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                Gatherings from an Artist’s Portfolio.

                         By JAMES E. FREEMAN.

                _One volume, 16mo._      _Cloth $1.25._

“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.”--_New York Tribune._

“‘An Artist’s Portfolio’ is a charming book. The writer has gathered
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          New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.

                        Appletons’ Home Books.

                           HOME AMUSEMENTS.

                            By M. E. W. S.,
                  AUTHOR OF “AMENITIES OF HOME,” ETC.

    “There be some sports are painful; and their labour
    Delight in them sets off.”

    “Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
    And ye that on the sands with printless foot
    Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,
    When he comes back!”

                          I do invoke ye all.

                               NEW YORK:
                       D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
                       1, 3, and 5 BOND STREET.
                                 1881.

                             COPYRIGHT BY
                       D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
                                 1881.

CONTENTS.

      PAGE

     I.--PREFATORY                                         5

    II.--THE GARRET                                        7

   III.--PRIVATE THEATRICALS, ETC.                         9

    IV.--TABLEAUX VIVANTS                                 20

     V.--BRAIN GAMES                                      25

    VI.--FORTUNE-TELLING                                  37

   VII.--AMUSEMENTS FOR A RAINY DAY                       45

  VIII.--EMBROIDERY AND OTHER DECORATIVE ARTS             50

    IX.--ETCHING                                          64

     X.--LAWN TENNIS                                      67

    XI.--GARDEN PARTIES                                   77

   XII.--DANCING                                          86

  XIII.--GARDENS AND FLOWER-STANDS                        93

   XIV.--CAGED BIRDS AND AVIARIES                        104

    XV.--PICNICS                                         112

   XVI.--PLAYING WITH FIRE. CERAMICS                     117

  XVII.--ARCHERY                                         124

 XVIII.--AMUSEMENTS FOR THE MIDDLE-AGED AND THE AGED     131

   XIX.--THE PARLOR                                      135

    XX.--THE KITCHEN                                     140

   XXI.--THE FAMILY HORSE AND OTHER PETS                 144

  XXII.--IN CONCLUSION                                   148

HOME AMUSEMENTS.

I.

PREFATORY.

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.

    “I have learned from neighbor Nelly
        What the girl’s doll-instinct means.”

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 _rôle_ of a Cushman, a Wallack, a Sothern, a Booth,
or a Gilbert.

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.

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.

II.

THE GARRET.

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,

    “Too poor to wear, too good to give away--”

these are the purveyors to the histrionic talents of nations yet
unborn. Old garrets are really the factories of History, Poetry, and
the Drama.

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.

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.

III.

PRIVATE THEATRICALS; ACTING PROVERBS AND CHARADES.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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 _dénoûment_ of the play. In the case
of the drop-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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 _peplum_.
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.

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.

If a comic face is needed, stand before a glass and grin, _watch the
lines_ 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, 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.

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.

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.”

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.

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, six feet high by three feet wide, hinged, and
covered with wall-paper, before any plays are attempted.

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, _the amount of ourselves_ 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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:

“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.

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 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.

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.

We do not advise amateurs to undertake Shakespeare, unless it be
“Katherine and Petruchio,” which is so gay and scolding that it
_almost_ plays itself.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 _ingenu_, 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.

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.

“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.

A dramatic charade is a very ingenious thing, and a very neat little
play in four acts can be made from the word AB-DI-CATE. 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 disgrace--all will cause laughter and an opportunity
for local jokes. This is Act I. Di can be represented by the _dyeing_
process of a barber who has to please many customers; or “The _die_ is
cast”; or an apposite allusion to Walter Scott’s “_Die_ Vernon”; or
some comico-tragico scene of “I can but _die_.” This is Act II. Cate,
to “_cater_,” “_Kate_”--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 _Abdication_, 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.

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.

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.

IV.

TABLEAUX VIVANTS.

We now come to one of the most artistic of all Home Amusements--the
_Tableau vivant_.

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.

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.

