odds at any time during a set, except that a bisque may not be taken
after the service has been delivered. The server may not take a bisque
after a fault, but the striker-out may do so. One or more bisques may
be given in augmentation or diminution of other odds.
_Half-fifteen_ is one stroke given at the beginning of the second and
every subsequent alternate game of a set.
_Fifteen_ is one stroke given at the beginning of every game of a set.
_Half-thirty_ is one stroke given at the beginning of the first game,
two strokes given at the beginning of the second game, and so on
alternately in all the subsequent games of a set.
_Thirty_ is two strokes given at the beginning of every game of a set.
_Half-forty_ is two strokes given at the beginning of the first game,
three strokes at the beginning of the second, and so on alternately in
all the subsequent games of the set.
_Forty_ is three strokes given at the beginning of every game of a set.
_Half-court_ is when the players having agreed into which court the
giver of the odds of half-court shall play, the latter loses a stroke
if the ball returned by him drops outside any of the lines which bound
that court.
If the game is to be umpired, there should be one for each side of the
net, who shall call play at the beginning of a game, enforce the rules,
and be sole judge of fair and unfair play, each on his respective side
of the net.
We have followed the best manual and the best opinions of the most
successful players in the above lengthy abstract for the use of
many who may be confused by the very absurd and contradictory rules
published in the newspapers. These rules of ours are those which were
used at Newport, at the Casino, during the famous Lawn Tournament of
1880, which was so very interesting, and in which the victors were
rewarded by prizes, from Mr. Bennett, of silver pitchers, bracelets,
and rings of great value; and which shows that the game of lawn tennis
deserved the high encomiums pronounced by Henry III on court tennis. It
is a game of science; it does exercise every part of the body; and it
requires skill, good temper, staying power, judgment, and activity.
Of course, few groups at home will play with the science and skill
displayed in these tournaments; yet the rules of the game should be
thoroughly learned, and those who play scientifically will avoid those
contentions and disputes which spoil any game.
It is better in giving a lawn-tennis party not to invite any but those
who really are devotees of the game. As to others, the absorption of
the players makes the party stupid.
XI.
GARDEN PARTIES.
A Garden Party is a scene of enchantment, to which the lawn-tennis net
lends an additional grace and variety.
A lady, living near a city, who chooses to inaugurate the season
with a garden party, sends her invitations a week in advance, and
carefully incloses a card telling her guests by what roads, railway
trains, and boats she may be reached. There must be no confusion or
lack of carriages at the end of the route. This hospitality must cover
everything. If the weather is fine and the distance short, ladies
generally drive to these entertainments in gay dresses and bonnets
or hats; for a garden party should look as much like a Watteau as
possible. Those who have had the advantage of seeing a garden party
in England--at Holland House, or at Buckingham Palace--will remember
how beautiful, finished, and gay a scene it is. A dressy parasol and a
fan hung at the side are indispensable. Ladies go either in the short
Amazonian dresses which the practice of games has made so fashionable,
or else in Worth’s last and most elegant trailing costumes, trusting to
the grass being dry, and knowing that they can sit on the piazza.
Most garden-party givers provide band music, which plays either in
the grand hall, or at some spot on the lawn where dancing can go on.
But our turf is not like the English turf, and modern dancing is not
that springing measure of “young Bertine,” as she bounds under the
walnut-trees of Southern France. So we can not count in dancing as one
of the usual pleasures of a garden party, unless a broad platform is
laid; and this has in its way a very pretty effect under the trees or
in a large tent.
A garden party is for all ages; so there should be in our uncertain
climate full provision for the elderly, who can not always spend an
afternoon on the lawn. Broad piazzas are very useful, and much enjoyed
by those who fear our treacherous malarious soil; and if one can not
exercise, it is better to sit on a piazza than on the grass.
As it is always prone to rain at picnics and garden parties, it is
better to have the refreshments in the house. Gentlemen can run into
the banquet-hall and get a plate of lobster-salad for a lady, or the
waiters can carry the refreshments about; but for a sudden shower of
rain to descend on a table is miserable, and defeats the object of the
table.
