Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the latter. Refreshments should always be handed round between the acts, as they are generally fatiguing.

Very different is the character of country parties. These consist chiefly in small dances (not balls), private fêtes, and picnics. Sociability and easy mirth are the main features in all of them. You are expected to make yourself generally agreeable, to be merry, humorous, and ready for any thing that may be proposed.

Country hours are much earlier than those in town; and you are expected to be punctual, and not an hour or more after date.

Picnics have a special enjoyment of their own; and we cannot but regret, that, with the advance of civilization, this good old custom bids fair to be lost, of each one's furnishing a quantum to the entertainment. The opening of the baskets, the droll mistakes, the arranging of provisions, all give birth to hilarity and death to formality. The barriers of society were for the time broken down, and every one was at his ease.

Have we gained in true real enjoyment by increasing elegance, and requiring no one at present to bring any thing but their best dress, their best looks, and their best spirits? We think not, and plead for the good oldfashioned picnic of other days.

HINTS FOR VISITS.

1. Ceremonial visits must be made the week after a ball. A card will suffice for these. A day or two after a din

ner-party, and a week after a small party, these calls must be made in person.

2. Visits of condolence and congratulation must be made about a week after the event.

3. On marriage, cards are sent round to such people as you wish to keep among your acquaintance; and it is their part to call first.

4. When a stranger comes to stay at the house of a friend, she should be called upon as soon after her arrival as possible.

5. A lady never calls upon a gentleman unless professionally or officially.

6. In paying a country visit, give as little trouble as possible, conform to the habits of your entertainers, and never be in the way.

7. Retire for a time after breakfast to your own occupations, unless your host or hostess form plans for your morning.

8. Be punctual at meals; never keep your friends waiting from your delay.

9. A host should provide amusement for his guests, and give up as much of his time as possible to them. 10. A guest must not, however, interfere with business engagements, or the domestic routine of the house.

HINTS FOR SOCIAL PARTIES.

11. At a musical party, nothing shows worse breeding than to talk incessantly. In good society, people know when to use their tongues and when their ears.

12. In giving receptions, the simplest form of invitation is to put the name of your day upon the card, which, once left, answers for the winter.

13. For private theatricals, the audience-room must be filled with chairs and benches in rows; and, if possible, the back rows raised higher than the others.

14. In receiving guests, no matter what the size of the party, the hostess must be perfectly self-possessed; never bustling in her welcome, or flustered in her manner.

15. For fêtes or country parties of any description, a light, airy, and graceful style of dress is most fitting: the hat trimmed with either feather or flower is generally

worn.

16. The collation for a fête or picnic should be of a more solid and substantial character than that of a town supper, as appetites are usually increased by the country air and exercise.

17. In your demeanor at a country party, steer between the Scylla of dulness and the Charybdis of romping.

18. In planning a picnic, create an interest, if possible, by proposing something to see in the neighborhood, — a lake, a waterfall, or picturesque spot or building.

DR

III. - CHARACTER.

R. JOHNSON, the great moralist, says of the great dramatist, "Shakspeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the Poet of Nature. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets, a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakspeare it is commonly a species."- Preface to the Life of Shak

speare.

The reading world, as well as the critics, are agreed upon this point: all believe that Shakspeare has delineated man's characteristics more truly than any other uninspired writer; only in the Bible can be found a clearer impress of the inner nature, the inherent qualities, of men. If this be so, then the characteristics of women must, in Shakspeare, be truly set forth. His creative genius is here in the same unison with Bible truth as in his delineations of men.

Shakspeare's women, in all moral qualities, excel his men; and this peculiarity of character has never appeared to move any of his learned critics or eulogists even to notice.

At length the morning of hope for woman is breaking, the horizon of truth is clearing. One of England's remarkable men, the distinguished art-critic, John Ruskin, has written on this subject. His ideas are worth the earnest study of Americans.

Our national life is founded on moral qualities in human nature. As Shakspeare, in his mimic life-pictures, has delineated the characteristics of women, it would seem important that their moral qualities should be cherished and honored if our republic is to be distinguished by its power for good over the nations of the Old World.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

THE WOMANLY AND THE MANLY.

"The relations of the womanly to the manly nature, their different capacities of intellect or of virtue, seem never to have been measured with entire consent. We hear of the mission and the rights of woman, as if these could ever be separate from the mission and the rights of man; as if she and he were creatures of independent kind and of irreconcilable claim. This, at least, is wrong. And not less wrong, perhaps even more foolishly wrong, for I will anticipate thus far what I hope to prove, is the idea that woman is only the shadow and attendant image of the man; owing him a thoughtless and servile obedience, and supported altogether in her weakness by the pre-eminence of his fortitude.

"This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respecting

« AnteriorContinuar »