Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so fine a sight.
SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
The "London Times" says that the present season has seen "driving jump
to a great height of favour amongst fashionable women."
It is a curious expression, but enlightens us as to the liberty which
even so great an authority takes with our common language. There is no
doubt of the fact that the pony phaeton and the pair of ponies are
becoming a great necessity to an energetic woman. The little pony and
the Ralli cart, as a ladies' pastime, is a familiar figure in the
season at Newport, at a thousand country places, at the seaside, in
our own Central Park, and all through the West and South.
It has been much more the custom for ladies in the West and South to
drive themselves, than for those at the North; consequently they drive
better. Only those who know how to drive well ought ever to attempt
it, for they not only endanger their own lives, but a dozen other
lives. Whoever has seen a runaway carriage strike another vehicle, and
has beheld the breaking up, can realize for the first time the
tremendous force of an object in motion. The little Ralli cart can
become a battering-ram of prodigious force.
No form of recreation is so useful and so becoming as horseback
exercise. No English woman looks so well as when turned out for
out-of-door exercise. And our American women, who buy their habits and
hats in London, are getting to have the same _chic_. Indeed, so
immensely superior is the London habit considered, that the French
circus-women who ride in the Bois, making so great a sensation, go
over to London to have their habits made, and thus return the
compliment which English ladies pay to Paris, in having all their
dinner gowns and tea gowns made there. Perhaps disliking this sort of
copy, the Englishwomen are becoming careless of their appearance on
horseback, and are coming out in a straw hat, a covert coat, and a
cotton skirt.
The soft felt hat has long been a favourite on the Continent, at
watering-places for the English; and it is much easier for the head.
Still, in case of a fall it does not save the head like a hard,
masculine hat.
We have not yet, as a nation, taken to cycling for women; but many
Englishwomen go all over the globe on a tricycle. A husband and wife
are often seen on a tricycle near London, and women who lead sedentary
lives, in offices and schools, enjoy many of their Saturday afternoons
in this way.
Boating needs to be cultivated in America. It is a superb exercise for
developing a good figure; and to manage a punt has become a common
accomplishment for the riverside girls. Ladies have regattas on the
Thames.
Fencing, which many actresses learn, is a very admirable process for
developing the figure. The young Princesses of Wales are adepts in
this. It requires an outfit consisting of a dainty tunic reaching to
the knees, a fencing-jacket of soft leather with tight sleeves,
gauntlet gloves, a mask, a pair of foils, and costing about fifteen
dollars.
American women as a rule are not fond of walking. There must be
something in the nature of an attraction or a duty to rouse our
delicate girls to walk. They will not do it for their health alone.
Gymnastic teaching is, however, giving them more strength, and it
would be well if in every family of daughters there were some
calisthenic training, to develop the muscles, and to induce a more
graceful walk.
To teach a girl to swim is almost a duty, and such splendid physical
exercises will have a great influence over that nervous distress which
our climate produces with its over-fulness of oxygen.
If girls do not like to walk, they all like to dance, and it is not
intended as a pun when we mention that "a great jump" has been made
back to the old-fashioned dancing, in which freedom of movement is
allowed. Those who saw Mary Anderson's matchless grace in the Winter's
Tale all tried to go and dance like her, and to see Ellen Terry's
spring, as the pretty Olivia, teaches one how entirely beautiful is
this strong command of one's muscles. From the German cotillion, back
to the Virginia reel, is indeed a bound.
Our grandfathers knew how to dance. We are fast getting back to them.
The traditions of Taglioni still lingered fifty years ago. The
earliest dancing-masters were Frenchmen, and our ancestors were taught
to _pirouette_ as did Vestris when he was so obliging as to say after
a royal command, "The house of Vestris has always danced for that of
Bourbon."
The galop has, during the long langour of the dance, alone held its
own, in the matter of jollity. The glide waltz, the redowa, the
stately minuet, give only the slow and graceful motions. The galop has
always been a great favourite with the Swedes, Danes, and Russians,
while the redowa reminds one of the graceful Viennese who dance it so
well. The mazourka, danced to wild Polish music, is a poetical and
active affair.
The introduction of Hungarian bands and Hungarian music is another
reason why dancing has become a "hop, skip and a bound," without
losing dignity or grace. Activity need not be vulgar.
The German cotillion, born many years ago at Vienna to meet the
requirements of court etiquette, is still the fashionable dance with
which the ball closes. Its favours, beginning with flowers and ribbons
and bits of tinsel, have now ripened into fans, bracelets, gold
scarf-pins and pencil-cases, and many things more expensive. Favours
may cost five thousand dollars for a fashionable ball, or dance, as
they say in London.
