herself stops and looks back, waiting for the body to overtake her. The
soul's great enemy and hindrance can be made her best friend and most
powerful help; and it is high time that this era were begun. We old
sinners, who have lived carelessly, and almost spent our day of grace,
may not gain much of its good; but the children,--shall there not be a
more perfect day for them? Shall there not come a day when the little
child, whom Christ set forth to his disciples as the type of the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven, shall be the type no less of our
physical than our spiritual advancement,--when men and women shall
arise, keeping through long and happy lives the simple, unperverted
appetites, the joyous freshness of spirit, the keen delight in mere
existence, the dreamless sleep and happy waking of early childhood?
VII.
HOW SHALL WE ENTERTAIN OUR COMPANY?
"The fact is," said Marianne, "we must have a party. Bob don't like to
hear of it, but it must come. We are in debt to everybody: we have been
invited everywhere, and never had anything like a party since we were
married, and it won't do."
"For my part, I hate parties," said Bob. "They put your house all out of
order, give all the women a sick-headache, and all the men an
indigestion; you never see anybody to any purpose; the girls look
bewitched, and the women answer you at cross-purposes, and call you by
the name of your next-door neighbor, in their agitation of mind. We stay
out beyond our usual bedtime, come home and find some baby crying, or
child who has been sitting up till nobody knows when; and the next
morning, when I must be at my office by eight, and wife must attend to
her children, we are sleepy and headachy. I protest against making
overtures to entrap some hundred of my respectable married friends into
this snare which has so often entangled me. If I had my way, I would
never go to another party; and as to giving one--I suppose, since my
empress has declared her intentions, that I shall be brought into doing
it; but it shall be under protest."
"But, you see, we must keep up society," said Marianne.
"But I insist on it," said Bob, "it isn't keeping up society. What
earthly thing do you learn about people by meeting them in a general
crush, where all are coming, going, laughing, talking, and looking at
each other? No person of common sense ever puts forth any idea he cares
twopence about, under such circumstances; all that is exchanged is a
certain set of commonplaces and platitudes which people keep for
parties, just as they do their kid gloves and finery. Now there are our
neighbors, the Browns. When they drop in of an evening, she knitting,
and he with the last article in the paper, she really comes out with a
great deal of fresh, lively, earnest, original talk. We have a good
time, and I like her so much that it quite verges on loving; but see her
in a party, when she manifests herself over five or six flounces of pink
silk and a perfect egg-froth of tulle, her head adorned with a thicket
of craped hair and roses, and it is plain at first view that _talking_
with her is quite out of the question. What has been done to her head
on the outside has evidently had some effect within, for she is no
longer the Mrs. Brown you knew in her every-day dress, but Mrs. Brown in
a party state of mind, and too distracted to think of anything in
particular. She has a few words that she answers to everything you say,
as, for example, 'O, very!' 'Certainly!' 'How extraordinary!' 'So happy
to,' &c. The fact is, that she has come into a state in which any real
communication with her mind and character must be suspended till the
party is over and she is rested. Now I like society, which is the reason
why I hate parties."
"But you see," said Marianne, "what are we to do? Everybody can't drop
in to spend an evening with you. If it were not for these parties, there
are quantities of your acquaintances whom you would never meet."
"And of what use is it to meet them? Do you really know them any better
for meeting them got up in unusual dresses, and sitting down together
when the only thing exchanged is the remark that it is hot or cold, or
it rains, or it is dry, or any other patent surface-fact that answers
the purpose of making believe you are talking when neither of you is
saying a word?"
"Well, now, for my part," said Marianne, "I confess I _like_ parties:
they amuse me. I come home feeling kinder and better to people, just
for the little I see of them when they are all dressed up and in good
humor with themselves. To be sure we don't say anything very
profound,--I don't think the most of us have anything very profound to
say; but I ask Mrs. Brown where she buys her lace, and she tells me how
she washes it, and somebody else tells me about her baby, and promises
me a new sack-pattern. Then I like to see the pretty, nice young girls
flirting with the nice young men; and I like to be dressed up a little
myself, even if my finery is all old and many times made over. It does
me good to be rubbed up and brightened."
