The Art of Entertaining Part 36

"Savoy and Austria!" shouted the crowd. And she said, "Let us adopt the custom of Bresse."

They were married, and enjoyed a few years of exquisite happiness; then the beloved husband died. Marguerite survived him long, but never forgot him. She built in his memory a beautiful church. Travellers go to-day to see their magnificent tomb.

The egg has been in all ages and in all countries the subject of infinite mystery, legend, and history. The ancient Finns believed that a mystic bird laid an egg in the lap of Vaimainon, who hatched it in his bosom. He let it fall in the water, and it broke. The lower portion of the sh.e.l.l formed the earth, the upper the sky, the liquid white became the sun, the yolk the moon, while little bits of egg-sh.e.l.ls became the stars.

Old English and Irish nurses instruct the children, when they have eaten a boiled egg, to push the spoon through the bottom of the sh.e.l.l to hinder the witches from making a boat of it.

It is difficult to ascertain the precise origin of the custom of offering eggs at the festival of Easter. The Persians, the Russians, and the Jews all follow it.

Amongst the Romans the year began at Easter, as it did amongst the Franks under the Capets. Many presents are exchanged, and as an egg is the beginning of all things, nothing better could be found as an offering. Its symbolic meaning is striking. We offer our friends all the blessings contained under that fragile sh.e.l.l, whose fragility represents that of happiness here below. The Romans commenced their repasts with an egg; hence the proverbial phrase, "_ab ovo usque ad mala_," or, as we still say, "beginning _ab ovo_."

Another reason given for the Easter egg is that, about the fourth century, the Church forbade the use of eggs in Lent. But as the heretical hens would go on laying, the eggs acc.u.mulated to such a degree that they were boiled hard and given away. They were given to the children for playthings, and they dyed them of gay colours. In certain churches in Belgium the priests, at the beginning of a glad anthem, threw the eggs at the choristers who threw them back again, dancing to the music whilst catching the frail eggs that they might not break.

In Germany, where means are more limited than in France, the Easter egg _bonbonniere_ is rare. There are none of the eight-hundred-pound kind, which was made of enamel, and which on its inside had engraved the gospel for the day, while by an ingenious mechanism a little bird, lodged in this pretty cage, sang twelve airs from as many operas.

But in Germany, to make up for this poverty, they have transformed the hare into an oviparous animal, and in the pastry cook's windows one sees this species of hen sitting upright in a nest surrounded by eggs.

I have often wondered if that inexplicable saying "a mare's nest,"

might not have been "a hare's nest." As a _lucus a non lucendo_ it would have done as well. When a German child, at any season of the year, sees a hare run across the field, he says, "Hare, good little hare, lay plenty of eggs for me on Easter day." It is the custom of German families, on Easter eve, to place sugar-eggs and real eggs, the former filled with sugar plums, in a nest, and then to conceal it with dried leaves in the garden that the joyous children may hunt for them on Easter morning.

It is a superst.i.tion all over the world that we should wear new clothes on Easter Day. Bad luck will follow if there is not at least one article which is new.

HOW TO ENTERTAIN CHILDREN.

From the realms of old-world story There beckons a lily hand, That calls up the sweetness, the glory, The sounds of a magic land.

Ah, many a time in my dreaming Through that blessed region I roam!

Then the morning sun comes with its beaming And scatters it all like foam!

HEINE.

In the life of Madame Swetchine we read the following account of the amus.e.m.e.nts of a clever child:--

"The occupation of a courtier did not prevent Monsieur Soymonof from bestowing the most a.s.siduous care on the education of a daughter, who for six years was his only child. He was struck by the progress of her young intellect. She showed an apt.i.tude for languages, music, and drawing, while she developed firmness of character,--a rare quality in a child.

"She desired a watch with an ardour which transpired in all her movements, and her father had promised her one. The watch came and was worn with the keenest enjoyment; but suddenly a new thought seized upon the little Sophia. She reflected that there was something better than a watch. To relinquish it of her own accord, she hurried to her father and restored to him the object of her pa.s.sionate desires, acknowledging the motive. Her father looked at her, took the watch, shut it up in a bureau drawer, and said no more about it.

"M. Soymonof's rooms were adorned with bronzes, medals, and costly marbles. Sophia was on terms of intimacy with these personages of fable and history; but she felt an unconquerable repugnance to a cabinet full of mummies. The poor child blushed for her weakness, and one day, when alone, opened the terrible door, ran straight to the nearest mummy, took it up, and embraced it till her strength and courage gave away, and she fell down in a swoon. At the noise of her fall, her father hastened in, raised her in his arms, and obtained from her, not without difficulty, an avowal of the terrors which she had hitherto concealed from him. But this supreme effort was as good for her as a victory. From that day the mummies were to her only common objects of interest and curiosity.