The principle of a picture--a pyramidal form--should be observed
closely in tableau. To secure this desirable 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.

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.

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.

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 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:

To make a _red fire_.--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.

A _green fire_ 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.

Sulphate of copper, when dissolved in water, will give a beautiful
_blue_ 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 _purple_. Potash dissolved in the water will
give a brilliant _green_. A few drops of muriatic acid will turn the
cabbage-water into a _crimson_.

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 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,

    “That look not like the inhabitants of the earth,
    But yet are of it.”

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.

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.

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.

The humor of Hogarth, aided as it is by the picturesque dress of his
day, can be represented in a tableau. But 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.

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.

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.

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.

V.

BRAIN GAMES.

We now come to the winter evening, and the pencil and paper.

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.

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.

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:

    “Sing a song of Coggia--
      Comet in the sky!
    Wonder if he’ll trouble us,
      Whip up you or I!
    When his tail is over,
      Then begin to crow;
    Four-and-twenty doctors,
      Tell us all you know!”

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:

    “If you’re snapping, snap out wisely, snap out wisely, burning wood!
    You would not snap so wildly if your drying had been good.
    Nor had I, sitting near you with the hearth-brush in my hand,
    Have found no peace in sitting, for fear of burning brand.”

This was declared to be too easy a game for such a wild and superfluous
supply of brains, and, therefore, the word _Poker_ 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:

“AFTER BYRON, WITH A POKER; ALSO AFTER DRINKING FLIP.

      “Here, too, the Poker stands in brass! and fills
        The air around with safety! We inhale
      The ambrosial aspect which its heat instills
        (Part of its immortality) to Flip
      (That beer which is half drawn), within the cup
        We breathe, and its deep secrets dip.
    Who Flip can make--who cares where he may fail!
    Before its wide success let Heliogabalus turn pale.

      “We drink, and turn away--we care not where!
        Fuzzled, and drunk with porter, till the head
      Reels with its fullness. There, for ever there,
        Stand thou in triumph, Poker, strong and red!
      We are thy captives, and thine ardor share.
    Away! there need no words, no terms precise,
    To say in loving accents, Flip-cup, thou art nice!”

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--

“Is your subject animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“What is its size?”

“To what age does it belong?”

“Is it historical or natural?”

“Is it ancient or modern?”

“Is it a manufactured article?” etc.

The number of subjects which are _none_ of these, or which _are all
three_, 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.

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.

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.

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 _not_ the word--like _Banana_--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.

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 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.

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:

“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 _any_ cause
except yourself?”

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.

“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
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.

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.

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.

“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
“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.

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 _repertoire_; 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 _ones_ to be given to one, _twos_ 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 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:

_Traveler._ “I am going to Newport this summer. Which is the best
route?”

_Answer._ “Well, start by the Erie Railroad and try to form a junction
with the Pittsburg and Ohio.”

_Trav._ “When shall I get there?”

_An._ “If you take the Southern Pacific you may reach Newport before
the Fall River boat gets in” (sarcasm on the slowness of the boat).

_Trav._ “How if I go by the Northern Pacific?”

_An._ “Well, that is better than the _Wickford_ route.”

Or _Trav._ says: “I want to go to San Francisco; how shall I start?”

_An._ “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.”

The rhyming game is also very amusing. It is done in this way:

_Speaker._ “I have a word that rhymes with _Game_.”

_Interlocutor._ “Is it something statesmen crave?”

_Sp._ “No, it is not _Fame_.”

_In._ “Is it something that goes halt?”

_Sp._ “No, it is not _Lame_.”

_In._ “Is it something tigers need?”

_Sp._ “No, it is not to _Tame_.”

_In._ “Is it what we all would like?”

_Sp._ “No, it is not _Good Name_.”

_In._ “Is it to shoot at Duck?”

_Sp._ “Yes, and that Duck to _maim_.”

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.

