THE DANCE.
This is certainly a most important subject, and one which can not be
lightly treated. I have thought it better to use exclusively the New
York forms, which differ somewhat from the English, the French, and
continental, as well as from a certain code of etiquette prevailing in
other American cities.
I shall therefore, as we have no State balls or ceremonials of that
character, consider public assemblages, a few of which are patronized by
society in New York and elsewhere.
Of absolutely public balls the only one which society attends is the
Charity. In New York this has fallen somewhat in fashionable popularity,
although efforts are being made to revive it. In Chicago and in other
cities it is still a very fashionable function. It is there well
patronized and is considered smart. Tickets to the Charity are sold by
a number of lady patronesses, and you are apt to receive one or several
from some of them, if you are a rich young man, with a request to
purchase. If the note states that you are expected to be a guest you are
simply to answer it, as you would any other invitation, and certainly
not to inclose any money. Patronesses frequently are named because it is
expected that they will purchase quite a number of tickets. And here let
me give a useful hint. In sending money to this and for charitable
entertainments in general, always do it by check; never inclose bills.
If you must use cash, keep it for your small tradespeople.
Everything may be said to have its price at a Charity Ball. Supper is
sometimes included with the ticket. The repast is usually rather poor,
but then you must remember it is for charity. Perhaps you will be asked
some time in advance by the patronesses to be one in the "grand march."
The "grand march" proper is a form of exhibition long since relegated to
balls of the "Tough Boys' Coterie" and other assemblages of the same
class. But it has survived, in place of a lancers or quadrille of honor,
at the Charity Ball, and we have either to go through with it or watch
it from the boxes with Christian patience. If you are to take part, I
would advise you to present yourself at the hall or opera house about
nine o'clock. The floor manager will do the rest. You are to offer your
left arm to the lady you are taking out, and you march around the place
in regular line, sometimes once, sometimes twice, and the agony is over.
The company assembled does not join in this ceremony, and the formation
of figures and countermarches is an affair in vogue at balls of a
different class, which I should imagine none of my readers would
patronize or even "hear tell of," except through the newspapers.
The Inauguration Ball in Washington, as well as the New Years'
receptions at the different embassies' and secretaries' houses, are
public functions to which the populace get admittance. They are crushes
of the worst description, and at many of them refreshments are served.
Except to make an obeisance to your distinguished host and hostess--if
to the President, shaking hands with him--no other ceremony is needed.
At Newport and at other watering places there are during the season
semipublic dances at the Casino. Any one who subscribes to that place of
amusement is entitled to all the social privileges. The tickets can be
obtained from the secretary or his agent.
In every city there is an assembly or dancing organization on the lines
of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in New York. This is in itself not
original with the "Four Hundred"--vulgar term!--but was copied from the
St. Cecilia, the most exclusive affair of the kind in aristocratic
Charleston, where it has existed since the days of the Revolution. The
assemblies proper in New York are called the Matriarchs. The
arrangements are in the hands of a number of fashionable women instead
of men. The plan of all these organizations is practically the same. In
order to make matters easy and to pilot my reader through the
intricacies of a fashionable ball, I will suppose that he is a stranger
in New York, with some smart friends, and that he is going either to the
Patriarchs' or to the Assembly. The rules laid down will hold good for
other cities. Your first intimation may be while visiting at the house
of one of the patrons or patronesses, when your hostess or host may ask
you if you would like to go to the Assembly or the Patriarchs'. If you
have no other engagement for that evening--and I think it would be
policy for you to make others subservient to this--you should reply
that you would be delighted to do so. Your host or hostess will then say
that he or she will send you a ticket. This may be one way, or you may
receive a note asking if you are free for that particular date, whether
"would you like to go to the Assembly?" etc., or again, you might simply
receive a note with a ticket. In any one of these cases, just as soon as
you receive the ticket you must answer your correspondent immediately,
accepting, or, if you can not go, regretting and returning it. You must
remember that all tickets are personal and each Patriarch or each
patroness has only a certain number.
I would, if there were time between the date for the ball and the
reception of your ticket, call or leave cards personally on your hostess
or host for the evening, according to rules in a former chapter. I do
not believe this is considered necessary in New York, and perhaps some
people would think you were straining a point, but New York "society"
manners to-day are not all that could be desired.
The evening arrives. Balls and dances are theoretically supposed to
begin at ten o'clock. You can safely go a little after eleven. You will
be early enough. Your ticket is received, your hat and coat removed,
your hat check given, and you proceed to the ballroom.
