Part 51

Kept up late, pushed into a corner, the mother of a society girl becomes only a sort of head-chambermaid. Were she in Europe, she would be the person who would receive the compliments and the attention and be asked to dance in the German.

A competent critic of our manners spoke of this in the following sensible words:--

"The evils arising from the excessive liberty permitted to American girls cannot be cured by laws. If we ever root them out we must begin with the family life, which must be reformed. For young people, parental authority is the only sure guide. Coleridge well said that he who was not able to govern himself must be governed by others; and experience has shown us that the children of civilized parents are as little able to govern themselves as the children of savages. The liberty or license of our youth will have to be curtailed, as our society is becoming more complex and artificial, like older societies in Europe. The children will have to approximate to them in status, and parents will have to waken to a sense of their responsibilities, and subordinate their ambitions and their pleasures to their duties." Mothers should go out more with their daughters, join in their pleasures, and never permit themselves to be shelved.

Society is in a transition state in America. In one or more cities of the West and South it is considered proper for a young man to call for a young girl, and drive with her alone to a ball. In Northern cities this is considered very bad form. In Europe it would be considered a vulgar madness, and a girl's character compromised. Therefore it is better for the mother to keep her rightful place as guardian, chaperon, friend, no matter how she is treated.

Women are gifted with so much tact and so intuitive a faculty, that in the conduct of fashionable life they need but few hints.

The art of entertaining should be founded first, on good sense, a quiet considerateness, a good heart, a spirit of friendliness; next, a consideration of what is due to others and what is due to one's self. There is always a social conscience in one's organization, which will point aright; but the outward performance of conventional rules can never be thoroughly learned, unless the heart is well-bred.

Many ladies are now introducing dancing at crowded day receptions and teas. Where people are coming and going this is objectionable, as the hostess is expected to do too much, and the guests being in street dress, while the hostess and her dancers are in low evening dress, the appearance of the party is not ornamental.

Evening parties are far more formal, and require the most elaborate dress. Every lady who can wear a low-necked dress should do so. The great drawback in New York is now the ridiculous lateness of the hour--eleven or twelve--at which the guests arrive.

If a card is written,--

MRS. BROWN at home Tuesday evening,

some sticklers for etiquette say that she should not put R. S. V. P. on her card.

If she wishes an answer, she should say,--

MRS. BROWN requests the pleasure of MR. and MRS. CAMPBELL'S company. R. S. V. P.

Perhaps the latter is better form. It is more respectful. The "At Home" can be used for large and informal receptions, where an individual acceptance is not required.

Garden parties are becoming very fashionable at watering-places, in rural cities, and at country houses which are accessible to a town. No doubt the garden party is a troublesome affair in a climate so capricious as ours. The hostess has to be prepared for a sudden shower, and to have two tables of refreshments. The effort to give the out-of-door plays in this country, as in England, has often been frustrated by a sudden shower, as at Mrs. Stevens' palace at Castle Point. It is curious that they can and do give them in England, where it always rains. However, these entertainments and hunting remain rather as visitors than as old and recognized institutions.

Americans all dance well, and are always glad to dance. Whether it be assembly, hunt ball, or private party, the German cotillion finishes the bail. It is an allegory of society in its complicated and bewildering complications, its winding and unwinding of the tangled chain.

In every large city a set arises whose aim is to be exclusive. Sometimes this privilege seems to be pushed too far. Often one is astonished at the black sheep who leap into the well-defended enclosures. In London, formerly, an autocratic set of ladies, well known as Almacks, turned out the Duke of Wellington because he came in a black cravat. In our republican country perpetual Almacks arise, offensive and defensive,--a state of things which has its advantages and disadvantages. It keeps up an interest in society. It is like the fire in the engine: it makes the train move, even if it sends out smoke and cinders which get into people's eyes and make them weep. It is a part of the inevitable friction which accompanies the best machinery; and if they have patience, those who are left out one winter will be the inside aristocrats of the next, and can leave somebody else out.