The lady of the house, however, often improvises a hasty roof or
covering for her table, put up by the carpenter at a small outlay, if
she is determined to have everything _al fresco_. Frozen coffee, iced
tea, punch, ice-cream croquets, salads, jellies, pressed turkey, potted
meats, _pâté de foie gras_, and sandwiches, are spread about. Do not
attempt any hot dishes at a garden party; they are out of place, and
impossible.
The garden party is said to be “the first hybrid which unites society
and nature.” It is a growing taste with us Americans, and will grow
to be a greater favorite as time goes on. The popularity of the game
of archery, that relic of Robin Hood and Maid Marion, “that vision
of Lincoln green,” is now added to lawn tennis, croquet, and “_les
Graces_,” as one of the most popular features of a garden party. One
would think that there was nothing needed but the long sweep of the
trees upon the lawn, the vision of the distant city, the flower-beds
where geraniums and calceolaria vie in color, the “pleached alley,”
the buttercup in the grass, the Watteau-like picture, or groups of gay
ladies and gallant cavaliers causing “unpremeditated effects” to make
the garden party agreeable. But there is always a need of preparation
for such a party. No lady should trust alone to the power of her guests
to amuse themselves. She must do all that she can.
In the country a lady can wait for a day of fine weather, and invite
her guests only the day before. The grounds and garden walks, the lawn
tennis, the archery, should all be in order, and a few chairs out
under the trees. It is not long before all her guests begin to enjoy
themselves in their own way, and to appreciate how much better a room
is made by the Gothic arch of the trees than by any sort of cramped-up
house arrangement.
One can be more general in the invitations to a garden party than to
any other; for if people like each other they can group together, and
if they do not, they can easily walk apart, and get rid of each other.
In a small room, particularly at a dinner party, how two people can
glow and glare at each other, to the dreadful dismay of the hostess!
But at a garden party Nature is too wide for them. They are almost
obliged to seem amused whether they are or not. If not at all amused,
they can, however, go and sulk under the lilacs. Those fragrant
vegetables will not care whether the guests sulk or smile.
Every country house has its charms. How lovely a garden party can be
given at the Locusts, when all those trees are in flower, sending down
the perfume of Araby the Blest! How the perfume reminds one of St.
John’s Gardens, Oxford, when the lime-trees are in bloom, and every
bough is laden with wild bees who make a music as they sip! A flowering
tree is the most perfect thing which Adam and Eve saved from Paradise.
One seems, in inhaling its fragrance, to have just recovered from a
long illness.
The best part of a spring or early summer garden party is this first
whiff of fragrance which is brought to the disused or insulted nostril
of the city. We little know until then how the most aristocratic of the
senses has been wronged. We are always, and all of us, most patient
over our city bad smells until we go into the country and realize what
a bath of delicious odors a forest is--a bit of woodland, a field of
growing grass, one sweet cherry-tree, an apple-blossom, a violet! The
perfume of lilacs is the perfume of luxury; and the first scythe of
the mower, as it sweeps through the young blood of the grass, reveals
a thousand scent-bottles all uncorked for our use. A lady in giving
a garden party should always have a bundle of new-mown hay somewhere
about the grounds.
And at the garden party what may not those who sit on the benches
remember? All the sprightly, frivolous, charming figures who seem to
have posed for us at garden parties in France! Philippe d’Orléans and
La Phalaris; the Duc de Richelieu and the Abbess de Chelles; Watteau,
Voltaire, Carmargo; Louis XV, with Pompadour and Du Barry; Boucher
and Vanloo; Greuze, Voisenon, and Bernis; Guimaud and Sophie Arnould;
Crébillon, the tragic, and Dancourt, the gay! What a faithful study of
naiads and hamadryads did the beautiful women of these days suggest to
the artists at those garden parties when, toward the end of spring,
the trees were in blossom, and the enameled grass carpeted the parks!
Madame de Pompadour asked Louis XV to come and see her hermitage!
Venus, Hebe, Diana the huntress, the three Graces--all were in order!