It is almost needless for me to tell you how to dress for this occasion.
At dances of any kind, formal evening dress is required.
On entering the room, if it is at the Assembly, you will encounter a
line of patronesses. You should make a low, sweeping bow to them and, if
convenient, speak to your hostess, be it only a few words of greeting.
If not at that time, select a later hour in the evening. No one shakes
hands.
You look around to find your friends and acquaintances. At the
Patriarchs' the chaperons sit upon a raised platform, or dais, I might
call it, all together. Their charges, once away from them, are around
the rooms. In nearly all the cities, except New York, every guest is
provided with a dancing card, which makes the keeping of dancing
engagements a part of the festivity. New York is too large for such
things, and dancing cards have been relegated to the realms of innocuous
desuetude. However, if you are at a ball or a dance in another city
where they are used, your first duty would be to have your engagements
filled. You should remain with your partner after each dance until her
next cavalier appears.
New Yorkers are sensible, if only for this reason, for having banished
the dance card. It is hard for a man to tell a woman he must leave her,
but I think it is better by far to do so than to appear rude to your
succeeding partner. A woman who has so little regard for you and such
selfish consideration for herself does not deserve to be handled with
gloves. And yet it needs a heroic soul to abandon her in a crowded
ballroom, even if it is to lead her back to her chaperon.
In New York everything is simplified. There exist no such social
complications. Everybody is more or less grouped together, and you
generally know in which part of the room you are to find your friends.
You exchange greetings with the women you know, and if you wish to ask
one of them to dance, you say, "May I have the pleasure of this turn
with you?" or "Can I have a turn with you?" It is absolutely impossible
to keep dance engagements, and you are obliged, perhaps, to snatch a
dance whenever you can get it. After your turn you must always manage to
stop at about the point where you began. You will be sure to find your
partner's chaperon just at that place. There are two reasons for
this--one is that the man with whom your partner has engaged weeks, if
not months, before (one has to do this in New York) to dance the
cotillon has reserved his chairs there, and she has told many of her
friends just about in which part of the ballroom she may be found; and
another is that New York women, under all circumstances, keep a
distinctive place in a ballroom.
A gentleman never dances without gloves. He always puts them on before
entering the ballroom. A man should dance easily and gracefully, and
look as if he were enjoying himself. He should be careful about guiding
and not running into people. Swinging the hands is vulgar and unsightly.
The waltz seems to survive all other forms of dancing, but there is
every now and then a revival of the polka. Two steps and fancy dances
are the vogue at summer hotels, but not at smart functions.
The quadrille of to-day is the simple lancers, and some years ago it was
a silly fad to pretend not to remember the figures. A little life and
spirit are sometimes introduced in the lancers when the gathering is
small, and among intimate friends there is more or less occasion for it.
The barn dance has gone out of fashion entirely in America, but our
English cousins, especially those living in the country and in Suburbia,
are very fond of it. Balls frequently end with Sir Roger de Coverley,
the English form of the Virginia reel.
About two o'clock supper is announced, and this is done all over the
world, I believe, by the strains of the Priests' March in Norma. So it
was in my grandfather's day, and so it is to-day and was at the very
last Patriarchs', the very last Assembly, and the very last large ball
at Newport. Engagements for supper are made in New York weeks or even
months beforehand. You should settle this with your partner, and as
supper is served at tables of parties of four or six, an agreeable
quartette or sextette can be secured. Parties are never less than four,
and a girl who sups alone with a man, even at the Patriarchs', is
considered very fast, and by such impudent behavior would lose caste.
You should arrange with your partner, therefore, to be as near the
supper-room door as possible about the supper hour. There is always a
rush and a crush, and no tables are reserved except those for the
patronesses or the Patriarchs. Two of the party should get in early and
reserve the table and wait until the rest arrive. Ball suppers are
nearly all alike. Four or five courses, which commence with oysters,
are followed by bouillon, and then terrapin and birds, and salad and
ices, fruit and coffee. Three kinds of wine are served, and champagne
forms the chief. Many matrons even will not allow their daughters to go
to supper without being chaperoned, and so when you ask your partner she
will sometimes have her parents obtain the table. Should you be asked to
the table of one of the patronesses, you will have a partner provided
for you. Remember the first engagement should always be kept, and if a
patroness should honor you with such an invitation, and you have made
prior arrangements, you should at once explain by note your position,
which will be a sufficient excuse to your would-be hostess.
After supper the cotillon, or German, as it is sometimes called, is
danced.