntlet gloves, a mask, a pair of foils, and costing about fifteen dollars.

American women as a rule are not fond of walking. There must be something in the nature of an attraction or a duty to rouse our delicate girls to walk. They will not do it for their health alone. Gymnastic teaching is, however, giving them more strength, and it would be well if in every family of daughters there were some calisthenic training, to develop the muscles, and to induce a more graceful walk.

To teach a girl to swim is almost a duty, and such splendid physical exercises will have a great influence over that nervous distress which our climate produces with its over-fulness of oxygen.

If girls do not like to walk, they all like to dance, and it is not intended as a pun when we mention that "a great jump" has been made back to the old-fashioned dancing, in which freedom of movement is allowed. Those who saw Mary Anderson's matchless grace in the Winter's Tale all tried to go and dance like her, and to see Ellen Terry's spring, as the pretty Olivia, teaches one how entirely beautiful is this strong command of one's muscles. From the German cotillion, back to the Virginia reel, is indeed a bound.

Our grandfathers knew how to dance. We are fast getting back to them. The traditions of Taglioni still lingered fifty years ago. The earliest dancing-masters were Frenchmen, and our ancestors were taught to pirouette as did Vestris when he was so obliging as to say after a royal command, "The house of Vestris has always danced for that of Bourbon."

The galop has, during the long langour of the dance, alone held its own, in the matter of jollity. The glide waltz, the redowa, the stately minuet, give only the slow and graceful motions. The galop has always been a great favourite with the Swedes, Danes, and Russians, while the redowa reminds one of the graceful Viennese who dance it so well. The mazourka, danced to wild Polish music, is a poetical and active affair.

The introduction of Hungarian bands and Hungarian music is another reason why dancing has become a "hop, skip and a bound," without losing dignity or grace. Activity need not be vulgar.

The German cotillion, born many years ago at Vienna to meet the requirements of court etiquette, is still the fashionable dance with which the ball closes. Its favours, beginning with flowers and ribbons and bits of tinsel, have now ripened into fans, bracelets, gold scarf-pins and pencil-cases, and many things more expensive. Favours may cost five thousand dollars for a fashionable ball, or dance, as they say in London.

The German is a dance of infinite variety, and to lead it requires a man of head. One such leader, who can construct new figures, becomes a power in society. The waltz, galop, redowa, and polka step can all be utilized in it. There is a slow walk in the quadrille figure, a stately march, the bows and courtesies of the old minuet, and above all, the tour de valse, which is the means of locomotion from place to place. The changeful exigencies of the various figures lead the forty or fifty, or the two hundred to meet, exchange greetings, dance with each other, and change their geographical position many times. Indeed no army goes through more evolutions.

A pretty figure is La Corbeille, l'Anneau, et la Fleur. The first couple performs a tour de valse, after which the gentleman presents the lady with a basket, containing a ring and a flower, then resumes his seat. The lady presents the ring to one gentleman, the flower to another, and the basket to the third. The gentleman to whom she presents the ring selects a partner for himself, the gentleman who receives the flower dances with the lady who presents it, while the other gentleman holds the basket in his hand and dances alone.

The kaleidoscope is one of the prettiest figures. The four couples perform a tour de valse, then form as for a quadrille; the next four couples in order take positions behind the first four couples, each of the latter couples facing the same as the couples in front. At a signal from the leader, the ladies of the inner couples cross right hands, move entirely round and turn into places by giving left hands to their partners. At the same time the outer couples waltz half round to opposite places. At another signal the inner couples waltz entirely round, and finish facing outward. At the same time the outer couples chassent croisé and turn at corners with right hands, then dechassent and turn partners with left hands. Valse générale with vis à vis.

La Cavalier Trompé is another favourite figure. Five or six couples perform a tour de valse. They afterwards place themselves in ranks of two, one couple behind the other. The lady of the first gentleman leaves him and seeks a gentleman of another column. While this is going on the first gentleman must not look behind him. The first lady and the gentleman whom she has selected separate and advance on tip-toe on each side of the column, in order to deceive the gentleman at the head, and endeavour to join each other for a waltz. If the first gentleman is fortunate enough to seize his lady, he leads off in a waltz; if not, he must remain at his post until he is able to take a lady. The last gentleman remaining dances with the last lady.

To give a German in a private house, a lady has all the furniture removed from her parlours, the floor covered with crash over the carpet, and a set of folding-chairs for the couples to sit in. A bare wooden floor is preferable to the carpet and crash.

It is considered that all taking part in a German are introduced to one another, and on no condition whatever must a lady, so long as she remains in the German, refuse to speak or to dance with any gentleman whom she may chance to receive as a partner. Every American should learn that he can speak to any one whom he meets at a friend's house. The roof is an introduction, and, for the purpose of making his hostess comfortable, the guest should, at dinner-party and dance, speak to his next neighbour.

The laws of the German are so strict, and to many so tiresome, that a good many parties have abjured it, and merely dance the round dances, the lancers and quadrilles, winding up with the Sir Roger de Coverley or the Virginia Reel.

The leader of the German must have a comprehensive glance, a quick ear and eye, and a great belief in himself. General Edward Ferrero, who made a good general, declared that he owed all his success in war to his training as a dancing-master. With all other qualities, the leader of the German must have tact. It is no easy matter to get two hundred people into all sorts of combinations and mazes and then to get them out again, to offend nobody, and to produce that elegant kaleidoscope called the German.

The term tour de valse is used technically, meaning that the couple or couples performing it execute the round dance designated by the leader once round the room. Should the room be small, they make a second tour. After the introductory tour de valse care must be taken by those who perform it not to select ladies and gentlemen who are on the floor, but from among those who are seated. When the leader claps his hands to warn those who are prolonging the valse, they must immediately cease dancing.

The favours for the German are often fans, and this time-honoured, historic article grows in beauty and expense every day. And what various memories come in with the fan! It was created in primeval ages. The Egyptian ladies had fans of lotus leaves; and lately a breakfast was given all in Egyptian fashion, except the eating. The Roman ladies carried immense fans of peacocks' feathers. They did not open and shut like ours, opening and shutting being a modern invention. The flabilliferaor or fan-bearer, was some young attendant, generally female, whose common business it was to carry her mistress's fan. There is a Pompeian painting of Cupid as the fan-bearer of Ariadne, lamenting her desertion by Theseus. In Queen Elizabeth's day the fan was usually made of feathers, like that still used in the East. The handle was richly ornamented and set with stones. A fashionable lady was never without her fan, which was held to her girdle by a jewelled chain. That fashion, with the large feathers, has returned in our day. Queen Elizabeth dropped a silver-handled fan into the moat at Arnstead Hall, which occasioned many madrigals. Sir Francis Drake presented to his royal mistress a fan of feathers, white and red, enamelled with a half-moon of mother-of-pearl. Poor Leicester gave her, as his New Year's gift in 1574, a fan of white feathers set in a handle of gold, adorned on one side with two very fair emeralds, and fully garnished with rubies and diamonds, and on each side a white bear,--his cognizance,--and two pearls hanging, a lion rampant and a white, muzzled bear at his foot. Just before Christmas in 1595 Elizabeth went to Kew, and dined at my Lord Keeper's house, and there was handed her a fine fan with a handle garnished with diamonds.