diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/53391-h/53391-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53391-h/53391-h.htm | 6523 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 6523 deletions
diff --git a/old/53391-h/53391-h.htm b/old/53391-h/53391-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 3e9fcba..0000000 --- a/old/53391-h/53391-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6523 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Home Amusements, by M. E. W. Sherwood. - </title> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .75em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .75em; -} - -.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} - -.hanging p { - margin-left: 2em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%} - -hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} - -ul { - list-style-type: none; - text-align: left; -} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - -.spaced { padding-left: 2em; } -.pl { padding-left: 1em; } - - .tdr {text-align: right;} - .tdc {text-align: center;} -.tdpn { - text-align: right; - vertical-align: bottom; - padding-left: 2em; -} -.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ - /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; -} /* page numbers */ - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.left {text-align: left;} -.right {text-align: right;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.figright { - float: right; - clear: right; - margin-left: 1em; - margin-bottom: - 1em; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-right: 0; - padding: 0; - text-align: center; -} - -/* Footnotes */ -.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} - -.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} - -.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: small; - text-decoration: - none; -} - -/* Poetry */ -.poem { - display: inline-block; - text-align: left; -} - -.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} - -/* Transcriber's notes */ -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - .poem div.i0 {margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem div.i2 {margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem div.i22 {margin-left: 11em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem div.i4 {margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - -.ilb { display: inline-block; } -.longspace { - display: inline-block; - width: 2em; -} - -.large { font-size: large; } -.xlarge { font-size: x-large; } -.xxlarge { font-size: xx-large; } -.small { font-size: small; } - -.i26 { margin-left: 13em; } -.halfwidth { width: 50% } -.wd25 { width: 25em; } - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Home Amusements, by M. E. W. Sherwood - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Home Amusements - -Author: M. E. W. Sherwood - -Release Date: October 28, 2016 [EBook #53391] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOME AMUSEMENTS *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Paul Clark and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) Last Edit of Project Info - - - - - - -</pre> - -<h1>Home Amusements</h1> - -<h2><i>ADVERTISEMENTS.</i></h2> - -<div class="center"><div class="ilb"> -<div class="xxlarge smcap">Mitchell, Vance & Co.</div> -<div class="xlarge">836 & 838 BROADWAY,</div> -<div><div class="ilb halfwidth left">And 13th Street,</div><div class="ilb halfwidth right">NEW YORK,</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="center"><i>Offer an Unequaled Assortment of</i></p> - -<p class="center xxlarge">GAS FIXTURES,</p> - -<p class="center">IN CRYSTAL, GILT, BRONZE, AND DECORATIVE<br /> -PORCELAIN.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center xlarge"><span class="smcap">Fine Bronze and Marble Clocks.</span></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center"><span class="large">MODERATOR AND OTHER LAMPS,</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">In Bronze, Gilt, Porcelain, Cloisonné, etc.</span></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center large">Elegant in Styles and in Greatest Variety.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center"><i>A Cordial Invitation to all to examine our Stock.</i> -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center"><span class="xlarge">CHAS. E. BENTLEY,</span><br /> -(SUCCESSOR TO BENTLEY BROS.)<br /> -Manufacturer of<br /> -<span class="xlarge">DECORATIVE ART-NEEDLEWORK</span><br /> -In Crewel, Silk, and Floss.<br /> -<span class="large">NOVELTIES IN EMBROIDERIES,</span><br /> -With Work Commenced and Materials to Finish.<br /> -Perforating Machines, Stamping Patterns, etc., etc.</p> - -<p class="center large"><i>Wholesale, 39 & 41 EAST 13th ST.,</i><br /> -<i>Retail, 854 BROADWAY.</i> -</p> - -<div class="hanging"> - -<p>FULL LINE OF MATERIALS USED IN FANCY-WORK.</p> - -<p>ALL THE NEWEST STITCHES TAUGHT IN PRIVATE LESSONS BY THOROUGH -EXPERTS.</p> - -<p>STAMPING AND DESIGNING TO ORDER.</p></div> - -<p class="center"><i>Send 3 cents for Catalogue.</i> -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center xlarge">Gatherings from an Artist’s Portfolio.</p> - -<p class="center large">By JAMES E. FREEMAN.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<div class="center"><div class="ilb wd25"> -<div class="ilb halfwidth left"><i>One volume, 16mo.</i></div><div class="ilb halfwidth right"><i>Cloth $1.25.</i></div></div></div> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p>“The gifted American artist, Mr. James E. Freeman, who has for many -years been a resident of Rome, has brought together in this tasteful little -volume a number of sketches of the noted men of letters, painters, sculptors, -models, and other interesting personages whom he has had an opportunity to -study during the practice of his profession abroad. Anecdotes and reminiscences -of Thackeray, Hans Christian Andersen, John Gibson, Vernet, -Delaroche, Ivanoff, Gordon, the Princess Borghese, Crawford, Thorwaldsen, -and a crowd of equally famous characters, are mingled with romantic and -amusing passages from the history of representatives of the upper classes of -Italian society, or of the humble ranks from which artists secure the models -for their statues and pictures.”—<i>New York Tribune.</i></p> - -<p>“‘An Artist’s Portfolio’ is a charming book. The writer has gathered -incidents and reminiscences of some of the master writers, painters, and -sculptors, and woven them into a golden thread of story upon which to string -beautiful descriptions and delightful conversations. He talks about Leslie, -John Gibson, Thackeray, and that inimitable writer, Father Prout (Mahony), -in an irresistible manner.”—<i>New York Independent.</i></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center">New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="center"> -<img id="coverpage" src="images/i_title.jpg" width="500" height="750" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="center xlarge">Appletons’ Home Books.</p> - -<p class="center xlarge p2">HOME AMUSEMENTS.</p> - -<p class="center p2"><span class="large">By M. E. W. S.,</span><br /> -AUTHOR OF “AMENITIES OF HOME,” ETC. -</p> - -<div class="center p2"><div class="ilb"> -<p>“There be some sports are painful; and their labour<br /> -Delight in them sets off.”</p> - -<p>“Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;<br /> -And ye that on the sands with printless foot<br /> -Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,<br /> -When he comes back!” -</p> - -<p class="i26">I do invoke ye all. -</p></div></div> - -<p class="center p2"><span class="large">NEW YORK:<br /> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,</span><br /> -1, 3, and 5 BOND STREET.<br /> -1881. -</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center">COPYRIGHT BY<br /> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,<br /> -1881. -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</a></h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> -<tr><td colspan="3" class="small tdr">PAGE</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">I.—</td> -<td><a href="#I"><span class="smcap">Prefatory</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">5</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">II.—</td> -<td><a href="#II"><span class="smcap">The Garret</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">7</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">III.—</td> -<td><a href="#III"><span class="smcap">Private Theatricals, etc.</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">9</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IV.—</td> -<td><a href="#IV"><span class="smcap">Tableaux Vivants</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">20</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">V.—</td> -<td><a href="#V"><span class="smcap">Brain Games</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">25</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VI.—</td> -<td><a href="#VI"><span class="smcap">Fortune-Telling</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">37</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VII.—</td> -<td><a href="#VII"><span class="smcap">Amusements for a Rainy Day</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">45</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.—</td> -<td><a href="#VIII"><span class="smcap">Embroidery and other Decorative Arts</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">50</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IX.—</td> -<td><a href="#IX"><span class="smcap">Etching</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">64</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">X.—</td> -<td><a href="#X"><span class="smcap">Lawn Tennis</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">67</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XI.—</td> -<td><a href="#XI"><span class="smcap">Garden Parties</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">77</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XII.—</td> -<td><a href="#XII"><span class="smcap">Dancing</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">86</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIII.—</td> -<td><a href="#XIII"><span class="smcap">Gardens and Flower-Stands</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">93</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIV.—</td> -<td><a href="#XIV"><span class="smcap">Caged Birds and Aviaries</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">104</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XV.—</td> -<td><a href="#XV"><span class="smcap">Picnics</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">112</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVI.—</td> -<td><a href="#XVI"><span class="smcap">Playing with Fire. Ceramics</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">117</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVII.—</td> -<td><a href="#XVII"><span class="smcap">Archery</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">124</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII.—</td> -<td><a href="#XVIII"><span class="smcap">Amusements for the Middle-Aged and the Aged</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">131</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIX.—</td> -<td><a href="#XIX"><span class="smcap">The Parlor</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">135</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XX.—</td> -<td><a href="#XX"><span class="smcap">The Kitchen</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">140</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXI.—</td> -<td><a href="#XXI"><span class="smcap">The Family Horse and other Pets</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">144</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXII.—</td> -<td><a href="#XXII"><span class="smcap">In Conclusion</span></a></td> -<td class="tdpn">148</td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a><br /><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2><a name="HOME_AMUSEMENTS" id="HOME_AMUSEMENTS">HOME AMUSEMENTS.</a></h2> - -<h2><a name="I" id="I">I.</a><br /> -PREFATORY.</h2> - -<p>Goethe, in “Wilhelm Meister,” struck the key-note of -the universal underlying dramatic instinct. The boy begins -to play the drama of life with his puppets, and afterward -exploits the wild dreams of youth in the company of -the strolling players. We are, indeed, all actors. We all -know how early the strutting soldier-instinct crops out, -and how soon the little girl assumes the cares of the amateur -nursery.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“I have learned from neighbor Nelly</div> -<div class="i4">What the girl’s doll-instinct means.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>We begin early to play at living, until Life becomes too -strong for us, and, seizing us in merciless and severe grip, -returns our condescension by making of us the puppets -with which the passing tragedy or comedy is presented. -With this idea in mind we have begun our little book with -the play in the garret—the humblest attempt at histrionics—and -so going on, still endeavoring to help those more -ambitious artists who, in remote and secluded spots, may -essay to amuse themselves and others by attempting the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> -<i>rôle</i> of a Cushman, a Wallack, a Sothern, a Booth, or a -Gilbert.</p> - -<p>Our subsequent task has been a more difficult one. To -tell people how to give all sorts of entertainments—in fact, -to tell our intelligent people how to do anything—is nearly -as foolish a practice as to carry coals to Newcastle, and implies -that sort of conceit which Thackeray so wittily suggests -when, in his “Rebecca and Rowena,” he presents -the picture of a little imp painting the lily. It is hard to -know where to draw the line. It would be delightful to -amuse—to help along with the great business of making -home happy—to tell a mother what to do with her active -young brood, and yet to avoid that dreadful bore of mentioning -to her something which she already knows a great -deal better than we do.</p> - -<p>The Scylla of barrenness and the Charybdis of garrulity -are before any author who tries to speak upon a familiar -theme. Let us hope that, through the kindness of our -readers, we may not have wrecked our little bark on either.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="II" id="II">II.</a><br /> -THE GARRET.</h2> - -<p>Happy the children who have inherited a garret! We -mean the good old country garret, wherein have been -stowed away the accumulations of many generations of -careful housewives. The more worthless these accumulations, -the better for the children. An old aunt who saved -all the old bonnets, an old uncle who had a wardrobe of -cast-off garments to which he had appended the legend,</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>“Too poor to wear, too good to give away—”</p></blockquote> - -<p>these are the purveyors to the histrionic talents of nations -yet unborn. Old garrets are really the factories of History, -Poetry, and the Drama.</p> - -<p>Into such a garret crept the lame little Walter Scott, -and what did he not bring out of it! Talk of the lumber -of a garret and the accumulations of a house, and you mention -to the thoughtful the gold and diamond mines of a -future literature. A bright boy or girl will unearth many -a pearl of price from those old trunks, those dilapidated -bureau-drawers, those piles of old love-letters, those garments -of the past, that broken-down guitar, that stringless -violin, that too-reedy flute. The taste for old furniture -has rather emptied the garret of its time-honored chairs -and old clocks, but there is still in its ghost-haunted corners -quite enough goblin tapestry for the fancy of the -growing child.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> - -<p>A country home is, of course, the most precious possession -a child can have—a country home in which his ancestors -have lived for years, and which has a large garret, a -capacious cellar, and several barns. One might wish that -every child might be born in Salem or Plymouth, or near -one of those old settlements. But as that would be quite -impossible, considering the acres which we are compelled -to cover as a nation, we may as well see what can be done, -in the way of Home Amusements, with the garret as well -as the parlor. The garret, in both town and country, has -been the earliest home of the legitimate drama since the -first youthful aspirant for histrionic honors strapped on the -sock and buskin. A good country barn has also been -sometimes the scene not only of the strolling but of the -resident player.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="III" id="III">III.</a><br /> -PRIVATE THEATRICALS; ACTING PROVERBS -AND CHARADES.</h2> - -<p>Wherever the amateur actor pitches his tent or erects -his stage, he must consider wisely the extraneous space behind -the acting arena necessary for his exits and entrances, -and his theatrical properties. In an ordinary house the -back parlor, with two doors opening into the dining-room, -makes an ideal theatre; for the exits can be masked, and -the space is specially useful. One door opening into a -large hall is absolutely necessary, if no better arrangement -can be made. The best stage is, of course, like that of a -theatre, with areas all around and behind it, so that the -actors have a space to retire into. This is difficult in a -parlor, unless it be a very large one. The difficulty, however, -has been and will be solved by the ingenious. Drawing -up the big sofa in front of the footlights, and arranging -a pair of screens and a curtain, has often served well for a -parlor play.</p> - -<p>It is hardly necessary to say that all these arrangements -for a play depend, in the first place, on the requirements -of the play itself and its legitimate business, which may -demand a table, a bureau, a piano, a fireplace, etc. And -here we would say to the youthful actor, Select your play -at first with a view to its requiring little change of scene, -and not much furniture. A young actor needs space; he -is embarrassed by too many chairs and tables. Then, again,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> -choose a play which has so much varied incident in it that -it will, as it is said, “play itself.” Of this branch of our -subject we will treat later.</p> - -<p>The first thing to be built is the stage. Any carpenter -will lay a few stout boards on end-pieces, which are simply -squared joists, and for very little money will take away the -boards and joists afterward; or a permanent stage can be -built for a few dollars. Sometimes ingenious boys build -their own stage with old boxes; but this is apt to be dangerous. -Very few families are without an old carpet, which -will serve for a stage-covering; and, if this is lacking, green -baize is very cheap. A whole stage-fitting—curtains and -all—can be made of green cambric; but it is better to have -all the stuffs of woolen, for the danger from fire is otherwise -great. Footlights may be made of tin, with pieces of -candle put in; or a row of old bottles of equal height, with -candles stuck in the mouth, make a most admirable and -very cheap set of footlights. The mother, an elder brother, -or some one with judgment, should see to all these things, -or the play may be spoiled by an accident.</p> - -<p>The curtain is always a trouble. A light wooden frame -should be made by the carpenter; firm at the joints, -and as high as the stage, to the front part of which it -should be attached. This frame forms three sides of a -square, and the curtain must be firmly nailed to the top-piece. -A stiff wire should be run along the lower edge of -the curtain, and a number of rings be attached to the back -of it in squares—three rows of four rings each, extending -from top to bottom. Three cords are now fastened to the -wire, and, passing through the rings, are run over three -pulleys on the upper piece of the frame. It is well for all -young managers of garret theatres to get up one of these -curtains, even if they have to hire an upholsterer to help -them. The draw-curtain never works surely, and often -hurts the <i>dénoûment</i> of the play. In the case of the drop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>-curtain -which we have described, one person holds all the -ends of the cords, tied together; and, on pulling this, the -curtain goes up and down as if by magic, and rarely gets -out of order, which is a great gain.</p> - -<p>Now as for stage properties. Almost any household, -or any self-respecting garret, will hold enough of “things.” -If it does not, let the young actors exercise their ingenuity -in making up, with tinsel-paper and other cheap material, -all that they will want. Turnips, properly treated with a -jackknife, have heretofore served for Yorick’s skull in the -great play of “Hamlet.” A boy who knows how to paint -can, on a white cotton background, with a pot of common -black paint, indicate a scene. If he be so fortunate as to -know a kindly theatrical manager who will let him for -once go behind the scenes, he will find that the most splendid -effects are gained by a very small outlay.</p> - -<p>As for the theatrical wardrobe, that is a very easy matter, -if the children have an indulgent and tasteful mother, -who will help a little and lend her old finery.</p> - -<p>A brigand’s costume (and brigands are very convenient -theatrical friends) is easily arranged. Procure a black felt -hat, fastened up with a shoe-buckle; a bow and a long -feather; a jacket, on which Fanny will sew some brass -buttons; one of mamma’s or sister’s gay scarfs, tied round -the waist several times; an old pair of pantaloons, cut off -at the knee, and long stockings, tied up with scarlet ribbons; -a pair of pumps, with another pair of buckles, and -any old pair of pistols, dirks, or even carving-knives, stuck -in the belt, and you have, at very small expense, a fierce -brigand of the Abruzzi.</p> - -<p>Girls’ dresses are still easier of attainment. But the -great trouble in the dressing of girls for their characters is -the frequent inattention to the time and style of the character. -A young lady who plays the part of Marie Antoinette -must remember the enormous hoops which were a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> -part of the costume of the unlucky queen. She must not -be content to merely powder her hair. She must remember -time, place, circumstance, and dress herself accurately, -if she wishes to produce a proper dress. A lady once wore -in the part of Helen of Troy, for private theatricals in New -York, a pair of high-heeled French slippers, with the classic -<i>peplum</i>. A gentleman of archæological tastes declared -that he could not stay in a house where such crimes were -committed against historical accuracy! She should have -worn the classic sandal, of course—not modern black slippers.</p> - -<p>The “make-up” of a character requires study and observation. -In the painting and shading of faces, adaptation -of wigs, application of mustaches and whiskers, there -is much to be done. A box of water-colors, a little chalk, -camel’s-hair pencils, a saucer of rouge, a burnt cork, and -some India ink, all are useful. If these can not be got, one -burnt cork, aided by a little flour, will do it all. Mustaches -can be made by borrowing mamma’s old discarded -artificial curls, cutting them off to a proper length, and -gumming them on the upper lip. The hair of a good old -Newfoundland dog has served this purpose. A very pretty -little mustache can be painted with India ink. However, -if near a barber or a hair-dresser—or, still better, a costumer—it -is well to get ready-made mustaches, which come -of all colors, already gummed. If the make-up of an old -man is required, study a picture of an old face, and trace -on your own face with a camel’s-hair pencil and India ink -the wrinkles, the lines of an aged countenance. Make -a wig of white cotton if you can not hire one of gray -hair.</p> - -<p>If a comic face is needed, stand before a glass and grin, -<i>watch the lines</i> which the grin leaves, and trace them up -with a reddish-brown water-color. Put on rouge particularly -about the nose and eyes. A frown, a smile, a sneer,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> -a simper, or a sad expression, can always be painted by -this process. The gayest face can be made sad by dropping -a line or two from the corners of the mouth and of -the eyes.</p> - -<p>For a ferocious brigand, cork the eyebrows heavily, and -bring them together over the eyes. If you wish to produce -emaciation or leanness, cork under the eyes, and in the hollow -of the cheek (or make a hollow), and under the lower -lip. To make up a pretty girl, even out of a young man’s -face, requires only some rouge and chalk and a blonde wig. -There should be also a powdering about the eyebrows, ears, -and roots of the hair. There should be a heavy coat of -powder on the nose, and after the rouge is put on, a shower -of powder over that. All will wash off without hurting -the complexion. For a drunkard or a villain, purple spots -are painted on chin, cheek, forehead, and nose.</p> - -<p>The theatrical wardrobe, to be complete, should have -several different wigs, and as these can not be made well -except by an artist in hair, we recommend the actors to lay -out all their spare cash on these adjuncts. Having dressed -for the part, the acting comes much more easily. No one -knows the effect of dress better than the real actor, who -calls it “the skin of the part.”</p> - -<p>The lines to be spoken should be committed most -thoroughly to memory. Without this no play can be a -success. Each performer should write out his own part, -with the “cues,” or the words which come directly before -his own speeches, and commit the whole to memory. -When the performer hears the words of the cue, the words -of his own part come to his lips immediately.</p> - -<p>The exits and entrances, and what is known as “stage -business,” are always difficult to beginners. The necessity -of closets, etc., in a small stage, places to retire to, and the -like, can be managed, however, by screens, and these are -so useful in all private theatricals that one should be made,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> -six feet high by three feet wide, hinged, and covered with -wall-paper, before any plays are attempted.</p> - -<p>We are describing the very cheapest and most unsophisticated -private theatricals—such as those which school-boys -and girls could get up in the country, or in a city basement -or garret, with very little money or help from their parents. -And these are the ones which give the most pleasure. Expensive -and adroitly-conducted theatricals, in a city where -experts can be hired to do these things, have no lasting -charm. It is, as in all other things, <i>the amount of ourselves</i> -which we put into anything which makes us enjoy -private theatricals. And in a city, grown people have the -privilege of the best theatricals, beside which all amateur -efforts are lamentably tame. But a party of fresh young -people, full of the ichor of youth, can with the slightest -help produce the most delightful effects with very simple -means.</p> - -<p>Young girls are too apt, in playing private theatricals, -to sacrifice character to prettiness. Now this is a fatal -mistake. To dress a part with finikin fineness, which is -to be a representation of quite different sorts of qualities, is -poor art. Let them rather imitate Miss Cushman’s rags in -Meg Merrilies, or Bastian Le Page’s homely peasant simplicity -in Joan of Arc. Remember, the drama is the mirror -of nature, and should produce its strong outlines and -its deep shadows. It is in this realism that men surpass -women. The college theatricals, in which all parts are -played by men, are by far the best.</p> - -<p>In selecting a play, amateurs should try and find one, -as we have said, which “plays itself.” They should not -attempt those delicate and very difficult plays which only -great artists can make amusing. They should select the -play which is full of action and situation, like “The Follies -of a Night,” or “Everybody’s Friend.” The most -commonplace actors fail to spoil such plays as these; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> -there are for younger performers hundreds of good plays, -farces, and musical burlesques to be found at every book-store. -“Naval Engagements,” “A Cure for the Fidgets,” -“The Two Buzzards,” “Betsey Baker,” “Box and Cox,” -“A Regular Fix,” “Incompatibility of Temper,” “Ici l’on -parle Français,” “To oblige Benson,” are among the many -which really help the amateur, instead of crushing him.</p> - -<p>But no one who is not a first-rate actor should attempt -“Two can play at that Game,” “A Morning Call,” “A -Happy Pair,” or any of those beautiful French trifles which -look so easy, and in the hands of good actors are so charming, -for they depend upon the most delicate shades of acting -to make them even passable.</p> - -<p>For those players of a larger growth, who attempt the -very interesting business of amateur theatricals on a more -ambitious plane, we can illustrate our meaning as to plays -which “play themselves” by two instances:</p> - -<p>“Ici l’on parle Français” gives the two amusing situations -of a man who is trying to speak French with the aid -of a phrase-book, and the counterpoise of a Frenchman who -is trying to speak English in the same fragmentary manner. -Their mutual mistakes keep the house in a roar; and almost -any clever pair of young men can assume these two -characters to great advantage. They each have an eccentric -character mapped out for them, and very little shading -is necessary.</p> - -<p>Again, for a very much more poetical and entirely different -range of part, but yet one which “plays itself,” we -would suggest “Pygmalion and Galatea,” Gilbert’s beautiful -and poetical play. Here we have the great novelty of a -young lady disguised as a marble statue. She can be -“made up” with white powder and white merino drapery -to look very like a marble statue, and a powerful white -lime-light should be thrown on her from above. There is -a tableau within a play to begin with, and something novel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> -and interesting. The marble statue, however, at the very -start becomes endowed with life, steps down from her pedestal, -walks forward to the footlights, talks, and receives -the homage of a lover. Now, almost any pretty and intelligent -maiden can make this part very interesting. She -needs nothing but grace and a good memory to do this -Galatea well. The part plays itself.</p> - -<p>The same young actress could not do Lady Teazle—that -delightful and intricate bit of acting, so dependent upon -stage tradition and stage training that old theatre-goers say -that in fifty years only five actresses have done it well. -Still less could she approach the heroine in the “Morning -Call” or the young wife in “Caste.” These parts demand -the long, severe stage training of an accomplished artist. -The Galatea is assisted by the novelty of the position, by -the fact that every young maid is a marble statue, in one -sense, until Love makes her a woman, so that each person -may give a strikingly individual portrait; and, above all, it -is a play which is a new creation, and therefore capable of -a new interpretation.</p> - -<p>We do not advise amateurs to undertake Shakespeare, -unless it be “Katherine and Petruchio,” which is so gay -and scolding that it <i>almost</i> plays itself.</p> - -<p>The very beautiful comedies of Robertson seem very -easy when one sees Mr. Wallack’s company play them; but -they are very difficult for amateurs. They depend upon -the most delicate shading, the highest art, and the neatest -finish.</p> - -<p>The sterling old comedies—all excepting “The Rivals”—are -almost impossible, even those which are full of incident -and full of costume. Their quick movement seems -to evade the player; and what is so terrible to the listener -as to endure even a second’s suspension in the “give and -take” of a comedy? “The Rivals,” strange to say, is a -very good play for amateurs.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> - -<p>Boucicault’s farces and society plays run very well on -the amateur stage. Lady Gay Spanker is not a difficult -part. Bulwer’s “Lady of Lyons” should never be attempted -by amateurs. It becomes mawkishly sentimental in -their hands. But Charles Reade’s “Still Waters run -Deep” is excellent for amateurs; and “Money” runs off -rather more easily than one would suppose.</p> - -<p>Amateurs are very fond of “A Wonderful Woman,” -but we can not see much in it. “The Wonder” is very -picturesque. It is one of the plays which plays itself; and -the Spanish costumes are beautiful. The famous comedies, -“My Awful Dad,” “Woodcock’s Little Game,” and “The -Liar,” should be studied very thoroughly by observation -and by book before being attempted by amateurs. The -“Little Game” has two very hard parts to fill, Mrs. Colonel -Carver and Woodcock; still it has been done moderately -well. For a parlor comedy, “The Happy Pair” is a great -favorite; and “Box and Cox” can be done by anybody, -and is always funny. Music helps along wonderfully, as -witness the immortal “Pinafore,” which has been played -by amateurs to admiration for hundreds of admiring audiences.</p> - -<p>A stage manager is indispensable. In getting up ambitious -plays in a city, which the courageous amateur sometimes -attempts, an actor from the theatre is generally hired -to “coach” the neophytes. In the country, some intelligent -friend should do this, and he can properly be arbitrary. -It is a case for an absolute monarchy. The stage -manager must hear his company read the play over first, -and tell John faithfully if he is better fitted for the part of -the lackey rather than that of the lover. He must disabuse -Seraphina of the belief that she either looks or can play the -<i>ingenu</i>, and relegate her to the part of the housekeeper. -We all have our natural and acquired capabilities for various -parts, and can do no other.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> - -<p>Then, after reading the part, comes the rehearsal; and -this is the crucial test. The players must study, rehearse, -rehearse, study, and not be discouraged if they grow worse -rather than better. There is always a part lagging, and -the dress rehearsal is invariably a discouraging thing. But -that is a most excellent and advantageous discouragement -if it inspire the actors to new efforts. Nothing can spoil -a private theatrical attempt like conceit and self-satisfaction. -The art is as difficult a one as playing on the violin; -and, although an amateur may learn to play pretty well, the -distance between him and a professional is as great as that -between an amateur violinist and Vieuxtemps. The amateur -must remember this fact.</p> - -<p>“Acting proverbs” is an ingenious way of suggesting -an idea by its component parts rather than stating it outright. -The parts are not written, but merely talked over, -and are often done by clever young people on the spur of -the moment. It is well, however, to consult beforehand -as to the argument of the play. The books are full of little -plays written upon such proverbs as “All is not Gold that -Glitters,” “Honor among Thieves,” “All is Fair in Love -and War,” etc. But we advise young people to take up -less well-known proverbs, and to write their own plays. -They might learn one or two as a sort of exercise, but the -fresh outcrop of their own originality will be much better. -The same may be said with the acting of charades.