The German is a dance of infinite variety, and to lead it requires a
man of head. One such leader, who can construct new figures, becomes a
power in society. The waltz, galop, redowa, and polka step can all be
utilized in it. There is a slow walk in the quadrille figure, a
stately march, the bows and courtesies of the old minuet, and above
all, the _tour de valse_, which is the means of locomotion from place
to place. The changeful exigencies of the various figures lead the
forty or fifty, or the two hundred to meet, exchange greetings, dance
with each other, and change their geographical position many times.
Indeed no army goes through more evolutions.
A pretty figure is _La Corbeille, l'Anneau, et la Fleur_. The first
couple performs a _tour de valse_, after which the gentleman presents
the lady with a basket, containing a ring and a flower, then resumes
his seat. The lady presents the ring to one gentleman, the flower to
another, and the basket to the third. The gentleman to whom she
presents the ring selects a partner for himself, the gentleman who
receives the flower dances with the lady who presents it, while the
other gentleman holds the basket in his hand and dances alone.
The kaleidoscope is one of the prettiest figures. The four couples
perform a _tour de valse_, then form as for a quadrille; the next four
couples in order take positions behind the first four couples, each of
the latter couples facing the same as the couples in front. At a
signal from the leader, the ladies of the inner couples cross right
hands, move entirely round and turn into places by giving left hands
to their partners. At the same time the outer couples waltz half round
to opposite places. At another signal the inner couples waltz entirely
round, and finish facing outward. At the same time the outer couples
_chassent croisé_ and turn at corners with right hands, then
_dechassent_ and turn partners with left hands. Valse _générale_ with
_vis à vis_.
_La Cavalier Trompé_ is another favourite figure. Five or six couples
perform a _tour de valse_. They afterwards place themselves in ranks
of two, one couple behind the other. The lady of the first gentleman
leaves him and seeks a gentleman of another column. While this is
going on the first gentleman must not look behind him. The first lady
and the gentleman whom she has selected separate and advance on
tip-toe on each side of the column, in order to deceive the gentleman
at the head, and endeavour to join each other for a waltz. If the
first gentleman is fortunate enough to seize his lady, he leads off in
a waltz; if not, he must remain at his post until he is able to take a
lady. The last gentleman remaining dances with the last lady.
To give a German in a private house, a lady has all the furniture
removed from her parlours, the floor covered with crash over the
carpet, and a set of folding-chairs for the couples to sit in. A bare
wooden floor is preferable to the carpet and crash.
It is considered that all taking part in a German are introduced to
one another, and on no condition whatever must a lady, so long as she
remains in the German, refuse to speak or to dance with any gentleman
whom she may chance to receive as a partner. Every American should
learn that he can speak to any one whom he meets at a friend's house.
The roof is an introduction, and, for the purpose of making his
hostess comfortable, the guest should, at dinner-party and dance,
speak to his next neighbour.
The laws of the German are so strict, and to many so tiresome, that a
good many parties have abjured it, and merely dance the round dances,
the lancers and quadrilles, winding up with the Sir Roger de Coverley
or the Virginia Reel.
The leader of the German must have a comprehensive glance, a quick ear
and eye, and a great belief in himself. General Edward Ferrero, who
made a good general, declared that he owed all his success in war to
his training as a dancing-master. With all other qualities, the leader
of the German must have tact. It is no easy matter to get two hundred
people into all sorts of combinations and mazes and then to get them
out again, to offend nobody, and to produce that elegant kaleidoscope
called the German.
The term _tour de valse_ is used technically, meaning that the couple
or couples performing it execute the round dance designated by the
leader once round the room. Should the room be small, they make a
second tour. After the introductory _tour de valse_ care must be taken
by those who perform it not to select ladies and gentlemen who are on
the floor, but from among those who are seated. When the leader claps
his hands to warn those who are prolonging the valse, they must
immediately cease dancing.
The favours for the German are often fans, and this time-honoured,
historic article grows in beauty and expense every day. And what
various memories come in with the fan! It was created in primeval
ages. The Egyptian ladies had fans of lotus leaves; and lately a
breakfast was given all in Egyptian fashion, except the eating. The
Roman ladies carried immense fans of peacocks' feathers. They did not
open and shut like ours, opening and shutting being a modern
invention. The _flabilliferaor_ or fan-bearer, was some young
attendant, generally female, whose common business it was to carry her
mistress's fan. There is a Pompeian painting of Cupid as the
fan-bearer of Ariadne, lamenting her desertion by Theseus. In Queen
Elizabeth's day the fan was usually made of feathers, like that still
used in the East. The handle was richly ornamented and set with
stones. A fashionable lady was never without her fan, which was held
to her girdle by a jewelled chain. That fashion, with the large
feathers, has returned in our day. Queen Elizabeth dropped a
silver-handled fan into the moat at Arnstead Hall, which occasioned
many madrigals. Sir Francis Drake presented to his royal mistress a
fan of feathers, white and red, enamelled with a half-moon of
mother-of-pearl. Poor Leicester gave her, as his New Year's gift in
1574, a fan of white feathers set in a handle of gold, adorned on one
side with two very fair emeralds, and fully garnished with rubies and
diamonds, and on each side a white bear,--his cognizance,--and two
pearls hanging, a lion rampant and a white, muzzled bear at his foot.