The garden itself a masterpiece of attraction--a wood, rather than a
garden--a wood peopled with statues, formed of verdant and odorous
arcades, of charming groves, of dark, shaded retreats. Such was the
_Parc aux Cerfs_.
We think again of the rose-tree of Jean Jacques at the hermitage. We
remember Dufresny, who “studied love in his heart, grandeur at the
court, war upon the field of battle, architecture in the erection of
buildings, _nature in his garden_, music in song.” Dufresny was in love
with gardens. A poet, a friend of Louis XIV, he loved roses better than
any other luxury. It was he who broke up the stiff, old-fashioned plan
of gardening at Vincennes, and introduced Nature with her charming
caprices and fairy fantasies. It was he who said, “Cultivating roses,
marking out paths, planting hedges, is the same as writing sonnets,
songs, and poems.” In his day a picturesque garden was often called
“_à la Dufresny_.” Under his rule Versailles became what it is. “I
shall never be poor while I have a garden!” said he to the King. “I
find there the green vine-tendrils, or the roses, for a crown.” To him
verdant prospects were real terrestrial paradises.
We can remember how the boy Florian gathered cherries, and forgot his
Greek and Latin! We remember him, in Voltaire’s garden, naming the
poppies after the faithless Trojans. The most beautiful he called
“Hector,” and then demolished him with a blow from his wooden sword.
Later, when he had grown up, still wandering in gardens, he wrote his
eclogues, poems, dramas, fables, and “Numa Pompilius.” His style has
all the tender freshness, the brilliancy, the perfume, the clear color,
of a “garden party.” It is an idyl of primroses and dandelions.
We hardly think of Buffon at a garden party. (When Voltaire heard of
his “Natural History”--“Not so _natural_,” said the great wit.) The
laborious and tranquil life of the great author of the “Garden of
Plants” seems out of place at a garden party, and yet he lived and
wrote in a garden. He submitted Nature to a crucible, and tore a lily
to pieces to see of what it was made; and yet he brought together the
flowers and trees of all nations. We admire, but do not love Buffon.
We cross the Channel and see, in imagination, the Princess Anne with
Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stuart, Lady Churchill, and all their
friends, loftily walking in the groves and alleys of Spring Gardens,
emerging into St. James’s Park. The glories of Bird-Cage Walk come
back to us. From these models did Colley Cibber get his “Lady Betty
Modish,” and what a pretty, stylish, affected model it was! Lovely
Lady Fitzhardinge was of the Princess’s party, and later, when Lady
Churchill became Duchess of Marlborough, what garden parties at
Blenheim!
A garden party always brings back Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who left
many an account of those stately old-time gardens at Rome, Florence,
Naples, Genoa, Avignon--not to speak of the early adventures at
Twickenham, and later at Strawberry Hill. All England is a garden. The
garden party is possible anywhere.
And the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire and Mrs. Crewe! How they adorn
a garden party! We almost see the splendid cream-colored horses of
George III drive up past Carleton Gardens, to proceed in solemn state
to St. James’s, as we hear the low, rippling laughter of the two
beauties in brocade.
The Prince of Wales forgot his two hundred thousand pounds of debts as
he received the Buffs and Blues at a garden party, which began at noon
and continued all night, at Carleton House. The Duchess of Devonshire
was then lady paramount of the aristocratic whig circles, in which rank
and literature were blended with political aspirations. It was she who
canvassed for Fox, and allowed the butcher to kiss her for his vote;
and to her was paid the compliment, highly prized, by the link-boy who
asked if he “might light his pipe at her eyes.” These women seem to
have lived in garden parties.
Sweet Madame de Sévigné, with her children, at _Les Rochers_, and later
at Paris, talking gayly under the trees of her garden, with Corneille,
Racine, Molière, La Fontaine, and Boileau, again wins us back across
the Channel, and back a hundred years or so.