</p> - -<p>A dramatic charade is a very ingenious thing, and a -very neat little play in four acts can be made from the -word <span class="smcap">Ab-di-cate</span>. A B, of course, presents a school scene. -And at a watering place, if some witty man or woman will -represent the schoolmaster or schoolmistress, all the pupils -can be the grown men and women who are well known. -The entrance of a fashionable mamma, her instantaneous -effect on the severity of the teacher, the taking off the fool’s-cap -from the head of Master Tommy, who has been in dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>grace—all -will cause laughter and an opportunity for local -jokes. This is Act I. Di can be represented by the <i>dyeing</i> -process of a barber who has to please many customers; -or “The <i>die</i> is cast”; or an apposite allusion to Walter -Scott’s “<i>Die</i> Vernon”; or some comico-tragico scene of “I -can but <i>die</i>.” This is Act II. Cate, to “<i>cater</i>,” “<i>Kate</i>”—for -bad spelling is permitted—all these are in order. -This is Act III. The last act can be the splendid pageant -of a Turkish <i>Abdication</i>, in which a sultan abdicates in -favor of his son. All the camel’s-hair shawls, brilliant turbans, -and jewelry of the house and neighborhood can here -be introduced with effect.</p> - -<p>Charades in which negroes, Irish or German people, or -anybody with a dialect, enter in and form a part, are very -amusing if the boys of the family have a genius for mimicry. -Amateur minstrels are very funny. The getting up -of a party of white men as black men is, however, attended -with expense. The gift of singing a comic song is -highly appreciated in the family circle of amateur dramatists, -and a little piece with songs is very sure to be acceptable.</p> - -<p>If every member of the party will do what he can, -without any false shame, or any egotistical desire to outdo -the others, if the ready-witted will do what they can to -help the slow-going, and if the older members of the family -will help along, these amusements will cheer many a -winter’s evening, many a long rainy week, and will improve -all who are connected with them; for memory and elocution, -good manners and a graceful bearing, are all included -in the playing of charades, proverbs, and the little dramas.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="IV" id="IV">IV.</a><br /> -TABLEAUX VIVANTS.</h2> - -<p>We now come to one of the most artistic of all Home -Amusements—the <i>Tableau vivant</i>.</p> - -<p>Lady Hamilton amused the people of her age, all over -Europe, by playing in a parlor very striking living pictures. -All she asked was a corner of the room, a heavy -curtain behind her, and a few shawls and turbans. Being -a beautiful and graceful woman, with the dramatic instinct, -she gave imitations of celebrated statues and pictures, -and was no doubt aided by some very ingenious -painting, which she knew how to apply to her own fair -face. The art she discovered is certainly worth trying in -the present age as an amusement.</p> - -<p>The preparations for good tableaux should be somewhat -elaborate. A vista should be built and lined with -dark-colored cloth; lights should fall from the top, sides, -and front, so as to avoid shadows. The groups should be -striking, the colors clear, and the attitudes simple. Sometimes -there are such wonderful and unpremeditated effects -from these living pictures that artists hold up their hands -in despair; more often they are ruined by shadows; the -lights are not well arranged, and the whole effect lacks elevation -and meaning. It is difficult to arrange a crowded -tableau, but it can be done.</p> - -<p>The principle of a picture—a pyramidal form—should -be observed closely in tableau. To secure this desirable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> -object the persons in the background must stand on elevations. -Boxes covered with dark cloth, so as to be unnoticeable, -are the best of all devices, and the effect of any object -held up in the hand, as a scepter, a bird, a distaff, or a -wreath, must be carefully noted, as it may throw a shadow -on the picture in the background. There never was, or -could be, a tableau which did not have some weak spot, -and these shadows are the faults which most easily beguile; -but they can be avoided.</p> - -<p>A group of Puritans make into many very striking pictures. -The costume is beautiful and becoming; red cloth -can be laid on the table or floor to set off the grays; and -the many picturesque incidents in our early history form -very pleasing subjects. It is a beautiful dress for women -and a dignified one for men—that gray dress and high ruff, -that broad hat, and plain, long gown. A group of young -people might take a winter’s amusement out of reading up -the Puritan annals, and giving at the Academy or in their -own homes a series of Puritan tableaux.</p> - -<p>A tableau can be given in parlors separated by folding-doors; -but they are not by any means as good as those for -which a stage, vista and footlights, flies and side-lights, are -arranged. If there is a large unused room, where these -properties can stand, the result is very much better. There -should be a gauze curtain or one of black tarlatan, which -should have no seams in it, and this curtain should hang -in front of the stage all the time. The drop-curtain must -be outside of this. The gauze curtain serves as a sort of -varnish to the picture, and adds to the illusion.</p> - -<p>Although the pure white light of candles, gas, kerosene, -or lime-light is the best for tableaux, very pretty effects are -produced by the introduction of colored lights, such as can -be produced by the use of nitrate of strontia, chlorate of -potash, sulphuret of antimony, sulphur, oxymuriate of potassa, -metallic arsenic, and pulverized charcoal. Muriate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> -of copper makes a bluish-green fire, and many other colors -can be obtained by a little study of chemistry. Here are -some simple recipes:</p> - -<p>To make a <i>red fire</i>.—Five ounces nitrate of strontia, -dry, one and a half ounces finely-powdered sulphur. Take -five drachms chlorate of potash and four drachms sulphuret -of antimony and powder them separately in a mortar; then -mix them on paper, and, having mixed the other ingredients, -previously powdered, add these last, and rub the -whole together on paper. In use, mix a little spirits of -wine with the powder, and burn in a flat iron plate or pan.</p> - -<p>A <i>green fire</i> may be made by powdering finely and mixing -well thirteen parts flour of sulphur, five parts oxymuriate -of potassa, two parts metallic arsenic, three parts -pulverized charcoal, seventy-seven parts nitrate of baryta; -dry it carefully, powder, and mix the whole thoroughly. -A polished reflector fitted on one side of the pan in which -this is burned will concentrate the light and cast a brilliant -green luster on the figures. A bluish-green fire may be -produced by burning muriate of copper finely powdered -and mixed with spirits of wine. These fires smell unpleasantly -in the drawing-room; and equally good effects may -almost always be produced by colored globes, if the light -is not needed too quickly.</p> - -<p>Sulphate of copper, when dissolved in water, will give a -beautiful <i>blue</i> color. The common red cabbage gives three -colors. Slice the cabbage and pour boiling water on it; -when cold, add a small quantity of alum, and you have -<i>purple</i>. Potash dissolved in the water will give a brilliant -<i>green</i>. A few drops of muriatic acid will turn the cabbage-water -into a <i>crimson</i>.</p> - -<p>Then, again, if a ghostly look be required, mix common -salt with spirits of wine in a metal cup and set it upon a -wire frame over a spirit-lamp. When the cup becomes -heated, and the spirits of wine ignite, the other lights in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> -the room should be extinguished, and that of the spirit-lamp -shaded in some way. The result will be that the -whole group will become like the witches in Macbeth,</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“That look not like the inhabitants of the earth,</div> -<div class="i0">But yet are of it.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This burning of common salt produces a very weird effect. -It seems that salt has some other properties than the -conservative, preserving, hospitable kind of quality which -legend and the daily needs of mankind have ascribed to it.</p> - -<p>A very fine and artistic set of tableaux can be gotten -up by reference to such a great work as “Boydell’s Shakespeare,” -if it happens to be at hand. Also a study of fine -engravings, such as one finds in the “National Academy.” -If these books are not attainable, almost any pictorial magazine -will furnish subjects. Or, if imagination is consulted, -construct a series out of Waverley, or from the but too well -known scenes of the French Revolution, or from George -Eliot’s delightful “Romola”—a book full of remarkable -pictures, with the additional charm of the old Florentine -dress. Sometimes a very impressive poem is given in tableaux, -like Tennyson’s “Princess,” or, the “Dream of Fair -Women.” Then there are many artistic but rather horrible -surprises, as “The Head of John the Baptist,” which -can be “cut off” admirably by an intervening table, and -so on; but nothing is so good as a study of the fine groups -of the best painters.</p> - -<p>Venetian scenes, from Titian’s and Tintoretto’s pictures, -can be admirably represented in tableaux. The Italian -wealth of color is always impressive; and as engravings of -these pictures are attainable, it is well to represent them. -Roman scenes are very effective, and especially as Alma Tadema -arranges them for us, with his fine feeling for the antique.</p> - -<p>The humor of Hogarth, aided as it is by the picturesque -dress of his day, can be represented in a tableau. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> -without some such aids humor is generally lost in a tableau. -There is not time for it. Some of Darley’s groups, -as, for instance, the illustrations of “Rip Van Winkle,” are -admirable, and would seem to contradict this statement, for -they are full of fun; but then—they are wonderfully well -dressed. That early Revolutionary dress, borrowed in part -from the days of Queen Anne, is very picturesque.</p> - -<p>If there is some one in the group whose fine sense of the -proprieties of art can be trusted, the allegorical can be -attempted. But the danger is that the allegorical in art -is generally ridiculous. Faith, Hope, and Charity, Mercy -and Peace, are better anywhere than in pictures.</p> - -<p>The grotesque is always lost in a tableau, where there -seems to be a sort of æsthetic demand for the heroic, the -refined, and the delicate. A double action may be presented -with very good effect; as in some of those fancies of -Retzsch and Ary Scheffer, where an angel bends over a -sleeping child, or a group, unknown to the actors in front, -is representing another picture behind. But the best -effects are the simplest. One should not attempt too much. -The old example, called “The Dull Lecture,” painted by -Gilbert Stuart Newton, where a prosy old philosopher is -reading aloud to a pretty girl who is fast asleep, is a case in -point. That has been a favorite tableau for forty years, -nor are its charms yet done away with. Tableaux from -Dickens have only a moderate success, excepting, perhaps, -the rather overdone “Christmas Carol.” The dress is -wanting in color and character.</p> - -<p>Tableaux in which animals are introduced are sometimes -very effective, if stuffed bears and lions and tigers can be -hired from a museum. A fine tableau was once composed, -from a French print, of the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon; -but the camel on which that lofty lady arrived was a -piece of scene-painting done by a very clever artist, and it -would be difficult to improvise one.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="V" id="V">V.</a><br /> -BRAIN GAMES.</h2> - -<p>We now come to the winter evening, and the pencil and -paper.</p> - -<p>It is a delightful feature of our modern civilization that -books are very cheap, and that the poets are read by everybody. -That would be a very barren house where one did -not find Scott, Byron, Goldsmith, Longfellow, Tennyson, -Browning, Bret Harte, and Jean Ingelow. Very few boys -and girls can reach the age of sixteen without having committed -to memory some immortal poem of one of these -most popular poets.</p> - -<p>Therefore there would be no embarrassment if we asked -the members of any evening circle to write down three or -four lines in the measure of “Evangeline,” “Lady Clara -Vere de Vere,” “The Corsair,” “The Traveler,” “Marmion,” -or “Hervé Riel,” “The Heathen Chinee,” or the -pretty “Bird Song” of Jean Ingelow. Not a parody only, -however, but a parody involving a certain idea or word.</p> - -<p>In the great year of Coggia’s comet this game was thus -played, and a young man was requested to speak of the -comet in the style of “Mother Goose.” The result was as -follows:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“Sing a song of Coggia—</div> -<div class="i2">Comet in the sky!</div> -<div class="i0">Wonder if he’ll trouble us,</div> -<div class="i2">Whip up you or I!</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> -<div class="i0">When his tail is over,</div> -<div class="i2">Then begin to crow;</div> -<div class="i0">Four-and-twenty doctors,</div> -<div class="i2">Tell us all you know!”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Another of the circle was directed to treat of the Wood -Fire in the measure of Tennyson’s “May Queen.” The -result was the following:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“If you’re snapping, snap out wisely, snap out wisely, burning wood!</div> -<div class="i0">You would not snap so wildly if your drying had been good.</div> -<div class="i0">Nor had I, sitting near you with the hearth-brush in my hand,</div> -<div class="i0">Have found no peace in sitting, for fear of burning brand.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>This was declared to be too easy a game for such a wild -and superfluous supply of brains, and, therefore, the word -<i>Poker</i> was pronounced to be an essential element of every -future poem. Poor Browning and Longfellow, Bret Harte -and Walter Scott, were mercilessly spitted on that poker. -Much foolscap was spoiled, but much fun gained. Here is -one of the poker successes:</p> - -<h3>“AFTER BYRON, WITH A POKER; ALSO AFTER DRINKING FLIP.</h3> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i2">“Here, too, the Poker stands in brass! and fills</div> -<div class="i4">The air around with safety! We inhale</div> -<div class="i2">The ambrosial aspect which its heat instills</div> -<div class="i4">(Part of its immortality) to Flip</div> -<div class="i2">(That beer which is half drawn), within the cup</div> -<div class="i4">We breathe, and its deep secrets dip.</div> -<div class="i0">Who Flip can make—who cares where he may fail!</div> -<div class="i0">Before its wide success let Heliogabalus turn pale.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i2">“We drink, and turn away—we care not where!</div> -<div class="i4">Fuzzled, and drunk with porter, till the head</div> -<div class="i2">Reels with its fullness. There, for ever there,</div> -<div class="i4">Stand thou in triumph, Poker, strong and red!</div> -<div class="i2">We are thy captives, and thine ardor share.</div> -<div class="i0">Away! there need no words, no terms precise,</div> -<div class="i0">To say in loving accents, Flip-cup, thou art nice!”</div> -</div></div></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> -<p>To this class of Home Amusements belongs also the famous -game of “Twenty Questions,” which was played so -much at one time by the Cambridge professors that they -declared that any subject should be reached in ten questions. -The proper formula for this very intellectual game -is this: Two parties are formed, the questioners and the -answerers, the first having the privilege, after the word -has been chosen, to inquire—</p> - -<p>“Is your subject animal, vegetable, or mineral?”</p> - -<p>“What is its size?”</p> - -<p>“To what age does it belong?”</p> - -<p>“Is it historical or natural?”</p> - -<p>“Is it ancient or modern?”</p> - -<p>“Is it a manufactured article?” etc.</p> - -<p>The number of subjects which are <i>none</i> of these, or -which <i>are all three</i>, or which can not be defined in some -way, is of course small. Thus, a Blush, a Smile, a Tear, -an Echo, an Avalanche, a Drought, are all indescribable -by the exact definitions of the above questions. But the -questioner soon arrives at this negative, and begins a new -series.</p> - -<p>Perhaps one of the most puzzling of subjects is a -“mummy.” It fulfills certain conditions, but not others; -and the final question, “What is its use?” and the answer, -“It is used for fuel,” though true—for the Arabs cook -their dinners by them—does not at all cover the ground of -the supposed use of a mummy. The shield of Achilles, -the Hole in the Wall through which Pyramus and Thisbe -kissed, have been asked and guessed! A Bat baffled even -the most ingenious twenty questioners, while the Parlor -into which the Spider invited the Fly was guessed.</p> - -<p>It is a very intellectual and very amusing game, and -those who play it should be as honest as possible in their -answers. If puns and wordy equivoque are allowed, the -game ceases to be legitimate.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> - -<p>Among games requiring memory and attention we may -mention “Cross Purposes,” “The Horned Ambassador,” -“I love my Love with an A,” “The Game of the Ring” -(arithmetical), “The Deaf Man,” “The Goose’s History.” -“Story Play” consists in putting a chosen word into a -narrative so cleverly that it will not be readily guessed, -although several people tell different stories with the chosen -word several times repeated. The best way to play this is -to have some odd word which is <i>not</i> the word—like <i>Banana</i>—and -use it several times; yet one’s own consciousness -of the right word will often betray the story-teller. -“The Dutch Conceit,” “My Lady’s Toilet,” “What is my -Thought like?” “Scheherazade’s Ransom” are very pretty, -and may be found in many Manuals of Games. This last -deserves a description.</p> - -<p>Three of the company sustain the parts of the Sultan, -the Vizier, and the Princess Scheherazade. The Sultan -takes his seat at the end of the room, and the Vizier then -leads the Princess before him, with her hands bound behind -her. The Vizier then makes a burlesque proclamation -that the Princess, having exhausted all her stories, is -about to be punished unless a sufficient ransom be offered. -All the rest of the company then advance in turn and propose -enigmas, which must be solved by the Sultan or Vizier; -sing the first verse of a song, to which the Vizier must answer -with the second verse; or recite any well-known piece -of poetry in alternate lines with the Vizier. Forfeits must -be paid either by the company when successfully encountered -by the Sultan or Vizier, or by the Vizier when unable -to respond to his opponents; and the game goes on till the -forfeits amount to any specified number on either side. -Should the company be victorious and obtain the greatest -number of forfeits, the Princess is released, and the Vizier -has to execute all the penalties that may be imposed upon -him. If otherwise, the Princess is led to execution. For<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> -this purpose she is blindfolded, and seated on a low stool. -The penalties for the forfeits, which should be previously -prepared, are written on slips of paper and put in a basket, -which she holds in her hands tied behind her. The owners -of the forfeits advance and draw each a slip of paper. As -each person comes forward, the Princess guesses who it is, -and, if right, the person must pay an additional forfeit, the -penalty for which is to be exacted by the Princess herself. -When all the penalties have been distributed, the hands -and eyes of the Princess are released, and she then superintends -the execution of the various punishments that have -been allotted to the company.</p> - -<p>Another very good game is to send one of the company -out, and as he comes in again to address him as the supposed -character of Napoleon, a Russian emperor, Gustavus -Adolphus, or some well-known character in history or fiction. -For instance, a young lady leaves the room, and as -she enters some one says:</p> - -<p>“Charming and noble heroine, most generous and most -faithful! we are glad to see you. How well you look, after -all that has happened to you! Burned alive? Yes, I -should say so; and all that you suffered before! How did -you like wearing armor? and what do you think of ungrateful -kings? How was it at home before you left——? -Did you really see those visions? and how did St. —— look? -And, now that you are come back, will you ever be so generous -and noble as to fight for <i>any</i> cause except yourself?”</p> - -<p>Of course, the young lady knows that she is Joan of -Arc. But it is not necessary that character should be so -plainly indicated, however, as in this example.</p> - -<p>“The Echo” is another very pretty game. It is played -by reciting some little story, which Echo is supposed to -interrupt whenever the narrator pronounces certain words -which recur frequently in his narrative. These words relate -to the profession or trade of him who is the subject of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> -the story. If, for example, the story is about a soldier, the -words which would recur the most frequently would naturally -be “Uniform,” “Gaiters,” “Chapeau bras,” “Musket,” -“Plume,” “Pouch,” “Sword,” “Saber,” “Gun,” -“Knapsack,” “Belt,” “Sash,” “Cap,” “Powder-flask,” -“Accouterments,” and so on. Each one of the company, -with the exception of the person who tells the story, takes -the name of Soldier, Powder-flask, etc., except the name -“Accouterments.” When the speaker pronounces one of -these words, he who has taken it for his name ought, if the -word has been said only once, to pronounce it twice; if it -has been said twice, to pronounce it once. When the word -“Accouterments” is uttered, the players—all except the -soldier—ought to repeat again the word “Accouterments” -either once or twice.</p> - -<p>These games are amusing, as showing how defective a -thing is memory, and how apt, when under fire, to desert -us. It is also very queer to mark the difference of character -exhibited by the players. The most unexpected revelations -are made.</p> - -<p>Another very funny game is “Confession by a Die,” -played with cards and dice. It would look at first like a -parody on “Mother Church,” but it is not so guilty. A -person takes some blank cards, and, counting the company, -writes down a sin for each. The unlucky sinner when -called upon must not only confess, but, by throwing the -dice also, confess as many sins as they indicate, and do penance -for them all. These can, with a witty leader, be made -very funny.</p> - -<p>“The Secretary” is another good game. The persons -sit at a table with square pieces of paper, and pencils, and -each one writes his own name, handing the paper, carefully -folded down, to the Secretary, who distributes them, saying -“Character!” Then each one writes out an imaginary -character, hands it again to the Secretary, who says<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> -“Future!” The papers are again distributed, and the -writers forecast the future. Of course, the Secretary -throws in all sorts of other questions, and, when the game -is through, the papers are read. They form a curious and -heterogeneous piece of reading. Sometimes such curious -bits of character-reading crop out that one suspects and -dreads complicity. But, if it is honestly played, the game -is amusing.</p> - -<p>Of Ruses and Catch-games, Practical Jokes, and all -plays involving mystification and mortification, we have a -great abhorrence. They do not belong to the class of -Home Amusements. Let them be relegated to that bad -limbo of “college hazing,” and other ignoble tricks which -some people call fun. Far better the games which call for -wit, originality, and inspiration; which show knowledge, -reading, and a full <i>repertoire</i>; and a familiarity with all the -three homely studies—geography, arithmetic, and history, -including natural history. One of these games is called -“The Traveler’s Tour,” and may be made very interesting, -if the leader is ingenious. It is played in this way: One of -the party announces himself the “Traveler.” He is given -an empty bag, and counters with numbers on are distributed -among the players. Thus, if twelve persons are playing, -the numbers must count up to twelve—a set of <i>ones</i> to be -given to one, <i>twos</i> to two, and so on. Then the Traveler -asks for information about the places to which he is going. -The first person gives it, if he can; if not, the second, and -so on. If the Traveler considers it correct information, or -worthy of notice, he takes from the person one of his counters, -as a pledge of the obligation he is under to him. The -next person in order takes up the next question, and so on. -After the Traveler reaches his destination, he empties his -bag, and sees to whom he has been indebted for the greatest -amount of information. He then makes him the next -Traveler. Of course, this opens the door for all sorts of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> -witty rejoinders, as the players choose to exaggerate the -claims of certain hotels, the geographical position of places, -and the hits at such a place as Long Branch, for instance, -by describing it as an “inland spot, very retired, where -nobody goes,” etc., etc. Or it can be played seriously, -with the map of Europe or America in one’s memory. The -absurd way is, however, the favorite style with most, as in -this wise:</p> - -<p><i>Traveler.</i> “I am going to Newport this summer. -Which is the best route?”</p> - -<p><i>Answer.</i> “Well, start by the Erie Railroad and try to -form a junction with the Pittsburg and Ohio.”</p> - -<p><i>Trav.</i> “When shall I get there?”</p> - -<p><i>An.</i> “If you take the Southern Pacific you may reach -Newport before the Fall River boat gets in” (sarcasm on -the slowness of the boat).</p> - -<p><i>Trav.</i> “How if I go by the Northern Pacific?”</p> - -<p><i>An.</i> “Well, that is better than the <i>Wickford</i> route.”</p> - -<p>Or <i>Trav.</i> says: “I want to go to San Francisco; how -shall I start?”</p> - -<p><i>An.</i> “Well, at the rate the Cunarders are going to -Europe now, your quickest way is to take the Gallia, and -on reaching Liverpool to go to India by the Overland Route, -and so round the world.”</p> - -<p>The rhyming game is also very amusing. It is done in -this way:</p> - -<p><i>Speaker.</i> “I have a word that rhymes with <i>Game</i>.”</p> - -<p><i>Interlocutor.</i> “Is it something statesmen crave?”</p> - -<p><i>Sp.</i> “No, it is not <i>Fame</i>.”</p> - -<p><i>In.</i> “Is it something that goes halt?”</p> - -<p><i>Sp.</i> “No, it is not <i>Lame</i>.”</p> - -<p><i>In.</i> “Is it something tigers need?”</p> - -<p><i>Sp.</i> “No, it is not to <i>Tame</i>.”</p> - -<p><i>In.</i> “Is it what we all would like?”</p> - -<p><i>Sp.</i> “No, it is not <i>Good Name</i>.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>In.</i> “Is it to shoot at Duck?”</p> - -<p><i>Sp.</i> “Yes, and that Duck to <i>maim</i>.”</p> - -<p>Such words as Nun, Thing, Fall, etc., which admit of -many rhymes, are very good ones to choose. The two who -play it must be quick-witted and read each other’s -thoughts.</p> - -<p>The end rhymes, which the French like, are very ingenious.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> -Try making a poem to fit these words, for instance, -and you catch the idea:</p> - -<table summary="Rhymes"> -<tr><td>Town.</td><td class="spaced">Lay.</td><td class="spaced">Place.</td><td class="spaced">Long.</td><td class="spaced">Run.</td><td class="spaced">Fame.</td><td class="spaced">Rain.</td></tr> -<tr><td>Renown.</td><td class="spaced">May.</td><td class="spaced">Space.</td><td class="spaced">Wrong.</td><td class="spaced">Sun.</td><td class="spaced">Name.</td><td class="spaced">Train.</td></tr> -</table> - -<p>The game of “Crambo,” in which each player has to -write a noun on one piece of paper and a question on another, -is curious. As, for instance, the drawer may get -the noun “Mountain,” and the question, “Do you love -me?” he must write a sonnet or poem in which he answers -the one and brings in the other.</p> - -<p>The game of “Preferences” has had a long and a successful -career. It is a very good addition to Home -Amusements to possess a blank-book lying on the parlor-table, -in which each guest should be asked to write out -answers to the following questions:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Who is your favorite hero in history?</p> - -<p>Who is your favorite heroine in history?</p> - -<p>Who is your favorite king in history?</p> - -<p>Who is your favorite queen in history?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite male Christian name?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite female Christian name?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> - -<p>What is your favorite flower?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite color?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite style of music?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite style of climate?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite amusement?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite study?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite exercise?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite book?</p> - -<p>What is your favorite game? etc., etc.</p></blockquote> - -<p>These questions may be amplified according to the taste -of the owner of the book.</p> - -<p>These books are very common in English country -houses, and the statistics of favoritism have been taken. -Napoleon Bonaparte, even in the land of the Duke of Wellington, -had the greatest number of admirers as a hero; -Mary, Queen of Scots, was the favorite queen in a majority -of instances; Lord Byron led off as a poet, and the names -Edward and Alice had the greatest number of votes as -admired Christian names. Joan of Arc is always ahead as -a heroine. In America, after a five years’ experience, a -number of books were compared, and resulted in a close -tie between Washington and Napoleon as hero; between -Charles X, of Sweden, and Francis I as king; with Mary, -Queen of Scots, far ahead as queen; with Theodore and -Mary as Christian names in advance. Yet an occasional -originality crops out in these “preferences,” and the examination -of the different opinions is always interesting.</p> - -<p>The game of Authors, especially when created by the -persons who wish to play it, is very interesting. The game -can be bought, and is a very common one, as, perhaps, -everybody knows; but it can be rendered uncommon by -the preparation of the cards among the members of the -family. There are sixty-four cards to be prepared, with -each the name of a popular author, and any three of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> -works. The entire set is numbered from one to sixty-four. -Any four cards containing the name and works of -the same author form a book. Thus, “Henry W. Longfellow, -‘Hyperion,’ ‘Evangeline,’ ‘New England Tragedies,’” -would form one set. As the shuffling and distribution -of these cards, and the plan of also drawing from -a pile in the middle of the table, creates the greatest uncertainty -as to the whereabouts of a certain card, much amusement -can be derived in the effort to make a book. The -cards must be equally distributed one at a time, beginning -at the left of the dealer. The players then arrange -their cards in the hand. If one finds four of a kind, -he immediately declares a book, and lays it face downward -on the table; and then, if holding one of the -“Longfellow’s,” he will say “Evangeline.” He can ask -any other player for “Hyperion.” After receiving either -the card or a negative answer, the next player to the left -goes on with his play. Players can only call for such cards -as belong to books of which they hold a portion. Should -a player call for a card which he already holds, that card is -forfeited to the person of whom it was called. The caller -always finds the name of the card he wants among those -printed in small type; the person of whom it is called finds -it in large type at the top.</p> - -<p>This game may be made very useful by using the names -of kings and queens, and the learned men of their reigns, -instead of authors. It is a very good way to study history. -The popes can be utilized, with their attendant great men, -and by playing the game for a season the dates and the -events of some obscure period of history will be effectually -fixed in the memory.</p> - -<p>As the numbers affixed to the cards may be purely arbitrary, -the count at the end will fluctuate with remarkable -impartiality; thus, the Dickens cards may count but one, -while Tupper will be named sixteen; Carlyle can be two,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> -while Artemus Ward shall be sixty. This is made very -amusing sometimes. King Henry VIII, who set no small -store by himself, can be made to count very little in the -kingly game, while the poor Edward IV may have a higher -numeral than he was allowed in life.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="VI" id="VI">VI.</a><br /> -FORTUNE-TELLING.</h2> - -<p>We now come to that game which interests old and -young. None are so apathetic but that they relish a look -behind the dark curtain. The apple-paring in the fire, -the roasted chestnut and the raisin, the fire-back and the -stars, have been interrogated since time began. The pack -of cards, the tea-cup, the dream-book, the board with the -mystic numbers, and the Bible and Key, have been consulted -from time immemorial. The makers of games have -given in their statistics, and they declare that there are no -cards or games so sure of selling well as those which foretell -the Future.</p> - -<p>Now a very pretty Home Amusement is to cultivate, -without believing much in them, the innocent sciences of -palmistry and of fortune-telling. Several years ago this -led to the making of a very pretty book by Mrs. Gilman, -of South Carolina—a poetical and very harmless fortune-teller—made -up of lines from the poets. The young ladies -of the period used to draw as future husbands: “A professor, -and a log cabin in the West”; “a lord, and a -castle”; “a merchant prince”; “an irresolute and an obstinate -fool”; “a well-favored gentleman,” and so on, the -good fortunes being in great advance of the bad ones. It -was a popular work, and amused many a tea-party.</p> - -<p>Many people, since the advent of Spiritualism, have -amused themselves with that wonderful toy, “Planchette,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> -and other curious caprices of mind-reading, clairvoyance, -table-tipping, and knocks. The Key, which seems to possess -strong magnetic powers, and all the performances -which the unbeliever calls “nonsense,” or worse, and which -the believing call “manifestations,” are also interesting; -but we can not recommend this sort of tampering with -nervous and exciting pleasure, as it has undoubtedly sometimes -unhinged the most truly innocent minds. Such investigations -should be left to strong and sober men, and -should be approached in a very philosophical spirit, or not -at all.</p> - -<p>There can be no harm, however, in a playful consultation -of the leaves of the daisy, the four-leaved clover, the -fortunate black cat who brings us luck, the moon over the -right shoulder, the oracular “You shall travel over land -and sea”—believing in all the good fortune, but in none of -the bad. The salt should be carefully thrown over the left -shoulder, if spilled, and all the Fates and Fairies should be -propitiated. It gives delightful variety to life to know all -the superstitions and the lore of old nurses and grandmothers. -Did we follow them back, we should find that -they each had a poetical origin. We all like to believe that -we can enumerate on our fingers the false friends, the enemies; -but we may hope that the world could not hold the -admirers and the friends whom one four-leaved clover or -one black cat had given us—or promised us. To be sure, -“we had dreamed of snakes, and that meant enemies.” -But, after all, are not enemies next best to friends? They -give us consequences, and who that is worth anything was -ever without them? That would be a very colorless individual -who should go through life without an enemy.