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.
PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
A poor thing, my masters, not the real thing at all, a base imitation, but still a good enough mock-orange, if you cannot have the real thing.
Old Play.
Some of our opulent citizens in the West, particularly in that wondrous city Chicago, which is nearer to Aladdin's Lamp than anything else I have seen, have built private theatres in their palaces. This is taking time by the forelock, and arranging for a whole family of coming histrionic geniuses.
When all the arrangements for private theatricals must be improvised,—and, indeed, it is a greater achievement to play in a barn than on the best stage,—the following hints may prove serviceable.