Garden parties have this advantage: they are like Madame de Staël’s
age--“not dated.” They are of all time. Madame de Sévigné’s garden
party comprised Pascal, Bourdaloue, Mascaron, Bossuet, the restless De
Retz, the Scotchman Montrose, La Rochefoucauld, Marshal Turenne, Le
Grand Colbert, and Condé. The ladies were the Duchess de Longueville,
the political _intrigante_ of the Fronde; the penitent La Vallière;
the heartless Maintenon; Madame de Montespan; the Comtesse d’Olonne,
daughter of Madame de Rambouillet, and one of the _Précieuses_; Madame
de La Fayette, the authoress of “Zaide.” Alas, and alas! we could
not get together such a garden party of to-day! No! not if we had a
fortnight’s time before us, and all the wealth of the Indies.
Madame de Sévigné was that delightful combination--a beauty, a wit, and
a _femme d’esprit_. As an instance of the flattery to which even genius
stooped in speaking to a monarch who loved flattery and adulation more
than anything, she relates an answer made by Racine to Louis XIV when
that sovereign expressed his regret that the poet had not accompanied
the army in its last campaign. “Sire,” said Racine, “we had none but
town-clothes, and had ordered others to be made; but the places you
attacked were all taken before they could be finished.” “This,” adds
Madame de Sévigné, “was well received.”
It is in her famous correspondence with her daughter that we find many
an account of a garden party, or a _fête_, which we should gladly have
seen, and which at our own garden parties we are glad to remember. Her
letters contain much talk on books, religion, philosophy, and politics;
on the frowns and smiles of the great monarch; the favor accorded to
this courtier, the disgrace of that; the marriage contracted, the
_bons mots_ circulated. But it is upon society that she is strongest.
She loved nature, too, in a Frenchwoman’s way. When she walked the
garden of her uncle, the Abbé, at Livry, or far away in the solitudes
of Brittany, she rejoiced in the song of the nightingale, in the change
of the leaf, in the glad freshness of the air. She is a poet, without
meaning it. Her garden-party letters are her best letters.
Very stately must have been those garden parties at Wilton, when Ben
Jonson and Philip Massinger afforded amusement to the intellectual
great. The Masque, an entertainment of the rich and noble in the time
of Elizabeth and James I, called out the powers of these men. The
actors were people of the highest class, sometimes royal personages,
the masques always in the open air. Dancing and music were introduced.
These various actors learned their parts under the tutorship of the
Master of the Revels. Lawes composed music, to which the poetry
of Jonson was sung; and the scenes, decorations, and dresses were
contrived and executed by Inigo Jones. Certain great families copied
the example of the court, and ordered masques to be written, and played
at their own country-seats; calling in for the choruses the children
of the Chapel Royal, who were regularly trained to take their part
in masques. At Wilton, at Belvoir Castle, at Whitehall, at Windsor,
these charming but costly diversions were carried on. Ben Jonson might
have been heard scolding and working over these garden parties at
the house of the beautiful Mary Sidney, sister to the author of the
“Arcadia,” who was afterward Countess of Pembroke. She often gave these
entertainments at Wilton. She there received Queen Elizabeth, Walter
Raleigh, the Earl of Essex, Will Shakespeare, Spenser, and Cecil.
Philip Massinger was in her servants’ hall, a humble retainer. The
pious Countess, for her solemn hours, had Dr. Donne, most devoted of
servitors. The death of her noble brother, Philip Sidney, broke her
heart, and there were no more garden parties at Wilton. We all know
how Walter Scott has described these garden parties in “Kenilworth.”
Indeed, they make us rather out of love with our later attempts.
Once in our own land a masque was attempted, the famous _Mischianza_ of
Major André, on the Delaware, at Philadelphia. Had not he and Arnold
gone out together in that rather sad way, we might like to tell of that
garden party, but we will skip it.
After all, man was born, the race was started, in a garden. Adam and
Eve held the first garden party. What a pity that the serpent crawled
in!
XII.
DANCING.
Dancing is so well known to all young people as a Home Amusement that
it seems perhaps _banale_ to describe it. A glance at the dances now
fashionable may, however, not be out of place.
From the Virginia Reel to the German Cotillon is indeed a bound.