The end rhymes, which the French like, are very ingenious.[A] Try
making a poem to fit these words, for instance, and you catch the idea:

    Town.      Lay.    Place.    Long.     Run.    Fame.    Rain.
    Renown.    May.    Space.    Wrong.    Sun.    Name.    Train.

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.

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:

    Who is your favorite hero in history?

    Who is your favorite heroine in history?

    Who is your favorite king in history?

    Who is your favorite queen in history?

    What is your favorite male Christian name?

    What is your favorite female Christian name?

    What is your favorite flower?

    What is your favorite color?

    What is your favorite style of music?

    What is your favorite style of climate?

    What is your favorite amusement?

    What is your favorite study?

    What is your favorite exercise?

    What is your favorite book?

    What is your favorite game? etc., etc.

These questions may be amplified according to the taste of the owner of
the book.

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.

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 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.

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.

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, 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.

VI.

FORTUNE-TELLING.

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.

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.

Many people, since the advent of Spiritualism, have amused themselves
with that wonderful toy, “Planchette,” 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.

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.

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 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?

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 _Leprechaun_--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

    “Coming events cast their shadows before.”

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.

The French have, however, tabularized fortune-telling for us. Their
peculiar ability in arranging ceremonials and _fêtes_, 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.

“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.

“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.

“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. If this card lies in the center of the cards
under the person, this is a hint to beware of those who surround him.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“The Nosegay” means much happiness in every respect.

“The Scythe” indicates great danger, which will only be avoided if
lucky cards surround him.

“The Rod” means quarrels in the family, domestic afflictions, want of
peace among married persons, fever, and protracted illness.

“The Birds” mean hardship to be overcome, but of short duration;
distant from the person, they mean the accomplishment of a pleasant
journey.

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.

The cup of tea, and the mysterious wanderings of the grounds around the
cup, so long the favorite medium of the 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.

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.

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.

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.

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? _Fortuna_, courted by all nations, was,
in Greek, _Tyche_, or the goddess of chance. She differed from Destiny
or Fate in so far that 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

VII.

AMUSEMENTS FOR A RAINY DAY.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 _appliqué_ chintz
flowers, an old silk can be made into a priceless brocade.

Let us take a Venetian dress first. We will have King _Pantelon_,
the Lord of Misrule, in black with scarlet shirt and three-cornered
hat, and attended by his gay and dissolute crew. We will have the
_Illustrissimi_, wearing the dress of the ancient Venetian nobility,
scarlet cloaks, and long bag wigs, mightily disdainful; the _Chiozotti_
in black velvet, wide lace collars, and high cloth caps, adorned with
artificial flowers--they shall shower _confetti_ 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 _bourgeoises_ 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 _fazzoletto_; an old _Contadino_, 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 _Guardia Nazionale_, 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 Blanche of
Castile; the beautiful white uniform of the _Dragon de Villars_; 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.

The business is done if one only _thinks he can do it_; 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 _ennui_.

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!

    “The day was dull, and dark, and dreary,
    It rained, and the rain was never weary.”

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.

VIII.

EMBROIDERY AND OTHER DECORATIVE ARTS.

Let us return to our three legitimate decorations--our fan-painting,
our screen-painting, and our embroideries.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 _Gobelins_. 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 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.

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.

The process of tapestry weaving is called the “_haute lisse_,” the warp
being placed vertically, in contradistinction to the “_basse lisse_,”
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:

    “We work but blindly at the loom,
      Nor see the pattern, save in parts;
    Not ours to mark the gleam or bloom,
      But labor on, with patient hearts.

    “But when the angels overhead
      The soul-wrought tapestry unfurls,
    Perhaps the tears we vainly shed
      May glow amid the threads--like pearls.

    “The sorrow which has crushed the heart
      A lily blooms, on azure field;
    The strife in which we bore our part
      In bud and flower may stand revealed.”

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.

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 _portières_, 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.

Painting on fans has become a very common Home 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.

