This general term includes a variety of social entertainments, and
suggests all degrees of formality, from the stately reception to the
"surprise party." With a range so varied, classification is not
readily made. Some features are always present: a host and hostess
always receive; a guest always first pays his respects to his
entertainers, and then mingles agreeably with the throng. He makes
himself useful in any way that tact and courtesy suggest. Supper is
served, usually the buffet collation. It is more formal, and less
confusing, if the guests go to the dining-room--convenient numbers at a
time--instead of being served in the parlors, as at a luncheon. On
formal occasions professional readers and musicians are often engaged
as entertainers. Sometimes the amusement is furnished by clever
amateurs among the guests, who may read, sing, or whistle, or what not.
In a circle where all are well acquainted, some of the pleasantest
evening parties are those to the success of which each one contributes
his mite, cheerfully singing in the chorus when nature has denied him a
solo voice, and not allowing any dark jealousy of superior gifts to
deprive the harmony of his one little note.
Invitations to these informal parties are cordial and personal in tone.
If the guest is expected to make preparation, in costume or to fill
some part on the programme, that fact is briefly stated. For practical
suggestions, consult "Parlor Games," adding any novel features that you
can devise. A hostess with original ideas for entertainments is always
successful and popular. Elderly people as well as the young enjoy
these parties; and they are a safe resource for mixed companies, when a
form of entertainment must be chosen that will please all and offend
none.
Children's parties, usually afternoon affairs, are often merely
childish "good times"; but again, they are conducted in close imitation
of an evening party for adults, and thus made a means of education in
the social ceremonial. When sensibly managed, the children's party
affords a fine opportunity for training the little people in polite
manners.
When the children are almost grown up, but not "out," pleasant little
parties for "the younger set" are given by the mothers, to accustom the
"buds" to conventionalities, and prepare the debutantes and their young
brothers to take their place gracefully in the larger social world.
These younger-set parties are like a grown-up party, except that they
are conspicuously chaperoned, and all responsibility is assumed by the
mothers and godmothers.
The two extreme phases of the evening party are the conventional ball,
and the rural "sociable."
The special requirements for a ball are good music, and large
well-ventilated rooms, from which all superfluous furniture has been
removed. For music, an orchestra of four or six pieces may be
sufficient. For space, we must make the best of what we have, if the
ball is given at home. This is practicable only where the rooms are
reasonably spacious. Nowadays, a ball in a private house is rare, for
hotels, clubs, and first class caterers furnish charming ballrooms for
rental to exclusive patrons.
But whether in her own house or in a hired ballroom, the hostess is for
the time "at home"; and the general conduct of the ball is the same in
both cases. Decorations, floral and otherwise, are important; and a
supper, served either during the progress, or at the close of the
dance--or both--is an indispensable feature.
The guests arrive at the hour designated, not earlier than nine
o'clock. The hostess is stationed at some point near the entrance of
the drawing-room, where she remains during the evening to receive the
guests, who must pay their respects to her, first of all. A gentleman
will also lose no time in finding his host, and paying him the courtesy
of a deferential greeting.
As the hostess cannot delegate her special duty of receiving, she has
usually several aids, young matrons, who keep a watchful eye upon the
dancing throng, and see to it that partners are not lacking for those
who might otherwise be overlooked; and in any way that the emergency
may suggest, or tact devise, they radiate the hospitality from its
centre--the hostess.
A gentleman in American society does not ask a lady to dance until he
has been introduced to her. He may seek an introduction for this
purpose, or the hostess may request him to be introduced. In either
case, the lady and the gentleman both cheerfully acquiesce. A lady
usually accepts the invitation to dance, unless the dance is already
engaged. She should be careful to inspect her tablets; and not promise
the same dance to two different partners, an awkward accident that
sometimes happens to a heedless belle. After a dance, a gentleman
promenades with his partner, chats with her for awhile, and, finally,
with a graceful bow, leaves her once more in the care of her chaperone.
If a man has made an engagement to take a particular lady out to
supper, he must not forget himself and linger talking to another lady
until supper is fairly announced, since etiquette then requires him to
take out the lady with whom he is at the moment talking. He should
seek the one he has chosen, some moments before, and leave the other
lady free to receive other invitations to supper.
Any gentleman who observes a lady who is not being served with
refreshments, should courteously offer to bring her something. If he
is a total stranger he will attempt no conversation beyond the
civilities of the case; but these he will cordially though
unobtrusively offer. The young man who does these little things with
the gentle grace of a knight errant, may not know that he is simply
charming, from a woman's standpoint; but the fact remains.
A ball, proper, is a strictly formal affair. A dancing party, while
observing similar regulations on the dancing floor, may be, in the
social intervals between dances, as informal as a village "sociable."
That is to say, as informal as the sociable ever _ought_ to be;
possibly not as informal as the sociable sometimes _is_. People who
have "grown up" together, as villagers often have, are apt to consider
a life-long acquaintance the proper basis for unlimited off-hand
familiarity. To a certain extent, and in a certain sense, such
acquaintance, being second in intimacy only to near relationship, does
warrant a cordial and trustful informality. The cautious reserve that
marks one's conduct toward a recent acquaintance might justly be
resented by a tried and trusted friend of one's youth. But even
relationship does not warrant undignified behavior, or rude liberties
of speech or action. The boy and girl who went to school together grow
up to be the young man and woman of society; and while the memory of
school days is a bond of hearty friendliness between them, it is not
necessary that they should evince their mutual regard by a
free-and-easy demeanor.
Country sociables, attended largely by the younger members of families
long acquainted and associated, are apt to be rather rollicking, not to
say "rough and tumble," affairs, where practical jokes and unmerciful
"guying" are the characteristic wit, and such smart tricks as bumping
an unsuspecting comrade's head against the wall are applauded with
shrieks of admiring laughter. The onlookers may be excused for their
tacit countenance of the rudeness, since some element of drollery--that
might have been wit, under better conditions--compels a smile, in spite
of a dignified disapproval of the performance. A young student, unused
to such scenes, standing a little apart from such a group once remarked
judicially to a lady near him, "I do not care for such _dare-devil
sociability_." Nor would other young people cherish it as their ideal
of a "good time" if they could learn how much more charming altogether
it is to exchange the delicate courtesies that make up refined social
companionship. The difference in social culture is what distinguishes
the vulgar wag from the urban wit. The crude humor of the former,
often marred by coarseness, is like ore in which the dross greatly
out-weighs the pure metal. The brilliant _mots_ of the latter, refined
by the processes of culture, are like the gold nuggets separated from
their base surroundings.
How to eliminate the "dare-devil" from the sociability of country life,
without substituting an artificial stiffness, is the problem for every
thoughtful and refined man and woman in rural circles. How to "be
kindly affectioned one to another, in brotherly love, in honor
preferring one another"--perhaps that would furnish the keynote of it
all, alike for the citizen and the rustic.