</p> - -<p>The riches which are hidden in a fortune-telling set of -cards (although like Peter Goldthwaite’s treasure) are very -real and comforting while they last. They are endless, -they have few really trying responsibilities attached, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> -can not be taxed, they are absolutely where thieves can not -break through and steal. They are so satisfactory, which -real wealth never is; they buy everything we want; they -go farther than any real fortune could go; they are our -real and personal estate, and our poetical dreams; our Lamp -of Aladdin, and our Chemical Bank. They are gained -without hurting anybody; they are dug out of the ground -without painful backache or bloodshed; they are inherited -without stain, and can be spent without fear of profligacy. -Of what other fortune can we say as much?</p> - -<p>It would be an unending theme to try to make a catalogue -of the superstitions of all nations. The Irish, with -their wild belief in fairies, that <i>Leprechaun</i>—the little man -in red, who, if you can catch him, will make you happy -and prosperous for ever after; who has such a strange relationship -to humanity that at birth and death the Leprechaun -must be tended by a mortal! to read, as they do—these -imaginative people—a sermon in every stone; to see -luck beneath the four-leaved clover, and to hang a legend -on every bush; to follow the more spiritually-minded -Scotchman in his second sight, who holds that</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>“Coming events cast their shadows before.”</p></blockquote> - -<p>A very learned book has been written on the “Superstitions -of Wales” alone. Eloquent and poetic are the people -who have invented the Banshee, the Brownie (or domestic -fairy who does all the work). The more tragic and less -loving superstitions of Italy teach that the “evil eye” is -always to be dreaded. The Breton superstitions are as wild -as the sea-gust which sweeps from their coast. All these -are subjects of profound interest to those who read the -great subject of race, from ethnology, folk-lore, and ballads. -The superstitions of a people tell their innermost characteristics, -and are thus profoundly interesting.</p> - -<p>The French have, however, tabularized fortune-telling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> -for us. Their peculiar ability in arranging ceremonials -and <i>fêtes</i>, and their undoubted genius for tactics and strategy, -show that they are able to foresee events with unusual -clearness. Their ingenuity in all technical contrivances is -an additional testimony in the same direction, and we are -not surprised that they have here, as is their wont, given -us the practical help which we need in fortune-telling. -Mlle. Lenormand, the sorceress who prophesied to Napoleon -his greatness, and to many of the princes and great -men of France their downfall and their misfortunes, has -left us thirty-six cards (to be bought at any book-store), -wherein we can read the decrees of fate. Her preface says, -“Thousands of noblemen did then acknowledge her great -talent already during her lifetime, and did often confess -that her method was full of truth and exactness.” Lenormand -was a very clever sibyl; she had great ingenuity; she -throws in enough of the inevitable bad, and finds enough -of the possible good, to at least amuse those who consult -her oracles. Whether we have confidence or faith in the -divination, we can not but look for the lucky cards. In -this game “The Cavalier” is a messenger of good fortune, -and, if not surrounded by unlucky cards, brings good news, -which the person may expect either from his own house or -from abroad. This will, however, not take place immediately, -but some time after.</p> - -<p>“The Clover Leaf” is a harbinger of good news, but -if surrounded by clouds it indicates great pain; but if No. -2 lies near No. 26 or 28, the pain will be of short duration, -and will soon change to a happy issue.</p> - -<p>“The Ship,” the symbol of commerce, signifies great -wealth, which will be acquired by trade or inheritance. If -near to the person, it means an early journey.</p> - -<p>“The House” is a certain sign of success and prosperity, -and although the present position of the person may -be disagreeable, yet the future will be bright and happy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> -If this card lies in the center of the cards under the person, -this is a hint to beware of those who surround him.</p> - -<p>“A Tree,” if distant from the person, signifies good -health. Nine trees, of different cards together, leave no -doubt about the realization of all reasonable wishes.</p> - -<p>“Clouds”: if their clear side is turned toward the person, -it is a lucky sign; with the dark side turned toward -the person, something disagreeable will soon happen.</p> - -<p>“A Serpent” is a sign of misfortune, the extent of -which depends upon the greater or smaller distance from -the person; it is followed invariably by deceit, infidelity, and -sorrow.</p> - -<p>“A Coffin,” very near to the person, means, without -any doubt, dangerous diseases, death, or total loss of fortune; -more distant from the person, the card is less dangerous.</p> - -<p>“The Nosegay” means much happiness in every respect.</p> - -<p>“The Scythe” indicates great danger, which will only -be avoided if lucky cards surround him.</p> - -<p>“The Rod” means quarrels in the family, domestic -afflictions, want of peace among married persons, fever, and -protracted illness.</p> - -<p>“The Birds” mean hardship to be overcome, but of -short duration; distant from the person, they mean the -accomplishment of a pleasant journey.</p> - -<p>These are descriptions of a few of the picture-cards -with which Mlle. Lenormand tells fortunes still, although -she has gone to the land of certainty, and has herself -found out if her symbols and emblems, and her combinations, -really did draw aside the curtain of the future with -invisible strings. We advise all our readers to possess -themselves of her “Fortune-telling Cards” if they wish to -become amateur sibyls.</p> - -<p>The cup of tea, and the mysterious wanderings of the -grounds around the cup, so long the favorite medium of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> -sibyl, seems to be an English superstition. It fits itself to -the old crone domesticity of the Anglo-Saxon humble -home, rather than to the more out-of-door romance of the -Spaniards and the Italians; and yet the most out-of-door -people in the world—the gypsies—use it as a means of discerning -the future.</p> - -<p>The cup should be filled with a weak infusion of tea—grounds -and all—and then carefully turning the cup toward -one, the tea should be carefully turned out, waving the cup -so skillfully that the tea-leaves are dispersed over the surface -of the cup. Happy the maid who can turn out the tea -without spilling the leaves. If one drop of tea is left in -the cup it will mean—a tear.</p> - -<p>These grounds, or tea-leaves, have been used from the -earliest days as the alphabet of the Parcæ. Before Chinese -tea was brought to England the old fortune-tellers made -some sort of a brew out of powdered herbs, which left their -mark on the cup. We can understand how that sinuous -serpent who has had so much to do with our destiny, as a -synonym of evil, can be pictured or “visualized” by such a -process; but where the sibyl finds the light-haired young -man crossing a river, where she finds gold and where -trouble, we must leave to the interpreters.</p> - -<p>That most interesting of sibyls, “Norna of the Fitful -Head,” used molten lead as a means of interpreting the -unseen, and that can be done by our modern soothsayers.</p> - -<p>Cards from early antiquity have been used to tell fortunes. -The Queen of Hearts is the heroine, and as about -her group the propitious reds, or the gloomy blacks, so may -we hope for good or dread bad luck. The Ace of Spades is -a bearer of evil tidings; the King of Hearts, at the right -of the Queen, is the very Fortunatus himself. And now, -who is this goddess so often invoked? <i>Fortuna</i>, courted -by all nations, was, in Greek, <i>Tyche</i>, or the goddess of -chance. She differed from Destiny or Fate in so far that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> -she worked without law, giving or taking at her own good -pleasure, and dispensing joy or sorrow indefinitely; her -symbols were those of mutability—a ball, a wheel, a pair of -wings, a rudder. The Romans affirmed that, when she -entered their city, she threw off her wings and shoes, and -determined to live with them for ever; she seems to have -thought better of it, however. She was a sister of the Parcæ, -or Fates, those three who spin the thread of life, measure -it, and cut it off. Fortunatus, he of the inexhaustible -purse of gold and the wishing-cap, is too familiar a figure -to the readers of fairy tales to be mentioned here.</p> - -<p>And yet, although all nations have desired to propitiate -Fortuna, her high-priests and interpreters have ever been -in disrepute. In Scotland, that land of demonology and -witchcraft, of second-sight, of dreamy superstition, fortune-tellers -were denounced as vagabonds, and their punishment, -by statute, was scourging and burning of the ears. -We all know how the knowledge of the “black art” was -denounced in Germany; and the witches of Salem, while -they were approached at dead of night by a pale magistrate -who desired to have his fortune told, were, at his high -behest, tortured, pilloried, and hanged the next week, if -the fortune was a bad one, or, if being well foretold, was -slow of accomplishment. That half-belief which superstitious -persons repose in their oracles, shown in the case -of the Indian, who breaks or maims his God if he does -not respond to his prayer, and in the remarkable story of -Louis XI, of France, who used to alternately pray to and -abuse his leaden images of saints, is repeated often in the -history of fortune-telling.</p> - -<p>Mother Redcap, “a very witch,” was resorted to by -hundreds of persons in England as a fortune-teller; her -image remains on a coin dated 1667. The well-known -prophecies of her neighbor, Mother Shipton, have come -down to us. Poor Redcap had all the duckings and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> -batings of the populace. She and her black cat were the -favorite horrors of the superstitious inhabitants of Kentish -Town, and hundreds of men, women, and children saw the -devil come in state to carry her off. But Mother Shipton -(who was born at Knaresborough in the reign of Henry -VII) became the most popular of British prophets, and, -although she was supposed to have sold her soul to the Old -Gentleman, she yet died in her bed decently and in order -at an extreme old age. So Fortuna is capricious, even in -her treatment of her votaries. It is not strange that “Palmistry” -should have taken higher ground than mere fortune-telling, -and indeed the lines of the hand will seem to map -out character, and perhaps destiny, with some accuracy. -The books say that the lines running through the palm -indicate will or indecision, force or weakness, quickness or -slowness; indeed, all which makes character and fate. We -are the arbiters of at least a part of our fortune.</p> - -<p>The power to tell fortunes by the hand can be learned -from any of the French books on palmistry, and there are -one or two little English translations. It can be sufficiently -curious and varied to amuse the home circle, and so -long as it is done for that purpose, fortune-telling can do -no harm.</p> - -<p>But the moment we rise above the idea that the beans, -the tea-grounds, the black cat, the cards, or the lines in -the palm, are but blind guides, making the most palpable -mistakes, then the tampering with the curtain becomes -dangerous, and we had better leave the future alone.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="VII" id="VII">VII.</a><br /> -AMUSEMENTS FOR A RAINY DAY.</h2> - -<p>It may seem an impeachment of the taste of our readers -to have lingered so long on the lesser lights of games and -fortune-telling as “Home Amusements,” when we have -before us the great world of decorative art: æsthetic embroidery, -dinner-card designing, china painting, the making -of screens, and the thousand and one devices by which -the modern family can amuse itself.</p> - -<p>The making of screens is an amusement which occupies -the whole family most profitably for a rainy day, even if it -is to be only the cutting out of pictures from the illustrated -newspapers, and the subsequent arrangement of them in -curious conjunction on a white cotton or muslin background. -The use of screens has dawned upon the American -mind within a few years. They are delightful in a -dining-room to keep off a draught or to hide a closet-door. -They break up a too long room admirably. They are very -useful in a bedroom to shut off the washstand and bath; -and they are very comforting to the invalid, as a protection -to his easy-chair against insidious breezes.</p> - -<p>Of course, those of satin or linen, embroidered by a skillful -hand; those painted on canvas by the best painters of -to-day; those from China and Japan—are the screens of -the opulent. Very pretty paper screens may be bought at -the shops for three or four dollars. But those on which -a group of pictures are to be pasted are the cheapest and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> -most amusing of any. And do not go and buy highly-glazed -pictures for the purpose. If you do, the screen looks -like a valentine. But cut out the pictures from old copies -of the “London Illustrated News,” “Punch,” “Harper’s -Weekly,” “Harper’s Bazaar,” and the English “Graphic,” -paste them thickly one upon another, and you have a curious -and most interesting mosaic. A lady in 1876, the -Centennial year, made a very beautiful screen of fashion -plates from the ordinary magazines of the period. Already -(1881) these fashions look very antiquated, and the -screen is becoming historically valuable. The effect of -these delicately-colored pictures, put on as thickly as possible -over the white muslin, has an effect like a festal procession, -and is very pretty.</p> - -<p>The medium used for adhering the pictures is common -flour paste, the pictures being also washed over the outside -with the same, and all the edges effectually fastened -down, the cotton cloth to which they are applied being -tightly stretched over a wooden frame. When domestic -paste is made, the material is frequently injured by scorching, -or by the addition of too much water. Good paste, -when spread on paper, will not strike through it like water, -but will remain on the surface, like butter on a piece of -bread. To make paste of a superior quality, that will not -spoil when kept in a cool place for several months, it is -necessary to add dissolved alum as a preservative. When a -few quarts are required, dissolve a dessert-spoonful of alum -in two quarts of tepid water. Put the water in a tin pail -that will hold six or eight quarts, as the flour of which the -paste is made will expand greatly while it is boiling. As -soon as the tepid water has cooled, stir in good rye or wheat -flour, until the liquid has the consistency of cream. See -that every lump of flour is crushed before placing the vessel -over the fire. To prevent scorching the paste, place -over the fire a dish-kettle or wash-boiler, partly filled with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> -water, and set the tin pail containing the material for paste -in the water, permitting the bottom to rest on a few large -nails or pebbles, to prevent excessive heat. Now add a teaspoonful -of powdered resin, a few cloves to flavor the paste, -and let it cook until the paste has become as thick as -“Graham mush,” when it will be ready for use. Keep it -in a tight jar, and it will last for a long time. If too thick, -add cold water, and stir it thoroughly. Such paste will -hold almost as well as glue.</p> - -<p>The famous picture-books of Walter Crane make a very -pretty frieze for screens; the artists of the family sometimes -paint a frieze. In these days of dadoes the screens are -often made with dado, wainscot, and frieze in three different -colored papers, so that there are three tiers of background -for the pictures, if the maker desires to leave spaces -between them. The cutting out of the pictures is an amusing -occupation for all the family on a rainy day.</p> - -<p>This making of screens sometimes leads to another very -attractive work for a rainy day—the preparation for a fancy -dress ball. This, in a lonely country house, far away from -the chance of any outward amusement, has often cheated -a fortnight’s bad weather of its heart-depressing qualities.</p> - -<p>As we have not the stores of old armor, old brocade -and satin, powdered wigs, and costumes of the different -reigns, which may be supposed from modern English novels -to be the property of every English mansion, we must -call upon taste and upon our national faculty of invention -to help us in this dilemma. The country store will give us -black and white tarlatan, chintz, cotton flannel (a most excellent -medium), and, indeed, flannels of all sorts. Black -lace, jewelry, and flowers are in every lady’s trunk, and, -with some stiff linings and <i>appliqué</i> chintz flowers, an old -silk can be made into a priceless brocade.</p> - -<p>Let us take a Venetian dress first. We will have King -<i>Pantelon</i>, the Lord of Misrule, in black with scarlet shirt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> -and three-cornered hat, and attended by his gay and dissolute -crew. We will have the <i>Illustrissimi</i>, wearing the -dress of the ancient Venetian nobility, scarlet cloaks, and -long bag wigs, mightily disdainful; the <i>Chiozotti</i> in black -velvet, wide lace collars, and high cloth caps, adorned -with artificial flowers—they shall shower <i>confetti</i> and -make jokes; we shall have dominoes and masks, Egyptians -and Neapolitans in velvet, with scarlet caps and stockings, -clapping castanets; we shall have Armenians, Levant -merchants and sailors, Turks in caftans, Greeks and Dalmatians, -regular-featured Mussulmans, Hindoos with jet-black -hair, and Malay Lascars in many-colored turbans, -fez, and scarf; grinning soot-black negroes, Polish Jews in -furred caps and long coats, Magyars in Hessians and pelisses; -Bohemian nurses in Czechen costume, a colored -handkerchief in the hair; dark-eyed young <i>bourgeoises</i> in -coquettish black veils; elegant ladies in velvet and point -lace; the gondolier, in his picturesque sailor costume and -broad sash; the Finland peasant, with short skirts, long-dangling -ear-rings, and silver pins; the Maltese with her -<i>fazzoletto</i>; an old <i>Contadino</i>, with short velveteen knee-breeches, -gaiters, and colored cotton umbrella; priests all -in black gown, shovel hat, and black silk stockings; dashing -naval officers; the <i>Guardia Nazionale</i>, and weather-beaten -fishermen with bronzed faces and red Phrygian cap. -We shall have Lord Byron, pale and melancholy, and picturesque -Masaniello; the patriarchs of the Greek Church; the -Spanish beauties, the Swiss peasant, the German Mädchen; -the madcap Harlequin dress of a Spanish princess. Then -there will be all the seasons—winter, for instance, in tulle, -swansdown, and spun glass; the Marie Antoinettes, in pink -brocade with long, square trains and trimmings of Marabout -feathers; the lovely Georgian costume, a Seville gypsy, a -Russian peasant; a flower-girl, a Nymph; Night and Day; -Spanish students and Flemish boors; Pages of Queen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> -Blanche of Castile; the beautiful white uniform of the -<i>Dragon de Villars</i>; a gothic costume; Charlemagne and -his Paladins. In short—“the Carnival of Venice.” All -this was done, and well done, at a country house and the -adjacent village (a village of not more than fifteen hundred -inhabitants), and for very little money, only a few years -ago.</p> - -<p>The business is done if one only <i>thinks he can do it</i>; -and there are numbers enough to work at it. A boarding-school -holiday, a watering-place, a large town bent on “getting -up something” for charity, should have one such -home behind it, where a natural-born leader will set the -whole thing going, and the picturesque shores of Italy will -give up their delights to some western town, some inland -village, some quiet and decorous hamlet of New England, -where all the inhabitants are dying of <i>ennui</i>.</p> - -<p>But here, from the pictures of our screen, which have -suggested all this, we have been led off from Decorative -Art into the business of giving a ball! We have been entertaining -a motley crowd indeed!</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“The day was dull, and dark, and dreary,</div> -<div class="i0">It rained, and the rain was never weary.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>But see! how we have cheated the clouds! The rainy -fortnight has been the most dissipated season possible—all -owing to our happy device of getting up a fancy ball—one -of the very many pleasant thoughts which have grown out -of screens and screen-making.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII">VIII.</a><br /> -EMBROIDERY AND OTHER DECORATIVE ARTS.</h2> - -<p>Let us return to our three legitimate decorations—our -fan-painting, our screen-painting, and our embroideries.</p> - -<p>Of Embroidery the world is full, and at its best estate. -The foolish old German wool-worsted work has gone out, -and in its place we have the very elaborate church needle-work -of the Middle Ages, and, better still, its tapestry.</p> - -<p>Some ingenious lady discovered that a plain piece of -carpet made a very good background for a rich curtain, -after a few stitches of embroidery were added; and it took -but one step farther for another lady to find in cotton -velvet a good background for tapestry. The figures are -sketched on, and then the embroidery is artistically added, -in the style of the thirteenth century, when the characters -were outlined by a single line, which also designates the -shape and folds of the garments. These outlines are filled -in with masses of stitches in two or three shades of color. -It is best, in making tapestry, to adhere to this simplicity, -as in attempting the later richness of the Gobelins the work -degenerates into a vulgar imitation.</p> - -<p>And in stitching away at the tapestry frame, the well-read -mamma might give her daughters a little sketch of -the history of tapestry. How once these artistic draperies -were the adornments of those stone castles which knew no -plastered walls. How they caught the story of the “Iliad” -and “Odyssey,” the scenes from the Bible, the whole story<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> -of mythology, the history of great wars. There hangs to-day, -at Blenheim, a perfect set of pictures of the victories -of the great Duke of Marlborough, done for him by the -pious Belgian nuns.</p> - -<p>But those works anterior to the sixteenth century have -the greatest interest for the student of tapestry. Gold -thread and silk were freely used in their embellishment, -and the effect is rather that of a mosaic than of a picture. -The greens are a study. They are produced with a dark -blue for the dark, and a yellow for the light tints. The -wonderful work of Matilda, called the Bayeux tapestry, -wrought on brown linen; the many historical pieces found -in Italy, done in wools; and the collections all over Europe, -show a mastery over the needle which we have lost.</p> - -<p>But it was left for Francis I, of France, to establish the -most renowned factory for these beautiful things, when at -Fontainebleau he founded what is now the <i>Gobelins</i>. The -Gobelins were two Dutch dyers of wool, celebrated for -their brilliant scarlets, who eventually gave their name to -the art, and a “Gobelin” got to mean a tapestry. Under -Louis XIV the Luxurious this manufactory attained to -highest importance. They became the Herters and Marcottes -of France. Colbert, the Prime Minister, united -under one head all the different bands of workmen who -were employed on furniture and decorations for the royal -palaces of France. To the weavers of carpets and tapestry -were added embroiderers, goldsmiths, wood-carvers, dyers, -etc. Charles Lebrun and his pupils were charged with -furnishing designs. Lebrun himself furnished over twenty-four -hundred designs. In 1667 Louis himself paid a visit -of state to the manufactory, accompanied by Colbert, and -examined the magnificent carpets, tapestries, silver plate, -and carvings which formed the splendid “Manufactory of -Furniture to the Crown.” This great establishment, however, -went down, as Louis lost money; and after the death<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> -of Lebrun (he was father to the wretched husband of pretty -Madame Le Brun) it returned to its original function of -producing tapestry. These Gobelin tapestries grew to be -the most wonderful reproduction of pictures ever seen.</p> - -<p>But why, one pauses to ask, try to reproduce a picture -“done in oils” by the laborious process of needle-work or -weaving? Why by process of mosaic? It is one of the -useless fancies of the human race. The old tapestry, done -by hand when there were no Gobelins, had a meaning and -a use. So has the modern tapestry done by hand. It is -cheap, it is individual, it is original; but for the Gobelins, -that favorite luxury of kings, we fail to see an excuse. -However, it is very beautiful, expensive, and rare.</p> - -<p>The process of tapestry weaving is called the “<i>haute -lisse</i>,” the warp being placed vertically, in contradistinction -to the “<i>basse lisse</i>,” a work with a horizontal warp, as -is usual. The weaver stands with the model which he is to -copy behind him. As the surface of the tapestry must -present a perfectly smooth and even surface, all cuttings -must be made on the wrong side, for the workman never -sees the beautiful work he is doing. This has been made -use of in poetry in the following simile:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“We work but blindly at the loom,</div> -<div class="i2">Nor see the pattern, save in parts;</div> -<div class="i0">Not ours to mark the gleam or bloom,</div> -<div class="i2">But labor on, with patient hearts.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“But when the angels overhead</div> -<div class="i2">The soul-wrought tapestry unfurls,</div> -<div class="i0">Perhaps the tears we vainly shed</div> -<div class="i2">May glow amid the threads—like pearls.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“The sorrow which has crushed the heart</div> -<div class="i2">A lily blooms, on azure field;</div> -<div class="i0">The strife in which we bore our part</div> -<div class="i2">In bud and flower may stand revealed.”</div> -</div></div></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> -<p>The Gobelins used gold, silver, pearls, and everything -decorative in their work, at times, to produce effect. The -first Revolution brought destruction to the Gobelins, as it -did to everything else, and many choice pieces were burned. -But it rose again under the first Napoleon, David furnishing -designs. In 1871 the Communists again set fire to the -manufactory, burning up the exhibition-room. Four hundred -thousand dollars was the estimated loss. But when -we remember that there perished tapestries of the fourteenth -and fifteenth centuries, including the “Acts of the -Apostles” by Raphael, and the now valuable, graceful, although -affected, charming designs of Boucher, which were -wrought for Pompadour, besides historical portraits and -scenes, this seems a low estimate. The embroidery of the -cartoons of Raphael, copies of which may be seen at Hampton -Court, were among the greatest of the Gobelin triumphs.</p> - -<p>However, to those who have walked the galleries of -Florence, who have seen there the grand and beautiful -specimens of embroidered tapestry of the sixteenth century, -there will ever be a charm about old tapestry in the -crude perspective and the sudden shading. It is this, -perhaps, which can be copied. It is this to which the -modern tapestry worker should address herself, if among -the amusements of home she counts the making of curtains, -and wall-coverings, and <i>portières</i>, which shall -almost suggest the possibility that they once hung in a -Florentine or a Venetian palace. A dark background of -some cheap woolen stuff, a knowledge of drawing, the -silk and woolen and cotton and linen threads now -brought to our hand so cheaply—will all furnish forth -the appliances for the making of tapestry hangings, such -as a castellan of the Middle Ages would not have despised.</p> - -<p>Painting on fans has become a very common Home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> -Amusement, and it is a very elegant one. The white silk -fan is usually selected, although linen, satin, and wood fans -are all easy and pleasant mediums. For painting on silk, -some technical knowledge is necessary, some gum-water, or -sizing, to prevent the paint from spreading. For painting -on wood, one needs only the common water-color box, and -a simple knowledge of drawing and painting. Flowers, -birds, and butterflies are the favorite devices, monograms -having gone out of fashion. It is better, if possible, to -have the silk stretched on a frame before it is mounted on -sticks, as one still sees the masterpieces of Boucher, Watteau, -and Greuze, not yet mounted, but framed, in galleries—far -too precious to mount, the Marchioness who ordered -them having, perhaps, fortunately forgotten her caprice -that we may admire it.</p> - -<p>And what pretty and pleasing and altogether historical -memories come in with the fan! It was created in primeval -ages. The Egyptian ladies had them of lotus-leaves; -the Greek and Roman ladies followed. The word <i>flabellum</i> -occurs often in the Roman literature. They also had fans -of peacock-feathers, and of some expansive material painted -in brilliant colors. They were not made to open and shut -like ours; that is a modern invention. They were stiff, -with long handles, for ladies were fanned by their slaves. -The <i>flabellifer</i>, or fan-bearer, was some young attendant, -generally male, whose common business it was to carry his -mistress’s fan. Would that were the fashion now! There -is a Pompeian painting of Cupid as the fan-bearer of -Ariadne, and lamenting her desertion by Theseus. In -Queen Elizabeth’s day the fan was usually made of feathers, -like the fan still used in the East. The handle was -richly ornamented, and set with stones. A fashionable -lady was never without her fan, which was chained to -her girdle by a jeweled chain. A satirist of the day, -Stephen Gosson, approves of the fan if used to drive away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> -flies and for cooling the skin. He, however, continues -scornfully:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“But seeing they were still in hand,</div> -<div class="i2">In house, in field, in church, in street,</div> -<div class="i0">In summer, winter, water, land,</div> -<div class="i2">In cold, in heat, in dry, in wet—</div> -<div class="i0">I judge they are for wives such tools</div> -<div class="i0">As babies are in plays for fools.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Queen Elizabeth dropped a silver-handled fan into the -moat at Amstead Hall, which occasioned many madrigals. -Sir Francis Drake presented to his royal mistress a “fan of -feathers, white and red, enameled with a half-moon of -mother-of-pearl; within that a half-moon garnished with -sparks of diamonds, and a few seed pearls on one side. -Having her Majesty’s picture within it, and on the reverse -a crow.” Why not try, young ladies, to paint a fan like -this? Use silver dust to illustrate “sparks of diamonds.” -It would be a very pretty conceit.</p> - -<p>Poor Leicester gave, as his New Year’s gift, in 1574, “a -fan of white feathers set in a handle of gold, garnished 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 romping, -with a white muzzled bear at his foot.” This fan would -be difficult to copy. It was evidently a love-token from -poor, ill-used Leicester to his haughty queen. Just before -Christmas, in 1595, Elizabeth went to Kew, dined at my -Lord Keeper’s house, and there was handed her a “fine fan, -with a handle garnished with diamonds.”</p> - -<p>Fans in Shakespeare’s time seem to have been composed -of ostrich-feathers, and so on, stuck into handles. In -“Love and Honor,” by Sir William Davenant, we find the -line,</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>“All your plate, Vasco, is the silver handle of your old prisoner’s -fan.”</p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> - -<p>Marston says:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i22">“Another, he</div> -<div class="i0">Her silver-handled fan would gladly be.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Forty pounds were often given for a fan in Elizabeth’s -time. Bishop Hall, in his “Satires,” in 1597, says:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“While one piece pays her idle waiting man,</div> -<div class="i0">Or buys a hood, or silver-handled fan.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The fan of the Countess of Suffolk resembles a powder-puff.</p> - -<p>But gentlemen carried fans in those days. We find in -a manuscript in the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, the -following allusion: “The gentlemen then had prodigious -fans, as is to be seen in old pictures, like that instrument -which is used to dry feathers, and it had a handle at least -one half as long, with which their daughters oftentimes -were corrected. Sir Edward Cole, Lord Chief Justice, -rode the circuit with such a fan, and William Dugdale told -me he was witness of it.” The Earl of Manchester also -used such a fan. “But the fathers and mothers slasht their -daughters, in the time of their besom-discipline, when they -were perfect women.” Both fashions have happily passed -away. Lords Chief Justices no longer “slash” their daughters, -nor do they carry fans.</p> - -<p>Of Catharine de Braganza (1664) we read that she and -her maids walked from Whitehall in procession to St. -James’s Palace through the park in glittering costume of -silver lace in the bright morning sunshine. Parasols being -unknown in England at that era, the courtly belles used -the gigantic green shading-fans, which had been introduced -by the Queen and her Portuguese ladies, to shield -their complexions from the sun, when they did not wish -wholly to obscure their charms by putting on their masks. -Both were in general use in this reign. The green shading-fan -is of Moorish origin, and for more than a century after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> -the marriage of Catharine of Braganza was considered an -indispensable luxury by our fair and stately ancestral dames, -who used them in open carriages, in the promenade, and -at prayers, where they ostentatiously screened their devotions -from public view by spreading them before their faces -while they knelt.</p> - -<p>But China and Japan—the home of fans—are waiting -to be let in! and as soon as the India trade was opened by -Catharine’s marriage treaty, there entered the carved ivory -fan, the light bamboo and palm-leaf, the paper fan, the -silk folding fan, mounted on beautiful Japanese sticks; all -came to England about this time.</p> - -<p>The vellum fans of France, on which Watteau first -painted his shepherdesses in hoop-petticoats, and swains in -full-bottomed wigs, the choice impossible goddesses of -Boucher, with cupids and nymphs, all came next. The -history of fans, in France alone, would fill a volume; and -the neighboring kingdom of Spain, where the language of -fans has become a very serious study, would give us another -volume. The fans of tortoise-shell, enriched with jewels, -are a favorite luxury of to-day. Oliver Wendell Holmes -has written a delightful poem on the “Origin of the Fan.” -In all our art loan collections there is, nowadays, an exhibition -of fans. The young student of fan-painting should -strive to see some of those of Watteau and of Boucher. -Tiffany to-day turns out some very beautiful specimens; -and more than one of our artists could admirably paint a -fan or two as his contribution to Fan History.