"Like old silver," said Bob.
"Yes, like old silver, precisely; and even if I do come home tired, it
does my mind good to have that change of scene and faces. You men do not
know what it is to be tied to house and nursery all day, and what a
perfect weariness and lassitude it often brings on us women. For my
part, I think parties are a beneficial institution of society, and that
it is worth a good deal of fatigue and trouble to get one up."
"Then there's the expense," said Bob. "What earthly need is there of a
grand regale of oysters, chicken-salad, ice-creams, coffee, and
champagne, between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, when no one of us
would ever think of wanting or taking any such articles upon our
stomachs in our own homes? If we were all of us in the habit of having a
regular repast at that hour, it might be well enough to enjoy one with
our neighbor; but the party fare is generally just so much in addition
to the honest three meals which we have eaten during the day. Now, to
spend from fifty to one, two, or three hundred dollars in giving all our
friends an indigestion from a midnight meal seems to me a very poor
investment. Yet if we once begin to give the party, we must have
everything that is given at the other parties, or wherefore do we live?
And caterers and waiters rack their brains to devise new forms of
expense and extravagance; and when the bill comes in, one is sure to
feel that one is paying a great deal of money for a great deal of
nonsense. It is, in fact, worse than nonsense, because our dear friends
are, in half the cases, not only no better, but a great deal worse, for
what they have eaten."
"But there is this advantage to society," said Rudolph,--"it helps us
young physicians. What would the physicians do if parties were
abolished? Take all the colds that are caught by our fair friends with
low necks and short sleeves, all the troubles from dancing in tight
dresses and inhaling bad air, and all the headaches and indigestions
from the _mélange_ of lobster-salad, two or three kinds of ice-cream,
cake, and coffee on delicate stomachs, and our profession gets a degree
of encouragement that is worthy to be thought of."
"But the question arises," said my wife, "whether there are not ways of
promoting social feeling less expensive, more simple and natural and
rational. I am inclined to think that there are."
"Yes," said Theophilus Thoro; "for large parties are not, as a general
thing, given with any wish or intention of really improving our
acquaintance with our neighbors. In many cases they are openly and
avowedly a general tribute paid at intervals to society, for and in
consideration of which you are to sit with closed blinds and doors and
be let alone for the rest of the year. Mrs. Bogus, for instance, lives
to keep her house in order, her closets locked, her silver counted and
in the safe, and her china-closet in undisturbed order. Her 'best
things' are put away with such admirable precision, in so many wrappings
and foldings, and secured with so many a twist and twine, that to get
them out is one of the seven labors of Hercules, not to be lightly or
unadvisedly taken in hand, but reverently, discreetly, and once for all,
in an annual or biennial party. Then says Mrs. Bogus, 'For Heaven's
sake, let's have every creature we can think of, and have 'em all over
with at once. For pity's sake, let 's have no driblets left that we
shall have to be inviting to dinner or to tea. No matter whether they
can come or not,--only send them the invitation, and our part is done;
and, thank Heaven! we shall be free for a year.'"
"Yes," said my wife; "a great stand-up party bears just the same
relation towards the offer of real hospitality and good-will as Miss
Sally Brass's offer of meat to the little hungry Marchioness, when, with
a bit uplifted on the end of a fork, she addressed her, 'Will you have
this piece of meat? No? Well, then, remember and don't say you haven't
had meat _offered_ to you!' You are invited to a general jam, at the
risk of your life and health; and if you refuse, don't say you haven't
had hospitality offered to you. All our debts are wiped out and our
slate clean; now we will have our own closed doors, no company and no
trouble, and our best china shall repose undisturbed on its shelves.
Mrs. Bogus says she never could exist in the way that Mrs. Easygo does,
with a constant drip of company,--two or three to breakfast one day,
half a dozen to dinner the next, and little evening gatherings once or
twice a week. It must keep her house in confusion all the time; yet, for
real social feeling, real exchange of thought and opinion, there is more
of it in one half-hour at Mrs. Easygo's than in a dozen of Mrs. Bogus's
great parties.
