Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1875-07-05
German CeremOniaIs

vince has Its own peculiar traditions, and
where conservative affection has preserved
these with an almost religious exactitude.
Very unpleasant, according to our ideas, is
the rule that strangers must make the first ad-
vance- Thus, when you arrive in town
where you propose to remain for any length of
time, you will provide yourself with an intro
ductlon or two, you will procure list of the
Honorotloren, or honorabilities, of the place,
and you will drive from door to door leaving
cards. These cards will presently be returned
and shortly afterward footman, or laquats
de place, will call, ask to see the Herrschat teu,
and Will then, in due form, deliver his masters
message, requesting the honor of your COM
pany at dinner on such day, at three, or
four or i've o'clock, as the case may be. When
you arrive on the festive scene, it will be your
duty to request your hostess to introduce YOU
to all the ladies present. This she will do,
presenting you to the excellencies and distin
gulshed personages first, the tour being made
according to the incest graduation of etiquette
SO that, beginning with an ambassadress, you
Will end with lieutenant's wife, and then in
turn nave to return your court, namely, the
husbands of all those ladies to whom YOU
have been doing reverence. The courtesying,
the obelsances, the compliments, at once en-
barrass, annoy, and tickle you. Your stiff
backbone doesn't take kindly to the prostra-
lions; your knees resent the genuhectons; you
soorn to grovel, yet you fear to Offend you feel
ridiculous In your unwonted antics and are
afraid OF falling; and yet sense of humor
would make it difficult, were you more at ease
to abstain from shouts of aug Inter at the bob.
blng, sliding, gliding, and grimacing in which
you are playing such an unwilling part. You
feel that these ladies who dip and wriggle as
to the manner born, are criticising your want
OF grace your rustic air, your wooden,jointed
reverences, and yet you swear to yourself by
all your gods that no inch lower than is consist
ent with your ideas Of personal dignity will you
sink before these your fellow-creaturcs. The
blood rushes to your face partly in pride,
partly 10 embarrassment, and you wish your
self we'll out of this galere; yet you are angry
with an unreasoning anger for your want of
philosophy and your unpliable spine. Expe-
rience, it is true, will make these things famil-
lar and Indifferent to you; you will gather
courage to preserve your natural gait, to grant
your limbs the freedom to which they have
been accustomed, to be polite and pleasant, and
to 60 your own way without attempting to ape
manner that went out of fashion in your own
country century ago. 1t is only the first
step that costs; but it costs great deal; and it
is not easy for very young woman to pre-
serve the juste nailieu between a modest desire
to conform to the customs of the country and
sense of modification at aping manners
which she does not admire, and cannot cordi-
ally desire to successfully initiate. The alb
surdity of German courtesy would be ridicu-
lous If it were not sublime.
In all the socabe little Rea'denz towns the
ministers, being allowed a certain yearly sum
for 7atelgc1d (table money are bound to give
proportionate number of balls and dinners
and to these (if you are of the GeseHschahl
you are certain to be hidden. To leave YOU
out because you give neither balls nor dinners
IN return would be to insult your class; and
this liberal view Of social obligations produces
most pleasant result.
How many charming young married women
there are among US who would be glad to
amuse themselves, happy to dance in muslin,
If Mechn be denied them; how many that
would adorn society, make drawing rooms that
are dull with dowagers and diamonds gay with
bright youth and pleasant laughter; yet they
are not asked, because they give no dinners in
return, because the rich mans wife, who is
blazing with the diamonds of Golcouda and
the gold of Ophir, would wonder at the sim
pllclty displayed in the cheap gown of the
"young person" opposite and marvel at the
'squeer people you had got about you. In
Germany there is no snobbishness; there is
class prejudice; but let it only be known that
you are lady, your welcome will be just as
warm, though you come in cloth of frieze
instead of in cloth of gold You are asked
to amuse and be amused; you can enjoy
yourself quite as we'll, though you be only
lleutenant's wife, as though you were coun.
tess from before the deuge; and the conse-
quence of this liberal view of things is that
youth and gayety and fresh toilettes and bright
faces are generally to be found at German balls,
thong there may not be so much jewelry and
pomp and circumstances as your prejudiccd
mind may deem desirable on such festive &C.
caslons. what you are, not what you have,
is the only matter to be considered, and to in
sure your welcome. Bazar
The LITTLE DRUMMER OF MANASSAS. -
The Staunton indicator says:
George 4. King, the fireman who was crushed
to death on Thursday evening last under loco.
motive here, was a historic character He WAS
the drummer, boy of the Richmond Howitzer
battalion, and went with the lst company to
Manassas, He enlisted in the llth Virginia in
fsntry under Col. Garland, and was famil arly
known in the army as the Little Drummer
Boy being tho youngest soldier then in service
IN mt the Army Of Northern Virginia. After the
hrst Manassas battle, in which he served wit
great gallantry, Col. Garland procured him
csdetshlp in the labama Military Institute, but
he resigned from that, and served thu ough the
war IN the 18th Va. regiment as Il sergeant AT.
ter the war ne acted as Assistant Engineer on
the ships OF the English and African Steamship
20, and return cd to his home in Norfolk last
Christmas, shipwrecked. On Thursday evening
after his accident when told that he had In die