</p> - -<p>Nothing can be prettier as a Home Amusement than -fan-painting, into which much, but not too much, Japanese -suggestion should creep. Remember, young ladies, the -plea of that poor stork, of which we have seen so much, -“that he be allowed to put down his other leg!” and spare -us the gilded bird, or give him to us but seldom.</p> - -<p>The art of Illumination, which is now studied occa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>sionally -by our young ladies, goes wonderfully well into -fan-painting. Perhaps it is too good for it. Perhaps the -same hand which can copy the old initial letter which -makes the missals rich and rare, should not condescend to -the application of the same delicate manipulation in order -to ornament a fan. But a fan of vellum, painted by an -illuminator, is still a very beautiful thing.</p> - -<p>A fan painted to illustrate a song or a ballad is a very -pretty thing. The common linen fan, on which a clever -hand draws with pencil or ink the story of “Mary, Mary, -quite contrary,” becomes a precious possession. And in -these days of Kate Greenaways and Rosina Emmets we -ought to have many charming fan decorators. We should -not object if they selected the old-fashioned <i>maniéré</i> goddesses, -hovering cupids, smiling nymphs, and <i>posé</i> infants -of Boucher, if they would give us his cool, pearly grays, -and sweet, soft rose tints. We have had enough of realism -and ugliness, disagreeable cat-tails, and harsh, dirty -Joan of Arcs. Let us have a little beauty by way of a -change, at least on our fans. Perhaps we could “live up -to it.”</p> - -<p>Nor should we fail to note the pleasant possibility of all -the dinner-cards of a winter coming fresh from the hands -of the young ladies of the family. What infinite suggestion -does one glimpse of the garden on a June morning -give to the fair artist! We can imagine that some poetical -member should thus summon and direct her sister and -brother artists in the following manner:</p> - -<p>“Do give me, Rosamond, that spray of sweet-brier -which has caught a bit of spider-web over its sweetest -pink bud. Throw in that green dragon-fly who is about -to dart through the spider’s web. Give me, Grace, that -morning-glory cup with a yellow butterfly floating over it. -It will shame the best Venetian glass of Mrs. Crœsus.</p> - -<p>“You, Jane, paint me those dandelions, strewed by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> -some millionaire who is tired of his gold. You, Constance, -take this volume of the old poets, and hunt up appropriate -mottoes to write under these fancies from Nature. They -shall illuminate our dinners of next winter, and breathe -the breath of Nature through our stiff conventionality. -They shall be our visitors from Titania.</p> - -<p>“Yes, a happy thought! You, Mary, who are so akin -to the fairies, give us your kindred. Paint me Oberon and -Queen Mab giving a banquet in yon lily. What a splendid -and baronial apartment! How the golden shower falls on -their royal heads from those laden stamens! True courtiers -they, who never stop flattering. Suggest, if you can, -with your brush, the perfume of luxury which is born and -bred in this royal pavilion. Show me their delicate guests. -Here comes the Butterfly, most <i>repandu</i> of beaus; and the -Humming-bird, rich bachelor (hard to catch), who dashes -in for a look at the beauties, and away again—you can put -him in; he is a type for a dinner-card.</p> - -<p>“And you, Paul, who are of a strong, masculine, satirical -turn, shall make all these frogs and toads into guests in -another set of dinner-cards. Give me the frog as an Ambassador. -I like his pouting throat, his puffy air—it so -simulates importance. How grand and disdainful he is! -I declare, he looks so like old Mr. ——! But do not make -a portrait; that would give offense. These toads are just -about as lively and as brilliant as the rank and file of -diners-out. Put them all in Worth dresses. Make the -dishes on the table after Hawthorne’s delicate fancy, the -shapes of summer vegetables—squashes, cucumbers, pea-pods. -What is that pretty poem I remember about Pods?</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“‘The Monk’s-hood and the Shepherd’s-purse,</div> -<div class="i2">And the Poppy’s pepper-caster;</div> -<div class="i0">The Rose’s scarlet reticule,</div> -<div class="i2">And the somber box of the Aster;</div> -<div class="i0">Nasturtion’s biting brandy-flask,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> -<div class="i2">Infused with a wholesome smart;</div> -<div class="i0">And the Milkweed’s knot of white floss silk,</div> -<div class="i2">Which will not come apart;</div> -<div class="i0">For next to the bud where the Poppy nods,</div> -<div class="i2">And the sweet Moss-rose—are the late Seed-pods.’”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mary, “pods are very pretty.”</p> - -<p>Well, we have, perhaps, talked nonsense enough about -the dinner-cards. It is a pretty Home Amusement for -the back piazza in summer, or for the close and guarded -warm home parlor of winter. Give us the results of -both, young ladies. And since all the wealthy chromo -people are offering such splendid sums for the Christmas, -Easter, and even advertising cards, why should not -every group try their hand at the—perhaps—thousand dollar -prize?</p> - -<p>Here is a suggestion for a Christmas card: A group of -young pagans going out of the Catacombs are represented -as strewing flowers and singing gay songs. On the other -side a group of austere early Christians are coming in, singing -hymns. Between the two a ray of light comes down -through a fissure of the roof and forms a cross. The religion -that is going out, the religion that is coming in—the -cross is between them. How much a clever hand could -make of this moment of time, so replete with interest to -all the world!</p> - -<p>It would seem as if, with all the suggestions of Easter, -that no one would need anything but a paint-box and a -pack of blank cards to interest them at this season. We -should have the World being hatched out of an egg; the -Saxon goddess Eastre; the Legend of the Stork; the German -children searching for the Nest in the garden where -the Easter-hen had laid her egg; the great Sunburst; the -Sun dancing on Easter morning; the games of mediæval -England, when the women played ball at one end of the -town and the men at the other, and one fine couple taking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> -occasion to run away to get married on the sly. The -Easter Egg is full of meat for the artist.</p> - -<p>Growing out of these thoughts comes up the great and -increasing taste for symbolism, which finds its highest exponent -in church embroidery. The Catholic Church has -ever been a good customer of the decorative art schools. -It needs and consumes or uses much embroidery. But the -pious women of Protestant communion now also deem it a -duty and a pleasure to decorate the altars of their beloved -churches with much that is symbolic and beautiful, and it -is a favorite form of Home Amusement to create an altar-cloth -or some draperies which shall engross an hour or two -a day of the time of the best embroideresses in the family.</p> - -<div class="figright"> -<img src="images/i_061.png" width="55" height="54" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p>The favorite symbols are these: The Cross in its various -forms; the monogram composed of the Greek letters Χ -(<i>Ch</i>) and Ρ (<i>R</i>), the first two in the name of -<span class="smcap">Christ</span>; the Apocalyptic letters Α and Ω (<i>Alpha</i> -and <i>Omega</i>), often combined into a monogram; -and the Greek characters ΙΗΣ, the first -three letters in the name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ (<span class="smcap">Jesus</span>). -This last symbol is sometimes interpreted thus, in Latin: -<i>J[esus], H[ominum] S[alvator]</i>—<span class="smcap">Jesus, of Men the Saviour</span>.</p> - -<p>Less frequent is the Fish, which was often used by the -early Christians as a kind of secret sign of their faith, the -reason being that ΙΧΘΥΣ, the Greek word for “fish,” contains -the initials of an article of their creed, thus: Ι[ησοῦς] -Χ[ριστὸς], Θ[εοῦ] Υ[ιὸς], Σ[ωτὴρ]—<i>Jesus Christ, God’s Son, -the Saviour</i>.</p> - -<p>Besides the foregoing, we have the Ship, indicating the -Church, as typified by Noah’s Ark; the Anchor (always in -close connection with the ship) entwined with a dolphin—emblems -of Fortitude, Faith, and Hope; the Dove, occasionally -bearing the olive-branch—the symbol of Christian -Charity and Meekness; the Phœnix and the Peacock—sym<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>bols -of Eternity; the Cock of Watchfulness; the Lyre of -the Worship of God; the Palm-branch—the heathen symbol -of Victory, but in a Christian sense that of Victory -over Death; the Sheaf; the Bunch of Grapes, with other -Biblical signs and allusions, such as the Hart at the Brook; -the Brazen Serpent; the Ark of the Covenant; the Seven-branched -Candlestick; the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; -and, lastly, the Cross, with flowers, with a Crown, with a -dove hovering about it. Many of these decorative symbols -suggest themselves to the contemplative mind, and enter -into the appropriate designs for ecclesiastical embroidery.</p> - -<p>This embroidery must be beautifully executed to be -worthy of its mission. The face of Christ has been so exquisitely -wrought by some devout embroideresses that it is -like a painting. The work should be done in a frame, and -after considerable study.</p> - -<p>And how pleasant a study for a winter evening becomes -the universal subject of symbolism! We learn that the -Eagle and the Thunderbolt were the symbols of Power -under pagan mythology, because the attributes of the highest -among the gods. The Rod, with the two serpents, indicated -Commerce, because Mercury, whose insignia they were, was -the God of Traffic. The Club, the emblem of Strength, -was the attribute of Hercules. The Griffin—most useful -animal for all decorative purposes—was sacred to Apollo. -The symbol of the Sphinx was taken from the fable of -Œdipus. We are coming back to the Oriental method of -teaching by parables in all our new internal decoration; -and for the illuminator the knowledge is priceless.</p> - -<p>We mount up from these simpler emblems to a consideration -of the myths of Niobe, of Cupid and Psyche, of -Orpheus captivating the wild beasts of the forest by the -sound of his lyre, in which was supposed to lurk an analogy -of the history of our Lord. Then we come down to the -materialism of the ancients, by which a river is symbolized<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> -by a river-god; a city, by a goddess with a mural crown; -night, by a female figure with a torch and a star-bespangled -robe; heaven, by a male figure throwing a veil in an arched -form over his head. All these reflections, born of study -and leading to it, are brought in by the practical application -now made in embroidery, painting, and wall-decorations; -and it would be well if, among the Home Amusements, -these graver studies went hand in hand with the -pleasant duties of embroidery and illuminating cards and -books.</p> - -<p>Ole Bull says that he arrived at his wonderful effects -upon the violin less by manual practice than by meditation. -It would be well to <i>think</i> much over the subject of -art. He <i>practiced</i> less and <i>thought</i> more, it is said, than -other violinists. No occupation conduces more to quiet -and pleasant thought than that of embroidery. We want -realism; but we also want idealism. There is no sort of -doubt that Art, once admitted as a friend of the family, -becomes the greatest instigator of all sorts of Home Amusements, -whether peeping out through the paint-box, the -needle, the embroidering-frame, the etching tool, or the -turpentine-bottle and the mineral paints which are to -decorate the plaque. Art is a sprite whose acquaintance -should be cultivated.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="IX" id="IX">IX.</a><br /> -ETCHING.</h2> - -<p>“Good etching is the poetry of drawing, written down -rapidly in short-hand.” No doubt many a very orderly -mamma, who has had a son or daughter afflicted with a -mania for etching, as so many young people are now, -has a vision of bath-tubs misappropriated to mixtures -of what looked very unlike clear water for cleansing purposes, -and which turned out to have plates of copper inside -waiting for a bite of acid. Such mammas will blame us -for calling this a Home Amusement; they call it—it is to -be feared—“a Nuisance.” And yet what form of Art is -so near the highest forms of poetry? The etcher is next -door to his subject and his public. He has but the ink -and himself between that cloud-shadow and them.</p> - -<p>Etching is defined by some writers as the stenography -of artistic thought; a system of short-hand writing. Given -a copper plate, an etching-needle, and the proper knowledge—easily -learned—of the action of the acid, and etching -can be done at home as well as crochet or embroidery; and -as only the simplest lines and the simplest curves are admissible, -the question of merit narrows itself to one of -intelligent combination. The best etching is that which -combines the maximum of speed with the maximum of -expressional clearness; so that the landscape may be written -on a “monument less perishable than brass,” while the -thought is fresh and vivid. An artist can see in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> -short-hand of an etching the glory of a sunset amid its -clouds.</p> - -<p>Highly-elaborated drawings can also be reproduced by -etchings as in no other way, as we have learned by consulting -the Magazines and Art Periodicals of the day; and -although a great etcher must have a genius for it, many -without genius can learn the art. An etching is not a -skeleton of a picture, but a <i>résumé</i>. Samuel Palmer, Frederic -Taylor, and Hook, in England; Jules Jacquemart, -Flameny, Rajou, Boilvin, Le Rat, Hédouin, Greux, Courtey, -Laguillermie, and others, in France, have taught us -what a beautiful <i>résumé</i> it is, not to speak of our own -gifted interpreters. The original etchers can produce strong -sentiment concerning life and nature; and although there -is at first discouraging uncertainty about results, yet there -is a great chance of success.</p> - -<p>And the capriciousness of the thing is one of its charms, -as it is, like poetic expression, dependable upon personal -thought and feeling. It is like the success which attends -upon a happy hit in poetry when one makes a good etching, -yet a certain amount of mechanical exactitude can always -be acquired. Let the boys and girls of a large family be -taught etching, and some one will turn out a clever and, -perhaps, a first-rate etcher.</p> - -<p>It is quite too unfortunate that our young girls in the -country do not take more to sketching from Nature, and -to water-color. To sit at one’s window, and, with a “few -telling touches,” to give the trees in the near foreground or -the distant reach of the river, is the every-day amusement -of many an English lady. Our first efforts must be labored, -of course; we must patiently observe and copy what -we see; but then comes the attainment of ease, and our -Home Amusements are infinitely enriched. It is best to -study at first in single tint until one gets accustomed to -form, and then to try varied colors.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> - -<p>The mastery of the three primary colors—yellow, red, -and blue—is the Alpha and Omega of painting. As force -of color is only to be obtained by opposing one of these -singly to all the others combined, they are consequently all -present whenever opposition occurs; and no picture is perfectly -pleasing without the presence of all three, even -though they may be subdued to the most solemn and sober -undertones. Try the effect of mixing the various colors, -and preserve the mixtures you find most useful. But this -is an art which must be learned, and for the elucidation of -which we have no space here.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="X" id="X">X.</a><br /> -LAWN TENNIS.</h2> - -<p>And now we come to what, perhaps, our readers may -imagine we might have come to before—the out-of-door -Games and Amusements which radiate from Home.</p> - -<p>Lawn Tennis is so preëminently the game of the present -moment that we must give it a central place in our volume.</p> - -<p>It has great antiquity, of course. What fashionable -game has not? Did not Agrippina play at croquet, and -Cleopatra institute “Les Graces”? We know that Diana -started archery, for isn’t she always drawn with a bow? -And yet she died an old maid.</p> - -<p>The Greeks styled court tennis as “<i>Sphairistike</i>,” and -the Romans called it <i>Pila</i>. It was the fashionable pastime -of French and English kings. Charles V, of France, and -Henry V, VII, and VIII, of England, were all good tennis -players. Who does not remember the insult which the -French king put upon royal Harry?</p> - -<p>“Tennis balls! My lord?”</p> - -<p>It has been justly described as one of the most ancient -games in Christendom. It became in England the exclusive -sport of the wealthy, owing to the expense of erecting -and maintaining covered courts; for in early days we learn -that it was always played within doors. Indeed, the history -of France is full of it. The unhappy Charles IX gave the -order for the massacre of St. Bartholomew from a tennis -court. The French Revolution was born in one.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> - -<p>But to Major Walter Wingfield do we owe Lawn Tennis. -This officer, of the First Dragoon Guards, attempted, unsuccessfully, -in 1874, to procure a patent for a new game. He -had taken the net out of doors, and no longer did four -walls encompass the players. A little pamphlet is in existence -now which fully establishes the claim of this officer -to the rightful title of inventor of lawn tennis. It is called -“The Major’s Game of Lawn Tennis; dedicated to the -party assembled at Nautelywdjin, December, 1873, by W. -C. W.,” and is illustrated with an elaborate pictorial diagram, -containing a sketch of a lawn tennis court, erected -in a pretty garden. The only difference appreciable to a -modern player in the appearance of the court is that on -one side it is divided into two squares, and that on the -other the server stands in a diamond-shaped space. With -slight exceptions, the game remains as it did when Major -Wingfield invented it.</p> - -<p>Now, in 1881, as in the days of Henry III, of England -(about 1222), it is a favorite with people of superior rank, -well befitting the tastes of the nobility, in the performance -of which they could exercise a commendable zeal, as -also their whole physique; that is to say, it is the fashion. -The name undoubtedly comes from Tennois, in the -French district of Champagne, where balls are manufactured, -and where, it is claimed, the game was first introduced.</p> - -<p>A lawn, well clipped and evenly rolled, is the first -requirement. The courts should be laid rectangularly. -The game should be gotten up with reference to the wind, -the net being set at right angles with it. Thus will be -avoided the tendency of air currents to carry the balls off -or beyond the bounds; and the play will be then against -or with the wind. In either case its influence can be more -accurately calculated.</p> - -<p>The lines of boundary and division should be indicated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> -upon the greensward by means of whitewash, carefully laid -on with brush and string. The larger or double court -should be seventy-eight feet long by a width of thirty-six -feet, inside measure; and the smaller or single-handed -court seventy-eight by twenty-seven feet, inside measurement. -As in the old game of tennis, so in this, the court -is divided across the middle and at right angles to its greatest -length by a net, so stretched and fastened to and by -two posts, standing three feet outside of the side lines, that -the height of the net at each post for the double-handed or -larger court is four feet, and in the middle over the half-court -line three feet six inches; and for the single-handed -or smaller court four feet nine inches at the posts, and three -feet in the middle over the half-court line. These divisions -are termed courts, and are subdivided into half-courts by a -line midway between the side lines, and running parallel -with the greatest length, which is known as the half-court -line. The four resulting half-courts are respectively divided -by a line on each side of the net, parallel to and twenty-two -feet from it. These two lines, called service lines, it -may be observed, will then be seventeen feet inside of the -lines of boundary for the short sides, known as base lines.</p> - -<p>The implements comprise net, posts, cordage, balls, and -rackets. The net should be taut, the posts straight, the -ball hollow, of India-rubber, covered with white cloth; in -size, two inches and a half; weight, two ounces. The racket -is made with a frame of elastic wood, with a webbing nicely -wrought of catgut. The large-sized rackets made at Philadelphia -and in London are the best.</p> - -<p>The players don a costume of flannel for the purpose, -wearing shoes of canvas with corrugated rubber soles, without -heels. Indeed, a chapter might be written on lawn-tennis -dresses, aprons, and other fancies. But these—so -they are loose and easy, and not long or cumbrous—may be -left to the fancy of the individual.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> - -<p>The choice of sides and the right of serving are left to -the chance of toss, with the proviso that if the winner of -the toss choose the right to serve, the other player shall -have the choice of sides, or <i>vice versa</i>.</p> - -<p>There are double-handed, three-handed, and four-handed -games, each having some variations. In the double-handed -game the players stand on opposite sides of the net. The -player who first delivers the ball is called the server, and -the other the striker-out. The first game having been -played, these interchange; the server becomes the striker-out, -and the striker-out the server; and so alternately in -subsequent games of the set. The server usually announces -the intention to serve by the interrogation “Ready?” If -answered affirmatively, the service is made, the server -standing with one foot outside the base line, and from any -part of the base line of the right and left counts alternately, -beginning with the right.</p> - -<p>The ball so served is required to drop within the service -line, half-court line, and side line of the court which is -diagonally opposite to that from which it was served, where -the service from the base line must fall to be a service. If -the ball served drops on or beyond the service line, if it -drops in the net, if it drops out of the court, or on any of -the lines which bound it, or if it drops in the wrong court, -or, if in attempting to serve, the server fails to strike the -ball, it is a “fault.” A fault can not be taken, but the -ball must be served the second time from the same court -from which the fault was served.</p> - -<p>Though the service is made if the striker-out is not -ready, the service shall be repeated, unless an attempt is -made to return the service on the part of the striker-out; -which action shall be construed to be equivalent to having -been ready. No service is allowed to be “volleyed”; that -is, the striker-out is not allowed to return a service while -the ball is “on the fly,” or before a “bounce.” If such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> -a return of service is made, it counts a stroke for the -server.</p> - -<p>To properly return a service, and have the ball in play, -the ball is to be played back over the net or between the -posts before it has touched the ground a second time, or -while on the “first bounce,” and is subject to no bounds -other than the side and base lines of the court. After the -ball is in play, it may be struck while “on the fly,” but -policy would dictate a bounce to determine whether or not -it has been played beyond the boundaries of the court. A -ball served, or in play, may touch the net, and be a good -service or return. If it touches the top cord it is termed a -“let,” a “life,” or a “net” ball, and need not be played -if it drops just inside the net, on the striker-out side, but -must be served again. Should it fall on the service side, -or in the wrong court on the striker-out side, or out of -bounds, it counts a “fault.” If, however, it falls so as to -be a good return, in any stage of the game other than -service, it must be played as a good ball. In play, if the -striker-out volleys the service, or the ball in play, or fails -to return the service or the ball in play, or returns the -service or the ball in play so that it drops untouched by -the server, on or outside of any of the lines which bound -the court, or if the striker-out otherwise loses a stroke, as -we will find presently, when we consider the conditions -common to both server and striker-out, the server wins a -stroke.</p> - -<p>In the handling of the racket the greatest dexterity -may be attained by careful study and practice. The twist -ball is a feature of the game which good players utilize to -the greatest advantage. The uncertainty of its bounces is -calculated to outwit the most adroit.</p> - -<p>Since, under certain conditions of failure on the part -of the striker-out, the advantage in count of a stroke comes -to the server, so, too, the striker-out reaps a harvest if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> -the server serves two consecutive faults, or if the server -fails to return the ball in play, or if the server returns the -ball in play so that it drops untouched by the striker-out -on or outside any of the lines which bound the court, -or if the server loses a stroke under conditions common to -both server and striker-out, in any of which cases the -striker-out wins a stroke. There are conditions under -which each player loses a stroke: If the service-ball, or -ball in play, touches the player, or anything worn or -carried by him, except the racket in the act of striking; -or if the player strikes or touches the service-ball, -or ball in play, with the racket more than once; or if in -returning the service-ball, or ball in play, the player -touches the net with any part of the body, or with the -racket, or with anything that is worn or carried; or if the -ball touches either of the posts; so if the player strikes -the ball before it has passed the net, or if the service-ball, -or ball in play, drops or falls upon a ball lying in either -of the players’ courts. So much for the conditions under -which the players, either server or striker-out, win or lose -a stroke.</p> - -<p>As for scoring, there are two systems, each of which has -its adherents. Both should be understood, and the more -thoroughly the player understands both, the more at ease -will he be in any company with whom he may be playing.</p> - -<p>The first plan is this: The first stroke won counts for -the player, winning a score of fifteen; the second stroke -won by the same player counts for that player an additional -score of fifteen, making a total of thirty; the third stroke -won counts for him an additional ten, making the score -forty. Unless there is a tie of forty, the fourth stroke -won by that player entitles him to score game. If, however, -both players have won three strokes, the score is called -<i>deuce</i>, and so on until at the score of deuce either player<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> -wins two consecutive strokes, when the game is scored for -that player. Six games constitute a “set,” and the player -who first wins them wins the set, unless in case both players -win five games, when the score is called “games-all,” and -the next game won by either player is scored advantage -game for that player. If the same player wins the next -game he wins the set. If he loses the next game, the score -is again called “games-all”; and so on until at the score -of games-all either player wins two consecutive games, when -he wins the set. An exception to this is where an agreement -is entered into not to play advantage sets, but to -decide the set by one game after arriving at the score of -games-all. In this mode of scoring both the server and the -striker-out are entitled to count, while in the “alternative -method” it is different.</p> - -<p>An alternative method of scoring is as follows, in which -the term “hand-in” is substituted for “server,” and -“hand-out” for “striker-out.” In this system the hand-in -alone is able to score. If he loses a stroke he becomes -hand-out, and his opponent becomes hand-in, and serves his -turn. Fifteen points won constitutes the game. If both -players have won fourteen points, the game is set to three, -and the score called “love-all.” The hand-in continues to -serve, and the player who first scores three points wins the -game. If he or his partner loses a stroke, the other side -shall be hand-in. During the remainder of the game, when -the first hand-in has been put out, his partner shall serve, -beginning from the court from which the last service was -not delivered, and when both partners have been put out, -then the other side shall be hand-in.</p> - -<p>The <i>hand-in</i> shall deliver the service in accordance with -the restrictions mentioned for the server, and the opponents -shall receive the service alternately, each keeping the court -which he originally occupied. In all subsequent strokes -the ball may be returned by either partner on each side.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> -The privilege of being hand-in two or more successive -times may be given.</p> - -<p>What has been said of double-handed games applies -equally well to the three-handed and four-handed games, -except that in the three-handed game the single player -shall serve in every alternate game; in the four-handed -game the pair who have the right to serve in the first game -may decide which partner shall do so, and the opposing -pair may decide similarly for the second game. The partner -of the player who served in the first game shall serve -in the third, and the partner of the player who served in -the second game shall serve in the fourth, and so on. In -the same order, in all the subsequent games of a set or series -of sets, the players shall take the service alternately throughout -each game.</p> - -<p>No player shall receive or return a service delivered to -his partner; and the order of service and of striking-out -once arranged, shall not be altered; nor shall the strikers-out -change courts to receive the service before the end of -the set. The players change sides at the end of every set. -When a series of sets is played, the player who was server -in the last game of one set shall be striker-out in the first -game of the next.</p> - -<p>A <i>Bisque</i> is one stroke which may be claimed by the -receiver of the odds at any time during a set, except that -a bisque may not be taken after the service has been delivered. -The server may not take a bisque after a fault, but -the striker-out may do so. One or more bisques may be -given in augmentation or diminution of other odds.</p> - -<p><i>Half-fifteen</i> is one stroke given at the beginning of the -second and every subsequent alternate game of a set.</p> - -<p><i>Fifteen</i> is one stroke given at the beginning of every -game of a set.</p> - -<p><i>Half-thirty</i> is one stroke given at the beginning of the -first game, two strokes given at the beginning of the second<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> -game, and so on alternately in all the subsequent games of -a set.</p> - -<p><i>Thirty</i> is two strokes given at the beginning of every -game of a set.</p> - -<p><i>Half-forty</i> is two strokes given at the beginning of the -first game, three strokes at the beginning of the second, -and so on alternately in all the subsequent games of the -set.</p> - -<p><i>Forty</i> is three strokes given at the beginning of every -game of a set.</p> - -<p><i>Half-court</i> is when the players having agreed into which -court the giver of the odds of half-court shall play, the -latter loses a stroke if the ball returned by him drops outside -any of the lines which bound that court.</p> - -<p>If the game is to be umpired, there should be one for -each side of the net, who shall call play at the beginning of -a game, enforce the rules, and be sole judge of fair and unfair -play, each on his respective side of the net.</p> - -<p>We have followed the best manual and the best opinions -of the most successful players in the above lengthy abstract -for the use of many who may be confused by the -very absurd and contradictory rules published in the newspapers. -These rules of ours are those which were used at -Newport, at the Casino, during the famous Lawn Tournament -of 1880, which was so very interesting, and in which -the victors were rewarded by prizes, from Mr. Bennett, of -silver pitchers, bracelets, and rings of great value; and -which shows that the game of lawn tennis deserved the -high encomiums pronounced by Henry III on court tennis. -It is a game of science; it does exercise every part of the -body; and it requires skill, good temper, staying power, -judgment, and activity.</p> - -<p>Of course, few groups at home will play with the science -and skill displayed in these tournaments; yet the rules -of the game should be thoroughly learned, and those who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> -play scientifically will avoid those contentions and disputes -which spoil any game.</p> - -<p>It is better in giving a lawn-tennis party not to invite -any but those who really are devotees of the game. As to -others, the absorption of the players makes the party -stupid.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XI" id="XI">XI.</a><br /> -GARDEN PARTIES.</h2> - -<p>A Garden Party is a scene of enchantment, to which -the lawn-tennis net lends an additional grace and variety.</p> - -<p>A lady, living near a city, who chooses to inaugurate -the season with a garden party, sends her invitations a -week in advance, and carefully incloses a card telling her -guests by what roads, railway trains, and boats she may be -reached. There must be no confusion or lack of carriages -at the end of the route. This hospitality must cover everything. -If the weather is fine and the distance short, ladies -generally drive to these entertainments in gay dresses -and bonnets or hats; for a garden party should look as -much like a Watteau as possible. Those who have had the -advantage of seeing a garden party in England—at Holland -House, or at Buckingham Palace—will remember how -beautiful, finished, and gay a scene it is. A dressy parasol -and a fan hung at the side are indispensable. Ladies go -either in the short Amazonian dresses which the practice -of games has made so fashionable, or else in Worth’s last -and most elegant trailing costumes, trusting to the grass -being dry, and knowing that they can sit on the piazza.</p> - -<p>Most garden-party givers provide band music, which -plays either in the grand hall, or at some spot on the lawn -where dancing can go on. But our turf is not like the -English turf, and modern dancing is not that springing -measure of “young Bertine,” as she bounds under the wal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>nut-trees -of Southern France. So we can not count in -dancing as one of the usual pleasures of a garden party, -unless a broad platform is laid; and this has in its way -a very pretty effect under the trees or in a large tent.</p> - -<p>A garden party is for all ages; so there should be in our -uncertain climate full provision for the elderly, who can -not always spend an afternoon on the lawn. Broad piazzas -are very useful, and much enjoyed by those who fear our -treacherous malarious soil; and if one can not exercise, it -is better to sit on a piazza than on the grass.