"The fact is, that Mrs. Easygo really does like the society of human
beings. She is genuinely and heartily social; and, in consequence,
though she has very limited means, and no money to spend in giving great
entertainments, her domestic establishment is a sort of social exchange,
where more friendships are formed, more real acquaintance made, and more
agreeable hours spent, than in any other place that can be named. She
never has large parties,--great general pay-days of social debts,--but
small, well-chosen circles of people, selected so thoughtfully, with a
view to the pleasure which congenial persons give each other, as to make
the invitation an act of real personal kindness. She always manages to
have something for the entertainment of her friends, so that they are
not reduced to the simple alternatives of gaping at each other's dresses
and eating lobster-salad and ice-cream. There is either some choice
music, or a reading of fine poetry, or a well-acted charade, or a
portfolio of photographs and pictures, to enliven the hour and start
conversation; and as the people are skilfully chosen with reference to
each other, as there is no hurry or heat or confusion, conversation, in
its best sense, can bubble up, fresh, genuine, clear, and sparkling as a
woodland spring, and one goes away really rested and refreshed. The
slight entertainment provided is just enough to enable you to eat salt
together in Arab fashion,--not enough to form the leading feature of the
evening. A cup of tea and a basket of cake, or a salver of ices,
silently passed at quiet intervals, do not interrupt conversation or
overload the stomach."
"The fact is," said I, "that the art of society among us Anglo-Saxons is
yet in its ruder stages. We are not, as a race, social and confiding,
like the French and Italians and Germans. We have a word for home, and
our home is often a moated grange, an island, a castle with its
drawbridge up, cutting us off from all but our own home-circle. In
France and Germany and Italy there are the boulevards and public
gardens, where people do their family living in common. Mr. A. is
breakfasting under one tree, with wife and children around, and Mr. B.
is breakfasting under another tree, hard by; and messages, nods, and
smiles pass backward and forward. Families see each other daily in these
public resorts, and exchange mutual offices of good-will. Perhaps from
these customs of society come that naïve simplicity and _abandon_ which
one remarks in the Continental, in opposition to the Anglo-Saxon, habits
of conversation. A Frenchman or an Italian will talk to you of his
feelings and plans and prospects with an unreserve that is perfectly
unaccountable to you, who have always felt that such things must be kept
for the very innermost circle of home privacy. But the Frenchman or
Italian has from a child been brought up to pass his family life in
places of public resort, in constant contact and intercommunion with
other families; and the social and conversational instinct has thus been
daily strengthened. Hence the reunions of these people have been
characterized by a sprightliness and vigor and spirit that the
Anglo-Saxon has in vain attempted to seize and reproduce. English and
American _conversazioni_ have very generally proved a failure, from the
rooted, frozen habit of reticence and reserve which grows with our
growth and strengthens with our strength. The fact is, that the
Anglo-Saxon race as a race does not enjoy talking, and, except in rare
instances, does not talk well. A daily convocation of people, without
refreshments or any extraneous object but the simple pleasure of seeing
and talking with each other, is a thing that can scarcely be understood
in English or American society. Social entertainment presupposes in the
Anglo-Saxon mind _something to eat_, and not only something, but a great
deal. Enormous dinners or great suppers constitute the entertainment.
Nobody seems to have formed the idea that the talking--the simple
exchange of the social feelings--_is_, of itself, the entertainment, and
that _being together_ is the pleasure.
"Madame Recamier for years had a circle of friends who met every
afternoon in her _salon_ from four to six o'clock, for the simple and
sole pleasure of talking with each other. The very first wits and men
of letters and statesmen and _savans_ were enrolled in it, and each
brought to the entertainment some choice _morceau_ which he had laid
aside from his own particular field to add to the feast. The daily
intimacy gave each one such perfect insight into all the others' habits
of thought, tastes, and preferences, that the conversation was like the
celebrated music of the _Conservatoire_ in Paris, a concert of perfectly
chorded instruments taught by long habit of harmonious intercourse to
keep exact time and tune together.