Our grandfathers were taught to dance the Pirouette, the delicate
Pigeon-wing--indeed, all the paces of the dance such as it was when
Vestris bounded before Louis XVI. When commanded to dance before him,
the dancer loftily replied: “The House of Vestris has always danced for
that of Bourbon.”
Dancing then was an accomplishment. Who does not recollect seeing some
grandfather still “taking his steps”? Now at the most is permitted the
Galop, which has the needed element of jollity without coarseness. It
is _l’allegro_ of the ballroom. The Gambrinus Polka also lights up
the ballroom occasionally. With these vivacious exceptions, dancing
is reduced to the Waltz--_la valse à trois temps_--the various steps
of which consist of the Hop-Waltz, the Glide-Waltz, the Redowa, and
the Waltz proper. The Boston “Dip,” the “Racket,” and the “Society,”
are spurious. They are not taught by the best dancing masters. They
are “rowdy,” but some people, desirous of notoriety, do dance them at
the Charity Ball. As a famous dancing authority observes, “Did such a
style of dancing prevail, dancing must go down; its enemies would have
unanswerable arguments against it.” The dance of society is now quiet,
easy, natural, modest, and graceful. Those who would make it otherwise
must remember that they are copying the excesses of the _Bal Mabille_.
The spurious dances mentioned above are ridiculed in “Punch” as the
“pivotal” dances. The Redowa is a pretty form of the Waltz. It is
composed of a step known as the _pas de basque_. Its movements are
indicated as a _fête à glissé_ and a _coupé dessous_; the feet,
however, are never raised from the floor.
The Galop is a great favorite with the Swedes, Danes, and Russians; it
has a Viking force in it; while the Redowa reminds one of the graceful
Viennese, who dance it so well. The Mazourka, danced to the wild Polish
Mazourka measure, is a more poetical dance, and has many a poem written
to its honor; but it rarely appears seen at a fancy-dress ball.
The German Cotillon, born many years ago in a Viennese palace to meet
the requirements of court etiquette, is now the favorite dance at home
and at balls, as a way of finishing the evening. Its favors, beginning
with flowers, ribbons, and bits of tinsel, have ripened into fans,
bracelets, gold scarf-pins, and pencil-cases, and many other things
even more expensive. Favors now often cost $5,000 for one fashionable
ball. So the German, thus conducted, can scarcely be called a Home
Amusement.
To dance by the firelight to the music of the piano is a _Home_
Amusement. And if there be a good old kitchen, with a hard floor, into
which a negro fiddler can be introduced, and where the _contra-danse_
can be also added, and the evening can end with Virginia Reel--this is
a Home Amusement. The old-fashioned quadrilles, the Lancers--dances in
which old and young can join--these are home dances!
“There is something so _conscientious_ about papa’s dancing,” said
a profane youth who was watching his estimable parent through the
decidedly complicated mazes of Money Musk. Youth will always laugh
at age when it attempts the accomplishments. That is a real dance,
however, when papa, mamma, and the children all join in, and when Jane,
aged seven, leads out grandpa. How Dickens luxuriates in Mr. Fizziwig’s
dancing at the Christmas supper in the “Christmas Carol”! Dickens could
never have made the “_German_” so pathetic or so funny!
All fashion polishes off the edges, and causes an aristocratic icing
to form over the outside of any expression of jollity; so no wonder
that fashionable dancing has become a _glissé_. It would not be well
to attempt any gay dancing at a fashionable ball--that would look like
romping; but surely in the old kitchen, in the private parlor, at
Christmas, on birthdays, one is allowed to romp a little.
The German is a dance of infinite variety, and a leader of original
fancy constructs new figures constantly. The Waltz, Galop, Redowa, and
Polka steps occur in its many changes. There is a slow walk in the
quadrille figures; 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 people to meet,
exchange greetings, dance with each other, change their geographical
position many times; and the Grand Army of the Republic did not have a
more varied scope.
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
_chassé croisé_, and turn at corners with right hands, then _dechassé_,
and turn partners with left hands. _Valse générale_ with _vis-à-vis_.
Another 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 little 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 a 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.
Counterpart for the others in their order.