"Studious as was her education, M. Soymonof did not banish dolls. His daughter loved them as friends and preserved this taste beyond her childish years, but elevated it by the admixture of an intellectual and often dramatic interest. Her dolls were generally of the largest size. She gave them each a name and part to act, established connected relations between the different individuals, and kept up animated dialogues which occupied her imagination vividly, and became a means of instruction. Playing dolls was for her an introduction to ethics and a knowledge of the world.

"Catherine's court was a succession of continual _fetes_. The fairy pantomimes performed at the Hermitage were the first to strike the imagination of the child, who as yet could not relish the tragedies of Voltaire. She composed a _ballet_ which she called 'The Faithful Shepherdess and the Fickle Shepherdess.' She writes in her sixtieth year: 'One of the liveliest pleasures of my childhood was to compose festive decorations which I loved to light up and arrange upon the white marble chimney-piece of my schoolroom. The ardour which I threw into designing, cutting out, and painting transparencies, and finding emblems and mottoes for them was something incredible. My heart beat high while the preparations were in progress but the moment my illumination began to fade an ineffable devouring melancholy seized me.'"

This extract is invaluable not only for its historic importance, but for the keynote which it sounds to a child's nature. The n.o.ble little Russian girl at the court of Catherine of Russia found only those pleasures lasting which came from herself, and when she could invest the fairy pantomime with her own personality.

A fairy pantomime is possible to the poorest child if some superior intelligence, an older sister or aunt, will lend her help. The fairies can all be of pasteboard, with strings as the motive power. There can be no cheaper _corps de ballet_, nor any so amusing.

"You have done much for your child" is an expression we often hear.

"You have had a nurse, a nursery governess, a fine pony for your boy, you take your children often to the play and give them dancing parties, and yet they are not happy." It is the sincere regret of many a mamma that she cannot make her children happy. Yet in a large town, in a house shut up from our cold winter blasts, what can she do? A good dog and a kind-hearted set of servants will solve the problem better than all the intellect in the world. Grandmamma brings a doll to the little girl, who looks it over and says: "The dolly cannot be undressed, I do not want it." It is the dressing and the undressing which are the delights of her heart.

A boy wants to make a noise, first of all things. Let him have a large upper room, a drum, a tambourine, a ball, and there he should be allowed to kick out the effervescence of early manhood. Do not follow him with all manner of prohibitions. Constant nagging and fault-finding is an offence against a child's paradise. Put him in a room for certain hours of the day where no one need say, "Get down!

don't do that! don't make so much noise!" Let him roar, and shout, and climb over chairs and tables, and tear his gown, and work off his exuberance, and then he will be very glad to have his hands and face washed and listen to a story, or come down to meet papa with a smiling countenance.

Children should be allowed to have pet birds, kittens, dogs, and as much live stock as the house will hold; it develops their sympathies.

When a bird dies, and the floodgates of the poor little heart are opened, sympathize with it. It is cruel to laugh at childish woe.

Never refuse a child sympathy in joy or sorrow. This lack of sympathy has made more criminals than anything else.

Children should never be deceived either in the taking of medicine or the administration of knowledge. One witty writer a few years ago spoke of the bad influence of good books. He declared that reading "that Tommy was a good boy and kept his pinafore clean and rose to affluence, while Harry flung stones and told fibs and was carried off by robbers," developed his sympathies for Harry; and that although he was naturally a good boy he went, for pure hatred of the virtuous Tommy, to the river's brink and helped a bad boy to drown his aunt's cat, and then went home and wrote a prize composition called "Frank the Friendless, or Honesty is Best." All this was because the boy saw that Tommy was a prig, that his virtue was of that kind mentioned in Jane Eyre, in which the charity child was asked whether she would rather learn a hymn or receive a cake; she said "Learn a hymn,"

whereupon she received "two cakes as a reward for her infant piety."

Children cannot be humbugged; they can be made into hypocrites, however, by too many good books.

The best entertainment for children is to let them play at being useful. Let the little girl get papa's slippers, brush his hat, even if the wrong way, find his walking stick, hold the yarn for grandma's knitting, or rock her brother's cradle, and she will be happy. Give the boy a printing-press or some safe tools, let him make a garden, feed his chickens, or clean out the cage of his pet robin, and he will be happy. Try to make them think and decide for themselves. A little girl says, "I don't know which dress to put on my dolly, Mamma, which shall I?" The mamma will be wise if she says, "You must decide, you know dolly best."