"_Real_ conversation presupposes intimate acquaintance. People must see
each other often enough to wear off the rough bark and outside rind of
commonplaces and conventionalities in which their real ideas are
enwrapped, and give forth without reserve their innermost and best
feelings. Now what is called a large party is the first and rudest form
of social intercourse. The most we can say of it is, that it is better
than nothing. Men and women are crowded together like cattle in a pen.
They look at each other, they jostle each other, exchange a few common
bleatings, and eat together; and so the performance terminates. One may
be crushed evening after evening against men or women, and learn very
little about them. You may decide that a lady is good-tempered, when any
amount of trampling on the skirt of her new silk dress brings no cloud
to her brow. But _is_ it good temper, or only wanton carelessness, which
cares nothing for waste? You can see that a man is not a gentleman who
squares his back to ladies at the supper-table, and devours boned turkey
and _paté de fois gras_, while they vainly reach over and around him for
something, and that another is a gentleman so far as to prefer the care
of his weaker neighbors to the immediate indulgence of his own
appetites; but further than this you learn little. Sometimes, it is
true, in some secluded corner, two people of fine nervous system,
undisturbed by the general confusion, may have a sociable half-hour, and
really part feeling that they like each other better, and know more of
each other than before. Yet these general gatherings have, after all,
their value. They are not so good as something better would be, but they
cannot be wholly dispensed with. It is far better that Mrs. Bogus should
give an annual party, when she takes down all her bedsteads and throws
open her whole house, than that she should never see her friends and
neighbors inside her doors at all. She may feel that she has neither the
taste nor the talent for constant small reunions. Such things, she may
feel, require a social tact which she has not. She would be utterly at a
loss how to conduct them. Each one would cost her as much anxiety and
thought as her annual gathering, and prove a failure after all; whereas
the annual demonstration can be put wholly into the hands of the
caterer, who comes in force, with flowers, silver, china, servants, and,
taking the house into his own hands, gives her entertainment for her,
leaving to her no responsibility but the payment of the bills; and if
Mr. Bogus does not quarrel with them, we know no reason why any one else
should; and I think Mrs. Bogus merits well of the republic, for doing
what she can do towards the hospitalities of the season. I'm sure I
never cursed her in my heart, even when her strong coffee has held mine
eyes open till morning, and her superlative lobster-salads have given me
the very darkest views of human life that ever dyspepsia and east wind
could engender. Mrs. Bogus is the Eve who offers the apple; but, after
all, I am the foolish Adam who take and eat what I know is going to hurt
me, and I am too gallant to visit my sins on the head of my too obliging
tempter. In country places in particular, where little is going on and
life is apt to stagnate, a good, large, generous party, which brings the
whole neighborhood into one house to have a jolly time, to eat, drink,
and be merry, is really quite a work of love and mercy. People see one
another in their best clothes, and that is something; the elders
exchange all manner of simple pleasantries and civilities, and talk over
their domestic affairs, while the young people flirt, in that wholesome
manner which is one of the safest of youthful follies. A country party,
in fact, may be set down as a work of benevolence, and the money
expended thereon fairly charged to the account of the great cause of
peace and good-will on earth."
"But don't you think," said my wife, "that, if the charge of providing
the entertainment were less laborious, these gatherings could be more
frequent? You see, if a woman feels that she must have five kinds of
cake, and six kinds of preserves, and even ice-cream and jellies in a
region where no confectioner comes in to abbreviate her labors, she will
sit with closed doors, and do nothing towards the general exchange of
life, because she cannot do as much as Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Parsons. If
the idea of meeting together had some other focal point than eating, I
think there would be more social feeling. It might be a musical reunion,
where the various young people of a circle agreed to furnish each a song
or an instrumental performance. It might be an impromptu charade party,
bringing out something of that taste in arrangement of costume, and
capacity for dramatic effect, of which there is more latent in society
than we think. It might be the reading of articles in prose and poetry
furnished to a common paper or portfolio, which would awaken an
abundance of interest and speculation on the authorship, or it might be
dramatic readings and recitations. Any or all of these pastimes might
make an evening so entertaining that a simple cup of tea and a plate of
cake or biscuit would be all the refreshment needed."