</p> - -<p>As it is always prone to rain at picnics and garden parties, -it is better to have the refreshments in the house. -Gentlemen can run into the banquet-hall and get a plate -of lobster-salad for a lady, or the waiters can carry the -refreshments about; but for a sudden shower of rain to -descend on a table is miserable, and defeats the object of -the table.</p> - -<p>The lady of the house, however, often improvises a hasty -roof or covering for her table, put up by the carpenter at -a small outlay, if she is determined to have everything -<i>al fresco</i>. Frozen coffee, iced tea, punch, ice-cream croquets, -salads, jellies, pressed turkey, potted meats, <i>pâté de -foie gras</i>, and sandwiches, are spread about. Do not attempt -any hot dishes at a garden party; they are out of -place, and impossible.</p> - -<p>The garden party is said to be “the first hybrid which -unites society and nature.” It is a growing taste with us -Americans, and will grow to be a greater favorite as time -goes on. The popularity of the game of archery, that -relic of Robin Hood and Maid Marion, “that vision of Lincoln -green,” is now added to lawn tennis, croquet, and -“<i>les Graces</i>,” as one of the most popular features of a garden -party. One would think that there was nothing needed -but the long sweep of the trees upon the lawn, the vision -of the distant city, the flower-beds where geraniums and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> -calceolaria vie in color, the “pleached alley,” the buttercup -in the grass, the Watteau-like picture, or groups of -gay ladies and gallant cavaliers causing “unpremeditated -effects” to make the garden party agreeable. But there is -always a need of preparation for such a party. No lady -should trust alone to the power of her guests to amuse themselves. -She must do all that she can.</p> - -<p>In the country a lady can wait for a day of fine weather, -and invite her guests only the day before. The grounds -and garden walks, the lawn tennis, the archery, should all -be in order, and a few chairs out under the trees. It is not -long before all her guests begin to enjoy themselves in their -own way, and to appreciate how much better a room is -made by the Gothic arch of the trees than by any sort of -cramped-up house arrangement.</p> - -<p>One can be more general in the invitations to a garden -party than to any other; for if people like each other they -can group together, and if they do not, they can easily walk -apart, and get rid of each other. In a small room, particularly -at a dinner party, how two people can glow and -glare at each other, to the dreadful dismay of the hostess! -But at a garden party Nature is too wide for them. They -are almost obliged to seem amused whether they are or not. -If not at all amused, they can, however, go and sulk under -the lilacs. Those fragrant vegetables will not care whether -the guests sulk or smile.</p> - -<p>Every country house has its charms. How lovely a garden -party can be given at the Locusts, when all those trees -are in flower, sending down the perfume of Araby the Blest! -How the perfume reminds one of St. John’s Gardens, Oxford, -when the lime-trees are in bloom, and every bough is -laden with wild bees who make a music as they sip! A -flowering tree is the most perfect thing which Adam and -Eve saved from Paradise. One seems, in inhaling its fragrance, -to have just recovered from a long illness.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> - -<p>The best part of a spring or early summer garden party -is this first whiff of fragrance which is brought to the disused -or insulted nostril of the city. We little know until -then how the most aristocratic of the senses has been -wronged. We are always, and all of us, most patient over our -city bad smells until we go into the country and realize -what a bath of delicious odors a forest is—a bit of woodland, -a field of growing grass, one sweet cherry-tree, an -apple-blossom, a violet! The perfume of lilacs is the perfume -of luxury; and the first scythe of the mower, as it -sweeps through the young blood of the grass, reveals a -thousand scent-bottles all uncorked for our use. A lady -in giving a garden party should always have a bundle of -new-mown hay somewhere about the grounds.</p> - -<p>And at the garden party what may not those who sit -on the benches remember? All the sprightly, frivolous, -charming figures who seem to have posed for us at garden -parties in France! Philippe d’Orléans and La Phalaris; -the Duc de Richelieu and the Abbess de Chelles; Watteau, -Voltaire, Carmargo; Louis XV, with Pompadour and Du -Barry; Boucher and Vanloo; Greuze, Voisenon, and Bernis; -Guimaud and Sophie Arnould; Crébillon, the tragic, -and Dancourt, the gay! What a faithful study of naiads -and hamadryads did the beautiful women of these days -suggest to the artists at those garden parties when, toward -the end of spring, the trees were in blossom, and -the enameled grass carpeted the parks! Madame de Pompadour -asked Louis XV to come and see her hermitage! -Venus, Hebe, Diana the huntress, the three Graces—all -were in order! The garden itself a masterpiece of attraction—a -wood, rather than a garden—a wood peopled with -statues, formed of verdant and odorous arcades, of charming -groves, of dark, shaded retreats. Such was the <i>Parc -aux Cerfs</i>.</p> - -<p>We think again of the rose-tree of Jean Jacques at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> -hermitage. We remember Dufresny, who “studied love -in his heart, grandeur at the court, war upon the field of -battle, architecture in the erection of buildings, <i>nature in -his garden</i>, music in song.” Dufresny was in love with -gardens. A poet, a friend of Louis XIV, he loved roses -better than any other luxury. It was he who broke up -the stiff, old-fashioned plan of gardening at Vincennes, and -introduced Nature with her charming caprices and fairy -fantasies. It was he who said, “Cultivating roses, marking -out paths, planting hedges, is the same as writing -sonnets, songs, and poems.” In his day a picturesque garden -was often called “<i>à la Dufresny</i>.” Under his rule -Versailles became what it is. “I shall never be poor while -I have a garden!” said he to the King. “I find there the -green vine-tendrils, or the roses, for a crown.” To him -verdant prospects were real terrestrial paradises.</p> - -<p>We can remember how the boy Florian gathered cherries, -and forgot his Greek and Latin! We remember him, -in Voltaire’s garden, naming the poppies after the faithless -Trojans. The most beautiful he called “Hector,” and -then demolished him with a blow from his wooden sword. -Later, when he had grown up, still wandering in gardens, -he wrote his eclogues, poems, dramas, fables, and “Numa -Pompilius.” His style has all the tender freshness, the -brilliancy, the perfume, the clear color, of a “garden -party.” It is an idyl of primroses and dandelions.</p> - -<p>We hardly think of Buffon at a garden party. (When -Voltaire heard of his “Natural History”—“Not so <i>natural</i>,” -said the great wit.) The laborious and tranquil life -of the great author of the “Garden of Plants” seems out -of place at a garden party, and yet he lived and wrote in a -garden. He submitted Nature to a crucible, and tore a -lily to pieces to see of what it was made; and yet he -brought together the flowers and trees of all nations. We -admire, but do not love Buffon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> - -<p>We cross the Channel and see, in imagination, the -Princess Anne with Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stuart, -Lady Churchill, and all their friends, loftily walking in the -groves and alleys of Spring Gardens, emerging into St. -James’s Park. The glories of Bird-Cage Walk come back -to us. From these models did Colley Cibber get his “Lady -Betty Modish,” and what a pretty, stylish, affected model -it was! Lovely Lady Fitzhardinge was of the Princess’s -party, and later, when Lady Churchill became Duchess of -Marlborough, what garden parties at Blenheim!</p> - -<p>A garden party always brings back Lady Mary Wortley -Montague, who left many an account of those stately old-time -gardens at Rome, Florence, Naples, Genoa, Avignon—not -to speak of the early adventures at Twickenham, and -later at Strawberry Hill. All England is a garden. The -garden party is possible anywhere.</p> - -<p>And the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire and Mrs. -Crewe! How they adorn a garden party! We almost -see the splendid cream-colored horses of George III drive -up past Carleton Gardens, to proceed in solemn state to St. -James’s, as we hear the low, rippling laughter of the two -beauties in brocade.</p> - -<p>The Prince of Wales forgot his two hundred thousand -pounds of debts as he received the Buffs and Blues at a -garden party, which began at noon and continued all night, -at Carleton House. The Duchess of Devonshire was then -lady paramount of the aristocratic whig circles, in which -rank and literature were blended with political aspirations. -It was she who canvassed for Fox, and allowed the butcher -to kiss her for his vote; and to her was paid the compliment, -highly prized, by the link-boy who asked if he -“might light his pipe at her eyes.” These women seem -to have lived in garden parties.</p> - -<p>Sweet Madame de Sévigné, with her children, at <i>Les -Rochers</i>, and later at Paris, talking gayly under the trees<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> -of her garden, with Corneille, Racine, Molière, La Fontaine, -and Boileau, again wins us back across the Channel, and -back a hundred years or so.</p> - -<p>Garden parties have this advantage: they are like Madame -de Staël’s age—“not dated.” They are of all time. -Madame de Sévigné’s garden party comprised Pascal, -Bourdaloue, Mascaron, Bossuet, the restless De Retz, the -Scotchman Montrose, La Rochefoucauld, Marshal Turenne, -Le Grand Colbert, and Condé. The ladies were the -Duchess de Longueville, the political <i>intrigante</i> of the -Fronde; the penitent La Vallière; the heartless Maintenon; -Madame de Montespan; the Comtesse d’Olonne, daughter -of Madame de Rambouillet, and one of the <i>Précieuses</i>; -Madame de La Fayette, the authoress of “Zaide.” Alas, -and alas! we could not get together such a garden party -of to-day! No! not if we had a fortnight’s time before -us, and all the wealth of the Indies.</p> - -<p>Madame de Sévigné was that delightful combination—a -beauty, a wit, and a <i>femme d’esprit</i>. As an instance of -the flattery to which even genius stooped in speaking to a -monarch who loved flattery and adulation more than anything, -she relates an answer made by Racine to Louis XIV -when that sovereign expressed his regret that the poet had -not accompanied the army in its last campaign. “Sire,” -said Racine, “we had none but town-clothes, and had -ordered others to be made; but the places you attacked -were all taken before they could be finished.” “This,” -adds Madame de Sévigné, “was well received.”</p> - -<p>It is in her famous correspondence with her daughter -that we find many an account of a garden party, or a <i>fête</i>, -which we should gladly have seen, and which at our own -garden parties we are glad to remember. Her letters contain -much talk on books, religion, philosophy, and politics; -on the frowns and smiles of the great monarch; the favor -accorded to this courtier, the disgrace of that; the mar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>riage -contracted, the <i>bons mots</i> circulated. But it is upon -society that she is strongest. She loved nature, too, in a -Frenchwoman’s way. When she walked the garden of her -uncle, the Abbé, at Livry, or far away in the solitudes of -Brittany, she rejoiced in the song of the nightingale, in the -change of the leaf, in the glad freshness of the air. She is -a poet, without meaning it. Her garden-party letters are -her best letters.</p> - -<p>Very stately must have been those garden parties at -Wilton, when Ben Jonson and Philip Massinger afforded -amusement to the intellectual great. The Masque, an entertainment -of the rich and noble in the time of Elizabeth -and James I, called out the powers of these men. The -actors were people of the highest class, sometimes royal -personages, the masques always in the open air. Dancing -and music were introduced. These various actors learned -their parts under the tutorship of the Master of the Revels. -Lawes composed music, to which the poetry of Jonson was -sung; and the scenes, decorations, and dresses were contrived -and executed by Inigo Jones. Certain great families -copied the example of the court, and ordered masques to be -written, and played at their own country-seats; calling -in for the choruses the children of the Chapel Royal, -who were regularly trained to take their part in masques. -At Wilton, at Belvoir Castle, at Whitehall, at Windsor, -these charming but costly diversions were carried on. Ben -Jonson might have been heard scolding and working over -these garden parties at the house of the beautiful Mary -Sidney, sister to the author of the “Arcadia,” who was -afterward Countess of Pembroke. She often gave these -entertainments at Wilton. She there received Queen Elizabeth, -Walter Raleigh, the Earl of Essex, Will Shakespeare, -Spenser, and Cecil. Philip Massinger was in her servants’ -hall, a humble retainer. The pious Countess, for her solemn -hours, had Dr. Donne, most devoted of servitors. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> -death of her noble brother, Philip Sidney, broke her heart, -and there were no more garden parties at Wilton. We all -know how Walter Scott has described these garden parties -in “Kenilworth.” Indeed, they make us rather out of love -with our later attempts.</p> - -<p>Once in our own land a masque was attempted, the -famous <i>Mischianza</i> of Major André, on the Delaware, at -Philadelphia. Had not he and Arnold gone out together -in that rather sad way, we might like to tell of that garden -party, but we will skip it.</p> - -<p>After all, man was born, the race was started, in a garden. -Adam and Eve held the first garden party. What a -pity that the serpent crawled in!</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XII" id="XII">XII.</a><br /> -DANCING.</h2> - -<p>Dancing is so well known to all young people as a Home -Amusement that it seems perhaps <i>banale</i> to describe it. A -glance at the dances now fashionable may, however, not -be out of place.</p> - -<p>From the Virginia Reel to the German Cotillon is indeed -a bound. Our grandfathers were taught to dance the -Pirouette, the delicate Pigeon-wing—indeed, all the paces of -the dance such as it was when Vestris bounded before -Louis XVI. When commanded to dance before him, the -dancer loftily replied: “The House of Vestris has always -danced for that of Bourbon.”</p> - -<p>Dancing then was an accomplishment. Who does not -recollect seeing some grandfather still “taking his steps”? -Now at the most is permitted the Galop, which has the -needed element of jollity without coarseness. It is <i>l’allegro</i> -of the ballroom. The Gambrinus Polka also lights up the -ballroom occasionally. With these vivacious exceptions, -dancing is reduced to the Waltz—<i>la valse à trois temps</i>—the -various steps of which consist of the Hop-Waltz, the -Glide-Waltz, the Redowa, and the Waltz proper. The Boston -“Dip,” the “Racket,” and the “Society,” are spurious. -They are not taught by the best dancing masters. -They are “rowdy,” but some people, desirous of notoriety, -do dance them at the Charity Ball. As a famous dancing -authority observes, “Did such a style of dancing prevail,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> -dancing must go down; its enemies would have unanswerable -arguments against it.” The dance of society is now -quiet, easy, natural, modest, and graceful. Those who -would make it otherwise must remember that they are copying -the excesses of the <i>Bal Mabille</i>.</p> - -<p>The spurious dances mentioned above are ridiculed in -“Punch” as the “pivotal” dances. The Redowa is a -pretty form of the Waltz. It is composed of a step known -as the <i>pas de basque</i>. Its movements are indicated as a -<i>fête à glissé</i> and a <i>coupé dessous</i>; the feet, however, are -never raised from the floor.</p> - -<p>The Galop is a great favorite with the Swedes, Danes, -and Russians; it has a Viking force in it; while the Redowa -reminds one of the graceful Viennese, who dance it -so well. The Mazourka, danced to the wild Polish Mazourka -measure, is a more poetical dance, and has many a -poem written to its honor; but it rarely appears seen at a -fancy-dress ball.</p> - -<p>The German Cotillon, born many years ago in a Viennese -palace to meet the requirements of court etiquette, is -now the favorite dance at home and at balls, as a way of -finishing the evening. Its favors, beginning with flowers, -ribbons, and bits of tinsel, have ripened into fans, bracelets, -gold scarf-pins, and pencil-cases, and many other things -even more expensive. Favors now often cost $5,000 for one -fashionable ball. So the German, thus conducted, can -scarcely be called a Home Amusement.</p> - -<p>To dance by the firelight to the music of the piano is -a <i>Home</i> Amusement. And if there be a good old kitchen, -with a hard floor, into which a negro fiddler can be introduced, -and where the <i>contra-danse</i> can be also added, and -the evening can end with Virginia Reel—this is a Home -Amusement. The old-fashioned quadrilles, the Lancers—dances -in which old and young can join—these are home -dances!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> - -<p>“There is something so <i>conscientious</i> about papa’s -dancing,” said a profane youth who was watching his estimable -parent through the decidedly complicated mazes of -Money Musk. Youth will always laugh at age when it -attempts the accomplishments. That is a real dance, however, -when papa, mamma, and the children all join in, and -when Jane, aged seven, leads out grandpa. How Dickens -luxuriates in Mr. Fizziwig’s dancing at the Christmas -supper in the “Christmas Carol”! Dickens could never -have made the “<i>German</i>” so pathetic or so funny!</p> - -<p>All fashion polishes off the edges, and causes an aristocratic -icing to form over the outside of any expression of -jollity; so no wonder that fashionable dancing has become -a <i>glissé</i>. It would not be well to attempt any gay dancing -at a fashionable ball—that would look like romping; but -surely in the old kitchen, in the private parlor, at Christmas, -on birthdays, one is allowed to romp a little.</p> - -<p>The German is a dance of infinite variety, and a leader -of original fancy constructs new figures constantly. The -Waltz, Galop, Redowa, and Polka steps occur in its many -changes. There is a slow walk in the quadrille figures; a -stately march; the bows and courtesies of the old minuet; -and, above all, the <i>tour de valse</i>, 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 people to meet, exchange greetings, dance with -each other, change their geographical position many times; -and the Grand Army of the Republic did not have a more -varied scope.</p> - -<p>The Kaleidoscope is one of the prettiest figures. The -four couples perform a <i>tour de valse</i>, 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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> -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 <i>chassé croisé</i>, -and turn at corners with right hands, then <i>dechassé</i>, and -turn partners with left hands. <i>Valse générale</i> with <i>vis-à-vis</i>.</p> - -<p>Another pretty figure is <i>La Corbeille, l’Anneau, et la -Fleur</i>. The first couple performs a <i>tour de valse</i>, after -which the gentleman presents the lady with a little 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 a 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. Counterpart for the -others in their order.</p> - -<p><i>Le Miroir</i> is another very pretty figure. The first couple -performs a <i>tour de valse</i>. The gentleman seats his lady upon -a chair in the middle of the room, and presents her with a -small mirror. The leader then selects a gentleman from -the circle, and conducts him behind her chair. The lady -looks in the mirror, and if she decline the partner offered, -by turning the mirror over or shaking her head, the leader -continues to offer partners until the lady accepts. The -gentlemen refused return to their seats, or select partners -and join in the <i>valse</i>.</p> - -<p><i>Le Cavalier Trompé</i> is another favorite figure. Five or -six couples perform a <i>tour de valse</i>. They afterward 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> -and the gentleman whom she has selected separate and advance -on tiptoe on each side of the column, in order to deceive -the gentleman at the head, and endeavor 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.</p> - -<p><i>Les Chaînes Continues</i> is another good figure. The -first four couples perform a <i>tour de valse</i>. Each gentleman -chooses a lady, and each lady a gentleman. The gentlemen -place themselves in line, and the ladies form a line opposite. -The first gentleman on the left gives his right hand -to the right hand of his lady, and turns entirely around -with her. He gives his left hand to the left hand of the -next lady, while his lady does the same with the next gentleman. -The gentleman and lady again meet, and turn -with right hands, and then turn with left hands the third -lady and gentleman, and so on to the last couple. As soon -as the leader and his lady reach the fourth couple, the second -couple should start, so that there may be a continuous -chain between the ladies and gentlemen. When all have -regained their original places in line, they terminate the -figure by a <i>tour de valse</i>.</p> - -<p>A very pretty figure, and easily furnished, is called <i>Les -Drapeaux</i>. 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 lady the duplicates; -they perform a <i>tour de valse</i>. The conductor then presents -his flags to five or six ladies, and his lady presents the corresponding -flags to as many gentlemen. The gentlemen -then seek the ladies having the duplicates, and with them -perform a <i>tour de valse</i>, waving the flags as they dance. -Repeated by all the couples.</p> - -<p>Another of the favorite combinations is <i>Les Rubans</i>. -Six ribbons, each about a yard in length, and of various<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> -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 <i>tour de valse</i>, and 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 a ribbon. The first lady takes the other set of -ribbons, bringing forward six gentlemen in the same manner. -The first couple conduct the ladies and gentlemen -toward each other, and each gentleman dances with the -lady holding the ribbon duplicate of his own. The first -gentleman dances with his partner. The figure is repeated -by the other couples in their order.</p> - -<p>To give a German, a lady should have all the furniture -removed from her parlors, a crash spread over the carpet, -and a set of folding-chairs introduced for the couples -to sit in. The great trouble of this proceeding is what has -led to the giving of Germans, in large cities, at private -balls or in public places. It is considered that all taking -part in a German are formally introduced, and upon no -condition whatever must a lady, so long as she remains in -the German, refuse to dance with any gentleman whom she -may chance to receive as a partner. Every American must -learn that he should speak to every one whom he meets -in a friend’s house, if necessary, without an introduction, -as the friend’s house <i>is</i> an introduction. So in the German, -the very fact that <i>guests are there</i> is an introduction.</p> - -<p>In taking a review of the German we may as well say -that, in a country house, the making of the favors is a very -pretty amusement. The ribbons are easily bought at the -village store. The same gold-paper and tinsel which furnishes -forth the private theatricals will do for the orders -and insignia, and the prettiest bouquets come from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> -garden. These hastily-improvised home Germans are very -amusing and very pretty.</p> - -<p>The laws of the German are, however, so strict, and so -tiresome occasionally, that a good many parties have abjured -it, and now dance some of its figures without a -leader, and as sporadic attempts. A leader for the German -needs many of the same qualities as the leader of an army. -He must have a comprehensive glance, a quick ear and eye, -and a very great belief in himself. He must have the talent -of command, and make himself seen and felt. He must be -full of resource and quick-witted. With all these qualities -he must have tact. It is no easy matter to get two hundred -dancers into all sorts of combinations, to get them out -of it, to offend nobody, but to produce that elegant kaleidoscope -which we call “the German.”</p> - -<p>The term <i>tour de valse</i> is used technically, meaning that -the couple or couples performing it will execute the round -dance designated by the leader once around the room. -Should the room be small, they make a second tour. After -the introductory <i>tour de valse</i>, care must be taken by those -who perform it not to select ladies and gentlemen from each -other, but from among those who are seated. When the -leader claps his hands to warn those who are prolonging -the <i>valse</i>, they must immediately cease dancing.</p> - -<p>The religious objection to dancing having almost died -out, we recommend all parents to have their children -taught to dance. It is a necessary thing toward physical -culture. It is the most embarrassing thing for a man later -in life to find himself without the grace which dancing -brings. Nothing contributes so much to Home Amusement -as the informal dance. Nothing can be more innocent. -If, in after-life, this accomplishment leads to late -hours and to reckless love of pleasure, we must remember -that all good things can be abused.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII">XIII.</a><br /> -GARDENS AND FLOWER-STANDS.</h2> - -<p>The making of gardens is decidedly and judiciously -conceded to be a Home Amusement, and it is a pity that -the new fashion of bedding-out plants, which is so beautiful -in our public parks and in the pleasure grounds of the -rich, should have seemed to so utterly do away with a taste -for the old-fashioned gardens of early English poetry—of -Miss Mitford, of every sweet New England dame of -the early days, who had her garden, with its “pretty -posies,” and its bed of sweet marjoram, lavender, and sage. -It is, however, a hopeful sign to see in remote country -towns some effort to keep up the old-fashioned idea of a -pretty flower-plot, and there are always women who have -the gift of making flowers “blow” and grow in a quiet -way.</p> - -<p>Yet science can help to bring the old-fashioned garden -to perfection, as well as to make those artificial beds of -many-leaved coleus, and steadier groups. Every garden design, -every project of garden furnishing, and every item of -garden work, should be governed by this consideration, that -it is hard work to fight against Nature, and there is seldom -thus a conquest worth obtaining. Aim modestly to gain a -victory over the easily-cultivated native flowers at first, and -you will secure enjoyment.</p> - -<p>Fortunately, if gardening is pursued with earnestness, -every soil and every climate will be found to produce some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> -flowers in rare beauty and in unexpected luxuriance. Geometric -plans, if well carried out, are very pretty, and the -amateur gardener should learn to mass her geraniums, petunias, -and pansies, her gladioli, roses, marigolds, and poppies, -so as to give a good and really splendid result of color. -Nature takes care to send us delicate, pale yellows and -lilacs in Spring in her sweet daffy-down-dilly, and the elegant -<i>fleurs-de-lis</i>; and the peonies come on mildly with -pink and white before they dash into red. Then come the -Turkish carpets of the portulaca, and so on until midsummer -blazes with poppies, gladioli, and all the gorgeous zinnias. -These may all be found in the commonest garden, -without mentioning the larkspur, the mignonette, the petunia -and the sweet-pea, and a thousand other charming -common flowers. The delightful flowers which sow themselves, -and those hardy bulbs, the crocus, tulip, lily of the -valley, snowdrop, and hyacinth, should not be neglected. -A quantity of white-lily bulbs stowed away in the garden -reward one year after year with their elegant flowers and -fragrance at no cost whatever. Pansies, daisies, and polyanthus -keep from season to season, and carnation pinks -need to be two years old before they will blossom, while the -chrysanthemums make the garden gay in October.</p> - -<p>Now for borders to the garden beds. Common grass is -the best and easiest, as the gardener’s boy can cut it with a -sickle each week and keep it from spreading. Or the little, -cheap mosses make a pretty border, as does the periwinkle, -which looks so like myrtle. To attempt a border of the -gorgeous coleus requires a hothouse and an accomplished -gardener. In the common large country garden rows of -hollyhocks, as against a stone wall, or marking out the long -walks, are most ornamental. Dahlias also are very good in -groups. Phlox, that much-abused plant, is also pretty in -masses. Asters too, of many varieties, delight the eye, and -are easy of culture. In trying to raise shrubs, why not take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> -the American wild pink, or azalea, the laurel and the rhododendron, -and, by studying up their habits, capture -them?</p> - -<p>The best soil for the rhododendron is a peat containing -much sand and much vegetable fiber. Any clean, pulverized -product of vegetable decay will like them. It is their native -food. The laurel is capricious, and resents the act of transplantation; -but they will flourish if planted thick enough. -They love company, and thrive in it. The best way to treat -them is to study their quality, and to give them the same -conditions which made them grow so luxuriantly on the -hill-side.</p> - -<p>But if even these plants resist you, every lady loves a -rosarium, and it will go hard with her but she has a rose -garden somewhere. The gardeners now sell one hundred -rose roots for a dollar, at Rochester, and if planted out and -attended to they give a million of dollars in pleasure back -again.</p> - -<p>Some ladies understand budding, and this is a very interesting -process. In this way an army of sweetbriers can -be covered with yellow Marshal Neills and royal Jacqueminots. -To propagate by layers is, however, the easiest way, -if, indeed, one does not prefer to buy them all started. For -garden roses we need vigorous growers that are sure to -flower freely, and will contribute to the gayety of the garden. -One of the best—the old-fashioned damask—if set out -well, will blossom for thirty years. A very effective garden -of roses is produced by roses pegged down. A deep, rather -rich, loamy soil is to be prepared, the position selected being -rather open. When the plants are about a foot high peg -down the strongest growths. The rose prefers a firm soil. -Those who desire to have firm blooms the second season -must cut off a few inches of the flowering wood as soon as -the first bloom is over, and give the beds a thorough soaking -of manure or sewage-water every third or fourth day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> -But in this, as in every sort of cultivation of an especial -flower, one should buy an especial treatise on the subject.</p> - -<p>Every lady gardener is troubled by insect pests—the horrid -green canker-worm, the little green louse, the potato-bug; -these are everywhere. One fights them with all sorts -of powders and all sorts of syringes. One very simple cure -is not generally known. It is to plant a lettuce beside your -rose; the vermin prefers the lettuce. It is the same principle -which induced the rich owner of a wine-cellar to put -a barrel of whisky beside his best Madeira; the whisky -went, but the Madeira stayed. Dirty flower-pots, filled -with dry moss, put in the neighborhood, will catch large -numbers of these gentry, for vermin are fond of dirt. Dusting -with powdered lime, or sulphurized tobacco-dust, will -kill the insects which destroy the asters. Lettuces also save -the asters, and a bed of green lettuce is not an ugly “bedding-out” -plant.</p> - -<p>No manure is so good as that common rotted vegetation -of the forest. Bring a pailful home from every drive, and -it will make your flowers grow. Nothing, also, so good as -this for that lovely flower, the pansy, which thus recalls its -early start in the forest, The pansy does not require much -water, but in very hot, dry weather the beds should be -sprinkled at night with a watering-pot.</p> - -<p>But these few directions may seem impertinent, as every -lady has now the most ample means of reading up about -her garden. The cultivation of a few flowers in the house—window -gardening—is by far the more essentially a Home -Amusement. And, as almost everybody has once bought a -lot of greenhouse plants but to see them fade before her -eyes, we recommend to all to either raise a slip from the -root or to start very young plants in a dark room. Thus -accustomed to the atmosphere of the house they are to live -in, they do sometimes live.</p> - -<p>The hardier roses, the calla-lily, all the geraniums (use<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>ful -dear creatures), the violets and the pinks, grow well in -the house. Hanging pots of calceolarias and healthy -primroses are also possible. Some ladies can raise azaleas -at home, but they are difficult. Then there is the kangaroo-vine, -and the Jerusalem, and all the other very hardy -vines. If a large ivy-vine can he induced to grow over a -picture-frame, it is a beautiful friend in midwinter.</p> - -<p>Then come the delightful hanging baskets, the Wardian -fern-cases, the ornamental stands of pot-plants, and the indoor -box of earth for planting rice and grass seed, the wild -flowers, which now have become exotics, and all the pretty -fancies of throwing seed over a wet sponge. Anything -green in winter looks lovely. Nothing more charming than -the branches of nasturtion growing in water can be imagined. -They grow and flower all winter, and the blue convolvulus -flourishes well in a hanging basket; so do the -common morning-glory and the scarlet bean, both delightful, -airy visitors at Christmas.</p> - -<p>A wire-work ox-muzzle, filled with moss, makes an admirable -basket. It should be painted dark green, and hang -over a box of growing flowers, so that it can drip when -watered and hurt nothing. Put in the ivy-leaved geranium -to drop over its edges; fuchsia, variegated geranium, bright -blue lobelia, and the healthful dracænas, begonias, and sedums -also make a very pretty combination. The gardeners -give you wooden baskets filled with flowers, and ivy, and -ferns, but it is Home Amusement to make these baskets -yourself.</p> - -<p>Fern-cases are delightful as winter friends. Wardian -cases can be made very cheaply, and their perpetual condensation -and shower is a very pretty study in physics. A -large case, in which large-sized ferns can be accommodated, -is best. As regards cultivation, the first thing that demands -attention is the drainage of the case; for, if that is -defective, neither ferns nor any other plants can be culti<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>vated -successfully. In order to secure good drainage the -case should be fitted with a false bottom, into which the -water may drain through perforated zinc or iron, on which -the rock-work and little bank for the ferns should be placed. -The false bottom, being a little kind of tank or drainer, -should be perfectly water-tight, so as to protect the carpet, -and should have a tap fixed in one corner of it, by means of -which the surplus water should be drained off.