Just before Christmas in 1595 Elizabeth went to Kew, and dined at my
Lord Keeper's house, and there was handed her a fine fan with a handle
garnished with diamonds.
Fans in Shakspeare's time seem to have been composed of ostrich and
other feathers, fastened to handles. Gentlemen carried fans in those
days, and in one of the later figures of the German they now carry
fans. According to an old manuscript in the Ashmolean Museum, Sir
Edward Cole rode the circuit with a prodigious fan, which had a long
stick with which he corrected his daughters. Let us hope that that
custom will not be reintroduced.
The vellum fans painted by Watteau, and the lovely fans of Spain
enriched with jewels are rather too expensive for favours for the
German; one very rich entertainer gave away tortoise-shell fans with
jewelled sticks, two years ago, at Delmonico's. Fans of silk,
egg-shaped, and painted with birds, were used for an Easter German.
Ribbons were used for a cotillon dinner with very good effect. "From
the chandelier in the centre of the dining room," we read, "depended
twenty scarfs of grosgrain ribbon, each three and a half yards long
and nine inches wide, heavily fringed and richly adorned at both ends
with paintings of flowers and foliage. These scarfs were so arranged
that an end of each came down to the place one of the ladies was to
occupy at the table, and care was taken in their selection to have
colours harmonizing with the ladies' dress and complexion."
These cotillion dinners have been a pretty fashion for two or three
winters, as they enable four or five young hostesses to each give a
dinner, the whole four to meet with their guests at one house for a
small German, after the dinner. Each hostess compares her list with
that of her neighbour, that there shall be no confusion. It is
believed that this device was the invention of the incomparable Mr.
McAllister, to whom society owes a great deal. Fashionable society
like the German must have a leader, some one who will take trouble,
and think out these elaborate details. Nowhere in Europe is so much
pains taken about such details as with us.
The _menus_ of these cotillion dinners are often water-colour
paintings, worthy of preservation; sometimes a scene from one of
Shakspeare's plays, sometimes a copy of some famous French
picture,--in either case something delightfully artistic.
For a supper after a dance the dishes are placed on the table, and it
is served _en buffet_; but for a sit-down supper, served at little
tables, the service should be exactly like a dinner except that there
is no soup or fish.
The manner of using flowers in America at such entertainments is
simply bewildering. A climbing rose will seem to be going everywhere
over an invisible trellis; delicate green vines will depend from the
chandelier, dropping roses; roses cover the entire table-cloth; or
perhaps the flowers are massed, all of yellow, or of white, or red, or
pink.
Nothing could exceed the magnificence of the great baskets of white
and yellow chrysanthemums, roses, violets, and carnations, at a
breakfast given to the Comte de Paris, at Delmonico's on October 20th,
and at the subsequent dinner given him by his brother officers of the
Army of the Potomac. His royal arms were in white flowers, the _fleur
de lis_ of Joan of Arc, on a blue ground of flowers. Jacqueminot Roses
went up and down the table, with the words "Grand Army of the Potomac"
in white flowers.
The orchid, that most regal and expensive of all flowers, a single
specimen often costing many dollars, was used by a lady to make an
imitation fire, the wood, the flames, and all consisting of flowers
placed in a most artistic chimney-piece.
Indeed, the cost of the cut flowers used in New York in one winter for
entertaining is said to be five millions of dollars. Orchids have this
advantage over other flowers--they have no scent; and that in a mixed
company and a hot room is an advantage, for some people cannot bear
even the perfume of a rose.
A large lump of ice, with flowers trained over it, is a delightfully
refreshing adornment for a hot ballroom. In grand party decorations,
like one given by the Prince of Wales to the Czarina of Russia, ten
tons of ice were used as an ornamental rockery. In smaller rooms the
glacier can be cut out and its base hidden in a tub, lights put behind
it and flowers and green vines draped over it. The effect is magical.
The flowers are kept fresh, the white column looks always well, and
the coolness it diffuses is delicious. It might, by way of contrast
to the Dark Continent, be a complimentary decoration for a supper to
be given to Mr. Stanley, to ornament the ballroom with Arctic
bowlders, around which should be hung the tropical flowers and vines
of Africa.