MRS. BROWN
requests the pleasure of
MR. and MRS. CAMPBELL'S company.
R. S. V. P.
Perhaps the latter is better form. It is more respectful. The "At
Home" can be used for large and informal receptions, where an
individual acceptance is not required.
Garden parties are becoming very fashionable at watering-places, in
rural cities, and at country houses which are accessible to a town. No
doubt the garden party is a troublesome affair in a climate so
capricious as ours. The hostess has to be prepared for a sudden
shower, and to have two tables of refreshments. The effort to give the
out-of-door plays in this country, as in England, has often been
frustrated by a sudden shower, as at Mrs. Stevens' palace at Castle
Point. It is curious that they can and do give them in England, where
it always rains. However, these entertainments and hunting remain
rather as visitors than as old and recognized institutions.
Americans all dance well, and are always glad to dance. Whether it be
assembly, hunt ball, or private party, the German cotillion finishes
the bail. It is an allegory of society in its complicated and
bewildering complications, its winding and unwinding of the tangled
chain.
In every large city a set arises whose aim is to be exclusive.
Sometimes this privilege seems to be pushed too far. Often one is
astonished at the black sheep who leap into the well-defended
enclosures. In London, formerly, an autocratic set of ladies, well
known as Almacks, turned out the Duke of Wellington because he came in
a black cravat. In our republican country perpetual Almacks arise,
offensive and defensive,--a state of things which has its advantages
and disadvantages. It keeps up an interest in society. It is like the
fire in the engine: it makes the train move, even if it sends out
smoke and cinders which get into people's eyes and make them weep. It
is a part of the inevitable friction which accompanies the best
machinery; and if they have patience, those who are left out one
winter will be the inside aristocrats of the next, and can leave
somebody else out.
Quadrilles, the Lancers, and occasionally a Virginia Reel, are
introduced to make the modern ball more interesting, and enable people
who cannot bear the whirl of the waltz to dance. The elderly can dance
a quadrille without loss of breath or dignity. Indeed, the Americans
are the only people who relegate the dance to the young alone. In
Europe the old gray-head, the old mustache, leads the German.
Ambassadors and generals, princes and potentates, go spinning around
with gray-haired ladies until they are seventy. Grandmothers dance
with their grandsons. Socrates learned to dance. In Europe it is the
elderly woman who receives the most flattering invitations to lead
the German. An ambassadress of fifty would be very much astonished if
the prince did not ask her to dance.
The saltatory art is like the flight of a butterfly,--hard to
describe, impossible to follow. The _valse à deux temps_ keeps its
precedence in Europe as the favourite measure, varied with galop,
polka, and polka mazourka. We add, in America, Dancing in the Barn,
which is really a Spanish dance.
The _Pavanne_ is worthy of study, and the _Minuet de la Cour_ is a
stately and beautiful thing, quite worthy of being learned, if it only
teaches our women how to make a courtesy.
Each leader of the German is a potentate; he leads his troops through
new evolutions, and into combinations so vast, varied, and changeful
that it is impossible to do more than hint at them.
The proper name for a private ball is "a dance." In London one never
talks of balls; it is always "a dance." Although supper is served
generally at a buffet, yet some leaders, with large houses, are
introducing little tables, which are more agreeable, but infinitely
inconvenient. The comfort, however, of being able to sit while eating,
and the fact that a party of four or six may enjoy their supper
together would certainly determine the question as to its
agreeableness. This is a London fashion, one set succeeding another at
the same table. It can only be carried out, however, in a very large
house or public place. The ball suppers in New York--indeed, all over
America--are very "gorgeous feeds" compared with those one sees in
Europe. The profusion of flowers, the hot oysters, boned turkey,
terrapin, and canvas-back duck, the salmon, the game patties, salads,
ices, jellies, and creams, all crowded in, sweetbreads and green peas,
_filet de boeuf_, constant cups of _bouillon_,--one feels Carlyle's
internal rat gnawing as one reads of them,--the champagne, the punch,
the fine glass, choice china, the drapery of German looms, the Queen
Anne silver, the porcelain of Sèvres and Dresden, the beauty of the
women, the smart dressing, make the ball supper an elegant, an
amazing, a princely sort of sight, saving that princes do not give
such feasts,--only Americans.