Manners and Social Usages

by M. E. W. Sherwood

Les Drapeaux is a favorite figure. Five or six duplicate sets of small flags of national or fancy devices must be in readiness. The leader takes a flag of each pattern, and his partner takes the duplicate. They perform a tour de valse. The conductor then presents his flags to five or six ladies, and his partner presents the corresponding flags to as many gentlemen. The gentlemen then seek the ladies having the duplicates, and with them perform a tour de valse, waving the flags as they dance. Repeated by all the couples.

Les Bouquets brings in the favors. A number of small bouquets and boutonnieres are placed upon a table or in a basket. The first couple perform a tour de valse; they then separate. The gentleman takes a bouquet, and the lady a boutonniere. They now select new partners, to whom they present the bouquet and boutonniere, the lady attaching the boutonniere to the gentleman's coat. They perform a tour de valse with their new partners. Repeated by all the couples. Other favors are frequently substituted for bouquets and boutonnieres, such as rosettes, miniature flags, artificial butterflies, badges, sashes, bonbons, little bells (the latter being attached to small pieces of ribbon and pinned to the coat or dress), scarf-pins, bangles, fans, caps, imitation antique coins, breastpins, lace pins, lockets; and even gifts of great value, such as shawls, scarfs, vases, picture-frames, writing-desks, and chairs (represented, of course, by tickets) have been this winter introduced in the german. But the cheap, light, fantastic things are the best, and contribute more to the amusement of the company.

Some of the figures of the German border on the romp. One of these is called La Corde. A rope is stretched by the leading couple across the room, and the gentlemen jump over it to reach their partners. Much amusement is occasioned by the tripping of gentlemen who are thrown by the intentional raising of the rope. After all have reached their partners they perform a tour de valse, and regain their seats. This is a figure not to be commended. Still less is the figure called Les Masques. The gentlemen put on masques resembling "Bully Bottom" and other grotesque faces and heads of animals. They raise these heads above a screen, the ladies choosing partners without knowing them; the gentlemen remain en masque until the termination of the tour de valse. This figure was danced at Delmonico's and at the Brunswick last winter, and the mammas complained that the fun grew rather too fast and furious. Les Rubans is a very pretty figure. Six ribbons, each about a yard in length, and of various colors, are attached to one end of a stick about twenty-four inches in length, also a duplicate set of ribbons, attached to another stick, must be in readiness. The first couple perform a tour de valse, then separate; the gentleman takes one set of ribbons, and stops successively in front of the ladies whom he desires to select to take part in the figure; each of these ladies rises and takes hold of the loose end of the ribbon; the first lady takes the other set of ribbons, bringing forward the six gentlemen in the same manner. The first couple conduct the ladies and gentlemen towards each other, and each gentleman dances with the lady holding the ribbon duplicate of his own; the first gentleman dances with his partner.

We might go on indefinitely with these figures, but have no more space. The position of a dancer should be learned with the aid of a teacher. The upper part of the body should be quiet; the head held in a natural position, neither turned to one side nor the other; the eyes neither cast down nor up. The gentleman should put his arm firmly around a lady's waist, not holding her too close, but firmly holding her right hand with his left one; the lady turns the palm of her right hand downward; her right arm should be nearly straight, but not stiff. The gentleman's left arm should be slightly bent, his elbow inclined slightly backward. It is very inelegant, however—indeed, vulgar—to place the joined hands against the gentleman's side or hip; they should be kept clear of the body. The step should be in unison; if the gentleman bends his right elbow too much, he draws the lady's left shoulder against his right, thereby drawing the lady too close. The gentleman's right shoulder and the lady's left should be as far apart as the other shoulders. If a gentleman does not hold his partner properly, thereby causing her either to struggle to be free or else to dance wildly for want of proper support, if he permits himself and partner to collide with other couples, he cannot be considered a good dancer.

CHAPTER XVII. LETTERS AND LETTER-WRITING.

The person who can write a graceful note is always spoken of with phrases of commendation. The epistolary art is said to be especially feminine, and the novelists and essayists are full of compliments to the sex, which is alternately praised and objurgated, as man feels well or ill. Bulwer says: "A woman is the genius of epistolary communication. Even men write better to a woman than to one of their own sex. No doubt they conjure up, while writing, the loving, listening face, the tender, pardoning heart, the ready tear of sympathy, and passionate confidences of heart and brain flow rapidly from the pen." But there is no such thing now as an "epistolary style." Our immediate ancestors wrote better and longer letters than we do. They covered three pages of large letter-paper with crow-quill handwriting, folded the paper neatly, tucked one edge beneath the other (for there were no envelopes), and then sealed it with a wafer or with sealing-wax. To send one of these epistles was expensive—twenty-five cents from New York to Boston. However, the electric telegraph and cheap postage and postal-cards may have been said, in a way, to have ruined correspondence in the old sense; lovers and fond mothers doubtless still write long letters, but the business of the letter-writer proper is at an end. The writing of notes has, however, correspondingly increased; and the last ten years have seen a profuse introduction of emblazoned crest and cipher, pictorial design, and elaborate monogram in the corners of ordinary note-paper. The old illuminated missal of the monks, the fancy of the Japanese, the ever-ready taste of the French, all have been exhausted to satisfy that always hungry caprice which calls for something new.

The frequency with which notes upon business and pleasure must fly across a city and a continent has done away, also, with the sealing-wax, whose definite, red, clear, oval was a fixture with our grandfathers, and which is still the only elegant, formal, and ceremonious way acknowledged in England, of sealing a letter.

There were, however, serious objections to the use of wax in this country, which were discovered during the early voyages to California. The intense heat of the Isthmus of Panama melted the wax, and letters were irretrievably glued together, to the loss of the address and the confusion of the postmaster. So the glued envelope—common, cheap, and necessary—became the almost prevailing fashion for all notes as well as letters.

The taste for colored note-paper with flowers in the corner was common among the belles of thirty years ago—the "rose-colored and scented billet-doux" is often referred to in the novels of that period. But colored note-paper fell into disuse long ago, and for the last few years we have not seen the heavy tints. A few pale greens, grays, blues, and lilacs have, indeed, found a place in fashionable stationery, and a deep coffee-colored, heavy paper had a little run about three years ago; but at the present moment no color that is appreciable is considered stylish, unless it be cru, which is only a creamy white.

A long truce is at last bidden to the fanciful, emblazoned, and colored monogram; the crest and cipher are laid on the shelf, and ladies have simply the address of their city residence, or the name of their country place, printed in one corner (generally in color), or, latest device of fashion, a fac-simile of their initials, carefully engraved, and dashed across the corner of the note-paper. The day of the week, also copied from their own handwriting, is often impressed upon the square cards now so much in use for short notes, or on the note-paper.