When a child is ill or nervous, the great hour of despair comes to the mamma. A person without nerves, generally a good coloured mammy, is the best playmate, and a dog is invaluable. It is touching to see the smile come to the poor bloodless lips in a hospital ward, as a great, big, kindly dog puts his cold nose out to reach a little feverish hand. There is a sympathy in nature which intellect loses.

Madame Swetchine's fear of the mummies has another lesson in it.

Children are born with pet aversions, as well as with that terrible fear which is so much bigger than they are. The first of their rights to be respected is that they shall not be frightened, and shall not be too seriously blamed for their aversions. Buffalo Bill, who knows more about horses than most people, says that no horse is born bad; that he is made a bucking horse, a skittish horse, or a stumbling horse by being badly trained,--misunderstood when he was young. How true this is of human nature! How many villains are developed by an unhappy childhood! How many scoundrels does the boys' hall turn out! We must try to find these skeletons in the closet, this imprisoned spectre which haunts the imaginative child, and lay the ghost by sympathy and by common-sense. Cultivating the imagination, not over-feeding it or starving it, would seem to be the right way.

Perhaps there are no better ways of entertaining children than by a juggler, the magic lantern, and simple scientific experiments. We use the term advisedly. Jugglery was the oldest of the sciences. Aaron and Moses tried it. One of the most valuable solaces for an invalid child--one with a broken leg, or some complaint which necessitates bed and quiet--is an experiment in natural magic.

One of these simple tricks is called "The Balanced Coin." Procure a bottle, cork it, and in the cork place a needle. Take another cork, and cut a slit in it, so that the edge of a dollar will fit into it; then put two forks into the upper cork. Place the edge of the coin, which holds the upper cork and forks, on the point of the needle, and it will revolve without falling. This will amuse an imprisoned boy all the afternoon.

The revolving image is a most amusing gentleman. Let poor Harry make this himself. Cut a little man out of a thin bit of wood, making him end in one leg, like a peg-top, instead of in two. Give him a pair of long arms, shaped like oars. Then place him on the tip of your finger, and blow; he will stand there and rotate, like an undecided politician.

The Spanish dancer is another nice experiment. Cut a figure out of pasteboard, and gum one foot on the inverted side of a watch-gla.s.s; then place the watch-gla.s.s on a j.a.pan waiter or a clean plate. Hold the plate slanting, and they will slide down; but drop a little water on the waiter or plate, and instead of the watch-gla.s.s sliding, it will begin to revolve, and continue to revolve with increased velocity as the experimentalist chooses. This is in consequence of the cohesion of water to the two surfaces, by which a new force is introduced.

These experiments are endless, and will serve a variety of purposes, the princ.i.p.al being that of entertaining.

To take children to the pantomime at Christmas is the universal law in England. We have seldom the pantomime here. We have the circus, the menagerie, and the play. A real play is better for children than a burlesque, and it is astonis.h.i.+ng to see how soon a child can understand even Hamlet.

To allow children to play themselves in a fairy tale, such as "Cinderella," is a doubtful practice. The exposure, the excitement, the late hours, the rehearsals, are all bad for young nerves; but they can play at home if it is in the daytime.

When boys and girls get old enough for dancing-parties, nothing can be more amusing than the sight of the youthful followers of Terpsich.o.r.e.

It is a healthy amus.e.m.e.nt, and if kept within proper hours, and followed by a light supper only, is the most fitting of all children's amus.e.m.e.nts. Do not, however, make little men and women of them too soon. That is lamentable.

As for ruses and catch-games like "The Slave Despoiled," "The Pigeon Flies," "The Sorcerer behind the Screen," "The Knight of the Whistle,"

"The Witch," "The Tombola," one should buy one of the cheap manuals of games found at any bookstore, and a clever boy should read up, and put himself in touch with this very easy way of pa.s.sing an evening.

The games requiring wit and intelligence are many; as "The Bouquet,"

"The Fool's Discourse," which has a resemblance to "Cross Questions,"

"The Secretary," "The Culprit's Seat." All these need a good memory and a ready wit. All mistakes are to be redeemed by forfeit.

Of the games to be played with pencil and paper, none is funnier than "The Narrative," in which the leader decides on the t.i.tle, and gives it out to the company. It may be called "The Fortunate and Unfortunate Adventures of Miss Palmer." The words to be used may be "history,"

"reading," "railway accident," "nourishment," "pleasures,"

"four-in-hand," etc. The paper has a line written, and is folded and handed thus to the next,--each writer giving Miss Palmer whatever adventures he pleases, only bringing in the desired word. The result is incoherent, but amusing, and Miss Palmer becomes a heroine of romance.

There are some children, as there are some grown people, who have a natural talent for games. It is a great help in entertaining children to get hold of a born leader.