</p> - -<p>To be able to give free ventilation to the plants every -morning is another essential point, as a stagnant atmosphere -is as injurious to plants as it is to young children. Over -the perforated tray of the case a good layer of broken pottery -should be laid, and this should be covered with cocoanut -fiber, on which the rock-work should be laid. The -space in which it is intended that the ferns are to grow -should then be filled in; and nothing is better than peat, -rotten turf, and sharp grit sand as a soil for ferns. In -the parts of the case intended for the planting of rather -strong-growing ferns a larger proportion of rotten turf -should be mixed with the peat than in those intended for -less robust varieties. The <i>adiantum pedatum</i> (maidenhair), -<i>capillus veneris</i>, <i>pteris tessulata</i>, <i>eretica</i>, <i>albo lineata</i>, -<i>polypodium vulgare</i>, <i>acrophorus chairophyllus</i>, <i>hispidus -anemia adiantifolia</i>, <i>asplenium striatum</i>, <i>bulbiferum</i>, with -<i>trichomanes</i> and <i>lelazinellas</i>, are all useful, pretty ferns for -these cases. If the fern-case be large, it might be advisable -to have an arch reaching from end to end.</p> - -<p>But any intelligent gardener will tell more in an hour -than we could do in a week on the subject of ferns. Many -ladies delight in selecting these lovely aristocrats of the -forest themselves. They find no difficulty in arranging a -little family of native ferns in an improvised Ward’s case; -and this pursuit, as a reason for a woodland ramble and a -subsequent fit of industry on the back piazza, is one which -has no end as a Home Amusement.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> - -<p>Plant-stands for halls are very favorite decorations nowadays; -but, of course, the plants must be hardy, as they -will be subject to sudden changes of temperature. One -lady made a fine effect by cultivating young pine-trees, -spruces, and firs in the large stone jars of her hall. Cocoanut -palms or India-rubber plants are the favorite exotics. -Hardy ferns group in well for these hall plant-stands. In -the bottom of each jar should be placed some broken pottery, -for drainage, placed so that the moisture will drain -down through the fragments without the soil choking the -jar. Over the potsherds a little cocoanut moss should be -placed, and then a mixture of leaf-mold, rotten turf and -peat, and glass-maker’s sand, to keep the whole porous. On -the surface of the pots and between them should be put -wood moss, as in the case of stands for sitting-rooms. A -common seed-pan, filled with <i>selaginalla denticulata</i> dropped -into a small vase, has a fine effect; long sprays grow -out over the sides of the vase and drop down eight to ten -inches.</p> - -<p>In an ordinary apartment, where the window-sills are -not wide enough to hold flower-pots, the plan of wire -stands is an admirable one for the window gardener. A -piece of oil-cloth under the stand catches all the drippings, -and a servant-girl with a wiping-towel can clean up all the -<i>débris</i>. Soft-wooded plants and those with soft leaves -should be arranged as near the window as possible; and if -rearranged and turned against the light often, so much the -better. Hard-leaved plants, like ivy and the India-rubber -plant, may be put anywhere away from the light. But -most plants need light before anything. The <i>yucca quadricolor</i>, -so much used in the decorative house-jars or vases, -becomes beautifully tinted with crimson if it has enough -light. Now, if a lady has not room for many rustic <i>jardinières</i> -and ornamental flower-stands in her room, she can -have zinc-pans and pots, neatly enameled and painted, set<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> -on the floor, in which her larger plants may be put out, -This is a very good idea for grouping; for she thus produces -in her <i>tout ensemble</i> some of the wild confusion and -grace of Nature.</p> - -<p>A climbing rose should go scattering itself over an imperceptible -wire trellis. A geranium should steadily blossom -beneath. A group of yucca, agave, dracæna, Jerusalem -cherry, should form a distinct and effective grouping -below. And then beautiful trailing plants should drop -from hanging baskets, and from every “coigne of vantage.” -Ivy grows well in the shade, and may be employed for -trailing around sofas, couches, <i>tête-à-tête</i> chairs, and picture-frames. -Ladies sometimes tie a bottle of water behind -a picture-frame, and allow the long shoots of nasturtion -to grow out as if from the wall. The effect is startling. -Mirrors are often cunningly placed behind a flowering plant -which is growing in a hanging basket against the wall, thus -doubling the effect.</p> - -<p>As the days grow shorter, and the winter threatens to -come upon us apace, we are always tempted to bring in -from the garden the flowers that we think will last. Just -before the fatal frosts, roots of mignonette should be planted -in pots and put in a dark closet for a few days, where the -plant takes root and accommodates itself to its change of -base. It will make a room sweet all winter.</p> - -<p>A lady can make all sorts of ornamental flower-pot -coverings, and herself arrange pretty leather and paper -standard covers for the ugly but useful flower-pot of commerce; -or she can buy at most country potteries some very -artistic flower-pots—also useful. And to put red, green, -and blue glass tubes for hyacinths among these gives her -window a very pretty effect. The very study of color in -these minor matters adds much to her window garden. It -is lucky for all lovers of beauty that beauty is now cheap. -Art is putting her slender foot down everywhere; and it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> -almost possible, in a remote country village, to get the -delicate classic shapes in cheap pottery which the cultivated -Greeks imagined three thousand years ago.</p> - -<p>For internal decoration by means of cut flowers, it -seems almost absurd to attempt to delineate the proper -thing to do; for, if a lady has taste, she will know without -being told. But some few hints may not appear impertinent.</p> - -<p>For the breakfast-table and dinner-table fresh flowers -are almost indispensable. The pretty, cheap, and useful -combinations of glass and silver, of china and pottery, -which are made to hold flowers, are innumerable. Select -a high vase, and fill it every day with fresh grasses, a few -daisies, or some graceful ferns combined with white lilies, -and you have always a superb center-piece.</p> - -<p>For the summer, a large lump of ice covered with flowers, -in a silver or glass dish, is delightfully refreshing. It -also keeps away the flies. In grand party decorations ice -is now freely used, and if some way can be devised to get -the refuse water out of the way, it will be always a good -thing for a country party or at a grand <i>fête</i> at Newport. -For great blocks of ice covered with vines and flowers, lighted -from behind, have a splendid effect. They cool the air and -keep all the flowers fresh. Flowers, when cut, demand -coolness; and the effect of the white crystal column is -always beautiful.</p> - -<p>Some ladies have a large tub put in the corner of the -room, and the pyramid of ice placed in that. Then the -tub can be masked by moss, branches of trees, evergreen, or -any floral device, and the ice is draped with garlands. At -a <i>fête</i> at Newport, in 1879, this ice decoration was much -admired. At a ball given by the Prince of Wales to the -Czarina of Russia in the large conservatory of the Royal -Horticultural Society of South Kensington, ten tons of ice -were used to build an ornamental rockery. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> -draped with drooping ferns and graceful vines, and was surrounded -with crimson baize and lighted from behind.</p> - -<p>Nothing is so pretty for the breakfast- or dinner-table -as a tall, slender vase which carries the floral decoration -high up above the articles of food. Nor is a garden necessary -for this species of decoration. Wild flowers, ferns, -grasses, and all the beautiful furniture of forest and field, -make these vases doubly elegant.</p> - -<p>In the rose season—in the sweet days of June—most -country gardens overflow with the always regal flower; and -this is a table ornament of the highest. The great, broad, -low baskets are best for these full, rich queens of color and -fragrance. Mass your roses for the middle of the table, -and have specimen glasses for some of the more rare varieties. -The rose is a cleanly flower, and can be put anywhere -near food. But if an unlucky visitor has the rose-cold, -then it must be put far away; for the subtile, pungent -odor of a rose makes the sufferer sneeze fearfully. -There are some families in which roses are thus tabooed.</p> - -<p>A basket of roses is the prettiest thing in the world; -and the lady going into the country for the summer had -better supply herself with a number of these, with handles, -from the florist or the basket-maker. If she gets a tin pan -also fitted in cunningly, she has the loveliest table ornamentation -all ready. Her buffets, her parlor-table, her -piano, her brackets can all hold these pleasant things, for -which no money need be paid, but which have a value far -above money. Never give these baskets a heavy, packed -look, but allow plenty of the rich green leaves of the rose -to set them off. It seems to us that ladies might create an -endless succession of Home Amusements by studying how -to vary the effect of their vases and baskets of flowers.</p> - -<p>A simple bunch of yellow buttercups in the early spring -will make a purple room perfectly beautiful; and dandelions -can be massed with great effect. Yellow flowers are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> -rare, but necessary to produce fine contrasts of color. We -all tend too much to the red and white easily-obtained -effects. They are poor compared with what we can do.</p> - -<p>If Fashion has rather run its worship of the daisy into -the ground, Fashion might have done a worse thing. We -can scarcely blame Fashion for going back to this impressive -flower, which in its simplicity has moved all philosophers, -poets, and fortune-tellers to admire and study it.</p> - -<p>It seems to us that something more cheerful than our -usual Christmas decorations could be invented. We make -them too somber. Try mixing in the beautiful bitter-sweet -berries, which are so very easily obtained, and which -keep all winter. The holly is not so common with us as -in England; still, many a New England swamp produces a -host of hips and haws and red berries.</p> - -<p>The business of preserving autumn-leaves shows ten failures -to one success. Yet, when autumn leaves are well preserved, -they are very charming means of winter decoration. -They are luminous at evening, and, mixed with ferns and -grasses, are perpetual bouquets. But do not varnish them: -that gives them a waxy effect, which is detestable. Press -them carefully, and iron them under a piece of brown -paper. That seems to preserve the color.</p> - -<p>Grasses, on the contrary, and a thousand pods and seed-vessels, -grains and cat-tails, and certain weeds, dry into -beautiful colors and make most wonderful groups for the -parlor mantel. The young ladies of our vast continent -can not do a better thing than to each year add to these -beautiful and most graceful bouquets, which retain, like -the fabled Dryads, all the fascination of Nature, even when -they have passed into sticks and dry leaves.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV">XIV.</a><br /> -CAGED BIRDS AND AVIARIES.</h2> - -<p>From flowers to birds is a natural transition, and we -enter upon that part of Home Amusement which centers -around a cage of singing-birds. It is a dreadful thing to -snare and to imprison an innocent bird; therefore we begin -with that bird which seems to take most kindly to captivity—the -canary.</p> - -<p>Travelers tell us that this yellow darling has gray plumage -at home; but as we know them they are generally yellow, -white, green, or brown. Climate, food, and intermixture -of breeds has, no doubt, to do with this. The -canary, which in France is nearly white, at Teneriffe is as -brown as a berry. We can not tell why they are always -yellow in cages.</p> - -<p>The exact date of the introduction of the canary is not -known to us. In 1610 the bird was considered a great -rarity. According to some authors, the island of Elba was -the first European ground on which the canary found a -resting-place for its tiny foot. A ship bound for Leghorn, -they say, having on board a number of sweet songsters, -foundered near this island, on which the birds, set at liberty -by the accident, found a refuge; and the climate was -so congenial to their nature that they remained and bred, -and would probably have remained there had not their unlucky, -fatal gifts of beauty and song betrayed them to the -bird-catchers, who hunted them so assiduously that not a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> -single specimen was left on the island. From Italy these -birds soon found their way into France and Germany, from -the latter of which countries and the Tyrol we now receive -our best supplies. Canary breeding and teaching is conducted -in the Tyrol on a large scale, and these trainers -have the power always to obtain large prices for their birds. -Canary societies exist in England, and small traders, like -Poll Sneedlepipes, compete for prizes.</p> - -<p>Canary critics recognize two varieties—two grand divisions—in -fancy canaries: “gay birds,” or “gay spangles,” -and fancy, or “mealy,” birds—the first being plain, like -the original stock, and the last variegated. This also includes -the <i>Jonques</i>, or <i>Jonquils</i>, as the yellow birds are -technically called. The varieties of these two grand divisions -are almost innumerable, nearly every year producing -a new one, which, like a prize flower, is in high favor until -superseded by a greater beauty. Every year has its fashionable -bird, its professional beauty, its Mrs. Langtry, until -some Mrs. Cornwallis West or Lady Lonsdale carries off -the palm. Like all hobbies, this is a hobby desperately -ridden. It is a “Dutch taste for tulips,” and immense -prices are given for prize canaries, even by men who can -not afford to speculate in such very uncertain stock.</p> - -<p>There are certain standard properties which are always -considered essential toward gaining a prize. The first -property considered in the show bird is the “cap,” which -must be of a good gold color. The next is purity of color -through the whole bird. Then the wings and tail, which -must be black quite home to the quill. The fourth relates -to the spangle, which must be distinct. Fifth, size and -shape. Besides these properties there are what are called -“additional beauties,” not essential to the winning of a -prize, but adding to a bird’s chances. These are five in -number: pinions, for size and regularity; swallow and -throat, for size; fair breast, for regularity; legs and flight,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> -for blackness. In explanation of this it may be noted that -from the beak to the back of the neck is called the “cap,” -and this should be of a clear orange-color, full and rich in -the ground, and with black edges to the feathers. The -feathers on the loins, or the <i>saddle</i> as it is sometimes -called, as well as those of the breast, must be free from -black, while the wings must have no admixture of any -other color. No bird can fairly compete for a prize which -has not black on the stock or neb of the back, flight, or -tail feathers, or that has less than eighteen flying feathers -in each wing or less than twelve in the tail. Such, lady -bird-fanciers, is a prize canary in England!</p> - -<p>Holborn is the great canary mart. In St. Andrew’s -Street every third or fourth house is occupied by a dealer, -and those who desire to possess a first-rate singer should -visit that street. It is best to go by gaslight, when all the -birds are on the twitter.</p> - -<p>Now, in America we have the plain yellow bird, with no -admixture of black; and yet the same conditions seem to -be observed as to his treatment. Sacrifice the beauty of -your bird to his song, which is his chief accomplishment. -He should have a comfortable mahogany cage, and be allowed -to step into it of his own accord. It should be well -furnished with seed and water. Place a light in front of -the cage, and he will begin to sing. A single hemp-seed or -a morsel of chickweed will induce the little prisoner to sing -almost immediately. They are very amiable and happy in -captivity.</p> - -<p>The blackcap, called the “mock-nightingale,” is a very -charming household pet, if he will live. His power of -song is almost equal to that of the nightingale. He is -sometimes called “the English mocking-bird,” and he imitates -any songster whom he may hear—blackbird, thrush, -or meadow-lark. They are by no means plentiful birds, -and they bring a good price in the market. They are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> -about the same size as the linnet, and the prevailing colors -of the plumage are ashen-gray and olive-green. The old -birds feed their young on caterpillars, moths, and other -insects. They can be reared, however, on bread and milk. -If brought up with a canary or a nightingale, they will acquire -a beautiful song composed of their own natural notes -and those of these brilliant performers. This bird has been -known to live twelve or sixteen years in confinement. It -demands some sort of fruit, like cherries, currants, or raspberries -in summer; a bit of apple, pine, or orange in winter. -To keep it in perfect health, it must have an iron -nail in its cup of water.</p> - -<p>But <i>chacun à son goût</i>. Every lady has her preferences -as to her feathered favorites. Suffice it to say a few words -as to the care of these poor little creatures.</p> - -<p>Birds are naturally tender things. They are not born -to live in cages; therefore they should be especially cared -for. Domestic pets are apt to come to untimely ends, particularly -if left to the care of servants, who regard them as -a burden and a nuisance, and too often cruelly neglect -them. Birds in captivity are very liable to diseases which -do not attack them in their wild state; and in the various -casualties which endanger their prison life, their owners -should seek to protect them and to cure them. Let it be -one of the Home Amusements for the lady to feed her pet -canary—to clean its cage, or see that it is done. We have -seen a little boy of seven take such care of his pet canary -that he shamed all the older people in the house; and a -happier bird never lived.</p> - -<p>If you keep but one bird in a cage in very hot weather, -his cage should be cleansed once a day. If you minister -personally to the comfort of your bird, he will grow very -much attached to you. If the perches are not kept clean, -the birds become afflicted with the gout and other maladies, -resulting in the loss of toes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> - -<p>Wooden cages, especially of mahogany, are the best, as -they are less likely to harbor insects. If of fir or soft wood, -the cage should be painted green. The wires of a cage -should never be painted, as the wire being non-absorbent, -the bird pecks off and eats the paint, which poisons it. -Japanned zinc cages are very well. A cage should not be -too open. There should always be a snug corner or -sheltered place, where the bird can retire and shun observation. -It is great cruelty to hang a cage in the sun -unprotected. Remember that in their free state birds seek -the shady tree. In a shower always bring your birds indoors, -for they are apt to take cold if wet in an imprisoned -state.</p> - -<p>It is a pity that more of our country residents have not -the idea of an aviary. It is so very pretty—an abiding-place -of beauty, love, song, and happiness. Surely it does -not cost so much as a greenhouse.</p> - -<p>The model aviary is built of brick or stone, iron and -glass, with a stove and pipes fitted to keep it of an even -temperature all winter. The floor should be an earthen -one, beaten hard, like the floors of some barns. Bricks are -too cold. Planks harbor insects, retain bad smells, and -form coverts for rats and mice. The roof of the aviary -should be semicircular or shelving, with vines and flowing -creepers trailing over it, so that there shall be a rustle of -green leaves steeped in sunshine, and air laden with sweet -perfume to delight the birds within. There should be -also creepers and shrubs growing inside for the birds to -nest in. Perches and wicker baskets with horse-hair -and wool should be left around, and there should be a -small marble basin and fountain in the middle, of -which the water should be always fresh and changing for -the birds to drink. This is, of course, a very magnificent -aviary, costing money. But what an addition to -Home Amusements to care for the happy family within!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> -The birds can be of all sorts. At the period of migration—about -the last of August—all birds kept in confinement -show a great desire to get out, and often beat -themselves to death against the walls of their cages. In -this time of ardent enterprise the top of the aviary or the -cages should be covered with dark cloth, and the poor -things shut out from the light.</p> - -<p>A much cheaper aviary is built in the form of a large -cage on the top of a tree, with open exit and entrances, -fitted up with every convenience of bird-furnishing, and -visited twice a day by the boys of the family. Here many -birds come to lodge and get tamed, as the Indian does by -having a house and garden, and often one pair of birds -comes back several times. This is a charming sort of aviary, -and very much to be commended. What romantic -tales of a wayside inn do the robin redbreasts and orioles -tell the peeping boy as he goes up the ladder to feed his -familiar friends! It is the prettiest sort of correspondence -with <i>l’inconnu</i>!</p> - -<p>It is a curious thing that the lungs of birds in captivity -always suffer from impurity of air, especially when the -temperature is at all varied; this must be one of the points -very carefully attended to.</p> - -<p>For food—we now are getting to a very creepy stage of -our narrative—meal-worms, ugh! are the <i>pièce de résistance</i>; -but canaries, goldfinches, bullfinches, linnets—all, -God bless them!—prefer seed; while chaffinches, buntings, -and the whole tit family and larks must have seeds, insects, -and fat meat—namely, worms. The nightingales, -thrushes, redbreasts, blackcaps, must have worms, crickets, -cockroaches, and ant-eggs. The maggots of the blow-fly -and all such tidbits, meal-worms, and flesh-maggots must -be kept in reserve; and this kind of housekeeping is apt to -shock the delicate sense. Let the boys of the family attend -to this part of the birds’ diet. Boiled cabbage, green peas,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> -all sorts of pudding, dry bread, and a little finely minced -cooked meat, bread-crumbs mashed up and scalded in milk, -milk itself, hemp-seed, a little chickweed, lettuce, and -cresses, can be given to birds with advantage.</p> - -<p>The bathing of birds must be done with great skill and -wisdom. After the operation of a warm bath, with soap, -which should be given to nestlings who are troubled with -vermin, great care must be taken that they are not chilled, -as death will be the result. Wrap them up, like little babies, -in flannel.</p> - -<p>In teaching them to sing, the voice, the piano, and flute -are all good teachers. The patient and music-loving Germans -teach all birds to sing. It should be begun in the -morning early, when the bird is hungry; and his lesson -should not last more than an hour.</p> - -<p>Early and regular attendance, gentleness and kindness, -are the <i>rationale</i> of bird-tending, as of nearly everything -else!</p> - -<p>Those half-captives, the pigeons, should be around every -country house. How beautiful they are in Venice! the -pigeons of St. Mark, which have swooped about that storied -piazza for so many years, because regularly fed there. All -boys should learn to cultivate them; to have the lovely -shifting luster of their necks lighting up the ground and -making gay the twilight. How proud and pompous are the -pouters! how gentle the ringdoves! and how pretty the -whole family! Peacocks are very stately visitors, and, except -for their horrid shrieks, are especially to be commended. -The old ruffled turkey-gobbler has his charms; and the -pages of Hawthorne teach us how very amusing a group of -hens and chickens may become. We advise every family -to have as many birds as they can possibly feed; for every -bird is a study, from the blink-eyed owl which hides in the -fir-tree, to the poor old goose that quacks and hobbles toward -the pond. Indeed, the æsthetics are all pretending that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> -the goose is the most beautiful of them all!—a perfect love, -a type, is a goose, since Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway -came in. But we still prefer the stately swan, of which -splendid specimens are now beginning to add their attractions -to our inland lakes. The goose is all very well in -her way, but the swan is better.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XV" id="XV">XV.</a><br /> -PICNICS.</h2> - -<p>Perhaps it is not well to class among Home Amusements -a series of entertainments which imply, at first sight, -the getting away from home. But, as the basket of luncheon -has to be packed at home, and the best part of a picnic -is the getting home again, we must be permitted a divergence.</p> - -<p>It is curious to see how emphatically fond of picnics the -Americans are. A universal national hunger seems to seize -the tired cit as the first warm day of May beams upon us. -They “babble of green fields.” Best of all charities those -which send the poor children off, on boats and trains, for a -whiff of pure air! It is the blessed privilege of the rich to -thin out the crowded tenement, and to send the overplus of -an irrepressible civilization back to Nature for a moment.</p> - -<p>But, for a Home Amusement in the country, what can -compare with the joy of getting ready for a picnic? The -baskets for the provisions (and be sure, Mary, not to forget -the salt or the sugar), the coffee-pot that will stand being -poked down into the wood-coals, the fine old swinging iron -kettle, the bread, the knives, and the pail of ice. Ah!</p> - -<p>Then, as to carriages. Not the luxurious cushioned -barouche, but the shabbiest old rattletraps about the place -are the proper ones. A good old hay-wagon is the very -best—if it have hay in it. It may do very well at Newport -for the luxurious to drive out to one of Mr. Bennett’s pic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>nics -in a four-in-hand or a drag, or a Victoria or a barouche; -but in the country take the buckboard, the old Rockaway -wagon, which holds nine—the more the merrier—the farm-wagon, -and the market-cart. Filled with youth, beauty, -and jollity, these become the chariots of Apollo.</p> - -<p>It is not always easy to get mamma to a picnic; but it -is good for her, and for all the others, if she will go. She -is apt to be anxious about rain, and is afraid of farmer Bell’s -bull; and she should be allowed to go in an easy carriage. -She also fears to take cold, and is mightily frightened at -those crazy boats on the lake. But it is better for all parties -if these fears are assuaged and she really goes. The change -does her good, and she acts as a temporary restraint on the -too volatile spirits of the party.</p> - -<p>Another power hard to coerce is Statira, who is the head -of the commissary department. Statira, cook and factotum, -was brought up on the wrong side of a mullein-patch herself, -and she is not in love with the country. She remembers -the woods as a place where she went to look, in her -youth, for recalcitrant cows; and in winter, how cold and -bleak the woods were! Her present warm and cultivated -kitchen, with stationary wash-tubs, is to her a far more -agreeable spot. She hesitates, as the young people ask for -her delicate apple-pies and her delicious cakes, “to cram -into baskets,” to “eat out in the pasture,” as she sniffingly -avers.</p> - -<p>However, although Statira is a greater tyrant than Nero, -the young people prevail, and the picnic gets started somehow. -What a jolly hour is passed in driving through the still -valley to the brow of yonder hill, which commands a view -of the whole country! Then Susan, the thoughtful one, -dreads lest the coffee-pot has been forgotten. Hurried -search! The coffee-pot is found under a back seat. Happiness -restored, the songs go on, and the murmuring pines -and the hemlocks take up the wondrous tale.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> - -<p>Then the party arrive at the lake. The girls take off -their hats. The winds play with the “tangles in Nerea’s -hair.” The picnic is a nice opportunity for a pretty foot, -a fine figure, and a splendid head of hair—so it is said. -Then come rambles into the forest.</p> - -<p>That is a pretty story of a nymph who appeared on the -edge of a forest, but who disappeared as she was followed, -until, at last, as her lover pursued her farther into the -forest, he threw his arms about a white hawthorn-tree. It -is the world’s earliest romance that the first courtship took -place at a picnic. Roses and briers twine around lovers -for ever, and the lotus and the buttercup tell the same -story.</p> - -<p>Picnics are healthy; but should be appropriately dressed. -Balmoral boots, broad hats, and flannel dresses, warm, -plain, and serviceable. A white Marseilles which will wash—percales -and cambrics and ginghams will do; but no -finery should be allowed. At Newport one may try the -Watteau combination of brocade and satin, with fine old -house, grounds, and trellised arcades. But at a country -picnic Watteau dresses are out of place. Our climate is -too fitful for safe picnicking, as we dread rain. In England -they do not care, but lunch at Ascot, with the rain -pouring into the champagne. But here we need to go -prepared with aquiscutums and umbrellas, and a neighboring -barn is well in the near distance.</p> - -<p>It is a common want, this need of the confessional of -Nature. We leave our morbid fancies, our discontents, in -the bosom of our dear common mother, and we come back -as cheerful as is the dappled deer. We like to go back to -that idyllic spot where the race started.</p> - -<p>In the spring certain natures get frisky, like the colts. -One pasture will not hold them. We get tired of white -man’s work. It was a true reading of the human heart -which made the Greeks place Apollo with the shepherds of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> -Admetus, and Jove stooping to the people of the hill-sides. -“The populous all-loving solitude” of Nature draws us -with a potent hand. Our houses are a false shell. Titania’s -subjects will rebel. That rural solitude, which has no -conventionality; that desert rock, against which the noisy -wave of human folly breaks itself; the dense forest, where -is sung the mighty hymn of the pines; the brow of the hill -which the sun kisses last; the lone seashore; the distant -heath; that cloud-shadow on the mountain—these are all -necessary to us once a year. We must go once to “<i>La -roche qui pleure</i>.” We must go where the forest-growths -expand in all their strength and splendor. We must find -the shyest wild flower, the most untamable vine. It is in -the fable of Daphne that we read the deep significance, the -poetry, the true meaning of our love of the picnic.</p> - -<p>Who of us—comfortable and well housed—but has in -some moment of nomadic instinct envied the tramp and -the gypsy their life of chapleted ease, as they lie on the -greensward, hugging dear mother Nature to their very -bosoms? Who has not some wild, untamed blood in his -veins—some fellowship for the Indian—some desire for -the flitting caress of the passing breeze, or the somber greeting -of the mountain shadow?</p> - -<p>But no more poetry, if you please. We are getting -hungry. Where are those baskets? Ah! the cold roast -beef, the wing of a chicken, and the salt, not forgotten!</p> - -<p>Those hard-boiled eggs—how good they are! So glad -that chicken-raising has been one of our Home Amusements! -Just a high picket-fence, a few good hens, some -boxes, and a little attention, and what eggs these are! -Mamma will not, however, eat them; she says they are unwholesome. -But she takes a piece of the breast of a noble -pullet, and a cup of coffee in a tin mug, made by Sam, best -of cooks, amateur—college-bred cook—who has boiled it -under the trees! and laid the grounds with a dash of cold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> -water. Sam puts his own clearness and strength into the -coffee.</p> - -<p>And now for an hour’s reverie by the side of the lake; -and then a rough-and-tumble drive home! How tired, -ragged, jagged, disheveled, and happy we are as we get -home!</p> - -<p>Statira has built a splendid wood-fire for us, and has a -supper of broiled chicken, cold ham, preserves and cream, -baked potatoes, and toast, and hot biscuits which might -tempt the virtue of an anchorite. We have no such proud -resistance. We have brought an appetite from the place -where they make them; and we can eat hot biscuits and -still wrap the drapery of our couch about us and lie down -to pleasant dreams.</p> - -<p>A picnic is, therefore, a Home Amusement. It has home -at both ends; else it would not be a picnic.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI">XVI.</a><br /> -PLAYING WITH FIRE. CERAMICS.</h2> - -<p>Now let us ascend from these trivialities to the consideration -of the great subject which has been more talked of -and dabbled in for the last seven years than any accomplishment -ever was, before or since. The splendid display of -Ceramic Art at our great Exposition of 1876 no doubt had -its share in creating that intense interest in the subject -which has been felt everywhere.</p> - -<p>How it came into the category of Home Amusements we -hardly know, unless the art schools stimulated the pursuit. -But now we do know that nearly every lady paints a plate, -from grandma down to the smallest child. Especially has -it become the pastime of middle-aged ladies, who have got -through with the work of life, and have much leisure on -their hands. It is one of the many accomplishments which -has taken the place of the German wool worsted abomination, -the canvas roses, and counted out violets.</p> - -<p>“Home would be happier were it not for the smell of -turpentine,” said a lively girl as she found her grandmother, -mother, and sister all hard at the plaques. It is -true, this pungent liquid is necessary, and the china after -being painted has to be baked—two very unpleasant accompaniments. -But let us see how it is done.</p> - -<p>One needs, first, a porcelain palette; a glass slab about -eight inches square; several small and medium-sized camel’s-hair -brushes; several blenders, large and small; a quart-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>bottle -of spirits of turpentine; a quart-bottle of alcohol; a -small bottle of oil of turpentine; one of oil of lavender; -one of copaiba; a steel palette-knife, also one of horn or -ivory; a rest for the hand while painting, made of a strip -of wood about an inch and a half wide and twelve inches -long, supported at each end by a foot an inch and a half -in height. A flat ruler or thin strip of wood may be used -for plates, or any flat piece having a raised edge, and may -be found more convenient than the cumbrous rests. A -fine needle, set in a handle, for removing particles of dust -which may settle in the painting, and a small glass muller, -are required.</p> - -<p>The china used for decoration must be of the finest -quality, and free from spots. The hard porcelain of French -manufacture is the best for this purpose. The mineral -paints bought in tubes (those of Lacroix, of Paris, being -the best) are the colors which stand fire. Brushes, as for -water-color painting, are used. Small camel’s-hair brushes -with square ends may be had, which will do for blending -when necessary in fine work.