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
_flabellum_ 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 _flabellifer_, 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
flies and for cooling the skin. He, however, continues scornfully:

    “But seeing they were still in hand,
      In house, in field, in church, in street,
    In summer, winter, water, land,
      In cold, in heat, in dry, in wet--
    I judge they are for wives such tools
    As babies are in plays for fools.”

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.

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.”

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,

    “All your plate, Vasco, is the silver handle of your old prisoner’s
    fan.”

Marston says:

                          “Another, he
    Her silver-handled fan would gladly be.”

Forty pounds were often given for a fan in Elizabeth’s time. Bishop
Hall, in his “Satires,” in 1597, says:

    “While one piece pays her idle waiting man,
    Or buys a hood, or silver-handled fan.”

The fan of the Countess of Suffolk resembles a powder-puff.

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.

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
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.

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.

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.

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.

The art of Illumination, which is now studied occasionally 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.

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 _maniéré_ goddesses, hovering cupids,
smiling nymphs, and _posé_ 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.”

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:

“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.

“You, Jane, paint me those dandelions, strewed by 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.

“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 _repandu_
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.

“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?

    “‘The Monk’s-hood and the Shepherd’s-purse,
      And the Poppy’s pepper-caster;
    The Rose’s scarlet reticule,
      And the somber box of the Aster;
    Nasturtion’s biting brandy-flask,
      Infused with a wholesome smart;
    And the Milkweed’s knot of white floss silk,
      Which will not come apart;
    For next to the bud where the Poppy nods,
      And the sweet Moss-rose--are the late Seed-pods.’”

“Yes,” said Mary, “pods are very pretty.”

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?

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!

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 occasion to run away to get married on the sly. The
Easter Egg is full of meat for the artist.

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.

The favorite symbols are these: The Cross in its various forms; the
monogram composed of the Greek letters Χ (_Ch_) and Ρ (_R_), the first
two in the name of CHRIST; the Apocalyptic letters Α and Ω (_Alpha_
and _Omega_), often combined into a monogram; and the Greek characters
ΙΗΣ, the first three letters in the name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ (JESUS). This last
symbol is sometimes interpreted thus, in Latin: _J[esus], H[ominum]
S[alvator]_--JESUS, OF MEN THE SAVIOUR.

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]--_Jesus Christ,
God’s Son, the Saviour_.

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--symbols 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 _think_
much over the subject of art. He _practiced_ less and _thought_ 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.

IX.

ETCHING.

“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.

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 short-hand of an
etching the glory of a sunset amid its clouds.

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 _résumé_. 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 _résumé_ 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.

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.

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.

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.

X.

LAWN TENNIS.

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.

Lawn Tennis is so preëminently the game of the present moment that we
must give it a central place in our volume.

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.

The Greeks styled court tennis as “_Sphairistike_,” and the Romans
called it _Pila_. 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?

“Tennis balls! My lord?”

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.

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.

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.

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.

The lines of boundary and division should be indicated 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.

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.

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.

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 _vice
versa_.

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.

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.

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 a return
of service is made, it counts a stroke for the server.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 _deuce_, and
so on until at the score of deuce either player 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.

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.

The _hand-in_ 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. The privilege of being hand-in two or more
successive times may be given.

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.

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.

A _Bisque_ 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.

_Half-fifteen_ is one stroke given at the beginning of the second and
every subsequent alternate game of a set.

_Fifteen_ is one stroke given at the beginning of every game of a set.

_Half-thirty_ is one stroke given at the beginning of the first game,
two strokes given at the beginning of the second game, and so on
alternately in all the subsequent games of a set.

_Thirty_ is two strokes given at the beginning of every game of a set.

_Half-forty_ 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.

_Forty_ is three strokes given at the beginning of every game of a set.

_Half-court_ 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.

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.

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.

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 play scientifically will avoid those
contentions and disputes which spoil any game.

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.

XI.

GARDEN PARTIES.

A Garden Party is a scene of enchantment, to which the lawn-tennis net
lends an additional grace and variety.

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.

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
walnut-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.