BALL ROOM ETIQUETTE.
FOR THE HOSTESS.
When you have decided upon what evening you will give your ball, send
out your invitations, a fortnight before the evening appointed. To
ladies, word them:--
Mrs. L---- requests the pleasure of Miss G----'s company on
Wednesday evening, Jan. 17th, at 9 o'clock.
_Dancing._
The favor of an early answer is requested.
To gentlemen:--
Mrs. L----'s compliments to Mr. R---- for Wednesday evening,
Jan. 17th, at 9 o'clock.
_Dancing._
The favor of an early answer is requested.
If you are unmarried, put your mother's name with your own upon the
cards. If you have a father or grown-up brother, let the invitations to
the gentlemen go in his name.
In making your list for a ball, do not set down _all_ of your "dear
five hundred friends." The middle-aged, (unless they come as chaperons,)
the serious, and the sober-minded, will not accept your invitation, and
the two last named may consider it insulting to be invited to so
frivolous an amusement. By the way, I do not agree with the
straight-laced people, who condemn all such amusements. I agree with
Madame Pilau. When the cure of her parish told her he was writing a
series of sermons against dancing, she said to him:
"You are talking of what you do not understand. _You_ have never been to
a ball, _I_ have; and I assure you there is no sin in the matter worthy
of mention or notice."
If you really wish for dancing, you will accommodate your guests to your
rooms, inviting one third more than they will hold, as about that number
generally disappoint a ball-giver. If you wish to have a rush of people,
and do not mind heat, crowding, and discomfort, to insure an immense
assembly, (a ball to be talked about for its size only,) then you may
invite every body who figures upon your visiting list.
Over one hundred is a "large ball," under that a "ball," unless there
are less than fifty guests, when it is merely a "dance."
The directions given in chapter 5th for the arrangement of the
dressing-rooms will apply here, but your parlor, or ball room, requires
some attention. Have the carpets taken up two days before the evening of
the ball, and the floor waxed. A smooth, polished floor is an absolute
necessity for pleasant dancing. At one end of your ball room, have a
space partitioned off for the musicians. Leave, for their use, plenty of
room, as silence or discord will come from a crowded orchestra. If your
house is double, and you use the rooms on each side, place the musicians
in the hall.
Four pieces of music is enough for a private ball, unless your rooms are
very large. For one room a piano, violin, and violoncello makes a good
band.
You must have your rooms well ventilated if you wish to avoid fainting
and discomfort.
To secure a really brilliant ball, pay considerable attention to the
arrangement of your ball room. In Paris this arrangement consists in
turning the room, for the evening, into a perfect garden. Every corner
is filled with flowers. Wreaths, bouquets, baskets, and flowering-plants
in moss-covered pots. With brilliant light, and taste in the details of
arranging them, this profusion of flowers produces an exquisitely
beautiful effect, and harmonizes perfectly with the light dresses,
cheerful faces, and gay music. The pleasure of your guests, as well as
the beauty of the rooms, will be increased by the elegance of your
arrangements; their beauty will be heightened by brilliant light, and by
judicious management a scene of fairy-like illusion may be produced.
Not only in the ball room itself, but in the hall, supper-room, and
dressing-rooms, place flowers. A fine effect is produced, by placing a
screen, covered with green and flowers, before the space set apart for
the musicians. To hear the music proceeding from behind this floral
embankment, and yet have the scraping and puffing men invisible, adds
very much to the illusion of the scene.
In the dressing-rooms have, at least, two servants for each. Let them
take the cloaks and hoods, and put a numbered ticket upon each bundle,
handing the duplicate number to the lady or gentleman owning it.
It is best to have the supper-room upon the same floor as the ball room.
The light dresses, worn upon such occasions, suffer severely in passing
up and down a crowded staircase.
Have a number of double cards written or printed with a list of the
dances, arranged in order, upon one side, and a space for engagements
upon the other. Attach a small pencil to each. Let a waiter stand at the
entrance to the ball room, and hand a card to each guest as they pass
in.
The first strain of music must be a march; then follows a quadrille,
then a waltz. Other dances follow in any order you prefer until the
fourteenth, which should be the march which announces supper. If you
throw open the supper-room, early, and the guests go out when they wish,
the march may be omitted. Twenty-one to twenty-four dances are
sufficient. Have an interval of ten minutes after each one.