"We may with advantage steal a leaf now and then from some foreign
book," said I. "In France and Italy, families have their peculiar days
set apart for the reception of friends at their own houses. The whole
house is put upon a footing of hospitality and invitation, and the whole
mind is given to receiving the various friends. In the evening the
_salon_ is filled. The guests, coming from week to week, for years,
become in time friends; the resort has the charm of a home circle; there
are certain faces that you are always sure to meet there. A lady once
said to me of a certain gentleman and lady whom she missed from her
circle, 'They have been at our house every Wednesday evening for twenty
years.' It seems to me that this frequency of meeting is the great
secret of agreeable society. One sees, in our American life, abundance
of people who are everything that is charming and cultivated, but one
never sees enough of them. One meets them at some quiet reunion, passes
a delightful hour, thinks how charming they are, and wishes one could
see more of them. But the pleasant meeting is like the encounter of two
ships in mid-ocean away we sail, each on his respective course, to see
each other no more till the pleasant remembrance has died away. Yet were
there some quiet, home-like resort where we might turn in to renew from
time to time the pleasant intercourse, to continue the last
conversation, and to compare anew our readings and our experiences, the
pleasant hour of liking would ripen into a warm friendship.
"But in order that this may be made possible and practicable, the utmost
simplicity of entertainment must prevail. In a French _salon_, all is,
to the last degree, informal. The _bouilloire_, the French tea-kettle,
is often tended by one of the gentlemen, who aids his fair neighbors in
the mysteries of tea-making. One nymph is always to be found at the
table dispensing tea and talk; and a basket of simple biscuit and cakes,
offered by another, is all the further repast. The teacups and
cake-basket are a real addition to the scene, because they cause a
little lively social bustle, a little chatter and motion,--always of
advantage in breaking up stiffness, and giving occasion for those
graceful, airy nothings that answer so good a purpose in facilitating
acquaintance.
"Nothing can be more charming than the description which Edmond About
gives, in his novel of 'Tolla,' of the reception evenings of an old
noble Roman family,--the spirit of repose and quietude through all the
apartments,--the ease of coming and going,--the perfect homelike spirit
in which the guests settle themselves to any employment of the hour that
best suits them,--some to lively chat, some to dreamy, silent lounging,
some to a game, others, in a distant apartment, to music, and others
still to a promenade along the terraces.
"One is often in a state of mind and nerves which indisposes for the
effort of active conversation; one wishes to rest, to observe, to be
amused without an effort; and a mansion which opens wide its hospitable
arms, and offers itself to you as a sort of home, where you may rest,
and do just as the humor suits you, is a perfect godsend at such times.
You are at home there, your ways are understood, you can do as you
please,--come early or late, be brilliant or dull,--you are always
welcome. If you can do nothing for the social whole to-night, it matters
not. There are many more nights to come in the future, and you are
entertained on trust, without a challenge.
"I have one friend,--a man of genius, subject to the ebbs and flows of
animal spirits which attend that organization. Of general society he has
a nervous horror. A regular dinner or evening party is to him a terror,
an impossibility; but there is a quiet parlor where stands a much-worn
old sofa, and it is his delight to enter without knocking, and be found
lying with half-shut eyes on this friendly couch, while the family life
goes on around him without a question. Nobody is to mind him, to tease
him with inquiries or salutations. If he will, he breaks into the stream
of conversation, and sometimes, rousing up from one of these dreamy
trances, finds himself, ere he or they know how, in the mood for free
and friendly talk. People often wonder, 'How do you catch So-and-so? He
is so shy! I have invited and invited, and he never comes.' We never
invite, and he comes. We take no note of his coming or his going; we do
not startle his entrance with acclamation, nor clog his departure with
expostulation; it is fully understood that with us he shall do just as
he chooses; and so he chooses to do much that we like.