"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 creped 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, 'Oh, very!' 'Certainly!' 'How
extraordinary!' 'So happy to,' etc. 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 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 indigestion
from the _melange_ 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 alternative 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 skillfully 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 rudest 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 naive
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 feeling 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 social
feelings--is, of itself, the entertainment, and that being together is
the pleasure.
"Madame Rocamier 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 _pate de foie 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 home-like 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.
"The sum of this whole doctrine of society is, that we are to try the
value of all modes and forms of social entertainment by their effect
in producing real acquaintance and real friendship and good will. The
first and rudest form of seeking this is by a great promiscuous party,
which simply effects this,--that people at least see each other on the
outside, and eat together. Next come all those various forms of
reunion in which the entertainment consists of something higher than
staring and eating,--some exercise of the faculties of the guests in
music, acting, recitation, reading, etc.; and these are a great
advance, because they show people what is in them, and thus lay a
foundation for a more intelligent appreciation and acquaintance. These
are the best substitute for the expense, show, and trouble of large
parties. They are in their nature more refining and intellectual. It
is astonishing, when people really put together, in some one club or
association, all the different talents for pleasing possessed by
different persons, how clever a circle may be gathered,--in the least
promising neighborhood. A club of ladies in one of our cities has had
quite a brilliant success. It is held every fortnight at the houses of
the members, according to alphabetical sequence. The lady who receives
has charge of arranging what the entertainment shall be,--whether
charade, tableau, reading, recitation, or music; and the interest is
much increased by the individual taste shown in the choice of the
diversion and the variety which thence follows.
"In the summertime, in the country, open-air reunions are charming
forms of social entertainment. Croquet parties, which bring young
people together by daylight for a healthy exercise, and end with a
moderate share of the evening, are a very desirable amusement. What
are called 'lawn teas' are finding great favor in England and some
parts of our country. They are simply an early tea enjoyed in a sort
of picnic style in the grounds about the house. Such an entertainment
enables one to receive a great many at a time, without crowding, and,
being in its very idea rustic and informal, can be arranged with very
little expense or trouble. With the addition of lanterns in the trees
and a little music, this entertainment may be carried on far into the
evening with a very pretty effect.
"As to dancing, I have this much to say of it. Either our houses must
be all built over and made larger, or female crinolines must be made
smaller, or dancing must continue as it now is, the most absurd and
ungraceful of all attempts at amusement. The effort to execute round
dances in the limits of modern houses, in the prevailing style of
dress, can only lead to developments more startling than agreeable.
Dancing in the open air, on the shaven green of lawns, is a pretty and
graceful exercise, and there only can full sweep be allowed for the
present feminine toilet.
"The English breakfast is an institution growing in favor here, and
rightfully, too; for a party of fresh, good-natured, well-dressed
people, assembled at breakfast on a summer morning, is as nearly
perfect a form of reunion as can be devised. All are in full strength
from their night's rest; the hour is fresh and lovely, and they are in
condition to give each other the very cream of their thoughts, the
first keen sparkle of the uncorked nervous system. The only drawback
is that, in our busy American life, the most desirable gentlemen often
cannot spare their morning hours. Breakfast parties presuppose a
condition of leisure; but when they can be compassed, they are
perhaps the most perfectly enjoyable of entertainments."
"Well," said Marianne, "I begin to waver about my party. I don't know,
after all, but the desire of paying off social debts prompted the
idea; perhaps we might try some of the agreeable things suggested.
But, dear me! there's the baby. We'll finish the talk some other
time."