The supper-room should be thrown open at midnight, and remain open until
your last guest has departed. Let it be brilliantly lighted, and have
plenty of waiters in attendance.
There can be no rule laid down for the supper. It may be hot or heavily
iced. It may consist entirely of confectionary, or it may include the
bill of fare for a hotel table. One rule you must observe; have
abundance of everything. Other entertainments may be given upon
economical principles, but a ball cannot. Light, attendance, supper,
every detail must be carefully attended to, and a ball must be an
expensive luxury.
At a ball-supper every one stands up. The waiters will hand refreshment
from the tables to the gentlemen, who, in turn, wait upon the ladies.
You must bring forth your whole array of smiles, when you perform the
part of hostess in a ball room. As your guests will come dropping in at
all hours, you must hover near the door to greet each one entering.
There will be many strangers amongst the gentlemen. Miss G. will bring
her fiancee. Miss L., her brother, just returned, after ten years'
absence, from India. Miss R. introduces her cousin, in the city for a
week. Miss M., as a belle, will, perhaps, take the liberty of telling
some ten or twelve of her most devoted admirers where she may be seen on
the evening of your ball, and, though strangers, they will, one after
another, bow over your hand. To each and every one you must extend the
amiable greeting due to an invited guest. If you are the only lady of
the house, your duties will, indeed, be laborious. You must be
everywhere at the same moment. Not a guest must pass unwelcomed. You
must introduce partners to all the wall-flowers. You must see that every
set is made up before the music commences. Each guest must be introduced
to a proper partner for every dance, and not one frown, one pettish
word, one look of fatigue, one sigh of utter weariness must disturb your
smiling serenity. You must be ready to chat cheerfully with every bore
who detains you, when crossing the room, to make up a set of quadrilles
in a minute's time; listen patiently to the sighing lover, whose fair
one is engaged fifty times during twenty dances; secure a good dancer
for each longing belle; do the same for the beaux; yet you must never be
hurried, worried, or fatigued.
If there are several ladies, a mother and two or three daughters, for
instance, divide the duties. Let one receive the guests, another arrange
the sets, a third introduce couples, and a fourth pair off the talkers.
A brother or father will be a treasure in a ball room, as the standing
of sets can be better managed by a gentleman than a lady.
None of the ladies who give the ball should dance until every fair guest
has a partner.
One of your duties will be to see that no young ladies lose their supper
for want of an escort to ask them to go out. You may give the hint to an
intimate gentleman friend, if there is no brother or father to take the
duty, introduce him to the disconsolate damsel, and send her off happy.
If all the guests go to the supper-room when it is first thrown open,
you must be the last to leave the ball room. For the hostess to take the
lead to the supper-room, leaving her guests to pair off, and follow as
they please, is in very bad taste.
If you announce supper by a march, many of your guests will remain in
the ball room, to promenade, avoid the crowd at the first table, and
indulge in a tete-a-tete conversation. These will afterwards go out, in
pairs, when the first crush in the refreshment-room is over.
If, by accident or negligence, you miss an introduction to any of your
gentlemen guests, you may still speak to them if you wish. It is your
privilege as hostess to introduce yourself, and invite any gentleman to
dance with you, or offer to introduce him to a partner. In the latter
case he ought to mention his name, but if he omits to do so, you may ask
it.
There has been a custom introduced in some of our large cities lately,
which is an admirable one for a private ball. It is to hire, for the
evening, a public hall. This includes the dressing-room, supper-room,
every comfort, and saves you from the thousand annoyances which are
certain to follow a ball in a private house. You hire the hall and other
rooms, the price including light, hire a band of music, and order a
supper at a confectioners, hiring from his establishment all the china,
glass, and silver you will want. In this case you must enclose in every
invitation a ticket to admit your friend's party, to prevent loungers
from the street coming in, uninvited.
You will, perhaps, find the actual outlay of money greater, when you
thus hire your ball room, but you will save more than the difference in
labor, annoyance, and the injury to your house. You secure a better room
than any parlor, you have the floor waxed and polished without the
trouble of taking up your carpets. You save all the dreadful labor of
cleaning up the house the next day, as well as that of preparation.
You can, if you wish, invite a few friends to a late dinner with you,
and all proceed to the ball room together. You must be the first to
enter the room, the last to leave it, and every duty is the same as if
you were at home; the ball room is, in fact, your own house, for the
evening.
If you wish your guests to come in costume for a fancy ball, name the
character of the entertainment in your invitation.