Ballroom

“ The ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish, French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid. ”

“ She participated in all the vanities of the great world, went to balls, where she sat in a corner, painted and dressed in old-fashioned style, like a deformed but indispensable ornament of the ballroom; all the guests on entering approached her and made a profound bow, as if in accordance with a set ceremony, but after that nobody took any further notice of her. ”

“ Also a few of our own friends from the same houses were coming for a little fun; and at half-past ten promptly the “show”—as they called it—began.
Our ballroom at Battlemead Towers is the best in the county, and as the idea in giving the ball is to pay a compliment to the servants as a reward for good service during the year it is always given to them for their grand dance.
The maids and footmen had decorated it with greenery and holly, suggestive bunches of mistletoe of course, and such flags as Mother was willing to let them use, and the floor had been waxed till it shone like a mirror. ”

“ Everything in the ballroom should suggest gayety, light and beauty. The floor, of course, is the most important detail. A polished hardwood floor offers the most pleasing surface for dancing. If the wood seems sticky, paraffine wax adds a smoothness that actually tempts one to dance.
Flowers are always pleasing. Huge ferns may grace unexpected corners and greens may add a festive note, if the hostess so desires. ”

“ It was whispered in the ballroom that they were in the open, looking for something that had escaped from the castle.
An hour, I dare say, passed, and neither the earl nor his son had returned. By this time it was known to all of us that the door of the ballroom was locked on the outside. Guests bade their hostess good-night, but could retire no further. One man dared request her to bid the servants unlock the door, and she smiled and asked him for the next waltz. ”

“ On rare occasions, a great ball is given in a private house, but since few houses are big enough to provide dancing space for several hundred and sit-down supper space for a greater number still, besides smoking-room, dressing-room and sitting-about space, it would seem logical to describe a typical ball as taking place in the ballroom suite built for the purpose in nearly all hotels. ”

“ Dieppe must be a paradise to the rising generation. The children share all the amusements of their elders, and have also special entertainments of their own, amongst which one notes specially two balls a week at the establishment. The whole building is brilliantly lighted every evening, and on these nights the space under the central dome is cleared of chairs, and makes a splendid ballroom. Here the little folk assemble, and go through the whole performance solemnly, just like their elders. ”

“ If, as at the Ritz in New York, the ballroom opens on a foyer at the head of a stairway, the hostess always receives at this place. In a private house where guests go up in an elevator to the dressing rooms, and then walk down to the ballroom floor, the hostess receives either at the foot of the stairway, or just outside the ballroom. ”

“ He was taking tickets and deftly slipping them into a slot in a tin box which stood beside him on a chair; on the stairs leading to the ballroom, a man with a mass of brass checks hanging by strings from his fingers was keeping up a continuous fire of patter. ”

“ But remember, the young girl who is a "belle of the ballroom" needs no advice on how to manage a happy situation; no thought spent on how to make a perfect time better. The ballroom is the most wonderful stage-setting there is for the girl who is a ballroom success. ”

“ One of the leading ladies superintends the decoration of the ballroom, another is responsible for the supper, while another sees that the floor is properly waxed and arranges for the piano, as the music is provided by leading amateurs, there being no band. ”

“ After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of the golf-course and see the country-club windows as a yellow expanse over a very black and wavy ocean. The waves of this ocean, so to speak, were the heads of many curious caddies, a few of the more ingenious chauffeurs, the golf professional's deaf sister—and there were usually several stray, diffident waves who might have rolled inside had they so desired. This was the gallery.
The balcony was inside. It consisted of the circle of wicker chairs that lined the wall of the combination clubroom and ballroom. ”

“ He felt ready to face the devil, and strutted in the ballroom with the swagger of a cavalier. ”

“ One of the first requisites of a ball-room is thorough ventilation, especially if there is a prospect of a large number of guests.
One of the most desirable points in a ball is to have a beautifully arranged room. The floor must be well waxed, and perfectly even, and it is well to draw a cord across two-thirds of it, not admitting more than can dance inside the space so cut off at once. The French make their ball-rooms perfect flower-gardens. Every comer has its immense bouquet ”

“ Following up the clews that join the play-life of the ancient and modern worlds, let us now look at the ball-play, which has always held its place among sports. Beyond mere tossing and catching, the simplest kind of ball-play is where a ring of players send the ball from hand to hand. This gentle pastime has its well-marked place in history. Thus the ancient Greeks, whose secret of life was to do even trivial things with artistic perfection, delighted in the game of Nausikaa, and on their vases is painted many a scene where ballplay, dance, and song unite in one graceful sport. ”

“ The work of the landscape gardener can here be seen at its best, no expense having been spared to make the grounds that surrounded the building devoted to games of chance the handsomest in the world. In its great halls one sees every sort and variety of people. Lords and Ladies, Princes and Princesses, Dukes and Duchesses, gamblers and courtesans, all find place at the table where the monotonous voices of the croupiers and the clinking of the little ivory ball are about the only sounds that break the silence. ”

“ All the world, as the saying is, was at this ball, and it certainly was a very fine assembly. We danced in a splendid room hung with tapestry—a magnificent apartment, though it seemed to me incongruous for the purpose; dim burning lights and flitting ghosts and gusts of wind and distant footfalls and sepulchral voices being the proper furniture of the "tapestried chamber," and not wax candles, to the tune of sunlight and bright eyes and dancing feet and rustling silks and gauzes and laughing voices, and all the shine and shimmer and flaunting flutter of a modern ball.... ”

