Part 50

The expenses of archery are not great, about the same as lawn tennis, although a great many arrows are lost in the course of the season. Bows and other paraphernalia last a long time. The lady archers are apt to feel a little lame after the first two or three essays, but they should practise a short time every morning, and always in a loose waist or jacket. It will be found a very healthy and strengthening practice and pastime.

We must not judge of the merits of ancient bowmen from the practice of archery in the present day. There are no such distances now assigned for the marks as we find mentioned in old histories or poetic legends, nor such precision, even at short lengths, in the direction of the arrow. Few, if any, modern archers in long shooting reach four hundred yards; or in shooting at a mark exceed eighty or a hundred. Archery has been since the invention of gunpowder followed as a pastime only. It is decidedly the most graceful game that can be practised, and the legends of Sherwood Forest, of Maid Marion, Little John, Friar Tuck, and the Abbot carry us back into the fragrant heart of the forest, and bring back memories which are agreeable to all who have in them a drop of Saxon blood.

The usual dress is the Lincoln green of Robin Hood and his merry men, and at Auburn in New York they have a famous club and shooting ground, over the gate of which is painted this motto:--

"What is hit is history, And what is missed is mystery."

The traveller still sees in the Alpine Tyrol, and in some parts of Switzerland, bands of archers who depend on the bow and arrow for their game. But there is not that skill or that poetry attached to the sport which made Locksley try conclusions with Hubert, in the presence of Prince John, as we read in the immortal pages of Ivanhoe.

The prize was to be a bugle horn mounted with silver, a silken baldric richly ornamented, having on it a medallion of Saint Hubert, the patron of sylvan sport. Had Robin Hood been beaten he would have yielded up bow, baldric, and quiver to the provost of the sports; as it was, however, he let fly his arrow, and it lighted upon that of his competitor, which it split to shivers.

THE SEASON, BALLS, AND RECEPTIONS.

"Good-night to the season! the dances, The fillings of hot little rooms, The glancings of rapturous glances, The flarings of fancy costumes, The pleasures which fashion makes duties, The phrasings of fiddles and flutes, The luxury of looking at beauties, The tedium of talking to mutes, The female diplomatists, planners Of matches for Laura and Jane, The ice of her Ladyship's manners! The ice of his Lordship's champagne."

The season in London extends from May to August, often longer if Parliament is in session. In Paris it is from May to the Grand Prix, when it is supposed to end, about the 20th of June. In New York and Washington it is all winter, from November 1st to Lent, with good Episcopalians, and from November to May with the rest of mankind.

It then begins again in July, with the people who go to Newport and to Bar Harbor, and keeps up until September, when comes in Tuxedo and the gayety of Long Island, and the Hudson. Indeed, with the gayety of country-house life, hunting, lawn tennis and driving, it is hard to say when the American season ends.

There is one sort of entertainment which is a favourite everywhere and very convenient. It is the afternoon reception or party by daylight. The gas is lighted, the day excluded, the hostess and her guests are in beautiful toilets; their friends come in street dresses and bonnets; their male friends in frock coats. This is one of the anomalies of fashion. These entertainments are very large, and a splendid collation is served. The form of invitation is simply--

MRS. BROWNTON at home Thursday, from 3 to 6.

and unless an R. S. V. P. is appended, no reply is expected. These receptions are favourites with housekeepers, as they avoid the necessity of keeping the servants up at night.

The drawback to this reception is that, in our busy world of America, very few men can spare the time to call in the daytime, so the attendance is largely feminine.

On entering, the guest places a card on the table, or, if she cannot be present, she should send a card in an envelope.

After these entertainments, which are really parties, a lady should call. They are different things entirely from afternoon tea, after which no call is expected. If the reception is given to some distinguished person, the lady stands beside her guest to present all the company to him or her.

If on the card the word "Music" is added, the guests should be punctual, as, doubtless, they are to be seated, and that takes time. No lady who gives a musicale should invite more than she can seat comfortably; and she should have her rooms cool, and her lights soft and shaded.

People with weak eyes suffer dreadfully from a glare of gas, and when music is going on they cannot move to relieve themselves. The hostess should think of all this. Who can endure the mingled misery of a hot room, an uncomfortable seat, a glare of gas, and a pianoforte solo?

A very sensible reformation is now in progress in regard to the sending of invitations and the answering of the same. The post is now freely used as a safe and convenient medium, and no one feels offended if an invitation arrives with a two-cent stamp on the envelope. There is no loss of caste in sending an invitation by post.

Then comes the ball, or, as they always say in Europe, the dance, which is the gayest of all things for the débutante. The popular form for an invitation to an evening party is as follows:--

MRS. HAMMOND Requests the pleasure of MR. and MRS. NORTON'S company on Tuesday evening, December 23, at 9 o'clock. R. S. V. P. Dancing.

The card of the débutante, if the ball is given for one, is enclosed.

If a hostess gives her ball at some public place, like Delmonico's, she has but little trouble. The compliment is not the same as if she gave it in her own house, however. If there is room, a ball in a private house is much more agreeable, and a greater honour to the guest.

Gentlemen who have not an acquaintance should be presented to the young dancing set; but first, of course, to the chaperon. As, however, the hostess cannot leave her post while receiving, she should have two or three friends to help her. Great care should be taken that there be no wall-flowers, no neglected girls. The non-dancers in an American ball are like the non-Catholics in a highly doctrinal sermon: they are nowhere, pushed into a corner where there is perhaps a draught, and the smell of fried oysters. Such is the limbo of the woman of forty or over, who in Europe would be the belle, the person just beginning to have a career. For it is too true that the woman who has learned something, who is still beautiful, the woman who has maturity and experience, is pushed to the wall in America, while in Europe she is courted and admired. Society holds out all its attractive distractions and comforts to such a woman in Europe; in America it keeps everything, even its comforts, for the very young.

The fact that American ballrooms, or rather the parlours of our ordinary houses, are wholly disproportioned to the needs of society, has led to the giving of balls at Delmonico's and other public places. If these are under proper patronage there is no reason why they should not be as entertaining, as exclusive, and as respectable as a ball at home. Any hostess or group of managers should, if they give up a ball at home and use the large accommodations of Delmonico or the Assembly Rooms, certainly consider the claims of chaperons and mammas who must wearily sit through the German. It is to be feared that attention to the mamma is not yet a grace in which even her daughter excels. Young men who wish to marry mademoiselle had better pay her mother the compliment of getting her a seat, and social leaders should also show her the greatest attention, not alone from the selfish reason which the poet commemorates:--

"Philosophy has got a charm,-- I thought of Martin Tupper,-- And offering mamma my arm, I took her down to supper.

"I gave her Pommery, Côte d'Or, Which seethed in rosy bubbles; I called this fleeting life a bore, The world a sea of troubles."

It is to be feared that the life of a chaperon in America is not a bed of roses, even if softened by all these attentions.