</p> - -<p>In tinted surfaces and borders large blenders are necessary. -The brushes used by gilders, and called “trade-gilders’ -brushes,” make good blenders; No. 9 is a very useful -size. In placing the color on these surfaces, a broad, -flat camel’s-hair brush, rather more than an inch in width, -should be used. In narrow bands and lines, brushes of suitable -size with very long hair and square ends are employed.</p> - -<p>The colors most in use are: dark carmine, flesh-red, -capucine-red, dark red, brown, iron-violet. In <i>purples</i>—deep -purple, dark golden violet. <i>Blues</i>—sky-blue, dark -ultramarine, deep blue. <i>Greens</i>—grass-green, brown green, -apple-green. <i>Yellows</i>—mixing yellow, ivory-yellow, jonquil-yellow, -orange-yellow. <i>Browns</i>—dark brown, yellow -brown. <i>Black</i>—ivory-black. Permanent white; pearl-gray; -black gray.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> - -<p>Now, in commencing to paint a design on china, the -first thing to be done is to sketch the outline. The best -way to do this is to prepare the china by rubbing the surface -with spirits of turpentine, and, after having left it a -few minutes to dry, draw the design upon it very lightly -with a hard lead-pencil. Alcohol may be used for the same -purpose, and has the advantage that it is not so liable to -catch the dust. The surface, however, does not receive the -marks of the lead-pencil so well as when it is prepared with -turpentine.</p> - -<p>Lithographic crayon may be used, and without any -preparation; but the outline is not so delicate as that drawn -with the lead-pencil.</p> - -<p>If the subject is a difficult one, as, for instance, a design -containing several figures, time may be saved, and liability -to error avoided, by tracing the design, which insures the -correct relative position of the figures, and tends to produce -the object desired—a correct copy of the original. It -is better, however, to sketch simpler subjects direct on the -china. It is commonly supposed that a tracing is of great -assistance to any one unskilled in drawing; but if one is unable -to draw a correct outline, it is hardly possible that the -painting will be good. It is so very easy to lose the outline -in working that, after all, a tracing is but a slight indication, -which has for its principal use the placing of the -design in exactly the right position on the plate or other -object to be decorated.</p> - -<p>There are various ways of tracing, the simplest and best -of which is the following: Lay a piece of transparent paper -over the design to be copied, and trace the outlines very -carefully with a hard lead-pencil. Then turn the tracing-paper -over on any white surface, and go over all the lines -on the reverse side with a soft pencil. You can now lay -the tracing right side up on the china, which has been -previously prepared for the lead-pencil with turpentine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> -and having placed it in exactly the right position, secure it -by means of bits of modeling-wax or gummed paper at the -corners, and pass over the lines with a hard point, or rub -the entire surface with a rounded instrument; the handle -of the palette-knife may be used for this purpose. This -will transfer the pencil drawing to the surface of the china.</p> - -<p>The more delicate the outline the better, provided it is -more plainly visible, as a heavy, dark, or colored outline -sullies the colors used upon it, and causes much annoyance -in working. Although it may disappear in the firing, it is -better to avoid it. Faulty lines in the tracing may be rectified -by the use of a sharpened stick of soft wood moistened -with turpentine.</p> - -<p>If tube-colors are used, and found difficult to lay, a drop -of oil of turpentine may be added to the turpentine. Care -should be taken, however, to avoid too much oil, as it renders -the colors liable to blister in the fire. The use of clove-oil -as a medium is advised by some. The color can, perhaps, -be more easily laid with it than with spirits of turpentine. -It does not dry so quickly, however, and, unless recourse is -had to the process of drying the work with the aid of an -alcohol lamp, its use involves tedious waiting. It is better -to use turpentine and finish the work at one sitting. The -drying of colors is affected by the state of the atmosphere. -If, during the progress of the painting, it is found to be -difficult to work over the colors first laid—which are indeed -very liable to come up—the piece of china may be placed -in a moderately warm oven to dry before proceeding. On -being taken out of the oven, the colors will be found to -have lost their gloss, if perfectly dry, and, perhaps, will have -changed their hue. No alarm need be felt at this, as they -will return to their former brilliancy when fired. But here -we come to a great trouble.</p> - -<p>The chance of a piece “firing” well is one of the great -trials of the china painter, and is beyond her control; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> -this is always counted in. It is best to send the piece to a -pottery to be burned. A cup containing turpentine should -stand near the working table to wash the brushes; and -after using a color containing iron, the brush should be -carefully washed before it is charged with one which does -not contain iron, or if white is to be used. The brushes -ought not to be too small, and the colors should, as far as -possible, be laid in broad washes, and decided touches placed -lightly and quickly, and not overworked. The use of the -blender may be resorted to if necessary, especially in laying -the first washes; although it is better to avoid using it -afterward, if possible.</p> - -<p>The same rules may be applied to china painting as to -water-colors, to which it bears a strong resemblance. The -greatest art consists in placing each touch where it should -go, and leaving it; not spoiling it by uncertainty, or degrading -the tint by overwork. In fine work, lining and -stippling are necessary in finishing, but should not be carried -to excess or made too apparent. These latter processes -are, perhaps, more indispensable in preparing work for a -single firing, as it is very difficult to lay repeated washes -over one another; the under-tint comes up so readily, -especially when it is not thoroughly dry. The same place -must never be passed over by the brush twice in immediate -succession, as the under-tint will certainly come up, and -the blot caused in the painting will be difficult to rectify. -It is of no use to attempt it while it is wet. Work on some -other part, and then go over it, or first dry it in the oven.</p> - -<p>Some of the tube-colors may require to be rubbed down -after being taken from the tubes. This will be especially -necessary in the case of the carmines and the whites. A -horn or ivory palette-knife should be used with these colors, -as well as with the blues, and all colors containing no iron. -Mixtures of colors on the palette may be rubbed down occasionally, -or mixed with the brush before using, to prevent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> -them from separating themselves into their component -parts.</p> - -<p>Too much turpentine should not be taken into the brush -when it is to be charged with color. Dip it into the turpentine, -and remove the surplus moisture by drawing the -brush over the edge of the vessel containing it before taking -up the color from the palette. The tint may be tried first -on the edge of the plate. Surplus color or moisture may -be removed by touching the brush upon a muslin rag, which -should always be at hand for the purpose of wiping the -brushes.</p> - -<p>After using, the brushes should be washed in alcohol. -The bottle containing it should be kept tightly corked, as -it evaporates very quickly when exposed to the air. Care -must be taken that no drops of the alcohol drop upon the -painting, as it will immediately remove the colors from the -surface. When the large brushes are cleaned after being -washed in the alcohol, the hairs should be spread apart, and -the fingers passed lightly over them until they are dry; -otherwise the hairs may stick together in drying, and the -brush be rendered unfit for use. Washing in alcohol will -prevent the turpentine used in painting from injuring the -brushes, as it would if allowed to remain in them. The -tube-colors should be preserved from heat as far as possible.</p> - -<p>We have taken these rules, partly from personal experience, -partly from the best manuals, and the china painter -can <i>begin</i> on them. But a few lessons from a master are -very valuable, and the best of all teachers—patience—will -help the young and inexperienced better than any written -directions.</p> - -<p>We would like to say a few words more on the all-important -subject of firing. “The Amateur’s Miniature -Kiln,” now sold by the Decorative Art Society, and by the -patentee, Miss N. M. Ford, Port Richmond, New York, -enables the amateur to fire small articles of decorated china<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> -with perfect success. If near a large city, it is better to -send the plaques to a large establishment where they are in -the habit of baking them.</p> - -<p>The amateur has to make up her mind to a great many -failures at first, but after the accomplishment is somewhat -conquered, it is an inexpensive and delightful addition to -Home Amusements.</p> - -<p>No one should, however, attempt to paint upon china -who does not know first how to draw. The hand should -be skillful on paper before it touches the flat brush; for -the outlines, while seemingly coarse, must be very expressive, -and very certain.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII">XVII.</a><br /> -ARCHERY.</h2> - -<p>Fashion has again brought round as one of the Home -Amusements this pretty and romantic pastime, which has -filled the early ballads with many a picturesque figure. -Now on many a lawn may be seen the target and the group -in Lincoln green. Indeed, it looks as if Archery were to -prove a very formidable rival to Lawn Tennis.</p> - -<p>The requirements of Archery are these: First, a bow; -secondly, arrows; thirdly, a quiver, pouch, and belt; fourthly, -a grease-pot, an arm-guard or brace, a shooting glove, a -target, and a scoring card.</p> - -<p>The bow is the most important article in archery, and -also the most expensive. It is usually from five to six feet -in length, made of a single piece of yew, or of lance-wood -and hickory glued together back to back. The former is -best for gentlemen, the latter for ladies, as it is better -adapted for the short, sharp pull of the feminine arm. The -wood is gradually tapered, and at each end is a tip of horn, -the one from the upper end being longer than the other or -lower one. The strength of bows is marked in pounds, -varying from twenty-five to thirty pounds. Ladies’ bows -are from twenty-five to forty pounds in strength, and those -of gentlemen from fifty to eighty pounds. One side of the -bow is flat, called its “back”; the other is rounded, called -the “belly.” Nearly in the middle, where the hand should -take hold, it is lapped round with velvet, and that part is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> -called the “handle.” In each of the tips of horns is a -notch for the string, called the “nock.”</p> - -<p>Bow-strings are made of hemp or flax—the former being -the better material; for though at first they stretch more, -yet they wear longer and stand a harder pull, as well as -being more elastic in the shooting. In applying a fresh -string to a bow, be careful in opening it not to break the -composition that is on it. Cut the tie, take hold of the -eye, which will be found ready worked at one end, let the -other part hang down, and pass the eye over the upper end -of the bow. If for a lady, it may be held from two to two -and a half inches below the nock; if for a gentleman, half -an inch lower, varying it according to the length and -strength of the bow. Then run your hand along the side -of the bow and string to the bottom nock. Turn it round -that, and fix it by the noose, called the “timber noose,” -taking care not to untwist the string in making it. This -noose is simply a turn-back and twist without a knot. -When strung, a lady’s bow will have the string about five -inches from the belly, and a gentleman’s about half an inch -more. The part opposite the handle is bound round with -waxed silk, in order to prevent its being frayed by the -arrow. As soon as a string becomes too soft and the fibers -too straight, rub it with beeswax, and give it a few turns -in the proper direction, so as to shorten it, and twist its -strands a little tighter. A spare string should always be -provided by the shooter.</p> - -<p>The arrows are differently shaped by various makers, -some being of uniform thickness throughout, while others -are protuberant in the middle; some, again, are larger at the -point than at the feather-end. They are generally made of -white deal, with points of iron or brass riveted on; but -generally having a piece of heavy wood spliced on to the -deal between it and the point, by which their flight is improved. -At the other end a piece of horn is inserted in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> -which is a notch for the string. They are armed with three -feathers, glued on, one of which is of a different color from -the others, and is intended to mark the proper position -of the arrow when placed on the string, this one always -pointing from the bow. These feathers properly applied -give a rotary motion to the arrow which causes its flight to -be straight. They are generally from the wing of the turkey -or the goose. The length and weight of the arrows -vary, the latter (in England) being marked in sterling silver -coin, and stamped on the arrow in plain figures. It is -usual to paint a crest or a monogram or distinguishing -rings on the arrow just below the feathers, by which they -may be known in shooting at the target.</p> - -<p>The quiver is merely a tin case painted green, intended -for the security of the arrows when not in use. The pouch -and belt are worn round the waist, the latter containing -those arrows which are actually being shot. A pot to hold -grease for touching the glove and string, and a tassel to -wipe the arrows, are hung at the belt. The grease is composed -of beef-suet and wax melted together. The arm is -protected from the blow of the string by the brace, a broad -guard of strong leather buckled on by two straps. A shooting -glove, also of thin tubes of leather, is attached to the -wrist by three flat pieces ending in a circular strap buckled -round it. This glove prevents that soreness of the fingers -which soon comes on after using the bow without it.</p> - -<p>The target consists of a circular mat of straw, covered -with canvas painted in a series of circles. It is usually from -three feet six inches to four feet in diameter. The middle -is about six or eight inches in diameter, gilt, and called the -“gold”; the next is called the “red,” after which comes -the “inner white,” then the “black,” and finally the -“outer white.” These targets are mounted on triangular -stands at distances apart of from fifty to a hundred yards—sixty -being the usual shooting distance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> - -<p>A scoring card is provided with columns for each color, -which are marked with a pin. The usual score for a gold -hit or the bull’s-eye is 9; the red, 7; inner white, 6; -black, 3; and outer white, 1.</p> - -<p>To bend the bow properly the bow should be taken by -the handle in the right hand. Place one end on the ground, -resting in the hollow of the right foot, keeping the flat side -of the bow, called the back, toward your person. The left -foot should be advanced a little, and the right placed so -that the bow can not slip sideways. Place the heel of the -left hand upon the upper limb of the bow, below the eye of -the string. Now, while the fingers and thumb of the left -hand slide this eye toward the notch in the horn, and the -heel pushes the limb away from the body, the right hand -pulls the handle toward the person, and thus resists the -action of the left, by which the bow is bent; and at the -same time the string is slipped into the nock, as the notch -is termed. Take care to keep the three outer fingers free -from the string, for if the bow should slip from the hand, -and the string catch them, they will be severely pinched. -If shooting in frosty weather, warm the bow before the fire, -or by friction with a woolen cloth. If the bow has been -lying by for a long time, it should be well rubbed with -boiled linseed-oil before using it.</p> - -<p>To unstring the bow, hold it as in stringing, then -press down the upper limb exactly as before, and as if you -wished to place the eye of the string in a higher notch. -This will loosen the string and liberate the eye, when it -must be lifted out of the nock by the forefinger, and suffered -to slip down the limb.</p> - -<p>Before using the bow, hold it in a perpendicular direction -with the string toward you, and see if the line of the -string cuts the middle of the bow. If not, shift the eye -and noose of the string to either side, so as to make the two -lines coincide. This precaution prevents a very common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> -cause of defective shooting, which is the result of an uneven -string throwing the arrow on one side. After using it, -unstring it; and at a large shooting party, unloose your -bow after every round. Some bows get bent into very -unmanageable shapes.</p> - -<p>The general management of the bow should be on the -principle that damp injures it, and that any loose floating -ends interfere with its shooting. It should, therefore, be -kept well varnished, and in a waterproof case, and it should -be carefully dried after shooting in damp weather. If there -are any ends hanging from the string, cut them off close, -and see that the whipping in the middle of the string -is close and well fitting. The case should be hung up -against a dry internal wall, not too near the fire. In selecting -your bow, be careful that it is not too strong for your -power, and that you can draw the arrow to its head without -any trembling of the hand. If this can not be done after -a little practice, the bow should be changed for a weaker -one. For no arrow will go true if it is discharged by a -trembling hand.</p> - -<p>If an arrow has been shot into the target or the ground, -be particularly careful to withdraw it by laying hold close -to its head, and by twisting it round as it is withdrawn in -the direction of its axis. Without this precaution it may -be easily bent or broken.</p> - -<p>In shooting at the target, the first thing is to nock the -arrow; that is, to place it properly on the string. In order -to effect this; take the bow in the left hand, with the string -toward you, the upper limb being toward the right. Hold -it horizontally while you take the arrow by the middle, pass -it on the under side of the string and the upper side of the -bow, till the head reaches two or three inches past the left -hand. Hold it there with the forefinger or thumb while -you remove the right hand down to the nock. Turn the -arrow till the cock-feather comes uppermost, then pass it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> -down the bow, and fix it on the nocking part of the string. -In doing this, all contact with the feathers should be -avoided, unless they are rubbed out of place, when they -may be smoothed down by passing them through the hand.</p> - -<p>The body should be at right angles with the target, but -the face must be turned over the left shoulder, so as to be -opposed to it. The feet are to be flat on the ground, with -the heels a little apart, the left foot turned toward the -mark. The head and chest inclined a little forward, so as -to present a full bust, but not bent at all below the waist.</p> - -<p>Draw the arrow to the full length of the arm till the -hand touches the shoulder, then take aim. The loosing -should be quick, and the string must leave the fingers -smartly and steadily. The bow-hand must be as firm as a -vice—no trembling allowed.</p> - -<p>The rules of an Archery Club are usually these:</p> - -<p>That a “Lady Paramount” be annually elected.</p> - -<p>That there be a President, Secretary, and Treasurer.</p> - -<p>That all members intending to shoot shall appear in -the uniform of the club. That a fine shall be imposed for -non-attendance.</p> - -<p>That the Secretary shall send out cards at least a month -before each day of meeting, acquainting the members with -place and hour of meeting.</p> - -<p>That there shall be four prizes for each meeting—two -for each sex; the first for numbers, the second for hits; -and that no person shall be allowed to have both on the -same day. A certain sum of money is voted to the Lady -Paramount for prizes for each meeting.</p> - -<p>That in case of a tie for hits, numbers shall decide; -and in case of a tie for numbers, hits shall decide.</p> - -<p>That the decision of the Lady Paramount shall be final.</p> - -<p>That there shall be a challenge prize of the value of —— -dollars, and that a commemorative ornament be presented -to winners of the challenge prize.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> - -<p>That the distance for shooting be sixty or one hundred -yards, and that five-feet targets be used.</p> - -<p>The dress of the club to be decided by the Lady Paramount.</p> - -<p>The expenses of archery are not great—about the same -as lawn tennis—although a great many arrows are lost in -the course of the season. Bows and other paraphernalia -last a long time. Sides are chosen as at lawn tennis, and -the game grows on one. The lady archers are apt to feel -a little lame after the first two or three essays, but they -should practice a short time every morning, and always in -a loose waist or jacket. It will be found a very healthy -and strengthening pastime.</p> - -<p>We must not judge of the merits of ancient bowmen -from the practice of archery in the present day. There are -no such distances now assigned for the marks as we find -mentioned in old histories or poetic legends, nor such precision, -even at short lengths, in the direction of the arrow.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“The stranger he made no mickle ado,</div> -<div class="i2">But he bent a right good bow,</div> -<div class="i0">And the fattest of all the herd he slew,</div> -<div class="i2">Forty good yards him fro;</div> -<div class="i0"><i>‘Well shot, well shot,’ quoth Robin Hood</i>.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Few, if any, modern archers in long shooting reach four -hundred yards, or in shooting at a mark exceed eighty or a -hundred. But archery has been since the invention of gunpowder -only followed for pastime. It is decidedly the -most graceful game which can be practiced, and the legends -of Sherwood Forest, of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Little -John, Friar Tuck, and the Abbot carry us into the fragrant -heart of the forest, and bring back memories which are -agreeable to all people who have in them a drop of Saxon -blood.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII">XVIII.</a><br /> -AMUSEMENTS FOR THE MIDDLE-AGED AND -THE AGED.</h2> - -<p>We can not but notice, as people go on in life—when, -as Lord Mansfield said, “The absence of pain is pleasure, -just as in youth the absence of pleasure is pain”—that the -quiet corner by the fire, or the seat at the library-table with -the shaded lamp, and a quiet game or two when reading -has fatigued the eyes, becomes almost necessary.</p> - -<p>Of all the means of cheating a succession of dull evenings -of their tedium, perhaps that little invention called -a “Solitaire” board—which is simply a board pierced with -thirty-seven holes, which are nearly filled with thirty-six -pegs—has proved itself the most eminently successful. It -was invented, it is said, by a French Jesuit, in Canada, -to help him through the long Canadian winter evenings, -and it has proved to be a boon to mankind.</p> - -<p>One peg takes another when it can leap over into an -empty hole. To get all off but one peg is nearly impossible, -but it can be done.</p> - -<p>Then comes “Merelles,” or “Nine Men’s Morris,” which -can be played on a board, or on the ground, but which -finds itself reduced even to a parlor game. This, however, -takes two players.</p> - -<p>“American Bagatelle,” which can be played alone, or -with an antagonist; Chinese puzzles, which are infinitely -amusing; and all the great family of the sphinx known as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> -puzzles—are of infinite service to the retired, quiet, lonely -people for whom the active business of life is at an end. -The guessing of arithmetical puzzles, the solution of enigmas, -and the solution of a paradox—these amuse many an -evening.</p> - -<p>We may give one of these old things as an example. It -is called “The Blind Abbot and his Monks,” and is played -with counters. Arrange eight external cells of a square so -that there may always be nine in each row, though the -whole number may vary from eighteen to thirty-six.</p> - -<p>A convent in which there were nine cells was occupied -by a blind abbot and twenty-four monks, the abbot lodging -in the center cell, and the monks in the side cells, three -in each, giving a row of nine persons on each side of the -building. The abbot, suspecting the fidelity of his brethren, -often went out at night and counted them, and when -he found nine in each row the old man counted his beads, -said an Ave! and went to bed contented. The monks, -taking advantage of his failing sight, contrived to deceive -him, so that four could go out nightly, yet leave nine in a -row. How did they do it?</p> - -<p>The next night, emboldened by success, the monks returned -with four visitors and then arranged them nine in -a row. The next night they brought in four more belated -brethren, and again arranged them nine in a row; and -again four more. Finally, when the twelve clandestine -brothers had departed, and six monks with them, the remainder -deceived the abbot again by presenting a row of -nine. Try it with the counters, and see how they so abused -the privileges of a conventual seclusion.</p> - -<p>Then try quibbles—“How can I get wine out of a bottle -if I have no corkscrew, and must not break the glass -or make any hole in it or the cork?”</p> - -<p>The telling of a good story well should be encouraged. -The <i>raconteur</i> can be the most delightful of all house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>hold -blessings. A mother who can tell a story well by the -nursery fire is a potent force; and the one who will light -up the winter evening by telling stories of adventures—the -simplest every-day ones in the street—the little journey, -even the round of shopping, becomes very much of a treasure. -Some ladies commit to memory the stories of Hans -Christian Andersen; Grimm, the fairy-story maker; Charles -Kingsley’s short stories, Ouida’s “A Dog of Flanders,” or -the poems of Dr. Holmes, or some other benefactor of -mankind, and tell these stories and poems in a sort of unpremeditated -way by the library-table. This is a charming -accomplishment. Some people have the gift of improvising, -and will tell a very good bit of ghost story in a very -gruesome manner for the entertainment of those who enjoy -the night side of nature.</p> - -<p>But this talent should never be abused. The man who -in cold blood fires off a long poetical quotation at a dinner, -or makes a speech in defiance of the goose-flesh which is -creeping down his neighbors’ backs, is a traitor to honor -and religion, and he deserves the death of a Nihilist. It -is only when these extempore talents can be used without -alarming people that they are useful or endurable.</p> - -<p>We might make our Christmas holidays a little more -gay in this country. We might read and study up all the -old English and the German customs, beyond the mistletoe, -the tree, and the rather faded legend of Santa Claus. -There are worlds of legendary lore which would help us to -make this time-honored festival even more lively and gay -and amusing than it is. We have not yet reached the English -jollity at Christmas.</p> - -<p>The supper-table has, as an American home festival, -rather fallen into desuetude. We sup out, but rarely have -that informal and delightful meal which once wound up -every evening devoted to Home Amusement. Mrs. Elizabeth -Montague, in her delightful letters, talks about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> -“whisk and the quadrille parties with a light supper” -which amused the ladies of her day. We still have the -“whisk,” but what has become of lansquenet, quadrille, -basset, and piquet, those pretty and courtly games?</p> - -<p>Playing-cards made their way through Arabia from -India to Europe, where they first arrived about the year -1370. They carried with them the two arts, engraving and -painting. They were the <i>avants coureurs</i> of engraving on -wood and metal, and of printing.</p> - -<p>Cards early began to be the luxuries of kings and queens, -the necessity of the gambler, and the consolation of those -who innocently like games. Piquet, a courtly game, was -invented by Étienne Vignoles, called <i>La Hire</i>, one of the -most active soldiers of the reign of Charles VII. This -brave soldier was an accomplished chevalier, deeply imbued -with a reverence for the manners and customs of chivalry. -Cards continued from this time to follow the whim of the -court and to assume the character of the period through -the regency of Marie de Medicis, in the time of Anne of -Austria and of Louis XIV. The Germans are the first people -who essayed to make a pack of cards assume the form -of a scholastic treatise. The king, queen, knight, and -<i>knave</i> tell of English manners, customs, and nomenclature.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX">XIX.</a><br /> -THE PARLOR.</h2> - -<p>That is a poorly-furnished parlor, think some people, -which has not a chess-table in one corner, a whist-table in -the middle, and a little solitaire-table at the other end near -the fire, for grandma. People who are fond of games stock -their table drawers with cribbage boards and backgammon, -cards of every variety, bézique counters and packs, and the -red and white champions of the hard-fought battlefield of -chess.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble, one of the most gifted of -women—whose recollections would, one would think, be -the most attractive book which one could read—is devoted -to card solitaire. Every evening she describes herself as -spending an hour or two over these combinations. This is -not to be confused with the game of peg solitaire.</p> - -<p>Whist! Who shall pretend to describe its attractions? -What a relief it is to the tired man of business who has -been fighting the world all day, to the woman who has no -longer any part in the gay and glittering pageant of society! -What pleasure in its regulated, shifting fortunes! -We all have seen that holding the cards—even the highest -ones—does not always win the game. We have noticed -that with a poor hand somebody wins fame, success, happiness. -We feel the injustice of that long suit which has -baffled our best endeavors. Whist is a parody on life; we -play our own experience over again in its faithless kings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> -and queens. The knave is apt to trip us up on the green -cloth as on the street. We are simply playing the real over -in shadow.</p> - -<p>The great passion for gambling is no doubt behind even -the game of Boston, played for beans. We all like to accumulate, -to believe that we are Fortune’s favorite. What -matter if it be only a few more beans than one’s neighbor? -The principle remains the same.</p> - -<p>So long as cards do not lead to gambling, they are innocent -enough. Indeed, they are a priceless boon to eyes -which can no longer see to read; to those who must get rid -of time; to those who are ill, weary, or unfortunate. We -always wonder at seeing the young take to them; it seems -as if they could do so much better; but the sight of a parlor, -warm, well lighted, with its games going on in every -corner, is not a disagreeable one. Especially should the -young ladies of the family look to this arrangement, and -see that everything is comfortable for papa’s game of whist, -bézique, or cribbage. They do not know how great a necessity -it may be to him—what a relief, what a consolation!</p> - -<p>As for Chess, the devotee of this heavy, remorseless -game has no further need of our help or sympathy. To -any one who likes to puzzle his brain over the fantastic -skips of the Knight or the prodigious descent of the Castle, -we can offer no suggestions except that he may be left undisturbed.</p> - -<p>As for Music, one can hardly say anything which has -not been said about its transcendent powers in assisting at -every Home Amusement. The family circle which has -learned three or four instruments, the brothers who can -sing part songs, are to be envied. They can never suffer -from a dull evening. Even the musical absurdities of -Kindergarten choruses are to be commended, and the German -mimicry of all the instruments. What a blessing to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> -family is the man who can sing comic songs, and who also -does not sing them too often!</p> - -<p>It is well, where it can be done easily, to allow young -boys to sing in church choirs; to train their voices, and -be with musical people; to learn choruses, chants, etc. -In that way Arthur Sullivan began, that benefactor of his -species, the author of “Pinafore.” What has <i>not</i> “Pinafore” -done to help along the musical education of our -young people? How it has been sung in country towns! -How church choirs have taken it up! How popular, innocent, -sweet it is!</p> - -<p>Now, in our musical home training we may not make an -Arthur Sullivan, but we shall certainly add to the sum of -innocent enjoyment; and it is a delightful fact that if there -are six or seven children in a family, one of them is apt to -have a good voice, one a talent for the piano, and generally -all can be taught to play and sing a little. Sometimes -there are rarely gifted, great musical organizations in all -the sons and daughters, which is a supreme blessing. For -there is not only Home Amusement in it, but a certainty -of making a good living, if fortune frowns and makes work -necessary.</p> - -<p>The only deep shadow to the musical picture is the -necessity of practicing, which is <i>not</i> a Home Amusement; -it is a home torture. If only a person could learn to play -or sing without those dreadful first noises and those hideous -shrieks! But, since these are not to be avoided, some -one in the family must have the tact to arrange them well, -and to have the hours of the various students so placed that -there need not be a perpetual tinkle-tinkle, or something -worse.</p> - -<p>The season of early spring and summer! Oh! what -sounds come through the first open casement! How dreadful -is that <i>appoggiatura</i>! how fearful that badly-played -waltz! Is it possible that yon violinist will ever be Mau<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>rice -Dengrémont? And yet it is by these hard chromatic -steps that all have mounted the heavenly stairs of melody.</p> - -<p>No young lady should sing in public—that is, before a -party of friends—until she can sing <i>well</i>. In these days, -when amateur cultivation has reached a high point, let -everybody say to herself, “Am I sufficiently advanced to -give pleasure by my singing?” and let her modestly abstain -from singing if she finds that, after hearing her once, her -friends do not press her to sing again. There is, perhaps, -nothing so foolish as for a woman to persist in singing in -her own parlor when she is not a thoroughly good vocalist. -No one can get away from her there. They must suffer. -Still, if birds <i>can</i> sing, they should sing. Nothing is more -disagreeable than to have to urge a person to sing. The -possessor of a voice is always a very rare and much to be -envied person, and a certain amiability in singing becomes -such a person very much.