“ I do not know a scene more faithfully descriptive of rude, boisterous, and unbecoming merriment, than an American ball room. Place your hands upon your ears, and look down the hall. You will see the most unmeaning grimaces—the most ridiculous contortions of body in one quarter—while another view presents to you the unwelcome picture of man, lordly man, fallen from his high estate, and going through the laborious operations of the dance, with the farcical solemnity of a monk, or the clownish rapture of a mountebank. ”

“ Taking a third ball in your left hand, you hold it as before, but, as if through carelessness or clumsiness, allow it to be seen for a moment above the edge of the table. When you raise the third cup, you move it behind the table as before, and make a feint of introducing the ball which the spectators have just seen, but really let it drop on the servante, and replace the cup empty. A murmur from the audience will quickly apprise you that they have, as they imagine, found you out. ”

“ In leaving a ball, it is not deemed necessary to wish the lady of the house a good night. In leaving a small dance or party, it is civil to do so.
The difference between a ball and an evening party is, that at a ball there must be dancing, and at an evening party there may or may not be. A London authority defines a ball to be "an assemblage for dancing, of not less than seventy-five persons." ”

“ A ball-room is not a pleasant exercise-ground for a jealous man who does not dance. No "bolgia" of the hell invented by the sombre imagination of the great poet could have surpassed, in torment, the Circolo ball-room on that last Carnival night to the Marchese Lamberto. ”

“ To find the ball in the full tide of successful operation we should arrive about half-past ten in the evening. Entering then through a long, broad passage, midway of which we deposit five sous each with the Cerberus on guard, we pass into a hall crowded with people. The hall is not larger than that of an average country-tavern ball-room in New England: the space occupied by the dancers will accommodate perhaps fifty quadrille sets. (There are no "side couples" in the quadrilles of Paris popular balls; hence a set consists of but four persons.) ”

“ Let us suppose that a ball-room is fairly filled with dancers, or those willing to dance, and that a merry waltz is being played; the couples have formed, and the floor is occupied with pairs who are whirling round and round in that delightful amusement. ”

“ In the Middle Ages, tennis—the oldest ball-game known—was a favorite sport of kings and of those about them. It was called le jeu de paume, being played with the hand until the invention of the racket; the players standing in the ditch outside the wall, against which the ball was thrown. Beyond the ditch was built the court for onlookers, the common folk standing on its floor, their betters seated in the gallery. When the game lost its vogue, these courts were easily and cheaply turned into the rude theatres of that day, with abundant space for actors and spectators ”

“ When, a little while ago, I spoke of the necessities of the multitude in such a case, I described the natural accidental amphitheatre as arising just in the manner in which I saw the people raised one over another on this occasion. Even at a distance, I could hear the lively clapping of hands which accompanied every important stroke. The game is played as follows: two boards, slightly inclined, are placed at a convenient distance from each other. He who strikes off the ball stands at the higher end: his right hand is armed with a broad wooden ring, set with spikes. ”

“ When a public ball is given in honor of some special person, that person must be met on his arrival and immediately introduced to the women on the reception committee and escorted to the seat reserved for him. He must be attended throughout the evening, introduced to every-one he does not know, and all his wants carefully taken care of. When he departs, he must be escorted to his carriage, and if he is a celebrated personage thanked for his presence—although truly cultured gentlemen prefer not to have this honor paid them.
A public ball is either a tremendous success or a miserable failure. ”

“ Ball-play was formerly played at Easter in churches, and statutes passed to regulate the size of the ball. The ceremony was as follows: the ball being received, the dean, or his representative, began an antiphone, or chant, suited to Easter-day; then taking the ball in his left hand, he commenced a dance to the tune, others of the clergy dancing round, hand in hand. At intervals the ball was handed or tossed by the dean to each of the choristers, the organ playing according to the dance and sport: at the conclusion of the anthem and dance, they went and took refreshment. ”

“ A. G. Spalding & Brothers, who publish the handbook in which the game first appeared.
BALL PUSS
3 to 30 or more players.
Playground; gymnasium; schoolroom.
Gas ball; basket ball; hand ball; bean bag.
This is a form of ball tag. In it each player chooses a home or corner, as in Puss in the Corner, or Home Tag. When played out of doors, trees may be used for this purpose; in a gymnasium, pillars or different pieces of apparatus; in the schoolroom, the corners of the room, the front and rear corner desks, the teacher's desk, the radiator, or any other objective points. ”

“ It had rained that morning and when we left the hotel in drags for the grounds the streets of London were enveloped in a fog so thick that one could almost cut it with a knife, while the prospects of a ball game seemed to the most of us exceedingly dubious. Arriving at the Club House we were presented to the different members of the reception committee, who, in spite of the high-sounding titles that they bore, were a most affable lot of men, and to many of the most prominent club members, all of whom gave us a warm welcome and made us feel thoroughly at home. ”

“ Arrange the players with their hands behind them along the sides of a long extension table, down the centre of which a row of ping-pong balls are placed at intervals of about two feet. Appoint two judges and place them at the ends of the table. At a given word, the players on both sides begin to blow the balls, endeavoring to blow them off their opponents’ side of the table and to prevent any balls from being blown off of their own side. Each ball blown off counts five points. The game is 100 points. ”

“ It is not customary to walk about a ball-room, even in the intervals of dancing. Each guest moves about with a sort of dancing step, à la Polonaise. Judging from their evening parties, a Siberian ball-room must become a very fair imitation of a beer garden towards the small hours of the morning, and we were perhaps fortunate in having stayed away. ”

“ The players on each side group themselves so that each man will have a space of from four to six feet square to move about in. The leader of the game throws the ball into the midst of the players of either group in such a way that it will rebound, the play consisting in keeping the ball by striking it with the hand from above, downward, and upon the first opportunity directing it into the opposite group on the other side of the line. ”