Quadrilles, the Lancers, and occasionally a Virginia Reel, are introduced to make the modern ball more interesting, and enable people who cannot bear the whirl of the waltz to dance. The elderly can dance a quadrille without loss of breath or dignity. Indeed, the Americans are the only people who relegate the dance to the young alone. In Europe the old gray-head, the old mustache, leads the German. Ambassadors and generals, princes and potentates, go spinning around with gray-haired ladies until they are seventy. Grandmothers dance with their grandsons. Socrates learned to dance. In Europe it is the elderly woman who receives the most flattering invitations to lead the German. An ambassadress of fifty would be very much astonished if the prince did not ask her to dance.

The saltatory art is like the flight of a butterfly,--hard to describe, impossible to follow. The valse à deux temps keeps its precedence in Europe as the favourite measure, varied with galop, polka, and polka mazourka. We add, in America, Dancing in the Barn, which is really a Spanish dance.

The Pavanne is worthy of study, and the Minuet de la Cour is a stately and beautiful thing, quite worthy of being learned, if it only teaches our women how to make a courtesy.

Each leader of the German is a potentate; he leads his troops through new evolutions, and into combinations so vast, varied, and changeful that it is impossible to do more than hint at them.

The proper name for a private ball is "a dance." In London one never talks of balls; it is always "a dance." Although supper is served generally at a buffet, yet some leaders, with large houses, are introducing little tables, which are more agreeable, but infinitely inconvenient. The comfort, however, of being able to sit while eating, and the fact that a party of four or six may enjoy their supper together would certainly determine the question as to its agreeableness. This is a London fashion, one set succeeding another at the same table. It can only be carried out, however, in a very large house or public place. The ball suppers in New York--indeed, all over America--are very "gorgeous feeds" compared with those one sees in Europe. The profusion of flowers, the hot oysters, boned turkey, terrapin, and canvas-back duck, the salmon, the game patties, salads, ices, jellies, and creams, all crowded in, sweetbreads and green peas, filet de boeuf, constant cups of bouillon,--one feels Carlyle's internal rat gnawing as one reads of them,--the champagne, the punch, the fine glass, choice china, the drapery of German looms, the Queen Anne silver, the porcelain of Sèvres and Dresden, the beauty of the women, the smart dressing, make the ball supper an elegant, an amazing, a princely sort of sight, saving that princes do not give such feasts,--only Americans.

WEDDINGS.

"Rice and slippers, slippers and rice! Quaint old symbols of all that's nice In a world made up of sugar and spice, With a honeymoon always shining; A world where the birds keep house by twos, And the ring-dove calls, and the stock-dove coos, And maids are many, and men may choose, And never shall love go pining!"

If there were no weddings, there would be no art of entertaining. It is the key-note, the initial letter, the "open sesame," of the great business of society. Therefore certain general and very, perhaps, unnecessary hints as to the conduct of weddings in all countries may not be out of place here.

In London a wedding in high life--or, as the French call it, "higlif"--is a very sweeping affair. If we were to read the descriptions in the "Court Journal" of one wedding trousseau alone, furnished to a royal princess, or to Lady Gertrude Somebody, we should say with Fielding that "dress is the principal accomplishment of men and women." As for the wedding-cake which is built at Gunter's, it is a sight to see,--almost as big as Mont Blanc.

The importance of Gunter is assured by the "Epicure's Almanac," published in 1815; and for many years this firm supplied the royal family. When George III. was king, the royal dukes stopped to eat Gunter's pies, in gratitude for the sweet repasts furnished them in childhood; but now the Buzzards, of 197 Oxford Street, also are specialists in wedding-cakes.

Leigh Hunt, in one of his essays, described one Trumbull Walker as "the artist who confined himself to that denomination," meaning wedding-cake. His mantle fell on the Buzzards.