</p> - -<p>All young ladies who have been taught the piano should -have some pieces learned, and be able to play for the amusement -of the home circle. Especially should they be able -to play for dancing. A few waltzes are very convenient. -They often help off a dull evening wonderfully. The person -who plays should be willing occasionally to be made -use of. Are we not all made use of at times? Is not the -good talker in perpetual request? The <i>raconteuse</i>—is she -not begged to tell that story over and over again? Does -not the wit find himself invited out to dinner to amuse the -company? And are they not all, if amiable, glad to perform -their part? Surely the pianist should be as amiable!</p> - -<p>Reading aloud is one of the most common of Home -Amusements, and one of the best. It is a pity, however, -that our women, especially, do not cultivate elocution a -little, so that they may read aloud intelligently. There -is no prettier accomplishment. A lady at a watering-place, -who can read a poem or story well, is always sur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>rounded. -The sweet voice, the correct accent, the air of -intelligence—all give the author a great help, and Longfellow -never wrote a prettier stanza than this:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i0">“Then read from the favored volume</div> -<div class="i2">The poem of thy choice,</div> -<div class="i0">And lend to the rhyme of the poet</div> -<div class="i2">The music of thy voice.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>But, when the favored volume and the poem have to be -filtered through a nasal accent and an uneducated drawl, -we feel that the poet has been vilified, and his gold and -silver turns to dross. Every woman especially should remember -the fable of the girl whose lips dropped pearls and -diamonds, who was so much more agreeable as a friend and -acquaintance than that other damsel whose lips dropped -toads and vipers. The latter, evidently, had never taken -lessons in elocution.</p> - -<p>We have a certain national vice in pronunciation and -in accent which we ought to correct. A moment’s listening -to the English accent will soon teach us to pronounce with -a more melodious finish. We need not hug ourselves with -any vainglorious national conceit. We do <i>not</i> speak as well -as our English cousins.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XX" id="XX">XX.</a><br /> -THE KITCHEN.</h2> - -<p>We began at the garret, and we are now at the kitchen. -So our readers may learn that we are on the home-stretch, -and shall be through very soon. If we have wearied them, -let them bear with us but a little longer, and then, on our -faithful steed, whom they shall find at the kitchen door, -they shall ride off and never be troubled with us any more.</p> - -<p>A model kitchen is every housekeeper’s delight. In -these days of tiles and modern improvement, what pretty -things kitchens are!</p> - -<p>The modern dairy, with its upright milk-pans, in which -the cream is marked off by a neat little thermometer; the -fire-brick floor; the exquisite range, with its polished <i>batterie -de cuisine</i>; every brilliant brass saucepan, seeming to -say, “Come and cook in me”; every porcelain-lined pan -urging upon one the necessity of stewing nectarines in -white sugar; every bright can suggesting the word “conserve,” -which always makes the mouth water; every clatter -of the skewers, saying, “Dainty dishes, dainty dishes, come -and make me! Come and make me!” All this is quite -fascinating to an amateur.</p> - -<p>No pretty woman—did she but know it—is ever half so -pretty as when she is playing cook. The clean, white apron, -the neat, short cambric dress, the little cap, the fair bare -arms—does the reader remember Ruth Pinch and the beefsteak-pie? -A lady should make the desserts in summer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> -sometimes. Such ice-cream, such glorified Charlotte Russe, -such cakes, such delicate apple-pies, such creams and jellies -as fall from a lady’s fingers—these are ambrosial food!</p> - -<p>There is among certain women a great passion for the -cleanly part of household work. The love of a dairy has -grown to be a favorite task with many a duchess. In our -country, where ladies are compelled to put a hand, perhaps -once too often, to the household work, owing to the -inefficiency of the servants, this is <i>not</i> ordinarily considered -the most thoroughly amusing of Home Amusements. To -cook a heavy dinner in warm weather, to wash dishes afterward—this -is sober prose, and by a very dull author. But -the poetry of house-work, the rose hue o’er our russet cares—this -can be classed as a Home Amusement.</p> - -<p>In the early morning we can imagine a lady going into -her neat kitchen to prepare the desserts for the day, and -finding it very agreeable. She will set her well-flavored -custard away in the ice-chest with a serene knowledge of -how good it will be at dinner, and place her compote of -pears securely on a high shelf, away from that ubiquitous -visitor the cat, who has in most families so remarkable and -irrepressible an appetite. She can take a turn at the milk-pan, -and skim off the cream herself if she pleases. It -will be much thicker if she does. It is a not unpleasant -duty to steal into the kitchen ten minutes before dinner, to -see to it that the roast birds are garnished with watercresses, -that the vegetables are properly prepared, that the -silver dishes are without a smear. All this sort of attention -makes good servants, and very good dinners.</p> - -<p>It is often one of the Home Amusements for a party of -girls to try their hand at clear-starching. Statira, indeed, -does not like this; but they should learn to flute their own -ruffles. Who knows but they may marry an army officer, -and go to Nebraska?</p> - -<p>All sorts of fine washing and ironing, all sorts of doing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> -up of lace, of renovating old silks, etc., may be made into -Home Amusements, if done cheerfully, and in the right -spirit. The modern embroidery requiring pressing, the -many modern accomplishments of lace-making, <i>appliqué</i>, -etc., lead a young lady into the kitchen, and she can derive -a vast deal of amusement from this room, if she -chooses.</p> - -<p>One of the holiest of duties is to learn how to cook for -the sick. This requires a great deal of patient talent, and -it is a sufficient reward if we can see the beloved convalescent -tasting our arrowroot and sago, and good beef-tea and -jelly, with approbation.</p> - -<p>Among Home Amusements, how many reckon the jolly -party assembled to make the wedding-cake? Susan and -Sarah shall stone the raisins, Charlotte and Clara shall -beat the eggs, Louisa shall slice the citron, Matilda, who -has a judicial mind, shall weigh! Then all shall stir, and -who shall be the one to get the ring?</p> - -<p>The baking is momentous. Mamma had better be -consulted here. And then the great question of the icing! -Oh! how anxious! The mince-pies require another season -of deep thought and much very stringent stirring. The -excellent brandy, the dash of orange curaçoa, must be -poured out by the lady, else why is it that ever after the -mince-pie seems to lack that inspiriting and hidden fire? -We read that there is many a slip between the cup and the -lip!</p> - -<p>The modern elegant devices by which strawberries, violets, -and orange-blossoms are candied in sugar, effect a Home -Amusement for dainty-fingered girls; and since the establishment -in Boston of a cooking club, at which each young -lady is to contribute some article of her own cooking, we -see signs of a revival in all branches of the great art of -cookery which is most encouraging. It was a notable old -maxim among Puritan mothers that every wife should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> -know how to make bread, and, perhaps, it has not died out -yet.</p> - -<p>Looking at the subject broadly, every thoroughly accomplished -woman should know how to do everything, from -making a soup up to a cup of tea—the Alpha and the Omega -of cookery.</p> - -<p>In the matter of flavoring, the colored race have us at -a great disadvantage. Any old colored cook can distance -her white “Missus” here. This highly-gifted race seem to -have a sixth sense on the subject of flavors. The rich -tropical nature breaks out in reminiscences of orange-blossoms, -pineapple, guava, cocoanut, and Mandarin orange. -Never can the descendants of the poor, half-starved, frozen -exiles of Plymouth Rock hope to achieve such custards -and puddings as these Ethiops turn out. And as to the -juicyness of their fried oysters and their inimitable terrapin, -who has ever approached them? It is as if a luxurious -and tasteful, beneficent power had left us, when we were -given what we proudly call a “higher intelligence.” Who -would not exchange all the cold mathematical supremacy -in which we glory for that luscious gift of making pies and -puddings <i>à ravir</i>?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI">XXI.</a><br /> -THE FAMILY HORSE, AND OTHER PETS.</h2> - -<p>Standing at the kitchen door, all ready for the most -timorous to drive, is the most important minister to the -Home Amusements—the family horse. He is a beast of -burden, no doubt. There is but little Arab steed left in -him, if, indeed, there ever was much. He is a plodder, a -patient, much put-upon beast. The boys can harness him, -the girls can drive him. He is allowed to take out grandma—when -she consents to be driven, and isn’t afraid of the -railroad train, and does not think that it is going to rain. -The baby, when he takes his first adventurous journey down -the village street, is put in state and in blankets behind the -family horse. No one is afraid of Blossom. No one likes -to whip him, because if he were whipped, what antics he -might give way to!</p> - -<p>Blossom is an exceedingly inappropriate name. Dried -Leaf would be far more descriptive. Still Blossom is adhered -to, because the suggestion that he was once young, -and that really he is frisky, in his silent way, is still a -delightful legend in the family.</p> - -<p>Blossom, who is an intelligent old beast, knows perfectly -well how utterly weak and imbecile the whole family are -about him. So he will never do anything but walk and -trot very gently, because he knows that no one dares to -whip him. Once a young cousin, who had none of the -family reverence for Blossom, did give him a few cuts on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> -his exceedingly smooth, fat sides. Blossom had the presence -of mind to stand up on his hind legs, frightening -mamma nearly to death; and she mentioned, in Blossom’s -hearing, that “he never was to be whipped again, because -he really had a great deal of fire in him, and would not -brook whip or spur!”</p> - -<p>“I remember, dear,” she says, “your father says that -he heard, when he bought him, that he came of very proud -stock.”</p> - -<p>It has been noticed that when papa wishes to catch the -train Blossom can go as fast as anybody.</p> - -<p>Blossom is a great pet, and he has that instinct of a good -family horse—he stops when anything is wrong. Once, -when the harness broke, Blossom, instead of running, -stopped short, and saved the lives of the whole family. He -has a quick ear for a coming railway train, and never has -balked going up hill. The girls feed him with sugar, and -take their first ride on his dear, safe, hard old back. The -boys have had imaginary jousts with neighboring knights, -urging him in the lists. He has been put through all the -sports of the middle ages, has Blossom, and probably he distrusts -the institution of chivalry. Still, he likes the boys, -and does all that a phlegmatic temperament and an indomitable -laziness will allow in the way of a spirited and impulsive -charge.</p> - -<p>There <i>are</i> persons whom Blossom dislikes; one is the -spinster sister, Miss Caroline, who drives him with many a -whirrup, and “get up,” and “g’lang,” and has a nervous -twitch to her hand, and a distrustful and uncertain temper -with the whip. Miss Caroline nags Blossom, as she has -nagged everything and everybody all her life, and Blossom -resents her absence of repose and confidence by starting -wildly to right and left as he goes down the village street, -appearing to make for a distant fence when she is endeavoring -to guide his nose toward the gate of the parsonage.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> -Indeed, the village wit says that if he sees only the back of -the family carriage he can tell that Miss Caroline is driving, -as he watches that respected vehicle describing parabolas -and angles as it wobbles down the street.</p> - -<p>When mamma drives, Blossom goes in a slow, stately, -but dignified manner, and, although he imposes upon her -good-nature, and does not put forth any mile-in-three-minutes -style, yet he shows a due respect for himself and -her. When the girls drive him, he, feeling through the -reins a little of the ichor of their young blood, becomes -almost vivacious, and goes almost half as fast as he can go. -When papa drives, he feels a strong hand behind him, and -actually gets there.</p> - -<p>Every family should have as many animals as possible. -Dogs of every breed and variety—especially big ones, and -good ones, like mastiffs and Newfoundlands, and a few little -ones to play with. Cats and kittens, if they like them, -rabbits, goats, pigeons, lambs, peacocks, etc., and as much -live-stock as can be accommodated about the place should -be there. These four-footed friends, especially dogs, are -indispensable in the country. What attachments one forms -for them! How dreary the hour when they die! Perhaps, -then, we wish that they had not been so intimate, so dear, -so loving, so trustful. The walk, the ramble, the quiet -seat on the piazza—all, all must be endeared by the silent -friendship of the dogs.</p> - -<p>There is sometimes a want of harmony among the pets. -Carlo must be shut up while Flirt is at large, and the parrot -must be kept away from the pigeons. The parrot can -take care of herself as to the cats; but how about the canaries -and the blackcap? Eternal vigilance is the price -of liberty, and the only safety of slavery.</p> - -<p>And yet these enforced duties: do they not fit the boys -for the cares of government? Do they not tell the future -politician what he is to do? Are they not, after all, a part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> -of that great education which Home, and only Home, can -give us?</p> - -<p>We shall have few friends so faithful as Blossom, few -who will impose upon us so gently, and who will really impose -upon us to our advantage. We shall have few such -friends as Carlo and Flirt, who love us, faults and all; who -never ask what wrong we have committed, or how unworthy -we are, but who are, without doubt, the most flattering -of worshipers, loving us simply because we are <i>ourselves</i>. -How few love us for that, and that alone!</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII">XXII.</a><br /> -IN CONCLUSION.</h2> - -<p>In looking over our list of Home Amusements—the -private theatricals, the tableaux vivants, the brain games, -the fortune-telling, the making of screens, the painting of -fans, etc.; the games at cards, the etching, the lawn tennis, -the dancing, the garden party, the window gardens, -the birds, the picnics, the plaque-painting, the archery, -the parlor and the kitchen—we can only feel how much we -have left out. Why have we not spoken more fully of the -library, with its quiet and respectable arm-chairs, its green -table, its shelves filled with those silent friends who never -desert us, its paper-cutter, its wood-fire, its latest magazine, -its quiet, and the heavy curtain dropped at evening? How -did we happen to so slight this delightful room, wherein so -many of the best amusements of home are always arranging -themselves? Perhaps because the story told itself, and we -did not need to tell it.</p> - -<p>How could we have forgotten the quest for green apples -and choke-cherries in the spring, or the subsequent repentance? -the bird-snaring and nesting? and in summer the -search for wild flowers? the attempts at making an herbarium? -the berry-picking? the nutting in the fall? that -cracking of butternuts by the winter fire? that arrangement -of the autumn-leaves?</p> - -<p>Simply because the record of Home Amusements is endless. -It is almost all of life which is worth remembering.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> - -<p>But we can not leave the reader here, particularly if -that kindly personage be a young lady, without congratulating -her upon the age in which she exists. She finds vastly -more to amuse her in her home-life than her mother or -her grandmother did before her. They were content to -receive once a month “The Lady’s Book,” with a few hints -as to lace-work, worsted-work, patterns for the embroidering -of slippers or sofa-cushions. A new suggestion for embroidery -on white cambric, or, through a friend in some -great mart of fashion, the cut pattern of an article of -dress—think of that, ye who get the fashions by telegraph. -Dress itself was a crude thing compared to what it is now. -There was not even at Newport the slightest approximation -to the luxury of to-day. A “London-made” habit, for -instance, was almost unknown. There was no “riding to -hounds,” no skating rink, no casino; there were quiet dinners, -and very many “Germans,” but they were conducted -inexpensively, at the hotels almost universally.</p> - -<p>Of course, New York and Philadelphia, Boston and -Washington, offered an exciting life to the prominent and -fashionable women of the day for a few weeks of the season. -But the long life at home of the rank and file, the severe -winters, during whose rigors the ardent and ambitious and -pleasure-loving were shut up for months behind four dreary -walls, were not illumined by patterns of artistic fancy-work -from South Kensington, or by the delightful knowledge -of china painting. No ingenious boy or girl thought of -cutting or carving in wood beyond the vulgar whittling, -which all good housekeepers condemned. The elderly lady -sat about with her knitting—very plain knitting at that. -The crochet-needle had not then begun that endless chain -which has since united our vast continent in a network of -elaborate tidies, and covered our babies with delicate flannel -Josies, or given us, for the head and neck, the softest of -wraps. The sewing-machine had not begun its prodigious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> -march down our long seams. People did much “plain -sewing,” but knew not of artistic curtains made of cheesecloth, -or of unbleached muslin elaborated into Roman -scarfs—a singular marriage, by the way, of Lowell and its -looms with the Eternal City, all of which they know now.</p> - -<p>Young ladies had not then been taught to draw and -paint artistically, sincerely, as they are taught to-day. The -education in music was infinitely less thorough. It was an -age when the person who aspired to the accomplishments -had much to contend against. There were but few railroads -which penetrated to the remote villages; and it must -be confessed that life had its dull evenings.</p> - -<p>But around the one astral lamp which then shed its -uncertain rays upon the family circle there were the same -elements of which human society is now composed, and -there was one amusement present whose absence we now -sometimes have to regret. We refer to that lost art of conversation -which has, it would seem, departed from our busy -last half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, it has left the -whole world, if we can believe Cornelius O’Dowd, Mrs. -Stowe, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, and even some French -writers. Mrs. Stowe, in one of her books of early New -England life, referring to the art of conversation, speaks -feelingly of the change. Young ladies were driven by the -very dullness of their lives to be readers of good books. -There were many admirable historical scholars and Shakespeareans -among the New England girls of a past generation. -They read Milton and John Bunyan, and the early -essayists and poets. Their novels had been written for -them by Walter Scott and Miss Austen, and they were an -education in themselves.</p> - -<p>And conversation, such as we do not hear often, lighted -up those long winter evenings. Perhaps, too, this very -quiet and dullness was helping to forge the armor of some -heroine who was to take her part in civilizing the West.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> -Certainly it made some great women. However, as we take -account of what little we may have lost, we are very grateful -for all we have gained. Our present civilization rubs -out individuality, no doubt. Life is smothered in appliances.</p> - -<p>What is called the higher education of women, and the -very superior culture now possible, may not have yet made -a race of good talkers, but it has undoubtedly made an -army of thinkers.</p> - -<p>It certainly has helped to fill the country with refined -and happy girls, who have no reason to complain of repression. -It would seem almost impossible to find now the repressed, -morbid, undeveloped, and crushed natures which -a gloomy religion and a lingering of Puritan prejudice made -almost too common in early New England. Many of those -women still live, and have found expression in literature -to tell us how devoid their homes were of amusement.</p> - -<p>The world is not filled with geniuses, or with those fortunate -people who can evolve an amusing life from out of -the depths of their inner consciousness. We may, therefore, -be very grateful for every innocent amusement. Indeed, -we may be very grateful that amateur concerts, little -operettas, cantatas, musical clubs, are now common, and -that the performers, young ladies of all ranks and classes, -are admirably trained in music; that in decorative art industries -they are no longer novices, but deserving of the -higher name of artist.</p> - -<p>All these better developments of the mind and power of -each inmate can not but render home interesting, gay, -cheerful, happy, blessed.</p> - -<p>And all the Home Amusements should be made, or -studied to be made, the amusements of the whole.</p> - -<p>No pursuit or pleasure can be carried on in the best -spirit without being in some measure unselfish if it conduces -to the amusement of home. Thus the indulgence of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> -a favorite taste may have the beauty of philanthropy in it, -if it is made to help along the cheerfulness of home.</p> - -<p>There are some trades which are solitary and exclusive. -Authorship is one of these; and perhaps the author is not -always a very amusing inmate. But the actor in the private -play, the clever and ready wit who makes the charade -lively, the musician, the embroideress, the fortune-teller, -the good partner at whist, the clever amateur cook, and -the artistic member—these can all add to Home Amusements.</p> - -<p class="center p2">THE END. -</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> This was the invention of a poor poet named Dulot, who found -rhymes for other poets.</p></div></div> - -<h2><a name="ADVERTISEMENTS" id="ADVERTISEMENTS"><i>ADVERTISEMENTS.</i></a></h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="xlarge">Artistic Wall Papers,</span><br /> -ON HAND AND MADE TO ORDER BY</p> - -<div class="center"> -<img src="images/i_153.png" width="600" height="523" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="center"><span class="large">FR. BECK & CO.,</span><br /> -At their Factory, corner Twenty-ninth St. and Seventh Ave.,<br /> -NEW YORK.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center large">COLORS of CARPETS and DRAPERIES MATCHED.</p> - -<p class="center">THE ENTIRE WORK OF INTERIOR DECORATION<br /> -DONE UNDER OUR SUPERVISION.</p> - -<p class="center large">Ceiling Decorations a Specialty. -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center xlarge">APPLETONS’<br /> -HOME BOOKS.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center">Appletons’ Home Books are a Series of New Hand-Volumes<br /> -at low price, devoted to all Subjects pertaining<br /> -to Home and the Household. -</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center large"><i>NOW READY</i>:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="ilb"> -<ul class="large"><li>BUILDING A HOME. Illustrated.</li> -<li>HOW TO FURNISH A HOME. Illustrated.</li> -<li>THE HOME GARDEN. Illustrated.</li> -<li>HOME GROUNDS. Illustrated.</li> -<li>AMENITIES OF HOME.</li> -<li>HOUSEHOLD HINTS.</li> -<li>HOME DECORATION. Illustrated.</li> -</ul></div></div> - -<p class="center">Other volumes to follow.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p>Bound in cloth, flexible, with illuminated design. 12mo. Price, 60 -cents each.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p><i>For sale by all booksellers; or any work sent by mail, post-paid, on -receipt of price.</i></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center">New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center large">NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center xlarge">Social Etiquette of New York.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center"><i>CONTENTS</i>:</p> - -<p>The Value of Etiquette; Introductions; Solicitations; Strangers in -Towns; Débuts in Society; Visiting, and Visiting Cards for Ladies; -Card and Visiting Customs for Gentlemen; Morning Receptions and Kettle-Drums; -Giving and attending Parties, Balls, and Germans; Dinner-giving -and Dining out; Breakfasts, Luncheons, and Suppers; Opera and -Theatre Parties, Private Theatricals, and Musicales; Extended Visits; -Customs and Costumes at Theatres, Concerts, and Operas (being two additional -chapters written for this edition); Etiquette of Weddings (rewritten, -for this edition, in accordance with the latest fashionable usage); -Christenings and Birthdays; Marriage Anniversaries; New Year’s Day -in New York; Funeral Customs and Seasons of Mourning.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center">18mo, cloth, gilt, price, $1.00. -</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<blockquote> - -<p>“This little volume contains numerous hints and suggestions, which are specially -serviceable to strangers, and which even people to the manner born will find interesting -and useful. Perhaps the best part of it is in what it does not say, the indefinable -suggestion of good breeding and refinement which its well-written pages make.”—<i>New -York Evening Express.</i></p> - -<p>“A sensible and brief treatise, which young persons may profitably read.”—<i>New -York Evening Post.</i></p> - -<p>“Everything which refines the habits of a people ennobles it, and hence the importance -of furnishing to the public all possible aids to superior manners. This book will -undoubtedly meet the needs of a large class.”—<i>Boston Evening Transcript.</i></p> - -<p>“A frank and sensible epitome of the customs of good society in the first city of -America. It admits the existence and need of certain rules of social behavior, and -then in a kindly and decorous manner points out how to conform to the best usage.”—<i>Boston -Commonwealth.</i></p> - -<p>“A very sensible and—if we may say it of a book—well-bred volume. It gives the -rules that are observed in the metropolis. These sometimes seem artificial, but they -are usually founded on reason.”—<i>Hartford Courant.</i></p> - -<p>“This is a timely work. For years our people have followed the habits of the older -nations. In this young republic it can not be expected that the same rules exist as we -find abroad. This work is very complete, and is easily carried in the pocket to read -at odd intervals.”—<i>Albany Sunday Press.</i></p> - -<p>“The statements are exact and simple, and cover all that any reader is likely to desire. -The work will convey positively useful and reliable instruction that can not -always be reached otherwise.”—<i>Philadelphia North American.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond St., New York. -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center xlarge"><i>The Music Series.</i></p> - -<p class="center"><span class="large">The Great German Composers.</span> <i>By George T. -Ferris. Paper, 30 cents; cloth, 60 cents.</i></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="ilb"> -<ul><li>BACH.</li> -<li>HANDEL.</li> -<li>GLUCK.</li> -<li>HAYDN.</li> -<li>MOZART.</li> -<li>BEETHOVEN.</li> -<li>SCHUBERT, SCHUMANN, AND FRANZ.</li> -<li>CHOPIN.</li> -<li>WEBER.</li> -<li>MENDELSSOHN.</li> -<li>WAGNER.</li> -</ul></div></div> - -<p class="center"><i>By the same author.</i></p> - -<p class="center"><span class="large">The Great Italian and French Composers.</span> -<i>Paper, 30 cents; cloth, 60 cents.</i></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="ilb"> -<ul><li>PALESTRINA.</li> -<li>PICCINI, PAISIELLO, AND CIMAROSA.</li> -<li>ROSSINI.</li> -<li>DONIZETTI AND BELLINI.</li> -<li>VERDI.</li> -<li>CHERUBINI AND HIS PREDECESSORS.</li> -<li>MÉHUL, SPONTINI, AND HALÉVY.</li> -<li>BOIELDIEU AND AUBER</li> -<li>MEYERBEER.</li> -<li>GOUNOD.</li> -</ul></div></div> - -<p class="center"><span class="large">Great Singers.</span> <i>First Series. Paper, 30 cents; cloth, 60 -cents.</i></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="ilb"> -<ul><li>FAUSTINA BORDONI.</li> -<li>FARINELLI.</li> -<li>CATARINA GABRIELLI.</li> -<li>SOPHIE ARNOULD.</li> -<li>ANGELICA CATALANI.</li> -<li>GIUDITTA PASTA.</li> -<li>HENRIETTA SONTAG.</li> -<li>ELIZABETH BILLINGTON AND HER CONTEMPORARIES.</li> -</ul></div></div> - -<p class="center"><span class="large">Great Singers.</span> <i>Second Series. Paper, 30 cents; cloth, -60 cents.</i></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="ilb"> -<ul><li>MARIA FELICIA MALIBRAN.</li> -<li>WILHELMINA SCHRODER-DEVRIENT.</li> -<li>GIULIA GRISI.</li> -<li>PAULINE VIARDOT.</li> -<li>FANNY PERSIANI.</li> -<li>MARIETTA ALBONI.</li> -<li>JENNY LIND.</li> -<li>SOPHIE CRUVELLI.</li> -<li>THERESA TITIENS.</li> -</ul></div></div> - -<p class="center"><span class="large">Great Violinists and Pianists.</span> <i>Paper, 40 cents; -cloth, 60 cents.</i></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="ilb"> -<ul><li>CORELLI.</li> -<li>TARTINI.</li> -<li>VIOTTI.</li> -<li>DE BÉRIOT.</li> -<li>PAGANINI.</li> -<li>OLE BULL.</li> -<li>CLEMENTI.</li> -<li>MOSCHELES.</li> -<li>THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.</li> -<li>THALBERG.</li> -<li>GOTTSCHALK.</li> -<li>LISZT.</li> -</ul></div></div> - -<p>⁂ Above volumes appear in Appletons’ “New Handy-Volume Series,” and are published -in uniform style, both in paper and cloth, prices of which are given above.</p> - -<p class="center">D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers,<br /> -1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York. -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center xlarge">BOOKS ON ART.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center">I.</p> - -<p class="large"><i>Introduction to the Study of Art.</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>By <span class="smcap">M. A. Dwight</span>, author of “Grecian and Roman Mythology.” -12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">II.</p> - -<p class="large"><i>Great Lights in Sculpture and Painting.</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>A Manual for Young Students. By <span class="smcap">S. D. Doremus</span>. 12mo. Cloth, -$1.00.</p></blockquote> - -<p>“This little volume has grown out of a want long felt by a writer who desired to -take a class through the history of the great sculptors and painters, as a preliminary -step to an intelligent journey through Europe.”—<i>From Preface.</i></p> - -<p class="center">III.</p> - -<p class="large"><i>Schools and Masters of Painting.</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>With an Appendix on the Principal Galleries of Europe. With -numerous Illustrations. By <span class="smcap">A. G. Radcliffe</span>. 12mo. Cloth, -$3.00.</p></blockquote> - -<p>“The volume is one of great practical utility, and may be used to advantage as an -artistic guide-book by persons visiting the collections of Italy, France, and Germany, -for the first time. The twelve great pictures of the world, which are familiar by copies -and engravings to all who have the slightest tincture of taste for art, are described in -a special chapter, which affords a convenient stepping-stone to a just appreciation of -the most celebrated masterpieces of painting. An important feature of the work, and -one which may save the traveler much time and expense, is the sketch presented in -the Appendix, of the galleries of Florence, Rome, Venice, Paris, Dresden, and other -European collections.”—<i>N. Y. Tribune.</i></p> - -<p class="center">IV.</p> - -<p class="large"><i>Studio, Field, and Gallery.</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>A Manual of Painting, for the Student and Amateur; with Information -for the General Reader. By <span class="smcap">Horace J. Rollin</span>. 12mo. -Cloth, $1.50.</p></blockquote> - -<p>“The work is a small one, but it is comprehensive in its scope; it is written as -tersely as possible, with no waste sentences, and scarcely any waste words, and to -amateur artists and art-students it will be invaluable as a hand-book of varied information -for ready reference.”—<i>N. Y. Evening Post.</i></p> - -<p class="center">V.</p> - -<p class="large"><i>Ruskin on Painting.</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>With a Biographical Sketch. (Forming No. 29 of Appletons’ -“New Handy-Volume Series.”) 18mo. Paper, 30 cents; cloth, -60 cents.</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">VI.</p> - -<p class="large"><i>Majolica and Fayence</i>:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Italian, Sicilian, Majorcan, Hispano-Moresque, and Persian. By -<span class="smcap">Arthur Beckwith</span>. With Photo-Engraved Illustrations. Second -edition. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00.</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, N. Y.</span> -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center xlarge">ESTERBROOK’S<br /> -STANDARD AND SUPERIOR</p> - -<div class="center"> -<img src="images/i_158.png" width="600" height="256" alt="STEEL PENS" /> -</div> - -<p class="center large">LEADING NUMBERS:</p> - -<table summary="Leading numbers" class="large"> -<tr><td colspan="2">Fine Points,</td> -<td class="pl">Nos.</td> -<td class="tdr pl">333,</td> -<td class="tdr pl">232,</td> -<td class="tdr pl">128.</td></tr> -<tr><td>Medium </td> -<td>Points,</td> -<td class="tdc pl">„</td> -<td class="tdr pl">048,</td> -<td class="tdr pl">14,</td> -<td class="tdr pl">130.</td></tr> -<tr><td>Blunt</td> -<td class="tdc">„</td> -<td class="tdc pl">„</td> -<td class="tdr pl">122,</td> -<td class="tdr pl">183,</td> -<td class="tdr pl">1743.</td></tr> -<tr><td>Broad</td> -<td class="tdc">„</td> -<td class="tdc pl">„</td> -<td class="tdr pl">161,</td> -<td class="tdr pl">239,</td> -<td class="tdr pl">284.</td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center"><i>FOR SALE BY ALL STATIONERS.</i></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="center large">THE ESTERBROOK STEEL PEN CO.,</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Works: Camden, N. J.</span><span class="longspace"> </span><span class="smcap">26 John Street, New York.</span> -</p> - -<div class="transnote"> -<h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3> - -<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as -possible. Some minor corrections of spelling have been made.</p> -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Home Amusements, by M. E. W. Sherwood - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOME AMUSEMENTS *** - -***** This file should be named 53391-h.htm or 53391-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/3/9/53391/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, Paul Clark and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) Last Edit of Project Info - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - - -</pre> - -</body> -</html> |